SteelyKid has extremely fine hair that doesn’t grow very quickly. While this leads many people to mistake her for a boy (that, and the fact that a lot of her play clothes are from the boys’ section at Target, because lots of girl-toddler outfits are ridiculously impractical), it does lend itself to spectacular bedhead: She’s […]
Month: March 2011
Your Problems Are Not Unique
Via Mad Mike, a discussion of why it sucks to be a biomedical scientist: 87% of my blog-related e-mail is from unhappy, bitter, troubled, distraught biomed grad students, postdocs, technicians, and early-career faculty. Others write to me with problems, but these tend to be of the “I’m frustrated with my advisor” sort rather than the […]
Links for 2011-03-31
COLUMN — American workers got what they deserved – Holland, MI – The Holland Sentinel “So you’re an American employee. Maybe you make car parts. Maybe you’re an engineer or designer. Maybe you’re an accountant, store clerk or tradesman. Whatever you do, you’re probably stupid or lazy. Yes, I wrote it, and I mean it. […]
Student Comments and Internet Reviews
I got my student comments from last term’s intro mechanics course yesterday, which is always a stressful moment. As tends to happen, they were all over the map, with some students really liking me and others absolutely hating me. It struck me while I was reading through the written comments that the experience is a […]
Links for 2011-03-30
No Cox please, we’re British… « In the Dark “The problem with Wonders of the Universe is betrayed by its title. The word “wonders” suggests that the Universe is wonder-ful, or even, in a word which has cropped up in the series a few times, “awesome”. No authentic British person would ever use the word […]
Links for 2011-03-29
Nascence at Tobias Buckell Online “New York Times Bestseller Tobias S. Buckell has published 45 short stories in various magazines and anthologies. But in the process of learning how to sell those 45, he wrote over 100 short stories that failed in a variety of ways while learning the craft. In Nascence, he reprints 17 […]
Links for 2011-03-28
Crankitude: A Quick Glossary. In the Pipeline: “I get probably more than my share of come-ons for various wonder-healing potions. For some reason, people see that I talk about drug discovery and think that I’m sure to be interested in homeopathic wonder water, magnetic healotronic belt buckles, or what have you. I am not. Well, […]
Trebuchets for Everybody!
Occasional commenter Evan Murphy emailed to bring my attention to Siege Toys, a new venture that aims to make desktop snap-together wooden trebuchets. Why? Because medieval siege warfare engines are awesome. They’re looking for funding via Kickstarter, so if you’ve ever wanted your very own trebuchet, go place a pre-order. And lest you think this […]
The Trouble With Three
I’m old enough to remember when the three-point shot was a new addition to college basketball, and it was not without controversy. It’s been part of the game for better than twenty years now, and you’ll still hear people talking about how it’s revolutionized the game, generally in a positive way. The case for this […]
Links for 2011-03-26
little chief honeybee.: Life’s Too Short for the Wrong Job One of the cleverest ad campaigns ever. (tags: advertising world pictures culture blogs)