personal
pharyngula | February 16, 2011I'm going to be on Atheist Talk radio on Sunday morning at 9am, for a whole hour. Greg Laden is going to be interviewing me, and he's put up a thread asking for questions. Any questions. Go ahead, make me writhe and suffer and struggle on Sunday — I don't mind, and it'll be entertaining. Greg also has a sadistic streak, so he'll have more fun if he can pin me down and needle me for an hour.
I've got a busy weekend ahead of me, but fortunately I don't have to travel too much this time. I'll be speaking to the Humanists of Minnesota at 10am on Saturday at the Nokomis Recreation Center (2401 E…
pharyngula | February 15, 2011My university is running a year long open seminar called Asking the Big Questions, in which speakers are brought in to more or less informally discuss ideas with an audience. This year's theme is "faith and spirituality".
Yuggh.
Anyway, they've brought in people to discuss Chinese philosophy, Wicca/paganism, Islam, etc. I think it's good that students are getting exposed to diverse ideas and that proponents are given an open forum in which to discuss them, even if what it means is that often bullshit is getting presented as serious thought. Let people listen and think.
Except now they're…
pharyngula | February 12, 2011It's been a long and busy couple of days, participating in the Darwin Day events at Southern Illinois University, but it was worth it — in addition to having a splendid time and many great conversations, I got swag!
After the talk at SIU, I traveled home by way of St Louis and met the skeptics group there for a splendid evening of carousing, and was given a fabulous leather hat by Gawdzilla. I received an astonishing number of compliments on my headware as I was going home the next day — it inspired lust and desire in all who looked upon me, despite my worn and bedraggled appearance…
drorzel | February 10, 2011Appa appears in all the weekly Toddler Blogging pictures, but he's not the only stuffed animal in Chateau Steelypips. the others were getting a little resentful of Appa's blog time, so here's the full cast of characters:
In the back row, from left to right, we have: SteelyKid, Baby, Audrey, Appa, Dolly, Lorax, and Mommy. In the front row: a green bird whose name I don't know, a reindeer left over from Christmas, Dijon the knit giraffe, Bertha the Big Bear, and Emmy.
SteelyKid was sent home from day care with a fever today, which has kind of thrown a wrench into everything, and made her…
drorzel | February 6, 2011I'm taking some flak in the comments to yesterday's book recommendation request post, so let me illustrate what I meant with an example. Lots of people recommended the Andrew Lang Fairy books, which are freely available online. I looked at the first story in the first book, which is plenty entertaining, but also has this bit that stopped me short:
Hardly had [an evil sorceror] reached his own house when, taking the ring, he said, "Bronze ring, obey thy master. I desire that the golden ship shall turn to black wood, and the crew to hideous negroes; that St. Nicholas shall leave the helm and…
drorzel | February 5, 2011One of the books in SteelyKid's regular rotation of books to read at naptime and bedtime is this book about a girl visiting characters from fairy tales to ask them what makes somebody happy ever after. It's not the greatest, but she enjoys it.
It occurs to me, though, that while the book references a couple of classic fairy tales-- the girl in the story visits the princess from "The Princess and the Pea" and the frog prince, and also a fairy godmother-- SteelyKid has never heard any of the original stories, and thus is unlikely to appreciate the references (even accounting for the fact that…
drorzel | February 3, 2011Given that the snow banks on the sides of the driveway are taller than SteelyKid, it might not seem like time for golf. If she's going to reach her goal of being the first toddler to win an event on the PGA Tour, though, she can't afford to take time off from practicing:
Swing coach Appa says "You might consider holding the club with both hands..."
From that range, though, she could hardly miss. Which gets us to the most important part of the game:
Jumping up and down after making a shot is the best part of golf.
pharyngula | February 2, 2011Hello, Southern Illinois University Carbondale! I'll be heading south next week for SIU's annual Darwin Day lecture.
Thursday, February 10: A public lecture entitled "The Evolution of Cooperation" will be presented by Dr. Paul (PZ) Myers, associate professor of biology at the University of Minnesota, Morris. Dr. Myers is the author of Pharyngula, one of the most widely read science blogs. The lecture will take place at 7 pm in Ballroom B in the SIUC Student Center; refreshments will be provided after the lecture.
It's free, too…I am so cheap. Show up and I'll talk science at you for an hour.
drorzel | January 31, 2011This is a difficult book to review, which is probably fitting, because it's a very personal book. My reaction to it is largely personal as well, and may or may not be of any use to anyone else. Given the surprising number of people who had Opinions regarding my recollections of telecommunications, I almost think I might be better off not saying anything, but it's going to nag at me unless I write something about it, so what the hell...
So. Among Others is the story of Morwenna "Mori" Markova (previously Phelps), a girl from Wales who sees fairies and whose mother is an evil witch. Literally.…
pharyngula | January 29, 2011I guess my Montreal talk is going to air in Ontario tomorrow…or as Larry Moran points out, it's also on the intertubularities.
pharyngula | January 28, 2011Every time I do this I get email from people who say they were startled to hear my voice on the radio, so I figure this time I'll warn you so I don't cause any traffic accidents. I'll be on Michael Slate's radio show on KPFK in Los Angeles this morning, and we're trying to do this on a monthly schedule. So if you're driving along (you're in LA, so you probably spend most of your time driving, right?) and you hear me announce over your radio that gods are hokum, it really isn't a divine communication.
drorzel | January 27, 2011Since we had a Mommy-for-scale picture last week, I thought it was high time we had another Daddy-for-scale picture. So, here's SteelyKid before going off to day care this morning:
(Photo credit: Kate)
She's been more than 0.5 Kate in height for a good long while, but now she's coming up on half a me. She's a great big growing toddler, all right.
drorzel | January 24, 2011We've had three pretty decent snow storms here recently, which is nice. Unfortunately, the middle one included a good deal of ice, so we now have a thick layer of snow, covered by a half-inch of ice, with another several inches of snow on top of that. Which makes getting around quite the chore.
However, if you break out big pieces of the ice layer, you can stick them back into the ice so they stand upright, like the bony plates on the back of a stegosaurus. which is pretty neat:
Of course, the real highlight of going out to play in the snow is coming back inside where it's warm, then running…
drorzel | January 20, 2011There have been a bunch of times in the last couple of weeks where it was brought home how big SteelyKid has gotten compared to Kate, so this week, we have a Mommy-for-scale photo:
The stylish headband SteelyKid is sporting is from today's Tu B'Shevat celebration at the Jewish Community Center, where she goes to day care. (Learning a whole new set of holidays is an unexpected bonus of sending her there; happily, this one isn't major enough to close the JCC, which happens a lot...) The kids made these this week, and she's been talking about her band for a few days now, so she was very happy…
drorzel | January 20, 2011I gave a talk today on blogs as a tool for science communication (basically the same as this one, with a few minor updates), and got asked "Aren't the people who read science blogs mostly scientists already?" Which reminded me that it's been a while since I did a "Who are you people?" post.
So, if you've got a minute, leave a comment to this post, telling me something about who you are and how you got here. And if you want to throw in something about what you particularly like to read, or would like to see more of here, that sort of feedback is always helpful.
Thanks in advance.
drorzel | January 15, 2011For one obvious example, I'm typing this on a plane-- Southwest has started doing wi-fi on some flights, and it is totally worth $5 to be able to web-surf in flight.It would be even better if the flight wren't packed, so I could type more comfortably, but I'm ok with just reading (once I post this).
Another example is the way that net access enabled me to have a far better time in Miami last night than I ordinarily would have. Everybody from the meeting I went there for took off, so I was on my own for the evening, and South Beach isn't my kind of scene, being neither rich nor famous nor fond…
pharyngula | January 13, 2011Since I just mentioned I'll be in Portland at the end of March, I should also let you know I'll be in Kamloops, BC in early May. More time in the great Pacific Northwest! I should see about doing something this summer in Seattle, too, so I can pop in and visit the family.
I'm sure they'll fix my name by May.
pharyngula | January 13, 2011A little advance warning for the Oregonians: I'll be at the Northwest Freethought Regional Conference in Portland on 25-27 March. I hope it rains the whole weekend, I really need to get some normal, healthy, earth-like weather for a change.
pharyngula | January 10, 2011They're actually selling tickets for these events, so get in line early. On 21 May, I'll first be the centerpiece at lunch, and then that evening, I get to be the anticlimax to Jamie Kilstein. This is going to be tricky…everybody complains that I'm so mellow and mild in person, but coming up after Kilstein, I'm really going to suffer in comparison.
It'll be fun anyway. Really. I promise.
pharyngula | January 8, 2011With some relief, I have finished that gift case of beer, ending with a Great White Beer.
I usually don't have a beer every day — more like one every few weeks — so it was a bit more than I am used to. It was still an interesting exercise, trying them close enough in time that I could actually form some impressions about what I liked best. I'm not a fan of the spiced beers, and the fruity one was the worst. The pale ales were OK, but they do have a bitter edge that I could live with, but wasn't enthusiastic about. I favored the pilseners best, I think. This taste test omitted any dark beers…