Only 6 Black girls in the entire U.S. in 2008 got 5's on Physics C

A few years ago, I scolded an advisee of mine for pulling out of a leadership position (house president).  Her reason was that she thought she had no chance of winning.  Only one other person ran---and got the position by default.  My advisee happened to be Black young woman.  I told her that because of the history of our country and some facets of its current state, persons from certain demographic groups do not have the luxury to give up leadership positions.  A few days ago, I saw a similar situation develop, but this time in an Honors Physics class.  Upon researching some statistics, I found an article on "Who Gets 5's on AP Physics Exam" in the blog http://isteve.blogspot.com by Steve Sailer.  (Disclaimer: I take no position on any view expressed by Sailer or his blog.)

Creating a Bootable USB for OpenSuse

I am about to swap out my motherboard and processor (Intel D955Xcs and Pentium duo).  I want to reuse those in a new computer case.  OS is Win 7 and Opensuse 12.1 dual boot.  In order to be safe, I am creating a bootable USB with Opensuse.

First step is to go see this "silent" video:  http://youtu.be/sRzVxw2tI5o (2:20)

Watching Anime "Live reactions"

A live reaction---at least the version of which I am writing---is a video of yourself "reacting" live and in real-time as you watch an anime.  Others can then play back your live reaction as they watch the anime, and it's is like having you in the room with them.  

Learning About Rational Functions, Class 1

Watch videos on intro to RATIONAL FUNCTIONS

• This is by a great math teacher, Mr. Tarrou:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkUnSomHZdg (14:29)
  Please follow along with your notebook!!  This takes less than 15 minutes!!! Do it!
• The next video is by a different author.  It illustrates certain mechanical skills necessary when working with rational functions:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TMk4tKoby54 (11:29)
  This one is about simplifying rational expressions.  Actually, there is a very small error in this video.

Can't afford college example. What should I do?

I searched ("googled") the pharse, "What should I do if I can't afford college, even with loans?"  Here's a great thread that does not give an answer but certainly raises some points to consider, especially one's attitude.  I found it at CollegeConfidential.com at the following URL: 

http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1497004-looks-like-i-cant-afford-college-what-do-i-do.html

Co-ed Dormitories (in college)

The spark for this topic is about 10 days old.  I do not recall exactly how we got on this topic, but two students in my class took opposing views.  One thought it was crazy (not sane) to seriously consider co-ed dormitories.  The other took the what's wrong with that position.  I got curious as to what research might be available.  I only found an ariticle from a website called livescience.com.

Chaos; Head

Another anime as I search for something as good as Full Metal Alcheist.  Chaos; Head has plenty of promise: a blossiming love story, mystery, and a unique weapon (the DiSword). However, it's only 12 episodes long.  If you would like to watch this series, go to: Chaos; Head on YouTube.

Differential Equations

Before successfully mastering Differential Equations in Calculus AB, you must have ALL the basic derivative/ anti-derivatives form MEMORIZED.

The world's most sleep-starved students

No Milk Today

Every now and then, I do try to practice playing my guitar.  I am just good enough to be bad.  I have learned that when I do practice, using a song or music that I actually enjoy works best.  No matter how badly I play it, in my mind, it still sounds like the song I enjoy.  Thus, I have fun practicing.

Recently, I was in the mood for classic 1960's Brittish Invasion Rock-n-Roll.  I found  "No Milk Today" by Herman's Hermits on YouTube:

I used the tab music at tabs.ultimate-guitar.com.  About two weeks later, I ran into this version of No Milk Today by Joshua James & The Forest Rangers, which played in The Season 3 Opener of Sons of Anarchy:

Enjoy.

Fixing the "Class JLog not found" error in a Joomla 3.x site

I went to a Joomla powered website I had created (that was previously working just fine) and was redirected to an error screen that had the line:

Class 'JLog' not found in error.php on line 339 jimport

There was a long site-specific directory path before "error.php".  I searched several Joomla sites looing for a solution.  Most involved saving the MySQL database and re-installing.  However, I found one forum that suggested the Class JLog was part of a definitions file in the libraries/joomla/log directory of the installation.  The actual file was named "log.php".  The post also referenced ftp errors common during an installation process.

Integration Practice

Again, nothing but a few video links.  This is for practice, not the initial teaching of the topic.

This blog is re-born!

I had to delete all posts in order to purge the spam comments!  I had not realized internet bots were such an issue!!

Single Parent Statistics

I had a very interesting conversation with one of my PreCalculus students.  He had been working on a paper for another course that was investigating the achievement gap in education in America.  He asked me if I had any opinions or thoughts about it.  Of course, I did.  During the ensuing conversaiton, we spoke about the effect of the increasing number of children raised in single-parent homes.  I got curious and later looked up some statistics.

L'Hopital's Rule

No explanation.  Just two video links that will teach you L'Hopital's Rule in Calculus AB/BC fashion and even give you some practice applying it.

Can you go for a year without the internet? No texting, either!

A guy names Paul Miller did it and then wrote about it! Well, he did get paid to do it.  You see, he's a writer.  An online 'zine called The Verge was interested in the resulting story.  Miller writes, "At 11:59PM on April 30th, 2012, I unplugged my Ethernet cable, shut off my Wi-Fi, and swapped my smartphone for a dumb one. It felt really good. I felt free."  Miller's story is very interesting.  Here's another excerpt to pique your interest:

In one of the early months my boss expressed slight frustration at how much I was writing, which has never happened before and never happened since.  I lost 15 pounds without really trying. I bought some new clothes. People kept telling me how good I looked, how happy I seemed. In one session, my therapist literally patted himself on the back.

Go read Paul Miller's story about a year without the 'Net!

High Schoolers and Sexual Risk Behavior

Besides moral and/or religious grounds (not that one needs more rationale than morality/religion), can one tell a high school that sexual activity during high school has consequnces?  First, we need data to see the current landscape.  I found the following data from the CDC {Youth risk behavior surveillance—United States, 2011. MMWR 2012;61(SS-4).}  You can find it on the CDC website, but restated here for convenience:

Many young people engage in sexual risk behaviors that can result in unintended health outcomes. For example, among U.S. high school students surveyed in 2011¹

• 47.4% had ever had sexual intercourse
• 33.7% had had sexual intercourse during the previous 3 months, and, of these
  • 39.8% did not use a condom the last time they had sex
  • 76.7% did not use birth control pills or Depo-Provera to prevent pregnancy the last time they had sex
• 15.3% had had sex with four or more people during their life

Sexual risk behaviors place adolescents at risk for HIV infection, other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and unintended pregnancy:

• An estimated 8,300 young people aged 13–24 years in the 40 states reporting to CDC had HIV infection in 2009²
• Nearly half of the 19 million new STDs each year are among young people aged 15–24 years³
• More than 400,000 teen girls aged 15–19 years gave birth in 2009⁴

Which Groups Have Higher Proportions of Unbanked Households?

PBS's Need To Know re-braodcast on Sunday April 21(perhaps original air date was a few days earlier) presented a program on Financial Literacy.  It highlighted a program in Missiissippi directed at educating kids (as young as 1st grade) and their parents about developing savings habits and the importance of having a bank account.  I got curious about the statistics.  The FDIC published results of a survey in 2011.  The information that follows comes from that survery, which you can find here: 2012 Underbanked Survery (or go to
http://www.fdic.gov/householdsurvey/2012_unbankedreport.pdf  ).

Click for a larger graph.

Migrating Thunderbird from Win XP to Windows 7

I had a Win XP crash due to a bad disk.  Since I would have to re-install XP on the new disk, I figured I might as well install a newer OS... WIndows 7 (and dual boot Opensuse Linux, but that's not relevant here).  Then I wanted to keep all my mailboxes in Thuderbird as they were.  I found the solution here:  http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=1774485

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday

Another Pleasant Valley Sunday Video