Trickle Down Science

A week or so ago, lots of people were linking to this New York Review of Books article by Steven Weinberg on “The Crisis of Big Science,” looking back over the last few decades of, well, big science. It’s somewhat dejected survey of whopping huge experiments, and the increasing difficulty of getting them funded, including… Continue reading Trickle Down Science

Baffling Demographic Math: Women in Computing

Somebody on Twitter linked this article about “brogrammers”, which is pretty much exactly as horrible as that godawful neologism suggests. In between descriptions of some fairly appalling behavior, though, they throw some stats at you, and that’s where it gets weird: As it is, women remain acutely underrepresented in the coding and engineering professions. According… Continue reading Baffling Demographic Math: Women in Computing

EBooks and Agencies

The big publishing news this week is the US Department of Justice bringing an anti-trust suit against the major book publishers and Apple for allegedly colluding to force the “agency model” of ebook pricing on Amazon and other retailers, resulting in higher prices for consumers. I already links dumped an article about the detailed charges,… Continue reading EBooks and Agencies

The Uneasy Balance of Residential Academia

I mentioned this in the Links Dump this morning, but Timothy Burke’s post on the inherent tensions in the residential part of small college life is really excellent stuff, and deserves more than the 1000 characters I can quote in Delicious: At Swarthmore this semester, for example, some students were deeply annoyed that the administration… Continue reading The Uneasy Balance of Residential Academia

How to Wreck Your Career With Social Media

This was the title of the group discussion I led at Boskone on Saturday, and since it’s probably relevant to the interests of people reading this blog, I figure it’s worth posting a quick recap. Of course, between the unfamiliar format and Friday’s travel with the Incredible Screaming Pip, I didn’t actually make any notes… Continue reading How to Wreck Your Career With Social Media

Language and Statistics Poll: Define “Vast”

Prompted by a number of people using the phrase “vast majority” recently, I wonder where the line between “majority” and “vast majority” is. Thus, a poll: What is the minimum level of support that constitutes a “vast majority” Assume for the sake of argument that the issue in question is a simple yes-or-no question, with… Continue reading Language and Statistics Poll: Define “Vast”

In Which I Am Grumpy About Education

In comments to Friday’s snarky post, I was chided for not engaging with the critique of standardized testing offered by Washington Post education blogger Valerie Strauss. I had intended to say more about the general topic, as there have been a bunch of much-cited articles in a similar vein crossing my RSS reader recently, but… Continue reading In Which I Am Grumpy About Education