Taylor Swift did a cover of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”. No word if she will be doing a Kanye West cover next.
I have a backlog of things to post here. I will catch up, I’m slacking. That will change. I’ve got plans.
The song “Baby Got Back” has been a reoccurring joke on this blog several times as I’ve covered various parodies. The funny folks at Reddit decided to translate and discover the evolutionary meanings behind the song. Screenshot for posterity is below with a link to a larger sized image. The original thread can be found here.
There is a blog dedicated to guys who act like jerks towards female gamers. Never quite understood what that was about. For what it’s worth women play way more games than the stereotypes suggest. They are also a growing demographic by many accounts. It’s amusing to read, but sad at the same time.
An ad agency put down “indented plates” on benches so when “people” (I assume “women” is the intended word) sit down, the plate leaves an advertisement impression on the back of their legs.
Clever, a little creepy, but most of all, I can’t imagine this working nearly as well as the picture shows. First of all people move, so I doubt the impression is that clear. I also doubt that they are anywhere as centered as the picture shows. It’s a bench, not a seat so people aren’t necessarily centered over the plate correctly. Nor are all legs the same width. I also suspect most people who sit on it look anything like the picture. Also, some wear pants.
[Hat Tip: Consumerist]
LIFE magazine has a pretty interesting photo essay on Raymond Loewy, who designed many things you likely have seen/used but completely took for granted including the Exxon logo, Shell logo, Coca-Cola packaging, Lucky Strike packaging, Air France Concorde interior, and Skylab interior among many others. Just check out the Wikipedia article for a list of designs by decade. I’m not sure when the guy slept.
Paul Buchheit has a great post on the infamous “Tiger Mom” article that created all sorts of controversy a few weeks ago. I must say I agree with him largely and always found myself overwhelmingly running on intrinsic motivation. Extrinsic motivation always failed miserably on me. I’d be curious to know what the breakdown is for the population in general and by age, as I suspect it shifts over time. If anyone knows of such research send it my way.
Interesting stuff.
Winning Isn’t Normal is a great blog post by Jason Shen about just how much goes into being good at something. Particularly great is this quote:
Remember one thing… winning isn’t normal. That doesn’t mean there is anything wrong with winning. It just isn’t the norm. It is highly unusual … So it requires unusual action. In order to win, you must do extraordinary things.
It seems too many people forget that, and I’m certain I’m no exception to that. Putting intelligence and innate gifts aside (they only get you so far), being good at something to the point of earning any respect takes an incredible amount of effort, sacrifice and time. The old standard for being viewed as an expert was 10,000 hours of experience or 10 years. I suspect in many modern-day professions that’s way below standards.
It’s way too easy to look at the end results and overlook what goes into something. From that 2 minute Olympic performance to the 5 minute medical diagnosis etc. Even from a purely academic standpoint we rarely realize what goes into anything other than a law or medical degree, and even there most people don’t get the late nights and dragging yourself through hell it takes. Most just think about sitting through the Bar Exam and MCAT’s like another SAT and not the prep that goes into it.
I’m going to start by saying NSFW. You will want headphones if listening to this video at work or in the presence of easily offended. It’s extremely well done. It’s based on this song, which is obviously also NSFW.
If it’s not already obvious, I have a love for musical parodies and oddly creative covers. I’ve got a few more in queue for this blog.
London School of Economics and Political Science research as summarized by the Winnipeg Free Press:
People with higher IQs are more apt to be nocturnal night-owls. Those with lower IQs tend to restrict their activities primarily to daytime.
Of course it’s important to note correlation does not imply causation. That said, lots of genius work does happen between 10 PM and 4 AM. There are countless stories of overnight success and innovation. I can’t recall many stories of 9 AM eureka moments unless they were the conclusion of overnight work.
Another great RSA talk by Sir Ken Robinson animated, it’s well worth the 11 minutes to watch. It’s hardly a secret how poor the education system really is and how many it fails.
I should note the intro video on his website has perhaps one of the greatest quotes I’ve heard in a while: “If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original”.