Chatter
tfk | October 14, 2012In case you wonder why I haven't been blogging lately, something else came up.
tfk | June 7, 2012
In case you've been wondering, "Where've you been for the last month, Josh?," the photo above gives a pretty good hint.
Miles Nikola was born on May 4th, a healthy and beautiful 8 pounds 12 ounces. For the last month, he and his mama and I have been at home getting used to each other. It's truly uncanny how different he is from day to day. His cheeks seem to grow exponentially, for instance.
Also, he just figured out that he can bend anyone to his will through sustained eye contact and cuteness, a dangerous precedent indeed. Once he fully masters the smile, I think we're doomed.
I don't…
tfk | February 12, 2012Long ago (1656), Blaise Pascal wrote an apologetic note that editors have been quoting at prolix writers ever since:
The present letter is a very long one, simply because I had no leisure to make it shorter.
Brevity is a key to effective writing, if nothing else because it's hard to hold a reader's attention, but also for stylistic reasons. Short sentences lend emphasis.
Alas, it's slow and painful.
Three hundred years after Pascal, Strunk and White's Elements of Style again emphasized the insistence on removing needless words wherever possible, one of several Strunk and White choices…
tfk | May 26, 2011Having a cold isn't as much fun as you'd think. Back to regular blogging shortly.
If you haven't registered for SkeptiCal '11 yet, there's still time before Sunday.
tfk | May 4, 2011Janet Stemwedel has an open letter, and as someone who got the same ham-fisted promotions, and didn't write about it for roughly the same reason (also I don't care about silly putty), I can endorse her letter wholeheartedly.
tfk | April 28, 2011Thanks to BoingBoing for this example of the importance of skepticism:
A gang of thieves in Istanbul, Turkey have reportedly been dressing like doctors and distributing sedatives door to door, telling residents the medicine was related to a test for high blood pressure. Once the victims dosed, the thieves would rob them. As part of the police investigation, officers attempted the same trick but used placebos. Apparently 86 out of 100 people who answered the door took the pill right away. Police then attempted to explain why that was a bad idea. From Reuters:
Turkish police in other provinces…
omnibrain | April 20, 2011I was digging through some of my old blog posts and had almost totally forgot about this artwork I commissioned for the blog when I first started back on blogger. Check it out and then I'll fill you in on what I've been up to and why I've been so sparse over the last many months.
I stopped blogging consistently a while back, and it was for a great reason, I promise!
About a year ago, after I passed my prelims, I went on the job market. I interviewed for a couple academic positions (mainly liberal arts) and a number of industry/government jobs. I finally decided to 'sell out' and take the…
tfk | March 16, 2011
Via Laughing Squid, we learn that students at the UK's Strode College were tasked with building outfits from cardboard packaging, and one created this whimsical number. If they'd just incorporate the technology from these prosthetic tentacles, this would be the greatest thing ever.
tfk | February 25, 2011If you aren't following me on twitter, you really should. Like a lot of bloggers, I've taken to using twitter as a repository for minor commentary and individual links that aren't quite deserving of their own blog post, but that still amuse me. So if you aren't reading the twitter feed, you aren't getting the full TfK experience.
So keep track of me at @JoshRosenau.
tfk | February 2, 2011
Dear Archie McPhee,
Please send me 20 finger tentacles (fingers AND toes). This is all I want for Christmas, except maybe tentacle prostheses.
And if you know Morehouse Farm, please ask them to send along these adorable Hedgehog Mittens.
Because hedgehogs are as adorable as cephalopods are awesome.
Thanks,
Josh
tfk | January 10, 2011I'm off today for North Carolina, where I'll be doing some library research, some talks at UNC and at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, and then a couple of sessions at Science Online. Expect blogging to be spotty, and I hope to see you at #scio11.
tfk | January 7, 2011Congrats to the bloggers chosen for the Open Lab blogging anthology. I was a judge this year, as I was last year, and it's amazing how much really good science blogging is out there. Jason Goldman deserves enormous credit for taking on the difficult task of putting together not just the best science blog posts, but the best collection of blog posts, possible.
tfk | December 31, 2010The British Centre for Science Education sent this New Year's note:
Happy new year to our friends in the NCSE
For those unfamiliar, this is the reference our friends across the pond are making. And a happy New Year to y'all as well!
tfk | November 15, 2010
The AP reviews my brother-in-law's play: Campy aliens no drag in 'Devil Boys From Beyond':
You can tell from the title that "Devil Boys From Beyond" intends to be fun, and the campy production that opened Saturday night at New World Stages does not disappoint. It's a satiric, raunchy, all-male spoof of low-budget science-fiction films from the 1950s, performed with gusto by the talented cast.â¦
Robert Berliner is all lockjawed uprightness as Mattie's booze-yearning, unfaithful former spouse. "Your pen is as poison as the blood in your veins," Greg snarls at Mattie, just one of the many…