An AI writing tool that I can get behind: Formalizer (goblin.tools/Formalizer)! Have Formalizer reword your text to make it “more professional”, “easier to read” or “less snarky”. You can also set the level of spiciness. Here are some examples based on a simple email.

I am not excited to be scraping my car windshield in October, but the frost on this wooden railing this morning almost made up for it.

The @laurentianu.bsky.social School of Engineering & Computer Science is looking to hire a master lecturer (teaching-stream faculty position) in mechanical engineering: laurentian.ca/about/career... The deadline for applying is November 14, 2025.

Congratulations to Dr. MC Lau and our Snobots team for their great performance this summer in South Korea! laurentian.ca/about/news/s...

Tenure-track faculty position at Assistant or Associate Professor rank, including expertise in Biomechanics, available in the Dept. of Kinesiology, University of Mary Washington (Fredericksburg, VA, about 50 miles south of DC): jobs.umw.edu/jobs/assista...

Spotify's shuffle gave me what seemed like an ominous message on my commute home: "Bring me to life! (Your ex-lover is dead, for what it's worth.)" So now I am trying to think of better messages that could come from three song titles…

Fall 🍎🍎🍎 means apple cake with carmel sauce!

Thanks to the Laurentian University Engineering Student Society (#LUESS) for organizing yesterday's successful Purple Day events! We trust all the first-year engineering students enjoyed themselves. Hopefully, everyone's skin & hair will be (almost?) back to its normal hue by Monday.

We uncovered an envelope of old drawings in the engineering office this morning, all related to old mining practices. My favourite is this one on how to lower a mule down a mine shaft. No record of the mules' response is given. (We believe the English was translated from the French text.)

An article from The Local about the state of higher education in Ontario: thelocal.to/ontario-post...

Not much of a dancer normally, but a "Pulled Pork Dance"? Sorry I missed it.

The fall term doesn't start until after Labour Day, but the barrage of emails has already begun. Attentive visitors to Missouri's Belton Cemetery can undoubtedly hear Dale Carnegie rolling over in his grave. #IBeforeE

Exciting @thestar.com article on our Snobots team competing in the HuroCup robotics competition in South Korea🇰🇷. Good luck to Dr. Lau and our students! www.thestar.com/sports/amate...

Congratulations to @crosh.bsky.social senior researcher Dr. Katie Goggins for receiving an NSERC discovery grant to fund her occupational vibration research. 🎉 Well done! Congratulations also to the other awardees. laurentian.ca/news/researc...

Impressed that these Canada geese are waiting for a city lifeguard to arrive before entering the swimming area. #Sudbury

Not a meteorologist, but I feel Iike the folks at Environment Canada are being non-committal with that icon: 🌞 + 🌧 + ⛅️ + 🌩? (At least it doesn't include ❄️ + 🦈 + 🌪.)

To my Dean: Is it too late to add catching & releasing this grackel as "service" on my annual report?

Final year capstone projects are an important part of engineering education, but they're even better when they're inspired by real-world problems. Hat tip to Markus & Greg for the great job they do finding these projects and guiding our students. www.sudbury.com/local-news/v...

Happy Mother's Day! A special shut-out to all those who have to work today so that others can celebrate. My SIL is a chef at a fancy hotel. They are expecting 700-800 for brunch across two dining rooms! Be sure to tip your servers well today!

My final marks are all submitted, so my winter-term course work is officially done! 🎉🥳🎈 Enjoy these renderings of some of the group projects completed by my 1st-year #ENGR1017 computer aided design (CAD) class, where they had to recreate digital models of a commercial product. Colour me impressed.

The calm before the storm. My second and final exam of the winter term starts soon… Best of luck to the students writing #ENGR3566 tonight!

“We are the Knights Who Say…”

Spring is having a hard time spring-ing in our part of the world. *sigh*

A lot of dessert was made — and eaten! — in our house this weekend. The pavlova disappeared in a day. The layered blueberry cheesecake lasted until tonight.

We heard from 3 of Dr. Mariana Kersh's (UIUC) students to close out our #ENGR3566 guest lectures for this year: Melany Opolz, Michael Focht & Mikayla Hoyle. A great overview of their multidisciplinary research, applying a variety of imaging, testing, & modelling approaches to bone & tendon in 🚶& 🐎.

Huge thanks to Aiden Dillon & Brett Brouse, from the Taylor Lab @uoregon.bsky.social, who tag-teamed yesterday's #ENGR3566 guest lecture about fractals, neurons, & their potential for helping restore lost vision. It was a great mix of math, computing, physics, material science, & biology.

Enjoyed an amazing guest lecture this morning by Dr. @melodyoungg.bsky.social from Duke University. She covered her doctoral work on climbing mechanics in various species (🐸🦜🦥🚶‍♀️), plus her post-doctoral studies on latch-mediated spring actuation in trap jaw ants & snapping shrimp! #ENGR3566

Yesterday we kicked off this year's series of guest lectures in #ENGR3566 with Dr. Emily Rogers-Bradley from @ucalgary.bsky.social. She spoke on gait and her work with semi-active prosthetics. A great talk with lots of quality questions from the students!

Congratulations, Dr. Dorman!

My daughter has experienced two big milestones this week. She voted for the first time in yesterday's Ontario election. Today, she's gotten to experience her first university reply-all storm. (William: She hopes you get your bursary!)

I love my children

I've doubled my chocolate eating efficiency recently after discovering these beauties. To think that I used to eat my Dairy Milk and MiniEggs *separately*. Thanks to Cadbury, those days are behind me now. Follow me for other productivity hacks.

Our annual series of mock interviews for @laurentianu.bsky.social Engineering & Computer Science students is underway! Three days, 16 companies, & 85 interviews where students get feedback from industry professionals. A great way for them to prepare for their careers!

Daughter & I arrived home from university to find my wife had picked up three Spiderman beans babies on clearance. We immediately set out to recreate this meme:

What do masonry & bone have in common? We'll try to answer that question as we discuss our recent JBMR Plus paper based on Britney Lamarche's MASc thesis: <https://doi.org/10.1093/jbmrpl/ziae143>. A paper🧵 1/

Between Jolabokaflod and sörur, I think my wife might be ready to fully adopt Icelandic Christmas.

Not to brag, but I occasionally dabble in the stock market.

In the midst of a fascinating thread on Prof. Lubert Stryer — well worth a read — Dr. Berg's daughter (after a “Take your daughter to work” day) drops this nugget:

🎵 Can't beat em, I know you'd eat em Son & I made a pail for his bake sale Brownie mixture round a cherry core Can't stop at one so you must have more All wrapped up inside a chocolate shell Looking tasty & designed to sell Won't last long, get one or they're gone Cherry, chocolate brownie bombs! 🎶

Final exam for #ENGR1501 starts soon. Good luck to everyone writing today.

Got to shovel while enjoying this pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) working on our neighbour's tree.

It is tradition that the top three teams in my engineering design competition receive some of my wife's homemade baking as 𝗣r𝗜z𝗘𝗦. #ENGR1501 As is also tradition, I judge the teams' choices based on my own preferences. This year it was: 🥇cherry 🥈strawberry-rhubarb 🥉Better Than Pumpkin

Students put on a one act play in the Cliff Fielding today ("The Doctor's Duty") as part of Prof. Sansalone's 20th century theatre class #ENGL3392 Well done to those involved! Nice to see that space used for a variety of purposes.

Got to be a judge for the #ENGR3536 tennis ball launcher projects this afternoon. Some good designs, including some with festive accents. #StructuralTinsel (1/2)

The strain on scientific publishing: we set out to characterise the remarkable growth of the scientific literature in the last few years, in spite of declining growth in total scientists. What is going on? direct.mit.edu/qss/article/... A 🧵 1/n #AcademicSky #PhDchat #ScientificPublishing #SciPub

My wife & The Boy tried to make macarons for the first time. They turned out great! The best experiments are the edible ones.

Our #ENGR1501 Introduction to Engineering students were tasked with designing a device capable of moving 5 ping pong balls as quickly & cheaply as possible. Amongst other constraints, they were limited to materials from Staples or Dollarama. Here's what they made: youtu.be/cmgmDGyRkzc

Today was Day 1 of the final testing for our “Step-Up 2024” first-year engineering design challenge. Some good solutions thus far. The rest of the groups will run tomorrow afternoon. #ENGR1501

We held an internal design competition this morning to select our Junior and Senior Design teams. They'll represent Laurentian at the Ontario Design Competition (#OEC2025) at McMaster in January. Thanks to everyone for giving up their Fridays to participate and congratulations to our winners!

Just an average day at Laurentian U. (You *know* something is a regular occurrence when they have a sign ready…)