Over at Wired News, a piece about Gordon Rugg and the verifier method. What is that? Well, you see, in and around every field of speciality, there is an “expertise gap” that exists… approaches and possibilities that lie outside the mainstream of extant disciplines. This “expertise gap” is rife in academia, but few recognize it, let alone know how to correct for it. It starts with the best of intentions. Institutions want top-notch people, so they offer incentives to attract and groom experts. Young grad students learn early that if they want to carve out a niche, they must confine …
Month: September 2004
Poor Kamikaze Pilots
Have you ever thought about whether there’s a difference between suicide bombers and kamikaze pilots? It seems that the comparisons are common enough, and I regarded them without a second thought. Both are people willing to die in order to meet their military objectives. Sure, Japanese kamikazes were army pilots serving a state (of sorts… more of an imperialistic crew of thugs, but anyway), where Islamic suicide bombers are, well, serving a “higher power” of sorts. Or believe they are. Well, it seems that kamikaze pilots who survived the war don’t like being compared to Muslim suicide bombers. Aw, poor …
좋은 추석 받으세요!
오늘은 추석이고 매사람에게 좋은 추석 받아고 말 하고 싶어요! 뿌린 대로 행복하게 거둬세요! 가족도 음식도 줄겨면 생활을 떠잘 평가할수있어서 추석에 깨우자! Sorry for the bad Korean writing. Happy Chuseok, everyone! I’m spending the day trying to get over my cold. Ungh. I hope all of your Chuseoks are better than mine…
Academic Dress Code?
Oh, the self-hate! Over at The Common Review you can sample this article, Why We Look So Bad, by Basically, she’s just an academic who thinks professors (to her credit, including herself) don’t dress well enough in general, and that they really aren’t keeping up with the rest of the professional world. Why they should bother, why they should care, seems beyond me. Young people, in droves, are giving up keeping up. After all, it’s all just a way of putting money into the pockets of whoever seems to be deciding this season’s fashions. I’m not saying we ought to …
Again, Graham Greene
Again, found on Arts & Letters Daily (as have been many of the links in today’s posts, because I’m finally catching up there after missing out on a few weeks of updates), another great bio-sketch of Graham Greene which convinces me I ought to take advantage of how many of his works are in the local library and read at least a few.