I am firmly in the camp of people who read for escape, rather than exploring the human condition. I don't want to learn about how my fellow man feels in today's disconnected and narcissistic society. I don't care about how your misunderstood childhood informed your love of jazz and rescuing puppies, and I really have no patience while you explore ( Read more... )

The unaccusative alternationWhen I was TAing for an undergraduate syntax class a couple of years ago, I was extremely struck by the analysis presented by the professor for a particular set of English verbs. The behavior of interest looks something like this ( Read more... )

For whatever reason, the last few entries have given a sense of general displeasure with the world, and I write now in an attempt to reverse that trend by describing my current sense of overall approval of the world. Here is a list of all the recent things that have gone right:

• I finished teaching that summer class (upper-level introduction to ( Read more... )

When I told my mother that I had signed up for a yoga class, she was unimpressed. "I went to a yoga class once," she said, "and I found it awfully boring." Well, I've been going to a yoga class for an hour and a half a day, four times a week, for three weeks now, and I'm taking a break from lecture planning to share my opinions of my class.

( The philophical bit )

Otherwise known as a solar eclipse. One gets the best view of it from a pinhole camera, (see below), but I think the eeriest effect is visible in the shadows of the trees (see belower.)


( Read more... )

This past week I've been working roughly twelve hours a day putting together my lectures for the first week of the intro class I'll be teaching this summer. I think I have a series of pretty rockin' lectures, and one reason I've been having such a good time putting them together is that my approach to a topic goes something like this: Hmm. I want ( Read more... )

I am an intellectual snob in many ways. I've noticed this about myself: when I read the newspaper in which the results of data-driven studies are reported, my first thought is not, "Oh, how interesting to observe this connection between X and Y," but rather, "Did they control for Z? Are they aware that there could be a selection bias? They know it' ( Read more... )

That "and" in the subject line meant to be taken more as contrastive than conjunctive: in other words, I have run across two types of switchbacks in recent memory, one of which was "civilized" while the other was "efficient ( Read more... )

( You may skip the following if you care nothing about my forays into computer programming )

Occasionally when I'm talking to Mr. Philena I feel that it's very important to make a point clearly that he is either not particularly interested in, or else already understands perfectly without my elaborate clarifications. A situation like that arose today, and it occurred to me that this languishing journal is a good place to type it all out to ( Read more... )