Our good blog friend drdrA returns!

I’m sure you’ve noticed that I’ve taken three steps back from the blogging business for a while now. Although I don’t want to provide an exhaustive list of reasons for why I did this, I do want to offer a brief explanation. The first, and probably most important reason, is that I don’t feel like I had anything urgent to say- and when I don’t have anything to say it is better just to keep my mouth put my keyboard down rather than to splatter some drivel out there.

I'm doing a face lift over at the Scientopia Blogs CafePress shoppe.

It's been a little while since I messed around and they have a few new products including this little number for the #phitnessdouchery types. I realize I never really set this up beyond the basics so it may take me a little bit of time to put up the items that I think would be of interest. Meaning that in the event that you know there's something in the cafepress catalog that I haven't put up yet and you want it, drop me a note (drugmnky at the googles mail). I also tend to put images on the back of the shirt where cafepress permits. This is a personal preference. If you want something with the logo on the front drop me a line and we should be able to work that out.

Oh, and I got around to making a DrugMonkey logo with the right URL on it finally. Here's the much beloved simple coffee mug. I'll get to the rest later.
The only other news is that I'm adding a $0.50-1.00 markup which will be funneled back into the Scientopia operating fund. This is part and parcel of the effort previously leading to the paypal link and now the Google ads on the sidebar. We're still running a hefty monthly deficit, this is being footed by one of the gang so anything you care to do to chip in will help out a ton.

In the antiquity of the ScienceBloggingWeb Ed Yong of Not Exactly Rocket Science asked his readers a simple question:

1) Tell me about you. Who are you? Do you have a background in science? If so, what draws you here as opposed to meatier, more academic fare? And if not, what brought you here and why have you stayed? Let loose with those comments.

2) Tell someone else about this blog and in particular, try and choose someone who's not a scientist but who you think might be interested in the type of stuff found in this blog. Ever had family members or groups of friends who've been giving you strange, pitying looks when you try to wax scientific on them? Send 'em here and let's see what they say.

He's back at it this year, btw.

Last year I added:

I'm interested in whether you found us, or regularly follow us, through Twitter, Facebook and/or other beyond-RSS mechanisms that you may use to corral your information stream.

So for those newcomers to the blog, have at it, will you? Especially you lurkers (in case you didn't notice, the email field can be filled with nonsense like dev@null.com).

Then head over to the previous editions (here, here, here and here) and get a feel for the community.

The veterans....I know who you are . But feel free to update us on any changes in the way you interact with the blog...especially if you've lost touch with the content, been dismayed or just decided that I'm not who you thought at first, ideas-wise.

have at it......

You will notice a new PayPal button on the sidebar of this blog and possibly other blogs around the Scientopia collective. Very likely you did not notice new amendments to our Code. The short version is, we finally have a way to handle money. This is good because it allows us to try to cover the operational costs of this blog collective which had heretofore been borne by a single member. It was thought that we should get our financial/tax/LLC/blahdeblah in order first and this apparently prevented even donations from ourselves to the cause.

We have apparently negotiated those rough waters. There are three issues on the table at the moment for your understanding and consideration.

First the button and my sidebar text: Your donation helps to support the operation of Scientopia - thanks for your consideration.

This is provided for anyone who would care to support Scientopia. Our expenses are the hosting and bandwidth charges, at the moment there is nobody getting paid to do anything service-related for the upkeep.

Second, the Scientopia schwag shop items now have a modest markup. Said markup will be routed into the Scientopia coffers.

Third, at some point in the future there will be ads on the blogs. Not sure who/what/how just yet, but it is in the works.

I won't make the NPR style plea, you folks can do the maths for yourselves.