Administrative
laelaps | April 11, 2008Over the past week I've been trying to bring some resolution into my plans for the next year by straightening out the remainder of my coursework and my writing goals for the year, but there are still a few things that are up in the air. As it stands now, though, I'm probably not going to make enough money to go to SVP this year, even though I was certainly looking forward to it. Perhaps things will change over the next few months, but going to the conference is something of a luxury compared to keeping the lights on and paying for my education.
laelaps | April 6, 2008The New York Times has a new article out looking at stress and bloggers, particularly in the case of professional bloggers who pull down five and six figure salaries. When you're publishing things yourself, it's hard work to provide high-quality content quick enough so that you're first to a story. Otherwise, you'll just have to hope for some link love and try to be the first on the scene the next time.
I assume that professional political and technology bloggers are the most stressed, but as far as my own habits go I don't feel particularly strung out or under pressure. If anything, I find…
laelaps | April 4, 2008The next Boneyard is going to be up at Greg Laden's place on Sunday, so if you've got something you want to be included get it to him or me within the next 24 hours. The carnival is also in need of a host for April 19th, so if you're up to it just let me know in an e-mail or here in the comments.
laelaps | April 4, 2008I'm headed out to the MIND08: The Design and the Elastic Mind Symposium in New York, so things will probably be a little light here today. I have no idea when I'll make it home, but you can expect a post about the day when I get back.
To keep things going a little bit while I'm out then, I'd like to know what you all have been reading lately. I'm almost done with Lucy, but today I'll be bringing along Bonebeds for the train ride. So far it's quite good, and seems like it would be a good companion to Exceptional Fossil Preservation.
laelaps | April 1, 2008I suppose today is as good a day as any to break the news to you all, especially since Janet has just made an announcement similar to the one I'm about to make.
As many of you are aware, my academic career has been rather rough, my university not being of very much help in preparing me for a career in vertebrate paleontology. This past week, I received notice that I have been in college for so long (and that my transcript is so poor), that I would have to start all over from freshman year again. 120 credits, gone in the blink of an eye. What's more, I'd have to pay double the regular tuition…
laelaps | March 29, 2008Sometime in the night, Laelaps passed the 100,000 visit mark! Thank you all for helping to make this blog what it is now; it would be quite different without the support of so many readers and other writers.
This blog also just recently passed the 2,000 comment mark, and I'm trying to think of a prize for the person who makes the 5,000th comment. I've got an extra copy of Ralph O'Connor's The Earth on Show on hand, as well as a few other books, so maybe I'll make up a little paleo prize-pack.
laelaps | March 26, 2008Over the course of my relatively short blogging career, I've had the pleasure of being in contact with a number of working paleontologists, people who are actively contributing to our understanding of ancient life. Although I'm always a little intimidated talking to professionals in paleontology, I've been thinking that I'd like to start up a series of interviews paleontologists active in the field today. What do you think? Is that something you'd like to see? I can't guarantee everyone that I have in mind will respond, but I think it would be a neat feature to run.
laelaps | March 24, 2008Spring break is over, which means that in addition to heading back to class, I'm going to try to confront the RU administration one more time in a sort of "last stand" to try and work things out. I doubt that I'll be successful, but I know that if I don't at least try I'm just going to be aggravated and upset if I find out there's something else I could have done. The sentiment expressed in the Motion City Soundtrack song "Can't Finish What You Started" probably best stands up my present feelings about the situation, though;
I thought of all the things I'd like to say
Cramped up and couldn't…
laelaps | March 21, 2008Tomorrow the next edition of The Boneyard is going to go up at The Dragon's Tales, so get your entries to me or Will soon! I'm in need of a host for the next edition on April 5th, so just let me know by e-mail or in the comments and I'll pencil you in. And if you can't think of a science-heavy post to write, you could always come up with some LOLSauropods...
The deadline for the Accretionary Wedge #7 is also quickly approaching, and the theme is geologists in the movies. I'm sure we're all thinking Jurassic Park, but I'm sure there are a few other old crusty films I can dust off for this one.
laelaps | March 17, 2008
A pair of wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) playing at the Bronx Zoo (I apologize that it's a bit blurry).
As you might have seen in the last post, my computers and camera were stolen this past weekend so I have lost 99% of all the photos I've taken over the past two years. I still have a few I had burned to discs, though, so even though I don't know when I'll be able to take more photographs (being I have no camera) I'll still have some fodder for the Photo of the Day.
laelaps | March 17, 2008Saturday night, after returning from dinner with friends, I opened the door to my apartment and let my wife in. As I fumbled with the string of icicle lights that run around the room to provide a little illumination, she said "I'll turn on the computer.... the computer isn't here!" Before I could even say "What do you mean the computer isn't here?" I noticed that the back door was slightly open, the lamp was on the floor, and my laptop was gone too. We had been robbed.
As the shock set in, I noticed that the cats did not come out to say "hello" as they normally did whenever I walked in the…
laelaps | March 15, 2008Yesterday I went on a bit of a rant (triggered by yet another frustrating message from the university administration) about my college career, and I wanted to express my thanks to everyone who took the time to offer advice and encouragement. The comments made me feel a lot better, and I will certainly persevere in completing my undergraduate education and ultimately move on to better things. If time permits, I'm planning on writing at least one review article for submission to a technical journal this year (in addition to my work on my book), so I'm definitely not letting my current situation…
evolvingthoughts | March 10, 2008
John Lynch took me to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum yesterday, and made me walk. Naturally I forgot my camera, so I can't show you the really cool hummingbirds, or the cougar/puma (it has a split personality) or the bighorn sheep, let alone the amazing diversity of plant life (until I came here I though "cactus" was a single species - just kidding), but you can see all that at the Museum's website and digital library.
I forgive John for making me walk - he was not to know that silverbacks, especially albino silverbacks, are lazy fat buggers. But the provision of ice cream and slushy…
pharyngula | March 10, 2008In case you haven't noticed, we're having problems all across scienceblogs. Few of us can post at all, and those who can are reporting errors all over (I will be amazed if this post makes it through). You are also unable to comment.
The crack team of Seed technical experts are delving deep into the guts of the software as I write this, butchering gremlins as they go. No word yet on when we'll be able to post again.
evolvingthoughts | March 10, 2008
Yesterday John Lynch (he of the Stranger Fruit) took me to see the Arizona Museum of Natural History in Mesa, which had some truly excellent displays of the feathered dinosaurs from China (they wouldn't let me photograph them, though, and none of the souvenir postcards had them either, but see here). Here's Lynch underneath an excellent bronze outside the museum - a Velociraptor, I think, or a Deinonychus, which was the core exhibit of the display.
Today we're off to Tuscon to shoot some bad guys see the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum. I gather Wile E. Coyote will be there.
evolvingthoughts | March 8, 2008
Yeah, yeah, OK, I know I've been absent except on the comments, but I'm traveling, all right? Everything I have worth saying gets said over beer or whiskey, tonight to Jim Lippard and John Lynch, the latter of whom is my present host. I must thank Malte Ebach for his hospitality over the past week too.
On to Utah on Wednesday. Lynch tells me I'm off to see fossils and stuff in Tucson tomorrow. I hope he means geological fossils, and not my contemporaries. Even I think I'm an old fogey.
Speaking of fogeys, it's PZ Mashgvsihem's birthday. He is only slightly less fogeyish than I - he has…
evolvingthoughts | March 2, 2008
So I'm here, and after a long sleep I got to see some marvellous AZ scenery before the camera died. I'm staying with my mate Malte, who was a costudent of Gareth Nelson with me some years back, Tomorrow the Workshop begins. I must get around to writing my talk...
In my absence, please go read this marvellous talkdown of the Disco liars, and attack on the bicycle riders.
evolvingthoughts | February 28, 2008
Janet asks what others have asked - what is science blogging all about, after a bully in the schoolyard taunted us Sciencebloggers. Her questions (and her answers) are very like mine, so I will steal them, below the fold.
1. Why do you consider this blog a science blog?
Like Janet, I don't. I don't often blog about the science, for a very simple reason: I'm not a scientist, nor have I scientific credentials. I'm a philosopher of biology (check the Profile at the top left - it's there for all to see).
So I blog about science itself, about scientists, ideas in science, and the ways we…
evolvingthoughts | February 27, 2008
Well, actually the weather in Tempe, Arizona, seems to be very much like the weather here in Brisbane, but that's where I'm going. For a couple of weeks. Also in Salt Lake City. So blogging shall be sparse unless I get inspired at the Systematics and Biodiversity workshop, as I surely shall. And then to Utah to the Edges and Boundaries of Biological Objects Workshop, at which I'm not presenting 'coz I didn't know I'd be in the States early enough, but I'll be a gadfly to those there, I warrant.
So expect even less blogging than before. I'm even lecturing while travelling (the course is…
pharyngula | February 15, 2008It's that time again: nominate your favorite commenter(s) in the thread for this post, and we'll see who gets to be honored with a Molly this month. You can check the last Molly thread if you want to see what worthies lost out last time.
Also, you may recall that story of a large snake that tried to swallow a large alligator … this is how I feel right now.
I have updated my blogroll with as many of the new submissions in the last Open Enrollment day as I could. It's getting a bit bloated, I'm afraid. I do have to explain a few things, though.
If you aren't on the current list even though you…