3 Quarks Daily has embarked on an annual hunt for the best blog posts in four areas: science, politics, philosophy, and arts & literature. Nominations have now opened for this year’s science prize; you have until May 31 to suggest your favorite science blog post from the last year; then there will be a round of public voting, and a final award bestowed by a celebrity judge. Last year the science prize was awarded by Steven Pinker; this year it will be Richard Dawkins. Someday I’m sure they’ll work their way up to having a physicist serve as judge.
Feel free, of course, to nominate your favorite posts from Cosmic Variance; I’m far too shallow to be reluctant to win awards. But even better would be to find a really great post at a smaller blog that not as many people know about, and use this contest as a vehicle for bringing more attention to really good writing. There’s too much good stuff out there, it’s impossible to follow all of it, so it’s always nice to hear about new bloggers doing great things.
I think Peter Coles’ post about academic journals on his blog In the Dark should get some attention.
http://telescoper.wordpress.com/2009/11/18/the-academic-journal-racket/
Computer science deserves some attention too and specifically the excellent blog by Linux Hater. He has written many excellent post, but this is definitely one of my favorites:
http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2009/11/bad-karma.html