Author Archives: Cath@VWXYNot?

About Cath@VWXYNot?

"one of the sillier science bloggers [...] I thought I should give a warning to the more staid members of the community." - Bob O'Hara, December 2010

Repost: finding the alternatives within academia

Posted on April 27, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

This is a re-post of some career advice I wrote lo these many years ago for the Alternative Scientist blog, which is/was written by a group of bloggers for researchers considering careers other than traditional tenure-track research and/or teaching. The … Continue reading →

Posted in career, communication, personal, science | 17 Comments

Are left-wingers more creative? Are multi-party systems superior to two-party systems? Do provocative titles attract more readers and comments?

Posted on April 21, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Let’s see: a Canadian federal election, an electoral reform referendum in the UK, a new opposition leader and talk of an early provincial election in British Columbia, and lots of coverage of the likely US Republican party presidential candidates, all … Continue reading →

Posted in blog buddies, Canada, current affairs, politics, silliness, UK | 48 Comments

Weekend fun: my next tweet

Posted on April 16, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Many, many thanks to Kimli for alerting me to “That Can Be My Next Tweet!“, a tool that creates mash-ups of bits and pieces of your most recent tweets to create much hilarity. My twitter stream is kinda schizophrenic at … Continue reading →

Posted in Canada, communication, current affairs, cycling, English language, politics, science, silliness, technology | 35 Comments

Mis-shapes, mistakes, misfits

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

I went to Whistler last weekend and it was awesome. More on that later, but today I wanted to share some photos of a remarkable mural we saw in an underpass as we walked back to the car from the … Continue reading →

Posted in art, Canada, nature, photos | 6 Comments

Hockey pool: final results!

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Let’s start with an overview of the whole season’s results, NOT INCLUDING the final week’s: Lavaland led the pool from week 13 onwards, but could she fend off a strong challenge from Ricardipus? And did anything interesting happen in the … Continue reading →

Posted in hockey pool, sport | 16 Comments

Next time you’re ranting about your latest grant review…

Posted on April 6, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

…spare a thought for your colleagues in Bulgaria. I had to read the fifth paragraph of this Nature News piece two or three times to make sure I’d fully understood the depth of the (alleged) problems at the Bulgarian National … Continue reading →

Posted in bad people, current affairs, grant wrangling, science | 13 Comments

Paging Doctor Clueless!

Posted on April 5, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

A story from way back in the mists of time… ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A good friend of mine had an absolutely terrible time during her PhD, worse than anyone I know: her two co-supervisors had a fight and stopped talking to each … Continue reading →

Posted in career, communication, English language, idiocy, science | 11 Comments

Hockey pool: penultimate update!

Posted on April 4, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Just one week to go until we crown a winner, and things are looking pretty tight at the top! Ricardipus made up some ground on first-placed Lavaland, and if I were them I’d be choosing this week’s players veeeeeery carefully … Continue reading →

Posted in hockey pool | 16 Comments

Cat on a hot tin MacBook

Posted on April 1, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

Things are ramping up to crazy levels again, at work and elsewhere. Deadlines, side-projects, taxes (I actually managed to file weeks before the actual Canada Revenue deadline, for once!), unconference organisation, blogging, and trying to keep up with the twists … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Priorities

Posted on March 29, 2011 by Cath@VWXYNot?

This is a fantastic way to kick off a general election: Checking the CBC website for the latest campaign news this morning, I noticed that sport (and hockey in particular) is apparently less important than potential nuclear meltdowns, but much … Continue reading →

Posted in bad people, Canada, current affairs, silliness, sport, videos | 10 Comments