If you find yourself in a pit of despair.

If, like me, you periodically find yourself wallowing in a pit of despair and hopelessness, convinced that there is no place for you in a cruel and godless world, you should read this, which is really funny.

via unfogged

A qucik and dirty cost benefit analysis of climate change

The guy in the video talks this up as a knock down argument for acting to mitigate and prevent climate change. It is far from that, but it is one of the strongest arguments you can pack into five minutes (plus four minutes of hype). I'm interested in it because it is exactly the kind of simplified cost benefit analysis I teach when I teach scientific reasoning with the Giere textbook. So I need to note it for the future when I figure out how to create a course that uses the Giere textbook at LCCC.

job advice

I would like to emphasize again that if someone says to you "Oh, yes, teaching on line is easy. I use this that and the other totally high tech method, and I get great responses from my students!" they are not offering you teaching advice. They are showing off. Under no circumstances should you try to do what they do.

The Stupid Filter

These guys are designing a filter, based on Beyesian spam filters, to weed out stupid comments. As they emphasize in their FAQ, they are only looking at comments that are formally stupid, "The idea is that the most egregiously stupid comments will also be the easiest to detect while remaining ignorant of context; comments with too much or too little capitalization, too many text-message abbreviations, excessive use of "LOL," exclamation points, and so on."

Do you think they will have an Angel plug-in? I could use it, not as a simple insult to students, but a "teachable moment."

This blogs readability level

Unfogged clocks in at elementary school. I don't know which is better.

Behold the awesome power of my critical thinking rubric

critical thinking rubric
Originally uploaded by rob helpychalk.

A proposal was sent around for ways to evaluate students critical thinking across the college. It included items like evaluating student's ability to repeat information accurately.

This is my counter proposal, based on the analysis of critical thinking from Alec Fisher and Michael Scriven Critical Thinking: Its Definition and Assessment

William Wants A Doll!!

You gotta fucking problem with it?

Laozi Lesson Plan

"I did not grade your papers or make a lesson plan, because the sage, by doing nothing leaves nothing undone. In doing this, am I properly following the advice of the Daodejing?"

Added: Emerson has some nice looking publications on the Daodejing on-line. Hopefully I'll get a chance the check these out in the next week or so.

A list of Band T Shirts I Have Seen on Campus

Fall Out Boy (f)
Grateful Dead (m) x3
ACDC (f) x2
ACDC (m) x3
Blue Oyster Cult(m)
Wolfmother (m)
Velvet Revolver (m)
Bob Marley (f)
Misfits (m)
Corruption of Blood (m)
Nine Inch Nails (m) x2
Iron Maiden (m)
Skavenger (m)
Deftones (m)
Nirvana (f) x3
Nirvana (m) x4
Crime Scene (m)
Doors (m)
Doors (f)
Metallica (m)
Chimaira (m)
Ratt (m)
stones (f) x3 (1 tote bag)
Korn (m)
Flaming lips (m)
Tool (m)
The Darkness (m)
Linkin Park (m)
Ozzfest (m)
Dave Matthews (m)
Jimmy Buffet (m)
Tooth and Nail (m) (A record label?)
Zeppelin (m)
Skynyrd (m)
Lamb of God (m)
Megadeath (m)
Alice Cooper (f)
Miles Davis (f)
Under Oath (m) [With a gun for the r. Doesn't seem to be the Christian metal band)
Queen (m)
Insane Clown Posse (f)
Saves the day (f)
Motorcycle (f)
System of a Down (m)
Pantera (m)
Blink 182 (f)
Ben Kweller (f)
Cradle of Filth (m)
John Lennon (m)