Lazy Linking, 224th in an Occasional Series

Stuff I liked lately on the Internets:

224.1 Stunningly vivid portraits made using African fabrics @thisiscolossal bit.ly/2nB4Vgc

224.2 Greta Thunberg was able to become a climate activist because and not in spite of her autism @voxdotcom bit.ly/2mGKKNO

224.3 Forget Bay Area (where I'm from) or NY/BOS/DC/SEA/LA/SD (where a lot of my friends/family live)... apparently I live in a $2M neighborhood too @list_reports bit.ly/2mKyBaC

 

224.4 STEM majors make more than liberal arts majors...at first, and then the liberal arts majors catch up @nytimes nyti.ms/2krRGgR

224.5 How much are "thoughts & prayers" worth? To the non-religious, apparently negative cash @unherd bit.ly/2ofzVCZ

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 197

Here are a few excerpts from a book I recently read, "Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction," by Judith Grisel.



I share these stories not to make readers uncomfortable (and I’m sorry if they do) or solely to qualify myself as a bona fide addict. My primary purpose in exposing my story is to illustrate the depths, as well as the breadth (in later chapters), of the addictive experience. I don’t think I was basically a good person who got mixed up with a bad crowd, for instance, or that I was somehow dealt a crummy hand in terms of genes or neurochemistry, parents, or personal history (though these all certainly had an influence). I also don’t think that I am essentially worse than or even different from others: not those spending down their allotment of days under bridges, or in prisons, or for that matter managing PTAs or running for public office. All of us face countless choices, and there is no bright line separating good and bad, order and entropy, life and death. Perhaps as a result of following rules or conventions, some live under the delusion that they are innocent, safe, or deserving of their status as well-fed citizens. But if there is a devil, it lives inside each of us. One of my greatest assets is knowing that my primary enemy is not outside me, and for this I am grateful to all my experiences. We all have the capacity for wrong; otherwise we could not, in fact, be free.

#PhillyVsTheWorld

A week before the Super Bowl that the Eagles won two seasons ago, a friend of mine asked me what the mood was in Philly.  I told him that in years past, it might have been one of impending doom: all of the hoopla of a great season and a magical run through the playoffs was just to make the bitter loss at the end all the more crushing, and we knew it and we were dreading it.  But, I said, it didn’t feel that way.  We knew we might lose, might even probably lose.  But we could win.  And, perhaps even more incredible, if we did win, it would be exciting but it would be a surprise to us.   We weren’t dripping in swagger, in other words, but we had some. 

Of course, we won, over Tom Brady and the Patriots, no less.  And there’s nothing like getting a chip to make a whole region ecstatic.  The luster of the first few hours and days after winning it all may have long wore off, but we’ll always have the memories.

Lazy Linking, 223rd in an Occasional Series

Stuff I liked lately on the Internets:

223.1 Museums? Presidential palaces? No, Soviet subways stations bit.ly/2m1gBIu @thisiscolossal

 

223.2 HK homes are so unaffordable that 1 out of 10 married couples live apart (each in their parents' apts, kids toggling btwn places) bbc.in/2mgssCw @bbcnews

223.3 UT openly schemed to implement standardized testing to slow black enrollment bit.ly/2kqsRBP @theatlantic

223.4 Study shows way more white admits at Harvard were athletes, legacy, dean's interest, or children of employees than non-white admits (43% vs. 16%) bit.ly/2m1gE78 @dukeecon

223.5 Median age of POTUS, top 3 D candidates, & head of Senate/House is...77 politi.co/2luKxMY @politico

One Christian's Perspective on Bucket Lists

Should Christians have bucket lists?  One argument says bucket lists are a way to enjoy life and an opportunity to engage others on issues of aspirations and priorities.  Another argument says bucket lists are unnecessary and idolatrous for someone who claims to have God as his only prize and eternity as his timeline.  As for me, I think the answer is that it depends.  And what it depends on is motivations.

But let's step back.  What is a bucket list?  "Kick the bucket" has long been a euphemism for dying, so a bucket list is a list of things you set your heart to do before that.  And not just in a clinical "to do list" sense, but rather a "I can die in peace now" sort of way.  In my mind, bucket lists tend to fall into one of three categories:

Lazy Linking, 222nd in an Occasional Series

Stuff I liked lately on the Internets:

222.1 A historian's take on the past/present/future of Silicon Valley bit.ly/2kgdMmf @citylab

222.2 Not only is vaping not more safe than smoking, it is just as deadly but in different ways bit.ly/2m4mfcV @cdcgov


222.3 Stealing this approach to hiring "punks," who are DIY/inclusive/authentic/pissed bit.ly/2kjSDI3 @joelrmcarnes

222.4 Always impressed when muralists can make their work "pop" on rough wall surfaces, but this is ridiculous bit.ly/2lVznkj @thisiscolossal 

222.5 Never fear, Penn students are here to save the day: deep-fake detector app wins student hackathon bit.ly/2mh6Xla @pennengineers 

222.6 Long Island City, 6mo after being spurned by Amazon: some good, some bad cnn.it/2lONNTy @cnnbusiness 

222.7 Did you know that both Shamrock Shakes and Ronald McDonald Houses have a very Philly origin story? bit.ly/2kAxDNo @billypenn

222.8 Here is the font-by-font analysis of Democratic presidential candidates' style guides that you didn't know you needed bit.ly/2kjWo07 @yello_zine

222.9 Chess - chess! - is so physically demanding at the elite level that grandmasters have taken to extreme forms of exercise and diet es.pn/2kIPsd1 @espn 

222.10 More than just the trophy: the multi-layered legacy of Johnny Heisman (Penn Law Class of 1892), which is still being felt today bit.ly/2m45wWZ @penngazette

Too Short for a Blog Post, Too Long for a Tweet 196

Here is an excerpt from a book I recently read, "Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure," by Julia Flynn Siler.



To some Westerners, the most beguiling treasure hidden in the Hawaiian Islands was a large estuary about half a day’s carriage ride to the northwest of Honolulu. Ancient Hawaiians believed that the shark goddess Ka‘ahupahau guarded its treacherous entrance, a narrow channel through coral reefs where saltwater mingled with fresh. But the Pearl River basin had lured a succession of British and American naval officers, carrying their magnetic compasses and surveyor’s chains to gauge its suitability as a possible deep water port. 

Oyster beds gave the area its English name and through much of the nineteenth century Hawaiians dove for these prizes in the harbor’s waters. Sheep grazed on the largest island in the estuary. Gradually, starting in the 1870s, planters began transforming the dry plains to the west of it into sugar plantations. But Western surveyors quickly spotted the larger potential of what Hawaiians called Pu‘uloa. 

In 1825 the British government sent a surveyor to chart the estuary. After exploring the area on a launch, one of his colleagues concluded that “it would form a most excellent harbor as inside there is plenty of water to float the largest ship and room enough for the entire Navy of England.” Fifteen years later Commodore Charles Wilkes of the U.S. Exploring Expedition arrived on O‘ahu and mapped the entrance to the Pearl River estuary at the request of Kamehameha III. He reported that “the inlet has somewhat the appearance of a lagoon that has been partly filled up by alluvial deposits” and suggested that, if it were deepened, “it would afford the best and most capacious harbor in the Pacific.” 

The American interest in Pu‘uloa only grew. In 1872, a military commission under secret instructions from the U.S. secretary of war examined various ports in the Hawaiian Islands for possible defensive and commercial purposes. A year later, King William Lunalilo became the first Hawaiian monarch to give serious consideration to offering the Pearl River harbor in exchange for the United States allowing Hawaiian sugar to enter the American market on a duty-free basis. The proposal offered America a defensive toehold in the Pacific in return for favorable terms to Hawaiian planters—the vast majority of whom were haole—selling their sugar into the American market. Trade and defense were becoming inextricably bound, and in neither case were native Hawaiians reaping the potential benefits.

Lazy Linking, 221st in an Occasional Series

Stuff I liked lately on the Internets:

221.1 The best interview questions VCs use (totally stealing lots of these) bit.ly/2lF4MHA @firstround

221.2 Nothing to see here, just a device you can implant in your leg to stream movies bit.ly/2NJWB9e @wired

221.3 Forget about premature specialization, most LLWS players are multi-sport athletes es.pn/2lCa72G @espn

221.4 How the desire for a commute of <30 a="" and="" cities="" growth="" has="" href="http://bit.ly/2zuclEW" literally="" min="" of="" over="" shaped="" size="" the="" years="">bit.ly/2zuclEW
@citylab
221.5 Millennia later, we're still trying to figure out exactly how the Egyptians built those pyramids, and this article summarizes what we know so far bit.ly/2lCafiG @digiantiquarian

So Nice, I'm Doing It Twice

This past summer marked the first time in eight years that I taught my grad-level course at Penn, "Quantitative Tools for Consulting," in the hybrid format, which is to say once-a-month day-long in-person sessions interspersed with weekly one-hour on-line sessions.  It took some adaptation - of curriculum, pacing, and teaching style.  And it had its pros and cons.  But we made it through, I had fun, and, judging by midterm scores and final papers, the students got some things out of the course. 

Tomorrow marks another first, which is teaching my class a second time in the same calendar year.  This will also be in the hybrid format, but will feel different because it is taking place in the fall rather than the summer, so that'll likely keep me on my toes.  Looking forward to meeting the students and diving into another semester!

Today is the First Day of School

Unlike Superintendent Hite, Mayor Kenney, and Governor Wolf, I didn't get a chance to participate in the #RingTheBellPHL social media campaign, as I was on vacay.  But it doesn't make me any less excited about the start of another school year.  Let's do this!