I don't like the complete and utter shift away from traditional print media to electronic. It's not that I don't understand it.

But when the Oxford English Dictionary goes out of print, I quirk an eyebrow and frown a bit. When the Encyclopedia Britannica is no longer printed, then I get really depressed.

I mean, really? After 244 years?

I can hear it already.

Isn't it easier to look up online?

It was never about being easy. Well, no, I take that back. It was about being easy. But it was also about having fascinating articles written by the heads (and inventors) of the fields. Having experts write an article describing something, and having it carefully edited by professional editors, and written in such a way that you always ended up with every single finger marking a different page because you couldn't help but hop back and forth between articles. That's what it was about.

Wikipedia is fine, in a sense. But it is generally poorly written and poorly edited. No, really. It is written by people who don't know how to write, and edited by people who know nothing about editing. I have both written and edited my fair share of articles on wikipedia, but I freely and fully admit that my stuff in no way compared to the craftsmanship that went into EB.

I remember many years ago as a gift my step father bought me the CD rom version. I still have it in my collection. It included a section (which I've never seen since) of famous articles of interest written by famous people. Articles like Houdini writing on escapism. Or Lon Chaney writing an article on how to do make up. You simply can not get this kind of stuff on wikipedia.

If it weren't for the fact that a print copy of the 2010 edition costs $1,400, I would unquestionably buy it. Didn't we all want one back in the 80's, with the dumb commercial with that annoying kid?

Damn that's depressing.

Oh, and as for things like Amazon's self-publishing of e-books. I don't have a problem with it in principle except for one thing. There is no editor. And every single author needs his or her book edited, hands down, no question.

Two years ago, I decided to take up patio gardening. It didn't work out too well. I bought a few Tomato Trees, and those stupid things just hemmorhaged water. It was utterly impossible to keep the plants properly watered. As a result, although my crop yield was respectibly high, I suffered terribly from Blossom End Rot. This is where the tomatoes rot at the tips while still on the vine, a symptom of improper watering.

I was so disgusted that I gave it up. Last year, instead, I bought a nice patio furniture set from ikea for $150. I like it very much and it still serves me well.

But...a couple of weeks ago, I was eating a fresh salad. I was enjoying it immensely. At work, I went ot the faculty dining room and grabbed a salad from the salad bar. I hated every bite. I sat there wondering why I disliked it so much. The answer was obvious. The vegetables in the salad bar were old. The salad I had enjoyed tasted bright and fresh. I thought to myself how much I missed really fresh vegetables. I thought of my patio garden. I thought of my coincidentally slightly fatter than usual bank account. I thought of Blossom End Rot.

Fuck it.

I decided to do some investigation and investing. Rather than just strange tomatoes, I bought several varieties of heirloom tomatoes, bell peppers, lettuces, spinach, and leeks. What I really wish is that I knew what the type of lettuce I adore so much is- it's kind of a dendrite structure. I *think* it may be endive, but I'm not certain. It's amazing when fresh with a little bit of truffle oil though.

I also looked deeply into potting. I bought two or three very large terra cotta pots at Ikea last summer but they sit on the patio ignored. I knew of self-watering planters, but the ones I had seen required a hose hooked up. That wasn't happening. I searched for a large, patio-style self-watering planter. I found one, with excellent rave reviews. Expensive? Not unreasonably so- roughly the same price as the non-self-watering variety, actually. Pluis I found self-watering adaptors which would allow me to turn the pots from Ikea into self-watering pots too. This would all mean that I could fill a large resevoir with water and only need to re-fill every few days, and the plants would be healthier.

This I could get behind in a heartbeat. But it was an investment. I plan to keep on growing for years to come. Next year, asparagus and no question about it. This year, I'm satisfied for the moment. I think things will be okay for now.

I looked into patio-sized greenhouses. Not a lot made and usually fairly flimsy and expensive. Hell with that- I can build my own greenhouse. Polypropylene sheets are cheap and all I need to do is build a frame. I can even add a vent in the top which opens when the air inside gets too warm and circulates the air.

I am very excited about all of this. Here's hoping it goes well.

Let's see if this works....

THE STARS ARE BRIGHT
SO BIG AND BRIGHT

I just changed my living room lightswitch. It's the first time I've changed a lightswitch.

I've seen it done. The instructions are clear. It's pretty obvious. I've never done it before. I mean, how often do you need to change a light switch, for gods sake?

Well, mine has been giving me problems for the last 6 months or so. Every single evening when I came home, I would hit the light switch and say "Damn! I forgot to buy a new switch!" Unfortunately, because it is a mixture of incandescents and CFLs on the damn chandelleir, it kind of needs a dimmer switch. I was tempted to get one of the classic old rotary dial ones, but turns out peole don't sell them anymore- nobody wnats them. Just as well, I suppose- I seem to recall being shocked by them on more than one occasion, and I seem to also recall hearing about how they had a tendancy to catch on fire. So I got a new switch.

First things first. I head to the fuse box and flip switches at random until the light goes off. Took the old switch off the wall, no problem. The wiring looks a little bit odd, but what do I know, right? I check the instructions. It says to identify whether or not it is a one pole or a three-way circuit. Well, I look. Hm. Doesn't exactly look like either.

After a while, I realize that the new switch and the old one are both made from the same company, where there is a black box attached to the back of the switch so you can't see where the wires are attached. The instructions assume that you have a switch from a different company where this is not the case. Okay, that makes things easier, right? But then I kept looking between the diagram and the wall, the wall to the diagram. It doesn't take me too long to figure out what the problem is, what the solution apparently was, and what I need to do. I get a bad taste in my mouth. This looks a bit half assed. I don't like it.

It's a single pole setup. One wire going in, one wire going out and a separate ground line. Three wires come from the wall, three wires come from the switch.

Except the wires on the switch are both black. I know enough electronics that one should damn well be red. But shouldn't matter too much, right? There's a big problem though. There are only two wires coming from the wall, not three. The ground line is missing. My mouth goes dry. The old switch solves this problem by simply capping the ground line and showing it into the box in the wall. I remember an electrician telling me years ago that if no ground line is available, you can clip the ground line to the box, but I don't trust my memory. I have no choice, I do up the new switch like the old one, capping the ground line.

I head back to the fuse box, flick the switch- and everything works beautifully.

When the dimmer is turned down anywhere past ~90%, it makes a buzzing noise. So did the old one. I don't like lightswitches that buzz, it makes me nervous. But this dimmer switch was designed (as was the old one) for halogen and CFLs, and not incandescents. It should be fine but...that ground line makes me nervous. I'm going to ask someone about this.

Still, I was so delighted that I turned the light on and off several times. My old switch, I was reduced to leaning on the switch and pressing as hard as I could and hoping it would work. SOmetimes it would work and then flick off as soon as you stopped pushing. I'm guessing corrosion built up on the contact.

Christ, how did I put up with that for six months? Unbelievable. But somehow you never remember. I only remembered today because something came up at work and I had to go to an electronics hardware store and while I was there I bought the light switch.

Edit: just talked with a friend of a friend who is licensed and he assures me that everything is fine. Also, apparently, you can attach the ground to the box if you like. So, yea. Whew. A big thanks to Pete for setting my mind at ease.

Sometimes it rains. Sometimes when it rains, you have an umbrella. Sometimes when it rains, you don't have one, but miraculously find one.

I came home today exhausted as usual. As a pleasant surprise, I found that there were some checks waiting for me at work. None of them for a whole lot, but together they were enough to make life comfortable again. I deposited the checks when I came home, then pondered the question of dinner.

Fuck it, I figured. I went to Hop Kee and got some of my favorites. Sometimes it's nice to celebrate that it's Thursday, I'm alive, the weather is beautiful, and life is okay. It can be nice, living in Chinatown.

For the longest time, I thought that my eyes were getting worse. But I can see (with my glasses) at 20/20. So that isn't it. I realized that I only have problems when reading, specifically my kindle and on computer monitors. Then I realized it has to do with fonts and font sizes, particularly in relation to screen resolution.

So exhausted. Lot of running around today followed by teaching. Extra student in class today, he missed his lab and was in mine to make up the missing lab. Right before leaving, informed me very solemnly that I am an asshole because of how I treat my class.

I was so exhausted that I just shrugged.

On reflection, there are better responses. Ones like "You should have seen the guy who used to teach this class." or "this coming from the only person who was unable to comprehend something as simple as keep your goggles on." or even "then why do I consistently get such high marks from my students every semester?" or perhaps "how many students do you know who come back to thank you years later?" or "I do it because I care about them. If I didn't care, I would let them do whatever they wanted and not say anything, the way TAs were when I used to take classes."

All of which are absolutely true. It isn't disheartening. It's true- I am an asshole. But my students do come to value the fact that I strive to actually teach them useful things. And that I strive to get them to think for themselves. I tease them, cajole them, joke with them, chat with them. But I try to get it so that they are confident enough to think for themselves, but cautious enough to ask me a question if they don't know something. And I am merciless if I see them do something really stupid. And it works. Here it is, a month into the semester, and they have all learned to keep their goggles on for the whole period. If my being an asshole saves one of them a trip to the ER, good!

I am of the firm belief that every single person needs a good swift kick to the ass sometimes. For these students who have been allowed to do whatever they like for so long (thanks No Child Left Behind) this goes double. These kids are mostly engineers. But if they don't learn critical thinking skills, we have a big problem. It isn't about the chemistry. I don't have one single chemistry major in my lab. What is more important to me is them learning to think critically, learn to be cautious, learn to respect the things they don't know. Because that kind of thing WILL save lives, including my own, possibly, one day.