Linkedy Links IX

On the purity of science careers; the waste of civilization and other assorted snippets... and a happy Feast of St Nikolaus

Go Krampus!

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Asperger's disorder is a subtype of autism, characterized by deficits in social interaction, delays in nonverbal communication and possibly also deficits in nonverbal IQ (such as on a test known as Block Design).
I'm really confused by this psychology study — the problem is that I'm getting it second-hand, and the source is a poster at a meeting.
People who suffer from Asperger's Syndrome have grave difficulties with social interactions because they have trouble in reading other people's emotions.

"the optimal staffing ratio is approximately three tenure track faculty members for every one full time administrator"

This can't possibly be right. Administration scales non-linearly because administrators inevitably start administrating their own administration.

When I click on the quantum gravity link, I get a "page not found", which seems about right.

@Bee - I think the optimum keeps you in the linear response regime, once you hit non-linearity due to positive feedback you go non-optimal, depending of course on your utility function... sign may vary.

@Ethan - fixed - link to press release, paper comes out next week.