meta-blag
denialism | June 7, 2012 Chris and I have met with our new National Geographic overlords here in DC, and we had a productive and interesting meeting. It was a great chance to put names to some faces and hear about where Nat Geo wants to take Scienceblogs. If any of the other sciblings can wrangle it I can highly recommend it. Also, to those who have commented on the migration to wordpress, the new look etc., they clearly are monitoring your opinions about the change and working to first make the system fully functional, then hopefully we can improve some stylistic elements of the site. In particular I think people…
palmd | July 19, 2010My formal ethical training began in medical school with an introduction to the basic concepts of medical ethics. This training continued as I encountered difficult cases and thought through them, often with the help of the hospital ethics committee. While I haven't continued my formal education in ethics, I've continued my own reading, and I enjoy writing on ethical conundrums.
I've been blogging now for over three years, which, in internet time, is quite a while. During that time, I've begun to take the writing itself more and more seriously. I've begun to recognize the implications of…
palmd | July 16, 2010Since the Pepsipocalypse, several excellent science writers (some of the best, really) have sought out new homes online. You really shouldn't miss them.
SciCurious: special shout out to Sci who is one of the best pseudonymous science writers out there, and if she were under her real name would probably be one of the best non-pseudonymous science writers
David Dobbs
Brian Switek: Brian is one of the new "greats", and is far too talented for his age.
Eric M Johnson
Highly Allochthonous
Alex WIld
palmd | July 7, 2010The crack SEED management team has made some significant changes on the new Pepsi nutrition blog. They have placed a small, grey band on the banner that says "Advertorial" (a word I abhor, but whatever). They have also placed the Pepsi logo everywhere and made it fairly clear that it is Pepsi content.
This is a move in the right direction as far as transparency and ethics are concerned. As I read the extensive comments being left across the blogosphere I see some that show a misunderstanding of the problem here.
The problem is not that Pepsi is "corporate" or "commercial". This is not…
palmd | July 6, 2010One of the wonderful things about blogs is their independence. Most are hosted by wordpress or blogger and there isn't much advertising or sponsorship. Notable exceptions are blog collectives, such as ScienceBlogs and the Discover Magazine blog network. These networks have significant advantages, including technical support, increased reach, and collegiality (your results may vary).
One of the potential disadvantages is advertising and sponsorship. Here at Sb, we've been very fortunate in that our content is completely independent. We control anything in the center column. The top and…
palmd | May 31, 2010I'm off to watch my daughter march in some sort of neo-fascist parade (Daisy scouts) and then off to the hospital, but first some quick housekeeping issues:
You can subscribe to WCU's feed here.
You can have updates delivered by email.
There is a facebook page on which updates are posted.
The PalCast is on permanent hiatus due to time constraints.
palmd | April 27, 2010Next week I'm going to be giving a talk at the 2010 Great Lakes Homeland Security Training Conference & Expo. The title of the talk will be "Medical Blogs: An Under-Recognized Resource for Public Health Awareness and Communication", but I'll probably speak more broadly about web 2.0. In preparation for the talk, I'd like you to help me with an exercise.
One possible ways to enlist blogs and social media in disaster response is to direct people to a specific link where official information can be found. As an experiment, I'd like use this post to see how disaster information might be…
palmd | March 7, 2010For some reason I'm really excited about tomorrow's post. I don't usually write very far ahead of time, but this one took a little bit of extra research. You see, I got this letter from a PR firm hyping some altmed doc, and it was much more interesting than the usual similar things I get. It highlights some of the subtleties at the intersection of science-based medicine and the other stuff.
The post is going up here tomorrow morning, and at Science-Based Medicine in the afternoon.
One thing I've found about blogging, though, is a piece I really work hard on and like a lot may go over like…
palmd | January 6, 2010One of the best blogs out there, Terra Sigillata, seemed to have gone on a bit of a hiatus for a while, but Abel Pharmboy is back and better than ever.
His posts over the last 8 weeks or so are all must-reads. Go, read, discuss.
palmd | December 11, 2009One of the blogosphere's best known skeptics hit a milestone today. Orac at Respectful Insolence has now been fighting ignorance for five years. That's like, oh, about 30 in blog years. Why don't you go over there and wish him a happy blogiversary. He deserves it. Folks like Orac who publicly call out quacks get a lot of online and real-life harassment. It's nice to get well-wishers coming by once in a while.
palmd | November 25, 2009Those of you who gave to DonorsChoose will find an email in your inbox with a gift card. This is free money for you to donate to any project you wish. It represents matching funds from Hewlett-Packard, so don't let it go to waste.
Next, commenting. I keep a very open comment policy, since dialog is really the whole point of a blog, but moderating comments can be rather cumbersome, and the spam and hate-comments have been sneaking through. I am considering a trial run with comment registration. The ScienceBlogs overlords assure me that most of the bugs have been swept out of it. What…
palmd | November 21, 2009The latest Skeptics' Circle is up at Beyond the Short Coat.
The Giants' Shoulders #17 is also up at scibling Eric Michael Johnson's place. Go and read!\
palmd | November 9, 2009I had a nice dinner last night with a group of medical bloggers and journalists (I don't recommend the scallops). One journalist, a veteran of many years, asked me, "is your goal to convince people, or are you preaching to the choir?"
It's a simple question, one that I probably should ask myself daily but don't. Rather than extracting an answer from my behind, I decided to think about it for a while.
The answer, I think, is both and neither. It's hard to judge given that the percentage of readers who comment is low, but the question wasn't "are your readers convinced", but "do you intend…
palmd | September 22, 2009Science-based medicine, my other blogging venue, is temporarily down. The posts are written by a stable of fantastic professionals, and they are always a good read---except for today. Recently, we migrated to a new server and shortly thereafter, the blog became buggy until it crashed completely. The culprit appears to be traffic---lots of traffic. That's a good thing (unless it's a DDOS attack, which is not completely implausible).
So, Steve Novella, the guru behind SBM and many other skeptical ventures is moving us to a new host where all will be unicorns and rainbows. Stay tuned.
palmd | September 1, 2009The Drake Passage is infamous. Supposedly, it's nearly impossible to make the crossing to without throwing up----a lot. But few "civilians" ever get to experience the passage, and it's ultimate goal----Antarctica.
Devorah Bennu is an exceptional science writer and photographer. Reading her blog is like getting a daily dose of National Geographic, except free and good. Her science career was famously interrupted, but she has used the interregnum to become one of the webs best popularizers of science.
And now she has a chance to go to Antarctica as an official expedition blogger,…
palmd | July 30, 2009I've been a terrible netizen. I haven't been keeping up with my blog carnivals, especially my favorite, the Skeptics' Circle.
Well, it's up now at Beyond the Short Coat. Go and read!
palmd | July 19, 2009One of my Sciblings, one Ethan Siegel has issued a charity challenge. If one hundred commenters head over to his place and leave a comment assuring him that they will donate 10 USD to the charity of their choice, and name the charity, he will cut off his luxuriant locks.
Please, do it. His hair has, like, its own zip code or something.
palmd | July 2, 2009In case you hadn't noticed, the advertising present on the top and right of the blog has been a bit odd lately. Dr. Oz's smiling face has been showing up above mine, you may have just won $59, your teeth can be whiter than white, and last but not least human trafficking in "Russian brides".
First, might I point out that I have nothing to do with the ads other than appearing on the same page as them.
Wait, that's stupid. I might not choose the ads, but I choose to write for ScienceBlogs, so I am culpable. Normally, I don't care much about ads that show up on my page. After all, someone…