Business section of the LOLcat Times-Gazette, headline about the pedestrian eating habits of a well-known an activist shareholder
Icahn Has Cheeseburger
(sometimes on the treadmill, all one can do is think silly thoughts)
Category Archives: Misc
Required Reading
OK, it’s a little bit slanted toward the computer nerd, but many things apply to general geekage.
Your nerd might come off as not liking people. Small talk. Those first awkward five minutes when two people are forced to interact. Small talk is the bane of the nerd’s existence because small talk is a combination of aspects of the world that your nerd hates. When your nerd is staring at a stranger, all he’s thinking is, “I have no system for understanding this messy person in front of me”. This is where the shy comes from. This is why nerds hate presenting to crowds.
The skills to interact with other people are there. They just lack a well-defined system.
Name That Ampersand
More than you probably wanted to know about ampersands and how they look in different fonts.
As both its function and form suggest, the ampersand is a written contraction of “et,” the Latin word for “and.” Its shape has evolved continuously since its introduction, and while some ampersands are still manifestly e-t ligatures, others merely hint at this origin, sometimes in very oblique ways.
The Peter Gabriel Operator
There’s an article in Seed entitled “So” and subtitled “The anatomy of a scientific staple” which purports to discuss the use of the word as a preface to scientific pronouncements in the classroom and, I presume, in conference talks as well. I thought perhaps the author was overanalyzing things, but there is this observation:
In the 1990s, Columbia University psychologist Stanley Schachter counted how often professors said “uh” and “um” in lectures and found that humanists said them more than social scientists, and natural scientists said them less frequently of all. Because such words mark places where a speaker is choosing what to say next, Schachter argued, natural scientists’ low hesitation rate underscored the hard facts they were communicating. “So” can be said to have the inverse relation for exactly the same reason. It relays a sense of accuracy and rigor. One doesn’t have to worry about what to say as much as when to say it. “So” is the organizing device for a logic-driven thought process.
I don’t fully agree with this. The delay does help you organize your thoughts; I’m not sure if the observation from the article is necessarily a fair comparison. Does a scientist use “um” rather than “so” when discussing topics in the humanities or social sciences?
Anyway, just a few days ago the Quantum Pontiff gave some empirical data on this; I had been tempted to comment on that but it kinda slipped away from me, but now I shall do so. It was my favorite word as well, when I started teaching. My experience lecturing was in the navy, and since the military is all about training, I was afforded the opportunity (if mandatory training can be considered an opportunity) to acquire and then improve my lecturing technique.
Isn't That Special?
Gordon Watts has become The Margin Lady (and that’s a sequel to the original margin lady story).
One of the things I’m responsible? Make sure the figures are done right. Make sure everyone uses the same units. Make sure everyone is printing on A4 paper. Make sure the margins are right!
I am the margin lady! Shoot me now!
I’ve bet on the over/under for hyphens added to documents I’ve sent in for review. And I recall going into the “Yeah, we got that” store, asking for A4 paper, and being told that they didn’t carry it. (I ended up buying it on my trip across the pond to the conference. The remaining supply is carefully guarded in an undisclosed location)
As for the original Margin-Lady interaction in grad school, I had my tangles with her, including an omission on the copyrights page, which needed to include the phrase “all rights reserved,” despite another page in the submission package where I was required to sign away my copyright, so it made no sense to include the phrase. Of course, logic is a puny weapon against bureaucracy.
How Do You Solve a Problem Like Two Marias?
If you work in a big enough place, or even a small one for long enough, you’ll eventually run into the problem of two or more workers with the same first name. What do you do to bring the Pauli exclusion principle into play — a way to distinguish them so they don’t occupy the same state? Assuming, of course, you aren’t Australian philosophers, in which case “Bruce” works for everyone.
I’ve seen a case within a fairly small group that had four guys with the same first name. That was solved because, like many names, you can use versions of them, e.g. John vs Johnny, one of the guys was often called by his last name, and for the last one we used his initials (though I’m told people in the same/adjacent offices just called him “Mike”). And obviously nicknames are an option. In one dorm, back when I was in school, there was Big G and Little G. The Kids in the Hall had Cathy with a C and Kathy with a K. I once heard a colleague refer to the newest addition as “New Carla,” but is one brave enough to call the other one “Old Carla?” (What if Carla isn’t old? What if she is?). Ownership is another option — same name but different divisions has led to conversations such as, “Brent said he needed it. No, not our Brent, their Brent.”
Any other inventive ways of delineating office identities?
Popespotting
The Pope did his tour through town today, right past work (which he had to, since he’s staying across the street) so I joined the other poperazzi to get a look and a picture or two. Right as the motorcade swings into view, crazylady in front of me unfurls a big flag and starts waving it, intermittently blocking my view (That’s her arm on the left; I’ve cropped the flag out) so I didn’t see him at perigee.
That’s freshly-paved road, there (local road improvements correlate strongly with important visits and presidential funerals). Traffic is partially blocked on Mass Ave, affecting things, and prospects are even better for tomorrow, since the three presidential candidates are supposed to meet with the British Prime Minister at the British embassy, which is also our neighbor. (our version of “Who are the people in your neighborhood” is longer on ambassadors and attachés than bakers and teachers)
A Trend in Need of Investigation
I notice a slowdown in blog posts this weekend. I wonder if anyone has investigated the posting habits of US bloggers as it correlates with the weekend before April 15, which is tax day in the US. I did most of my heavy lifting a few weeks ago, and finished up the last hour or so of details yesterday.
I promise not to depreciate non-taxable items brought forth from the previous tax year!
U.S. Tax system disrupts Casual Friday at Cognitive Daily
A BEAUTIFUL SATURDAY TO DO TAXES
It’s Too Warm to be Doing Taxes
One of the Usual Suspects – I’m sick of doing taxes.
The Weekend Daily Dog: All better now. …the way I felt earlier today while doing taxes
Doing taxes are the death of me
Twitter Updates for 2008-04-12 Doing taxes – yay!
taxes suck
That’s just a few, and not counting anybody who didn’t bother to blog about it, because they were too busy doing their taxes.
The World's Worst Toaster
Fortunately it doesn’t belong to me. But the web experience described does — I buy stuff for the lab. I run across the “bad toaster” interfaces all the time. For the life of me, I don’t get why certain segments of the science/tech world won’t tell you how much things cost, or make you click through a bunch of links to be able to add something to my shopping cart. I would think that, by now, most companies would have learned that every extra step — every mouse click — is an opportunity to decide to shop elsewhere. Meh.
Arrr! 'Tis a Worthy Cause
Email from a navy buddy of mine, who, prior to teaching and serving as one of my mentors, had been enlisted and served at sea.
A bunch of my Navy buddies and I compiled a list of sea stories, and had them published.
All proceeds to to the Navy and Marine Welfare Fund, which will benefit wounded vets and their families.
