Tanzanian Reflections David Ndambuki, "The Maasai," oil on canvas, 2006. Courtesy Real African Art Gallery It was an odd feeling going on my first-ever safari during my recent trip to Tanzania. Odd because even though I had never been on one, I already had a fairly well-formed idea — a fantasy really — as to what that experience would be like. It was an equally odd feeling finally going on this trip to Tanzania because of my intention of getting a sense of the local contemporary art scene — odd because my vision of what such contemporary art might look like was decidedly unformed going in. One of the paintings that proved remarkable to me during my time in Arusha was a decidedly ordinary canvas. Street vendors in Arusha and Zanzibar selling Maasai paintings. Once I came to terms with this strange repetition of the hand-painted Maasai canvas, I could not help but read them collectively as an ironic, contemporary sign of the durable legacy of the modernist celebration of the primitive and the naïve.
What we learned from designing an academic certificates system on the blockchain — MIT MEDIA LAB What we learned from designing an academic certificates system on the blockchain By Juliana Nazaré (@ju1es_), Kim Hamilton Duffy (@kimdhamilton), J. Philipp Schmidt (@schmidtphi) Over the past year, we have been working on a set of tools to issue, display, and verify digital credentials using the Bitcoin blockchain and the Mozilla Open Badges specification. You can find links to our source code, documentation, and discussion on our project homepage: The overall design of the certification architecture is fairly simple. Working on this project, we have not only learned a lot about the blockchain, but also about the way that technology can shape socioeconomic practices around the concept of credentials. Many of the most interesting challenges we encountered were not technical in nature, but they cannot easily be separated from the technology because small design decisions can fundamentally shape behavior. Issuer, Viewer, Schema (Beyond the) Hype Privacy
Limits Of The Human Body: How Much Sleep Deprivation, Radiation & Acceleration Can We Survive? By: Natalie Wolchover Published: 08/13/2012 09:21 AM EDT on Lifes Little Mysteries One hears epic accounts of people surviving bullets to the brain, 10-story freefalls or months stranded at sea. But put a human anywhere in the known universe except for the thin shell of space that extends a couple of miles above or below sea level on Earth, and we perish within minutes. Many of the boundaries within which a typical human can survive have been fully established; the well-known "rule of threes" dictates how long we can forgo air, water and food (roughly three minutes, three days and three weeks, respectively). Experiments over the decades — some intentional, others accidental — have helped stake out the domain within which we, literally, live. How long can we stay awake? Air Force pilots have been known to become so delirious after three or four days of sleep deprivation that they crash their planes (having fallen asleep). But at what point would he have died? How much can we accelerate?
The 50 Best Social Psychology Books Have you ever wanted to be more persuasive, convincing, or if nothing else, understand how others try to influence you? …Of course! Who hasn’t? In all honestly, the more you know about social psychology and social influence, the better. Not only will you be more prepared when trying to convince others, but you’ll also be aware of when others are trying to unethically convince you! If this is your goal, reading a healthy selection of world renown psychology books is a must. Fortunately, there are many out there, and they cover a wide variety of topics (social influence, marketing, persuasion, social constructs, etc.) and all of them are very approachable: these aren’t boring science papers, they were written for the typical person interested in psychology. As an aid to you in your journey, I’ve prepared this extensive list of 50 solid social psychology books to add to your bookshelf. The Importance of Reading Oh no, it’s like 3rd grade all over again! Think about that! About the List 1.) 2.) 3.)
Makey Makey | Buy Direct (Official Site) Study: Proof That We Sexually Objectify Women - Lindsay Abrams We look at women the same way we look at houses and sandwiches: as composites of attractive parts. Jason Lee/Reuters PROBLEM: Few would argue that the objectification of women is a real thing -- and a real problem -- but as yet there's been no cognitive explanation for it in a literal sense. METHODOLOGY: Images of average, fully clothed individuals (read: no supermodels in bikinis) were quickly flashed before the eyes of participants. RESULTS: Regardless of gender, participants consistently recognized women's sexual body parts more easily when presented in isolation. CONCLUSION: The cognitive process behind our perception of objects is the same that we use when looking at women, and both genders are guilty of taking in the parts instead of the whole. The full study,"Seeing women as objects: The sexual body part recognition bias," is published in the European Journal of Social Psychology .
Milankovitch cycles is the calculated daily-averaged insolation at the top of the atmosphere, on the day of the summer solstice at 65 N latitude.— Benthic forams and — Vostok ice core show two distinct proxies for past global sealevel and temperature, from ocean sediment and Antarctic ice respectively. The vertical gray line shows current conditions, at 2 ky A.D. The Earth's axis completes one full cycle of precession approximately every 26,000 years. At the same time, the elliptical orbit rotates more slowly. The combined effect of the two precessions leads to a 21,000-year period between the astronomical seasons and the orbit. Earth’s movements[edit] Orbital shape (eccentricity)[edit] Circular orbit, no eccentricity. Orbit with 0.5 eccentricity. Orbital shape and Temperature[edit] As the semi-minor axis is decreased with the eccentricity increase, the seasonal changes increase.[4] But the mean solar irradiation for the planet changes only slightly for small eccentricity, due to Kepler's second law.
Teacher's Quick Guide to Google Best Services I got you another poster that you will definitely love. I am adding it to the list of posters I have created before and I am also preparing another list of awesome posters that you hang on your classroom wall.Yes, I am determined to help you make your classroom look completely different this school year. Below is a great infographic from GCF Learn Free that sumps up the services Google offers us. Check out and tell us what you think
Disappearing mothers Why would a woman put a picture of her child’s face – instead of her own – as her profile picture on Facebook? ©Salem Krieger If, from beyond the grave, Betty Friedan were to review the Facebook habits of the over-30 set, I am afraid she would be very disappointed in us. By this I mean specifically the trend of women using photographs of their children instead of themselves as the main picture on their Facebook profiles. You click on a friend’s name and what comes into focus is not a photograph of her face, but a sleeping blond four-year-old, or a sun-hatted toddler running on the beach. Here, harmlessly embedded in one of our favourite methods of procrastination, is a potent symbol for the new century. Many of these women work. These Facebook photos signal a larger and more ominous self-effacement, a narrowing of worlds. You notice that at another, livelier corner of the table the men are not talking about models of strollers. Facebook was pioneered for a younger generation, of course.
Say Something Nice (View it larger on YouTube) | Subscribe to our YouTube channel Produced by Charlie Todd and Matt Adams / Music by Tyler Walker For our latest mission we constructed a custom wooden lectern with a megaphone holster and an attached sign that read, “Say Something Nice.” The lectern was placed in public spaces around New York and then left alone. We wanted to see what would happen if New Yorkers were given the opportunity to amplify their voices to “say something nice.” Say Something Nice was produced by Improv Everywhere as part of the Guggenheim Museum exhibition stillspotting nyc. This is our second collaboration in the series, the first being The Mute Button. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our report below. Agent Alex Young building the lectern Improv Everywhere is most well known for our missions involving hundreds or even thousands of people. Agents Jason Eppink and Keith Haskel played the “movers.” “I love my friend here in the red shirt!” Crew photo
Learning to use My Blocks This tutorial explains how to use the "My Block" feature of the NXT-G programming system by working through several examples. What is a My Block? Why Use My Blocks? Making your First My Block Creating a My Block Viewing and Editing the Contents of a My Block Inserting a My Block into a Program Creating My Blocks with Input Parameters What are Input Parameters? Variables, Wiring, and Editing within a My Block Using Variables to Send Data to a My Block Defining Variables in a My Block Rewriting the Contents of a My Block Sharing Wires in a Tabbed Switch Using My Block Variables from the Main Program Making a Modified Copy of a My Block Copying a My Block Changing the Icon for a My Block Organizing and Sharing My Blocks Copying, Renaming, and Deleting My Blocks Broken Blocks Sharing Programs with Pack and Go Making a Sub-Menu on the Custom Palette What is a My Block? Figure 1: My Blocks are blue in color, and they appear in the Custom palette in NXT-G. Why Use My Blocks? Making your First My Block
Top five regrets of the dying There was no mention of more sex or bungee jumps. A palliative nurse who has counselled the dying in their last days has revealed the most common regrets we have at the end of our lives. And among the top, from men in particular, is 'I wish I hadn't worked so hard'. Bronnie Ware is an Australian nurse who spent several years working in palliative care, caring for patients in the last 12 weeks of their lives. She recorded their dying epiphanies in a blog called Inspiration and Chai, which gathered so much attention that she put her observations into a book called The Top Five Regrets of the Dying. Ware writes of the phenomenal clarity of vision that people gain at the end of their lives, and how we might learn from their wisdom. Here are the top five regrets of the dying, as witnessed by Ware: 1. "This was the most common regret of all. 2. "This came from every male patient that I nursed. 3. "Many people suppressed their feelings in order to keep peace with others. 4. 5.