Writings on web design and higher education from Missoula, MT

• YouTube - Randy Johnson hates birds
  This is the best baseball blooper I have ever seen. The odds of this happening are mind bogling!!!

• Boing Boing: Colbert’s Knox College commencement speech
  Seems appropriate to link to these things this week.
• ABC News - Al Gore Interview
  Wow, that was amazing. 20 minutes long, but worth it.
  (tags: “global warming”)
• Hanging Laptop Digital Painting
  This is cool, I wish I had an extra laptop to do this with.

• YouTube - Fuzzy Zoeller Amazing Hole In One
  Fuzzy Zoeller shoots an amazing Hole In One
  (tags: video golf)
• BBC NEWS - Titanic task for matchstick man
  A matchstick modeller is a fifth of the way to creating a five million-match replica of the ill-fated liner Titanic.

My mom sent this to me, and I thought I would pass it on for a good laugh. Better here than in a giant email forward, eh?

A national magazine recently ran a “Dilbert Quotes” contest. They were looking for people to submit quotes from their real-life Dilbert-type managers. These were voted the top quotes for in corporate America:

1. “As of tomorrow, employees will only be able to access the building using individual security cards. Pictures will be taken next Wednesday, and employees will receive their cards in two weeks.”
(This was the winning quote from Fred Dales, Microsoft Corp. in Redmond
WA)

2. “What I need is an exact list of specific unknown problems we might encounter.”
(Lykes Lines Shipping)

3. “E-mail is not to be used to pass on information or data. It should be used only for company business.” (Accounting manager, Electric Boat
Company)

4. “This project is so important we can’t let things that are more important interfere with it.” (Advertising/Marketing manager, United Parcel
Service)

5. “Doing it right is no excuse for not meeting the schedule.”
(Plant Manager, Delco Corporation)

6. “No one will believe you solved this problem in one day! We’ve been working on it for months. Now go act busy for a few weeks and I’ll let you know when it’s time to tell them.”
(R&D supervisor, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing/3M Corp.)

7. Quote from the Boss: “Teamwork is a lot of people doing what I say.”
(Marketing executive, Citrix Corporation)

8. My sister passed away and her funeral was scheduled for Monday. When I told my Boss, he said she died on purpose so that I would have to miss work on the busiest day of the year. He then asked if we could change her burial to Friday. He said, “That would be better for me.”
(Shipping executive, FTD Florists)

9. “We know that communication is a problem, but the company is not going to discuss it with the employees.”
(Switching supervisor, AT&T Long Lines Division)

• Christie’s to hold ‘Star Trek’ garage sale | Reuters.com
  Huge variety… wish I could go to New York.

This year I graduate from Northland College. As I walk on May 27th I, along with many of my classmates, will be wearing a little green ribbon. This ribbon is worn by members of over 10 colleges around the US as an emblem of the following pledge:

“I pledge to explore and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve these aspects of any organizations for which I work.”

Going into this world as a professional from this point forward, I strongly consider my obligations to look at my actions in a holistic sense with a mind to social and environmental factors, among others. All too often do we look at the most near-sighted of goals with little respect to the varied levels of changes it makes in the daily lives of ourselves, our co-workers, and others.

• Renter Left 70,000 Beer Cans in Townhome.
  A renter in Ogden, Utah left a surprise for his landlord: 70,000 beer cans!

Well, time is running short, with a month left of classes I have no clue how we are going to get through the rest of the chapters that are needed. I am covering all of the Phylum Arthropoda (which includes insects and other creatures with exoskeletons) in a single block class period… needless to say that is not nearly enough time. The upshot is that we Read the rest of this entry »

• Apple TV Ads
  Great as always. I am a PC for life guy myself, but I always wish apple would do what I want it to.
  (tags: apple humor video)

• Windows vs. Mac Propaganda Posters
  These people really spent some time on this.
  (tags: design humor apple microsoft)
• Unconventional SWAT Signals
  A funny little bit abotu SWAT signals. Reminds me of the altered GI Joe PSA’s you can get.
  (tags: humor SWAT signals)
• GreaseMonkey User Scripts
  Mostly for my future reference. I have been meaning to try GreaseMonkey for some time.
  (tags: greasemonkey firefox google hacks)

• Scientists make water run uphill
  Of course, they kinda cheat by adding in outside power, but there appear to be practical applications to this.
• Baseball and the Physicists
  It takes 1/2,000th of a second for a major leaguers bat to deliver nearly 10,000 pounds of force. The ball compresses almost an inch, storing energy. Some of that energy accelerates the ball. The rest heats the ball to about 1 degree warmer. So yes, a bat
• Colbert does the White House correspondents’ dinner
  Colbert was surrounded by the liberal media who are destroying this country, except for Fox News. Fox believes in presenting both sides-the president’s side and the vice president’s side.
  (tags: humor politics video)

• Da Vinci Code judgment decoded
  This goes with my last post. Kind of a shame it happened so quickly.
• BAD PHYSICS: Misconceptions spread by K-6 Grade School Textbooks
  An interesting read, even though I have never heard of some of the misconceptions.

• Judge puts code in Da Vinci ruling
  The British judge who presided over the Da Vinci Code trial has put a code of his own into his judgment and said he would “probably” confirm it to the person who breaks it.

Student teaching would be the best thing in the world, if it paid money rather than costing money. This morning I sat down, papers in hand to grade, and thought to myself, “In a few hours, I am going to be teaching science to high school students, this must be my lucky day.” Thoughts like that can really help you appretiate a career choice.

Last week I worked with students to build presentations on genetic diseases as well as assessing them on their projects. It is a great feeling to help developing teens understand what life is like in someone elses shoes, especially people that aren’t as lucky as them. Today, I have the opportunity to teach regular lessons to all the classes (with my cooperating teacher out for the day and with a sub, this is probably going to be one of the harder days of the year, considering the dynamics of everything.) If I can succeed today, I know the rest of the year will be great.

I do worry a bit though, as today is by far not the most entertaining of all the lessons I am capable of teaching. It is the introductory day to classification and taxonomy, and these are subjects that are very abstract and seemingly devoid of purpose at the high school level to many students, though the two subjects are intamently tied with the diversity of life and the study of biology in general. I am hoping that my story telling abilities will help me to make this interesting–I am going to try to build in the unique history of the systems we use today along with how and why we use them.

Well, off to grading.

• Advice for Computer Science College Students
  Truly interesting article for any undergrad CS major.
• Two women, 250lbs & 120 lbs
  Interesting photo. I can’t figure out what kind of imagry this is… probably NMR (otherwise known as MRI)