Ok, this one is good.
Community College Chemistry Prof and outdoor enthusiast. Believer in community service. Occasional poster of long thoughts. Captive Iowan who hails from Wisconsin.
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Ok, this one is good.
Dear students, Please complete all your work this week BEFORE you are expecting to be raptured. I will not accept "being left behind" as a valid excuse for late assignment submissions.
"A budget is a moral document."
Grave of the Fireflies.
Reminds me of this clip. youtu.be/pf7aoj_Xcs0?...
HARDEST PHOTO OF 2025 JUST DROPPED
It's humbling to realize that the Nirvana and AIC shirts represent a longer passage of time then when I wore a Led Zeppelin shirt as a college freshman.
Just one 7 minute episode with an AI version of Diego Luna recanting his sins against the Emperor.
Coatesā writing has never been as impactful or as necessary as it has been in this piece.
Pulitzer Feeling Increasingly Out Of Place In Washington Post Office
For example, this is next on my list to read. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ori...
An evergreen response to so many of the issues we are having today.
wrote on charlie kirk for the newsletter this weekend
I campaigned for @modestholdings.com when he ran for the county board, even though I donāt live in his county. Weāve stood outside Emma Goldman and shared a beer at Georgeās. When Cedar Rapids got hit by a derecho, Jon showed up with his chainsaw. He is a man of integrity. Iām proud to know him.
Don't forget the musical theater aspirations. www.businessinsider.com/project-veri...
Thanks, I hate it.
Do your mental health a favor and turn this on for today. You really don't want to watch this. It is awful.
wrote about the ānational conservativeā vision for america
I feel this in my bones.
This is such a key part of teaching first semester chemistry courses, both majors and non-majors. Since I teach a general education chem course, it's effective to help them develop this line of logic.
An update on A Modest Proposal that is all too real.
"This is certainly one possible response to the epidemic of mass shootings: unleash another epidemic on our elementary schools. If I had to guess what kind of shot we would make sure schoolchildren got, I would have guessed wrong." This is going to sit with me for some time.
*chef's kiss*
Graham Greene has died. A Canadian acting icon, he earned an Oscar nomination for his role as Kicking Bird in Dances With Wolves. He also won a Grammy, Gemini and Canadian Screen Award, along with the Governor General's Performing Arts Award. He also earned a star on Canada's Walk of Fame.
What a wonderful memory. My brother has the old canoe and paddles we used. Iām hoping a trip with his kids can happen in the future.
I grew up canoeing on the Namekagon. Itās great.
For my money, Iām a big fan of Main Street Cafe pies in Bloomer, WI. They would employ local grandmothers to produce their best pies.
Itās fantastic. Good enough Iāve brought it to family Thanksgiving.
Tomah is where you find the cranberry bogs.
Where did you end up? I need to add it to my "must visit" list.
It's a return to old times in more ways than one. bsky.app/profile/pook...
Wavefunction Collapse xkcd.com/3134/
![4-panel Comic. (1) STUDENT: If the wavefunction only collapses when I observe it, does that mean my consciousness affects the universe? (2) [Bad:] PROFESSOR: Yes, quantum entanglement proves that we all have souls. (3) [Good:] PROFESSOR: No, consciousness plays no role here. Itās just physical measurement. (4) [Chaotic:] PROFESSOR: No. The wavefunction collapses when *I* look at it because Iām a full professor. It wonāt collapse for an undergraduate.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreic2mhmdvsftki6qe275hycolgt22msekbwzdyqoujt56qzpcbm3hm@jpeg "Click to view full size")
Every time Google Docs or Gmail asks if I want to "refine with Gemini" I picture myself throwing the Gemini central server computer into that lagoon of molten steel like our heroes do to the T-1000 at the end of "Terminator 2."
Happy International Dog Day to Chloe!
Educators, do you have favorite/well-liked peer-reviewed scholarship about gap years and their long-term impact? Please RT. Thank you! š§Ŗ
It seemed like all my key research data was collected in basements or interior rooms. Such is the lifeā¦
Fond memories from Summer of 2003 doing EPR in the basement of Moly Bio.
Hold it. The NYTimes is aware we community colleges exist? *faints*
First day of the fall semester.
Baby Billy energy with these types of decisions.
Love the student population that take those courses, but yeah, it does all kinds of unfortunate things to sleep schedules.
Opinion | Speed Checks Should a student be allowed to take the same class five or six times without someone intervening? https://bit.ly/45Jh989
The urge to spend a long weekend in Chicago is strong.
Rally round the flag, boys.
Iām headed up on Friday to Ely for a staff reunion and itās going to be very hard to get back in my car and head south on Sunday.
The answer to the question if you should go to the BWCAW or not is always, one hundred percent, yes.
This is probably a good piece for a correlation vs causation discussion in a general science course. The Playbook Used to āProveā Vaccines Cause Autism www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
#facultychemjobs weather report: Trump Administration impact visible Today (8/15/25), there are 81 tenure-track research/teaching positions and 8 teaching positions for the 2026 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List. 8/13/24: 105 tenure-track, 7 teaching 8/15/23: 104 tenure-track, 4 teaching
The students to fill this pipeline can often be found at community colleges, and Iāve helped them find spaces the past 10 years through programs like LSAMP. Institutions like mine need the spaces that do research. I hope those spaces heed this plea. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/view...
It's Eugenics. www.wsj.com/us-news/sili...
@deandad.bsky.social on some remarkably easy ways we can make work-life in Higher Education a lot better. @drkevinrmcclure.com
I found this piece by Paul Musgrave to be pretty interesting. open.substack.com/pub/musgrave...
Learned about it as a kid (I think middle school) about 10 years after I missed mine.
An Eagle Scout and a steely eyed missile man. Fair winds and following seas.
Great thread about how folks will make jokes particularly during times of stress. Humor is such a great tool for difficult times.
Perhaps with a complementary Sherman necktie to ensure it stays down this time.
Also, this closer captures why I continue to do this work.
It does my heart good to hear this voice again at the start of my 3rd decade working in higher education. Thanks for coming back @deandad.bsky.social. www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...
YOU MUST DO YOUR STRETCHES TO HAVE STRENGTH TO GRIND YOUR ENEMIES' BONES TO DUST.
kennedy is going to kill a lot of people
That looks sandable! Iām used to the 2 part epoxy stuff that I used to sell. 20+ years ago.
You'll likely have to grind the JB Weld over sanding it. I've seen a fair amount of creative uses over the years, including a guy using it to plug a hole in his transmission. I'm not saying that was an ideal use, but it held. For a while.
My philosophy and experience with students is that they can almost always do incredibly difficult work, but if you ever waste their time with soul-killing meaningless work, you have essentially poisoned the well when it comes to getting them to spend any additional effort on your class.
To answer the question, a lot.
For those of us in the trenches, it's good to have @deandad.bsky.social back writing again.
Agreed. I keep hoping for an article at some point that describes how the liberal arts side of the college helps keep the lights on for the whole college. My chemistry courses are substantially cheaper to run than a welding program, but we absolutely need both for a good, functioning society.
Manifesting some good vibes for my fellow academics. May we find a light and use it to show a way to our students out of the dark.
As I gear up for a new academic year, Iām traditionally excited to hear about what students did over the summer and watch them share it with others, building the community aspect at my college. Finding a replacement for that has been difficult.
It also meant that conferences where students would meet other CC students like themselves were put on hold/cancelled. Opportunities disappearing into the ether and the next generation of scientists and engineers will be impacted.
Grants for research cut/not funded/frozen/etc. at the 4 years meant for the first time in 10 years, I didnāt have students involved in an REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates).
Some of the issues brought to light in this article Iāve seen first hand. Gift link. Trump Went to War With the Ivies. Community Colleges Are Being Hit. www.nytimes.com/2025/08/04/m...
Jones is also a good science communicator as well. Iāve adapted some of his examples for class. Itās time I read through it again.
David Byrne came to my bandās show at a gay bar in Bed-Stuy and sang This Must Be The Place with us and I still havenāt processed it
One of my favorite places on the planet. I used to work with the program where the scouts collaborated with the USFS and fixed portage trails. Some of my most memorable summers.
Also loved the Mystery! intro animations. No memory of watching whatever came next, but was intrigued by the morbidity of this. youtu.be/rAmGsM4Dids?...
Substitute NW WI in for New England for me.
This week Iām handing out the Rahm Emanuel award for politicians with heads of hair and hearts of craven ambition lyz.substack.com/p/dingus-of-...
The economic illiteracy is the point
When I ran Relay Iowa, Celsius was the drink of choice. I can only imagine the issues that would arise if the team had been hammering down vodka seltzer and trying to run 2+ miles at a time.
Waking up to sirens and increasing wind speed. Tuning into local weather using phrases like ābow echoā brings back memories of the 2020 derecho.
Also, this is pure gold. bsky.app/profile/theo...
Forever grateful to my grad school colleague for introducing me to Tom Lehrer (Thanks Ross!) and this thread demonstrates just how clever Tom was. RIP.
Love to see my hometown team represented.
The 2010 paper claiming arsenic-based life has been retracted by Science today. š§Ŗ
Science isnāt the output. Science is the method that is formalized as the output. But ya know.
Donate to your local PBS/NPR stations. It's up to us now.
I interviewed for a job there after college, but ended up going to grad school instead.
Indeed.
As a kid I grew up in a town in NW WI that celebrated Pure Water Days and was home to a brewery that dated back to the late 1860s. My career brought me to Cedar Rapids and itās disheartening to see how far the water quality has fallen since Iāve moved here.
You know how we all know that neurons run exclusively on glucose and donāt use fatty acids as fuel? Well. . .
Youāll take my cake when you pry it away from my cold, frosting covered fingers.
Itās why books were so appealing. You could pick them up and put them down anytime.
'Vacations.' The word is 'vacations.'
