The Edge Effect

Science Map

2007-06-07T07:20:00.000-05:00

I know I've been a bad blogger lately. Besides actually making progress on my dissertation, I've been busy running arbordog. Still, I know that is simply no excuse for slacking here on the edge.

So by way of apology I present to you something extremely cool. This is a schematic showing relationships between different fields of science based on the publication and citation of their papers in journals.

The map is mostly intuitive but I am a bit surprised that "Social Scientists Don't Do Chemistry." On the diagram there doesn't appear to be a single link between social sciences and chem, but there are links between ss and physics, maybe even quantum physics.

I spent last weekend in a very sciency lab with C who was doing all sorts of chemistry in pursuit of archaeological knowledge. Not that I understand any of it, but there are a number of archaeologists and biological anthropologists who have deep interests in chemistry. Likewise there seems to be little link between ss and biology.

Of course the unknown here is how papers were coded. It may be that journals with the chem-heavy anthro were not used or that they were not considered social sciences for some reason.

The other interesting thing mentioned in the article is the closeness of computer science and social science. Ain't that nice?

Get a Job

2007-04-30T18:23:00.000-05:00

Looks like I got one. Yay! More details after things are signed and official, but most of you probably already know that I've had a series of interviews for a temporary position. I finally got a tentative offer for it today.

Woo hoo!

Is It Just Me...

2007-04-30T10:59:00.000-05:00

Or is M-live the very worst website ever designed? Even Drudge is more efficient in organizing information.

You'd think the AA News could just set up its own website and leave M-live to be a state-wide community events calendar. I think if they hired the inventor of pop-up advertisements and partnered him with my grandmother who has never used the internet, they would still come up with a website that is easier to navigate than M-live.

Facetiously

2007-04-27T06:50:00.000-05:00

As promised, here is the complete list of words-of-the-day involving all vowels in alphabetic order:

abstemious

caesious

anemious

facetious

annelidous

I'll let you discover the definitions on your own. All fun words. I could actually see myself having application for anemious, facetious, and possibly annelidous and abstemious. I have a hard time though imagining how I will slip caesious into conversation.

Ward Park Planning Meeting

2007-04-26T10:25:00.000-05:00

If the A2 Dog Park issue is important to you don't forget that there is a community meeting tonight to discuss the possibility of an off-leash area at Ward Park.

7:00 PM
Ann Arbor Church of Christ

Abstemious

2007-04-23T09:19:00.000-05:00

You are probably aware that the word facetious includes all five vowels, each only once, and in alphabetical order. Some time ago I read or heard someone ask what other English word does this, and apparently facetiously doesn't count even though it also has 'y.'

Anyway, I never heard the answer to that question and it still bugs me from time to time. But this week the word of the day e-mail list that I belong to is doing this as a theme. All week! So there are at least five English words that fit these criteria, who knew?

This probably shouldn't excite me so much, but I feel like light has been thrown onto a long-time mystery. I'll share the other words later in the week.

abstemious (ab-STEE-mee-uhs) adjective

Sparing, especially in matters of eating and drinking.

[From Latin abstemius, from ab- (from) + temetum (liquor).]

Hey Look Over There

2007-04-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

It's a new blog about dog parks in Ann Arbor.

I'll post more details here later, but I've been in contact with the city and went to the Parks Advisory Commission meeting Tuesday to find out why things are moving so slowly.

The short story is that I was blown off by most of the committee members and the others expressed support, but none of them see any hope for an off-leash area this summer. The resources are available, but there is simply no will to move quickly.

The supportive members suggested that pressure from residents *might* help expedite things. So if you support the creation of a safe and legal off-leash area in Ann Arbor and you would like to see it happen this summer rather than maybe next winter, please contact the people listed over at arbordog. Tell them that you want action to be taken now so that we have this resource this summer. "Maybe next October" is not good enough.

[end rant]

Interview

2007-04-10T11:00:00.000-05:00

I had a phone interview yesterday for a temp assist prof job. I think it went pretty well, but I was way unprepared. It's been like 10 years since I had to interview for anything at all and doing it over the phone added a dimension of unpleasantness.

The faculty were all quite nice, but I could never tell if they were agreeing, getting bored, wanted to talk, whatever. I only ended up talking over them a couple of times.

The questions were pretty predictable I suppose, but I hadn't prepared for them. What exactly do I think a student should get out of an undergraduate education in anthropology? And what were my best and worst teaching moments?

It also turns out that the class they want me to teach is different than the one I was prepared to talk about. They just said "North American Indian Cultures" so I emphasized contemporary issues rather than a living relics approach. But they offer a contemporary issues course and really want someone to teach basically ethnohistory and government relations contact to early 20th century. That's ok, because I could also do that and had a few ideas at the top of my head.

So all in all I think I did fairly well. And I don't think the applicant pool for this one is too deep. That's the variable that will make the difference I suppose. They asked if I could visit campus some time soon so that's a good sign, but no definite dates or invitations yet.

Fingers crossed.

Look Ma...

2007-04-06T13:28:00.001-05:00

I'm in the news.

Reason Number 33,482...

2007-03-30T10:37:00.000-05:00

... dogs are better than cats.

Burrito News

2007-03-27T07:49:00.000-05:00

Two exciting bits of burrito-related gossip this week.

1) From the Ann Arbor News (M-Live link, sorry) - BTB (formerly Big Ten Burrito) has purchased the old Good Time Charley's building on South U. They will be converting the bottom floor into a BTB restaurant (apparently with real tables and everything!). The upstairs will be a 'Mexican Cantina.' Mmmmmmmmm..... Beer and burritos!

2) Last week I stopped at The Burrito Joint on Packard. All I can say is wow! I think it may actually be better than BTB. If for no other reason, The Burrito Joint has chorizo and BTB does not. Somehow I feel a little guilty about saying that, I guess since Big Ten was the first local mega-burrito stand. But I think I eat enough burritos to appreciate both. Especially since BTB will have a cantina on campus so it's not like I'm going to abandon them.

Life is goood.

UPDATE: I'm now told by a reliable source who appears to have read the article more carefully that 1) the BTB guys ARE buying Good Time Charlies, BUT 2) they are rehabbing the first floor to reopen as Good Time Charlie's under new management, AND 3) upstairs will be a cantina and burrito joint. Still good news, just different.

Uh oh

2007-03-21T15:22:00.000-05:00

The men's room at Kipke, where I'm working these days, has those automatic-flush urinals. A couple of times now I've gone in there and found... well... one wasn't flushed. That must mean that there is a Vampire working in my building; who else would be invisible to the urinal eye? And since I work regular business hours, it must be a daywalker.

Scary stuff.

When I Grow Up...

2007-03-07T19:39:00.000-05:00

During the course of procrastinating a couple of days ago I took one of those cheesy online IQ tests. The results were nothing special, but there were a few nuggets in the "full report." First under a section titled "Great Jobs For You" I found this -

Because of the way you process information, these are just some of the many careers in which you could excel:
Archaeologist
...

Odd enough, but it gets better. Under the description of my "intellectual type" comes this -

For example, if you were on an archaeological dig and discovered an object, you could probably use your deductive powers to figure out not only what the object was but also how it was used.

Glad somebody thinks so.

Science Made Stupd

2007-03-01T12:02:00.000-05:00

Someone sent me this link yesterday. Pretty funny stuff, especially the bits about Human Origins and the "controversey" surrounding teaching evolution.

http://www.besse.at/sms/smsintro.html

That is all.

(meta) Rejection

2007-02-22T13:51:00.000-05:00

I got another thin envelope today so I thought I'd try my hand at writing one.

Dear Search Committee Members,

I have received and thoroughly reviewed the rejection letter that you sent regarding my application for your advertised position of Associate Professor of Anthropology.

I have been impressed with the number and quality of rejection letters that I have received this year and the task of sifting through them has been quite humbling. Your letter was quite strong and I would like to accept all of the rejections that I receive. Unfortunately that is not possible and I have already filled my quota of rejection letters for this application cycle. Therefore it is with deep regret that I must accept the job of Associate Professor of Anthropology that you have advertised.

Please have your department administrator contact me as soon as possible so that we can negotiate compensation, starting date, and course load for my first term.

This should not be taken as a reflection of the quality of your rejection letter or of your department in general. All of the rejections that I received were quite strong and I wish you the best of luck in rejecting future candidates and in all of your future endeavors.

If you submitted any publications or additional materials with your rejection letter that you would like returned to you, please contact me as soon as possible and I will get those back to you as soon as possible.

Thank you sincerely,

Me
Associate Professor
Your University Department of Anthropology

Paczki!

2007-02-20T09:54:00.000-05:00

Don't forget that today's Mardi Gras. And that means PACZKI!

For the unitiated out there, a paczki (pronounced POONCH-ki) is a wonderful bite of Polish heaven. It's like a super thick jelly donut that Polish people make to use up the last of the fat and rich foods before Lent.

I picked up a few this morning at the Copernicus Deli here in Ann Arbor. It's a new Polish grocery, bakery, and deli in the South Main Market and it's quite good. This was my third visit. Previously I've gotten pate, smoked fish, and pierogis, all of which were quite tasty. Check it out when you get a chance.

Back in Kansas the Anglo settlers have a different tradition. They make pancakes to use up all the foods they aren't supposed to eat during lent. In Liberal they even have an international pancake race. Basically the runners (local women) carry a skillet with a pancake inside. As they run they have to flip the pancake in the air and catch it in the skillet. Simultaneous with the race in Liberal, Olney England is having its own Pancake race. At the end they compare the best times and declare a winner.

It looks like Liberal is on a winning streak, although the numbers I found are only up to date as of 2003. Keep your fingers crossed for my Kansas sisters.

Happy New Year! (and peni)

2007-02-18T20:39:00.000-05:00

Don't forget that today is Chinese New Year. Welcome to 4074, the year of the pig!

By way of celebration, I present to you a pig 'specimen' from the Icelandic Phallological Museum.

I had no idea that there was such a place. The world somehow seems more wonderful now.

Dimming Light

2007-02-18T19:47:00.000-05:00

'Tis the season for committees to make their decisions about jobs, fellowships, post-docs and various other forms of funding. The thin envelopes have started pouring in. I finally tabulated the official rejections that I've gotten and the picture is actually not that bad - you know, all things considered.

So:
This year I applied for 13 jobs and one post-doc.
Of those, I've gotten official rejections for five of the jobs.
I know who has been interviewed at four others (and I'm not one of them) so I can assume they are all negatory.
I don't have any official rejection letter for two, but I'm pretty confident that they're no-gos.
That leaves two jobs that are still on the table and the post-doc, all three of which I think are slim-but-real chances.

The light at the end of the tunnel is a little more dim, but at least it isn't a train. The three outstanding applications are the only three that were realistic from the start, so the light really isn't that much dimmer either.

Happy Darwin Day!

2007-02-12T10:39:00.000-05:00

Today is Charles Darwin's 198th birthday! So go celebrate.

I might recommend using this, rather than Valentine's Day, as the pretext for buying a nice dinner or some sexy lingerie. That way you can give a big 'Up Yours' to Hallmark holidays and still get to enjoy the day. Besides, what makes you hotter than common descent?

Grrrrrrrowl!

Or if you're more of a traditionalist, you could check out Flock of Dodos at the Detroit Science Center.

KC Explosion

2007-02-08T14:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday afternoon I was chatting with my friend Eric in Kansas (I was supposed to be finishing chapter 2) when he told me there was a massive explosion in Kansas City. It took a while before any news got posted on the web but his wife Jen, who works near downtown, took this picture from her office.

It was a chemical plant in the industrial area and I believe that there were few injuries, but I thought the picture was very cool so I'm sharing it with all of you. Enjoy.

Postscript - Jen tells me that the fire is still burning, but nearly out as of this morning.

Edit - Here are some better pictures of the smoke over downtown.

Friday Dog Blogging

2007-02-02T12:05:00.000-05:00

It's been a while, but dog blogging is a worthy tradition. So in the spirit of trying to get my sorry butt back on the blogging wagon I present to you the latest set of Charlie and Sadie photos (with a special guest appearance by Blue!). No Salpy photos in this mix so here's a shot of Salpy and Blue hanging out at the New Year's Eve Party.

Happy Kansas Day!

2007-01-29T08:56:00.000-05:00

I'm sure you didn't forget. Celebrate the birth of the state on January 29, 1861 however you see fit. I recommend wearing red and blue (Beak 'em Hawks!), eating some sunflower seeds, and watching a rerun of Miami Vice (Don Johnson's from Wichita y'know). The main thing is that you should avoid Wizard of Oz references at all costs.

Ask me today and I'll give you a fun fact about the Wheat State. Please be considerate of others and limit yourselves to one per customer.

Happy FSMas!

2006-12-16T12:50:00.000-05:00

We have a few lights up along our fence and around the windows, but nothing as classy as this display of noodly admiration.

Dangit

2006-11-30T08:42:00.000-05:00

Ok, sorry Bob.

I got my first spam comment today. Kind of a milestone so I'm sure you're as misty eyed as I am.

I decided to celebrate by clicking the little trash can icon at the bottom of the comment. When blogger asked me "are you sure you want to delete this comment forever?" I assumed it meant just that comment. Apparently it meant all comments on that thread.

So your long comment on the music list got caught in the crossfire Bob. Sorry about that. I really enjoyed it too and was kind of planning to follow up on it.

Oh well, I guess we both agree that there wasn't enough Yanni and Wierd Al on the list to be legitimate.
Edit: Now I see that your comment is back and the offending spam is gone like I wanted. Obviously I'm not a blogger virtuoso. Consider this thread an excercise in alternate universe theories.
Speaking of, we saw DejaVu last week and I enjoyed it more than I thought I would. Not great so maybe wait until it gets to the dollar show.

All-TIME 100

2006-11-29T08:32:00.000-05:00

The most recent issue of TIME Magazine includes their official list of "the greatest and most influential records ever."

It's a pretty good list with most of the albums you'd expect. I was particularly glad to see Nirvana's Nevermind in the group. For reasons that probably have as much to do with me as they do with the album itself, I was hugely moved by it. It really seemed revolutionary to me at the time and it was at least a harbinger of changing winds in popular music if not a driving influence.

I am happy to report that I have at least heard of most of the albums on the list (although there are a few mysteries for me), but I'm surprised by how few I actually own or know well. I'll have to start checking cds out of the library to see if there are things that I should add to my collection.

There are a few albums and artists that I am familiar with on a very general level and wouldn't have expected to show up here. PJ Harvey is one. I remember her having a single or two in the mid 90s, and I always thought she was kind of fun, but I really thought she was a flash in the grunge pan. Maybe I missed something in the haze of my late teen years, I'll have to check that one out again for sure.

My biggest disappointment is that the list only goes back to the 1950s and two out of the four albums in the 1950s are by Sinatra. Yes those are important, but if you want to talk about truly influential music I think there is a lot missing here. Just restricting ourselves to music that actually exists on records, there is a whole corpus of Depression-era (and earlier) folk music, the blues and gospel that bred Rock, Dance Hall, Two-Tone, and Reggae certainly had an impact, and what about the great showmen of the 1940s big bands? Some of this shows up on the list in later incarnations and they certainly picked important albums - I won't dispute the import of Bob Marley's Legend - but the list is skewed away from some real giants. e.g. Outkast and Oasis but no Billie Holiday or Jaco Pastorius (1970s I know, but as influential as any other).

Oh yeah, and there is no Pink Floyd. Music critics seem to fall into two camps: 'Pink Floyd is the only real music, all others are derivative' and 'Pink Floyd is derivative garbage and Stairway to Heaven is the worst song ever written.' I'm not sure I have a dog in that particular fight. I like Floyd well enough, but Stairway is a bit overhyped.

Thoughts?

CyArk 3D

2006-11-26T14:41:00.000-05:00

CyArk is a new web resource for distribution of spatial data from archaeological sites - an "open-access digital archive of international archaeological sites" according to the release I got. They've used conventional photography, mapping, and LIDAR (like RADAR with lasers) to put together comprehensive views and information on some World Heritage Sites.

The data is still being collected; most Heritage Sites are not yet available. Also, you'll notice that World Heritage Sites tend to involve monumental architecture and politically complex societies so it's a limited sample from the universe of sites. But lets face it, these are the sites you'd go looking for even if every documented site in the world were available.

Apparently there is also a "Professional Edition" of CyArk, presumably with more detailed information. Access to the Pro version requires a 'review of credentials.' I don't know if any old archaeologist could get that access for shiggles or if you would need some kind of relevant project. A yet higher level of access is called "Site Manager Edition." I'm guessing they aren't looking for those of us who manage completely buried sites without monumental architecture.

I haven't explored enough to find out if there is anything really useful for the everyday archaeologist, but there are some really cool images of a few sites. Plus one of the sites is Deadwood so it automatically gets points from me.

Let me know if you find anything cool.

Fuzzy Math and Birthday Fraud

2006-11-22T12:16:00.000-05:00

C believes that she is entitled to two birthdays per year. It seems that she was born right about midnight on November 21/22, 1979 [edit - she was born in 1978. oops.]. According to her birth certificate it was 11:59 PM Nov 21, but her father claims that it was actually 12:01 AM Nov 22.

Because 11/21 is the date on her birth certificate, it is the date on her driver's license and official documents. It's also the date she always tells people and the date that we celebrate. Of course she tries on Nov 22 to claim that today is really her birthday or even that she has two birthdays per year.

Birthday fraud - Simply Appalling.

I am not one to distribute cheer and celebration freely so I insist on mirth for only one 24 hour span each year.

This is causing some friction today. So if you run into C today and she tries to make you say happy birthday to her you should either refuse or you should congratulate her on her 56th birthday. After all, if she has two birthdays every year then she must age twice as fast as the rest of us.

Le Beaujolais Nouveau Est Arrive!

2006-11-19T21:44:00.000-05:00

A couple of weeks ago actually, but we just picked up our annual bottle today.

I still don't fully understand the Beaujolais Nouveau ritual, sometimes the wine is fine and other times it's nearly undrinkable. The ritual of it all is fun enough, sort of a harvest-time festival marking the first successful fermentation; as if drinking some young wine together means that the rest of the year's wines will be potable and the cycle can continue.

Or maybe it's just a marketing ploy by cynical vintners designed to sell stock quickly and draw people into an artificial buying frenzy? A French Hallmark holliday?

Anyway, Salut!

Workplace Hazards

2006-11-05T12:16:00.000-05:00

Why don't they issue cyanide capsules to grad students?

I mean, what if we were ever caught?

And By The Way

2006-10-26T09:55:00.000-05:00

How come blogger's spellcheck program doesn't recognize the word 'blog?'

Dood!

2006-10-24T19:45:00.000-05:00

My older, geekier, more Ann Arbor self...

In my front yard there is an old burned out PC sitting by the shed. Not a car on blocks.

This weekend a word - really a combination of words - popped into my head and I thought 'man that would make a cool blog name.' Not 'man that would be a bitchin band name,' a blog name.

The word by the way was collideoscope. Get it? Like 'collide' and 'kaleidoscope.' Get it?

...

Postscript - Like every bitchin band name I ever thought of, this blog name is taken. Oh well, live and learn.

Sinners In The Hands Of An Angry DJ

2006-10-19T10:07:00.000-05:00

So it's NPR pledge drive time again. Is it just me or do they seem more demanding and even downright scornful this time?

I was in Arkansas a couple of years ago during pledge drive time. It was really eye-opening to see how differently the pledge drive is handled in areas where the listenership is significantly lower.

As I drove from St Louis, to Fayetteville, to a family get together in southern Kansas, and back to StL, I heard the whole range of approaches. The common theme in Arkansas and southwest Missouri seemed to be to invoke Car Talk as often as possible. They kept saying things like "even if you only listen to Car Talk please support it." They must have listener data that says that it is by far their most popular show (and I imagine it is in Ann Arbor as well), but I found it odd that they would use that line even during news and afternoon talk shows. It was also surprising to hear how low their fund-raising goals were compared to big markets like St Louis or Ann Arbor.

I feel lucky to live somewhere with such a good NPR lineup. In other places where I spend time, you get Car Talk and one or two other weekend shows, but during the week it's usually just classical music and maybe Talk of the Nation or something in the evening. It makes me feel conflicted about where to send my very limited donation. C joined Michigan Radio in my name for my birthday this year, which is ideal since I listen to it constantly. But I sometimes wonder if we shouldn't send our money to the Nebraska Public Radio Network or some place where it is really needed.

I guess once we strike it rich from sales of our DVD case invention we can support as many stations as we want.

The More You Talk

2006-10-17T15:48:00.000-05:00

The less people listen.

Just sayin.

Employment

2006-10-16T20:44:00.000-05:00

Many of you know that I'm on the job market right now. This week I'm hoping to have all of my job letters out.

As it happens, this weekend I already got my first job offer. Yep, kinda early. The only catch is that it wasn't a job I had applied for. It was an offer from a guy who came out to give an estimate on trimming some of our trees. He said he could use some help at his tree-service.

Not exactly the kind of job I'm looking for, but I'm hoping that it's a good omen. Maybe I'm giving off the 'hire-me' vibe in a big way right now.

118

2006-10-12T18:44:00.000-05:00

That's how many steps there are in the parking garage at South U and Forrest. Don't know why I noticed that yesterday, but I did.

Flavors of Schadenfreude

2006-10-03T08:59:00.000-05:00

Here's my $0.02 on the congressional page scandal then I'll be done with it.

There is something truly satisfying about watching the GOP implode no matter what the reason. It is perhaps a bit sweeter that the self-appointed guardians of morality are paralyzed by a sex-related scandal. And I have to say that the media coverage I have seen so far seems to focus more on the fact that the pages involved were minors rather than the fact that they are male; I had not predicted that.

BUT... It is a little bit frustrating to see the death blow for the current election cycle coming from something so tangential to governance. My thoughts on the particular scandal are somewhat complicated. A man in his 50s trolling for teenagers is messed up. But from what I've read, all the boys involved are 16 or above which is age of consent in DC, so the purely legal questions may not be so clear. Any time that a subordinate-superior relationship involves sexual overtones it is improper. For a congresscritter, let alone one involved in child-protection legislation, to use his power to leverage a relationship with a young subordinate is definitely deserving of scandal and punishment. I really don't want to defend any of this.

What irks me is that the Republican party has been handling the legitimate business of government with a deadly combination of incompetence and malice for the past six years. I frankly don't think it's hyperbole to say that the GOP agenda has actively undermined the liberties that the US constitution protects and which make this such a special country. Their party has really been hijacked by some radical elements and become a caricature.

Yet, none of the rapidly compounding evidence to this effect has had much impact. Yes the GOP was in jeopardy of losing congressional majorities in the midterms, but it was still a close call and they were wielding great legislative power just last week. Compared to all of this, Foley's behavior and the House leadership's coverup deserve scorn but seem relatively inconsequential.

If a representative being a lecherous old creep and the House leadership covering it up are what finally bring the reign of error to an end, will they or the nation learn anything? In the 2008 election cycle the narrative will be 'the GOP were a legislative juggernaut until the weakness of one congressman's flesh created a media scandal. Otherwise they were a perfectly legitimate governing body.' I guess somehow it would help my faith in humanity to see people rightly outraged about the Foley scandal, but at least as upset about the erosion of principles of justice that have been with us since the Magna Carta.

Note: As a kid I was both an alter boy and a congressional page at the state level (a much shorter term than the federal pages), but somehow I managed to avoid ever being molested. Am I stinky?

Home Sweet Home

2006-10-01T11:07:00.000-05:00

So the other day I was surfing around Google Maps with Margaret looking at our home towns, college campuses, etc. When I was panning between the depleted uranium dump across the street from my elementary school over to my high school, I noticed an odd pattern in the grass (push the "satellite" button after you click the link or you'll just see the map).

I have to believe that there are more spots like this on Google Maps and I imagine that this was done for the benefit of people on the highway rather than the Google Satellite Cam. Would there even be any way to know when your field was likely to be photographed? I can't really say I'm that surprised.

Cake and Funny Hats?

2006-09-29T08:28:00.000-05:00

Happy Birthday to Confucius. This is the big number 2,577!

What a Deal

2006-09-27T17:43:00.000-05:00

I normally wouldn't post something like this, but this is a great deal that some of you folks can probably appreciate. CompUSA has a 400Gb SATA hard drive on sale right now for about $100. That's with no mail in rebate, coupon, or any other hassle. 25 cents/gig is hard to beat, especially SATA.

They Follow Me Everywhere

2006-09-26T09:16:00.000-05:00

You may have already noticed this, but it is now clear that the Republican challenger to Jennifer Granholm for governor, Dick DeVos, is an advocate of teaching creationism in public schools.

After the Ohio State School Board trial, there was quite a bit of talk that Michigan would be the next battleground state. Supposedly there were activists on the ground at a local level to start trying to bring individual school districts back to the Dark Ages. I don't know if DeVos is specifically related to this effort, the Discovery Institute, or any other anti-science organization, but he is clearly sympathetic.

I don't think either of my readers is a likely DeVos voter, but it's a point worth making clear. Many of us have family and friends who are inclined to vote R on economic reasons, but who might be shy of this particular wing of that party.

*Thanks once again to RedStateRabble for the link

Back in Business

2006-09-24T22:07:00.000-05:00

Yay! I finally got my laptop back. Three and a half weeks was a LONG time to go without it, I seriously think it's like an addiction. It really kept me anxious, affected my sleep and everything. Although I did get used to having everything on a little portable hard drive. I could see the attraction to having desktop workstations at home and work and just backing up to the web or carrying a storage device around. Of course then those would be the only places you could work.

Anyway, as nice as it is to have the laptop back, it came back with something of a curse. It seems like every computer I touch crashes. Actually everything else I touch seems to malfunction these days. Hopefully this won't last long.

Back to normal blogging this week!

Computer Woes

2006-08-25T13:44:00.000-05:00

Ugh!

Now it's my laptop.

The power cord has been touchy for the past week or so. I was hoping that it was just the cord itself so I could replace it easily. Today the problem got too bad to ignore so I went to CompUSA where I originally bought the machine.

Unfortunately it is the connector on the computer itself that has come loose. They replace the whole motherboard rather than risking damage by soldering it back into place. Not only that, but since it's still under the first year warranty, they have to send it back to the manufacturer for service. That'll take about 2.5 weeks which is about 1.5 less than I expected so that's a plus.

So I'm spending today backing up my hard drive to be sure I have a few things to work on for the next couple of weeks and also in case something terrible happens in this process and the drive gets wiped or damaged. I wanted to just pull the drive and use it in an external enclosure for the coming weeks, but the tech guy says that would void the warranty even if he pulled it. I guess they aren't allowed to do anything to the machines that are on the first year and they have to send the entire package back to the company.

Quelle bummer! I guess it could be worse, but this stinks.

Success At Last!

2006-08-23T23:27:00.000-05:00

Yay!

With a LOT of tech support and a house call from Dr. Bob the new computer is finally up and running. I had to buy a new power supply for quite a bit more than I expected, the TV adaptor isn't initializing properly, and the CPU fan has a noisy bearing, but other than that it's all good.

Yay Bob, many thanks! Yay!

I hereby crown Bob King of all computer stuff.

Gazillions

2006-08-23T23:03:00.000-05:00

Ok, I've come up with a new idea to make my gazillions. This one is really good and I think it's going to revolutionize an entire industry.

DVD cases.

Think of it. You check out a couple of DVDs, lose the receipt, watch one, then a few days pass. You want to watch the next one, but can't remember when it's due. D'oh! Should you renew it or can you just hang on to it for a couple of more days?

Wouldn't it be nice if your DVD had a sticker or some sort of stamp stating which day it was due? Sort of like the stamp in the front of books from the library. But if you were to stamp every DVD every time, you'd end up with an ugly stack of stickers. And the little library slip would rip off easily.

The answer seems to be some sort of resettable indicator on the DVD case itself. The DVD cases are already fairly complicated since they have those plastic locks that have to be released by the special machine before you can open them. So my plan is to create a new unlocking machine that includes an extra key that reaches into a slot on the case and sets a tab or dial or something into one of seven positions marked to represent the days of the week.

The unlocking/date-marking machine could either be set manually each morning by the video store staff or it could be on a timer to click over automatically each day.

Surely there are better, slicker, more hi-tech solutions, but this one seems quite simple and inexpensive. Not to mention effective. I'd certainly get use out of it.

I'm willing to sell the rights to this idea and even to collaborate in the design and marketing. Just make me an offer. I should be raking in the dough within the next couple of months I expect.

Point of View

2006-08-19T22:15:00.000-05:00

You may have already seen this, but it deserves a link anyhow. A view of the New York Times through your right eye only.

Documentation

2006-08-16T23:34:00.000-05:00

I've finally made an album of photos taken while working on the new house. My plan had been to document the entire project in photos so there would be a satisfying 'before and after' album. Of course once I got into the frustrating, nasty parts I mostly quit taking pictures. That and my battery charger was packed.

So you'll see that there are photos of the house from before we bought it (those are the ones where there is snow on the ground and the house is clean), then there are pictures of the first few major jobs I undertook. These include fixing the gas line to the dryer and building the fence. Then there is a great leap from the fence to the nearly finished master bedroom.

I wish I had taken better before pictures of the bedroom. If you look closely, you may be able to figure which before pictures match the yellow after pictures. It was two bedrooms with closets in between. I hired a well-recommended contractor to remove the wall and rough in a new closet at the back. After that though, my good friend Eric and I did all the drywall, electrical, etc. Once C got back we put in the parquet floor and painted. Since then we have put up closet doors, track lighting, and a few other finishing touches. Not finished yet, but getting there.

There are also some pictures showing just how much of a sty I am capable of living in. When I was moving/working and there wasn't much call to be tidy I wasn't. So please excuse the extreme mess in some of these and absolve C of responsibility for said messes.

Hopefully I can update this with more final photos soon, then we can have a bbq so those of you in the listening area can come and see for yourselves. Or you could just drop by any time you feel like it.

Anyway, here's the link. Enjoy!

XP PSA

2006-08-16T16:50:00.000-05:00

I imagine most affected parties already realize this, but you should if you don't. All UofM students are eligible to buy a copy of Windows XP Pro from the Computer Showcase in the basement of the Union for around $14.

Unfortunately you can only get one, even if you have been a student for multiple degrees or in multiple programs. But this is such a deep discount that everybody should take advantage and give it to a family member, keep it for later, or sell it for a tidy profit.

Most of the deals at the Computer Showcase aren't that great, but this one seems worth advertising.

That is all.

New Computer and Credit Card Strangeness

2006-08-14T20:10:00.000-05:00

Excitement first. I ordered components for a new Home Theater PC today. We've been using an ancient HP as our media system for a while now and this last move was just a bit too much for it.

I'm pretty excited about the new one. Partially because it'll be good to have a new HTPC, but also because it'll be the first time I've tried to build one ground-up. Should be pretty sweet.

So here's the case.

It's a nice little cube that should be way less obtrusive than our current tower. There were a couple of others that looked slicker, but for the price, this one came with the best power supply and organization.

We'll set it up with a cheap-o Celeron processor and various parts of our old computer and should have a nice HTPC for a very reasonable price. Hopefully I can post a report on the building process at the end of the week. But given the way some of the house remodeling projects have gone,it may not be web-worthy.

On a related topic... I ordered all these components on line from a website that I've used in the past with a credit card that I've used in the past. When I tried to confirm my order though, I kept getting a 'declined' message. Having recently moved I thought maybe my address hadn't caught up yet. So I tried to change it back to the old one. No luck.

As I was changing it back I got a call. It was the credit card company checking in because they had seen an unusual charge attempt on my card. It was the transaction that I was in the middle of right then. Kind of freaky. She 'reset' my account and I was able to check out before hanging up the phone.

It's nice to know they're looking out for fraud. On the other hand it strikes me as a little odd that you have to sit on hold for three hours to discuss a billing error, but there is a live human watching my credit card activities in real time who can get through to my cell phone quickly enough to help me complete the transaction.

And for such an on-the-ball outfit, it strikes me as odd that I didn't have to verify my identity to the credit card company. She just called, said "we see something strange," I said "Yep, I'm doing that," and all was well. If someone had stolen my wallet and phone, they could easily have gotten by.

Anyway, I guess if someone steals my wallet and phone, I'm screwed.

And that, kids, is today's lesson.

Uh... Hi

2006-08-14T09:39:00.000-05:00

Ok, so I haven't posted much (anything) lately. I know, I'm a great slacker. I could give all the normal excuses about being consumed by remodeling a house, having my wife return to town, trying to catch up to a reasonable place on my dissertation, etc. But you probably know that and you don't really care.

I've got a few things to post about this week, but I don't feel like putting any energy into it this AM. Also, the Haloscan problem is still not completely fixed (sorry Bob), but I think it's partially fixed. Now instead of seeing a Haloscan link on direct link pages you should just see no comment link. Maybe?

So I'll try to get things rolling again with a cop-out post. Pharyngula today links to a paper refuting the "Evidence-Based Movement" in medicine.

This seems like a useful little tool for finishing a dissertation early. It's really the data and evidence part that's slowing me down. I mean I already know the basic argument that I want to make. Plus if I were freed from the constraints of evidence I could probably come up with some pretty cool nuances to add.

I think I'll take this to my advisor this week and ask if I can just replace all my data analyses with this reference. Some of you know him, what do you think his reaction will be?

Niche Marketing to the Deceased Geek

2006-06-28T13:55:00.000-05:00

Today at lunch Christina and I came up with a brilliant plan that is going to make us gazillionaires that the rest of you will resent and hate with the envy of a thousand green-burning suns.

Yeah, I'm in St Louis right now hanging out with Christina, it's quite nice. But back to the story...

Among other things, we were talking about the ethics of burial archaeology and donating bodies to science. It came up that we are both planning to donate our bodies, but they are unlikely to be used by archaeologists. Beyond that, the kinds of data that archaeologists want to get from burials can't really be produced by any number of donated bodies.

That's when it hit me. Set up a special cemetery and mortuary company specifically for people who would like to donate their bodies for future study. It would certainly be a niche market, but the possibilities are nearly endless. The entire cemetery would be maintained specifically for archaeologists (and students in related fields) to excavate in the future. No legal problems and no ethical qualms because the interred people would have signed waivers and statements of understanding.

For a nominal management fee, a person donating herself to the project would make any number of choices including how long they should remain buried, special embalming treatments to selectively preserve types of tissue, special treatments to reproduce prehistoric techniques, presence of grave goods, depth and soil conditions around interment, what type of study they would like to be exhumed for, etc ad infinitum.

In addition, each body would leave behind an extensive file documenting physical condition, lifestyle, injuries, cause of death, and extremely detailed life-histories.

This certainly doesn't replace the data that archaeologists like to gather from prehistoric burials, but it would have some applications. Taphonomic studies would certainly be the most likely, but with some creativity other questions may be answerable through this project. In one to five hundred years, there may well be questions about bodies exhumed from 20th century cemeteries. My cemetery would provide an ideal control. In other cases, archaeologically known burials may be reproduced in the 21st century and excavated in the 23rd in order to test our understandings of how they were made.

Probably the main advantage in a half millennium will be that the various nationalities, ethnic groups, and other social segments represented in our current society will be distant memories. Excavating standard burials of these folks may still be taboo, but my cemetery project will undoubtedly include many people buried exactly as they would have been in any other cemetery. Having left explicit instructions that they don't mind being exhumed by archaeologists though, the 25th century scientists will finally be able to excavate the kinds of burials that intrigue them.

Surely this plan still has some kinks to work out. Heck I haven't even come up with a snappy name yet. But I think it's sure to take off as a big thing. In fact, I'd be quite surprised if in addition to the gazillions of dollars this makes me I don't also get some medals and awards for being so brilliant.

Since you guys are my friends and loyal colleagues, I'll let you in on the action. I'll hold an IPO later in the month and you all can bid for part of the action. I suppose I'll start somewhere around $5000 per share of the business with around 100,000 shares available. That's a real steal in 2006 dollars and it'll get you in on the ground floor before this thing takes off.

If you want to get a head start, you can go ahead and send me a box of cash or wire it to my paypal account.

Turkey Hunting

2006-06-22T12:06:00.000-05:00

I hate to brag (sort of), but I'm feeling pretty self-satisfied right now. Bowling last night was a huge success.

I had three games in the 130s which was quite nice, but not overwhelming. Then in game four, I finally joined the Turkey Club. I was a probationary member before, because I had gotten a turkey but it was with a different group and nobody on the usual team witnessed it.

Frank was there last night so now it's official. Not only did I get my first sanctioned three-striker, but I went on to bowl a fourth consecutive strike. I also had several other strikes and spares in the fourth game bringing my final score to 222!

Make no mistake, this was a total fluke, that's nearly 60 above my previous personal best. But that doesn't mean I'm going to sit back and not pretend that it represents my skills. I really think the key was that I was a little buzzed and they finally switched the music from Brittany Spears to real rock n roll for the last game. Now if we could just get them to play good music every night...

By the way: The picture is apparently a turkey-shaped Jell-O mold on a bed of pomegranate seeds. Mmmmm..

Eleven Bones

2006-06-20T12:11:00.000-05:00

For maximum cuteness check out today's Daily Puppy. The Colonel is so cute it makes me want to type baby talk.

King of Handymen

2006-06-18T21:03:00.000-05:00

I haven't been posting much lately since I'm spending most of my spare time at the new house. There's a ton of work to do down there and I'd like to get most of it out of the way before we have to move out of the apartment on July 31.

One of my big projects lately has been to get the laundry machines installed. The washer was no trouble, but the dryer was a huge problem. First, the existing connection was just a 3/8" copper tube coming out of the floor with a valve at the end. It turns out that copper tube isn't code for a dryer hook up since it kinks easily when moved and will easily rupture creating a gas leak.

Yeah, I found that out the hard way.

Since the "crawl space" at the house is only about 18" high under the laundry, I had to cut a big hole in the floor to get to the tube under the floor. Big thanks to Patrick for loaning me a reciprocating saw, it's really an awesome tool.

Anyway, after a week of playing learning by trial and using fittings that I hadn't ever seen before, I finally got a code-approved gas service installed behind the dryer.

Of course, in the process I had disconnected the pipe that goes from the back of the machine into its burner. So it was time for open-dryer surgery. Luckily in a past life I worked in a maintenance shop where I worked on large appliances pretty regularly, so this wasn't a huge problem.

This week I finally got the dryer all put back together and gave it a whirl. Sadly there was no heat. So I once again dismantled the dryer, took apart all the guts, and basically performed a dryer tune-up. I did find one bad electrical connection, but it shouldn't have made a difference.

So I put it all back together and... nothing. Dammit!

As I was getting ready to dismantle the dryer once again and considering throwing it away and buying a new one I noticed something odd. It seems that the cycle I was using to test the dryer was not "Timed Dry" as I had originally though - it was in the same place on the dial as timed dry on our old dryer. It was in fact "Timed Fluff," which if you read the fine print means "no heat."

D'oh!!!

So it turns out that the dryer works great and all the connections are fine. It was just a matter of not paying attention. For this I think I deserve a special crown or something. At least a merit badge.

I think the real key was that I finally broke down yesterday and did laundry at the laundromat after putting it off for over a month hoping to do it at the new house.

The Situation

2006-06-07T18:52:00.000-05:00

I'm glad the dog park is finally a probably-maybe-definitely-kinda-sure-thing, but c'mon another meeting?! The Ann Arbor dog community has been trying to get a park for a decade now. It's just a few hundred feet of chain link fence and a couple of trash cans. It really shouldn't be that hard.

In fact, I suspect that there are more dogs in Ann Arbor than there are people who play tennis regularly. That - plus the fact that people will use a dog park on all but the most terrible weather days but a tennis court is only usable about eight months out of the year in Michigan - suggests to me that dog parks should be at least as highly prioritized as tennis courts.

Yet according to the Ann Arbor City Pros Plan, the City maintains the following Park facilities:

Parks	146
Acres	1918
Turf acres	564
Buildings	48
Ball Diamonds	82
Tennis Courts	63
Playground areas	70
Picnic Areas	53
Swimming Pools	4
Artificial Ice Rinks	2
18-hole Golf Courses	2
Hiking/Nature Trails	Many
Canoe Liveries	2

Total facilities for dogs = 0
Fine for off-leash dog on public property - up to $500/dog

None of this is intended as a slight against tennis players or any other non-dog activity. My point is simply that a very large portion of the city wants facilities that are relatively inexpensive to build and maintain, fairly small for a city with so much parkland, and add value to neighborhoods.

If there were a contingent of jai-alai or cricket players the size of the dog contingent, it would make sense for the city to put a little money into those facilities. In fact, I know a group plays cricket informally at Pioneer High School, but they don't incur $500 fines and possible death by organizing informal games on unused baseball fields or parking lots.

Playing Frisbee with Sadie should NOT be a crime!

At Last!

2006-06-07T18:25:00.000-05:00

The Ann Arbor News ran a front page story yesterday proclaiming: At Last, a Dog Park for Ann Arbor. Yes indeed, it looks like Ann Arbor is finally going to catch up with cities like Saline, University City Missouri, and Beatrice Nebraska and become dog-friendly.

But first there has to be yet another meeting about this. It is tomorrow evening at 7:00 PM at Bryant School, please come if you want to support the Dog Park.

Dog Park Meeting
Thursday June 8
7:00 PM
Bryant School

PB Baby!

2006-06-01T21:34:00.000-05:00

Wednesday night is bowling night in my little world. Last night was kind of a disappointment since only one other person showed up, but it was a good night for my game. I bowled a 166 in our third game. That's a new personal best for me, and not by just a little bit. I had previously bowled 155 several times but couldn't seem to break it.

So yeah, I'm feeling good about my skills today.

The True Story of My Big Head

2006-05-29T12:31:00.000-05:00

A while back we were talking about big heads. It seems that quite a few members of the Ann Arbor blogosphere either have or have been accused of having large heads. At the time I promised to share my story in the future, and being a man of great honor, I now make good on that promise.

This is a story that you will hear if you spend much time with Christina or my best friend from childhood, Eric. They believe it as gospel, but tell an apocryphal version, so allow me to share the real story:

In Junior High I played football. I know, how impressive. In a small town Junior High, pretty much everybody gets a chance to play if he wants to. I was a lineman, usually center if you're curious. No real skills, but kind of pudgy.

Anyway, during the first week of practice, we had pads and helmets assigned. This was done in alphabetic order. We all lined up by last name and one at a time went from station to station where a leathery old coach would fit us with plastic armor and record a series of numbers.

It just so happens that my hat size is about 7 1/4. That isn't small, but not at all out of the ordinary. In fact, it's so common that it was the same hat size as the kid directly in front of me - a Pa__ name, where mine is a Pu__ name. Again, being a small town Junior High in rural Kansas, there wasn't a huge budget for athletic equipment. Yes, it was probably comparable to the budgets for art, music, and theater combined, but it still wasn't huge.

So this kid, B.P., got the last 7 1/4 and there wasn't anything that fit on my noggin without slipping around and covering my eyes. The only thing to do was to send off to the High School football team for a 7 1/4 helmet. This actually worked out quite well for me since the High Schoolers had better equipment and I got a white helmet so school colors weren't an issue.

Now if you ask Christina or Eric, they'll tell you that my head was so big that they had to send off to the HS, because Junior High kids just don't have heads as big as mine. Disregard what they say. I don't care that Eric's dad was one of the coaches, he is still wrong. My head is perfectly normal, only exceptional in its beauty and the quality of gray-matter it contains.

Next up, the story of the turtle that DID NOT attack my pre-pubescent manhood.

Peachy

2006-05-29T09:58:00.000-05:00

I've had a nasty cold for the past couple of days. It actually started while I was in Illinois visiting Christina (nice how things work out like that, huh?), but it hit peak cruddy-feeling yesterday. Being the smart human that I am, I figured that I would mow the lawn and do some yard work at the new house rather than rest and get well.

Anyway, part of that yardwork involved going to the Produce Station to get some bedding plants. While I was there I bought two peaches, a white one and a regular (yellow?) one. The white one was unfortunately green, but the yellow one was fantastic! Maybe it's because I'm only eating the food in our apartment right now so I haven't had a fresh fruit or veggie for weeks. But even the hard, green peach had a wonderful summertime taste to it. Mmmmm.... It's that taste that reminds me of being a kid with my friends, running around in the grass and woods all summer, eating random things that we found in other people's gardens, growing on trees, or that my parents had picked from their garden.

It was really invigorating and seemed appropriate for Memorial Day weekend. It's really summer now. Go have a peach!

Big Burritos

2006-05-21T17:09:00.000-05:00

So it looks like Big 10 Burrito has a new location in Ann Arbor. Yes, it's true! And the best part is that it's on Packard, right around the corner from our new place. That certainly won't be good for my waistline.

E-Mail

2006-05-20T13:38:00.000-05:00

Who knows what's going on with the UM e-mail server? I haven't been able to connect all day. The UM system seems to crash pretty frequently, but they usually get it back up within a couple of hours. Quelle Frustration!

Friday Dog Blogging

2006-05-19T19:11:00.000-05:00

The weather has finally gotten nice, and Saline has opened a temporary dog park. Yippee. I don't have any pictures of the mutts playing in Saline, so here are a couple of them outside last summer. Enjoy!

New Digs!

2006-05-15T18:41:00.000-05:00

We finally closed on our new house today. Yay! There's quite a bit of work to do before we actually move in, but it's nice to have all the legalities finished for now. I see many Bar-B-Qs in the near future.

Ash Fall

2006-05-13T21:02:00.000-05:00

Among other things, Afarensis notes that the Ash Fall fossil beds have been named a National Natural Landmark. Ash Fall is near Neligh (pronounced "NEE-lee"), Nebraska. That's only about an hour away from my dissertation site so it's a nice place to take students for a short daytrip. It's also a very cool fossil bed in a gorgeous mixed-grass prairie setting.

Afarensis inspired me to post some photos that I took there in summer 2004. I was more interested in the landscape than the fossils so check out the original post for more links about actual paleontology stuff.

Friday Dog Blogging

2006-05-12T13:46:00.000-05:00

I haven't been great about dog blogging every Friday, and for that there is no excuse. So today I offer two pictures. The pups are a bit restless these days because they are latch-key dogs with a working single parent (temporarily until C is done playing mad scientist in Illinois, don't worry). I didn't want to take pictures in the appartment since it looks like a bachelor pad right now, so here they are sitting in the wet grass out back. Enjoy!

Whereas Beer is Good

2006-05-11T22:04:00.000-05:00

The latest Ann Arbor blog that I have discovered is Suds & Soliloquies. Aside from having his priorities straight (i.e. suds come before soliloquies), Dave also notes that the US House of Representatives has designated next week as American Craft Beer Week. Somehow this restores a little of my faith in the House. Well that and the fact that Tom DeLay has officially announced his resignation.

Anyway, be sure to drink your fill all week from May 15-21. Anything else would be unAmerican!

*Addendum - I also noticed Beer-In-Government over at Nasa. Check out Suds In Space for the best-yet justification for the space program. There's beer out there!

Clitical

2006-05-11T21:37:00.000-05:00

You may have noticed that the "About Me" section of this webpage refers to cliticizations. One of my many, many readers (two "many"s ~ 2) e-mailed today to ask exactly what is a cliticization. In the interests of public education I thought I'd share my response with the rest of you. It follows:

Well, it's er... maybe nothing. Technically a clitic or clitical is an independent morpheme in speech like the "n't" in "don't" It has no meaning on it's own, but a distinct linguistic role in combination with other words. Some clitics, especially articles, are real words on their own, but they are pronounced as a single word like "an apple" is pronounced "anapple." I think cliticization therefore is the process of mushing the words together.

When I was putting my blog together, I was searching google for pictures of forestry edge effects. I saw a page talking about linguistic edge effects which were basically just a different way to talk about cliticization. Of course being of high-academic mind, the word "clitic" seemed dirty to me. I was also at the time under the mistaken impression that junk words like "um" and "like" were clitical, hence the line in my "about me" profile. In fact, the way I have it written, with commas around the "um", completely decliticizes it. I'd like to claim that there is an irony there that I was shooting for, but in fact I just misunderstood what I was trying to get across.

So there you have it.

*Thanks to Bobby Squidhead for the inspiration to post this!

Family Jewels

2006-05-06T19:58:00.000-05:00

From Stochastic, the newest addition to Science Blogs, we learn that King Tut's penis has been re-discovered. Unfortunately the original article from Discover.com has been taken offline, but the gist of the text is preserved at Stochastic.

Does it make me a bad archaeologist that I didn't even realize that Tut's little Titan was missing? Well, I ask how many of you - especially other archaeologists - had any idea about this.

As it turns out a set of X-rays taken in the 1960s failed to show the pharaonic unit, leading to the belief that it had been taken. However a new set of CT scans show that the mummified monarch was not necro-neutered after all.

I'm no radiologist, but I would have suspected that the lack of a bacullum in H sapiens would make it difficult to identify mummified manhood with an X-ray.

Natural Laws

2006-05-06T15:29:00.000-05:00

The Edge Effect is proud to present our first law of auto repair -

The likelihood that any part of an automobile engine will fail is directly proportional to the difficulty of accessing and servicing that part.

The primary practical application of this principle is in the field of diagnosis. If a car should need service, but the problem is not immediately obvious, simply crawl under the car and find the part that is wedged between the oil pan, transmission, and transfer case such that it cannot be serviced without removing at least one of those major pieces. In a bit of empirical research this weekend, I discovered that it is the starter in the case of the 2001 Ford Ranger.

comments issue

2006-05-05T14:33:00.000-05:00

In my never-ending quest to futz things up around here, I seem to have done something strange to the comments. I was informed by Bob the Grand earlier that when viewing a post in it's own window (you know, like when you click on the little date-time stamp thingy at the bottom), the comments link still points to Haloscan. Grrrr. I never should have started messing around with that in the first place. I'll see what I can do to fix it, but be aware in the mantime.

dp

Pontifical Prophylactics

2006-05-05T13:40:00.000-05:00

Although I have strayed from the Catholic church, I still have a good deal of respect for it on many counts. Yeah, I know it isn't perfect and it would be an understatement to say I don't care for the new pope. But having so many serious Catholics in my family (three of my aunts are or were nuns), I can see an awful lot of good in the Church. Especially in historical perspective. Traditionally, the Vatican has held very strong positions for social justice, especially concerning poverty and peace. In the past decade, they seem to have thrown the white dove under the bus in order to pursue their strict pro-life and anti-gay agenda, needless to say this is a big part of the reason I don't identify as Catholic anymore.

So this week I saw a link to a story about the Vatican potentially OKing condoms. It isn't the great stride toward a more reasonable agenda that I was hoping for, but this article is a really interesting read. Apparently condoms will be OK only in the very specific circumstance of a married couple, one of whom already has AIDS.

I can't really congratulate the Church for it's moral clarity on this one, denying the legitimacy of condoms in this case would be truly draconian. And draconian aptly describes the Catholic policy on condoms for the past quarter of a century. While AIDS was ravaging developing nations (and developed ones too), the Church refused to promote barrier-method contraceptives because that would not have been "pro-life" enough. One has to ask how many lives ended early because of the transmission of HIV.

Even if this move is a bit more than a day late and a dollar short, the article has some interesting tidbits. The decision to allow condoms in this circumstance rests on two theological principles of which I was not fully aware. The first is the principle of self defense. It makes sense, but I didn't realize that the Church had an official policy stating that normally-sinful actions (all the way up to murder) are allowed if they are done in self-defense. In this case, the sinful act of using contraception is allowed if done by a spouse protecting herself (interestingly the article gendered this all the way through) from the sexual advances of an infected partner.

The second principle invoked in this decision is the principle of "the lesser of two evils." I had no idea that this was an official principle either. You've gotta love the example provided in the article - apparently priests frequently counsel mobsters to beat up their erstwhile associates rather than killing them. In the condom case denying a potential life is considered a lesser evil than knowingly infecting a partner with HIV.

I'm glad that's all cleared up.

Curb Your Car

2006-05-03T22:46:00.000-05:00

Apparently May is Curb Your Car Month in Ann Arbor. This seems like a good idea, after all Spring has finally sprung and most of us could use a good excuse to enjoy the weather while we get some more exercise.

I love bicycle commuting, but it's long been a peeve of mine that Ann Arbor is not more bike-friendly. It really doesn't make any sense that a town like this should be so difficult to bike around. It's getting better for sure, and the folks at GetDowntown have a lot to do with that. You may have noticed the little arrow/bike symbols painted on streets downtown and maybe even the GetDowntown signs posted in strategic locations.

I was poking around their website and noticed that they have something called Bicycle Ambassadors. This is basically a group of volunteers that "engage people directly in a friendly and non-confrontational way to provide information and answer questions on how cyclists, pedestrians, and motorists can share the road." I haven't met any of them yet, but it's an interesting idea and I hope the program becomes successful.

While I think Ann Arbor could use better bike lanes and maybe even some bike-specific traffic signals like you find in the Netherlands, I think the key to better bicycle safety in Ann Arbor is education and enforcement. Pay attention here, I'm about to prove my liberal cred in a big way. The main thing keeping me from biking more in Ann Arbor is that car traffic can be unpredictable and rather hostile to bikers at times. A certain amount of this has to do with drivers not understanding that bicycles have a right to use the roadways including left turn lanes and a safe berth from the curb and parked cars. I don't exactly know what the solution is for this, bike safety should be part of drivers' ed, but public education a la GetDowntown is important for people who are already dricing.

But I still think the largest part of the problem is bad bikers. Drivers in Ann Arbor often don't know how to react around bikes because they have no way of predicting what the cyclists will do. We've all seen the awful bikers who act like Ann Arbor pedestrians. They blow through intersections without slowing down, they ride the wrong way down the street, they make erratic and unpredictable moves, and my biggest peeve - they dart on and off of the sidewalks. And there is basically zero accountability for this. Some enforcement of bicycle safety laws could go a long way toward creating more predictable bike traffic and better bike-car interactions.

That's right, I'm a bicyclist and I think my life would be better if the cops wrote more tickets to bikers. That's how things were when I lived in Lawrence. I was stopped in my first week of college for blowing a stop sign. I didn't get a ticket, but I knew that I could be stopped and they told me it would be $50 next time so you can bet I never rolled through again. They were also strict about using hand signals, riding with lights at night, and staying off of sidewalks. There were regrettably few bike lanes in Larryville and they were even worse-maintained than the Ann Arbor ones, but bicycling in traffic was seldom scary. When you, as a driver, saw a biker, you could predict how they would act and it made you much less likely to do something irrational.

Maybe these Bicycle Ambassadors are supposed to do this without the monetary penalties. I'll be interested to see how it turns out, but my vote is still to get Ann Arbor's bicycle-mounted public safety officers into the game coupled with a public education campaign about traffic safety.

Friday Dog Blogging - Puerto Rico Style

2006-04-28T22:22:00.000-05:00

I was planning to do some SAA blogging from Puerto Rico. I even took some pictures for this purpose. But I'm in San Juan with 2000 of my closest friends so the likelihood of that happening is quite low. However, I can't miss Friday Dog Blogging and I do miss my little puppies. So here are a couple of Charlie and Sadie looking sad. I hope they aren't too sad, but I still hope they miss us.

SAA Travel Advisory

2006-04-25T16:51:00.000-05:00

I've already complained about the organization at the SAA meetings, but what about the social bits? Below is a travel warning I recently received from the SAA administration in preparation for this week's meeting. Note that this advisory is not specific to Puerto Rico, but is a forecast based on past conferences. In fact, I have been affected by all of these problems myself. The standard irritations to be prepared for include:

Wandering eyes syndrome. This happens when you are talking with someone who would really rather be networking with more 'important' people, but you are all they could find. The primary symptom is that the afflicted person's eyes look anywhere but at you. They are constantly scanning crowds and nametags of passers-by in the hopes of identifying a 'bigger' name.
Nomophobic occular distractive disorder - The opposite of Wandering eyes syndrome, NODD occurs when the person with whom one is talking either forgets a name or wants to get some information off of a nametag. The primary symptom, known colloquially as nodding, involves staring intently at the chest of an interlocutor without ever making eye contact. In another context this could be mistaken for lewdness, but at SAA it is a clear indicator that a conversation partner doesn't know a name or affiliation and desperately needs that information. A kind observer will politely slip the required information into conversation or even re-introduce her/himself to the nodder in order to aid recovery so that the conversation can return to a vague sense of normality.
Inflamed field-credomania. Though this is our field's largest and most significant professional meeting, it contains divergent tensions that are hard to reconcile. The primary tension is between academic professionalism and rugged, field-credible informality. Sufferers of inflamed field-credomania can be spotted easily by their ripped jeans, grungy hiking boots, and internal-frame backpacks with many dangling caribeaners and Nalgene bottles. Yes, even though the meetings are held in a Hilton conference center on a Caribbean island thousands of miles from most of our field sites, many archaeologists will sport a look that says "Hey, I just stumbled in from the field and happened upon this conference. Too bad I don't have any other clothes." One of the things I love about archaeology is that we are a relaxed bunch, not overly hung up on formality, but I think a lot of what one sees at SAAs is a projection of field-chic because of the great value associated with "dirt archaeology" by many folks in opposition to "uppity theory." It has been suggested that this is not a disorder at all but simply a symptom of my own deep-seeded inadequacy in the field-cred and ruggedness department, but no respectable researchers actually support this theory.

There are other afflictions to watch out for at the SAA meetings, so be vigilant. Let this small guide help you in the discursive production of inter-subjective space time in the negotiated fields of alterity and solidarity within the situated arena of San Juan's Hilton conference center.

Eagle Lake Zooarchaeology Conference

2006-04-25T14:54:00.000-05:00

Over at North State Science there is information about a conference specifically for zooarchaeology. It's the Stanley J Olsen Eagle Lake Zooarchaeology Conference and it's happening at the field station for CSU Chico. It looks like a lot of fun so those of you interested in Fauna should consider checking it out.

I'm looking forward to SAAs in San Juan (leaving at 6:00 tomorrow morning), but there's something about these smaller, more specialized conferences that is really nice. One of the best conference experiences I've had was a little over a year ago at the Flint Hills Conference in Council Grove, Kansas. All of the student-types and a couple of friends with jobs (about a dozen altogether) got a cabin together on the lake nearby. Besides having a great time with everybody, several of us brought along artifacts from projects we were currently working on. I got a lot of input on materials I didn't recognize and I saw some things in other collections that looked more like my stuff than it should have. On the downside, my friend HC pointed out that if a meteorite hit that cabin, the world would have lost an entire generation of Kansas archaeologists. That seems like a risk not worth taking.

I understand that the Pecos conference in New Mexico is also quite an event, but we haven't made it there yet. It looks like the Eagle Lake conference is held at a field station so there is good opportunity for fishing, hiking, and otherwise enjoying mountain life.

SAA is a fun conference and there is something nice about getting 2000 archaeologists together to talk about all kinds of research. But the sheer volume of the conference has gotten out of control. Based on the preliminary program, I count 38 events happening concurrent with my session on Thursday morning. This includes symposia, general sessions, poster sessions, forums, and working groups; it does not include committee meetings, ethics bowl, exhibits, book sales, and the jobs fair. It's so overwhelming that it's basically impossible to hear all the papers you are interested in.

I don't really know that there is a solution to this, a lot of people complain that SAA should reject more papers, but I don't think the correlation between abstract quality and paper quality is tight enough to use this as a deciding factor. Also there is something nice about being able to give a paper no matter what its merits if for no other reason than to have the experience of giving a crappy paper and knowing how to avoid it in the future. I gave my flaming-ball-of-crap paper at a much smaller conference, which actually meant that every single person at the conference knew about it and it was hard to blow off. Hopefully that will never happen again.

Dangers of Fieldwork

2006-04-24T21:55:00.000-05:00

We all know that fieldwork has it's dangers. Scorpions, snakes, heat stroke, exotic diseases, and goofy hats for starters. When I worked for the Forest Service we had to watch out for treasure hunters who thought we were hiding Spanish gold, Mormon gold, and god knows what else. These folks could get territorial and usually carried weapons. The illegal artifact trade in the Southwest involves some pretty violent and unsavory people. And now it looks like there is a connection between crystal meth production and artifact trading in some areas. Today I got an e-mail from a regional list. It follows:

There has been a relevant discussion on the list that a significant number of dealers in meth drugs are "arrowhead hunters" and that they trade in artifacts. Incredible as this might seem, indeed law enforcement has begun to track drug dealers and abusers through this underworld of artifact collecting, digging, and trading

Sketchy. An attached message included this warning as well:

By the way - and just for field personnel's situational awareness - the meth makers have developed a new way of making product that we have seen in the past couple of years. Everything is placed in a single can (1 to 5 gal whatever can), and left somewhere until the 'process' is complete - usually 3-5 days - then it is retrieved and refined. Because the reaction going on inside the can is potentially lethal and the can can rupture, they will leave it in the woods someplace until it is 'cooked.' Field personnel finding one of these during survey/inventory need to steer well clear...

Just one more thing to look out for.

Am I Web 2.0 Yet?

2006-04-24T21:10:00.000-05:00

I'm not really a techie, just sort of a tech groupie. By the time I first heard about Web 2.0 it was probably already passe for the Red Hat crowd. That's probably not even a good referent of geekdom anymore.

In fact I don't really even know what Web 2.0 is. I guess you just know it when you see it.

Anyway, I'm trying hard to get Web 2.0-cred. I found this little stylesheet and you can expect to see all of these tips put into practice on The Edge very soon. Feel free to cheat off of it yourself.

Blogger Comments Back

2006-04-24T19:50:00.000-05:00

Okay, I got rid of Haloscan comments in favor of the old Blogger format. Christina found a way last night to install trackback without changing the comments format so I just had to a little reverse-engineering today to get mine up to speed. Does it kill me that she figured this out first? Yes.

Gas Prices

2006-04-24T00:03:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't already seen it, this map is an interesting look at gas prices across the country by county. Ann Arbor looks to be about average. Check out this page for a cool (but incomplete) map of local gas prices, or click here to find the cheapest gas in the land.

Dead Bones

2006-04-23T21:54:00.002-05:00

I just stumbled onto an interesting blog by an archaeologist in California. Check out North State Science, and while you're there be sure to read this post about zooarchaeology, paleoanthropology, and bad ID analogies.

DTE

2006-04-23T15:20:00.000-05:00

Christina is upset with DTE about the gas bill. Can this really be legal?

(OK, I'm just testing the trackback with this post, but it's still an important issue.)

First They Came For Butt Plugs

2006-04-23T13:45:00.000-05:00

As the culture wars rage on, the stakes hit closer to home. If there is any doubt in your mind that the fundamentalist footsoldiers are after more than limited access to abortion and marriage, you can put it to rest. A bill is being considered in South Carolina that would make the sale of sex toys a felony. That means a dolphin-shaped vibrator could cost you five years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

You may remember that earlier in the year Missouri banned health clinics from providing birth control including both contraceptives and "natural family planning" (i.e. the rhythm method).

The agenda of the radical religious right is about far more than "traditional family values." They intend to tell you how and with whom you can have sex. They also intend to make family planning decisions for you. And all of this is being facilitated by "tax-cut Republicans" who find the religious right offensive but are willing to play along as long as their stock dividends aren't taxed. Look no further than "straight shooter" John McCain for a poster-child of the mounting power of theocrats. His cuddly relationship with Jerry Fallwell in the name of wooing a conservative base empowers a very dangerous element in our society.

If you can come up with any compelling interest for the government in deciding how consenting adults have sex, please let me know.

2006-04-22T22:16:00.000-05:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

2006-04-22T21:48:00.000-05:00

I've added Haloscan commenting and trackback to the Edge. That made previous comments disappear. I know, comment triste. Let me know if you like or hate Haloscan, we can always go back.

The Love Boat

2006-04-22T14:17:00.000-05:00

I've posted some photos from the Curators' Ball. I don't think there's anything too incriminating in there. Enjoy!

Sexmate

2006-04-22T10:44:00.000-05:00

So I was randomly flipping through blogspot.com by clicking the "Next Blog" button at the top of this page, just to see what is out there. It turned out that the first blog after mine was written in Chinese, then a bunch of deep thoughts on the injustice of life written by a teenager with a thesauraus.

But numer three was Sexmate, a blog by someone way more hip than I am posting truly bizarre celebrity gossip. Most of it is the kind of US Magazine/Entertainment Tonight coverage that bores me to tears. But down at the bottom of the page is this set of photos that allegedly show the stars of Harry Potter smoking weed and drinking underage.

I don't see the drugs in the pictures and I don't know enough about Harry Potter to really recognize these actors. Somehow though this strikes me as newsworthy so I thought I'd share.

If you're looking for something a little more creepy, check out Sexmate's story about P-Diddy (of Detroit legal system fame) using kids to advertise his new clothing line.

Cuteness

2006-04-21T18:09:00.000-05:00

In the tradition of Friday Dog Blogging, please allow me to share a discovery. I'm sure you are all aware of The Daily Puppy. Well, I just discovered that there is a section of that site for Grownup Puppies as well. Pretty cute!

Pirates in Ypsi? No More!

2006-04-20T22:21:00.000-05:00

It looks like Ypsilanti has been saved from a dreaded pirate radio station. Seriously, I only find out about things this cool when they are finally shut down.

How Do You Like Them Bones?

2006-04-20T21:56:00.000-05:00

Here are a couple of photos of bones. These are the most-complete scapulae fom the Swantek Site. They are all bison with the exception of one from a deer (slightly left of the scale ).

Most have smoothed distal edges - digging or hoeing usewear - and some have a worked notch in the middle like in the second picture. It is my understanding that this is related to hide and sinew working. Somewhere on my desk there is an article about that.

No good reason to photograph them all like this, but I wanted to see them all together.

That's a bunch of buffalo shoulders, huh?

Mentorship

2006-04-20T21:50:00.000-05:00

This is getting a lot of attention after being linked by Pharyngula. It's a story about finding emotional support in grad school. Your experience might be different, but it's well written and worth a look.

Prairie Ayatollahs

2006-04-20T10:03:00.000-05:00

I hate to keep ripping off Red State Rabble, but this one is too good to pass up.

Fit

2006-04-20T08:31:00.000-05:00

This morning I noticed that one of the ads running on the right side of this blog was for the Honda Fit. The ad was slick and it looked like there were some new electronic goodies in the Fit, so I checked it out.

I have to say, the webpage was less spectacular than I had expected. The car looks a lot like the Pontiac Vibe, which I think is kind of lame. But it's also a little bit reminiscent of the Honda Element, which I think is a pretty cool vehicle. So maybe there is hope. The page extatically announces "an innovative 60/40 split 2nd row Magic-Seat" that apparently allows innovative butt configurations. As near as I can tell, that just means that the back seats are split asymmetrically and lay down. Our lame Focus does that.

The part of the ad that really drew me in was the "drive by wire" throttle system. I was hoping for some serious Knight Rider stuff here. It turns out that they have just replaced the throttle cable with a computer system that will undoubtedly cost $1000 every time it breaks.

They really don't salvage any cool points with lines in the description like

One glance at this impetuous, bite-sized wonder and you just might think "The Fit is go!"

On the plus side, there is a photo of this car with a llama inside so it's probably a decent dog-transporter. Also, I suppose the drive-by-wire is a cool piece of engineering, and with a base price under $14k this is the cheapest Honda with four wheels.

Honda, I hope you know what you're doing. That Ridgeline abomination has me doubting and don't get me started about the mechanized doors on the Odyssey. It's nice that you're offering something at the entry-level, but please have some style and originality here!

New Header

2006-04-19T21:32:00.000-05:00

Hey folks. You may have noticed the new header. I know you are in awe of my photoshop and html skills. You may bow before my virtual knees.

So, let me know what you think. Specifically let me know how it looks in your browser. I use firefox and it looks fine, C uses IE and it's screwed up. But in IE on my machine it looks ok. Hmmmm? Maybe I'll download Opera and Netscape to see how they handle it too.

Thanks for the input.

dp

Juan Cole Leaving Ann Arbor?

2006-04-19T19:11:00.000-05:00

I hadn't realized it, but Juan Cole is apparently being wooed by Yale. It would be a shame for UM to lose him, but I don't really know what his situation in the History department here is like. Maybe it would be better, and presumably he would maintain his incredible blog.

Sadly though, it looks like some wingnuts have opened a smear campaign aimed at preventing the job offer from ever happening. The charge is basically that Cole's criticism of the neoconservative movement is antisemitic. Nasty business.

Growing Pains

2006-04-19T14:40:00.000-05:00

More fun stuff from home. A science teacher in Wichita, KS has been asked by a state school board member to take down a picture of the Flying Spaghetti Monster hanging on her classroom door. The board member spotted the picture while touring the building and asked the principle to have it removed. In a respectable move, another board member on the tour informed the principle that the board had no jurisdiction over the teacher and the principle should do as he saw fit. He did not ask the teacher to remove the picture and only told her about the request when she asked. The last I heard (i.e. what it says in the article), the picture is still hanging.

This is all very nice, but I actually wonder if the cause of Flying Spaghetti Monsterism would benefit were the teacher forced to remove the picture. The only reason that she could conceivably be compelled to do so would be to comply with guidelines about displaying religious iconography on public property. If this reason were used and upheld by a court, we would have de facto legal recognition of the FSM as a religious figure and FSMism as a religion. Then Bill O'Reilly would be free to rant about the war on the good FSM-fearing people of Kansas like he does about the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus.

Antimatter

2006-04-18T22:58:00.000-05:00

Ok, I'll admit that I basically stopped reading halfway through since it's way over my head. Anyway, this is totally freakin' cool. NASA seems to be working on a spaceship running on antimatter. Yeah, far out stuff huh? Honestly I'm not even physics-savvy enough to know if this is a hoax article, it sort of has that feel to me, but I think it's real. Maybe someone out there knows enough about this sort of thing to let me know? Bob, I'm looking at you...

Easter Turducken

2006-04-18T09:16:00.000-05:00

Now this is genius! I had never thought of applying the Turducken concept to other foods before. Apparently eating Easter turducken at the same meal as a regular turducken would be considered heresy, but I'm willing to put myself on the line.

Burrito Blog

2006-04-17T19:42:00.000-05:00

Okay, I know my last couple of posts have been a little bitter and heavy. So in the interests of levity, I present to you a new find - The Burrito Blog. These guys really did their homework and seem quite sensible. They even managed an even appraisal of Taco Bell, which is probably quite difficult. But I do have to disagree with their take on Del Taco. Sure it's mysterious and a bit unfamiliar, but taken in the right context and with the right sense of adventure, Del Taco can be exceptional.

Permanently Liminal?

2006-04-17T13:10:00.000-05:00

Liminality isn't a concept I find particularly useful. Don't get me wrong, I think it's a fine idea and I can see that it has many good applications for other anthropologists. It just isn't something that has ever really factored into my work. At least not in a way painfully obvious enough that even I had to notice. The upshot is that I don't really have a working knowledge of the concept's intricacies.

My question for you, dear reader, is this - Is there a statute of limitations on liminality? How long can an individual maintain a liminal state? Since the concept was developed in thinking about rites of passage, I would expect that a normal liminal state could last anywhere from minutes to days. But what about years?

I know it's probably a trite usage of the term, but I'm wondering if the graduate school experience qualifies as a liminal state? I suppose this is right up there on the depth-o-meter with all the papers Anth 101 GSIs get examining the liminal nature of some sorority induction event or the communitas experienced in the student section of the Big House. But then I didn't come here to be deep, I came here to rant.

So on with the rant:

This state of quasi-permanent quasi-liminality that passes for graduate school is getting really old. (How's that for a rant?) There is plenty to complain about, but specifically it's really grating that after seven years of professional work and some serious research I still can't be a grown-up. C'mon people! It's hard enough to convince my non-academic family and friends that I'm an adult. Now we're trying to buy a house - talk about hoops. You'd think that the bank here (remember this is college town USA) had never heard of graduate school.

"You do what for a living?" "You really get paid for that?" "Well, who employs you?" "What do you mean you get paid through the payroll department but don't get a W-2?" "What are estimated taxes?" "So where do you work?"

So even though we have (near) perfect credit, have been homeowners in St Louis for five years, and have been getting regular substantial paychecks for the past five years (seven in my case), we are not considered good borrowers because we don't have any real income. Seriously, they calculate our debt to income ration figuring that I make $500/month. I don't make a lot but I make enough that all this runaround shouldn't be a big deal. I can document my paychecks for seven years, but since it comes from a variety of fellowships, grants, and temporary jobs it isn't as "good" as seven bucks an hour for pulling coffee at Starbucks. Does this make sense to you?

I can't really blame the bank, they have their procedures and their own well-fed asses to cover. But this is just one more way being a graduate student kind of sucks. I mean, if you're really fast you can finish your PhD by the time you're 30. Given the usual delay in getting a permanent job, then the several years before tenure, a very diligent social scientist will have some job-security and life-stability some time in their mid-to-late-30s. That's about when most of us, unless lucky or extremely savvy, can start thinking about saving money for retirement and buying a home. For those of us on grants, it's also when our paychecks start paying into social security. And for many graduate students, that's the first time that health-insurance becomes a possibility.

I know that is the life we all signed up for and believe me I didn't get into this to get rich. But I would really like a little damned respect. For gods' sakes we are professionals doing significant research, teaching students, and trying to put together a little life. Is it too much to ask that fellowships and grants be treated like real income? Is it too much to ask that seven years of continuous income be considered "secure?" Can those of you who are not academics but know us as family or friends not treat us like freshmen who are just lolling through college waiting for Spring Break when we'll have, like, all week to just hang out and not worry about stupid school anymore? Can you please realize that we are professionals with major responsibilities and careers, not just some quaint hobby to tell your friends about at cocktail parties?

I know it could be much worse. I know if I'd busted my ass more and slept less I'd probably have gotten done in six and a half years and be unemployed now instead of underemployed. I know I'm whining and have it pretty good in the bigger picture, but that's not what rants are about.

For all those other irritating questions:
No the U won't have a job for me when I'm done with my PhD. No that isn't how it works. No I don't care about dinosaurs or Egypt. No they aren't holding me back until I'm "good enough" to deal with dinosaurs and Egypt. Yes I'll have to take any job I can get. Yes there are only about 10-15 jobs each year that I am qualified for. Yes there are at least 100 or 200 other qualified people applying for each of those jobs. No I don't have any idea which one I'll get, when, or even if I'll ever find work. No I don't plan to make much money in my field. Yes I get paid to do research right now. No I don't think that's putting an unnecessary burden on the American taxpayer. No I don't wish I'd found a useful field to go into. If medicine or nuclear physics are such great damned fields why don't you go get a PhD in one of them.

See, It Isn't Just Kansas

2006-04-17T08:07:00.000-05:00

You may have heard that the Creationist/Intelligent Design bunch had set their sights on Michigan in the past couple of years. A strictly you-must-teach-IDiocy-in-the-classroom bill was defeated last year. But the anti-evolution forces continue to adapt under pressure. Apparently the legislature and school board are environments that provide pressure favoring obfuscation. Young earth creationism became creation science, which later became intelligent design in order to create less-sectarian language and mask the movements real goals. Now the buzz-word is critical analysis.

This is really insidious since none of us can rightly take a stand against critical analysis. Heck, it's what most of us out here on The Edge do for a living. Michigan House bill 5251 is part of the "teach the controversy" strategy and it seems to be working. If they claim enough times that there is a controversy within the scientific community and that there is evidence against evolution, then people will start believing it. If they frame legislation in terms of critical analysis and proclaim loudly enough that there is evidence against evolution that deserves to be analyzed critically, then voters will believe that scientists are repressing it.

The notion that there is a body of evidence against evolution really gets my pet goat. As most of you are aware of course, there is extremely little (if any) solid evidence in the natural world that argues against evolution. There are plenty of gaps to be filled in - this is the nature of science and it is why we continue to research. And there are plenty of debates about how evolution happens and how humans evolved, but I don't really think elementary and high school biology classes are ready for the intricacies of MtDNA mutation rates and the Out of Africa-Multiregionalism debate.

I might be underestimating school kids, but it doesn't really matter since this bill isn't about how many major migrations of hominids left Africa, the reliability of the mitochondrial clock, or the nature of speciation. No, this bill is about teaching that there is strong evidence against evolution altogether. If they intend to use evidence from the natural world, this leaves only two options - 1) they can fabricate evidence entirely. 2) they can contort logic and twist the evidence to fit their needs. I doubt that most science teachers would be willing to do either of these and the major anti-science organizations like the Discovery Institute know they are being watched too closely to create false data outright. I suspect that 'educational' materials such as the infamous Wedge Document and the many (rapidly changing) public manifestos of the ID movement will be disseminated to school districts who believe them when they claim to represent a major portion of the scientific community.

Michigan House bill 5251 is working its way through the state assembly right now. This kind of stuff made Kansas a laughing stock and continues to tear down the education system that reared me. Michigan has enough problems without letting these folks make our students less informed. If you have a chance, contact your congress critter and let her or him know how you feel. The bill was drafted by a representative from Macomb Township, if you have any friends there, encourage them to make their voices heard on this issue.

Red State Rabble has a roundup of this bill and plenty of history in their archives.

Seen Any Good Movies Lately?

2006-04-16T20:46:00.000-05:00

So we went to see a couple of movies over the past couple of days. Thank You for Smoking was fun. It looks like a movie about the tobacco lobby and it does a nice job of dealing with that mess without being too preachy. But it's more a movie about lobbying and moral ambiguity. It really isn't too preachy on that point either. Mostly it was funny and I identified with everyone a little bit, even though nobody came out looking good. Probably the best part is that Jonah Goldberg apparently thinks the lead is the kind of sympathetic conservative every-man that has been missing in hollywood. Funny stuff.

Also, went to see Inside Man with the in-laws. That was way better than I expected. Plenty of formulaic downtrodden cops just tryin' to do the best they can in an unfair world, brilliant-yet-misguided criminals with possibly-noble motives, loving-yet-needy cop-fiancees, and a mysterious Jodie Foster for good measure. Despite the predictable bits, the movie was quite clever and interesting. Spike Lee was involved and that really came out in a couple of scenes, but I kind of found those points a little rough compared to the rest of the movie. Also, what's the deal with Bollywood music for opening and closing credits?

Oh yeah, also saw Herbie: Fully Loaded on cable. Really not as bad as it looked, kind of fun but don't go out of your way to see it.

How 'bout you?