Oh man. This is too awesome, you guys.

The departments of math, physics, and computer science at my school are having a mixer.

The theme is awkwardness.

***

Sister: Wanna hear my great idea for a reality show?
Me: Is it that you have to lose a lot of weight while becoming a famous chef?
Sister: No. It's making Michael Steele and Joe Biden live

Things that were fun about today ( Read more... )

This is another one full of freaking out about math, posted in the vain hope that some omniscient logician will hug me and make everything better, so I expect most of you will scroll past.

( I feel really smart whenever I say the word 'existential' )

Oh God. I'm taking Mathematical Logic this semester, which has some of the most vicious algebra I've ever encountered. I have this vague memory of math involving numbers. Those were the good old days. I've had entire assignments in this class that do not involve a single numerical value, just lots of fun made-up symbols related to set theory ( Read more... )

I donated blood today! A few highlights ( Read more... )

Here is the score ( Read more... )

Okay, physics-types, help me out. Special relativity is not making it into my brain ( Read more... )

One: New icon from the movie Everything is Illuminated, ostensibly based on the book by Jonathan Safran Foer but actually only similar to it in the most insubstantial ways, considering that it took out about 2/3 of the storyline and changed who the main character is. This is sort of an unfair analysis, so read the book yourselves and then challenge ( Read more... )

Earthquake kills more than 3,000 in S. Asia [AP Wire]. Special triple-chocolate brownie cake points (a la just_juxtaposed's recipe) go to India for unexpected generosity to their long-time enemies. Let us follow their example.

What I learned today:1) The instantaneous rate of change for any real x-value a in the function f(x)=bx^2 when b is a real number is 2ba ( Read more... )