There's a simple differential equation often taught in intro calc courses, "Newton's Law of Cooling/Heating," which basically says that the rate of heat loss is proportional to the difference in temperature between a substance and its environment. I'm curious what that'd look like here. It's a very simple model, of course, not taking into account all the variables that Dynomight points out, but if a simple model can be nearly as predictive as more complex models...
I'm also curious to see the details of the models that Dynomight's LLMs produced!
Mmmm it's something I've done for a long time; I've been at the same school for seven years; it's a ton of fun but also gets repetitive... I want more challenges!
* Get less scared about applying to do stuff! I'm leaving my longtime job---I've taught advanced math to super-smart high schoolers; I'm quitting to be a visiting professor at Deep Springs College for a semester and then ???---and in the past, fear of applying to things (jobs, grad schools, writing residencies) has been a major blocker.
* Learn complex analysis!
* Get a better workflow for writing my notes to myself (e.g., Obsidian) and for publishing my blog/website (have a marginally-functional Hugo instance right now). Small thing, but the kind of important-but-not-urgent thing that it's easy to put off!
I've used Sage for years to run the backend (calculations/computations/graphics/prototyping) for a multivariable calculus class I teach. It's not perfect, but as a lightweight, Python-style CAS to do all sorts of "standard" calculations, it's very easy to use!
Elite private high school in SFBay (not tech, but all of our families are tech/VC). Everyone is getting raises of max(8%, $6700), working out to an average per-employee raise of 8.6%. Inflation is the main stated reason.
(FWIW this means that my salary, teaching undergrad-level math classes to high schoolers, is going from $74K to $81K.)
I teach high school math. My kids use it all the time! This isn't entirely a bad thing. It's a very, very useful (and natural language) symbolic integrator for them.
I teach at an elite private school in the Bay. We're a much better place than the school described here, with kids who like learning, and administrators who are well-intentioned. But many of the author's frustrations are, directionally, exactly the same as what I experience, namely:
> .. The emails sent to me personally from counselors and administrators have overwhelmingly broken down along these lines: such-and-such a student is feeling stressed, so please excuse her from this set of assignments. This other student gets nervous about taking tests or giving presentations or working in groups, so please excuse him from work of those types. ... my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most, which quite literally would have meant putting students who had signed up for Advanced Placement into a remedial course
Thank you for posting this! I also have a 2009-era iPod nano that I've been using for the last decade, and am still using a flipphone, so can't listen to podcasts on that. My iPod still holds a few hours of charge, so it's still usable, but I've definitely been having the same succession planning thoughts as you!
I've really, really enjoyed pg's tweets on parenting and his kids. It's obvious he loves his kids and he loves being a dad.
Given how much of parenting advice/writing is written by and for moms (rather than dads), and given how much of it is (separately) written by and for people who are both extremely anxious and not very analytical, reading pg's thoughtful and joyous takes on being a parent makes me want to be a parent, too.
I heard him speak in 2004, when I was 17. Here's what I wrote in my LiveJournal at the time:
On Thursday, I saw Freeman Dyson speak at Cornell. He was so amazing I can't even describe it. I didn’t look at my watch once during the speech. Not long into the talk, the elderly gentleman next to me pulled a scrap of paper out of his pocket and began scribbling notes. He kept writing until the end of the speech. I glanced behind me during the question-and-answer period, and noticed that Schwartz Auditorium was so full that people were standing in the balcony and sitting on the railings just to hear Dyson.
The text of Dyson’s speech would have impressed any English teacher. He structured it as seven short stories, with each one slowly building on each other. The style of his writing––the way he chose his words and structured his sentences––would have been impressive if he had been giving a lecture in the humanities, much less a field stereotyped for less-able communicators. The way Dyson was able to convey the sheer wonder of science was an orgasmic experience equivalent to reading my first Carl Sagan book.
An 80-year-old physicist who had the energy of a young assistant professor, who delivered his speech fluidly and responded deftly to the audience’s questions––a scientist proficient in more than one science, and fluent enough in biology to give an entire lecture on biotechnology!!!! Oh wow...
True, but you can short the stock from elsewhere in your portfolio (i.e., just a standard nonretirement account), and it's economically equivalent (modulo some stuff with taxes).