Agent of Chaos

Fail Better: Why Your Rejections Will Shape You More Than Your Publications The Art of Learning from Rejection

Every academic career is built on rejection, but we don’t show it.

CVs list publications, grants & awards, not rejected manuscripts, unfunded proposals, or failures.

But those invisible rejections shape us more than our successes ever do.

👉 catherineeunicedevries.substack.com/p/fail-bette...

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Post Doctoral Research Assistant - 1160-25 Thinking of the next step in your career? Take a look at our exciting new role, Post Doctoral Research Assistant based at our Other. Find out more and apply he…

I'm hiring! 4 year post doc on my Wellcome Trust grant -- come be inventive about isotopes in teeth with me in PPN Turkiye :) www.lancashire.ac.uk/jobs/post-do...

please share!

Project Curator: Hidden Stories of Childhood Greece and Rome; Egypt and Sudan Full-time: 41 hours per week (including one hour paid lunch break) Fixed term for 12 months £36,396 per annum Application deadline: 12pm (midday) on 17 October 2025

British Museum Role: Project Curator: Hidden Stories of Childhood, Closing date: 17th October, Project Curator to undertake research and make publicly accessible the life stage of childhood via the Museum’s collections

bmrecruit.ciphr-irecruit.com//templates/C...

They should do a Colombian remake of Scooby Doo where the gang brings Pablo Escobar to justice and he says "And I would have gotten away with it too, if it weren't for you Medellín kids"

Assistant Professor of Archaeology - Penn State - HBES The Department of Anthropology at The Pennsylvania State University, University Park (https://anth.la.psu.edu/) invites applications for a full-time tenure-track position, at the rank of Assistant…

📢 Job opening: Penn State Anthropology is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Archaeology
Focus: sociopolitical stratification, human–environment interactions, & evolutionary variability.
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NEW: There’s a disaster unfolding in Alaska right now. And no major network is covering it.

The remnants of Typhoon Halong battered western Alaska overnight. Homes, with people in them, have literally been swept into the Bering Strait.

At least 20 are missing. No comment from any federal agency.

yearly reminder to people insisting that we view Christopher Columbus as "a man of his time" that *the people responsible for the Spanish Inquisition* thought Columbus was out of pocket

Connections
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THAMES mnemonic for reading science: T Theory •What BIG IDEA is the focus? H Hypothesis •What SMALLER IDEA is actually getting tested? A Assumptions & Alternatives •What needs to be true to connect T:H? •What else could explain results/predictions? M Methods: Measures & Manipulations •Were methodological tools validated? •Evidence that we’re measuring/manip what’s claimed? E Evidence & Ethics •Are claims calibrated to EVIDENCE? Is EVIDENCE appropriate? •ETHICALLY sound in practice/intent/implication/application? S Sampling Statistical Model •Who was studied? Who are claims about? •Do stat results match verbal ideas?

Teaching a fun science & critical thinking course this semester.

Trying out THAMES as a handy mnemonic for what to look for in evaluating science papers & such (obvs not all are as relevant for every paper)...

If I have to explain to you why it's a bad idea to use a machine that makes shit up 15-80% of the time AND destroys the environment AND contributes to rising fascism and genocide AND puts brilliant skillful creatives out of work by stealing their work, then we're already speaking different languages

This is what is left of Khan Younis, southern Gaza.

Virgo: You are destined to become the best in your chosen profession, in a last person alive sort of way.

"The World of the Dark Crystal" documentary (1983, 1 hour) is available for free on Youtube.
>> www.catsuka.com/breves/2025-...

The lifelong psychological trauma of this destruction on those who have survived is beyond comprehension.

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Accurate.

#academia #academy #philsky #philosophysky #philosophy #science

Ukrainian power grid workers are actually superhuman btw

Fantastic 🧵 that both celebrates Jane Goodall AND reminds us that she did not work alone & the contributions of the locals she’d relied on to do her research are so often overlooked and ignored.

Decolonizing science does not minimalize those who inspire us; it gives more from whom to be inspired.

Here I am. Once again. I'm out of archaeologists.

We matched 576 groups w/archaeologists, leaving 13 groups unmatched. This brings me pain! We've never run out of scientists like this before. 598 requests for one category is A LOT. But still.

Archaeologists 🥺
www.skypeascientist.com/sign-up.html

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Phew indeed
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South Gaza: Tents, Food & Water **With Famine on the rise, we will significantly lower tent purchases and focus on food (rice and bread) and water over the next couple of weeks**

The Sameer Project’s donations are down 45% today but their work is unfortunately far from over. Give to the South campaign, which supplies 200,000 liters of water a day: chuffed.org/project/1132...

MIT becomes first college to reject Trump’s higher education compact University President Sally Kornbluth said some of the terms would restrict the institution’s free expression and independence.

BREAKING NEWS: MIT is the first college to formally reject Trump’s higher education compact, citing that they meet/exceed most of the expectations already set forth + that they are not interested in having their free speech/expression restricted.

#AcademicSky #BreakingNews

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"These stylised facts suggest that women spend too much time rewriting old papers and not enough time writing new papers, relative to men."
I'm taking this personally 😳

"We document the participation of women in European academia [from the year 1000 to 1800]. A total of 108 women taught at universities or were members of academies of arts and sciences. Comparing them with 58,995 male scholars, we find that they were on average better."

doi.org/10.1093/ereh...

In 2024 across the whole of the UK just one pedestrian was killed by a cyclist.