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There Really is a Joe the Plumber

Huffington Post has the details: Who is Joe the Plumber? He is Joe Wurzelbacher, an Ohio man looking to buy a plumbing business who came to symbolize the notion of "spreading the wealth" in Wednesday night's third and final presidential debate between Democrat Barack Obama and Republican John McCain. Earlier this week, when Wurzelbacher got a chance to speak with Obama when the candidate visited Toledo, he told Obama that his tax plan would keep him from buying the business that currently employs him. Judging from the Huff Post article, Joe seems more comfortable with McCain. But I don't…

She's a Big Girl Now

SteelyKid returns today from her weekend at Grandma and Grandpa's, and there's going to be a surprise waiting for her: She hadn't exactly outgrown her crib yet, but she was getting kind of big for it, so we decided to move her to a big girl bed. It's a "captain's bed" with drawers underneath the mattress, bought from the local unfinished furniture place (and finished by them, because we're not that fond of the smell of varnish). A closer look at the bedspread Kate bought to go with it: Before you say "Why'd you buy her a bedspread from the boys section?" remember two things: 1) Kate and I…

Civility and/or Politeness at ScienceOnline2010

If you have been following sciency blogosphere, or my blog, or tweets about #scio10, or checked out the Program of the conference, you may have noticed that I have predicted that the "overarching theme" of the meeting will shift from last-year's focus on Power to this year's, hopefully, emphasis on Trust. Several sessions will, directly or indirectly, address the question of trust - who trusts whom, how and why. With no non-verbal clues available online (apart from an occasional smiley-face), one has to convey not just meaning, but also intent and mood, using only language. And intent and…

Open Access in Italy

Recordings from the Open Access panel in Trieste are now available online. The order was a little different - I went last.

NOVA: Is there life on Mars?

I notice that the NOVA documentary, Is there life on Mars?, is viewable online (from December 2008). Check it out.

Reading Diary: Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design by Lisa Welchman

What is digital governance in the first place? Digital governance is a discipline that focuses on establishing clear accountability for digital strategy, policy, and standards. A digital governance framework, when effectively designed and implemented, helps to streamline digital development and dampen debates around digital channel “ownership.” -- From the Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design website. Universities Intellectual autonomy and stubbornness of staff -- From the index, Managing Chaos: Digital Governance by Design, p. 229 Time to take a little medicine! All those…

Editor of National Review Needs A Little More Review

James Robbins, contributing editor at the National Review Online, thinks global warming is a good idea.  This is proclaimed in his article, Hooray for Global Warming. This is another version of the "CO2 is life" meme.  And like "CO2 is life," it is utter nonsense.  Anyone who would say that fails to grasp a critical point about climate science.  I've never actually done a fisking, and I do not particularly care for it as a literary form, but this one begs for it... href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZTJmNWI4N2Y2NTBmY2E3ZTIzZjcxM2IzM2ZjNjRkYWI=">Hooray for Global Warming Surf’…

Climate change optimism for Earth Day

It's Earth Day, so in the spirit of celebration, instead of dwelling on the bad news (like the report that 9 out of 10 attendees at the recent Copenhagen scientific conference on climate change don't expect us to be able to avoid increasing the planet's average temperature by a "dangerous" 2°C -- I said I wouldn't dwell, but I reserve the right to mention), let's consider things from an optimist's point of view. Which optimist should we choose? How about New York Times columnist John Tierney? Not because he's a particularly well-regarded climatologist. He's not even a scientist at all. Like…

ScienceOnline2010 - interview with Christine Ottery

Continuing with the tradition from last two years, I will occasionally post interviews with some of the participants of the ScienceOnline2010 conference that was held in the Research Triangle Park, NC back in January. See all the interviews in this series here. You can check out previous years' interviews as well: 2008 and 2009. Today, I asked Christine Ottery from the MA program in science journalism at City University London to answer a few questions: Welcome to A Blog Around The Clock. Would you, please, tell my readers a little bit more about yourself? Where are you coming from (both…

Organ donor dolls

Okay, these dolls by David Foox are just plain disturbing. And they're not just a concept - you can actually BUY ONE. Via Street Anatomy.

The Gaza War and the Decline of Reaganite Judaism

If you thought this post was about is more wrong, the Israelis or the Palestinians, you've come to the wrong place. What I want to talk about is something that, in the early 1980s, I called Reaganite Judaism. If the term is unclear, it is a backhanded reference to the nascent neoconservative movement (Troll-be-gone: that term was used by neocons themselves in Commentary magazine) as another denomination of Judaism (e.g., Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, and Reform). Reaganite Judaism's tenets--a trinity if you will--were: Buy Israel bonds. Make the Holocaust the essence of Judaism…

Driven to distraction by technology

I've mentioned my shit box of a car pretty often here, usually in connection with trying to get someone to buy it. I had another flat this morning from a rim that is so rusty it doesn't hold a seal anymore. I thought I'd replaced it at the junkyard last week but it seems they replaced the wrong rim. That's what happens when you buy tires and rims at the junkyard. I'm not really in to cars, which is why I can keep driving my 14 year old monstrosity. It gets me from A to B, which is what I want. It doesn't have much hi tech stuff, although I like that kind of thing. My next car maybe. It does…

Woo-peddlers: 'Obesity is like AIDS.'

I just moved into a new apartment about a month ago. Of course, Im still getting mail for person-who-used-to-live-here. Most of it is junk-mail ('JOIN AT&T U-VERSE!!!'), but in the 4 weeks Ive been here, there have been 3 magazines... 3 thick, glossy, SEED-quality (construction, not content) magazines... from 'Life Extension: The ULTIMATE Source For New Health And Medical Findings From Around The World.' If you havent heard of this magazine, dont worry-- its not an all-medical version of SEED or Discover, its a +100 page advertisement for dietary supplements disguised as a magazine. Its…

The Problem of Energy Production

Science has a great set of articles on the problem of renewable energy production, a topic of great importance as we ponder not just global warming, but energy policy in general. Fixing our energy generation, distribution and usage would be a critical problem even if the current system weren't making radical and potentially irreversible changes to our planet. As Roger Pielke, Jr. observed recently: If mitigation can indeed be justified on factors other than climate change, which I think it can, then why not bring these factors more centrally into the debate? As the figure above shows (from…

The Rudy Health Care "Solution"

Rudy Giuliani just announced his health care plan. It's not a winner. Of course, Rudy being Rudy, he couldn't just announce what his ideas are without any preparation. First, he had to warm up by spending a day or two imitating a wingnut talk radio host and calling the Democratic candidates "socialists" and who belong to a "party of losers" and are all "heading for France" (or, alternatively, "Cuba"). He also said that it's "unrealistic" to expect a system where "everyone is taken care of from cradle to grave." The core of the Rudy plan is really nothing new. From the looks of things, he…

The Davy Mooney Show Hits the New York Times

Props to my brother, who has been "noticed." From the New York Times Artsbeat blog, covering the New Orleans Jazz Fest: This year's Monk Institute class has only been working together since the start of the fall term, but already there's a noticeable chemistry among the students, judging by their Jazzfest performance on Sunday morning. The group didn't sound quite like a full-fledged band yet - there were still some tentative moments - but it wasn't hard to detect much promise. Based on the set I heard, the most advanced musicians in the group are Davy Mooney, a guitarist from here in New…

Think of It as Kid Insurance

Janet has a typically thoughtful post about tuition benefits, following on a proposal to eliminate tuition benefits for employees of the University of Illinois. Janet does a great job of rounding up the various pros and cons of the benefit and its possible elimination. It takes no time at all for the "Tuition benefits are unfair to people without kids" argument to pop up in comments. This is, as always, pretty stupid, because the same logic leads to thinking that health insurance benefits are unfair to people who don't become catastrophically ill. Tuition benefits are basically kid insurance…

Feynman Lectures online

Bill Gates has made it available online. You need to install Silvelight (the flash alternative from Microsoft). It's worth it.

Build Your Own HMS Beagle

This ship is EVERYONE's ship. Make it a reality! Find out more at The Beagle Project, follow their blog, buy the shirt and donate a couple bucks!

Feederwatch: A course in art focusing on birds

Here is the website, here is the Facebook page, and here is the writeup: Feeder Sketch is an 8 week free one line casual course. You can come and go as you please. No requirements, and any level of participation is welcome (from just seeing what it is, to drawing 2 times a week for and hour). Join us if you are just learning to draw or are an illustration superstar. A novice birder - or someone who can identify a bird by just a few little chirps. Everyone is welcome! If you just want a weekly reminder about the group, you can hit maybe here, and stay updated. Who are "we"? We are staff and…

Fornvännen's Autumn Issue

Fornvännen ("the Friend of Ancient Things") is one of the main journals of Scandy archaeology and Medieval art. It's been issued 4-6 times a year since 1906, for the past several decades on a quarterly schedule, and I've been a co-editor since 1999. The first 100 volumes have been scanned and are available on-line. Later issues are appearing on-line too with a 6-month delay, though we haven't quite ironed out the routines for that yet. Issue 2008:3 recently came from the printers. Here's what's in it: Hans Olsson and Katherine Bless Karlsen present an Early Mesolithic (c. 6900 cal BC) site…

'Journalists vs. Blogs' is bad framing

One of the (many) motivations for writing the epic post about New Journalism last week was to try to end once for all the entire genre of discussing the "bloggers vs. journalists" trope. I have collected the responses to the piece here and it is quite flattering that the post got hat-tips from people who have studied the topic for a long time, like Ed Cone, Kirk Ross, Michael Tobis, Henry Gee, Dave Winer and Dan Conover, among others. My SciBling Dave Dobbs wrote a very good post (recommended) in reply - you need to go and read it. One of Dave's questions was, to paraphrase, why are there…

This Must Stop

I am absolutely livid right now. Our Republican overlords last night slipped in a ban on all financial transactions that might be involved in internet gambling into a totally unrelated bill and got it slipped through. Lawmakers stayed up late as well, making sure to throw our country back into the Dark Ages. It became apparent that Republicans spearheaded by Senator First would stop at nothing to prohibit Internet gambling. In a last ditch desperation move, the Senate majority leader was able to attach legislation to ban online gambling to a Port Security bill that had no correlation…

Blogging geoscience meetings

Over the past year, as live-blogging and live-tweeting conferences have become more common, scientific societies have had to figure out what to do about bloggers. What are we? We don't usually wear press badges (although there are professional journalists who blog, and there are bloggers who write about new research in a way that's similar to traditional science journalists). We're just some people sitting in the back of a darkened room, listening to a talk... until we post publicly about it. Last summer, my SciBling Dan MacArthur unintentially ran afoul of the press policy at the Cold Spring…

Academia is slow, conservative and over-cautious

Being constantly online and at the same time out of academia skewed my perspective, and I kinda expected that most of my old profs would not be so hot about publishing in online open-sorce journals (and even thinking that Science is still a place to go, oy vey!), but this is quite disheartening, especially for the medical (that woudl include biology, I presume) field: Scientists Are Wary Of Online Journals Scientists and researchers appreciate the speed by which online journals can distribute new findings to their colleagues and the academic world, but they fear non-traditional publication…

Recent search strings to ponder.

Our online world is searchable, but it seems likely than not all of our searches are destined to be fruitful. Here are some searches that have recently brought people to this blog: what temperature does mucus melt at Do I smell a science fair project? (Or am I too stuffed up?) * * * * * tenure neuroscience dossier online I am hopeful that the searcher in this case was looking for an exemplar. It would, of course, be a horrible idea to "find" one's tenure dossier online in the same way that some students seem to "find" research papers online. * * * * * passenger breast feeds a monkey I…

Statistical Methods in Molecular Evolution

Just noticed that Carlos Bustamante's chapter from Statistical Methods in Molecular Evolution, Population Genetics of Molecular Evolution, is online (PDF). Enjoy.

I can deal with a PG rating

Mingle2 - Online Dating I actually try to be less potty-mouthed since I joined science blogs. I'm trying to differentiate myself from PZ.

Turn Off Your Samsung Galaxy Note 7 Now And Put It In A Secure Container!

As of October 11th: Samsung is now recalling ALL Galaxy Note 7 Phones. The previous recall and replacement program failed, the phone is basically dangerous, don't use it, get rid of it, make them give you a new one. In my view. Samsung should be providing cash back for the phones so people can buy whatever phone they want. That seems to be an option but I doubt they will actually do this for many customers. You can try, though! Here is the latest information from Samsung. WARNING As of October 10th or so, it is now known that Samsung phones other than those recalled are ALSO OVERHEATING…

More Fake War on Christmas Nonsense

I'm sure you've all heard by now about that school in Wisconsin that Falwell's legal group threatened with a lawsuit because they allegedly changed the words to "Silent Night" to be "Cold in the Night". Bill O'Reilly has been fuming all over the place about this. Mathew Staver, of the misaptly named Liberty Counsel and part of Falwell's "Friend or Foe" campaign, threatened a lawsuit against them saying People are outraged. We sent a demand letter asking them to immediately change the song and allow the actual lyrics of "Silent Night," and if they do not, if they insist on this ridiculous…

Book Report: Blurb-tastic

A cosmologist, a science writer, three best-selling science fiction authors, a best-selling mystery novelist, and a Nobel laureate walk into a bar-- Oh, wait, that's not the opening to a joke. That's the list of people who have provided blurbs for my book... Kind of an eclectic bunch, but I'm pretty psyched. I'm not quite sure why the final list of blurbs gets locked in this early-- we don't even have the cover copy written yet-- but it's set now, and they look pretty good: "Chad Orzel teases out the mysterious and seemingly incomprehensible side of advanced physics and makes it…

links for 2009-06-23

Cynical-C Blog - » Sign for the Night "Keep being AWESOME!" (tags: silly food internet) Unscientific America "Chris Mooney and Sheril Kirshenbaum, a journalist-scientist team, offer an updated "two cultures" polemic for America in the 21st century. Just as in Snow's time, some of our gravest challengesâclimate change, the energy crisis, national economic competitivenessâand gravest threats--global pandemics, nuclear proliferationâhave fundamentally scientific underpinnings. Yet we still live in a culture that rarely takes science seriously or has it on the radar. " (tags: books science…

Whoa! Photoshop is getting creepy

I am glad I waited to buy a new version of Photoshop! This is. . . whoa. The desert and sky are particularly impressive. Is there an Uncanny Valley for software?

Scattered reflections on ScienceOnline 2010

Now that is how you do a conference. Massive thanks to Bora and Anton for organising ScienceOnline 2010, one of the most enjoyable science shindigs I've had the pleasure of attending. I'll stick up more on the conference later, after I'm done recovering from the horrendous American plague that I may or may not have contracted from SciCurious. For the moment, some random musings: I love the feeling of meeting people who you know relatively well for the first time. That face-to-face interaction is invaluable for building relationships that started online, and people's online personas largely…

Quick! Get Karl Rove a Formspring account and a DVD of "Mean Girls"

Civility: wow, everybody's concerned about it now! Here's our president a couple of days ago: The problem is that this kind of vilification and over-the-top rhetoric closes the door to the possibility of compromise. It undermines democratic deliberation. It prevents learning -- since, after all, why should we listen to a "fascist," or a "socialist," or a "right-wing nut," or a left-wing nut"? It makes it nearly impossible for people who have legitimate but bridgeable differences to sit down at the same table and hash things out. It robs us of a rational and serious debate, the one we need…

Bray again

Remember Dennis Bray's useless survey of climate scientists? The URL and password were posted to the climatesceptics mail list, so the results were biased and included responses from people who were not climate scientists. Bray refused to concede that this meant that the survey was hopelessly flawed. Now he has conducted another survey. Bray has avoided the problems of his previous survey by surveying a list of climate scientists he compiled from journal publications and scientific institutions, and only allowing one response per invitation. However, Gavin Schmidt finds that some of the…

The Best of March

I posted 239 posts in March. The best post of the month, IMHO, is Defining the Journalism vs. Blogging Debate, with a Science Reporting angle which is now slowly accumulating comments as well as links from various places online. My second-best post was the in-depth review of Fiddler On The Roof with Topol. The Open Laboratory 2008 is now up for sale. The guest editor for the Open Laboratory 2009 was announced with great fanfare. Lots this month about 'citizen scientists, e.g., Science crowdsourcing - ecology. And Twitter for Birders. I also discovered an Innovative Use of Twitter: monitoring…

High Precision, Not High Energy: Video

Back in August, I gave a talk in Stockholm at the Nordita workshop for science writers, about precision measurement searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. There's now video of this online: The video quality isn't great, but if you'd like a clearer look at the slides, I've posted them on SlideShare. The talk was divided into two parts, though the video is not: Part 1: High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (Part I) from Chad Orzel Part 2: High Precision, Not High Energy: Using Atomic Physics to Look Beyond the Standard Model (…

Lengthy Low Carb-High Protein Diet Increases Mortality

It really was only a matter of time until a longitudinal study on a massive scale, such as this one in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition, came out to back up what common sense told us was unhealthy. That being, that artificial, gross manipulations of diet aren't great for you. In fact, they may just shorten your life span a bit. This study was published online in advance at the end of 2006, but didn't come to my attention until right this minute (its now free online). The study, a collaboration between researchers in Greece and at Harvard, attempts to evaluate the effects of a low…

Some questions about the cadaver calculator.

Orac's calculated value (if he shuffled off this mortal coil in his present state -- and I really hope he doesn't) piqued my curiosity and led me to calculate the value of my own potential cadaver. But the calculated value leaves me curious about the assumptions underpinning the calculation. First, my results: $4875.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating (Hey, my corpse is worth more than Orac's, to the tune of $1285!) Now, the questions: Is the underlying assumption that the value of my cadaver would come primarily from…

Daemon

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I'm satisfied with the results of this online doohickey from the Golden Compass website: HT: Grrrrrrrrrrl.

About TARP, It's Not Inflationary If Banks Do It?

By way of Digby, we come across Atrios' excellent summary of the TARP program: It's a little weird that reporters are hesitant to clearly spell out what happened. Basically the Fed printed a huge amount of money. Some of that money they used to do what TARP was originally supposed to do, buy up Big Shitpile at inflated prices. Some of that money they lent to banks at basically 0 interest. Of course there were plenty of other things they could have done with 2 trillion bucks, if preserving the executive compensation at megabanks wasn't thought to be crucial for the survival of the economy.…

You Can Walk Away

File this under caveat mutuor. Henry Blodget points out the obvious in his retort to those who claim people have a moral obligation to remain in mortgages that are 'underwater' (paying more than the house is worth)--it's a business contract. Blodget (italics mine): Importantly, the reason is not that "Wall Street deserves it" or "We've got to teach the banks a lesson" or any of the other bogus "retribution" logic being thrown around. The reason is that you and your lender engaged in an arms-length transaction in which you balanced your competing interests and spelled out your agreement and…

CDC, OnStar and Big Brother. Hmmm.

AP is carrying a distressing story that CDC is working with General Motors' OnStar service to speed provision of emergency responders to serious car accidents. What's distressing about it? My immediate reaction, which I believe is irrational but was natural and spontaneous: Now they'll know where everyone is all the time. Big Brother. It's distressing because of what it says about my attitude toward this government: I don't trust them. At all. I don't believe they have my interests at heart. Even more distressing is that many of you will think that's a perfectly normal and natural -- and…

Walking With Zeke

I bought a book yesterday. You should buy yourself a copy, too. The best writer in the blogosphere, on the most famous dog in the blogosphere. You'll be touched.

The music industry must be broken

I don't understand how this could happen. You can buy the new Lady Gaga album for 99 cents? I am in shock. I also have it on my iPod now.

This is why I should own a cell phone myself

Because cell phones are godless, evil tools of Satan and the secular world. It makes me want to run out and buy 3 or 4. (via Improbable Research)

NYC High School Kids Participate in Science Online 2010

tags: Science Online 2010, Scio10, Ms Baker's Biology Class,Staten Island Academy, NYC, education, technology, internet, streaming video This is a video collage by Stacy "Ms Bakeriffic" Baker's high school biology students from Staten Island Academy in Staten Island, NY. In this video, they take part in Science Online '10 in North Carolina. They also went to the lemur farm, which makes me SO JEALOUS! I love lemurs! I am so pleased to see this video of SciO10 -- an event I wish I had attended. On one hand, I am pleased these kids got to experience this and on the other hand, I am jealous,…

NASA Astrobiology Roadmap 4: Early Evolution of Life and the Biosphere

Astrobiology Future The NASA online discussion session on the Astrobiology Roadmap continues this week. This morning there was a web chat on "Early Evolution of Life and the Biosphere", which is being followed up by an ongoing online discussion on the questions posed and soliciting ideas for priorities in research direction. The questions being discussed are: How has the exponential growth in our discovery and understanding of exoplanets impacted the kinds of questions and information we extract from the early Earth record? Are there problems you think are vital to understanding the early…

AAAS 2010 meeting - arrived in San Diego

After four uneventful flights and a crazy night in Vegas (no, not crazy in that way), I have finally arrived in San Diego. Checked in a hotel that is far away from the convention center. Exhausted. Pretty much impossible to get online, use the iPhone, check mail anywhere in Las Vegas. The only means of communication I could (sometimes) use was Twitter, using Twitterific! The wifi at the hotel is slowish but works. I hope it's better at the convention center where I'll spend most of the time over the next three days. I am a notorious coca-colic. Yet, all I could find in Vegas, or at the Vegas…