And, no, it's not James Lovell or Tom Hanks speaking that to a real or fictitious NASA.
Rather, it's probably an exec at the Houston Chronicle speaking that to a corporate lawyer.
Because, add in a mix of a staff writer who was doing moonlighting as a stripper — and blogging about it, her getting "outed" by Houston's alt-weekly, her getting fired by the Chron, and her now getting represented by Dumpster-diving celebrity lawyer/wannabe celeb herself Gloria Allred, and you've got one fun story.
Really, she has no chance, even if she claims she didn't list this "other job" on her application because it wasn't full time.
First, Tejas is an at-will state.
Second, the Chron surely has a morals clause or two.
That said, with Allred involved, PR, and the bucks from it, are the real angle anyway. Given that the staffer has now had at least one freelance spot on Good Morning America, that proves it.
Sidebar: It was "interesting" that she was a society reporter. Did she see any high-society types ogling her at places outside of high-society parties?
May 11, 2012
May 10, 2012
I work in the fifth-worst career ... old-fashioned art ideas
My boss said this picture wasn't good as lead art on the front page because there's no people visible.
Tosh. I had an idea for a Page 1 design to get people above the fold but still use this as dominant art.
But, I wasn't asked, and to the degree I tried to "sell" something, I was ignored.
That's basically yet another reason why, within this job, a "newspaper romantic" who never should have gotten back in the business six-seven years ago after being out of it for a full decade before that is a major frustration. He has design ideas, and other things, often still frozen in the 1980s.
Tosh. I had an idea for a Page 1 design to get people above the fold but still use this as dominant art.
But, I wasn't asked, and to the degree I tried to "sell" something, I was ignored.
That's basically yet another reason why, within this job, a "newspaper romantic" who never should have gotten back in the business six-seven years ago after being out of it for a full decade before that is a major frustration. He has design ideas, and other things, often still frozen in the 1980s.
May 09, 2012
The "violent ape": #Pinker, #PopEvPsych refuted again
John Horgan does an excellent job of refuting the idea that humans are somehow "naturally violent," which in turn undercuts the thesis of Steve Pinker's new book in a new way. (Pinker is right that private violence has fallen in much of the world, but anybody who looks at modern war knows that his thesis of modern-time drops in violence in general is more tenuous.)
The real problem, somewhat even with non-pop evolutionary psychology, but much more with Pop Ev Psych, is the weight the discipline puts on the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, or EEA. This has four main problems.
First is trying to fix a "starting point" for starting the clock on this; second is getting details of that starting point wrong, which is where Horgan comes. Third is general lack of information. Fourth is a philosophical issue.
Some of this I've blogged before, but some is new.
On the starting point issue, the "tree" of hominid evolution, compared to what we knew 20 years ago, seems to have, well, multiple trunks. Where do we find "one starting point"? Related to that, evolutionary biologists tell us about ancestors of humans and chimpanzees interbreeding after their "split."
The second point? Pop Ev Psychers want to make early members of genus Homo into almost stereotypical burly male hunter-gatherers. The reality? We were, to all appearances, not-so-burly scavenger-gatherers many millennia before. And, for Pop Ev Psychers, this sleight of hand appears to be politically driven, related to wanting to see a high level of nature-driven gender difference today, with many of them being libertarian/conservative. (I specifically noted this in blogging about Pinker's "The Blank Slate." Beyond that are bigger issues yet.
That's point three, the lack of knowledge.
First of all, ancient DNA doesn't generally fossilize. So, we have little information about what drove many evolutionary changes, just that they happened.
Second of all, genes aren't destiny. To the point, in making cross-species comparisons today, we know little about human epigenetics and about bupkis about chimp epigenetics. Relatd to that, did famed "botttleneck" points in human (or chimp) evolution have major epigenetic as well as genetic effects?
Finally, point four — philosophy. Pop Ev Psych appears to ignore Hume's famous is/ought dictum. That often seems to relate to the politics under point two.
On the lack of knowledge/information, I'm just touching lightly.
The real problem, somewhat even with non-pop evolutionary psychology, but much more with Pop Ev Psych, is the weight the discipline puts on the environment of evolutionary adaptedness, or EEA. This has four main problems.
First is trying to fix a "starting point" for starting the clock on this; second is getting details of that starting point wrong, which is where Horgan comes. Third is general lack of information. Fourth is a philosophical issue.
Some of this I've blogged before, but some is new.
On the starting point issue, the "tree" of hominid evolution, compared to what we knew 20 years ago, seems to have, well, multiple trunks. Where do we find "one starting point"? Related to that, evolutionary biologists tell us about ancestors of humans and chimpanzees interbreeding after their "split."
The second point? Pop Ev Psychers want to make early members of genus Homo into almost stereotypical burly male hunter-gatherers. The reality? We were, to all appearances, not-so-burly scavenger-gatherers many millennia before. And, for Pop Ev Psychers, this sleight of hand appears to be politically driven, related to wanting to see a high level of nature-driven gender difference today, with many of them being libertarian/conservative. (I specifically noted this in blogging about Pinker's "The Blank Slate." Beyond that are bigger issues yet.
That's point three, the lack of knowledge.
First of all, ancient DNA doesn't generally fossilize. So, we have little information about what drove many evolutionary changes, just that they happened.
Second of all, genes aren't destiny. To the point, in making cross-species comparisons today, we know little about human epigenetics and about bupkis about chimp epigenetics. Relatd to that, did famed "botttleneck" points in human (or chimp) evolution have major epigenetic as well as genetic effects?
Finally, point four — philosophy. Pop Ev Psych appears to ignore Hume's famous is/ought dictum. That often seems to relate to the politics under point two.
On the lack of knowledge/information, I'm just touching lightly.
Obama hearts gay marriage
OK, the interview on ABC has Dear Leader finally following his senior citizen vice president, and the ideas of some young buck named Barack Obama in 1998 and supporting gay marriage.(Apparently the NYT's The Caucus blog hasn't heard of Obama 1998, saying this is the first time he's supported gay marriage. Probably another reason the paper of record doesn't want a real paywall, if it's going to make errors like that in national political coverage.)
Political fallout?
Polls show a small majority favor it, but I've not seen detailed breakouts of independent voters.
By age, gay marriage is greater among younger people, but they turn out to vote in lower numbers.
Since we've seen North Carolina's vote on the issue, I think it's safe to say it hurts there, and likely Indiana.
I'll call it a bump in Virginia and Colorado, a wash in Nevada, and unknown right now in Ohio.
That said, since Mitt Romney is now "no comment" on the subject, it behooves Obama surrogates to push him on the issue.
Political fallout?
Polls show a small majority favor it, but I've not seen detailed breakouts of independent voters.
By age, gay marriage is greater among younger people, but they turn out to vote in lower numbers.
Since we've seen North Carolina's vote on the issue, I think it's safe to say it hurts there, and likely Indiana.
I'll call it a bump in Virginia and Colorado, a wash in Nevada, and unknown right now in Ohio.
That said, since Mitt Romney is now "no comment" on the subject, it behooves Obama surrogates to push him on the issue.
#Apps - nothing more than an #Apple scam?
Technology Review doesn't go quite that far, but it does say that apps for newspapers, and mobile versions of websites in general for newspapers, when locked into an app-based system, simply don't make sense.
The gist of the story is that they don't make sense on either the technological or financial end, and I'm going to focus on that second one.
TR publisher Jason Pontin says that many newspapers and magazines were engaged in little more than dreaming, over the idea that mobile versions of websites on an app-based system were seen as a "do-over" for everything they got wrong with the traditional web.
Why is that not surprising? Just as a traditional website isn't an electronic version of a hardcopy newspaper, especially due to the mix of Google and news aggregators, a mobile version isn't that, either. And, it's more akin by far to a website than to a hardcopy newspaper.
So, apps don't sell. Pontin has the details:
He says TR has junked them all for an HTML5 system that is less "constrained." Per that, this probably means that between this and expanding Android tablets, Apple's gravy train in the app world will probably start to dry up, too.
It also means, to get back to an old hobby horse of mine, newspapers and magazines need to look at paywalls. And real ones.
Don't listen to Jay Rosen or Clay Shirky. They're getting paid to tell you otherwise.
The gist of the story is that they don't make sense on either the technological or financial end, and I'm going to focus on that second one.
TR publisher Jason Pontin says that many newspapers and magazines were engaged in little more than dreaming, over the idea that mobile versions of websites on an app-based system were seen as a "do-over" for everything they got wrong with the traditional web.
Why is that not surprising? Just as a traditional website isn't an electronic version of a hardcopy newspaper, especially due to the mix of Google and news aggregators, a mobile version isn't that, either. And, it's more akin by far to a website than to a hardcopy newspaper.
So, apps don't sell. Pontin has the details:
A recent Nielsen study reported that while 33 percent of tablet and smart-phone users had downloaded news apps in the previous 30 days, just 19 percent of users had paid for any of them. The paid, expensively developed publishers' app, with its extravagantly produced digital replica, is dead.That sounds pretty simple.
He says TR has junked them all for an HTML5 system that is less "constrained." Per that, this probably means that between this and expanding Android tablets, Apple's gravy train in the app world will probably start to dry up, too.
It also means, to get back to an old hobby horse of mine, newspapers and magazines need to look at paywalls. And real ones.
Don't listen to Jay Rosen or Clay Shirky. They're getting paid to tell you otherwise.
May 08, 2012
Should #vegans become #Jains?
Specifically, should they become sky-clad Jains, so called because, in traditional India, they went nude rather than kill even a cotton plant, and eventually starved themselves rather than kill even a lentil or grain of rice or wheat?
The question, and the use of the word "kill" with plants, is deliberate, even while also being facetious.
Why? Some researchers have discovered that, at least with peas, some of the claims about "emotions" and "communication" of plants in the controversial 1973 bestseller "The Secret Life of Plants" may just be true.
A lot of vegetarians may have multiple reasons for vegetarianism, often health-related.
But for full-blown vegans, the moral issue is almost invariably the bottom line.
So, seriously and facetiously both, vegans either need to become sky-clad Jains and starve themselves to death, or else get off their moral high horses, if the research yields more such results.
Even if you don't believe that plants have "secret lives," nonetheless, they are alive. So, unless you want to eat either "meat" or "soybeans" out of a test tube, and, in either case, have the substitute made from non-living substrates, not even the algae or whatever that's being used for meat in a test tube now, let's not be so self-righteous out there in vegan-land.
There's more on the "secret lives of plants," even their "foraging" for food, in a follow-up column at the NYT's "The Stone" philosophy page.
The only way you get a partial pass is if you claim the primary reason for being a vegan is earth's natural resources. (That said, livestock raised entirely on grasses, in places that can't readily grow commercial crops, are still then a viable meat source.)
Beyond that, it's clear that some amount of meat protein accelerated brain development among our hominid ancestors, another reason that veganism doesn't necessarily occupy any moral high ground, unless vegans want to pull the food ladder back up after themselves.
And, a side note: I have never practiced veganism, but I have practiced vegetarianism. And, I didn't spend $7 a pound on soy "burgers." I ate vegetarian foods the way they're commonly meant to be eaten. (And, not tofu, either; blech. I ate soy flour as part of baking, normally.)
The question, and the use of the word "kill" with plants, is deliberate, even while also being facetious.
Why? Some researchers have discovered that, at least with peas, some of the claims about "emotions" and "communication" of plants in the controversial 1973 bestseller "The Secret Life of Plants" may just be true.
A lot of vegetarians may have multiple reasons for vegetarianism, often health-related.
But for full-blown vegans, the moral issue is almost invariably the bottom line.
So, seriously and facetiously both, vegans either need to become sky-clad Jains and starve themselves to death, or else get off their moral high horses, if the research yields more such results.
Even if you don't believe that plants have "secret lives," nonetheless, they are alive. So, unless you want to eat either "meat" or "soybeans" out of a test tube, and, in either case, have the substitute made from non-living substrates, not even the algae or whatever that's being used for meat in a test tube now, let's not be so self-righteous out there in vegan-land.
There's more on the "secret lives of plants," even their "foraging" for food, in a follow-up column at the NYT's "The Stone" philosophy page.
The only way you get a partial pass is if you claim the primary reason for being a vegan is earth's natural resources. (That said, livestock raised entirely on grasses, in places that can't readily grow commercial crops, are still then a viable meat source.)
Beyond that, it's clear that some amount of meat protein accelerated brain development among our hominid ancestors, another reason that veganism doesn't necessarily occupy any moral high ground, unless vegans want to pull the food ladder back up after themselves.
And, a side note: I have never practiced veganism, but I have practiced vegetarianism. And, I didn't spend $7 a pound on soy "burgers." I ate vegetarian foods the way they're commonly meant to be eaten. (And, not tofu, either; blech. I ate soy flour as part of baking, normally.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)