Joseph L. Persia's Blog, page 10

April 23, 2014

April 22, 2014

A new best selling book that's the talk of academia and the media, Capital in the Twenty-First Century...

A new best selling book that's the talk of academia and the media, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, may just be worth the read

It is the subject of conversation here below between journalist Bill Moyer and Economist Paul Krugman and explains how the United States is becoming the very system our founders revolted against and try's to shed some light on what happen to the middle class most of us grew up in.

While the wealthiest 1% of Americans are outpacing many globally, a New York Times analysis shows that across the middle-class-income, citizens of other advanced countries have received considerably larger raises over the last three decades
The answer is explain in the video below.



What the 1% Don't Want You to Know


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 22, 2014 15:48

On April 22, 2014, The World Celebrates Earth Day~
Happy Earth Day Everybody

On April 22, 2014, The World Celebrates Earth Day~
Happy Earth Day Everybody


Earthday - 1.jpg


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 22, 2014 12:03

April 21, 2014

"Thomas Piketty's book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," ... is sold out, which is now in its ...

"Thomas Piketty's book, "Capital in the Twenty-First Century," ... is sold out, which is now in its fourth printing. Publisher Harvard University Press says it's already sold 41,000 copies of "Capital," and is rushing to get another 25,000 print versions to book stores and Amazon as soon as possible. The book is the publisher's first best seller, and is poised to sell more copies in one year than any book in its 101-year history."

The author explains his research in an interview on cnn, click below.


Piketty's 700-page economics tome "Capital in the 21st Century" tops Amazon's list of best selling books as paper version sells out.


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 21, 2014 15:17

April 16, 2014

*It is a shame you have to die so the shirts on our back can supply the windfall profits on a bargain...

*It is a shame you have to die so the shirts on our back can supply the windfall profits on a bargain basement tie dye.

It may be well worth the short time it takes to watch the interactive documentary below. It contains an eye opening combination of video and writing, showing the human toll caused by the insatiable greed from the fast buck made off the shirt on our back.

 


How did the clothes you're wearing get to you? Guardian journalists trace the lifecycle of the shirt on your back via the teeming workshops of Dhaka, where labour is cheap, factories are cheaper and just going to work can be fatal Did the Rana Plaza collapse change your buying habits? Guardian App users click here


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 16, 2014 09:45

April 11, 2014

Counter Point of View

The internet isn't harming our love of 'deep reading', it's cultivating it

This...

Counter Point of View
 
The internet isn't harming our love of 'deep reading', it's cultivating it
 
This article by Steven Poole of  “the guardian” attempts to debate the counter point to the idea that skimming and scanning online may be having a debilitating operant conditioning affect on the ability to “deep read” that has been historically acquired by traditional educational training. To be fair, I posted the other point of view yesterday.
 
Poole writes, “… the assumption in such doomy pronouncements that we might all be slaves to skimming and thus be allowing our brains to atrophy sounds fantastically condescending."
 
Here, I might agree with him, but he returns a punch with an emotional argument and says nothing about the fact that we learn to read, and for that matter, write, through repetition, operant conditioning in school.
 
There is bad science out there. In addition, there seems to be a misinterpretation by some of what scientific field that this belong under, but it does not belong under the anatomy and physiology and pathology of the nervous system. No one in their right mind is saying our brains are being changed by the internet, ridiculous.  
 
However, the conditioning in which an operant response is brought under observation and control by studying by virtue of presenting reinforcement contingent upon the occurrence of an operant response is the field of psychological sciences. It is only here that gives the question any scientific merit and possibility of scientific study.
 
I think it’s worth a scientific study to see if by skimming and scanning information online most of the day can affect that person’s reading comprehension, “the deep read” or even what they chose to read and to even take it further, can it affect the way we write.
 
As both reader and writer, wouldn’t you want to know who is right?
 
Link to counter point here: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/apr/11/internet-deep-reading?CMP=fb_gu


An-illustration-of-a-lapt.jpg


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 11, 2014 10:33

April 10, 2014

Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say

This article caught ...

Serious reading takes a hit from online scanning and skimming, researchers say
 
This article caught my eye in the Washington Post a few days ago. It goes to a strong impression that the way some of us scan mountain piles of digital information might be reconditioning our brain to how we read. In other words, looking for keywords and missing what is being written.
 
We know the vast majority of writers tend to be readers and if the reconditioning to a “digital brain” that looks for keywords, but is missing what is being written is happening to a readers brain can we logically assume it must be happening to the writers brain as well, missing without realizing: what could be written. 
 
Do you assume that this existing trend is applicable to the way you or some people write?
 
Link to article for more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/serious-reading-takes-a-hit-from-online-scanning-and-skimming-researchers-say/2014/04/06/088028d2-b5d2-11e3-b899-20667de76985_story.html


slowreading101.jpg


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 10, 2014 11:10

April 9, 2014

April 3, 2014

The story of ‘Francis’ is a short story written by novelist & screenwriter Dave Eggars. Richard Hickey...

The story of ‘Francis’ is a short story written by novelist & screenwriter Dave Eggars. Richard Hickey worked with producer Kevin Batten and turned the words into this short. The film has been shown at Cannes Film Festival and Raindance. 


The chillest way to watch all your favorite Vimeo videos from the comfort of your couch, Lay-Z-Boy® or any other plush sitting apparatus.


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 03, 2014 20:45

Court Sentences Authors To Go Down With Ship.

“In March, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District...

Court Sentences Authors To Go Down With Ship.
 
“In March, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting in Manhattan, handed a victory to HarperCollins in its lawsuit against Open Road Integrated Media over the e-book publishing rights of Jean Craighead George’s award-winning children’s novel, Julie of the Wolves (1972).”
 
In 1971, author Jean Craighead George signed a contract. The contract was far from boilerplate just like her book titled, Julie of the Wolves that was published for a measly $2,000 advance by HarperCollins (then Harper & Row)
 
A clause in the contract clearly intended for the book to be published in book form only. As the article linked below reveals, in (Paragraph 20) of the contract, it clearly states: “the Publisher shall grant no license without the prior written consent of the Author with respect to the following rights in the work: use thereof in storage and retrieval and information systems, and/or whether through computer, computer-stored, mechanical or other electronic means now known or hereafter invented … and net proceeds thereof shall be divided 50% to the Author and 50% to the Publisher …”
 
The contract had clauses stipulating that any e-version rights then and in the future would remain with the author, but a contract isn't a contract these days when comes down to it.
 
However, up until now, I was assuming there would be a traditional publishing from which an author can choose, but with maneuvers like these from traditional publishers and decisions like this one from the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, sitting in Manhattan, I believe their end must be very close at hand. This must be their dying gasp. I mean, to be so, “toasted” as to hold hostage in court your authors, really, traditional publishers.   
 
What do you think; one of many sadly desperate acts of traditional publishers  arising from their lack of knowledge about their own line of work and for today's authors, is it not a fool who  stays in a burning publishing house?
 
Link to the article at The Misfortune of Knowing for more:  http://misfortuneofknowing.wordpress.com/tag/open-road-integrated-media/


harpercollins vs.jpg


 •  0 comments  •  flag
Share on Twitter
Published on April 03, 2014 13:12