New slogan for BH.tv! Kidding aside, nice turn of phrase, Sean.

You might have noticed this one already, if you looked at Jennifer's blog. But in case not, let me call your attention to a post of hers that I read a few days ago: "anatomy of a white board."

I guess I don't understand the value of blogging at all. I don't know any CS bloggers, and doubt I would read them if I discovered them. CS and AI are my field, but I think the odds of somebody else remotely addressing any problem I am currently struggling with is infinitesimal. And even within CS, I am not remotely interested in the cutting edge research on compilers or network security or image recognition, even though all of these can involve AI. The learning curve to even understand their problems is steep enough to be a waste of time if you don't hunger to be involved on a long term basis. So I just see no personal or professional value in blogging, and I don't blog because I see no value in writing what essentially nobody will read, no matter how well crafted. I am not a tenured professor but perhaps a lot of tenured professors feel as I do; and the first question they ask themselves is "Who would read it," and even if they can answer that question with a non-empty set, they still don't like the answer. Commenting on a few boards, however, is a different matter.

There is a neat collaboration between science and art in Chicago called Skyzome. The institutions involved are the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Adler Planetarium, and the University of Chicago. It started as part of the Chicago Festival of Maps. Side note: The Festival of Maps was so cool! QE2 lent some maps done by Leonardo da Vinci, which were incredible (he was the first to use color to indicate changes in altitude) but the Wall Street Journal said there was even better stuff in the exhibit at the Field Museum. The Newberry Library had almost all of the copies (37) of Ptolemy's Geography (Renaissance Edition) in existence, each copy open to one of the maps in the work. It include a program on Cosmic Cartography. Back to Skyzome - it will be a visual display of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey made out of over 10,000 lights that will be hanging from the Frank Gehry designed trellis over the great lawn at Millenium Park. Not sure when it will be installed but I am eagerly looking forward to it. At the meeting of the American Astronomical Society

Wolf: I think you probably nailed it, as far as guessing about the lack of interest in blogging among tenured professors and other highly specialized people. And that's fine -- nothing is for everyone, and there's no reason why people should feel compelled to jump aboard the latest bandwagon. On the other hand, I do think it's true that an instinctive resistance to new things impedes people, that scientists are no different in this regard from anybody else, and that some of them would find there's a lot to be gained from blogging if they'd just give it a try. There is a great interest in reading such blogs, on the part of people such as me. I don't have a specialty outside of Advanced Dilettantism, but I am quite interested in, and enjoy reading about, what people with more focus are up to. In particular, I like when someone writes about something that makes me stretch. To that end, I follow Cosmic Variance, of course, along with a lot of the people who post on scienceblogs.net. I also follow a number of blogs written by computer people (although, admittedly, the ones I read most regularly tend to focus on applications and

thprop: Thanks for all the links!

On the issue of scientist's craziet thoughts going public, I was not surprised to see it had nothing to do with the recent rantings of a Canadian scientist who called for the jailing for politicians who question Climate Change science. To many scientists, this is probably not such a crazy thing to do.

Not to mention that it's hard to put equations into a blog, to capture some of the http://www.bloggingheads.tv/diavlogs...3?out=00:49:46.
"math is pretty" aspect that Jennifer was talking about. Does anyone know if it's possible to put equations into the comment section?

Even better: "... Bloggingheads — where people who are more comfortable behind a keyboard than in front of a camera pick up the phone to talk about things they’d be too lazy to type about ..." (source)

I do think it's true that an instinctive resistance to new things impedes people,

I don't put myself in that category. I spent 30 years working to make new things exist, and working to teach people both above me and below me new ways of working and thinking that would ensure safety and prosperity for all of us. Now the first half of that I was admittedly more apprentice than principle, but with experience and success come greater responsibility because we develop an instinct, in the field of the new, for what works and what fails. I am the last person to diss a new approach just because it is new, I love new ideas. But new ideas must be able to withstand interrogation. I want the new idea to be accompanied by some plausible reasoning for why it will work better than the canonical method. (On that score I can accept "I don't know", if the canonical method is obviously failing us, in that case just being different might be worth a try. Kind of like my reason for supporting Obama.)

some people enjoy educating a lay audience.

You need lay readers, first.

I have found on countless occasions

Wolf: Fair enough. As I said, it's not for everybody.

Science. With a scientist! Good get, bhtv! And congratulations to our guests for (one hopes) showing the way to a healthier relationship between science and science journalism, which often reads more like the plot of "Fatal Attraction." [For just one ready recent example of "stalker" science journalism, see Michael Pollan's recent brain fart at TED. ]

Does anybody know if the science journalist Jennifer Ouellette the same Jennifer Ouellette who designed this 'Jennifer Ouellette peacock eye satin & feather bow headband' ( http://www.julib.com/chicago/headcas...8CH_email.html )? I mean, she doesn't really seem like a fashion designer from this video, but the headband involves a patented system... so that's scientific.

Quoting Rachel8826: Does anybody know if the science journalist Jennifer Ouellette the same Jennifer Ouellette who designed this 'Jennifer Ouellette peacock eye satin & feather bow headband' ( http://www.julib.com/chicago/headcas...8CH_email.html )? I mean, she doesn't really seem like a fashion designer from this video, but the headband involves a patented system... so that's scientific.

An interesting question. I think the answer is no, if you compare the two about pages: Our JO and the other JO. But in support of your reasoning, note the final paragraph from the latter (emph. added):

Independent since 1996, Jennifer Ouellette, Inc. delivers millinery and accessories to women who demand more than shallow trends and throw away styles. Interpreted for the urban woman of today, she presents designs of traditional quality with a singular attention to detail. Always fashionable, drawn from science and nature, timely and timeless, superior designs from Jennifer Ouellette.