Link Dump 2015-01-15

2015-01-15

If a program accidentally buys illegal drugs online (as part of an art exhibit), are the programmers breaking the law? Or are the programs?
Where's the line between cultural exchange and cultural appropriation? What I find interesting here is that the culture may feel differently about something than the individuals in that culture. For example, if an enterprising Native American sells ceremonial headdresses, clearly there is consent for you to own, and possibly wear, the headdress. But the Native American culture, as a whole, may frown on this. So is that cultural exchange or cultural appropriation?
Former MIT professor Leah Buechley looks at the demographics of the maker movement. Key statistics: 85% of MAKE magazine covers (over 39 issues in 9 years) are of men, and 0% (!) are of under-represented minorities; median income of the magazine readership is $106,000 - 82nd percentile of the American household, 96th percentile of the American population. This hit me harder than I thought it would, despite knowing that computer science has similar statistics. Perhaps it's because I've always seen the allure of computer science as being able to build whatever you want, and the maker movement seems broader than that, and should therefore capture a wider audience.
Rafi Santo agrees with me: "I, like other educators and scholars, was considering the ways that the maker movement might offer some inspiration for the re-imagining the design of learning environments. In contrast to didactic, "dumping knowledge in heads" models of pedagogy that dominate education, the maker movement seemed to value creativity, experimentation, productive failure and applied usages of knowledge within authentic communities. These features, so sorely lacking in traditional ways of thinking about education, made the maker movement an attractive metaphor for the design of learning."
Piazza, an online forum software marketed towards classroom use, compiled some statistics about the gender confidence gap in STEM. It's sad that by this point the 35+% difference in contribution is no longer surprising to me. I was surprised, however, that women participate more in business classes.
A hot jazz cover of Stacy's Mom.
IKEA is moving into the tactile media space.
I had originally thought up this tweet as a joke, but it turns out that there are animals that live in both the arctic and the antarctic.
Justin Roth of The Stone Mind writes how his first friends in a new city are often found in the climbing gym. I haven't moved that many times, but at least when I travel, I definitely feel more at home in a gym than elsewhere. Roth brought up how this communal connection is also found among black people, and he implied that it was also found in religions communities. I wonder what it is that makes climbing comparable.
Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson are pushing to free every pitch of the Dawn Wall, and it has gotten national attention. The online climbing community, however, is also wondering if the siege tactics used signal the end of climbing as an "adventure sport" (versus any old regular sport); this is especially relevant as indoor climbing has grown in popularity, and people are not necessarily equipped, both literally and metaphorically with knowledge, to climb outdoors.
Readers of the NYTimes article also don't know jack shit about climbing. My personal favorites are the ones saying this is pointless. I really want to ask them how far their verdict of pointlessness extends: just to climbing, to other sports, or to all of human endeavor?
There's a script you can follow to get someone to fall in love with you. Hint: it involves asking intimate questions. The actual list of questions can be found here.