Grim Chart about US Debt

From The Economist

More Women == Smarter Teams

An intriguing research project highlighted in the June 2011 issue of the Harvard Business Review by Anita Woolley of Carnegie Mellon and Thomas Malone of MIT suggests what makes teams smarter: having more women on them. The study also points out some things which you might intuitively think would help, but don’t.

via Trusted Advisor

Five to Fist -- Excellent Decision Making Tool for Small Meetings

One fascinating clue to women on teams and how they make decisions is provided by a look inside the Blogojevich jury, made up of eleven women and one man. Jezebel wrote that instead of taking an immediate up or down vote on various counts, the jury used a teacher’s device of “five to fist” – hold up five fingers if you completely agree, a fist if you completely disagree, and 2, 3 or 4 fingers to indicate that you’re somewhere in between.

In the Chicago Tribune Mary Schmich suggests that:

The jurors reached their decisions with no bullying, no shouting, no pouting. A colleague of mine who has covered a lot of trials said she’s never seen a jury build agreement through so many shades of gray.

My take-away? Make sure your teams have plenty of women, and oh, while you’re at it, try “five to fist” for coming to consensus.

This post was written by Sandy Styer

Sandy Styer is TAA's practice leader for the Trust Quotient, Trust Quotient 360 and Trust Temperament service offerings, and Trust Audit services. You can read more about her here. You can follow Sandy on Twitter @sandystyer

via Trusted Advisor

Euthanasia Coaster

The design starts with a steep-angled lift to the 510-metre (1,670 ft) top, that would take two minutes for the 24-passenger train to reach.[1] From there, a 500-metre (1,600 ft) drop would take the train to 360 kilometres per hour (220 mph), close to its terminal velocity, before flattening out and speeding into the first of its seven slightly clothoid inversions.[3] Each inversion would have a smaller diameter than the one before in order to inflict 10 g to passengers while the train loses speed.

via Wikipedia

Fire nears Los Alamos

6/28/2011 7:00PM - Los Alamos National Laboratory tonight announced it will remain closed through Thursday, June 30 because of risks presented by the Las Conchas Fire and the mandatory evacuation of Los Alamos town site. Laboratory facilities will be closed for all activities and nonessential employees are directed to remain off site. Personnel are considered nonessential unless they have received specific instructions from their supervisors to report to the Laboratory. Employees should check local news sources, Los Alamos County Emergency Radio on AM 1610, the LANL Update Hotline (505-667-6622) and the LANL web page (www.lanl.gov) for updates.

Anathem

How can I not have mentioned this before. I'm rereading it and it's even better the second time.

buy at Amazon

Success in a single sketch

via Nuclear Success

Jim Webb on Libya

Was our country under attack, or under the threat of imminent attack? Was a clearly vital national interest at stake? Were we invoking the inherent right of self-defense as outlined in the United Nations charter? Were we called upon by treaty commitments to come to the aid of an ally? Were we responding in kind to an attack on our forces elsewhere, as we did in the 1986 raids in Libya after American soldiers had been killed in a disco in Berlin? Were we rescuing Americans in distress, as we did in Grenada in 1983?

No, we were not.



From the Richmond Times-Dispach

Happy Birthday, Alan Turing

Alan Turing

Magic Mouse

Marine Quote about Gays in the Military

[T]he WSJ recently covered remarks made by Sgt. Maj. Micheal Barrett, the top non-commissioned officer in the Marine Corps and general all-around hardass, about gays in the military:

Article 1, Section 8 of the Constitution is pretty simple, It says, 'Raise an army.' It says absolutely nothing about race, color, creed, sexual orientation. You all joined for a reason: to serve. To protect our nation, right? How dare we, then, exclude a group of people who want to do the same thing you do right now, something that is honorable and noble? ... Get over it. We're magnificent, we're going to continue to be. ... Let's just move on, treat everybody with firmness, fairness, dignity, compassion and respect. Let's be Marines.

From WSJ via kottke.org

David Foster Wallace on Life and Work

A wonderful commencement address.

Great poster about talk and work

A geometric interpretation of "All Hat and No Cattle."

from Joey Roth via BankSimple Blog

Happy Friday

Spongebob Squarepants mushroom named

"Sing it with us: What lives in the rainforest, under a tree? Spongiforma squarepantsii, a new species of mushroom almost as strange as its cartoon namesake. Scientists from the San Francisco State University have discovered a new species of mushroom in Borneo with sponge-like properties. Its strange behavior convinced them to name it after the famous Bob. There is no word on whether or not their chances of getting future grant money will be improved by this choice."

via Slashdot

Are you ready kids? I can't hear you . . . .

Artificial hippocampal system restores long-term memory, enhances cognition

Theodore Berger and his team at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering’s Department of Biomedical Engineering have developed a neural prosthesis for rats that is able to restore their ability to form long-term memories after they had been pharmacologically blocked.

via - kurzweilai.net

This feels relevant to anyone who has experienced alzheimer's or similar memory-loss in family or friends.

World Trade Center Name Adjacency Algorithm

WTC Names Arrangement Tool from blprnt on Vimeo.

Video from an article about the World Trade Center adjacency problem.

- via blprnt

Wintours 5-word acceptance speech

Quote of the day -- Marko Rakar

Quote of the day, from Marko Rakar, Croatian data activist: "May the bridges I burn light the way"

via Boing Boing

Hula Hoop View of the World

Word of the day: Ephebiphobia

The fear of youth is called ephebiphobia. First coined as the “fear and loathing of teenagers,” today the phenomenon is recognized as the “inaccurate, exaggerated and sensational characterization of young people” in a range of settings around the world. Studies of the fear of youth occur in sociology and youth studies.

from Wikipedia via bestofwikipedia

Authors@Google: Randall Munroe of xkcd

An oldie but a goodie, and an excellent cameo by Donald Knuth.

Watson, fresh from Jeopardy victory, brings Medical game

Apparently this is what Watson was designed to do all along.

via Singularity Hub

Wonder Woman

From Phil Noto.

Midnight Sun Partial Eclipse

from Wired

Cassini at Saturn

CASSINI MISSION from cabbas on Vimeo.

Betteridge's Law of Headlines

Betteridge's Law of Headlines states that "any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no' ".

from Wikipedia

RSA Animate - Changing Education Paradigms

A great talk (with cartoons!) about education.

Manhattanendge

yfrog Photo : http://yfrog.com/hsgthhpj Shared by neiltyson

May 30, 2011 -- one of the two days each year when the sun sets right at the end of the grid in Manhattan.

Machine for preserving the wind.

This feels like Ray Bradbury's “And the Sailor Home from the Sea.”