John Buncher

"I only voted with Nazis *some* of the time" really isn't as good of a defense as you think it is.

Collaborator. Spineless. Worthless. You had a chance to do something *TODAY* and you *chose* not to. You are garbage.

Messages left, faxes sent.

Can't record a message for @smith.senate.gov , because the mailbox is full. VOTE NO ON CLOTURE SEN SMITH!

Finally got through and left a message. Now on hold for Sen Smith.

Have been trying for hours, can't get through.

@amyklobuchar.com I am a MN citizen and have been trying to get through to your office for hours. VOTE NO ON CLOTURE FOR THE BUDGET BILL!!!!!!!!!!!

Indeed! I plan to have a *lot* of hot tea while getting some work done......or maybe some hot chocolate

Screenshot showing temp of -20F and wind chill of -47F.

A little chilly out there today. For context, it would have to "feel" roughly 80 degrees warmer out to "feel" like it was just above freezing....

Effects of maze appearance on maze solving - Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics As mazes are typically complex, cluttered stimuli, solving them is likely limited by visual crowding. Thus, several aspects of the appearance of the maze – the thickness, spacing, and curvature of the...

New paper from Yelda Semizer, Dian Yu, Qianqian Wan, myself and @ruthrosenholtz.bsky.social nholtz.bsky.social! I'm really excited that this is out - mazes (and related visual connectedness judgments) are a really exciting problem domain for visual cognition. #VisionScience #PsychSciSky

In other words, people already *need to have* the skills they're trying to use GenAI for in order for it to be an effective tool.

One of my favorite points on this was brought up by @techconnectify.bsky.social a while ago: one of the (many) problems with viewing GenAI as a tool is that you cannot tell when it fails. When your car or calculator fails, you *know*. With GenAI, the garbage is presented the same as everything else.

Image showing Christian Bale (possibly from American Psycho?) holding Griffiths E&M textbook. Also includes pictures of David Griffiths.

I'm *really* not sure what message Google's AI search is trying to send with this picture.....I really wish I could turn that garbage off.

The new 5E of Griffiths E&M has computational problems, cool! They are all in Mathematica, less cool! Wondering how brutal it would be to convert those to python/matplotlib for plotting Fields and solving DEs...havent really done python in about 10 years... #physics #teaching

Jenni is phenomenal to work with!

Hey all! Please share this opportunity far and wide! We are recruiting post bac students for our RaMP program. More details online - and bonus! I'm recruiting a student in Biology Education Research!

www.ndsu.edu/researchgrou...

Great things happening @ndsu-biosci.bsky.social

Image showing that r-prime is not defined in terms of x-prime

Image showing footnote saying "where there is no confusion I'll remove the prime"

...or the first *Example* where he used the "prime" notation, and immediately discards it!

That stuff is *always* difficult for students, there is *always* confusion, don't throw out your convention right when you start to use it!!

Image of homework problem text

I know I've used this book before, and I generally really like it, but I feel like Griffiths is committing crimes in the first 4 pages of Ch 2....

Take part c, which *hugely* relies on applications of symmetry, but that hasn't been discussed at all yet (cont.)

3 painted miniature monsters: "Abominations" from HeroQuest

Unwinding by adding highlights to some minis and listening to @goobertownhobbies.bsky.social on Paint Bravely. Wonder if he has a speedpaint in his "freeze for science" paint kit.... #minipainting

Ready to go for the first day of class tomorrow, Algebra -based Physics 2 and then Griffiths E&M! Time for some "script r" and vector calculus.....

I should disclose that I've *never* airbrushed before this (yay Christmas!) so it's possible there's something else I'm messing up! Brush was H&S Ultra 2024 @ around 30 psi.

Think I figured out the issue I was having with @thearmypainter.bsky.social Fanatic paints in an airbrush: even with 3:1 medium:paint, mixing in the cup didn't work. Fanatic paints would just "sink" and clog the brush, no matter how much I mixed. Mixing out of the cup fixed issue. #minipainting

Sara and I have decided that our cats are definitely Chaotic Neutral.

@michaelanes.bsky.social small world! My first faculty position (2010-2012) was at Wittenberg in their Physics dept! It was a great group to work with!

FYI - for anyone wanting to try alternative grading this semester but feeling short on time to implement it, I *highly* recommend a 0-4 scale. I used it in my 400-level quantum class last semester and it was phenomenal. Happy to answer implementation questions. #alternativegrading

Trying to figure out how to reorganize my 19 standards for junior-level E&M to incorporate some "skills"-based things (i.e. setting up integrals correctly), difficulty is now I'm ending up with like 3-5 substandards in many standards....at some point it feels like normal grading. *sigh* #sbg

Bookmarking this as a possible resource for students in my Electrodynamics class (the first chapter of the text is "Vector Calculus")

Let's not forget the constant barrage of PD aimed at teachers promoting AI. At some point it will just be students using AI to complete assessments generated by faculty using AI. Wtf is the point of that?

There is something ironic about trying to grade Quantum Mechanics while not waking up a cat....

Image of grey kitten curled up in my lap, sleeping.

This is Ash. She says work is optional, but cuddles are mandatory.