Top Secret Drum Corps is a precision drum corps based in Basel, Switzerland. With 25 drummers and colorguard members, the corps became famous for its demanding six-minute routine performed at the Edinburgh Tattoo in 2003. With its invitation to Edinburgh, Top Secret became one of the first non-military, non-British Commonwealth acts to perform on the Esplanade at Edinburgh Castle. Watch a dazzling performance
What’s the right thing to do? [Video, links]
Michael Sandel runs a course on Justice at Harvard. He’s now opening the course to the world, as a Massive Open Online Course. You can register for free, if you’d like to explore your moral limits & how you think about justice. You could, alternatively, watch the series of youtube videos, beginning with “The moral side of murder“, & follow the links for more, if you’re interested. Certain to test your sense of justice, & get you thinking.
If you had to choose between (1) killing one person to save the lives of five others and (2) doing nothing, even though you knew that five people would die right before your eyes if you did nothing—what would you do?
An Eulogy [Video]
John Cleese offers an eulogy at the funeral service of his co-author of Monty Python, Graham Chapman. If you’d like to know more about the irreverent Chapman, click here
Rosetta Tharpe, Didn’t it rain [Video]
The Godmother of Rock n Roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s live performance from 1964 in Manchester “Didn’t it rain“
“I’m singing, oh I’m singing in my soul, when the troubles roll, I sing from morn’ till night, it makes my burdens light…”
Sugar & substance abuse [Article]
Scientifically speaking, a drug is any substance that alters normal bodily function when absorbed into the body of a living organism. Students have been overdosing on sugar, says the Guardian, & appeals to them to just say no. Sugar has been shown to have the same impact on the human body as heroin.
We don’t think of sugar as a drug: it’s found in most of the foods and drinks we encounter every day. And at university, where stress levels can be high and fast food is cheap, it’s all too easy to reach out for the comfort blanket it provides.
Many students’ diets consist of pizzas, take-aways and chocolate bars. Whether you spend your time raving or revising, there’s always something better to do than think about eating healthily. And with university halls often providing only the most basic cooking facilities, a well-balanced diet simply doesn’t feature in most students’ lifestyles.
Paper vs technology [Video]
Paper is still good for something 🙂 Cool ad.
Qualities of a CEO [Article]
Scott Adams believes that you ought to have a special kind of mental illness, one suited to capitalism, to set you apart from the scores of other folks who aspire to become CEO’s.
If you want the top job, you’re competing against risk-taking, narcissistic sociopaths who are just as smart and hardworking as you are. Some of them will self-destruct, but like the zombie apocalypse there will always be another coming at you. In the long run, the crazies always run the show.
A bonus
Automation, Employment, & Skills [Article]
Judge Richard Posner articulates his views on automation & its impact on employment while Prof Gary Becker reckons that the future is dismal for workers with few skills. If you are concerned about your future or worried about the future that your kids face, have a read:
Because of automation, outsourcing, and more efficient management practices, the demand for lawyers is down, forcing many lawyers either to drop to lower rungs in the profession’s ladder or to leave the profession entirely for work in types of job which their human capital specialized to the practice of law has less, or maybe no, value to employers.
The Dung Beetle, Introducing, Ze Frank [Video]
The next David Attenborough narrates the story of the dung beetle! Introducing Ze Frank.
Job interviews & Data Analytics [Video, Article]
Evolv is a HR analytics consulting company that is helping Xerox determine what attributes & propensities are associated with success in a given position.
Employees who live within 10 minutes of the office may be 20 percent likelier to stay at the company at least six months than ones who live 45 minutes away or further. Employees who have a college degree may be less inclined to stick with a call-center job than those who do not. According to The Wall Street Journal, Evolv, the company assisting Xerox in its recruitment efforts, determined that the ideal candidate to staff the company’s call centers “uses one or more social networks, but not more than four.”
This video says it best.