Usually when a reporter writes about a scientific discovery, they go totally wild with the headline. Quantum tunneling becomes "'Star Trek' Transporters a Reality." Discover a gene that explains 10% of the variance in a particular kind of spiritual altered state of consciousness and they call it the "God Gene." But today I saw one that does the ( Read more... )

A lot of you have heard me say that when I was a teenager, I had recurring episodes of sleep paralysis (and now all of you have!). I got the complete "old hag" package, with full-sensory hallucinations and feelings of suffocation and terror. After the first couple of years I finally figured out what was happening to me, when I recognized it in a ( Read more... )

The subject of tonight's segment of "Holy Crap! Science!" is polyethylene glycols (PEGs).

Quotes shamelessly pasted in from Wikipedia:
"PEGs are prepared by polymerization of ethylene oxide and are commercially available over a wide range of molecular weights from 300 g/mol to 10,000,000 g/mol ( Read more... )

You know, I was afraid San Francisco was going to be too big, or too alternative, or too hip for me. But in the less than two days I've spent here, I've ( Read more... )

Last month I ordered a Rock Band set. I've been having a lot of fun with it! The game is a wonder of interface design. It's got Karaoke Revolution, Drum Mania, and two instances of Guitar Hero all running on the same screen, plus diagnostics for the band as a whole, and it isn't even cluttered. And of course it's hell of fun to play with all your ( Read more... )

I waited so I could show this to some people in person before I put it online. Now it's time to show to the world!


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Man, I never wrote about my trip to UNC. I actually did, but it was long and detailed so I didn't post it. But it was a great trip! I stayed with tanac and lutzethesweeper for a while. They were very kind hosts, and their house is great. They have more books than anyone I've ever seen (with the possible exception of john and christine back when they had a consolidated ( Read more... )

Sunday the 27th was the day I had to move out of the co-op. My flight to North Carolina provided a hard 3:00 PM deadline. Even though I'd actually planned ahead a bit and started working on it before the last second, I still got bitten by the asymptotic nature of moving. The last few bits of stuff -- comprising the most bothersome junk and the most ( Read more... )

Today I went to the ICC office to re-up my contract at the coop. I told them I wasn't a student anymore and that the president had sent non-student approval for me. Good old Ron was working the desk, and he slowly paged through the binder, ignoring me for a good five minutes, before reporting back that they had no record of my non-student approval ( Read more... )

8 PM Thursday: After the infuriating failure of telecollaboration tech, euziere kindly agrees to drive up to the co-op to see my practice talk. I felt like I'd worked hard, polished things up, and would be able to nail the rehearsal and get to bed early. But as I give the talk I watch her grimace over and over, and I keep hitting parts I can't ( Read more... )