A lament for time and energy wasted
Posted by Raznor

So, I'm grading a project I assigned my students, that involves finding standard deviations for a different data set per student. So, since all I have is Mathematica, I've set up a sheet on Mathematica that, step by step, finds the standard deviation. First finding the mean by adding things up, then dividing, then typing a different calculation for the standard deviation each time. And as each student is finding 2-4 standard deviations, this is a huge pain.

Then I thought "Hey, wait, this is way too much work for a common mathematical calculation", so I look up standard deviation in the Mathematica help file, and sure enough, there's a command called StandardDeviation that does all the work described above for me. And here I have spent hours over the past three days trying to get this graded the hard way, when I probably could have cut my time in half, at least.

So the fact that things are going easier at the moment is the only consolation for what I just went through. Ah life.

Weekend Dog Blogging
Posted by Raznor

It snowed this weekend. And a lot. Hermes absolutely loved it, as you can see, but Gus had trouble getting around outside. Snow was just too deep for him. Too deep I say!

Anyway, here's some adorable pics. Enjoy!


Gus is a suspicious little dog.


Take that Gus!


Hermes enjoys the snow.


Gus is sleepy after a busy day.

Quick Note
Posted by Raznor

Today is Blog Against Sexism Day, I'll get something written.

I find the hardest thing about blogging these days is that I can't take how fucked up things are getting. So when Bush attempts to prosecute reporters and South Dakota passes its "Women are Livestock" abortion ban, rather than writing about it, I get horribly frustrated, depressed, then try to get on with my life so I can fucking function for the day.

I really should get back into the habit of converting rage to blog posts.

Weekend Dog Blogging
Posted by Raznor

Well, Gus is now a member of the household, and he and Hermes get along quite well, thank you very much. Here's the two of them chilling.


Hermes and Gus relaxing.

Political Dating Misadventures
Posted by Ross

So I’ve noticed ads for a dating site that’s specifically for liberals. I would assume, then, that there is also a dating site specifically for conservatives. It makes me wonder if the same company is running both. If it were, I could imagine mix-ups happening from time-to-time.

Our guy, the liberal (we’ll call him George), meets our eligible lady (we’ll call her Georgina), who happens to be conservative, at a Starbucks.

George: Hello there.

Georgina: Hello there, good to meet you.

George: Same here. It sure is great to meet someone who believes in the same exact political things I believe in. And you’re not bad looking to boot!

Georgina: Agreed. Do you want to get some coffee?

George: Oh yes, I’ve been looking forward to a grande triple chai mocacinno with whipped cream all day.

Georgina: You like the grande triple chai mocacinno with whipped cream?

George: I do.

Georgina: That’s my favorite drink. We have so much in common!

George: That’s why I only go out on dates with people who share the exact same political beliefs as myself. Speaking of which, did you hear the news today?

Georgina: About the president?

George: Yes, can you believe it?

Georgina: I know! Those people make me sick.

George: Me too! I’m so glad you agree with me on this.

Georgina: How could I not?

George: And can you believe what’s happening with the abortion issue?

Georgina: No, I can not. It’s the most stomach-churning, deplorable think in the whole wide world. And what about the gay marriage issue, can you believe what those people are doing?

George: It’s unbelievable what THOSE PEOPLE are doing. Have they no decency?

Georgina: Exactly. I’m so glad we agree on these things.

George: I agree. Making people wrong for their personal political beliefs helps me forget about my own crippling pain and depression!

Georgina: It’s THEIR FAULT that you’re depressed in the first place!

George: Exactly! I think I love you.

Georgina: I love you too. Let’s get married this very night so we can have sex without making the baby Jesus weep tears of pure acid!

George: Hahahahahaha! You’re funny.

Georgina: But… I wasn’t joking.

New Blog!!
Posted by Raznor

In response to these posts by the irreplaceable Atrios, I've started a new blog, that will have one and only one post in its life, which will be as long as it takes for me to get sick of seeing it listed as my blogs when I log into blogger.

I CONCUR
Posted by the bekka

I read Jill at Feministe's post and was moved to make some comments about the conservative response to Brokeback Mountain (and homosexuality in general). Here they are for your enjoyment: enjoy, darn you!

1. If gays and lesbians were to “recruit,” they’d have one hell of a pitch for potential proteges: discrimination, hate crimes, contempt and disgust, legal inequality, and ostracism from family and loved ones. I wonder how this can be repeatedly construed by people whom homosexuality makes “uncomfortable” as a compelling recruitment package? And besides, our country isn’t exactly in a mood to be recruited right now (see under: US Armed Forces).

2. Wow. The Marlboro Man is an enduring symbol of America. That’s terrific, considering that he’s an advertising concept. Here’s a little background on him.

Dr. John Watson, one of the founding fathers of Behavioral Science, pioneered the use of behavioral modification in his post-psychology career as a Wall Street advertising executive. Ever seen really, really old commercials? How they just tell you - straightforwardly - all about how good the product is? And it seems really strange? Watson was one of the first to identify the comparative power of pairing a product with an emotionally provocative image (Pavlovian or Classical Conditioning) such that the consumer would associate the feelings from the image to the product. This is a much more effective way of enticing a customer - it’s an emotional appeal, not an intellectual one.

Enter the Marlboro Man. Marlboro was originally sold as a cigarette for women, and Philip Morris wanted to redirect it towards the male market. In a rap session, their ad execs asked themselves, “What’s the most manly thing you can think of?” Of course, the immediate response was “a cowboy.” And thus the Marlboro Man was born, and a resounding success he was - Marlboro is now one of the most popular brands of cigarette on the market. Oh, and here’s the clincher - ever notice how the Marlboro Man is on the advertising, but not the cigarette pack? That’s because, according to the ad execs who created him, the Marlboro Man represents the American dream - a dream of freedom - and they wouldn’t want you to crush that dream and throw it away every time you finish a pack.

Hmmm. Now that I think of it, maybe the Marlboro Man is a enduring symbol of America - of consumer manipulation lurking under the guise of “freedom of choice.”

Template Change
Posted by Raznor

This excellent post by Jill over at Feministe reminded me of the last time I saw Skip before his death last month, watching Brokeback Mountain, which was the last film Skip saw. So for at least a month, I'll have the tribute to Skip at the top of this page, with the excellent picture of him dancing with the Bekka at Ross and Bekka's wedding last August.

I finally took down the cost of Iraq war applet. Suffice to say, it costs a lot of money. We get it by now.

Is it still saturday? Dog blogging
Posted by Raznor

Been a busy weekend, and I completely forgot about dog-blogging yesterday. But here's a couple pictures of Hermes with his milk bone.

In other Hermes related news, Gus moved into the house today, so next week, prepare for more Hermes and Gus pics!


That's Hermes carrying his bone.


Prepare to be eaten, bone!

Yes some hunters are gay
Posted by Raznor

A great article in The Daily Sun by a gay hunter talking about Brokeback Mountain. And it's really his personal experience with the story that really got to me.

Isaw Brokeback Mountain a short walk from my home in downtown Missoula, at the historic Wilma Theatre. Between the old sound system and my bad ears (courtesy of the Marine Corps), I had difficulty hearing what sparse dialog there was. But I could pretty much guess what the two sheepherders were mumbling, having read Annie Proulx's short story twice.

The first time I read it, I was still closeted and married, fighting, denying and suppressing my attraction to men; often leading a secret, shameful double life. The story hit hard, and I felt doomed to a life of deceit. I read it again last year, when hype about the upcoming movie first hit the press.

By then I was out, best friends with my former wife of 14 years, and living truer to myself. It made me grateful I had found the courage to change my story to a happier ending.

It's a really good article. Read the rest.

Is He?
Posted by Elyce

If, as written on a bumpersticker I recently saw here in Redneck USA (aka suburban Nashville, Tennessee), "God is Pro-Life," then someone explain the Great Flood to me. That wasn't so very pro-life, was it?

A blog post that entirely stems with the frustrations of grading as a math teacher
Posted by Raznor

My god! How much more basic can you get?! Zero times anything is zero! Zero times 5? Zero! Zero times x? Zero! Zero times the sum of two other numbers? Zero!

That is all.

. . . Okay, let's try to prove this? 0+0=0, right? can we agree on that? Good. So for some number x 0x=(0+0)x. Follow? Well that means that 0x=0x+0x, so 0x=0x-0x (ooh algebra that's hard!) But anything minus itself is 0 so 0x-0x is 0. Thus 0x=0.

Now let's see everyone use that little fact.

I don't know who's running this country- but he's got some serious 'splaining to do
Posted by Raznor

Via Greg - who got it from Kos - this is one of the lamest excuses I've ever heard - and I've taught Freshman level mathematics for nearly 2 years now!

President Bush was unaware of the pending sale of shipping operations at six major U.S. seaports to a state-owned business in the United Arab Emirates until the deal already had been approved by his administration, the White House said Wednesday.

Interesting. It's not Bush's fault, it's the Bush administration's fault. And this means we shouldn't be too hard on Bush for some reason.

Can we get a competent president please?

A preemptive welcome to Pandagon readers
Posted by Raznor

According to the great Amanda Marcotte, my post on the bill currently in line for the Arizona Senate should appear at Pandagon tomorrow morning. So I thought I'd do a bit of an update on the post.

Via Berube, there's an article at Inside Higher Ed on this little bill. As should be a surprise to no one, the bill is defended with a brazen bit of arrogant ignorance:

The sponsors of the bill did not respond to messages seeking comment. But local news coverage of the session at which the bill won committee approval quoted Sen. Thayer Verschoor as citing complaints he had received about The Ice Storm, a novel by Rick Moody that was turned into a film directed by Ang Lee. “There’s no defense of this book. I can’t believe that anyone would come up here and try to defend that kind of material,” Verschoor said at the hearing, according to The Arizona Star. Other senators spoke at the hearing, the newspaper reported, against colleges teaching “pornography and smut.”

This, by the way, is why I will forever be against any bans on pornography. Because it'll be assholes like these who will wind up getting to define what pornography is.

So what's so annoying about this law? Let's take a look at the official fact sheet for the provisions:

1. Requires universities under the Arizona Board of Regent’s jurisdiction and community colleges under a community college district to adopt procedures providing a student with an alternative course, coursework, learning material or activity if that student finds those offered to be personally offensive without financial or academic penalty.

2. Specifies that a course, coursework, learning material or activity is personally offensive if it conflicts with the student’s beliefs or practices in sex, morality or religion.

3. Becomes effective on the general effective date.

Wow, that's it in a nutshell, isn't it? I'm already pretty pissed off about the state of Arizona higher education (moreso since receiving my rejection letter from UC San Diego earlier today) but looking at provision 2, I can't help but imagine the worst case scenario.

Now I'm lucky in that my field is mathematics. Assholes like the Arizona senators here and David Horowitz don't understand mathematics, and therefore aren't on a crusade to destroy it. (just imagine, though, if they could possibly grasp Banach-Tarsky paradox - then we'd be screwed) But let's take a look at the ramifications of this to the subject areas it does affect.

1) Biology is out. Evolution is "controversial". Therefore it would be possible to get a biology degree at an Arizona school without ever fucking learning about biology.

2) Religion is out. Idiot religious intolerants are going to be offended by learning about wrong religions. So it'll be possible to get a degree in Religion at an Arizona school without ever learning about any religions.

3) Philosophy is out. My God, those existentialists are so immoral!

And you get the idea. Arizona Republicans, unhappy with the slow smothering of higher education they've been working on by their constant funding cuts are now attempting to just throw in a bomb and be done with it.

One thing of interest in the article, though, is even arch-asshole David Horowitz is against this particular bill:

he Arizona bill goes beyond the measures that have been pushed in other states — in fact it goes so far that David Horowitz, the ’60s radical turned conservative activist who has pushed the Academic Bill of Rights, opposes the measure. “It doesn’t respect the authority of the professor in the classroom,” he said. “This authority does not include the right to indoctrinate students or deny them access to texts with points of view that differ from the professor’s. But it does include the right to assign texts that make students feel uncomfortable.”

To which I must respond to Mr. Horowitz with a big, good old fashioned "FUCK YOU!" This is the guy behind the McCarthyite "Know the Network". This is the guy who spreads vicious rumors about university professors started from assholes who failed courses due to their complete lack of intelligence but happen to be conservative. This is the guy who with every breath is trying to fuel the growing stream of anti-intellectualism in this country that leads to bullshit like this.

Ergh.

On a related note Michael Berube is now officially my hero. Funniest post ever.