Chippah!
This took a lot longer than it looks like it did. It also destroyed my magenta colored pencil. They’re always the first to break, the magentas.
Bah, what’s with me?
This is going to sound like a super emo post, but I don’t have anything else to say today so you get to hear me bitch about pseudo problems.
I suck at being happy.
It’s not that I can’t be happy. It’s true that I haven’t been truly happy in like three years, but once I started teaching stats and taking classes, I finally felt that elusive joy you feel when you wake up knowing that you have a purpose (or at least can pretend to have one).
But whenever I get to that happiness stage, there’s always a little (often big) voice in the back of my head saying, “why the hell are you happy? Happiness = complacency, complacency = stagnation, stagnation = you’re not trying hard enough you fool.”
Stupid? Yeah, welcome to my world.
But that’s how it goes.
Now I have to find something to fret over obsessively to bring things back from “obscene happiness.”
‘Caaaaaaaaaaaause I suck.
Nerves
Total distance walked thus far in 2013: 30 miles.
I need a car. And people need to shovel their damn sidewalks. The top of the hill on 3rd is an icy death trap.
Got my books today. I’m taking engineering physics because I want to take engineering physics and the book is GIANT. It looks like it’ll be a really interesting class.
I’m also taking discrete math. The first page I randomly turned to in the book had a discussion of the pigeonhole principle (a This Week’s Science Blog topic awhile back), so I have automatic love for that class. The professor is the same dude I had for linear algebra back in the stone age, so at least I’ll be familiar with his teaching style.
I think I’m actually more nervous about teaching this semester than last semester, mainly because now that I’ve done a class I feel like I have no excuse for any mistakes.
I need to chill. But I suck at chilling.
BAH.
Note: I’m having some issues regarding approving/responding to comments. Just letting you know that I’m not ignoring them (I love your comments, guys!), I’ll get to them as soon as WordPress stops throwing a hissy fit every time I try to type a response to one.
Quine, NOOOOOOO!
So I linked to a super awesome discussion of Leibniz’ Monadology the other day, right?
Well, if you’ve listened to that (if you haven’t go do it now, fools!), I highly recommend The Partially Examined Life to get more amazing discussions of a wide variety of philosophical works by some of the major dudes in philosophy. Click on the “Podcasts” tab up at the top to see the whole list of discussions.
Seriously, these are awesome. Next up for me is HUUUUUUME! Freakin’ love Hume, man. That’s why I have this shirt.
Also, UI drama is happening because of my tuition waiver thingy. I had whole rant typed out but I deleted it because I’m trying to deal with frustration in a more constructive manner this year. That will probably end with me repressing everything because that’s just how I am, but what’re you going to do?
OH, and if any of you haven’t seen/heard this yet (or seen anything by DJ Earworm):
Yes, this post was heavy in the “stuff on the internet that’s not mine” material. I’m stressing about the upcoming semester, deal with it.
Bookin’ It
So as you may have read, one of my New Year’s resolutions is to revamp my 200 Books list and start over with it, this time writing a review after each book.
So that’s what I did today!
(Side note: the UI Library is kept at a toasty -23 degrees when the students are gone. Holy freaking crap, I had all my winter walking gear on and I was STILL freezing.)
New list is posted in the 200 Books tab. The almighty random number generator told me that the first book I shall be reading is The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro. This was on my old list, but it was one that I never got to because it was always checked out from wherever I was trying to get it. But it was miraculously on the shelves this afternoon, so I picked it up.
I can’t guarantee any sort of time frame for when these reviews will be posted, especially since this semester looks like it’ll be crazy busy. But I’ll try to do them at a reasonable pace!
WOO!
TWSB: The Plane Truth
Happy New Year, everyone!
I just realized that I only moved once in 2012. A good year indeed.
Actually, 2012 wasn’t too bad. At least the latter half. I think Vancouver Karma is finally reversing itself. I really hope 2013 is as good or better.
Anyway. To the blog!
Abraham Wald was a mathematician born in Austria-Hungary (present day Romania) in 1902. He studied mathematics and statistics and worked for the Statistical Research Group (SRG) during WWII. Wald’s job was to estimate the vulnerability of aircraft returning from battle.
To do so, he made note of the location of bullet holes on a ton of returning Allied aircraft to determine the best places to reinforce the planes to promote survival. He made several diagrams showing where the planes were most bullet-ridden (which was pretty much everywhere but the cockpit and the tail).
Showing these diagrams to his supervisors, the supervisors concluded something a lot of us would probably expect—that the best course of action to increase the rate of survival of the planes was to reinforce the areas that were the most damaged.
But Wald came to a different conclusion. He stated that rather than adding reinforcing armor to the bullet-ridden areas of the planes, the plane manufacturers should instead reinforce the areas that were bullet free. His reasoning behind this? The planes survived the battles because the cockpit and tail were undamaged. That is, the parts most vital for the planes’ survival were untouched by bullets. The planes that had been damaged to the point of being destroyed, of course, would not be able to make it back and be observed by Wald and his team. Since only planes whose cockpits and tails were undamaged were returning to be sampled, Wald concluded that it was likely planes sustaining damage to the cockpits and tails were the ones that were not surviving the battles—thus, those two parts of the airplane were the most vital to the survival of the plane overall. The wings/body/etc. were sustaining damage, but the planes were able to return even after sustaining this damage. Wald concluded, therefore, that extra armor should be added to the components of the plane that had to remain undamaged for the planes to survive.
Wald’s observation actually helped to prevent the SRG from making conclusions under the influence of “survival bias”—including only the aircraft that survived the battles and not including the planes that were damaged beyond repair and did not return to be included in the sample.
How cool is that??
There is a paper by Mangel and Samaniego discussing Wald’s findings and the math behind them. It gets pretty technical pretty quickly, but if anyone’s interested, here you go!
Claudia’s 366 Days of Music: Year 3 – A Review
This was a damn good year for music. So without further ado, let’s get to it!
Total songs: 366 (leap year!)
Total time: 24 hours, 16 minutes, and 42 seconds
Total size: 2.53 GB
Mean song length: 3:59.28 (VERY close to the previous two years’ means)
First song: Stand Behind the Music by Anjulie
Last song: United State of Pop 2012 by DJ Earworm
The Five Stars
The final list for the year; listed in alphabetical rather than acquisition order because of the death of Vaio II.
(Far From) Home by Tiga
Chocolate Disco by Perfume
Class of 1985 by Alex Rooks
Death Sentence Lost! (Coldplay vs. Dethklok) by …And Sushi! Productions
Let it Go by Dragonette
Madness by Muse
Paradise (Gabe Flaherty Remix) originally by Coldplay
Some Nights by Fun.
Take a Walk by Passion Pit
The Night Out (Madeon Remix) by Martin Solveig
This Is So Good (Radio Edit) by Ehrencrona
Yes, there were a lot this year. Like I said: damn good year for music. I seriously recommend listening to all the songs listed above.
Here are the five most beautiful/touching songs of the year. Listen and get emotional, yo.
Sunshine (Adagio in D Minor) by John Murphy
Surface of the Sun by John Murphy
O Superman by Laurie Anderson
Peponi by The Piano Guys feat. Alex Boye
The Legend of Ashitaka Theme (End Credits) by Joe Hisaishi (anyone else think this would be an amazing song to play in concert band?)
The Overall Top Five
Paradise (Gabe Flaherty Remix) – Coldplay
Nnnnnnnnnnnnfff, this song. Paradise was this year’s version of Sleepyhead in that there were many remixes/mashups/alternate versions of the song downloaded. But this version? Holy crap. It actually has more plays than Sleepyhead as of my writing this (though that’s mainly because all my playcounts got reset at the beginning of October).
Madness – Muse
I think I nearly bludgeoned my eardrums to death with this song, as it practically begs to be cranked to 11 and then repeated half a dozen times. I’m liking Muse more and more these days; the fact that this song sounds so unlike all their other stuff thus far made me like both it and them much more.
Death Sentence Lost! (Coldplay vs. Dethklok) – …And Sushi! Productions
Dethklok? Yes! Colplay? YES! Mashed together?! HOLY CRAP! I still maintain that this is an incredibly soothing song; I listen to it when I’m stressed out. I think one of the coolest things I’m getting out of this project are mashups of songs that don’t sound like they’d mesh well but in actuality are quite perfect together (another example from last year: TiK ToK Together, a mashup of Ke$ha and The Beatles).
(Far From) Home – Tiga
The baseline of the chorus for this song makes me want to make sweet love to sound waves. This is another “bludgeoned your eardrums” song. It’s also short, so that actually kind of forces you to put this on repeat so you can get an adequate high from it.
Some Nights – Fun.
I discovered this song about three weeks before it really hit big and all the stations started playing it (haha, hipster much?); but actually, I’m glad it got pretty popular. I like being at the rec center and randomly hearing this song over the radio. Jazzes me up.
Now. Are you ready for some PIE CHARTS? First is the breakdown of the total 366 songs by genre, second is the percent of total plays by genre.
Here’s to next year and more awesome tunes!
Last Drawing of the Year
Dedicated to Maggie. Happy birthday! Also, my scanner hates me, so there is a blue tint to this.
RESOLVE
It’s time for the annual “did I do what I said I’d do at the beginning of the year?” rundown. Get ready for failure!
Last year’s:
SORT OF ACCOMPLISHED: Fix the “issues.” They’re “fixed” insofar as they’re not disrupting my life as much as they were last year. They’re still there, but being busy really, really helps with keeping them at bay.
ACCOMPLISHED: Get a job. Not only did I get a job, I got the best damn job possible for my situation right now. I now know that teaching stats is pretty much what I want to do.
ACCOMPLISHED: Return to acquiring knowledge in a formal setting. Not only did I return to school, but I’m able to take classes while working my awesome job! I really couldn’t ask for more here.
FAILED: Start and maintain a stats blog. I started and maintained a stats class, can I substitute that?
ACCOMPLISHED: Improve with R. All my stupid data analyses have paid off! I’ve also gotten substantially better with SAS thanks to the class I took.
FAILED: Go without dairy for a week. I don’t know why I keep this on as a New Year’s resolution. I love cheese.
FAILED: Go without electricity for a week. See above, but replace “cheese” with “internet.”
MOST LIKELY FAILED: Walk 2,500 miles. I have no damn idea how far I walked this year. Job + school + other job really got in the way of things, but I still booked it around Moscow quite a bit.
ACCOMPLISHED: Continue my 365 Days of Music project. Woo! Three years down!
ACCOMPLISHED: Blog daily. You knew this one’d keep, admit it.
ACCOMPLISHED: Win NaNoWriMo 2012. Not the best story in the world, but not nearly as bad as last year’s.
ACCOMPLISHED: Complete the 5,000 question survey. Finally! Bet you’re all glad to see that one gone, eh?
And this year’s:
- Blog daily.
- Win NaNoWriMo 2013
- Continue my 365 Days of Music project
- Draw at least two new thingies a month.
- Do something with my writing (I’m extending this past Prime because there are a few non-fic doohickeys I’ve got)
- Study for the GRE this time before I take the damn thing (old scores are defunct now)
- Get applyin’ for grad schools again (while simultaneously trying not to have a panic attack)
- Learn as much as possible.
- Revamp and start over with my book list.
- Uh…try not to die? Haha. I don’t have many 2013 resolutions.
TWSB: Math: Ur Doin It Wrong
So today’s topic immediately brought to mind this little joke, which I’m sure you’ve all seen if you’ve traversed the Tubes for more than ten minutes:
I know it’s not the same thing, but that’s what it reminded me of.
Anyway.
Today’s science blog has to do with the phenomenon called anomalous cancellation. Anomalous cancellations are arithmetic procedural errors with fractions that, despite being errors, will still result in a correct answer.
Examples from Wiki:
So it’s basically like looking at a problem and, as if you don’t know how to correctly solve it, trying to solve it intuitively based on the features of the numbers in the problem.
I might just be imagining it (because I’m me and I’m a spaz), but I feel like I come across this type of thing a lot. That is, I feel like I come across many situations in all my stats stuff where the correct answer can be achieved by seemingly “simple” methods that, in actuality, are incorrect method-wise but still lead to correct answers.
But again, I might be imagining it.
Anyway, I felt this an adequate topic for today’s blog, as I’m sure we’ve all come across problems like this but were not (at least, I was not) aware that such things had an actual name.
Numbers are crazy buggers, aren’t they?
Edit: Get your butts over to YouTube and listen to this awesome discussion of Leibniz’ Monadology. This pretty much made my week.
Edit 2: I don’t know why I didn’t just embed the freaking video in the first place. Claudia dumb!
Start Again
We’re nearing that time. You know the drill.
1: What did you do in 2012 that you’d never done before?
Taught!
2: Did you keep your new year’s resolutions, and will you make more for next year?
Um, probably a little more than half of them. That’s another thing I’ve got to blog about before 2012 closes.
3: Did anyone close to you give birth?
No, but like 20 of my friends got pregnant/had a significant other who got pregnant.
4: Did anyone close to you die?
No, not this year I don’t think.
5: What countries did you visit?
NONE! Screw travel, man, I’m sick of it.
6: What would you like to have in 2013 that you lacked in 2012?
More personal success in a couple different areas.
7: What dates from 2012 will remain etched upon your memory, and why?
I don’t think there were any significant specific dates.
8: What was your biggest achievement of the year?
Getting the best job EVER while still being able to go back to school.
9: What was your biggest failure?
The fact that I’m still me.
10: Did you suffer illness or injury?
I’m pretty mental, but I’ve been like that for years now.
11: What was the best thing you bought?
VAIO III! Though I guess my dad bought that for me, haha. Then my shiny new iPod Touch.
12: Whose behavior merited celebration?
I have no idea. Honestly, I’ve been so reclusive this year that I don’t really have a set base of people I could even choose from for this question.
13: Whose behavior made you appalled?
See above.
14: Where did most of your money go?
Tuition! And stuff that shall not be spoken of.
15: What did you get really, really, really excited about?
Going back to school. SO. WONDERFUL.
16: What song will always remind you of 2012?
Some Nights by Fun.
18: What do you wish you’d done more of?
Saved money.
19: What do you wish you’d done less of?
Spent frivolously.
20: How did you spend Christmas?
Skyping my mom and opening our presents “together.”
21: Did you fall in love in 2012?
Just with my job.
22: What was your favorite TV program?
I still love Metalocalypse, yo.
23: Do you hate anyone now that you didn’t hate this time last year?
I don’t hate anyone.
24: What was the best book you read?
The Calculus Wars. Obscenely fascinating stuff.
25: What was your greatest musical discovery?
I didn’t really discover any new artists, but I discovered a BUNCH of new songs. You shall read about them on the 31st.
26: What did you want and get?
Badass schooling. Badass job.
27: What did you want and not get?
A car?
28: What was your favorite film of this year?
ZOMG, SUNSHINE. Even though that came out in 2007. I don’t care.
29: What one thing made your year immeasurably more satisfying?
SCHOOOOOOOOL!
30: How would you describe your personal fashion concept in 2012?
What is this “fashion”?
31: What kept you sane?
Ha. “Sane.”
32: Which celebrity/public figure did you fancy the most?
Leibniz! Yes, he counts.
33: What political issue stirred you the most?
The Presidential election! Romney was…ew.
34: Who did you miss?
My mom. She needs to get back to Moscow!
35: Tell us a valuable life lesson you learned in 2012.
Sometimes things just work out. Just be patient.
‘Nother drawing
Yeah, this isn’t going to stop any time soon. Sorry y’all. This one made me nauseous as I was outlining it, haha.
In Honor of Newton’s Birthday*
Anybody who knows me at all knows that I get really, really obsessive about things. I kind of go off on these monomaniacal mental benders where whatever it is I’m obsessing over is doggedly demanding as much of my attention as it can get.
If you’ve perused the last month’s worth of posts here, you know that the current item of obsession is the calculus priority dispute. Obviously the Leibniz factor plays a big part as to why I’m so into this particular bit of mathematical history, but there’s another component that’s equally as fascinating to me.
The reason I went into psychology when I first started college was really because of my interest in intelligence. The various ways we measure intelligence interested me and I was curious as to whether there could be alternate scales produced that would better get at whatever latent factor(s) composed what we call intelligence.
Along those lines, the idea of “genius” has always been intriguing to me as well. I sit here and read about these ridiculously ingenious dudes and I cannot imagine what it would be like going through life with a mind of that caliber. What kind of unique thought processes must you have in order to theorize and describe universal gravitation? How must have Newton seen the world and interpreted even the most mundane of things? Did Leibniz go through life examining every facet of his experiences trying to see how to fit everything into his attempt to create an alphabet of human thought? What kind of mind does it take to go from “I feel that my mathematics knowledge is inadequate” *studystudystudy* “oh, here’s this new thing I came up with called ‘calculus’!”?
I’m such a pleb I can’t even fathom the depth of thought these guys (and other ridiculously intelligent people like them) possessed. It would be the coolest thing to be able to experience that level of understanding, even for like five minutes.
And then, of course, you have to wonder what that component (or components) is (are) that pushes someone from “normal intelligence” to this level of genius. And that brings up the question of whether we all possess that level of thought and the only thing separating “regular” people from the super geniuses is some other component of brain chemistry/personality/persistence/something else.
This is something I’m pretty much always thinking about; the whole calculus thing has just brought it back to the forefront of my mind.
Anyway.
Oh, and Merry Christmas, y’all!
*Newton was born before the English switched to the Gregorian calendar (they were using the Julian calender back when he was born); using the Gregorian puts his DoB on a different day.
Frizz Daddy
For anyone curious as to how my hair looks when I blow-dry it:
When I try to comb it, it just frizzes back up like this.
Thus, I don’t blow-dry my hair.
Also, pardon the horrible lighting. My bathroom sucks.
An Analysis of Letters
So if you recall, not too long ago I analyzed whether the frequencies of letters in the English language change depending on the letter of the word. To do so, I gathered about 5,000 English words and compared the frequency distributions of the letters for the first five letters of the words. Click here to check that out if you haven’t already done so.
I’d wanted to go further into the words, but I didn’t have time/data to do so.
So that’s what I did today!
I pulled large samples of 4-, 5-, 6-, 7-, 8-, and 9-letter words from an online Scrabble dictionary*. For each sample, I went through and found the frequency distribution of the 26 letters of the alphabet for each letter place in the word (e.g., for the 4-letter words, I found the frequency distribution of the 26 letters for the first, second, third, and fourth place in the 4-letter word).
Because I think something like this is something that requires some sort of visual, I made a gif for each word size (4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 letters) that compares the letter frequency for each letter place in the word (in red) compared to the overall frequency of the letters in the entirety of the English language (grey). Check them all out and see if you notice a pattern as the gifs progress through the letter places in the words.
Four-letter words:
Five-letter words:
Six-letter words:
Seven-letter words:
Eight-letter words:
Nine-letter words:
Did you notice it? Regardless of word size, the letter frequencies were most different from the overall frequency in the English language near the beginning and end of the words. Near the “middle” of the words (like the fourth and fifth letters of the nine-letter words, for example), the letter frequencies best matched the overall frequency in the English language (that is, the red distribution best matched the grey distribution).
In addition to the graphical aspect, I of course worked this out with numbers. Like last time, I measured “error” as the absolute value of the total difference between the red and grey distributions for each letter of each word. This confirmed what the gifs show: the smallest error was always for the one or two letters in the “middle” of each word, regardless of size.
Pretty damn cool, huh?
FYI, the six gifs sync and “restart” at the same time every 2,520 frames, in case you’re one of those people who wonders about those types of things.
*Yes, I realize the use of a Scrabble dictionary skews the results a bit, considering that plurals are included in the dictionary as well (notice the “S” is really frequent for the last letter in all cases). But plurals are words, after all, so I figured I’d include them anyway. The pattern still exists anyway even if you omit the last letter from all gifs.
This is what happens when I watch a quantum physics documentary:
There are like forty mistakes in this because I’m a moron, but what’re you gonna do?
Apocalypse Now??
…No?
Damn.
Here’s a survey.
Who is your favorite artist (Any field.): Escher, yo! Or Dali. Both are awesome.
Describe yourself: Stupid. Curious. Trying to be less stupid and more curious.
How do you feel today: Quite nervous. A little too nervous for break, but such is life.
Describe the area where you currently live. Ah…Moscow, Moscow, Moscow. It’s like Idaho’s Hipster Central but not so much that it drives you crazy.
If you could go anywhere, where would you go? Antarctica!
Your favorite form of transportation: I’m a walker.
Your best friend is: Someone I may never see again.
You and your best friends are: A fantastic group of weirdos.
What’s the weather like: It’s freaking cold. Too cold to go walking; hence going to the rec for like five hours today instead.
Favorite time of day: Midnight.
If your life was a TV show, what would it be called: “Data Party USA”
What is life to you: Just a stepping stone to greater things.
Your relationship: A relationship is noise I currently don’t need in my life, but at the same time I miss loving someone.
Your fear: Google.
What is the best advice you have to give: If you fear something, study it in depth to the point where it changes from a fear to a passion.
Thought for the Day: Who exactly was Jimmy anyway, and why was he cracking corn despite peoples’ disregard for this activity?
How would you categorize your soul’s present condition: Restless.
This Week’s Science Blog is Absolutely Cool
(HA TEMPERATURE JOKES DON’T YOU JUST LOVE ME?)
Here is a fascinating PBS documentary on the history of cold and absolute zero. I don’t really know what else I can really say here aside from WATCH THIS! Seriously, it’s really quite interesting.
Yayz!
HA.
4.0.
I still got it.
And yes, it matters to me. I’ll probably be going to grad school again (as much as I’m hesitant about it), so grades are important.
I give myself a banana sticker.
Holy crap, it’s a drawing
Here’s a thing. It’s pretty blah. ‘Nother heart.
Bah.
I hate those days where you spend most of your waking hours contending with the fact that you’re an IDIOT and will never amount to anything of importance no matter what you do.
I don’t feel much like talking today, sorry.
Bookshelf Survey!
Post a picture of your bookshelf.
Note: all my stats-related books are on their own shelf with all my stats notes. Thus, they aren’t included in this survey.
Which book did you last read?
The Calculus Wars by Jason Bardi. It’s an awesome insight to the details surrounding the calculus controversy.
Which book have you had the longest?
Seeing, Saying, Doing, Playing by Taro Gomi. It’s a picture book filled with like 500 verbs. My mom used to read it through with me when I was itty bitty. I still have it ’cause it’s an awesome kids book. If I ever adopt spawn, they shall have it read to them. I also have Dr. Seuss’ A Fly Went By which was the first book I could read (forwards, backwards, upside down) by myself.
Which book did you most recently buy?
A Tour of The Calculus by David Berlinski. I’m about to start reading it, too.
Which book do you wish you’d written?
Lolita. Nabokov is DA MAN when it comes to bending the English language to his whim. Despite the perversion that permeates it, Lolita is a freaking beautiful work.
Do you have more fiction or non-fiction?
Non-fiction.
Which book would you recommend to a friend?
Which friend? I’d definitely pick a different book depending on the friend. But if I had to pick, I suppose I’d pick The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk. It’s still my favorite novel and it’s unfortunately quite unknown for winning a Pulitzer Prize.
Which author’s autograph would you most like to have?
You know it’s gotta be Leibniz.
Is there anything on your bookshelf that is something other than a book?
My diplomas. My binder of art. My high school yearbook? Does that count?
Do you own any comic books?
I own a few books OF comics, if that counts. “Get Fuzzy” is awesome. I also have the three “Action Philosophers!” books, which are all hilarious.
Have you ever done a book report on any of the books?
Nothing that was technically a book report, but I’ve written papers on Mind and a lot of the essays in Curd & Covers’ Philosophy of Science.
Were any of the books gifts?
At least seven of them were, yes.
What are your three favorite books?
Fiction: The Caine Mutiny (Wouk), The Great Gatsby (Fitzgerald), Lolita (Nabokov)
Non-Fiction: The Structure of Scientific Revolution (Kuhn), Philosophy of Science (Curd and Cover), The Calculus Wars (Berlinski). [Damn, non-fic was hard]
Which has the strangest title?
Darkside Zodiac, maybe.
Close your eyes and grab a book at random. Turn to page 23. What is the first full sentence on that page?
“Phileas Fogg rightly suspected that his departure from London would create a lively sensation at the West End.” Gotta love Verne.
TWSB: Death by Sunspots
We are so damn screwed when the sun decides to solar storm us to death.
In fueling my paranoia about our nearest star, I came across the Wiki article for the Carrington Event. The Carrington Event was a massive solar storm documented in 1859. In late August/early September of that year, the sun produced a bunch of sunspots, solar flares, and a giant coronal mass ejection that motored its way to earth in just 17 hours (normal travel time = 2 to 3 days). It blasted our magnetosphere and atmosphere with enough force that auroras were seen all over the globe (including in the freaking Caribbean. Can you imagine?). This was the largest geomagnetic storm ever recorded.
Telegraphs all over the world failed, with some acting very strangely—sending and receiving messages even after they’d been disconnected from their power sources.
I did some more research and, as I’ve mentioned in my science blogs before, a lot of astronomers say that we’re overdue for another mega solar storm. Some are predicting what’s being called a “Solar Katrina”—a catastrophically huge solar storm that would, if it hit earth, knock out the entire planet’s electricity for weeks, possibly even months.
Can you imagine humanity suddenly reverting to pre-electricity conditions? I can’t even comprehend the chaos/panic/death that would cause. Holy freaking sunspots.
That would make good material for NaNoWriMo though…
Is a Profound Catholic Man Considered a “Deep Friar?”
Hello, fellows!
So I’m almost done grading all the assignments/tests for my stats class.
I think things went pretty well this semester, especially considering that I had about five days’ notice that I’d be teaching AT ALL. I think the best part of all of this, though, is the fact that I overcame my fear of public speaking. Seriously, when I had to present my thesis, which was just in front of four people, I really really had to practice a lot beforehand and, once the day came, I had to concentrate to not throw up/not stutter/not run off in fear.
After the first two or three lectures this semester, however, it was the most natural thing ever for me. I love the fact that my passion for stats and my passion for teaching others how to do stats totally eclipsed my fear of public speaking.
That’s a good feeling, my friends.
One thing I think should change, though, is that I really think that STAT 251 needs to be treated like a science class. That is, I think it needs to be bumped up to 4 credits and given a lab. Statistics is like the hard sciences in that it really needs to be applied to be learned. I think a lab—a day where the whole class would go to a computer lab and given an assignment or something to do using SPSS or Minitab or whatnot—would really benefit students.
That’s kind of what PSYC 218 is, actually, but obviously a lot of students who aren’t in psychology won’t be taking 218.
Just a thought. I know I have no control over that, but that’s what I’d change about this class.
Now I’m going to go screw around. BECAUSE I CAN!
Eigenblogger 