nodalpoint.org

As of 2007, the Internet is mostly still a wild untamed jungle. Many people have tried to chart the territory, but what should a map of the internet look like?

Sometimes I wonder what what the point of blogging is and just how much time people (myself included) waste reading and writing them. Let's face it, most leading scientists are too damn busy to pay much attention to the blogosphere, especially when it descends (as it frequently does) into "uncontrollable verbal discharge". This unfortunate medical condition is also known as Blogorrhoea. A free-flowing blog is unlikely to directly increase a scientists productivity (as approximated by the infamous h-index), and might even decrease it. Now, we all know that powerpoint can be PowerPointless, so is blogging also a pointless activity? Or to put it another way: Nodalpoint or Nodalpointless?

Just a short note if you're interested in meeting up: I'll be in the US over the next two weeks. I'll be attending Discovery 2 Diagnostics in Philadelphia from Monday the 17th until Wednesday, after which I'll be in New York until Friday morning. I plan to stay over the weekend in LA, and then from Monday until Wednesday I'll be in San Fransisco. The whole trip will be sponsored by my company, but evenings will be free, so if you're in the area, have some time and would like me to buy you a beer then get in touch: greg.tyrelle@gmail.com.

I plan to do some site maintenance (including the wiki), starting in about 20 min or so and I expect it will talk an hour (probably less). So if you're planning to post or edit something (unlikely) hold off for a while. I'll be on IRC (irc.freenode.net, #nodalpoint) if you're interested to know what's going on in real time.

Update: Both the Drupal and wiki upgrades are complete. Read on for details...

The past month or so has seen a mini-explosion in new blogs of interest to our readers. I've added half a dozen or so to the wiki list. Feel free to edit or add new ones if you have wiki access, or submit suggestions either via submit weblink or as a comment here.

I know I've forgotten one or two, please don't be offended!

If you use Facebook, and you enjoy reading and/or writing here at nodalpoint, please join the Nodalpoint group on Facebook. Hopefully this might facilitate more social networking amongst fellow nodalpointers.

As well as big famous superstars at Science Foo Camp (scifoo), there is a chance to meet and "geek out" with younger engineers and scientists like Vince Smith, Aaron Schwartz and Vaughan Bell.

Scifoo is here again, which means I'll be in San Francisco for a bit. If you're going, see you there (don't forget the flowers). If you're not going, but would like to meet up somewhere in the Bay Area (Thursday 2nd or Sunday/Monday 5th/6th) send an email to duncan.hull \ate\ cs.man.ac.uk .

Greetings from Vienna ISMB 2007, the weather is nice and our tribe is out in force for the two day SIGs. I'm currently sitting in on BOSC waiting to hear about the latest AJAX genome browser developments. I don't plan to 'live-blog' any of the talks, instead I will keep notes and post some of the highlights at the end of the day.

If any nodalpoint readers attending ISMB would like to meet up for a beer drop me a note at greg[dot]tyrelle[at]gmail[dot]com.

I've just got around to trying out Slideshare and I noticed a small collection of presentations under the bioinformatics tag - including several from the "usual suspects".

A suggestion: how about when Nodalpoint users upload to Slideshare, they include "nodalpoint" as a tag? That way we get to learn more about what everyone is working on. If you have pre-made presentations that you're willing to share, it's a quick and easy way for us all to get an idea of the collective expertise here.