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
As I just said on twitter… back home the term “2nd generation immigrant” is really mostly used to by certain ppl to make sure that “these ppl are not real swedes” (e.g right wing extremist and not pc). Otherwise mainly used in terms of statistics… but not all uncontroversial. First generation immigrant though, it’s useful when talking about the stigma of moving to a new country (with a small language base) and the problems that may arise due to prejudice etc… still in stats context.
Then again, being from a strange place when comparing to Canada and USA (when it comes to being more viewed as being “immigrant nations from the start”), we don’t normally distinguish the Scandinavian countries (i.e. Finland, Norway and Denmark) as “immigrant” as much… think we would benefit immensly from talking more about “ppl who can understand and speak the language” since in the end that is a huge deal when it comes to ‘assimilating’ and making a new life. Hope I’m making somewhat of sense…? (after all, it’s a small place with a small language, not like English – or French – which are larger language by too much)
yeah, a lot of people seem not to think I’m really an immigrant, because the UK is so similar to Canada in many ways. To the extent that I’ve had more than one person complain to me about immigrants / immigration / theytookourjobs!!1!!, and when I’ve asked them why they’re complaining to an immigrant, they say “oh, well, I don’t mean you“.
Depressing.
the cynic in me says its because you’re the “right” type of immigrant “european” you’re not about to change the demographics or “culture”
yeah, people have been known to follow up “I don’t mean you” with “because you’re…”, and then they stop, and I always imagine they were going to say “white”, but then they say something about speaking the language already or being well qualified or something. But they always pause before they say that part.
on the flip side, my Vietnamese-born former neighbour became much friendlier when he found out that I’m a fellow immigrant – he’d assumed I was Canadian born. When he found out we shared that experience, we started to bond over complaints about the immigration department’s phone system and things like that.
It’s not a cynical concept, ScientistMother, it’s a societal concept. A study in Finland about Finns (sorry, too lazy to link) showed there are clear classes of immigrants, white european being the most acceptable, spanning down to black african.
I had never seen Airport Dad, and now I’m crying.
I guess that defaults: Team Airport Dad.
By the way, this whole thing started with a tweet from the excellent spoof @stats_canada account, saying
“2% of Canadians are still crying because of that Tim Horton’s commercial where the African dad meets his family at the airport”
Sounds similar to the confusion as to whether “first floor” means the floor on the ground level, or the floor above ground level. It depends where you start counting from.
Ah yes. I used to think this was a Europe vs. North America thing, until I realized that there are plenty of buildings on this side of the pond that use the “M for main, 1 for the next floor up” method – and plenty of others that use “1″ for the ground floor.
Of course, the hospital across the street uses “1″ for the sub-basement, so that the ground floor is “3″. Which is very confusing when you cross the bridge to the hospital next door to it, magically transitioning from the fourth floor to the sixth.
Or the sixth floor to the fourth, depending on which direction you’re going.
Really? I thought it was North America vs. everywhere else thing, too.
Here in Vancouver there are lots of big buildings built on very steep hills, so the floor number when you enter is one or two floors different at the front versus the back of the building.
Cath – I think my tendency would be to use ScientistMother’s definition (i.e., I am a first-generation immigrant, being in the first generation of my family born here, whereas my British-born parents are just immigrants,or naturalized citizens, or something).
On the other hand, I’m not sure I’d accept Wikipedia as the authoritative source on this (or anything, for that matter).
it… it isn’t?
I’d better go and re-write some of my research papers, brb!
I”m crying watching the proud father. Way way better. #TeamProudFather.
that’s because you relate more to your immigrant parents, you second-generationer! Us proper first generation peeps relate more to the dad moving here by himself and missing his family
(both are awesome and give me warm-and-fuzzy feelings, by the way. The difference is that hockey granddad makes me smile, but airport dad makes me cry)
I relate to the boy wanting to “fit” in, while his dad wanted him to study. It was hard being the “only one” that didn’t do stuff.
I cried watching airport-dad. That is one amazing commercial. (proudFathers is good too). It makes me wonder if it would be better if the Tim Hortons-management became Canada’s pm.
Because on a related note, in a pubquiz the other week my friends thought Canada had a female progressive green PM, and I had to bitterly correct them.
I’d vote for them!
sorry, I just remembered YOU are going to dominate the world soon! Please take TH as your advisors Cath …
And yet, I’m not sure how I would feel if I came to a dark snowy country and my husband would give me mediocre cold coffee in a paper cup. But then again, I am (brr) white and I grew up with mediocre cold coffee, so how could I compare.
Loved the proud-daddy-commercial but like Nina, I were also thinking: would I really want a cup of coffee at that moment??!
What happened to flowers, balloons and big banners of “Welcome to Canada, my loved ones”
I don’t think most airports let you put up banners unless maybe you’re a returning Olympic champion or something.
But he could at least have bought a box of TimBits.
One of my now-Canadian friends moved there with her parents when she was 11. So both her and her parents are the same generation of immigrant, which I also find terribly confusing.
Where then does that leave those who live and obtain citizenship in multiple countries? Are they, like the Queen who rules both Canada and the UK at the same time, multi-first generations. I met an artist who, like me, born in Canada, lived in the UK, with UK citizenship, then lived in US, with pending US citizenship. Are we both multi-generation Canadians with first generation immigrant status as a British and Americans? I think when laws of naturalization and loopholes take over, science takes a back seat.
Oh, this whole thing is getting even more confusing than I’d first thought! Why can’t we all just be citizens of the world?!
Really the Q should be, why can’t Canada just take over? It really would be better world
Um… maybe after the next election?!
Pingback: Bragging Rights Central archive, Oct 2012 – Mar 2013 | VWXYNot?