Andrew R Gross

CHRISTMAS!! (and Hannukah too) I didn't grow up with Christmas, but I've always loved Hannukah.  When Julie moved in three years ago she introduced me to Christmas, which I rolled into Hannukah and New Years to fully transform December into one massive, blurred-together holiday.  I've never felt a conflict: as far as I'm concerned, Christmas is a secular holiday for me.  Jesus doesn't appear in most Christmas traditions, and happens to have been born in April.  For what it's worth, Hannukah isn't really a religious holiday either.  A few years ago I was making an exchange at Banana Republic in Pittsburgh and the clerk actually apologized for wishing me a Merry Christmas.  I told her that Hannukah sensitivity was thoughtful, but seemed unnecessary since it's not an actual religious holiday.  The mother in line behind me objected.  I wish I could say I kept my mouth shut, but the truth is I politely pointed out that God does not appear in t...

So much to cover! I went back to Pittsburgh for Hannukah and had a great vacation.  Julie was very nervous because she has complicated relationships with various friends and family members of mine.   My mother is somewhat off-put by Julie's eccentricities.  She also has been hurt by the blunt opinions Julie has shared on her blog in the past.  Julie has had a hard time forgiving my mother for past inhospitality.  It doesn't help that my mother has a strange unwillingness to every utter the word "sorry".  I know this is a cliche that I believe originated with The Fonz on Happy Days.  Her reasoning is based on some principle that has never made sense to me. The fourth night of Hannukah, before we left for Pittsburgh On the Sunday after we arrived, Julie and I went on a nature walk through Schenley Park with Mom and Harry. Taking off her sweatshirt before playing in the creek A falcon! More majestic birds On Monday we went to Phi...

I want to share two things that I think are very cool.  The first is this article about Congressman John Culberson and his passion for extraterrestrial exploration.  The second is a set of tools for picking attractive colors for charts. John Culberson and the Icy Moon I recently read an article in Ars Technica ( "Attempt no landing there? Yeah right—we’re going to Europa" ) that described the state of NASA's mission to the moon Europa.  It said that remarkably, it's being cheered along by the Chairman of the House of Representative's Appropriations Subcommittee, John Culberson.   I shouldn't bother repeating the whole article.  It's worth reading.  The gist is that John Culberson is a Texas Republican fighting to assist -- and even push -- NASA into planning a super-expensive kick-ass science mission to the moon of Jupiter, Europa.  Why?  Because he thinks Europa is just that fucking awesome. I relate.  It's probably all I rel...

I wanted to make a post on two things -- Europa and picking colors that go well together -- but the Europa part got long, so I moved the color thing to a separate post.  This one. This probably won't excite or impress you unless you've found this to be a problem, but I found several tools for picking out optimal sets of colors for making attractive diagrams. I remember seeing the following figure several years ago.  Every day.  Because I printed it out and taped it next to my computer.  The specific bars don't matter so much, to tell the truth, but those citations listed next to each one make up an incredible list of sources that I wouldn't have been able to put together myself otherwise.  I relied on it for checking up on a lot of things when working as a deep-sea marine biologist.  It's from a review from 2012 that remains an outstanding piece of scientific writing.  Dense as hell, but super, super, informative. "FIG. 7. Composition of bacte...

This was a very busy week. Firstly, I was getting ready for a party.  The chicken coop I built for my neighbor is finally done, and it seemed like the time to throw a party.  It wasn't our original plan to hold it on Halloween weekend, but it worked out well.  Instead of going to a costume party, it was really refreshing to hold a party just themed with enjoying the fall.  It wasn't any kind of protest against traditional costume parties, which as we all know are one of the best kinds of parties.  I really felt in the mood for a chill evening though, and it worked out great. Part of the reason I didn't feel the need to attend a costume party was because I put all of my energy into preparing for a costume contest at work.  Last year, I arrived just before Halloween.  My new coworkers immediately informed me that our department would be holding a costume contest on the Friday afternoon before Halloween in which all the labs competed fiercely. ...

Today, Julie, Jack, and myself participated in a muckrun to raise money to fight Multiple Sclerosis.  We were originally planning on doing it with a group, but everyone else flaked. It was really fun.  Enough talking.  The pictures:

I went on vacation several weeks ago and I intend to write about it soon.  In the meantime, Julie has already done so and posted lots of pictures, so you should check them out over at her blog, ialbatross.com . I actually need to leave for work in a few minutes but I thought I'd give a quick shout out to my recent media picks. The first is "The Martian", by Andy Weir.  I haven't seen the movie but I intend to.  The book is pretty fantastic.  It has that wonderful quality of good science fiction where you want to try living in the character's world.  It also inspired me to resume my secret project.  All the talk of engineering and ingenuity made me want to make a thing I've been planning for a few weeks.  I'm going to continue to keep it a secret however until I've actually started.  Right now I'm in a lengthy design phase. Secondly, Julie and I have been watching the first season of "The Knick".  "The Knick" stars Clive Ow...

Lazy? You bet. Enjoy some pictures showing off what I did in August. Diving Jack and I went diving. We didn't get any good underwater pictures, unfortunately.