ASA-SSSA-CSSA Annual Meeting

It's that time of year again. Time to get ready to attend the American Society of Agronomy meeting which this year will be held in nice, warm, sunny ... Pittsburgh. I didn't attend the meeting last year, which was held in conjunction with the Geological Society of America in Houston, so I figured I'd catch up with collaborators and friends at this years meeting. I've also been tapped to judge some student oral and poster presentations, which isn't so bad as I've been really trying to increase my visibility within the society lately anyways. Even though I doubt I'll get an answer in the affirmative I'll ask the following question anyways ... anyone else going to ASA?

As for me, I've already got at least one activity planned ... drinking at Church Brew Works. The Cherry Quadzilla sounds interesting.

Peer-to-Peer Networking Software

You would think that Congress' IT department has a way of ensuring that PtP software wouldn't work. Guess not.

The committee's review of investigations became available on file-sharing networks because of a junior staff member's use of the software while working from home, Lofgren and Bonner said in a statement issued Thursday night. The staffer was fired, a congressional aide said.

The committee "is taking all appropriate steps to deal with this issue," they said, noting that neither the committee nor the House's information systems were breached in any way.

"Peer-to-peer" technology has previously caused inadvertent breaches of sensitive financial, defense-related and personal data from government and commercial networks, and it is prohibited on House networks.

I am assuming the reason for having the files accessible from a PtP network was so they could be transferred from offices in the House, to this employees home. I guess they never heard of staying late at work, or (probably equally as forbidden, but easier to get away with, and somewhat safer) putting everything on a USB drive and taking it home that way.

Not surprised this person lost their job ... and they should have.

If you find me out of pocket ...

... I'm in England booking my death.

We are really pleased to be able to offer you some new Registration services.

You can now make your appointment to register a birth or a death using our online booking system, or by calling (01243) 642122.

h/t: The New Scientist

Nautical Disaster

by: The Tragically Hip

I had this dream where I relished
The fray and the screaming that filled my head all day
It was as though I'd been spit here, settled in, into the pocket,
Of a lighthouse on some rocky socket,
Off the coast of France, Dear.

One afternoon, four thousand men died in the water here,
Five hundred more were thrashing madly as parasites might in your blood.
Now I was in lifeboat designed for ten, and ten and only,
Anything that systematic would get you hated.
It's not a deal, nor a test, nor a love of something fated.
The selection was quick, the crew was picked in order,
And those left in the water were kicked off our pant leg,
And we headed for home.

Then the dream ends when the phone rings,
You're doing alright, he said it's out there,
Most days and nights, when only a fool would complain.
Anyway "Susan" if you like our conversations as faint a sound in my memory,
As those fingernails scratching on my hull.



Never thought this song would mirror aspects of my life, but that's what you get sometimes.

Tragic

And completely heartbreaking.



What are you looking at in that picture? You're looking at the remains of a baby albatross, which starved because it was fed plastic which its parents had picked up from the ocean thinking it was food. From the site:

These photographs of albatross chicks were made just a few weeks ago on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.

Pathetic. We are starving these birds through our own actions, and we'll wind up being the poorer for it. If things like this don't make you think long and hard about how we treat this planet ... I don't know what's wrong with you.

h/t: bioephemera

ETA: CBC News article on an upcoming manuscript documenting this tragedy.

ETA: A Scientific American article on the story. This one comes complete with a video of albatross chick necroscopies. And this article does (weakly) pay homage to Samuel Taylor Coleridge's epic poem.

Currently ...

PlayingWiiWare title

Listening To
You know what to do, you know what I did
Since you know everything just clue me in
I am such a wreck, I am such a mess
I know what I know, why don't you fill in the rest

I will bring you down, I will make it bad
While you're feelin' proud, why don't you help me

I'm spinning 'round, I will make you ill
Since I'm so broken down, why don't you fix me

Such a shame that I wouldn't know by now
Your revelations
Let me in I don't want to live without
Your revelations

SciBlog NFL challenge - Week Seven

Won a three-way tiebreaker to keep the trophy again this week.


Ohhh, shiny.

I guess Jesus Christ is ...

... a Penn State fan?

"At first glance, you don't necessarily think that's what it looks like, but when you look at it more, it does look like a cross," Berns told Foxnews.com. "That's the reason I didn't purchase it."

Eh? So it doesn't look like a cross when you actually look at it, but it does look like a cross when you look at it thinking it might be a cross?

Give me a break. It's a stupid school spirit t-shirt!

To be honest, at first I thought the article might be about someone being offended at the "White Out" comment and thinking it was causing some racial issues ... I looked at the shirt and didn't even think "cross" until I clicked on the link and started reading (and yes, that means I didn't read the caption underneath the image on the FOXNews front page, and I didn't get the "Crossing the Line" pun either).

Come on people, find something to really find offense over.

I hate the Phillies ...

... and this certainly doesn't make me think any better of them. Obviously, their fans are idiots. The last few seconds make the video a total laugh riot.

H/T: Bugs and Cranks.

The Drop Off

by: The Tragically Hip

There’s no swimming past the drop-off,
or feeling sorry for ourselves.
Ya don’t go swimming past the drop-off,
or else.

Personal stakes will get raised and get raised til your story gets compelling.
If you lacked the sense or were willfully dense is forever in the telling.
The surface is green and the dark interweaves in a lonely iridescence,
It’s terribly deep and the cold is complete and it only lacks your presence and nothing else ...

... nothing else ...

... no one else.

The Last Recluse

by: The Tragically Hip

You rode out of view
As far as I knew it was you
Who broke my heart from the start
Made me work and work so hard
To get where I am
To where I'd let you do it all again

Who are you? Who are you?
What do I do without you?

Who are you The Last Recluse?

It's only after Oklahoma drops three games ...

... in it's first six that they get some media lovin. Of course, I'm not going to complain, and it's an interesting point. However Oklahoma should have won all three of those games, and if we did, we'd be right there for the BCS Championship. Problem is, our offensive line stinks and is undisciplined. If they could keep their blocking assignments and their composure, Bradford would have two functional arms and OU would most likely be 6-0.

Interesting little ...

... article over at the New Scientist. Six diseases you never knew you could catch. Where I work, we're looking at something which could potentially be #7 on that list.

Week Six Is Mine!

After my tie-breaking win of Week 1, followed by four decent but lackluster runs in the pool, I thoroughly dominated this week in the SciBlogs Football Challenge. Nine wins peeps! This week pulls me within two correct picks of the overall league lead as well. Of course, Prof-like Substance marred my celebration with the talk of flying junk, but I'll take the win regardless.


Once again, the trophy is mine bitches.

If You See Her, Say Hello

by: Bob Dylan

If you see her, say hello, she might be in tangier
She left here last early spring, is livin' there, I hear
Say for me that I'm all right though things get kind of slow
She might think that I've forgotten her, don't tell her it isn't so.

We had a falling-out, like lovers often will
And to think of how she left that night, it still brings me a chill
And though our separation, it pierced me to the heart
She still lives inside of me, we've never been apart.

If you get close to her, kiss her once for me
I always have respected her for busting out and gettin' free
Oh, whatever makes her happy, I won't stand in the way
Though the bitter taste still lingers on from the night I tried to make her stay.

I see a lot of people as I make the rounds
And I hear her name here and there as I go from town to town
And I've never gotten used to it, I've just learned to turn it off
Either I'm too sensitive or else I'm gettin' soft.

Sundown, yellow moon, I replay the past
I know every scene by heart, they all went by so fast
If she's passin' back this way, I'm not that hard to find
Tell her she can look me up if she's got the time.

I'm sorry but ...

... anyone who runs a business dedicated to investigating the "mysteries of science and physic phenomenon." does not make them science-buffs. It makes them loopy.

So loopy that one of their children is believed dead because a tin-foil balloon (oh, there's some irony for you in that if you want to dig deep enough) he was supposedly seen crawling into, crash lands about fifty miles away.

Ten to one this was all a publicity stunt.

Although Richard Heene said he had no specialized training, they had a computer tracking system in their car and a special motorcycle. Mayumi Heene, often called "ninja" by the family, was in charge of equipment and drove the storm-mobile. She also filmed storms while her husband rode his motorcycle into the storm to launch rockets to measure magnetic forces.

Seriously?

You know what ...

... I really like reading review articles. I don't like writing them though.

The last remaining loose strands of my graduate school ...

... days have been tied. Received word recently that a manuscript I was co-first-author (is there really such a thing?) on has been accepted. It was the last major aspect of my dissertation, and it involved some slick bioinformatics work and some even slicker expression assays that added a good chunk (if I do say so myself) to the existing knowledge about the regulon I was studying. This work was to form the bulk of my final manuscript, but got held up by various issues. By then I was knee deep into my post-doc and the demands of writing those papers superseded IMO any obligation I had to work on my graduate school manuscripts. It led to a semi-scoop on part of the system (which meant I didn't get to name the gene we identified a function for), even though I eventually got that published on its own anyways. This was supposed to be the grand finale, but was handed over to another person in the lab for additional work and stood that way for awhile. Almost five years after I walked out the door of graduate school, it's been published.

In a way it is pretty liberating. Thank goodness it's now over!

Bashing the Republicans ...

... may still be a favorite pastime, but it doesn't seem to be selling these days.Picture taken a couple of days ago at my local B&N. Yes, that is a hardcover book selling for $3.99.

Boomer Sooner!

Beat Texas!