boilermaker75

We need more nuts like Elon.

Sorry, I have had a hectic semester and didn't see this post earlier. Yes good farm land in Indiana is going for $13-14k an acre.

I was wandering the Los Angeles Public Library today. I saw these walls of old card catalog drawers. I knew these were to honor donors, like having a brick with your name on it. But I just had to go up and tug on one of them. I kid you not, as I was tugging I noticed the names on the drawer I randomly walked up to.

Same with us. We moved into our current house in 1985! We did make it a little bigger with an addition around 1997.

I am listening to the Reigle Family band. The guitarist was in my electromagnetic fields course last semester. She is taking my Keys to Learning class this semester and has dragged her brother, mandolin player, and her sister, the bassist, to the class. This is why I love teaching, meeting amazing students like the Reigles.

At this point it is only an eBook. I do want to get it in physical form, but it will be a while. Edit: There are kindle apps to read on any device.

The course I wrote this book for went well. The students loved the course. Many said the course and book were difference makers for them. I was always getting comments about how they couldn’t wait to come to class to hear what was next. I had a lot of fun talking about neuroplasticity, mental models, purposeful practices, memory, sleep, mindset, grit, exercise, nutrition, meditation, breathing, relationships, etc., instead of electrical engineering. The book has gotten 26 reviews on Amazon and 15 on Goodreads with a rating of over 4.9.

My daughter took me to a Sting concert Oct 7. The guy is 74, but he looks like he is in better shape than most 20 year olds. Must work out every day. IMG_7661.mov

I'm actually tearing up a little. RIP Charlie.

"The energy produced by the breaking down of the atom is a very poor kind of thing. Any one who expects a source of power from the transformation of these atoms is talking moonshine. ... ," Ernest Rutherford (1933).

I didn't want my kindle book to be listed as independently published so I needed to purchase an ISBN.

Thanks, I forgot to mention that. I just needed to upload a digital copy since I was only publishing a kindle book. One ISBN costs $125, but 10 only costs $295. I went ahead and bought 10 in case I ever do a second edition, paperback edition, etc. because each one would requite its own ISBN. I also have another book in mind.

This is the fourth week of the semester. I thought students would find the course interesting and useful, but their response is way beyond what I had imagined. We have a web-based platform called Brightspace where course materials, grades, assignments, etc. can be found. One thing I do with my courses is have a weekly reflection assignment that is done on Brightspace. I ask the students to provide no more than a couple of sentences, since I must read them all. They can tell me anything they want about the class that week. Something they liked, or did not like, anything that surprised them, questions they have, etc. I have 135 students in two sections. All but one response out of over 400 has been extremely positive. The negative response was that I was too "wordy." That is something I have never been accused of and I definitely am not! I had my first feedback on the book after class on Monday. A student came up and told me he was really enjoying the book and finding something surprising every other page. I do think this course, and hopefully the book for those not able to take the course, will have a major impact.

I have not looked into Kindle Unlimited. Spekulatius found the book and posted the link. The cover is the forgetting curve discovered by Hermann Ebbinghaus in 1885.

I am teaching a new class this Fall for first year engineering students. It is titled "Keys to Learning." I actually did not know anything that is in this course till about 10-15 years ago when I started looking into what was known about learning. And that was after having taught at the university level for >25 years! I wrote a book for the course to consolidate everything I found on learning from my researches and my now 39 years of teaching. I had to have the book ready when classes started, so I had to go the Kindle route. It is such an easy way to get a book published. I did buy ISBN numbers, which you actually do not have to do if just publishing a Kindle book. I also made up, and registered, a fictitious business name so it sounds like I actually have a publisher.