andrewducker | Interesting Links for 26-02-2025

Good stuff. Thanks a lot!

My pleasure!

3 Ouch. At this point, I'm wondering if the universities that haven't announced deficits and mass cuts are just sitting on the bad news or have royally screwed up their book-keeping.

Yeah. The UK going from "Worldwide centre of excellence, welcoming students from around the world." to "Absolute disaster area, constantly threatening foreigners." doesn't do wonders for our economy, does it?

Nope, though even before Brexit happened and years of Tories playing the White Van Man's favourite tunes, there were problems with the HE funding model and marketisation.

In 2018, an ex, who was a lecturer at a low-tariff university (which was/is being squeezed by more prestigious institutions expanding and nicking all its students), showed me an undergraduate dissertation that he'd been instructed to give a passing mark to. Two thirds of it just weren't there. There was blank page after blank page. As a jaundiced but instinctive idealist, and as someone who works in a support capacity for universities, I've never quite recovered from seeing that.

The international bubble was inevitably going to burst. The pressure put on universities to be commercial and to sell their degrees as a product would, if unaltered (and no UK government has shown serious interest in relieving that pressure), have led to a point where the degrees became devalued and international students stopped wanting them. Brexit and the years of xenophobia and the stupid visa restrictions on dependents have made things much worse, and combined with the increase in national insurance plus inflation are smashing budgets left and right, but the whole 'cash for degrees' model needs rethinking.

Actually, in light of Gen AI, absolutely everything in HE may need rethinking.

Another issue at the more prestigious institutions is that they tend to have more research going on and it's also difficult to get research funded to the extent that it actually covers the institution's costs in performing it.

But, yeah, marketization is at the root of much of the rot.

And I guess that getting research funded that doesn't look as if it'll have an obvious market value is even harder.

Despite the late start, he must have got it right somehow. Good on him! Bad sex and bad relationships are usually writing source material gold, so I'm guessing maybe he managed to get laid a lot without too much drama.

Great! I actually have on my to-do list to reread Consider Phlebas and Look to Windward, it's been so long I've mostly forgotten them. (But first I have a book about octopus brains.)

5.

The efficacy of Journavx was evaluated in two randomized, double-blind, placebo- and active-controlled trials of acute surgical pain, one following abdominoplasty and the other following bunionectomy. ... Both trials demonstrated a statistically significant superior reduction in pain with Journavx compared to placebo.

So Journavx is better than nothing (placebo), but they don't say how it compares with any other painkiller (active control).

I found a graph here:
https://www.journavx.com/

Seems to be about as good.

2 - "the data reveal no discernible effects for homicide against men" - I find myself surprised by that one, but I also guess I don't know how many of the 'elderly woman in nursing home casually remarks about disposing of abusive former husband' stories I've heard are actually true.

Maybe they were just good at hiding it.

A woman I know well says she never considered divorce, but occasionally murder.

She nursed him through dementia. I have no reason to think it was an abusive relationship.

*If* her thoughts are relevant, divorce isn't an alternative to homicide.

Interesting Links for 26-02-2025

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

no subject

7.

(6)

Better than nothing

Re: Better than nothing

no subject

no subject

no subject