Map of all the known asteroids in the inner solar system. Blue are near-Earth asteroids, orange are main-belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter. Source: https://t.co/cW6PMWcfwp pic.twitter.com/Ha4NO85JfW
— Wonder of Science (@wonderofscience) February 17, 2020
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
I see wonderful things
An interesting experiment
There is a well founded concern that universities, particularly elite universities, are admitting students who cannot perform academically. This is done under the guise of diversity but has real world negative consequences in uncompleted degrees, excessive student debt burdens, abandoning high demand degrees which would likely have been completed had they attended a state school.
There is a parallel concern that universities are imparting hard left ideologies but also failing to foster valuable life-skills.
This is only partially attributable to the professoriate. Much of the responsibility resides with the ever-ballooning administration portion of the university. I have seen no empirical review but from anecdote and isolated data sources, my impression that the employees in the administration of universities are more left, younger, less academically accomplished, more female, far less exposed to careers in the marketplace, etc.
In other words, the average university administrator looks nothing like the average successful American.
Elite universities used to make the explicit or implicit commitment that they were selecting the leaders of the future. People who would be productive and accomplished in leading the market, their communities, and the nation.
It appears to me that the commitment has shifted marginally but with grave consequences. They seem now to be selecting candidates based on posturing and ideological orientation. People who will be leaders of the movement.
The interesting experiment would be to establish in an academic year, two parallel admissions boards. One would be the usual administration admission board. Let's see who they would admit. Of course, we know what that matriculating candidate pool would look like because we can see it in the prior year's class.
The second part of the experiment would be to establish a parallel admissions board constituted of alumni with at least 20 years of full-time career experience. Perhaps you might want to add a requirement that they have some measured minimum level of achievement (income, title, awards, employees managed, etc.) You would want to add a randomization component.
This alumni admissions board would operate under the same guidelines and procedures as the administration board.
To what degree would the admissions candidate pools of the the respective boards be identical and to what degree might they differ?
My guess that there would be at least a 20% variance and perhaps as much as a 50% variance. I suspect that the alumni candidate pool would have far fewer poseurs, self-identified victims, panderers, virtue signalers, self-absorbed snowflakes, etc. They would be much more mission focused, ambitious, and more characterized as servant-leaders across multiple domains, not just within their career.
But that is just speculation until the experiment is run.
There is a parallel concern that universities are imparting hard left ideologies but also failing to foster valuable life-skills.
This is only partially attributable to the professoriate. Much of the responsibility resides with the ever-ballooning administration portion of the university. I have seen no empirical review but from anecdote and isolated data sources, my impression that the employees in the administration of universities are more left, younger, less academically accomplished, more female, far less exposed to careers in the marketplace, etc.
In other words, the average university administrator looks nothing like the average successful American.
Elite universities used to make the explicit or implicit commitment that they were selecting the leaders of the future. People who would be productive and accomplished in leading the market, their communities, and the nation.
It appears to me that the commitment has shifted marginally but with grave consequences. They seem now to be selecting candidates based on posturing and ideological orientation. People who will be leaders of the movement.
The interesting experiment would be to establish in an academic year, two parallel admissions boards. One would be the usual administration admission board. Let's see who they would admit. Of course, we know what that matriculating candidate pool would look like because we can see it in the prior year's class.
The second part of the experiment would be to establish a parallel admissions board constituted of alumni with at least 20 years of full-time career experience. Perhaps you might want to add a requirement that they have some measured minimum level of achievement (income, title, awards, employees managed, etc.) You would want to add a randomization component.
This alumni admissions board would operate under the same guidelines and procedures as the administration board.
To what degree would the admissions candidate pools of the the respective boards be identical and to what degree might they differ?
My guess that there would be at least a 20% variance and perhaps as much as a 50% variance. I suspect that the alumni candidate pool would have far fewer poseurs, self-identified victims, panderers, virtue signalers, self-absorbed snowflakes, etc. They would be much more mission focused, ambitious, and more characterized as servant-leaders across multiple domains, not just within their career.
But that is just speculation until the experiment is run.
Roll call in variant settings
Somehow these two performances, clever in their different ways, never occurred to me in conjunction until my meandering mind brought them together last night. Each speaks to an exaggeration of highly variant cultures and histories but through a profoundly recognizable ritual known to all students through time and across the globe - roll call.
Rowan Atkinson's The School Master. Play's off the old English public school tradition.
Double click to enlarge.
Key & Peele's Substitute Teacher. The inner city teacher meets the suburban high school in roll call.
Double click to enlarge.
Rowan Atkinson's The School Master. Play's off the old English public school tradition.
Double click to enlarge.
Key & Peele's Substitute Teacher. The inner city teacher meets the suburban high school in roll call.
Double click to enlarge.
Monday, March 23, 2020
Never waste a crisis, never leave unexploited goodwill
From the excellent Perilous Fight by Stephen Budiansky, an account of the naval aspects of the War of 1812. Page 208. Some things never change - never waste a crisis, never leave unexploited goodwill.
“Among the inheritances left by Paul Hamilton to his successor was the ironic one of having finally persuaded Congress to approve the first new warship construction in a decade. Hamilton and his captains were keenly aware that their sudden successes at sea had produced a political opportunity that needed to be turned to advantage at once. Hull, in Washington for the opening of the congressional session at the end of 1812, made the rounds lobbying with all the power of his new celebrity. “The Navy is now up,” Hull remarked, “and if nothing is done this session it never will be worth remaining any longer.”
I see wonderful things
This stunning time-lapse footage from a camera keeping a fixed view of the night sky gives a visceral sense of the rotation of the Earth. https://t.co/xA38rqV7Bd Footage by Eric Brummel (@Brummo) pic.twitter.com/Peh4x5iitU
— Steve Stewart-Williams (@SteveStuWill) February 22, 2020
About a quarter of the patients in British military hospitals suffering from venereal disease
From The Great Mutiny by Christopher Hibbert. Page 42.
Nevertheless, British soldiers often frequented the 'Lol-Bibbees Bazaar' as Quevillart soon discovered; and venereal diseases were rife, about a quarter of the patients in British military hospitals suffering from them, mainly from syphilis. In the 1830s there had been a lock-hospital for prostitutes on all military stations in India, but in the 1850s, this being considered most improper, the last of the lock-hospitals had been closed and venereal diseases had much increased. It was because of this that Queen's regiments had begun to make arrangements to supply healthy girls of their own for men who would otherwise have gone to the bazaar. In the 7th Dragoon Guards a dozen clean girls were 'attached to the Regiment by the Quartermaster-General's Department'. 'They are to be well housed in the cantonments,' Quevillart wrote, 'and are not to leave the station without the sanction of the General. Their regulated scale of pay is four annas [a quarter of a rupee] for private soldiers, and to others according to their rank. They are women of low caste, furnished by the Honourable East India Company's agent at the rate of five rupees [about 10s.] per head, and a pleasant little sample of women they are.'
Data Talks
Evolution du nombre de périodiques scientifiques et techniques en Europe au XVIIIe siècle
— πΉππππππ π³ππππ£ (@josquindebaz) February 17, 2020
via https://t.co/dqvFweQGfy pic.twitter.com/gUkhyadqMg
Social distancing enforced with flamethrowers
An Italian Mayor.
Click to follow thread.
I am getting news that some would like to throw graduation parties.
We will send the police over.
With flamethrowers.
World needs more Italian mayors
— Jenan Moussa (@jenanmoussa) March 23, 2020
pic.twitter.com/7U3RzGeZD4
Click to follow thread.
Bye-bye Blackbird sung by Julie London
Double click to enlarge.
Bye-bye Blackbird
sung by Julie London
Blackbird, blackbird singing the blues all day
Right outside of my door
Blackbird, blackbird who do you sit and say
There's no sunshine in store
All through the winter you hung around
Now I begin to feel homeward bound
Blackbird, blackbird gotta be on my way
Where there's sunshine galore
Pack up all my care and woe
Here I go, singing low
Bye bye blackbird
Where somebody waits for me
Sugar's sweet, so is she
Bye bye blackbird
No one here can love and understand me
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me
Make my bed and light the light
I'll arrive late tonight
Blackbird, bye bye
Bluebird bluebird calling me far away
I've been longing for you
Bluebird bluebird what do I hear you say
Skies are turning to blue
I'm like a flower that's fading here
Where ev'ry hour is one long tear
Bluebird bluebird this is my lucky day
Now my dreams will come true
Pack up all my care and woe
Here I go, singing low
Bye bye blackbird
Where somebody waits for me
Sugar's sweet, so is she
Bye bye blackbird
No one here can love and understand me
Oh, what hard luck stories they all hand me
Make my bed and light the light
I'll arrive late tonight
Blackbird, bye bye
Winter Trees by William Carlos Williams
Winter Trees
by William Carlos Williams
All the complicated details
of the attiring and
the disattiring are completed!
A liquid moon
moves gently among
the long branches.
Thus having prepared their buds
against a sure winter
the wise trees
stand sleeping in the cold.
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