Author Archives: matt

Forgive me, but I’m going to complain about students for a bit. So it’s my usual practise in lower-division courses to put together a sample test a couple of classes before I give an actual test. On reflection, this is … Continue reading →

One of the perils of staying on campus late — at least, if you’re like me and prefer to keep your door open to remind yourself that there’s a world outside your windowless little cell — is that confused students … Continue reading →

On NPR today on my way back from lunch, there was a discussion of the FDA and user fees. Apaprently, this is a system under which part of the cost for testing and certifying drugs is borne by the drug … Continue reading →

OK, so I don’t know about all my Faithful Readers, but I’m feeling pretty damn crappy today. And I’m pretty sure it’s not just the lingering fever. So what have we learned in the past twenty-four hours? We’ve learned that … Continue reading →

This weekend’s being spent at DANGER, a sort of but not really impromptu meeting of mathematicians in Tennessee. (DANGER stands for something, but damned if I can remember what anymore.) I suppose you could technically say that this is the … Continue reading →

Am I the only one who’s moderately disturbed that the U.S. Post Office’s website is at http://www.usps.com/, with http://www.usps.gov/ set up as a redirect? I mean, sure, there’s been a lot of abuse of .com, .net. and .org domains, with … Continue reading →

It wasn’t that long ago that I was complaining about how warm it was, it being autumn at all. The national weather service forecast tells me that the temperature in my vicinity is expected to dip below freezing this coming … Continue reading →

I’m writing this post on my new office computer, the much-heralded G5 iMac. So far it’s pretty sweet, in that it runs much better than the decrepit Windows PC it’s replacing, and is prettier to boot. It’s a little slow, … Continue reading →

Another weekend of geting little enough done behind me. The seasons here have gotten to that stage where it’s cool enough outside that running the air conditioner at night seems like a waste, yet still enough that opening windows doesn’t … Continue reading →

One of the perqs of being an academic is that every now and then, textbook publishers send you free texts. Apparently they’ve decided that the best way to get profs to select their books rather than their competitors is to … Continue reading →