160 thoughts on “October 20, 2011: Is it Thursday?”

  1. The final results for the WGOM quiz from last Sunday

    Two things.

    81.6% for the quiz creator? Half-baked!
    Also, we obviously need a "Get to Know" for Cowdisciple!

    And in the interest of full disclosure, I just took my quiz for the first time. I got just 39/46. Apparently, these are the seven people I can't be bothered with:

    Spoiler SelectShow

      1. I remembered gravatars more than I do names- Homer was an easy one. Also, any of the gravatars that have been changed in the last couple months kinda stick in my memory. However, there were a couple gravatars I could picture but I just couldn't come up with the name.

        1. No DicknBert commentary = no posts.

          Seriously though, the megasuck at the end of the season really put my commenting hands out of action.

    3. I had no idea I posted that much. I imagine that number will go down now that baseball season is over. I have all those mundane game log posts keeping my totals up. Now if we included Spooky's site...

    4. Also, we obviously need a "Get to Know" for Cowdisciple!

      Did you know that Cowdisciple used to be my roommate?

        1. I am not!

          We both went to the U of M for a short period of time together and lived together during my first year there. Previously, we knew each other from Carleton.

    6. I've obviously missed this line of reasoning; But I am interested in the results. Beau and I have had [mostly mine: no all my] ridiculous exchanges here. Fun still though with how I consider everyone the same. /may be . . .

        2. I assumed your link was to another message on this board. Instead, it was far more helpful in giving me the answer I was looking for than I expected.

            1. I almost didn't post it for that very reason. Don't think of it as competition, think of it as an guide, in case you get lost along the way.

        2. People scoff at the "Is it Thursday?" update, but week after week it proves its worth.

          By the way: Yes. It is.

          Definitely my favorite instance of IIT.

                1. If that happens, I'll feel like I unlocked an achievement in a video game.

                  "Congratulations! You have earned the 'Start a meme that makes it onto the WGOM front page' medal."

  4. Oy. Between the Landsharks, Yazoos and Yuenglings last night I'm feeling a little ragged this morning.

    1. I had a tall glass of wine and then the Milkmaid surprised me with Inversion. I feel like I stopped about three swigs short of a wicked hangover.

  5. In case Citizens needed any more reminders why they should be wary about letting their kids play tackle football, here's another one.

    Now, I understand that life is both a terminal disease and comes with risk, so the lesson here is not to confine your kids to plastic bubbles. but at least be involved and make sure that the coaches are properly trained, and that THEY teach proper technique. Keep your head up, don't be a moron like those guys on tv who use their helmets as weapons. Don't be "tough" when it comes to concussion-like symptoms (because that means "concussion").

    1. I haven't come to the point where I would need to decide to let him play or not. I hope he just makes the decision himself. Maybe i'll just push him towards other fall sports.

    2. I remember hearing a while back that John Gagliardi had no-contact (or at least no-tackle) practices during the week, so the only time the players are tackling each other is game day. And he managed to be the winningest coach in NCAA football that way. Now, I'm not sure how that would work in D1, but in light of additional information on the risks of concussions, I wonder if his players being concussed less in practice led to an advantage during games.

      1. I really think rest is underrated. I've heard a lot of stories from friends that run marathons that they actually do better when they train less. Especially when they train less in the last few weeks leading up to the run.

        It's probably even more underrated in football where the "manly" attitude is over the top.

        1. it's not rest so much as collision avoidance in football. The "rest" example you cite is tapering -- avoiding over-training. Widely accepted.

          1. The "rest" example you cite is tapering -- avoiding over-training.

            I've heard stories of people that for various reasons - injury, work/family, etc. - barely ran at all leading up to a long run and actually ran their best times.

            I think rest is underrated when it comes to test preparation in school, too. My night before the test routine when I was in school was to watch a movie and get to bed early. Cramming is overrated.

            1. Cramming is overrated.

              i highly agree with this point. jane was just the opposite. she would stay up all night studying. i tried to tell her the best thing you could do was study well beforehand, get a good night's sleep, and then go test. she haaaaaaated the fact that i would barely study, relax the rest of the night, and still nail the test.

                1. exactly. if i'm not mistaken, for reasons still not fully understood, learned information is transferred from short-term to long-term memory during sleep (i forget if REM sleep has something to do with it). not only do you have lousy retention, you also have a poorly functioning brain due to lack of sleep.

                  1. I recently had to explain to my kids that "studying" for a test ≠ cramming. Rather, the idea is to keep up with the work along the way. THAT is studying.

              2. Worked pretty well for me until I got to my actuarial exams. Then I realized that I basically needed to be cramming for two months straight.

                The times I did pass my late essay actuarial exams, I did rest up well the day before. The night before one, I actually watched the resumption of the Phillies-over-Rays World-Series suspended game.

                I guess I did cram a lot for linear algebra and f--- if I can remember half of any of it.
                Stupid Matrices.

      2. yes, Gagliardi avoided contact in practice -- or at least that's the legend. But his players were always very well schooled in technique, and knew their plays and reads.

        1. And the best D3 players in the state would go there due to his reputation. I think "success breeds success" is especially true in a level where there are no scholarships and the players basically just choose where they want to play. Another reason to hate D3 sports! 🙂

        2. He still does, as a matter of fact. But I think, as Algonad states, St. John's gets players that already know the basics really well.

    1. I was shocked I was able to get that thing written by my deadline. I wrote it last night at about 9:00 pm.

      /past self on back

  8. I'm on a staycation for the next couple days. Both my family and my in-laws live 3+ hours from here so most of our vacation time is normally spent traveling to see family.

    I'm finding this vacation to be one of our best. Sleep in, run, eat a muffin made by my wife, play on the internet while drinking a cup of coffee... It's a good day.

    1. I took a staycation in August. It was nice. I'll probably do it again.
      Hell, I basically took a one-day staycation on Tuesday for my birthday.
      A whole lot less stressful than actually getting the whole 5.5 of us to a different location.

  9. I have an interesting non-politics politics story.

    There is a zoning meeting coming up soon. There is a business that wants to come into the community and a lot of people are rallying to keep them out. A friend/parent of child's friend emailed us about it. I replied with a question for her. She answered and I replied back with a couple questions. Her final email was that we need to "agree to disagree." I didn't make a single statement of opinion! I had serious questions that I thought I asked in a respectful way. I don't even think I disagree with her I was just asking for some information.

    This is basically where we are in political discourse. If you ask questions, you are somehow disagreeing. I feel like people feel they need to emotionally jump on one side of an issue or the other and anyone that doesn't somehow opposes them. It's sad.

    1. If you ask questions, you are somehow disagreeing.

      You don't convince many people if you don't answer questions, either. I've changed my mind on issues when people were patient and took the time to explain their side to me.

        1. I usually have no idea what I'm talking about! That's why I ask questions. If the other person is 100% convinced that his/her side is right, it should be easy to explain it to me, right?

          2. should be easy to explain it to me

            , says the guy with the Cletus gravatar. 'Hey, lookit -- it's that youngun what sorts them squiggles into words'

            1. Some folks'lll never eat a skunk
              But then again, some folks'll
              Like Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel

              1. Some folk'll never eat a skunk
                But then again, some folk'll
                Like Cletus, the slack-jawed yokel

                FTFY, to keep the rhyme, and the vernacular collective noun folk.

    2. This is basically where we are in political discourse. If you ask questions, you are somehow disagreeing. I feel like people feel they need to emotionally jump on one side of an issue or the other and anyone that doesn't somehow opposes them. It's sad.

      This is why avoiding politics isn't just something I do here. I almost never bring them up anywhere. The email forwards I get from family and in-laws are proof that discussion is something they have no interest in. They've made the decision to believe in wild conspiracy theories, and "facts" are not important.

      1. Agreed. Pretty much every time I give in to temptation and join a political discussion, I regret it. There are exceptions, of course, but most people (at least most people I hear discussing politics) aren't interested in hearing what I think. They're just interested in telling me what they think. So, if I just take a deep breath and keep my mouth shut, we're all happier.

      2. I usually don't talk too much politics (which I learned after talking a lot in college, at one point shortly post-college, I alienated one of my former sparring partners by crossing some line which I didn't know existed--It was 50% BS, and even that which wasn't was half-baked). I usually wait until I find a likelihood that I'll be agreeing with someone. And even then... I've gotten into big arguments with my FiL about stuff on which we agree. Seems I want a more nuanced way of coming to the same conclusions and I can't let him get there using simpler, if flawed, logic.

    3. I've just finished rewriting my teaching documents for the umpteenth time. The major focus of my philosophy, and artist statement, is critical thinking which isn't possible without asking difficult questions. One of the more frustrating effects of education reform, especially curriculum restriction at state institutions, is an active disdain for creative problem solving and critical thinking. The more universities are treated like a business where students purchase degrees the more students will demonstrate a lack of intellectual inquisitiveness. /forbiddenzone/

      1. The more universities are treated like a business where students purchase degrees the more students will demonstrate a lack of intellectual inquisitiveness.

        This is a large part of why I hated college. I felt like the expectation in most of my classes was memorization & regurgitation rather than learning & demonstrating learned knowledge. Obviously, they can afford to do this when a four year degree is a hard requirement on a large number of jobs. Not having my degree has hindered my career in pretty serious ways, despite a good amount of experience and nothing but glowing recommendations from former employers.

        I want to go back to school, but I want to do it to learn. I don't want to feel like I'm forced to spend $40,000+ in order to potentially have a few more opportunities open up to me. This is a very, very frustrating conundrum.

        1. I wish there was a better way to judge whether the person is educated or not but I really don't know of one. I agree with your points I just don't think it is easy for a potential employer to separate between good candidates or bad candidates so seeing a degree(s) or no degree becomes a proxy for being educated or not.

          I've always thought the resume/interview method of hiring employees is terribly inefficient and ineffective. It's also a process where they have pretty good knowledge of false positives (bad hires) but no data on false negatives (passing up better candidates). When I have interviewed, I'm always amazed if they start the process with an HR person that has absolutely no idea of the person's qualifications or the position. I've felt like it was more of a test of patience than anything else.

            1. Proposal? I'm the question guy not the answer guy?

              Actually, the more I think about it, the current system probably makes sense for most places of employment. I'm sure the cost of a false positive is much higher than a false negative.

              There are probably a few places where it matters more to hire the "best" candidate (cutting edge technology, research, etc.) and I'm guessing the process is different there.

              1. I'm not sure if I count as working on cutting edge technology (supercomputers), but it's not all that different. Interviews here usually take about four or five hours though because people from various teams take turns grilling interviewing the interviewee. As the interviewee, it can be exhausting continually explaining things, but it is nice to have someone who knows the topics.

                1. Yeah, for the job I currently work, I was interviewed by my future boss, and two of my future co-workers. Easily the best (and most intimidating) interview I've had.

                  1. I always just figured this is how interviews were done. Every interview I've had over the past 5-6 years has been a first interview, either by phone or in person, with an HR rep to get the annoying personality related crap out of the way, then an interview with someone in engineering, and usually multiple people affected by the role being filled.

                    1. Every other one I'd had was by HR faculty or just the one main boss of the department. One would think that they would try to avoid this sort of thing, because there were plenty of people that would come in at my previous job, and the rest of us could tell within minutes that they had no business there.

          2. Having been on both ends of an interview, it is a terrible process. As an interviwer, I always felt empathy for people who were introverted as I am fairly introverted myself. I saw people throw out decent candidates because they didn't speak loudly enough, smelled like cigarette smoke (a smoker is the one who was so upset about this, by the way), or just looked "weird." Some of the worst interviews I ever conducted were wtih people with the most impressive resumes. On the other side of the coin I'm a terrible interviewee. I'm a fat introvert who has trouble speaking positively about himself.

            Proposing an alternatve to the process is very difficult, given how ingrained it is in our culture. I think being able to find out someone's personality through an interview is a positive thing but it's far from everything. Again, some of the people who had great interviews were terrible on the job. I think some sort of a skills assessment would be a good addition into an interview. This and the interview could be weighted. The hard part would be ensuring the skills assessment is applicable to the job. My first two jobs I largely got because I was able to type well and had a base level of Microsoft Office knowledge, despite those skills being 1% of what was required of me for those jobs.

            1. I've always thought a trial period would be interesting. I know it wouldn't work for some positions. I know even from the employee perspective there were times I wish I could hit the do-over button and get the heck out without it reflecting negatively on my resume.

              I guess the consultant/temp model is a decent one in this way.

              And I agree with Zack on the interview process from both sides. The things people focus on in an interview many times have no bearing on the person's ability to do the job well.

              1. The trial period thing is great in my opinion. I was a contractor on my team before I was hired on fulltime. The interviews for both were way less stressful than interviewing for an FTE position cold. The first one was for the contractor position that wasn't all that important, so it was pretty informal. The second one was pretty informal too because I had already been working for several months with the people who were interviewing me. I don't think I would have been hired for my current position if I didn't have a foot in the door already.

                1. 22!

                  Okay, I was first hired as a paid intern. Then I showed that I could do the work and pass an exam and was hired full-time. We haven't done that since, though. Too much demand for good actuarial-program graduates (which I was not). We did have some un-graduated interns that we were probably hoping to hire upon graduation, but then we didn't want to, given their work habits.

              2. I do know why I got hired. When my prospective boss (still my boss) started talking about some reinsurance arcana, I got excited and wanted to know more about that. I've got a good feeling that it was this unscripted genuine interest that got me the job.

                I've been an interviewer for three entry-level actuarial positions at my company. Given that passing actuarial exams is a major part of the job, academic success is a good indicator of some of the skills we're looking for, and everyone interviewing has already been screened for enough success at that. I'm pretty sure that 90% of the people we've interviewed could do the job. In interviews I've looked for the other things: whether they'd fit in well in the office, what they can show me about work habits and meeting deadlines, familiarity with Excel (not needed--I had hardly any--but it helps), and whether they show any actual interest in what we do.

            2. The hard part would be ensuring the skills assessment is applicable to the job.

              This. I am hamstrung by a civil service system. HR people (and we have a very good HR director) know next to nothing about what makes a good researcher.

        2. I feel your pain. The program I was in last year was totally worth the monitory investment in relation to the education I received, but there were also individuals there who weren't interested in creating a learning environment. I think that you have to determine what you want from the course work, and then drive the class in that direction through discussion and questions. I know it's cliche to say that college is what you make it, but I've found, both as a student and an instructor, the best courses are the ones in which the instructor and students are engaged and inquisitive.

          As for Algonad's point above, the barriers to entry often are just arbitrary hurdles which is frustrating (I'm dealing with this issue now, I have my BFA, MFA, Tamarind, and yet I still need to make the case to HR that I am qualified for the position being advertised in order to make it into the hands of the search committee....)

        3. This is a large part of why I hated college. I felt like the expectation in most of my classes was memorization & regurgitation rather than learning & demonstrating learned knowledge.

          Having been on the other side of the lectern for much of my adult life, I can tell you that very few college students at big, state universities (I taught at two Tier I institutions) demonstrate interest in doing anything other than memorizing and regurgitating. They are frightened by being challenged to think. Thinking is hard. Regurgitation is something they do almost every friday and saturday night.

          Part of the problem is institutional, of course. If you are stuck in a cattle-call lecture course with hundreds of other kids, you aren't gonna get much personal interaction with a professor (at least not without effort), and you aren't likely to face much in the way of real challenges in the assessment process. So most take the easy route and just play the game.

          It is friggin' hard work to write a test that is both intellectually challenging AND easy to grade. Faculty at big research universities may get hired to lecture, but they get paid to publish, not to teach undergraduates. Grad students, who often do the grading and teach small-ish sections for core courses, aren't there to teach either. Many do it well, but they don't have enough hours in the day to attend to the needs of 90+ students AND do the things they need to do to prepare themselves for a career as a faculty member at a research university.

          I struggled with the mission my whole academic career. I tried to orient my writing assignments toward short, focused, thinking-and-communicating exercises, figuring that every liberal arts/social science student needs to know how to write a 3-page memo. Just. Write. Me. A. Three. Paragraph. Introduction. Hook, thesis, roadmap. Many, many, many students struggled with those concepts.

              1. I'll second this, obviously. Bring in the two finalists and have them trade off "fortunately" and "unfortunately" until one doesn't get an answer in quickly enough!

          2. Faculty at big research universities may get hired to lecture, but they get paid to publish, not to teach undergraduates

            This would be the reason I chose to attend an undergraduate institution off the D1 research path. In fact, this is probably the reason I apply to work for schools like my undergraduate institution.

            1. and why we've been saving for almost the Boy's whole life (and all of the Girl's) for college. I would never choose to send my kids to a big research university (or any big state university) for their undergrad experiences.

              You can get a good education anywhere if you are determined to do so. But there is a bushel basket full of reasons to avoid big schools.

              1. I went to a Division II state university. Very cheap, and my professors all seemed to care about me doing well.

                1. Same here, only it was Division III. If I ever go back for an advanced degree, I'll probably do UW-Madison, though.

                  1. I got my Master's at the U. I actually felt the professors I had that had done the most research were some of the better ones. Maybe it's because I really value evidenced-based practice in the social sciences, but they still seemed passionate about their field.

              2. Big worked for me because I was reasonably motivated, got into an honors track for the intro courses, and got a decent scholarship to go there. Coming from a small K-12 school, I think there were many things that were good about the big school experience. Some anonymity was a little liberating after feeling under the microscope for quite some time. Advising could have been better, but I could have been more aggressive about seeking out a good advisor.

          3. do the things they need to do to prepare themselves for a career as a faculty member at a research university

            That's why the grad students are there? 😉 Sorry, just a pet peeve of mine from grad school that all the faculty seemed to operate under the assumption that all the grad students wanted to grow up to be just like them, when in a global sense, there just aren't enough faculty positions for each student to have a career as a faculty member at a research university. Not everyone in AAA is going to the majors.

            Faculty at big research universities may get hired to lecture, but they get paid to publish, not to teach undergraduates.

            I would even go so far as to say that they really get hired to publish. When they brought in prospective faculty to our department, they gave a colloquium as an audition, not a lecture to first-year undergrads. Obviously all such institutions are rather, um, cost conscious these days, so this idea has no possibility of seeing the light of day in the near future, but I think a lot of the big research institutions would do well to make at least a few separate teaching faculty hires. It doesn't do anyone much good to pretend that good researchers are good teachers.

            Grad students, who often do the grading and teach small-ish sections for core courses, aren't there to teach either.

            In my department, they did everything they could to limit our teaching/grading workload to 20 hours/week. Loathe to actually log my time, I think I was usually under this, but occasionally over. The biggest hurdle for me is that when grading for a large class, the work didn't come in 4 hours a day, it came in a big 40-60-hour chunk every 2-3 weeks. The worst assignment I ever had was grading every mid-term and final in a 200-student section of intro physics, especially since the deadline to submit grades for the final examp was 3-4 days after the exam itself. Anyway, my point was going to be that often during grad school I found it easier to focus on teaching rather than research, because even though the teaching didn't really excite me, it seemed like my teaching work impacted more people than my research ever would.

      2. The more universities are treated like a business where students purchase degrees the more students will demonstrate a lack of intellectual inquisitiveness.

        From where I sat most recently in the process, it wasn't so much the lack of intellectual inquisitiveness that bothered me, but the implication that they had hired me (a grad student, even) to teach them, and as such, I was working for them and they were my customers, and the customer's always right, right? So how dare I suggest the customer isn't working hard enough or needs to actually do the assigned work.

        1. I agree with this as well. A sense of entitlement can be a hard beast to tame, particularly if you're just a graduate teaching assistant.

          I just read an article on the chronicle of higher ed about D1 PhDs telling their advisers that they weren't interested in finding a job at a research intensive university, and how the reaction is shocking (shocking(!)) to their advisers. Dr. Chop left her research intensive environment with a sense that she wanted to teach at a school that could find a hybrid between research and teaching. Thus far we've been stuck in W. Texas at a school that is more inclined to teachin' and writin', but we're working on getting out. Her advisers told her not to take employment unless the school was perfect. Our student loan debt disagreed.

          1. I went to grad school with every intention of getting a liberal arts college job. I got diverted for various reasons into the research university track. It was a mistake, as my personality and interests would have been much better suited to the liberal arts world. But that's reflective of the whole grad school experience, I think. Ph.D. programs are all about asexual reproduction of advisors.

    5. It is sad when you can't actually discuss issues like that. I've always found that the best way to affirm (or improve) my beliefs is by exploring and defending them.

  10. Has anybody expressed any opinions about the new Wilco album/disc/group of digital tracks (I'm not sure what the kids call it these days). I feel like the first half is pretty good but I get bored by the second half. If I actually owned the record, I don't think I'd flip it often. Maybe it will grow on me.

    1. i listened to it when they were streaming it on their website. i remember liking the first track and the last track. i'll most likely pick it up soon.

    2. I agree that the later half lags a bit and was a bit disappointed. It was streaming on the Wilco site last weekend again and was starting to grow on me. I think I will definitely give it a few more listens. Also the first song absolutely does rock.

  12. as there was no book post this week, i'll just say here i got through the first four books in a little over two months (which surprised me with their size and my schedule), and i'm going to start a dance with dragons today.

    1. I've read a few WGOM-recommended books in the past few months. The Turnaround by Pelecanos, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Haddon, Freedom by Franzen.

      I think I enjoyed Curious Incident... the most. It just seemed so unique. I liked the other two, also. I'll wait for book day to go into further details now that I know how to use the Spoiler!

      1. I've read a few WGOM-recommended books in the past few months.

        I'm actually in the middle of American Gods!

        1. Again, my apologies for skipping this month's book post. I promise promise promise to have one ready to go for Nov. 7. I might even finish the book by then.

        5. I forgot to mention that I am about 200 pages into American Gods. I'm on the fence right now.

    2. The new Murakami novel 1Q84 comes out next Tuesday. My copy is ordered from Amazon. I have no idea when I'll get around to reading it, but I'm really excited.

    1. I'm surprised about Dumatrait. The Twins used him consistently last year despite his underwhelming numbers. Not that I disagree with the move.

    2. That's a lot of 40 man roster spots, almost one for every closer who's going to be a free agent! Billy Smith is going to be like a kid on Christmas.

        1. With all the holes, this should be an exciting offseason. However, I'm mostly just nervous about what bumblin' Billy will do this year.

      1. if you look up "brian dinkelman" on google, the second suggested search is "brian dinkelman wife".

        1. I was amused to see that a while back.

          It used to be that if you searched "spookymilk" the second option was "spookymilk [redacted]." I got tied up in a story that didn't even belong to me.

          1. sorry, had to edit. Didn't want people to come back again, even if the old site is where it's all at

    4. It's almost as if the 2011 Twins had a bunch of minor league players taking up space on the 40-man roster.

        1. I disagree. We followed by had implies ownership. Now, if you would kindly either finish mowing the grass or GOML.

    2. Said organization also traded for Vernon Wells. When Billy does that, yes, he does deserve to be sacked immediately. He hasn't though. Besides, even though Friedman is a good GM, it's the entire Rays front office that evaluates the players for Friedman. That is what the Twins would want.

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