Via Rachel Manija Brown, a Wikipedia page on misheard lyrics in Japan: From Sean Paul’s “Fire Links Intro”: Mayday! […] Sean Paul! This one is hot! ç®çã! […] ã·ã£ã³ãã¼! ãªã³ã¹ã¯ç¡ãã! Me itai! […] ShanpÅ«! Rinsu wa nai sa! My eyes hurt! […] Shampoo! There is no hair conditioner! Global pop culture is Difficult. Still, this… Continue reading ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Otaku
I Drank What?
The term is over, and I’ve handed in my grades, about which the less said the better. Which means a minor vacation of sorts, as I clean up a last few things before making a push to get some research lab stuff done during our paltry one-week spring break next week, before the start of… Continue reading I Drank What?
The College Lottery
There was an interesting collision of articles about college admissions in my RSS feeds the other day. Dave Munger at Cognitive Daily had a post about a proposal to make college admissions random. The idea is that we could reduce stress on students and parents by having colleges identify those students who meet their academic… Continue reading The College Lottery
Hoops Communication
In addition to watching and reading about college basketball, I play a fair amount of pick-up basketball these days– I try to play three days a week at lunchtime, and most weeks I manage two. Often, the noon hoops game is the highlight of the day, and I suspect I don’t want to think too… Continue reading Hoops Communication
Alternate Mascots
Some guys on a mailing list that I’m on were talking about a game they were playing during breaks in the NCAA tournamnent last weekend, trying to come up with appropriate alternate mascots for colleges and universities. The idea is to pick mascot names that fit with the school name to make an amusing phrase.… Continue reading Alternate Mascots
How Many Philosophers to Change a Light Bulb?
Obviously, it depends on the type of philosopher: Empiricist: We can’t know how to change a lightbulb, but we can make lists of how big it is, the wattage, the thickness of the glass, the composition of the filiment… Skeptic: We can’t know if we’re changing the lightbulb. We can’t know if changing the lightbulb… Continue reading How Many Philosophers to Change a Light Bulb?
Rocket Science Is Hard
The latest news in the private space flight game is, well, let’s call it mixed: The second test flight of the privately-built Falcon 1 rocket failed to reach its intended orbit late Tuesday, nearly one year to the day of the booster’s ill-fated spaceflight debut. The two-stage Falcon 1 rocket shot spaceward [image] from its… Continue reading Rocket Science Is Hard
Leaving Early
One of the top players in college basketball this year was Texas freshman Kevin Durant, whose team lost over the weekend. Durant is 6’10”, and averaged something like 30 points a game from January on, so the automatic assumption is that he’s going to enter the NBA draft, where he would be one of the… Continue reading Leaving Early
The “Marketplace of Ideas”?
Over at Backreaction, Sabine has posted a lengthy essay on the problems of treating scientific research in economic terms: I vividly recall the first thing my supervisor told me when I was an undergrad: “You have to learn how to sell yourself.” Since then I have repeatedly been given well meant career advises how to… Continue reading The “Marketplace of Ideas”?
I Told You So
There have been a few good posts recently on topics that I’ve discussed here a fair bit. I don’t really have anything new to say on either topic, though, nor do I have the energy to repeat myself, so I’ll just post the links: – Gordon Watts on the collapse of corporate research labs, based… Continue reading I Told You So