Bits and Pieces
jlynch | March 8, 2009
John Coltrane, with Wynton Kelly on piano, Paul Chambers on bass, and Jimmy Cobb on drums, performing "On Green Dolphin Street".
jlynch | March 6, 2009
This makes me want to go see the movie:
Very strong humanist, socialist, antinomian worldview major heroic characters deny God final winner in the battle of superheroes believes that killing people in the interests of peace is a worthwhile endeavor, a belief shared by most major Communist leaders of the 20th Century and the character who believes in good and evil has to be removed permanently for standing in the way of progress, plus very strong anti-Americanism includes mocking Republicans, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon, and Pat Buchanan and portraying the American hero as very cruel and…
jlynch | January 21, 2009Iâm still here, just still too busy to blog this week. Tuesday was the opening class for my Socratic seminar, Wednesday was the first session of my lecture course (and a faculty meeting). Today, I have a Socratic discussion of Hesiod. So Iâm guessing it will be Friday before I post again.
To tide you over, here (as a PDF) is the Gould piece discussing the Natural History Museum in Dublin. Enjoy.
jlynch | January 14, 2009Been busy here. Classes start on Tuesday so there has been a lot of administrivia to do with that. It’s also a mad scramble to get some projects finished before next week.
My buddie PalMD has come out from under the feet of the Hoofnagles and has shiny new premises (“White Coat Underground”) all of his own here at Scienceblogs. Wander over and say “hi”!
“High caffeine consumption could be linked to a greater tendency to hallucinate.” What? Who said that? I’ll be under the table. With my coffee [link].
Another shoutout to Zooborns bringer of much good cheer and much beloved by my daughter.…
jlynch | January 10, 2009It looks like the lights are back on here after the upgrade though comments are not yet switched back. I expect they will be soon.
jlynch | January 9, 2009Our masters over at Mission Control will be upgrading our blogging platform (finally!) starting 1:00PM today. The site will still be available for you to read although no new comments or posts will be allowed. We expect to be back live sometime Saturday evening. Enjoy the silence.
jlynch | December 22, 2008
This fashion maven and I wish all my readers a safe and peaceful holiday season. Be good to each other.
jlynch | October 4, 2008I'm going to take a break from this blogging thing for a while. The past few months have been sufficiently crazy (blame a new lecture course, some deadlines, and a general malaise) to prevent me keeping abreast of anything worth writing about. I'll continue posting the Monday Mustelid every week, but don't expect much more until ... well, until who knows when.
jlynch | September 9, 2008Following on from the last food meme, Janet gives us 100 vegetarian dishes to try. As there is nothing vegetarian I won't try, I'l just bold those I have tried and pass this along. As usual, comments are welcome.
1. Real macaroni and cheese, made from scratch and baked 2. Tabouleh 3. Freshly baked bread, straight from the oven 4. Fresh figs 5. Fresh pomegranate 6. Indian dal of any sort 7. Imam bayildi 8. Pressed spiced Chinese tofu 9. Freshly made hummus 10. Tahini 11. Kimchi 12. Miso 13. Falafel 14. Potato and pea filled samosas 15.…
jlynch | September 8, 2008Want to win a trip for two to New York? Airfare with four nights in a four star hotel? Behind the scenes tours of science sites? And dinner with your favorite ScienceBlogger (who shall remain nameless)? Of course you do. Details are here, but all you need to do is leave a comment using a valid email address - you can even do it in the comments to this post. So go on, you've nothing to lose.
jlynch | September 7, 2008
Male Flame Skimmer, Libella saturata (source)
We had one of these sit on an agave in our back yard for about three hours yesterday afternoon. Beautiful looking creatures.
Last seven days were busy here. New classes to prepare and other stuff left little time for blogging and suchlike. Don't know if things are going to improve next week.
ASU's football season has started with two wins against NAU and Stanford leading to a #15 ranking. Last night's 41-17 win over Stanford was satisfying. Up next is UNLV before the big home game against #2 Georgia. And things don't get easier after that -…
jlynch | August 29, 2008We had quite the storm here in the Valley on Thursday. Wind gusts up to 100 mph. Lots of rain. And more than 1,500 lightning strikes in a single hour.
Round about 7pm we could see the lightning to the east of us here in Tempe and it was still going on around 2am. It was the most amazing lightning I've seen in years. Storm cell after cell swept through the Valley. Power lines and trees fell, and nearly 80,000 homes lost power. An $8.4M athletic facility at the University was demolished with a month of opening. Sky Harbor airport closed two runways.
I found myself in a bar which not only lost…
jlynch | August 17, 2008From here:
Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.
Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss…
jlynch | August 12, 2008Dear Reader,
We launched Seed and ScienceBlogs because we believe that science can change the world and science literacy is how we get there. In the pages of our magazine we've tried to capture the ideas and issues fueling this cultural shift. Online we've aimed to foster a lively and spirited conversation about where it's all heading.
Now, we invite you to share with us directly your perspective on the state of science, and your opinion on how we can improve our own efforts to raise science literacy. The survey should take about 20 minutes to complete.
As a special "thank you" for…
jlynch | August 9, 2008Kevin Zelnio (of Deep Sea News and The Other 95%) has got himself a research job after a stressful search. Wander over and wish him well for his move to Duke University's Marine Lab.
jlynch | August 2, 2008
I've been away for a few days, spending some time relaxing in southern Arizona. Two highlights are worth mentioning; a visit to Kartchner Caverns to see the various speleothems (above is 'Kubla Khan' believed to be the largest column in Arizona at 58 feet and here are some more photos that can only hint at what you see in the cavern) and a visit to the the Pima Air and Space Museum.
The latter has a huge collection of aircraft (both inside and out), in particular a beautifully restored B-17 'Flying Fortress', a brace of B-52 'Stratofortress' and a SR-71 'Blackbird'. The littlest Lynch got…
jlynch | July 24, 2008The ever anonymous "PhysioProf" has managed to slander the whole medical profession. Orac, Mark Hoofnagle, and PalMD (who actually know something about medicine) rightly call shennanigans.
As Mark notes:
In medicine, we take attitudes like this towards students and doctors seriously, and the only reason PP gets away with this crap is because he abuses anonymity. Anonymity can be a good thing, and I hope the internet becomes a place where it can be used reliably so people can feel safe speaking honestly. But when used like PP uses it, merely to be able to say indefensible nonsense about good…
jlynch | July 20, 2008
They are captioning this over at Fark.com. I did this (obvious) caption before reading the thread.