Not so Special and Not so Smart

Most people are uncomfortable with the old "chimps and humans are 99 % identical in their DNA", but Dr. Neil D-T spins in a way that makes that discomfort more tangible.  Since Astrophysicists are the best at making us puny humans feel small and insignificant, it is not so surprising that one would bring home the sci-fi classic "we would be like toddler chimps to the aliens".  Not so special and not so smart...

For a bonus, nice exposition on where the elements comes from making us both banal and cosmic... something I keep insisting on as super-interesting to my own students much to their teenage indifference

Where's He Get it From?

Me to Chongers: "Seriously, am I the funniest Dad you ever had?"
Chongers: "Yes, but, seriously, am I the funniest son you ever had?"

4 years old and he's already one step ahead of me..

Veteran's Day

 One of my father's best friends growing up was a cousin of his.  They were born the same year and they spent lots of time together while growing up, but when the Vietnam War started, they had very different feelings about that war.  My Dad's cousin enlisted, became a Captain in the Army and was killed shortly before my parents got married in 1969.  When they were expecting their first child (me!), later that same year - they decided to name their child after his cousin. 

I always knew this story, but I only actively think about it upon certain occasions: when I used to meet his parents (my great uncle and great uncle, both of whom have now passed away), that day I found his name on the wall in Washington, DC when I was sixteen and found the experience unexpectedly emotional, and today, Veteran's Day.

My father turns 70 this year, I am turning 43 soon - but I am thinking of you Kenneth Robert Sawyer who died at the age of 26 over fourty years ago. 

Trick or Treat

Novice Clock Reading Skills + Good Number Sense =

"Look, Daddy - One Thousand O'clock!" - Sebastien

Think the French are Inefficient?

Just try to get away from their automated traffic ticket system:

Going 50 MPH in a 35 MPH zone at night in a rental car and the rental company had my country of residence incorrect as you can see above!  Anyone renting a car in Corsica in English must be from Great Britain, right?

When I saw the automated camera flash late one night, I figured, "What are the odds the French government would ever find me?"

Apparently higher than I thought...

Sigh, let this be a lesson to you all:  Don't mess with French government revenue from tourists!  They are serious about that!

P.S. After I paid the fine online, my credit company called me to ask if it was a bogus charge, "I wish" I responded...

My New Supporting Role...

... in a novel coming to you:

Erec is an old friend of mine and I had pre-ordered this book on Amazon as soon as I heard about it.  Very good read and then I really enjoyed when a reoccuring character named "J P Rideout" appeared on page 31: "...The dark-haired Rideout, trim and stylishly dressed, had been Kanter's steal from Wall Street and Bloomberg monitors. Rideout retained a residual superiority inherited from his French forbears, his style sharply counterbalanced by the analytical bookworm named Matt King..."

You know that thing... at the museum?

Often I will mention a device that I hope students have seen at a museum before, but I always wonder if they are actually picturing what I am picturing.  So, on a recent outing with Isabelle, we snapped some pics of some of the commmon ones so I can use them in class:

The Bell Curve Distribution

Einstein's General Theory of Relativity

Pushing a heavy weigh is all about friction, not weight!

Average Speed versus Final Speed

Merit Pay for Teachers

So the private sector thinks we should adopt this merit pay model for teachers?  Pay us extra for good test scores and whatnot?  Forget the craziness of treating teaching like a business,  forget that teaching is a team effort, and forget that test scores are more closely correlated to socio-economic status than with teacher quality.  How about the fact that Merit Pay is  just a bad idea, even in business? 

A friend recently loaned me Jim Collins' "Good to Great" and I just recently read the tidbit in which he found no correlation between compensation packaging and effective management.  His summary, "Structure your compensation such that you attract great people and you keep them - but, beyond that, incentive payments to change behavior simply do not work."

Hmmm....

Who Says Science Class is not Fun?

Check out this video we made during Astronomy class.  It was kind of a high energy day so we went out to the football and spaced ourselves out as members of the Solar System to scale along the yardlines.  I can not confirm or deny the accuracy of the comet motion portrayed within...

Vacation Report

Storyland, NH

Cancun, Mexico

Bonifacio, Corsica, France

Time to get serious about...

...Paella!

Having my uncle's paella in Corsica this summer, reminded me of how I used to work on mine.  This was BK (Before Kids).  So, I'm proud to say, the first thing I did was order a full size pan and the specialized gas burner to go with it (separately lighting inner and outer rings!).

okay, this was nice, but now see the master (Uncle Roger and Cousin Julia):

And, now, a Paella from circa 1969 (my grandfather on the left):

What is Night?

Thanks to Ted Chiang, I now know "night for what it [is]: the shadow of the Earth itelf, cast against the sky." Why didn't I ever think to put it like that?         

Came across the great picture from 1992 (Galileo spacecraft on its way to Jupiter snapped this on its way out) so you can not only see the Earth's shadow but the Moon's as well and the orientation between the two that give us the "Phases" of the Moon:

I think it's a gibbous moon, but is it waxing or waning? I want to say waxing (getting bigger) but without knowing the Galileo spacecraft's trajectory I'm not sure...

Aaaw yeah...

A former student (CF) just emailed this to me.  She used an app that puts random quotes on pictures on a photo she snapped of me on a recent visit to the new high school. Please note the red pen and carefuly crafted Earth-tones look.

Eerily insightful, that app.

Astrophysics and Art

Thanks to the Boston Globe for turning me onto the glass artist Josiah McElheny:

Island Universe

Whew! STEM Crisis: Avoided.

It is very fashionable these days to bash on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) educators for driving students away from pursuing these careers and thereby ruining this country's future.  I am so sorry, Wall Street, for ruining the economy - I will try harder, I promise!

Somehow this never sat well with me, but I was having trouble voicing my doubts about this interpretation of the STEM job market problem. Don't most talented people go where the money and the jobs are in a down economy despite their lousy high school physics teacher(s)? Now, two recent articles have popped up supporting my gut instincts on this one:

(1)  We are doing just fine in the actual engineering graduation department compared to the rest of the world, thank you: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/on-innovations/president-obama-there-is-no-engineer-shortage/2011/09/01/gIQADpmpuJ_story.html

(2) The 'right' number of STEM graduate actually graduate in the USA, they just decide to pursue other careers (bio majors going to med school, physics majors working for hedge funds, etc.).  Now, correct me if I am wrong, but that sounds like a market place problem not an education problem, right? http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=graphic-science-science-tech-jobs-enticing



(Cartoon from http://fidgetyteach.blogspot.com/2010/05/there-is-so-much-negative-banter-about.html)

Why Sebastien is not Alexandre

Before we knew if we were having a girl or a boy, Irene and I had settled on a boy name and a girl name after undergoing a rigorous search process. (The process was us throwing out random French inspired names that work in English and in French and that have several easy to form diminutives .  Then we threw most of them out: "too girly sounding for a boy", "too easy to make fun of in English", "Too hard for Chinese relatives to pronounce", etc.)  Eventually we settled on "Isabelle" and "Alexandre" in round one.

Then, for child two - we waited until we knew the gender and then had a short conversation that went like this "Hmmm, should we use the Alexandre?  We liked that one before."
"Nah, that was Isabelle's boy name - can't use it."

Student Work

Here's a short video some students made for a small project in one of my physics classes.  The assignment was to analyze some (bogus) physics in a movie or tv show.  The grading rubric had points for style and humor as well as for the physics and these guys went all out in first categories.  Note the homage paid to a mustached teacher in one of the scenes (that, of course, guaranteed them an A on the spot!). 

Sebastien, School, and Truthiness

Me: Chongers, why did you bite that teacher at your school?
Chongers:  I didn't bite a teacher!
Me: Don't you lie to me, I know they called Mommy in the middle of the day to come get you!
Chongers: Daddy, it was the Lunch Lady.
--------------------------------------------------------
Chongers: I don't play shooting games at school so they won't call Mommy and Daddy up.
Me: So they have a school rule against playing shooting games?
Chongers:  Only while the teacher is watching.

Self-Referencing

How great that the week the school online newspaper does a profile on me complete with a link to the blog, the blog is featuring a huge, slightly gross picture of my teeth (see below if you missed it!).
The profile is about the winery connection so here are some links to past posts and the winery site itself:

the winery: http://www.vinscorses.com/

http://riddicisms.blogspot.com/2010/04/simple-wisdom-beauty-of-work-and-tarrh.html

http://riddicisms.blogspot.com/2009/11/thanksgiving-in-corsica.html

http://riddicisms.blogspot.com/2009/09/my-friend-chuckles.html

family tree parallels: http://sites.google.com/site/rideoutphysics/gg

Before and After

Before

After

I decided the chip was not "adding character" to my smile after all:







These shots were taken by my excellent dentist, Dr. Gold. Pretty cool (and slightly gross), eh? 

Good dentists, doctors, and car mechanics are hard to find - what you want is a minimalist in a field crowded with interventionists... Thanks to Dad for teaching me to lump those professions together and to keep looking around until you find the right ones.  Although this work was cosmetic, anytime your dentist downgrades a "cavity" to a "let's keep an eye on it", you know you have a keeper! Now where is that car mechanic with the same minimalist attitude?

Art intersecting with Science

Read about this one in the Boston Globe this morning.  I love this kind of stuff!  A 2D wave generator that uses motion detectors (infrared) to respond the presence and movement of audience members.  Read more about the art installation here.


Waves from Daniel Palacios on Vimeo.

Modern Technology

A mere 10 years ago, I would have had the thought and then dismissed it as being too much work.  Today, in 30 minutes, Isabelle and I totally transformed her Make-a-Match Memory Game from colors, animals, and numbers into one that involved her relatives' faces.  Truth is, she was beating me all the time since she had all the placements memorized from playing the game so many times.  One Word Table with cropped digital pictures inserted and two resizing attempts later, we had personalized the game!

Imagine trying to find old hardcopy photos, then photocopying them down to the right size, cutting them all out one by one, and then hand positioning them in the right place!  Never would have happened!

Tikki Tikki Tembo

When Irene first talked to me about this, I admit to having a little trouble wrapping my white male head around the issue.  Finally, I came up with an analogy to help  Euro-descendents get it:

"Hey Everyone - How about this great children's book that can get you in touch with English culture by telling the story of why men wear skirts there today on account of their needing to make hats out of their pants once a long time ago!"

Now, that just wouldn't sit right, would it?
Here is a repost of Irene's original post on Grace Lin's blog:

http://www.gracelinblog.com/2012/04/rethinking-tikki-tikki-tembo.html

Who are these goofy kids?

Nah, not related to me at all...

The Super Olive Bowl

Irene told me this one when the Superbowl was gearing up (apparently that sports event is a "super" big deal - who knew?): Olives in Taiwan look different, their ends are pointy, and they're called "gan lan". Chinese people think they look just like footballs, so that's why footballs are called "gan lan chiu" in Chinese - "olive ball"! Football in Chinese is olive ball!

Super Bowl = Olive Bowl?

Conservation of Mass

In my new hobby of beer brewing, I would daresay I have had a string of successes.  Batch #7, though, not so much.  It turns out it is very important to mix the prebottling sugar around before bottling.  This is the sugar that will give the yeast a second round of fermenting in the bottle in order to give each bottle its own champagne-like carbonation.  Sloppily, I poured the sugar in and immediately bottled.  Turns out the first six bottles I opened were flat, like so:

I tried adding sugar to the bottles individually, but one week later they were only marginally improved - like so:

How about that lightning mcqueen cup in the background?

Now, just as I was wondering "Where did all the sugar go? I mean - it has to be in some of the bottles, right?" I open a series of bottle that are... over-carbonated:

Note the frothy beer still in the bottle as well!

Johnny Cash and the Science Team

A couple of months ago, I was chaperoning our high school science team to a meet in Lowell, MA. More recently, I spent a fair amount of time talking to our driver on a different bus ride about the other driver (for reasons that will soon become clear).  I'm going to go ahead and spoil the story by telling the best part first:  When I asked what the other driver's name was, my driver paused and said "Well, we don't know - we just call him Johnny - as in Johnny Cash on account of his being a professional Johnny Cash impersonator back in the day."

Intiguing, eh?  Who knew there was such a profession as a Johnny Cash impersonator?  The reason I asked was because of the Lowell trip incident: 

It was a dark, wet, trafficy night and I had in my charge nine (or was it eleven - who knows?) youths.  On the way back from Lowell,  the bus starts making funny noises.  At first it is a mild straining on the accelerations.  Then it is a major slowing on the uphills.  Then, eventually, in the middle lane, it is a complete engine failure.  The driver attempted to get into the breakdown lane, but a bus going uphill comes to a stop pretty fast after its motor dies and he only managed to straddle both the middle and slow lanes on I-495 during rush hour.  As cars start whipping around both sides of the bus (the fast lane on the left and the breakdown lane on the right), I start thinking "Hmmm, awkward time to be the responsible adult present" and "Hmmm, should I get the kids off the bus so they can stand on the side of the road - but, they might get killed crossing the breakdown lane with all those cars speeding around us."  Just as quick as these thoughts pop into my head, Johnny Cash gets the bus fired up again and we crawl up the hill safely.  We then spend almost 2 hours getting home at a top speed of about 35 MPH, but I am thankful to get all 9 (or was it 11?) kids safely back.

At the end of the ordeal, I ask the driver "Did you think the engine would start again" and he wisely replied "I was sure hoping so..."

Sebastien plays "House"

"Daddy, you want to play house with me?"

"Of course I'll play house with you!" 

I start looking around for Isabelle's plastic tea cups and whatnot.

He grabs some legos stuck together to look like a gun and says "Ok - you shoot the bad guys when they come in, and don't worry - I have a bomb!"

Hmmm, girls are different from boys.

Battlestar Galactica, Costco, and Oatmeal

My Dad has a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast everyday.  When I was growing up, he thought it would be a great synergy to serve us both up some oatmeal in the morning.  I, however, decided it was yucky.  Around the same time as I pushed back on the oatmeal, I really (really!) wanted to watch a pretty lame show called Battlestar Galactica (old school style for you youngsters - not nearly as hip as the more recent incarnation).  To this day, I can't stand oatmeal because he made a deal with me over 30 years ago that I could watch BG if I would eat a bowl of oatmal.  That bowl would get cold and nasty and thick and crusty and I would make the pain of eating it last for the entire episode.

Now I have kids of my own, I bought a Costco variety pack of oatmeals because they told me they liked it.  Of course, now that I have a boxful of the nasty stuff - they have decided not to like it.  Sigh - I guess there was never  smart play with oatmeal for me...

Stu and I

For some time now, students have been happy to point out the fact that they think I bear a resemblance to Stu from the movie "The Hangover".  I have yet to see the entire movie, but have seen so many scenes from it that I really don't think I need to.

When I was eight or so, I flipped while balancing on the top of some monkey bars on a playground.  I cracked my tooth and, to this day, I have a fake tooth bolted to the root of my original tooth. The bolt has held up pretty well for over 30 years, but the fake enamel wears away faster my real teeth.  The year before I got married, my dentist fixed up the corner of the tooth so I would look sharp for the wedding pictures.

We were out eating some lobster at a dim sum place over the holidays and I lost that chip, so now everyone at school thinks I recently chipped my tooth.

 

"How did it happen?" I just tell them "What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas."

No plans to get it fixed, - I think it will look good with the monocle!