Did you know that “paradigm” is the 10,726th most used word?
And that “is” is the 9th most used word? The 9th ranking shouldn’t be any surprise — I’ve already used it twice up to here in this entry.
Want to know how I know this? Want to see where your favorite word ranks in usage? Go to www.wordcount.org. It’s a cool way of displaying it, too.
Secret Worlds: The Universe Within: View the Milky Way at 10 million light years from the Earth. Then move through space towards the Earth in successive orders of magnitude until you reach a tall oak tree just outside the buildings of the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory in Tallahassee, Florida. After that, begin to move from the actual size of a leaf into a microscopic world that reveals leaf cell walls, the cell nucleus, chromatin, DNA and finally, into the subatomic universe of electrons and protons.
That’s at Molecular Expressions: Science, Optics, and You.
I sent e-mail to three more possible participants to fill my fourth usability testing slot, but received no responses by noon. It was a long shot, because I was basically asking them, “Can you do it in the next couple of hours?”
I left the house at around noon, and took the Wolfline bus to the DH Hill library stop. I walked around the library onto The Brickyard
where it was Student Organization Fair Day, and found Milton and Garrett staffing the STC booth. They had recruited four members. Yay!
I grabbed a quick bite of lunch at the Chick-Fil-A in the conglomerate of fast food vendors in a student union type area there that I’ve never actually seen open, as I’m rarely on campus in the middle of the day.
I walked to Myra’s office in Clark Hall, noting Polk Hall on the way, as that’s where I would be conducting my 3:00 usability test with Kimberly.
Myra wasn’t in when I arrived so I started working on the October issue of Technically speaking… until she arrived.
We had our meeting, which was basically to offer me a part-time graduate job working in her and Patti’s office, and I accepted it. It’s $5000 worth of work over as long as I want it to be between now and next June. I can work at home or at their office. It’s all good.
I walked to Polk Hall, and arrived about 15 minutes early, but Kimberly was available, so we started right away.
I forgot my damned timer, but the good ole iPod came through with its time/clock display, which included seconds. Love it when technology comes to the rescue!
While she was answering some of the questions on my forms, I was perusing her library shelves, where I saw a bunch of books about dogs, among other animals. I thought, “I wonder if she is a breeder or something.”
After a while, it dawned on me that: “Four-story Polk Hall can be recognized from the unusual cow skulls worked into renaissance ornaments above each door. Originally called the New Animal Industry Building, it is named after Leonidas LaFayette Polk (1837-1892) who organized and led the farmers of North Carolina to insist that a Land-Grant college be established under the federal Morrill Act of 1862.”
That’s what these people study and teach here. Animals.
Once home, I had a short AIM conversation with Robert, and then did a couple hours worth of work on the usability report, entering in Participant #1’s data.
I met Joe at Flex at 10:00, where there turned out to be a “show tunes drag show” as a GRABIT fund raiser. It was tolerable. I left at about 1:00.