links for 2008-12-19

"Consider the following question for the GMAT (the test given to MBA applicants). Unfortunately, issues of copyright clearance have prevented us from reproducing the question, but that shouldn't stop us. "

"That I'm not a Christian doesn't much hinder my enjoyment of either the holiday or the book, but the presence of Father Christmas bothered many of Lewis's friends, including J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien, whose Middle-earth was free of the legends and religions of our world, objected to Narnia's hodgepodge of motifs: the fauns and dryads lifted from classic mythology, the Germanic dwarfs and contemporary schoolboy slang lumped in with the obvious Christian symbolism."

"The wrestling business has been the source of more than one critically acclaimed documentary--I was one of the subjects of Barry Blaustein's Beyond the Mat--but I worried that my vocation was not respected enough to merit a thoughtful fictional screen representation. The chances of seeing a great pro-wrestling movie seemed right up there with the likelihood of a Mickey Rourke career renaissance. "

"Above all, though, Reservoir Dogs is about the sheer pleasure of a good story told right, and few people can do it as well as Tarantino."

A long list of links to summer internship programs and related resources.

"It's a charming nugget of pop wisdom: At times of recession, young people say to hell with the job market and go back to school to improve their long-term career prospects. And sure enough, reports have been flying in lately from schools like UCLA, the University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Texas suggesting that business, law, and graduate school applications are on the rise. Conventional wisdom appears to be convening--or is it?"

"I'm not thinking about specific courses economics majors and future M.B.A.'s and bankers should have taken but didn't. I'm thinking of deeper patterns of rewards and expectations taken for granted for so long that we don't reckon with their impact at all. Much of what lies behind our current economic train-wreck stems from short-sightedness -- focus on short-term goals and gains -- and near-sightedness -- seeking to maximize one vector without regard for context in which that vector has value to begin with. So we have had big players making millions, nay billions, in ways that ultimately blew up the very system that made such gain and growth possible."

Includes a really spiffy animated GIF of a single myosin molecule, taken at 12 fps. But that's not the most exciting tool...