January 2010
15 posts
NBC Will Regret Appeasing Leno - WSJ.com →
Was Conan was the Czechoslovakia of late-night TV? Humor from the Wall Street Journal…
1930s-era Soviet poster by Kukryniksy showing Western powers giving Hitler Czechoslovakia on a dish. Inscription in the flag:”To the the East!”
Source: http://02varvara.wordpress.com/2008/09/29/
Philosopher's Zone →
Another philosophy podcast — out of Australia’s ABC Radio National…
E.g., see this recent program: «
Thinking about the lives of the great thinkers
Ray Monk from the University of Southampton in the UK is something unusual in philosophers of the English-speaking world: he’s a biographer. This week, he tell us about the challenges of writing the lives of Bertrand...
Philosophy Talk →
A podcast you might want to subscribe to — out of Stanford University — Billed as “the program that questions everything… except your intelligence”
Naomi Klein on how corporate branding has taken... →
Excerpt from the 10th anniversary edition of “No Logo”… where Naomi Klein analyzes the Obama brand and questions the substance behind it…
« What the election and the global embrace of Obama’s brand proved decisively is that there is a tremendous appetite for progressive change – that many, many people do not want markets opened at gunpoint, are repelled by...
The Americanization of Mental Illness -... →
American imperialism on the mental front…
« THE IDEA THAT our Western conception of mental health and illness might be shaping the expression of illnesses in other cultures is rarely discussed in the professional literature. Many modern mental-health practitioners and researchers believe that the scientific standing of our drugs, our illness categories and our theories of the mind...
HOW IS THE INTERNET CHANGING THE WAY YOU THINK? --... →
An annual event I always enjoy - John Brockman at Edge.org asking his third-culture thinkers a good question.
I look forward to reading all the submissions. Even this clarification of how they worded the question has made me start thinking… and aware that I do often use the Web and the Internet interchangeably.
« This year’s Question is “How is the Internet changing...
Why People Don't Like Video Chatting - TIME →
“Skype, which was the fantasy of our childhood, gets you back to sitting there and being available in that old-fashioned way. Our model of what it was to be present to each other, we thought we liked that,” she said. “But it turns out that time shifting is our most valued product. This new technology is about control. Emotional control and time control.”
Sherry Turkle, MIT...
Dehumanized: When math and science rule the... →
Impressive long article arguing for the humanities…
Here’s a bit that references Singapore…
« “Where will the workers come from,” Kristof worries, “unless students reliably learn science and math?” If our students “only did as well as those in several Asian countries in math and science, our economy would grow 20 percent faster.” The problem, though, is that...
What Makes a Great Teacher? - The Atlantic... →
a review of the success of Teach for America…
«This tale of two boys, and of the millions of kids just like them, embodies the most stunning finding to come out of education research in the past decade: more than any other variable in education—more than schools or curriculum—teachers matter.»
WatchMy Damn Channel » Season 1 » You Suck At Photoshop #1: Distort, Warp and Layer Effects
Very funny series — and evidently an award-winner… What a great way to learn. Perhaps it’s the van, but it reminds me of that British TV series Marion & Geoff about the loser guy…
Career U. - Making College ‘Relevant’ -... →
Have a read… as you’re all in college…
« THOMAS COLLEGE, a liberal arts school in Maine, advertises itself as Home of the Guaranteed Job! Students who can’t find work in their fields within six months of graduation can come back to take classes free, or have the college pay their student loans for a year. »
Turtles all the way down - Wikipedia, the free... →
This came up somewhere in a blog post re authority of sources for academic work… and while I’d heard the phrase “It’s turtles all the way down” (which made me think of Yertle the Turtle and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld), I wasn’t sure where it came from. Now I know - as much as Wikipedia knows…
« The most widely known version appears in...
December 2009
32 posts
Paleo I Don’t Care: I Like No Soap; No Shampoo |... →
Read about a guy who has given up soap products — and eats a paleolithic diet…