we’re gonna need a bigger boat Quotes
I tried to fool it. It bested me repeatedly.
we’re gonna need a bigger boat Quotes
I tried to fool it. It bested me repeatedly.
15-minute writing exercise closes the gender gap in university-level physics
To see if their task could help, Miyake recruited 283 men and 116 women who were taking part in the university’s 15-week introductory course to physics. He randomly divided them into two groups. One group picked their most important values from a list and wrote about why these mattered to them. The other group – the controls – picked their least important values and wrote about why these might matter to other people.
This sort of brain-trickery has always been fascinating to me. If you’re a woman in physics at CU, don’t read this study, cause you’ll blow everything. Otherwise, read on to learn just how critical it is that we strive to not just improve education, but improve the environment in which we provide it.
Lessons In Becoming An Expert – Andrew Sullivan
Just a quick reminder. This one’s worth remembering.
Growing Up Digital, Wired for Distraction – NYTimes.com
He pushed first period back an hour, to 9 a.m., because students were showing up bleary-eyed, at least in part because they were up late on their computers. Unchecked use of digital devices, he says, can create a culture in which students are addicted to the virtual world and lost in it. “I am trying to take back their attention from their BlackBerrys and video games,” he says. “To a degree, I’m using technology to do it.”
I love hearing stories about educators tackling tomorrow’s challenges with tomorrow’s logic. Refreshing.
Proof of extra dimensions possible next year: CERN | Reuters
CERN scientists say they have already taken research with ions further than those with gold at the long-established Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at the U.S. Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island.
These experiments have shown the power of the link-up of 140 computing centers around the world known as the Grid which processes the vast amounts of information that ion collisions produce.
On December 6, the LHC will be shut down for servicing and to avoid draining electricity in the depths of winter from the energy networks of France and Switzerland along whose border CERN lies.
It will start up again in February, then run at full blast, with protons, until the end of the year, when it will close down again until 2013 while engineers prepare it for running at double the energy to the end of the decade and beyond.
I know, it’s hip to bitch about that fact that here we are in 2010 and, wha? no flying cars or hoverboards? I get it. I’m with it. But seriously, CERN is great evidence of what nations can do to uncover vast scientific mysteries through diligence and appropriate funding. How do we make this kind of science cool in the US again?
From Isaac Schlueter: TSA Success Story
This is one of those terrific stories that starts with something I bet many of us struggle with:
I was worried that I’d chicken out. No, not “worried”. I was sure I’d chicken out. Of course I would. I talk a good game about incendiary politics and unconventional ideals, but when the chips are down, I generally do the expedient thing like a nice polite citizen. I’m not one of these “talk down the authorities” types, even though I wish I was.
And ends with:
After the first 4 “OPT-OUT” calls, they just passed us all through the regular metal detector. No one got groped.
Information, properly delivered, is power.
I’ve been prepping a post contrasting all the hoopla about Facebook privacy and prissy first-worlders bitching about giving up some personal information in exchange for use of a free service, something that might just scratch my emotional itch for a little perspective, when it hit me that I’m far, far more riled up about the TSA. What’s more, I feel pretty strongly that the TSA thing is far more justified to be riled up about.
So hats off to Isaac for keeping his cool and not reacting like I would, for being prepared and whatnot, and for those crazed about how teens are going to be using their shiny new @facebook.com email addresses on their resumes, grab your 5-year-old and head to the damned airport.
Newsweek and the Gray Lady: Your Future Awaits: Tech News – GigaOm
… there is an argument to be made that when it comes to an online audience, the Newsweek brand name may actually have a negative connotation rather than a positive one. The site won’t be disappearing entirely: Tina Brown says it will live on under its own banner, and links will obviously be redirected so that past content doesn’t disappear.
I don’t know what the big deal is. Look at the two sites in an a/b test and strip the logos? Same site.
Cooks Source Publisher Statement
The bad news is that this is probably the final straw for Cooks Source. We have never been a great money-maker even with all the good we do for businesses. Having a black mark wont help…and now, our black mark will become our shroud. Winters are bleak in Western New England, and as such they are bleak for Cooks Source as well. This will end us. In the end if we did keep going, I would (very gladly) hire someone else to serve as editor and just continue my work with the towns. You should know that I did have an interview last week and the reporter grilled me seriously. I was able to show him all the promo books and articles we receive, all the photos we take and the “clip art” that is free for everyone. I also showed him those emails…
This is one of those it’s sad … because it’s true stories. Sorry for Cooks Source — it’s hard to see any publication have to shutter in this climate. Sorrier for the decisions that were made that got to this point.
A New Way for Consumers to Give | GiveBack: The People’s Foundation
To achieve this vision, GiveBack recruits businesses to offer percentage-of-sale donations that are unlocked upon consumer purchase. The donations go directly into the consumer’s foundation and the consumer maintains complete control over how, where and when their money is directed. In addition, 100% of the money goes directly to the selected charity.
Seems like a smart way to empower giving through complete brainlessness — one of the things that’s consistently in the way actually doing something good with your money in the first place.
I’d like to start a foundation. When I was singing in college I had this idea to donate a building to the music school that was perfect in every way, but instruments would not be allowed. I was, of course, an a cappella nerd. At the time, I thought this was funny.
TUAW How-To: Create PDFs from your iOS device
Fancy. A Dropbox driven solution for using AirPrint to create PDFs on the fly and have them accessible on your iPad. This hack just further cements the glaring hole Apple has in their cloud services right now. How great would Dropbox fit in the Apple stable, I ask you?
There’s a great Billy Crystal bit where his daughter asks him, “Dad, is it true that Paul McCartney was in another group before Wings?” To which Crystal responds, “Come here and let me tell you about the God Damned Beatles.”
Sooo… anyone hear what that great big iTunes announcement was this morning?
Turns out, it’s MUCH less of an iTunes story than it is an EMI, Apple Corps, Yoko story. I certainly don’t claim to know any more than the rest of the armchair punditry, but I think the story arc of my general emotional thread sums up the overall sentiment.
Me (01/08/2001): God. iTunes is revolutionary. If only there were the great box sets like the Stones. The Beatles. The Cure. I would totally buy those.
Me (2006): God. iTunes is great. Totally changes the way I listen to music. Now I find I don’t have to listen to all the crappy tracks when all I want is the single. Color me liberated. I’d probably still buy the whole White Album… if it were available.
Me (2008): Huh. The music industry sure is tied in knots over this crap. Seven years and they still haven’t figured out a damned thing. Maybe one day we’ll have the Beatles.
Me (11/16/2010): Oh look. The Beatles. Meh. Wonder when Glee’s going to do a Beatles knock-off episode?
No idea what this is about. Seems like the punditry-at-large thinks it’s related to a whole new round of TV deals (@ihnatko had the best quote in this regard: “(I can picture the new head of NBC Universal listlessly prodding at the plateful of kitten hearts Apple presented to him as requested. “They’e tasty,” he said, “but unless I get to eat them while children are watching me in tear-stained horror, it’s not really a full meal, is it? Can we try this again in a few weeks?”)”, or some sort of expanded global streaming gig taking advantage of the new datacenter down south. I clearly know nothing. I post here for posterity only. Move along.
LinkedIn Brings Products, Recommendations And More To Company Pages
Anything that makes actually promoting on LinkedIn more useful is welcome. Company pages launched short on vision, slow on iteration to utility. Worth giving company pages a third look about now.
On company pages, administrators can add products and services tab. So an accounting business can showcase various financial services the company offers. LinkedIn is taking it one step further to allow companies to tailor lists of products and services, based on member profiles. So a business owner can showcase one set of products (or services) to accountants in the aviation industry and another to engineers in the shipping industry.
Why the Creator of Google Maps is Headed for Facebook
More in the on-going saga of high profile Google employees heading to Facebook. Cerebral upside: more Google thinking at Facebook changes [my] perception of Facebook.
Rasmussen describes Google as “unwieldy.” And while the energy at Google is “just amazing,” that the size of the company makes it difficult to get things done.
In part, Rasmussen describes his decision to leave Google in terms of the opportunities elsewhere. The offer – one that came in the form of a personal pitch from Mark Zuckerberg himself – was “too good to refuse.”
…
“It feels to me that Facebook may be a sort of once-in-a-decade type of company,” says Rasmussen. It may be, that a decade ago, that is how we would have described his former employer.