Quickies
Quickies: Untested Rape Kits, the Postdocalypse, and Flying Through Space

On March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower was officially opened to the public. If you’re a knowledge junkie like me, read more about the origin story here.
- Man Who Raised Money For Organ And Tissue Donation Dies, Is Rejected As Donor Because He Was Gay – From CriticalDragon1177.
- What Makes This Substance Boil And Freeze At The Same Time? – A fun piece of science to start your day with.
- Being Raped In A Bankrupt City – A rapist in Detroit was recently arrested for a crime he committed almost 20 years prior, because the rape kit hadn’t been tested.
- Growing Up Homeless in Suburbia – “At her high school in rural Maine, Sabrina Gilpatrick is a normal student. She likes her classes, does theater and has some good friends. But after the bell rings, when her peers are driving their cars back home, Gilpatrick takes a school-provided cab to a youth homeless shelter the next town over.” (This story is a video, sorry.)
- A Realistic Video of What You’d See Flying Through Deep Space – Wheeeee!
- Scenes from the Postdocalypse – Are any of you going through this?
I realized some time ago that the marginal benefit vs. marginal cost of a Ph.D. over a master’s is not favorable. Marginal benefit of a bachelor’s over HS diploma is high, marginal benefit of a master’s over a bachelor’s is high, marginal benefit of a Ph.D. over a master’s is … not that great, but the cost is =very= high, both in terms of cash outlay and opportunity costs.
Academia won’t generally tell you this (for several reasons), and there have been many articles in the Chronicle of Higher Education on the topic in recent years. People really need to do their due diligence before choosing the Ph.D. tenure-track career path, but they need to be =able= to do this and schools don’t make it easy.
Anthroslug wrote a blog on Masters vs PHDs in archeology a while back
http://anthroslug.blogspot.com/2011/01/degrees-and-career.html