Thought of the day: Being a minority

The problem of women in science (or whatever you want to call it) is a fundamentally a problem of being a minority. Many areas of life were traditionally run by white, straight men, and even in the 21st century, it's very hard to break in. Being a minority is always hard. I've been on a sports team where I was surrounded by people were 20 years older, with families, and middle class jobs. The fact that we were all female didn't really matter much. Then I played with a sports club where there were a lot of guys (some women) but they were all around my age and studying science. Much better!

A woman developer gave a talk about making the developing community more female friendly and she has some good examples to illustrate what it's like to be a minority.

So what does it feel like to be a woman in open source? Jono Bacon, at the Community Leadership Summit on the weekend, said — addressing the guys in the room — that if you want to know what it’s like to be a woman in open source, go and get your nails done at a salon. He did this a week or so back, and when he walked into the salon he realised he was the only man there, and felt kind of out of place.

Another example someone suggested is walking into a sports bar on game night wearing the wrong team’s jersey. It can be the most friendly sports bar in the universe, but you’re still going to feel pretty awkward.

So as a woman in open source, it can be a bit like that. You walk into a space, and you feel like you stand out. And there’s enormous pressure to perform well, in case any mistake you make reflects on everyone of your gender.

So if you're lobbying to make life better for women in science, don't make yourself look like a man-hater. Your colleagues are probably white, straight, male, and speak English. They've never been a minority so they just don't know what it's like. Talk to them and educate them.

Link of the day: "Worse than the Cultural Revolution"

There is a lot of good stuff published over at the New York Review of Books (NYRB). No wonder one of my friends spoke so highly of them.

On the NYRB blog, there was a nice interview with Tian Qing, head of the Chinese Intangible Cultural Heritage Protection Center. He spoke at length about the tension between modernization and preserving culture. He made a good point (that is not brought up enough) that Western society had 200 years to modernize, something that China has been trying to replicate in a mere thirty years. Moreover, China is a national one billion people. That brings all kinds of complications. Taiwan, Japan, and South Korea modernized pretty well, but they were so much smaller.

I suppose it's inevitable that modernization would happen, but it's sad to see China's heritage disappearing. They held out for a few thousand years; should I think that's pretty good?

Link of the day: Bill Gates tries to save the world through vaccines

I find it demoralizing to read about the plight of the world economy, skyrocketing health care costs, and disregard for environmental and climate issues.  It makes me think that the only solution is to reduce the world's population.  Suddenly, those evil antagonists in movies who want to destroy everything don't seem so bad. Fortunately, I read this Forbes article about how Bill Gates is trying to reduce the world's population by distributing vaccines to Africa. If that didn't make sense to you, Gates felt the same way at first:

So in 1997, when he and Melinda first ventured into public health... they focused on birth control... The logic was crisp and Bill Gates-friendly. Health = resources ÷ people. And since resources, as Gates noted, are relatively fixed, the answer lay in population control. Thus, vaccines made no sense to him: Why save kids only to consign them to life in overcrowded countries where they risked starving to death or being killed in civil war?

The problem was that people were having huge families because so many children died in infancy. Vaccines drastically reduce the child mortality rate so that families can plan. The end result is a suppression of population growth. It's not obvious to me that this is true, but if Bill Gates did his homework and is spending millions of dollars to distribute vaccine, I'm inclined to believe in it. The cool thing is that Gates is putting his business skills to use. By guaranteeing a market for vaccines in developing countries, drug companies are competing to supply the product and this is driving the cost of vaccines down. Clever man!

Link of the day: Nun activism

Activism is important, but I've always found public protesting uncomfortable.  So I was happy today to read about nuns who lobby major corporations about social issues.  Check out the New York Times article "Nuns Who Won’t Stop Nudging".

Eventually, they developed a strategy combining moral philosophy and public shaming. Once they took aim at a company, they bought the minimum number of shares that would allow them to submit resolutions at that company’s annual shareholder meeting. (Securities laws require shareholders to own at least $2,000 of stock before submitting resolutions.) That gave them a nuclear option, in the event the company’s executives refused to meet with them.

Unsurprisingly, most companies decided they would rather let the nuns in the door than confront religious dissenters in public.

Link of the day: Robert F. Kennedy eulogy

A recent New York Times article mentioned a lost wallet found 40 years later. Among other things, the wallet contained a clipping of Senator Edward M. Kennedy's eulogy for his brother Robert F. Kennedy. The owner of the wallet could still recite the closing words of the eulogy:

Some men see things as they are and say why.
I dream things that never were and say why not.

The entire text of the eulogy is worth reading.

In these present times, we have become so jaded and pessimistic. I like reading about these brave, idealistic Americans from the 1960s and learning from the dreams of a nation past.

Last month, Robert Sargent Shriver (known better as "Sargent" Shriver) passed away. I was too young to even have heard of him. He was an activist for public service and the first director of the Peace Corps. I found the text of a banquet speech he gave at Yale in 1967. I was moved by Shriver's passion for a better world and his conviction that

Human life is too valuable to be wasted by war or by poverty or by indifference.

Ed Kashi and photojournalism

I went to an amazing talk by Ed Kashi, a well-known American photojournalist. He came to a) promote socialdocumentary.net and b) show some of his latest work.

The website socialdocumentary.net is designed to be a low-cost online exhibition for photography that emphasizes social problems around the global. Anyone can submit their photography. Kashi said that he was honored to have his work appear in prestigious publications like the National Geographic but it wasn't good enough for him. That's why he helped start the website.

Kashi also showed us some of his work. He uses a Canon 5D Mark II, which allows him to also record video. Kashi is well-known for being one of the first photographers to pioneer multi-media photojournalism. The first piece was about oil and poverty in Nigeria. Despite the millions of dollars being made by oil companies in Nigeria, the people there still have no running water or electricity. In the 1990s, Ken Saro-Wiwa led a non-violent protest against oil companies. He was found dead, hung. Now the Nigerians are arming themselves and trying to chase the oil companies away.

Kashi spoke of a terrifying experience when he was captured by the Nigerian military. An unspoken rule of photojournalism is that you don't photograph the Nigerian military. The boat guide Kashi hired lied and told him that the buildings he was photographing were not military. Then the military showed up and hauled him away. Fortunately, he had his cell phone with him, there was reception, and he managed to make one phone call back to the US. Since Americans (journalists, National Geographic, his wife) were aware of his situation, he was released within the week. Of course, he had no idea how long he would be detained. It could have been years. Kashi remarked that at least, in Nigeria, he didn't have to worry about suicide bombers. Nigerians only want your money. They don't trust outsiders, so even if you say that you are a photojournalist, they still want to be paid.

The second project Kashi showed was a piece on rapid modernization of India. The traditional energy sources are not enough to sustain growth in India and China. Yet, they have the right to first world conveniences like cars, refrigerators, air conditioning, etc. Kashi presented a short video clip of the Tata auto company taking over some land in rural India to build a car factory. The villagers claimed that their land was taken from them unfairly.

The third project Kashi showed us was about the dwindling Christian population in the Middle East. Even though most outsiders think that all Middle Easterners are Muslim, there used to be a large Christian population there. In fact, the Christians and Muslims lived in peace for a long time. Kashi told us that everywhere he went, the Christians said the same thing, "Every time you [outsiders] do something stupid like the infidel cartoon, the Muslims take it out on us." Now, most of the Christians are leaving the Middle East, leaving behind a very small, aging group.

I knew that photojournalism can be dangerous, but it was fascinating to hear it first-person. One of Kashi's most memorable photographs is a woman walking through her village, holding a colorful Shell (yes, the oil company!) umbrella. She's stepping over oil pipes that are running through her village. Kashi told us that even though the photograph looked peaceful, there were all sorts of things going on around him. People would yell at him "hey, white man, what are you doing?". After taking that particular photo, some people drove up in a car and told him to get in. Kashi had just been released from detention five days earlier and he went into a frenzy, screaming "No f***ing way!" Not all experiences are so intense. Kashi talked about trying to photograph a Christian family leaving the Middle East. It was a lot of work just to get a family to agree. Then he showed up at the house to find them packing. It was so "visually boring" and he didn't know what to do. Suddenly, one of the children crawled into a suitcase and curled up on the lid. Kashi snapped the photo, relieved. "It was like the photo gods smiled on me."

I was especially struck by one of Kashi's statements (paraphrased from my memory):

I'm so glad I grew up in America. People carry so much baggage. People all over the world are victimized by their history.

Nigerians hate white people for exploiting them for their oil. Koreans hate the Japanese for invading their country and raping their women during World War II. Then there's Palestine and Israel. It goes on and on. As much as we complain about America, there is something to be said for having a place where you can literally throw away your baggage.

Aside from his work, Kashi offered his views on the digital revolution. He said that the availability of information was a wonderful thing, but that compensation was a huge problem. He was having a hard time getting paid for his projects, and even self-financed them sometimes or had his wife to some of the video editing. Kashi said that we still need reporters and photographers to physically go gather information, interview people, or else a fundamental support for democracy will be lost. Something to think about.

Link of the day: High speed rail link planned in California

I've always loved traveling by train. If only the rest of America knew the joys of train travel. I was excited to read the following New York Times magazine article about a high speed rail link between San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Google News

I finally gave up on the New York Times as my source of RSS-based news. There are too many articles and despite their length, I never feel like I really learned more. It didn't help that the New York Times US news feed stopped working for me.

I've always preferred the Wall Street Journal's take on the same topic. I still get my business news from the Wall Street Journal, but now I get my US and world news from Google News (US feed, world feed). The advantage is that each feed is capped at 20 posts a day and the news is drawn from many sources.

Shady "self-publication" in Elsevier journal

One of the hot topics in science these days in the case of Dr. El Naschie, editor-in-chief of Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, an Elsevier journal. Apparently, Dr. Naschle has 322 published papers in the journal including 5 of the 36 articles published in the December 2008 issue (all self-authored). This blatant case of editorial abuse forced El Naschle to retire, effective January 2009. For more details, see John Baez's blog post.

Link of the day: 30 Days

I watched two episodes from the reality TV show "30 Days." Episodes from Season 1 and 3 are available on Hulu.com. The show is produced by Morgan Spurlock, the same guy who did the well-known documentary "Supersize Me." The idea is that for 30 days, someone has to experience a life experience very different from his/her own or someone has to interact with people he/she disagrees with, for 30 days. Hence the name of the TV show.

I watched "Minimum Wage," an episode where Morgan and his fiancee try to work minimum wage to support themselves for 30 days, and also "Same Sex Parenting," an episode where a mom against gay parent adoption stays with a two dad family for 30 days.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I found the episodes well-done and enlightening. I often read about social injustice or minority discrimination but good documentary TV like this really drives home the emotions behind the issues.

Quote of the day: Office revenge according to Peter Fisher

One of my favorite quotes from the Fisher Files (Sequence II, Episode 2: Screwed!):

There are going to be those situations where you are going to want to retaliate and in general, I counsel against that. Satisfying as it is, it usually doesn't achieve its end; it really doesn't make things better. However, if you feel that you just really have to retaliate, a really interesting thing to do, particularly during the summer, is, if the person has an office or a desk or something, get a fish. And depending on whether it's a large office, you might want a larger fish, a bluefish or something. A smaller desk, maybe a herring. Wrap it tightly in foil and hide it really really well. And what happens is as the fish begins to rot, there's just this kind of lingering odor which never quite gets bad enough to do anything about but is obnoxious. And especially if you get the right kind of fish, it smells vaguely human. Again, I don't recommend this, but if you really have to do something, this is a pretty good thing to do.
- Peter Fisher

Notes on Fisher Files, Sequence II, Episode 2 - Screwed!

Here are my notes on the Fisher Files episode entitled "Screwed!"

• Stick up for yourself when confronted with a conflict. Don't get walked all over. If you don't deal with the conflict, it becomes emotional baggage later. Not good.
  
• One way to resolve a conflict is to talk to the perpetrator. But be careful. First, meet at neutral ground (e.g. tell the person, let's get coffee). Find some way to approach the issue indirectly, rather than attacking the person or forcing the issue. If the person feels relaxed and not-defensive, you are more likely to get his/her real perspective. Keep the conversation from degenerating into a battle. It only gets ugly from there.
  
• A good thing to do before you confront the person or the issue is to seek the advice of senior people. They have experience with such matters and take the long-term view.

Universities as corporations

The more I think about, the more universities seem like corporations than schools. We've always heard that research universities want their professors to spend most of their time on obtaining grants rather than teaching or mentoring students. I tried to find some budget numbers to prove that claim. Here's a (very hard-to-read) revenue graph from the MIT Tech Talk newspaper. You can see that research grant money is roughly 1-2 times larger than tuition money in terms of contributions to the university revenue (over the past 50 years). No wonder Harvard, Columbia, and other schools are rushing to expand their science campuses. Anytime a professor wins a grant, 1/3 to 1/2 the grant money goes to the university in the form of "indirect costs."

It all makes me wonder what is the central mission of universities? To educate students or to act like engineering/pharmaceutical companies?

Current blog reading: hard news only

I've known for a while that I waste far too much time on reading RSS feeds. The worst time-sink was the New York Times, in particular, the popular articles and the headlines. As one of my friends noted, the New York Times has been leaning more and more towards soft news because unfortunately, that is what sells. People don't really care what's happening in Iraq. They'd rather read about autism or college admissions. Anyone who actually cares about world news will flip to the relevant section anyways.

So now my news feeds consist of the New York Times national news, New York Times international news, Wall Street Journal US business news, Wall Street Journal economy news, and Wall Street Journal market news sections.

In addition, my daily blog reading includes the headlines of physics articles, a physics blog or two, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Lifehacker, the Writer's Almanac, and a photo or two. I think this gives me the most efficient and representative mix of work, news, and culture.

Non-science daily reading

I try to maintain a balanced perspective on life, despite leading a demanding life in science. Most people I know, including myself, read the news. I favor the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The liberal tone of the New York Times balances with the pro-conservative flavor of the Wall Street Journal. In terms of depth, I spend extra time on sports (go San Jose Sharks!) and technology news. For some literature, I read the Writer's Almanac, which gives me a bite-sized amount of poetry and history (mostly leaning towards dead white people). Finally, I look at some photography blogs including David Kleinart (nature), Stuck in Customs (high dynamic range), and A Walk Through Durham Township. Looking at exotic images transports me to a new place.

Fame and glory

I recently read a New York Times article about teaching and encouraging women to contribute more frequently to opinion pages. According to the article, 65-75 percent of unsolicited manuscripts come from men. The idea that women should be bold and demand recognition struck me as both amusing and inspiring. I have to admit I fall into the stereotypical camp of women who try to shrink into the crowd and aspire to do "good works" rather than seek fame and fortune. But dammit, I'm going to change that! In my future postdoc interview, I will tell faculty that I went into physics for fame and glory!

These thoughts resonate even more strongly when I consider the recent Battlestar Galactica episode "The Son Also Rises." The President of the Twelve Colonies and the admiral of the fleet interview a lawyer as a prospective candidate for defending a notorious war criminal. Here's a rough paraphrase of their (hilarious) conversation:

President: "Well, it's so comforting to know that you're not afraid. You're not afraid to represent the most hated man alive. The question is why?"
Lawyer: "For the fame... the glory." [slight smirk]
Admiral: "You worked in the public litigation office on Caprica. You think you have the qualifications to handle a case of this magnitude?"
Lawyer: "I was born for this [deadpan, long pause] ... that, and the fact that I have a pulse."

There is no reason to hide one's desire for fame and success. Why not declare it openly?

Link of the day: "The Cult of Genius"

I came across an interesting post at Cosmic Variance about hero worship in physics. I don't have anything against Feynman, but I think physicists should publicize other personalities. Feynman was a brash, outspoken genius. How about the quieter theorists and the hardworking expermimentalists? How about John Bahcall, a theorist who studied solar neutrinos when no one took him seriously? Bahcall proposed a solar neutrino experiment in 1964 and almost forty years later, solar neutrino experiments were awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize! I would just like to break the stereotype that physicists are either showmen (Feynman) or wacky and "bad at math" (Einstein) or study cosmology/particles (Hawking).

Link of the day: Open peer review and bad referees

Over at Biocurious, Phillip writes about open peer review at Nature and PLoS. On the Reference Frame, Tommy Anderberg discusses peer review in general and complains about poor treatment from referees.

Link of the day: How to ruin your academic career

Do not bash famous people in your field in public places (like your personal blog). Or you will rue the day, as poor David G learned.

On this blog, I'm trying to stick to the convention of only criticizing myself and the vague selection of mankind whom I don't agree with.

Link of the day: Senior faculty intimidation

I'm pretty used to hearing about ugly politics in academia, but it's not every day that a Nobel laureate neuroscientist is accused to bullying a female candidate. For more information, see the following Boston Globe article.