The correct number of bicycles to own is

one more than you currently own.

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Sounds just about right

10

It is sort of interesting that just as my decade blogging as DrugMonkey is expiring, all this political jazz erupts.

Rescue: A Blog Meme

Back when science blogging was still vibrant, bloggers would launch a challenge query and tag some other folks to answer. I’m tagging dr24hrs, Gerty-Z, docbecca and iBAM on this one.

(I just saw something like this on Fb or somewhere, btw. I didn’t invent it.)

The question is, from the teevee (or movies) you’ve been watching recently, name the top five characters you’d want coming to rescue you from a bad situation. 

Mine are:

1. Tyrion Lannister

2.DCI John Luther

3. Jessica Jones

4. Varys the Spider

5. Sergeant Antigone Bezzerides

Yours? Feel free to answer on your blog if you have one, and drop a link. If not, use the comments. 

Oscars

Damn.

Chris Rock.

Louis C.K. “…they’ll drive it home in their Civic”.

JoBi! Introducing a huge bit on sexual assault, no less. Wow.

…but nobody said anything about the “casting couch”.

Chris Rock.

Some guy being awarded the grant not because his work was that good in this application but because he deserved it for past performance. Wait…sorry, not a grant. Best Actor.

A comprehensive guide to using social media to your advantage

1. Entertain yourself.

Nine

Nine years.

Nine years ago my dismay at the way certain Ecstasy and pot enthusiasts conducted misinformation campaigns online, and dismay over certain realities of the scientific career arc reached a threshold.

I had been reading science blogs and, particularly, several ScienceBlogs, so the outlet immediately presented itself.

Much spleen has been vented and my sanity kept near the critical line.

I’ve read comments from people that I would have never known, still don’t beyond the confines of this blog in many cases* and learned a great deal as a consequence.

I’ve gotten to know people in my field that I would have known only at a handshake level. I’ve gotten to know some fantastic people in other fields or walks of life that I would have never run across.

In short, it has been a lot of fun writing this blog over the past nine years.

I can quit anytime I want.
__
*as recently as the last few months I’ve had a long term blog commenter out self to me and I was shocked to discover it wasn’t a woman like I thought.

Twelve Months of DrugMonkey (2015)

Jan: Here’s to wishing all of my Readers a fantastic 2015. May your grants be funded, your papers accepted and your promotions obtained.

Feb: Some people try to get into a mental frame for grant writing with disruptions of their normal workaday routine.

Mar: There is one thing that concerns me about the Journal of Neuroscience banning three authors from future submission in the wake of a paper retraction.

Apr: challdreams wrote on rejection.

 These things may or may not be part of your personal life, where rejection rears its head at times and you are left to deal with the fall out.

May: Neuroscientist Nikos Logothetis (PubMed) has informed his colleagues that he is stopping his long running nonhuman primate research program.

Jun: First of all, if you don’t understand that anything featuring groups of humans is in the broader sense “political” than you are a fool.

Jul: I still get irritated every time a PO gives me some grant advice or guidance that is discordant with my best understanding of the process.

Aug: Sometimes, I page back through my Web of Science list of pubs to the minimal citations range.

Sep: How many staff members (mix of techs, undergrads, graduate students, postdocs, staff sci, PI) constitute a “medium sized laboratory” in your opinion?

Oct: Are you familiar with any Universities that award some sort of official recognition of the completion of a postdoctoral term of scientific training?

Nov: PAR-16-025 invites applications for the R50 Research Specialist award.

Dec: It emerged on the Twitts today that sometimes postdocs can defer student loans and sometimes they cannot.

Updating the Glossary

I maintain a blog Glossary page which is supposed to be a handy reference for newcomers to the blog. It is necessary because I am lazy and often use shorthand when I am writing blog posts. My commenters frequently do as well. I was just adding RAP to the list when I thought I should maybe solicit feedback from you.

So, any suggestions for the Glossary, Dear Reader?

Anything which stumped you when you first started reading? Or which stumps you now?

What jargon should I add?

Open Thread

Whatcha got today, folks?

Twelve Months of Drug Monkey (2014)

Apparently I missed this meme last year. huh.

The rules for this blog meme are quite simple.
-Post the link and first sentence from the first blog entry for each month of the past year.
I originally did this meme, after seeing similar posted by Janet Stemwedel and John Lynch. Prior editions include 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 and 2008.

If you blog, I encourage you to do your own year-end wrap up post.

---

2014

Jan: A December 18 post on the Rock Talk blog issued an update on the funding rate situation for grant applications submitted to the NIH.

Feb: A new post at Speaking for Research details the history:

Mar: This is important enough to elevate to an entry.

Apr: I have been experiencing a sharp uptick in high school projects that are apparently titled: “Email questions to some random expert on the internet” lately.

May: This is an overview of a presentation in Symposium 491. Scientists versus Street Chemists: The Toxicity of Designer Marijuana presented Wed, Apr 30, 9:30 AM – 12:00 PM at the 2014 Experimental Biology meeting.

Jun: It has recently come to my attention that not everyone views the no-cost extension (NCE) of a NIH grant the same way I do.

Jul: I realize this is not news to most of you.

Aug: The Sesai suicide has been deemed the result of an anti-fraud witch hunt by well respected biomedical ethics / conduct of science / publishing / open science dude Michael Eisen.

Sep: One of the more awesome and fun parts of running this blog for so long is watching you all progress in your lives and careers.

Oct: Some days… I tell you, one of the most hilarious parts of this blogging gig is this.

Nov: The best known Klingon proverb … is proof that before they were warriors, the Klingons were academicians.

Dec: The NIH has notified us (NOT-OD-15-024) that as of Jan 25, 2015 all grant applications will have to use the new Biosketch format (sample word doc).

Who are you, what are you doing here and why do you keep looking at me? VII: "You know nothing Jon Snow"

I have an extra special reason for this annual event, so hook me up, Dear Reader. (I might even explain why in a few weeks.)

This post is a meme for you, the readers of this blog, to take more than the usual spotlight you enjoy here in the comments. This is especially for you lurkers (in case you didn’t notice, the email field can be filled with nonsense like dev@null.com). For the the veterans, yes 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.

1) Tell me about yourself. 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?

2) Have you told anyone else about this blog? Why? Were they folks who are not a scientist?. Ever sent anything to family members or groups of friends who don’t understand your career?

3) How did you find us and how do you regularly follow us? through Twitter, Facebook and/or other beyond-RSS mechanisms?

If you blog, and I know many of you do, go ahead and post your own version of this. Take the time to get to know your audience and ask the lurkers to come out and play. You’ll be most pleasantly surprised how many take you up on it.

[This is all the fault of Ed Yong. Head over the the last iteration to see all the gory details and links to prior comment threads.]

Will You Be Attending Experimental Biology 2014?

The good folks at the American Society for Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics have seen fit to invite me to serve as an official blogger for the Experimental Biology 2014 meeting to be held in San Diego, CA, April 26-30. I will be joined in this effort by @katiesci who blogs at http://sicknessisfascinating.blogspot.com.

I would like to invite you, Dear Readers, to send me your presentation details, should you be attending this year. You can drop a note in the comments to this thread or send me an email (drugmnky at the google mail). I will try to stop by if it fits in my schedule and maybe blog it if I can understand what you do.

There may also be a meet up or two which revolves around either this community at the blog or my Twitter Tweeps. So stay in touch about that. If you are interested in such a thing and leave a comment, this may help to stimulate someone (say, me) to get off their behind and organize something.

Looking forward to seeing some of your science and to meeting some of you.

Seven Years

Thanks Readers, the past seven years have been fun to share with all of you.

https://drugmonkey.wordpress.com/2007/02/08/mozart-would-have-been-dead-for-7-years/

The protection afforded by pseudonyms depends on the community

As you know, DearReader, I blog and engage with the Twittersphere under a pseudonym. I do so for a variety of reasons, some of which were in the forefront when I started and are no longer really an issue. Some reasons have appeared or become strengthened over time. Some are relatively more important to me and some are less important.

Some of these reasons overlap with the usual ones described in defense of pseudonymity and some are relatively unique to my own personal decisions on reasons that are both personal and professional.

Some reasons that I have for being a pseudonymous blogger are entirely related to making my blogging more effective in terms of what I want to do.

In what is now over seven years engaging in the blogosphere there is one issue that has brought me to do the most unsolicited, tut-tutting, pseudofatherly advice to bloggers via nonpublic communication methods.

Never assume your pseudonym is iron clad protection against being identified by people that matter to you. Ever. Blog accordingly.

My advice stems from my occasional coursework in human cognitive psychology. It shouldn’t surprise anyone but apparently it is not at the forefront of everyone’s mind (more on this in a second). The brain is a wonderfully synthetic organ that permits the linking of seemingly unconnected facts and experiences into a sometimes brilliant whole. It is fantastic at taking seemingly limited, low bandwith, pixellated information and creating a detailed picture. What this understanding means for pseuds is that you cannot help but leave breadcrumbs as to your identity. You blog because you want to talk about things that are important to you. Good blogging is infused with the personal perspective and the personal anecdote. One can’t help but assert some aspects of ones authoritah! (more on this below) in making an argument. Categorical interests tend to set a context.

Most importantly these random details and contexts permit the Reader to rule out many of the obvious suspects for whom you might be.

Next, I turn to the question of voice. If you are doing blogging right (IMNSHO), you are infusing your writing with a defined voice. Usually, that is your voice and sounds one heck of a lot like the things that you usually say in real life. After all, these are matters that are important to you or you wouldn’t be blogging. While there is no particular reason a complete stranger should recognize your voice, I hold it to be self-evident that your friends and colleagues will. My assumption has always been that if anyone who knows me runs across my blog and reads more than about two posts, they will know it is me. With very little doubt.

With that said, pseudonymity still works. Determining the identity of a given pseudonymous person on the internet still requires a bit of work, if one is not fortuitously connected to that person in real life. Depending on the various categories of personal information available, there may be many people who could be the blogger in question. This will vary tremendously depending on the number of the tiny bits of information one curious pseud-buster has available to them. One of the most important barriers to detection is therefore the avoidance of direct linking of a real name to a pseudonym in a place that is easily Google-able.

Due to these and other factors, maintaining the relative security/secrecy of ones pseudonym depends on the community. It depends first and foremost on the community not to put the identification of a pseud’s real name with their pseudonymous person in any digital format that can be Googled and/or linked. This is a relatively easy distinction.

Integrity of pseuds also depends on the community minimizing the extent to which it provides, amplifies and broadcasts the tiny bits of information that identify the blogger. This, my friends, is the tricky bit.

A blogger may have provided some detail of their person, identity or life many years ago in a random post which a given Reader remembers. Generally speaking, if a blogger talks about something on blog, well this is fair-ish game. If I let you in on a detail of my life and leave it on the blog, I certainly can’t blame anyone else for knowing this detail. And yet. A pseudonymous blogger may not wish the details critical to divining his or her identity to be repeatedly mentioned, in context, over and over for all and sundry to assess. But we exist in a community. We make friendships that depend on personal details in many cases. We make connections with Readers that are based on those tiny details and assumptions about our past and present. We embrace granfalloon. This works at cross-purposes with the integrity of the pseudonym. And so it depends on the community to uphold the pseudonym veil.

One defense I make for people who interact with pseudonymous persons and inadvertently make comments that would tend to out the pseud is a caution for those who are themselves pseudonymous. In many cases where a person identifies the real life identity of a pseudonymous blogger, it consequentially becomes unimaginable that this person is really trying too hard to be pseudonymous. As I said, if a person who knows me well runs across the blog, they are going to be thinking that it sounds so much like him that there is no possible WAY he is trying to be secret about it. Others who put the several obvious clues together, see that a pseud repeatedly mentions such clues and likewise conclude that it is an open secret of the not-very-secret variety.

The trouble is, it is very difficult for such people to remember that this is not the case for everyone and the goal is to not facilitate trivial identification. It is also difficult for people to remember that there are certain details that one does NOT ever cop to on the blog. It is difficult to remember that just one extra detail may narrow down the suspect from a group of six to an obvious one.

It is difficult for the well-intentioned internet friend to remember that a pseudonymous blogger is constantly adding new Readers and that they are not all aware of personal detail.

It is also difficult for the well-intentioned interlocutor to remember the possible harm that might be created by mistakenly linking a pseud to the wrong person- either because of direct accusation or because of mentioning details that might point in the wrong direction. There have been several cases brought to my attention in which it was clear that someone thought “Drugmonkey” was some other scientific peer of mine. This is, given my comments and tone about several serious things in science, not fair to them.

So….about me.

One reason that is a mainstay of my pseudonym is my understanding of the way that one’s personal authoritah! within science can make one lazy when it comes to arguing about the conduct of science. Michael Eisen has made the case for this in an excellent post. I like rambunctious discussion and being called out on the stupid stuff I say on the blog. I value being called out on my privilege. While I consider myself to be no great shakes in the professional arena, it is assy in the extreme not to recognize that my role places me in a position of power relative to others. Some of whom are my readers. There are grad students, postdocs, junior faculty, my lateral peers and even graybeards from my field that interact with me online. People who might hesitate to say something for fear my role as a paper or grant reviewer, potential mentor, associate editor, casual peer-recommender or letter writer may be contaminated by some personal pique over online interactions. See Dr Isis’ excellent post for a reality check on this fear.

A related reason lies in the disconnect between my prescriptive comments about the way this career business should go, my descriptive comments and how I might behave within my sphere of professional obligations. Especially at the start of my blogging, I was worried that I would be compromising the mission of the NIH were I to be directly linked to my blog comments; this had to do with grant review. It would be very easy to conclude that I was pursuing a grant review agenda that was entirely at odds with the charge given us by the CSR. I happen to think that I do a pretty good job of doing the work expected of me in navigating the provision of personal expertise for which I was selected within the instructions and obligations of the formal review process and the cultural expectations of a study section. And every reveiwer has biases. Unfortunately the CSR/NIH is in the business of pretending individual biases do not exist in study section and therefore the admission on the part of a reviewer would be a detriment to what they are trying to do. So this was an issue.

Another reason has to do with insane, theologically motivated opponents of animal research. As you know, we have several colleagues in the neurosciences that have been under siege in their homes for years now. I’ll let you do the math on that one.

I have a spouse. At times, this blog ventures into territory in which people want to know a lot about said spouse and our domestic arrangements. I try not to make decisions and to take actions that directly involve other people’s beeswax without their explicit permission. This is no different.

Now, one of the more interesting issues to distill out of the foregoing comments is that a pseudonymous identity can be misleading. Obviously there are going to be people synthesizing the bits of information and the statements and comments made to come up to a wrong impression. I mentioned misidentification of an individual above. But there is also the misidentification of various personal and professional characteristics. And this misidentification can be viewed as the type of dishonesty that is often used to argue why pseudonymous participants on the internet are horrible and evil.

One specific example has to do with a couple of my friends on the Twittahs. Who have taken to engaging in the sort of tangentially-outing behavior that I describe above as possibly coming from a place that does not include active malice. In this particular case it was by way of referring (inaccurately as it happens) to the number of R01 grants on which I serve as PI. The reason for doing so was because these individuals (or at least one of them) has the strong impression that my comments on the NIH grant game substantially misrepresent this fact about my career. In a way that somehow unfairly benefits my pseudonym. It is not clear to me whether the objection was to the force of my arguments or the appreciation the community has for my comments, these being the two sources of currency I can think of.

In a sense these are mind boggling accusations for anyone who has read my blog over any period of time. I make it pretty clear what my job category is, what my perception of “what it takes” is, my general type of research and approximate depth in the career etc. I also mention repeatedly how grateful I am for both my relative success within the NIH system and to the taxpayers for their ongoing support. All of these should give anyone who has a half a clue about this business some idea of where I stand. Apparently, however, it is possible that my Twitter persona creates an entirely different view of where I stand and therefore the persona created by the blogger seems….different. Somehow.

Obviously I am only partially responsible for the perceptions that I create. And there are people who jump to some pretty far fetched conclusions in their desire to undermine me, as opposed to my arguments themselves.

I think, on more sober reflection, that this anecdote underscores both my reasons for mounting my arguments from a position not directly tied to my status in science/academia and my comments above about the community involvement in maintaining pseudonym integrity.

I end with one of my themes for the year. I ask the outer of pseuds and the arguer against psueds:

What’s the end game here?

As a blowhard on the internet is finding out this week, outing a pseudonymous blogger doesn’t injure this person’s standing, authoritah! or arguments. It doesn’t reduce the size of the persons’ internet platform for advancing a cause or, most likely, interfere with the real life career. If anything, it enhanced all of these things! And said blowhard clearly injured his own real-life standing with his petulance.

Communities have behavioral standards. They tend to be opt-in. On the internet, there is very little enforcement of the rules. So anyone is free to be any sort of ass that they desire. We should all recognize this. This corner of the internet inhabited by academics, and scientists in particular, is most assuredly a community, however. So if you choose to be an ass, the community is going to tell you so. We should all recognize this. All of us are going to be the ass at times. If you aren’t, you aren’t really saying anything of importance. We can control, however, the scope of our assiness. And the response we have when told we are being an ass about a particular topic. We should all recognize this.