impendia

74 ms·

751.
by impendia 13y ago
Ah, but this trend was fought by another academic. Alan Sokal, NYU physicist, famously completely bullshitted an essay and got it published by Social Text , a leading postmodern sociology journal. http://www.physics.nyu.edu&#x2F
752.
by impendia 13y ago
I am a math professor. This phenomenon of lengthening literature reviews doesn't exist in math, nor indeed have I ever seen mathematicians assign pointless busywork to sabotage others, or to inflate our own importance, or for any othe
753.
by impendia 13y ago
I was with you until the end. Can you provide an example of an academic sabotaging useful production in order to prove his or her value?
754.
by impendia 13y ago
This has been done on the scale of entire mathematics and CS papers: http://thatsmathematics.com/mathgen/ http://pdos.csail.mit.edu/scigen/ Indeed, the creators of SCIgen have amused themselves by
755.
by impendia 13y ago
> What would you like me to expand upon? Suppose we immediately moved all of our military bases out of Japan. Are you predicting that the country would collapse, economically or otherwise? Is Japan otherwise dependent on us, except insof
756.
by impendia 13y ago
> It's doing reasonably ok because we let it. That's a rather startling claim, especially since the original argument is with respect to economic rather than military power. Care to back this up?
757.
by impendia 13y ago
I don't know the details as specifically as you, but do you really argue that Muni doesn't need improvement? As it is now, there is no efficient way to get to the northeast of the city (Chinatown, Nob Hill, Russian Hill, etc.) and
758.
by impendia 13y ago
Ah, then that's the problem. Stop taking responsibility for your coworker's mistakes. Then you will not feel compelled to yell at this person.
759.
by impendia 13y ago
Only if you define "legitimate" so that what you say is tautological; not if "legitimate" means, for example, "concerning a targeted and specific terrorist threat".
760.
by impendia 13y ago
I disagree that this argument involves a fallacy. The following statements are not equivalent: 1. It seems like at that point it should deny every single request going forward until the illegal activities have stopped. 2. Every request g
761.
by impendia 13y ago
Actually, it turns out that that wasn't true, at least not under the relevant law. The defendant was a gang member and a participant in an armed robbery, and when things got ugly (the victims fought back) one of the gang members shot o
762.
by impendia 13y ago
Yes, in addition to all of the surveillance programs being discussed, as well as the salaries of the people who lied to Congress about it.
763.
by impendia 13y ago
I should add: The majority of what I experienced was similar to what you did.
764.
by impendia 13y ago
Would you like to make an argument in favor of your assertion?
765.
by impendia 13y ago
I was on a jury for a murder trial, and so I have some insight into how juries work. At one point, when I was splitting some hairs and discussing the meaning of some small details from the evidence, one of the other jurors got impatient and
766.
by impendia 13y ago
It is possible to test yourself for such biases: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/
767.
by impendia 13y ago
I think you definitely have a point -- but there's a case to be made for including some hard material in the text, and including some easy exercises. Indeed: Hard exercises have an important purpose. They are about problem solving. But
768.
by impendia 13y ago
"Terrorism"! Just the word strikes fear into the hearts of many Americans. It has led us to suffer indignities at airport lines, spend billions on ill-conceived wars, and spy on everyone's internet communications. And yet, te
769.
by impendia 13y ago
Unfortunately I think those statistics are unreliable. I fully agree that outsiders (e.g. Al Qaeda) have done miniscule damage in comparison to, say, the tobacco industry. But if you want to look at the history of terrorism in our country,
770.
by impendia 13y ago
This can be easily heard on a piano. Just play two adjacent low notes at the same time and volume.
771.
by impendia 13y ago
Another data point on the relationship between government and terrorism: I live in Columbia, South Carolina. A mile from my house there is a prominent statue of Ben Tillman. Tillman was an explicit advocate of terrorism, and indeed personal
772.
by impendia 13y ago
I'd recommend going back to school. When you go: * Join some exercise or sports club. Martial arts, ultimate frisbee, swimming -- anything. * Ask a few women on dates. If you're at all like I was, you will make an awkward mess of
773.
by impendia 13y ago
Okay, I agree. The ideas indeed have much in common. My point stands here equally well, for the same reason. (This idea I happen to disagree with, but that's not relevant.) The idea you mentioned is not obviously stupid. I don't s
774.
by impendia 13y ago
> men WILL be 95% of the audience It has been postulated, I think plausibly, that the commonality of such language is one reason why this gender disparity continues to exist. Personally, I agree with this argument. If you disagree, tha
775.
by impendia 13y ago
It implies that only men are the audience, who would be deciding whether to use Apply() or something else.
776.
by impendia 13y ago
What about the McCarthy era in the 1960s? Suppose we had a repeat of that in 2030, and the US wanted to purge everyone who believed in some "bad" ideology, summarized by a single word, like "communism", except which we c
777.
by impendia 13y ago
What makes a difficult sudoku problem difficult? Is it possible that a brilliant, experienced solver would find the right "tricks" to solve the puzzle? Or is the sudoku such that it can be only solved by some flavor of exhaustive
778.
by impendia 13y ago
> For marketers who are trying to establish a personal relationship with their customers, this change can be frustrating. This, even without any further context, describes what 99% of Gmail users would consider an overwhelming positive.
779.
by impendia 13y ago
Okay, that's me. I more or less endorse the article. Seven years is a lot of time. I'd only give someone new a little bit of advice. (1) Do a good job of your teaching, but economize on the effort you put into it. (2) Be civil to
780.
by impendia 13y ago
> Not one has said they went into it to teach. I (a tenure-track assistant professor of math) didn't go into academia primarily to teach. But I enjoy teaching, value it, agree that it is important work, and make an effort to do it w

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