I’ve seen an uptick in traffic to my site recently, which means new eyeballs and more brains (BRRRAAAIIINS). Welcome! I’m glad you’re here. You’ll no doubt agree that this is the most wonderful, well-written, brilliant, and practically perfect in every way science blog in the known Universe.
But it also means people not familiar with this blog may see things they’re not used to. I’ve been getting a lot of, um, interesting comments in the past few weeks, so perhaps it will help if I post a little intro to me and my blog.
1) I post a lot of pretty pictures of astronomical objects, which I then use to gently inject a little scientific awesomeness into your life. In many of these cases, the picture itself is a link to a much higher-resolution version. When this happens, I will let you know with a bracketed sentence under the picture saying something like “[Click to embiggen.]”. This is then nearly inevitably comically followed by commenters telling me huffily that no such word exists, despite it being perfectly cromulent. Whenever this happens, I like to think that a deceased Simpsons character gets its wings.
2) I hang out a lot on social media platforms. I’m on Twitter, and Facebook, and Google+. I’ll note that due to the limitations on Facebook, I cannot add any more friends. But I do have one of those fan pages which you can like or upvote or whatever the kids are doing these days.
Speaking of which, I also hang out on Fark and reddit. I’m also a big fan of StumbleUpon, which has been very good to this blog. If you’re a member of SU, feel free to vote up my posts; there’s a link at the top of every post on the right, just under the title.
3) I will sometimes post about politics, religion, “alternative” medicine, and the like. Reading these posts will no doubt elicit knowing smiles from some, and furious comments from others (generally of the “I thought this was an astronomy blog!” type of complaint). Please, before leaving the latter, read my page on this. I also have a short but sweet commenting policy.
4) There are times I tackle subjects that are complex and subtle. When I do, I try to keep the post short, and use links to other sites or posts that have details. This saves me having to write everything out, and you having to slog through three times as much material as you might need. Istrongly urge you to click those links. Life is rarely simple, and details count.
5) Speaking of which, whenever I use the term “denier” I get grief from some folks too who infer far more out of that word than I imply. This might help.
6) I’m a geek/dork/nerd. I love science fiction, Doctor Who, Star Trek, and many of the trappings of the sci-fi culture. I post about those, too, and sometimes pictures of my dogs and cat and biking trips. I don’t generally get complaints about those though, which I find funny in light of the parenthetical comment I made in #3 above.
7) I wrote a book! Two, in fact.
So there you have it: me in a nutshell. I hope you like it here! I love writing this blog, and it’s still fresh and fun even after all these years. I hope you agree and stick around. There’s a lot going on out there, and I plan on talking to you good folks about it for a long time to come.
Related posts:
- Comments Policy
- Politics, science, me and thee
- I’m skeptical of denialism
