Geekalicious
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.
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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 | August 7, 2008I never got around to reviewing Danica McKellar's first book, Math Doesn't Suck, and now she's got a second one out, Kiss My Math. You gotta love the title at least. I think she's got a whole franchise going here. Maybe by the time she puts out her calculus book I'll get my review of Math Doesn't Suck up on the blog.
Hat tip to Veronica for letting me know about this.
thusspakezuska | August 3, 2008I believe there was at least one of my readers who expressed an interest in attending this Saturday's ScienceBlogger meetup in New York City - Falyne? Still planning to attend? Maybe there are more of you and you just didn't speak up? I know there are many people who are primarily readers of other blogs who are planning to attend. Anyway, here are the details on the meetup:
We'll be meeting at 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 9, at the Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History in Central Park. Once there, please head to the cafe tables and chairs set by the trees on the…
thusspakezuska | July 22, 2008Planning to be in/around/near New York City on August 9, 2008? There's a reader-Scienceblogger meet-up event in the works, being planned even as you read this, probably for around 3 pm. We'd like to know whether you think you'll be in the area and likely to attend. If so, please leave a comment here. Seed promises a fun afternoon event in an air-conditioned joint, with snacks and swag. I'll be there. So will a bunch of other fab bloggers. Whaddya say????
thusspakezuska | July 5, 2008At my mother's assisted living home, the staff helped my mom and other residents put in a small garden in the spring. Onions, featured in the planting, are now being enjoyed by all. Mom says they are past that first delightful small green onion stage; the bulbs are getting bigger, and the tops thicker and stiffer. Which takes her back to childhood, and some creative onion engineering.
Image originally uploaded on 3/8/08 by Matter=Energy
Mom says when she was young, and the onions got to this point, they would cut off a top to use as a bubble blower. They would cut off the top end of…
thusspakezuska | June 23, 2008After my last post, Magetoo asks why do I blog? Poor Alison does not understand why I blog at all, being as I am so very bitter and angry, which I suppose we can classify under #8 in my newly numbered list of reasons why I shouldn't blog, with a dollop of #7 and #9.
Anyway, why not talk about why I do blog?
I will say first and foremost that I blame it all on my good friend Cindy, who nagged me incessantly until I finally agreed to begin blogging just about three years ago. (July 13 is the actual anniversary of the first "hello" post on the old site.) At the time, my friend had…
thusspakezuska | June 18, 2008I will admit that rap music has more than once caused me to mutter "These kids today! Their music is just noise! When I was young, our music had a melody!" Or something like that. You know, the stuff mom said when I was young. I won't even mention how the generous dose of misogyny that seems de rigeur in rap songs makes me feel.
And yet I confess to being delighted today when I was listening to NPR's Here and Now and heard this story about educational rap. (Scroll down for summary.) Rhythm Rhyme Results (their tag line is "the other three R's) brings together teachers, musicians,…
thusspakezuska | June 16, 2008Some time ago I posted info about the Seed lab photo contest. The deadline is long since past, but in the comments on my post I offered to post lab photos that you submitted but that didn't get selected. Barn Owl took me up on my offer. Here's her lab photo followed by her comments. That photo really takes me back to my tissue culture days.
Mine is a standard workspace for microdissecting groups of neurons from mouse or chicken embryos, to establish cell cultures; I've got a Zeiss stereomicroscope, with fiber optics illumination from above or below the stage. Everything sits in a…
thusspakezuska | May 11, 2008This is a bit of a late announcement, but I thought some of you might like to play. See full announcement here.
For the next issue, Seed editors want to see the typical or not-so-typical places where Scienceblogs readers do science.
For the chance to get your scientific work space featured in Seed, please send a photo of it to
art AT seedmediagroup DOT com
by Tuesday, May 13th at 5:00pm EST. Please write "Where I Do Science Photo Submission" in the subject line, and send as high a resolution image as you can. No people in the pictures, please. Please include with the photo:
Your Name…
thusspakezuska | March 7, 2008According to the Chronicle news blog, computer science enrollment is down by half since 2000.
...undergraduate enrollment in computer-science programs had fallen to half of what it was in 2000 (15,958 to 7,915, to be exact).
But according to Inside Higher Ed, the computer science major has rebounded!
For the first time since 2000, the number of newly declared undergraduate majors at doctoral-granting computer science departments is up.
They have a table that shows enrollment for the last 7 years. 2006 does look like the nadir, though it's a bit soon to tell if the 2007 number is the…
thusspakezuska | March 6, 2008Bora has posted an interview with me at A Blog Around the Clock. See here for all the interviews in the series. He keeps adding new ones so check back now and then.
Via the Chronicle news blog, I found this wonderful site with all of Audobon's paintings of North American birds. Bird lovers, rejoice! Thank you, University of Pittsburgh!
Again via the CNB, The Scientist has named names - the best places for postdocs to work. The Chronicle advises:
Read the fine print: Only 17 international institutions (and 82 in the United States) received five or more survey responses; the magazine did…
thusspakezuska | February 29, 2008Lab Lemming recently wrote to me:
However bad the situation here on Earth gets, at least there is another planet in the solar system where women scientists and engineers can work
and then directed me to this very heartening story on the Mars Exploration Rover tactical operations team. It seems that last Friday, every single person on the rather large team operating the rovers that day was a woman. Yay! Emily Lakdawalla, the author, tells us
Think about that. One, two, or a handful of women around could be explained away by the chauvinistic as token participants, the product of affirmative…
thusspakezuska | February 29, 2008There's been some quite lively blogging recently over at Abel Pharmboy's pad. Of particular note was the live-blogged vasectomy:
Anyway, as a medical blogger, I will try to liveblog the process from my Palm Treo 700p at the Hospital-That-Tobacco-Built. While I hope it will distract me and relieve some of my anxiety, I'd like to post it on blog as a public service to other men who want to be selfish and make their wives have tubal ligation after the mother of their children suffered through birth(s). (I've blogged on PharmGirl's complicated C-section experience and having my scrotum hacked…
thusspakezuska | February 21, 2008Yes, February 17-23 is this year's National Engineering Week! I'm a little late to the party, I know...I've been a little preoccupied. But today is Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day! There are events going on all over the U.S. even as we blog. But you know, you can do your own IAGTE activity at any time...it doesn't have to be today. And E-week has a list of 10 easy ways to get involved. Some of them are really easy, like #7: Donate copies of "Changing Our World: True Stories of Women Engineers" to local libraries or a high school guidance office. "Changing Our World" is a product…
thusspakezuska | January 17, 2008Just yesterday I posted information about a new resource on recruiting women and girls into information technology. Ironically, the same day American Public Media ran this story about Jean Bartik, one of the original "computers".
Yesterday in San Francisco, Apple released its new computer, the MacBook Air. The notebook has an eighty gigabyte hard drive, is a mere three quarters of an inch thick and weighs three pounds. Dick's guest today can certainly put that achievement into perspective. Jean Bartik's first job was as a "computer" - a human one. She went on to help program one of the…
thusspakezuska | November 1, 2007Something a little lighter after all that Watson-puke of recent days...
...The World's Fair's exceptional "I rank number one on google!" meme!!!!
I'd like to suggest a meme, where the premise is that you will attempt to find 5 statements, which if you were to type into google (preferably google.com, but we'll take the other country specific ones if need be), you'll find that you are returned with your blog as the number one hit...
To make it easier, we'll let you use a search statement enclosed in quotations - this is just to increase your chances of turning up as number one, but if you…
thusspakezuska | October 29, 2007Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily introduced today a new set of icons that will help readers identify blogging on peer-reviewed research. You can find the full announcement below the fold, including info on where to find the icons, how to use them, and how to find blog posts tagged with the icons.
We're pleased to announce that BPR3's Blogging on Peer Reviewed Research icons are now ready to go! Anyone can use these icons to show when they're making a serious post about peer-reviewed research, rather than just linking to a news article or press release.
Within a month, these blog posts will…
thusspakezuska | October 24, 2007Didn't you get something like this from your parents when you were younger?
"You kids don't know how easy you have it. When I was young, I had to walk to school! In the snow! Uphill! Both ways!"
Well, a bunch of us Sciencebloggers recently got to reminiscing about the good ol' days, when we were young, and computers were in their infancy, and we had to walk to school uphill both ways just to get our punch cards. And if you don't know what a punch card is, three whacks with a slide rule for you! And if you don't know what a slide rule is...ahhh...just go read all our little stories…