June 13, 2013
And So It Begins
http://canadianwayfarer.wordpress.com/2013/05/31/52/,
... And So It Begins,
June 13, 2013
My friend Scott Agnew (who I don't know really well, but well enough) has sold his house and all his stuff and is embarking for the forseeable future on a wandering tour of the world. It's an adventure that reminds me in more ways than one of the Motorcycle Diaries and I'm sure the travels will be equally influential on Scott's outlook and perspective. I wish him well, and I will be following his blog. Godspeed.
Hire Economics: Why Applying to Jobs Is a Waste of Time
Lou Adler,
LinkedIn,
June 13, 2013
We hear a lot about how important degrees are to getting a job. But often it never comes up. When people are hired internally or through their network, it's their performance, not their credentials, that resonates. And as this article shows, that's the case for most hiring - companies turn to job postings and resume screening only as a last resort. So while I would not recommend people not get degrees, I would emphasize that it is at least as important - and over time will be more important - to cultivate and work with a network of practitioners. That's why volunteer work, writing and blogging, open source programming, and similar activities are so important to your career prospects.
Review of Jaron Lanier’s “Who Owns the Future” – or how to extrapolate from false premises
Scott Jackisch ,
h+,
June 13, 2013
It's not exactly a favorable review, or even a fair one, but the value of this article is that it gives the reader a sense of what's in the book (which, ultimately, is the prupose of a good review). "The premise of Lanier’s new book 'Who Owns the Future' is that big data players are shrinking the economy by leveraging the largest servers to achieve information supremacy and then radiating risk out into the world." This is a really interesting concept - we are already familiar with the idea of 'the winner of an all-or-nothing contest' in a network; that was one of the main ideas in Albert-László Barabási's model. The idea that they 'radiate risk' is (to me, at least) new. I wish the reviewer had said more about it.
MOOCs and the Humanities
Jon Beasley-Murray,
Posthegemony,
June 13, 2013
"I am not against MOOCs," writes Jon Beasley-Murray. "In fact, I’m so not against MOOCs that I have spent much of this past year helping to start something that may turn out to be something of a DIY, home-grown MOOC. We’re calling it Arts One Digital." So what is he against? "It is not technology that is at issue or at fault here. It is the shallow, decontextualized, and unthinking way in which it is presented and equally thoughtlessly lapped up by an institution that has apparently lost its way." I think we can all agree with that.
We Are Not Dancing Bears
Bill Cooke,
Critical Faculties,
June 13, 2013
One of the things that has always bothered me about Mensa is that despite all the good the amassed brainpower could do, the majority of their time seems to be spent on games and puns. I have the same feelings about university professors - they have so much potential, but with some few exceptions, they don't even try to speak to the rest of the world, much less help it. So I have mixed feelings about the plight of professors who claim IP rights to their creations or object to being rated by their students. On the one hand I recognize the need for a self-managing academic profession independent from the strictures binding ordinary employees. On the other hand, I wish they'd use that freedom to do more than frittering away their skills and abilities.
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