links for 2009-01-15

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Five Secrets to Publishing Success :: Inside Higher Ed :: Higher Education's Source for News, Views and Jobs Not so much for the scientists, but a good look at the process for the humanities. (tags: publishing journals humanities social-science academia) If One Professor Gropes, Does Everyone…
Discovering Biology in a Digital World : Another reason why science education sucks "According to the article almost 40% of the 59 science education specialists, surveyed in the California University system, were "seriously considering leaving" their current jobs and some (20%) were considering…
Quantum Hoops We're still not sure whether they won or lost. (tags: basketball academia sports physics movies) slacktivist: King and Huck The difference between the religious language of Martin Luther King and Mike Huckabee. (tags: religion politics US society culture) Coping With the Crunch…
slacktivist: The Indignant Household Budget "[T]he pitiable thing is that here in reality -- as opposed to the smug fantasy world of this stock speech -- overtime and second jobs are exactly what many of those poor cheering fools in the audience are actually doing to try to make ends meet. The…

Random example: An apparently top student with A's in difficult courses worked with me on a straightforward bit of research, but it quickly became clear that he had no ability to make connections between different observations or thoughts, could not visualize phenomena, and only understood basic concepts if they were repeated to him many times.

As a student, sometimes I'm concerned I may fall into this category. But it's hard to know when science role models today are TV characters like House or the guy from Eleventh Hour who can seem to visualize the connections in an instant without work. As a student I don't see the hard work that went into coming up with that 'obvious' solution.

The weak measurement stuff that Steinberg works on seems spectactularly weird to me. I saw him give a talk on the subject where he was talking seriously about negative probabilities; I still haven't really figured out what this means, and it was definitely a source of mass confusion in the room. It's on the rather long list of things I'd like to learn more about at some point.