personal
clock | November 11, 2007I don't think I ever refused a meme, even if I have done it already, especially if a lot of time passed, or one can provide new answers every time. But this one is tough, as I would barely change anything from the last time I did it. But, since it is so old, I'll copy it here again and make a few little changes to it:
4 jobs you've had:
1. Horse trainer and riding instructor, Assistant to the Handicapper and Racing Secretary, as well as the Finish-line judge at the Belgrade Racecourse
2. Translator of Disney comic-strips from English to Serbian
3. Biology teacher at various levels to…
oracknows | November 11, 2007Friday morning while doing some work in my office, I was treated to a discussion by the two hosts of a morning radio talk show. The talk was apparently prompted by a rather odd website, ihateyoungpeople.com, which asks:
We want you to create a video of yourself explaining what you hate the most about young people. It's your chance to rant and rave and vent about the younger generation.
The most passionate and creative entries will be a part of a national cable television pilot... and all "appropriate" submissions will be posted on the I Hate Young People video sharing site
So fire up your…
pharyngula | November 11, 2007This is going to be a big problem. I'm at this gathering of bloggers, which means they're all going to be posting stuff about our meeting here at Americans United, and I'm outnumbered — I can't keep up. I had dinner with Blue Gal, BAC, DCup, and One Pissed Off Veteran, and some of them already have pictures up.
And after dinner we had the combined Pharyngula/Bad Astronomy gathering, which seemed to have a majority of BA fans, to my chagrin. I think more failed to show up because they know I shoot laser beams out of my eyes. We also got a surprise visit from Tara and an Evil Monkey. The…
clock | November 10, 2007...from Boston. Exhausted. Dog happy to see me. Cats, too. Wife, too. Pictorial report tomorrow.
pharyngula | November 9, 2007So I arrived here in Washington D.C. several hours ago, and made the mistake of taking some shuttle service from Dulles…which proceeded to take the passengers direct to their homes, which meant I got a long, long tour of winding narrow suburban roads all over the outlying parts of the city, sitting behind the choked traffic as the wall-to-wall cars parked on both sides meant we were constrained to basically one lane. How do you people live in this chaos? It took me almost as much time to get from Dulles to Capitol Hill as it did to drive all the way across the state of Minnesota this morning…
sheril | November 9, 2007Thanks to my favorite Mooney, I'm enjoying life as a writer. Well a blogger really, but that's a style of writing just the same. Open correspondence to both everyone and no one at all. Chris recently considered whether bloggers should unionize and I suspect that will come with time as our new medium evolves.
One aspect of the blogosphere that particularly appeals to me is that while prose is encouraged, there are no rules. I've always found such formalities counter productively confining for any form of self expression. Most traditional, strictly-defined protocols are much too stifling…
sciencewoman | November 9, 2007The in-laws are coming to visit this weekend. I love them dearly, but they chain smoke. I'm very sensitive to cigarette smoke, and Minnow's still maturing (second hand smoke also increases the risk of SIDS), so I'm kind of dreading their visit. On previous visits we've asked them to not smoke in the house, car, or around Minnow or I, but even if they've smoked outside, when they come into the house, they reek of smoke. And if they hug me or hold Minnow, then we're even more directly contaminated. They are staying in our guest room, so we can't just plan out in public activities...they will…
pharyngula | November 8, 2007Hi, Stan. You're new here, like a whole lot of people. You've just shown up, and here's your very first comment.
I noticed that this blog is in the running for a Best Science Blog award.
I've looked over the site. Cna someone point out where the science is on it. I have looked but I can't find any.
Let me introduce myself. My name is PZ Myers. I'm an associate professor of biology at a small liberal arts university in the upper midwest. I make no grand claims for myself, but I have been exceptionally busy lately, with lots of travel and lectures, and it's all on top of teaching two courses,…
clock | November 8, 2007Landed safely in Boston. Anna picked me up at the airport and took me to a tour of Harvard (after a breakfast/lunch of crepes), and now I wish I did read the descriptions of Harvard Square under various weather conditions.
I marked the Wideman library (by going to the bathroom of course) and nobody can take that accomplishment away from me ever!
Now off to meet Alex and others.
pharyngula | November 8, 2007Hey, everyone, I said I was going to be in Washington DC this weekend, with the notorious Phil Plait. We've compared notes and figured out our schedules, and are ready to announce a time and place for a general meetup: 9pm, Saturday, 10 November at the Senators Sports Bar at Holiday Inn on the Hill (here's a map). There may be some other infamous bloggers on hand, too — we'll invite them, but well, you know, this is going to be a gathering of High Nerddom, and it may be a bit intimidating to normal people.
Now go vote for Bad Astronomy for Best Science Blog. He's behind that front for…
clock | November 7, 2007I know, it's the name of a bar. In Boston. I'll be there tomorrow night around 8pm. Warming up for Publishing in the New Millennium: A Forum on Publishing in the Biosciences. Alex will be there. Anna will be there. Some others. You, too, if you can.
jstemwedel | November 7, 2007... is to get all the way through the 16 weeks without a single incident of plagiarism turned in as "student work".
Alas, it appears this will not be the semester in which my fantasy becomes a reality. Dammit.
What bums me out is how very obvious the plagiarism is. Three search phrases with Google and I've got them dead to rights.
Am I not supposed to know how to use Google?
Am I not supposed to be conscious enough, while grading papers, to notice content and phrasing utterly at odds with everything else the offending students have given me?
Am I not supposed to care? (Maybe if the…
jstemwedel | November 6, 2007If you're a TV watcher in the U.S., you're probably already aware that the Writers' Guild of America is on strike, owing largely to inability to reach agreement with the studios about residuals from DVDs and from internet distribution of TV shows and movies.
While I am a member of a faculty union that was on the verge of a strike last spring, I am not now nor have I ever been a writer for the large or small screen. I don't have a lot to say about the details of the contract negotiation in this particular case (Lindsay does). But, as Chris points out, as a blogger -- indeed, a blogger who…
laelaps | November 6, 2007I apologize, dear readers, that today I probably won't be able to keep up with my more usual prolific rate of posting. The reasons for this today are as follows;
I have two major exams today, one in my "Soils & Water" "Soils and Society" class and my Computers midterm (which for some reason was scheduled to start at 10 PM).
I occasionally experience dizzy spells/lightheadedness during this time of the year, today being one of those days.
I have a weekly presentation to give tomorrow about meat-eating in early hominids that I haven't started yet. I have no doubt that I'll be able to…
clock | November 5, 2007Back at Scifoo I met Anna Kushnir. And then we met again. And then, inspired by the conversations at Scifoo, Anna decided to organize a day-long, student-hosted conference about the future of scientific publishing - Publishing in the New Millennium: A Forum on Publishing in the Biosciences. And she decided to invite me to appear on one of the panels.
So, later this week, I will be in Boston, more precisely Cambridge MA, discussing Open Access and Science 2.0. I am arriving on Thursday in the early afternoon and leaving on Saturday in the early afternoon, so there is plenty of opportunity…
pharyngula | November 4, 2007I have been sleeping the sleep of the dead—it turns out that if you don't bother to sleep for 40 hours you get really tired and when you lie down your brain shuts off. This is very good to know. It means I've been completely ignoring Pharyngula for a long, long time, and wow, did the comments pile up. So let me deal with a few things quickly.
I am pleased to see that the comments did not descend into total anarchy, but come on, don't pick on Robert O'Brien because he looks like a dork. I look like a dork. I suspect that if you people had to verify your comments with your passport photos we'…
jstemwedel | November 3, 2007
Via ScienceWoman, I learn that there's a month for those of us who aren't ready to write a novel, namely, International acaDemic Writing Month.
I am so there.
Back when I was disserting (the second time) a bunch of us who were at the stage of our studies where it felt like we ought to be getting serious writing done formed a kick-in-the-butt club. We met roughly twice a month (possibly weekly for certain stretches, if I'm remembering correctly), talked about what we had accomplished since the last meeting, brainstormed ways to face down writer's block, and most importantly, we set goals for…
clock | November 3, 2007Yup, Chris Surridge, Managing Editor of PLoS ONE (and the author of the legendary comment) swung by the Chapel Hill office last night. Since my initial stint was in the San Francisco office, and Chris is working in the Cambridge UK office, this was the first time we met in person. Much fun was had by all. The pictorial story under the fold:
After I picked Chris up from the airport and let him drop his stuff off at myplace, we went to my office in the wonderful La Vita Dolce, where Chris went wild with the camera taking pictures of me sitting at my table pretending to work:
Then we…
pharyngula | November 3, 2007My travels are done for a whole week now (according to my calendar, I'm going to have to go to Washington DC next week), and I'm very, very tired. I'll put up some of my thoughts on the Beyond Belief conference later (short summary: exhilarating!), but for now I'll acknowledge the wonderful time I had at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography. It was a big audience — much bigger than I expected — and they asked really sharp questions and tossed back a few important ideas on communicating science that I appreciated. Special thanks to my host, Miriam Goldstein.
I promised to mention the Three…
tlambert | November 2, 2007
I'm with Silas down at Coogee Beach. There's an alcohol ban in the
park behind the beach so the rummies hang out at the bus shelter next
to the park. There's a bench seat around the side of the shelter
where they can sit without getting in the way of the people waiting for
the bus. I'm walking by with Silas when one of them comes over to me
and she asks me a surprise question:
"How many pounds is six and a half kilos?"
I mentally divide 6.5 by 0.453 and answer:
"Ummm ... about fourteen pounds."
She's not happy with this answer. It seems she'd told the others that
she had a six and half…