Yes! There are new ads here!

In order to help pay for the tremendous amounts of bandwidth Pharyngula and its Sciblings are sucking off the internet, there are new video ads inserted below the first article on each page. They are a kind of visual noise, but they aren’t supposed to slow down access—they should only load significant quantities of data if you click on them. If you are experiencing technical difficulties, leave a message here and I’ll pass the word on to the tech people.

In case you’ve got got ad blocking software installed, I’ll mention that it is a movie for Dupont fire retardants that features a very chipper, slender blonde woman. Dupont saves lives with chemical, materials, and energy solutions. (That was much less painful than a fancy video ad, wasn’t it? I know, I’m not as pretty as Amanda Congdon … but I’m more sciencey).

Molly winners for March

Once again, in the nomination thread for the Molly award, two names came up over and over again, and since this isn’t the kind of thing where we should nit-pick, I’ll put up two winners once more:

Date Winners Sample comments
March 2007 Blake Stacey He’s a smart feller.

whenever I’m reading a comment and thinking “Right on, man” I come to the end and there’s his name.
Hank Fox He’s funny and always includes a thought provoking statement with clarity and logic.

Very bright guy who comes up with the greatest metaphors to make his points.

Now I know there are a few complaints about this being a popularity contest, but that’s because it is — that’s the whole point. You all know you don’t just come here because you like me—judging by my mail, a fair number of you are driven to fits by me—but there’s also this community of active commenters here that attracts readers, too. This is a tool to give me an excuse to acknowledge the gang lurking under the articles.

Lynn Margulis weblog tour

Here’s an interesting opportunity: Lynn Margulis, the controversial scientist, is going on a ‘blog tour’ to promote her new imprint of science books called Sciencewriters Books. What does that mean? She’s going to hang out for a little while on a few blogs and chat and answer questions. If you’ve wanted to have a conversation with the author of the endosymbiont theory and critic of neo-Darwinian theory, here’s your chance.

The tour will kick off on Monday, 12 March, at Pharyngula. She’ll be sending me a short article that I’ll post that morning, and we’ll collect comments and questions. Later that afternoon or evening, she’ll browse through those comments and answer the ones she finds interesting.

In addition, she’ll be available in the Pharyngula chat room (channel #pharyngula on irc.zirc.org; if you don’t have an IRC client, that link will let you use your browser to join in) from 12:00-1:30pm ET.

So mark it on your calendars: an online conversation with Lynn Margulis, next Monday, 12 March, at Pharyngula.

Open Enrollment Day—too much success!

Whoa, people…I expected I’d be adding 10 or 20 new blogs to the blogroll with my open enrollment day, not 125. I’ve added them all (and I’ve also made it easier to find the complete listing with a link on the sidebar), but right now I feel a bit bloated, like a tick who was aiming for a tasty capillary and managed to tap into the carotid instead.

Don’t be disappointed if I have to shed a few next month—there’s tons of good stuff there, but the volume is a little bit on the side of indigestible. I’ll have to reduce it a bit if I hope to have another of these open enrollment days in the future.

And the winner of the first Molly Award is…

…annoyingly hard to pick. You people just named almost everyone, and some of you seemed to name everyone in a single comment. It’s not like there was a runaway leader; it’s more like there’s this huge base of commenters that everyone likes. This is a good situation for the blog as a whole, but doesn’t make it easy to single out anyone.

So this time I’ve compromised and picked the top two, secure in the knowledge that there are many more from the Pharyngula pool who will be acknowledged in the future. They are:

  • Kristine Harley, who is widely appreciated for general good humor, pithy comments, and perhaps a little belly-dancing, although that doesn’t translate well to a text-only comment. Readers here have good imaginations, though. She’s all over the place, but her latest comments are here, here, and here.
  • Scott Hatfield, most people’s favorite even-tempered theist, who apparently has Job-like patience to be able to endure the routine scourging given to people with his beliefs here, and even has the temperament to be cheerful about it all. You can find some of his latest comments here.

Their names will be enshrined in a sub-page in the next day or two, and more will join them on a monthly basis.

I have good news, and I have bad news

I’ve hinted before that I’ve been puttering away at a book, and the latest hint is that there is a possibility of some very serious interest in it—no promises yet, merely the whisper of potential, but still…this could be a big step. At the same time, that potential comes with things like serious pressure and deadlines of some urgency and a great deal of work thumping down on my head abruptly. I’m also, of course, plunging into a new term, and the first few weeks (and the last few weeks!) are always the most work, so I’m facing a traumatic time-crunch. And there’s a new Seed column due in a few weeks.

So, the blog. Hmmm. It takes up time I can scarely spare right now.

I’m going to have to re-prioritize for some indefinite time in the near future, and unfortunately, Pharyngula has been pushed down in the stack a ways. Don’t worry, I’m not going to pull a Bérubé and yank the plug on it; I have a grand time with it all, and it’s not for a lack of interest that I’m going to have to cut back. I’m also counting on bouncing back up once the howling maws demanding my time are sated, and I won’t be able to resist occasionally indulging in a little substantial blog-writing. I just need to be able to say now and then, “I will not even look at the interweb for this 12 hour period of time, because I need to write eleventy-seven thousand words right now.”

It seems a shame, because there’s this great big audience coming here every day (you know this, you’re part of it), and I know you’re a fickle lot and if I’m not constantly throwing out bloody bits of raw meat you’ll just wander away, won’t you, and find someone else to pay attention to your appetites. Well, I’ll help you.

I’ll keep throwing new material up, as long as you send it to me. I already get lots of links in email; I’ll try to be more assiduous in dumping those links in short posts to the blog. If you don’t have a blog, but you’ve got some wonderful rant you’ve written up and would love to post in a prominent place, send it to me, and if I like it, it’ll appear here, with your name. Just keep on sending the stuff to me, and I’ll use the soapbox to plug your ideas. Maybe my current audience will stumble over to your site as the next Pharyngula (do come back someday, though!). Just to help me out a little further, you might try letting me know the general subject in your subject line, and you should be aware by now of the Big Three topics I tend to favor: Biology, Godlessness, and Creationism.

This will be temporary, and I’m not going to go cold turkey on the blogging business—just be sympathetic while I hammer away at some rather important behind-the-scenes intellectual infrastructure here.

Server update

We’ve been warned that there will be some server improvements made this evening, for the next few hours. You should still be able to see everything, but there may be commenting glitches while the upgrade is going on. Have no fear, we’re supposed to bounce back smoother and faster tomorrow.