The Post For Stuff You Wanna Tell People

[Larimar]

Got my hand on some free quinces. I guess I'll be making... fruit leather? I don't much care for jams and jellies.

To be eaten with a runcible spoon?

[Parasaurolophus]

Got my hand on some free quinces. I guess I'll be making... fruit leather? I don't much care for jams and jellies.

To be eaten with a runcible spoon?

I had to look that up! How delightful!

[polly_mer]

It's not about comfort level with risk, it's about risk.

Preach!

I work at a science place where most of us have been categorized by the state as essential workers and we do risky things for a living.  Our county has a very low infection rate.

Why is it that we are still in maximum work-from-home mode with significant permissions required to have face-to-face meetings of more than three people for more than 10 minutes and yet somehow university classes that would be good enough online are in person?

Oh, yeah, because we really believe in taking risk into account and make decisions accordingly while many academics talk a good game about critical thinking without having the necessary background to do broadly applied critical thinking when it matters.

[mamselle]

Our town library is great and our chief librarian is amazing.

They arranged for us to have database access to sites you usually have to be in the library, onsite, to use (like the genealogy sites I use for my 17th-18th c. research).

It works. Just got the probated wills for a gravestone I'm writing about, without going out the door.

Whew.

M.

Have you written your library board and chief librarian a note about how great the library is? I've written our library board a couple of times this year, because I want them to have evidence of library's importance when fighting for budget.

Agreed. I've been much quicker to write notes of appreciation ever since I read Louis Sachar's book There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom, in which a really important guidance counselor at a school, who helps our main character so much, loses her job because the parents who don't like her complain, while the ones who do like stay silent.

Actually, yes, twice already.

I wrote to thank her for the swift turnaround from in-person to online that the whole system did within two weeks (one main library, two small outrigger branches) back in March/April, and again, a couple months ago, just on general principles.

But another fan letter can do no harm. I'll probably do it sometime this week.

M.

[jimbogumbo]

I am so tired of your pronouncements. They are essentially random shit which you couch as insider knowledge but are really just your opinions.

[wareagle]

When the heat goes on in my office, it sounds like an airplane getting ready to take off.  I can't believe the noise.

What will it be like in January, when the furnace runs constantly?  I'll need ear protection.

Oh, and maybe a pair of flashlights with cones.

[Parasaurolophus]

Do I really want to take on two additional, totally asynchronous classes next semester? I've already got four, so it's a lot. On the other hand, one of them is a repeat of one I'm already teaching, and for which everything is already set up. On the other other hand, the other one is totally new.

On the other other other hand, it would increase my pay by almost twenty grand.


So... I guess I'll probably do it? The extra money would come at a pretty good time for us.

[OneMoreYear]

Do I really want to take on two additional, totally asynchronous classes next semester? I've already got four, so it's a lot. On the other hand, one of them is a repeat of one I'm already teaching, and for which everything is already set up. On the other other hand, the other one is totally new.

On the other other other hand, it would increase my pay by almost twenty grand.


So... I guess I'll probably do it? The extra money would come at a pretty good time for us.

Whoa! Where is this magical land where teaching an overload of 2 classes earns you 20 grand? And (stupid question in a pandemic) are you hiring?

[Parasaurolophus]

Do I really want to take on two additional, totally asynchronous classes next semester? I've already got four, so it's a lot. On the other hand, one of them is a repeat of one I'm already teaching, and for which everything is already set up. On the other other hand, the other one is totally new.

On the other other other hand, it would increase my pay by almost twenty grand.


So... I guess I'll probably do it? The extra money would come at a pretty good time for us.

Whoa! Where is this magical land where teaching an overload of 2 classes earns you 20 grand? And (stupid question in a pandemic) are you hiring?

Canada, so in USD it's a fair bit less, though still good.

The per-course average across the country is something like $6500; this would be sessional (adjunct) work at ~$9000 per course. My regular university, where I'm the equivalent of a lecturer-ish (there's no tenure, just a union) pays ~$7500+, depending on where you fall on the pay scale.

The downside is that this is the highest COL area on the continent, second only to Hong Kong worldwide. Wages here are severely depressed, and have been for decades, while rents are sky-high and rising (to say nothing of housing prices, or even just basic groceries, for which I pay at least twice as much as I did on the other coast).

[dismalist]

The per-course average across the country is something like $6500; this would be sessional (adjunct) work at ~$9000 per course. My regular university, where I'm the equivalent of a lecturer-ish (there's no tenure, just a union) pays ~$7500+, depending on where you fall on the pay scale.

Does this amount vary by field?

[marshwiggle]

The per-course average across the country is something like $6500; this would be sessional (adjunct) work at ~$9000 per course. My regular university, where I'm the equivalent of a lecturer-ish (there's no tenure, just a union) pays ~$7500+, depending on where you fall on the pay scale.

Does this amount vary by field?

Probably not, here in Canada. At my university, the amount is the same (~$8000) for any course.

[Parasaurolophus]

The per-course average across the country is something like $6500; this would be sessional (adjunct) work at ~$9000 per course. My regular university, where I'm the equivalent of a lecturer-ish (there's no tenure, just a union) pays ~$7500+, depending on where you fall on the pay scale.

Does this amount vary by field?

Probably not, here in Canada. At my university, the amount is the same (~$8000) for any course.

Yeah, everywhere I'm familiar with it's a university-wide (or: union-wide) set rate.

[dismalist]

This is bad, really bad.

Let me get onto writing that article proving it, immediately! :-)

Thank you.

[smallcleanrat]

If you are going to use scientific models as analogies for your "life lessons" at least get the science right!

Especially so if you spend more time on "explaining" the science than you do on the principle it's meant to analogize.

[Puget]

Was just glancing at my google scholar profile and found my top-cited article is currently at 1111 citations. Thought I'd document the moment before it becomes less pleasingly mono-numerical.