Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
Pre-conference or post-conference session - save an additional $45.
Use discount code: NCF0845
We've been remiss in letting you know about two new independent blogs we've helped launch in the past month or so.
The first - the ConversationHub - is a companion blog to Supernova 2007, the latest edition of Kevin Werbach's excellent conference on all things connected. As the conference site says: "Supernova examines the effects of an increasingly connected world on business, life, and public policy. As disparate physical and social networks link with one another, a new societal network is rapidly evolving... The New Network is greater than the sum of its parts. It challenges us to re-create everything from the software and hardware we use...to the business models we employ...to the information and entertainment we encounter...to the ways we work and play."
Visit the ConversationHub and you'll find several dozen leading thinkers and doers, led by a few notable ringleaders, weighing in on the themes and trends of the day in technology and business. We encourage you to tune in - feel free to comment and even suggest topics and ideas for posts.
The second blog - Mobile Messaging 2.0 - convenes about a dozen top observers of the mobile messaging space for an intense discussion of the industry and where it's headed. Among its contributors are leading commentators, journalists and players in the field - tune in and you'll find them touching on topics such as mobile device design, messaging platforms, market pressures, user-generated content, interface design, and much, much more.
Also, if you visit the site, which is sponsored by Airwide Solutions, this week, you'll find live coverage and commentary from Global Messaging 2007, to which several of our contributors have traveled to hear about the latest developments from a broad spectrum of the industry's players and providers.
Be sure to catch the Office 2.0 Conference and hear from and engage with leading thinkers and doers in this exciting new market. Find out more here and be sure to use the code "GLDRK" for a special discount for Corante readers.
In the Pipeline: Don't miss Derek Lowe's excellent commentary on drug discovery and the pharma industry in general at In the Pipeline
(Warning: this post contains some journalistic/blogging inside-baseball material.)
Back in the dark ages (otherwise known as the 1990s), writing about science felt a bit like putting messages in a bottle. I'd write an article, a few weeks or months later it would appear in a magazine, and a few weeks or months later I might get a response from a reader. In some cases, an expert might point out an error I made. In other cases, she or he might explain the real story which I had missed. The delay could make for some disconcerting experiences. The first time I met the late Stephen Jay Gould, to interview him for a book I was working on, I was still lowering myself into a chair when he began complaining about the cover headline to a story I had written about fossil birds over a year beforehand. I stared at him blankly for a while as I reached back into my memory banks to figure out what he was talking about.
It's much better these days, now that people can hammer me with emails seconds after my stories is are published. Science is a murky, complex endeavor, and my job has never stopped feeling like an apprenticehip, as I learn from mistakes.
But this new arrangement comes with a downside. Some criticisms are unjustified, and instead of simply emailing me these complaints, people sometimes decide to publish them for all to see.
John Hawks, an anthropologist at the University of Wisconsin, has done just this. He has written a long complaint about an article I wrote for the latest issue of Discover. The issue celebrates the 25th anniversary of the magazine, and it contains a series of two-page spreads that take a look at different fields in science and where they're headed. The editors asked me to contribute a piece on human evolution. I included an interview with Tim White of Berkeley, an essay on the growing role of scanning in studies on hominid fossils, and a large graphic showing how scientists used CT-scans to reconstruct the skull of Sahelanthropus, the oldest known skull of a hominid.
Hawks makes a series of complaints about the piece, but rather than sticking to the article itself, he tends to focus on the "subtext," which he alone has the mysterious power to read. For example, the subtext apparently says that "anything high tech must be better." I never made such a claim, and it would have been silly for me to add a disclaimer to that effect: "Warning--not all things high tech are better." Healthy skepticism is certainly a virtue, but Hawks is ignoring the fact that the entire issue is dedicated to promising new scientific developments. (Here's an article on research on using lasers in art conservation. I suppose Hawks would complain that the article didn't mention that lasers can also kill people.)
When Hawks does actually deal with the article itself, he makes some serious mistakes. He mocks the conclusion of my piece, in which I describe some new applications of fossil scans--such as reconstructing wounds, simulating hominids walking, and making the scans available online to other researchers who can't see the originals. "So utopian," he sneers.
As evidence, he turns to my interview with Tim White, in which White talked about the importance of other kinds of technology to the study of human evolution--such as the global positioning system, advances in dating fossils. "No CT scans there," Hawks declares.
Hawks shouldn't argue from the absence of evidence. Actually, White talked to me at length about the promise of CT scans, including some of the applications I mentioned in the article. It would have been redundant to include his comments. Hawks may not be impressed by scans, but he shouldn't count White on his side.
So why isn't Hawks impressed with scans? For one thing, scientists can make mistakes with them, producing recontructions as biased as any handmade reconstruction. "The principle of 'garbage in, garbage out' is everlasting," he says.
True, but so what? I remember the same argument being made in the 1990s, when some biologists were starting to reconstruct the tree of life by using computers to analyze DNA sequences and morphological features, rather than relying on a more intuitive sense of what evolved from what (a method known as cladistics). Critics warned that the cladists were just dumping bad data into their computers, and so their conclusions couldn't be trusted. In fact, the cladists were producing testable hypotheses with explicit assumptions that anyone could challenge. Of course there are cases in which this approach may face problems (in comparing populations of the same species, for example, or species that can swap genes, for example). But that hasn't stopped cladistic trees from becoming the standard for the field. The garbage-in-garbage-out complaint is equally beside the point when it comes to predicting the importance of scans to the study of human evolution.
Descending again into my subtext, Hawks writes that "a read of the article gives the impression that every finding from this new advanced technology supports splitting hominids into several species." If I may indulge in a little subtext-divining myself, I think we're getting somewhere now. Hawks is a long-time proponent of the idea that too many hominid fossils have been designated as separate species. It just so happens that a couple of recently published scans--one of Neanderthal children and one of the "Hobbit" brain--have been interpreted by the authors of these studies as supporting the idea that these fossils do not belong to humans, but to other species. But instead of directing his wrath at these scientists, Hawks directs it at me. In order to do so, however, he has to ignore the fact that I write about many other applications of scans that don't support splitting hominids into several species.
Hawks is perfectly entitled to attack hominid-splitting (and on his blog he has done a great job of documenting new research that supports his attack). But I don't appreciate him distorting my own writing to serve that agenda. It's particularly unfair to do so when most people haven't had a chance to read the article for themselves, and have to rely instead on Hawks's misleading summary.
Update, Wed. 1pm: Another improvement on the dark ages: when I attack, the attackee can respond. John Hawks defends his post in the comments. I agree that CT scans of hominid fossils are not now being freely shared on the net. But I think there's reason to be optimistic--see, for example, the Digimorph Project, which is building up a big database of scans of bones from living and fossil animals. Would it have been utopian to predict Digimorph a decade ago?
Well, this is something almost every science writer may encounter. Science writing is to communicate information at best efforts. And this may inevitably ddissatisfy somebody, for it's not a scientific paper (but even a paper can not be perfect).
As for Hawks' case, he may feel that you didn't include his opinion. (yes, his "no CT scan here" is really ludicrous.) But it's unrealistic to quote him every time.
2. Robert Karls Stonjek on September 14, 2005 08:11 AM writes...
...and they can hassle you with minor details and nit picking, like the grammar error in your second paragraph
"after my stories is are published."
...not that I'd do anything like that :)
Actually, being dyslexic has an advantage – as I don’t trust my own ability to spell I always leave it to the computer to check, and as I may also read over grammar errors I always get the text-to-speech engine to read it back to me. The surprising upshot is that this system is so effective that I find errors in other people’s work.
We have a remarkable ability to error-correct as we read (but dyslexics don’t, so reading errors actually become compounded) so that we tend to correct our own errors and so don’t ‘see’ them. But in hearing a piece read back by another (person or computer, though a person may read over errors corrected on the fly as well) one tends to readily pick out the errors, as with the above example.
3. John Hawks on September 14, 2005 12:53 PM writes...
Hi, Carl!
I'm not sneering at you. Really. I'm a big fan. And financial contributor, since I have all your books (even At the Water's Edge), and I frequently link over here to your posts!
And no, I'm definitely not on the list of people to interview about CT scanning, although for Neandertals and genetics, I'm your guy.
Of course, if I could *get* CT data, I would probably use it. That's the "utopian" part. Everybody doing this work says how great it is that everyone else will have access to their data. But none of this data is available. Data from only seven fossils (all out of the ground for more than thirty years, I might add) are available for *purchase*, none are available to the public.
Perhaps new data access guidelines at NSF will have an effect. But at the moment, consider the Sahelanthropus reconstruction that your article features. The CT reconstruction shows it likely had a vertical posture.
But how many skeptics were allowed to examine the CT model? I happen to know, because I am one, the answer is zero. Yet, the simple *fact* of the model simply ends debate on the issue, even though nobody else can independently replicate it. If I wanted to write up the features of the skull that are *inconsistent* with vertical posture, I can't -- because someone else can keep these data away from me.
So, I have grounds to complain about CT -- from my perspective it has made the science worse. But do I have grounds to complain about your article?
Well, reading over my post, I don't think I said anything that bad about it. Surely it is true that your *text* says that not everything high-tech is good. But everything else that you wrote about high-tech said it *is* good. That's the definition of a *subtext*. I don't think I'm the only one who would find that subtext there: as you say, Discover was running articles that month about how great new technology is going to be for science. In other words, it was an *intended* subtext. It's not my fault the editors wanted articles trumpeting tech changes, and it's not your fault you wrote one.
But as a scientist writing about my science, I have to give my own opinion (that's why I'm a blogger and not a journalist), and I don't think it was unfair to point out the agenda. I have done so with Discover articles before, and I'm a subscriber so I have some right (there's that financial contribution again!).
I do mention the theme of the issue right in the first paragraph of my post. The article doesn't give any information at all about why anyone would think CT scanning isn't the cat's pajamas; I give positives and negatives. And what's the use of having a blog if I can't be snarky once in a while? The idea that everyone will be happy when they have CT scans at last *is* utopian; the printed text of Tim White's interview *doesn't* mention CT scans. Perhaps it's sin by omission, but whose fault is that? Most of the other interviews in the issue (this you didn't mention) *did* focus on just the same topic as the article they accompanied.
So, just to sum up: I am still a fan of Carl Zimmer. I do not wish to rack up quotes in future Carl Zimmer articles. I do not think my post was unfair; it is more balanced on the positives and negatives of CT scanning than the original article. And my complaint is not that the CT interpreters are splitters and I'm a lumper; it is that the CT interpreters are acting like high priests of technology who don't deign to allow their work to be replicated independently.
I think that a survey of people in the field would show this point of view is widely shared.
5. Sandra in Dallas on September 16, 2005 11:17 PM writes...
In his Sept 14 comment above Hawks says CT scans have made science worse. However, what he really is decrying is the lack of public access to the scans. There is a huge difference and it puzzles me that he is beating the wrong drum, and so obviously.
In any case, I am always eagerly awaiting the next Carl Zimmer book.
6. Martin Brazeau on September 18, 2005 07:35 AM writes...
I'm currently working in a lab that is undertaking CT scans of various fossil lobe-finned fishes and early tetrapods. We are getting excellent results with the technique. I find this "garbage in, garbage out" comment to be rather peculiar. While I see how a person could "fake up" their three dimensional model, it would take a lot of work to make corresponding data appear in the scan slices. Besides, if somebody questioned your work, it would simply be a matter of scanning the specimen again (though it might cost them a pretty penny). The results are reliable, repeatable, and checkable.
This method is becoming a major component of my Ph.D. thesis. There are aspects of morphology (such as the presence of positional relationships of certain bones) that one's bias cannot easily interpolate into the modeling process. The information obtained, however, gives us very important clues into the morphological evolution and functional morphology of these animals. I think that eschewing this kind of promising technology is scientifically irresponsible. New technology might not be perfect, but ignoring the virtues it does offer does not help science.
Compare CT with the serial grinding methods of yesteryear (of pre-Dark Ages (sensu Zimmer) time): fossils were actually ground up, one slice at a time, each slice was drawn, blown up, and traced into a sheet of wax. The result, was a larger-than-life wax model of you fossil, and no original fossil left over. This method offers higher resolution than CT, but comes with its own set of problems!
7. Scott Maxwell on October 4, 2005 05:13 PM writes...
Hmmmmm......do I detect a faint whiff of the old
Chris Stringer vs Milton Wolphol(sp) controversy ???
God I hope so. The field has been very bland since those two went head to head. Mr Hawks is obviously in the Milton camp. Are you a closet
Stringer fan Carl ? If so, let the barbs and personal attacks begin. I will buy tickets for a front row seat.
8. Scott Maxwell on October 4, 2005 05:15 PM writes...
Hmmmmm......do I detect a faint whiff of the old
Chris Stringer vs Milton Wolphol(sp) controversy ???
God I hope so. The field has been very bland since those two went head to head. Mr Hawks is obviously in the Milton camp. Are you a closet
Stringer fan Carl ? If so, let the barbs and personal attacks begin. I will buy tickets for a front row seat.
Corante: technology, business, media, law, and culture news from the blogosphere
OUR PUBLICATIONS:
Corante is a trusted, unbiased source on technology, business, law, science, and culture that’s authored by leading commentators and thinkers in their respective fields. Corante also produces premium conferences and publications that help decision-makers better understand their industries and the world around them.
Corante Blogs
Corante Blogs examine, through the eyes of leading observers, analysts, thinkers, and doers, critical themes and memes in technology, business, law, science, and culture.
Vin Crosbie, on the challenges, financial and otherwise, that newspaper publishers are facing: "The real problem, Mr. Newspaperman, isn't that your content isn't online or isn't online with multimedia. It's your content. Specifically, it's what you report, which stories you publish, and how you publish them to people, who, by the way, have very different individual interests. The problem is the content you're giving them, stupid; not the platform its on."
by Vin Crosbie in Rebuilding Media
There's a problem in the drug industry that people have recognized for some years, but we're not that much closer to dealing with it than we were then. We keep coming up with these technologies and techniques which seem as if they might be able to help us with some of our nastiest problems - I'm talking about genomics in all its guises, and metabolic profiling, and naturally the various high-throughput screening platforms, and others. But whether these are helping or not (and opinions sure do vary), one thing that they all have in common is that they generate enormous heaps of data.
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Now that the Web labor market is saturated and Web design a static profession, it's not surprising that 'user experience' designers and researchers who've spent their careers online are looking for new worlds to conquer. Some are returning to the “old media” as directors and producers. More are now doing offline consulting (service experience design, social policy design, exhibition design, and so on) under the 'user experience' aegis. They argue that the lessons they've learned on the Web can be applied to phenomena in the physical and social worlds. But there are enormous differences...
by Bob Jacobson in Total Experience
Clay Shirky, in deconstructing Second Life hype: "Second Life is heading towards two million users. Except it isn’t, really... I suspect Second Life is largely a 'Try Me' virus, where reports of a strange and wonderful new thing draw the masses to log in and try it, but whose ability to retain anything but a fraction of those users is limited. The pattern of a Try Me virus is a rapid spread of first time users, most of whom drop out quickly, with most of the dropouts becoming immune to later use."
by Clay Shirky in Many-to-Many
Over the last few years we've seen old barriers to creativity coming down, one after the other. New technologies and services makes it trivial to publish text, whether by blog or by print-on-demand. Digital photography has democratised a previously expensive hobby. And we're seeing the barriers to movie-making crumble, with affordable high-quality cameras and video hosting provided by YouTube or Google Video and their ilk... Music making has long been easy for anyone to engage in, but technology has made high-quality recording possible without specialised equipment, and the internet has revolutionised distribution, drastically disintermediating the music industry... What's left? Software maybe? Or maybe not."
by Suw Charman in Strange Attractor
Derek Lowe on the news that the Nobel Prize for medicine has gone to Craig Mello and Andrew Fire for their breakthrough work: "RNA interference is probably going to have a long climb before it starts curing many diseases, because many of those problems are even tougher than usual in its case. That doesn't take away from the discovery, though, any more than the complications of off-target effects take away from it when you talk about RNAi's research uses in cell culture. The fact that RNA interference is trickier than it first looked, in vivo or in vitro, is only to be expected. What breakthrough isn't?"
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Andrew Phelps: "Recently my WoW guild has been having a bit of a debate on the merits of Player-vs.-Player (PvP) within Azeroth. My personal opinion on this is that PvP has its merits, and can be incredible fun, but the system within WoW is horridly, horribly broken. It takes into account the concept of the battle, but battle without consequence, without emotive context, and most importantly, without honor..."
From later in the piece: "When I talk about this with people (thus far anyway) I typically get one of two responses, either 'yeah, right on!' or 'hey, it’s war, and war isn’t honorable – grow the hell up'. There is a lot to be said for that argument – but the problem is that war in the real historical world has very different constraints that are utterly absent from fantasized worlds..."
by Andrew Phelps in Got Game
Derek Lowe: "So, you're developing a drug candidate. You've settled on what looks like a good compound - it has the activity you want in your mouse model of the disease, it's not too hard to make, and it's not toxic. Everything looks fine. Except. . .one slight problem. Although the compound has good blood levels in the mouse and in the dog, in rats it's terrible. For some reason, it just doesn't get up there. Probably some foul metabolic pathway peculiar to rats (whose innards are adapted, after all, for dealing with every kind of garbage that comes along). So, is this a problem?.."
by Derek Lowe in In the Pipeline
Bob Jacobson, on shopping at his local Albertsons supermarket where he had "one of the worst customer experiences" of his life: "Say what you will about the Safeway chain or the Birkenstock billionaires who charge through the roof for Whole Foods' organic fare, they know how to create shopping environments that create a more pleasurable experience, at its best (as at Whole Foods) quite enjoyable. Even the warehouses like Costco and its smaller counterpart, Smart & Final, do just fine: they have no pretentions, but neither do they dump virtual garbage on the consumer merely to create another trivial revenue stream, all for the sake of promotions in the marketing department..."
by Strange Attractor in Total Experience
Kevin Anderson: "First off, I want to say that I really admire the ambition of the Guardian Unlimited’s Comment is Free. It is one of the boldest statements made by any media company that participation needs to be central to a radical revamp of traditional content strategies... It is, therfore, not hugely surprising to find that Comment is Free is having a few teething troubles..."
by Kevin Anderson in strange
Corante Developments
Here you will find the latest news from Corante including updates on upcoming events, new initiatives, product and publication launches, and more.
It was with shock that I returned home from a night out last night to hear the news of Russell's passing. How terribly, terribly sad. Most of all for him, as he'd seemed buoyant, healthier, and content when I'd last seen him several months ago when he was in town - he was happy that work was busy and rewarding and was having fun with it but most of all was thrilled about how things were going with his girlfriend, Ellen.
I've known Russ for what seems like ages now (in a good way) though in fact it's only been about six or seven years since the early days of "commercial" blogging when he started working on various projects at and around Corante. He was a diligent, committed, and prolific journalist who had impressively and more ably than others been able to make the transition from the old-school way of doing things to the new. He had his quirks, as we all do, but I greatly valued that he was good-natured, collegial, reliable, quick to adopt, trustworthy, eager to learn, and earnest in his interest in helping others better understand what he wrote about.
He was also, it should be said, a kind and thoughtful soul and it was the rare conversation in which he didn't ask, with sincerity, about what he knew of my life, e.g. our new babe, and we didn't talk as seemingly old friends about our lives and respective paths. I can't say I knew him very well, of course, but in our half-dozen get-togethers over the years and dozens of conversations I got a good sense of the man: he cared about learning and sharing and his bearing was earnest and ego-less and we'll miss him for that and more.
We wanted to let you know about a discount to New Comm Forum, the annual event event put on by our friends at the Society for New Communications Research. The conference, which runs from April 22-25, will feature many of the field's leading observers and is an important event for those looking, in the words of SNCR, to "better understand new communications tools, technologies and emerging modes of communication, and their effect on traditional media, professional communications, business, culture and society."
Check out the event's website and, if you're interested in attending, be sure to use the code supplied below for a special discount.
EARLY BIRD PRICING - NOW UNTIL FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $995.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $195.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
REGULAR PRICING - AFTER FEB. 15th
NewComm Forum Conference - $1095.
Pre-conference or post-conference session - $249.
SNCR Jam only - $75.
CORANTE READER DISCOUNTS
NewComm Forum Conference - save an additional $100
Use discount code: NCF08100
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1. cats on September 13, 2005 11:52 AM writes...
Well, this is something almost every science writer may encounter. Science writing is to communicate information at best efforts. And this may inevitably ddissatisfy somebody, for it's not a scientific paper (but even a paper can not be perfect).
As for Hawks' case, he may feel that you didn't include his opinion. (yes, his "no CT scan here" is really ludicrous.) But it's unrealistic to quote him every time.
Anyway, cheers up, Carl.
Permalink to Comment2. Robert Karls Stonjek on September 14, 2005 08:11 AM writes...
...and they can hassle you with minor details and nit picking, like the grammar error in your second paragraph
"after my stories is are published."
...not that I'd do anything like that :)
Actually, being dyslexic has an advantage – as I don’t trust my own ability to spell I always leave it to the computer to check, and as I may also read over grammar errors I always get the text-to-speech engine to read it back to me. The surprising upshot is that this system is so effective that I find errors in other people’s work.
We have a remarkable ability to error-correct as we read (but dyslexics don’t, so reading errors actually become compounded) so that we tend to correct our own errors and so don’t ‘see’ them. But in hearing a piece read back by another (person or computer, though a person may read over errors corrected on the fly as well) one tends to readily pick out the errors, as with the above example.
Kind Regards
Permalink to CommentRobert Karl Stonjek
3. John Hawks on September 14, 2005 12:53 PM writes...
Hi, Carl!
I'm not sneering at you. Really. I'm a big fan. And financial contributor, since I have all your books (even At the Water's Edge), and I frequently link over here to your posts!
And no, I'm definitely not on the list of people to interview about CT scanning, although for Neandertals and genetics, I'm your guy.
Of course, if I could *get* CT data, I would probably use it. That's the "utopian" part. Everybody doing this work says how great it is that everyone else will have access to their data. But none of this data is available. Data from only seven fossils (all out of the ground for more than thirty years, I might add) are available for *purchase*, none are available to the public.
Perhaps new data access guidelines at NSF will have an effect. But at the moment, consider the Sahelanthropus reconstruction that your article features. The CT reconstruction shows it likely had a vertical posture.
But how many skeptics were allowed to examine the CT model? I happen to know, because I am one, the answer is zero. Yet, the simple *fact* of the model simply ends debate on the issue, even though nobody else can independently replicate it. If I wanted to write up the features of the skull that are *inconsistent* with vertical posture, I can't -- because someone else can keep these data away from me.
So, I have grounds to complain about CT -- from my perspective it has made the science worse. But do I have grounds to complain about your article?
Well, reading over my post, I don't think I said anything that bad about it. Surely it is true that your *text* says that not everything high-tech is good. But everything else that you wrote about high-tech said it *is* good. That's the definition of a *subtext*. I don't think I'm the only one who would find that subtext there: as you say, Discover was running articles that month about how great new technology is going to be for science. In other words, it was an *intended* subtext. It's not my fault the editors wanted articles trumpeting tech changes, and it's not your fault you wrote one.
But as a scientist writing about my science, I have to give my own opinion (that's why I'm a blogger and not a journalist), and I don't think it was unfair to point out the agenda. I have done so with Discover articles before, and I'm a subscriber so I have some right (there's that financial contribution again!).
I do mention the theme of the issue right in the first paragraph of my post. The article doesn't give any information at all about why anyone would think CT scanning isn't the cat's pajamas; I give positives and negatives. And what's the use of having a blog if I can't be snarky once in a while? The idea that everyone will be happy when they have CT scans at last *is* utopian; the printed text of Tim White's interview *doesn't* mention CT scans. Perhaps it's sin by omission, but whose fault is that? Most of the other interviews in the issue (this you didn't mention) *did* focus on just the same topic as the article they accompanied.
So, just to sum up: I am still a fan of Carl Zimmer. I do not wish to rack up quotes in future Carl Zimmer articles. I do not think my post was unfair; it is more balanced on the positives and negatives of CT scanning than the original article. And my complaint is not that the CT interpreters are splitters and I'm a lumper; it is that the CT interpreters are acting like high priests of technology who don't deign to allow their work to be replicated independently.
I think that a survey of people in the field would show this point of view is widely shared.
Permalink to Comment4. Artedi on September 15, 2005 03:00 PM writes...
Check my lonely spanish blog, please
Permalink to Comment5. Sandra in Dallas on September 16, 2005 11:17 PM writes...
In his Sept 14 comment above Hawks says CT scans have made science worse. However, what he really is decrying is the lack of public access to the scans. There is a huge difference and it puzzles me that he is beating the wrong drum, and so obviously.
In any case, I am always eagerly awaiting the next Carl Zimmer book.
Permalink to Comment6. Martin Brazeau on September 18, 2005 07:35 AM writes...
I'm currently working in a lab that is undertaking CT scans of various fossil lobe-finned fishes and early tetrapods. We are getting excellent results with the technique. I find this "garbage in, garbage out" comment to be rather peculiar. While I see how a person could "fake up" their three dimensional model, it would take a lot of work to make corresponding data appear in the scan slices. Besides, if somebody questioned your work, it would simply be a matter of scanning the specimen again (though it might cost them a pretty penny). The results are reliable, repeatable, and checkable.
This method is becoming a major component of my Ph.D. thesis. There are aspects of morphology (such as the presence of positional relationships of certain bones) that one's bias cannot easily interpolate into the modeling process. The information obtained, however, gives us very important clues into the morphological evolution and functional morphology of these animals. I think that eschewing this kind of promising technology is scientifically irresponsible. New technology might not be perfect, but ignoring the virtues it does offer does not help science.
Compare CT with the serial grinding methods of yesteryear (of pre-Dark Ages (sensu Zimmer) time): fossils were actually ground up, one slice at a time, each slice was drawn, blown up, and traced into a sheet of wax. The result, was a larger-than-life wax model of you fossil, and no original fossil left over. This method offers higher resolution than CT, but comes with its own set of problems!
Permalink to Comment7. Scott Maxwell on October 4, 2005 05:13 PM writes...
Hmmmmm......do I detect a faint whiff of the old
Permalink to CommentChris Stringer vs Milton Wolphol(sp) controversy ???
God I hope so. The field has been very bland since those two went head to head. Mr Hawks is obviously in the Milton camp. Are you a closet
Stringer fan Carl ? If so, let the barbs and personal attacks begin. I will buy tickets for a front row seat.
8. Scott Maxwell on October 4, 2005 05:15 PM writes...
Hmmmmm......do I detect a faint whiff of the old
Permalink to CommentChris Stringer vs Milton Wolphol(sp) controversy ???
God I hope so. The field has been very bland since those two went head to head. Mr Hawks is obviously in the Milton camp. Are you a closet
Stringer fan Carl ? If so, let the barbs and personal attacks begin. I will buy tickets for a front row seat.