tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-178079182024-03-05T11:57:41.521-07:00Sit Cog BlogAndrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-54808784409153429762012-03-08T16:08:00.001-07:002012-03-08T16:08:36.470-07:00Open Access Hat TrickI'm this close--why not have one more post about open access? So I just finished going through the "charge the author" buffet by Springer for my most recent article. I can confirm that the $3k fee for an open article is still in effect, and I also had the option of ordering a poster, re-prints in sets of 25, or paying $1500 for full color on my figures and I'm sure some other options that I'm forgetting. So It's good to know that Spring is not stuck on a single method of charging authors for the taxpayer's intellectual property. <br />
<br />
Then things took a turn for the completely bizarre. Hopefully the link works for you. If you do <a href="http://www.springer.com/open+access/authors+rights?SGWID=0-176704-12-683201-0">some digging</a> you find out that Springer is actually happy to have you self-archive your work in pre-print form on say an institutional repository--which of course will be immediately harvested by google scholar with one lone provision. You have to wait 12 months after the print version comes out. <br />
<br />
So what are we fighting about? If Springer wants to try charging people for their actual contribution to this process, copy-editing and making it look pretty I say go for it. I'm happy to provide a link to your version that costs money inside mine they've already downloaded that is free. I'm also happy to give Springer exclusive rights of distribution for 12 months, although I acknowledge that in some fields that time should be much shorter or maybe not involve a delay at all but in the case of my research, we're not going to lose any lives if there's a delay in wider distribution.<br />
<br />
Am I missing something here? Why is the publishing industry paying for lobbyists and fighting this legislation as well as introducing their own when at least with Springer they're pretty close to seeing eye to eye already? Why not make this more public and promote some good will?Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-90318015694176816822012-03-05T17:17:00.000-07:002012-03-05T17:17:51.009-07:00Can't go home in good conscience yetSo just saw this on FB via David Wiley, the publishers have decided to ramp up the crazy on open access. Apparently their opposition to recent legislation is that it lacks "<a href="http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/journal-publishers-oppose-bill-that-would-require-public-access-to-research/41134">fair compensation to authors</a>". <br />
<br />
You know what system lacks fair compensation to authors? Oh right--it's YOUR system. It also lacks fair compensation to editors (of the non-copy variety) and reviewers. I think I know why you have the biggest profit margin, it's not just because you aren't paying any of us, it's because you aren't paying the right PR firm. If you can't get ahold of just how wrong you are, at least get someone who can put the right lipstick on your pig.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-29007177986393657512012-01-25T15:49:00.000-07:002012-01-25T15:49:03.254-07:00Research Works ActI'm a little late to the party but recently heard about the Research Works Act. This is an effort out of the house to directly contradict an NIH policy that requires any research produced with government funding (e.g. taxpayer dollars) to be available for free to said taxpayers 12 months after publication.
<p>Needless to say this is a horrible idea. It would constitute a bit of a blow to the open access movement. Now I've already established that I'm <a href="http://sitcogblog.blogspot.com/2010/11/3k-washingtons-price-of-open-access.html">no fan of Springer</a> so take this next bit with a grain of salt, but their statement about this legislation is <a href="http://poynder.blogspot.com/2012/01/springer-statement-on-us-research-works.html">cheeky at best</a>. You want some measured, intelligent and constructive debate? Fine.
<p>Your current value to the world of academic publishing is copy editing and typesetting. That's it. The research, the peer review, the editing--that's all done by academics who you don't pay. So in exchange for making sure our page numbers are in the right spot you have the <a href="http://biz.yahoo.com/p/sum_qpmd.html">highest profit margin of any US industry at 53%</a> (or at least you did when I wrote this--looks to be an interactive dataset.
<p>Now onto my favorite part. Your support for RWA in essence is that so called "green" open access is an unfunded mandate. That's really your position? That's your line in the sand? That NIH is requiring authors to do something when it's not clear where the money is coming from? Well your idea of "gold" open access is to charge me, an author, $3k to make my article free and open. I have a response to that:
<p>I
<br>gave
<br>at
<br>the
<br>office
<p>I guess in a way, I can see why you think it would cost too much--because you charge $3k and all, but USU is perfectly capable (and already has been for several years thank you very much) of hosting it's own repository and they do it for considerably less than $3,000 per article. In a measured debate, you look bad.
<p>I'm going to go investigate buying futures in your demise. Stop selling ice, the refrigerators are already in the kitchen.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-70396952861665076782012-01-10T08:29:00.000-07:002012-01-10T08:29:00.280-07:00Flash is not dead (yet)So I fell into the trap. The trap of thinking that Flash was dead. It started, for me with the war between Jobs and Adobe. I wondered, when the iPhone and iTouch first came out without flash support how long the war could last. Flash had a huge developer/user base but Apple had huge market share in the mobile market. Not on a per device basis, but on sheer volume of Internet throughput (still no excuse for AT&T).
<p>Then came what I thought was the final nail in the coffin. Adobe cut the Flash player out of mobile development. I thought they had basically given up. Here's the thing that few people are talking about. Adobe had a solution months ago: Adobe Air. The ability to build native iOS Apps from within Flash, or Flash Builder, or Flex. Boom. iOS done right? But last April Apple went out of their way to shut them down.
<p>Now it's back. Here's a screen capture of an app I built in Flash CS 5.0 (old school I know) during faculty senate in about 20 minutes. I wanted to make sure the integration was meaningful so I experimented with connecting to the GPS data received by the phone. It works. And presumably the same functions would work on an android or a blackberry.
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiWjUy0mIwh_segXMtsTGTRKGeA_5ZfK1Lh0UCGIIiXhS13sSzjSnB39yIhyphenhyphene4JP2YPqOruAGVbxxJm8ssIefl7LiCLB54ALG97Bou3ayyTrFcQl5s9k3n8FP6UclJdwRV5c/s1600/gpsApp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuiWjUy0mIwh_segXMtsTGTRKGeA_5ZfK1Lh0UCGIIiXhS13sSzjSnB39yIhyphenhyphene4JP2YPqOruAGVbxxJm8ssIefl7LiCLB54ALG97Bou3ayyTrFcQl5s9k3n8FP6UclJdwRV5c/s400/gpsApp" width="267" /></a></div>
<p>What took considerably more time was setting up the certificate and provisioning profile so that apple could know who was writing code, what device they were writing for, and have a record of what the app name was. Keep in mind that all of this was purely for testing purposes--not for distribution either at an enterprise level or in the app store.
<p>My takeaway from this experience is that apple is a much bigger barrier (did I mention it costs $99/year to even get on the testing ride?) to app development on iOS than Flash is but time will tell if that continues to be the case.
<p>Note that the flash player is still dead dead dead, and that means no seamless integration with web browsers. No flash video players as the ubiquitous media wrappers. But as someone who uses an iPhone religiously I generally prefer native apps anyway.
<p>I am now officially astounded at how long Flash has persisted. I've been teaching it for 9 years. It remains in my mind one of the best IDEs for people with no programming background, because you can engage in so much GUI development. I'll be curious to see when someone finally sticks a fork in it.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-87650630522701228132011-08-26T13:06:00.002-06:002011-08-26T13:27:04.479-06:00Disparate business modelsI'm struck by the stark contrast between Comcast and Netflix. Without getting into a bunch of details I lack the time to provide I'll just say the following. My relationship with Comcast feels like an abuse cycle. We have a billing fight, they try to increase my rates, I threaten to leave, they cut me a deal for 6 months and we repeat the dance.
<br />
<br />Netflix is all happy and chipper that I'm cutting back on services (going streaming only), customer service answers my question right away and even gives me the old rates until the end of my service cycle despite changing their rates on September 1st. Not because I asked for it, but because that's the way they roll. Comcast on the other hand happily charges me a higher rate for a reduction in services partway through my billing cycle. Who does that to their customers?
<br />
<br />The really scary part is that they are now a conveyer of content and a producer of it--I'm sure I'll be able to trust them to push my Netflix streams as fast as the Today show because they're so magnanimous.
<br />Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-39182689818935027282011-05-11T16:20:00.003-06:002011-05-11T16:26:51.872-06:00CPU bottleneck since 2004?So there seems to be a 6Ghz upper limit on processor speed that we can't break through since clear back in 2004. How did I miss that? As a result we've moved to doubling down so to speak with dual or quad core processor machines but only a handful of applications actually take advantage of that by offloading processes to multiple processors. <br /><br />This seems like it prefaces a day of the designer, in which software engineers will have to be even more lean and mean than usual. As a side note, STATA (my favorite stats package ever). Offers licenses that take advantage of this but they want to charge for it. Who wouldn't right? It also prefaces a day of computing really starting to suck. We're supposed to double capacity every 18 months. I'm looking at buying a new macbook pro with a dual core processor that's pretty similar to what I have now and is almost 3 years old. Am I missing some nuance here?Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-9422304143516240502011-03-10T16:57:00.002-07:002011-03-10T17:09:58.316-07:00SustainabilitySo I haven't been this excited about an alternate field of study in some time but just spent a couple of days with people who do work in sustainability. This would be things like designing urban renewal projects, fighting poverty or aids, or creating composting plans for a college campus. They are much more complex than that but that's the gist. They do a lot of work with teaching learners how to frame problems, design problem solutions, and execute problem solutions and they are using project and some problem based learning. <br /><br />They deal with major complexity. They deal with almost any discipline under the sun. They are 10 years into being a field. They have so much energy they are their own renewable power source.<br /><br />They make me tired. The oddest part is one of the big programs in this field is in Arizona. It would be like having the DNC headquarters in Logan Utah.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-35403478215088724572010-11-15T14:51:00.003-07:002010-11-15T15:35:41.740-07:003k Washingtons, the price of open accessWe've been asking about sustainability of open access for quite some time. Springer has the answer. If I pay a mere $3,000 my latest article (co-authored with Dr. Gulfidan Can) could be made available for non-commercial use via the creative commons license (with commercial use rights reserved by Springer). <br /><br />They do allow for institutional reserve or personal web site productions of pre-print versions of the article . . . 12 months after it comes out. <br /><br />You are working yourself out of having a respected journal. You will loose to publications that make articles available to everyone because they'll get more citations. You need a new business model. Think services, think access to full data, think high resolution graphics, partner articles with your textbooks about statistics (a link that says--do you want to know more about Cronbach's Alpha? or see other forms of reliability) or qualitative analyses (do you want to know how to do a comparative case study?). Think advertising for statistical or qualitative analysis packages. You can live off your current g index for a little while, and find some solace in the fact that academia moves at a glacial pace but the days of your current business model are numbered and the time to make changes is now. I don't think that adding a $3,000 check box for creative commons is going to cut it, although I respect that you are trying. <br /><br />You want to draw a line in the sand for contributions via copyediting and formatting--terrific. Let us have our pre-print manuscripts from day 1. Or earlier for that matter. Our acceptance notification for this article came in July. We're going on 4 months of possible citations flushed away and the clock is still running. You want an edge on your competition--provide links to our pre-prints before the issue comes out. How about having citations for articles still in press as a way of pumping up the old g index? <br /><br />First of all, call the $3k what it is, it's an opportunity cost--it's what you think you will loose in revenue from this one article because libraries may cancel their subscription to the journal as a whole if they can get the article for free. The actual cost of making this open access as opposed to making it available only to subscribers is negligible. In addition to providing services you could also lower your costs. Get it out of your head that your are in the business of printing journals. You are in the business of publishing journals. Drop the hard copy, kill the infrastructure, stop renting that warehouse, kill all your shipping costs, stop giving your open access competitors such a cost advantage. <br /><br />Print based journals are uniquely positioned to dominate this landscape, they have the best editors with the best reviewers, their journals have the best reputations (for now). They need to leverage that in a way that puts them on top of where academic research is headed: open access.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-29937202611407645392010-03-12T16:11:00.006-07:002010-03-12T16:56:15.116-07:00Attenuation of Effect SizesSo here's what I wanted to present at BYU last week but we hadn't finished our analysis yet. At AERA we're presenting a new meta-analysis about the quality of the research done in PBL. Quick rundown--still looking at student learning outcomes comparing PBL with traditional learning. We coded for research design, the degree to which the study reported validity of their measures, reliability of their measures, and the internal threats to validity present in each study.<br /><br />The stand-out finding is reliability:<br /><br /><table><tbody><tr><td><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XUF33GR__GJ-cIPKYrdu3jia_L5gXcZ-kdmgawUE8NSO1TPOxuCWQhGVmeFZHqzGVUloB_bpEN1tmJ4LG4b5-GZsuXVNAVCDX-Q_oNfblik90EfYEkQWgJx_787rZzhMAAU/s1600-h/figure2Reliability.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 470px; height: 116px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7XUF33GR__GJ-cIPKYrdu3jia_L5gXcZ-kdmgawUE8NSO1TPOxuCWQhGVmeFZHqzGVUloB_bpEN1tmJ4LG4b5-GZsuXVNAVCDX-Q_oNfblik90EfYEkQWgJx_787rZzhMAAU/s400/figure2Reliability.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447889699208586322" border="0" /></a></td></tr></tbody></table>When studies report no reliability information on their measures, effect sizes are .20--a small effect favoring PBL that is pretty close to the overall mean for the past several meta-analyses done. When they engage in strong reliability reporting (meaning something along the lines of a <table><tbody><tr></tr><tr></tr></tbody></table>cronbach's alpha for their actual sample rather than falling back on data from someone else's study) then effect sizes jump to .47, a medium effect.<br /><br />True random designs show larger effect sizes that favor PBL over traditional learning too.<br /><br /><table> <tbody><tr></tr><tr><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAWz12gro-vvX_UytHe1ow-9v6zupHcJf3fSWC2RuRVmiasDM0gD5GJb9mruGXAQNmSEoajmM4PvNsC5Bjl-cK0CXKFld3_1WeNPJOzbBeYg4LyvJOXTutNnwXvs-Qc5Wak7M/s1600-h/figure1Design.png"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 382px; height: 85px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAWz12gro-vvX_UytHe1ow-9v6zupHcJf3fSWC2RuRVmiasDM0gD5GJb9mruGXAQNmSEoajmM4PvNsC5Bjl-cK0CXKFld3_1WeNPJOzbBeYg4LyvJOXTutNnwXvs-Qc5Wak7M/s400/figure1Design.png" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5447899114425873954" border="0" /></a></tr></tbody> </table><br /><br /><p>The consistent trend seems to be that we are hamstringing the PBL literature base with weak research designs and little attention to measurement. When we pay attention to those things, and presumably reduce measurement error and a priori group differences--PBL shows improved student outcomes. Almost double what we find as a norm.<br /><br />Figure design shamelessly stolen from Brett Shelton.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-25672180321570605862009-10-22T11:49:00.002-06:002009-10-22T12:44:22.654-06:00Red air, red state, blue residentSome of my favorite responses to our local newspaper's question about what Cache Valley residents intend to do toward reducing pollution with the cold season and inversion coming up. Some context: Because we live in a big bowl and have periods of almost no temperature change we get air that is neigh on unbreathable. Think NYC, or LA. We have "yellow air" and "red air" alerts when we're cautioned to not go outside and exercise because it can damage our lungs. We have University of Utah researchers doing breathing tests on our kids on red air days like we're the proverbial canaries in a coal mine. We've shot for the stars and obtained a level of air quality that requires federal intervention. <br /><br />Here are the quotes:<br /><br /><blockquote>"Absolutely not! First there was this huge hole in the ozone...Hmmm haven't heard much about that the last several years, huh? THEN they had us all believe that global warming was actually real.....as we continue to shatter cold records weekly!! Funny how that talk is ALSO starting to fade now, huh??<br /><br />I agree...an inversion does trap air in the winter within this valley, however, the inversion is not an automatic thing that happens each year. But when it does occur, no doubt some bad air gets trapped..but that is life! Too bad! "<br /><br /><br />" Yes, I'm going to buy corks for my neighbors' cows. "<br /><br /><br />" Yes, I plan to ask CVTD to discontinue operation so that we can eliminate the exhaust emissions from engines of empty and near-empty buses. " <i>CVTD is our local bus system. It's a no-fare system supported by tax dollars, some of the buses even run on natural gas</i><br /><br /><br />" Limiting my contribution to air pollution isn't the only consideration. Far from it. I plan to drive my vehicles when I feel it necessary. Oh, and I don't pay much attention to those silly flashing signs that indicate red or yellow air day. It's such a trivial aspect to my overall decision to drive to where I drive.<br /><br />I'd like to see the Nibley CVTD run eliminated. It seldom has very many, if any people on it, but it sure spews out a lot of exhaust. "<br /><br /><br />" HELLL NO!!!! "<br /><br /><br />" Because cows produce so much methane, I will eat as many steaks as I can to reduce the cow population. "<br /><br /><br />" In the interest of seasonal fairness, I'm committed to producing equal levels of pollution throughout the year. "<br /><br /><br />" Feedback has the right idea, spend more time at the beav and cut back on pollution at the same time, win/win. On top of that I will ride my bike on any weather permitting day, even though its more for exercise than helping the pollution since I don't think its all that big of a problem here. "<br /><br /><br />" While reducing air pollution for the sake of public health and comfort is a noble goal the cost of such reductions can be measured in the millions of dollars in time and productivity if it even costs on average 5 minuets per person per day.<br />Reduce pollution when you can but keep in mind the cost of your actions, don't use it as an excuse to reduce productivity. "<br /><br /><br />" I plan to warm up my diesel truck an extra 10 minutes every morning!<br /><br />MAN CAUSED GLOBAL WARMING IS A HOAX!! "<br /><br /><br />" Inversions are natural and occur in many places. The idea that we cause Cache Valley inversions has no supporting data.<br /><br />Human induced climate change is unproven. There is no evidence that human production of CO2 is driving the temperature. All we have, at the moment, is debate about the idea. "</blockquote><br /><br />How do you get to a place where your response to those personally working towards improving everyone's air quality is not only "no" but "no, and screw you for trying." How does that happen exactly?Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-2071878410462392052009-09-18T09:46:00.001-06:002009-09-18T09:49:25.321-06:00A culture of inclusionJust went to one of the Provost’s lecture series done by Mathew Ouellett. The topic was creating and maintaining a culture of inclusion diversity and social justice. I’m sure I’m going to misrepresent some of the thoughts/discussion so just keep in mind this is from my perspective. <br /><br />He started off by talking about the admission requirements to Harvard University when it first started, having us all start off with hands raised and dropping them when we didn’t meet one of the criteria. First: Are we male? (I think over half the hands dropped, which is very interesting because I don’t think over half our faculty are women—this suggests that perhaps the topic or the lecture series as a whole is of differential interest). Second: Something along the lines of are we the sons of a minister which lost the rest of us. Later he summarized these slightly differently. 1) Male, 2) son of a landowner (meaning citizenship back then) 3) A Christian, being prepared for the ministry. <br /><br />As an aside—this brings to mind something that we often forget about the way our country was formed. It was rule by the privileged not only in the sense that elected officials make the decisions, but that those doing the electing were not the population as a whole—only those who owned land. I remember being blown away by that back in high school history class. <br /><br />Ouellett’s point was that we’ve all (even the White males among us) benefited from affirmative action. He then talked about the hierarchies that are in place within academia. We have a decided pecking order that starts with faculty vs staff, then pretunure vs tenured faculty, then whether or not you have grants and for what amount, then whether or not you have an endowed chair, etc . . . I have to confess that I take a lot of this for granted sometimes to the detriment of my interactions with others. In the last month or so I’ve had two doctoral students say something (one directly and one indirectly) about reacting negatively to my off-hand comments. <br /><br />This is a new concern to me. I think in a lot of ways the doc students we have now are so much better than my cohort and I. They are publishing more, presenting more, know their methodology better. They have more grant writing experience, you name it and they’re doing better. But for some reason we seemed to have much more swagger back then than they do now. <br /><br />The discussion then turned to a major theme and his buy-in for it was interesting. The theme is about collaboration and tolerance, and this worked into ways that you might not expect given the topic (see more below). The buy-in was brilliant. Collaboration is what we’re trained to do in the academy. None of us work in a vacuum, we’re the product of the people we’ve worked with and the people we’ve been mentored by, and I would argue, by the people we’re mentoring. <br /><br />In a spirit of collaboration he encouraged us to find teaching partners. Especially ones coming from a different background than us with respect to diversity. This seems like it has several barriers. Especially recognition and teaching load. What does that look like in your binder? I appreciate that he gave a nod to the fact that formal teaching may not be realistic and he encouraged us to find less formal mechanisms to inform our teaching. This was a contrast to Ken Bain’s statement that we need to change the licensure exams in our respective fields if the assessment doesn’t fit our pedagogical practices. There’s nothing more paralyzing than hearing a far away goal without short term strategies to get there. I left with a feeling that Ouellet was not pitching rhetoric by trying to facilitate change. <br /><br />Another theme of the talk was about picking your battles (although he didn’t phrase it exactly that way). He talked about having an office above a dormitory and having to ride the elevators and hear “that’s so gay” enough that he spent an entire day doing interventions. It wasn’t effective. It didn’t work because he didn’t have a personal relationship with any of the students—but when things happen in a class, and he mentioned a couple of examples, then you do have a relationship with the students and you have an opportunity to facilitate change. <br /><br />I also appreciate (again with the spirit of collaboration), that his primary advice on facilitating change wasn’t about making statements but asking questions. One of the faculty mentioned students saying race wasn’t a problem here but was a problem in the ‘Southern States.’ He said it was an opportunity to ask the students about their own race identity, and suggested a couple of specific activities to get them thinking along these lines. If I were thinking about this in Piaget terms he was really asking them to force a moment of equilibration, getting them to think about past events in their own lives that contradict the thought of race not being an issue. He also recognized that there is value in their existing beliefs, that it isn’t about growing up with bad parents or incorrect thoughts. <br /><br />The other big theme in his talk was failing with grace. As faculty, we don’t make our practice public. Which is so true. When I’m struggling with a new analysis I don’t do it in front of my students. I figure it out, then tell them what I did. As if I magically knew it all along. This is not something we can practice privately because it happens a bit off the cuff. We’ve got to be willing to fail, and most importantly willing to move on from there. <br /><br />One outstanding question I have: At Lehigh, one of the full professors mentioned that he never brings up politics in his class. I used to quite a bit but since then I’ve resisted (or tried to anyway) precisely because of some of the power relationships Ouellet started off discussing. Who am I to force my opinions on graduate students? So where do we draw the line? It seems like a culture of inclusion is not political to me, but for some that is extremely political. I guess that’s the genius of asking questions rather than making statements, right?Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-3110287709884919252009-06-26T11:03:00.004-06:002009-06-26T12:16:52.474-06:00Exceptionally Brazen SophistryI think we're writing and reading total crap. Case in point: Medical reform. I was reading a conservative "news article" on this today at the National Review entitled <a href="http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzQ5Yjc4YzE2YWUwNjAxNjFhMzU3ZjE5ZWFiNWE4ZWI=">Obama's Dirty Little Secret</a>. At the heart and soul of the arguments expressed is the idea that private health insurance will be priced out of the market and we'll wind up with ObamaCare as the only option. The research for these claims is brought to you in part by the <a href="http://www.lewin.com/WhyLewin/AboutUs/">Lewin Group</a>, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Health Group. That's right we get research about how bad it would be to change the private health care system from the private health care system. (I am staunchly resisting the temptation to make an analogy here . . . staunchly . . . and I might add, doing so with aplomb, decorum, and no small amount of class). <br /><br />The really fascinating thing is that the article has a lot of .50 words. The phrase "exceptionally brazen sophistry"(1) is not something you hear on the street corner every day. This is clearly targeted at people who are smarter than the average bear--but it's incredibly easy to pull apart and dismiss. So why is a reasonably smart person trying to talk to reasonably smart people using "exceptionally brazen sophistry" of his own? I think it's a plot to lend relevance to Woody Allen movies and possibly high school literature like Catch 22. <br /><br />Don't get me wrong, the National Review doesn't corner the market on ideological drivel. I get a regular helping from two facebook friends straight from the Huffington Post. I'd like to have news that is free of perspective thanks. I can form my own stinking opinions about who to vote for, I already know Glenn Beck is the most funny when he's trying to be deadly serious and frankly your attempt to explain it to me ruins the ride. I know I'm far from the first to feel this way--so where do I go for that sort of thing? Where do I get news sans commentary? Where do I get news about the system instead of from the system? Is there not a free market for that?<br /><br /><br /> <br /><br />(1) As an aside, exceptionally brazen sophistry sounds like the height of stupidity. A subtle deception in argument that is in your face at the same time? Hmm subtle yet bold--sounds like we're describing a wine, possibly one that comes out of a box. How exactly does that work in argumentation? Well--I think we have two great examples here. Obama's claims about being able to keep your private insurer and this article's debunking of those claims as supported by private insurers.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-19869944487539028692008-12-02T14:08:00.003-07:002008-12-02T14:13:57.304-07:00Flash Video on OSXSo now that I'm on a Mac, using WinFF isn't quite as handy as it used to be. I was having a great deal of trouble figuring out how to use ffmpeg on OSX until a student in the Flash class, Peter Blaire, found the missing link.<br /><br />I was using ffmpegX, a shareware utility to convert video using ffmpeg (like WinFF it's a gui front-end). But none of the video was encoding with any meta-data. This is all kinds of bad becasue things like cue points and the total run time are incredibly handy for streaming and vital for publishing the screencasts I do. Aparently you need to install a little ruby on rails app, which you can find instructions on here:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.ffmpegx.com/download.html#metadata">http://www.ffmpegx.com/download.html#metadata</a><br /><br />Note that the readme file works better than what you see here, as you need to sudo in the terminal before the install command:<br /><br />ruby setup.rb config<br />ruby setup.rb setup<br />sudo ruby setup.rb install<br /><br />Works like a charm! Thanks Peter.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-68625178674814304402008-11-20T15:39:00.002-07:002008-11-20T15:45:53.489-07:00Are Faculty Just Plain Stubborn?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnlOFt0vVpV9OTe9roh38rugS3db8jy0dG91cHmD90-PTOyIpw0_hPew7WZ8iEZnVWqy17yX0AT-ugdOD3nJw6Cw4hR27-604B1OGKO-9z0WcGeb8Wtr6Z1Vh0Xj9BiYYIKI/s1600-h/tutorTraining.gif"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 321px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWnlOFt0vVpV9OTe9roh38rugS3db8jy0dG91cHmD90-PTOyIpw0_hPew7WZ8iEZnVWqy17yX0AT-ugdOD3nJw6Cw4hR27-604B1OGKO-9z0WcGeb8Wtr6Z1Vh0Xj9BiYYIKI/s400/tutorTraining.gif" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5270869481162293458" border="0" /></a><br />This is a figure from a meta-analysis that Heather Leary and I finished earlier this month. It's about tutor variables that moderate problem-based learning outcomes. I should add these are cognitive outcomes only for students (standardized tests, essays, etc . . . ). Each of the outcomes compared a PBL treatment with a "control" or "lecture" condition (although those can mean many different things). There's a lot going on here, the little (n=xes) need some attention as they show the number of outcomes. The very rough scale for effect sizes is .2 = small, .5 = medium, and .8 = large.<br /><br />Many of these combinations don't have what you would call overwhelming amounts of evidence, but we do know a lot about faculty whether they received formal training as PBL tutors or not, and the difference in terms of student learning are non-existent. We have no causal data, which I can't emphasize enough--so maybe this is because faculty are immune to training, falling back on their lecture roots, maybe the training was poor, maybe it's because of Turkey burgers--but it's pretty shocking. My vote is for faculty resistance, other research points to epistemological beliefs being pretty stable by the time you hit undergrad. And for many, this kind of approach requires a fundamental shift in epistemological beliefs. There are documented cases of faculty tutors going into a small group PBL sessions and just lecturing, even after training. But research is not a democracy. Somebody could make a serious name for themselves figuring out why this is the case.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-44163314299879642522008-11-20T14:52:00.003-07:002008-11-20T15:16:11.235-07:00Nobody likes a haterBut I'm going to be one anyway. 10 pages probably isn't a fair shake for any book, but last night I was reading "Twilight" to my daughter Rachel and wow, just wow. Some parents might worry about exposing their children to the occult or to suggestive content. Forget that. I'm worried about exposing her to bad bad writing. It's never good when a character's voice is "attractive" or "like velvet." And I've got to know how a BYU grad comes up with the name of Coach Clapp for the PE teacher. <br /><br />This book offends me as an English major.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-73801641533844637852008-10-05T07:06:00.008-06:002008-10-05T07:28:47.373-06:00Learning The String BassMy daughter Rachel has been teaching me to play the String Bass lately. She started back in 4th grade so is going on her 3rd year. Me, I'm still stuck on "Ode To Joy." For those of you with children getting into the violin or viola (I'm thinking of you Jozanne) my deepest sympathies. No matter how bad you slaughter a Bass note it doesn't have that fingers on chalkboard sound that you can squeeze out of a higher pitched stringed instrument. So aside from having to schlep one around to various things I highly recommend the Bass.<br /><br />I will also say Bass has made a huge difference in Rachel's life. Her confidence in other areas has taken a huge boost, she looks forward to orchestra each day at school and her private lesson each week. And of course she loves showing off and correcting my own attempts at technique (she even created a lesson plan for me).<br /><br />To help myself memorize the notation, names, and fingerings of the notes (just first position so far) I set up a little flash project. You can get the <a href="http://itls.usu.edu/%7Eaewalker/openContent/index.html">gory details here</a> or click on the screenshot below to try it out yourself (Flash 9 player required). The gory details link has stand-alone versions for Windows and Mac OS X.<br /><br /><p><table border="0"><tbody><tr><td><a href="http://itls.usu.edu/%7Eaewalker/openContent/bassNoteFingerings/bassNotesFingerings.html"><img height="214" width="300" src="http://itls.usu.edu/~aewalker/openContent/images/bassFingeringsNotesScreenshot.png"></a><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></p>Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-57470414293445390572008-09-22T06:13:00.004-06:002008-09-22T13:10:25.877-06:00The Evolution of PoliticiansI actually went to a local political debate between an incumbent Republican congressman and his Democrat and Libertarian opponents. It was sponsored by the ASUSU student organization and a terrific example of the concept behind a cross-sectional longitudinal research design when compared with debates on more of a national stage. You use this to get a look at development over time when you don't want to (or can't) spend the time doing so. Instead, you a snapshot of different phases of development and make the assumption that they are reflective of the normal process. So you might assume that politicians early in their careers are much more frank and willing to take a stand than they are later in their careers. Of course the analogy breaks down a bit because generally you'd be quantifying this and using much larger samples.<br /><br />We'll start with the candidate (Libertarian) least likely to get elected. He was unabashedly forward about his beliefs, in fact at one point he talked about wanting the free market to prevail in three different things: business (he thought AIG should have been left for dead--as an aside, if we had regulated properly would we have a sole privately owned business with so much market share that it's going down would destroy the World's economy?), health care, and--here's the real kicker, he wanted to make sure the market could prevail on fighting terrorism. Now before you start thinking Blackwater I'm not sure that's where he wanted to go (because they're government contracted--or is it government subcontracted through the Vice President's former company?) but it does frankly strike me as out on the lunatic fringe. Mostly because a private company can't negotiate or engage in diplomacy on behalf of the US, and probably wouldn't have the kinds of incentives to fight poverty and other conditions that can lead to terrorism.<br /><br />Next, the Democrat who in this year actually has more of a shot than you might think in Utah. He was willing to express his views, was a little more elegant, a little more educated (for instance he brought up the difference between radioactive and nuclear waste), but was still willing to be very direct at times, maybe to his own detriment. For instance, in that same question about storing nuclear waste in Utah he said we weren't currently, just radioactive but that he would be opposed to storing anything in our great state especially waste from overseas. He also called out the Republican for refusing to work with him on a bill to that effect and taking $26k from Energy Solutions.<br /><br />Enter the incumbent. He's been to Washington, knows the ropes and his response to the<br />questions was this. In a slightly rough moment (that or massive hubris) he said it wasn't $26k but $28k, and not from Energy Solutions but from employees who "happened" to work at Energy Solutions (which makes all kinds of difference to me, let me tell you--that and the fact that 14 people gave him about half my annual salary for an election campaign makes him sound like a real regular Joe). Now it's possible that I missed what the bill was about or the framing of the original question, but when both of the other debate participants seemed squarely focused on what was happening in Utah this guy proceeded to do something you'll see more about below. He said he'd do whatever Utah wanted, but he refused to work on this particular bill because he saw it as a states rights issue. He was very elegant, he talked about Washington State importing waste from Vancouver and was concerned that the bill would limit the ability of other states to make decisions about what they wanted. My concern is that he never really answered the question.<br /><br />Now let's take a look at the National stage where Obama and McCain have very close views on Abortion and Gay Marriage. This is a radical over-simplification but they essentially both refer to these as State's rights. It's not their role as executive to push federal law to ban abortion, but it should be up to individual states to decide. I went to WSU after the fact, but heard the stories about how the sovereignty of states creates really interesting consequences. Back in the day the Idaho legal drinking age was lower than Washington's. As a consequence the seven mile stretch of highway 26 between Pullman Washington and Moscow Idaho had no small number of legal/underage drinkers returning home and go figure some of them were driving. I may not be a political scientist but both of these issues have consequences for other states. I think people who fall on either side of these issues should be really mad that their candidate of choice refuses to make a choice (no pun intended).Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-87806262351195292482008-09-11T14:25:00.005-06:002008-09-11T16:48:42.211-06:00Even Optimists Can Be Presented With An Undeniable Vision of Impending DoomOne of my favorite short stories is "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" by J.D. Salinger--the easiest way to grab a copy is in a collection titled "Nine Stories" and I highly recommend it. It's not a spoiler in any way to say that one of the big themes is a deeply disturbed character (Seymour Glass) who is seeking refuge in part in the innocence of children (but not in a creepy way, I promise). To make a short story long, he finds out it's not as much of a refuge as he thought it was. Even though I've always loved the story--I've never quite believed it. I get misty-eyed when I hear the song "you are the new day" (especially when coupled with a public television ad and b-roll of Sesame Street and children playing). I tend to think the best about people and about future events, but now I can see why Salinger has cut himself off from the world. For me it's not the lack of childhood innocence. I’m not ready to give that up yet. For me, it’s the train wreck that children are walking into.<br /><br />Last weekend I cleaned out the garage, which included three different items for the dump: A computer (desktop & monitor), some flooring tiles, and some scrap metal (an old vent for a swamp cooler we had removed). I knew the computer and monitor had to go there for proper disposal, I knew the metal could be recycled, and I was hoping they could recycle the tile too. We also had a bunch of stuff for DI (the local "goodwill")--which happened to be my first stop. I'm unloading there and I pull out and set aside the scrap metal to get at some other stuff, and one of the helpful workers decides he's going to do me a favor and throw my scrap metal in their dumpster--which also happened to be full of cardboard. This is my first sign of our impending doom, a guy trying to do me a solid by sending my recyclable waste off to the landfill. After rescuing my scrap metal out of the dumpster along with other recyclables I decide that individuals can still make a difference--and got pretty jazzed about taking so much to the dump, none of which is actually going into the landfill. As a further boost, the woman at the scales says I can toss my flooring tiles in with the concrete, so I guessed right and they can be recycled too (side note: Jen wanted to try gluing them down again--so not such a great thing after all).<br /><br />Still, I'm on a high note. Until about 12:30am. We live across from a park that has a dumpster right next to it. I wake up to someone tossing in a truckload of something or other. The next morning I take a peek and it's mostly construction waste--including a good bit of recyclable scrap metal, and some wood and sheet rock. <br /><br />The amount of green waste we see go in that dumpster from otherwise nice, friendly, and intelligent neighbors is astonishing. What's more astonishing is that they will pick up green waste at your curb if you pay $4/month for a green waste bin. $4/month for weekly pickup! This town makes it incredibly easy to recycle everything from leaves to plastic and we still can’t pull the trigger. <br /><br />These are pragmatic pressures (proximity of a dumpster vs driving to the landfill or spacing out your tree pruning over a couple of weeks). Imagine the financial pressures faced by big corporations. Heck, I remember a few years ago insurers wanting to know if employees were bike commuting because it presented additional risk that companies either had to pay for or pass on to their employees. <br /><br />We’re doomed. <br /><br />Somebody give me some good news. Tell me I’m wrong, tell me you stopped a baby seal from getting clubbed to death (metaphorically speaking).Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-36116818718561403802008-08-25T11:58:00.003-06:002008-08-25T13:50:11.817-06:00Thompson Reuters needs to rethink their lifeAfter taking a bit to update their plug-in for Word 2008 (maybe a bit understandable given that it's supposed to be a different structure). The folks who make the End Note software have opted to not make CWYW ("cite while you write") available on Word 2008 <a href="http://www.macresearch.org/endnote-x1-patch-restores-cwyw-functionality-word-2008">for older versions of End Note</a>--namely version X.02 which I use right now. Not only that but they'd charge me $91 to "upgrade" to version X1! To really let this sink in the build date on my version is 2007! That's right, it's a year old and no longer capable of doing what I need it to do.<br /><br />This isn't even remotely acceptable behavior on their part. As a result, I've now downgraded to office 2004 and I'm anxiously awaiting an alternative bibliographic option. It looks like my best bet so far is <a href="http://www.zotero.org/about/">Zotero</a> (thanks for the referral Melynda!) which is an open source alternative to a program that I refuse to even mention again by name. There are times when a small part of me feels a little sorry for niche software developers when an open source alternative comes along. Then something like this happens . . .Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-29589888072944262482008-08-02T01:13:00.004-06:002008-08-02T01:33:45.982-06:00My favorite facebook ad<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtlb-ssh4GuNKkBxQwXh5Go7xhR-H2pk4rGH22RKH0PIkzLPops-z6xBNNKf8eKV_S0W3liTYGBjxqh3B-ikDiRlorZCo01uhd80-eHijY_h-yzm5BQfU5ihfIcQL2DggmuGo/s1600-h/shavingAd1.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtlb-ssh4GuNKkBxQwXh5Go7xhR-H2pk4rGH22RKH0PIkzLPops-z6xBNNKf8eKV_S0W3liTYGBjxqh3B-ikDiRlorZCo01uhd80-eHijY_h-yzm5BQfU5ihfIcQL2DggmuGo/s320/shavingAd1.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5229818072525617570" /></a>I'm sure there will be others, but this one is my first love. I don't really own a bikini but if my swimsuit had unwanted hair I would definitely want to have it removed (the bikini too). Not only does it remove unwanted hair from swimwear, but it also removes it from your "etc . . . " which is just dang helpful. Of course, ever since I first saw Buck Rogers I always wanted to own a personal laser, so the fact that it can remove hair from my etc is just a bonus. <div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-10667054440607538302008-07-02T16:18:00.002-06:002008-07-02T17:06:06.669-06:00Did you ever think . . .I'm trying to think back to my earliest experiences with video games (at least at home). I remember my brother and I saved our money for an entire summer to get an Atari 2600. It came with space invaders (which just celebrated its <a href="http://arcadeheroes.com/2008/02/08/celebrating-space-invaders-30th-anniversary/">30th anniversary</a>) and we bought asteroids at the same time, if memory serves. <br /><br />When we got it home my mom plugged it in and played for about an hour--which was probably a sign that a broad market appeal system like the Wii has been long overdue. <br /><br />Never in a million years did I think that the words gaming and industry would be mentioned in such close proximity, nor did I think that it would be such an enormous juggernaut that it would spawn such creations as <a href="http://www.gamespot.com/news/show_blog_entry.php?topic_id=26464136&sid=6193236&om_act=convert&om_clk=newstop&tag=newstop;title;8">gaming journalists</a>. I mean seriously, who saw that coming when they were playing turtle graphics and load runner on their C-64s? The worst part is that I can see a niche market for gaming journalism that isn't being filled right now. I read these reviews for Wii games and I've still been burned twice. We got Mario and Sonic at the Olympic games and EA Sports Playground, both got decent reviews with people saying in general that "it would be great for kids." Not so much--my kids have played far more of Super Paper Mario (a game graciously handed down from a college age Uncle who didn't like it). And Rabbids 2--which also got good reviews and which the kids loved far longer than I would have expected. My daughter in fact just the other night did a disturbingly spot on rendition of "funky town" in the Rabbid's heavily modulated and high pitched voice. So hey, they were 1 for 3. A "gaming journalist" that could actually do a decent review for games from a kid's perspective would be fantastic because right now I think they're maybe a bit too knowledgeable and possibly a little jaded. <br /><br />A long digression away from may main point though--this industry is huge. In a day and age when the supposedly "recession proof" Starbucks is decommissioning some 600 stores (although to be fair I swear 599 of those are stacked up on a single street corner in Seattle). The Video Game industry is going strong. More than strong. It's beating DVD sales like a tired dog, it's even dictating some of what happens in movies. Raise your hand if you thought a 1980s arcade game would be made into a movie. I've seen the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0382315/">imdb listing</a> for Spy Hunter and I'm still not convinced I should put mine up.<br /><br />I would classify myself as a gamer. I've always played something, but kept to PC games (mostly real-time strategy and first person shooters). I've owned a total of three consoles in my life: The Atari 2600; A Sega Genesis (I know, I know); and now a Wii. I feel like I've blinked and a whole new economy has grown up overnight. <br /><br />This has got to be a good time to be involved in gaming research (thanks be to Brett Shelton and Mary Ann Parlin who just did the heavy lifting on a DOEd grant for game design using problem based learning--keep your fingers crossed).Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-20271867091262937282008-06-26T09:50:00.003-06:002008-06-26T10:42:17.596-06:00A good problem to haveIt looks as if we're driving less (at least according to the <a href="http://www.dot.gov/affairs/fhwa1108.htm">US Department of Transportation</a>). The more miles people drive, the more tax revenue the DOT collects from gasoline taxes. Here's the part that gets me. The secretary of transportation Mary Peters is <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/06/18/driving.cutbacks/">saying this is a bad thing</a> because "History shows that we're going to continue to see congested roads while gas tax revenues decline even further."<br /><br />Hmm, people are driving fewer miles. Fewer miles means fewer cars. <span style="font-weight: bold;">Fewer cars means more congestion?</span> I got lost somewhere. To avoid being completely disingenuous a point is also made that people are choosing more fuel efficient cars, which have the potential to keep the number of cars similar while decreasing tax revenue. That's fine, increase the federal gas taxes for private use. It shouldn't have the downside that a private and commercial tax would have (except of course for tourism) and it appeals to me because roads are essentially being subsidized by the worse pollution offenders (thirsty SUVs would pay more per mile than a little smart car). This fits because in addition to cranking out more CO2 emissions, they put far more wear on the road.<br /><br />Here's my favorite part of this whole discussion. The "walk away price" for gasoline at the pump. Where a consumer decides to not pay and try something else instead. According to the <a href="https://www.loga.la/AM/Template.cfm?Section=What_price_will_make_people_walk_away_from_the_pump_">Louisiana Oil & Gas Commission</a> that price is $7.50. I think you'd need to be the mayor of crazy town to think that still holds true. It's obvious that we're at the front edge of the "walk away price" right now. And think about the context too. Our whole life is structured around car travel. For most of us our housing is miles away from where we work and public transportation is not at all convenient. I live right on a free bus route that takes me pretty much door to door I'd say I have to walk a total of about 20 yards, and my travel time is about 15 minutes including wait time. But I'm a huge anomaly and my schedule fits perfectly. The average American commuter is spending about <a href="http://www.philly.com/inquirer/opinion/20080518_The_American_car_culture_is_running_out_of_gas.html">100 hours a year in their car</a>. So I think given how much of a life change this represents for the average commuter, a 4.3 percent year to year drop in miles driven means the "walk away price" for gas is here right now.<br /><br />The question is what are we going to do about it? The message from the DOT is blind panic about lost tax revenues for a system that we should be looking towards replacing with public transit options. The message from oil companies is a not so subtle Jedi mind trick "we're not the problem you're looking for . . . move along." Here's my message. This is a fantastic problem to have. Many Republicans have appropriately called this a supply and demand problem and want to start drilling offshore. Well, that takes a fair amount of time--and why would you only work on one side of the equation anyway? Why is increasing supply the answer--how about decreasing the demand. Bush's statements about gas, cars, and the commuter culture being an "American way of life" and status-quo approach to our economy have finally made a decision for us. We can't go indiscriminately drilling in protected areas because it won't help us in time--we have to decrease demand now and the American consumer is starting to do it for us.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-4871368114154718062008-05-09T16:54:00.002-06:002008-05-09T17:01:23.787-06:00Multiple Paper DissertationsOn the books we've had a policy in place for some time for students to forgo a traditional dissertation and instead do several academic papers. What we have not had in place is a structure for how they go about doing that. I'm kind of excited that we're putting one together (Nick Eastmond has taken the lead). I think this holds some decent potential for students but there are also several dangers. By necessity a proposal that involves the methods of say two research papers is going to give far less detail than we get with a dissertation, but that said how many of us have written journal articles with that much detail? <br /><br />I think this ups the ante on the proposal stage. Because there will be less detail the committee and student had better be on the same page going into the research and then the final defense. As a current state there is a draft document in place for the summer and we'll hopefully come to agreement as a faculty during our retreat this Fall.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-20819231910128554192008-04-24T11:08:00.003-06:002008-04-24T12:30:55.907-06:00Not TodayI'm an Obama supporter and I'll tell you why. I like that at least for a period of time he ran a somewhat clean campaign focused on what he had to say as opposed to what Hillary has said or done wrong. That's obviously changed, but way back when I voted in the Utah primary it was still true, and even if I was voting now I'd still vote for Obama in the dim hope that it would send a message to politicians and commentators alike. I also like him on certain issues. When Hillary Clinton was voting to support the Iraq War, Barack was speaking at anti-war rallies. But that's not a deal breaker for me with respect to Hillary Clinton at all. She was basing her vote on inaccurate information and at the time I agreed with her. They're so close in other respects that it doesn't really matter to me. <br /><br />That is the heart and sole of the problem with this primary. If they are so close on policy then what is there to talk about? Well the news media is happy to fill that gap with questions focused on controversy. The <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/04/the_pennsylvania_democratic_de.html">Pennsylvania debate</a> was a serious travesty. All of the initial questions had to do with not just old news, but previously covered missteps. I already know about Hillary's sniper fire debacle. I already know that Barack has attended church with a pastor who said "G** D*** America" they've both had several opportunities to talk about it--why do we need to ask them again? Because asking them about policy is boring. Because bickering gets higher ratings than meaningful discourse. Because health care doesn't make for a decent sound bite. <br /><br />Here's a quote from that same debate:<br /><blockquote>SENATOR CLINTON: Well, Charlie, I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make sure that one of us takes the oath of office next January. I think that has to be the overriding goal, whatever we have to do.<br /><br />Obviously we are still contesting to determine who will be the nominee. But once that is resolved, I think it is absolutely imperative that our entire party close ranks, that we become unified.<br /><br />I will do everything to make sure that the people who supported me support our nominee.<br /><br />I will go anywhere in the country to make the case. And I know that Barack feels the same way, because both of us have spent 15 months traveling our country. I have seen the damage of the Bush years. I've seen the extraordinary pain that people have suffered from because of the failed policies; you know, those who have held my hands who have lost sons or daughters in Iraq, and those who have lost sons or daughters because they didn't have health insurance.<br /><br />And so, regardless of the differences there may be between us, and they are differences, they pale in comparison to the differences between us and Senator McCain.<br /><br />So we will certainly do whatever is necessary to make sure that a Democrat is in the White House next January.</blockquote><br /><br />It didn't make the news summaries, even though both candidates expressed a similar sentiment. What do we get instead? We get Charles Gibson asking them if they would commit to being on a ticket together regardless of the primary outcome and both of them being silent. It's funny, and it seems to be making a point that they don't like each other. The real point is that Charles needs to address questions to a candidate <b>by name</b> in a <b>debate</b>. <br /><br />Now according to <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24284188/">this story</a> it seems that race is an issue for 18% of Pennsylvania Democrats, so much so that 68% of that group wouldn't support Barak Obama in a general election. That sounds like a staggering number. A damning commentary on our current opinions about race and the electability (which is not a word btw) of Barack Obama. But let's unpack this number a bit 68% of 18% is about 12%. 12% doesn't sound quite so edgy and divisive but man 68% sure makes the eyes pop out. I say let's stop making the Today Show news writers the biggest swing vote. I say stop trying to make news and just freaking report it. <br /><br />The news is that both these candidates want a Democrat in the White House, but the "story" is that they are tearing each other apart and that their supporters would rather vote for McCain than the opposing camp. Here's my pitch to the commentators/chief political correspondents/White House Bureau chiefs: If you talk about what's actually happening, you'll be novel enough to get those ratings you're trying to drum up.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17807918.post-12740915149330805582008-04-17T09:53:00.003-06:002008-04-17T10:14:56.344-06:00Falling out of bedSo several years ago I was first exposed to Mac OS when I taught development courses at Lehigh University (specifically on Director, which I would loosely classify as an abomination of a development environment--an assessment largely based on Lingo) and on Flash, which I still teach to this day (also in a Mac Lab here at USU). But I've never run Mac as my primary OS until just a couple of weeks ago. <br /><br />So far, so good. I did break down and get a license for End Note because after a day and a half of searching for an open source alternative it looked like the Tex based alternatives weren't quite what I need them to be. Which is really too bad because Office is not exactly my favorite piece of software. Allegedly the next version of open office is going to have bibliographic support built in, and that's kind of the "last mile" problem I'm having right now. I need to be able to insert citations into a word processor that I could use on a daily basis, and mimicking the cite while you write functionality of End Note is also an important feature for me. <br /><br />I'm slowly breaking down my dependence on SPSS. I got R running and I've successfully been able change the default packages and to import SPSS data. A CSV file generated by Excel hasn't been quite as easy to do. <br /><br />I do have to say that as a machine (I'm using an old PowerBook Pro with a PowerPC chip (not intel based) this thing has a lot of nice mechanical features out of the box. For instance, if I hook it up to my external display while it's in sleep mode but the cover is still shut, it comes out of sleep mode with the external monitor as the sole display. Which is especially nice because I hate the way dual displays runs on the mac (with program menus always at the top of the screen, I wind up going back and forth--although I did find a keyboard shortcut utility to pop up the current program menu on either screen). <br /><br />Mostly, I have yet to have any sort of trouble hooking up to a wireless network. And even though it's only been a couple of weeks, I've connected to 3-4 networks, all of which my Dell (which had dueling drivers from XP and my wireless card) had non-stop trouble with. <br /><br />Oh, and I have a logitec wireless mouse and keyboard that I use in my office. It was plug and play with this PowerBook. After telling it the keys adjacent to my shift keys it was off and running, including use of the volume/mute play/pause buttons on the side of the keyboard. As David Wiley would say, using this thing is like falling out of bed. <br /><br />Now if only I had the new touch pad on this thing. I'm still not used to having to press the button w/ my thumb.Andrew Walkerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18404288153027072377noreply@blogger.com3