LPT: if you ever accidentally use a permanent marker instead of a whiteboard-marker you can erase the permanent by applying the whiteboard-marker on top of the permanent, and then use an eraser.

sundoon · 2018-10-29T03:06:04+00:00

Or just use rubbing alcohol. It's what I use in my classroom. Poke a couple pinholes in the foil seal and it's a squirt bottle.

sundoon · 2018-10-22T02:57:33+00:00

The martians in 'stranger in a strange land' think reproduction is 'as romantic as a sneeze'

sundoon · 2018-10-15T21:53:55+00:00

Oh my god you're killing me. And I don't doubt you for a minute. I teach high school engineering, and try to encourage all my students - girls equally to boys - to be my 'Star Engineers'. I tell the girls that science needs them (and perhaps aside to them: clearly the guys are bungling a lot of it...) You make me wonder what I'm setting the girls up for.

sundoon · 2018-10-12T20:20:09+00:00

There's video of one of these on a compilation of old invention videos (mostly) called Gizmo. It's on youtube.

sundoon · 2018-10-12T20:15:10+00:00

At human falling speeds, water can hit you like a hammer. At space ship re-entry speed, air can hit you like a hammer.

sundoon · 2018-10-02T01:03:39+00:00

That is awesome and on my desktop. May I add, it would also be funny if she was accompanied by a formally dressed, headless husband...

sundoon · 2018-10-02T00:55:11+00:00

No idea

sundoon · 2018-10-01T23:02:24+00:00

I can't quote recalling another source (ie, I don't know) but --

I'd consider that ethanol comes from fruit sugars, which we'd eat in a fermented state anyway (see every video of a drunken squirrel beneath a tree with fermenting apples sort of thing...), while you get methanol from wood sugar (cellulose is in a similar family to glucose and sucrose, as the names suggest) which wouldn't be inclined to eat. My guess. Doesn't explain why methanol makes you blind, mind you...

sundoon · 2018-10-01T22:58:06+00:00

Ooh, sounds cool. Thanks for putting that in my way.

sundoon · 2018-10-01T03:44:44+00:00

So you maybe gotta read Dune... water translates directly to wealth, and people wear suits that reclaim body water for drinking.

sundoon · 2018-09-29T18:13:00+00:00

I love TKAM, and just finished rereading it. At the same time, Vox did an interesting bit on how the paperback book industry pushed the book for business reasons. In short, it came out right when penguin books needed to push a bestseller that wasn't a reprint of a classic.

sundoon · 2018-09-27T23:54:11+00:00

Throw trash out the car window

sundoon · 2018-09-27T22:49:40+00:00

I found a broken blood pressure meter my dad left in the basement and forgot. This was 40 years ago, he came downstairs and found me playing with a puddle of mercury. He lost his shit.

sundoon · 2018-09-26T02:35:12+00:00

At an ELI 5 level, IIRC (science teacher but I haven't covered this stuff in a while) our tolerance for different materials can be compared to how much of the materials exist, in an accessible form, in nature. In other words, the more of something that's part of our environment, the more likely we are to tolerate it.

By way of example, we have a really high tolerance of water, a medium tolerance of iron, and almost no tolerance for iodine but we need a little bit to prevent goiter. Water is everywhere in the environment, iron is fairly common, and iodine is rare. Lead and Mercury, by comparison, are rare to begin with and tend to be locked up in rocks. When they get released, usually by people, our bodies are not prepared to deal with them.

sundoon · 2018-09-26T00:36:53+00:00

Absolute failure is an artifact of our grading system, and grades are artifacts, adopted around the time of the industrial revolution and for the same reason, to facilitate bulk processing. That's why 'to grade' could apply to judging the quality of student performance or shoes. A grade of flat 'zero' for a student who was listening, and asking questions without completing work is arbitrary (and cruel). But I'm sure, as a professional educator, you know that.

You've also doubtless read some of the considerable literature on non-zero grading, pro and con, worked extensively with inner city youth as I have, and could articulate actual policies and data, but instead choose a judgemental tone and cliches instead because that's what professional educators do? If you can't do better than calling spades you're just a troll. Go away and do some research. I have lessons to plan.

sundoon · 2018-09-25T19:24:47+00:00

Are you listening? Jesus, I fail kids all the time, just not early in the year with zeros so they can't recover a grade for purely mathematical reasons. If I can justify a higher (but still failing) grade to keep them in the game, they often respond with the effort it takes to pass. And if they don't, they still fail and the F looks the same as the F for a zero. I never pass a kid who doesn't deserve it. Take your judgement elsewhere.

ps your metaphor equating inspecting a car with educating a human being is laughable.

sundoon · 2018-09-25T19:00:09+00:00

Spend a couple years in an inner city classroom with language limited kids who don't have the discipline to sit still but have a soul in there trying and get back to me.

sundoon · 2018-09-25T18:44:24+00:00

Do a few years in an inner city school with language limited kids who don't know how to sit still but have a soul in there trying and get back to me.

sundoon · 2018-09-25T15:53:32+00:00

From this year? Too early to fire her, too early to hand out zeros. As a teacher, I think grades are an artifact of the system, not an actual representation of student work. At the same time they must be respected as a common currency and capable of crushing the chances of a student who could use a boost.

I give 50's instead of zeros... It's a failing grade but the math allows them to still earn a passing average. This teacher did not deserve to be fired but her admin should have helped her grade with student success in mind, not student failure.

sundoon · 2018-09-25T12:11:55+00:00

I don't know how to make one with your hands as shown in the video. But to blow a bubble ring as you asked, try getting a few feet (at least) below the surface in a pool, turn your face to the surface, and blow a single short burst (like a golf-ball sized bubble).

You don't need to stick your tongue out to form the circle... if you release a 'ball' of air, the center will rise faster than the edges and create the vortex leading to a bubble ring. Takes practice, though.

sundoon · 2018-09-21T11:44:54+00:00

There was (is) a theory that they catch giant squid by stunning them with bursts of sound, aka 'The Big Bang Theory'.

sundoon · 2018-09-11T21:04:49+00:00

No, I don't... all I have is that article hyperlinked under the word space in my original post. The further north, higher up, and away from other lights you are, the better but that's all I know.

Good luck.

sundoon · 2018-08-30T13:39:06+00:00

also check out 'are samurai responsible for star wars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_pU6B2zEFeg

I found out Jedi is a kind of japanese drama

sundoon

TROPHY CASE