Chatter
tfk | March 2, 2009James Grimmelmann observes the Best. Comment. Ever. to a recipe at Epicurious:
I served these at my health club's solstice gathering and everyone found them quite delicious. I omitted cilantro, however, because it's arbitrary aura makes the herb quite unstable and thus unsuitable to combine with any food.
Yet more support for the I Hate Cilantro movement.
laelaps | February 27, 2009Many thanks to everyone who wished me a happy 26th birthday yesterday. I was surprised by the number of people who did, in fact, and I was glad to receive the kind greetings of so many friends.
Special thanks are due Amanda, as well, who sent me a shiny new copy of Richard Fortey's Dry Storeroom No. 1. It came in the mail just as I was headed out the door and I was deeply tempted to call in sick from work so I could start reading it. Thank you, Amanda; I cannot wait to dive into it!
My "big gift", though, was a comparative skull set (fish, frog, lizard, pigeon, rabbit) from the Bone Room that…
tfk | February 3, 2009I'm up in Michigan, so blogging will be light. I just did an event discussing NOVA's Judgment Day at a Unitarian Church. It was a good evening, and I got to meet Wesley Elsberry and several other lovely MSU folks.
Tomorrow (or today, by the time you're probably reading this), I speak to the Geology Department, and then on Thursday I'm up at Central Michigan University, speaking at 4. Then back to Oakland on Friday. Any of you who are in the area should drop by.
j7uy5 | January 28, 2009Our man in Chicago turned me on to Charlie Stross. Little did I
know, Stross' writings have become something of a sensation in the
academic world.
One of the first blogs I read was Crooked
Timber. I think it was our man in Chicago who showed me the
way there, IIRC.
Anyway, Crooked Timber has a
href="http://crookedtimber.org/2009/01/27/charles-stross-book-event/">new
Crooked Timber book event, about Stross' books. There are
essays by the famous bloggers Paul Krugman and Brad DeLong, et alia.
Starting off with a heavy hitter, we've got
href="http://www.henryfarrell.net/stross/2008/09/…
tfk | January 17, 2009As someone at ScienceOnline'09 mentions the Twittering of the Hudson River landing, I had just started reading Orac's explanation of why that happened. Apparently God hates pigeons, but doesn't mind people so much.
goodmath | January 15, 2009 Just a brief note, to let you all know why there's a lack of new posts.
Once again, I managed to kill my laptop. The machine died suddenly, with no warning. I'm currently waiting for a replacement, and once I get it, I'll need some time to set everything up to my liking. I also had three posts in progress on the machine; I'm not sure whether they were backed up or not, and won't be able to find out until I get a new machine.
Things will be back to normal as soon as possible, but don't expect much for the next couple of days.
tfk | January 14, 2009Those of you attending ScienceOnline '09 this weekend should look for TfK.
Those of you not attending should feel deeply ashamed.
goodmath | January 7, 2009 I'm working on more substantive, mathy posts, but in the meantime, I'm pissed,
so I'm making a quick off-topic post.
With the horrible things that are going on in Gaza right now, I've gotten a raft of antisemitic spam. Most of it has been through private mail, but some has been in comments on
the blog.
I've mentioned plenty of times on this blog that I'm Jewish. Not Israeli. Jewish.
I'm not a member of the Israeli military. I am not a citizen of Israel. I don't get to vote in Israeli elections. I have no say in anything that the state of Israel does.
If you're the type of good-for-…
tfk | January 1, 2009"Comes A Time" by Neil Young from the album Comes A Time (1977, 3:06).
Oh, this old world
keeps spinning round
It's a wonder tall trees
ain't layin' down
There comes a time.
And none too soon!
tfk | December 25, 2008Eartha Kitt and Majel Barrett both passed away recently. Barrett has had a role in all of the Star Trek movies and series, including the forthcoming prequel.
Update: See comments below. I'm a moron.
tfk | December 24, 2008Don't let Santa's jolly-seeking missiles get you.
And, as we warriors in the war on Christmas say, Season's Greetings.
tfk | December 22, 20082009 is going to be a big year for science. It's the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin's birth, and the 150th of the publication of his opus, On the Origin of Species. It's the 400th anniversary of Galileo's first telescope-assisted astronomical observations, the 400th anniversary of Kepler's laws of planetary motion, the 100th anniversary of the Burgess Shale's discovery, etc.
In honor of all of that, the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science has dubbed it the Year of Science, and designated various themes for the different months. The San Francisco Bay Area Kick-off Event…
goodmath | December 13, 2008 As a daily commuter into NYC via Metro-North to Grand Central Terminal, followed by two subways to my office, I go through one of the busiest transit hubs anywhere twice a day. Since it's tourist season, I also get to see lots of silly things tourists do. And since I live here and love the city, I've got a few suggestions, both of things to not do, and things that you shouldn't miss. So, based on my observations, here are a few tips for NYC tourists this season.
Don't come to Grand Central Terminal during rush hour. GCT is a really interesting building, and I understand why you'd want to…
j7uy5 | December 12, 2008Land's End sells white coats. The kind that doctors wear.
I got an email hawking Land's End stuff. Promising big
savings. So I notice this:
Anyway, I looked at the image of the coat. I imagined myself
putting it on. Got chills. Yuck.
I'm glad I went to medical school. There was more good than
bad. But yuck.
goodmath | December 5, 2008In case anyone's interested, I'm currently fooling around with Twitter. If you're interested, I'm user-id MarkCC. Feel free to ping me if you've got an interesting twitter feed that you think would interest me; I'm still building up my list. Eventually, if I find it useful, I'll put a Twitter sidebar here on GM/BM.
tfk | November 28, 2008Various of the lefty blogs are suggesting that we only eat turkey on Thanksgiving because of tradition, and that turkey is actually a tasteless hunk of protein.
I must conclude that Ezra, Matt, and the rest of these barbarians are insane. (Though Ezra's braising proposal isn't altogether bad.)
Sure, an overcooked supermarket turkey will tend to be flavorless (especially breast meat). But that's why one buys a good turkey, not an abomination. It's why one brines the turkey, and it's why, if at all possible, one cooks it in a Weber grill. None of that propane crap; grilling is all about…
tfk | November 11, 2008Happy Veterans Day to all those who've served in uniform. And may we hope that one day the guns will fall silent again, as they did on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, 90 years ago.