Category Archives: Academia

Composing and typesetting a funding proposal using LyX (SSHRC/ NSERC /CIHR)

Posted on September 24, 2015 by

This is one of the geekier posts I’ve written, in the sense that the number of people for whom this might be useful is… small and they are not likely to search for it. In Canada, submitting an application to … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, GNU/linux, LaTeX, LyX | Leave a comment

Solving collective action problems is what society does

Posted on January 8, 2015 by

I taught an introductory undergraduate course in environment, society, and sustainability this past term.  We look at big-picture environmental problems from a mostly-social-science perspective. Early on, we started to compile a list of collective action problems of all kinds which … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, McGill University | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

McGill University firmly embedded with Microsoft

Posted on September 5, 2011 by

This is the nearly incredible story of how one of Canada’s great universities has become such a buttress of the Microsoft monopoly that it cannot even provide for a new faculty member the normal ability to send and receive email. … Continue reading →

Posted in Academia, McGill University, Microsoft, software | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Assistant professor teaching loads at the University of British Columbia (UBC)

Posted on September 10, 2010 by

Last year, in the context of negotiating terms of a faculty position, I found out that there are no statistics for just how many courses faculty teach. The university doesn’t compile (or share) them from departments, and of course if … Continue reading →

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Improving how scientists communicate about Climate Change

Posted on April 6, 2008 by

A great little article by Susan Joy Hassol in an issue of AGU’s EOS from last month listed a bunch of science words that should be avoided. Think about what these mean to a scientist versus in more general parlance: … Continue reading →

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