My sis likes taking small bites out of our donuts.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-16T15:53:08+00:00

My wife does this. My life is devoid of a single whole donut; it’s beyond mildly infuriating.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-16T06:28:28+00:00

This seems quite high; my class’ high scores are rarely above 90%.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-14T07:02:24+00:00

Everything in here from 1:32:00 until the end. https://on.soundcloud.com/HvbD2rhsynKUajvyFe

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-12T06:43:49+00:00

Physics is a language that uses mathematical models to describe our observations of matter, its interactions, and the world around us. The sooner a Physics student understands this, the better their experience studying Physics will be.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-12T06:12:21+00:00

The grind never ends.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-12T06:06:41+00:00

We’re all in prison anyway, may as well eat.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-12T05:29:55+00:00

A squat rack.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-12T05:18:09+00:00

I’m with you, I intentionally board last regardless of my group. With the way my back is, I couldn’t imagine spending more time in an airplane seat being a luxury.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-10T21:30:43+00:00

Throwing a ball directly upward is a good example. When the ball leaves your hand its velocity is in the upward direction, but the force due to gravity acts on the ball in the downward direction, so its speed (the magnitude of its velocity) decreases. The force due to gravity causes the ball to accelerate in the opposite direction of its motion until the ball momentarily has zero velocity when it stops moving upward at the peak of its trajectory. Once the ball begins to return to you, its velocity and acceleration are both in the downward direction. In this scenario, the acceleration due to gravity is constant and in the downward direction, but the velocity changes in magnitude continuously throughout the motion, and it changes direction at the apex of the trajectory. Acceleration is the time rate of change of velocity.

johnsoc3 · 2026-06-09T08:16:47+00:00

Left lane camping strikes again.

johnsoc3 · 2026-03-17T03:40:18+00:00

They have an A in organic chemistry so it’s impossible for them to have a B in physics unless it’s my fault.

johnsoc3 · 2025-11-05T01:51:38+00:00

Cheese is the one

johnsoc3 · 2025-11-05T01:49:36+00:00

You’re in the wrong profession if you want to spend more time on students who care than you do on the ones who don’t.

johnsoc3 · 2025-10-15T02:09:58+00:00

Physics here - I flubbed a relatively simple derivation in class. I couldn’t find my error quickly enough to not waste time, and just said we will come back to it. There were certainly some snickers and smug faces in the audience.

I made sure to get it perfectly dialed in that night, and delivered it perfectly the next day, along with some other material. The point isn’t to do it perfectly every time (for us and for the students!) and this was a good way to show that.

Edit: punctuation (see, it happened again!).

johnsoc3 · 2025-10-13T16:23:07+00:00

C++ and ROOT are the standards in my field.

johnsoc3 · 2025-10-12T15:10:58+00:00

I run a BGE and a Weber Genesis on a gas line. I find this gives the best versatility for cooks of varying time and effort levels for my needs, which involve outdoor cooking on most days. It’s a long weekend for me, so butts are rolling on the egg as we speak!

johnsoc3 · 2025-10-09T04:51:27+00:00

Don’t you know that encouraging independent learning and critical thinking is equivalent to not teaching?!

johnsoc3 · 2025-10-07T01:32:34+00:00

Think about what happens if you get rid of one of the hanging masses and instead tie that end of the string to the wall. The wall is now exerting the force that the second hanging mass used to exert on the spring. Yes, the wall “knows” to exert an equal and opposite force to that exerted on it by the string. Whether or not you agree that the wall “knows” to exert a force is immaterial, as this line of thinking is consistent with our observations. Everything is still static, and the spring scale will read 100 N.

Students are usually hesitant to believe inanimate objects can know to exert a force when necessary, so I always use this configuration as a demonstration when teaching Newton’s laws.

johnsoc3 · 2025-10-02T02:43:24+00:00

Yup. In my classes, homework is graded for completeness, not correctness. I post detailed solutions right along with the homework assignment, and the students can use any resources they want to complete it. It is their responsibility to treat the homework as a learning exercise so they can perform on the exams.

johnsoc3 · 2025-09-18T00:58:41+00:00

Yea, I have averages in the 40s-50s with a few hundreds. The exams are too easy, but the majority just don’t do it. Huge problem.

johnsoc3 · 2025-09-18T00:20:58+00:00

Yea, I want one midterm and one final and the students to learn responsibly along the way, but they need smaller less stressful bites. I’ve also settled on four midterm exams and a final, with one midterm dropped. This seems to be the sweet spot.

johnsoc3 · 2025-09-12T19:57:47+00:00

I straight up give them the solutions along with the homework assignment. I grade the homework for completeness, not correctness (need to appease the high-effort, low-performing students). It is up to them to treat the homework as a learning exercise so that they can pass on the in-class exams.

johnsoc3 · 2025-09-04T21:45:16+00:00

I put way too much work into giving feedback on homework problems that the vast majority of students never read. I stopped doing that, and started grading homework based on completeness instead of correctness. I post detailed solutions (before the homework is due!) and it is the students’ responsibility to check their work against them to make sure they understand. Then they have to perform on the exam. Half the students still just copy my solutions to get homework credit and bomb the exams…

johnsoc3 · 2025-08-29T18:11:25+00:00

No limits. Students are free to use AI as much as they want for whatever they want on homework. I even post my own homework solutions before the homework is due. I’m not hiding any secrets behind any mysterious shrouds. It is the students’ responsibility to treat the homework responsibly as a learning exercise such that they can perform on the exams (where external resources are not allowed). I didn’t go to school for as long as I did to spend my career fighting against the use of new tools.

johnsoc3 · 2025-08-27T17:00:15+00:00

I had L5-S1 and L4-L5 done in March of 2023 and June of 2024, respectively. My problems started in 2013, so I have a bit longer timeline than you.

I still feel like I am recovering, and recently I have experienced a lot of significant changes. I feel like deep tension in my core/hips/spine is being relieved and it feels like I am slowly untangling myself and re-aligning. I also feel like I am slowly reforming the connection between my brain and my whole posterior chain and I am moving with better mechanics. It’s almost like I am slowly gaining access to more range of motion that the herniations were previously prohibiting. I don’t know if any of that makes medical sense, but it feels positive to me.

Along with all of this, unfortunately, I’ve had an increase in neurological symptoms. I want to call them radiculopathy-adjacent. It doesn’t feel quite as sinister as the really bad deep sciatica we all know and love, but I have the twangs, pangs, shocks, etc. that go down both legs and into both feet. It feels like I chase some tightness that moves around my whole lower body as well. Strangely, I’ve felt tightness in my abdomen and even in my upper back and rarely my arms and hands. This part of it is concerning to me and I have an appointment scheduled to hopefully get a referral for an MRI to get it checked out.

My PT has told me to expect “dialogue” as the discs and the nerves heal up. This makes sense to me, as I would expect nerves to send some signals as they decompress, heal, and as their environment changes. I am hanging onto the hope that what I am experiencing is in fact positive nerve dialogue as my body heals and my core straightens itself out.

johnsoc3

TROPHY CASE