Weekend Reading: The Still Too Busy Edition

As I mentioned in my last post, the kids were home with me today. I decided to try to work this morning and then go play in the afternoon. That worked, mostly. The kids interrupted a few times, but mostly let me work, and I got enough done to be able to take the afternoon off without feeling too bad about it. I even managed to squeeze in another hour of work after our afternoon's fun, thereby producing a solid draft of my next Chronicle Vitae article,

For fun we did three things: (1) had lunch and McDonalds (Petunia's request), (2) went to a park (Pumpkin's request), and (3) when to Birch Aquarium (Petunia's request, but Pumpkin got to decide whether we'd stay there for our afternoon treat or go somewhere else).

We had a lot of fun. And I bought a purse:

Spent the afternoon at the aquarium with my kids. Got myself an early birthday present. pic.twitter.com/ysGXgUEMXI

— Wandering Scientist (@wandsci) May 27, 2016

Sadly, I will still need to do some work this weekend. Through some overly optimistic planning on my part and some bad luck, I've ended up with a lot of deadlines right now, so my to do list each day is pretty daunting. I need to keep plowing through the backlog of work.  I'm making progress, though, and while I'm definitely Too Busy, I'm not Oh My God How Am I Ever Going to Get This Done Busy.

Anyway, let's have some links. I don't have many (see above about being Too Busy), but what I have is good. Of course.

Congress just failed again to pass funding to deal with Zika. This makes me so angry. There will be children born with severe disabilities because of their inaction.

Here is yet another reminder that algorithms are only as impartial as the people who build them and the data that trains them... and so if your input data represents the results of bias, your output will be biased. We need to never forget this.

Here, this will make you feel better about humanity: a Dad's love letter to his child.

Do you remember the story in Into the Wild? Well, Jon Krakauer never stopped researching how Chris McCandless died.

My favorite share on my Annorlunda Books page this week: the history of Pho.

Here's your fun ending: a tumblr of pictures of David Bowie paired with pictures of sea slugs. It is strangely hypnotic, and rather beautiful.