personal
drorzel | March 25, 2010Not as nice a day today as some recent days, but we ended up running around in the backyard all the same. It's still not really spring, no matter what the astronomers say, but there are a few hardy little weeds poking up flowers that haven't quite opened yet. SteelyKid already knows what to do with these: Pick them up, and give them to Mommy.
We also took turns riding on the swing in the backyard:
Kate managed to get a smile with the ever-popular "got your red dog" game:
But by the time it was my turn, SteelyKid was tired of swinging, and much more interested in admiring the neighbors' yard…
laelaps | March 25, 2010
I'll be the first to admit it; the specimen was not much to look at. Seventy years after being dug out of the ground much of it had crumbled into four-foot-long Y, and the curved teeth that once stood upright in that jaw had slumped out of their sockets into the sulfur-smelling debris. All the same, it was an impressive sight.
During the past four years I have spent much of my free time reading about evolution and paleontology. Popular summaries, symposium volumes, technical papers; the numerous books that clutter my office and the disorganized mess of PDFs on my hard drive have taught me…
drorzel | March 25, 2010I did one sketchy update from Portland last Tuesday, but never wrote up my impressions of the rest of the March Meeting-- when I got back, I was buried in grading, and then trying to put together Monday's presentation. And, for reasons that will become apparent, I was unable to write anything up before I left Portland
Anyway, for those who care, here are my impressions from the rest of the meeting:
Tuesday
In the 8am session, I went to the polymer physics prize talk by Michael Rubinstein, which was a sort of career retrospective, talking about how he wandered into the disreputable field of…
edyong | March 24, 2010
To tie in with this week's Research Blogging Awards announcement, I spent an enjoyable half-hour on Monday being interviewed by Dave Munger, who organised the awards. The interview is now up on the SEED website, with a title that made me smile. In it, I talk to Dave about winning the award, why and how I blog, and interactions between blogging and mainstream media.
Here's an excerpt with the question that I get asked most frequently:
Munger: You've got a full-time job in addition to being a blogger--and you're one of the most prolific bloggers on ResearchBlogging.org. How do you manage to…
pharyngula | March 23, 2010This evening's R&R for the Trophy Wife™ and myself is a lovely cup of tea made with some of the sampler of Australian teas I was generously given by Annie M. this past weekend. We like it. Thanks very much!
edyong | March 23, 2010Image, ironically, from FailBlog
Warning: this post contains sentiment. If you are cynical and/or British, you might want to avert your eyes. Alternatively, read this and then go watch some Charlie Brooker. For those of you still around, bear with me. It is really hard to write something like this without falling into an abyss of clichés.
A couple of days ago, Dave Munger, under a veil of tightest secrecy, told me that I've won the big prize in the first ever Research Blogging Awards. Not Exactly Rocket Science is apparently the Research Blog of the Year, as well as Best Lay-Level Blog and…
sa smith | March 22, 2010They wouldnt let us pay for gas or anything, so the best I can do is Blog Props: Mark and his Super Awesome Girlfriend are AWESOME!!!
There is this company that offers tours around Banff-- White Mountain Adventures, something like that. Yeah... all the trips they offer? MARK AND HIS SUPER AWESOME GIRLFRIEND TOOK ME AND BOSSMAN ON ALL OF THEM. ALL OF THEM. AWESOME!
Technically, they didnt take us on a dog-sledding tour, but the substitution was better-- I got to have two snuggly weenie dogs curled up on my lap for part of the trip. Two snuggly puppies, enjoying the beautiful scenery, this…
pharyngula | March 22, 2010Everyone knows already why I was off in Melbourne this past week — it was the Global Atheist Conference — but why did I hare off to Canberra for the weekend? It was another conspiracy.
Many years ago, the locus of all things evolutionist on the interwebs was found on Usenet, in a group called talk.origins, where a motley mob of ruthless science proponents regularly mocked and crushed creationists and honed their skills at rhetorical combat. I came out of that particular culture (and, by the way, the commenting rules here, with a policy of limited interference with the substance of people's…
edyong | March 21, 2010A couple of photos taken today, during a lovely spring stroll through Richmond Park
Ring-necked parakeet
Red deer
sa smith | March 20, 2010OMG you guys! I have had such a day (in a good way)!
1-- We barely made it out of OKC. Barely. As in, our plane left, and then they shut down Will Rogers Airport for a while, cause our plane had to be de-iced three times to get off the ground.
2-- We barely made it on to our flight to Calgary. Seeing as the plane from OKC was 2 hours late, and we factored in a 2 hour layover (just in case), we should have missed this flight. Except, by Teh Grayce of GAWD, the flight to Calgary was held up for a random 15 minutes, allowing us enough time to careen to the appropriate gate.
3-- Since we…
jstemwedel | March 18, 2010Our online world is searchable, but it seems likely than not all of our searches are destined to be fruitful.
Here are some searches that have recently brought people to this blog:
what temperature does mucus melt at
Do I smell a science fair project? (Or am I too stuffed up?)
* * * * *
tenure neuroscience dossier online
I am hopeful that the searcher in this case was looking for an exemplar. It would, of course, be a horrible idea to "find" one's tenure dossier online in the same way that some students seem to "find" research papers online.
* * * * *
passenger breast feeds a monkey
I…
tqa | March 18, 2010
If it takes a village to raise a child, I was particularly lucky to grow up in the middle of a wonderful little village in the middle of the Bronx. All things considered, the village did a pretty good job with a whole bunch of kids, who have since spread out all over the place. Some have gone on to really cool editing gigs, occasional appearances with Keith Olbermann, and our own Wikipedia pages. Others have wound up working as lifeguards in Lower Alabama. But pretty much all of us came away from the village we were raised in with at least three things: a strong understanding of the…
goodmath | March 17, 2010 As I've mentioned before, I've been spending a lot of time working on a book.
Initially, I was working on a book made up of a collection of material from blog posts;
along the way, I got diverted, and ended up writing a book about cloud computing using
Google's AppEngine tools. The book isn't finished, but my publisher, the Pragmatic Programmers,
have a program that they call beta books. Once a book is roughly 60% done, you
can buy it at a discount, and download drafts electronically immediately. As more sections
get done, you can download each new version. And when the book is finally…
sa smith | March 17, 2010Next week Im going to be in Banff, Alberta.
Its just a generic resort town, so I dont suppose any of *you* would be there to party, but I was hoping some of you might have visited and know some tips/tricks/things to see/things to avoid.
My plans so far: soak in hot springs for a week
pharyngula | March 16, 2010I'm holed up in a hotel room, writing, writing, and writing some more, only emerging sporadically to see a little Australian sun and get a little exercise, and also to exercise my brain a bit. A few things are going on here in Melbourne.
I wish I could attend this panel discussion on the "Science and God: Incompatible?", just because it's stacked with Christian apologists who will no doubt be annoyingly superficial, and because it was the topic of my lecture at the GAC (my answer: yes. Incompatible, irreconcilable, and dear sweet baby Jebus, keep your superstitions away from the grownups).…
pharyngula | March 16, 2010I am an unconsoleable wretch. I am 15,500km from home, parted from my beloved on this day when we should be together. This is our 30th wedding anniversary, we've known each other now for 45 years (we had a long engagement), and I'm in Melbourne, Australia, while she's in Morris, Minnesota.
I sigh. I have a bottle of wine here I'll be drinking alone. Because of the time difference, she'll be sleeping while I'm awake and vice versa. We'll celebrate when I get back on Sunday.
Until then, all I can say is that thirty years is not enough.
Oh, and any rascals who might be sniffing about the finest…
pharyngula | March 15, 2010I seem to have spent a lot of time at the Global Atheist Conference with cameras pointed at me. Below the fold I've thrown in a sampling of photos from Michael Barnett, Melinda Kelly, and Philip Costley — just to show you all that we did have a good time.
Here are a few from the Pharyngufest that Bride of Shrek held at a local pub.
Hello, Macalpines!
There's Chloe, hovering over my shoulder and tastefully blurred out.
This young lady had the most amazing Scottish accent, and had flown all the way here without telling her father (I wagged my finger a bit). She made me wear the hat.
Cath let…
pharyngula | March 14, 2010Convention is over! Gotta sleep! Just in case you were wondering who I've been hanging about with, here are some faces with familiar names.
That's Rorschach, Wowbagger, some yob who barged into the picture, Bride of Shrek, and Kel.
terrasig | March 11, 2010This is a repost of my reflections on my father who passed away 13 years today. It took me 12 years to write the following eulogy and remembrance. While quite personal, I posted it here last year because I felt that my experiences were quite universal, shared by the families of the ten or twenty million alcoholics in the US and the hundreds of millions worldwide. Moreover, I wanted to provide a face for my colleagues who work in the area of substance abuse and a reminder for my clinical colleagues of the people behind those they may dismiss as drunks and junkies.
In becoming one my most most…