11:03 – We’re shipping our first chemistry kit to Canada today. I’ll haul it out to the local post office and ask them to take a look at it and the paperwork, and to weigh it just to make sure what it actually weighs. Then I’ll haul it back here, print the Click-and-Ship postage label and hand it to the letter carrier this afternoon.
I also need to stop by the lawn and garden store and pick two or three bags of vermiculite. One bag is four cubic feet (100+ liters). To meet shipping regulations, we pack chemicals in gallon (3.79 L) ziplock bags with a liter scoop of vermiculite added to serve as cushioning and absorbent, so one bag suffices for about 100 kits.
I spent most of yesterday making up solutions for chemistry kits. Barbara spent the day labeling, finishing 1,590 containers, which gave us 30 forensics kits’ worth. That’s one set of 30 labels for a 125 mL bottle, 20 sets for 15 mL bottles, 15 sets for 30 mL bottles, six sets for 30 mL widemouth bottles, and 11 sets for envelopes. She’d previously labeled a dozen sets of envelopes, so that means the forensics kits total 65 containers each.
And I just got off the phone with Crucial. Apparently, someone attempted to use my credit card number to place a $585 order on Tuesday. The Crucial rep said their internal security flagged the transaction immediately. They hadn’t actually run the charge through, but had only placed a query with AmEx to verify the card was valid and place a $585 reduction in our available credit. The rep said that they didn’t actually charge a card until the order shipped, which it obviously never will, so AmEx would automatically remove that $585 placeholder.
I wish our legal system would begin dealing with thieves as they used to be dealt with; at least as severely as murderers. Britain used to hang thieves, which unquestionably had a deterrent effect on the particular thief being hanged as well as on other would-be thieves. I’ve always thought Winston-Salem would be a much better place if, one weekend, we had a mass execution and hanged, say, the worst 1,000 people in Winston. Thieves, rapists, child molesters, politicians who lie or steal, scammers (particularly those who focus on the elderly), spammers, and so on.
Good luck getting the PO to weigh your package and give an opinion on the paperwork. I was in line recently and a person was doing about what you were doing. Was asking to verify weight and shipping some sort of restricted item. The PO worker put the package on the scale, touched a bunch of buttons on her touch screen, and before you know it she has slapped a postage sticker on the package and is demanding lots o’ bucks. After an almost “postal incident” the poor customer gave in and paid. Swearing as he left.
Sure agree with your last paragraph. Great subject for some viral YouTubes.
Personally, I am waiting for someone to develop personal drones. Better than a carry permit. Give it some thought.
“politicians who lie or steal”
Something is wrong with that phrase
“I’ve always thought Winston-Salem would be a much better place if, one weekend, we had a mass execution and hanged, say, the worst 1,000 people in Winston. Thieves, rapists, child molesters, politicians who lie or steal…”
Little bit of redundancy there. Is there any other type of politician?
Our atheist prime minister has just implemented the carbon tax she and her government swore (before the last election) that they wouldn’t implement. Polls show that she and her lemmings are headed for a train wreck of monumental proportions in next year’s election. And good riddance.
I’m getting eager to play with the kit, I mean, assist my son in learning the exacting science of chemistry.
I have met a politician who AFAIK never lied, at least not politically. Who knows what he told his wife? He passed away this past June 14th. He served only two four-year terms as a provincial MLA, and he left disgusted with politics. He took up writing about the province’s history, and I served as his editor on two books. Heck of a nice guy, and I am honored to have met him.
The previous Premier of BC (who professed being a devout Christian) claimed no new taxes and then added two, and was run out of town because of it. Literally. At the end, his popularity was a single digit, and he resigned in an effort to save the next election for his party. Which is seemingly doomed to fail, dooming us to an even worse bunch! I can’t draw any conclusions linking carbon taxes and religion. I’m not sure what atheism has to do with carbon taxes, but perhaps Greg can explain.
Two good things out of Europe yesterday:
– the Higgs boson discovery announcement
– this speech by a UK politico about the recent Euro Crisis meeting (with Rolling Stones reference!): http://theothermccain.com/2012/07/04/in-the-radar-world-nigel_farage-is-what-you-call-unfiltered-video/
Bill, don’t try so obviously to misunderstand.
I’m just saying that the lovely Julia is a liar like the rest of them. Since people here love to bag Christians who get caught out, I thought it fair to point out the failings of the irreligious too.
(And yes, I was exaggerating. I know some decent politicians too. And I think quite highly of the Pauls.)
Yeah, Farage is one of the good guys.
Sorry Greg, I shall endeavor to be more covert in my misunderstanding! But there was no reason to point out she is an atheist to prove she is a liar. She got to the top of the political system, so of course she’s a liar.
And I think you are being VERY unfair in your depiction of us targeting Christians. We go after the Muslims, too!
Just received a “Click-N-Ship” notice from Bob!
Someone in Portugal attempted to charge $537.22 to my USAA debit card last week. They blocked the charge and then called, text messaged, and emailed me about the attempt. I called them back, had the card closed, and a new one was sent FedEx overnight (though I did have to push them to overnight it at their expense as opposed to snail mail). Overall, very pleased with USAA.
[snip]and a new one was sent FedEx overnight (though I did have to push them to overnight it at their expense as opposed to snail mail). [snip]
My brother in law worked in the credit card department of a large (Death Star) telecom; for certain high $ customers he was allowed to send a courier on the next flight out to get new plastic in someone’s hands.
When my car got broken in and my wife’s purse was stolen I immediately called and canceled all the cards. This was on a Friday night. Discover Fedex overnight, Saturday delivery at no cost. I did not even have to ask. VISA took 8 days to get a new card.
The Oz PM doesn’t sound like an atheist. She may not be Christian, but she’s a warmingist, which is a religion as surely as any of the religions derived from Judaism.
Yesterday I kept thinking it was Sunday, and today I keep thinking it is Friday. Wonder what I will think tomorrow is?
Hotter today than yesterday. Right now over 100°F by the back door thermometer. I have taken to doing what my grandmother did, closing all blinds in the house (this is the grandmother who lived in this house). I also set the the central air from 76 down to 75. Yesterday, it got up to 81 inside, as the air could not keep up (that almost never happens). With hotter more humid weather today, it is only 77, so those 2 preventative measures have paid off. Got to get the compressor on early to get a head-start on the day.
Went out for lunch with family. It is one of those days that is so hot and humid, that when you open the car door, you get hit in the face with what seems like an ocean wave. The humidity is so bad that it feels like I am drowning.
No relief in sight.
Yo, Chuck; after your time in Germany and now with his heat wave crap where you are, wouldn’t you be happier further north? Surely your major skillz and knowledge and experience could be put to even more use thusly?
That kinda heat would just kill my ass, pardner. A day or two, OK, but not week after week, been there and done that and lost fifty pounds in about two weeks, and not in a good way.
I almost have SteveF ready to move up here to Vermont, how ’bout you?
SteveF wrote:
“The Oz PM doesn’t sound like an atheist. She may not be Christian, but she’s a warmingist, which is a religion as surely as any of the religions derived from Judaism.”
She’s a fallen Baptist, and I knew her at uni around 1980 when we were involved in so called “student politics (I call it “playground politics” nowadays) at Adelaide Uni. We both attended the Australian Union of Students national council in Melbourne in January 1981. I quite liked her, although she was on the Left, and I on the Right. I also liked the economical way she dressed… 🙂 Well, it was high summer here. I *really* wish women wouldn’t overdress so much nowadays. It can’t be good for their health.
Chuck wrote:
“Hotter today than yesterday. Right now over 100°F by the back door thermometer. ”
WAY too much information there, Chuck.
If I go north, I think it would be along the North Sea—Hamburg, maybe. Berlin’s high today was 26°C/78F. Those temps I can stand. Winters seldom had a day below freezing, although most of Europe got hit with a few weeks of sub-freezing early in this year. That is a once in a decade occurrence, though. We got more rain during the winter in Berlin than snow, and the climate is more moderate the closer to the sea one gets. Daughter in-law’s family is from Rostock, and that is another quiet place near the sea.
Actually, things seem to be moving me in the direction of leaving Tiny House before it is sold. I had more-or-less decided to wait things out until it was sold, but I suddenly realized that is not smart, because that could be years, what with the state of Tiny Town. I am spending way too much time commuting, which—after 6 years of 90 minutes one-way, every day from Strausberg to Berlin, is NOT what I want to continue doing. Things have been falling into place fairly rapidly for me to get closer to the work I am doing, and I hope I can make that happen inside of 6 months. Working towards that end, at least. Lots to accomplish, and I don’t get as much done each day as I did even 10 years ago, but I am moving mountains of boxes slowly but surely. Would get a lot more done if we had moderate weather, though.
Couple of things worth mentioning that have to do with research that most people never hear about, but matter in the long run.
Charter schools, which the free-market cult believes will save the world, are proving that their students perform no better on average than those in public schools. I happen to be acquainted with a couple of young people who are teaching in those charter schools, and their salaries are so low, they cannot continue working there. One worked a charter school by day and a full shift at Sears by night, and still did not come close to bringing in what his wife does as a paralegal. They have been married 2 years and want kids, but the income leader has to switch to him before they can do that. He has not signed up for another year at the charter school. The other charter school teacher is a woman who teaches science. She managed to get a job in a regular school system before school let out, and will double her income this year. Seems to me charter schools are turning out to be nothing more than sweat shops, pushed by the likes of job-killer Romney.
Secondly, waaay back when I was at uni, while going to school, I worked in the radio/TV department, where—in addition to making programs for the uni TV station—we made instructional programs for the classroom. One of the things we did, was to take the best professors in various departments, videotape their lectures, and then those were played on a massive campus-wide closed circuit television system where there were lots of monitors hanging in various large lecture halls around campus.
But those were utter failures. It turns out that having a Teaching Assistant read the lecture notes of the professor to a large classroom, brought much higher scores than the video lectures. That whole TV instructional effort was pretty quickly—and completely—abandonded after I graduated. Later research discovered that interactive computer was the most effective instructional aid, but the cost to develop interactive computer instruction was very high.
Ah, but Harvard and Stanford started experimenting with taped lectures again. This time there was a difference. Instead of playing the lectures to masses of students in a lecture hall, they passed out DVD’s and made the lectures available online. With the ability to watch anytime the student wants, and the added benefit of being able to stop and repeat the DVD if the student got lost or tired, the results have proved nothing short of phenomenal—much better than standard live classroom lectures. I guess that, in a way, that is interactive learning when the student can start, stop, and repeat the material.
Signs are that this may be a way to reduce the cost of university learning, where large audience lectures are recorded once, then played for years to thousands of students, where a close teacher-student relationship in introductory material is not necessary.
Meanwhile, for those who choose to get the lecture from an online source, guess what time is—by far—the most popular at both Harvard and Stanford, for students to view these lectures?
Midnight.
I was doing an introductory Sanskrit course at ANU last semester and both loved and hated the heavy online emphasis. The instructor wanted everything submitted online, but some of the software for that was buggy, and once my Internet connection went down a few hours before some work had to be submitted and stayed down till the next morning.
I liked being able to download PDFs of the course material, which unlike the photocopies of photocopies of photocopies of stuff in other courses were crystal clear. I could also download MP3s of him lecturing and chanting various texts which meant I could keep listening till I got my own chanting right.
But, I still think contact with other students is invaluable. I find it difficult to learn some stuff unless I’m in a competitive environment.
Now, as to schooling. My 62 year old sister is in the public system in South Australia, has been since 1971. She’s now in a good primary school in the SE suburbs of Adelaide, near her home, and can stay there till she retires. Although she’s told me millions of stories of how inefficient and stupid the department of education is I think she’d be mad to move to any other type of schooling. She’s making about the same salary as me, which is okay but not stellar. Two of her kids teach at Prince Alfred College, one of the best private K-12 schools in Adelaide. I think they’d be crazy to move from there into the crazy, inefficient public system. My elder niece and her husband both started off in the sorts of schools Chuck was talking about. They weren’t bad but it’s nice that they’re teaching in larger, mainstream private schools that everyone has heard of.
Regarding Chuck’s two friends, the solution is for them to get better jobs elsewhere, if they can.
Video lectures – I just don’t buy it. I’d bet their data is nicely cherry-picked.
As far as I can tell, the single most important item in classroom instruction is individualized feedback. During lectures, this is limited to Q&A, plus the instructor being aware of whether or not the students are following, and dynamically adapting the lecture to suit.
Where this comes to a head, however, is with assignments. In the big universities, where you lecture to hundreds of students, the lectures are typically accompanied by small-group practical sessions. The lectures provide the basis – and perhaps could just be videos. The real progress is made in the lab sessions. I do note the exception here: the best (top 10%) of the students can learn pretty much entirely on their own – it’s all about the other 90%.
In universities like the one I teach at, we limit lecture size to around 30 students, and the professor is responsible both for the lecture and for the interaction. This has the big positive that your typical professor ought to be a lot better at working with students than your average teaching assistent. The biggest potential pitfall is cost-based: professors are relatively expensive, so we are given a strict budget stating how many hours we can spend teaching one particular class. Since the time-consuming bit is evaluating individual exercises, it is exactly this that gets cut short.
This is where I can see computer-aided instruction working, but only if it is done really, really well. First, it has to hold the student’s attention, and be generally pleasant to use. Second, it must provide high-quality, individualized feedback. Depending on the subject, this may be relatively easy, or it may be impossibly difficult. For example, imagine an English class. Exercises where the student has to identify or correctly use particular grammatical constructs? Easy. Exercises in formulating a convincing written argument? Impossible.
The lecture videos that I have seen, and found really, really good, were all about providing a top-level overview of some subject. For example, lots of the TED-talks fall into this category: a super-sexy, well-presented introduction to some topic. However, if you really wanted to dig in and go deeper? Develop a practical understanding? The hard work comes in providing useful exercises, and giving good feedback on the student’s proposed solution.
Brad, you mind telling us what area you teach?
In first year STEM courses in 1976 we often had 200-300+ students in a lecture. Physics and chemistry both had three parallel lecture streams, maths had four, although the classes were a bit smaller. Interaction was mainly limited to tutorials and practicals. (I did some later year philosophy subjects at ANU and the constant questions from students drove me nuts. That’s what tutorials and seminars are for.)
The tutorials in physics and chem were pretty large, 100-200 at a time but there were lots of tutors. Arts subjects tended to have 8-12 people per tutorial.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t in the top 10%, except in one of my history subjects, so I really needed the competition from other students to help me gauge where I was up to. I think the social aspect of education is really important. Sure, some students will get through no matter what, but I liked being in the company of other students. I found I learned a fair bit from them.
Boy, I hadn’t realised how much Hillary had aged…
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-07-06/friends-of-syria-meeting/4115688
Maybe now you’ll stop lusting after her, and causing us gastric distress!
Computer stuff – programming, software engineering, and the like. Some of it for technical students, some of it for students who are more business-oriented, in “Business Information Systems”. So the main challenge (especially for the business students) is programming – there’s just no way to learn it, except by doing.
The social aspects are also important, but I’m not sure they affect learning/teaching directly. More of an indirect thing, the “we’re all in this together” idea of mutual support.
Of course, you also get the other kind of mutual support. Sometimes you get these really well-written projects from students (either well-written reports or well-written code). Marginal or failing students who hand in a top-quality assignment far beyond their previously demonstrated capabilities. I hate situations like that. They wind up soaking up immense amounts of time, but you just can’t let it pass, as it wouldn’t be fair to all the honest students.
Re Hillary and aging. There’s something odd in our society regarding elder stateswomen. They always, always dye their hair! Look at Hillary, look at Merkel. Both ought to be white-haired, and almost all men in their situation would be. Look at middle-aged women, like Michelle Obama – not a gray hair in sight.
Why can women politicians not let their hair go white?
I sometimes learn stuff just by hearing other people nearby talking, that’s what I meant.
I’m also miffed when people learn stuff quickly that I have taken ages to get on top of. We had a new graduate start in our section in the late Eighties who was solving Compass assembly language problems I set him faster than I could make them. (In my own defence, I had other stuff to do.)
My sister, apparently, is completely grey/white, although you’d never know it. She dyes her hair dark brown, the way it was when she was 20, and colours the hair daily or just about as it grows out grey. I never guessed till she told me. I think there’s few things more naff that hair crowing out a different colour.
Anyway, I think grey/white hair can look quite okay on the right sheila.
Eh? Angel Merkel is only 58, about to turn 59. The same age as Barbara, whose hair is as dark as it ever was. I don’t know a lot of men age 58 whose hair is white, either.
Eh? What about the pinko-anarch-libertarian-atheist owner of this site?
53 this year, and the grey has taken the lead.
The answer I’ve always given to the question “why do men age more gracefully than women?” is “Because we do”. Women fight it tooth and nail, and that’s never pretty.
I don’t know a lot of men age 58 whose hair is white, either.
Well, perhaps not white, but certainly gray.
Heck, I’m just turning 52 this year, and I’m about half-quarter-quarter, i.e,., half has fallen out, and what’s left is about half-gray. I can’t find anything terribly scientific, but the general rule of thumb seems to be: half the people are half gray at the age of 50. So I am boring and average…
Edit: Apparently this paper has some stats, but it is behind a paywall.
Like everything about humans, it ultimately comes down to sex and reproduction. Men and women judge each other, even unconsciously, for their suitability as reproductive partners. Women’s fertility peaks in their late teens to mid-twenties, which is why (normal) men of any age consider women in this age group to be more sexually attractive than younger or older women. Although men’s fertility does begin to fall off as we age, a man of 50, 60, 70 or older is still capable of fathering children. And for women a big part of reproductive attractiveness has to do with how good a provider a man is likely to be. After all, they’re stuck for 9 month in pregnancy and then years more in caring for their children. They need a partner who will be there and help. And an older guy is often better from that standpoint than a younger guy. He’s likely to be better established, less likely to roam, and wealthier. That’s why many, many women find older men sexually attractive.
It really is all about biology, even when we’re not aware of it.
For a 54 year old I have a remarkable amount of hair. It’s just that it started going grey at 20. My brother started going bald at 20. I know which I’d prefer.
I don’t care about my hair being fairly grey, I’ve never tried to colour it. I used to have a Vietnamese boss whose hair was shot through with grey. One day I noticed his hair was solidly jet black, which I expect of Vietnamese. He said his wife had insisted he dye his hair a month ago. It took me that long to notice.
I think women with grey hair *can* look very attractive, so long as the rest of them looks okay.
Greg says: “I think women with grey hair *can* look very attractive, so long as the rest of them looks okay.”
Emmylou Harris is outstanding in grey.
Yes she is; she is, in fact, stunningly gorgeous. But she could stand to put on a few pounds.
OFD’s hair is still the same dark auburn, at nearly 59, it was when he was 19 or 9. And getting long again. But the hair on his chin and upper lip is red with plenty of gray/white in it. My dad went bald at 25 but HIS dad kept a more or less full head of red hair until age 79. My mom’s dad kept a full head of mostly dark gray hair until he checked out. Her mom, though, who’d had red hair, had it all turn white about the same time that senile dementia took over, although I don’t know if that’s related in any way. And my little brother, ten years younger than me, who’s had the same color hair as me, has now had it turn gray, which may or may not be to the chemo treatments he recently went through.
All three of my brothers have dealt with one form or another of cancer and they’re all younger than me; my sister has dealt with epilepsy since she was 13. And now my mom has Pick’s Disease, a wonderful little variant of Alzeheimer’s, which killed my dad way early.
Me? I have a bunion and hammer toe on my right foot and the little finger on my right hand is apparently a hammer finger. I am also a crazy ex-drunk and war vet and former cop, and armed to the teeth. Cancer and senility better not mess with me. I prefer the third most frequent cause of death in my family: gunshot.
My pooter thermometer sez 81 but that’s bullshit; it’s gotta be at least five to ten above that, and humid. Supposed to slack off this weekend and for this next week a bit.
And HILLARY! has always been a mousy, chunky little troll with legs like tree trunks and no rack to speak of. Most librul and Left womyn are pretty fugly, while most conservative chicks are fairly hot. Why is this? I know of no better place to ask….
Bill sez:
“Greg says: “I think women with grey hair *can* look very attractive, so long as the rest of them looks okay.”
Emmylou Harris is outstanding in grey.”
Well, I’ll just say you’re entitled to your opinion…