Search Content

Displaying results 67951 - 68000 of 87947

scio10: Connections with mathematics and programming through modeling

Led by Maria Droujkova and Blake Stacey. We started with a pretty basic discussion of how to show math on the web. I use the math sandbox on mediawiki and use a png. B recommends replacemath.js http://mathcache.appspot.com/static/docs.html â it also provides an alt tag that has the LaTeX in it. Sitmo â LaTeX equation editor is one M has had some success with. Example â Radiometer â the very simple thing- requires very complex analysis using kinetic theory of gases⦠so visualization from Greg Egan. B took a bunch of computers they bought for some unsuccessful physics education initiative and…

Oh crap. Guess I should have renewed on time.

I got back from the SLA conference last June to the whole lab in a crisis. It passed and in e-mail, I got a notice that my SLA renewal was over due. Which is funny because I routed all the paperwork at the same time as my conference registration paperwork (we have an office that processes all of our society memberships). So then I dug, and dug, and dug, and dug... and didn't find that I still had a print/signed copy of my registration renewal form. I found it saved on my hard drive and printed it out and put it on the pile... closed the library down... moved offices... thought about it... So…

Death and John Updike

It made a deep impression in me to listen to Updike talk about the countless stars and galaxies and our cosmic insignificance in an old interview recording (one of the rare few) given to Eleanor Wachtel who hosts Writers & Company. Ian McEwan writes in the guardian: This most Lutheran of writers, driven by intellectual curiosity all his life, was troubled by science as others are troubled by God. When it suited him, he could easily absorb and be impressed by physics, biology, astronomy, but he was constitutionally unable to "make the leap of unfaith". The "weight" of personal death did…

Road rage in India and Zinc intake

Yesterday's Hindu newspaper I read at our noisy suburb in Bangalore informs thus: Is there any relationship between road rage in cities, especially during peak hour traffic, and nutrient deficiency? Yes, says the country's renowned soil scientist J.C. Katyal, who is Vice-Chancellor of the Choudhary Charan Singh Agricultural University in Haryana. Speaking to presspersons on the sidelines of the annual convention of the Indian Society for Soil Science (ISSS) on the campus of the University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore, Dr. Katyal, who is also president of ISSS, explained that zinc…

Rural India: pressing need and an exciting challenge

Former NASSCOM president Kiran Karnik writes in Economic Times: ...cost-efficient technologies that fit the socio-cultural milieu are yet awaited. These examples point to a pressing need and an exciting challenge, representing a unique three dimensional convergence of technological capability, economic opportunity and societal need. The time is now ripe for this convergence: the growth of India's technology base has resulted in far greater capability to meet the needs. At the same time, economic growth -- though skewed and iniquitous -- has created an economically attractive market in rural…

Gabo and Shakespeare: Two Islands, one hypnotic ending

The Tempest, Act 4, Scene 1 Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and Are melted into air, into thin air: And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, The cloud-capp'd towers, the gorgeous palaces, The solemn temples, the great globe itself, Ye all which it inherit, shall dissolve And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff As dreams are made on, and our little life Is rounded with a sleep. One Hundred Years of Solitude Macondo was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about by the…

What if you don't feel any pain

Wouldn't it be nice, you would think. But imagine the consequences. As a child, if you don't feel pain, you may eat your fingers. The beebs reports on families in Pakistan who have a genetic mutation that releives them of the sensation of pain. "the Cambridge team found six people from the three related families all carried the same mutated gene. None had experienced pain at any time in their lives. Detailed neurological examinations revealed that there was no evidence of any sort of disease which could explain this deficit. And they were able to perceive a number of sensations, such as…

"Fondling Udders", say the gods of sexual persuasion

Here's the news at Reuters that's reporting on the gods who shall not be denied the worldly pleasures. After drinking milk, it appears that the next logical step for gods would be fondling udders. Thousands of people flocked to temples across India on Monday following reports that idols of Hindu gods were drinking milk given by devotees as sacred offerings, witnesses said. Teenagers, adults and the aged stood in long lines with garlands and bowls of milk to feed the idols of Lord Shiva, Lord Krishna and the elephant-headed Lord Ganesha, they said. Hundreds chanted hymns in the northern city…

Best. Modelling Paper. Ever.

The abstract says it all: Zombies are a popular figure in pop culture/entertainment and they are usually portrayed as being brought about through an outbreak or epidemic. Consequently, we model a zombie attack, using biological assumptions based on popular zombie movies. We introduce a basic model for zombie infection, determine equilibria and their stability, and illustrate the outcome with numerical solutions. We then refine the model to introduce a latent period of zombification, whereby humans are infected, but not infectious, before becoming undead. We then modify the model to include…

Sell the drugs, they pay you. Criticize the drugs, they sue you.

via Wall Street Journal Health Blog: For a while now, the FDA and other regulators have been looking at safety risks associated with a few drugs patients sometimes take before getting MRI scans. While it's common for new risks to crop up with established drugs, the Times of London this weekend highlighted an interesting twist in this case: GE has filed a libel suit in Britain against a Danish radiologist who gave a talk about the risks associated with Omniscan, a GE drug that's one of the medicines regulators have been looking at. The doctor, Henrik Thomsen, gave a presentation to about 30…

Raymond Tallis trashtalks some "Neurotrash"

Hardly a day passes without yet another breathless declaration in the popular press about the relevance of neuroscientific findings to everyday life. The articles are usually accompanied by a picture of a brain scan in pixel-busting Technicolor and are frequently connected to references to new disciplines with the prefix "neuro-". Neuro-jurisprudence, neuro-economics, neuro-aesthetics, neuro-theology are encroaching on what was previously the preserve of the humanities. Even philosophers - who should know better, being trained one hopes, in scepticism - have entered the field with the…

Quick dip: Healthcare reform, conflicted profs, and the vaccine shortage

Pardon my light posting lately. Flat out with big projects, travel, and the stacking of the wood for the winter. This, however, is what has jumped out at me from the intertubez of late: Meet the New Health Care Reform, Same as the Old Health Care Reform At Top Schools, More Than Half the Profs Have Industry Ties US: Shortage of flu vaccines leaves healthcare workers vulnerable Our lack of readyness for this thing is sobering -- as is the complacency about same. In my own town, our much-delayed swine flu vaccines for kids is finally being administered this coming Monday. How'd I hear this?…

Is American Healthcare Going All Euro on Us?

Ezra Klein thinks it might. "We're America," Max Baucus likes to say. "Which means we have to write a uniquely American solution." But the health-care solution that actually seems to be emerging in Congress -- which looks like the health-care solutions proposed by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards during the campaign -- isn't all that unique. Not only does it look like another country's health-care system, but it also looks like a European country's health-care system. Quel Horreur! In truth, it's seeming more and more likely that America is going to go Dutch. And that's not a…

Flu roundup cont'd

Lots of flu news out there. Here's my short list for the day: Helen Branswell reports that WHO is unpersuaded by the unpublished paper showing seasonal flu vaccine may raise chance of getting swine flu. (Anomalies are usually anomalies.) Canada has been thrown into quite a bit of confusion by this report, with some provinces holding off on seasonal flu vaccines. Meanwhile, an OB notes an extraordinary death toll of H5N1 among pregnant women. Greg Laden has an extremely short post suggesting how difficult these two bits of news are when you (or your wife) are actually pregnant. The gist: The…

Using forensics to reveal medical ghostwriting (Reuters story)

Frederic Curtiss, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Managed Care Pharmacy, told Reuters Health that data attached to documents by Word has allowed him to discover undisclosed contributors. In one case, for instance, a revised manuscript arrived at his office with four named authors, but when he examined the metadata, he discovered an additional author was making substantial contributions. When documents are saved in Word, the software attaches additional information, called metadata, which identifies the creator of the document. During the editing process, changes made by additional…

Air Traffic Footprint

From Cratylus, an intriguing visualization of worldwide air traffic, with notes on carbon impact: This simulation shows the world-wide air traffic over a 24-hour period. Watch as day dawns across the globe: The hubbub of activity created each morning in the skies gradually tapers off in the dead of night, only to come roiling back the following morning. According to NATCA, the National Air Traffic Controllers Association: "On any given day, more than 87,000 flights are in the skies in the United States ... and in one year, [U.S.] controllers handle an average of 64 million takeoffs and…

My New Favorite Blog : The Daily Coyote

I love science blogs but you know... I really get sick of the acronym filled science talk, the obnoxious politics, and of course the religion sometimes. I just discovered a great new blog that has all the natural curiosity of a science blog but non of the crap. It is wonderfully written by a non-scientist in a 'what I did today' format (which for the first time ever I like!) The Daily Coyote chronicles, through pictures and stories, the life of Shreve Stockton, her cat, and her coyote friend. Here's the scoop from her: Charlie is a wild-born coyote who was unexpectedly delivered to my…

Three Auditory Illusions

Usually we feature visual illusions since they seem to be the easiest to make and of course nearly a third to a half of our brain is dedicated to vision so we may just be more interested. In any case here are three auditory illusions from Mighty Optical Illusions. Shepard's ascending tones (MP3) - This is a recording of Shepard's paradox synthesized by Jean-Claude Risset. Pairs of chords sound as if they are advancing up the scale, but in fact the starting pair of chords is the same as the finishing pair. If you loop this sample seamlessly then it should be impossible to tell where the…

Baptists suggest that homosexuality may be biological.

It sounds good doesn't it?! Just read a bit further until you realize what they're actually saying... The president of the leading Southern Baptist seminary has suggested that a biological basis for homosexuality may be proven, and that prenatal treatment to reverse gay orientation would be biblically justified. The Rev. R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., and one of the country's evangelical leaders, posted the article on his personal Web site earlier this month. Mr. Mohler said in the article that scientific research "points to…

Invasive Species in Ballast Water? Nuke 'Em.

On any given day, the world's fleet of ships are carrying billions of tons of ballast water with up to 7,000 different invasive species as stowaways. About one in every ten of these is likely to be a problem if it's introduced into a new ecosystem, which is why the United Nations has listed "invasive species" discharged from ballast water as one of the top four threats to marine ecosystems globally. In the Mediterranean Sea, for instance, a new species has been recorded every four weeks. More than 400 introduced species now make their home in a Sea that has (or had) one of the highest…

Science Debate 2008 Is a Major Bellwether

bellwether - a person or thing that assumes the leadership or forefront, as of a profession or industry: Paris is a bellwether of the fashion industry. I can't say enough good things about what the Science Debate 2008 group has managed to achieve so far. And enough bad things about some of the crotchety old farts who naysayed the idea from it's inception (always great to hear the fading echoes of last century's science community, like John Horgan, official fuddydud). Sheril Kirshenbaum has spearheaded a short note in Science about the future of SD 2008. The entire project seems to be saying…

Politics Tuesday (on Thursday): Gilchrest Race Heats Up

Posted by Jack Sterne, jack@oceanchampions.org Lots of interesting developments in the Gilchrest race this week. The Politico has this story about the massive amount of direct mail being directed at Gilchrest by hard-core anti-environmentalist Andy Harris. Gilchrest's other primary primary opponent (no, that's not a typo - I meant to say "primary" twice), E.J. Pipkin, triggered the "millionaire's amendment" to campaign finance rules, allowing Gilchrest and Harris to raise three times the legal limit from individuals. That's because Pipkin has already pumped over $350,000 of his own money…

Suzukis on Sounds Like Canada

Last week while I was home for U.S. Thanksgiving, I missed this event for Sounds Like Canada on CBC. David Suzuki, Canadian environmental hero, and his daughter, Sarika Cullis-Suzuki (also a student of Daniel Pauly's) spoke in front of a crowd of 250 people about climate change, fisheries, and hope. John Robinson, a UBC professor and contributor to the IPCC report, was also present and slips in a nice shifting baseline anecdote: "People don't remember, but Canada used to lead the world in energy programs in the early 1970s." Referencing George Monbiot's Heat, David Suzuki discussed how…

When Smuck Smacks Japan, Make Ice Cream

And just in case there are some of there out there who agree with the statement from Wikipedia: "There is very little reason or evidence to suppose that Jellyfish even require a collective noun." This important article, Invasion of Jellyfish Envelops Japan in Ocean of Slime in yesterday's Wall Street Journal removes all doubt. The Japanese government last year counted about 50,000 incidents of jellyfish trouble. So the Japanese are trying to make the best of it. Dr. Daniel Pauly has been talking about a future of jellyfish bugers since the late 1990s, but did not foresee jellyfish-…

A Whale of a Baseline

The grey whale is always held up as an icon of success of the Endangered Species Act. While it's true that gray whale numbers have rebounded from near extinction to 22,000 whales today, a new study released today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that the grey whale population before whaling was 96,000 animals, three to five times greater than it is today. What is the baseline for success? It comes as no surprise Stanford University's Steve Palumbi is a co-author of this study, given his participation in the 2003 paper in Science that showed North Atlantic whale…

Massaging Octopus and Other Questionable Acts

The New York Times, ever one to embrace diversity, can run a flag-waving article about the plight of bluefin tuna and the future for sushi (deer meat) and then turn around, as it did today, to publish a glowing review of sushi restaurant on New York's 15th Street. The review's clever title Does the Squid Get a Mani-Pedi? was a reference to the laborious massaging of the octopus (PZ's dream job) before its big brain was slow-cooked. But the reviewer's behavior was even odder than the chef's. He orders essentially everything under the sea, including bluefin tuna, without so much a word on the…

The Future of Seafood...

Yesterday, I was part of a panel on sustainable seafood at the International Food Conference. The future for seafood security, especially in the developing world, was discussed as was the proliferation of salmon farming. Chile just oupaced Norway in terms of farmed salmon production and looks to double its output over the next several years... By coincidence, this week's issue of Science also takes up the issue of the future of seafood in an intellectual defense of the Worm et al. study published in Science last year (a co-author of which was Shifting Baselines' own Jeremy Jackson). Press…

Obama as neuroanthropologist

An impressive list of (mostly overlooked) readings about Obama, from Neuroanthropology. I kept wondering yesterday why, along with being deeply moved while watching the ceremonies, I a deep sense of dread and foreboding. Narrowed it to three things: - a sadness my mother (who died soon after 9/11) wasn't around to see this, as she would have been immensely moved and more important: - Obama looked so utterly alone and somber as he came up the hall and then waited in his chair. He so clearly recognizes the magnitude of the burden he takes on -- a burden heavier because he has defined the task…

Zimmer on brain-changing parasites

Good stuff from Zimmer: You go for a swim, and you don't even notice the tiny worm that burrows into your skin. It slips into a vein and surges along through the blood for a while. Eventually it leaves your blood vessels and starts creeping up your spinal cord. Creep creep creep, it goes, until it reaches your head. It curls up on the surface of your brain, forming a hard cyst. But it is not alone%u2013every time you've gone for swim, worms have slithered into you, and now there are thousands of cysts peppering your brain. And they are all making drugs that are seeping into your neurons.…

May Day, Mayday

In 2001, when I first came to the Galapagos, there were two flights each day. My baseline was, therefore, 14 flights per week. But island old-timers reminisce about the two-flights-per-week-good-old-days. When I flew in today, I was on one of five flights to the Galapagos Islands; there are now 35 flights each week. Organized tourism began in the islands in 1969 with a few small hotels and boats. In the early 1980s fewer than 15,000 tourists visited Galapagos. Ten years later, tourism had grown to about 50,000 visitors. Ten years more and this number doubled. In 2006, more than 120,000…

Save the Oceans, Eat Like a Pig

An article I wrote about fishmeal and the prospects for turning the industry around is published in the Tyee today. About 30 milliion tonnes--more than one third of all marine fish caught--is ground into fishmeal annually. About two million tons were ground into meal in 1950. Fishmeal is fed to an ever-increasing number of farmed fish, pigs, and chickens. It helps pigs and chicken (AND herbivorous fish) grow faster than their historical grain-based diets. But the fishmeal industry also turns into powder fish perfectly edible by humans. The article explores a new initiative in Peru,…

Weekly Dose of Cute

I don't really have an intro to these guys, as they're just too cute for words! They're baby fennec foxes, for those of you who aren't familiar with those large ears. The fennec fox lives in the Sahara desert, where they use those massive acoustic organs to both hear its prey from far away and cool off. It's nocturnal, and hunts rodents, insects and just about anything it can get its adorable little paws on. Interestingly, it's one of the only species of Fox that is able to be properly kept as a pet - just ask Jeff Corwin - but most areas require special exotic animal permits to do so. Of…

DonorsChoose Update

The DonorsChoose campaign here at ScienceBlogs has come to a close and our challenge has been the beneficiary of support from about 10 donors. As a result of the generosity of readers, including poor graduate students and thoughtful family members, we've met all three of our challenge goals to fund projects in underserved areas of North Carolina. Thank you! However, one donor stands out and I'm sending this shout-out for permission to use her name here to acknowledge her incredible philanthropy. The DonorsChoose page that we sponsors see doesn't list exact dollar amounts, but given the…

But I don't think I want to be this bigot's brother

The Republican governor of Alabama, Robert Bentley, has moved on a little bit from the 1950s — he made a speech on Martin Luther King Day in which he declared himself colorblind and the governor of all the people of Alabama. How nice! But then, unfortunately, he had to ruin it by making a few exceptions. But if you have been adopted in God's family like I have, and like you have if you're a Christian and if you're saved, and the Holy Spirit lives within you just like the Holy Spirit lives within me, then you know what that makes? It makes you and me brothers. And it makes you and me brother…

The Stewart/Cramer Affair

Sam: Toby, do you really think it's a good idea to invite people to dinner and then tell them exactly what they're doing wrong with their lives? Toby: Absolutely. Otherwise it's just a waste of food. The West Wing Season 1, Episode 7, The State Dinner Jon Stewart understands better than anyone - except possibly Steven Colbert - the tremendous opportunity that a comedian has when it comes to speaking truth to power. He's been making the most of that opportunity over the past week or so, with the "weeklong feud of the century". If you've missed it, you've probably been in a coma, but it's…

Time to contact your Senators.

Representative Tom Coburn (R-OK) has submitted the following amendment to the stimulus bill: None of the amounts appropriated or otherwise made available under this act may be used for any casino or other gambling establishment, aquarium, zoo, golf course, swimming pool, stadium, community park, museum, theater, arts center, or highway beautification project, including renovation, remodeling, construction, salaries, furniture, zero-gravity chairs, big-screen televisions, beautification, rotating pastel lights, and dry heat saunas. This is not a good amendment, even if we completely…

Differing Definitions of "Pompous"

What's more pompous: an accomplished professional woman who went back to school and earned a doctorate at age 55, or a newspaper setting itself up as the arbiter of who should be allowed to use that title? The LA Times apparently thinks that the person who earned the degree is the pompous one, but that's not really much of a surprise, since they're the ones claiming the mantle of arbiter of faith and morals in this case. Apparently, they don't think people should use the title "Doctor" unless they're MDs. In support of their position, they trotted out a number of dubious quotes from…

links for 2008-06-30

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: AFA's Search/Replace Function Works Perfectly This has got to be one of the funniest screw-ups I've run into in a very long time. There's nothing like watching the American Family Association repeatedly call the fastest man in the world gay a homosexual - over and over and over again. (tags: oops) French soldier 'accidentally' shoots 17 spectators at military show - Telegraph This is why you never, ever, ever, point any real firearm at anything that you are not willing to destroy. Assuming, of course, that the soldier in question actually managed to…

Bruce Chapman is losing it.

Bruce Chapman has an article up over at the Discovery Institute's Media Complaints blog that is really a must read. There are several statements in there that would qualify as absurd even by DI standards (like the one where he talks about someone being "outranked" by other scientists), but one in particular is so totally off the top that I'm having problems thinking of an anti-evolutionist statement that tops it. (If you can think of one, feel free to cite it in the comments.) The following quote is taken directly from Chapman's article. I'm going to place it below the fold to give you a…

"Study Finds Men, Women Pretty Much The Same"

I love it. You must read this book review in the TimesOnline (found via Arts & Letters Daily) of Deborah Cameron's The Myth of Mars and Venus: Do Men and Women Really Speak Different Languages? Commenting on Cameron's take on all the myths about language differences between men and women: For Cameron, this is simplistic eyewash, best countered with a few well-aimed stats. She cites the meta-analysis of Janet Hyde, a psychologist who has collated masses of research findings on male-female communications. Hyde's number-crunching suggests that the difference in language use between men and…

Twisted logic

Wayne Laugesen rightly points out that the Catholic church does not have exclusive ownership of pedophilia and child abuse. But then he takes a long leap into lunacy. Today, sexual abuse of children is clearly out of control in public schools and is even more prevalent in homes. Society needs to stop acting as if it's a problem caused by priests and look to the Catholic Church in the United States for answers. Due in part to public outrage regarding its mistakes and misdeeds of the past, the church appears to have emerged as the one organization with a formula for nearly eradicating sexual…

Welcome, Sciencewoman!

Probably you've already noticed that Sciencewoman has joined the gang here at ScienceBlogs! Her first post here was on Sept. 20th, which was while I was off traveling with my mom. Helping my mom navigate through her vacation absorbed nearly all my energy and time; there was not much left for blogging, and so I didn't get to formally welcome Sciencewoman at that time. But I assure you, I was (and am) thrilled to pieces to have her here as one of my newest Sciblings. I am sure many of you who read here, also read Sciencewoman, and I hope you will continue to enjoy her blog at its new…

P.T. Barnum was right

There's a sucker born every minute, and you'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public. The Creation "Museum" is expanding and building a theme park. It's simply a fact that Ken Ham's Institution of Ignorance is doing business like gangbusters — it is well-attended and successful, has low-brow appeal, has negligible operating expenses (unlike a real museum), and is drawing in crowds of rubes and doing a great job of separating them from their money. I'm not at all surprised that Ham is rubbing his hands together and calculating new ways to fleece the flock; it's…

Call For Entries For 2007 Science Blogging Anthology

Perhaps you are familiar with the 2006 Science Blogging Anthology, The Open Laboratory, that was put together by Bora Zivkovic. It is a great collection of (most) of the best of last year's science blogging, but as Bora has recently noted to me, it is lacking something important. That is, there are NO contributions pertaining to women in science. NO posts from any of the fabulous women scientists writing about the issues women deal with daily on the job, in the classroom, in the lab. Bora and I would like to change that for the 2007 anthology. But we need your help. We need you to…

More incentive to improve my German

I took two years of German not all that long ago, but I can't really say I learned the language. I can pick out words here and there, make it to the bathroom, and say "I'm sorry, but my German is terrible". That last bit was the one that came most in handy when I was there for a couple of days last year. Fortunately, I've got some incentive to improve my language skills. There's a good chance that we'll be moving out there in a couple of years, which wasn't a bad incentive, but hasn't been enough to get me off my butt yet. Fortunately, I've just been given another incentive: there's now a…

Possible Indian Ocean Tsunami

A very large, shallow earthquake occurred at 11:10 UTC today. The earthquake epicenter is located in the Indian Ocean, about 375 miles from Jakarta, Indonesia, and is currently estimated at magnitude 7.9. The magnitude of the earthquake and the shallow depth of the quake have lead the Pacific Tsunami Warning center to put a tsunami watch into effect for the Indian Ocean. Unfortunately, there are still not a lot of sea level gauges in the area, so it's not yet known if a tsunami occurred. Our thoughts are with those who have been affected by the quake, and with those who might be affected…

Supporting the families left behind

As I mentioned recently, a number of soldiers in Iraq will be running the Honolulu Marathon this weekend. The course goes around a base several times, mostly over dirt roads. In part, running the Honolulu Marathon lets folks maintain a connection with home, but that's not the only reason that they are running. They're also running to support TAPS - an organization that provides support to the families of people who die while on active duty in the armed forces. A death in the family is a massive tragedy, and creates a great deal of upheaval in the lives of those left behind. For the families…

Pell causes Catholics stress

Clerical Catholic Imam, George Pell, has done it again. Proven why secularism is a necessity, that is. He has threatened politicians who are Catholics with exclusion from communion, which is not quite excommunication but nevertheless still pretty drastic, if they vote in favour of a secular law permitting stem cell research. Note that these Catholic politicians, who are elected to represent all Australians and not just the Catholics, are not themselves undertaking stem cell research. They are merely voting, if they choose, to allow others to do it if their conscience permits. But the…

Hollywood Physics (and the Society for Arts, Literature, and Science)

This is but a link to an interesting summary article about the topic of scientists (physicists) in film. It's by Sidney Perkowitz, who teaches at Emory, and who I've seen speak at the meetings of and know has long been involved with the Society for Literature, Science, and the Arts (SLSA) -- which I call Salsa, but not sure if anyone else does, and which was long called just the Society for Literature and Science (SLS) until a name change a few years ago. Salsa has a highly respected journal, too, Configurations, which is often fairly theoretically inclined and generally tip top. In fact,…

The letter that got me out of a parking ticket OR I think I got this humour writing thing down to a science.

A few months back, I forgot to pay for parking and was dinged with a $50 fine. It was completely by accident so very annoying overall. Anyway, because it was an accident, I thought I would have a go at writing a silly letter to get out of paying. Well, I found out it worked, so it just goes to show... Well, I dunno what it goes to show (perhaps this is where those in the know with behaviour and the like can pipe it), but here it is (word or word) for record keepings sake: - - - REASONS WHY I DIDN'T PAY MY TICKET. In light of everything going on in provincial and federal politics, I was…