Big bad seven

HT to HT

This really crept up on me: the seventh anniversary of the launching of Halfway There. I started this blog shortly after completing my third and final stint in graduate school, needing to do something to keep my powerfully over-educated brain busy. Either that, or to sublimate my compulsion for keyboard pounding.

It's often been fun, although occasionally disappointing. How can certain segments of the world resist the rationality of my pellucid prose? Yet I strive to avoid the conclusion that people who disagree with me are either foolish or evil (although occasionally they seem to be both). Such a conclusion would be bad for amicable family relations, seeing as so many of my relatives insist on doing silly things like supporting the right-wing policies that suck the marrow from their bones. But I preach at them in vain just as they do at me (except, of course, that I use truth and they use falsehood).

In recent years the sublimation of my keyboard-pounding jones has taken the form of novel-writing, but one modestly successful publication is not likely to be the start of a burgeoning career in fiction. Perhaps after the movie rights are sold or the opera version has its premiere. We'll see. In the meantime, school is back in session and it's only a matter of time before a few more “weird student” stories are collected.

And maybe we'll make it to the 8th anniversary.

Living in Inertiaville

In the state of Catatonia

The spring semester ground to a halt several days ago. As usually occurs after a prolonged stint of intense effort, I lapsed into a semi-coma when it ended. My grades filed, I folded myself up into a tiny space of inaction.

I'm resting. Or something.

Some of my colleagues treat the filing of semester grades as a starter's pistol. Bang! And they're dashing off to foreign climes or holding parties or gorging on movies. School's out! Party time!

I can barely move.

My friends barely suspect the degree to which I shut down when the school year ends. I'm afraid I get overwhelmed by all of the deferred secondary tasks that accumulated during the busy times. Buridan's ass is reputed to have starved because he was fortuitously situated at the midpoint between two identical stacks of hay. Two stacks? Heck. I feel encircled.

Thus it has been that books remain in unsorted stacks, sheafs of papers sit unfiled, laundry rests unfolded in baskets, newspapers pile up unread in the recycling bin, blog posts remain unwritten, and an entire residence awaits a much-needed top-to-bottom clean-up job. (And let us not speak of my office at school.) Instead of attempting anything on the long list of things to do, I've slouched on the comfy chair in the living room, remote control in a flaccid hand, chuckling at the inane antics of Father Ted, the hijinks of Rocky & Bullwinkle, and bits of Fry & Laurie. I've let Simon Schama lead me through British history. (My video tastes are eclectic.)

Of course, it's not all couch-potato viewing. I also take naps. And I have been plowing through lots of books. I do that all the time, but pick up the pace during the summer. Reading is a useful and constructive activity, but I fear I'm using it in alternation with watching television as a way to avoid performing other tasks.

What to do? What to do?

My past history suggests that my suppressed sense of personal responsibility will eventually generate enough pent-up pressure that I will—any morning now—explode into a spate of furious activity that will strike out big segments of the mile-long to-do list. But it hasn't happened yet.

Perhaps writing this post is a kind of mea culpa that will nudge my conscience closer to the trigger point....

Nope. Not yet.

Catholic spin cycle

A faithful parody

The more-Catholic-than-the-pope fringe of Roman Catholicism is faithfully represented by the ultra-ultramontanes of RealCatholicTV, where Michael Voris shares his overweening smugness in a series of videos titled The Vortex. In recent installments he has decried the collapse of Catholicism in Ireland and reported that contraception has brought humanity to the edge of destruction. Voris would not know the meaning of “subtlety” if it hit him in the face with a sledge hammer forged in the white-hot intensity of a million suns. His antics would seem to put him beyond parody, but nothing daunts the truly brave humorist.

Enter Steve, the eponym of Steve Likes to Curse, a blog of peculiarly skewed and irreverent humor. This month he's unveiled a series of Vortex parodies that are wickedly on target. Sporting a helmet-hair wig every bit as authentic as Voris's and styling himself “Michael Whirly, B.F.D.,” Steve presents The Whirlpool (“where fibs and fabrications are pulled under and drowned”). Check out his denunciation of atheists (“stupid retards who only care about fornicating with members of their own sex and smoking drugs”).

Keep an eye on the background animation for the floating washing machine. Then take a look at some of his other videos. He sincerely pities “those silly Jews” and their “obsolete” religion. Consider how specifically he cites scripture as he lusts for an opportunity to stone Emma Watson as a witch. At least, I think stoning is what he wants to do to her. It is a wonder to behold.

Perhaps you have never wasted precious minutes of your life watching Steve's original inspiration, the egregious (I was going to say “inimitable,” but that obviously no longer applies) Michael Voris. You can get a rush of schadenfreude while marveling at the accuracy of Steve's portrayal as Voris wrings his hands and laments over the sorry state of the modern Catholic Church. (Steve does look down a bit too often at his cue cards, I admit, but he also doesn't flub his lines quite as often as Voris either. It's a trade-off.)



One thing does, however, confuse me. Steve says he has just observed his blog's fifth anniversary, but has yet to attract much notice:

After five years, the first four of which I posted at least one article a day, every day, Steve Likes to Curse’s popularity and exposure are still minimal. On a good day, this one gets around 100 hits. Most days it gets between 40-50. And yet this quiet little website of mine has changed my life. What must it be like for someone whose blog gets thousands of hits a day?

Something is wrong when a treasure trove of humor like Steve's blog gets so few visitors. Go give the nice man a little love.

Victory over Google!

I slash my hit rate!

This must be how BP felt after capping the blown-out oil well in the Gulf of Mexico. The Google tsunami is over!

For now, anyway.

As I reported in an earlier post, my blog had become the “beneficiary” of a tidal wave of visitors (speaking in relative terms, of course). My hit rate suddenly doubled or even tripled. According to Sitemeter data, as much as 72% of the new visits were to Where's my money?, a snarky observation on the inanities that characterize San  Francisco's KSFO talk radio. It was all Google's fault. People who searched for “money” were being treated to a strip of “Images for money” that included a clip I had used to illustrate my post. That was enough to divert hundreds of people every day to look at an image of a guy carrying an oversized money bag.

Ordinarily, I would be happy to welcome more visitors. In this instance, however, I grew weary of the flood. Sitemeter reports acquired a deadly monotony as the horde of picture-seekers swamped those who had come to Halfway There to read actual words. I could no longer keep track of who came to see what. Last week I took steps.

First I deleted the image from the post in question. Days passed without Google noticing. The deluge continued. Then I made the post unavailable by saving it as a draft. Success! Traffic returned to normal. After a couple of days, I restored the post. The mob was instantly back. The sought-for image was gone, but Google was still lagging. I took the post off-line again and the hit rate dropped accordingly.

A few days ago I felt brave enough to repost the article. It was still without the attractive nuisance of the money-bag illustration, but now it was also missing the stress of Google's regard. The search giant had found another source for Mr. Money-Bag and the stampede was quelled. My victory was complete.

I got rid of over half of my traffic and I'm happy about it. Should I be concerned about this happiness? Oh, oh. Confused now.

Who are those guys?

The madding crowd

For many days now, my most popular blog post has been Where's my money? It's my comment on KSFO's resident morning idiot, Brian Sussman, and his ruminations about “millionaire” college professors. (Yeah, we're all wealthy!) According to Sitemeter, the hits keep coming in, creating a significant but perplexing bulge in my visitor count. Sitemeter also informs me that visitors are being directed to Where's my money? by Google's image search, not word search. There are three graphics accompanying the blog post, but I don't know which one people have been seeking out. Do they want a pin-up poster of Brian Sussman? (Seems unlikely.) The graphic of the guy strolling along with a bag of money? The guy with dollar signs in his eyes?

I don't know. And I don't know why, either.

At first I thought the spate of new visitors would quickly abate. A week later, they're still coming. It's a curiosity.

Addendum

For reasons that only Google could explain (and perhaps not even then), the bag of money graphic at the end of last year's post is what pops up in a list of images that accompanies a search on the word “money.” That's a regular search, not an image search. If you specify an image search, the same image pops up, but this time from a source other than Halfway There. I have no idea how my use of the clip came to rank so high in Google's main search engine, but that is what is currently driving approximately 40% of the visits to this blog. Fame at last! (But not fortune.)

Halfway there?

It happens this week

My hit-rate on Halfway There has gradually drifted up from last year's fairly steady 200 per day to this year's approximately 300. I'm not certain why the numbers creep upward, but it's fun to see that they do. It intrigues me to think that each day I have readers from around the world. They come from such places as Canberra, Singapore, Cork, Seville, Sydney, Wellington, Stockholm, London, and Fresno, to cite just a few of the exotic locations listed on Sitemeter's roster of recent visitors.

And now I'm approaching 500,000 in total visits to my blog since it was launched in 2005. (If only I had a nickel for each visit!) Given the rate of visits, the milestone will be achieved in the next day or two.

Half a million visits in six years? How long will it take to hit one million?

Addendum

What a let-down! I was looking at the Sitemeter report on visit 499,998 (which was someone from Auckland) and anticipating the arrival of the half-millionth visitor when a sudden surge of hits caused me to miss the tick of the counter to 500,000. It hit 500,002 before I could blink. Damn!

But not to worry, I could check the details to see who it was. And ... drum roll ... bleah. It was just an invasion of googlebots. Visits 499,999, 500,000, 500,001, and 500,002 were all from googlebots in Mountain View. They were visiting the posts titled “Chains of gold,” “Universal Experts,” “The Obama-Heinz Incident,” and “Ten Percent of One Million.” Why? Beats me! I suppose it was all part of Google's “Don't be evil” campaign.

A real person finally showed up as visitor 500,003. Hello there, Lubbock, Texas! What kept you?

Lumpers and splitters

Considering a “stupiphany”

The secondary school math curriculum used to be extremely predictable in the middle decades of the twentieth century. High school freshmen took elementary algebra, sophomores enrolled in geometry, juniors refreshed and extended their first-year curriculum with intermediate algebra, and college-prep seniors took trigonometry. That's just the way it was in many places across the United States (and certainly when I was in high school).

Eventually, though, many changes occurred. While that old-fashioned core curriculum survives in many ways, it certainly drifted. Algebra trickled down into middle school and high school seniors started taking introductory calculus (or something called “analysis”). Perversely, however, the old high school courses also migrated into the college curriculum, where we originally called them “remedial” and then relabeled them with the less pejorative “developmental” tag. I think that such remedial courses used to be the province of what we call “continuation” high schools, but today most developmental math is taught in community colleges. My college, for example, teaches more developmental math than anything else. We even teach basic arithmetic to those who failed to learn it in elementary school.

And we teach developmental math over and over and over again to students who fail it the first, second, or even third time. Success rates hover between fifty and sixty percent for most of the classes, indicating the degree of recycling that goes on. It's maddening to both students and instructors.

Most of my colleagues in the math department know the secrets to success in a math class. In fact, they're hardly secrets because we share them constantly with our students: attend class regularly, pay attention, study the material, do the homework, and ask for help when you're stuck. While luck plays a role (catastrophic illness, financial distress, and family emergencies can derail anyone), most student failure is based on the neglect of those fundamental guidelines.

Of course, we don't just enunciate the principles of successful math learning and then sit back and wait for our students to succeed. We try to meet them halfway (or more than halfway). We offer tutoring centers, accommodations for learning disabilities, on-line support, and different course formats. These days the traditional classroom-based lecture class is often supplemented with on-line instruction or hybrid classes that combine in-class and on-line elements. Students may be able to enroll in self-paced computer-based math labs, too.

And then there are the “splits,” which try to slow down the pace of the curriculum by slicing the courses in half. Students having trouble with our one-semester elementary algebra might be permitted to take half of the course during fall semester and the second half during spring. You can spot these courses in college catalogs where they bear labels like “Algebra 1A” and “Algebra 1B.” Many schools have even done this with arithmetic. You can struggle during the fall to learn your times table and save fractions till spring.

I wish I were kidding, but I exaggerate only slightly.

Guess what? The students who enroll in the splits aren't particularly more successful than those enrolled in regular lecture classes, on-line classes, or math labs. Are we rescuing a few additional students with each new approach, or would they do as well (or as badly) if we just ushered them all into a classroom and made them sit in rows?

I believe we do achieve some marginal additional success with the multiple formats because students do learn in different ways and one-size-fits-all is almost never true. Still, I wish the benefits were more than marginal.

This reflection on student success and failure in developmental math was stimulated by a recent post by a pseudonymous community college dean. “Dean Dad” traveled to California last month to attend the San Diego meeting of the League for Innovation in the Community College. He was particularly struck by the remarks of a Bay Area faculty member:

Prof. Myra Snell, from Los Medanos, coined a wonderful word: “stupiphany.” She defined it as that sudden realization that you were an idiot for not knowing something before. The major “stupiphany” she offered was the realization that the primary driver of student attrition in math sequences isn’t any one class; it’s the length of the sequence. Each additional class provides a new exit point; if you want to reduce the number who leave, you need to reduce the number of exit points. If you assume three levels of remediation (fairly standard) and one college-level math class, and you assume a seventy percent pass rate at each level (which would be superhuman for the first level of developmental, but never mind that), then about 24 percent will eventually make it through the first college-level class. Reduce the sequence by one course, and 34 percent will. Accordingly, she’s working on “just in time” remediation in the context of a college-level course. There is definitely something to this.

Um. Under the given assumptions, I can't fault the math (0.70⁴ = 0.2401 and 0.70³ = 0.343), but it is just a tiny bit simplistic. If we squeeze all the remediation into one course, then we'll be rewarded with a 49% overall success rate at the end of the college-level course. Yay!

Except that it certainly wouldn't work.

This is a classic optimization problem—the kind that you see in calculus. Two countervailing factors have to be balanced in order to achieve the best possible outcome. For example, if you want to enclose the maximum possible rectangular area with a given length of fence, you have to balance the contributions of length and width, because one can be increased only at the expense of the other—yet both contribute equally to area. (Thus the ideal figure turns out to be a square. Big surprise!)

In the case of developmental math classes, the splits offer more failure opportunities. On the other hand, they reduce the curriculum to bite-size chunks that more students might be able to master. The more you cram into a course, the more likely the students are to be overwhelmed. The trade-offs are rather obvious.

(Frankly, I prefer that split classes be taught at the same pace as regular classes, because stretching them out to semester length attenuates the reinforcement that most students need. At the halfway point the successful student moves on to the second-half split while the unsuccessful student repeats the first-half class without having to wait till the next term.)

I don't think that Prof. Snell's “stupiphany” is quite as significant as suggested by Dean Dad, although I presume her presentation would be more nuanced at greater length than it is in a one-paragraph summary. (She did, apparently, couch her presentation in terms of timely intervention.) The tension between length of sequence and course content will continue. The experiments will certainly continue. In fact, I can even tell you the direction in which they will go. The splitters having had their day, the lumpers anticipated Snell's observation and are putting accelerated curriculum into place. Courses are being designed and curriculum is being implemented. Hang on to your hat as developmental math tries to speed up.

That's probably a future post.

Loon on the run

Resisting anything but temptation

It was too much for him. Montreal was hosting a huge gathering of nonbelievers and Gollum had to climb up out of his squalid cavern to blink in the bright light at the horde of atheists.

Oops! Did I say “Gollum”? It's a natural mistake. I meant to say “Dennis,” as in “Dennis Markuze” (also known as “DM” or “David Mabus” or “Atheist Wars” or even, in a likely attempt to avoid ever more effective twit-filters, “Anonymous”). He apparently cannot help himself as he stalks those with whom he disagrees, particularly P.Z. Myers, who is decidedly Dennis's bête noire. He's dabbled in harassment here at Halfway There, too, where nearly two hundred deranged comments have appeared under his byline since December 2009.

His venture into the world of humans was not without its consequences. As a result, Tessa Brown is my newest hero. She confronted Dennis Markuze and she shot him.

It was only with a camera, however. You can't have everything.

And now we have a new face of lunacy to contemplate. Yes, it's rather ordinary, but what's going on behind the face is decidedly not pretty. It's chaos back there, and medical intervention is definitely indicated. (Remember, I am a doctor! [Okay, the degree is in math education, but you're just quibbling!])

Dennis needs help. Lots of help. Or jail time. But I suspect the latter would not do him much good. And so far no one has managed to talk him into getting counseling. He's too busy defending his version of God. Back in July, Dennis favored me with the following comment:

DM has left a new comment on your post "Believing your lying eyes":

As I said, we are going to EXTERMINATE you and your entire family if you continue to talk about RELIGION OR GOD....

this your FINAL WARNING...

He then promptly posted another half-dozen incoherent and profane rants. I replied (though one should never reply to trolls) in something less than my most polite manner:

Dennis, you're a dumb asshole who doesn't even understand the meaning of "final warning". No one should listen to what someone that stupid says about god or anything else. (Who let you out of the retirement home for insane trolls?)

Now we all know what Dennis Markuze looks like. It can't be too long before the T-shirt gets updated.

Fun with trolls

Basket cases

The Internet is a wonderful gift to the mentally deranged. It enables them to share their warped perspective and grandiose delusions with the world. PZ Myers highlights a special case over at Pharyngula. John A. Davison is a sorry-ass crackpot who pelts PZ with e-mail about his cranky collection of “science” essays. It's another idiot who thinks he's a genius.

I'm currently having just a little bit of fun with a similarly loopy—but less coherent—nutjob whose self-regard has to be experienced to be appreciated. Let's call this fellow “Smith” for the sake of discussion. His reasoning skills are orthogonal to reality. For example, check this out:

DOES ATHEISM HAVE A FUTURE?

AND THE ANSWER - NO!

Shermer - Harris - Myers - Dawkins - Randi VS. NOSTRADAMUS - EINSTEIN - SMITH

you're ANNIHILATED!

It's another idiot who thinks he's a genius, ranking himself with Einstein. The Nostradamus comparison I can almost see, especially if you equate obscurantism with delusion (and I suspect Smith can't tell the difference).

It's just sad that Smith thinks Einstein was a theist. A regard for Spinoza's concept of god as the embodiment of nature does not make one a believer in any traditional sense of the word.

Too bad for Smith.

Each time he weighs in with one of his irrational rants, I smile and gently delete it. No doubt he chuckles mischievously as he reposts his nonsense time and again, but it's all for naught. He posts and chuckles. I delete and laugh.

Ha, ha, “Smith.” See how I mock your self-regard?

The professorial one

PZ does Davis—and so do I

Last night in the university town of Davis, California, I was privileged to meet PZ Myers of Pharyngula fame. Naturally, I am flattered to see that he reported our encounter by describing me as “the professorial Zeno.” Clearly PZ regards me as a peer in the suave and debonair fraternity of pedagogues. That is the way I should take it, right? It wasn't as though he intended to describe me as rumpled and tweedy, right? (One must be careful with one's adjectives.)

Surely.

I took notes during PZ's presentation and will be writing up the Q&A session that followed his prepared remarks. The Q&A will vary significantly from venue to venue, so I'll be pleased to share the highlights of the Davis speech.

More to come.

PZ does Northern California

Eight one-night stands

The estimable PZ Myers of the University of Minnesota (Morris) is bringing his one-man show to northern California later this month. The (in)famous Pharyngula blogger will be giving a talk on creationism and complexity. If I were to hazard a guess, I suspect Dr. Myers will be giving the lie to the argument beloved by intelligent design creationists: “Oh, my goodness! Look how complicated life is! God must have done it!”

Uh, no.

But it will sound more eloquent when presented by PZ.

I suspect that Dr. Myers made only one mistake in agreeing to his northern California jaunt: It's not a good idea to let a mortal enemy set your itinerary. PZ's schedule is clearly designed to run him ragged and result in UM Morris reclaiming a mere remnant of the robust man he once was.

Do I exaggerate? Check this out:

• Wednesday, January 20: UC Santa Barbara
• Thursday, January 21: UC Davis
• Friday, January 22: UC Berkeley
• Saturday, January 23: UC Santa Cruz
• Sunday, January 24: De Anza College (Cupertino)
• Monday, January 25: CSU Chico
• Tuesday, January 26 Sacramento City College
• Wednesday, January 27: Stanford University
• Thursday, January 28: Sierra College

I've included links (where available) to the particulars of each event, but could not find anything for Chico (and the Sierra link is pretty thin, with details presumably forthcoming). If anyone has better links, please leave them in comments or e-mail me. I'll update the links as more information becomes available.

This post is, of course, an exercise in redundancy, since anyone really interested in PZ's visit to California will have already read about it on Pharyngula. But that's okay. I can't help myself. And making the map was fun. (Does PZ actually know what he's in for?)

I have been on every one of the campuses PZ is visiting (some of them several times) and it will be no problem for me to attend his speech multiple times. If I do that, I'll consider wearing a hat with the brim pulled low so that no one will think I'm a stalker. Good idea!

Too good to be true

So much for tentacles

Perhaps PZ Myers got too excited too soon. He chortled with delight when Brad DeLong rechristened his blog, changing the title from “Grasping Reality with Both Hands” to “Grasping Reality with All Eight Tentacles.” PZ offered a mild complaint about DeLong's encroachment on Pharyngula's turf, but you could tell he was pleased:

There is much to look forward to in our bright molluscan future.

It was a short-lived future, which has now become simian in nature (or, to be slightly more correct, has reverted to being simian, given that Brad DeLong never denied being a primate before briefly going octopoidal on us). As of today, DeLong's blog carries the banner “Grasping Reality with a Prehensile Tail.”

I sense a running gag.

Time for a sexy party

Four years old

Okay, perhaps it seems a bit premature to have a “sexy party” at age four, but Stewie Griffin is allowed to throw such fêtes at age one, so let's pop the champagne!

Oops. I forgot I don't drink. But happy fourth birthday to Halfway There anyway.

My fling with Stephen Fry

A celebration of Fry Days

I suppose it was meant to be. We were each minding our own business, never imagining how the stars were about to align. And then ... it happened.

Stephen Fry used his Twitter account to mention something that was completely and entirely unrelated to me. And promptly set off a stampede to my blog.

You will understand, I hope, that when I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean, neither more nor less. Therefore, when I say “stampede,”, I intend it in the rather limited sense of (drum roll) a thousand hits in one day.

Let's face it. That's quite a red-letter day for an nth-tier blog. And I hardly even noticed. I was having a very nice weekend fussing over personal projects and enjoying the days just before the start of fall semester. Then I noticed that my Sitemeter widget was indicating a total of 300,000 hits (since 2005, when I launched Halfway There; my first-ever post was uploaded on August 27 of that year, so we have a birthday coming up). The run-up to 300,000 had occurred several days earlier than I had been expecting. I soon found out that Stephen Fry was responsible. It was all his doing!

So what did Stephen do that was so special? He tweeted a mildly obscure remark from the movie War Games, sparking a rush to Google UK to discover the meaning of the string CPE1704TKS. It turns out (certainly to my surprise, and probably to the surprise of anyone else who's been paying any attention), my post on War Games is the No. 1 entry for searchers on Google UK. (Well, I'll be buggered!)

The twittering hordes are still coming to Halfway There in numbers well above my usual modest rate of traffic. Nevertheless, rush hour is clearly over. The numbers are ebbing and will soon be back to normal. I know, however, that I will never forget that magical weekend that I shared with Stephen Fry.

And he doesn't even know I exist! [sob!]

Say, I wonder what Hugh Laurie is doing these days?

Demisemimillionaire

Milestone & millstone

The Site Meter widget told the story. My blog was approaching a quarter of a million hits. It had taken three and a half years and about 600 posts. I thought to myself, “Wow. If I only had a dollar for each hit, I'd be one-fourth of a millionaire.”

Then I thought, “Wait a minute. I do.”

Yes. I did. It was sitting there in my checking account. It was a stunning sight: a six-digit number (plus two decimal places) right there on my computer screen when I logged on to my bank account. Damn. Look at that. I have more money than the FDIC insures. It would be a bad idea for my bank to fold right now.

It was a fluke, sort of.

Years ago I managed to pay off the mortgage on my residence. My lack of expensive vices allowed my salary to outpace my expenses, creating a growing surplus. It finally reached the point where I purchased an investment property and allowed the rental income from it to cover most of the monthly mortgage payments. Good deal.

Thanks to the virtuoso management of the nation's economy by our beloved 43rd president (my hero!), mortgage rates have dropped significantly. I decided to try to refinance.

Oops. All the good deals are for one's primary residence. Investment properties don't qualify.

Darn.

Then: inspiration! I could get a really good loan deal on my paid-off residence. I could use the proceeds to pay off the mortgage on my rental property. In effect, I was shifting my mortgage from the investment property to my residence. The numbers worked nicely, too, since I'd be saving a few hundred bucks each month.

I did the paperwork, signed the application, and got approved. I gave the bank the information for the mortgage company that serviced the loan on my investment property. Then the money showed up.

In my checking account.

Oops.

It was an awkward situation. Almost dangerous. I visited the bank.

“I have too much money in my checking account.”

The bank rep called up my checking account on his computer screen.

“Whoa! Yes, you do. We deposited the loan in your checking account? Why didn't it go directly to your mortgage company?”

“Beats me. But let's get it out of there and on its way to where it needs to go.”

The bank rep worked his magic, filled out forms, got my signature. A wire transfer was effected. My checking account was restored to its real-world level, comfortably inside the FDIC ceiling (very comfortably inside the FDIC ceiling, I'm afraid). I was a mere mortal again, although one with a paid-off rental property and a brand-new mortgage on my home. That's acceptable.

And today I'm on the verge of attaining a quarter of a million hits on Halfway There. The excitement mounts. Who will be number 250,000?

An eager world awaits.

Lo! The conquering hero comes!

Fantasy versus reality

Last year I had occasion to travel to Pasadena for an education conference. Despite a busy schedule, I had a grace period after the Saturday afternoon sessions and made plans to stroll over to the Caltech campus. More than a decade had passed since my last visit to my alma mater. I was keenly anticipating the experience. Caltech is a curious mix of sights and structures: Millikan Library is a soaring city landmark; Beckman Auditorium is architect Edward Durrell Stone's fanciful Greek temple; the Olive Walk is the east-west axis of the campus, running from the Athenaeum faculty house to the old site of Throop Hall (demolished after incurring damage in the 1971 San Fernando Valley earthquake).

When I was originally at Caltech in the 1970s, the campus was split by San Pasqual Street and my classmates once amused themselves by painting an unauthorized crosswalk to make it more convenient to get to Booth, the computer science building. When I visited the school in the 1980s, the institution had succeeded in getting San Pasqual shut down between Holliston and Wilson Avenues, freeing the center of the campus from vehicular traffic. I knew from the alumni magazine that new buildings had continued to pop up as Caltech expanded its research programs and the facilities that housed them.

It was early in the winter quarter of 2008 when I arrived on the California Boulevard side of the campus, retracing a path I had often walked during my junior year. Some things never seem to change. As I strolled past Sloan Laboratory, where I had spent many happy (and unhappy) hours learning advanced calculus, abstract algebra, complex variables, and combinatorial analysis, I noticed that the old metal plate in the sidewalk was still there. I still don't know what is hidden underneath (which, I admit, shames me as a former Techer; perhaps it connects to the ancient and legendary steam tunnels), but I passed over it with the familiar clang I recalled from yesteryear and made my way to the student houses that flank the Olive Walk.

Suddenly things were different, but you had to get close enough to notice it. The student houses had undergone extensive renovation but the plans had called for preservation of the original architectural features. (The new fiber-optical cables and other technological enhancements were hidden and the building interiors had been restored after reconstruction and reinforcement.) In most respects, they looked the same. However, as one approached more closely, dramatic changes were revealed. It's the age of homeland security.

I was locked out. The big main doors were secure. I could not recall that they had ever been locked during my undergraduate years, but I was not certain. I was certain, however, that there had never been locked gates keeping one from the central courtyards. The formerly open archways were no longer open. The new gates were metal grills overlaying clear plastic panels. You couldn't even stick your hand between the bars. Electronic locks offered card-swipe access for those with appropriate IDs. I hovered tentatively, wondering what to do next.

The Fantasy

“May I help you, sir?”

I looked to see who had spoken. A young man with dark hair had come up behind me and asked the question.

“Hello,” I replied. “I was a member of this student house over thirty years ago and I'm a little surprised to see how everything is buttoned up these days.”

He favored me with a quizzical expression. It all seemed normal to him, of course.

“These gates are new,” I continued. “I wasn't expecting them.”

“I can let you in,” he offered. “Would you like to look around?”

He swiped his student ID card through the reader and held the gate open for me. I asked his name and learned he was Abih, a student from North Carolina. He escorted me into the lounge of the student house. The big fireplace and the old piano were still in place. The portrait of the house's namesake was sitting atop the mantle, awaiting the finishing touches of the remodeling that would rehang it in its customary place.

My presence attracted the curious attention of the resident students, who wondered what odd circumstance had caused them to be visited by a middle-aged man in coat and tie. My escort clarified matters: “We have a visiting alumnus. He was a member of this house.”

That piqued their interest a little, if only out of politeness.

“How long ago? What was going on at Tech back then?”

I played my best cards: “Well, when I was here they demolished Throop Hall, the cannon appeared on the Olive Walk, the ‘Impeach Nixon’ banner was unfurled on Millikan Library, and one of our alumni walked on the moon during finals week.”

Throop was not even a memory for the current crop of Techers and the Fleming House cannon was now a mundane and regular fixture of the Olive Walk, but the moon landing story was intriguing to this assembly of students for whom rocket science was simply another elective. They warmed to me.

“Why are you here today?”

“I'm in town for an education conference. I'm a math professor from up in northern California. Before that I used to work at the State Capitol as a legislative assistant.”

One of the Techers brightened: “There's a Tech graduate who blogs under the name of Zeno. Do you know him? He's a math prof and a former government worker, so you have a lot in common. Sometimes he mentions Caltech, which is why we know about him.”

“Yeah,” said another. “It pops up in my Google reader alerts whenever he does.”

I grinned. “I have to admit that I know him pretty well, since that's the name I use when blogging.”

By now the word had trickled out from the lounge and throughout the student house. They crowded in to check out the minor celebrity in their midst. A couple of hours later, my stock of ancient Caltech lore finally tapped out, I begged their indulgence and excused myself for the night. There was another conference session in the morning and it wouldn't do for me to stay up any later. Even as energized as I had become, all good things have their end. I thanked the current residents of my old student house for a delightful evening and faded away into the night.

The Reality

“May I help you, sir?”

I looked to see who had spoken. A young man with dark hair had come up behind me and asked the question.

“Hello,” I replied. “I was a member of this student house over thirty years ago. I'm a little surprised to see how everything is buttoned up these days.”

He favored me with a quizzical expression. It all seemed normal to him, of course.

“These gates are new,” I continued. “I wasn't expecting them.”

“I can let you in,” he offered. “Would you like to look around?”

He swiped his student ID card through the reader and held the gate open for me. I asked his name and learned he was Abih, a student from North Carolina. He escorted me to the lounge of the student house. The big fireplace and the old piano were still in place. The portrait of the house's namesake was sitting atop the mantle, awaiting the finishing touches of the remodeling that would rehang it in its customary place.

“Thanks for letting me in, Abih. It's nice to see the place again.”

“You're welcome. I'm on my way to meet friends, so I have to go, but you know your way around, right?”

“Sure. Thanks. I can let myself out.”

We shook hands and he hustled down the hallway. There was no one else around. I wandered about for a few minutes, taking in the familiar lounge, dining room, and courtyard. I had expected that at least a few students would be in residence even on a Saturday night, but perhaps the grinds were holed up in their rooms and the more sociable types had found activities to attend.

I decided to exit by the big wooden main doors, which swung ponderously open. The lock engaged noisily when I shut them behind me. My visit to my old student house had been very brief. I had plenty of time to roam the campus and take in some other sights. As I strolled down the Olive Walk, I considered how differently my visit might have turned out.

There were many possibilities.

A firm offer

Would this be hard science?

Few things have delighted me as much as the spam that dropped into my in-box this evening. My prestige as a blogger has risen so high that I am now being solicited to do product reviews! Grand new vistas open before me and my excitement reaches unprecedented levels!

Hello,

I'm the webmaster of http://www.peloop.com . I wanted to know if by any chance you would be interested in doing an unbiased review of one of our products on your blog http://zenoferox.blogspot.com/

If you agree we will send you a product sample so that you can try it and then write a review about it. Please note you won't have to return the product sample after publishing the review.

Please let me know if you are interested.

Thank you

F. B

---

The pitch is irresistible. I hastened over to peloop.com to learn the precise nature of my opportunity. What are they asking me to review?

Hey! Check it out! It's a cock ring! But first appearances can be deceiving. It's not just an adjustable plastic tourniquet for your favorite chicken neck. It's a scientific device! Just look at the scientific explanation:

Penis Enhancement Made Simple

Harness the power of

• Magnets
• Tourmaline
• Germanium

To naturally and safely enhance your penis

These 3 materials will constantly provide your penis with amazing benefits. peloop™ is simply worn at the bottom of your penis just like you wear a ring on your finger. It's penis enhancement and penis enlargement made simple.

These materials work by drastically improving the condition of blood inside your penis. Your penis health is as good as the blood health inside it. If you have unhealthy blood in your penis, you will have a weak unhealthy penis BUT if you have healthy blood in your penis, you will have a big, strong and healthy penis. It's that simple.

---

See? Magnets! And other stuff! Fields and ions!

It's both scientific and simple. This must be the biggest breakthrough in erectile enhancement since Bob started scarfing up Enzyte tablets as if they were breath mints. If only I were both scientific and simple, this would be an ideal match.

Too bad I'm going to have to let this opportunity slide. No doubt the makers of peloop tried to do due diligence before deciding that I was the ideal blogger to evaluate their wares. (Ha! I said “do due”!) Unfortunately, they missed the tiny detail of my being single and unpartnered. (I guess they overlooked my definitive blog post on the topic.) Their tool tool does not fit into my solo lifestyle.

Quel dommage!

Hey! What a coincidence! I just got e-mail from eHarmony. What are the odds?

Three years old

A legend in its own mind

Halfway There is three years old today and has yet to reach its conclusion. Thanks to Zeno's paradox, we may be able to keep this up a bit longer before attaining our limit.

Neither the governor nor the California legislature has issued a proclamation in honor of the occasion, but I hear they're busily pretending to do the people's business instead. (Judging from their most recent work, a joint-legislative resolution honoring Halfway There would have been among their most significant accomplishments!)

Left to my own devices, I'll do my best to think of an appropriate observance of the occasion. (Now where did I leave that red pen that I use to correct homework?)

Cheers!

We'll always have Paris

Pummeled on the periphery

Three years ago, my first substantive post on this blog was about a mind game. What would the world be like if you were the ultimate arbiter of public taste? If, for example, people were falling over themselves to emulate my preferences, all sports franchises and brewing companies would go suddenly bankrupt. (I know: mine is a cruel and cerebral world.) Republicans would almost cease to exist—except for those we put behind bars. (Come to think of it, that could be quite a few!)

I also noted that reality shows would be doomed if it were up to me, as would celebrities celebrated for their celebrity:

Paris Hilton? Gone already. Remember, I ditched the “reality” stuff first.

---

Thus I am chagrined beyond measure that my most popular post in recent months was a quick toss-off on August 6 concerning Hilton's clever exploitation of John McCain's ill-considered “celebrity” political spot. People flocked to Halfway There to check it out. Most of the hits came by referral from Pharyngula, of course, because we all know how people who frequent science blogs are eager for items about vapid starlets. In one day I scored over 6700 hits. For a tiny blog like mine, that's spectacular.

And before long I had two dozen comments, my favorites being the humor-impaired admonitions not to take Paris's energy policy too seriously. Apparently I need to sharpen my HTML skills so that I can embed flashing text (joke alert!) to warn incautious readers that dead-pan humor is being committed. Or maybe not. Perhaps nothing would have stopped the people at John McCain's campaign headquarters from quickly trotting out a statement that Paris was actually endorsing their candidate's position on energy. What a good way to establish credibility: claiming Paris Hilton's support!

I turned my attention to more serious matters and promptly reaped the rewards thereof. On August 7, Mike's Blog Round Up at Crooks and Liars linked to my piece on volatility in polling. It was a nice post (with a helpful accompanying graphic) that I took some pride in. There were over a thousand hits on that day—but most of them were still for the Hilton post. And consider that the Paris Hilton video was available in a huge number of venues. My big numbers represented only the tiniest fraction—a microscopic spill-over—of the Hilton-related activity on the tubes of the Interwebs.

It appears that I may be out of step with the prevailing Zeitgeist.

Good!

Old media on new media

Will the circle stay this broken?

A few days ago I received a message from someone at the state capital's only daily newspaper. The Sacramento Bee publishes a regional blog roundup in the Forum section of its Sunday edition. Gary Reed wanted me to know that he was considering my post on Fragile heterosexuality for inclusion in the June 1 roundup. Fine by me.

I picked up a copy of the Bee this morning and discovered that, sure enough, my blog post was there in print form. Therefore, of course, my post also exists in cyberspace, because the Bee has an on-line edition. I couldn't resist: I went to check out the on-line version of the print version of my original on-line blog post.

You still with me?

I love print media. I read voraciously, dispatching dozens of books every year (although it used to be hundreds back when I was younger and the books I read were thinner). I read lots of newspapers, too, although my students seem not to have heard of such things (and those newspapers keep getting thinner as electronic media nibble away at their circulation base).

However, I'm not sure print is the right medium for blog posts. A blog post is rather denatured after translation into hardcopy. For example, readers of the Bee will see a parenthetical remark near the beginning of my article:

(God, you see, hates immorality except in those instances where he expressly condones it.)

---

What is that all about? In print form it just lies there. However, the original version here on my blog has links to each of the last three words in the sentence. The blog reader who clicks on “expressly” will see the text of Exodus 21:2-7, wherein God offers instructions on managing slaves and notes that the offspring of a slave belong to the master. I linked “condones” to 1 Samuel 15:3, where God explicitly instructs Israel to commit genocide against the Amalekites, killing all men, women, children, and animals. Finally, “it” links to Numbers 31:15-18, wherein Moses passes along God's instructions to the Israelites to save for themselves the virgins of Midian. The first two cases clearly condone slavery and genocide, while the third smacks of rape.

All that is lost in the translation to print.

At the end of my original post I inserted a hilarious Goodie Bag video. Here's my original concluding paragraph:

The preservation of humanity demands that vigorous steps be taken to protect fragile heterosexuality. One potential remedy is the wide dissemination of training videos, such as this timely offering from Goodie Bag, titled Protecting and Maintaining Your Heterosexual House of Cards. It's aimed at young men because their straightness is apparently the most easily threatened. Watch and learn!

---

Now compare that to the Bee's print version:

The preservation of humanity demands that vigorous steps be taken to protect fragile heterosexuality. One potential remedy is the wide dissemination of training videos, … like one aimed at young men because their straightness is apparently the most easily threatened. Watch and learn!

---

Watch what? There's no embedded video. No link, of course, but no title either. No printed-out URL. Dead end.

We writers tend to kick and moan when editors lay their rough hands on our copy, however gentle the changes may be, but I do think I am making a legitimate point here. My blog post made the transition to print media only at the cost of a significant portion of its impact.

By the way, the on-line version of the print version of my on-line original did not have any of the links restored. Although I admit it was nice to see my blog post appear in the Sacramento Bee, I regret that the on-line edition of the newspaper did nothing to take advantage of the fact that it was possible to restore the links that were necessarily cut from the print version. The on-line edition of the Sacramento Bee is nothing more, in many respects, than an image of the print edition.

I wonder when they will wake up about that.