I think for most of us for whom the original Star Wars was a major childhood event, to say that Phantom Menace was a disappointment would be the understatement of the decade. Interestingly, most of us geeky sci-fi types – I think – assumed that the difference in our reactions had more to do with ourselves than with the films. We were older now – world-weary, cynical, hard-bitten. We had lost our sense of wonder, our childish delight. Did we stop to think that it had as much to do with the movies themselves? The fact is, the original Star Wars was a vastly superior movie.
If you have the time, check out this 70 min (yes, 70 minute) YouTube takedown of the Phantom Menace. It shreds the movie to pieces in every way imaginable. I wish the reviewer would dispense with the Buffalo Bill serial killer schtick – but the dude pulls together his obvious encyclopedic knowledge of the Star Wars canon, a love of movies, and an understanding of the mechanics of film making to destroy that vomit-inducing tripe that stands as a testament to Lucas’ totalitarian excess.
In January, Israel will become the first country in the world to give people who sign their organ donor cards points pushing them up the transplant list should they one day need a transplant. Points will also be given to transplant candidates whose first-degree relatives have signed their organ donor cars or whose first-degree relatives were organ donors.
In the case of kidneys, for example, two points (on a 0-18 point scale) will be given if the candidate had three or more years previous to being listed signed their organ card. One point will be given if a first-degree relative had signed and 3.5 points if a first-degree relative had previously donated.
In Entrepreneurial Economics I argued for a point allocation system like this–which I called a “no give, no take” system–as a way to increase the incentive to sign one’s organ donor card. One advantage of a no-give, no take system over paying for organs is that most people find this type of system to be fair and just–those who are willing to give are the first to receive should they one day be in in need.
This seems eminently sensible. Why is the implementation of such an idea in the United States taking so long?
Dr. Free-Ride has a nice set of posts on issues relating to when a college instructor falls ill or dies. How should this affect student grades? How about other instructors who have to cover for the ill/deceased? (This was something I had to deal with recently. It was tough – because I had to teach an (uncompensated) overload, and I didn’t feel I was in a position to say no.) Thirdly, she talks about the impact of faculty specialization on the ability to suddenly cover for a colleague.
All good stuff. But that’s not what I want to talk about. My question is, what happens in the unlikely, but non-negligible, event that an instructor loses his/her marbles? Now, if the professor in question one day has a breakdown, or a stroke, or some clear, immediate, well-defined “event,” and then behaves erratically in the classroom from that time onward, then I think it’s a fairly easy decision to release that person from classroom duties and have someone else take over for the semester. But the task is much more difficult when the progression is slow. When do you make that call? What happens when the instructor resists?
I wish this was a hypothetical discussion. Okay, I’m claiming this as a hypothetical discussion. Let’s imagine that there’s a faculty member (not in my department, I hasten to add). S/he is getting on in years – and efforts have been made to nudge this person (gently) into retirement, but has been met with resistance – the school is his/her whole life, and forms much of his/her identity. This person has always been eccentric. But that eccentricity has become more and more extreme in recent years. In the last couple of years, that “eccentric behavior” has become “erratic”, and then “bizarre” and now “seriously problematic.” The stories I’m hearing are just out of this world. Other faculty members have tried talking to this person, but apparently it’s not easy to have a rational discussion with said person. What to do? This faculty member has had a long career at the school, his/her dedication to teaching and to his/her students over the years cannot be questioned, and deserves to be treated with respect. But we’re getting to cloud cuckoo-land, and no-one knows quite how to handle it.
Mulling over the World Cup draw which were announced yesterday… Here are my predictions for the round of 16 (teams to advance in bold). I’m taking into account the large effect that regionalism seems to play – and, as everyone knows, this World Cup will be in South Africa.
Group A South Africa
Mexico
Uruguay France The French look shaky, but can’t imagine them not making it through. And the host team always advances. By the way, it’s always been a mystery to me why Mexico has historically been so weak. Given the passion of the fans, the population, the infrastructure – you’d expect them to be up there with the elites. Can someone explain this?
Group B Argentina Nigeria
South Korea
Greece I’m expecting Argentina to make a big push. I’m giving Nigeria home-continent advantage over Greece.
Group C England
United States
Algeria
Slovenia
Clearly the weakest group. The U.S. struck gold by getting into this group. Barring a calamity, you can take this one to the bank.
Group D Germany
Australia
Serbia Ghana
Germany was weak in ‘06, but no doubt they’ll be back with a vengeance. Australia was very strong in ‘06, but I’ll go with my gut and give the nod to Ghana.
Group E The Netherlands
Denmark
Japan Cameroon It’s tough to call Cameroon over Denmark, but I’ll – again – give the nod to the African team.
Group F Italy
Paraguay
New Zealand
Slovakia
This seems to be another weak group. Italians should dominate. New Zealand and Slovakia are unknown quantities (to me), so I’ll give the nod to Paraguay.
Group G Brazil
North Korea
Ivory Coast Portugal The Group of Death… I’m giving the nod to Portugal – although I’m betting that the “Platinum Generation” will prove weaker than expected. A very strong Ivory Coast will make a good run, but come up short. Drogba will whine…
Group H Spain
Switzerland
Honduras
Chile
Not much to say about this one. Is this the year for the Spaniards? Not if history is any indication.
What do you do with students who smell? I’m serious.
I have a small office – it’s crammed with books and papers. There’s barely space to move around. When a non-smelly person comes into my office, it’s barely tolerable. A stinky person drives me insane. The odor just hangs there, like a ghost. I have to open the window for hours before the scent dissipates.
Is it rude to tell people to stand in the hallway?
That Tiger Woods story never made much sense to me. What? He was driving around in the middle of the night, hit a hydrant, got trapped and his wife pulled him free after smashing the windscreen with a golf club? I mean, WTF? Why does CNN treat its audience like idiots. If you don’t know, say you don’t know. Stop peddling bullshit. This explanation, on the hand makes far more sense. When you watch cable news, keep your Bullshit Detector handy.
… the opportunity to do important science and gain major recognition only ever exists for a relative few–overwhelmingly those educated and employed at the most prestigious universities. The real issue in the distribution of recognition and prestige, Hermanowicz’s meticulous research shows, is not the ability or drive of individual scientists but, to paraphrase the book’s subtitle, “how institutions shape careers.”
…”Ability is not distributed along institutional lines,” Hermanowicz says, and many “very smart people” don’t work at top-ranked institutions, including many “who are arguably better than those who do.” Yet, his interviews with faculty members [at universities of varying levels of prestige] reveal that opportunity and recognition for research pretty much correlate with institutional prestige.
Bear in mind that Hermanowicz’s study is that of physicists, and in physics – for whatever reason – snobbery and institutional stratification seem particularly pronounced. But undoubtedly there is something of this in the life sciences as well. What caught my eye, however, was the following:
Scientists at elite schools, he found, retain to the end of their careers their original dedication to research, the goal of pursuing eminence, and a belief in the essential fairness of the scientific reward system. In contrast, at pluralist and communitarian schools, most faculty members must accept that their early faith was misplaced and their dreams will never be realized. Some pluralists do succeed in attaining prominence, but most cannot. This early loss of faith has an advantage, Hermanowicz says: The painful task of coming to terms gives many of these individuals an impressive depth of humanity.
Elite faculty, on the other hand, generally perceive only at the end their careers–and to their intense disappointment–that decades of single-minded striving have not won a perch in the “pantheon.” Only then begins their process of re-evaluation. Only after lives of great privilege and good fortune–the extent of which many never appreciate–do most begin to question the basic fairness of science’s system of rewards.
And here’s one for Rich. Lady Gaga isn’t really my cup of tea. But I caught this on the Jonathan Ross show and thought that it had a certain appealing energy. She actually does have talent, although one wonders whether it’s enough to keep her from falling into the Spears/Aguilera teenybop musical sewer. I doubt it. Talent does not equal judgment.
This post by PZ includes the following definition of Irreducible Complexity (IC) by the Creationist/Intelligent Design (ID) advocate, Michael Behe.
By irreducibly complex I mean a single system which is composed of several well-matched, interacting parts that contribute to the basic function, and where the removal of any one of the parts causes the system to effectively cease functioning.
A non-evolutionary example to refute the idea that IC = ID (and I’m sure I read this somewhere, I just don’t remember where) is cities. Take a big, complicated, unplanned city like, say, London. It’s irreducibly complex. Take away the electrical grid, or a few key bridges, or the sewage system, or the Tube and the whole city will come to a screeching halt. Yet, no-one would argue that London was intelligently designed. Clearly neither did it evolve (evolve, in the biological sense). But that’s not the point. The point is that you can get from a primitive state to irreducible complexity without forethought.
Would someone like to argue that London was master-planned?
I'm an assistant professor in the life sciences at a small college somewhere in the greater Los Angeles area.
I am Korean.
I have a wife who loves me... sometimes.
I have a daughter who loves me... all the time.
Header Image Attribution
Header image lifted gratefully and surreptitiously from Shuttersparks . Flickr site is here.
I'm not a hostile person to meet. But I think it's important to realize that when two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly halfway between them. It is possible for one side to be simply wrong. Richard Dawkins
Both the man of science and the man of art live always at the edge of mystery, surrounded by it. Both as a measure of their creation, have always had to do with the harmonization of what is new with what is familiar, with the balance between novelty and synthesis, with the struggle to make partial order in total chaos… This cannot be an easy life. J. Robert Oppenheimer
I yam wot I yam, and dats all I yam. Popeye the Sailorman
Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans. John Lennon
Certainty about the next life is simply incompatible with tolerance in this one. Sam Harris
The United States is in no sense founded upon the Christian religion. George Washington
I am too firm in my consciousness of the marvelous to be ever fascinated by the mere supernatural which (take it any way you like) is but a manufactured article, the fabrication of minds insensitive to the intimate details of our relation to the dead and to the living, in their countless multitudes; a desecration of our tenderest memories; an outrage on our dignity. Joseph Conrad
