November 23, 2009 – 6:40 pm
582. That the Sociology Rumor Mill site did not exist when I was on job market.
October 12, 2009 – 8:41 pm
So, the General Social Survey reinterviewed a large subset of 2006 respondents in 2008. They have released the data that combines into one file the respondents interviewed for the first time in 2008 and the 2008 reinterviews of the respondents originally interviewed in 2006. In a separate file, of course, you can get [...]
October 5, 2009 – 10:58 am
From Northwestern’s wikipedia entry:
Northwestern has several traditions for football games. Students perform the Wildcat Growl when opposing teams control the ball, while making “claws” with their hands. Also, students jingle their keys at the beginning of each kickoff, to symbolize that even if Northwestern loses on the field, graduates of other schools will park students’ [...]
October 3, 2009 – 12:43 am
Here’s Wilford Brimley, on diabetes:
Sociology of health, sociology of culture, together, in the house.
August 26, 2009 – 6:54 pm
I got a letter from a departmental chair and instead of being signed “Chair” it was signed “DEO.” Does this mean Departmental Executive Officer? Is this common? Is this going to be the Next Big Academic Job Title Thing?
August 16, 2009 – 1:53 am
From CNN.com:
“I could have retired at 35 with a lifetime income,” he says. “Or I could build an elevator to space.”
August 15, 2009 – 12:45 pm
I saw the famous quote from Schopenhauer on a mug:
All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.
Then I come home and see this as the first sentence of an article on Slate:
The National Enquirer is reporting what everyone already knew—that John [...]
August 14, 2009 – 6:45 pm
I’m an officer in the medical sociology section of ASA, which means I went to the conference session devoted to their business meeting. A tradition of this session is the book raffle. You pay $5 and are entered in a drawing where a series of winners get to select 3 books from those [...]
August 10, 2009 – 1:55 pm
A certain journal editor: “The way I like to think about acceptance letters is that they should be suitable for framing.”
ASR publishes a debate about a GSS variable measuring # of confidants and presents the name of the variable throughout as Numgiven rather than as NUMGIVEN or numgiven or even “numgiven.” Somewhere out there is a copy editor who has no idea how much I despise them.
Robert Gibbs, White House press secretary: “If I had some DNA, it wouldn’t assuage those who don’t believe he was born here.”
Where you were born is in your genome. Who knew?
I was gone this weekend, and Stata 11 was waiting for me upon my return.
Early impression: in defiance of the law of diminishing returns to higher version numbers, this is a major upgrade, perhaps comparable to if Stata had skipped version 9 and gone straight from 8 to 10.
1. For people interested [...]
From SLACer John’s blog:
I haven’t reviewed many papers, so I am hoping that I have just had bad luck so far, but it seems that every time I agree to review a paper it has serious flaws.
This is not a matter of luck. Papers that a priori seem likely to suck are disproportionately sent [...]
The last two times I have been asked to provide a telephone reference for someone, the person asking for the telephone reference began the conversation by informing me that they had decided to make X an offer (and, indeed, at least in one case X already been informed of this decision). I suspect that [...]
“His elitism shines through, like the sweat stains under his arms.”
