100 Free Audio Books You Should Have Read By Now – Online Degree Programs.org: Top Online Degrees.

Beautiful and Terrifying Creatures From The Edge Of Light.

© eva truffaut

THE MARESFIELD GARDENS NOCTAMBULIST

MYTHOLOGIE DES LUCIOLES

365BLANC

Recently a lovely comment was left for a post that we did almost a year ago. It was from Eva Truffaut, who’s an actress, a filmmaker and a daughter of the most influential and successful French film director ever, François Truffaut. We were so surprised and deeply flattered.

The four links listed above are her blogs and they’re curated with such wonderful collections of quality old and new photography art work (some drawings and videos as well). I’m browsing her sites as if they were in their own art gallery. It’s an exceptionally beautiful experience.

Thank you so much, Eva!

-N.

Ride The Subway Towards The Light – Photography – Gizmodo.

Audrey Kawasaki Mini Ovals NOTCOT.

Reading the comprehensive information on my WordPress dashboard, I found a reader who had linked to QTC from a site called “transect”.  This turned out to be  fascinating site I think you might do well to explore.  The tagline says it is “an attempt to cut through gender to expose real life“, and that seems to be pretty well what it is.  Clearly written from a trans perspective, it is by no means only about gender.  With a clearly Christian base, it also looks at much else. It’s written by “Quinn”:

]]> http://shaycolson.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/the-most-personal-data/ Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:12:12 +0000 Shay http://shaycolson.wordpress.com/2009/11/19/the-most-personal-data/

Wired’s Threat Level blog has an intriguing post about what happens to the data when a firm goes bankrupt.  Only in this case, the data is people’s DNA.

DeCODE Genetics, a genetics research firm, began offering personalized DNA testing through its deCODEme website two years ago. A customer mails in a sample taken from the inside of his cheek, and the service calculates the subject’s genetic risk for disease — cancer, diabetes, Alzheimer’s, heart disease.

The company told the Times that Saga would be bound by deCODE’s privacy agreements with customers, which prohibits the disclosure of customer data to third parties such as insurers, employers or doctors.

It may be true the disclosing customer data is against this particular company’s policy, but if their assets (including this data) are purchased by another firm, then they can do whatever they want with it (in theory – I’m not super familiar with Icelandic privacy laws).

The problem is that the firm could be bought by another bio-tech company, or by a telemarketing group.  The data (and DNA samples) could be used for any number of interesting, beneficial, or nefarious things.

As personal data continues to be collected by private firms, these sorts of issues will begin to occur with greater and greater frequency.  Unfortunately, my guess is that companies will treat this data like any other asset, and sell it to the highest bidder when they face liquidity problems.  What happens to the people who are connected to that data are the least of the company’s concerns.

In the near future, society will need to devise a better way of dealing with personal information management.  I’m afraid, however, that it will take a watershed event to make this problem apparent.

In the meantime, I’ll be anxiously watching this case to see what happens to the stored DNA.  At this point, it’s anyone’s guess.

Some great recession survival advice from The Gothamist:

Designer Duo Create Dress With 24,000 LEDs | Gadget Lab | Wired.com.

Some blog posts I’ve come across that were of interest this week:

• My First Month With Google Wave: Can’t Even Stand On the Board
• Lifehacker hive five – best backup in the cloud, and
• last week was best antivirus software.
• Google voice acquired Gizmo5

The Splendor of Greenland’s Ice Sheet Crumbling Away.

CHICKENS DON’T CLAP! (says Buster)

Total Pandamonium – Beijing weather – Jezebel.

At Last, James Franco’s General Hospital Promo Arrives — Vulture.

As a social media specialist part of my job as I see it is to have sensible answers about the use and function of as many social media sites as possible.

I’ve had several invitations to join Naymz and some time this morning so I thought I’d check it out. I have to say, I’m not excited.

I don’t like the current practice of asking to troll through every other group I belong to in search of potential connections, but I understand why that is useful and can save time, and it is currently the ‘way its done’, so I just unchecked everything and moved on.

I don’t care for the ‘connect’ interface. You can go to a colleagues profile and get the option to ‘connect’ and its simple, but there is no opportunity to customize your invitation wording. What if you don’t remember who I am or where we met?

I also am not impressed by the search interface. You can search on a name, but there is no option for advanced searching to help you be sure you’re finding the *right* Bob Smith.

Generally, clunky interface. I thought they might be holding the nifty features for the paid upgrade, but nothing I’m looking for is on the upgrade features list.

I was afraid I was missing the good stuff, so I did some googled ‘how to use Naymz’ to see what others were saying. I found this excellent blog which includes some other links I found. I don’t think I’m missing anything.

Moving along.

I wrote earlier about the lack of an academic backbone at Yale University, whose Yale University Press refused to publish the controversial “Muhammad” cartoons.

I learned today that Duke University’s Voltaire Press will be publishing a book containing these images, in high quality color, along with several other controversial drawings.

From the Volokh Conspiracy:

I’m pleased to be the first to report that the newly founded Voltaire Press at Duke University has just published Muhammad: The “Banned” Images. The book includes all the images that were omitted by the Yale University Press from Jytte Klausen’s The Cartoons That Shook the World — including the 12 Mohammed cartoons — plus many more historically significant items (a total of 31), together with brief discussions of the context behind each work. The images, reproduced in high quality and in full color, include works by William Blake, Gustave Dore, and Salvador Dali, as well as Muslim artists from the Ottoman, Safavid, and Mughal empires.

If you’re interested in reading the book, you can order it here. You can also ask your local public or university library for it, which I think will increase the chances that the library will buy it, and make it available not just to you but to others.

Let me also applaud Duke University for making a worthy stand on this issue, and with amazing quickness for the academic sphere.

Three cheers for Duke!

A great post today by J.D. over at Get Rich Slowly.

While the blog (and the post) are centered on the topic of personal finance, I’d like to expand a bit on what J.D. said, and apply it to a much larger context.

J.D. writes:

Then I read about the debt snowball approach in Dave Ramsey’s The Total Money Makeover. It blew my mind. Here was somebody saying that it was okay (good even) to do something different, to start by paying low balances first. I tried it, and 39 months later I had eliminated over $35,000 in consumer debt.

In the process, I learned a valuable lesson. In order to succeed with money, sometimes you have to ignore the conventional wisdom. Sometimes you simply have to do what works for you.

I’m with J.D. on this one – you have to do whatever works for you.  But, this is often easier said than done, and can require a lot of balance work.  For example, if what works for you is coming into work at 11 AM and leaving at 9 PM, you may have to run that schedule by your employer (disclosure: I had a boss once who did this. Not my style, but it actually worked out great – we only had to work together for half of the day, a good thing, believe me).

The alternative, of course, is to strike out on your own, and then you can do whatever you’d like.  If doing what you like succeeds, however, you quickly run into another common problem: dogmatism.

There’s too much dogmatism in our culture. People are convinced that their way is the right way to do things. I don’t begrudge those who are certain they’re right. When something works for you, you have a tendency to believe it’s the right choice for everyone else, so you preach it with passionate zeal. I understand that.

The problem, of course, is that we’re all different. Your religion and your politics and your financial tips work for you, but won’t necessarily mesh with my situation and experiences. And mine won’t fit with yours. There are few one-size-fits-all solutions in personal finance — or anywhere else. [emphasis original]

This is a very astute observation.  Especially those people who found success through doing what worked for them, you end up with a lot of people who believe that their way is absolutely the right way.  Complicate things by monetizing their dogmatism (Guy Kawasaki, for example) and you can end up with people whose whole existence becomes wrapped up in their particular “way.”

Now, I’m not saying that you should never give or receive advice – far from it.  Mentorship can be amongst the most valuable and formative experiences possible (in personal, business, educational, and nearly any other setting).  But, like everything, it seems to be a fine line.

I think the best approach to this is to try to balance the following influences:

• The desire to do your own thing.
• The flexibility to listen to others and adapt to changing situations and realities.
• Work within the existing structures when needed.
• Remembering what’s important and why, exactly, you want to do your own thing anyway.

A continual, daily challenge, to be sure, but one worth tackling.

If you have any thoughts on doing things your way, let ‘em rip in the Comments section.

As you may already be aware, the Supreme Court of the United States will hear arguments today pertaining to two Florida cases where juveniles (13 and 16 year-old boys) were sentenced to life in prison without the opportunity of parole.

Clearly this is a hot-button issue for many, and remember – I am not a lawyer (nor do I want to be) – but it seems to me that this is a relatively simple issue.  Remember, the cases must be weighed on their individual merits, and from this, precedent is set for similar cases in the future.

NPR had in-depth coverage on this issue this morning.  From their story, about one of the plaintiff’s:

Joe Sullivan was 13 years old when he was convicted of raping a 72-year-old woman. Two older defendants who had broken into the woman’s house with Joe fingered their younger accomplice for the rape, and they got lesser sentences.

Then things got worse for Joe.  Who is – remember 13.

[Joe Sullivan], who maintained his innocence, was represented by a lawyer who filed no appeals and was later disbarred.

When was the last time you dealt with a 13 year-old.  Much less, one who was “[i]ntellectually impaired since his childhood.”  Children of this age and ability level are expected to make mistakes, confuse right and wrong, and generally act their age.  This is why they have parents, and why the lack of parents at this crucial age can be extremely detrimental (but that’s for another post).

To be clear, I’m not condoning rape or other violent actions, but to give a developmentally disabled 13 year-old an incompetent attorney, convict him, and put him in prison for the rest of his life seems like something that merits a second look.

I think my position on this issue was cemented when I heard from the “Victims’ rights advocate,” Shannon Goessling, speaking about the then-13-year-old defendant:

“They are recidivists,” she says. “They’ve had every opportunity to avoid being in prison for the rest of their lives. They knew the consequences of their conduct.”

It is my sincere hope that nobody reaches their point of “every opportunity” at age 13, Ms. Goessling.

You can listen to the whole story from NPR at this link.

i love how she explains the shift in her practice, and how she explains her choices.  being able to articulate the rationale behind our choices in the classroom and being able to understand someone else’s choices, i think, is so important to being a reflective and intentional teacher. i LOVE how well thought out the things she’s relinquished control over are, proving that she is, in fact, in control. this teacher is ensuring that her students have a learning environment that works for them, pushes them and nurtures them, and she clearly works every day to make it continue to happen that way.

Elementary, My Dear, or Far From It: read her Out of Control post

I just discovered this by visiting another friend’s blog and would love to pass on the information to you.

In honor of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month, bloggers from around the world contributed stories of their struggles with breast cancer:  ”inspirational moments, laughs, recipes, and physical and personal growth articles”.  Just by visiting their site, you can get a free copy of the e-book, “Blog-4-Cause” as a gift.

Breast Cancer is all around us.  Maybe you have a family member or friend struggling with the disease right now.  Perhaps that sweet neighbor down the street is a survivor or perhaps a dear member of your church just lost her fight.

Cancer sucks.

If you would like more information about how you can make a difference, Blogging For A Cause is where you need to go.  You can get a free copy of “Blog-4-Cause” just for visiting.  If you would like and are able to make a donation of any amount, you’ll get an additional e-book from life coach author, Tim Brownson.

I sincerely hope you’ll take the time to visit their site and see what they’re doing.  At the time of me writing this, there have been 32 gifts totaling $635 donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation through this effort.  Every little bit helps.

Thank you.

]]> http://shaycolson.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/the-fun-theory/ Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:23:59 +0000 Shay http://shaycolson.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/the-fun-theory/

This is the type of thing that I would like to see more corporate money directed towards (this from Volkswagen): The Fun Theory.

The basic question is “Can you improve human behaviors by making the activity “fun” in some way?”  The answer, interestingly, seems to be yes!

There are three small examples below, but if you begin to apply this theory to all sorts of different things, you can make real change.  There have been fits and starts of these sorts of things, but I think they are gaining some serious momentum.  Take, for example, Wii Fit.  What are they doing?

Wii Fit Box - Brilliant!

Taking something not traditionally thought of as fun (exercise) and making it fun to encourage more people to do it and stick with it.  Brilliant!

What else could we apply this to?  Are the further positive outcomes – i.e. aside from actually getting the formerly unpleasant task completed, people are generally more positive because of an increase in fun experiences?  I’d say perhaps so.

I think I will make a concerted effort to include the Fun Theory into any projects that I can – why not?  What’s wrong with making something fun to do?

Videos embedded below, click read more to see.

Woman finds suggestive note inside packaging for 32JJ bra | The Sun |News.

Ricky Gervais to host Golden Globes – Entertainment News, Film News, Media – Variety.

really??