The recent discussion over the academic tenure system has sort of wound down, or at least, those parts of it that I feel I can contribute to have wound down. I really ought to note the posts by Bill Hooker and the Incoherent Ponderer, who correctly note that the biggest problem with the academic system… Continue reading Parallel Universe Tenure Discussions
Month: May 2007
Tired of the LHC
There’s a big long Dennis Overbye article about the Large Hadron Collider in the Times today. The paginated version runs to seven or eight pages on the web, and Overbye is a good writer, so you can be fairly sure it’s exhaustive and detailed and interesting. I can’t say that authoritatively, though, because I got… Continue reading Tired of the LHC
Call for Submissions
Stuart Coleman of Daily Irreverence is going to be hosting the next edition of the physics blog carnival Philosophia Naturalis in the near future, and he’s looking for posts. So, if you’ve got physics blog material you’d like to see receive more attention, go over there, and send it to Stuart.
Inference and Illiteralism
Two good “fundamentalism is stupid” posts over the weekend. First up is Scott Aaronson on rules of inference: In the study of rationality, there’s a well-known party game: the one where everyone throws a number from 0 to 100 into a hat, and that player wins whose number was closest to two-thirds of the average… Continue reading Inference and Illiteralism
Clifford Johnson Tribute Post
Here’s a picture of some pretty flowers: These are from the ornatmental cherry tree in our front yard. Like all the other similar trees in the neighborhood, it’s absolutely exploded over the past week. Also, I rode my bike a bunch this weekend:
Happy Mother’s Day
Janet Stemwedel is marking everybody’s favorite Hallmark holiday by posting an interview with her mother about going back to school to get a science degree. As Janet says, this was a major inspiration to her: I would not be who I am or where I am today without my mom, Sally Stemwedel. Although I probably… Continue reading Happy Mother’s Day
Tenure and Drinking Age
When I was an undergraduate, we had more or less annual alcohol crackdowns on campus. My sophomore year, it was a series of “open container” stings, with cops hiding in the bushes outside various dorms, and leaping out to arrest anyone who walked outside with an empty keg cup. My classmates and I were outraged.… Continue reading Tenure and Drinking Age
Beer
Daniel Davies stakes out a controversial position at Crooked Timber: I tend to regard myself as Crooked Timber’s online myrmidon of a number of rather unpopular views; among other things, as regular readers will have seen, I believe that the incitement to religious hatred legislation was a good idea (perhaps badly executed), that John Searle… Continue reading Beer
The Tenure Process
Mark Trodden gave a nice outline of the tenure process over at Cosmic Variance, laying out the general criteria used by most colleges and universities: The typical criteria in physics are: Excellence in research, as demonstrated through peer-reviewed publications and (by far the most important thing) letters of recommendation solicited from a selection of external… Continue reading The Tenure Process
Ignorance Was Bliss
As a newly minted Associate Professor, I sort of feel like I ought to say something about the recent tenure discussions. These were kicked off by Rob Knop’s recent despairing post (though it should be noted that Rob’s been worried about this for a while), and most of the discussion has taken place at Cosmic… Continue reading Ignorance Was Bliss