Sick Dude Day

Nothing that an Elmo shirt, a pacifier, and Jake and the Never Land Pirates can't fix.

The Pip has pinkeye. Again. This means he can’t go to day care for at least one day, which means I’m home with him for the morning, and Kate will tag in at lunchtime so I can go teach my class. This, in turn, means that you don’t get any substantive blogging today, because the… Continue reading Sick Dude Day

SteelyKid, Life Scientist

SteelyKid's precise internal structure, illustrated by SteelyKid/

It’s been a rough week, so here’s some cute-kid stuff. The “featured image” above is a giant picture from SteelyKid’s after-school day care, where they’re talking about bodies and bones. It’s a tracing of her outline, filled in with her drawings of bones, joints, a grinning skull, a brain, blood vessels, a spine, and what… Continue reading SteelyKid, Life Scientist

Supreme Leader of Quantumland

"We must move forward, not backward; upward, not forward; and always twirling, twirling, twirling towards the formation of an interference pattern from many single-particle detections!" (Photo by Ryan Lash)

The nice folks at TED have put up a giant Flickr set of pictures from last week’s event. I’m not sure it’s complete, but I happened to notice it this morning, and it already had several pictures of me in it, which is all I really care about. I particularly like the “featured image” above,… Continue reading Supreme Leader of Quantumland

TED@NYC Recap

Me speaking at TED@NYC.

On Monday afternoon, I walked into the TED offices in lower Manhattan just as Zak Ebrahim was starting his practice talk, a powerful story about being raised by a father who subscribed to an extreme form of Islam and eventually assassinated a rabbi and took part in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. And I… Continue reading TED@NYC Recap

SteelyKid: Junior Rock Star Scientist

SteelyKid playing with the rocks at the Schenectady Curling Club's open house.

I’m off to The City for TED@NYC on Tuesday, and while I might schedule something with the approximate text of my talk for Wednesday morning, more substantial blogging won’t resume until Thursday. But I don’t want to leave political post as the top thing on the blog, so here, have a cute kid picture. This… Continue reading SteelyKid: Junior Rock Star Scientist

On Corrective Incentives

SteelyKid’s kindergarten teacher is big on incentives and prizes– there are a number of reward bags that get sent home with kids who excel in some particular area. I’m not entirely sure what’s in these, because SteelyKid hasn’t gotten any yet. This isn’t because she misbehaves– from all reports, she’s very good– but she’s in… Continue reading On Corrective Incentives

The Adventure Begins

SteelyKid boarding the bus for her first day of kindergarten.

Every year since this blog started in 2002, I’ve marked September 11 with a moment of silence post, as acknowledgement that I don’t have anything to say that would be worth sharing with the Internet. This is the very first year that I’ve had any hesitation about it, because in addition to being a Very… Continue reading The Adventure Begins

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