Geekalicious

BREAK THE CHAINS!!! UNLEASH THE FURY OF ZOMBIE WOMEN AS A MIGHTY FORCE FOR REVOLUTION!!!!! Zombie women of the world, I ask you: why are we content to shamble aimlessly along behind our brethren, following them willy-nilly, eating the leftover brains, and cleaning up after they senselessly destroy some village? Would it kill them to take a turn minding the zombikins for a change? No, it would not. Because they are undead. There I was just last week, shambling along after Nigel on Shakedown Street. Like he knew where he was going! "Would it fucking KILL you to stop and ask for directions…
So Mr. Z and I went to that Phish show last Friday night. We bought our tix for that show from a ticket liquidator online. Had to call them to confirm and all because it was last minute. They were all set to walk us through the VERY COMPLICATED PROCESS of opening the email, downloading the emailed tix doc, and printing it. First thing the person on the phone said was, "Hey Phish fan, are you ready to have fun? Are you doing 'shrooms already?" (We were not, then or later.) Then he began talking very slowly and carefully to Mr. Z. "Do you have a computer? Do you know how to turn it on? Do you…
Phish, you were fabulously jamtastic, and I dearly loved that sweet cover of Joni Mitchell's "Free Man In Paris", but I swear there were times when your light show made me feel like I was strapped in a chair next to Karl in Room 23. What can I say? I freely bought my own ticket. Also: I neglected to bring along a hardhat, which would have come in handy for the glow stick hailstorm during your version of the opening movement of Also Sprach Zarathustra. Everybody looked like they were having fun and the glow stick tossing was random and joyous, so it was all cool. Thanks for the show. Oh…
Jun. 17, 2010 3:34 AM ET SB COMMUNITY DEEMS FEMINISTS IRRELEVANT NOBODY MEAN GIRLS, OMNIPOTENT PRIVILEGED HELLIONS Douchey McDoucherson, ScienceBlogs WritersANYWHERE (SB) Just days after a remarkable dustup in the science blogosphere, ScienceBlogs community members gathered to render judgment on feminist science bloggers. Noted commenter, blogger, and cress fancier B-DOH! said "PZ and Orac take out the clueless fuckwits of the world with penetrating criticism, incisive wit and clever put downs. Feminists science bloggers, with their aggressive snark, set a tone." Newly disclosed…
oh. my. fucking. god. I sooooooo wish I had thought of inventing FEMINIST HULK!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in love with Feminist Hulk. In love. LOVE! Love, I say! Hat tip Rebecca of Adventures in Applied Math. UPDATE: Ms. Magazine interview with my new love!
Because sometimes I need to take a breather, here's this post about fun stuff.(with apologies to Carl Sandburg...) Delfest jams on little mud feet. It dances looking over mountain and meadow on singing multitudes and then moves on. I can't believe I have to wait a whole nother year for Delfest 2011. What is Delfest, you ask? The third annual eponymous bluegrass festival founded by bluegrass legend Del McCoury was held this year, as in the previous two years, at the Allegany County Fairgrounds in Cumberland, MD. But it's more than "just" bluegrass, and more than just a music festival.…
I've had versions of the same recurring dream/nightmare for decades. While I don't particularly enjoy the dream, it is hilarious to me to reflect on how it has evolved over time to keep up with advances in technology in my waking life. The dream always involves the urgent need to use a phone at some point. Why I need to use the phone, who I'm trying to contact, how I feel when I'm doing so, what I'm trying to communicate - these circumstances all vary. But commonly, I am unable to complete dialing or entering the number - I cannot put through the call. When I first began having these…
I recently got the chance to view "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo". This is the best film I have ever seen in my life. It is not an easy film to watch. If you are a survivor of sexual abuse and want to see it, you may want to watch it with a trusted friend or two, with planned time afterward to help you process what you have seen. Terrible things do happen to the heroine, Lisbeth Salander, but the vengeance she exacts upon the evil-doers in the film is so perfect and so delicious and so right that you may be okay. Indeed, if men who so casually perpetrate violence against women had to…
Technically speaking, I believe it's my ovaries that are the proper object of envy, but no matter. Prof-Like Substance has spoken. I'm going to try something a little different this week and actually do something organized, rather than just toss out anything that happens to be on my mind. I often get comments, here or IRL, to the effect of "how do you have time to blog?" or "Do you feel like blogging is a waste of time when you have so many other things going on?" Obviously, my answer is no, I don't think it is a waste of time, but over the next few days I would like to articulate that a…
We are a mere ten years into the 21st century. No jet packs for all yet, but things are moving at a lightning pace at Yale in the policy area. After more than a quarter century of debate, Yale faculty members are now barred from sexual relationships with undergraduates--not just their own students, but any Yale undergrads. Well you may ask: can we still nail grad students and postdocs? Look: PI's and/or faculty really should just satisfy their sexual needs elsewhere. Not with the students, not with the grad students, not with the postdocs. It is not good for anyone. I know, I know, you…
So the word on the street is that Greg Laden is taking his eponymous blog and moving on over to the Discover network blogs. He must have had a major, major falling out with PZ because I didn't think he would ever leave SciBlogs as long as PZ is here. Seeing as how Ed Yong recently decamped for Discover, could this mean that GL is now Ed Yong's fanboi????
This is the third and final part of a multi-part presentation of a sample chapter from a forthcoming book, The Madame Curie Complex. Part One can be found here. Part Two can be found here. Recently I was approached with an offer to share with my readers a sample chapter from a forthcoming book called The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science. A caveat: I have not read the whole book, and offering the sample chapter here for you to read does not constitute an endorsement by me of the book. But I was sufficiently intrigued by the sample chapter I read to think it…
This is part two of a multi-part presentation of a sample chapter from a forthcoming book, The Madame Curie Complex. Part One can be found here. Part Three can be found here. Recently I was approached with an offer to share with my readers a sample chapter from a forthcoming book called The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science. A caveat: I have not read the whole book, and offering the sample chapter here for you to read does not constitute an endorsement by me of the book. But I was sufficiently intrigued by the sample chapter I read to think it was worth sharing…
This is part one of a multi-part presentation of a sample chapter from a forthcoming book, The Madame Curie Complex. Part Two can be found here. Part Three can be found here. This is something a little different for TSZ. Recently I was approached with an offer to share with my readers a sample chapter from a forthcoming book called The Madame Curie Complex: The Hidden History of Women in Science. A caveat: I have not read the whole book, and offering the sample chapter here for you to read does not constitute an endorsement by me of the book. But I was sufficiently intrigued by the…
Philagrafika 2010 is happening now, all over Philadelphia. Involving more than 300 artists at more than 80 venues throughout the city, Philagrafika 2010 will be one of the largest art events in the United States and the world's most important print-related exposition. Prominent museums and cultural institutions across Philadelphia are participating in Philagrafika 2010, offering regional, national and international audiences the opportunity to see contemporary art that references printmaking in dynamic, unexpected ways and to experience the rich cultural life of the city in the process. If…
Penny Richards has created a new purse, available on her Etsy site. Here's some info about it she shared with me (details about the purse construction available on the site): [the purse honors] Melba Roy, a Howard University graduate (undergrad and masters) who was a mathematician at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in the 1960s. She led a team (four women, seven men) who did computations to track the movements of satellites. I wish I could find more about her, but there's nothing much online--can't even find a birth year (or death date, but she might still be alive). Get it while it's…
Mr. Z records live music and is nuts about microphones. Whenever we watch t.v. he is always pointing out microphones to me. Earlier this evening, the first NFL playoff game ends, there's a crazy scene on the field, confetti flying in the air: Mr. Z: Did you see that mic?Me: No.Mr. Z: There! There it is! See? It's on a long boom! Wow! That is a really long boom mic!Me: Wow.Mr. Z: I guess you don't notice this stuff like I do.Me: No, I don't, but that's okay.Mr. Z: I just look for mics whenever I am watching tv. See, you aren't the only nerd in the family! I'm a microphone nerd! Or maybe I'm…
Over at A Blog Around the Clock there are a series of posts with great video interviews from ScienceOnline2010, but I'd like to especially point your attention to this one with David Kroll and Damond Nollan, both of North Carolina Central University. It was filmed shortly after their session on "Martin Luther King, Jr., Memorial Session: Engaging underrepresented groups in online science media". I missed this session due to a combination of sleep deprivation and headache, and am really regretting it. Isis has a good post based on her attendance at the session, however - you should read it…
Earlier this month, while I was distracted managing mom's transition from assisted living to hospital stay to rehab and preparing to escape for my annual beachy vacation, a new star was added to the Scibling firmament. And she's a shiny one. I'm talking about Sharon Astyk, writer of Casaubon's Book. I like pretty much every single thing she's written over there so far, but I really love this entry. Here's a sample: A lot of people are dismissive of personal choices and personal actions, and as I argue in _Depletion and Abundance_ it isn't an accident that all the things we decide are…
Two years ago I wrote about taking my mother to Cape Hatteras, and how great it was to have the use of a beach wheelchair that allowed my sister and I to take her right onto the beach. I wanted to call your attention to a comment recently left on that post by Jerry Nasello: We thought you might like to know about how our little motorized beach wheelchair company is doing. We opened for business in April of this year. We rented a grand total of one motorized beach wheelchair in the month of April. However, in the month of May we were booked solid for almost the entire month. In April we had a…