Two years ago, when, I was but a wee lackey at my current place of employment (not that I'm a lot more now, it just sounds cool), the summer was ending and it was time for end-of-summer final reports. All of the interns were required to do a final presentation on their summer work for department staff.
Arbor is a good guy, a good team lead, mentored me a little in digital photography, and gave me my first actually useful photoshop lessons. At that time he was a master's student. He isn't a particularly serious guy, but sometimes I think he really wasn't prepared for the circus of shenanigans that was our program. He doesn't drink, and mostly keeps to himself in his off-hours. He's relatively quiet, and normally fairly calm. I can't imagine him getting really mad enough at anybody to raise his voice significantly, let alone punch them. He's also a notoriously picky eater.
He came in early to the presentations with them and put a white plastic bag down on the desk with a thud. One of his team members pulled the handles apart and looked inside. Arbor looked at her and grinned, "they're for when we're done, I figured you guys deserved it."
"They finally get yours right?"
"Yeah," Arbor replied grinning ear to ear, "Going to be great, with this deadline I haven't had a square meal in days."
The presentations started shortly after.
If there is something I have found it is that as seriously as some government employees enjoy taking themselves outside the workplace there are other people who delight in acting as absurdly as possible behind closed doors within the system. I think enjoy the fact that it quietly ruins the "men in black" mystique and (not so) quiet sense of self-importance that attracts so many government employees despite the low wages. They could also just be clinically insane or just trolls. I'd like to hope I'm one of the latter two.
My (at the time boss') boss Crash was, classically, a little late. He walked in while most of the program was intently listening to the current presentation and sat down briefly at one of the tables, pausing for about a five count. He then stood up again, removed his sunglasses and poked around at the contents of the table by the wall. His eyes glanced over the plate of fresh fruit provided for us to eat during presentations briefly and then turned to a plastic bag next to it.
"And as you can see," the presenting intern was saying, "by varying the shutter speed of the image we can get various portions of this darkly lit room in good quality while others are either too dark or blown out. If you combine these images with this software you can gain a single composite image with all portions appropriately lit in excellent quality..."
"Ish thaf," Crash started before thinking better of it and swallowed the portion of the burrito he was eating. He then pointed to the projector screen which currently showed a sample image the intern had taken in a dark closet to prove the software. "Is that a dead body?"
"No," the intern sighed, "its a mannequin." There was a short awkward silence before he shrugged and said, "Don't ask me, I just work here."
I found that statement wildly hilarious but felt significantly bad laughing at somebody during their final presentation. Instead, I pretended to have a slight cough and turned my head away from the presenting student in a pathetic attempt at subtlety. This was how I caught sight of Arbor.
Arbor looked like a five year old who had just been told Christmas was canceled, like somebody had just killed his puppy, like Milton from Office Space asking for his stapler back. He was just staring at the food Crash was eating.
If I thought Arbor looked depressed upon his first discovery of Crash's mistaken conclusion that the burritos on that table were up for grabs like everything else, that was fairly minimal compared to the expressions Arbor made during his presentation. Crash grilled Arbor fairly ruthlessly (as was Crash's job) about all of the work he had done. I suppose that constitutes a new low: having your summer's work publicly ripped apart by your boss' boss as he eats your dinner in front of you.
Arbor was quietly upset about that burrito for some time. It isn't that he would sit around and whine about it. Instead you would catch him looking sad, and when prompted he would sigh "Crash ate my burrito." That was probably the funniest part of this whole incident. I guess it isn't in Arbor to confront somebody on something like that, so he sulked about it for weeks on end instead. I've never seen somebody to let down over a five dollar food item.
Somebody might have told Crash, but I didn't, I figured it wouldn't get Arbor back his burrito anyway. Additionally, at the point where he is upset about it a whole week later, whatever it was that upset him so much probably didn't have a whole lot to do with the burrito anyway.
So today, almost two years later, I'm having lunch with PJ and we're catching up about this and that
Pika: Did you hear about Arbor? He's a big shot now. They were flying him to Italy three weeks ago to speak at a conference.
PJ: Seems like things have worked out well for him
Pika: Did you catch him in Atlanta? He IMed me and asked for your phone number.
PJ: Yeah, we caught up
Pika: and?
PJ: We were standing on that big outdoor escalator at Georgia Dome when all of a sudden out of nowhere he said "I still can't believe Crash ate my burrito."
Poor Arbor :p
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Respect for a dog
So I was riding the train this morning to the subway to the bus to the airport to my interview. God, the flight is two hours and covers several hundred miles, but the first 60 miles or so takes 5.5. Nobody else finds that funny?
If it makes it better it was technically more since I got a ride early from a friend when it was convenient for him then waited instead of walking a few miles to the first station.
I'm not opposed to walking. I walked three and a half each way to volunteer coach earlier this year (in the snow in the cold up hill both ways, blahblahblah). Given the chance though, I'm definitely happy to be lazy. Besides, I'm pretty wiped from karate yesterday.
Karate in a full uniform in 90 degree weather isn't my favourite thing. Karate when you have to wear a second shirt under your top because the gi wasn't designed with women in mind and is prone to wardrobe malfunctions isn't quite as much fun in 90 degree weather. Karate in a full uniform plus another layer underneath in 90 degree weather in a gymnasium where the heater on and can't be turned off due to a system error is remarkably unpleasant. I also forgot my water bottle yesterday.
Whoever installed the water fountain in the back of the gym is my new personal hero. It will make an great essay on whatever bullshit job app or grad school application I fill out next. They are probably tired of reading Lincoln essays anyway.
Anyway, so I was on the train this morning when a woman came in with a dog. It was a big beautiful golden retriever lab mix wearing a guide dog harness. Touching a dog wearing one of these harnesses isn't allowed, it messes up the absolute training they receive that says when they are in the harness they are on the job. Normally I when I see one I just ask if I can pet the dog, the owner removes the harness, and then get to play with an adorable dog. This woman shook her head at my request and spoke to an imaginary person a few feet to my left. "You can't touch him. He's working right now. He is my guide."
I nodded and then thought better of it and responded "Ok." There was a brief awkward silence before I tried to start the conversation again. "He's beautiful. What's his name?"
"I don't give out his name. It distracts him. He's working right now."
I took this as a sign to shut up and went back to work. A few minutes later another lady with a pet dog walked up and said "Does he like playing with other dogs?"
"He can't play with other dogs," said the blind woman, "He needs to work now. He needs to know he's not a dog right now, that he is working."
"But there is another man with a guide German Shepard and she plays with..."
"This dog saves my life every day! Their training is vital! You can not compromise it!" the blind lady was visibly upset by now.
"Yeah, I know," I said trying to appease the situation, "I have wanted to train one of those forever, but my current apartment can't have dogs."
The woman's whole attitude totally changed, "You should."
"I think it would be kind of hard to give it back at the end."
"Oh I imagine it would be," the woman agreed, "I'm so grateful to the people who trained my dog for me. This dog is my eyes. The people who trained this dog gave me my life back."
I chatted a little with the pet owner after that. The blind woman, however, withdrew from the conversation and was totally silent. Her dog, seeming concerned, first sat up on the train seat. When that didn't get a response he put a paw on the blind lady's shoulder, and finally nuzzled her face. The blind lady responded by rubbing the dog's ears and kissing the dog on the forehead.
I can't quite explain how this was different from the millions of dog owners who do this every day, but normally you witness this feeling of the human condescending to the dog with this action. The action fits the words "who is a good puppy huh? Yeaaaaaaaaah you're a good puppy!"
The blind lady's behavior was different. She was quiet and contemplative. At first I thought we had deeply offended her to make her tune us out, but that did not seem to be what was going on. For lack of a better word it seemed the blind woman's way of displaying respect for her dog.
I don't think your average person really stops to respect animals as peers. I'm not saying people should or shouldn't, I'm just saying people who do are rare in our culture. In most old religions mankind is the keeper of the rest of (insert relevant deity's name here)'s creations. You see respect for the animal's needs, or instincts, or space, but it is not often that you witness a human paying respect to the existence of an animal as a peer.
...and yet there it was. Somehow this was an action of overwhelming respect and gratitude. The woman honestly looked almost like she was going to cry.
Quiet raw displays of emotion are rare things to witness in strangers, but they afford these brief few seconds into the lives of that person. This was a very powerful image to witness. I almost took a photograph, but the woman seemed like she wouldn't appreciate such a request, and I didn't want to take advantage of the fact that a person is blind to get a fantastic photograph.
I suppose I had always cognitively comprehended that a blind person could live a far better life with a seeing eye dog than without one, but I guess I had never actually understood previously what a difference it makes.
So, I've made up my mind. When I move out of my current apartment at the end of May I'm going to try to become a foster parent for a seeing eye dog to assist in its training. Hope its a German Shepard or a lab...but more importantly...I hope its housebroken by the time I get it...
Whatever, it will be an adventure.
Edit: people have been asking me about what this involves so here are some links to information I found about it.
Lots of the USA: http://www.guidedog.org/Pupprog/pupprog.htm
CA and WA USA: http://www.guidedogsofamerica.org/raising.html
Mid-Atlantic USA: http://www.seeingeye.org/aboutus/default.aspx?M_ID=123
Lots of the West (as far east as AZ and CO): http://www.guidedogs.com/site/PageServer?pagename=programs_dog_puppy
Maine to Ohio to Carolinas (all states in triangle) USA: http://volunteer.guidingeyes.org/bin/manpage?0+3
Indiana Michigan and Ohio USA: http://www.leaderdog.org/volunteer/puppyraiser/index.php
California: http://www.guidedogsofthedesert.org/volunteer.html
Just google it. The term is "puppy raiser" normally. These are just a few of the results I got. The some of the Australian programs seem to call it "puppy foster parents."
And yeah, looks like housebreaking it is my problem. Joy.
If it makes it better it was technically more since I got a ride early from a friend when it was convenient for him then waited instead of walking a few miles to the first station.
I'm not opposed to walking. I walked three and a half each way to volunteer coach earlier this year (in the snow in the cold up hill both ways, blahblahblah). Given the chance though, I'm definitely happy to be lazy. Besides, I'm pretty wiped from karate yesterday.
Karate in a full uniform in 90 degree weather isn't my favourite thing. Karate when you have to wear a second shirt under your top because the gi wasn't designed with women in mind and is prone to wardrobe malfunctions isn't quite as much fun in 90 degree weather. Karate in a full uniform plus another layer underneath in 90 degree weather in a gymnasium where the heater on and can't be turned off due to a system error is remarkably unpleasant. I also forgot my water bottle yesterday.
Whoever installed the water fountain in the back of the gym is my new personal hero. It will make an great essay on whatever bullshit job app or grad school application I fill out next. They are probably tired of reading Lincoln essays anyway.
Anyway, so I was on the train this morning when a woman came in with a dog. It was a big beautiful golden retriever lab mix wearing a guide dog harness. Touching a dog wearing one of these harnesses isn't allowed, it messes up the absolute training they receive that says when they are in the harness they are on the job. Normally I when I see one I just ask if I can pet the dog, the owner removes the harness, and then get to play with an adorable dog. This woman shook her head at my request and spoke to an imaginary person a few feet to my left. "You can't touch him. He's working right now. He is my guide."
I nodded and then thought better of it and responded "Ok." There was a brief awkward silence before I tried to start the conversation again. "He's beautiful. What's his name?"
"I don't give out his name. It distracts him. He's working right now."
I took this as a sign to shut up and went back to work. A few minutes later another lady with a pet dog walked up and said "Does he like playing with other dogs?"
"He can't play with other dogs," said the blind woman, "He needs to work now. He needs to know he's not a dog right now, that he is working."
"But there is another man with a guide German Shepard and she plays with..."
"This dog saves my life every day! Their training is vital! You can not compromise it!" the blind lady was visibly upset by now.
"Yeah, I know," I said trying to appease the situation, "I have wanted to train one of those forever, but my current apartment can't have dogs."
The woman's whole attitude totally changed, "You should."
"I think it would be kind of hard to give it back at the end."
"Oh I imagine it would be," the woman agreed, "I'm so grateful to the people who trained my dog for me. This dog is my eyes. The people who trained this dog gave me my life back."
I chatted a little with the pet owner after that. The blind woman, however, withdrew from the conversation and was totally silent. Her dog, seeming concerned, first sat up on the train seat. When that didn't get a response he put a paw on the blind lady's shoulder, and finally nuzzled her face. The blind lady responded by rubbing the dog's ears and kissing the dog on the forehead.
I can't quite explain how this was different from the millions of dog owners who do this every day, but normally you witness this feeling of the human condescending to the dog with this action. The action fits the words "who is a good puppy huh? Yeaaaaaaaaah you're a good puppy!"
The blind lady's behavior was different. She was quiet and contemplative. At first I thought we had deeply offended her to make her tune us out, but that did not seem to be what was going on. For lack of a better word it seemed the blind woman's way of displaying respect for her dog.
I don't think your average person really stops to respect animals as peers. I'm not saying people should or shouldn't, I'm just saying people who do are rare in our culture. In most old religions mankind is the keeper of the rest of (insert relevant deity's name here)'s creations. You see respect for the animal's needs, or instincts, or space, but it is not often that you witness a human paying respect to the existence of an animal as a peer.
...and yet there it was. Somehow this was an action of overwhelming respect and gratitude. The woman honestly looked almost like she was going to cry.
Quiet raw displays of emotion are rare things to witness in strangers, but they afford these brief few seconds into the lives of that person. This was a very powerful image to witness. I almost took a photograph, but the woman seemed like she wouldn't appreciate such a request, and I didn't want to take advantage of the fact that a person is blind to get a fantastic photograph.
I suppose I had always cognitively comprehended that a blind person could live a far better life with a seeing eye dog than without one, but I guess I had never actually understood previously what a difference it makes.
So, I've made up my mind. When I move out of my current apartment at the end of May I'm going to try to become a foster parent for a seeing eye dog to assist in its training. Hope its a German Shepard or a lab...but more importantly...I hope its housebroken by the time I get it...
Whatever, it will be an adventure.
Edit: people have been asking me about what this involves so here are some links to information I found about it.
Lots of the USA: http://www.guidedog.org/Pupprog/pupprog.htm
CA and WA USA: http://www.guidedogsofamerica.org/raising.html
Mid-Atlantic USA: http://www.seeingeye.org/aboutus/default.aspx?M_ID=123
Lots of the West (as far east as AZ and CO): http://www.guidedogs.com/site/PageServer?pagename=programs_dog_puppy
Maine to Ohio to Carolinas (all states in triangle) USA: http://volunteer.guidingeyes.org/bin/manpage?0+3
Indiana Michigan and Ohio USA: http://www.leaderdog.org/volunteer/puppyraiser/index.php
California: http://www.guidedogsofthedesert.org/volunteer.html
Just google it. The term is "puppy raiser" normally. These are just a few of the results I got. The some of the Australian programs seem to call it "puppy foster parents."
And yeah, looks like housebreaking it is my problem. Joy.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Sometimes its embarassing to be female
I was sitting in the lab today working when I overheard the following conversation:
Girl in lab: but our robot looks UGLY
Her project partner: it just has to work
Girl in lab: but more than half of things is how they look! If they don't look good...
On behalf of my sex: I apologize. I don't even have an excuse.
I'm sure she has a good side. In her defense she was a lot more moronic when she was in high school. She's much less rabidly feminist than she use to be, although the irony of seeing her lean over a guy's desk in a low-cut blouse and smiling to get what she wants does amuse me. "Working to break her own path in a man's field" my ass. Put a shirt on and cry me a river.
Its not that I don't enjoy the context myself where showing a little skin is ok, its just unprofessional to use it as an academic advantage. It begs the question "could you make it if you were a guy?"
And its not that I have a problem with the core ideas of what I believe were the original concepts of feminism. I just think somewhere something got revamped and went terribly terribly wrong...for example... I was talking to an old friend of mine who I had fallen out of touch with...guess we can call her "Bit" for this story. She had invited me to join a book club she was running. I like books...the book she was reading sounded somewhat interesting when she explained the premise. I was planning to attend.
Later on I was comatosely sipping my hot chocolate. I don't like coffee but as a resident of New England I'm somehow obligated to buy Dunkin Donuts products, so I guess this is what happens. It does wake me up a little...blood sugar I guess. Maybe its just a good placebo. I don't care: it works.
Anyway, so drinking my hot chocolate catching up with another old friend...we can call her Purple when Bit comes up and the two of them start about the book club...which is apparently the entitled "Feminist Science Fiction Book Club."
Pika: Oh man, no, you didn't tell me about that part
Bit: Its not like that! Its just a book with a female main character!
Pika: Then...why is a feminst book club reading it if it isn't a feminst book?
My friend who was the victim of the Vex parts on his senior project was sitting at the table too and laughing kinda quietly by this point. Purple and Bit look at him briefly and then the topic was dropped.
I mean, seriously? How does having a female main character make a book feminist? Does that make 12th Night a feminist book? Is the Iliad a feminist book? Its about the Trojan War...and the Trojan war is about Helen...right? Hey...Lolita is about a girl right?
And while I'm on a good rant about this: fuck affirmative action for women.
All of my negative sexist verbal sparring experiences in my career and educational experience have at some point included the following insult: "You never would have ___ if you were a guy." Fill it in with anything you want, I wouldn't have had the internship I had, I wouldn't have gotten into this university, I wouldn't have recieved the scholarship I did, I wouldn't have gotten (insert award name here), I wouldn't have the job offers I had, I wouldn't have this I wouldn't have that.
Here is the worst part: there isn't a lot you can say to that because, well, thanks to affirmative action, it could technically be true. Congradulations: you have sucessfully coined a loophole which will continue to call into question the merit of any sign of recognition any female recieves for her good work.
Many universities really want to boast x% women, and some are letting standards slide to do it. Some schools publically admit to it.
This problem is so bad that I don't even blame my interviewers or professors for being a little extra skeptical of me because I'm female. How can they tell at first glance that I'm not just one of the girls who has been handed from outreach program to outreach program up through middle school and then admitted because I was pretty close to good enough and rounded out some quota nicely? One of those girls with no real desire for engineering at all? The discipline has been dressed up in these outreach programs, they try to make it look fun, easy, and even glamorous. When it comes down to the real work... well...its work. It isn't always fun. That's just reality. A lot of women were herded in not really realizing that...not given any real exposure to the field...and nobody cares. The outreach program can brag how many female engineers it put into college, the school can boast a high quota of women enrolled. Nobody seems to notice the girls who might not graduate on time because they wound up changing majors...two...three times when they found out that none of it was quite as advertized.
Don't get me wrong: I volunteer in many engineering outreach programs myself. Many of them are good, but you have to judge program to program.
Then there are the spoiled brats who believe that doing something with two X chromosomes instead of one is a landmark of itself. These are the women who will tell you the names and dates of things such as the first spacewalk done by a female, the first female congressperson...
Are you saying women can not compete as equals to men in intellectual and political pursuits? That women need their own special set of firsts and records because they can't cut it competing with the men? The only parallel to that I can think of are the Special Olympics.
...And people say I'm sexist.
Additionally, while most of the women who really don't belong in engineering do get a different major by the time they are upperclassmen the sterotypes set by the underclassmen still permeiate the environment. Now you have the worst of both worlds: the graduating percentage of females in my major at my university hovering at a scrawny 5% with the lurking full dose of skepticism inspired by all the girls who flooded the lower classes out then left.
Why do "feminists" and politicians feel a need to hand sexist persons more ammunition to continue to make things worse? Why do they continue to push a system which make people who wouldn't normally be sexist skeptical of the professional skills of women candidates due to a flooding of underqualified candidates admitted to make some quota? The policy shows a total disconnect from reality and lack of research into the realities of the workplace and academic life. I don't know if the same thing is true of minorities who also have affirmative action programs: but I sure hope it isn't. Its a pretty rotten situation to be in.
Really talented women will find their own path. You can show women some of the opportunities available, but you can't just create excellent female engineers by declaring that a certain percentage of the accepted students should be female.
Girl in lab: but our robot looks UGLY
Her project partner: it just has to work
Girl in lab: but more than half of things is how they look! If they don't look good...
On behalf of my sex: I apologize. I don't even have an excuse.
I'm sure she has a good side. In her defense she was a lot more moronic when she was in high school. She's much less rabidly feminist than she use to be, although the irony of seeing her lean over a guy's desk in a low-cut blouse and smiling to get what she wants does amuse me. "Working to break her own path in a man's field" my ass. Put a shirt on and cry me a river.
Its not that I don't enjoy the context myself where showing a little skin is ok, its just unprofessional to use it as an academic advantage. It begs the question "could you make it if you were a guy?"
And its not that I have a problem with the core ideas of what I believe were the original concepts of feminism. I just think somewhere something got revamped and went terribly terribly wrong...for example... I was talking to an old friend of mine who I had fallen out of touch with...guess we can call her "Bit" for this story. She had invited me to join a book club she was running. I like books...the book she was reading sounded somewhat interesting when she explained the premise. I was planning to attend.
Later on I was comatosely sipping my hot chocolate. I don't like coffee but as a resident of New England I'm somehow obligated to buy Dunkin Donuts products, so I guess this is what happens. It does wake me up a little...blood sugar I guess. Maybe its just a good placebo. I don't care: it works.
Anyway, so drinking my hot chocolate catching up with another old friend...we can call her Purple when Bit comes up and the two of them start about the book club...which is apparently the entitled "Feminist Science Fiction Book Club."
Pika: Oh man, no, you didn't tell me about that part
Bit: Its not like that! Its just a book with a female main character!
Pika: Then...why is a feminst book club reading it if it isn't a feminst book?
My friend who was the victim of the Vex parts on his senior project was sitting at the table too and laughing kinda quietly by this point. Purple and Bit look at him briefly and then the topic was dropped.
I mean, seriously? How does having a female main character make a book feminist? Does that make 12th Night a feminist book? Is the Iliad a feminist book? Its about the Trojan War...and the Trojan war is about Helen...right? Hey...Lolita is about a girl right?
And while I'm on a good rant about this: fuck affirmative action for women.
All of my negative sexist verbal sparring experiences in my career and educational experience have at some point included the following insult: "You never would have ___ if you were a guy." Fill it in with anything you want, I wouldn't have had the internship I had, I wouldn't have gotten into this university, I wouldn't have recieved the scholarship I did, I wouldn't have gotten (insert award name here), I wouldn't have the job offers I had, I wouldn't have this I wouldn't have that.
Here is the worst part: there isn't a lot you can say to that because, well, thanks to affirmative action, it could technically be true. Congradulations: you have sucessfully coined a loophole which will continue to call into question the merit of any sign of recognition any female recieves for her good work.
Many universities really want to boast x% women, and some are letting standards slide to do it. Some schools publically admit to it.
This problem is so bad that I don't even blame my interviewers or professors for being a little extra skeptical of me because I'm female. How can they tell at first glance that I'm not just one of the girls who has been handed from outreach program to outreach program up through middle school and then admitted because I was pretty close to good enough and rounded out some quota nicely? One of those girls with no real desire for engineering at all? The discipline has been dressed up in these outreach programs, they try to make it look fun, easy, and even glamorous. When it comes down to the real work... well...its work. It isn't always fun. That's just reality. A lot of women were herded in not really realizing that...not given any real exposure to the field...and nobody cares. The outreach program can brag how many female engineers it put into college, the school can boast a high quota of women enrolled. Nobody seems to notice the girls who might not graduate on time because they wound up changing majors...two...three times when they found out that none of it was quite as advertized.
Don't get me wrong: I volunteer in many engineering outreach programs myself. Many of them are good, but you have to judge program to program.
Then there are the spoiled brats who believe that doing something with two X chromosomes instead of one is a landmark of itself. These are the women who will tell you the names and dates of things such as the first spacewalk done by a female, the first female congressperson...
Are you saying women can not compete as equals to men in intellectual and political pursuits? That women need their own special set of firsts and records because they can't cut it competing with the men? The only parallel to that I can think of are the Special Olympics.
...And people say I'm sexist.
Additionally, while most of the women who really don't belong in engineering do get a different major by the time they are upperclassmen the sterotypes set by the underclassmen still permeiate the environment. Now you have the worst of both worlds: the graduating percentage of females in my major at my university hovering at a scrawny 5% with the lurking full dose of skepticism inspired by all the girls who flooded the lower classes out then left.
Why do "feminists" and politicians feel a need to hand sexist persons more ammunition to continue to make things worse? Why do they continue to push a system which make people who wouldn't normally be sexist skeptical of the professional skills of women candidates due to a flooding of underqualified candidates admitted to make some quota? The policy shows a total disconnect from reality and lack of research into the realities of the workplace and academic life. I don't know if the same thing is true of minorities who also have affirmative action programs: but I sure hope it isn't. Its a pretty rotten situation to be in.
Really talented women will find their own path. You can show women some of the opportunities available, but you can't just create excellent female engineers by declaring that a certain percentage of the accepted students should be female.
I'm sick of the ways people use Vex parts around here
See? Only had this a few hours and already two rants. My poor friends...put up with this for so many years...
Vex parts are an infestation in this school.
I've got a friend in a lab upstairs. His "senior project" is sitting near his desk. I think he did a second one. He's a brilliant guy. He did the electronics on that project, and they're absolutely beautiful. I'd hate to think that he has this project representing him forever and ever, because his partner did such a bad job on the mechanical side that it turned the whole project into a total piece of shit.
The machining is mediocre...well maybe that's being a little generous. By "mediocre" I mean to say that somebody waved a ruler somewhat in the vicinity of some stock tube aluminum and then threw this stock in a bandsaw. Then it was bolted together. I estimate each arm weighs at least a few pounds and is about a foot long on eac
h of two links. These arms support a several pound body.
And its moved with Vex sprockets and chain. I'm sorry what? These little plastic pieces of shit? The ones that came out of a box of children's toys? You put those on a professional project and expect to be taken seriously?
These people spend tens of thousands of dollars on classes every year and sit through countless hours of lectures and homework. Then they come to their senior project. They could calculate the forces required and spec out proper parts... just like they spent four years training to do...
...or they could pick up some pieces from children's toys and bolt them on, call it a day, and stand there stunned when it doesn't work.
Another thing I can not stand is when people demolish Vex aluminum because they are too lazy to cut their own scrap pieces. They bend it up...rip it, break it...whatever...take a rather Its pretty absurdly expensive stuff to treat it like scrap. Its just not cost-effective. Nobody cares though, because its handy and its "not their money." (God, that's another rant in itself: the words "its not my money" make my blood boil.) This stuff gets picked up by students (they never buy it themselves) and just chucked on...everything.
I've fielded plywood robots. Fuck, I've fielded two competitive robots with cardboard on them with pride. But I was pretty ashamed to stand next to a robot with Vex used on it as temp scrap on it and said "yeah, that's ours."
That said, I'm not ashamed of my team, those kids are great. I wish I hadn't gotten the flu twice that competitive season so I could have spent more time mentoring them. They are really good kids. I'm proud of them.
I'm pretty not-proud though of that action. That action was basically somebody saying "well, I'm feeling pretty lazy right now so instead of slicing up 25 cents worth of stock aluminum on the bandsaw and putting a hole in it with a cordless drill I'm going to bend a rather expensive piece of metal so it will never be usable again." I'm definitely not proud that somebody did that particular behavior. S/he is still a good person, but s/he is still acting like a moron.
At least my high school kids? They'll admit they were being lazy when you call them on it and say sorry.
Some of the kids here? They just don't give a fuck. These people are going to make equipment which people's lives depend on: cars, tanks, airplanes, machinery, medical devices...the list goes on. You're going to spec those out right? You're going to suddenly care when you graduate and start doing your job right when you never did as an undergrad?
Nah, lets go get some kid's toys.
Vex parts are an infestation in this school.
I've got a friend in a lab upstairs. His "senior project" is sitting near his desk. I think he did a second one. He's a brilliant guy. He did the electronics on that project, and they're absolutely beautiful. I'd hate to think that he has this project representing him forever and ever, because his partner did such a bad job on the mechanical side that it turned the whole project into a total piece of shit.
The machining is mediocre...well maybe that's being a little generous. By "mediocre" I mean to say that somebody waved a ruler somewhat in the vicinity of some stock tube aluminum and then threw this stock in a bandsaw. Then it was bolted together. I estimate each arm weighs at least a few pounds and is about a foot long on eac
h of two links. These arms support a several pound body.And its moved with Vex sprockets and chain. I'm sorry what? These little plastic pieces of shit? The ones that came out of a box of children's toys? You put those on a professional project and expect to be taken seriously?
These people spend tens of thousands of dollars on classes every year and sit through countless hours of lectures and homework. Then they come to their senior project. They could calculate the forces required and spec out proper parts... just like they spent four years training to do...
...or they could pick up some pieces from children's toys and bolt them on, call it a day, and stand there stunned when it doesn't work.
Another thing I can not stand is when people demolish Vex aluminum because they are too lazy to cut their own scrap pieces. They bend it up...rip it, break it...whatever...take a rather Its pretty absurdly expensive stuff to treat it like scrap. Its just not cost-effective. Nobody cares though, because its handy and its "not their money." (God, that's another rant in itself: the words "its not my money" make my blood boil.) This stuff gets picked up by students (they never buy it themselves) and just chucked on...everything.
I've fielded plywood robots. Fuck, I've fielded two competitive robots with cardboard on them with pride. But I was pretty ashamed to stand next to a robot with Vex used on it as temp scrap on it and said "yeah, that's ours."
That said, I'm not ashamed of my team, those kids are great. I wish I hadn't gotten the flu twice that competitive season so I could have spent more time mentoring them. They are really good kids. I'm proud of them.
I'm pretty not-proud though of that action. That action was basically somebody saying "well, I'm feeling pretty lazy right now so instead of slicing up 25 cents worth of stock aluminum on the bandsaw and putting a hole in it with a cordless drill I'm going to bend a rather expensive piece of metal so it will never be usable again." I'm definitely not proud that somebody did that particular behavior. S/he is still a good person, but s/he is still acting like a moron.
At least my high school kids? They'll admit they were being lazy when you call them on it and say sorry.
Some of the kids here? They just don't give a fuck. These people are going to make equipment which people's lives depend on: cars, tanks, airplanes, machinery, medical devices...the list goes on. You're going to spec those out right? You're going to suddenly care when you graduate and start doing your job right when you never did as an undergrad?
Nah, lets go get some kid's toys.
Que Sera Sera
Que sera, sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
I hadn't heard that song in so long I couldn't even remember where I knew it. The Spanish made me at first think it was from Spanish class in high school. I remember Mr R (God, he was so nice to me, and I can't even remember his name. Apologies Mr. R.) saying it from time to time and me privately rolling my eyes. I was always more of the philosophy that I'll make whatever I need to happen happen, that just sitting back and taking life as it came was for people who didn't know how to take control of things and get things done.
Come on, I'd be pretty hard pressed to believe that any of us aren't idiots now, let alone when we were in high school.
Anyway...it still didn't fit. I can remember most of the songs we sang in high school (I have an odd habit of remembering anything which rhymes..."but look at our brother the youngest one / my arm's still a wing cause my shirt wasn't done" from our class play in first grade. If only the translation of kinematic constraints into linear algebra rhymed.)
Anyway, it wasn't from high school.
When I was five my brother Isaac was two. At that time my parents and many doctors were concerned he would never be well enough to attend normal school. He would cry for hours if he heard an ambulance or a fire truck. His motor skills were poor and he was developing slowly. I had no idea. Mommy and Daddy as they were then, had told me before he was born that new babies required a lot of patience and would not be like "the big kids." To be honest, it wasn't until we were both a lot older that I realized there was anything different about my brother at all. I thought all babies were just like him.
What I did know though was that Mom and Dad just didn't have time for the both of us. My parents had planned for enough time to take care of two normal children but my brother's needs were vast and pressing.
Even very simple tasks had been made very complicated between my brother's extreme sensitivity and the well-meant advice of doctors. My mother would lay my brother down for a nap, roll him over like the doctors said to, and he'd wake up, crying. Calming my hysterical brother was a reasonable timesink, and when he finally fell asleep my mom would roll him over as instructed and the system would start again. This process would continue for hours.
Most of my memories from that age in my home are of sitting on the couch at the foot of the stairs and waiting for Mom to come back downstairs so I could use paints or do whatever it was that I wasn't permitted to do without adult supervision.
Eventually my parents decided to start sending me to my maternal Grandma's house. I haven't any idea how often it was, time at that age worked something like this.
1) how long until christmas
2) how long until my birthday
It was probably a few days a week.
Anyway, Grandma was pretty nice to me. I ate a lot of Spaghetti-O's and I learned about how microwaves heat things non-uniformly. I used a small object like an artist's pallet to measure spaghetti...and then would just throw more in the pot anyway because I thought it was never enough. I drank juice out of plastic cups with animals on them that came off the side a little to form the handles.
Grandma brought me along shopping and sometimes asked me what I thought when she needed to choose between two objects. Green was my favourite color at that time. By the time I was in grade school the majority of Grandma's interior decorations were green. She still drives a toothpaste green Toyota.
Every night Grandma would sing to me before I went to sleep. They were old and familiar songs to her, I know "how much is that doggy in the window" was actually a pop hit when she was young, but these are songs which have been mostly forgotten with time. They were certainly novel to me.
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother "what will I be?
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?"
My mother answered me
Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
When I grew up, and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart "what lies ahead?
Will we have sunshine? Will we have rainbows?"
My sweetheart turned and said
Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
Now I have children of my own
They ask me "mother, what will I be?
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?"
I answer tenderly
Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
Really, its not a bad philosophy for life.
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera, sera
I hadn't heard that song in so long I couldn't even remember where I knew it. The Spanish made me at first think it was from Spanish class in high school. I remember Mr R (God, he was so nice to me, and I can't even remember his name. Apologies Mr. R.) saying it from time to time and me privately rolling my eyes. I was always more of the philosophy that I'll make whatever I need to happen happen, that just sitting back and taking life as it came was for people who didn't know how to take control of things and get things done.
Come on, I'd be pretty hard pressed to believe that any of us aren't idiots now, let alone when we were in high school.
Anyway...it still didn't fit. I can remember most of the songs we sang in high school (I have an odd habit of remembering anything which rhymes..."but look at our brother the youngest one / my arm's still a wing cause my shirt wasn't done" from our class play in first grade. If only the translation of kinematic constraints into linear algebra rhymed.)
Anyway, it wasn't from high school.
When I was five my brother Isaac was two. At that time my parents and many doctors were concerned he would never be well enough to attend normal school. He would cry for hours if he heard an ambulance or a fire truck. His motor skills were poor and he was developing slowly. I had no idea. Mommy and Daddy as they were then, had told me before he was born that new babies required a lot of patience and would not be like "the big kids." To be honest, it wasn't until we were both a lot older that I realized there was anything different about my brother at all. I thought all babies were just like him.
What I did know though was that Mom and Dad just didn't have time for the both of us. My parents had planned for enough time to take care of two normal children but my brother's needs were vast and pressing.
Even very simple tasks had been made very complicated between my brother's extreme sensitivity and the well-meant advice of doctors. My mother would lay my brother down for a nap, roll him over like the doctors said to, and he'd wake up, crying. Calming my hysterical brother was a reasonable timesink, and when he finally fell asleep my mom would roll him over as instructed and the system would start again. This process would continue for hours.
Most of my memories from that age in my home are of sitting on the couch at the foot of the stairs and waiting for Mom to come back downstairs so I could use paints or do whatever it was that I wasn't permitted to do without adult supervision.
Eventually my parents decided to start sending me to my maternal Grandma's house. I haven't any idea how often it was, time at that age worked something like this.
1) how long until christmas
2) how long until my birthday
It was probably a few days a week.
Anyway, Grandma was pretty nice to me. I ate a lot of Spaghetti-O's and I learned about how microwaves heat things non-uniformly. I used a small object like an artist's pallet to measure spaghetti...and then would just throw more in the pot anyway because I thought it was never enough. I drank juice out of plastic cups with animals on them that came off the side a little to form the handles.
Grandma brought me along shopping and sometimes asked me what I thought when she needed to choose between two objects. Green was my favourite color at that time. By the time I was in grade school the majority of Grandma's interior decorations were green. She still drives a toothpaste green Toyota.
Every night Grandma would sing to me before I went to sleep. They were old and familiar songs to her, I know "how much is that doggy in the window" was actually a pop hit when she was young, but these are songs which have been mostly forgotten with time. They were certainly novel to me.
When I was just a little girl
I asked my mother "what will I be?
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?"
My mother answered me
Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
When I grew up, and fell in love
I asked my sweetheart "what lies ahead?
Will we have sunshine? Will we have rainbows?"
My sweetheart turned and said
Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
Now I have children of my own
They ask me "mother, what will I be?
Will I be pretty? Will I be rich?"
I answer tenderly
Que sera sera
Whatever will be will be
The future's not ours to see
Que sera sera
Really, its not a bad philosophy for life.
Ladies and Gentlemen
I ramble...
I ramble a lot.
Normally when I have something to ranble about I talk at one of my close friends about it. Yes, sadly, the words are "talk at" not talk with.
One day it dawned on me that this is discourteous. My friends care about me and continually mimic interest out of the pure goodness of their hearts. However, that doesn't change the fact that its deadly boring. Its also rude, to pretend my obscure thoughts should litter their minds, that whatever inconsequential thing I have to say is more important than their own thoughts which they could instead be having during that time. I was raised in the generation where we were taught that "we're all special snowflakes." That we are all unique and individual, and that everything we say and do is of value. The reality is: it isn't. Most of it is innane boring shit. We have no right to intrude on the time and minds of others unless we believe they might get something out of the exchange too.
I suppose that this is where I put down that if by some freak incident this blog becomes famous or well read that you leave me and my identity and those of the people listed here alone. My formal education is with computers, I'm aware that we have no privacy on the web in reality, maybe I could make myself a little more difficult to find, but mostly I'm too lazy to care. I don't plan to give you much ammo to play with. If people want to find me...they will. I'm just asking you to have a little courtsey and not go looking for ways to dig this up and make it a mess.
The reality is though, is that that will probably never happen. As a matter of fact, if this goes the way I plan it to, nobody's ever going to read this at all. This is just because I have been unable to curb the habit needing to have "talk at" conversations. Now I will "talk at" this blog, and "talk with" my friends.
I ramble a lot.
Normally when I have something to ranble about I talk at one of my close friends about it. Yes, sadly, the words are "talk at" not talk with.
One day it dawned on me that this is discourteous. My friends care about me and continually mimic interest out of the pure goodness of their hearts. However, that doesn't change the fact that its deadly boring. Its also rude, to pretend my obscure thoughts should litter their minds, that whatever inconsequential thing I have to say is more important than their own thoughts which they could instead be having during that time. I was raised in the generation where we were taught that "we're all special snowflakes." That we are all unique and individual, and that everything we say and do is of value. The reality is: it isn't. Most of it is innane boring shit. We have no right to intrude on the time and minds of others unless we believe they might get something out of the exchange too.
I suppose that this is where I put down that if by some freak incident this blog becomes famous or well read that you leave me and my identity and those of the people listed here alone. My formal education is with computers, I'm aware that we have no privacy on the web in reality, maybe I could make myself a little more difficult to find, but mostly I'm too lazy to care. I don't plan to give you much ammo to play with. If people want to find me...they will. I'm just asking you to have a little courtsey and not go looking for ways to dig this up and make it a mess.
The reality is though, is that that will probably never happen. As a matter of fact, if this goes the way I plan it to, nobody's ever going to read this at all. This is just because I have been unable to curb the habit needing to have "talk at" conversations. Now I will "talk at" this blog, and "talk with" my friends.
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