Clik here to view.
Franzen blows a joke
Given the weirdly ambivalent best-friendship between Jonathan Franzen and David Foster Wallace, it’s sort of a strange choice to invite Franzen to give this year’s Kenyon College commencement address,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
It’s like a state, a state of Kong
For the few people who will get nostalgic pleasure out of this, a 1992 article from the Harvard Crimson in which I am extensively quoted about my love for the Hong Kong restaurant in Harvard Square. I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Are math departments better at recruitment than elite financial firms?
Via Bryan Caplan, Lauren Rivera at Northwestern studied hiring practices at top financial, law, and consulting firms and found some surprises: [E]valuators drew strong distinctions between top four...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Intrigue in the Harvard personals
Harvard Magazine: “I read it for the articles,” as they say, but there’s a monthly gem that often goes unnoticed: the personal ads! Yes, there are still people who take out personal ads in print...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What, if anything, is the future of the university?
My colleague and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery director David Krakauer says it might look a lot like WID: Inspired by such successful endeavors as the Santa Fe Institute, MITs Media Lab, the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Several attacks on the previous post
As promised, a few attacks. I’m sure by tomorrow I’ll have thought of several more. Oh, and also, I meant to link to this Crooked Timber thread about Coursera, with a richly combative comment thread....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Online education and creative writing workshops
More about on-line education. One hesitation people have, of course, is that it’s easier to dephysicalize some forms of education than others; and that if higher education gets redefined as something...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Should Harvard offer a “good enough, but no room” certificate?
There are people who think that the information conveyed by a Harvard diploma is almost entirely made up of the fact of admission to Harvard; that is, that Harvard graduates on average have no more...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Ten-second tragedy
Two undergrads sitting against the wall this morning outside Ingraham Deli. First undergrad: ”So, what are you going to do with your life?” Second undergrad: ”Good question! (very long pause) I...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Wisconsin puts the MOO in MOOC
UW-LaCrosse started it, launching an online math course, “College Readiness.” with the help of a grant from the Gates Foundation. A lot of the energy around MOOCs has centered on advanced courses:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Death to the 529 / long live the 529
Obama flip-flops faster than I can blog! Prezzo has already walked back his proposal to change the 529 college-saving tax break, but I have a post about it queued up, and by gum I’m gonna publish it....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Death to the 529 / long live the 529
Obama flip-flops faster than I can blog! Prezzo has already walked back his proposal to change the 529 college-saving tax break, but I have a post about it queued up, and by gum I’m gonna publish it....
View ArticleClik here to view.
Death to the 529 / long live the 529
Obama flip-flops faster than I can blog! Prezzo has already walked back his proposal to change the 529 college-saving tax break, but I have a post about it queued up, and by gum I’m gonna publish it....
View ArticleElif Batuman, “The Idiot”
What a novel! The best I’ve read in quite a while. One thing I like: the way this book takes what’s become a standard bundle of complaints against “literary fiction”: It’s about overprivileged people...
View ArticlePandemic blog 35: Updates
What’s going on with some of the topics previously covered? Slimming: The initial weight loss reported slowed down, but hasn’t stopped, even though I started eating take-out from restaurants in July...
View ArticleTo A Crackpot
I still have a lot of text files from when I was in college and even high school, sequentially copied from floppy to floppy to hard drive to hard drive over the decades. I used to write poems and they...
View Article
