22 June 2023 - Hmmm, perhaps this should be "this year's link of the month" Ah well. On book tours ("the rest of us, poor moles digging away in the dark of obscurity, were hauled up into the light and sent abroad to appear before live audiences "): https://www.esquire.com/uk/culture/books/a44126872/the-casual-ignominy-of-the-book-tours-of-yore/
Archive
29 August 2022 - Genius!: https://www.reddit.com/r/australia/comments/wzi6e5/former_prime_minister_scott_morrison_finally/
23 June 2021 - the 50th anniversary of Joni Mitchell's 'Blue' has triggered a wave of (justifiable) homage, including one that linked to this great essay of Zadie Smith's: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/12/17/some-notes-on-attunement
22 April 2021 - This is good. Short sentences. Eppur si muove. https://thebaffler.com/salvos/how-to-become-an-intellectual-in-silicon-valley-timms
17 February 2021 https://nautil.us/issue/95/escape/why-computers-will-never-write-good-novels
21 September 2020 - Reflecting on the University past, "The student experience didn’t need defining because it wasn’t for sale..." There's a lot more good sense in here that resonates with me: https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v42/n18/malcolm-gaskill/diary
26 November 2019 - Known for a memorable quote about the Natural State of Man, Hobbes was an interesting sort: https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/public/thomas-hobbes-footnotes-to-plato/
10 October 2019 - There could be a Crank Index analogue for Econ: https://www.laphamsquarterly.org/roundtable/beware-cranks
22 July 2019 - If I were king we'd all use the unreal conditional correctly!: https://harpers.org/archive/2019/08/semantic-drift/
28 June 2019 - One reason for the extremely high premium on publishing in the best journals: https://thewalrus.ca/the-rise-of-junk-science/
24 June 2019 - Simplism sounds to me like a pretty accurate diagnosis of much of our malaise currently: https://www.newstatesman.com/2019/06/we-know-lot-less-we-think-about-world-which-explains-allure-simplism
17 May 2019 - I grew up with (Just) William Brown and had no idea of the anti-Bolshevism an' such like: https://standpointmag.co.uk/issues/april-2019/underrated-william-brown/
13 May 2019 - English is perhaps at the vanguard of changes to academe, driven by "consumer sovereignty": https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190510-academes-extinction-event?key=mi0Bff1vaLHL09_no2Emg10qt7p80aeegQ9TpB5QAj7CR1-6q-W9WwTJh5LxzsF5eE5sNW1ZWEw0VFIzbE5mV0lfRVA3dl9PLUFXM25Wak0zVFExU05vczcwQQ
8 April 2019 - Editing in the age of outrage: https://www.ft.com/content/7d47be7e-4efb-11e9-b401-8d9ef1626294
4 April 2019 - Karma: http://www.tai.org.au/content/research-latte-sippers-and-chardonnay-drinkers-vote-liberalnational
10 September 2017 - This will only be intelligible to those following the NZ election campaign: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/politics/opinion/96633028/david-slack-not-quite-the-greatest-story-ever-told
15 August 2017 - This was written for Ronald Reagan but change "movie" to "TV" and it still kind of works!: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=twARDz9xnHM
19 May 2017 - Parts of this read like Brave New World - http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/233794/the-future-of-media-is-here
20 April 2017 - Not as detailed as I like, but an interesting piece on the threats to free speech in Australia (no, 18C's not in there!) - https://medium.com/the-walkley-magazine/the-defamation-racket-e5e95e4b1443
11 July 2016 - Very interesting read about something we take for granted but which turns out to be a relatively recent innovation: http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/THR_article_2016_Summer_Andrews.php
3 June 2016 - A glimpse of my 'other life': http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11650138
19 May 2016 - Terrific piece on dairy policy - and agricultural policy in general - here and I hope it's not firewalled: http://bit.ly/1OAB2OG
13 May 2016 - Clearly there are a lot of valid issues raised here, but I'd love to see a study of how often this article, in various forms, has been written! It seems to come around every few years: https://aeon.co/essays/how-economists-rode-maths-to-become-our-era-s-astrologers
11 May 2016 - Hard to argue with much of this, in my view: http://thesmartset.com/free-speech-the-modern-campus/
23 December 2015 - I don't know if this is behind a firewall or not but it's pretty funny. Chinese Roulette - shades of Festivus - sounds like a winner!: http://www.crikey.com.au/2015/12/23/rundles-christmas-chrestomathy/
8 November 2015 - Not a phenomenon that has yet hit Australia, so far as I know, but it can only be a matter of time: http://aeon.co/magazine/culture/reading-should-not-carry-a-health-warning/
1 November 2015 - "...thoughtful educators have largely backed away from the notion that online classes are ready to replace those taught in person, the old-fashioned way. At this point, online lectures may be better viewed as an alternative to the textbook than as a replacement for the entire classroom." The upper ranks of ANU educators have not backed away from this, but that is not inconsistent with this claim, of course! http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2015/10/adaptive_learning_software_is_replacing_textbooks_and_upending_american.single.html
20 May 2015 - Some nice detective work on stock photos here: http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/05/axact_fake_universities_and_diploma_programs_a_story_in_stock_photos.html
13 April 2015 - If you are familiar with the Australian treatment of asylum seekers you might appreciate this: A story for grown-ups.
13 April 2015 - As we have always thought on the leadership of universities: http://press.princeton.edu/video/goodall/amanda_vod.mp4.
19 March 2015 - There's a guy at our local coffee shop who wears a 9/11 CIA 'Truther' T-shirt - presumably when the Holocaust-denial one is in the wash - and maybe he'd appreciate this: http://aeon.co/magazine/philosophy/intellectual-character-of-conspiracy-theorists/.
19 November 2014 - Now THIS is an idea!: http://chronicle.com/blogs/conversation/2013/03/25/its-mooas-not-moocs-that-will-transform-higher-education/?cid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en.
17 November 2014 - This appeals to me now, but I must read it again in 10 years: http://chronicle.com/article/The-Forever-Professors/149965/.
17 November 2014 - One of my favourite authors as an adolescent was Stephen Potter, of xmanship fame. Here's a representative sample where x=Games: http://www.heretical.com/potter/match.html.
17 November 2014 - Oddly, no mention here of Charles Dikkens, the famous Dutch author: http://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/books/book-review-the-biographical-dictionary-of-literary-failure-edited-by-cd-rose/2014/11/05/e5dcd680-5faa-11e4-8b9e-2ccdac31a031_story.html.
30 September 2014 - This is quite interesting: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/moneybox/2014/09/americans_have_no_idea_how_bad_inequality_is_new_harvard_business_school.html
2 August 2014 - "Search is the new learn": http://doonesbury.washingtonpost.com/strip/archive/2014/07/27
2 August 2014 - Another view on the future of tertiary education: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/aug/14/hi-tech-mess-higher-education/. I like the line, "At the heart of the MOOC model is the idea that education is a mediated but unsocial activity."
29 May 2014 - Live a better life through mathematics: http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2014/05/28/is_there_a_method_to_make_doing_laundry_more_efficient.html
29 May 2014 - As a perspective on the impact of online education on the tertiary sector, I find this piece very compelling and thought-provoking: http://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/aer.104.5.528
21 May 2014 - Good writing and a sense of the shared experience make this a very entertaining read: http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/may/12/six-chairs-search-audience/.
15 May 2014 - A really well done history of a few notes (Dies Irae): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dLgvKwOYniY&feature=share
8 April 2014 - A perspective on Michael Lewis' Flash Boys: http://www.slate.com/articles/business/books/2014/04/michael_lewis_s_flash_boys_about_high_frequency_trading_reviewed.html
8 April 2014 - A really interesting paper on peer effects in academia: http://www.nber.org/papers/w20012.pdf (if you have NBER download access) or http://www.nber.org/papers/w20012 (if you don't)
28 February 2014 - Towards impenetrability in scientific titleage: http://snarxiv.org/vs-arxiv/
2 January 2014 - People seem to get cynical about their research younger these days: http://lolmythesis.com/
28 October 2013 - An interesting piece on AI and Douglas Hofstader: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/11/the-man-who-would-teach-machines-to-think/309529/
9 October 2013 - The Sagrada Familia in Barcelona is amazing already but this simulation suggests it'll be more amazing still: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=RcDmloG3tXU
30 August 2013 - There's a lot to dislike in this piece (particularly its conspiracy theory tone), but it's provocative on the future of universities: http://thebaffler.com/past/academy_fight_song
21 August 2013 - It's (naturally) a very US-oriented test, but which famous US economist are you most like?: http://www.whichfamouseconomistareyoumostsimilarto.com/
16 August 2013 - Wow, is this ever depressing! How old are your ears?: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxcbppCX6Rk#at=26
1 August 2013 - The future of economic growth?: http://nymag.com/news/features/economic-growth-2013-7/. Interesting stuff; I remain agnostic!
1 August 2013 - In light of the NYmag link above, there is some evidence of social stagnation right here: http://www.cakewrecks.com/
24 July 2013 - The 'dark side' of social capital has often been discussed, but here's an interesting empirical look: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2289111
16 July 2013 - Some NZ reggae/soul: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8tMmtv4bsc&list=FLpIIqRzNer8nud7TXPN-6Dw&index=22
2 July 2013 - http://www.canberratimes.com.au/money/saving/its-only-plonk-if-you-look-at-the-price-tag-20130702-2p8a9.html
21 June 2013 - Julian Assange, (update 12/13 failed!) Australian Senate candidate? (starts about 1 min in): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FNalTBorYSc
14 June 2013 - Fantastic photos from amazing places around the globe: http://www.atlasobscura.com/
6 June 2013 - Economics: it's not exactly rocket surgery: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THNPmhBl-8I
30 May 2013 - I hope I never make this page: http://individual.utoronto.ca/somody/quiz.html!
24 May 2013 - Some useful (and free!) software to monitor your screen exposure time: http://www.workrave.org/