i love this

Geez, Wolfie...condescend much?

Give this woman credit: if you are an atheist living in the Bible Belt, and find yourself put on the spot like this (never mind on national television), it is frankly a hell of a lot easier to just smile politely and go along with things. (I know of what I speak, here.)

She stays true to herself, and does so graciously. She's magnanimous towards her neighbors (some of whom--I absolutely guarantee you--are going to give her shit about this.) And she doesn't say anything along the lines of, "no, I don't feel I should 'thank the Lord' for killing someone else's children instead of mine this time."

(Which is probably what I would have done.)

friday jam: wugazi

A buddy of mine sent me a CD with a metric ton of music on it a while back, and it's taken me a while to get around to listening to it all. Which is a real shame, because now I know how much time I could have been listening to Wugazi's 13 Chambers, but wasn't

A mash-up of songs from the Wu-Tang Clan and Fugazi sounds like it could be gimmicky. Hell, it sounds like it should be gimmicky. And there is every reason to expect it to be terrible, because most mash-ups are terrible. But this isn't. Not only is it not terrible, it's 13 amazing tracks that could each stand on their own.

Just as one example (and I could probably do this for every track)...I don't think that I would have ever noticed the rhythmic consonance between the menacing piano hook of ODB's "Shimmy Shimmy Ya":



...and the understated guitar bass riff of Fugazi's "Forensic Scene":
...much less would I have imagined that combining them just so would produce this:

This might be the greatest gateway drug for hip-hop in a long, long time.

how to take a leak in privacy (or something like that)

Some solid, practical advice:

Of course, the job still isn’t finished. When you are done you must clear the browser’s cookies and turn off the Wi-Fi before turning off the computer and removing the battery. The dedicated computer should never be used on the network except when checking your press-contact account and only from open Wi-Fi connections away from home and work.

More--lots more--at the link. 

the problem is people (and it always is)

Farhad Manjoo wrote yesterday about the invasion of public spaces by canines and their owners. This has, predictably, kicked up a chorus of what passes for discussion these days.

This is silly. Manjoo raises some perfectly reasonable objections to dogs being off leash where they shouldn't, being present where they shouldn't, and being poorly controlled by their owners in public situations. (I say this as someone who will take his dog anywhere and everywhere that he can. After all, poorly controlled dogs are a problem for other dogs, too.) But this has nothing to do with dogs. You could write the same piece about children (Manjoo halfheartedly acknowledges as much himself), cell phone usage, bicycle riders, wearing perfume, leaf blowers, and probably a dozen other things that people do or have in public, that can either be handled with some basic consideration for the people around you, or not.

To single out dogs (or any of those other things) as being a particular scourge on society is to miss the point entirely. We should be talking about basic manners.

i've been on this road so long i'm going in circles now

I've kept mum about this here, since it has been up in the air for a lot longer than I would have preferred, but as I now have it in writing, and (by the time this actually publishes) have informed my current employer (not that he reads or knows about this page), I suppose I can say that this blog and its attendant author will be pulling up stakes and leaving Seattle in just under two months.

We will be moving to Durham, NC, which long-time readers will know is familiar ground.

Without going into a lot of googlable detail, I've gotten a much, much better job in the RTP area. I will still be doing science, but in a more collaborative and interdisciplinary environment, and at a much more "big picture" level.

That's all I should probably say about the job here and now. My wife and I are both very, very excited about this. Seattle has been a great place to live--I think that it is, for all its quirks, one of the better governed and most livable major cities in the country. Life here was great, and I'm grateful to have had a few years to experience it. We've met some wonderful people here, and hope that a few will remain lifelong friends.

However, despite its charms, I don't think I've ever felt truly at home, here. My work situation has been very, very difficult, and it wouldn't surprise me that given a better situation on that side of things if I would have found myself happy to put down roots and never leave. But that is not the hand I was dealt.

More than that, though, is that I've felt a nagging pull back to Durham since we left. We have friends there that aren't "like" family to us, they are family to us. And the community there is something very hard to explain, but very, very special. I'm amazed and humbled that the job market (and especially this job market) has provided us with an opportunity to go back to the one place I really do feel is home.

This will be my fourth major relocation in 14 years. But I'm hoping that it will be my last.