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revere | January 9, 2009The whole Scienceblogs.com site (all 60 plus blogs) will be performing an upgrade to Moveable Type 4 starting today at about 1 pm (Eastern Standard Time, US, Friday, Jan. 9). The site will remain up but there will be no posting and no commenting until the upgrade is complete, we hope by late Saturday sometime. I don't think you will see much difference on your end but there will be improved speed and new editing tools for us and, we are promised, future improvements in commenting and other features, for you.
Meanwhile, there are lots of great science blogs out there, so take the time to…
razib | December 21, 2008Check this out, Matt Yglesias was dissing on an obscure D.C. outfit, Third Way, a few days ago. Today, the CEO of The Center For American Progress put up a Very Special Post on his weblog clarifying that CAP thinks much of Third Way. Creepy. I guess we always knew there was a puppet master back there, but it seems a bit unseemly to pull the strings so publicly.
revere | November 25, 2008Happy Blogiversary to us. Yes, it's our fourth Blogiversary, meaning Effect Measure has lasted longer than many marriages. Our first post was on November 25, 2004 at our old site over at Blogger. We moved here to Scienceblogs on June 9, 2006. According to Sitemeter, we've had over 1,650,000 unique visits, more than 3,000,000 page views and written over 2800 posts. On our Scienceblogs site alone we've logged almost 25,000 comments (we don't have a count for the Blogger era). There has never been a day without a post on the site, so that makes 1461 straight days of posting here. It makes me…
revere | November 24, 2008The science of climate change is difficult and everyone agrees there are uncertainties and a contested point or two. But some points are asserted over and over again and aren't really contested. They are just plain false. Yet no matter how often they are refuted they rise again from the dead, true zombie lies. One of the great things about writing on the internet is the ability to link to really excellent pieces and Darksyde over at DailyKos has just such a piece you owe it to yourself to read. It's not short but not excessively long, either. Just long enough to get the job done. And the job…
razib | November 21, 2008The Elf pointed me to Typealyzer where it supposedly analyzes the personality of the weblog. Well, this blog is....
...INTJ - The Scientists:
The long-range thinking and individualistic type. They are especially good at looking at almost anything and figuring out a way of improving it - often with a highly creative and imaginative touch. They are intellectually curious and daring, but might be pshysically hesitant to try new things.
The Scientists enjoy theoretical work that allows them to use their strong minds and bold creativity. Since they tend to be so abstract and theoretical in their…
razib | November 17, 2008Chad has a post up about Cosmic Variance's move to Discover Blogs. He notes that some people lamenting the decline of the "old blogosphere" haven't been around blogs that long. He doesn't mention that he's been blogging since 2002. So have I. Most blogs have always sucked, that's a constant. Some of the less-sucky ones now have the option of remuneration. With four major competing scienceblog networks I think you'll get some competition driving quality. Granted, a great deal of blog writing will remain crap; just like a great deal of the media. The laws of the universe have not changed…
razib | November 16, 2008Look below the fold, don't know how long it will be around (H/T Ross Doutht).
razib | November 6, 2008A Muslim blogger who I am acquainted with, Tariq Nelson, has been threatened:
To the coward that called from a BLOCKED NUMBER and threatened me! I HAVE CALLED the police and I am PUSHING HARD to FIND OUT WHO YOU ARE and I will prosecute to the fullest extent possible! Apparently you know of me in some way or know someone that had my phone number. I am not going to tolerate your BS for one second and I will NOT allow you to harm me or my family.
I am posting here so that everyone will know that I am receiving these threats and that a phone call is too close to home. I want people to know that…
revere | October 30, 2008As I write this the Obama-Biden ticket has been endorsed by 231 newspapers across the country, the McCain-Palin ticket by only 102 (see here for latest tally). The final Kerry-Bush score was 213 - 205. Most of us don't really care that much about the newspaper endorsement bragging rights and I doubt it makes much difference to voters, either. No one expects the Wall Street Journal to endorse Obama (although the Financial Times did). After all, the WSJ knows that Republicans are much more reliably corporation friendly than Democrats. Along the same lines, I am extremely pleased to announce…
razib | October 30, 2008You can read all about it. I don't have anything interesting to say on the election, so I'll leave it at that. I'm also closing comments on this post because I'm 99.999% sure you don't have anything interesting to say either (added a third 9 after the decimal point upon further consideration!).
razib | October 29, 2008Princeon University Press now has a weblog. It looks like a good idea in terms of getting publicity for authors of academic books (and ideally, you get some value-add in terms of insight and experience). I wonder if Andrew Gelman's editor has tried to figure out how many extra copies of d State, Blue State, Rich State, Poor State were pushed because of he blogospheric publicity? Of course his sort of publicity will start to be less powerful once most academics start to publicize their work ahead of publication via web communication channels.
razib | October 23, 2008As you can see to the left Gene Expression hasn't raised that much money this year. That's not so hot, but, some of the other ScienceBloggers have raised a bunch, so that's heartening. I also wanted to add that Seed will be "padding" our contributions this year, but right now the amount that Seed is giving is multiples greater than what I've raised so far, so I hope readers can help me out a bit....
razib | October 12, 2008Just an update on the DonorsChoose drive for this year. I've removed some funded challenges from my drive, and added a whole lot more. In general they're either bioscience related, or, they're projects from really poor schools. This year I haven't raised much money through my drive, though some of the other ScienceBlogs are doing really well on the Leaderboard. Obviously "winning" isn't that big of a deal here, but both years this weblog's challenges have finished out really strong, so I'm not too worried....
(shout out to those who gave early!)
razib | October 4, 2008Read all about it, When Open Access Fails. Reminds me of what happened to Hotmail.
revere | October 4, 2008I'm on record here as being very optimistic about the younger generation. Perhaps it's conceit. They remind me of us (sixties era and even before). Still, there is no shortage of older folks who are condemned to repeat history by bemonaing how the young 'uns have gone to the dogs. And the world is going to hell in a handbasket with them. Academics are just as prone to this nonsense as anyone and in 2006 the mainstream media, enablers of whatever conventional wisdom floats their way, were talking about how sociologists were revealing that people were increasingly isolated ("bowling alone")…
razib | October 1, 2008Hey, check this out:
We've rented out the top floor of the place for the event and will be providing food and a bar tab up to about $600. The Delancey will be suspending their usual cover charge. In attendance will be GrrlScientist, PhysioProf, Jake Young, Ginny Hughes, Erin Johnson, and Logan Elsass, among others.
Things that make you go hhhmm....