Learning R during your PhD
A year from now you may wish you had started today. Karen Lamb It’s been a few years since I have completed my PhD, but thinking back, I think it would have been the best and worst time to learn R (“a...
View ArticleJonathan Haidt on Institutionalized Disconfirmation in Universities
He who knows only his own side of the case, knows little of that. His reasons may be good, and no one may have been able to refute them. But if he is equally unable to refute the reasons on the...
View ArticleThings that work very well with R: short scale (or: Fishfood ;-))
«The purpose of visualization is insight, not pictures.» Ben Shneiderman One of the things I’m currently doing is looking how to crate a short version of a scale. And damn, R is cool. Just playing...
View ArticleMotivation in Gamification: You have to get the motor started first
A year from now you may wish you had started today. Karen Lamb I’m giving another course in Gamification (see, e.g., this posting). One of the students had an idea for a gamified system. To keep it...
View ArticleAcademic Writing: Seeing the whole text at once
Sit down, and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it. «Casual Chance» by...
View ArticleHey, a good TEDtalk — The art of innovation by Guy Kawasaki
Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at...
View ArticleIncredible Poem (Text and Video): «The Hangman» by Maurice Ogden
«First the alien, then the Jew… I did no more than you let me do.» «The Hangman» by Maurice Ogden Ah, Twitter. I stopped posting, but the serendipitous findings, I wouldn’t want to miss them. For there...
View ArticleThe Gwen Novak Method of «Work eMail Interruption Free» Vacation
It was an easy walk to Gwen’s compartment: downstairs to seven-tenths gravity, fifty meters “forward” to her number—I rang. Her door answered, “This is the recorded voice of Gwen Novak. I’ve gone to...
View ArticleDon’t underestimate Ducks
“We are like ducks — we can do everything, but nothing well.” Student complaining about her lack of deep knowledge Students studying interdisciplinary fields — like media computer science — can...
View ArticleRecommendation: «The Fountainhead» by Ayn Rand
«Most people have read The Hobbit, picked up Lord of the Rings and have gone ‘Ugggh … if I have to read one more three-page description of a tree …’» Unknown My second day of rest provided me both with...
View ArticleIntroduction to R presentation (German)
Do not put your faith in what statistics say until you have carefully considered what they do not say. William W. Watt So, there’s another student-organized event at my university. Last year I did a...
View ArticleThe pathology of ideological possession
«The idea that something should be consistent, you were talking about the necessity for consistency in ideology, it’s like, I’m not hearing what *you* think. I’m hearing how you’re able to represent...
View ArticleGood academic advisors
«So you were an artist. Big deal! Elvis was an artist. But that didn’t stop him from volunteering for the military in time of service. And that’s why he’s The King, and you’re a schmuck.» Serendipity...
View ArticleRecommendation: The Rubin Report (esp. Dr. Everett Piper Interview)
Oklahoma Wesleyan is not a “safe place”, but rather, a place to learn: to learn that life isn’t about you, but about others; that the bad feeling you have while listening to a sermon is called guilt;...
View ArticleGreat Introduction to R (esp when you come from SPSS or the like)
Data science is the process by which data becomes understanding, knowledge and insight. Hadley Wickham I still love R, perhaps to the chagrin of my students 😉 But yeah, coming from SPSS (or rather,...
View ArticleRegulating citizens to the mean (with an SD of 0)
«Any social organization does well enough if it isn’t rigid. The framework doesn’t matter as long as there is enough looseness to permit that one man in a multitude to display his genius. Most...
View ArticleThe Right Kind of Wrong. Or: Using bad practice just because it’s industry...
«First, your return to shore was not part of our negotiations nor our agreement, so I must do nothin’. And secondly, you must be a pirate for the Pirate’s Code to apply, and you’re not. And thirdly,...
View ArticleFalse Dichotomies (Presentation Slides, German)
«– You’re familiar with heaven and hell, are you not?» «I’ve heard of ’em.» «Excellent places both. But essentially — if you pardon the banality of the metaphor — two faces of the same coin. And God...
View ArticleClimate Change Activism
«Science … commits suicide when it adopts a creed.» Thomas Henry Huxley, 1885 Seems like the climate change activism has reached my university. And no question about it, wanting to protect the...
View ArticleRecommendation: Steven Pinker: “An Unnecessary Defense of Reason and a...
“… so first off we are not living in a post truth era … why … why aren’t we … well if the statement we are living in a post truth air true, if so, it cannot be true, that is we are still evaluating...
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