I still am not online on my own computer at home so I’m not able to add posts as I’d like. Please bear with me!

So my faithful little laptop has now died. It’s 4 years old and hasn’t really been treated all that gently. (my father-in-law just poured his drink in it a couple of weeks ago). I’m faced with the choice of buying new or repairing. It was purchased through the University of Maryland’s student program with 4…

No, not mis-giving. In fact, there will be no misgivings if you give to any of the projects I’ve selected or any of the other projects on Donor’s Choose. A little background. DonorsChoose.org is a way that you can safely give a little or a lot of money to help teachers in the classroom. The…

Sure Hubble‘s pictures are prettier, but there’s a lot of cool science coming out of the nifty MESSENGER spacecraft.  She’s up for a third Mercury fly-by in two weeks. She’ll go into orbit in 2011 and she’s the first spacecraft there for 30 years! Already we’ve seen her video leaving Earth on a 2005 fly-by.…

Anybody can code but what just anybody codes can be crap. There’s a real problem in my place of work and probably in other places where you have scientists and engineers who haven’t been formally trained in CS and haven’t taken the time or effort to learn about proper techniques but who are writing a…

I’ve used a citation managers/ bibliographic managers for years – ever since I came to my current job in which I do in-depth literature searching for scientists and engineers. I report my results as an annotated bibliography with analysis. To do this I need to search a bunch of research databases and compile the results…

This picture arrived in email last week. My parents lost an oak tree. M and I offered to come and help clear it out.  When we got there around 10 this morning, my brother in law had already cut a bit up. The tree was probably ~150 years old and was 32″ across at the…

(this post talks about a recipe for granola) edit: oh. not actually so funny, they use these terms in the post. but hey, did you know bloglines gave related searches?

Here in the United States, it’s Memorial Day. This is a day set aside to remember and be thankful for the sacrifices of the men and women who gave their lives for our country and way of life. So, thank you! And thank you to all of the wounded veterans for your sacrifice. And thank…