Links for 2010-11-04

"We spend so much time worrying about what is wrong with our U.S. higher ed system that it is easy to lose sight of how much the system has improved over the past 20 years. This is a mistake, as if we fail to honor our successes we will forget that change can and does happen, and that our colleagues are working incredibly hard each and every day to improve our institutions.

My point of reference is admittedly limited and biased -- as I graduated from one elite, private institution in 1991 (Washington University in St. Louis) and work at another (the) top private College today. (Along with stops at Brown for grad school, WVU for my first teaching gig, and Quinnipiac University for my first administrative gig). So if you once graduated and now work at a public institution, well - we'd love to hear your perspective."

"This was on reddit. It is an image from google maps showing an aircraft. Not surprising, there are lots of aircraft that get caught by the cameras in mid flight. But what about the colors? Is this some rainbow-unicorn plane? I am not sure of the exact details, but this rainbow effect is from the camera. I am not sure why, but this camera is capturing red green and blue (and probably white) colors separately at different times. Here is the actual link to the google map.

The first thing that comes to my mind is - I wonder how fast the plane was moving. That question is difficult to answer because I don't know how much time was between each 'color filter' photo. Oh well, I will proceed anyway."

"In [The Boy]'s class - he's in the fourth grade - the kids had done essays on what they want to be in fifty years. The essays were left out on the tables for parents to read. As an exercise in shoe-leather sociology, it was striking.

Out of a class of a little over twenty, only two kids mentioned college, and only one - TB - had any recognizable professional aspiration. (He declared that he will get his doctorate in civil engineering at MIT, so he can build bridges and highways. About a year ago he asked me what the best place was to study civil engineering, so with my layman's knowledge of engineering, I suggested MIT, and that was that.) One other boy mentioned the state university, though he seemed more interested in the sports than in anything else. Every other kid wrote some variation on "I will finish high school, get a job, and get rich." The teacher mentioned that she had to push some of them to mention finishing high school."

To quote Kate, "The dog is a very low-key narrator."