Quite a few years ago, I was staying at my parents' house while they were gone for the weekend and for reasons that are now mysterious to me (other than the fact that I like the feeling of having something to do when I'm by myself for several days in a row, and I actually do occasionally feel motivated to take on some big project, and I'm just such a nice person, and I think their wedding anniversary was around the corner), I decided I would spend the entire weekend cooking food to make homemade frozen dinners for my parents to enjoy when they got back. Despite making a couple extra trips to the store to stock up on supplies I had misjudged the need for (e.g. aluminum foil), I got a crazy amount of cooking done in just two days. I stuck with simple things that I thought would freeze well and that could easily be made into a complete meal by adding a salad - the kinds of casseroles that I think of as "church potluck staples" - the kind of food you bring to someone's house when they have been in the hospital or a relative has died - lasagna, chicken tetrazzini, enchilada casserole, etc. I also made a couple dozen muffins. It was a lot of work, but fun, and seeing the surprise on Mom and Dad's faces was priceless.
Much later, I found out that there is an entire movement centered around this fundamental concept of cooking in large batches and freezing food for later meals (damn, I didn't make this up myself): OMC (once a month cooking). The core benefits of this type of cooking are that you take advantage of economies of scale in production (e.g. it doesn't take much longer to make a double casserole than a single one), you can purchase ingredients on sale in bulk without as much worry about waste, and like with the kind of cook-ahead process that I have been using for years, you can shift the chore of cooking to when you have the time and interest in doing it rather than when you get home from work, giving you the convenience of food being ready to be reheated when you are ready to eat.
With Robert working on his dissertation and me on my math so often, and with our lives looking only busier in the coming year, we had been pondering the whole "how to eat efficiently" question for the last couple months. Many of the obvious approaches were problematic - eating in restaurants is expensive and generally unhealthy, or at best of unknown health value (and still time consuming unless you do the fast food drive thru); convenience foods often don't taste that great (and figuring out which ones are good is a long-term process that requires making a lot of mistakes), are more expensive and less healthy than cooking from scratch, and require more freezer space for storage unless you are buying shelf-stable items of dubious quality (I am not prepared to start buying Dinty Moore or Spaghettios and cannot rely on Progresso soup, peanut butter, and canned tuna for all my dinner needs); hiring a personal chef is totally inconsistent with Operation Cheap Ass. So we kept coming back to the same idea - make our own frozen convenience foods ourselves.
Problem numero uno with this, of course, was the fact that our tiny freezer is already filled to the max with an ice maker that takes up a third of the space and the normal array of items like frozen vegetables, Morningstar Farms products, and my muffins. We generally are hard pressed to find room for the smallest container of ice cream for Robert's snacking pleasure. But with a bit of online research, getting lucky in stopping at a store as we happened to be driving by (note: Conn's has an incredible selection of home appliances), and about $500, we are now the owners of an 11.7 cubic foot upright freezer unit that lives in Leo's bedroom. (Cheaper units are available but we were set on getting an upright that allows you to see all the food organized on shelves, rather than one of the bottomless pit chest freezers. We already can't manage the space of our little freezer atop our fridge.) I also purchased the book Frozen Assets: Lite & Easy (Emphasizing Speed to Such an Extent We Spelled "Light" as "Lite" and Passed the Time Savings on to You), which contains general instructions on the OMC approach as well as a selection of simple, healthier recipes organized by type of protein. They center the recipes around mini-sessions in which you cook about 6 meals (which for me and Robert, will be more like 12-18 meals) that use the same base protein. Although the "eggplant session" will not be seeing much action in our house, many of the others sound good. And obviously, you can use any recipes you want for this process.
We have yet to delve into this at all, but I have already put up a couple dozen muffins from this weekend, when I decided it was silly to make a single batch of muffins when I have two awesome silicone muffin pans. (Seriously, silicone muffin pans are the bomb. If you bake, do yourself a favor and use silicone. Just make sure you get the kind with a wire holder because the pans are mad floppy without one.) We also cooked extra rice on Sunday to put some in the freezer. But I see a "chicken mini-session" in our future.
Monday, April 30, 2007
50 Words From This Blog
Tagcrowd.com is a nifty little site where you can put in a piece of writing and it will pull out and display the most common words in the text, sized to show relative frequency. I cut and pasted the last two months of Empirical Question blog posts and got this picture showing the 50 most common words (having chosen for the program to ignore words like "and," "the," et cetera):
already being better book class credibility data different doing don't enough experience feeling free going guy having hours idea job least list looking lot love math myself paper park people person program questions rather really robert school since something student survey taking test things think though week women work years
created at TagCrowd.com
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Delicate Winged Things Abound
All week driving home from work on the near-country back roads I use, I have been surrounded by migrating butterflies and moths. This evening, with temperatures above 80 degrees, they were flying all over the place. Last night, Robert came back from taking out the trash and showed me 9 different species of moth all within about 10 feet of our apartment door.
Last fall, we had a luna moth on our balcony for a couple days. I had never seen a luna moth before but had been vaguely curious about them for about 20 years due to the lines in the Snodgrass poem: "I showed one child the colors of / A luna moth and how to love." Now I show these colors to you.
Last fall, we had a luna moth on our balcony for a couple days. I had never seen a luna moth before but had been vaguely curious about them for about 20 years due to the lines in the Snodgrass poem: "I showed one child the colors of / A luna moth and how to love." Now I show these colors to you.
Senior Standing
If I were to enroll at UT as a transfer student, I would have 100 hours from Rice that would transfer, making me a senior, since senior standing starts at 90 hours. (Their web site has a nice automated transfer program that lets you put in your courses from other TX universities and it shows the equivalence at UT.) Only 4 of my classes didn't transfer at least for elective credit: 2 classes of supervised research in psychology (the semester I ran a professor's cognitive psych experiment at U of H and the semester I did my own social cognition experiment using the Rice psych lab), Psychology of Learning, and Introduction to Language.
The reason I went through this exercise was not because I intend to get a second bachelors degree from UT (though at one time I happened across information on that on their web site, never to locate it again), but because UT is one of those monstrously large schools where classes regularly fill up months in advance (which is something well beyond my experience; at Rice, you would cross your fingers and hope enough people signed up for the class to make; it was a different kind of disappointment) and the pecking order for enrollment is based on your standing as a senior, junior, sophomore, freshman, or "non-degree seeking student." In truth, I am going to be a non-degree seeking student, but after following on the internet the enrollment for the fall semester over the past week or so, I have found that many of my classes of interest would already be waitlisted by the very earliest opportunity I would have to enroll. So that won't work. My current plan is to apply to UT as a transfer student seeking a BS in Mathematical Sciences - Specialization in Statistics, Probability, and Data Analysis. (I am using the degree plan for that major to guide decisions about what math classes I will take. There is also a sort of parallel fantasy world in my head in which I actually do get some kind of math degree.)
Of course, I am laughably far away from having the credits for that major, UT's distribution credit requirements, or fulfilling the inane general requirements for all public universities in Texas (American history, Texas history, and government), so I will give the appearance of a person who will be a senior for some time. My intention is to be there part-time for 3 semesters. I have 3 math classes and 3 stat classes I definitely want to take as quant prep. I need to take 2 or perhaps 3 upper-level psych classes, not for the knowledge or the grade, but to get the recommendations I need. There is some potential awkwardness there because many classes are "restricted" to psychology majors, but there is some indication that professors can over-ride that; I still have investigating to do on how that will work. I hope that the instructors will see the logic that since I already have a degree in psychology, I am at least as qualified to take the class as any psych undergrad at UT. If all else fails, maybe I can get the opportunity to audit the class and impress upon the professor that I am a brilliant person for whom they should write a glowing endorsement for going to a very good social psychology PhD program. I am also considering taking an upper-level econ class if I can fit a really interesting one into my schedule - something like game theory, with applicability to a decision-making program, would be perfect. (That was a class that did not make during the total of 7 years that Robert and I were at Rice. As Robert points out, this was an area that got big right after we left.)
I am looking at taking 3 classes a semester, which by current standards is about a 75% course load. I am trying hard not to get overwhelmed considering the logistical nightmare that this is going to create, especially in conjunction with any part-time job I might have, assuming I can fit something in around the messy class schedule I'm likely to have. (Traveling to UT and to a job could easily quadruple my current daily commute. Yuck.)
The reason I went through this exercise was not because I intend to get a second bachelors degree from UT (though at one time I happened across information on that on their web site, never to locate it again), but because UT is one of those monstrously large schools where classes regularly fill up months in advance (which is something well beyond my experience; at Rice, you would cross your fingers and hope enough people signed up for the class to make; it was a different kind of disappointment) and the pecking order for enrollment is based on your standing as a senior, junior, sophomore, freshman, or "non-degree seeking student." In truth, I am going to be a non-degree seeking student, but after following on the internet the enrollment for the fall semester over the past week or so, I have found that many of my classes of interest would already be waitlisted by the very earliest opportunity I would have to enroll. So that won't work. My current plan is to apply to UT as a transfer student seeking a BS in Mathematical Sciences - Specialization in Statistics, Probability, and Data Analysis. (I am using the degree plan for that major to guide decisions about what math classes I will take. There is also a sort of parallel fantasy world in my head in which I actually do get some kind of math degree.)
Of course, I am laughably far away from having the credits for that major, UT's distribution credit requirements, or fulfilling the inane general requirements for all public universities in Texas (American history, Texas history, and government), so I will give the appearance of a person who will be a senior for some time. My intention is to be there part-time for 3 semesters. I have 3 math classes and 3 stat classes I definitely want to take as quant prep. I need to take 2 or perhaps 3 upper-level psych classes, not for the knowledge or the grade, but to get the recommendations I need. There is some potential awkwardness there because many classes are "restricted" to psychology majors, but there is some indication that professors can over-ride that; I still have investigating to do on how that will work. I hope that the instructors will see the logic that since I already have a degree in psychology, I am at least as qualified to take the class as any psych undergrad at UT. If all else fails, maybe I can get the opportunity to audit the class and impress upon the professor that I am a brilliant person for whom they should write a glowing endorsement for going to a very good social psychology PhD program. I am also considering taking an upper-level econ class if I can fit a really interesting one into my schedule - something like game theory, with applicability to a decision-making program, would be perfect. (That was a class that did not make during the total of 7 years that Robert and I were at Rice. As Robert points out, this was an area that got big right after we left.)
I am looking at taking 3 classes a semester, which by current standards is about a 75% course load. I am trying hard not to get overwhelmed considering the logistical nightmare that this is going to create, especially in conjunction with any part-time job I might have, assuming I can fit something in around the messy class schedule I'm likely to have. (Traveling to UT and to a job could easily quadruple my current daily commute. Yuck.)
Wednesday, April 25, 2007
10 Fantasy Novels
Rvman directed me to the fantasy list and poll on the same site as the SF one I talked about yesterday. I agree with him that this list is pretty broad; I suppose any book with a fantastical element to it (including magical realism, etc.) was eligible for inclusion.
Here’s my list of 10 favorites:
Watership Down – Richard Adams
I loved this book even before I became obsessed with all things bunny, but now, man. Funny, wise, and very beautiful. The end of this book makes me cry every single time I read it… or think about it, if I'm honest. And I don't cry reading books.
The Last Unicorn – Peter S. Beagle
A childhood favorite that I still enjoy re-reading every several years. So many details from this story are stuck in my head forever; I feel like I know what a butterfly sings like, what a harpy looks like the moment before it takes its revenge, and how a down-on-his-luck magician of little talent might find himself changed forever by a wild-haired and wilder-spirited woman and a being of true beauty.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll [and Through the Looking Glass]
Great hilarious fun with an intellectual bent; you’ve got to love the humorous treatment of logic, linguistics, politics, and social mores. The Annotated Alice with commentary by Martin Gardner added greatly to my pleasure in reading and re-reading the Alice stories.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke
I’m not sure how this choice will stand the test of time, but I really liked this comedy of manners set in a 19th century England with magicians. The footnotes were priceless.
Thomas Covenant – Stephen Donaldson
High fantasy from a writer who isn’t afraid to create anti-heroes of questionable-at-best moral standing or let really bad things happen to the characters you find yourself liking. Wordier than it needs to be, but admit it: so was The Lord of the Rings; Donaldson dwells at length on an individual’s emotional state while Tolkein could go on for a week describing a group of trees in a not particularly interesting way. A controversial choice, perhaps.
Perdido Street Station – China Mieville
This book became an immediate favorite of mine. Huge and filled to bursting, the book is as much about the city where the story takes place (cf. Titus Groan) as it is the highly unusual characters in it. An outcast scientist, his bug-humanoid artist girlfriend, a mysterious and dangerous grub, and most interesting of all, an alien but emotionally compelling bird-like creature, stripped of his wings. Also recommended: The Scar.
Watchmen – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
A dark, intelligent treatment of the superhero comic.
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
It’s all about the wonderful slow, complex, thorough descriptions of the peculiar places, characters, and events in the gothic, claustrophobic world of the castle Gormenghast.
The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman [and the rest of the series]
Completely kicks Harry Potter’s ass in the “contemporary youth fantasy novels read by adults” category. Famous for inspiring the name of the blog Alethiography.
The Once & Future King – T H White
Hugely entertaining. I am particularly fond of the section in which Wart is turned into a hawk for a night, listening to the serious discussions of the other raptors in the mews.
First Alternate:
The Hobbit – J R R Tolkein: On another day, when it’s been longer since I’ve read Jonathan Strange, this could easily have been on my top 10. A nostalgic favorite.
Honorable Mentions:
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl (kind of representing all of his books)
Outlander – Diana Gabaldon (which I include less as a fantasy novel and more because it’s the best romance novel I’ve read by several orders of magnitude)
Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman (also representing all of his books)
Bridge of Birds – Barry Hughart
The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka (the fantasy book my father most commonly read to me, translating from the German in real-time, as a child)
The Prestige – Christopher Priest
Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkein
I was surprised by how few of the highly ranked books I have even read. In the top 20, there were quite a few books I have not even heard of, which wasn’t the case on the SF list.
The most obvious of the top 20 books that I have not read are A Song of Ice & Fire and that increasingly huge series, which I know from many sources (including Rvman) is supposed to be good for those who like a strong dash of throne-room intrigue in their epic fantasy stories (seeing George R R Martin’s name in close proximity to J R R Tolkein – who my dad calls J R R R R R R Tolkein – makes me wonder about the whole “extra R”/fantasy-blockbuster connection) and The Sword of Shannara, which I cannot imagine that I will ever want to read. Ever. I don't do that kind of fantasy.
Looking at the thumbnail descriptions of the books, though, I have discovered several that sound very promising. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino seems bizarre and fascinating, for instance.
Most egregious omission of a beloved fantasy novel from the list: Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand. It has several elements that tend to push my buttons anyway – a college setting, a secret society, religious power struggles, witchcraft, natural history museums, sex, feminism – which came together in a very enjoyable story that I have read several times and think of with surprising frequency. Recommended for those who like their “strong female characters” very, very strong indeed.
Here’s my list of 10 favorites:
Watership Down – Richard Adams
I loved this book even before I became obsessed with all things bunny, but now, man. Funny, wise, and very beautiful. The end of this book makes me cry every single time I read it… or think about it, if I'm honest. And I don't cry reading books.
The Last Unicorn – Peter S. Beagle
A childhood favorite that I still enjoy re-reading every several years. So many details from this story are stuck in my head forever; I feel like I know what a butterfly sings like, what a harpy looks like the moment before it takes its revenge, and how a down-on-his-luck magician of little talent might find himself changed forever by a wild-haired and wilder-spirited woman and a being of true beauty.
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland – Lewis Carroll [and Through the Looking Glass]
Great hilarious fun with an intellectual bent; you’ve got to love the humorous treatment of logic, linguistics, politics, and social mores. The Annotated Alice with commentary by Martin Gardner added greatly to my pleasure in reading and re-reading the Alice stories.
Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell – Susanna Clarke
I’m not sure how this choice will stand the test of time, but I really liked this comedy of manners set in a 19th century England with magicians. The footnotes were priceless.
Thomas Covenant – Stephen Donaldson
High fantasy from a writer who isn’t afraid to create anti-heroes of questionable-at-best moral standing or let really bad things happen to the characters you find yourself liking. Wordier than it needs to be, but admit it: so was The Lord of the Rings; Donaldson dwells at length on an individual’s emotional state while Tolkein could go on for a week describing a group of trees in a not particularly interesting way. A controversial choice, perhaps.
Perdido Street Station – China Mieville
This book became an immediate favorite of mine. Huge and filled to bursting, the book is as much about the city where the story takes place (cf. Titus Groan) as it is the highly unusual characters in it. An outcast scientist, his bug-humanoid artist girlfriend, a mysterious and dangerous grub, and most interesting of all, an alien but emotionally compelling bird-like creature, stripped of his wings. Also recommended: The Scar.
Watchmen – Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons
A dark, intelligent treatment of the superhero comic.
Titus Groan – Mervyn Peake
It’s all about the wonderful slow, complex, thorough descriptions of the peculiar places, characters, and events in the gothic, claustrophobic world of the castle Gormenghast.
The Golden Compass – Philip Pullman [and the rest of the series]
Completely kicks Harry Potter’s ass in the “contemporary youth fantasy novels read by adults” category. Famous for inspiring the name of the blog Alethiography.
The Once & Future King – T H White
Hugely entertaining. I am particularly fond of the section in which Wart is turned into a hawk for a night, listening to the serious discussions of the other raptors in the mews.
First Alternate:
The Hobbit – J R R Tolkein: On another day, when it’s been longer since I’ve read Jonathan Strange, this could easily have been on my top 10. A nostalgic favorite.
Honorable Mentions:
Charlie & the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl (kind of representing all of his books)
Outlander – Diana Gabaldon (which I include less as a fantasy novel and more because it’s the best romance novel I’ve read by several orders of magnitude)
Neverwhere – Neil Gaiman (also representing all of his books)
Bridge of Birds – Barry Hughart
The Metamorphosis – Franz Kafka (the fantasy book my father most commonly read to me, translating from the German in real-time, as a child)
The Prestige – Christopher Priest
Lord of the Rings – J R R Tolkein
I was surprised by how few of the highly ranked books I have even read. In the top 20, there were quite a few books I have not even heard of, which wasn’t the case on the SF list.
The most obvious of the top 20 books that I have not read are A Song of Ice & Fire and that increasingly huge series, which I know from many sources (including Rvman) is supposed to be good for those who like a strong dash of throne-room intrigue in their epic fantasy stories (seeing George R R Martin’s name in close proximity to J R R Tolkein – who my dad calls J R R R R R R Tolkein – makes me wonder about the whole “extra R”/fantasy-blockbuster connection) and The Sword of Shannara, which I cannot imagine that I will ever want to read. Ever. I don't do that kind of fantasy.
Looking at the thumbnail descriptions of the books, though, I have discovered several that sound very promising. If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Italo Calvino seems bizarre and fascinating, for instance.
Most egregious omission of a beloved fantasy novel from the list: Waking the Moon by Elizabeth Hand. It has several elements that tend to push my buttons anyway – a college setting, a secret society, religious power struggles, witchcraft, natural history museums, sex, feminism – which came together in a very enjoyable story that I have read several times and think of with surprising frequency. Recommended for those who like their “strong female characters” very, very strong indeed.
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
10 SF Books
Looking for quick evidence that the book A Fire Upon the Deep by Vernor Vinge is a reasonably well-known SF novel to settle a discussion with a friend, last night I googled “best science fiction” and the first link was this site, listing the results of an online poll. (Of course, attempting to find the link now, I don’t see it near the top of my google search; fortunately I had saved it.)
At the top of the page, you can take the online poll for yourself. You get to choose your 10 favorite SF books from a long (but by no means all-inclusive of great SF) list. Here were my selections, in alphabetical order by author:
The Real Story (The Gap Series) – Stephen Donaldson
The first book is not actually that great, but I found this series incredibly compelling for all that it is brutal, disturbing, stark, depraved, and lacking in sympathetic characters. It is not easy going, but I think it’s brilliant and ultimately very satisfying. (The more immediate feeling is of being emotionally wiped out.) Many people, however, have found the series just too horrendous to endure through the end. I will never recommend anyone purchase all of them at once unless you can get them cheap.
The Difference Engine – William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
Alternative history set in a 19th century London with computers.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert Heinlein
I was almost too mature for Heinlein’s books when I started reading them in college, and at this point, the kids’ books and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are basically the only ones I can tolerate. Rollicking lunar libertarian revolutionary fun.
Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy) – C. S. Lewis
A lovely allegorical story with some very fine writing.
A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller
Comic yet profound post-apocalyptic novel steeped in a twisted Catholicism.
Hyperion – Dan Simmons
The tale of several pilgrims making their way to visit and attempt to endure an encounter with the ultra-scary Shrike. A top-notch series.
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
This hilarious, rather frenzied cyberpunk story had me from the introduction of the Deliverator on page one. It was perhaps the absolute best possible book to distract and entertain me through a very difficult and cramp-ful night in a motel on South Congress Avenue. (There was a cockroach involved.)
Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson
One of three copies of a “Young Ladies Illustrated Primer” (an interactive computer-book) falls into the hands of a poor, troubled young girl, who learns a lot about how to thrive. Delightful.
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
OK, I really like Neal Stephenson, all right? Even though I’m not the hard-core geek who is the perfect audience for a book about Enigma code breakers and computer engineers, I loved its wit.
A Fire Upon the Deep – Victor Vinge
The fascinating, fully-realized dog-like alien species really sticks with me. (A welcome departure from the kind of aliens who are just like human beings only more aggressive and with spikier hair.)
Honorable Mention:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Jumper – Steven Gould
Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula Le Guin
Star Fraction – Ken McLeod
1984 – George Orwell
Anthem – Ayn Rand
To Say Nothing of the Dog – Connie Willis
Looking at the top 20 books on the list, the only ones I haven't read are the Asimov (I have only read I, Robot - Robert's copy, borrowed about a year ago - and the most excellent children's series The Norby Chronicles) and the Arthur C. Clarke books.
I was a bit taken aback to see Dune at #1. I thought it was a greatly enjoyable book, and I have no beef with its popularity, but I totally do not think of it as SF. I would classify it more as a fantasy; I know the SF/fantasy distinction is a continuum and not two discrete categories, but I would draw the line with Dune on the other side. If Dune is SF then it becomes harder for me to accept my beloved Perdido Street Station as fantasy and thus ineligible for ranking on this list. And this way lies madness.
This list - the great SF books excluded and lame books included, the relative rankings of various books, the working definition of SF that was assumed by the generator of the list of eligible books, the inherent tensions between "best" and "favorite" books, the methodology of the poll itself - could be discussed and debated ad nauseum. I will leave doing so as an exercise for the reader, if so inclined.
At the top of the page, you can take the online poll for yourself. You get to choose your 10 favorite SF books from a long (but by no means all-inclusive of great SF) list. Here were my selections, in alphabetical order by author:
The Real Story (The Gap Series) – Stephen Donaldson
The first book is not actually that great, but I found this series incredibly compelling for all that it is brutal, disturbing, stark, depraved, and lacking in sympathetic characters. It is not easy going, but I think it’s brilliant and ultimately very satisfying. (The more immediate feeling is of being emotionally wiped out.) Many people, however, have found the series just too horrendous to endure through the end. I will never recommend anyone purchase all of them at once unless you can get them cheap.
The Difference Engine – William Gibson & Bruce Sterling
Alternative history set in a 19th century London with computers.
The Moon is a Harsh Mistress – Robert Heinlein
I was almost too mature for Heinlein’s books when I started reading them in college, and at this point, the kids’ books and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress are basically the only ones I can tolerate. Rollicking lunar libertarian revolutionary fun.
Out of the Silent Planet (Space Trilogy) – C. S. Lewis
A lovely allegorical story with some very fine writing.
A Canticle for Leibowitz – Walter M. Miller
Comic yet profound post-apocalyptic novel steeped in a twisted Catholicism.
Hyperion – Dan Simmons
The tale of several pilgrims making their way to visit and attempt to endure an encounter with the ultra-scary Shrike. A top-notch series.
Snow Crash – Neal Stephenson
This hilarious, rather frenzied cyberpunk story had me from the introduction of the Deliverator on page one. It was perhaps the absolute best possible book to distract and entertain me through a very difficult and cramp-ful night in a motel on South Congress Avenue. (There was a cockroach involved.)
Diamond Age – Neal Stephenson
One of three copies of a “Young Ladies Illustrated Primer” (an interactive computer-book) falls into the hands of a poor, troubled young girl, who learns a lot about how to thrive. Delightful.
Cryptonomicon – Neal Stephenson
OK, I really like Neal Stephenson, all right? Even though I’m not the hard-core geek who is the perfect audience for a book about Enigma code breakers and computer engineers, I loved its wit.
A Fire Upon the Deep – Victor Vinge
The fascinating, fully-realized dog-like alien species really sticks with me. (A welcome departure from the kind of aliens who are just like human beings only more aggressive and with spikier hair.)
Honorable Mention:
Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Douglas Adams
Jumper – Steven Gould
Left Hand of Darkness – Ursula Le Guin
Star Fraction – Ken McLeod
1984 – George Orwell
Anthem – Ayn Rand
To Say Nothing of the Dog – Connie Willis
Looking at the top 20 books on the list, the only ones I haven't read are the Asimov (I have only read I, Robot - Robert's copy, borrowed about a year ago - and the most excellent children's series The Norby Chronicles) and the Arthur C. Clarke books.
I was a bit taken aback to see Dune at #1. I thought it was a greatly enjoyable book, and I have no beef with its popularity, but I totally do not think of it as SF. I would classify it more as a fantasy; I know the SF/fantasy distinction is a continuum and not two discrete categories, but I would draw the line with Dune on the other side. If Dune is SF then it becomes harder for me to accept my beloved Perdido Street Station as fantasy and thus ineligible for ranking on this list. And this way lies madness.
This list - the great SF books excluded and lame books included, the relative rankings of various books, the working definition of SF that was assumed by the generator of the list of eligible books, the inherent tensions between "best" and "favorite" books, the methodology of the poll itself - could be discussed and debated ad nauseum. I will leave doing so as an exercise for the reader, if so inclined.
Sunday, April 22, 2007
Bogus National Park Conservation Association Survey
Robert recently got a mailing from the NPCA with one of those surveys in which they try to make you admit how much you care about the issue and then hit you up for money. I thought this question was particularly bad, not in terms of how it's biased and misleading and completely ethnically bankrupt, but just in terms of basic competence in influencing the respondent:
"Serious budget shortfalls have resulted in reductions in park staff, including national park rangers. (During the busiest times of the year, some park visitors may never see a park ranger at all!) How important do you think park rangers are to the experience that visitors have in national parks? Not important / Somewhat important / Extremely important"
Presumably they want us to think, Yeah, park rangers are vital to a good experience in a national park (and money problems are causing there to be fewer rangers, so I will be happy to send $100 to the NPCA and get that ugly bucket hat!). But the idea that "seeing a park ranger" is in itself such a central part of the national park experience is pretty sad. My fantasy is that I'll go to a NP and not see many people at all. I certainly am not driven to visit by the desire to see a park ranger hanging out next to her truck sneaking a cigarette or whatnot. Wouldn't it have made 1000 times more sense to connect park rangers to the services they provide (e.g. enforcing laws, fighting fires, maintaining trails, cleaning restrooms and picking up trash, giving interpretive programs, manning visitor centers so you don't want 30 minutes to buy a goddamn postcard, rescuing people who think they can hike down the canyon and back all in one day wearing flip-flops and carrying a single bottle of water) rather than act as though we all just tingly inside when we see a park ranger. I mean, I'm as susceptible to the "man in uniform" phenomenon as anybody else, but somehow, I have to admit that it doesn't quite extend to the NPS. Sure, the typical UPS man is capable of rocking those brown shorts, but the NPS uniform (that hat!) tends to goofify even the best of them.
Of course, my view of national park rangers is influenced by my much-deeper-than-average familiarity with the stereotype that they tend to totally screwy. It's my impression that in most state park systems, when you come across an employee who just seems odder than the norm and you can't put your finger on why, a co-worker is happy to tell you "he was 10 years with NPS" as though that explains it. The general sense is that the NPS attracts people who are kind of nuts and the work environment just makes them more so. I have known many state park people who love the Nevada Barr novels, in which national park ranger Anna Pigeon moves from park to park, dealing with fellow rangers who are 57 different kinds of mentally fucked up and solving murders, because of the centrality of alcoholic, law-abusing, sexist, racist, paranoid, asocial, misanthropic, mentally foggy, and/or completely out-of-touch-with-reality NPS employees to the stories.
"Serious budget shortfalls have resulted in reductions in park staff, including national park rangers. (During the busiest times of the year, some park visitors may never see a park ranger at all!) How important do you think park rangers are to the experience that visitors have in national parks? Not important / Somewhat important / Extremely important"
Presumably they want us to think, Yeah, park rangers are vital to a good experience in a national park (and money problems are causing there to be fewer rangers, so I will be happy to send $100 to the NPCA and get that ugly bucket hat!). But the idea that "seeing a park ranger" is in itself such a central part of the national park experience is pretty sad. My fantasy is that I'll go to a NP and not see many people at all. I certainly am not driven to visit by the desire to see a park ranger hanging out next to her truck sneaking a cigarette or whatnot. Wouldn't it have made 1000 times more sense to connect park rangers to the services they provide (e.g. enforcing laws, fighting fires, maintaining trails, cleaning restrooms and picking up trash, giving interpretive programs, manning visitor centers so you don't want 30 minutes to buy a goddamn postcard, rescuing people who think they can hike down the canyon and back all in one day wearing flip-flops and carrying a single bottle of water) rather than act as though we all just tingly inside when we see a park ranger. I mean, I'm as susceptible to the "man in uniform" phenomenon as anybody else, but somehow, I have to admit that it doesn't quite extend to the NPS. Sure, the typical UPS man is capable of rocking those brown shorts, but the NPS uniform (that hat!) tends to goofify even the best of them.
Of course, my view of national park rangers is influenced by my much-deeper-than-average familiarity with the stereotype that they tend to totally screwy. It's my impression that in most state park systems, when you come across an employee who just seems odder than the norm and you can't put your finger on why, a co-worker is happy to tell you "he was 10 years with NPS" as though that explains it. The general sense is that the NPS attracts people who are kind of nuts and the work environment just makes them more so. I have known many state park people who love the Nevada Barr novels, in which national park ranger Anna Pigeon moves from park to park, dealing with fellow rangers who are 57 different kinds of mentally fucked up and solving murders, because of the centrality of alcoholic, law-abusing, sexist, racist, paranoid, asocial, misanthropic, mentally foggy, and/or completely out-of-touch-with-reality NPS employees to the stories.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Leonard Cohen Reference in "On Beauty"
I recently read the book On Beauty by Zadie Smith that got my attention with this reference:
“A clearing opened in her mind, and in it she tried to restage one of her earliest memories of Howard – the night they first met and first slept together…. A hundred and two degrees in the New York smog. ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen playing on her dime-store record player, that song Howard liked to call ‘a hymn deconstructing a hymn.’ Long ago Kiki had submitted to the musical part of the memory. But it was surely not true. ‘Hallelujah’ had been another time, years later. But it was hard to resist the poetry of the possibility, and so she had allowed ‘Hallelujah’ to fall into family myth… When on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Jerome had played his parents an ethereal, far more beautiful version of ‘Hallelujah’ by a kid called Buckley, Kiki had thought, yes, that’s right, our memories are getting more beautiful and less real every day.”
An ethereal, far more beautiful version? I agree that the lyrics Buckley uses are superior to the version Cohen recorded on Various Positions, but that’s because Buckley is actually covering John Cale’s own version of the song that was itself based on verses written by Cohen. Cale says, “After I saw [Cohen] perform at the Beacon I asked if I could have the lyrics to "Hallelujah". When I got home one night there were fax paper rolls everywhere because Leonard had insisted on supplying all 15 verses.” Cale did a fantastic job of putting them together and recorded the far and away best version of the song, period. But the way Buckley sings this song – well, to me, the better description is “a smarmy, far more narcissistic version.” Buckley seemed to miss the fundamental idea that the whole ‘hallelujah’ concept is ruined when you sound like you are singing to be recorded so that you can masturbate to the sound of your own voice later.
Lyrics by Leonard Cohen (John Cale version):
I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Baby I've been here before,
I know this room I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the Marble Arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
I remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Maybe there's a God above,
All I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who out drew you
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Cohen singing the Various Positions version on German TV. Even though I personally love Cohen’s voice, I recognize that his voice is not lovely; on this song, though, he sounds just wonderful.
Cale singing the definitive version of this song, accompanied by a kind of bizarre Sims 2 video somebody put together that you should just ignore. His voice is clear and strong and perfect for letting the Words ring true. And notice how he and Cohen both sound like adults?
Buckley singing (eventually; it takes about a minute for him to start) the version that has become hugely popular after his premature death by drowning. So I guess he’s now some kind of saint or angel that is supposed to make this more poignant but this song doesn’t work for me. I actually don’t dislike Jeff Buckley in general; I find that his lyrical singing style is fine for the often overwrought songs he wrote for himself. (He's one of those pale, shrunken-chested types, no doubt wildly romantic to young girls, and he always seems to be wearing a white t-shirt. Check it out.)
“A clearing opened in her mind, and in it she tried to restage one of her earliest memories of Howard – the night they first met and first slept together…. A hundred and two degrees in the New York smog. ‘Hallelujah’ by Leonard Cohen playing on her dime-store record player, that song Howard liked to call ‘a hymn deconstructing a hymn.’ Long ago Kiki had submitted to the musical part of the memory. But it was surely not true. ‘Hallelujah’ had been another time, years later. But it was hard to resist the poetry of the possibility, and so she had allowed ‘Hallelujah’ to fall into family myth… When on their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary, Jerome had played his parents an ethereal, far more beautiful version of ‘Hallelujah’ by a kid called Buckley, Kiki had thought, yes, that’s right, our memories are getting more beautiful and less real every day.”
An ethereal, far more beautiful version? I agree that the lyrics Buckley uses are superior to the version Cohen recorded on Various Positions, but that’s because Buckley is actually covering John Cale’s own version of the song that was itself based on verses written by Cohen. Cale says, “After I saw [Cohen] perform at the Beacon I asked if I could have the lyrics to "Hallelujah". When I got home one night there were fax paper rolls everywhere because Leonard had insisted on supplying all 15 verses.” Cale did a fantastic job of putting them together and recorded the far and away best version of the song, period. But the way Buckley sings this song – well, to me, the better description is “a smarmy, far more narcissistic version.” Buckley seemed to miss the fundamental idea that the whole ‘hallelujah’ concept is ruined when you sound like you are singing to be recorded so that you can masturbate to the sound of your own voice later.
Lyrics by Leonard Cohen (John Cale version):
I've heard there was a secret chord
That David played and it pleased the Lord
But you don't really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Your faith was strong, but you needed proof
You saw her bathing on the roof
Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you
She tied you to a kitchen chair
She broke your throne, she cut your hair
And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Baby I've been here before,
I know this room I've walked this floor
I used to live alone before I knew you
I've seen your flag on the Marble Arch
Love is not a victory march
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
There was a time you let me know
What's really going on below
But now you never show it to me, do you?
I remember when I moved in you
And the holy dove was moving too
And every breath we drew was Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Maybe there's a God above,
All I ever learned from love
Was how to shoot at someone who out drew you
And it's not a cry you can hear at night
It's not somebody who's seen the light
It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Hallelujah
Cohen singing the Various Positions version on German TV. Even though I personally love Cohen’s voice, I recognize that his voice is not lovely; on this song, though, he sounds just wonderful.
Cale singing the definitive version of this song, accompanied by a kind of bizarre Sims 2 video somebody put together that you should just ignore. His voice is clear and strong and perfect for letting the Words ring true. And notice how he and Cohen both sound like adults?
Buckley singing (eventually; it takes about a minute for him to start) the version that has become hugely popular after his premature death by drowning. So I guess he’s now some kind of saint or angel that is supposed to make this more poignant but this song doesn’t work for me. I actually don’t dislike Jeff Buckley in general; I find that his lyrical singing style is fine for the often overwrought songs he wrote for himself. (He's one of those pale, shrunken-chested types, no doubt wildly romantic to young girls, and he always seems to be wearing a white t-shirt. Check it out.)
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Dubious Student Help
Our agency gets volunteer student workers from a local work-study program that helps train kids aged about 16-19, most of whom are high school drop-outs, in a variety of vocational areas so that they can get jobs. I use some of these students to help me with survey projects and overall, their (free) assistance has been critical to completing them. For instance, I am fortunate to get many of the best typing specialists to do data entry for a survey project in which they have, to date, completed perhaps 20,000 surveys with a high degree of accuracy.
However, sometimes I'm not so lucky on the workers I get.
The most spectacular case of incompetence was a student assigned to help me with a survey mailout. The first step of this mailout was to take a survey (single sheet of 8x11 paper) and fold it in thirds. Folding a paper exactly in thirds does require some judgment, so I showed the students that if they made the first fold at a particular point in the paper, they could be ensured that the paper would fold into even thirds, and I demonstrated the folding technique I wanted them to use. Simple enough, right? But one student had a serious problem with this. He took the edge of his paper, lined it up where I had shown him, pushed down on the folded edge of the paper in a general way with his hand, and then released it, whereupon the paper immediately completely unfolded because he did not understand that he had to crease the paper to keep it folded. Um, O-K, I thought, but I have worked with some one-step-above-a-rock students before and explicitly explained about the creasing step while showing the technique again. He tried again, still couldn't get it about creasing the paper, and the paper flopped open. I was starting to wonder if the kid was just screwing with me or what and looked him in the eye, seeing the blankest, stupidest look I believe I have ever seen on a human being. I said, OK, wait here for a minute, and went to call the woman who oversees the student worker program for our agency. When I told her what had happened, she sighed, apologized, and said with no surprise, I had hoped that this job wouldn't be beyond him. She came to get him and set him on who knows what task - holding a desk onto the floor with his head, possibly.
This week, we were doing a big survey preparation job that involved sequential numbering of surveys by hand (to give each survey a unique ID). As I told the students, this is a simple enough job that the real danger is that you stop paying attention, let your mind wander, and lose your place, which I find myself doing pretty often, so it's important to keep checking that you're on track. This is the 9th of these numbering jobs we've done, and in all that time, I've never had a student with a serious problem with the numbering. Until now. I had hired a temp worker to work with and oversee the students on this project, and when I went to do a final reckoning on the surveys after everything was finished, to ensure that the final number for each batch of surveys matched what I expected, I discovered that one student was startlingly innumerate. Not once, not twice, but three times he numbered the surveys 1000-1099, 2000-2099, 3000. Fortunately, his incompetence was matched by his inefficiency and lack of work ethic, so I was able to fix his mistakes in about 45 minutes.
I haven't determined any obvious pattern in ability, effectiveness, professionalism, or personality among students by gender or ethnicity, except that the smart-ass kids, somewhat smarter than the training center average, who shout "fuck-up" rather than "disadvantaged youth" are always Anglo guys. These guys really enjoy standing around trying to involve me in lengthy conversations to doing any actual work. Favorite topics thus far have included:
However, sometimes I'm not so lucky on the workers I get.
The most spectacular case of incompetence was a student assigned to help me with a survey mailout. The first step of this mailout was to take a survey (single sheet of 8x11 paper) and fold it in thirds. Folding a paper exactly in thirds does require some judgment, so I showed the students that if they made the first fold at a particular point in the paper, they could be ensured that the paper would fold into even thirds, and I demonstrated the folding technique I wanted them to use. Simple enough, right? But one student had a serious problem with this. He took the edge of his paper, lined it up where I had shown him, pushed down on the folded edge of the paper in a general way with his hand, and then released it, whereupon the paper immediately completely unfolded because he did not understand that he had to crease the paper to keep it folded. Um, O-K, I thought, but I have worked with some one-step-above-a-rock students before and explicitly explained about the creasing step while showing the technique again. He tried again, still couldn't get it about creasing the paper, and the paper flopped open. I was starting to wonder if the kid was just screwing with me or what and looked him in the eye, seeing the blankest, stupidest look I believe I have ever seen on a human being. I said, OK, wait here for a minute, and went to call the woman who oversees the student worker program for our agency. When I told her what had happened, she sighed, apologized, and said with no surprise, I had hoped that this job wouldn't be beyond him. She came to get him and set him on who knows what task - holding a desk onto the floor with his head, possibly.
This week, we were doing a big survey preparation job that involved sequential numbering of surveys by hand (to give each survey a unique ID). As I told the students, this is a simple enough job that the real danger is that you stop paying attention, let your mind wander, and lose your place, which I find myself doing pretty often, so it's important to keep checking that you're on track. This is the 9th of these numbering jobs we've done, and in all that time, I've never had a student with a serious problem with the numbering. Until now. I had hired a temp worker to work with and oversee the students on this project, and when I went to do a final reckoning on the surveys after everything was finished, to ensure that the final number for each batch of surveys matched what I expected, I discovered that one student was startlingly innumerate. Not once, not twice, but three times he numbered the surveys 1000-1099, 2000-2099, 3000. Fortunately, his incompetence was matched by his inefficiency and lack of work ethic, so I was able to fix his mistakes in about 45 minutes.
I haven't determined any obvious pattern in ability, effectiveness, professionalism, or personality among students by gender or ethnicity, except that the smart-ass kids, somewhat smarter than the training center average, who shout "fuck-up" rather than "disadvantaged youth" are always Anglo guys. These guys really enjoy standing around trying to involve me in lengthy conversations to doing any actual work. Favorite topics thus far have included:
- His poetry, which he wanted me to read, and which was perhaps not wretched by the standards of a 16 year old boy who dropped-out of school, but was still rather more painful than I could tolerate. The one I did read was about a rose or something. At least it didn't involve the violent death of himself or those who misunderstood him, etc.
- His plans for starting a gaming software company with a friend.
- The dramas of his coming out to his family and friends and his continuing problems with his boyfriend who is back home, not at the training center (which has a live-in dorm).
- His desire for a sex change operation (90% sure he was fucking with me).
- How well he did at college (all complete and obvious bullshit).
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
More Math Assignment Grades
Assignments 3 - 5:
99, 88, 100.
The 88 was on the section "The precise definition of limits" (finding the e such that d or whatever that is that I've already basically forgotten). I had expected that I would get some of that wrong, so I'm okay with an 88. Fortunately, except for the tests, I will not have to use that stuff ever again. Right? Right?! I think it's better that I totally clobbered the assignment on "The derivative."
99, 88, 100.
The 88 was on the section "The precise definition of limits" (finding the e such that d or whatever that is that I've already basically forgotten). I had expected that I would get some of that wrong, so I'm okay with an 88. Fortunately, except for the tests, I will not have to use that stuff ever again. Right? Right?! I think it's better that I totally clobbered the assignment on "The derivative."
Time is Not All They Lack
When you see a quantitative survey on outdoor recreation in general or focused on a particular activity, the primary reason that participants do not participate more frequently or that the un-engaged do not participate at all (aside from “lack of interest” for weird activities like hunting) is almost always “lack of time.” I could paper my cube and half the others in my area with papers that report this finding. But when it comes to understanding what “lack of time” means, and what anyone can do about it, the data are pretty sketchy. Fundamentally, it is just another way of saying that in the competition for a person’s time, outdoor recreation loses out to other priorities. This ambiguity in the meaning and significance of “lack of time” is why a major objective for the hunter focus groups we will be having this summer is to disentangle this complex idea. I think “lack of time” is also frequently used as a convenient, socially acceptable response either when people haven’t thought the thing through very well or when they don’t want to say what the true reason is (e.g. my wife makes my life such hell when I want to go hunting all season that it just isn’t worth it; I can’t afford a $1,500 deer lease).
It appears to be “common knowledge” not only at my organization but among people in general that Americans are working longer hours than ever, with less free time to spend on leisure. However, the social science literature doesn’t support that folk belief. For example, a recent paper that analyzes time use diary data of non-retired people from 1965 through 2003 has found that for four different operational definitions of “leisure time” (broadly, not including market work, household work, time obtaining human capital – i.e. education, time in health care, or any transportation time associated with these activities), leisure time has actually increased for both men and women over this period. The average man has about 8 hours of additional leisure time per week, which is driven by fewer hours at work. The average woman has about 6 additional hours per week; even though women are spending more hours in the workforce, that time is more than offset by reductions in time spent on household work. They also found that people with greater educational attainment have less leisure time than those with less education, suggesting that there is a leisure gap that runs in the opposite direction of the income gap.
Another study (citation below) focusing on gender differences with respect to free time has some interesting findings (which I will quote here basically verbatim):
It appears to be “common knowledge” not only at my organization but among people in general that Americans are working longer hours than ever, with less free time to spend on leisure. However, the social science literature doesn’t support that folk belief. For example, a recent paper that analyzes time use diary data of non-retired people from 1965 through 2003 has found that for four different operational definitions of “leisure time” (broadly, not including market work, household work, time obtaining human capital – i.e. education, time in health care, or any transportation time associated with these activities), leisure time has actually increased for both men and women over this period. The average man has about 8 hours of additional leisure time per week, which is driven by fewer hours at work. The average woman has about 6 additional hours per week; even though women are spending more hours in the workforce, that time is more than offset by reductions in time spent on household work. They also found that people with greater educational attainment have less leisure time than those with less education, suggesting that there is a leisure gap that runs in the opposite direction of the income gap.
Another study (citation below) focusing on gender differences with respect to free time has some interesting findings (which I will quote here basically verbatim):
- Overall, men do have more free time than women (about half an hour per day).
- Free time for women is more often “contaminated” by other activities or the presence of children.
- Marriage, having preschoolers, and hours of employment inhibit free time among women.
- Number of children and hours of employment – but not marriage – inhibit free time among men.
- Furthermore, men experience greater subjective net benefit from free time than women do. (Among women, feelings of time pressure are not as strongly reduced by an increase in the amount of free time.)
One nifty calculation in the study shows free time for men and women based on their regression models. The average amount of free time for men in a day is 5:36 and for women is 5:08. However, if men “experienced life” as women do and women “experienced life” as men do (i.e. applied men’s coefficients to women and women’s coefficients to men), the average man’s daily free time would be 4:49 and the average woman’s would be 6:08.
(Source: Marybeth Mattingly and Suzanne Bianchi. 2003. Gender Differences in the Quantity and Quality of Free Time: The U.S. Experience. Social Forces 81: 999-1030.)
So there appears to be a paradoxical co-existence of a quantitative increase in free time and a qualitative increase in time pressure, particularly among women.
The reduction in household work has made a huge difference in the lives of women. I have spoken to older women who have testified to the way housekeeping has changed in their lifetimes. Presumably this overall reduction in time spent on housework arises from a combination of increasing use of time- and labor-saving technologies (e.g. microwaveable meals, restaurant take-out, dry cleaners, day care for children, domestic help such as cleaning or yard work services, plastic diapers, Roomba) and a lowering of housekeeping standards (e.g. such that the house no longer is maintained at the level where the Queen of England could drop in on a moment’s notice and the white glove test is utterly abandoned). But I wonder: do many women still judge themselves by their grandmothers’ standards of housekeeping? It seems plausible to me that many women are forgoing housework but still worrying about the chores they are not doing. And many women clearly feel the stress of playing multiple roles: working woman with job responsibilities equal to a man, manager of the hacienda, and primary caretaker of children. It’s hard to tease out how much of this is due to social pressures (from society at large or more immediate friends and family) and how much is (at least to some degree) voluntary. I have to admit, I have known women at places I have worked who take on crazily large responsibilities for all elements of what is going on at home even though they have jobs equal to (or greater than) their husbands or, rarely, have husbands who are staying home with the children full-time. I get the sense that some of them don’t trust their husbands to do things right or don’t want to hand over the power that comes with being the person in charge. But I assume the majority of them have been more or less forced into it due to gender roles.
Also, these diary studies only measure the amount of time spent in different areas. It is unclear to me whether the nature of work time and free time has changed since 1965. Are our work hours more stressful and mentally taxing, making people more worn out during their leisure time and hence apt to go for the easy thing (e.g. plopping in front of the TV) rather than pursue activities that would be more refreshing and that they would ultimately get more benefit from? Is our leisure time more fragmented now that people are increasingly “on call” for work even during leisure time or less capable (willing?) to leave the job at the office door? (If the stereotypes are true, we would expect this bleed-over more frequently among women, who tend to be less prone to compartmentalizing.)
And for those of us in the recreation field, how relevant is the change to more structured activities for children? How about the increased availability of electronic media and other sedentary activities? How about the over-protectiveness of parents who are so sensitive to the Stranger Danger issue that they are happier when their kids are upstairs vegging in front of a screen and not out in the world doing something physical?
Factoid of the Day: The 2005 American Time Use Study reports that the average adult spends 2.6 hours per day watching television and only 20 minutes participating in sports, exercise, or recreation. (For me, the amount of time watching TV – on DVD – is almost entirely a subset of the time spent exercising. I heart my treadmill.)
Thursday, April 12, 2007
An Odd Juxtaposition
One of Robert's co-workers shared this photograph taken on Easter in Temple, about one hour north of Austin. I must say this isn't a combination I have ever seen before. We have the bluebonnets and the Indian paintbrush, but none of the snow.
Altered Survey Controversy in Austin
It's not often that I have the opportunity to discuss a scandal in the customer satisfaction survey business, where primary controversies surround such thrilling issues as whether 7 point Likert scales can be treated as interval level data for the purposes of running parametric tests. The local newspaper reports that the head of the Austin Convention Center Department was fired last week for falsifying the results of a customer service survey; apparently the department had an annual bonus structure that used the results of the survey as a measure of performance. That's a sort of bizarre use of a c-sat survey anyway, especially one that is administered and analyzed in-house; I wonder who it was that put that mechanism in place. I was very surprised to read that they had bonus money totalling over $400,000 for about 200 employees. Where would the money have gone if they hadn't gotten their bonus? The survey itself looks fairly mediocre (though not criminally so); I'm particularly fond of the declarative sentence of a question that reads, with great vagueness and passive voice construction:
12. Your comments are valued. (Use reverse side for additional comments if needed.)
But fear not: there is, so far as I can tell, absolutely nothing riding on the customer service survey that I was putting together today for my agency. In the fall, we will send in our report to the state and somebody will put a big check mark next to the task "Agency submitted customer service survey results [of questionable validity and little significance]" and that will be the end of it.
In my previous life, I had a client company (Who Will Not Be Named) that used the weighted results of their multi-country, cross-platform awareness and purchase surveys to allocate yearly bonuses among their various regional directors and product managers. I still cannot believe that I did not murder on the spot the programmer who one year came to me after I had calculated and sent the final spreadsheet of results to the client and said, oops he had kind of screwed up some of the labeling of the European countries.
12. Your comments are valued. (Use reverse side for additional comments if needed.)
But fear not: there is, so far as I can tell, absolutely nothing riding on the customer service survey that I was putting together today for my agency. In the fall, we will send in our report to the state and somebody will put a big check mark next to the task "Agency submitted customer service survey results [of questionable validity and little significance]" and that will be the end of it.
In my previous life, I had a client company (Who Will Not Be Named) that used the weighted results of their multi-country, cross-platform awareness and purchase surveys to allocate yearly bonuses among their various regional directors and product managers. I still cannot believe that I did not murder on the spot the programmer who one year came to me after I had calculated and sent the final spreadsheet of results to the client and said, oops he had kind of screwed up some of the labeling of the European countries.
Math Update
Mailing the university extension office about not hearing from my instructor got results - I had a response from him and grades for my first two homework assignments (97, 100) by the evening. I'm wondering whether the fact that people can start up the class at any time means that the instructor sometimes has a new student for a period of time without noticing. He may not be in the habit of checking for messages if he doesn't have a current student. There's no way for me to tell how many other people, if any, are enrolled in the same course as I am.
And yes, he said the proof in the study guide was wrong and sent me the corrected version, which made complete sense.
I have three more completed assignments ready to mail tomorrow. Plus another one that will have to wait until next week.
And yes, he said the proof in the study guide was wrong and sent me the corrected version, which made complete sense.
I have three more completed assignments ready to mail tomorrow. Plus another one that will have to wait until next week.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
She Eats Like a Horse Who Eats Chocolate
A few days ago I finished reading a book with a primary female character who had the strangely common and rather annoying characteristic of being able to eat gargantuan quantities of food while maintaining a perfectly slender wisp of a figure. The first time I really noticed this phenomenon was as a teenager reading Martha Grimes’ fun but utterly static Richard Jury mystery series, in which the ever-brooding Richard Jury is regularly being heavily come on to by his ravishingly sexy young (but fully adult) neighbor who always seems to appear with a plate of brownies or a gallon of ice cream or some other implausibly large sweet that she consumes in its entirety.At the time, I thought this was just a defining feature of that particular character – a way for the author to display that her physical “appetites” are voracious and thereby frightening to the melancholy, pensive, and passive (though intelligent, ultra-handsome, and completely single) Richard Jury, who somehow manages to never sleep with this woman (or any other) despite having every opportunity. (It occurs to me that Jury is similar to Angel from Buffy & the Vampire Slayer in many ways, except Jury can go out and walk the lonely rainy streets of the city during the day, and having sex is not going to literally turn him into an evil monster, although you couldn’t tell that by his inexplicably monkish behavior. My best guess is that Grimes recognizes that a certain kind of loyal female fan believes deeply that if only she were to appear in Jury’s life… etc., and Grimes thus keeps him unattached to prevent these women from becoming jealous and sending her hate mail. Or it could just be that Grimes is totally incapable of developing a character in any way whatsoever.) But since then, I have encountered it so many times that I have come to recognize it as a standard fantasy. I’ve seen it in books written by both men and women, though I think it is slightly more common in ones that are targeted to a disproportionately female audience. However, I’ve been surprised at the number of thrillers written by men with male protagonists and a generally male sensibility that feature a woman with this characteristic in the role of “hot woman the hero will soon start fucking.”
Although this character does not rise to the level of Wacky Neighbor, Token Religious Black Woman (about which more later), Amazingly Resourceful Friend (you know, how characters in fiction so frequently happen to have a friend who can with almost zero notice arrange, e.g., a wedding ceremony or a set of false identity papers), or Really Stupid Guy, Skinny Woman Who Eats All the Time has made it on my personal list of fictional stereotypes.
I am now mentally prepared that one day I am going to be reading a book in which after a walk on the beach in the tiniest possible bikini, the Skinny Woman Who Eats will go up to the snack bar with Her Man, and she will say “Two cheeseburgers, two large fries, and two chocolate milkshakes… and whatever he is having.”
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
GRE Disappointment
The New York Times reported last week that the new and improved GRE that was supposed to start this fall has been scrapped by ETS because it is “longer, more expensive, and more difficult to administer” than the current test. It sounds like they ran into big problems with ensuring access for test takers outside the US (who constitute 20% of GRE takers, a figure which surprised me) using an Internet-based system. The current GRE is available on a more or less constant basis, with administration by computer or by paper depending on the location, while the new test was going to be available on only 35 testing days. (They wanted to limit the days the test is available because of a scandal involving students in some Asian countries memorizing specific questions from the test they took and sharing them with others. By having a small number of test days, ETS could administer a completely different set of test questions each time and thus stymie cheaters.) Apparently ETS has delayed the deployment of the revised test twice before finally dropping it for good this time.
This is a bummer for me. I was really looking forward to the new test, with the increased emphasis on contextual language use, statistical reasoning, and critical thinking. Now I’m facing spending precious time looking at vocabulary lists to prepare for analogy questions like: "Apotheosis is to raven as ______ is to writing desk. (a) chicanery (b) encomium (c) iconoclast (d) panegyric."
And I suppose that the hated adaptive model that forces you to work each problem without skipping and does not guarantee you even the opportunity to see the harder problems on the test if you happen to be a slow starter and miss the first couple of questions is sticking around too. Grrr. Perhaps they will at some point be able to incorporate many of these content changes even having abandoned the plans to offer the test using the limited-day Internet-administration method.
I enjoyed this quote from a director at the Kaplan test prep company:
“We do think the new test would have been more challenging,” Ms. Kaplan said, adding that she welcomed the announcement. “It’s a positive thing that E.T.S. realized that the change would do more harm than good,” she said.
This is true if you assume that the sentence ends with “for my company, which completely relies on the ability of memorization and similar teaching-to-the-test techniques to increase test-takers’ scores. We’ve been freaking out for years now at the prospect of having to instruct people in how to think logically, understand and critique ideas, or do any kind of story-problem-based mathematical reasoning, and were depressed to consider that all our current books and software were about to become obsolete. I’m thrilled that logistical difficulties have thwarted the attempt to make a test with higher validity but that would ultimately have been a pain in the ass for me personally and a revenue blow to my organization in general.”
OK, I guess it might also be better for students from outside the US who may not have been able to secure the opportunity to be tested under the new system. (Like I needed the competition, right? At least my field of interest is only moderately quantitative.)
I can’t help but think how bitter the ETS psychometricians who have been working on this project for four years must be to see this thing die because the People’s Republic of Random Country doesn’t have a sufficiently developed infrastructure to support the testing system. Maybe Ms. Kaplan will send the project team a case of hard liquor and a “Sucks to be you!” sympathy card paid for out of the proceeds of the 100,000 extra test prep books on the old style GRE they will sell this year.
This is a bummer for me. I was really looking forward to the new test, with the increased emphasis on contextual language use, statistical reasoning, and critical thinking. Now I’m facing spending precious time looking at vocabulary lists to prepare for analogy questions like: "Apotheosis is to raven as ______ is to writing desk. (a) chicanery (b) encomium (c) iconoclast (d) panegyric."
And I suppose that the hated adaptive model that forces you to work each problem without skipping and does not guarantee you even the opportunity to see the harder problems on the test if you happen to be a slow starter and miss the first couple of questions is sticking around too. Grrr. Perhaps they will at some point be able to incorporate many of these content changes even having abandoned the plans to offer the test using the limited-day Internet-administration method.
I enjoyed this quote from a director at the Kaplan test prep company:
“We do think the new test would have been more challenging,” Ms. Kaplan said, adding that she welcomed the announcement. “It’s a positive thing that E.T.S. realized that the change would do more harm than good,” she said.
This is true if you assume that the sentence ends with “for my company, which completely relies on the ability of memorization and similar teaching-to-the-test techniques to increase test-takers’ scores. We’ve been freaking out for years now at the prospect of having to instruct people in how to think logically, understand and critique ideas, or do any kind of story-problem-based mathematical reasoning, and were depressed to consider that all our current books and software were about to become obsolete. I’m thrilled that logistical difficulties have thwarted the attempt to make a test with higher validity but that would ultimately have been a pain in the ass for me personally and a revenue blow to my organization in general.”
OK, I guess it might also be better for students from outside the US who may not have been able to secure the opportunity to be tested under the new system. (Like I needed the competition, right? At least my field of interest is only moderately quantitative.)
I can’t help but think how bitter the ETS psychometricians who have been working on this project for four years must be to see this thing die because the People’s Republic of Random Country doesn’t have a sufficiently developed infrastructure to support the testing system. Maybe Ms. Kaplan will send the project team a case of hard liquor and a “Sucks to be you!” sympathy card paid for out of the proceeds of the 100,000 extra test prep books on the old style GRE they will sell this year.
Monday, April 9, 2007
Appointed Rounds
Saturday night, it was 35 degrees and lightly sleeting when Robert and I were walking back to the car across the grocery store parking lot, and since I was not wearing a coat (because I had thought it would be too hot inside the store, not thinking about this nifty feature of coats: that they can be taken off indoors), I was feeling kind of sorry for myself. But then Robert pointed out the young guy wearing a lightweight rain jacket with a hood and a pair of knee-length shorts (?!) hunched stiffly over the long line of grocery carts he was pushing toward the building. Suddenly my situation seemed a lot better because (1) I only had to walk that distance in the cold and wet once rather than many dozen times, and (2) though I was wearing a light leather jacket instead of the wonderful water-resistant coat I had purchased last December, I at least had my freaking legs covered.
The store was pretty much a madhouse on Saturday night anyway and the lines were long in a way I’m not used to seeing outside my old (and now closed) Albertson’s. The family two carts ahead of us were obviously making use of additional dimensions of space-time to hold items they were purchasing because it was inconceivable that so many things could fit in the cart they had. (Forget clowns in a Volkswagen as the standard of the tight squeeze. I cannot fathom where the huge bag of potatoes came from.) In retrospect, it is obvious that the night before a holiday that features both big feasts and toys and candy for children will be a busy time at the grocery store, but I managed to be surprised by it.
I was also rather taken aback by the number of parents buying Easter basket items (or entire pre-packaged Easter baskets, which always seem lame to me) with their children present. These kids were young enough to still believe in the Easter Bunny, but old enough that they will easily recognize the 2 foot chocolate rabbit purchased Saturday night in Sunday morning’s basket. Has there been some mass movement toward telling children that the Easter Bunny has taken to outsourcing or are parents just so overwhelmed that they can’t manage the fairly simple-seeming task of buying this stuff on the sly? Of course, I am looking at the sample of people who are purchasing on the night before Easter, who may be a more desperate or less with-it group than parents as a whole. So perhaps I should not fear that America’s children overall are being robbed of an Easter experience in which a lagomorph plays the role of non-judgmental hero bringing chocolate-y goodness to all and sundry.
My own Easter morning conformed to a cargo cult model in which I put out my purple bunny-head basket and several minutes later, it contained a DVD of the Disney Alice in Wonderland movie (released with an extra disk of bonus materials), two Reese’s peanut butter cups, and the ugliest rabbit figurine made out of rocks ever known to man. Its big gold tooth is particularly pimpin’ and repellant. It would give a child nightmares. In the horror movie version of my life, it contains an evil spirit that will take over Leo’s body to plot the destruction of the world before realizing that Leo can’t even get over the baby gate blocking him from the rest of the apartment, thus severely limiting the scope of said destruction in a serious way. After finding that little totem, I was too afraid to test the magic basket thing again.
The store was pretty much a madhouse on Saturday night anyway and the lines were long in a way I’m not used to seeing outside my old (and now closed) Albertson’s. The family two carts ahead of us were obviously making use of additional dimensions of space-time to hold items they were purchasing because it was inconceivable that so many things could fit in the cart they had. (Forget clowns in a Volkswagen as the standard of the tight squeeze. I cannot fathom where the huge bag of potatoes came from.) In retrospect, it is obvious that the night before a holiday that features both big feasts and toys and candy for children will be a busy time at the grocery store, but I managed to be surprised by it.
I was also rather taken aback by the number of parents buying Easter basket items (or entire pre-packaged Easter baskets, which always seem lame to me) with their children present. These kids were young enough to still believe in the Easter Bunny, but old enough that they will easily recognize the 2 foot chocolate rabbit purchased Saturday night in Sunday morning’s basket. Has there been some mass movement toward telling children that the Easter Bunny has taken to outsourcing or are parents just so overwhelmed that they can’t manage the fairly simple-seeming task of buying this stuff on the sly? Of course, I am looking at the sample of people who are purchasing on the night before Easter, who may be a more desperate or less with-it group than parents as a whole. So perhaps I should not fear that America’s children overall are being robbed of an Easter experience in which a lagomorph plays the role of non-judgmental hero bringing chocolate-y goodness to all and sundry.
My own Easter morning conformed to a cargo cult model in which I put out my purple bunny-head basket and several minutes later, it contained a DVD of the Disney Alice in Wonderland movie (released with an extra disk of bonus materials), two Reese’s peanut butter cups, and the ugliest rabbit figurine made out of rocks ever known to man. Its big gold tooth is particularly pimpin’ and repellant. It would give a child nightmares. In the horror movie version of my life, it contains an evil spirit that will take over Leo’s body to plot the destruction of the world before realizing that Leo can’t even get over the baby gate blocking him from the rest of the apartment, thus severely limiting the scope of said destruction in a serious way. After finding that little totem, I was too afraid to test the magic basket thing again.
Friday, April 6, 2007
The Insidiousness of Things
You may have heard about the series of economics experiments demonstrating the existence of an "endowment effect" - people value something more highly if they own it than if they do not. These experiments have taken different forms, but perhaps the most famous one found that people who have been given a school mug (easily available at the college bookstore) required a higher trading price on the mug than those who are given the opportunity to buy one.I am not interested right now in debating the merits of these various experiments, under what conditions this divergence between willingness to pay and willingness to accept appears to be greatest or mostly goes away, how this relates to the status quo bias and risk aversion, and why White Elephant exchanges at office Christmas parties are often so boring because people usually just keep whatever trinket they drew totally at random and all that (though those are fascinating questions well worth discussing), but I want to use this as an example: give a kid a crappy university mug and after owning it for just a few moments, they already start to see it as much more valuable than they did a minute before, when it was just a mug sitting on a shelf and not their very own mug. That's how quickly our possessions can start screwing with our minds. If people can be this way about a stupid trifle that they were just now given, imagine how we must be with things that we have purchased because we really wanted them at some time in our lives and that we enjoyed for many years and that we have become ridiculously emotionally invested in. It's frightening.
So I want to remind us all: constant vigilance! Don't let your possessions own you. There's no need to give them so much power. Take a risk - throw it away and have faith that your life will not be harmed by the fact that you no longer have the Strawberry Shortcake shaped eraser that your best friend in 3rd grade (whose name, let's face it, you can hardly even remember without thinking way too hard) gave you or your 4th favorite hammer or a book you read once and didn’t like all that much anyway or a pair of pants you haven’t fit for 15 years or a lifetime supply of scratch paper.
I have long loved this poem by M. S. Merwin. They speak so sweetly, but don't listen to their lies!
Things
Possessor
At the approach of winter we are there.
Better than friends, in your sorrows we take no pleasure,
We have none of our own and no memory but yours.
We are the anchor of your future.
Patient as a border of beggars, each hand holding out its whole treasure,
We will be all the points on your compass.
We will give you interest on yourself as you deposit yourself with us.
Be a gentleman: you acquired us when you needed us,
We do what we can to please, we have some beauty, we are helpless,
Depend on us.
Thursday, April 5, 2007
42 Winks
Today at work, we had a little party with fruit (I very generously opened up the recalcitrant container of pineapple chunks before realizing I was thereby contaminating my hands), veggie tray, cheese and cracker tray (Ritz crackers are like the best trashy cracker ever), juice, Perrier, and a margarita machine (oh wait, scratch the margarita machine) to celebrate our admin's birthday this weekend. When someone asked her if she was going to do anything special to celebrate, she wasn't sure, so there were many suggestions about where she might go for a meal, etc. Then one person related how her sister, who already has four horses, three dogs, two cats, two children, one husband, and a job as an attorney is going to Canada to get yet another dog because it is from the same lineage as a dog with whom she had had a particularly special relationship that the sister valued and talked about in a pretty freakish way to be honest, which brought up the whole issue of how she can possibly juggle all those responsibilities, especially caring for four horses through Vermont winters (and what the hell good her therapist is doing if she continues to feel this compulsion to have additional pets), and people discussed what kinds of things they do that keep them feeling crazy busy. So I said, "Well by comparison to you guys, one of my hobbies is sleeping." Our admin (who has two teenage daughters who are on a lot of sports teams and who is in college part-time in addition to working full-time with us) said with an incredible tone of longing, "Oh my god. Sleep. I want to sleep on my birthday."
With tomorrow being Good Friday, and both my and Robert's directors deciding to give employees the day off even though it's not an official state holiday, we had discussed going birding in the morning and seeing what migrants are out there. But since it's now after midnight, I am thinking I will choose instead to start the day with no alarm clock and, if I'm lucky, a solid 8+ hours of sleep behind me. And really, there is no more appropriate time of year to sleep like the dead than this weekend.
With tomorrow being Good Friday, and both my and Robert's directors deciding to give employees the day off even though it's not an official state holiday, we had discussed going birding in the morning and seeing what migrants are out there. But since it's now after midnight, I am thinking I will choose instead to start the day with no alarm clock and, if I'm lucky, a solid 8+ hours of sleep behind me. And really, there is no more appropriate time of year to sleep like the dead than this weekend.
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Not Happy
I am so irritated by this math class right now I could scream. It's fine that he wants us to find the limits of the functions using the 6 properties of limits or he will return our homework and make us redo it. However:
(1) The specific proof that he tells us we should follow in answering the questions does not actually exist in the study guide as he claims.
(2) The proof that is included in the study guide uses a step which says
lim as x -> infinity of (1/x) / (1/x) = (1/2) / (1/2) = 1.
I have wasted the last 1.5 hours or more trying to understand what his expectations are for these proofs, trying desperately to make sense of this 1/2 business, and then writing an email laying out my questions. And since he has two days to respond to my email, yet more time will be wasted before I can make any forward progress.
I gave him a pass on a previous boneheaded error, where he gave the answer to his own problem as being -5/3 when it should have been -3/5 (or vice versa) but I am not feeling charitable in the slightest about this limit crap.
I realize that perhaps my instructor did not write this study guide but (1) his name is on it, and (2) he was responsible for ensuring that the information in it was accurate.
Am I the very first person to take this class via the UT extension service using this study guide? Am I truly a guinea pig as they figure out all their mistakes? If so, I even more thoroughly resent that I am paying hundreds of dollars for this class. They should be paying me to point out their myriad flaws. And these errors are big-time eroding their credibility. I am quite eager to see what the response is going to be and to what degree my instructor will respond in a way that recoups any of that credibility.
Perhaps I am going to find myself thinking back fondly on the Rice days when my math professors were arrogant jerks but could be trusted to actually, you know, do third week of first semester level calculus without errors.
(1) The specific proof that he tells us we should follow in answering the questions does not actually exist in the study guide as he claims.
(2) The proof that is included in the study guide uses a step which says
lim as x -> infinity of (1/x) / (1/x) = (1/2) / (1/2) = 1.
I have wasted the last 1.5 hours or more trying to understand what his expectations are for these proofs, trying desperately to make sense of this 1/2 business, and then writing an email laying out my questions. And since he has two days to respond to my email, yet more time will be wasted before I can make any forward progress.
I gave him a pass on a previous boneheaded error, where he gave the answer to his own problem as being -5/3 when it should have been -3/5 (or vice versa) but I am not feeling charitable in the slightest about this limit crap.
I realize that perhaps my instructor did not write this study guide but (1) his name is on it, and (2) he was responsible for ensuring that the information in it was accurate.
Am I the very first person to take this class via the UT extension service using this study guide? Am I truly a guinea pig as they figure out all their mistakes? If so, I even more thoroughly resent that I am paying hundreds of dollars for this class. They should be paying me to point out their myriad flaws. And these errors are big-time eroding their credibility. I am quite eager to see what the response is going to be and to what degree my instructor will respond in a way that recoups any of that credibility.
Perhaps I am going to find myself thinking back fondly on the Rice days when my math professors were arrogant jerks but could be trusted to actually, you know, do third week of first semester level calculus without errors.
Monday, April 2, 2007
11.1%
I have now completed 11.1% (2/18) of the assignments for my math class to be sent in the mail tomorrow. Preparing an assignment to be graded is a minor hassle: I have to photocopy the pages, fill out a cover sheet (of which there is a different one for each assignment, complete with bar code), put everything in an envelope, and then mail to the extension service. (Or, rather, give to Robert to take to the post office in his building to be weighed, stamped, and mailed.) In two weeks, I'll find out how I did.
I have found myself already making up rhymes and poor puns based on my instructor's name; it's sort of strange that the only things I know about him are his name, his ostensible gender, and what bits I glean from his writing style in the study guide. I actually thought his function/missile metaphor was rather confusing in a way, but that may have been because I already knew the material he was covering so any analogy seemed more complicated than the concept itself. The real test (for him as an instructor) is when we get to Taylor series. I will make myself open to enlightenment and see how well this distance learning via standardized written materials really works.
OK, I just googled him and came across this comment from one of his students on a teacher review: "He's ok looking, but not hot." Bummer for him, since I understand that physical attractiveness is the best predictor of college student ratings of their professors.
I have found myself already making up rhymes and poor puns based on my instructor's name; it's sort of strange that the only things I know about him are his name, his ostensible gender, and what bits I glean from his writing style in the study guide. I actually thought his function/missile metaphor was rather confusing in a way, but that may have been because I already knew the material he was covering so any analogy seemed more complicated than the concept itself. The real test (for him as an instructor) is when we get to Taylor series. I will make myself open to enlightenment and see how well this distance learning via standardized written materials really works.
OK, I just googled him and came across this comment from one of his students on a teacher review: "He's ok looking, but not hot." Bummer for him, since I understand that physical attractiveness is the best predictor of college student ratings of their professors.
Pasta Primavera Chicken Salad Recipe
This is a nice, light cold main dish salad that is perfect for this time of year. The recipe calls for chicken, but you could substitute another protein if you like. Chickpeas or white beans might be especially good, or faux chicken strips. I tend to view the vegetable quantities as minimum suggestions and will use more if I have it. The base recipe is from Cooking Light.
1 c. carrot, julienne-sliced (3 oz) [I use the bagged matchstick cut carrots]
1 ½ c. broccoli flowerets (6 oz)
½ red bell pepper, cubed
½ green bell pepper, cubed
1 c. whole wheat rotini, cooked (3 oz)
1 c. white rotini, cooked (3 oz)
1 lb. chicken breast, cooked and cubed
½ onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c. white vinegar [I always use apple cider vinegar]
1/3 c. rice vinegar
2 t. balsamic vinegar [I usually am generous with the balsamic]
2 t. sugar [or Splenda]
2 t. dried oregano, crushed
1 t. freshly ground black pepper
½ t. salt
1 T. olive oil
1. Cook carrot, peppers, and broccoli about 10 minutes in vegetable steamer until crisp-tender. Combine pasta, vegetable mixture, and cooked chicken in a bowl; set aside.
2. Coat a small saucepan with olive oil spray; place over medium heat until hot. Add onion and garlic; sauté until tender. Remove from heat; stir in vinegar and remaining ingredients. Pour over pasta mixture; toss well. Cover and chill.
Serves 4.
Each serving by my reckoning has 404 calories, 8.5 g fat, 5 g sugar, 43 g protein.
1 c. carrot, julienne-sliced (3 oz) [I use the bagged matchstick cut carrots]
1 ½ c. broccoli flowerets (6 oz)
½ red bell pepper, cubed
½ green bell pepper, cubed
1 c. whole wheat rotini, cooked (3 oz)
1 c. white rotini, cooked (3 oz)
1 lb. chicken breast, cooked and cubed
½ onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/3 c. white vinegar [I always use apple cider vinegar]
1/3 c. rice vinegar
2 t. balsamic vinegar [I usually am generous with the balsamic]
2 t. sugar [or Splenda]
2 t. dried oregano, crushed
1 t. freshly ground black pepper
½ t. salt
1 T. olive oil
1. Cook carrot, peppers, and broccoli about 10 minutes in vegetable steamer until crisp-tender. Combine pasta, vegetable mixture, and cooked chicken in a bowl; set aside.
2. Coat a small saucepan with olive oil spray; place over medium heat until hot. Add onion and garlic; sauté until tender. Remove from heat; stir in vinegar and remaining ingredients. Pour over pasta mixture; toss well. Cover and chill.
Serves 4.
Each serving by my reckoning has 404 calories, 8.5 g fat, 5 g sugar, 43 g protein.
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