personal
laelaps | March 14, 2009As I mentioned earlier this month I will be heading down to Washington DC next weekend. On Sunday (March 22) I will be visiting the National Zoo and would love to meet anyone who would like to come by. Let's meet at 11 AM at the dining hall right near the giant panda exhibit (map here).
I apologize if this is not the best time/place for everyone interested in coming by, but it seemed to be the best option (it's going to be a busy weekend!). Just let me know if you plan on coming in the comments and I'll see you next week!
drorzel | March 13, 2009SteelyKid's hard at work on tooth number five, and as a result, her nose has been running like a deranged ultramarathoner. Yesterday, it tipped over into a bit of a sinus infection, so there was no way to get a good Baby Blogging picture. She made up for it this morning, though, as Kate snapped a picture of the two of us discussing photo options:
As you can see, she's already happier today. We'll keep her home today, and by Monday, she'l be back to being the Empress of the infant room.
terrasig | March 12, 2009Today marks 12 years since you died.
Well, it might have been today, possibly yesterday, I hope not too many days ago.
You see, you died alone in your apartment you rented from your sister downstairs. Yet no one checked on you as your mail accumulated Monday and Tuesday. One of your drinking buddies from the Disabled American Veterans post told me proudly at your funeral that he probably had with you your last beer that Saturday night. So, maybe it was the 8th or 9th?
When I think back, though, I believe you died some eight years earlier, just after your 50th birthday party. For your…
drorzel | March 11, 2009One of my coaches, back in the day, always used to say that basketball was a game of quickness. Usually when he had just stolen the ball from somebody thirty years younger than him.
It's true, quickness is a big asset in basketball. But it's also a game of timing-- knowing when to shoot, when to pass, when to cut to the basket, and when to step into the passing lane and steal the ball to secure Cleveland State's first NCAA bid since 1986.
And, if you're talking pick-up basketball, there's also the important question of when to show up at the gym.
Arrival time is a major issue in places where…
pharyngula | March 11, 2009It's true — I'm going to be speaking at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana on Friday, 13 March, at 6:00 in Gregory Hall. Well, nominally at 6:00 — my flight schedule is cutting it awfully close, giving me only an hour of leeway, so we'll see if I make it in time. If I don't, start the conversation without me. This one is going to be a bit on the history of embryology, with some discussion of modern interpretations of the well-known facts of development…including the thoroughly bogus claims of creationists. I will be teaching the controversy — I'll be showing the audience how…
clock | March 10, 2009Still recovering. Flights were smooth. I finally finished Jennifer Rohn's book on the airplane. I hated my Chapel Hill neighbors, lounging at the pool in 78F, as I was leaving for the cold, snowy Boston. But now I'm back.
The first night, a bunch of us went to the Science Cafe and discussed the possibility of intelligent life in the Universe and methods to find them if they are out there.
And had some dinner as well...
On Monday, we gathered at WGBH station, in a nice, modern, green building, and about 20 of us discussed the PRI/BBC/NOVA/SigmaXi/WGBH/World project: how to build an online…
edyong | March 10, 2009We won an award
Some of you may know that I write for another blog - Cancer Research UK's Science Update blog - as part of my day job. There, I write about new cancer research together with my colleagues Kat and Henry. Tonight, we won a Science Communication award from the Association of Medical Research Charities (AMRC) for our work on the blog, in the category of Online Research.
Blogging for an organisation is a very different ball-game to this - you have to still be readable and engaging while exercising a certain amount of restraint in order to maintain the charity's reputation and…
drorzel | March 10, 2009A few weeks ago, Neil DeGrasse Tyson was on the Daily Show telling stories about Pluto, and mentioned getting a letter from a little kid who added the postscript "Please write back, but not in cursive, because I can't read cursive yet." We were talking about this in the car yesterday, because Kate's been reading one of these books, and I realized that I don't think I could write a letter in cursive, even if I wanted to.
I did learn how to write in cursive, back in the day, but my handwriting was always borderline illegible, and I switched back to printing pretty much as soon as the teachers…
oracknows | March 10, 2009...the reasons are threefold.
Reason #1 is my iPhone. As I mentioned the other day, the microphone mysteriously stopped working while I was in Phoenix. At first I thought it was a network thing, as on less rare than I would like occasions I had had difficulty with AT&T in which I might have trouble making a phone call or people I called couldn't hear me even though I could hear them. But the problem persisted after I got home. (In restrospect, I wonder if the occasional problems I had had when people couldn't hear me after I connected were the canary in the coal mine for this total…
pharyngula | March 9, 2009I was born at 7:07 am on 9 March 1957, so today I'm supposed to celebrate the fact that the earth has circled about the sun an integral number of times. I think I'll, oh, go to work all day. It should be fun!
jstemwedel | March 8, 2009Well, in truth, I did all the preparation and cooking, so I guess technically I made myself lunch. However, it was by way of Twitter that I was given a good, quick idea for what to do with a mess of produce I brought in from the garden today. (Eating this produce promptly is important, seeing as how our fridge is full of pie at the moment.)
Within moments of my Tweet:
What meal can I make from: broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, beets, carrots, spinach, lettuce, spring garlic, and lemon?
blogger, SciBling, and food-maven Mark Chu-Carroll replied:
have you ever had soong?
and then:
Dice and…
terrasig | March 8, 2009I used to keep a separate blog for items of local interest but I can't even keep up with one. So, you'll occasionally have to bear with me posting about issues of import from the area in and around Terra Sigillata World Headquarters.
But here's a local bit of info for our NC Triangle readers that should also remind the rest of you around the world to see what you can do in your own communities, especially during the global economic downturn.
This came across a tag in my Facebook from my far-better half, PharmGirl. I said, "Wow, this is great - where did you get it? Did you write it?" The…
oracknows | March 8, 2009So here I sit in the Phoenix airport, which (woo-hoo!) has free wifi, contemplating a most puzzling problem.
My iPhone, which was working just fine last night and which still seems on the surface to be working fine is behaving most strangely. My wife tried to call me, but I couldn't pick up because it happened to be while I was on my way through security. So I called her back, and, while I could hear her, she couldn't hear me (although on one attempt it seemed that I couldn't hear her either). 3G and Edge networks both work fine for surfing the net, sending and receiving calls (except for the…
clock | March 7, 2009And now I have to travel from this:
to this:
I'll go to the airport in a t-shirt, get dressed on the airplane, and disembark in full Arctic gear! Then reverse the process on the way back.
clock | March 6, 2009As you may have noticed, I'll be in Boston next week.
On March 8th, I'll go to the Science Cafe:
THE TOPIC:
It may seem Hollywood, but there are many accomplished scientists currently scanning the skies for signs of alien intelligence. What are they looking for? Flying saucers and little green men?
Actually, think talk radio and TV soap operas. We've been broadcasting signals like these for around 80 years, and some are powerful enough to reach other star systems. So there is a chance that aliens are out there broadcasting similar signals--signals we may be able to detect.
But how will we…
drorzel | March 6, 2009SteelyKid turned 30 weeks yesterday, and to celebrate this arbitrary numerical milestone, she shows off what a big strong baby she's become:
"Look at me! I can lift a whole bison by myself!"
jstemwedel | March 3, 2009It has come to my attention that today's date (03-03-09) makes this a Square Root Day.
The Free-Ride household will be marking the occasion pretty much the way you'd expect -- with an evening meal that includes square roots.
Well, approximately square. The roots include diced sweet potatoes (both the canonical orange-fleshed ones and the Japanese white-fleshed ones), carrots, parsnips, turnips, chiogga beets, and potatoes, and sliced leeks.
If you want to get picky and say that the potatoes are not in fact roots so much as tubers, do not expect to be offered seconds.
I've tossed the…
jstemwedel | March 2, 2009Times are tough all around these days. However, at schools like mine, a large public university with a population that includes a significant number of students who are older than traditional college age, are the first in their families to go to college, and/or were in economically precarious situations before the current economic crisis, the situation feels especially dire.
When I started teaching at San José State University in August of 2002, the U.S. had not yet gone to war in Iraq. By my third semester of teaching here, I was starting to lose students mid-semester because their…
terrasig | March 2, 2009I have to travel to Washington, DC, quite a bit - this week, in fact. So, boy, I wish that our Amtrak rail service to the nation's capital was faster and more dependable because once you get to the airport, go through security, etc., we're starting to get closer to the time it takes to drive.
Our European readers will howl they learn it takes almost 6 hours to travel the 280 mi/450 km from the capital of North Carolina to DC. While Amtrak service is pretty awesome from Boston through New York, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, once you're south of DC the passenger trains have to compete…
