My life is an episode of Monk

I just copied a pair of 18th Century scientific illustrations and, looking at them, thought "My God, these things are crooked! I cannot use them like this." So I opened them each in a cheap graphics program and grabbed the rotate tool where I discovered the first illustration was one whole degree out of alignment. Clearly, the OCD meds are not working as well as they used to. Worse, the second illustration was one and a half degrees out of alignment and the cheap tool I was using could only make full degree adjustments. If I wasn't so poor, that half degree would be enough to drive me to get a full-fledged graphics program.

How many bytes in a trilobite?

In this case, eight billion. After carvng two tiki mask USBs last December, I put aside my knives for a few weeks. Now I'm back. I'm still playing with design ideas. My latest was inspired by my trilobite post being included in the forthcoming Open Laboratory: The Best Writing on Science Blogs, 2010.

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I spent a ridiculous amount of time working on this one, researching trilobite anatomy and staring at the piece of wood trying to figure out how to make it work. The wood is unfinished pine. Inside is an 8GB Lexar drive

Guts
I've based my critter roughly on photographs of the genus Dalmanites, but not on a single species. Sam Gon's Guide to the Orders of Trilobites was an indispensible resource, though any mistakes or liberties I've taken are my own and he is no way to blame.

Birthday resolution

When we become adults, and then older adults, we drop certain things. Part of that is just deciding who we are. We try things; some work out and some don't. Some things fit with our adult identity and some don't. That's natural. But a second group of things in our life just fade away for no good reason. They could fit with our grown-up selves, but they get lost in the rush. Then one day when we're, say, fifty-four (just to pick a number out of the air of no particular significance) we wake up and think, "gee, I sure miss doing that."

I used to draw a lot. I was never more than a doodler, but I enjoyed it. It was more than a youthful enthusiasm; I kept drawing till I was over forty. But for some reason it faded away after that. I miss it. Today is my birthday and it seem like a good time to start drawing again. This is a mammoth I drew. When i drew, I always worked in pen, steel dip pens when I was younger and rapidograph when I was older. I never tried drawing with a brush. This is my first.