Misc. Stuff

What have you guys heard about the Droid? To update you on my current situation regarding getting a decent phone, I'm seriously considering signing up with Verizon and getting a Droid.

First an update: Since my phone is only 10 dollars a month on my family's plan I can basically just abandon it and let my family have an extra cell phone while I get a new plan... since it's either that or paying a boatload for an at&t upgrade early (unless I wait until I become eligible on May29th). Even though my family has an at&t phone plan, we have Verizon internet, tv, and landline telephone. If I get a Verizon plan and have it added to my family's Verizon bill I get 15 dollars off. In addition, I am eligible for (I believe it's) 19% off the voice and data. It's 40/month for 450 minutes/month which I think will be more than enough for me since nights/weekends are free. It's 30/month for data, so applying the two discounts makes it just a little over 40 per month plus taxes, activation, and cost of phone on the first day. Seems like a decent deal.

But getting back to the Droid, what are the pros/cons? I've done some research and I really like the fact that it has a big touchscreen and a keyboard. One complaint I've heard is that the keyboard is a bit difficult to use for whatever reason. I want to go into my local Verizon store and try playing with it although I'm not used to phone keyboards and will probably fail horribly either way. Supposedly the available software/etc is a little bit limited, but that's not surprising considering how new the Droid is. I'd love any other information/considerations you have though.

I have gotten behind the times will cell phones. I have a crappy flip-phone which I barely ever use... but I'm thinking it's time for me to get a real one and start using it a bit more. The problem is, I haven't followed phone technology at all and so I have no idea what is available. From what I can tell the newer phones have internet, media players, and full keyboards. I'm hoping to get some basic questions answered here so I can ultimately make an informed decision.

1) First off, what are the most basic options? I have started looking around online to get this question answered and I've found two obvious candidates: Blackberry's and IPhones. Would you consider this list comprehensive?

2) How much $ do I need? My guess is that you can get a discount on some of these smartphones if you sign up for a plan with the company... if I were to cancel my current phone (or wait for the current subscription to run out, I'm not even sure wtf it is) could I easily get a phone + plan? How much does this stuff cost? Are some choices much cheaper than others? Are there options regarding what features are available that will affect the price?

3) What are some of the main features of new phones? Besides phone calls I can think of texting (which I never do and know almost nothing about... this is part of plans?), watching video/audio, and internet browsing. What other good features are there?

4) Preferences? Which are better? What else should I know before I do anything?

You are teaching a class (high school, college, whatever). You give five graded homework assignments and assign each one a score. What grading system will you use? What do you do if a student doesn't complete the assignment on time? What about if he/she never turns it in? How will that count.

Depending on what level you are teaching the course at and where you are located geographically, you might be influenced to answer in a very different way. Most high schools in the USA (where I attended/worked) grade students out of 100% within each individual course. For example, I might have had a 93% average in physics. I think most schools ultimately convert your average over to a gpa out of 4.0 or something similar which goes on college applications.

This is a perfectly valid system. However, what range of grades corresponds to an A? At my high school, 95-100 was an A+, 90-94.4 was an A, 85-89.4 was a B+, etc. Each of those bins is equivalent to approximately 5 percentage points. But after D (65-69.4) what happens? F covers all grades from 0-64.4 (varies slightly depending on school). So if you don't hand in an assignment and are assigned a 0% which is 65 points below passing, then you will need to get a 70% (passing by 5 points) on the next 13 assignments in order to compensate, or 75% on the next 6-7 assignments... or you could say that you'd have to get 100% on the next two assignments in order to compensate and get a passing average. If we also consider the ability of a 0% to have an emotional effect on students (due to its severe weighting), then this could become a recipe for disaster (failure in the course, etc).

Is this unfair? The system has worked well for hundreds of years... or has it? In colleges, the 4.0 scale is much more forgiving about failing grades. Suppose your student got an 95 on one assignment, an 80 on two of them, a 65 on one of them, and a 0 (didn't hand it in) on the last assignment. Using my high school's old grading system, that would work out to (95+80+80+65+0)/5 or 64%. This students has failed. However, using a college-style grading system, the student scored approximately a 2.2 which is a low-mid C.

Educational researchers are beginning to evaluate this system and are arriving at one unanimous conclusion: punishing students for incomplete or unsubmitted work with a disproportionately low grade is demonstrated to have detrimental effects on student motivation, performance, and learning overall. Not only is there a mathematical unfairness in 0% being 65 points away from passing (more than half of the total 100 point scale), but it causes students to shut down, do less work, and learn less effectively.

Returning to the original question, what would you do? How exactly would you grade the assignments? My school is currently discussing this issue and thinking of new ways to grade.

Relevant reading material for those who are interested:

"Alternatives" by Thomas R Guskey, Curriculum & Instruction, October 2004.

and

"The Case Against Zero" by Douglas B. Reeves, Phi Delta Kappan, Dec 2004 v86 i4 p324

P.S. One alternative is to maintain the same traditional system but use 55% (for example) as the lowest grade you can get on an assignment.

Disclaimer: I am not talking about your mom.

As I've said before my problem with golf may very well be that I grip my clubs too tight (see my last blog). First let me give an exciting conclusion to what happened last weekend.

Remember how I had torn up my hands and then was invited to go play 9 on a short par 3 course? Well, I went and played anyway. I taped up my injured fingers and it still hurt every time I hit the damn ball. I would usually accompany my swing with a yell of pain, but still I had some very nice shots including hitting the green on #9 (island green similar to sawgrass #17). After the round I decided to take it easy on my fingers for a while.

I rested the fingers all week and finally hit again today. I did a lesson followed by 9 holes on a local course. Although they are not better I arrived at the conclusion that I will greatly reduce the wear on my hands by holding the club less tight, and it's worth the bother of getting used to it. I even tried hitting out another bucket after my round and was getting the hang of loosening up my grip. So, the conundrum I had last time seems to be almost resolved.

Also we worked on short game mostly at my lesson (easier on the hands I suppose) and I am getting my chipping and putting decent. Had mostly 1-2 putts today on the course <3

I'll wait until I have some kind of dramatic news before I post again about golf.

P.S. How the heck do I get a handicap? It seems like a huge pain in the ass if you don't belong to a private club... the pro told me it's a good idea to get one soon though so I can play if I get invited to some kind a member-guest event in the future.

I'll give a bit of an update of how things have been going for me in golf... and ask for thoughts about one problem I'm having.

I finished my set of 5 lessons over the summer and played a few rounds in August... my last accomplishment I told TL about was when I made an eagle on a par 4. I played a few more sets of 9 holes on a couple of local courses and had some more pars and a birdie or two maybe.

Then September hit and I ran out of time and just stopped playing golf for one month. Suddenly I decided I need to get back into it and hit the range a couple of time and played a couple more 9 hole rounds (amazing how 1 month can make you suddenly suck again). I just signed up to do some more lessons with the same pro at a discount (some other pros told me that the one I'm with is very good).

I had my first lesson today where I compared notes with the pro on what my equipment is like now (real golf shoes, lightweight back with backpack straps, 3 hybrid to replace 3 iron, new sand wedge to replace shitty old one, new mallet putter, etc) and then he worked with me on my newer clubs. I was having some trouble with the 3 hybrid and driver.

Then he gave me some free balls and I went to practice with all my irons. I was doing beautifully with them and even my 4 iron off the mat was looking good. It's very rewarding when you can hit all of your irons with consistency (whenever I switched clubs it would take 1 or 2 balls to get a good shot, and then I would have it). I even practiced the 3 hybrid a bit more and was doing better (albeit not as good as the irons). Tried the 5 wood off the mat and was struggling so I decided to give it a rest for the time being.

But my hands were getting a bit torn up. On the bottom surface of my right ring finger and top surface of my left index finger (where they rub) I was getting some torn skin, etc. Next time I go to practice I'll put a bit of tape over the patches of skin to protect them from further wear, but I know what the problem is. I grip my club too tightly.

Originally, the pro told me I grip it too tight which explains why I sometimes get a certain problem with my ball path (especially my right hand). Today however I was getting very nice shots with my irons (never mind the woods/hybrid) so it didn't occur to me that I was holding the grip too tightly.

So I'm sorta faced with a tough decision. Right now my irons are beautiful (not that this can't change). As a result of how I'm holding the clubs I'm straining my fingers though. Over the summer whenever I tried loosening up my hands it would somehow destroy my golf swing and I guess I've just sorta learned to deal with it. Do I try to adjust the tightness of my grip and the expense of hitting good shots? Or, do I just keep doing what I'm doing and slowly toughen up my fingers a bit? I normally wear a glove on my left hand (which had a problem on the index finger today) and no glove on my right hand (which had the biggest of the problems today).

I think the reason why I clamp down on the club so hard is because I have a high swing speed. Right now it's looking like my 6 iron has a 85-90 mile/hour swing (according to a simulator) with 175 yards and my 5 iron gives me ~185 yards of carry judging from the last par 3 I played (ball landed ~185 yards away on the back of a green [not a downhill shot] and stopped within 2 feet, which surprised me quite a bit). I don't seem to be swinging too hard from a perspective of consistency on the range/course, but could I be overswinging my hands?

Next time I meet with the pro I will obviously discuss this with him but there was not a chance today.

edit: oh thedeadhaji thanks for all the help last time. My short game is getting much better which makes me really happy. Now I can actually pitch and chip half-way decently which makes a HUGE difference as you promised me. I no longer am using a blade putter and plan on improving my putting by getting used to this one.

I am putting together a professional website where I'll sell the pictures I've been drawing (at a nominal price of 20-50 dollars per drawing). Here is a time-lapse video of one of my recent pieces. I can't accept credit cards yet but if you want to hire me to draw a photo of yours in my medium of choice (see video) then please pm me and I'll get back to you with a pricing estimate (discounted for all TL members).

Enjoy!

Click Here for Youtube Video

Many Credit Cards have systems where you earn points for each dollar spent. If you accumulate enough points, you can cash them in for prizes such as airline tickets. For example, you may need 30,000 points in order to receive an airline ticket to anywhere within the USA up to a maximum value of 400 dollars (or something like that). I have no problem with this system.

However, I RAGE (possibly due to hunger) when Credit Card Companies refer to these points as miles. They are called miles yet are completely unrelated to how many miles you can actually fly. I haven't done the math but you might need 10 or even 100 miles for each mile that you want to fly. It drives me crazy when companies do annoyingly deceiving things like this. GAR.

Received this in an e-mail today... surprisingly these things hadn't occured to me before.

1: Every time it's my turn to draw in iSketch at least 1 person guesses what I'm drawing correctly! I have never passed on a word either. If only my guessing skills were nearly as good as my 'getting people to figure out what the heck I mean skills' then I'd be set! (note: my drawing skills in and of themselves suck)

2: I'm considering going to wcg usa in nyc this weekend. I work until 2:30pm on Friday and as far as I understand it Sunday is mostly a wind-down day, so I'm thinking of getting a Saturday ticket. One or two other people I know might want to go for the actual anime convention so the train ride into the city wouldn't be boring.

For anyone who's been there, what's your thought on this plan? What will be happening? You go to the bw section of the convention and invariably bump into other tl people? People hang out when they meet up there?

Are you familiar with Dreamspark? It's a website that's been out for a year or two (by Microsoft) that allows you to download computer programming and server software for free if you have a college e-mail address. Some stuff they have:

MS Visual Studio 2008
Expression Studio 3
Windows Server 2008
etc

I verified myself as a student because I have a college e-mail account where I am getting my Masters, and was able to quickly download Expression Studio 3. I think this might also work for high school students but I'm not sure how you could verify yourself. If anyone could clarify, that would be great.

Just wanted to share this!