primelens

Most versions of this discussion lament the fact that students come into graduate programs with little idea of what the academic job market is like. One could respond - and many do - that it's a "free market," no one is forcing them to choose this profession over any other. However, this rational-actor reasoning can only be expected to work if effective channels were set up to inform students before they've sunk in too much time, and cost (both in terms of money and lost opportunities). Do such channels exist? While I agree that the responsibility largely lies with faculty, there are few incentives in the system for them to lower the number of PhDs. And any system that depends on the uprightness, or clarity of vision of individuals (even liberal humanities professors) is bound to be leaky at best.

While this essay puts some numbers to the problem - approximately 1 job for every 4 PhDs per year, for example - I think this is one domain where more data and analysis could serve as a wake-up call. Those 1 in 4 odds, I'm sure, are far from evenly distributed. They are heavily skewed towards a handful of elite institutions. Go to school elsewhere and the odds stack up much higher. Consider the applicants who graduated in previous years but have remained in the market and the odds are even more daunting, and made worse during job shortfalls like that after the '08 downturn.

If informing graduate students of the magnitude of the challenge they are taking on is the best approach to the problem, then the profession needs to do better than trust this to individuals and institutions who have no incentive to scare away a large portion of their students. Does a dataset exist that makes this information accessible? I'd expect some resistance from departments to share detailed information, but the MLA should have enough information from their member surveys. When grad students send in their first $23 check to the MLA, perhaps they should receive a dossier with employment data for the last 10 years and a few choice graphs to scare the living daylights out of them!

I am repeatedly surprised by how contemporary early modern art (a.k.a. renaissance art) -- both literature and the visual arts -- seem to me at time and how they can combine truly radical innovations with an unwavering commitment to basic skills. Write that searing tragedy about the frailty and absurdity of the human condition ... but make sure you absolutely master your iambic pentameter first!

Even if there is/are god(s), she/he/they obviously don't want to be known/found as she/he/they have left no obvious clues from which we might deduce such a being or beings. So, we should all be atheists/agnostics because once we die, if it turns out that there is/are god(s), atheists/agnostics are the ones who will end up in heaven. Why? Because, they alone are following the will of a possible creator.

"Did I not give you a brain," such a deity would say to believers of various religions. "Did I not hide all indications of my existence, so that you try to make sense of the universe with the data available to you? Why, then, did you go and make up random fantastic beings to worship without a shred of evidence? You have ignored my will. How dare you presume that you are capable of knowing an almighty being that obviously doesn't want to be known? Look at these atheists, this small band of the faithful, who have stayed true to the faculties of reasoning I endowed them with and reached the logical conclusion that they could to the best of their ability. These alone have stayed true to their creator's purpose, and these alone shall party with us in Valhalla."

So there. :-)

_Flight 714_[1]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_714

EDIT: Ok, everything but the zoom works. How do you zoom?

EDIT: I assume the "native-code" part is something like webgl?

Of course, I agree. My point was that since the buyer wants a "smart" tv, they probably mean to connect it to the network. So instead of not configuring the network, blocking the "phone home" ips might be a more realistic (although probably too technical for most) solution.