Never… ever… ever…get bored enough to install Microsoft Visio 2007. Odd things do happen, especially when you are looking at course lists and their pre-requisites.
Also available in PDF… 
First PSYC Grade Posted
I know its kind of silly, but I am really happy that my first grade as a psychology major has been posted. Unfortunately, it will likely be another full week before the other class grade is posted, even though I completed PSYC 421 first. It is pretty much up to the instructor to decide if he/she will post the grades of all students today, or only the grades for graduating seniors today. Theories of Personality has closed out all of its required components effective last Sunday so everything is clear, whereas Dr. Hogan has decided to allow course completion until May 8. Academic standing is of course still blank until the other grade is posted and the semester is closed on my record. I have been stalking Banner since Sunday evening waiting for grades to be posted. Now that I have one and my academic record at Fayetteville is established, I can relax and wait for the other to be posted.
Teaching Chancellor
Reviewing the Fall 2009 schedule for Fayetteville I ran across something somewhat interesting. Dr. James A. Anderson, 11th (current) Chancellor of Fayetteville State University, is teaching General Psychology (PSYC 210) on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 6:45PM to 8PM. I reviewed the available information and determined that he is qualified to teach it, but why would he want to? He is not officially part of the Department of Psychology and the department has no shortage of faculty. Another really interesting thing to note about the course listing is that while all of the other sections of PSYC 210 are either full or almost full, Dr. Anderson’s section has all 25 seats still available (even the 45 seat section with no instructor has 41 students). If I were close to the campus and/or needed a General Psyc credit I would so take the course with him. I must wonder if everyone else is scared of taking a course with the Chancellor.
I do wonder about some of the potential for conflict of interest type situations that could occur with the Chancellor teaching though. Grade appeals is the primary thing that comes to mind. All of the administrators involved in such a process report directly to the Chancellor. The potential issues aside, I think it is wonderful that Dr. Anderson still teaches. I do not believe that any other Chancellor in the UNC system would actually have that much contact with students.
PSYC 310 “Group” Project
Just for fun, I am making my project on Dr. George Kelly available here.
Unexpected Crash
I have been attempting to use Nikon Transfer on the Mini to transfer images back to the server from the memory card from the camera. I have run into a curious little problem with it though, everything works fine up until the point when I click “transfer”, when the application crashes, and I get the Windows diagnostic dialog boxes. This issue first occurred on the Mini, the app works great on the laptop (and probably will on the sever as well if I let it install). The app crashes on the Mini as well as on two virtual machines running the same installation of Windows as the Mini. At first I thought it might be possible that Jasper (the internal SDHC reader’s driver manager). The VMs and the Mini’s install are all three from an nLite configuration. I guess that means I left off something important (but I remembered ACPI support and Image Acquisition this time). The laptop has its image from nLite as well, so its not just the stripped down version, there is something specific that I have done that has highly pissed off the software. I have had no luck in trying to decipher the problem. I sent the problem to Nikon a few days ago before I had a chance to try the software on the virtual machines. I am hoping that maybe if Nikon responds today that they may be able to tell me what Windows component the software is relying on that I whacked, so that I may either get my Windows installation to install the required part, or so that I may redo the nLite image, but this time remembering to not kill whatever I neglected to include last time. nLite is useful, but it allows one to get into trouble with pruning excess shit…. hmm.. maybe I should try nLite on Vista.
The machine with the reader can’t use the transfer tool to make things easier and putting the cards in the laptop is more trouble than doing things manually from the Mini.
Good News for Me
- I’m not the only one
- It explains the way I feel
- It means I’m not useless
S is for Servo
I have recently been shopping for a new lens for my camera, something to extend my range and give me some new perspectives to work with. I have been looking for decent deals, but have discovered that with my camera, that may not be easy. For my to use a lens on my camera that can be focused by the camera, I have to use the AF-S series of lens, because my camera does not have an AF power drive motor. For the most part, this has not been a problem when looking at lenses in the past, because I have either been in the lower series of Nikon lenses, or I have been looking at lenses that are completely manual. Now that I am looking at the Nikon 70-300mm range, I am finding there are options. At a cost of $150, there is the standard 70-300mm Auto Focus lens, unfortunately, that becomes manual focus on the D60 because of the absence of the motor drive (not having the motor drive makes it more energy efficient, as well as lighter and smaller). So, I must look at other options, and the only other option Nikon offers is the 70-300mm AF-S lens, at a cost of about $550, much of the cost due to the integrated servo focus mechanism. The lens I looked at also has the problem of being a different filter size, at 67mm (compared to 52mm for my current lenses and 55mm for the Fuji). For the type of shots I would be doing with it, I don’t anticipate really needing filters though, since the 55-200mm that I have currently would still be the most versatile of the set.
The whole idea of adding a new lens to my set is probably a little crazy, but I am finding that some of my subjects are just barely out of reach, something that 100mm more (150mm comparable to 35mm) would resolve quite nicely. I have tried my 500mm lens in a variety of situations and I can not keep the shake down enough to make it work for general purpose, and of course, focus is not something easily done through a viewfinder.
PhotoBlog: Going Nuts for Squirrels
Bushy tailed rat or cute backyard critter?
Academic Software Problems
I don’t quite understand why academic administrative software is written quite the way it is. At every academic institution I have ever attended, the student side of things is quite incomplete compared to the information that the registrar is able to see. There was an issue earlier of whether or not Fayetteville had recorded the fact that I have completed an Associate of Arts degree, since in an email communication, the registrar only noted the existence of the Associate of General Education. Those are the types of things I would like to be able to see on my side of things, so that I can confirm things more easily and not have to bug advisors and registrars every time I have a question. Banner just doesn’t tell me enough info. I don’t know whether this is an issue where SCT thought that students are too stupid or if their are document security concerns with having the full and complete academic record accessible to the student side of the portal. Neither WebAdvisor (DataTel) nor Banner (SCT) will show a student their completed degrees, which sucks, since sometimes it would be nice to be able to verify that everything posted OK and that no one has fucked up records.
On a related, but yet, somehow not related topic, I am not sure if Fayetteville will fully accept the terms of the North Carolina Comprehensive Articulation Agreement and no on seems to be able to give me clear answers to anything. I am a few days from transmitting a fax on my letterhead demanding a formal degree evaluation of the degree in progress.
On to something 100% not related, the Art Institute keeps bugging me, even though the admissions counselor will not respond to my email.
Final/Group Presentation Madness
In Theories of Personality (PSYC 310) this semester, there was a group project. Groups were assigned after mid-term. I have never liked group projects because of the awkward interpersonal aspects of them, and the difficulty of getting started. Somehow I always manage to end up in the leadership role in groups that I am in (even though I am the biggest sheep there is). This time I ended up in the leadership position because no one else would make the first move. A few days after taking leadership of the 5 person group, I had only 2 group members respond. A week later one of the people who responded dropped the course and the other had become non-responsive. I let a few weeks pass, and tried on several occasions to contact the remaining 2 members of the group (I responded every time I emailed myself, I am good at self-communication). Finally I was left with the feeling that no one was going to respond to me and I contacted the instructor, who basically granted me permission to go ahead and do it as an individual project. A few hours after that permission was granted one of my other group mates contacted me and asked what she could help on. I gave her two of the component parts. Again, weeks passed. The project was due on April 22nd, so on the 20th I decided to do my part and hers and then I turned the project in as mine and graded each member of my group accordingly on the group assessment sheet. You would think this story ends there, right? No, not at all. Last night (actually 1:58am on April 23rd), I got an email from her, the text said “Thanks.” and she attached her component part of the project. I thought, “ok, shes like way behind, and I’m done, not an issue”, then I go into the class discussion board and she has replied to my project posting, stating that she had tried sending the email before and she thought I had received it. I tend to take pity on non-technical folk, so I decided to check the properties of the Word document. I looked at the statistics tab, and checked the document creation and overall editing time. It was started April 23, 2009 at 1:06am, and was edited for 42 minutes. She started her component 3 hours after the time the project was due, and on top of that, I asked for citations for her work, the document contained none.
I do not know what is going to come of this, but at the moment I am hoping that my “partner” spontaneously combusts or goes back into the hole she has been hiding in for the past 3 weeks.
On the up side, everyone likes my presentation and acknowledges all of MY hard work, even after the alleged “partner” tried to dive in and claim that I had somehow left her out. Me intentionally leaving her out would imply that I liked doing all of the work myself, right? That so isn’t the case.