Viewing profile — jrells

So clean and beautiful! Paper and blackboards always leave me disappointed when I do graph theory.

I often worry that mathematics education is strongly supported on the grounds that it is about "learning how to think", yet the way it is executed rarely prioritizes this goal. Wha…

It is common practice to cite things other than peer-reviewed papers (at least in math). There are even citations for "private communication", usually meaning a personal email or c…

I deem my name to be a competitive advantage overall. I have never wanted to change it. I deem racism to be a problem, particularly because you can't just sign a paper and change y…

I only said it must be tough to face (non-mistaken) racism. I am curious how this is arrogantly shaking my fist, or is related to my political tastes. And I'm curious what you beli…

As a white guy with a (very mildly) African American sounding name, I have had similar experiences. When I meet people in person after emailing them they sometimes seem surprised, …

"Subhuman" is an absurd term to use, especially since trying to look down on others is very much a human flaw.

Isn't the blame falling to the pension managers who picked the hedge fund, and the victims are the individual pensioners who each have negligible influence over decisions? Or am I …

Fascinating stuff, I'd like to know more. Does anyone know a better source? I found the original article but sadly not freely available. This psmag.com article is thin and the grap…

> Other research suggests that cyclists may actually spend more than drivers at some kinds of businesses because it's easier for them to pop in often and unplanned. This is probabl…

There's a lot to take issue with in this article. Graduate institutional affiliation is huge because more and more research is being done by undergraduates, so top institutions can…

I could spend my whole life correcting people who draw an equivalence between legality and morality, and that would be a life well spent.

> She should be ashamed: she appears to have violated immigration, pension and tax laws. She is an illegal immigrant, and a shameless criminal, but why should she be ashamed? Braki…

True, this certainly skews my impression of driving in other countries. However, some of the examples I recall can not possibly be good driving in any culture (like making a ten po…

I would question the claim that Americans are bad drivers in general. Compared to driving I've seen in other countries (particularly India, China), even the worst drivers I've seen…

It's not about the price of Beyonce in particular. It is standard practice to shoot models without any makeup and make changes afterward.

I'm helping teach a math education course at an elite university. We should be teaching how to teach, but we actually teach elementary school math to education majors who struggle …

While I'm sure your knowledge is aggregated over many sources, are there any particularly excellent sources (books, documentaries, etc) on the history of military tactics?

I'm not sure there are any disagreements here beyond language. How about: "Try for equality, and understand that due to your own biases this might just feel like overcompensating."…

The Harrison Bergeron-ing all things is a terrible path and we should definitely encourage people to rise to the challenges of their environment, and celebrate those who do. But th…

A nice explanation of privilege. I'm not super fond of the term, since I hear too many people use it as an attack instead of a conversation starter. Its hard to convince someone th…

That's a great example, reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Barres

I like this article, but I wish it would do more to point out that high-education low-wage workers, like adjunct university teachers, are usually in their low-wage jobs by choice, …

The article says the hackers "can inject themselves seamlessly into email threads". Its hard to judge that without reading the specific conversation but I doubt they'll become publ…

I'm surprised so many people engage in a Soylent vs cooking debate as if there are two sides and you have to choose one. Recently I was cooking an elaborate dinner, starting early …