Category: ideas

“The result: the ‘MLA Subconference,’ organized with the chief aim of confronting loudly and bluntly, the very real problems crippling higher education today, from the adjunct labor crisis to ballooning student tuition. The subconference ‘shadows’ MLA by being held in the same city, one day before the established convention begins.”

“The more a field is run by a system, the more that system creates incentives for everyone (employees, customers, competitors) to change their behavior in perverse ways—providing more of whatever the system is designed to measure and produce, whether that actually creates any value or not.”

Peter Aspden: “There are few more powerful forms of revolt against stuffocation” – the feeling of being stifled by having too many things – “than to submit to an artistic experience.”

“The maker era might not be upon us yet, but the maker movement has arrived. Just who are these people? Like the Arts and Crafts movement—a mélange of back-to-the-land simplifiers, socialists, anarchists, and tweedy art connoisseurs—the makers are a diverse bunch.”

“‘It’s becoming quite apparent to us that the world of playing the perfect music to people and the world of playing perfect advertising to them are strikingly similar,’ says Eric Bieschke, Pandora’s chief scientist.”

“Product updates were few and far between. Given that Google can hire lots of people to do just about anything, the steady-state of Scholar gave me the idea that perhaps Google was going to sunset the service.”

“In ads, stump speeches and other messages understood to have manipulative intent, three claims will persuade, but four (or more) will trigger skepticism, and reverse an initially positive impression.”

There’s an app for that. (Yes, really.)

“The seemingly simple word has a nuanced series of functions that children somehow master early on. In fact, no is among the top 10 or so words that English-speaking babies say when first beginning to talk … By the way, yes doesn’t even crack the top 20.”