Online Petitions
I've never been a fan of petitions, especially since I was the alleged target of one. I've mentioned in past posts how I had a cluster of troublemaking students in the COBOL sections I taught at UWM. I had decided to teach using a new standard version ( COBOL-85), which introduced support for structured programming constructs. I required a textbook which included a limited free version of Ryan McFarland COBOL-85 on a floppy disk (yeah, this was old school). The business school administration was initially thrilled to have one of their professors teach the course; I gave up my rights to teach my beloved graduate DSS class to do it. (I had taught several classes as a graduate fellow at the University of Houston, although I had not (and still haven't) done professional COBOL programming; I had started the doctoral program with considerable experience as a professional APL programmer and some experience as a FORTRAN programmer.)
The administration, however, soon was dismayed when they learned I wouldn't be using their licensed copies of Microsoft COBOL for their student labs. (Microsoft had not yet released a 1985 compatible version of its compiler; I dealt with an idiot Microsoft account manager who insisted they did in his hype, but he lied.) And there were other risks I was taking, like the student lab assistants would not be familiar with the new constructs.
Usually in my programming classes I required 4 or 5 programs, equally distributed across the semester. Unlike others in my (MIS) discipline, I did not distribute pseudocode solutions to the programs (i.e., making the programs largely a typing exercise). Compared to our more advanced computer science counterparts, my programming requirements were modest; for example, in my own first computer science course at OLL, a FORTRAN course, I had to submit a new program weekly. In my experience, it was like writing a program in ink because each program turnaround to the computer available at nearby St. Mary's was 3 days, so I had only one shot to correct any errors in my initial program card deck. So the students in my class sections had about 3 weeks to complete assignments; I had office hours (plus de facto I spent most of each day in my office, available) and allowed students to ask questions at lecture periods. And in fact, almost everyone turned in a working program each assignment. (I never assigned a program I couldn't do myself within 30 minutes, but I had a mix of students of varying abilities and experiences. Computer science students took it for an easy A; on the other hand, I had students who never had done a program before; one student, a self-described A/B student, was on the verge of a breakdown, spending up to 15 hours on his assignments, while computer science students were taking less than an hour.)
A group of about 5 malcontent students confronted me at my office about one week into the 3-week period for the first assignment and bluntly demanded an assignment extension. I did not want to set a precedent, especially only one week into the assignment period. I told them they had another two weeks, were free to ask questions in lecture or come to office hours; I didn't want to throw the schedule of remaining assignments off or set a bad precedent. The students were unconvinced and bluntly threatened me (unspecified) if I didn't capitulate to their demand. I really didn't worry about their threats because I knew the university would back my setting course policy. The first assignment came and went without incident, and basically everyone, including the malcontents, submitted completed assignments without incident, and I all but forgot about the threat, just dismissing it as an incident of panic.
Now, to explain the context, I was in the second year of a 3-year contract. I would go up for a contract renewal in my second year, usually a formality. The basic idea was if I were not renewed, I would have a grace year to find a follow-up job in academia. Usually you go up for tenure around the end of your renewal. I had already decided I wasn't going to seek tenure at UWM. Among other things, I had differences with my area (MIS) senior faculty and the business school administration, including an explicit threat against my tenure by the area faculty member, who was upset about my private critique of his student's dissertation proposal. So it was my intention to leave, but a contract renewal would give me more time to test the academic job market, say if next year's market had few openings.
Somehow the malcontents found out about my contract renewal (I'm not sure if it was a hostile faculty colleague or administrator) and apparently drew up a petition (I haven't seen to this day) to put into my renewal file at the last minute, arguing against my contract renewal. I heard rumors that a lot of students refused to sign, enraging the malcontents. The administration confirmed the rumor of a petition, but refused to let me see it (so much for due process), afraid I would engage in "reprisals". (As if I didn't already know the 5 students who had threatened me.) To me, an immoral administration and unprofessional colleagues questioning my professionalism were the proverbial final straw. I didn't want to spend my academic future in a place where clearly they didn't want me, and I didn't want to work with or for people I didn't respect.
A final note: it's ironic that as I was moving out of my office over a year later, the elevator floor was spread with listings of COBOL assignments. No other professor dared to teach COBOL in my aftermath. I think a graduate teaching fellow was teaching the course. It was great to see how much mature the students were after my nightmare semester. The administration didn't understand the consequences of the precedent of mishandling the situation.
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I have on occasion signed petitions. One that immediately comes to mind was during a Chicano protest at OLL while I was an undergraduate. I was taking classes which were interrupted by noisy protests. I was friends with some Latinos in the men's dorm, and even in my left-liberal salad days, the protests offended me; I remember one of my Catholic sister professors (with a Spanish surname) was accused (with no evidence) of being a "racist"; the students were claiming discriminatory faculty hiring, etc. OLL in fact is in a SW San Antonio neighborhood, and many of the sisters lived not in the convent but the neighborhood. A large plurality of students were Latino, many first-generation college students.
So I added my signature to a petition opposing the protests, and some of my Latino friends weren't happy about that. I ended up getting punked. One of my friends protesting asked me to hold his sign as he tied his shoes. I then got shoved from behind to move, which is how I unintentionally found myself "protesting" against my will. I quickly left as I realized what had happened. No doubt my Latino friends had gotten a laugh over my seeming contradiction of signing the petition.
Occasionally I have signed a few petitions at change.org although it had been a while; most recently I had signed one in favor of a left-liberal academic's academic freedom; the professor had been interviewed on Tom Woods' podcast.
Since then I got a few change.org's petition emails, e.g., on daylight savings time (I'm against government intervention) and even one on Charlie Brown.
Now I still, as a middle-aged bachelor, have a fondness for the seasonal holiday programs from my childhood, like the Grinch, Frosty, Rudolph--and especially the Charlie Brown shows (especially Halloween and Christmas). I think some time back TBS had gotten the exclusive rights to the cartoon version of Grinch, and since then if I did have cable, the channel has generally not been in my package network.
Mostly for sentimental reasons I had purchased a relevant VHS collection, later giving it to my oldest nephew's family (and their four little girls).
So apparently Apple TV has acquired exclusive rights to the Charlie Brown series. The petitioner is unhappy the beloved specials will only be available through Apple TV, a premium ($5/month) portal, instead of a national broadcast network. Apple reports it will allow limited-time free access to the beloved episodes on its portal.
Personally, I don't like exclusive deals. One well-known example is the beloved movie "It's a Wonderful Life" which is broadcast once or twice every season on NBC/USA Network. I can understand some limits vs seeing it somewhere on cable several times a day.
The petition is aimed at shaming Apple's "corporate greed". No, I'm not going to do that, but personally if I were Apple, I think they might want to do a showcase special deal on broadcast TV, not unlike Hallmark Hall of Fame series on broadcast TV.
Well, I Have My Latest Amazon Device...
My microwave oven finally died over last weekend. Normally I might have just gone to Walmart for a cheap functional replacement, but I remembered that Amazon had a competitively priced Alexa-enabled model for about $60. I own multiple Echo devices and a firestick and routinely check with my Echo Dot for the current temperature/forecast, set timers for meal preparation, get statuses on Amazon orders, even call my cellphone if I've misplaced with it. There are a few weird quirks; for example, I finally decided to hook up Alexa with my contact list and managed to call my Mom's cellphone, but Alexa seemed confused when I asked it for my Mom's cellphone number. In contrast I have a few Google gadgets including a chromecast and a Hub, and the Hub easily responded to the query of my Mom's cellphone number.
The setup of the microwave for Alexa was easy with the Alexa app open on my cellphone. Now of course it has the usual touchscreen number pad, but I get a geek's pure delight from saying, "Alexa, turn on the microwave for 2 minutes." I've seen a few quirks, like I thought there was a built-in command to warm my coffee. Alexa seemed confused when I tried saying it, but I could do a variation of the above command. The oven comes with an Ask Alexa button, but Echo Dot Alexa nearby responds readily directly.
My Television Obsession/COVID-19
I watched Election Night coverage on FNC and was much amused by the kerfuffle set off by an early call on Biden flipping my former state of residence, Arizona. But mostly since then, I've been watching CNN coverage, in part because FNC is still too Trump-friendly for my tastes. CNN still has a too progressive tilt for my tastes (so help me if I hear the female announcers refer one more time to Kamala Harris' firsts as the prospective first female VP, black woman, etc. Let's be clear: I think Harris is one key reason Biden underachieved expected quasi-landslides.) CNN is a bit predictable and repetitious, but I think in part that reflects the slow vote counting process.
The progressives' attack on Mark Meadows' getting infected by COVID-19 blaming face mask policies of the Trump White House is particularly presumptuous, annoying and uninformed. Face masks are not a panacea. The primary functionality of face masks is to mitigate larger infectious respiratory droplets; they do little to mitigate airborne virus particles. I don't know enough of Meadows' activities, whereabouts, contacts, tenure of exposure, etc.
A New Blog Record
With this post I'm breaking last year's post count record. Last month's readership was roughly a third over September's, although the first week this month is below the pace of the last two months.
