The Comet's Flame

For my teaching assistant position at the U of I, part of my job involves checking to make sure that the students have satisfactorily completed their lab projects. For today’s lab, that involved timing several 25-second intervals. I was struck by just how long 25 seconds is! Then I started thinking about all the 25-second [...]

I made it snow today! By wearing my magical knit hat and wishing as hard as I could, I affected the weather! I am going to use my new-found power to make it winter all year ’round!

I’m (tentatively) back online. Maybe I’ll say more about what this means when I have time, but for now, I’ll leave you with a poem (by my favorite poet, Emily Dickinson) that summarizes my hopes for my “new” blog… If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I [...]

So far, this year has been (to quote Sufjan Stevens) a “year of epiphanies.” I guess the biggest realization that I have made is how tired I am. I am physically worn out, etc., but more than that… I am tired of being sad and mopey. I am tired of being self-centered. I am tired [...]

One of my friends wrote a blog entry a while ago about the symbols which represent the concepts of “male” and “female,” and how these symbols are derived from Roman mythology (the male symbol references the god Mars, and the female symbol references the goddess Venus). This was not exactly news to me, so I [...]

Some of you may be wondering why I seem to hate school so much. Well, I don’t hate the concept of school (I think education is very important, and I love learning new things)… I simply hate my particular college experience. Allow me to present… a day in the life of Jed at school (hopefully [...]

I found a rather bizarre story in my town’s local weekly newspaper. Recently, a nonprofit organization in North Liberty had a fundraiser which consisted of a fashion show in which nine men from the area modeled wedding dresses from a local bridal shop (the picture to the left is from the newspaper article). The event [...]

Is it just me, or is the “humor” in food-product advertisements getting more and more lame with each passing year? It seems like major food companies have no clue how to be funny. To see an example of what I’m talking about, check out the Domino’s Pizza ad to the left (click on the image [...]

Well, today is that loathsome yearly event known as “Valentine’s Day.” I hate this day. I am the Scrooge of Valentines Day. Valentine’s Day is a pointless celebration of sappy, commercialized sentimentality that is often referred to as “love.” For a few dollars, you can run to the store and purchase some pre-packaged “love” for [...]

In my Testing Digital Logic class, we are learning about “fault modeling,” which is the study of ways that integrated-circuit chip defects can be mathematically represented. I’m thinking that it would be so cool if that worked for me! It would be great if there were a way to determine a mathematical model that is [...]