from the desk of stinkpot

a hilarious exchange took place today with one of the folks processing my gut microbiome samples: lab member: uh, lawrence, i’m not quite sure how to tell you this … we’re having some issues filtering particulate matter out of your samples. have you been eating a lot of seeds lately? me: well, i’ve been eating […]

spotted the other night on berkshire st. while on the way to the pub.  perhaps this car’s owner is just very forgetful?

frank fife/reuters apparently, synthetic drugs aren’t the only banned substances at the tour de france: Through the first 12 stages of the Tour de France, at least 10 riders have been cited for violating Articles 12 and 29 of the cycling code, regarding correct comportment on the race course. According to the citations, the riders […]

shown to me by a fellow grad student this morning: 1) pamphlet advertising a new energy campaign at mit: “do it in the dark.” 1) green fluorescent condom, packaged in black plastic and a big white font that read, “now glows in the dark!” according to the handout, if everyone at mit had sex in […]

TA’ing 20.181 is often a joy.  case in point, lecture today. drew endy: software engineers trying to outrace hardware engineers and moore’s law are like john henry trying to beat that tunneling machine. student: who’s john henry? drew endy: [slightly at a loss for words] … oh, you know, there was this mountain and there […]

i came across this hysterical example of how to shoot yourself in the foot today, in unix: % ls foot.c foot.h foot.o toe.c toe.o % rm * .o rm: .o: No such file or directory % ls % hooray for geekery!

an e-mail signature i came across today that made the biomedical engineer in me smile: “noise is principally due to the presence of the patient” — r.f. farr

the world is a mighty confusing place. it seems that there are two kinds of christina cruzes. (above) the first kind of christina cruz. my adorable girlfriend. (below) the second kind of christina cruz. northwest florida’s premier entertainer. there is no adjective in elvish, entish, or the tongues of men, to describe the hilarity that […]

does anyone know who blew up the boardinhouse? not yet, but roomers are flying!

this whole house buying thing has been a real drag lately. that, coupled with my general sloth, has totally stifled my regular updates to this blog. i’m gonna make up for it though, beginning with this joke: what do you call a tiny psychic who escapes from prison? a small medium at large!