So a colleague in math ed has a hypothesis and does two experiments ("fall" and "spring") which each produce evidence in its favor ( Read more... )

The plan for Wednesday was to go to Jewel Cave, which we hadn't visited in 1988, then Wind Cave, which I remembered loving. Mount Rushmore was about a five-minute detour, so I figured, why not? Twenty-five years ago, this was a quick visit: drive up some awesome switchbacky roads, get out of the car, look through the binoculars, realize there's ( Read more... )

So after CMS Regina, the original plan was to barnstorm around the western great lakes for a bit. But the mathematicians I would've visited were all gone for the summer, so I took a more western route.

( very long )

So I'm lecturing on like the nullstellensatz or something in the masters algebra class this morning, and somehow I happened to use the word "embiggen". We had the following exchange:

Student 1: "'Embiggen'? Is that a real word?"
Me: "It's a perfectly cromulent word.Me: (goes back to teaching ( Read more... )

You hold: ♠A8 ♥AKT9 ♦KJT ♣A432. RHO deals and opens 4♠.

( Now what? )

I'm supposed to talk about differentials as a tool for error propagation in class this week. I could use some real examples, because the ones in the textbook aren't fooling anyone ( Read more... )

Let me just tinker with Governor Perry's quantifiers for a second here...

I have never had roadkill that tasted worse than the BBQ at King's of Kinston.

That's a true statement.

FREE BBQ PLEASE!

1. Pimp me worthy charities, please. Birthday is soon, and while the current list is OK, I'd like it to be a bit more diverse ( Read more... )

So two things that generally interest me are election theory and the news media not doing its job, and after a ten-year break they've gotten back together in Wisconsin.

Anyone still reading this probably already knows the context, but here it is anyway. ( long )

Yeah, I'm gonna go there.

So there's a thread on coleoptera's facebook in which (very loosely summarized) coleoptera calls for the victims to sue Sarah Palin, and LF decries the implicit blame assignment as a formal logical fallacy ( Read more... )