School Project '09

Greetings everyone. Where was I last week? Well I've been busy. You see, for my final project in one of my classes this year I'm trying to do a collaborate project about public (as well as charter, when applicable) schools in the United States. Thus I've been attempting to learn Flash (Oh my gods how fun is that? I've been wasting my life doing things I thought I was supposed to do instead of what I really love, but hey, that's my motivation for this project.), sending out requests for information and emails, and basically looking for any and all information I can find.

And I would love your help. Any and all contributions would be greatly appreciated, that includes art, music, videos, interviews, explosions... Here I'll even hook you up with some quotes to get you agitated:

"The great purpose of school can be realized better in dark, airless, ugly places. . . . It is to master the physical self, to transcend the beauty of nature. School should develop the power to withdraw from the external world."
-William Torrey Harris, U.S. Commissioner of Education from (1889 - 1906)

"In our dreams people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hands. [...] We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or men of science. We have not to raise up from among them authors, educators, poets or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians, nor lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we have ample supply. The task we set before ourselves is very simple...we will organize children...and teach them to do in a perfect way the things their fathers and mothers are doing in an imperfect way."
-Rockefeller’s General Education Board "Occasional Letter Number One" (1906)

"It is, in fact, nothing short of a miracle that the modern methods of instruction have not yet entirely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry; for this delicate little plant, aside from stimulation, stands mainly in need of freedom; without this it goes to wreck and ruin without fail. It is a very grave mistake to think that the enjoyment of seeing and searching can be promoted by means of coercion and a sense of duty. To the contrary, I believe it would be possible to rob even a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness, if it were possible, with the aid of a whip, to force the beast to devour continuously, even when not hungry, especially if the food, handed out under such coercion, were to be selected accordingly. "
-Albert Einstein

"Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narco-hypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience."
-Aldous Huxley, Letter to George Orwell

I am going to hold off from continuing today, and instead, would like to present the following questions:

1. If you were suddenly given control over the US educational system, what would you do with that power?
2. How has your (or your family's) education changed since No Child Left Behind?
3. If you had the opportunity to direct your own education, what would you want (or have wanted) to accomplish?
4. How can the current system be changed? Is it pointless to even try?
5. Do you have any stories, good or bad, that you would like to share regarding this topic?

Anyway, I'll leave it there for today. Restraining myself from emotion and asking for help.


Further reading:
Childhood's End -John Taylor Gatto

There will never be another "Vestiges". Please prove me wrong

I've been reading selections from Robert Chambers' book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (full book) in one of my classes recently. For those of you who don't already know about this book, here's a quick list of facts of which you should probably be aware.

• The book was originally published anonymously due to its controversial subject matter.
• Vestiges was the first book to attempt to bring together the scientific developments of the time and, in doing so, create a basic explanation of everything. (see also: One of my favorite books of all time, Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything)
  
• It was criticized by both the church (for it's seemingly blasphemous nature) and the scientific community (due to multiple scientific inaccuracies). Despite this, Vestiges managed to outsell Darwin's On the Origin of Species until after Darwin's death; even Queen Victoria had a copy (which was read aloud to her, lazy lazy).
• There is a large amount of evidence available indicating the book had a significant amount of influence on readers such as Charles Darwin, Alfred Russel Wallace and Alfred, Lord Tennyson.
  

And then we have Darwin's On the Origin of Species. A single book which proved to be the very foundation of an entire branch of science.


Youtube comments make me want to puke.
This got me to thinking about the influence of scientific books in general, and I have reached a conclusion I hope will be proved wrong, but which I fear will not:

No science book will ever be truly revolutionary again.

Why? Because no science book will ever need to be.

I recognize our views of reality may change, scientific discoveries will be made, entire systems of thought and science may collapse and be built again from the smoking rubble of what we now hold to be true, but these discoveries will not be read by the masses. The cultural drive to read, the necessity to do so, is no longer present in this world. We have abandoned it for faster means of communicate, and the world moves to fast now.

When the next scientific revolution takes place, the news will be spread quickly. The word will explode and circle the earth with explosive force, spewing forth from press releases, videos, public statements of opinion... Only those of us who truly wish to understand why things are so will seek out the evidence. The rest of us, around the world, will either accept the statements presented to us on the basis of the source's authority, or reject it to maintain our position within a certain social group (religion, political party, etc.).

A list of the best selling books to date (excluding plays and textbooks) is available over at wikipedia: it doesn't take more than a cursory view to note the obvious lack of science books. Indeed, this list is dominated by religious texts, political writings and fiction, while the nonfiction books present on the list are self-help, instructional books, and memoirs.

When we read a book, we do it for one of two reasons: pleasure or pressure. The latter usually stems from obligation (as in schools, where reading a certain text is necessary to achieve a goal), but it can also become manifest when one chooses to either go along with, or join, a certain social group (e.g. Oprah's book club). The definition of the former should be obvious.

Yeah, I went there.

At the time Vestiges and Origin were being published, books were the only way to gain access to certain types of information, more than that, they were private. If you could afford a book, and possessed the ability to read, you could educate yourself without having to invest precious time attending lectures or speaking events (or risk your reputation by appearing in potentially controversial public situations). With the increased accessibility of information, and an unprecedented ability to take on anonymity, books are no longer a necessity.

There is no reason to spend money on a book when the basic information contained therein can easily be attained for a faction of the cost (or for free), and when there is no longer any reason to choose books as a source of information, is it any wonder that those who are willing to buy books will only read for pleasure?

When all our needs for information can be met elsewhere, we use our remaining time and resources for diversion, for the things that make us happy, and let's face it, only a small percentage of us really do gain happiness from reading books of facts and figures. Heck, those of us who enjoy books are in the minority. With the exception of wildly popular series such as Harry Potter and Twilight, most people in western cultures do not seek out books until they have a reason to do so.


Given what we know of our species and our cultures, I can only hope that someone will be capable of writing a science book that will attract the attention of the masses. I can't think of any disastrous consequences of this not happening, I just want to be proven wrong.

The (Childhood of) Herbert Spencer

The man who originally coined the phrase "survival of the fittest" was not Darwin. No, my friends it was Mr. Herbert Spencer, philosopher, sociological theorist, polymath, and anti-establishment semi-proto-libertarian (I made a word!). The parts of his life which made him famous are readily available online, with the Wikipedia entry being your first stop, of course. To me however, the most fascinating part of any historical figure's odyssey is usually their childhood, and Herbert Spencer is certainly no exception.

Just look at this guy.

The life of Mr. Herbert Spencer began on the 27^th of April, 1820, a Sunday, and his odds of survival were grim. After already losing eight children to disease and unfortunate circumstances, his parents, George and Harriet Spencer, had learned better than to simply hope for the best.
Although Mrs. Spencer did have another child a year after her son’s birth, Herbert was the only one of his siblings to survive longer than two years, leaving the child alone as his father worked a position that was detrimental to both his health and mental stability until the family finally moved to Nottingham in 1824. There, the young Mr. Spencer was free to roam wild about the countryside and feed his growing interest in the natural world, unfettered by the structured lessons which ruled the lives of others his age. This brief interlude ended in only three years later, when the family returned to Derby in 1827.

Most ungroovy.

Derby, at the time, was well on its way to becoming a hub of “nonconformist culture, centering upon the Derby Philosophical Society […]”. However, while it seemed George Spencer had finally found for himself a productive source of diversion, his son, although indirectly absorbing the ideologies surrounding him, was not so easily entertained. By thirteen his interests had moved well beyond the topics covered in his classes and he began eschewing not only the subjects he found unappealing, but the very sources of authority themselves by refusing to read books for anything other than reference (or pleasure, in which case the books were always fictional in nature).


"Dragon"? WTF youtube, that's Falcor.

This left his parents in somewhat of a predicament, how was anyone to correct the behavior of such an obstinate young man who, despite his stubborn behavior, have never done anything so atrocious as to warrant any kind of severe punishment? Thinking himself quite clever, Rev. Thomas Spencer, Herbert’s uncle, came to George with a proposal: the two families were to switch children. This arrangement was to leave Thomas’s son Henry with George and Harriet, and trap Herbert with his uncle in North Somerset. Under the pretense of a simple family holiday, the Spencer family traveled to Hinton Charterhouse, originally stating they would be visiting for one month. At the end of this time the adults finally revealed the truth to a flabbergasted, and rather insulted, Herbert.

Never trust the clergy.

Unaccustomed to such treatment, Herbert bid his time for a total of two weeks before simply running away back to Derby, covering a total of over a hundred miles in only three days. No attempt was made to overtake the boy, as both his parents and his uncle found the behavior rather embarrassing. Instead, the families waited, listened to his complaints over having to learn Latin, and promptly returned a thoroughly exhausted and spiritually defeated Herbert Spencer to his uncle at Hinton, where he would stay and learn all his Uncle was capable of teaching him, occasionally visiting home, until the completion of his education.

This is pretty freakin' impressive.

So what's the moral of this story, ladies and gentlemen? I'm not quite sure, there were many other factors which caused Mr. Spencer to grow into the man he eventually became, but somewhere, deep down, I can't help but think the message we should be taking from this is that if you ever want to break your child's spirit, making them walk home 100+ miles just might work.

Another I'm-Busy-Back-Off-Already Roundup

Hey hey, I'm sorry everyone, but school and life in general have been kicking my butt, so I'm going to have to enlist the help of the internet hive mind to entertain you this week.

First up we have Ms. Julia Sweeney and an except from her monologue "Letting Go of God". I actually met Ms. Sweeney in person this week. She's incredibly down to earth and it was interesting to hear how she left religion, especially when there were many of us in the audience whose stories paralleled her own.

Speaking of wonderful people with whom I was previously not acquainted until this week, I was lucky enough to meet Mr. Jim Emerson (of scanners blog and rogerebert.com) on the exact same day as Ms. Sweeney, yes they were both on campus for the same program, so it's not as large a coincidence as it would have been otherwise, but it was still absolutely FANTASTIC. If you haven't visited yet, I suggest you head on over and check out the "Inglourious Basterds" saga (both the posts themselves and the commentary).

Now for some links:

• Norman Borlaug is dead. Don't know who he is? You should.



• Where Did All the Flowers Come From? A report on research addressing the evolution of angiosperms with a special appearance from one of my professors.



• Mini T-Rex? Yes please. (Scientific American)
• Octopi limbs! It turns out an octopus can tell its arms a general goal, and the limb itself does the computing of how to accomplish that task. Bad ass. (WIRED)

AND

• Darwin film (NOT!) too controversial for Americans. Everyone saw the original article last week, so why is no one paying attention to the follow-up?

Finally, I'd like to send out a [forced?] meme alert.
With the arrival of Inturrupting Kanye (By the way, every one of those letters is a different picture.) I'm afraid many people have missed out on what is now one of my favorite nerd-freakouts of all time: "WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS?" The result of a Topless Robot writer's weekly column "Fan Fiction Friday"the phrase is the result of an author's temper tantrum upon learning that their story (which involves teddy-bear-pokemon beastiality) had been featured:

"WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS? I wanna know whose idea was this RIGHT NOW. Who did this on purpose, huh? I found this little secret and I'm so angry I wanna know who did this and why or I'll report everyone here to the site moderaters on this website and Yiffstar and have the one responsible BANNED FOR LIFE. NOW TELL ME WHO DID THIS NOW?"

"Fisrt, nobody checks spellling on the internet!!!! SEcond, I"m only in high school, so give me a fucking break!!! Third, I am what they call the best of the best, so mock all you want, but I have my fans, and they lvoe my stories!!!! "
-Brickhousebunny21

Realizing this was pure gold waiting to be mined, the web got to work (twitpic, toplessrobot, whoseresponsiblethis.com...)


While it does entertain me greatly, I believe philosoraptor has a good question, appropriate for for this particular semi-meme.

Profanity is @#$%& great!

Warning: Contains swearing, obviously.


We miss you Mr. Carlin
More than any other form of humiliation, possibility the most damaging, and most human, is that of saying something inappropriate. It is the single situation in which you cannot shift the blame away from yourself and are instead forced to accept your mistake. The shame is almost physically painful.

Eg. Saying infants are unpleasant when there is a mother nearby. Her kid wasn't with her at the time, ok?

Despite this, we generally do not stop swearing or voicing our opinions with people with whom we feel comfortable speaking in that manner. Despite its bad reputation, the benefits of swearing a worth the risk of making an ass of one's self .

Let us first consider swearing in a single-person system. While the topic of exactly why stubbing one's toe hurts like a sonovabitch (See? Told you.), how we deal with pain is not a matter of conscious control, we instinctively withdraw our injured body part from the offending object, and, in a fabulous expression of our species' affinity for language, vent our frustration orally. While it may not have developed explicitly for this purpose, I am particularly fond of this phenomenon in that it prevents us from attacking others or putting our fists through a wall.

In the August 5th Issue of NeuroReport, researcher Richard Stephens et. al. from Keele University School of Psychology published the results of a study in which participants were found to perceive less pain if they were allowed to swear while they kept their hand submerged in freezing water. In addition to the perceived pain tolerance among the test group (the exception to this trend being men who "catasthrophise" or believe things are worse than they actually are) researchers noted increased heart rates in the swearing group, and hypothesized that this may be a result of the verbal cue actually triggering one's fight-or-flight response and in doing so, allows the speaker to dull their sensations of fear and pain.

Ow, dammit.

Expanding beyond control of one's emotional and physical response, we find that profanity acts as a social lubricant, a common language into which one may lower their usual vernacular in a such as way as to mimic their peers and promote social bonding. This phenomenon was explored in 2007 by Yehuda Baruch and Stuart Jenkins of the University of East Anglia in Swearing at work and permissive leadership culture in which the researchers suggest there are cicumstances under which businesses and work-groups should allow for a "permissive leadership culture" (i.e. an environment in which swearing is permissive so long as it is not used to harm others) as it may promote greater group cohesiveness and allow workers to become more productive.

The paper further describes swearing as two separate classes: Social Swearing, and Annoyance Swearing. The latter form are those words and expressions that are used conversationally. As groups grow closer, so too does their manner of speaking. Here, swearing is a positive form of social interaction which indicates trust and comfort in one's environment. Annoyance swearing, in contrast, is triggered by negative occurrences or behavior, but as mentioned above, the result can be positive as it provides a means of expression without any large physical manifestation of that same emotional state.

I love this graph. The key even makes a little face.

My favorite places to observe these interactions isn't in meatspace, but online. Through the veil of anonymity, we are all able to interact as equals. What we know and who we are guides us to others like ourselves, but it is not until one is able to inject a bit of humor, or hyperbolic swearing, that we actually begin to appreciate the existence of the person on the other end.

Click for an intelligent conversation.

It is also exceptionally useful in making a point, as the use of these words adds to the hyperbolas one may create for either humorous, parodist, or even educational purposes. Many of my favorite examples of this can be found in the reviews of The Nostalgia Critic, Ben "Yahtzee" Croshaw's "Zero Punctuation", in YouTuber Thunderf00t's "Why People Laugh at Creationists" series and in one of my favorite shows of all time: Penn and Teller's "Bullshit".

However, it is necessary to call attention to a critical fact: all benefits from swearing stem from a pre-existing relationship with those in whose company one chooses to speak.

Despite how much I love the damn things, they are destructive when used around people with whom one has no common ground. It's fun to remark about how "fucking amazing" a black-and-white cow is to someone who gets the joke, but doing so around someone you don't know is assumes you are allowed to interact with them on an intimate level. If one has not earned the necessary (implied) permission, swearing is jarring. In contrast, when one chooses not to swear they present themselves in a passive position. The speaker assumes nothing, and in doing so is forced to slow down. This allows us to speak and write eloquently, and gives us time to actually consider the opinions of our opponents, and those with whom we are attempting to build a relationship.

"It's the words you use, not the ones you don't, that show what you know."
-Penn Jillette

First-week-of-school movie time

Moonbows are awesome. While the colors are usually too faint to be seen by the human eye, but they do show up in long exposures and time lapses like this one.


In all honesty, I would actually be more comfortable with the robot than a human doing the same task. More information on RIBA can be found on Pink Tentacle and on RIKEN's site: original Japanese version, Google Translate version.



and this just makes me happy:

Hubble's Ultra-Deep Field

Oh. My. God. (Oh choose one, it doesn't matter.)

Watch this.

In HD, set to full screen and in a completely dark and otherwise silent room, for full effect.

READ THIS LATER!
Once the effect of the video above has worn off or sunk in: Could someone please explain to me how so many people believe this beautiful, mind-blowingly unbelievable universe in which we all exist could be made for just one species? Not just one planet, but one SPECIES? Not why, I've read the holy books (thankyouverymuch) I'm actually more confused by what is going on in one's brain to really be capable of convincing yourself that anything, let alone your own species, is the center of everything. Is it just a way of dealing with the fear that comes with these thoughts, these realizations? Because that's my operating hypothesis at the moment.