We do, however, require a formal seminar of our biology undergraduates in their senior year. We must make sure none of them ever see this comic!
Pharyngula
Evolution, development, and random biological ejaculations from a godless liberal
We do, however, require a formal seminar of our biology undergraduates in their senior year. We must make sure none of them ever see this comic!
But the pen is mightier than the swoaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhh!
I remember my thesis defense. I was nervous as hell, but it wasn’t so bad once I got started. It did help that during a rehearsal, one of my professors said I had the most technically fancy project in the department. Up until that point, I was worried I hadn’t been doing enough.
Is there a reason the image is saved and sourced locally (i.e., from freethoughtblogs) instead of sourcing it from XKCD? That seems pretty not cool, since it has the potential to reduce traffic to XKCD (especially if those unfamiliar with comic as they may not realize there’s a joke in the ALT tag as well).
An English department friend once considered bringing a shovel to his defense, as a prop.
Just come armed with a bigger stick, or sword, as it were. Use it as a pointer during Q&A, thrusting it in the presenter’s direction to emphasis your point. They’ll get the idea.
Jacob Sherwood, the XKCD link is directly under the picture. I clicked it.
Hot linking just an image is even worse. You use the original site’s bandwidth but still avoid the ad revenue.
Additionally it opens your site to this:
http://jezebel.com/5752017/how-to-effectively-prank-anti-gay-marriage-lobbyists
Especially since xkcd doesn’t run ads, PZ paying the bandwidth for his users + providing appropriate source linking is the correct method.
If enough tenured faculty are mutilated, the department will rethink the capstone requirement.
Pure genius.
This is why the snake fight part of a thesis defence is so important. It ensures basic survival skills on the part of all academics.
This one actually seemed a bit too realistic to be very funny:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/27/science/27murd.html?_r=0
Based on the first story, a friend of mine who was working on her graduate degree was presented with a ball peen hammer by her husband after completing it.
I’ve been in graduate school three times but have only two graduate degrees. The time I didn’t complete degree requirements I nevertheless remained for a while at my university as an instructor. That coincided with the 1978 murder-by-hammer of a Stanford professor by a failed graduate student. Some of the professors at my department went out of their way to assure me they weren’t worried. Lucky for them, they had nothing to worry about.
Perhaps a laser pointer would be more appropriate? One that leaves a scorched line across the projector screen, walls, reviewer’s foreheads, etc.
Once the hubby finally finishes his computer science PHD, I just might consider destroying his computers!
When I was a PhD student I was at a Master’s defense where the faculty on the committee got into such a heated argument that I got up and herded everyone else, including the student whose defense it was, out of the room and shut the door. As far as I know they didn’t actually come to blows, but honestly I am not sure. After some cooling down, there was more work done and a new defense that the student passed. Experiences like this, and a particularly nasty failed PhD oral defense, – no blood shed but the potential was certainly there – makes this comic much less funny for me.
@7 kevinv
As a general rule, you’re correct, but Mr Munroe is perfectly happy for people to hotlink images from XKCD
https://xkcd.com/license.html
@7 and @16
All XKCD comics are under Creative Commons license, which allows one to “copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format” as long as proper attribution is given, so PZ’s use is perfectly fine. Though Mr. Munroe does permit hotlinking I’d expect that for sites with as much traffic Pharyngula he would appreciate just copying to the local server the way PZ has done.
This wouldn’t work for me. All the people I selected for my thesis committee are Leftist radicals. They’d see it coming.
Trial-by-combat is not the best comparison to a thesis defense. If we’re going to invoke abandoned legal concepts, go with trial-by-ordeal: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trial_by_ordeal .
_
@sirbedevere @17: Randall even gives the image URL for each comic at the bottom of the page, specifically so that people can embed / hotlink it.
Darn I wish I had thought of that with my defense. I brought beer.
@17 sirbedevere
Somehow I don’t think he’s all that bothered.
http://www.iwebtool.com/alexa_traffic_rank?domain=xkcd.comfreethoughtblogs.com&data=p&range=1m