A New Twist on Archery

Lars Andersen, re-discovering the ancient practices of archery, where you could fire 3 arrows within 0.6 seconds.

From Digg.

A New Philosophy on Breakage and Repair

Breakage and repair are part of a history, not things to disguise.

How Trouble Starts

"A lot of trouble comes from when people try to be important" - I forgot! Sorry!

A Joke about the Technopoly We Live In

Bill Gates is trying to make text (from books, magazines, pieces of paper) more interesting by creating a device that can generate video from strings of text.

http://www.geekwire.com/2013/gates-myhrvold-crazy-idea-autogenerating-video-text/

The news earned this set of responses:

johncdvorak

12 hours ago

This is ludicrous. Next: turning farts into text then into video.

Dmitry Kirsanov johncdvorak 5 hours ago There is a prior art for that. Twilight book and the movie.

Chiding People to be Decent

Read this article about the pay of adjunct professors in comparison to tenured and tenure-track professors.

Not that positive.

I read the comments.

Less positivity.  Some lamented how academia was becoming a playground only for the socially elite. Some decried market logic.

What bothers me is that the brainless construct called market, as if it was the Oracle of Delphi, is simply and without any criticism accepted to be the rightful force that drives ultimately all value judgements and decisions in all areas including what counts as valuable profession and what contributes to society's progress. 

I'll be honest: In my personal value system, anthropology, human sciences, ecological sciences rank quite high, right there with earth science and physics (my own training), but also including non-neocon macro-economics, while I see little use in all those many law schools and business schools. Sorry, Jenifer.  

What is new information? The neocons tell us that the market should decide in which direction all economic activity, including learning, research, and teaching should be directed. The market (model) is a big stochastic machine that operates as the "invisible hand" which assigns value by trial and error, and controls the flow of economic activity by allocating money here and pulling it out there. The word free market is misleading because it is constraint to not go against the interests of few owners and members of the so-called meritocracy. But especially with regards to academic research, learning and discovery of new knowledge, most people are lead to accept the idea that freedom means to give the market all control about the direction we are supposed to be searching for new information and improvements in all aspects of living. It means that we put the control to a blind, barely understood "thing out there" which can give rise to all kinds of value judgments about professions. So for example, anthropology may be considered more or less a worthless market glut, while what law schools and business schools produce is seen as The information to tap the sources of wealth production. (Easy - it serves those in control). The problem is, this system is by principle bound to have tunnel vision. If all the sensors of a complex system (which includes our minds) are biased and focused only towards preselected potential sources of new information, and accept from those only what it expects according to its own biases, then what it gains as new information is very likely to be actually just old information, which is no information at all. That system begins to optimize its efficiency to the death. As they like to say: "The market has already accounted for it" (what it perceives that is). In other words, it is by design that we are just drifting and may not even know when we go over the cliff - While a few anthropologists may be trying very hard to prevent this from happening.

Some were chiding the article writer for her career choice as an Anthropologist.

A commenter named Bulldog710 had this to say about the freshly made Ph.D Anthropologist article writer:

Bottom line: (for example) There are 10,000 PhDs with degrees in Anthropology. There are only 1,000 professorships in the U.S. available, and all those positions are filled with tenured PhDs.

Poor Sarah feels defrauded because, as the 10,000 + 1 with a doctorate in Anthropology, she didn't get offered the Red Carpet at Harvard like she feels she deserves. So now, in her world view, the entire educational system in America is headed for the sewer.
I suggest Sarah grow up first, then after a few years of maturity, try again. Such incredible pity pot.

There were a lot more comments that this particular poster made, but this one was one of the most vitriolic because of the attack he/she laid upon a person he/she only apparently knows through means of this article.  The comment just inflated the article writer with characteristics such as entitlement and immaturity.

The arrogance was answered.

Bottom line: Despite the fact that more and more students are going to college and therefore there is more demand for classes and resources, the fact that university bureaucracies are growing exponentially with the upper ranks getting larger and larger salaries, and the fact that the expectations for research output has not changed, it apparently somehow totally makes sense that the number of tenured professor positions in the USA have been steadily decreasing while cheap adjunct positions have become more common. 

Yes, let the system arbitrarily take away gainful employment opportunities proportionate to the years of unpaid work and student loan debt you've gone through to get the job you've always wanted and were willing to work for, in favor of shackling you into "permanently temporary" adjunct positions without any job security or benefits simply because they can get away with extracting the work out of you without the oh so terribly inconvenient price tag of paying you an appropriate living wage. 

We are supposed to live in a world where a small handful of extremely greedy people hoard money hand over fist, while the rest of us should grovel and beg and just be grateful when one of these people occasionally tosses one of us a bone.  Don't dare step out of line and point out that things could work better another way, or that there are better ways to distribute wages.

Bless you, Bulldog710, for unleashing a completely vicious and unfounded character assassination toward someone you've never met simply because she is pointing out very real and completely arbitrary inequities in a system that are really devastating some peoples lives unnecessarily.  Putting effort into fixing things and making things work better (or like they're supposed to) is for bratty little children; instead, lets be mature adults and mindlessly defend a broken system by conveniently finding a way to place blame on people arbitrarily screwed over because that's the path of least resistance and most morally simplistic.  Roll over and just accept your fate because that's what's convenient for the worldview of the Bulldog710's of the world, who are far too preoccupied with their reprehensibly lazy and unfounded misanthropy to be bothered to extend any effort beyond that of a banana slug.

Finding a Creative Use for Water Bottles

Go Kababayan!

A Property of Love

Love has a bouncy quality to it. - An Energizing Lady at Gang Intervention meeting in Long Beach

Look at Yourself After Watching This

Says the video description on Youtube.



Phrases that come to mind: thankful, and making the best out of what we have and are given.

Patch Adams: Being a Prick to Get Things Done

One dialogue I've always remembered and has shaped my attitude towards graduate school: you don't need to be a prick to get things done.

Best embodied and lesson made most memorable by the movie Patch Adams, based on the real-life medical school experiences of a doctor by that name.

In one scene there's a heated exchange between the easygoing, heavy-joking, radical-thinking Patch Adams and his uptight, born-to-be-a-doctor roommate, Mitch.

Patch: Why don't you like me? You're a prick, and I like you.

Mitch: Because you make my effort a joke. I want to be a doctor. This isn't a game to me! This isn't play time! This is serious business! I have it in me to be a great doctor!

In order to do that I have to sacrifice if I want to be better.

Patch: Better than me, hmm?

Mitch: I will save lives that could otherwise not have been saved. Now I could be like you and go around laughing and have a good time haha, but I prefer to learn. Because the more I learn the more likely I will have the answer at a crucial moment and save a life.

You say I'm a prick? You say I'm a prick? You know maybe I am. But you ask the average person when death comes knocking at their door whether they want a prick on their side or some kindergarten teacher who's gonna kiss their ass.

Because when that day comes, I want the prick! And so will you.

Patch: You know I forget how young you are Mitch, that you think you need to be a prick to get things done. You actually think that that's a new idea.

The scene in question begins at 45:22 in the video below.

Stephen Colbert's Northwestern Commencement Speech

Key Quotes:

• Thankfully, dreams can change. If we all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.
• If you do get your dream, you are not a winner.
• Now there are few rules in improv...You are not the most important person in the scene. Everybody else is. And if everybody else is more important than you are, you will naturally pay attention to them, and serve them...No one is leading, you're all following the follower, serving the servant, you cannot win improv.  And life is an improvisation.  You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just yanking ideas out of your ass as you go along.
• And like improv you cannot win your life...
• In my experience, you will truly serve only what you love, because service is love made visible.  If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community.  If you love money, you will serve your money.  And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself...and only have yourself.  So no winning.  Instead try to love others and serve others, and find those who will love and serve you. 

Greatest Speech Ever

I don't know if it's the "greatest speech ever", but the images are stark, and the content is worth listening to.

Kindness Over Genius

I caught whiff of this piece by Kelly Tsai during an open mic, and I was blown away. Her message is something that grabbed me as a graduate student in this world of hyper-competition: what's important and rare to find isn't how smart people are, what's important and rare is to find someone who is genuinely kind.

Once Tongue Tied

A spoken word piece by Adriel Luis about women and their "ethnic make-up" with scenes from Pocahontas. It was mixed by some guy taking an education class named Sam Figueroa.

"Come Home Then"

Reading about students' reflections on their math experiences by Yolanda A. Johnson.

Johnson talked about how in pursuit of her doctoral degree, she called her dad. Her dad said nonchalantly, "come home then." The quote stayed on her mind.

Johnson explained, "come home, then" meant come home to the "safety net", a zone of comfort. The zone of comfort is a place of love and acceptance, but perhaps not a place for development.

Through those simple words, her dad inspired her to do the opposite. He was encouraging her, "Don't talk about it, be about it."

In the end she got her Ph.D and so wrote about this in retrospect.

The Interrupters

Below is a movie about gang and violence interventionists working in the city of Chicago for a program called Ceasefire.

The program's philosophy is that "violence is like a disease", which means that the people suffering from it "need to be treated."

I have watched a shed load of movie trailers. A shed load. And always with a cynical eye. But this is the first time I have ever applauded a trailer. (A trailer!) - perspicaciouscritic

I had the chance to watch it in its limiting showing.

I'm not a big movie watcher, but for me the two hours rolled and rumbled. Maybe it was a combination of a good documentary-making and the message that needed to be sent to audiences.

The program Ceasefire has their critics. Some would maintain that they're promoting gang membership. Or they'll be accused by community members of snitching to law enforcement.

From what I know, they've shown to be effective to the point where prisoners have heard about the program from inside their jail cells. Statistically, they've managed to slow down the killings and ease the tensions between folks.

For me the documentary showed that a lot of violence is fueled by a thirst for revenge, a fire that once raging isn't easily controlled no matter the situation. The revenge could be fueled by anything, for territories or for a person simply bumping into another person. The anger expressed over the "petty" situation is likely the result of a build-up of unexpressed anger over their various situations.

Through their networks and being "in the know", the Ceasefire workers, the Interrupters, found ways to step into those hostile and volatile situations. They relied on their street cred, and their own experiences with violence; they were just out there talking, chilling, mediating, preventing such drastic action.

The Random Black Girl Singin' the Soul

A social commentary on the business of musicals, with the singer, Patina Miller enacting all those stereotypes of black women.



Social commentary done right --- not necessarily attacking one thing or another, but expressing the experience, kicking in doses of humor.

Is It Ever too Late to Go to Medical School?

I ran into this topic last year while in the 1st year of my own grad school program.

http://www.reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/gavht/mds_of_reddit_is_it_ever_too_late_to_go_into/

If you don't know what reddit is, it's a community where LOTS of users make snarky one-liner comments in response to questions and links.  It's also a place where helpful comments can be made.  On occasion.

Comments, taken from folks who report being M.D.s and medical students:

Well, if you go into medicine now you'll be an M.D. by 36. If you don't, you'll still be 36. - soxfanpdx

No, is was not especially difficult to get back into things. In fact, I personally think being "older" when starting med school was advantageous in that regard. I entered med school with both a sense of urgency and the realization that I was doing what I wanted to do. Both of these things made the long hours of study easier. Also, I was recently married when I began, so I had lost the urge (for the most part) to spend my nights at bars/clubs/meeting people, which was a huge advantage over the younger students who were still on the tail end of the partying years.

In the end, I treated med school like a job, with homework. Lecture from 9-12, study at school until 4-5, come home, take a break, prepare for the next day from 7/8-10 and review what I needed on the weekends. Med school is work, but it's doable. - niridia

When I was an intern, I had three—three—co-residents who were older than fifty. They had all begun medical school in their late forties.

One had bummed around East Asia for a few years, teaching English, and then settled with her husband in the states as an Eastern Medicine practitioner.

Another had worked in medical labs her whole adult life.
The third had a PhD in chemistry and worked as a teaching professor for twenty years before deciding to go into medicine. - adoarns

My best friend in my med school class, I'm currently a 2nd year, is 45.
I apologize if you've mentioned it somewhere else in this thread but where do you stand as far as your prerequisite courses? If you didn't take them during your first time through undergrad then you have to factor in at least 2 more years getting the prereqs and then the mcat.
That said, go for it. My aforementioned buddy was an english professor, nothing to do with medicine at all and he did the same thing you are thinking of except he started getting the prereqs at like 41 years old.
Good luck, if you believe you can do it, you will. - markuscreek24

Of course there were negative comments.  Mostly about being a nurse or some kind of assistant to cut down on costs.  You can read more at the link.

Concerns for cost both time and money, the answer to the question posed above seems to be: non.

Business: Give Money Away?

So, here's an idea of drumming up business in this faltering economy.

This is the first time I have read a blog and of course the first post of any kind. As a 36 year old plumber I have been fired from every plumbing company I have ever worked for. All of them fired me after about a year. The reasons have all been the same, they asked my opinion about their problems and I told them the truth. It seems every company always has some sort of problems they deal with but never know the answers. The last job I had was running a new hospital project and after 9 months I was asked by management to get rid of half the plumbers and replace them with non-plumbers to drive down cost.

The short story is I said no way, it’s illegal and I want no part of it. I then said if they go over my head I will turn them in to the state dept. of health. Well, I was fired….With the economy the way it is no jobs are available. So with a family of 4 and a new house and $300 in checking I started my own plumbing company. Anyone who cares to listen here is what I have to say. Weeks went by with no customers calling and I didn’t know what to do.

We were out of money and my wife gave me a choice of getting a wal-mart type job or get out. That night I freaked out and was up all hours of the night just thinking and thinking. Then it came to me. My problem was simple, I was going about this backwards. Money is a stupid motivator, customers are the real motivator. So here is what I did. I went to a printer and had them print up a 1000 $50.00 gift cards on heavy paper stock all of them with code numbers. The next thing I did was go door to door and meet people one at a time. Ya, it was crazy at first but the people were blown away, they loved it. As of right now I am the number one plumber in a town of about 40,000 people and am looking to hire another plumber.

So whats the secret? Give people what they want. All these years I was right, most people let money motivate them and that creates poor decision making. I let the customer decide. The economy is tough so just give the customers what they want, money. People were so blown away they thought it was a joke. Think about it for a moment, have you ever heard of a business come to your door, shake your hand, and while looking in there eyes tell them you would like to earn the business and by they way here is a fifty dollar gift card that can be used anytime for any plumbing service they need.

When it’s all said and done I wished I would have done this years ago. I enjoyed the article about Mark Cuban but I think money is just a poor motivator, money is the result of good business practice. My wife by the way thought it was crazy to give $50 to everyone I meet, she was wrong, but now she is my biggest fan. That $50 is nothing when you consider a customer spends thousands during the course of a life time, not to mention they spread word of mouth business like fire. Mike

Hmm...so my next question is how do I give out $50 gift cards for writing a bunch of posts.

The Story of William Kamkwamba

William Kamkwamba is a boy who had nothing but a bunch of spare parts, an old library book on electricity, and proceeded to bring electricity to his village via windwills.

I first came across the story of William Kamkwamba when I heard about this event showcasing these activist-type short documentaries called World Pangea Day. I posted my favorite shorts on my original blog.



Yeah, yeah, you probably heard him talk on TED, and now it's just so cool, trendy, and sophisticated to know who William Kamkwamba is.



Today, he's 22, and a student at Dartmouth here in the United States.  He continues projects to bring electricity to villages in Malawi.

He updates his blog regularly at:  http://williamkamkwamba.typepad.com/