Good morning, Anons.
Operating on emergency-only standby for the time being.
Plenty to keep me occupied this morning.
Should be able to bake some time this afternoon, possibly earlier, time and schedule permitting.
Will also report in for rally baking tonight if need be.
Happy to see we've got BV in the kitchen.
Got a feeling today is going to be good.
God bless, Anons.
I hope you all have a great day.
This.
Geofag here with a terminal case of academia.
The short term predictions are what bring in NSF dollars, and since NSF's budget had been slashed throughout the Hussein admin, those dollars had been hard to come by (never mind the libshits blaming Trump for the woes Hussein inflicted upon them).
As such, most grants that didn't have anything to do with "muh climate change" got chucked. More often than not, all you have to do is mention "climate change" to land a grant, but now that everyone's picked up on the rules of the game, it becomes harder to play.
Right now, most geo departments are gunning for young paper mills to replace their retiring/dying old guard - the only folks who could still pull down gov't cash with their name alone - and continue to come up dry.
The point/hope? With enough papers, no matter how badly written or arcane the subject, that shitpile of writing can substitute for clout or meaningful work, like it did back in the old days.
Unfortunately for them, all the sharp students see the writing on the wall and dive into the O&G workforce ASAP to tackle their loans, leaving the faculty to gamble on 1.) the real brilliant folks who might actually make good professors, 2.) the next paper mill who will burn out after two years and happily lecture for the rest of his life or dive into the workforce with a Ph.D., or 3.) someone who never should have been in grad school in the first place.
With the advent of President Trump, that writing on the wall has never been clearer. Academia may not be a priority at the moment (economy and border security come first), but I would expect a major shake-up some time in the next two years. What that would look like, I don't know - give me a beer or two later and I can try to hash that out - but I would not be surprised if we see a return to stronger corporate-academic ties (think Cold War, when we needed the best minds to fight the commie bastards).
Sorry for the ramble. I don't have any outlets to really expound on this, and baking usually keeps me preoccupied anyway, but I'm pretending to take minutes and this is as good a way to spend time as any.
Ding ding ding.
Impact factor has to be the most asinine and destructive thing to ever befall academic science.
It's gotten to the point where some of the old guard who simply refuse to die are preferentially taking on Chinese grad students in order to maintain relevance via the citation circle.
Anecdote time: my Ph.D. advisor had a really promising Chinese student come in for an MS - awesome student, decent guy, could very well have been a Chinese spy, who's to say. Shortly after that guy left, advisor got foisted an absolute brainlet who could barely operate an elevator, let alone the machinery needed for his own MS.
My advisor took on the best, they got what they needed from him, and he got the shit dumped on him afterwards.
Not the wisest bunch, academics.