We should have plenty of fodder.\u00a0 Let us face it, if we do not do some mildly interesting science every week then we are probably not having enough fun.\u00a0 But even if you are working on a hushed up, undercover project (e.g. the next blockbuster drug\u00a0against Malaria<\/a>) – there are still so many interesting bits of our D.Phil. which would otherwise never see the light of day.<\/p>\n For inspiration, have a look at other\u00a0popular scientific blogs – the chembl<\/a> one is both\u00a0educational and humourous in equal measures (Post Idea #1: list of bio\/cheminformatics blogs which every grad student should read<\/em>).\u00a0 Blogs are a great way to survey literature without actually doing any reading (Post Idea #2: tricks to increase grad student productivity… what do you mean you don’t use Google Alerts<\/a> to surprise your supervisor with a link to a paper published the day before?<\/em>); and for a TL;DR <\/a>version there is twitter (Post Idea #3: Idea #1 but for twitter instead<\/em>).\u00a0 I only found out about the four stranded\u00a0DNA in human cells<\/a> by following @biomol_info<\/a>.<\/p>\n And of course, we are mostly a computational group – so software is what we churn out on a daily basis.\u00a0 How much of the software we write ends up resting forever on our disks, never to be used again.\u00a0 The masses want splitchain!\u00a0 (Idea #4: post\u00a0software you wrote<\/em>).\u00a0 And there is benefit in not only giving out software, but also explaining the internals with snippets\u00a0 (Idea #5: a clever algorithm explained line-by-line<\/em>).<\/p>\n And then there\u00a0is the poster you hung up once (Idea: #6<\/em>) or the talk you gave and prepared for hours on your disposable, use-once-only slides (Idea: #7<\/em>).\u00a0 There is the announcement of publishing a paper – that solemn moment in academia when someone else thinks what you have done is worthy\u00a0(Idea: #8<\/em> – btw well done to our own Jamie Hill for his recent MP-T work<\/a>).<\/p>\n And if your an athelete, like Anna (Dr. Lewis) who crossed the atlantic in a rowing boat<\/a>\u00a0or Eleanor who used to row for the blues<\/a> – what can I say, this is how we roll, or row\u00a0[feeble attempt at humour] – thats a non-scientific but unique and interesting\u00a0experience too (Idea #8<\/em>).\u00a0 .<\/p>\n If you’ve read a paper and you think it’s interesting comment on it – people will follow your posts just because it acts like a literature filter (Idea #9<\/em>).\u00a0 You can probably even have a rant (Idea #10<\/em>); as long as its more positive and less bitter than Fred Ross’ Farewell to Bioinformatics<\/a>.<\/p>\n Finally, this post is long and tedious for the reader.\u00a0 But that is ok too – like everything else here, it is a learning experience and the more I write the more I will improve.\u00a0 So hey, I’m also doing this to write a better thesis (i.e. to make the writing less painful).<\/p>\n An addendum; my initial intention was to discuss the bits which make a good blog post.\u00a0 You can find lots of articles about this – so it is less interesting; but here are the main points<\/p>\n\n
![\"cover_real_conformers\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blopig.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/01\/cover_real_conformers-300x300.png?resize=300%2C300\")
<\/a>