Search Results: under
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29 Apr 2020: Pickled Japanese Knotweed
Food: bread, knotweed, pickles, Polygonaceae · no comments... vinegar brine and dessert spices. These are disappointing. Underneath all the sour, of which there is more than plenty, they're bitter. ...
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17 Jul 2020: Winnowing Money Plant Seeds
Food: Brassicaceae, foraging, seeds · 1 comment... I tried every technique I could think of that would work underneath the covered part of my back deck - but either the seeds would bounce ...
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12 Jun 2020: Four Ways to Eat Black Locust Blossoms (and One Way Not to Bother)
Food: Amaryllidaceae, black locust, Brassicaceae, chives, edible flowers, Fabaceae, flowers, recipes, salad, soup · no comments... for their timely black locust flower post, I don't quite understand what drives them to make custard and jelly from their flowers. I was ... really noticeable as anything other than vegetable filler underneath the tahini; the dame's rocket flowers were amazing. Black Locust ...
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11 May 2020: Car Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Trunk
Politics: bicycles, cars, lifestyles of the privileged minority, privilege · 4 comments... and customs governing my mode of transportation are widely understood, even by people who do not use it. If I am using the road in a legal ... is unacceptable. The dangers I face on the road are widely understood, even by people who do not use my form of transportation. If I take ...
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26 May 2020: How Gay Marriage Causes Earthquakes
Politics, Whimsy: California ballot propositions, California politics, lgbt, Love waves, marriage · 38 comments... each county registrar, but it's usually Helvetica). Under normal conditions, these Love waves would also dissipate harmlessly in ... Suffice it to say, when enough gay energy lubricates the underlying faults, California will be doomed - maybe not immediately after ...
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25 Mar 2020: Are Geophysicists Geologists? Part II
Human Fuzzies, Science: disciplinary boundaries, professional licensing, Washington · 14 comments... count towards the necessary 5 years. So, assuming I have understood the requirements correctly (always a gamble!), it would take a ...
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20 Mar 2020: Are the Tonga Earthquake and Eruption Related?
Science: coincidence, earthquakes, volcanoes · 11 comments... of the top of the Pacific plate slipped a little further underneath the bottom of the Indo-Australian plate, nothing volcanic about ... the postulated spooky-earthquakes-at-a-distance. We don't understand all of what makes an earthquake happen now rather than later, but we ...
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19 Mar 2020: The Parable of the Messy Map
Human Fuzzies: cartography, graphic design · 5 comments... not hard to do, but the relevant knob is squirreled away under a couple of option panels; I showed her where it was and turned my base ...
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14 Mar 2020: Blackberry Meringue Pie with Orange Bitters and Almond Crust
Food: blackberries, meringue, pie, recipes, Rosaceae · 1 comment... away in the back of my freezer. Pick some slightly underripe blackberries for this one, so it's as tart as a good lemon ...
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9 Mar 2020: Delicious Internet Noms
Links: blog carnivals, hydrology, resumes, sexual harassment, Wikipedia · 1 comment... Wikipedia's women earth scientists category is considered "underpopulated". And, bizarrely, there do not appear to be any categories ...
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2 Mar 2020: Recent Results in Seismology
Science: academic journals, earthquakes, liquefaction, nonvolcanic tremor, seismology · 1 comment... which is enough time to move away from windows and under a table; anyone who tells you that they can provide enough time for you ... be triggered by arriving seismic waves, but we don't understand that either, so it's a fat lot of good that does us in trying to ...
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26 Feb 2020: The Stimulating Effects of Monitoring Volcanoes
Politics, Science: economics, US party politics, volcano monitoring, volcanoes · 10 comments... beyond my Econ 101 will feel free to weigh in here. My understanding, though, is that in general, a good economic stimulus project is ... economic situation - and that of the many other unemployed/underemployed volcano-seismo-whooserwhatsits with whom I am competing for a ...
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17 Feb 2020: Teaching Engineers to Blog?
Meta: · 6 comments... got a request for advice from Maryam, an old undergrad committee-comrade-in-arms, which I have mangled for clarity: To make ...
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11 Feb 2020: An Open Letter to the Environmental Geologists of the Past
Human Fuzzies, Science: cartography, environmental consulting · 11 comments... could provide site location maps that will remain useful under those circumstances, instead of the following: Love and ...
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27 Jan 2020: Academic Citation
Aimless: · 1 comment... from? These are basically self-centered. That's fine for undergraduates, who still need to learn to find and evaluate information. ...
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23 Jan 2020: Cookbooks with Science
Food, Science: book reviews, cookbooks, cooking, inverse methods, pie · 5 comments... up simple computational models of the Earth in order to understand why seismograms look the way they do. You can send a basic ... everything. But having to do it left me with an intuitive understanding of seismic waveforms that I would never have acquired otherwise: ...
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31 Dec 2020: Geological Predictions for 2020
Aimless: · 13 comments... control of her people. A team of X-Files Torchwood former underwear models volcanologists solves the puzzle - but not their interpersonal ... a falling object. A new mantle plume will begin to ascend underneath Antarctica. It will not be detected by human seismologists, but will ...
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18 Dec 2020: California is Safe?
Aimless: · 10 comments... than common weather events like heat waves, floods, and thunderstorms. The study was published in the open-access International Journal ... ruptures of any of the faults that run immediately underneath densely-populated urban cores. If a real Bay Area "Big One" on the ...
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15 Dec 2020: Geo-Memeage
Aimless: · 5 comments... stromatolites in situ, but we looked at them in labs in undergrad... 18. A field of glacial erratics 19. A caldera 20. A sand dune more ... A sea stack 29. A house-sized glacial erratic 30. An underground lake or river 31. The A continental divide - The Great Divide, ...
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6 Nov 2020: Why Proposition 8 Hurts So Much
Politics: · 3 comments... that their relationships were finally recognized as equal under the law. On Tuesday, Californians voted to annihilate that joy. The vote ...
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26 Oct 2020: Introducing Thomas M. Rock
Aimless: · 1 comment... grant. If you can dig up as little as $5 in change from underneath your couch cushions, or save $5 next week by bringing your own soda ...
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20 Oct 2020: Coffee Bean Bridging
Aimless: · 11 comments... "bridges" during installation, leaving a gravel-free gap underneath, that's a place where sand will get in. There are a number of ...
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10 Oct 2020: What Donors Should Choose
Aimless: · 2 comments... stocked so he can make handouts. Available Matching Funds: Understanding the Water Cycle - Ms. T. in Indianapolis wants to make sure that her students have a solid understanding of the water cycle, and she's had particular trouble with the ...
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9 Oct 2020: Papers I Haven’t Been Reading Lately
Aimless: · 3 comments... through a fault zone, which means that it's important to understand how the gouge develops... but the role of heterogeneity in ...
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8 Oct 2020: Donors Choose Update: Prizes!
Meta: · 4 comments... to report that we've put new hot plates into a woefully underequipped high school science lab and rock samples and stream tables into ...
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6 Oct 2020: Drill, Baby, Drill… for Geothermal!
Aimless: · 11 comments... it. In other words: We are much better at cracking rocks underground than we used to be. Assuming that this type of rock-cracking ...
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26 Sep 2020: What Planet is my Clafoutis From?
Aimless: · 12 comments... on the bottom of my oven3. The original custard ocean had undergone dehydration reactions, and the resulting steam had puffed up the ...
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24 Sep 2020: Carnival of Feminists #65
Aimless: · 9 comments... They'd listen, too. Not just talk. Compassion and understanding. They would speak about Jesus and actually represent the fellow ... and stalk their ex-partners, invade their homes, often under cover of night, and kill the terrified women often in breach of their ...
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21 Aug 2020: The Metamorphic Petrology of Ice Cream
Aimless: · 12 comments... I'm not sure what conditions the ice cream was stored under, but the USGS image is from a limestone that had been stored next to a ... marble. Frozen desserts left in the freezer too long will undergo a similar process. The edges of each ice crystal are constantly ...
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20 Aug 2020: The Igneous Petrology of Ice Cream
Aimless: · 26 comments... or granita? Magma that is left to cool slowly underground will also produce large crystals. Coming tomorrow: The ...
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12 Aug 2020: OMG AMNH PONIES!!1!
Aimless: · 9 comments... exhibit depressing, for the following reason: I don't understand why more organizations don't give out press kits to bloggers. We ...
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8 Aug 2020: Shirts Belonging to the
EmperorScientist
Aimless: · 12 comments... part of drug company executives leads them to consistently underestimate the potential market. Because the concept doesn't seem ... investing in the final stage of clinical trials. File it under "patriarchy hurts men too": "You can lead a horse to water, but you ...
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18 Jul 2020: If the American Geophysical Union Were More Like the Movies
Aimless: · 11 comments... movie are just powerpoint-obsessed scientists who don't understand. It makes me wonder if anyone actually read my review. The Sizzle ...
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15 Jul 2020: Sizzle… fo’ Shizzle?
Aimless: · 1 comment... and fuzzy***. By the time Sizzle crawls its way out from under the pile of cheap stereotypes and plodding facsimiles of whimsy, though, ...
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5 Jul 2020: Delicious Internet Noms
Links: · 6 comments... on your own emergency kits. Could a volcanic eruption under the Arctic Ocean be responsible for melting ice caps? No. Andrew Revkin ...
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28 Jun 2020: Delicious Internet Noms
Links: · 1 comment... word "like" is, like, so inarticulate or whatever. More under the fold: Other blogging Brumms, continental shelf oil, and commodity ...
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24 Jun 2020: More on Mathphobia
Aimless: · 12 comments... noticed many student problems that have more to do with misunderstanding the nature and purpose of the assignment, than with misunderstanding the concepts involved. I was blown away when I realized that not ...
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19 Jun 2020: Carnival of Space #59
Links: · 2 comments... the southside of Copernicus. Imagine flying in a large underground cavern. Imagine high-jumping in 1/6th G. Or long-jumping. With the ...
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18 Jun 2020: Advice for a Mathphobe?
Aimless: · 25 comments... any advice for someone who plans on studying geology as an undergrad? At this point, let me note that my background is in geophysics, not ... do differential equations. I honestly haven't the faintest understanding of what it would be like to live or work without math. My ...
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12 Jun 2020: Devonian Fossil Gorge to Become… SIlurian Fossil Gorge?
Aimless: · 9 commentsI don't actually know what underlies the Middle Devonian brachiopods of my childhood, but I might get to ...
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: How to Find a Death Trap: A Guide for Apartment-Hunters
Aimless: · 11 comments... earthquakes, we have been able to dramatically improve our understanding of what constitutes a "bad building". But in Sichuan - and ...
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28 May 2020: Borrowing Geek Cred from the Mathematicians
Aimless: · 1 comment... Or just a natural result of a decent database and an understandable geeky interest in social network topology? *Handy-dandiness may ...
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21 May 2020: The Scouring of Fossil Gorge
Aimless: · 6 comments... and began cutting in to the 375 million year old sea floor underneath. When the water finally receded, it exposed a whole ecosystem, ...
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5 May 2020: Tag Clouds for my Papers
Aimless: · 7 commentsBrian posted tag clouds for two of his recent papers. Having no shame, Lab Lemming followed suit. Since I have even less shame, I'm just going to jump on while the bandwagon is rolling. So here's the tag cloud for Davies et al., 2020, currently in review ...
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29 Apr 2020: Confessions of a Grad School
DropoutGraduate
Aimless: · 25 comments... me give you the soap opera summary: I burned out during undergrad. Dazed, packed with angst, and convinced I was too stupid for a research career, I crawled out from under the mountain of popcorn* with B.S. in hand, swearing that I would never ...
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25 Apr 2020: The Meaning of Significance
Aimless: · 3 comments... review required for all new construction in California under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA - we pronounced it ...
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19 Apr 2020: Earthquake in Illinois: What’s up with Wabash Valley?
Aimless: · 16 comments... certain that one of the scars from that breakup lies underneath the Mississippi River near the town of New Madrid, Missouri. Six ...
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16 Apr 2020: Women in Science Linky-Post
Links: · 3 comments... role in social adaption to climate change. MOAR LINKS under teh foldz NOM NOM. The Angry Black Woman has called for a Carnival of Allies: Is it easier to understand oppression, to move past guilt and on to useful dialogue, etc., if ...
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6 Apr 2020: Giving the Lie: Blogs and Scientific Criticism
Aimless: · 10 comments... modern scientific culture might have inherited from the founders of the Royal Society (doing so properly would be an awful lot of work), ... Kim (who talks about fact-checking before teaching undergraduates), Chris again (with diagrams!), and James Annan for further ...
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2 Apr 2020: Geology Jargon Ripe for Zombie Re-Animation
Aimless: · 26 comments... of this beautiful language should be killed. I suppose I understand her point - we have accumulated a thick, almost oolitic blanket of ... that collects in the dimple accelerates the erosion of the underlying rock during freeze-thaw cycles. ... and that's all I can think of ...
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21 Mar 2020: Friday Rock Repost: Sand Boil
Aimless: · 6 comments... thanks LL!) across. Normally, layers of sand and silt underground bear the weight of whatever’s on top of them through a ...
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14 Mar 2020: Friday Rock Repost: The Bishop Tuff
Aimless: · 6 comments... - though “exploded” is, if anything, an understatement. The photo was taken 15 miles (25 of your Earth kilometers) away ... crap (”breccia”) consolidates and hardens under its own heat and weight. If the proportion of exploded crap is too high, ...
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29 Feb 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Desert Varnish
Aimless: · 5 comments... of the desert, you will sometimes find that it is light underneath. What this means is that you have disturbed a pebble that has been ...
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25 Feb 2020: Does This Rheometer Make Me Look Fat?
Aimless: rheology · 6 comments... of tiny glass beads between two cylinders, and found that under the right conditions, the beads will arrange themselves into sheets of ...
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22 Feb 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Oil Shale
Aimless: · 12 comments... methods of extracting the oil, either by installing large underground ovens, or by pumping in other chemical reagents designed to convert ...
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14 Feb 2020: The Union Bogeyman
Aimless: · 15 comments... socioeconomic assumptions when I say this is not to be underestimated, but I don't feel that I'm personally much better off with the ... And, y'know, fuzzy liberal solidarity stuff. I can understand people who grumble about having to pay for a service they don't feel ...
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: Love Songs for Geoscientists
Aimless: · 18 comments... restore his lost love: Come on do what you did Roll me under New Madrid Shake my baby and please bring her back So for Valentine's ...
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8 Feb 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Gabbro
Aimless: · 19 comments... that you can shine light through it, and then stare at it under a microscope until you get a headache. Minerals that look similar in a ...
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6 Feb 2020: Delicious Internet Noms
Links: · 4 comments... be the first piece of previously-unworn non-sock/bra/underwear clothing that I've purchased for myself since... uh... I can't ...
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4 Feb 2020: Why I Don’t Use the BPR3 Icon
Meta: · 14 comments... want you to do! 4. The post author should have read and understood the entire work cited. 5. The blog post should report accurately and ... then a little bit of random Googling background research. Under no circumstances do I want the word "work" coming anywhere near my blog. ...
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31 Jan 2020: Hello World
Meta: introduction · 31 comments... though, you may notice a change... I'm finally blogging under my real name Is this unwise? I don't know. Maybe. It certainly feels ...
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23 Jan 2020: Accretionary Wedge #5: Geological Misconceptions and Pie
Science: blog carnivals, debunking, geoblogosphere, national pie day, pie charts · 14 comments... isn't liquid. The mantle is the most annoyingly least-understood part of this planet. In other news, Mel discusses a test ...
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18 Jan 2020: Fred Meyer French Onion with Bacon Vegetable Dip
Human Fuzzies, Whimsy: iTunes iChing, reviews of stuff, vegetable dip · 4 comments... I hadn't felt that particular sense of wonder at a poorly-understood sense of order and purpose and shiny in many years... and then I ...
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10 Jan 2020: Saline Injections for Venice?
Science: ground water, subsidence, Venice · 3 comments... did to the city, and pump water into an aquifer underlying the city. They've just published their plans for a pilot project in ... P. Teatini (2020), Can Venice be raised by pumping water underground? A pilot project to help decide, Water Resour. Res., 44, W20208, ...
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31 Dec 2020: Year in Review
Meta: clip show · no comments... can’t have a pony. The One Post You Should Read to Understand What I've Been On About in 2020: Leaking from the Pipeline Again - ...
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18 Dec 2020: Grading Codes I Want to Give
Teaching: funny, grading, students say the darndest things · 1 comment... without citing their sources in any way. I mean, I can understand that some students are doing their papers at 3 am the night before ...
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17 Dec 2020: Aaand, the rest of AGU
Science: american geophysical union, underwear · 7 comments... all the conferences into the same period of time, I do not understand how they expect to learn anything - my brain was full after a mere ... be better about sending follow-up emails. Lithospheric foundering - where the bottom half of a mountain range just gives up and falls ...
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8 Nov 2020: Can You Read Me?
Meta: blogtinkery, datamining, flesch-kincaid, readability, reading level, writing · 2 comments... can see that my writing has gotten slightly harder to understand over the past six years. I have also been writing longer posts. If ...
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1 Nov 2020: We’re Good Enough, We’re Smart Enough, and Gosh Darn It, We’re the November Scientiae!
Links, Politics, Science: blog carnivals, feminism, gender, impostor syndrome, scientiae, sexism, zombies · 15 comments... why should I, a straight white male, actively try to undermine my many privileges?. And in another post, he tells us what he does ...
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23 Oct 2020: Free and Open-Source Learnin’s
Links, Science: freebies, open source, podcasts, textbooks · 2 comments... as in beer) academic texts. There's only one post filed under "Geology", which lists two books published by the USGS - one on ...
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20 Oct 2020: The Spinning Dancer and the Brain
Science: debunking, neuroscience, optical illusions · 69 comments... one. Then, sometimes, it picks the other. We still don't understand why this happens, or what role conscious efforts might play in this ...
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19 Oct 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Zoned Feldspar
Science: crystals, igneous rocks, rock blogging · 1 comment... The zoned structure reflects some change in the conditions under which the crystal was growing, but frankly, telling you that this is ...
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2 Sep 2020: Why I’m a Geophysicist
Personal, Science, Teaching: college education, turning to the dark side · 5 comments... I heard there was a field trip and I knew one of the undergraduate TAs. Ge 1 was a total fucking crack pipe. I wasn't the only ... I know there was a significant increase in the size of the undergraduate programs after the course requirement was introduced. This is ...
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30 Aug 2020: Notes From the Books Precariously Stacked on My Bedside Table
Human Fuzzies, Politics, Science: feminism, feminisms, history, psychology, racism, rape, sexism, trashy novels, white studies · 3 comments... on the train, though, was well worth my $4 - I finally understood what fair-skinned anti-racist allies who refuse to identify as ...
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29 Aug 2020: Another Year Older, Another Year Fartier
Whimsy: kids today · 5 comments... true, then at least true given the various cultural rocks under which I have lived), plain text on the ones that aren’t, and ... a Coca-Cola “MagiCan.” They were too young to understand Judas Priest’s subliminal messages. - you're never too young ...
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29 Jul 2020: Understanding Everyday Symbolism
Politics: hate crimes, racism · 6 comments... make some off-color jokes about what a pregnant sow wears underneath her burka. Which system of social injustice are you ...
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26 Jul 2020: Galveston Bids for Darwin Award
Politics, Science: idiocy, natural hazards, urban planning · 3 comments... rare disasters become ubiquitous threats. But I can understand how people might not be impressed when I tell them that Yellowstone ...
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13 Jul 2020: Cheap Irony
Politics: bookstores, white supremacist capitalist patriarchy · no comments... when I came across a copy of Ar'N't I A Woman? - filed under "African-American studies". Guess we have an answer to that ...
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4 Jul 2020: Fourth of July: I’m Doin’ It Wrong
Politics: cat macros, fuck the Enlightenment, patriotism · 11 comments... I'd sure hate to be living in Iraq right now. Or in Chile under Pinochet; hoorah for living in a country where the football stadium ... to Independence Day is really an objection to one of these underlying stories. For example, I'm all for the ideals of the Enlightenment, ...
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1 Jul 2020: Leaving the Ivory Tower
Human Fuzzies, Politics, Science: academia, book reviews, grad school, Phi Delta Qoppa · 3 comments... are virtually indistinguishable. They have the same undergraduate grades, the same test scores, even undergraduate involvement in their discipline (conference presentations, etc.) ...
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28 Jun 2020: Science World Heritage
Science: dead white men, history of science, world heritage · 1 comment... is already enough geology on the list to fill an entire undergraduate curriculum - from Þingvellir (though the listing doesn't mention ... I've certainly taken my fair share of silly pictures underneath plaques that say "childhood home of a B-List Scientist", but I can't ...
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21 Jun 2020: Asking for a Pony
Politics: academia, blog carnivals, entitlement, grad school, Phi Delta Qoppa, scientiae · 4 comments... argues, that they accompany each small move "out from under" by an unconscious act of apology and penance (as in "I'm so happy he's ...
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13 Jun 2020: Leaking From the Pipeline (Again)
Personal, Politics, Science: academia, grad school, life as a leak, Phi Delta Qoppa · 14 comments... I decided not to pursue an academic career straight out of undergrad (and possibly not ever) I went through an astonishingly similar set ...
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10 Apr 2020: Another Earthquake Prediction Failure
Science: earthquake prediction · 4 comments... is related to the amount of stress the local faults are under, and so it seems plausible that changes in b-value could indicate changes ...
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18 Mar 2020: Iconic Figures: Energy Release by Earthquakes
Science: earthquakes · 10 comments... supports self-similar earthquake scaling, and work that undermines it. The figure was first published by Satoshi Ide and Greg Beroza ... but we can while away weeks smashing up chunks of granite under controlled conditions. Plus, nature provides us with a wealth of small ...
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3 Mar 2020: Belated Carnival Post
Politics, Science: academia, anti-racism, blog carnivals, feminism, gender, grad school, scientiae · 17 comments... tell you how much difference this would have made to my undergraduate experience. Hell, to my graduate experience. --yami] To the ... what it's like to be in a male-dominated field, and female underrepresentation is always assumed to be a "woman's issue" - but I find ...
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30 Jan 2020: What’s the Good News of Geology?
Politics, Science: fund my research or San Francisco gets it, lay science, philosophy of science · 16 comments... what we think is important for the lay public to understand. Much better to consider what people are actually doing with their various understandings, half-understandings, and misunderstandings of the geosciences: ...
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14 Dec 2020: Finals Week = Bitch About Students
Personal, Teaching: apathy · 5 comments... this class is graded on a curve. No one on this campus understands about curves. I have had many students come to me, very upset, ...
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26 Nov 2020: Margarita Meringue Pie
Food: citrus, meringue, pie, recipes, thanksgiving · 1 comment... is what prevents the bottom of the meringue from being undercooked and runny. Pour the hot filling into the pie shell, and spread on ...
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24 Nov 2020: Thanksblogging
Human Fuzzies, Personal: pie, thanksgiving · 4 comments... imaginations towards the smell of bacon, and then diving under the covers when it gets too realistic. And I have to say, it's a bit ...
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7 Nov 2020: The Last-Minute Ballot
Politics: California ballot propositions, endorsements · no comments... "apply the law fairly" different from "equal treatment under the law". All voter information is useless to me. 1A: Micromanaging ...
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6 Nov 2020: Which Mitochondrial DNA Has the Superpowers?
Science: genetic engineering, mad science, supervillainy · 4 comments... archetype of sexiness when they escape from your secret underground laboratory. Mad scientists these days. They don't even have ...
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24 Oct 2020: Hawaii, the New York Times, and Triggered Seismicity
Science: earthquakes, Hawaii, lazy journalism · 9 comments... somewhere around the world. Many of these take place under the oceans or in remote land areas and are little noticed. But then one ... throughout the Western U.S. and Canada. No one quite understands how this happens. The occurrence of triggered seismicity does ...
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12 Oct 2020: When You Join the Teapot Tempest, You Know Your Bloggy Groove Is Returning
Meta, Politics: blogular wanking, feminism, role models · 7 comments... get beyond my comfort zone--and that zone is tiny, I mean under 100 visitors a day if you strip out the search engines, because I ...
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: Seismograms from North Korea
Politics, Science: earthquakes, nuclear weapons, seismograms · 4 comments... should be easy, right? Sort of. When a real bomb goes off underground, the explosion creates a cavity where the rock has been pushed ...
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11 Sep 2020: TA Training for Berzerkelers
Teaching: blog carnivals, grad school, teacher training · 6 comments... group projects. Takehome lesson: something something undergraduate research and pedagogy synergy something, OMG ROBOT GECKOS!!1! ... science. We don't discuss pedagogy. Then we wonder why our undergraduate enrollment numbers are so scraggly-lookin'. Was it adequate? ...
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25 Aug 2020: Am I an Old Fart?
Teaching, Whimsy: college mindset, old fogeyism · 9 comments... session for first-time TAs ("GSIs"); it was of nonzero yet underwhelming utility, but thankfully, they kept the OMG you must relate to the ... made America look less wrinkled. - maybe if I didn't live under a rock I would understand modern beauty regimens Green tea has always ...
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12 Aug 2020: How To Grab Google’s Attention
Meta: search requests · 10 comments... one of which was meaning of * Cryptic * Spy in provocative underwear. That entry is now the #1 result for queries about cryptic spies in provocative underwear, which at over 100 visitors a month is an astonishingly common ...
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11 Aug 2020: Predicting Volcanic Eruptions Months in Advance
Science: hazard mitigation, volcanoes · 12 comments... preceded by the movement of magma from someplace very far underground to a configuration nearer the surface. The magma's movement can be ... significant improvements in our ability to track magma underground, and, hopefully, to predict future volcanic eruptions. The first ...
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4 Aug 2020: Friday iTunes iChing: Storms on Titan
Science: Friday random ten, iTunes iChing, methane, Titan · 3 comments... My Soul) - Aly Bain et al. (North Sea Music) The Inside: Understanding Marx - Red Shadow (The Economics Rock & Roll Band) Live At The ...
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3 Aug 2020: Truth, Justice, and the Academic Way
Politics, Science: academia, gender, rhetorical tactics, scientific culture · 32 comments... than others" to "women are inept at the subjects they are underrepresented in". But my defense of a bitchy reading of the ...
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15 Jul 2020: Call for Interviewees: Women in STEMM
Politics, Science: women in science · 28 comments... else. And about interviewing: I need: female undergrads female graduate students female professors female doctors women ...
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8 Jul 2020: Friday Mountain Blogging: Paleotopography of the Sierra Nevada
Science: rock blogging, Sierra Nevada, stable isotopes · 6 comments... And how? And why? The why of the Sierra Nevada is under particular scrutiny these days because they might represent a previously ...
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3 Jul 2020: How Avis and the University of California are Destroying the Environment
Personal, Politics: capitalism sucks, environmentalism, SUVs · 2 comments... with four-wheel drive and decent clearance, and be covered under UC's insurance policy, is to rent in the "nonsensical gas-guzzler" class. ...
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29 Jun 2020: Images to Amend the Constitution By
Politics: Dianne Feinstein, flag-burning, freedom of speech · 1 commentI'd like to send a hearty "fuck you" to Dianne Feinstein, whose views on the acceptable bounds of free speech were formed with all the careful consideration and sound judgment you'd expect from a middle school student: For me--at that time as a 12-year- ...
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27 Jun 2020: Blissfully Unaware of my Peril
Human Fuzzies, Politics: evolutionary psychology, marriage, wedding-industrial complex · 8 comments... pays particular dividends to non-dominant males who, under a more laissez-faire mating system, might never get the chance to breed ...
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7 Jun 2020: A Brief Discussion of Other People’s Politics
Politics: climate change, plumbers, rhetorical tactics · 5 comments... of blogging I'm getting pretty good at figuring out the underlying assumptions in a person's position. I can immediately leap from ... participants truly open themselves to the possibility of understanding and change every time my faucet is clogged; true dialogue takes ...
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31 May 2020: Weighted Words
: · 9 comments... reliance on things like "totally" and "awesome". Licensed under the GPL. Current version: 1.2 - download it ...
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29 May 2020: Going Underwater
Meta: blog status updates · no commentsI've signed myself up with a new web host. There are files to copy, settings to tweak, designs to fiddle with, and databases to attempt to restore. And some papers to read before the weekend is over. If the site looks funny all of a sudden, that's wh ...
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26 May 2020: Friday Cat Blogging: Holy Shit I Have Cats!
Personal: cats, Friday random ten, iTunes iChing · no comments... have to clean up their poop. For those of you who don't understand how excited I am about this, you should understand that I spend my entire childhood begging for a cat. Then when I left ...
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24 Apr 2020: Brains in Jars Have Needs Too
Politics, Science: academia, mentoring, science studies · no comments... until June, but it will happen - and almost certainly under the same familiar brand and domain name, archives to be restored just as ...
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16 Apr 2020: Hello world!
Meta: anonymity, Internet branding, pseudonymity · 12 comments... of pseudonymity. Ditch the pseudonym; start writing under my own name. This is actually my favorite choice, but I'm worried it'd ...
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7 Apr 2020: Insomnia, Slightly Beer-Induced
Links: Friday random ten, search requests · 9 comments... Pfft. Oracular househunting advice and search requests under the fold. The Covering: The Occasion - Ease Away The Crossing: ...
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29 Mar 2020: Insert “In Soviet Russia…” Joke Here
Politics, Science: peaceful nuclear explosions, seismology · 23 comments... songs about friendship? Did Pavlenkova and Pavlenkova undertake such rituals before running their experiments? They don't mention it! ...
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21 Mar 2020: Thomas Kuhn and Big Historiography
Science: Berzerkeley, Big History, Kuhn, Lacan, Marxism, paradigms, philosophy of science · 4 comments... to know, without going through the bother of reading and understanding ...
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13 Mar 2020: Quickies
Aimless, Links, Politics, Science: better living through science, mystery rocks, scientific culture, sexism · 9 comments... depend on the earth for their livelihoods. "If we can understand more how the earth functions," Dr. Mutter said, "we can learn how it ...
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: The Rhetoric of Patriarchy
Human Fuzzies, Politics: feminism, patriarchy, rhetorical tactics, words · no comments... feminists to sweep arguments about social theory under the rug, if we deem it necessary I still believe that, but when I went ...
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23 Feb 2020: About Aboutas Aboutamus
Human Fuzzies: pirate jokes, words, writing · 4 comments... good word, that doesn't suffer from the connotation of undershooting associated with "nearly", and is less tedious than ...
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14 Feb 2020: You Say Patriarchy, I Say Pahtriarchy
Politics: feminisms, patriarchy, rhetorical nit-picking · 4 comments... If I'm being a little more careful, I'll note that under patriarchy, the men on top are the patriarchs, which is not the same as ...
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3 Feb 2020: My New Internet Catch Phrases
Whimsy: catch phrases · 1 comment... fully understand ____ is to fully understand the unblinking eye of madness. Sekuhara ...
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: Friday iTunes iChing: Jurassic Utah Edition
Science: Friday random ten, impact structures, iTunes iChing, liquefaction, salt domes, Upheaval Dome · no comments... There are layers and omens and portents here I don't understand, but I'm going to call it as ambiguously in favor of seismogenic ...
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19 Jan 2020: Lecture Zero
Personal, Teaching: grad school, time management · no comments... be bored. Taking four proper classes is a reasonable undergrad schedule, but as a grad student there's this amorphous thing I need ...
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14 Dec 2020: A Pedagogical Quandary
Whimsy: class presentations, Lord Kelvin · 3 comments... Would my presentation be more improved by: A thorough understanding the material to be covered (mantle convection and the thermal ...
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6 Dec 2020: AGU Two
Personal: american geophysical union, beer, conference blogging · no comments... were shushed rather loudly by two people, neither of who understood the correct use of the word "please" (hint: it doesn't become ...
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: AGU One
Personal, Science: american geophysical union, conference blogging · 6 comments... wireless "access" is just sad. Don't they understand that geophysicists need to download lots and lots of pr0ns data when ...
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2 Dec 2020: For Shame, Beeboid!
Science: Berzerkeley · 4 comments... outside their home regions, so perhaps the reporter didn't understand how much of an insult that is. But still: ...
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1 Dec 2020: Happy Blog Against Racism Day!
Politics: anti-racism, blog carnivals, racism · 4 comments... Which is a tortured and shitty metaphor, but hopefully you understand what I'm getting at? Once I was out with M., and we saw one such ...
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26 Nov 2020: My Neighbors Are Penis Zombies
Politics: Berzerkeley, rape, sexism · 4 comments... unprotected sex. The study, incidentally, was done on undergrads here at Cal, so the results will be fun to think about when I'm walking around campus: 34% of male undergrads believe birth control is the woman's responsibility 8% believe the ...
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23 Nov 2020: Own Your Own Conditional Penultimate Paragraphs
Human Fuzzies, Politics, Science: feminism, rhetorical tactics, scientific culture · 2 comments... won't make this claim, as the widely recognized, severe under-representation of women in physics has been analysed thoroughly, and from ... but I won't make that claim. After all, my personal essay underproduction has been studied from many angles (too much nethack? ...
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1 Nov 2020: Plebiscite Time Is Fun Time
Politics: abortion, California ballot propositions, co-op living, MediCal, teacher tenure · 9 comments... if your home is also a polling place? Or should I vote in underwear and bunny slippers? Update: Oh, for love of crikey - what part of ... Regional Air Quality Management Board" do you people not understand? These remarks are, variously, allusions to recurring political ...
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16 Sep 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Portland Cement
Science: cement, rock blogging · 5 comments... Although the chemistry behind this isn't completely understood yet, it's similar to the process that causes some stained glass ...
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12 Sep 2020: The 4th Circuit Pees on the 4th Amendment
Politics: civil liberties, fascist police states, FEMA · 2 comments... Judge J. Michael Luttig, who is one of a number of people under consideration by President Bush for nomination to the U.S. Supreme ... wanted to attend. The response was "No ma'am. You don't understand. Your church no longer owns this building. This building is now ...
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3 Sep 2020: The Red Cross Is the Military. Or Something.
Politics: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans · no comments... inhumane conditions these people are forced to live under. Forced is the right word because they are locked in the dome by our ...
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22 Aug 2020: Home Again
Personal: cars, co-op living, spiders, urban ecology · 6 commentsThings house spiders don't eat, but should: their dead their old webs more pantry moths Things house spiders do eat, but shouldn't: the fuck if I know what they eat a lot of them seem to have starved to death in corners Anyway, half of my wo ...
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19 Aug 2020: Friday iTunes iChing
Personal, Whimsy: Friday random ten, iTunes iChing · 2 comments... me for being lazy with the Crossing and Root; I can't understand all of the Past, but it contains some harsh language about what time ...
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17 Aug 2020: Democracy is So Wearying
Links, Politics: California ballot propositions · no comments... get some peace and quiet that isn't interrupted by the thundering of plebiscites? But for all you Californians who just looove ...
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13 Aug 2020: Travelogue! Days 9-12
Personal: photoblog, Scandinavia, travelogue · no comments... checklist while Mom went to have her picture taken underneath all the things named after Ole Bull. The ...
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5 Aug 2020: Friday Miscellany
Human Fuzzies, Politics: Friday random ten, Hans Island, Harry Potter · 2 comments... bravery of a man with nothing more to lose. Random Ten under the fold. Stephane Grappelli - Shades of Django - Lover Come Back to Me dEUS - In a Bar, Under the Sea - Theme from Turnpike Bjork - Vespertine - Unison Ben Folds ...
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3 Aug 2020: Travelogue! Days 0-3
Personal: photoblog · 5 comments... City. Which is not a drive that many people can make in under 5 hours, and our plane had left by then anyway. Oops. Lil' Miss McMoots ... been ruined by tacky souvenir shops whereas others are undergoing a vacation-home induced housing crisis! But anyway, I'm just a lazy ...
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12 Jul 2020: Another Tale From The Dreamtime…
Whimsy: dreams, guest posts · no comments... incoming tide was causing tiny rivlets of water to leak under the glass doors of both buildings that were facing the ocean (no college ...
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9 Jul 2020: Medical things I do not know answers to
Science: guest posts, medicine · 9 comments... I am far happier not knowing. (I debated posting this under Crackpots, but elected not ...
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: Found The Key Under The Rock By The Back Door…
Meta: blog status updates, guest posts · no commentsI guess I need to check my upteen e-mail accounts more often (or not try to access this when I'm behind my employer's firewall -- or else maybe only get on the interwebbie-thingamahootchie-jobber when I have Miles David going on the CD player) -- well, for ...
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29 Jun 2020: Test
Uncategorized: guest posts · no comments... for the guest bloggin. Oh yeah, I'm a geologist undercover as an engineer doing Big Oil things in Alaska. Used to be a ...
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: Can’t Even Sweat
Meta, Personal: travelogue · 3 comments... Operation Summer Guest Blog Extravaganza is underway! Four shall be the number of guestbloggers we shall have, and the ...
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16 Jun 2020: Garbage Day
Links, Politics, Science: Caltech, classism, Dianne Feinstein, earthquakes, feminism, flag-burning, rape, welfare · 4 comments... freshman physics course or some serious layman's nerdiness under your belt. But speaking of earthquakes, they're apparently planning a ...
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10 Jun 2020: Friday Random Ten: Delphic Edition
Meta: Friday random ten, search requests · 1 comment... porn about geologists - and they were all from Canada Thunder Bay, Ontario. Person from Thunder Bay, I admire your choice of occupational ...
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6 Jun 2020: Summer Flowers Bring September Fires
Uncategorized: photoblog · 3 comments... places is that you occasionally get roped into going to underregistered children's events... but there were pretty ...
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3 Jun 2020: Friday Random Nineteen
Whimsy: Friday random ten, search requests · 6 comments... have cholera meaning of * Cryptic * Spy in provocative underwear fake green volcano names star war alien girls that are green and ...
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: Friday Rock Blogging: Glacial Polish
Uncategorized: rock blogging · 6 comments... glaciers are also cruel oppressors who grind the peasantry under their boots. And by "peasantry" I mean "rocks" and by "boots" I mean ...
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1 Jun 2020: Academic Insecurity Builds Character
Personal, Politics, Science: academia, brain in a jar, impostor syndrome · 6 comments... be seen as the default option. Taking time off after undergrad was the best decision I could've made for myself, and I've been ...
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23 May 2020: In Lieu of Zurgh Urfle Blah
Links, Politics: kittens, networking, science jokes, women in science · 4 comments... high-budget action movies are in the theaters, I crawl under the couch but no! Summer's here! Wretched horrible nasty summer. On ... at least I can do it while lazing about the house in my underpants dribbling popsicle juice onto my nice new laptop. I've found both a ...
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20 May 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Gabbro
Science: igneous rocks, rock blogging · 6 comments... to basalt - same stuff as here, but because it forms underground, it cools more slowly and forms visible crystals. It's not green. ...
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19 May 2020: Friday Fluff
Human Fuzzies, Whimsy: music reviews, search requests · 2 comments... I can't. Stop. Listening. It's in some ways a little underproduced, a few ragged edges here and there, but it's also exactly what ...
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18 May 2020: Defining Feminism: Once More, with Feeling
Politics: feminism, feminisms, marriage, peer pressure · 7 comments... damned if she does, damned if she doesn't - which, if I understand these things correctly, will make her super-feminine and therefore ...
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13 May 2020: Further Trivialities
Aimless, Links, Personal: blogular wanking, grad school, telephony · 5 comments... work, even if it is only five minutes per day spent hiding under a bridge, curled up in a little ball, crying. Many: At the Grocery ...
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12 May 2020: Happy Juror Appreciation Week
Personal: jury duty, utter glee · 6 comments... was for a guy who allegedly applied for a driver's license under a false name. Since I was assigned to the criminal justice building, this ...
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9 May 2020: Deconstructing Teh Funnay
Politics: offensive humor, rhetorical tactics · 9 comments... Veatch's theory to the Intimate Finances joke. Under any sane interpretation, it has a normal set-up and violatory punchline; ...
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3 May 2020: Two Tuesday Links
Links, Personal: Brazil, masculinity · 6 comments... on quite the weekday kick, maybe I should buy some cutesy underwear. Kittens! Here's a conversation I've had with basically all my ... facial hair does not strike me as sufficient, so I don't understand why penis posts don't get half the response of menstruation ...
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2 May 2020: Monday Review of Stuff
Human Fuzzies: coffee, mac'n'cheez, movie reviews · 6 comments... with the office machine in a way that Google will hear and understand. It is: Slow Drippy, in both its poorly-spouted carafe design ...
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27 Apr 2020: Defamation in the Congressional Record, hoorah!
Politics: abortion, Congressional shenanigans · 6 comments... of family members and innocent bystanders from prosecution under this bill, were rewritten as amendments designed to protect sexual ...
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21 Apr 2020: Friday Random Ten-and-that’s-it
Human Fuzzies, Whimsy: Friday random ten · 11 comments... - Jewel in the Crown - The Islands dEUS - In a Bar, Under the Sea - Serpentine 2020 - Outside Looking In - Punk-O-Rama Vol. ...
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18 Apr 2020: For Millennia, Google Has Spoken
Human Fuzzies, Whimsy: essay contests, googlefu · 3 comments... guide for all who love the Lord, and the Lord sent thunder and rain that day and all the night, and all the next day. And the next ...
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15 Apr 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Sand Boils
Science: liquefaction, rock blogging · 7 comments... across. Normally, layers of sand and silt and crap underground bear the weight of whatever's on top of them through a network of ...
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: Friday Random Ten-and-Quiz
Whimsy: Friday random ten, quizzes · 6 comments... I have just under half my music collection imported - that's enough to do a Random Ten, ...
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27 Mar 2020: iConsume
Whimsy: engraving, indecisiveness, iPod · 7 comments... of indecision will send me and my checkbook scurrying back under the bed, is offering free engraving on the iPod. Aaaagh! iPolka I'm a ...
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18 Mar 2020: Friday Rock Blogging: Bishop Tuff
Science: igneous rocks, rock blogging · 4 comments... Caldera exploded - though "exploded" is, if anything, an understatement. This photo was taken 15 miles (25 of your Earth kilometers) ... of exploded crap ("breccia") consolidates and hardens under its own heat and weight. If the proportion of exploded crap is too high, ...
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14 Mar 2020: Middle Klass
Personal, Politics: academia, classism, money · 14 comments... with Iowa State. And gaaah! Why don't people on the coasts understand the intricacies of college rivalry in the flyover states?! - but at ...
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23 Feb 2020: What I’m Reading Tonight
Links, Politics: Caltech, endorsements, feminisms, local elections, Pasadena, political tactics · 7 comments... journalism. Finally, someone recognizes that a Caltech undergraduate education does indeed give significant additional gravitas to ...
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17 Feb 2020: Initiative
Politics: dating, feminism, gender, rape · 3 comments... those courtship rules, and the woman is potentially left foundering in the deep end, having opened herself up to courtship without any ...
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15 Feb 2020: How to Ward Off Rapists
Politics, Whimsy: rape, satire · 7 comments... Many an otherwise cautious and sensible woman has been undermined by the sudden appearance of low self-esteem! Just remember, good ...
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14 Feb 2020: Fun with Creationist Plate Tectonics
Science: debunking, plate tectonics, young earthers · 11 comments... college geology textbook he mentions is Press and Siever's Understanding Earth, which we happen to have handy (though it's the second ... evidence of convection at work. The rising hot matter under mid-ocean ridges builds new lithosphere, which cools as it spreads away; ...
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7 Feb 2020: Monday Links to Stuff
Links: brain drain, Iowa, nerdy jokes · no comments... around by abolishing the state income tax for everyone under 30. [...] Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, a Democrat, has tried [...] holding ...
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31 Jan 2020: Romanesco
Human Fuzzies: broccoli, fractals · 3 comments... least all the possible varieties of fractal brassica? I understand that it's probably a pain in the ass to cross the trait into brussel ...
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25 Jan 2020: Holy Shit Elephants Are Awesome
Science: elephants, seismology, tsunamis · 1 comment... seismically, and are pretty good at sensing vibrations underfoot. Not as good as a proper seismometer, of course, not least because ...
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20 Jan 2020: Fantasy Cabinet
Politics: fantasy politics · 9 comments... Medium Lobster Ambassador to the UN: Carol Moseley-Braun Undersecretary of Homeland Security for Emergency Preparedness: Smokey the ...
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10 Jan 2020: The Sheep Are Still Scared
Politics: gender, sexism · 2 comments... I can handle, but all three at once? Even operating under a gentlepersons's understanding of the debate (we're all speaking in broad generalities, it's ...
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19 Dec 2020: Someone Has a Small Internet
Meta: fan mail, high school, Internet citizen of the world, nostalgia · no comments... thank of anyplace. mike's lazy Is he now? Don't underestimate the amount of work it takes to type something and click ...
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31 Oct 2020: Sample Ballot II: Initiatives Ahoy!
Politics: · 2 comments... to care for the mentally ill is to hitch their fates to an undercurrent of populist resentment of the rich, then populist resentment we ... time someone has standing to sue the operator of a leaky underground storage tank because their well has been polluted, it's really too ...
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28 Oct 2020: Cause for Optimism
Politics: · 2 comments... s List, MoveOn and 25 others are working together under the umbrella of a single coalition, America Votes. They meet together, ...
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5 Oct 2020: Endorsements for Los Angeles Judicial Offices
Politics: endorsements, local elections, Los Angeles · 4 comments... looks like my ballot has ten more names on it than his! Under the fold are my endorsements for Superior Court Office Nos. 18, 29, 52, ... it can possibly deliver the fabulous recidivism rate of an underfunded yet somehow hideously expensive jail, but I'm sure as hell not ...
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19 Sep 2020: Ahoy Me Hearties!
Links, Politics, Whimsy: arr, pirate jokes, pirates, urban sprawl · 5 comments... only reasonable zoning restrictions. We'll be keelhauled under our own boat, me hearties, if we don't smartly scrape the barnacles of ...
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17 Sep 2020: Rhetorical Gatekeeping, Gender, Etc.
Meta, Politics: blogular wanking, feminism, gender, rhetorical tactics · 2 comments... beginning stuff; this is how we learn, after all, and our understanding of things changes over time (which is another element of ...
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13 Sep 2020: You Know Your Office Air Conditioning Is Working When…
Personal: cubicle living · 8 comments... while sitting with your feet tucked into your knees / under your thighs for warmth. ... any ...
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23 Aug 2020: Pedantry, Physics
Links, Science: · 7 comments... theories. Graduate students in the hard sciences need to understand that their profs need them desperately, because it is only through ...
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: John Kerry, War God
Politics: John Kerry, pacifism, presidential elections · no comments... reading this I want to grab a stuffed animal and hide under the blankets and cry and maybe join the Green Party again: It's all ...
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13 Aug 2020: I Smell a Thesis
Science: · 1 comment... everything! Even hydrogeology. And appears to be somewhat understudied. Of course, not having started applying to grad schools yet I'm ...
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11 Aug 2020: Burble Tensors on Cross-Disciplinary Manifolds of Love!
Human Fuzzies, Science: · 5 comments... freakouts, 2020-2020. Freaked-out epistemologists I can understand; I spent a quality summer once with Galileo and Copernicus and their ...
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4 Aug 2020: Dentist to the Stars?
Personal: dentistry · 4 comments... things put together. And so I calm my wallet. I don't understand the fuss about root canals. They're long and dreadfully dull, but ...
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2 Jul 2020: Fava vs. Corn
Human Fuzzies: corn, Iowa · 3 comments... "corn on the cob" and "grilling" in the same paragraph. I understand on an intellectual level that grilling is a potentially acceptable ...
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29 Jun 2020: Easy Things That Aren’t
Personal: human imperfection, mental blocks · 15 comments... unaccountable inabilities, I promise to be sympathetic and understanding. Cooking a winter squash to the correct amount of ...
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22 Jun 2020: You Know You’re From Where You’re From When
Whimsy: jokes · 1 comment... unusual weather. As a result of the unusual weather, your understanding of the terms "hot" and "cold" is different from conventional ... isn't about the place some other people are from. You understand that your climate can be characterized by four seasons with ...
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13 Jun 2020: Sunday Review: Things That Are Red
Human Fuzzies: cola, gardening, graphic design, pop, reviews of stuff, tomatoes · 2 comments... is faced with a thorny problem: it is trivially simple to understand why red wagons are awesome. In these circumstances, there's not much ... and red wagons in popular culture, and how the red wagon under scrutiny is most effective at escaping from one particular set of ...
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7 Jun 2020: Fat Free Half and Half
Human Fuzzies: dairy, Food and Drug Administration · 4 comments... clear case of government underregulation of the dairy industry: Fat Free Half & Half. Or, rather, ...
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2 Jun 2020: Viva Quebeckistan!
Personal: quizzes · no comments... made me think "hey I oughta blog this!" but there was a thunderstorm and tornado sirens, and I kept thinking the bathroom light switch at ...
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24 May 2020: Someone’s An Excuse
Meta: · 1 comment... is it found I assume such a kaleidoscope would be deep underneath the Tibetan Himalayas, or perhaps on top of them; either way not a ...
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10 May 2020: Aaah Generation Overload
Personal: · 2 comments... these days? But since I just spent most of the day reading under pine trees, getting up every half hour for a two-minute measurement, I ...
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2 May 2020: Nerds Save 5%
Personal: · 2 comments... short hose that runs from one thingy to another thingy underneath the thing. I deduced this myself, after running the very simple ...
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28 Apr 2020: Coolant Pixies
Personal: · 5 comments... selfish glow that comes from knowing no one else will ever understand my car's little quirks, and the constant search for replacement ... of the road. I love hurling freeway invective from the underdog's perspective and winning endless games of one-downsmanship. And of ...
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19 Apr 2020: Crackpot Internet Scientist of the Week
Links: crackpots, electromagnetism · 4 comments... Revolution has Arrived! Reclaim your birthright of understanding, and get answers to all those pesky unresolved questions your ...
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15 Apr 2020: Oh Boy an Earthquake!
Science: · 10 comments... wearing nothing but your most-falling-apartest pair of underpants, for all it's going to help you pick up cute grad students at AGU. ...
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4 Apr 2020: In Which I Am Excited About Compost
Links, Personal: · 3 comments... to write it down (in Cyrillic or otherwise) and leave it under the door. It's way hard to leave an answering machine message in a ...
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17 Mar 2020: Customize Your TV Dinner!
Personal: · 2 comments... setting the bar for creativity so low that I finally understand why some people are impressed with my crappy homemade grocery-tote ...
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14 Mar 2020: Defense Department Exploits Undergrad Labor
Links: · no commentsHometown favorite Team Caltech did not win the million-dollar DARPA prize - something about crashing through a fence. So much for Caltech becoming an independent, highly militarized nuclear power with its own robot death machines. Sigh! ...
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24 Feb 2020: Petty Consumer Activism
Politics: advertising, Food and Drug Administration, funny, open letters, sexism, soup · 6 comments... legal department with an extraordinarily well-developed understanding of the FDA's technical definition of "vegetables") were ... must be geniuses! Or else they have an even better understanding of the FDA's definition of "vegetable" than you guys do, which ...
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22 Feb 2020: Le Tutoiement des Blogs
Human Fuzzies: french, net culture · 3 comments... Dominique) to meet persons other than M L-le-M to help you understand the workings of this new generation of tools, to which blogs ...
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11 Feb 2020: Lovey Linky Valentines
Links: chocolate, Valentine's Day · no comments... was a convenience, but it meant that sometimes boxes were underweight. I will not post a link to the article on gay penguins to round ...
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10 Feb 2020: Crappy Superpowers
Whimsy: · 7 comments... with your family as a reward for wearing the correct undergarments. Did Joseph Smith have my superpower? Hell is other people, but ...
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2 Feb 2020: Linky Roundup
Links: · 2 comments... of continuous downloading is almost certainly illegal under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act" were of no use. Arguments to the ...
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28 Jan 2020: Learning from Experience
Human Fuzzies, Personal: · 3 comments... time-release milli-spikes into your wrists. Never underestimate a cactus. I spent an hour plucking my palms. The jury's still ...
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8 Dec 2020: Peer Review the Asbestos Way
Politics, Science: · 1 comment... to choose an unbiased review panel will be able to do so under these guidelines. And if we do not trust our Current Administration to ...
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4 Dec 2020: Foul Putrid News Organization
Politics: · no comments... subscription to the L.A. Times have been ground to dust under the heel of an aggressive marketing ...
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21 Nov 2020: That’s So 2020
Science: · no comments... compound eyes don't evolve until the Devonian, so this is understandable. But geologists should know better than to obsess over such ...
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27 Oct 2020: Numbered List: I Am Smoke
Personal: adventures, fascist police states, fire, in the desert · 3 comments... couple of hours jacking the car up, putting rocks and rugs under the wheels, revving and repeating to obtain about half the necessary ...
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25 Aug 2020: Someone’s Been Shitting in My Toilet!
Personal: · 3 comments... some sarcastic refrigerator notes. The crumbs I can understand, though I'm not overly fond of the sarcastic note as a means of ...
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22 Aug 2020: Nonviolent Toyotas?
Personal: · no comments... man driving the car behind me looked like Gandhi. I drove under the freeway thinking "gee, that man looks like Gandhi, but why would ...
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12 Aug 2020: Erasing Time
Meta, Politics: California politics, elections · 2 comments... flows under bridges, leaves fall off trees, I hork my database with no recent ... me actual responsibilities at work that make blogging under the spreadsheets a less enticing thought, and I've been infected with ...
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10 Aug 2020: D’OH! System halt.
Meta: · no comments... just more security-conscious than I?) or you have a deep understanding of MT's file system arrangements for whatever other reason, ...
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27 Jun 2020: Automotive Adventures
Personal: · no comments... I am a certified car owner and caretaker, though, I can understand why people talk about babying their auto-machines. When there's ...
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24 Jun 2020: Am I an Ex-Academic?
Personal: · 3 comments... eat. Sometimes I've managed, and other times I've hidden under my pillow. But all these nice sympathetic blog-entries have come from ... graduate education in the humanities, and my particular undergraduate science program? Not the disrespect with which much of the ...
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20 Jun 2020: There Goes My Nose
Personal: · 3 comments... before peeled off my nose to find a new and hideous nose underneath, inductive reasoning only goes so far, so sunburns this severe are ... known, we stayed in motels along the way. My parents are under alien mind control, and I fear for the state of ...
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7 May 2020: Vacuuming for Losers
Personal, Whimsy: cleaning, howtos, vacuums · 2 comments... to leave so you can rip out his network cable and get under the hub. While you're waiting, turn off your computer, scooch the desk ...
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2 May 2020: Master of Nothing
Aimless: · no comments... full of cash money and important documents to Science's underworld contacts. But as a Bachelor, I'll just be getting a lava lamp of ...
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31 Mar 2020: See My Tanned Blisters!
Personal: Hawaii, hawaiian volcano observatory, kilauea, lava trees, papayas, travelogue, volcanoes · no comments... I had misplaced my digital camera in my dirty underwear the night before (don't ask, I don't understand it either, it had something to do with trying to learn to play ...
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21 Jan 2020: Neologistical Challenge
Whimsy: · 3 comments... things from the floor to see if the matching right shoe is underneath. It should come from Greek roots, and it should be a silly word, ...
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23 Dec 2020: Holiday Someones
Meta: · 6 comments... catch up on (and when I say large, I am telling a gentle underwhelmement, as the spout box was held hostage a while back by a ...
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22 Dec 2020: Twink
Personal: · 4 comments... It gets really bad when I find instructions for making underwear from old ...
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18 Dec 2020: I’m Unsafe
Personal: · 2 comments... Anyone could have handled my luggage, stolen all my underwear, replaced it with a big bomb, and I would have been none the wiser ...
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17 Dec 2020: None the Wiser
Personal: · 9 comments... wisdom teeth, which were removed this morning while I was under heavy sedation. Very heavy sedation - I don't remember a thing about the ... in my usual semi-coherent fashion, so my recovery is well under way. The chicken soup must be ...
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12 Dec 2020: Dilemma Part 2
Personal: · 17 comments... am completely out of clean underwear. This leaves me with two choices: Go commando on the airplane. Do ...
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1 Dec 2020: oh yeah, thanks
Personal: · 3 comments... of my pants and went around for several hours showing my underwear to the world. Today I learned once more that California is a ...
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5 Oct 2020: Old Comments
Meta: · no comments... pollack' site at work, but it was filtered, due to falling under the "tasteless" category. it's immediately going into my home ...
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3 Sep 2020: Hog Sweat
Personal: · 4 comments... buff without having to constantly reposition my boobs under, around or on top of the ergonomic safety cushions. Thank ...
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24 Aug 2020: Buzzword Type Situation
Personal: · no comments... In the case of a dirty laundry situation, I'll turn my underwear inside-out. Horrible! Gah! I don't know where the expression came ...
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17 Aug 2020: Someone Presents a URL
Meta: monkeys · no comments... as the people at happy munkee seem to at least sort of understand. The larger issue, obviously, is not the pursuit of happeeness but ...
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1 Aug 2020: Panties Ready for Bunching
Personal: socks, trolling · 3 comments... look at butchery (I don't give a shit about the cows, you understand, but I hate to be responsible for negligent treatment of human life ...
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28 Jul 2020: dry air
Personal: · no comments... never, ever be satisfied by the mundande spectacle of underwear and beach reading. Anyway, to prove to you that I really was in ...
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9 Jul 2020: Quality Control Freak
Personal: ants, cleaning, household pests · no comments... - and now the ants are gone. Totally gone, not just kept under control by obsessive-compulsive dishwashing; I left an empty kool-aid ...
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5 Jul 2020: Under a Rock
Personal: Internet citizen of the world, LAX · 1 commentIt says something about me that I learned of that LAX shooting - a violent happening in my own backyard - from a blog in New Zealand, and then read about it at the BBC. Unfortunately, I don't think it says that I'm a Sophisticated Global Citizen. Mean ...
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16 Jun 2020: The Odd Couple
Uncategorized: guest posts · 1 comment... messy), and you will end up cleaning far less often. I understand that not everyone is this casual, so while my room is kept ...
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11 Jun 2020: Ah, My Virgin Eyes!
Human Fuzzies: denmark, soccer · 5 comments... Kjaersgaard - not only can they not get the Danish names (understandable for Sørensen, more annoying for Gravesen) they keep ...
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9 Jun 2020: Morbid Fascination
Uncategorized: guest posts · no comments... That living in Florida thing, where summer is one thunderstorm after another, and where I can often be found playing in the rain in ...
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5 Jun 2020: Guestbloggers Coming
Meta: blog status updates · no comments... of the term for grad students, and the end of the term for undergrads. Which means that even though my finals don't start (in theory) ...
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30 May 2020: Someone Wants Naked Sorority Frolicking
Whimsy: fan mail, search requests · 3 comments... skvallerbladet: Half-naked coed body-painting! Underwear sorority frolics! Enquiring googlebots need to know! While most ...
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23 May 2020: Tomorrow Was Yesterday
Personal: Caltech, Ditch Day, utter glee · no comments... for us. It took about thirty seconds to strip down to our underwear and start flinging paint at each other, dancing and smashing our ...
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22 May 2020: Yeah Yeah Yeah
Personal: · 4 comments... birria and catching up on my Mexican slang. Or sitting under the el in Chicago, as the case often was. It's a feeling I associate ...
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20 May 2020: Stack Widow
Meta, Personal: blogular wanking, Caltech, Ditch Day · 3 comments... reading "Seniors Only!" save for a small twisty path we underclassmen can navigate to get to class. Which is great, except that all ... are the same. Although at bottom every blog has the same underlying premise - "Hey, look at me!" - plaintive pleas for cyber-sympathy ...
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24 Apr 2020: Timely Remarks
Links: · no comments... and girls, if your torso should be torn asunder in a horrific accident, you will no longer need your eyeballs. Please ...
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23 Apr 2020: Concise Remarks
Meta: · no comments... a boxer, in the case of a severe pegleg or really tattered underpants. No comment on that ...
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20 Apr 2020: Ouch
Personal: · 5 comments... with the unwrapping of beautiful new* t-shirts and underwear. Whee! *well, most of 'em aren't really new, they're old white ...
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17 Apr 2020: surface learning
Teaching: · 8 comments... with their teaching prowess, their involvement with the undergraduates, their wit and their coherent outlines and their spanky ... as seriously as they ought, this is an inefficient, underwhelming, and downright red-herring-filled approach to the problem: there ...
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15 Apr 2020: Someone Disagrees
Personal: fan mail, menstruation · 6 comments... anonymous admission: I want underwire. I want velvet. I want cute frills. I want to look like a C-cup. ... occasions. But while we're on the topic of feminine underthings, I'd like to take a moment to plug the concept of reusable cloth ...
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13 Apr 2020: Wizard of Bras
Personal: · 7 comments... you try spending fruitless hours looking for a bra with no underwires and no itchy synthetic lining on the cup that hasn't been styled on ... sorts its bras by size and presence-or-lack-of-underwires, and see how much you buy. Of course, I've yet to find my perfect ...
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23 Mar 2020: Someone Found Me!
Meta: · 1 comment... but where was I?? I don't appear to have been under the sofa cushions, or on top of the refrigerator, or even left out in the ...
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19 Mar 2020: Free Theorems Yum Yum
Personal: · 2 comments... has a bouquet that is light and fruity, with some earthy undertones. It is ideal with dinner or as an apertif. Bon apetit! Only ...
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13 Mar 2020: Ask a Celebrity Physicist
Meta, Science: · 7 comments... Friday where he answers some random questions from the undergraduates. I've got until dinnertime to think up clever ...
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10 Mar 2020: Someone Says it Again
Meta: monkeys · 1 comment... was a decent book, though, even if I never could understand why a girl would want her period. isn't realism by definition more ...
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: Much Ado About
Meta: · no comments... keep throwing attention or other social valuables after an under-performer. I have few reservations in viewing the investment already made ...
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6 Mar 2020: Someone’s a Commercial Whore
Meta: · 4 comments... isn't... what is? The thought frightens me. I'm'a go hide underneath a blanket ...
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: Ratings: Today’s California Ballot Measures
Politics: California ballot propositions, Green party · 1 comment... of legislation about a bizarre issue that virtually nobody understands very well. To make matters worse, it involves yet another silly ... through a field of flipper-daffodils, wearing only silken underpants. B+ Superintendent of Public Instruction None of these people ...
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1 Mar 2020: rocks and a promise
Meta: puns · 2 comments... seen Un Chien Andalou, you really should. then you would understand why this category is for dreams. geode - honest-to-god geogeeky ...
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20 Feb 2020: Lonely Thrust Faults
Personal: · no comments... though, I stop assuming that I'm the only one who doesn't understand, and plus it's just more fun. I like my major, but I do wish it ...
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16 Feb 2020: vapid
Links: · no comments... with sound effects. Cogent thought is nearly impossible under these conditions... unless of course that thought is about pinball. ...
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12 Feb 2020: Your Mom’s a Civic Duty
Personal: · no comments... of my peers would be any better than a panel of judges under close public scrutiny. As a matter of fact, I think most of my peers are ...
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: Haul, boys, Haul!
Politics: · 1 comment... saved my willpower - you see, whenever I start feeling underacheivish, I immediately chastize myself for my lack of singleminded ... down the road, and then I get even more depressed and underacheivish. It's a very productive mode of thought. Luckily, sometimes all ...
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11 Feb 2020: Sorry, try again
Personal: · no comments... intolerance for delayed gratification, and it's perfectly understandable that someone would be angry at me for not producing a joint from ...
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4 Feb 2020: drool… bid… drool
Links: menstruation, religion, robots · 1 comment... of a machine that can communicate with humans and understand them. A machine that is gentle to humans and responds appropriately ...
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30 Jan 2020: I Heart Time Cube
Whimsy: crackpots, time cube · 1 comment... asked how he could possibly conceive of and understand the timecube, and how he could describe it with evil cubeless word, ...
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: Thrust Faulting
Personal: diary, earthquakes · no comments... it's like the Mole People are sitting in their fantastical underground caves, laughing at me and monitoring my footsteps so they can make ...
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26 Jan 2020: People At My School
Teaching: learning, mathematics, seismology · no comments... publications. Have you ever been taught how to learn under adverse ...
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21 Jan 2020: Silly Hats Only
Links: · no comments... made a pretty decent midi version of "Stayin' Alive" under the auspices of the National Institutes of Health. The government wants ...
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8 Jan 2020: Fish-Blooded Bourgeois
Links, Meta, Personal: binders, highlighters, killing brain cells, office supplies, random classes, rollerball pens · 1 comment... up clever ways not to teach the class. "I haven't taught undergraduates in 30 years," he said. "I'd also encourage everyone to go check ...
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5 Jan 2020: Super Supermarkets
Personal: brand loyalties, butter substitute, crap, dairy section, denmark, frisbee, grocery shopping, huff, matter of minutes, netto, parents, tupperware · no comments... in a place filled with a wide variety of products that I understand. But the selection of margarines - a shelf large enough to encompass ...
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24 Dec 2020: Tackiest Ever
Politics: · no comments... or maybe sway the minds of the corn fields? I can understand such displays during, say, World War Two, when American citizens at ...
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15 Dec 2020: mo’ betta’ meta meta burger
Meta: Caltech, denmark, search requests · no comments... I guess. Which of course brings me to porn... I am under a rather strong compulsion to bring back many attractive Scandinavian ...
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14 Dec 2020: to play with space and time
Aimless: · no comments... officials about the small quantities of alcohol I'll be underagedly carrying in my luggage to be attacked by miniature ...
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10 Dec 2020: goodies from snoogums
Links: · no comments... of 'em are in the public domain, and the rest are released under something very similar to a GNU project license. Mmm, wholesome 50's ...
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9 Dec 2020: side couples square through
Personal: agnosticism, atheism, cookies, dancing, julefrokost, monkeys, religion, religious conversion, religious preferences, square dancing, unitarian church · 1 comment... to my delight they were met not with bafflement but with understanding, in a sort of Christianified slanty way at least. Which gave the ...
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28 Nov 2020: I’ll take your course schedule and…
Personal: Caltech, course scheduling · no comments... fact, they completely obliterated almost all of the useful undergraduate geophysics courses. I have to fulfill an "option electives" ...
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3 Nov 2020: Danu
Human Fuzzies, Personal: · no comments... Irish boy band - I was strongly tempted to throw my underwear onstage. I've totally got the hots for the bouzouki player. Short ...
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: uhh. zog.
Personal: · no comments... now, but that feeling of "of course everyone else will understand the disjointed inside jokes I make to myself!" is still with me. God ...
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2 Nov 2020: false hopes
Meta, Personal: minions · no comments... spending three quarters of an hour wandering the massively under-construction library at the geological institute and impulsively browsing ...
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31 Oct 2020: It’s doing weather outside
Personal: hygge, weather · no comments... around in the air past my window. Plus I thought I heard thunder, or maybe it was just construction noises - but either way it's got me in the mood for a good storm. Sitting in the library with thunder and loud heavy rain and making a dent in my list of articles on the ...
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30 Oct 2020: Language is for Losers
Human Fuzzies, Links: · no comments... quotes of the form "language X is essentially language Y under condition Z". My favorite: American English is essentially a tool to keep ...
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20 Oct 2020: Notre Dame de la Nostalgie
Personal: · no comments... like a perfect children's choir in four-part harmony. Underneath all the wrinkles and smoke-damaged vocal cords and the abstracted ...
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19 Oct 2020: trains
Personal: · no comments... into the cathedral while the organist was practicing and understanding for the first time ever why so many people choose to worship ...
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12 Oct 2020: Back in Copenhagen
Human Fuzzies: sandwiches, Scandinavia, smørrebrød · no comments... before I built a week's worth of smørrebrød under the careful eye of a group of climatologists. You don't mix your meats. ...
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25 Sep 2020: Whenever I look at the
Politics: · no comments... of these people. Where are they? I'm going to go look under my bed to make sure there aren't any ...
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20 Sep 2020: incommunicando
Aimless, Whimsy: · no comments... in the back of the book..." 9. Procrastination - "I'll understand it better in the morning anyway" 10. Apathy - "ah, whatever, fuck ... why calculus is like sex (you know, curves and the area under them, that sort of thing). It made the teacher laugh... my high school ...
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10 Sep 2020: Salvaged Item #1
Aimless: · no comments... talking about nothing in particular, sometimes with music underneath, sometimes not. When the station changed its schedule I never heard ...
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: crush kill destroy
Aimless, Meta: · no comments... irony should be added as a specifically protected category under the Americans with Disabilities ...
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6 Sep 2020: outside my window
Personal, Politics: · no comments... long gone, a trip to Hungary still felt like a much larger undertaking than a comparable visit to Germany. Now, I grew up in Iowa. Despite ...
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5 Sep 2020: EZ Math
Personal: diary, math · no comments... Fourier transforms and other prerequisites might hamper my understanding of wavelets. Then the prof went up to the board, and every time ...
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4 Sep 2020: train tracks
Human Fuzzies, Personal: concrete walls, graffiti, keyboards, kudzu, post-apocalyptic aesthetic sensibilities, sweetness and light, trains, weeds · no comments... the place; it completely ruins the effect. One of the most underestimated features of the United States is the extensive network of ...
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31 Aug 2020: bandwagon meme
Whimsy: · no comments... one of my most cherished fantasies: apparently, not understanding the monkeylisp or the american slang does not enhance one's ...
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27 Aug 2020: jeg kan godt tale dansk!
Human Fuzzies: Danish · no comments... - perhaps by wearing a colorful button - that you can understand phrases from a standard, pre-approved list of scripts. And if "what ...
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14 Aug 2020: rødgrød med fløde
Human Fuzzies: Danish, pronunciation · 1 comment... Fløde works exactly like rødgrød, but the ø is a bit rounder, and you also give a passing nod to the e on the end. After you've bitten ... you've done that, all you have to do is wait for the thunderous applause from your new, awe-struck Danish friends, and start hitting ...
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22 Jul 2020: Link-O
Meta: blegging, blogtinkery · no comments... of web rings on the main page. It feels wrong, and underdone somehow, as my previous web sites have all had multiple pages full of ...