From the Annals of Consumer Complaints: Boring Lectures!

From The Guardian:

Graduate sues Oxford University for £1m over his failure to get a first
Faiz Siddiqui claims ‘appallingly bad’ teaching during degree course prevented him from having a successful career

An Oxford graduate is suing the university for £1m claiming the “appallingly bad” and “boring” teaching cost him a first-class degree and prevented him from having a successful career.

Faiz Siddiqui, who studied modern history at Brasenose College, told the high court he believes he would have had a career as an international commercial lawyer if he had been awarded a first rather than the 2:1 he achieved 16 years ago.

QoTD

I am not a fan [of flag burning]. I agree that the American flag should not be disrespected. It's a sacred symbol that should be honored, whether it be on paper plates, or napkins, or banana hammocks.
-- Stephen Colbert [The Late Show (30 November 2016); the clip is also embedded below -- the relevant part starts at the 7th minute.]

Whistleblowing is Hard (and Dangerous): Theranos Edition

Just drop everything and read this absolutely gripping WSJ story on Tyler Shultz, the Theranos whistleblower (who also happens to be the grandson of former Secretary of State George Shultz, who was -- and continues to be -- associated with Theranos).

This snippet is from the section where the lawyers appear:

A few weeks later, Mr. [Tyler] Shultz was confronted by his father after arriving for dinner with his parents at their home in Los Gatos, Calif. His grandfather had called to say Theranos suspected he had talked to the Journal reporter. Theranos’s lawyers wanted to meet with him the next day.

He says he called his grandfather and asked if they could meet without lawyers. The elder Mr. Shultz agreed and invited his grandson to his house. The mood was tense but cordial, Tyler Shultz recalls, and he denied talking to any reporters. He says his step-grandmother was present during the conversation.

His grandfather asked if he would sign a one-page confidentiality agreement to give Theranos peace of mind. According to Tyler Shultz, when he said yes, his grandfather revealed that two lawyers were waiting upstairs with the agreement.

Links

• Avery Thompson in Popular Mechanics: 5 Simple Math Problems No One Can Solve. "Easy to understand, supremely difficult to prove."
• Jordana Cepelewicz in Nautilus: The Social Physics of Trump Tactics. [Published a couple of weeks before the US elections, its title could very well have been "Phase Diagram of Bad Ideas"].
• Joanna Rothkopf in Jezebel: Here's What Happens to Your Body When You Die [video; 10 minutes].

Links

• Christian Catalini, Christian Fons-Rosen, and Patrick Gaulé in Vox.eu: Cheaper flights and scientific collaboration

• Noah Smith in Noahpinion: Do economists have physics envy? (Part 2).

• Maria Konnikova in New Yorker: Practice Doesn't Make Perfect.

• Rhaina Cohen in The Atlantic: What Programming's Past Reveals About Today's Gender Pay Gap.

• Gina Kolata in NY Times: Lost in Academia: So Many Research Scientists, So Few Openings as Professors.

"Trump Begins: The Dawn of the Donald"

Turbulent events demand an origin story. To make sense of "Just What Happened?"

Here's one from the land of Stephen Colbert [Update (24 November 2016): It looks like the embed doesn't work, but this link works, at least for now: The Dawn of the Donald].

Laura Benanti, the Awesome

In these grim times, there's nothing better as a cheerer upper than Laura Benanti's impersonation of Melania Trump. Here are the three "Late Night with Stephen Colbert" shows she has appeared in so far:

Quotes

If you are going to use mice in your research, there are all these federal requirements that have to be complied with. [...] And yet, when it comes to your teaching assistant, [there is] no such requirement that you treat them in a humane way. [...] If someone has engaged in sexual harassment, or if someone has discriminated, or if someone is a sexual predator, they should not have access to federal dollars.
-- Congresswoman Jackie Speier.

That quote is from this CNN story on sexual harassment in science that uses Geoffrey Marcy's case in UC-Berkeley as an example. Here's another quote:

... Institutions are incentivised to protect their faculty.
-- Jessica Kirkpatrick, Astrophysicist.

Are kids natural scientists?

SMBC has an answer that you really ought to check out!

The New Yorker on the Deutche Bank's 10 Billion Dollar Scandal

As always, we go the extra mile to get you the juiciest of excerpts from the actual story:

Although the bank’s headquarters remained in Germany, power migrated from conservative Frankfurt to London, the investment-banking hub where the most lavish profits were generated. The assimilation of different banking cultures was not always successful. In the nineties, when hundreds of Americans went to work for Deutsche Bank in London, German managers had to place a sign in the entrance hall spelling out “Deutsche” phonetically, because many Americans called their employer “Douche Bank.”

[Bold emphasis added, in case any nanopolitan reader needed a confirmation].

In Memory of Ramesh Mahadevan

I am grateful for this break -- just because it allows me to say a silent "thank you" to my dear friend who is no more. I have lost count of the things he opened my mind to, my eyes to, my ears to. Here's one of them, in a different avatar. He would have enjoyed it too.

"Library of Alexandra"

Sci-Hub has been making waves. Such huge waves that the AAAS flagship, Science has taken note, with not just one, but three pieces devoted to the website, and its founder, Alexandra Elbakyan. This profile of Elbakyan is quite balanced; it might be because a lot of downloads are by researchers in the rich countries. The third article is an editorial by Marcia McNutt: My love-hate of Sci-Hub.

Here's a WaPo summary, triggered by the revelations in Science. Here's a cool analysis of the Sci-Hub data dump [Edit: here's one more.]

* * *

The title is from this comment in the Reddit thread on Sci-Hub from a couple of months ago.

RIP, Ramesh Mahadevan

Ramesh Mahadevan, a close friend from my grad school days, passed away last night. I'm posting a quick note here to alert some of his friends who are also among this blog's readers.

* * *

His hilarious take on the curious subculture of desi grad students in the US in the 1980s (originally posted at the soc.culture.indian group) earned him a huge fan following. Those of us who had the great fortune to interact with him personally also got to experience his sensitive and compassionate side. Personally, he has been a source of strength ever since we met way back in 1985. I'll miss him a lot.

* * *

Ramesh has been mentioned in several posts here. Right at this moment, his website -- mahadevanramesh.net is not working, which is a pity; however, his blog has some of his writing since his return to India.

An Illustrated History of Free Speech in India

From Gandhi to Arindam Chaudhuri is the title of this illustrated history. Absolutely great stuff from the Free Speech Journal, appearing at Scroll.in.

"... We [the students] ... declare our resistance"

When I wrote the post on #StandWithJNU yesterday, I was not aware of a petition that students in IISc and NCBS (and, probably, several other institutions) have helped in drafting [I thank Vishu Guttal for the pointer]. The petition is admirably clear, direct and forthright in stating, "By stifling their [Rohith's, Kanhaiya's and other such students'] voices, the government crushes not only the voice of students as a community but of marginalised students in particular. Against this we must collectively stand, and declare our resistance."

Also worth noting: the petition is available in many Indian languages.

Read the petition, and sign it if it speaks to you. [I have signed it, and I see several familiar names in the list of signatories.] Also, please do share it with others you know.

#StandWithJNU

These are depressingly bad times for higher ed institutions in India. If administrators were the victims of authoritarian excess in iconic institutions such as IIT-D and ISI-Kolkata, they also seem to be complicit in dishing it out to students at other iconic institutions such as IIT-M, University of Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru University. Politicians (even "responsible" ones such as central ministers) and news anchors throw the "anti-national" mud indiscriminately at students [sometimes with such epic ineptitude -- which would be funny if only lives and reputations were not at stake]. Kafila and Smoke Signals [Prem Panicker's blog] have been my go-to places for updates on the terrible travesty that has been playing out in Delhi and elsewhere in the country.

These troubled times also offer an opportunity to learn more about nationalism and its discontents (one of whom is a Bharat Ratna!). Also about dissent, free speech, their limits. And about universities, their mission. Here are some links that have educated me on these and related issues.

1. Siddharth Varadarajan: On Kanhaiya: It is Time to Stand Up and Be Counted.

2. Sangeeta Dasgupta: Umar Khalid, My Student.

3. Amitava Kumar: Hounding students is pest control? Big ‘mishtake’.

4. Christina Daniels' response to a speech by HRD Minister in the Lok Sabha. It includes a punchy quote [“Politicians are not born; they are excreted.”] and an insightful one [“Orators are most vehement when their cause is weak.”] -- both from Cicero!

5. And a totally doctored video featuring Kanhaiya Kumar.

Some more:

1. C.P. Surendran: India will pay for Arnab Goswami and Swapan Dasgupta's nationalism.

2. Gopalkrishna Gandhi: In Defence of Mother India, Students’ Movement Takes Charge.

3. Tunku Varadarajan: Reverse Swing: The BJP versus the jholawala.

4. Lawrence Liang: Ultra-nationalists make light of patriotism. Here's an excerpt where he quotes Mahatma Gandhi:

   In contrast to the knee-jerk declaration that any criticism of the government or the state is necessarily seditious speech, let’s not forget that Mahatma Gandhi had been tried under the same provision (Sec. 124-A) in 1921 for an article that he had published in Young India. In his statement on March 18, 1922 before Judge Broomfield, Gandhiji famously asserted: “Section 124-A, under which I am happily charged, is perhaps the prince among the political sections of the Indian Penal Code designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen. Affection cannot be manufactured or regulated by law. If one has no affection for a person or system, one should be free to give the fullest expression to his disaffection, so long as he does not contemplate, promote, or incite violence.”

   Gandhi was prescient in his sharp legal understanding of the provision and it is not surprising that his interpretation of the law is what the Supreme Court in the postcolonial context has also reiterated, consistently holding that mere words and criticism do not qualify for sedition and it has to be accompanied by an incitement to imminent violence. [...]

"How the Left Won JNU"

It's a year late, but the excerpts at Scroll.in from Rakesh Batabyal's book JNU: The Making of a University are interesting. Here's a familiar figure:

SIS had a students’ union that was active with Prakash Karat and a couple of active students leading it. Prakash Karat had returned from the United Kingdom where, during his studies, he had come into contact with Victor Kiernan, a Marxist and a great scholar who had taught in Lahore in the pre-Partition days. With a sharp political eye, Karat got into close contact with CPI(M) leaders like P. Sundarayya and E.M.S. Namboodiripad. This was the time for the CPI(M) to start its students’ wing and Karat was an ideal choice. He was articulate and was someone acquainted with the British Marxists who were held in high esteem by even these anti-colonial communists whose minds were not totally decolonized. His being from God’s own country, Kerala, also helped in befriending many gods in the party.

As soon as the Students Federation of India was set up, north India seemed to be within communist grasp. From the standpoint of CPI(M), JNU was like a clean slate where it did not have to fight it out with the likes of the Chhatra Parishad in Bengal or the National Students Union of India in Kerala or the socialists and the RSS in UP and Rajasthan. Karat’s popularity among the mostly apolitical students of the ISIS was an excellent opportunity to establish the credentials of the fledgling party and its new students’ wing.

With Karat’s initiative, the SIS union was amalgamated with the SFI-led union, which had come into being following much discussion and efforts. ...