February 15, 2012
In one of my undergraduate non-majors classes (enrollment 25), we have an exam tomorrow. So last night, I held a “review session” — more like a question and answer session — and got about 40% turnout.
I suppose that’s good. Other things I tried:
- Lecture notes and “slides” for every class meeting were posted on the web
- A trimmed down summary of all the notes was posted on the web as a “study guide”
- I provided about 20 sample questions. (None of these questions actually appear on the exam.)
- I wrote down the general topic of every exam question on the board on Tuesday. The students acted as if they’d died and gone to heaven!–although I don’t find it particularly useful.
Let’s see if any of this was helpful…..
February 12, 2012
I’m learning that in my line of work, finding fast computers is not the issue when you move from one place to the next. It’s almost trivial these days to find a speedy processor with multiple cores, or better yet, a cluster of speedy ones for even more number crunching power. Darn near trivial.
The problem isn’t operating systems, compilers, or visualization, either. Scripts need to be tweaked from system to system, sure, but I’ve never found this to be a huge stumbling block.
No, the problem is backing up, transporting, and then restoring your data at your new location.
By far the greatest challenge I’ve had is finding a new home for my old data. I’ve got a lot of it. Nearly 1 TB of simulations that served as the foundation for my dissertation (and that I still work with). About 500 MB in reanalysis data for a current project. Another 500 MB of archived data that’s needed from time to time (this semester, I’ve used it in my classes a lot). A need for probably 500 MB to 1 TB of space for the next project, which spins up soon.
Yeah, I’m a hard drive hog. I know this.
Finding a home for that data has been difficult, especially when coupled with its processing need — to be housed on a Linux-based machine. My new employer is almost entirely, completely, excessively a Windows supporter. When trying to get some ideas about my data and processing needs, the answer was basically “You should really just buy your own Linux machine and administer it yourself.” A frustrating response, but at least now I know the path forward.
Back to the drawing board…
February 8, 2012
I haven’t used my big iron skillet since I moved here about a month ago. Tonight, I opened the cabinet and saw it sitting there, getting dusty, getting rusty, almost pouting a little bit. “I miss you! Please, play with me!”
So it was time to wake up that skillet’s old spirit and get it back in the game. Right now, it’s lathered up with oil and sitting in a 350° degree oven. But that’s only the start — I have to put it to real work in the next few days. Anyone wanna come over for fried chicken?
The metaphor is an interesting one. Are there other old hobbies, old ideas, or old friends that need to be rekindled? In my life? In yours? Hmmm…….
February 7, 2012
1. Moving.
I have changed jobs, and I went through a cross-country move over the holidays. If there actually is a “good” time of year to move, winter (in the mountains!) and Christmas are not part of it. But I made it to my next destination finally…been here about a month and really like it. It’s nice to be in a traditional college town again. Having all the shops, arts, sports, restaurants, and amenities at your disposal is a boost to the quality of living. I’m happy to be here.
2. Teaching.
I’ve stepped to the other side of the desk for the first time, teaching two classes this semester. One is a lower division course for non-majors — it’s the first time that Severe and Unusual Weather has been taught on the campus, and we drew 24 students this time. Impressive, but I’m hoping to grow the course even further if I get the chance to teach it another time or two before I leave.
The second course is in the majors sequence (for those in the “atmospheric science concentration”), titled Weather Analysis and Forecasting. For the more meteorological folks, I’m basically calling it Synoptic I. It’s been a challenge so far, because there is no math prerequisite. A few people have had calculus, but I’ve been handicapped because I can’t guarantee that the math has been seen before. The way I look at it, when I teach “Advanced Synoptic Meteorology” (essentially Synoptic II) in the fall, I’ll put the math back in everything. This is really the capstone sequence for meteorologists — it’s quite an honor to get to teach it.
3. Unpacking.
I hate moving. I hate filling and emptying boxes. I’ve been here a month, and still have a couple of them in the dining room. I’ll open them eventually.
4. Playing with Linux.
Even though I’m using the VMWare Player to do it, I’ve been using Ubuntu on my home machine to run Gempak, perform some model simulations, and do a host of other things that just go more smoothly on the *nix side of the aisle. There’s no way I could ever make the complete switch, but having a functional OS for both Linux and Windows is really nice.
5. Thinking about travel.
It’s been four years since I last graced the shores of the UK, and I am Jonesing for another hit pretty badly right now. Now to find the budget for it…
6. Thinking long term.
What is my 10-year plan? For my life? For my career? Where do I really want this to go? What is truly going to make me a happy person in this decade? Big questions…that will take a few months to start answering.
Last month, I ended a 12-year professional relationship that had become stale. It was a tough decision to make, but when things are no longer productive, no longer workable, it’s time to move on. I suspect there will be more big decisions like this on the way.
7. Looking for a good, pre-mixed, chicken breading.
Does one exist? Any suggestions?
November 11, 2011
In all my time in college (undergraduate and graduate — about a dozen years!), I was never a fan of those who felt the need to give us a daily outline of every class’s topics on the first day. It has always struck me as overkill, as too much planning, as squelching any chance of diversions or good side conversations on other topics. Is it really possible to stay exactly on time in 75-minute increments for 15 weeks??
But here I am, getting ready to teach two courses in January, and trying to plan out all 30 class meetings for each. Sigh.
I will say, I’m trying to do it in a way that’s not completely hypocritical. :-) It’s an exercise in general planning, where the overall structure is more important than the details. I want to see how much material I can cover, how to organize it, where to put the exams. “Week 10″ vs. “Week 11″ could be important, since there’s that thing called Spring Break between them! But I have no desire to say “On March 2 we will talk about jet streaks, solenoidal circulations, and how coupling of two jet streaks caused heavy snowfall during the Storm of 1993. And on March 4 we’ll talk about jet streak curvature and…”. It’s just too much.
So instead of micro-managing myself and my class, the goal here is to put a realistic overall plan together. One that can be tweaked as the weeks go by, as unique events occur in the real world, as students discover their interests. My philosophy is simple — we don’t have to cover everything as long as you enjoy what we do cover. I’d rather convert someone to our field and leave questions unanswered than simply flood everyone with information.
Of course, this is just how I choose to do things. Your mileage may vary.
November 9, 2011
I’ve got several friends and colleagues who are Penn State alumni. They have been shaken hard by the unfolding scandal surrounding Jerry Sandusky and several administrators, and I’m not surprised.
It’s tough to admit that your world — a world that seems so pure, so blissful — is fatally flawed. It’s tough to admit that in even the most honorable institutions, traitors and criminals lurk in the shadows.
My Penn State friends are getting a true taste of the court of public opinion, too. Joe Paterno may have committed no legal wrong years ago, but let’s be frank: where children are concerned, in the eyes of the public even the appearance of wrongdoing is, well, wrong. Fair or not, there’s no getting around that. Casey and Caylee are another prime example.
(Snarky aside: how many people who basically called for Casey’s lynching are now standing beside someone who employed a kid diddler?)
Here’s a stark lesson to my friends, to their community, and to all of us really. No place is perfect. Every grocery store has a shelf that’s loose. Every cemetery has a marker that’s crooked. Every team has a cheat. Every bank has an embezzler. Don’t think so? Look around. Penn State. Enron. USC. Mark Foley. Black Sox. It’s not only athletics or politics or business, it’s everywhere.
This is the lesson. Happy Valley is really Just Like Every Other Valley.
October 22, 2011
By all accounts, I started my first online “blog” (gawd, I still hate that word) right after starting grad school. November 19, 2002, to be exact. I don’t remember doing anything of the sort while an undergraduate — I wanted to house everything on my own server and my computing skills just weren’t that swift.
So I went and learned some Perl and HTML, and put together my own system. For those first two years, I used my own code, which produced hideous NWS bulletin-looking things because I thought those were “cool” at the time. Ugly, but they got the job done, I suppose. There were also a few months of Xanga in there, but that was mostly to placate my undergrad friends. Although I did enjoy the “now reading”, “now listening to”, and “now watching” features.
In 2004, I finally upgraded to bBlog, which was my primary blogging engine for six years(!!). Simple, low-bandwidth, reliable PHP. Loved it for so long. Last December, I moved here on The Road to San Bartolo with WordPress. Simplicity was good, but the constant spam comments started to overwhelm me. It was time for something more sophisticated, with features like pages and multimedia to make things a little more full-figured. (Now to take more advantage of said features….)
All in all, up to now there have been 1192 posts — one every 2-3 days — including general minutiae, weather discussions, rants, and raves, scattered across the platforms and databases I’ve used.
No, this is not a “goodbye.” Just a little nostalgia to try and motivate myself to do better.
October 22, 2011
Dean Dad’s latest post has a great reminder that’s applicable not just to academia, but pretty much any work environment that involves collaboration…which is pretty much all of them:
Every campus has That Guy who has to sound off at every meeting, whether provoked or not. Sometimes That Guy actually has a valid point, but once you’re typecast, even the valid points get lost. The people whose objections carry the most weight are the ones who pick their battles. Credibility counts.
Sherman Dorn has used the term “deviance credits” to capture this. In essence, you build credits over time with solid performance, and spend them when speaking out. If you go into deviance debt, your credit/credibility is destroyed. Everyone starts with some credits … But if you get caught up in the white-knight fantasy, you can quickly find yourself overspent.
I’ve thrown around some crazy conspiracy theories and been passionate and (very) vocal about some things over the years. But I try to temper that with reason, and only go nuts about something after convincing myself it’s worth it. (As an example, there was a major [in my opinion] security breach a few years ago, and I barked so loudly that our union rep had to get pretty much the entire chain of command involved. Although I completely burned the bridge with the person responsible, the end result was a new secure server for confidential data, retraining of how to handle said data, and reassignment of tasks so that person was no longer responsible. It was an unqualified win.)
Do great work to build up your deviance credits, and then spend them wisely!
October 19, 2011
I landed on a page about roulette and blackjack odds this morning, and decided to steal and modify a quote from it.
“Most people who claim they know how the atmosphere works fear computer simulations and outside verification like Dracula fears a crucifix.”
Especially the verification part. It’s easy to make bombastic claims about the cause of something, until you stack it up to our best reproductions of the known world. The people who aren’t willing to take observations and simulations side-by-side, in tandem, and play their outcomes off of one another disappoint me. The end result would be more targeted observations, and better simulations, and round and round.
September 29, 2011
Our dearest Wikipedia says “The Man” is a slang phrase that may refer to the government or to some other authority in a position of power.”
Once upon a time, AOL was The Man. Now, it’s that snot-nosed Stanford kid and his social network.
No, really, it is. Think about it. Patriot Act, Orwell’s “1984,” you ain’t got nothing on what the curly-haired colorblind guy is doing–and is going to do–with our data. (Yes, “data” is now how we describe our “life”.)
Sorry, but this has just been stuck in my craw the last several days. Time for it to come pouring out I guess.
Filed under: General, Science by traveler
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