Bryan Walker, my esteemed co-blogger and assiduous reviewer of books on climate, is taking a short break from duties at Hot Topic. He’s going into hospital today to prepare for heart surgery later in the week (he needs a new aortic valve). He should be back in the reins before Christmas, but in the meantime I hope you’ll join me in wishing him well. Being away from the internet for a while will probably do his blood pressure no harm, either…
Category: Hot Topic
Stop me and buy one
An item of minor import to the world, but some significance to the writer: the PDF edition of Hot Topic is now available for a mere NZ$10 (all the words and pictures, none of the paper, half the original price) from the “Buy” tab in the menu at the top every page. Traditional paper copies are also available, signed, direct from the author for NZ$25 (NZ residents) or NZ$40 (including airmail shipping) for overseas readers. Copies seldom take longer than a week to reach the furthest corners of the world…
Sciblogging: they blinded me with science
This week sees the launch of the next big thing in science communication down under – Sciblogs, the new science blogging platform from the NZ Science Media Centre. Sciblogs is hosting 25 blogs, from scientists in Crown Research Institutes, universities and private research companies, with two dozen PhDs involved. I’m letting the side down on that score… but Hot Topic is very pleased to be on the Sciblogs blogroll as one of the founding participants. There are some established bloggers on the platform, including Ken Perrott’s Open Parachute and Jim McVeagh’s MacDoctor, and there many others that deserve a wider audience. New bloggers include Andy Reisinger, a senior climate researcher from VUW, and there’s my new favourite blog with kakapo pictures: Chthonic Wildlife Ramblings (title explanation).
All Hot Topic‘s posts are being syndicated to Sciblogs, and will appear there under our own banner, but this site will continue as before. All discussion will take place here, unless and until we can work out a way of syncing comments between the to two platforms. Sciblogs looks set to be a one-stop shop for great science coverage from New Zealand, and I wish it (and all who sail in her) well.
Spot the blogger!
Race for the prize
The rather good 3 Quarks Daily has launched a new series of blog prizes, beginning with an award for the best science post. Ken at Open Parachute tipped me off, and so you’ll find I’ve taken the opportunity for a bit of self-promotion and nominated the first(*) Monckton tale — Monckton & The Case Of The Missing Curry. There’s a week of public voting (nominees here, voting here — ends on June 8th NY time), and then a shortlist will be handed over to the estimable Steven Pinker for judging. First prize (the “top quark”) is US$1,000, which is a lot more than it looks when converted to NZ dollars… Votes are therefore solicited. But if you prefer to support Ken’s entries, that’s fine by me.
* – A second Monckton tale, tentatively titled Monckton Flies West, is in preparation. But don’t hold your breath.
Bird on the wires
Another week, another step forward in the relentless march of progress. Hot Topic now has its very own Twitter account: hottopicnz. Why? Is it simply born of the insufferable self-importance of your blogger, or does it have a purpose? Probably both, but I’ll only deal with the latter. In the process of keeping up-to-date with climate issues, I read a lot of stuff that would be nice to blog. There isn’t enough time to do a proper post about everything, so the Hot Topic tweets are little text messages pointing to stuff that I think is interesting (or in the case of goats and windfarms, amusing — if you’re not a goat-owning windfarmer). New blog posts are tweeted automatically, so followers can keep right up to date. An alternative to HT’s RSS feed, using the latest micro-blogging platform. The most recent tweets will appear in the left sidebar, and you can get to the twitter feed by clicking on the timestamps there. Feel free to retweet at will…