Why Cookeville of Nissan Stinks

Cookeville of Nissan keeps sending me ads to get me to buy a new car there. I’m guessing this is because (1) I bought a car from them several years ago, and (2) they’re incredibly desperate.

I can sort of see the logic here. “Buy one Nissan, you might buy a second.” I’m sure they’ve got statistics showing that 70% of all Nissans are bought by people who previously owned a Nissan, or whatever the number is. However, it also comes across as “Bought a Nissan? Maybe you need to replace it by now! With a new Nissan!” Which is not going to persuade me to repeat the purchase.

For the record, I have nothing against Nissan, and nothing particularly for them. I might or might not ever buy another one. If I do, however, it won’t be at Nissan of Cookeville.

Why not? Because for three years they’ve been trying to “customer relations manage” me in the most annoying ways possible. “It’s been three months since you brought your car in for service!” – by email, by letter and by phone. (Only once by phone. I think I was angry enough that they got the message. Or maybe everyone’s been that angry.) And for the last year or so, Legrande Smith, General Sales Manager at Nissan of Cookeville, has been contacting me every month or so to buy a new car. (They’re competing in this with Honda of Cookeville, who want me to sell them my Nissan. I’m not going to comment on why Honda thinks it’s a good investment to sell used Nissans.) This just gets old.

So if Legrande Smith of Cookeville Nissan ever reads this – the reason why I’m never going to buy a car from your dealership (or you, personally) is because I dislike spammers who persistently ignore requests to leave me alone. You’ve advertised yourself right out of a customer.

Off to buy a Ford…

Beetles!

Specifically, the Chrysina beetles from Central America. They are

[f]ound in primary pine, juniper, and pine-oak forests between 50-3800m. Adults are frequently attracted to lights. Larvae live in rotten logs. Species feed on the foliage (adults) or rotting logs (larvae) of various trees including species in the genera Abies, Alnus, Arbutus, Heliocarpus, Juglans, Juniperus, Liquidambar, Pinus, Platanus, Quercus, and Turpinia.

Source: The Generic Guide to New World Scarab Beetles

What’s so cool about beetles? It’s the way they shine! Mostly in various shades of green – more spectularly, in gold or silver:

No wonder they’re “frequently attracted to lights”.

Since they don’t plate themselves in actual gold or silver, how do they keep that shiny covering? Apparently it all comes down to layers of chitin. Chitin is a big molecule that’s found all over the natural world – mostly in insects; it’s the common building block of insect exoskeletons all over the place. (It’s why they “crunch” when stepped on.) Most insects just use a regular layer of the stuff as a tough coat. The Chrysina beetles – at least these two species, and (likely) others – have a more complicated structure, that was recently worked out in detail by scientists at the University of Costa Rica:

To interpret the cause of this metallic look, Vargas and his team assumed that a sequence of layers of chitin appears through the cuticle, with successive layers having slightly different refractive indices.. In these beetles, the cuticle, which is just 10 millionths of a meter deep, has some 70 separate layers of chitin—a nitrogen-containing complex sugar that creates the hard outer skeletons of insects, crabs, shrimps, and lobsters. The chitin layers become progressively thinner with depth, forming a so-called “chirped” structure.

“Because the layers have different refractive indices,” Vargas says, “light propagates through them at different speeds. The light is refracted through—and reflected by—each interface giving, in particular, phase differences in the emerging reflected rays. For several wavelengths in the visible range, there are many reflected rays whose phase differences allow for constructive interference. This leads to the metallic appearance of the beetles.”

From the coverage on PhysOrg

This isn’t the first “layered” structure produced by living things which gives a really impressive optical effect. Seashells get that interesting “rainbow sparkly” effect from a similar layered design. In this case, though, the layers are of different sizes, and they’re arranged with the thinnest layer on one side and the thickest layer on the other side. The layers themselves range (according to the model developed and reported in the paper) from 85 to 170 nm (for the gold beetles; about 65 to 190 nm for the silver ones), and the whole stack of 68 layers is only 8.1 microns thick – about one-tenth the thickness of a human hair.

The effect depends on a difference in the refractive index of the chitin layers, also – the index is the speed at which light moves through the layer. Chitin has a very interesting refractive index (as reported in the paper) – it’s about 1.65 at 400 nm, increasing to nearly 2.0 at 800 nm (anomalous dispersion). By contrast, materials such as glass typically have a higher refractive index on the low end of the visible range, and the difference is not nearly so great. This dispersion – the change in the refractive index with wavelength – for chitin is substantially higher than that of diamond or cubic zirconia… I wonder if anyone’s managed to make a “gemstone” out of chitin?!

Speaking of “who made thee”: The paper doesn’t say whether anyone has examined the beetle’s carapace directly to see whether this model is correct, which would seem like an obvious next step. Nor do they speculate on the biological mechanism for such control over the layers of chitin. The knee-jerk reaction is that “of course it has some evolutionary value, therefore natural selection favors the shiny beetles over their less visible cousins/ancestors”. Of course, they haven’t managed to out-compete the other Chrysina beetles, which are merely an attractive shiny green, and some of whom live in the same Costa Rican rainforests. Presumably they all occupy slightly different niches. The comments on the PhysOrg article, predictably, include the “small steps” idea, and the surprising notion that “nobody would kill a solid gold beetle”. (Right, ’cause nobody would ever want to capture the “gold bug” and melt it down into gold bars.)

(An alternate explanation: Because the gold and silver effects are so complicated, the “metallic green” may well be due to a simplified or partially “broken” form of the same mechanism. That is, the gold and silver beetles are the more “complex” original forms, and the rest show a degenerate form of the same pattern. “Simplest form first” is important only to an evolutionist!)

To those who oversee my purchasing:

An open letter to the tireless staff members who inspect my purchase “orders”:

I’d like to thank you for your efforts to conserve public funds and to ensure that I (and by extension the university) are getting the maximum benefit from those funds. I appreciate your willingness to scrutinize even the small details to make sure that each item is necessary and optimal. This is particularly evident over the past few weeks as I have tried to spend down the last of my startup funds from when I was hired last summer.

I admit, I was skeptical when I first became aware of the review and oversight policies. “I spent the last 8 years learning how to operate, specify, purchase and in some cases build this type of instrument,” I grumbled to myself, “and now an accountant wants to pass judgement on how well I do that?!” For, you see, scientists do learn that there are often several competing products which can offer similar performance, and how to investigate the differences between them, and how to decide whether Star Technologies or AdAstra Products offers better results for the purpose. They learn how to talk to both companies and figure out that the “Star Tech 1012” costs a little bit less than the “AdAstra Visor 9000”, but that the “Visor 9000” can collect data ten times faster. And they realize that that difference may come in handy one day – even if the immediate use may not need that extra speed. So I thought, frankly, that it was just a little bit insulting to have to write a three-page memo justifying my decision to buy from AdAstra (with reference to their patents and a detailed explanation of how the patent claims are “essential” to my work).

Likewise, I was a little bit dismayed to find out this morning that the computer I had “ordered” three weeks ago through the IT department has been waiting all this time for review and approval. “Please call me ASAP to see whether we can find a better configuration,” the email said, so I did – would I like to spend an extra $400 on a high-end graphics card to allow parallel processing in MATLAB? No, it’s not yet clear that I need that much parallel capacity, which is why I requested the $50 upgrade instead of the $400 one. Would I like to spend another $900 to buy the 8-core processor instead of the 4-core one? No, I won’t be needing that either, actually, or not enough to blow a third of my remaining budget on. “Okay, I just needed to check. I’ll see about finishing the review process now.”

I do realize that there are people, surely, who somehow manage to remain blind to the realities of what things cost, or who order the “brand name” product without realizing that there may be cheaper alternatives. I understand that there are even cases where an instrument vendor could offer a purchaser a little financial consideration under the table for rigging the deal to make sure that Unethical Instruments, LLC, gets the contract. (And that the same procedures are needed whether it’s a $800,000 construction job or a $8,000 spectrometer.)

At the same time – you hired me, Dear University, because you were convinced that I knew how to do this job. It’d be nice if you’d quit throwing up obstacles when I try to actually do it.

Cordially yours,
[Redacted]

Going Emeritus

When I was a kid, one of the books I read and re-read was The Languages of Pao, by Jack Vance. The plot described the social impact of sudden changes to the language on the quiet agrarian world of Pao — essentially, a group of genius consultants were hired who developed a new set of languages for specific purposes: soldiers would speak a harsh aggressive language, scientists would speak a “smart” one, traders and merchants would speak a complex language with lots of ways to express social status and insults. (Essentially it was based on the idea of “Linguistic relativity”, which my linguist friend tells me is somewhat questionable at best.)

Anyway, one of the more interesting tidbits in the book was the culture of the savants of the “Breakness Institute”, who provided the consultants that suggested the language changes as part of deeper schemes of their own. The Institute was more or less a collection of mad scientists; as a member of the Institute grew in age, knowledge and personal influence, eventually they would reach a point where their madness could no longer be ignored (or tolerated) – at which point his peers would get rid of him. This process was referred to as “going emeritus”.

I will never ever be able to hear the news that “Prof. So-and-so has gone emeritus” without thinking of this.

My group!

Yes! I have some research students now!! And a lab! Which I’ve mentioned before, to the three people who read this, but I like saying it.

Three are undergrads, including two who are quite new (but learning fast). Two are grad students (one of whom I’m co-advising with someone else; I think it’ll wind up being about 40% me and 60% the other prof, which is fine by me). The grad students haven’t started doing any lab work just yet; that’ll start next semester.

It’s interesting to try to figure out how to plan things out when it’s not just me – I have to anticipate (guess, really) what might be possible for them, not just what’s possible in general.

Draft 5?!

It’s kinda sad when you’re reading a student’s thesis and your only comment is “this really is draft 5?”

It’s even worse to be on the student’s committee.

It’s even worse when the student wants to defend Thursday.

Keeping up with the undergrads

My research “group” is necessarily going to include undergrads. I say “necessarily” because it really is expected, but I’d want them around anyway. The trouble with that is that I need to come up with research projects that they can reasonably expect to contribute to… possibly with a very small time commitment (say, 3 hours a week for a 14-week semester).

Small time commitment means that they can’t spend a couple months learning MATLAB, or how to keep an optical system aligned. It also means that they need to be able to do the experiments, once they learn how, in a fairly short time frame.

Other faculty handle this by giving new undergrads synthetic projects to do. (Synthetic = “making stuff”, not “artificial versus natural”.) “You are the latest in a long line of undergrads who have worked on compounds very similar to this one, 3 of whom are still around in the lab for you to ask for help, and all you really need to do is mix A & B together, boil it for a while, and then watch your pretty orange crystals form.” All this using skills which they’ve already learned in a class.

I can’t rely on students learning the relevant skills in a class – not because the classes aren’t good, but because they won’t take the right class (my class!) until they’re seniors, typically, and I’d like to open the door for students who aren’t seniors yet.

I’ve got some plans, it’s just going to take a while for them to start unfolding. That’s true no matter what, of course, but after sitting on some of this stuff for two years now, I’d really like to see it hatch Real Soon Now…

Burnt French toast

Burnt French toast is still French toast.  And pretty tasty.

There’s probably some sort of life lesson in there but I’m not feeling that ambitious…. it’s summertime. 🙂

I’m Mr Brightside

Got some discouraging email recently… a young lady that I’ve liked for quite a while now made it very clear that she’s not looking for a (romantic) relationship at all right now, she’s more interested in pursuing her career.  This has left me a little confused, since we’d had several recent conversations that suggested (to me) that she felt precisely the opposite – that a career alone was not what she wanted, and that she was tired of being on her own.

Kinda glad that I checked on that before I got the plane tickets to fly around the world to see her.  Still might go see her; it wasn’t only as a suitor that I was interested in a visit.  She’s in a pretty neat-sounding place.

I don’t pretend to fully understand the challenges that she faces in her chosen career.  She’s worked extremely hard to get where she is (in an experimental science), and I know that that’s important to her and that she’s passionate about what she does.

I wouldn’t have her give that up; I wouldn’t want her to be, or feel, “diminished” in any way.  I did not assume that she would wait quietly at home as “the little woman”, trading in scientific instruments for a kitchen stove and a diaper pail. If I really thought that the degrees and research that she’s worked so hard for were just a creative way to meet Mr (Dr?) Right – to be completely set aside once she’s married – well, I respect women who make that choice also, but it’s not one that I’d ask for, let alone hold out as an expectation.  I recognize that it IS a choice that “academic women” have to make, far more often than men do, and I certainly don’t insist that I somehow know better what she ought to do.

I consider that one advantage of my chosen career (as a professor) is some flexibility in schedule; if I need to spend two days a week at home so she can go to work those days – well, it might mean some very late nights the other two days, but there’d probably be a way to manage it.  (This sort-of compensates for the miserable lack of flexibility in place – I’m pretty well fixed here for a couple years, now that I’ve got this job.)  And yes, I’d be willing to work together to figure out how to arrange the small chores (dishes, laundry) and the bigger responsibilities (pets, kids, etc).

Time and again, when she was living in a different state finishing graduate school, I heard her wish for someone to take care of her, to be there for her, to ease her burden – even if only by something as simple as walking the dog or making dinner.  I wanted to be that for her.

What changed?

Not me.

OK “Mr Brightside”, where’s the bright side?

Well, she didn’t wait until I’d got to New Zealand to reveal all this on a moonlit beach somewhere.

I’d thought about a ring, but I hadn’t bought it yet.

We didn’t manage to get married years ago, so at least we’re completely free to go our separate ways.

I have a very definite answer on how she feels about things, so I’m no longer left to read between the lines.

(Yes, all this basically boils down to “I didn’t make a bigger fool of myself, this time, than I have in the past.”)

So. If she’s convinced that having a boyfriend/husband would hold her back – well, I don’t quite understand that, but I can respect that.  She said that her feelings might change again in the “distant future”, but that I shouldn’t hold my breath.

(Any longer.  I’ve been holding my breath for 9 long years.)

I won’t hold my breath.  But I do wish her all the best, and I’ll always wonder what might have been.

To the Students, to Save Some Time

Dear Student:

You write to me as the semester is ending to tell me that you really really really need a B to keep your scholarship, or to get into the fraternity, or to keep your athletic eligibility, or to get into physical therapy school.

Apparently you didn’t realize this back in January.  Or, you knew this but didn’t let it influence your work.  Or, you did, but thought that an 82% should be “good enough” because the syllabus said that an 80% is a B.  Or your grade in my class is suddenly a significant issue because you really need to keep a 2.5 GPA this semester and you’ve already got C’s in 2 other classes – so you need a B in mine because you didn’t do as well in the others as you’d hoped.

Grades are based on the ability that you’ve demonstrated.  Everyone has an equal opportunity to demonstrate ability throughout the semester.  Ability can be measured based on how well you perform on the homework, the quizzes, the tests and in lab.

Grades cannot be based on how much you “need” a particular grade, because everyone “needs” a grade or two better than what they get.  Grades cannot be based on “need”, because there’s no way to assess “need” equally.  It works in the financial aid office, because they have numbers that allow them to compare (financial) ability with what it takes to come here.

Grades cannot be based on how much I like you – because I do like most of you, but I haven’t spent the same amount of time with you to get to know you.  I’d be biased on that evaluation even if I did spend the same amount of time with all of you, because I’m inevitably going to like some of you better than others.

Grades cannot be based on how hard I think you’ve worked or how much potential I think you have – because again, I can’t evaluate that for all of you on the same terms.  (For you engineers: Think of it as a problem with too many variables.)  No, I don’t know why you could work that kind of problem just fine in class or during the review session, but not on the test.  I’d really like to discover that so I can help you, or help students with that problem in the future.  But other people did manage to work that problem on the test, so the fact that they did and you didn’t logically means that they showed slightly greater ability than you did.  This is true even if you spent ten times as long studying as that other guy did.

Grades cannot be based on last-minute appeals that you’re going to be suspended, or expelled, or deported.  To be blunt, if you’re doing this badly in all your classes, then this may not be the best place for you right now.  Either you’ve got the potential but haven’t learned the study skills, or you need to rethink your choice of career.  Universities suspend students for academic “under-performance” not to be mean, or not because they don’t want your money, but because they don’t want you to continue to waste your time here.  Get your act together and find some way of getting on with your life – there are other schools if you’re ready to work hard, there’s other places to party if that’s what you want to do instead.

Grades absolutely cannot be based on pointing out that you’re a “good student” and that “you’ve never gotten a ___ before in your life!”  I understand that; that’s part of how you got into this school.  That’s part of how everyone else got into this school, also.  A “C” means that your performance was generally “about average”; a “B” means “above average but not outstanding”, a “D” means “below average but competent”.  In any population, some will always be “about average”.

If you didn’t do well and you only took this class for “general education” or “distribution” requirements:  Keep in mind that the kinds of skills required in this class may not be those needed for classes in your major.  If your major and career plans do not require this class, then this grade probably won’t change your life much in the long term.

If you didn’t do well and your major is related (read: anything in science, math and engineering):  Look for what caused you to have problems.  Did you fall behind early?  Work to keep up from the first week; seek help or tutoring if you need to, there’s no shame in that.  Did you get behind at the end because of work or another class?  It happens, and if this had been your only tough class you probably could’ve done better.  Did you do well in class but not on the tests?  There are tips and strategies for test-taking, including how to deal with test anxiety.

If you didn’t do well and your major is chemistry:  This could be a problem.  Should you switch?  It’s too soon to tell.  General chemistry in particular is not very similar to most other classes; it’s mostly physical chemistry which serves as the background to the other classes you’ll take between gen chem and the real physical chemistry class, which you’ll take as a junior or senior.  So doing poorly in general chemistry does not automatically mean you’re going to be a bad chemist.  If you’re still interested in chemistry (in general, not necessarily stuff from this class!), or in what chemists do, then go on and take the next chemistry class (gen chem 2 or organic).  If you’re not sure that you’re interested in chemistry at all anymore, think about what else you like to do.  Go and talk to your professor or your advisor about it – s/he may be able to help you think through what you really like about chem and what that means about how you can be happiest in a career.

If you did do well, congratulations.  Chem 1 and Chem 2 are difficult classes; many freshmen say that they’re the hardest they take all year.  You’ve learned to cope with learning a large volume of class material, including a little bit about how to think in terms of molecules as well as equations.  At the same time – don’t get over-confident going into organic, which requires additional skills and understanding.

For all of you:  I’d like to pass on what my undergrad advisor used to tell his students right before every test he gave:  This test, this class, not even school itself, affects your worth as a person.  You are a unique and wonderful individual, created in the image of God, and the letter on your transcript does not affect your immense value one bit.  Whether your grades are good or bad – you are far more than the sum of them.