A bunch of links

Blog
3 May 2013, 2:25 p.m.
Here are some things I've found interesting lately.

After my own little rant on blogging and networking as a scientist, Dan O'Huiginn wrote this piece on academic blogging by political scientists. James Duncan also pointed me towards Links to the Damn Paper, where three MeFites are writing accessible and interesting posts about open-access biology papers. Finally, today I saw this PLOS Biology paper, An Introduction to Social Media for Scientists.

Via MetaFilter, here is an article about a truly amazing pro-peace action at the Oak Ridge Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. An octogenarian nun and two fellow activists broke into the complex and poured the blood of a deceased friend (which had been frozen on his death for this purpose) on the building wall. They're currently facing trial on charge of sabotage, and might end up spending their lives in prison.

Marieke Nijkamp and Alex Brown have started a very cool project together: DiversifYA!

DiversifYA is a bit of Dear Teen Me, a bit of the Emotional Thesaurus, and a whole lot of Miniature Earth. It is a collection of short interviews—five questions each. Interviews focused on all sorts of diversity. Racial and cultural diversity. Gender diversity and sexual orientation. Disability and neurodiversity. All sorts.

They launched this Wednesday and the first interview is up now. This is really something to watch for anyone who cares about kids' and YA literature, writing better themselves, or the representation of diversity in culture.

The next project came to my attention when I picked up a leaflet in a hippy health-food shop. The Solikarte (link in German; Google-translated page) is a card or sticker that you can scan at the Swiss supermarket Migros whenever they ask for your Cumulus loyalty card. The points collected in the Solikarte account are cashed out every two months in Migros vouchers, which are given to people in need in the region. Mostly, these are undocumented immigrants and people whose asylum applications have been denied. (They can't work or apply for social assistance, but they still need to eat!) The Zürich Solinetz (Google-translated page) also uses the vouchers towards German lessons and group lunches for refugees. I hate supermarket loyalty schemes but I've been using my Solikarte at every opportunity.

Finally, a question on AskMeFi pushed me to update my blogroll here with some sites that hadn't made it on there yet. Regarding the last on the list, I present this tweet as evidence: