Greg and Kat's blog

Here’s a tidbit about SFU’s network infrastructure that I bet will be news to most of you: SFU has an instant messaging server.

Just fire up your favourite open source, multi-protocol IM client: Pidgin for Linux or Windows or Adium for OSX. Create an account with these settings:

• Protocol: XMPP/Jabber/Google Talk (whatever your client calls it)
• Host/server/domain: jabber.sfu.ca
• User/screen name: your regular SFU userid (possibly with “@jabber.sfu.ca”)
• Password: your regular SFU password
• Port: 5223
• Encryption: SSL/TLS. “Force old SSL” in Pidgin. (No, I don’t know why it matters.)

I don’t know for sure that students can use this, but it’s worth a shot.

Maybe this is a good excuse to finally do some kind of “student questions by IM” thing in my classes. What was always stopping me was not wanting to pollute my regular IM accounts with non-fun things. A separate account would let me turn it on when working and off the rest of the time.

I’m still not really sure what IM with my students buys me though. Slight coolness, in exchange for even more hasty, poorly thought out questions than email. I sense fail.

According to Google, “enrolment management” is a fairly Canadian term, and it’s one that comes up a lot in my life. The general problem is keeping the right number of bums in seats in our program (or faculty or University). In recent history, that has meant trying to increase the numbers.

As far as I’m concerned, there are four main parts of EM:

1. Outreach: Going out into the world (often to schools) and getting people interested in the discipline. There’s no direct EM outcome to outreach, but it’s an important long-term thing. I’m a big believer in CS Unplugged for CS outreach.
2. Recruitment: Convincing people that you have a good program, and getting them to apply. Recruitment is the part of EM that usually gets all the attention.
3. Conversion: Converting the applications into actual students. This includes convincing the applicants to accept your offer, and making sure that acceptances actually show up in September. Conversion is often forgotten or lumped into recruitment.
4. Retention: Once the students get it the door, making sure we keep them around until they graduate.

Retention is probably the most controversial of the group, because of the fear that it will take the most blunt form possible: “Stop failing the dumb kids.”

Maybe I have been sheltered, but I have never heard anybody push in that direction. Most retention activities focus on improving learning skills (like AEP) or other aspects of the student experience.

It turns out that something like 2/3 of the students that disappear are in good academic standing (i.e. not the dumb kids). My experience is that even among students in poor academic shape, the problem is often not straight-up dumbness, but poor study skills, lack of focus, or other factors that don’t necessarily mean we don’t want them around.

Basically, I’m convinced that we can actually do something about retention, as long as it’s done from the bottom up in the School, not top-down by the administration.

While at SIGCSE, my favourite session was probably the retention session: all of the papers were interesting and actually presented quantitative results. The most relevant to me was the paper from Georgia Tech. We suck compared to them.

I’m spending tomorrow downtown at a Student Success (aka retention) workshop. Hopefully it leaves us with some good ideas that we can actually implement around SFU.

I never had much of a taste for “salads” when I was growing up. The whole macaroni salad, potato salad, coleslaw thing usually seemed like a bunch of food I didn’t really like, slathered in mayonnaise. But I did like potatoes and they were everywhere: it was the starch staple in my family, and it’s still inconceivable that my mother would make an evening meal without potatoes.

At some point last year, I decided that I might actually like potato salad. I don’t really know why, but I formed an idea in my head of what potato salad should taste like. I just had to find it, but after a long search, I came up empty. Still mostly too much mayonnaise, too creamy, more relish than potato flavour, not enough mustard bite.

So, I set about creating the potato salad I wanted. No nasty relish, a mustard taste that isn’t shy, and it should all still taste like potatoes at the end:

• 2 lb red potatoes
• 1/3 cup mayonnaise
• 3 4 tbsp grainy mustard
• 3 tbsp chopped parsely
• 2 hard-boiled eggs, chopped fine
• 1 stick celery, chopped fine
• chipotle Tabasco
• salt and pepper

1. Boil the potatoes (skin-on) until they are cooked. Don’t overcook, or they will fall apart.
2. Let the potatoes cool and chop them into half inch cubes, removing whatever skin comes off easily.
3. Combine all of the ingredients and stir. Add Tabasco and salt and pepper to taste.

If this is made a day ahead, the mustard flavour fades, and I find myself adding more. I suspect the acid in the mustard neutralizes, but I’m just making that up.

This morning’s keynote talk at SIGCSE was by Marissa Mayer who is the Google VP of Search Products & User Experience. As she was giving a really good talk, I looked her up in Wikipedia.

Apparently, she was born in 1975. Fuck. That’s the same year I was born.

She did some user studies for Google during her MSc and went to work there when she was done. She did more user studies there, and worked on the original Google web server. She’s also a much better speaker than I am.

So, while I’ve been pissing around teaching a bunch of punk kids computing science, this chicky* has been getting rich by being brilliant. Seriously brilliant: she knows her shit, and it’s very clear from listening to her.

Sigh. Is there an English word that combines the concepts of “crush” and “envy”? I have that.

(*) chicky (chĭkē) n. A woman who is probably often underestimated by misogynists because she is young and attractive, shortly before they find themselves in her wake wondering what happened to their testicles.

I spent my day hanging around Portland. It’s a nice city: one of the few places I’ve been recently and thought “yeah, I could see living here.” Kat assures me that I’ll think the same thing about San Francisco, which is a good reason to go there some time.

The city is quite walkable, so I wandered around a bunch. There’s also a light-rail transit system that’s free in the city centre: it’s basically like the Skytrain, but not in the sky. So, a “train”.

Kerry was right about taking the time to go to Powell’s Books. I wasn’t inspired to buy anything, but mostly because I wasn’t in a buying mood. It’s a very cool bookstore, with new and used books mixed together on the shelves.

It’s back to work tomorrow.

After a luxurious 40 hours in Vancouver, I’m heading off again tomorrow. This time to SIGCSE ’08: the ACM‘s (Association for Computing Machinery’s) Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education conference. In short: the big CS education conference.

Tactical error: I booked my tickets without looking at the conference schedule closely. There’s nothing on Wednesday that I can really go to. Wednesday is all special-interest things that cost extra. So, I have an extra day to hang around Portland. Fine I guess, but there’s probably stuff I should be doing in Vancouver.

Other than that, there’s not a single session where there isn’t something I’m interested in. Hopefully, it will be a good couple of days.

I’m passing through Toronto as I write this (but posting it after I got back to Vancouver, as I’m too cheap to pay for wireless). There was a crazy snowstorm yesterday in Toronto. Things are cleared now, and my flights weren’t affected.

There are still a lot of people around the airport, standing in lines for customer service, or whatever other airline person will talk to them. I guess a lot of connections must have been cancelled: maybe to airports that took the storm later, or were hit harder.

The people in these lines are the subject of my travel tip:

If you find yourself in an airport needing to fix your flight, don’t wait in a line. Phone the airline. There will invariably be hundreds or thousands of other people in the same situation as you. There’s no hope of the staff in the building dealing with it quickly. Phone their toll-free number (it’s probably on your itinerary or boarding pass) and jump to the front of the line.

The operator should be able to rebook you, and give you a confirmation number. From there, you’re home-free and just need to check back in.

To be fair, there were also a lot of people bumming around for standby, probably after their original flight was cancelled. I have no good tip for those people.

Daylight savings time day: +1:00.

East coast to west coast: -3:00.

Traveling on DST day: -2:00. One less hour of jetlag. Score.

My six-word story: I’m here and Mario Galaxy rocks.

I’m pretty much hanging around in Chapel Hill, trying to get some work done while Kat’s in the lab. (She’s doing full days, trying to get the science done so she can come home as soon as possible.)

I decided to set the reasonable goal for the week of getting my email under control. I’m down from probably 270 messages in my inbox to 180. If I can get it down under 100 and handle all of the “my mark is wrong” ones from my distance ed class, I’ll be pleased.

But then, Ryan (a lab tech in Kat’s lab) lent us Super Mario Galaxy. That’s costing me. I just got the second power star. If nothing else, it’s a solidly long game.

or “How to take a redeye from the west to east coast.”

I usually fly redeye (aka overnight) flights when coming east. I have had some disbelieving reactions to this like “Did you save a lot of money?” Sometimes, but that’s not really why.

The setup: Flying from Vancouver to Toronto or Ottawa takes about 4.5 hours. Counting in the 3 hour time change, that just about equals “overnight”. The last flights leave at 11:00 or so.

The prelude: I can get in a full day of work (or whatever) before leaving. The airport run happens after rush hour, and at a time that people are generally more willing to give me the ride.

Airport arrival: First thing at the airport: take a sleeping pill (Sleep-Eze or whatever). Check in and go through security. It only takes a few minutes, since there are few flights at that time. Eat somewhere in there and buy a bottle of water past security. About 10 minutes before boarding time, brush teeth.

The flight: The sleeping pill should be starting to kick by boarding. Put on sunglasses (since I can never be bothered with a mask). Ignore everything and get as much sleep as possible.

The connection: I am generally making a connection to North Carolina. That involves going through US customs at the Toronto airport at about 6:00. No lines, and the agents are still half asleep. For some reason, I sleep better on the second flight: I have slept through the takeoff and usually wake up when somebody tells me to put my chair up.

All-told, I usually get a little more than a half night’s sleep. That leaves me a little screwed up the next day. But, consider the alternative: if I hadn’t taken the redeye, I would have spent the whole day on a plane. This way, I can lounge around, take a nap and be good. As an added bonus, I can go to sleep whenever I want the next night, and jetlag is suddenly a non-issue.

The math doesn’t work out for east to west, though.