This is a nice blog about psychology research, including a section on “weird” research. This is a blog about the origins of language that I look forward to exploring. Here is a long list of neuroscience blogs.

Thanks to Michelle Nguyen.

I’ve been too busy at the Psychonomics Convention to blog — I will resume tomorrow. Tonight I looked at the Firefox button for my blog and thought: It would be nice to read something new. Then I realized, alas, that my blog does not write itself.

An article in the current issue of the American Journal of Epidemiology is about participants in a large health survey. It compares people who turned in the questionnaire via the Web with those who answered via mail.

Over 50% of 77,047 participants chose to enroll in the study via the Web . . . The authors compared the demographic and health characteristics of Web responders with those of paper responders. Web responders were slightly more likely to be male, to be younger, to have a high school diploma or college degree, and to work in information technology or another technical occupation. Web responders were more likely to be obese and to smoke more cigarettes and were less likely to be problem alcohol drinkers and to report occupational exposures.

The study began in 2001.

Negotiations between NBC and Rosie O’Donnell about a talk show were broken off by NBC after Rosie said something about them to the media. Rosie blogged about it here in her endearing style.

Remember that A. J. Liebling saying: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one”? For the low price of blogging, Rosie owns one.

A great day for free speech.

Janet Ruhl blogs about diabetes and maintains a website called “ How to get your blood sugar under control.” Thanks to Dave Lull, I came across her critique of Good Calories, Bad Calories (”some of the densest writing I’ve encountered in a long life of reading popular science . . . its core message is VERY important” — I agree with both) and noticed a comment by her that blogging turned out to be a good idea. Ah, blogging. She kindly agreed to answer a few questions.

Why did blogging turn out to be a good thing to do?

Blogging introduced me to a new group of younger people who have been a pleasure to interact with. I was accustomed to the more traditional web information exchange venues, having been active in online forums since I joined Compuserve in 1987. But many of the bloggers are younger and don’t appear to be familiar with the newsgroups or even the larger discussion forums dedicated to my topic. Once I started blogging and syndicating my blog [via RSS], these bloggers introduced themselves [by commenting on her blog]. I really like the positive supportive atmosphere that they bring to interaction.

What have you learned from blogging?

In the health community, at least, the younger people whose online communication is confined to blogging seem to be more positive and supportive and less likely to use internet communication to indulge the kinds of flaming and obsessional nuttiness that seems to have destroyed the newsgroups as a viable place for intelligent discourse. They also make very good use of multimedia when making their points.

You seem to be saying blogging brings out a better side of human nature.

Not really. It is just that the structure of blogging allows each person to be heard, and leaves it to the audience to vote with their attention for content. Stridency and conflict are minimized because comments are moderated. A person can, of course, contradict another person, in their own blog, but they have to attract readers and conflict alone is not a strong attraction.

Joyce Cohen on blogging. Anastasia Goodstein. Why I blog.

Please, I want to read Culture Shock! Palo Alto. Michelle Nguyen, who does healthcare software consulting, recently moved to Palo Alto from the East Coast.

On the East Coast, she said, one of the first questions she was asked was about her education. If you have a Ph.D., they take you seriously.

In Palo Alto, among the first questions are (a) where did you go to school? and (b) do you have a blog? It doesn’t help to have a Ph.D. It does help to have gone to Stanford or an Ivy League school. And — most encouragingly — it helps to have a blog. Having a blog, said Michelle, shows that you think and have ideas. Yes, it does.

Michelle’s new blog is “a place for thinking about all things tech, web, and gadget.” Her first entry reviews Microsoft’s HealthVault, which allows you to store your health info online.

The Culture Shock! series.

If I didn’t blog it, I didn’t think it. Nonsense, right? Well, let’s rephrase the ancient question “if a tree falls in a forest and no one hears it, did it make a sound?” Of course this is true:

tree makes sound –> someone hears

where –> indicates causality. X –> Y means X causes Y.

But what about

someone hears –> tree makes sound?

This had always struck me as boring. Who cares? But I am noticing that while this is obvious

I think of something –> I blog about it

this is not so obvious, but true:

I blog about it –> I think of something

Because I blog about my thoughts, I have more of them. I blog, therefore I think.

This post and others about blogging, for example. Posts about the twilight of expertise in areas other than science. I’d be doing omega-3 self-experimentation blog or no blog but blogging about it divides the research into small and more doable parts (making the graphs, for example). It is encouraging to get feedback and have others, such as Tim Lundeen, contribute their observations. Blogging is a kind of tinder. It doesn’t create the initial spark but it amplifies it.

In terms of book and scientific-paper writing, blogging plays the role I give art in the growth of technology: It provides a slope in place of a step. It divides a big task into tiny tasks.

Abu Ayyub Ibrahim is behind Behind the Approval Matrix — that is, New York magazine’s Approval Matrix, which is the first thing I read — if that’s the right word — in every issue. For example:

Ibrahim’s blog or whatever you call it explains the items in the Approval Matrix.

I wonder why Ibrahim and I like it so much. Perhaps 1. We enjoy praise and dispraise. 2. Cute little pictures. 3. Use of pictures as dots. 4. Draws our attention to stuff we may enjoy but otherwise wouldn’t know about (e.g., YouTube clips). 5. Unpompous. 6. Artistic in the Nabokovian sense (i.e., implies a better world — see Afterword to Lolita). 7. Mixes high and low. (My students laughed when I wrote “pimple” on the board.) 8. Sometimes witty.

Anastasia Goodstein, a San Francisco writer, blogs at Ypulse — Y as in youth, meaning teenagers. She came to blogging from the “other side” — from journalism rather than subject-matter expertise — and blogging is one way she makes a living. She has written a book called Totally Wired: What Teens and Tweens are Really Doing Online.

What did you slowly learn about blogging from doing it?

I learned when you are running a professional blog that has to be updated every day (or five days a week), you just can’t be brilliant every day. You have days where you have no clue what to blog about or when you’re just not inspired, but still you have to post. I also learned that posts I think might be amazing may get no response while other posts that I didn’t think were that great generate lots of comments. I have found ways to produce content that don’t rely on me having to write full blown posts all the time. I do a lot of Q&As (like this), repost some of the more interesting comments and have easy features like Ypulse Quote (where I find a relevant and interesting quote) or From The Ypulse WTF files (a short post about something that just makes you scratch your head).

I think blogging is a great way to work your writing muscles and develop/strengthen your writing voice — it takes focus and discipline and it’s public so you get feedback on what you do. I love blogs where you find great info and get to know the blogger — For example, USA Today’s Pop Candy, written by Whitney Matheson is one of my favorites.

What do non-bloggers fail to realize about blogging?

I think non-bloggers don’t realize how much work it is (see number one) — to build a decent readership, you have to update your blog pretty regularly. They may not realize that blogging can be financially lucrative — there are many writers now being hired as professional bloggers, individual bloggers like myself who have build media brands from their blogs and consultants and agencies who have used their blogs to generate lots of business.

You write: “Since May 2004 Ypulse has been updated five days a week . . . [in] September 2006 . . I decided to try to make Ypulse my full-time gig.” Was it a hard decision? What was behind it, besides the obvious advantages of working for oneself?

The decision to leave Current TV was agonizing — I love the mission of the network and very much enjoyed the people I worked with. I left partly to be able to promote my book, Totally Wired, which came out in March of 2007, and because Ypulse was becoming more than just a side project. The scariest part of leaving a job is leaving the security of a regular paycheck and benefits. I also wasn’t sure where I wanted to focus. I was going to try consulting, maybe launch a paid subscription product — I wasn’t sure. It has been a year since I left my job, and it was the best decision I’ve made. I now have a business partner helping me grow, a successful conference business and am still promoting my book on the road, which I never could have done working full time.

Could this have something to do with it?

The sign says: Will listen to your story for free. Outside a Tokyo train station.

From Pearl is Culturally Confused.

More about blogging and listening.