Gravity's Rainbow - Latest Comments

Re: While you’re waiting for the bus

sarcozona — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 21:25:37 -0000

We'll make things better - slowly but surely, right?

Re: Getting paid

sarcozona — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 00:14:59 -0000

I wonder if has to do with staffing levels instead/too. If they have to process most stuff just 2 or 3 times a year, then they would have really variable staffing needs. They probably err on the side of too few people instead of too many.

Re: Getting paid

Mike — Fri, 04 Jan 2013 16:02:41 -0000

My guess is that they are intentionally bad at it. Especially for those with dividend- and interest-bearing investments via endowments, the longer they hold on to the money the more they make. The difference between holding an extra $10 million for a quarter might mean an extra $125,000 in dividend/interest income per quarter. And of course it compounds. That's $500,000+ a year -- not an insignificant amount.

For really large universities, it's probably even more. Of course the money has to be paid out eventually, but it looks good on balance sheets to capture that extra income.

And I guess it's primarily done to students/grads as they have far fewer protections and avenues of complaint than, say, tenured professors and the like.

Just a guess -- I have no inside knowledge. But I do know how neo-liberal capitalist thought is taking over universities more than it ever has.

Re: While you’re waiting for the bus

Trannysaurus wrex — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 13:59:17 -0000

sadly, that bathroom/locker room meme has been around for a long while. even sadder, many cis* queer folks use it to discriminate against/oppress trans* queer folks (see: barney frank and enda). but great to hear about the ordinance passing!!! unanimously!

Re: I’m not a special snowflake

Sarcozona — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:40:13 -0000

I'm hesitant about a job that requires so much teaching, but it's good to be reminded that there's a lot of academia outside of tenure track positions at MRUs.

Re: Tuesday Shoesday

Sarcozona — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 13:11:33 -0000

Indeed! Tuesday Shoesday will be a regular feature again until at least the new year!

Re: Tuesday Shoesday

The Phytophactor — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 10:53:33 -0000

So glad to see that you've decided to continue with shoe therapy. ;-)

Re: Marriage and language skills

Sarcozona — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 21:18:58 -0000

He's a practical man, uninterested in romance or art or impressing ladies!

Re: Marriage and language skills

Laurent — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 15:10:24 -0000

How would you understand the quote otherwise than he doesn't need to speak French since he's already married? The only worth to learn French would either be interested in speaking French or be single.

Re: Advice for watching the presidential debates

Marianna Scheffer — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 02:19:15 -0000

Here from Naomi's blog. I love this vid.

Re: I’m not a special snowflake

The Phytophactor — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 10:22:09 -0000

The academic world is not just composed of big research universities, and many of us do quite well, and do decent research, at undergraduate institutions where a very different set of skills are required. Oh, it's still a lot of work, but many of us find it quite fulfilling working at the undergrad level.

Re: I’m not a special snowflake

oikosjournal — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:16:16 -0000

Hey, you have a real advantage blogging like this! A big step towards simplifying, commercializing research! Don't ever get stuck in the idea that you are just like anyone else! You have some unique skills, it's just about identifying them!

Re: While you’re waiting for the bus

oikosjournal — Tue, 23 Oct 2012 09:12:49 -0000

Nice links about working more efficiently by doing other things!

Re: Sick at conferences

Emily — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 22:33:22 -0000

The cots (or maybe super comfy chairs or something) sound excellent! T also suggests better availability of chairs--some people aren't in wheelchairs but can't stand for very long. ESA wouldn't give her a chair for her poster session this year (really, wtf), and there were some social events where chairs were in short supply. Especially if you don't have a visible disability/illness it can be awkward to ask for someone's chair if there aren't any free ones.

Re: Sick at conferences

Sarcozona — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 15:36:35 -0000

If it gets implemented, I bet it'll be really popular - even with non-sick attendees!

Re: Sick at conferences

Kate Hertweck — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 11:14:19 -0000

I'm going to suggest this to the conference organizers for Evolution 2014 (since they work with me at NESCent)!

Re: While you’re waiting for the bus

Sally White — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 10:30:16 -0000

Wow-- I really LOVE that post on miniature worlds! Such incredible detail and variety. (At the link, there are many more examples.) That's my take-home from this post; thanks for sharing!

Re: Dealing with rejection

Laurent — Thu, 11 Oct 2012 10:03:28 -0000

What a rejection means is that the project/application did not instillate enthusiasm in ca. two people. Makes me wonder if we could not find a different way to evaluate things, like pooling apps and having reviewers taking charge of several reviews: at least three -a project they like, one they don't, one they think is average. And assessments would be averaged and ranked based on more than two assessments.
Currently reviewers have no choice and a long list of apps to evaluate (the good thing in theory is that they should have a good idea of overall "quality"). It's possible to design change without having to increase the reviewing pool. Thus, thinking of something like this:
http://www.peerageofscience...

Re: Commenting code

Justin — Wed, 10 Oct 2012 16:19:33 -0000

I finally put some code on github for the first time, and the biggest obstacle was sanitizing it of anything particularly stupid. No cusses though.

Re: Dealing with rejection

Ragamuffin — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 01:40:37 -0000

you have a great mindset regarding rejection in academia (no pun intended? maybe that was a stretch...). crapshoot is putting it mildly. also, i think that they year we got our GRRR grants, it helped that we were in the pre-grad student pool, not the first or second year pools. smaller pool = less crap shooty. keep it up! i'm going through some rejections in grants i've been applying for lately too :)

Re: Dealing with rejection

The Phytophactor — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 23:04:39 -0000

Yes, you've learned an important lesson, Grasshopper. And the people who take such things personally will really be miserable because there are a great chance events that often influence funding and awards. My wakeup moment was a rejected grant proposal that praised the methods, but said the hypothesis was not up to snuff; the resubmitted grant got nuked because the methods were totally inadequate.

Re: Science-ese

Sarcozona — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 13:31:41 -0000

Hooray! Glad it's useful.

Re: Science-ese

doctorzen — Thu, 04 Oct 2012 10:11:57 -0000

I am totally going to use this in my Biological Writing class this week!

Re: Panda Plant

Sarcozona — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 17:12:40 -0000

It's not particularly aromatic, no.

Re: Panda Plant

Elise — Tue, 25 Sep 2012 00:51:52 -0000

do the panda plants smell at all. I had a plant similar to this when i lived in china and it smelled nice when you rubbed the leaves.