Blog Archive 2013 Stand and Deliver Jun 11 2013 Octopress May 31 2013 Moving to Boston Mar 14 2013 Vortex shedding around skyscrapers Mar 13 2013 Before and after earthquake photos Mar 11 2013 Responding to skepticism toward your model Mar 05 2013 Commenting Excel files Mar 04 2013 Preventing Instapaper bankruptsy Mar 04 2013 Bay Bridge cable walk photos Feb 27 2013 WordPress blog migration notes Feb 27 2013 Live from Only A Model dot com Feb 26 2013 The Dr. Bunsen custom notebook Feb 12 2013 Writing tool: Something to Throw Feb 06 2013 Cello Talks by David Finckel Feb 05 2013 Seth Godin on important problems Jan 20 2013 Units of expertise Jan 09 2013 Skyline of iconic skyscrapers Jan 08 2013 PhD defense advice and resources Jan 03 2013 Roderick on year-end lists Jan 02 2013 Looking back at 2012 Jan 01 2013 2012 Disappearing Golden Gate Bridge Dec 05 2012 Thesis to committee Dec 04 2012 How user-friendly should technical software be? Nov 12 2012 Heilmeier’s Catechism Nov 07 2012 How much would you say you work? Oct 20 2012 Comparison is toxic Oct 19 2012 Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed Oct 17 2012 John Von Neumann on precision Oct 17 2012 You should write more Oct 14 2012 Elon Musk: Coax negative feedback Oct 14 2012 Teachers Oct 12 2012 Chicago skyline from the plane Oct 11 2012 When optimism doesn’t make you happier Oct 11 2012 Circa Trumps Moleskine Oct 10 2012 Benefits of having an iPad at a conference poster session Oct 02 2012 iPhone + international travel Oct 01 2012 Current Status Aug 29 2012 Structural dynamics in everyday life Aug 19 2012 Jad Abumrad on Radiolab’s inception Aug 15 2012 Historical RSS Service Idea Aug 14 2012 Don’t panic. Work the problem. Aug 14 2012 Writing-related activity Aug 03 2012 Ready to learn Aug 02 2012 Day One Journaling App Aug 02 2012 Numerical analysis on a solid state drive Aug 01 2012 Thesis typography: Bembo + Gill Sans Jul 31 2012 Why Sublime Text is a great text editor for finite element models Jul 26 2012 Why Sublime Text 2 Jul 24 2012 Review of the SpaceMouse Pro 3D Mouse Jul 23 2012 Chesterton on Architecture Jun 05 2012 Breaking: Interview with engineer on mainstream tech site May 25 2012 Asking the reader to do the writer’s job May 25 2012 Tufte podcast May 23 2012 Send yourself a text message via Python May 21 2012 Introducing Top of the World May 20 2012 Unexpected results are good May 18 2012 PDF syncing in Sublime Text for LaTeX on Windows May 17 2012 Enough Python to keep me happy May 16 2012 Problem to be solved May 01 2012 Burj Dubai finite element model Apr 06 2012 Dealing with temperamental scientific models Apr 05 2012 How to digitize a graph on Windows Apr 04 2012 Reading research papers on the iPad Apr 02 2012 Two weeks with the new iPad Mar 30 2012 Militarize your backyard with Python Mar 16 2012 Indefinite social media hiatus Mar 09 2012 CS Lewis quotes on reading Mar 07 2012 Expanding your finite element toolkit Mar 05 2012 Keeping seminar questions classy Mar 02 2012 Fix the table of contents line breaking headache in LaTeX Feb 22 2012 Before you read Bringhurst on typography Feb 10 2012 Breaking down your research problem Feb 09 2012 Toward better blog archives Jan 26 2012 Who should you study with? Jan 23 2012 You might be a structural engineer if Jan 19 2012 When building collapse simulation meets social science Jan 13 2012 A 25-year retrospective on the finite element method Jan 12 2012 Corresponding authors who don’t correspond Jan 12 2012 How to email a professor (and make them want to help you) Jan 11 2012 Artificial scarcity and your laptop charger Jan 05 2012 If it disagrees with experiments, it’s wrong Jan 04 2012 2011 Merry Christmas from an engineer! Dec 21 2011 Filter a website RSS feed for your specific interests Dec 20 2011 Hire engineers and teach them to program? Or the other way around? Dec 19 2011 This has at times hurt my career Dec 16 2011 Should you drop my class? Dec 15 2011 How to improve font rendering on Windows Dec 14 2011 Grad students always use the most complicated model Dec 14 2011 Teaching computational thinking Dec 12 2011 Finding papers that use—but never identify—a specific software platform Dec 07 2011 Graduate school—now or later? Dec 05 2011 Advice for new university instructors Nov 29 2011 Seize the year with a wall calendar Nov 28 2011 Don’t waste your slot Nov 25 2011 Book review: Visualize This Nov 21 2011 How to get started writing your thesis in LaTeX Nov 17 2011 Numerical models and crystal balls Nov 08 2011 Is engineering education too hard? Nov 04 2011 Make links in LaTeX documents print in black and white Oct 28 2011 Typographers care (way) more than you do Oct 27 2011 How to end your seminar or conference talk Oct 26 2011 Visualization of leaning buildings Oct 25 2011 How to generate ternary plots in Matplotlib Oct 13 2011 Advice for great bridge photographs Oct 07 2011 Doing science in the open—thoughts from Michael Nielsen Oct 05 2011 Know your tools better, test ideas faster Sep 27 2011 The sad state of computer science education for engineers Sep 21 2011 Survival guide for your first year of graduate school Sep 20 2011 iOS apps for LaTeX aficionados Sep 19 2011 Liberating and future-proofing your research data Aug 30 2011 How to make Windows more Mac-like (for frequent switchers) Aug 24 2011 How to predict an earthquake Aug 24 2011 Does teaching make grad students better researchers? Aug 23 2011 Why I really love LaTeX (and you should too) Jul 26 2011 A few thoughts on O’Reilly Media Jul 20 2011 Embedding real-time feedback loops in exams Jul 18 2011 Speed up plot rendering in Python/Matplotlib Jul 07 2011 Software applications so transparent they disappear Jun 22 2011 Does the Kindle provide an immersive reading experience? Jun 20 2011 How to stand up to fellow (graduate) students who cheat Jun 15 2011 What I (really) think about people who cheat in engineering classes Jun 13 2011 Is the Internet making us anti-intellectual? Jun 10 2011 Giving a conference talk John Wheeler style May 24 2011 Teaching and notetaking in technicolor May 23 2011 Time spent on basic ideas is never wasted May 20 2011 How to build a great academic website May 13 2011 Why build a website to archive your research? May 04 2011 How to learn a new finite element analysis code Mar 04 2011 What do structural engineers do? Mar 03 2011 Are you actually good at what you do? Mar 01 2011 Introduction to Abaqus FEA (tutorial) Feb 25 2011 Putting the thesis into proper perspective Feb 18 2011 Do you need ideal conditions to do great work? Feb 03 2011 Why trust your instincts when you discover new tools? Feb 02 2011 Engineers and “exact” calculations Jan 20 2011 Why we have to nail practical design guidelines Jan 19 2011 Before you skip my class Jan 07 2011 Giving technical talks to a target audience Jan 04 2011 2010 How finite element mesh generation algorithms work (video) Dec 29 2010 My conversion to the open scholar cause Dec 21 2010 Reducing bias when grading exams Dec 13 2010 Why engineers need a master’s degree Dec 09 2010 Writing in an infinitely editable medium Dec 03 2010 Optimizing signal vs noise on the Internet Dec 02 2010 Things you never say to a graduate student Nov 30 2010 Why I started this blog/website Nov 29 2010 Henry Petroski- “Engineering is not science” Nov 24 2010 Teaching math in a physical world- SOHCOHTOH (sic) edition Nov 24 2010 Books every graduate student should read Nov 17 2010 And that’s why you always solve your own exam first Nov 16 2010 How to digitize a graph on a Mac Nov 15 2010 The choose your own adventure PhD Nov 11 2010 How to automatically buzz guests in your neighborhood or apartment Nov 09 2010 No more FM transmitters: My quest for iPhone audio sanity Nov 05 2010 John Nash on sharing credit for ideas Oct 28 2010 Quote: believing experiments vs simulations Oct 25 2010 Lessons learned from forensic FEA of failed RC structures Oct 24 2010 How I started reading again Oct 15 2010 What can a EE learn from statics? Oct 08 2010 I belong to Jesus Christ Sep 28 2010 The human impact of your work Sep 25 2010 Why you should re-read your article Sep 03 2010 A homework solution format that works Sep 03 2010 How to succeed in engineering courses 101 Sep 03 2010 Music animation machine Aug 20 2010 Course average calculator Aug 20 2010 2009 Dual units in scientific plots using Matplotlib Jan 19 2009 Engage challenge Jan 19 2009