Who knew Paperboy was based on real life?

While I teach my favorite course on Friday, I'm basically in the classroom prepping, teaching, or cleaning up all day long.  So, come 5:00 I was exceptionally happy to be able to head home (and also exceptionally wiped out).  Unfortunately, though, I didn't know that a video game was awaiting me on my street:

• As soon as I turned onto my street, I had to slam on the brakes thanks to two dog owners who were chatting while wrangling their large dogs into the open door of their SUV.  Said dogs were on leashes, but extended into the center of the road.
• After realizing that said dog owners weren't going to get their dogs into the SUV anytime soon, I moved into the opposite lane to drive past the dogs.
• Immediately after passing the dogs, a young teen on a bike rode out from between two cars in front of me, and slowly crossed the road.  
• Shortly thereafter a woman closed her car trunk while carrying a large bag of groceries.  Without looking, she crossed the street right in front of me.  (Sadly, there wasn't a baguette or bundle of celery sticking out of the grocery bag)
• After avoiding the woman (and now going extremely slowly), I noticed a squirrel a few yards ahead of me on the side of the road.  The squirrel darted out into the road as I approached.  Luckily the squirrel thought better of it and darted back.
• As I neared home, I saw a teenager on a skateboard riding down the sidewalk next to a child on a bike.  Said child was clearly just learning how to ride a bicycle.  The pair slowly wobbled forward, reaching our driveway just as I was ready to turn into it.

Amazingly, nothing happened when I parked.  

My new favorite band

Nunatak.

They were in Live Earth yesterday. Of course, they were playing from the British Antarctic Survey's Rothera Research Station, so there weren't too many people in the audience (17), but who wouldn't love a band made up of members like this:

• Matt Balmer – electronics engineer with the physics and meteorology team.
• Tris Thorne – communications engineer
• Ali (Alison) Massey – marine biologist
• Rob Webster – meteorologist
• Roger Stilwell – Field General Assistant (polar guide)
  

Go watch the videos of their songs here, and then go read about the band here.

Update: They've got their songs posted on YouTube, so here's one to whet your appetite:

Roger Waters live

Originally uploaded by DaigoOliva
[Spoiler warning: This post includes details about Roger Waters' 2007 tour]

My SO and I don't go to many concerts, but this week we went to see Roger Waters (of Pink Floyd fame). The tour advertised that he would be playing the entirety of Dark Side of the Moon, but he also played a great assortment of his other work¹ (list from here):

• In The Flesh
• Mother
• Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun
• Shine On You Crazy Diamond
• Have A Cigar
• Wish You Were Here
• Southampton Dock,
• Fletcher Memorial Home
• Perfect Sense Parts 1 & 2
• Leaving Beirut
• Sheep
• The Happiest Days of Our Lives
• Another Brick In The Wall Pt. 2
• Vera
• Bring The Boys Back Home
• Comfortably Numb

While our seats weren't terribly close to the stage, the venue had continuous video footage broadcast on large screens. Much of this video footage focused on the guitarists' hands, which I was appreciative of thanks to my newfound hobby of playing the guitar².

As one might guess, Roger has little love for George W. Bush, and thus included many jabs at him. His new song Leaving Beirut had a graphic-novel-style background including the lyrics, which included this bit:

Roger Waters_Leaving Beirut - Oh George! Oh George! Originally uploaded by Garry'

Oh George! Oh George! Originally uploaded by Garry'

He also had a floating pig covered in graffiti:


A Pig never lies
Originally uploaded by Ronaniversario
While our pig didn't look exactly like the one pictured above (after browsing Flickr it appears that a new pig is made for each show), the writing on our pig included such statements as "Torture shames us all," "All religions divide," "Impeach Bush," "What an asshole [with an arrow pointing to "Bush"]," "Fear builds walls," and "Habeas corpus matters."

My favorite was the addition of a quote from Bush in the background visuals for The Fletcher Memorial Home:


Fletcher Memorial Home
Originally uploaded by EddieBerman
Ignoring all the traffic getting to and from the concert, it was a great evening of prog rock. Up next: Genesis.

¹ I was probably one of the few fans in the audience who was sad that most of his solo work was left out.
² Methinks it will be a very, very long time before I'm able to come anywhere close to playing songs like them.

[Note: All images in this post are Creative Commons licensed.]

A little fluff

My SO and I are busy working on the house this week¹, so here are a few resources to entertain you:

High-speed pictures of milk dropping into coffee (via BoingBoing)

Video of flight traffic patterns over the US (higher-quality here) (via PZ)²

Demonstration of the power of CSS (via Semantic Compositions)

¹ It's amazing how long seemingly simple tasks can take when one is remodeling. For instance, I just spent most of today painting (and priming, and patching) a door frame. On HGTV things like that take about 5 seconds (if they even show it).
² Moral of the story: If you don't want to have planes flying over you all day, go live in the Pacific northwest.

End-of-the-semester quizzes

Artist or ape?

Pollock or birds?

(via Semantic Compositions, who linked to the "Faulkner or machine translation" quiz)

A sign of the moral decay of America's youth

Yesterday I gave an exam to my majors biology course, on which I had a (I thought) relatively simple question asking students to design an experiment to test whether a certain species of animals was monogamous or not.

More than ten students called me over during the exam to ask what the word monogamous meant.

Wouldn't the conservative pundits have a field day?

Friday food fun

Here are two links to keep you amused: Suicide Food and Fast Food: ads vs. reality. The first is a blog that highlights food ads that portray animals cheerfully waiting to be killed, and the second compares advertising photos of fast food with the real food (both via BoingBoing).

Measure distances in Google Maps

My SO recently found Gmaps Pedometer, an applet that allows you to precisely measure the distance you walk (or bike, or drive) using Google Maps. It's easy to use (just find your starting position, click "start recording", and then double-click to add waypoints), and allows you to collect some pretty neat data. Especially cool is the ability to plot your own path; for example, if you cut through a park on your way to the store, you can map that out and calculate the distance.

I now know how far I have to walk to check my mail on campus (too far), and exactly how far it is to the grocery store (nice and close!).

(Oddly enough, Jill just linked to this as well, though I only read her post after writing this one.)

iNag

Regular readers will know that I've been a long-time user of But She's A Girl's Tracks program to manage my to-do lists. While I love Tracks, I must now admit to having found a better program, written by none other than Semantic Compositions: iNag. SC is only releasing news of the product today, but I've been lucky enough to have seen a trial version.

While iNag is ostensibly a contact and calendar-management program, its intuitive interface, elegant use of language (it's written by a linguist, after all), and customizable reminders make it the perfect to-do list manager. For instance, my committee meetings now use the nagging-department-chair theme ("Radagast, you're the best one for the job; we need you on this one," followed by "But Radagast, we need someone to go," and finishing with, "But English will steal all of our funding if you don't go, and it's coming out of your lab budget!") and my letters-of-recommendation automatically use the "nagging student" theme for reminders (hourly popups saying "Mr. Radagast, I know I only just gave you the form, and you told me it'd take two weeks, but do you have my letter done yet?"). It's a pleasure to use, and since it's written all in Java, it's entirely cross-platform.

So, head over to SC's page and read all about it!

[Update: Take a look at the date of the post. But She's a Girl should never have worried; Tracks is still near and dear to my heart.]

Wheel of Food

BoingBoing linked to The Wheel of Food, a flash applet that lets you randomly choose a restaurant to eat at in your local area. Go play today!

Science badges!

The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique (OOTSSOERAAAP) has a collection of merit badges for scientists. I was never a boy scout, so I've never gotten any badges; now I can finally get some!



Badges I easily qualify for:


Talking science: I'm a biology professor. It's my job.



I blog about science: Um, where am I posting this?



Sexing up science: Drosophila, baby. I've done selective breeding, stock breeding, and worked in a lab that studied fly mating behavior.



Has frozen stuff just to see what happens (LEVEL III): One cannot work with liquid nitrogen and fail to get this badge. The stuff is just so cool.



Inordinately fond of invertebrates: Need I explain why I deserve this? (and that really should be an insect, not a mollusk, on the badge)



I've done science with no conceivable practical application: Oh yeah, I qualify for this. I can't post about it here, but if you know me (or meet me), ask for a description of my qualifying research.



I know what a tadpole is: I do!


Badges that I'm still working on:


Nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah, I've got a TV gig: Does a TV news appearance get at least some points for this badge?



Arts and crafts: I've got lots of scientific photography, but still haven't sewn anything scientific.



Destroyer of quackery: I don't do it as much as I should, though I do attack creationism whenever my students bring it up, and am quite proud of steering a woman away from quackery that a fellow blood-donor was trying to push on her.



Will gladly kick sexual harasser's ass: Happy to do it, but haven't had too much opportunity (though maybe that's a sign I don't deserve the badge ...).

(via BoingBoing)

More interest in German-style boardgames!

The guys at Penny Arcade have found yet another way into my heart: Tycho plays German-style boardgames. While I can't wholeheartedly applaud his choice of games (Ticket to Ride isn't my favorite¹), it's great to see that other electronic gamers are also interested in boardgames. As Jerry (Tycho) says:

I mention it [playing German-style boardgames] because (as I have said in the past) gamers - by which I mean gamers of the electronic variety - would find a lot to like in these games, because they are simply well-built systems which accept time as an input and produce fun. They have a delicious logic and a competitive thrill that strategy gamers especially might find irresistible.

I primarily enjoyed strategic multiplayer computer games (think Rainbow Six vs. Half Life, Kohan vs. Starcraft, and Combat Mission vs. Command and Conquer²); now I find that German-style boardgames have more of what I want in a game. For one thing, it's nice to be able to pick up a game, learn the rules to it, and become decently good at playing it in less than 2 hours. It's also nice not to have to worry about getting smashed to bits by players who've spent the last month learning every little trick and programming macros for the game. The downside to boardgames, of course, is that you need a local group of people who are willing to play with you, but assuming you have that, they're a great hobby.

¹ My current favorite is Puerto Rico, closely followed by Saint Petersburg, Leonardo da Vinci, Tower of Babel, Louis XIV, and BattleLore.
² While I hardly ever play them anymore due to lack of time (and a preference for boardgames), I vastly prefer the first game of all those comparisons.

Mouse party

I love mice, so this is just great: an animation by the University of Utah Genetic Science Learning Center that shows a simplified version of what various drugs do to mouse brains. They call it mouse party. Enjoy. (via PZ)

Annotated speach by Dean Dad

Dean Dad has a hilariously annotated first-day address to the faculty. I've heard many versions of this speech from the other side of the lectern; it's nice to finally see the real version.

Tray Table Advertising

Flying back from Dallas to Las Vegas last week on America West we were surprised to find the following department store advertisements on the tray tables (I've blurred any identifying text):



So, apparently while I'm flying I want to look at either shoes or a pseudo-hunk lounging around. I actually first saw this style of ad on America West a few months ago when the tray tables in my row all had car ads on them, but I didn't have a camera with me to snap a picture.

Texas Woofus: mystery solved

On my recent trip to Dallas I visited Fair Park along with Semantic Compositions, our SOs, and another friend. We went to the park hoping to visit the gardens there, but upon arriving we found that the gardens were closed. My SO quickly discovered that the nearby aquarium was open, but Semantic Compositions and Mrs. SC nixed that idea (darn non-biologists not appreciating nature), so we looked for the nearest directory.

On that directory we found a list of "Special Interest Points":

Since none of us had any clue what a Texas Woofus was, this meant it had to be something cool and thus we set out to find it. First up was to find it on the map:

Of course the Woofus was across the park from where we were, but we were sure the Woofus would be well work the trek. On the way to the Woofus we passed the Cotton Bowl stadium, what looked like an abandoned amusement park, and the portion of Fair Park every tourist longs to see: the State Fair of Texas Administrative Offices.

When we arrived at the location specified on the map all we found was a very plain-looking building labeled "swine".



We figured that most Texans would know to call a swine building a swine building, so we kept looking. We found another map, confirmed we were in the right place, and then walked around the swine building again, but there was still no Woofus. We eventually gave up and headed off to the Texas Hall of State, and SC and I swore to discover later what a Woofus was.

This morning I'm proud to announce that I finally discovered what the Texas Woofus is: it's a statue that we walked past at least two times (so much for our scientific powers of observation). In fact it is barely visible on the left side of the picture above:


The Fair Park art and architecture fact sheet (link is a PDF) has more information:

"The Woofus, a combination of six classic Texas animals, sits outside the Swine Building atop a 16-foolt [sic] pedestal and was originally created for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition by sculptor Lawrence Tenney Stevens but disappeared shortly thereafter. It has a sheep's head, a stallion's neck, a hog's body, turkey feathers and duck wings. The "crowning" glory of the piece is a set of ten-foot wide Texas longhorns gilded with chromium with a crown perched between them and a Mexican blanket draped around his shoulders. The Woofus was returned home in September of 2003 thanks to the efforts of Friends of Fair Park and the State Fair of Texas."

The mystery of what a Texas Woofus is can now be laid to rest. Check this site in the future for more equally compelling pieces of detective work from Radagast, Semantic Compositions, and team!