Personal Dork Assistant

Beaver Fever. Snatch It!

Usually, we save that cheer for the girls' teams, but since the Caltech basketball team pretty much play like girls, it seems appropriate here. On the other hand, what other school's best basketball player gets observing time on Mount Palomar? Bastard.

Caltech has a plan, though. The Beavers are going proactive. Instead of opening practice and see which future Mission Control engineers turn up, they have identified kids who have a shot at qualifying academically, and e-mailed every last one of them to see if they play basketball.

Dow said they have found a dozen-plus geniuses who also can play a little. He figures if he can get a couple of those guys into school, "a 6-7 guy and an athletic guard," and fill around them with the more coordinated of the Einsteins who just show up... well, Caltech isn't going to go another 193 SCIAC games without winning one.

In other news from Caltech, the L.A. Times discover the Humanities Requirement.

Carlton, who was thumbing through a robotics text, said he felt sorry for the humanities professors his freshman year. He recalled a poetry class in which the lecturer asked for examples of odes: "The answers we gave were 'electrode', 'cathode', 'anode' and 'diode.' "

The reporter seems to be taking the anecdote seriously, but I'm almost sure that the students were joking. Almost.