(Lack of an) Online Presence

Blogs and forums have always been first on my list for preferred methods of web-based communication and especially outreach/information sharing. It's often hard to keep track of though, and can require quite a large amount of effort. Afterall, a 140 character tweet can be drafted, proofed, and published before you have boiled the kettle. I can only imagine the quantities of tea/coffee that content creators like Kurtzegast, Smarter Every Day, and Periodic Videos go through for each video.

Being fair to myself and the lack of effort I have put into blogging (or the various online projects I have initiated and never followed through on) I have had my hands tied by PhD work. The good news there being that I am submitted, viva voce-d, and to graduate any day now.

I would really like to get involved in science web content, it has been a desire in the back of my mind for a long time. The work with the Physics Society DIT, lab demonstrating, teaching hours, tutorials, talks, posters, conference dinners, discussions over tea, general academic life, all of this does really help grow a broad perspective. I've been very lucky to sit on tables with experts and attend talks by award winners, it's nice to share that for anyone who is interested. I realise there are plenty of staffers out there who do this, but there's always room for one more eh?

I wanted to put up a five minute blurb as a getting-back-to-it. As usual if you read this and want to comment I'd love to hear from you, but for the time being this is for myself I suppose.

#WhatDidScienceDoToday

Links

We all have draft emails or bookmark lists (or text files if your lists go back to 2005 like mine...) of "interesting" links, ones emailed from friends or recommended at parties, scrawled down and half forgotten.

About 5 years ago I had a plan for these links, to have them in a browsable format, like so many other websites out there. At the time I had been watching Albinoblacksheep and Fat-Pie along with all the other stops out there with cool videos, for some reason I thought I should list the ones I liked. Half so that when I told a friend about them they could go see them easily through my site (just links, no thievery, I've always meant to give credit where it's due).
As it ended up I just made a shuffling list of links on the index page of my rubbish site and left it there, a decaying list with no maintenance while my lists of links grew and grew.

Sidetrack
This reminds me of an XKCD comic:

When I saw this comic I was glad I wasn't alone, oh so many images.
/Sidetrack

I had other plans to for my site of course, lots of plans. They came and went, and inevitably I would find another site that had come along and done it better, with more class and with features I'd never have thought up. But that's the way it goes. (When I was 7 I thought up a new form of bowling, nobody has stolen it yet. I did think-up the motorbike with a hood that year too, but BMW got there before me. I was a practical kid, who wants to get wet when they're looking cool on a bike? My bike would of course not have looked as.. interesting.)

Anyway, long story short I might go back to posting cool images and links for awhile. Because lets face facts here, I'm very poor at this whole keeping up appearances. I do still take photos of Dublin which I keep meaning to add into posts alongside my inane ramblings about whatever it is I do keep filling pages with. But maybe inbetween that I can add videos which everyone has already seen thus proving how late to the party I really am.









A lunchtime's worth of videos maybe?