arandomgamer02 on 18/3/2014 at 18:45
Just finished Mozart in the Jungle (2005) a few days ago as part of my percussion literature class. Blair Tindall writes about her life as an oboist coming through school, then playing professionally in the New York area. Despite making a perfect storm of wrong choices, including not practicing, doing drugs, and having sex with teachers that are twice her age, she gets substitute jobs and a broadway gig in Manhattan. She makes the argument that networking is the only way to get to the top of the musical ladder, and that's not wrong. It's just that, for most, it's not sexual networking. Without going on and on, certainly worth a read if only for the perspective, but it's less a reflection of the music scene than it is of Blair Tindall. She comes across very much as a drama queen. Since the book came out, she had a short 7-week marriage to Bill Nye (The Science Guy*) and more recently owed him $57,000 in restraining order violations. Drama queen, indeed.
*sorry, had to
worth noting that the book has been picked up as a web series by Amazon Studios. A pilot is already out there, and more is on the way. Only loosely based on the ideas in the book.
Yakoob on 16/4/2014 at 04:07
I wrapped up Hitchhiker's Guide to Galaxy in mere two days, excellently hilarious read. Waiting for the sequel to arrive at my local library for pickup :)
In the meantime, i started re-reading Catch-22 - the first book I really fell in love with many years ago. While its a bit thick in places, the writing is still bitterly clever and hilariously schizoid. I am so glad I do not have flies in my eyes.
faetal on 22/4/2014 at 09:47
Recently finished Blink by Malcolm Gladwell. Excellent insight into the fast workings of the brain. I'd call it an essential read. Take home message: we are all supremely biased, and symbilic associations are extremely powerful effectors of judgement formation.
demagogue on 22/4/2014 at 13:03
I remember reading an article on an experiment where they handed interviewers for jobs either a cup of a hot beverage or a cold beverage before and during interviewing candidates, and controlling for actual qualifications, it was something insane like 80% association (but don't trust my memory) but anyway some uncomfortably large number of cases where a candidate was hired largely because the interviewer had held a hot beverage recently, and not hired largely because they had held a cold beverage lately, other things being equal between the candidates. I recall the time of the interview was another important environmental factor (later ones prejudiced because the interviewers are tired.)
I remember at the time reading statistics like that literally made me feel a little nauseous. It made me wonder how many "important" decisions in the world are really driven by the dumbest biases and environmental quirks.
faetal on 22/4/2014 at 13:31
The most disturbing part of the book dealt with sex & race. There is an experiment where you have to quickly read through a list of words and designate them feminine or masculine. The words might be something like dress, spanner, child, car etc... People can go through lists like this very easily and quickly. Then the choices had two categories, so each word could be sorted into one of two columns: feminine / family or masculine / professional. Again, people could do this very quickly without giving much thought. Lastly, the two columns were feminine / professional and masculine / family. People moved through this exercise at a a much more slow and deliberate pace as the association between woman-family and man-professional was so strong that people essentially had to switch on their attention / conscious thought in order to decide which column each word belonged in.
Then we moved on to black-crime white-professional and vice versa - the results from this were disturbing and predictable all at once. The worst part was that black people experienced the exact same slow down, as these associations operate at a cultural level. Likewise, people who were asked to state their ethnicity prior to filling out a questionnaire about themselves: white people experienced no effect, but black people massively underestimated their own value in the questionnaires compared with those who were not asked their ethnicity.
Above all, it highlighted to me the damage that is done by portrayal of various groups in the media. I always thought stereotype reinforcement was bad etc.. and that cultural change towards enlightened society required it to be eradicated, but I had no idea just how intrinsic these associations are and how they genuinely affect the thought process.
It's a seriously great book, I can't recommend it enough.
Yakoob on 23/4/2014 at 06:33
That sounds fascinating (if not surprising), I might check it out. Particularly the effect a cold coffee could have on your job prospects. mind = blown
Quote Posted by faetal
Then we moved on to black-crime white-professional and vice versa - the results from this were disturbing and predictable all at once. The worst part was that black people experienced the exact same slow down, as these associations operate at a cultural level. Likewise, people who were asked to state their ethnicity prior to filling out a questionnaire about themselves: white people experienced no effect, but black people massively underestimated their own value in the questionnaires compared with those who were not asked their ethnicity.
I've actually heard of this before and believe it's been one of the reasons various assessment test (SAT etc.) stopped (or wanted to stop) asking for the takers ethnicity/demographic - it actually did negatively influence their performance. I remember studying a bit about that for one of my classes on Cultures of Education back in uni
demagogue on 23/4/2014 at 09:28
I just know for damn sure the next time I have an interview, I'll try to engineer some way where I hand them a hot cup to hold for a second, like "could you hold this for a second" (dig something out of my folder) "ok, thanks".
Edit: While I'm posting, and related to something one reads: (
http://quartermaester.info/) Interactive Game of Thrones Map. You can thank me after 2 hours of playing with it.
Yakoob on 24/4/2014 at 03:08
Quote Posted by demagogue
I just know for damn sure the next time I have an interview, I'll try to engineer some way where I hand them a hot cup to hold for a second, like "could you hold this for a second" (dig something out of my folder) "ok, thanks".
You know, I bet some people figured out good NLP tricks or other subliminal messaging to ace their job interviews :p
SubJeff on 24/4/2014 at 06:44
That does sound fascinating faetal.
