I've got a pretty good idea of what I want to do, but I can't find anyone who'll hire me to do it.

Unfortunately for people of Hil's cohort, the academic job market has been getting more ruthlessly competitive every year, with a big boost in difficulty during the recession that just isn't resolving.

We now have people applying for beginning Assistant Professor jobs with 25 publications in good journals. Ten years ago that would have been ample to receive tenure. Twenty years ago it would have been enough for promotion to Full Professor. Forty years ago it was considered a respectable total output for a 30 year career.

Now, it just gets you in the door for an interview. I'm sure that in math or physics, where each publication tends to be more important and of more lasting effect, the numbers are different, but the same ramping up of expectations is there. It's a very difficult environment right now.

On the other hand, there are lots of jobs in academia-adjacent settings: med schools, policy institutes,government and industry interested in quantitative skills or big-data applications. Usually with more reasonable hours less eccentricity to deal with. That's the big shift in where people are getting jobs.

I am not prepared for anything to happen to Joni Mitchell.

This might be my favorite prank today: Wonder Woman’s Invisible Jet Now on Display at the National Air and Space Museum.

That's perfect.

I just put that on my FB.

I just paid off my Capital One card, and I went to the customization part of the website to change the image to flames on the side of a hot rod. Kind of a combination of midlife crisis and "I almost qualify for senior discounts, time to kick things up a notch."

Love that. I did my annual email prank at work. We handle unreleased movies and TV shows, so we have to have all kinds of security measures in place--employees cannot bring phones on the production floor, etc. Today, I told the staff that clients now require that we take DNA samples from everyone so we can trace any assets which go missing. I ends the email with "Open up and say Ah."

My signature referenced April fools, so no one would be fooled for long. People seem to be digging it so far.

Tumblr's prank, while harmless, is annoying because there's no way to turn it off except with adblock. I do not want the animated photocopier cousin of Clippy bouncing around my dash. KILL IT.

Nora, I love that prank.

One of the commenters on the article about the jet is Clark Kent! Hee!