weird things wrap up, 2009
Hard to believe an entire year just went by but unless my calendar is lying to me, that’s exactly what’s going to happen tomorrow. The last time I did a year end wrap-up, this blog was up and running for only a few months so there wasn’t much to talk about. But now, Weird Things spent a year covering science news, debates and went through a few ups, downs and even a couple of lateral moves. Over the last 519 posts, most of which at least 400 words long, and more than 2,000 comments, Weird Things joined a blog network, then left it, was picked up for syndication by Time Warner and got noted by SEED Magazine, Bad Astronomy, How Stuff Works and the NYT Big Idea blog. And yours truly even got to write guest articles at The Panda’s Thumb and the new Discovery News site as well as do a podcast about UFOs and transhumanism. It’s been a very busy year…
The passing year also saw Weird Things reach out into social media, starting a Twitter feed in February and opening a Facebook page in October to help make this blog a place to exchange big ideas, explore bleeding edge science and have a good debate when we get a chance. As you can probably guess, this trend is going to continue into 2010 as the blog keeps growing and adding new content. While the final quarter of 2008 was a quick dip into the blogosphere, 2009 was an endeavor to establish a solid place in the blogging world and turn Weird Things into a fully fledged science blog with all the features you should expect from a site that’s in it for the long haul. And this means that next year will be all about building on this foundation, experimenting with new ideas and topics, and hopefully, broadening Weird Things’ reach.
You can expect to see more on high tech and computer science topics, more interviews with people who work on communicating science, deal with the incendiary mix of religion and politics to promote skepticism and critical thinking skills, or tackle the many misconceptions about sex and sexuality, as well as a steady flow of scientific discussions about exotic subjects like black holes, warp drives, bizarre stars and cyborgs. And speaking of cyborgs, 2009 saw a series of debates between yours truly and Singularitarians, from a big back and forth with the Singularity Institute’s Michael Vassar, to Michael Anissimov’s critical take on my posts. Since computers are my area of expertise and study, you can safely bet that the Technical Singularity will be a recurring topic for the foreseeable future along with transhumanism and artificial intelligence.
Just as the end of a year brings some things to a close, it also means that new things are on the horizon. So to all my readers, thanks for your views, comments and suggestions, and I invite you to stay tuned to Weird Things in 2010 as it revs up and reaches farther into the world of popular science and skepticism.
