On my counter at home there lie two new albums by Frank Black, who is kind of my personal hero. I've been putting off listening to them because of a certain defect of taste: I am terrible at recognizing good music the first time through. I fall for easy hooks and fail to enjoy anything remotely complex unless someone sits me down and forces me to listen to it, over and over again, pushing me …

Found on Slashdot, an excellent FAQ about the Columbia disaster by people who actually know what they are talking about. A comprehensive, unbiased, and very long text file. You are not allowed to post about foam impact until you read this.…

There's a dispiriting article in the Washington Post this week entitled "Space Shuttles Bound to Technologies of the Past". It's not dispiriting for what it says - there are good points, and quotes from knowledgeable people - but rather for a certain kind of attitude towards technology that shows the science rep…

If you speak Russian, you should pay a visit to the wonderful collaborative site at dirty.ru (don't worry, it's completely work-safe).

Think of it as a beautifully designed, more succinct BoingBoing. But in Russian.…

Caterina.net writes about the sex life of bacteria. Aren't Sundays great?

You can have sex, with males possessing a sexual apparatus for transferring genetic information to receptive females. However, since you are both going 30 mph it is difficult to find each other. Further…

Sloppy journalism in the Washington Post today. An article about past problems with Columbia includes this statement:

Two workers died from nitrogen gas exposure after entering an engine compartment.

But of course they mean workers asphyxiated by a nitrogen blanket. If you…

Last night Michael Jordan scored over 40 points in a basketball game. I remarked on this to the better half, who replied "Michael Jordan? I thought he was dead."

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Over the last few days I have been reading a lot about proteins - protein structure, protein folding, how proteins interact with DNA to control gene expression. It is absolutel…

More Ready.gov parodies - the tidal wave begins!…

The Department of Homeland Security has a website up with instructions on protecting yourself from terrorist attack. Just in time for our new war!

Here's a remix (with help from nobody's doll).…

I want to welcome the new Idle Words mascot, a handsome Antarctic ocean pout. For you RSS readers, I'm talking about a fish who has taken up residence on my home page, a sort of piscine banner ad. Come out of your aggregator and pay him a visit. The ocean pout is notable for his extreme endurance to cold: even though the waters he frequents are below the fresh water freezing point, he conta…

I don't much like to write about politics, but it's a day for strong feelings about the impending war.

So here is my own position: I'm pissed off at being treated like an idiot.

Specifically, I'm pissed off at being asked to believe that the most imminent threat to our safety, in an age of militant religious Islamic terrorism, is a third-rate secularist dictator whose ass we have …

Dave Winer, you should know that it's considered bad form to move to the Northeast and start whining about the cold. It's not like we kept it a secret.

You should know it's also bad form to complain about wind chill. Wind chill is bogus. Wind chill is for sissies. If you want to talk cold, give me yo…

Our local grocery store recently got one of these automated checkout counters. I don't know how prevalent they are, I assume if they've shown up in Vermont, then they've already shown up everywhere else on God's green earth.

The O'Reilly Bioinformatics conference was a happy old pot luck. Proteins over here, starches over there, a vector-space model or two in the soup tureen. There were biologists just getting into computing, and programmers just getting in to biology, and a very smart few who had been doing both for many years. And there were winter refugees like me, grasping at any excuse to visit San Diego …

There is a plaque in the men's room on the third floor of the San Diego Westin hotel with a stern reminder that alcohol can do permanent and irretrievable damage to unborn children, and that pregnant women SHOULD NOT drink, under any circumstances. It is a pretty arresting plaque.

Was there some kind of problem here with weak-bladdered playboys, besozzling the local expectant mothers …

Apple has set up a computer lab at the O'Reilly Bioinformatics conference, and all the stops are out. Cinema displays everywhere - also talks coming up about using Mac hardware for scientific computing. "Have genome, will travel". It looks like they are trying hard to capture the scientific computing market. No complaints from me.

Anil li…

I'm in San Diego, sitting in the lobby of the Westin Hotel with a bunch of other computer addicts. Everybody is here for the bioinformatics conference, and the O'Reilly people have set us up a wireless network. We come like moths to the flame. If you are wondering what I know about biology, the answer is "More than ever!".

Nobody here is having a good hair day.

I had a devil of…