Dumbest thing I’ve read all day

October 1st, 2007

Rant up ahead. You were warned. 🙂

I regularly read the Internet, which means that I’m constantly bombarded by stupidity. So, sometimes it’s hard to determine what the silliest or stupidest thing I’ve come across actually is. But sometimes, something jumps out as so … dumb … that it just begs for comments.

Remember when the Iranian president came to speak at Columbia University – where he didn’t exactly receive a warm reception? In fact, he was introduced as “a petty and cruel dictator” and “astonishingly uneducated”. He then proceeded to make himself look quite foolish with his ideas about the Holocaust and homosexuals. It’s very doubtful that he made any friends among the faculty or students of Columbia University that day.

Despite this, the very fact that Iran’s president was invited to a university to be heard at all has made one second-tier Republican presidential candidate – Duncan Hunter, a representative from California – wet himself all over the Congress. He’s introduced HR 3675 – the “Restore Patriotism to University Campuses Act”. See for yourself:

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Teaching with technology – on a shoestring budget

October 1st, 2007

It’s an unfortunate reality in education that if you want to use modern technology to teach, you’re quite likely going to be on your own. You can get some help from grants – if they’re available. You might be able to get some technology from all-too-eager textbook publishers, but these come with a price. Your students will likely foot the bill, and if you live in an economically depressed area areas like I do, your students can’t afford it.

So what do you do if you want to use technology, but you’re on a limited budget. You can’t, for instance, shell out the cash for a Sympodium. (Especially if the funds come out of your own pocket!) If you’re willing to put in a little effort, though, you can bring some modern technology into your classroom with relatively little cost. That’s what I’ve been doing this semester with my (used, but new to me) tablet PC.

At the beginning of the semester, I decided that I’d purchase a Tablet PC for classroom use. Since I was unable to get one through the school, I decided to scour Ebay for a used model. My choices were between a Toshiba PortegeM200 and a Thinkpad X40. Since the Toshiba was cheaper and sported a higher-resolution display, I went with the Toshiba. At the time, the Ebay price for a Toshiba M200 was around $500. I added another $100 to max out the memory so the system will run its fastest. Since I was due for a laptop upgrade anyway, this wasn’t such a bad cost to absorb. The problem was – that was about all the cost I could absorb. (Education salary, you see. 🙂 )

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Posted in Education, Technology | Comments Off on Teaching with technology – on a shoestring budget

Friday Cat: She did it!

September 28th, 2007

We’ve been remodeling the den, which makes for some rather strange things popping up in other parts of the house. This fish, for example, normally hangs in the den – but had to find a new home for a while.

[fish]

Tom recently took advantage of this poor, deceased fish. It seems that Tom (our Black Cat of Destruction) wanted someone else to take blame for him messing up a nice, antique chair:

[tom: she did it!]

Look! That fish! She did it!

For more animal friends, please visit this week’s Friday Ark!

(Apparently, I need more sleep. I somehow clicked the wring trackback link over at Modulator’s site … oops!)

Posted in Animals | 1 Comment »

Bad blogger! No biscuit!

September 24th, 2007

I know, things have been slow around here.

Really slow. As in … “No updates since the end of August” slow.

Here’s why:

[Cate with tupperware lid]

Look, Daddy! I just unloaded the Tupperware again!

Yes, she’s walking. And boy is she a handful!

Posted in Toddler stuff | 2 Comments »

Friday cat: Rusty the Rabbit

August 31st, 2007

We’ve sometimes compared our cat Rusty to a rabbit. She’s light, she’s fast, and she hops around quite a bit. But there’s another reason.

Here’s Rusty

[Rusty the Rabbit]

Rusty’s ears are a bit too short, and her tail is a bit too long. But …

[Backyard Rabbit]

Here’s an actual rabbit from our backyard. The lighting’s not ideal, but Rusty and the rabbit have very similar coloration and even similar patterns in their fur.

Neat, eh?

Rusty’s been featured on this site many times before, but if you’d like a better view of the rabbit, try this high resolution image: [Backyard Rabbit – 1400px]

As always, visit The Friday Ark for more animal friends!

Posted in Animals | 3 Comments »

Getting more space in the lab – the quick way

August 25th, 2007

This is probably not the best way to get more space in your laboratory.

The fire in a chemistry lab on the fourth floor of Hunter Hall [at Clemson University] was reported to officials around 9:10 p.m. and was under control roughly 25 minutes later, said Robin Denny, news services director for the university.

The fire took out one of the chemistry labs and caused some damage to the rest of the fourth floor.

The building reportedly was unoccupied at the time of the fire, and officials had not found any indications as of Friday night that any release of chemicals had taken place,

I went to grad school at Clemson, and I’m glad that no one was hurt in the fire.

But … since when is the chemistry building unoccupied – on a weekday – at only 9 PM? Sure, it was a Friday, but there had to be some grad students around!

If anyone else has any info on the fire, please let me know. I’m curious to know what started the fire. So far, I’ve only seen/read this, this, and this.

Posted in Personal chatter | 2 Comments »

Friday cat food: Handle me with care

August 24th, 2007

Been beat up and battered round
Been sent up, and Ive been shot down
You’re the best thing that Ive ever found
Handle me with care

— Traveling Wilburys, Handle With Care

[Swallowtail butterfly - 450px]

(Black?) Swallowtail Butterfly

I think everyone feels like this battered butterfly, sometimes.

Click the link for a high resolution version of this picture: [Swallowtail butterfly – 1400px]

To see more animals, visit The Friday Ark!

Posted in Animals | 1 Comment »

Great start to the afternoon!

August 22nd, 2007

When you work a community college schedule, you take lunch whenever you can get it. On Wednesdays, that’s about 1:30 PM. It’s not too late – considering that I have had schedules where I don’t get to eat lunch at all – but it did put me outside in the suffocating heat of the early afternoon.

Today, I’m at the Subway in the local truck stop. I’ve just finished my sandwich, and am walking out to my car. I see something at the corner of the building. Something that looked a little like this:

[Dust devil from Wikipedia]

Dust devil image from Wikipedia

I didn’t take the picture above, but it’s a fair sample of what was churning at the corner of the building as I started to walk out to the car.

It didn’t register immediately that I was standing about ten yards away from a dust devil, and that it might be a good idea to stand somewhere else. A dust devil is just not something you expect to run into at a truck stop on the outskirts of a city.

That, of course, did not matter much to the dust devil – which was heading my way. And so I am currently brushing sand off my drink and out of my hair, my clothes, my eyes …

Great start to the afternoon, don’t you think?

Posted in Personal chatter | 1 Comment »

P-Nuts!

August 19th, 2007

Almost everyone is familiar with peanut butter and roasted peanuts. But if you come down to the Deep South, you’ll find that we have some odd ways of preparing those delicious legumes.

Even I’m not certain what these are…

[Boilod peanuts]

How, exactly, does one boilo a peanut?

Yankee readers of this blog are free to start cringing at the thought of what boiling a peanut would do to it. But y’all don’t know what you’re missing!

Posted in The Stupidity Photoblog | 2 Comments »

Friday cat food: The king approaches! No, wait …

August 17th, 2007

This is the week before fall semester begins, so I’ve been quite busy getting materials ready for my fall classes. So, the blog’s been … slow. But cats are always on the prowl, looking for things outside the window to chase and bat.

This week, the cats have discovered the king of butterflies …

[Viceroy]

… the Monarch. But wait!  Look closer. This lovely butterfly may look a lot like a Monarch, but it’s actually a mimic called the Viceroy. How can we tell? By the extra black stripe on the wings!

Want a closer look? Try this high resolution image.

[Viceroy butterfly: 1400×1050 JPG]

As always, if you’d like to find more animal friends, head on over to The Friday Ark!

Posted in Animals | 2 Comments »

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