Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in il Professore's LiveJournal:

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Sunday, July 17th, 2005
7:10 pm	motoring To whomever nearly rear-ended me this afternoon: Go fuck yourself. Both my turn-signals and my brake-lights work, so don't give me the finger and lean on your horn as you go speeding away after you nearly rear-end me while I'm turning into my driveway. You might think about hanging up your phone while you're at it. I have spoken. Current Mood: fremo (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Tuesday, July 5th, 2005
11:04 am	holiday Not quite gunpowder— The myriad fireflies Dotting the fields (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Tuesday, May 17th, 2005
11:38 pm	too perfect I just now discovered that the online dictionary has targeted advertising. For instance, if one looks up "bolt", the dictionary helpfully provides a link to a seller of fasteners. I immediately started looking for an entry for which there wasn't an ad, and I stumbled across something that reminded me of how absolutely perfect the universe is. It turns out that the first ad under the entry for "death" is a link to information about Dr. Atkins's diet. Someone at Merriam-Webster has a good sense of humor. Current Mood: heh heh heh (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Friday, April 8th, 2005
7:43 pm	succumbed I'd never thought I'd be one for taking internet quizzes, but I thought this one was interesting. Some of its questions, however, made me want to hit things. You scored as Strong Egoism. Your life is very much guided by the concept of Egoism: You work primarily to promote your own interests. “I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.” “I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows.” --Ayn Rand More info at Arocoun's Wikipedia User Page... </td> Existentialism 55% Apathy 55% Strong Egoism 55% Hedonism 45% Utilitarianism 40% Justice (Fairness) 35% Nihilism 25% Divine Command 20% Kantianism 10% What philosophy do you follow? (v1.03) created with QuizFarm.com Current Mood: interrogated (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005
1:11 am	make it stop There once was a student named Asher, A notorious frat-party crasher. He'd show up quite late, And scare off your date With talk of his big Atom Smasher. (Comment on this)
Friday, April 1st, 2005
10:35 pm	haiku it ain't When a girl met a graduate student He thought of a plan hardly prudent: To venture inside her Symmetric collider And engage it in ways that he shudent.     —Anonymous (5 Comments |Comment on this)
Saturday, February 26th, 2005
12:57 am	charmed Counting psi mesons, At best a tedious chore, Occupies my time. (Comment on this)
Thursday, February 24th, 2005
9:08 pm	strategy It's funny that the University could care less about its graduate students starving, but when I pointed out that I could no longer afford to sign up for Cornell's health insurance, people began to notice. Vladimir had a "discussion" with our former P.I. who claims to have done nothing to my raise. However, this person has demonstrated his ability to speak in "inconsistencies" of late, so who knows. Anyway, the raise will now materialize, backdated to the beginning of the semester. Judging from the fact that the guy seems really pissed at me I suspect that someone higher up intervened and told him to cough it up. Current Mood: somewhat relieved (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 22nd, 2005
8:14 pm	killers, thieves, and lawyers The Principal Investigator on our ill-fated grant is a jerk with whom I've had some trouble in the past. Unfortunately, since he is the P.I., he's first in line when it comes to receiving money from the NSF. It is up to the P.I. to distribute money as he sees fit. Apparently he has seen fit to keep the piddly amount still trickling in entirely for himself. He argues that since his grant has been cut and since he hasn't yet found another source of funding, he needs this money so that he can travel to conferences, etc. This explains why the small raise I was planning on using to feed myself has never materialized. At best I figure I have around $80/month for food. Yeah, that extra $200/month would have been handy. What gets me is that this guy is a tenured professor, and this means he brings home a hell of a lot more than I do. I understand that he shouldn't have to pay for a lot of work-related expenses out of his own pocket, but come on. I suppose he still holds a grudge for the time I told him to his face that he had done something really stupid. . . . . . . . . It has occurred to me to wonder what would happen if all debtors in the world simultaneously said, "Fuck you! I ain't paying!" It would be like everybody declaring bankruptcy at the same time. Third world countries, tired of being bled dry, have tried this on us. Is it at all possible to play with this mass-delusion we call money? Current Mood: flat broke (Comment on this)
Wednesday, February 16th, 2005
9:59 pm	science I'm settling into a routine at the lab. Today I actually got some work done on my thesis project instead of doing things that people at the lab have been handing off to me now that I'm readily available. Also, as I guessed, it's somewhat more work breaking the ice with a bunch of scientists, but progress is being made. There was a minor snowball fight today involving two snowballs. My place is mostly unpacked. Tonight I get to take the recycling to the curb. Current Mood: acclimating (Comment on this)
Monday, February 14th, 2005
10:30 pm	inevitable Nothing can be done: The cat will eat my house plants While I'm at the lab. (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Sunday, February 13th, 2005
6:21 pm	foreign & domestic Yesterday I had lunch at the State St. Diner where I saw a man sing the words "macaroni and cheese" to an over-sized vat of the same as he stirred it. I always like to see someone enjoying their work. After lunch I bought a trash can called "The Brute" from a Welshman. He bid me have fun with "The Brute", which seemed like a strange request. Today I found a laundromat and did all of my laundry. Then I made a batch of anti_cyclone's chocolate cookies. They're really good, only now I have too many. Current Mood: productive (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Friday, February 11th, 2005
9:49 am	10001001 I now have a working internet connection at my place. It's amazing how isolated and cut-off and crippled I felt without it. Ten years ago it was still a curiosity. Now it's an indispensable part of life. For instance, I can finally look up how garbage collection works in this town. Current Mood: wired (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Monday, February 7th, 2005
6:03 pm	seven days later I'm typing this from my desk at the Wilson Synchrotron. Two trips and four car loads later my stuff is all here. Thanks to all who helped me. Now there's this matter of a Ph.D. thesis to finish. Current Mood: surrounded by boxes (Comment on this)
Tuesday, February 1st, 2005
12:10 am	day one Today was spent running last-minute errands, disassembling furniture, and loading Aunty Deluvian's car. Tomorrow I have to do my weekly CLEO chores, finish loading Aunty D.'s car, disassemble the rest of the furniture, load my car, and drive to Ithaca. Just writing it down makes me tired. I want to be on the road by 1:00 P.M., but I'll be surprised if that actually happens. Current Mood: not freaking out (1 Comment |Comment on this)
Monday, January 31st, 2005
12:13 am	pick up every small box Moving makes me hate life. I will be glad when it's all over. I was wondering when this feeling would kick in. Current Mood: homeless (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
6:05 pm	portage The logistics of the move are starting to occupy my mind. The problem is simple: move the most amount of stuff in the least number of trips. Right now the plan is to drive up with Aunty Deluvian and a load of stuff on the first, come back on the third, and then turn right back around to make a second trip with Brian on the fourth. At least I don't have to drive back to Pittsburgh after the second trip; Brian is returning by plane. So can I fit everything I want to take with me into two car loads? If I used my car in addition to Aunty D.'s on the first trip there would be a third, but I'd really like to avoid that if I could. The more I think about it though, the more that extra room seems necessary. This desk alone will probably account for one of the car loads. Then we have to find room for a futon, a table, some chairs, a computer, lots of books (and bookcases), and a cat. Ithaca is just close enough that renting a truck is impractical, but far enough away to be a complete pain. Current Mood: fremo (Comment on this)
Monday, January 24th, 2005
10:14 pm	theory Tonight the moon's full, But the clouds block it from view. How do I know then? (Comment on this)
Sunday, January 23rd, 2005
7:58 pm	ist so kalt der Winter I just got back from Aunty Deluvian's house where I spent the last twenty-four hours with Jack Spade and his dad trying to resuscitate the heating system. A small piece of plastic, which connected a galvanized steel pipe to a brass pipe in the supply line to the boiler, burst causing the the furnace to shut itself off. This was a problem since the last few nights have seen the temperature go down to 5° F or so. Needless to say there wasn't much difference between inside and out by the time we got there. After one trip to the hardware store in a blizzard, much crawling around under the floor with heat guns, and one cold night making sure that the propane heater didn't burn the place down, we finally got water flowing through all of the lines in the house. Unfortunately one of the radiators cracked and will need to be replaced. I suppose we're lucky that the damage wasn't worse, but it's kind of a bummer to go through all of that just to discover a busted radiator. Current Mood: thawing (2 Comments |Comment on this)
Wednesday, January 19th, 2005
7:10 pm	rzzzzz! Do you know what the very worst thing about going to the dentist is? No, it's not having to wait around for 45 minutes even though you arrived at the appointed time. Nor is it having needles and drills assault your mouth, and it's not even having to hear the mandatory dental hygiene lecture*. It is this: you cannot ask the dentist questions while she's doing her work. It's not that this is discouraged; it's that it's physically impossible to speak when a person's hands are in your mouth. It's just awful seeing someone bent over you, obviously concentrating, and asking for various tools, some of which have accompanying noises. I want to know what the tools are; I want to know how the tooth filling compound works; and I definitely want to know what it means when the dentist sighs in frustration. I suppose I could just ask after she gives me my mouth back, but it never seems like she has time for an interrogation. . . . . . . . . * In my case these lectures seem particularly lame because I practice pretty good dental hygiene and all the dentist can ever come up with is stuff like, "Use a softer brush." Current Mood: anesthetized (Comment on this)