personal
clock | September 14, 2006Tonight, I felt I needed to regress into my childhood so I fixed myself something I haven't eaten since I was a little kid - chocolate cream-o-wheat! Here is the recipe for half the quantity I used to eat as a kid in one sitting:
Put a bar (100g) of bittersweet chocolate (or less - I like it superchocolatey) and 4 tablespoons (or less - I like it supersweet)of sugar into 250ml (1/4L) of cold milk. Put on the stove and turn on high. Star mixing continuously. When the milk boils, add a heaping tablespoon (25g or a little more) to the mix. Cut the heat down to Medium and keep mixing…
clock | September 13, 2006A few days ago, my son told me that one of his teachers (he is in 8th grade), after decorating the whole school with American flags, announced that they will be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.
I was not aware at the time that this is a new State Law, snuck under the radar during the summer. But it is. It was enacted on July, 12th 2006, as a change in general powers and duties of the state concerning the educational system. You can see the history of how the statute was changed here and the final version of the bill here (PDF).
The press only noted this the other day.…
jstemwedel | September 12, 2006I actually have a longish post I'm working on (about whistleblowing), plus a bazillion submissions for the upcoming Skeptics' Circle to sort through, but between teaching and grading and coaching and making lunches, well, there are a bunch of important tidbits that will fall through the cracks unless I give you a random bullets post:
*DonorsChoose is in the middle of a California Back to School Challenge, a drive to raise $250,000 to fund teachers' proposals for California classrooms by September 30 -- and they've lined up matches to double contributions. If you're so inclined, toss them a…
clock | September 12, 2006
A short personal post, first written here on August 13, 2005, then reposted here on January 16, 2006...
When I was in elementary school back in Belgrade (grades 1 through 8) I had the most horrible history teacher. She was an example that stereotype of "dumb blonde" is sometimes correct. She was hired, I assume, because she was the Barbie-doll trophy-wife of the then mayor of Belgrade.
For four years I did not learn anything about history. I managed to get all 5s (equivalent of As) until the very end of eighth grade - almost everybody in class did. And nobody learned anything.
In middle…
terrasig | September 11, 2006Let me tell you about John Michael Griffin, Jr.
Griff, as he was known in high school, was a friend of mine.
Late in the first half of our lives, he stood up for me physically and philosophically, for being a science geek. John's endorsement was the first time I was ever deemed cool for wanting to be a scientist.
Griff died an engineer and hero in the collapse of one of the World Trade Center towers five years ago today.
We lost touch almost twenty years before, but his kindness and friendship formed not only one of the cornerstones of the scientific life I have today, but in the person…
pharyngula | September 10, 2006What to do, what to do…usually I can pull out old photos from a stack of family members on their birthdays. I don't have a stockpile of childhood photographs of my wife (note to self: next time I'm in Washington, raid the in-laws' family albums). This means there's a lack of easy material here.
Hmmm. A-ha—the high school yearbook!
Here she is in her senior year of high school:
Dang. She looks fine. And trust me, she's only gotten better over the years.
Alas, since we did go to high school together, that means my picture is in the same yearbook. Just to be fair (and as another piece of…
j7uy5 | September 9, 2006But this time, being late is further proof of my point. (It
would have proved it more convincingly if I never went to a party.)
href="http://www.nerdtests.com/ft_nq.php?im">
src="http://www.nerdtests.com/images/ft/nq.php?val=1795"
alt="I am nerdier than 98% of all people. Are you nerdier? Click here to find out!">
Additional evidence: in eighth grade, I got a book from the library to
learn to use a slide rule. When I was 17, I learned computer
programing. I use Linux. I have two LCD monitors
connected to the computer I am using now, which I built a few years
ago.
One of…
tlambert | September 8, 2006Shelley does the call as the nerds strut their stuff... And declares a winner:
Although, without further ado, Mark Chu-Carrol hands-down wins the nerd-off (in my humble opinion of course). For one, his CURRENT picture trumps PZ's old one, and he reads programming language books for fun and has 30 tinwhistles which he plays. Come on guys, NO ONE can beat that. Mark, for those about to derive, I salute you!
Not so fast. Mark's moves were impressive, but my motto is "Never give up, never surrender!" So, where's APL on the list of programming languages Mark knows? And I've got some nerd…
jstemwedel | September 7, 2006It's been cool to see my ScienceBlogs sisters Sandy, Shelley, and Tara represent in our little nerd-off. I'm inclined to say this offers at least some evidence that women can get as geeky as the geekiest men. Sadly, there seem still to be many people -- including people selling stuff -- who just can't wrap their heads around that idea.
The most recent commercial monstrosity demonstrating the belief that females have a fundamentally different relationship to technology than males is the "Digi Makeover", descibed in horrifying detail by Kyso Kiasen at Punkassblog. The short version: it uses…
tlambert | September 7, 2006Janet declared a nerd-off, so I must join the throng.
Here is a colour-coded table of SciBloggers results in the
Nerd test.
Nerd Score
SciBlogger
99 Nerd God
Mark C. Chu-Carroll
99 Nerd God
Tim Lambert
99 Nerd God
Shelley Batts
99 Nerd God
PZ Myers
99 Nerd God
afarensis, FCD
99 Nerd God
Orac
99 Nerd God
Mike Dunford
99 Nerd God
Tara C. Smith
99 Nerd God
Josh Rosenau
98 Nerd God
GrrlScientist
98 Nerd God
John Lynch
98 Nerd God
Joseph j7uy5
97 Nerd God
Dr. Joan Bushwell
97 Nerd God
Evil Monkey
97 Nerd God
Karmen
94 Supreme Nerd
Kevin Beck
93 Supreme Nerd
John…
pharyngula | September 7, 2006So I took The Minnesota Purity Test, and got a score that says I'm 62.1% Minnesotan. Not bad for a non-native…but then, my mother was born here, and a lot of the test is more a measure of Scandinavian-American heritage. There are a lot of people in the Seattle area who would score well on this.
pharyngula | September 6, 2006Smarting from her failure to crack the top 1000 in the science blogger hot-or-not contest, Janet has declared a Nerd-off, in which us geeks, dorks, nerds, and poindexters compete to see who is the King or Queen of the pocket-protector crowd.
I think I should get bonus points for bragging about it a whole year ahead of time.
This conflict could spill over elsewhere, I warn you. Already the fellows at Sadly, No have joined in…even if they aren't science bloggers, their nerdiness has long been apparent. I bet they were in the A/V club in high school. Actually, most of the big-name bloggers are…
pharyngula | September 5, 2006The results of the scienceblogger "hot or not" contest are up, and they're definitely screwy. What am I doing at #4? What's the matter with you people?
pharyngula | September 5, 2006Just in case my wife happens to check out the internets this afternoon, I'm sure she'll be interested in seeing the state of her yard.
The plumbing crew came out this morning to repair our broken water main, and apparently to also plant a dead pagan king in a nice barrow outside our bathroom window, and imprint the rest of the lawn with interesting trackways. Oh, well, at least we now have fully restored water pressure.
I must also thank the kind reader who sent us the disaster preparedness and cleanup manuals. They'll come in handy—as you might guess, there's now a musty odor rising from…
pharyngula | September 3, 2006At least, I'm in the Wikipedia. Nobody will ever be able to find it, though, because for some reason the author actually spelled my name correctly. I look forward to further additions, however, as the creationist strive to make the entry more complete by documenting my evil and my atrocities.
(No, I don't go fishing through Wikipedia and the internet looking for instances of my name—I was told about it in email. I'm vain enough to want to avoid having people think I'm that vain.)
jstemwedel | September 2, 2006It is true I found the phone wait-time to even talk to a service representative to be rather long -- even when I got up early on a Sunday morning to call you precisely because I wanted to avoid horrendous wait-times. And, your hold music was unnaturally cheery.
It is also true that I question the necessity for the representative to gather the details of my operating system, the additional RAM we installed, and the password I use to install new software on my hard drive when I was calling about a broken hinge on my laptop. (I did not bring this up with the rep on the phone, though, because I…
pharyngula | September 2, 2006All will be relieved to know that the missing Midnight came crawling back late last night, all wet and stinking from his misadventure, and was found mewling pathetically in our garage.
He hasn't apologized or anything, but is just demanding that we feed him. Typical.
pharyngula | September 1, 2006One of the other consequences of our broken water main is that our cat, Midnight, fled the house during the ruckus, and he has not returned. This is a very lazy, timid cat who has been declawed (not by us—we do not approve of such barbarity), so he's not exactly going to thrive out there. And it's raining. Midnight always freaked out at getting wet or being exposed to weather. If any Morris people should spot him, let Skatje know. He does have a collar with a tag and his name, address, and phone number.
jstemwedel | September 1, 2006Since Julie blogged about a call to her home from a student who wanted to add her class, I thought I'd add a story of my own, from waaaay back:
I was in the second year of my chemistry graduate program, TAing the thermodynamics course for chem majors. One of the students in the class had been a friend of mine for five years -- we taught together at math camp. That was a little weird (grading someone with whom I was a professional equal only two summers earlier), but not impossible.
Her boyfriend was also taking the class. And he got the bright idea, the night before one of the problem sets…
clock | August 31, 2006You know that I am excited about my kids' great start of school this year. Today when I picked them up from school, Coturnix Jr. informed me that he needed a piece of posterboard and some glue for his debate class. Ah, he is going to be so good at that, the family he is growing in... It makes him a tough kid to raise but great fun to converse with. I bet he can get PZ to join Southern Baptists!
Anyway, that was a tangent. After depositing kids at home I went to the local drugstore to get his supplies. I go there all the time, but today there was a new cashier there, a guy of about 50, I…