In case you didn’t know, Scientific American has just started a whole herd of “blogs”—39 of them—and you can find the list here. There are some old favorites, some new ones, and even some group websites. If you’ve followed these “blogs” in their previous incarnation, feel free to list your favorites below.
I’d like to give a special shout-out to a new website co-hosted by Kalliopi (Kapi) Monoyios, who illustrated WEIT and Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish, and Glendon Mellow, whose work I’ve highlighted previously.
The site is called Symbiartic, and the Sci Am description is this:
This is a blog where the two of them act as hosts and curators. They will look around our network and around the WWW as a whole, to find and present work by other artists in a variety of domains of visual art: art, illustration, data visualization, sculpture, architecture, design, cartoons, comic strips, photography, etc. They will conduct interviews with artists and showcase their work, and invite artists to post guest-posts. They will showcase their own work, and also discuss how the widespread electronic communication is changing the notions of copyright in the visual realm. They will write How-To technique posts and then conduct reader critiques and reader contests. They will also help me choose the “image of the week” for the blog network homepage. If your names seem familiar, it is perhaps because you already saw them on our site – Scientific accuracy in art by Glendon, and Art in the service of science: You get what you pay for by Kalliopi.
Both hosts have written previously for Sci Am, and you can find sample posts here and here.
I love Glendon’s artwork.
Especially this piece.
Let’s try that again:
Trilobite boy rocks out.
Would calling them “weblogs” (the origin of the term “blog[s],” as you very likely know) be less annoying?
Blog is a perfectly cromulent word.
I really don’t understand the objection. The word “blog” is easily understood, describes something specific, is easy to spell and pronounce, and (by far most importantly) is in wide usage. It’s a word. Denying that is denying how language works.
There’s nothing wrong with calling a blog a website, since the distinction is eroding (most websites are now pretty much blog-based) but there’s nothing wrong with calling a blog a blog either.
+1
The hilarious part is that Jerry apparently has no problem with LOLspeak, kittehs, noms, pwnage, and quintuple exclamation marks. But somehow “blog” is beneath his dignity.
It’s an ugly word which provides no real definition (try to define a “web log”, after all – if you think you have a concise response, you’re wrong).
It’s caught on, and will undoubtedly survive a good long while, and that’s how language works. But we are absolutely free to despise it and refuse to use it.
Uglier than “blob” or “brag” or “grog”?
A log is an ongoing record of events, as in ship’s log, and a web log is an online log, unlike one kept in a logbook.
I’m just glad it’s not called a wwwairy, or an htmlog, or a jouronlinal.
90% of the “blogs” actually read are not logs of events. That is, they are not web logs. They are personal op-ed pages, which occasionally mention what the author is doing.
That’s why I implied that a simple definition of “web log” is going to be wrong, because a “web log” is not, in fact, a web log.
And yes, “blob” is an ugly word, which is appropriate given what it means. How often have you heard the phrase “that’s a lovely blob of X”, which wasn’t sardonic?
The word “brag” is a bit distasteful, also fittingly so, since nobody likes a braggart.
Finally, “grog” sounds rough and unpleasant, just like the beverage (as anyone who’s played The Secret of Monkey Island knows).
And if you think having a sense of aesthetics about language is just too precious, I invite you to ignore me.
AFAICT, our host is neither “denying how language works” nor saying that there’s anything “wrong with calling a blog a blog.” He simply doesn’t care for the word. Are you trying to dictate personal taste?
Why on earth do so many feel they need to come here and loftily lecture us on web conventions? Do you really think JAC is that unaware?
Am I the only one who see the humor implied by putting “blog” in quotes? Perhaps you SIWOTI-ists need to read more widely.
Just to put a word of support for Tetrapod Zoology (TetZoo): a blog that transferred from SciBlogs to Scientific American. Always excellent, always fascinating. I would recommend it to anyone with a passing interest in zoology – it’s kind of a total immersion experience: a swarm of technical terms and species, but you come out of it more knowledgeable.
I like that blog, too.
An enthusiastic + 2!
I thought it was “an exaltation of blogs”, however if you say “buttload”, I’ll concede.
Some intersting stuff there. At first I was thinking that this is where PZ will end up, but it doesn’t seem as though they want his traffic or his headaches.
Glad to see Primate Diaries has a new home. This whole ‘in exile’ thing really cut down his production.
So is this a blogplug?
Coctail Party Physics is, of course, pure awesomeness. If you don’t know it, you should.
My other favorites: Primate Diaries and Doing Good Science (formerly “Adventures in Science and Ethics”) by Dr. Freeride. And Tetrapod Zoology.