Deep thoughts and silliness

Here we are on day two. Day 1 ended late, thanks to Dr. Freeride’s generous party hosting.

Continue reading →

The formal part of the meeting has begun. The wireless network here is dodgy, but we’re struggling through. I’ll update this post throughout the day.

Continue reading →

So. We spent the morning at a coffee tasting, and the afternoon at the BRITEs (Abel Pharmboy’s, not any other).

Bora’s nose can be incredibly useful
Now we are about to indulge in a wine tasting, whilst admiring Isis’ latest shoe:

Continue reading →

I’ve spent the last few days wandering around New York with Grrlscientist. The Empire State Building is not good for vertigo. And the we saw a really neat film at the AMNH (seriously, watch it if you can).
This afternoon we arrived safely in North Carolina, having left from La Guardia. One of the first things we heard was that an American Airlines plane had crashed taking off from La Guardia. We weren’t on it, fortunately (but we were flying with the same airline). Grrlscientist is worried about what species of bird it was that died when it hit the plane.

Continue reading →

I’m on my travels again. Tomorrow I’m flying off to New York, laden with salmiakki, as requested by two of my American friends. No doubt they will repay me by buying me American beer. I’ve also been told I’ll be taught how to jay-walk, so I will report back if I’m able.
At the end of the week I’m popping down to North Carolina to ScienceOnline09, where I hope to meet a bunch of interesting people, including of course some of you. I’m guessing more beer will be drunk – there is due to be a NN meet-up in the Radisson bar at 8.30pm on Friday.

Continue reading →

Chris did it, and it’s better than working. Go to this site and select all the countries you’ve been to. Mine follows…

Continue reading →

Ha! The power of Friendfeed. Enro put up a link to some slides about a network analysis of science blogging. We all piled on to say (a) this is really cool, and (b) where’s the blog post?
It’s here

Continue reading →

I’m (finally) reading The Origin of Species, and came across this comment:

So again with the varieties of sheep: it has been asserted that certain mountain-varieties will starve out other mountain-varieties, so that they cannot be kept together. The same result has followed from keeping together different varieties of the medicinal leech.

That’s something I had never thought about before – how are medicinal leeches kept when they are not used? Do they each have their own little velvet-lined¹ box? Or are they instead stuffed together in a plastic bag, and when one is needed, the doctor just puts some forceps in and grabs the nearest?

Continue reading →

Whilst I’m waiting for the new year to fumble around and then enter in a fanfare of bangs, flashes and general destruction of the atmosphere, and as I’ve just failed to do what I wanted with this post, I thought I’d get into the spirit of the age by writing an extremely long sentence that would end up explaining that I might as well follow Grrlscientist’s lead and write a five books I wish I hadn’t read meme. They’re all from the last year, so hopefully next year will be better…

Continue reading →

I’m listening to Radio 3 at the moment, and they’re playing part of a rather fine recording of The Messiah¹. I was wondering if it was available for purchase, so googled the record’s code: PHILIPS 420 865-2. Result number 13 was this:

Continue reading →