The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)

by Yule Heibel on August 1, 2010

  • Fascinating proposal:
    QUOTE
    Where is publishing heading?

    We have Kindles and iPads, iPhones and Androids. Print on demand is cheap — and good. Everyone shops at Amazon.com. Most books are a click away.

    Contemporary publishing is engulfed by a forest of question marks. What defines a beautiful book? Is it printed or digital? How much does it take (time, money, energy) to produce? How do you get it to your audience?

    There are so many questions because there are presently so many available options. Advancements in affordability of printing, promotion and distribution has significantly lowered the barrier to entry for would-be publishers.

    We choose the medium.
    We build the audience.

    And now, with Kickstarter, we also raise the money.
    UNQUOTE

    tags: kickstartup publishing craigmod books fundraising kickstarter

  • Seth Godin delivers a well-deserved kick to traditional college education’s kneecaps.
    QUOTE
    Why do colleges send millions (!) of undifferentiated pieces of junk mail to high school students now? We will waive the admission fee! We have a one page application! Apply! This is some of the most amateur and bland direct mail I’ve ever seen. Why do it?

    Biggest reason: So the schools can reject more applicants. The more applicants they reject, the higher they rank in US News and other rankings. And thus the rush to game the rankings continues, which is a sign that the marketers in question (the colleges) are getting desperate for more than their fair share. Why bother making your education more useful if you can more easily make it appear to be more useful?
    UNQUOTE

    tags: seth_godin education college tuition

  • Wonder if it works the same way for humans as for rodents? Could have interesting implications for why/ how parental responsibility is typically & traditionally parceled out in early childhood (mostly to mothers):
    QUOTE
    In the current study, Dulac and her colleagues found that 61 percent of imprinted genes in the fetal brain are maternal in origin, suggesting a major maternal influence over the brain development of offspring. By adulthood, the proportions are flipped. About 70 percent of imprinted genes in both the adult cortex and hypothalamus appear to derive from the father, suggesting a major paternal influence on the brain function of adult offspring.

    This new work expands on the known timeline for the internal conflict between maternal and paternal genes. Maternal genes may predominate in fetal development, followed by a period of childhood where maternal and paternal genes tussle for control, followed by eventual bias in favor of paternal genes during adulthood.
    UNQUOTE

    tags: science biology neuroscience brain childhood genes

  • Yep – gotta love the image of established media wringing its collective hands over the downfall of Public Man as wrought by the pajamahadeen…
    QUOTE
    At least anonymous bloggers are very clear and truthful about what they are: often citizens whose jobs or other interests prevent them from attaching their names to their political expression. By stark contrast, all of these establishment media outlets perpetrate a total fraud on the public by pretending that they have standards for when anonymity will be used even though, as these examples from the last 24 hours alone prove, they routinely violate those alleged standards for absolutely no reason. It just never ceases to amaze how much establishment journalists like Roberts and Phillips love to rail against the Evils of Internet Anonymity when reckless, cowardly anonymity — for purposes ranging from catty, trivial gossip to pernicious propaganda and everything in between — is a central tool of their “profession” and of the political class they cover.
    UNQUOTE

    tags: salon.com glenn_greenwald media blogging media_critique

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.

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