The Rare Corn Update

• Nice new desktop background.
• ath5k driver seems significantly improved over 8.10 linux-intrepid-backports-generic version. "Noise floor calibration..." errors still cropping up, especially under higher load, but I can listen to music without it skipping. The real test will come when I try it on less-reliable WPA2 & WEP networks and when I need to use Skype to talk to people. If the connection still drops out using this newer ath5k driver, I'll have to go back to madwifi-ng.
• A virtually effortless upgrade. I hit one button and everything else pretty much just happened without any errors. (Compared to the Gentoo upgrade cycle I used to participate in, this is like walking into a church and being handed a trappist ale.)
• Boot time has decreased somewhat, although I wouldn't call it "amazing." 

Overall, especially for a free operating system, this is pretty much world-class stuff. Big cheers and thanks to the Ubuntu team! 

If you're curious about this Linux stuff, Ubuntu 9.04 would probably be a pretty sensible choice for you. It's free, you've got nothing to lose except a couple of hours of time installing it, and it'll probably do 95% of what you need out of the box. For the more paranoid among us (like me), you've got the option of encrypting your entire hard drive, which has worked flawlessly for me for six months now through about 3-4 software upgrades. I'm a complete novice, but it seems like good stuff to me.

I'm grading the exams from this past week's midterm and it's making me want to cry and leaving with a genuine feeling of bitterness. The average score on the hand-written portion so far is about 7.5/30. Seven point five out of thirty.

You could argue that the kids aren't trying hard enough and this argument may have some merit, but I feel like it's both callous and even downright wrong -- an attitude that will further tarnish physics' already bad image.

It's not that the kids aren't trying -- they are, and some of them even have some curiosity left after a semester of being punched in the junk over and over again. The problem is that the profs are trying to teach them way too much, and that they don't care. This past semester, the first midterm didn't have a handwritten portion because the prof forgot to put it on. The second one had a handwritten problem from a year ago, written by a different prof; nevermind that one of the TA's whose research depends on this class wrote a problem to be used -- they just forgot to use it. This third exam had a handwritten portion written by two different people, one of whom -- a professor -- should've just confessed and admitted that he didn't know how to write anything resembling a decent handwritten portion, and let somebody else do it.

He also wrote the grading rubric which we're using. For a problem with 20 points, he has 11 separate bullets that he wants to see. How many people do you think we're going to find that think exactly like he does? 

I haven't seen one completely correct solution so far. One of my roommates didn't even know how to solve it. I hate losing money on bets, and I would bet that out of 1384 students, we'll have less than 5 completely correct answers.

Look, all I'm saying is that if a student tried to pull this shit, they'd get a warning one semester, and their teaching appointment yanked by the end of the second. These professors seem to forget that these students are their bread and butter -- a lot of money comes in from the undergrads (whether or not the prof's research is going well.) You would think that the least they could do is ensure a consistent test experience, hell, maybe even try to write a good exam. (?) 

If you're in high school, here's a tip from me: having attended a research 1 school for undergrad, and a research 1 (realistically 2) school for postgrad, I strongly recommend that you get your undergrad education at a small liberal-arts college. You cannot do better than individual attention to help you learn things, and you will never get that at a research 1 school. Especially if you are interested in a science, undergraduate is where you need to get your fundamentals if you want to have a research career -- not postgrad. (They'll try to avoid giving you the fundamentals in postgrad too, you'll have to work hard on your own to make up deficit. As a graduate student, their primary interest is hammering you through the core courses in order to let you start doing research -- for which you'll be completely underprepared.)

And these are the economics of life at a university, as I understand it.

I proctored the longest lab we have this past week, and I always loosen up on these to make them more bearable. Plus, I'm fighting the flu this week.

I've gotten to know my groups pretty well by this point, and who tends to do what and how much. I came around one particular group, and one of them said something about their answers or lack thereof, prompting me to vocalize my thoughts about them as I moved my hand over their heads: 

"Ah yes, this is the group with 'comic relief', 'guy who tries', and 'brains'." 

'Comic relief' especially enjoyed that. It's always a risk sharing your thoughts as a TA though, so I gotta keep a button on it from now on.

Feynman is popularly quoted as saying that "I think it's safe to say that no one understands quantum mechanics." 

I think it's safe to say that pretty much no student understands thermodynamics through and through. Anyone that tries to convince you that they do has either read the book too little or has spent days on it and does get it. Because it is not easy.

(Why am I still studying physics? Don't I need to get a job at some point?)

I'm in a cafe by the Eastman School of Music, buying a sandwich.

M: What kind of coffee should I get?
Barista 1: I recommend the dark roast.
M: Cool, sounds good!

:: walk over to coffee area :: 

M: I was told to get the dark roast here.
Barista 2: What, really? I hate the Columbian.
M: Oh, is it bad?
Barista 2: No, I just don't like the taste.
M: Oh,
Barista 2: But what do I know, I just went to Juilliard.
M: Oh, wow...
Barista 2: Yeah, biggest waste of time and money in my life.

Is my bitch.

That is all.

I comprehend you, you little bastard. It only took six days and I only had to reread Landau 7 times. I now understand why you may have off-diagonal elements, you little cocksucker, and you better believe I'll take your trace.

Bitch.

I swear, quantum physics is the biggest mind fuck since Requiem for a Dream.

How do I have 458 emails in my inbox, 340 of which stubbornly refuse to be read? 

How?

Why doesn't my to-do list ever seem to get shorter?! Am I living in some
kind of twilight-zone?

Having suspend-to-ram work under Linux on my unbelievably sexy (and
slow) laptop.

Also, I did donuts on my trike on the frozen lake near where I live;
that was pretty dang sweet too. That is, not only did I ride around on a
frozen lake (rock!) but I did donuts (glee!)

Now I wish to buy a laptop, and I am finding this hard. I like Dell
keyboards, I like Lenovo keyboards, I pretty much like most keyboards I
come into contact with. What I can't figure out so far (and what I would
like your help with, dear reader) is if there is anything in particular
that you've come across in using your laptop that you particularly like
or find particularly annoying.

Any laptops with really loud fans? Any laptops that seem to break down
often? How much power do you find yourself needing? How much battery
life do you wish you had?

To:K H
Status:Sent
-----
#!/bin/licks K
-----
10:42AM Tue , Jan 13

Fr:K H
-----
mount M
-----
11:20AM Tue, Jan 13
CB#: K H

I was hoping to be able to say this for a long time, "Let's all take a deep breath now. We've done it."

I would also like to point out that this is the first time since 1964 that Indiana went blue, and by a mere 12,000 or 13,000 votes, but it's blue nevertheless! :-) A lot people didn't think it would happen.

I am walking back from getting a sandwich and I see two fellow grad
students, both wearing sweaters when I'm bundled and cozy in a nice
coat. One of them, S, is a quiet, somewhat awkward Japanese guy who is
nonetheless very nice. You have to imagine your prototypical thin anime
club attendee with a medium frame, light features, and who doesn't ever
really say much, much less anything controversial.

M: "Hey man, this is jacket weather!"
S: "I have a jacket,"
M: "Why don't you wear it?" He's obviously cold standing there in just a
sweater.
S: "It looks too goth, and it's too long, so my wife won't let me wear it."

I didn't think he knew the word "goth".

You know how some people have weird curiosities?

I have an odd..., somehow incurable interest in filesystems. I even
think they're boring sometimes, but still I find them interesting time
and again.

Is it time for the great set of continuous filesystem tests I've been
wanting to do for years now?

...

I've had two cups of coffee, and I'm 3/4 of the way through a RockStar
Roasted Mocha, and I still can't concentrate enough to really get into
this quantum.

This is a "bad day".

=P

Tensors seem to have this Joker-like quality of being simultaneously deceptively simple and inexplicably difficult. The basic definitions are all nothing to write home about, so far, but ... as soon as you get into applications you suddenly have no idea WTF just happened and how what they do follows from what you saw earlier.

I miss you, Mary Boas, and your wonderful Mathematical Methods for Physicists.