Janet D. Stemwedel
Janet D. Stemwedel (whose nom de blog is Dr. Free-Ride) is an associate professor of philosophy at San Jose State University. Before becoming a philosopher, she earned a Ph.D. in physical chemistry.
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Posts by this author
May 15, 2008
The classroom I taught in this semester was fairly hot. Even when it was chilly outside, the temperature in the classroom was uncomfortably warm.
Of course, I think it might have been worse for me (pacing in front of the whiteboard, trying to keep things lively) than for the students most of the…
May 15, 2008
Because it strikes me as somehow related to my last post, and because Memorial Day is the Monday after next, I'm recycling a post I wrote last year for WAAGNFNP:
On Memorial Day, because I really needed to do something beside grade papers for awhile, I decided to go to the nursery to buy some…
May 15, 2008
After what has felt to me like a cooler than usual April and beginning of May, we seem finally to be changing seasons here. (OK, changing seasons with a vengeance -- apparently our temperatures yesterday were record highs.)
Of course, in this part of California, we have two seasons: the green…
May 14, 2008
There's an article in Access (the glossy magazine put out by our School of Journalism and Mass Communication) about why so few of our students manage to get their degrees in four years. Part of it has to do with the fact that most of our students work -- many the equivalent of full time (or more…
May 12, 2008
Which do you choose?
Behind door #1:
You've labored to create a website that captures all the information for your course -- reading schedule, assignment schedule, guidelines for completing the assignments, the works. You've even set up navigation so that there are multiple ways to get to these…
May 9, 2008
As promised last Friday, today we report the results of our investigation of the solubility properties of an avocado. To get the disappointment out of the way up front, we will not be reporting Ks.p. values.
Since we had some around, we decided to use conical tubes to hold the avocado pieces and…
May 8, 2008
I have at least six things I really want to write blog posts about at the moment, but the day job is a harsh mistress.
So instead of a content-laden post, you get a list so you can play along vicariously.
In the next nine days, I must:
Lead the last new-content class meeting of my "Ethics in…
May 6, 2008
I'm still grading, but Bikemonkey tagged me on a book meme and I really want to cross something off my to-do list tonight, so here it is.
The rules: books you've read in bold and books you started but never quite finished in italics. (In that latter category, I'll include books from which I've…
May 6, 2008
More than a month ago William the Coroner tagged me. It is not just that I am slow; this meme is challenging!
Not mush, methodology.
A surprising number of people seem to think being ethical amounts to not being an inherently evil person.
I am passionate about teaching my students that making…
May 3, 2008
Captivated by the colors I saw, I took this picture today.
Any guesses as to what it is?
May 2, 2008
This Friday we're reporting on one of the experiments we were looking forward to last Friday, the one in which milk is curdled. (We'll report on our experimental attempts to dissolve an avocado next Friday.)
We started with a little over a cup and a half of whole milk, on the cold side (since it…
May 1, 2008
Once again, I'm teaching the relatively new ethics module in "Introduction to Engineering". Today was the discussion of what kinds of ethics might reasonably govern an engineering student's behavior, and how these might be important on the road to becoming a competent grown-up engineer.
So of…
May 1, 2008
This post is standing in for a lecture and class discussion that would be happening today if I knew how to be in two places at once. (Welcome Phil. 133 students! Make yourselves at home in the comments, and feel free to use a pseudonym if you'd rather not comment under your real name.)
The topic…
April 30, 2008
Maria has an awesome post about her thoughts upon wrapping up her Master's thesis. It captures the kind of shifts one can have in figuring out what to do, who to be, and how schooling fits into all of that -- and how what's at stake is as much emotional as it is intellectual. She writes:
I have…
April 27, 2008
Via Crooked Timber, I see that philosopher Simon Blackburn would like to dispel some myths. (He does this in the inaugural article of a Times Higher Education series "in which academics range beyond their area of expertise".) Of the ten myths Blackburn identifies for busting, the one that caught…
April 26, 2008
On April Fool's Day, our local Socrates Café had an interesting discussion around the question of what makes something funny. One observation that came up repeatedly was that most jokes seem aimed at particular audiences -- at people who share particular assumptions, experiences, and contexts…
April 26, 2008
As we're listening to Weekend Edition, the younger Free-Ride offspring asks, "Why don't they ever have weekend subtraction?"
(I think it was the elder Free-Ride offspring, years ago, who asked why Morning Edition had puppet words. It took us a few long moments to figure out the "puppet words" was…
April 25, 2008
Elder offspring: [Dr. Free-Ride's better half] said we're going to do some experiments this weekend.
Dr. Free-Ride: Oh really? Do you know what the experiments will be, or are you going to make them up as you go?
Younger offspring: One of them will be making milk curdle.
Elder offspring: With…
April 24, 2008
Do you ever get to the point where if you haven't checked your syllabus within the last few hours, you have no confidence that you actually know what day it is?
Or is it just me?
April 22, 2008
Another Earth Day rolls around, and I still have major qualms about the typical American approach to it (which seems to boil down to "Consumer choices will save the world!"). Possibly, viewing ourselves and each other primarily as consumers explains how we have had such a dramatic effect on the…
April 21, 2008
In the aftermath of a pretty enthusiastic pile-on to a claim that Expelled! had a successful first week of release, Chris Mooney calls for "serious introspection about the massive communication crisis we're facing in the science world".
You know I'm always up for introspection.
Indeed, regular…
April 20, 2008
Neil Sinhababu (aka the Ethical Werewolf) lays out one approach to making an impression in a job interview teaching demo:
Before giving my job talk, N[ational] U[niversity of] S[ingapore] had me give an hour-long presentation to the graduate students and advanced undergraduates to prepare them for…
April 19, 2008
ScienceWoman has a great post on balancing responsibilities in a new tenure track job, with an eye to publishing papers and setting up a robust and productive research program. It's a must-read, especially for those who are lucky enough to be starting tenure track gigs in the fall. Since I'm…
April 18, 2008
The foreshadowing last week was accurate. This week, we offer a review of Tentacles! Tales of the Giant Squid by Shirley Raye Redmond with illustrations by Bryn Barnard.
Younger offspring: We should talk about my new squid book for the Friday Sprog Blog.
Dr. Free-Ride: OK. What do you like…
April 17, 2008
Janet D. Stemwedel: Hey, can we talk about pseudonymous blogging?
Dr. Free-Ride: Haven't you already written a bunch of posts about that?
Janet D. Stemwedel: Yeah, but the blogosphere seems to be discussing it again.
Dr. Free-Ride: You know I only work on Fridays, right?
Janet D. Stemwedel: Get…
April 15, 2008
Actually, a few of them. Since we sent our tax return off already, the answers to the questions probably doesn't have much practical import, but here they are:
Y'all know that I get paid a (pretty modest) amount for blogging. As such, Seed sent me a 2007 Miscellaneous Income report (Form 1099-…
April 15, 2008
I heard a piece by David Kestenbaum on NPR's "Morning Edition" that hasn't been sitting right with me. You, dear readers, get to help me figure out what's bugging me about the story, a profile of 16-year-old climate skeptic Kristen Byrnes.
Here are some details about Kristen Byrnes from the story…
April 14, 2008
At DrugMonkey, PhysioProf explores the rules of engagement between grad students in journal club and seminar presentations (building off of interesting explorations of this question from A Lady Scientist, Dr. Jekyll & Mrs. Hyde, and Acmegirl -- all of which you should click through to read in…
April 12, 2008
Brian reminds us not to mistake the lull in the action in "Aetogate" (the charges of unethical conduct by Spencer Lucas and colleagues) for a resolution to the matter. We're still waiting for the ruling from the Society for Vertebrate Paleontology ethics committee. In the meantime, here are a few…
April 11, 2008
Sometimes a kid grabs the colored pencils and ends up with a picture of an octopus.
Judging by its color, the octopus is not angry.
This unsolicited picture may be foreshadowing. Younger offspring recently got a chapter book about giant squids and may be working up to dictating a review of it.…