polls
drorzel | December 6, 2010I'm going to be at a media training session for most of the day. I had hoped to have a long and silly post about physics to schedule today, but, well, that didn't happen. So here's a silly poll to pass the time.
The name of element number 13, chemical symbol Al, is pronounced with how many syllables?survey software
We normally deal in macroscopic quantities of this one, so quantum superpositions of answers are right out.
drorzel | November 25, 2010It's Thanksgiving here in the US, so blogging will be light to nonexistent. For the sake of those looking for a quick escape from the chaos of a family gathering, or, you know, those poor benighted souls in other countries for whom this is just another Thursday, here's a thematically appropriate poll about science:
What are you most thankful for?online surveys
Have a great holiday/ Thursday.
drorzel | November 22, 2010I don't think this one requires any explanation:
Hello:customer surveys
Staying up watching the Giants game last night was not conducive to getting anything useful done this morning.
drorzel | November 22, 2010I'm giving the final exam in my introductory E&M class this morning, which means spending a couple of hours sitting in a room full of students taking a test and doing my best not to fall asleep. As far as I'm concerned, getting rid of exam proctoring is the best argument for an honor code system-- I'm less worried about cheating than I am annoyed at wasting my time.
Anyway, here's a thematically appropriate poll to pass the time:
Which of the following activities are less fun than proctoring an exam (check all that apply)online survey
PollDaddy handles multiple-selection polls in a…
drorzel | November 18, 2010I'm grading a big backlog of homeworks today, so I don't have time to do any really lengthy posts this morning. Thus, a poll question inspired by going through these homeworks:
You are doing a physics homework problem. How many significant figures do you report?survey software
While the class in question uses some quantum ideas, the poll is strictly classical, so no superpositions of multiple answers are allowed.
(Honestly, at some point, I would expect laziness alone to compel people to round their answers off before their hands cramp up from copying all these digits...)
drorzel | November 10, 2010We've just recently completed pre-registration for Winter term classes, so I've been thinking a bit about why students do and do not sign up for things. Thus, a poll:
You are a college student considering an elective class in your major, and you see it has a lab. Your reaction is:survey software
Feel free to replace "English" with the non-lab-science major of your choice when answering.
drorzel | November 10, 2010Having posted not one but two snarky political entries in recent days, I feel like I owe the Internet a couple of ResearchBlogging posts to make up for it. It's the last week of classes here, though, which means I have a lot of frantic work to do. Thus, a frivolous poll inspired by the cinnamon rolls I had with breakfast:
The sugary white stuff on top of baked goods is:survey software
While this will almost certainly get more votes for "I will explain in a comment" than comments-- that seems to be an Internet tradition-- it's still a classical poll, and thus you must choose one and only one…
drorzel | October 29, 2010Chateau Steelypips lost power this morning for unknown reasons, preventing me from putting up the post I planned to do with lots of cute toddler pictures. Thus, a quickie poll in honor of the crazy person a couple of blocks away who sometimes yells at me for dropping Emmy's bagged poop into her full trash cans while they're at the curb:
Somebody else dropping a bag of dog poop into your trash can when it's at the curb awaiting pickup is:online surveys
As noted a long time ago, this would be a great opening scene for an episode of CSI (Call me, CBS. We'll talk.), but beyond that, I'm kind of…
drorzel | October 27, 2010I'm spending a good chunk of the morning grading the exam that I gave yesterday, so here's a poll on what you might call exam philosophy. Our classes are small, so the bulk of our exams are free-response problems, and we tend to break those problems into sub-parts (1a, 1b, 1c, etc.). There are two approaches to writing these questions that I have seen: one is to use the sub-parts to break a single problem into steps, thus leading students through the question; the other is to write questions where the sub-parts are independent, so that a student who has no clue how to answer part a can still…
drorzel | October 25, 2010I almost forgot something that I need to do today, so no lengthy and detailed blogging this morning. Instead, a quick poll regarding Neil Gaiman's suggestion of giving kids scary books for Halloween:
Neil Gaiman suggests giving kids scary books for Halloween. What do you think?online surveys
Halloween is a classic holiday, which means you're bound by classical rules, and can only choose one item, not a quantum superposition of multiple options.
(I think he means giving scary books to kids you know or are related to, not handing them out to Trick-or-Treaters, but it's more amusing to picture…
drorzel | October 22, 2010On the way in to work, I heard yet another example of the deplorable trend of taking the vocal tracks of slow songs-- in this case, "The Kids Don't Stand a Chance" by Vampire Weekend-- and replacing the musical backing with a 120 beats-per-minute dance beat that sounds like it was generated by a high-end Casio keyboard. These turn up over and over, and every time it happens, it annoys me to no end.
But why should pop music be the only genre to get this treatment? Thus, a poll suggesting some other slow songs that ought(?) to receive this treatment:
What slow song is most in need of a dance-…
drorzel | October 20, 2010As a sort of follow-up to yesterday's post asking about incompetent teachers, a poll on what you might call the "Peter Threshold," after the Peter Principle. Exactly how many incompetent members can an organization tolerate?
The acceptable level of incompetence in any organization (that is, the fraction of employees who can't do their jobs) is:Market Research
This was prompted by one commenter's estimate that 30% of business managers are incompetent, which seems awfully high to be acceptable, particularly in the business world where, we're told, incompetents are regularly fired without…
drorzel | October 15, 2010A big and important argument about religion and science has flared up again on Twittter. It occurs to me, though, that nobody has taken the obvious step of polling people about their actual beliefs, so let's see if we can't settle this question with (social) SCIENCE!:
I would prefer to be a member of:Market Research
What? It's not like this is any more pointless than the actual science-and-religion argument that's going on in blogdom.
drorzel | October 15, 2010Standing around in the cold for a few hours yesterday, then driving for almost five hours has given the cold SteelyKid had a week or so ago the opening it needed to infect me, so I'm all hoarse and achy this morning. Which means you get silly blogging, such as this poll inspired by some edits I had to make to this week's lab in the intro E&M class I'm teaching:
The code for those little colored bars on electrical resistors is:online survey
I know you'd like to be able to click more than one answer. Life's tough. Get a helmet.
drorzel | September 21, 2010On my walk with Emmy this morning, I noticed that a house a couple streets over has just gone on the market, and they had one of those "Please take one" boxes on the yard sign, with a bunch of one-page fliers about the house. Even though we have no intention of moving any time soon (and, in fact, are planning to have the basement redone), I took one because, well, I want to know what our neighbors' houses are like, and what they're selling for.
Which brings us to the silly poll topic:
The fraction of real-estate fliers picked up by people who live in the neighborhood and just want to know…
drorzel | September 16, 2010In a place I can't link to, I encountered the somewhat boggling statement that "Nature leans more in the direction of Popular Science than Critically Peer Reviewed [Journal]." Thus, a quick poll:
Nature is:online surveys
Context is for the weak.
drorzel | September 13, 2010A fairly straightforward question: quantum physicists divide the world into two categories of things, fermions and bosons. What's your favorite object having integer spin?
What's your favorite boson?online survey
Superpositions of answers, while allowed in properly symmetrized wavefunctions, are not valid responses to this poll.
drorzel | September 10, 2010A simple one, that I'm sure all the faculty in the audience will recognize. What is the proper approach to meeting with a professor outside of class:
You email a professor asking to meet, and he responds "My office hours are from X:00-Y:00, or I'm free at Z:00." You:online survey
Even if we're talking about a quantum physics class, faculty are classical entities for all practical purposes, so you can only choose one answer.
drorzel | September 7, 2010Not prompted by anything specific, but something I've occasionally wondered about: what's the threshold for "most"? Thus, a poll:
The minimum percentage of X doing Y that you would need to feel justified saying "Most X do Y" is:survey software
I know I tend to use "most" to mean something considerably more than just 51%, but I'm not sure how widely that's shared. When you say that "most" of some category of things have some property, do you mean a simple majority, or some kind of supermajority?