Blogging our work and working our blogs

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A few weeks ago, my friend Anton noted the increasing role that blogs can play in professional development and networking.

My friend and fellow NC Science Blogging Conference organizer Bora Zivkovic is benefitting from a similar, ad hoc experiment: when he found out about a cool job at PLoS, he wrote a post titled I Want This Job!. He tells me that the many adoring comments that his readers posted to that entry made quite an impression with PLoS. I hope Bora will be able to write soon about how his blogging led to a new job.

Meanwhile, another Chapel Hill friend and blogger, Ruby Sinreich, has announced through her blog her that sheā€™s on the job market.
– mistersugar: Catch-up blogging

Bora actually got that job, and will now be telecommuting to San Francisco for the Public Library of Science.

Yes. I said I wanted this job. And, in a very new and interesting way, after a fun interview, I got it. Signed and faxed the contract yesterday. Will be in San Francisco for a little while in July, then telecommute afterwards. Can pajamas be deducted as tools one needs for the job? Exciting!
– A Blog Around The Clock : It’s Official!

However, I must caution Bora against working in pajamas. Although I’ve done it myself on occasion, don’t underestimate the beneficial psychological effect of taking a shower and getting dressed. Plus you never know when a colleague will want to try video conferencing. šŸ˜‰

The latest addiction

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Flixster.com combines the data on IMdB.com with all network-y goodness of FilmTrust and the user-submitted content of MySpace. The interface isn’t quite as horrible, and there’s lots more to do there than surf your friends pages. Witness: I just spent much of the last few hours there and I have no friends in the system. (Although I do have almost 30 Facebook friends using it through their integrated application.)

The main benefit for me over IMdB (which I love) is the ease of surfing movies and the simplicity of rating and reviewing. The associated drawback is that there is much less rich information about each film, performer, and crew member.

But wait, there’s also widgets!

Is Mt. Gravel a symbol?

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Cross-posted at techPresident.

Astrophysicist being interviewed For this installment of my series of visits to each candidate’s Second Life efforts, I was joined by PDF Associate Editor Josh Levy, also known as Spencer Mukerji. We had the good fortune of running into Astrophysicist McCallister who is the official (but unpaid) Second Life Coordinator for Mike Gravel’s presidential campaign.

This is the first campaign we have seen with an officially recognized and at least nominally supported presence in Second Life. Other efforts are entirely volunteer-generated with little or no contact with their respective campaigns. Overall, I was impressed with Gravel’s site. It has a professional feeling (not overly showy nor amateurish) and is quite functional as well.

Continue reading “Is Mt. Gravel a symbol?” →

Welcome, Earthlyn

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Earthlyn I just renewed my lapsed membership the Buddhist Peace Fellowship in honor of their new new Executive Director. Since they are based in San Fransisco, I don’t know much about their internal workings, but I know there have been some stumbles in the past. (Like when Diana Winston, who founded their incredible BASE program, was let go.)

I am happy to see that the new BPF director is Earthlyn Manuel, an African-American woman with a history of addressing oppression of many kinds. She seems to have all the requisite Buddhist cred, but also represents the necessary challenge to dominant culture that is an essential part of being an Engaged Buddhist.

She also has one of the coolest names I have heard in a while. šŸ™‚

And me with no A/C

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Our air went out 6 days ago, and yesterday it burned out a new motor while being repaired. I think a few extra trips to the pool are in order this week.

A BUILDING AREA OF HIGH PRESSURE WILL BRING VERY HOT CONDITIONS TO CENTRAL NORTH CAROLINA ON FRIDAY. AFTERNOON TEMPERATURES ARE PROJECTED TO BE IN THE MID AND UPPER 90S. THESE TEMPERATURES COUPLED WITH THE HUMIDITY WILL CREATED HEAT INDICES IN THE 100-104 DEGREE RANGE IN THE AFTERNOON.
– National Weather Service Watch Warning Advisory Summary

Obama fans get their reggaeton on

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Cross-posted at techPresident.

Warning: visiting the front page of Amigos de Obama will cause an enthusiastic reggaeton paean in Spanglish to Barack Obama to start playing and offer you no way to stop it. Which is why I recommend you skip right to the about page, which contains the lyrics (excerpted below) and explains how the words came to the (anonymous?) author in February after having been inspired by the candidate’s “authentic” message. Gosh, where do you think he picked up that talking point?

Anyway, the interesting tech angle is that you can also download an MP3 or put the ringtone on your phone.

Having lived in Miami for 5 years, I do speak a little Spanglish. And of course I love to see people doing their own thing instead of just being tools for the campaign. So I think this is cute, and might even help a little down the path of people spreading the word within their own communities, although the message is not really very unique.

Dicen que no contamosā€¦
Invisibles porque no votamosā€¦
Pero aqui estamos y todo esto va cambiarā€¦
We did the marchas y ahora vamos a votar.
Listen to me gente, es tiempo para algo diferente..
What we need is un nuevo presidenteā€¦
Como Se Diceā€¦Como Se llama?
OBAMA! OBAMA! (Repeat)

– Amigos de Obama

Ruby’s gringa translation:
They say we don’t count…
Invisible because we don’t vote…
But here we are and all of this will change…
We did the marches and now we’re going to vote.
Listen to me people, it’s time for something different.
What we need is a new president.

chorus:
How do you say it*… What’s he called?
OBAMA! OBAMA

* Or: What’s it called

[Via Wonkette.]

More microformats

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Today, Brian and I attended DCampSouth in way way north Raleigh. Congrats to Jackson on organizing a fun and stimulating unconference around design and user experience.

Thomas Vander Wal started the day with a keynote about tagging and folksonomy. His talk led me to thinking about the incredible value we invest in sites where we not only post our content, but also indicate what it means by tagging it for the community to see.

I think that microformats are a key way that we can organize and share our own data, while still taking advantage of community sites. So I led a session on this topic. There were about 10 participants including Mr. Vander Wal. It was a very interesting discussion and I think we all learned something new about microformats and open standards on the web.

Here are the notes I just posted on the DCampSouth wiki…
Continue reading “More microformats” →