Friends and Feeds

In this study by the Urban Institute, punks freshly graduated from college and paid about $30,000 per year were found to be more effective as schoolteachers than experienced union members who draw $80,000 of taxpayer blood for their 9 months of work each year.

Can it be that experience is worthless? I have taught classes from a pre-existing syllabus using a proven textbook. The very first time that I did the class, I worked a bit harder than I would have in subsequent classes, but probably managed to be 85 percent as effective as I could possibly have been. I have taught classes where I was one of the textbook authors and a designer of the syllabus. In this case, experience teaching was hugely valuable and resulted in massive changes to the syllabus, course structure, and textbook (fortunately online in HTML format and thus easily changed).

If public school teachers don’t write or choose their textbooks, it might not make any sense to pay experienced teachers more than beginners. http://www.cpsd.us/Web/HR/2008CTA_UnitA_Salary.pdf shows the salaries for the Cambridge Public Schools, some of the least effective in Massachusetts as measured by student achievement tests. A 22-year-old with a bachelor’s earns $41,000 for 9 months. A teacher with 11 years in the system would earn $69,000. That 11-year veteran who picked up online master’s and Ph.D. degrees in education would earn $81,500 (presumably there is no evidence to support the theory that a degree from University of Phoenix makes someone a better teacher).

If we wanted to spend the same amount of money every year, maybe it would be smarter simply to pay all teachers the same salary, e.g., $60,000 for 9 months of work. We would thereby attract a more able class of young college graduates and if after 7 years they got sick of the job they wouldn’t be tempted to stay because their salary was due to go up so dramatically.

A bicylist waits for a southbound Yellow Menace train to clear the 9th & Division St. crossing.

Dust Mite gazes skeptically at the remains of my Macbook, which suffered the True Death tonight when I gave it an overly enthusiastic twist in an attempt to quiet the whining of the hideous backlight.

Well, shit, that’s not particularly useful.

I suppose I can always repurpose the carcass as a server (I can still telnet into the box, so I didn’t manage to kill the cpu or disk) but I am now without a desktop machine except for this horrid windows box I'm typing at right now. But for desktop purposes, I could replace the carcass with…

1. A Macbook Pro

   pro

   • lcd backlight, so (hopefully) no hideous backlight whining.
   • bigger hard drive.

   con

   • US$1839
   • Leopard (the clown car of macosx)

2. A Macbook Air

   pro

   • lcd backlight.
   • sexier than computerly possible.

   con

   • US$1691
   • Leopard

3. An iMac.

   pro

   • cheaper than a macbook air or a macbook pro
   • sturdier than a macbook
   • slightly bigger screen

   con

   • Ugly ugly ugly
   • not a notebook, so it probably does not do suspend but will just sit there sucking up power unless I remember to shut it off.
   • doesn’t have an LCD backlight, so may develop the hideous whine.
   • Leopard.
   • NOT PORTABLE.

4. An external monitor for the existing Macbook

   pro

   • fairly cheap
   • don’t have to migrate things off the macbook

   con

   • With an external monitor and keyboard, all of the lovely power-saving features of the macbook go right out the window.
   • See my previous commentary about the hideous whine.
   • fairly ugly.

5. Scrap the macbook (I guess I could drop a vanilla Darwin onto the box and just use the open source components of MacOS) and install the OS on this Toshiba Tecra.

   pro

   • All I need to buy is a DVD burner and some DVD blanks

   con

   • No guarantees that it would work
   • a lot of the hardware in the Toshiba may not work correctly.

6. Give up on MacOS and go back to Microsoft Windows.

   pro

   • I hear that they are very very nice in the local insane asylum.

   con

   • I'm sure that Microsoft Windows is a lovely operating system, but it’s not Unix and it would drive me insane.

7. Use Linux! And Gnome! Or KDE!
   • No. Just no. If I wanted to use a clown-car GUI, I'd use Windows and theme the fuck out of it.

If you’ve been wondering why Windows Vista is such a disappointment and thinking that maybe if Nathan Myhrvold still worked for M$FT it might not have sucked so much, this New Yorker article on Myhrvold’s innovation company is for you.

Interesting New Yorker article on modern agribusiness and its effects on what we eat every day: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2008/05/19/080519crat_atlarge_wilson

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/17/business/worldbusiness/17engineers.html

The Grover St pedestrian tunnel, seen through my Zenitar fisheye.

The people posting the image below in discussion forums in response to a new California Supreme Court ruling that laws barring same-sex couples from the institution of marriage are unconstitutional (specifically, that they violated the Californian Constitution’s guarantee of equality).

Image source: via Pam Spaulding

Oh what a funny bunch of jokers they are. Not.

I once read an SF novel (and I may be somewhat misremembering, paraphrasing and interpolating here) where almost as a tangent there was a reference to the history of a particular community, and the stranger was told that once they were of many tribes who hated each other, but one day some benevolent aliens infected them all with some nanobots which had the following effect: any time that someone started thinking harmful thoughts directed towards any other living thing, the nanobots sent that angry, hateful person to sleep for half an hour. What this had meant was that the only people who could be relied upon to get things done were the peaceful people, who could no longer be bullied or harmed by the hateful people - they just stepped around them and got on with getting things done. Eventually even the hateful people learnt to think in different ways so that they could stay awake and enjoy life. There are times when I would really love for someone to invent such a nanobot.

What else in the news has been getting on people’s nerves lately?

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You, With the Pen,
Stop and Listen...

If you can tell me what the AP Stylebook is for, chances are you have had some journalism training in your life. If you know that you are supposed to spell out numbers one through nine and use numerals for 10 or more, and if you – like all aviators – crave Bratwurst and airplane fumes towards the end of July, then this post is for you:

Aero-News Network is once again accept applications for stringer positions, for their coverage of EAA Airventure Oshkosh 2008. If you have a background in college journalism, a pilot's license or a strong will to get one, and a thirst for knowledge, ANN is inviting you to see Airventure "from the inside" if you can write and are handy with a camera.

If this sounds like a great way to experience the finest air show in the world, ANN wants you:

"This year, we're looking for print writers, of course, as well as photographers...but we're especially seeking people with broadcasting skills, in either radio OR television/video production -- including people with experience in shooting and/or producing video segments. At events like Oshkosh, we work in shifts to cover the most ground, have time to write it all up, and to digest the work in an efficient flow. There'll be plenty of fun to go around, as we cover hundreds of vendors and thousands of aircraft, pilots, and builders."

And if you do great work for ANN, you might just become a part of their "A" team:

"While we're eager to speak with all people who apply for special events coverage, we're also looking for people who may be interested, down the road, in becoming a full-or-part-time ANN staffer. Events like Oshkosh (and NBAA, and AOPA Expo, and AEA, and Copperstate, and Reno...) provide fantastic on-the-job experience and training for what the ANN staff does every single day of the week. We're looking for a real "team" player...someone who thinks outside the cockpit, as it were, and isn't afraid to share new ideas... no matter how crazy they may seem."

So you say journalism is not your thing? If you have boundless energy and want to help one of the finest aviation news sites in Wisconsin this summer, they may have you in their sights:

"We also need a high-energy "gopher" for Oshkosh -- someone who can be counted on to run the numerous errands, arrange some meetings, and keep us up to date on whatever we may be missing."

If any of this sounds interesting, email ANN's Editors here and send them story and photo samples, a little background and what your spring summer 2008 availability will be. If you have audio or video skills, send them clips of your work and also a list of the software and equipment that you're comfortable working with.

I have been a paid journalist and freelance writer for 30 years, and have worked in just about every part of the journalism food chain, from Sports Editor to photographer to magazine designer to Public Information Officer. I know good journalism when I see it, and ANN is the real deal. The people that put this site out are real reporters, a far cry from many blogs – including my own – that just comment on the aviation world at large instead of burning virtual shoe leather chasing down a story.

You're going to need a bigger one...

From Ben Laurie: Bypass the firewall by bypassing everything but the PCI bus.

I don't do a lot of interviews, but for reasons that are best left a mystery, I've done a whole bunch recently.

One of those interviews was with a podcast called This Week in Geek. My episode is now up, so if you wanted to listen to me talk about geeky shit and don't want to wait for a new Radio Free Burrito, your long painful wait has come to an end.

Hey, when you're done, check out the Radio Free Burrito Mix Tape. My iPod thought I should hear it recently, and it totally doesn't suck.

George W. Bush went to Saudi Arabia yesterday and asked for the owners of the country to do him a favor by increasing oil production.  King Abdullah refused him.

According to the May 5, 2008, F.D.R. wrote to King Ibn Saud in 1943 asking for help in bringing peace to Palestine.  The King responded that he “was prepared to receive anyone of any religion except (repeat except) a Jew.”

If you start a long rambling description of a problem, and in the middle of it I interrupt you to say “fixed three builds ago”, that means that I understood the description, and realized it was identical to a problem I recently fixed. Your action at that point should be to go back and upgrade your system, not continue with your rambling description. Because otherwise I’ll be forced to put my earbuds back in and resume listening to Glen Gould and ignore you until you go away.

Thanks.

I'm supposed to go to Toronto next. I find this out while sitting in the hotel lobby, so I fire up the laptop but while it's booting use the USA Today method to determine this will take me twelve hours. I'll make two stops, because I want the transborder leg to be short. That leaves less to go wrong on a leg that has legal implications if I don't land where I said I would.

"Don't do it all in one day," my boss says. They don't want me arriving in Toronto too soon, perhaps because it's cheaper to have me stay in a hotel somewhere in middle America than it is to put me up in the big smoke. I acknowledge that and pick some place I've never heard of for my overnight. "You can go somewhere more interesting than that!" I'm told. And finally I get it. Go have some fun. Is this not the best job in the world?

I look again at the cities on the USA Today map that could be my stopping points. Pierre, I recall, is the capital city of South Dakota. And South Dakota, according to some factoid lodged in my head, is where one finds Mount Rushmore, that mountain with the likenesses of four US presidents carved into it. That might be fun to see. I Google it and discover that it's in Rapid City, South Dakota. Rapid City it is. It has the amusing bonus of the airport identifier KRAP.

I know that I must be making many a hobby pilot cringe, or seethe or something. Here I am being paid to do what many of my private pilot readers only dream about doing. I'm flying right across the country, in no great rush. I can choose where I stop, take in the sights, have some good food, and the amazing part is that I get to do it again next month, so I can afford to choose where to stop on a whim, instead of after detailed consideration, to get the most out of what for someone else might be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I'm never sure whether acknowledging good fortune like this is rubbing it in, or just showing that I don't take what I have for granted. This is every bit as fun as working on my commercial licence, all those years and hours ago. And now someone else pays the gas and hotel bills.

I check the NOTAMs and weather, sort out the oxygen, stow everything that should be stowed, and launch over the mountains. I didn't take a lot of pictures on this leg. I think it was turbulent most of the way. There are a lots of mountains on this trip. Also lots of Wyoming. And Wyoming has a lot of mountains, so those aren't mutually exclusive. I like to look out the window at the lakes and mountains and roads and then match them up on the VFR chart with their names. I see Provo, Utah, although I'm not sure I was ever overhead the state of Utah. sometimes I think civic groups should get out there and paint the borders in bright colours.

It's actually difficult to see from aviation charts which state you are overflying, because although they mark the borders, it's quite subdued, with the names of the states each side in small type by the border. You have to unfold the chart and hunt around for the nearest border, and sometimes I've missed a border, or a state has an odd shape so I'm not where I think I am. I know where I am on the map it's just that the map doesn't make a big deal of what state any particular point is in. It's like right now you know where you are, but not necessarily your local magnetic variation, or the class of airspace above you.

One of my GPS units shows names of states, at the right level of zoom, so when I get really curious I'll use that. With time, the mountains subside into hills and daylight fades into night. I descend into Rapid City overhead a floodlit parking area that I suspect is the famous mountain itself, but I can't see the faces from where I am, and I don't want Team America to shoot me down, so I don't try to look. I find the airport, land, roll out and park for the night at an FBO called West Jet. The apron has some construction and I had to curcle around an area of cones to get to the marshall on the ramp.

After landing I turn on my telephone and compose a text message to my flight follower about my safe arrival. Nothing as verbose as a blog entry. It's more like "Text Messaging--Compose Message--Insert Template--Landed--Send." But on this occasion the cellphone makes an unfamiliar bonging noise and reports that my text message was Not Sent. Ah, well when buying the phone I looked at cell phone coverage maps, and there was always a bit up in the top middle with no coverage. I guess this is it. But I look again at the telephone and I have four and a half bars. I telephone the flight follower instead, explaining, "They don't have text messaging in South Dakota." This doesn't sound quite right. I mean, there are teenagers in South Dakota, right?

I'll have to solve this some other time. I already have a hotel booked, and they have a shuttle, but it's not their shuttle exactly, it's just a shuttle service they pay for, for their guests. I arrange with the driver to pick me up at the hotel at 06:45, next morning not to go to the airport, but to go and see the presidents carved in the mountain.

The nice restaurants are already closed for the evening, so I eat dinner at a 'family' restaurant, that looks a bit like a Denny's. I see as I come in that they have crayons for the kids, in little wooden holders, so I ask for one of those, and write messages on postcards in crayon while I enjoy excellent service and an unexpectedly tasty meal.

As you probably have guessed, I spend a whole lot of time running The Daily WTF when going through submissions, writing articles, and sending out free stickers. While I do this primarily for fun and hobby, it does tend to interfere with my day job at Inedo and, as a result, I tend to earn much less than I could otherwise. But I don’t mind. All I have to do is sacrifice a few, small things. Things like a decent lunch.

Normally for me, lunch is all about getting as much nutritional value for the least amount of money possible. This means my lunch-time staples include things like sticks of butter ($0.23/ea), discarded military MREs (free… if you know where to look), and grocery store free-sample binges (free… if you have no dignity). Today, however, I decided to treat myself, so I scrounged up a dollar and headed on over to the Dollar Tree. After an exhaustive search through bins of expired food items, I stumbled across a wonderful treasure: the Chow Mein “Quick Meal”.

Nothing screams “appetizing!” like artificial beef, and this sure screams ARTIFICIAL BEEF. Even more loudly than “Authentic Chinese Vegetables & Seasonings” – a feature that you’d think would help sell the Quick Meal better. But you’d think wrong: I didn’t even catch that bit until salivating over it on the way back to the office.

The one important thing I did notice, however, was the Nutrition Facts on the back. Keep in mind that, for the frugal lunch connoisseur, nutritional value is key, and this Quick Meal sure knows how to pack that in.

With two servings in this little, 100g box, the Quick Meal manages to pack in 1,200 calories. Considering that 100g of the most caloric food – pure fat – is only 900 calories, that’s a rather impressive feat. Even more impressive is how the Quick Meal delivers 206 grams of carbohydrates from a 100g package. And to think, this amazing treasure was only a single dollar!

When I arrived back at the office, I tore open the Quick Meal and was delighted by the completeness of its contents.

There’s the spoon-shaped fork, the eerily uncongealed sauce packet, the beef “flavour”, and a packet of dried noodles that somewhat resembled a ramen noodle block. But since the packaging clearly stated that the Quick Meal is chow mein, I figured the noodles would somehow morph into something resembling chow mein. There was also the unmistakable pack of Authentic Chinese Vegetables, which are certainly worth a zoom in:

Note that there are exactly three freeze-dried peas – the exact same number as seen on the Quick Meal package. I can only imagine how much trouble some unfortunate factory worker would have gotten in if four peas were accidently included in the packet. But no matter, it was time to prepare my feast. And to that, I needed the all-telling instructions:

First and foremost, I truly appreciated the CAUTION. Who among us hasn’t forgotten how Extremely Hot boiling water can get? But I will say, I was a little put off by the “350ml” thing. Really… what am I, a scientist? Does the Quick Meal think I have beakers lying around to measure things in milliliters!? Just tell me how many cups or half-cups I need, Quick Meal.

Well, as it turned out, I did happen to have beakers lying around, and measured out 350 milliliters as the Quick Meal instructed. After following the rest of the instructions, this is what I ended up with.

I suppose it was just a bit different than advertized. As for the tasting… the Quick Meal delivered a somewhat unpolished, slightly immature nose with hints of broiled sirloin, poached egg, and cellar-dried carrots, though somewhat overpowered by brine. Its palate offered a lively medley of complex flavors from roasted sesame to buttered shallot, all influneced by a hint of smokeyness. The finish was warming, with a touch of bitternes that was quickly replaced by a subtle yet influential balance of spices.

All told, the Quick Meal was a fine meal, and a great deal at a single dollar. Sure, some might point out that a block of ramen noodles (with an obligitory flavor packet) can be had at six for a dollar, but the Quick Meal is no ramen noodle. The Quick Meal comes with a fork and authentic Chinese vegetables. And besides, I’m a bit above eating just ramen noodles for lunch.

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Brought to you by the Non-WTF Job Board:

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