Speaking from Among the Bones by Alan Bradley
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Another great Flavia De Luce mystery. I am in awe of the effortless prose (I’m referring to the effect of course; I’m sure it was not so effortless to create).
The Five Stages of Grade-Grubbing
Denial (“I’m an ‘A’ student!”)
Anger (“You’ve crushed my dreams of medical school!”)
Depression Escalated Bargaining (including parents going full Boeing Apache on the dean)
Acceptance Revenge post on That Anonymous Rating Site
Professor Plausible’s Baloney Books
Professor Plausible’s Baloney Books
“In the past year, I have received research papers whose bibliographies included such sources as a golfing manual, a thriller set in the Vatican, and Leadership Lessons from the Dog Whisper (sic). I have tried to convince my budding scholars that popular books are not to be relied on as sources of Truth, as they are far from infallible. There is no requirement that a book be fact-checked or peer-reviewed; with the advent of easy self-publishing, it doesn’t even need to be spell-checked. One fateful day, I exclaimed to my class that I could throw together a book of my own made-up facts, and put it up for sale on Amazon tomorrow. Would you use that as a source for your paper? I asked. The glazed look that I got in response gave me an idea. I decided to step aside and let the rock roll back down the hill. Behold Professor Plausible’s Extra-Large Book of Baloney, the world’s first combination notebook, sketchpad, and academic source: It’s the only [Citation] you’ll ever need.”
Is it that time of year already?
Come help us data-mine our “large repository of individual-level data” in order to advance individual freedom, hooray!
Political Technology to Advance Free Market Principles
Folks, this job is for i-360, the leading data and technology provider for the pro-free market political and advocacy community, supporting organizations that promote free enterprise and smaller government. i360 is a dynamic workplace sitting on the leading edge of politics, technology, and business and we are seeking team members who are as excited about our cause as they are about building the next generation of political technology.
Data Scientist – Alexandria, VA linkedin.com
A Center for Shared Services client seeks a Data Scientist to discover actionable insights using a large repository of individual-level data. The ideal candidate is someone who has significant analytical experience with very large datasets and is looking to leverage that knowledge to make a difference in economic freedom.
Word of the Day
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And now, a musical interlude
Haha great April Fools’ prank oh wait…
1. Read this in the Daily Cal.
“Introduced by Assemblymember Scott Wilk, R-Santa Clarita, the “New University of California” will not provide any instruction but only grant degrees to students who pass a certain number of examinations”
2. Outrage!
3. Notice the date, April 1. Have a good chuckle.
5. Find the text of Assembly Bill 1306 online
(d) (1) The New University of California shall provide no instruction, but shall issue college credit and baccalaureate and associate degrees to any person capable of passing examinations.
5a. :-/
Actually, I can see where something like this could be useful; it’s like a state-sponsored version of CLEP. The problem is pretending that tests are substitutes for classes. What college graduates come out with is not just content knowledge; it’s having stuck something out for four years, even when it was difficult or boring. Content knowledge is great, but without impulse control it’s not worth much.
How can you tell if someone is prejudiced? By looking at the shape of his face, of course…?
Facial Structure Is Indicative of Explicit Support for Prejudicial Beliefs
Eric Hehman, Jordan B. Leitner, Matthew P. Deegan, and Samuel L. Gaertner
Can you tell whether someone has prejudicial beliefs based on their facial structure? In the last of three experiments, White and Black participants were shown pictures of White male faces and were asked to rate how prejudiced they thought each target was. Not only were pictures of targets with greater facial width-to-height ratios (fWHR) judged to be more prejudiced, but participants’ ratings of the targets correlated with the targets’ reported endorsement of prejudicial beliefs. Greater fWHR has been found to be related to higher levels of dominance and testosterone in men. It could be that men with a greater fWHR are less inhibited and are therefore more willing to report their racial prejudices.
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