Mead’s blogroll

I read a lot of blogs pretty consistently. It turns out that most websites that you go back to again and again are in a blog format. So I was reading blogs long before I knew what a blog was.

Sites I go to every day:

  • Cafe Hayek: A blog maintained by two George Mason University Economics professors, Russ Roberts and Don Boudreaux. These guys write very well from an Austrian school perspective. I’ve sharpened my libertarian and economics chops for years reading their site
  • reason.com: the excellent website/blog of Reason magazine. Current events and politics from a libertarian point of view. Very well written and updated a lot throughout the day.
  • The Superficial and What Would Tyler Durden Do: Really, Mead? You’re sending me to a gossip site that’s often NSFW and is more about bikini bodies and bad behavior than important stuff? Yes. I’m absolutely sending you there. Not only will you be be able to converse with your patients about the latest starlet in rehab, both of these blogs are hilarious and well written. Many writers of blogs could learn a thing or two about how to write humorously from these sites!
  • Science Based Medicine: a group blog written by health care providers who take “evidence based medicine” one step further. It’s not enough to trust the research…plausibility is important. These skeptics are leaders in their fields and they take on all kinds of pseudoscience and alternative medicine bunk.
  • Neurologica Blog: the personal blog of neurologist and founder of the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe podcast. This blog is very well written by the hardest working man in skepticism.
  • Seth Godin’s Blog: Seth’s blog was the first blog I read regularly that I realized was a blog. Years ago he wrote a post explaining that doctors, dentists and other professionals would do better maintaining a blog than having a cookie cutter website. He assured his readers that having a genuine and authentic internet presence was worth way more than a flashy but vacant site. He was right. More than anyone, he’s the reason I do what I do.

Other sites I visit regularly:

  • Dentaltown.com: more a bulletin board site than a blog. If you’re a dentist and you haven’t been to DentalTown, you need to check it out. This site (and it’s founder Howard Farran) have had more of an influence in my day to day dentistry than anything else so far. If you aren’t a Townie yet, what are you waiting for?
  • Facebook: I’m on it all day, every day.
  • Google+: I don’t use it as much as I use Facebook, but it’s got some features that can’t be ignored.
  • cnet: a really good overview of new technology
  • twitter: I’m still trying to see how this fits me. I use it for promoting blog posts, mostly. I think if I keep trying it maybe sometime it will stick. If I ever figure it out I’ll let you know.

Podcasts I listen to:

I’ve been listening to podcasts for 5+ years.  Some of them have been with me so long I look forward to them like seeing family!

  • Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe
  • Econtalk
  • Skeptoid
  • Quackcast
  • Hugh Hewitt’s Hughniverse:
  • NPR hourly newscast
  • Android Atlas Weekly

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  1. Hi this is kind of of off topic but I was wondering if blogs use
    WYSIWYG editors or if you have to manually code with
    HTML. I’m starting a blog soon but have no coding expertise so I wanted to get advice from someone with experience.

    Any help would be greatly appreciated!

  2. Alan,
    Very refreshing blog. It is not every day you see a professional running a blog in the true sense. I attempted to read the article on Seth’s blog about blogging but couldn’t find it. You wouldn’t have the link would you?

    I do a bit of local marketing here in Australia and will follow your path of having a blog instead of the stock standard “cute” website and try to rank it.

    Cheers mate,
    Craig