Syzdekistan

Why did the turkey cross the road?

dsyzdek — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 01:51:42 +0000

I always like seeing wild turkeys, but this one looks a bit goofy. This one was seen crossing the road in Parowan Utah on December 27, 2011.

Andrew Abject Terror

dsyzdek — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 07:29:50 +0000

I had a great time letting my children terrorize themselves with a sled last week.

I’m a great dad!

Fishing under the ice

dsyzdek — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 00:32:16 +0000

I’ve always wanted to try ice diving. I’ve heard that you can flip inverted, put some air in your BC, and stand on the bottom of the ice and walk around inverted. These crazy Finns took it to whole new level…..

Orbits

dsyzdek — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 21:51:15 +0000

While talking to people about space, I’ve noticed that many people don’t have a good idea on how low earth orbit satellites orbit the earth. This video about the impending Phobos Grunt reentry does a great job showing what a low earth orbit looks like.

Also, my condolences go out the Russian Space Agency on their loss of Phobos Grunt. It was a very ambitious mission, space exploration is extremely difficult, and losing their spacecraft had to be incredibly hard.

Wonderful World

dsyzdek — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 06:31:14 +0000

I’ve been watching The Life of Birds with David Attenborough and he is an amazing narrator. This is an great clip that makes me feel so thrilled to have chosen a career as a wildlife biologist.

Happy 8th Birthday, Caroline

dsyzdek — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 06:29:43 +0000

Caroline, best wishes for a happy birthday!

Love, Dad

One Man Baseball — In Space

dsyzdek — Mon, 05 Dec 2011 06:20:24 +0000

The lightheartedness of this video is great:

List of mammalian genera ending in “a”

dsyzdek — Fri, 28 Oct 2011 16:01:22 +0000

Just in case you are a wildlife biologist married to a mammologist and you are having a baby girl soon and you want to give the girl a name of a genus of mammals ending in “a” because the mom is Czech and Czech girl names end in “a” here is a list of the 209 genera that meet that criteria.

Abrocoma
Ailuropoda
Allactaga
Alouatta
Alticola
Amblyrhiza
Ametrida
Anathana
Anoura
Antilocapra
Aplodontia
Arctogalidia
Arvicola
Asellia
Babyrousa
Balaena
Balaenoptera
Bandicota
Barbastella
Bettongia
Blarina
Blarinella
Brachyphylla
Caperea
Capra
Cardioderma
Carollia
Carpitalpa
Catopuma
Cavia
Chaetocauda
Chinchilla
Chinchillula
Chiroderma
Chlorotalpa
Chodsigoa
Coleura
Condylura
Cormura
Crocidura
Crocuta
Cryptoprocta
Cystophora
Dactylopsila
Dama
Dasykaluta
Dasyprocta
Daubentonia
Desmana
Diphylla
Dobsonia
Echinoprocta
Echymipera
Ectophylla
Eira
Eligmodontia
Emballonura
Enhydra
Eremitalpa
Erophylla
Eubalaena
Euderma
Felovia
Feresa
Fossa
Galea
Galerella
Galidia
Gazella
Genetta
Giraffa
Glironia
Globicephala
Glossophaga
Golunda
Gorilla
Histriophoca
Hyaena
Hydrurga
Ia
Ichneumia
Inia
Kerivoula
Kogia
Kunsia
Lama
Lavia
Leggadina
Lonchophylla
Lonchorhina
Lontra
Lophostoma
Loxodonta
Lutra
Lutreolina
Macaca
Macroderma
Macrogalidia
Madoqua
Makalata
Marmosa
Marmota
Massoutiera
Mazama
Megaderma
Megaptera
Mellivora
Mesophylla
Microcavia
Micromurexia
Millardia
Mirounga
Mirza
Mogera
Moschiola
Mosia
Murexia
Murina
Mustela
Myoprocta
Myrmecophaga
Mystacina
Myzopoda
Nandinia
Nasua
Nasuella
Nelsonia
Neophoca
Neophocaena
Neoromicia
Neotoma
Nesokia
Ochotona
Okapia
Ommatophoca
Ondatra
Onychogalea
Orcaella
Otaria
Ourebia
Paguma
Panthera
Paracrocidura
Paramurexia
Pelea
Peponocephala
Petaurista
Phascomurexia
Philantomba
Phoca
Phocoena
Phylloderma
Pithecia
Plagiodontia
Platalina
Platanista
Podogymnura
Poiana
Pontoporia
Procapra
Procavia
Pseudorca
Pteronura
Puma
Pusa
Pygoderma
Quemisia
Ratufa
Redunca
Rhinophylla
Rhinopoma
Rhizoplagiodontia
Rhogeessa
Rupicapra
Rusa
Saiga
Salanoia
Selevinia
Sicista
Sotalia
Sousa
Stenella
Stenoderma
Sturnira
Suricata
Sylvicapra
Tadarida
Talpa
Tamandua
Tatera
Taxidea
Thyroptera
Tokudaia
Tonatia
Tscherskia
Tupaia
Uncia
Uroderma
Vampyressa
Vandeleuria
Varecia
Vernaya
Vicugna
Viverra
Viverricula
Vormela
Wallabia
Wyulda
Zenkerella

Congratulations, Aaron and Tereza!

List is taken from Don E. Wilson & DeeAnn M. Reeder (editors). 2005. Mammal Species of the World. A Taxonomic and Geographic Reference (3rd ed), Johns Hopkins University Press, 2,142 pp. Thankfully, they have a CSV file and Excel easily handles searches for strings.

Strange iOS Music Bug

dsyzdek — Sun, 16 Oct 2011 21:26:30 +0000

I sometimes end up on the “bleeding edge” of technology when I do some early upgrades and updates. When I updated my iPhone 4 to iOS 5 when the iOS 5 update came out, the update went well. However, when I went to play music using the Music app, there was some strange behavior. When I selected a song from a playlist, the first song would play fine. However, when the second song started playing, the display would display the info (title, artist, album art) of a different song! From then on, the Music app would play one song while displaying the info for another. If I picked a song from the playlist, it would start a different song. If I forced quit the app, and restarted it, it would correctly play the first song I selected and then it would be wrong for subsequent songs. Sometimes the app would freeze when switching songs.

“Fine” I thought, “I’ll listen to Pandora instead.” Now this is the insane part — Pandora would play one song and then lock up. Very, very strange.

So I connected the iPhone to my Mac, unchecked “Sync Music” for the iPhone, synced which removed all the music from the iPhone, then I rechecked “Sync Music” and waited for iTunes to re-sync all my music.

This fixed all the problems with Music app and Pandora. This must have been a very strange and unusual bug because I found very little information on it online. Hope this helps someone out.

More on Steve Jobs

dsyzdek — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 06:03:53 +0000

I can’t think of any other famous person’s death affecting me like the death of Steve Jobs. My first reaction was “I knew he was very sick and it wasn’t a surprise. In fact, I just lost a coworker to the same cancer, pancreatic, last week so on one level I was prepared.

However, remembering that I grew up with his products and even worked doing Mac tech support for a while, I am slowly realizing how important Apple products and Steve Jobs was to me. My first computer was an original Macintosh (128k) which I got in 8th grade. It was upgraded to a Mac Plus which served me into college. Since then, I had a Quadra 660AV, PowerMac 7500, Powerbook 3400, Powerbook G4 (Titanium 400), and now a MacBook Pro (2Ghz Intel Core Duo). I bought myself a Newton for my college graduation and I have a iPod Photo 40GB, Nano (3rd gen), iPhone 3 (now my son’s), and an iPhone 4.

As a geek and tech guy, these devices just work. The software is excellent and the hardware seems to run forever. They are incredibly well-built and well-designed machines.

Although my old boss in the Mac tech support job once complimented me that I “bleed in five colors” (referring to the old “rainbow Apple logo” I was never a big Steve Jobs aficionado. I didn’t watch very many of his keynote speeches. I never, until today, listened to his famous 2005 Stanford commencement address (but I certainly knew about it).

I was more interested in the technology and the specs and the design and software. But I always knew that there was a man behind all that cool stuff. A famously particular and difficult perfectionist. A guy that even was “the archetype of difficult.”

I am going to miss him. And I wish I knew him better. And I wish I watched the Keynotes, and his speeches. Here’s an amazing speech. I’m sad I waited until Steve’s death to watch it.