The EpsilonBee is a bilingual site about current events, politics, history, gossip and whatever.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
The 1% Have a Stranglehold on Politics: New Al Jazeera Documentary Sheds Light on the Koch Brothers
The 1% Have a Stranglehold on Politics: New Al Jazeera Documentary Sheds Light on the Koch Brothers: pAl Jazeera released a new mini-documentary yesterday on the Koch Brothers — the multi-billionare energy tycoons who have spent over $50 million on campaigns to tear down the science of climate change and clean energy policy. The documentary features a lengthy interview with our colleague Lee Fang, an investigative reporter with Think Progress, who has [...]/p
Saturday, October 29, 2011
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Saturday, October 22, 2011
Monday, October 17, 2011
Springer-Verlag is fucking things up
I'm in the process of publishing a book with Springer Verlag. This supposedly reputable organization sent my manuscript to a crew in India and I am now reaping the bitter fruits of out-sourcing. This crew butchered my manuscript in a severe fashion. They replaced many of my formulations with grammatically incorrect ones, and more importantly, they willy-nilly changed words, affecting the mathematical meaning of my statements. They destroyed in 6 weeks what it took me more than a year to build. Out-sourcing may destroy in several short years a reputation that took Springer many long decades to build. Welcome the the new era of cheap substitutes for quality!
Why the Math Sciences are about to be screwed by the Federal Government
Recently, the American Mathematical Society informed its members about a proposed name change at the NSF. The Division of Math Sciences is no be renamed the Division of Math Sciences and Statistics. I'm pretty pissed off about about this and here is what I wrote.
I read with profound worry the proposed name change for the current Division of Mathematical Sciences. I was under the impression that all branches of mathematical research were equal, but this proposed name change has a whiff of an Orwellian ``but some branches are more equal than others''.
I read with profound worry the proposed name change for the current Division of Mathematical Sciences. I was under the impression that all branches of mathematical research were equal, but this proposed name change has a whiff of an Orwellian ``but some branches are more equal than others''.
The new name will change the social perception (read Congress' perception) of the purpose of this division of the NSF. The practical effect of this will be an ``equitable'' partition of resources between Mathematical Sciences and Statistics with damaging consequences to the mathematical community and research.
If anybody doubts of the plausibility of this scenario I would point him or her to the recent troubling events from UK. In that case, the ``equitable'' partition of resources took the form of a skewed allocation of postdoctoral positions, with a complete bias towards statistics. This prompted a public reaction from the British mathematical community that took the form of an open letter to the Prime Minister( for details see this recent article from The Guardian)
The fact that the British mathematical community had a public reaction is a telling fact in itself because we mathematicians tend to no get involved, even when our interests are at stake. I think that the American Mathematical Society ought to state clearly and publicly its position on this issue and I sincerely hope that the AMS will oppose such a name change.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Monday, October 10, 2011
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)