It’s fascinating to watch a new idea morph over time to become something greater, worse, or completely other than that for which it was first conceived. Einstein’s mind-blowing equations are probably the most obvious and jarring illustration of that. E-mail is another good one; it was initially developed in the 1960’s and was then improved upon in the early 1970’s as a way for the guys who were figuring out that whole Internet thing to be able to communicate with each other more efficiently than by telephone or letter.

E-mail has become an entity unto itself, and while it has not replaced letter writing, memos and phone calling, it has certainly made a significant dent in their usage. Even people who don’t habitually trawl the Internet for the staggering amount of information it has to offer will at least check their e-mail (I know this to be true because I used to be one of those people).

Not quite as tremendous a morphed-idea as Einstein or e-mail (though I’m certain it is to those film school graduates whose careers were launched as a direct result of it) is the Sundance Film Festival. Sundance was developed as a way for unknowns in the film industry to get their work shown. Now, because Sundance was such a great concept and has proved to be a better judge of art and of quality film than the current box office sales standard, having your work stamped with anything related to the Sundance name can pave your way to Hollywood glory. There’s a festival, there’s an institute, there are awards, etc.

There used to be only a teensy handful of film schools in this country; now they’re all over (even in Oklahoma). Using my supreme calculus skills, I did a little math and figured out that the increased number of film schools equals an increase in the number of starving film school grads being turned loose on the planet to fight for some elbow room in Hollywood. Added to that there’s the user-friendly digital video technology that has brought forth a generation that can shoot and edit their own movies before they graduate from high school.

It was already a competitive industry, but now it’s getting to the point where film school graduates might need to start promising their firstborns in order to get a break. So you can see how coming at Hollywood sideways via an independent film festival like Sundance might be considered a swell idea.

Further Reading:

Budding Filmmakers Crave a Break

FSU Film School Grads Garner Accolades, Awards From Sundance Film Festival, Major Industry Awards

23 Facts About 23 (Official) Years of Sundance

Posted by Alexa Harrington

I loathe grocery shopping and therefore make my trips to the market quick, much like the preferred method of Band-Aid removal. As I was walk-running past the “ethnic foods” aisle the other day, I saw ramen noodles on sale 10 for a dollar instead of their normal 5 for a dollar. College student budget instincts die hard, and I almost tripped my daughter when I did a little half-stop turny thing before thinking better of it (I have eaten entirely too much ramen in my life, I don’t care how on sale it is).

Seeing the cheaper-than-the-crap-they’re-made-of noodles made me nostalgic for my college days and how different my relationship with food and the shopping for it was when I was a no-family-having girl. Grocery shopping was irregular, spotty, mismatched (who buys only mangoes, Honey Smacks, coffee and brie?), and rarely represented all the food groups. It was also way more fun.

I only had to shop for me, first of all. I was in class all day and then I’d be studying or procrastinating all evening. Around midnight or two in the morning, after too much thinking and caffeine consumption, I’d be all zippy and sproingy and it would suddenly be the perfect time to go grocery shopping.

Single-girl shopping excursions in the middle of the night are so much more enjoyable than mommy shopping excursions with cranky toddlers half an hour past nap time. In the wee hours of the morning there are only a few other delirious (either chemically-altered, of reclusive tendencies, or hopped-up on caffeine like me) shoppers wandering the aisles along with the employees re-stocking the shelves.

It was lovely to meander my way through the store, looking at everything and basing my buying decisions solely on (a) what sounded good right then, (b) what fit into my food budget (sort of), and (c) how cringe-y would my mom get if she saw me buying it (my mother’s house was free of sugar, television and any processed or fried foods). After blowing my food money on French cheese and tropical fruit, I’d be down to ramen, tofu and frozen peas for the rest of the month.

I had to aggregate my own ramen recipes, prices and brand comparisons. Nowadays, there are books and blogs devoted to the MSG-laced perfection that is ramen:

Books:

101 Things To Do With Ramen Noodles

The Book of Ramen: Lowcost Gourmet Meals Using Instant Ramen Noodles

The Top Ramen Noodle Cookbook

Everybody Loves Ramen: Recipes, Stories, Games and Fun Facts About the Noodles You Love

Blogs:

The Official Ramen Homepage

The Ramen Blog

Ramen Haiku

Journey Into the World of Ramen

And if you’ve had enough fried noodle bricks to last a lifetime, there’s the twenty-something guide to never having to eat ramen again: No More Ramen.

Posted by Alexa Harrington

The Wall Street Journal had an informative article yesterday about the 529 college-savings plans and how best to take advantage of them when saving for the college educations of your progeny. The 529 plans were a bit murky for a few years—confusion as well as unsettling rumors about ‘bad’ 529 plans that would end up being more of a hindrance than a help. Jane J. Kim has written an excellent article about the whole concept of the 529, how they work, why they make economic sense, which states have the better versions and which have the plans to be avoided, and why implementing an out-of-state plan can still work to your advantage (even after taxes). Read up and start saving.

Tax-advantaged 529 plans have exploded in popularity in recent years, becoming the college-savings vehicle of choice for many parents. In a 529 plan, savers put after-tax dollars into an account that typically offers a wide range of mutual funds. Distributions and earnings are tax-free, as long as they’re used for higher education. Investors can invest in any plan, although they may get an additional state tax break if they invest in their own state’s plans.

Below are the best and worst plans as assessed by investment researcher Morningstar Inc.

Best 529 College-Savings Plans:

Colorado Scholars Choice College Savings Program
Illinois Bright Start College Savings Program
Maryland College Investment Plan
Virginia CollegeAmerica
Virginia Education Savings Trust

Worst 529 College-Savings Plans:

Mississippi Affordable College Savings Program
Mississippi Affordable College Savings Advisor Program
Nebraska AIM College Savings Plan
New York 529 College Savings Program
Ohio Putnam CollegeAdvantage Plan

Posted by Alexa Harrington

On a biological level, WiFi is not as necessary as water, but I think it can be argued that having the capability to access the information available on the Internet is conducive to survival in society today. The advent of indoor plumbing was such an improvement for humanity, wouldn’t you agree? Electricity in homes was another bonus. Two developments that improved our lives immensely, were momentous when first implemented, were at first only available to the wealthy, and are now so standard in American society that to lack electricity or running water is a sign of poverty, a natural disaster, or camping.

The concept of Public Internet is following a similar path. It’s quickly becoming necessary (to the point of being taken for granted) that of course everyone in America has access to the Internet and all the knowledge and information contained therein. Online information can be found, maintained, and more inexpensively and instantly updated than its hardcopy counterparts. Much like public utilities, once the infrastructure is in place, WiFi should be available to everyone, regardless of the real estate values in their neighborhood.

I’ve never understood, nor have I agreed with, the idea that knowledge should be accessible only to the dudes with the most cash. The printing press and public library systems are two of my favorite human ideas–they rank right up there with matches, tape, Ziploc bags, wet-wipes and cell phones. I think we’re all familiar with how pissed the powerful religious types and the wealthier citizens were when the printing press fell into the hands of the uneducated masses. Suffice it to say, those in control preferred an uninformed public and the printing press meant newly clued-in hordes of poor people. Historically speaking, that has rarely gone well for those in charge.

I’m not saying The Powers That Be are preventing the spread of public WiFi as a way to control the masses. I’m sure it’s got much more to do with profit than with keeping the little people down. In case there was any confusion, neither of those reasons is valid. Education and information should be available to everyone. If humans have figured something out, we should all get to learn about it. ‘Those With Access to the Most Knowledge Win’ is a dumb game. Doesn’t it seem in our best interest (as humans, I mean) to collectively know more? I’m not a hippie or a communist or a socialist or an ist of any kind. I avoid grouping and clubs and labels. I’m just cranky me with an overly black-and-white view of the rules, and it just seems that keeping information out of someone’s hands for profit or control clearly falls under the ‘Wrong’ category.

If you have Internet access you can read more about those fighting the good fight:

NPR’s On the Media: The Last Shall Be First
The Battle For a Public Internet
Internet Archive Brings Free High-Speed Internet to Public Housing
Muni Wi-Fi Powers Hope at San Francisco Housing Project
Where’s My Free Wi-Fi?
Internet Archive
Low-Income Residents Get High-Speed Access

Posted by Alexa Harrington

The more I ponder it, the more blatant good sense this post makes: a certain amount of organization and routine is essential for forward motion in life, but jumping the tracks and implementing some random actions now and then can have positive results as well. New experiences, people, thoughts, and ideas can move your life to a different sphere. New spheres have the potential to be positive, negative or (sometimes this happens) to have only a vaguely different sort of sameness about them. Regardless of the size of the sphere or the level of wonderfulness it brings, you will have at least opened yourself up to something new and that’s always beneficial to the instincts and the grey matter.

New images, unfamiliar terrain, and alternate perspectives are inspiring, frightening, and force your brain to work (neuroplasticity is not a word I made up). Plus, it reduces boredom and shifts you, at least temporarily, out of the comfort and safety of your ruts.

Way back, before the time of supermarkets, going out for groceries had a palpable kill-or-be-killed aspect. I think we’re still jonesing for that brain-chemical surge we get when faced with new and exciting things. The annual rearrangement of the aisles my grocery store screws me over with is nowhere near as unexpected or exciting as being an animal skin-wearing early manperson out hunting and gathering, rounding a corner and suddenly coming face-to-face with a large toothy animal.

There are varying degrees of panic-induced adrenaline surges: at the low end is having to choose the perfect kitchen paint color out of the magillion paint chips they have at Home Depot; mid-level panic is somewhere along the lines of giving an important presentation if public speaking isn’t your thing; high-level is probably something akin to being held at gunpoint in a bank robbery.

These days most of us don’t get a regular dose of the high-level stuff. That’s probably one of the top ten perks of being towards the top of the food chain and having opposable thumbs. If not for those we wouldn’t have come up with grocery stores and solid housing, and without grocery stores and housing we’d still be in the eat-or-be-eaten part of our evolutionary trajectory.

Putting yourself out there and exposing yourself to randomness for the sake of enrichment doesn’t need to involve jumping out of perfectly good airplanes or other acts of tempting fate for the sake of the adrenaline rush. That’s not quite what I’m saying. The comfort of routine and the control we have when our lives are ordered and on-time is safe and within what becomes a non-thinking bubble. Stepping out of that safe, well-known place for even an hour has to be good for us on some level, regardless of the ultimate result.

I’m not putting forward the idea that in order to achieve happiness, success and a fully-enriched life we all must strive for a daily near-death experience. I’m merely suggesting that striving for some rut-free time every so often will be conducive to the leading of a bigger life.

Rutless Reading:

Brain Plasticity: How Learning Changes Your Brain

Train Your Brain: The New Mania for Neuroplasticity

Scans of Monks’ Brains Show Meditation Alters Structure, Function

Brain Research: Implications for Second Language Learning

Posted by Alexa Harrington

There was an article in the NY Times a few weeks ago which I have tried (and have now officially failed) to ignore. Brain-enhancing drugs is the new hot ethical question in academia. The use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes bothers me, but I didn’t react in quite the same way to hearing about the Tour de France and Major League Baseball and the Olympics as I did to reading about supposedly intelligent people enhancing their noggin function with chemicals.

The more I looked into it, the less intelligent I felt—this has been going on for quite a while in academic settings. Where the hell have I been? I do not enjoy the confusion of simultaneous opposing emotions: feeling cheated/lied to by the folks I thought were in possession of elevated intelligence, along with acute pissed-offedness at not even knowing this crap was available until it was too late for me. Seriously, I could have gotten so much more shit accomplished while I was in school. Probably an additional degree for one thing. Although, the side effects are extreme crankiness, intense focus, and generally just wanting people to go away so you can work, and I was already like that without any drugs in my system. So it’s probably for the best that I didn’t partake.

I can’t really come up with any solid argument against the use of brain-enhancing chemicals other than it just doesn’t seem right. People smoke cigarettes and drink caffeine so they can keep studying, and isn’t that basically the same thing? Possibly cheaper and more socially acceptable, but more or less the same idea. It sucks that humans are so obsessed with perfection that we will go to extreme measures to be the biggest and best athletes, the skinniest and most beautiful models, the smartest and greatest-thinking academics. Being great at a human level isn’t good enough anymore. We all have to find artificial ways to make ourselves super human.

I can understand why; I totally empathize with the level of intense focus you can achieve when everything in your life tunnel-visions down to one goal and all the rest just falls to the wayside. But I’m also a pretty black-and-white girl: I tend to categorize my world as right or wrong and there isn’t a lot of grey. I know I sound like I’m eight years old, but it just doesn’t seem fair. And, seriously, how pathetic if we have one more human endeavor category with an extra section for the asterisks: Fastest Athlete* (performance-enhancing drugs); Hottest Movie Star* (plastic surgery); Skinniest Model* (diet pills and eating disorder); Most Brilliant Scholar* (brain-enhancing drugs).

And, to further my confusion, let me ask this: is all medical assistance and/or enhancement bad? I adore penicillin and vaccinations and vitamins and all the life-saving and –advancing techniques that medical research has come up with. And I can almost guarantee that there was at least one old guy back in the day who saw doctors and their pills as the epitome of modern evil and would have none of it. That guy probably only considered old men who lived past the age of forty to be in the non-pussy category if they had lived that long without medical intervention or enhancement of any kind. Which would mean that by his lights, if I live to a ripe old age, I should have an asterisk on my headstone: Super-Old Lady* (went to the doctor, big fan of Western medicine).

Maybe all the enhancement stuff is just the way things are heading and we should assume everyone is doing it, that we’re all advancing a level of superness thanks to modern science, and we should just get used to it. It can’t be all bad to have a bunch of enhanced brainiacs running amok in the academic world, thinking a real lot and coming up with lots of new, exciting, and profoundly creative and advanced ideas. If they use their powers for good it should all work out great. (This is me being optimistic).

Knowledge Enhancement:

‘Era of Doping’ on the Horizon in Academia?
Is Your Professor Juicing?
Would You Boost Your Brain Power?
Pumping Up Your Brain With Legal Drugs
A Possible Target For Memory-Enhancing Drugs
The Doping Dilemma
Performance Enhancing Drugs in the Boardroom?
A Timeline of Performance-Enhancing Drugs in Sports
Fallout From BALCO Probe Could Taint Olympics, Pro Sports
CBC Sports: 10 Drug Scandals
Are They All Dirty?

Posted by Alexa Harrington

image source