Finising a Bottle of Canned Air

Have you ever noticed that canned air starts to have a weaker force behind the blowing when you get near the end of a bottle?  One reason is that you are running out of propellant.  Another reason is that the can gets cold.  According to the ideal gas law (PV=nRT if you've forgotten), when the temperature (T) falls, so will the pressure (P) since volume is held constant by the size of the interior of the can.  This means that when you think you're near empty, you can wait until the can heats back up to room temperature and get some more air out of the can.  There are diminishing returns to doing this.

Forming a Possessive Flowchart

I just made this with the Lucidchart app for Chrome.

College Stuff Checklist: Floor Fan

Freshmen who are going to college for the first time are often presented with a list of things they'll need to outfit their dorm room.  One item is always absent from these lists and that amazes me.  I'm talking about a floor fan.  Fans are super useful.  They're great when your air conditioning breaks or a roommate likes it hotter than you do.  They help dry spills and clothes that didn't quite dry in the dorm dryers.  They can get smells out of your room and cool off your computer.  You can make funny voices by talking into the fan.  White noise from fans can help drown out other noises and get you to sleep faster.  Good fans are durable and will last a very long time.  I recommend one that oscillates and can be angled up and down.

First Day of Class

I was happy to hear that FSU did not need to cancel the first day of classes due to Hurricane Isaac.  In fact, I rode to school and home today without getting rained on.  There were a bunch of first years in my office when I arrived.  We currently have an overcrowding problem in my office which I'm working on fixing.  I just took it easy until class started.  I was the least nervous I've been for a first day of class.  Everything went smoothly in class except I realized that I have no idea how to proficiently use the Windows Media Player that comes on the classroom computer.  Maybe I'll switch to VLC.

I get a really good vibe from my students.  I had 22 people hand in an assignment today even though it's not due until a week from Friday.  I only put one girl to sleep.  I had lots of students introduce themselves after class and I'm going to need a few weeks to get names down.  I figure it's best to wait until after drop/add is over.  After class, I stayed and configured some of my electronics and all went well.

Back upstairs, I changed a few things in my syllabus due to a new scheduling conflict and students submitting error reports.  I think I'm ready to roll for the entire semester except for making some homework assignments and writing the tests.  I even had a former student drop by to pay me a visit between his classes.

Unrelated to teaching, I found a great remote desktop app that launches in a browser window.  It's called SparkView(RDP) and is available in the Chrome WebStore.  I came home and tried it out on my Chromebook and it works just as well as it did in my office!  Now I basically have a fully functional once I get home.  Good day.

Yay! Low Energy Usage

City of Tallahassee's Your Own Utilities has a tool where you can see how your utility usage compares to other homes.  Here is my picture for last month:

Looks like I did a decent job.  I'm going to have to stay on top of this to see if I'm always over on the far left.  I broke this down by electricity, gas, and water.  I'm on the far left for electricity and gas, but just to the left of the dark green/light green border for water.

Pick #309

Anthrax - "Got the Time" from Persistance of Time.  
This became the first metal song to be played by the Curiosity rover on Mars on day 6.

Rich Kids of Instagram

Have you seen RKOI?  Sometimes I'm impressed, sometimes dumbfounded, and sometimes wonder how I can get in on that action.