Good and Bad Habits of Smart People

A friend of mine once told me he was no Einstein. I remarked that not even Einstein thought he was an Einstein. In fact Einstein was a late bloomer, and in his middle age was stuck in a dead end job like the rest of us. I concluded by saying, "You're probably not going to be as good as Einstein at theoretical Physics, but everyone one is good at something: gardening, cooking, listing unmanned drones in reverse alphabetical order, whatever-- I'm sure their are many things that Einstien never conceived of being able to do well. You should go and be good at that.

"Oh, but maybe not violin playing," I concluded, "Einstein probably has you beat at that as well."

According to the researchers at online-phd-programs.org,  despite varying fields of interest, there are many things that smart people have in common. Displayed elegantly (and a little hysterically) in an infographic "The Good and Bad Habits of Smart People," show how smart people tend to be avid readers, like to write down their goals and show those goals to their friends, have a tendency to binge drink (see "Cleverest Women Drink You Under The Table because I'm sure the ladies are skewing this statistic), and disdain sleep in lieu of a nice, comfy anxiety disorder, such as depression, smoking, and/or neuroticism.


 
Source: Online-PhD-Programs.org

Bruno Latour wins Holberg prize

Who cares? Right? I mean I've never heard of the Holberg prize, either. Well, the Holberg International Memorial Prize is awarded annually for research in the arts and humanities, social sciences, law and theology. Kind of like a Nobel Prize for the Social Sciences. Hey, okay. I guess even the social sciences deserve recognition.

And what about this Latour guy? Latour's studies have been described as a "strange mixture of sociology, anthropology and philosophy". He dabbles in research in science and technology, anthropology and metaphysics, too. What's not to love? Latour is also intrigued by the modern necessity of humans to quickly renew their own technological fabric in order to absorb the meaningfulness of their changing society. A renewal which can be confusing and fraught with woes as society judges you on just how you are renewing your technological make-up. Twitter or Facebook? E-mail or Text? Hotmail or gmail? Blogger or Wordpress. Iphone or Android or (the dreaded) Blackberry. These choices say something about you as a person and how society expects you to interact.

This is alongside a human movement to integrate more fully with the natural world. Eat vegan. Buy local. Source jobs at home. Garden organically. Teach your children yourself. And much like driving a hybrid car or using more efficient solar panels to heat your home it can be difficult to judge how much innovation it will take to go natural!

Early in his career, Latour also challenged scientific orthodoxy and the idea that scientific laboratory work was an unbiased search for truth. After studying neuroendocrinology research at the Salk Institute (in where?) he determined that typical individual experiments were produced inconclusive data and that science training largely consisted of learning to make subjective decisions about which data to keep and which to throw out. These subjective decisions were rooted in the scientists' social constructions.

What the--what? Well, I wrote this post for The Mary Sue on a study called "Men are from Earth/Women are from Earth?". The researchers of that paper pointed out that other studies regarding male/female differences did not even raise the question of whether or not men and women were psychologically different, because scientists already believed a difference existed. And scientists were looking for differences in a scientific way even though there was no scientific basis for such differences, only a social one based on the scientists' system of beliefs, oral traditions and personal cultural.

So you can thank Latour for pointing out that even science is not a purely scientific construction. It’s partly a social one. Plus he looks kind of like John Cleese. Am I right?

An Important PSA about Fake Geek Girls

I've been a fan of "A Distant Soil" ever since the fated day in 2001 I stumbled upon one of Colleen Doran's collections because it was sitting too close to an Elfquest anniversary edition at Big Planet Comics. I haven't even read all of her exquisitely drawn issues.

Doran has posted a PSA on her website accompanied by a discussion about what she called, "The Emotional Economics of Scarcity".  This is about bullying folks, the sexism prevalent in geek (and may I add gaming) culture, about the subsistence of mean girls even within subculture cliques and, I think, a study about how women have been trained to interact to tear each other down in dominantly patriarchal constructs.

Yes, watch the hysterical, 40's style propaganda film. (While you are at it, enjoy "Women, know your limits!" from Henry Enfield of the BBC immediately afterward).

There is no contradiction between being a frock-sporting, lipstick-wearing, fake-eyelash fluttering female and being a blathering, fandom-obsessed, subculture-worshiping geek.  There is no dichotomy.  Geek culture, science fiction and in fact science, math and technology are not inherently male.  And they will keep telling you that they are.  They are not.  Einstein's brain might have been different than normal people's brains, but the normal male brain is no different than yours.  There is nothing about aggression that inherently indicates leadership.  It only indicates that you are a dude since it is biological linked to a production of testerone.  All of those ideas are constructs.  Perhaps becasue the 1%-ers are 99.998% male, and they are terrified that any change in the status quo represents a loss of control. It doesn't.  Without change there is only stagnation.

More importantly, there is no diminishing of yourself when others succeed.  To think anything otherwise is straight up narcissism and you should probably get that checked out.  With a therapist. Change is made by groups sticking together and pursuing similar ideals side-by-side.

Now go listen to "As Cool As I Am," by Dar Williams.

When You Wish Upon a Star Wars

Disney buys LucasFilm for Four Billion; Episode VII anticipated for 2015.

Just sit with that for a moment. It's a little scary.  Disney is the corporate behemoth equivalent of the Empire, amirite?  But then I read this part of the official press release, and I got really, really excited:

"For the past 35 years, one of my greatest pleasures has been to see Star Wars passed from one generation to the next,” said George Lucas, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Lucasfilm. “It’s now time for me to pass Star Wars on to a new generation of filmmakers." 

A new generation of filmmakers. This is a good thing. The last time George Lucas turned over the reins to someone else, we got The Empire Strikes Back.  Director Irvin Kershner delivered a dark, complex, emotionally resonant story that built on the Saturday matinee adventure of Episode IV and fully exploited the richness of the hero's journey trope.

Granted, there's a lot that could go wrong.   If it does, it will probably involve Jar Jar. Return of the Jedi could be reissued with all the Ewoks digitally replaced by Fozzie Bears (which honestly, would be kind of awesome).  But in the best case scenario, Disney utilizes the staggering amount of creativity already at its disposal - Pixar, the Muppets, and Marvel - and applies it to telling a new generation of stories set in the Star Wars 'verse.

If you're still not sold, I'll leave you with this:

Joss Whedon might get a crack and writing and directing a Star Wars movie. 

You just got light headed didn't you?  It's alright. You just go lie down and I'll bring you a glass of blue milk and a damp cloth for your forehead.  Then we can get to the serious business of fantasy casting the upcoming films. I think we all know who should play Han and Leia's son.

Let’s get our Organize on: Taxonomy vs Folksonomy

Image courtesy of Pop Chart Lab (available as a poster!)

Organization is my dirty little secret. Dirty, because it never seems to trickle down to my own desk, rendering me a professional pig pen. Secret, because I hungrily digest research on sophisticated ways to relate, arrange, and organize information, terrified that I would be pilloried if anyone saw what I was reading.  But “little” is a misnomer. When I am presented with inefficient, ineffective methods of knowledge management that both waste my time and confuse me, I can rage. Like a wild-eyed wildebeest raised solely on Google algorithms, I can rage. And so begins a bender into the world of taxonomies and their much maligned cousins, folksonomies, better known as social tagging.

Rather than cause me innumerable suffering, taxonomies are supposed to help make sense of the world. (Who could live without a taxonomy of beer? Beer.) Taxonomies work behind the scenes, allowing us to fit our product quickly into the right space, so that it can be retrieved by someone else at a later time. They are not just family trees of animal classifications that branch off into the ether, although hierarchies are the form in which they most often appear. Ideally, taxonomies are comprised of three major components: schemes that classify and group items, controlled vocabularies that serve to explain and relate terms, and knowledge maps that clearly demonstrate relationships.

Image courtesy of Green Chameleon

The key word is relationship. It’s very hard work, as we all know. Taxonomies are living creatures; they must not only be established, but tested, and maintained regularly.  There is no one correct way to structure a taxonomy, demonstrated by challenges to these suggested types of science in science fiction.  Do we all agree on how this is organized? I doubt it. (I bet a minor war might break out between CandyBuffet and FreshSnaps if we ever dared to discuss it.) And just think of how much effort has to go into keeping this up-to-date. It's an ever-expanding universe of information! Most fields are, except for Latin and Star Wars. We all like certainty and structure in our relationships, but with the pace of knowledge generation and dissemination, how can practical taxonomies keep up? Like the good cynic I am, I argue that they cannot possibly do so. Enter folksonomies, stage right.

Image courtesy of Little Red Crayon

Wikipedia has an excellent entry on folksonomies, with a nicely articulated definition: “A folksonomy is a system of classification derived from the practice and method of collaboratively creating and managing tags to annotate and categorize content.” Contrary to popular belief and Bill Murray, it is not mass chaos. Organization does emerge, categories can be identified, especially at higher levels, and among groups of individuals working in similar fields. Complex adaptive systems, made famous by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point (though he never uses the term), run rampant in our society, including our knowledge management systems. They forsake top-down, centrally managed systems for user-generated classifications. Patterns shift as knowledge is generated, used, and modified, which is incredibly fast. It shouldn't be that surprising: people are good at classifying their own stuff, and the stuff that they're interested in. Perhaps a tenuous relationship can emerge, where folksonomies help to craft taxonomies and maintain their relevance. And then maybe we all can find organizational happiness in the balance. 

Large Hadron Quilts

I'd like to imagine that when the scientists and engineers at CERN go to sleep at night, they tuck themselves up under one of these:

Inner Eye February 2010 Size: 120 cm square. Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Inner Eye February 2010
Size: 120 cm square.
Materials: Silk, synthetic fabric, pvc fabric and sequins.

Teacher and artist Kate Findlay was inspired by the recurring circle-in-square motif of the Large Hadron Collider and spent four years translating those forms into fabric.

Findlay used traditional patchwork for her three earliest pieces, “Breakthrough,” “Inner Eye,” and “Does the Dark Matter?” Because of the way fabric moves, this technique makes creating circles a fiendish feat. After six to eight weeks of sewing, and down to the final piece, she says, “My heart was absolutely in my mouth.” Until she finished, she had no idea whether everything would line up and lie flat.

Quilts by Kate Findlay via Symmetry magazine - February 2012.  Tip o'the hat to Bethanew.

Astonishing, Awesome, Beautiful, Seductive

And the ship's not bad either.

Each year at San Diego Comic Con there's a Starship Smackdown panel held to determine which spaceship is best.  Prior to watching this video, if asked, I would have naturally thrown my vote to the Millenium Falcon.

But Neil DeGrasse Tyson makes a very persuasive argument for the USS Enterprise, NCC-1701.

 

What matters is not what they look like now, but what they looked like to others at the time that they prevailed.  There is only one spaceship [in the bracket] that's earlier than [USS Enterprise] and that's the flying saucer from The Day The Earth Stood Still ... So, what matters here is what did that spaceship [points to USS Enterprise] look like at the time it came out?  Compared with anything that had been imagined before.  And when you consider that, that is the most astonishing, awesome, beautiful, seductive machine that has ever graced the screen. 

And everything else is derivative.

In other news, when the Wu-Tang Clan's GZA undertakes an album intended to convey the grandeur, energy, and chaos of the universe itself, who does he turn to?

Daniella Zalcman for The Wall Street Journal

Watch out, guys.  We've got an actual badass over here.

Starship Smackdown via

GZA on 'Dark Matter' album: WSJ

Higgs Boson Explained

I find that most everything in life can be explained by how-to videos. I'm looking at you Higgs Boson.

Start with this video which compares Higgsy to a tray of sugar. Raw muscavado sugar it looks like, because this guy is from the Guardian and the British are like that about their sugar.

Then move on to this more in-depth look from PHD comics. This one's gonna take a bit longer, so you might want to smoke a clove cigarette while you're watching to take the edge off.

And don't let this new fangangled addition fool you.  Higgsy isn't the last particle to complete the standard model.  We are still looking for gravitons, people. 

You're welcome.

Sailor Moon Returns in Summer 2013

Sailor Moon is getting a new anime series in summer 2013 according to the anime news network.

There is only one way to express my excitement, which is by a squee. So I will do so so now.

(Squeeeeeee!)

Kodansha editor Fumio Osano has only confirmed that the new project will be a serial not a film and it will be produced by Toei animation, which also animated the original series, for worldwide distributed. Mashable speculates that this new serial may be a reboot geared to both younger and older fans. And the Mary Sue hopes they won't remake Haruka and Michiru’s relationship when the series hits the States.

I only only hope that Naoko Takeuchi will read my letter re-translating Moonlight Desnetsu into American English before Momoiro Clover Z re-records it for the new series. (sigh).

To tide us over until more releases hit the interwebs, check out Corey Lewis'recent fan art Sailor Bat (via reyyy.com) and Ann Marcellino's Sailor Avengers (via How to Carve Roast Unicorn).

PS Did you know CandyBuffet has a twitterfeed? Even more sciencey unicorn magic can be imbibed here.

Geek glam

Captain America by Jangasara

Self taught artist Jangsara is about to make cosplay or just getting dolled up for a Friday night a metric ass tonne more awesome.   She makes being a nerd impossibly glam with her takes on Star Wars, The Avengers, and The Hunger Games.

I am left without words.  Just gasps and squeaks and now if you'll excuse me, I have to go buy ALL OF THE THINGS at Sephora.

Makeup your Jangsara via

Jennifer Landa

Actress and Orange County native Jennifer Landa used to Princess Jasmine at Disneyland. Who knew she'd turn out to be such a prodigy video blogger and Star Wars superfan?

Make her YouTube channel a viewing prioity. Her message runs from the absurd (Ewok hunter!) to the inspired (Star Wars Blue Ray Rap) to the educationally enlightening (How to Speak Huttese). 

The Official Star Wars blog has an interview with her about her crushin' Death Star cosplay dress (Nice tie interceptor head piece).

And don't forget to check out her blog where her not so inner geek is on full display.

Yub nub.

Free Universal Toy Construction Kit

This Universal Construction Kit created by F.A.T. Lab and Sy-Lab, makes all brick toys (and not so brick toys) compatible. We're talking Lego, Duplo, Fischertechnik, Gears! Gears! Gears!, K’Nex, Krinkles (Bristle Blocks), Lincoln Logs, Tinkertoys, Zome, and Zoob and the ability to connect each brand to any other brand.

And its free. Of course there's a catch. You need a 3D printer to produce the collection of 80 parts. Even so. Holy shnikees.

Happiness bomb.

DC Comic Mimomicro Card Readers

Mimoco began making drool-worthy 'mimomicro' portable data drives in 2005. My hands still shake when I realise I never got these paws on the Princess Lei USB drive.

The Boston-based geniuses have now opened a line of superhero based gadgets after collaberating with DC Comics. Each device has a built-in keychain, a flip out USB port, an LED light so you know its working.

If you can hear me God, forgive me for Princess Lei mishap only if I get my hands on Wonder Woman.

You. want. this. don't you.

In the Tower

You still have a chance to catch at the National Gallery of Art exhibit, "In the Tower" by Mel Bochner. The show is a retrospective of 43 thesaurus-inspired works from the last 45 years.

Give me a minute ... (squeeeeee!). Okay. I'm done.

Explore the transistion of the bomb (bad) to the bomb (good) and other language evolutions painted as conceptual art using words as a medium.
A schedule of art talks can be found here.

Did you know he used to compose portraits to his friends composed of synonyms describing them? Best. present. ever.

Get off your duff, it's only through April 29th.

The Enlightened Bracketologist

Various so-called friends have ridiculed me for my list addiction. So I've documented my top ten favorite movie kissing scenes. And my top ten favorite dance scenes (Footloose makes both lists BTW). I've always had trouble picking a favorite.

Welcome to the land of The Enlightened Bracketologist: The Final Four of Everything, by Mark Reiter and Richard Sandomir, is a book that uses NCAA Tournament-style brackets to answer life's difficult questions. You know like what's the best American craft beer? Or your boss's most annoying habit? Maybe not deep questions but probing ones.

Bracketology parses people, places, and things into discrete one-on-one matchups then pits them in an intellectual knock out tournament. At the end we are the winner by understanding what we we prefer. Simple.

Try making your own bracket system to help you make the best life choices ... like what to do with an hour of leisure time. You're probably ready to throw in the Towel with your office pool bracket anyhow.

Essential Geography of the United States of America

My appreciation of geography outside of studying the covers of the classic Belgariad series and the indices of Middle Earth are, to say the least, latent. But the underdog story of David Imus's creation, "The Essential Geography of the United States of America", an enchanting, edifying and information infused map of the United States, is as compelling as it is educational.

Winner of the prestigious “Best of Show” award at the annual competition of the Cartography and Geographic Information Society, the highest honor that only the geekiest of cartogrophiles would remember (that's right, I just made up a word), Imus's map is the equivalent of an information-rich, geography-is-delicious layer cake. Check out the masterful shading of the sub-oceanic architecture of the Hawaii islands, something I have been wondering about for seven years. I kid you not.

Bob Welch's lovely article, "A labor of love finally validated" describes Imus's torturous climb up the cartographic ranks. A masterful review of the map itself can be found at the Slate article, "The Greatest Paper Map of the United States You’ll Ever See: Made by one guy in Oregon" by Seth Stevenson.

Buy one of these darn things to educate your self, your classroom, your kids and America, who could use a reminder that the artistry and labors of one guy in Eugene, Oregeon can be greater than all the corporate buying power of every big name cartography institution in all the States.

Super Best Friends Forever

Lauren Faust has created a series of animated shorts in which Batgirl, Supergirl and Wondergirl hang out and fight supervillains. Who is Faust? She is the genius (genius!) story artist behind Power Puff Girls and creator of My Little Pony's: Friendship is Magic, that's all. io9 spills all in, "Super Best Friends Forever".

Here is a scan from the page about the shorts in TV Guide via supercool comics. The interstitials will be scattered throughout a new "DC Nation" block of Saturday morning cartoons that Cartoon Network will be airing featuring DC Comics heroes, premiering March 3rd.

Thank you, Faust.  Thank you for getting it right over and over again. Here is a fun, adventurous albeit lighthearted view of classic comic book heroes unfiltered through the eyes of girls.  Now draw some more after being inspired by Mike Maihack batgirl & supergirl webcomic.

Erm, you too sugar addicts.

Nerd Girlfriend

I told you about the spectacle-slinging, sigh-inducing, effortlessly cool clothes magician who brought you Nerd Boyfriend. Well, they have now introduced a website for ladies, Nerd Girlfriend.

There are only a few female-focused images, but I expect that to change. Oh, please, please change. Let there be more. Let the flood gates of female nerdgeist be opened that we may conquor the earth. (Is this what that whole biblical meek prophecy was about? Had they just not invented the word for geek back then?).

Anyhow, I could say more about their dorky but sexy folios from Twin Peaks. I could stand around applauding their choice of dark-horse heroines like Gilda Radnor, Debbie Allen and Jodie Foster, but I am busy. I am very, very busy flicking through those sweet, heart-palpitation inducing images and dreaming of salary increases.

The Mathematics of Lego

Samuel Arbesman's article, "The mathematics of Lego," for Wired explores the correlation between Lego building blocks and biological ones.

I'm not sure which exudes more awesome. The article, the academic paper in the Journal of Theoretical Biology, or the complete manifest used in the study of every type of Lego piece.

Case and point: piece 54166 'Animal Dinosaur Mutant Raptor Leg Right Rear'.

Warco

There's a new first-person shooter in town. However, instead of changing an M16 for a shotgun, you'll be switching the zoom and film angles for your video camera.

Being developed by Defiant Development, an Australian-based group, Warco is an FPS with the intention of simulating the experience of a war correspondent (or warco).

From deviant's website, the object of the game is to:

"Record dramatic images of war, save them in-game, then edit the results into a compelling frontline TV news story." 

One of the interesting aspects about this concept, is how Warco developers have latched onto the way gamers have already been using video games to create movies. For instance, Red vs Blue appeared on the scene just as gameplay cinematic experiences, and the "Machinima" movement in general increased in popularity. Players of Quake and Halo have spent hours filming and editing films of their gameplay.  And clips from the Halo community's best films are routinely submitted to content generators like Halo Waypoint (I recommend any of the 'top five' or 'top ten' content).

Ars Technica has a good discussion of Warco at, "Warco: an FPS where you hold a camera instead of a gun".

While Warco is not on the market yet and only prototypes have been tested, I, for one, will be waiting with baited breath.

PS  You can watch episodes of Red vs Blue, here. But that's another post.