tag team

Memes are nefarious things, ricocheting their way around the Internets for months on end, and never quite dying away entirely. It just so happens we have been tagged for the "Thinking Bloggers" meme by Chris Clarke of Creek Running North, posting on Pandagon -- and we're quite flattered to be singled out, and in such good company, too. As memes go, it's a great idea, since it gives everyone a chance to discover new blogs they might otherwise have missed. The problem is picking just five (five?!?) blogs that make me think. So of course I'm going to cheat a little.

1. Cosmic Variance. You knew I was going to lead off with this one. Future Spouse is among the co-bloggers, but collectively, they all make me think (and sometimes make my head hurt), plus they've got one of the liveliest and thought-provoking comment sections in the science-centric blogosphere.

2. SEED Science Blogs. Here's the Big Cheat: there's probably close to a dozen individual blogs under the Borg Umbrella that I'd normally list separately under the Thinking Bloggers rubric, but this way I get to include everyone collectively. Which makes sense, since one of the most thought-provoking aspects of the SciBlings (as they call themselves) is the inter-blog discussions -- often quite heated -- that seem to spring quite naturally from what could have simply been a random mishmash of noise, but which is, in fact, a bona fide online community. You've got a lot of very smart people, with divergent points of view, killer communication skills, and lots of colorful (even fiery) personalities to keep things lively. They make you think, and sometimes make you smile at the same time. Just check out this most excellent post by Doc Bushwell on a news report concerning a pill to make women both thinner and, um, hornier -- because the world needs more sexually rapacious stick figures. Or something.

3. 3 Quarks Daily. Okay, this is a bit of a cheat, too, since I'm one of their Monday columnists. But I'm just one small voice in a hugely divergent cacophony of voices, all smart, all provocative, and collectively the posts cover an astonishing range of subjects/fields. No "Thinking Bloggers" list would be complete without the 3QD crowd.

4. BLDGBLOG. I don't know where Geoff Manaugh finds all those deliciously arcane items at the intersection of architecture, science, and art, but the blogosphere would be a far less interesting place without his contributions. To Manaugh, buildings, city infrastructures like sewers and tunnels, even landscapes are complex, almost living things, and he conveys his passion in such a way as to make me view seemingly inanimate things in a new, appreciative light.

5. Khymos. A terrific blog devoted entirely to the science/art of molecular gastronomy. I started reading it after they posted a recipe for a Jellied Gin and Tonic (which I still intend to attempt one day), and have been a faithful subscriber ever since. At the moment, there's an ongoing, multi-part series of posts  on Practical Molecular Gastronomy; yesterday's offering was a lengthy and fascinating rumination on controlling taste and flavor (it's scientific!). There's also a new feature called They Go Really Well Together, focusing on surprisingly good pairings. I mean, coffee, garlic and chocolate? Ewww! Except, apparently, it's not-so-Ewww. I'm intrigued by that recipe for a coffee espuma with garlic and chocolate. (On a related tangent, Jen-Luc Piquant would like to take this opportunity to point folks to a quirky, fun article in the May issue of Physics Today on the everyday physics of utensils. The Science of Eating: it's not just about the food anymore.)

HONORABLE MENTIONS: (yes, yes, I'm a big fat cheater!)

6. The QC Report. I loved former child star Quinn Cummings' performance in the original Goodbye Girl movie, and I love her blog even more. She's all growed up, with a child and Consort, and has lost none of her sharp perceptive edge, whether she's eviscerating women's magazines about body image, making fun of American Girl dolls, or just blogging about the cat's Close Personal Relationship with the warm, vibrating computer hard drive (opening line: "The cat thinks she's in love, but I suspect it's mostly physical...").

7. The Physics of Sex. Even attempting a pseudo-clever description of Buzz Skyline's unique approach to copulation would be gilding the lily. Suffice to say, it'll make you think about the various aspects of human sexuality in entirely new ways. A Thinking Blogger, par excellence.

8. Depth of a Puddle. Allyson Beatrice doesn't blog very often, but when she does, it's usually well worth reading. Another sharp, funny, perceptive woman with a unique "voice" to her writing.

9. Whatever. Everyone probably already reads sci-fi author Jon Scalzi's blog. True, he's probably best known on the Internets for taping bacon to his cat (which also inspired him to design his own demotivational poster to commemorate the occasion and its online aftermath). C'mon, didn't that make you think? But he also has intelligent commentary on politics, his writing process, surprisingly frank assessments of his earnings as a full-time writer, and why writers shouldn't respond to "Your last book sucked" critiques. Token quote: "What is the Internet, if not the world's most efficient way to say something bad about someone -- and post pictures of cats?"

10. XKCD. Every science geek's favorite online comic -- really, it needs no introduction. I already own two of the T-shirts, and fully intend to buy more in the future as the whimsy strikes me. Random Pull Quote: "Science: it works, bitches."

Wow, that's 10 right there -- and I didn't even mention blogospheric heavies like Dooce (the inimitable Heather Armstrong), Melissa McEwan of Shakesville, Jon Swift, Lance Mannion, or Blake Stacey's quirky Science After Sunclipse blag on the wobosphere. There's a lot of intelligent, thought-provoking content wafting about in Cyberspace. Hence the meme... although I absolve any of those listed from continuing the chain. This sort of thing should be entirely voluntary. However, I will follow Chris Clarke's lead and invite readers to leave links to their favorite Thinking Bloggers in the comments.

UPDATE: Jen-Luc Piquant points out, in a high Gallic dudgeon, that I inadvertently neglected to list the blog of her creator and personal stylist, Lee Kottner, familiar to many of you as an occasional guest blogger. Mea culpa. Lee's Spawn of Blogorrhea (so named because her original blog got too big for its britches) is permanently linked in the sidebar, but it's easy to miss. It certainly ranks as a Thinking Blog, and an especially broad-ranging one at that. So while I'm at it, let me direct you to some of my favorite posts of hers over the past year and a half: in defense of fanfic; why the Orange Prize for women writers is still necessary; a rant about The Devil Wears Prada; a plea for higher standards in science poetry; and a rumination on the different ways even one person can respond to death. Feel free to browse through some of her other offerings at your leisure.

Comments

[Blake Stacey]

Woo hoo! I get mentioned just after xkcd!

"Quirky." I like it. =)

Out of the ScienceBlogs collective (the most fractious hive mind I've ever seen), I'd like to pull out for special commendation Mark Chu-Carroll of Good Math, Bad Math, whom I started reading when he was at Blogspot; Jason Rosenhouse of EvolutionBlog; and Effect Measure, one of whose contributors I met recently, upon the occasion of PZ Myers's Boston visit:

http://www.sunclipse.org/?p=57

Russell Blackford's only problem is that he doesn't post more often. I suppose that's OK, since he has a book in the works:

http://metamagician3000.blogspot.com/

All of the pixel-stained cyber-scribblers whom I've met in person after reading online have turned out to be really swell people. Rebecca and Evelyn of Skepchick.org definitely qualify, as does SF author David Brin. (Neil Gaiman, whose journal I read daily and find quite thought-provoking indeed, I had met back in 2001. Also a swell fellow.) I've only started reading Joshua's "Tobasco da Gama" site since we met at Rebecca's place for scientific investigation of deep-frying foodstuffs, but he has good things to say:

http://tobascodagama.com/

Straying from the "thought provoking" requirement just a little, I'd like to recommend a couple sites for sheer utility. Jacques Distler's "river of physics news", Planet Musings, is a blaggregator which collects a whole bunch of physics sites into a single stream (or a single RSS feed, if that's your style). The Knight Journalism Tracker, operated by some folks down the Red Line at MIT, is also on my read-over-breakfast list, right after my webcomics:

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/~distler/planet/

http://ksjtracker.mit.edu/

[Doc Bushwell]

Jennifer, thanks so much for the accolades both here and in response to "Skinny Vixens" on Science Blogs. I am a longtime fan of Cocktail Party Physics, so I am immensely flattered.

Your tag team is an excellent one-stop shopping center for me, and likewise, Blake's list looks to be well worth exploring. Sunclipse is a recent happy discovery.

Re: The Physics of the BuffyVerse - I was recently tagged by a Xena, Warrior Princess fan site for my yammering tome entitled "Xena, Warrior Scientist" and had my rant on J.R.R. Tolkien's anti-science/technology stance reprinted on a Silmarillion enthusiasts' web site. There's nothing quite like being a scientist-fangurrrl! :^) Anyway, I plan on directing others from those sites to the BuffyVerse book since there often seems to be cross-over interests.

[Blake Stacey]

Ooh, I'm a "recent happy discovery"!

Double-ooh, another rant on Tolkien! Have you read Brin's "We Hobbits Are a Merry Folk"?

http://www.davidbrin.com/tolkienarticle1.html

. . . oh, I see it came up in your blog comment thread.

[Blake Stacey]

Incidentally, in posting my previous comment, I just saw my first-ever obscene word in a CAPTCHA image.

[Lab Lemming]

What about those of us who blog as a procrastination device to avoid thinking?

[Doc Bushwell]

Double-ooh, another rant on Tolkien! Have you read Brin's "We Hobbits Are a Merry Folk"?

Oh, yes, I've read that...more than once even! In my abject nerdsomeness, I spontaneously chortle when I think of a Marshall Plan for Mordor.

[George Dickeson]

Argh! every time one of these memes gets started I get another dozen blogs on my reader, costing me hours of productivity. Curse you!