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Traveling to Venice today. Three out of three urinals--in three different countries--contained pubic hair. Never seen this before. What is happening to society
Best WTF story ever.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-41167296
Incidentally, we spent much of our evening talking about Tinder and my friend and his gf were both quite secretive about their first Tinder date :o
No mention whether it involved poo being thrown out a window?
Appropriate charities :pQuote:
Originally Posted by Loki
To continue with the theme of insane academic jobs in politics, this time with a British twist:
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/BEC886/fix...p-in-politics/Quote:
The lecturer will be required to give six hours of tutorials a week, averaged over each eight-week term, for Mansfield Politics students studying for the degrees of PPE and Modern History and Politics. The successful candidate, who should have completed (or be about to complete) their doctoral studies, will be required to teach the ‘political theory’ element of the first-year ‘Introduction to the Theory and Practice of Politics’ paper, and the core second-year paper ‘Theory of Politics’ (203). The ability to teach one or more of the following further papers in political theory would be an advantage: ‘History of Political Thought: Plato to Rousseau’ (215); ‘History of Political Thought: Bentham to Weber’ (216); and ‘Marx and Marxism’ (217). More information on these papers can be found at:
In addition, the lecturer will be expected to organise all Politics teaching for Mansfield PPE and Modern History and Politics students, take part in undergraduate admissions at Mansfield, and act as college advisor to Mansfield graduate students in Politics. The salary for the post is based on the second point of the Senior Tutors’ Stipendiary Lecturer scale, currently £13,415 for the six-hour post. The post carries full dining rights, a £500 research allowance and the use of a teaching room in college.
And this is Oxford. Which apparently pays 13k a year for the honor of being a lecturer, tutor, admissions officer, program officer, and graduate advisor.
Twitter Link
This is so goddamn' creepy.
I will never understand why people choose to live on islands, or boats. They're basically trapped, living between weather's folly and emergency responders. Ditto for cruise ships. Why these things are posed as vacations or paradise, and millions of people believe it, and buy into it, I'll never fully comprehend
btw, whatever happened to Illusions?
He has a Donald Trump bobblehead next to the photos.
WTF?
I get why he does it...it is a shallow reason...but I get it.
So I was part of an event here (along with several other faculty), and the organizers invited a Dem and Rep lawmaker to take part. The Rep googled my name, saw that I had criticized Trump (not the GOP, mind you), and wrote a page-long email rant about the evil that is academia and how he refuses to be in the same room as liberal elites.
Post it! Send it to wapo and vox and Twitter.
I wonder if that same lawmaker is also likes to spend hours going on about safe-spaces, calls people over-sensitive, snowflakes etc?
I think it's pretty likely.
According to the Dem, the GOP passed a bill banning safe spaces on college campuses.
This guy is on the education committee. He seems petty enough that he'd try to defund the college. Plus these people welcome the free publicity.
I know a joke about how Republicans are like snowflakes:
*clears throat*
They're white, cold, and if you get enough of them together they shut down public schools.
:):up:
Another story from the Dem. A GOP committee chair was holding hearings on rape on college campuses. Right before the hearing started, he warned the women about to testify that they should leave if they expect a safe space instead of a hyper-aggressive zone. When told this might make the news, he laughed and said he hopes it makes the NY Times so he could send the story to his constituents.
Don't Oxford have 30 academic weeks a year? Dividing that salary by 30 weeks and by 6 hours per week which they keep repeating means getting paid at approximately £75 per hour. £75 per hour is not a bad rate for someone who is still studying themselves on their doctorate. Even if there's three extra hours per week for the other stuff which they're repeatedly implying there isn't then that still works out at £50 per hour.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Those six hours per week require a lot of additional work to prepare and to assess. I'm sure someone will be interested.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
The job requires:Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Teaching 2 year-long theory classes. Depending on the person's experience, that's anywhere between 5-10 hours a week in preparation, 2-3 hours a week in lecturing, and another hour in grading.
6 hours of tutorials a week means not only spending those 6 hours, but also preparing for them. Add a few more hours for that.
Ability to teach other classes suggests they might want the person to teach another class. Add another 8-14 hours for that.
Advisor to grad students is easily 5-10 hours a week.
Undergrad admissions could eat up as many as 40 hours a week, though only for perhaps a month a year.
The person is also expected to do research, since there's no chance in hell of them ever getting another job otherwise. That's a solid 5-10 hours a week during term-time, and 20-30 hours a week during the "vacation"
So what you're looking at is a full-time job requiring working 40-50 hours a week for 2/3 of the year, and perhaps 20-30 hours a week the rest of the time. For that, the person is getting paid 1/3 less than someone flipping burgers at McDonald's. And this after having completed (or about to complete) their Ph.D.
Sorry but being expected to do research is part and parcel of being a PhD student already it is literally a key part of why they are a student in the first place. You can't count that as work unless you think all PhD students should get paid. Nor can you include another class hours that you've randomly thrown in because if they were teaching another class they'd get paid for that class too. The job is for this class only.
The rest of the time I think is an exaggeration too but even including that your numbers still don't remotely add up.
Assuming the student is 25 plus they'd get £7.50 per hour for a minimum wage job (less if younger). To be "one third less" than what someone flipping burgers makes the person flipping burgers would need to be working 90 hours per week if we look at a 30 week term time. Working steady shifts for 52 weeks of a year they'd need to be working roughly 52 hours a week.
Ooh I'd misread the article too. The article specifically says the job is for each eight week term. That means 24 weeks. So they're getting paid £558.96 per week for what is being posted as a six hour per week job. £93.16 per hour.
For it to be a third less than a "burger flipper" gets the burger flipper would need to be over 25 and working 112 hours per week. If you include the additional £500 research allowance the burger flipper would need to be working over 116 hours per week.
The PhD research is essentially a requirement for this job and it should therefore be counted.
The student already has or is completing the PhD so it should not be counted. An employer is never obligated to pay for what someone already has.
Wait, what? Whether the person is a Ph.D. student or not (the job ad suggests the person should already have the Ph.D.), they're not a student at Oxford. Oxford is getting an employee. The job is a fixed-term lectureship. Research is a key part of being a lecturer. Each university in Britain gets judged on the quantity of its research. This has a major impact on funding decisions.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Yeah, it's not like I actually do things or anything. Or work in the same field.Quote:
The rest of the time I think is an exaggeration too but even including that your numbers still don't remotely add up.
You seem to have no idea what research is. Do you actually think research means writing a dissertation and then chilling for the rest of your career?Quote:
The student already has or is completing the PhD so it should not be counted. An employer is never obligated to pay for what someone already has.
Ok, let's start with 24 weeks for teaching. Add 2-3 weeks for giving and grading exams. Another 3-4 for admissions. Another few weeks for preparing syllabi. Closer to 32 weeks now. And you're fully expected to do research the rest of the time. If you don't, you don't get retained and you don't get hired elsewhere. :bored:Quote:
That means 24 weeks. So they're getting paid £558.96 per week for what is being posted as a six hour per week job. £93.16 per hour.
On a side note over here PHD students in at least STEM fields (probably other fields as well but not 100% sure) are paid, as they are working 40+ hours a week for the university (research in the labs, teaching, grading etc.). Not an excellent pay but not bad either.
The job is getting posted as a part-time 6 hour a week for 24 weeks post not a full time permanent post.Quote:
Originally Posted by Loki
Yeah its not like you're the first person in a field to think that he and his colleagues deserve more money. Funny how everyone thinks they're undervalued and nobody ever says how overpaid they are.Quote:
Yeah, it's not like I actually do things or anything. Or work in the same field.
We'll see if they're unable to find someone to fill the vacancy. Something tells me they will be able to which means the free market thinks it isn't underpaid.
No I think its not part of the job description, because its not.Quote:
You seem to have no idea what research is. Do you actually think research means writing a dissertation and then chilling for the rest of your career?
So you can maybe shift that £93.16 per hour based on the universities job description down to say £70 an hour. Good look finding a McDonalds burger flipper on 50% more than that like you claimed!Quote:
Ok, let's start with 24 weeks for teaching. Add 2-3 weeks for giving and grading exams. Another 3-4 for admissions. Another few weeks for preparing syllabi. Closer to 32 weeks now. And you're fully expected to do research the rest of the time. If you don't, you don't get retained and you don't get hired elsewhere. :bored:
Yes, that's what they posted. If you think that's actually a number reflecting reality I've got some bottom land to sell to you.Quote:
Originally Posted by RandBlade
Just don't ask what's it on the bottom of.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DLuaRLrVAAAqgrv.jpg
Why not just use an "I am not a robot" checkbox?
Alternative: play the score faster. Even faster than its creator meant for it to be played. And see what happens. New story problem.
I heard a thing on the radio where Beethoven's 5th was played at extreme speeds. Not by bots, but real people who'd been "trained" to think/play a certain way (with limits) and were amazed and gratified by challenging speed once thought impossible. As a listener it didn't make much difference, but I did get a kick out of classical music played by people actually strumming instruments, instead of computers doing the work. It still sounded good, just different.
http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/866...t-restrictions
This country. Jesus.
I realized that a large part of my home ownership mentality surrounded around collecting stuff, and having space to store that stuff. Now that I'm downsizing, cleaning out my basement and garage, and moving to an apartment....it's amazing the amount of stuff that's now become irrelevant (snow shovels, water hoses and garden hoes) that used to need space. Even the oversized 2 car garage is a WTF moment.
"Scientists raise alarm: bananas can cause EU"Quote:
Originally Posted by Aimless
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-oxfordshire-42070712Quote:
An Oxford graduate's failure to get a top degree cost him a lucrative legal career, the High Court has heard.
Faiz Siddiqui alleges "inadequate" teaching on his modern history course resulted in him getting a low upper second degree in June 2000.
He blames staff being absent on sabbatical leave and is suing the university for £1m.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DPhX_N_V4AAxqaz.jpg:large
That time where taxation actually was theft