The Albert Einstein action figure was the 19th most popular of Accoutrements‘ products in April.  Albert is more popular than the Pig Catapult, but not as popular as the Glow Finger Zombies.

Timmy: “Are we gonna discover the secret of life, Mr. Wizard?”

Mr. Wizard: “We will if we’re not careful, Timmy!”

—”Mr. Wizard and Timmy” parody by Stevens & Grdnic

I’m not old enough to have seen the original “Watch Mr. Wizard” show, and I hadn’t even heard of Don Herbert‘s more recent Nickelodeon series “Mr. Wizard’s World”, but selected episodes of both are available on DVD from Mr. Wizard Studios.  I think I’ll order a few.

I don’t know how this compares to the current physics curriculum in US high schools; as far as I know, we don’t have a mandated curriculum at the national level, but rather it is left to the discretion of the states and school boards.  However, given how much demand there has been for biology classes to include so-called “intelligent design” (which is religion, not science), I wouldn’t be that surprised to see physics dumbed down as well.

This is yet another reason why countries that teach traditional math and science to their students are going to take the lead in engineering.  China and India don’t base their educational curriculum on political correctness.

1. Skim the assigned textbook reading (optional)
2. Miss class at least one week
3. Forget that there’s an exam today
4. It’s an open-book exam, so forget to bring the textbook

The second half of the course looks like it will be more difficult, so I’ll plan to spend more time studying.

I had three semesters of chemistry in high school, and i liked it back then.  In fact, it was one of the few high school classes in which I got good grades, and I was given an award by the American Chemical Society.  Back then I thought I might want to go into chemical engineering or petroleum engineering, but for better or worse, I stuck with my core competency, computer programming.

Anyhow, a quarter century later I wasn’t sure whether I’d still like chemistry.  I don’t think I remember too much from the high school class, and the college G.C. I is definitely more advanced.  Chromatography was near the end of high school chemistry, but at the beginning of this one.  I expect I’ll have to do a lot of studying, but I’m optimistic that I can get a good grade.

The sessions are officially from 3:00 to 8:00 PM on Friday, and 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Saturday.  Yesterday we finished by about 5:30 PM, and today by about 1:30 PM. Since the future sessions will include exams and the labs will probably be more complex, I doubt we’ll get out as early.

The online portion uses a web site called OWL, which is somewhat annoying for a few reasons.  It requires Shockwave, which in not the same as Flash, despite the common usage of the misnomer “Shockwave Flash”.  Shockwave isn’t available for Linux, so I’ve had to use OWL from Windows, which is somewhat inconvenient for me.  I’m going to try using CrossOver Office, which apparently does support Shockwave.  I signed up for the 30 day demo of Crossover Office, and if it works out I’ll buy CrossOver Office Professional.
The notation for entering subscripts and superscripts is strange and error-prone.  If you miss one part of a multi-part question, you have to redo the whole thing, and since the problems are dynamically generated, you really do have to start the problem from scratch.

“Chapter 0″ concerned a review of algebra as needed for chemistry, including logarithms and exponentials.  In a fair number of problems, the program asks you to solve an equation for a particular unknown, by adding and/or multiplying expressions to both sides of the equation.  That’s fine, but the program doesn’t seem to be aware that multiplication is commutative, so on a length multipart question it considered my answer wrong the first two times I worked the problem, just because in the final equation I put the multiplied terms in a different order than it expected.  If I’m going to be tested on algebra, it should be by a program that actually “knows” algebra.

HUMAN 007 is dual listed as POLIT 007, but I opted for Humanities credit rather than Political Science becuase I may need to meet the new UIS general education requirements for which one humanities course must be in the visual or performing arts.

I think the course will be quite fun. We will watch at least one film every week, and analyze them in the context of international relations. I was a bit surprised that all of the films on the syllabus are fairly recent, but several of them are films I’ve specifically wanted to see, including Hotel Rwanda, Jacob the Liar, The Fog of War, and A Dry White Season. The only film on the list which I’ve already seen is Whale Rider, which I enjoyed very much. The instructor warned (and apologized) that many of the films we see will not have happy endings, but I certainly don’t mind that.

Having skimmed the textbook for Human Heredity and Disease, I was a bit concerned about the amount of material we might have to memorize, but we’ll actually have open-book exams. Tonight we had a brief lecture, then split into small groups to discuss two ethics questions. I think it’s great that the course covers ethical issues as well as the actual science.

The first question was whether we would be willing to donate samples of our DNA to medical research. In my group, all four of us agreed that in general we would be willing to donate, because we think that DNA research produces very worthwhile results (cures or treatments for diseases, etc.). But we were concerned over privacy, and in particular making sure that information on the DNA was not made available to insurance companies and employers where it could be used for discriminatory purposes. I also raised the issue that I’m strongly opposed to patents on naturally occuring genetic sequences, and feel that any discoveries of new genetic sequences in samples I donate should be made available (without personal identification) to all researchers, rather than being owned by one corporation. The other students in my team agreed.

The responses of the other teams varied from being strongly for donating DNA samples for research to being strongly opposed, largely over the same concerns. Some students thought the potential negatives of possible privacy breaches may outweigh the benefits.

The second question was a much thornier issue because it involved public policy rather than individual choice. The question was whether restrictions should be placed on reproduction by the mentally retarded, due to the costs of care, and assuming that mental retardation is an hereditary trait. My group stated that we didn’t believe that enough information had been provided to make an informed decision (e.g., the magnitude of the costs), but that if we had to decide based solely on the question as stated, our answer would definitely be “no”, that we would not favor imposing restrictions. Our reasons included concern over determination of who would be affected, whether an objective standard could be established, and the slippery slope it would establish, which could lead to political manipulation of the standard.

Interestingly enough, all the groups were opposed to imposition of restrictions, though there was some variation in the reasons. One group argued that the right to reproduce was a very fundamental civil right, and that the government should not take that right from anyone on the basis of their abilities. Several groups stated that they wanted education (counselling) to be available.

The professor said that later in the course we will study the actual process used to make ethics decisions.

Tomorrow I have the orientation meeting for the (mostly) online English Composition I class, and a week from tomorrow will be the first meeting for the (mostly) online General Chemistry I class. Of the classes I’m taking, I expect that chemistry will be the most difficult, requiring a lot of study. I took three semesters of chemistry in high school, and even received an achievement award from the ACS, but that was a long time ago and I don’t think I remember much of what I learned back then.

I think this semester will be challenging, but it should be fun and rewarding as well.