May 16, 2012
alt-ac census
Who are the alt-acs? They are people with graduate education (mostly in the humanities and library science) who have decided to pursue alternative academic careers. They choose to skip the "dues-paying crap" often associated with pursuing a traditional tenure-track job, and avoid languishing in unrewarding adjunct assignments. They also tweet like mad. The results of a new (and, as of this writing, ongoing) #alt-ac census show alt-acs thriving in diverse positions; there's a strong contingent involved in the digital humanities, but also a historian at the U.S. Department of State, an exhibit developer at the National Constitution Center, and a self-employed "Editor, musicologist." [more inside]
Teach them well and let them lead the way
According to the U.S. census bureau, from July 2010 to July 2011, more than half of all babies born were members of minority groups, a first for the United States. [more inside]
TED: Yes to "Drying your Hands," No to "Income Inequality."
"I can say with confidence that rich people don't create jobs, nor do businesses, large or small," said über-rich venture capitalist Nick Hanauer in a March 1st TEDx talk, which TED is refusing to put on its website. [more inside]
Paralyzed Woman Controls Robotic Arm With Her Mind
For the first time since she was paralyzed by a stroke 15 years ago, a woman in the BrainGate2 clinical trial served herself a drink of coffee ... with a brain-controlled robot arm (with heartwarming video)
Today, Maman died.
Rethinking "Mother died today": Translating a work requires a surprising amount of thought to avoid leading readers into contextual pitfalls, and The Stranger is no exception. "Within the novel’s first sentence, two subtle and seemingly minor translation decisions have the power to change the way we read everything that follows."
Print is dead.
The 1986 New York Mets
"A great ballclub, a beautiful demonstration of what talent can do when assembled with planning and guided by intelligence." - Bill James, on the 1986 New York Mets [more inside]
Smile for the camera!
"Blow Job" is a series of portraits of people with gale-force winds blown directly into their faces. (SFW) [more inside]
“It's about as far from the theme as you could possibly get.”
A Grade 11 student, with a summary of Sean Dixon's novel The Last Days of the Lacuna Cabal due in two days, gets help from the author. It does not go particularly well.
“I suppose the first thing I should do is apologize for the billions of dead.”
A famously reclusive writer, John Swartzwelder is responsible for many of The Simpson's iconic episodes. He stopped writing for the show in '04 and began to self-publish a series of increasingly absurd Sci-Fi Detective novels.
"...it’s a great way to meet people, and to have sex."
RIP Chuck Brown
Chuck Brown: DC Legend, Godfather of Go-Go and originator of some of the breakbeats that laid the foundation for hip-hop has passed away.
Here's his live set at the 9:30 club from a few years ago. 2, 3, 4
Not so pure Michigan
Not So Pure Michigan (youtube), a play on Michigan's "Pure Michigan" tourism campaign. (For more on Michigan's troubles with its neighbors see Mitten-gate.)
Are those swans? | László Krasznahorkai: novelist
‘You will never go wrong anticipating doom in my books, any more than you’ll go wrong in anticipating doom in ordinary life’—László Krasznahorkai. [more inside]
The Weight of a Nation
Consequences, Choices, Children in Crisis, Challenges. HBO’s multi-part research documentary The Weight of the Nation examines obesity in America in four parts, marshaling leading doctors, epidemiologists, economists, researchers, and community leaders to understand and explain the individual costs and public solutions to a multi-faceted social and individual problem. The documentary both explores large picture statistics, while giving voice “to those that often too seek to be invisible: members of the nearly 70 percent of Americans currently diagnosed as overweight or obese. (AV Club Review)” [more inside]
"I had little anxiety about buying things because I simply couldn’t afford anything."
"A Harvard MBA Pays Down $101K Of Debt." Two years after he graduated from Harvard with an MBA, Joe Mihalic, now manager of strategic alliances and business development at Dell, vowed to do “everything in my power–short of lying, cheating, and stealing–to pay down" his student loan debt, (then totaling 90K,) "in the next ten months.” After applying for a weekend delivery job, he also decided to chronicle the steps he was taking on a blog: "No More Harvard Debt." First page of posts is here. Penultimate post explains his process: "Mission Accomplished." [more inside]
"I started from the top and worked my way down." - Orson Welles
Breaking Bad POV. Wes Anderson From Above. Tarantino From Below. Aronofsky for Your Ears. [more inside]
One Big Mac plus another Big Mac....
That the conventional wisdom of 3,500 calories less is what it takes to lose a pound of weight is wrong. The body changes as you lose. Interestingly, we also found that the fatter you get, the easier it is to gain weight. An extra 10 calories a day puts more weight onto an obese person than on a thinner one. [more inside]
Unconscious sight
Live on Air Canada Flight AC 876
If you live in Toronto, you may have seen them busking in the street or in the parks. But if you were a stranded passenger on Air Canada flight AC 876, which was delayed for 20 minutes on the tarmac at Pearson Airport in Toronto en route to Romania, then you got to see the Lemon Bucket Orkestra play an impromptu 4 song performance. [more inside]
I think that criticising the work of others is less like weight lifting and more like singing.
Fourteen Ways To Spot A Bad Critic : Tarol Hunt, illustrator of the webcomic Goblins: Life Through Their Eyes [Previously], weighs in on hate mail sent by his readers.
Tapeworms Living Inside People's Brains
Out of This World and Out of the Unknown: bringing science fiction to the small screen
Irene Shubik started as a television script-writer, first writing for Encyclopædia Britannica Films (some videos on Archive.org) in the United States before moving back England, where she was hired on at Associated British Corporation. There, she worked as a story editor for the prolific TV producer Sydney Newman on the anthology series 'Armchair Theatre.' A long-time fan of science fiction, Shubik approached Newman about creating a science fiction version of 'Armchair Theatre,' and Newman agreed. The result was 'Out of This World,' which ran for a single season in 1962. Shubik followed Newman to BBC, where they continued the theme of 'Out of This World' with a new program, 'Out of the Unknown.' Between the two series, 63 episodes were made, though only 21 episodes survive in full, and audio and video clips survive from another 18 episodes. The videos and original short stories are linked below the break. [more inside]
Please include #tedx in any comments
Disrupt Disruption: A Case Study in Brand Evangelism: The founders of LocalOffrly.Biz (like GroupOn + Living Social) discuss hypertargeted banner ads, sex dice, memes/virals, Klout scores, and "gamifying that which has refused to be gamified" ... at ROFLcon III. (via) (youtube playlist)
"Framing them forever as they munch, invade, race, battle and bleep their way around planet EARTTTTTHHHHHH!"
8-bitscapes : Artist Jamie Sneddon and photographer Kevin Rozario-Johnson take cityscapes and add in elements from classic videogames with delightful results. [more inside]
"No-Thing will come of No-Thing. Think again."
"This is the final victory of the censor: When people, even people who know they are routinely lied to, cease to be able to imagine what is really the case." Salman Rushdie, On Censorship.
"uh un uh un uhhhh...."
Morgan Freeman in 1971, [SLYT] wearing bell bottoms and teaching kids to read on “The Electric Company.”
Because I love you
The eight fingered Polish-Norwegian artist Andrej Nebb with his band, performing Bo jo cie kochom in Oslo in 1980. How he lost two fingers? Cutting his guitar with a chainsaw. That’s why he had to play bass instead. Basically he fled communism to live a rock ‘n’ roll life. Here he is back in Poland in 2002, at Przystanek Woodstock.
That one guy is Mr. Hagney from my Chem 100 class and I love that dude. You totally rock, Mr. Hagney!
Last week was Teacher Appreciation Week. If you were too busy looking forward to have time to appreciate a teacher, it's still not too late to appreciate the teachers behind the students.
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