Final Jeopardy!

Finally, a practical use for blogs: every night’s Final Jeopardy!.

(Thanks to Marilyn for the heads-up.)

Ocho Who?

With the 46th pick in this year’s NFL draft, the Cincinnati Bengals selected Coastal Carolina wide receiver Jerome Simpson. (Even though Michigan got the #1 pick overall, Simpson went a few picks before Wolverines QB Chad Henne.) Not only was this the highest pick in school history, it’s the highest pick in conference history. Of course, that wasn’t a huge accomplishment: the only other football player ever drafted out of the Big South Conference was Tyler Thigpen, Coastal’s QB that went in the seventh round last year to the Kansas City Chiefs.

Carolina “Classic”

There are some things about North Carolina almost everyone knows, such as tobacco, basketball, and NASCAR. Then there are things that you only learn if you live here for a while; e.g. coleslaw is a condiment.

That’s right, any self-respecting North Carolinian restaurant serves a tiny cup of coleslaw on the side with every sandwich (and many other orders) so that you can put it on your sandwich if you care to. It actually works quite well because the cole slaw here is the best I’ve ever had: unlike its Midwestern brethren it contains only a bit of mayonnaise, and unlike the local barbecue it’s light on the vinegar.

Coleslaw features prominently in Carolina-style burgers, which also have chili, chopped onion, and mustard. Even Wendy’s has a fast-food version that is sold regionally. Apparently there is some sort of difference between coleslaw and “slaw,” but either way I find them to be delicious.

Another, more interesting North Carolina “quirk” has to do with how I’ve used quotation marks in these last two sentences.

Football in April

The blog has been quiet lately… too quiet.

It’s understandable. There are exams to be graded, weddings to be planned, and research papers to be written. I just realized I have seven different papers in various stages of completion (six of them are thankfully nearly done). I’ve been pretty stressed and the EPA is about the nicest, lowest stress research environment I can imagine. All the same, it’s time for distraction. Thus, I present the April football round-up:

First off, offensive lineman Justin Boren — whose right to do as he saw fit I defended not long ago — has indeed decided to transfer from Michigan to “the” Ohio State to play with his brother. I wish him well, but if he’s playing offensive line for this year’s match-up, I think we may see the OSU quarterback sacked a dozen times. A cocaine-fueled Jeff Smoker (who to his great credit has recovered) took that many sacks and still won the second-most-recent “Greatest Michigan-Michigan state game ever”

Why John Didn’t Blog Today

It’s called Flash Element TD, and it’s a recreation of the super awesome Tower Defense levels from Warcraft III.  For me, at least, it’s insanely addictive.

Poker Is Not Gambling

In part to celebrate my first-ever win in my new poker game last night, netting me sixty smackers, and in part as preparation for my trip to Vegas next month, I present an interview that Freakonomics did with Phil Gordon. The best poker pros know that poker isn’t about gambling as much as it is economic theory.

State of Fear

It probably didn’t make national news, but there was a fatal shooting near campus yesterday. A flash email was sent out as I sat in my office preparing lecture notes, advising everyone to stay where they were as the shooter had not been caught. Details were scarce in the beginning, but it turned out that it had nothing to do with the school (no students or employees were involved). Still, for precautionary (and legal, I’m sure) purposes, classes were cancelled all day today. For me, that aspect of it was a minor inconvenience to my class.

But it brought up a bigger debate that happened to be the lead story on CNN at the time: should students be allowed to carry guns to class? Should teachers? What are the limits to security in schools? I’m sure the timing of the story is intimately linked to tomorrow’s anniversary of the Virginia Tech disaster.

Michigan vs. Notre Dame On Ice!

No, Brian Boitano won’t be playing Rudy, and there will be no Winged Helmettes skating in a conga line, but there may be some Charlie Weis-esque octopi spinning on the ice when Michigan and Notre Dame play in the semi-finals of the Frozen Four tonight. This is Notre Dame’s first Frozen Four and Michigan’s twenty-third. Michigan has beaten Notre Dame twice this season, but one of the games was a 3-2 squeaker. Personally I’m just hoping that Michigan can find a way to sack Jimmy Clausen a few more times…

First Principles

Tomorrow in class, I plan to utter the words, “This is the most basic, fundamental concept in all of Nature.” I wonder if you’d agree. What would you call the most basic, fundamental concept in all of Nature? (Other than the Pirates will have a losing season, of course.)

Michigan’s Robotic War Bat vs. Georgia Tech’s Cyborg Moths

In an article that is somehow evocative of a certain movie franchise (whose bloggers unfortunately met a grisly, Cloverfield-esque end late last February), the University of Michigan has received $10 million from the army for a “Center for Objective Microelectronics and Biomimetic Advanced Technology, or COM-BAT.” The robotic bat produced by this group apparently will have a “gargoyle mode” that involves perching on a building and lurking. Since there already is a Michigan Gargoyle, I suggest changing the name to “hunter-killer” mode (good luck with James Cameron’s lawyers). Even worse (or better!), another article in The Register speculates that the RADAR of the Michigan war bat would allow it to easily destroy Georgia Tech’s “cyborg infiltrator machines [that wear] living creatures like fleshy cloaks.” Apparently Prof. Robert Michelson’s group plans to scoop out the entrails of moths and replace them with remote-controls and sensors.

Also in the article, The Register describes DARPA as “the Pentagon asylum for usefully-insane scientists” which can’t be entirely true since our own Andy (who is still pretty sane despite his defense coming up this Friday) was partly funded by DARPA.