personal
jstemwedel | February 28, 2007Over at BlogHer, Marianne Richmond has tagged everyone with a meme on personal media consumption. Given that I've already self-identified as a Luddite, I figured a little self-examination of my media habits might be worthwhile.
Web: Until last week, I didn't use a feed-reader. I'd get my daily fix of the blogs by clicking around (or typing the start of my regular reads' URLs into the nav bar and letting Firefox complete them for me).
Then, with the release of the spiffy new ScienceBlogs Select feed, I finally got around to setting up some subscriptions with Google Reader. I still click…
jstemwedel | February 27, 2007It's my birthday today.
My numerically obsessive parents opted to mark the occasion by sending me Jack Benny and a Hitchcock film.
My offspring had a different idea about what sort of gift was appropriate:
Yes, a chameleon and a blue lizardy guy with white and black spots. (Can any of you herpetologists give me a more precise identification than that?) Let the record reflect that the chameleon is a "stress chameleon", intended for squeezing when one is filed with anxiety or rage. The criters are pictured lounging on my shelf of caffeinated drinks, and vessels for drinking same, at work…
pharyngula | February 25, 2007In response to this crazy attempt to smear Mitt Romney with the sins of his fathers literally, a few people are disqualifying themselves from future runs for the presidency with similar confessions. I have to admit there's a skeleton in my family tree, too: apparently, one of my ancestors was hanged as a witch in 17th century Massachusetts.
No one will be surprised at that, I suppose. Especially since if your family can trace its roots in this country back almost 400 years, you might well be related to her, too.
clock | February 21, 2007An olde but fun (February 16, 2006):
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When I went to pick up Coturnix Junior from school today (he is in 7th grade), we bumped into his English teacher who informed me that he did not turn in his book review. He started coming up with excuses, that he lost the book, or it was stolen, etc. She said something like "Well, you better read something really fast, so you can turn in the review tomorrow. And it has to be something at middle-school level, not Dr.Seuss".
I doubt Dr.Seuss ever crossed hs mind up till that moment, but he was quick to see an…
clock | February 15, 2007Not every bloggers' meetup has to be talking about blogging. We can also just get together and have fun. And so we did last night. A bunch of us went bowling.
On Wednesday nights they have great family rates. We got four lanes - one for kids, three for adults. My daughter tends to start out slow and get better and better as the time goes. In the end, she got some tens.
I am the opposite - my very first practice shot was a strike and I won the first game, but I get progressively more and more tired. Anton won the second game easily. In the end, my wrist and fingers were hurting so…
pharyngula | February 14, 2007Since somebody asked, I will confirm that I will be at the showing of Flock of Dodos tomorrow. That's going to be at 7:00pm in the Bell Museum auditorium ($7 admission). Randy Olson won't be there (rumor has it he's busy flitting from showing to showing, but Minneapolis just isn't good enough for him…too far from the ocean or something), but Steven Miller, the executive producer of the movie, will be—so really, you'll be able to ask in-depth questions about what went into making the movie. It's a great opportunity. Argue with him, too! A movie and a discussion about how to communicate science…
pharyngula | February 14, 2007Cafe Scientifique was great fun last night, although I admit that I'm feeling it this morning: I didn't get home until after 1am, and I still had to get up at 6. It was a huge crowd, we got lots of questions and discussion. There were a few criticisms, too: we got one comment that there wasn't enough evolution presented (these open discussions always get sucked into the culture wars issue), and there were a few criticisms that I was too harsh on religion. What? Moi? I think the people on the panel covered the full range of reasonable rational thought, from an atheist who was accepting of some…
pharyngula | February 13, 2007Our biology club has a fundraiser tradition: for Valentine's Day, they'll take your picture with our resident snake and print it out as a card (what is it about big snakes and romance, anyway?) Of course I have to participate, so here I am, fondling a big reptile with an even bigger dead reptile in the background.
clock | February 13, 2007Last week I had lunch with a good old friend of mine, Jim Green. He got his degree in Zoology, then a law degree (patent law) and is now coming back for yet another degree in biological and chemical engineering. He did his research on snakes, so we reminisced and laughed about the time several years ago (that was before Kevin joined the lab, which is why I was recruited for this study in the first place) when we were taking blood samples from copperheads.
What we wanted to do is see if snakes have melatonin and if so, if it shows a diurnal rhythm in concentration like it does in other…
clock | February 13, 2007Ten months later (this was posted first on March 22, 2006), he has a tenure-track position there. Not a bad idea to give a good talk at various places....
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I have to brag about my famous brother and at the same time provide you with some quality reading about Milosevic and Serbia. Feel free to tranfer the ideas to the USA, the victimhood of the fundamentalist Christians etc.
First, here is an article about a talk my brother gave in Alberta the other day:
Lecturer examines 'poisonous zombie swamp' of Serb politics
and here is a little bit older, but…
drorzel | February 12, 2007So, as mentioned previously, Kate and I are planning to go to Japan for the World SF Convention, and spend a couple of weeks doing touristy stuff. We're down for about a week in Kyoto, and a week in the Yokohama/Tokyo area (where the con is). Then, there are 3-4 days at the end of the trip that we haven't decided what to do with.
We've pretty much got it narrowed down to one of two options, as you might guess from the post title. We're working on not much more than guidebooks and web sites, though, so input from anybody with actual experience of Japan would be more than welcome. The candidate…
pharyngula | February 12, 2007The Myers household is going to celebrate the day in half an hour — we've got the cake, we've got the chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, we've got the hot chocolate — and we figure we'll party by watching CNN at 8ET to see if Dawkins and Hitchens are going to go on a rampage. I hope they do, but I also sort of expect that they're being set up by the theidiots at the Zahn show. I'll report back on how (and if) the show goes.
Hey, the CNN show went well! Dawkins was good, emphasizing the positive aspects of atheism. The panel consisted of Ellen Johnson of American Atheists (good work,…
jstemwedel | February 12, 2007Scientists move through the world without needing badges to indicate their various achievements.This does not mean, however, that scientists might not want badges. If scientists all wore sashes of badges over their lab coats, it might well facilitate communication by letting them determine the relevant interests and experience of the other scientists with who they are talking. Badges would also provide a natural opening with which scientists could share their best stories with each other. ("What did you freeze?")Badges also help a scientist stay nimble with a needle and thread.
Below are…
terrasig | February 11, 2007PharmGirl just called me into the living room to see the reunion of the defining band of my adolescence. Roxanne. Wow! Holy hell, is Stewart Copeland still an amazing drummer? Sting and Andy playing their original guitars.
Why do I feel like they have aged better than I?
clock | February 11, 2007Yup, like Amanda, Atrios and Ed, I hate the telephone.
That is why I don't have the cell phone. That is why my landline phone has an answering machine.
If you call and the machine picks up and I actually want to talk to you at that particular moment, I'll pick up. If not, leave a message and I'll get back with you....by e-mail.
And if you use a phone with me, stick to the brief exchange of information. Business only. Chatting over the phone is reserved for my mother and my brother only.
I prefer to communicate on my own time, in my own way and do not like the tyranny of the phone ring.
jstemwedel | February 8, 2007Uttered by my dean as an intense, two hour long committee meeting was adjourning:
"There's a lot of untapped administrative talent in this room."
Help!
jstemwedel | February 6, 2007Dave Munger tagged me with a meme about (among other things) the effect blogging has had on my life. The questions seem worthy of relection, so I'm game:
What have you learned so far from visitors to your blog? I've learned that there are a lot of people who aren't paid to "think for a living" who think for fun and do it quite well. I've learned that people with strong opposing opinions can still have rational discussions with each other. And, of course, I've learned that what my kids say is more reliably fascinating than what I say.
If somebody offered to pay for a course (or more) for…
clock | February 6, 2007My daughter, as part of her school assignment on Vasco Da Gama, bought a bunch of stuff that Vasco brought to Europe from Asia. Now I have all those foodstuffs and do not know what to do with them.
Cucumber and melon were easy.
But, what would I do with a coconut, a jar of cinnamon sticks and a jar full of whole cloves?
Give me your recipes or links to recipes to good dishes that contain one (or two or all three!) of those ingredients. And, if those dishes turn out tasty, I may as well start on my foodblogging career!
pharyngula | February 5, 2007OK, so should I just retire and hand over the keys to the blog to Skatje? She's taking over my territory now. Whippersnapper.
clock | February 3, 2007Perhaps not as bad as Zeno, but close.
At least I used to watch, when I was a kid, whenever Yugoslav national teams in various sports played at big international competitions like Olympics, World Championships and European Championships. I watched Red Star soccer team demolish all of its European and World competition back in 1990. I watched Jausovec, Zivojinovic, Seles and Ivanisevic at Wimbledon and French Open.
Perhaps there is a difference between inter-club competition and international competition and in the USA nobody cares about international competition. Since I never watched…