"New Prius Helps Environment by Killing its Owner"

Really, it is only a matter of time before this car becomes available. (I kid Prius owners because I love them. Residents of the Research Triangle, beware!)

(And for those of you who did not realize this, every single resident of the Research Triangle --- including children --- drives a Prius. It is a legal requirement --- kind of like the law that dictates that all indie movies must include Philip Seymour Hoffman.)

"The Pointer Sisters" in an Alternate Universe

It just occurred to me that "The Pointer Sisters" would be an awesome name for a team in a programming contest!

We Call It "Tenure"

As far as I can tell, "tenure" is the academic version of sainthood.

They have miracles; we have publications. Same difference.

(OK, so they have to deal with a pretty tough journal!)

Tales From the ArXiv: "The BS Model"

I have decided that naming a model after yourself is slightly forgivable if your initials and author order mean that it will called "the BS model", which is what happened in this paper. :)

"Literacy" Test

The test that is discussed in this article is one of the "literary" tests that was used by Louisiana to disenfranchise black voters in the 1960s. Apparently, one is supposed to get 100% of these questions correct in 10 minutes, and many of them are worded in ridiculously convoluted manners (and I am pretty sure that a couple of them are technically --- one might say "literally" --- impossible if one takes the phrasing literally). Ouch!

(Tip of the cap to Andrew Waugh.)

Ballparks and Iconography

Rob Neyer has written an interesting and thoughtful article on the display of iconography (in a couple of different contexts) at ballparks.

My own feelings on the subject are both strong and mixed. Right now, I mainly want to point to the above article as something that I think is worth reading.

"Bitchy Resting Face"

The video embedded into this article about the 'medical condition' now unofficially known as "Bitchy Resting Face" is hilarious.

And, as some of you know, my murder eyes come out very prominently when I am thinking deeply. :)

(Tip of the cap to Andrew Waugh.)

Sunlight in Britain

I have the sudden urge to measure the amount of sunlight in this country based on how long it has taken the covers of my books to fade as a function of where they are on my office shelf. (Neither my windows nor my blinds have ever worked particularly well.)

Bo Knows...

I am very happy that Rob Neyer linked to this "Bo Knows" commercial in this article. This commercial is one of the greatest --- and perhaps the greatest --- commercial in one of the greatest ad campaigns of all time.

"Access Denied"

Apparently, the Mathematical Institute has updated its 'Access Denied' web page.

However, I am unable to tell the difference between the new version of the page and the old version. :) Maybe the font got changed?

(I think I set the picture above for public viewing. Let me know if I messed that up.)

"You come in here with a skull full of mush... and you leave thinking like a [Mathematician]."

We need to make a parody of the trailer for the movie The Paper Chase in time to show it to the new freshers in mathematics who will be joining us in the fall.

(There is also the matter of having a Scavenger Hunt. Some of you from Beverly Hills High School who are familiar with a certain chemistry teacher might find this vaguely familiar.)

And one of these years I will finally watch this movie. I have been meaning to do so for a long time.

"Well, This is Awkward."

Fun Fact: When somebody in Oxford starts a point that he/she wants to make with "Well, this is awkward.", you can tell that all Hell is going to break loose. Seriously: Wow.

Going Batty

And, sometimes, you just want to listen to the Batman theme produced by actual bats. Come on: click on the link. You know you want to!

Fractions and Percentages

Alright, this really irks me: When your quantity or label is clearly a fraction, don't bloody call the thing a "percentage". So many people make this mistake. There is a multiplicative factor of 100 that specifically makes these objects different, and this is taught explicitly from an early age. Grrr....

Update: As it turns out, the example that reminded me of this particular one of my pet peeves turned out to correctly be a percentage. Go figure. Anyway, I am obviously fallible. (This is a common mistake, though, and it's annoying.)

The Pace of "Modern" Life

The new xkcd is wonderful. Check out the years in which the blurbs contained therein were written.

(And, of course, I had to tweet about this just for irony.)

How to Annoy Experts in Machine Learning

Fun fact: If you want to annoy a machine-learning expert, refer to what he/she studies as "data mining". Most of them hate that, and their reactions to it are often pretty damn funny. :P

How to Solve a Physics Problem

Here is Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal's recipe for how to solve a physics problem. This is so, so true. (It applies to mathematics problems, too. I know this feeling very well --- and so do my students.)

New Somerville Graduates in Mathematics (and Allied Fields)!

Congratulations to Somerville's 2013 graduates in Mathematics (and our allied fields: M&S, M&CS, and CS)!!!

To steal some words from Sandra Tsing Loh: "So by the time [they] graduated, [they] had [an Oxford] diploma entirely made of. . . partial credit, yes-- [Their] degree was glued together, faintly pulsing with. . . radioactivity, graded less on a curve than on a kind of wild hyperbola asymptotically approaching. . . some imaginary. . . actual answer. . ."

And as I told our freshers in today's tutorials in time-honored advice from teacher to student, "Partial credit is your friend."

"Bottledump Roundabout"

On the way home yesterday from the Woolly Owl competition with Cambridge applied math, we passed by "Bottledump Roundabout". Sometimes I love the Brits...

Chocolate Oscillations and the Square-Plate Approximation

At dinner, I was estimating the wavenumber of the chocolate oscillations on my dessert plate.

The next step is to estimate the amount of chocolate as a function of wavenumber and to figure out the accuracy of the square-plate approximation.