maybe there is a text-adventure version...?
Some construction guy sat next to me on the train and pulled out an IBM ThinkPad laptop he bought for $100. The thing is seriously 2" thick. He decides he wants to chat with me about computers. (I was not using my laptop at the moment. I was reading. I decided it would be rude to pull out my shiny $1500 PowerBook at this point in the conversation.) He says he has a bunch of computers at home, but has never owned a laptop, and he bought this one off a friend who happened to have it under his sofa. (It looks it.) He says he wants to install XP on it so that he can use it to play World of Warcraft.
Dude...
If you get THAT machine to run World of Warcraft? I will personally set my Mac on fire in celebration!
Wednesday, January 31
div E = rho/epsilon_0...
I had my relativity class today and my music class. I managed to arrange it so that I talked about Maxwell's Equations in both classes. In music class?? Yes! A stretch? Yes. But anytime I can recycle material, I do. Someday, people are going to figure out that no matter what the name is of the class I'm teaching, 20% of the material I cover is exactly the same in every course. When this happens, I am likely to get into trouble. Until then? It's 20% less work for me!!
I had my relativity class today and my music class. I managed to arrange it so that I talked about Maxwell's Equations in both classes. In music class?? Yes! A stretch? Yes. But anytime I can recycle material, I do. Someday, people are going to figure out that no matter what the name is of the class I'm teaching, 20% of the material I cover is exactly the same in every course. When this happens, I am likely to get into trouble. Until then? It's 20% less work for me!!
Tuesday, January 30
not what you want to see...
When you get to the train platform in the morning...
Yup. That there train is DEAD. If this was a Monday or a Wednesday, you'd have to suffer a stream of vulgarity right now, but as it is... I really don't care too much. I have office hours today, and was supposed to help a coworker with her Mac, but... other than that I really have no reason to be in the city at all. I'm going to sit at this cafe near the station until 8:15... if the 8:15 is running, great... if not... I'm going home. Or somewhere. But nothing I have to do in NYC is important enough for me to stand in the cold this early in the morning.
Update (8:18) - Yup. The train is running. I'm kinda disappointed actually, I was looking forward to going home and grabbing a nap. I guess this is for the best, though. I do have stuff that needs to get done.
Speaking of which... I've decided that the greatest danger facing me this year is that I will piss away all of this free time I'm going to have and wind up with nothing to show for my "easy semester" by the end of it. I'm looking at two classes here, one of which I've taught several times before, and another that I'm team teaching, which means half the time I don't even have to be ready to SAY anything when the class starts. Both classes are M/W, which means Tuesdays I have the whole day free at work, Thursdays I'm home with the kid, and Friday I have all morning and afternoon home with NO kids and blissful quiet. Something should get DONE. Papers should get published, books should get written, masterpieces should be painted, symphonies should be composed!!
So I'm doing this thing where I schedule every block of time, every day. I'm using OmniOutliner to do it, which makes it seem like fun. I'm leaving lots and lots of time for tasks like reading blogs and watching TV on the laptop, but also scheduling specific times for writing, specific times for grading, specific times for paperwork... all the things that usually slip through the cracks. For example, here is Tuesday's schedule, as I have it written out so far...
Perfectly reasonable. In fact, there is way more goofing off than work slated for every day. I think it helps to SEE that. "Look Dave, you really aren't working that much at all! Look at all the blog reading time you have scheduled!" I have to trick myself like this. It's how my mind works.
Anyway, I'm done with my scheduled blog reading and writing, so I may go do some bonus unscheduled work now!
When you get to the train platform in the morning...
Yup. That there train is DEAD. If this was a Monday or a Wednesday, you'd have to suffer a stream of vulgarity right now, but as it is... I really don't care too much. I have office hours today, and was supposed to help a coworker with her Mac, but... other than that I really have no reason to be in the city at all. I'm going to sit at this cafe near the station until 8:15... if the 8:15 is running, great... if not... I'm going home. Or somewhere. But nothing I have to do in NYC is important enough for me to stand in the cold this early in the morning.
Update (8:18) - Yup. The train is running. I'm kinda disappointed actually, I was looking forward to going home and grabbing a nap. I guess this is for the best, though. I do have stuff that needs to get done.
Speaking of which... I've decided that the greatest danger facing me this year is that I will piss away all of this free time I'm going to have and wind up with nothing to show for my "easy semester" by the end of it. I'm looking at two classes here, one of which I've taught several times before, and another that I'm team teaching, which means half the time I don't even have to be ready to SAY anything when the class starts. Both classes are M/W, which means Tuesdays I have the whole day free at work, Thursdays I'm home with the kid, and Friday I have all morning and afternoon home with NO kids and blissful quiet. Something should get DONE. Papers should get published, books should get written, masterpieces should be painted, symphonies should be composed!!
So I'm doing this thing where I schedule every block of time, every day. I'm using OmniOutliner to do it, which makes it seem like fun. I'm leaving lots and lots of time for tasks like reading blogs and watching TV on the laptop, but also scheduling specific times for writing, specific times for grading, specific times for paperwork... all the things that usually slip through the cracks. For example, here is Tuesday's schedule, as I have it written out so far...
Train in
---- Read websites
---- Write blog entry
Morning
---- Write - 45 minute "writing sprint" for publications
Noon Office Hours
---- Grade papers OR...
---- Paperwork tasks - forms, letters, faxes, etc. OR...
---- Planning - long term, next semester
Afternoon
---- Yoga class or walk
Train Home
---- Read blogs
---- Watch TV
Evening
---- Go over Keynotes for Wednesday
Perfectly reasonable. In fact, there is way more goofing off than work slated for every day. I think it helps to SEE that. "Look Dave, you really aren't working that much at all! Look at all the blog reading time you have scheduled!" I have to trick myself like this. It's how my mind works.
Anyway, I'm done with my scheduled blog reading and writing, so I may go do some bonus unscheduled work now!
thanks dr. b...
courtesy yesterday's link from Bitch, Ph.D...
I'm not worthy!!!
Any chance one or two of you will stick around for a while...? Anyone...? Anyone...?
courtesy yesterday's link from Bitch, Ph.D...
I'm not worthy!!!
Any chance one or two of you will stick around for a while...? Anyone...? Anyone...?
Monday, January 29
family fun...
Yesterday we took the kids to the Mid Hudson Valley Children's museum, which is essentially a condemned house full of Little-Tykes plastic furniture and a couple of dinosaur skeletons made of surplus plumbing supplies. (I exaggerate... but only a very little.) More than a little disappointing. Thank god we used coupons.
And somehow, eight years of parenting has still not taught us that if you arrange your day such that the youngest child misses his or her nap, they will make the rest of your afternoon a whine-and-tantrum-filled hell on earth.
Anyway, after the museum and lunch and tantrums, we went to the Target to buy a microwave. We have a microwave already, but there is something vaguely "up" with it. The other day my wife and I ware talking in the kitchen and she put something in the microwave and turned it on, and after a few seconds we both looked at each other with the same sort of "That's not the sound it USED to make.... is it?" expression. It's weirdly quiet... like something that used to spin or hum or blow in there is no longer spinning, humming, or blowing. It still seems to cook, but it frightens us. So we bought a new one, for this is the way of our people. When I made some comment about putting it out to the curb, my wife said - "Oh no! I'm not throwing it away! I'll "freecycle it" or give it to Goodwill, but I'm not putting a working microwave out to the trash!" Oh, I see... we're too afraid to use it ourselves for fear it might explode or give us radiation poisoning, but the poor folks who shop at the thrift store... well, what's a little radiation or a small explosion to them? They're probably used to it.
Maybe we'll donate it to the Children's Museum.
Yesterday we took the kids to the Mid Hudson Valley Children's museum, which is essentially a condemned house full of Little-Tykes plastic furniture and a couple of dinosaur skeletons made of surplus plumbing supplies. (I exaggerate... but only a very little.) More than a little disappointing. Thank god we used coupons.
And somehow, eight years of parenting has still not taught us that if you arrange your day such that the youngest child misses his or her nap, they will make the rest of your afternoon a whine-and-tantrum-filled hell on earth.
Anyway, after the museum and lunch and tantrums, we went to the Target to buy a microwave. We have a microwave already, but there is something vaguely "up" with it. The other day my wife and I ware talking in the kitchen and she put something in the microwave and turned it on, and after a few seconds we both looked at each other with the same sort of "That's not the sound it USED to make.... is it?" expression. It's weirdly quiet... like something that used to spin or hum or blow in there is no longer spinning, humming, or blowing. It still seems to cook, but it frightens us. So we bought a new one, for this is the way of our people. When I made some comment about putting it out to the curb, my wife said - "Oh no! I'm not throwing it away! I'll "freecycle it" or give it to Goodwill, but I'm not putting a working microwave out to the trash!" Oh, I see... we're too afraid to use it ourselves for fear it might explode or give us radiation poisoning, but the poor folks who shop at the thrift store... well, what's a little radiation or a small explosion to them? They're probably used to it.
Maybe we'll donate it to the Children's Museum.
Thursday, January 25
no cure for "asshole"...
I'm getting a little tired of hearing about Isaiah Washington (Dr. Burke) going for "counseling" over his calling TR Knight (George) a faggot on the set. This is the thing. If you call your coworker a "faggot"... that makes you a jerk. A dick. An asshole. There is no cure for that, I don't think. If there were, there would be a lot fewer assholes running around. So, don't invite the guy to lunch. Don't buy him a birthday card. Don't talk to him outside of work. But just because he's a semi-public figure, don't play this elaborate game and pretend that somehow he can be "fixed" and that will make everything ok. Sometimes famous people are assholes. They shouldn't get a free pass, but they also shouldn't be held to some kind of weird standard of ritualized public atonement and healing. The whole thing is just... stupid. It should be enough for us all to look at him and think. "Wow. He's a dick."
It's good enough for me anyway.
I'm getting a little tired of hearing about Isaiah Washington (Dr. Burke) going for "counseling" over his calling TR Knight (George) a faggot on the set. This is the thing. If you call your coworker a "faggot"... that makes you a jerk. A dick. An asshole. There is no cure for that, I don't think. If there were, there would be a lot fewer assholes running around. So, don't invite the guy to lunch. Don't buy him a birthday card. Don't talk to him outside of work. But just because he's a semi-public figure, don't play this elaborate game and pretend that somehow he can be "fixed" and that will make everything ok. Sometimes famous people are assholes. They shouldn't get a free pass, but they also shouldn't be held to some kind of weird standard of ritualized public atonement and healing. The whole thing is just... stupid. It should be enough for us all to look at him and think. "Wow. He's a dick."
It's good enough for me anyway.
Tuesday, January 23
a week of science...
I kind of semi-committed myself to post about science for a whole week in February, and I'm too lazy to think up 5-7 things to post about. So anybody out there have any physics or astronomy questions or topics they'd like to read about as an alternative to listening to me complain?
I kind of semi-committed myself to post about science for a whole week in February, and I'm too lazy to think up 5-7 things to post about. So anybody out there have any physics or astronomy questions or topics they'd like to read about as an alternative to listening to me complain?
day two...
Yes, it's day two of the Spring semester, and I just finished the last of my grading for the FALL semester. Damned incompletes. At least 3 of the 6 of them didn't actually turn in much of anything even AFTER the extra 3 weeks. Still... I need to file some change-of-grade forms to turn their I's and WF's into lovely "C-minuses!"
I really debated long and hard whether to actually get out of bed this morning. Once I did, I had an equally heated debate with myself over whether or not I should actually go in to work, as opposed to maybe driving to B&N to spend the whole day. It would have saved me $20 in train tickets! But the responsible Dave won the argument, so... here I am. On the train.
I'm sitting here looking at these Tuesdays and Thursdays and all this free time... if only I felt motivated to DO something with all of it. The idea of WRITING or whatever... it just does NOT appeal to me right now. Especially not when I have a portable HD full of TV shows here in my bag.
Yes, it's day two of the Spring semester, and I just finished the last of my grading for the FALL semester. Damned incompletes. At least 3 of the 6 of them didn't actually turn in much of anything even AFTER the extra 3 weeks. Still... I need to file some change-of-grade forms to turn their I's and WF's into lovely "C-minuses!"
I really debated long and hard whether to actually get out of bed this morning. Once I did, I had an equally heated debate with myself over whether or not I should actually go in to work, as opposed to maybe driving to B&N to spend the whole day. It would have saved me $20 in train tickets! But the responsible Dave won the argument, so... here I am. On the train.
I'm sitting here looking at these Tuesdays and Thursdays and all this free time... if only I felt motivated to DO something with all of it. The idea of WRITING or whatever... it just does NOT appeal to me right now. Especially not when I have a portable HD full of TV shows here in my bag.
Monday, January 22
day one, errors in judgement...
So last night, we had this party. Most of the party didn't show up, actually, for whatever reason... but there were grown up board games and grown up beverages. Somewhere in the middle of the fifth round of "Taboo" (**)... after my third gin & ginger ale and halfway through a rum & coke, it occurred to me that... Oh fuck, I have to get up and go to work in the morning for the first time in a month! Luckily it was still early so I had time to STOP and switch to water and avoid having a hangover on the first day of class.
(** My wife and I kicked some ass at Taboo, after our guests had already complained that none of their friends will play them anymore cuz they always beat them soundly. I get the feeling our new friends will be "drilling" before the next get-together. I was by far the biggest scorer. Nobody is quicker than me at finding a good synonym for a crucial word on the "forbidden" list.)
Anyway... the party was survived, the snow and ice this morning were minimal, my syllabi and handouts are all printed out and waiting for me at school, I have a vague idea what I'm going to say in both of my classes today. It's ON, boys and girls... the Spring semester has begun! Anyone want to start a pool to predict when I'll start praying for it to end?
So last night, we had this party. Most of the party didn't show up, actually, for whatever reason... but there were grown up board games and grown up beverages. Somewhere in the middle of the fifth round of "Taboo" (**)... after my third gin & ginger ale and halfway through a rum & coke, it occurred to me that... Oh fuck, I have to get up and go to work in the morning for the first time in a month! Luckily it was still early so I had time to STOP and switch to water and avoid having a hangover on the first day of class.
(** My wife and I kicked some ass at Taboo, after our guests had already complained that none of their friends will play them anymore cuz they always beat them soundly. I get the feeling our new friends will be "drilling" before the next get-together. I was by far the biggest scorer. Nobody is quicker than me at finding a good synonym for a crucial word on the "forbidden" list.)
Anyway... the party was survived, the snow and ice this morning were minimal, my syllabi and handouts are all printed out and waiting for me at school, I have a vague idea what I'm going to say in both of my classes today. It's ON, boys and girls... the Spring semester has begun! Anyone want to start a pool to predict when I'll start praying for it to end?
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