The old blog layout was perfectly OK but there was no way to maintain it any longer. Here is a fresh start that still requires tweaking. May you be happy with your blog design and may your never fish for new Wordpress themes in that big sink hole. Use Kubrick. Aren’t we all using feed readers?
Lars Juhl Jensen is one of the most prolific people in computational biology. A fellow scientist once said enviously: “The worst thing about him is that he is even a nice guy”. (I don’t find that particularly bad but there you go.) Lars has recently decided to post the crumbs that fall from his notebook in his blog “Buried treasure”, which you should add to your feed reader if you are but barely interested in bioinformatics.
[via Konrad]
There are so many complaints regarding position on the author list that I tend to ignore most of the conversation on the topic unless a journal actually changes something. The PLoS blog features a noteworthy idea by Michael Molla and Tim Gardner. Similar to the roll credits that appear at the end of a movie, they suggest a defined, fine grained roles. Senior author could pose as producers or director, refining their role, and obviously a story can have more than one main character. It’s definitely a step in the right direction but film posters always confuse me in that the names of the actors and the order of their faces in the poster never align. Even if the roles are better defined, the bitching for positions will surely remain.
Most of my dear readers will have either noticed or written about the lack of comments on scientific articles, for instance at the BMC journals and most notably at PLoS ONE, which was designed for interaction of author and reader.
At this point, there’s not too much to add to the conclusions: It’s takes to much time to comment on a scientific article properly, there’s no incentive (can’t put it in your CV) or honor to be gained (no one asked me to review this) and they are not written to be discussed (open/pragmatic) but supposed to discuss the results thoroughly themselves. However, despite all the comments on the matter, trying to study the phenomenon on the web is difficult due to the lack of strong keywords: Searching for “comments on publications” does not take you to very informative resources.
Similar discussions were underway in the Usenet and a particular consideration on the lack of comments made into Wikipedia as Warnock’s dilemma, which I stumbled across by chance. The term did not stick but it’s a worthwhile keyword for research in communication in blogs and scientific publications. Most of the considerations listed can be applied to all forms of written electronic communication.
Next: The careful analysis of the source for the scarcity of my blog output. A killer post.
According to Attila Csordas over at Partial Immortalization, there’s no good laboratory web site out here. He argues that the majority were designed by the first inhabitants of the web and asks us to prove him wrong by submitting the best laboratory web site to him.
There are certainly not many stunning examples known to me, even if I would not be as bold as him. What constitutes a good lab web site to begin with - functionality, in-jokes or stunning images? Bioinformatics labs are certainly worse off picture wise than labs with a strong background on imaging and the adaptation of corporate identity templates certainly has taken its toll on creativity at many institutions. I’m curious to see the results nonetheless, so if you know a good examples, let him know.
Bloggers are nothing more than users of a simple content management system. Most of the participants of re:publica, the blog conference that concluded yesterday in Berlin would probably agree. In that light, the atmosphere was very open and friendly, to the point that people on the panels complained that there was too much consensus. I prefered the in-depth discussions over random quibbles though, even if the latter would be more entertaining.
The most frustating aspect of the re:publica conference was the proximity to the institute. With too much work to do, I spend too little time at the meeting.
As far as science is concerned the hard bloggin’ scientists, a group of student through postdoc-level scientists from many disciplines hosted an entertaining and relevant “plug-in”, a workshop with little agenda, what turned out to be working nonetheless. The diversity was reflected in the 40-strong audience. The hard bloggin’ scientists were not discussed all that much; they have found a niche in adding color to the communication between scientists and the general public and are pretty well known in German blogger circles.
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Re:publica has summoned the German blogosphere to the Kalkscheune, just a couple of blocks from my office in Berlin-Mitte. With 700 attendees over three days it appears that a substantial portion came.
Does it make any sense to go to a blog meeting - wouldn’t it be better to stay at home and use the time to read? Certainly not, if I consider today. Many of the aspects of social software (and interactions of people in general) were said before but the discussions put them in a new light.
One noteworthy tidbit from the panel on blog etiquette this afternoon was the notion of blogs as a “pragmatic medium”, one that provokes direct response, uttered by Rainer Kuhlen (UNESCO chair in communications). In contrast, classical journalism as seen in newspapers are not written with the intentions for communication in the other direction. Most scientific works are published with a similar mind set: The discussion is part of manuscript, not contributed by the readers. After something has been published and passed peer review, it is true until retracted or forgotten.
The most common argument for the lack of participation in the scientific blogosphere is lack of incentives but we need to consider that we do not publish to be discussed in the first place.
Hmm. This didn’t read like a truism this morning. Let’s talk about tech instead.
A nice gadget enables everyone to comment on the presentations (or cocktail bars in the vicinity) via SMS. Not that the comments added much to the discussion for most of the time but the level of participation is what I want for any conference.
[Picture by timk75 under CC by-at license]
About time to mention Re:publica here, open for registration since the weekend.The ununconference on blogging, social media and the rest, organized by the unmissable Berlin-based bloggers Johnny Haeusler and Markus Beckedahl will take place in Berlin from April 11th - 13th 2007, halfway between my flat and the institute. Nice.
Science wise, the hard blogging scientists will host a “plug in” - not so sure what that is yet, I’ll attend anyway. If you are interested in blogging in the natural sciences, drop me a note.
Rob Carlson from the synthesis blog and author of the New Economy forthcoming book “Biology is Technology” suggests to use Open Biology rather than Open Source Biology and admits in a recent post:
Despite unleashing the phrase “Open Source Biology” on the world six years ago, at this point I no longer know what Open Source Biology might be. Perhaps Drew Endy still has a useful definition in mind, but as I try to understand how to maintain progress, improve safety, and keep the door open for economic growth, I think the analogy between software and biology just doesn’t go far enough. Biology isn’t software, and DNA isn’t code.
The following analysis highlights why we have not seen biohackers tinkering with bugs as we have hackers tinkering with computers abound today.
This post is getting dangerously close to a the pityful null-post: “I won’t blog much/haven’t blogged much as I am very busy.” However, any scientist, (or anyone working self-motivated) is always very busy unless something gone wrong. The cause for the lack of posts recently is rather due to my lack of blog pressure - grew out of it recently. Hopefully, I can jump the chasm of filler posts by reviewing events in during the break. (more…)