thusspakezuska | November 3, 2008Who needs sophisticated tracking polls when you've got...cookies!
A local bakery not far from where I live makes presidential candidate cookies for every presidential election. This year they added vice-presidential cookies. You can buy an Obama, McCain, Biden, or Palin cookie - and help predict the winner of the election in the process!
Since the 1984 election, Weinrich's in Willow Grove has been icing its round red, white and blue cookies with the names and, this year, the faces of the Democratic and Republican presidential candidates.
And in every election but one, the sale of cookies…
thusspakezuska | November 3, 2008To all of you who participated in the ScienceBlogs Donors Choose Challenge this year - many, many, many heartfelt thanks! We raised $503 here at TSZ but together all the ScienceBloggers raised almost $31,000! That money will have an impact on at least 10,000 students!
All but one of the proposals I selected ended up getting funded, via your contributions and other sources. I've gotten some feedback from some of the teachers and thought you might like to hear what they have to say. I know your cash is hard-earned, and money is tight for everybody right now, so I am especially grateful to…
thusspakezuska | October 20, 2008...with Donors Choose?
Hello, Zuskateers! I'm setting off today to go spend time with mom, who is in the hospital again. I don't know how long I'll be there, which means I don't know when I'll be getting back to blogging. If I have time while I'm there I'll try to get in a short post or two but it seems unlikely. If you comment on something and it gets lost in moderation, please be patient; I will try to check every so often to make sure someone's pearls of wisdom did not get caught up in the spam filter.
In the meantime, while I am gone, maybe you would like to consider supporting the…
thusspakezuska | October 14, 2008Janet at Adventures in Ethics and Science writes about prizes for women:
2008 is the tenth year of the L'Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science awards to remarkable female scientists from around the world. Indeed, our sister-site, ScienceBlogs.de, covered this year's award ceremony and is celebrating women in science more generally with a For Women in Science blog. (It, like the rest of ScienceBlogs.de, is in German. Just so you know.)
In addition to the global contest, three further scholarships are given to women scientists in Germany. But, the only women eligible for these awards are women with…
thusspakezuska | October 14, 2008Yay! Prizes! From our benevolent Seed overlords!
All you have to do is take part in our Donors Choose campaign.
Here's the scoop:
Seed has agreed to do prize drawings again this year for donors who give to DonorsChoose, beginning this Friday [10/17/08]. We'll be giving away 50 Seed mag subscriptions and about 15 or so other prizes from an assortment of mugs, laptop covers and USB drives. Each Friday we'll choose winners for a third of the prizes. In addition, there will be one 'grand prize' at the end of the drive, of an iPod Touch.
To enter the drawing, all you need to do is forward…
thusspakezuska | October 9, 2008I found out about these two books from the Chronicle Review; haven't read either one, but they looked interesting and some of you may want to check them out.
Stuck in the Shallow End: Education, Race, and Computing by Jane Margolis
The number of African Americans and Latino/as receiving undergraduate and advanced degrees in computer science is disproportionately low, according to recent surveys. And relatively few African American and Latino/a high school students receive the kind of institutional encouragement, educational opportunities, and preparation needed for them to choose computer…
thusspakezuska | October 3, 2008When this first came up, I thought it was really outside the scope of my blog. But then I thought about all those stories you hear about women on tech campuses getting "glommed" by clueless nerd boys. I remembered dating catastrophes and tragicomedies from my own undergraduate days, a hundred years ago. And I thought, well, maybe there is a place for at least some brief commentary on this topic.
In the comments to this blog post, Anonymouse asked
Granted, a lot of the behaviors described elsewhere (tit-grazing, eg) are very much not appropriate, but how exactly DOES one go about the…
thusspakezuska | October 2, 2008I just took a look over at Sciencewomen's site and see from their sidebar widget than they've already raised $395 from 9 readers as I write this. Now, I realize I only got my post up late last night and they've had their announcement for DonorsChoose up since early yesterday morning but still. Doesn't a story like the following just break your heart? This proposal only has three days left, but your dollars will be matched by Philadelphia Friends! Can't we come up with $257 for these kids and their teacher in the next three days????
"Miss, I need a pencil!" "Miss, I can't take the notes, I…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2008It's October, and that means it's DonorsChoose time again! ScienceBlogs bloggers are, once again, participating in the DonorsChoose Blogger Challenge. Basically, we ask you, our readers, to help public school teachers across the U.S. fund proposals for classroom supplies, activities, and field trips.
It's a shame we have to ask at all, but our nation's public school teachers are woefully underfunded and often spend their own personal money to purchase needed classroom supplies. Looking over proposals to build my challenge, it was heartbreaking to see that for some teachers, the lack of…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2008There was something that always bothered me about the Mac commercials purporting to show me how hip Mac computers are. It's that I never really felt included in the world of those ads.
Mac computers are personified by a uber-cool geek-chic attractive young white man. PCs, of course take on the flesh of a somewhat portly, a bit older, less attractive white man whose geek is unredeemed by any hint of cool. Did I mention they are both white men? In ad after ad after ad, we see these two white men portray personal computers to the viewing audience. You can watch the collection of ads from…
thusspakezuska | October 1, 2008
That would be Ronnie, Becca, Clare, and Andre, who joined me at Farmacia in Philadelphia this past Sunday for a delightful brunch and lots and lots of good talk. Many thanks to the benevolent Seed overlords for subsidizing our little get-together.
I had the frittata.
.
The food was wonderful. I had a blueberry-pomegranate sorbet that was unbelievably delicious - intensely flavorful and silky smooth, not at all grainy or icy. They make their own ice creams and sorbets. Nice job! We sat in our booth throughout the brunching hour and well into mid-afternoon; the waitstaff was gracious…
thusspakezuska | September 24, 2008The Chronicle has a nice piece on PhD engineers adjusting to corporate culture, and for once something they offer isn't behind a paywall, so you can actually read it! Here's the intro to whet your appetite:
You might expect to see few similarities between the career path of an engineering Ph.D. and that of a humanities Ph.D. as they transition out of academe. After all, engineers have it made, don't they? They can walk right into industry jobs that are exactly like the work they did in graduate school and never miss a step, right?
Not entirely. I interviewed an electrical-engineering Ph.D.…
thusspakezuska | September 24, 2008A warning: if you are a survivor of sexual assault you may just want to skip this post and the ensuing ugly comment thread it is sure to engender.
A week or so ago the redoubtable Dr. Isis wrote an open letter to me.
In part she wrote:
The pragmatic part of me wants to agree with you that there is no place for open ogling in the workplace. The other part of me fears that there may be a hint of truth in Greg's argument that we are inherently sexual beings...
I see no reason to fear the truth that we are inherently sexual beings. But the fact that we are sexual beings does not mean that…
thusspakezuska | September 23, 2008I received an email from Dr. Kimberly Fairchild, Assistant Professor of Psychology at Manhattan College, asking for help in recruiting participants for a survey she is conducting. Kimberly is interested in the relationship between early experiences with catcalling and current experiences. The survey she is currently conducting is an extension of her dissertation work. The survey is women-only, completely voluntary, and should only take about 20 minutes to complete. Kimberly has promised to report back to me with the final results next spring, so hopefully I can share them with you here.…
thusspakezuska | September 18, 2008Strictly speaking, McCain's and Palin's policies, but Palin's got the alliteration thing going there. Plus, let's face it, she's just more interesting.
In an earlier post, I wrote about how Palin presents an un-scary, Nice Feminist face to the average voter, which facilitates the sense that one is being all progressive and modern and supportive of women, without actually having to change anything. The liberals want you to support reproductive health policies for women that will actually facilitate their independence from men and give them control over their own bodies. This, of course,…
thusspakezuska | September 17, 2008I really did not think I would live to see the day when a major political party in the U.S. would find it necessary to add a woman to the ticket in order to win the presidency. It's a shame I can't be at all happy about the particular party and woman making history. However, if you will recall, I predicted something like this situation some time ago. I just got the particular woman wrong. As I noted in a comment on that post:
...the majority [of] people will love a non-traditional candidate who is a conservative much sooner than they will love a non-traditional candidate who is a liberal…
thusspakezuska | September 10, 2008So, to recap:
A couple of women are having a conversation, and the topic turns to tit-ogling. "No one should be staring at my tits in the workplace," they all agree. "That makes me uncomfortable, creates a hostile work environment, and constitutes sexual harassment! How difficult is it to look at my eyes? Staring and ogling is a threatening display of power enacted in a sexual manner. This isn't the Mad Men era. Haven't men figured out how to behave in a professional situation by now?"
A dude at the table next to them has been listening in and feels compelled to pipe up:
"Ladeez…
thusspakezuska | September 8, 2008UPDATE: Party date changed to Sept. 28th. Other details remain the same. Let me know if you are interested in joining us!
UPDATE: Here are details of my party, which is scheduled for Sept 14th:
Brunch at Farmicia, 15 S. 3rd St, Philadelphia, PA at 11 a.m.
Visit Penn Museum of Archeology & Anthropology to see Surviving: The Body of Evidence exhibit (Museum is open 1 to 5 pm) which is part of Philadelphia's Year of Evolution celebration.
Afterwards, gelato at Capogiro. Mmmmmmm.
Possibly drinks & something else to eat after that, we don't know for sure.
ORIGINAL POST:
As…
thusspakezuska | September 1, 2008Technically, this is my 500th post at Scienceblogs, although I believe that includes a few I wrote but never published. So, 500 within a slight margin of error. Let us now celebrate this arbitrary milestone!!!!!
And now, on to the post.
September Scientiae is up at Lab Cat's place.
At the end of the summer, the Scientiae Labor Day BBQ was held at Lab Cat's place. After eating mounds of delicious food and drinking a few good drinks, our women scientists came together around the fire holding the last of the marshmallows over the coals for a last bite of smores and summer. Ella…
thusspakezuska | August 28, 2008This article was bizarrely stashed in the business section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, rather than reported as Science news, or even just as general news.
Going back to 1969, a chemist with no soul named Manfred DeRewal bought a local farm and then used it as a chemical waste dumping ground, hiring himself out to local companies as their cheap waste solution. This went on for, oh, a really long time. Litigation is now ongoing in the federal courts over who is responsible for cleanup. Now this:
Yesterday, Carpenter Technology Corp., one of the companies whose waste ended up at the farm…