One of my advisor’s comment on a draft of my thesis: “flirt” is not a technical term; “investigated”, maybe.

I’m sure you are wondering what circumstances could have brought about this interesting comment from the boring engineering field that I am in. This would be more suited for economics a la John Nash. Actually, if you’ve met my advisor, you could probably imagine him using something like this in his own writing or hearing him laugh about it from across the building. Sadly, my writing is not as racy. Here’s what I originally wrote:

Research search engines, such as Referral Web, have flirted investigated the idea of incorporating social elements in order to search for people who possess knowledge.

So yes, I am slowly working on my thesis. Unfortunately, I only meet up with him once a week, and I can’t email drafts to him unless he is at IBM due to IP issues. This means that every week, I give him a new copy with edits, fixes, and new material; and he gives me his comments on the first 5 pages or so. The first 5 pages of my thesis will be REALLY polished.