The Steam Vents at the University of Michigan

They're all over the Central Campus, often acting as notice boards for student organizations; plastered with paper and wrapped with layers of tape. The vents are supposed to be used to literally let off steam, and - now that it's cool enough to see the condensation - we can see just how much steam there is to be released...

Wednesday Wonderings: Michigan's Fall 2012 Theme Semester

The Theme Semester at the University of Michigan will be "Translation". "Translation from what into what?" I wondered, and looking at the site it appears that the translation is not limited to language translation. In fact, it seems that language translation isn't a major component of the theme semester. Maybe such translation is too prosaic?

Still, on the topic of translation (via the medium of machines), here's a video from BigThink about "What's lost (and found) in machine translation":

(On the topic of translating words into machine speech, and having text being read to you via machines, here are my thoughts. In short: I'm not agin' it.)

Is Michigan to Become the "Buckeye State"?

Living through this summer of far-hotter-than-normal days in Ann Arbor - home to the University of Michigan Wolverines - and working in environmental and natural resource management, I am thinking about the on-the-ground effects of climate change more than often. (Maybe more than is healthy.)

I hope for rain. I hope for cool winds. I hope for clouds even.

We get heavy sun that heats up asphalt, withers trees, and browns the grass. We get hot gusts of dry wind that buffet you into sweat-stained submission. We get few clouds, and those we get rarely carry rain for us.

It's the largest drought area ever declared, but some people are wondering if this is a forecast of things to come, or even the new normal. However, people from Mississippi River managers to Michigan cherry crop farmers to almost anyone paying attention in much of the country is recognizing that there is a massive drought happening and that weather has gone haywire (unless you happen to be Newton Leroy Gingrich).

And these are just the things that are happening right now. For University of Michigan fans, things could well get much worse.

According to research done in 2007 by Daniel McKenney and colleagues, the Ohio buckeye - which is the state tree of Ohio as well as the mascot to Ohio State University - will be shifting northward over the next 100 years. This means they will be shifting into Michigan, moving fromcurrent distributionand possibly into Michigan (according to the CSIROmk35 A1B prediction model)

This will turn Michigan into the new "Buckeye State" (and buckeyes have been growing quite happily in Saginaw Forest for a few years now), which might well get a lot of Michigan (and Michigan State) fans quite angry about the whole thing, and maybe start to think of climate change as something real. Yes, it's a strange way to introduce people to the effects of climate change, but many people have visceral attachments to sports, and for many people this includes university sports (even if they never attended that particular university).

What might make this an even greater blow for University of Michigan fans is that the last known wolverine living in the state died in 2011. With the death of the wolverine - the UofM mascot - and the encroachment of their largest rival's mascot onto home territory, could there be some sort of climate change education and action that come out of this?

While part of this is written as tongue-in-cheek, another part of me is trying to think of ways to get people latched onto simple fact that climate change is not just happening right now, but has been happening for decades already; that the time to act is not tomorrow, but yesterday; and that the fact we haven't done a lot is only going to require us to work all the harder down the line.

Cycling around the U: 13 months

Over the past thirteen months, I've been using a Garmin to track where I've been cycling. No surprise that I'm focused mostly around the university...

Colors range chronologically from red (July 2010) to yellow/orange (August 2011).

Ann Arbor time lapse

Found this time-lapse video of Ann Arbor:

Ann Arbor from Seth McCubbin on Vimeo.

One more reason why I love SNRE

One more reason why I like SNRE: people bike during the winter; after snowfall that keeps most everyone else off their bikes. True enough: not as many people bike to the Dana building after a snowfall, but far more of the bike racks are occupied this morning (after yesterday's 12 hours of snowfall) than at any neighboring building.


Bikes locked up outside Dana Building, Diag side. (A similar number could be seen on the hoops on the south side of the Diag entrance as well as on the east side of the building. GO SNREds!)


Empty bike hoops at Chemistry. Just a few weeks ago, this area was nearly full of bikes.

Moving offices

The English Language Institute - wherein I have my Graduate Student Instructor (aka "Teaching Assistant") position - is moving from a rented space at 500 E. Washington (off-campus) to West Hall (on the Central Campus). I went over there to look at where my new office will be.



Yeah, I know that the name on the door isn't mine, but as you can also tell, the space is still under renovation. It should all be ready in 2 weeks' time... We'll see, though.

The building of the North Quad

Over the past couple of years, the University of Michigan tore down the old Frieze Building and built its new North Quad combination of dormitory and teaching space. Over the past same period of time, I took a bunch of photos from the Modern Languages Building -- diagonally opposite the new buildings' southeast corner. Every so often, I would take a series of nine photos, and then I stitched them together using a photostitch program.



(The viewer currently shows January 2009 through September 2010 -- without any photos in 2010, save for the September one. I need to go through my photo archives to find earlier photos.)

Cutting down another elm

Cutting down another elm
Originally uploaded by umlud

The university has cut down another elm tree. While this is a sad thing to me, I do understand that they are slowly dying - if not from the remnants of Dutch Elm Disease, then from something else. I wonder what the university will put up inn its place... (Maybe a disease-resistant elm?)

Fixing the pipes

Fixing the pipes
Originally uploaded by umlud

Every year, there is construction (or reconstruction or refurbishment) on campus. This year, there are updates that are being done on the pipes leading to/from the Chemistry building. The work began in the early summer and continues daily, slowly moving toward State Street.

mid-May Photos

On South University, there are a few older buildings that still remain from many several decades ago. Currently, the house the Village Apothecary and the Redezvous Cafe.

 

The Hatcher Graduate Library (left) and the UGLi (right)

 

The Kraus "Natural Science" (aka 'biology') building

Ann Arbor Electronics, way at the southern end of Church Street

 

Sculpture outside Social Work Building

 

West Hall portal in the morning.

 

A view through to Tower Plaza from next to Hill Auditorium.

 

Sunset light on the west wall of Grizzly Peak.

 

New pavement on Liberty St. YAY! The previous pavement had gone to shit. Not as bad as some places might be, but still was not the nicest surface to cycle over. The crews had the road exposed all the way down to the old brick underlying many of the roads in the older city limit roads.

 

Starting summer renovations. This time on the Chemistry building. The University does this every year: the day after all the students leave, out come the diggers and the dump trucks, and the Diag becomes another impassable zone for weeks and sometimes months. Last year it was the tunnels between Kraus and Haven Hall. This year it's not just this renovation, but also something along Ingalls Mall, between Kraus and Chemistry...

Campus directions

Signs (without Mel Gibson) - watch more funny videos

How many times have you been the person in green? How many times have you been (or wanted to be) the person in black? Walking around UofM's campus (especially during the summer), one gets many opportunities to be the man in black. Unfortunately (for those of us who want to be that guy) or fortunately (for those of us who hate people being that guy), mobile internet and Google maps (and equivalent software) make such wanderings less likely, since you can get the street address from online (thanks to your mobile internet device) as well as driving (or sometimes walking - thank you Google maps) directions from where you are (if you happen to know the cross-streets or address of your starting location) to your destination (assuming that it is located any where need the street address).

Here are two (of many) examples of how street addresses and actual locations don't really correspond at the University of Michigan's Central Campus.

The School of Natural Resources and Environment is not physically located on Church Street. The address was changed from "East University Ave" to "Church Street" a few years ago, when the Post Office declared that East University Avenue didn't exist north of South University. (East U was called that because it used to be the street running along the eastern side of the campus, way back in the mid-1900s. It was pedestrianized over the previous decades, and now the only vehicular access to it is via an alleyway located just south of where the Google "A" is located.) Furthermore, although North University is technically "closer" to the building, the main entrance (which used to face East U) faces Church Street, thus 440 Church Street.

 

Here is the non-juxtaposition of the street address and the actual location of the Graduate Library. No strange weirdness here. Just an extrapolation of the final point from above: the library "faces" North University, thus it gets an address of "North University", even though is it much closer to South University (especially if you consider that the stacks (the building immediately to the south of the one with the arrow pointing to it) is also considered part of the Grad Library... Still, one gets the address of the street one faces. (Usually... since the Center of African and Afro-American Studies, located in Haven Hall -- which faces into the Diag -- has an address on State Street not Church.)

Snow on campus

It's beginning to look a lot like winter... But altough it's snowing, I'm still riding my bike (!?!), and it's not that bad right now. Of course, accumulations could make it "fun" to ride home...

Photos

Autumn is a great time to take photos. The warm light is further heightened by the red and orange leaves as well as brick. Walking around campus these days of the Fall Break provide great photos of the buildings that we otherwise shuffle past day-by-day. I also found that a new art installation was being, well, installed in front of the art museum extesion.

New landscaping construction along the formerly named E. University Ave.

 

The Samuel Trask Dana Building in the autumn sunlight.

New art installation.

I don't know if I like it or not... The shot on the left looks almost like a kobold sorcerer (D&D reference if you didn't know...)

Due to the construction of the UM art museum annex, these class-gift benches were moved into their own little plaza. However, one bench didn't make the move, and is sitting on its own closer to Haven Hall. (so sad...)

A view east from the ramp going up to the Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library entrance on the Diag. I really like that two-topped pine. It looks like something out of a Dr. Seuss book, and I wonder if it was purposefully done.

A mostly vacant Ingalls Mall. (Fall Break makes grad students feel like little lords of the campus, and - given how much we make - that's not such a bad thing.) The trees along the mall have not yet started to turn, and is indicative of how much impact they have on the view from the steps of the library. As you can see from the photo on the left, both Kraus (biology) and the Burton Tower (clock tower) are completely obscured from the trees. In the right-hand photo, Rackham (graduate school) is mostly obscured from view. Happily (for me), neither the Modern Languages Building nor the Alumni Center are visible from either vantage point, since I personally think that both of these buildings are rather more like blemishes upon the Central Campus (admittedly from differen decades); not truly "fitting" amongst the other buildings.

Stupid signage

I saw this sign informing handicapped users that the handicap entrance can be found ... to the right of the door?For those of you not in the know, this is the southwest entrance to Angell Hall (this entrance is barely visible in the linked picture, but you can see it peeking out about one inch from left-of-center, assuming that your screen's resolution is the same as mine - which in all likelihood it isn't). The handicapped entrance is on the northwest side, which is in the analogous position as this one, but all the way past and around the large classical architecture stairs-and-columns that mark the U's only pseudo-classical building.

Now, it wouldn't be so bad if but there were a sign or map informing someone in a wheelchair where they have to go, instead of indicating that they "enfenestrate" themselves through the window.

June Photos

Sunset on Zingerman's Deli

Maintenance work being done on Martha Cook Hall

The charred remains of Delta Upsilon after the June 2 fire.

Just another Saturday morning at the Ann Arbor Farmers' Market.

Continued build of North Quad, as seen from MLB (Romance Languages)

April Photos

Close-up of Rackham

School of Public Health
Buildings One, Three (and Two)

City Hall cows

Diag covered for graduation ceremony (they put chairs out)

Behind a massive LCD monitor array set up for 2008 Graduation

Walking Home

Today, I decided to take some photos of houses and streetscapes I see on my way home from Dana. I've decided to only state the rough location of the houses. Enjoy the photos (and maybe decide that you can - or don't need to - be jealous of my 'commute').

The Horace Rackham Graduate School
(Current construction site of N. Quad on the left of the building)

A house on State Street
(In a city of deciduous trees, this one - with only conifers - stands out.)

An older style of brick apartment on State St.

St. Thomas's Catholic church on Kingsley St.

A nicely appointed house on Kingsley St.

A nice purple house on Kingsley St.

Detroit St and Kingsley St
(Zingerman's Deli and Zingerman's Next Door on the left)

Narrow house on 4th Ave.

A colorful green house on Fourth Ave.

Painting the flagpole and HP:tDH

This is the first time that I've actually seen this happening. Yes, every once in a while, the university must repaint the flagpole to a pristine white. (Why the U didn't do this before the Fart Fair is a mystery to me.)

Today is looking to be a "nice" day, although 85 F is not my personal idea of "nice." (Let the kvetching start up again!) Of course, some people might say that I should be happy that it isn't in the 90s F. To that I retort that the temperature in town even by tomorrow will be in the 90s F. (What do you think of that?) Of course, I could wait and see if I am vindicated or not. Or (as I choose to do at this time) I can kvetch.

On a completely different note: I finished the last Harry Potter book in the original English. Now, for all of you who still haven't read it, I'm not going to give away any spoilers as to plot. However, I will say that - like the other volumes before this one - the UK version differed from the US version in several ways:

1. The pages aren't synchronous.
2. The UK version physically smaller than the US version (much easier to carry around without looking like you are lugging around a copy of the King James).
3. In the US version, each chapter has a little picture showing a highlight of the upcoming pages.
4. The UK version has (IMHO) much better cover art than the US versions (and one can choose to purchase either the "Children's" cover version or an "Adult's" cover - there are no content differences between versions).

In looking around online during the last week, I have come across a very funny (yet somewhat long) summary of The Deathly Hallows. If you don't want to know what happens in the book, don't read the summary, dummy.

Up in the bell tower.

One nice thing about Art Fair is the opening of the Burton Bell Tower to the public. I climbed up there for my first look out from the heights. It provided a good opportunity to take a photo of the Natural History Museum, which is not easily photographed from the ground: note the large tree that is near the front of the building.

One of the many things that you might not see about the "UMMZ" is that it has the largest preserved fish collection (diversity and numbers) at a public institution in the country (and possibly the world).