It would be a long time before such innovations as seat belts, baby seats, and airbags were introduced. These safety measures do a fine job of minimizing human damage in motor vehicle accidents, but they can’t prevent the collisions themselves.
To remedy this, Ford, the company responsible for the Model T and hundreds of motor vehicles since, recently enlisted Jaffee and his fellow cartoonists, MK Brown and Bill Plympton, to educate the public on the dangers of distracted driving. Turns out this preventable scourge rivals intoxication and hazardous road conditions as a leading cause of accidents.
Jaffee’s take, animated by J.J. Sedelmaier, above, will never be mistaken for filmmaker Werner Herzog’s harrowing anti-texting documentary PSA, From One Second to the Next, or even Jaffee’s own anti-drunk driving fold-in from MAD’s March 1975 issue.
Instead, he offers a gentle, child-friendly metaphor in which an uncaged bird becomes a havoc-wreaking distraction. (Fortunately, everyone’s wearing his seatbelt, and the little boy is riding in back, in compliance with CDC recommendations.)
National Lampoon alum, Brown, tiptoes closer to the true causes of distraction, with the alien-themed segment, above, also animated by Sedelmaier. If it seems likelier that the alien’s earthling wife might do her henpecking via text rather than actual call these days—well, sometimes dramatic liberties are warranted to get the message across.
Unsurprisingly, Plympton’s self-animated contribution is the most graphic, a direct descendent of his fabulously grotesque cartoon primers 25 Ways To Quit Smoking and How To Kiss. Moral? Assuming you want to keep your teeth in your head, the vegetable matter wedged in between can wait ’til you reach your destination.
Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky. Her plan for avoiding accidents is to refrain from driving whenever possible. Follow her @AyunHalliday
When MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) first started making headlines in 2012, we read stories about thousands of people enrolling in courses on Artificial Intelligence and Computer Science. Since then, the MOOC providers have doubled down on promoting technical and utilitarian courses–courses that will get students jobs, and eventually make the MOOC providers money. Peruse this list of the 50 most popular MOOCs of all time, and you’ll seen plenty of market-oriented courses topping the list–e.g., #4) Introduction to Finance #3) R Programming, and #2) Machine Learning. But what’s the most popular course? Something not entirely career-focused. Something not immediately monetizable. Something that can benefit us all. Ladies and gentlemen, the #1 course, Learning How to Learn: Powerful mental tools to help you master tough subjects.
Created by Barbara Oakley (University of Oakland) and Terry Sejnowski (the Salk Institute), Learning How to Learn uses neuroscience to fine-tune our ability to learn. And the course is being offered again, starting today, through Coursera. You can enroll here (the course is free) and read what ground the course will cover below.
This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects. Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for: turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets. If you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide.
This course gives you easy access to the invaluable learning techniques used by experts in art, music, literature, math, science, sports, and many other disciplines. We’ll learn about the how the brain uses two very different learning modes and how it encapsulates (“chunks”) information. We’ll also cover illusions of learning, memory techniques, dealing with procrastination, and best practices shown by research to be most effective in helping you master tough subjects. Using these approaches, no matter what your skill levels in topics you would like to master, you can change your thinking and change your life. If you’re already an expert, this peep under the mental hood will give you ideas for: turbocharging successful learning, including counter-intuitive test-taking tips and insights that will help you make the best use of your time on homework and problem sets. If you’re struggling, you’ll see a structured treasure trove of practical techniques that walk you through what you need to do to get on track. If you’ve ever wanted to become better at anything, this course will help serve as your guide.
To find reviews of Learning How to Learn,visit Class Central. To keep tabs on new MOOCs, see our list of MOOCs from Great Universities.
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There’s something dark and apocalyptic about the Rolling Stones’ 1969 song, “Gimme Shelter”–from the lyrics (“Oh, a storm is threat’ning. My very life today. If I don’t get some shelter. Oh yeah, I’m gonna fade away”), to the grim circumstances surrounding the recording of the track, released on the album Let It Bleed. A sense of dread runs throughout the Stones’ original song. Less so the version above, created by the multimedia project Playing for Change, which strives to create world peace through music. Recorded back in 2011, this cover brings together artists from around the world: India, Italy, Jamaica, Brazil, Mali, Sierra Leone, Senegal, and the US. And it’s just one of 21 songs that appears on the DVD/CD combo, Songs Around the World. Other videos by Playing for Change can be found in the Relateds below.
Most everyone who knows the work of George Orwell knows his 1946 essay “Politics and the English Language” (published here), in which he rails against careless, confusing, and unclear prose. “Our civilization is decadent,” he argues, “and our language… must inevitably share in the general collapse.” The examples Orwell quotes are all guilty in various ways of “staleness of imagery” and “lack of precision.”
Ultimately, Orwell claims, bad writing results from corrupt thinking, and often attempts to make palatable corrupt acts: “Political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible.” His examples of colonialism, forced deportations, and bombing campaigns find ready analogues in our own time. Pay attention to how the next article, interview, or book you read uses language “favorable to political conformity” to soften terrible things.
Orwell’s analysis identifies several culprits that obscure meaning and lead to whole paragraphs of bombastic, empty prose:
Dying metaphors: essentially clichés, which “have lost all evocative power and are merely used because they save people the trouble of inventing phrases for themselves.”
Operators or verbal false limbs: these are the wordy, awkward constructions in place of a single, simple word. Some examples he gives include “exhibit a tendency to,” “serve the purpose of,” “play a leading part in,” “have the effect of.” (One particular peeve of mine when I taught English composition was the phrase “due to the fact that” for the far simpler “because.”)
Pretentious diction: Orwell identifies a number of words he says “are used to dress up a simple statement and give an air of scientific impartiality to biased judgments.” He also includes in this category “jargon peculiar to Marxist writing” (“petty bourgeois,” “lackey,” “flunkey,” “hyena”).
Meaningless words: Abstractions, such as “romantic,” “plastic,” “values,” “human,” “sentimental,” etc. used “in the sense that they not only do not point to any discoverable object, but are hardly ever expected to do so by the reader.” Orwell also damns such political buzzwords as “democracy,” “socialism,” “freedom,” “patriotic,” “justice,” and “fascism,” since they each have “several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another.”
Most readers of Orwell’s essay inevitably point out that Orwell himself has committed some of the faults he finds in others, but will also, with some introspection, find those same faults in their own writing. Anyone who writes in an institutional context—be it academia, journalism, or the corporate world—acquires all sorts of bad habits that must be broken with deliberate intent. “The process” of learning bad writing habits “is reversible” Orwell promises, “if one is willing to take the necessary trouble.” How should we proceed? These are the rules Orwell suggests:
(i) Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
(ii) Never use a long word where a short one will do.
(iii) If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
(iv) Never use the passive where you can use the active.
(v) Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
(vi) Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.
What constitutes “outright barbarous” wording he does not say, exactly. As the internet cliché has it: Your Mileage May Vary. You may find creative ways to break these rules without thereby being obscure or justifying mass murder.
But Orwell does preface his guidelines with some very sound advice: “Probably it is better to put off using words as long as possible and get one’s meaning as clear as one can through pictures and sensations. Afterward one can choose—not simply accept—the phrases that will best cover the meaning.” Not only does this practice get us closer to using clear, specific, concrete language, but it results in writing that grounds our readers in the sensory world we all share to some degree, rather than the airy word of abstract thought and belief that we don’t.
These “elementary” rules do not cover “the literary use of language,” writes Orwell, “but merely language as an instrument for expressing and not for concealing or preventing thought.” In the seventy years since his essay, the quality of English prose has likely not improved, but our ready access to writing guides of all kinds has. Those who care about clarity of thought and responsible use of rhetoric would do well to consult them often, and to read, or re-read, Orwell’s essay.
“To choose what I should read tonight, I looked through seventy odd poems of mine, and found that many are odd indeed and that some may be poems,” said Dylan Thomas in a 1949 BBC broadcast. “I decided not to choose those that strike me, still, as pretty peculiar, but to stick to a few of the ones that do move a little way towards the state and destination I imagine I intended to be theirs when, in small rooms in Wales, arrogantly and devotedly I began them.”
This introduction to an evening’s reading on the radio survives in Spotify’s playlist “Readings from Dylan Thomas,” which collects eight hours of not just the poet reading his own work, but others’ as well. (If you don’t have Spotify’s free software, you can download it here.) Though the hard-drinking, usually impecunious Thomas died young in 1953, he managed to attain an impressive degree of fame during his lifetime, especially by the standards of poets. His frequent reading tours and radio gigs ultimately made him something of a “people’s poet” for Great Britain.
“My grandfather made 145 separate engagements with the BBC,” says Thomas’ granddaughter Hannah Ellis in the British Council video on Thomas and the BBC f0und here. “These included writing scripts, reading poetry and short stories, as well as acting. He also became a regular on many panel discussions, making him a well-known radio personality.” His ties with the radio world and resultant high public profile have kept his voice unusually well-preserved by comparison to those of his contemporaries: we can now hear him much more easily than even his fans could at the height of his fame in the late 1940s.
“I’ve bored my wife to death for years by saying (among other things that have also bored her to death) that when you listen to poetry you should always be given an idea of the ‘shape’ of the poem,” Thomas said in another BBC appearance. The 102 tracks of this Spotify playlist include a few of those non-poetic speeches, but only after a recitation of what we might call Thomas’ big hit, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.” But as with the catalog of any recording artist, it pays to spend more time among the deep cuts — even the poems Thomas himself might have thought “odd indeed” — and these eight hours deliver plenty of them, each with a shape of its own.
Of course you can! All it takes is a device with a built-in spelling app, an innovation of which no eighth grader in the far western reaches of bluegrass area Kentucky could have conceived back in 1912.
They were, however, expected to be able to name the waters though which an English vessel would pass en route to Manila via the Suez Canal.
Can you?
While we’re at it, how much do you really know about the human liver? Enough to locate it, identify its secretions, and discourse on its size relative to other bodily glands?
If you answered yes, congratulations. There’s a good chance you’d be promoted to high school back in 1912. Not bad for a kid attending a one-room school in rural Bullit County.
And now for some extra credit, name the last battles of the Civil War, the War of 1812, and the French and Indian War. Commanding officers, too…
That’s the sort of multipart question that awaited the eighth graders converging on the Bullit County courthouse for 1912’s common exam, above. The very same courthouse in which the modern day Bullitt County History Museum is located. A civic-minded individual donated a copy of the test to this institution, and the staff put it online, thinking it might be fun for latter-day specimens like you and me to see how we measure up.
So—just for fun—try typing the phrase “commanding officer last battle french & indian war” into your search engine of choice. Forget instant gratification. Embrace the anxiety!
Thank god the Internet was there to define “kalsomining” for me. Even with the aid of a calculator, math is not my strong suit. That said, I’m usually good enough with words to get the narrative gist of any story problem.
Usually.
I confess, I was so demoralized by my ignorance, I couldn’t have dreamed of attempting to figure out how much it would cost to “kalsomine” a 20 x 16 x 9 foot room, especially with a door and window involved.
Fortunately, the Bullit County Genealogical Society has seen fit to provide an online answer sheet, a digital luxury that would have gobsmacked their forebears.
SPOILER: $8.01. That’s the amount it would’ve cost to kalsomine your room at 1912 prices. (A steal, considering that a quart of White Wash Pickling Water Based Stain will run you $12.37 a quart at a nationally known hardware superstore today.)
Go ahead, take that test.
If you quail at the prospect of faring poorly against a rural 1912 eighth grader, just imagine how well he or she would do, teleported to 2016, and forced to contend with such mysteries as cyber bullying, gender politics, and offensive eggplant emojis…
Ayun Halliday is an author, illustrator, and Chief Primatologist of the East Village Inky zine. She lives in fear that her youngest child will pen a memoir titled I Was a Homeschooled 8th Grader and Other Chillling True Life Tales. Follow her @AyunHalliday
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One hears much, these days, about the missions of new tech companies to “disrupt” existing industries, from retail to publishing to taxi cabs to education. We’ve regarded that as primarily the domain of Silicon Valley twentysomethings, but why can’t a German filmmaker with a nearly 55-year career under his belt get in on the action? Werner Herzog, having already done much to disrupt film as we know it, has in recent years turned his attention toward disrupting film schools, which compose an industry not especially compatible with his own vision of the honest and rigorous craft of cinema.
We’ve featured Herzog’s in-person Rogue Film School workshops before, but now, according to Entertainment Weekly’s Derek Lawrence, “online education platform MasterClass announced that Herzog is teaching an online class on feature and documentary filmmaking, where the various lessons will include storytelling, cinematography, interview techniques, and how to work with actors.” The article quotes the maker of features like Fitzcarraldo and Aguirre, the Wrath of God and documentaries like Little Dieter Needs to Fly and Grizzly Man offering something like a mission statement: “Ultimately, my own goal is to be a good soldier of cinema and if I can inspire one or two of you out there, to become a good soldier, then I have done everything I should do here.”
“You spend way too much time in the film school, it costs way too much money,” says the self-taught filmmaker in the course’s trailer above. “You can learn the essentials of filmmaking on your own within two weeks.” Or, in the format that MasterClass has developed as they go along just like Herzog did when he first began making movies (and, given his enduring inventiveness, continues to do today), you can ostensibly learn it in five hours of online video. You may not capture any of Herzog’s beloved “ecstatic truth” immediately afterward, but you’ll surely get your fee’s worth of thrilling stories of the filmmaking life along the way. Sign up for Herzog’s class here.
You can take this class by signing up for a MasterClass’ All Access Pass. The AllAccessPass will give you instant access to this course and 85 others for a 12-month period.
Bill Gates — Microsoft CEO turned philanthropist and lifelong learner—has just recommended five books to put on your summer reading list. If you’re looking for a light beach read, you’ve come to the wrong place. But if you have a Gates-like mind, you might find that these books will make you “think in new ways” and perhaps keep you up past your bedtime. On his website, the video above comes accompanied by reasons for reading each work. Below we’re quoting directly from Mr. Gates:
Seveneves, by Neal Stephenson. I hadn’t read any science fiction for a decade when a friend recommended this novel. I’m glad she did. The plot gets going in the first sentence, when the moon blows up. People figure out that in two years a cataclysmic meteor shower will wipe out all life on Earth, so the world unites on a plan to keep humanity going by launching as many spacecraft as possible into orbit. You might lose patience with all the information you’ll get about space flight—Stephenson, who lives in Seattle, has clearly done his research—but I loved the technical details.Seveneves inspired me to rekindle my sci-fi habit.
How Not to be Wrong, by Jordan Ellenberg. Ellenberg, a mathematician and writer, explains how math plays into our daily lives without our even knowing it. Each chapter starts with a subject that seems fairly straightforward—electoral politics, say, or the Massachusetts lottery—and then uses it as a jumping-off point to talk about the math involved. In some places the math gets quite complicated, but he always wraps things up by making sure you’re still with him. The book’s larger point is that, as Ellenberg writes, “to do mathematics is to be, at once, touched by fire and bound by reason”—and that there are ways in which we’re all doing math, all the time.
The Vital Question, by Nick Lane. Nick is one of those original thinkers who makes you say: More people should know about this guy’s work. He is trying to right a scientific wrong by getting people to fully appreciate the role that energy plays in all living things. He argues that we can only understand how life began, and how living things got so complex, by understanding how energy works. It’s not just theoretical; mitochondria (the power plants in our cells) could play a role in fighting cancer and malnutrition. Even if the details of Nick’s work turn out to be wrong, I suspect his focus on energy will be seen as an important contribution to our understanding of where we come from.
The Power to Compete, by Ryoichi Mikitani and Hiroshi Mikitani. I have a soft spot for Japan that dates back three decades or so, when I first traveled there for Microsoft. Today, of course, Japan is intensely interesting to anyone who follows global economics. Why were its companies—the juggernauts of the 1980s—eclipsed by competitors in South Korea and China? And can they come back? Those questions are at the heart of this series of dialogues between Ryoichi, an economist who died in 2013, and his son Hiroshi, founder of the Internet company Rakuten. Although I don’t agree with everything in Hiroshi’s program, I think he has a number of good ideas. The Power to Compete is a smart look at the future of a fascinating country.
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, by Noah Yuval Harari. Both Melinda and I read this one, and it has sparked lots of great conversations at our dinner table. Harari takes on a daunting challenge: to tell the entire history of the human race in just 400 pages. He also writes about our species today and how artificial intelligence, genetic engineering, and other technologies will change us in the future. Although I found things to disagree with—especially Harari’s claim that humans were better off before we started farming—I would recommend Sapiens to anyone who’s interested in the history and future of our species.
You can get more ideas from Bill Gates at Gates Notes.
If you’re looking to do some more DIY education this summer, don’t miss the following rich collections:
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