Wow - look what I missed!

I did some travel + have a busy period at work, and what happens?  Scienceblogs implodes, and Chad Orzel laments something I've worried about for a long time:  the difficulty of explaining the importance (and basic coolness) of condensed matter physics to a general audience.  As for the former, serves 'em right for not inviting me to participate -- kidding!  There are enough talented people involved that they'll be fine, and as Dave Bacon points out in his linked post above, mixing up new networks of people interested in communicating science is probably a net good thing.  I do think it's a shame, though, that some interesting blogs have seemed to fade away (Incoherent Ponderer, Angry Physicist, you are missed.).  Regarding the second topic, I do want to point out a previous post I made about topological insulators (the strawman topic of Chad's post), and once I dig out from under work, I'll write more about why condensed matter is particularly difficult to popularize, and thoughts on how to get around those inherent challenges.