July 2011
2 posts
5 tags
New web-based GTD app: Facile Things →
If you’re a GTD user and are looking for a cloud-based way to implement that system, you might check out Facile Things. This platform seems similar to Remember The Milk, but Facile Things is grounded in the GTD philosophy and uses an “orthodox” GTD setup to collect, process and manage tasks. By contrast, Remember The Milk is not really a GTD implementation but a list-making...
June 2011
6 posts
5 tags
Burn for Mac OS X →
Burn is proving to be a very useful tool as I prepare my data for the big move. It is a free, open-source disc burning app for OS X that does several different things; for example, apparently it will auto-convert audio and video file formats to those that can be burned to a disc. But what makes it useful for me are just a couple of simple features:
It automatically tallies up the size (both...
5 tags
“Whenever someone says, “I’m not book smart, but I’m street...”
– Baltimore Ravens cornerback Domonique Foxworth, writing for Peter King’s Monday Morning QB - NFL - SI.com
4 tags
“There is a moment in every great story in which the presence of grace can be...”
– Flannery O’Connor, Mystery and Manners
9 tags
Using MathJax in Tumblr
Did you know you can use MathJax to typeset math in Tumblr? Here is an example:
$$\cos x = \sum_{n = 0}^\infty \frac{(-1)^n}{(2n+1)!} x^{2n+1}$$
Inline formlas too, such as \(f: GL(2, \mathbb{R}) \rightarrow \mathbb{C}^*\).
This is apparently not without bugs. For example, matrices don’t seem to render properly on Tumblr because when you use the double-backslash symbol used in...
4 tags
“Like pornography, sentimentality corrupts the sight and the soul, because it is...”
– Tony Woodlief, writing at Image magazine
5 tags
Thriving at College →
Got an email this morning from Alex Chediak, author of Thriving at College: Make Great Friends, Keep Your Faith, and Get Ready for the Real World!. He had read my old blog post on freshman orientation and sent me the link. I read the introduction online just now and it looks like a good book for kids starting college in the fall, parents of those kids, or — like me — professors who...
May 2011
6 posts
3 tags
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4 tags
2 tags
Mr. Bean takes an exam →
3 tags
October 2010
1 post
Statement of Teaching Philosophy, 2010 version --...
Here’s a working draft of my Statement of Teaching Philosophy for 2010. I would appreciate any comments or suggestions.
————————-
Robert N. Talbert
Statement of Teaching Philosophy
WORKING DRAFT
Learning is a complicated process. As it is currently understood, learning takes place when people are confronted with problems or ideas for which...
July 2010
2 posts
3 tags
Disambiguation
It’s 8:30 PM and time for getting the girls to bed. I’ve let them play quietly in Penny’s room for a half hour or so. Finally I decide it’s time to read stories and tuck them in. Going into where they are, I say, “Time for night-night girls.”
Lucy says: “I wanna play for story time.”
I respond: “Does that mean you want me to read you a play...
5 tags
“The great art and power of faith consist in seeing that which is not seen and in...”
– Martin Luther, What Luther Says / Treasury of Daily Prayer reading for July 9
May 2010
4 posts
1 tag
Would you be disappointed if your children grew up...
The main thing I want for my kids is that they grow up to be intelligent, thoughtful, kind people who enjoy their lives, love God, and have a heart to help others. I would be disappointed if they didn’t develop their gifts to the fullest, but this is different than “ambition”. In some ways I hope they DON’T have ambition, since ambition is so often antithetical to kindness....
1 tag
What do you think the most important quality an...
The ability to combine tough-minded thinking with a love for one’s neighbor, including students.
Too often we see educators who can do one side of this equation but not the other. There are educators with keen minds and penetrating intellects who care only about themselves, their ambitions, or research. And there are educators who want to express “love” for students by making...
1 tag
formspring.me
Ask me anything http://formspring.me/rtalbert
“Do not train children to learning by force and harshness, but direct them to it...”
– xkcd (Of all places)
April 2010
4 posts
5 tags
“If you start a lesson off by telling the students “This is going to be...”
– Theodore Gray, from The Beginner’s Guide to Mathematica, v. 4
3 tags
An excerpt from my journal, June 2001
Background: I have a bunch of stuff lying around in boxes right now (in 2010), packed away during the remodel of my home office. The page that contains the following just happened to be sitting on top of a pile while moving stuff back in. It’s dated June 29, 2001 — less than a year after I got married and about a month after moving from South Bend to Indianapolis to start my job at...
2 tags
3 tags
Pita bread
Ingredients:
3 cups bread flour
1.5 tablespoons sugar
1.5 teaspoons salt
1.5 tablespoons active dry yeast
2 tablespoons butter, melted
1.25 cups water, room temperature (75-80 deg F)
Combine the flour, salt, sugar and yeast into a large mixing bowl.
Make a well for the liquid ingredients and then add the melted butter and water.
Mix well by hand or with a stand mixer on low for 1...
February 2010
3 posts
3 tags
“Calculus is the mathematical study of change. Its essence is best captured by...”
– Steven Strogatz, The Calculus of Friendship-p. xii, 1
Found at http://matlabician.wordpress.com/quotations/
4 tags
“Here [in the Eighth Commandment] belongs particularly the detestable, shameful...”
– Martin Luther, The Large Catechism I.264 - Book of Concord
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“If this truth [= the promise of the Fourth Commandment], then, could be...”
– Martin Luther, The Large Catechism - Book of Concord
January 2010
1 post
4 tags
"Conversation" with the Mac guy at Best Buy
[Setting: I’m in Best Buy because I am looking for an adapter to connect a Firewire 400 cable to a Firewire 800 port, so I can transfer data from an old Macbook to a new one. I found what I need in the Mac section of the store, but it’s bundled with a Firewire cable. I don’t need the cable; I just want the adapter. My wife and three kids are out in the van because I thought this...
December 2009
3 posts
Coffee Icebox Cookies recipe
Coffee Icebox Cookies
(from Joy of Cooking, p. 776)
Whisk together:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
0.25 teaspoon salt
In another small bowl, mix together:
0.75 cups firmly packed brown sugar
1 tablespoon coffee liqueur (e.g. Kahlua)
1 tablespoon finely ground coffee or instant espresso
Soften 1.25 sticks unsalted butter. Beat this together with the...
“Thus you can easily understand what and how much [The First] commandment...”
– Martin Luther: The Large Catechism - Book of Concord
“How television stages the world becomes the model for how the world is properly...”
– http://artofmanliness.com/2009/12/01/amusing-ourselves-out-of-our-manhood/
November 2009
1 post
“We of the great modern democracies must strive unceasingly to make our several...”
– Theodore Roosevelt, Autobiography
October 2009
5 posts
Goodnight Moon →
“Set in a dystopian future in which genetically engineered animals have devoured humanity, GOODNIGHT MOON is told from the perspective of a unseen, dying victim of the ravenous hordes. As he reflects on the scene with his last breaths, MOON provides a terrifying eulogy for the human race.”
“Although [Lou] Holtz had a well-deserved reputation as a motivator, some of his...”
– mental_floss Blog » 5 Things You Didn’t Know About Lou Holtz
“If the colleges were better, if they really had it, you would need to get the...”
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
