Why the Star Trek Franchise Is Great -
Utopia requires moments of peace and quiet. Random episodes about an Android bonding with his cat, say, or a bartender’s schemes to increase his profits. You can’t make a lucrative sci-fi flick about people sitting around in a conference room debating options for resolving the situation peacefully—but something that can be accurately teased as primarily consisting of thrilling space battles is not the real Star Trek. A bunch of friendly folks using advanced technology to help people? That can only be profitable, I suspect, on the small screen.
The Science of Loneliness: How Isolation Can Kill You | New Republic -
James Heckman, a Nobel Prize–winning economist at the University of Chicago who tabulates the costs of early childhood deprivation, speaks bitterly of “silos” in health policy, meaning that we see crime and low educational achievement as distinct from medical problems like obesity or heart disease. As far as he’s concerned, these are, in too many cases, symptoms of the same social disorder: the failure to help families raise their children.
Armored Diving Suit, France c. 1878 (via Xerposa)
(via brucesterling)
[video]
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(Source: alvincarrillo)
“You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.” — Lucius Annaeus Seneca - On the Shortness of Life (via fuckyeahexistentialism)
The Atlantic/What Americans Keep Ignoring About Finland’s School Succsess
- Since the 1980s, the main driver of Finnish education policy has been the idea that every child should have exactly the same opportunity to learn, regardless of family background, income, or geographic location. Education has been seen first and foremost not as a way to produce star performers, but as an instrument to even out social inequality.
- Lately Finland has been attracting attention on global surveys of quality of life —Newsweek ranked it number one last year — and Finland’s national education system has been receiving particular praise, because in recent years Finnish students have been turning in some of the highest test scores in the world.
- Finland’s success is especially intriguing because Finnish schools assign less homework and engage children in more creative play.
… the very intellectual foundations of austerity are unraveling. In other words, economists are finding out that austerity doesn’t work in practice or in theory.
This week, economists have been astonished to find that a famous academic paper often used to make the case for austerity cuts contains major errors. Another surprise is that the mistakes, by two eminent Harvard professors, were spotted by a student doing his homework.
What does Cispa mean for the EU ?
-What is CISPA and what does it mean for you?