DISQUS

This post speaks the truth - and an important component is simply to show up. We've all got to familiarize ourselves with town/city/county planning boards and government meetings. If you can't go to a scheduled meeting, read the minutes. Then drop a note to the committee to suggest how they might make their meetings available online for residents to watch at their convenience. Get to know the people involved, the protocols, and a sense of what they're doing at the moment - it'll help all our ideas gain traction most efficiently.

It's surprising how idiots like blacklisters don't realize the implications of their actions - that they're saying to the world, "I have no interest in debate, dialogue, discussion or intellectual diversity."

The whole point of sites like yours and mine is to help people learn a little and discuss a lot - and we're all better for it. Blacklists don't help accomplish either goal.

I've got to be a killjoy here, Steven. It's about time I disagreed with you anyway. :)

When I was in school, I competed for about 7 years in local, regional and statewide science competitions. In one of those competitions, I had to build and launch paper airplanes. The event was intended to teach kids about aerodynamics and other principles of physics.

This launcher is for units like that competition. It allows students to build airplanes, make changes and then test those changes to record/track/analyze the result with more accuracy. For example, say you bend a tail fin from 10degrees to 20degrees - this little launcher takes out the variable of a hand launch so you can attribute a change in altitude, flight time, etc. to whatever structural change you made to the plane. It lets you launch exactly the same way every time, which is critical to doing any type of aerodynamics lab.

If someone buys this for personal use, they're lazy and/or a moron. But it's got a legitimate junior high/high school science lab use. I would've loved to have had this when I was doing those competitions.

I subscribe to the blogs I do because I like/respect the author's thoughts. That means that as a reader, lists are the type of post I'm most likely to skip. I'd rather read real, solid content from the author. That's why I grabbed their feed in the first place.

Amen to this entire post.

Ads are a faux pas in the education field, so I guess I'm thankful for that - not too many sites have obtrusive ads. The tech stuff I read? Different story.

Thanks for taking the tag - tagging people is my least favorite part of memes. I went through my RSS reader and thought, "Ok, who do I honestly want to know more about?" as I looked down the list.

Hear, hear! on the cancer research, too. Massive oversight on my part not to earmark that. The progress we've made on cancer treatment in the last 15 years is exciting and makes hope matter, and I'm incredibly thankful for those who've helped so many.

I'm a 7.2.

Boo.

In my opinion, the education blogosphere is especially sensitive. I really don't understand why anyone thinks that clear, solid judgment is offensive, and I also don't understand why individuals think they shouldn't be subjected to it.

It seems like everyone wants the benefits of open, public media with none of the accountability. Unfortunately for them, it doesn't work that way - and shouldn't.

Works fine for me. Thank you for this - I've started to think about redesign and want to pore over options over the next few months.

Thanks for the nod - I appreciate these lists a great deal because they always introduce me to a few great sites that I otherwise wouldn't have known about.

It's difficult to read lots of education blogs because it's definitely an echo chamber - I think that effect is what Rubel was getting at. The great irony here for Rubel is that his post about "The Lazysphere" is just another echo. It's been said 100 times before and his post adds nothing new to the debate aside from veiled insult and snobbery.

I don't mind this format, either. I think it's tasteful and I understand that they need to monetize. I'm not such a media purist that I'll complain about the sanctity of YouTube being violated.

I'm pleased that they've come up with such a sensible solution. How successful will it be? I'm not sure - I have a feeling that this structure will benefit established brands far more than newer ones, but I'm no expert.

Yeah, I have mixed feelings on this. I like Technorati, use it personally, and like that it sends high-quality traffic to my site. My site focuses on education and they have one of the few worthwhile education feeds [CNN recently stopped doing theirs, so a good one really is hard to find]. Having said that...

if you offer a feed, keep it up - it's that simple. As I wrote on my site, their feed would shut down the page. If it happens occasionally? Fine. It was happening 3-4 times a day and I simply couldn't afford that.

I don't follow Technorati too closely, so I figured it was just the feed I had... I didn't realize what had been brewing over there until I read this post. Thanks for the information - I hope it gets worked out soon enough.