personal
drorzel | October 29, 2009SteelyKid is 1000000 weeks old (in binary). To celebrate, she engages in some Thursday Night Bison Wrasslin':
Atomic elbow drop! Boom!
Don't worry, it's a friendly bout. Appa's very cuddly, and a good place to relax with a drink:
And while I said we wouldn't engage in this sort of thing, below the fold is a picture of SteelyKid in the tub:
What? You didn't seriously think I'd be crass enough to take naked bath-time photos, did you? To say nothing of posting them on the Internet... Sheesh.
(The baby tub is normally stored under her crib, and she's decided it's fun to drag it out and play…
pharyngula | October 23, 2009When I picked up my mail this afternoon, I was surprised to find several large boxes waiting for me. I was surprised when I opened them, both by the nature of their contents and by the fact that there was no note to say who sent them. Whoever it was, thank you! I don't think anyone has ever given me a gift quite as unexpected. I now own…
…a set of disposable vaginal specula and a very nice LED illuminator!
Man, when you've got a speculum, everything starts to look like a vagina. I cocked an inquisitive eye at the Trophy Wife™, but she backed away quickly and is hiding from me now.
I am going…
terrasig | October 23, 2009Before my colleague DrugMonkey gives me more grief about not yet having a CafePress shop (theirs here) to sell and give away paraphernalia related to this blog, I have a question for you, the always erudite and good-looking reader of this humble blog.
You see, I don't know exactly what text to put on T-shirts, coffee mugs, and thongs, that properly reflect the name recognition - dare I say, "brand" - of this blog. When I first started the blog on 15 December 2005, I thought that Terra Sigillata was a great name and a great metaphor for the natural product medicines I try to write about…
drorzel | October 22, 2009"Hey, SteelyKid, whatcha doin'?"
"Nothin'. You know, hangin' out."
"'S'cool."
Just 63 weeks old, and already she's got the exaggerated casual thing down...
Happily, she's not too cool to occasionally pose with her father:
She's a great big baby, but she's still small to me.
jstemwedel | October 21, 2009Since being tenured, I've tried to shift to a pattern of only coming in to campus three days a week, working from home on Mondays and Wednesdays (and giving the earth a little break by not doing my freeway commute on those days).
However, today, a Wednesday, I figured I should go in to campus to catch up on committee-related work. I envisioned a day where I'd make good progress on some things that needed doing, plus maybe get a chance to go out to lunch at a local eatery (something that never seems to fit in my teaching-days schedule).
Suffice it to say that there was barely enough time…
pharyngula | October 20, 2009
I'm on the cover of this month's Humanist magazine, and they're running the text of my humanist of the year acceptance speech.
So, if I wave this around, will it get me to the front of the line at all the hot, trendy, New York nightclubs?
revere | October 17, 2009We hate to write posts like this. The Reveres lost a friend and the battle against HIV/AIDS lost a Field Commander this week when Steve Lagakos, his wife Regina and his mother were killed in a horrific head on collision on their way back from his summer home in New Hampshire, where they celebrated his mother's 94th birthday. The driver of the oncoming car was also killed. Four lives gone in an instant.
Steve was one of the world's premier biostatisticians and we had known him for 20 years, since his early days at the Harvard School of Public Health where he and his mentor, Marvin Zelen,…
drorzel | October 15, 2009SteelyKid has cast Appa aside in favor of bigger and better things:
That's right. She's not allowed to have candy yet, but she's already gearing up for Halloween...
The pumpkin bucket is actually a bribe-- I bought it for her to play with while we waited for her prescription to be filled yesterday. This is in fine family tradition-- my father used to buy presents for my sister and me when he had to take us shopping for my mother's birthday...
While we're not going to try giving her candy any time soon, SteelyKid is making great progress in the area of eating, as can be seen in the video…
laelaps | October 14, 2009
Things have been a little slow around here this week, but for good reason.
As you might expect I have been hard at work on my first book, Written in Stone. It is a challenge, but the process has its own little rewards, and I am putting the majority of my effort into making it the best book that I possibly can. This leaves time for little else.
In fact, my experience thus far as a freelance science writer differs substantially from the "Life of a Freelance Writer" as described by writer Caroline Hagood. Hagood's routine involves many cups of coffee, shuffling around the apartment in pajamas,…
pharyngula | October 13, 2009Barbara Bradley Hagerty felt obligated to go find some rambunctious New Atheist for her series on religion on NPR, and guess who she scavenged up? Yeah, me. Just got off the phone. You'll have to listen for it sometime on Thursday morning to find out what I said.
I might get some more hate mail this week. Oh, boy!
pharyngula | October 12, 2009What with all my flitting about, I got a few questions about whether I was ever planning to do any talks here in Minnesota. Yes! Yes, I am!
On Monday, 16 November, I'm going to be doing a debate. I hate debates, but I've been dragged into this one. It's being promoted by the local creationist loons and CASH, and I'd like to see a good turnout from the sensible, scientific, godless community. I'll be arguing with a loud clown, Jerry Bergman, on "Should Intelligent Design Be Taught in the Schools?" I think you can guess which side I'm going to be on.
On Thursday, 3 December, I'll be back on the…
pharyngula | October 10, 2009I'm about to do a live podcast with Matt Dillahuntey — tune in if you'd like, or catch it later.
pharyngula | October 10, 2009Josh Timonen has put up a video of my talk at AAI. Tear into it!
One of the things I neglected to say more clearly, but should have, is that what I'm complaining about is the creationists' blithe conflation of complexity with order. We can build up immense amounts of complexity from nothing but noise, so just babbling about how complicated something is says nothing about the impossibility of its origin from chance events. Order, functionality, and, as Joe Felsenstein defined it, adaptedness are more relevant properties, and we have a natural mechanism for generating those, too. It's called…
drorzel | October 10, 2009In the last couple of weeks, I have suddenly acquired a rather full travel schedule for the coming months. The odd thing is that none of these trips are book-publicity junkets-- they're all basically professional-type appearances, several of them taking place before How to Teach Physics to Your Dog hits stores on December 22. My schedule so far:
October 24, Waterloo, Ontario: I'm a late addition the Quantum to Cosmos Festival, as a panelist for a discussion on "Communicating Science in the 21st Century." This will also be webcast and recorded for television (my itinerary includes a "Speaker…
jstemwedel | October 8, 2009After my last class today, I participated in a Future Faculty Seminar at Stanford. I was on a panel about negotiating faculty jobs, dealing with the two-body problem while on the academic job market, balancing work and life once you have a faculty job, and so forth. It was a fun panel, and lots of good questions were asked.
But then I had to race home through a bunch of really slow traffic so I could play the sprog zone and let my better half out of the house for a Thursday night class.
And, not surprisingly, the stress of trying to get home in time while traffic was stop and go done wore…
clock | October 8, 2009This was a very busy day. I went to five science-related places/events today (and one yesterday).
The first three, this morning, were part of an education school trip with my daughter's class and her science teacher.
First we visited the OWASA Water Treatment Plant which provides tap water for about 80,000 people in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, NC, followed by a tour of their Wastewater Treatment Plant. Last time I visited a water treatment plant was about 30 years ago, in Belgrade (which has 2 million people using the water), so it was exciting to see how technology has evolved over the years…
drorzel | October 8, 2009Winter is coming, and SteelyKid is getting ready. Here, we see her modeling the latest in baby headgear (handed down from a friend):
It's very stylish. I'm not convinced that hugging Appa will take the place of a coat, though...
A slightly better Appa-for-scale picture is below the fold:
This morning at day care, Kate saw her playing peek-a-boo with another child, which was apparently about the cutest thing ever. It's neat to see that she's started to take an interest in playing with other kids, after months and months of viewing them as sort of mobile obstacles.
laelaps | October 8, 2009Today marks two years since I started writing here at ScienceBlogs. To tell you the truth, I lost track of how long it had been. I did not know it was my own blogiversary until other people reminded me this morning. Nevertheless, many thanks to all my readers, regardless of whether you have been with me since the beginning or have only just discovered this blog. I hope you will be with me for some time to come.
jdupuis | October 8, 2009On October 1, 2009 librarians and archivists at York University Libraries voted unanimously to adopt the following policy:
York University Open Access Policy for Librarians and Archivists
Librarians and archivists at York University recognize the importance of open access to content creators and researchers in fostering new ideas, creating knowledge and ensuring that it is available as widely as possible. In keeping with our long-standing support of the Open Access movement, York librarians and archivists move to adopt a policy which would ensure our research is disseminated as widely as…
pharyngula | October 7, 2009I'm in Cincinnati — I was flown down here to give an interview for a Canadian show, as I mentioned before. They bumped up the time of the interview to shortly after I arrived here, which was nice…I'm all done now! Free in Cincinnati! Of course, then I fly out early tomorrow afternoon, so I don't have much time to be free. But I'll be back home tomorrow evening, anyway.