Link of the Moment: Beer Review

A few years ago, I found a San Diego-based microbrew called Old Viscosity Ale.  Inspired by the post, fellow blogger John Spevacek tracked down some of the product and rigorously tested its tagline "Not your dad's 30 weight."  He published the results in the most recent Rheology Bulletin on page 7.  [Disclosure: I'm acknowledged in the paper.]  Congratulations to John on his humorous work, and thanks to Editor Faith Morrison for including the work in the Bulletin.
One side benefit of John's sampling work is that he supplied a bottle for my own consumption.  I am no longer an unpaid blogger.  I have been compensated in beer.

New Material Coming Soon

I've found a few things worth posting, so look for more stuff coming in the next few days.

Muphry Was an Optometrist

Back in August, when I complained about presentation errors, I made a mistake of my own in the post.  It turns out I was following Muphry's Law, which states that "if you write anything criticizing editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written."  Muphry is a deliberate misspelling of Murphy.

Breaking Radio Silence

I'm back with a some new posts over the next few days.  I haven't posted, because, to bluntly put it, there hasn't been anything I'd like to discuss.

In case of rapture, I will still post to this blog

If you type "[favorite blog name].blogpsot.com" into a browser window, you're not taken your favorite blog, but azt.com, which is a Bible study website.

A New Logo

I've changed the logo.  The joke is explained here.  The original post where this cartoon appeared is here. 

Fixing the Best Advice

The original post on Best Advice for Graduate Students contained a factual error.  The original post stated theives stole a grad student's computer, when in fact, they stole the computer and the portable hard drive used as a backup.  I apologize for the error.  Thanks to the anonymous contributor at Chemjobber for the tip.

2010 Review

The most popular posts of this year are

1. The Best Advice for Graduate Students (thanks for the link, Chemjobber)
2. Q&A with Crazy Aaron (thanks for the Facebook link, Aaron)
3. Rheologist Job at Wrigley
4. Rheologist Job at Kraft
5. Bulletproof Shirt--It turns out if you run a Google Image search on kevlar molecular structure, the post is attractive because of the yellow-colored picture.

Favorite Post Title: Elvis was a Chemical Engineer

My first spam comment

My post on iTunes, which seems to be a favorite of search engines, attracted a spam comment today.  This was the first spam comment for this blog.  I'd always planned to keep the first one for sentimental reasons, but this one involved NSFW activities.  So, I terminated it with extreme prejudice.

Thanks, Readers

The month of November was the best one yet for this blog.  I had more than 200 readers for the first time, and more than 300 page views for the first time.  Particular thanks to Crazy Aaron's Putty World (and their Facebook link) and to Bob Schiffman for participating in email interviews.

Thanks, Bob

I'd like to thank Bob Schiffmann for his Q&A on blogging.  You can visit Bob's company here.

Q&A with Robert Schiffmann (R.F. Schiffmann Associates, Inc.)

As mentioned in a previous post, I attended the IMPI Microwave Short Course held November 9-10.  During the course, Bob Schiffmann gave a talk entitled "Myths Vs. Reality: Blogs Vs. Science."  The talk centered on information and misinformation in the blogosphere, especially regarding microwave cooking of food.  I asked Bob if he would answer questions by email, and he agreed.  The exchange was checked via email for accuracy.

RW: What's your background and your current job?
BS: I have a Bachelors degree in Pharmacy from Columbia University, and a Masters degree in Analytical and Physical chemistry from Purdue University. I entered the food industry in 1959 as a research scientist, where I did all kinds of product and process development. It was in 1961 that I accidentally discovered a microwave oven, and about 10 or 15 minutes later I did and experiment that resulted in my first patent and many large industrial installations of microwave heating systems. I left industry along with a partner in 1971 to become an independent consultant, and in 1978 formed my second consulting company (R.F.Schiffmann Associates, Inc.). The company is focused on product and process development and, since 1982, all of our work has been microwave heating related. We also do a great deal of product testing for various companies. I also teach a lot of microwave technology courses.

RW: Your talk discussed myths related to microwave preparation of food. First, haven't these myths been around since the advent of ovens in the home, and second, how are things worse with blogs?
BS: You are correct that these myths have been around for many years, for example the concept that you can't use metal in a microwave oven, which is totally erroneous. What makes it worse today is the advent of the blogosphere. Before this, news traveled rather slowly and the influence was limited. But today, everyone thinks that he or she has brilliant things to say and therefore has a blog. Now, if it only a few people read the blog, but many blogs have the same misinformation, the cumulative effect is very large. Also, people tend to read things that agree with their own thoughts. So, people tend to read the same sorts of misinformation and myths over and over. Also, very few bloggers are really original: most simply copy and paste from others so that this misinformation travels like a virus.

RW: What do you do when you encounter postings that you know are wrong or inaccurate?
BS: I sometimes respond in the “comments” section on the blog page. I don't do that as much now as I did when I started receiving Google Alerts, because I found that there was so much misinformation, and repeated so often, that I could literally spend hours each day writing responses to the various bloggers. Further, in something like two or three years I've only got one response from a blogger who apologized for the misinformation and promised never to do it again. When I do comment, I very often include the science, or scientific facts that refute the kinds of comments that are made in the blog.

RW: Have you thought about starting your own blog?
BS: Yes I have, but right now my time is so limited because of my work with IMPI, as well as my consulting business, that I simply can't find free time to write a blog. However, I probably will, hopefully not too far in the future.

RW: Having run a science blog for a year, I've found that I have a small audience (on the order of dozens of readers). Don't these blogs operate on a similar scale, and therefore, their impact is limited?
BS: As I indicated above, these blogs may be small, however, there are so many of them, I virtually see 5 or more a day that say exactly the same thing because of the cut and pasting, so, in the aggregate, the readers must amount to several thousand or more. Just looking at the number of comments some of these blogs get I am astounded by the number of people who spout the same misinformation, and are so poorly informed. After all, we now live in an era in which ignorance is exalted.

Thanks to Crazy Aaron

I'd like to thank Elizabeth for taking the time to answer my questions.  I'd also like to thank her for the Facebook link; more people stopped by here then ever have before!

Regular Readers (2)

Following up to a post by John, I have 14 people who subscribe through Google Reader.  About 100 people stop by a month, and 5-10 comments over the same period of time.

Link of the Moment: Chemjobber Blog

Today's link is the Chemjobber blog, which I learned about when John was interviewed about polymer chemistry.  The blog is a continual analysis of the chemistry job market, and is similar to my monthly job reports.  I added the Careerbuilder searches in this month's jobs report after a quick check of the links at Chemjobber.  I recall using Careerbuilder in previous job searches, but I hadn't checked the site recently.

Housekeeping

More than 100 visitors stopped by last month.  This is the second time I've had that many people read the blog.  Thanks for your attention.

Back to Regular Programming

Work has returned to a slower pace, so I should be able to resume my regular blogging routine.  I seem to average about a post every second or third day, and I wind up with about 15 posts per month.
Thanks again for stopping by.

Slim Pickings for a While...

Due to work commitments, I'm going to have to cut back on posting for the next two weeks.  I'll be able to put up the August jobs report, but unless I remember a good one-liner or find a nice link, I won't be putting much here.
Thanks again to you all, and I hope to catch up in a few weeks.

Hey Google! There's Rheology Here!

When I was first wondering whether I should start the blog, I would put the phrase "rheology blog" into Google, and I wouldn't see too many other active blogs.  In fact, I still don't find the Rheo Thing unless I use the phrase "rheology blogs".  I finally realized that, even though this is a rheology blog, I don't use the word "rheology" in every post.  John has the same issue over at his blog.  Even though it's a blog about polymer rheology, he doesn't use the word "rheology" in every post.
This is not an issue that's confined to niche blogs like ours.  This Washington Post column by Gene Weingarten laments the loss of headline writers for online writing.  Online headlines are tailored for search engines and written to attract readers.  Online articles have bland headlines that just use people's names.  Gene's best example compares the online headline "Conan O'Brien won't give up 'Tonight Show' time slot to make room for Jay Leno" to the newspaper headline "Better Never Than Late."

A supposedly fun post I'll never blog again

According to the site I Write Like, my writing style is like David Foster Wallace.  (I entered a long post on industrial rheology that I wrote back in February.)

Hat Tip: Joe Posnanski's Curiously Long Posts