Is the broken link part of the mystery?
So he posted that the day after he ostensibly lurked across the street from the meetup in SF ...
This post seems to have a bit of format lossage as well. I'm sure the cleanup crew is on the subway.
Perhaps he finds the number of anal sex references unbecoming for a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. You gotta loosen up, Dr. DeLong! Have you tried amyl nitrite?
6
... I'm sure the cleanup crew is on the subway.
On a bike maybe, the local weather is great (and is forecast to remain so).
Also, he holds up Crooked Timber as a model of a place that keeps a good discussion going? I suppose it's true by comparison. Crooked Timber has the worst comment threads that I ever read, but the fact that I still read them occasionally must mean it's better than most of the internet.
OT bleg: I'm reading Graeber's Debt and told Lee about it, so now she wants to read it. I have a library copy and she's a slow reader, so that's not a good match. I told her I'd buy us a copy, but then realized I should ask here if anyone has one they'd like to pass along and what I'd then owe such a person.
Couldn't she get a library copy of her own? You could even go pick it up for her, if you were feeling generous. Or does the library only have the one copy?
14: "Couldn't...". (Didn't mean to sound antagonistic.)
I think it's the fact that unlike other blogs, where sufficiently long comment threads always devolve into accusations of Nazism, over here they become discussions of food or music.
(Didn't mean to sound antagonistic.)
Because Delong might be lurking, and I wouldn't want to frighten him away.
14,15: I'm just saying that realistically she's probably going to spend all year reading the thing. I have no problem getting library books for her (with her, mine or Mara's card, and that last would be best since the fines are lower for little ones) but I'm not optimistic that she'll finish it within the two-month maximum library timeline.
And have I said how much I love living two blocks from the library? It'll be even better when we have a wagon so that it's practical to get as many things as Mara and I like to and comfortably haul them back.
Why assume that DeLong's fear of meeting ogged dervies from something ogged did? Isn't it just as likely that DeLong is just engaging in some kind of racial profiling? Think about it.
I'm sure DeLong is perfectly comfortable around Mexicans, nosflow.
I just figured that he was shuddering at the length of the comment threads. Same reason Bérubé gave for not reading here much. He couldn't keep up.
Joe!! Hooray!
As for DeLong's fear of ogged, I would assume he was offered pie.
25: Too late. We're all coming over your house now.
I don't know that Brad's elaboration actually clarifies anything:
How many Unfogged comment threads do you read? They are all entertaining, but...
I think DeLong just knows what a thrill we all get from being scary to someone.
There are surprisingly few idiot blowhards here, compared to CT, which I find unreadable. Maybe it's because no one thinks their comments here are going to be seen, so there's less pseudo-academic posturing?
28.1: That's certainly why I linked it. I'm a sucker for flattery.
(I assume the scariness is just the sheer focused time-wasting.)
Now that I comment so rarely, I guess I don't feel like it takes that much time to keep up in general, but the barrier to entry requires, I think, a rather unimaginable initial investment of time and energy to learn the style, the players, and one's place in it. I feel like that took me a year.
(I assume the scariness is just the sheer focused time-wasting.)
Maybe this. It's frustrating to me that there's a lot more talking about problems that solving them. Not always, but a lot of the time. E.g., the healthcare discussion this morning, that seems now mostly to have died.
(I assume the scariness is just the sheer focused time-wasting.)
Yes, but . . . at DeLong's reading speed shouldn't it only take 15-20 minutes a day to keep up with the threads here.
Now that I comment so rarely, I guess I don't feel like it takes that much time to keep up in general
The site is less busy now than it was . . . you should comment more often.
I actually continue to be impressed by how well unfogged maintains the sense of being a functioning community despite the reduced traffic and the various people who have wandered off.
It is less funny now than it was, but I also think it's more supportive (particularly of the people who have been here a while).
Unfogged's the only place out of those five to actually have good comments more than once in a blue moon.
"despite the reduced traffic."
You got it all backwards.
31: They would have solved the health care crisis, but without an orange post title, it didn't feel right.
Yeah, I try to read CT, but the trolls get to be too much. Also, I don't think bOING bOING has a particularly good comments section. Sure, they moderate it a lot better than most places, but there's still some real morons commenting there, and their long-hold moderation times mean that you wind up getting 5 or 6 people providing the same answer to any question that comes up, which is the very definition of tediousness.
There is certainly a barrier to entry here, but I don't think it's all that high. Yeah, we've got our in-jokes, but it's not like most threads are chocked full of them. Quite the contrary, most of the in-jokes are just little asides that pop up and can be easily ignored. NickS is right that people are very supportive here, both in the blog and off-blog. And we have the best meet-ups! Lurkers welcome!
Also, where else would I find such an appreciative forum for my doggerel?
OT: Bike shop called. I'm in for a new chain, a new cog, and a new crank. Who knew bike parts wore out? I thought they just needed to be tightened up occasionally. On the other hand, it's been a couple thousand miles since it got any attention beyond chain-oiling, so I suppose I shouldn't bitch.
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Brit-bleg:
Anyone got any tips for a decent location for a weekend trip away this coming weekend? Southern or central England. Within a couple of hours of London, basically. We usually go to Dorset, which would be fine, again, but open to other suggestions.
Wants: interesting but not extreme countryside for walking. That's about it.
>
Judging by his blog and twitter roundups, Delong is not one to be intimidated by a little time wasting. Didn't he once mention that he realized he had to make a choice between his career and SimCity (or some such)?
35: right, sure, but that makes it hard to avoid the feeling that time is genuinely being at least partly wasted.
re: 28.2
I can't read the CT comments. I don't think it's quite as bad as it was, but there are enough gaping arseholes that I can't tolerate it.
(People not highly sensitive to what bragging sounds like may have missed the key feature of the prior post: that I have in fact ridden a bicycle multiple thousand miles over the last few years. It was subtle, right?)
40: I would ask what color the sky is in your world, but I'm legitimately afraid of the answer.
the barrier to entry requires, I think, a rather unimaginable initial investment of time and energy to learn the style, the players, and one's place in it. I feel like that took me a year.
Nah, people should just jump right in ... within reason. (I somewhat seriously mean that.)
Back in the day, there was a lot more linking to the archives in order to clarify various references; I know I read a fair amount of the archives, over time and in random fashion, due those helpful links.
As for the (shudder), probably comment thread length, sure. Why, half the time the interesting conversation doesn't even begin to happen until comment 200 or something! I don't know why people would be afraid of Ogged, who was/is kind of a nervous nelly, after all.
I have in fact ridden a bicycle multiple thousand miles over the last few years
All that pedalling, and yet you're in exactly the same place you started. Just back and forth, back and forth. It's like a big hamster wheel--you haven't really gone anywhere. If you didn't keep turning around, you'd probably be in Panama by now.
Civ IV
Oh man, if I could get even just a quarter back for each hour I've spent clickclickclicking away at that game, I'd be looking at an impressive shopping spree.
Nah, people should just jump right in ... within reason
We're expecting reason now? That's new.
One of the good things about Unfogged is that you're always gonna find people that make your own procrastrination seem not so bad.
Although, that's going to be true for everyone but one commenter. I occasionally suspect that I'm the one.
The barrier doesn't seem high, but I do think that Unfogged violates the convention that every comment on a blog post responds individually to that post as an oblique form of self-advertisement. (Side-eye at CT.)
44: you know what I mean. Recently, the number of days when I look back on my unfogged commenting for the day with a genuine sense of accomplishment has been dwarfed by the number of days I look back and feel disgusted with myself. That wasn't true six years ago.
Recently, the number of days when I look back on my unfogged commenting for the day with a genuine sense of accomplishment
I'm just going to sit and look at this one.
Seriously, though, if anyone can feel good about themselves as a commenter, it's you. Your plumbing alone has probably provided more utility to the world, calculated in rat orgasms, than anything I've ever done.
Your plumbing alone has probably provided more utility to the world, calculated in rat orgasms, than anything I've ever done.
My plumbing alone, Ladies. You heard the woman.
Seriously, though, if anyone can feel good about themselves as a commenter, it's you. Your plumbing alone has probably provided more utility to the world, calculated in rat orgasms, than anything I've ever done.
I'm no good at math so I can't calculate the value in rat orgasms, but I will say that I enjoyed this paragraph.
52: Unfogged violates the convention that every comment on a blog post responds individually to that post
Yeah, this definitely makes a huge difference in the nature of the discussion; blogs on which commenters don't particularly speak to one another (or do so chiefly in order to cut the other down) become boring pretty quickly.
My plumbing alone, LadiesRats. You heard the woman.
My plumbing alone, LadiesRats. You heard the womanhamster.
58: I just assumed LB was converting to a standard measurement, since the utility of any particular human orgasm can be so subjective.
I wasn't sure what exactly this all had to do with my wasting time commenting here, but I figured with such a compliment I shouldn't quibble.
ttam: try Welsh borders? Hay-on-Wye is v. well supplied with B&Bs and you would be on the doorstep of the Brecon Beacons, so as gentle or as tough as you like, for walking.
This conversation suddenly reminds me of the time my cock was bitten by a ferret. Good job, did that hurt.
re: 61
Funnily enough, I was just looking at the Brecons as a possible destination, so that's worth thinking about, ta!
Although, that's going to be true for everyone but one commenter.
Not necessarily. Your procrastination, to me, might make mine, to me, not seem so bad, even as mine performs the same service for you.
As long as we're talking about other blogs' I have to say that I don't quite understand why people praise Ta-Nehisi Coates' comment section so much. I don't follow his blog regularly and have only read the comments on a handful of posts but I got frustrated by the endlessly congratulatory tone of the comments.
I just start to itch when I read 30 comments that say, "I'm so glad that you're writing about this" or "wow, this is perfect." Obviously unfogged has some of that and it's way less irritating when you have a sense of the people involved.
As I said, my impression in based on a very small sample size, but since that seems like one of the stock failure modes of a blog comment section I was surprised that his are so often held up as a model.
You're right that there's too much of that at TNC's, but there's some actual discussion going on, and it's not hard to read past the mutual stroking. (And it's not like any good comments section is innocent of mutual stroking: we're riddled with it.)
The thing is that 'good comments section' is a low bar to clear: if there's anything interesting in there at all, and it's bearable reading to find the interesting bits, that's an unusually good comments section. I mean, we get props for being a good comments section whenever the issue comes up, and we are, but there's an awful lot of meetup-planning and injokes, which can't be all that amusing for the general public.
61, 63: I didn't realize Hay-on-Wye was within a couple of hours of London; for what it's worth, I have a bookseller friend there (a great and good guy) who goes walking everywhere in the vicinity and rhapsodizes about it. I can see if he has any recommendations, if you like.
utility to the world, calculated in rat orgasms
Yet another example of why America will never switch to the metric system.
This conversation suddenly reminds me of the time my cock was bitten by a ferret.
Go on . . .
62: That is not the sign of a good comments section.
ta!
Does this mean thanks? What about cheers, does that mean thanks also?
Ta very much, normal thing to say or not?
re: 67
It's more like 3 hours plus. But just about do-able in that time.
A hotel recommendation would be very welcome, if you had one. Thanks!
Yeah, but "thanks for this post" is a thread-stopping comment. I banned it on my own blog (RIP) because it guaranteed there couldn't be a substantive conversation. Well done. Way to go. I'm so glad you're writing about this. Yay. No evaluative comments! No wire hangers!
That's actually pretty much the whole story. I was probably 11 or 12? Sleeping at a friends house. The friend had a ferret, which slept in his room. At some point in the night, the ferret bit my cock. I woke up screaming. There was a lot of blood. The ferret lived, which was not my decision. I never slept there again.
The thing is that 'good comments section' is a low bar to clear:
True, true . . .
(At some point a couple of years ago I got to a point where I was only interested in reading familiar blogs where I was familiar with the references, the pace, and the general tone. It is always so different to go read any unfamiliar blog, particularly in contrast to reading unfogged . . . .)
66.2: there's an awful lot of meetup-planning and injokes, which can't be all that amusing for the general public.
True. David also gets it right up at 34, that the reduced traffic here has made it easier to maintain the community. Which has also shifted the tone and nature of the place.
I always wonder why people don't name Balloon Juice as a stable, ongoing blog community. They're (comparatively) huge -- apparently something like 3000 unique hits per day -- and the comments section is frequently an unrestrained zoo with not a few blowhards and a fair amount of sheer ignorance (sorry, BJ folks), but they're enduring and ultimately very kind. They have, for all practical purposes, a no-banning policy, in contradistinction to Making Light, which rules with an iron fist.
TNC and his commenters are mostly only good when discussing history and maybe occasionally race or class. Politics or arts, forget about it. Mostly stopped reading him.
I kind of wish Strasmagelo Jones would show up and troll TNC when he wrote about the narrowmindedness of people who don't respect star trek or superhero comics.
On my personal penile trauma scale, Unfogged comments rarely can even be likened to several ants biting my penis (painful, but easily ignorable), and only once or twice to the spider that took residence over the winter in my swim trunks (startling, demanding immediate action). Never do they even reach the cat-batting stage.
Yeah, I was never a fan of gushing compliments to the blog writer. I speculate that if Coates had had a bit more blog experience before he got big, he'd have known to discourage that.
(Later there was some speculation that the ferret may have been sexually abused by my friend, (if that's the right term,) but as far as I know that was unsubstantiated.)
Funny, I hadn't thought about this in years.
A couple of hours is stretching it. But it's doable in about three: just cruise down the M4 towards Cardiff, cross the Severn, then go north on the A4042 to Abergavenny, etc.
80.2 made me laugh out loud (thankfully my coworker just left to get coffee). I'm not sure why it's so funny, but it is.
I've had to quit reading all anything from The Atlantic, which reliably breaks my old browser. (No, I don't have admin privileges to download a new version, and I don't want to ask for a new browser, because I don't want IT to ever once think about my internet usage.) Why did The Atlantic have to load up with the fancy gadgets that make it inaccessible for me?
83: My situation is similar, although now I am usually able to read The Atlantic. I also have lots of problems with the Slate web-site.
A couple of hours is stretching it
After four, see a doctor.
71: Well, email sent to my friend -- I've no idea if he's even in town at the moment. Will let you know.
the ferret may have been sexually abused by my friend
Are you suggesting that the ferret was trained to cock-nibble?
Yeah, I was never a fan of gushing compliments to the blog writer.
But Lizard Breath is fantastically wise, right?
87: actually, yes. Or, no, but that was the speculation.
I was leaving that alone. Really, I can't picture much of anything you could do to sexually abuse a ferret. But I may simply be unimaginative: we didn't have a dog for me to masturbate when I was a teenager.
88: If you stick to definition 2.c, sure.
No, the guy had no idea that ferrets were so fond of Vegemite, completely an accidental discovery, could have happened to anybody.
Well, there was this liquid ferret treat stuff that he had. He loved to demonstrate how if you squirted some on your hand the ferret would lick it off fairly enthusiastically.
I really like the community here which is why I forced myself to overcome my online shyness to finally start commenting. I'm probably the opposite of most nerds in that I'm terribly shy online but would show up for an in person meeting with no/fewer qualms. I think I've been reading here for like four or five years?
Does anyone here read Metafilter/Ask Metafilter? If you like long-form comment threads and people that know too much/little, they're great.
Wait, the theory was that the ferret was trained to cock nibble, but yours was unfamiliar, so it went too far and there was blood everywhere?
Perhaps the most shocking part of the story is that you weren't allowed to kill the ferret. That seems like a basic human right.
Oh man, if I could get even just a quarter back for each hour I've spent clickclickclicking away at that game
I am deeply indebted to Sid for making Civ 5 suck so much.
I mean, you could have chosen to magnanimously forgive the ferret, which might have been the right thing to do, but I feel that justice demanded that you be given the option to destroy it.
89: Weird. I was assuming its cock-centered aggression was a form of revenge for the abuse. Training things with sharp teeth to perform sex acts on you seems... unwise.
(See, you just don't get this level of discussion over at, say, Obsidian Wings.)
I can't picture much of anything you could do to sexually abuse a ferret
Everything you need to know about the difference between male and female brains, right there in one sentence.
Does anyone here read Metafilter/Ask Metafilter?
Judging by the number of links, I believe nosefowl does.
No ferret killing! Actually, a previous housemate of my housemate had a ferret which (whom) my housemate's cat killed. I can't explain how that happened, but everyone was upset, there was a tumult of sorts, and people were forced to consider a variety of things -- mostly about cats and ferrets, the state of nature, and whatnot.
Does anyone here read Metafilter/Ask Metafilter?
A number of regulars and former regulars here do.
everyone was upset, there was a tumult of sorts, and people were forced to consider a variety of things -- mostly about cats and ferrets, the state of nature, and whatnot.
This reads oddly like a TV Guide episode summary.
101: In the state of nature, cock-biting ferrets are probably going to be rapidly selected against, even given the mitigating circumstance of abuse. I'd have been tempted to wipe the little bastard out, but probably wouldn't have. The quality of mercy is not strain'd, etc.
With contributions like those in this thread, I don't see how urple could possibly doubt the usefulness of his commenting here.
Urple's childhood trauma has been unblocked and he can now start to deal with his issues. For the moment he has a dynamite excuse for practically any disfunction.
Also, this is grossing me out, but I have to ask -- how was the healing process? My imagination goes immediately from "ferret bites cock" to "major surgery" but was it more like a minor, if super painful, cut?
everyone was upset, there was a tumult of sorts, and people were forced to consider a variety of things -- mostly about cats and ferrets, the state of nature, and whatnot.
This reads like the synopsis of a film that one might see on the Sundance Channel.
Whatnot is my favourite word: does TV Guide use it a lot?
Consider me amazed that 108 was pwned by 103.
I hope DeLong's readers wander over and find this thread, which will surely either confirm their trepidation or make them wonder why anyone would not be reading Unfogged.
urple is really an internet treasure.
94 -
I once very nearly overcame my inhibition and went to a Boston meetup at Charlie's Kitchen, but chickened out.
110: It was a near miss -- I almost went for "The Walrus and The Carpenter" ("to talk of many things, of tumult, ferrets, cats, whatnot, and cabbages and kings...").
I notice that nobody seems to be wondering any longer why Prof. DeLong might shudder when reflecting on Unfogged comments.
"so long as one cock-biting ferret is allowed to go free, all of us are in chains"
107: like minor if super painful puncture wounds ("cut" isn't really the right word). No real medical treatment required. Fairly quick healing, actually--good blood flow to the area, I guess.
You all make a fine community, and the gushing really is pretty spare. I don't find that TNC's comments section adds anything to my understanding of the topic (or anything else) but end up making the mistake of readin 25 or 30 comments in -- the once every month or so that I read anything he's written -- before I remember what low quality procrastination it is.
If asked to speculate on why this community seems to work (for me), I'd guess that while our front pagers are all interesting people of accomplishment, none of us regard them, I wouldn't think, as genuine superiors in expertise* or erudition. When you comment at DeLong's, you're telling an econ prof what you think about economics.** At TNC a professional writer about his thought through and well expressed exposition. I guess neither Ygl or Drum, for example, bring the same kind of expertise to their writing, and I guess if they'd been interested in creating a community -- rather than hosting one for commercial purposes -- they could have one worth looking at/ being in.
* This isn't really the right word. I want something that combines expertise with elitism. Nothing against Brad the Lurker (for example) but his blog's relationship to his profession is quite different from Dr. Geebie's.
** Some of you tell a math prof what you think about math, I know. I don't, and it's ok, because we can always just talk about ferrets biting penises.
"so long as one cock-biting ferret is allowed to go free, all of us are in chains"
This shibboleth has been destroyed with new serious, thoughtful argument that has never been made in such detail or with such care.
I try very hard to merit as little gushing as possible.
as little gushing as possible
THAT'S WHAT I WAS GOING FOR BUT NO ONE IS PERFECT, OK?
121: And what a fine job of that you're doing.
ttaM, I've heard back from my friend in Hay, who has a number of remarks. I'll forward you the email.
one of us regard them, I wouldn't think, as genuine superiors in expertise* or erudition.
This is absolutely correct. The key to posting here is being willing to post a lot of impulsive, half-baked ideas, and have them first get slammed, and then the commenters gradually piece together what would have made a fascinating post.
I once very nearly overcame my inhibition and went to a Boston meetup at Charlie's Kitchen, but chickened out.
The fact that half of Boston meetups seem to end in karaoke probably doesn't encourage the shy, I suppose.
In your case, Dr. G, we each jut have a standing and continuing gush. I'm sure it's in the FA somewhere.
126 me.
Someday Fleur and I will do the most perfect duet karaoke has ever seen.
In your case, Dr. G, we each jut have a standing and continuing gush.
Are we talking about the photos of my ass again?
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I would just like to note that both Mitt Romney and Ron Jeremy are celebrating birthdays today. Coincidence?
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Lambent Cactus should show up at a meetup, sheez. Don't worry, Lambe, we're all dorks here. Except Fleur, but she's very disarming.
Are we talking about the photos of my ass again?
I am assured by our resident IP lawyers that I own the rights to those photos.
130: That pair perfectly illustrates the "is/has" distinction.
Clearly Mitt Romney is the Hyde to Ron Jeremy's Jekyll. Have you ever seen them together the at the same time? I think not.
Urple, did you tell your friend that the excessive concern he had for ferrets was something he should examine with a therapist?
134: Wonderful to think of Ron Jeremy as the respectable one of the pair.
107, 118: Halford, if you're sorry that wasn't more exciting, perhaps you'll be interested in this link. I didn't read beyond the front-page teaser.
119.2: Unfogged is very good at self-mockery. That's not everyone's cup of tea. It's also not perfect. It does require a certain sophistication, though; you have to keep an ear on the tone.
Some time ago this place was actually considered intimidating, I gather.
137 -- I respectfully decline to read further.
Some time ago this place was actually considered intimidating, I gather.
I don't know about that golden age, but these days we have cock-biting ferrets. If that's not intimidating, I don't know what would be.
I think people were just scared of W-lfs-n being mean to them.
Hell, we can talk about physics any time.
94: That was a fun meetup. There was a going away party--for urple--that wound up there in the end for karaoke. Fleur kicks ass at karaoke. Blume is great too, but Fleur's was the best I've ever seen.
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Prompt: Why do you want to join the Honors Program?
"I view the Honors Program as a lifestyle and choice."
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141: That's always a danger, but that's where the sense of humour comes in. There's even a house acronym for it.
I didn't bother to read Blume's or Sifu's comment before posting. Fleur is awesome and non-dorky, but she's very warm and puts almost anyone at ease pretty nearly instantly.
Also, someone needs to tell about half of these kids that you're supposed to waive your right to look at a recommendation.
147: We always waived our right, but many of our teachers were willing to show what they wrote to us anyway. It's kind of sad that people fought to have the right to look at them, but everyone has to give up the right for people to take a recommendation seriously.
143: I think that was a different meetup that happened to end up at Charlie's. There was one a few years earlier that was a meetup at Charlie's; I'm not sure you were there. Nathan, Sifu, mcmc, and arthegall, maybe SP? There are photos in the flickr pool.
It's kind of sad that people fought to have the right to look at them,
They did? I thought it was a CYA legal formality.
143: I think that was a different meetup that ended up at Charlie's. I didn't sing karaoke at urple's going away meetup.
There was one a few years earlier that was a meetup specifically at Charlie's, where we got surprised by the karaoke. I'm not sure you were there, BG? Nathan, Sifu, mcmc, arthegall, me, maybe SP. There are photos in the flickr pool.
152: I was there. I don't remember whether arthegall was there. I wasn't drunk enough then to attempt to sing. My later rendition of "Leavin on a Jet Plane" was much worse than I imagined it would be in my head.
There's a photo of you that Sifu took that basically said, "Damn, that girl can sing."
Officially, I have no idea what any of you are talking about.
143: urple's farewell meetup started at cuchi cuchi.
There should have been an "also "in my 143. "There was *also* a going-away party."
Arthegall was definitely at the 2007 Charlie's meetup.
144, 147: I know you academic types take this stuff very seriously, but personally, if I didn't want an applicant to read a recommendation by me, I'd warn them not to have me write one.
The only time I was asked for a written recommendation, I was given sealable envelopes in which to enclose my confidential remarks. I returned the envelopes to the applicant unsealed, and told her to let me know if she had any editing suggestions.
Actually, now that I think of it, there was one other occasion a long time ago when I was asked for a written recommendation. That time, I actually did answer the questions confidentially, but lied absurdly in the interest of getting my friend the gig (which he got, and in which he performed admirably, as I knew he would).
150: I've been writing to Brits, and I enjoy mixing things up.
159: And then there are the people who ask you to write it and only lightly edit what you wrote.
I know you academic types take this stuff very seriously, but personally, if I didn't want an applicant to read a recommendation by me, I'd warn them not to have me write one.
Hell, I don't care what these kids do. I just think that they are unaware of a community norm, that you are "supposed" to waive your right to read your rec.
Also, I would be embarrassed for most students to read their recommendations from me, because it sounds like endless mushy gushing to an untrained ear.
I never heard of that community norm. Who's supposed to tell the students that it's a norm?
I don't know why so many threads here wind up being about the minutiae of academia. (shudder)
Who the hell wants to read his or her own recommendation (or, you know, not) letters?
I always said "No, I don't waive my right" because I thought that was the savvy thing to do. You know, just in case you're being secretly sabotaged, or you don't get the job because the person writing the recommendation confused you with somebody else.
Do not remember ever seeing any of the recommendations.
I never heard of that community norm. Who's supposed to tell the students that it's a norm?
The person you ask for a recommendation from should gently say "Young student, it's actually standard practice to check 'yes' there. Not that it's a very big deal either way, but most people expect you to waive your right."
I don't remember exactly how, but I did some highly unethical trick which allowed me to see the recommendations that my undergraduate professors wrote for me. I don't regret it, because those were just about the nicest things anybody has ever said about me.
Do Unfogged farewell meetups end with the the farewell-ee having their memory wiped?
If urple had a Farewell Party, then why is he still here?
If half the recommendees aren't waiving their right, it isn't a very strong norm.
Depends. If the half that don't waive the right uniformly get rejected (or more realistically, their recommendations are interpreted differently than those who do waive it), it's pretty strong. We need some more data here.
I've decided that as a method for choosing candidates for anything letters of recommendation are only one notch above bribes.
I think that I can rest my case...
I think that I can rest my case...
What makes you think that? What is your case, anyway?
I think 174 is generally true, though I think you can get something meaningful from specifics. "X is a great student/employee/ex! You should admit/hire/date her!" tells you nothing. If the recommender comes up with concrete examples with some detail, I take it more seriously.
I think that the recommendation I got from an undergrad professor (for which I waived my right and of which he sent me a copy) came across as somewhat meaningful because, in addition to saying nice things, he included snippets of his comments on each of my papers. (He typed his comments and saved them, then gave us a printout, it being the Time Before the Internet. Only prof I ever had who didn't handwrite his comments.)
Very small college, though, so he had time to do that.
Therefore, therefore, therefore, you are, you are, you are!
I would turn left off the M4 and go to south Wales. But then, lovely as Hay and the Brecon Beacons are, the seaside nearly always trumps everything for me.
I don't remember exactly how, but I did some highly unethical trick which allowed me to see the recommendations that my undergraduate professors wrote for me. I don't regret it, because those were just about the nicest things anybody has ever said about me.
Me too!
Do Unfogged farewell meetups end with the the farewell-ee having their memory wiped?
Eternal sunshine of the Unfogged mind.
Going to karaoke can be dangerous. One hears.
The beer the guy with the shaved head liked: Triple Karmeleit http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/202/656
Brecon is definitely the place. Start at the south side around abergavenny and its a great two day walk over to hay. Camp covertly, I am not due its legal
It strikes me that Brad the Lurker is one of the few people here whose anecdotes of how FERPA-waived vs. non-waived recommendation letters are treated (at least at one top department, in one discipline) might add up to something approaching data. Do you mind sharing?
Nah, plenty of nice places to stay (and eat) without having to hide in a tent on a wet hillside!
(I would also expect the non-waived penalty, should it exist, to be stronger at economics phd programs that for other disciplines--"if they don't understand the signaling game here, they don't belong in our program," &c.)
He has a name, you know.
There you go again, intimidating the lurkers.
Maybe Brad was trying to preserve the sanctity of off-blog beverage consumption decisions.
181: And we went to the same undergraduate institution! It must be a tradition.
the time my cock was bitten by a ferret.
Maybe it can be one of those logic puzzles. The guy with the shaved head like Triple Karmeleit. The woman with dark hair was seated two seats to the left of the man issuing jaw-dropping revelations. No two men drinking the same beer were seated next to each other. ....
Further to 181, 193: Mine had a quote, "Heebie will make or break the best laid out lesson plans."
Or something to that effect. Something about how if I was on board, I'd get the whole class going, and if I wasn't on board, I'd sink everything.
Probably the first comment from an ExoPC running Meego1.2.
Damn, tablets are like Harrison Bergeron as applied to touchtyping.
For graduate school applications (maybe TT job applications also?), I thought part of the reason that you don't want a student to read his/her recommendation is that often (sometimes?) it will contain explicit comparisons between the student and other students in his/her cohort or previous cohorts from the school.
Even if the comparisons redound to his/her benefit, it's impolitic to have those judgments out in the wild.
Probably the first comment from an ExoPC running Meego1.2.
I poked around with one--well, the WeTab-branded version--at MediaMarkt back in the fall of '10, but I can't recall whether I left any comments. I think I found myself too frustrated by the interface to do anything as involved as commenting. I was pretty disappointed.
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NYC commenters (Jackmormon in particular) have a moral obligation to see this piece in person: http://www.beautifulgear.com/2012/03/zidane-vs-materazzi-statue-by-adel-abdessemed/
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The piece on the wall behind the Zidane statue in that photo is made of burnt taxidermy animals. I also like the razor wire Christs.
I don't care about soccer. I say all NYC commenters have a moral obligation to see this exhibit. Art of the ancient nomads! And they say civilization comes from agriculture. Bullshit.
For example, I want a replica of this table for home use. So awesome.
re: travel recommendations [thanks Charlie, Parsimon, Asilon, ajay, et al]
The weather turns out to be forecast to be shitty in the Brecon area this weekend, so I think we are wimping out and spending Friday in London [gallery trawling], and then maybe just down to Dorset for Saturday. But Hay/Brecons definitely on list for next time.
re: south Wales -- yeah, we went to the Gower not that long ago. Maybe another time, though.
Why go to Dorset if you can go to Devon?
Why go to Dorset if you can go to Devon?
It's closer. And the Isle Of Purbeck is nice.
LOL. Fear me, Econoboy.
Why should anyone fear a tasseled loafered leech? Besides the blood sucking, that is...
ttaM, you are probably aware, but there's an annual Hay book festival, this year from 30th May to 10 June. As my bookseller friend puts it: no great program up yet...but there will be 700 events at main festival and the fringe one at The Globe in Hay should have about 300- that's where all the philosophers go.
Link, erm, here.
Also, in light of the current list of sidebar comments at the moment, I keep reading this post title as "I Didn't Think We Were That Sexy."
I ate very well in Hay and almost saw a hedge being eddered (never caught the farmer at work, but the in-progress state was fascinating).
"to edder a hedge"
Huh. Not familiar with that one.
"There's a divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will" is apparently a reference to hedging.
Q: am I the only person who thought as a small child that a hedge fund was some sort of agricultural improvement scheme? "Ah, 'tis Cradock's herd broke out of Stumblegutter's Field again. Belike 'twill cost the hedge fund a pretty penny to fix that hole."
158: Yes, I was there, although I did not sing.
hey sifu! nice to see the-house-that-ogged-built is still going strong.