Matt at Built On Facts spots an Inside Higher Ed article that I missed, showing that grad students at South Carolina get $9,500 a year, and uses it as a starting point to comment about grad school salaries: The difficulty of living as a graduate student varies heavily on what you’re studying. Take at the… Continue reading Don’t Go to Grad School (in the Humanities)
Month: July 2008
Saying “Sheet Head” Is Uncool
Tobias Buckell brought the whole sordid racist rejection letter episode to my attention a couple of days ago. This has apparently decided to become the “Violet Blue” episode for this week, and today, Toby dredges through the sewers of the Asimov’s forums to find a few real gems of sexist and racist filth. I hadn’t… Continue reading Saying “Sheet Head” Is Uncool
links for 2008-07-11
The Reality-Based Community: Economics and Fundamentalism “A very hard puzzle for the intellectual historians of the future will lie in determining how economics remained the queen of the disciplines when it made so many wrong or simply irrelevant predictions.” (tags: academia economics social-science society)
Science Marches On (Magnetic Moments Edition)
I’m currently revising the book chapter based on the original “Bunnies Made of Cheese” post, which deals with virtual particles and Quantum Electro-Dynamics. The best proof of the power of QED is the measurement of the anomalous magnetic moment of the electron, where experiment and theory agree to something like thirteen decimal places. In double-checking… Continue reading Science Marches On (Magnetic Moments Edition)
How to Lie With Incompetent PhotoShopping
Via Matt Yglesias, the following pair of pictures purports to show that “an equal number of people can fit into a vastly smaller space if they’re riding a bus than if they’re in single passenger cars.” See if you can spot the problem: Answer below the fold:
links for 2008-07-10
In Grad Admissions, Where Is Class? :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, Views and Jobs “A study just published in PS: Political Science and Politics suggests that in graduate departments, class may be nowhere to be found in admissions decisions.” (tags: academia class-war social-science humanities science) Dennis Overbye — Talk to… Continue reading links for 2008-07-10
Next Generation Energy
The Corporate Masters have launched a new group blog, Next Generation Energy, that will be providing regular commentary on energy issues and possible new sources of energy. The authors include a few people already on ScienceBlogs (William Connolley, James Hrynyshyn, and Sheril Kirshenbaum), along with some researchers on sustainable development and alternative energy. They haven’t… Continue reading Next Generation Energy
links for 2008-07-09
Vital Statistics – Summer Sports Are Among the Safest – NYTimes.com “The snowboarding accident rate is higher than the rate for summer pastimes like boating, camping, fishing, hiking, mountain biking, swimming, and water-skiing — combined.” (tags: statistics medicine sports science) stand up for REAL science “We have an obligation to our children to pursue only… Continue reading links for 2008-07-09
Unworkable Devices
As a sort of palate-cleanser after the quantum chicanery discussed in the previous post, let me recommend Donald Simanek’s Museum of Unworkable Devices, a wonderful collection of failed ideas for perpetual motion machines, including explanations of why they don’t work. I’m tempted to turn a couple of these into exam questions, the next time I… Continue reading Unworkable Devices
Help Me Locate Kooks
The final chapter of Bunnies Made of Cheese: The Book is currently envisioned as a look at the misuse of quantum mechanics by evil squirrels: qucks and hucksters of various sorts. As a result, I spent a good chunk of yesterday wading through the sewers of alternative medicine books on Amazon, using the “Search Inside… Continue reading Help Me Locate Kooks