1 January 2005

Today's reading list

  • Repeat after me
  • Ways to fix your life: Quit your job
  • Let Them Eat Prose
  • Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism
  • Repeat after me
  • [ via Economist.com ]

    Further proof for puntuated equilibrium [Wikipedia] is found while studying differences in dog breeds. PE states that a great deal of evolutionary change occurs in quick bursts separated by long periods of stability. I had originally read about PE in The Triumph of Evolution: And the Failure of Creationism [Amazon] by the theory's creator, Niles Eldredge. The Wikipedia entry notes a wonderful quote on PE by Darwin in Origin of the Species [Amazon]: [T]he periods during which species have undergone modification, though long as measured in years, have probably been short in comparison with the periods during which they retain the same form.

  • Ways to fix your life: Quit your job
  • [ via Yahoo! News ]

    Wonderful stories of, you guessed it, quitting a suck-ass job and becoming happy once again. Remember being happy? It's nice.

  • Let Them Eat Prose
  • [ via Harper's Magazine ]

    A reprint of a short article from the an 1886 Harper's arguing that as books become less expensive they become less valued and our reading habits diminish as a society. A subtle argument when placed on a magazine's blog.

  • Why Wikipedia Must Jettison Its Anti-Elitism
  • [ via Kuro5hin ]

    Long article by Larry Sanger [Wikipedia], a cofounder of Wikipedia on the problems with Wikipedia. Includes some interesting comments.

[ posted by sstrader on 1 January 2005 at 11:24:23 PM in Today's reading list ]