I just found this on a community college website. Unfortunately, it came up pretty high on the Google search.

"Accuracy is determined by the number of significant figures.
Precision is determined by the decimal position of the last significant digit."

Uh... no.

From a job posting:

"Salary is commiserate with experience."

That rather sums up an advanced degree holder's job search, doesn't it?

(Also! The same job posting noted, "Must have strong writing skills." They clearly have a need.)

Still away from internet. Will be back later. Feet tired.

Every once in awhile (maybe once or twice a year), I get a particular kind of spam mail. Not the garden variety debt/personal enhancement/etc kind, the physics kind. Somewhere out there, people who think they've reinvented physics harvest all of the publically listed physics-dept email addresses and try to persuade us of their amazing new discovery. Quite often the English is horrible, and the concepts are even less coherent. Anyway, the latest example attempted to say it was from a number of randomly chosen physicists... and from the American Physical Society. You can see the text of it in this blog entry.

Also, this is the best "table of contents" image for a journal article ever.

Her first book is listed on Amazon!!

My contribution? I helped photoshop her author pic (that our other cousin took). ;)

I've been Google-stalking myself (in various internet identities) in my post-defense "relaxation" period. The oddest thing I've found is that this blog comes up as a critical propagator of that "musical baton" meme that went around in May 2005. See this blog entry for reference. (Yes, it's taken me some 4 years to find this.) In it, I accuse--er, credit tarlia for giving it to me. Her entry is/was friends-locked, so the Internet-at-large can't see who she got it from. Also she didn't say. ;)

The utter irony of it all is that I began my post with: "Mostly doing this to see how the meme propagates from me". I should become a prophet in internet meme-epidemiology. Clearly, I missed a life calling. Fly, butterfly, fly!

The other odd thing is that I am not the only me on Facebook. In fact, there are 5! Who knew??

I tried making this pandan chiffon cake today, minus the pandan. Used spunbutterfly's hand mixer for the eggs.

Things learned:

castor/caster sugar = superfine sugar. Requires more blending in the food processor. End cake was kinda crystally-sugary.

Measure the amount of vanilla. Splashing it until it "smells right" is not a perfect strategy.

Need to make my "stiff" peaks a touch stiffer.

That said... Happy New Year!

My artist/crafty friend uminomamori wrote a nice entry about the CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) which was passed last year. It sounds like a great idea, that all products (clothing, toys, furniture, etc.) primarily intended for children under the age 12 have to be tested and physically marked as lead-free.

However, the current incarnation of the bill also says that if say, your neighbor makes screen-printed tees for kids as a home business, they MUST pay for an accredited lab to verify that their particular product is lead-free, even if all the supplies were lead-free to start. And you can imagine, the lab fees won't be cheap. Anyone who wants to sell handmade, "old-school" toys that aren't Dora or Elmo or Bratz or Teletubbies can no longer do so. The only ones left who will be able to afford the lab fees are the giant companies who mass-produce (mostly) useless toys.

Anyway, read Meredith's post for further clarification, and vote to bring up this issue to the new administration on change.org! You have until Jan 16th.

Also, this link on reforming CPSIA.

The Urban Craft Uprising show is this Friday and Saturday 11-5pm at Seattle Center. I plan on going on Saturday... anyone else?