Happy Memorial Day to everyone. Monday Links are a little late today, but nobody is at work to read them anyway, so enjoy these on Tuesday Morning:
In case you didn’t know, geeks rule. David Brooks offers definitive proof in an NY Times Op-Ed published on…wait for it…my birthday:
Among adults, the words “geek” and “nerd” exchanged status positions. A nerd was still socially tainted, but geekdom acquired its own cool counterculture. A geek possessed a certain passion for specialized knowledge, but also a high degree of cultural awareness and poise that a nerd lacked. [...]
So, in a relatively short period of time, the social structure has flipped. For as it is written, the last shall be first and the geek shall inherit the earth.
Via Grist and Ezra Klein, here’s an advertisement for wind power that won an award at Cannes. It’s brilliant:
I really enjoyed a provocative post from Brazen Careerist on “10 Ways Generation Y Will Change the Workplace.” A few of these made me want to shout out an ‘amen,’ like: “We’ll Promote Based on Emotional Intelligence,” and “We’ll Hold Only Productive Meetings.”
Here’s a gem of a story from Mental Floss: haunting, sad, curious, and beautiful. Coming across things like this makes me love the internet. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here’s a tease:
Yesterday I came across a slightly mysterious website — a collection of Polaroids, one per day, from March 31, 1979 through October 25, 1997. There’s no author listed, no contact info, and no other indication as to where these came from. So, naturally, I started looking through the photos. I was stunned by what I found.
One more video: this one, from TreeHugger, is a Greenpeace ad illustrating the ocean’s role in producing oxygen and absorbing CO2. Simple, effective, and beautifully edited. Watch it with sound but beware: the heavy breathing might be a bit awkward if you share an office.
In “come on people…why!?” news this week: some crazy frenchman has decided that skydiving from 25 miles in the air is a good idea. Just for a bit of context, that’s 131,200 feet; transatlantic flights fly at about 42,000 feet. He’s expected to break the sound barrier during his dive. Good God.
Enjoy! Check back this week for more regular bloggin’ (thanks for your patience last week).
This survey–from a British marketing firm–determines your “internet age.” Surmising that the web is roughly 16 years old, it’s a 0-16 scale. According to the survey, I’m 11 in internet years. I’m happy to report that internet 5th grade is awesome, though only slightly less awkward than the real thing.
But the survey is largely a waste of time, and will tell you what you already know: you use the web for many things, and you’ve done so for at least a few years. You are, after all, reading a blog (congrats and thank you). So, instead, let me try a different set of questions. If you want (and you ask nicely) I will arbitrarily assign an “internet age” to each of you based on your comments. It’ll be much more fun this way, trust me.
Have you ever used a search engine, social networking site, or other online resource to find information about someone you have not met, only to draw conclusions (based on the information you encounter) that proved to be wildly off-base
Have you changed your online behavior in the past year in order to protect your real world reputation? How?
Search for your name on Google or another search engine (if your name is…I don’t know, Eric Smith or something…this might not be fruitful):
What’s the funniest entry that appears; one that has nothing to do with you?
What’s the most embarrassing item from your past that appears?
Of the links to your name, is there anything you’re particularly proud of?
So, let’s hear your answers. My answers after the break…
Adam Werbach is a very controversial figure in certain (mainly older and/or purist) environmental circles. His company, Act Now Productions, works with a variety of companies (including Wal Mart) on improving sustainability. He’s criticized the traditional “environmentalist” movement, even declaring it dead. He gave a speech last week that’s worth highlighting. Apologies for the gratuitous excerpts, but I found it impossible to leave much more out. Courtesy of Grist (emphasis mine):
Tonight I invite you to join me in Wonderland. I ask you to consider joining me in building a movement that goes beyond the political to the personal, that views the existential threat of global warming as a chance to change the way we treat ourselves and the planet, that aspires to have one billion active participants across the earth. Tonight I’ll contend that we need to invest more time in making a difference through our routine activities and the things we buy every day. To achieve this we need a broader platform than green. [...]
[All over the world], I’ve seen people seeking something broader than a green or environmentalist solution to the myriad problems they face in their lives. Yes, they believe climate change is happening, but they also want to feel good about the way they look in the mirror and the way their kids look at them at the dinner table. They want to be part of something larger than themselves without having to sacrifice their identity. They want joy, not guilt, and a little money in their pocket so that they don’t have to trade down on yet one more thing in their life.
Building this new movement will require a commitment to the mainstream that we are unaccustomed to in San Francisco. It’s not enough to have a revolution that consists only of Mac users. It’s not enough to have a revolution that exists only in coastal states and college towns. It’s not enough to attack China as the home of lead-painted toys and neglect the aspirations of the hundreds of millions of people who have been brought out of abject poverty because we’ve bought those toys.
Something is happening now; progress seems at hand. We don’t know what to call it. For now let us call it the sustainability revolution — we are beginning to understand how human culture will harmonize its relationship with the living world. [...]
A recent NY Times article is (predictably) getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere. The article uses the deaths of two bloggers (and a heart attack suffered by a third) to wonder aloud whether blogging as a profession carries inherent stress that causes folks to blog themselves to death:
A growing work force of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment.
John Batelle wonders what the fuss is about: after all, in any profession there will be those who unfortunately work themselves to the brink of personal collapse. Just because blogging is a relatively new profession doesn’t mean that we should be any more shocked than we are are by, say, a lawyer who works him or herself to death. But in a comment on Batelle’s post, reader JG offers a great and thoughtful response (I encourage you to read the whole thing; emphasis mine):
Even people who work themselves to death in their offices, late into the night, eating bad take-out, had [sic] to leave their offices at some point. In order to go home, they have to walk outside, catch some fresh air, walk up or down a couple of stairs to get to the subway. That travel period gives them a modicum of real contact with real people. A nod. Maybe sometimes even a smile. An eye-flick of recognition from the newspaper vendor on the corner. Those small things are sustaining, life-affirming, human. And those things, no matter how small, do help reduce stress.
The internet changes that. Again, this is what we have to admit to ourselves that we believe. The internet makes things different. Yes, we’d like all of it to be different-better. But sometimes it is different-worse. And one way it could very well be different-worse is that blogging for a living, from home, means you lose all those little moments of human contact, of a little bit of exercise, of a little bit of fresh air.
Sorry for the delay in posting these links, folks. I’ve been traveling, and I’m just now getting back to bloggin’. Unlike some people, I’m determined to make it through the 826 unread items in my Google Reader. How about a few links?
Although common tracking systems, known as cookies, have counted a consumer’s visits to a network of sites, the new monitoring, known as “deep-packet inspection,” enables a far wider view — every Web page visited, every e-mail sent and every search entered. Every bit of data is divided into packets — like electronic envelopes — that the system can access and analyze for content
This Nick Kristof column on racial and gender bias provides links to a number of interesting online psychological tests.
PhilanTopic highlights a Gates Foundation initiative aimed at involving scientists who might not normally focus on global health issues, particularly those in the developing world or in complimentary disciplines. From the Gates site:
The initiative is modeled after the grand challenges formulated more than 100 years ago by mathematician David Hilbert. His list of important unsolved problems has encouraged innovation in mathematics research ever since. Similarly, the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative aims to engage creative minds from across scientific disciplines — including those who have not traditionally taken part in global health research — to work on 14 major challenges.
EcoGeek shares the details of Dell’s Austin headquarters which is now 100% powered by renewable energy. It’s an imperfect system, as these things always are, but it’s a laudable step.
Smitten Kitchen is my new favorite food/cooking blog. This lemon blueberry yogurt cake looks amazing (due in no small part to their expert photography…and baking).
If you’re looking to spice up an office memo, or maybe a senior thesis, try the beard font.
That should be enough for now. Sorry to fill the links with so much random stuff, but expect more *ahem* serious blogging to follow this week.
Late last night or early this morning we surpassed 10,000 visitors to this site since our launch in January. I’d call that a decent first 7 months. Thanks so much for reading, commenting, and spreading the word about Tropophilia. We’ll try our best to keep you coming back. -T
Put a little happy in your day. Here is the NYT write-up on him. Make sure to watch the vid in high quality. Thanks to Hank for pointing me to this! - J
Brian Greene calls attention to the transformative, inspirational effect that science can have on our lives if we only take the time to explore and understand it. Money quote: “The wonder of the cosmos transcends everything that divides us.” Check it out. - J
Disclaimer:All content found on Tropophilia represents the thoughts and positions of its authors alone, and does not seek to represent those of their employers.
This survey
Adam Werbach
A 
