Geekly Update - 14 April 2015

I live in Philly. I didn't get the questionnaire, but I had experienced some pretty dubious billing while I used Comcast.

Yet another highly informative article to brighten my day. Keep them coming Bob

David Guillaume

Re: Teacher changing wall paper on another teachers wall.

I've taught K-12 and post secondary for about 40 years, perhaps a bit more by a decade, (who counts when you are having fun?) and what I can say about many of our current vintages of teaches is they fall into two groups: the 10%, the next 10%, and the 90% that remain.

Yep, of the TOP 10% 95%-99% quit within the first 1-3 years, so they really don't count, they were the brilliant, creative, idealistic ones. Too much hassle and low pay and all the other faults that fall on teachers only. Thus the disparity.

The next 10% (the 20th percentile) form the core of the best teachers we have.

The bottom half (80%) are the ones who use their own name as a password for the account when they could have figured out (perhaps without that 12 pack of beer in them, and a tad less grade appropriate behavior) would have figured out they could have used that teachers admin password.

And let's NEVER Forget the adage I found myself screaming after only 5 years at one school I'll never forget: "HELP! I'M TRAPPED AS A 10 YEAR OLD IN A 4TH GRADE CLASSROOM." and while I'm at it, a 6th grade teacher culture -- It doesn't change until you get to post secondary. THEN you simply put up with the 5th grade culture of the faculty at meetings, the 4th grade culture between departments, and can simply leave campus between classes when you feel yourself going crazy and go for a walk in the mountains with your dogs until the next class. 'Office Hours by Appointment Only" seems to take care of that requirement if not used too often, posted but BE there, thus when you are on mental health day you are 'doing research' in the bowels of the Stacks, or meeting privately with a student in one of the not
scheduled labs. Some vintages of students these days DO shine, and do the World a Service, but they are becoming, like rain in the Sanapanoma region of California, the vine is there, but the diameter of the skin is lacking of many characters in the amounts that count when producing a good vintage wine. I'm sorry, I didn't mean 'count' - most can't do math, so I'll substitute 'matter', because the volume of matter shrinks by the square of the area.

I would like to cast comcast into the sea. Actually, I did. Withdrawal was fairly painless and I have been TV free this century. I still have difficulty believing people put up with them. Maybe I will try to put up with them between 8-12 this Tuesday.