Various bits and pieces that have been taking up much needed room in my brain. I now release them onto the internet so I can stop thinking about them.
In my attempts to avoid becoming the-lame-advisor-who-doesn't-know-how-to-do-anything, I'm switching to using JabRef to keep track of my references. I'm in the midst of tracking down various bits and pieces of evidence for an astrophysical phenomenon that lots of people have noted, but that hasn't been put together in a big enough package that it's become standard lore. It's a major literature slog, and keeping a running plain text file wasn't cutting it anymore. I've got a pretty good system going for importing gobs of papers off ADS, but haven't yet figured out a hack to automatically set up a link to the ADS url.
Last night, the next to last thing the 3 yr old uttered before going to sleep was "My dog's name is Fat Ferocious Gum". We have no dog.
Watching an episode of Electric Company (now out on DVD, huzzah), I spotted Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, and Mel Brooks (voice only). Man, that was a great show. It's aged surprisingly well, with the exception of the computer graphics, which seem to be run largely by an oscilliscope.
Doing a little google stalking of a former high-school classmate made good (Hi Steve!) led me to a graphic novel Two-Fisted Science that features actual scientists doing actual stuff (i.e. not fighting with laser beams or anything). There's even a study guide for intrepid teachers.
A man just got the record for casting a stone that skipped 51 times. That just seems impossible.
