Passing thoughts
jstemwedel | October 4, 2007Fifty years ago today, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, Earth's first artificial satellite. I don't remember it (because I wouldn't be born for another decade), but the "BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP" heard 'round the world left indelible traces on the fabric of life for my parents' generation, my generation, and for the subsequent generations, too.
Space was part of the terrain of our imagination for as long as I can remember -- after all, the sibling born right after me landed on Earth pretty much right before the Eagle landed on the moon, and my mom insisted on watching the moonwalk in the…
jstemwedel | October 2, 2007We're in day 2 of the ScienceBlogs Blogger Challenge, during which we're working with DonorsChoose to raise some money for classroom projects. The amount contributed by ScienceBlogs readers is creeping up on $4000, which is pretty impressive.
But it looks like the real competition may be for which blogger can offer readers the best incentive to donate.
I thought I was doing pretty well with my offer of poetry, sprog artwork, or a basic concepts post written to order. (Indeed, we're already on the hook for an illustrated poem.) But my SciBlings have upped the ante:
Deep Sea News is offering…
jstemwedel | September 26, 2007Sean, Chad, and Steinn ponder the lameness of academics in self-reporting their "guilty pleasures".
Quoth Sean:
I immediately felt bad that I couldn't come up with a more salacious, or at least quirky and eccentric, guilty pleasure. I chose going to Vegas, a very unique and daring pastime that is shared by millions of people every week. I was sure that, once the roundup appeared in print, I would be shown up as the milquetoast I truly am, my pretensions to edgy hipness once again roundly flogged for the enjoyment of others.
But no. As it turns out, compared to my colleagues I'm some sort of…
jstemwedel | September 25, 2007
You may have noticed a lull in my postings here. I've been laboring to put the finishing touches on my dossier for my sixth year review. This dossier is the document on which a succession of committees will be basing their decisions as to whether San José State University will be tenuring me and promoting me to associate professor, or whether they will be thanking me for my service and sending me on my way.
It's an awful lot of responsibility to put in the clutches of a three-ring binder, don't you think?
I should explain a little bit about the "retention, tenure, and promotion" (or RTP)…
jstemwedel | September 21, 2007While discussing poop with a bunch of life scientists -- in particular, we were discussing its utility in a wide variety of research projects -- one of the scientists at the table related a rousing cheer which I simply must share:
Starts with an S
and it ends with a T.
It comes out of you
and it comes out of me.
I know what you're thinking,
but don't call it that!
Let's be scientific
and call it SCAT!
I'm told this has them in stitches at sixth grade camp.
jstemwedel | September 19, 2007Avast, ye bloglubbers!
We be starin' down the crow's nest at another International Talk Like a Pirate Day, a holiday marked in these seas by the seizin' o' this bucket by the Dread Pirate Free-Ride. Aye, it happened last year, and by the beak o' the squid guardin' Davy Jones' locker*, it's happened again.
What's that ye be sayin'? Pirates didn't really be sayin' "Arrrr"? Shove some hardtack in that mouth or I be usin' it to scrape the barnacles off this bucket!
Me deckhand Smee be askin', "Why is it we seafarers be callin' each other scurvy dogs? Do dogs be gettin' scurvy?"
A fine…
jstemwedel | September 17, 2007
However, it would seem that the disclaimer is ambiguous. Otherwise, why would my better half and I disagree about what the disclaimer means?
It's not like either of us is the sort to propose an alternate interpretation just to be difficult. Honest!
Anyway, here's the front of the mug. It's a nice design. (And if you have a serious hankering for a mug like this one, my understanding is that they are currently being given away to folks who subscribe to Seed. I don't know that any are available yet on eBay, but surely it's just a matter of time.)
For my money, though, it's the back of…
jstemwedel | September 11, 2007The good news: My department chair really likes the project I've proposed for my sabbatical leave.
The bad news: The smart money says that my leave won't be approved unless I cut down the amount I say I'll accomplish during the year off.
That's right. If you have a lot you want to get accomplished, you can't have time off to accomplish it, whereas if you have only a wee bit to do, you are most welcome to a leave.
Cue the dinosaur with the voice of Rob Knop to remind me to stop expecting things in academia to make sense. Meanwhile, I have some cuts to make.
jstemwedel | September 9, 2007Over-amplified live music. (You'd think a church group -- which is what this band turns out to be -- would be down with acoustic music instead.)
If we don't get our DSL back soon, I'm going to need some really good earplugs.
jstemwedel | September 8, 2007While sometime the phone would ring
Just as we were sitting down to eat
Or telling a bedtime story
Or trying to get out the door
Or drifting off to sleep,
There was a comfort in being
Reachable
By those who needed to reach us
And in whose reach we wanted to be.
But now, the unsteady dial tone is gone.
The earful of static has gone silent.
The landline, she is dead.
And verily, we might mourn,
Then let her rest in peace,
Survived by the cell phones.
But we need our DSL
As an academic needs her coffee*
(Or as a twentyish Objectivist needs his Rush CD),
And so we wait
For the phone company guy…
jstemwedel | September 6, 2007The bullets are addressed to different people and organizations, and I doubt very much that some of them would recognize these were addressed to them even if they received an actual memo. (It's been that kind of week.)
Be it known that:
I do not at present have the power to be in more than one place at a time. If I did, rest assured that I would find more interesting ways to use it than simply getting two kids to soccer-related activities in different locations at the same time.
I wrote a detailed FAQ for my online class for the express purpose of helping students locate the answers to…
jstemwedel | September 4, 2007My tenure dossier is due in 24 days.
My application for a sabbatical leave is due in 3 days.
Is it really possible to wrap your head around the possibility of a sabbatical, let alone map out the projects you might complete during such a leave, before the tenure dossier is wrapped up?
(Maybe they're just messing with me.)
jstemwedel | August 27, 2007This is our third teaching day of the semester (which started last Thursday), so of course, WebCT's servers decided that it would be a good time to freak out. (The official description:
... experiencing network latency within our VA2 data center that may be affecting your Blackboard environment. This may result in increased latency and/or packet loss when trying to access your hosted Blackboard system.
But you can't tell me that this doesn't amount to the servers freaking out, especially as they are still "working with our Infrastructure team to determine the cause and to work towards a…
jstemwedel | August 24, 2007One of the best things about Fridays on my campus is that hardly anyone is around. Not only does this make parking less of a headache, and interruption mid-task less probable, but it means that there's even less pressure to dress in a manner that asserts, "I am a responsible adult!"
I mean, I am a responsible adult, but must I prove it by wearing a suit?
I'm on a campus committee that meets every few weeks, on Fridays. This means that the other committee members are also likely to dress as if it were a Friday -- in jeans and T-shirts. Even dressed like graduate students, we get the job…
jstemwedel | August 23, 2007* After watching The China Syndrome tonight, I will henceforth refrain from saying "Coffee is for closers!" when I see Jack Lemmon on screen. Getting mad about falsified X-rays of welds makes his character, Jack Godell, an official friend of this blog.
* My online Philosophy of Science course has been switched on for about 12 hours and already more than 50% of the enrolled students have logged in to the course. That's good! (Sometimes, weeks into the term, I'll get phone calls asking, "So, when and where is the class going to meet?")
* My soccer team (of six-year-olds) seems to have grown…
jstemwedel | August 21, 2007In the aftermath of the ScienceBloggers' assault on Manhattan, Mark Chu-Carroll put up a nice post on the ways in which bloggers' real-life manner seemed to match or depart from their online personae.
Maybe philosophy's to blame, but I think there's a deep and interesting question here.
Mark writes:
It's quite an odd experience in its way; between our blogs, and our back-channel forums, we've become a tight-knit community, and the people there were my friends, even though I'd never seen them before.
And yet, as is clear from Mark's blogger-specific observations, there are ways in which a…
jstemwedel | August 21, 2007Actually, my memories of the semi-spontaneous confluence of ScienceBlogs sciblings in the vicinity of the Seed mothership this past weekend are quite vivid, and I'll put up a proper post on that later today.
But in the event that I hadn't remembered things so clearly, and had to piece it all together from what came home on my digital camera, my reflections on the last few day might be distorted.
I might end up with something like this:
Rob: You know what this place needs?
Chad: More physical science bloggers?
Rob: Mmm-hmm. There're lots of biologists, but they're small enough that I think…
jstemwedel | August 15, 2007As I mentioned in my last post, I was sucked out of the blogosphere for much of last week by the International Society for the Philosophy of Chemistry (ISPC) 2007 Summer Symposium .
I did not live-blog the conference. I did use overheads. Why, other than being a tremendous Luddite, would I use overheads?
One big issue that has me using overheads rather than PowerPoint presentations is time. As many conferences are, this one was scheduled within an inch of its life. Each speaker had 20 minutes to talk and 5 minutes at the end for questions and answers. Indeed, if the previous speaker…
jstemwedel | August 2, 2007Or is there just something wrong with this instrument for self-evaluation?
The average score is pegged at 15 for a woman, 18 for a man. The "Asperger's" range is 32-50.
I scored 30.
Now, I have this reputation (at least in the geek circles with which I run) of being social and diplomatic and empathetic and good at communicating. But these results would tend to suggest ... not so much.
Although I'm wondering how accurate the self-assessments are. How good a judge am I of my facility at chit-chat or of how well I "read" other people? Also, the items that ask about what you prefer (rather…
jstemwedel | July 31, 2007An old friend turned up to comment on my post about juggling, and as a woman in academia she has some familiarity with the metaphor and with the reality it's supposed to capture. She writes:
The department chair when I was hired ... suggested that although we're juggling lots of balls, the ball representing our families and home life is made of glass. I COULD take that as a message that taking care of my family is my most important job (and my work is not? grrr.) but I think he meant it more as that part of our lives outside of work supports our lives IN work, and if that one cracks, it's…