This is how you deliver an admission letter:
What makes this even sweeter, from my point of view, is that the video was made by a current student in and an alum from my department.
Take this as an opportunity for some anything but Trump (and the rest of those luzers) open thread action.
cleek
what’s going on with the auto-refreshes here? after a few minutes, my ‘back’ button menu is full of identical entries to this page.
Tom Levenson
@cleek: dunno. Not happening to me in Chrome.
gogol's wife
Very cute. I’ll have to show it to my MIT Ph.D. husband.
I think I was in that building for a conference.
PurpleGirl
I agree with gogol’s wife, it’s a cute video. It continues the MIT tradition of humorous pranks/jokes very well.
Major Major Major Major
Once again pimping the new chapter in my Fish story, sorry for the repost, but this is where it belongs!
https://imjustthisguyyouknow.wordpress.com/2016/03/08/the-fish-2-14/
-M^4 -249
Immanentize
I have a robot story (brag). My son is a high school freshman and is competing in the FTC (First Tech Challenge) robot competitions again this year. And his team, the Brainstormers, made it out of the Mass. State Championships with a ticket to the super-regionals in (glorious, sunny) Scraton, PA! He has been at it with this team since he was 8 when it was the Lego League — His team is non-school affiliated with kids from a number of towns north of Boston. Wish us luck next week after St. Patrick’s Day — or as us Beantown Boors prefer — Evacuation Day.
Maybe he will get such a droid one day.
Brachiator
@PurpleGirl:
This is a throw down challenge to CalTech.
Iowa Old Lady
@Immanentize: Congrats to your son! That sounds like fun.
cleek
@Tom Levenson:
no, i don’t see it in Chrome either. but in FF, i now have now ten entries back to this page. a new one every 30s maybe?
dmsilev
@Brachiator:
I’m told that the preferred form is ‘Caltech’. Apparently, the school has been tilting at that particular windmill for the last several decades. Everyone needs a hobby I guess.
JPL
@Immanentize: Congrats to your son!
Great video. I’ll be disappointed if I don’t spot the drone on PI Day, but it’s probably just a northern drone.
Immanentize
@Iowa Old Lady: Thanks! For teh robot interested — here is a viddy of the team’s robot on the field:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWRbX53A05w
Punchy
Well, KS is angry that their state SCOTUS continues to rule against their patent unconstitutionality, esp. w/r/t school funding. So instead of adjusting their thought process and righting their errors, they’re going to attempt to impeach their Supreme Court judges (link behind pseudo firewall) for ruling against them.
Yes, the answer to the Supreme Court is impeaching them for doing their jobs. Shit’s getting real in this state.
Immanentize
@Punchy: There is a sad and vicious history of impeachment/political campaigns against/judges who are conservative but not stupid. Rose Bird in California was recalled for her insistence that the death penalty should be applied in a fair manner. Same for Penny White in Tennessee. And we don’t even need to mention the shit going down in Wisconsin.
JPL
@Punchy: Because of threats to the Boston Public Schools, thousands of students walked out yesterday and rallied at the Legislature. Some states do care about education.
Cermet
First, congrats, too, to your son!
Remembered when my daughter got her “Pi Day” tube from MIT.
She is finishing her Junior year in Physics there. She mentioned, in passing, that she eats lunch around 6/7 PM since she quits the infamous “P-sets” they assign around 2/3 AM. Not a place for someone not interested in late nights.
NotMax
Well, maybe just one.
But not the type with a gooey center.
different-church-lady
Testing after cookie clear — 1, 2, 3, testing…
JPL
@different-church-lady: I thought we were talking about pies, not cookies.
dmsilev
@Cermet: I hope she’s doing well. I followed that path (a couple of decades ago), and I think junior year was the hardest. The ‘Experimental Physics’ course (aka ‘Junior Lab’) was a near-infinite time sink. One lab assignment was basically “starting from scratch, measure the mass of the Sun”. My partner and I were only off by about 10%, which I consider to be a real victory especially since we only had two weeks before going on to the next experiment.
Cermet
@dmsilev: Yes, she is doing very well and thanks for asking. Glad you survived that route! Yes, she has been sharing about the “Junior Lab” – I steered her away from the Plank Constant experiment (infamous across the country at any physics dept!) The issue for her is she has run out of undergrad physics courses and is forced to take some Grad courses in Physics – MIT is a small University, after all (she skipped all the first year physics courses and all math requirements since she had previously completed these in High School (she had access to John Hopkins courses while finishing her last year.)
muddy
@cleek: It’s the ora.tv ad. I’m told you can make it stop with adblockers. I have not been able to get Adblocker or Ghostery to take it away. I don’t know how to do particular things in those extensions though, only to click install and say turn on all the filters. I am using Chrome. I’ve also been advised to use Firefox but I don’t want to change.
Life is so hard.
Tom Levenson
@Cermet: It’s not when you go to sleep that matters. It’s when you rise.
Hope your daughter is enjoying herself. Physics here is very good — but not exactly what you’d call an easy ride.
dmsilev
@Cermet: Is she planning to do physics grad school? If so, doing first year grad courses as a senior makes a lot of sense; it will give her a good leg up in grad school. If she’s planning on leaving academia after her B.Sc., she might want to think about diversifying her course load outside of physics. Some bio or EE/CS or materials science, all depending on what direction she thinks she wants to go.
? Martin
@dmsilev:
Yes, all of their branding is not intercapped.
Cermet
@dmsilev: She is (alas, against my wishes) determined to go into Theoretical Physics. So, yes, Grad school is her aim. She will work on the W-7X Stellarator in Germany this summer and did a summer internship at the National Science Lab in France last summer (She is fluent in French). At least she is getting real, practical experiment experience!
different-church-lady
@JPL: I ain’t talking about jack until I figure out why half the internet isn’t loading for me.
Cermet
@Tom Levenson: Strange (for me to understand) she does well on such ridiculous types of hours/work load and doesn’t appear to mind. Still, I have urged her to lighten up and enjoy fields/courses in other areas. Time to have fun, too, me thinks … .
WarMunchkin
@Cermet: Are you lobbying her to go into more experimental work? I was going to go into experimental physics, but I did get theory work in studying quasicrystals. Once I switched over to experiment, I found out just how much I needed to be a plumber and electrical engineer first.
Bartholomew
Saw the Cole diatribe. Maybe that will calm those here wondering whaaaaa. Such a waste of talent. Sold this country out to the Right and is now selling it out to the Left. Man of his times.
Failure alert: yes, there are witnesses who can see through this sham. Democrats stole the name of progressives for power, and now are destroying actual progressives for more of it. Worst of all, now there truly is no place for anti-war voters. There’s not a bigger issue. Not a bigger issue on this earth.
Don’t bother with the self-closing circle of poo fling … most in this cage aren’t liberals, just power-seeking monkeys sitting on the biggest branch they can find. And that branch is not sound; if the commentariat weren’t such scapegoating pretenders they could hear it cracking.
BTW, the reason Democratic leadership will NEVER put up an effective defense to the right-wing takeover of America is so their ‘base’ always has to vote in desperation, without any effort on their part. That’s all. It’s called triangulation, and it’s slimy but it works, as exampled here 24/7.
Just my contribution to the enlightened ones.
Cermet
@Tom Levenson: So, you teach in the physics dept? If so, guess it would now be pretty easy for you to figure out who she is, then. LOL (P.S. Don’t tell her I wrote this – she’d kill me! Nah, just kidding.)
dmsilev
@Cermet: Theory is a hard road to follow (and it sounds like you know this). A lot of people start grad school with the intent of going the theory route and switch towards experimental. That’s especially true for people who start grad school with the idea of studying string theory. The fraction of aspiring string theorists who actually end up doing their PhD on string theory is small enough that it’s a running joke in the departments I’ve been in.
The good news is that it’s fairly straightforward to switch in the first two or so years of grad school. After that, the sunk costs (time, mainly) start to add up and the idea of starting from scratch with a brand new research area becomes less attractive.
Cermet
@WarMunchkin: I understand – I do a lot of practical lab work and know what you mean! Yes, I pushed hard for her to apply for experimental positions in Europe – she is considering CERN, later, after Germany (unless that falls through and CERN I guess it will be.)
Mnemosyne
The closest I’ve ever gotten to MIT is a friend I briefly had who was a Caltech grad student who left CA to do some additional post-grad work at MIT along with her husband. I do not have the logical science brain, but my trashy novel is moving along.
joel hanes
@Bartholomew:
anti-war voters. There’s not a bigger issue. Not a bigger issue on this earth.
Climate change is a much bigger issue.
? Martin
@Cermet:
That’s pretty easy now with LEDs. Use different color LEDs and measure the relationship between the threshold voltage for each color and the frequency of the LED light. You can then eliminate the internal resistance of the LED by assuming it’s constant across your LEDs, and then in just a few steps be able to solve for E = hc/λ.
Kids do it as a standard high-school physics experiment. A good spec sheet on the LEDs actually gives you everything you need – eliminating the need to even take measurements, or to serve as a validation of your measurements.
It was a lot harder when I was an undergrad, though at least I didn’t electrocute myself like when I did Millikan oil drop.
dmsilev
@WarMunchkin:
You forgot to mention ‘machinist’. That’s usually how I start new students (“we need a widget to do this. Make up some drawings, and then go build it”).
Cermet
@dmsilev: Guess you do know her! String theory and cosmology are her loves. However, she is realizing the issues you pointed out and is now considering experiment. Hope that works out for her. All I can do is offer advice but she tends to do careful research before committing so, at least she won’t just jump in without talking to fellow students/Grad students in those fields!
Mnemosyne
@Bartholomew:
So what’d I miss?
(Yes, I’m following through on my threat of only responding to BernieTrolls with “Hamilton” quotes.)
Cermet
@? Martin: I remember how much that hurt – glad the Plank Constant has finally been upgraded.
SFAW
Tom –
The main question is: can the droid ever truly get to the end (or beginning, I guess) of the Infinite Corridor? But the transport tube in the Lobby 7 column was a nice touch.
Only thing that might have made it better would have been an MIThenge shot. Of course, that might have blinded people, etc.
In any event: thanks very much for the vid.
e to the u, du dx, baby!
muddy
@Bartholomew: This post was specifically NOT to talk about the candidates.
What kind of ratfucking anti-Bernie shit is that, really. So alluring. Just shut it. Go to the proper conversation. What are you, 5?
scav
random comments: “Intercapped” is such a keeper. which is also how I’m increasingly viewing physics. Lots interesting happening there judging mostly from the stretched bruised dizzy fascinated signals from the brainstem. Still wasn’t fair that their 6th floor was the only one with carpets in the building, but maybe they’re personally as sensitive to vibrations as LIGO.
Cermet
@Mnemosyne: Best of luck and frankly, we can use more trashy novels (good ones!) A working title?
CaseyL
I love physics! – the more theoretical, the better. Unfortunately, I am No Damn Good at Math (sputtered out at Trig), so I can only worship from afar, as a layperson. I have a lot of respect for people who are actual physicists.
It’s interesting hearing about students who planned to go the theoretical route, but wound up in experimental. Why is that?
Cermet
@SFAW: That last argument of yours appeared integral to your post …
WarMunchkin
@dmsilev: I never really got into using the machine shop back in the day. Something about me being too clumsy and untrustworthy with sharp objects.
Kidding. I was just much better with working on water cooling, vacuuming, PCBs and optics. I wonder how much 3D printing has affected the need for machine shop skills though. (Or maybe that particular revolution hasn’t reached yet).
JPL
@Cermet: Thomas Levenson is Professor of Science Writing at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He heads the Graduate Program in Science Writing there.
dmsilev
@Cermet: That’s good to hear.
As I said, it doesn’t hurt to try the theory route once she starts grad school; if it turns out that it’s not for her after all, she’ll realize relatively quickly and switching focus isn’t that big a deal. And, if she is one of the ones who does well in that rarefied air, well then all the more power to her.
Amir Khalid
I am mildly annoyed that Google Translate doesn’t really understand German separable verbs. It tends to mistake the separated prefix for a preposition.
Tom Levenson
@Cermet: Not even a little bit. I head the science writing graduate program. Some physicists deign to talk to me, however, and I seem to write about topics in the field fairly often. But I couldn’t keep up with your daughter if she gave me a multi-year head start. (Which, I guess, in a way, she did.)
Tom Levenson
@SFAW: This is when I want a like button for comments.
Mnemosyne
@Cermet:
I’m too embarrassed to say the title in mixed company, but it’s the kind of book that would be reviewed at Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.
Cermet
@JPL: Wow! I don’t generally look behind the curtain so that wouldn’t normally be what I would know about a poster, here!
Tenar Darell
I’ve reached the point in my severe head cold where I’m going to have to leave my den for more soups & Kleenex. Yesterday I was playing with my voice memo app to hear how hilarious my cold sounded, today I feel like I’m a mucous producing sneeze machine. And I know I’m feeling craptastic because I haven’t even bothered to follow Twitter closely the past couple days. *blech*
(Why yes, yes I do come from people who do Olympic complaining about minor ailments for fun and stress relief).
dmsilev
@WarMunchkin: 3D printing is another tool in the toolbox. For some jobs, it’s a great way of doing things, but for others you’re better off with the lathe and the mill. Right now, affordable 3D printers can handle resins and polymer filaments (mostly the latter), but not metals, so if you need a piece that has to be metal (for strength or other reasons), you’re either contracting the job out to a shop with a laser sintering system or using the subtractive machine tools. And for some high-precision jobs, even industrial printers aren’t quite good enough yet. For instance, I work on high-pressure systems, studying what happens to materials at 200,000 atmospheres of pressure. To get to that regime, we use diamonds, backed by what are essentially high-precision pistons made from various strong metals. We can’t print the pistons, both because the alloys we need aren’t available in sintered powder form and because the pixel resolution of even the best current printers can’t make a smooth cylindrical surface to the degree of precision that we need and can get with a skilled machinist on a lathe.
cleek
@muddy:
ah. thanks!
looks like adblock can kill it. just need to add this filter “|https://www.ora.tv/*
Cermet
@Tom Levenson: I have badly wanted to attend your lectures at MIT (the ones you talk about here.) Next time visiting her, I might drop by and say “Hi”. Again, I often don’t connect the dots with the posters here! I am an avid reader and admire published writer’s and their devolution to their craft!
Mnemosyne
@Tenar Darell:
If you have the same cold that’s been going around my office, it’s a truly nasty one. I mostly escaped the congestion, but the fatigue just won’t go away.
Cermet
@Mnemosyne: That is fine – I really hope you get published! Really, the world needs good entertainment, too. Reading is a pleasure that too many don’t do and I never have enough time, of late, to do any more. Our society has valued work and the upper elite doesn’t give a damn about the need for down time for us “workers.” I really think that has been one of the biggest losses over the last twenty years.
Cermet
@dmsilev: SO, when do we get room temperature metallic hydrogen? Been waiting!
? Martin
@WarMunchkin:
It’s changed things a fair bit, but the advance of CNC machinery is still dominating. There are things you can do via CNC that you effectively can’t do with traditional machining, and more things yet in 3D printing that CNC can’t do.
I’d say that the imagination hasn’t quite caught up with the 3D printing yet. We have a few metal sintering machines that will let you print pretty much any metal part you need, and allow you do some really interesting mixed materials work (carbon fiber/titanium, etc). They’re quite expensive, and getting good results means having someone on staff who really understands this stuff – and they aren’t many of those people out there. On the machining side, the manufacturing decline is really being felt. All of our machinists are retiring and replacements are incredibly difficult to find.
I think in the long run the ability for someone to safely and easily 3D print a metal part will allow for work without those machining skills, but we’re not quite there yet. In fact, we’re probably in a state where you need even more machining skills than previously, simply because more things are possible and those things are harder to reach. 3D printing should make them easier to reach.
Mostly of the work is actually now in the life sciences. The ability to quickly take a CT scan of a defective heart or a tricky tumor and print out a physical replica so surgeons can basically do test-runs is very valuable. We’re printing organs, tissue, etc. which looks very promising. Our experimentalists haven’t quite figured out how to best use that tech.
WaterGirl
@cleek: I have adblock – and i would love to get rid of that evil video box – where and how does one add that filter?
dmsilev
@CaseyL:
A few reasons. One is that undergrad courses don’t really give a good picture about what theory work is really like, so students learn about something that they find interesting, decide that that’s what they want to work on, and then discover that the reality is different. That’s especially true for the more abstract theory areas (such as string theory).
Another, more mundane, reason is that theory tends to be less well funded than experimental, so theory professors often have trouble paying their students. 5 or 6 years of being a TA is often not an attractive prospect to a starting grad student.
Ultraviolet Thunder
@WarMunchkin:
My employer is releasing a 3D printer for metal this year. It fuses powder with a laser (We’re a machine tool and laser company). This is primarily for prototyping because it’s too slow for volume production work of anything but very high value parts.
allium
@dmsilev: Apparently people would (and still do) confuse Caltech with the two California Polytechnic Universities (Pomona and San Luis Obispo), which are fine schools but quite different (10x the student body and not nearly as science-focused) from old TPI*.
* Throop Polytechnic Institute – Caltech’s original name.
Cermet
@CaseyL: Jobs are rare for that field – some teaching positions at Universities, of course. Very few outside of that and special government labs. Not a career choice for most. The US has changed relative to basic research/science.
Mnemosyne
@Cermet:
Yeah, I need to get over my gender-based embarrassment about writing a romance novel. There are more romance novels published each year than mystery and science fiction combined, and yet it’s not as “respectable” because I’m writing about emotions and relationships (with a little sex in it) rather than murders and rocket ships.
Mnemosyne
@allium:
I was not raised in CA, but my understanding is roughly that Caltech is for pure science and Cal Poly is for engineering. My brother’s goddaughter got her BA/MA from Cal Poly SLO last year and, last I heard, was going to work at Laurence Livermore.
SFAW
@Brachiator:
In a manner of speaking, I guess. I think it would only be a “challenge” if Caltech (or Cal Tech) were not single-A ball, compared to MIT’s majors. If you know what I mean.
? Martin
@allium:
The main difference is that the CalPoly campuses aren’t research universities. They do some research, but that is far from their main focus. They’re primarily teaching universities. By comparison, Caltech is known to do a little teaching on the side.
SFAW
@Cermet:
Most of my arguments tend to be derivative
SFAW
@Tom Levenson:
You got low standards, kid.
dmsilev
@Mnemosyne: No, Caltech does both science and engineering.
Tom Levenson
@Cermet: Stop by! (email first, as I often wander the halls in search of caffeine).
Cermet
@SFAW: @SFAW: But then, how do you know their value? That is, if they are a line of thought rather than just a general area of argument?
Brachiator
@dmsilev:
I guess I’m old school, and the people I know there are too polite to correct me on it.
Cermet
@Tom Levenson: Will do, of course. As was said by a certain writer – “Not all who wander are lost …”
Mnemosyne
@dmsilev:
I’m only going by the engineers I know, but it seems that if you’re planning to be a working engineer, you go to Cal Poly, not Caltech unless you specifically want to work on the space program.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne: Caltech has a very good engineering program – much better than the CalPoly programs. I’d put almost every UC engineering program ahead of CalPoly Pomona’s engineering, and put SLO in line with the mid-tier UC engineering programs (and below schools like Michigan PSU, UT Austin, etc). They are very good engineering programs in the context of the Cal State system and very reachable for a broader population of student, but not as competitive with the top tier schools with PhD programs. Caltech is on par with the top UCs in engineering.
And I don’t mean that to sound too critical – that California has such good engineering schools available to such a wide range of students we’re quite proud of.
Tom Levenson
@? Martin: And don’t forget Harvey Mudd — a too-little known gem of an undergrad engineering school, with an all-scholastic-league name.
Brachiator
@SFAW: RE: This is a throw down challenge to CalTech.
Actually, I have no idea what you mean.
I was thinking of some of the competitive pranks the schools have engaged in. Fer ‘instance:
Mnemosyne
@? Martin:
Thinking of the engineers I know, Cal Poly SLO seems to make a good effort to be friendly to female students that I don’t know exists (or is as successful) at the other schools. My brother’s goddaughter basically got a free ride based on several factors, but the biggest one was that she was a woman who wanted to go into engineering.
? Martin
@Mnemosyne:
It depends on what kind of engineering you want to do. If you want anything in R&D, high-end design, then Caltech will probably be a better choice. You want to work more in the broad range of engineering where most jobs are, then CalPoly is a very good choice. CalPoly is much more practical, professional engineering, where Caltech like many research universities focuses a bit more on expanding the field of engineering.
Put another way, if your goal is a MS or PhD in engineering, choose the research school. If your goal is a BS and an MBA, or to work as a PE, go to CalPoly.
Gravenstone
@joel hanes: Shhh, the purity pony has spoken. You’ll hurt his little feelings if your disagree.
SFAW
@Cermet:
My thoughts are generally non-linear. And not in a good way.
? Martin
@Tom Levenson: Harvey Mudd is an absolutely first-rate program. Probably the best undergraduate engineering instructional program in the country.
SFAW
Tom –
Is 14N part of the Library building? Looked for it on the campus map, thought it might have been N14, but obviously not. And being housed in/near the Library would make sense. (Plus, I vaguely remember you saying something about being there, a couple of years ago.)
Thanks
JPL
It does surprise me that the New England area is under represented at MIT, compared to other regions of the country. Twelve percent of the Freshmen class is from New England while sixteen percent is from the South.
Forty percent is from the West and Mid-Atlantic States. link
Cermet
@SFAW: So, singled value, then … as in a line integral? I mean, they are derivative so can’t be too non-linear, after all?
? Martin
@JPL:
Native New Englanders appreciate how much better the weather at Stanford and Berkeley is. ;)
Tom Levenson
@SFAW: Yup, the library. Not to be confused w. E 14 (the new Media Lab), nor NW 14 (the Francis Bitter Magnet Lab). MIT is nothing if not user friendly geographically. We partake fully of the New England view that holds if you don’t know where you’re going you shouldn’t be here anyway.
realbtl
@Mnemosyne: FWIW My house was designed by one of if not the first female Architecture grads from CalPoly SLO. And it is beautiful.
SFAW
@Brachiator:
If you say so.
In seriousness, I recall hearing about some Caltech pranks that I thought were pretty neat. Not as cool as the balloon at the Harvard-Yale game, or the car on top of the Great Dome, but still good.
Tom Levenson
@? Martin: +1 for truth. As a native of Berkeley (born at Alta Bates, schooled at Emerson, John Muir, Willard, East Campus and Berkeley High) I still, decades on, wonder how I was ever so stupid as to settle where the Pilgrims starved.
SFAW
@Cermet:
Oh, Christ, now I gotta crack open my Thomas? Shit.
SFAW
@Tom Levenson:
Yeah, they had their act together when they numbered the buildings.
Amir Khalid
@srv:
And the food here is pretty good too. The catch is, you can’t work if you come to Malaysia on the MM2H programme.
Julie
So this is a bit unexpected: Oregon State Police justified in LaVoy Finicum shooting, FBI HRT agents under investigation for misconduct:
Cermet
@JPL:Wow, Mid-Atlantic rates rather higher than I would’ve ever guess. All things considered, I would have expected the West.
Cermet
@Tom Levenson: Previous to my visit to Boston, I never understood the New England saying of “You can’t get there from here.”That is, until I drove in Boston. Damn, it makes perfect sense now and they are so right!
Eric U.
@WarMunchkin: I was at a conference, and there was a company there that had a 3d printed (metal) optical table — flexure-based motion stages and all. I always liked 3d printing, but that just blew me away. Take it out of the printer, dust it off, glue on some mirrors, and ready to go. I think it will revolutionize how we build experiments. I assume this will push the science along too, but we’ll have to see on that
Brachiator
@SFAW:
Turning the Hollywood Sign into one reading CALTECH ranks very high.
cleek
@WaterGirl:
go to ABP’s “Filter Preferences” dialog
click on “Custom Filters” tab
click on “new filter group” (or add a filter group if you only see the “Exception Rules” group)
click “Add filter” to add a filter to your new group
type “|https://www.ora.tv/*” (no quotes) in the box.
that should do it.
Mnemosyne
@JPL:
New England is composed of seriously tiny states, though: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. There probably aren’t nearly enough nerds to fill out the school’s population.
JPL
@Julie: uhoh Let the conspiracy theories begin.
Never mind, they never stopped.
LAO
@Julie: Not to the feed the great right wing grievance factory — but it isn’t all that surprising to people who work in the criminal justice system. As a federal criminal defense attorney — I’m not surprised that an FBI agent was untruthful during an investigation and his colleagues backed him up. Thank somebody — that although he shot at Finicum, he missed.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
That’s awesome.
My bro was accepted to MIT and Harvey Mudd, and chose to become a Beaver. Don’t actually know what the basis of his decision was, possibly because one of his HS buddies also chose MIT. Tellingly, he now lives in New England as opposed to SoCal, for whatever that’s worth. Loves shoveling snow? No, there are “people” for that.
Julie
@JPL: Pretty much. Facebook seems to be going nuts over this.
@LAO: Yeah, not really that surprising. But kind of a big deal in this kind of an investigation.
Amir Khalid
@srv:
The scenery is nice, but the traffic is horrendous — space is tight on the island. Perhaps Seberang Prai, the part of Penang state on the Peninsular mainland might be more suitable.
WaterGirl
@cleek: Ah, that was my problem. I have AdBlock but not Adblock Plus.
I stumbled my way through adblock. Had to click on the adblcok hand in Safari, hit Options, then had to click filter list from the top menu, check adblock custom filters, then go to customize from the top menu, then choose block an ad by its URL. success!
I owe you and muddy a huge debt of gratitude. That constantly moving video drives my eyes crazy.
Miss Bianca
@Punchy: @Immanentize:
Here’s what I don’t understand. Why is brainless right-wing social-injustice-warrior outrage of this nature seemingly so much easier to muster than its opposite? I’m thinking not only of the Supreme Court Justice recall shananigans, but also examples like the state legislators in CO who faced recall elections over their support for (very) modest gun-control legislation. Le sigh.
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
I guess he basically missed the late ’80s.
Eric U.
so nice not having the tab for this site constantly refreshing. Thanks muddy and cleek, and WaterGirl for asking.
I’m pretty close to re-installing troll-be-gone. Maybe give the kossak diaspora time to get over the butthurt.
LAO
@Punchy: This really pisses me off cause nothing says conservative like changing the rules to impeach members of the judiciary for doing the job of upholding the state Constitution. I really worry about the right’s disdain for the rule of law as it applies to their actions.
WaterGirl
@JPL: Speaking of conspiracy theories…
I got to attend A Conversation with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotamayor last night. She was asked a question about Scalia, no surprise there! Very brief summary of her long answer: the supreme court is like a family, and like all family members, sometimes you want to kill them. Someone replies, oh no, you don’t want to start any conspiracy theories. While the audience laughed, someone else said t’s already too late for that, while Sonia S. put her hands over her face in (laughing) horror over what had just happened.
LAO
@Miss Bianca:
I’m sure that I am oversimplify this but “brainless right-wing social-injustice-warrior outrage” always strikes me as (1) fantasy based and (2) unconcerned by consequences. In other words — no thought or refection required. On the left — we think too hard sometimes.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
Lois McMaster Bujold seems to be able to do all of the above! ; ) but seriously, yes. I’m with you – romance readers/writers unite!
(You’ve inspired me to resume work on mine. My writing group is nailing my butt to the pledge of 5,000 new words by week after next. Wooo!)
Eric U.
@LAO: that’s why they loved Scalia so much. Apparently, “originalist” means whatever benefits the republican party the most
SiubhanDuinne
@Cermet:
— Dorothy L. Sayers, Gaudy Night
Applejinx
@Mnemosyne:
If you’d like some cover for this I could out myself w.r.t my own books. I’m writing about emotions and relationships too, but in a pretty weird little niche genre that I’m sure would take any possible heat off you writing just romance novels, even with sex in ’em. And you’re right: I’m not sure what gender you are or if it matters, but romance is a totally legitimate genre.
I get a lot out of the romance concept of ’emotional justice’. It takes skill and sensitivity to manage reader intentions, and if you do it right you can vicariously walk people through growing experiences without them having to suffer those experiences in real life. Empathy’s built through lived experience, and if you can deliver a vicarious experience convincingly…
Frankensteinbeck
@Mnemosyne:
In terms of money as an industry, romance is THE fiction genre. The problem with that is that publishers will treat you as a commodity and not a literary work, and you can expect maddening editing demands that destroy the whole point of the book. Be on guard, and good luck.
Joel
@dmsilev: I say we just call them CIT and be over with it.
LAO
@Eric U.: I was no great fan of Scalia — but I have to admit, on the criminal defense side — he authored a few wins for “the dark side” (as I like to call it). Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004) — is one of my all time favorites. But that being said, we are a better country now that he is not on the bench.
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
I realized too late that I should have gone with:
Did you see the news about “Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812” coming to Broadway?
WereBear
@Mnemosyne: I love that place!
It’s where I learned there was a “thing” for dinosaur/human slash. Not that I partake obviously, or I wouldn’t have known it existed.
And now I do know, I am still not interested.
Tom Levenson
@SiubhanDuinne: Not nearly as revolting as the fine structure constant (known by observation to be 7.2973525664(17)*10-3 with a very small uncertainty.
“All good theoretical physicists should put this number on the wall and worry about it…It’s one of the greatest damn mysteries of physics: a magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man.” — Richard Feynman.
Frankensteinbeck
@WaterGirl:
So, he really was Crazy Uncle Tony, who launches into a rant about moochers and homos at every meal, and disturbs every attempt at family consensus by insisting on his way at the top of his lungs. Also constantly shows everyone this email he got about how Hillary is going to be indicted.
I can see it. It suggests the Supreme Court is definitely achangin’.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne:
You have just made my day by quoting “Gaudy Night”. Air kisses! The Dean is my favorite.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Yes, but LMcB is writing in the “respectable” genre of science fiction. Try telling someone you’re reading Mary Jo Putney or Mary Balogh and they think you’re a moron.
And I freely admit to having selfish motives for wanting you to finish your book — it sounds like a hoot, and I want to read it!
satby
@Mnemosyne: yep, that cold is what turned into walking pneumonia on me. Take care of it if you get it!
Mnemosyne
@Applejinx:
Oh, the romance genre has all kinds of weird niches you don’t even realize. Apparently, if you want a romance novel about a romantic threesome where the guys are also doin’ it with each other, you’re looking for MMF romance, but if you want the guys to only touch each other as needed for positioning purposes, you want MFM romance. I did not know these things until someone told me.
I’m quite vanilla, a woman writing about one man and one woman at a time (not that there’s anything wrong with that!) but romances with two gay men as the leads are quite popular with straight women. Just remember to give them a happy ending.
Immanentize
@? Martin: True fact — It is five times easier to get into Caltech as a graduate from a Boston area highschool as it is to get into MIT. Homecourt non-advantage….
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
You can be a beta reader. I would be honored. : )
JPL
@WaterGirl: What a great opportunity.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: Oh, but the butthurt over LMB’s latest! It has far too many gurl cooties.
Mnemosyne
@Frankensteinbeck:
I’m writing in a very specific niche that I’m familiar with (long Regency with sex, FWIW) and I know who the major writers in that niche are, so I’m hoping to not run into too much trouble if I do manage to produce something publishable. I don’t have any dreams of literary greatness, just an entertaining book of the type I like to read.
Iowa Old Lady
@Mnemosyne: That’s the attitude! You have to take your satisfaction from the writing and the story because they’re the only things you can control.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
Yay! You can read mine, too, once I actually have a manuscript. I can’t decide if having the bad guy be a traitorous French spy is a cliche or genre expectation for my niche.
Alain the site fixer
@cleek: Watergirl emailed me about this but I don’t see it. I’m in FF and it seems fine. I’ve seen some similar things on my iPad and iPhone on some other sites today and yesterday, but not on my computer.
I’ll keep an eye on this but AFAIK, this is nothing I’m touching as I’m working on a staging and a test server, not the live server except for something like changing the Copyright date in the footer.
Test will likely be weekend/Monday, hopefully. There will be a full post of news when I’ve got details to share beyond those I send to the yuge testing group, overflowing with the best, smartest, most helpful members of the Juicetariat. .
Amir Khalid
@srv:
I dunno, man. I thought we’d have restricted private-vehicle access into the central business districts of major cities here, especially KL, by the turn of the millennium. Didn’t happen. Of course, Malaysia has like two or three car manufacturers (one of which even owns Lotus Cars, the famous British sports car maker) so restricting access to cars like in Singapore is probably a nonstarter north of the Causeway.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
I haven’t been following her lately — I think “Cryoburn” was the last one I read. But she’s been getting away from the military stuff (to my relief) so I’m not surprised the Dudes are upset.
Miss Bianca
@Mnemosyne:
Traitorous which way? Is s/he going to betray the British to the French or vice-versa?
And I know – I’ve had a guilt-shame thing going on about my romance reading habits for years. Not helped by bfs/husband unit who were all like, “you’re so smart, why are you rotting your brain reading that trash?”
Frankensteinbeck
…and everybody’s like ‘Aunt Ruth, how can you hang out with Uncle Tony?’ and she’s like ‘He’s not that bad. You just have to know how to manage him. Deal with him one on one, avoid his triggers, and talk about things that make him happy, like opera.’
Man, I can see it. The ‘Supreme Court is like a family’ thing would explain a lot. And now that he’s gone, people feel free to do and say things they wouldn’t because they didn’t want Uncle Tony to start screaming again. Little things, but with great cumulative power.
@Mnemosyne:
If you’re writing for an established niche you’re familiar with, you should be good! You’ve satisfied the needs of Marketing.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
A high school friend went to Harvey Mudd. He was quiet and down to earth in high school, was really outstanding in college and later, but otherwise still continued to be down to earth. A college buddy transferred from MIT, and also exchanged science for the humanities. I know a few Caltech folk, and also sometimes take a bus that also runs from JPL to Caltech. I am in awe of many of these young scientists and engineers. Unless a President Cruz brings the Second Inquisition, I predict much good work from this generation of Brainiacs.
WereBear
Yep. My fiction always stumbled over that giant rock.
Steve in the ATL
@dmsilev:
Yeah, well, I sent some emails, and sent a file to the EEOC, and had my admin file some papers. So don’t get cocky.
LAO
@WaterGirl: My stupid Sotomayor story — I had the opportunity to argue before her at the 2d Circuit several times — this is not about that.
In August of 2011, I was on trial in the SDNY and the District Judge ran a very tight ship with a short lunch break on Fridays. So, I ran to the cafeteria to grab a quick bite and the woman in front of me on line is gabbing away with cashier in Spanish, holding up the line and making me crazy. But it finally dawns on me that I recognize that voice — and she turns to me to apologize for holding up the lunch line, I’m 8 inches away from a Supreme Court Justice. Who is apologizing to me. I completely froze, began stuttering — cause I”m nothing but cool under fire — I’m pretty sure I told her to take her time — but then again I was suffering a major fangirl attack so I may have just said it in my head. Two things I took away from this encounter: despite being an associate Supreme Court Judge, Sotomayor bought her own lunch and she used a discount meal card that given to all federal employees. Which I somehow thought was amazing.
Miss Bianca
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Screw ’em. Gurl cooties are what has got me hooked. Picking up “Cordelia’s Honor” from the library today (bounce, bounce, bounce).
Mandarama
This video made me feel tearful, because I have a 14-year-old kid, a freshman, of course a SW nerd, who dreams of MIT. He is in love with math. I don’t think engineering is his thing at all… just numbers, all the time, with physics and chemistry being happy pursuits because they use a lot of numbers. (His dad and I were English majors, so we are a little baffled. I teach literature now. I barely got through college alg.)
Actually, hearing how many of y’all went there or have kids there makes me feel alternately hopeful and panicky! It seems like an impossible dream. He looked up some list of top 10 math schools and got his mind set on the top 5. And we don’t push him in any way… If anything, I wish he would sleep more and do more with friends! I know we have a little ways to go, but you know how fast four years go by. It’s just that feeling of knowing he has his heart set on something that seems so remote and stellar, if that makes sense.
Maybe primary season just has me verklempt.
Steve in the ATL
@WaterGirl:
I have disabled AdBlock on BJ (you’re welcome, Mr. Cole) but NoScript seems to take care of the ad for me.
Applejinx
@Mnemosyne: That’s the best possible reason for writing in a genre :)
You can do it! There are few better things to do with your life than writing. I’m pretty sure most people on their deathbeds don’t moan, “Oh, I wish I had spent more time on Twitter” ;)
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Mnemosyne: Oh! Then you’ve missed Ivan, His Booke, aka Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance. A complete delight: Ivan, Alys, Simon, Gregor; cameos by Miles, Ekaterin, Sasha, Delia; minor speaking part for Duv; and a Jackson’s Whole baron and a haut wife for some of the complications.
The new one is Cordelia post-Cryoburn. The complaint seems largely to be that she doesn’t go shopping.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
Note to self: Balloon Juice no longer recognized italic tags. Which is unfortunate for us oldsters who learned HTML by hand coding in Notepad, uphill, both ways.
Brachiator
@Mnemosyne:
Sounds like a crossing of slash fan fiction and romance novels.
scav
What’s the term for Romance novels where one can basically ignore the romance in order to read about the all the background details that certain writers are very careful to research and get correct? There must be a niche for that.
Feathers
Speaking of MIT…
I’d like to make a plug for the Common Cod Fiber Guild. Our meetings are the second Friday of odd months in MIT’s Stata Center at 7pm. So – this Friday! The guild was founded by a knitter, but we have expanded into all the fiber arts – very loosely defined – knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving, dyeing, needlefelting, sewing, fiber art, makers, etc….. We joke that our motto should be “All the Soft Things.”
Our big annual event – Fibercamp is this weekend. It is being held in MIT’s Tang Center. All are welcome, sorry for the late notice. The classes are all taught by members and aimed at giving a taste of the subject, enough to decide whether you are interested in continuing in that area. Don’t worry if you are an absolute beginner, every year we have a few and enjoy them thoroughly. On the website there is a Google doc for scheduling. There is a tab for “What I Want to LEARN” and you can put anything you want to learn there and have a very good chance of their being a class or at least a demo on the topic.
The cost for the weekend is $40 now, $45 onsite, cheaper if you join the Guild. There will also be licensed childcare onsite ($10 per family) because that is how we roll. If you aren’t local, there is a room block at the Cambridge Marriott in Kendall Square.
I’ll keep an eye on any responses/questions here, or I am MissLacklamb on Ravelry.
Miss Bianca
@scav:
Err…”Patrick O’Brian”? ; )
Altho’ slash fans might argue that Aubrey and Maturin essentially *are* a romantic duo.
Mandarama
@Mnemosyne:
Just breezily add, “She’s a contemporary British (or Welsh) author.” and they’ll nod approvingly, though. Seriously, both Putney and Balogh are excellent researchers, writers, and armchair psychologists. I also love Laura Kinsale very much, and Loretta Chase.
I wrote my dissertation (lo, these many years ago) on the romance novel…on women’s fiction from Austen to the present, focusing on the collective reading experience and the ability of genre fiction to offer widespread cultural critique. I encountered some serious snobbery from a few committee members: one said, “Why would you want to spend time reading so many bad novels?” (Answer– if you haven’t read any, how do you know they’re bad? And aren’t you the person who assigned me The Man of Feeling?) Another asked why I didn’t start writing romances for the money? Well, why hadn’t he taken up writing verse plays in iambic pentameter?
And right-wingers all think we feminists have taken over academia. Still working on it, guys.
Mnemosyne
@srv:
One book at a time, dude.
Feathers
@scav: Scrapbooking. But seriously, I was at a mystery writer’s conference where author after author was asked about research. Eventually one of the panelists took the mic and said “Listen, at some point you have to decide if you are a writer or a scrapbooker.” The loud gasps cheered me enormously.
I would recommend Judith Flander’s The Victorian House: Domestic Life from Childbirth to Deathbed, which is a social history of the era, told via a detailed explanation of how each room in a house was used during that time, and how norms shifted. One of the bits that stuck with me was the shady reputation which nurses had, as those duties were rightfully those of the women of the household. Bringing someone in from outside the family to tend to the sick was frowned upon.
scav
@Miss Bianca: Ah, forecastle rippers. Dad loved those. But there seem to be similar but focused upon dress- household- society/cultural- details and not the mizzenmast. With a sideline in getting the various jargons, idiom down pat.
Mnemosyne
@Miss Bianca:
You’re going to love it. Cordelia and Aral are one of my all-time favorite couples regardless of genre.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Yes, because Cordelia always LOVED shopping.
Excuse me, I think I sprained something with that eye roll. And I’ll have to get Ivan’s book — he’s developed nicely as a character through the years.
joel hanes
@Miss Bianca:
Picking up “Cordelia’s Honor” from the library today
It’s superb.
I envy you, because I will never again get to read it for the first time, but you have that pleasure still to look forward to.
scav
@Feathers: That book sounds familiar, although I think I came to it from house end of things (can’t think of exact titles, but some on American domestic architecture, esp Farmhouses and Progressivism; the history of household appliances and comfort). Also those books on Regency manners (and Elegant Madness?) which somehow got caught up in that swirl. But, having read those, I could see people doing in in other books I read. Kate Ross seemed to do it rather well in mysteries.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
You really need to concentrate more on specific author names than subgenres. I’m not totally immersed right now, but Roberta Gellis and Ciji Ware are two names that spring to mind right now.
This is where Goodreads can be helpful — if you find a book/author you like, check Goodreads for similar books.
joel hanes
@Mnemosyne:
I’ll have to get Ivan’s book
It’s fun, but IMHO a much smaller achievement than the initial Cordelia/Aral books, or The Vor Game. Your mileage may vary.
The first of her non-SF Chalion books, The Curse of Chalion is also very fine, and the romance readers in my family give it two thumbs up. I found the sequels less compelling.
cleek
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
indeed.
the EM tag is a waste of 16 bits.
Applejinx
@Feathers: I love it! That’s a perennial pitfall for fantasy and SF authors, perhaps worst for the fantasy authors as they have Tolkien as a lighthouse leading them off into the rocky waters of invented languages and detailed histories.
That sort of thing is fun, and wash your hands afterwards, but at some point you have to get down to an approachable character who wants something, changes in some way, and reaches some kind of ending.
And THAT is why the romance genre is worthy of respect. It’s almost by definition a story… and it’s all in how you tell it.
@scav: Are forecastle rippers like bodice rippers but with anthropomorphic boats? :)
scav
@Mnemosyne: Thanks, it was more a vocabulary question than anything else (love words) — I am so swamped in books at all times. My current obsessions are background etc on Shakespeare because of the 400th anniversary and perhaps the German Reformation because of a whimsical purchase of Brand Luther.
Mnemosyne
@scav:
I loved Kate Ross’ books. Fuck cancer.
joel hanes
@cleek:
Strange; I use the em tag for italics, and I see italics in my comments where I use the em tag.
For example, in my comments immediately supra.
Maybe the difference is that I type in the glyph for the tag myself, directly, rather than using the button over the composition box ?
gwangung
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism: Seriously?? Damn, I loved it. The revelation (NOT retcon) was deliciously brain breaking.
gwangung
@Mnemosyne: Then you will LOVE Gentleman Jole.
gene108
@Mnemosyne:
You can always write urban fantasy romance novels.
That seems to be a niche market for those books.
Edit: I think the chapters dedicated to describing people having sex is what makes romance novels less appealing for “serious” readers.
Edit2: I’m not a fan of romance novels. There were a couple of urban fantasy series that started off straight urban fantasy, but as the heroine started getting a love interest it veered into romance novel territory. I stopped reading at that point.
WaterGirl
@Frankensteinbeck: We didn’t hear about the moochers and homos rant last night, but apparently he would break into song when they were in conference.
She talked quite a bit about how you can vehemently disagree with the position of another justice without it being personal. She really tries to understand where each one is coming from an has found way to vehemently disagree without concluding that another justice is a “bad human being”. I believe those were her exact words.
She said she loves all the justices and that it’s quite sad to have the 9th chair draped (one more good reason for letting obama add the justice he is required to add!) and also sad in conference when you turn toward where he sat and the chair is empty.
It was really quite an interesting “conversation”, lasting about 75 minutes.
WaterGirl
@JPL: It really was great. I worked hard for my free tickets. I was poised with cell phone, land line and laptop 5 minutes before tickets went on sale. Interestingly enough, I was still on hold on both phones when the internet said they were out of tickets. I think that was just 10 minutes after they went on sale!
The event was sponsored by the University of Illinois law school – and it appears they may have reserved every floor level seat for the law school – but I was thrilled to have gotten 2 seats in the balcony. Many, many people tried but weren’t able to get anything. Bad luck for anybody who tried to call in for tickets.
WaterGirl
@LAO: She was really amazingly warm and personable and she’s a good example of why having more women on the court is a very good thing.
Mnemosyne
@WereBear:
I’m lucky that my preferred genre box has a lot of freedom inside. Writers who work just inside that tiny slice of history are tackling stories that have protagonists who end up surviving and thriving after domestic abuse, alcoholism, rape, PTSD, disability, and more, and they’ve been doing it for 20 years, so readers expect those kinds of stories now. My box is bigger on the inside.
Mnemosyne
@gene108:
With all due respect, and you know I love ya — I’m not writing for you.
:-)
SFAW
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
You forgot “through four-foot-high snow drifts in the middle of summer.”
Miss Bianca
@scav:
“forecastle rippers!” Ha ha!
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@joel hanes: Where I adore Paladin of Souls much more than Curse of Chalion. And Penric is just so much fun.
It may be because the white animal would dominate my funeral rites. *signs the Five*
@Mnemosyne: I see that I left Byerly out of the character list.
There are a lot of worldbuilding bits scattered throughout CVA that make it chewier than it appears on the surface, some of which are made more explicit in Gentleman Jole. It’s gotten a lot of rereading here because it’s fun; I almost have Ivan’s visits to Impsec Komarr memorized by this point. And — there’s a dinner party.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@SFAW:
Loooxury!
Miss Bianca
@Mandarama:
I’d be interested in reading that dissertation!
My first term in grad school I was supposed to take a course that covered romances in the way you described – and ‘Reading the Romance’ by Janice Radway was going to be our main text. (Loved how that book talked about my favorite bodice-rippers from the 70s!).
Then I got hit by a car the day before school started, and had to take that term off. Bummer. I would have enjoyed it so much!
@joel hanes:
Very much looking forward to it. As I’ve mentioned before on this forum, I’m not big into series anymore – the only ones I read or re-read with any regularity are Patrick O’Brian’s Aubreyiad and Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander books. But I could tell right away that I was going to have to add the Vor series to that list.
muddy
@Alain the site fixer: Don’t take it away, John said it’s supposed to be there.
@cleek: Thank you so much for this!! It was driving me nuts. The thing I wasn’t typing was the vertical bar, don’t know what that is called.
Mnemosyne
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Byerly! Yay!
And the disastrous dinner party scene from “A Civil Campaign” is my second favorite of all time, edged out only by Jennifer Crusie’s even more disastrous one in “Strange Bedpersons.” That one makes me snort-laugh out loud.
“Look, we’re conferring down here. It’s a ruse. Deal with it.”
WaterGirl
@muddy: I didn’t type the vertical bar, and it still took the video window away!
edit: but I’m using AdBlock, not AdBlock Plus, not sure if that would make a difference in whether the vertical bar is needed or not. Where I typed it in, it just said “enter the URL” and I figured the URL didn’t have a vertical bar, so I didn’t include it. Still gone. Happy day!
I was just telling Alain that the evil video window is as bad as the flashing alligator ad that sent us all fleeing to AdBlock many years ago.
muddy
@WaterGirl: I don’t know how to type that symbol, whose name I don’t know. I cut and pasted from the reply here. What a relief.
Betty Cracker
@WaterGirl: That’s so cool that you got to hear her! I read her book, and she comes across as warm and personable. I’m glad she’s on the court too. She’s my fave behind Notorious RBG.
Betty Cracker
@Alain the site fixer: Hi. The autoplay ad is back if you use a Microsoft browser (and possibly others) but not if you view the site on Chrome. It’s there right now under Recent Comments; just checked. I suspect it also makes the comment box operations slow and balky — I don’t even attempt to leave a comment unless I’m in Chrome. Weird. And since it’s an autoplay ad, it probably plays hell with folks who have metered data. Just FYI. Thanks!
WaterGirl
@muddy: It is a relief! On my mac, the | key hangs out with the backslash key.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: She’s just like you’d think she’s be! One of the questions was asking her what she thought about Notorious RBG saying there won’t be enough women on the court until there are 9 of them. I hadn’t heard about that comment, but everyone clapped at the question.
WaterGirl
@Betty Cracker: The evil autoplay ad is there in Safari, too, so it’s not just Microsoft.
I think what Alain meant was that he wasn’t seeing the auto-refreshing and ‘back’ button menu being full of identical entries to this page. I’m sure Alain is seeing the evil video ad, but I understand that Alain has been told it has to stay – apparently our fearless leader gets a good amount of revenue for the video ad that is driving us all mad. I love Cole but I think he’s taking a short-sighted view here.
muddy
@Betty Cracker: I had it in Chrome, on a Mac.
@WaterGirl: John said not many had an issue with it. Maybe more crying and whining should have been done? I have made notes regarding this technique in case of a next time.
muddy
@WaterGirl: I see the key now! I was also just informed by email that it is called a “pipe”.
joel hanes
Firefox + noscript will kill that ad, and almost every ad.
It’s a lot of hassle initially setting up the whitelist, but worth it to me.
I regularly contribute directly to Cole to compensate for depriving him of ad revenue.
muddy
@joel hanes: This last point is well taken, thanks.
Mandarama
@Miss Bianca: Janice Radway was one of my main sources! Although I relied more on a collection of essays edited by Jayne Ann Krentz (Amanda Quick) called Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women. It’s really great! Highlight of that time in my life was getting to speak at a conference where Krentz and Jennifer Crusie were both speaking. I love both of them as writers. I so wish they could make a decent film of Crusie’s Bet Me, but you know they’d mess it up.
I’m so sorry about your accident!
Mandarama
@Miss Bianca: And I love the Aubrey/Maturin novels. May God set a flower upon your head!
gogol's wife
@Mnemosyne:
Yes, I don’t know too much about that one. One of my students didn’t like it much.
WaterGirl
@muddy: Maybe that can be a question on our “BJ survey” that will be part of the site update. I bet he would find that many of us have trouble with it – flashing is hard on the eyes, eats bandwidth, takes up a ton of memory if you keep several BJ tabs open at once (who doesn’t do that?!?!), etc.
Glad you found the key!
Mnemosyne
@gogol’s wife:
It was a big hit off-Broadway and got Phillippa Soo a lot of attention. Not sure if your student didn’t like it as a musical, as Tolstoy, or both.
WaterGirl
@joel hanes: I would donate to Cole if he would get rid of the evil video!
TheronWare
It felt good to watch that video, very cool!
Ruckus
@dmsilev:
I started college with machinist and electronics in my tool bag. Learning to think process all the way through seemed a lot easier for me than people with no practical exp. Didn’t go the physics route though but I learned a lot of things, most of which I’ve never used. But much of it has remained somewhere in the gray matter.
Ruckus
@? Martin:
What city do you work in, I don’t remember? I live in Pasadena now and would like to do something in a couple of years that is still challenging, right now I’m working in Covina doing high precision stuff mostly and some just general machining. But I’ve worked with both CF and a lot of Ti in the past. Also with a lot of other exotic stuff.
J R in WV
@LAO:
And where did you get the silly idea that the Republicans believe in the rule of law, especially when it comes to judges and their “opinions” about what the politicians can and cannot do?
Silly Idea!!
J R in WV
@muddy:
I’m virtually certain that is called the “Vertical Bar” – actually.
On many keyboards (probably not all) it is the shifted backslash, just above the “enter” key.
J R in WV
@muddy:
It’s only a ‘pipe” in Unix and Unix derived systems, like raw Linux, that other one that excapes [sic, I just love that non-word] me for now. Open BSD, that’s it!! Came as soon as I turned my finger loose on it!
Pipes allow you to move data from one command to another, programming without a language, kinda. I will confess I’m not great at that, most work in other systems not as cool.
mwing
That video is adorable. Cheers to your students.