VWXYNot? Comment(s) of the week:
Nina and Grant for the following exchange: Nina: "Life should be a conference, everyone wearing nametags all the time, with their first name, last name, nickname, country of origin and country of residence. Birthdate optional."
Grant: Nina, I’m sure tech types will suggest we’ll all be bumping cell phones to exchange names in a few years. (Eurgh.)
One more: you know that thing where the person can’t quite read your name tag and leans in close over your chest to read it…
Nina: "ok, how about tattooing your name onto your forehead?"
Grant: "How about a sub-dermal name implant invisible when not active that glows when triggered by trained neural signals beaming your name to the people opposite you?
Failing that we could all wear electrode scalp caps that carry a flip up sign… (Taking as my cue the brain-computer interfaces emotiv and others are marketing.)"
[NB as a chronic tartler, I approve of all the above methods]
Alyssa for "It’s cloudy again
We see it’s cold and dreary
But – we have windows!!!"
Ricardipus for "Bugger me, the grant’s
Finally done. Thank goodness.
Now back to fun stuff."
Bean-mom for "I just clicked on the article on circular RNAs–I’d seen the headline earlier but hadn’t yet read it–and just as I expected, I’m all WTF?! MicroRNAs, long non-coding RNAs, now we’ve got circular RNAs. . . I feel like someone should just write a review titled, “RNA: WTF?”"
Nina again for "edit: my advisor has improved his standing desk further by standing on a wooden board that balances on a small (but sturdy) plastic tube, to make him wobble while standing, so to keep working those balancing muscles, or something like that. The tube comes from one of my experiments. I will miss that “wtf I’ll create my own standing desk – pilates work-out” attitude, I must admit."
Bob O'H for "Reminds me of my youth playing boardgames. There was one called Civilisation, which a friend described as “almost as long as the real thing”."
Chall "it surely looks like the Leafs MIGHT go to play offs for the first time in 7 years…. if I didn’t jinx it by saying it here of course. That said, I find myself wondering how bad it will be to end 5th place if Boston stays 4th. It sort of feels better to play the 3rd (Capitals right now) than Bruins but right now I’ll settle for PLAYOFFS and miracle :)"
[the Leafs making the playoffs is a miracle indeed]
KJHaxton for "Good question! I’d put:
– occasional baker of cakes for meetings
– fair to moderate tolerance for bullshit
– low tolerance for unfairness and willing to get very cross about it (folds arms and glowers at the screen)
– best selection of tea bags in desk drawer (8 kinds at last count)
– prone to wearing scarves and shirts that don’t match
Ah well, I’m not sure I’d find a new job on the basis of those :)"
Ricardipus again for "Pros:
- rarely swears in public
- has few friends, so unlikely to have loud, belly-laughing conversations on phone or in person
- capable of speaking at length about (a) race cars, (b) cameras, or (c) bad science
Cons:
- occasionally swears in public
- has few friends, so likely to have poor social interactions with co-workers
- capable of speaking at length about (a) race cars, (b) cameras, or (c) bad science
I’d also probably include “easily suckered into serving on irrelevant committees” into each category, too."
Bean-mom again for "–Friendly.
–Doesn’t bake, but if you have a potluck I’ll bring killer spring rolls (both crispy fried pork ones, and the vegetarian fresh rice-paper ones).
–Doesn’t bake, but husband bakes. Occasionally, you may be a recipient of his talent.
–Will cheerfully listen to other people’s dramas, but won’t cause any of my own. Not at work, anyway."
and Nina yet again for "As I may have mentioned before, I’m pretty sure my cv point “Love baking (chocolate) cakes” earned me my PhD position, and it definitely often raised questions in interviews (“so, how often do you bake cake? What kind of chocolate do you use?”)"
Post(s) of the Week: Beth Snow for "Modern conveniences" (how on earth did we survive, let alone study and write theses, before Skype and cloud computing?!)
Steve Caplan for "Science education: the generalist vs the specialist" (are 3 year or 4 year degrees better for students?)
Bean-mom for "Leaving scientific research... again" (science SUCKS sometimes)
Eva Amsen, writing at the Occam's Typewriter Irregulars for "The two ideas to fix the gender balance that do not make me cringe" (the panel pledge and the Finkbeiner test)
Bob O'Hara for "Making reviewing boring stuff less boring" (would a stripped-down manuscript format work better for the, um, less exciting papers out there?)
Alyssa for "Just the pants, thanks" (absolutely hilarious take on the modern clothes shopping experience)
Eva Amsen again for "My self-updating address book" (how LinkedIn can be useful)
CromerCrox for "Plagues" (how's God been cursing you lately?)
Prof-like Substance for "If you don't talk to your kids about it someone else will" (anticipating school-yard talk about religion and other big issues)
and CromerCrox again for "Conferences" (the problem of sexism at conferences)
Archives:
October 2008 - March 2009; April 2009 - September 2009; October 2009 - March 2010; April 2010 - September 2010; October 2010 - February 2011; March 2011 - September 2011; October 2011 - March 2012; April 2012 - September 2012; October 2012 - March 2013; April 2013 - September 2013
Sweet! Congrats Thomas as I think you won this week!!!
As for me, I’d be happier if I would’ve kept up with Lavaland like on Friday but as for now I’m going for the play off idea and counting down how much difference there is btw the Leafs and Buffalo etc… although, as I stated last year, if you’d played well in the beginning of the year the last 3 games wouldn’t matter as much… duh
If only my goalie didn’t get injured the day of picks!
I’m afraid, I’m very afraid! I’ve already changed my roster 3 times this weekend…. with 5 hours left until the deadline I have time for 3 more changes I’m sure!
Stellar week by Thomas! I’m gonna have to suggest you ditch Turco, he hasn’t started in 18 games, if your gonna stick with CHI for goalie go with Corey Crawford – he’s likely to get 3 of the 4 starts this week.
Richardipus, Kath & ScientistMother – Just in case you didn’t see, Rick Nash is injured – was expected to play this week but didn’t leave on the road trip this a.m.
It’s going to be a crazy week! Go Canucks Go!!!
T
ps. Was there any interest in a playoff pool?
Why oh why help them by telling them about Nash?!
I’m interested in the play off pool!
“as I stated last year, if you’d played well in the beginning of the year the last 3 games wouldn’t matter as much”
Same goes for the pool! I’m wishing I hadn’t found it so amusing to jinx teams I don’t like by choosing their goalie in the first half of the season (me choosing a goalie did actually jinx teams most of the time in the first few weeks). I’ve done much better (on average) since deciding to choose good goalies, although I never got confident enough in my non-jinxing abilities to risk picking Luongo!
I’d be interested in a play-off pool, but I’m going to be in England and Spain for three weeks in May, so I can’t commit to running it. Even making my picks on time might be a struggle, but I’ll try if someone else can run the pool!
I’d actually already ditched Nash without knowing he was injured, based on my prediction that there’s no way Columbus will make the play-offs and they won’t be trying all that hard; I’m stacking my pool with players from teams in positions 6-10 this week. (Plus the Sedins).
Aah, safely in third – I can relax. My strategy of picking Nordics has done me well.
Who’s this Luongo guy? Sounds like a cup of coffee.
LUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Mr E Man and I will be spending the next 10 days or so doing a lot of non-hockey-related things – such as seeing movies, and eating in restaurants that don’t have TVs – because once the play-offs start, there’ll be no time for anything else!
the injury issue is why I always wait until the last minute to make my picks, not that helped me the other week with Ovechekin who waited till 3:45pm to say he wasn’t playing – bastard! Lets see if I can catch up to Bob
Tense, very tense… but I think Lavaland’s got me. Thanks for the Rick Nash tip BTW – I hadn’t picked him, so you Chall can rest assured you haven’t helped me at all.
Oh and Chall – for the record, I was top of the table this week… squeaking into first for the week solely as a result of Sunday’s games.
As for my picks, I’m either gonna kick butt or sink like a rock. The balance between good players, teams playing four games, and judicious guesswork about who’s hot and who’s not (goalies, players, and teams trying to make a point in the last few games) seems really tricky indeed.
Cath, mucho thanks again for hosting this. I’m not sure I’d be nimble enough for a playoff pool, but certainly willing to give it a shot!
Lavaland… it’s you and me… [begins to shake gloves off hands in approved threatening manner]
ahh… sorry. Didn’t mean to steal your thunder. I was looking at the score Sat and clearly didn’t pay attention to the graph in the blog post ^^
As for the results, I’ll hope I shoot like that crazy week and catch up with Cath (hope’s spring eternal etc etc etc)
ScientistMother, how ’bout let’s see if you can hang on to 4th
Ricardipus, it’s a weird time of year! I had some GREAT players in my pool last week who just didn’t score, or scored much less than usual – defenses are tightening up, but forwards are playing with some desperation. It makes for very exciting hockey if your team’s still fighting for position, and very unpredictable hockey pools!
Thanks for your thanks – you’re very welcome! It’s been fun – having more people involved (and hosting updates!) has made it more enjoyable than last year (which was also fun, but became a bit of a chore).
…and after one day, it’s all tied up at the top!!!!!!
/nailbiting
I haven’t looked yet today, given that there were only two games last night and I didn’t have players from any of those four teams! How exciting!
Just luck – for goalies, NY win helped me, Boston loss didn’t help LL. I did ok out of the San Jose win, whereas LL’s sole player on that team didn’t score any points.
Early days yet, she was still 5 points up on me at the beginning of the week and I expect it to end that way…
Oooohhh… I don’t know…. I will definitely need a manicure at the end of the week… if there is anything left.
Bugger. I lost.
Well done Lavaland, you got the last week’s picks just right (all season long, really).
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