Since Sandra has posted links to sites with brainy games for kids*, and Karmen is working on her list of science education web sites for children, I thought I’d mention one of my favorite online destinations for kid-strength chemistry. Luddite that I am, what I like best is that the site isn’t hypnotizing your child with a virtual chemistry experiment, but actually gives you activities to do with the child in the three-dimensional world.
Category Archives: Blogospheric science
Soon to be a major motion picture?
Apparently Blake Stacey is pitching a movie about the Dover trial and featuring, as central characters, some luminaries from ScienceBlogs. There’s sort of a Star Trek: The Original Series meets Star Trek: The Next Generation meets other iconic exemplars of science fiction and action genres vibe in the plot outline and casting ideas. At least, so far.
Me, I figured a ScienceBlogs movie might run more along the lines of All the President’s Men meets This is Spinal Tap. Although there would definitely be stuff blowing up.
Chem 2.0
The June 25th issue of Chemical & Engineering News has two pieces that talk about ways people are using features of the “new internet” (or Web 2.0) to disseminate and explore chemistry online.
Real-life encounters with online persons.
Last night my better half and I had dinner with JM — at a restaurant with both excellent sushi and excellent service! Figures JM finds it right before she’s about to flee the state to start her Ph.D. program.
Because my posts are often (as she put it) “long-winded, but in a good way,” she has recommended a coffee mug rating system at the top of each post. You know, to indicate how many mug of coffee you should expect to need to get all the way to the end of the post. Should I pester our developer for this functionality?
Then, today another ScienceBlogger and I had a top-secret meeting:
Not officially from the M.P.A.A.
If you had to give this blog a movie rating, what would it be and why?
New York Articles ‘collects’ content from another (sic) sites, sells ads, clogs cyberspace.
As you might guess, my site is one of the sources of content. If you’re reading this post at New York Articles (or at “Articles”, whose tagline is even more grammatically incorrect) rather than at my actual site, you are partaking of a suboptimal experience.
I’m not going to give you the URL for the lesser, because there is no value-added to speak of, unless you count the pennies that come in to the leech that grabs the RSS and sells the Google Ads.*
Does such a site do anything to improve an already crowded blogosphere? Does anyone treat a sloppy feed aggregating site of this sort as a regular destination (or really, as anything but an accidental destination)?
Pathetic.
There has to be a less slimy way to make money off the internets, don’t you think?
Rules of engagement.
To address an issue that came up in discussion of posts on other blogs, I want to make clear the principles I follow when dealing with real-world scenarios here or via email:
ScienceBlogs Big Boom one year out.
One year ago, ScienceBlogs experienced a major expansion. In that year, I’ve been lucky enough to meet some of my fellow ScienceBloggers, though given the size of this operation, I’ve only met the proprietors of about a fifth of the blogs here.
So far.
Happy blogiversary! Cupcakes for everyone, and pictures (with links to the blogs of the pictured bloggers) below the fold.
My dinner with Bora.
I got a chance to have dinner with Bora last night in San Francisco on the eve of his job interview with PLoS ONE. This gave us the opportunity for a free-wheeling discussion about the potential of new technologies to change the ways scientists communicate with each other (and with non-scientists), the ways that conversations (and drawing people into them) aren’t coupled too tightly to the fancy technical thingies (the “aps”) that carry them through cyberspace, the ways that interfaces and functionality can exert subtle influences on the ways people interact with ideas and with each other, and all sorts of other issues pedagogical and blogospheric. There were also a number of gratuitous references to “framing” and “memes”.
PLoS arranged for Bora to stay at The Mosser (in whose lobby we are pictured above). It’s one of those great small hotels that San Francisco has a bunch of, and the lobby feels like something out of a classic movie.
As I hit the “publish” button, Bora will be starting his action-packed day with the PLoS folks — wish him luck!
Separating the public and private spheres.
Depending on your blog reading habits, you may already have heard the news that feels almost like cosmic justice that a law firm has rescinded an offer of employment from a third year law student whose online activities the firm found troubling. The linked posts will give you some flavor for those activities (as will this post), so I’m not going to go into the gory details here. However, I wanted to say a few words about this comment Amanda Marcotte made on Sheezlebub’s post on the matter:
While it couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, I simply have to voice my unease with the politics of personal destruction, even when done for the right cause. Getting people fired is the right’s strategy. (I know.) Scalp-collecting bothers me to no end. Granted, we didn’t do anything to get him fired, but needless to say, I have to protest any and all attempts in the future to separate a person from his job because of his opinions in a non-work capacity.
(Bold emphasis added.)
You may recall that Amanda left her job with the Edwards campaign because Bill Donohue’s Catholic League decided to make Amanda’s personal views into a big issue for Edwards. (Arguably, Donohue did this by misrepresenting her views, which strikes me as an ethical violation of the bearing-false-witness variety, but I’m just giving you the background for Amanda’s comment.)
Anyway, the issue I want to examine is the separation between work and non-work conduct and opinions, especially as they are manifested on the internet.