Friday, October 31, 2008
Pirate jokes
I dressed as a pirate for Halloween, wore my costume to work.
In honor of the event, here we have bad pirate jokes, brought to you (mostly) by:
http://www.piratejokes.net/
Why does it take pirates so long to learn the alphabet?
Because they can spend years at C!
Why is pirating addictive?
They say once ye lose yer first hand, ye get hooked!
What do you call a pirate with two eyes and two legs?
Rookie!
What do you get when you cross a pirate with a zuchnni?
A Squashbuckler!!!
How did the pirate clean his floor?
With a treasure mop.
How do pirates know that they are pirates?
They think, therefore they ARRRR!!!!!
What is a pirate's favorite dessert?
Peach cobblARRRRR!!
What did the pirate say when someone called him a name?
I know you ARRRRR but what am 'aye?!
Why didn't the pirate go to the movie with the other pirates? Because it was rated ARRRRR!
What does a Dyslexic Pirate Say?
RRAAAAAAAAAAA!
In honor of the event, here we have bad pirate jokes, brought to you (mostly) by:
http://www.piratejokes.net/
Why does it take pirates so long to learn the alphabet?
Because they can spend years at C!
Why is pirating addictive?
They say once ye lose yer first hand, ye get hooked!
What do you call a pirate with two eyes and two legs?
Rookie!
What do you get when you cross a pirate with a zuchnni?
A Squashbuckler!!!
How did the pirate clean his floor?
With a treasure mop.
How do pirates know that they are pirates?
They think, therefore they ARRRR!!!!!
What is a pirate's favorite dessert?
Peach cobblARRRRR!!
What did the pirate say when someone called him a name?
I know you ARRRRR but what am 'aye?!
Why didn't the pirate go to the movie with the other pirates? Because it was rated ARRRRR!
What does a Dyslexic Pirate Say?
RRAAAAAAAAAAA!
Friday, October 17, 2008
Jerry Sloan
As basketball season rapidly approaches, I find myself thinking about the Utah Jazz. I just ran across these two articles about coach Jerry Sloan, written by the same blogger. I thought both articles were right on the money.
"Five epic errors"
http://allthatjazzbasketball.blogspot.com/2008/09/five-epic-errors-of-jerry-eugene-sloan.html
"Five epic qualities"
http://allthatjazzbasketball.blogspot.com/2008/10/five-epic-qualities-of-jerry-eugene.html
"Five epic errors"
http://allthatjazzbasketball.blogspot.com/2008/09/five-epic-errors-of-jerry-eugene-sloan.html
"Five epic qualities"
http://allthatjazzbasketball.blogspot.com/2008/10/five-epic-qualities-of-jerry-eugene.html
Monday, October 13, 2008
new prime found! $100,000 reward
Too bad it wasn't me! I've been running theisprime-finding software on all of my computers for a while. John
___
info from http://mersenne.org/
On August 23rd, a UCLA computer discovered the 45th known Mersenne prime, 2^43112609-1, a mammoth 12,978,189 digit number! The prime number qualifies for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's $100,000 award for discovery of the first 10 million digit prime number. Congratulations to Edson Smith, who was responsible for installing and maintaining the GIMPS software on the UCLA Mathematics Department's computers.
On September 6th, the 46th known Mersenne prime, 2^37156667-1, a 11,185,272 digit number was found by Hans-Michael Elvenich in Langenfeld near Cologne, Germany! This was the first Mersenne prime to be discovered out of order since Colquitt and Welsh discovered 2110,503-1 in 1988.
The nearly decade long quest for the EFF award came down to a close race to the finish - with just two weeks separating the discovery of the two primes.
As promised, GIMPS will give $50,000 of the EFF award to the UCLA Mathematics Department for discovering the first 10 million digit prime. $25,000 will go to charity, and most of the remainder will go to discoverers of the previous six Mersenne primes.
___
info from http://mersenne.org/
On August 23rd, a UCLA computer discovered the 45th known Mersenne prime, 2^43112609-1, a mammoth 12,978,189 digit number! The prime number qualifies for the Electronic Frontier Foundation's $100,000 award for discovery of the first 10 million digit prime number. Congratulations to Edson Smith, who was responsible for installing and maintaining the GIMPS software on the UCLA Mathematics Department's computers.
On September 6th, the 46th known Mersenne prime, 2^37156667-1, a 11,185,272 digit number was found by Hans-Michael Elvenich in Langenfeld near Cologne, Germany! This was the first Mersenne prime to be discovered out of order since Colquitt and Welsh discovered 2110,503-1 in 1988.
The nearly decade long quest for the EFF award came down to a close race to the finish - with just two weeks separating the discovery of the two primes.
As promised, GIMPS will give $50,000 of the EFF award to the UCLA Mathematics Department for discovering the first 10 million digit prime. $25,000 will go to charity, and most of the remainder will go to discoverers of the previous six Mersenne primes.
Friday, October 10, 2008
Pumpkin picture
This picture was apparently making the rounds among some of our La Crosse friends. No idea where it originated, but it made us laugh! (I especially liked the pumpkin at the back.) JSC
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Orson Scott Card on gay marriage
Here are links to three recent thought-provoking columns by author Orson Scott Card:
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3234
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3237
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3239
Some interesting quotes, for those too lazy to click on the links:
"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. ... To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of our morality, much of which is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." (Barack Obama, quoted by OSC in first article)
" "Gay marriage" is not bad because God forbids it. God forbids it because it is harmful for us, as a society and as individuals. [Consequently] we should be able to frame our arguments in completely secular terms, not as a mere tactic, but because secular evidence and logic are just as firmly in favor of providing a special protected status for permanent heterosexual pairings as our religion is." (OSC in first article)
"Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them? And if you choose to home-school your children so they are not propagandized with the "normality" of "gay marriage," you will find more states trying to do as California is doing -- making it illegal to take your children out of the propaganda mill that our schools are rapidly becoming." (OSC, in second article)
"Here's the irony: There is no branch of government with the authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue. The laws concerning marriage did not create marriage, they merely attempted to solve problems in such areas as inheritance, property, paternity, divorce, adoption and so on." (OSC, in second article)
"No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the *same* as the coupling between a man and a woman." (OSC, in second article)
"Marriage, to be worth preserving, needs to mean not just something, but everything. Faithful sexual monogamy, persistence until death, male protection and providence for wife and children, female loyalty to children and husband, and parental discretion in child-rearing. If government is going to meddle in this, it had better be to support marriage in general while providing protection for those caught in truly destructive marriages...Society gains no benefit whatsoever (except for a momentary warm feeling about how "fair" and "compassionate" we are) from renaming homosexual liaisons and friendships as marriage." (OSC, second article)
"1. Science does *not* say that gays have no choice whatsoever. 2. Science does not say that homosexuality harms no one, and that homosexual liaisons are as valuable to society as marriage. 3. It is not unfair to give unique preference to monogamous heterosexual relationships, if that preference and those marriages benefit all of society." (OSC, third article)
"In my opinion, all homosexuals should be enraged at the notion that of all human beings, only homosexuals cannot control their sexual behavior by conscious choices...Yet this is precisely what the normalizers claim: "They can't help it." We can all agree that no one can help desiring what they desire. Desires come unasked for and often from sources we do not understand. But *every* other human impulse, natural or dysfunctional, can be recognized and controlled, at least to a degree. We expect alcoholics to be able to refrain from driving when drunk...We expect aggressive males to curb their need to fight with perceived rivals...We expect heterosexual males--males who are expressing the very drive that leads to reproduction of the genes, and which in other primate species is often expressed as rape--to be able to recognize that "no means no"...In other words, our society right now says that everybody *but* homosexuals must curb whatever innate desires are perceived, by our society, as harmful or undesirable, regardless of how natural or evolutionarily productive they might be, or how strongly they are felt." (OSC, third article)
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3234
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3237
http://www.mormontimes.com/mormon_voices/orson_scott_card/?id=3239
Some interesting quotes, for those too lazy to click on the links:
"Secularists are wrong when they ask believers to leave their religion at the door before entering into the public square. ... To say that men and women should not inject their 'personal morality' into public policy debates is a practical absurdity. Our law is by definition a codification of our morality, much of which is grounded in the Judeo-Christian tradition." (Barack Obama, quoted by OSC in first article)
" "Gay marriage" is not bad because God forbids it. God forbids it because it is harmful for us, as a society and as individuals. [Consequently] we should be able to frame our arguments in completely secular terms, not as a mere tactic, but because secular evidence and logic are just as firmly in favor of providing a special protected status for permanent heterosexual pairings as our religion is." (OSC in first article)
"Already in several states, there are textbooks for children in the earliest grades that show "gay marriages" as normal. How long do you think it will be before such textbooks become mandatory -- and parents have no way to opt out of having their children taught from them? And if you choose to home-school your children so they are not propagandized with the "normality" of "gay marriage," you will find more states trying to do as California is doing -- making it illegal to take your children out of the propaganda mill that our schools are rapidly becoming." (OSC, in second article)
"Here's the irony: There is no branch of government with the authority to redefine marriage. Marriage is older than government. Its meaning is universal: It is the permanent or semipermanent bond between a man and a woman, establishing responsibilities between the couple and any children that ensue. The laws concerning marriage did not create marriage, they merely attempted to solve problems in such areas as inheritance, property, paternity, divorce, adoption and so on." (OSC, in second article)
"No matter how sexually attracted a man might be toward other men, or a woman toward other women, and no matter how close the bonds of affection and friendship might be within same-sex couples, there is no act of court or Congress that can make these relationships the *same* as the coupling between a man and a woman." (OSC, in second article)
"Marriage, to be worth preserving, needs to mean not just something, but everything. Faithful sexual monogamy, persistence until death, male protection and providence for wife and children, female loyalty to children and husband, and parental discretion in child-rearing. If government is going to meddle in this, it had better be to support marriage in general while providing protection for those caught in truly destructive marriages...Society gains no benefit whatsoever (except for a momentary warm feeling about how "fair" and "compassionate" we are) from renaming homosexual liaisons and friendships as marriage." (OSC, second article)
"1. Science does *not* say that gays have no choice whatsoever. 2. Science does not say that homosexuality harms no one, and that homosexual liaisons are as valuable to society as marriage. 3. It is not unfair to give unique preference to monogamous heterosexual relationships, if that preference and those marriages benefit all of society." (OSC, third article)
"In my opinion, all homosexuals should be enraged at the notion that of all human beings, only homosexuals cannot control their sexual behavior by conscious choices...Yet this is precisely what the normalizers claim: "They can't help it." We can all agree that no one can help desiring what they desire. Desires come unasked for and often from sources we do not understand. But *every* other human impulse, natural or dysfunctional, can be recognized and controlled, at least to a degree. We expect alcoholics to be able to refrain from driving when drunk...We expect aggressive males to curb their need to fight with perceived rivals...We expect heterosexual males--males who are expressing the very drive that leads to reproduction of the genes, and which in other primate species is often expressed as rape--to be able to recognize that "no means no"...In other words, our society right now says that everybody *but* homosexuals must curb whatever innate desires are perceived, by our society, as harmful or undesirable, regardless of how natural or evolutionarily productive they might be, or how strongly they are felt." (OSC, third article)
Friday, October 03, 2008
Kind words
One of my fellow professors stopped me in the hallway yesterday and said some kind words. She said, "You've got a fan club! Some of your students told me that you're doing a great job. They said you are very enthusiastic! And you are also very organized! Apparently they've had enthusiastic professors before, and they've had organized professors before, but it's pretty rare that the two coincide."
Since she teaches a section of the same class I'm teaching (Physics 105), I thought it was especially nice of her to pass on those comments to me.
Since she teaches a section of the same class I'm teaching (Physics 105), I thought it was especially nice of her to pass on those comments to me.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Resemblance?
