Passing thoughts
jstemwedel | May 3, 2008Captivated by the colors I saw, I took this picture today.
Any guesses as to what it is?
jstemwedel | April 26, 2008On April Fool's Day, our local Socrates Café had an interesting discussion around the question of what makes something funny. One observation that came up repeatedly was that most jokes seem aimed at particular audiences -- at people who share particular assumptions, experiences, and contexts with the person telling the joke. The expectation is that those "in the know" will recognize what's funny, and that those who don't see the humor are failing to find the funny because they're not in possession of the crucial knowledge or insight held by those in the in-group. Moreover, the person…
jstemwedel | April 26, 2008As we're listening to Weekend Edition, the younger Free-Ride offspring asks, "Why don't they ever have weekend subtraction?"
(I think it was the elder Free-Ride offspring, years ago, who asked why Morning Edition had puppet words. It took us a few long moments to figure out the "puppet words" was actually Bob Edwards.)
jstemwedel | April 24, 2008Do you ever get to the point where if you haven't checked your syllabus within the last few hours, you have no confidence that you actually know what day it is?
Or is it just me?
jstemwedel | April 15, 2008Actually, a few of them. Since we sent our tax return off already, the answers to the questions probably doesn't have much practical import, but here they are:
Y'all know that I get paid a (pretty modest) amount for blogging. As such, Seed sent me a 2007 Miscellaneous Income report (Form 1099-MISC).
This form shows the modest amount that I earned in box 5, "Fishing boat proceeds". Under "Instructions for Recipient" it says:
Box 5. An amount in this box means the fishing boat operator considers you self-employed. Report this amount on Schedule C or C-EZ (Form 1040). See Pub. 344.
My…
jstemwedel | April 8, 2008In case those readers trained in analytic philosophy managed to miss it, this comment at A Philosophy Job Market Blog gave me the giggles while striking me as an entirely appropriate response (given the audience) to a lazy reliance on speculative evolutionary psychology to justify the status quo (in this case, the lopsided gender split of folks pursuing philosophy in their studies and as a career). The italicized portion is quoted from the earlier (ev-psych-loving) commenter:
Maybe, just maybe, philosophy is something "inherently more valuable" to men qua hunters
Because chasing down those…
jstemwedel | April 5, 2008Some screechy monkey or other tagged me on the song chart meme. The idea seems to be to come up with a visual/graphical representation of a song or some lyrical subset of it.
In other words, you can get your music-geek and your math-geek on at the same time.
I came very close to going through our entire record collection last night to pick the optimal song. But then I figured I'd just put up two suboptimal responses rather than laboring to determine what the optimal response would be. (Of course, because I'm a tremendous Luddite, both are hand drawn.)
First a histogram:
After which we…
jstemwedel | March 31, 2008It's time to unplug from the ScienceBorg.
I've had enough of the oppressive editorial control, constraining my voice as a blogger. That "voice of reason" script I'm known for was assigned to me by our editors. And it's the same story for the personae of other Sb bloggers. PZ Myers as fire-breathing atheist, Zuska as puke-spewing feminist, Nisbet as aloof communications professor, revere(s) as leftist(s), Wilkins as agnostic, Lynch as Irish -- all scripted. We might as well be The Monkees for all the authenticity we display here. Heck, Razib doesn't even have a cat.
I am bone-tired of the…
jstemwedel | March 20, 2008Well, light can still escape the gravitational pull of my world, but it does feel like it's getting noticeably smaller.
Three recent data points:
At a soccer game the other weekend, the team I coach was playing a team some of whose players I coached last Spring season. The parent of one of those former players of mine greeted me as "Dr. Free-Ride" -- apparently, he had stumbled upon my blog!
(Younger offspring's immediate reaction: "Oh, so you've seen my drawings!")
One of my students this term turns out to be the sister of the parent of my former player.
Today, I got an email from Steinn…
jstemwedel | February 27, 2008Regular readers of this blog know that I am hoping to be on a sabbatical leave during academic year 2008-2009. Indeed, some of you have asked, "Where are you going to go?"
The answer:
My brand new desk at home.
As it turns out, it has been years since I've had a proper desk of my own at home. The computer table that functioned as my desk for the last year of my chemistry studies pretty much became community property once the sprogs arrived. (You'd be amazed at how quickly babies become territorial about computers.) This means that much of my philosophy dissertation was hammered out on my…
jstemwedel | February 22, 2008Seen in a comment on A Philosophy Job Market Blog:
... instead of writing "QED" at the end of proofs, I think we should all start writing "pwned." I want this change to be my legacy to philosophy.
jstemwedel | February 15, 2008Once again, Dave Ng at The World's Fair issues a challenge:
If you had to write your memoirs in 6 words, what would they be?
Writing that memoir today, here are mine:
Chemist. Philosopher. Parent. Blogger.
Grown-up? Someday.
Six words fit very nicely in the comments field -- what's your life story?
jstemwedel | February 10, 2008Hey, today is the third anniversary of my first post on "Adventures in Ethics and Science" at the original digs. I can honestly say that when I started the blog as a virtual extension of class discussions in my "Ethics in Science" I didn't imagine that it would continue past the end of the semester, nor that it would get scooped up to become part of ScienceBlogs.
A few notes before the cupcakes:
I've made some post-Blogroll Amnesty Day updates to my blogroll (and, with luck, didn't mess up any of the links). But it's not too late to tell me about a blog I really should be reading!
I…
jstemwedel | February 2, 2008Via Greg Laden, I see that there is now some research to support our primal revulsion toward double-dippers:
Last year the food microbiologist's [Clemson University professor Paul L. Dawson] undergraduate students examined the effects of double dipping using volunteers, wheat crackers and several sample dips. They found that three to six double dips transferred about 10,000 bacteria from an eater's mouth to the remaining dip sample.
"I was very surprised by the results," Dawson said in a telephone interview Thursday. "I thought there would be very minimal transfer. I didn't think we would…
jstemwedel | January 25, 2008PZ tagged me with a teaching meme. The question is "Why do you teach and why is academic freedom critical to that effort?"
Unlike PZ, I knew I had a thing for teaching long before I had a clue what discipline I would end up pursuing. (My first official paycheck for a teaching gig was issued in 1985.) But at this stage of my life, my reasons for teaching are a bit more complex than "I like it," "I'm good at it," and "It's a requirement of my job to do so."
They're complex enough, in fact, that I'm going to subvert the question a little and talk about why I teach the two main courses I…
jstemwedel | January 23, 2008It's been pretty quiet here. Not only have I been engrossed in preparations for the Spring semester (classes start today), but I also went to the 2008 NC Science Blogging Conference. So it seems like a good time to ruminate a bit on how conferences fit into the patterns of (my) academic life.
The official reasons academics go to conferences include presenting their work to others in their field and finding out what other people in the field are working on. In the "scholarly communication" hierarchy, giving a talk or presenting a poster is less valued than getting a peer-reviewed…
jstemwedel | January 7, 2008Happy 2008! Let the bullets commence:
*I am now to the point of totally refusing to acknowledge this interstitial period between semesters as a proper break. Far too much of it has already been taken up with matters from last term, and there's no end of that in sight. Meanwhile, certain details of the upcoming semester are still sufficiently unresolved that I cannot yet do things like updating my course calendars.
*A piece of free advice to students: If you are emailing your instructor during an official break and would like a prompt and helpful response, avoid being abusive in that email…
jstemwedel | December 31, 2007There are less than seven hours left in 2007 as I write this post, and as yet, my better half and I have no idea what we're doing tonight.
If we manage to get out, chances are good that a cover band may be involved.
In general, cover bands aren't really my thing, but every now and then a cover version puts a thrillingly unexpected twist on a beloved song. Here are three that I really like:
First, a dancehall version of a Tom Jones song:
Next, a ukulele cover of a Pixie's tune:
And finally, an acoustic take on Sir Mix-A-Lot:
If we happen to encounter a cover version of this caliber, we'll…
jstemwedel | December 25, 2007The tradition in the Free-Ride family (passed down from my family) is that, on Christmas morning, no one gets to start opening presents until everyone is awake and ready to start opening presents. It doesn't matter how early the kids are awake. Until the last sleepy parent is ready, you just have to wait.
Santa does leave filled stockings on the foot of each bed, so there's something to keep you occupied, but that only keeps you satisfied for so long.
The fact that we are visiting the grandparents-who-lurk-but-seldom-comment introduces an interesting complication to the power struggle…
jstemwedel | December 24, 2007Having filed grades and extricated myself from the demands of my job, at least temporarily, I have come with my better half and offspring to the stomping grounds of my better half's youth.
Well, kind of.
The grandparents-who-lurk-but-seldom-comment actually live a couple towns over from where they did when my better half still lived at home. In fact, they only moved from that house a few years ago, so I'm much more familiar with the immediate vicinity of the childhood home than I am with the environs of the current house.
But we do this thing that folks in this part of the country are…