Somebody is publishing private letters! Of course, these are 186 year old private letters from a 12 year old Charles Darwin, and they’re very amusing. I guess he wasn’t a fan of bathing, and later wasn’t shy about trash-talking his college professors. He was a very pugnacious little boy!
Hooray, I have evidence that at least one person didn’t fall asleep at my GECCO keynote: here’s a summary. He even managed to pay attention right up to the dramatic conclusion, which I usually keep a secret, but now the beans have been spilled.
Wait…the biology-oriented keynote at last year’s GECCO was a panel with Lewis Wolpert, Steve Jones, and Richard Dawkins? I would have been a lot more nervous if I’d known I was following up that act.
The movie genre of the summer seems to be the superhero flick, and I’ve enjoyed most of what I’ve seen so far, but I hope Hollywood won’t forget other kinds of movies. There is one I’m really looking forward to, and the news so far seems to be that it will be true to the book: Watchmen. Oooh, it looks good.
The Republican National Convention is being held in St Paul at the Xcel Energy Center. My fellow Minnesotans are familiar with this place — it’s right across the street from the Science Museum of Minnesota. Would you believe the science museum is being closed to the public during the convention? There’s a metaphor jumping up and down, screaming for attention in that.
You know, shutting down the museum is probably a more effective way of discouraging me from frightening the Republicans than posting more armed guards, as Thomas Foley wants to do.
This is a long streaming video, so you might want to save it for something to watch over lunch. Mark Norman takes a giant squid apart at the Melbourne Museum.
San Francisco is going to have a ballot measure to determine whether to name a sewage treatment plant after George W. Bush. I don’t know about this. I understand the sentiment, that it would associate Bush’s name with sewage, but sewage treatment plants are good things that take filth coming in and puts clean and pure out. Bush does the opposite.
Since some people were envious that I singled out one blog earlier today, here’s your opportunity: leave your url in the comments here, say a little bit about why your blog is worthy of my attention, and I’ll toss it onto the blogroll. Attention for everyone!
Caveats: for technical reasons, your blog must have an rss feed/syndication. I reserve the right to ignore your blog if I don’t like it. Even if you get on my blogroll, I do turn it over regularly, so there’s no guarantee I’ll keep it there for long.
OK, people, you’ve got to stop this. These comment threads keep filling up with noise — I’m closing one bloated thread and starting this one, if you feel you must.
Just a suggestion: if you are an outraged Catholic who is here to tell us a) you’re very upset, b) the cracker is very, very important to you, or c) that you’ll pray for us all, please, don’t bother. We’ve heard it a few thousand times already, it wasn’t at all persuasive the first time, and we’re just getting more and more exasperated at your obtuse lack of originality. Go to church, instead.
I have been tempted many times by that over-expensive sexy slab of technology called the iPhone, so I don’t need Seed adding to the temptation with a list of science apps for the iPhone.
Fortunately, the strongest argument against the iPhone for me right now is that it’s closed and only supports one carrier…who does not offer good service in the wilderness of western Minnesota. If ever they opened the gadget up, though, or if ATT built a cell phone tower in my neighborhood, I’d have to rely on my wife’s ability to slap and shackle me to prevent wasteful spending.*
*Which is, obviously, a reason to hope for more flexible service plans even if I never buy one.
