Category: Uncategorized

How not to succeed in academia

A magnificently honest, accurate portrayal of life in science…and coming to realize it is time to walk away from same:

So, what went wrong? There are a great many alluring things about an academic scientist’s lifestyle that are simultaneously liberating and dangerous. The best of these are that you can work pretty much whenever you like, on whatever is interesting; the flip side is that “whenever you like” often translates into “all the time,” and “interesting” is a matter of who you’re talking to. For the first 5 years or so, I loved the freedom of being a scientist in what was touted as a meritocracy. I did work very hard, and I got somewhere […]

However, I was always hampered by self-doubt. My initial conviction – essential for anyone who wants to make it as a scientist – that I could really make a difference, maybe even win a few prizes and get famous, eroded when I realized that my brain was simply not wired like those of the phalanx of Nobelists I met over the years; I was never going to be original enough to be a star. This early realization, combined with a deep-seated lack of self-confidence, meant that I was useless at self-promotion and networking. I would go to conferences and hide in corners, never daring to talk to the speakers and the big shots. I never managed, as an infinitely more successful friend put it, “to piss in all the right places.”

All I have to say to that is: yep. Painful but (usually) true. The realization is half the battle. There’s a nice little career to be had while not being a shatteringly important thinker in your field. At least I hope there is…

via commonunity

How not to succeed in academia

Yglesias points out the creeping government takeover of everything in the socialist hell that is Obama’s America…

I can’t imagine why conservatives aren’t more honest about this.

But the facts remain: government is smaller under Obama. Jobs in the private sector have been created under Obama, and some of those jobs have been created through the actions of the stimulus. Period.

Defazio Bears Attention

TPM reports:

Rep. Peter Defazio (D-OR) proposes that people be allowed to opt out of the insurance mandate altogether – but if they do, they will not be allowed to free-ride on the new health care system.

Under his plan, a person opting out “must file an ‘affidavit of personal responsibility’ with the state exchange. Such a filing will waive their rights to: 1) Enroll in a health insurance exchange; 2) Enroll in Medicaid if otherwise made eligible; and 3) Discharge health care related debt under Chapter 7 bankruptcy law,” DeFazio wrote in a letter to colleagues Tuesday.

Under his plan, if a person wants back into the system, they’d need to buy insurance on their own, out of pocket, for five years. The idea here, and with other, similar plans, is to moot one of the constitutional complaints about the mandate – that it penalizes “inactivity.”

Exactly. No doubt the legions of “go die in the streets” conservatives who are morally wounded by the very concept of the individual mandate are lining up to cosponsor this. Right? Right?

Defazio Bears Attention

Here we have the man who invented the personal computer, then the laptop. He’s now destroying them. That is an amazing life.

Rupert Murdoch on Steve Jobs. I’d quibble with the “invented” being more of a “popularized,” but otherwise spot on.
Equally amazing (to me, anyway) is that the transition from “let’s sell everyone personal computers” to “let’s sell everyone wireless things that people don’t really even realize are computers” took place within the span of one CEO’s lifetime, though not one continuous tenure with Apple (since we’re talking Jobs here).
Color me unimpressed with The Daily, though. Just the sort of crap magazine I avoid in print, much less on the iPad. Reeder is the really disruptive technology if you’re asking me. And I know you are.
Source: daringfireball.net

Some of my libertarian friends balk at what looks like an individual mandate. But remember, someone has to pay for the health care that must, by law, be provided: Either the individual pays or the taxpayers pay. A free ride on the government is not libertarian.

Mitt Romney (when governor of Massachusetts) saying the sort of thing that makes him unelectable in 2012. Sad but true.
But he gets at the real “fix” for the individual mandate: simply opt out of guaranteed care for some defined period and pay a fine to get back into it with no guarantee against taking yet another hit for any preexisting conditions. In other words: Go die in the streets; we won’t lift a finger. The GOP and their Tea Klan enablers can certainly get behind that, as it’s the basis for their entire worldview. I’m sure they’ll all be rushing to get in on that particular filing deadline…