Vibrating building

The university is currently in the process of adding a new addition to the Marine & Natural Science Building in which my office resides. This is a great thing as the new addition will be used to expand our shellfish hatchery program and open up space in the wet lab for the the rest of the marine science program. The problem, however, is that one of the walls in my office is an outside wall to which the addition is being attached. The end result is that everyday brings new and jarring construction activiies, sometimes to the point that you can't hold a conversation in the room. The crew even accidentally cut 6-inch-long slits through the base of the wall - wide enough that I could see daylight (seriously - I (and they) were lucky they didn't cut into a computer or wiring or somebody's foot). The other day was the absolute worse though. I have no idea what they were doing, but the entire room was vibrating - things were actually moving on the desk and shelves.

All I could think about was this:

what happened to critical thinking? (or proofreading?)

The title of this post suggests something more grandiose than I intend to present. But it is a key question. This is just a rant of sorts that I need to get off my chest. Perhaps I shouldn't, but I need to.

A recent quiz question for my Introductory Biology class:
"What is the relationship between the number of species or groups under cladistic analysis and the number of possible cladograms?"

Student answer:

The number of species or groups under cladisitc analysis is irrelevant to the number of possible cladograms. However, as the number of species increases the number of possible cladograms increases.

I'd like to say that the student is just hedging, but I truly believe the student thinks this answer makes sense.

Friday Dial Stopper: Poster Printing Edition

Well, here I sit finishing up the poster printing I started yesterday. Of course, the process isn't frustration-free today either:

1) I met the IT guy at the room so he could let me in and log me onto the computer. He shows up and says "I hope the door isn't locked, that's the one key I don't have". Wah!? Now remember, this is the same guy that let me in yesterday (he had a key then), the same guy I talked to on the phone 15 minutes ago and who told me to meet him here so he could unlock the door for me, and the same guy who called security yesterday to come and lock up the room (oh, just to cover all bases, this is the same room as it was yesterday). Of course the friggin' room is locked. As my grandmother says (surprisingly) "Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" I shouldn't be surprised though since this is also the same guy who was "hoping" no one needed the regular printer this summer.

2) The IT guy finds someone with the key. Once inside I realize that the roll of paper I left on the printer is no longer there - it's been swapped out with smaller, cheaper stuff. My roll is nowhere in the room. WTF!! Luckily, the guy with the key had some ideas where it might be and after searching through about 5 different rooms we found it in a storage closet on the other side of the building. So much for being out of here in a couple of hours.

So, today's dial stopper is fitting. Just change the words in the chorus from 'I' to 'IT' (as in Information Technology) and it's perfect:

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Addendum: 1:30pm - Three posters (from the same lab) failed to include a faculty co-author. Guess who's reprinting three posters?

Research poster frustration (take 3)

Here's yet another chapter in the continuing saga of the large format poster printer I have the "privilege" of having access to.

Next Monday there is a conference co-hosted by RI-INBRE and RI-EPSCoR, two federally-funded state programs that, among many other things, provide support to undergraduates to do research. This conference consists of poster presentations for all the Summer Undergraduate Research Fellows (SURFs) from both programs throughout the state. As such, I am printing 10 posters for the SURFs here at RWU.

Not too bad, right? Each takes about 15 minutes or so to print, so I block off a few hours and give myself another day just in case anything goes awry. Am I prescient or what...

1) Poster files were due in to me by 10 a.m. this morning. How many did I have by 10 a.m.? Exactly 1. This was expected of course so not too big a deal.

2) The one laptop that is reserved for use with the large-format poster printer is kept in the Dean's office (this way we can maintain strict control over who uses the plotter - we don't want just anyone trying to use it and end up f-ing it up). However, the Dean is not here today. Neither is his secretary. The other secretary in the building doesn't have a key to his office. Luckily, security does and happily opens the door for me (wonder if the Dean knows about this).

3) The printer sits in a little room off the back of a computer lab. I have a key that opens up both the computer lab and the little room in the back. So, I unlock the computer lab and attempt to unlock the room in the back. My key doesn't fit. I try again and again and again, thinking it's just a bit sticky. Nope. No good. My key clearly does not go with this lock. Another call to security...

4) Security shows up. Long story short...their keys don't work either. WTF!?!? Security calls the locksmith. Turns out that the lock has been changed and the only folks with a key are over in IT. Apparently they're using the room for the storage of new PCs until they get a chance to swap out a bunch of old ones. Security bids me adieu and wishes me good luck. Great.

5) I call IT. Finally I get connected to someone with the key. I tell him what I need and he says...nothing. Just silence on the other side. Then I get a "Hmmmm. Huh. Ahhhhh. Can I call you back?" Sure. Why should I have expected a simple, "OK, I'll be right there"?

6) He calls back. I can't get access to the printer. I repeat, I cannot get access to the printer. Turns out the printer has been taken offline, moved to the back of the room and buried behind boxes of new PCs. It is literally inaccessible. Apparently, IT had been (direct quote here) "hoping that no one would need the printer this summer". Wah? Hoping? Other than IT (and the locksmith I guess) no-one knew this was happening. They didn't tell (or better, ask) anyone. They just were hoping it would be OK. Wow.

Everything is not lost however. The guy from IT has given me access to the computer lab in the School of Engineering. There's an older large format printer over here that I am using...once I changed the paper, figured out the proper settings, and fought with the paper loader because the roll I have is too thick so the rollers get jammed. But I'm printing now and, knock-on-wood, everything looks good.

And I remembered rubber bands this time!

Marine bio Camp - day 2 recap

Itinerary:
kayak in Ninigret Pond;
explore the salt marsh, tidal flats, eel grass beds, sandy beach;
search for, find, and identify critters, discuss their ecology/natural history;
discuss sedimentation, local geology, glacial past, anaerobic decomposition, hydrogen sulfide production;
visit rocky intertidal zone at Beavertail State Park;
discuss important physical and biological factors at play here;
examine zonation;
search for, find, and identify critters;
compare and contrast with sandy beach environment;

Problems encountered:
Shuttle bus with students taking the long way around, getting stuck in morning rush-hour traffic;
kayak outfitter unable to unlock kayaks -> go out and rent bolt cutters -> cut lock;
kid from CA forgetting his parent-signed kayaking release form;
RWU shuttle failing to return to pick us up to take us to the rocky intertidal (they didn't see the second destination on the shuttle request form);
hung around kayak center parking lot for a couple of hours waiting for RWU security to "do their best to get someone out to pick us up";
had approximately 40 minutes at rocky intertidal;
one bloody shin and one smashed toe (neither mine);

At least it didn't rain on us. And I didn't lose anyone.

Can somebody explain this to me?

(no, this isn't a picture of Jack)
Remember that stack of papers I have to grade? Well, I'm still working on them. But I had to stop and vent some frustration. Tell me how I interpret this:

One, single project, with four group members, on the effect of two different diets (Artemia and copepods) on jellyfish growth and budding. Here are summaries of each student's account of their methodology:

Student 1 - project ran for 23 days, fed jellyfish 10ml of the two different diets at first, then reduced to 5ml after 10ml was deemed too much.

Student 2 - project ran for 4 weeks, fed jellyfish 1ml of both diets.

Student 3 - project ran for 6 weeks, fed jellyfish 3ml of both diets.

Student 4 - project ran for 4 weeks, fed jellyfish 1ml of one diet, 5ml of the second

It's one thing (and expected) for members of a team to differ in how well they explain their experimental procedure - some leave things out that others include, some are more concise and understandable, but no one in this group agrees on the day-to-day details of the experiment. How does that happen?

Does this mean they didn't actually do the experiment and made stuff up? Was this a complete breakdown of teamwork and each individual did their own thing? Did one student do the whole thing and then screw with the other three by telling each something different?

It's that time of year again...

By the end of the day today, I should have a stack of papers to grade. Woohoo!! My intro bio students undertook a "semester-long"^* research project and their formal write-ups are due today. What are the chances that I have them all before I leave? Yeah, that's what I think too.

The students gave group presentations of their research last week, so I have a good feel for what to expect. I've flipped through some already and have found that my oh-so wonderful suggestions I gave after their presentation have not been incorporated into their final paper. Not a good start. But at least some of the students stopped referring to earthworms as insects. So they've got that going for them.

^*Apparently, "semester-long", for some groups, means wait until the last weekend before everything is due to collect and analyze samples and then when they realize they don't have enough time to actually quantify anything, they "eye-ball" it.

Things that are not insects....

How many legs does an insect have?

Not a question one would think one would have to ask an undergraduate. Especially, an undergraduate majoring in biology.

However, if such a question does need to be asked, one would like to think that the answer would not be:
"Eight? More than eight? I don't know."

EIGHT!?!?!?!?!?! MORE THAN EIGHT?!?!?!?!?! I DON'T KNOW!?!?!?!?!?!?!

I'm pretty sure my 4-year old knows this answer. And if he doesn't, my 7-year old certainly does.

Hell in a hand basket, people. Hell in a hand basket.

Clearly, I'm in the wrong business...(alternate title: People Are Dumber Than I Thought)

Out at breakfast this morning, I came across a catalog for Learning Connections, which "offers a wide variety of short courses, trips, and seminars designed for adults in Rhode Island and the South Coast region of Massachusetts." At first glance through the courses they offer, it looked like the sort of stuff you find at a local community center - classes in cake decorating, introductory Spanish, ballroom dancing, etc. There were even some classes that looked intriguing to me - like the "Seasonal Italian Cooking Series" and "Scotch Whiskey: An Exploration into Malt". And then I flipped to the pages in the back and find "classes" such as:

Spirit Flame Pictures

Those in the spirit world communicate with us in various ways. In this fun, eye-opening class, use index cards and a candle and see what spirit wants to show you. Discover visual evidence from the spirit world; you may even get a picture of a loved one, an angel, or a family member who has passed into the spirit realm. Kathleen has pictures to show, and each person who attends will leave with their own spirit flame picture.

and

Healing Yourself through Past Life Regression
Why are people afraid of heights, water or speaking in public? Do you have a health issue that hasn't been helped any other way? Some people are simply curious about past lives while others want to know why they have so many challenges in their life. These issues are very often because of a past life experience. Topics discussed include meditation, connecting with your spirit guide, and the workshop includes a group past life regression.

and my personal favorite:

Divine Intervention: How to Pray and Get Results

Do you ever feel like you are having a one-way conversation with God? Are you hearing a lot about prayer in the media? Join this discussion and learn the 10 tips to getting your prayers answered. Talking and listening to God takes time, patience and faith; but the exchange is life-changing.

That's right folks, the reason your prayers are going unheard is because you're not doing it right. You need to spend $39 for a two and half hour class to learn how. It must be like taking candy from a baby.

The list goes on and on - "Meeting Your Spirit Guide", "How to Activate Your Ability to Become a Healer (with Eric Pearl)", "Crystal Healing", "Scrying: Seeing Though the Crystal Ball". Yes, you read that right - scrying! If you don't believe me (and I wouldn't blame you), go check it out yourself.

I'm pretty cynical when it comes to American intellect, but I have to say this left my jaw agape. Even though I get rather haughty about being from an area that is both intellectually and socially liberal/progressive (New England in general, and Massachusetts in particular), I knew that even we had our fair share of kooks (well, maybe not our fair share, but enough anyways). But these "classes" are taking place not 10 minutes from my own house. That's just too close for comfort.

On the one hand, I am tempted to check one of these things out - see what kind of person attends and just what sort of information is being given. A social experiment, if you will. On the other hand, I'm tempted to heed Mr. P.T. Barnum's wisdom and create my own ridiculous "class" and charge people 50 bucks to listen to a bunch of nonsense. There's surely a market for "Making Your Dreams Come True: How to Concentrate Really Really Hard and Make Gold Dubloons Appear Out of Thin Air", right?

If you own an HP DesignJet 5500 large format printer...

...do not, I repeat, do not press and hold down the "Form Feed & Trim" button.

This will not, as one might assume, feed out and trim a length of paper commensurate with the length of holding down the button so that you can start with a nice, clean fresh surface on which to print a nice, clean undergraduate research poster on. Instead, the machine will interpret such holding down of the button as a series of individual presses of the button and proceed to feed out and trim 100s of individual 2-inch strips of paper.

Please note as well:
The "Cancel" button does not, in fact, cancel this operation. Nor does the "Power" button. Nor does unplugging the machine. Nor does swearing at said machine such obscenities as to have made Blackbeard himself uncomfortable.

I hate this machine. Again.

Damn it!

I just typed up a nice longish post, full of science content and the program I used to create it (ScribeFire) lost it. I clicked "Post to Blog", it said "Post Successful" so I cleared the the editor. Yet, the post is nowhere to be found. Nowhere. I've had no problems with ScribeFire in the past, but now I can't post a damn thing with it - even though it tells me "Post Successful" every f-ing time. So instead, you get this rant.

Grrrrrr.....

Say it ain't so, AB

I'm shocked and disappointed - Alton Brown is a born-again Christian:

In 1992, Brown says, he found God, or maybe God found him, but he blundered away until he became a born-again Christian. The single biggest life-changing thing for me is I just got baptized last year. Everything else pales in comparison to acceptance of Christianity. That's number one.

I never would have thought. Unitarian Universalist, sure. Even United Methodist I could understand. But born-again? What's next? Bill Nye is a Jehovah's Witness? Richard Dean Anderson is an Intelligent Design creationist?

Lucky I had that quarter

So, I'm at blockbuster renting the 1st two Pirates of the Caribbean movies (the third is available on PPV). The total rental fee comes to $5.25. I give the guy $20.25. He punches in $50.25 by mistake.

Uh oh. What now? How can he possibly make correct change now?

Several minutes of blank staring and inactivity ensue.

Oh, thank Todd! There's a calculator on hand. 20.25 - 5.25 = 15.00

Disaster averted.

How did people ever do this sort of thing without cash registers or calculators? Are you kidding me? Give me a freaking break.

I guess I should have used a credit card instead.

Research posters

Well, here I am sitting in a back room off a computer lab printing off posters for the BioNESUR meeting being held here tomorrow. There's a class going on in the computer lab, so I am effectively stuck here for at least an hour and twenty minutes. The good news is that we've just inherited a beautiful poster printer - an HP DesignJet 5500 - it prints beautiful, big posters. The bad news is that I am trying to figure out the machine by trial and error, on the fly - what kind of paper is this? what are the proper ink settings? how do I load new media? damn it, the ink is running - try new settings.

Just like my digital camera, I'm having mixed feelings about this new-fangled piece of technology. What happened to making posters one 8.5 by 11 inch sheet of paper at a time, carefully cut and pasted on a colored piece of construction paper and assembled piece by piece? Remember those?

Damn it. (do I sound curmudgeony enough?)

UPDATE: Damn it, I forgot rubber bands

UPDATE II: All better now. I figured out settings that work and the posters look stupendous. Forget what I said about old-school posters. I still need rubber bands though.

It's such a piddly thing, I know, but...

...I really hate it when students send emails with an attachment but no message. Is it too much effort to write "Here's my lab report!" or "Attached is my proposal. Thanks."? Sometimes I stare at the blank screen for a minute waiting for a message to appear thinking the server is just slow in loading it until I realize it really is completely blank. Have we truly become that lazy?

They giveth and they taketh away

Apparently I'm a lucky guy. Not only did I win a t-shirt from Seed, but I also won an iPod:

Hi there,

Congratulations! You've won a prize in the ScienceBlogs DonorsChoose Challenge Contest.

Your generous donation has helped to increase science literacy in a public school classroom. As if that weren't reward enough, you're soon to be the proud owner of a brand new iPod!! courtesy of Seed.

To claim your prize, please send a valid mailing address. We will pack up your winnings and get them to you shortly.

Thanks again for reading ScienceBlogs and giving to DonorsChoose through our blogger challenges. You're wonderful.

Best wishes,

The Seed Team

Then again, maybe I'm not so lucky. It turns out that my previous t-shirt win disqualifies me from my iPod win:

Hi again Jim,

I'm really, really sorry, but when I picked your name for the iPod I
didn't realize that you had already won a t-shirt. Our rules say that
the ipod drawing was only for names that hadn't yet won a prize, so
I'm going to have to choose someone else for the pod.

Totally my fault, and so sorry to disappoint you!

Ginny Hughes, Seed

I emailed Seed asking if they could give the t-shirt to someone else. You know, cause I don't want to be greedy. They said it was out of their hands now, but they're sorry for their mistake.

At least they'll be sending my t-shirt soon. Can't wait. Really, who would want an iPod instead of a yellow t-shirt?

No Eugenie for me :(

Well, looks like I've lost my opportunity to meet Eugenie Scott. I was scheduled to meet with her this afternoon before her lecture this evening, but she needed a break from the constant attention from her sycophants admirers, so went back to her hotel room. It's understandable. I guess.

Unfortunately, I also have to miss her lecture this evening to bring my daughter to her Brownie troop meeting. Damn kids.

Only you can prevent Craig from ranting again...

Craig McClain over at Deep Sea News keeps going on and on and on and on about how some teachers out there are trying to make their students' science education better yet they can't afford supplies for some really great hands-on, interactive, engaging, science projects that will certainly do wonders for these kids. Blah, blah, blah.... What's wrong with slipping in some VHS tape from 1985 and giving them a worksheet?

Anyways, I'm getting really tired of reading Craig's ramblings and spineless pleas for help. I'm not sure I trust him, but he promises to stop if he gets enough donations to get these teachers the supplies they so desperately need. So, please, for the love of Todd, help me shut him up. Go to Deep Sea News, click on the Donors Choose Challenge on the left and donate $10. Quickly before he he whines again and forgets that he's supposed to be doing something more important like writing about the latest designer submarines or how the newest flash drives are decapod-resistant

It's October, right?

The average high temperature here for October 4 and 5 is 61^o F, the record high for both days is 78^o F (both set in 2001)

Today's forecasted high temperature? 84^o F

Tomorrow's forcasted high temperature? 85^o F

And it's humid.

WTF?

October in New England is supposed to be cool and crisp with nighttime temps in the low 40s, not hot and muggy with nights in the high 60s.

I'm getting seriously cranky.

If I see a mosquito out there, I'm going to be downright pissed off.