Musings, from newest to oldest

1291-1300

What kind of computer should you buy? (2024 version) (Musing #1293)
Tomorrow’s my birthday (Musing #1292)
Unintentional mashups (Musing #1291)

1281-1290

My current approaches to mastery grading (Musing #1290)
Gaining seniority (Musing #1289)
Learning assessments (Musing #1288)
My professional responsibility to complain about technology (Musing #1287)
Developing and presenting AI policies for the SIGCSE Technical Symposium (Musing #1286)
Living with depression (Musing #1285)
Reflections on my teaching (Musing #1284)
Partitioning arrays (Musing #1283)
Forty-five years (Musing #1282)
Buffalo! (Musing #1281)

1271-1280

Registration priorities (Musing #1280)
Creating Submit buttons in Qualtrics (Musing #1279)
Setting up class (Musing #1278)
Writing assignments (Musing #1277)
Declaring a CS major (Spring 2024) (Musing #1276)
Choosing cover tunes (Musing #1275)
Writing a lab (Musing #1274)
My latest advising statement (Musing #1273)
Overcommitted again, naturally (Musing #1272)
Giving myself more time and more space (Musing #1271)

1261-1270

Fun with ChatGPT: Finding angles between points (Musing #1270)
Distractable (Musing #1269)
Redesigning the CSC-151 image model (Musing #1268)
Reflecting on end-of-course evaluations for CSC-151 2023Fa (Musing #1267)
Preparing for CSC-151 (Musing #1266)
CSC-151’s many GitHub repos (Musing #1265)
Building the CSC-151 Web site with Jekyll (Musing #1264)
Starting a guide for new CSC-151 instructors (Musing #1263)
Reflections on yet another registration process (Musing #1262)
Experiments in portfolio mastery grading (Musing #1261)

1251-1260

The (Dis-)Honor G (Musing #1260)
Happy birthday, Love! (Musing #1259)
So many research papers to assess! (Musing #1258)
Metacognitive wrappers, revised (Musing #1257)
Another inappropriate B-word (Musing #1256)
Placement in CS (Musing #1255)
On writing and computers (perhaps also ChatGPT and large language models) (Musing #1254)
Preliminary notes on revised image models for CSC-151 (Musing #1253)
High-level skills, low-level tasks (Musing #1252)
Journals, notebooks, diaries, and blogs (Musing #1251)

1241-1250

Sam attends student supervisor training (Musing #1250)
Major counts, more or less (Musing #1249)
Two weeks to go (Musing #1248)
Updating Grinnell’s Academic Honesty Handbook (Musing #1247)
A bit of joy (Musing #1246)
Scholars’ Seminar, Abbreviated (Musing #1245)
Learning objectives for CSC-207 (2023Fa) (Musing #1244)
Learning objectives for CSC-151 (2023Fa) (Musing #1243)
Half-remembered childhood tales of infinite recursion (Musing #1242)
The Frida Kahlo Mexican Restaurant (Musing #1241)

1231-1240

The fix ain’t in (Musing #1240)
A curmudgeon attends Grinnell’s 2023 graduation (Musing #1239)
Mixed messages (Musing #1238)
Ah, the joy of Microsoft (Musing #1237)
Do not Cease and Desist! (Musing #1236)
Student wages (Musing #1235)
One two three four! (Musing #1234)
Faculty nightmares (Musing #1233)
Forty-four years (Musing #1232)
Planning to crash (Musing #1231)

1221-1230

CrashPlan and relative soft links (Musing #1230)
CrashPlan and dotfiles (Musing #1229)
Salaries (Musing #1228)
Another dinner with Grinnell’s Board of Trustees (Musing #1227)
Reflections on round three of registration for Fall 2023 (Musing #1226)
Recent random reflections on revised registration rules and regulations (Musing #1225)
Road trip! (Musing #1224)
Misgivings about Microsoft Email Encryption (Musing #1223)
Reflections on round two of registration for Fall 2023 (Musing #1222)
Round one of registration for Fall 2023 (Musing #1221)

1211-1220

On group advising (Musing #1220)
Preliminary reflections on whether reviews of professional work should include comments on grammar and style (Musing #1219)
A joyful afternoon with Dan and Claudia Zanes (Musing #1218)
Graduate Student Strikes (Musing #1217)
I miss your musings (Musing #1216)
Losing Great Grinnellians (Musing #1215)
Canoes and Cinderblocks and Cases, oh my! (Musing #1214)
Fun with Dell service (Musing #1213)
Bad UI design (Musing #1212)
The end of Round 2 of Registration for Spring 2023 (Musing #1211)

1201-1210

Round 2a of Grinnell’s new registration process (Musing #1210)
A report on round one of registration for Spring 2023 (Musing #1209)
Grinnell’s new registration process (Musing #1208)
Title IX, Men’s Soccer, Women Coaches, Grinnell, and Such (Musing #1207)
Textbooks and Syllabi (Musing #1206)
Visiting the National Building Museum (Musing #1205)
Corn Mazes (Musing #1204)
Our Tapia 2022 Prep Session (Musing #1203)
One of my sets of three sisters (Musing #1202)
Thirty-five years! (Musing #1201)

1191-1200

Musing Twelve Hundred (more or less) (Musing #1200)
Unexpected cover bands (Musing #1199)
Terminology (Musing #1198)
I (still) hate computers (Musing #1197)
A Hidden Curriculum (Musing #1196)
Fifty Years of Title IX (Musing #1195)
DNS woes (Musing #1194)
Questions from Young Alumni Weekend (Musing #1193)
Young alumni weekend (Musing #1192)
Cycles of technology (Musing #1191)

1181-1190

Guns (Musing #1190)
Uploading student work to Gradescope and other bad decisions (Musing #1189)
Reflections on registration (Musing #1188)
Loss (Musing #1187)
Dinner with trustees (Musing #1186)
The 2022 SIGCSE Technical Symposium (Musing #1185)
A short simulation of normalcy (Musing #1184)
A grader’s guide to CSC-151 (Musing #1183)
Yet another draft set of learning outcomes for CSC-151 (Musing #1182)
A day that should live in infamy (Musing #1181)

1171-1180

Be more kind (Musing #1180)
Yet another rebuild of the CSC-151 repository (Musing #1179)
Disconnected (Musing #1178)
(Being required to) Get Outlook for [Fill in device/OS] (Musing #1177)
Cite the damn source! (Musing #1176)
Halfway there (Musing #1175)
A Selection of Open Spring 2022 Courses (Musing #1174)
Alone again, naturally (Musing #1173)
Thankful (Musing #1172)
Preregistration for Spring 2022 (Musing #1171)

1161-1170

Back of the (virtual) envelope calculations (Musing #1170)
Worse than Sedona? Initial encounters with Interfolio (Musing #1169)
Another (not-quite) triennial salary review (Musing #1168)
The speed of radix sort (Musing #1167)
New faculty lines (Musing #1166)
What does HP stand for? (Musing #1165)
A quick and dirty intro to command-line JUnit testing (Musing #1164)
First-Year Registration, Fall 2021 (Musing #1163)
How are you, Sam? (Musing #1162)
Tales of Tchotchkes: An Odd Bodkins Printing Plate (Musing #1161)

1151-1160

Preface to Tales of Tchotchkes (Musing #1160)
What are your favorite pieces? (Visiting the Des Moines Art Center) (Musing #1159)
Random thoughts from a road trip (Musing #1158)
Discarding stuff (Musing #1157)
Some of SamR’s stuff to do (Musing #1156)
Breathe in, let go (setting aside institutional issues, take one) (Musing #1155)
Some words for graduating CS majors (and their families) in the class of 2021 (Musing #1154)
Fragmentary Beatles-related memories (Musing #1152)
Dear Grinnell students who want to take CSC-151 (Musing #1151)

1141-1150

The last day of classes (Spring Term Two, 2021) (Musing #1150)
Still a curmudgeon (Musing #1149)
Moving offices (Musing #1148)
Eight weeks! (Musing #1147)
I hate computers (Musing #1146)
Summer workshops (Musing #1145)
Cuts, Closes, and Balances, Continued (Musing #1144)
Words fail me (Musing #1143)
Three-fourths of a lifetime (Musing #1142)
Post-Preregistration for Fall 2021: The Effects of CCB (Musing #1141)

1131-1140

Six weeks! (Musing #1140)
Minor irritants (Musing #1139)
An Awkward class design (Musing #1138)
Advance planning (Musing #1137)
Preregistration for Fall 2021 (Musing #1136)
I (still) hate Ellucian Self-Service Academic Planning (Musing #1135)
Four weeks! (Musing #1134)
What’s the largest major at Grinnell? (Musing #1133)
How should a student learn compilers and interpreters? (Musing #1132)
Two weeks! (Musing #1131)

1121-1130

Preconditions for strcpy (Musing #1130)
Getting my gig at Grinnell (Musing #1129)
It’s time for a change (Musing #1128)
Happy 90th Birthday Mom! (Musing #1127)
Cutting curbs and other thoughts on universal design (Musing #1126)
The joys of Cisco (Musing #1125)
Correlation is not causation (Musing #1124)
Teaching with Technology: Managing Multiple Meetings on Microsoft Teams (Musing #1123)
Odd obsessions: The Danika and the Jeb Daylist (Musing #1122)
Reflections on remote teaching in Term Two of Fall 2020 (Musing #1121)

1111-1120

The joy of code: Experiments in cellular language generation (Musing #1120)
The latest installment(s) of the Rebelsky Family Reading Group (Musing #1119)
Resolutions for the New Year (Musing #1118)
Shoveling snow (Musing #1117)
(Mostly) Avoiding social media (Musing #1116)
Plans for Winter Break (Musing #1115)
Circles: Restorative justice, community building, and more (Musing #1114)
Surviving Fall Term Two (Musing #1113)
Mastery grading (Musing #1112)
Thankful (Musing #1111)

1101-1110

Preregistration for Spring 2021 (Musing #1110)
Incredibly irresponsible (Musing #1109)
Adventures in Web server transitions (Musing #1108)
Considering a return from hiatus (Musing #1107)
Going on hiatus (Musing #1105)
Endnotes for my open letter (Musing #1104)
An open letter to my president (Musing #1103)
Appreciating the ITS staff (Musing #1102)
Appreciating the Registrar’s Office (Musing #1101)

1091-1100

A draft sabbatical report (Musing #1100)
Selecting courses (Musing #1099)
A chicken and egg problem and other situations in software selection (Musing #1098)
Answers to fourteen questions (Musing #1097)
Technological minimalism (Musing #1096)
A letter to my Tutorial students (Musing #1095)
Back to the office (and lab) (Musing #1094)
Recalling my past (Musing #1093)
Misbehaving email clients (Musing #1092)
Preparing to fill out my annual Faculty Activity Report (Musing #1091)

1081-1090

Software for synchronous online face-to-face teaching (Musing #1090)
Scheduling fall terms (Musing #1089)
Fall planning (Musing #1088)
Another MIT press sale (Musing #1087)
Email signatures (Musing #1086)
A comedy of errors, of sorts (Musing #1085)
SM Word (Musing #1084)
Biting my tongue (Musing #1083)
ShutDownGCCS (Musing #1082)
Semisemesters or Septisepta or whatever we’re calling them (Musing #1081)

1071-1080

Perspectives on personal projects (Musing #1080)
Constructionism (Musing #1079)
SLAC education this fall (Musing #1078)
Getting sucked into the Microsoft ecosystem (Musing #1077)
Lost in the Interweb, episode 803.6: Good morning, somewhere, how are you? (Musing #1076)
Computer troubles (Musing #1075)
Workload, learning, and such (Musing #1074)
Some words for graduating CS majors (and their families) in the class of 2020 (Musing #1073)
Attempting grace (Musing #1072)
Notes for a letter that I will not send to the BoT (Musing #1071)

1061-1070

Good intentions gone awry (Musing #1070)
Summer courses, post-preliminary-registration (Musing #1069)
Questioning credit hours (Musing #1068)
Suggestions for summer (Musing #1067)
After the cuts, the closes, the balancing acts (for Fall 2020) (Musing #1066)
Difficulty focusing (Musing #1065)
Questioning the fall (Musing #1064)
(Too much) Virtual live music (Musing #1063)
Departmental initiatives to support diversity in CS (Musing #1062)
A list of Grinnell’s Summer 2020 classes (Musing #1061)

1051-1060

Another month of (almost) daily musings (Musing #1060)
Claviash (Musing #1059)
Innumeracy (my latest manuscript for The Craft of Creative Nonfiction) (Musing #1058)
My third assignment for The Craft of Creative Nonfiction (Musing #1057)
Attempting to understand my readers (Musing #1056)
Drafting my third essay for The Craft of Creative Nonfiction (Musing #1055)
Post-preregistration for fall 2020 (Musing #1054)
Mock advising (Musing #1053)
Preparing to do HCI (Musing #1052)
Self-studying computer science (Musing #1051)

1041-1050

Interview prep (Musing #1050)
The Wrong Stuff (Musing #1049)
Reading The Starless Sea (Musing #1048)
Comfort food (Musing #1047)
Comfortable structures (Musing #1046)
Web-based software for making appointments (Musing #1045)
Unexpected joys (Musing #1044)
After the head shave (Musing #1043)
My newer office (Musing #1042)
My second manuscript for The Craft of Creative Nonfiction (Musing #1041)

1031-1040

Another assignment for The Craft of Creative Nonfiction (Musing #1040)
A personality quiz (Musing #1039)
Summer 2020 MAPs (Musing #1038)
Synchronous or asynchronous? (Musing #1037)
Acting April Foolish (Musing #1036)
Another month (or two) of (nothing that resembles) daily musings (Musing #1035)
Proud and Thankful (Musing #1034)
Slash and backslash (Musing #1033)
Joy in a time of (something) (Musing #1032)
A short tribute to the Grinnell College class of 2020 (Musing #1031)

1021-1030

To create or consume? (Musing #1030)
Levers and dashboards and other monstrous mechanistic metaphors (Musing #1029)
Preparing for teaching online (Musing #1028)
Classes of students (Musing #1027)
Revising the Faculty Handbook (Musing #1026)
Knock (Musing #1025)
Musing 1024 (Musing #1024)
Advising (Musing #1023)
Responding to my manuscript (Musing #1022)
Updates on the chair of the faculty (Musing #1021)

1011-1020

Growth in the number of staff (Musing #1020)
The end of an era (Musing #1019)
Annotating myself (Musing #1018)
My first manuscript for ENG-207 (Musing #1017)
My first ENG-207 assignment (Musing #1016)
Workshop prep (Musing #1015)
Trend lines (Musing #1014)
A response to an angry alum (Musing #1013)
Trustees and the Grinnell student union (or vice versa) (Musing #1012)
Summer MAP/MIP proposals (Musing #1011)

1001-1010

mailto links (Musing #1010)
Office hour sign-up sheets and other FERPA issues (Musing #1009)
The 2020 Iowa Democratic Caucus (Poweshiek County Grinnell Precinct 7 Ward 2) (Musing #1008)
Preparing workshop proposals (Musing #1007)
SamR’s week in review (Musing #1006)
One hundred words (Musing #1005)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #1004)
The joy of cool friends (Musing #1003)
Wednesday is Prince Spaghetti Day (Musing #1002)
Revising a blurb (Musing #1001)

991-1000

Reaching One Thousand (Musing #1000)
Prelude to my next musing (Musing #999)
Shoveling (Musing #998)
Too much to do (Musing #997)
Elections for the chair of the faculty (Musing #996)
The Pyramid (Musing #995)
Ways to say No (Musing #994)
Reading for Ralph (Musing #993)
SamR’s week in review (Musing #992)
Governance, tenure, and such (Musing #991)

981-990

Credit where credit is due (Musing #990)
MLK Day 2020 (Musing #989)
Undergraduate student unions [1] and Berkeley CS (Musing #988)
Volunteering for NESFA (Musing #987)
Preparing for the onslaught of the semester (Musing #986)
Honors in Computer Science (Musing #985)
Farewell MathLAN Web Server (Musing #984)
Feeling surprisingly thankful (Musing #983)
A draft memo regarding the celebration of fifty years of Grinnell’s Tutorial and the Open Curriculum (Musing #982)
Sadness and Joy (repeat) (Musing #981)

971-980

Wayne State’s 2020 word list (Musing #980)
Nina Paley (Musing #979)
Post-preregistration for spring 2020 (Musing #978)
Honoraria and Memorials in the Honor Roll (Musing #977)
Dear Concerned Alumni (Musing #976)
The honor of giving to Grinnell (Musing #975)
Annoying link requests (Musing #974)
Looking ahead to my next Tutorial (Musing #973)
Another month of (mostly) daily musings (Musing #972)
Fixing things (Musing #971)

961-970

Misnaming, revisited (Musing #970)
SamR’s undergraduate workload (Musing #969)
Choosing a reading for the Rebelsky Family Book Club (Musing #968)
Visiting the University of Chicago (Musing #967)
Fresh pineapple (Musing #966)
Dad jokes for computer scientists (Musing #965)
The Great Dalmuti (Musing #964)
Encounters with computer scientists and tabletop games, or something like that (Musing #963)
It’s getting better all the time (Musing #961)

951-960

Cooking (Musing #960)
User studies in campus navigation (Musing #959)
Sympathy for my sons (Musing #958)
Mood swings (Musing #957)
SEPC funding (Musing #956)
Long-term concerns (Musing #955)
Conducting a salary review (Musing #954)
Teaching plans for next year (Musing #953)
Letters to colleagues (Musing #952)
Grinnell gossip: The (potential) new residence hall (Musing #951)

941-950

One drive, many steps (Musing #950)
Raygun (Musing #949)
Eggnog (and other holiday memories) (Musing #948)
Misnaming (Musing #947)
Joe and baseball (Musing #946)
Route optimization (Musing #945)
Swimming and … that other thing (Musing #944)
Grinnell’s next president (Musing #943)
Swimming, diving, and parking (Musing #942)
Grinnell’s student workload (Musing #941)

931-940

What would Joe say? (Musing #940)
Another month (or two) of (approximately bi-) daily musings (Musing #939)
Gratitude (Musing #938)
Fisking (Musing #937)
Cuts, closes, and balances in CS for Spring 2020, revisited(Musing #936)
Persistence rates, continued (Musing #935)
Double-blind grading (Musing #934)
Licensing athletes’ images (Musing #933)
Where was everybody? (Musing #932)
Grinnell’s persistence rate (Musing #931)

921-930

Whoops! (Musing #930)
Choosing courses (Musing #929)
Cuts, Closes, and Balances in CS for Spring 2020 (Musing #928)
Preregistration for Spring 2020 (Musing #927)
Car radio (Musing #926)
Further reflections on syllabus guidelines (Musing #925)
R.I.P. GrinCam (Musing #924)
Mid-year graduates (Musing #923)
Volleyball (Musing #922)
Syllabus guidelines (Musing #921)

911-920

Too many opportunities (Musing #920)
Faculty contracts (Musing #919)
Deleted (Musing #918)
Visiting Mass MoCA (Musing #917)
Dishwashers (Musing #916)
Visiting the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame (Musing #915)
Reading the AP CS Principles exam (Musing #914)
Equity (Musing #913)
Dorm departures (Musing #912)
Using comments from end-of-course evaluations (Musing #911)

901-910

The Beatles (Musing #910)
Jen Jacobsen ’95 (Musing #909)
Nominations for the Grinnell Lecture (Musing #908)
The joy of upgrades (Musing #907)
Last week’s Scholars’ Convocation (Musing #906)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #905)
Another last-minute innovation-fund proposal (Musing #904)
A last-minute innovation-fund proposal (Musing #903)
New computing policies (Musing #902)
Pronouns (Musing #901)

891-900

Those wacky Rebelskys (Musing #900)
Distributed knowledge (Musing #899)
Finding my chill pill (Musing #898)
Closures (Musing #897)
Learning new (programming) languages (Musing #896)
DadR’s weekly report, week 1 (Musing #895)
The CS Web server (Musing #894)
Compassion and the anti-academic press (Musing #893)
Documenting code with the Six P’s (Musing #892)
Meal plan pricing (2019 edition) (Musing #891)

881-890

Writers at Grinnell (and other events at Grinnell) (Musing #890)
A day on sabbatical (Musing #889)
Opening Convocation 2019-20 (Musing #888)
Another month (or two) of daily musings (Musing #887)
This year’s sabbatical (Musing #886)
Our 2^5 anniversary (Musing #885)
Our new dean (Musing #884)
How do I get into CSC 151? (Musing #883)
U.S. Route 6 (Musing #882)
Driving Midwest to Northeast, or vice versa (Musing #881)

871-880

Proto musings: Coding experiences (Musing #880)
Changes in my teaching (Musing #879)
The state of higher education (Musing #878)
Income distributions, college choices, and such (Musing #877)
Things we lose (or at least things I lose) (Musing #876)
Disappearing articles (Musing #875)
Failing to rant (Musing #874)
Advertising the department (Musing #873)
Red, green, black (Musing #872)
One decade (Musing #871)

861-870

The latest Ellucian breach (Musing #870)
Microsoft nagging (Musing #869)
The creator and the creation (Musing #868)
Naming my space (Musing #867)
Dream suggestions (Musing #866)
Difficult issues (Musing #865)
Evaluating candidates (Musing #864)
Landscape photos from my iPhone (Musing #863)
A sign of the apocalypse (Musing #862)
I’m back (I think) (Musing #861)

851-860

Forty years (Musing #860)
Searching for academic honesty (Musing #859)
Captioning animated GIFs (Musing #858)
Confusion about Jabberwocky (Musing #857)
I’m an idiot (Musing #856)
AFK (Musing #855)
Who gets the credit? (Musing #854)
ykcowrebbaJ (Musing #853)
Adventures in markup (Musing #852)
Direction matters (Musing #851)

841-850

Java code style (Musing #850)
Centering the humanities (Musing #849)
Updating my course webs (Musing #848)
Starting fresh (Musing #847)
A draft schedule for CSC 207 2019S (Musing #846)
My muse takes a vacation (Musing #845)
Computing the missing value (Musing #844)
Adding a basic needs statement to the course syllabus (Musing #843)
Live music (Musing #842)
My bookshelves at the Obermann center (Musing #841)

831-840

Conciseness vs. concision (Musing #840)
I want my REPL! (Musing #839)
The fantasy and the reality of my Obermann Fellowship (Musing #838)
git flame (Musing #837)
Rocket Scientist Barbie (Musing #836)
Scientifically illiterate swim parents (Musing #835)
Meaningful, flexibile, and educational work (Musing #834)
Advisor wins! (Musing #833)
Plans for SIGCSE 2019 (Musing #832)
Increasing class sizes (Musing #831)

821-830

Robotics engineer Barbie (Musing #830)
Pricing strategies that confuse me (Musing #829)
Quad search (Musing #828)
MAT-218 (Musing #827)
Preparing camera-ready copy for SIGCSE 2019 (Musing #826)
Another month of (almost) daily musings (Musing #825)
A broken record (Musing #824)
The MathLAN Web servers (Musing #823)
Comics that matter: Master race (Musing #822)
Giving to Grinnell on Tuesday (Musing #821)

811-820

More musings I’ll fail to finish (Musing #820)
Word order matters (Musing #819)
The moat (Musing #818)
Thanksgiving 2018 (Musing #817)
Should I replace section with partial? (Musing #816)
Starting a (CS) major in your fourth semester (Musing #815)
Van Morrison, Live in Boston 1968 (Musing #814)
Cut, close, balance (Musing #813)
SIGCSE mailing-list workflows (Musing #812)
Reflections on preregistration data for spring 2019 (Musing #811)

801-810

Preregistration appointments (Musing #810)
Cheapening the brand (Musing #809)
To compose or to pipe (Musing #808)
11/11 (Musing #807)
The JRSR and SNRS course designations (Musing #806)
Driving (Musing #805)
Reflecting on the CSC 151 project at my fourth Obermann seminar (Musing #804)
Discussing film and music at my fourth Obermann seminar (Musing #803)
A grading rubric for one version of the FunDHum project (Musing #802)
Outlook 365 vs. Mail.app (Musing #801)

791-800

Starting a new sketchbook (Musing #800)
How (not) to adapt to the end of daylight saving time (Musing #799)
Check your comments (Musing #798)
No NaNoWriMo for now (Musing #797)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #796).
New Facebook friends (Musing #795)
A note to my Obermann colleagues in preparation for our upcoming seminar (Musing #794)
Writer’s block (Musing #793)
An alternate project design for my digital humanities class (Musing #792)
Designing a project for my digital humanities class (draft 0) (Musing #791)

781-790

Grinnell ephemera (Musing #790)
Fiddling with Linux applications on macOS (Musing #789)
Go Forth Grinnellian (Musing #788)
An abbreviated history of Grinnell’s end-of-course evaluations (Musing #787)
Corlis Benefideo (Musing #786)
Dreaming about musing (or vice versa) (Musing #785)
Correct spelling matters (at least to me) (Musing #784)
Clair Patterson ’43 (Musing #783)
Scraping course schedule data (Musing #782)
Unintended consequences (Musing #781)

771-780

Writer’s block (Musing #780)
Marching band (Musing #779)
CS department initials, acronyms, and abbreviations (Musing #778)
Michael Perry (Musing #777)
Hurdle rates (Musing #776)
Iowa weather (Musing #775)
Looking ahead to summer 2019 (Musing #774)
Dear Grinnell student (Musing #773)
A bug (or perhaps not) (Musing #772)
Clearing cruft (Musing #771)

761-770

In line at a grocery store (Musing #770)
Grumpy (Musing #769)
My second Obermann seminar (Musing #768)
Promoting Grinnell (Musing #767)
Dilly Dilly? (Musing #766)
The Association in concert (Musing #765)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #764)
Cleaning up my hard drive (Musing #763)
Making a video lecture (Musing #762)
Traveling to the Obermann Center (Musing #761)

751-760

Meta-reviewing (Musing #760)
Repairing my vintage MacBook (Musing #759)
Frustrated with fonts and formatting (Musing #758)
The Shakespeare Requirement (Musing #757)
An evening at a conference (Musing #756)
Calming down (Musing #755)
More musings by others (Musing #754)
Notes on Web governance (Musing #753)
Amazon music storage (Musing #752)
Someone else’s musings (Musing #751)

741-750

Busses and bussing (Musing #750)
The Quantitative Reasoning course tag (Musing #749)
A draft schedule for the new digital humanities CSC 151 (Musing #748)
Grinnell’s 2019 U.S. News ranking (Musing #747)
The cost of attending Grinnell (aka exponential growth) (Musing #746)
SamR’s sarcasm (Musing #745).
The Avital Ronell case (Musing #744)
My first Obermann seminar (Musing #743)
Course SMURFS (Musing #742)
SAT mistakes (Musing #741)

731-740

An introduction for the new digital humanities CSC 151, take zero (Musing #740)
Staycation 2018 (Musing #739)
Another month of (nearly) daily musings (Musing #738)
Bad writing choices (Musing #737)
Registration for first-year students (Musing #736)
Thirty-one years (Musing #735)
Writer’s block (Musing #734)
I thought you might like this (Musing #733)
The term cyberattack (Musing #732)
Draft abstracts for SIGCSE 2019 (Musing #731)

721-730

Planning for SIGCSE 2019 (Musing #730)
Bad advice (Musing #729)
The first day of my Obermann fellowship (Musing #728)
A draft of my 2019-2020 sabbatical proposal (Musing #727)
Advertisements for ghostwriters (Musing #726)
FedEx signatures (Musing #725)
Reflections on the new data-science-themed CSC 151 (Musing #724)
Fair rides (Musing #723)
Old or vintage? (Musing #722)
Getting the recipient right (Musing #721)

711-720

Vegetarian in Iowa (Musing #720)
Business cards (Musing #719)
Watching a livestock competition (Musing #718)
Fair fare (Musing #717)
More Norman Doors (Musing #716)
Critiquing a comment without critiquing the speaker (Musing #715)
An approximation of my talk for the Digital Bridges conference (Musing #714)
Preparing slides for a presentation on the new digital-humanities CSC 151 (Musing #713)
A blurb for the new CSC 151 (Musing #712)
Doing it yourself (Musing #711)

701-710

Sometimes it’s best to rely on professionals (Musing #710)
Extra-credit policies and wellness (Musing #709)
Reflections on some Grinnell policies (Musing #708)
Upgrading unfamiliar software (Musing #707)
A fun conversation (Musing #706)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #705)
Learning to appreciate Peter Max (Musing #704)
Inbox zero, revisited, stage five (Musing #703)
Badly designed software (Musing #702)
Exploring code (Musing #701)

691-700

Code triage (Musing #700)
Even worse collegiate marketing slogans (Musing #699)
Programs for simple language generation (Musing #698)
Configuring code-camper accounts (Musing #697)
The joy of code: An Igpay Atinlay transformer, revisited (Musing #696)
Code as language (Musing #695)
Inbox zero, revisited, stage 4 (Musing #694)
Transforming Web pages (Musing #693)
Planning some fun summer activities (Musing #692)
Software over-privileges (Musing #691)

681-690

Reflections on just another summer weekend (Musing #690)
Inbox zero, revisited, stage 3 (Musing #689)
A tangled web of Racket Web programs (Musing #688)
System downtime (Musing #687)
Bad beard decisions (Musing #686)
Just another summer weekend (Musing #685)
Saying goodbye (Musing #684)
Getting confused by email notifications (Musing #683)
The Last Days of Jack Sparks (Musing #682)
The other Rebelskys (Musing #681)

671-680

Designing a new code camp on language and code (Musing #680)
Musings you’ll never read (Musing #679)
A great quotation (Musing #678)
Linking in (Musing #677)
A number of (Musing #676)
The joy of code: A one-of macro (Musing #675)
Rate you professors’ … Hotness? (Musing #674)
Inbox zero, revisited, phase two (Musing #673)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #672)
Inbox zero, revisited, phase one (Musing #671)

661-670

Grinnell traffic (Summer 2018) (Musing #670)
The Straight Dope (Musing #669)
Strunk & White and Williams (Musing #668)
Surviving week one of code camp (Musing #667)
Algorithms, data structures, abstract data types, formal languages, and the rest (Musing #666)
Sentient and malicious (Musing #665)
Family book club: Mindset (Musing #664)
Strange calculations (Musing #663)
Aggressive spam filters (Musing #662)
Back from vacation (Musing #661)

651-660

Nuts to allergies (Musing #660)
Noyce third (Musing #659)
Why me? (Musing #658)
Choosing the right word (Musing #657)
Loading zones (Musing #656)
Cyclic imports in Python (Musing #655)
Traveling light (Musing #654)
Getting the preposition right (Musing #653)
Checking in (a quick teaching tip) (Musing #652)
I’m so confused! (Musing #651)

641-650

Textbooks and the bookstore (Musing #650)
Comments from a panel at reunion 2018 (Musing #649)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #648)
You can’t always write what you want (Musing #647)
Admitting defeat (Musing #646)
An exclamation to avoid (Musing #645)
Depressed and obsessed (or Putting the marketing campaign behind me) (Musing #644)
An introduction to SamR’s Assorted Musings and Rants (Musing #643)
The joy of code: (Re)building my letterhead (Musing #642)
My hair (Musing #641)

631-640

Yet another speech to Duke TIP award recipients (Musing #640)
Our new banners (Musing #639)
Graduation 2018 (Musing #638)
Andrea Conner (Musing #637)
An introduction to SamR’s musings for members of SIGCSE-members (Musing #636)
Guns (Musing #635)
Embracing the public Web (Musing #634)
Grinnell’s new typeface choices (Musing #633)
Developing an alternate end-of-course evaluation (Musing #632)
Our better Grinnellian story (Musing #631)

621-630

A speech to graduating CS majors (and a few near-majors) in the class of 2018 (Musing #630)
Changing Grinnell, take one: Alumni mentors (Musing #629)
Grinnell’s location (Musing #628)
A semester of a coat and a tie (Musing #627)
It’s not my Grinnellian story (Musing #626)
Marketing Grinnell (Musing #625)
Comments on the summer MAP form (Musing #624)
Unpacking quantitative reasoning (Musing #623)
Groking Ruby (Musing #622)
Faculty parties (Musing #621)

611-620

Updates on preregistration for fall 2018 (Musing #620)
A short biography (Musing #619)
Language (Musing #618)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #617)
Whoops (Musing #616)
Unproductive (Musing #615)
Sleep(less) cycles (Musing #614)
Preregistration for Fall 2018 (Musing #613)
Logos, colors, fonts, and more (Musing #612)
Better classroom software (or perhaps hardware) (Musing #611)

601-610

Rural high-school sports (Musing #610)
Pair programming with my class mentor (Musing #609)
Just another Saturday at Grinnel (Musing #608)
A draft of a potential ACM case study on the accessibility of online course materials (Musing #607)
A second anniversary (Musing #606)
I write like … (Musing #605)
Conflicting values (Musing #604)
Expanding the faculty (Musing #603)
Recycling, revisited (Musing #602)
Criticizing faculty proposals (Musing #601)

591-600

Elaine Marzluff (Musing #600)
Bad code (Musing #599)
Friday the 13th (Musing #598)
Recycling (Musing #597)
Mixed messages (Musing #596)
Free-book tables (Musing #595)
Breaking things (Musing #594)
Software for grading (Musing #593)
Getting requirements wrong (Musing #592)
Two cultures, revisited (Musing #591)

581-590

Facebook reminders (Musing #590)
Excavating the office (Musing #589)
Reflections on spring break 2018 (Musing #588)
Scarlet and give back day 2018 (Musing #587)
Annotating the Web (Musing #586)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #585)
Course tags and other alternatives (Musing #584)
Back-to-back classes (Musing #583)
My advisory board (Musing #582)
Giving up processed sugar (Musing #581)

571-580

Making more work for myself (Musing #580)
Textbook orders (Musing #579)
Perspectives on writing (Musing #578)
Publicizing Research Opportunities for All (Musing #577)
Annoying paperwork (Musing #576)
Checking my MacBook (Musing #575)
Logging my time (Week eight of Spring Semester 2018) (Musing #574)
Penny wise … (Musing #573)
The CSC 151 photo quiz (Musing #572)
Forgetting the Joe stories (Musing #571)

561-570

The evolution of a musing (Musing #570)
Planning for spring break 2018 (Musing #569)
An ethics assignment for CSC 322 (Musing #568)
Overloads (Musing #567)
Logging my time (Week seven of Spring Semester 2018) (Musing #566)
I hate computers (Musing #565)
Red-green color blindness (Musing #564)
Vignettes from a Guthrie Family Concert (Musing #563)
Bad software (Musing #562)
My favorite mug (Musing #561)

551-560

Class wrappers (Musing #560)
Logging my time (Week six of Spring Semester 2018) (Musing #559)
Paul Nossiter (Musing #558)
Grading (Musing #557)
A committee of old white guys (Musing #556)
Thanking people (Musing #555)
Another month of musing (Musing #554)
Maybe I’m not a curmudgeon (Musing #553)
Should it go to waste or to waist? (Musing #552)
Feeling fortunate (Musing #551)

541-550

Pausing for breath (Musing #550)
Working in pairs on assignments (Musing #549)
Choosing a topic (Musing #548)
Dumb cooking mistakes (Musing #547)
Logging my time (Week four of Spring Semester 2018) (Musing #546)
It’s not just me! (Musing #545)
About Grinnell (some draft notes for external reviewers) (Musing #544)
A prologue to some notes for external reviewers about Grinnell (Musing #543)
Making connections (Musing #542)
My coding habits (Musing #541)

531-540

Today’s question (Musing #540)
Logging my time (Week three of Spring Semester 2018) (Musing #539)
Missing fifty-five musings (Musing #538)
When work and family conflict (Musing #537)
On being a workaholic (Musing #536)
Friday nights (Musing #535)
Making a slide deck (Musing #534)
Minnesota nice (Musing #533)
Becoming someone else’s assigned reading (Musing #532)
Logging my time (Musing #531)

521-530

A nine-month contract (Musing #530)
Shared governance (Musing #529)
Failing to muse (Musing #528)
The magic commons fairies (Musing #527)
Another month of daily musings (Musing #526)
A coat and tie (Musing #525)
JAVA (Musing #524)
The 2018 Grinnell Posse Plus Retreat (Musing #523)
Potato bars (Musing #522)
One hour (Musing #521)

511-520

Too much to write (Musing #520)
Updating course schedules for a new semester, complicated (Musing #519)
Thoughts on proposed changes to Grinnell’s gift policy (Musing #518)
Updating course schedules for a new semester, continued (Musing #517)
Updating course schedules for a new semester (Musing #516)
Norman bins (Musing #515)
My first big programming project (Musing #514)
Forgetting what I’ve written (Musing #513)
Unsubscribe (Musing #512)
Benny Goodman at Carnegie Hall (Musing #511)

501-510

The evolution of CSC 151 (Musing #510)
Setting up a rhythm for CSC 322 (Musing #509)
Prioritizing what’s left of winter break (Musing #508)
Some coding reminders to myself (and my students) (Musing #507)
Coarse-grained grading (Musing #506)
Sokal, revisited (Musing #505)
Excused and unexcused class absences (Musing #504)
A question about tuition from an ACT survey (Musing #503)
Another taskcade (Musing #502)
The spectre of Spectre (Musing #501)

491-500

Why keep musing? (Musing #500)
Transferring my digital workspace (Musing #499)
What are you doing during winter break? (Musing #498)
Setting up an RSS feed (Musing #497)
Academic (dis)honesty (Musing #496)
Measurable course learning outcomes (Musing #495)
I’m back (I think) (Musing #494)
Achieving sympathy (Musing #493)
Double majors (Musing #492)
Getting my weekends back (Musing #491)

481-490

Vignettes and followups (Musing #490)
A note to Curriculum Committee (Musing #489)
The class before (Thanksgiving) break (Musing #488)
My annual Thanksgiving Shuttle rant (Musing #487)
Damn, I’m old (Musing #486)
The role of the humanities in a Grinnell education (Musing #485)
Midway through preregistration for spring 2018 (Musing #484)
Learning to satisfice (Musing #483)
An exam question on loop invariants (Musing #482)
Caring about (handbook) language (Musing #481)

471-480

Preparing to perform (Musing #480)
Finding time to grade (Musing #479)
Ten miles backwards (Musing #478)
Rating myself (Musing #477)
Assorted sections from my salary review (Musing #476)
Understanding a bit more about my father (Musing #475)
A statement on other significant activities for my triennial review (Musing #474)
A statement on scholarship for my triennial review (Musing #473)
A week of advising activities (Musing #472)
A teaching statement for my triennial review (Musing #471)

461-470

Whine, whine, whine (or An introduction to my triennial review) (Musing #470)
Complexity and simplicity (Musing #469)
Show me the data (Musing #468)
Fall broken (Musing #467)
I was wrong (Musing #466)
Triennial salary reviews (Musing #465)
I win! (I think) (Musing #464)
CSC 321/22 - The evolution of Grinnell’s software design curriculum (Musing #463).
Weeknight concerts (Musing #462)
Endowed chairs (Musing #461)

451-460

Experiencing SamR (Musing #460)
Feeling fortunate (Musing #459)
Writing to learn (Musing #458)
Advising at Grinnell (Musing #457)
Fall break (Musing #456)
On hiatus (Musing #455)
I lied (Musing #454)
Words I hate: Relatable (Musing #453)
Recovering from Tapia 2017 (Musing #452)
Grinnell things I don’t understand: Accounting practices (Musing #451)
Watching terms lose their meaning: Algorithm (Musing #449)
A computer scientist’s perspective on introductory data science (Musing #448)
We are all shipwrecks (Musing #447)
Where have you been? (Musing #446)
Embracing three-by-eighty (Musing #445)
Too many (lists of) learning goals (Musing #444)
Course tags (Musing #443)
How are you, Sam? (Musing #442)
Thankful for President Kington (Musing #441)

431-440

Grinnell things I don’t understand: Student meal stipends (Musing #440)
Writing about documentation (Musing #439)
Tag your bike: Some advice to students (Musing #438)
Making bad choices, or perhaps good choices (Musing #437)
Making bad choices, small and large (Musing #436)
Get Outlook for iOS (Musing #435)
Recovering from 1 September 2017 (Musing #434)
One year of nearly-daily musings (Musing #433)
Thirteen months of daily musings (Musing #432)
Why Scheme? (Musing #431).

421-430

Thirty years (Musing #430)
A biography, of sorts (Musing #429)
Browser expectations (Musing #428)
Dreading September 1 (Musing #427)
Wrapping up (Musing #426)
Begin nice (Musing #425)
Being nicer (Musing #424)
Getting rid of stuff (Musing #423)
The eclipse (Musing #422)
What happened? (Musing #421)

411-420

Ridding myself of random stuff (Musing #420)
The meaning of ROF (Musing #419)
Thank You (Musing #418)
The Big Sick (Musing #417)
Shadow (Musing #415)
Local, national, and global (Musing #414)
Which role has priority: Department Chair or Tutorial Advisor? (Musing #413)
Another good rant ruined (Musing #412)
Breakfast in the Marketplace (Musing #411)

401-410

Placing incoming students in Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science (Musing #410)
Missing a musing (Musing #409)
Musing too much (or too little) (Musing #408)
Another unposted rant (Musing #407)
It seemed like a good idea at the time (Musing #406)
A new CSC 151, revisited (Musing #405)
A report from the Summer 2017 CS Department Workshop (Musing #404)
A report from the Grinnell summer 2017 letterpress workshop (Musing #403)
Game night (Musing #402)
Best of breed? (Musing #401)

391-400

Four-hundred musings (Musing #400)
Eleven and one months of daily musings (Musing #399)
William Lloyd Rebelsky ’17 (Musing #398)
Sunday with SamR (Musing #397)
Saturday with SamR (Musing #396)
I am fortunate to have worked with my summer research team because … (Musing #395)
A short musing (Musing #394)
A new record? (Musing #393).
It shouldn’t be my job (Musing #392),
Among the reasons SamR is not a SysAdmin (Musing #391),

381-390

Why some email messages need context (Musing #390)
Nibbled to death by ducks, Episode 3: Revenge of the ducks (Musing #389)
Nibbled to death by ducks, episode 2 (Essay #388)
Overcommitment, late summer 2017 (Musing #387)
A draft article on our data science code camp (Musing #386)
I don’t read your footnotes (Musing #385)
Meanderings (Musing #384)
An easy question (or maybe not) (Musing #383)
Good will, trust, relationships, and rules (Musing #382)
Keys (Musing #381)

371-380

Preparing to make the mix tapes (Musing #380)
Fun(d)raising (Musing #379)
A mix tape - Music for Michelle, vol. 1 (Musing #378)
Musings on mix tapes (Musing #377)
A chair problem (Musing #376)
A possible OER project: A more open CSC 151 (Musing #375)
Budgeting screwups (Musing #374)
Some notes on open educational resources for CS (Musing #373)
Yammering (Musing #372)
Bootstrapping my musings (Musing #371)

361-370

Introversion (Musing #370)
What do you listen to? part two (Musing #369)
Poor Jerod (Musing #368)
A message to SIGCSE-members (Musing #367)
Assembling advising folders (Musing #366)
Three-hundred and sixty-five musings (Musing #365)
Today’s question (Musing #364)
Surface problems (Musing #363)
I’m free! (Musing #362)
Eleven months of daily musings (Musing #361)

351-360

What do you listen to? part one (Musing #360)
Reading AP CS Principles, Take 4 (Musing #359)
Taskcading (or tasks cascading) (Musing #358)
I’m back! (Musing #357)
Reading AP CS Principles, Take 3 (Musing #356)
Conversations (Musing #355)
Implications (Musing #354)
Bananas (Musing #353)
Reading CS Principles, Take 2 (Musing #352)
Reading CS Principles, Take 1 (Musing #351)

341-350

A workshop on Universal Design for Learning (Musing #350)
Fun with Grammarly (Musing #349)
A new CSC 151 (Musing #348)
A letter to the incoming chair (Musing #347)
Deanly stressors (Musing #346)
Additional issues (part of a letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #345)
Questions of the day (Musing #344)
Executive summary (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #343)
Ten months of daily musings (Musing #342)
Dates and deadlines (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #341)

331-340

A manifest of the department folder (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #340)
Mailing list etiquette (Musing #339),
Department roles and responsibilities (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #338)
Allies (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #337)
Self-catering, revisited (Musing #336)
Useful data (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #335)
Delegate! To whom? (Musing #334)
Current CS initiatives (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #333)
CS-specific chair responsibilities (part of a letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #332)
Self-catering the senior breakfast (graduation 2017) (Musing #331)

321-330

Common chair responsibilities (part of a draft letter to the incoming chair) (Musing #330)
More scenes from graduation weekend 2017 (Musing #329)
Baccalaureate (non-)address 2017 (Musing #328)
Scenes from Graduation Weekend 2017 (Musing #327)
A draft introduction to a letter to the incoming chair (Musing #326)
What’s sauce for the goose … (Musing #325)
Campus rumors (Musing #324)
End-of-semester/start-of-summer reflections (Spring 2017) (Musing #323)
Curmudgeonly fun (Musing #322)
The Ologie marketing concept survey (Musing #321)

311-320

Apologies (Musing #320)
How do you do it? (Musing #319)
Great (?) conversations (Musing #318)
(Lack of) sleep cycles (Musing #317)
Owning your privilege (Musing #316)
Open slots in Fall 2017 introductory courses (Musing #315)
Losing it (Musing #314)
Intent vs. impact (Musing #313)
Cuts, closes, and balances for Fall 2017 (Musing #312)
Academic honesty (Musing #311)

301-310

Another speech to Duke TIP award winners (Musing #310)
The restrooms in Noyce (Musing #309)
Summer MAP compensation (Musing #308)
Whoops (Musing #307)
Hotel Grinnell (Musing #306)
Nine months of daily musings (Musing #305)
The Staff Handbook (Musing #304)
Planning a department meeting (Musing #303)
Preregistration (for Fall 2017) (Musing #302)
Finding room in my schedule (Musing #301)

291-300

Too many topics, too little time (Musing #300)
Student wages (Musing #299)
Inbox zero, stage 8 (email bankruptcy) (Musing #298)
The state of the CS department (Musing #297)
The joy of code: Making acronyms (Musing #296)
Making good choices (Musing #295)
Some shorter questions and answers about Grinnell’s CS program (Musing #294)
A (nonlinear) rant (Musing #293)
Summer research with students (Musing #292)
Grinnell’s 2017 Kinetic Sculpture Competition (Musing #291)

281-290

Handling student course demand (Musing #290)
Advice for students on interviewing (Musing #289)
Shared governance, revisited (Musing #288)
Using macros for generic structures in C (Musing #287)
Good things about Grinnell that frustrate me: Too many events (Musing #286)
Determining whether or not a string starts with an upper-case letter (or why Sam may fail programming interviews) (Musing #285)
Other kinds of writing (Musing #284)
Simple macros for testing C programs (Musing #283)
The joy of code: Counting repeated words (Musing #282)
Bad advice from Grammarly: Repeated words (Musing #281)

271-280

An introduction to C macros (Musing #280)
The joy of code: Command-line email (Musing #279)
Bad advice from Grammarly: Quotation marks and punctuation (Musing #278)
What is the ACM? (Musing #277)
Grinnell traditions I despise: The Noyce/Cooper cookout (Musing #276)
Eight months of musings (Musing #275)
Scholarly opportunities for all, revisited (Musing #274)
A spectrum of international CS majors (Musing #273)
Rhetorical gestures I don’t understand (Musing #272)
How not to ask about a position (Musing #271)

261-270

My muse is still away for spring break (Musing #270)
My muse may be on spring break (Musing #269)
The C Preprocessor (Musing #268)
Inbox zero, stage seven (the story resumes) (Musing #267)
Writing on the road (Musing #266)
Fun with writing tools: The CSC 151 description (Musing #265);
A draft description of the new CSC 151 (Musing #264)
Fighting with Microsoft Surface (Musing #263);
Spring break 2017, revisited (Musing #262)
Spring break 2017 (Musing #261)

251-260

Mid-semester planning (Musing #260)
The legendary CSC 151 picture quiz (Essay #259)
Reply to all (Essay #258)
Textbook prices (Essay #257)
Writer’s block (Essay #256)
A draft handbook for the Computer Science SEPC (Essay #255)
Sam, you are on too many mailing lists (Essay #254)
Enjoying listserve chaos (Essay #253)
Tipping hotel housekeeping (Essay #252)
The joy of administrative processes (Essay #251)

241-250

How are you, Sam? (Essay #250)
Designing a C library: Arbitrarily large integers (Essay #249)
Outcomes of a liberal arts education (Essay #248)
Campus speakers (Essay #247)
File permissions (Essay #246)
Standard Make targets (Essay #245)
Seven months of daily essays (Essay #244)
A week in the life of a chair (Essay #243)
Some things I write (other than these essays) (Essay #242)
Some classes that influenced me (Essay #241)

231-240

A few quick reasons I love Grinnell students (Essay #240)
Office hours (Essay #239)
A draft MathLANifesto (Essay #238)
A letter to our students (Essay #237)
Asking questions (Essay #236)
Date and time formats (Essay #235)
New Grinnell traditions I appreciate: The Grinnell lecture (Essay #234)
Priorities (Essay #233)
Command-line history (Essay #232)
Scheduling classes (Essay #231)

221-230

Designing a handbook for our Student Educational Policy Committee (Essay #230)
Inbox zero, stage six (Essay #229)
The department’s restricted fund (Essay #228)
The white elephant in the room (Essay #227)
Complaints about captioning, take 1 (Essay #226)
Exam prologues and epilogues (Essay #225)
Dumb Amazon recommendations, episode 1 (Essay #224)
Class notes and note takers (Essay #223)
Reinventing the wheel (Essay #222)
Adventures in binary search, part the third: Implementing binary search (Essay #221)

211-220

Adventures in binary search, part the second: Designing tests (Essay #220)
Adventures in binary search, part the first (Essay #219)
Branding the College (Essay #218)
Grinnell traditions I miss (and mostly missed): Graduation pranks (Essay #217)
Introduction, part 4: Thinking like SamR (or Some of SamR’s perspectives on software development) (Essay #216)
Six months of daily essays (Essay #215)
Another evening of writing recommendation letters (Essay #214)
Dumb things Sam does: Write too-long essays on work-life balance (Essay #213)
Work-life balance (Essay #212)
Borrowed, used, downloaded (Essay #211)

201-210

Output buffers (Essay #210)
Some days I’m clearly not meant to write (Essay #209)
A gift to myself (Essay #208)
Grinnell traditions I never witnessed, but miss anyway: The Cross-country team’s naked run (Essay #207)
Dumb things Sam does: Changing my site builder right before classes start (Essay #206)
Grinnell traditions I miss (but shouldn’t): Bakery run (Essay #205)
Grinnell traditions I miss: National pipe cleaner day (Essay #204)
Giving in to Bootstrap (Essay #203)
Thoughts on student graders (Essay #202)
Inbox zero, stage five (Essay #201)

191-200

(Un)professional development (Essay #200)
grep and regular expressions (Essay #199)
Harry & David: The Saga Concludes (Essay #198)
Formatting C Code (Essay #197)
Bash basics: files and directories (Essay #196)
Candidate’s statement, Special Interest Group on Computers and Society (Essay #195)
Building C libraries (Essay #194)
Inbox zero, stage four (Essay #193)
Inbox zero, stage three (Essay #192)
Inbox zero, stage two (Essay #191)

181-190

Why function signatures matter (Essay #190)
Inbox zero, stage one (Essay #189)
Implicit rules in Make (Essay #188)
Variables in Make (Essay #187)
The Freewrite typewriter (Essay #186)
Parsing integers (Essay #185)
Sam, you’re losing your audience (Essay #184)
An introduction to Make (Essay #183)
Studying at Grinnell (Essay #182)
A simple C project (Essay #181)

171-180

Using assert in C (Essay #180)
Stages of C compilation (Essay #179)
Introduction, part 3: Thinking in Unix (Essay #178)
On the termination of Grinnell’s relationship with Posse, revisited (Essay #177)
Introduction, part 2: Thinking in C (Essay #176)
Introduction, part 1: On the genesis of this work (Essay #175)
An introduction to a month of technical essays (Essay #174)
Five months of essays (Essay #173)
Even more fun with Harry & David (Essay #172)
Grinnell’s Board of Trustees (Essay #171)

161-170

The recent history of Grinnell’s mission statement (Essay #170)
The size of the College (Essay #169)
On teaching online (Essay #168)
Helping our students speak persuasively (Essay #167)
Grinnell’s Mission Statement (Essay #166)
Christmas eve, 2016 (Essay #165)
Thank-you letter to donors to the CS department (version of December 2016) (Essay #164)
More fun with Harry & David (Essay #163)
Some shorter questions and answers about Grinnell’s CS program (Musing #162)
The strange pricing of meal plans (Essay #161)

151-160

The divide between varsity/club athletes and other students (Essay #160)
A day in the life of SamR (20 December 2016) (Essay #159)
Should Grinnell be tuition free? (Essay #158)
Donating to Grinnell (Essay #157)
Pursuing the serious, settling for the frivolous (Essay #156)
On being a pack rat (Essay #155)
The 2016 Grinnell Holiday Party (Essay #154)
End-of-semester reflections (Fall 2016) (Essay #153)
Sleep Cycles (Essay #152)
Submitting Camera-Ready Copy to SIGCSE 2017 (Essay #151)

141-150

Faculty Lines and Zero-Sum Games (Essay #150)
The Bruce Voyles Rule and the Samuel A. Rebelsky Rule (Essay #149)
Pebble Watches (Essay #148)
Preregistration (Essay #147)
A few forthcoming essays (Essay #146)
Removing another essay (Essay #145)
The joy of code: Linking endnotes (Essay #144)
Mondegreens (Essay #143)
Essay #142 was about Web accessibility, focusing on a particular Web site.
Why are you doing this? (Essay #141)

131-140

Do you take requests? (Essay #140)
Ordering from Harry and David (Essay #139)
A fourth month of essays (Essay #138)
Samuel A. Rebelsky (Musing #137)
Lea Marolt-Sonnenschein ’15 (Musing #136)
Janet Davis (Musing #135)
W. Blake Creasey ’16 (Musing #134)
John David Stone (Musing #133)
Thanksgiving 2016 (Essay #132)
Hallie Flanagan ’11 (Musing #131)

121-130

Writing about current students (Musing #130)
Terian Koscik ’12 (Musing #129)
Planning the next CS reunion (Musing #128)
Brandy Agerbeck ’96 (Musing #127)
CS Alums (Musing #126)
Karen Shuman (Musing #125)
Henry MacKay Walker (Musing #124)
Grant Gale (Musing #123)
Doug Caulkins (Musing #122)
Doug Cutchins ’93 (Musing #121)

111-120

Joe Rosenfield ’25 (Musing #120)
Harry Hopkins ’12 (Musing #119)
J. Harley McIlrath (Musing #118)
Terry Bisson ’64 (Musing #117)
Sarah Purcell ’92 (Musing #116)
The election (Essay #115)
Dave Robinson (Musing #114)
Adrienne Hardin (Musing #113)
Assessing candidates (Essay #112)
Erik Simpson (Musing #111)

101-110

A group of Grinnell students (Musing #110)
Monessa Cummins (Musing #109)
Narren Brown (Musing #108)
Megan Goering ’08 (Musing #107)
A month of Grinnellians (Musing #106)
The Tigger suit (Essay #105)
A third month of essays (Essay #104)
Cultivating the gross mindset (Essay #103)
Essay #102 was about a ’blog post by Doug Cutchins.
Software for reporting sexual assault (Essay #101)

91-100

My one-hundredth essay of the day (Essay #100)
Notes for a talk on Scholarship Opportunities for All in Computer Science (Essay #99)
The end of the world is nigh (Essay #98)
Exploring the CS major, 2016 (Essay #97)
Fall break, 2016 (Essay #96)
Closing in on one-hundred essays (Essay #95)
Is anal retentive hyphenated? (Essay #94)
CV vs. Vita (Essay #93)
Web Accessibility (Essay #92)
Mastering Grinnell (Essay #91)

81-90

Grinnell Football (Essay #90)
Playing with Processing, Example 1 (Essay #89)
Following my muse (Essay #88)
The College bookstore (Essay #87)
Terms I’ve come to despise: Best practices (Essay #86)
Nibbled to death by ducks, episode 1 (Essay #85)
Wrapping up (Essay #84)
Dad jokes (Essay #83)
Shared governance (Essay #82)
Embarrassing teaching moments (Essay #81)

71-80

Word choice that irritates me: Sell Yourself (Essay #80)
How has Grinnell changed in the past twenty years? (Essay #79)
10/10 (Essay #78)
Thoughts for CS Majors on Studying Abroad (Essay #77)
Jennelle Nystrom ’14 (Musing #76)
The Grinnell Prize (Essay #75)
On faculty/staff relationships (Essay #74)
Making good choices (Essay #73)
Dumb ways to address implicit bias (Essay #72)
A second month of daily essays (Essay #71)

61-70

Sometimes tasks take too much time (Essay #70)
Scholarship for all in CS (Essay #69)
Misunderstanding metaphors (Essay #68)
Promoting diversity in computer science at Grinnell (Essay #67)
Foods of my families (Essay #66)
My laptop (Essay #65)
On being a curmudgeon (Essay #64)
Diversity in computer science (Essay #63)
If you ask a prof a question (Essay #62)
Sarah Anderson ’98 and Donna Dralus ’89 (Musing #61)

51-60

Microaggressions and safe spaces (Essay #60)
Research in CS at Grinnell (2016 Edition) (Essay #59)
Ian Atha ’09 (Musing #58)
Writing about people (Essay #57)
Feeling Fortunate (Essay #56)
Thinking the best of other people (Essay #55)
Grinnell’s Web Presence (Essay #54)
Small scripts for indexing musings (Essay #53)
MathLAN: Grinnell’s Linux Network (Essay #52)
Cyro Baptista and Banquet of Spirits (Essay #51)

41-50

Thank You (Essay #50)
Planning a CS Affinity Reunion (Essay #49)
Essays I did not post (Essay #48)
When things go wrong (Essay #47)
Making talking-head videos (Essay #46)
On teaching CS at Grinnell (Essay #45)
Friday PSA (Essay #44)
Generating a Table of Contents (Essay #43)
Alcohol at Grinnell (Essay #42)
On making, breaking, and remaking the habit of daily writing (Essay #41)

31-40

Software hammers (Essay #40)
Overcommittment, Summer 2016 (Essay #39)
Addressing people (Essay #38)
Replying to messages on the SIGCSE mailing list (Essay #37)
Are my recommendation letters gendered? (Essay #36)
Writing letters of recommendation (Essay #35)
Recruiting faculty who care about diversity (Essay #34)
Why study CS? (Essay #33)
Helping students with programming problems (Essay #32)
One month of musings (Essay #31)

21-30

Exit interviews (Essay #30)
Speech to 2016 Graduating CS Seniors (Essay #29)
Musings on Self Governance (Essay #28)
Overcommitment, Finals Week, Spring 2016 (Essay #27)
Infusing the college mission into the residential experience (Essay #26)
On the last day of class (Essay #25)
Grinnell’s Individually Advised Curriculum (Essay #24)
On Grinnell’s Completion Rate (Essay #23)
Naming week 14 (Essay #22)
Proofpoint: How to make email miserable to use (Essay #21)

11-20

Preliminary notes on accessibility in the classroom (Essay #20)
Mom (Essay #19)
Grinnell’s expected student workload (Essay #18)
Finding the time to write (Essay #17)
Sleep (Essay #16)
What makes you happy vs. what you do (Essay #15)
Remaining optimistic (Essay #14)
A speech to Duke TIP scholars (Essay #13)
Vast swaths of American Popular Culture have passed me by. (Essay #12)
On the form of these musings and rants (Essay #11)

01-10

My audience (Essay #10)
Convocation (Essay #9)
Grinnell’s CS department (Essay #8)
Studying CS at a liberal arts college vs. a large university (Essay #7)
Profanity in class (Essay #6)
On the genesis of Sam’s Assorted Musings and Rants (Essay #5)
How we spend your donations (Essay #4)
Essay #3 was about Grinnell’s relationship with Posse.
What kind of computer should you buy? (Essay #2)
Contacting faculty members on behalf of students (Essay #1)