I have made it to Ithaca. I've more or less lost my camera (it's in St. Paul, probably in the third drawer in the built-in drawers in the dining room, and I am in New York) so there are no pictures to be had. I have found the place I'm living, my office in the math building, the local butcher shop and co-op, and the local Finns. Not too bad! Now it's time to pack my lunch for my first day of school at Cornell!
Thanks to friends in town I've had lunch and brunch at Cafe Dewitt and thanks to my spouse I know that Simeon Dewitt was a land surveyor and a big guy in Ithaca history, arriving in 1798 and establishing the town. Ithacans seem to be big on secret history references, as there's also a restaurant called Simeon's that I have not yet patronized. I have, however, already bought books at Buffalo Street Books and Autumn Leaves Books. This is probably a symptom of the same disorder that led to shipping 15 pounds of books back from Berkeley. I used to be a library-frequenter, and now I figure I can buy them -- but that is a bit dangerous, I suppose.
The same weather that prompted cancellation of the Sisu Ski Fest hit Ithaca, and so there is no snow at all. It melted. Then it fell (a few inches). Then on Friday it melted. Today it snowed. It didn't stick. I need to buy waterproof boots.
Other than that, I am preparing for classes to the extent that I can, as Cornell is rather slow in giving folks the NetID which is apparently vital for being considered a real person (bus pass, gym pass, library access, access to my own calculus course's website). Hopefully I will get that soon and be promoted from "Staff" to "Kaisa Taipale". Wish me luck.
Sunday, January 20, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
Heading to Ithaca
Moving to Ithaca tomorrow (more or less). Time in the Twin Cities has flown past. Back to the monastic mathematical lifestyle!
Besides wrestling with Sage code and thinking a bit about polytopes and reconnecting with family and old friends, I spent some time learning about R, the statistics software I mentioned in an earlier course. I decided to take the quick introduction to R offered by Coursera, one of the major new forces in the MOOC movement. It is a nice way to structure my learning as well as learn about a potentially major competitor in the higher education landscape in coming years. Among other things, it's interesting to see how other professors teach: this is not something I experience much these days!
If/when I learn very cool new things from R, I will put some of them up here. For now, I have learned a very tiny amount about the growth of guinea pig teeth as related to vitamin C consumption, from a data set included with the standard distribution of R.
Besides wrestling with Sage code and thinking a bit about polytopes and reconnecting with family and old friends, I spent some time learning about R, the statistics software I mentioned in an earlier course. I decided to take the quick introduction to R offered by Coursera, one of the major new forces in the MOOC movement. It is a nice way to structure my learning as well as learn about a potentially major competitor in the higher education landscape in coming years. Among other things, it's interesting to see how other professors teach: this is not something I experience much these days!
If/when I learn very cool new things from R, I will put some of them up here. For now, I have learned a very tiny amount about the growth of guinea pig teeth as related to vitamin C consumption, from a data set included with the standard distribution of R.
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