Here, have 100 Incredible Lectures from the World’s Top Scientists.
Archive for the ‘education’ Category
hey, you’re a great person
This is why Purdue University rocks:
Tired of people being so down in the dumps amid the worst economy in decades, sophomores Cameron Brown and Brett Westcott—better known as the “Compliment Guys”—have taken it upon themselves to cheer up the campus . . . From 12:30 to 2:30 p.m. every Wednesday, they stand outside the chemistry building in the shadow of the university’s Bell Tower with their “Free Compliments” sign.
fight back against idiocy
Are you a teacher? Try out this plagiarism checker.
guy stuff
40 Unwritten Rules to Live By, from Men’s Health magazine. Some crap (see #16, 19, 32), but some gems in here. Well, one: When a man meets another man, bonding begins when they both say things they hope no one else hears.
An English major reacts
To the guy who compiled this list of the ten most worthless college majors, I have only this to say:
Hey, do you want fries with that?
for English majors
Try this if your degree just isn’t working out for you.
insert bad dog pun here
Apparently Ohio Northern University, where I attended law school, has recently awarded a dog a bachelor’s of science degree in canine companionship.
Mary Pat’s reaction: “They’re gonna disbar us.”
Good will hunting, indeed
Snopes verifies the truth behind this incredible story:
A young college student was working hard in an upper-level math course, for fear that he would be unable to pass. On the night before the final, he studied so long that he overslept the morning of the test.
When he ran into the classroom several minutes late, he found three equations written on the blackboard. The first two went rather easily, but the third one seemed impossible. He worked frantically on it until — just ten minutes short of the deadline — he found a method that worked, and he finished the problems just as time was called.
The student turned in his test paper and left. That evening he received a phone call from his professor. “Do you realize what you did on the test today?” he shouted at the student.
“Oh, no,” thought the student. “I must not have gotten the problems right after all.”
“You were only supposed to do the first two problems,” the professor explained. “That last one was an example of an equation that mathematicians since Einstein have been trying to solve without success. I discussed it with the class before starting the test. And you just solved it!”
"why my favorite professor was a chronic liar"
Interesting story of a professor who would introduce one false statement into each of his lectures to see if the students would catch it. Of course, the students began actually paying attention to the lectures. Fantastic idea.
PATRIOT Act update
Great news article about a talent show in a Boulder, Colorado high school, where the students sang Bob Dylan’s song “Masters of War.” Because the song ends with the line ‘And I’ll stand o’er your grave ’til I’m sure that you’re dead’ the Secret Service was called to investigate, worried that the students were wishing that President Bush would die.
sign and signified
What Derrida Really Meant. Good op-ed on Jacques Derrida, who died last week in Paris at the age of 74. I hated him in graduate school, but it’s hard to deny his importance. (NYT reg req)
Stand and deliver
For those of you yearning to address an audience soon, here are some good tips on speaking in public.
oh shit
T minus sixteen hours until my Civil Procedure midterm.
Go thou, my incense, upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
love this
another post from my old blog:
Post-Modern Condition Upgraded To Pre-Apocalyptic
CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA–The postmodern condition of alienated, disjointed late-20th-century humanity was officially upgraded to pre-apocalyptic Monday, when new findings from leading postmodernist theorist Richard Rorty were published in the new issue of Semiotexte.
”I was flipping through the cable channels the other night, trying to get an abstract sense of the way emergent processes of change and transformation generated by contemporary high-tech society are challenging cultural assumptions regarding diverse aesthetic forms to create a novel state of history,” Rorty said, ”when, all of a sudden, I realized that everything I was looking at was the biggest load of unimaginably horrific crap ever.”
At this point in the socio-cultural discourse, Rorty said, the key question is no longer whether or not social fragmentation, cultural meta-juxtaposition and socioeconomic problematics require new modes of experience and interpretation, but rather, ”When will the seven-headed dragon of the End Times descend upon us all in unholy fury?”
postintellectual
Get your theory trading cards today! Comes free with a pack of new Cultural Hegemony Bubble Gum!
tough love
“The idea of (children) loosely running around and chasing each other is not safe,” Long Hill Elementary School Superintendent Arthur DiBenedetto told The Star-Ledger of Newark, N.J. What a load of crap. How else are children going to learn what a cruel, vicious world it can be?
