Many students requesting things above and beyond are bad at this

Five Danger Signals That Warn That You Are Being Manipulated

I have seen them all—especially when trying to reschedule already scheduled exams.  One of the obvious tells in class is when suddenly a student who never seems to pay attention starts asking lots of vague questions.  And comes to see you right after class.  Then comes the (quiet) request.

Watch for sudden changes in the way that a requester (a potential manipulator, someone who wants you to help them for selfish purposes) behaves toward you: …

• They seem interested in what you are doing. However, these are often shallow expressions of interest followed by impatience and rapid shift of subject or attention. Manipulators are always looking for opportunities and can be distracted rather easily.

via:Are You Being Manipulated? – Dumb Little Man

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Here’s another reason I like my job.

Seth’s Blog: End your tasks, end your job?

The tasks are endless.  When I finish one research project, I can start another.  There is always an interesting new research question to work on.  And I can pick the topic…

(there is something about the value of tenure here, but I cannot put my finger on it.)

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How can it be that one day it feels like you have all the time in the world,

while the next morning, you feel overwhelmed. No new tasks arrived overnight, you are just one day closer to starting teaching.

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Useful for workshops, too

How opinionated companies get customers to live without floppy drives, assigned seats, credit cards, etc. – (37signals)

Companies that lead need to be willing to say that occasional growing pains are ok. If a company only listens to what customers think they need, it won’t be able to innovate. As Henry Ford said, “If I’d asked people what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse.”

Of course, that doesn’t mean you can just be a dick about it. You’ve got to explain to people what’s happening. This is where trust and communication are key. If you have a conversation with your customers, they know where you’re coming from. They know what you stand for and why you make the decisions you make.

Explaining what and why makes a good seminar. Have a conversation, not a lecture. (I say in a bit of a lecturing way). But I need to remember this, and writing things down helps me remember them.

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Google calendar has been good for my marriage

and I suspect that a Google todo list would be good as well:
» Google Calendar close to launching a task list feature | Googling Google | ZDNet.com

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Right or left brained?

The Right Brain vs Left Brain test | PerthNow

I can only see rotation in one direction, no matter how hard I try.

via: Megan McArdle (October 13, 2007)

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Powerpoint

At a recent talk, the computer broke. The seminar improved by about 1000% once the speaker could not show the fancy tech stuff. It was like we all woke up from a trance—mainly because the speaker awoke from the trance himself.

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I hope I never.

Bedazzled!: “Split Enz” on “Fridays”

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I think I have figured out the algorithm

For last few years, it has seemed like referee reports to write were timed—I would have a pile of 4-6 to write, work my way down to zero, and then the inventory would build up again. I always wondered why new ones would show up right after the old ones were done. Like magic. But of course it isn’t; it’s just the seasonals in paper submissions.

I like the magic theory better, of course.

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Useful advice for students

In grad school, I used to rewrite all my notes in my own words after each lecture. I never understood why anyone used those thick yellow highlighters. It always seemed like a way to ‘go back to the material when you finally decide to study.’ I pretty well only remember things that I write down in my own handwriting/typing.

Need for a notetaking system | 43 Folders