Really good advice for graduate students

From David Weil at Brown via marginal revolution.

I would second in particular the notion of constantly subjecting activities to a "researcher cost-benefit test". Time is the scarce resource. Also, the way to learn how to write is to write, get feedback, and write again.

Assorted links

1. A virtual reality version of Second Life?

2.A fine sex scandal in the Michigan legislature. Plus more on the sex scandal.

3. Only two Howard Johnson's remain.

4. Fancy a flamethrower?

5. Things we used to do but do no longer.

Hat tip on #2 to Helen Levy and on #4 to Charlie Brown.

Jury nullification

Glenn Reynolds of instapundit has a new USA Today column on jury nullification to which I am generally sympathetic.

In addition to being a good idea in many instances, a jury nullification t-shirt is likely a really good way to avoid having to actually serve on a jury.

Musical interlude: Good Vibrations by the Beach Boys

The first album I ever purchased with my own money was Endless Summer by the Beach Boys. Great stuff, plus the studio footage is interesting in its own right.

Book: Writing History by Michael Bliss

Bliss, Michael. 2011. Writing History: A Professor's Life. Toronto: Dundurn.

I read Michael Bliss' collective biography of the Canadian prime ministers, Right Honourable Men, shortly after I arrived at Western Ontario, I think on the recommendation of my then-colleague economic historian Knick Harley. It was a great introduction to Canadian history that I still recommend to my Canadian friends and relatives.

So, when I saw that Bliss has written his memoirs (while skipping out on the Society of Labor Economists meetings at the excellent Paragraphe bookstore in Montreal) I bought it immediately and, indeed, read it immediately. I enjoyed the book a lot. It was fun to read about life in small-town Ontario in the 1950s and to follow the full arc of an academic career. Because most of Bliss' researchers consisted of books, each of which required several years of his time, he thought hard about which projects to pursue and which not to - harder I think than most economists, including me, think about which paper ideas to pursue and which not to. These decisions are described in some detail in the book

I would have liked to learn more about Bliss' actual research process, and about his views of trends in historical research more broadly. I suppose that is a way of saying that I would have liked a bit more of an intellectual memoir in addition to the personal memoir. But still, I raced through the book and really enjoyed it, including in particular all the bits about department and university politics.

Recommended if you are in the mood for an academic memoir.

Dean of Sexual Assault

A thoughtful and saddening piece on the transformation of the job of Dean of Students at many colleges into one solely focused on sexual assault accusations by a former Dean of Students writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education.

I also liked this bit from one of the early comments by "Helen":

"...I think that reasonable people often have a very large blind spot in that we assume, when faced with something obviously unreasonable, that if we just hold tight and push on, everyone will figure it [out] that this is insanity, cooler heads will prevail, and the problem will be solved."

That more or less describes my last two years, over which time insanity is 3-0.

On the importance of local (and global!) knowledge

This Hayakian moment rather sums up the internet.