SamR's Site: Plans, March 2003

Here you can find my Plan from March 2003. You can find out more about plans from the plans home page. In essence, plans is a combination Blog/Chat that focuses on the Grinnell community.

Monday, 31 March 2003

I was going to bed, really I was, but first I had to find the Tigger suit. After I found the Tigger suit, I saw the bags of stuff I brought back from my office. "Whoops, I haven't graded 's exam yet" thought I. Well, it's now graded. Will I remember to bring it back to her now?

You know, I'd really like to find my high school yearbook. I thought I knew where it was, but it's not there.

Finished grading the nasty 153 exam (including the problem I wrote incorrect code for, and therefore gave all students full credit). Now it's time to relax a little by reading plans. Fun fun fun. I can always prep classes tomorrow.

Whoops. Tomorrow is April 1. Questions abound. Where is that Tigger costume? Will my Ph.D. robe fit over it? What am I going to do with another fifteen bags of Peanut Chews?

[LindseyD] What's the [EZNews] privacy policy? If I subscribe, will my mailbox fill with even more annoying spam (other than EZNews)?

Spring cleaning: Office is almost habitible (to quote [Rosenblu]: "Who are you and what have you done with Sam's office?"). Plan is smaller. Those who want to learn about office cleaning or my quest to support volunteers this summer can read the {"http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/plans.html";"archive of my past plans."} (Oh well, it looks like my cleaned plan is a lot like my cleaned office; more orderly, but still packed.)

[AndersEB]: Congrats on the approval of your independent major. So, who are your advisors?

[Phelps] [Linguists]: Is it "Saints Rest" (a declarative statement about the activities of saints, as in "Children sleep, saints rest"), "Saint's Rest" (either the name of a place in which on e saint rests or the resting activity of that saint), or "Saints' Rest" (similar, but for multiple saints).

: Don't forget class today. And what cool comics can I borrow before you graduate?

Sunday, 30 March 2003

Current Offers for Summer Research Volunteers: Free meals in exchange for cooking once per week. Cheesecake served at at least one meal. Still working on free housing in faculty houses in exchange for something. Volunteers expected to work at least 8:30 a.m. to noon, Monday-Friday.

Well ... if you stay logged in to plans for two days, it assumes you're still logged in. (At least I guess that's what happened.)

I like your "submit homework via CVS" idea (although the folks who like to work on their Windoze machines might have some troubles). Perhaps , , [Walker], and I should discuss it.

Can my summer students use your way-cool OpenGL GUI toolkit (since they're writing OpenGL code)? : In your copious free time, follow up with .

It's almost time to clean out my plan again (like ). I think I'll wait until a few days after break ends. Maybe then and others with equally-long plans will follow suit.

Happy birthday! Your present: More stupid band name suggestions. (1) Variants on "Plans": "Plans from Heck" "Finger Me". (2) Grinnell-isms: "Titular Head", "The Relays". (3) Traditional band creation algorithm: Pick random movie names and string 'em together (that's how we came up with "Lolita and the Reluctant Debutantes").

The trip to Des Moines for the Border's sale was short but fun. Bought books for the family. Got cool "Educator Freebies" for me (a promo Pine Valley Cosmonauts CD, lots of movie pins, and some blank "Captain Underpants" comics to give to my kids).

Back to grading 195 exams. The first problem was not predictive. I've been able to grade almost every other problem in under an hour (each) and I'm almost done. I must admit that grading is one of the things I like least about my job. Some others: (1) Arguing with administrators about things I think the college should do, like supporting more summer research students or at the very least giving free credit to volunters. (2) Filling out meaningless paperwork. (3) Resolving advising problems, particularly since the institution always seems to think the student is at fault and is never willing to admit that we might ocassionally treat students differently. "The student's former advisor told him/her to take 302 immediately after 152. (S)he was missing at least two prerequisites." "Yeah, so?"; "My student applied to go abroad in the spring, you've moved him/her to the fall. A required course for honors is offered only that fall." "He/she gets to choose between going abroad and honors." Yeah, it's paperwork and dealing with the administration.

Strangest conversation recently: "Sam, I took a bunch of students on a spring break trip and every day, someone mentioned that they missed your class. [...] Well, maybe they just missed the technology." [Rosenblu]: I hear you said nice things about me. Thanks.

and others. Would a simple "Submit your assignment" Web page (like the one I try to use for my classes) be appropriate as an alternative to e-mail? Another option would be a write-only directory (a drop box as it were).

[KazinkaS] and [GuhaArju]: I, too, am looking forward to the return of CSC153 (fixed) and its abuse of your mental state or certain parts of your anatomy.

Friday, 28 March 2003

I hate to admit it, but I kind of like Microsoft Outlook Web Access. It's certainly a big step up from Webmail and it runs over https. When I'm in my wife's office, I'm behind a firewall that doesn't like IMAP messages, so Web access is the only way to get my needed email.

My office will not be clean by the time the semester restarts. But it will be cleaner. (Will anyone notice?)

[MathLAN Users]: The big garbage can by the printers is for Recycling. Please stop throwing your coffee cups and other garbage in it.

Found some fascinating things in the clearning of the office. (1) Great cartoon on writing letters of recommendation (appropriate for an upcoming Science Teaching and Learning Group meeting on that subject). (2) Exams from CSC152 2000F now winging their way to [PortilAJ], [Murphy], [Glidden], [Axon], and . (3) Portions of a Haiku by [Lieberma]:

The last weekday of spring break. I was going to head off to Des Moines to go book shopping and take advantage of Border's 25% off for educators sale, but work beckons. The office still needs more cleaning (it's clearly cleaner than it was, but it remains one of the messiest offices on campus). I started grading the CSC195 exam last night and problem one took me 3 hours to grade. Oh well, I guess I'll take the family book shopping this weekend (less time to browse).

and : I note that Saints' Rest is now allowing faculty to teach the occasional class there. You can certainly use the "Rebelsky Fund" to pay for coffee and rolls for a special-occasion class there. I'll do so once or twice, too.

Wednesday, 26 March 2003

: I know I saw you coming out of Burling, but Burling doesn't seem to be in the Home/ARH/Science cycle. With the weather greying, I think the MTV folks will be leaving.

Home with Daniel, who threw up at day care but otherwise seems fine. (Currently running through the house, looking for things to play with.)

Michelle reminded me the other day that I've been playing with plans for longer than most of you have been alive (since Fall 1983 or so). By "plans", I mean the original, Unix-style plans. But yes, we used them for most of the same "communicate your thoughts" technique that plans-from-Heck are used for.

: Why no credit for volunteers? Lots of reasons. Here are three. (1) The college traditionally charges students for summer credit and is not willing to quickly make a major change in that policy. (2) Adding yet another for-credit summer option further complicates many discussions we're having right now about the relationships between kinds of summer research. (3) "It circumvents the direction from two faculty committees who have considered the issues of the number of students associated with a faulty member in mentored summer work." (Yeah, I think that was my intent.)

I recently asked "Can I use 'plan' as a transitive verb meaning 'to relay information via plans', as in 'He planned me a really stupid Web site'?" There seems to be no real consensus. Some folks approve the continued destruction of the English language. Others note that "plan" is already an intransitive verb.

[DowdJ]: Sorry to take so long to respond. Are there lots of vocal people? Certainly, has been vocal. also asked about vocal people, so I assume he's encountered a few. I also know of some who object to my MERIT program (not only the person who questioned its legality, but also some anonymous people who've spoken to the SEPC about it).

Monday, 24 March 2003

Well, President Osgood, Dean Swartz, and Associate Dean Sortor said "Sorry, we can't give your summer volunteers free credit".

And so far, no faculty members have said "Oh boy, we'd love to have students live with us."

Saturday, 22 March 2003

Well, found the FAQ. It's probably time to put it somewhere on the glimmer site. (Right after I clean the office, grade two sets of exams, write a new exam, grade some homework, ....)

I'm either doing something very right or something very wrong: I've started getting messages (okay, one message) that read "I see you're taking summer volunteers. I didn't apply as a summer research student. Can I still apply to be a volunteer? How much CS background do I need?"

[PortilAJ] I'm game. Why is it funny that there's a link to my old Jonathan Richman FAQ (which is still on my todo list to restore)? Oh, congratulations on finally getting that second major! And hey, can I buy one of your ceramic pieces before you graduate?

Thursday, 20 March 2003

[Fleming]: It should take less than 30 minutes to learn to build a Web page. It should take less than a day to learn to build a Web page well. For really in-depth reading, I like Philip and Alex's Guide to Web Publishing, particularly Learn to Program HTML in 21 Minutes You can also chat with almost any CS major (or one of my CS151 students), who I'm sure would be able to get you up to speed pretty quickly. (who is not the Alex in the title) planned me this silly site. Will building Web pages get you a job? I'm not sure.

How I spent my day: Michelle (the Dr. Rebelsky who is a physician rather than a professor) moved into her new office space today. She was also on call with at least four other family physicians out of town. Her office was a madhouse. I helped out as best I could: printing forms, photocopying, stuffing envelopes for her "I've moved" mailing. What fun. Her day started before 8:00 a.m. She doesn't expect to be home until 11:00 p.m. I'm glad I don't do her job. (And yes, most of her days are not nearly this bad.)

Okay. Here's the latest offer for volunteers: If you cook dinner at Chez Rebelsky one night per week, we'll feed you every night of the week (and probably provide food for you to make box lunches for yourself). We'll pay for the ingredients (and we'll cook when no one else is cooking). You should plan to work in Glimmer labs at least 8:00 a.m-noon, Monday through Friday. You can certainly work elsewhere at other times. Michelle (the other Dr. Rebelsky) wants to make the "free group dinner at Chez Rebelsky in exchange for cooking once per week" available to all summer students, but I'll give first priority to people who want to volunteer in Glimmer labs (SamR's research lab). And yes, we'll try to make sure that someone makes Cheesecake each week.

Hmmm ... am I allowed to say "Chez Rebelsky" or will Ashcroft's thought police come after me? Oh well, we'll see.

On the housing front, I've sent a message to the science faculty (or asked one to be sent, so it may not get sent until next week) asking if any of them are able to house a volunteer in exchange for some work (e.g., babysitting, tutoring, yardwork, etc.). If you'd like to be on the list of names I forward to faculty willing to host a volunteer, let me know. (If you get housing through this arrangment, I expect you to volunteer in Glimmer labs from 8:00-noon, Monday through Friday.)

Wednesday, 19 March 2003

Turned on the tube while reading plans. Damn. I can't believe we're attacking already (and claiming that we're not starting a war by sending cruise missles). What in hell is going on with our country? I'll leave the close analysis of this idiocy to those better equipped to write and analyze.

: I was going to suggest that coming to Grinnell only to see your CS profs is a somewhat silly thing. If you do escape Madison, go see [Venugopa] and the other folk in Chicago.

: Thanks for "planning" (see oddball question) me the "How to Build a Successful Web Site" page.

: See the silly question, since you seem to be the latest repository of plan-lore.

Wednesday, 12 March 2003

[Raulerso] I believe that Phil of "Phil and Alex's Guide to Interactive Web Sites" (or whatever it's called; the text for the Web Design independent) has a service wherein you send email to a particular location and it calls or emails a particular number. (You should be able to figure out about the service from that much detail. I'm too lazy to do so.)

It's scary when Edwin Meese and the president of the ACLU agree on something. It's scarier still when the thing they agree on is that colleges are trampling on student rights. See more info at http://www.thefireguides.org/

Tuesday, 11 March 2003

You can rent Gargoyles at Family Video (for free; it's in the kids section). Invader Zim is Sundays at 3:30 on Nick.

Hmmm ... should I update my plan or continue prepping CS195? The answer is easy.

and : Doing work until 3am was my world long before it was your world (probably since before you were born; ouch). I'd just hoped to have managed to escape from it by now (and I have in most cases).

I'll think about ways I might provide room and/or board for volunteers, if you think that might be enough for some.

Why is there so much complaint about CS MAPs, given that about as many Chemistry and Biology students were denied MAPs? Maybe CS students are just more outspoken (at least more outspoken on plans) than other students?

A reporter for the S and B, [ArcherDa], is planning to interview me about MAPs. Anything I should worry about?

Woo hoo! Here's the start of my reply from Vice President Thomas: Your methodology and rationale are excellent and do not, in my opinion, violate any principles or regulations of the college or the government. As to which of the "affirmative action polices" would address this; the short answer is none of them. What the student is talking about are nondiscrimination policies and specifically the nondiscrimination policy stated on page xiii of the student handbook. I commend especially the second paragraph of that policy. Your explanation and your FAQ clearly state your intentions and your educational rationale (although in my opinion the student got more than is necessary from a faculty member regarding the educational rationale of a course). If the student wishes to inquire more I will be pleased to meet with him to discuss it. [SNIP]

[RoseJ] You should email [Marzluff] to check her schedule (and to congratulate her).

Band names? How about "Plans"? Everybody loves 'em. My pattern-recognizer observes that both your names end in "y", so "The Y folk" might work. (No penalty for adding these recommendations to your "lame ass suggestions" list.)

Monday, 10 March 2003

[Chitty] What kind of useful things do you want to do? MAPs provide a good opportunity for projects. We also try to include some interesting projects in a variety of courses.

: Why not host the GMUG users' group on MathLAN rather than the main Grinnell machines? Mr. can probably be convinced to configure Apache so that the URL http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/gmug/ points wherever you want in our filesystem.

: I did notice the [Fleming] post. I just didn't understand it. So, if I offer summer volunteers cheesecake (weekly? daily?) that should be enough?

I hate email. Something like 90% of it from last night never made it to the recipients. Now I get to resend it all. For those who read plans and want a quick summary of summer research decisions. I made offers to four people. One turned me down. I went to the first person on my waiting list. The four MAP people hired (in alphabetical order by first name) are: [SchmitzC], [OforiAdd], , and . MIPs are still being decided upon.

I'll be gone from Friday the 14th until Tuesday the 18th or so. I'll be here the rest of break. rarely leaves. [Walker] says that he expects to be here the week of the 17th, but his schedule sometimes changes. You should also visit other professors, like [MooreEd]. Oh, tell [RoseJ] that [Marzluff] got tenure!

[Lesh] Congratulations! That's wonderful news. If you let [Venugopa] be the priest, you simply must invite me. (You can choose to invite me or not even if he won't be the priest, but I'd really like to see him as the priest.)

[Venugopa] Happy belated birthday (again). I'm not sure how much it costs to sponsor one student for one summer, but I'd bet about $3500 would do it. To endow a fund that supports one student each summer would be about $100K. Right now, the college would probably prefer donations toward the cool new addition to the science building that builds incredibly cool space for CS: Two MathLAN-lab equivalents (one of which we'll try to , six offices, five research labs, a majors lounge, a learning center, a robotics/projects lab, an OS/Networks lab, a lecture hall (shared with math) and a MathLAN-lab.

Sunday, 9 March 2003

Back from the Pew conference on recruiting and retaining majors. I'll report some key results in class tomorrow. One interesting quote (paraphrased): "Your students are always watching you. They may appreciate it that you're in your office late at night, but they generally don't want a career like that." On that note, I'm trying to get to bed early tonight :-).

[Fuller] Sorry that my exams caused lack of sleep; I think I'm getting better. Congrats on the forthcoming wedding!

[Rosenblu] You can certainly reuse any of my code you want. You can find the not-very-good PostScript at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/Posters/pew-merit.eps. Mr. says that there's a nice arrow procedure in the Postscript User Manual and Reference Guide (or whatever it's called). Those of you who don't want to read PostScript will soon be able to see the poster outside my office. You can currently read it at http://www.cs.grinnell.edu/~rebelsky/Posters/pew-merit.pdf.

I've now sent out all the responses for my MAP applicants. I really hate saying "No" to students. Oh well, I'm hoping that in the near future some of the CS alums will be rich enough to donate named summer positions.

Sometimes I really hate email. Messages I sent (cc'ing myself) over half an hour ago haven't arrived yet.

Friday, 7 March 2003

Still up. Nearly senseless. Oh well, at least my classes are now prepared, even though I'm not teaching two of them. I thought by the time I reached this age, I'd stop pulling all-nighters (or approximations thereof). Oh well. Perhaps I shouldn't do completely idiotic things like trying to design posters in Postscript. It took me about two hours to write a "draw an arrow" procedure, but it's a really cool procedure (works for any starting and ending point; lets you change lots of different aspects of the appearance of the arrowhead).

I understand that a number of you are complaining to various people about the number of summer research positions in CS that the college funded. Perhaps we should chat first. Note that the college funded seven summer positions, not just the four that mentions.

Here are some of my other thoughts. (1) The college is incredibly generous to fund *any* summer research positions. That they're funding seven for me is great. Few colleges would pay students for an important educational experience; most would charge. (2) No one has given an explicit reason why the college chose to fund seven, rather than the fourteen I asked for. However, there is certainly not an infinite supply of money for summer research, and it is important to give many different people a chance to participate. (3) A wide variety of people think it's reasonable to limit MAPs on a per-faculty basis, including most of the curriculum committee, most of the committee for the support of faculty scholarship, and many of the deans and associate deans. Since those are all people I respect, I must conclude that they have some good reasons for limiting funding.

How can you change things? You probably can't change them immediately. In a few years, when you're wealthy (not that being wealthy should be your target; go for happiness first), donate lots of money for a special "summer CS research" fund or something.

Thursday, 6 March 2003

Current discussion question: On Monday, I'm going to have to tell about twenty students that they cannot participate in funded summer research in Computer Science. Given that high number, I'm going to let people volunteer. What can I give to my volunteers?

Current bribe: None. (Remember: If you're in one of my classes and would like me to bribe your colleagues to attend a preformance, event, or presentation, just let me know.)

Current clueless question: Why do people say "There's no such thing as a dumb question"?

It seems like the discussion of alcohol abuse has calmed down. I've now archived it. I still encourage you to think about how we might make the campus community less dependent on alcohol.

How much of a geek am I? I had to make a research poster. Rather than using PowerPoint (ech! Microsoft), Adobe Illustrator, or even Keynote (yay! Apple), I'm writing it in "Raw Postscript".

And, in case that wasn't enough, I'm also writing plans as a way to avoid making that poster.

Of course, if I were truly geeky (mega-geeky), I'd write a poster-construction system.

I wrote my exam the night before I distributed it, and not the day I distributed it. I think that's a pretty good example for my junior faculty. Of course, I also spend too much time on plans, so I don't really care about setting a good example.

When you can learn to write these sorting algorithms correctly and elegantly, we'll stop asking you to write them. You're not at that level yet. (And that's the general "You", meaning CS students.)

1:30 a.m. Wednesday, 5 March 2003

Yay! The rough draft of the CS195 exam is ready. (I still need to edit it before releasing it, but at least I've designed all the questions.)

Tuesday, 4 March 2003

(1) Sorry that your concert was cancelled. (2) Sorry that I had to be the bearer of bad news about summer research. (3) I'm glad that you have such supportive parents.

Sorry. I destroyed the only Lolita and the Reluctant Debutantes video tape (accidentally, as it happens).

Of course professors get more PlanLove. We're loved more than most people :-). Seriously though, alums mention us and because so few profs post plans, we're enough of a curiousity that others are more likely to read our plans and mention them (or so I expect). On a separate note, do you get jokes about "Leech Ale"?

Monday, 3 March 2003

Current Warning: I have an achive of my past plans. I've quoted some of you in it. Please let me know if you object. I will not quote you by name about alcohol or other controversial issues! I will try not to quote you if you insult me (e.g., "Rebelsky is such a bozo").

Current bribe: My [CS153 Students] get a point of extra credit for going to the Wednesday evening [Kuper] concert and either cheering or harrassing her. (Remember: If you're in one of my classes and would like me to bribe your colleagues to attend a preformance, event, or presentation, just let me know.)

Current clueless question: I cancelled my afternoon classes on March 14. Is that being too nice?

I applied for ten summer MAPs and four summer MIPs. I got four MAPs and three MIPs funded. Bleh. (I appreciate the college's generosity in funding seven summer students. I hate to have to say no to about twenty students.) Particular hires to be announced 10 March 2003.

[Brantley] [Stone] [Brantley] It seems wrong to blame/credit Larry Wall for the Perl/PHP regular expression syntax. It's been around much longer than Perl. (It's similar to the syntax for grep, vi, and more.)

Saturday, 1 March 2003

[Future Glimmer Students]: A spell-check plugin (that lets you set custom words) for Web Raveler sounds like a plan.

General observation: I can see why plans are addictive. Normally, I only have a chance to rant to the students in my classes. With plans, students I don't even know read my rants (and even think about them).

[Plowman] : My understanding is that the process for summer MAPs is different. Faculty apply for funding for summer MAPs and then find students. (I could be wrong.) The deadline for fall MAPs is about the time of the deadline for registration. The home page for MAPs is at . You can also contact Associate Dean Sortor for further information.

[GumBen]: No, I don't update my plan during class (although it's tempting). I just do it in the time between class. (I'm having fun monitoring the discussion my questions are raising.)

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Samuel A. Rebelsky
rebelsky@grinnell.edu