Weblogs
pharyngula | June 29, 2008Blake Stacey, who is a good guy to have by your side in a firefight, has a wonderfully complicated post on this thing called science blogging. He's mostly stating the obvious: it's anarchic, it's very hard to pull out, say, introductory material on a specific topic in science, there are problems of accountability, we don't produce anything as coherently useful as a basic textbook, etc. Well, yeah. This is a general problem with solutions that bubble up from the ground rather than being defined from above — they do something very, very well, but it usually isn't the something that a planner…
pharyngula | June 24, 2008It really is Greg's birthday, and I think he's going to celebrate it by posting as many blog entries today as he is years old. So he's going to be taking a little break.
pharyngula | May 30, 2008Thanks to T. Ryan Gregory, I have just discovered Todd Oakley's new blog, Evolutionary Novelties. It's only a few months old and only has a few entries, but go on, encourage him to write more.
pharyngula | May 27, 2008James Gurney (yes, that James Gurney) has an interesting approach to visiting proselytizers: he sits them down and draws them. It's useful in that it disarms them and opens them up to discussion, but of course, it doesn't get around to actually challenging their beliefs, and it also requires a degree of talent that 99% of the rest of us lack. Still, it's a wonderful tactic. Except, maybe, it will draw in more Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses hoping for a portrait.
Gurney has more to his blog, too, and it's a rewarding browse. The man is seriously obsessed with his art, and you've got to…
pharyngula | May 23, 2008So that's what this blog is for. I do have a family history of alcoholism, so this is a healthier substitute.
pharyngula | May 20, 2008I got a request to try and drum up some Australian research subjects for a student's honors thesis work — don't worry, no knives, exotic drugs, or electrodes are involved, just filling out a short questionnaire. She's looking for Australians who read blogs but don't have blogs of their own, which sounds like a rather limited pool, but let's see how many such beings there are.
Do you have a favourite blogger that you want to talk about?
I am an Honours student from the University of Queensland, Australia and I am conducting an email-based survey that looks at the experiences that blog readers…
pharyngula | April 28, 2008Lots of you have noticed that the ERV blog is currently inaccessible. Abbie can't get to it either, and something is very, very wrong — either a random glitch or some peckerwood reported her site to the powers-that-be at google and a kneejerk pulled the plug. She is going to be trying to get it reinstated, so be patient for a little while. I'll let you all know if any news develops.
pharyngula | April 21, 2008Nothing to celebrate there, but you could instead say happy birthday to ERV.
pharyngula | April 21, 2008We're seeing a lot of new traffic here, and a lot of it seems to be people hunting down that infamous P.Z. Myers dude because they read about his evil ways in some publication, or saw the name in some really bad movie. You're at the right place, welcome, go ahead and leave a comment. If you're a creationist, the other commenters here are always hungry for a little fresh meat, and if you're just generally interested in the subjects discussed here, join the conversation. You can find a list of my science articles here, but as long as you've found the place, may I suggest you take a look at the…
pharyngula | April 19, 2008Another minor blog skirmish has erupted over a perennial issue in the blogosphere: the wickedness of anonymous commenters/bloggers/whatever. I'm going to sort of take the side of Greg Laden.
I despise anonymous commenters. It's pretty much a sure sign that anything the person is going to say is worthless noise if they aren't willing to sign a name to it.
That said, though, I consider a consistent pseudonym to be a name. I've gotten to know lots of people on the web via their chosen pseudonym, and that pseudonym acquires its own authority on the merits of the writing behind it. You don't need…
pharyngula | April 10, 2008T. Ryan Gregory has survived a whole year of blogging, and has also managed to produce a blog that is one of my must-reads.
pharyngula | March 3, 2008Shelley and Steve have completed their fusion and opened their new blog, Of Two Minds, today. I guess when you meld those two, the end result is James Kakalios, since the subject of the new blog seems to be the superpowers of comic book heroes. That could be loads of fun!
pharyngula | March 2, 2008Greg Laden has chosen sides in the facebook duel for world supremacy, but I really think he's fishing for facebook friends, so go be friends with Greg. He's lonely.
pharyngula | February 27, 2008Oy, it's navel-gazing time in the science blogosphere, prompted by a post at Bayblab that reveals some resentment or justifiable concern (depending on your perspective) about the inevitable problem that always crops up in blogging: somebody always has more than someone else. Traffic and traffic-ranking services fuel a feed-forward loop that means that those that have, get more. And that means that those squatting atop the traffic ziggurat aren't necessarily there because they are the very best, but because they tapped into fortunate combinations of attraction and attention early on. I'll be…
pharyngula | February 12, 2008Our wise and benevolent Seed Overlords are looking for more information about your interests. Take the survey, and you'll be entered in a drawing for an iPod.
pharyngula | February 11, 2008I'm a big fan of modern Scandinavian folk music, and am often listening to great bands like Sorten Muld and Hedningarna. I don't know the language, though, so I'm usually just grooving on the sound … so it's greatly appreciated when a Swede translates a Hedningarna song for me. And, as it turns out, this particular song is very appropriate to blogging.
pharyngula | February 5, 2008…and now they just have to sign the prenup (there is a prenup, right?). Shelley and Steve are merging their two blogs as of early March, and they've picked one of the names one of you perspicacious readers suggested.
(I would have just said "This is madness!", but then Shelley would have kicked me down a well. And they apparently did not like my suggestion of "Food for the Worm. Hmph.")
pharyngula | February 3, 2008
Both Jon Swift and Skippy are spearheading a regular event, Blogroll Amnesty Day, in which we recognize and acknowledge the breadth and depth of blogtopia (yes, we all know who coined that term!). It's today! You are encouraged to scout out new blogs, get out of old ruts, and explore new or otherwise unfamiliar blogs, add them to your bookmarks, or if you have a blog yourself, add them to your blogroll.
It feels strange to admit this, but Pharyngula seems to have somehow become a moderately big fish in the blogosphere — it was, once upon a time, just a little frivolous exercise I was running…