personal
drorzel | August 5, 2007So, after an Internet-less week in St. John, USVI, I come back to find over 1600 articles in the RSS feeds of blogs that I follow regularly. And if you think I'm going to wade through all of that, well, you need to work on your thinking skills a bit.
So what, if anything, do I need to read out of all that? Leave pointers in the comments to any real gems from the blogosphere since last Friday.
(I also avoided all newspapers, tv, and radio on the trip because, really, all they're likely to do on a typical day is piss me off. I'll catch up on the major stories from that stuff-- I've heard about…
pharyngula | August 4, 2007Another busy day ahead of me: yesterday I met Alex and Bora, shared a dinner table with James Randi, and saw swarms of other people I have to meet today … so off I go to another series of random encounters.
pharyngula | August 3, 2007Mainly because you don't know what foo camp is all about. Yes, I have arrived in lovely Sunnyvale, safe and sound, ready for my alter ego, Tyler Nerden, to face the google geeks.
While I was hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles an hour, what did I miss? I just caught Behe on the Colbert Report, and yowza, what a clown. Einstein's theories were all about putting limits on Newton? And Behe is the guy who's putting limits on Darwin? Can we just say he's an idiot and be done with it now?
And speaking of dismissive one-liners, what the heck is going on here in my own little fever-swamp?…
clock | August 3, 2007I am writing here in my hotel room in Mountain View, getting ready for the beginning of the Science Foo Camp. I rode here in a cab (really a limo, driven by the most professional driver I have ever encountered) with Felice Frankel - what an energy-boosting conversation that was! - and arrived here early.
The campers are slowly trickling in. So far, I bumped into Gabrielle Lyons and Paul Sereno. Will report more later, so stay tuned....
clock | August 3, 2007A month has passed.
It was a steep learning curve, but I think I have climbed high enough on it to be confident that I'll be fine on my own back in Chapel Hill. Being a part of the PLoS team is such an exhillarating experience - there is so much energy and optimism around the office, everybody from CEO to the newest intern living, breathing and dreaming Open Access 24/7.
Not to bore you about the job any more - you will be hearing about PLoS over and over again here - let me, for now, just show you some pictures (under the fold) from the farewell party last night at Jupiter in downtown…
jstemwedel | August 2, 2007Or is there just something wrong with this instrument for self-evaluation?
The average score is pegged at 15 for a woman, 18 for a man. The "Asperger's" range is 32-50.
I scored 30.
Now, I have this reputation (at least in the geek circles with which I run) of being social and diplomatic and empathetic and good at communicating. But these results would tend to suggest ... not so much.
Although I'm wondering how accurate the self-assessments are. How good a judge am I of my facility at chit-chat or of how well I "read" other people? Also, the items that ask about what you prefer (rather…
clock | August 1, 2007I started my stay in San Francisco with a dinner at Incanto and ended it tonight with a dinner at Incanto again. Last time, the duck fries were not on the menu, but this time I had better luck. Delicious!
pharyngula | August 1, 2007People might read this definition of Asperger's Syndrome and think, "Gee, that Miyyears fellow meets two of the three criteria, maybe that's his problem".
Asperger's, like too many other mental illnesses, is in effect an almost whimsical diagnosis of exclusion: If someone is really smart, arrogant beyond measure, and tends to be an asshole or otherwise impossible to converse with in a normal way, then he must have a form of autism.
I'll have you know, though, that I took the test and scored a 24, an "average math contest winner." You need a 32 to suggest Asperger's, and a 15 is the average…
cmooney | August 1, 2007I offered my little sister, Kate, an internship this summer because I knew she was a talented writer and thought I could teach her a thing or two. So she's been helping me out with stuff.
Little did I know that she would suddenly punch the journalistic hyperdrive button and not only become a blogger--her first post is here at a cool New Orleans blog called "At the Parade"--but have plenty of fun at her big brother's expense....all while writing in a hilarious tone worthy of PZ Myers.
An excerpt:
After spending June in the pine trees and mountains of Flagstaff, Arizona, where my mom relocated…
jstemwedel | July 31, 2007An old friend turned up to comment on my post about juggling, and as a woman in academia she has some familiarity with the metaphor and with the reality it's supposed to capture. She writes:
The department chair when I was hired ... suggested that although we're juggling lots of balls, the ball representing our families and home life is made of glass. I COULD take that as a message that taking care of my family is my most important job (and my work is not? grrr.) but I think he meant it more as that part of our lives outside of work supports our lives IN work, and if that one cracks, it's…
jstemwedel | July 29, 2007Friday, my better half was preparing to cross the international dateline for a week-long business trip and my parents were getting ready to board a plane for a week-long visit at Casa Free-Ride. As I contemplated the prospect of digging out our guest room (known in these parts as "the place clean clothes go to wrinkle") it became clear to me that the chances of my finishing writing (and preparing overheads for) the two presentations I will be giving at the conference that starts the day after my parents depart before my parents' arrival were nil. Of course, this means that I will not be…
terrasig | July 28, 2007Only 74% of the States? How 'bout you?
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
oracknows | July 28, 2007I guess that's where I've been thus far in my life:
create your own visited states map
or check out these Google Hacks.
How about you? Has anyone been to 100% of the states?
drorzel | July 26, 2007No, this isn't about the theological component of NASCAR (though the popularity of auto racing is perhaps best explained by sophisticated brainwashing techniques)-- it's much more important: A story on ESPN.com about the Williams-Amherst rivalry:
Although the unusual history of the two schools inspired the rivalry, the annual success of both programs certainly has turned up the heat. And since schools in the New England Small College Athletic Conference don't participate in postseason football, the Williams-Amherst matchup has decided more than a few conference championships.
The 1997 season…
clock | July 24, 2007Just came back home from a very pleasant dinner with Matt Nisbet. What luck that our trips to San Francisco coincided so well! Oh, and of course, Profesor Steve Steve was there as well...
jstemwedel | July 24, 2007Let's say you're looking at a wide-open fall semester, and you are asked to be a participant on a panel at a conference. Since your semester is wide open, you agree.
Months later, you're asked to be a participant on another panel at another conference. Except for the conference you already committed to, your semester is still wide open.
What do you suppose the chances are that the two conferences overlap in time? And meet in different cities? Was this predictable, or am I just lucky?
(It looks like the two panels will meet on different days. Assuming no plane-grounding weather events, it…
clock | July 24, 2007Yesterday, I extricated myself from PLoS for lunch, because I really wanted to go and meet one of my most regular readers and commenters, who goes around here as Michelle. We had a most delightful conversation over lunch at Jack Falstaff and pictures (which, of course, include Professor Steve Steve) are under the fold:
clock | July 22, 2007Well, if one stays in San Francisco for a month, it is bound to happen one day...
On Friday early morning (just before 5am) I woke up to an earthquake.
I've been through a bunch of earthquakes before - Balkans are on some kind of fault, I understand. I slept through a pretty strong one (7 Richter, I believe) while staying at a hotel on top of the mountain that was right above the epicenter. Not just that the quake did not wake me up, but even banging on the door by my friends was ineffective - hard work and mountain air conspired.
But what woke me up on Friday, I think, was not so much the…
jstemwedel | July 22, 2007Orac's calculated value (if he shuffled off this mortal coil in his present state -- and I really hope he doesn't) piqued my curiosity and led me to calculate the value of my own potential cadaver. But the calculated value leaves me curious about the assumptions underpinning the calculation.
First, my results:
$4875.00The Cadaver Calculator - Find out how much your body is worth. From Mingle2 - Free Online Dating
(Hey, my corpse is worth more than Orac's, to the tune of $1285!)
Now, the questions:
Is the underlying assumption that the value of my cadaver would come primarily from…
pharyngula | July 21, 2007Tomorrow, Sunday, at 1:00 in the Roseville Library, I'll be giving a talk on "There Are No Ghosts in Your Brain: Materialist Explanations for the Mind and Religious Belief". Come on down and argue with me!
Now I have to get back to polishing this talk up. I suppose no more than ten powerpoint slides of equations is the limit? (Nah, not really—there's no math in this talk at all. A few pretty pictures, though…).
By the way, if you listened to the Horgan/Myers Show, there was an unfortunate characterization of atheist organizations as groups of people congratulating one another on how much…