Saturday, August 22, 2009

Hello

Some people keep a old boot handy when watching TV - or is that a cartoonist's creation? Irrespective, I feel the need for a virtual old boot when perusing the media's handling of science. Think of this new blog on the block as that "old boot", but don't be surprised if some constructive comments creep in from time to time, or even new, highly questionable, indeed suspect hypotheses. What is science if it's not sticking one's head above the parapet?

Never is my spectator ire more keenly felt when there's no facility for readers to post responses, or when one's gems of wisdom/vitriol/jaundice fester unpublished in the moderator's in-tray during three-hour lunch breaks, or fail to appear at all.

Think of this, then, is a talking-shop for making sense - or nonsense- of the science we read on the main sites. The ones I track on a regular basis are the BBC, the Telegraph, The Times, The Independent and the Guardian. Yep, up-market anglocentric, I grant you, (do I hear groans) and I've no time for the dumbed-down underbelly. But I'll broaden my sweep if folk can suggest some wider reading which, in estate agents' argot "repays closer inspection".

3 comments:

sciencebod said...

"0 comments" is what it says at the bottom. And there I was thinking the appearance of a new blog would precipitate an veritable avalanche of new visitors and their comments, all thirsting for new engagement and exchange of ideas ;-).

Seriously, I was looking for an "add your comment here" tab, and - failing to find one - decided out of desperation to click on "0 comments" which mercifully got me here. Are we all supposed to be hyperactive "click on everything in sight" desperados, who finally find through trial-and-error what they are looking for? Whatever happened to the concept of intuitive site design?

It's been some 18 months or more since I last blogged on this site, and I return to find that some of its less user-friendly features are still firmly in face. Is that not the curse of the internet - those fait accompli, read take-it-or-leave-it systems, set in stone, unresponsive to well-intentioned criticism - the constructive variety? Don't get me started...

Anyway, having primed my comments with one of my own, hopefully any chance visitors, maybe not old hands where blogspot and its foibles are concerned, will suss out where to click to add a comment.

sciencebod said...

Oops, that should have read "firmly in place". Where's the effing Edit facility for correcting/manicuring/ tarting-up one's own comments? A similar facility for you, dear reader? Kindly take your place in the queue. This is a guided democracy...

sciencebod said...

Having placed not just one, but now TWO comments no less to prime my own blog, I now find a pencil symbol against my first comment that allows me to edit it. I could swear it wasn't there when I wrote the second, bemoaning the absence of just such an Edit facility. Ah, the foibles of software-designed-by-other-people-less-empathetic-than-onself...