Here's another interesting "radiation enthusiast", who visits nuclear sites and collects radioactive memorabilia. He actually works as a nuclear engineer.
While we're onto nuclear enthusiasts, this is a great slightly-tongue-in-cheek (or possibly entirely serious) blog about nuclear science and fashion and stuff:
http://rose-blogg.blogspot.com/
I don't know how we are in relation to Czechs, but one of things I hear as an American is that we are often too quick to talk about politics. Whereas, in many cultures, politics is considered almost taboo to talk about with all but the closest friends and family.
You should talk to more Americans. It's a country of three hundred million people and there is a continuum of political opinion ranging from extreme to extreme. It sounds like you're heavily invested in your perception though.
As a grad student in the 2000's I was told by a professor that the department would take into consideration the expected attrition rate (typically ~50%) when admitting grad students. The idea being that they would have enough TA's for intro classes. Attrition would make the number of advanced students more inline with the money available to fund PhD students till they graduated. In other words, they purposefully over-admitted to get TA's, most of whom would leave with an MS as best.
This was in science departments. In departments that had few or no "general ed" courses, such as engineering, and thus little need for TA's, the graduation rate was much higher.
graduate school admissions were ridiculously competitive in 2003-05
This was true in my experience as well. I applied to grad school for 2004 and heard lots of crazy stories from programs about high applicant numbers and quality. I ended up at a "hidden gem" versus a top program. A couple years later I re-applied to PhD programs and got accepted everywhere.
In today's markets it's a little hard to believe that people would be flocking to grad school due to a poor industry market, but it seemed to be the case across science and engineering fields. I'm sure that influx also made the bad academic job market even worse, unfortunately.
I agree but I wouldn't take it too literally. The coin flip isn't binding but it can be fascinatingly revealing about your own opinions.
I see it as a way to actualise the consequences of the choice and cut through layers of intellectual abstraction. In some respects its a tool to let you engage emotional thinking to help make better decisions. On the flip, it can suddenly trigger a feeling of loss and regret. Our fundamental beliefs can be strangely out of reach when we think too hard.
A similar tool is just explaining your decision to another. I can get a flush of emotion e.g. embarrassment or shame, that you don't get when you just cogitate alone. Pretty useful for tough design decisions e.g. midway through explaining a particularly clever idea I find myself apologising... its time to rethink things!
Also if both decisions make you hesitate, it suggests that costs/benefits of both of them cancel each other out, so you may as well stop hesitating and go with what the coin tells you.
Actually, the real point of flipping a coin is that during the brief lapse of time during which the piece is in the air, you will know what's the choice you prefer. The result doesn't matter.
This is what I've always done! I agree with what another poster said about how revealing it can be -- you suddenly see yourself in the position where the decision had actually gone a certain way and you have to deal with the consequences. People always look at me funny when I explain it to them, though.
In theory the rule is that you're supposed to refer to people by what name they prefer (e.g. "Little people").
Here's what Wikipedia says:
* The terms used to refer to Native Americans have been controversial. According to a 1995 U.S. Census Bureau set of home interviews, most of the respondents with an expressed preference refer to themselves as "American Indians" or simply "Indians"; this term has been adopted by major newspapers and some academic groups
A late-'90s Russell Means polemic against "Native American" (along with the fact that it got quite a bit of agreement) has been somewhat influential in that respect: http://www.nemasys.com/ghostwolf/Native/wai.shtml
I visited Melbourne for about a month a couple of years ago and was excited to use the train to get around, but people there routinely said I was crazy for doing that. People often offered to give me a ride to the train station (usually a few blocks away). I got the overall impression that Australia has a very similar car culture to the US.
http://carlwillis.wordpress.com/
Highlights include Chernobyl trips, a trip to "Soviet Ground Zero", and a how-to for DIY uranium chemistry.