Your regularly scheduled forum for asking questions about how this place functions (or, at times, doesn't function), and get them answered. I'd say "no question too stupid", but I've put in enough time as a TA that I know that indeed there is such a thing as a too-stupid question.

Stuck at work doing regularly-scheduled maintenance of the equipment. Has to be done daily, but today the available time slots were 6 AM, 5 PM, and 3 tomorrow morning. I'll take the 5 PM.

I don't have time to put together any new shots, so here are a few from photoblogging diaries of the past...

A truly bizarre story greeted me as I opened my morning paper. It seems that a man in Indiana was fed up with the liberal bias of Starbucks and other such coffee shops, and decided to open what could best be described as the Fox News of cafes.

I wish I were joking

Your regularly scheduled Wednesday evening forum for asking questions about how this place works, and get them answered.

This was a long long week, with 12 hour work days for most of it. Consequently, today's picture is from work. This was a long week because we're in the middle of installing a very complicated and very precisely engineered piece of equipment (short version: A very fancy refrigerator, which can theoretically cool things down to roughly 0.01 degrees above absolute zero).

Your (mostly)-regularly scheduled forum for asking questions about how this place works and get them answered.

I have some sad news to report. Months ago, this diary series broke the story of a horribly injust imprisonment.

Today, it pains me to report that the prisoner has died...

Your regular weekly forum for asking questions about how this place, and get them answered. Questions from all comers are welcome, and we'll all do our best to get them answered. Hopefully, they'll even be answered correctly.

I was remiss last week in not thanking georgia10 for filling in for me the week before. My apologies for not doing so earlier.

-dms

And the truly sad thing is, those are his words, as shared in an interview with the New York Times:

Last fall, my parents' dog died suddenly. After a while, they decided to fill the hole in the family.

Meet Robbie:

So, after a hiatus for hardware upgrades (servers now powered by two hamster wheels!), dkosopedia and the FAQ are back.

Also back is this, your regular weekly forum for asking FAQ-y questions, and getting them answered.

Now this is just funny.

Everyone remembers Conservapedia, right? The "Conservative answer to liberal bias on Wikipedia", or something like that. A strong proof of the theorem that it is impossible to distinguish between genuine wingnuts and parodies of same.

Well, the folks at Conservapedia have really stepped in it this time. A few weeks ago, a scientific paper was published showing strong evidence of evolution in bacteria. That being against the declared Conservative worldview, Conservapedia wrote to the author of the paper and demanded all the raw data so that they could show that the experiment was invalid.

He responded...

No, not photographs of rubber balls or pogo sticks. I'm talking about bouncing light.

Your regularly scheduled weekday evening forum for asking questions about how this place works.

Update [2008-6-25 20:41:36 by dmsilev]: Forgot to mention: I'm traveling next week, so we'll miss an edition of this. Unless someone wants to sub, of course...

No, not the umpteen hundred million dollar boondoggle in Alaska. I saw this oddity under construction along the Chicago lakefront a few weeks ago:

Your regularly scheduled weekday evening forum for asking questions about how this place works, and get them answered. No question too stupid to be asked. Granted, if the question is really really stupid, the answer might not be particularly helpful (or even mockery, if the stupidity is deemed to be ...intentional), but feel free to ask.

Sad to say, as I was typing the above, my treasonous fingers decided that 'weekend' was correct. Ah, if only that were so...

-dms

Let me throw the following observation into the general discussion: After someone becomes the nominee, they very rarely choose one of their primary opponents as a running mate.

Don't believe me? Look at the historical record.

Today, a couple of variations on a theme: warning signs.