You are an environment

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We tend to think of ourselves as individual organisms. Even though we're made up of thousands upon thousands of cells working together to send and interpret sensations, break down and rearrange nutrients, transport wastes, provide structure and mobility, and keep our selves humming along in homeostasis, we think of ourselves as single creatures.

We are not actually alone. Our bodies are home to many other organisms. Other living things go through entire life cycles on and inside us all the time. It's kind of incredible, when you stop to think about it.

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GoldiBlox and the Trouble with Pink

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GoldiBlox are filling up my Facebook feed and my Twitter stream this week, despite the fact that I don't know any girls (or parents of girls) in the right age range for the toy. My thoughts on GoldiBlox haven't changed much since the Kickstarter campaign. The short version is this: an engineering toy marketed to girls is a great idea, but why must it be pink? 

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Matlab Tip of the Day: Changing line properties programmatically

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I have an undergraduate working with me on some simulations, and I've been teaching him Matlab for the last year. This week I showed him a useful trick for changing the look of some line plots. He has a whole bunch of these to do, and instead of replotting the data or using the Plot Tools GUI to edit each figure, I taught him how you can get at the various properties of the plot. Once he figured out which properties he wanted to change, and which way, he could save the commands as a script, and run it on any open image to get a consistent look.

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Hiccoughs

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I just switched up my blogging workflow to use a new app that will allow me to post directly from my iPad, which is where I do most of my blog-writing. Unfortunately, the app's system for scheduling a post for the future is the opposite of the website's system, and that wasn't at all clear. So the post that should have gone up this morning will show up tomorrow instead. No big deal, but not what I planned.

On a totally unrelated note, I like the word "hiccough." I think it's interesting English.

Math magic

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I saw this in my Facebook feed, and instead of finding it cute, I found it a frustrating and disheartening display of innumeracy. The comments were full of "Oh wow! It worked for me," and "That's crazy!"

No, it's not crazy, it's not magic, it's math. Of course it worked for you because it's just an algebra trick, and not a particularly exciting one. Much more interesting than the trick is how it works and what its limitations are.

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Writing update

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My stated goal at the beginning of November was to "write something worth posting every day." My unstated goal was to put up a post every weekday. Since Nov. 1st I've written every day and posted every weekday except yesterday. That sounds like a decent start to me.

Most of what I've written lately has been related to job applications and research, but I've carved out 30-60 minutes each day, sometimes more, just to write for the sake of thinking "out loud." I don't think I've been at it long enough for the habit to stick on its own, but my writing time (usually in the evenings) is something I look forward to.

When November is over, I want to keep up the frequent writing, though I think I'll slow down the posting. I've been posting near-daily as a way to keep my promise to myself, but some things need more revision before they go up, and revision also takes time. My goal for December is to post about once a week. If I'm still setting aside writing time every day, that should work fairly well, I think.

A few things I am thankful for

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  • my husband, who laughs at me when I deserve it
  • walks with friends, no matter the weather
  • friends who know when to invite themselves over
  • role models of a variety of shapes and sizes
  • my Facebook cheerleaders
  • singing with my fellow GradTONES
  • control experiments that work out the way I hoped they would
  • warm mugs of tea on frosty mornings
  • a welcoming network I can lend to others
  • comfort food
  • inside jokes about Mr. Collins
  • some high school teachers of mine who have been on my mind lately: chemistry, physics, science research and English; you know who you are

On Identity

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Every now and again on the Internet (or at least the slice of the Internet I keep up with), the identity question comes up: What name do you use online? Just a few days ago, I saw it pop up again. In my experience, the person bringing up the topic usually falls on the side of "I use my real name, and so should you." Also, for what it's worth, that person tends to be male.

I think blanket anonymity is problematic.…

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30 Days

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It's NaNoWriMo time again. I'm not planning to write a novel, but I do think I ought to write more often. So here is my challenge: I will write something worth posting every day. It might be very short, and it might not be posted the day it is written (typos show up easiest when they're most likely to be embarrassing, after all), but I will write something every day in November. And maybe by then I'll have made writing a more frequent habit.

This is not today's post. That felt like cheating. I have something else written that will go up later.