As I wrote last week: I’m back. Curving Normality has been way too quiet for way to long. I started my job as a PhD, some other projects, and had some other things on my mind as well (some of them nice, some not). All in all, it was a bit too much to pay attention to all of it at once, so Curving Normality came second for a while.

I have been seriously contemplating whether or not to continue blogging. However, the number of daily readers remained high, even months after my last post. Of course, this is motivating, but more so: I like to share my thoughts in the light and easy way that is customary to a blog. Therefore, I decided to continue blogging and attempt to rebuild my network of (social) science related blogs.

Also, I decided to realign the content of Curving Normality more closely with the activities I’m involved in. This way, the blog can enforce academic endeavors, rather than draining time form them. So, I decided upon four major topics:

• Science in General: Articles I read, books that inspired me, reactions to blogs I read on the internet. I will write some about the science I like, and try to discuss why I think it is remarkable and why it is important that it reaches a larger audience.
• Academic Activities. It is a personal blog after all, so I like to inform my readers about some of the academic activities I’m undertaking. Expect to read some about conferences, publications, and summer schools.
• Data: This one will be new. As a quantitative sociologist, data is/are my raw material. It is what I use to test my theories, and it is absolutely required for gaining a grasp on reality. Good data is valuable, and hard to come by. Fortunately, increasing amounts of data are made publicly available on the internet. I intend to highlight some of the best sources of data out there, and hope to build quite a collection of references over time.
• R-Project: I’ve always written a lot about R, and will continue doing so. The R-sessions will continue, and I will write more about the of the projects I’m currently working on in R.

I think this is a nice mix of science-related topics, and will hopefully appeal to my readers. I know that I look forward to blog with this new agenda in mind.