When Will We Ever Use This?

Our group's idea for our art project was to build a giant kaleidoscope.

At the hardware store we bought a cardboard tube (normally used as a concrete form). We also needed the three mirrors. We needed mirrors to form an equilateral triangle that would fit into the tube.

I used the law of cosines to figure out what size to have the mirror cut.

Learning New Things

I've taken a course at the university every semester since the spring of 2008. Up to this point, everything that I've taken has been something in which I could earn an A (and have) through sufficient effort on my part.

This semester I'm taking a freshman-level class… in the School of Art!

Unlike upper-division courses in computer science and graduate level classes in the College of Business Administration, just about everyone in art class is a traditional aged undergraduate (and most of the freshmen). You just don't go back to school to study art. Art is what you study the first time around before you back to school for something sounds more serious. (Unemployed brother-in-law? Majored in art history.) One of the undergraduates in this class looks very familiar, but I checked the roster on Blackboard, and I do not recognize the names of any former students.

First project in art class is a very, very, very open-ended group project. Traditional undergraduates were not all that eager to join the group with the crazy middle-aged lady. But then all the other groupless people coalesced, and my new group-mates have made a discovery.

For our open-ended project we're building some crazy stuff. More of our supplies come from the hardware store than from the art-supply store. And, unlike many freshmen, I have a car. And a parking permit for the lot just outside of the art building. I also have a house full of crap, so we have access to any of my portable stuff. Cordless drill? No problem. Dolly? Have two. Sewing machine? Yep. Dremel tool? Got one of those.

Grown-ups tend to own more things than freshmen do.

The Cat's Hobbies

1. Sleeping in the cat bed.


2. Sleeping on top of the cat tower.


3. Sleeping on my lap.


4. "Helping" me knit by trying to eat the yarn as I am knitting with it.


5. Meowing at me to keep her company.


6. Sneezing. Is it amusing or gross that after the cat sneezes she licks her nose?

Half-Remembered Things

Can you help me remember what I was reading about? I feel that I read this either in a Douglas Hofstadter book or in the Wikipedia.

It's about word-like systems (I hesitate to call them languages) that are, in a sense, compression schemes.

So, for example, you start with an English sentence, and it's a certain length. You can then "translate" it into another system where the "words" are more meaningful, so you need fewer words/characters to represent the idea. And then, at the extreme, there is a "language" where any idea could be represented as a single word -- but where all the words are unpronounceable things like j5n;o.

Any idea what this is or keywords I should use to search for it? Or do I need to find a reference librarian?

Affiliated

Today I checked the university online directory to see what my status was listed as. Last time I checked, it just said "staff." Now it goes into far more detail:

Internet sez: MOAR CATZ!!!

We shall see how long this lasts. My eyes are red and itchy. The cat is sneezing. We'll see who is more allergic to whom.

Worst case, the cat will go back to where it came from. It came from a family with three other cats, all of which were beating it up to the point where it was banished to be an outside-only cat. It was living in a basket (with a heating pad) on their (non-enclosed) porch.

Cat is currently roughly nine years old. It has an appointment at the vet in about two weeks.

New Semester

At least it has stopped thunderstorming.

Welcome to the new semester. I'm told that the classrooms in this new building are not ready yet. Good luck to anyone teaching MWF classes. Or TR for that matter, as I can't imagine that a lot of progress will be made today.

Since I'm not teaching this semester, the only real difference in my life is that now that everyone is back on campus, it is easier to find somewhere serving coffee but harder to park.

Complaints on Facebook

Friend of a former student:

As an explanation of why he isn't that impressed with a Republican candidate vying for the nomination: "His Chinese isn't that great."

Law professor who I went to college with:

Commenting on the differences between the kitchen in her previous $1M+ house and her current $1M+ house: "Most days I don't have any use for the prep sink or the three extra counters."

Former colleague in the math department:

Complaining about having to teach tomorrow and why he hasn't done any work in over a month: "We got 5 weeks off for winter break this year."