You Gotta Admit

There’s a nice article in Inside Higher Ed today by a faculty member suddenly working in admissions: Whole sections of the admissions and recruitment process might not even be part of the division of academic affairs, but part of an enrollment services division, staffed by people who are experts in marketing, admissions, financial aid and… Continue reading You Gotta Admit

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Categorized as Academia

The World of Wide Sports

Ethan Zuckerman offers a recap of the latest developments in sumo: The May basho at Ryogoku Kokugikan ended yesterday with a clash between two profoundly talented rikishi. One was Asashoryu, who has been the sole Yokozuna – grand champion – of the sport since Takanohana retired in 2003. The other was Hakuho, who held an… Continue reading The World of Wide Sports

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Categorized as Sports

Open Source Musical Interpretations

While poking around to double-check the lyrics for several of the songs in the previous post, I stumbled across SongMeanings.net, which turns out to be fairly entertaining. As the name suggests, it’s a site where you can find a pretty comprehensive list of song lyrics by different artists, with notes attached regarding the meaning of… Continue reading Open Source Musical Interpretations

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Categorized as Music

Memorial Day Nostalgia Tunes

For most people in the US, this is a day off. For most academics in the US, this is already summer. Not so for us– we’re on trimesters, so we’re still in session, and have classes scheduled. This tends to undercut the solemnity of the occasion. There’s also an Admissions event today, and then I’m… Continue reading Memorial Day Nostalgia Tunes

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Categorized as Music

Memorial Day

It’s Memorial Day in the US, which is the official public tribute to the dead of our various wars. This is marked with parades, and ceremonies at cemetaries in towns all across the country. When I was a kid, we always went to the parade in town, which went from the center of town out… Continue reading Memorial Day

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Categorized as War

Welcome to Bittercon

There’s a popular science fiction convention going on this weekend in Madiscon, WI. Of course, not everyone can make it to these things, so some people in LiveJournal Land have put together BitterCon, and online event for those unable to attend WisCon. Kate’s jumped right in, providing space for a bunch of panels in the… Continue reading Welcome to Bittercon

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Categorized as SF

Not Just Outside the Box, but Orthogonal to It

One of the many after-hours events contributing to my exhaustion this week was the annual Sigma Xi award and initiation banquet, at which some fifty students were recognized for their undergraduate research accomplishments. The banquet also featured a very nice presentation on visualizing a four-dimensional cube by Prof. Davide Cervone of the Math department here.… Continue reading Not Just Outside the Box, but Orthogonal to It

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Categorized as Science

Cheery Friday Thought

Courtesy of EurekAlert: physicists Lawrence Krauss from Case Western Reserve University and Robert J. Scherrer from Vanderbilt University predict that trillions of years into the future, the information that currently allows us to understand how the universe expands will have disappeared over the visible horizon. What remains will be “an island universe” made from the… Continue reading Cheery Friday Thought

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Categorized as Astronomy