Petiquette

Posted on February 8, 2019 by Travis

Personal discovery: of the many ways to greet random passers-by in a friendly, socially-acceptable manner, “My dog has that same jacket” is not one of them.

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SOTFU

Posted on February 6, 2019 by Travis

Meh. The State of the Union was a boring, overlong nonevent headlined by a rich cheater with a supermodel wife.

In other words, it was the Super Bowl LIII of SOTUs.

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I is a strange loop

Posted on January 30, 2019 by Travis

I’ve just noticed that the label on my campus mail cubbie now reads:

KOMPLEXIFY, TRAVIS i DEPT. HEAD

I assume the “i” is meant to stand for “Interim,” but my complex analysis background suggests it should stand for “imaginary.”

I think both are apt.

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Calculus is coming

Posted on January 28, 2019 by Travis

It turns out that this year’s MCM — the Mathematical Contest in Modeling — had a “Game of Thrones”-inspired question about modelling the ecological considerations needed for dragons to thrive in the various terrains of Westeros.

So what kind of math is needed to model Westerosian Dragons?

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Shitposting

Posted on January 26, 2019 by Travis

I’ve been the Interim Head of the Department of Mathematics now for about a month, and one of the biggest changes has been to my email inbox, the management of which now feels like a Herculean Labor.

Specifically, it seems as though every time I answer an email in my inbox, THREE NEW EMAILS appear. Thus, first I thought it was like the slaying of the Lernaean Hydra.

However, after several weeks’ reflection on the fact that most of my emails involve me shoveling bureaucratic crap from my supervisors down to my supervisees (or vice versa), I now understand that it’s really the cleaning of the Augean Stables.

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