June 3: An EFY counselor thought he could smell marijuana in Gates Hall around 11 p.m. He found three EFY participants smoking marijuana in the stairwell. Police said the juveniles will be charged.
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Showing posts with label random. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
EFY is not Reform Camp
From the Daily Universe Police Beat on June 9, 2009:
Friday, June 05, 2009
Monday, June 01, 2009
Awkward
The moving company is supposed to be getting in contact with me today. So I'm waiting for a call from S&M Moving Systems.... I can only guess which end of that expression we'll end up on by the time this move is over...
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Whoops
I was checking my old hotmail account today and when I log out it takes me to the MSN home page. I found it rather humorous that the main image on the screen was linking to this:
Microsoft prominently running an article about what free software you can use to replace expensive Microsoft software. HA!
Microsoft prominently running an article about what free software you can use to replace expensive Microsoft software. HA!
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Teachers' Unions
In the comments on that previous post about Teachers' Unions, Katya raised a point I'd like to give further justice than just a reply in the comments:
There are, of course, some unique challenges with determining the quality of a teacher. Their success will have some correlation with the success of the students they teach, however exactly what, or how strong, that correlation is would be difficult to determine. What bugs me is the Union's stance against merit based incentives of any kind. Their opinion seems to be "There's no perfect way of doing it, so we won't allow any merit based incentives". If you buy into this type of reasoning, then there's really no reason to ever do anything. You'll rarely, if ever, be able to do something perfectly. This is true of some very important things. Like voting: The Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem (in association with Arrow's Impossibility Theorem) proves that no voting system is fair. So, by the logic of the Union, we shouldn't bother with voting either, because we can't do it perfectly.
Obviously, such an approach to life is rather limiting. In pretty much every aspect of our lives we accept solutions which are less than optimal simply because perfect solutions are either impossible to find or the necessary effort required to find them outweighs the usefulness of having them.
But, how do you measure the quality of a teacher? Any such measurement will need to include a subjective evaluation from students, other teachers, and administrators. So you'll need a way of dealing with the subjectivity of these evaluations and prevent them from turning into political games and popularity contests. I'm not exactly sure how you go about doing this. I'm sure there are lots of people that work in subjective survey taking that have some good ideas on the matter though. All such evaluations would be anonymous, of course, to prevent retaliation and gaming the system.
Part of this, I think, could be to include "down-the-road" evaluations. Have students fill out a very simple evaluation of how good they think the teacher was a year after having had them. (In very controlled systems like public education I wouldn't think this would be too hard to organize). Then you can get some larger picture perspective from students, who otherwise might be bitter about a final grade or something.
You can't grade performance simply on students' grades. That would further increase the amount of GPA bloat already existing. Creating an outside exam creates the same problem we already have with standardized testing: teaching to the test. But you can include that as some part of the overall metric.
The most important thing, in my opinion, is to be sure that merit based incentives take a longer window than 1 year into account. A teacher may have a bad year, a bad group of students, or some other issue that comes up. However, if you take a 5 year span and see that student/peer/supervisor evaluations are consistently low, and student performance is consistently low, then you can probably start making a pretty good guess about the overall quality of that teacher. During those 5 years they can be encouraged to improve their teaching. If, however, they consistently show, during a 5 year span, that they just aren't cutting it, it's time to cut them loose.
This gives teachers plenty of time to get their act together, have a bad year, deal with a bad group of students, whatever, while still allowing school systems to reward teachers who consistently receive good evaluations.
If we really want to improve public education in this country the best thing we can do is remove the cruft from the teaching staff. I think we can all look back on our public education and remember teachers who were excellent as well as teachers that just sucked. Knowing that those excellent teachers will not be rewarded for their quality is frustrating and saddening.
Do you think there's anything about teachers' unions that makes them particularly bad? Maybe the quality of a teacher is harder to measure . . . or it's easier to blame shortcomings on the students.
There are, of course, some unique challenges with determining the quality of a teacher. Their success will have some correlation with the success of the students they teach, however exactly what, or how strong, that correlation is would be difficult to determine. What bugs me is the Union's stance against merit based incentives of any kind. Their opinion seems to be "There's no perfect way of doing it, so we won't allow any merit based incentives". If you buy into this type of reasoning, then there's really no reason to ever do anything. You'll rarely, if ever, be able to do something perfectly. This is true of some very important things. Like voting: The Gibbard-Satterthwaite Theorem (in association with Arrow's Impossibility Theorem) proves that no voting system is fair. So, by the logic of the Union, we shouldn't bother with voting either, because we can't do it perfectly.
Obviously, such an approach to life is rather limiting. In pretty much every aspect of our lives we accept solutions which are less than optimal simply because perfect solutions are either impossible to find or the necessary effort required to find them outweighs the usefulness of having them.
But, how do you measure the quality of a teacher? Any such measurement will need to include a subjective evaluation from students, other teachers, and administrators. So you'll need a way of dealing with the subjectivity of these evaluations and prevent them from turning into political games and popularity contests. I'm not exactly sure how you go about doing this. I'm sure there are lots of people that work in subjective survey taking that have some good ideas on the matter though. All such evaluations would be anonymous, of course, to prevent retaliation and gaming the system.
Part of this, I think, could be to include "down-the-road" evaluations. Have students fill out a very simple evaluation of how good they think the teacher was a year after having had them. (In very controlled systems like public education I wouldn't think this would be too hard to organize). Then you can get some larger picture perspective from students, who otherwise might be bitter about a final grade or something.
You can't grade performance simply on students' grades. That would further increase the amount of GPA bloat already existing. Creating an outside exam creates the same problem we already have with standardized testing: teaching to the test. But you can include that as some part of the overall metric.
The most important thing, in my opinion, is to be sure that merit based incentives take a longer window than 1 year into account. A teacher may have a bad year, a bad group of students, or some other issue that comes up. However, if you take a 5 year span and see that student/peer/supervisor evaluations are consistently low, and student performance is consistently low, then you can probably start making a pretty good guess about the overall quality of that teacher. During those 5 years they can be encouraged to improve their teaching. If, however, they consistently show, during a 5 year span, that they just aren't cutting it, it's time to cut them loose.
This gives teachers plenty of time to get their act together, have a bad year, deal with a bad group of students, whatever, while still allowing school systems to reward teachers who consistently receive good evaluations.
If we really want to improve public education in this country the best thing we can do is remove the cruft from the teaching staff. I think we can all look back on our public education and remember teachers who were excellent as well as teachers that just sucked. Knowing that those excellent teachers will not be rewarded for their quality is frustrating and saddening.
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Cereal
So... I browse through Snide Remarks every so often. I stumbled upon this hilarity today:
From Muckoo For Mocoa Muffs
In other news, Winter semester has begun. woo. Feel my lackluster enthusiasm there? Yah, me too. 6 more months and I'll be done though.
From Muckoo For Mocoa Muffs
Fruity Cheerios are little rings in several different colors. They look suspiciously familiar. The front of the box makes this declarative statement: "25% less sugar than the leading fruity cereal." And I'm thinking: Oh, SNAP, Froot Loops! They totally just called you out! What a passive-aggressive slogan! It's like, "We're not naming any names here, but, um, we have 25 percent less sugar than a certain other fruity cereal we could mention. We're just sayin'." And the people at Kellogg's are like, "B****es did NOT just diss us!" And General Mills is all, "Don't be hatin', we just keepin' it real," and Kellogg's is like, "Whateva. Maybe if you put MORE sugar if yo nasty-a** fruity cereal, people might be BUYIN' it," and then Post is totally on the floor laughing, and General Mills is like, "Whatchoo laughin' at, Fruity Pebbles? Ain't you got some Flintstones to go be watchin'?," and then Quaker Oats pulls out a gun.
In other news, Winter semester has begun. woo. Feel my lackluster enthusiasm there? Yah, me too. 6 more months and I'll be done though.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Programming Languages as Religions
I greatly enjoyed this article: If programming languages were religions...
If you're familiar with several program languages you'll probably enjoy it also. Here are some highlights:
"Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity - it's theoretically based on C, but it voids so many of the old laws that it doesn't feel like the original at all. Instead, it adds its own set of rigid rules, which its followers believe to be far superior to the original. Not only are they certain that it's the best language in the world, but they're willing to burn those who disagree at the stake."
"C# would be Mormonism - At first glance, it's the same as Java, but at a closer look you realize that it's controlled by a single corporation (which many Java followers believe to be evil), and that many theological concepts are quite different. You suspect that it'd probably be nice, if only all the followers of Java wouldn't discriminate so much against you for following it."
"Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code." -- It's so true! I love programming in Python, it just does what I want without making me jump through hoops!
If you're familiar with several program languages you'll probably enjoy it also. Here are some highlights:
"Java would be Fundamentalist Christianity - it's theoretically based on C, but it voids so many of the old laws that it doesn't feel like the original at all. Instead, it adds its own set of rigid rules, which its followers believe to be far superior to the original. Not only are they certain that it's the best language in the world, but they're willing to burn those who disagree at the stake."
"C# would be Mormonism - At first glance, it's the same as Java, but at a closer look you realize that it's controlled by a single corporation (which many Java followers believe to be evil), and that many theological concepts are quite different. You suspect that it'd probably be nice, if only all the followers of Java wouldn't discriminate so much against you for following it."
"Python would be Humanism: It's simple, unrestrictive, and all you need to follow it is common sense. Many of the followers claim to feel relieved from all the burden imposed by other languages, and that they have rediscovered the joy of programming. There are some who say that it is a form of pseudo-code." -- It's so true! I love programming in Python, it just does what I want without making me jump through hoops!
Monday, December 01, 2008
I Feel Special
<sarcasm>I love personalized advertisements and junk mail. This one is particularly touching.</sarcasm>
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy
I read this headline and assumed it was from The Onion, but when I noticed it wasn't I wanted a closer look.
It's actually an article written by Andy Borowitz, an award winning comedian and satirist. I find it hilarious: Huffington Post: Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy.
Reproduced here for your reading enjoyment:
It's actually an article written by Andy Borowitz, an award winning comedian and satirist. I find it hilarious: Huffington Post: Obama's Use of Complete Sentences Stirs Controversy.
Reproduced here for your reading enjoyment:
In the first two weeks since the election, President-elect Barack Obama has broken with a tradition established over the past eight years through his controversial use of complete sentences, political observers say.
Millions of Americans who watched Mr. Obama's appearance on CBS's 60 Minutes on Sunday witnessed the president-elect's unorthodox verbal tick, which had Mr. Obama employing grammatically correct sentences virtually every time he opened his mouth.
But Mr. Obama's decision to use complete sentences in his public pronouncements carries with it certain risks, since after the last eight years many Americans may find his odd speaking style jarring.
According to presidential historian Davis Logsdon of the University of Minnesota, some Americans might find it "alienating" to have a president who speaks English as if it were his first language.
"Every time Obama opens his mouth, his subjects and verbs are in agreement," says Mr. Logsdon. "If he keeps it up, he is running the risk of sounding like an elitist."
The historian said that if Mr. Obama insists on using complete sentences in his speeches, the public may find itself saying, "Okay, subject, predicate, subject predicate -- we get it, stop showing off."
The president-elect's stubborn insistence on using complete sentences has already attracted a rebuke from one of his harshest critics, Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska.
"Talking with complete sentences there and also too talking in a way that ordinary Americans like Joe the Plumber and Tito the Builder can't really do there, I think needing to do that isn't tapping into what Americans are needing also," she said.
Tuesday, November 18, 2008
Comments I Wrote on Tests
I've been grading tests. Here are some of the fun comments I made:
Student: "Consider the language L={a,b | a! = b} (factorial), this can obviously not be recognized in 2n steps."
Me: "Really? There is a O(n (log n log log n)2) algorithm for factorials. Ooooo. Burn!"
Student: "If the TM had only 1 state, and the size of the alphabet = 2 it would appear more like 2|w|..."
Me: "That's crazy talk."
Student: Long answer...
Me: "So close, but then you went on a tangent instead of hitting the answer."
Student: "The answer is Yesssssss but only 7 s's because too many s's will mean less mercy points if I'm wrong."
Me: "Sorry, check your coin again."
Student: "Consider the language L={a,b | a! = b} (factorial), this can obviously not be recognized in 2n steps."
Me: "Really? There is a O(n (log n log log n)2) algorithm for factorials. Ooooo. Burn!"
Student: "If the TM had only 1 state, and the size of the alphabet = 2 it would appear more like 2|w|..."
Me: "That's crazy talk."
Student: Long answer...
Me: "So close, but then you went on a tangent instead of hitting the answer."
Student: "The answer is Yesssssss but only 7 s's because too many s's will mean less mercy points if I'm wrong."
Me: "Sorry, check your coin again."
Monday, November 10, 2008
Canada
I was just catching up on some old Snide Remarks when I ran across this statement, I almost died:
Canada seems like France and England got together and had a baby, but they couldn't take care of it, so they sent it off to be raised by American parents, who abused it.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
Where You're From
I enjoy looking over the Google Analytics information every so often. The current crop of data is rather interesting because of the diverse and international readership that I apparently have, on occasion at least.
Here's the stats on where my visitors come from (over the last 30 days):
United States ---- 365
Canada ----------- 6
United Kingdom --- 5
Germany ---------- 3
Malaysia --------- 2
Saudi Arabia ----- 2
Mexico ----------- 1
Iran ------------- 1
Finland ---------- 1
Chile ------------ 1
Pakistan --------- 1
Poland ----------- 1
India ------------ 1
Romania ---------- 1
France ----------- 1
South Korea ------ 1
Spain ------------ 1
That's a pretty cool list if you ask me.
Here's the stats on where my visitors come from (over the last 30 days):
United States ---- 365
Canada ----------- 6
United Kingdom --- 5
Germany ---------- 3
Malaysia --------- 2
Saudi Arabia ----- 2
Mexico ----------- 1
Iran ------------- 1
Finland ---------- 1
Chile ------------ 1
Pakistan --------- 1
Poland ----------- 1
India ------------ 1
Romania ---------- 1
France ----------- 1
South Korea ------ 1
Spain ------------ 1
That's a pretty cool list if you ask me.
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
Michael Crichton Died
'Jurassic Park' author, 'ER' creator Crichton dies
I rather enjoyed most of Crichton's works. Too bad there will be no more to read now.
I rather enjoyed most of Crichton's works. Too bad there will be no more to read now.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Mysterious Apple
MMMmmmmm... Mysteriously delivered candy-chocolate-caramel apple..... sooo tasty... wait a minute... isn't there a Disney movie about mysteriously obtained apples? Uh-oh.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Five Love Languages
I feel loved when...
The Five Love Languages
My Primary Love Language is Physical Touch
| My Detailed Results: | |
|---|---|
| Physical Touch: | 10 |
| Quality Time: | 8 |
| Acts of Service: | 5 |
| Words of Affirmation: | 5 |
| Receiving Gifts: | 2 |
About this quiz
Unhappiness in relationships is often due to the fact that we speak different love languages. It can be helpful to know what language you speak and what language those around you speak.
Tag 3 people so they can find out what their love language is.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Bracelet FAIL
If you're a company in the business of manufacturing bracelets a good way to make sure your customers never come back is to stamp the F-word on a handful of the bracelets for an order:
Obscene word stamped on some school bracelets
Apparently, Weber School District ordered 30,000 bracelets that were supposed to read "Color Me Drug Free", but some instead had F*** written on them. Whoops.
Methinks the bracelet company will not be getting a second order.
Obscene word stamped on some school bracelets
Apparently, Weber School District ordered 30,000 bracelets that were supposed to read "Color Me Drug Free", but some instead had F*** written on them. Whoops.
Methinks the bracelet company will not be getting a second order.
Sunday, October 19, 2008
No, The voters are not the problem
The Charleston Gazette is running an article about early voters having their votes switch from Obama to McCain.
Two of the voters describe the problem like this:
"When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain." - Virginia Matheney
"When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again. The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican" - Calvin Thomas
That sounds like a pretty big problem. It sounds like the machine knew they were touching the screen to indicate a vote for Obama and after registering that information by marking the box it then changed the vote to McCain. That is not acceptable. Here was the response from the county election officials:
"[Jackson County Clerk Jeff] Waybright blamed the problem on voters."
"People make mistakes more than the machines," he [Waybright] said, "but I went in yesterday and recalibrated the machines. We are doing everything we can not to disenfranchise anybody."
No, wrong. This is not a voter problem. The software on the voting machines should absolutely prevent this from happening. I can think of two possible situation as to what the software may do to cause this behavior and either option is unacceptable in a voting machine and the software should be fixed. This is typical government type reaction to using a crappy product, rather than demand a product that is well designed they believe that training everyone to use a non-intuitive and crappily designed product is the solution.
Here's scenario 1: The boxes used to select a candidate are too close together and the software has a hard time determining which box the user actually touched. Solution. Vote for one office at a time, candidate choices are buttons that are 3 inch squares with 3 inches between them. Lots of room to do this.
Scenario 2: The software registers any touch that doesn't land in a box as a touch for the first box or last box on the screen. No, bad. Wrong. The software should be designed to ignore any click that doesn't clearly land inside a candidate box.
And, to add to that it should be really easy to allow the voter to verify their ballot. Once you made your selections you should get a Confirmation Page, like everything in the world gives you. It should say something like "For President you have selected:" and then in VERY BIG BOLD LETTERS the name of the candidate. "Is this correct?" Yes, No.
Software that randomly switches votes is absolutely unacceptable. I've been through this tirade before, so I won't go all the way into it. I will suffice it to say that the current crop of electronic voting machines could be the worst thing to happen to democracy in a long time. The ability to commit election fraud on a county and state level is incredibly simplified with insecure, poorly designed machines that provide no paper backup of what is happening.
Two of the voters describe the problem like this:
"When I touched the screen for Barack Obama, the check mark moved from his box to the box indicating a vote for John McCain." - Virginia Matheney
"When I pushed Obama, it jumped to McCain. When I went down to governor's office and punched [Gov. Joe] Manchin, it went to the other dude. When I went to Karen Facemyer [the incumbent Republican state senator], I pushed the Democrat, but it jumped again. The rest of them were OK, but the machine sent my votes for those top three offices from the Democrat to the Republican" - Calvin Thomas
That sounds like a pretty big problem. It sounds like the machine knew they were touching the screen to indicate a vote for Obama and after registering that information by marking the box it then changed the vote to McCain. That is not acceptable. Here was the response from the county election officials:
"[Jackson County Clerk Jeff] Waybright blamed the problem on voters."
"People make mistakes more than the machines," he [Waybright] said, "but I went in yesterday and recalibrated the machines. We are doing everything we can not to disenfranchise anybody."
No, wrong. This is not a voter problem. The software on the voting machines should absolutely prevent this from happening. I can think of two possible situation as to what the software may do to cause this behavior and either option is unacceptable in a voting machine and the software should be fixed. This is typical government type reaction to using a crappy product, rather than demand a product that is well designed they believe that training everyone to use a non-intuitive and crappily designed product is the solution.
Here's scenario 1: The boxes used to select a candidate are too close together and the software has a hard time determining which box the user actually touched. Solution. Vote for one office at a time, candidate choices are buttons that are 3 inch squares with 3 inches between them. Lots of room to do this.
Scenario 2: The software registers any touch that doesn't land in a box as a touch for the first box or last box on the screen. No, bad. Wrong. The software should be designed to ignore any click that doesn't clearly land inside a candidate box.
And, to add to that it should be really easy to allow the voter to verify their ballot. Once you made your selections you should get a Confirmation Page, like everything in the world gives you. It should say something like "For President you have selected:" and then in VERY BIG BOLD LETTERS the name of the candidate. "Is this correct?" Yes, No.
Software that randomly switches votes is absolutely unacceptable. I've been through this tirade before, so I won't go all the way into it. I will suffice it to say that the current crop of electronic voting machines could be the worst thing to happen to democracy in a long time. The ability to commit election fraud on a county and state level is incredibly simplified with insecure, poorly designed machines that provide no paper backup of what is happening.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Written on Student's Exam
Here are two things written verbatim on student's exams that I graded last week:
"The Hell for more than 1 'B' -> NO ESCAPE!"
"If I see it I should be able to pop it, otherwise FREAK OUT"
"The Hell for more than 1 'B' -> NO ESCAPE!"
"If I see it I should be able to pop it, otherwise FREAK OUT"
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Things the CS Dept. Wants to Know
to: grads@cs.byu.edu, faculty@cs.byu.edu
subject: Is someone cooking fish in the building?
subject: Is someone cooking fish in the building?
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Havoc
Issued by The National Weather Service
Salt Lake City, UT
8:08 am MDT, Wed., Oct. 8, 2008
... WINTER-LIKE STORM TO HIT REGION THIS WEEKEND...
AN UNSEASONABLY COLD STORM SYSTEM IS TARGETED FOR UTAH THIS WEEKEND. ALTHOUGH THIS STORM SYSTEM WILL FILTER IN ACROSS THE REGION DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS THE BRUNT OF THE SYSTEM WILL AFFECT THE STATE SATURDAY INTO SUNDAY. SNOW LEVELS ARE EXPECTED TO COME DOWN TO THE VALLEY FLOORS FOR ALL OF UTAH EXCEPT DIXIE AND LAKE POWELL REGIONS BY SATURDAY NIGHT. ALTHOUGH SNOW AMOUNTS IN GENERAL MAY NOT BE SIGNIFICANT... EVEN MINOR AMOUNTS COULD CAUSE HAVOC WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT MOST TREES HAVE NOT LOST THEIR FOLIAGE. IN ADDITION... MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY WILL BE ABOUT 25 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL.
----
So apparently we're in for a cold weekend with a possibility of Havoc! I just found it amusing to find that word in an official statement issued by the government.
----
In other news I was deathly ill all day yesterday. I'll give an account of that later.
Salt Lake City, UT
8:08 am MDT, Wed., Oct. 8, 2008
... WINTER-LIKE STORM TO HIT REGION THIS WEEKEND...
AN UNSEASONABLY COLD STORM SYSTEM IS TARGETED FOR UTAH THIS WEEKEND. ALTHOUGH THIS STORM SYSTEM WILL FILTER IN ACROSS THE REGION DURING THE NEXT FEW DAYS THE BRUNT OF THE SYSTEM WILL AFFECT THE STATE SATURDAY INTO SUNDAY. SNOW LEVELS ARE EXPECTED TO COME DOWN TO THE VALLEY FLOORS FOR ALL OF UTAH EXCEPT DIXIE AND LAKE POWELL REGIONS BY SATURDAY NIGHT. ALTHOUGH SNOW AMOUNTS IN GENERAL MAY NOT BE SIGNIFICANT... EVEN MINOR AMOUNTS COULD CAUSE HAVOC WHEN YOU CONSIDER THAT MOST TREES HAVE NOT LOST THEIR FOLIAGE. IN ADDITION... MAXIMUM TEMPERATURES ON SATURDAY AND SUNDAY WILL BE ABOUT 25 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL.
----
So apparently we're in for a cold weekend with a possibility of Havoc! I just found it amusing to find that word in an official statement issued by the government.
----
In other news I was deathly ill all day yesterday. I'll give an account of that later.
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