Motherboard TV : Jason Silva
Posted: April 27th, 2011
at 3:40pm by mnp
Categories: computers,life,art,web,drogas,science,10th dan,development,philosophy,language
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Manor Economics : Digital Peasants
The Huffington Post sale has caused some "digital peasants" to become restless:
The same writers who were happy to contribute for free before the sale are now accusing the publication of turning them into "modern-day slaves on Arianna Huffington’s plantation." The suit claims that about 9,000 people wrote for the Huffington Post on an unpaid basis, and it argues that their writings helped contribute about a third of the sale value of the site. These bloggers weren’t paid a single penny in the sale—the money went mostly to Huffington and a few investors.
Posted: April 27th, 2011
at 2:01pm by mnp
Categories: web,business,"ninja",et cetera,development,blogs
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Side of Effects of the PhD
PhD students are the labor pool from which teaching assistants are drawn. It is these teaching assistants that do most of the grunt work required to take undergrads through their education — holding office hours, designing assignments, and most importantly, grading assignments and papers. The professor gives lectures and sets the curriculum, and the teaching assistants are left with everything else. And they do it for dirt cheap rates. The typical teaching assistant, handling one class with anywhere between 50 to 100 students, makes approximately $20,000 a year. There is absolutely zero chance of professors supporting a reduction in doctoral program enrollment, because it would directly translate into more work for them, and that too of the kind they despise — dealing with undergrads, and grading their papers.
The second side effect: it is these doctoral programs that attract the brightest foreign students from all over the world into the US, who in turn feed the demand for technical talent in the US (even if many "drop out" after a masters’ degree). In this sense, these programs are the best immigration filters the industry could wish for. In Silicon Valley, most immigrants have a prototypical story: came to the US as a graduate student, then started working here.
The Washing Machine Revolution
From an interview with Ha-Joon Chang in Ode Magazine:
So what has the washing machine done for us?
"Like other household appliances, it has liberated women from doing household work or doing tedious jobs as a domestic servant. A century ago, 10 percent of the labor force worked in other people’s households. Today, very few people do. Apart from the Industrial Revolution, which decreased the number of farmers substantially, I don’t know of a technology that has almost abolished a whole profession on such a scale, in such short time. In short, the washing machine has allowed women to get into the labor market so that we have nearly doubled the work force."
What else did it do for society?
"Women started having fewer children, gained more bargaining power in their relationships and enjoyed a higher status. This liberation of women has done more for democracy than the Internet. The washing machine is a symbol of a fundamental change in how we look at women. It has changed society more than the Internet."
Posted: April 27th, 2011
at 11:45am by mnp
Categories: myninjaplease,life,home,development
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Fire Ants Build Waterproof Rafts
When they are about to drown, they form an ant raft:
The ant raft provides cohesion, buoyancy and water repellency to its passengers. Even more remarkable, it is self-assembled quickly, in less than 100 seconds. It is also self-healing, meaning if one ant is removed from the raft, others move in to fill the void. (Source)
Introducing the Paying Pirate
For the past decade or so, we’ve been cultivating a new completely new generation of consumers. Consumers who are used to having everything at their disposal. A generation who saw the maturation of the .mp3 and who waited 20 minutes to download a 4 minute song on Napster. We’ve bred a generation who watches millions of hours of free video on YouTube and utilize platforms like Skype to make voice (and video) calls to family across the country at no charge. Essentially, it’s a generation who feels entitled to most everything and expects to pay nothing for it.