Weblogs
pharyngula | December 5, 2006Everyone must go welcome Omni Brain, the newest addition to the Seed blog empire. Go ahead and bring Sandra and Steve a little blogwarming gift, like a comment or a link or something.
pharyngula | November 28, 2006Acephalous is trying to measure the rate of propagation of links across the net. He's asking everyone to link to his post (so this may just be shameless blog-whoring under the guise of doing science), exhort our readers to do likewise, and he's going to be monitoring its movement through Technorati, and will report the results at the MLA meetings.
So you heard me. Get on your blog, link to http://acephalous.typepad.com/acephalous/2006/11/measuring_the_s.html, and let's see how quickly we can saturate the blogosphere.
(via Bitch Ph.D)
pharyngula | November 22, 2006So Skatje is setting up a new weblog, and she's looking for suggestions for a new name. Make a suggestion! Just to make it interesting, let's make it a contest: whoever comes up with a wonderful idea that Skatje accepts will receive a fabulous prize plucked from my collection of biology textbooks, and including some spectacularly cheap plastic cocktail squid.
You might also drop a hint that she really ought to have her father's blog on her blogroll. I'm feeling rebuked.
pharyngula | November 21, 2006By way of Feministing, here's a rather irritating tool to rank your site for it's "bloglebrity". It's pink and it's illustrated with a photo of Paris Hilton.
I hate it. Here, I've fixed it.
You can add your own photo of Barbara McClintock or Rosalind Franklin to the background.
pharyngula | November 19, 2006It's all very nice that Elayne Riggs refers to me as an A-list blogger, but it's not true. We weird scienceblog types have to be placed on a completely different alphabet, and I have decided that I want to be on the ζ-list. Mainly because I like the squiggle.
Update your blogrolls appropriately, please.
Also via Elayne, I had to try this site that lets you figure out where you'd end up if you dug a hole through the center of the earth. I have discovered that there is a place more remote, empty, and isolated than Morris, Minnesota: it's the center of the Indian Ocean. Although it probably does…
pharyngula | November 15, 2006I see that Phil and I are going to be in competition: we've both been nominated in the new Best Science Blog category of the Weblog Awards. This is one of those awards I don't quite get: apparently, the organizers will just choose a subset of the nominated blogs in some way or another, and I seem to recall that voting is weird, too—you get to vote once a day in each category. It's also run by a very conservative group blog that I've only interacted with because there is a loud-mouthed putz of a creationist in the group…I will be very surprised if a certain cranky liberal evolutionist gets his…
pharyngula | November 12, 2006Check out the Sandwalk: Strolling with a skeptical biochemist. I'm dismayed that it's been up for a whole week before I noticed.
I've already learned something important: Tim Horton is the god-equivalent in Canada. If coffee and donuts inspire similar levels of sexual obsession and freaky legislation in Canada as does religion in the USA, I don't think I want to hear about it. Too, too kinky.
pharyngula | October 22, 2006It's a spectacle! It's performance art! Watch Gary blog through the pain! And if you feel any remorse about witnessing someone else's agony, you could always help him out.
pharyngula | October 5, 2006Try browsing Prides and Prejudices, the musings of a sardonic high school English teacher—that's my favorite kind!—without getting sucked in. She writes everything from a paean to the woodlouse tomodern gift-giving etiquette. (I had no idea the iPod Shuffle was so déclassé, but then I've been away from the dating scene for a long time; the last gift I gave my wife when she was my girlfriend might have been a sweater.)
pharyngula | October 4, 2006I can't possibly complain about my hate mail after seeing what Feministing receives.
pharyngula | September 18, 2006The Next Hurrah discusses how information (and misinformation) is spread over the web, determined by tracking how a story about PETA and gay sheep circulated. A couple of interesting points are that he emphasizes that the way to persuade is to get out and make comments on other blogs—having a popular blog is not enough, I presume since the readers will typically be of a similar mindset, and you need to break through to people who might not be of like minds—and that MySpace and LiveJournal are important.
LiveJournal, I can see: I find interesting discussion going on in LJ, and the only thing…
pharyngula | September 17, 2006How about them boobies? I was traveling yesterday, and missed most of the astonishing uproar over being photographed while bearing breasts—so I won't add much to the thrashing except to point out the bright side.
You see, the real resentment is over the fact that Jessica happens to be young and attractive, a couple of fortuitous and irrelevant features that don't matter to the assessment of her writing. There are a lot of people like that in the blogosphere, like Amanda and Lindsay, and it's not just the ladies—look at Ezra and Chris. They're the competition. If we old and homely people can…
pharyngula | September 15, 2006We just had one of these!
Mendel's Garden #6
Friday Ark #104
Well, just to flesh it out a little more with some random links, here are some photos. I was told the second one made someone think of me (warning: body modification!). And, jebus help me, for some reason I thought this photo was very sexy. Or appetizing. I don't know, something in the midbrain flickered.
Oh, and several of us sciencebloggers were interviewed for an article by Eva Amsen on "Who benefits from science blogging?" It doesn't mention the benefit of people sending you pictures that tickle the cingulate.
pharyngula | August 30, 2006Not that I'm going to complain: I got classified with Fafblog.
It sounds like it was a very interesting panel, and I wish I could have been there…even if I hadn't been mentioned.
pharyngula | August 25, 2006The secret life of married couples is exposed by Belle Waring: my wife and I also sit up late at night in bed with our laptops.
If you're distressed at the idea that what you're reading was composed by a PZ in dishabille, though, no worries. I only browse and read in bed, and don't actually write.
pharyngula | August 25, 2006Hey, this is a very good site for us Minnesotans: the Minnesota Monitor.
Minnesota Monitor is an independently-produced political news daily featuring original and investigative reporting.
As a coalition of long-time progressive bloggers, freelance writers, and professional journalists our aim is to enhance and expand the political dialogue in the Minnesota. By combining the immediacy of blogging with time-honored journalistic inquiry, Minnesota Monitor intends to provide a platform for overlooked stories, policy and campaign analysis, and unique local perspectives on the important issues of…
pharyngula | August 25, 2006The comment section at Pharyngula is becoming a bit too wild west lately. I am all for vigorous, unhindered language and the expression of strong opinions, and I think dumb ideas need to be dealt with harshly, but we also need to allow opportunities for those ideas to be fully expressed. Too often, the conversations are beginning to go like this:
Stranger: I think…Old hand: [Pulls out six-gun, shoots stranger down]I do believe I didn't like your accent, stranger, and you were a bit cross-eyed.
I'm not at all keen on this. It makes the comments a very hostile place to new people (I like seeing…
pharyngula | August 21, 2006Everyone go say hello to Thoughts from Kansas and The Scientific Indian, two new provinces in the vast and expanding Scienceblogs Empire. Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated.