Anyone who wonders why there are not more women in technology, not more women startups should read the book, A strange stirring, by Stephanie Coontz about the impact the book The Feminine Mystique had on America. Like Coontz, I read The Feminine Mystique and found it kind of boring, although there were parts that resonated….
or why, despite shootings in Tuscon, terrorism by the Taliban, the expanding concentration of wealth in the hands of the richest 1% of Americans, the implosion of Detroit and every movie Michael Moore ever made, I still remain hopeful. I was depressed this week, until I remembered The Black Swan and Volcano. The otherwise forgettable…
I really did not have time to write this today, but two articles I read made me drop what I was doing. First was the Wall Street Journal article by a Yale law professor who says Chinese mothers are superior because they produce more mathematical and musical prodigies. The reason, she says, is because none…
Las Vegas (twice), San Jose, Minneapolis, Seattle, Tunis Tunisia, Paris France, Washington DC (twice) , San Diego (lots), Santa Barbara (twice), Boston, St. Louis I know I am forgetting some places but that’s what they get for being forgettable. Regardless, for someone who was going to cut back on her travel I’ve traveled a lot…
A couple of nights ago, I had a nightmare. I dreamed that I couldn’t do math. I was having lunch with some colleagues and the bill was $24.82. Everyone handed me money and I had $25.67. I was trying to subtract the bill amount from what was in my hand and divide it by three,…
I have been abysmal at following the reverb10 prompts but today’s has caught my eye. December 11 – 11 Things What are 11 things your life doesn’t need in 2011? How will you go about eliminating them? How will getting rid of these 11 things change your life? (Author: Sam Davidson) There aren’t a lot…
On the front page of the Los Angeles Times today was a story about three of the middle schools in Los Angeles serving the highest proportion of students in poverty. My daughter, “The Perfect Jennifer”, did her student teaching at one of the three and teaches at a second. She said to me today, Mom,…
The reverb10 prompt for today was to sum up 2010 in one word. It reminded me of a kid I used to play with. Her name was Star, her sister’s name was Secret and her brother’s name was Arrow. She said that, after each birth, her mom opened the dictionary at random and whatever word…
I went to the Western Users of SAS Software (WUSS) conference a couple of weeks ago. One of the great benefits of this conference, more than most others, is the extent to which you see new people discussing new ideas. What WUSS is not For both statistical software and academics, I have found a diminishing…
Hello, world – It’s me, on my soapbox again. The latest straw was a discussion of articles in Science which have been the subject of retraction or “expression of concern”. According to Retraction Watch there are between 30 and 95 retractions each year. The ones you hear about are usually in medicine and the “hard”…