“I crack myself up!”
– Suicidal porcelain doll
Monthly Archives: September 2014
There’s a lot of hoopla about Marvel’s new Thor, specifically the fact that he’s now a she. Perhaps part of the reaction is due to some recent overkill in feminizing the comic franchise, even to the point of renaming Asgard Asgardia.
All of that questionable political background aside, when it comes to Thor taking on a female form there’s really nothing to lose your cool about. That’s part of who Thor is and always has been.
Appalachocalypse : When the end of the world arrives in the form of mocha-flavored hillbillies.
A new Publishers Weekly salary survey of people in the publishing industry is being used to confirm the narrative of the gender pay gap. But if you scratch below the surface, what it really reveals is that—even though they dominate (~70%) non-managerial jobs more than they dominate (51%) management—women in publishing actually get paid and promoted more for their experience and commitment than men do.
How so? Continue reading
I’ve been relatively quiet during Banned Books Week, but here are a few cool literary bits and pieces I’ve found for you guys.
Stephen King argues that books—by which he means paper codices—are going to be around for a long time, and I agree with him.
Script Shadow asks: What makes a good story idea? Also, what makes a bad idea? And, can you make a bad idea good?
The movement to make scientific publishing more open to the public is on! But, can it work, realistically? Let’s hope so.
Now, if you want to know why I’m no fan of Banned Books Week, keep reading. Continue reading
There’s a growing trend to refer to constant business operations as 24/7 rather than 24×7. For math-savvy individuals, this is a headdesk-worthy trend.
Dr. David Dunning is already known for the infamous Dunning-Kruger Effect, a phenomenon that is of core importance to organizational theory: People who are incompetent in a given task tend to overestimate their ability, and tend to be resistant to evidence and feedback about their incompetence.
This inability of the less competent to assess their own ability extends to interpersonal assessments. As Dr. Dunning puts it, “To the extent that you are incompetent, you are a worse judge of incompetence in other people.”
We call this phenomenon Dunning Blindness, and would paraphrase the principle this way: The less competent are generally incapable of recognizing the more competent. Think of it in terms of color vision. If Jay can only see in black and white, he’s not going to be a very good judge of the decorating skills of Bob, who has perfect color vision.
As you can imagine, Dunning Blindness has enormous implications for hiring, placement, and promotion. In fact, it likely accounts for a significant portion of inefficiency within organizations, if not a majority of it.
neïgeté – The childish belief that it’s going to snow.
-zelia [prefix from Greek ζῆλος “rivalry”] /ZEEL-ee-a/ similar to the suffixes –mania, –philia, and –phobia, but meaning jealousy of the suffixed noun.
EX: scandizelia [noun] Jealousy of Scandinavia. “The independence movement in Scotland has been driven by a somewhat misguided scandizelia.”
“Hey buddy. My eyes are up here!” – Gift Horse