Boston Museum Study Finds 1 in 13 Visitors Have "Ape-Like Feet"

Planet of the Apes
(image: ifc.com)

Until Charles Darwin advanced his theory of evolution, it was nearly inconceivable to assert that human ancestry included apes. Since that time, humanity has wondered whether any resemblance between itself and simians was merely coincidental.

A recent study conducted at the Boston Museum of Science has explored this proposition. According to a BBC report, researchers "studied the feet of 398 visitors" to the museum. They discovered that one in thirteen participants had "ape-like feet."

I'm looking at my own feet now. They don't seem ape-like, but how do I really know? I don't have any tree climbing aptitude. I like to eat bananas, but I could easily manage without them. I'm not particularly large and my face does not resemble any known simian mug.

I suppose Ernie Kovacs' Nairobi Trio had the right idea after all.

MOOCs Score Statewide University Contracts

The MOOC juggernaut achieved a major coup today, as ten large university systems jumped onboard higher education's online class bandwagon. According to a story in siliconvalley.com, major state systems, including New York, have joined MOOC's parade.

The article notes that today's announcement "shows the extent to which, for cash-strapped university leaders and policymakers, the MOOCs and the platforms they are built on offer an irresistible promise of doing more with less -- to scale up education and help students move more efficiently toward a degree."

Coursera, which offers the MOOC package cited in today's siliconvalley.com story, makes $3,000 per course, plus $25 per student enrolled in a MOOC course. It doesn't sound like much, until one multiplies $25 by, say, 25,000 students. That sum is $625,000 for one class. The state systems annually enroll tens of thousands of students, and they typically take more than one course.

I leave the higher math to you.

1953 Ferrari Auctioned for $13 Million

1953 Ferrari 340/375 MM Pinin Farina
Berlinetta "Competizione"

When I was a boy, I had a Matchbox Ferrari. These well-made, metal toy miniature cars appealed to me. I could play with them for hours, inventing new adventures in the world of sleek, elite high-performance automobiles. Calling a Ferrari by any term other than "Ferrari," however, seems almost disrespectful to the brand's pedigree, accomplishments, and aura.

Some current auto collectors have strong feelings about Ferraris, and they're putting their money where their desires are. According to a story in today's Chicago Tribune, a rare 1953 Ferrari 340/375 MM Pinin Farina Berlinetta "Competizione" was auctioned for $13 million. The lucky bidder won a machine that appeared at the 24 Hours of LeMans race. Now that's pedigree.

Ethiopia Redirects Blue Nile for Dam Construction

The Blue Nile's Origin
Lake Tana, Ethiopia
(photo: Ondrej Zvacek via commons.wikipedia.org)

The Blue Nile, which supplies the famed river with more than three-quarters of its overall water supply, will soon undergo an historic diversion. According to a BBC report, the Ethiopian government will modify the river channel to accommodate the construction requirements of a massive hydroelectric project called the Great Ethiopian Renaissance Dam.

This rather breathtaking diversion has given Sudan and Egypt the jitters. Both nations are highly dependent upon the Nile for its share of blue gold. The BBC report noted that Nile water rights are governed by a colonial-era agreement that has somehow remained solid through the subsequent decades.

As the planet's useful water supply diminishes, water rights will become a profoundly hot button political and social issue. A case in point from the here and now is the Jordan River valley, which nourishes the eponymous nation, the Palestinian territories, and Israel. If one extrapolates from that conundrum to other water "choke points," it's easy to conclude there will be an increasing number of crises over water control.

An Afternoon in New York's Washington Square Park

My wife and I visited Washington Square Park yesterday. We had not walked through or lingered in the Village's best breathing space in years. The Sunday of Memorial Day weekend turned out to  be a lovely, cool spring day. The park attracted its fair share of tourists, neighborhood residents, and others who find comfort in this historic patch. I've included some photos I took with my iPhone, so that readers can get a feel for the park's atmosphere. It was more fun that we expected.

MOOC Inroads Stir Cal University Faculty Protest Letter

Image: insidehighered.com

The insular world of higher education was overdue for an institutional earthquake. When faculty of elite universities, such as Harvard and Stanford, began their commercial foray into online education initiatives such as MOOC, the ground under smug tenured faculty throughout Academia shook. The packaging of courses available to a worldwide audience, provided by intellectual stars across the academic firmament, led to the potential destabilization of higher ed's lesser lights' stature and value. Given Academia's cynical, relentless tuition and fee increases over the years, any doubt about the financial value of a tenured professor's "required" course and autocratic program requirements would be problematic to those whose "workload" includes paid summer-long vacations, paid sabbaticals, business development activities beneficial to the university and to the prof (a/k/a grants), and other activities that do not directly involve (heaven help us) instructing a generation of students.

For university administrators, tech's high priests, and the shadow world of "privatized" higher ed, the weakness of a professor's value proposition screamed for a profit-oriented "solution." MOOCs were, in some ways, made to order to resolve this conundrum. While positioned as game changers by well-intentioned university-based educators, the notions of profit and control were rarely discussed. Rather, MOOCs were characterized as the 21st Century version of "power to the people." Did anyone say "lifetime learning?"

Reporter Katy Murphy(photo: twitter.com)

Well, Academia' professorial B-list finally woke up to MOOC's implications for their jobs, their institutions, and (ahem) students. Recently, San Jose State University's philosophy department sent an open letter protesting their school's embrace of MOOC. The downloadable letter, included in Oakland Tribune reporter Katy Murphy's story on the topic,  provides cogent points regarding the MOOC encroachment into what had been the philosophy department's once-sacred grove. The story was picked up by the Mercury News, based in San Jose and in the heart of Silicon Valley.

While I don't agree with all positions the letter asserts, the document does present issues that should be considered, argued, and openly considered.

Understanding the impact and implications of MOOC leads to a broader inquiry into some of high tech's darker corners. Data mining, privacy usurpation, education as a handmaiden to business imperatives, depersonalized intellectual development -- all of these issues are at the heart of a data-driven nightmare that triumphalist technophiles are trumpeting as desirable directions for our society.

While it's difficult to sympathize with the San Jose State philosophy staff, they have raised the battle flag. What's needed is an articulate, persuasive position that questions tech's breezy assumptions regarding human behavior and the industry's dismissive preference for total power. It is individuals who should be in control of their destiny, not an algorithm written by someone who values data architecture and statistically-based mumbo jumbo over the human heart's poetic mysteries and our infinite realizations of beauty.

Richard III's "Untidy" Grave

King Richard the Third, After and Before
(Images: telegraph.co.uk)

British monarch Richard the Third, whose life and death Shakespeare memorably dramatized, became a news item this year. His grave was recently found underneath a Leicester car park, hardly an august burial site for a king. Adding to the indignity was evidence that the ruler was buried in a "'hastily dug, untidy grave,'" according to University of Leicester researchers.

The story, written without any quotes from the Bard's The Life and Death of Richard the Third, appeared in online editions of the BBC.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) Expands DC-Area Presence, Big Government Alliance

Image: techcrunch.com

The commonwealth of Virginia recently announced that Amazon Web Services would add 500 employees to AWS' DC-area offices. The Cavalier State's Republican governor let the world know about this development via a news release. The story appeared on a slow news cycle in today's Washington Post.

The announcement and fawningly written WaPo article (which mischaracterized the tech company as a "retail giant") treated Amazon's decision as if it were the Second Coming. The piece pointedly noted how the average of the jobs' salaries would reach low six-figures. Meanwhile, the state provided Amazon with a $500,000 grant "to assist Amazon's recruitment and training." Why these supposedly high-tech, highly qualified applicants would need government assistance to become fully prepared for their new employment remained unstated.

The principal reason AWS is moving into northern Virginia's Dulles Internet-heavy corridor involves federal contracts. Free-enterprise Amazon has discovered the lucrative attractions of Big Government's data needs. Earlier this year, I blogged about Amazon's data storage contract with the Central Intelligence Agency. The pro-Amazon Obama Administration, enamored with Big Data's clout and reach, has intentionally or otherwise provided very useful services to Jeff Bezos' empire. Given that scenario, it is unsurprising that today's WaPo story observed that Amazon's Virginia "expansion follows an announcement this month by Amazon Web Services that the federal government had put the company on a fast track to sell it cloud computing services."

Characteristically, Amazon remained tightlipped about its plans. "An Amazon spokesman," the WaPo article noted, "declined to add more specifics, such as when the jobs would be added." Maybe the CIA has finally found its soulmate. The spooks could even offer it a codename: Sleepless in Seattle.

Chicago "Fugitive" House For Sale

House used in The Fugitive
(Photo: blog.wttw.com)

The 1993 movie The Fugitive included a sequence in which Dr. Richard Kimble's wife was murdered. The wonderful residence used in the film is now for sale, according to a story in today's Chicago Tribune. If you have $3.7 million to spare, and enjoy living in Chicago's Old Town neighborhood, the five-bedroom house can be yours.

Ironically, the house was once owned by a doctor. It's unlikely the medicine man bore any resemblance to Harrison Ford.