Dr Ben Wolfe

I'm in touch with a handful of university friends at this point, but we're all over the place

Not in touch with anyone from high school.

Then again, I have (1) given his wife a rubber fish with which to smack him to sense when he and I were postdocs, and (2) sent him a gigantic [4'] plush fish when he got tenure.

The latter resulted in his then-toddler son chasing him about the house shrieking FISHY LOVES YOU.

One friend (an engineer) after surgery managed to play with his enough that, as I recall his account, it was turned off because he managed to outwit whatever irregular algorithm it was using.

When he told me this, I was deeply unsurprised.

BODIES, MOTHERFUCKER, THEY HAPPEN

I mean, it's almost California asparagus season.

In general, just send me refs if there's something you're after. You've got my email.

You know the drill. Send me a citation and I’ll hunt.

Breaking colleague-friends for the best reasons is good

Blueberry fritter might as well be philbait

Which is to say I made a tart, brought it in and delivered an 0800 slice to a colleague who, in my professional opinion, needed it.

The hug I received immediately proved my point.

Not wrong.

I even forcibly administered tart for psychological reasons last week.

Omnomnom

I remember, at the beginning of grad school, applying for a fellowship, I had the line in there "all knowledge is worth having." I still agree with that 16 years later.

Some knowledge may be less interesting to me, and that's fine. But I do what I do because I want to reduce ignorance.

Oh good, my prescription for baked goods has been followed!

(no, I'm not that kind of doctor)

Illustration of 10 adorable bunnies in a burrow, text on image reads "there are tunnels underground where bunnies are safe - safe from emails" The original image comes from Peter McCarty's Bunny Dreams, which is just as adorable as you think it should be.

This you?

Now the question is "does the bakery around the corner from your place sell cookies the size of a human head?" because you probably deserve one

a close up of a man 's face with his mouth open . Alt: Adam Driver, in some tedious Star Wars movie, yelling MORE

Heida when told "coffee and cheese might be beneficial"

I worked in the Stada Center for nearly five years as a postdoc. We tended to meet people at the main doors, because getting from there to the lab on the 5th floor was dicey at best.

And I thought the Stada Center at MIT was a thing.

Department of Irony, take a number

Sounds like the doors at work (magswipe door locks of the “mid-00s hotel” variety). Yes, our maintenance people hate them.

True.

I would love to know how I pissed off my back.

Which might mean more time with the Chirp wheel.

That is just funny.

I mean, I’ve seen you balance a jar of herring on your head. Might make for a good author pic, but that was a decade or so ago now, and it might be a bit out of date

“Fuck, is it going to be warmer in fucking Alaska than in Ontario?”

"I can use the grammar of your world against you. Try me."

Or, as I described ito to a friend recently: I understand your systems perhaps better than you do. Your systems are a tool I can wield.