A Tetris-Themed Glass Window (and Other Nerd Furniture)

Take a look at this sweet nerd furniture!

Update (8/11/17): Initially I described the Tetris window as a "stained-glass window". As Aaron Clements pointed out on my Facebook post, a correct description is actually "colored glass blocks with mortar".

(Tip of the cap to Rachel Simmons Carter.)

Life is Like a Video Game

This video, which explains life casually in terms of a video game (in particular, an MMO game), is a very good implementation of this analogy.

(I got this from a post on the Dragon*Con Facebook page.)

A Cartoony Geek Alphabet

This geek alphabet is awesome. Take a look at "I", for example.

(Tip of the cap to whoever posts for Bring Back Firefly on Facebook.)

What Happens in Atlanta Stays in Atlanta (2013 Edition)

I am off on a trip to several places on the east coast of the US. My first stop is Atlanta, where I will be giving a talk in Georgia Tech's math department and then going to Dragon Con for some geekery and gaming (and geekery and fantasy ... and yet more geekery).

Demotivational Poster of the Day

This is a very geeky joke, but I love it...

Geek Life Flowchart

My student Mariano Beguerisse Diaz posted a link on Facebook to a Geek Life Flowchart that appeared recently in the New York Times.

Comment: This network is missing a lot of the edges that ought to be included. :)

P.S. I just got back from Rome. When I get more sleep (and catch up on some work as well), I'll blog a little more about my trip.

If you were a fundamental constant, which one would you be?

I'm making the title above sound like one of those cheesy questions from The Dating Game, although it could easily be a Lower or Upper Crotch question. In fact, if Caltech ever ran a version of The Dating Game, this question should clearly be on it.

The question started out with physical constants in mind, but mathematical ones (or ones from other fields as well) are also fair game.

This thread basically started out with the design of ping pong uniforms for the women's team because they made nationals (which occurs in about two weeks) and have to have uniforms. In the process of brainstorming about that yesterday instead of the research I should have been doing, I found out that one of my friends (who is on the team; some of you met her briefly) hadn't seen the Caltech physics baseball jersey I designed with my uniform number 'hbar' (and also that she hasn't ever seen The Princess Bride, but that will be remedied later), so I decided I'd wear that today. She really liked the shirt and wants a version for herself, so there's been a bit of a discussion of what constant she should choose.

Now, I chose hbar just because it amused me to have that as my uniform number, but I was told that that was an appropriate choice for me because I "tend to be short wavelength/eccentric/energetic/uncertain". I admit I'm afraid to ask what it means to be "short wavelength". (There's only one thing that comes to mind, and it's not exactly positive.)

Also, I was amused by Tim's comment about having enough different people get shirts with mathematical constants so that we could form the equation e^{i*pi) + 1 = 0. (Then we could also blow up some SUVs.)

So, I invite you to answer what constants fits you. But let me answer for Lemming. He's clearly represented by the fine structure constant for obvious physical reasons.