Archive for 2012
Conferences are a minefield of migraine triggers
I went to the Evolution meeting last week in Ottawa and had a great time. Everything I had to say about how great ESA meetings are applied there, too (if you replace “ecology” with “evolution”): I love hearing about the latest research in my particular subfield, and I’m inspired by research seemingly unrelated to mine. […]
Why people pirate (or, Science’s paywall sucks)
Doing things legally: When I went to the AAAS meeting in February, I got a free subscription to Science magazine. Fresh from the Evolution 2012 meeting and motivated to keep up with the literature better, I click the big blue button in the weekly email to “Start reading now!” Except I can’t “start reading now.” […]
Annoying behavior of the Evol2012 schedule app
I’m going to the big Evolution meeting in Ottawa in a few days. It’s going to be awesome! I’ve been browsing the the schedule, choosing talks to see using the fancy app developed for the conference. I am pleased and impressed that they’ve got a system in place for setting up my conference schedule that doesn’t […]
Boy meets girl
Earlier this year I spent a week at a workshop at the boots, mud, and resource extraction applied end of my field. It was pretty different from what I’m used to culturally. The mealtime conversations were considerably less intellectual than I’m used to in my professional life, often revolving around relationships. People talked about wedding […]
Breaking the grad student budget
Grad students joke, cry, and complain about being poor. As a grad student, I definitely don’t make a lot, but I make enough to eat well, live in a cozy apartment, and make a dent in the debt I racked up as a student with no health insurance. Quite frankly, I feel positively wealthy sometimes. […]
Not just bees
Too poor to pay taxes
Conservatives I know keep bitching about how half of Americans don’t pay taxes.* I think their position here is kind of horrible: they see “46% of Americans don’t pay federal income taxes” and demand that they pay “their fair share.”** Isn’t a better question why are half of Americans so poor they can’t pay income […]