Blake Lingad

Another great video by Francis and the Lights and Jake Schreier....

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 22:48:00 -0800

Another great video by Francis and the Lights and Jake Schreier. See here and here.

http://bighistorymusic.com/

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 11:37:00 -0800

http://bighistorymusic.com/:

Go get their free EP. So good. See here and here.

The Icarus Line - Soul Slave

Tue, 01 Nov 2011 21:44:12 -0700

The Icarus Line - Soul Slave

Big History - Wardrum

Wed, 03 Aug 2011 20:08:00 -0700

Big History - Wardrum

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”: As...

Sun, 15 May 2011 10:00:06 -0700

Eli Pariser: Beware online “filter bubbles”:

As web companies strive to tailor their services (including news and search results) to our personal tastes, there’s a dangerous unintended consequence: We get trapped in a “filter bubble” and don’t get exposed to information that could challenge or broaden our worldview. Eli Pariser argues powerfully that this will ultimately prove to be bad for us and bad for democracy.

The Bottesini Project

Sun, 15 May 2011 10:00:06 -0700

The Bottesini Project

White Rabbits - Navy Wives

Sun, 08 May 2011 17:16:46 -0700

White Rabbits - Navy Wives

The Icarus Line do "The Trinity"

Wed, 27 Apr 2011 21:34:00 -0700

The Icarus Line do "The Trinity":

Twenty minutes of one take, this-our-music-motherfuckers goodness:

Kiss Like Lizards/Getting Bright at Night/Big Sleep

Bad Education

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 20:24:53 -0700

Bad Education:

The Project On Student Debt estimates that the average college senior in 2009 graduated with $24,000 in outstanding loans. Last August, student loans surpassed credit cards as the nation’s largest single largest source of debt, edging ever closer to $1 trillion. Yet for all the moralizing about American consumer debt by both parties, no one dares call higher education a bad investment. The nearly axiomatic good of a university degree in American society has allowed a higher education bubble to expand to the point of bursting.

Since 1978, the price of tuition at US colleges has increased over 900 percent, 650 points above inflation. To put that in number in perspective, housing prices, the bubble that nearly burst the US economy, then the global one, increased only fifty points above the Consumer Price Index during those years. But while college applicants’ faith in the value of higher education has only increased, employers’ has declined. According to Richard Rothstein at The Economic Policy Institute, wages for college-educated workers outside of the inflated finance industry have stagnated or diminished. Unemployment has hit recent graduates especially hard, nearly doubling in the post-2007 recession. The result is that the most indebted generation in history is without the dependable jobs it needs to escape debt.

Well that’s not good. But then there’s this:

[T]his wouldn’t be America if you couldn’t monetize your children’s futures, the education sector still has its equivalent: the Student Loan Asset-Backed Security (or, as they’re known in the industry, SLABS).

But wait, there’s more:

With the secondary market in such good shape, primary lenders have been eager to help students with out-of-control costs. In addition to the knowledge that they can move these loans off their balance sheets quickly, they have had another reason not to worry: federal guarantees. Under the just-ended Federal Family Education Loan Program (FFELP), the US Treasury backed private loans to college students. This meant that even if the secondary market collapsed and there were an anomalous wave of defaults, the federal government had already built a lender bailout into the law.

[…]

The loans and costs are caught in the kind of dangerous loop that occurs when lending becomes both profitable and seemingly risk-free: high and increasing college costs mean students need to take out more loans, more loans mean more securities lenders can package and sell, more selling means lenders can offer more loans with the capital they raise, which means colleges can continue to raise costs. The result is over $800 billion in outstanding student debt, over 30 percent of it securitized, and the federal government directly or indirectly on the hook for almost all of it.

Sounds like the setup for the mortgage crisis.

Do your part: don’t take loans to go to the school with the pretty gyms and be taught by transient TAs to bartend.

Key genital measurement linked to male fertility

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:40:17 -0700

Key genital measurement linked to male fertility:

The measurement in question is the length of your taint. But reuters won’t say taint.

(via)

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion (1945-1998) Starts...

Sat, 09 Apr 2011 12:28:00 -0700

A Time-Lapse Map of Every Nuclear Explosion (1945-1998)

Starts off slow, but once you get to the sixties, it becomes enthralling. See also, list of states with nuclear weapons

(via)

One More Post About the Shutdown

Thu, 07 Apr 2011 20:26:00 -0700

One More Post About the Shutdown:

There’s griping, and then there’s strategy.

catbus:

When this happened to Michigan a few years back (fucking copycat motherfuckers, all of you) and it became clear that a government shutdown meant every beer store in the state was going to close in the middle of college football season, the state government was only closed for a few hours before legislators pulled themselves together and passed a budget, not wanting to explain to their constituents why they weren’t going to be able to get hammered and watch the Wolverines on TV.

What I guess I am trying to say is nationalize the liquor industry.

(via rendit)

My wedding info

Tue, 05 Apr 2011 20:29:53 -0700

My wedding info:

Samantha Hagan and I are getting married in the fall of 2011. Here is our site that will provide information for the event and our updates forever after.

Fingerspitzengefühl: A German term, literally meaning “finger tips feeling” and meaning...

Mon, 04 Apr 2011 23:13:55 -0700

Fingerspitzengefühl:

A German term, literally meaning “finger tips feeling” and meaning intuitive flair or instinct, which has been appropriated by the English language as a loanword. In military terminology it is used for the stated ability of some military commanders to maintain with great accuracy in attention to detail an ever-changing operational and tactical situation by maintaining a mental map of the battlefield.

Something I don’t have yet.

As explained by the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition:

Michael Eraut summarized the five stages of increasing skill as follows:

1. Novice

“rigid adherence to taught rules or plans”

no exercise of “discretionary judgment”

2. Advanced beginner

limited “situational perception”

all aspects of work treated separately with equal importance

3. Competent

“coping with crowdedness” (multiple activities, accumulation of information)

some perception of actions in relation to goals

deliberate planning

formulates routines

4. Proficient

holistic view of situation

prioritizes importance of aspects

“perceives deviations from the normal pattern”

employs maxims for guidance, with meanings that adapt to the situation at hand

5. Expert

transcends reliance on rules, guidelines, and maxims

“intuitive grasp of situations based on deep, tacit understanding”

has “vision of what is possible”

uses “analytical approaches” in new situations or in case of problems

The XX - Crystalised You’ve applied the pressure To have...

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 20:20:00 -0700

The XX - Crystalised

You’ve applied the pressure

To have me crystalised

And you’ve got the faith

That I could bring paradise

Big History - All at Once A band from New Orleans. Found...

Sun, 27 Mar 2011 14:38:00 -0700

Big History - All at Once

A band from New Orleans. Found planning the honeymoon here from here.

Boards of Canada - sixtyniner

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 03:47:48 -0700

Boards of Canada - sixtyniner

Squeeze - Cool for Cats

Fri, 18 Mar 2011 03:38:41 -0700

Squeeze - Cool for Cats

Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Warren G, Kurupt - Ain’t No...

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 18:32:00 -0700

Snoop Dogg, Nate Dogg, Warren G, Kurupt - Ain’t No Fun

Obviously, the top Nate Dogg contribution to a song.

And, to quote Ms. Portman:

I’ve mostly been listening to dirty rap lately. That’s sort of my scene. Really, really obscene hip-hop. I love it so much. It makes me laugh and then it makes me want to dance. Those are like my two favorite things, so combined … I’ve been listening a lot lately to ‘Wait (The Whisper Song)’ by the Ying Yang Twins, where the lyrics are like, ‘Wait ‘til you see my dick’—which is just amazing because it’s whispered. [whispers] ‘Wait ‘til you see my dick…’ Crazy. So I just listen to it like I’m a five-year-old, like, ‘Oh my god! I can’t believe he just said that!

On the Bro'd

Wed, 16 Mar 2011 08:52:51 -0700

On the Bro'd:

Every sentence of Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, retold for Bros.