Links: Productivity, adultery (not related to point 1), politics, firings, Caitlin Moran, and more

* “Why Your Cousin With a Ph.D. Is a Basket Case: Understanding the Byzantine hiring process that drives academics up the wall,” or, don’t go to grad school.

* Megan McArdle: “California Accidentally Legalizes Campus Sex:” “It is, in other words, an impossibly overspecific standard that seems impossible to enforce consistently. And yet, while most of the commentariat views this overspecificity as a bug, I wonder if it isn’t actually a feature.” In general I am increasingly leery of new laws, since by now no one is innocent.

* David Mitchell on How to Write: “Neglect Everything Else”.

* 28 Steal-Worthy Tips From the Most Productive People on the Planet.

* “Up With Adultery! An Italian Woman’s Manifesto;” speculative.

* Someone found this blog by searching for “kayden kross y anna love,” though I suspect they are disappointed.

* Someone else found this blog by searching for “best english literature graduate programs,” the answer to which is: “Don’t go.”

* Forbes fires columnist for being a columnist; weirdly, none of the current talk in the pundit-o-sphere has moved past what Camille Paglia wrote 20 years ago.

* “‘I was terrified we’d lose all our money’: banks tell US customers they won’t work with Americans,” an underreported story.

* “Interview: Caitlin Moran on the Working Class, Masturbation, and Writing a Novel,” which sounds stupid but isn’t. I still don’t want to read the novel; it sounds too overtly political.

Links: Survival / apocalypse, cops, PhDs, bravery, writing, gender roles, rape dark numbers, and more

* “An Astrobiologist Asks a Sci-fi Novelist How to Survive the Anthropocene;” I’ve said it before, but extinction is an underrated risk.

* More about cops being jerks.

* “Why Haven’t Humanities Ph.D. Programs Collapsed?

* The Great Unravelling, which reads like a Peter Watts novel and doesn’t feel like the world I inhabit, or feel like I inhabit.

* “The Astonishing Story of the Federal Reserve on 9-11,” which is indeed astonishing and fascinating.

* Terry Teachout: “Advice to young authors,” or, expect to do almost everything and not make a lot of money. This was written before the eBook age.

Disagree-9180019* In his fascinating new book the developmental biologist Lewis Wolpert argues that there is actually hard science behind many of our stereotypical gender roles.

* Amazon releases interesting Kindle hardware for the first time in ages; if you buy it from the link I get a kickback, FWIW.

* New York is actually a relatively poor place, at least in income terms; however, I think that New Yorkers are consuming non-income amenities (or just stealing from landlords  via rent control) as compensation.

* “How Sugar Daddies Are Financing College Education,” though it lacks data.

* How Many Rape Reports Are False? Be wary of anyone who wants to emphasize or parade the more general issue while wanting to minimize this question.

* Israel’s NSA scandal.

Links: Dating forums, bike lanes, Peter Thiel, Fuji X100T

* “Why Most PUA/Dating Forums Are Completely Fucking Worthless,” from a guy running a PUA/Dating Forum; most guys running PUA/Dating Forums appear to say this about other guys running PUA/Dating Forums, making the claim that others are completely fucking worthless a cliché of the genre.

* Counterintuitive: “Bike lanes have actually sped up car traffic in New York City.”

* “Is it okay to kill cyclists?” In the U.S., the answer is largely “yes.”

* “Elder Statesmen Declare a War on the ‘War on Drugs:’ What took them so long?” Excellent question.

* Steve Jobs Was a Low-Tech Parent.

Olympus 25mm 1.8-1022* Peter Thiel on the innovation environment; Zero to One comes out on Tuesday and you should read it.

* Peter Thiel Reddit AMA, and like the above it is consistently and exceptionally interesting.

* The Fuji X100T is an interesting looking camera that very annoyingly does not have a tilting rear LCD.

Links: Myths, Mean Girls, identity, people lie about sex

* “5 Feminist Myths That Will Not Die.”

* “Notes on the Celebrity Data Theft,” from a technical and social hacking standpoint.

* “Ten Ways Colleges Work You Over,” and I wish I could get this in the hands of every high school student applying to competitive colleges.

* “An Analysis of Power And Social Dynamics In ‘Mean Girls;’” sounds stupid but isn’t.

* “Intellectual decay,” or, people in groups tend to identify based on opposition to the other group more than independent assessments of facts and situation.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA* An anecdote from Idiot Programmer on students, books, and cell phones.

* “Lies, damned lies and sex work statistics.

* “Civil forfeiture: How prosecutors seize the assets of the innocent.” This is an evil practice, and I don’t use the term “evil” frequently.

* “Sometimes a Little Objectification Can Be a Good Thing,” which should be obvious to anyone attuned to desire and receptivity.

* “For Kayden Kross, the Family Business Happens to Be Porn” (SFW).

* “The Difference Between A Woman’s Behavior And Her Intent,” maybe, though I endorse the anti-conspiracy theory element. Think emergent behavior long before you spend a moment of thought on conscious conspiracy.

Links: Entitlement, Ferguson, blogs, reading, war

* “The Problem of Entitlement: A Question of Respect,” especially worth reading for teachers and students, though it is excellent throughout. This especially resonates:

The world of grad students two decades later is a lot different. Nearly all the students have smartphones, which they bring to class. Nearly all of them spend more time staring at screens than at books.

And the students I encounter seem to value reading less and less. I remember one especially galling workshop that I taught a few years ago, in which I asked the participants to read a single story, “Guests of the Nation” by Frank O’Connor. Hardly any of them bothered. They didn’t seem to understand—they were too entitled to understand—that the production of great literature requires a deep engagement with great literature. In fact, they were more likely to talk about a movie or TV show, or what they just posted on Facebook, than the last great book they read.

When I go into coffeeshops computers and phones outnumber books at least 10:1. That is worth contemplating for anyone who writes or aspires to write books. In many ways writing is more important than ever—in an email yesterday I said that books may be the (financial) wagging the cultural dog—but people are arguably getting paid either less or differently for it.

women with cell phone in coffee shop-1829* “How we’d cover Ferguson if it happened in another country.”

* Blogs will outlast the various “Social Media” companies.

* Housing policy is the biggest thing “blue states” are screwing up.

* “The Great Unread: Why do some classics continue to fascinate while others gather dust?” What is the role of the reader, and how will a given society evolve? To most 19th C writers, coming secularization probably wasn’t totally obvious. What are 21st Century writers underestimating?

The other reality of reading is that an infinite number of books can be read at a given moment. Even dedicated readers rarely read more than 100 books a year.

* Fundamentalists are not traditionalists.

* We cannot really understand the horror of the Eastern front in World War II.

Links: Margins, the movie biz, Norman Rush, cheating, diet, methane

* “Let’s talk about margins” is a beautiful essay about much more than its obvious topic, though margins are indeed important and I thought a lot about the margins for physical copies of Asking Anna. Some of the best-designed paperbacks I’ve seen, ever, are the New York Review of Books books, so I decided to mimic their margins. CreateSpace’s paper quality is not as high and their binding not quite as good but I wanted to approximate the experience of that series. The Vintage Contemporaries series also has high-quality design; here is one discussion of the covers. My edition of Bad Behavior is a Vintage Contemporary, although apparently it is now under another imprint. Excellent Sheep has weirdly shitty paper quality, given the subject and sense of historical vision.

I think Steve Jobs would have liked “Let’s talk about margins.”

* “Last Call: The end of the printed newspaper,” and this is not good.

* “If Video is Booming, Why are Revenues Evaporating?“, or, is the video business becoming more like the book business but with prettier principals?

Handsome New York City pig on a leash

Handsome New York City pig on a leash

* There is a remarkably specious and stupid NYT article called “Teaching Is Not a Business,” whose subtext is, “We should keep doing things the way we have always done things and will always do things.” Good luck with that. The programs David L. Kirp cites at the end of the article are particularly hilarious to anyone who has worked on or in them.

* Ferguson and the Modern Debtor’s Prison.

* Relatedly, Have the cops gotten too good at catching criminals?

* On Norman Rush; Mating is one of the best novels I’ve read. Subtle Bodies, not so much. Notice: “Ideas in fiction are more potent when they don’t come armored against their own contradictions.” The same is often true in nonfiction. You often don’t have to pick a side, especially in arguments about fundamental values.

* Dubious source, but, “Think men are the unfaithful sex? A study shows WOMEN are the biggest cheats – they’re just better at lying about it.”

* Hard science about diet: What makes us fat.

* Methane is seeping from the sea floor, in what may turn out to be the most important news, possibly ever.

* Body normalization, good luck! Though I don’t perceive it as meant as a political statement.

* Geek Sublime by Vikram Chandra, pre-ordered based on the review.

Links: The end of humanity, food, coffee, nuclear power, fear the police

* “A Primer on the Doomsday Argument;” incidentally I am a long-term pessimist on the ultimate fate of humanity, and today’s utter failure to price carbon emissions appropriately or build better cities does not make me hopeful.

* “Five legal rights women have that men do not,” file under “points rarely made” though points 1 and 2 are dubious.

* The science behind eat food, mostly plants, and not too much; I’d add “avoid simple carbs” as perhaps the most important.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA* “Olive oil and salad combined ‘explain’ Med diet success; this is basically every third day’s primary meal in our household.

* The Lost World of the London Coffeehouse. Now people talk to their computers.

* This seems impossible: “Y Combinator And Mithril Invest In Helion, A Nuclear Fusion Startup.”

* “Why I don’t call the police [. . . ] It’s become a given for me that if the criminal justice system gets a hold of a black person, there is a terrible risk that it will try to crush him.”

* “A brash tech entrepreneur thinks he can reinvent higher education by stripping it down to its essence, eliminating lectures and tenure along with football games, ivy-covered buildings, and research libraries. What if he’s right?”

* “How to Talk About Climate Change So People Will Listen,” maybe. My not-original observation is that most people want to know if they will get paid or laid tomorrow, and if their wife’s brother’s husband is making more than they are.

* “My Most Offended Readers Are Ivy-Bound 18-Year-Olds;” my copy of Excellent Sheep arrived yesterday and yes I do love it so far.

Links: Prostitution, Gladwell (these are not linked), parenting while poor, selfie-love

* “Study: Decriminalizing prostitution could drastically cut HIV infections,” which is sufficiently obvious that I almost don’t want to include it.

* Malcolm Gladwell:

Running teaches you about the inherent unfairness of the world. Two people can work exactly the same, in fact, one can be infinitely more devoted and train much harder and not do as well. An object lesson in how unfair life is.

The world is unfair but most people are better off treating it as if it is fair.

* A theory of where 50 Shades of Grey came from, with a strong emphasis on the word “theory.” I also think the pejorative connotations from the term “marketing” are going to fade over time, much as “sellout” was used derisively in the 1960s but by the 2000s could no longer be widely seen.

* “Another Challenge of Parenting While Poor: Wealthy Judges;” this sort of point is under-understood.

* “Without You I’m Nothing,” which has Paglian overtones for its intersection of culture and sexuality: “Rock stars are the gods of the last century.”

* “Selfie-Love,” by Clancy Martin of How to Sell fame; a friend from China told me that all Americans are hustlers, although she lives in New York, so her generalization may not be applicable to all ~300 million of us. Also, someone attempted to spit in my taxi the other day.

* The high cost of free parking.

* Little political drama is worth attending to, but this interview between the president and The Economist is interesting throughout. A sample:

The US security presence is always a source of ambivalence everywhere in the world. If we’re not there, people think we’re neglecting them. If we’re there, then they think we’re militarising a region.

Links: Fiber, sex lives, suburbs, competition, food (which may all be linked)

* “Startup claims it will build fiber network in LA and wireless throughout US;” like everyone else I will express skepticism.

* “Why So Many People Care So Much About Others’ Sex Lives,” which makes a number of points I’ve observed at various times.

* “Don’t Send Your Kid to the Ivy League: The nation’s top colleges are turning our kids into zombies,” which matches my (anecdotal) experience.

* “Multiple Lovers, Without Jealousy: Polyamorous people still face plenty of stigmas, but some studies suggest they handle certain relationship challenges better than monogamous people do;” has anyone written the great polyamorous novel? Could anyone?

forgotten bike and pink woman* Suburban sprawl and bad transit can crush opportunity for the poor.

* Nicola Griffith: Who Owns SF?

* Dubious-seeming, but: “Are siblings obsessed with moral hazard?

* Germans Love Getting Naked at the Beach. So Should We. Maybe.

* “French Food Goes Down,” which I have heard independently from other sources; I find it interesting that many countries that start with or develop a major lead in some field eventually lose that lead. Think of Japan’s giants losing out in consumer electronics to Apple and Samsung.

* Important news rarely covered: “Rand Paul introduces bill to reform civil asset forfeiture;” for background and a terrifying story, see Taken: Under civil forfeiture, Americans who haven’t been charged with wrongdoing can be stripped of their cash, cars, and even homes. Is that all we’re losing?, in The New Yorker

* “What ‘Women Against Feminism’ Gets Right.”

* The power of Google used for evil, or, why I will never rely entirely on Gmail or associated services, and you shouldn’t either. Note however that the author is not blameless.

Links: Divorce court, Comcast is evil, Derek Parfit, math, Peter Watt, and more

* On the role of divorce courts and government incoherence, which is my title and I think better than the alternative; interesting throughout. Compare it to my footnote in this Grant Writing Confidential post.

squirrel with nut-1717* Former Comcast employee explains how horrible Comcast is.

* The shift from “analyzing” to “creating.”

* “Reason and romance: The world’s most cerebral marriage,” which is (unintentionally?) hilarious throughout:

He eats the same staples every day. For breakfast there’s muesli, yoghurt, juice and an enormous cup of instant coffee, industrial strength and often made with hot water from the tap because boiling it would require putting on the kettle. In the evening he has raw carrots, cheese, romaine lettuce and celery dipped in peanut butter. Food has to fulfil two basic criteria: it must be healthy and involve the minimum of preparation.

I tried to read Parfit but he “is proudly a philosopher’s philosopher,” which may explain why I couldn’t figure out why I or anyone should care about what he argues. Contrast that with Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind, in which every page feels relevant and actionable.

* Global income inequality is falling, but do the dominant media narrative creators care?

* A Mind for Numbers.

* Peter Watt’s Echopraxia is coming; mine is pre-ordered and yours should be too.

* Derek Huang on Old Masters vs. Young Geniuses.

* Comcast’s worst nightmare: How Tennessee could save America’s Internet.” Maybe.