Sadat Shami: “Giving up tenure… and getting happiness in return? Reflections from someone who did” (The Scientist via Nick Diakopoulos) I think I’ll get a standing desk (New York Times) Jeffrey Bigham: “How languages may have diffused from Africa, modeling phonemes” (New York Times) Boris Smus: “Allow me to explain sorting algorithms through interpretive dance” …
Category Archives: Society
Asian-American cultural tidbits
Just in time for the end of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month: Secret Asian Man by Tak Toyoshima is a nationally syndicated comic strip (one of the few, if not only, by an Asian-American), that often deals with racial issues in the U.S. I first saw it in the Mercury News. One book on my …
Could you pass the U.S. citizenship test?
U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services introduced a new citizenship test, which takes effect in a year. To pass, you are asked ten questions randomly picked from a list of 100, and you must answer 6 correctly. USCIS has posted the questions (PDF). Some organization should do a survey to see what percentage of Americans would pass the test. …
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Phil Frank, Bay Area cartoonist, dies
I was truly saddened when I read in the San Francisco Chronicle that Phil Frank died yesterday. Phil Frank drew the only local comic strip in the country, Farley, which was published in the Chronicle. Indeed he captured the spirit of the Bay Area through his cast of distinctive and wacky characters, and because it …
Spiritual computing
Today I attended a talk on “spiritual computing” by Dr. Craig Warren Smith, who works at the Human Interaction Development Laboratory at the University of Washington. Since spiritual computing isn’t well defined, much of his talk was devoted to examples, followed by a definition, which frankly I didn’t have enough time to absorb. What I did …
Civil rights advances for the… French?
Maine elected its first openly French-American congressman, Michael H. Michaud, in 2002. Long-Scorned in Maine, French Has Renaissance • New York Times • June 4, 2006
Fan films: creating, not just consuming, popular culture
I finally read an essay that Daniel e-mailed me over a year ago. Professor Henry Jenkins, director of the Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT, has written about fan fiction as a medium through which ordinary people change their relationship to popular culture from being passive consumers to active participants in its creation. He uses …
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LA Times: Buddhist monk starts union
“With overall membership on the wane in Japan, union leaders were only too happy to welcome newcomers, no matter how unconventional the trade.” In Search of Justice and Enlightenment • Los Angeles Times • February 23, 2006 (or via SFGate.com)
Merry Christmas
And in the spirit of the season, here’s a link to one of the most incredible holiday light displays I’ve seen: Wizards of Winter So many people went to see it in person that the homeowner shut it down on December 6, after a car accident in the neighborhood. More info Videos of other people’s …
Le Parkour
Here’s a video of some guys in Russia with some pretty amazing moves — don’t try this at home, kids! They’re doing a sport called Le Parkour, and there are a ton of videos on Google about it. BBC News and Wikipedia have good introductory articles. I’m not going to be trying this sport anytime …