Why is scientific sexism so intractably resistant to reform? | Aeon Essays
Science writer Margaret Wertheim writes about sexism in science. One of the many lines that lines struck me: I think about all the young women now being forced
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Skip to contentScience writer Margaret Wertheim writes about sexism in science. One of the many lines that lines struck me: I think about all the young women now being forced
Balloon Juice: I think TED talks are the worst example of modern faux-intellectualism. Audience flattering, based on ego and personality, dripping with self-congratulation, they contribute to one of
I think everyone will agree that 18 hours is far too little time to really see Paris; likewise, any seasoned traveler will agree that 8 hours is more
A couple curious things I saw walking around Vienna today. via flickr Is it just me, or do "Alter Schmuck" and "pullovaria" this sound like his and hers
[Reposted from the Red Herring blog, ca. 2005.]
Let me begin with a confession. I spend most of my working life in front of a computer, and I suspect a fair amount of that time is wasted. I check my e-mail several times an hour. I regularly scan my RSS feeds for new posts. I visit news sites, just in case they've updated the list of breaking new stories. I can follow hyperlinks from one end of the Internet to the other if I'm not careful.
It's all the electronic equivalent of bouncing your leg up and down, or ripping a napkin apart. And I don't need to be this wired. It doesn't help my work or thinking; to the contrary, these information-era equivalents nervous tics are just distractions. Yet I do them.
I'm hardly alone. Some of my friends lead lives that require Blackberries; others have Blackberries that take over their lives. A recent Yahoo-OMD study of 28 people forced to go offline for two weeks shows how dependent—both in the functional, and the emotional sense—people become to being connected. According to The Atlantic Monthly, "Across the board, participants reported withdrawal-like feelings of loss, frustration, and disconnectedness after the plug was plug was pulled." Indeed, "[t]he temptation to go online was so great that the participants were offered "life lines"—one-time, one-task forays onto the Web—to ease their pain." Add to this the recent Pew Internet Survey study that found that Internet users are spending more time online, and less watching TV, and you get a picture of growing numbers of people turning productivity tools into weapons of self-distraction.
It's just the latest evidence confirming the truism that we live in an age of information overload. How did this happen? And is it going to get worse?
I hadn't realized how much giant, open-span main terminals now dominate airport design. Some examples I've been in recently: Kuala Lumpur, via flickr Singapore, via flickr Heathrow Terminal
During my layover in Sydney, I had just enough time to stash my bags and make a pilgrimage to see the Sydney Opera House. via flickr I had
i I love my job, for a whoe bunch of different reasons: for example, it exists. (Piece of dark humor that summarizes a moment: What's the hot new
Originally published in the Los Angeles Times Book Review. David M. Levy, "Scrolling Forward: Making Sense of Documents in the Digital Age" (New York: Arcade, 2002). When I