To Amazon.com, It's Still Day #1

Amazon's 2010 and 1997 annual letters to shareholders.

More grim news about Ph.D.s -- Short version: oversupply

Education: The PhD factory

From nature.com

Women in Science

This article by Philip Greenspun is about anyone in science (not just women), and suggests that it is a tougher road than even those who champion it as a career would suspect.

Quote of the day -- Calvin Trillin

"When I'm trying to impress Alice, for instance, I remind her that I have resolutely ignored drinking fashions for twenty-five years, steadily knocking back Scotch whiskey the entire time. They turned to wine; I drank Scotch. They smoked pot; I drank Scotch. They ordered Perrier water; I drank Scotch. They snorted cocaine while naked in a hot tub discussing real estate; I drank Scotch. I like to think that late on some Saturday nights Alice can point to me - slumped in the corner, sodden with scotch - and say, 'There sits a man of principle. Inert.'" 

~ from Uncivil Liberties by Calvin Trillin

via The Atlantic

The Status Game

An interesting thought experiment, or possibly a provocative class exercise:

A stack of card was shuffled face down on a table, and each person was asked to choose a card without looking at it. Then the instructor asked us to get on stage, and raise our cards against our foreheads so that they are facing the rest of the group. Each person was automatically assigned a “status” corresponding to their card. Then the instructor suggested a business situation for us to enact in a way that helps each person guess the number on their forehead correctly. How would we do that? By changing our postures and tone of voice to match our estimated status and how it ranks against the status we see on other people’s forehead. For instance, if I am guessing the card on my head to be a 8, and I meet with a queen, I’d lower my voice and stand in a way that reflect the other person’s status dominance over mine. And if I meet a 5, I’d assume a higher posture and voice and may be give an order or two. If the person suddenly assumed a different posture and voice, it could mean that either she or I have the wrong guess. The goal wasn’t to challenge each other, but to help each other make the right guess.

from Hacking the Status Game

Snap Together Trebuchette

The projects supported by Kickstarter are getting better and better.

Another attempt to embed video + railguns

Experiment with embedding vimeo video

2011/03 Mike Monteiro | F*ck You. Pay Me. from SanFrancisco/CreativeMornings on Vimeo.

Review of German Expressionist Art Exhibit

Walking through the German Expressionism exhibit really messed me up. All of them either killed themselves or fell down the stairs drunk to their deaths, and it was only, like, 1926, and you’re all ‘God, you have no fucking idea how much worse things are about to get, you poor people.’ The glorious shitshow of the 20th century has barely started, and you’re already painting elongated haunted torsos with exposed viscera.

Rambling bits that start out as book reviews and then turn into more general ruminations. Good stuff

-- Lazy Self-Indulgent Book Reviews

Understanding Congress’s solution to the federal deficit problem

We have a family that is spending $38,200 per year. The family’s income is $21,700 per year. The family adds $16,500 in credit card debt every year in order to pay its bills. After a long and difficult debate among family members, keeping in mind that it was not going to be possible to borrow $16,500 every year forever, the parents and children agreed that a $380/year premium cable subscription could be terminated. So now the family will have to borrow only $16,120 per year.

From Philip Greenspun's Weblog

The 'B' Students work for the 'C' students . . . .

America has made the mistake of letting the A student run things. It was A students who briefly took over the business world during the period of derivatives, credit swaps, and collateralized debt obligations. We’re still reeling from the effects. This is why good businessmen have always adhered to the maxim: “A students work for B students.” Or, as a businessman friend of mine put it, “B students work for C students—A students teach.”

-- P.J. O'Rourke

Quote of the day on the budget negotiations

Joel Housman: "Remember when Planned Parenthood & NPR crashed the market, wiped out half our 401Ks and took TARP money? Me neither."

Scientists answer Molyneux's question

It seems important any time scientists solve a question posed by philosophers hundreds of years ago.

Imagine, William Molyneux wrote to the great British thinker, that a man blind from birth who has learned to identify objects -- a sphere and a cube, for example -- only through his sense of touch is suddenly able to see.
The puzzle, he continued, is "Whether he Could, by his Sight, and before he touch them, know which is the Globe and which the Cube?"

For philosophers of the time, answering "Molyneux's question," as it was known ever after, would resolve a fundamental uncertainty about the human mind.

Empiricists believed that we are born blank slates, and become the sum total of our accumulated experience. So-called "nativists" countered that our minds are, from the outset, pre-stocked with ideas waiting to be activated by sight, sound and touch.

Find out the answer here.

via www.physorg.com

Star Trek is coming to Netflix

"Starting in July, every episode from every Star Trek series will be available for Instant Watch over Netflix, Ds9 in October."

from tekgoblin.com

I'm never leaving the sofa again.

Dilbert Test for Gender Fairness

So I propose a simple test to determine if you, individually, are a victim of gender unfairness. If a genie gave you the chance to magically switch your gender, and become a member of the other sex, would you do it? And let's say the new you would be about the same as now on the scale of attractiveness, intelligence, ethnicity, circumstance, and health. The only real change would be gender. Do you take the offer?

from Dilbert Blog

The Möbius Gear

"After some time staring at and puzzling over this image, I convinced myself that this mechanism is indeed possible and that with right tools, a functional prototype could be built."

There's hope for us as a species yet . . .

via Boing Boing

Makers vs. Managers Schedules from Paul Graham

For someone on the maker's schedule, having a meeting is like throwing an exception. It doesn't merely cause you to switch from one task to another; it changes the mode in which you work.

Paul Graham

I used to be more of a maker, but now I'm mostly a manager. A balance would be better -- maybe manager during the school year and Maker during the summer someday.

Quote of the day -- Lenin

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen”. – Lenin

From the Long Now Foundation

Ben Smith First Career NHL Goal/Point! (4/8/11) [HD]

I'd be happy even if he weren't such a good guy, which he is.

A Perfect Storm in Undergraduate Education

A whiny but fairly comprehensive set of observations about pressures that have contributed to a decline in the standards to which most students are held. From the Chronicle of Higher Education

Part 1
Part 2

Japanese Tsunami Stone Markers

“High dwellings are the peace and harmony of our descendants,” the stone slab reads. “Remember the calamity of the great tsunamis. Do not build any homes below this point.”

From The Long Now Foundation

All Points are Starting Points

Words to live by from Hugh McLeod