July 25, 2012
Whither the university?
Terran Lane's short blog post explaining why he is leaving academia (for a post at google) offers concise and damning insight into problems at US research universities. I find the analysis resonates with the Canadian experience as well (though I'm a grad student not a professor)..
Kitten Vivisection Controversy
WalesOnline reported earlier this week on a UK government funded experiment in which kittens had their eyes stitched shut in an examination of how the brain reacts to sensory deprivation. In a related poll, nearly 11,000 Mirror readers were nearly split in their support for the experiment.
The University of Cardiff has vigorously defended the experiment, saying the study will lead medical researchers to an "improved understanding of the brain to treat older children or adults, whose amblyopia has been missed or not treated adequately in time."
"[T]he only real way to do it is to tell an honest human story, but to do it in a way that people feel like they haven’t seen before."
A fascinating interview with Vince Gilligan, showrunner of Breaking Bad. The questions are as excellent as the answers.
This points to that quality of improvisation with the work you’re doing. In a traditional crime show, like “CSI,” if it were a big band, it’s a big band working off charts. The arrangements are very tightly controlled. And what I sense with “Breaking Bad” is a sense of, I don’t know, “John Coltrane on acid.” You have this sense of improvisation where you go with things you know, where you tell the story the length it needs to be told. You’re inspired collectively by a moment and you decide to go deeper into that moment. You’re in essence leading a parallel life with your characters and letting those characters take you where they want to go — not necessarily where the dictates of commercial convention say they have to go.Meanwhile, Alan Sepinwall asks actors Bryan Cranston (2) and Aaron Paul about some of their most iconic moments on the show. [more inside]
The Future Forms Of Life
Rebranding Diversity
Colorblind Racism Inside the U.S. Advertising Industry. A dissertation by Chris Boulton. [15:13 Vimeo] [more inside]
Ich bin ein Hipster
Who will win the vinyl spinning marathon? Who's favourite in the cotton tote sack race? Yes, it's wall-to-wall irony at Berlin's second Hipster Olympics. You've probably never heard of them.
Extended Range Guitars
There comes a time in the musical lives of some guitar players when six strings just won't get the job done. They need seven. Or eight. Or nine. Or ten. Or eleven. Or twelve. Or eighteen. [more inside]
Identical mechanism for entry and exit.
Get Down
"Cartridge Tilting" is the process of upsetting a ROM cartridge by physically lifting one side of the cartridge in a computer or video game console which is in use. It is considered to work best on N64 games and results in surreal, often creepy deconstruction of music and physics. [more inside]
"Later was gone."
Trouble in the tragic kingdom
Last Saturday Anaheim police shot Manuel Diaz as he fled from questioning. Neighborhood residents approached the police and recorded the scene of the shooting. As tempers rose, the police attempted to control the situation. This did not go well. On Sunday, many people joined a protest at the Anaheim police department held weekly since 2010. On the same day, Anaheim police shot and killed Joel Acevedo, during an arrest for a stolen car. Further protests at the Anaheim City Council meeting on Tuesday turned violent with some protestors throwing rocks and smashing windows. [more inside]
If you're going to run away from home - fly Jet2
Kerouac as an 11 year old? Many of us have ran away from home. Most make it to the first street corner before coming back home. Liam Corcoran of Manchester made it all the way to Rome. He managed to board a plane without a passport or boarding pass.
Braces go on the next line.
The Profound Programmer combines realistic exclamations with beautiful nature imagery.
The American Fertility Crisis
Education, Income, and Fertility in America, and What They Mean for the Future of the Country "Since the average American woman has 2.1 children, you might think we aren't experiencing a national fertility crisis. Unlike some European countries whose futures are threatened by low birth rates, Americans, on average, produce just the right number of future workers, soldiers, and taxpayers to keep our society humming... Two new studies bring the contrasting reproductive profiles of rich and poor women into sharp relief. One, from the Guttmacher Institute, shows that the rates of unplanned pregnancies and births among poor women now dwarf the fertility rates of wealthier women, and finds that the gap between the two groups has widened significantly over the past five years. The other, by the Center for Work-Life Policy, documents rates of childlessness among corporate professional women that are higher than the childlessness rates of some European countries experiencing fertility crises."
Where exactly is this work-appropriate clothing ?
Armistead Maupin is leaving San Francisco for Santa Fe
A headline rivalling “Batman to leave Gotham”: “Maupin to leave San Francisco.” But before the Tales of the City author (previously) moves to Santa Fe with his husband, you can pick up Armistead Maupin’s house for a mere $1,198,000. (28 Barbary Lane is not for sale.)
Cross purposes
The 101st Bayreuth Festival opened today with a new staging of Richard Wagner's opera The Flying Dutchman. The celebrity audience including German Chancellor Angela Merkel were overshadowed by the sudden departure from the cast of its leading baritone, Evgeny Nikitin, who withdrew from the company four days ago after a German TV program showed film clips of the Russian singer sporting what appeared to be a swastika tattoo. [more inside]
It Ain't All Pizzas and Cream
'Everyone Has a Name' Project Everyone has a name. And everyone has a story. This photo project is dedicated to promoting dignity and to enlightening society's view of the homeless. A project by Charlie O'Hay. [more inside]
Discovering Dad
"Discovering Dad" aka delving into Terry Gilliam's personal archive. Terry Gilliam's daugher Holly uncovers the gems of Terry Gilliam's personal archive - from pre-Python days through Python to his feature films and beyond.
Alas, poor Yorick!
Y: The Last Man Rising is a fan film based on the comic series. (SLYT)
Please take the wheel
R'uh oh!
In the five day period between July 8th and July 12th, Greenland saw a dramatic and unprecedentedly rapid thawing across 97% of its surface ice cover. Initially, NASA and other experts questioned the satellite data, viewing such a rapid melting as too unlikely to be true, but NASA has since confirmed the results. [more inside]
"Pluck Be A Lady": 15 Boston female chefs
The Improper Bostonian: "In a town rightfully famous for its trailblazing female chefs, where Julia Child helped introduce American families to fresh vegetables and unprocessed foods, and Lydia Shire fine-tuned the buttery possibilities of French cooking, women have hardly disappeared from the dining scene. They can be found in other kitchens. But where and why are subject to debate, depending on whom you ask."
They should have mailed it to the Marx Brothers
The Ben-Zvi Institute in Jerusalem houses the Aleppo Codex, considered the oldest and most authoritative text of the Hebrew Bible. Written in the 10th century AD and annotated by Maimonides himself, it was safeguarded by the Jewish diaspora and revered for its linguistic precision and its beauty. "The story of how some 200 pages of the codex went missing — and to this day remain the object of searches carried out around the globe by biblical scholars, private investigators, shadowy businessmen and the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency — is one of the great mysteries in Jewish history." [more inside]
I'm sorry, Linus. I promised you I wouldn't become a Mac nerd.
For the past 13 years, with every new release of (Mac) OS X John Siracusa has written insanely detailed reviews of the newest version for Ars Technica. Apple OS X Mountain Lion came out today. This morning, John Siracusa's 25,935 word review was released to the public. Not sure if you want to read the review? Read Marco Arment of Instapaper's review of the review. If the epic detail of the review wasn't enough, Siracusa split out a separate blog post about the review on his personal blog. [more inside]
"ASSERTIVE AND FAMILIAR"
Superhero Typographic Classifications: "The most distinguishing factor of any font is its characters. Hidden beneath these characters, each typeface also has character—its own unique characteristics. However classified this information may seem, when used correctly, typefaces often speak to us more powerfully than the words that are written with them."
Go[a]t Milk?
"Through the ages, important people get immortality by their acts of bravery or misery."
Berk Senturk's Like a Sir series features superheroes and villains done as classically styled oil paintings. [more inside]
Fearing cacodemonomania from jettatura, the acersecomic leptosome set off a biblioclasm of his scripturient neogenesis on ktenology, unwittingly bringing about hamartia.
Same-sex marriage in Scotland
The Scottish Government has announced that it intends to legalise same-sex marriage, and will produce a draft bill for public consultation within the year. [more inside]
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