• jwz – pwn3d
  jwz: “It’s a fuckin’ gag. It’s not a bad one. But couching it in terms like “this work” just makes me want to punch him in the junk.”
• Rubber Cat!
  Mutation in sphynx line creates true hairless cat breed. These things are seriously freaky looking, and would make great aliens on a TV show or movie.
• Salon.com Technology | The corporate toll on the Internet
  On net neutrality; recommended by rafe.
• Majikthise : Got plans for May Day?
  Lindsay asks the question I’ve been wondering about: why so little coverage in the sinister blogosphere of the May Day protests? Some really good discussion in the comments; bottom line seems to be “immigration law is hard“.
• Lawyers, Guns and Money: Why Not Then?
  In which I ask LFM to stop using “pussy” for “coward”.
• Hugo Schwyzer: Words, words, words.
  This is the post to link when asking someone to stop using “pussy” for “coward”.
• Follow Me Here… : The Granny Peace Brigade
  “Eighteen ‘grannies’ who were swept up by the New York City police, handcuffed, loaded into police vans and jailed for four and a half hours were acquitted yesterday of charges that they blocked the entrance to the military recruitment center in Times Square when they tried to enlist. […] The women call their group the Granny Peace Brigade and said they wanted to join the armed forces and thus offer their lives for those of younger soldiers in Iraq.” Eliot is right, acts of nonviolent civil disobedience should be widely celebrated. Such acts require great courage and selflessness, and are the only way to give to the word “patriotism” meaning that does not stink of prejudice.
• GENERIC RATIONALE AND MODEL FOR UNIVERSITY OPEN ACCESS SELF-ARCHIVING MANDATE – Open Access Archivangelism
  Now I have no further excuse: I must start agitating for mandated IR deposits where I work. Prof Harnad has done all the heavy lifting for me: evidence, argument, methodology, all of it.
• Open Access News: how to get faculty to use institutional repositories
  “One of the biggest challenges for academic librarians is getting faculty to deposit their articles into the university’s institutional repository (IR), assuming there is one, of course.” I hate the “appeal to their ego” idea, there’s too much damn ego in science already, but I really should be trying to get Shriner’s research to set up an IR.
• blog.bioethics.net — clinical trials in India
  “[it is nonsense to] focus so much attention on the tiny trial of Parexel in Britain, which injured six people, while two million Indian patients, almost all of whom are poor, almost none of whom have any real health care at all, and none of whom will be empowered to sue anybody, are enrolled (by 2010, according to estimates quoted in the BBC story) in clinical trials”
• TICU
  “The Tactical Ice Cream Unit (TICU) rolls through the city in an act of intervention that replaces cold stares with frosty treats and nourishing knowledge. Combining a number of successful activist strategies (Food-Not-Bombs, Copwatch, Indymedia, infoshops, etc) into one mega-mobile, the TICU is the Voltron-like alter-ego of the cops’ mobile command center. Although the TICU appears to be a mild-mannered vending vehicle, it harbors a host of high-tech surveillance devices including a 12-camera video surveillance system, acoustic amplifiers, GPS, satellite internet, a media transmission studio capable of disseminating live audio/video, and of course, ice cream. With every free ice cream handed out, the sweet-toothed citizenry also receives printed information developed by local progressive groups.” Via WorldChanging.
• Two Open Access Books on Open Access – Open Access Archivangelism
• treppenwitz: Fred Basci
  Stories are how we tell ourselves who we are. Go read this one. Thanks to Naze for linking it.
• Peoples Archive
  Peoples Archive is dedicated to collecting for posterity the stories of the great thinkers, creators, and achievers of our time. The people whose stories you see on this site are leaders of their field, whose work has influenced and changed our world.
• Hey look, I got a translation credit.
  Someone mistyped, or didn’t read my copyanything notice. There’s a line missing.
• dataisnature.com
  Art + science = pretty!
• Sunlight Foundation
  As in, the best disinfectant. Looks good.

Conversations: I talk too much:

• OBACHAN’S SCRIBBLES: I’M TIRED…
• Terra Sigillata: Medical wikipedia – Peter Frishauf responds
• rc3.org: Giving presentations
  Ah, presentations. How I hate them. Mostly because I do not prepare adequately, so wind up doing a half-assed job. Yes, I am a moron. There are some good suggestions in comments.
• Adventures in Ethics and Science: Uninvited nest update.
  In which the fate of the baby birds is revealed. I’m the commenter JS mentions.
• Science and Politics: Connotea, anyone?
• Dr. Ian’s Gibson’s Paradoxical Historic Role in the Transition to Open Access – Open Access Archivangelism
• Adventures in Ethics and Science: A call for advice: nest relocation?
  In which I prevail upon JS to give the baby birds a Free Ride.
• The Daily Transcript: What’s your h-index?
  An interesting, but I think not very good, alternative to raw citation data as a means of comparing the impact of a researcher’s body of work on the field.
• Adventures in Ethics and Science: A poetry-writing chemist for National Poetry Month
  Wish I’d thought of this theme ahead of time. Maybe next year.
• Uncertain Principles: Uncertain Pop Quiz
  
  It’s… disheartening to see how (heh!) uncertain everyone (including me) is about measurement precision and accuracy. Here, test yourself:

  Imagine that you are doing a physics lab to measure the velocity of a small projectile. After making a bunch of measurements to four significant figures, and doing a bunch of arithmetic, you get a value of 4.371928645 m/s. After yet more gruelling math, you find the uncertainty associated with this number to be 0.0316479825 m/s. How do you report this result?

  A) 4.371928645 +/- 0.0316479825 m/s

  B) 4.372 +/- 0.03165 m/s

  C) 4.372 +/- 0.032 m/s

  D) 4.37 +/- 0.03 m/s

  E) Some other answer that I will explain in comments.

• Uncertain Pop Quiz Results
  In which all is revealed. I’m sticking with my answer; the Departmental rule is fine, but I like my (imo) less-arbitrary rule better.

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