Do You Make Navigation Systems?

If so I have a request.

Today we went to the mall - there's a new Lego store (TLDR it is the same as the other Lego stores).  I love using Waze to navigate.  I use it on long car trips, but I also use it around town to try to get around traffic snags.  Pittsburgh often has delays around tunnel traffic and Waze has fairly reliably helped know when to get off the Parkway and when to stay on.

At least we think so, since there's nothing to compare to it is hard to know.

Anyway, we're off to the mall today and Waze decides to cut across the triangle up close to our neighborhood rather than running down the side and cutting across closer to downtown - the latter would be our STOP.  Down one street, cut across another, down the side street... all for what appears to be an effort to miss like four traffic lights.

So here's what I want: I want a control that allows me to set the minimum amount of time saved before taking me off the "normal" route.  I always have this suspicion that the algorithm is taking me five blocks out of my way to save 30 seconds.  It would be nice to have some way to tell it that in a 25 minute drive, if it can't make more than a 5 minute difference it should just stay on the default route.

Call it an "impatience factor."

Seems like it is an even bigger deal on longer drives.  We go back and forth to Bloomington a lot and that trip has more than one interstate bypasses around cities in West Virginia and Ohio.  Waze nearly always suggests the bypass over the direct route and we always wonder if taking the long way around is saving us any significant amount of time.  So maybe in a 6 hour drive if there aren't 20 minutes to be saved the route could stay on the main drag.

The problem is that sometimes there really is time to be saved.  Sometimes on that long drive there are significant traffic backups going through town, sometimes in town drives there are accidents or big backups for events or something, so you can't know just how big a deal the re-route is.  Maybe that's another feature.  Waze has voice commands.  Maybe when it is telling you to do something counter-intuitive you should be able to just ask: "just how much time is this going to save me?"  Then when it says "this route saves two minutes due to heavy traffic" you can just keep going the way you were going to go anyway.

Could call that feature "back seat driver."

It's just a suggestion.

Hey Wait!

I know that guy!

He wields one hell of an umbrella.

Giving the Big Assignment

There's a lesson here I am having trouble learning myself: the upper level classes have difficulty getting through a big assignment.

The TD3 (previously Technical Design) class has a fairly storied history of washing out large, long term assignments.  It's too bad because some of these assignments are really interesting.  I think the first instance of this syndrome was the first time through the Mechanical Rainstorm project.  This is a full class, multiple stage project and two classes really had failed attempts before a third managed to finish.  There's just something about the working together and the interim deadlines that make the process unmanageable.

The second appearance of this type of result was the class effort at the 120 Volt project.  Again the class had a full class, multiple deadline project, and again they came out mostly with mush.  This time a grad student picked up the pieces and tackled the project one their own as a thesis.  That provided an even longer calendar footprint and eliminated all of the cooperative aspects of the thing.  But doing that also seemed to make what had been impossible more possible.

Interestingly these things don't always fail.  Each and every year the first year class manages to complete the Critical Path project.  As an intro level class the group is significantly larger.  Instead of four or five people working on the project there are more than 20.  I think the difference here is the hard, non-negotiable deadline with an audience.  But also, there isn't a research element to this project, just design/composition and execution.  The research part of the later projects are almost certainly part of the difficulty.

With the exception of the Mechanical Rainstorm I think the largest, longest footprint project the TD3 class  has finished would be the Cold Air Inflatable project.  That one had interim deadlines, research, and a small scale individual deadline in advance of the large scale, collaborative deliverable.  Even though this project did have a significant "figure it out" component, that component was fairly discreet.  Having an open ended deliverable also seems to be part of the problem.  Class that year was only three people.  I think the smaller team helped lead to a success.

This year's experiment was the Green Fabrication assignment:

Open deliverables, long footprint, research... this assignment has a lot of what tends to lead to assignments that fall apart.  It isn't over yet, but we've already had to punt a couple of times.  I've changed the deliverables and moved the goalpost.  There's still a chance we'll actually come out of it with something worthwhile, but it isn't going to be what I had hoped for.

The real disappointing part of this one is that legitimately in this case there might be very little to find.  So some of their difficulty might in this case be about the nature of the research as much as it is about the process of that research.  I do have a hope that like the 120 Volt project I'll be able to sell this to a grad student as a thesis somewhere down the line.  It'd be nice to have some answers on this topic.

In the meantime I need to do some evaluation regarding the future of the TD3 Big Assignment.  Figuring out what the successful assignments have had in common and applying that to future assignments would seem to be a worthwhile endeavor.

Credit Ultimate

I have a standing list of assignments students can do for extra credit in my classes.  One of the assignments is to organize an ultimate frisbee game that includes me.  They have to get together at least 13 people and secure a field such that we can play for at least an hour.  I give them an extra 25% for each additional faculty member they can turn out - so far no group has managed the additional points.

We just had a game a couple of weeks ago.  Usually students don't think about extra credit until the very end of a semester.  In the fall that means that when extra credit is on their mind the temperature outside would be hovering around freezing and therefore less conducive to an ultimate game (although there's no admonition against an indoor game - might be more difficult to schedule though).

There's another standing instruction for this activity that isn't overtly stated in the description but that I make abundantly clear face to face: students must know where the nearest AED is located.  Just in case.  I don't play all that often anymore.

In each of the instances of this activity the team I have played on has done quite well.  I'm not sure why that is.  One player ought not make that big a difference, especially a single player that really isn't playing any defense, or you know... running much at all.  But that's been the case and this time was no different.  I offered reshuffling the teams once we went up something like 8-0, but they weren't having it.

I had a lot of assists, but not as many as throwaways.  My backhand is still solid.  My flick really needs work, and the hammers were really quite awful.  I also got a lot of mileage out of a tight little upside down throw I never used to use but saw thrown a lot while watching AUDL on TV.  So I guess I'm still learning.

Honestly I wish I could make this happen weekly.  But then nobody would have to do any homework and I don't think that would be pedagogically responsible.  Might be fun though.

I Voted

The returns are coming in and I'm not really paying attention.  I'm fairly pessimistic.  I think a Democratic House is likely but not a given.  Republican Senate pretty likely but I would like to be surprised.  I feel like we won't flip the senate seat in Texas.  The governors races in Georgia and Florida feel unlikely.

I was cautiously optimistic in the last election.  I felt like the Presidential race wasn't in question, but I was really hoping we were going to flip the PA Senate seat.  Neither of those came out how I was hoping.  That result really makes this election harder to get excited about.

I did my thing though.  I made sure to vote.  I made a contribution down the stretch.  I tried to change some minds.  I did what I could to support those people that were doing more than I was.  I can't help but feel like I should have done more.  For the last couple of days I've had a real feeling of ineffectiveness.  It felt pretty clear that Wolf and Casey and Doyle and Frankel were all going to win whether I showed up or not.  I did get to vote for John Fetterman this time.  In 2016 he lost in the primary so I didn't get a chance to vote for him.  That was nice.

My pessimism is actually about the US House.  People are thinking that with a Democratic takeover of the house that oversite might make a comeback.  There are predictions for all kinds of hearings and investigations.  I would love to see closer scrutiny of many of the agency heads as part of that.  But the confirmation hearings we've seen so far give me pause.  Several witnesses in those hearings simply refused to answer questions.  I can see people being called to testify under oath and doing the same thing - just declining to answer.  The recourse committees will have would be to refer those witnesses to Justice for contempt of Congress.  In any prior administration one would assume that the AG would pursue those charges.  In this administration I can feel that charge just being left in a drawer.

Hopefully I don't understand it properly.  If not, the investigations don't feel like they'll go anyplace.

Yes we can!

Ellipses...

Mondays will be Ellipses.  I wonder if this was a running thing if I could keep it up...  Please, please, please vote tomorrow.  It matters...  I didn't like this week's Doctor Who as much as last week's, but it was solid.  I probably have more to say about Doctor Who.  Right now I just want my new Geeky Jersey...  Two days last week would have been perfect for Credit Ultimate.  Maybe there ought to be a system under which we could make a game happen on the fly rather than having to have weeks of scheduling first...  I packed up the yard for the season.  Still hoping to get at least one more run at the grill, but the rest of the stuff has gone into hibernation (some cushions that really ought to go into a vat of bleach, or maybe the trash)...  We followed popular wisdom and replaced all the batteries in the smoke detectors with the time change.  Part of me feels like that's fairly wasteful from a battery standpoint...  The boy and I may be watching the new Star Wars cartoon together.  We've gotten through three episodes so far, so there's a chance it might stick.  It amazes me how much he likes Star Wars things having never seen Star Wars...  It is way, way, way too early for the Christmas decorations to be out in the stores.  I know people will spend more if you give them longer, but come on, what happened to Thanksgiving?  I need a little time to ramp up...  I don't think tomorrow's election results are going to be what the Left is hoping for.  I hope I am wrong...  They still haven't opened up the street through from our place to Shady.  Every morning I look to see, so far every morning it has still been blocked off...  There's a local restaurant that has for years had a "Gobblerito" - a Thanksgiving burrito.  Yesterday I got an email from another local restaurant looking to shoulder in with a Thanksgiving burger and shake.  Might have to give it a try...  This season I really considered just not watching football.  It didn't so much take...  Really.  I mean it.  Vote...

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

How HBO Is Changing Sex Scenes Forever

Rolling Stone: Last spring, Emily Meade was getting ready to give a blow job in front of a crew of people on the Bronx set of HBO’s The Deuce, and she wasn’t thrilled about it. The penis wasn’t real — it was a dildo — but she had never done this specific thing on screen before. Meade, who plays budding porn star Lori, worried about that image of her being out in the world. “What if my future kids see this someday?” she thought. She was a woman in a sexualized industry, playing the role of a prostitute in 1970s New York; surely her concerns were not new. But in the era of #MeToo, her sense that she could do something about it was. The time was ripe to think about safety in the workplace — particularly if your job revolved around sex.

Posted by David at 10/29/2018 10:49:00 AM

Outsiders of Long Standing

AMERICAN THEATRE: At a time when many marginalized groups in the U.S. face intensified violence or discrimination—Latinx communities, immigrants from Muslim-majority countries, LGBTQ+ folks, disabled people—another group with a long history of persecution feels the threat from an administration that has winked at white supremacists and neo-Nazis: Jewish Americans. In the theatre, while many historically marginalized groups have made strides in terms of representation on U.S. stages, shows with Jewish themes seem to have had a fresh urgency and relevance in recent years.

Posted by David at 10/30/2018 11:19:00 AM

The International Gymnastics Federation Bans Cat Makeup For Gymnasts

deadspin.com: This morning, gymnastics fans awoke to the news that the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) had solved one of the most pressing problems facing the sport. No, they didn’t decide to address the abuse that has been running rampant on the women’s side of the sport for decades. Instead, FIG finally tackled the problem of one gymnast wearing cat makeup in her floor routine.

Posted by David at 10/30/2018 11:12:00 AM

Famously secretive, MPAA pulls back the curtain on ratings — a little bit

Los Angeles Times: In the eyes of many filmmakers, the Motion Picture Assn. of America should be rated R — for reticent. The MPAA has long kept its rating methods a tightly guarded secret as it continues to wield enormous power over the types of explicit content that can been shown in U.S. cinemas.

Posted by David at 10/30/2018 11:16:00 AM

Business Is Boo-ing! The World of Extreme Haunts

The New York Times: On a recent Saturday night, ten anxious individuals were blindfolded and taken to a secret location in the desert, 40 minutes outside of Los Angeles. They were told that they would each be playing the part of a futuristic criminal who had been lobotomized and summoned to help investigators identify two bodies discovered on the grounds.

Posted by David at 10/29/2018 11:58:00 AM

I delete a lot of posts.

You get like a graph in and think - yeah, I'm just not going to hit publish.

So instead, the boy asked for a robot this year.  Well actually an alien, but while we were looking for alien patterns we found a robot and he changed his mind (or maybe I changed his mind).

November 1x30

This snuck up on me a little bit.  For the last couple of weeks I had been planning to do a 30 posts in 30 days thing for November like I had previously done in July (yes, July was 31, I apologize).  Then all of a sudden it was November 2nd and I was already a day behind.  I guess I will have to do a double posting for one or two days to make up for my botched start.

FWIW, I think I have a decent excuse for not having this at the top of my list over the last couple of days.  Perhaps you read about it in the news.

I haven't decided if I am in a place to write about that yet.  We'll see by the end of the month.

Some things I am thinking about:

• Ultimate
• Kids Today
• Green Scenery
• TD Gifts
• Thanksgiving
• Tech Week
• The Greenpage
• Crits
• Stock Scenery
• Large Assignments
• Buy Three
• What's really disappointing about this administration

Maybe, it's just a rough list.  Then there will certainly be at least three "Worth a Look" posts to bail me out, and probably at least four ellipses... (old habits die hard).

When I started this thing a thousand years ago I thought I would write about the movies I was seeing.  So maybe I'll say something about movies or TV or books or something.

If there's something you would like me to write about I will certainly take the assignment.  Put it in the comments or send it to me.

Here goes...

Worth a Look

Here are a few posts from last week's Greenpage that might be worth your time...

LGBTQ Characters Reach Record-High TV Representation

Variety: LGBTQ characters have hit record-high representation numbers for the 2018-19 television season, GLAAD’s annual “Where We are on TV” report for 2018 finds.

LGBTQ series regulars on broadcast have hit 8.8% (75 characters), with 50% of those characters being LGBTQ people of color.

Posted by David at 10/25/2018 12:10:00 PM

This Prop Master’s Work Is Hidden in Plain Sight

YouTube: Ross MacDonald makes his paper by making paper. For the last 25 years, he’s created tens of thousands of paper props for movies and television shows like “Baby’s Day Out,” “Silver Linings Playbook,” “Boardwalk Empire” and “Parks and Recreation.” From handwritten letters to driver’s licenses, each piece is custom made and thoughtfully imbued with backstory.

Posted by David at 10/23/2018 11:19:00 AM

Show Girls

Evolve: Showgirls is a photo series aimed at bringing attention to female technicians in the live events industry, highlighting that they are not just girls on show site, but are qualified and capable technicians. We interviewed 5 women, of varying experience, for their perspectives on working in a male dominated field and how we get more women interested in a career in AV. The consensus? We need to make more women aware that this industry exists.

Posted by David at 10/22/2018 02:15:00 PM

Hamlet Is the Latest Chicago Shakespeare Theater Role that Didn’t Go to a Local

Chicago magazine | Arts & Culture October 2018: Last week, Chicago Shakespeare Theater announced that Raúl Esparza will play the title role in its three-month run of Hamlet next spring, to be directed by the theater’s founder and artistic director, Barbara Gaines. Esparza’s casting is notable for a few reasons. First, he’s a terrific actor — on Broadway, with four Tony nominations to his name, and on television, where he’s built a following on Law & Order: SVU. Second, he’ll be among the older performers of the modern era to act as Shakespeare’s prince. Those who land the role usually fall within the age range of mid-twenties to late thirties; Esparza turns 48 this month.

Posted by David at 10/22/2018 11:17:00 AM

Green Hippo Motion Maps Stonehenge

TPi: It took a year of negotiations, but 2018 saw Stonehenge host its first-ever live DJ set. And lighting creative Motion Mapping, complete with a pair of Green Hippo Hippotizer Karst Media Servers supplied by A.C. Entertainment Technologies, was tasked with delivering a digital video projection show equal to the brooding majesty of one of the Seven Wonders of the Medieval World.

Posted by David at 10/22/2018 01:54:00 PM