On Inside Higher Ed this morning: The University of Florida has distributed several thousand T-shirts in which Roman numerals intended to indicate 2006 (MMVI) in fact indicate 26 (XXVI). After discovering the mistake, the university will have many thousands of other T-shirts redone, The Gainesville Sun reported. But, hey, the football team is supposed to… Continue reading They Got a Perfect 20 on the New SAT
Month: September 2006
Richard Morgan, Altered Carbon [Library of Babel]
Speaking of “Iain M. Banks without the literary ambitions,” some time back, I read Richard Morgan’s Altered Carbon, but never got around to booklogging it. In many ways, it’s similar to the Asher book, though, so I might as well take care of it today. This is the first of a series of books following… Continue reading Richard Morgan, Altered Carbon [Library of Babel]
Neal Asher, Gridlinked [Library of Babel]
Neal Asher is one of those authors who’s big in the UK, but not so much in the US. He gets talked about a fair bit, but it’s only fairly recently that I’ve started seeing his stuff in stores here. He’s been on the list of authors I mean to check out for a while,… Continue reading Neal Asher, Gridlinked [Library of Babel]
Ah, the Power of Labor
It’s Labor Day today in the US, which means it’s a day off from work for everybody who isn’t in academia. Our fall classes start Wednesday, though, so I’m going to spend Labor Day, well, laboring. This is nothing new, but at least it’s better than my first year, when classes started on Labor Day.… Continue reading Ah, the Power of Labor
The Language of Dogs
Behold the undeniable dignity of the Queen of Niskayuna: I’ve heard a bunch of different people give sort of pop-science explanations of what dogs are really doing in various circumstances– sort of a canine version of evolutionary psychology. According to this theory, lots of the cute things that dogs do are actually evolved behaviors that… Continue reading The Language of Dogs
How to Score Well Without Really Writing
Today’s New York Times has a story on the new SAT, particularly the writing test. The print version has images of the opening lines of three essays that received a perfect score, while the on-line version includes images of the full text of three perfect-score essays. The essays themselves are kind of interesting to look… Continue reading How to Score Well Without Really Writing
Greece Is the Word
Oh, c’mon, how could I pass that up? So, if you didn’t know, no sooner did I say nice things about Team USA than they turned around and reverted to NBA ball, playing a couple of closer-than-expected games, and getting bounced in the semifinals of the World Basketball Championships by basketball powerhouse Greece. I blame… Continue reading Greece Is the Word
Inside the Box
Behold, the Tenure Box: Well, actually, it’s an oversize milk crate, but that’s nit-picking. The stuff in the box is all for my tenure review: the blue folders are copies of my research materials, the green folders are my teaching materials, the yellow folders are my CV and statements, and the thing at the front… Continue reading Inside the Box
Academic Links Dump
Articles have been piling up in my Bloglines feeds as I keep saying “Oh, that’ll make a good blog post…” and then not getting around to actually writing anything. In an effort to clean things up a bit (in much the same way that I clean my desk off every September, whether it needs it… Continue reading Academic Links Dump
Pick a Seal, Any Seal
Lots of my fellow ScienceBloggers have been playing with the Official Seal Generator (Tara, Steinn, Bora, and Josh, and probably others by the time this posts). I’m just punchy enough to play along, but I can’t decide which way to go with this. So, below the fold, I present the competing options for the Official… Continue reading Pick a Seal, Any Seal