Category: Uncategorized

We Need a Civilian GI Bill :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education’s Source for News, Views and Jobs "Unlike the original bill, which rewarded service, this new bill would be a rescue measure. As in the past, a primary goal would be to decrease pressure on what today is a shrinking job market and […]

Explaining the curse of work – science-in-society – 14 January 2009 – New Scientist "How many members can a committee have and still be effective? Parkinson’s own guess was based on the 700-year history of England’s highest council of state- in its modern incarnation, the UK cabinet. Five times in succession between 1257 and 1955, […]

A&M bases bonus on student input | Bryan/College Station, Texas – The Eagle ""I’ve never had so much trouble giving away a million dollars," Chancellor Mike McKinney said, laughing. That’s because he’s never spent it like this. McKinney plans to give up to $10,000 bonuses to instructors based on anonymous student evaluations" (tags: education stupid […]

Refuted economic doctrines #1: The efficient markets hypothesis at John Quiggin "I’m starting my long-promised series of posts on economic doctrines and policy proposals that have been refuted or rendered obsolete by the financial crisis. […] Number One on the list is a topic I’ve covered plenty of times before (in fact, I was writing […]

nanoscale views: More about insulators "I’ve been thinking more about explaining what we mean by "insulators", in light of some of the insightful comments [on the last post]." (tags: science physics blogs materials condensed-matter) Cocktail Party Physics: CSI lies and suspicious science "CSI? Unrealistic? Hate to break it to you kids, but, yeah. At the […]

Tor.com / Science fiction and fantasy / Blog posts / How to talk to writers "Writers are people, and they were people before they were writers. They change light bulbs and buy groceries just like everyone else. Really. Because they’re people, they vary. Some of them are jerks, but many of them are very interesting […]

Barack Obama Defeats Barack Hussein Obama | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source "Though few had heard of the freedom-hating extremist before, Barack Hussein Obama quickly garnered attention in several key regions of the country, and saw his popularity buoyed by conservative talk-radio hosts, mass e-mail forwards, and thousands of Americans riding on the […]

kast_sko Throw a shoe at George Bush. In Norwegian. (tags: politics silly games internet) Kevin Drum – Mother Jones Blog: DC Charters "Look: even your most novice educational researcher knows that comparing test scores is useless unless you control pretty carefully for things like parental involvement and expenditure levels. And most of the studies I’ve […]

Grading Medical Students (and More on Grade Inflation) — Crooked Timber "But, if grade inflation is supposed to be analogous with price inflation, rising grades do not, in themselves, constitute inflation. Rather, grade inflation occurs when grades rise relative to the quality of the academic performance of the students. And because we do not keep […]

FQXi Community: Articles, Forums, Blogs, News "For the current [essay] contest, [the topic] is “The Nature of Time,” including, but not limited to, the arrow of time; the emergence of time in quantum gravity; time, free will and determinism; time travel; the beginning or ending of time; and timelessness." (tags: physics time internet quantum astronomy […]