The other day I mentioned that 3 Quarks Daily is running a contest for the best science blog entry of the past year. I just found out that voting is now open, and there are a LOT of great articles there (here’s a clickable list). I read quite a few when they came out, unsurprisingly; I subscribe to a lot of blogs to try to stay up to speed with science news. What was surprising to me was that there are quite a few blogs I had never even heard of. I don’t have time to keep up anymore, I suppose.
Hey! I think maybe that’s a good thing. When there are too many science blogs to read, then that means more science is getting out there. I know it’s not that simple, but still. Cool.
If you’ve got the time (and it’ll take some) then go through some of those posts listed at 3QD and see what you like. There are a whole bunch in there I need to read, too. Voting ends June 8th.
No, not Kevin Spacey.
1) I’m interviewed on the most recent episode of The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe podcast, one of my faves, about the Star Trek movie, the Million Dollar Challenge failure of Patricia Putt, and a few other things. Here’s the direct link, too.
2) A new Are We Alone podcast is now online.
3) The new Carnival of Space (#105) is up at Space Disco. As always, tons of electronic yumminess there to keep you busy getting updates on space and astronomy.
I’m very excited to announce a new contest: Capture the Universe, an astrophotography contest sponsored by Discover Magazine and Celestron Images!
Entering is pretty easy: all you have to do is read the rules, register, and then upload an astrophoto you took. The picture itself can be anything, from a highly processed deep sky shot taken with fancy-schmancy high-end equipment to a cool picture taken with any piece of Celestron equipment. I also happen to know that the judge likes not just pretty pictures, but ones that are clever and different.
How do I know this? Because I’m the judge! The Hive Overmind Discover Magazine asked me to be the sole arbiter for this contest, and I know what I like. Still, surprise me! Got a gorgeous shot of the Moon rising, the Sun setting, a planetary nebula using three-color narrow-band imaging, a satellite crossing a well-known object, or Saturn with its rings almost perfectly edge-on? Send ‘em in!
You might just win a very nice prize, like a Celestron NexStar 8SE, a sweet 8-inch ’scope worth $US1399! Not to mention fame and glory, and getting name-checked right here on this very blog.
The contest starts today, June 1, and runs through June 30, 2009, so you have one month. Start snapping!
3QuarksDaily has announced that they have set up a prize for the best science blog posts of the year. I think that’s a fine idea; science blogs have been underrepresented in annual blog awards.
It would be impolitic (though not entirely out of character) for me to promote my own blog posts thusly, but if anyone happens to nominate one of my posts, I won’t stop them… and of course if you know of a worthy post on another blog I heartily and seriously encourage you to send it in. I already have.
If by some some freak of nature or mistake on the judge’s part I happen to place in the contest, I will donate the won money to a worthy cause: the JREF. That only seems right.
So start digging around my archives and those of other bloggers, and start submitting. But not, of course, from PZ’s. That would be silly.
Tip o’ the pen nib to Observations of a Nerd.
If you hadn’t noticed yet, there are some changes around these parts of the blog. After much sturm and drang and rending of garments from people, you now have the ability to edit your comments! Also, comments are now numbered, making them easier to follow. You can now refer back to the number of a comment to make it easier for folks to understand what you’re talking about.
The social network button have changed as well; we now have Reddit, Facebook (new!), Fark (new!), Stumbleupon, Digg, and the little green sideways V thingy that allows you to access lots of other socnets. And speaking of which, follow me on Twitter for great justice.
There will be more changes eventually, including pink comments for women and blue for men, red for conservatives and transparent for libertarians, as well as the Esperanto filter and unicorn uploader. Until then, enjoy.
Last week was the BA giveaway contest for the book Confessions of an Alien Hunter and the CD set of the "Are We Alone" radio show.
There were an amazing 835 comments on that post. I went to random.org to get the numbers, and for the first time in this contest, the winner didn’t reply by Monday at noon. Turns out the message I sent got stuck in his spam filter, so let that be a lesson to y’all. I felt badly for him, since something like that never occurred to me, so I’m sending him a consolation prize (basically, random junk I’ve collected at meetings). But I won’t do that again, since now that’s a known problem!
The second number chosen was 798, which belongs to Stephen, who replied immediately, so the CD set is on its way to him.
The third number chosen (to replace the first) was 12, which was from Ewan. He replied, and the book is winging its way to him.
Just to keep me honest:
Note that the later number won the book, because of the spam issue. And I think we all know I lack the skillz needed to fake those images.
Thanks for playing everyone, but don’t fret. There’s more where that came from… a lot more. I’ll have another contest very soon. Stay Tuned!
ALERT: I’ll be doing a live video webcast on Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour (aka This Week in Science) with Kiki Sanford and Leo Laporte at 3:00 Pacific time (22:00 GMT) today. We’ll be talking Hubble and what’s going in space over our heads even as we’re talking about it. I think it’ll be live on UStream.tv which also has a chat room embedded where you can leave comments and ask questions.
I’ll update this blog post and include more links as I figure them out. I’ll also post updates on Twitter too.
UPDATE: Try http://live.twit.tv/ for the live stream of the show, and the chat room is http://irc.twit.tv/.
