Month: October 2010

Secret Powers of Time

Brianne Bilyeu, 229 Comments

Last night I was reintroduced to the name of Professor Philip Zimbardo.  I remember discussing his Stanford Prison Experiment in college, but I couldn’t have told you that he was the one involved with it.

I saw this video of one of his lectures yesterday.  It was remarkably engaging!  The lecture is fast-paced – he jumps from topic to topic, and along the way manages to hit on differences in world and regional cultures, teaching theory, business, multi-tasking, family values, and many more.  The visuals are unique and kept me rooted to my seat.  After it was over, I couldn’t believe that I had been watching this video for 10 minutes.

A cursory google search tells me that Dr. Philip Zimbardo has only worked on about a gazillion and a half projects, including a couple dozen books and articles.  A youtube search for “Philip Zimbardo” brings up 237 videos about the man.  So I know what I’ll be doing tonight!*

Thanks to Aaron M. for posting the Secret Powers of Time video on Facebook.

*Well, tomorrow night, maybe.  Tonight I’m going to see Michael Shermer at the University of Minnesota!

Secret Powers of Time
{advertisement}

Backpack across Asia! Pack your kayak and jet ski.

Brianne Bilyeu, 168 Comments

Let’s go on a road trip from Tokyo to New York!  And we don’t need no stinkin’ airplanes, either.  Just plug that junk into Google Maps and off we go!

Okay, looks easy enough.


Hmmm…number 21 says we’re gonna need a kayak…

Well, maybe we’ll have to skip for now New York.  Let’s try a shorter trip.  Maybe Japan to China?

There!  That’s better.

A jetski?  Rly?  How the hell do you fit that in a backpack?

Thanks to M. for showing me the neat Google Maps humor.  It really works; ask Google Maps for these starting points and destinations, they direct you to kayak across the Pacific Ocean.  I think that beats the bad rap GPS units get for telling drivers to steer into marshes.

 

Backpack across Asia! Pack your kayak and jet ski.

Flash Mob: Homophobia Kills Die-In

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , 296 Comments

Act on Principles is a group promoting “Full LGBT civil rights now. No delay. No excuses.” The group is currently attempting to get the American Equality Bill (AEB) filed in the Senate.  The AEB would amend the 1964 Civil Rights Act to include “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” as federally protected statuses. 

Queer SOS is an activist project of the Act on Principles group that is focusing their attention on Senator Gillibrand of New York.  Queer SOS wants Sen. Gillibrand to file the proposed American Equality Bill.  Last Friday Queer SOS hosted “Flash Mob: Homophobia Kills Die-In” in Grand Central Station:

Aside from hosting energizing flash mob art-performances-with-a-message, Queer SOS is demonstrating daily outside of Sen. Gillibrand’s offices.  This is part of the the communication that the AEB Project sent to Sen. Gillibrand on 9/17/10 (bolding is original):

Dear Senator Gillibrand,

I’m writing to request again that you commit to and file a Civil Rights bill for our community immediately.

As you know, it is the prime duty of Government to protect its citizens from discrimination and Congress has failed over 30 million LGBTQ people in this regard.

We can not wait any longer for action to redress this.

To press this issue, activists will be launching a daily, friendly vigil outside your campaign offices starting Sept. 27th until the American Equality Bill (AEB) is filed.   If no bill is filed as of October 11th we plan to go 24/7, and then on Nov. 2nd to begin group fasting. 

This is a very serious matter as people will be risking their health standing outside and fasting for basic human justice.  We should not have to take these steps, but talking about this has failed and there is no other option.

We will broadcast our work daily, seek as much media attention as possible, and try to join you at other public campaign appearances.

Please know that this is not an opposition action in any way and that we are very happy your campaign is doing so well! But we NEED YOUR HELP now! We need this bill to organize around and there is no excuse for not filing it immediately.

rest of letter omitted

I support public demonstrations that do not harm or unduly inconvenience the audience to the point where they are coerced into taking action.  Get out there, make your message known, go first amendment-protected speech! 

But group fasting?

It appears to me that threatening a fast is a coercive action – Hey Senator, I’m going to hurt myself unless you do what I want you to do.  I support the goals of this group and I want to support the group itself, but I have reservations about fasting as a political statement.  I know that hunger strikes aren’t new, but why are they okay?  Why is holding one’s health hostage an acceptable means of political pressure?  Can anyone tell me why hunger strikes are appropriate, or give me arguments about why they are not?

Flash Mob: Homophobia Kills Die-In

Minneapolis is a great city

Brianne Bilyeu, , , 164 Comments

I’ve been in a funny gray mood lately. 

It’s not anything you would notice if you saw me; it’s just an increase in the underlying noise or static – one of those little funks that everyone seems to have now and then. 

For the most part I feel great – my daily mood is happy and forward-looking.  This grayness really only strikes me when I’m by myself and undistracted by some pursuit or another.  Maybe it’s a seasonal biochemical change or just some issue or combination of issues with which I’m not satisfied. 

I’m a very optimistic person, and I really believe in the effect that forcing a smile and positive thinking can have in making me feel good about myself and the world around me.  It’s really been an odd week; between feeling down and trying to make myself feel up I’ve been having these odd jumps between elation – real, true joy – and meh-ness.

I went for a bicycle ride after work yesterday because I find that physical exercise is a good way to get the endorphins going and to clear my mind.  I went biking around Lake Calhoun and was once again amazed that I live in such a beautiful area of town.  I live less than a mile away from this gorgeous lake that offers bike and walking trails and canoe/kayak/paddleboat rentals.  Awesome!

My view of the downtown Minneapolis skyline from Lake Calhoun at dusk last night.

I wasn’t as enamored of Minneapolis when I first saw it as I am now.  First, I remember being shocked that downtown Minneapolis and downtown St. Paul were about 10 miles away from each other.  I was bummed out because I had this image in my head of one large metro area, not two smaller cities with a bunch of residential and suburb-like areas between the two.

Second, I was taken aback by how small Minneapolis was.  I grew up near Chicago; you could see the city from all the way out in Tinley Park – the suburb in which I grew up –  and that was 30 miles away from downtown!  When I was little and we drove on the highway toward Chicago, I would watch from the backseat as the skyline would grow to fill more and more of the windshield until we arrived in the city and I had to start craning my neck up to see the tops of the buildings.

I was reminded again of how small Minneapolis is when I visited New York City.  When we got off the plane at JFK I was struck by how buildings filled the horizon.  I didn’t just have to crane my neck up in NYC, I had to crane my head from left-to-right just to see the entire skyline.

From a distance I can stretch out my arm, hold my thumb up and close one eye to “hide” Minneapolis.  In Chicago, I have to hold up both hands, and in New York I couldn’t hide the skyline at all.

Minneapolis skyline

Chicago skyline

New York skyline

But being in a smaller urban city definitely has its advantages:  Rent is affordable – even right downtown, parking is reasonable, and traffic is tame.  Most events and festivals aren’t exorbitantly priced or over-crowded.  It’s pretty easy to get involved in community planning and local politics.  I have the culture and variety that inevitably pops up when you cram a lot of very different people together in a small space.  If I want to get away to the country all I have to do is drive 20 miles in any direction and I’m in prime motorcyle riding land, pumpkin patches, state parks, etc. 

There’s a lot to love in Minneapolis. 

At least for another month or so until the blizzards start. 

Photo source 

I found this photo at Nokohaha – it looks like an awesome Minneapolis blog with a lot of other Minneapolis sites in it’s blogroll!

Minneapolis is a great city

Biology Pareidolia

Brianne Bilyeu, , , , 4,770 Comments

Forget Mary in the grilled cheese sandwich Jesus in an MRI scan; my officemate and I saw a seriously spooky image today.  We both saw something, but we can’t agree on what exactly we saw.  

What do you think: Does this sunlight reflected off of a glossy-covered industry journal onto the ceiling looks more like a golgi apparatus or an endoplasmic reticulum?

~

 

 ~

 

Biology Pareidolia

Blog Traffic

Brianne Bilyeu, 441 Comments

I know I’ve talked about why I blog, but in the past week I’ve had three people ask me about how I get new commenters and new visitors to my blog.  There are tons of resources on how to increase traffic to your blog (google “how do I increase traffic to my blog”).  But people have asked me, so here are my thoughts.

I am a new blogger – I’ve only had this blog since December 2009 – but my site hits have been gradually increasing over time. 

May 2010 was an oddity – I was published on the WordPress.com frontpage.

I don’t get a ton of hits, but I get enough to hold my interest, and to make writing regularly worth it on the days when I don’t necessarily want to write.  These are some of the factors that I believe play a role in getting people to check out my blog, and to keep them coming back:

Cross-publishing on Facebook and Twitter.  I get most of my regular, returning readers from Facebook.  I think that a lot of people don’t like to subscribe to receive email updates, so FB and Twitter provide an opportunity to unobtrusively knock on the door when I have new posts.  Also, I have friends and family who do FB, but don’t read a lot of blogs.  FB connects them to me. 

Including popular, controversial or unique words in my posts.  Sex, circumcision, diet, porno, Marilyn Monroe, atheism, ValleyScare.  All of these words have coincided with a bump in my viewership and my google search hits.  One of my favorite bloggers, Jeremy from Cafe Witteveen, put the word “vuvuzela” into one of his posts during this summer’s World Cup and received a generous boost in his viewership.   This is a good way to get people to glance once at my blog, but not a great way to gain loyal, returning readers. 

Getting noticed by bigger blogs so that they publicize for me.  I consider this to be one of the coolest things that has happened to me during my time in the blogosphere, and yes, even more than being published on WordPress.com: Jen from BlagHag took notice of my blog and thought it was decent enough to add it to her Recommended Reading List.  Whenever I add a new post, her blog updates so that my post shows up in the left-hand column.   I usually get ~10 hits per day redirected from her site.  I also show up on some blog rolls on other sites and get occasional hits from those.  It’s audience bias – when the bloggers who have an interest in reading me put my blog on their website, chances are decent that their readers will also have an interest in what I’m writing.

Posting early.  Or late.  It seems like I get a rush of hits in the morning, a smaller bump over the lunch hour and then after 5pm.  These are the times when regular readers check their blogs, and I try to publish accordingly.

But whenever I post, I try to post regularly.  I’ve talked with other bloggers and blog readers about this, and it seems to be a popular idea that even if you post once per day, if you post in a predictable manner you’re going to retain regular readership.  People want to know that the stop at my site is going to be worth it.  I like to publish early in the day (but that doesn’t always happen).     

The more I post, the more I show up in google.  Seems pretty obvious, but as my content has grown, I’ve been suprised at some of the searches that lead to my blog.  I have found that some of my past posts are bolstering site visit numbers on days that I don’t publish new material.  Google has sent quite a few visitors my way for a few select search phrases:  Ada Lovelace, ValleyScare 2010, Green Porno, Pi Necklace, MN Renaissance, Chikage Windler, Gluten Free Pancakes, Girl in the Rain.

Get lucky enough to be published on WordPress.com.   At the time my blog was chosen for the WordPress front page I was getting an average of maybe 25 hits/day.  I received 1,383 hits that day.  As soon as I disappeared from the front page my hits came back down, but my daily average moved up to about 35 hits/day. 

Getting site hits has never been the purpose of my blog.  I enjoy writing about what I’m up to and sharing cool, geeky, science, political and social news.  But having readership – especially an active readership that comments, debates and commiserates with me about the things that I write – is definitely a bonus. 

Thanks for stopping by.

Blog Traffic