It all goes to hell starting tomorrow

Ok, two months without a post, but barely a day without a freak-out. This heap of appointments just keeps getting worse -- who thought that even an Education Secretary could feel like a threat to the future of the nation?!? I can hardly write about it, but I thought maybe I'd feel better if I did a blog dump of everything that's been wiring me up, so here it is.

Bad news about the Trump era:

1. Policy hints, competence
   • Remember that call with the leader of Taiwan that threatened to upend decades of diplomacy with China? Trump Team Planned Call With President Of Taiwan For Weeks. Not just a novice mistake -- part of a plan...
   • Congressional Republicans sucker punch American steel workers, scrapping 'Buy America' provision -- sorry, working class!
   • Trump Receiving Intelligence Briefings Just Once A Week. He prefers his briefs only a page long too, with bullet points. This job is just too hard...
   • Trump To Nominate Far Right Lawyer David Friedman As Israeli Ambassador
   • Trump Meets With Billionaire Donor David Koch At Mar-A-Lago -- let's see what Voldemort can add...
   • Bush EPA Chief Slams Trump's Pick As 'Disdainful Of The Agency'. On the other hand, Here Are All the Climate Deniers and Oil Flacks Who Love Trump’s EPA Pick. Should be great.
   • Trump’s Pick for Interior Secretary Was Caught in “Pattern of Fraud” at SEAL Team 6
   • Trump Prepping Ominous Moves to Gut US Intel Capacity
   • McConnell Not Following Confirmation Process He Demanded From Reid In '09 -- who cares about ethics anyway? Apparently some Senators agree: things are different for Republicans.
   • No secret safe with Trump when it might interest Putin? Hall of Mirrors
   • Get Health Insurance Through Your Employer? ACA Repeal Will Affect You, Too -- made more overt here.
   • In a new interview, Trump reveals he has no idea what’s going on with Obamacare -- this stuff is easy, right? get 'er done!
   • Trump's (and Putin's) Plan to Dissolve the EU and NATO. -- alliances, peaceful cooperative structures, pffft.
   • Here's a summary of Trump's nominees and their (un)fitness for their offices. waah.
   • Betsy DeVos was asked a basic question about education policy — and couldn’t answer -- but honestly, the ones she DID answer were even worse.
   • Perry Didn't Fully Understand Role Of Energy Secretary At First -- not just promoting sales of US oil; there's all that nuclear weaponry to keep an eye on...
   • Only speculation, but compelling: Maybe the Answer Is That He Can't Divest (because his finances are upside down). Related: All of Donald Trump’s known conflicts of interest in one place
   • How the fight against “normalizing” the Trump presidency could totally backfire

     Donald Trump probably won’t cancel elections, but he could — and is relatively likely to — oversee a sweeping rollback of voting rights. His administration may not throw journalists in jail, but it could easily step up surveillance of domestic protesters. His appointees may not entrench a permanent oligarchy, but it could still — for millions of people in America — reduce the willingness and ability to participate in public life to zero. These wouldn’t flout the law; they’d be under color of it and even in concert with it. But they would, nonetheless, be a tragedy for democracy.

   • Edited to add this terrifying list of proposed structural and funding changes to government: Trump team prepares dramatic cuts to follow a Heritage Foundation blueprint.

     The departments of Commerce and Energy would see major reductions in funding, with programs under their jurisdiction either being eliminated or transferred to other agencies. The departments of Transportation, Justice and State would see significant cuts and program eliminations.

     The Corporation for Public Broadcasting would be privatized, while the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities would be eliminated entirely.

     Holy cow.
2. Flashes of fascism
   • Trump Surrogate's Jaw-Dropping Claim: 'No Such Thing' As Facts Anymore OUCH
   • Trump Muses That Flag Burning Should Result In Jail Time, Loss Of Citizenship -- citizenship at the pleasure of your ruler...
   • Trump Plans To Take Private Security Team With Him To White House -- to keep the Secret Service at bay?? the populace?
   • Similar in feel: Trump Orders DC National Guard Chief To Leave In Middle Of Inaugural Ceremony -- getting loyalists into military positions ASAP!
   • Creepiest of all: Trump Says He'll Show Off The US Military In Parades. Maybe it's the iceberg tip of this strategy of distracting us from the disasters of his actual raping and pillaging...
   • Trump Transition Official Boycotts Israeli Govt Meeting Over Snub Of Far-Right Pol -- wants them to make nice with Nazis. really.
   • Didn't pan out, but still terrifying: Trump Team Wants To ID Energy Dept. Staffers Engaged In Climate Policy. I'm sure a lot of scientists will want to work in an environment where they can be punished for their conclusions.

Good news about/in these troubled times:

1. Resistance
   • Scientists Race To Copy Climate Data In Case It Disappears Under Trump -- I guess this counts as good news, in that people are taking the threat seriously. Says bad things about What's Coming though...
   • Trump’s DC Hotel Is Weeks Away From Violating Its Government Lease -- don't mess with the number-crunchers!
   • Senate Dems To GOP: You're Sure Not Acting Like You Need Us -- better not be a single donkey signing up for whatever horror show is put forward to replace the ACA!
   • Senators Launch Bipartisan Effort To Protect DREAMers From Trump
   • Office Of Government Ethics Director Blasts Trump Plan: 'Wholly Inadequate' -- governments run on bureaucrats, so don't agro them before you even get in!
   • Senator Warren isn't letting Trump's nominees get a cakewalk!
   • Fighting authoritarianism: 20 lessons from the 20th century -- if we refuse to let things develop, we can probably prevent the worst from happening. Be watchful!
   • Ex-Hill Staffers Put A Spin On The Tea Party Playbook In Anti-Trump Guide -- be prepared to ride your representatives about every bad piece of legislation in coming years!
   • Equally critical: Speak Up: Responding to Everyday Bigotry -- great tips for everything from stubborn relatives to professional interactions. Related: How to Easily be a White Ally to Marginalized Communities -- there's work to be done all the time.
2. Actual positive signs. We can use them.
   • Is GOP Getting Half A Clue On Its Obamacare Mess? Related: Trump's approval numbers way down. People are watching!!
   • A couple reasons to be optimistic about climate change. No, seriously.
   • Bill Gates and investors worth $170 billion are launching a fund to fight climate change through energy innovation
   • Congress passes bill to protect non-believers for first time. Everybody can use a little extra protection these days!

This is what happens when summer eats you

That is, you end up with a giant backlog of links and no time to really make a post out of them. Or even hope that anybody will want to sort through them. But here are a bunch of things I've caught in my net over the last few months in the category of Cheerful Bits, yay!

Happy

• College-grad sea-turtle knows all!
• Wolves discuss the Trayvon Martin case
• Death by chocolate and other dangerous desserts
• Fotoshop, the beauty regimin
• Mad Men - The Carousel scene (video)
• Teenager has never seen a record before (sigh)
• Puppets re-enact no-cameras-allowed corruption trial on the nightly news
• Happiness
• Lego man sent to space by Toronto teens
• It Just Goes On and On -- pay it forward, in action
• The Greatest Speech Ever Made - Charlie Chaplin
• That’s no ordinary rabbit. (he herds sheep!)
• Happy Birthday, William Shatner -- that first video, I just...
• Hollywood edition of SOPA
• To My Old Master
• “Spilled Semen” Amendment to Personhood Bill Offered by Oklahoma Democrat; more here, and also Ohio Bill Would Require Men Submit Affidavit From Sex Partner Confirming Impotence Before Receiving Viagra
• Top 10 Reasons Why Men Shouldn’t Be Ordained
• OMG: McDonald’s Does the Right Thing
• Slut Shaming and Why it's Wrong (teenagers, kick our butts!)
• A Note About Panther Pride
• Instapaper Placebo (sob!)
• How to get more likes on Facebook
• Laser de-printer lifts ink from paper, leaving it ready to be reused -- more efficient than recycling!
• The Free Universal Construction Kit
• THIS is why we invest in science. This.
• Man Walks All Day to Create Spectacular Snow Patterns
• Why power generators are terrified of solar; related: Germany sets new solar power record, institute says
• "It Gets Better" at BYU
• Onion: Obama Launches More Realistic 'I Have Big Ideas But We'll See How It Goes' Campaign Slogan
• Lincoln High School in Walla Walla, WA, tries new approach to school discipline — suspensions drop 85% (less Zero Tolerance, more understanding)
• A child's to-do list
• Valentine dilemma (LOL!)

Fascinating

• Eight lazy ways to lose weight
• Touch interfaces everywhere (using sound!)
• This is What Happens When You Give Thousands of Stickers to Thousands of Kids
• How Doctors Die -- It’s Not Like the Rest of Us, But It Should Be
• Can walking reduce the deficit?
• People using pseudonyms post the highest-quality comments, Disqus says -- so there!
• Stranger Danger Dispelled By Bears And Kindness
• New York City gets a Software Engineering High School
• President John Tyler's grandsons are still alive!!
• Mercenary hacker to the stars -- superorganization of organized crime
• Why Sharing Passwords With Your Girlfriend/Boyfriend Is A Spectacularly Bad Idea
• Tunnel to the Other Side of the Earth -- find out on a map what's on the opposite side
• A Swiss idea for removing space junk
• Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo -- I had it, if only for a moment...
• Tim Ferriss explains how to hyperdecant wine
• Forty-five procedures doctors don’t think doctors should do
• 7 Commonly Corrected Grammar Errors (That Aren't Mistakes)
• Feel Me, a new way to connect
• Writing Across Gender
• Gay rights in the US, state by state
• Tact Filters -- great insight
• Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is (also very insightful); follow-up here
• When Data Clashes with Common Sense
• What’s better for heating a mug of water: The stove or the microwave? (I love the Internet!) related: Burning Desire for Efficiency
• Clang -- for those who fantasize about realistic swordplay
• Perspective

Kickstarter backing for science?

I can't decide whether I think this is brilliant or the beginning of the end -- a Kickstarter-like method for crowd-funding small scientific projects. What appeals to the public and what needs doing are often miles apart, although, conversly, there are almost certainly a host of worthy small projects that are beneath the notice (or outside the main focuses of) larger funding institutions. This could help offset the starving of less sexy low-tech fields, and/or enable student projects and other limited endeavors. But it's hard not to picture a sort of flash-over-substance ethic too. Will be interesting to see.

Minds ranging through the universe

I went to this video to see Stephen Colbert out of character, but I stayed for the whole thing, because it's the best demonstration I've seen of Niel DeGrasse Tyson's amazing way of bringing science and its wonders to life (and one of the best discussions I've seen of the broader value of science and of encouraging intellectual curiosity in general). Heartening, and worth the hour or so of investment.

Now THIS is how a new year should start!!

The FDA is finally limiting antibiotic use in agriculture, to help forestall the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Better late than never -- the future of our species thanks you!!

(via mimi smartypants)

Holiday cheer

Or, at least an end-of-year batch of cheerful and/or fascinating links to tide you through quiet afternoons of eggnog recovery. Hooray!!

Fascinating

• My political philosophy and personal philosophy are not the same
  
  
• Taxing Job Creators -- not how it's usually explained...
  
  
• Audiobooks: A Cautionary Tale -- how authors can get happier outcomes
  
  
• Insomnia drugs waking people from comas
  
  
• 2011: The Science Year in Brief
  
  
• 12 Ways to Make Congress Work -- certainly raises some interesting ideas!
  
  
• I Would Like To Help You Get Your Show Cancelled -- on life in the TV writers' world

Cheerful/hilarious!

• The Bomb Buried In Obamacare Explodes Today-Hallelujah!
  
  
• A community design success from Philadelphia
  
  
• Planting Wind Energy on Farms May Help Crops, Say Researchers
  
  
• Louis C.K.'s giant pool of money -- a great story on many fronts
  
  
• Sexual Assault Prevention Tips Guaranteed to Work! (worth repeating)
  
  
• Generation X Doesn’t Want to Hear It
  
  
• New Decoy Website Launched To Lure Away All Moronic Internet Commenters (if only!!)
  
  
• Pointlessly Gendered Products
  
  
• I’m Christian, unless you’re gay. -- a heartfelt essay about living your supposed values
  
  
• An open letter to Minnesota state senator Amy Koch (gays apologize for causing her adultery)
  
  
• xkcd presents Some new science mnemonics
  
  
• What group projects teach
  
  
• Tim Minchin: If I Didn't Have You [video]
  
  
• I Have No Words -- Mike Tyson as Herman Cain
  
  
• 18,000 People Cheer Thing Going Through Thing -- sports satire
  
  
• Fabulous dance performance [video]
  
  
• The most beautiful literary mystery in Edinburgh -- be sure to click to see them all
  
  
• Charlie Todd: The shared experience of absurdity -- some great projects from Improv Everywhere
  
  
• Turtle has some wisdom to share (in ALL CAPS)
  
  
• Holiday pupcakes are almost done (oh, the cuteness!)
  
  
• Finally, this photo just makes me happy.
  

Widespread frustration

Am finding this a very frustrating time to be a well-informed citizen of the world -- rabid politics is dooming us to extended recession, America seems to be near-single-handedly preventing the world from addressing global warming before it's too late, and our government is reacting violently to expressions of free speech and public demonstrations. I'm short of time, but I hate to let my "grumpy" file get any thicker before Christmas, so here's a big frustration dump from the last month or two, without much additional comment:

• How evo psych is laying waste to responsible science journalism
  
  
• Essays on the trap of US student debt
  
  
• Sexism's Low-Grade Fever
  
  
• The Psychology of Nakedness (and unfortunate implications for opinions of women)
  
  
• A flurry of how online harrassment of women is completely different from what men experience (in both quantity and sometimes-terrifying quality):
  
  
  1. On being harassed: a little GF history and some current events
     
     
  2. But How Do You Know It’s Sexist? The #MenCallMeThings Round-Up
     
     
  3. The Internet Miniskirt
     
     
  4. "You should have your tongue ripped out": the reality of sexist abuse online
     
  
  
• What baseball tells us about racism
  
  
• Congressional Dysfunction Begins To Spook Old Pros
  
  
• What We Want to See On TV: Handsome Politicians
  
  
• EPA chief tells GOP to STFU
  
  
• Wal-Mart to Cut Healthcare Benefits
  
  
• Lack of jobs leaves more suburban, middle class sliding into poverty
  
  
• CHART OF THE DAY: Paul Ryan Wrong About Upwardly Mobile America
  
  
• CHART OF THE DAY: Long Term Unemployment Is A Huge Problem — Especially If You’re Old
  
  
• Older, Suburban and Struggling, ‘Near Poor’ Startle the Census
  
  
• New Cartoon: Government To The Rescue!
  
  
• Worthless (we can always protect the banksters somehow)
  
  
• A Banker Speaks, With Regret

  My daughter and I are reading Steinbeck’s “Grapes of Wrath” aloud to each other, and those Depression-era injustices seem so familiar today. That’s why the Occupy movement resonates so deeply: When the federal government goes all-out to rescue errant bankers, and stiffs homeowners, that’s not just bad economics. It’s also wrong.

  
  
• Who Killed Hard Work And Personal Responsibility?
  
  
• Federal Prosecution Of Financial Fraud Falls To 20-Year Low, New Report Shows
  
  
• The euro zone’s terrible mistake
  
  
• Ignorance is bliss when it comes to challenging social issues
  
  
• The Medicaid Ambush: The Supreme Court's unexpected and astounding reasons for wanting to hear a challenge to Obamacare.
  
  
• Congratulations, Television! You Are Even Worse At Masculinity Than Femininity
  
  
• IBM co-opting GPS system?
  
  
• Topeka, Kansas, legalizes domestic violence to save money
  
  
• How Medicare Fails the Elderly
  
  
• W. enters my wife’s schoolboard race
  
  
• Naomi Wolf: how I was arrested at Occupy Wall Street
  
  
• Psychology of pepper spray
  
  
• Pepper-spray inventor: "It's fashionable to use chemical agents on people who have an opinion"
  
  
• The Healing Process
  
  
• San Diego police arrest congressional candidate for voter registration in Civic Center Plaza
  
  
• Occupy Forcing Militarized PDs to Show Their Colors
  
  

Friday frolics

A heaping helping of cheery and interesting links to unburden my browser and lighten your weekend (with apologies for how old some of them are):

Cheering/silly

• Have old books and nobody to trade them with? BookMooch might be for you!
  
  
• Matt Damon explains non-financial motivations and the education sector
  
  
• Occupy Wall Street boiled down to a humorous (but accurate) caption -- indeed!!
  
  
• A list of Obama's accomplishments to remind the nay-sayers
  
  
• Also, separately, good advice to get involved in politics, not just spectate:

  ... creating change is the responsibility of the people who desire that change. Being disappointed in President Obama or frustrated with the Tea Party is a waste of time. The only thing we really control is the amount of effort we put into getting what we want.

  Well said.
  
  
• Also well said, the now-famous quote from Elizabeth Warren on how nobody succeeds alone.
  
  
• Medicare steps up enforcement of equal visitation and representation rights in hospitals
  
  
• Malaria report sees near-zero deaths by end of 2015 -- there's a headline I didn't expect! thanks, Gates Foundation!!
  
  
• Rafe reminds us that sometimes success is just keeping going, whether or not your approach is perfect or planned to the end; adjust when you must, but show up.
  
  
• A Dutch city set up a pedestrian slide an alternative to the stairs down to the subway -- fun!!
  
  
• Here's a blog of what reasonable women's armor would look like if it were made for fighting, not titilating teenage viewers -- amen!
  
  
• Goofy photos of dogs shaking off water -- oh, the jowls!!
  
  
• I continue to find ANIMALS TALKING IN ALL CAPS absolutely inspired, from the simple and goofy to the wordy and/or profound. Rock it!
  
  
• A heap of Demotivator-style expressions of first-world angst -- most entertaining.
  
  
• The problem with averaging star-ratings - hah!
  
  
• An amusing list of cultural faux pas in New York City -- lots of insights there into cultural norms of busy places generally.
  
  
• Here's a fun cover/collaboration of the Muppet Show Theme (by Ok Go)
  
  
• I've tried to resist all these auto-tuning videos, but I love the musicality and science of this video about the matter of the universe, which features a lot of great people expressing their joy in the crazy beauty of it all... (kind of makes me teary)
  
  
• You've probably already seen this, but it's so sweet I want to bookmark it here: an elderly couple tries to figure out their webcam, with much entertaining discussion along the way...
  
  
• Here's another old couple who know how to play a duet!! wonderful.

Fascinating

• Game of Thrones visual effects -- an amazing demonstration of how real scenery can be blended into green-screen fantasies to make movie places come alive
  
  
• Amazing slow-motion video of an owl coming in for a landing.
  
  
• Spoilers don't spoil anything -- a surprising finding that knowing how a story turns out lets us relax and enjoy the trip to get there.
  
  
• Facts Don’t Persuade Climate Skeptics–So What Does? graphics!! (also, this report might have some impact...)
  
  
• Ever wonder why it's hard to speak a foreign language over the phone? Part of the answer is provided by this audio-visual illusion, in which different mouth movements make you hear different sounds from the same track. We need visual cues to put it all together well.
  
  
• Speaking of fooling your senses, apparently it's possible to make apple pie without any apples, something that came in handy during, e.g., the Civil War. Who knew?
  
  
• How to Peel a Head of Garlic in Less Than 10 Seconds -- it's not a way you probably would have thought of!
  
  
• Have an old globe? Find out how old by using this table of when different countries ceased to exist/appear on maps...
  
  
• Ever wonder why your fingers and toes wrinkle up in water (but nothing else does)? Looks like it may actually improve traction on slippery surfaces! Thanks, evolution!!
  
  
• Did you hear about that faster-than-light-speed particle that seemed to challenge Einstein's theory of relativity? A proper application of relativity made sense of things (and proved that it hadn't broken light speed after all)...
  

Best website ever?

That's a hard thing to judge but this must be a contender: The Kid Should See This collects pictures and video clips that should fascinate kids, whether about science or art or just neat stuff. I was going to save this for my next bunch of parenting links, but I've spent the last hour watching clips on the site (Baryshnikov from 1969! an octopus doing amazing things for camouflage!), so I think it can't wait...

(via kottke)

Link dump: We can all use some cheery distraction edition

Informative and interesting:

• Zombie Marie Curie shares her wisdom (via xkcd): "You don't become great by trying to become great. You become great by wanting to do something, and then doing it so hard that you become great in the process."
  
  
• Bad Job Market: Why the Media Is Always Wrong About the Value of a College Degree (it's always good, even if graduates sometimes end up tending bar)
  
  
• Cowboys and Pit Crews -- more from Atul Gwande on how the culture of medicine needs to be changed before we can get to less cost and better outcomes
  
  
• Tattoo Tracks Sodium and Glucose via an iPhone -- technology could allow noninvasive monitoring of many health conditions
  
  
• Pythagoras Solar Turns Windows Into Panels Of Energy -- imagine tall buildings with full solar panel coverage!
  
  
• Soda bottles become electricity-less “light bulbs” for the poor -- no electricity required during the day!
  
  
• Less transformative, but still inspiring: 50 creations from 50 pieces of Lego!
  
  
• Behind N.Y. Gay Marriage, an Unlikely Mix of Forces -- how that political reality came to be
  
  
• Obama Administration Reaches A Compromise On Fuel Economy Proposal -- recently bailed-out car companies get behind major improvements in mileage! yay!
  
  
• The medium chill -- getting off the aspirational treadmill and enjoying the life you have

Hilarious:

• The real George Lucas has been imprisoned for 20 years while an impostor ran amok, making prequels (video "trailer")
  
  
• You gotta love that the CDC has a guide on surviving a Zombie Apocalypse!
  
  
• Muffin Films short silly bits, if you need some surreality...
  
  
• Define the Ratio of People to Cake -- a cranky journalist answers a collection of really strange interview questions
  
  
• How The BET Awards Changed My Life (by capturing the WTF face that summarizes our times)
  
  
• Plot Device -- a truly inspired little musing on what happens when plot twists get the upper hand on an afternoon
  
  
• Neil Patrick Harris' 2011 Tony Awards Opening Number for anybody who missed it -- Broadway's not just for gays anymore!!
  
  
• The Invaders Are Here! -- kitten versus apples; who will win?

Summer fun/try at home:

• What’s Scrabble When You Can Play Novelist? -- how to turn a heap of mindless summer reading into a fun party game
  
  
• Just what we've all been needing: a Make Everything Ok button!!

(a cheery toddler lunch by A Mindful Life!)

Link dump: Cheerful edition

Fascinations:

• Ever wonder where your tax dollars go? Enter a few numbers and find out using this spiffy White House form.
  
  
• Vitamin Poppers May Make Less Healthful Choices -- got my healths all covered now!
  
  
• (In)(di)visibility -- a fascinating exploration of differences in how we treat people relative to "failings" that they can be "blamed for" (e.g., weight) versus those they "can't help" (e.g., autism) and what it says about those doing the judging.

  But for most of us, achieving the state expected of us wouldn’t just be a matter of trying, it would be the equivalent of earning a Ph.D. in astrophysics while simultaneously working swing shift as a police officer and raising triplets as a single parent — and we’d never get to stop. Maybe someone can actually do this, but expecting it to be a routine occurrence is, frankly, an expectation not supported by existing evidence.

• When Did You Know Your Gender? -- another of those questions (like "when did you choose to be straight?") that make you rethink your assumptions/privilege.
  
  
• How Teens Understand Privacy -- as a much more subtle and multifaceted matter than we tend to give them credit for!
  
  
• Lost in Translation -- the experience of taking on something new, mastering it (you think), gaining humility, and learning some more... Funny and insightful.
  
  
• Top Ten Myths About the Brain

Amusements and cheer:

• A Texas letter-to-the-editor asks why we don't hold politicians to results standards like we use to "motivate" teachers (among other philosophical musings).
  
  
• Translation of General Misogyny to Uncomfortable Truth -- a web screed "translated" to expose its blindness to white male privilege. Full of truth and satisfyingly snarky along the way.
  
  
• Ben Greenman’s Museum of Silly Charts -- priceless!
  
  
• Books - That is exactly how they work -- a picture that captures the joy of reading.
  
  
• Unsuck It -- business jargon unpacked (and served with a side of snark).
  
  
• Is it possible that the national mind is open to the factual delusion of the Republican party? One can only hope...
  
  
• Speaking of which, Schumer To House GOP: You Still Own Your Vote To Privatize Medicare -- I hope they follow through!
  
  
• 10 Modern Movies That Are Better in Black and White -- fun to watch, for the visuals and for the snippets of movies you loved or never saw.
  
  
• 'No Homework' Debate Finds Support In New Jersey -- we gotta do something to find a balance for our kids!

Just plain awesome:

An amazing collaboration between Yo-Yo Ma and dancer Lil Buck -- Ma just keeps on pushing the boundary of where people think a classical cello should go. This is lovely and joyous.

Cranky instincts of millions of parents confirmed

Lack of Sleep May Lead to Brain Aging

(via Follow Me Here)

Link dump II: Cheerful and/or interesting

And hey! I had more of these than of the grumpy kind!

• The 10 weirdest physics facts, from relativity to quantum physics
  
  
• Ten Weirdest New Animals of 2010: [National Geographic] Editors' Picks -- why let physics have all the fun?
  
  
• The Truth Wears Off -- Is there something wrong with the scientific method? Talk about weird!! (!!)
  
  
• Leave Your Tasks Unfinished to Maintain Momentum and Avoid Mental Blocks -- counterintuitive at first glance, but spiff!
  
  
• The prettiest woodpile I've ever seen -- neat.
  
  
• The Human Incubator -- human contact can trump high technology.
  
  
• Turbine-free wind power -- a neat alternative in development
  
  
• Poetic sensitivities -- the limits of perception expressed in everyday terms (accidental poetry).
  
  
• Senate Passes 9/11 First Responders Health Care Bill -- ok, this was a while ago, but good to celebrate rare shows of sanity.
  
  
• Now We're Talking -- the argument you never hear: why the retirement age should be lowered, not raised. Atrios echoes and extends the idea here.
  
  
• Also too rarely seen: Muslim and Christian, Egyptians stand together against violence (this is before the current political unrest)
  
  
• Also uplifting: A Victim Treats His Mugger Right
  
  
• Don't Touch My Junk! Jesse Ventura Sues The TSA -- he might be just the guy to press this issue.
  
  
• Another dumb idea gets its comeuppance: Dubai's artificial islands "sinking"
  
  
• Totally inspired (and addictive) resource: Wikipedia's List of common misconceptions, from sports to religion and everything else.
  
  
• The Unspeakable, in Its Jammies -- how we deal with difficult language in literature (as in the recent Huck Finn controversy), and a touching account of discussing the matter with kids.
  
  
• Chop, Fry, Boil: Eating for One, or 6 Billion -- three basic approaches to cooking can do everything you need.
  
  
• Characters from The Wire broken down by appropriate D&D alignment -- soooo right.
  
  
• Brimming with Holiday Spirit -- Tom Tomorrow gets to the heart of why worry about Assaults on the Holidays are absurd...
  
  
• The Fun Theory -- can making things fun help people do the right thing? Dunno, but these little demonstrations make me pretty happy.
  
  
• My Blackberry is not working -- pure British sketch silliness.
  

Link dump: Interesting and cheerful edition

Apparently my ability to blog is a bit broken. Or at least constipated, to judge from all the tabs I pile up with good intentions. Anyway, enough with the grumpy! Let's have some cheeful and interesting stuff from the last week or two!

• Purely uplifting (whether silly or sublime):
  
  
  1. If only we had Photoshop for the world around us, imagine how we could fix things! heh.
     
     
  2. Remember that campaign "It Gets Better"? Here's how you can make sure that happens. Always good to be reminded of little things you can do right around you.
     
     
  3. While you're at it, save your slivers of soap to help prevent disease around the world.
     
     
  4. Pentagon study: Gays could serve with no harm. Seems clear to me, but I didn't expect such a clear response, nor such a clear call to action to follow.
     
     
  5. Yay! Evidence that some hospitals, at least, are putting recent infection-prevention results into practice. Cultural change is slow, but this stuff is critical, before we're all overrun with drug-resistant bugs!
  
  
• Fascinating:
  
  
  1. Top 20 miscroscope photos of 2010 -- gorgeous as design, interesting as science.
     
     
  2. A chat with the first autistic Presidential appointee (to the National Council on Disability) reveals some interesting differences of perspective on how to deal with autistic folks in particular and the disabled in general.
     
     
  3. 311 service works -- not only on specific problems, but helping to identify wider neighborhood issues, seasonal patterns, and other things that help cities run themselves.
     
     
  4. A translation of the Lord's Prayer from the Arameic that may not sound that familiar -- some real insights there into what Jesus may have been all about!

     Create in me a divine cooperation: from
     many selves, one voice, one action.

  5. Also mind-blowing: evidence that what we're *about to experience* affects us now. Can we see the future? (or are our scientific methods really flawed?)
     
     
  6. Man makes a functional and beautiful living space in absolutely tiny outside dimensions, giving hope that we could live smarter and more economically without feeling caged...
  
  
• Laced with schadenfreude:
  
  
  1. House Dems press GOP reps to abandon their federal health benefits based on the same principles underlying their opposition to health care reform.
     
     
  2. So, when did you choose to be straight? You know, if it's a choice?
     
     
  3. The Onion: 20,000 Sacrificed In Annual Blood Offering To Corporate America (seems like more over the last couple of years...)
     
     
  
  

So much frustration, so little time

That's right, it's time for a link dump from my Grumpy Tabs file...

• Is science hard to communicate to the public, or does our society devalue intelligence and expertise to the point that people don't even *want* to hear about scientific findings?

  The problem isn't scientists learning how to tell cool stories, which is a skill of great value in any society because humans relate and learn through stories, but that America has raised generations of people to make fun of anyone who cares about shit enough to learn something complicated and be passionately engaged with their work, and marginalize and ignore what they have to say.

• Social contract lying in ashes: what happens when we replace government protection of the common good (funded by -- gasp -- taxes) with privately paid services. Ludicrous versions of justice.
  
  
• Rafe calls this Everything wrong with America in one article -- how, among other things, private prison interests are driving Arizona's draconian immigration policies.
  
  
• Of course, Rafe left out the TSA:
  
  
  1. At increasing numbers of airports, you are now offered the choice between excessively detailed imaging and invasive pat-downs designed to make you stick with the imager, radiation or not. More on this stupidity here.
     
  2. In parallel with the Arizona case above, it turns out that these new machines were brought to bear more due to lobbying by manufacturers than because of any real belief that they'll make anybody safer.
     
  3. Despair, Inc., comes through with some pithy t-shirts to capture your travel experience, if this hasn't driven you from the air entirely.
  
  
• Here's a little bit on military censorship of photos taken in the Mideast and elsewhere.
  
  
• Speaking of the military, looks like the Democrats are throwing them overboard again, planning to abandon DADT in the lame-duck Congressional session.
  
  
• Here's a little reminder that we don't live in a postfeminist era -- the language we use to describe men and women, even when giving a positive review, differs enough to create significantly different outcomes.
  
  
• The Supreme Court may be poised to end class-action lawsuits, which would have a huge impact on the ability of average folks to protect themselves and the rest of us.
  
  
• And finally, from the Department of Brash Hyprocricy, a freshman Republican who railed against healthcare reform complains at a month's delay in getting his own government healthcare. Poooor baby!

Link dump II: Interesting, spiff, and/or silly

• I agree that this seems inevitable in retrospect, but I still love it: Craig's List TV captures great stories around unusual trades... I suspect that those who have never used the service would be surprised at the humanity of the interactions it enables.
  
  
• An interesting discussion of how blogging changes the way you write and think. Beyond that, it changes your views of what is possible, in writing, in dialogue, in changing the world. Worth a read even if you're barely a participant in the social Internet.
  (via Medley)
  
  
• There are groups who perform Shakespeare with original pronunciation, which apparently both is fully comprehensible and restores many of the original rhymes. The sample clip reminds me most of what we'd consider some lower-class British pronunciation variant. I had no idea that we even knew how the English language sounded 400 years ago, so this boggles me on many levels.
  
  
• This is a review of Social Network that made me want to see the movie -- not because I care about Facebook much at all, but because of the way the movie itself offers a variety of critiques not only of its subjects but of the larger social context in which they generated their empire.

  If they didn’t intend to make a movie that was interrogating toxic masculinity and its effect on women, they managed to make a movie where that theme is the main one that everyone who leaves the theater appears to be discussing. At a certain point, the thing that is most notable about "The Social Network" might just be the thing that the movie is about. Or at least one of the things.

  Worth reading the piece for its thoughts about movie- and TV makers, and what they're trying to make their audiences feel, as much as for anything about this film itself.
  
  
• 7 Essential Skills You Didn't Learn in College -- a course guide for adult survival, including such overlooked necessities as Statistical Literacy and Waste Studies. Brilliant.
  (via kottke)
  
  
• Inspired: an airbag equivalent for bicyclists that eliminates the choice between street safety and looking presentable for the rest of the day. The video with the crash dummy is really astounding.
  (via boing boing)
  
  
• A cartoon that demonstrates the laws of physics in everyday life, especially when there's a small child in the picture. I laughed, I cried...
  (via kottke)
  
  
• Fantastic: a Sesame Street video teaches kids to love their hair, even if it isn't straight and blonde. Something most caucasians rarely think about, and just about every little black girl has struggled with; such a simple idea to put this out there. Yay!
  (via Free Range Kids)
  

My barbaric yawp

I appear to have fallen into a blogging hole. Rather, the last week sort of wrung me out, physically and mentally, in a variety of ways too pedestrian to be worth enumerating, and suddenly I have a lot of tabs and no sign of blogular life. (And might I just say that this gizmo is my new favorite thing, simultaneously inflicting order and enabling procrastination to heady degrees.) Anyway, here are some things of note...

• Atrios notes a sensible policy that would help us through these challenging economic times, but probably won't even get discussed.
  
  
• It's certainly not a good sign for the recovery when people cause riots just lining up for Secion 8 housing!
  
  
• Here's a good point, about both current (infuriating) affairs and the weaknesses of the Democratic party.
  
  
• Speaking of good points, pithily put, here's one about language and Othering (or the definition of normal).
  (via NowThis)
  
  
• Here's a good essay: The Real Struggle Behind Climate Change: A War on Expertise

  As part of a more general assault on the very notion of expertise, the narrative starts with a truism that is actually true:
  
  "Not every smart person is wise..."
  
  only then extrapolates it, implicitly, to a blatant falsehood
  
  "all smartypants are unwise, all the time; and my uninformed opinion is equal to any expert testimony."

  Interesting points here about the culture of science that gets overlooked (e.g., ambitious post docs are always looking for holes in their elders' theories, in order to make names for themselves, yet the "critics" assume that everyone involved is a "sell-out" marching in lock-step)...
  
  
• Related (but funnier): If sports got reported like science... -- why do we presume it reasonable to require all sorts of esoteric knowledge in our recreation that we find unbearable in more serious matters?

Well, that clears things up a bit, and should be enough for everybody to chew on until I can get my act together a bit. Enjoy!

A willful return to the dark ages?

Really, I can't find anything funny about this level of misunderstanding, let alone the promulgation of ignorance as a way of life. We are fortunate to live in a time of remarkable scientific discovery, but we seem consitutionally incapable of allowing it to guide us toward a better life, whether it's effective public health interventions, acceptance of homosexual parents, or avoidance of climate disaster. Being unwilling to accept fundamental concepts of reality -- because you don't understand the difference between "relativity" and "relativism" or because gravity seems nonintuitive -- is a recipe for disaster for an individual, let alone a nation.

Terrible things, wonderful things

Terrible things

• Handy tools for keeping track of your kids become deadly in the hands of abusive stalkers and spouses. A word to the wise.
  (via FreeRangeKids tweets)
  
  
• I had this same response to the Michele Obama anti-obesity campaign -- can't you focus on fitness rather than further stigmatizing fat kids? jeez.
  (via Alas a Blog)
  
  
• America would rather unravel its civilization than take a few extra tax %'s from those who are doing ok or spend money to perk the economy back up. What on earth?!
  (via Atrios)

Wonderful things

• There's new evidence that there may have been no Big Bang, but rather that the universe has no beginning or end. Should be interesting to see how this is received both in the scientific community and as it impacts widespread humanistic philosophy.
  (via Follow Me Here)
  
  
• Some scientists have managed to harness the powerful pattern-recognition abilities of the human brain to improve the performance of a protein-folding algorithm. Neat as a concept -- gaming as cloud computing -- and as an application where non-experts can contribute in a meaningful way.
  

Wednesday tab dump

Really large number of interesting things in the hopper, but a week of solo parenting means I have neither time nor energy to do them justice. So here they come!

• A wolf in sheep's clothing: PayPal screws small event organizers in a nontrivial way. Why all the evil, PayPal??
  
  
• From the Department of Unexamined Privilege: Summer Opportunities for Indentured Servitude.

  Unpaid internships may expedite the climb up the employment ladder for students from relatively wealthy, well-connected families, but for others it just knocks out the bottom rungs altogether.

  (via Atrios)
  
  
• Depressing: the military attempts to reframe internet crime into a terrorism issue so that it can expand its domains of power. The language debate may have already been lost. sigh.
  (via Atrios)
  
  
• Yay! some good news! Obama Administration to Cover PTSD for ALL Veterans (still, kind of tragic that it took this long...)
  
  
• From the Department of Counting Chickens (Schadenfreude office): The GOP's big November problem is that the public hates congressional Republicans! imagine!!
  
  
• Cool news of science: recent neuroscience findings indicate that we may affect the accuracy of our memories every time we recall them! Really neat for a neuro nerd like myself, as it turns some fundamental dogma on its head, but interesting for a general reader too, both conceptually and in how it might help with PTSD and other disorders.
  (via rebecca's pocket)
  
  
• From the Department of Comeuppance: Lady Business: Cleavage in the workplace. hilarious and on-target.
  (via Medley)
  
  
• Planning a vacation? The ways to make it a great one may not be what you think; science has some tips.
  (via rc3.org)
  
  
• And finally, from the Department of Great Metaphors: Pandas and Lobsters: Why Google Cannot Build Social Applications... -- fascinating for its insights into the Internet social space, whether or not you care about Google's business decisions.
  (via Medley)