The Laboratorium : The Sidebar Goes to Town

Doing something I should have done a while ago -- adding Shafted to the sidebar. It's sort of a cooperative weblog, together with threaded discussion fora for commenting on the posts. It's somewhere in the middle zone between a private newsgroup, a standard blog, and a Slate-like news-and-commentary site. The contributions are punchy and and well-done, together with some longer pieces (mostly by Scarius) filled with the kind of cross-discipline musing I can never get enough of reading. They're also trying to figure out the nature of this particular sub-medium niche they occupy, what makes it tick and what can be done with it. All good stuff. Plus, you should keep reloading the site until you see McCain with the lightsaber. Update, 5 September: for your own sake, please ignore any instructions over at Shafted about not reading links before clicking on them. I didn't, and man am I sorry.