New movie marketers decided to use the Greek alphabet in their poster, and caused my brain to stutter.

There is no “C” in the Greek alphabet; they should have substituted a Κ, kappa. No “L”, but there is a lambda, Λ. We get a sigma instead of an “e”, which is pronounced like an “s”. Then an omicron, so that part is OK. P is rho, it is pronounced like an “r”. Greek has a perfectly good, familiar letter A, alpha, but they put a delta, Δ, in there. That’s a “d”. Then a tau, Τ, which is a fine “T”, and an “R” character which doesn’t exist and should be a Ρ. Then it ends with another “d”.

I think that whole gemisch is pronounced “??sordt?d,” somehow, and I now have no confidence in the historicity of whatever this movie is.

I wonder if they plan to distribute this movie in Greece with that poster?

As you must know, it’s legendary that universities are built on top of a network of tunnels full of steam pipes and cables and mysterious lost undergrads. My university is no different. We have one functional, accessible tunnel between the science building and the student union, but nothing else is easy to get to. We occasionally get a glimpse of more when the physical plant crew opens up a door to work on arcane things back in the mines.

Today, though, I made arrangements to get an official tour of the maze under our feet. The students and I are going to equip ourselves and enter the university’s very own dungeon. I don’t expect to find trolls or CHUDs or ancient artifacts or cunning, centuries-old traps that still work — ostensibly, we’re looking for the invertebrate inhabitants of the underworld. I know there are cockroaches down there, at least, but maybe spiders? Giant albino spiders lurking in the darkness?

One can always hope.

If I don’t make it back, all I know right now is that the access portal is somewhere on the east side of the humanities & fine arts building. I’ll expect you to organize a rescue party.

In case you’ve been keeping score…

I had my money on the right demi-god.

I sure hear a lot about science education in New Zealand, and I don’t know why. The latest is some upset about the New Zealand science curriculum. I also don’t understand why.

Science teachers are shocked that an advance version of the draft school science curriculum contains no mention of physics, chemistry or biology.

The so-called “fast draft” said science would be taught through five contexts – the Earth system, biodiversity, food, energy and water, infectious diseases and “at the cutting edge”.

It was sent to just a few teachers for their feedback ahead of its release for consultation next month, but some were so worried by the content they leaked it to their peers.

Teachers who had seen the document told RNZ they had grave concerns about it. It was embarrassing, and would lead to “appalling” declines in student achievement, they said.

One said the focus on four specific topics was likely to leave pupils bored with science by the time they reached secondary school.

But another teacher told RNZ the document presented a “massive challenge” to teachers and the critics were over-reacting.

“It’s the difference from what’s existed before and the lack of content is what’s scaring people. It’s fear of the unknown,” he said.

Okay. I contrast that with the Minnesota public school curriculum, which delineates the big three science subjects of physics, chemistry, and biology — there’s a year dedicated to each of those, a very traditional approach. But obviously, that’s too broad to be practical, and we also have a more detailed breakdown of what specifically needs to be taught within each.

The NZ schools would provide a different framework. Instead of the traditional topical breakdown, it’s centered around broader themes and questions. Is that bad? The real test is in the details of implementation. They could also have science standards that are identical to Minnesotas, for instance, but placed within an interdisciplinary program (that’s what I see in those five contexts, which are all interrelated and overlapping with physics, chemistry, and biology). It sounds like it would be hard to do well, especially in comparison to well-established curricula, but the devil is in the details, and I’m not seeing any details anywhere, as is unsurprising if this is just a leaked draft.

I guess I’m interested in the fact that three of their five categories (biodiversity, food, energy and water, and infectious diseases) are so solidly built around biology, but at the same time they’re going to have to introduce a strong background in chemistry and physics to do them well. I also feel like you can’t teach those biological aspects without any general biochemistry, and there’s no biochem explicitly spelled out in the overview. It’s got to be there somewhere in the implementation details.

Also, I would object to “at the cutting edge” as far too vague. How do you teach that? What’s the point of discussing deep details if you don’t have the basic foundation?

Another thread filled up? Let’s start some more trouble.

Previous Thread

This might just be the final straw for me. The head Twit is pissed off and flinging lawsuits at Mark Zuckerberg for launching Threads, the Twitter alternative, and since they called off the childish plan to fight each other, now Musk has an even dumber suggestion.

Look. Guys. You’re both toxic to your brand. We all want to see less of you, not more. Musk only appeals to weird libertarian Nazis and people who have fallen for his techie facade; Zuckerberg is a dead-eyed charisma void beloved of racist grandmas. The more you put your faces on your social media service, the more I’m going to attach unpleasant associations to using that service.

I’m still on Twitter, for now, but not happy about it. I’m on Threads, unenthusiastically, but I can’t link to my pzmyers account there because, for unfathomable reasons, Threads, like Instagram, is only supposed to be used on your phone. I prefer Mastodon right now, because there are no billionaires marking their territory there.

I think I’ll just hunker down on Pharyngula. Bring back RSS!

So disappointed. We found some old graves of dead Westads, and that’s about it.

Damn few spiders. I don’t know why. We were tromping around in nature preserves around Fertile, but spiders were scarce, we only found a handful. We didn’t even see many insects, other than ants, which were flourishing in the sandy soils of the old Lake Agassiz shoreline.

I was reduced to taking pictures of <shudder> flowers, out of a lack of worthy subjects.

All right, time for me to go home.