thusspakezuska
Posts by this author
November 3, 2008
Who needs sophisticated tracking polls when you've got...cookies!
A local bakery not far from where I live makes presidential candidate cookies for every presidential election. This year they added vice-presidential cookies. You can buy an Obama, McCain, Biden, or Palin cookie - and help…
November 3, 2008
To all of you who participated in the ScienceBlogs Donors Choose Challenge this year - many, many, many heartfelt thanks! We raised $503 here at TSZ but together all the ScienceBloggers raised almost $31,000! That money will have an impact on at least 10,000 students!
All but one of the…
October 20, 2008
...with Donors Choose?
Hello, Zuskateers! I'm setting off today to go spend time with mom, who is in the hospital again. I don't know how long I'll be there, which means I don't know when I'll be getting back to blogging. If I have time while I'm there I'll try to get in a short post or two but…
October 14, 2008
Janet at Adventures in Ethics and Science writes about prizes for women:
2008 is the tenth year of the L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards to remarkable female scientists from around the world. Indeed, our sister-site, ScienceBlogs.de, covered this year's award ceremony and is celebrating…
October 14, 2008
Yay! Prizes! From our benevolent Seed overlords!
All you have to do is take part in our Donors Choose campaign.
Here's the scoop:
Seed has agreed to do prize drawings again this year for donors who give to DonorsChoose, beginning this Friday [10/17/08]. We'll be giving away 50 Seed mag…
October 9, 2008
I found out about these two books from the Chronicle Review; haven't read either one, but they looked interesting and some of you may want to check them out.
Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing by Jane Margolis
The number of African Americans and Latino/as receiving…
October 3, 2008
When this first came up, I thought it was really outside the scope of my blog. But then I thought about all those stories you hear about women on tech campuses getting "glommed" by clueless nerd boys. I remembered dating catastrophes and tragicomedies from my own undergraduate days, a hundred…
October 2, 2008
I just took a look over at Sciencewomen's site and see from their sidebar widget than they've already raised $395 from 9 readers as I write this. Now, I realize I only got my post up late last night and they've had their announcement for DonorsChoose up since early yesterday morning but still.…
October 1, 2008
It's October, and that means it's DonorsChoose time again! ScienceBlogs bloggers are, once again, participating in the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Basically, we ask you, our readers, to help public school teachers across the U.S. fund proposals for classroom supplies, activities, and field…
October 1, 2008
There was something that always bothered me about the Mac commercials purporting to show me how hip Mac computers are. It's that I never really felt included in the world of those ads.
Mac computers are personified by a uber-cool geek-chic attractive young white man. PCs, of course take on the…
October 1, 2008
That would be Ronnie, Becca, Clare, and Andre, who joined me at Farmacia in Philadelphia this past Sunday for a delightful brunch and lots and lots of good talk. Many thanks to the benevolent Seed overlords for subsidizing our little get-together.
I had the frittata.
.
The food was wonderful…
September 24, 2008
The Chronicle has a nice piece on PhD engineers adjusting to corporate culture, and for once something they offer isn't behind a paywall, so you can actually read it! Here's the intro to whet your appetite:
You might expect to see few similarities between the career path of an engineering Ph.D.…
September 24, 2008
A warning: if you are a survivor of sexual assault you may just want to skip this post and the ensuing ugly comment thread it is sure to engender.
A week or so ago the redoubtable Dr. Isis wrote an open letter to me.
In part she wrote:
The pragmatic part of me wants to agree with you that there…
September 23, 2008
I received an email from Dr. Kimberly Fairchild, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Manhattan College, asking for help in recruiting participants for a survey she is conducting. Kimberly is interested in the relationship between early experiences with catcalling and current experiences. The…
September 18, 2008
Strictly speaking, McCain's and Palin's policies, but Palin's got the alliteration thing going there. Plus, let's face it, she's just more interesting.
In an earlier post, I wrote about how Palin presents an un-scary, Nice Feminist face to the average voter, which facilitates the sense that one…
September 17, 2008
I really did not think I would live to see the day when a major political party in the U.S. would find it necessary to add a woman to the ticket in order to win the presidency. It's a shame I can't be at all happy about the particular party and woman making history. However, if you will recall, I…
September 10, 2008
So, to recap:
A couple of women are having a conversation, and the topic turns to tit-ogling. "No one should be staring at my tits in the workplace," they all agree. "That makes me uncomfortable, creates a hostile work environment, and constitutes sexual harassment! How difficult is it to look…
September 8, 2008
UPDATE: Party date changed to Sept. 28th. Other details remain the same. Let me know if you are interested in joining us!
UPDATE: Here are details of my party, which is scheduled for Sept 14th:
Brunch at Farmicia, 15 S. 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA at 11 a.m.
Visit Penn Museum of Archeology &…
September 1, 2008
Technically, this is my 500th post at Scienceblogs, although I believe that includes a few I wrote but never published. So, 500 within a slight margin of error. Let us now celebrate this arbitrary milestone!!!!!
And now, on to the post.
September Scientiae is up at Lab Cat's place.
At the…
August 28, 2008
This article was bizarrely stashed in the business section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, rather than reported as Science news, or even just as general news.
Going back to 1969, a chemist with no soul named Manfred DeRewal bought a local farm and then used it as a chemical waste dumping ground,…
August 28, 2008
I read it in the Philadelphia Inquirer. (Longer version here in the LA Times.)
In a news release, Roy Den Hollander, who's best-known for suing Manhattan nightclubs because they offered free or discounted Ladies' Night drinks to women, contended that [Columbia] university could not use…
August 27, 2008
So: Long promised substantive reply to comments on previous post is not materializing anytime soon. Migraines, mom in hospital again, coming down with headcold, sister arriving tomorrow for holiday weekend visit, possible trip to western PA next week to tend to mom when she is discharged from…
August 19, 2008
A reader named Paul Murray left this comment on a older blog post of mine:
The comments on tit-staring make me wish the women could occupy a man's body for a day. Ignoring tits in your visual field is as easy as it is for a woman to simply ignore a cute baby in the vicinity.
I was flabbergasted, to…
August 15, 2008
Lab Cat is hosting the next Scientiae, and her theme is My Summer Vacation!
Even for those not in education or with children, September means the end of summer so this Scientiae gives one more chance to look back over the summer to relive some enjoyable experiences, or assess how well we achieved…
August 14, 2008
Via the AWIS Washington Wire, this news of interest to young black academics:
In The Black-American's Guide for Winning Tenure - Without Losing Your Soul, authors Kerry Ann Rockquemore and Tracey Laszloffy provide dos, don'ts, advice and support. One of the tips in the Q&A with Rockquemore…
August 14, 2008
You are a university president. You naturally wish to avoid scandal and negative publicity during your administration. The time to make it mandatory for all faculty and staff to undergo training in how to avoid sexual harassment is:
A: When you take office, or shortly thereafter.
B: After one…
August 13, 2008
Hey Readers!
Seed is running a reader survey. You could win an iPod AND a MacBook Air AND an Apple TV!!! just for participating! Apparently the chances of winning are pretty darn good. So maybe you want to sashay on over to this page and complete the survey. It only takes 10 minutes, I've…
August 7, 2008
I never got around to reviewing Danica McKellar's first book, Math Doesn't Suck, and now she's got a second one out, Kiss My Math. You gotta love the title at least. I think she's got a whole franchise going here. Maybe by the time she puts out her calculus book I'll get my review of Math Doesn'…
August 6, 2008
The National Association of Scholars, in its tireless quest to have the little-noted perspective of the white man represented in our nation's colleges and universities, has succeeded in getting a pet project funded via the Higher Education Act reauthorization. As reported in the Chronicle of…
August 5, 2008
In the past it's not been my practice to read the business section of the newspaper but lately I've been paying more attention to it. Sunday, the Philadelphia Inquirer's business section featured an article I just couldn't resist: Hacker Camp: Computer programmers get to play attacker in order…