personal
drorzel | October 7, 2009The Cutest Vaudeville Convict in the Universe says "Hi!"
SteelyKid is fourteen months old today. Between the arbitrary numerical signifier and the outfit, how could we not do some bonus Baby Blogging?
pharyngula | October 5, 2009I have to finish writing up all the interesting stuff I heard at the AAI convention, but once again, I'm on the road — I'm driving up to Minot, ND to give a talk tonight at 7pm in the Aleshire Theater on the MSU campus. I'm going to be spending most of my day driving, I think, and then talking, and sleeping, and driving back, and then getting a whole two days of relaxation at home.
I have then crazily agreed to appear in a Canadian prime-time documentary by a Christian film company (I must have delusions of being the reincarnation of Daniel) which will be in part filmed at the Creation "…
drorzel | October 4, 2009Sunday morning, Chateau Steelypips: Everybody's in the library.
Why does SteelyKid look so pleased with herself, you ask? Because she's found a new game:
On the bright side, Emmy's opinion of SteelyKid has moved beyond "grudging acceptance"...
pharyngula | October 3, 2009They also enjoy a little something to drink.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover a bottle of OriginAle: Darwinian IPA and an imperial stout, Gudeløs, waiting for me when I checked in. The Danish contingent wants me to come out to their big meeting in June in Copenhagen…I am so there. Bribes were completely redundant.
The RDF is also giving the speakers bottles of merlot, nicely personalized with etching. Now I have to decide whether to drink it or save it…ah, I think I'll drink it and save the bottle.
In the non-drinkable category (really! That's not what we're all about, and I haven't…
jstemwedel | October 3, 2009Oh joy, it's time to grade more papers!
At the moment, in fact, I have two batches of papers (approximately 400 words each, approximately 100 papers per batch) to grade, since I hadn't finished marking the earlier ones before the next ones came due. And of course, owing to the piles of smoking rubble that constitute our budget at the state universities right now, there are no funds at present for graders.
I've blogged before about my strategies for grading fairly and consistently without taking a million years to finish the job. I'm still more or less using these strategies. But today, I'm…
edyong | October 3, 2009I'm back! For anyone wondering why I've been reposting old pieces for the last few weeks, it's because my wife and I were enjoying a much-deserved holiday in South Africa. I'll stick a link to some photos shortly, but for the moment, here's some post-holiday geekery for you.
The trip was a wildlife extravaganza. We spent four days in the Sabi Sands Game Reserve (just south of Kruger), as well as whale-watching, various walks through national parks and four fabulous hours tracking wild meerkats. I'll be sticking up details and photos over the coming weeks/months, but for now, here's a full…
revere | October 2, 2009I should be writing a substantive blog post, but I'm dead tired after 14 hours spent listening to very stimulating science presented by talented grad students, post-docs and residents at a large medical center, after which they were in turn subjected to an invited lecture from me, a lecture I've been obsessing over for a month. I'm thousands of miles from home and I miss Mrs. R. and if I'm lucky I'll soon be at 30,000 feet over some western Canadian prairie and homeward bound.
See you soon, sweetheart. Keep a light on for me.
drorzel | October 1, 2009SteelyKid says, "Baby Blogging time again? Can it wait? I'm in the middle of a book..."
She is her parents' daughter... And also a Great Big Baby, as you can see from this picture of her cuddling Appa:
To really appreciate the contrast, look at this shot from Week 2 of Baby Blogging:
She's grown juuuust a little in the last 58 weeks...
jstemwedel | October 1, 2009At Uncertain Principles, Chad is motivating his readers to donate to his DonorsChoose challenge by offering a big reward:
Last year, I famously got $6,000 in contributions by offering to dance like a monkey, but I'm not sure what would follow that. So,
What should I offer to do if I manage to reach the overall challenge goal of several thousand dollars in total contributions?
I'm obviously not going to do anything illegal or immoral, but I'm willing to sacrifice a little dignity for a good cause, as you can see at the link above. So, what can I offer to do that would get you to donate…
drorzel | October 1, 2009"OK, thanks very much. I'll pick it up at six, or a little after." I hang up the phone. I can feel the dog's eyes on my back.
"So what was that about?" she asks.
"Oh, that was the Ford dealer," I say casually. "They're done with my car." The dashboard lit up like a Christmas tree a few days ago when I was leaving work-- all sorts of brake-related idiot lights, plus the odometer went completely blank. I spent the weekend driving a rented Kia.
"What was wrong with it?" she asks, with exaggerated casualness.
"Oh, you know, some problems with the wiring..."
"What kind of problem with the wiring…
pharyngula | October 1, 2009Man, those visits to Fargo and Maine sure stirred up a lot of people. I've just been getting an unusually large volume of mail lately, and it's about evenly split: half are saying "Yay, I'm going to read your blog every day!" and the other half are "You're going to burn in hell!" It seems appropriate, then, to at least acknowledge this flood by posting one of them.
Nate is trying to pull a Ray Comfort on me. There's a reason why people call Comfort "Raytard", so he really isn't the right person to emulate.
You
Hi Paul,
The ten commandments:
1. No other God's…. even yourself.
2. No…
jstemwedel | October 1, 2009You already know that we're working with DonorsChoose to raise some money for public school teachers who are trying to give their students the engaging educational experiences they deserve (and who, owing to dismal state and local budgets, need our help more than ever). You also know that our benevolent overlords at Seed will be randomly selecting some donors to receive nifty prizes (details about this to be posted as soon as I get them).
Of course, helping public school teachers deliver the education their students deserve is it's own reward, but that doesn't mean you might not want a little…
drorzel | September 30, 2009I'm a little fried from yesterday's frantic running around, so while there are a couple of physics things I'd like to write about, I have neither the time nor the brainpower. So here's a silly little poll, prompted by the large amount of ice I go through at home (I'm trying to lose some weight, so I'm drinking a lot of ice water these days). How do you like your cold beverages to be served?
How do you like your drinks?(online surveys)
(It was that, or a rant about the silly faux-controversy over the Angels' post-game celebration, which is taking up wayyyy too much time on sports shows.)
drorzel | September 30, 2009I've gotten a couple of emails asking what I think of the fact that the new president of Williams College is a theoretical physicist. So, here are my (very brief) thoughts on the matter:
1) As a general matter, I'm happy to see scientists in administrative positions. They tend to have a better appreciation of the demands of scientific research than humanists, and they tend to approach the running of things in a manner that's a little closer to my own preferences.
Having a physicist as president is highly unlikely to result in the diversion of vast sums of money to fund physics research,…
pharyngula | September 29, 2009Meh. Some progress: 1653 words, but not very satisfied with what I got done. Scribbling away on airplanes and in airports doesn't lend itself well to focus.
pharyngula | September 29, 2009We had a fine evening here at Bates College in Maine, and here's our group photo of the elites who gathered for calamari, Maine food, and beer afterwards. Note satanic red glowing eyes.
(Click for larger image)
You may notice that some of us are wearing an interesting orange necklace. That's a cephalopod from Noadi. Not only are they pretty, but I can guarantee that they ward off vampires.
Oh, and you can get an account of the talk here. It was all about blasphemy.
jstemwedel | September 28, 2009At the end of last week, I made a quick trip to UCLA to visit with some researchers who, despite having been targets of violence and intimidation, are looking for ways to engage with the public about research with animals. I was really struck by their seriousness about engaging folks on "the other side", rather than just hunkering down to their research and hoping to be left alone.
The big thing we talked about was the need to shift the terms of engagement.
The mode people seem most used to -- and the one that seems to make the least difference -- is the debate. In a debate, the point is…
jdupuis | September 28, 2009Those of you with long memories may recall that I was on the jury for the 2009 Sunburst Award for Canadian Literature of the Fantastic.
Well, the names of the winners have just been released:
Adult: The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
Young Adult: Little Brother by Cory Doctorow
You can check out the shortlists and recommended reading lists here.
The two winning books are both amazing examples of fantastic fiction, both well worth reading. The rest of the shortlists and recommended reading lists are also worth checking out. Congratulations!
I would also like to say at this point that being on…
pharyngula | September 27, 2009Today was a big day for revision and cleanup — I cut out some of the weaker stuff I'd written before. I think deleting words ought to count for just as much as adding words, but I'll refrain from complicating the tally that way.
Productivity for Sunday, 27 September:
1651 shiny new words, one brand new piece added to the pile, a few other pieces buffed up.
pharyngula | September 26, 2009I'm trying to have some serious writerly discipline here, so I've been hammering at the keyboard all day, and will do more tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after, etc., until it's all done (my goal is to wrap it all up within a month). As part of the process, I'm going to start posting a summary of my output at the end of each day.
So, productivity for Saturday, 26 September:
4105 words, three pieces mostly complete; one's a little rough and needs some overall polish, another has a weak ending that needs some tightening.
I'm finding the stuff I write in the morning to be a lot cleaner…