apple juice

the new daft punk is my official summer record. there is a wonderful groove permeating this record. I’ve only streamed via iTunes. Contemplating a vinyl purchase. But it’s $33.49 on Amazon. That is a serious premium over the digital version.

graduation is nearly upon us this year, and I just found this speech by David Foster Wallace. Worth a listen.

THIS IS WATER – By David Foster Wallace from The Glossary on Vimeo.

The best programs draw people who majored as undergraduates in the subjects they wanted to teach; focus on extensive clinical practice rather than on classroom theory; are selective in choosing their applicants rather than treating students as a revenue stream; and use data about how their students fare as teachers to assess and revise their practice.

via Teachers – Will We Ever Learn? – NYTimes.com.

Good article – if you do just a little bit of reading about the system in Finland, you’ll get the sense that we could do a lot better.

This will blow your mind…

La surconsommation from Lasurconsommation on Vimeo.

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.)