Ned Hayes's Blog, page 101
May 14, 2014
“On most nights under the winter moon when we have made our...
“On most nights under the winter moon when we have made our camp, around us echo faint sounds of that other hidden world—the one of meadow and forest in the night. The melody of whip-poor-will, the cry of hunting owl, the scurrying rush of vole and chasing fox. It is as if some great razor scraped the life from this sheet of white-edged vellum, leaving only blank.”
— from the novel Sinful Folk
May 13, 2014
"Hillocks and haystacks rise up, isles in a smoking brume. After...
"Hillocks and haystacks rise up, isles in a smoking brume. After the snow of the night before, the day is washed clean: all is silver and bright with ice, and a light wind moves us forward. Here and there snow has blown aside, revealing the line of the great white stone road that slices through the hills. It is an unswerving line marked by the Romans, carved straight out of this untrammeled landscape.”
— from the novel SINFUL FOLK
writeifyoudare:
Books aren’t going anywhere.Example! The vast...
Books aren’t going anywhere.
Example! The vast majority of people who buy new music today buy it online, but in the last ten years there has been a resurgence of record stores. Audiophiles, many of whom were too young to have grown up with records, have created a consumer subculture that privileges the pressings, the sound quality, the hunt, the live recordings, and the tactile ownership of art and entertainment over instant gratification. Who loses out? The big box music stores. The music industry, where its practices are wasteful or cynical.
Publishers should absolutely shift their focus to e-books. It’s forward looking. Many people want instant, private, portable and inexpensive books. There’s nothing wrong with that. How and why and what we consume are all important factors in answering questions about the success of e-books. And there is probably a sizable chunk of readers who will never buy a paper books again if they don’t have to.
But serious book lovers will always buy books. They want the same experience audiophiles crave. The search. The history. The ownership. A book’s physicality. The smell of the paper, the process of turning the page, the cover design. The thickness of the spine. The autographed copy.
We don’t need to engage in panicked either/or discussions about the destruction of literature and reading because of digital books. As long as you’re willing to buy them, there will always be paper books. In the meantime, e-books can help the bookselling industries cut down on wasteful book insurance practices and the publishing industry focus on new authors and ideas, so that books that are published to paper are intrinsically valuable rather than a cash grab.
May 12, 2014
"Q: Girls are discouraged? That sounds so 1970s.
A: There was a 2001 study that showed in fourth..."
Q: Girls are discouraged? That sounds so 1970s.
A: There was a 2001 study that showed in fourth grade, 68% of boys and 66% of girls like science. Starting in sixth, seventh and eighth grade, we lose girls and boys, but we lose more girls and for different reasons: lingering stereotypes, societal pressures. It’s well known that many girls have a tendency to dumb down when they’re in middle school. Just last week, I was talking to senior executives, and a woman told me that she was the best biology student in high school and had the highest exam scores. At the end of the semester, a teacher told her: “I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to give the award in biology to a boy, because it’s more important to him.” Almost every time that I give a speech or meet with a group of women, I’ll hear such stories.
Q: Boys earn 70% of the D’s and F’s in school and account for 80% of dropouts. Shouldn’t we fear more for their future?
A: It’s a big problem. Women earn the majority of undergraduate degrees in the U.S. and last year earned more Ph.D.s than men. But keeping girls in the science and math pipeline is a separate problem with different causes. It’s important we address both. You don’t stop research on breast cancer just because heart disease is also deadly. You work on both.
Q: Suppose you were an executive of a corporation that needs engineers. You meet a girl in high school. She scored in the 99th percentile in math on her SATs, yet says she wants to major in psychology or go to law school, because those careers sound more interesting. What do you tell her?
A: I’d introduce her to the coolest female engineer in the company. Girls tend to have a stereotype of engineers being 65-year-old guys who wear lab coats and pocket protectors and look like Einstein. Try to make it personal to them and show them some of the cool things that they can do in engineering.
Q: Let’s talk Lawrence Summers. The Harvard president recently resigned after giving a controversial speech a year ago suggesting that men might simply be predisposed to be better at math and science. Is there at least a grain of truth in what he said?
A: (Laughs). Suppose you came across a woman lying on the street with an elephant sitting on her chest. You notice she is short of breath. Shortness of breath can be a symptom of heart problems. In her case, the much more likely cause is the elephant on her chest.
For a long time, society put obstacles in the way of women who wanted to enter the sciences. That is the elephant. Until the playing field has been leveled and lingering stereotypes are gone, you can’t even ask the question.
Q: I will anyway. There are many obvious biological differences between men and women. This can’t be one?
A: There are obvious differences, but until you eliminate the more obvious cause, it’s difficult to get at the question scientifically. Look at law, medicine and business. In 1970 — that’s not ancient history — law school was 5% female, med school was 8% and business school was 4%. You could have taken a look at those numbers and concluded that women don’t make good lawyers or doctors. The statistics might have supported you. But today, all of those fields are about 50-50.
”-
Sally Ride (the first American woman in space) giving awesome answers to insipid questions in this interview. (via itsawomansworld2)
http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/educate/college/careers/Advice/3-20-06.htm
(via kellysue)
"Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. I remember the...
"Cold tears as salty as ocean spray wet my face. I remember the day before she died, my mother took me out in our little fishing boat, out on the open water of the sea—the thrum and hiss of surf upon the shore behind us, the rhythm never ceasing. And she taught me something: strange and secret words in a foreign tongue, a lilting singsong cadence to it."
PHOTO: Spoondrift by a l e x . k on Flickr.
"You know, before I was paid to be a writer, people thought I was crazy to just go on these little..."
- John Waters (via amandaonwriting)
May 11, 2014
"April comes to us with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries...
"April comes to us with her showers sweet. I wake to the cries of little birds before the light comes across the heath. I turn back the rich brocaded cloth of gold on my bed and walk to my glazed casement window. I imagine my mother calling to me in the plaintive voice of the wood fowl, her words echoing across the years. I wrap myself in a Moorish robe of intricate design and gaze beyond my solitary window. Raindrops speckle the costly glass."
