Learning:
[L1] I’ve linked to articles about giant squids. Now: flying squids!
[L2] The Middle Ages were not exactly what we were told they were. Here are six myths that most believe.
Entertainment:
[E1] I’ve always found it a bit sad that Hootie and the Blowfish, who actually had a number of good songs, their #1 single will always be “Only Wanna Be With You.” Here is a list of five songs hated by the artists that made them famous or that they made famous.
[E2] I’ve long believed that universities that don’t want to play the football rat-race ought to focus their energy on rugby. I like the existence of college football even at very low levels (I’d rather my school have a team in Division III than no team at all) as a unifying pageant for alumni and students. I don’t think basketball works quite as well. This, though. This would work.
[E3] Everything you wanted to know about hentai!
[E4] The GOP retracted its paper on copyright reform and fired it’s author, but there really is a conservative case for copyright reform.
Psychology:
[P1] The case for forcing extroversion on introverts. I have mixed feelings.
[P2] How confusion can help us learn.
[P3] The good life.
Business:
[B1] Do flattened companies actually consolidate upper management control?
[B2] This is not news, but cable companies that provide internet are sort of at a conflict of interest. It’s cause for concern.
[B3] Work smarter, not harder. No, stop trying to work so smart. Either way, your employers are counting on your productivity.
[B4] Economics are making beef more bland.
America:
[A1] A while back, Dave Schuler explained why immigration and education aren’t going to save us.
[A2] How virtual fences may change the rural landscape.
[A3] Michael Williams and Alex Tabarrok look at right, wrong, and perception. The American public is still lined up behind the death penalty, but perceptions are changing.
[A4] It’s a redneck! It’s a cracker! It’s… Florida Man!
World:
[W1] Uruguay has transitioned from being a country to being a giant offshore bank account. Guam is parashooting poisoned mice to deal with its snake problem.
[W2] The strange story of of German soldiers growing breasts.
[w3] From the Economist, speed limits, local TV channels, prisons, and patriotism in Britain.
Outworldly:
[O1] Very important: The Dos and Don’ts of time travel.
[O2] Megan McArdle had a good point here… where are the bicycles in post-apocalypse?
Technology:
[T1] How odd. Apparently some people run out of GMail space.
[T2] The endurability of Adobe Photoshop. Photoshop is so expensive that I’ve had difficulty purchasing anything after CS2. Which, btw, they’ve finally killed activation on and released the CD-keys for. Which I appreciate, because they’d stopped letting me install it. If you don’t want to put down the money for Photoshop (or are too honest to use the CS2 without having purchased it), Paint.net and GIMP are capable image editors.
O2: Other than the obvious — screenwriters and novelists don’t ride much — one possibility is the fragile nature of the tubes in bicycle tires. With automobile tires, I might go for years without doing anything other than putting in a bit of air now and then. Back when I was riding a bicycle a lot — although still far fewer miles than I put on the car — I would often go through several tubes over the course of spring/summer/fall. Even with patching.
02: MEGAN MCARDLE IS THE WORST HUMAN BEING ON EARTH SHES SO STOOOPPID I CANT BELEVE YUD READ HER!!11!1
There, took care of that for all the hataz.
I know this is probably a joke, but for what it’s worth, I don’t get all the McCardle-hating. From the small number of articles I’ve read from her, she strikes me as above average thoughtful and intelligent.
I’m not reading the particular o2 post. First, because it didn’t catch my attention when I was looking over Will’s links. And now, because I find out it’s about zombies, and I don’t like zombies or undead things. It’s kind of like not liking clowns. (Hint: I don’t like clowns either.)
Look, Megan McArdle would be less hateful if she weren’t trying to be David Brooks, a repeater of gossip and mouthpiece of villainy. She just gets too much wrong. She’s embarrassed herself repeatedly on the AGW issue, Iraq, Big Pharma. It’s like she’s some sort of bad newsreader who has to retract pretty much everything she’s just said.
For the record i was joking below about McMegan.
She can make an occasional good point, but that is about it. She is not the worst pundit but is overrated by her fans and over criticized by the people who dislike her.
Without wanting to say anything positive about McArdle that piece she quotes from is right on. Bikes would rule in a zombie apocalypse. On a road bike a person in good shape can do 100 miles a day and hit 20 mph for a while. That would be good enough to migrate quite a distance or get away from anyone without a car.
Jesus dude…it’s the zombie apocalypse, and you STILL can’t cut McArdle any slack? The world needs to get re-populated SOMEHOW…if you’re lucky, maybe only fragments of your comment will survive, and she’ll fall for you –
greginak…want…McArdle…right on…rule…good shape…hit…for a while…good
you’ll get the slack for McMegan when you pry it from my cold dead hands….
any credit she gets should go to the person who wrote the original piece she quoted from. then again reflected glory is better than nothing at all.
McMegan…credit…original…glory…better😉
Re P1 [imposing extroversion on introverts]:
I have mixed feelings, too. On the immediate issue about the author’s class, I suppose whether what she’s doing is all right depends in large part on how she does it. As an aside, I realize her article is about introverts, but I wonder how she handles the extroverts who just talk without really showing an understanding of what they’re talking about.
As for the wider issue, I have more mixed feelings. I’m probably more of an introvert than extrovert, so I have a lot of sympathy for a the crowd that says it might be the better part of compassion to understand how we see and experience things. At the same time, the author of the linked-to article points out that we can’t (and really don’t have the right to) expect special consideration.
I also get a little weary of introverts who try to stake a claim to being better people just because they’re introverted, or who use introversion as a crutch to excuse selfishness. I say this because I catch myself doing this a lot. Also, some of the apologetics that have recently been written, such as “Party of One” (which I haven’t finished) seem to stake a claim to superiority.
stupid extroverts stealing ideas straight out of my head!
*grumbles*
If you think that Uruguay is bad, you should see Paraguay. Guess who’s got land there…
Cloned Hitler?
Have Uruguay and Paraguay settled the question yet of who’s guayer?
(Credit: The Onion, of course)
I think Uruguay is the bottom in that relationship, aren’t they?
I’ve already shared two of these links with various members of my faculty and am only about halfway through. Great work, Will!
The GOP retracted its paper on copyright reform and fired its author
They had to. The whole thing was plagiarized.
[E1] Simple Minds, which is an arty, New Wavish band, hates, hates, hates the only song of theirs you remember.
E4- there is a good case for copyright reform and even a good conservative case. If we only had a conservative party to push it.
By the way, the link in E4 is about flying squid.
If I didn’t know better, I would assume this sentence only made sense to a schizophrenic or a spy.
The sea cow flies at midnight. I repeat, the sea cow flies at midnight.
“Mr. Truman?”
“Yes.”
“The link is about flying squid.”
“What?”
“I said, ‘The link is about flying squid.'”
“Oh, you want Truman the spy! Upstairs, in the back.”
Gonna add this to my collection of things that make perfect sense when said in exactly the right context, but not elsewhere.
Doh!
[E3] But I wanted to know nothing.
Everything and more!
Although, um, having, um, watched the, um, clip, I’m not, um, sure if that, um, um, um, guy, was the, um, best choice to, um, explain it.
You want to know the guy who can best explain it?
NOBODY
L2 – How sad is it that I knew this from having read a Michael Crichton book?
I would have commented earlier, but I ended up spending wa-a-a-a-ay too much time at one of those links.
But really, all I have to say is:
Cool.
P1: Speaking as an introvert, I’d warn against overestimating the utility of the specific skills required for “class participation” in interpersonal interaction outside the classroom.
Care to elaborate?
I’m not sure I how much I can elaborate, at least with certainty. The basis for this, at least, is personal experience and observation. I didn’t have difficulty participating in “class discussion”, at least for most of my academic career. Indeed, I’d often enough be one of the kids who wouldn’t shut up and let the rest of the class participate in the discussion. And, at that, public speaking isn’t THAT much of a challenge to me, at least in the right circumstances. But that doesn’t translate to confidence or ease in all other situations. The reasons why that might be so would be, at least in part, speculation.
On one level, I don’t think it’s either complicated or surprising, at least once you realize that social interaction IS a skill. Social interaction skills learned in the classroom aren’t useless, but they don’t provide everything you need, just like learning to write a 5-paragraph essay doesn’t provide you with all the skills you need to do the sort of writing most adults do.
If you like, I can list some of the specific differences that seem to be relevant. Although my lack of skill in some forms of personal interaction is kind of the point, so I’m not necessarily in the best position to say what exactly is important to those interactions.
I have the same problem as you. I struggle not to shut up in class, but outside in social situations I find it difficult to participate in conversations.
Over the years, I’ve come to realize that many musicians are introverts; yet on stage, these same introverts often mesmerize; I suspect it’s not much different from the introvert who dominates class-room discussion; or so I think from watching on introverted spouse and adult child.
First, becoming a musician means hundreds upon hundreds of hours alone, learning an instrument; mastering the thing. And it’s this mastery that’s key. I’m sure that the topics introverts go on about in class are also places where they feel they have mastery.
Because with it, your social skills don’t matter, you’ve got mastery. You can get on stage, get in front of the class, and the mastery takes fills you like the force.
No social interaction required.
/interestingly this does not seem to apply to theater; there, introversion seems a prerequisite.
edit last sentence: extro not intro.
Back when I first started getting into local music, there was a particular act I went to see frequently. He always had the same opening act. Anyway, the headliner was a great stage man. Awesome presence. Very charismatic. But if you talked to him one-on-one, he was rather stilted and awkward. The opening act was the other way around. He hadn’t figured out stage presence, but was the friendliest guy if you talked to him off-stage.
I’m great in one-on-one, but put me in a crowd of any size and I stultify.
That’s part of it. Mastery of the subject matter certainly plays a role. But I don’t think that’s the only thing going on. And it’s certainly not the case that I had that hundreds of hours worth of mastery in all of my school subjects.
i often run out of gmail space.
does gimp still have an awful, if name-appropriate, sadistic user interface? (cs6 is the biz)
Adobe would do better to label their stuff in Chinese: their semiotics, like the peace of Christ, passeth all understanding.
i agree, their products are easy to use and well-integrated.
Adobe’s semiotics are horrible. Chinese would be better. I’ve never been a technology zealot, believing people should be able to use any tool which suits the purpose. But Adobe has been making life tough for people for far too long.
In the beginning, there was Wilber, Wilber the gimp. The graphic was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the desktop, and the Spirit of Wilber was moving over the face of the bitstream.
And Wilber said, “/File/New” and there was an image. And Wilber saw that the image was good, and Wilber separated the image into drawables. And Wilber looked down at what he had wrought, and Wilber said, “Oh golly.” For Wilber had made the drawables of the layer according to their kinds, and the drawables of the channel according to their kinds, and the drawables of the mask according to their kinds…
Book of Wilber, Kt 1:1-12
i couldn’t disagree more. i find it a joy to use across programs, especially in the last three iterations when they finally fixed the import issues with indesign.
Whatever tool keeps anyone productive is a good tool. While I was on Windows, I liked Paint Shop Pro and wrote a good deal of Python for it. But the gimp has so many fine aspects. I have a whole desktop dedicated to gimp, a concept Windows never grasped.
Some folks hate all those dialogues. For me, the last thing I want is some MDI interface trying to maintain state. Again, a matter of preference. Whatever gets the job done.
I watched my girlfriend trying to deal with Adobe’s 3D tools: what a mess. For all the complaints about gimp, Adobe’s solutions are just as byzantine and awkward. The only way to come to terms with Adobe is to watch the videos: the documentation will not provide much insight. Adobe’s documentation is amazingly bad.
Perhaps if someone started out with Adobe’s tools when they were simpler, the evolution would be easier. But from what I see, if you buy Adobe products, better see if you can get Adobe training on the same invoice.
I simply do not understand running out of GMail space.
As far as I know, GIMP still has that insignia. I mostly use Paint.net these days, when not using Photoshop.
“I simply do not understand running out of GMail space.”
i’m pretty popular, so it happens to me a lot.
Do you never delete your old emails?
It boggles my mind how people manage their inboxes. When I see someone with 200+ unread emails in their inbox, I get antsy. 200+! I rarely have more than 30 emails in my inbox… not 30 unread… 30 total! Emails get received, read, and replied to. If I can’t reply to them immediately or otherwise act on their content, they remain in the inbox. Everything else gets deleted or archived.
more seriously i often deal in very large attachments. i do backup my gmail account every six months or so but right now i’m at i think 8.5gb out of 10 whatever the limit is. i haven’t zipped and backed those archives up to a remote server yet because i’m a moron, probably.
it’s been my primary account since the service started so there’s a lot of stuff in there.
I just sort out my gmail, putting everything with an attachment in one folder. I throw out all the junk from that folder. Hey presto, I get my space back.
I’ve had gmail since it was first available in 2004, when someone else had to recommend you for it. I’m currently at 35% of my capacity and I get LOTS of email.
Gmail is a joy to work with. I do clean out some stuff that stacks up, but I’ve got every important email I’ve ever received.
On P1, I think it’s important to distinguish between being introverted and being shy. You can be the former without being the latter. That’s basically how I am. I never had an issue with class participation and the like but I also didn’t feel the need to talk just to hear myself speak. I had no particular desire to be the center of attention.
Here’s an indicator between the two: If you have a job that requires a fair amount of social interaction throughout your day, how do you like to unwind? If your answer is to go somewhere like a bar and spend a couple hours talking and interacting even more, then you’re an extrovert. If you’re like me and just want to go home and veg in front of the tube or something then you’re likely an introvert. I’ve had jobs in sales and I could do it, not the best but not the worst either. But at the end of the day the last damn thing I wanted to do was talk to even more people. Ecchh!
It seems to me the writer of the Atlantic piece was really talking about shy kids and in that I would agree with her. She’s just categorizing wrongly.
I was thinking very much the same thing. I saw a piece one time that defined introversion and extroversion based on from where you derive energy. If you GAIN energy from social interaction, if you are energized by being with and around other people, you are extroverted. If you LOSE energy from social interaction, if it is taxing for you to be with and around other people, you are introverted.
This was very helpful for Zazzy and I, as she is much more introverted and I’m much more extroverted.
Rod,
I agree with your and Kazzy’s definition of introversion. In fact Kazzy’s, which is also my fiancee’s definition (she’s an extrovert) is particularly suitable.
Still, I think it might be a mistake to insist too much on the distinction between shy and introverted. I think a shy student might arguably need to learn to speak up for him- or herself, regardless of whether we call that student shy or introverted. (Of course, “arguably” is a key word. I suppose there are different ways of looking at how best to approach the “problem” and whether it is indeed a “problem.”)
In other words, when someone says “introverted” but means “shy,” it can be helpful to do more than just remind them that the words ought to mean different things.
http://schrojones.deviantart.com/art/How-to-Live-with-Introverts-291305760
That is the “piece” I was referring to… more comic than essay but whatever, it made sense.
I think much like so many other things, children should be taught the skills to be successful in various group dynamics, including both the ability to speak up in front of a group of people and, just as importantly, to shut up in a group of people and let others talk. And I don’t know that any of that has to do with the introversion/extroversion spectrum.
And I agree that we shouldn’t necessarily see shyness as a problem… rather, it is a personality trait that can be limiting in certain circumstances. However, it also has benefits; a certain amount of risk aversion or moderation is healthy: shy people tend to be much more deliberate in their actions and decisions in certain realms, provided their shyness isn’t paralyzing.
kazzy,
Thanks for the comic strip link.
My fiancee actually helped me understand my introversion better. She’s an extrovert, but she has been really good at recognizing my need for personal space.
Yea… I’ve got some room to grow in that area… Kudos to your wife!
I’m an introvert. My wife is more of an introvert. We organize our house in such a way to make sure that we spend time together. Otherwise, we’d run the risk of spending most of our time in our respective caves.
I had a roommate for two years who was very introverted. I saw him maybe two or three times a week. He was an usher at my wedding.
I thought I’d respond to this, because I think this ties into one of the ways that “class participation” is insufficient for teaching interpersonal interaction. Because there’s a lot more to paying attention to other people than just shutting up long enough to let them get a word in edgewise. And the dynamics of class discussion frequently give this short shrift (although this is mitigated somewhat at higher levels, when class discussion starts to more closely resemble what actually happens when adults discuss things with their friends).
Despite it nominally being a group conversation, only one persons opinion matters, at least for the purpose of the grade. So you don’t (or at least don’t have to) learn to read the signals people give when you’re actually having the conversation. Even to the extent that you care about your peers opinion, the classroom environment changes the rules. Are you boring them, do they not care what you’re saying? They’re in school, most of them expect to be bored and uninterested. Are they not following what you’re saying? For the most part, they’re in school because they have to be, not because they care deeply about the subject matter, and it’s something the teacher is going to expect them to know there’s sure be to follow up “did you here what Fnord said, everyone…” Really, you don’t even have to read the teacher’s signals, because the dynamic of the classroom means they’re explicitly in control so they don’t need to send subtle social signals.
Nor do you have to listen to the other students. Again, if they say anything you need to know for the class, the teacher will point it out. And the students generally don’t care if you’re not paying attention, for the same reason they don’t care if they don’t follow what you’re saying. You have to listen to the teacher, obviously, but absorbing information from a lecture is a very different skill set than being an good listener in an interpersonal conversation.
Fnord,
I agree that “class participation” is insufficient to teach interpersonal skills, though certain definitions of it can certainly be more useful towards that end than others.
Defining CP as “Raises hand with regular frequency” is weak. A definition that includes “Contributes to class discussion in ways that demonstrates understanding of subject matter, incorporating views and ideas as expressed by others, and is in a manner respectful towards other participants and their perspectives” is much better.
The real question comes down to how much, when, and how schools teach interpersonal skills. As an early childhood educator, a portion of my progress report is on social-emotional development, a good amount of which is dedicated to interpersonal skills. It is one of 6 sections, making up about 1/5th of the actual content of the report, sometimes more. Realistically, in my classroom, social-emotional teaching makes up the vast majority of what I do. Somewhat expectedly, this tapers off as children age, with the balance between social-emotional skills and academic/cognitive skills increasingly favoring the latter. Unfortunately, I think this shift happens too quickly and too intensely, often times leaving middle and high school students with 15 minutes of scheduled time devoted to this work per day and even less of that being realized. The children are often expected to demonstrate the skills, but if the choice comes down to teaching them the skills or squeezing in another math or reading lesson, the latter wins out. This is ultimately often counter-productive, as the time spent offering ad hoc lessons brought about by breaches of such expectations quickly outpace instruction given proactively.
What we tend to forget is that interpersonal skills are just that: skills. Skills which needs to be taught, often explicitly, and which children need opportunities to employ, practice, and develop. CP is one way of targeting specific interpersonal skills when done correctly, but should not be a presumed stand in for such.
[B2] I’ve long been an advocate of vertical de-integration, at least if we want our markets to work anything like the way they’re advertised to in the econ textbooks. The data pipe should just be looked at as a generic commodity utility, provided either by government or by a regulated monopoly (because it will be a monopoly in any case). Then services like voice and video, including what we now think of as cable-TV, would just be services sold competitively over that data pipe.
A few years ago I was researching for a term paper I wrote on fiber-to-home internet delivery and ran across an industry white paper on the subject. The bottom line was that a service provider needed to average about $75/month in revenue per subscriber to make it work out. The thing is that the lion’s share of the costs are fixed infrastructure. It doesn’t really cost them very much provide the actual bits to you; it’s all the fiber and hardware that they string through the alleyways and stick on the back of your house whether you’re a subscriber or not that costs so much money. That’s why it’s always going to be a monopoly whether you like it or not. May as well just acknowledge that and deal with it accordingly.
I’m just glad to know I’m not the only Cracked.com reader here.
Cracked is awesome. They’ve really found their place since ceasing magazine publication (where they were always a knock-off of MAD).
I love them. I hit their site daily. There is something about lists that just draws me in.
I hit their site daily.
So that’s why it’s cracked.
Booooooooo…