Well, that didn't take long.

In my previous post, I hinted that I might be considering bringing together my disparate blogging activities here, at Life Science Tools of the Trade, and at the Occam's Typewriter Irregulars.

It's done.

Please welcome the brand-new, shiny, Adventures in Wonderland, kindly hosted by my friends over at Occam's Typewriter. You can read a bit more about the history behind the move in its inaugural post.

This dear old Ricardiblog will continue to live here, but I will no longer update it. Please feel free to visit me at the new place. I'll probably be tweaking it and poking it for a while, so don't be put off if things work a little differently. It's still me behind it all.

And so, into 2011.

Not much to report, really... after a grueling couple of months writing grants (oh, and I think the Christmas holidays were in there too), I'm back to having a bit more spare time. Time, among other things, to dig through some old shots from last July's Honda Indy Toronto race weekend, and edit a few of them.


High-contrast, black and white treatment. Why not?

I've written a couple of guest posts over at the Occam's Typewriter Irregulars blog. I'll be concentrating on science-y things there, since OT was founded, and is largely populated by, scientists (although the writing is fairly diverse). Good writers there - well worth a visit.

My other blogging gig, over at Life Science Tools of the Trade, should pick up a bit this year - I've committed to at least one post per month, which doesn't seem like much, but believe me, would be a big increase over my past efforts. That will be all science - techy stuff, as compared with the OT Irregulars, where I'll be largely posting things for a lay audience. I'll probably keep cross-posting those ones from here.

Otherwise, I think this place will stay much as it has been, which means, of course, more about cameras and cars, mainly. On that front, a few months ago I finally bought a DSLR: a Nikon D5000, kitted out with a couple of lenses including a 55-300 mm zoom, which should be fun for my motorsports pursuits. That means that I can stop borrowing Mrs. Ricardipus's lovely Sony DSC-R1, although it will still get used for various things (like that photo of the Christmas tree from a few posts ago, for example). It also means that the old film SLR is now long gone.


The dear, departed Pentax MZ-50 and 100-300 mm lens - now traded in.

So far, the D5000 has been fabulous, although I'm still learning it - both where all the controls are, and how it responds to different lighting conditions. But I'm very happy with it, and it's proven adept at a variety of things, from close-ups of expensive cars under dodgy lighting, to long-range snaps of zoo animals,



a bit of landscape shooting,



and even, with a rented lens suitable for low light, some concert photography.



So - among more important things, 2011 should bring, in no particular order, a lot more writing about science and other things, and many more photographs, at least some of which will be of things with wheels. Good times, I trust.

Cross Post - Shakespeare and DNA, part II

Hadrian's wall. Although Roman, it has about as much to do with Julius Caesar as it does with either Shakespeare, or genome assembly.

Another cross-post to point you over to the Occam's Typewriter Irregulars blog, where I try to explain "genome assembly" the process of putting many fragments of DNA sequence together to make an entire genome sequence. All of this aided by using bits of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar.

The post is right here: Genome Assembly - a primer for the Shakespeare fan

Genome Science and William Shakespeare

Appearing together, at the Occam's Typewriter Irregulars blog.

Scoot on over and have a look, if you like. And while you're there, feel free to check out the rest of the blogs. Occam's Typewriter, brand spankin' new, "the sharpest blogging network in the box".