Category Archives: Uncategorized

For the past week I’ve been unable to print from my office machine. This is apparently a problem that crops up in OS X on occasion, when some vital system file gets clobbered; the effect is that every attempt to … Continue reading →

In class today I invoked one of my favourite examples of a counting problem: why are the poker hands ranked the way they are? I started explaining that the important thing is structure: more valuable poker hands are rarer, because … Continue reading →

Ok, this pleases me just a little bit. Yesterday was Election Day in this country; since it’s an odd-numbered year, the elections in question were limited to happenings at the state and local levels. (None here, though, or at least … Continue reading →

Initial post: 7:45 pm I’ve blocked out 8pm to 2am, local time, as my official NaDruWriNi period of observance. (If you’re asking yourself what this NaDruWriNi thing is, scroll down one post & follow the link.) The plan is fairly … Continue reading →

Wow, I really have been crap about updating this space recently, eh? Mostly, I think, I’ve been overwhelmed by my academic workload; teaching only two days a week seems like a good idea, but in execution it can be a … Continue reading →

…is that it’s not durable enough. I think that anyone who knows me is willing to agree that I’m rather hard on my personal possessions. Maybe I really am an agent of localized entropy; maybe I’m just careless. But things … Continue reading →

The (anonymized) caption to a photo in the student paper here, depicting a young woman taking part in a recent blood drive: DONER: A $SCHOOL_NAME student gives blood. Leaving aside the fact that it’s a banal and self-evident caption which … Continue reading →

Via Orcinus: Various federal legislations are being introduced to change the definitions of U.S. citizenship; currently anyone born on U.S. soil is automatically an American citizen (as are some others, such as Yr. Corresp.), including those children born to immigrants, … Continue reading →

I wonder how long it’s going to take before I stop getting nervous about my bank balance near the end of every month. It has, in fact, significant digits plural on the good side of the decimal point, and should … Continue reading →

Last night my laptop’s power adapter stopped working. Or at least, it stopped working well: if I hold it at the right angle and really keep it jammed in there physically it works fine, but this isn’t exactly ideal. Since … Continue reading →