Blogging
clock | February 3, 2008How do you like the daily interviews?
I thought that would be great PR for the Conference - both with the interviewees saying nice things about it, and just showcasing what a nice bunch of people showed up this time around. Perhaps this will make more people think seriously about coming next year.
And I thought it would be nice when some of the people say nice things about science blogs, scienceblogs.com, Seed, PLoS, Open Access, me, etc.
And I thought that would be an easy way for me to get 40-something days worth of interesting posts without too much work.
But I never expected that I would…
clock | February 3, 2008Kevin Kelly wrote an excellent and thought-provoking post: Better Than Free - if I find some time I will write more about it later. But for now - it is The Obligatory Reading of the Day and I welcome your reactions.
(Hat-tip: Bill)
awild | February 3, 2008Circus of the Spineless #29 is now posted at Andrea's Buzzing About. The circus rounds up invertebrate blog posts from the previous month, a great read!
#30 will be at A D.C. Birding Blog at the end of February.
sciencewoman | February 3, 2008The pregame show: Minnow decides to forgo her usual 2-3 hours of naptime in favor of 2 <30-minute power naps. Bets are taken as to what time Minnow will crash (i.e, irretrievably collapse into a sobbing heap).
10 minutes before kick-off: We're racing to finish dinner because the crash seems imminent.
Kickoff: Minnow is making laps around the living room, pulling CDs off the shelf, climbing in and out of my lap, laughing hilariously for no particular reason. Behavior is increasingly manic.
5:01 remaining in first quarter (~6:50 pm). Giants score a field goal. We decide to get Minnow into…
clock | February 2, 2008
Jon Swift and Skippy are reminding us that this weekend is the time for the annual Blogroll Amnesty Day.
The rule is to highlight, link to, and add to one's blogroll, some deserving blogs that have smaller traffic than you. Now, it's sometimes not easy figuring out who has what traffic - if you really like a blog you probably think the traffic there is higher than it is.
Also, I have real trouble picking just a few. Go and check my Blogroll - it's huge! And only a few of them are Big Dawgs. Most are rather smallish blogs. Check them out, at least some of them.
I have been really busy…
clock | February 1, 2008Carrboro Commons interviews Brian Russell about Carrboro Coworking. As a telecommuter, I am quite likely to participate in this. I'll keep you posted....
aardvarchaeology | January 30, 2008The thirty-third Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Greg Laden's. His blog is, err, like, laden with archaeology and anthropology.
awild | January 29, 2008My lovely wife Jo-anne has been in South America the last couple weeks doing field research on Argentine ants while I tend the home fires here in Tucson. I hope she finds it in her to forgive me for the post I am about to write.
Earlier today I got an email explaining why I'm not getting my much-awaited phone call:
I'd call but there aren't any phones at this locutorio and we're on our way out to look for social spiders."
Excuse me? Social spiders? More important than me, your needy hubby?
Ok, I grant that social spiders are pretty cool, if a bit creepy. I remember those things from when…
aardvarchaeology | January 29, 2008Here's a healthy chunk of video footage from the session on blogging about humanities and social sciences that I chaired at the NC Science Blogging Conference Saturday before last. Much of it shows me and Jennifer Jacquet looking blank as we listen to people speaking off-camera.
voltagegate | January 29, 2008Brian's got a great post about Sarah Boxer's editorial in the NY Review of Books the other day, using this quote as a jump off point:
Bloggers are golden when they're at the bottom of the heap, kicking up. Give them a salary, a book contract, or a press credential, though, and it just isn't the same. (And this includes, for the most part, the blogs set up by magazines, companies, and newspapers.) Why? When you write for pay, you worry about lawsuits, sentence structure, and word choice. You worry about your boss, your publisher, your mother, and your superego looking over your shoulder. And…
clock | January 27, 2008Shelley and Steve were getting a little lonely (just intellectually, of course, don't get any weird ideas!), so, not much to tell, one thing led to another and....they will be fusing their two excellent and successful blogs into a new Superblog, right here on scienceblogs.com!
But, they have a problem - the domestic squabbles have already started - they could not agree on the name for the new blog! So, what to do? What bloggers always do - ask the hivemind! So, go to either one of their blogposts (linked above) and put in your suggestions. They will look them over and pick a winner (who…
clock | January 27, 2008Blogs by Sarah Boxer, in New York Review of Books.
Laelaps responds: I don't quite get the same impression...
clock | January 25, 2008Here is a video of SPARC-ACRL Forum '08 on 12 January, 2008 at the Pennyslvania Convention Center in Philadelphia:
The SPARC-ACRL Forum at ALA '08 entitled "Working with the Facebook generation: Engaging students views on access to scholarship." Panelists discuss the merits of student activism, patent reform, blogs as a communication medium for scientists, and students as active members of a discussion about the right to access information for scholarly work. Features Andre Brown, Nelson Pavlosky, Stephanie Wang, and Kimberly Douglas as panelists.
Pay particular attention to Andre Brown and…
clock | January 25, 2008Go say Hello to DrugMonkey and PhysioProf, the newest acquisitions by The Borg, at DrugMonkey blog. Both are regular readers and commenters on this blog, always providing thoughtful and intelligent (and provocative) additions to the conversation. A great addition to the scienceblogs.com universe!
neurophilosophy | January 24, 2008
Today's issue of Nature contains a short review of Open Lab 2007, and the article includes a brief mention of my contribution to the book:
The editor of this second anthology of the best scientific communiqu's from the blogosphere thinks blogs offer new ways to discuss science. The Open Laboratory 2007: the Best Science Writing on Blogs (Lulu.com, 2008) takes the curious approach of using dead tree format to highlight the diversity of scientific ideas, opinions and voices flowing across the Internet. Every year a different guest editor - here Reed Cartwright, a blogger and genetics and…
clock | January 24, 2008The day before yesterday, my copy of The Open Laboratory 2007, the second annual science blogging anthology, arrived in the mail.
So yesterday, Reed and I met at a coffee shop and looked it over. It looks great! Reed knows what he's doing and is a perfectionist, so of course the book looks perfect.
So, I went back online to Lulu.com and approved the book to be sold in various online and offline bookstores. The book information will be sent to Bowker's Books In Print and once approved by Bowker, Lulu will upload the title to their distribution network. This process is generally completed…
clock | January 23, 2008On the heels of David Warlick's session on using online tools in the science classroom and the student blogging panel, here is the opportunity for some of us (that means YOU!) to actually do something about science education online:
Elissa Hoffman is a high school teacher and she has started a blog for her AP Biology class at Appleton East High School in Appleton, WI. She would like it to be a platform with which she can introduce her students to current science research and scientists. One of the things she'd really like to do is find people who'd be interested in "guest blogging" on…