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pharyngula | May 13, 2007As I mentioned earlier, I had to beg off on moderating the YearlyKos science caucus this year. I am pleased to say, though, that my replacement is Tara Smith.
Now watch. People are going to flock to YearlyKos and tell the organizers they were so impressed with Dr Smith and they sure are glad that Myers twit wasn't there, and I'll never get invited to the meeting again.
jstemwedel | May 12, 2007In part I of the interview, my mother described what it was like to be propelled by her dream of being an astronomer from being at home with four children to being in an undergraduate physics classroom and finding a serious mentor.
Part II: Out of the comfort zone and into the graduate program:
Were you encouraged by the folks at Rutgers-Newark with whom you were taking physics coursework to move on to graduate work?
As I was nearing the point of exhausting the undergraduate physics curriculum, and with no graduate physics program offered on that campus, my professors all encouraged me to…
pharyngula | May 12, 2007Here are a few — only a few — of the photos from our triumphant day in St Cloud.
This is Alaric trying on those funny academic robes. If he had to wear them every day, like I do, he wouldn't be laughing so hard. (You do know that we professors wear these things all the time, right?)
Here's that wonderful instant when President Saigo handed him his cardboard folder with the generic (but magical!) promise of a real, live diploma inside. It's kind of like Uncle Milton's Ant Farm, which doesn't actually contain any ants, but does have a coupon so you can mail off for some.
I know, it's a…
pharyngula | May 12, 2007It's a bit of a travel day for me again—I'm in St Cloud, sitting in a coffee shop for a little while, before heading off to the SCSU campus for…ALARIC'S GRADUATION! My oldest son is graduating with a double major in Economics and Political Science today. One less set of tuition payments to make, at last.
OK, it's also good that he's going to be a free and independent adult, and isn't going to need me for anything anymore.
jstemwedel | May 12, 2007In honor of Mother's Day, I want to celebrate the ways that mothers have blazed trails, knocked down barriers, and challenged expectations of what their daughters' lives can be.
When we're young, we don't always appreciate how important our parents (or other adults in our circle) can be as role models. Part of this, I think, is that a kid's world is smaller in some important ways. What you know of the world you know through school, through friends, through cartoons, and through your family. Lots of aspects of the wider world don't really pop up in your consciousness until you have to…
clock | May 11, 2007First, I'd like to thank Archy, Rev. BigDumbChimp, Melissa and PZ for the birthday wishes.
Also, a couple of my blog readers (who, I assume, wish to remain anonymous), hit my amazon wish list and bought me birthday presents which arrived with perfect timing - today. I am very happy I got this, this and this. Thank you so much!
I had a wonderful day today. After sleeping late, we went up to the Village green in Southern Village, feasted on the recently revamped menu of the Town Hall Grill, got coffee and gelato (as well as my favourite newspaper) at La Vita Dolce (which has really improved…
jstemwedel | May 11, 2007It has recently transpired that I will be teaching (and before that, designing and constructing) a brand new ethics module in the large introduction to engineering class at my university that all the freshman who are majoring in any of the multitude of engineering disciplines must take. I'm jazzed, of course, that the College of Engineering thinks that it's worth cultivating in their students the idea that ethics is an integral part of being a good engineer (and a good engineering student), so much so that they are devoting two weeks in the fifteen week term to this. And, I want to do a…
jstemwedel | May 11, 2007I would like to rejoice that it is Friday. And yet, as the end of the semester draws nigh, the press of Tasks That Cannot Be Deferred Any Longer is sucking a good bit of the Friday-ness out of this Friday.
So, I suppose this post is the cyber-equivalent of an itemized primal scream:
When the review sheet for a final exam has, at the bottom, in letters that are bolded, a clear statement of the day, date, and time of the final exam, what should I make of the fact that students have been emailing me to ask for the day, date, and time of the final exam? (By the way, this same information is…
clock | May 11, 2007Sorry for the delay - I was exhausted and slept almost 10 hours straight ina deep coma once I got home....
Thank you all for birthday wishes both here, by e-mail and on Facebook.
I think I lost my fear of flying this week. Perhaps it was some magic in the little yellow pills that my wife gave me to take 30 minutes before take-off- but could the effect really last for 7-8 hours over two flights in each direction? Perhaps it was the nice, clear weather and prefectly executed flights. Perhaps it was my excitement about the trip itself. Perhaps it was cool people I sat with: a Siemens guy (…
clock | May 11, 2007Two years ago today, I posted this. One year ago today, I only linked to it, though I should have reposted it instead to start a tradition. Well, I'll fix that this year on this day - under the fold:
In exactly one year I will be officially old. Well, I may be old, but my memory is still in perfect shape.
I remember the dinosaurs. I had a baby Therizinosaur when I was a kid. With those long arms, he was great for hugging and for playing catch. But, that was 3500 years ago.
You should have heard how Noah was cursing the Big Contractor In The Sky! Too little time, too small budget. The…
pharyngula | May 10, 2007The regal old willow that has graced our front yard for longer than I've been alive, and which has sadly shown signs of advancing senescence, is scheduled for termination tomorrow morning. It's a beautiful old tree, but its habit of dropping a ton of log every spring has made it a hazard, so we've decided to end it quickly, rather than a slow death by yearly spontaneous lopping of limbs.
I've had several people ask me about this tree, and several have mentioned their sorrow at its imminent passing. If you'd like to pay last respects, tonight is your last chance. Feel free to step into the…
jstemwedel | May 10, 2007
I got a chance to have dinner with Bora last night in San Francisco on the eve of his job interview with PLoS ONE. This gave us the opportunity for a free-wheeling discussion about the potential of new technologies to change the ways scientists communicate with each other (and with non-scientists), the ways that conversations (and drawing people into them) aren't coupled too tightly to the fancy technical thingies (the "aps") that carry them through cyberspace, the ways that interfaces and functionality can exert subtle influences on the ways people interact with ideas and with each other,…
pharyngula | May 10, 2007I'm a traitor. Remember how I was going to lead the Science Caucus at YearlyKos? I was really looking forward to that and we had some great ideas for a productive session. I hope who ever takes over for me can use some of that.
That's right — I'm not going to be able to make it to YearlyKos this time around. I'm bad. I'm selfish.
What came up is an invitation to something called a Science Foo camp, sponsored by Google, O'Reilly, and Nature … and it sounds titillating enough that I just can't turn it down. So I'm abandoning the Kossacks this time around, but I'm sure there's enough science…
clock | May 9, 2007Leaving RDU at noon, arriving in SF in the afternoon. If Janet remembers to bring her camera to dinner tonight, she'll post them on her blog so check it out later tonight or tomorrow. If she brings her laptop, I'll check my e-mail and comments (and of course my Sitemeter!) briefly - if not, I'll be back online on Friday. I have scheduled just a couple of little things to show up here automatically while I was gone....and you can always read the long post from earlier this morning.
I forgot, while there was still enough time, to pick up Professor Steve Steve, so he is not coming with me.…
pharyngula | May 8, 2007This afternoon, I'm traveling to the Twin Cities again. Ricardo Azevedo is giving a talk at 4:00 in 150 Ecology at UMTC on "Sex, robustness and epistasis". The title has one of those buzzwords that always makes me perk up and pay attention. You know the one I mean. Mmmmmmm, "epistasis".
pharyngula | May 6, 2007We've been experiencing a great howling windstorm since yesterday — it seems to be a common event every spring around here that we get a storm or two just to teach the trees that this is supposed to be prairie. Our excitement for the day is that this huge old willow in our yard lost another limb, something like what happened two years ago. At that time, a major limb smacked down on the south side of the tree; this year, an even larger branch smashed down to the north. That monster is significantly bigger around than I am.
Here's Skatje sitting in the wreckage. She was very enthusiastic about…
pharyngula | May 4, 2007Knocked another one down — I finished the grades for the last exam in my genetics course (there is still an optional final next Friday). This was an important one, because I promised myself that if I could get them all done this afternoon, I would let myself go to the local theater to watch Spiderman 3 tonight. Those little internal incentives help a lot!
pharyngula | May 3, 2007Larry Moran has already mentioned this recent article in Cell on this strange new fad of science blogging. He was interviewed along with many others of us, including me. I don't know about this bit:
The rock star of scientist bloggers is Paul Myers, an associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, who writes Pharyngula. With about 20,000 visitors per day, Pharyngula is currently the most popular science blog according to Technorati. Myers started writing about 4 years ago. "It was a casual decision. One summer I had some free time and started typing away. And people started…
cmooney | May 3, 2007In my opinion, my brother's very best and most innovative song is a tune called "Wrinkles," which is always a show stopper. Now, there's a video of him performing it live. Click here for the YouTube version or watch the performance as the latest channel on Davy Mooney TV:
jstemwedel | May 3, 2007I have a couple posts brewing, but they will be delayed by my pile of scut work. Meanwhile, I have a new post at WAAGNFNP with my thoughts about why the (unionized) faculty in my university system took such a long time to feel ready to strike. It's something you can read while you dodge your own stack of scut work.