Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Two posts I don't need to write

Maria at Green Gabbro writes about geology terms that should be brought back from the dead. (That means I don't need to write a sequel to my post about retiring outmoded terms. Plus she knows some really good words. I'm going to have to find a way to use tiphon and gnamma in conversation this week.)

And Chris at Highly Allochthonous writes about a discussion of science blogging in this month's Nature Geoscience (which, amusingly enough, also featured letters from Julia and me that were, at least in my case, requested by the editor after he read my blog). One of the opinion pieces is by Gavin Schmidt at RealClimate, and argues for the usefulness of blogging. The other one - the one that made me want to blog - was by Myles Allen, who argues that discussions of the scientific literature belong in comments and replies. (I might still have to write about this, from the perspective of a teacher... but Chris has some interesting things to say, so maybe I'll just stick to commenting there.)

3 comments:

Silver Fox said...

Perhaps one of the implications, then, is that blog comments are important, the stuff of science - the main reason/purpose of blogging. Or maybe that's going too far! Anyway, possibly it means I don't need to apologize for my incessant blog-like comments on jobs a few days ago. I felt like - oh, I should blog on that - but haven't quite been inspired to (had the time?)

Kim said...

I think that comments are the thing that makes blogging more interesting than tacking typewritten rants to bulletin boards. The interaction creates a different dynamic, somewhere between the written word (because blog posts become archived) and a conversation.

Chris R said...

Interesting to hear that your letter was solicited.

I'd completely agree that comments add a lot to the whole blogging experience - I learn quite a lot from reading other people's responses to my ramblings. And it's pretty cool when the subject comments himself - even if I completely disagree with him...

I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts as well, Kim.