In some schools (dunno if IU is one of them) some professors have tree branches stuck SO FAR up their asses that they have the TAs essentially teach the classes.
This happens a lot in Computer Science classes, where the professor teaches vague concepts and the TA (who is the one actually telling you how to make the computer WORK) is actually teaching you how to write the code.
Graa!
I’m a tenured college prof and if I had my TA actually teach my classes rather than run study sessions, I’d be out the door – and I’m at a _huge_ R1 state university.
My math TA had to explain the lectures to us because no pne understood the professor’s accent. Yeah, TAs can and do teach courses.
fogel
My Calc course started with the prof teaching. As the year want on he had the TA take over more & more. By the ethird quarter the TA was doing all the teaching. My comprehension declined in parallel: the prof was excellent, because of his thick Hungarian accent as much as despite it, the TA a disaster. On the other hand, it didn’t help that the prof chose a text we nicknamed “Calculus by Magic” because it was written by a friend. The prof could explain what the book didnt, the TA couldnt.
4shizzle
Amused that not one but two comments about Math professors and their accents
We always got the impression that lectures in the US were so much more made to actually teach you something (as opposed to the prof flipping slides faster than you can read them and talking in a hard to understand mumble) than in Germany ?.
Seems like the run of the mill German professor was compared to an outstanding professor in the US then?
(Nobody would have managed maths without the tutorials, even though some TAs sucked at teaching, the at least managed to present the step by step ways to solutions).
TAs sometimes teaching classes has been established, but regarding this class and Jason specifically, I’m fairly sure it has been implied or stated that Professor Reeves (the professor for this course) does little to no actual teaching. Actually, I think some strip or another had a joke that some students (e.g., Walky) were unaware Jason wasn’t the professor because Professor Reeves has never shown up at class before.
BBCC
No, the issue with Reeves is he regurgitates one method and then rushes home to pretend to do research rather than help out. He shows up, he’s just likewise a crappy teacher.
RacingTurtle
This seems as good a place as any to drop Prof. Rees’s very short list of actual appearances. He’s so terrible.
As I referenced in an earlier comment, my recollection of the comic’s seven-year run is hazy in places. (Like, all of the places prior to approximately November 2017.) I made my comments too hastily; later I looked back on past strips to refresh my memory and discovered that I was not only mistaken about his name but also his level of classroom involvement. So yes, if that “He’s so terrible” was sarcasm… well, it’s warranted, but I’m aware I was wrong and willing to admit it, so don’t razz me too harshly, please.
I was a graduate student at Ohio State in my PhD program for 5 years. In those 5 years, I taught ten classes that I was entirely responsible for teaching and I was a TA/recitation leader for one semester, which meant that I taught 1 of the 3 days a week that the class taught. Most grad students aren’t graders, we are fully-credentialed instructors.
Leorale
Dang. One reason I picked my college specifically was that the professors actually taught the courses, there were no TAs or grad students around. I gather this was a pretty solid idea.
Walky was up for hours last night researching online to find the perfect non-English European character that would get the maximum outraged reaction from Jason. Tintin just barely beat out Asterix.
I can suggest some others over Tintin :
Benoit Brisefer (a blond naive schoolboy)
the blond one from Quick & Flupke (still hergé, but comedic comics, so that may annoy Jason a tad more
and of course Fantasio, who is always wearing a bowtie himself
Trying has two meanings:
1. An attempt at performing an action. ie. Walky is trying to do better.
2. A person is wearing down on a someone else’s patience. ie. Joyce finds putting up with Walky to be a very trying exercise.
It was excellent wordplay indeed
LovelyMonsters
It *was* excellent wordplay, but your comment is condescending and arrogant. Please don’t be rude.
segnosaur
Not sure why you would consider it arrogant/condescending.
Someone said they didn’t understand the joke. The poster assumed they were being honest and explained it. Not sure how they could have done so any different.
Lin
“I hate explaining jokes. It seems I must.” is condescending. Nobody MUST. You hate it? Don’t do it. Someone else will.
There’s a lot of concepts that might not apply when black holes are around. For instance, the concept of “inside” a black hole might not even make sense (since there isn’t really a spacetime path from the outside of the event horizon to the inside that doesn’t violate the speed of light)
Slartibeast Button, BIA
From the outside, you never see anything pass through the event horizon, it just approaches it asymptotically and gets red-shifted to invisibility.
Since it takes infinite time for something to fall into a black hole, and since black holes eventually decay due to Hawking radiation, technically nothing ever enters a black hole.
But doesn’t it take inifinite time only for an outside observer?
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Yes. If you are falling into a back hole with the mass of the sun, from your viewpoint you will fall from the event horizon to the center in 10^-5 seconds. No need to hold your breath.
Kryss LaBryn
Can I just say I absolutely love how quickly this thread went from eyebrows to the physics of black holes? XD
Kryss LaBryn
Also one couldn’t have a black hole with only the mass of the sun; the star would need to be I think it’s at least 30% larger for it to have the smallest minimum mass required to collapse into a black hole.
I’m pretty sure that time dilates only from the perspective of the object falling into the black hole, and doesn’t actually stop.
An object traveling at high speed does the same thing. The closer your speed is to the speed of light, the slower time passes relative to an outside observer. GPS satellites actually move fast enough that they have to account for that in order to make accurate calculations.
It’s not possible for matter to actually reach the speed of light, so even though the black hole’s gravity would cause you to accelerate to incredibly high speed, time would never actually come to a stop for you.
The real reason you wouldn’t need to hold your breath is that you would’ve been reduced to superheated plasma long before you got anywhere near it
Yeah, let’s not lose sight of the fact that nearly 49% of Alabama still voted for a pedophile–but right now I’m taking every little victory I can get.
Yumi
Nearly 49% of Alabama voters who turned out. There’s the potential to hope (for humanity, not so much for politics) that the margin may have been larger were there not so much voter suppression in place.
227 thoughts on “Tintin”
Ana Chronistic
because you’re teaching
Pablo360
And because he’s not as smart as he thinks he is
LookingIn
Because maybe…it’s his job?
geno
He’s not actually. There is a professor here for this class. Jason is a TA.
All-Purpose Guru
In some schools (dunno if IU is one of them) some professors have tree branches stuck SO FAR up their asses that they have the TAs essentially teach the classes.
This happens a lot in Computer Science classes, where the professor teaches vague concepts and the TA (who is the one actually telling you how to make the computer WORK) is actually teaching you how to write the code.
Graa!
I’m a tenured college prof and if I had my TA actually teach my classes rather than run study sessions, I’d be out the door – and I’m at a _huge_ R1 state university.
BBCC
That definitely depends on the school. In mine, the TAs are responsible for leading tutorials, which often involve no small amount of teaching.
BBCC
* The TAs are USUALLY responsible for leading tutorials. I’ve never had one where they weren’t.
Marisa Mockery
My math TA had to explain the lectures to us because no pne understood the professor’s accent. Yeah, TAs can and do teach courses.
fogel
My Calc course started with the prof teaching. As the year want on he had the TA take over more & more. By the ethird quarter the TA was doing all the teaching. My comprehension declined in parallel: the prof was excellent, because of his thick Hungarian accent as much as despite it, the TA a disaster. On the other hand, it didn’t help that the prof chose a text we nicknamed “Calculus by Magic” because it was written by a friend. The prof could explain what the book didnt, the TA couldnt.
4shizzle
Amused that not one but two comments about Math professors and their accents
CJ
We always got the impression that lectures in the US were so much more made to actually teach you something (as opposed to the prof flipping slides faster than you can read them and talking in a hard to understand mumble) than in Germany ?.
Seems like the run of the mill German professor was compared to an outstanding professor in the US then?
(Nobody would have managed maths without the tutorials, even though some TAs sucked at teaching, the at least managed to present the step by step ways to solutions).
Myth
TAs sometimes teaching classes has been established, but regarding this class and Jason specifically, I’m fairly sure it has been implied or stated that Professor Reeves (the professor for this course) does little to no actual teaching. Actually, I think some strip or another had a joke that some students (e.g., Walky) were unaware Jason wasn’t the professor because Professor Reeves has never shown up at class before.
BBCC
No, the issue with Reeves is he regurgitates one method and then rushes home to pretend to do research rather than help out. He shows up, he’s just likewise a crappy teacher.
RacingTurtle
This seems as good a place as any to drop Prof. Rees’s very short list of actual appearances. He’s so terrible.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/tag/professor-rees/
Myth
As I referenced in an earlier comment, my recollection of the comic’s seven-year run is hazy in places. (Like, all of the places prior to approximately November 2017.) I made my comments too hastily; later I looked back on past strips to refresh my memory and discovered that I was not only mistaken about his name but also his level of classroom involvement. So yes, if that “He’s so terrible” was sarcasm… well, it’s warranted, but I’m aware I was wrong and willing to admit it, so don’t razz me too harshly, please.
Lin
I was a graduate student at Ohio State in my PhD program for 5 years. In those 5 years, I taught ten classes that I was entirely responsible for teaching and I was a TA/recitation leader for one semester, which meant that I taught 1 of the 3 days a week that the class taught. Most grad students aren’t graders, we are fully-credentialed instructors.
Leorale
Dang. One reason I picked my college specifically was that the professors actually taught the courses, there were no TAs or grad students around. I gather this was a pretty solid idea.
Doctor_Who
Walky was up for hours last night researching online to find the perfect non-English European character that would get the maximum outraged reaction from Jason. Tintin just barely beat out Asterix.
Dean
If Jason had a moustache, it would have been Asterix all the way.
Doctor_Who
He’s even blond. Shame about the height.
Khno
I can suggest some others over Tintin :
Benoit Brisefer (a blond naive schoolboy)
the blond one from Quick & Flupke (still hergé, but comedic comics, so that may annoy Jason a tad more
and of course Fantasio, who is always wearing a bowtie himself
kilgaen
Fantasio would have been perfect. Down to his bursting a blood vessel. Which means that Walky is his Gaston. Obviously.
Danni
good wordplay
Pablo360
I had to read this comic twice to notice it.
Beef
I still don’t get it
Frost Magi
I hate explaining jokes… seems I must.
Trying has two meanings:
1. An attempt at performing an action. ie. Walky is trying to do better.
2. A person is wearing down on a someone else’s patience. ie. Joyce finds putting up with Walky to be a very trying exercise.
It was excellent wordplay indeed
LovelyMonsters
It *was* excellent wordplay, but your comment is condescending and arrogant. Please don’t be rude.
segnosaur
Not sure why you would consider it arrogant/condescending.
Someone said they didn’t understand the joke. The poster assumed they were being honest and explained it. Not sure how they could have done so any different.
Lin
“I hate explaining jokes. It seems I must.” is condescending. Nobody MUST. You hate it? Don’t do it. Someone else will.
Jamie
The first sentence wasn’t necessary.
Ozzi
Cool story, bro
Yumi
Joyce reads the comment section.
Doctor_Who
Her innocence would have been destroyed long ago if that were the case.
Yumi
Joyce is a secret agent undercover as a webcomic character.
AnvilPro
If Mike and Jason’s eyebrows extended forever, would they ever intersect?
Reltzik
Given that they have mass and could therefore in sufficeint quantity might produce a black hole? Ye…
…. er, wait. I’m not sure if the euclidean concept of “intersect” applies in non-euclidean singularities.
Pablo360
There’s a lot of concepts that might not apply when black holes are around. For instance, the concept of “inside” a black hole might not even make sense (since there isn’t really a spacetime path from the outside of the event horizon to the inside that doesn’t violate the speed of light)
Slartibeast Button, BIA
From the outside, you never see anything pass through the event horizon, it just approaches it asymptotically and gets red-shifted to invisibility.
Pablo360
Since it takes infinite time for something to fall into a black hole, and since black holes eventually decay due to Hawking radiation, technically nothing ever enters a black hole.
OnyxIdol
But doesn’t it take inifinite time only for an outside observer?
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Yes. If you are falling into a back hole with the mass of the sun, from your viewpoint you will fall from the event horizon to the center in 10^-5 seconds. No need to hold your breath.
Kryss LaBryn
Can I just say I absolutely love how quickly this thread went from eyebrows to the physics of black holes? XD
Kryss LaBryn
Also one couldn’t have a black hole with only the mass of the sun; the star would need to be I think it’s at least 30% larger for it to have the smallest minimum mass required to collapse into a black hole.
Pablo360
Well, strictly speaking, the black hole will accelerate an infinite amount and decay before you ever fall into it.
Fart Captor
I’m pretty sure that time dilates only from the perspective of the object falling into the black hole, and doesn’t actually stop.
An object traveling at high speed does the same thing. The closer your speed is to the speed of light, the slower time passes relative to an outside observer. GPS satellites actually move fast enough that they have to account for that in order to make accurate calculations.
It’s not possible for matter to actually reach the speed of light, so even though the black hole’s gravity would cause you to accelerate to incredibly high speed, time would never actually come to a stop for you.
The real reason you wouldn’t need to hold your breath is that you would’ve been reduced to superheated plasma long before you got anywhere near it
spriteless
are you making a parallel to something I don’t get?
Reltzik
Well, it’s supposed to be a joke, so obviously someone’s getting skew-ered.
Doctor_Who
This is acute pun thread.
Pablo360
Angle puns are pretty common; I don’t know if Euclid come up with one that isn’t overused.
LookingIn
No need to be obtuse…
OK I got nothing better, my math stopped functioning.
tyersome
Better is of course just a matter of degree …
Slartibeast Button, BIA
Let’s see your proof of that.
tyersome
I have a truly excellent one that is tangentially related, but sadly it won’t fit within the margins of this comment box.
Slartibeast Button, BIA
tyresome: +1 Internet
tyersome
🙂
Marsh Maryrose
So that remark was of no cosecants.
tyersome
… and thus will be cosined to oblivion.
adjudicus
Of course not, there’ll be re-pi-cussions.
…and with that, things have come full circle
tyersome
Are you claiming this is thread is a tautology?
adjudicus
Maybe its just a reflex…
Joe Covenant
It’s certainly a Trig..er.
Architex
Joyce’s shade should always be appreciated.
Shiro
Yeah, they don’t like it much when you say England is in Europe. Boyfriend got over-the-top mock-offended the first time I did that.
So, turns out 2017 had one surprise left in it! And this one’s even a good one! All rejoice for the Democratic senator from Alabama!
Keulen
It’s like an early Christmas gift.
MatthewTheLucky
Oh shit he won!?
MatthewTheLucky
That’s a good oh shit btw
Pablo360
Well, Roy Moore is declaring a recount, but he lost by 200% too large a margin for that to work
Reltzik
Despite the votes of evangelicals, who 4:1 made a firm moral stand in favor of a pedophile.
…..
These are the same people who think we need religion in school to teach kids morality.
Shiro
Yeah, let’s not lose sight of the fact that nearly 49% of Alabama still voted for a pedophile–but right now I’m taking every little victory I can get.
Yumi
Nearly 49% of Alabama voters who turned out. There’s the potential to hope (for humanity, not so much for politics) that the margin may have been larger were there not so much voter suppression in place.
Pablo360
Also, the reason Jones won? Mobilization of black voters by the NAACP.