One of the few perks of working in academia is that I can take the occasional day off for no reason at all. I handed in my grades yesterday, and spring beak starts Monday, so I can feel free to take the afternoon off to sit on my ass and watch some basketball. And bring… Continue reading Return of NCAA Live-Blogging
Humanists Have All the Fun
I’ve seen the idea of an “Opposite Day” popping up lots of places in the political blogosphere (most recently from Big Media Matt and Will Wilkinson), and it sounds sort of cool. The idea is that you commit to writing blog posts on topics chosen by readers, taking the opposite position from what you would… Continue reading Humanists Have All the Fun
Great Moments in Exam Grading
(For reasons unclear to me, Mixed States doesn’t seem to pick up scheduled posts in the RSS feed, even after they’re published. I don’t know if other RSS aggregators have the same problem, but if you were wondering what happened to the promised True Lab Story, here it is.) A question from yesteerday’s final exam,… Continue reading Great Moments in Exam Grading
True Lab Stories: The Water Fountain
(Series explanation here.) When I was in grad school, I worked in a lab with an incredibly high density of laser technology. We had not one but two Ti:sapphire systems, with 15 W argon ion lasers pumping Coherent 899 ring lasers, plus a pulsed YAG/ dye laser system, and a couple of miscellaneous diode lasers.… Continue reading True Lab Stories: The Water Fountain
True Lab Stories: The Series
Every good blog needs a signature recurring element. Dave and Greta have Casual Fridays, RPM has Double Entendre Fridays, Grrlscientist has Birds in the News, PZ has Say Mean Things About Religious People Days-That-End-In-Y, Orac has EneMan… I’m not organized enough to commit to posting things in a certain category on a specific day of… Continue reading True Lab Stories: The Series
Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
I’m with Kevin on this one: this whole “Pi Day” thing is just too dorky for words (I’m looking at you, Clifford…) However, as noted by Arcane Gazebo, it’s also Einstein’s birthday, which is an occasion much more worth commemorating. So celebrate as the man himself would have: invent a new theory of the universe… Continue reading Nerds! Nerds! Nerds!
Exam Day Links Dump
The final exam for my class is today (9-11 am), so I’m a little preoccupied. After giving the test, I have to grade it, but then, I get a whole week of “vacation.” The scare quotes are because of the multitude of things that need doing– I have to prep two classes for next term,… Continue reading Exam Day Links Dump
I Got Your Winning NCAA Bracket Right Here
So RPM thinks he’s all clever, with the Double Entendre Fridays— he’s not the only one who can game search engine traffic… If you’re one of those philistines who doesn’t like basketball go revel in nostalgia (“Cow… yup, yup yup..”), because we’re all about the hoops this morning. It’s that time of year again, when… Continue reading I Got Your Winning NCAA Bracket Right Here
The Essence of March
I’d be required to turn in my fan card if I didn’t at least mention Syracuse winning the Big East Championship in one of the more improbable runs I’ve ever seen (the AP story is tarted up with ESPN graphics here). They looked dead heading into the tournament– having lost by 39 to lowly DePaul… Continue reading The Essence of March
Science of the Times
ScienceBlogs is well stocked with people who will comment at length on the latest news from biology or climate science, which is nice, because I don’t usually feel moved to remark on those subjects. The large amount of quality commentary on those subjects does make me fell like I ought to make a point of… Continue reading Science of the Times