change.org is full of pointless petitions, so I have launched a pointless petition to change change.org

There really is an awful lot of pointless rubbish on change.org. So I was curious whether they would let me create a petition calling for change to change.org. Specifically, to stop all of these pointless petitions from being added in the first place.

The fact that they allowed me to create such a petition perfectly illustrate my case regarding a need for some sort of curation. My petition is now live:

• Stop change.org allowing pointless petitions (such as this one)

Join with me and together we can rule the Galaxy as father and son…er, I mean we can make a difference. In the immortal words of Mr. David Robert Jones: "Time to make a change".

Sketches of Science: a must-see exhibition in Davis

This weekend we managed to catch the Sketches of Science exhibition at the Mondavi Center (also see the official website). I thoroughly recommend that people catch this free exhibition before it finishes on 28th January.

Photographer Volker Steger has met with many Nobel prize winners and asked them to make a poster (using crayons) that represents their nobel-prize-winning science. He then photographs them with their poster and some of the posters are also accompanied by audio interviews.

There is a lot of humor, beauty, and fun that emerges from this experience. Some scientists go for a simple representation of their work, others pack a lot into the poster (including a poem in one instance). Well worth seeing if you get a chance. I believe that this is the only place in the USA where this exhibit is being shown at the moment.

View fullsize

View fullsize

Martie Chalfie, one of many folks to win the nobel prize for their work on Caenorhabditis elegans

View fullsize

Bob Horvitz, another C. elegans researcher to feature in the exhibition

More photos here.

Decade

This Saturday marked by 10th year at UC Davis (also my 10th year of living in the USA). This is kind of incredible since the plan was only ever to stay for a year or two! Since arriving here in 2005, I have become a husband, a father, and settled down to a wonderful family life.

However, all good things come to an end and so we are planning to move back across the pond. We don't yet know where we will go (probably the UK, but possibly Western Europe), we don't know yet know what we we will do (probably something related to science), and we don't yet know when we will go (probably early 2016).

The USA, and Davis in particuar, has been very good to us both professionally and personally. Our careers have flourished, but more importantly we have made some wonderful friends who we expect to keep in close contact with wherever we end up.

I thought that this would be a fitting time to relaunch my website and blog as I plan to write more regarding what will be the next big chapter in our lives. The idea of not knowing where you will be in a year's time, or what you will be doing, is exciting and scary in equal measure.

I'm looking forward to what the future brings us.

No more science…at least not on this blog

I've decided that as I'm increasingly using this blog to write about science-related topics (bioinformatics in particular), that they should have a new home. Therefore, all of my existing genomics and bioinformatics blog posts have been copied to my new ACGT blog:

http://acgt.me

I have also removed these posts from this site so that (ultimately) they will only show up in one place in search engine results. Going forward, I will use the ACGT blog to write about anything that is predominantly science related. In contrast, this blog will now be used almost exclusively for stuff that is not primarily related to my research work.

---

Updated 2015-11-12  to reflect that I have now removed the posts that were duplicated between this blog and ACGT.

A stunning hyperlapse video of life on the UC Davis campus

A few days ago, UC Davis student Joe Na (@joenagraphy on twitter) released this hyperlapse video of scenes from around the UC Davis campus, and I've found myself captivated by it. 

UC Davis from Joseph Na on Vimeo.

One reason why I've been watching this video over and over again is because Joe has shot some superb scenes with amazing lighting, and it is just beautiful to watch. However, that's not the only reason why I'm so drawn to this video.

After nine years of working at UC Davis I realized just how connected I feel to many of the places that are included in this video. For most of the last two years I have abandoned cycling in favor of walking everywhere on campus. I'm based on the 'far side' of campus near Aggie Stadium, but frequent meetings, teaching requirements, and the need to get a bus home, all mean that I'm regularly walking all over campus.

When I first saw this video, I instantly recognized every location because in an average week, I walk past (or through) most of them! So here is my shot-by-shot breakdown of the video (with links to DavisWiki as appropriate): 

1. 0:00–0:05 MU bus terminal
2. 0:06–0:09 The western edge of the Quad, facing south
3. 0:10–0:16 On the Quad, facing the MU
4. 0:17–0:25 On top of the West Entry Parking Structure on Hutchinson Drive, looking southwest to the GBSF and the Health Sciences District
5. 0:26–0:30 In the Arboretum by Lake Spafford, looking west
6. 031–0:34 Looking west across Lake Spafford
7. 0:35–0:38 Looking at 3rd & U Cafe from 3rd & University
8. 0:39–0:42 Looking at Wellman Hall from the east side
9. 0:43–0:47 Entrance of Warren & Leta Giedt Hall, with Kemper Hall in background
10. 0:48–0:57 Two scenes inside the CoHo
11. 0:58–1:02 Moving to outside the CoHo, overlooking the Quad
12. 1:03–1:09 Back to the MU bus terminal, looking north
13. 1:10–1:15 Outside the Mondavi Center
14. 1:16–1:19 Central area of Olson Hall looking down to the basement
15. 1:20–1:23 Outside The Silo
16. 1:24–1:28 Inside The Silo
17. 1:29–1:33 Outside Wellman Hall, looking south to Hart Hall
18. 1:34–1:40 Back to the Arboretum
19. 1:41–1:46 Aggie Stadium
20. 1:47–1:52 The Pavilion
21. 1:53–2:02 Soccer field
22. 2:03–2:06 Dobbins Baseball field
23. 2:07–2:11 My favorite shot...looking up from within the Death Star complex
24. 2:12–2:20 Back to the Arboretum
25. 2:21–2:23 Looking at the entrance to Hart Hall from corner of Shields Library
26. 2:24–2:27 Looking at northern entrance to Mrak Hall
27. 2:28–2:32 Dutton Hall
28. 2:33–2:36 I think this is on East Field, behind Dutton Hall
29. 2:37–2:40 The ARC
30. 2:41–2:44 Looking at Peter A. Rock Hall from across the turning circle at Hutchinson Drive & California Avenue
31. 2:45–2:48 Hmm, somewhere west of campus? Update: now confirmed to be Hopkins Road (thanks to @brendawrites)
32. 2:49–2:53 Not sure...possibly the Teaching Vineyard next to the Robert Mondavi Institute for Wine and Food Sciences

Thanks again to Joe for making a beautiful video which serves as a wonderful advertisment for UC Davis.

Summary: migrating from Gmail to FastMail

I thought I would group together links to my set of six posts about how I have migrated from Gmail to FastMail:

• In part 1, I explained the complexity of my email setup.
• I used part 2 to talk about why I wanted to migrate away from the (admittedly very good) tools provided by Google
• Part 3 went over the steps I took to prepare for the migration
• Part 4 proceeded to talk about how you can copy email from Gmail to FastMail and also included some links to some other useful resources online
• In part 5, I covered some of the specific issues that arose duing the migration (e.g. DNS configuration)
• Finally, I used part 6 to list the good and bad things that I have experienced during (and since) this migration