Month: June 2009
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Rethinking Prison Design
Justice Center Leoben is a fantastically-designed prison in Austria that can’t be ignored. Designed by architect Joseph Hohensinn, views on the prison are varied and emphatic. The New York Times takes a tour of the prison, offering some novel thoughts on imprisonment and rehabilitation. Before the prison opened, late in 2004, [Joseph Hohensinn] had a…
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Body Language and Our Egocentric Blind Spot
BPS Research Digest reports on a study illustrating our apparent inability to read insights into our personalities from watching a video of our own body language. We are, however, quite adept at making revealing insights on others from similar videos, suggesting we have a sort of “egocentric blind spot”. Why can’t we use a video…
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Iran Political System Infographic
Nicolas Rapp—an Art Director for the Associated Press—has produced a timely and simple infographic depicting Iran’s “complex and unusual political system”. Iran’s political system combines elements of democracy and religion. Institutions controlled by the Supreme Leader [elected by the Assembly of Experts] are balanced by an elected president and parliament. Wikipedia’s Politics of Iran article (and…
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Frugality and Entrepreneurship
Inc. Magazine has a (possibly too lengthy) profile, complete with the expected insights, of Paul Graham—author of Hackers and Painters, co-founder of Y Combinator, and all-round entrepreneurship guru. Cheap meals are, in a strange way, part of Y Combinator’s formula for start-up success. Graham wants founders to spend as little money as possible. Live cheaply…
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Teaching Children to Argue
With a primer on each of the “three basic tools of argument” (logos, ethos and pathos), Jay Heinrichs gives a cogent argument for why you should teach your children to argue. I had long equated arguing with fighting, but in rhetoric they are very different things. An argument is good; a fight is not. Whereas…
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Art Direction for David Foster Wallace’s Books
Marie Mundaca on her art direction for a number of David Foster Wallace’s books: It’s a little odd to design interiors for fiction and literary non-fiction. It’s just text—what is there to do? There are the obvious things, like leaving enough space at the margins. Basically, the designer’s job is to pick a font that…
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The Experience Response
Mark Hurst, author of Bit Literacy and host of the Gel conference, takes a look at Microsoft’s Bing and discusses the problem with Microsoft’s current strategy and ways they can improve. Customers online don’t respond to a brand marketed to them, they respond to the experience they have. If they can accomplish their goal quickly…
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University of the People
Three weeks ago the United Nations announced the launch of the world’s first tuition-free online university; the University of the People. With a high school diploma and a sufficient level of English as entry requirements, students from over 52 countries have already enrolled. Students will be placed in classes of 20, after which they can…
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The Higher Education ‘Bubble’
Is the current ‘value’ of higher education artificially inflated and unsustainable? In other words, could higher education be the next ‘bubble to burst’? The Chronicle of Higher Education looks at some of the early warning signs that seem to be suggesting so, and offers a couple of solutions to this apparently looming crisis. Over the…
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Benjamin Kunkel on The Information Age
In an essay looking at the changing roles technology takes in our lives and how this changes us, Benjamin Kunkel articulates what many journalists have tried and failed to do in recent times: produce an expressive piece about the ‘information age’ without resorting to tired analogies and scaremongering. Critiques, as opposed to mere descriptions, of…