Blogging can at times lead to some real surprises. Several months ago, I threw together a quick little entry on whether chess and quizbowl were sports, mainly as an excuse to link to an interesting Louis Menand article; a surprisingly large number of people felt the urge to comment on what I'd written. I was reminded of my earlier entry yesterday, when Jordan Ellenberg published a Slate article on whether math competitions like the International Math Olympiad qualify as sports. You might find it interesting.
Posted by Ed at July 16, 2004 01:13 PMI, for one, want to see Olympic Whack-A-Mole.
(I was going to follow this up with some observations on olympiad-style math competitions in general, but I decided it's not very interesting.)
Posted by: Matt at July 16, 2004 02:43 PMI suppose it's time I left a comment...
I stumbled across your blog from a list of academic blogs I had found somehow and had read several posts before I realized "wait...it's the Ed, Matt and Susan that I know!"
Anyway, as far as surprises go, as a "regular reader" I've noticed a bit of a Jordan Ellenberg theme recently, which is an interesting coincidence as he'll be here at Madison next year. I read Grasshopper King after he visited for job interview type stuff - how could I pass up a novel by a mathematician? It was pretty good, but given your blog's title I thought I'd point out the Barth blurb on the back of the book comparing it to Pale Fire.
Anyway, reading blogs is now my favorite waste of time. I'll Email ya'll later so I don't fill up all your comment space with mindless chatter.
Posted by: Paul at July 16, 2004 05:16 PM