I was thinking of a good way to celebrate two New York Times articles that are hot off the presses right now. The first the Fed’s $85 billion dollar bailout of AIG, and the second is an article on the habit of making absurd estimations known as Fermi Problems. So I decided I would estimate the number of semi trailers it would take to send AIG the money in 20 dollar bills. Hey, it beats doing my Mechanics homework. (Full disclosure: I allowed 1 use of Google per problem which is technically against the rules, and before posting this I checked my answers with a calculator so I wasn’t embarrassed.) Estimates after the jump. (more…)
I am sure I am just preaching to the choir here, but I get really annoyed with people like this get book deals. The Dumbest Generation. The thing that annoys me the most is that I don’t believe that Americans are getting dumber rather that having a unmediated totally democratic medium to express oneself has given less educated people more visibility. I feel the reason that it is disproportionally younger “stupid” people who use the internet to express themselves because older “stupid” people can’t figure it out. I personally think that cranky old men already have enough visibility and power in this country, with one currently a presidential nominee. Do we really need them to write books that boil down to “Get off my lawn! Crazy teenagers with your videa-games and interwebs!”
Hey all, do you guys realize how effing crazy the Austin, TX apartment scene is? Deedee and I keep seeing places we want to grab but by the time we get more information they are already gone. We actually got around to sending a deposit and application into a place and we were beat by 30 minutes, even though the guy said he would wait for ours! So we are back where we started. Right now we are looking at a place in South Congress, fingers crossed!
Anyways, I am super busy (as I sure you all are as well) these last two weeks, and since I’m trying to get a presentation on Ozu ready for Thursday, plus the millions of other things. Our titular head submission showed pretty poorly. The sound system was all messed up so you couldn’t hear anything at all, and that definitely hurt us. We lost to a remake of Fatboy Slim’s Weapons of Choice music video with popular dining hall celebrity Lyle doing his best Christopher Walken. I’m still proud of the movie although I think we over-edited it and kind of threw away a lot of our gags. At the same time, those were conscious choices we made so even if they were the wrong choices at least it was on purpose. Here’s the Vimeo link. (updated since the youtube looked so crappy)
It’s the last year of Titular Head for me and that means that I have gots to win again. Bare Aspirations did well, but it may have also ruin all chances any of us would have of running for political office. So this movie is going to be nude-free. Morgan and I are working really hard on it and expect a link to the video after the show. Until then, SCREENSHOTS!
Wow, last night was a nailbiter! I have to say that I think Obama came off with a slightly better position than Sen. Clinton after last night, especially considering that Obama may have actually won more pledged delegates. I really think counting superdelegates is dumb because they could change their mind at any point and many of them went Clinton when she was the clear frontrunner. Throw in the fact that Obama has been out-fund raising Clinton almost 3-to-1 for the month of January, and it looks like if Obama keeps running as successful and organized of campaign has he has these last few months, he could be the clear favorite after March 4th. Anyways, this is all based of cnn and Dailykos, and Dailykos has a huge Obama bias.
I’m not doing this to brag or anything, in case some of you care where I will be next year UT Austin Physics Department sent me an acceptance letter last night. I have to say the whole thing seems very attractive mainly because it probably the best rated department I will get into, my favorite/smartest teacher from Grinnell is from there, and I have never heard bad things about Austin. Apparently it’s a really great town. Anyways, they are paying for me to go out and check out the school the end of the month and I’m super pumped. I’ll try not to write much more about grad school until I make my final decision. The first school you hear back from is the most exciting though, and I felt like sharing.
Basically, I think the decision will be between U Wisconsin Madison, U Michigan Ann Arbor, and U Texas Austin, assuming I get into all three , and I got into Austin which bodes well as it is harder to do. (UPDATE: I just got an acceptance letter from U Wisconsin today!) If by some mistake in the admissions department I get into MiT or Berkeley I will be in a totally different decision mode. I don’t want to go to a school with a big football program, cause game days are so annoying, but I seemed to pick like the three biggest football programs in the U.S. W.T.F.? Point of the story: Grad School decisions coupled with primary decisions leads to a very nervous Spring semester!
I finished all my Graduate School Applications! Just in time for school to start! Hooray.
Here’s some Eye Candy courtesy of Bad Astronomy. Top Ten Astronomy Pictures of 2007. Be sure to look at the full resolution pictures. Amazing! Also fun fact: we have more accurate maps of the surface of Mars than we do of the ocean floor. Effing crazy!
P.S. My favorite picture is a toss up between Number 5, 4 and 1. They are all so cool!
Hey Shambies. Sorry it’s been so long! I am now in the process of applying to Graduate school! It’s a lot of work, but hopefully it will be worth it!
Anyways, I saw this today on BOiNGBOiNG, so sorry if you guys all read that blog too. But basically, congress added a line to the Higher Education Reauthorization Bill that states if colleges must police the downloads of it’s students with strict consequences for copyright infringement AND provide it’s students with DRM alternatives like Napster and Ruckus if they want to receive federal financial aid for their students. It’s pretty disturbing that the policy will punish the poorest of the nation’s students unless the college becomes lackeys of the RIAA. Granted it’s not passed yet, but I’m waiting for the amendment to the bill that outlaws libraries from loaning out copyrighted material.
Deedee and I got a bunny! Her name, if she really is a girl like the pet store says, is “Panchita.” She is pretty feisty and is also litter trained however I haven’t seen it use it litter box, but it has yet to go to the bathroom outside it’s cage. It’s tons of fun although it does scratch when you pick her up sometimes, but that’s normal. Also as you can see in the picture she is a mini lop which should mean her ears are floppy, but only one of them is for some reason. SO CUTE!
PENN STATE!” My 10 week NSF funded research is over! YAY! Actually I would really recommend doing a REU program because it pays really well and it is pretty easy (although I don’t know if any science majors looking towards a PhD, Masters, or MD are reading this). I would put my poster on Shambot but I doubt anyone is interested and it is very confusing.
Here’s a brief news update for the summer:
I just got back from Philadelphia and chilling with Morgan. Quakers in general are super nice, and Morgan parents are awesome. There was much discussion of appropriating Grinnell dollars to make titular head films and the content of those films. I think Tim Hau is a natural choice to at least star in one of them, if we can get him!
Also I am going to apply to do a one year Churchill scholarship next year. Similar to the Rhodes Scholarship except Cambridge instead of Oxford and only for math and science. I don’t think I’ll get it, with only 12 people receiving it in the country! But Grinnell sent an email to me and a few others asking us to apply. I figure I have a decent chance of getting one of the school’s two nominations, and that alone would be good for Grad School applications. Plus the opportunity to study and get paid at the best physics/math university in the world is too good to pass up. Stephen Hawking teaches and there so did: Rutherford, J.J. Thompson, and Newton! I’ll find out if I get the school’s nomination in October, but if I want a chance I feel I need to do really outstanding on the GRE’s. I take it on August 16th so these next days are going to be spent STUDYING! WAH BA DOOP BA DOOP! I leave for CR tomorrow at 7.30! arrive at 11.40 am!
