In 1996, physicist Alan Sokal suspected that cultural studies lacked academic rigor. So he wrote an intentionally nonsensical paper, Transgressing the Boundaries: Towards a Transformative Hermeneutics of Quantum Gravity, and submitted it for publication in the respected academic journal Social Text. It was accepted. Sokal exposed the hoax, the embarrassed academics made their excuses, and the paper was retracted. The imbroglio was posed largely as a story of flimflam and imposture in postmodernism.
Reads
Reading list of books, magazines, newspaper articles, other physical documents, or online posts
👓 Watch How Steel Ribbons Are Shaped into Cookie Cutters | Colossal
CookieCutter.com makes and sells exactly what you think they do. The Missouri-based company uses a combination of hydraulic and hand-operated machines to shape steel ribbons into classic shapes like gingerbread men, along with more complicated designs like deer and even the Statue of Liberty.
👓 What really happened when two mathematicians tried to publish a paper on gender differences? The tale of the emails | Retraction Watch
Retraction Watch readers may be familiar with the story of a paper about gender differences by two mathematicians. Last month, in Weekend Reads, we highlighted an account of that story, which appea…
This article and the related links cover a lot of the questions I had when I read the original in Quillette the other day and only wish I’d had the time to follow up on as a result. Now to go on and read all the associated links and emails….
👓 Linux 4.19-rc4 released, an apology, and a maintainership note | Linus Torvalds
This is my reality. I am not an emotionally empathetic kind of person and that probably doesn't come as a big surprise to anybody. Least of all me. The fact that I then misread people and don't realize (for years) how badly I've judged a situation and contributed to an unprofessional environment is not good.
👓 Is it possible to draw Serena Williams without being racist? | The Spectator
I have spent the morning trying to draw a cartoon of a black person without it being racist. It’s bloody difficult. Especially the lips. Make them too big and anti-racist people will accuse you of being a white supremacist peddling, in their words, the old ‘sambo’ myth. But too small and they don’t look like the lips of very many black people. It’s the same with the colour. At first, on my cartoon, I used a black felt-tip pen and so the figure came out very black indeed. ‘Sambo’ territory again, especially when I added big red lips and very white teeth. In the end I used cross-hatching with a pencil but this was, to my mind, unsatisfactory.
👓 What are our ethical obligations to future AI simulations? | Philip Ball | Aeon Essays
Say you could make a thousand digital replicas of yourself – should you? What happens when you want to get rid of them?
👓 What English Would Sound Like If It Was Pronounced Phonetically | Open Culture
The English language presents itself to students and non-native speakers as an almost cruelly capricious entity, its irregularities of spelling and conjugation impossible to explain without an advanced degree.
👓 How David Lynch Got Creative Inspiration? By Drinking a Milkshake at Bob’s Big Boy, Every Single Day, for Seven Straight Years | Open Culture
"It is no secret that David Lynch, the writer-director-composer-painter, has an unusual relationship with Bob's Big Boy," begins a 1999 Los Angeles Times article on the auteur of films like Eraserhead and Blue Velvet. "For seven years in the 1980s he ate lunch there every day, ordering cup after cup of over-sweetened coffee and a single chocolate milkshake while scribbling notes on Bob's little square napkins." He took pains, notes reporter Amy Wallace, "to arrive at Bob's at precisely 2:30 p.m. each day. The reason: It increased the odds that he would encounter perfection."
👓 The Hobo Code: An Introduction to the Hieroglyphic Language of Early 1900s Train-Hoppers | Open Culture
Many of us now use the word hobo to refer to any homeless individual, but back in the America of the late 19th and early 20th century, to be a hobo meant something more.
👓 Don’t Call 911 If You See a Coyote, Unless It’s Carrying ACME-Branded Products: The Office of Sheriff, Monroe County, New York | Open Culture
Someone in the Office of Sheriff, in Monroe County, New York, has a good sense of humor. And if you're from the Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies generation, you will get a good laugh. In other news, Warner Bros. just announced that it's developing an animated Wile E.
I see so many urban coyotes this is even funnier to me.
👓 MIT Students Solve the Spaghetti Breaking Mystery That Stumped Richard Feynman | Open Culture
Even thirty years after his death, Richard Feynman remains one of the most beloved minds in physics in part because of how much attention he paid to things other than physics: drawing and painting, cracking safes, playing the bongos, breaking spaghetti.
👓 Dolly Parton’s “Jolene” Slowed Down to 33RPM Sounds Great and Takes on New, Unexpected Meanings | Open Culture
The Walrus is… Dolly Parton? Not every record yields gold when played backwards or spun more slowly than recommended, but a 45 of Parton’s 1973 hit “Jolene” played at 33RPM not only sounds wonderful, it also manages to reframe the narrative.
👓 Jocelyn Bell Burnell Discovered Radio Pulsars in 1974, But the Credit Went to Her Advisor; In 2018, She Gets Her Due, Winning a $3 Million Physics Prize | Open Culture
Say you made a Nobel-worthy scientific discovery and the prize went to your thesis supervisor instead. How would you take it?
👓 New court ruling could force Uber, Lyft to convert drivers to employees | Ars Technica
California Supreme Court: It'll be tougher for firms to not have bona fide employees.
👓 Limo firm to Uber: You misclassify your drivers as contractors, which is unfair | Ars Technica
Diva Limousine sues Uber, claims its reliance on contractors is illegal.
I wonder what percentage of their valuation is built upon screwing their employees out of benefits by calling them independent contractors?