May 02, 2005

• but i've always liked geraniums
• The conclusion is brilliant.
• Is this a (semi-) serious academic paper from a (semi-) serious academic?
• He shoulda chosen astronomy. Take the right lab class in the winter quarter and all your observing nights get clouded out. Some complained, but I saw it as a good thing: I got to reduce GOOD data for my lab instead of having to try to figure out encircled energy on a crappy CCD with a few dozen dead and hot pixels and a weird voltage gradient. Undergrads definitely get shit equipment.
• That's a hoot whether real or not! I once had to basically electocute a drop of blood plasma and stain the various protein bands for some biochem class. My hand shook when I was applying the drop of plasma and so the resultant bands were sawtoothed in shape instead of horizontal straight lines. In my writeup I drew a picture of a sabretoothed panda bear which I wrote had crashed through the nearby window at the vital moment. I got a 9/10 anyway. Thank god for twisted lab markers. True story.
• That is wonderful, goofyfoot. I've handed in smart-alecky reports before, but none so intense. I actually LOLled.
• The author's logic is flawless.
• As to whether it's real, I couldn't say, but the site's an .edu. I culled it from a comment on Unfogged
• Check out the guy's home page. He's a smartass, but also smart enough to switch fields and earn a doctorate in something he enjoys. His work on animation derived from motion capture is pretty interesting.
• i want an intern and the idiots at central receiving keep sending me grad students!
• "Check this shit out (Fig. 1)." Holy crap. If I ever have to write a thesis, I am SO using that.
• Oh, the sweeeet memories of engineering school and "optimizing the results" of experiments carried out with equipment which hadn't been properly calibrated in two decades. Still, my great-grandfather had it even worse: he was supposed to write his physics PhD thesis on the N-rays (and no, this is not a self-link). After years of unfruitful work, he showed impressive integrity and switched to chemistry...
• Come on, I thought N-rays came from the N-Zone.
• I remember being late to sign up and getting stuck with the x-ray lab where the only thing between you and the 15 kilovolt beam of death was a piece of masking tape holding a metal can together. At least it wasn't the gamma-ray lab, though. I think part of physics lab is teaching you to come to terms with the practical dangers of being a physicist.
• I'm sure I'm not the first person to go to his default page, do a View Source and see this in the commented html: <!-- Taking a cue from other sites I've visited, I have prepared some material that emphasizes my accomplishments and abilities to the brink of exaggeration without presenting any outright inaccuracies. --> and later code commented out that goes to http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/gripe.htm and http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~kovar/random.html
• I was married for a while to a guy who was a grad student in molecular biology, and because it's Canada they're practically hand-blowing their own pipettes (that sounded so dirrrrrtty) for lack of grant money. What I used to hear about most though, was about the fucking moron who'd been there for 8 years without a decent paper and kept crashing the computers and losing other people's data because he was downloading porn. That, and the fact that the prof was such a dick to grad students that a few years before, one stressed dude had gone so far as to plan how to get a gun and take the guy out.
• The quotes page is perhaps the most humorous.
• What's scary is that plot would look perfectly normal in many observational astronomy journal articles.
• OMFG thank you goofyfoot for bringing back vivid memories of typing theses for various science majors. The papers were usually written on stained paper napkins or oversized sheets of computer paper, and the sentiments so nicely expressed in this one were usually in the form of random comments in the margins. This one kind of sums 'em all up in one neat package.
• I kept wondering why this looked familiar, and then I realized: it's because I saw it years ago, because he's a friend of a friend. It took the photo on his website to finally cue me in. I spent five minutes giggling at quotes just 'cause I knew which people were involved in saying them. I am a dork and I know everyone on the internet, apparently. Fuck.
• [warning: digression] I was married for a while to a guy who was a grad student Hey MJ, are writing an autobiography? I think should, you'd put Edna Millay to shame. For one thing you can actually write.
• sweeeet memories of engineering school and "optimizing the results" Have those exact same memories. Funniest thing about them is how another undergrad borrowed my lab notes the following year and proceeded to almost fail the course copying out the same lab summaries that earned me a respectable mark.
• Where can I sign up for Right-wing Jew Monthly?
• Start it yourself, bitch.
• Big Davey Sort of...I got an offer from a publisher after they saw my work website (not the Blog), but their catalogue seemed to mainly consist of Getting Rich In 6 Months By Befriending The Elderly and Black Market Spleens; What's The Big Deal?, so I think I'll hold out a bit longer :) Also, wtf's up with vitalorgnz?
• goofyfoot, I was referring to this. Sorry for the lateralness.
• This so much reminds me why I gave up on Physics in 3rd year and elected for Software Engineering.
• Incidentally, at my company, which has about 30 or so software developers on board, the only way to become management is to have a physics degree. Here I am, lamenting my lack of physics background, and -lo- this other cat offers up a view quite to the contrary.
• "You've been like a mentor to me. When I first came here, I was bubbling with enthusiasm and good will. Under your guidance I have become cynical and lazy." "Thanks. I'd shake your hand, but you're not worth it." Heheh
• The Giant Squid> Sounds eerily similar to where I work. I'll be looking over cubicles for monkeys in future.
• By the way vitalorgnz has not been properly exonerated. goofyfoot, you owe a good-natured wave and an air kiss. vital, you are absolved.
• See, this is why the quotation mark was invented. You put quotation marks around words when you're quoting someone, and we don't have these little misunderstandings :) A public service message from the Shift Key Support Foundation Citations are good too - if any one doesn't have citations, I'm giving their comment an F. (Yes, I've been grading lately, how can you tell?)