Bits and Pieces
jlynch | July 5, 2008Regular browsers will note that things have gone very quiet here over the past few weeks. Truth be told, I'm a little burned out with the whole blogging thing and need time to re-evaluate and decide whether this is something I want to keep doing (either here at Scienceblogs or elsewhere). Hopefully, I'll figure things out sooner rather than later.
jlynch | June 11, 2008
Young male hippo in the surf, South Africa [source]
Courtesy of Phil Plait, I've stumbled across The Big Picture, a site run by the Boston Globe which features some wonderful photos arranged thematically. Do wander over and have a look.
jlynch | June 9, 2008
Someone may have noticed that I’ve been away for awhile. I was in Europe for a few weeks and am only now getting my feet under me. Highlight of the trip had to be five days spent in Athens, a city which I had never visited before. More of that later, no doubt. Anyway, I’ll be easing myself into the blog again.
jlynch | May 20, 2008A combination of work and travel means I’ll be out of circulation for the next few weeks. See you sometime around June 5th.
jlynch | May 3, 2008
"Multiple world champion Oscar De La Hoya registered a unanimous decision victory over fellow American Steve Forbes in a non-title bout on Saturday."
Huh?
jlynch | May 3, 2008I may be treading in hot water here but ... two years ago a colt named Barbaro broke a leg and was put into surgery while a nation apparently wept (here is what I said then). Yesterday I watched a filly named Eight Belles fracture two legs and be unceremoniously killed on the track (Grrl has a good post on that). She was worth less, I guess.
jlynch | May 3, 2008If you haven’t already, you must check out Charles Darwin’s blog, if only for this:
However in the dramatic presentations it is clear what science is for: it is to help the police elucidate which American has killed which other American. It is also clear who becomes a scientist: people of eccentric appearance and manner with peculiarly arranged hair. They inhabit extremely modern, uncluttered and strangely lit laboratories, there is usually only one of them and he or she possesses an extraordinary range of scientific specialities and skills. They are sessile, but propel themselves on chairs…
jlynch | April 26, 2008I ran across this story covering Jeremy Hall’s case (PZ comments) and just want to quote the following:
[Hall’s atheism] eventually came out in Iraq in 2007, when he was in a firefight. Hall was a gunner on a Humvee, which took several bullets in its protective shield. Afterward, his commander asked whether he believed in God, Hall said.
"I said, ’No, but I believe in Plexiglas,’" Hall said.
Give that boy a promotion. In a firefight it is most definitely preferable to believe in Plexiglass over God.
jlynch | April 18, 2008Some quickies ...
The University of Oklaholma has announced its year-long Darwin 2009 celebration: This View of Life. Apparently it is being launched on February 12th with a public lecture by some guy called Lynch. Yeah, that Lynch. More of that later, no doubt.
Set Ben Straight and win stuff. See here.
Ed Brayton revisits the Sternberg affair for E-skeptic.
The Pandas Thumb has been continually blogging reviews of Expelled as they roll in. Wander on over to witness the carnage (includes a bonus ’D’ grade from BeliefNet).
Jim Lippard has revisited his predictions for Expelled’s opening…
jlynch | April 15, 2008I’ve been quiet the past few days, primarily because I’m all nervous about the upcoming launch of Expelled - I’ve realized it’s going to be the Waterloo that Dembski predicted eight years ago. Hah! Not really. The simplistic history in the movie (ignoring all other factors including Christianity in "explaining" the rise of Nazi eugenics), the "framing" and lies of the producers & promoters, and the plagiarism from, not one, but two sources will spell doom for this dreck, at least within the mainstream.
Real reason for the silence is that grading has started again and we’re into the last…
jlynch | March 30, 2008I don’t watch NBA basketball. I don’t watch NCAA basketball. I used to play basketball in high school and played club basketball in college (Ireland doesn’t have the same college scene as here). The reason why I don’t watch is something Chad has hit upon when talking about Davidson’s run for the "final four":
Basketball isn’t just about amazing physical feats-- it’s about knowledge and planning and execution, and a team that plays the game well can hang with (and sometimes beat) vastly superior individual athletes. That’s more impressive to me than any acrobatic highlight-reel dunk.…
jlynch | March 30, 2008This made me laugh if only because I used to row back in Ireland:
In Ireland, it is not uncommon for university rowing teams to cancel practice because there is a swan in the river. Rowing teams tend to be composed of men who are built like very large trees. Trees that bench-press Volvos. These men are terrified of swans, probably due to a grizzled old rowing coach, always looking on from the shore, a bill-shaped scar where his left eye used to be.
FWIW, I can’t bench press a Volvo. Never could.
jlynch | March 27, 2008"Once, for a class called Creative Nonfiction, I swam down to Scammon’s Lagoon during winter mating season and transcribed the simultaneous chatter of every gray whale, all in one continuous stream of unpunctuated prose: "Oh my God oh my click-click-click oh my (inaudibly low drone) God I love you so much I just want to (squeak) stare into your (hum, drone) big beautiful eyes forever click-click-click-click ..." What happened to that writer?"
(source)
jlynch | March 25, 2008At 2:00pm today someone (in Alabama, no less) came here via a Google search for "sex with a sea cucumber". I'm speechless.
jlynch | March 8, 2008
The National Center for Science Education has launched ExpelledExposed.com which will contain responses to Ben Stein’s pro-ID crapola Expelled once the movie goes live on April 18th.
jlynch | March 8, 2008Our Overlords are launching a "Super Reader" program which allows us to nominate two readers to receive super powers. Well not so much super powers as the ability to tag posts to appear in a RSS feed that will be on the Sb front page. You get to choose the posts throughout the Sb network that you think represent the best of what we do and you recommend them to others. Future plans are to allow even more interactivity between blog(ger)s and readers. So are you a regular reader of Stranger Fruit who wants to be in at the ground floor of this experiment? If so, leave a comment saying why you…
jlynch | March 8, 2008Sincerest apologies for being MIA for quite a while now. This week in particular was hectic (in good ways) and time to blog was negligible. Two candidates interviewed and the systematics workshop was excellent. But it is now Saturday, Spring Break has started, and I theoretically have some down free time. Wilkins is going to be staying with me for a few days, so we hope to hit the Arizona-Sonoran Desert Museum and the "Feathered Dinosaurs and the Origin of Flight" exhibit at the Arizona Museum of Natural History before heading north to Utah for the Edges and Boundaries of Biological Objects…