Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Blog contribution, and the internet will bring us together

I was recently asked to contribute to a discussion group on Nature Network, this social network site for scientists/enthusiasts run by the Nature Publishing Group. I picked a cool article about drug craving. My post is here.

Social networking is everywhere. The nice thing about a site like that is that you can talk about research with some anonymity and no social repercussions. If you look like an idiot, no problem, the person you're arguing with is probably on the other side of the country/world. I'm starting to worry though. At some point, I'm going to to know more people through internet sites than I do in real life. Speaking of avatars, there was an article in the New York Times the other day about the death of Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax, and how the game served as the foundation of so much mainstream role playing that occurs today.

Now we need a Twitter service specifically for graduate students. This could be sample stream:

8:40AM - a rat bit me

8:45AM - just received reprimand from advisor

10:00AM - feeling inadequate

1:30PM - fell asleep at the colloquium!

11:00PM - leaving lab

1:00AM - no time for updates, busy crying myself to sleep

2 comments:

Unknown said...
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Unknown said...

Sorry, my English was bad in the last comment. I considered attempting to register so I could say your article was complete crap, but I decided against it. It was a very well written article and a good read.