NYC to Pay for Grades

Apparently, in an effort to improve their standing in the "No Child Left Behind" system of education, New York City is going to pay students for regular attendance and good grades and test scores. This is a seriously bad idea. It will completely institutionalize cheating, grade inflation and any variety of other unsavory behaviors in schools amongst both students and educators. Surely there is a better way.

They Keep Going and Going and Going

I was looking back at some old posts that I had done, and I came across a post I made in September of 2005. It was about the Mars rovers - the little robots that NASA landed on Mars in January of 2004. The thing is, when I re-read that post I realized that I hadn't heard anything about the rovers in quite some time, and I wondered if they had finally died. The rovers were designed to fulfill 90 day missions on Mars. By the time I made my post in 9/05, they had lasted for more 500 days - extraordinary. So I figured, here it is, June of 2007, surely they must have finally been done in by the harsh conditions on Mars. I did a quick google search and found NASA's rover home page and was astonished and delighted to discover that, in fact, the little rovers are still going strong and making remarkable discoveries.

Go Spirit and Opportunity - keep on chugging!

Math Never had this Effect on Me

O.K. I don't know what is going on, but I've been administering final exams this week, and I've noticed in 2 classes, boys quite blatently groping themselves while taking their final. In one class in particular, a young man kept rubbing himself and it was clear from the sizable bulge in his pants that he was hard as a rock (an apparently quite well endowed too)!

I love math, but taking a math test never had that effect on me.