Internet
mikethemadbiologist | January 6, 2009Gallup has released a poll that shows that the percentage of Americans who use the internet for more than an hour has increased to 48 percent. But some of the claims of change in use by demographic group puzzle me--I don't think they're significant.
First, the data (percent who use the internet for more than an hour per day):
(click here to embiggen)
Some of the changes don't really make sense to me. Does anyone really think that the number of 'heavy' userpost-graduates (Ph.Ds, masters, laywers, M.Ds) increased by twelve percent over the last year? Or that unmarried users increased by ten…
amillikan | January 3, 2009In this week's featured episode of Science Saturday from Bloggingheads, George Johnson and John Horgan returned with new insight on the controversy provoked by their last appearance, including some negative comments directed toward ScienceBlogger Abbie from ERV.
Johnson admitted that he may have been reacting to his cumulative perception of lower-end blogging, the existence of which Horgan explained by 'The law of the conservation of bullshit'—no matter how much the information sphere expands, there's still going to be the same proportion of bullshit circulating throughout it.
But…
mikethemadbiologist | December 15, 2008By way of Atrios, we discover that Google has moved away from its pro-net neutrality position:
Google Inc. has approached major cable and phone companies that carry Internet traffic with a proposal to create a fast lane for its own content, according to documents reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Google has traditionally been one of the loudest advocates of equal network access for all content providers.
At risk is a principle known as network neutrality: Cable and phone companies that operate the data pipelines are supposed to treat all traffic the same -- nobody is supposed to jump the…
revere | December 3, 2008Many of us supported Barack Obama during the Presidential campaign, not because we agreed with all of his positions but we agreed with many of them that were crucial. We also saw no morally viable alternative. We hope to be able to continue our support, but it will always be offered in a constructive and not unconditional spirit. We appreciate the commitmentto transparency that has characterized the transition period and we have high hopes it will continue once the Obama administration takes office.
It is in this spirit we endorse and pass on these Principles for an Open Transition…
mikethemadbiologist | November 20, 2008One of the fights that will have a significant long-term effect on the freedom of the press is over net neutrality. Oddly enough, conservatives, even though, at one point, the political blogosphere was predominantly conservative (no, really, it was), have been shrieking about the Fairness Doctrine.
Why?
Because, I think, this is a deep play to link TEH EVUL FAIRNESS DOKTRINE to net neutrality--because if there's one thing corporate America does not want (and that's who ultimately pulls the conservatives' strings), it's cheap and equal access to content*. Adam Reilly in the Boston Phoenix (…
kevleitch | October 2, 2008In his entry today, Orac asks the question "How can we physicians and scientists deal with antivaccinationism? What "frames" can we use to combat the likes of Jenny McCarthy?".
This is an excellent question. I understand exactly why Dr. Offit did not cover this in his book: I think he had a very specific remit in mind and such a question went beyond that remit. Maybe he will do a an AFP 2 or maybe he is hoping another big name in the field of vaccines or autism will step up to the plate the way he has and tackle that. I hope they do too.
My field (I am a Web developer) is that of…
scientificactivist | September 22, 2008Just over a year ago, I joined fellow science bloggers Shelley Batts (Of Two Minds) and Tara Smith (Aetiology) in setting out to catalogue the accomplishments--and pitfalls--of the scientific blogosphere and to explain why people should pay attention. In a sense, we wanted to say "We are the science bloggers; hear us roar!" And, in order to make our case, we drew from the collective experience of our fellow science bloggers, far and wide, asking how blogging had affected their work, their careers, and their lives--both positively and negatively.
The results were astounding. Across the…
revere | September 19, 2008John Conyers (D., Michigan) is a liberal Democrat. As head of the Judiciary Committee he has always carried water for the IP crowd. He's at it again. And he isn't alone. When it comes to paying off campaign contributers this is a non-partisant issue:
These sort of copyright issues cut across the partisan divide, typically aligning members of Congress from both parties from areas of the country with strong content generation industries (TV, movies, music, print). In other words, members of Congress from California, New York, and Florida (Disney) or committee chairs who get a lot of money from…
scientificactivist | September 5, 2008If so, you should check out EcoliWiki, which you might find a useful resource, and you might even find yourself compelled to contribute some of your knowledge to it.
Since I'm already blogging about E. coli today, I thought I would also bring up an interesting project I found out about earlier this week. I'm currently wrapping up a short visit to my alma mater, Texas A&M University, and while there, I've met up with two local science bloggers that I know of: Matt Springer of Built on Facts (a fellow blogger here on ScienceBlogs.com) and Jim Hu of Blogs for Industry. Hu is an associate…
mikethemadbiologist | July 11, 2008One of the things I find fascinating about the Weather Channel is that after watching it for a while, you actually start to worry about that cold front moving through some other part of the country. You become quite paranoid about things that won't affect you. Well, I've got an even better way to drive yourself nuts about scary things that won't affect you: HealthMap.org.
I'm kidding. Healthmap.org is actually really interesting--it gives you a visual representation of all of the disease outbreaks globally. You can change the dates, diseases, and locations you want to look at. It also…
scientificactivist | June 18, 2008This evening, I was watching The Colbert Report--a show that, along with The Daily Show, I've been enjoying much more frequently lately since they began posting full (free and internationally-available) episodes online--and I stumbled across this interview from last night's show with Jonathan Zittrain, a professor of internet law at Oxford:
Zittrain was on the show to promote his new book, The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It. I have to admit that I haven't actually read the book, but Oxford is admittedly a pretty small world, so I'm at least fairly familiar with what he and his…
esiegel | April 7, 2008Tonight, from 7:00 PM - 8:30 PM Pacific Time, I will be Dr. David Livingston's guest on his radio program, The Space Show! I have no idea how it's going to go or if I'll be able to communicate clearly on an audio-only format, as I've never tried before, but I'm really looking forward to the experience.
You can listen live via internet radio by going to http://www.thespaceshow.com/live.htm at the appropriate time, or by heading to the RSS feed afterwards and downloading the episode. Don't forget to leave your comments if you listen to it!
awild | March 31, 2008via Google Trends. Blue is ants, red is beetles:
Ants win, even in the face of the beetles' 20-fold species advantage.
That seasonal pattern is striking, no?
awild | January 1, 2008Apparently, there are people on the internet willing to pay you to not kill the ants in your yard. The site "Adopt an Ant" explains:
Well my name is Tony and I have recently moved into my new home.
After moving in I have seen there is a large ants nest at the bottom of my garden. In this ants nest there are 1 million ants living there.
All the ants are happy go lucky ants with there own Unique personality,
The problem is the plan was to flag my back garden and this would destroy the nest and all the ants.
To save these Ants from DEATH please adopt an ant TODAY.
the money raised…
revere | December 29, 2007This both made me laugh and made me mad. Corey Doctorow over at Boingboing relates how he was contacted by a new online service to write a letter of recommendation for a former student applying to graduate school. Using a web-based interface the same letter could be submitted to multiple universities. Good idea. Like a lot of professors I have to write a lot of these and making it easier is good for me and good for students. The catch was that this one came with an end user license agreement (EULA) requiring the submitter (who is doing everyone a favor, including the web-based application…
revere | December 6, 2007As an (unplanned) follow-up to today's morning post about public health use of the internet we have tonight's event in Second Life, a chance to meet and chat with wiki partner DemFromCT:
Our next installment of the Virtually Speaking interview series takes place TONIGHT, Thursday, at 6pm Pacific/9 pm Eastern.
We are very excited that DemFromCT can join us to talk about public health policy, in particular preparedness for a pandemic. He and I have been trading comments on some skepticism I have about this, so this is going to be an especially interesting discussion.
All skeptics are welcome…
revere | December 6, 2007YouTube is a phenomenon. We've gotten so used to it (and its user generated content cousins) sometimes we don't realize how potent it is. Potent and in the hands of all sorts of people. Creative, crazy, evil, well meaning, ordinary, boring . . . you get the idea. And getting ideas is another thing people get from YouTube. Sometimes the ideas are good. Sometimes not:
It may be better known as the place to go to watch a drunken David Hasselhoff eating a hamburger, but the video website YouTube has also become a popular and effective soapbox for people who believe vaccinations are harmful, a new…
revere | November 17, 2007I used to watch The Daily Show every night (thanks to TiVo). Now I don't because of the writers' strike. So I have to settle for this. Enjoy:
cevans | November 2, 2007
On March 26th, 1997, 39 people in matching black sweatsuits and Nike sneakers were found dead in a rented mansion in the San Diego suburb of Rancho Santa Fe. They were members of a marginal religious group called Heaven's Gate -- a "cult," in the frenzied media parlance of the 90's -- and they had committed suicide, cleanly and methodically, by ingesting large doses of phenobarbital and vodka. Their motive, profoundly misunderstood by pretty much everyone not directly involved with the group, was to hitch a ride to the "Next Level" on a heavenly spacecraft positioned behind the rapidly-…
grrlscientist | October 25, 2007
Are we becoming a nation of pajama-wearing web-surfing loners?
(Orphaned image).
Zogby International and 463 Communications recently polled 9,743 Americans online regarding their attitude towards the internet.
They found that a significant minority of equal numbers of men and women would consider the internet to be a surrogate significant other: 31% of single political progressives and 18% of single political conservatives felt this way. Wow, amazing, huh? I didn't know that so many Americans found 3.5 inch floppies so attractive!
But weirdly, only 11% of Americans said they would implant…