Passing thoughts
jstemwedel | September 5, 2008OK, I don't actually believe in earthquake weather, but it was really hot today and the house just shook. (I could see the shaking as well as feel it.)
I'm going to check what others are reporting to the USGS. Be right back.
UPDATE: So far, it seems to be a magnitude 4 or so -- a wee temblor. Here's hoping letting off stress like this keeps the ginormous killer earthquakes at bay.
jstemwedel | September 3, 2008
The sprogs were beside themselves with excitement yesterday on the eve of the first day of a new school year. Will this excitement persist? Will the first homework assignments deflate it? It remains to be seen.
The "Yay! We get to go to school tomorrow!" mood extended to our divvying up of the "requested voluntary donations" yesterday afternoon. In our school district, "requested voluntary donations" are required school supplies that the classroom budget does not cover; it's tempting to send in a note to the teachers explaining that "voluntary" does not mean what they seem to think it…
jstemwedel | August 18, 2008The Free-Ride family is spending a week communing with Free-Ride forebears on neutral turf in Wisconsin. Internet access is spotty, so while I have access to the tubes, a few quick observations:
It's really green here in August. Back in our part of California, it's never this green unless you're still within the rainy season. And that's in the winter.
The tourist traps are remarkably nice -- not crowded or Disneyfied, lots of fresh air and things growing, and restaurant prices that are actually reasonable.
However, others of the tourists feel compelled to share with us what they know…
jstemwedel | August 7, 2008The state of the seedlings in my raised beds, nearly three weeks after the seeds were sown:
Look at those happy scarlet runner beans! Soon I'm going to have to give them some help climbing up that fence.
The bush beans are also coming right along, as are the soy beans:
Indeed, we're getting to the point where I probably should "thin" the bean plants so they have enough room to grow to maturity. I always feel a little sad for the seedlings that get sacrificed for the good of their brethren.
I'd actually feel OK about it if we already had evidence of earthworm who might nom on the…
jstemwedel | August 7, 2008First, from the Seed Overlords:
You may have noticed some pretty yellow banner ads around the site this week. They're advertising a huge reader survey that we're conducting right now. Anyone (excepting Seed employees) who fills it out can enter to win an iPod and MacBook Air.
The survey takes about 10 minutes to complete. Here's the survey page:
http://www.erdossurvey.com/sb/survey/
Then, following the lead of Ed, Bora, DrugMonkey, and Alice, I'd like to invite the readers of this blog, from regular commenters to committed lurkers, to check in.
Tell us who you are, what brings you here…
jstemwedel | August 4, 2008A quick update on the details for the meet-up in Manhattan this coming Saturday:
Owing to the number of people who say they'll be coming (large) and the weather forecast (chance of thundershowers), we will not be meeting at the Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History.
We'll be meeting somewhere else. Once that somewhere else is known to me, I will post details (including information on how to get there by subway).
UPDATE: The location is now known!
We'll be at: Social, 795 8th Ave (close to 48th St.), New York, NY 10019.
Google maps it thusly. It appears to be close to…
jstemwedel | July 31, 2008For those of you who expressed an interest (even telepathically) in the meet-up of ScienceBlogs bloggers and readers in the three-dimensional world (specifically, Manhattan) next Saturday, I now have much more precise details:
UPDATE: We won't be meeting at the Arthur Ross Terrace. (Thundershowers are in the forecast, and our group looks like it will be large.) When I have information on the actual venue (and how to get there) I will post it here.
We'll be meeting at 2:00 pm on Saturday, August 9, at the Arthur Ross Terrace at the American Museum of Natural History in Central Park. Once…
jstemwedel | July 28, 2008For those of you following the chronicle of my raised garden beds, here's the first update.
I planted the seeds in the garden beds on July 20.
As of today, July 28, a bunch of the seeds I planted have sprouted.
First up, as expected, were the radishes. Those of us who get impatient should always plant radishes. Not only can they be counted on to sprout in about 5 days, but they also grow to maturity in about a month.
Pictured here are the daikon radish sprouts. Assuming that vermin do not get to them, we'll probably use some of the daikons we harvest in salads and we'll probably pickle…
jstemwedel | July 26, 2008I have a little bit more (tentative) information on the upcoming meet-up in Manhattan on Saturday, August 9 (which is only two weeks away):
The time looks like it will fall in the 2:00-4:00 PM time slot.
The location is looking like it will be in or near Central Park.
I know that a meet-up in Central Park undercuts the initial promise of air conditioning. Nonetheless, I am convinced it will still be a fun time, and that no one will melt into a puddle of dissatisfaction. I say this as a former denizen of the East Coast who lost her ability to hold up under humidity within 8 months of…
jstemwedel | July 24, 2008PhysioProf tagged me using his Feministe guest blogger bully-pulpit. The idea is to identify the five most embarrassing tracks on your iPod. (Since I use the iTunes library on my iBook more than my iPod, that's what I used.)
This was harder than it might have been. It turns out, when it comes to my musical tastes, I have very little shame.
Sure, there's plenty of music in my collection that isn't in my computer (CDs and LPs), so I suppose there may be some real stinkers hiding on my shelves. But one of the most listened to albums on my computer is William Shatner's Has Been.
My music-…
jstemwedel | July 20, 2008... sometimes require hard work, at least when the experimental digs are raised garden beds. Seriously, when was the last time you moved 14.5 cubic yards of topsoil and compost? (Not that I did it all myself, of course. My better half did quite a bit of it, and the Free-Ride offspring even pitched in.)
Pictures of the end result of 4 days of dirt-moving labor:
23 inch deep beds are nice for root development. But that's a lot of dirt.
It's a lot of dirt especially when there are five beds to fill. (Plus, mixing the topsoil and the compost in the beds is strenuous exercise.)
That piece…
jstemwedel | July 15, 2008I'm on sabbatical for academic year 2008-2009. This being summer, you'd think I'd consider the sabbatical officially begun.
Not quite. But I'm getting closer. All that remains:
Grading the papers from the graduate seminar that I was persuaded to team-teach.
Calculating final grades for the students in the aforementioned graduate seminar and filing those final grades by Friday.
Helping my advisees usher two masters theses into final form.
Helping a student from last fall complete an "incomplete".
One last committee meeting.
There's also some desk cleaning and family vacation taking. But…
jstemwedel | May 29, 2008Since I read it last Friday I have been meaning to say something about this article in Inside Higher Ed about why female academic appear to have lower birthrates than male academics and than female professionals in other fields. Of course, between work and family obligations (and grinding fatigue) it's taken me until now to get to it.
Is this a clue of some sort?
Luckily, Sciencewoman has written a thoughtful and detailed rumination, and she links to Dr. Crazy's, Mommy Prof's, and Dean Dad's fine discussions, too, so I can keep it brief.
From the outside, academia looks like a perfect…
jstemwedel | May 24, 2008
Yesterday, heading out to lunch with some colleagues, I noticed some of the other people out on the street were ... oddly attired. We saw these folks as we were passing by a cinema, so our first thought was, "Maybe this has something to do with the Speed Racer movie?"
And then we remembered the banners, and last year's Memorial Day weekend in downtown San Jose.
"Egad!" we exclaimed, "It's time for FanimeCon again!" By midday Saturday, the streets will be swarming with people dressed as anime characters.
Of course, that's not the only big happening in San Jose with oddly dressed…
jstemwedel | May 22, 2008Another dispatch from grading Hell (fourth circle), in which the reader gains some insight into circumstances which evoke my sympathy, and circumstances which do not.
I have this pedagogical strategy where I try to make my students think more than they have to write. One way this strategy manifests itself is in how I deal with case studies on finals exams.
We've spent the whole semester working up case study responses following a standard plan of attack -- identifying the interested parties in the case, the potential consequences for those interested parties if the protagonist in the case…
jstemwedel | May 17, 2008Which would you totally do if you didn't know better (and suspect someone might catch you)?
Option 1: Yank on the cord, not the plug, to unplug that appliance.
Option 2: Step on the very top step of the step-ladder (that the warning label admonishes you not to use as a step) to get the lemons off the high branches.
Me? I'm having lemonade this afternoon.
jstemwedel | May 15, 2008The 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 time. But today, we had the final exam in that room. And unlike most class meetings, every single chair in the room was filled.
And we experienced record highs, temperature-wise.
So, how hot was it? I give you the testimony of one of the students taking the final today:
"I blame any mistakes on…
jstemwedel | May 12, 2008Which 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 items (since "the logical place to look for it" means different things to different students).
But a vocal segment of the students in the class clearly do not avail themselves of this resource. (Instead, they email you to ask you for the information they could find by accessing the website -- or, you…
jstemwedel | May 8, 2008I 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 Science" class (for two class sections) - done
Remember to distribute student evaluations - done
Devise two more rubrics with which to evaluate case study responses for the engineering ethics module and distribute them to my unholy army of the night grading team - done
Grade the last case study from my…
jstemwedel | May 6, 2008I'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 read substantial excerpts without prodding myself to double back to read the whole thing.)
And now for the books:
Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (1969)
The Alexandria Quartet by Lawrence Durrell (1957-60)
A Rebours by JK Huysmans (1884)
Baby and Child Care by Dr Benjamin Spock (1946)
The Beauty…