Recently in Miscellaneous Category

The Summer 2009 issue of UConn Magazine has just been released. It includes a very nice article about my department. Here's the opening blurb:

UConn's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology attracts top students from around the world because of the program's top-notch faculty, international reputation and prominent group of respected alumni.

Looking at the list of "Notable Ph.D. Alumni" makes me feel pretty old, though. All of them received their degree after I arrived here.

From Slate

The map shows how employment in each local area has changed from the same month in the preceding year -- 4.2 million jobs lost nationwide from February 2008 to February 2009. Click through to Slate for an interactive version.

No, I don't mean spending your whole life on Google. I mean Life magazine, more specifically photos from the Life magazine archive. They are now available on Google.

"Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google."

What's OneWebDay you ask? Well, here's how the organizers describe it:

OneWebDay is an Earth Day for the internet. The idea behind OneWebDay is to focus attention on a key internet value (this year, online participation in democracy), focus attention on local internet concerns (connectivity, censorship, individual skills), and create a global constituency that cares about protecting and defending the internet. So, think of OneWebDay as an environmental movement for the Internet ecosystem. It's a platform for people to educate and activate others about issues that are important for the Internet's future.

There are events being held all over the world. There's still time to contribute to the e-Democracy time capsule.

I mentioned Google's browser yesterday. And I downloaded it a little bit ago. I've only visited a few sites, but so far it performs pretty well. I haven't encountered anything yet that makes it a Firefox killler. (I miss All-In-One-Sidebar), and I'll probably stick with Firefox. But it's a nice clean alternative, and I like the idea that each tab runs as a separate process. That way I can kill one tab if it gets hung up without killing the whole browser. I'll continue to play with it, and it will probably become my second browser. Internet Explorer just got demoted.

Tomorrow Google will release a beta version of Google Chrome, its new open source browser. According to a comic book that Google released early by accident, Chrome has a variety of attractive features (summarized at GoogleBlogoscoped). Adrian Kingsley-Hughes suspects that Internet Explorer will be Chrome's primary target, but it might be as much of a threat to Firefox, Safari, and Opera. I really like Firefox, but I'd be happy to switch if Chrome is better. I'll probably download a copy tomorrow and try it out.

The New York Times is reporting this morning that Mayor Ray Nagin has issued a mandatory evacuation order for New Orleans.

This is the mother of all storms, and I'm not sure we've seen anything like it," Mr. Nagin said at an evening news briefing. "This is the real deal. This is not a test. For everyone thinking they can ride this storm out, I have news for you: that will be one of the biggest mistakes you can make in your life."

The official advisory is a little less dramatic, but not very reassuring.

A HURRICANE WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT FOR THE NORTHERN GULF COAST
FROM CAMERON LOUISIANA EASTWARD TO THE ALABAMA-FLORIDA BORDER...
INCLUDING THE CITY OF NEW ORLEANS AND LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN. A
HURRICANE WARNING MEANS THAT HURRICANE CONDITIONS ARE EXPECTED
WITHIN THE WARNING AREA WITHIN THE NEXT 24 HOURS. PREPARATIONS TO
PROTECT LIFE AND PROPERTY SHOULD BE RUSHED TO COMPLETION.

Gustav is currently rated as category 3 with maximum sustained winds of 125mph, and it has New Orleans in its sights. Fortunately, people seem to be getting out of the way this time. 

A few days ago we learned that DNA from the "bigfoot" specimen in Georgia came from a human and an opossum. Today we learn that Tom Biscardi, the guy who sponsored the news conference in Palo Alto announcing the "discovery" and paid "a substantial amount of money" for the corpse, admits that he was duped. "It was just a total scam," he said.

Well, Mr. Biscardi, my offer still stands. If you really did pay "a substantial amount of money" for a frozen gorilla suit, there's a bridge in Brooklyn you might be interested in buying. I'm sure I could get you a good deal.

USA Today has more details.

I mentioned yesterday that "bigfoot hunters" were going to present evidence that they have a dead bigfoot in a freezer back home in Georgia. Well, according to a report from Reuters in the New York Times.

One of the two samples of DNA said to prove the existence of the Bigfoot came from a human and the other was 96 percent from an opossum, said Curt Nelson, a scientist at the University of Minnesota who performed the analysis.

If you're surprised that the DNA evidence didn't hold up, there's a bridge in Brooklyn that I'd like to sell you.