Happy Holidays!

Winter (Solstice) is Coming!
Sad that this is the first good family pic in many moons:

Observing the Partial Solar Eclipse a Different Way

Look at the nice U-shape in the solar panel output from our roof in the 1:30 to 3:30 time frame.  The Sun was blocked off by the moon at around the 60% level at 2:45

Realizing a Dream

Home made poulet roti.  A dream so pure that I had never even been aware of it until I realized it this weekend and was flooded with happiness.  Happy Father's Day to me!

21st Century Talk

By now, all modern parents are familiar with the cute but slightly disturbing trend for our kids to say "pause game" rather than "time out" or "take a break" IRL. But, the other day, Seb laid a new one on me:

Isabelle was daydreaming while we were getting ready to leave the house and I'm saying "Hey, Izze - are you going to get ready?"
See takes one look at her and say "Dad, don't bother - she's AFK."

Now you see it...

Super absorbent long chain polymers.  Same stuff they put in diapers. Look at the change in size once put into water and how transparent they become (mostly water so it must have the same index of refraction as water!).

Spring Break Project

For quite some time now I've been wanting to do relatively major (for me) home project:  install a solar powered roof fan to keep the upstairs cool(er) in the summer.  This past spring break, I did it.  And today it's raining... and no leaks!!

New fan on the North side of the roof

Solar panel on the South side of the roof

View from inside the attic - the tube is the venting for the bathroom fans.

Axis and Allies

Finally, the kids are old enough!  As you can see, my Axis powers are overwhelming the Allies (being controlled by my 8 and 11 year old!).  Haven't dusted off this game in many years.

When we were putting away the pieces, Isabelle discovered a hand written message in the box "Reciprocal Gift 1995 Ken <--> Phil"!  Hey Phil, looks like I stole our communal game!  Maybe next time you visit we can play against the kids together!

Solar Panels, Greenhouses, and Snow

So, we love our new solar panels.
Also, we love our little greenhouse.
Turns out that when the snow on the roof melts, it sheets off the solar panels in one big "Rummmmmble....Boom!".
If this lands on your greenhouse, some glass panes might break.

Over the recent break I replaced the old school glass that had broken after the last snow storm with tempered glass and we now put some 4 by 8 plywood on top of the greenhouse during winter storms (at least until the snow sheets off of the roof).    Here's the solar energy report for today:  (Guess what happened at 1:30 PM!).  Luckily, no broken glass!

Hiding in plain sight for over 40 years...

I love it when a word surprises me.  Some old word I've gotten used to just ups and throws me a little surprise party: "Look at me anew -I've had this clue hidden in me all along."  The last time I remember this happening was with my thought that December should be the 10th month ('dec'!)

This morning I read that that the word quarantine comes from holding ships suspected of carrying the plague from docking for 40 days back in the middle ages.  I've used this word by entire life and I've known that the french word for 40 (quarante) as well but never made the connection simply because in english we pronounce it "kworanteen" and in french it is "kharante".  Of course, the reason they picked 40 back then is because the Bible has plenty of examples of 40 days being the go-to number for trials and probation.

I could feel dumb, but instead I feel delighted.  Thanks for the coming-out party, my old friend 'quarantine'!

Cart before the Horse?

Soft skills, soft skills, soft skills!  This is all I hear these days in education circles.  This never has resonated for me; better to learn the physics first than to talk about it first.  Sure, sure - get 'em to do both is best - but I'm a believer in learning the foundational stuff first.  Today, I feel like I had an additional insight into the drumbeat of "people skills", "collaboration skills", and "they can just look up information on the web nowadays so stop teaching them those facts and basics".  Here's the insight:  High profile business leaders, when faced with 100 applicants that have the requisite skills, notice that those with good people skills rise to the top and are the best future managers.  But it's easy for them to forget that all of these elite applicants already have the quantitative reasoning skills needed to get the work done.  Here's exhibit A from today's New York Times:

Michael Bloomberg is being interviewed to give advice to today's business student for future success.   After saying "what's important in education is how to deal with people...In the end, it's people skills you need.  A lot of the facts you memorized are immaterial." (there it is, the drumbeat of 'stop teaching facts'!), he then goes on to explain how getting fired turned out to be lucky because he used his severance package and "my electrical engineering degree to begin my own information technology company...".  See - that electrical engineering degree is just background noise - he's assuming it in the mix.  But kids reading his advice will miss that part and think "Bloomberg says business degree + people skills = success".

Of course I agree that people skills are important in real life and not emphasized in school.  But are schools really the place you want kids to learn all their people skills and leave those electrical engineering skills to be picked up somewhere else?

First the horse then the cart can be pulled.  Sure you need both, but a pretty cart ain't going nowhere on its own.

Studying for Exams

A student (not a current student) just emailed me for advice to give other students in studying for the midyear exams.  Here's what I wrote back:
-------------------------------------

Your instincts sound good to me except for the bombarding your teacher part!!!

I would add to your list that the review time is a good time to review certain concepts or procedures that weren't quite clear the first time because, oftentimes, it is the second time through that things start to make more sense and come together.  

Also, a skill that students must have on a midyear or final that they don't really have to have on a unit test is to think about which area of focus the question is about (kinematics?  forces?  energy? etc.) so that can trigger the proper problem solving procedure in their mind.

An often overlooked thing is to look at is to allow equations to guide your thinking on conceptual questions.  Oftentimes students will get these wrong because they are answering the questions conversationally ("oooh - 'b' sounds right") when they should be thinking constructively ("If v is constant, then net force must be zero so...")

Here are some of my notes from the book "How We Learn...." by Benedict Carey

-The Fluency Illusion ("But I studied so hard for that test and knew everything!"): If you do a lot of classic review: reread, highlight, quick recitation of basic facts in one big sitting, then you are likely to feel prepared when you are not. This kind of one-shot, passive review is not the best way to get stuff into your noggin. (although the cram session the night before does help in the short term with recall related items, it does not help with problem solving & understanding).
-Mix it up: Do not study in an extended, focused way in a quiet environment. Rather, break your study sessions into shorter sessions extended over several days and do them in different environments with different types of distractors. The more different types of contexts and the more times you've had to retrieve and use a memory, the easier it is to access later.
-Sleep is important: Early, deep sleep stages seem to be most helpful in laying down fact-related memory. Late stage sleep stages seem most useful in creativity, impasse-breaking issues. 
-Interleaving material and pretesting seem to be most efficient at getting the memories being laid down to be easily retrievable (the best way to increase recall is to retrieve the memory many times). Even physically skilled practice should be broken up so you are not just concentrating on one one skill at a time. Interestingly, focused practice or study feels most effective and gives greater apparent short term gain, but performance testing shows that interleaving works better (Interleaving is more like the real thing the author suggests). Likewise, taking tests (even without any background knowledge) and getting immediate feedback is the quickest, surest route to learn new facts.
-Start early and take many breaks. The brain continues to work on stuff off-line and ideas/connections percolate up from your subconscious during the off times. 

-Rideout

P.S. They are not "poor students who are going through the excruciating pain" but rather lucky individuals who have been granted an opportunity to assimilate the best tools for thinking yet invented by mankind (AKA Physics) into their own world-view gestalt and then to practice these skills in a reinforcing way.  Once they cease to be students (in the larger sense of the word) that's when their real existential pain will begin!  Cumulative exams ground us and give us intellectual purpose like few other activities in life.

Sign of Truth

Irene shared this one with me (one of the many great signs from the recent marches):

Thank you, young man - I do feel little better now!