Summer Reading 2013
(A brief ongoing series of ten-word reviews.)
Broken Harbor - by Tana French
Great, like usual. But could she (please!) write uplifting mysteries?
Summer Reading 2013
(A brief ongoing series of ten-word reviews.)
The Panther - by Nelson DeMille
John Corey: best fictional asshole.
(That could have sounded better.)
Summer Reading 2013
(A brief ongoing series of ten-word reviews.)
The Great Gatsby - by F. Scott Fitzgerald
What a bunch of generally unlikeable individuals. Alas, old sport.
Summer Reading 2013
(Ten-word reviews in a brief ongoing series while I’m not teaching and can finally read books again.)
The Hunger Games - by Suzanne Collins
Too much food.
The book was better than the movie.
Actual Student Evaluations
About a week ago, one of my students contacted me, roughly saying:
“I just wanted to apologize to you - I think I may have been a little inebriated when filling out your class evaluation, and I think I may have commented on the way you eat grapefruit.”
Well, the evaluations were made available to me today, and lo and behold, when the evaluation asks the students to answer,
“Describe instructor’s strengths, room for improvement, and any additional comments”,
the form immediately follows with one student’s anonymous response:
“In at least an infinite number of other universes, a grapefruit is worshiped as a god. And it is certainly possible that in an infinite number of these infinite worlds that grapefruit has God-like powers. Perhaps this world is one of those, and that fruit is on your table in disguise. So all hail lord Citrus! And may its juice in our eyes be a blessing on us all! Amen (Dante 1722:1)”
So. Um, thanks for that, kid.
Here’s to the ECAC
“It’s been a long time… and we’re sorry.
ECAC Hockey fans are sorry that the league hasn’t put a team in the title game in 23 years. We’re sorry it’s been two dozen seasons since a conference member finished on top. We apologize for being dismissed, marginalized, underrated, ignored, and downright insulted for our opinion, pride, and belief that ECAC Hockey is as competitive a league as any other in Division 1 (and twice as smart). We’re sorry that half of the league’s teams are Ivy League institutions, and that the other half are small private schools that prioritize the “student” part over the “athlete” part. We’re sorry that ECAC teams have to travel so often to play top programs, because top programs are loathe to play dangerous teams in small markets.
And we’re sorry to be so damned thrilled by this year’s national title tilt. Yale, we’re proud of you; Quinnipiac, we’re proud of you, too… and to the rest of the nation, we are sorry about one thing most of all: We’re really not sorry at all.”
- Brian Sullivan of USCHO.com
(A quick follow-up note from Dante: I hate Quinnipiac’s hockey team about as much as I hate Duke’s basketball team, so I’m not exactly proud of them. Not really all that much of a fan of Yale, either. But the rest of the sentiment I’ll agree with. Go wallow in your snide, Hockey East and WCHA and CCHA.)
MLB
Going on record because I’ll be entirely wrong.
AL East:
Rays > Blue Jays > Red Sox > Yankees > Orioles
AL Central:
Tigers > Indians > Royals > White Sox > Twins
AL West:
Angels > Athletics > Rangers > Mariners > Astros
NL East:
Nationals > Braves > Phillies > Mets > Marlins
NL Central:
Reds > Cardinals > Brewers > Pirates > Cubs
NL West:
Giants > Dodgers > Diamondbacks > Padres > Rockies
Playoffs:
Athletics over Rangers; Rays over A’s, Tigers over Angels; Rays over Tigers
Braves over Dodgers; Reds over Braves, Nationals over Giants; Reds over Nationals
World Series: Rays over Reds
Awards:
MVP: Mike Trout, Joey Votto
Cy Young: Justin Verlander, Stephen Strasburg
A follow-up to AggieCon
AggieCon is student run. I mention this first and foremost because I’ve seen the product of some student run organizations before, from poor-and-incomplete fundraising right down to the final execution of their poorly-and-incompletely-laid plans.
That being said, these kids know what the hell they’re doing. They were prepared and organized, brought in several impressive guests, set up a number of truly interesting panels, and repeatedly made sure the attendees and vendors had the best experience they could. It was truly enjoyable from start to finish, and I applaud the students copiously.
Hard to believe it was only a week ago I was there.
- - -
I was on three panels, the first of which was basically an hour of stand-up and storytelling. I’d never stretched my ‘act’ into an hour before, but holy crap it went over well. So that was nice. In case you haven’t seen the link I shared, part of the act was doing a velociraptor impression based on a suggestion from the audience. To which someone immediately jumped in with ‘a raptor being coronated as pope’. To which I obliged.
- - -
The table right across from me was selling Harry Potter wands, Link shields, and SAMURAI SWORDS. AND THEY WERE DOING GREAT BUSINESS. WHO THE HECK BUYS SO MANY SAMURAI SWORDS? IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DESCRIBE HOW UNNERVED I WAS ABOUT HOW MANY PEOPLE IN TEXAS WERE NOW ABLE TO RUN AROUND WITH FRIGGIN’ SWORDS AFTER THE CON.
- - -
One of my students was ridiculous excited that I was going to be able to meet George RR Martin - he never shuts up about GoT in lab or any other chance he gets - heck, he even drew a shield for me with my house sigil on his first thermo exam. (I gave him no extra credit because it did not have either a raptor or a mallet on it.) So when I got back, he immediately asked if I met his favorite writer. I responded, “He told me that Jon Snow is now an Other, and his middle name is RailRoad.” My student looked at me skeptically. “How could his middle name be Railroad? There are no railroads on Westeros, that’s not a family name.” ”Jon Snow’s middle name isn’t railroad, you idiot …”
- - -
I was on two panels with Keri Bean. She works with the Mars Rover Curiosity robot and has seven more published papers than I do. She outclassed me in every sense of the word as a scientist. I am now going to badger her nonstop about the existence of Mars snakes as retaliation. It’s not great retaliation, but it’s all I’ve got.
On another panel I was on about the internet, a member of the band Area of Defect shared that one Youtube commenter said that the ‘woman in the video’s knees made (him) gay’. To which I immediately pulled back the table cloth and peaked underneath, and now I’m not sure what to think about anything anymore. Also, Youtube commenters are idiots.
- - -
Wonder Woman, a symbol of truth and justice. And also terrified of velociraptors, apparently.
I think I finally understand cosplay. It’s just Halloween during the rest of the year. Why was I not on board with this beforehand? Maybe because all I could do was cosplay as myself while I was there?
- - -
Also made someone laugh so hard she had an asthma attack. Less than a half hour later, I bought her a drink as thanks for her help, and it had some chocolate in it, and she was allergic, and started to go into anaphylactic shock.
So within 30 minutes, I almost murdered someone twice, using those weapons of utmost horror, humor and kindness. Let this be some kind of lesson to you.
- - -
There are many more details and pictures I probably shouldn’t share. But I deeply thank AggieCon for inviting me down, for all the members of Cepheid Variable who organized it and treated me so well, and to everyone I met there. Great experience.
Inventions
At the wedding last night, some poor unfortunate man was dragged over to talk to me - honestly, harangued and dragged is probably a better term, knowing the person who was doing the dragging - just because I’m a professor now and this man was a former professor of some field or another.
After the various niceties that emerge in forced small talk, I asked him how he was enjoying retirement.
“Retirement is the second greatest thing that mankind ever invented,” he remarked.
I let the pause sit there in the air for a few seconds. Then, finally: “OK, I have to bite. What’s the first?”
He looked at me like I was an idiot, never having expected me to ask. ”Why, the wheel, of course.”
Oh, right. Of course.
Shortly after that I was informed that electricity was number three.
Nice guy.
E-mail Exchange With A Random Reader
The following is a series of e-mails exchanged with a STW reader mostly over the past day. Nothing has been changed from the original e-mails.
——
Hello Dante,
I woke up from a nightmare last night and immediately knew I needed to tell you about it. I’m sure it won’t be as interesting to you as it was to me but I felt it relevant.
I had a nightmare where no matter how much I sprayed-and-wiped the whiteboard in my classroom, it REFUSED to clean. Things written on it in days and months past wound seep up to the surface just as soon as I could get the last bit removed. I tried for probably an hour to erase it cleanly before giving up and crying.
I blame the horribly-impossible-to-erase whiteboard in my quantum classroom for this. Every day I pine for blackboards.
Have yourself a nice day,
Hollee
——
Hollee-
Are we sure the whiteboard did not represent the devil? Wait a minute, let’s refocus in on the term “quantum classroom”. Are you reporting in from some miniscule classroom after you and several students were victims of a rogue shrinking ray? Are you now able to be sated as a class by a single crumb from a loaf of bread? Is even my typing this like shouting at you? HELLO DOWN THERE
-Dante Shepherd
——
WE HEAR YOU
PLEASE SEND HELP IT’S BEEN DAYS AND THIS OREO WON’T LAST MUCH LONGER
——
DON”T MOVE, WE’RE SENDING IN AN ENGLISH MUFFIN
NO, REALLY, DON’T MOVE, WE DON’T WANT TO ACCIDENTALLY CRUSH YOU
——
WE’RE REALLY THIRSTY TOO, WE COULDN’T FIND A DROP OF WATER SMALL ENOUGH TO DRINK
WE’RE TRYING TO WAVE BUT EVERY TIME SOMEONE SEES US WE JUST TURN INTO PARTICLES
THINGS ARE LOOKING GRIM
——
I’M SORRY, BUT BECAUSE OF THAT WAVE/PARTICLE JOKE, OUR COMMUNITY OF SCIENTISTS HAS VOTED AND WE HAVE DECIDED TO LET YOU PERISH, PLEASE GO AND DO SO QUIETLY
——
LET MY HEADSTONE SAY “IT WAS WORTH IT”
(Source: survivingtheworld.net)
