Eugene Wallingford had a post last week about blogging, and popular misconceptions: When I first started writing this blog, several colleagues rolled their eyes. Another blog no one will read; another blogger wasting his time. They probably equated all blogging with the confessional, “what I ate for breakfast” diary-like journal that takes up most of… Continue reading This Is My Hobby
Month: October 2006
Where You’re At
Every now and then, I start poking at the stats in Google Analytics, and I almost always find something interesting. For example, in the last week, this site has been visited twice by someone from Mauritius, four times by someone from Iran, and six times by someone from Kyrgyzstan. I’m being read by somebody in… Continue reading Where You’re At
“Idea” is a Perfectly Good Word
The rant about “meme” being a stupid idea that I mentioned near the end of Monday’s Dawkins post turns out to be from Mike the Mad Biologist, who reposted it yesterday. Executive summary: The word doesn’t add much, obscures important phenomena, is imprecise, and is vitalistic. I’m sure you were dying to know this, but… Continue reading “Idea” is a Perfectly Good Word
An Appreciation
Easterbrook on Tiki Barber: At this point Tiki Barber, TTNY (“The Toast of New York”), should replace Brett Favre as the most admired player in the NFL, and as the one who exemplifies the best of football culture. This guy plays amazingly well — last night when the Giants needed power running, he even did… Continue reading An Appreciation
Bugs Aren’t Features
I upgraded to the latest version of Opera a little while ago, and since the upgrade, it has developed a really charming bug: every so often, it just decides not to have anything further to do with certain web sites. It happens most frequently with ScienceBlogs, because I usually have several SB tabs open, but… Continue reading Bugs Aren’t Features
Ontological Epidemiology
I was up far too late last night watching football, and our DSL was down during the crucial hours between work and Monday Night Football, so I couldn’t pre-write any blog posts. Which means you get sleep-deprived idle thoughts as blog posts this morning. I blame Verizon. So here’s a question about medicine, or rather… Continue reading Ontological Epidemiology
Look Over There!
How ’bout those Giants? They keep it interesting right to the end, that’s for sure… Some links to worthwhile things elsewhere, because I don’t have the time or energy for more: The guys at the World’s Fair are launching a new site that they hope will be a sort of BoingBoing for the science education/… Continue reading Look Over There!
Big East Basketball Preview
Some time back, I offered the right to pick a post topic to anyone who managed to name one of the Physics Nobel laureates for 2006. Tom Renbarger won, and picked his topic: OK, with Midnight Madness on the horizon, I’ve decided to request a sort of season preview of two (trying to press my… Continue reading Big East Basketball Preview
Baghdad Update: Just a Phase
Here’s another email from my friend Paul, who’s working as a journalist covering Iraq’s descent into civil war. In this message, he describes the hard life of a photographer in Iraq, and reports a downright Rumsefeldian analogy: “We had our militia phase, maybe the rest of the Iraq will get over its own.” It’s a… Continue reading Baghdad Update: Just a Phase
…To Wound the Autumnal, um, Bike Path
A little fall foliage from Saturday’s bike ride: The bike path runs along the old Erie Canal tow path, and in a few places, they have restored/ preserved bits of the old canal. This is one of those– you can see some of the stone wall on the left, and the wooden decking on the… Continue reading …To Wound the Autumnal, um, Bike Path