Saturday, March 06, 2010

My other blogs

I am not sure you know about my two side blogs. (You might want to follow them ;-)

The Holy Meme is about the concept of memes and about the current book project. Together with a friend who has a PhD in psychology, I have developped an operationalizable biopsychosocial model to describe humans, effectively a framework to study human processes like behaviours, experiences, and other changes. The model is also fundamental for my meta-theory on stuttering.

No Parrotting Please  is on mental tools like avoiding logical fallacies or ways to think clearer and about my articles of my Science Column at the Luxembourg daily Tageblatt. I have my own bi-monthly column (with picture!) where I fight the same ghosts as on TheStutteringBrain in areas and topics touched by natural or social sciences. I am happy to report I have not been fired yet...

What are my plans for TheStutteringBrain? My ultimate plan is to write a popular-scientific book on stuttering covering all aspects of stuttering (like first-person view, second-person view, history, genetics, psychology, brain imaging, treatment approaches, outcome studies, politics and any other view points) and then proposing a framework within which to understand the multi-causal and multi-symptomatic nature. And then STOP!!! But not yet, because I first have to write another book, pass an exam with 2500 pages to study, and earn some money. Maybe in 2011. What a shame, because I have already written the book in my head! In the mid-term, I intend to keep on blogging, and I am happy to give the stage to guest bloggers.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Can't you stop now? That would be nice.

Gustaf said...

I'd very much like reading a stuttering book from you, Tom. But the way you describe it, it sounds like you'd need to spend several years with it, full time. Writing a definitive text on only one of the subjects you mention is a lot of work.

In my opinion, blogs are better for communicating and explaining science than books can ever be. While books are definite, blogs progresses in small steps, like the science itself. Seeking the ultimate and definite often turns out to be a waste of time. You may already have found the ideal format.

If you want to make it more accessible, you could provide a page with links to old posts sorted by subject.

Ora said...

Tom - How can we find your column in Tageblatt?

I've done a search on the Rech. avancée page (http://tageblatt.editpress.lu/search.html) for Auteur = Tom Weidig with "n'importe quelle date", but the search returns "Il n'y a aucune entrée qui corresponde à vos critères."

Tom Weidig said...

Hi Ora, I am not sure. But my articles will be posted on my other blog.

Anonymous said...

Hmm that's amazing but frankly i have a hard time understanding it... I'm wondering what others have to say....

Ora said...

Tom - Are you aware of Google Translate. It prepares a "rough and ready" translation of a text or a website. Here's the translation of your "No Parroting Please" blog - http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnoparrotingplease.blogspot.com%2F&sl=de&tl=en

It's obviously not perfect. (Example: "Beide sind sowohl im Recht als auch im Unrecht!" is translated as "Both are both in law and in the wrong! ") But as long as you're willing to accept its limitations, it's plenty good enough to give people a good idea of what you're writing about . it might be an easy way to make the German texts accessible to an English-speaking audience. If you agree, you could even put a "Show rough English translation" button on the site, which would always translate the latest version.

Anonymous said...

hi tom,

nice that you have so much time and money to do all this. but there really are soooo many good english books about stuttering, cant you translate some of them, let s say, into czech? ;) anyway, viel erfolg!

blanka, today anonymous