The Kid is Alright

I survived Admin. I even thought I knew some answers!

Pop Quiz

You have a final exam tomorrow morning in administrative law, a subject of which you have at best fleeting and incomplete comprehension. How do you spend your time?

Updating the links on your blog, of course.

Inventing Breakthroughs and Commercializing Science

I'm cross-registering for this course at the Business School next fall. You should too. It sounds cool.

This course has evolved over four years to be unique among HBS electives as students are selected from Harvard's schools of business, medicine, science, engineering, law, public health, government, and teaching hospitals. The focus is on inventing breakthroughs, working with other professions such as science, medicine, and law, and moving research from the lab to the market place. A center piece of the course is a multi-disciplinary team project to create the plan for commercializing research from a university or private sector lab. Final presentations of the projects will be attended by Harvard faculty, alums and local venture capitalists (enrollment will be limited to 50 business and 100 total students per section). Some of the projects will be further developed during the winter term "Half-Course: Science-Based Business Models" for entry into the HBS business plan contest in April.

Wednesdays and Thursdays, 3:10-5:30

Bay Bridge Interchange Collapse

After a tanker truck catches fire. Crazy.

Protestations

PBB has a great account of protests against Alberto Gonzales when he came here for his law school reunion.

In other news, it is childish to pick fights for no reason.

∂M/∂t II

Available at threadless.

∂Maturity/∂t

There's a reason xkcd is marked "essential."

Titles of Nobility

Also, I got the head writer's gig for next year's Parody. All y'all best watch out.

What You Ask For

Let me just preface by saying I know how ridiculous this is going to sound. I know.

As others have noted, the weather in Boston is suddenly glorious, after a deplorable stretch including a solid week of cold rain. Naturally, I cast aside all my obligations - finals be damned! - to run around outside all afternoon. I have diagnosed myself with a pretty serious case of Seasonal Affective Order, which shouldn't be called a Disorder at all, because it is perfectly reasonable to be unhappy when the weather blows, and manic when it rocks. So today's clear skies and highs in the seventies hit me like so much photonic cocaine. Tomorrow should be more of the same, and Monday is supposed to get above eighty (80!) degrees. I could die of ecstasy.

In the meantime, though, I can't sleep. It is too damn hot.

A Hipster Walks Into a Bar

From Cat and Girl

Bummer

Kurt Vonnegut has died at age 84. I read a whole bunch of his books one after another Junior year of high school, which I always blame for making me swear to damn much these days. I found and devoured a copy of The Bagombo Snuff Box over the summer, and it's sad to think now there won't ever be any more of it.

What If John Mayer Sang Baby Got Back?

It might sound a bit like this awesome Jonathan Coulton cover:

Astronauts

Just go watch this. Seriously. Like now.

Mars Cali Needs Women

So, this sucks:



Because this guy could not be more right about that Wintry Mix:

I don't know if any of you have ever had the pleasure of experiencing a Boston winter, but if not let me awaken your senses. It's basically an 8 month-long night of sitting in your bathtub tearlessly crying while listening to Townes Van Zandt/Joy Division mashups, half-heartedly trying to cut your wrists with the Lady Bic of some jawn you were hot for that you just found out gave brain to Mr. Len in the bathroom during some poetry slam in Central Square. No. It's really like that. For everyone. 8 months.

All those red dots are deep in the No Fly Zone.

Statute Cat

There Are Several Airports in the Bay Area

EB: Hey Trevor, you got a ride from the airport on weds yet?
EB: I'm glad to.
TA: Yeah, that would be great.
TA: I land at 7:42 pm, from Jet Blue
EB: Ok
EB: I will quantum entangle myself and show up at oakland, san jose, and san francisco at 7:42. We will then drive back in exactly 1/3 of my car.
EB: Or you can tell me the airport

The Sanctions Regime

"I'm sorry sir, but you're going to have to surrender these. They're a Product of Cuba." He pronounces the capital letters. "We have an Embargo against Cuba."
"I thought there was a one-box exception. For personal use?"
"No exceptions. Embargo means Embargo."
"Didn't there used to be though? When did it change?"
"There have never been exceptions," he intones in shades of Orwell. "There has always been the Embargo."

Bastards. That was a good box of cigars.

Close to Greatness

A source tells me that a girl I kissed once holds the American record in a swimming event. That is, at some point she swam a race faster than any American woman that has ever lived. The best ever. "You must feel pretty good about yourself, hearing that," my source teasingly prompts.

She's right. I kinda do.

Maybe All We Needed Was A Little Space

I come back from a week in Jamaica (awesome) and Boston has decided that Now There Shall Be Spring. Hooray!