Brainiac

Brainiac http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/ en-us Copyright 2008 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:30:55 -0500 Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:10:05 -0500 http://www.movabletype.org/?v=1.53 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss A pox on neocons and humanitarian hawks memorably asked in Slate.) Still, it is bracing to read a passage like the following, in the latest issue of World Affairs, in which Rieff agrees with the neoconservative Robert Kagan that liberals have wildly exaggerated the differences between their own worldviews and that of the likes of Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle. Writes Rieff: [...]]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/a_pox_on_neocon.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/a_pox_on_neocon.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 13:30:55 -0500 Try: "Smoggy enough for ya'?" If you're lucky enough to be traveling to the Olympics, don't be surprised if you have a difficult time connecting with native Chinese, even if they speak fluent English. A government campaign is afoot to teach Chinese citizens how to... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/try_smoggy_enou.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/try_smoggy_enou.html Fri, 25 Jul 2008 09:58:50 -0500 And now let's move on threats of last week to desecrate a communion wafer, as a blow against what he views as superstition. His post begins with an almost King James simplicity:

It is finished.

[...]]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/and_now_lets_mo.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/and_now_lets_mo.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 16:26:57 -0500 Harvard's *new* Summers brouhaha All the privileged must have prizes." He would routinely ask his students what they valued in their teachers. "Invariably," he wrote, "they said good teachers made them 'feel comfortable.'"

Yeah, this place again Nothing was permitted to disturb the cocoon-view that the students would move frictionlessly into the ruling class, unless stroking counts as friction. The "corruption" of grade inflation was part of this cosseting environment; no teacher dare give less than a B without risking "petty harassment." "I do not mean merely that the students are never so aggressive and articulate as when they hunt for grades," Summers, who had a series of one-year appointments, wrote. "I mean that they wage political reprisals against the B-minus grader and send gifts to high-placed academic directors." (Stephen Bradt, a Harvard spokesman, said he could not respond to the allegation about gifts unless Summers provided more specifics. In an email exchange, Summers said he wanted to stress that his charge was aimed at students, not administrators. If any gifts were received, as he says he had heard, he believes they were returned -- and that the staff of the Committee on Degrees in Social Studies were not swayed by them: "I have every reason to believe in the perfect integrity of the director of studies and of my colleagues." Anya Bernstein, the director of studies in the social-studies program, was on vacation and couldn't be immediately reached.) [...]]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/frustration_off.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/frustration_off.html Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:44:22 -0500 Steampunk'd Steampunk, a do-it-yourself design aesthetic whose touchstones include Victorian-era machinery and doodads, the novels of Jules Verne, and Terry Gilliam's film "Brazil," has proven irresistible to intellectual trend-spotters -- including writers and editors of the Ideas section. Yesterday, however, on... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/steampunk_backl.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/steampunk_backl.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 13:40:31 -0500 Iron Man fails hadn't heard of the Bechdel Rule till this week, I shouldn't be ashamed that it was new to me, too: "The rule is that movies should have 1) at least two women, 2) who talk to each other, 3) about something other than a man." The rule's name is disputed: See some background here. (It's also been referred to as the "Mo Movie Measure," which also doesn't accurately reflect it's origins.) Anyway, it may help pin down why, if you have feminist inclinations, you most likely left the theater last time feeling vaguely dissatisfied.]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/iron_man_fails.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/iron_man_fails.html Wed, 23 Jul 2008 10:27:53 -0500 What's next in Darfur? this group blog, overseen by the Social Science Research Council. In one recent entry, Harvard's Alex de Waal, a skeptic of the ICC's move, describes how the main Sudanese opposition party -- and, astonishingly, even some of the rebels in Darfur -- would prefer that the Sudanese justice system itself handle the charges of atrocities in Darfur. The recent indictment, he goes on to argue, has prompted a circle-the-wagons defense of Sudanese sovereignty, as well as a search for regional allies to help in this defense. (Rather strikingly, for regular readers of Nicholas Kristoff, de Waal rejects the term "genocide" vis a vis Darfur in favor of the somewhat Orwellian term "complex emergency," though he is the opposite of naive about the horrors of the conflict.) At the same time, other contributors to the blog, titled "Making Sense of Darfur," suggest the ICC's move represents a belated important blow for justice.]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/whats_next_in_da.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/whats_next_in_da.html Tue, 22 Jul 2008 11:49:46 -0500 Satellite as artiste republishing 30 of the most striking images taken by the U.S. satellite Landsat 7. The images were originally culled by NASA staff members from a data set of some 400,000, for an exhibit in 2000 at the Library of Congress. Environmental Graffiti didn't just give its readers a second look at the chosen few. It also added some value, providing versions that could be downloaded and used as computer wallpaper.

Kalahari Desert, Namibia [click to enlarge] Two more pictures after the jump ...]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/satellite_as.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/satellite_as.html Tue, 22 Jul 2008 07:44:46 -0500 Note to potential commenters An unbelievable wave of comment-spam is making it virtually impossible to locate and publish actual reader comments. So until the spam-tsunami is over, I'll be disabling the comments function; my apologies. UPDATE: You can always email me at brainiac [dot]... http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/note_to_potenti.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/note_to_potenti.html Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:47:30 -0500 Breakthroughs in Ping Pong, golf laziness

]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/breakthroughs_i.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/breakthroughs_i.html Mon, 21 Jul 2008 16:19:56 -0500 Prisons and our moral identity points out in the latest Boston Review -- one of the most striking ways in which America differs from its peer nations. Though there are signs that some politicians are catching on to the significance of this development -- Senator James Webb (D., Virg.) said at a hearing on the subject last fall that our policies "test the limits of our democracy and push the boundaries of our moral identity" -- so far the system churns on.

]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/prisons_and_our.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/prisons_and_our.html Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:02:08 -0500 Beckett and "Nancy," together again par excellence Samuel Beckett and the original author of the comic strip "Nancy," Ernie Bushmiller. Such was Beckett's enthusiasm for Bushmiller's deadpan style, we are led to believe, that in the early 1950s he sent the cartoonist several ideas for strips. Editor and Publisher magazine "broke" the news, drawing on a blog item by a cartoonist and writer named R.C. Harvey, and a blogger for the Seattle paper The Stranger picked it up. Trouble is, the whole story is bogus, having originated in a 1999 issue of The Hermenaut http://www.hermenaut.com/, the late, lamented Boston-based magazine published by Josh Glenn -- in the "Fake Authenticity" issue, no less. "The Bushmiller/Beckett Letters" were written, in fact, by A.S. Hamrah and illustrated by R. Sikoryak. After some desultory words of thanks, here's how "Bushmiller" responded to some of "Beckett's" proposals ...]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/beckett_and_nan.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/beckett_and_nan.html Fri, 18 Jul 2008 11:39:25 -0500 A "yes, but ..." to globalization So writes Harvard's Dani Rodrik in a new opinion piece, excerpted on his blog. (The whole thing, written for an entity called Project Syndicate and available to papers worldwide, is here.) Forever gone, he writes, is the "time when global elites could comfort themselves with the thought that opposition to the world trading regime consisted of violent anarchists, self-serving protectionists, trade unionists, and ignorant, if idealistic youth." [...]]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/a_yes_but_to_gl.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/a_yes_but_to_gl.html Thu, 17 Jul 2008 15:32:37 -0500 Brainy-blog changes Matthew Yglesias announced late yesterday that he's migrating from the umbrella of the Atlantic to the more overtly ideological (i.e., liberal) Center for American Progress. He'll continue to blog -- readers will just have to change their bookmarks -- but will also be available to give advice about some of the center's other Webby projects. Certainly a loss for the formerly Boston-based Atlantic, whose owner, David Bradley, often boasts of his knack for recruiting "extreme talent." Also an interesting professional decision by Yglesias, a Harvard grad and philosophy major who occasionally riffed on philosophical matters on his site. Perhaps it signals a greater interest in shaping policy than in getting longer pieces into a prestigious magazine.

Losing a star blogger ...]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/brainyblog_changes.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/brainyblog_changes.html Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:54:04 -0500 An "unrepentant science-heathen"

[ ... ]]]> http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/its_safe_to_say.html http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/brainiac/2008/07/its_safe_to_say.html Wed, 16 Jul 2008 17:23:47 -0500