I agree – most of my family back two generations went to the US – by the numbers, I’m actually one of the tiny Irish offshoot of a large American family. They weren’t imagining they would be coming back much or ever unless they prospered on arrival. Are we too squeamish these days? Wasn’t too long ago that things were considered worth the price of human lives – are only wars worth it now? Where are the rocket ship test pilots, for instance.

Would you take a one way ticket to Mars as a colony pioneer?

It’s interesting to read this paper on eye tracking: Measuring the Task-Evoked Pupillary Response with a Remote Eye Tracker. Klinger et al seem to have discovered that mental arithmetic could be vanishing.

There is a common argument that the only area of human endeavour which has had the least benefit of technology is education. I often wonder if that’s because we don’t necessarily want to save time or make education easier; the goal of teaching is as much teaching people how to learn as it is teaching them the content that they are learning.

The Pharyngula blog is a source of many interesting arguments and anecdotes about how life is in America for the godless. The main author there was expelled from the line by a cop/mall cop/guy with a badge pretending to be a cop. It’s worth reading the article though – there’s a punchline to the whole story that’s even funnier than decrying a conspiracy to deprive people of knowledge and then ejecting opponents.

Ok, so this is about 17 years too late. but I was just told :(

At least they got Aluminium right.

Growing up, I’d heard of something called Snow Sky — the sky has a very specific “I’m about to snow on you” look. As far as I’m concerned, it’s still a fairy tale, since my experience with snow remains limited. I am familiar with Fire Sky, however, and can identify it immediately. Even if I hadn’t previously heard about fires in the area.

The key is the light. The sun, kindly emitting EM radiation in every part of the spectrum (though most of that gets filtered out by the atmosphere), sheds light that changes in colo(u)r and intensity depending on where it is in the sky (which in turn depends on the time of day and year). Sunsets, when the sun’s light has to travel somewhat lengthways through the atmosphere to get to my curious eyes, cast the world in a distinct rose-orange colo(u)r. This effect is more pronounced in some sunsets than it is in others, but I have a strong memory of standing outside my house in Georgia, looking down the steps and over the driveway, marvel(l)ing at the rosy light.

This is similar to the light you see through Fire Sky. It’s not like the light on an overcast day; shadows are still distinct under Fire Sky. It’s very much like sunset light. Which is just plain weird when you see it on your way to lunch at a normal lunch time.

Fire Sky looks otherwise like a bad smog day. It smells completely different — there’s a very faint smell of burning and ash. If you do a lot of running around, you can feel the ash in your nose and throat the longer you’re outside. Very sensitive people will have eye problems. People with asthma will get sick.

Google has an impressive map of the San Diego County fires here. A friend of mine (graduated and now working in San Francisco) recently sent word that her family was evacuated on Sunday — their home is smack in the middle of the Witch Fire burn zone. (That’s the really big one, if you’re looking at the map. It’s apparently converging with another fire, and is only 1% contained right now.) About all I can do is gawk in horror and hope the Santa Ana winds die down before more is destroyed.

Edited to add: There’s a map of the LA county fires as well, if you want to see the ones that are closer to where the Wanderer and I live. It looks like most of ours have been contained. Yesterday the air was better, but today it’s kinda crappy again. Keep people in your thoughts; there’s still a lot of danger for many people in California.

[edit] my reposting didn’t work since it got all squashed up and illegible, so just follow this link instead: maths teacher comic

I presented my work to date at a group seminar and did not fail miserably. Independent parties report I did not say “um” during the course of the talk, indicating I might not be a completely useless presenter.

The bees are gone. Inspired by the veritable outpouring of support for the invaders (did I mention I was chased down the street?), I Googled up the names of a few people who do indeed relocate bees. I also considered placing an ad on Craigslist. (“Free bees. Come and get ‘em, just make sure you get them all.” I am not the first person to think of this.) The landlord acted before I could get this information to him, however, and I was greeted at the gate by a neatly swept pile of honeybee corpses. The hole in the wall they’d exploited has been sealed, and I can once again get my mail in peace.

I am coming to Ireland in June, landing for public display on the 19th. I have already spoken to uber and Doc Dev. about this; if anyone else knows anyone I can/should talk to about getting a science-related job in Ireland (anywhere, I’m not currently picky about regions), please let me know. (This includes anyone you know who might be looking to employ a scientist in the next couple years, not just you as a reader…though if you are, we should talk.) This is an information-gathering mission only. I will not be handing out CVs. I’m also holding off on talking to recruitment firms until I have a clearer picture of the employment landscape.

Mark 23 June (Midsummer’s Eve, for those of you keeping score at home) on your calendars. The Wanderer will be in Dublin, and he will want to see people. Times and places to be announced.

I’ve discovered Dr. Who (possibly the last geek in the known universe to show up at this particular party), and noted with no small amount of amusement that the largest Dr. Who fan club in the country is in my backyard. I’ve said it before, even while in the throes of vigorous hatred of this car-obsessed city, and I’ll say it again. No matter what you want to do in LA, you will be able to find a place to do it and someone else interested in it.

Those are all my tidbits for now. Stay tuned for sock pictures.

*Gilgamesh was a man, therefore I assume “Gilgamesh” is male. I am open to being corrected.

The best thing about it, though, is the first comment, which actually elicited that oh-so-attractive snort thing from me. At least we can still laugh in the face of tragedy.

*Ok, not really, but I’m hungry and I want to justify a little lunchtime surfing

The longer I stay here, the less abashed I am about my geek tendencies. Still, there are moments when it seems like I am still the geekiest thing around.

A couple other TAs asked me about the sock I was knitting last week, and it led into a general discussion of what I knit during lectures and why. One TA commented, “I’m always wondering if you guys are just knitting one big long thing that says ‘I’m bored’ or something.”

I smiled and said no, that’s not the case, but that I did consider designing a variant of this scarf that said something relevant in binary, despite the extreme geekiness of the concept. Candidate phrases include, “These kids are doomed,” “Now I know how not to make a Power Point Slide,” “I didn’t even understand that, why are we expecting the kids to get it?” and “I came to grad school and all I got was this lousy teaching experience.” If length became an issue, I’d probably just use “Linus Pauling.”

There was a pause.

“That is really geeky,” the TA agreed.

Is it so wrong that I still think it’s a really cool idea?