Time to say goodbye to Titled: Some Amusing Blog Pun V2.0. The iBlog software I use to write this blog has always been buggy, but it's getting worse and worse. And now Haloscan has been sold and I can't get a new commenting system updated with this software.So, for the 2nd time, I have to find a new solution. This time I'm going with WordPress, which hopefully will work better, last longer, and have better support than the previous two software solutions I've used.So, update your links please, and visit me at my new blog: http://akiste.wordpress.com/ ...
The fall semester is nearly over and Christmas is almost here, so my attention will soon be focused on my annual holiday baking extravapalooza.This year, in addition to the usual Caramel Rolls, there will be various other holiday baked goods, such as Mom's Christmas Cookies of Death (caution: choking hazard) and a new favorite: home-made marshmallows, or as I like to call them: "Culinary Napalm".The recipe is from Alton Brown (naturally) and involves heating a thick sugar syrup to a blistering 116˚C and then whipping the heck out of it with a KitchenAide Stand Mixer while hoping ...
Here is a cool set of pics of old Lego space kits. These really brought back memories of a bazillion hours of fun building ever bigger and better space ships ... and then crashing them.For the record, I had #5, 6, 7, 9, 11 ,and 12, as well as a couple others not pictured here. Alas, I no longer have them because I think they were all given to my nephew when I was in college. ...
I like that we have a President who is prepared for any eventuality. On Monday, the President gave some remarks regarding math, science, and technology education during an event in which some high school students demonstrated some robots they built. Said President Obama, "As president, I believe that robotics can inspire young people to pursue science and engineering. And I also want to keep an eye on those robots in case they try anything." ...
Here's my Birthday Present from Brian, it's a coffee siphon.Isn't it pretty? The coffee syphon has everything a chemist would love: 1) cool glassware, 2) shiny clamps, 3) boiling fluids, 4) a vacuum, 5) open flame, 6) an elaborate ritual, and 7) coffee.What could be cooler?This method of brewing coffee, which was very popular in the early 20th century disappeared in favor of simpler methods like instant coffee (ie. beans that have been cremated) and automatic drip.The way this works is simple. Fill the bottom reservoir with water. Put the burner (not shown) under it and begin to heat. Place ...
The Large Hadron Collider is out of service yet again.This machine located outside Geneva was designed to search for the particles that may have existed only at the very earliest moments after the Big Bang, and to look for particles that, at this point, are only theoretical, including the Higgs Boson.The collider has had numerous problems including: 1) a group of scientists who proposed it might create a black hole that will swallow the earth (someone did the calculations and the probabilities of that happening are small), 2) then after it was turned on there was a coolant leak and ...
On many warm(ish) fall days from noon to 1PM there are often rallies of one sort or another on the Diag. Yesterday there was a rally about global climate change. They even hand a band playing. As I walked across the Diag on the way back from Starbucks, I got to hear the refrain of the band's song: "Cow farts break my heart."Not exactly Shakespeare, and now it's stuck in my head. Drat. ...
I was watching a recent episode of House last night in which House delivers a paper at a conference. Wilson actually wrote the paper as a confession because he felt guilty that he'd enabled a terminally ill patient to commit suicide. Anyway, I've been to lots of conferences and seen lots of terrible talks (plenty of good ones too.) But even the good talks rarely get the attention they deserve. So I've decided to use the following opening for any talk I give at any conference ever, regardless of the topic."Euthanasia: Let's tell the truth. We all do it."If that ...
Today the US tested its first new rocket design since the Space Shuttle, the Aries I-X. I suppose I should say "newish" since the Ares system is based on Shuttle parts, primarily the solid rocket boosters. It is the tallest rocket we've built since the Saturn V took men to the moon.It isn't clear yet what NASA's priorities are going to be under the Obama administration, but this vehicle would be used to get to the International Space Station (USS Good Money After Bad) and to park objects in low-Earth orbit for retrieval during longer missions (to the Moon, or ...
This morning, this was written on my coffee: Which led to several questions: 1) Which half of the calf?2) What's the other half? Coffee? Milk? Marrow?3) Now that Starbucks has taken over American coffee, is beef next? "Coffee, it's what's for dinner." or "Great coffee comes from happy cows. Happy cows come from Starbucks." ...
I have a confession to make. I've been a student at The University of Michigan on and off for most of the time between 1993 and a month ago. And I have never been to a University of Michigan football game. I've never even been in the Big House. Hello, my name is Alan, and I'm a loser. In my own defense I would like to point out the many U of M hockey games I've been to, so I'm not a total poindexter. But hockey games seemed more fun because they're at Yost, a relatively small and seriously rowdy ...
from boingboing: Why you should always read the methods and materials sections of scientific papers. The money quote from a journal article examining the effectiveness of chicken soup to inhibit neutrophil chemotaxis:"Traditional chicken soup was prepared according to a family recipe, which will be referred to as 'Grandma's soup.'"There's also another example about necrophilia in fruit flies.Funny stuff. ...
These days I get annoyed when I have to walk the 200 feet from my building to one of the libraries on campus because I can't find a book or article online. But there was a time when I actually liked libraries. The library in my hometown, for example, was built like a Greek Temple to books. Though the collection was limited, it still took me several years to read my way through their science fiction section and I always enjoyed going there.Old libraries like that are hard to find, but Sunday we took a brief trip after church down ...
Longtime readers of this blog will know that we're big fans of Alton Brown's show "Good Eats" on the Food Network. Saturday Alton is having a 10th Anniversary special and so he was on Jimmy Fallon's show last night promoting it (and his new cookbook).Alton and Jimmy made smoothies using simple, common equipment that anyone would have laying around the house. Enjoy: Best line of a cooking segment on TV ever: "This is not how you die. This is how you learn to live." ...
As I mentioned here, the PCUSA Special Committee on Marriage and Stuff is soliciting recommendations to be added to its special report on marriage and other stuff and things.Here's our letter regarding our recommendation: “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, liberty. In all things, love” -- Augustine“God alone is Lord of the conscience” -- Westminster Confession of Faith, 6.109 October, 2009To the Committee:Grace and peace to you from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for your continued service to our denomination.We have read your preliminary report and while we find much to disagree with, we will ...
The bound copies of my dissertation arrived yesterday.I figured I'd take a picture, since this is likely the last time they'll see the light of day. ...
"It must be nice to be done" has replaced "When will you be done?" as the phrase I hear most commonly these days. Done, that is, with graduate school.Yes, it is most definitely nice to be done.So now I'm teaching, which I haven't had the chance to do for a while, and it's great fun, even if I'm teaching more of a herd than a class (~350 students in the lecture hall. However, it's an 8AM class, so only about 25% of the herd is awake at any one time.) It's funny how students adapt. The kids who are engaged ...
Saturday evening we were walking down Main Street in Ann Arbor, on our way to meet friends for dinner. As we walked down the street some probably drunken, obviously corpulent, definitely douchbaggy football fans yelled from their enormous Earth-destroying SUV, "You two should be holding hands!"Well, that sounded like a good idea, so we did. Apparently they didn't actually know what they wanted, because then they completely freaked out over this. It took them about 2 minutes to wrap their pea-brains around what was going on (football Saturday, traffic was slow and so were they) and then they started shouting ...
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