Don't use a cucumber. They don't flare out, they taper in, and they too can get lost.

Jilli, where is the sterling silver or pewter version of this, the bracelet on the right with the claws? They must be easy to find, no?

somebody (Matt?) suggested gesture drawing - I'd also suggest drawing with something looser: charcoal, brush and ink - it forces you to loosen up.

I had intended to shift to a much darker pencil (went in armed up to 8B), but because the paper was so toothy, ended up at 2B anyway. It felt fairly expressive, but when I pulled back, it felt clinical again. I have too many conflicting goals in my head--too many people I want to draw like, and it's not helping. I need to work on one thing at a time. We'll see what next week's exercise is, and what medium I might be able to use on that.

I'm definitely not confident enough to haul out the brush for anything that's not a T-shirt.

ION, this study is depressing:

Physics Students Reveal Bias for Male Lecturers

Male and female actors gave physics lectures to college students. All students thought the males were more knowledgeable. And whereas female students gave a a slight nod to women teachers, male students thought male teachers were vastly better.

Tom, good luck getting the good drugs!

Moral: never be naked around vegetables

Sneaky bastards that they are.

So I just had a tiny little flashback: back in the mid-90s I had a job working for the guy I call Evil Ex-Boss (everyone has one, right?). It was my first professional gig out of law school, and he treated me like shit and I was miserable and nothing ever got better and eventually I quit and moved across the country.

Well, I'm still working in the same general field, and I was just on the phone with someone about a conference I might be attending (or even speaking at, cool), and she was asking about my experience and I had to say where I'd worked back then and who I worked for, and she was all, "Oh yeah, I see him all the time, blah de dah." ARGH. Then she made a joke about how the field is so small, which is totally true.

However he's no longer doing quite the same kind of work, so hopefully if I do get to go to this conference, he won't be there and I won't have to deal with the low-level PTSD associated with seeing him or hearing his name.

That is depressing, tommyrot.

Here's my cool thing of the day, a map of wind patterns over the continental US: [link]

(everyone has one, right?)

If not more.

Times like that, I keep reminding myself that living well is the best revenge.

The sample size in that physics lecturer study is really to small to conclude much of anything, but I'd definitely seen the same thing within teacher evaluations and ratemyprofessor and things like that. Quite a few comments for male teachers start with something like, "He's a cool guy," while I've almost never seen that for female teachers.

My brain isn't working. What's the name of the effect that observation has on phenomena?

Times like that, I keep reminding myself that living well is the best revenge.

Yeah, pretty much. I am way less worried about my manhood than EEB was.

Seriously: he had a six-cylinder Camaro, and traded it in for an eight-cylinder Camaro because he wanted it to go zoom faster. Wouldn't even fix his elderly golden retriever, because that would be a slight on his own manhood, even after the dog ran off after a bitch in heat and got hit by a car. He was really a prize, and the least likely archaeologist ever.

Tommyrot, those of us who teach noticed that anecdotally years ago. The students perception of your intelligence is inversely related to how high your voice is.

The premise of that study might be depressing, but it seems to have been of a pretty small scope, with only four actors involved.

I love the first comment. Give up right now, ladies:

It is not "inherent biases" that cause students to prefer men speakers over women. Because of the high pitch and the softness of a woman's voice, it makes them very difficult to understand unless they are right up in your face, and the high pitch of a woman's voice makes their lecture seem more like a reprimand. A man's voice has more base in it and their words are clearer and easier to understand. It is not bias, it is the length of the sound wave.