majos

52 ms·

481.
by majos 9y ago
There's a beautiful passage in All The King's Men that makes, to me, a similar point: "The friend of your youth is the only friend you will ever have, for he does not really see you...and perhaps he never saw you. What he s
482.
by majos 9y ago
I'm reluctant to use "number of PhDs" as a proxy for "depth of tech talent pool". PhDs in the US have become somewhat odd -- I see advertisements on public transit (!) for quick doctoral programs in all sorts of fie
483.
by majos 9y ago
I have heard this reframed as "Cortez was actually a better politician than he was a general, unifying enough Aztec-hating factions to take down the Aztecs and then maneuver politically to the top once those factions succeeded".
484.
by majos 9y ago
Interesting. It seems like I was wrong about the AMA then. Is there a reason that a standalone bill cannot secure federal funding for addition residency slots, or is the stumbling block that increasing the number of residency slots will be
485.
by majos 9y ago
I think the logic here is a nontrivial portion of the women who "fall out of the pipeline" do it for reasons other than lack of enthusiasm for the subject. If indeed there are girls who want to pursue math/cs but run into ext
486.
by majos 9y ago
For some time my read on this situation has been that the "doctor shortage" that produces 7-minute diagnoses stems from a restricted number of residency slots, which is set (I believe?) by the federal government. I had thought the
487.
by majos 9y ago
The idea that we should count on people to spend additional time on their job for free because they enjoy it seems overly idealistic. Sure, such people exist, but the easiest way to incentivize more time on a job is to just pay people accor
488.
by majos 9y ago
"Due to" is a strong word, but as sct202 mentions it does seem to me like SOEs made it easier for other non-SOE companies to grow. For example, it's easier to build a bunch of cities if you have a bunch of steel manufacturing
489.
by majos 9y ago
A lack of papers on diversity seems attributable to the Chinese government's effort to control any strain of "minority" dissent. I imagine that, say, Uyghurs or the rural people on the wrong end of the hukou system, might be
490.
by majos 9y ago
My perception before and after reading this article is that the Chinese scientific establishment's strength has been making advances that rely on resource investment (e.g. China's dominance of various "biggest supercomputer&q
491.
by majos 9y ago
...except the point of this article seems to be that China's current scientific strength is largely a consequence of the state spending more money on science, i.e. material ad vantage.
492.
by majos 9y ago
I agree that China is pretty capitalist, but state-owned enterprises strike me as pretty non-free-market.
493.
by majos 9y ago
UChicago had one as a graduation requirement as late as 2013 or so, including a swim test (get to the end of a pool and back without dying, so not exactly evidence of swimming ability, but still).
494.
by majos 9y ago
Why on earth did they call it a pirate certificate and not a pirate's license?
495.
by majos 9y ago
I think poor achool performance is more a function of behavioral issues than "being dumb" -- not because everyone is smart, but because the bar in your average American school is more about following directions than anything else.
496.
by majos 9y ago
I used to believe this, but now I think a confounding factor here is that girls are socialized away from extremes in general.
497.
by majos 9y ago
It appears that Grigori Perelman was a well-known mathematician even before his work on the Poincare conjecture. He proved the wonderfully named "soul conjecture" almost a decade beforehand.
498.
by majos 9y ago
I don't think this article is arguing that the Fields medal should imitate the Nobel prize. Rather, it argues that the Fields medal should return to its early selection criteria: mathematicians who have 1. done good work, 2. look like
499.
by majos 9y ago
I'm of two minds on this approach. On the one hand, it seems like it would do a good job of toughening a person to the degree that they can cope with more suffering. On the other hand, the belief that life is suffering to be coped with
500.
by majos 9y ago
Much of Wikipedia (and the others) relies indirectly on the people whose careers (not hobbies) revolve around creating the content that Wikipedia cites. Same for most of Project Gutenberg. There are exceptions, but I do think, say, dedicate
501.
by majos 9y ago
What does the phrase "running like cream cheese" mean? It sounds slow, but from context here it sounds...fast? Efficient?
502.
by majos 9y ago
You are right that climbing buildings is not directly comparable to free soloing rock. Each has things that make it easier or harder. Rock isn't "meant" to be climbed, but the vast majority of free solo climbs occur after ext
503.
by majos 9y ago
To elaborate on my suggestion of emphasizing the experience of people who participate in dangerous activities: the goal would be to communicate that experience is necessary (not sufficient ) for safety. I agree that these activities have
504.
by majos 9y ago
There is a similar discussion in the rock climbing community about free soloing, which is climbing without any sort of safety gear except climbing shoes and chalk. Its foremost practicioner is Alex Honnold, and he produces some amazing phot
505.
by majos 9y ago
I use it to follow a relatively small (a few dozen) group of mostly computer scientists with a few cooks/chefs and basketball writers. At this level it takes maybe 1-2 minutes to read an entire day's feed, and I usually end up wi
506.
by majos 9y ago
This article makes good points. For me the most salient is that the current reward structure ("how many strange new positive results have you published?") skews published research across almost all scientific fields, and that scie
507.
by majos 9y ago
I think reasonable doses of fiction -- say a couple of books a month -- are useful, so long as you choose your fiction carefully. To me the best fiction is like hanging out with the coolest, smartest, and most articulate person you've
508.
by majos 9y ago
Imagine that you and your friend go to work for company X. You are put in a windowless room with an uncomfortable chair where every half hour a co-worker comes by to ask a brief technical question. Your friend gets a quiet, sunny office and
509.
by majos 9y ago
I don't think so. I think the everyday experience for female academics still lags behind that of male academics. If you're an undergrad in an unfamiliar hard class it can be tricky to approach a male fellow student without risking
510.
by majos 9y ago
Wait, there's a modern-day Phineas Gage, and your dad knew him personally?

More ›