-
Americans Have Never Loved Poetry More—But They Call It Rap – The Daily Beast
“To utterly naïve anthropologists sent to document the ways of Americans in 2014, one of the first things that would strike them is that this country is quite poetry mad. No, they would not find well-thumbed volumes of Robert Frost, Marianne Moore, and Billy Collins laying around the typical living room. However, they could not help but notice that a great many people under about 50 regularly go around listening to and yes, reciting poetry—rap, that is.
Rap is indeed “real” poetry. It rhymes, often even internally. Its authors work hard on the lyrics. The subject matter is certainly artistically heightened, occasioning long-standing debates over whether the depictions of violence and misogyny in some of it are sincere. And then, that “gangsta” style is just one, and less dominant than it once was. Rap, considered as a literature rather than its top-selling hits, addresses a wide-range of topics, even including science fiction. Rap is now decades old, having evolved over time and being increasingly curated by experts. In what sense is this not a “real” anything?”
-
“Stochastic Tinkering” | Center for Strategic and International Studies
“”[Black Swan Author Nassim] Taleb, an anti-Platonist, believes that universities are better at public relations and claiming credit than generating knowledge. Knowledge and technology are generated by what he calls “stochastic tinkering”, rarely by top-down directed research.” Stochastic in the sense of randomness and serendipity, factors that can be undervalued when it comes to innovation. This is the story of “they set out to invent A and along the way they found B. “”
h/t Gardner Campbell
-
BBC News – A Point of View: The enduring appeal of Sherlock Holmes
“Holmes notices things other people don’t, and then – using a mental agility that involves creative imagination rather than the mechanical application of any method of reasoning – comes up with hypotheses he tests one by one.
It’s not cold logic but a clairvoyant eye for detail that enables him to solve his cases. “I can never bring you to realise the importance of sleeves,” he tells Watson, “the suggestiveness of thumb nails, or the great issues that may hang from a bootlace.””
h/t Ryan Cales
-
lifeasdaddy: “I hold out no hope of mercy for you on earth!”
“His honor the Chief Justice Darley said ‘I hold out no hope of mercy for you on earth!!!'”
-
open source tool for community transcriptions