Missing Shades of Grue

NKU Pharmaceuticals introduces VOTRUBRIX™. Taken regularly VOTRUBRIX™ promises to provide temporary relief from myopic vision, loss of voice, or an embarrassing inability to identify institutional values.

WARNING: VOTRUBRIX™ is not for everyone. High dosage or long term use may cause headaches, exhaustion and a complete breakdown in communication. For some users VOTRUBRIX™ may lead to faculty impotence and a variety of debilitating stress disorders. You should not take VOTRUBRIX™ if you enjoy teaching small classes, have a persistent commitment to collegial governance, or if you are a faculty member in a traditional Humanities program. If general education reform lasts for more than four months, stop taking VOTRUBRIX™ and call your doctor immediately.

VOTRUBRIX™. Sweet dreams. Harsh realities. Ask your doctor if VOTRUBRIX™ is right for you.

I've now picked a favorite in the NCAA tournament. (At least I know who I want to win; I have no idea who will win.)

North Carolina, Pittsburgh, Louisville and Connecticut share a No. 1 seeding in the NCAA tournament. Their graduation rates have less in common.

The numbers ranged from 86 percent at North Carolina to 33 percent at UConn, according to a report released yesterday by The Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at the University of Central Florida.

Louisville was at 42 percent and Pitt at 69 percent.

from http://tinyurl.com/cxcbsr

I'll post pictures of my kitchen remodeling project here.

Today who you are can be succinctly represented in a tag cloud. Wordle helps with the presentation.





Wordle - self profile

I don't much like the idea of identifying the worst person in the world each week, nor do I enjoy listening to Keith Olbermann, but he does find some gems. You'd think an quasi-enlightened society would ignore people who repeatedly say stupid things, but in fact we tend to tune in, buy their books and watch their movies. Well, I don't. I just post in disbelief.



onegoodmove: The Worst Person

So, I had to take this Implicit Association Test to show that I identify more strongly with humans than aliens? You can easily tell by who I vote with at Department meetings.

Your data suggest a strong automatic identification with Human compared to Alien.

If your results, provided above, indicate a stronger identity with alien relative to human, then you are probably an alien. Self-reports of humanness sometimes differ from the results revealed by the IAT because either aliens do not want to admit to being an alien either because of plans for world domination or because of low collective self-esteem. Also, one's implicit alien identity can be a surprise to the test taker because "he" or "she" did not know previously about being an alien. These cases are surprisingly common and are likely due to memory impairment or alieodissociative identity disorder (not yet recognized by the APA diagnostic manual).

A few humans - mostly bleeding heart liberals - implicitly identify with aliens more than humans because of a uncontrollable need to disidentify with the ingroup.

In either case, if you show an implicit alien identity, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is interested to speak with you.

If you instead show an implicit human identity, then it is likely that you are in implicit denial. Why would you have taken this test if you were not an alien? Please report yourself to DHS anyway.

What does it mean if I continually considered Spock to be human? His mother was human, right? So one drop of alien blood (or whatever) makes you an alien?

The Neurocritic: Human, All Too Human (AND Alien)

The diary of the 17th Century Englishman Samuel Pepys, a navel administrator and member of Parliament, is now a blog. According to the blog's introduction, "Pepys was a practical man of business but also had a wide-ranging appetite for knowledge. His classical and mathematical education was the basis from which he explored the arts and sciences and he was an accomplished musician." Just the kind of person, it seems to me, that might maintain an interesting blog. Here's part of the entry for Jan 2, 1665.

Up, and it being a most fine, hard frost I walked a good way toward White Hall, and then being overtaken with Sir W. Pen?s coach, went into it, and with him thither, and there did our usual business with the Duke. Thence, being forced to pay a great deale of money away in boxes (that is, basins at White Hall), I to my barber?s, Gervas, and there had a little opportunity of speaking with my Jane alone, and did give her something, and of herself she did tell me a place where I might come to her on Sunday next, which I will not fail, but to see how modestly and harmlessly she brought it out was very pretty. Thence to the Swan, and there did sport a good while with Herbert?s young kinswoman without hurt, though they being abroad, the old people. Then to the Hall, and there agreed with Mrs. Martin, and to her lodgings which she has now taken to lie in, in Bow Streete, pitiful poor things, yet she thinks them pretty, and so they are for her condition I believe good enough. Here I did ?ce que je voudrais avec? her most freely, and it having cost 2s. in wine and cake upon her, I away sick of her impudence, and by coach to my Lord Brunker?s, by appointment, in the Piazza, in Covent-Guarding; where I occasioned much mirth with a ballet I brought with me, made from the seamen at sea to their ladies in town; saying Sir W. Pen, Sir G. Ascue, and Sir J. Lawson made them. Here a most noble French dinner and banquet, the best I have seen this many a day and good discourse. Thence to my bookseller?s and at his binder?s saw Hooke?s book of the Microscope, which is so pretty that I presently bespoke it, and away home to the office, where we met to do something, and then though very late by coach to Sir Ph. Warwicke?s, but having company with him could not speak with him.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys

What will the world be like 100 years from now? See what they said in 1901.

Hat tip to Open Culture | What May Happen in the Next 100 Years (Predictions from 1901)