First, let me make something clear: the NY Times Sunday magazine has a column titled "Letter of Recommendation".
Second, when I first saw the title "Letter of Recommendation: The Useless Machine" in a different context, I thought "that must be about how most letters of reference are written by people who have too little experience with a person to write meaningfully about them (e.g., a professor who has a student for only one lecture course)". Third, when I read the article I realized that my first response was wrong and that the article was more informative than I had anticipated, covering such topics as transhumanism, Claude Shannon, Marvin Minksy, and, of course, the infamous "Useless Machine" that is an actual device (Minsky conceived it, Shannon built it). For more on these and additional topics see: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/04/magazine/letter-of-recommendation-the-useless-machine.html Fourth, back in the 1990s in the NYU Arts & Science psych dept, the experimental program had little computer lab with Sun Unix workstations and a public laser printer (faculty and staff could send files to be printed either from the lab or the computer in their office). One day I had sent something to be printed and went to the lab and it appeared that it had printed my file in a very short amount of time (my office was close by). I picked up the putout which was facedown and saw that it was a short letter of reference written for a recent Ph.D. I knew by one of our more famous faculty members (psroff allowed one to generate letterhead). I probably shouldn't have read it but because I knew both people and it was so short, I did read it. As a letter of reference for a job, it was extremely short and, if memory serves, it essentially said the following: "X took a course or two with me and he did well in them". That was it. I thought it might have been a joke but on second thought, given who had written it, they were probably completely serious about it. I didn't know if the person who asked for the letter knew that this was the letter that would be sent to the academic jobs he was applying for and wondered whether I should say something to him. I decided not to. The letter notwithstanding, he got an academic position and I was happy that he did (maybe the place didn't get this letter or did and decided to drop it from consideration). This is what I was reminded of when I saw "Letter of Recommendation: The Useless Machine" because that LoR really was useless, no matter how well known the author might have been. -Mike Palij New York University m...@nyu.edu --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: arch...@mail-archive.com. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df5d5&n=T&l=tips&o=49359 or send a blank email to leave-49359-13090.68da6e6e5325aa33287ff385b70df...@fsulist.frostburg.edu
