apple juice

Revolution Hits the Universities – NYTimes.com:

“My opening discussion of C. Wright Mills’s classic 1959 book, ‘The Sociological Imagination,’ was a close reading of the text, in which I reviewed a key chapter line by line. I asked students to follow along in their own copies, as I do in the lecture hall. When I give this lecture on the Princeton campus, I usually receive a few penetrating questions. In this case, however, within a few hours of posting the online version, the course forums came alive with hundreds of comments and questions. Several days later there were thousands. … Within three weeks I had received more feedback on my sociological ideas than I had in a career of teaching, which significantly influenced each of my subsequent lectures and seminars.’”

Good op-ed about MOOCs. I don’t know if they are the silver bullet, but they are another avenue. My experience with an online course on Coursera last semester was positive, but we had the face-to-face time as well participating online.

We are interviewing candidates for a position – an interesting cultural experience in and of itself – but during the interviews, it inevitably comes up, “so why do you want to come to Minnesota?”

Just found this blog post for all the Minnesotans who want Minnesota Nice to mean that we’re actually, you know, genuinely nice to people.

The tendency to keep one’s reserve, not make a scene, and remain unflappably friendly at all times is known round these parts as “Minnesota nice.” I’m sure you’ve heard about it before.

Let me go out on a limb and say that it’s a problem.

Say Goodbye to Minnesota Nice

Agreed.

This blows my mind…

3D PRINTED RECORD

“I’ve created a technique for converting digital audio files into 3D-printable, 33rpm records and printed a few prototypes that play on ordinary turntables. Though the audio quality is low -the records have a sampling rate of 11kHz (a quarter of typical mp3 audio) and 5-6 bit resolution (less than one thousandth of typical 16 bit resolution)- the audio output is still easily recognizable. These records were printed on an Objet Connex500 resin printer to a precision of 600dpi with 16 micron z axis resolution.”

(Via The Loop.)

“We are not saints like those Scandinavians — we were lapping up fossil fuels, buying bigger cars and homes, very American,” said Eamon Ryan, who was Ireland’s energy minister from 2007 to 2011. “We just set up a price signal that raised significant revenue and changed behavior. Now, we’re smashing through the environmental targets we set for ourselves.”

Carbon Taxes Make Ireland Even Greener

U.S Internet Users Pay More For Slower Speeds

Man, the free market is working out SO WELL!

This sounds strangely similar to my method for finding good food in a new place…

Lunch with the FT: Tyler Cowen – FT.com

“Three decades and 84 countries later, Cowen has a honed method for how to find a tasty local: find someone ‘between the ages of 30 and 50 in the transport business, with whom I shared a common language, and just ask where do people go. And then I would go there no matter what … the chance that it will be very good is near 100 per cent.’”

Great interview.

The Web We Lost – Anil Dash:

“This isn’t some standard polemic about ‘those stupid walled-garden networks are bad!’ I know that Facebook and Twitter and Pinterest and LinkedIn and the rest are great sites, and they give their users a lot of value. They’re amazing achievements, from a pure software perspective. But they’re based on a few assumptions that aren’t necessarily correct.”

Really good post from Anil Dash. Important reading if you want to understand a bit more about the ongoing skirmishes between Facebook / twitter / instagram / tumblr / etc.