Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Sleep Deprivation Can Be Deadly
An excerpt from USA Today -
Here's why sleep deprivation is toxic and will eventually kill you
Jeff Stibel
You can live for about three minutes without air, three days without water and about 21 days without food. But in between food and water, there is something else critically essential: sleep.
It turns out you can only live about 11 days without sleep. You can give it a try if you don’t believe me, but, just like the other essentials, after day 11 you will probably die.
Sleep is one of the most important things we overlook, because most of us don’t consider it vital. The problem isn’t you — it’s your brain. Brain scientists really don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to sleep. For far too long, we have known too little about why we sleep. Instead of acknowledging that fact, scientists have made up fairy tales to explain our need for sleep. They have guessed that sleep is necessary for creativity, rest, rejuvenation and recovery.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2017/12/22/heres
Here's why sleep deprivation is toxic and will eventually kill you
Jeff Stibel
You can live for about three minutes without air, three days without water and about 21 days without food. But in between food and water, there is something else critically essential: sleep.
It turns out you can only live about 11 days without sleep. You can give it a try if you don’t believe me, but, just like the other essentials, after day 11 you will probably die.
Sleep is one of the most important things we overlook, because most of us don’t consider it vital. The problem isn’t you — it’s your brain. Brain scientists really don’t know what they are talking about when it comes to sleep. For far too long, we have known too little about why we sleep. Instead of acknowledging that fact, scientists have made up fairy tales to explain our need for sleep. They have guessed that sleep is necessary for creativity, rest, rejuvenation and recovery.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/columnist/2017/12/22/heres
Google Maps vs. All Others
Hands down, Google Maps is best and in this article you can see why.
https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat
https://www.justinobeirne.com/google-maps-moat
Monday, December 25, 2017
Saturday, December 23, 2017
The Instant Pot Guy
An excerpt from the NY Times -
Inside the Home of Instant Pot, the Kitchen Gadget That Spawned a Religion
The electric multicooker is a true viral phenomenon. We went to the company’s Canadian headquarters to learn why.
By KEVIN ROOSE
I went to Kanata to get a peek behind the scenes of the Instant Pot phenomenon and meet its creator: Robert Wang, who invented the device and serves as chief executive of Double Insight, its parent company. What I found was a remarkable example of a new breed of 21st-century start-up — a homegrown hardware business with only around 50 employees that raised no venture capital funding, spent almost nothing on advertising, and achieved enormous size primarily through online word-of-mouth. It is also a testament to the enormous power of Amazon, and its ability to turn small businesses into major empires nearly overnight.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/business/instant-pot.html?_r=0
Inside the Home of Instant Pot, the Kitchen Gadget That Spawned a Religion
The electric multicooker is a true viral phenomenon. We went to the company’s Canadian headquarters to learn why.
By KEVIN ROOSE
I went to Kanata to get a peek behind the scenes of the Instant Pot phenomenon and meet its creator: Robert Wang, who invented the device and serves as chief executive of Double Insight, its parent company. What I found was a remarkable example of a new breed of 21st-century start-up — a homegrown hardware business with only around 50 employees that raised no venture capital funding, spent almost nothing on advertising, and achieved enormous size primarily through online word-of-mouth. It is also a testament to the enormous power of Amazon, and its ability to turn small businesses into major empires nearly overnight.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/17/business/instant-pot.html?_r=0
Great Reads
An excerpt from the Huffington Post -
24 Of The Most Thought-Provoking Pieces Of Writing By People Of Color In 2017
Read these before the year is over.
By Zeba Blay
This was a year of consistent bad news, a year that (for better or worse) was rife for poignant, thought-provoking and conversation-starting commentary from writers of all backgrounds. And so, for the third year, we’ve curated a list of essays and articles that defined conversations about race, pop culture, politics and identity in 2017.
These essays and articles cover a wide array of topics, from the fascinating delusion of Rachel Dolezal to the horrors of fraternity hazing to the complexities of Donald Trump’s presidency.
As always, the criteria for this list is simple: All pieces must have been written by a person of color and been published online within the last year.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/24-of-the-most-thought-provoking-pieces-of-writing-by-people-of-color-in-2017_us_5a303859e4b01bdd7657e96a
24 Of The Most Thought-Provoking Pieces Of Writing By People Of Color In 2017
Read these before the year is over.
By Zeba Blay
This was a year of consistent bad news, a year that (for better or worse) was rife for poignant, thought-provoking and conversation-starting commentary from writers of all backgrounds. And so, for the third year, we’ve curated a list of essays and articles that defined conversations about race, pop culture, politics and identity in 2017.
These essays and articles cover a wide array of topics, from the fascinating delusion of Rachel Dolezal to the horrors of fraternity hazing to the complexities of Donald Trump’s presidency.
As always, the criteria for this list is simple: All pieces must have been written by a person of color and been published online within the last year.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/24-of-the-most-thought-provoking-pieces-of-writing-by-people-of-color-in-2017_us_5a303859e4b01bdd7657e96a
Friday, December 22, 2017
Quote II
From the NY Times -
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/22/us/past-debates-echo-in-split-between-cornel-west-and-ta-nehisi-coates.html?em_pos=large&emc=edit_rr_20171222&nl=race-related&nlid=38867499&ref=headline&te=1&_r=0
What We Read in 2017
From Chartbeat -
2017: The 100 Most Engaging Stories of the Year
http://2017.chartbeat.com/intro
2017: The 100 Most Engaging Stories of the Year
http://2017.chartbeat.com/intro
Yes!!! - College Acceptance Letters
From Essence -
https://www.essence.com/culture/black-teens-college-acceptance-reaction-videos#1
https://www.essence.com/culture/black-teens-college-acceptance-reaction-videos#1
Thursday, December 21, 2017
Wednesday, December 20, 2017
Black Excellence in Science
An excerpt from OZY -
THE SEGREGATED BLACK SCHOOLS THAT DOMINATED IN SCIENCE
By Daniel Malloy
The segregation that built Sumner also fueled its excellence. The best-educated white minds of the time could become lawyers and doctors and business leaders. The cream of the African-American intellectual crop was blocked from many such opportunities, so they often became educators. In the 1930s, at a time when many white high school teachers did not have bachelor’s degrees, 44 percent of Sumner’s teachers had master’s degrees, according to research by Frank Manheim of George Mason University and Eckhard Hellmuth of the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
A history of Sumner written by its students in 1935 quotes an unnamed African-American educator: “Sumner is a child not of our own volition but rather an offspring of the race antipathy of a bygone period. It was a veritable blessing in disguise — a flower of which we may proudly say, ‘The bud had a bitter taste, but sweet indeed is the flower.’”
In 1952, the school systems on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri state line joined the International Science Fair movement. The Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair went on to become one of America’s biggest. The prizes it handed out in the 1950s, according to Manheim and Hellmuth, went largely to Sumner students. Then the baton was picked up by Lincoln High, a Black school in Kansas City, Missouri, which dominated the competition into the 1960s. In 1963, Lincoln’s Vernice Marie Murray won a national first place in physics with a project called “Experimental Methods of Verifying Force.”
http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-segregated-black-schools-that-dominated-in-science/79621
~~~~~~~~~~
Malcolm Gladwell does a podcast entitled "Miss Buchanan's Period of Adjustment" - number 8 on the list below - that does a masterful job of explaining the error in thinking that is associated with the Brown vs the Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. Having been raised in segregated schools, it supports what I already knew to be true.
THE SEGREGATED BLACK SCHOOLS THAT DOMINATED IN SCIENCE
By Daniel Malloy
The segregation that built Sumner also fueled its excellence. The best-educated white minds of the time could become lawyers and doctors and business leaders. The cream of the African-American intellectual crop was blocked from many such opportunities, so they often became educators. In the 1930s, at a time when many white high school teachers did not have bachelor’s degrees, 44 percent of Sumner’s teachers had master’s degrees, according to research by Frank Manheim of George Mason University and Eckhard Hellmuth of the University of Missouri, Kansas City.
A history of Sumner written by its students in 1935 quotes an unnamed African-American educator: “Sumner is a child not of our own volition but rather an offspring of the race antipathy of a bygone period. It was a veritable blessing in disguise — a flower of which we may proudly say, ‘The bud had a bitter taste, but sweet indeed is the flower.’”
In 1952, the school systems on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri state line joined the International Science Fair movement. The Greater Kansas City Science and Engineering Fair went on to become one of America’s biggest. The prizes it handed out in the 1950s, according to Manheim and Hellmuth, went largely to Sumner students. Then the baton was picked up by Lincoln High, a Black school in Kansas City, Missouri, which dominated the competition into the 1960s. In 1963, Lincoln’s Vernice Marie Murray won a national first place in physics with a project called “Experimental Methods of Verifying Force.”
http://www.ozy.com/flashback/the-segregated-black-schools-that-dominated-in-science/79621
~~~~~~~~~~
Malcolm Gladwell does a podcast entitled "Miss Buchanan's Period of Adjustment" - number 8 on the list below - that does a masterful job of explaining the error in thinking that is associated with the Brown vs the Board of Education Supreme Court ruling. Having been raised in segregated schools, it supports what I already knew to be true.
YouTube - The World's Best Film School?
An excerpt from Wired -
THE WORLD'S BEST FILM SCHOOL IS FREE ON YOUTUBE
By AUTHOR: DAVID PIERCE
Lessons from the Screenplay launched on June 8, 2016, with a video called "Gone Girl—Don't Underestimate the Screenwriter." In it, Tucker explains why screenplays matter more than you think, and dissects the techniques Gillian Flynn used in adapting her novel for the film. As Tucker narrates over clips from the movie, the corresponding lines and notes from the original screenplay appear underneath. The video blew up immediately, climbing the r/movies Subreddit and eventually landing on Reddit's front page. Lessons from the Screenplay had 8,000 subscribers after just one day, and the Gone Girl video racked up 200,000 views in a week.
With that, Tucker had found himself part of a rich, growing corner of YouTube. You could call it YouTube Film School, staffed by creators all over the platform who spend their time helping viewers understand how film and TV work. YouTube is rich with movie reviews, hilariously re-cut trailers, and haphazardly uploaded clips of dubious quality and legality. But the best channels are the ones that teach film as an art form, that help you understand why a particular cut or camera move makes you feel the way it does.
https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-film-school/
THE WORLD'S BEST FILM SCHOOL IS FREE ON YOUTUBE
By AUTHOR: DAVID PIERCE
Lessons from the Screenplay launched on June 8, 2016, with a video called "Gone Girl—Don't Underestimate the Screenwriter." In it, Tucker explains why screenplays matter more than you think, and dissects the techniques Gillian Flynn used in adapting her novel for the film. As Tucker narrates over clips from the movie, the corresponding lines and notes from the original screenplay appear underneath. The video blew up immediately, climbing the r/movies Subreddit and eventually landing on Reddit's front page. Lessons from the Screenplay had 8,000 subscribers after just one day, and the Gone Girl video racked up 200,000 views in a week.
With that, Tucker had found himself part of a rich, growing corner of YouTube. You could call it YouTube Film School, staffed by creators all over the platform who spend their time helping viewers understand how film and TV work. YouTube is rich with movie reviews, hilariously re-cut trailers, and haphazardly uploaded clips of dubious quality and legality. But the best channels are the ones that teach film as an art form, that help you understand why a particular cut or camera move makes you feel the way it does.
https://www.wired.com/story/youtube-film-school/
2017 Photos
From the Atlantic -
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/12/the-most-2017-photos-ever/548789/
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/12/the-most-2017-photos-ever/548789/
Tuesday, December 19, 2017
Boy Calls 911 on the Grinch
From USA Today -
To save Christmas, boy calls 911 on the Grinch and then helps cops nab him
By Therese Apel, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion Ledger
JACKSON, Miss. — It's actually a story of saving Christmas from the Grinch.
TyLon Pittman, a 5-year-old Mississippi boy, knew he was too little to take on the Grinch all by himself, so having identified the threat, he took action. TyLon called 911 to report that he did not want the Grinch to come steal his Christmas.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/18/boy-calls-911-report-grinch/960746001/
To save Christmas, boy calls 911 on the Grinch and then helps cops nab him
By Therese Apel, The (Jackson, Miss.) Clarion Ledger
TyLon Pittman, a 5-year-old Mississippi boy, knew he was too little to take on the Grinch all by himself, so having identified the threat, he took action. TyLon called 911 to report that he did not want the Grinch to come steal his Christmas.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2017/12/18/boy-calls-911-report-grinch/960746001/
Monday, December 18, 2017
Backpacks From Around the World
https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2017/12/the-things-kids-carried/548105/
Sunday, December 17, 2017
Saturday, December 16, 2017
Quote
Asked how did a tainted supplement get in his system Jeremy Kerley said, "I don’t know, a lot of ghosts around here. Ghost put it in. You know the ghost of Christmas past."— Calvin Watkins (@calvinwatkins) December 13, 2017
Friday, December 15, 2017
Thursday, December 14, 2017
Thanking Black Women
An excerpt from Upworthy -
15 real ways to thank black women for carrying the country on their backs.
by Erin Canty
Here are 15 ways to spend your money, power, time, and resources to thank black women for carrying the political load.
1. Support black women running for office.
Yard signs. Phone banks. Field work. And, most importantly, monetary donations. No black women running for office near you? No excuses. Consider contributing to Stacey Abrams, a black Democrat running for governor of Georgia.
2. Get serious about closing the wage gap.
You've likely heard the statistic that women earn 78 cents for dollar a man makes doing the same job. That's white women. Black women earn about 64 cents for every dollar. Connect with and contribute to groups like the 78 Cents Project and the National Women's Law Center, who work tirelessly to bring about change in this arena.
http://www.upworthy.com/15-real-ways-to-thank-black-women-for-carrying-the-country-on-their-backs?c=upw1
15 real ways to thank black women for carrying the country on their backs.
by Erin Canty
Here are 15 ways to spend your money, power, time, and resources to thank black women for carrying the political load.
1. Support black women running for office.
Yard signs. Phone banks. Field work. And, most importantly, monetary donations. No black women running for office near you? No excuses. Consider contributing to Stacey Abrams, a black Democrat running for governor of Georgia.
2. Get serious about closing the wage gap.
You've likely heard the statistic that women earn 78 cents for dollar a man makes doing the same job. That's white women. Black women earn about 64 cents for every dollar. Connect with and contribute to groups like the 78 Cents Project and the National Women's Law Center, who work tirelessly to bring about change in this arena.
http://www.upworthy.com/15-real-ways-to-thank-black-women-for-carrying-the-country-on-their-backs?c=upw1
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Quote
From USA Today Editorial -
A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/
A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/12/12/trump-lows-ever-hit-rock-bottom-editorials-debates/945947001/
Monday, December 11, 2017
Sunday, December 10, 2017
Fighting Mass Incarceration With An App
An excerpt from Salon -
Want to fight America’s racist mass-incarceration system? There’s an app for that
The app Appolition automatically collects your spare change to help bail disadvantaged black people out of jail
By Rachel Leah
As a social engineer, Kortney Ziegler is always thinking of new ideas and posting them to his Twitter.
"An app that converts your daily change into bail money to free black people," he tweeted in July.
Like many of his brainstorms, it was a one-off gesture thrown into the digital ether. But something was different about this one. It quickly got hundreds of retweets and affirmations. "I'd sign up!" many users wrote back.
Impressed and inspired by the response, Ziegler decided to make the app a reality.
The result is the web-based service "Appolition," which officially came to life on Nov. 14. Ziegler, along with his co-founders in Atlanta, hoped to reach 200 users by mid-December. As of today, Appolition has close to 6,000. And its current, web-based form is just the beginning. Ziegler says mobile apps for iPhone and Android users are on the way.
Here's how it works: Appolition connects to your bank account and rounds up each purchase you make to the nearest dollar. The spare change is then donated automatically once it accrues to at least 50 cents. By signing in to the website, it takes you to a personal secure dashboard where you can track your contributions to bail relief as you spend. It's both passive — you don't even notice you're using it — and effective.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/want-to-fight-americas-racist-mass-incarceration-system-theres-an-app-for-that/
https://appolition.us
Want to fight America’s racist mass-incarceration system? There’s an app for that
The app Appolition automatically collects your spare change to help bail disadvantaged black people out of jail
By Rachel Leah
As a social engineer, Kortney Ziegler is always thinking of new ideas and posting them to his Twitter.
"An app that converts your daily change into bail money to free black people," he tweeted in July.
Like many of his brainstorms, it was a one-off gesture thrown into the digital ether. But something was different about this one. It quickly got hundreds of retweets and affirmations. "I'd sign up!" many users wrote back.
Impressed and inspired by the response, Ziegler decided to make the app a reality.
The result is the web-based service "Appolition," which officially came to life on Nov. 14. Ziegler, along with his co-founders in Atlanta, hoped to reach 200 users by mid-December. As of today, Appolition has close to 6,000. And its current, web-based form is just the beginning. Ziegler says mobile apps for iPhone and Android users are on the way.
Here's how it works: Appolition connects to your bank account and rounds up each purchase you make to the nearest dollar. The spare change is then donated automatically once it accrues to at least 50 cents. By signing in to the website, it takes you to a personal secure dashboard where you can track your contributions to bail relief as you spend. It's both passive — you don't even notice you're using it — and effective.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/want-to-fight-americas-racist-mass-incarceration-system-theres-an-app-for-that/
https://appolition.us
Saturday, December 9, 2017
It Shouldn't Be This Hard
An excerpt from Salon -
NYC’s high school wars: Helicopter parenting hits a new peak
“School choice” in New York has birthed a bizarre system that rewards parental madness and reinforces inequality
By ANDREW O'HEHIR
I spent eight hours trapped with hundreds of other parents in the prison-like cafeteria at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School — that’s the performing arts school from “Fame” — while my daughter auditioned for a spot in their drama program. (Hey, she got a call-back.) We waited in a four-block-long line for 90 minutes to get into a brief presentation at a former groovy-lefty alternative school that is now — this is not so much ironic as inevitable — intensely competitive and desirable. My son and I tried to visit a tiny math-and-science target school in Harlem (which features, I kid you not, mandatory German) and found ourselves in a mob scene perhaps five times the size of the school’s entire student population. But there was one small moment, in itself neither controversial nor alarming, that summed up this whole strange experience.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/nycs-high-school-wars-helicopter-parenting-hits-a-new-peak/?source=newsletter
NYC’s high school wars: Helicopter parenting hits a new peak
“School choice” in New York has birthed a bizarre system that rewards parental madness and reinforces inequality
By ANDREW O'HEHIR
I spent eight hours trapped with hundreds of other parents in the prison-like cafeteria at Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School — that’s the performing arts school from “Fame” — while my daughter auditioned for a spot in their drama program. (Hey, she got a call-back.) We waited in a four-block-long line for 90 minutes to get into a brief presentation at a former groovy-lefty alternative school that is now — this is not so much ironic as inevitable — intensely competitive and desirable. My son and I tried to visit a tiny math-and-science target school in Harlem (which features, I kid you not, mandatory German) and found ourselves in a mob scene perhaps five times the size of the school’s entire student population. But there was one small moment, in itself neither controversial nor alarming, that summed up this whole strange experience.
https://www.salon.com/2017/12/09/nycs-high-school-wars-helicopter-parenting-hits-a-new-peak/?source=newsletter
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