Michael Jackson tribute

I would be remiss if I didn't link back to this.

Still no Bacon number, though

Today's xkcd inspired me to investigate my own Erdos number, and I have determined that it is at most 7!

According to this site, Rudolph Marcus (winner of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) is 4.
Therefore, John R. Miller is 5, Andrew R. Cook is 6, and I'm 7!

Cesspool on the Potomac

This summer, Mah Rabu is relocating its base of operations to the DC area! More precise details on when and where are still to be determined.

על ידי חופה וקידושין

Assuming an egalitarian* Jewish paradigm, what do you see as the conceptual differences between kiddushin (eirusin) and nisuin? Should there be a difference?

* defined here as one in which there is no substantive distinction between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage

Oops!

The new Koren Sacks Siddur (which is, apart from the nitpicking in this post, an impressive work) has a section in the back entitled "A Halakhic Guide to Prayer for Visitors to Israel". Among other things, this includes the various opinions regarding what 2-day-yom-tov observers should do about yom tov when they're in Israel. One of these opinions is (in part):

On the day after Shemini Atzeret (Simhat Torah in the Diaspora, Isru Hag in Israel), one abstains from labor, but says weekday (or Shabbat) prayers (putting on tefillin in the morning, if not Shabbat).

5 points to the first person who catches the error.

A Conspiracy Unmasked

For the last four years, I've been certain that my students had never discovered this blog. The reason I was so certain was that I figured if the students had seen it, they wouldn't keep quiet about it (but, rather, would be quick to show off their sleuthing). Therefore, by the contrapositive, since I hadn't heard any students talking about the blog, I could be sure they hadn't found it. QED.

Then today, my last day teaching high school for the foreseeable future (last day of classes, that is; we still have exams and such), two students (graduating seniors) told me that they had been enjoying my blog. As in, they've been aware of it for some time (they may even be reading this post) and hadn't mentioned it until now. So I had underestimated their self-control, and/or forgotten that seniors aren't the same as freshmen.

There isn't actually anything incriminating here. As I've said from the beginning, there has always been a possibility that students would find this blog, and even though I don't use my real name on the blog, it's not particularly anonymous (there are plenty of places elsewhere on the Internet that connect my name to this blog). So I don't talk smack here about my students, colleagues, or supervisors, and I don't discuss anything personal that I would worry about falling into the wrong hands. So the biggest consequence of this discovery is that it means the students will find out that teachers have lives outside of school. But it's ok, since they're about to graduate anyway.

Lesson for teachers: Never underestimate your students.

Soon by you

Being engaged means that, at family weddings, when people say "You're next!!!", it doesn't come off as obnoxious anymore, but just as factual.