One May day, when I was visiting my college on a trip to the west coast, three former classmates said that they were headed to the gym for a workout. Would I like to come?
“Why not?”
It’s surprising how many bad ideas begin with that question.
See what they neglected to mention was that it was an aerobics class: Advanced Step.
I had never done aerobics, let alone an advanced class on step aerobics. It was a scene out of the movie—I kept trying to catch up as my brain tried to figure which one of the last moves we did was the “straddle down.”
It’s weird how worlds intersect. Here is some lobbycon dialog:
“I don’t know, but if you plot the points, there aren’t many intersections. I’ve noticed it on my Facebook: The Open Source world has different geeks, and then the Web 2.0 world is mixed up. Priorities are f’d—people like X, who are big in the Web 2.0 world, nobody knows here.”
“Web 2.0 is…not even geeks really.”
“If it were, every party would be like the Ars Technica/Gizmodo WWDC party.”
In condensed matter physics, there is an area called turbulence that has wide practical application: weather, golfing, navigation, bridges, building subs, boats, and planes.
In 1941, some Russian guy wrote a theory for the dissipation of vortices in highly turbulent flows:
Since then…nothing. Any significant contribution to turbulence has been beyond smartest minds in theoretical physics, despite the describing equations discovered by 19th century classical physics.
“Terry is single,” Alex declares to anyone who was interested. (Nobody was.)
Nelson Muntz voice: “Ha ha!” Maybe if you were a Nikon-toting hottie, I’d have given you a straight answer.
Party photography Q&A tree
Now, in my defense, when it comes to that senseless brand war, I have to represent. But I admit that it was a bit harsh, especially since, as an event photographer himself, he must get asked my most-despised geek-party conversation starter an awful lot: “Who are you with?” (i.e. “Who are you shooting for so I know if I should do a posedown.”)
We hates it, my precious, yes we do.
Coincidentally, just that day, I devised a customer support answer tree to turn this question into a lethal conversation-killer:
…then give them that dismissive look, like they just said something incredibly stupid.
It’s interesting how self-context can change a city.
Last time I visited Amsterdam, I was in a terrible relationship, living in South Bay and I got robbed leaving Schiphol. Three years later, I’m single living in San Francisco and am a tiny bit wiser.
Every so often since that party, she’ll say something just to get a rise out of me followed by a disarming smile or a laugh. Luckily I can’t hear it over the party noise, so my reaction makes me seem all cool and “mysterious” when really my hearing is just going.
A lot of people seem to think the stuff I write is fiction—that this is some made up character or persona I craft for myself. Or I’m just a very talented liar with a good memory. But no, this stuff really happens. I don’t have that good of an imagination.
Luckily, my friends do. I count Bernie as one of them.
I remembered that I spent most of my time in college, between problem sets, in a dynamic equilibrium consisting of an elevated state of inebriation and wishing I was dead.
…or maybe theoreticians like you should stay out of the lab.
Like one time, we decided to carol all of Caltech with the main verse of “Terriers are My Favorite Animal.”
This is why you cultivate an abusively low tolerance for alcohol, Terry
After about two dorms it became, “Terry is my favorite animal. Terry weighs about 20lbs…”
Just make it end.
And by the time we finished at Ruddock House, it had pretty much become a solo: “I weigh about 20lbs. I help the aged…”
Please, please, I promise I won’t do this again.
That’s when J— got the idea that we had to protect all the eggs in the house.
As I mentioned before, everyone in my family but me is an expert at statistics. It’s hard to explain…
When my brother was angry that O.J. got away with it, my dad calmed him down by pointing out that in was a natural consequence of our legal system minimizing Type II error.
When my mom pointed out how unfair it was that her children were the highest rated teachers in their departments and she was the lowest rated in hers, my brother joked, “That’s just mean reversion, mom.”
I won’t get into how many times we’ve seriously argued about what the proper null for our discussion was…
