A Carnival of Aces 3: Community

This is the third edition of the Carnival of Aces, with the theme, "Community".

 Photo used with David Jay's permission

Sciatrix explains why community is important.

Ace Student thanks the chat rooms.

Norah talks about being in an MMO community.

Elizabeth explains to what extent we are responsible to communities.

Childfreeace learned something from an asexual community.

Ace Eccentric had experiences in multiple ace communities.

And lastly, I wrote about trying to build offline communities.

Thank you, everyone, for your submissions!  The next carnival will be hosted by Neutrois Nonsense.

Carnival of Aces 3: Call for participation

Welcome to the 3rd edition of A Carnival of Aces, the asexual blogging carnival!

Your host this month is me, miller (aka Siggy), and the theme is community.  I intentionally picked a very broad theme, because that's what I like.  Here are a few possible ideas:

• How do you feel about the asexual community?  What are some interesting aspects of it?
• Are you part of other communities?  What's it like to be asexual in those communities?
• We talk so much on partnered relationships, but how do you feel about the idea of relationships with whole communities?

The above list is incomplete, of course.  If you talk about how great/terrible any particular community is, keep in mind that some readers and writers may have opposite impressions and opinions as you do, so try not to insult them with generalizations!

How to submit an article 

Send me an e-mail at skepticsplay at gmail dot com, or leave a comment on this post.  The deadline to submit is July 1st.  Unlike previous hosts, I'm unwilling to host guest posts on my own blog, but Sciatrix offered to host any guest posts if it's necessary.

About the Carnival of Aces

A blogging carnival is an event in which many people write blog posts around a single theme. These posts are then collected at the end of the carnival and linked together by the carnival’s host.  For example, the previous edition was about the intersection between race/ethnicity/culture/nationality and the asexual identity.

This blog carnival is an effort to encourage a variety of different voices to speak about asexuality from their own perspectives. Anyone can participate, but the responses should deal with asexuality or the asexual spectrum (grey-As, demisexuals) in some way, and relate in some way to this month's theme, community.

We do need more people to volunteer to host.  If you're interested, see the masterpost.

Carnival of Aces

There's a brand new asexual blogging carnival: A Carnival of Aces.  A blogging carnival is a periodic event that collects posts from various bloggers on a single topic.  The theme of the inaugural edition is "coming out", which I hope is something even non-asexuals find interesting.

If I were to highlight two posts in the carnival, I'd pick Elizabeth's and Pippin's (which has comics!).

This carnival reminds me of back in the day when I used to participate in the Carnival of the Godless and Skeptic's Circle.  At some point I lost interest, or I lost the confidence required to submit.  Now both of these carnivals are dead.  Not sure what happened there.  I suspect it might be because the skeptical and atheist blogospheres got so big that they outgrew the carnivals.  Here's to hoping the same eventually happens here.

54th Carnival of Math

The Carnival of Mathematics is a collection of links to the best mathematical blogging in the last few weeks or so. The posts range from technical to popular. One of my posts has been submitted to the 54th Carnival of Mathematics, the one about Godel's Modal Ontological Argument.

Oh geez, it's been a while since I've participated or read a blog carnival. I haven't looked at all the entries yet, but one entry I would really like to read is this series on Polya's enumeration theory. I remember back in my high school puzzling days, I had a very brief encounter with Polya's enumeration theory. You can use it to quickly calculate the number of different ways to paint the faces of a cube. I thought it was mathematical black magic.

Carnival of Mathematics #40

Another carnival! This time, it's the Carnival of Mathematics at Staring At Empty Pages. I submitted my two-parter on how use generating functions to factor dice. The carnival has been MIA for a few weeks, so this is a pleasant surprise.

So if you've never heard of the Carnival of Mathematics before, it includes interesting discussions of mathematical concepts, of math education, and sometimes math puzzles. See the full description here.

If I had to pick a favorite from this carnival, I'd go with the series on paradoxes, because I'm a sucker for paradoxes.

Skeptic's Circle #96

The Skeptic's Circle, a blogging carnival for skepticism is up at -endcycle-. If I had to pick my favorite entry, I'd go with The Perky Skeptic's Personal View of the Harm of Astrology.

My entry was False memories in Atonement. By the way, I didn't read the book; I cheated by watching the film. My sources say the film and novel are about the same though.

Oh, and for future reference (because a commenter asked), no, this blog is not fully focused on skepticism. It's about things that interest me, a skeptic. More often than not, what interests me isn't straight-up skepticism. Um... sorry?

Carnival of the Godless #98

The Carnival of the Godless #98 is up at Letters from a broad. The Carnival of the Godless is a biweekly blogging carnival that features the best new posts in the atheist blogosphere. My "No molecule of love" is in there.

Carnival of Math #38

Apparently, I was in the Carnival of Mathematics last week. My painted plane puzzle is there, along with Yoo's solution. Cool deal.

The Carnival of Mathematics is something I was only vaguely aware of before. I didn't realize they had puzzles. Maybe I will appear in it again some time.

Carnival of the Godless #94

The Carnival of the Godless is up at Earthman's Notebook. It includes my submission, Dogma and Metaphor.

I have had poor attendance at these carnivals, but they're still there even when I don't pay attention to them. Go read it!

Carnivals

A blogging carnival is an aggregation of the best essays in the blogosphere on a particular topic from the past few weeks. Here are the most recent carnivals.

Skeptic's Circle

Carnival of the Godless

Humanist Symposium

Carnival of the Godless #86

The Carnival of the Godless #86 is up at Life Before Death. Go read it!

My submission was "The Mountain Theologians."

Peer Reviewed Carnival of the Godless

The Carnival of the Godless is up at Tangled up in Blue Guy. They have taken a lesson from Answers in Genesis' new research journal. If they make it look like science, it must have the authority of science!

My entry, "How to recursively divide atheists", successfully passed this rigorous peer-review process. I credit my success to the use of such technical words as "recursive" and "satirical".

Skeptic's Circle #77

Skeptic's Circle #77: The Overmedicalized Edition is up at WhiteCoat Underground. It's filled with great stuff.

Humanist Symposium #12

The Humanist Symposium #12 is up at Evanescent. It includes my post "Meaning without God".

A few highlights:
"If You Weren't an Atheist, What Would You Be?" Greta Christina's writing is always engaging.
"In Pursuit of Happiness" I am happy to see libertarian views represented in this carnival. Humanism always seems so far left, as often as they deny it.
"Critical Values" A brief criticism of moral relativism at Philosophy, et cetera.

CotG #79 and Humanist Symposium

Two carnivals are up today. The Carnival of the Godless is up at the Sexy Secularist, and the Humanist Symposium is up at The Greenbelt. The Carnival of the Godless includes my article Negative ≠ Bad.

It occurs to me that it is not immediately obvious to everyone what exactly a carnival is. A blogging carnival is where someone collects all the best blog postings on a particular topic and puts them together in one big carnival post. In other words, lots of bloggers like me submit their best posts to the carnival host, and the host makes one big post linking to all of the submissions. There are three main carnivals around my subject area: the Skeptic's Circle, about skepticism; the Carnival of the Godless, about godlessness; and the Humanist Symposium, which is specifically about the positive aspects of godlessness. Each occurs every two or three weeks with a different blogger as the host.

Blogging carnivals are a great way to:

1. read the best posts on a topic from the past few weeks from all over the blogosphere.
   
2. find new blogs worth reading.
3. accumulate readers (from the perspective of a young and ambitious/narcissistic blogger).

Of course, I can't just steal eyeballs without allowing other blogs the same opportunity. It's just common blogging etiquette to link back to others. In conclusion, go read the carnivals!

Skeptic's Circle #74

Skeptic's Circle #74 is up at Med Journal Watch. It includes my post on the 10% myth. Have fun.

And happy Thanksgiving! For those who don't celebrate, then, umm... happy Thursday!

Carnival of the Godless #79

Right now, the Carnival of the Godless #79 is up at Aardvarchaeology. It features my own post Hell vs Altruism, among a ton of other articles from the godless part of the blogosphere.

Also, the Skeptics' Circle #73 is up at Holford Watch. Go read it.

Humanist Symposium #10

The Humanist Symposium #10 at Letters from a broad is up now. It includes my own short, humble submission. For those who don't know, the Humanist Symposium is a blogging carnival described here. It's all about the positive aspects of the atheist/humanist worldview, as opposed to criticisms of religion. Go read it!

For those who have come here through the carnival, welcome! And of course, I've got to insert the obligatory self-advertisement here (the real reason for this post?). On my blog, I like to talk about puzzles, science, skeptical reasoning, atheism, and other miscellaneous philosophizing. My blog's only a month old, so it's not too hard to browse the archives. Oh, and feedback is welcome, no, requested. Do I ramble? Are my topics uninteresting? Do I care too much what my readers think?