Moving Day

After four-plus years of blogging independently (and as part of a group blog), I've been thinking for a while that it was time to join a blog network. While I've been invited to join elsewhere, it probably won't surprise you to find my new home is at Freethought Blogs. Even before the rumors of its existence were confirmed, it struck me as the best fit for this eclectic little blog. Luckily, Ed agreed.

I think you'll find it's a nice place to visit. The neighbors are great.

• We've got PZ at Pharyngula, of course.


• Ed takes one of the clearest stances I've seen on civil liberties at Dispatches From the Culture Wars.


• The Digital Cuttlefish is still mixing rhyme and reason at a prodigious rate.


• Comradde PhysioProffe is messing with the language (and an awful lot of rice).


• Chris Rodda is keeping on the case of the Dominionists at This Week in Christian Nationalism.


• Stephen "DarkSyde" Andrew stays on top of science and nonsense at The Zingularity.


• And Reasonable Doubts keeps you up to speed on their podcast.
  

But that's just the original crew. We're bringing in reinforcements.

• My boy Jason Thibeault will still be beer- and bacon-deficient at Lousy Canuck.


• Greg Laden will be starting a new project at The X Blog that I'm not allowed to talk about yet.


• Greta Christina will continue to talk about sex and atheism with unflinching (un)common sense.


• Ophelia Benson has moved Butterflies and Wheels to a much more browsing-friendly location.


• Assassin Actual is representing the atheists in foxholes.


• Hank Fox is bringing us the perspective of a Blue Collar Atheist.


• Daniel Fincke is practicing philosophy at Camels With Hammers.


• Deacon Duncan is countering religious apologetics at Alethian Worldview.


• And soon, Jen will be joining us with Blag Hag.
  

So please, update your feeds and your links to follow me to the new place, look around, get to meet my new neighbors if you haven't already. I'll introduce you over the next few weeks. They're a pretty cool lot, and the neighborhood is only getting bigger.

I Do This Why?

I'll let you in on a little secret: No one reads this blog.

Well, that's not quite true. The people who read this blog aren't anything like "no one." There just aren't very many of them.

To put this in perspective, last Thursday night I wrote a blog post regarding a ridiculous letter published in Times Higher Education in support of Satoshi Kanazawa, the "researcher" who claimed that his analysis showed that black women were "objectively" less attractive than women of other ethnic backgrounds. The letter was causing an angry buzz in my Twitter feed, and I put that anger into words.

The numbers looked good to start with. A dozen people or so have shared it on Twitter, a couple of them quite influential. It's being passed around on Facebook a little. It was Tumbled and reblogged a few times. Go, me.

I know better than that, though. I passed the post on to the JAYFK as well, to give it its best chance of finding an audience. After all, the defense of Kanazawa isn't just ridiculous; it's damaging and outrageously hypocritical. So I also pushed the post more than usual, playing up the controversy aspect by retweeting John Rennie's "Possible to draw & quarter people while hoisting on own petards? @szvan does it to Kanazawa's defenders. http://t.co/oxWIjoQ" and Chris Clarke's "Note to self: stay on @szvan's good side. http://t.co/EEECI3q #kanazawa"

Jason at Lousy Canuck, very much not a "no one," also thinks the topic is important. He wrote a post yesterday reporting on my post and promoting it. Half a dozen people retweeted his post, mostly the same people who had promoted mine, including me.

Now, this is how my blog traffic works: In two hours, Jason's post--meant to get people to read mine--passed it in total traffic, at least on this blog. For the record, that's less time than it took to put my post together. Half a dozen people clicked through from his post to mine. One person retweeted my post again.

So much for timely and topical. So much for content is king. So much for networking and self-promotion. So...yeah.

Why do I do this again?

Tweeting the Nobel Conference

Life is still busy. Yesterday and today are the Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, MN. This is an annual event, coinciding with the announcement of the winners of the year's Nobel Prizes, pulling together a number of scientists to talk about a particular topic. This year is "Making Food Good." Next year is "The Brain and Being Human."

Each scientist gives a lecture, but what follows may be the coolest part: All of the invited scientists then get together for a panel discussion of the lecture, asking questions outside their fields and trying to fit the information they're hearing into their framework of the topic. The presenting scientist also takes questions from the audience. That audience includes an internet audience, as the lectures are all streamed live.

What the lectures are not, despite the presence of lots of students from the college and from local high schools, is live Tweeted. At least, they weren't. After missing part of the first lecture due to an accumulation of delays yesterday morning, I checked the conference hashtag, #Nobel46. There was nothing. So I took over.

I'll blog the lectures later, with additional information, but if you want to follow along in the meantime, that hashtag is your place to be.

Elite Bastardry at Quiche Moraine

Don't ask me how a decidedly landlocked blog, in name and location, will manage to host the decidedly nautical Carnival of the Elitist Bastards this weekend, but it will. Actually, you can ask, and I even have something cool planned. I'm just not going to tell you what it is.

To quote the admiral:

Aye, it be that time again! Extract yerselves from the dens o' iniquity (where ye've been discussing philosophy o'er the finest wine, right? Right?). Send me a link to yer finest Elitist Bastardry no later than Friday, August 28th. We be sailin' wi' Captain Stephanie from Quiche Moraine, and she be intendin' to sail wi' a full crew.

For those o' ye who've watched the Bastards sail and think ye might be o' proper caliber for such an illustrious crew, here be the requirements:

1. Pick a blog post o' yours that hits the stupid where it hurts.

2. Send us the link.

That be it.

See ye aboard!

Or somewhere thereabouts.

Still don't know what we're looking for? Try here. And remember, the more you submit, the more you make me work. How's that for motivation?

Reorganization

This is actually a tougher fight than the election was. Corporations far and away recognized that four more years of rule by the monster that the Republican Party had become would be as disastrous for them as it would be for all of us. They were pragmatic in their understand that business cannot flourish anywhere the government doesn't meet at least its minimal obligations in law and the maintenance of infrastructure, so they supported Obama.

They are not supporting health care reform, which means we need to do more. Their disproportionate influence isn't all arrayed against us, but neither is it on our side. We're much more alone this time.

Find out what we need to do at Quiche Moraine.

A Few Good Posts

Huh. Turns out that yesterday's Eddie Izzard post was the 500th post on this blog. I knew it was coming, but I still wasn't paying attention. Oh, well, a base-10 system is pretty arbitrary anyway. So, instead of talking about my blog posts, I'm going to ask people to talk about others.

With the relaunch of Atheists Talk, we're adding a few semi-regular features to the podcast. One of them is meant to bring good web material to people who don't necessarily read blogs...or to people who don't read particular blogs. Even I can only read so many blogs, which is why we need your help.

Point us to good blog posts that would be of interest to an audience of atheists. These will be converted to audio, so they can't be too context or visual dependent, but aside from that, just about anything goes. Posts about religion, separation of church and state, science, culture, education, skepticism--we're looking for any of that. New, old, doesn't matter.

Don't worry about getting permission from the author. We'll take of that before we record anything. From you, we need ideas.

Ed Started It

...with his post asking his readers about themselves. DrugMonkey took up the call and tagged "science-y or academic-y blog[s]" with the meme.

That raises a question I find just as interesting as the secret identities of my lurking readers. Why does Almost Diamonds keep getting listed as a science blog? I know people have waffled on this. Some of folks who have been so kind as to put me on their sorted blogrolls have had a tough time classifying me. But it still happens.

So if you'd care to indulge a confused blogger, please tell me in the comments what kind(s) of content brings you to Almost Diamonds. And if I don't already know who you are, I'd love to hear a bit about your background too.

Quiche Moraine Launch Party

Well, it only took us four months to launch Quiche Moraine. I guess it's not too weird that it's four months and 100 posts later before we work on having the launch party.

If you're in the area and interested in coming, head over to the thread we've hijacked for setting up the party and register your opinions. (Is it hijacking if we do it ourselves?)

Hope to see you there.

Assessing the Odds

A while ago, I looked at the renewed proposals to expand gambling in Minnesota and concluded that it didn’t make sense, in a time of declines in the national gaming industry, to spend money on new gambling infrastructure in the hopes that it would start generating revenue soon enough to be of help. At the time, I noted that state lottery revenue was up in a bare majority of states, but numbers for Minnesota weren’t available. They are now.

I'm doing my heavy blogging for the day over at Quiche Moraine. Today I continue looking at whether adding more gambling as a source of state revenue makes any sense for Minnesota.

The Widget Code

Okay, there seems to be some demand for this, so here's the code for the recent comments widget.

Updated to make copying easier and to fix a bug with anonymous commenters: In the end of the script, replace my URL with your own. Then all you have to do is add an HTML/Javascript widget to your sidebar and paste in the text.

You may not see comments right away, as my widget started by reading the comment feed prospectively only, but as people leave more comments, the widget should fill itself out.

Enjoy!

<script type="text/javascript">
<!-- // hide from browsers
//Recent Comments Widget originally by Blogger Templates and updated by Blogger Buster then edited by Ben Zvan for simplicity
function showrecentcomments(json){
for(var i=0;i<show_number;i++){
var feed_raw=json.feed.entry[i];
var comment_link_raw;
if(i>=json.feed.entry.length)break;
for(var k=0;k<feed_raw.link.length;k++) {
if(feed_raw.link[k].rel=='alternate') {
comment_link_raw=feed_raw.link[k].href;break;
}
}
var comment_link=comment_link_raw.split("#");
comment_link=comment_link[0];
var comment_link=comment_link.replace(/\u003d/,"=");
var post_link=comment_link.split("/");
post_link=post_link[5];
post_link=post_link.split(".html");
post_link=post_link[0];
var post_link=post_link.replace(/-/g," ");
post_out=post_link.link(comment_link);
var author_name
if(feed_raw.author[0].name){
author_name=feed_raw.author[0].name.$t;
}
var author_link;
var author_out;
if(feed_raw.author[0].uri){
author_link=feed_raw.author[0].uri.$t;
author_out=author_name.link(author_link);
}else{
author_out=author_name;
}
// Output phase
document.write('<div class="recent-comment">');
document.write(''+author_out+' on '+post_out+'<br/>');
document.write('</div>');
}
}
// -->
</script>
<script style="text/javascript">var show_number=10;</script>
<script src="http://almostdiamonds.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default?alt=json-in-script&callback=showrecentcomments"></script>

The Comments Widget

Yay!

I would just like to take this opportunity to thank PalMD, in whose Blogging 101 session I declared Recent Comments to be the single most important widget a blogger can have, and Lou, who sent me a widget that turned out not to work with my template, for getting me off my ass to find a widget I could use. Thanks also to Ben, who tracked down why a simple change in the (unformatted) Javascript to customize said widget made it stop working.

Anybody who wants a recent comments widget that works with the layout function in Blogger templates, just let me know.

2008 in Blog Posts

This was my first full year of blogging, and I'm pretty happy with what I accomplished. Here are some of the posts that have gotten the most attention.

For some reason, a bunch of people do Google searches for the word "loner." A lot of them end up at this March post on why Facebook is just about the right amount of interaction--maybe.

Blogging really started ramping up in May, with a short essay on the costs of breaking rules in writing (and why I'll do it anyway) and a guest post on science blog content at Greg Laden's Blog. The guest post just goes to show that if one wants lots of comments, one should talk about PZ Myers. Also from May, my recipe for the perfect margarita has stayed popular. Please just remember that it's dangerous.

In June, I flexed a little blogging muscle (with much help) to get a problem cleaned up that should already have been fixed, told a little story about too many ex-boyfriends, and spelled out my motto.

July brought one reason it's sometimes better to be vague in your science fiction than to be wrong, a lesson in how not to take critique (the closest I've come to jumping into the framing debate), and some musings about the utility of offense as a concept.

August featured a pair of posts on Muslim censorship of fiction. One event was very high-profile, with an interesting dimension not much talked about. The other was much quieter, perhaps deservedly so. Also, my views on "tolerance."

September was the start of my career in poliblogging. I put up my first post on Bachmann and weighed in on the economy, looking at the reasons the social safety net isn't obsolete and at the failure of our long-standing economic policy. Oh, and apparently I get into arguments occasionally.

I continued to beat on Bachmann in October. "Realists" and libertarians got theirs too. I also summarized a very long set of arguments over whether the concept of human races has any biological validity. Short answer: no. Then I went and got myself called a science blogger by a bunch of people by writing about the value of diversity. That was weird. To lighten things up: sensical nonsense and writing for wildly diverse audiences.

I got a little more sleep in November, but I still managed to make people cry, talk about religious belief, wave a flag for the defective, and argue about belonging and identity. That last one contains one of the more interesting comment threads on this blog--better than the post itself, I think.

December has seen me mashing up science and fiction in ways I never thought I would. I committed fanfic as illustration and used the literature/pulp debate to talk about how the language of science can be exclusionary. This month also produced what is already my most linked and viewed post ever: How to Hijack a Thread. Apparently, this "meta shit" works for people. Who knew?

So what will 2009 bring? There are a couple things in the works, here and elsewhere, but I'm not not one to count chickens and all, so you'll have to wait. Mostly, I hope the new year brings me the kinds of friendship and food for thought that the old one did.

Have a very happy new year, everyone.

An Odd Year

DrugMonkey has posted an excellent year-in-review meme that involves posting the first sentence of the first post of each month of the year. Since 2008 was my first full year of blogging, and since almost none of my current readers won't have read that far back, I must play.

Let's see what the blog has to say for itself.

January: There's a character I've been wanting to write for a while but probably won't until the next book.

February: This is one of the cooler memes I've seen.

March: I don't know his name, but he's awfully cute.

April: I've been involved in a few discussions lately in which public school education and teachers got pretty thoroughly dissed.

May: So I'm on this client team at work, one of several.

June: I am not a specialist.

July: Yesterday at work, despite my best efforts to check off the 1,001 tiny things on my to do list and to clean out my inbox so I can figure out whether there's anything that never made it onto the list, I spent much of my time on two Projects That Will Not Die.

August: Transcriptase is the new site where some writers who had material in the Helix archives have reposted their work.

September: One of the local high schools has a gay-rights student club.

October: Like any good narcissist blogger, I like to see what search terms people are using to find my blog.

November: In my last post, I talked about the many excellent reasons to vote against Norm Coleman for senator.

December: When I was looking at old Animaniacs videos, I noticed that there seems to be a drive to bring them back (although there don't seem to be any results).

Uh, huh. Interesting. Some politics, some writing, some work (of all things), some silly. It all sounds about right, but it does raise the perpetual question. Can anyone tell me what this blog is about?

About the Name

In case you've ever wondered where the blog name comes from, here's a video from one of my favorite artists. I bet you'll never guess what the song is called.



Don't read too much into the lyrics, though. There's a lot more to this not being a place of diamonds, including the fact that I just don't like diamonds. Who wants to be that hard, that pure, that transparent, that flawless? Give me a beautiful colored stone any day, and if it's just a little more fragile, then so be it.

In fact, I prefer it that way. Where do you go from perfection?

Four Thousand and Twenty-Seven

Not really, but too much:

Brain:

Give cute instead:

ScienceOnline'09

I just signed up for a new con. This one's a conference, though, not a convention and not my usual thing. In January, I'll be attending ScienceOnline'09.

When I first read the description, I thought, Sounds interesting but not for me, I'm afraid. See, it used to be called the NC Science Blogging Conference. And while I blog, and I'm interested in science, support good science education, read science blogs, etc., I'm not a science blogger. I'm a...I'm...I don't know what kind of blogger I am. If you figure it out, let me know.

Then half my blogroll registered--the half I haven't met.

That was when the stray enabling thoughts started popping up. I have done a guest post on ScienceBlogs, about science blogs. My blog does have a strong anti-woo undercurrent. All my friends are doing it. As a science fiction writer, I have a vested interest in promoting a love and understanding of science.

If it hadn't been for All my friends are doing it, I could have talked myself into it eventually. Sometimes I mistrust my own motives.

Then, today, they released Program v1.0.

Science Fiction on Science Blogs?
Science Fiction was the original source of excitement for many a scientist. How can a science blogger use Science Fiction to draw the readers in and explain the actual science?

Okay. I'm going. There are other sessions I want to attend, but that one, alone, sold me.

I'll see a bunch of you guys in January.

Update
So much for impostor syndrome. I'm now moderating the science fiction session. Feel free to share ideas on what you want to see there.

Fair Warning

This blog is new enough that it hasn't been through an election before (nothing local last year), so those of you who know me only through the blog haven't seen me in an election season. I get a wee bit obsessive. I have plenty of things I want to say about writing and editing at the moment, but every time I sit down to write them, I have things to say about politics that feel more important to get out.

So if you're not thrilled with the last week or so of posts, you might want to come back in a couple of months. I'll miss you, but I'll understand.

Happy Birthday, Mike

Today is Tangled Up in Blue Guy's birthday.

Mike, my wish for you is that this be the year you manage to get back to school. However, I hope you realize that even if school eludes you a little longer, you're taking big steps toward your dreams. The formality of a university program can only add gloss to the scholarship you practice on your own. It can't touch the work you're doing to educate others as you learn.

I'm also hoping you get exactly what you want this year politically, but that has some selfish motivations mixed in. And who knows, maybe you'll finally win that argument with your friend. What ever the year brings, I wish you much joy of it and I look forward to another year of co-conspiracy.

Happy birthday!

Upcoming Four Stone Hearth

For those of you looking for the place where the August 13th Four Stone Hearth carnival will be hosted, you're in the right place. Please e-mail me your links to me at stephanie.zvan on Gmail.

For those of you who haven't a clue what I'm talking about, stop back by on the 13th for a collection of interesting posts on archaeology and anthropology.

One of Those Nights

I'm not very entertaining today. I'm tired and my head hurts and I can't go to bed yet and I turned down a free happy hour after work with some fun people because I was going to crack if I had to deal with noise. So if you want to be entertained, here are a few of the people who have amused me today.

• Mike wants suggestions of good microbreweries. I'd appreciate it if you'd contribute your favorite or two, because I have every intention of using the comments as a checklist.
• Moving from drink to food (sort of), the cracker finally got nailed, and Greg found something very interesting in the remains.
• For yummier food, Steve wrote a song about Alton Brown, "His shoulders, his thighs, His voice and his kosher salt." This is actually the second time I've heard Steve say he wants to have someone's baby, and the second time I agreed with him.
• Will is also writing songs, or at least new lyrics to songs. His don't scan quite as well as Steve's, but they're written in not-French, so I guess it works.

Enjoy.