Universities Are Offering Doctorates but Few Jobs
June 4th, 2010Via: Los Angeles Times:
Graduates frustrated by the lack of tenure-track positions available amid budget cuts are looking off campus. Many find work that wouldn’t have cost them years in school or put them deep in debt.
As they walk in hooded robes to the strains of “Pomp and Circumstance,” many students getting their doctorates this spring dream of heading to another university to begin their careers as tenure-track professors.
But when Elena Stover finished her doctorate in September, she headed to the poker tables. Frustrated with the limited opportunities and grueling lifestyle of academia, Stover, 29, decided to eschew a career in cognitive neuroscience for one playing online poker. She got the idea from a UCLA career counselor, who was trying to help her find employment.
“The job market is abysmal, especially within the academic system,” said Stover, who spent six years getting her doctorate at UCLA.
It has never been easy to find a tenure-track teaching job. But this year, dwindling endowments and shrinking state budgets — especially in California — have made that goal more elusive than ever. Now, many graduates with doctoral degrees are finding themselves looking for jobs outside universities — jobs they probably could have gotten without five to six years of intense schooling and tens of thousands of dollars of education debt.
“That’s one of the weird things — after all this training, you should really have these career options, but in reality, it’s really scarce,” said Stover, who moved to Oakland, got a poker coach and says she’s making enough to pay the bills.
Budget cuts are plaguing California’s once-admired higher education system. The California State University system lost 10% of its teaching force over the last year, which is the equivalent of 1,230 full-time posts. The University of California’s share of state general fund revenue of $2.6 billion in the 2009-10 fiscal year was 20% less than it was two years earlier.
Many universities are cutting costs by reducing full-time staff and hiring adjunct or part-time professors. The number of full-time faculty members at universities was around 51% in 2007, down from 78% in 1970, said Jack Schuster, a senior research fellow at Claremont Graduate University. That leaves many doctoral degree candidates stuck with adjunct work, which can pay as little as $2,000 a semester.
Research Credit: Becky
BP Puts Containment Cap on Gushing Gulf Well Pipe
June 4th, 2010This seems like good news, but all we really have to go on is what BP and the government are saying.
CNN reports, “Early Friday morning a non-stop cloud of oil was still spewing from the pipe.”
Via: Reuters:
After failing days ago to plug the well, BP Plc managed on Thursday to shear away the gushing well pipe a mile below the ocean surface, then lowered a containment cap over the jagged hole left atop the crippled wellhead assembly in its latest bid to curtail the oil flow.
The placement of the cylindrical apparatus was confirmed by the U.S. disaster response chief, Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, in a statement describing the move as a “positive development” but “only a temporary and partial fix.”
“It will be some time before we can confirm that this method will work and to what extent it will mitigate the release of oil into the environment,” Allen said.
Once the containment cap is firmly in place over the wellhead, the plan is to start funneling at least some of the escaping oil and gas into a large hose that would carry it from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico to the surface, where it would be collected in ships and safely removed.
James Cameron on BP Oil Spill: “If you’re not monitoring it independently, you’re asking the perpetrator to give you the video of the crime scene.”
June 4th, 2010Via: Reuters:
Film director and deep-sea explorer James Cameron said on Wednesday that BP Plc turned down his offer to help combat the massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
“Over the last few weeks I’ve watched, as we all have, with growing horror and heartache, watching what’s happening in the Gulf and thinking those morons don’t know what they’re doing,” Cameron said at the All Things Digital technology conference.
Cameron, the director of “Avatar” and “Titanic,” has worked extensively with robot submarines and is considered an expert in undersea filming. He did not say explicitly who he meant when he referred to “those morons.”
May Earnings
June 4th, 2010May earnings came to a total of $911.85. Many thanks to all cash contributors and to those of you who conducted business via Cryptogon affiliate links.
There must be a few dozen of you who are clicking through to Amazon via Cryptogon. It’s amazing how the commissions, from even the smallest purchases, add up. Thanks for remembering to do that.
There remains, however, some confusion about how Cryptogon receives commissions from Amazon. It seems that the more expert someone is with computers, the more questions there are about how the Amazon thing works. If you are one of the several people out there who want to be sure that “it” will work: Simply scroll down the Cryptogon main page and, along the right sidebar at the bottom, you will see Begin Amazon Session. Click the link to your local Amazon. From there, whatever you order will result in a commission payment to Cryptogon. (Of course, clicking any of the other things that you can click on Cryptogon to reach Amazon will continue to work as usual.)
Here’s a question that comes up about twice per week:
I don’t see your affiliate code once I’m on Amazon. Will my purchase still pay you a commission?
Yes. Once you’re on Amazon, they track the session. The URL is meaningless once you’re there. The session, though, must start via Cryptogon, which leads us to the next issue…
Sometimes, more often than you might imagine, people want to create their own Amazon links using the Cryptogon affiliate code without actually starting the session from Cryptogon. I actually tested this with someone and we found out that it definitely doesn’t work. If you want the commission to go to Cryptogon, make sure that your Amazon session starts via Cryptogon.
99% of you should ignore what follows:
I’ve lost commissions because some Cryptogon users are running what they feel are security hardened browsers. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please, don’t be paranoid about your purchases not counting toward commissions. They almost certainly did. This is only directed to people who are using cookie and script management plugins and/or some browser security settings.
Here’s the simple solution to make sure that the sale will result in a commission for Cryptogon:
Run some stock/virgin/unmodified browser, go to Cryptogon, click on the link to the company that you wish to conduct your business with and complete the transaction as normal. This way, you don’t have to mess with the settings on your “secure” rig.
I hope this doesn’t cause more confusion than it clears up. Perhaps we can finally draw a line under this one and call it RESOLVED. In any event, again, thank you for helping to keep Cryptogon open.
National Debt Tops $13 Trillion For First Time
June 4th, 2010Via: CBS News:
The National Debt topped $13-trillion for the first time in U.S. history – reflecting the surge in government spending that will push the Debt to increasing highs through the rest of the decade.
Posted on the Treasury Department website this afternoon, the National Debt hit $13,050,826,460,886.97 as of June 1st.
Tallied against the nation’s Gross Domestic Product, the latest Debt number amounts to nearly 89.4 percent of the total economy.
Bilderberg 2010: Plutocracy with Palm Trees
June 4th, 2010Via: Guardian:
Another year, another Bilderberg. The first “participants” (as the delegates are known) won’t be arriving until Thursday, but already the Hotel Dolce in Sitges is buzzing with anticipation. This Catalan seaside town hasn’t hosted an event as large and politically sensitive as Bilderberg since the legendary 2008 Foam Party at the Mr Gay Sitges awards night.
Last year, Bilderberg was held in Vouliagmeni, on the coast just south of Athens. The Greek minister of finance attended, the minister of foreign affairs, and the governor of the National Bank of Greece. A few months later, Greece was bankrupt and Athens was in flames. So … good luck, Madrid!
Police are already stretching their red stripy tape around the hotel, and zipping up and around the local roads in their squad cars, sniffing for trouble. I’m really hoping there’s none to find. The Spanish are promising a beach party and an “awareness camp”, with political discussion forums and meditation zones.
I plan to spend at least part of Friday sitting cross-legged in a campsite, sending beams of white light up the hill and into the hotel. Feel my love, Marcus Agius – Chairman of Barclays and senior non-executive director on the BBC’s new executive board. Let it surround you, Queen Sofia of Spain. Don’t fight it, president of the World Bank. You can’t beat the love.
It would be nicer if the interface between Bilderberg and the world could be softer – if it could turn an open face towards us, rather than the barrel of a machine gun. What I’m hoping is that this year, in the all-new CamCleggian spirit of openness and political transparency, any British elected official who attends the meeting – and I’m talking to you, Kenneth Clarke and George Osborne – will tell us they attended, tell us what they spoke about, and tell us what the next 12 months has in store. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.
Caught In The Oil: BP Really Doesn’t Want You To See This
June 4th, 2010Via: Boston Globe – Big Picture:
A short entry – AP Photographer Charlie Riedel just filed the following images of seabirds caught in the oil slick on a beach on Louisiana’s East Grand Terre Island. As BP engineers continue their efforts to cap the underwater flow of oil, landfall is becoming more frequent, and the effects more evident.
Research Credit: dilinger
U.S. Citizen Among Those Killed in Israeli Flotilla Raid
June 3rd, 2010Via: Washington Post:
A U.S. citizen of Turkish origin was among the nine people killed in a botched Israeli effort to stop a Turkish aid ship from reaching the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a Turkish official said Thursday.
Nuclear Option on Gulf Oil Spill? No Way, U.S. Says
June 3rd, 2010Via: New York Times:
This week, with the failure of the “top kill” attempt, the buzz had grown loud enough that federal officials felt compelled to respond.
Stephanie Mueller, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said that neither Energy Secretary Steven Chu nor anyone else was thinking about a nuclear blast under the gulf. The nuclear option was not — and never had been — on the table, federal officials said.
“It’s crazy,” one senior official said.
Government and private nuclear experts agreed that using a nuclear bomb would be not only risky technically, with unknown and possibly disastrous consequences from radiation, but also unwise geopolitically — it would violate arms treaties that the United States has signed and championed over the decades and do so at a time when President Obama is pushing for global nuclear disarmament.
The Coming Artilect War
June 3rd, 2010Via: Technofascism Blog:
If you haven’t heard of Hugo de Garis, AI researcher and Professor at China’s Xiamen University, then you’ve probably never heard of an Artilect either. A contraction of Artificial Intellect, the Artilects are future creations that, according to de Garis, will be immortal, godlike robotic beings that, due to being built on a substrate of nanoscale computer chips, will have billions of times the intelligence of the average human. Needless to say, these Artilects would not for a second hesitate in wiping out the entire human species if their need dictates; much like a human wouldn’t trouble themselves over running over an ant colony on their way to work.
It’s important to listen to de Garis because he is one of those rare scientific researchers that actually considers the implications of his work. In de Garis’ view, in the late 21st century humanity will have the technological ability to create the Artilects. At that point, humans will be divided into three camps: the Terrans, who will attempt to violently prevent the creation of the Artilects; the Cosmists, who think building them is a good idea; and the Cyborgists, who will attempt to merge with the Artilects to preserve some shred of their humanity. These three camps will fight it out and the winner will decide the fate of the planet. Since the war will be fought with late 21st century weaponry, the death toll is expected to be in the billions.
In a Forbes article, Hugo de Garis describes this coming Artilect war:
I differ sharply with well-known futurist Ray Kurzweil on his over-optimistic prediction that the rise of the artilect this century will be a positive development for humanity. I think it will be a catastrophe. I see a war coming, the “Artilect War,” not between the artilects and human beings, as in the movie Terminator, but between the Terrans, Cosmists and Cyborgists. This will be the worst, most passionate war that humanity has ever known, because the stakes–the survival of our species–have never been so high. Given the period in which this war will occur, the late 21st century, with late 21st century weapons, the scale of the killing will not be in the millions, as in the 20th century (the bloodiest in history, with 200-300 million people killed in wars, purges, holocausts and genocides) but in the billions. There will be gigadeath.
Although many people might dismiss de Garis’ vision as science fiction, as a fellow ex-AI researcher myself, I believe that de Garis’ horrifying prophecy is fundamentally correct.
