personal
clock | May 8, 2008For 9/11 Wall, a Little Support and a Permanent Place:
Steven M. Davis of Davis Brody Bond Aedas, the museum architects, advocated saving a large part of the wall, as did the engineers, Milan Vatovec, of Simpson Gumpertz & Heger, and Guy Nordenson, of Guy Nordenson & Associates. Others involved with the reconstruction of ground zero were not entirely persuaded that it was worth the effort, cost and potential risk.
Why did I post this? Because Milan Vatovec is a childhood friend of mine (and hockey fans may find his name familiar as he was on the Yugoslav national team for quite a…
cmooney | May 8, 2008Props to my brother, who has been "noticed." From the New York Times Artsbeat blog, covering the New Orleans Jazz Fest:
This year's Monk Institute class has only been working together since the start of the fall term, but already there's a noticeable chemistry among the students, judging by their Jazzfest performance on Sunday morning. The group didn't sound quite like a full-fledged band yet - there were still some tentative moments - but it wasn't hard to detect much promise.
Based on the set I heard, the most advanced musicians in the group are Davy Mooney, a guitarist from here in New…
pharyngula | May 8, 2008My last class for this semester was today. I'm done with the teaching part, now all that's left is the dry, husky, tedious, boring administrative part: final exams and grading and the passing of final judgment on the efforts of my students. I get to become a mindless bureaucratic drone unenlivened by creative thought for a little while.
Anticipate continued incoherence, with light and scattered posting for a while. But there is hope, and none too soon.
jstemwedel | May 8, 2008I have at least six things I really want to write blog posts about at the moment, but the day job is a harsh mistress.
So instead of a content-laden post, you get a list so you can play along vicariously.
In the next nine days, I must:
Lead the last new-content class meeting of my "Ethics in Science" class (for two class sections) - done
Remember to distribute student evaluations - done
Devise two more rubrics with which to evaluate case study responses for the engineering ethics module and distribute them to my unholy army of the night grading team - done
Grade the last case study from my…
clock | May 7, 2008My daughter collects snowglobes. Or, to be precise, we collect snowglobes for her when we travel. She has a few from New York City, one from San Francisco, one from Murtle Beach, one from Milwaukee. I badly messed up when I went to Boston last year and did not get one. Last year, the TSA made a rule that snowglobes cannot be in the carry-on luggage (and I prefer to travel light and not check in any bags), but the lax security at Milwaukee airport let me smuggle one in.
Now, traveling around Europe provided me with the opportunity to greatly add to her collection: snowglobes from London,…
jstemwedel | May 6, 2008More than a month ago William the Coroner tagged me. It is not just that I am slow; this meme is challenging!
Not mush, methodology.
A surprising number of people seem to think being ethical amounts to not being an inherently evil person.
I am passionate about teaching my students that making ethical decisions involves moving beyond gut feelings and instincts. It means understanding how your decisions impact others, and considering the ways your interests and theirs intersect. It means thinking through possible impacts of the various choices available to you. It means understanding…
tqa | May 5, 2008
You may have noticed a lack of new posts on this blog over the last few weeks. There are a few reasons for this, most of which involve being busy doing other things. I've been working a lot of hours at a part time job that doesn't allow for much online activity. We're also getting ready to relocate (again) - this time to Pensacola, Florida. Both of those factors will pretty much be done with by the middle of June. Until then, though, I'm not going to be able to blog as much as I'd like.
sa smith | May 4, 2008I think me failing out of grad school would be bad PR for our side, so ugh, still studyin.
Please enjoy Arnies latest creation, a photo essay: 'NOM'.
clock | May 3, 2008Dog happy to see me. And others, of course. After 25.5 days, 4 countries, 5 airports, 8 flights by 5 airline companies, 2 panels, 2 lectures, 4 radio interviews, 2 newspaper interviews, 2 blogger meetups, and many good meals, I am mentally exhausted. Need to spend some time with the family. Offline. Feet up. Will see you all on Monday (may post the rest of Berlin pictures tomorrow, lazily).
jstemwedel | May 3, 2008Captivated by the colors I saw, I took this picture today.
Any guesses as to what it is?
grrlscientist | May 1, 2008tags: eclectus, Solomon Islands Eclectus parrot, Eclectus roratus solomonensis, parrots, birds, photograph
Elektra.
Female Solomon Islands Eclectus parrot, Eclectus roratus solomonensis, April 2008.
Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].
Last night, I was feeling rather depressed, so instead of writing, I watched The Golden Compass on DVD with my parrots. I crawled into bed and under the covers because it was cold, and Orpheus sat in front of my laptop screen, watching the movie while Elektra snuggled down on my side and pulled the blankets around herself into a cup nest there. She made…
sa smith | May 1, 2008Blogger just emailed me a nice apology.
They wanted to make sure we all knew that it was an algorithm that deleted me, not a renegade Creationist janitor. They are taking the deletion seriously, and are trying to learn what happened and how to prevent it in the future.
I had a few suggestions for them too:
Hi Blogger!
I am sympathetic to the sheer level of spam-crap you all have to deal with, but you guys really need to make it easier for bloggers to know whats wrong with our sites and how we can fix it. Since I never did anything but post (didnt change anything in the original template) I…
grrlscientist | April 30, 2008tags: red fan parrot, hawk-headed parrot, Deroptyus accipitrinus accipitrinus, parrots, birds, photograph
I took this picture yesterday morning to share with you;
Orpheus.
Male Hawk-headed (red fan) parrot, Deroptyus a. accipitrinus, April 2008.
Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].
This species originates in the New World tropics; Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, Guyana and the extreme northwest portion of Brazil. This bird was captive-bred and was purchased for me by a friend. He was shipped to me by the breeder when he was only four and a half months old, so he was quite young…
clock | April 30, 2008Just landed in Berlin. Flew with JAT for the first time in decades. The best flight ever. I guess their pilots, after getting some real dogfight combat flying experience find piloting a B-737-300 way too easy...
grrlscientist | April 29, 2008tags: eclectus, Solomon Islands Eclectus parrot, Eclectus roratus solomonensis, parrots, birds, photograph
I took this picture this morning to share with you;
Elektra.
Female Solomon Islands Eclectus parrot, Eclectus roratus solomonensis, April 2008.
Image: GrrlScientist 2008 [larger view].
Not only did I not handfeed this bird, but this is the one bird I live with who is a "used parrot": she spent her formative years with someone else before she came home with me. She unfortunately has a bad wing so she cannot fly as well as I wish she could, even though I leave her fully flighted (I do…
tlambert | April 28, 2008Here's a cool video of my first year class in Engineering Design. One of their projects is to build and program a Lego robot to compete in robot sumo...
sa smith | April 28, 2008WHOO!
Thanks to Mark at 'Good Math, Bad Math', the old ERV is back up.
For now.
ERVs disappearance wasnt a generalized Blogger glitch.
I view it as malicious behavior, though I sympathize with the Blogger folks and the sheer volume of crap they have to deal with, so no hard feelings.
That being said, please check out the old ERV as long as you still can! Im backing things up (and everyone who blogs should back theirs up tonight. now. seriously.), but who knows how long it will be restored!
Here are a few of my favorites:
My Interview with the Infidel Guy
My 'debate' with HIV Denier Len…
sa smith | April 28, 2008Hi SciBlogs!
Please excuse the mess as Im moving in (this blog feels so naked!), and my ridiculously formatted posts as Im learning the new blogging system-- Classes are over in a week and I will have more time to play :)
And hi to any new ERV readers! I would just post a link to the old ERV so you new people can learn a bit about me and my writing style, but Im having some issues with the old site... So I thought Id better post a short introduction!
Im Abbie Smith, and Im obsessed with viruses.
Im currently finishing up my first year of graduate school, where Im getting my PhD in '…
sa smith | April 28, 2008Well, I wasnt planning on moving into SciBlogs until after this semester of classes was over (sometime next week), but it appears that the old ERV at Blogger has been deleted.
So while Im jumping through hoops in an attempt to get my old posts back, I figured I might as well move into ERV at SciBlogs!
Yes, yes, I was an idiot and didnt save all of my posts at Blogger. I didnt expect to wake up one day and Google to be gone. And since Blogger is run by Google, and I have a Gmail account, also run by Google, I figured 'Hey, if anything is ever wrong with ERV at Blogger, surely they will email…
jstemwedel | April 26, 2008As we're listening to Weekend Edition, the younger Free-Ride offspring asks, "Why don't they ever have weekend subtraction?"
(I think it was the elder Free-Ride offspring, years ago, who asked why Morning Edition had puppet words. It took us a few long moments to figure out the "puppet words" was actually Bob Edwards.)