Passing thoughts
jstemwedel | May 26, 2007
Ahem.
Beach ball here! Kids, I'm not going to march myself into the stadium!
That's better. Thanks dude!
The pomp! The circumstance!
How long is this supposed to take?
Well, the people on the podium giving the speeches won't mind if we entertain ourselves.
Whee!
Just keep it under control or else --
Uh, you're kind of young to be a graduate, aren't you?
Can I go home with you?
jstemwedel | May 24, 2007This post brought to you by my intense desire to avoid grading any more papers.
More than a dozen years ago, when I earned my Ph.D. in chemistry, I made what many at the time viewed as a financially reckless decision and purchased academic regalia rather than just renting it.
At the time, there was apparently just one company who even made the regalia for the university from which I earned my degree. Given their monopoly, they could charge a bundle -- almost $600 -- for the gown, hood, and mortarboard. (Despite the price, I would also argue that the uniform still needed modifications to be…
jstemwedel | May 21, 2007I used to think what I really needed this time of semester was elves.
When the term papers and final exams and case studies and research reports were in their stacks on my desk, casting shadows on my prospects of getting any other substantial projects done, I'd think, "Wouldn't it be nice if I could just leave these papers on my desk with a box of red pens, and have elves come at night and grade them? It would be like a fairy tale ..."
But seriously, knowing fairy-tale elves, there would be some trick. Sure, they'd grade the papers, but then they'd take my tenure dossier until I could guess…
jstemwedel | May 17, 2007Dave at The World's Fair is collecting field data on coffee mugs. Or maybe he's trying to create a meme.
Anyway, he poses a bunch of questions which I seem to be unable to resist answering:
Can you show us your coffee cup?
Can you comment on it? Do you think it reflects on your personality?
Do you have any interesting anecdotes resulting from coffee cup commentary?
Can you try to get others to comment on it?
My answers will be restricted to the coffee delivery vessels (all three of them) I use at work, thus excluding the travel mug I use in the car on weekday mornings and the mugs I use at…
jstemwedel | May 15, 2007Today is our last day of classes before final exams, and it's looking like this semester is notably different from the nine semesters that came before it:
As well as I can ascertain, none of my students have committed plagiarism in any of their assignments for me!
Yes, that should be the normal state of affairs, but we are painfully aware of the gap between "is" and "ought", are we not? Some semesters, I've had to deal with multiple plagiarists. This term, no cheating-related paperwork for me.
Thank you, students, for restoring some of my faith in humanity. Be sure to eat healthy food, get…
jstemwedel | May 11, 2007I would like to rejoice that it is Friday. And yet, as the end of the semester draws nigh, the press of Tasks That Cannot Be Deferred Any Longer is sucking a good bit of the Friday-ness out of this Friday.
So, I suppose this post is the cyber-equivalent of an itemized primal scream:
When the review sheet for a final exam has, at the bottom, in letters that are bolded, a clear statement of the day, date, and time of the final exam, what should I make of the fact that students have been emailing me to ask for the day, date, and time of the final exam? (By the way, this same information is in…
jstemwedel | May 5, 2007Depending on your blog reading habits, you may already have heard the news that feels almost like cosmic justice that a law firm has rescinded an offer of employment from a third year law student whose online activities the firm found troubling. The linked posts will give you some flavor for those activities (as will this post), so I'm not going to go into the gory details here. However, I wanted to say a few words about this comment Amanda Marcotte made on Sheezlebub's post on the matter:
While it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy, I simply have to voice my unease with the politics of…
jstemwedel | April 29, 2007I've been dawdling on this. I was tagged by not one but two of my blog pals for the Thinking Blogger meme. Here are the official rules of the meme:
If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think,
Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme,
Optional: Proudly display the 'Thinking Blogger Award' with a link to the post that you wrote (here is an alternative silver version if gold doesn't fit your blog).
Needless to say, I'm flummoxed by the fact that Zuska and Bill would have been in my list -- but they tagged me,…
jstemwedel | April 24, 2007This tool uses an algorithm to guess whether the chunk of text you enter into the text box was written by a male or a female. What do you suppose it thought about my writing?
It depends on the post. For example this post got:
Female Score: 1616
Male Score: 1380
which is to say, "FEMALE", while this post got:
Female Score: 3271
Male Score: 4308
which is to say, "MALE".
Who knew I was so versatile?
The algorithm seems to be based on tracking frequencies of words that, apparently, are more commonly used by females (with, if, not, where, be, when, your, her, we, should, she, and, me, myself…
jstemwedel | April 17, 2007Friend of the blog LO alerted me to The Great Turtle Race, wherein a passel of leatherback sea turtles "race" from Playa Grande in Costa Rica to the Galapagos Islands. The linked website it tracking the turtles via satellite, so you can watch their progress and root for your favorite. (I'm pulling for Stephanie Colburtle, "an intensely patriotic turtle who can fly through the water like an eagle".) There is also information there about leatherback sea turtle populations and ways you can help protect them.
jstemwedel | April 16, 2007Today was fully scheduled for me. Prepping for class, participating in a phone interview, teaching, midday meeting with my department chair and a dean to discuss developing an ethics module for an intro class in another department, more teaching, power-photocopying for this week's Socrates Cafe, then a dash to the car to get the sprogs in time for elder offspring's soccer practice.
It wasn't until about 20 minutes into my drive home that I heard the news about the shootings at Virginia Tech.
I'm still having trouble getting words to really wrap themselves around the immediate feeling of…
jstemwedel | March 27, 2007If you got here by following the link from Dennis Overbye's story about the movie Dark Matter, you may want to read the post he quotes about Theodore Streleski and the dangers of extreme power imbalance between graduate students and their advisors. (It's also possible that this time next year I can post a follow-up about the less extreme but still real power imbalances between the tenured and the untenured.)
And now, let me indulge in a tiny bit of grumbling about linkage:
Regular readers of this weblog may have guessed by now that my blogging is not aimed at getting huge traffic. I'm…
jstemwedel | March 13, 2007There will be a real post again within a day or so. I've been doing stuff in the three-dimensional world. So you don't feel left out:
I started coaching U6 soccer again for the Spring season. It's been 4.5 months since the end of the Fall season. They still have microscopic attention spans.
Apropos of nothing at all on the interwebs: One of my favorite activities in the whole world is engaging in real dialogue with people who hold different views than mine, where everyone in the dialogue takes each other seriously and no one starts by presuming that the other views are prima facie stupid…
jstemwedel | March 12, 2007... especially if you've just lost an hour to an unseasonably early Daylight Savings (can I blame the groundhog for this?), here are some attractive time sinks:
Pick a bracket. Maybe you've already picked your bracket for the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Even ScienceBloggers partake in such diversions, myself included. (This year, all my picks were determined by coin toss.) But basketball isn't your only Spring spectator sport option. Check out the 2007 Science Spring Showdown at The World's Fair. Grab a bracket and start making your picks. The match-ups to watch in the first…
jstemwedel | March 12, 2007Chris at Mixing Memory points to research that suggests musical preferences provide a window to the personality. I haven't seen the research yet but, at Chris's prompting, I'll throw myself into the ring as an experimental subject by listing 10 songs I like an awful lot*:
Red Hot Chili Peppers, Knock Me Down
Ani Di Franco, Gravel
Public Enemy, Can't Do Nuttin' for Ya Man
Sleater-Kinney, Good Things
Steely Dan, My Old School
Billy Bragg, St. Swithin's Day
Nina Simone, My Baby Just Cares for Me
The Beatles, I'm Only Sleeping
Descendants, Wendy
Dar Williams, In Love But Not at Peace
There are…
jstemwedel | March 9, 2007There's a rumor* that, when he's in his cups, PZ Myers sounds like an overeducated -- some might say Shakespearian -- pirate.
Therefore, in honor of his birthday, I offer this sonnet:
Paul Myers' squids are nothing if not fun,
Eviscerating with their beaks aglow.
They squirt their ink upon each Myers son
And Davy Jones, whose locker lies below.
Once naught but a developmental stage,
"Pharyngula" a mighty blog now names
Where readers may delight or burn with rage:
For PZ pulls no punches, plays no games.
This sage whose bearded visage is resolved
With zebrafish in nearby tanks arrayed:
How…
jstemwedel | March 6, 2007Surely I am not the only academic who feels perpetually buried under -- well, under stuff that needs doing. It's a very daunting pile, and sometimes I think that the only plausible way that I could catch up would be to fake my own death.
But one must not lose perspective. Progress is made occasionally. And, in the background, there are cool things that make the press of obligations more tolerable.
So, this Tuesday night, I urge myself onward by taking stock of some good things, and some wee bits of progress.
We'll start with the progress, for which I am indebted to the strategy of…
jstemwedel | March 3, 2007As seen at Rants of a Feminist Engineer and See Jane Compute.
Ten Weird Things about Me:
1. I won the first NCAA basketball pool in which I participated, picking the teams in my bracket with absolutely no knowledge of the strengths and weaknesses of their teams. Just based on my impressions of the schools (or in some cases, the names of the schools), I nailed three of the Final Four, not to mention the winner of the tournament. I have never done well in an NCAA basketball pool since then.
2. I like the puffed Cheetos-like snacks (although no-name brands more than actual Cheetos) when they'…
jstemwedel | March 1, 2007The inaugural edition of Scientiae, the new women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics blog carnival, has been posted at Rants of a Feminist Engineer. Skookumchick has assembled an impressive array of posts dealing with joys as well as frustrations -- go check it out!
Also, the 55th Skeptics' Circle is up at The Second Sight, and the skeptics think they have your number. (You don't believe me? Click on the link and find out for yourself!)
Bonus after the jump: See what kind of frog I am.
So ugly, it's cute! Budgett's Frogs, named after the explorer who discovered them,…
jstemwedel | February 14, 2007Yes, Valentine's Day is in the top three Hallmark holidays of the year. No, it is not a holiday actually created by Hallmark, despite what half a dozen people have independently asserted to me in the last 48 hours. I am appalled that the commercialization of this holiday has people keeping score on who loves the most (and who is most loved) on the basis of overpriced flowers, jewelry, and chocolate.*
The rampant commercialism of the day notwithstanding, this seems like as good a time as any to share some love:
Love of science: Although Zuska's Joy of Science course has already kicked off,…