"In China, it’s hard to be anonymous online in part due to a phenomenon known as the human-flesh search engine. It’s not really a search engine at all. Rather, it’s a community of message board users that seek out and punish in the real world people they find committing offensive acts online. Tom Downey explains in this weekend’s New York Times Magazine that the human flesh search engine offers a disturbing mix of justice and revenge."
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WYNC On the Media: Search and Destroy (the ‘Human Flesh’ Search Engine in China)
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NPR: More Employers Make Room For Work-Life Balance
"First, more and more employers are discovering that loosening the traditionally rigid work schedule pays off. Sleep says her retention rate over 16 years is an astonishing 95 percent. And study after study shows productivity also shoots up. More than half of companies now say they offer flextime, and one-third allow telecommuting at least part-time.
Stumpf spends time with her daughters while getting some work done in her home office. On the other hand, research also shows that employees don’t find their workplaces nearly as flexible as managers report. Work-family experts say arrangements often appear more generous on paper than in practice and can be highly dependent on the generosity of immediate supervisors."
From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124709981
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NPR: The End of 9-To-5 - When Work Time is Anytime
"When you think of cutting edge, 21st-century workplaces, chances are a county government bureaucracy does not come to mind. But the Human Services and Public Health Department of Hennepin County, in Minneapolis, Minn., is engaged in about as radical an experiment with flexible work as exists. … Hennepin County is practicing what’s called a results-only work environment, or ROWE, which gives everyone in a company the freedom to do their job when and where they want, as long as the work gets done. The state of Minnesota signed a contract for the program last year as part of a campaign to reduce rush hour traffic on 35W in Minneapolis. Nationwide, 3 percent of businesses now say they have a ROWE, though as far as participants here in Hennepin County know, theirs is the first public agency to adopt it. Many are ecstatic at the way it’s working so far."
From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=124705801
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WYNC On the Media: The Uncanny Valley
"For the animators of films and video games, creating a truly human looking and acting character has long been the holy grail. But making characters close-to-real and yet not-real-enough leaves them in what’s called the ‘uncanny valley’ where audiences find those characters unsettling, unnatural and zombie-like. OTM producer Jamie York looks at how the entertainment industry has dealt with this issue and what the ‘uncanny valley’ tells us about ourselves and our future."
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Logical Fallacies - Part 2
Learn why most of the conclusions presented in the news is incorrect.
Tagged with logic philosophy reason
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Logical Fallacies - Part 1
Learn why most of the conclusions presented in the news is incorrect.
Tagged with logic philosophy reason
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Interview - Merlin Mann
Merlin Mann is an independent writer, speaker, and broadcaster. He’s the creator of 43 Folders, the co-host of You Look Nice Today, a regular guest on MacBreak Weekly, and the author of an upcoming book entitled Inbox Zero.
We discuss figuring out and focusing on your values, a new perspective on productivity, ignoring the lizard brain, doing what you like, rejecting novelty, serving the right audience, Picaso, cognition, action, self-discovery, mindfulness, buddhism, and the new book.
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RadioLab ‘Mortality’ segment: Life’s Limit
"Until Leonard Hayflick came along, everyone thought cells were immortal. That they’d divide over and over again, forever. Hayflick torpedoes that theory and proved that there is limit. A very predictable limit: a magic number. To thank him, science textbooks everywhere now refer to that as ‘the Hayflick limit.’ "
From http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2007/06/15/segments/71875
(Thematically tied to my previous posted show from SciFri.)
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Science Friday: The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks
"Medical researchers often use cells known as HeLa cells in their work. The ‘immortal cells’ are used to study cancer, aging, AIDS, and more. The name HeLa is a shortening of the name Henrietta Lacks — a woman whose cervical cancer cells were used to create this research cell line, without her knowledge or permission. In this segment, Ira talks with author Rebecca Skloot about ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks,’ a tale of biology and medical ethics."
From http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201002125
This is an interesting coincidental accompaniment to a RadioLab segment (will add next) about ‘cell immortality’ of a cluster of cells (scientifically known as WI38) derived from a single woman’s aborted child. Those cells now live in over a billion people though the majority of vaccines given over the last 50 years.
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Science Friday: A Quake that Shook the World?
"Last week’s powerful earthquake in Chile may have shifted the Earth’s axis and changed the length of a day, according to NASA researchers. The magnitude 8.8 quake of February 27 was powerful enough to alter the position of the planet’s figure axis, an imaginary line around which the mass of the planet rotates, by about 3 inches. That adds up to an Earth day that lasts about 1.26 microseconds less than it did before the earthquake. We’ll talk about how geological processes can effect the planet’s rotation, and how researchers model planetary movements."
Incidentally, this also mentions Charles Darwin & the Beagle’s assistance and observations of a Chilean earthquake in the same spot as the recent one. It mentions how that quake shaped Darwin’s geologic interests that helped shape his theory of evolution. Great stuff. Also mentions FitzRoy, the captain of the Beagle. The same story is fictionalized (but still historical in inspiration) in "This Thing of Darkness" which I highly, highly recommend.
From http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/201003051
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