Auto-Pilot

I'm sorry I haven't posted. I've been so stressed out lately that it has taken everything I have to focus on getting an iota of work done every day. I tried writing a long, thoughtful post about what is happening, but it just sounded lame.

I'm not dead, I know I'll eventually have things to blog about, but those things just aren't going to happen any time soon, at least not until I'm back in the states for vacation. You can check out today's PhD strip for a decent run-down on the current events in my life...only imagine someone who is convinced that working now will lead to laziness later, but instead this working is leading to more trouble with working. Or some other non-sense like that.

Mixed Nuts

Sometimes you end up at the strangest pages on Wikipedia:

Modifying words like "fancy" or "choice" have not historically carried any legal meaning in the United States, and they remain absent from the current regulations.[1] In a 1915 federal case against "fancy mixed nuts" that were argued by competitors to be an inferior grade, U. S. v. 25 Bags of Nuts, N. J. No. 4329 (1915), the court declined to accept a trade standard.

Feeling Good About Being Stupid

I wish I had some people's tolerance for their own ignorance:

Second, we don't do a good enough job of teaching our students how to be productively stupid – that is, if we don't feel stupid it means we're not really trying...Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant.

Aside from the isolating nature of graduate school, constantly feeling stupid is probably the hardest thing to adapt to. I still haven't found a good way to focus in the face of infinite possibilities.

Oh, right, I read reddit to help me focus. Nevermind.

The Best Game on Graph Theory This Year

Sneeze!

Children are your future. Via NYTimes.