Scott Alexander summarizes reader comments on his post about the academic job market, covering topics like hiring practices, historical context, and comparisons to other industries. Longer summary

Scott Alexander summarizes reader comments on his previous post about the academic job market. The comments provide additional information on academic hiring practices, historical context for the current state of academia, and comparisons to other job markets like programming and publishing. Many commenters offer practical advice for new PhDs, with a common theme being the importance of research and publications over other activities. The post also includes proposed solutions to academia's issues and numerous warnings about the difficulties of pursuing an academic career. Shorter summary

A writer pitches increasingly absurd zombie story ideas to an editor who dismisses them all as 'done', ending with a twist revealing the editor is a zombie. Longer summary

This satirical story depicts a conversation between a writer and an editor about a proposed zombie story. The writer tries to pitch various zombie story ideas, but the editor repeatedly dismisses them as 'done', highlighting the oversaturation of the zombie genre. The writer becomes increasingly desperate, proposing more and more outlandish ideas, all of which have supposedly been done. The story ends with a twist revealing that the editor is actually a zombie, ironically embodying the very trope being criticized. Shorter summary