culture

0 comments on "Link blog: mechanics, social-justice, community, culture"

Gears – Bartosz Ciechanowski
Cool gear animations and explanations of how they work.
(tags: animation engineering physics mechanics)
How knitters got knotted in a purity spiral – UnHerd
Yep, knitters. “Purity spiral” is a good name for the runaway effect of only rewarding people who call out others for not being pure enough.
(tags: ethics culture community purity social-justice)
0 comments on "Link blog: smartphones, psychology, work, culture"

Your smartphone is making you stupid, antisocial and unhealthy. So why can’t you put it down? – The Globe and Mail
We’re doomed! Interesting for this bit: “It takes office workers an average of 25 minutes to get back on task after an interruption, he notes, while workers who are habitually interrupted by e-mail become likelier to “self-interrupt” with little procrastination breaks”. That’s true of me: if I’m constantly getting interrupted I give up and procastinate in anticipation of the next interruption.
(tags: technology culture psychology smartphones facebook work)
2 comments on "Link blog: science, pseudoscience, physics, culture"

What I learned as a hired consultant to autodidact physicists | Aeon Ideas
“A typical problem is that, in the absence of equations, they project literal meanings onto words such as ‘grains’ of space-time or particles ‘popping’ in and out of existence. Science writers should be more careful to point out when we are using metaphors. My clients read way too much into pictures, measuring every angle, scrutinising every colour, counting every dash. Illustrators should be more careful to point out what is relevant information and what is artistic freedom. But the most important lesson I’ve learned is that journalists are so successful at making physics seem not so complicated that many readers come away with the impression that they can easily do it themselves. How can we blame them for not knowing what it takes if we never tell them?”
(tags: science physics culture pseudoscience)
0 comments on "Link blog: europe, fraud, journalism, racism"

THE FAILURE OF MULTICULTURALISM | Pandaemonium
Kenan Malik argues that multi-cultural policies amount to dealing with people as a bloc lead by self-appointed (or government appointed) leaders. Yet French assimilationism hasn’t fared better: Malik blames measures taken against alienness (burqua bans) and an inability to acknowledge that racism still exists even though the goal is assimilation.
(tags: multiculturalism kenan-malik culture politics racism immigration europe)
My Year Ripping Off the Web with the Daily Mail Online
The Heil rips stuff off and makes stuff up, as told by a former employee.
(tags: dailymail journalism fraud)