Unqualified Offerings

For the record, if someone slides one of their eight Google Wave invites my way, I will be very grateful.

Oh baby. Have not gotten it yet (it not being out until tomorrow). MUST HAVE IT!!!!!!!!!!
de Waal’s faculty page.
Wikipedia.

By Thoreau
I still get mild stage fright before every lecture.  Whether I put a ton of prep in or do it all at the last minute (and, interestingly, the last minute lectures have sometimes gotten the best student evals) I get nervous before each one, and I don’t want to go to class.  But then [...]

I entered the Post’s opinion-columnist contest. I hope I win! If I don’t, though, I think it’s only fair to let Loyal Readers see my 400-word entry, which was inspired by publius (and behind him Mister Newlywed, Eric Martin) at Obsidian Wings:
There’s been much discussion lately about whether to pursue a counterinsurgency (COIN) strategy in [...]

By Thoreau
A friend of mine used to be a management consultant.  Say what you will about management consultants (and I’ll rib him and quote Office Space) but let us first take one of his statements as plausible and analyze the consequences:
He said that a lot of business executives that he met did not always seem [...]

By Thoreau
Via Bruce Schneier, I learn that a Saudi militant smuggled a bomb in his ass while trying to kill a prince.  Fortunately, nobody except the militant was injured.
You know how we all had to take our shoes off after Richard Reid?  Well, we all know what’s coming next.
I may have to eat a lot [...]

I heard on the radio this afternoon that every time the Redskins score a touchdown this season, some corporation or foundation donates a computer to the family of a wounded US veteran.
That’s kind of taking the long way round.

By Thoreau
I continue to try to understand the factions of academic scientists who get into the people side of this and consequently find ways to annoy the rest of us.  It’s not that I have a problem with helping people (I wouldn’t teach if I did) it’s that these camps often seem to offer vagueness [...]

By Thoreau
I’m at an….event.  The less said the better.  Suffice it to say that there are a lot of science faculty from other schools.  I’ve posted about drinking the kool-aid before, and I’m realizing what it’s about.  There are basically two ways for a professor to approach the job:
1)  Start from the science, take it [...]

By Thoreau
1)  Flying Southwest is awesome.  Comfy seats, legroom, no fee for the first checked bag.  The only reason I hadn’t flown them before is, honestly, I was using Expedia for cheap fares and Southwest never came up and it wasn’t until recently that (1) I took a trip where somebody else was booking the [...]