Jodi runs a Stanford post-doc book club, and a few months ago the club’s book was “The Omnivore’s Dilemma” by Michael Pollan. That book catapaulted Pollan into the public eye, making him a spokesperson for the food movement in this country. It’s not a wheatgrass and hemp-humping diatribe. It’s an […]
One of the funnier moments caught on video by NCSE during the TEA hearings [1] was when Chairman McLeroy misread seminal work by Stephen Jay Gould, and employed his misreading to justify teaching weaknesses of a scientific theory. Gould was a critic of the viewpoint that gradual changes in species […]
The case of a fired Texas Education Agency science director raises an interesting new development in the struggle in education between the definition of science and non-scientific forces seeking their way into the classroom [1]. It’s been a while since I paid close attention to these state-by-state developments [2], but […]
As I announced in my professional blog the other day [1], Jodi and I will be joining the faculty at Southern Methodist University [2] in August. We are VERY excited about this – the move to Dallas, teaching, mentoring students, hiring post-docs, establishing our future research careers. We rarely have […]
Last Thursday, I effectively went into a communication blackout owing to the visit of many family members. Jodi’s mom and dad, her sister, and her sister’s twin sons, all visited us for four days. We rented a minivan so that we could get around, stocked up on food for the […]
What a shock to hear a call from my home town of Killingworth, CT, on NPR’s “Car Talk” this last weekend. I always tell people Killingworth is the CT town they’ve never heard of. Now, I guess Chester gets that distinction.
Now that digital cable seems well under the control of sTeVo, my MythTV box [1], I thought it would be helpful to post some of my lessons learned in this process. Lesson 1: MythTV is robust and flexible. The dedicated team of MythTV developers have made an adaptable product. The […]
Tonight on NPR was a timely story about why we can’t get the internet on our TV [1]. Most of the blame gets put on Cable companies and content producers in Hollywood (and other places). For me, the bottom line is: I DO have the internet on my TV – […]
FY09 has been quietly signed into law by President Obama, after passing both Houses of congress with only fanfare over earmarks. This is not Obama’s budget; this is President Bush’s last budget, loaded up by Congress. Now the important work begins: FY10. FY10 is due by Oct. 1 of this […]
Today, it became clear to me that the CommandIR was not going to cut the mustard. I aimed my webcam at the emitter, and could clearly see the emitter lighting up when it was instructed to send commands to the Comcast box. That meant the emitter was transmitting, but it […]
Yesterday, my IR blaster from CommandIR arrived. After going to see the movie “Watchmen”, I spent the evening setting up the new IR receiver and emitter. Step one: plug in and verify linux saw it. Step one was completed in less than 10 seconds. Step two: add the existence of […]
I reported last night the trouble we’ve been having getting sTeVo ready for the Comcast transition to digital cable. I realized today that the date is even sooner than I thought – March 15 instead of April 15. Silly me. Pressure! After learning that all but local channels will be […]