Over in LiveJournal land, there’s this “meme” going around about describing fandoms as relationships. It’s not really my sort of thing, but it did lead Rachel Manija Brown to ask why so many people are so mad at The X-Files: I had a different experience: I drifted away slowly, I think during the sixth season… Continue reading The Ex Files
Would You Like Something to Read?
We’re out of town for the weekend visiting family, so if you usually depend on this blog for entertainment, you’ll need to find something else to do. How about a good book or two? You can’t decide what to read? Well, the Internet is here to provide suggestions. You might, for example, think about the… Continue reading Would You Like Something to Read?
Maryland-Michigan State
Thursday night’s shellacking of St. John’s seemed to be mostly about the ineptitude of the Red Storm, rather than an indicator of greatness for the Terps. I fully expected them to come out and lose to Michigan State, who beat a ranked Texas team in their half of the semifinal bracket. Much to my surprise,… Continue reading Maryland-Michigan State
True Love Travels on the Information Superhighway
Sean Carroll of Cosmic Variance and Jennifer Ouellette of Cocktail Party Physics have gotten engaged. All together now: Awwwwww….You crazy kids with your falling in love over the Internet and all. Actually, we here at Chateaue Steelypips heartily approve of both the institution of marriage and the idea of meeting spouses through the Internet. Sincere… Continue reading True Love Travels on the Information Superhighway
Still in the Dark
The dark energy press conference mentioned a couple of days ago happened yesterday, and is written up in the Times. You can also get information straight from NASA. The basic result here is that astronomers have made a bunch of measurements of supernovae at extremely large distances, which amounts to looking at galaxies a very… Continue reading Still in the Dark
Bookstore Conundrum
If you go into any big-box bookstore these days, you’ll find a huge section of manga titles (that is, Japanese comic books), including dozens of different series, many of them running to a dozen or more volumes. This section is always impeccably organized, with all the series grouped neatly together, and the overall section alphabetical… Continue reading Bookstore Conundrum
Saturday Football Preview
I am already sick of Ohio State-Michigan, and the they haven’t even played yet. Can we at least get a final score before we declare this the Greatest Football Game of All Time? I can’t quite decide what I’m rooting for, here, but it’s either a 0-0 tie, or a 54-0 blowout. Whichever would make… Continue reading Saturday Football Preview
Early Basketball
The college basketball season is officially underway, and as is typical of the early season, there are already some wacky results, the most shocking being Kansas losing to Oral Roberts Wednesday night. Nobody is happier to see that score than Boston College coach Al Saunders– losing to Vermont is one thing (and makes Maryland’s win… Continue reading Early Basketball
Tom Petty Was Right
The last step in the tenure review process (from my end) is the approval of the Procedure section of the report. By rule, the ad hoc committee sends the candidate a copy of the section describing what they did in the course of the review (with the names removed), and the candidate gets a chance… Continue reading Tom Petty Was Right
Pimp Me Time Sinks
The fad of the moment among the physics majors is a shareware game called Pocket Tanks, in which players on opposite sides of the screen fire various weapons at one another, adjusting the launch angle and overall power in order to hit the target. Every time I walk into a room with two or more… Continue reading Pimp Me Time Sinks