Why Johnny can't get an engineering degree

This guy has a point.  I almost thought he was studying math from one of the same math professors I had at EWU, until I re-read the paragraph and realized he was talking about a teaching assistant.  The professor I have in mind was equally incomprehensible to anyone but a math major.

I think this is a consequence of the tenure system.  Our universities hire professors, and give them tenure, not based on their ability to teach, but based on their ability to do research that brings credit-by-association to the university.  We shouldn't be surprised when they put most of their energy into research and have little time left for teaching, relying instead on their TAs to teach their classes.

Don't get me wrong; I'm not saying all university professors are like this.  I'm not even saying all university math professors are like this.  If I ever decide I can hack going back to school for a masters degree, I'll have to study up and see where absintheminded is teaching and see if I can do my masters there, so that I can take my math classes from him.  Why?  Because the man clearly not only loves math, but loves to teach it and have people understand it.

That's the key to teaching.  It's not enough to merely dump information on a set schedule and rely on a TA to parcel it out for you.  If you're not conveying understanding, everyone may as well go home... including you.

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(Crossposted to engineers; article found on Slashdot by jayguevara)

"Shuttle a mistake" -- Griffin

NASA just got real.

The space shuttle and International Space Station — nearly the whole of the U.S. manned space program for the past three decades — were mistakes, NASA chief Michael Griffin said Tuesday.

In a meeting with USA TODAY's editorial board, Griffin said NASA lost its way in the 1970s, when the agency ended the Apollo moon missions in favor of developing the shuttle and space station, which can only orbit Earth.

"It is now commonly accepted that was not the right path," Griffin said.  "We are now trying to change the path while doing as little damage as we can."

OK, Neil Gaiman officially rocks. (But you knew that, right?)

From this Time interview with Neil and Joss Whedon:

[NG] [...] The brief with Mirrormask was Henson coming to us and saying, in the Eighties, Henson's did The Dark Crystal and Labyrinth.  They were family fantasy films.  They cost $40 million each.  We'd like to do another one.  We have $4 million.  If we gave you that $4 million, could you come back with a movie, and we won't tell you what to do?  As deals go, it's that bit at the end that said, we won't tell you what to do that was, okay, yes, I will happily take not enough money to make a huge fantasy movie and try and make a huge fantasy movie with it.

[NG] But then, I get fascinated because, in America, it almost seems like family has become a code word for something that you can put a five-year-old in front of, go out for two hours, and come back secure in the knowledge that your child will not have been exposed to any ideas.  [...]

Ideas.  Wow, what a concept.  Clearly subversive.

Really, go read the interview.  It's brilliant, subversive, and genuinely funny.

[NG] Last time I was at Comicon, there were like 5,000 people there, and the audience was going to try and cut me off with stuff to sign.  They had to figure out how to get me off the stage.  All of a sudden, I'm getting to the end of the conversation.  Dave McKean and I were doing a Mirrormask thing and we're ready to leave the stage.  I look up and they have a bodyguard line of 30 Klingons.  They're six-foot six and four-feet wide and they have the foreheads and they had linked arms.  We were being led off behind a human wall —a Klingon wall—of Klingon warriors.  And I thought, how good does it get?

Nice lack of balls, CNN

CNN wants to carry the story of US troops in Iraq trading gory photos of dead Iraqis for access to a porn site, but won't mention the name of the site -- if memory serves, something like nowthatsfuckedup.com -- because "it is considered offensive by many people."

And US troops trading trophy gore for porn ISN'T offensive, you fucktards?!?

Our society has some really bizarre values.  God forbid our kids should learn about safe sex, but when they're having unsafe sex instead because we refuse to teach them about safety, we just avert our eyes and pretend it isn't happening.  We'll air sitcoms full of sexual innuendo on nationwide prime-time TV, featuring actresses and costumes and poses designed to give the viewers flashes of cleavage halfway to the navel, but god forbid anyone under 18 should catch a glimpse of a nipple.  We trust 18 and 19 year old kids with a rifle, a machinegun, a rocket launcher, a Humvee, the lives of their fellow soldiers, the lives of civilians halfway around the world, we entrust to them what we claim is the vital mission of spreading democracy to the far reaches of the world, but trust them to drink a beer or go to a titty bar?  Forget it!

And now, when they engage in behavior that is enraging the Islamic world they're supposed to be there to carry the light of civilization and democracy to, we won't mention the website involved because, you know, someone might be offended by the name.

What a bunch of pantywaists.