Category: Links Dump

Molly Grades the Charts: The Top Ten of 2011 – Hollywood Prospectus Blog A Grantlad writer’s personal top ten songs out of Billboard’s top 100 for the year. Notable primarily because I only recognize one of the ten songs. Our favourite pictures of 2011 – physicsworld.com Much as we enjoy reporting the complex and intriguing… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-21

Charles P. Pierce on the religion of Tim Tebow – Grantland If we’re going to have a real discussion about the place of public religion in our public spectacles, then let’s have one instead of some mushy, Wonder Bread platitudes about how great it is that Tim Tebow talks about Jesus and doesn’t get caught… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-20

Fun games for science-y kids. | Doing Good Science, Scientific American Blog Network Any game where you have to make choices about what to do involves some sort of strategy, and formulating or refining strategies is a work-out for your brain. This means that games, in general, tend to be brain-friendly giftables. It’s worth noting… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-19

Mellowmas | Popdose Your go-to guys for Christmas songs that DO suck… The 20 Unhappiest People You Meet In The Comments Sections Of Year-End Lists : Monkey See : NPR 7. The Self-Punisher. “I always hate your tastes, so I knew this would be a miserable and useless list before I decided to click on… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-16

A Muscular Empathy – Ta-Nehisi Coates – National – The Atlantic It is comforting to believe that we, through our sheer will, could transcend these bindings — to believe that if we were slaves, our indomitable courage would have made us Frederick Douglass, if we were slave masters our keen morality would have made us… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-15

How to Rescue Education Reform – NYTimes.com We sorely need a smarter, more coherent vision of the federal role in K-12 education. Yet both parties find themselves hemmed in. Republicans are stuck debating whether, rather than how, the federal government ought to be involved in education, while Democrats are squeezed between superintendents, school boards and… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-14

Tom Stites: Taking stock of the state of web journalism » Nieman Journalism Lab The buzz about how bloggers and citizen journalists will save the day, once almost deafening, has died down to a murmur, although the buzz about Twitter, Facebook, and cellphone video cameras saving the day has picked up thanks to their powerful… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-11

Print – What Really Happened Aboard Air France 447 – Popular Mechanics Human judgments, of course, are never made in a vacuum. Pilots are part of a complex system that can either increase or reduce the probability that they will make a mistake. After this accident, the million-dollar question is whether training, instrumentation, and cockpit… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-09

Catching Up To the Future: An Appreciation of William Gibson | Tor.com William Gibson is one of those writers whose name is in the process of becoming an adjective–consider Kafkaesque, Ballardian, Pynchonesque: words for which the meaning has become osmotically absorbed even by people who haven’t necessarily read the authors’ books. Now we have Gibsonesque… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-08

You Khan’t Ignore How Students Learn | Action-Reaction People’s reactions are not indicators of effectiveness. Pre/post testing is needed to indicate effectiveness. Ah, but perhaps there is a relationship between people’s reaction and effectiveness? The research indicates otherwise. In the very research study that Khan says is valid (and then dismisses), student actually did better… Continue reading Links for 2011-12-07