👓 Why I left Academia: Part I by Allison Harbin, Ph.D.

Read Why I Left Academia: Part I by Allison Harbin, Ph.D. (Post-PhD)
This is my personal story of why I decided to leave Academia. While sad, I know I'm not the only one to have experienced this. This is why I am sharing the story of my Ph.D, my dissertation, my dissertation committee members, my experience with the dean, how my defense went, and why.
A gut-wrenching story with a brutal ending. I’m hoping that multiple outlets will pick up this entire story and give it greater exposure.

👓 Why I left Academia: Part II by Allison Harbin, Ph.D.

Read Why I left Academia: Part II by Allison Harbin, Ph.D. (Post-PhD)
The two weeks leading up to emailing my dissertation to the entire committee plus my outside reader (a professor from a different university who also need to approve your dissertation, a requirement for most humanities Ph.D.s) are a blur. Every waking moment was spent writing, editing, and emailing drafts that never received comments, or even acknowledgement that they had been read. This was followed by proof-reading and re-writing my dissertation entirely on my own. This was nothing new. I had to email my dissertation mostly un-read by my advisor to my entire committee (a scandal in and of itself), because, as my advisor wrote in a terse email to me, they did not have time to read it.
The harrowing plot thickens…

👓 Why I Left Academia: Part III, The Aftermath by Allison Harbin, Ph.D.

Read Why I Left Academia: Part III, The Aftermath by Allison Harbin, Ph.D. (Post-PhD)
The next few days following my defense, or to be honest, the next few weeks, still feel emotionally distant, almost as if it happened to someone else. I felt numb, the dumb shock of the loss of my career, was, and in many ways, still is too acute to bear. I was in mourning for the passion and love I had poured into my dissertation. I was mourning the reality that my ethics-driven account of how intersectional feminism can-and must- be applied to contemporary art history didn’t matter, that it had never really mattered.
The academy already has some horrific problems. Those shown here in gory detail really make me want to vomit. This feels to me like it should be the equivalent of Susan Fowler writing about Uber in her damaging article Reflecting On One Very, Very Strange Year At Uber, but she’s writing about the academy. Somehow it feels like this story is not going to be damning enough or get the traction it needs to make sweeping changes where they ought to happen either at her former institution or at institutions across the world.

I hope that trustees at universities and colleges everywhere read this and push hard for change since it appears that the issue isn’t being solved at the Dean level. This type of academic dishonesty is rotting away at the structure that underpins the enterprise–it’s not just a small blemish on the exterior of the facade.

If you’re not following Dr. Harbin, I recommend her blog.

👓 A Field in Which the Old Devours the Young is a Field that is Dying: A Post about Graduate Student Empowerment by Allison Harbin, Ph.D.

Read A Field in Which the Old Devours the Young is a Field that is Dying: A Post about Graduate Student Empowerment by Allison Harbin, Ph.D. (Post-PhD)
When I was in graduate school during course work, a fellow grad student told me this anecdote: Just as their seminar had finished up, and the 10 or so students were mulling around and packing their things, the professor, who was nearing retirement, turned to them and said: you have no idea how much the faculty is afraid of you graduate students.

🔖 Homotopy Type Theory: Univalent Foundations of Mathematics

Bookmarked Homotopy Type Theory: Univalent Foundations of Mathematics
Homotopy type theory is a new branch of mathematics that combines aspects of several different fields in a surprising way. It is based on a recently discovered connection between homotopy theory and type theory. It touches on topics as seemingly distant as the homotopy groups of spheres, the algorithms for type checking, and the definition of weak ∞-groupoids. Homotopy type theory offers a new “univalent” foundation of mathematics, in which a central role is played by Voevodsky’s univalence axiom and higher inductive types. The present book is intended as a first systematic exposition of the basics of univalent foundations, and a collection of examples of this new style of reasoning — but without requiring the reader to know or learn any formal logic, or to use any computer proof assistant. We believe that univalent foundations will eventually become a viable alternative to set theory as the “implicit foundation” for the unformalized mathematics done by most mathematicians.
Homotopy Type Theory

👓 How Rachel Carson Cost Millions of People Their Lives | The Daily Beast

Read How Rachel Carson Cost Millions of People Their Lives by Paul A. Offit (The Daily Beast)
Rachel Carson is, and should be, a revered environmental icon. But her crusade against one pesticide cost millions of people their lives.

👓 Exclusive: Here’s The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google [Updated] | Gizmodo

Read Exclusive: Here's The Full 10-Page Anti-Diversity Screed Circulating Internally at Google [Updated] by Kate Conger (Gizmodo)
Update 7:25pm ET: Google’s new Vice President of Diversity, Integrity & Governance Danielle Brown has issued her own memo to Google employees in response to the now-viral memo, “Google’s Ideological Echo Chamber.” Brown’s statement, obtained by Motherboard, can be found in full at the end of this article.

👓 Google Employee’s Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes ‘Internally Viral’ | Motherboard

Read Google Employee's Anti-Diversity Manifesto Goes 'Internally Viral' (Motherboard)
"It's not worth thinking about this as an isolated incident and instead a manifestation of what ails all of Silicon Valley."

👓 So, about this Googler’s manifesto. | Yonatan Zunger – Medium

Read So, about this Googler’s manifesto. by Yonatan Zunger (Medium)
You have probably heard about the manifesto a Googler (not someone senior) published internally about, essentially, how women and men are intrinsically different and we should stop trying to make it possible for women to be engineers, it’s just not worth it. Until about a week ago, you would have heard very little from me publicly about this, because (as a fairly senior Googler) my job would have been to deal with it internally, and confidentiality rules would have prevented me from saying much in public.

👓 I am disappointed but unsurprised by the news that an anti-diversity, sexist, manifesto is making… | Include

Read I am disappointed but unsurprised by the news that an anti-diversity, sexist, manifesto is making the rounds at Google. by Erica Joy (Include)
I am disappointed but unsurprised by the news that an anti-diversity, sexist, manifesto is making the rounds at Google. This is not entirely new behavior. Google has seen hints of this in the past, with employees sharing blog posts about their racist beliefs and the occasional internal mailing list question, “innocently” asking if Black people aren’t more likely to be violent. What is new is that this employee felt safe enough to write and share an 8 page sexist screed, internally.

👓 Rich SF residents get a shock: Someone bought their street | San Francisco Chronicle

Read Rich SF residents get a shock: Someone bought their street (San Francisco Chronicle)
Thanks to a little-noticed auction sale, a South Bay couple are the proud owners of one of the most exclusive streets in San Francisco - and they're looking for ways to make their purchase pay. The couple's purchase appears to be the culmination of a comedy of errors involving a $14-a-year property tax bill that the homeowners association failed to pay for three decades. In a letter to the city last month, Scott Emblidge, the attorney for the Presidio Homeowners Association, said the group had failed to pay up because its tax bill was being mailed to the Kearny Street address used by an accountant who hadn't worked for the homeowners since the 1980s. Two years ago, the city's tax office put the property up for sale in an online auction, seeking to recover $994 in unpaid back taxes, penalties and interest. Cheng and Lam, trawling for real estate opportunities in the city, pounced on the offer - snatching up the parcel with a $90,100 bid, sight unseen. Since the purchase in April 2015, the couple have been quietly sitting on the property, talking to a number of land-use attorneys to explore their options. [...] if the Presidio Terrace residents aren't interested in paying for parking privileges, perhaps some of their neighbors outside the gates - in a city where parking is at a premium - would be. "I was shocked to learn this could happen, and am deeply troubled that anyone would choose to take advantage of the situation and buy our street and sidewalks," said one homeowner, who asked not to be named because of pending litigation. [...] the homeowners association has sued the couple and the city, seeking to block Cheng and Lam from selling the street to anyone while the city appeal is pending - a move residents fear could complicate their efforts to reclaim the land. The residents say the city had an obligation to post a notice in Presidio Terrace notifying neighbors of the pending auction back in 2015 - something that "would have been simple and inexpensive for the city to accomplish." There's a bit of irony in the couple's purchase. [...] a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court ruling banning the enforcement of racial covenants, homes in Presidio Terrace could be purchased only by whites.
An interesting case in which something that fell through the cracks may cause a bizarre problem.

Tina Lam and Michael Cheng have bought Presidio Terrace, a private street lined with expensive homes. Residents apparently had no idea the common spaces were up for sale.

👓 Mob Mentality and Toxicity in Academia by Allison Harbin, Ph.D.

Read Mob Mentality and Toxicity in Academia by Allison Harbin, Ph.D. (Post-PhD)
I’d like to thank the incredible outpouring of support and emails that I have received. If I have not yet responded to your email, have patience, and please keep writing me. If you are a dean or tenured professor, thank you so much for reaching out. Let’s keep this conversation going. We owe it not just to ourselves or to academia, but most of all, to those whom we educate. As of posting on Monday at 1:30, my blog has received over 160,000 hits. I am also now in the top 0.01% of the most searched for people on academia.edu. This is bigger than any of us know. This is no longer about the suspected misappropriation of my work, nor even about the depressing reality that legal action was brought against Dr. Mao by another graduate student a year prior to my own. This is now about how and why this was allowed to happen, and about the mob mentality of those in academia who refuse to acknowledge the writing on the wall.
I’m so glad to see that there are others paying attention to this issue. I hope the issue keeps moving forward.

👓 Lyme Disease’s Worst Enemy? It Might Be Foxes | New York Times

Read Lyme Disease’s Worst Enemy? It Might Be Foxes by Amy Harmon (New York Times)
New data suggests the rise of Lyme and other tick-borne diseases may be tied to a scarcity of traditional mouse predators.
This is really news? Researchers and abatement people seriously haven’t tried or studied this prior to now?