Around the Web

A few links and stuff for the morning, while we grade and/or wait for the world cup to start.

* The “Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique”:http://scq.ubc.ca/sciencescouts/ has a very large selection of scout badges for successful (and not so successful) scientists. I especially like the “I left the respectable sciences to pursue humanistic studies of the sciences”:http://scq.ubc.ca/sciencescouts/index.html#17 badge, but you may have your own favourite. (HT: Elizabeth Lee)
* A new romantic comedy starring a middle-aged Jack Nicholson, with a certain resemblance to a Stanley Kubrik movie, has a “trailer on “YouTube”:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmkVWuP_sO0. (HT: Andrew McGonigal)
* If you’d rather win the world cup from your own computer, and have several hours between grading to spare playing online cricket games, you’ll love “Stick Cricket”:http://www.stickcricket.com/gameslog.php. If you are susceptible to timesinks, you’ll hate me for posting this.
* The Michigan grad students have a new blog, “Go Grue”:http://gogrue.wordpress.com/. I’m always pleased to see new grad student group blogs; it’s a good way to get ideas talked about.
* There is a “nice article about Terence Tao”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/science/13prof.html?ex=1331524800&en=a80544a6e8df1d42&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink in the NY Times this morning. As many of you will know, I was one year away from being Prof Tao’s teammate on the Australian Maths Olympiad team. There are a few interesting comments in the article about the move from doing maths competitions to becoming a professional mathematician.