On the purity of science careers; the waste of civilization and other assorted snippets... and a happy Feast of St Nikolaus
- The Rise of the Science Politician - Matt B. continues provocative Conversations.
There is an interesting thread on this on The Astronomers fb. - On The Inevitability of Kardashev Civilizations - the Astro Wright continues to lay the ground work for some fun speculation
- Waste Heat: Parametrizing Alien Civilizations - the Astro Wright series continues with a reformulation of the Drake Equation appropriate to K3 civs.
- What Do We Want Graduate School To Be? - astrobites seeks answers to The Letter
- Progress in Quantum Gravity? - claim for observational signature for Quantum Gravity possible in cosmology for low l CMB modes
- An Overmassive Black Hole in NGC 1277 (Nature sub.) - maybe Everything we think we know is wrong...
- On The Optimal Ratio of Academics to Administrators - 3:1
The Actual Local Ratio of Administrators to Academics: 3:1 - Asperger's Syndrome Struck from Diagnosis Manual (V)
- Coincidentally: promising new drug may provide maintenance support for Autism
If Asperger's is not in the DSM-V, then most US healthcare companies will not cover the associated costs. Doctors will then move the diagnosis of some Asperger's to Autism spectrum, but some milder Asperger's syndrome cases will not be diagnosed as Autistic, and therefore not be insured for any treatment...
- On the Death of the Newspaper - one of the commenters has it right: the correct pay model for newspapers is to lower cost for online subscribers and to hope for more people to sign up - if the marginal utility curve is steep enough and the cost can go low enough this will work.
For some.
Go Krampus!
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Continued slow liveblog of the New Frontiers in Astronomy and Cosmology Conference at the Franklin Institute.
Lunch is almost over and we are headed into the final session of research presentations, clearly saving the best for last...
I am also reminded why we have these meetings, in person, the…
Day two of the New Frontiers wrap-up conference. This is a slow liveblog with more cosmology and life in the universe. Yesterday's summary is here
A couple of years ago, the Templeton Foundation funded the New Frontiers program to pose "Big Questions" in some areas of science.
This is a slow…
A friend sent me a link to an article about the upcoming fifth edition
of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual. The article speaks of flaws in the process, and warning
of dire "unintended consequences."
href="http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/print/article/10168/…
View image
The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), published by the American Psychiatric Association, is used by psychiatrists to accurately diagnose patients along five different axes of disorders. Four versions have been produced since the first publication in 1952, and a…
"the optimal staffing ratio is approximately three tenure track faculty members for every one full time administrator"
This can't possibly be right. Administration scales non-linearly because administrators inevitably start administrating their own administration.
When I click on the quantum gravity link, I get a "page not found", which seems about right.
@Bee - I think the optimum keeps you in the linear response regime, once you hit non-linearity due to positive feedback you go non-optimal, depending of course on your utility function... sign may vary.
@Ethan - fixed - link to press release, paper comes out next week.