I have been to many Nelson Mandela museums, and spoken with a lot of people who lived through the end of Apartheid. When he took power, both the black and white populations were gearing up for civil war. One guy told me that there were charts up at his school showing the likely kinds of grenades that could be thrown at him. Anyway, Mandela managed to calm things down. He might have been the only guy who could have navigated that exact time period. He did it through a series of policy changes, meetings with key leaders, and speeches. Entirely peaceful, but importantly, there had also been huge amounts of violence leading up to his release from prison and becoming president.

Did the racists change their minds? I don’t know. But the transition to the new government was peaceful.

Thousands of dollars for your books? Three books hardly counts as a collection.

I just finished marking student reports. There are some sections clearly written without AI, some that clearly are written by AI, and then some sections where the ideas are correct, the grammar is perfect, and it is on topic, but it doesn’t seem like it is written in the student’s voice. Could be AI, could be a friend editing, could be plagiarism, could be written long before or after the surrounding paragraphs. It is not always obvious, and the edge cases are the problem.

Perfect grammar and slightly unusual words in a paragraph. Could be a weird formulation from a student’s mind, could be AI. No way to really know.

I am nearly twice your age. Pretty much everybody has been through a version of what you are experiencing. Two things you must know.

1: You had a relationship that was valuable enough to you that losing it hurt. That is special in itself, and you need to consider the good thing that you had. Seeing a concert is ephemeral, but you remember the music and performance positively. Think of the relationship this way, also.

2: Give yourself time to mourn. Mourning is natural, and it is a process, but there is an endpoint. Many have walked this path and come out on the other end.

You are young, and you will have many more experiences in your life. Some positive, some negative. But your life is far from over.

Take a day, go for a long walk at the beach or park or nature trail. Cry, weep, wail, knash your teeth. Then move on.

South Africa doesn’t want him.

Yeah, that is terrible! Spending $50k on something that might be helpful or useful in the future! We should have used that money to purchase one JDAM kit so we can bomb more people.

A few years before WWI, Russia had a disastrous war against the Japanese, whom they had considered an inferior, small opponent that would be defeated quickly.

Time is a flat circle.

These are research grants. Trade schools do not do the type of research Harvard scientists do. It is the leading research institution in the world for many fields. Most of those grants are on the order of less than a million dollars and fund young, untenured researchers who will become the next generation of scientists. Alum sponsorships are almost always earmarked, and never for research purposes.

Stopped at re-entry to the US.

Just had a prominent colleague return from a conference in Italy. He was stopped at the border and questioned for several hours, making him miss his flight.

NASA is about to have its budget slashed, which will be devastating for space science. Private industry does not and cannot fill the gap. Please write to your congressman to save NASA and science funding: https://www.planetary.org/advocacy-action-center#/53

Yeah, defense spending is something like half the discretionary budget. Obviously the place to start when cutting waste, but not politically viable for arcane reasons.

I agree, we should help the Palestinians.

1. The Colour of Magic
2. The Light Fantastic
3. Everything else

You need to read more Terry Pratchett.

Of course, everyone does.

I am a useless person with a PhD…

Are they hiring?

Please write to your congressman to save NASA and science funding: https://www.planetary.org/advocacy-action-center#/53

Please write to your congressman to save NASA and science funding: https://www.planetary.org/advocacy-action-center#/53