A new weblog from a zoologist turned theoretical biologist, to deal with theories, science and other such trivialities. And so, Dear reader, to the formal introductions…
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Theoretically Speaking by Mike Fowler
I'll use this forum to post my ideas about work I'm doing, work I've read, or things that pop into my head; hopefully to raise discussion and help me learn more about this crazy little thing called science.
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Formal Introductions
- Date:
- Tuesday, 09 Sep tember 2008 - 20:58 UTC
Hello world (wide web)! Such a pleasure to finally meet you.
Is there a more formal way to introduce oneself to the blogosphere?Following much thought, denial, consideration, procrastination and finally “supportive” words from friends and other people who were fed up reading my lengthy comments on their own blogs, I’ve decided to try and answer my own questions about how useful science blogging actually is, by taking my first, tentative toe-dips into the primordial soup of web2.0. Hey, as a scientist, I’m always willing to experiment!
Here I’ll try to smash the null hypothesis that “Blogging will have no effect on my scientific career”. It’s a two-tailed test, so be prepared…
I’m a post-doc, working on theoretical population biology in the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of Helsinki, Finland. My interests have largely involved studying the interactions of species with themselves, other species, the changing environment and space (I believe someone recently coined the term Ecology to describe this). Mostly I use mathematical models to do this, but I also enjoy looking at trees and telling them “I know how you work” in a thick Michael Caine schtick
Originally from Scotland, I’ve continued our proud national tradition of leaving those cold, damp, miserable shores (which I truly miss) and colonizing damp, miserable, cold places (which I learned to love quickly). I’ll try not to bang on about life as an expat too much here, but that don’t mean I can’t do it elsewhere.
I’ll also try to be more conscientious in my frequency of posting than this charming man. I already have a few half-baked ideas (e.g., Why do people ignore well-known biological features when studying multiple population time-series? What kind of things should we prioritize in population modelling? Why isn’t there much interest in stochastic temporal autocorrelation with evolutionary dynamics?).
Fortunately, this seems to be exactly how this whole blog concept
works. Present a raw idea, allow others to add clams etc. to it, and trust that a delicious intellectual bouillabaisse emerges, highlighting the culinary power our shared endeavours.Let’s just hope we all find it interesting and stimulating. Including me. I kinda hope it comes out like a journal club discussion group down the boozer, if all goes well.
P.S. Despite being trained as a zoologist, I’m afraid to report to other
NN contributors that domesticated animals are unlikely to feature heavily in my posts. Heavy animals may become domesticated just by reading this though.Last updated: Tuesday, 09 Sep 2008 - 20:58 UTC
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Comments
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Welcome to blogging, then, Mike. I just wanted to suggest you let us scroll down, even if the post is long. I’d just as well, and you don’t need the clicks the way some blogs do.
I wanted to post somewhere, and this is as good a place as any, a link to a recent entry by GrrlScientist in which she updated an original post about why one could blog.
And I am a great fan of that charming man as well.
Oooh, my first comment, thanks Heather.
It could be the lack of sleep induced by application deadlines, but I’m not sure what you mean by you let us scroll down, even if the post is long?
I don’t want to stop no-one doing nuffink. I checked the blog management settings and there was no scroll bar on/off options. What am I missing?
you put stuff in the ‘extended entry’ box.
Don’t do that. Put everything in the first box, so that we can read it all in RSS without clicking through to the post itself.
Hi Mike – thanks for commenting on my blog, albeit in dubious taste! I thought I’d return the favour.
And I see that we have both started out on this venture on the same date – so good luck!
I disappear off to somewhere
cold and dampsodden, and look what happens! Good to see you’ve succumbed, Mike.If you follow Richard’s suggestion you’ll be marked down, because everyone will read the RSS feed, but not actually come to your blog, so it will appear that you have even less readers than you do.
Am I the only one who read “toe-dips” as"toe-clips"? I hope not.
Ah, but if Mike’s posts are as fascinating as this one, everyone will click through from RSS to comment! So I vote for all the post in the first window. One reason for this is that I have all the NN blogs in my RSS reader, so I can easily find material for my columns: a more-or-less weekly one in Nature and a weekly column on the NPG author blog Nautilus. It is much easier for me to identify suitable posts via the full version being available in the reader, especially now that the number of blogs on NN is growing so fast ;-).
Technical chit-chat out of the way, welcome, Mike, very auspicious that you and Stephen have started out on the same day – I hope this will not result in a cessation of the comments you both make round and about the network. Can’t have those animal pics taking over ;-)
I love your way with words:
Present a raw idea, allow others to add clams etc. to it, and trust that a delicious intellectual bouillabaisse emerges, highlighting the culinary power our shared endeavours.
I’m looking forward to more recipies, resulting in delicious feasts.
Well, shucks. Thanks for the warm welcome folks.
I’m not into RSS:ing – I find I mess about too much on the web already without more shiny, constantly updating distractions (great thinking, Mike. Why not start a blog?). But if NN editors are on here telling us not to post in the extended entries, who are I to argue?
@Stephen – sorry ’bout that. I really should know better, but sometimes my fingers type faster than my brain can keep up. Whoooosh!
I should add a disclaimer — I’m a Nature editor (ie web 1.0, though we are trying…) and not a NN editor (ie web 2.0 and all cool stuff). I’m writing a self-interested comment above, not one that has any “official Nature Network status”, as I don’t have any.
I had better not start going on about RSS as I am a bit of an evangelist. For me it lets me focus and spend less time being distracted on the web, but each for his own (including whether or not to split long posts!).