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drorzel | July 7, 2009A bunch of heavy stuff on the blog today-- quantum physics, insulting journalists, political activism. Here's a cute baby video to lighten the mood:
This is Steelyid demonstrating her climbing prowess, just in case anybody suspected that Saturday's filler picture was staged. She can actually go quite a bit faster than this, but she kept stopping to mug shamelessly for the camera.
jstemwedel | July 6, 2009Somehow, without actually planning it, I ended up taking a ten-day (give or take) hiatus from the internets, during which I immersed myself in the three-dimensional world. During my time offline, I learned many things, among them:
Two weeks in a row of overnight flights east, coupled with relatively little sleep, will knock me on my butt for a while -- even when I'm back in my own time zone and on my own schedule.
Sleeping well in a dorm room is not terribly hard in the aftermath of an overnight flight east and relatively little sleep. However, desire to avoid a line for a shower tends to…
pharyngula | July 6, 2009…was the SkepchickCon in Minneapolis this past weekend. This was a consequence of some extremely ugly last minute flight rearrangements from Germany that brought me home significantly later than I had planned (although Lufthansa did helpfully tell me I could get back earlier if I would just buy that seat in first class in an earlier flight…for an additional $5000). Melissa Kaercher did make the grand effort of connecting me up virtually over skype for the Evolution 101 panel, but unfortunately, the internet in my hotel went totally kablooiee 5 minutes after the panel started.
Oh, well. I…
edyong | July 5, 2009At the recent WCSJ, and particularly after winning this prize, loads of lovely people came up to me and said that they read and enjoyed this blog.Which always comes as a surprise, because by and large, I have no idea who reads this blog.
So this seems a good a time as any to resurrect a thread that I started ages ago to find out more about you - my readers.
Identify yourself in the comments. Even if you've never commented before, speak up. Who are you? Do you have a background in science? Are you interesting lay-person, practicing scientist, journalist, sentient virus, or something else?…
drorzel | July 5, 2009A reading from the Book of Genesis:
1 And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
2 And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
3 And they said one to another, Go to, let us make plastic cups that can stack atop one another. And let us make them of many colors, lo, for that would be cool.
4 And they said, Go to, let us stack our cups to make a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us put a duck upon the top, because ducks are pretty neat.
5 And SteelyKid came down to see the city and the…
pharyngula | July 4, 2009Gruss Gott! Schweinebraten mit hausgemachten Spätzle, und zwei Leibinger hefeweizen dunkel. Ausgezeichnet!
pharyngula | July 4, 2009Yesterday was my last day in Lindau, I'm sorry to say — it was also the day of the closing ceremonies on the island of Mainau, in case you were wondering why it was so quiet on the blog. I decided to leave all my electronical gear behind at the hotel and venture out for the last session with a stark naked brain.
The day began with a walk down to the harbor to board the Sonnenkönigin, a very impressive ship that can only be inadequately be called a ferry. We were welcomed aboard with a glass of wine or a glass of juice if you felt 8 am was a little early to begin, and tables heaped with food.…
drorzel | July 4, 2009SteelyKid shows off her recently expanded climbing ability:
I could attempt to make a strained connection to the Fourth of July by making some analogy between a baby climbing stairs and the need for constant slow improvement in the national character, or some such. But really, it's just a cute baby picture being posted as filler.
Enjoy the day. I hope you have better weather than we do.
drorzel | July 2, 2009SteelyKid has recovered her usual energy level, as you can tell by the giant debris field she's created in the living room:
Looking at her there, among the scattered toys with Appa, you might be saying "Boy, what a great big baby she is!" It's all a matter of perspective, though:
She's still pretty small standing next to me...
pharyngula | July 2, 2009I just did an interview about science blogging for An Kathab, "Al Jazeera's weekly high-tech news magazine". Look for it to be broadcast on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of July, and to appear on youtube shortly thereafter.
This is so going to confirm right-wing histrionics, isn't it?
drorzel | July 1, 2009Whoever came up with the idea of making little string bikinis in infant sizes should be beaten to death with Barbie dolls.
Seriously. The world does not need 6-9 month size versions of the useless "swimwear" that gets modeled in Sports Illustrated. We barely need the adult versions.
terrasig | July 1, 2009
Dear PharmGirl,
We wanted to make this note public today because a great many of our blog friends know of your dedication as a physician, wife, and a mother.
Yesterday you finished an association with an academic medical institution where you have been for half your life. From young women with breast cancer to old men in the V.A. Hospital, literally thousands have been touched by your gifts of intelligence, remarkable clinical judgment, and, perhaps most importantly, compassion. The recognition from your patients was abundant and we were privy to the personal notes of just how much you…
laelaps | June 30, 2009Earlier this week I had the pleasure of answering a few questions for the Paw Talk blog about dinosaurs, blogging, and kittens. You can check it out here (and many thanks to Ava for inviting me to participate!).
edyong | June 30, 2009100 in four months - not too shabby.
A fitting way to mark a week of blogging with pure caffeine replacing my bloodstream. 3 posts up already, three more written and two further on the way. It's a good news week.
That and I'm off to the World Conference of Science Journalists to discuss the future of science news reporting with a bunch of (possibly) like-minded people. I may or may not live-tweet it in which case my musings will be found here. I'll probably end up blogging reports of the conference.
See you then.
drorzel | June 29, 2009The National Science Foundation uses a computerized proposal-and-report submission system called FastLane. When I first submitted a proposal, this required three things to log in: your last name, your Social Security number, and a password of your choice.
Sometime in the last year, they stopped using the SSN, and switched to a randomly generated nine-digit ID number. Which they sent me in a massage that somehow manages not to include the strings "NSF," "FastLane," or "National Science Foundation." "ID" by itself returns too many results in GMail to be useful.
On the bright side, at least I…
pharyngula | June 29, 2009I really need to learn a good collection of creative German cuss words. It's been a harrowing, overlong day and a half of travel, with late flights leading to missed connections leading to long periods standing in lines with Germans, who were all very nice and helpful, except that I learned that even if your flight is leaving in ten minutes they will politely tell you that no, you cannot move to the front of the line. And now at last, though, I have finally arrived at my lovely funky hotel in Lindau, and it's a beautiful afternoon, and I'm going to take a pleasant walk down to the lake, and…
clock | June 27, 2009A couple of months ago, my SciBling David Dobbs and I recorded about an hour of discussion for Bloggingheads.tv. We talked mainly about science journalism, but also about journalism in general, about the future of the book, etc.
Unfortunately, Dave's half of the file got broken beyond repair, so the show never aired. I kept my half of the file and did not really know what to do with it. So, recently I downloaded Audacity and tried my hand at editing the audio part of the file, trying to cut out the silences (during which Dave was talking) and dialogues that would be intelligible without Dave'…
pharyngula | June 27, 2009It took a while to convince the Trophy Wife to let me take pictures of her feet and post them on the internet. Wait, that's not as kinky as it sounds! She's been loafing about in these nice socks she was sent by our very own Patricia, OM, using yarn colors based on the Spanish Shawl nudibranch, and I just think they need to be acknowledged — but maybe you haven't noticed, but she likes to avoid the whole interwubbley fanfare. Finally, though, I caught her with her toasty warm tootsies atop an ottoman and snapped this shot, so there you are: beautiful socks and a rare image of the Trophy Wife…
drorzel | June 27, 2009The following is the (approximate) text of the speech I gave Friday night at the Whitney Point High School graduation. Or, at least, this is what I typed out for myself Thursday night-- what actually comes out of my mouth on Friday might be completely different. That's why they do these things live, after all...
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When I agreed to speak here, one of the first things I thought of as I tried to decide what to say was my own college graduation, where the speaker began by noting that nobody ever remembers anything said by a graduation speaker. We all thought that was pretty…
clock | June 26, 2009As you may already be aware I am about to embark on a trip to Europe again. I will be traveling on Sunday and arriving at Lindau, Germany on Monday for the 59th Meeting of Nobel Laureates. The list of Nobel Laureates (23 of them) and the list of about 600 young researchers from 66 countries are very impressive. Of course, not being a chemist, I'll have to do some homework before I go (I printed out the complete list of descriptions of all of them to read on the airplane), learning what these people did to get their prizes and what the younger ones are doing hoping to get a Nobel in the future…