Blogging
aardvarchaeology | June 29, 2007Aardvarchaeology's been on-line for half a year today! Before I came here, I'd been blogging at Salto sobrius for over a year, so by now this blogging thing is a big part of my lifestyle and self-image. I love it -- I write about whatever's occupying my mind, a pleasurable pastime in itself, and then hundreds of people show up to read it every day! Being here on ScienceBlogs helps a lot to attract readers, and so do Stumbleupon and Reddit. (Digg, not so much.) As I've been boasting for a while in the sidebar, Aard is now the world's number one archaeology blog measured by the number of other…
clock | June 28, 2007You can now join the PLoS cause and the PLoS group if you want. If you are my friend, you can see all sorts of other groups and causes I have joined as well....
aardvarchaeology | June 28, 2007Been tagged with the same chain letter by the guys at Why Don't You Blog? and Tim at Walking the Berkshires. So, in the interest of full disclosure, here are eight random facts about me.
I've played seven matches of Jeopardy.
I'm a Lord of the Forodrim.
I once caught chlamydia from a registered midwife.
Along with a hoard of other forodrimites, I once ran around a golf course on a Midsummer Night in the nude, showering in the sprinkler system.
I'm myopic on the right-hand eye only, giving me poor stereoscopic vision.
The hardest mind-altering drug I've ever taken in a dose large enough to…
clock | June 27, 2007I'll be leaving in one week and staying in San Francisco for one month. I'll be busy, to say the least. What should I do with the blog in the meantime? After all, it is the middle of the summer when everyone is travelling or enjoying the great outdoors and the online traffic is pitiful - my traffic is about half of what I had in April and May. So, I doubt I'll be penning long thoughtful essays (unless I get really inspired once or twice).
I think I'll sit down one of these days before I leave and schedule for automatic posting a Clock Quote to appear every day around 4am for the next…
clock | June 27, 2007My friend (and the driving force behind all bloggy events in the Triangle area) Anton Zuiker has a new job! And not just any job - but a perfect job:
In August, I will take a new job at Duke University Health System as manager of internal communications. This will be a chance for me to mold a communications strategy that uses traditional tools (magazines, newsletters, posters) with new media tools (blogs, videocasts, wikis). I'm looking forward to the opportunities and challenges.
They really, really need Anton. Finding information online about anything that has to do with Duke University…
clock | June 27, 2007I find it very difficult to say something nice, deep, profound or meaningful at the time of sorrow. But I am deeply saddened by the news that Lindsay Beyerstein's father has died. Lindsay is a dear friend, a philosopher and a superb blogger (one of the rare bloggers who really became an online journalist in the best sense of the word), and her father, who I never had the fortune to meet, was an extraordinary man as well. So sorry!
sciencetolife | June 27, 2007A while ago I was very graciously awarded a "thinking blogger award" by the blog Nobody Important.
Here's how it works:
1.If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2.Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme
3.Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).
Here's my list:
1.WorldChanging written by numerous authors
2.Aetiology by Tara C. Smith
3.Global Health Report & The Health Media Watch…
clock | June 26, 2007It's Time for a Literary Medblogging Project.... :
Literary medblogging projects seem to occur on a semiannual basis: There was the "Dark and Stormy Night" series in December 2005, the "Literary Cheese Wheel" in July 2006, and the "Showcase" in December 2006. (Who would have thought that a website devoted to medical gadgets would link to all of these literary things?) The good Dr. Charles also hosted a travelling story, though it seems that his previous Blogger venue has been hijacked and thus, I cannot link to that literary work of art.
If you
* are a nursing student, nurse, medical…
clock | June 26, 2007Libraryman just gave a Presentation about it, and Danica likes it. Anyone using it yet?
clock | June 26, 2007Apophenia, danah boyd's blog is one of the first blogs I ever read and have been reading more-or-less continuously over the past 3-4 years (since she took a class on framing with George Lakoff and blogged about it).
She is probably the most thoughtful analyst of online behavior. There are thousands who can write about technology and "killer apps", but she understand better than anyone the users' point of view: what works and what not and why.
Her ethnographic/sociological/anthropological/psychological approach to the study of the Web is, to me, much more insightful than any technology…
clock | June 25, 2007...to Katherine Sharpe, Rob Knop and Rev. BigDumbChimp, science bloggers extra-ordinaire.
clock | June 25, 2007Karen is looking for a nice new banner for her blog. Biochemistry, science, medicine and journalism are the themes. Go wild with your creativity!
aardvarchaeology | June 22, 2007Here's an idea for bloggers with an archaeological bent. I'm thinking of putting together a one-off carnival about people's nearest archaeological sites. You go to the nearest site you're aware of, snap a picture of it and explain (in as many or few words you like) the site's significance and life-history in a blog entry. Then you send me the link, and when I've got a fair number, I put them together in a link-fest, plug it on Reddit & Co, everybody votes for it and we all get a traffic spike. You don't need any formal qualifications to contribute.
Sound like fun? Please leave a comment…
aardvarchaeology | June 22, 2007It's been a while since I ran any reader-submitted archaeopix. C'mon everybody, I'm sure you have some good snaps sitting on your disk! Please e-mail them to me with a bit of contextual info.
clock | June 21, 2007I dropped by Anton's blog as I tend to do every day and saw something that caught my eye in his side-bar SugarCubes - an amazing story about William Kamkwamba, a 19 year old boy in Malawi who had to quit school because his family did not have money. So, he started teaching himself from books. And he learned how to do things and used whatever materials were available to design and construct a windmill, a transformer and other stuff. A bunch of African bloggers picked up a story about him and one thing led to another - he spoke at TED conference, got funds for schooling, and, just a few…
voltagegate | June 21, 2007A very important, ground breaking survey was released today, revealing shocking news... about which words spawned from the internet were the most "irritating":
Wikipedia already has thousands of people logging on at their homes and offices. "Blog", "netiquette", "cookie" and "wiki" have been voted among the most irritating words spawned by the Internet, according to a poll...
"Blogosphere", the collective name for blogs or online journals, was second; "blog" itself was third; "netiquette", or Internet etiquette, came fourth and "blook", a book based on a blog, was fifth.
Fascinating.
clock | June 20, 2007I got tagged by Steve Poceta -(if you are more interested in sleep disorders than circadian clocks in funny animals, his blog is more interesting to you than mine) to participate in the Eight Random Facts Meme. Here are the rules:
1. Players start with 8 random facts about themselves.
2. Those who are tagged should post these rules and their 8 random facts.
3. Players should tag 8 other people and notify them they have been
tagged.
So, here are the eight random, late-night-after-a-busy-day-and-a-strong-beer facts about me:
1. I used to wear a goatee. When I arrived in the…
aardvarchaeology | June 20, 2007The seventeenth Four Stone Hearth blog carnival is on-line at Hominin Dental Anthropology. I love that blog's name. Check it out! Archaeology anna anthropology anna boom shakalaka.
clock | June 20, 2007After 10 years of fighting for open source, net neutrality, free information and open education, Lawrence Lessig has decided to change his career and to seriously attack the problem of corruption in the U.S. politics. It's not going to be easy, but having Lessig on our side in this battle is a great assett. Read his explanation (though you know I disagree with him on Obama and corruption) as it is very telling and well-written.
Hat-tip: Danica (where you can also see the movie of Lessig giving a speech in which he made the announcement).