A rant, just for a second. Like every other computer-bound sod I compulsively check the BBC news webpages all day and consider myself somewhat familiar with their style. The thing that’s really narking me off right now is their headlines. From today’s (although yesterday’s was much worse): 1. Twin blasts ‘kill 24’ in Baghdad 2. … Read more
My friend J once described something as being “kitty-corner” from a person in a restaurant, and I seriously thought she was making up random feline-words because she’s such a sucker for cats. It turned out that kitty-corner (or catty-corner) is some Yankee slang for “diagonally opposite” – who knew? I just thought of this as … Read more
Some days I would like to re-animate George Peter Murdock and have a beer with him. G.P., I’d say, after shaking his hand vigorously (although not too hard, because, you know, zombie corpse) G.P., you would have really liked the concept of the computer database, and maybe if you’d had one, you mighta got out … Read more
The Wellcome Trust’s Biomedical Image Awards. I used to love the photo-identification round (“what is this strange wire contraption?” an egg-beater!) in quiz shows like University Challenge or W3 when I was younger, but I’m pretty sure none of these would be identifiable but anyone but their respective experts. I particularly like the aspirin and … Read more
WordPress tells me my blog was discovered using the following search terms: “Benedictine influences in the asian cult” “pbs documentary new guinea strange people” Hope that worked out for y’all, people!
A “vagary”, according to The Source, is the collective noun for ‘impediments’. More pages that collect collective nouns are here and here. I am amused that a group of submarines is called a wolfpack, and that a group of sheldrakes is a doading (shoutout to my friend Duckie!). Henceforth a group of links to things … Read more
I just created an account over at Anthropology.net (cue gratuitous linky banner thingo) It’s a community site for Anthropology, with blogging, forums, and a wiki. So anything here that’s anthropological in the least will get posted there as well, ‘cos I’m all about blanket coverage.
Went to Natural History Museum today. Disappointed like a seven year old when realised the new ANIMATRONIC DINOSAURS weren’t on show until the weekend. Was also annoyed by the dustiness and not-working lihgts in the gemstone collection. Consoled self with the zen of watching the leaf-cutter ants. Now you can too.
A non-biologist friend of mine, on proofreading bits of the thesis-in-progress, got terribly excited about the program Mr Bayes. "Mr Bayes!" she exclaimed. "That's the perfect name for a tabby cat!" Her comments on the section where I actually described Bayesian methods in phylogenetics consisted mainly of 🙁 and >.< faces. "The words seem to … Read more
Presentation Zen has a great post on the rule of thirds in slide composition. FrinkTank linked the site for Danny Boyle's new film Sunshine, which I will not embarrass myself by going OMGICANNOTWAITLKJSHDFALKJFSDA except how I totally just did. Am following with interest the reponse to Nature's piece commenting on PLoS's "rocky" financial position, here. … Read more