We had high expectations for the Jupiter Jack.  It’s promise was to turn your car radio radio into a speakerphone for your cell phone and it promised to do it for $20.  $20 for a full stereo speakerphone is a frugal tech’s dream so we scoffed up the cheap device, so nicely pitched by the now deceased star pitchman, Billy Mays.

Using it was a snap as advertised.  Simply unpackage it, plug it into the headphone jack on your cell phone, then tune your radio to 99.3Fm and voila! Hands free, high fidelity driving.  While driving while using your mobile isn’t a terrific idea, hands free is preferred over using your handset certainly and Jupiter Jack promised a remarkable opportunity to make our chatting lives on our mobile easier.

We tested the Jupiter Jack first, from our Beck’s Cafe parking lot. It worked incredibly well.  My Blackberry Curve on Verizon Wireless was clear sounding and static free.  The receiver caller in our tests had a Samsung clam shell type phone on Verizon Wireless.  I had placed the phone down on the passenger seat, turned on my phone then tuned in 99.3 and Jupiter Jack supplied the link to our car stereo to create a clear stereo sound on my receiving calls and clear sounding calls on the sending side.  It was that easy.

But before we continued our test we noticed some annoyances.   The Jupiter Jack seemed to require us to play around too much with the radio and phone so that we were listening to the radio, then getting a call, then shifting back to 99.3.   Easy enough of course but it felt awkward and just as much a distraction while driving as any other method.  But for $20 whose to argue?

We then gave it a road test and this is where Jupiter Jack failed for us.  We were driving down a major highway in the Boston Area and the Jupiter Jack transmission was garbled and static filled on the sending end and the receiving end.  Our call receiving tester was using a Blackberry Curve on Verizon Wireless as well, so we could reasonably limit the variables in our testing.   Once we did the math of having to muck around tuning in channels when receiving a call plus poor call reception and the Jupiter Jack was less a Frugal Tech’s dream and more a hassle to use; plus we’re out $20.   Jupiter Jack is a nifty idea but for The Frugal Tech an idea can’t just be cheap it has to work well; it has to be a good value for the consumer.  Jupiter Jack, unfortunately, is not.    You can read more reviews of Jupiter Jack at Amazon and at Does The Product Work.

Christmas has morphed quite a bit over the years.   It’s original meaning of course is found in The Incarnation, the coming of Christ Himself to the earth, as He voluntarily humbled Himself to come to earth through the virgin birth.  Now a days, Christmas is celebrated for alot of reasons.  In many places it’s the celebration of The Incarnation of Christ, in others it’s the celebration of the “spirit” of giving, or maybe the “spirit” of commerce?

Actually the facts of the true meaning of Christmas are pretty sobering.   Joseph and Mary, having travelled by foot to their hometown for the census, there wasn’t any place to actually stay.  Maybe they got their too late given the slow journey what with Mary pregnant and all.  And what a pregnancy!  She carried the Child of God.  What’s not talked about much in that part of the story is how great a guy Joseph was to not divorce his betrothed. That’s right, they weren’t married. She had a child out of wedlock and Joseph had every right to ditch Mary but, he didn’t.  Sure, he had a dream and that was a real message from God, but, instead of brushing it off as a some bad fish for dinner, Joseph actually believed what God was saying to Him.  And so, he and Mary were heading up to Bethlehem for the mundane chore of census taking and tax giving.  Ho Hum.

But while on the surface it was ho hum, what was really happening was amazing.  The Christ Child was to be born.  Mary, is a great example of a regular, teenage girl who doesn’t really know what is happening to her, but, she’s okay with it since she trusts God.  She’s willing to say”ok I don’t really get this, but, I do know this, I trust God and this whole baby out of wedlock thing is WAY against my religion and the social norms of my day, but, I’m going with it since I trust You (God)” (see the Bible, Luke 1)

How many of us might be better off if we said the same thing, “I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but, I’ll go with it, since I trust You”.  We might have alot more life in our life!    And who knows what blessing we might bring to others here in the present…what Christmas you or I might bring to someone as Mary and Joseph did in the past….even though in the begininng we have no idea where the end will be.

The nice thing about this story is that the two women who won the Nobel Prize did something good for other women and for science.   That’s a great double whammy.  In an article published in the Atlanta Journal Constitution from the Associated Press we learn what these two Nobel winning scientists said.

Nobel Laureates Dr. Elizabeth H. Blackburn and Dr. Carol W. Greider recently shared the Nobel Prize for their work in understanding how chromosomes protect themselves as they divide.  The benefit to their work so far is in creating new experimental cancer therapies and in understanding the aging process better.  While their work in science earned them the Nobel, a rarity as only 10 other women have won the Nobel prize in Medicine, their thoughts on how science is conducted on a personal and institutional level by the scientists themselves, women in particular, bears consideration.

Dr. Blackburn noted with regards to the career structure for scientists that, “The career structure is very much a career structure that has worked for men”.  This should come as no surprise as the foundations of science came up from organizations built by men.  They’ve certainly done many great things but maybe now is a time to rethink how we conduct science to give more room for women’s equal brilliance to have impact.  Brilliance isn’t constrained by gender but institutional bias against gender, womens in particular, can artificially trap brilliance and creativity.

Dr. Greider said, “a more flexible approach to part-time research and career breaks would help women continue to advance their careers during their childbearing years.”  My guess is that many men might balk at such an approach due to the institutional sense that intense focus on a problem is needed to solve the problem.  Dr. Greider qualifies her statement by saying, “I’m not talking about doing second-rate quality science, far from it.  You can do really good research when you are doing it part-time.”  Her call is for a more flexibility for women in their involvement in pushing the envelope in science.  I can’t help but think that would be a good thing for men too  and perhaps for science overall.

Dr. Blackburn and Dr. Greider may be the most visible promoters of this issue, (and mother’s themselves) but they are not alone.    A book published in 2008 by Cornell University Press entitled, “Motherhood, the Elephant in the Laboratory: Women Scientists Speak Out” provides a platform for this same topic.  The book, edited by Emily Monosson, an independent toxicologist, brings together the stories of 34 women scientists around this issue of being scientists in mostly male dominated science spaces and yet trying to live the balanced lives they need as mothers and as dedicated scientists.  The books stories are static but the companion blog has even more stories that are quite alive on this important topic.

The blog Science Mom’s, which grew out of the book, “Motherhood, The Elephant in the Laboratory” seeks to capture these living stories, provide a forum to publicize them, and to share them to foster the debate and discussion on this issue.   And the blog Mama PhD. takes a similar tack recording stories of women trying to make life balance, motherhood and rigorous science all work together in a system that was conceived for success by men but, for which a time has come to rethink the structure of how to successfully “do” science.

It took me completely by surprise when I saw the clownfish image on Bing’s landing page one day.  Gorgeously colorful, eye catching, a stunning view of a fish.  Really way better in view than on a plate here at Beck’s Cafe during the lunch crowd.  But what I learned surprised me even more.   Clownfish change gender when they need to for their species survival.

Apparently the amazing Clownfish is “protandrous hermaphrodites” that is, it’s first a male then, at the right time for it’s species, changes it gender to female for pro-creation.  Yet another example from nature of our sometimes fluid gender in biology.  Interesting indeed.

Have a read for yourself at Wikipedia’s article:  Clownfish

Joanne Herman’s been making the scene in various interviews and signings on her new book, “Transgender Explained for Those Who are Not“.   Her informal book tour has taken her now to San Francisco where Sue Kwon interviewed Joanne regarding her book, who it was written for, and what kind of resource her book can be to understand transgender people.

Grab that mug of hot morning blend bold brew and have a watch; well worth the five minutes or so the interview takes by clicking over to CBS in SF: Sue Kwon speaks with JoAnne Herman, author, “Transgender Explained for Those Who are Not”.