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This site will stay as-is for the time being. I've been unable to get an importer to work—we have too much content here—so I'll just keep this site alive as an archive.

My first LITC year: a retrospective & look forward

Dear cherished readers,

The first year in which I've participated in the Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs jamboree is nearly at an end. As such, I've decided that a short, not-at-all-disgustingly-self-indulgent retrospective is in order.

(You might think it'd have made more sense to do it on the first anniversary of my joining the blog. And you'd probably be right, but now just feels like the right time, damnit.)

Writing for David's blog has been lots of fun, obviously, and I am very grateful for the opportunity. If nothing else, it's given me something to do now that I've left university and my social life has all but vapourised.

When I look back on 2011, it will be with fond memories of such world-shaping events as the Terrible '90s Dromaeosaur Face-Off, the ultimate example of abuse of hindsight. It's only a matter of time before the competition's winner, 'Zombienychus', becomes the star of his own TV documentary series, motion picture, and toy range (I plan on pitching the latter to Schleich). My graduation ceremony pales in comparison...

The chance to nitpick the fine efforts of CG artists, programme writers and John Hurt ("Des-platter-saurus!") for a wide(ish) audience of internet geeks was one that I truly relished - and I don't think I did too bad a job, with only a few cock-ups (including what was, in retrospect, a completely inexplicable disliking of the term 'oviraptorid'). One of the show's writers and directors even dropped in for the first review, which was a very humbling moment for me (people read my nonsense?!?). In the end I very much enjoyed Planet Dinosaur, and am hoping for a second series - its focus on the Actual Evidence was more refreshing than an ice-cold power shower to the face.

I'll also take credit, if you don't mind, for making Niroot Puttapipat such a blog staple that we should probably introduce a tag for posts that mention him. In case you missed it, his latest saurian work was a rather brilliant festive Parasaurolophus illustration. Also, I got a birthday present that was hand-painted by him and therefore better than yours. Neener-neener-ner-ner.

Most of all, thanks to all of you, the readers, for sticking by, even through posts about toys, crap robots, more toys, more crap robots, my undergraduate thesis, "perversely bizarre" books, and the Netherlands. Hopefully I've provided some decent between-meal blogging snacks to David's main courses.

Here's to 2012, then. What will the new year bring? Well, a few weeks back we received an e-mail from a chap by the name of Jay Epperhart. Quoth Jay:

"So occasionally you will make a quip along the line of 'can you believe they ['80s and '90s authors/artists] thought dromaeosaurid theropods had non-feathered pronated hands *snicker*" and I'm like 'wait, what?!' since that it what my 10-year-old self memorized."

Jay cordially suggested that one of us cough up an article all about how dinosaur reconstructions have changed since the '90s. David suggested that I should handle it. Which I will, as soon as I can think of something to pad out the article that isn't related to theropod feathers and forelimb posture.Your ideas are welcome for that one...

There will also be plenty more Vintage Dinosaur Art from me, of course. My scouring of eBay and charity shops for crummy old books is ongoing.

'Til then, thanks very much once again for all the support and comments since May, and I'll see you in 2012. Here's a photo of me looking confused on a Dutch woman's bicycle for your amusement.

Marc's recent Dinosaur Toy Blog reviews

Tangentially related toy dinosaur photo by RDL, via Flickr. Included, as Marc would say, "'cos I need piccy."

Just in case you weren't aware, new LITC writer Marc Vincent has also been writing for the Dinosaur Toy Blog for a while. Even though I'm not much of a collector, the DTB is one of my favorite blogs to check out, dealing with toys ranging from stunning achievements of true artistry to "beaten with the ugly stick." Reviewing figures for dinosaur geeks naturally involves critiquing scientific accuracy, so you get some educational value, too. Folks seem delighted by the mere fact of DTB's existence; when I recently tweeted a link to a review, it got a surprised "there's a blog for everything!" reaction.

Check out Marc's recent reviews of figures of Ankylosaurus and Torosaurus. Not that Marc's the only quality writer there, but you know. I'm obligated to crow louder for him.

Scientific American Guest Blog

Since November, Scientific American's Guest Blog has been humming with activity, with multiple posts every week covering a wide range of scientific topics. Today my own contribution is up: How to Name a Dinosaur, a look at the ways a layman tasked with naming a new taxa might go about it. It includes Matt Van Rooijen's awesome Diabloceratops portrait, too!

The Guest Blog's heightened profile is due to the tireless work of Bora Zivkovic, who took the job of Chief Editor and Community Manager of the SciAm blog network earlier this year. I'm new to the science blog community, having been writing here for about a year and a half. A true watershed moment came this July when PepsiGate happened at ScienceBlogs. At that moment, my eyes were opened to just how vibrant and resourceful the science blogging community was, and I saw that Bora was one of the chief players, promoting the value of science blogging and writing insightful pieces of his own exploring the way science blogs fit into the larger media picture. It helped me think smarter about what I do with LITC and what I want to do with my future in communicating science. Head to his website and follow him on your social media of choice. You will not regret it.

Thanks again for inviting me to post at the Guest Blog, Bora. This has been a year of unexpected good fortune for me as a blogger, and being able to join in the conversation at SciAm is definitely the cherry on top of the 2010 cake.

A Diplodocus-sized pet peeve

Photo of Edward Gay from the Smithsonian Institution, via Flickr.

Glendon Mellow has taken image citation as his cause, and has posted another rant about it. I totally concur with him, and left a comment to that effect. I felt that it warranted a post here to further flesh out my thoughts on this.

Let's say you have a hobby. You want to do it well. You want to be respected among your peers. Let's say that it's restoring automobiles. Would you be satisfied with giving a car a pretty exterior while its engine is unreliable? Would you settle for a car that you wouldn't trust with children as its passengers? I imagine that you would strive to make it a trustworthy machine.

Writing a blog hardly carries the same dangers as building a street-legal car, but I think that it carries the same responsibility for professionalism. Especially writing a science blog. If you're writing a science blog, you're doing it to be part of a larger conversation. You're looking to share discoveries, to broaden your mind, to state your opinion and have it critiqued and to do the same to the opinions of others. You're probably going to need images. You probably won't be creating them all yourself. You'll rely on the work of artists, photographers, graphic designers, and archivists to illustrate your points. In other words, you'll be collaborating. Your collaborators deserve credit for their role in making your posts more impactful. It's even likely that your interest in science has been inspired by images as much as by prose.

As a science blogger, you're a member of the media. You may not like to admit this. You may not have even considered it before. But it's true. You owe it to your fellow bloggers to represent this segment of the media in a responsible way. I'm not calling for science bloggers to all write in the same style, or to constrain their attitude. The only ground rules I'd even offer are: 1) check your facts; and 2) cite your images.

Sorry. There's no excuse not to. So I'm going to make a better effort to bring this up when I see posts that haven't cited their images. It's not to be mean or to be the blog police. It's because I care about this form and want to see its quality raised steadily so its critics have less to gripe about.

Boneyard News

I've set up a site for the Boneyard Blog Carnival, located here. I'll be making it look prettier, but I wanted to get it up quickly so I could spread the word and call for submissions for the first edition, which will be posted here at Love in the Time of Chasmosaurs on Tuesday, September 7. Fellow bloggers, put on your thinking caps and ponder what post you'd like to submit. The only requirement is that it be related to paleontology in some way. It doesn't need to have been posted recently, either!

I also am looking for hosts of future editions. So far, the first one is the only one spoken for.

Thanks to the folks at ScienceBlogging.org for including the Boneyard in their list of blog carnivals. If you haven't checked their site out yet, I totally recommend it. It's going to be a valuable resource for bloggers and readers alike for a long time.

Reopening the Boneyard!

Some good news! I'm pleased to announce that Brian Switek has given me his blessing to resume the Boneyard Blog Carnival, which he began just over three years ago in his pre-ScienceBlog days. I've gone through a good portion of the archives. If you're not familiar with the Boneyard, or the concept of blog carnivals, a quick click on that link will bring you up to speed. Basically, it's a fun way to share recent posts around the paleo/ natural history blog community. The blog carnival happened before I was hip to the existence of said community, and I can see why there's a desire to bring it back. I'm sure it will be just as much fun as before. The writing accompanying the links is sometimes just as fun as the links themselves.

Here's the thing: I will need some help spreading the word about this. I'd love to get a broad selection of blogs contributing to the Boneyard. Scratch that. The Boneyard needs that kind of participation. Otherwise, it's just a link roundup. So, those of you who are bloggers, spread the word to other bloggers. Just because I write one doesn't mean that I'm looking for only dinosaur blogs, naturally. Any topic of natural history is fair game. It's all the same thing, after all, and it's the only way all of these disparate sciences have any meaning. So please, spread the word via blogs, email, tweets, snorts, chirps, burps, morse code, comic strips, or cryptic haikus written on bathroom walls. Run into Uncle Horace, who you haven't seen in a few years? Tell him about the Boneyard. Tag boxcars. Let's get a good group of bloggers sending in posts, veterans and newer voices.

The secret here is the revolving host model. It's what keeps things fresh, as new folks host each month. Ideally, this exposes the blogs listed in each Boneyard to new readers, and incites new bloggers to contribute. I'll go ahead and kick things off, and I invite anyone willing and able to host the next one. I will be setting up a blog dedicated to "Boneyard 2.0," which will serve the same function as the one Brian used in the past. Probably an email addy, as well. I'll announce the final details and call for submissions when I get everything sorted.

Important: This will be a trial run at first. If there isn't a decent level of interest, I think we'll have to accept that it's not meant to be, and move on to other ways of helping the community grow. Once, in a conversation at a party, a dude told me that something I said would be "a great community-building exercise." It seemed a little wack-a-doodle, but here I am. Suggesting the same thing. Let's get our bone on.

Whoa, that was unfortunate. Better move on to a couple ofther networking items:

Aggregators
I haven't yet been able to dig into Pipes, or research any other aggregators. It was an idea floated in the comments of this recent post, a way to package posts of relevant blogs. I'm not sure when I will have an opportunity to really figure this out - I'm putting together grad school apps and finishing some freelance design work right now, so time is precious. If anyone wants to pursue it, please go right ahead! Another big project I need to tackle is going back through the last year of posts and retagging them. I've only recently realized how valuable tags can be when used correctly. I haven't used them correctly.

Twitter
In other news, as a way to better locate like-minded folks on Twitter, I've also started a Paleontology page at Twibes.com. If you're not familiar with Twibes, it's a site that allows tweeters to find each other, which can be difficult on Twitter itself. I joined the Science Communication twibe, which seems pretty active and well-populated, and when I saw there was nothing related to paleontology, I figured it was worth a shot. We'll see how it goes. There are probably other similar sites, but it can be exhausting, wading through the SEO marketing lingo. I'll be sure to mention if I find anything else of use.

UPDATE
Please head to the Boneyard's dedicated site for updated and information on how to pitch in.