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drorzel | February 1, 2012It's apparently a good day for asking questions of the readership, so here's another one: as SteelyKid has gotten older and more active, she's become a real drain on productivity, especially at bedtime. Bedtime is now a process rather like a certain spoof book, extending well over an hour, and involving repeated requests to come back into her room for some silly reason or another. If I don't respond quickly enough, she'll work herself up into a real tantrum, so I pretty much need to stay upstairs in our bedroom until she's asleep. Which means either I can't get any work done, or I have to…
jdupuis | January 27, 2012A repost from February 9, 2006 from the old blog. it tells the story of how I became a science librarian. It's my small contribution to the #IAmScience meme on Twitter right now.
Basically it's about unconventional career paths in science. And this is mine.
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Inspired by Adventures in Ethics and Science and Stranger Fruit...
So, how does a person go from being a software developer to being a science librarian?
From a very young age, always read a lot of books, magazines, comic books and whatever else is lying around, mostly science fiction and fantasy but a lot…
drorzel | January 21, 2012I've been really bad about documenting The Pip's growth here. The annoying thing is, I've actually taken pictures of him over the last couple of weeks, but I've been too busy to edit and post them. If there's one thing transcontinental flights are good for, though, it's providing you with time to do stuff like this. So, here are some photos of The Pip from the last few weeks, starting with one of this first shots of him smiling:
This is a couple of weeks old, already, and he's much more expressive now. Here's an Appa-for-scale shot from the same day:
And here's an Appa-for-scale shot from…
drorzel | January 8, 2012Lots of people ask how SteelyKid is taking to having a younger sibling. Well, judge for yourself:
This is during the Giants-Falcons playoff game this afternoon, but it's pretty typical. When both SteelyKid and The Pip are home, she's always running over to give him kisses and hugs and chatter at him. She's super excited to be a big sister, and that hasn't changed.
Better yet, a few minutes after that first picture, she looked like this:
And, in fact, she's still snoring cutely. We'll wake her up soonish, but for now, we're enjoying the break from constant, exhausting motion.
Hope you and…
kbonham | January 6, 2012The thing I like most about this mashup is that it's superficially just a mashup of the most popular music of 2011, but it also manages to be a statement on some of the most important events of 2011: the protests from Egypt and Libya to OWS
Maybe it's hard
We will never be never be broken and scarred
There's no way I'm turning back oh oh oh oh
Here's the situation
Got this feeling that you can't fight
Been to every nation
The city is on fire tonight
Maybe it's hard
We will never be never be broken and scarred
There's no way I'm turning back oh oh oh oh
Here's the situation
Got this feeling…
jdupuis | January 5, 2012I'm including here a list of all the books I've read in 2011, as well as some commentary on my particular year in reading. I always enjoy when people post these sorts of lists online and actually rather enjoy doing so myself.
I've been doing this for a few years now: 2010, 2009, 2008 and 2007.
If you've posted such a list online somewhere, please post a link in the comments. I'd love to see it!
The list of books I'm posting below includes all the books I started in 2011, with the exception of books that I'm currently reading. In other words, it also includes a few books I've abandoned…
drorzel | January 3, 2012I'm a little late to the Most Popular Posts of the Year list party, partly because I wanted to wait until the year was actually over, and partly because Google Analytics was being Difficult, and I had to switch back to the "old" version to get actual numbers out. Having sorted that out, though, here are the top posts to this blog for the calendar year 2011:
Because 4% of the Energy Controls 100% of the Photons, 28607 pageviews
Links for 2011-09-04, 11470 pageviews
The Innumeracy of Educators; or Mark Twain Was Right, 9048 pageviews
Faster Than a Speeding Photon: "Measurement of the neutrino…
drorzel | December 31, 2011A while back, a reader from Bulgaria sent me a photo of a highly topical bottle of local spirits:
You can either know where you are, or how much you've drunk, but not both...
Having spent my last day of 2011 taking SteelyKid to the mall for bouncy-bounce and midway games, and then having her help me bake apple pie (which she demanded to do out of nowhere, and wouldn't stop talking about), I could really use a shot of quantum liquor. Or even some classical beer.
Sadly, I'm fighting a wretched cold, so booze is out of the question. But if you're in a partying state, have a drink for me. And…
drorzel | December 27, 2011One of The Pip's Christmas presents simply demands to be shown off here:
This is a baby blanket knitted by his awesome Aunt Anastasia, with three physics equations on it. They're subtle, but if you look closely, you can read them: E=mc2, V=IR, and F=ma.
All the other babies will be jealous of his knowledge of physics (once he starts day care in March, anyway). For now, here's a show of appreciation from the little dude himself:
He's waving his little fist in the air, saying "Rock on, Aunt 'Stasia!"
(The actual rocking in this case was being done by big sister SteelyKid:
Check out the…
drorzel | December 15, 2011We got a good group photo this week, showing everybody, with Appa for scale, even:
Here, SteelyKid is opening a bag of small presents that Aunt Norma and Uncle Dan sent, while the Pip engages in the traditional five-week-old-infant pursuit of sleeping a whole lot.
When she's not opening early Christmas gifts, SteelyKid too engages in traditional three-and-a-third-year-old pursuits, such as bouncing balls:
And playing with great big cardboard boxes:
The photo quality of that last one isn't great, because I was sternly ordered to put down the camera and help her by closing the box. We then…
drorzel | December 8, 2011The Pip turned one month old yesterday, so to celebrate, here's a picture of the whole family:
OK, it's not a photograph, but look! SteelyKid drew that all by herself! (The labels on the drawing were done by one of her preschool teachers; the printed text was added by me when I obscured the given names of SteelyKid and The Pip.) This one's going to be on the fridge for a while.
For those who insist on photos, there are a couple below the fold:
First, a traditional Appa-for-scale shot:
(Picture by Kate, with my camera.)
And while it's hard to take pictures of SteelyKid these days, she really…
pharyngula | December 8, 2011Oh, man. I just finished my last lecture for this semester — this was a rough term, and I feel like I just barely dragged myself over the finish line. The big strain came from the fact that I revamped everything: I completely changed the content of my neurobiology course, with a new textbook, a new emphasis, and a different direction for the labs, and some stuff worked and some stuff failed catastrophically (the last few weeks of the lab in particular were a disaster). I offer this course again in two years, and I think I can fix the bad parts by then. I also patched up a lot of material in…
sa smith | December 7, 2011Sorry, guys-- family emergency this weekend = no blogging.
Glad I am not a physician, glad other people are, and nurses are the best people on Planet Earth.
While Im sitting here in the ICU, Id really appreciate some funny videos/links/anything to distract me. Everything is fine (fine-ish?) now, but Im going nuts. Everything is taking longer than the physicians initially said (not for 'bad' reasons, just because shit doesnt always go as planned), and when you combine that with my natural impatience, and my extreme frustration in situations where I cant do anything (Im a doer, not a talker,…
kbonham | November 30, 2011Here it is, the last day of Movember - a charity initiative to raise money for men's health.
*1 in 6 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime
*A man is diagnosed with prostate cancer every 2.2 minutes
*1 in 2 men will be diagnosed with cancer in their lifetime
*Men are 24% less likely to go the doctor compared to women
I'm competing with a few friends to grow awesome mustaches and raise money. I knew getting into this that I wouldn't have much of a chance of winning on merit - this is the result after 30 days without shaving:
So, I need your help. Please consider giving…
kbonham | November 29, 2011Back in October, I wrote about the bittersweet nature of this year's Nobel in Physiology or Medicine.
On the one hand, it was given for early discoveries in the field of innate immunity - my field! On the other hand, it was given to a scientist that many* feel is undeserving of the honor, while at the same time sullying the legacy of my scientific great-grandfather.
Ed Yong rightly called me out for the phrase "many scientists." This term, and another often-used trope, "some scientists," are vague and lazy, since they obscure the details and can mean almost anything. "Many scientists…
drorzel | November 24, 2011This has been an exhausting and exasperating fall, but my classes are done, and my grades are in. And, more importantly, The Pip is out and about, SteelyKid is super excited to be a big sister, and everybody in Chateau Steelypips is healthy and happy. (Well, OK, Emmy's a little disgruntled that I didn't drop either the turkey or the sausage for the stuffing on the floor where she could get at it, but she'll get over it...).
We've got plenty to be thankful for around here, and we have a turkey in the oven and family on the way to help us celebrate. I hope this is a happy Thanksgiving for you…
kbonham | November 22, 2011I'm a little late with this video:
Yes, I know the actual day has passed, but that doesn't mean you can't make the rest of the month count.
And guys, you don't have to feel left out, even if you don't have a mustache - check out my Movember page, see my luxurious mustache (it's been 3 weeks since I shaved), and make a donation while you're there.
drorzel | November 21, 2011SteelyKid's away at Grandma and Grandpa's for a few days, to give us a little more time to acclimate to The Pip, which means you get a very traditional baby blogging picture:
It's not the greatest angle for comparing his size to Appa, but you get the idea.
The Pip is settling in nicely. His rate of growth met with medical approval last week, and he won't need to be checked again until his one-month birthday, which is nice. He's settling into a fairly reasonable routine of eating, sleeping, and excreting, with occasional periods of cute-and-awake. And he's much calmer about the small…
drorzel | November 17, 2011I haven't sorted out yet how I plan to handle Thursday Toddler Blogging given that the original reason for it being on Thursday was because SteelyKid was born on a Thursday. The Pip, on the other hand, was born on a Monday. Should I do two cute-kid photos a week? Move it to Friday Family Blogging and try to get pictures of both of them? It's all just so complicated...
... it just wears me out.
We're almost done with this term from Hell, though-- I gave the final exam for one of my two classes this morning, and the other will be on Monday, so I'll make a final decision next week. In the…
drorzel | November 17, 2011The water heater for Chateau Steelypips is significantly older than the usual useful life for such devices, and it's really started to show. I'm getting pretty sick of lukewarm showers, so we probably need to replace it.
As a good squishy liberal type, I of course want to replace it with something more efficient, and there are claims out there that the best way to go for efficiency is with the "tankless" models (a gas one, in our case, so we can still have hot water when/if winter weather takes out our electricity). Of course, there's a lot of contradictory information out there. The usually…