December 20, 2006 – 9:42 pm
Today is the Carl Sagan blogathon.
I wanted to add my own short appreciation of his work; Cosmos was one of the first hardback books I bought myself that wasn’t a textbook; The Dragons of Eden was another early addition to my library.
My first scientific love as a child was astronomy; I moved on to chemistry when I got fascinated by what the stars and planets were made of. Reading Sagan’s work helped me recapture that early love and fascination. I’m sure his writing was pivotal in having many people decide to pursue science.
May his memory remain unwithered. Ex astris, scientia.
December 15, 2006 – 11:55 am
Kimberly Chapman designed a knitted DNA double helix model.
Edited to fix the link 8/27/06 2240 PST, thanks Katherine!
December 14, 2006 – 4:38 pm
Despite her nom du blog, the closest the Yarn Harlot gets to NC-17 stuff is when she comes across some wonderfully soft yarn that she just wants to wallow in and rub all over herself. I can’t blame her for that, I’ve gone all nuts over a big stash of Malabrigo, or baby alpaca, or qiviut. Most obsessed knitters have done that at least once a week.
SFGate.com’s sex blogger Violet Blue has remedied the situation with her column, “Knitting for Adults Only.”
December 6, 2006 – 6:52 pm
Geneviève Bergeron (b. 1968), civil engineering student.
Hélène Colgan (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Nathalie Croteau (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Barbara Daigneault (b. 1967) mechanical engineering student.
Anne-Marie Edward (b. 1968), chemical engineering student.
Maud Haviernick (b. 1960), materials engineering student.
Maryse Laganière (b. 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department.
Maryse Leclair (b. 1966), materials engineering student.
Anne-Marie Lemay (b. 1967), mechanical engineering student.
Sonia Pelletier (b. 1961), mechanical engineering student.
Michèle Richard (b. 1968), materials engineering student.
Annie St-Arneault (b. 1966), mechanical engineering student.
Annie Turcotte (b. 1969), materials engineering student.
Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (b. 1958), nursing student.
May these women never be forgotten while the struggle to combat violence against women continues.
December 5, 2006 – 7:05 am
Found on StuffOnMyCat.com:
Cat wriggling into yarn stash
Miss Snickers, the Queen of Frelling Everything, better not try this at home.
December 3, 2006 – 8:55 pm
Found on AustenBlog:
There’s a proposal out for a manga adaptation of Pride and Prejudice.
Check a sample out.
I want this with an absolutely unholy passion. September 2007 cannot come quickly enough.
October 27, 2006 – 4:22 pm
Found through Body Impolitic:
The title of this post comes from one of the sanest additions to the recent feminism/fashionista debate. If I could pound one life lesson into my dear nieces’ heads, this would certainly be one of the top candidates.
I like fashion, makeup, and perfume, but if it doesn’t make me happy, I’m going to do without it and not beat myself up about it. I stopped reading a lot of fashion magazines a while ago because there was nothing there for me, and the few magazines that tried to reach out to larger sized women (Mode, Grace) died out. Right now, BPAL perfume oils bring me a lot of fun. And the knitting bug lets me play with color and texture and different fibers. I may very well decide like Grace to let my gray hairs show after hiding them for almost two decades as part of the Croning process if it stops being fun.
If you’re reading this through a RSS feed and feel the urge to comment, please go over to the main blog and do so.
September 30, 2006 – 10:09 am
There’s a little video of Martin Scorsese sound bites dubbed into the Sesame Street gang’s mouths up on YouTube called “Sesame Streets”, and even though it was funny, I did need to revisit the classic Steve Wonder performance of “Superstition” on Sesame Street back in ‘73 to get the video’s bits with Bert and Ernie going at each other for boinking each other’s spouses out of my mind.
August 23, 2006 – 8:02 pm
Well, Forbes.com took down the offensive slide show. Thanks to Amanda at Pandagon, she managed to get the text captured.
August 22, 2006 – 3:58 pm
One of my lj comrades (judith_s) pointed me to a truly rage-honing slide show on Forbes.com about why marrying a career woman is not a good idea.
Basically, it’s another rehash of all the main patriarchal talking points about why half the human race shouldn’t be working outside the home, but kept working within the home for no paycheck and not being a threat to Rich White Males. The racism and classism inherent in these assumptions is no great surprise, considering the source.
I’m not sure which particular slide did the best job of triggering my targeting mechanisms, but three of them are particularly egregious.
“She’ll be more likely to cheat on you”–Get that prenup signed *pronto* boys, so that when you decide to trade her in on a newer model, she’ll get none of *your* swag. No, it’s far better for you to have her stuck in a crappy marriage too tired to cheat and afraid of a) leaving or b) getting thrown out on your whim because she’s got no means of economic support.
“You’ll be more likely to get sick”–She won’t be around to do one of her primary roles managing *your* mental and physical health while automagically keeping herself in prime trophy wife mode.
“The house will be dirtier”–Some study gets quoted where working wives who make more than $30K/year (~$15 US/hour?) spend 1.9 hours less per week doing chores, but the author of this slide show blithely says that this can all be resolved if the man picks up a broom. Yeah, right, monkeys might fly out of my butt. Besides, $30K/year in the Bay Area won’t get you on the fast track to living large. When almost 50 year old tract houses in my neighborhood are going for a million dollars (and the cheaper ones are often bought by people who tear the old house down for a McMansion), I wonder anew how the *hell* these people can make the mortgage on just two incomes (which I imagine both need to be well into six figures).
Right now, I’m too pissed off to bother looking at the studies they quote. Feel free to comment and mock this odorous pile of fecal matter mercilessly, I could use the amusement.