in like a lamb, in like a lion

[silveraspen]

I've always liked the saying about March that attempts to predict spring weather: in like a lion, out like a lamb; in like a lamb, out like a lion. In this case, the weather was nice on March first... and was immediately followed by a storm system that dumped ten inches of snow on the city. It's the same here today: 60F and sunny outside, with a storm arriving tomorrow that's predicted to drop another foot of snow on us.

It'll be interesting to see what the end of the month brings.

In other news, I have finally advanced to the active data collection phase of my dissertation! (Seriously - wild cheering is totally appropriate here.) Now all I need is for enough people to actually respond to the survey to provide statistical validity in analysis. Everyone keep your fingers crossed for me, okay?

Next step: writing - quite a lot of it. I'm actually looking forward to this part.

I know I've been scarce around here for a bit, and I'm sorry if I've missed anything I should have spotted and reacted to, whether here, on Twitter, or on Tumblr. (Or on Facebook, I suppose, although that's generally a roll of the dice on any given day.) Anyway, if I have and there's something you'd like me to see, please do drop a link in comments? Thank you, in advance.

Finally, here's a little linkspam to round out your morning:

• From Geek Feminism: Anita's Quilt. Quoted directly from the link: Anita’s Quilt is an ongoing dialog of inspirational stories from women in tech supporting each other and individually striving to have more impact as technologists. I think this is an excellent idea, and I encourage everyone to check it out.


• From the PLOS Blogs: how Daylight Savings Time contributes to heart attack risk. It's an interesting spin on the results of a study in the NEJM (caveat: I have not myself read the actual paper, so I can't speak to the details), and since Daylight Savings is coming up this Sunday, I thought it would be fun to share.


• From Lifehacker: do you have an emergency fund? This one I am sharing not because of the link to the personal finance blog that's within LH's writeup (I actually don't think much of the linked article), but because the comments on the Lifehacker posting are intriguing.


• Also from Lifehacker: scientific findings that show correlation between meditation and improved brain function. As someone who's been working to develop a regular mindfulness practice, I'm very interested in this, and so I've downloaded this paper to read in full later.


• From Whatever: John Scalzi's scathing analysis of predatory contracts from Random House imprints Alibi and Hydra. The link is to his remarks on the Alibi contract, but it includes a link back to his previous post about Hydra. This is important because RH is one of the Big Six, and is presumably testing the waters to see if this kind of shift will be accepted. It really, really shouldn't be.


• Finally, from Sociological Images: the truth about gender and math. There are few things that will make me see red as fast as reference to that chirpy Barbie doll from the 90's with its "Math is hard! Let's go shopping!" message. This post shows exactly why that sort of thing matters, and is well worth your time.

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