This morning, younger offspring asked me what “hyperbolic” meant. (Yeah, I’ll admit that this is because I used it in conversation with younger offspring. It was not a conversation about conic sections or trigonometry, though, so cut me some slack.)
Anyway, long story short, I now have a product I totally need to market, even though it’ll probably result in Orac lambasting me in his “Friday Dose of Woo” feature:
Category Archives: Passing thoughts
Monday grab bag (with important question to readers)
Yeah, I’m grading. (Maybe you would be too if you weren’t reading the blogs, hmm?) But I wanted to check in.
- I pulled my back loading the car for the last soccer game of the season. What’s the proper inference to draw from that (besides the obvious: that I’m getting old and all this grading is doing nothing for my muscle tone)?
- How is it that if I make assignments at school they often are left undone, whereas if I make assignments on my blog, people do the work and turn it in? (Are we now awarding ScienceBlogs course credit?)
- As much as I hate feeding capitalism (seriously, ask these guys) and consumerism, I do like nurturing the interests of the young in positive directions. So, to balance the bad stuff out there on the market, I’m putting together a round up of brain-friendly gift ideas for the youngsters. My question to you: What games, toys, or other giftables would you recommend for a kid who may or may not have an interest in math and science? Tell me by email (and expound on why your suggestion rocks), and I’ll compile a list of the favorites to go up in the neighborhood of Buy Nothing Day. (You can research on Buy Nothing Day, I think).
More when I emerge, victorious, from the stack of papers.
The student loan letter.
Something quite unexpected happened to me: I managed to pay off a student loan nearly a year before I go up for tenure! Who’d have thunk it?
Here’s the letter they sent me, with a bit of reading between the lines:
Bits and pieces, posted from Vancouver.
First the really important thing: if you haven’t done it yet, write some letters (or send some faxes) to save the Tripoli six. You’ll be glad that you did something to stand up for truth and fairness.
Less life-or-death, but still worthy: Shelley Batts from Retrospectacle is up for a Student Blogger Scholarship, and you can vote for her here.
Now, I’m off to meet John Wilkins for lunch. From our phone conversation:
John: You know what I look like?
Me: Kind of like an albino gorilla?
John: That’s an old photo …
More soon!
To Canada I will go with pockets a-jingling.
So, I’m getting ready to go to Vancouver, BC, next week for the Philosophy of Science Association meeting (which coincides with the Society for Social Studies of Science meeting and the History of Science Society meeting). And I’m really jazzed that I’ll get to meet John Lynch and John Wilkins and Ben Cohen and David Ng in the three-dimensional world.
But I’m also psyched that I’m going to be able to get rid of all the Canadian coinage that has found its way into my hands over the last several years.*
What I would (and would not) tell 12-year-old me.
Riffing on a Fark.com thread, John Lynch ponders the pearls of wisdom he might offer his 12-year-old self. This got me to thinking that there is useful advice I’d want to share with that earlier time-slice of me, but there is also information about which I think I’d keep earlier-me in the dark.*
Here’s what I’d share with my 12-year-old self:
Death is not an option (mid-semester version).
I’m starting to wonder if some of my grinding fatigue can be laid at the feet of untenable choices.
Would you prefer:
ScienceBlogs house band: some nominations.
Ben thinks it’s time to start auditioning for a ScienceBlogs house band.
Under the guidance of the Adventures in Ethics and Science Musical Advisory Panel (i.e., the sprogs), I’ve come up with a few suggestions:
Time to play “find the pattern”!
It’s no Puzzle Fantastica #1, but it’s what I have at the moment.
In a comment on my post about what I think the point of a college education is (or is not), Caledonian left this tantalizing comment:
Free advice for would-be plagiarists.
Disclaimer: Plagiarism is bad. A quick search for “plagiarism” on this blog will demonstrate that I’ve taken a clear stand against plagiarism.
That said, if one were, hypothetically, planning a little online-copy-and-paste plagiarism, and if one’s instructor has earned a Ph.D., in Philosophy, from Stanford, one might reconsider using the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy as the source of several uncited sentences.
There is a better-than-average chance that the instructor is familiar with SEP — indeed, even with the specific entry you (hypothetically) are tempted to plunder.
Even if she’s not, she’s at least as handy with a Google search as you are.