You can cover all of your time wasting needs with the 100 Greatest On-Line Games. Some of them aren't so great, but all of your favorites are there as well as some you probably haven't seen yet. [via whim & vinegar]

Well, Cornell grad student unionization is taking another step forward, with cards having been submitted to the NLRB yesterday. Since I didn't make it clear last time, I'm not anti-union, but I'm against graduate student unionization as it is being pursued at Cornell. I, and others, have repeatedly asked what demands they have which have not been able to be filled using existing channels. The answer is always that so far, that has worked, but it might not some day. I don't see that as enough reason to send 1% of my income to the UAW, and ruin those good relations some of us have worked hard to build with the university. In the amount of time they've spent working on unionization, a smaller number of us, who were not even paid for our efforts, were able to get the university to change its policy on graduate student employment documentation so as to require written, and binding, notification of pay rates and expected working hours. Student insurance has drastically improved over the past six years, through student government efforts. And graduate students are not primarily employees of the university.

"Don't be too proud of this technological terror you've constructed. The ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force." -- Darth Vader

If you've got a subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education or have access to a copy,. there's a wonderful article about graduate students against unionization in today's issue. Cornell is in the midst of this fight, and it's interesting to hear the same complaints being made at other schools that I've been making locally about the process here. Says one of the anti-unionization leaders at Brown:

"I'm not upset that people support unionization. ... There are good reasons for it, but I was disappointed at the reluctance to discuss it in a scholarly debate.

Mr. Erickson and his fellow anti-unionists want the students to have a chance to consider the idea of what a union means. Since the NYU decision, the union's tactic has been to move quickly, he argues, and claim overwhelming support from students. "They wanted to have a very emotional campaign that pitted graduate students against the administration," he says.

... While administrators focus on how a union might harm the academic environment, student opponents emphasize a host of different reasons why unions may not work. They don't like the confrontational relationship that is part of collective bargaining. They worry about paying dues (1 to 2 percent of their salaries) to an international union and getting little in return. They say the unionization proponents haven't worked with the existing student organizations. They bristle at the unions' standard organizing tactic of meeting people two-on-one in their labs or offices.

Driving with a friend this weekend, we saw two little mail trucks drive past, one after the other, and race up an entrance ramp, provoking the following:

me: Look - they're chasing each other!
them: They're in love!
me: Awwww!
them: Of course, then one would have to be a fe-male truck.
me: *snort* [pause] And... how heterocentric of you!

You must unlearn what you have learned. -- Yoda

As the documentary pointed out, the thrill about the new movies isn't necessarily about the quality of these films. It's also about having the old memories triggered again. So, in that spirit, Star Wars Theme Week will probably focus on the original films, mostly. And, there'll be regular old content as well. Thanks go to J for allowing me to photograph his extensive Star Wars Lego collection.

Star Wars Links of the Day:  Find out which Star Wars character you are, from either the original episodes or the expanded universe. Read what are claimed to be scripts of the original three movies, including early drafts which bear little resemblance to the end results. Build a life-sized LEGO R2D2 or assemble a 3D Millenium Falcon puzzle.

I knew that there were disc brakes and drum brakes, and their basic difference, and I'd see comments that disc brakes were better, but I now understand why, thanks to this physics-oriented explanation of why disc brakes work better, at least in the abstract, put together as a student's mechanical engineering project.

Another addicting word-oriented web game: Text Twist. You're given six letters and have to make as many words as possible in two minutes. If you manage to make a six letter word, you get to go on to the next round (which seems to just mean you get to keep adding to your current score rather than having to start over). [via The BradLands]

Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid. -- Han Solo