Links Dump
drorzel | July 13, 2011
Counting Crows' Recovering The Satellites | Music | We're No. 1 | The A.V. Club
"Recovering The Satellites is easily my favorite Counting Crows album, precisely because it's the record where Duritz went from wanting to be a big star (or so he sang in "Mr. Jones") to equating his celebrity with slow-motion drowning. This was not an uncommon sentiment for '90s rock bands, though by 1996 the music press was no longer sympathetic to guys like Duritz being so angsty all the time. While August was generally warmly received by critics, the backlash kicked in hard with Satellites, and this had a…
drorzel | July 12, 2011
RESEARCH | MATTHEW B. THOMPSON
Like many interesting scientific discoveries, this one was an accident. Sean Murphy, an undergraduate student, was working alone in the lab on a set of faces for one of his experiments. He aligned a set of faces at the eyes and started to skim through them. After a few seconds, he noticed that some of the faces began to appear highly deformed and grotesque. He looked at the especially ugly faces individually, but each of them appeared normal or even attractive. We called it the "Flashed Face Distortion Effect" and wanted to share it with the world, so we put…
drorzel | July 11, 2011
Thoughts on Cheating « Cooperative Catalyst
"Don't tell teachers, "whatever it takes," and then act surprised when they follow that advice to its logical extreme. Don't tell the principal, "you'll lose your job and we'll shut down the school if it doesn't make AYP," and then act surprised when the leadership finds ways to cheat.
When politicians set ultimatums like job security, institutional safety and student retention on kill-and-drill tests, cheating will occur. True, the teachers in Atlanta were unethical. In many cases, their students would have performed well on the tests if the…
drorzel | July 10, 2011
Lisa Bloom: How to Talk to Little Girls
""Maya," I said, crouching down at her level, looking into her eyes, "very nice to meet you."
"Nice to meet you too," she said, in that trained, polite, talking-to-adults good girl voice.
"Hey, what are you reading?" I asked, a twinkle in my eyes. I love books. I'm nuts for them. I let that show.
Her eyes got bigger, and the practiced, polite facial expression gave way to genuine excitement over this topic. She paused, though, a little shy of me, a stranger.
"I LOVE books," I said. "Do you?"
Most kids do.
"YES," she said. "And I can read them all by…
drorzel | July 9, 2011
Ironic Effects of Anti-Prejudice Messages
The authors conducted two experiments which looked at the effect of two different types of motivational intervention - a controlled form (telling people what they should do) and a more personal form (explaining why being non-prejudiced is enjoyable and personally valuable).In experiment one; participants were randomly assigned one of two brochures to read: an autonomy brochure or a controlling brochure. These brochures discussed a new campus initiative to reduce prejudice. A third group was offered no motivational instructions to reduce prejudice.…
drorzel | July 8, 2011
Evil and Riddles: The Grey King | Tor.com
I don't need to re-read this, really I don't. And yet...
(tags: books sf review blogs tor nostalgia literature)
Cheryl's Mewsings » Blog Archive » Anthologies: Some Data
"On Saturday I mentioned that I had been sent some data about gender splits in anthologies. I have since been taking a close look at it and want to present some of the data. I am doing this:
Because I think it is better to be talking about lots of data than about individual books;
Because I'm a bit tired of being told there's no evidence for gender bias; and
Because I think…
drorzel | July 7, 2011
The Slacktiverse: DragonRaid: moral teaching through roleplaying games?
"In the mid-90's a friend and I became fascinated by the "Christian adventure game" (similar to a roleplaying game) called DragonRaid, published by Adventures in Christ. (Details can be found at the DragonRaid website.) We never managed to actually play it, largely because we were living in different countries, but we made characters, read through the initial adventure, and discussed it at length by email.
[...]
I have been thinking about DragonRaid lately in the context of the Slacktivist and Slacktiverse discussions…
drorzel | July 6, 2011
As Shuttle Program Ends, Dreams of Space Linger - NYTimes.com
Most of the scientists I know would be thrilled to see humans exploring space, landing on Mars, for example -- they just don't think that science should pick up the check. Many of them were suspicious of the shuttle, both because of the cost drain and because making instruments like the space telescope compatible with it would compromise the potential science, restricting them to low earth orbit, for example, and making them hostage to the exigencies of human spaceflight.
But politically, if not technically, the shuttle and the…
drorzel | July 5, 2011
Performance and Recording: "Everyone sing the chorus--including intellectuals!" -- Crooked Timber
"I just read two books back to back to good effect: Walter Ong's Orality and Literacy and Elijah Wald's How the Beatles Destroyed Rock n Roll: An Alternative History of American Popular Music [...]
Ong's book is a classic. Out of date in some ways (published in 1982), but still worth a read for the way it stakes out a para-McLuhanite position on the orality-literacy debate. Wald's book came out a couple years ago and is a real eye/ear-opener (I'll let my kids decide whether it's a classic, when…
drorzel | July 4, 2011
The Virtuosi: Coriolis Effect on a Home Run
"I like baseball. Well, technically, I like laying on the couch for three hours half-awake eating potato chips and mumbling obscenities at the television. But let's not split hairs here.
Anyway, out of curiosity and in partial atonement for the sins of my past [1] I would now like to do a quick calculation to see how much effect the Coriolis force has on a home-run ball."
(tags: sports science physics blogs virtusoi)
Kravitz: College athletes need Bill of Rights | The Indianapolis Star | indystar.com
"The latest math on the revenue breakdown…
drorzel | July 2, 2011
YouTube - âªSlightly less than two drinks (cut from That Mitchell and Webb Look S04E04)â¬â
"You must never drink any more than slightly less than two drinks. Beyond that state of mildly intoxicated perfection lies drunken madness, 3rd pints, kebabs, and destruction."
(tags: booze silly comedy video youtube culture)
The Slacktiverse: Faith and Hope, 20% off!
"There were three different bears, in all. Happy Bear, who was happy; Brave Bear, who wanted to be brave ("Dear God. Please make me BRAVE like a lion! RARRR!"); and Thankful Bear, who was thankful for everything that Happy Bear was…
drorzel | July 1, 2011
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Spiked Cities
"Having followed [Richard] Florida on twitter for a while, I've noticed that his position goes beyond noting creative clusters. There's a general pro-urban, anti-suburban flavor to his thought. Add a few bike paths and a vibrant gay community, and you've pretty much found his recipe for growth.
Florida's work strikes me as a really elegant way to contrast New York or Boston with, say, Detroit or Pittsburgh. It also reasserts, correctly, the importance of geography in the digital age. There's a distinct -- and acknowledged -- echo of…
drorzel | June 30, 2011
YouTube - âªWits with Neil Gaiman, Adam Savage, and Gollum: "I Will Survive"â¬â
The Internet is a very, very strange place.
(tags: silly internet video music movies television)
Confessions of a Community College Dean: Yes, College is Worth It
"One way to test the truth of the proposition that college isn't worth it is to observe elite behavior. Are applications to Stanford dropping? Is Harvard going begging? Are the Fortune 500 recruiting at public high schools across America?
I didn't think so.
The whole enterprise just smells to me like the latest variation on "let's privatize Social…
drorzel | June 29, 2011
Chuck Klosterman on Led Zeppelin's last stand - Grantland
"4:52 to 5:24: brrrrrrringgggggg ... brrrrrrrrrringggggggg
"Hello?"
"Hi. Is this John Paul Jones?"
"Yes. Yes it is. Why are you calling me in the middle of this song?"
"I just noticed you had a telephone on your keyboard, so I thought I'd give you a buzz. Why do you need a telephone on stage?"
"No reason. Sometimes I like to phone Peter Grant and inquire about our tax status before playing 'Trampled Under Foot.' Who is calling me, incidentally?"
"My name is Gibson. I'm 22 years old, and I live in Texas. Many years from now, you will…
drorzel | June 28, 2011
But it doesn't move! | The Renaissance Mathematicus
"All in all to believe in heliocentricity at the beginning of the 17th century was literally an act of blind faith and those that opposed it did so on solid scientific grounds and not purely out of some sense of religious bigotry as is often claimed by those who don't know their history of science."
(tags: science history astronomy religion blogs)
drorzel | June 24, 2011
Swans on Tea » Copy ... Riiiight
"The argument that copyright takes away your right to say what you want is a bunch of bull. If you are using a copyrighted piece of work, they aren't your words, so any kind of protections for the originator of those words doesn't stop you from saying what you want to or the way that you want to. An uploaded someone else's performance isn't your expression. This is an issue of fair use and what constitutes infringement, not of free speech. The creator of an artistic/literary work has certain rights. It doesn't matter if they might benefit from the exposure…
drorzel | June 23, 2011
Video Breakdown: Khan and Kinematics | Wired Science | Wired.com
"So my quick take - Khan Academy is a textbook video. Are textbooks new? No. Are they the best thing for students? No. Should we ban textbooks in all forms? I don't think so.
What about other aspects of Khan Academy videos? How are they based on content? I happened to take a look at Khan's 3 videos on intro to motion. Let me break down what I found."
(tags: science education physics blogs dot-physics)
Control Your Garage Door Opener with Your Smartphone
The first step on the road to becoming Michael Westen.
(tags: technology…
drorzel | June 22, 2011
About SETIstars.org | SetiStars Blog
"SETIstars is an initiative by the SETI Institute to recognize and rally support from the community to help fund the SETI Institute's operations and that of the Allen Telescope Array. It serves as a place to galvanize community action with clearly defined fundraising goals as well as a place to engage with and recognize supporters and contributors to the SETI Institute -- both financial and non financial. We are starting with a simple site with a clear mandate: raise funds from the community to help bring the ATA back on line. But this is just the…
drorzel | June 20, 2011
Minneapolis
"[Don] Rawitsch, a lanky, bespectacled 21-year-old with hair well over his ears, was both a perfectionist and an idealist. He started dressing as historical figures in an attempt to win over his students, appearing in the classroom as explorer Meriwether Lewis.
By now he'd made it through to the western expansion unit, and he had in mind his boldest idea yet.
What he had so far was a board game tracing a path from Independence, Missouri, to the Willamette Valley in Oregon. The students would pretend to be pioneer families. Each player would start with a certain amount of money…
drorzel | June 19, 2011
Why The Atlantic's Article On New Age Medicine Is Wrong - Matthew Herper - The Medicine Show - Forbes
"What bothers me most about Freedman's argument is that he comes so close to being right. I actually agree that the success of alternative medicine is the result of mainstream medicine's failure. But it's not that alternative medicine is preventative but mainstream medicine is not. It's that mainstream medicine, especially with health insurance and care models that restrict the amount of time patients spend with doctors, has abandoned the power of ritual in making people feel better."
(tags…