I’m in an experiment

Linking to this for a conference panel.

Results to be announced during the “Meet the Bloggers” panel at MLA 2006.

Why? A grad student is doing an experiment on the speed of memes.

The specific rules:

1. Write a post linking to this one in which you explain the experiment. (All blogs count, be they TypePad, Blogger, MySpace, Facebook, &c.)
2. Ask your readers to do the same. Beg them. Relate sob stories about poor graduate students in desperate circumstances. Imply I’m one of them. (Do whatever you have to. If that fails, try whatever it takes.)
3. Ping technorati

via: Profgrrrrl

Nothing more satisfying

than reading a paper you wrote a few years ago and still being happy with it.  It’s even better when your co-authors agree with you.

And I am usually hard on myself.  I find fault in most of my stuff, although not this time.

Now I am working on writing reference letters for students.  I like the student on the market this year, a whole lot.  But I can’t write ‘best student ever’ every time, can I?

Some people do—but then we ignore them after a while.  Too much noise.

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Less is more

The less material I try to cover, the more the students understand, and the more  I enjoy it.  Almost true.  I need to work on my delivery and speaking style for it to be completely true.

Lots of stuff makes them think that they are getting their money’s worth.  Too slow and simple, and they just aren’t getting all that they paid for.

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Stress

I was talking to a very productive colleague recently. I mentioned how stressful I find writing papers with a firm deadline; say a paper for a conference that I have precommitted to. I just can’t take the stress of hitting that deadline.

The colleague agreed that it was a bad idea to sign up for such things, and said that he won’t do that. I said is it because it you don’t want to feel the stress?

No, he replied. I feel that stress anyway. I put it on myself.

I think that’s why I am less productive, since sometimes I need the external stress to produce—even though I know what I need to do, I need someone to force me to do it.

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Oh Canada

Canadian profs win right to smoke…

via: digg.

Listening to a ‘Watt from Pedro’ podcast

I heard a great line: ‘I like Halloween. It’s the most honest holiday-it’s the only day the we admit that we wear costumes.’

Noted here because I want to remember it.

No surprise, eh

You are 97% Canuck!

You rock, you are an almighty Canadian through and through. You have proven your worthiness and have won the elite prize of living in a country as awesome as Canada. Yes I know other countries think they are better, but we let them have that cuz we know better than they do, eh?

How Canadian Are You?
Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

The laser pointer

is the work of the devil. I have never seen it used in a way that is not distracting. Never.

(Many typos for one sentence. Sad, eh. Hopefully most are now gone.)

The messier my office is,

the more my work life is out of control.

I should have a rule. If I have more than three piles, say no to any new request that I can say no to. Then I may miss all the good opportunities. The more piles I have, the more tense I feel about getting stuff done–leading to more getting stuff done, and more new research ideas. I know that sounds bad to the GTD people. But maybe I need piles combined with some control?

The t-test metric

is a bad one. But so many people are convinced that statistical significance is significance. From students to professors.

How much damage did William Sealy Gosset (wikipedia link) do to science? Not him really, but the people who constantly misinterpret it. (I know I know,  its us applied guys who have it wrong, not the statisticians).    But it’s cool that the inventor of the t-test worked for Guinness.