Two Dishes But To One Table

It's Definitely Rounder

On Soundcheck (WNYC's afternoon talk show about music),  John Schaefer, described Abigail Washburn's instrument as "looking like a banjo on performance enhancing drugs.  Almost like Barry Bond's head."  I had to go look up both to see if the comparison made any sense:

  

AP photo by Eric Risberg via LAist   

Washburn photo from KM's Live Music Shots:

 

 

The Earth is a Basketball -- Taught Slowly, so Now I'll Never Forget It.

As a teacher I find it hard to see the entire year, as if from a bird's eye view, methodically giving one, very clear, very over-taught main idea each day. 

The new Earth Science teacher (maybe) did a good job today.  He taught one really clear tiny thing, the distance to the moon.  By sticking to that one idea, and by clearly developing it, I think students learned it in a way that they'll never forget it.   It took twenty minutes and he didn't rush. 

Teacher:  See these 5 balls?  Which do you think is the right two to represent the size of the earth and the moon? (Correct answer:  Basketball and tennis ball, respectively.)

Teacher: Let's get Jessica and Gabrielle to stand with the basketball and tennis ball at a distance that shows how far the earth and moon are from each other. (Students have disagreement about whether they should be one meter or two meters apart.)

Teacher: Now with the almanac of space distances, and a ruler, and your calculator, do some ratio calculations to show how far the tennis ball should be from the sun.  Let's model that now. (To the surprise of me, and everyone, the correct seperation is SEVEN METERS from the basketball earth to the tennis ball moon!!!)

Maybe I just love space but I thought it was an exciting lesson.

Looking Up Words

I had to pull out the American Heritage Dictionary twice today. 

1)  "Anthony Weiner's continued service is untenable." - from a news story on the radio about Weiner's scandal.

2) "This sounds like avuncular advice from the good-spirited Reverend Tom Bayes, but in its full-bore mathematical form, it is a logical, numerically precise necessity within the foundations of probability calculus." - from Michael Yarus in Life From an RNA World.

And I think I figured out one word for myself.  Homologous alkanes must be "same word" alkanes. (Examples of these: pentane, hexane, heptane, octane...)

 

Pasta Salad

Slivered green beans, chopped corn, Romano cheese , sundried tomatoes, cellentani barilla pasta.   That was a salad to kick off summer!

An Urge to Prune

A Japanese Pagoda tree is rubbing against our second story window.

I have the urge to climb it and trim it, right there on 181st Street.  You're allowed to do that in New York City.  The parks department gives you a 4 hour training course and then issues a card that gives you carte blanch (vert?) to go hack the unruly trees on your street.

It's striking to me how in my middle years I don't seem to do new things so much as revisit activities of my youth.  In this case, tree trimming was my job from 1987-1988.  It's now become a hobby.  Here's a cherry tree I trimmed in March of this year in gratitude for being hosted out in East Hampton.

 

Oil Loophole Senate Roll Call

I never remember to check these online records of how my representatives are voting.  And how the ones in GOP-benighted Michigan are.

Oil loophole vote results. (Senate measure 940: Close Big Oil Tax Loopholes Act.)

The act needed 60% and it only got 52% so it's dead.   The teaparty freshmen seem to have not supported it.   I'm surprised.