Science Education Researcher Marie-Claire Shanahan, primatologist Eric Michael Johnson, and I joined Desiree Schell on on Skeptically Speaking to have a conversation very apropos this time of year in The West: The concept of Tradition. We said a number of very smart things which you can hear by clicking here and listening to the podcast.
I should mention that all four of us will be at Science Online 2012 in January.
A frail elderly woman would have a hard time walking a few blocks, from her apartment to the subway, then from the subway to the MET, with winds gusting to near hurricane strength. So, the patron of the arts and of archaeology, who happened to be a cousin of my first wife, called around to find a worthy pair to use her tickets to the private opening (for major patrons) of The Treasures of Tutankhamun, the exhibit of King Tut's tomb. The public opening at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City would be several days later. When it was found that the two only archaeologists in the extended family were in town, they (we) were located and given the tickets. And so it was that I was to be one of the very few people to take in the art and artifacts of the most famous Egyptian tomb, which housed one of the least famous Egyptian rulers, without the crowds and long lines, even tough those in attendance were rather overdressed.
This is not a manual or even a how-to blog post, but rather, what I hope to be a few helpful suggestions that may or may not have already occurred to you. I was motivated to write this because of a series of recent events in which it became obvious that a lot of people, myself included in certain instances, were not managing some of the basic information linked to their on-line identity in the best way.
Several weeks ago, my friend and colleague, Shanai Matteson asked if I'd get involved in a project she was working on along with several other people. If you have been reading my blog, or for that matter, Pharyngula, for a while you'll know of Shanai even if you don't know you know: She was for many years the public outreach coordinator person (not sure of her exact title) for the Bell Museum of Natural History, so it is she who organized the Great Smackdown at The Bell (with PZ Myers, Chirs Mooney, Matt Nisbet and me), as well as several Cafe Scientifiques that I've done, as well as a very interesting Evolutionary Dinner With Beer a year ago or so. Since then, Shanai has left the Bell and with her husband, Colin Kloecker, have started a company, Works Progress, that does some very interesting things, including Financial Engagement, a Public Thing.
More than a year ago, we announced that Google Wave would no longer be developed as a separate product. At the time, we committed to maintaining the site at least through to the end of 2010. Today, we are sharing the specific dates for ending this maintenance period and shutting down Wave. As of January 31, 2012, all waves will be read-only, and the Wave service will be turned off on April 30, 2012. You will be able to continue exporting individual waves using the existing PDF export feature until the Google Wave service is turned off. We encourage you to export any important data before April 30, 2012.
If you need to keep waving, try these OpenSource projects: