Archives for April, 2009
Congratulations Danielle Lee!
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 Danielle Lee, who is my close personal Facebook Friend, has won an award! ….a doctoral candidate at University of Missouri-St. Louis and contributor to The American, was named the American Institute of Biological Sciences Diversity Scholar for 2009. She was nominated by the Animal Behavior Society, an international professional science society of animal behavior researchers,…
Republicans reach long-term low
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 According to a Washington Post/ABC poll, only 21% of Americans identify themselves as Republicans. That is getting dangerously close to the percentage of Americans who believe they have seen UFOs or alien craft or have been abducted by aliens. I think they may be the same individuals.
Even You Can Understand String Theory. Maybe.
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory is one way for you to attempt to understand String Theory. While any such effort will probably not work, you will probably learn some things along the way as long as you are not a theoretical physicist. If you are a theoretical physicist, this book will just make…
Learn Physics At Home
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 Head First Physics: A learner’s companion to mechanics and practical physics I have been watching these Heads Up guides for some time now, mainly in the context of computer software and development. I have not tried any of these guides in IT because, so far, I’ve felt that while they may be excellent learning resources,…
How to pronounce “meh”
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 What life would be like if Twitter was real: See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor. h/t Ben
Royal parade attacked, many killed and wounded, in Netherlands
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 A car driven by a crazy person has careened through a crowd, killing four and wounding many, during an annual royal ceremony in the Netherlands. Here is a particularly disturbing photo of the event. You are warned. The vehcile in this photograph is still moving to the right after having run over most of its…
Can Quantum Ghosts Cheat Heisenberg?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 It is theoretically impossible to observe all of the different aspects of state of matter at the subatomic “quantum” level. This means that at the tiniest level of spacetime, bits and pieces of stuff and action can only be vaguely known, and therefore, if you wanted to build a quantum computer you would have some…
Blogospherics. OMG we let Bachmann drive a car!!!!
Posted by Greg Laden on April 30, 2009 You can get SMS updates about Swine Flu here. Mike is keeping track of Panic at the RNC. Latest Dump Michele Bachmann has some interesting stuff. Including this: After that, have a glass of wine. It’s good for you. Is there a Doctor in house! Yes, if the house is this one. Congratulations Mike Taylor.…
From Anonymity to Subjectivity in the Blogosphere: Post Game Analysis by BZ
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 The following is a follow up on BZ’s earlier posts regarding Anonymity, Credibility, Behavior Change and other issues. BZ had posted several guest blogs here, and received useful comments from guests and other bloggers. Here, BZ summarizes and responds. I am in the position of grading BZ for this work. His grade will be based…
Bird and Mammal Field Guides for Africa
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 As long as we are on the subject (this week) of field guides, I thought I’d go ahead and suggest what guides you might take if you happen to be planning a trip to Central, East or southern Africa1 But since we are doing Africa, we need to do mammals as well as birds. But…
Miss California Persecuted By Teh Gays, Is Blessed, It Turns Out.
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 Miss California has found a new calling. She is making the transition from bikini clad ditzy blond representative of women nowhere to iconic stander-upper against political correctness.
Grapefruit juice might boost cancer drug’s effects
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 photograph of some grapefruit Grapefruit juice contains enzymes that break down common types of compounds of which pharmaceuticals are made. This means that if you drink grapefruit juice along with some drugs, the effect of the drug will be enhanced. (That was a slight oversimplification.) So great, you say, why not just take all drugs…
Social Pressure via Databases
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 Know Thy Neighbor has posted the names of all 83,000 Arkansas voters who signed petitions calling for a ban on adoption by same-sex couples. details
1970s Swine Flu Training Video
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 The swine flu maneno in the 1970s was actually a key moment in the history of epidemiology politics. It also relates to the history of anti-vaccine activism in important and interesting ways. I should probably write a whole post about it. For now, suffice it to say that the government reaction to the sudden appearance…
There is (probably) Swine Flu in Minnesota; One death elsewhere in US.
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 The Minnesota cases are not confirmed but health officials are saying they likely will be. There will be a press conference on this at 9:00 AM Wed. A child in Texas has died of the flu. Which brings us to the relative severity, or more exactly, the mortality rate. It has seemed to some a…
Sbling Sandy Has ID’d ‘Source’ of Swine Flu
Posted by Greg Laden on April 29, 2009 Seriously. Dr. Sandra Porter of Discovering Biology in a Digital World provides evidence that “the California outbreak might be the same strain that caused an outbreak in 2007 at an Ohio country fair.” What a nice piece of research and blogging. UPDATED: There is some interesting discussion on Sandy’s blog about the validity and meaning…
A New Look and Feel for My Blog
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 … but only subtly different. You may have noticed that all of the Science Blogs (or almost all) have changed over to a new template. My understanding is that this is mainly an underlying technical upgrade, and no so much a resurfacing, but you will notice a few key changes. The right sidebar is now…
Birding Binoculars
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 I am not an expert on binoculars, but that is not going to stop me from giving you some excellent advice. Wildlife watching requires binoculars, and although I’m focusing on birding here, everything we’re talking about applies generally. So this advice may be useful for your Safari to Africa where birds will be only one…
Did Obama Cause the Swine Flu Outbreak?
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 Apparently, this is being seriously considered. By whom you may ask?
How to make your wireless card work in a laptop
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 Are you having trouble getting your wireless networking to work? Well, good luck with that. It can be difficult. Here, I provide you with one tip that you will not find in most troubleshooting documents but that is absolutely essential. Thisw may be the thing you need to do to make your wireless connection work.…
Latest Swine Flu Reports
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 While it is still true that no deaths have been reported for the new swine flu outside of Mexico, the virus has been identified in additional countries.
Specter to Switch Parties
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 Republican Sen. Arlen Specter has decided to switch parties and become a Democrat, stunning his GOP colleagues in the Senate while pushing Democrats and President Barack Obama one step closer to unfettered power in Washington. Specter will be the 59th Democratic senator, and if Al Franken eventually pulls out his Senate race in Minnesota, Democrats…
A Tale of Two Trips
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 When I contacted Steve Kelley’s campaign director to arrange a meeting with Steve and Sophie Kelley, I suggested Tuesday. She responded that they had arranged their schedule to meet me on Wednesday. When I read her response, the part that I saw was, “They had arranged their schedule to meet with you at Pizza Nea,…
Grasping the function of the human penis
Posted by Greg Laden on April 28, 2009 Gallup has taken on the task of explaining, in ultimate terms, the evolutionarily designed features of the human penis. He works this as an engineering problem from the perspective of evolutionary psychology, which is always a little bit dangerious, but gallup isn’t quite the arm waiver that a lot of other EP’s are, so he…
Take a poll on Linux Distros
Posted by Greg Laden on April 27, 2009 This is not a poll crashing thing, this is just a go take a poll thing. Here.
Bohemian Rhapsody Remix (4 geeks)
Posted by Greg Laden on April 27, 2009 Using old scanners, disk drives, and stuff, a perfect renditions of a song you probably did not want to hear again: This is lifted from here, where you will find more information. Hat tip: Joe.
Ubuntu 9.04 Released, Is Good.
Posted by Greg Laden on April 27, 2009 I have not installed it, but it looks good. Jaunty Jackalope is baed on Kernel 2.6.28-11 and runs Gnome 2.26.1 on X.org-Server 1.6. It boots faster. It supports ext4 ffile system. Here it is.
The basic North American bird book
Posted by Greg Laden on April 27, 2009 You’ll notice that I’m reviewing bird books. (Don’t worry, not all will be US based.) Please feel free to chime in with your suggestions and comments. The ultimate bird book for North America has always been two books: both Peterson’s field guides, one for the East, one for the West. Now, the new Peterson Field…
Keyboard not found. Hit F1 to continue
Posted by Greg Laden on April 27, 2009 Very funny application error messages are HERE at the Linux Menagerie. My favorite is this one from Windows: Q276304 – Error Message: Your Password Must Be at Least 18770 Characters and Cannot Repeat Any of Your Previous 30689 Passwords But this is a close runner-up: You don’t exist. Go away.
, which is now available for the 
