January 31, 2006
Why the United States lacks engineers
I've already had several interesting conversations about my last post. I'll spare you the details, but one person pointed me to this interesting article: Confessions of an Engineering Washout.
I relate to a lot of the story. I had originally intended to become an engineer of some sort, though it wasn't because I was naturally drawn to it. My verbal test scores were always higher than my math scores... but since both were fairly high, my family and counselors somehow convinced me that it was a great idea to become an engineer. (They were wrong, but I can't say I blame them for trying... it would be a good way to make a living, and that was their primary concern.) Unfortunately, I hated most of the classes and found the whole course of study to be completely uninspiring.
Anyway. The author's advice is compelling:
If you want more engineers in the United States, you must find a way for America's engineering programs to retain students like, well, me: people smart enough to do the math and motivated enough to at least take a bite at the engineering apple, but turned off by the overwhelming coursework, low grades, and abysmal teaching. Find a way to teach engineering to verbally oriented students who cant learn math by sense of smell.
...
Engineering professors are perfectly happy weeding out undesirables with absurd boot-camp courses that conceal the inability of said professors to communicate with words. Fewer students will pursue science and engineering majors, and the United States will grow ever more reliant upon foreign brainpower to design its scientific and manufacturing endeavors.
He's probably right. (Not that these changes would've saved me... I'm too excited by history, biology, behavior, and the rest.) In the end, I still think the best advice is to avoid telling students what they should focus on until well after they've had a chance to try out a little of everything.
31 Jan 23:42 | Link | Category: Opinion & Thoughts
Illiterate College Grads
About ten days ago, I read a news item about a study showing that a fairly sizeable percentage U.S. college graduates lack basic skills (such as "analyzing news stories and other prose, understanding documents and having math skills needed for checkbooks or restaurant tips"). The American Institutes for Research conducted the study. (Read their press release or read the entire report in PDF.)
The results of the study are sobering. Astounding. Scary as hell. How, pray tell, are these people getting through college without the ability to "interpret a table about exercise and blood pressure, understand the arguments of newspaper editorials, compare credit card offers with different interest rates and annual fees or summarize results of a survey about parental involvement in school"??? Even in my freshman year, I doubt I could have scraped by without those kinds of skills. (Then again, maybe it's easier than I think to coast through school getting shitty grades.)
How about this: "Almost 20 percent of students pursuing four-year degrees had only basic quantitative skills. For example, the students could not estimate if their car had enough gas to get to the service station. About 30 percent of two-year students had only basic math skills." Again, I'm floored... and I'd like to know what schools these people are attending. At my university, all students are required to take two basic quantitative reasoning courses, and students pursuing a B.S. have to take two more additional 'quantitative intensive' courses.
For years, my principal complaint with the higher education system has been that it often fails to actually educate people in terms of exposing them to new ideas, incubating thought, and providing a basic framework for connecting different disciplines and ideas. (If you can't figure out how everything connects, what's the point? The world will never make sense in any large sense.)
But now I find out that colleges aren't even succeeding in educating people in terms of basic skills they need to get through life. It makes me want to scream.
And if the supposedly 'educated' demographic in the U.S. lacks basic skills, what does this say about the country and its future? I've previously ranted about the need for "a sea change in U.S. political dialogue and thought" predicated on "critical-thinking skills, better education and open, inquiring, skeptical minds" along with "knowledge of history and an appreciation and understanding of the rest of the world."
Now, it seems, our college graduates can't even understand arguments in editorials or figure out a tip at a restaurant.
We're sooo screwed.
31 Jan 18:12 | Link | Category: Opinion & Thoughts
January 24, 2006
Don't forget to look up
I wasn't going to comment on this story, but I have a fondness for old hominid skulls. The famous, tiny Taung Child is among my favorites.
Anyway, for some reason a story has been all over the news about how Taung Child was possibly killed by birds from above. (More here.)
It's interesting how stories like this end up in the headlines while other interesting stories and discoveries barely reach public ears. I think it's because people form a straight-from-the-movies image of a poor little australopithecine child being carried off by a screeching eagle (regardless of whether or not this is what really happened). It also allows headlines such as "Two-million-year old murder solved!" It's too bad that so many of the more interesting, more significant discoveries and ideas fail to ignite the public imagination like that. But that's the way it goes.
(As always, John Hawks has more... including a link to a pretty funny limerick contest.)
24 Jan 21:10 | Link | Category: Human/Primate Evolution & Behavior, Science
Celestia
I've mentioned Google Earth a few times. If you're a fan of that type of program, you might want to check out Celestia. It's the same sort of thing, just with a much wider perspective... it's an interactive, three-dimensional astronomy program available for Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
Best of all, it's free. Plus, you can download all sorts of add-ons like textures and astronomical objects to plug in to the program. See The Celestia Motherlode for a good listing.
As someone who nerdishly made my parents buy RedShift and Microsoft Space Simulator back in the mid-nineties, I'm nerdishly in love with this software. (And it's free!)
24 Jan 20:39 | Link | Category: Science, Technology & Computing
Falwell, Robertson, or Bin Laden?
I found this cool little quiz through The J-Walk Blog:
Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and Usama Bin Ladin have a lot in common. Take the quiz and see if you can identify statements by each of these "leaders."
I scored 10 out of 20.
24 Jan 9:11 | Link | Category: Current Events, Interactive, Opinion & Thoughts
January 19, 2006
Current Playlist
Another month, another disjointed hour of listening...
| Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Let The Bells Ring >> |
| Mellowdrone - Fashionably Uninvited >> |
| Bloc Party - So Here We Are >> |
| Thievery Corporation - Holographic Universe >> |
| The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Hey Joe >> |
| Neutral Milk Hotel - Naomi >> |
| Built To Spill - Distopian Dream Girl >> |
| The Shins - Girl On The Wing >> |
| Nic Armstrong & The Thieves - I'll Come To You >> |
| Lloyd Cole - Brazil >> |
| Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows >> |
| Jim White - Buzzards of Love >> |
| Nada Surf - Blonde on Blonde >> |
| M. Ward - Fuel for Fire >> |
19 Jan 21:11 | Link | Category: Music
More Photos From Space
A great site I forgot to mention last week is hubblesite.org. Among other things, the site boasts a great selection of amazing Hubble photos. For starters, check out the Picture Album.
Many of these images are great for desktop backgrounds. My display's resolution is 1680 x 1050, so even the pre-sized 1280 x 1024 'wallpaper' images look pixelated. Luckily, the site also provides extremely high resolution versions of most of the photos. Visit the News Center for the best hi-res photos. Check out "Abstract Art Found in the Orion Nebula," for example.
19 Jan 20:04 | Link | Category: Cool Links, Photography, Science
January 13, 2006
More Music Videos
As a followup to yesterday's post, here are a few videos I found in my bookmarks list (most from Transbuddha).
- Jose Gonzalez - "Stay in the Shade"
- The Album Leaf - "On Your Way"
- Jimi Hendrix playing "The Wind Cries Mary"
- Bo Diddley on Ed Sullivan
And, finally, a clip of John Lennon playing "Yer Blues" with Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, and Mitch Mitchell (plus an odd little intro chat with Mick Jagger). Courtesy of Google Video.
13 Jan 23:46 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Music, Video
January 12, 2006
Video for Dealership's 'Forest'
Last February, I included 'Forest' by Dealership in one of my monthly playlists.
Recently, I ran across a video for the song, created by Aaron Novak. I had a completely different vision of the song, but I still think the video is pretty cool.
12 Jan 19:10 | Link | Category: Art & Entertainment, Music, Video
January 11, 2006
Photography Links
- EOS Chaos
- Judith K McMillan
- Matt Stuart
- Marina Cano
- Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943 (Library of Congress Exhibition)
11 Jan 19:16 | Link | Category: Photography
What is your dangerous idea?
I mentioned this last year, so I might as well do the same this year. The Edge Annual Question is out. This year, the question is "What is your dangerous idea?" The same variety of 'thinkers' contribute their answers.
Matt Ridley echoes a theme found in some of his books (like The Origins of Virtue) with his dangerous idea: "Government is the problem not the solution."
Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained) tackles this idea: There aren't enough minds to house the population explosion of memes. He explains, "either (1) we will drown in this flood of information, or (2) we won't drown in it. Both alternatives are deeply disturbing."
Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel) thinks "evidence that tribal peoples often damage their environments and make war" is dangerous (because it might lead to the notion that it's "OK to mistreat" tribal people). I thought his 'dangerous idea' was already obvious to most - and I'm not sure I see why that should lead to mistreatment of any group of people - but maybe I'm wrong.
Steven Pinker (The Blank Slate) explore an idea that could most definitely be dangerous, though. "Groups of people may differ genetically in their average talents and temperaments." I can see that one going awry in all kinds of nasty ways.
Freeman Dyson (Imagined Worlds) also ventures into slightly disturbing territory: "Biotechnology will be thoroughly domesticated in the next fifty years."
As usual, there's plenty of provocative, compelling, odd, and frightening ideas. Scroll through and you'll find at least a few that make your mind wander into interesting, uncharted territory. (Look through questions from past years, as well.)
11 Jan 18:37 | Link | Category: Science
January 9, 2006
Photos From Space
I'm a huge sucker for space photos. Planets, moons, galaxies, nebulae, stars, asteroids... anything, really. If you're the same, check out NASA's Planetary Photojournal. It contains an abundance of great pictures of the solar system (and other parts of the universe).
Lately, my favorite amazing photos are the ones of Saturn returned by Cassini. Check out Mimas in front of Saturn's rings, this photo of a tiny Mimas above the rings, and the color image of Dione in front of Saturn.
And, although I know I've mentioned it many times, visiting Astronomy Picture of the Day is always a good way to start the day.
09 Jan 21:32 | Link | Category: Photography, Science
Best Albums of 2005
The folks at Pitchfork have written up several best-of lists for 2005, including a list of best albums. There are plenty of excellent selections (and a few not-so-excellent ones) and a few I've never heard of and need to listen to.
Also be sure to check out Other Music's Year End Recap. Good stuff there, as well.
Update: Also check out eMusic's 2005 Best Of lists
09 Jan 21:24 | Link | Category: Music
January 8, 2006
Woolly Bob
Back in August, I linked to a site called Woolly Rockers. My sister (a knitter) and I had a good laugh over the idea of a Bob Dylan woolly rocker.
I had mostly forgotten about it until the Christmas gift from my sister arrived in the mail. I opened it on Christmas to discover that she had knitted something for me: my very own Bob Dylan woolly rocker doll! It's the jeans 'n boots folk-singing Bob from the early sixties. I'm quite fond of the harmonica holder.
08 Jan 10:08 | Link | Category: Humor, Music
January 7, 2006
It's 2006! (Or: Sorry for making you stare at Dick Cheney for two weeks)
I hope you all enjoyed the holidays. I got some much needed relaxation (and, as you can tell from the lack of posts, spent almost no time in front of the computer). I can't say I'm terribly happy about starting another semester of school on Monday, but at least I'm feeling grounded and refreshed. Earlier today, I returned from a short trip to Northern California, where the weather was warm, the sky clear, and the company wonderful. A few photos:
07 Jan 22:46 | Link | Category: Site/Life News, Travel