I've missed orientation for a couple of years. I think. My recollection is that last year I was finishing up a house in Chicago - I could be wrong. I just looked at last august's posts and it appears I was here. A little bit though I think Tina did it.
A lot of it is the same. We still have to talk about the same things: check your email, call if you go to the hospital, don't turn in other people's work as yours. Much is different too. We used to center the discussion around our strategic planning pillars: Leadership, Experimentation, Community, Diversity, & Education. Sometimes that got a little wonky, but I did like always having a hook to hang things on. We used to do a balloon launch, now we plant a tree.
I talked about grading. I did it without saying "The Bradley Scale." I started by saying that left to our own devices we wouldn't start the year talking about grades but that the students really seem to want to hear it. Next I said that as a metric the quantitative feedback of a grade is some of the least useful feedback you'll get and that qualitative feedback from your instructor on an ongoing basis is much more useful. I told them an employer has never asked me how someone's grades were, but I conceded that someone might if they apply to grad school. I forgot to tell them that a bad grade isn't a punishment and a good grade isn't a reward. Then I explained that due to the rarefied air the school occupies and the level of talent we select that our standards are higher - that the scale is higher and the expectations are higher. It might take a 94% to get an A or a 70% to pass a class; that if you show up, awake, follow all the instructions and do everything you are supposed to do you might earn a C. If you want a B you have to do all those things well. I think I heard a small reaction to that. Finally I told them we expect them to do those things well and that they are expected to get B's. They seemed to take it in stride. Won't know until semester reviews I guess.
One thing that really struck me was accidental and not really part of the orientation. I noticed that we did a long bit about academic honesty and plagiarism, and then we followed it with a bit about the necessity of collaboration; sort of saying "You may not work together" followed immediately by "It is of paramount importance that you work together."
That reminded me of this:
If you've got 12 minutes you should give it a watch.
A certainly incomplete list of new rules for Congress.
We had our first real event of the 11-12 school year today. It was an open q&a with new students and their parents. This was an event added by my prior boss that hadn't been part of orientation previously. She discovered that although orientation does a fairly good job of prepping students a lot of the information students get during the process doesn't make it's way back to parents. So now we talk to parents too.
Some things that didn't come up that I was thinking:
If you feel like you have a lot of time on your hands in the first week or so, don't be too quick to load up on additional commitments. School takes a little while to get going, and before you know it you will have more to do than you can really cope with. Take the calm time before the storm to build yourself a good foundation for work. Get your bearings. Meet as many people as possible. There will be an urge to sign up for three more classes or to join a dozen clubs. Take a breath. This is a marathon, not a sprint. It's always easier to add things than it is to shed them after you take them on.
So that's one thing. Here's another:
No matter what you might think, regardless of the impression you get, however what you are hearing doesn't match what you think it should be, your advisor is never out to get you. Ignoring, contesting, lawyering, evading, and any other adversarial postures are never the strongest choice. We want everyone to succeed. Sometimes that's going to mean that we're not going to put you into the assignment you want. Sometimes that might mean we're going to have very critical things to say. It might even mean we ask you to take some time off - or maybe leave the program entirely. But all of that feedback is to get you the best experience we can. Turning on your advisor or the faculty automatically means you are getting less than our best work. I can't stress how important it is to keep yourself pointed in the same direction as your mentors.
That second one, it's too dark for the first day. But it is something I really wish everyone understood.
Today we got some no screwing around rain in Pittsburgh.
A little bit it feels like April this week.
- John Huntington's Blog -:I'm glad to see that the media is starting to take the Indiana State Fair management to task. Regardless of the physical cause of the collapse (and the real cause of that should emerge from the investigation, and appropriate heads should roll if negligence is found or corners were cut), the fact that the show was not stopped when the fair site came under a severe thunderstorm warning is inexcusable, regardless of what else happened.
Do you watch "Top Shot" on History? They are into their third season, although I am not sure it's the third year. They get a bunch of people together who are ace marksmen in all different disciplines. They have armed forces folks and police and entertainers and even a few self taught shooters. In reality show format they have these folks face off in target challenges with all types of weapons. Mostly it's guns, but they've also done knives, bows, axes and some other odds and ends.
I guess maybe it's the hardware geek in me that the weapons appeal to. Last season they had this .22 pistol optimized for speed shooting. That was real cool. It seems like this year they are really taking out the stops because one of the weapons on the intro is a Gatling gun - not something you see every day. I like watching the players train on the new platform. I shot a .22 rifle and a bow at camp and a little bit I sucked. These folks are really good and excel regardless of the weapon.
Probably the coolest thing so far was when a US Marine Sniper hit a target 1000 meters away with a Barrett 50 cal in one shot (and as it turned out, he didn't even win that challenge).
Sometimes I actually think the reality show elements take away from the show as a whole. This season and last they made quick work of the women on the show. Last season four Marines colluded to make sure they were the last four left (although toward the very end this produced a fairly quirky twist). The show format does a team competition followed by the losing team selecting two members to "shoot for their life" so to speak, and then finishes with a head to head competition between those two.
If I could change one thing I would change the selection process. As is each shooter takes one shot at targets with all the shooters names. The two shooters with the most votes go to elimination. I guess having it all in the open makes some of the politics more telegenic. Sometimes though it means some folks shots pointless and sometimes I think people would vote a different way if they could do it privately. I think it would be cooler if they did it firing squad style everyone at once. I'd give everyone two rounds. They all shoot once simultaneously, look at the totals, and then shoot again. This way people could vote their conscience a little more freely. It might make the pre-nomination range scene less tense, but I think having the shooters have to guess who voted for whom would be an interesting dimension too.
But it's a good show as is. Check it out.
...from my garage.
I was thinking today about the ubiquity of the Internet and really of PC's in general. I guess in some really dweeby way I've been a bit of an outlier here as I have been using computers since junior high and have had email from the age of 14. That sounds run of the mill now but at the time it made me one of a very small group (there were maybe 5 of us playing with the TRS-80s).
In college I had email but I only recall using it for the class that taught you how to use the email. Maybe one or two people on my hall had computers. I had this high tech pen plotting typewriter thing (it's in my basement now, in it's box, probably never to be used again). I went all the way through undergrad without buying a computer. Now my students can't get to lunch without one.
Don't get me started on cell phones.
After grad school at my first job I did have a computer on my desk, but it wasn't something that could be assumed. The company had an AOL address for Internet access and it was only reachable from one machine. After a stint where my job didn't even have a desk let alone a computer my next gig did come with the assumption that everyone would have a machine (although there it was a week before I got a phone - you think being a project manager without email is hard...). But even that company didn't have ubiquitous email, just the one that went to a marketing person. By this time AOL had gone unlimited so I would use my own account from work for research and client communication. I never felt guilty about tying up a phone line for Internet. I probably should have.
Now, now I am sitting on a patio chair in my garage typing an entry for my blog on a tablet through our wireless. Really that's "last generation." Were I still an outlier I could likely dictate this post to my phone and have it post via cellular Internet. I guess while technology has driven forward I have dropped off the pace a little. Truth be told I think once this year I actually responded to an email with the dreaded "I can't open that file."
I used to think my grandfather saw the most exciting period of technological change. If I remember correctly he was born in 1898 and got to see the birth of the automobile, air travel, space travel, telephone, television, air conditioning, computers, cell phones, and everything that leveraged those things. But maybe, quietly, our time has also seen equally important but somewhat less splashy improvements. Maybe.
I wonder what it means when there are no posts and no tweets? Social media meltdown... I hear they are going to restart the SETI program. Score one for the good guys... Hung artwork today in the house. I am officially a fan of the "Monkey Hook"... If the AT&T/T-Mobile thing goes through 80% of the market will be in the hands of 2 vendors. That can't be good for pricing. Maybe I should have been paying closer attention to this one... Went to see the "Apes" movie. It was ok. I wonder if all that motion capture really makes the movie better... Bachman wins the Iowa straw poll. I don't know if I should be happy, sad, or oblivious... One year ago today I was wrapping things up to put my childhood home up for sale. What a difference a little time makes... The burger at the Double Wide? It's a keeper... Is the solution on the marriage thing that the government just get out of the marriage business altogether? Is that even possible? I'm beginging to thing maybe yes, and then no... Our cats, after being confined for a period have decided they are keeping the room whether we let them out or not... HBO on the satellite box looks a lot better than HBO on the TV through the computer over the internet, and it should... Should I cancel some social media? How about my MySpace page? LinkedIn? Not sure there's any reason to have those anymore... I think my sister is coming to visit. That'll be the big fun... We went to dinner at Notion in Oakmont. It's a great meal. Bring your wallet... More and more I am stuggling with why so many prominent Republicans seem to be afraid of gay people. I just don't understand. It's not something you can catch... I've been following a particular Twitter account of a friend that might turn out to be too racy for me... I'm mid "stay-cation" right now. Trying to decide how long it should go... I wish I could go first class to Hawaii, for work. Must be nice... Really limited response to my query about other conferences we should go to. Guess I will have to be more aggressive... I d-listed an email today and upon further reflection I believe I may have over distributed it... Today was the championship day for summer league, I didn't play this season. Not feeling like the odds are too strong I will play next season. Maybe I'll look into starting a "masters" summer league... Putting your house numbers on your garage seems too be too out there... I think reporters are really going to have to up their game with the current crop of candidates. Have to get past their talking points. There's no there, there... The good guys lost their first preseason game. Well, it was only a preseason game... I miss my Google Toolbar... It's been a bad year for outdoor concert roofs. My thoughts are with the families...
It's one of those things that news reporters these days love to write stories about and really I don't think it helps anyone. You see headlines like:
Doctor Chemers sent me this portrait he'd done of me. That's right: Doctor Chemers.
My inlaws have one cat. That's so many fewer than five... Hotel Internet is not fond of HBOGO. Too bad for the hotel Internet... Better to get a flat at the end of a trip than in the middle... When they downgrade the credit of a nation, do they downgrade the credit of everyone in that nation? Seems like it only follows... This page is down to a very, very few hits per week. It might be time to pull the plug... A ten game losing streak doesn't do much for your playoff plans... Gonna have to get me a Gotham Rouges jersey... With a couple of weeks left until the first day of class I am already being reminded of some of my least favorite things about my job... Driving through Ohio you'd never know their governor was being so difficult... I think maybe the movies tonight. Sounds like Cowboys and Aliens... I fixed the security settings on someone else's home network yesterday. While doing so I may have discovered that their low speed was due to their accidentally stealing a neighbor's Internet... So far all the Sodastream flavors have been very acceptable... All of my friends who are lawyers, please stop what you are doing and run for office... If you were buying a new laptop and had a choice of 2 gig or 4 gig, what would you do? I tend to go big or go home... I still haven't read that hardback I bought ages ago. I should do that... Still trying to get used to Evernote. Now it seems like just another place for things to accumulate... Really I thought Squish would have gone through with the marriage and that Mary would have turned her around and walk her back in...
So I bought this thing:
I liked the form factor and I needed a phone charger for my office. So I've had it for a little while now and I thought I would share my thoughts with you.
What we first find is that even though the thing says it is iPhone compatible I don't think they meant 3G. So when I seat my phone it tells me it doesn't work with that phone. Mostly it does though. It's supposed to be able to get the time from the phone and it can't. But otherwise it does seem to connect like it's supposed to. It does charge the phone.
Then it says it isn't optimized for the phone. I am beginning to think any device with a radio that hooks to a phone says it isn't optimized so when you hear the phone ping tune network through the radio you aren't surprised. Whatever.
The radio works well. The remote is nice. The app that runs on the phone to be the clock hands is nice too. I wish it would launch automatically when you dock the phone. Maybe it does on a better phone.
With all of that I think I'd be absolutely satisfied with the purchase.
Except for this: the clock doesn't keep time. As it runs the clock loses maybe four minutes per hour. If first thing in the morning I reset the time by the end of the day it is behind by almost a half hour. It reminds me of stories from East Germany, where the electrical generation didn't have a reliable frequency. People were always coming to work late. Made for real problems when the city unified.
So the clock/radio/charger is just a radio/charger. I guess I should return it, but it looks like I'd rather be disappointed. Maybe I can fix it. Seems like it's probably a problem with the power supply. Maybe a project for my spare time.
If you were also enchanted by this form factor, I guess my advice is to look for something else.
Yesterday one of the Precollege students asked me what I thought of his design project. He's doing a set design that includes an array of bamboo. I asked him "Where are the panda bears?"
Today when we were working in the shop they asked if I had been to my office yet. I was running late so I hadn't been there yet. After class I did go to my office and discovered why they were asking...
I guess I found the panda bears.
Tonight I think for the very first time I went to watch a game of ultimate. I mean, I've watched ultimate before but usually games at a tournament where I was playing. I've never in my recollection set out to go watch a game for its own sake... until tonight.
The NexGen Ultimate Tour made a stop in Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon tonight. It's a traveling team of college all-stars. They travel around the country playing local all star teams to build awareness for Ultimate. When I first saw the notice I gave a little thought to if I would ever have been good enough to have been involved in something like this had they done it 100 years ago. At the very peak of my game, which would have been my junior year at Carnegie, I would have been somewhere between 5 an 9 on our depth chart. We went to the national semi finals that year, so that puts me on one of the top four teams. At the very most optimistic, and I believe this to be too optimistic, that would have made me someplace around 20-36 in the nation (this of course neglects every player that was better than me on every team that didn't place that highly - could be another hundred players or more. I said it was optimistic, yes?).
NexGen has a roster of 15, so I am guessing no. There was a time when for sure I was one of the 15 best local college players though. So I guess I could have been involved in the Pittsburgh game, but not the tour.
Pittsburgh has a fairly large ultimate community. I have to say, I was expecting more people than this.
I guess there were maybe another two-dozen around the field, but overall not that many people. That was too bad, because the rain held off and the play was pretty good.
It's different experiencing Ultimate as a fan. I have to say that from the stands it can be kinda hard to follow until someone sent one long, then it's fairly obvious what is happening. But when it's really rolling in the center of the field even though I had a good idea where play was going to go it was kind of difficult to appreciate. I think I needed to be higher up. It's hard to watch the thrower and see the field at the same time. I guess it probably has a difficulty level someplace between Basketball and Hockey. I think watching Hockey on TV is real hard. People just appear out of nowhere. A little bit Ultimate can be like that too. You're watching the guy with the disk and a cutter coming in close, but then he looks him off and pivots to throw the other way to a person you hadn't been watching.
It's different when you are the guy holding the disc, or the one cutting.
The level of play was pretty high, although I think I've seen better in tourney play. NexGen was really good at a ticky-tack inside kind of play that I was never good at. I'm more of a big swing punch it up the side player. They had a lot of give & go and punch it up the middle. The Pittsburgh team (called "Oakland" to cover folks from Pitt and CMU I think) seemed pretty well rounded. Their long game was decent but occasionally they struggled to move the disc forward in smaller bites. Most of the highlight reel would have been on O. I don't remember seeing any stellar D. Pittsburgh threw a zone some at the beginning. It's nice to know some things never change. When I played club in Pittsburgh we always managed to throw in our Z, wind or no wind.
There didn't appear to be much wind tonight, but the game had an upwind/downwind feel to it anyway with almost all the scores going from my left to my right. Oakland went down quickly 2-1 but then managed to lead for much of the first half, only to fade a little and go into halftime trailing 8-7. They opened the second half scoring and evening the game 8-8 but then sputtered some and finally succumbed 15-11. It seemed like they were in it for most of the game. They didn't play their Z in the second half and it might have helped. It seemed to me that there were more calls than I am used to, but maybe I've gotten used to pick-up where people often let those things slide.
All in all a good use of a couple of hours on a nice summer night. If the tour is coming through your town you might want to check it out.
