On Reading, Flocking and Voting

Dewey linked me to Neil which linked me to Science Daily and this article about how humans flock like sheep and birds.

And, by the way, today is the last day to donate at Dewey, so for the deep, abiding, passionate, head-over-heels, seventh-grade-drawing-hearts-on-notebooks, head-over-heels love of books, please go and do it. It's the fifth year running, and so far this year's drive has gotten 15,000 books to libraries that need them. How cool is that shit?

I was at my library yesterday, and seriously, they really are kind of magic. You go in and take whatever you want. It's free. And you basically just bring them back when you're done. Really, where else in life does it work like that? So please: go give. I did.

Anyway, back to sheep. It's interesting that there's a genetic predisposition, and not just a character weakness, to drive us to just sort of follow along. That's usually considered a flaw - but if it's innate...?

The article says all you need are five percent to direct the movement of a whole crowd. And I think the ways you could extrapolate this are pretty interesting.

Like, I wonder if there's something that triggers this more strongly during teenage years. A survival thing, maybe. It would make sense. Before your brain finishes up on the prefrontal cortex, do you automatically get a push to follow the herd more, so you won't go off and do as many stupid things by yourself? Are teenagers programmed to stick together to help themselves survive adolescence?

And if you go even further along bringing the idea from physical movement to strictly thought, what does this mean for the impact of social media on the presidential election? It's safe to say that our "five percent" is not the same media authors that it used to be. (Mine's completely different from the last election, anyway.) But this new five percent is a lot more scattered - less the one voice of reason and more a handful of chatterers.

The post-hoc analysis this election is will show how much effect social-media authors end up having. Until then, though, I don't think anybody knows quite what's going on. Who matters? How much? It's nerve-racking, but at the same time, I like that it's so game-changing. The pandering is not so automatic anymore - the candidates don't always seem to know where to turn. Sort of democratizes things, if you will.

But does social medial go against our genetic sheep mentality? On the one hand, there are more opportunities to band together with people who think similarly. But on the other hand, there's not as much of the Walter Cronkite mentality, where we all look to a trusted person for their opinion.

Do we want people to tell us what to do, and is it so uncomfortable to have to go out and find the details, that we'd rather not bother? I wondered when I read this memo released today by the Obama camp. How many people are actually going to read it - versus the ones who'd rather just hear a sound bite and watch an ad? I guess there's no way to really tell for another eight months.

Weekly Roundup: Multiple Personality Edition

Idle Curiosity asks...

• How much does it hurt after you get kneed in the quad by someone almost a foot bigger than you? Sub-question: is it weird to find it comforting that your leg hurt his knee, too?
  
• How elderly are you when someone who was in kindergarten when you were in college now has a college boyfriend of her own?
• For serious, do there need to be American Girl history dolls devoted to the far-off era of the 1970s?
  

Voice of Experience answers...

• Even more than you'd have thought. Also, no it isn't.
  
• Very. But that's okay.
• No. But perhaps this is additional proof of the elderly-ness.
  

Music Snob notes that...

• There may be a great big junior-high-style crush on Lupe Fiasco going on right now.
  
• The JXL remix of Elvis Presley's "A Little Less Conversation" remains pretty fantastic.
• Fort Minor is fun (but as a Linkin Park side project it's not shocking).
  

Serious Note points out...

• That if you donate $3 to DarfurFast, you can protect a Darfuri civilian for a year. It's a guard for a mother to collect cooking firewood without being raped or killed by militia. On December 5, give up one of your little luxuries and send the money here.

Amateur Psychologist decides...

• Sarah will now get back to decking her halls, and will try not to be too topsy-turvy and happy-sad because it's been a long weekend full of quite a lot of stuff.

Play With Words, Feed People

FreeRice.com. It's a game. It has no time limit. It's geeky. And it benefits charity. It may be the best website ever created.

I got to 45. Can you beat me?

Choose Tomatoes, Choose Life

Yay for the Donors Choose Blogger Challenge!
Oh wait. If you haven't heard of Tomato Nation or Donors Choose...

• Tomato Nation
• Donors Choose

...I'll wait.

Okay, back?

So yeah. I've been reading Sarah Bunting for ever... maybe 8 or 9 years I guess? (She likes the Yankees, she's funny - and she used to hang out at the Nauseous. How can I not love her?) She's done fundraising projects before, so this year she gathered a bunch of fantastic school projects on Donors Choose.

But then it started to snowball... project after project got funded... Claire Danes found out about a random "My So-Called Life" mention and is matching funds. It's just totally random and funny and very, very cool. Sixty thousand dollars in four days. And that's just this one set of projects. There's a whole list of people doing this. It's awesome stuff in the realest sense of the word - awe-inspiring. Who says blogs don't make a difference?

The current Tomato Nation challenges are funded, but there's more coming, and lots of other bloggers are running challenges. Go poke around Donors Choose for a few minutes. It's amazing to see the creativity and passion that cool teachers all over the country have for their kids - and the little bit they need to make their ideas happen for them.

Weekly Roundup: Links Edition

Erin: do either of these work?

This makes me laugh every time. It's the kind of couple I love to be around. The kind I want to be.



One in four American adults didn't read a single book last year? Really? I completely agree with Jessica (of the Fug Girls): that is incredibly depressing.

Even if you can't get Converse as cool as mine (because I got mine in Prague 1) you can make your own, like Kristin did, which is also pretty cool.

If you geek out on maps, try Wayfaring.

Calypso Cards makes funny cards. Albertine Press makes beautiful cards.

I love me some Oscar Wilde. But I did not love his fairy tale.

If you have an old cell phone, drop it off or mail it for free (that's what I'm doing, since I'm incapable of remembering to drop them off)to Call to Protect to help a domestic violence agency.

Get yourself a shopping spree day at Macy's with up to 20% off on October 13 by making a $5 donation to Planned Parenthood of Greater Northern New Jersey. Funds provide colposcopy equipment to help women prevent cervical cancer. I am a very big believer in this organization. (I used to volunteer at the Flemington center.) I am also a big believer in shopping, lately. So: good stuff, good cause. Go get your coupon at a center:

• 575 Main Street, Hackensack
• 40 North Van Brunt Street, Englewood
• 349 Route 31 South in the Countryside Plaza Complex, Flemington
• 196 Speedwell Avenue, Morristown
• 30 North Morris Street, Dover
• 203 South Main Street, Manville
• 8 Moran Street, Newton
• 123 Park Avenue, Plainfield
• 1150 Dickinson Street, Elizabeth
• 402 Coventry Place, Phillipsburg

Darfur

If you don't know what the problem is in Darfur, just Google it. Click on Images.

You'll want to help.

Last week, two senators introduced a resolution calling for the UN Security Council to authorize the immediate deployment of peacekeepers to Darfur. But only 13 senators have signed it.

Click here to fill out an easy form to email your senators, urging them to sign the resolution and help convince the Security Council to finally, finally get people in there helping save lives.

And if you have it, click here to make a donation.

And for God's sake, if you have Fidelity investments, click here to find out how your money is being eventually used to fund genocide.

Weekly Roundup: The Weekend of Showers Ends

After a bridal shower, a baby shower, and about seven hours driving to and from them this weekend, I come to realize yet again how not girly I really am. (And how little I enjoy bingo.)

So, a whole bunch of links that are by turns geeky, posh and artsy, but not particularly girly. Happy June.

• How Class Works as decided by an interactive chart. If you're superficial enough to care what the Times says what social class you ought to fall into. (Yeah, I was too.)
• The Rockhouse Hotel, Negril. I would really, really, really like to be here. And it's actually phenomenally well-priced, so maybe I will be someday soon.
• The Sushi FAQ. If you, like me, can never remember much past "miso".
  
• MapsKrieg. One of the more fantastic Google mashups: Craigslist housing listings viewed on Google Maps.
• The Members Project. One of the more fantastic corporate citizenship projects.
• BlueQ. A Bluetooth-enabled wristband that vibrates. Not exactly the most necessary thing ever, but kinda neat.
  
• Indian wife catches her husband cheating. Probably fake, but still awfully funny.
• Tamyra Grey is Mimi in Rent. And I don't really. However, Adam Pascal and Anthony Rapp are back until September. That, I do care about. Anybody want to go for old time's sake?
• The Voco Clock. What a splendid way to wake up. I want the girl version.
• BetterWall. Museum street banners. Much better than tired reprints.
  
• Donate food for shelter animals just by clicking.
• BornRich. "Your ultimate guide to the most expensive things in the world."
  
• AlterNet. Pinko commie liberal news. Love it.
• Photoshop in action. I love this clip that shows what retouching really can do.
  
• Makeup in action. Also interesting.
• Top 10 things I've learned about computers from the movies and "24". Geeky funny, but still kinda funny.
  

Hey, It's Lent: An Illustrated Lecture on Doing Good

Exhibit A: These are my cousins. Clearly, they're adorable. You'd help them, right?



Exhibit B: This is the very best Easter chocolate in the whole world. You'd eat it, right?

So if you click here to buy some, their grade school gets a donation! Good deeds, cute kids, and chocolate. Isn't technology wonderful?

(I recommend the peanut-butter Smidgens.)

Appreciating Family and Creating Beauty

Two things that are really hard to do around now.

It's the holidays, and we all complain (at least once, at least a little) about how our friends, and our family, and we ourselves, can be so terribly imperfect and unendingly disappointing. Also around now, even the least artistic of us has been more craft-y than usual - wrapping and writing and baking and decorating and fussing.

James Kim died earlier this month trying to save himself, his wife, and two small daughters after getting stranded in a snowstorm. It's a tremendously sad story. But thanks to Patti I've discovered that a collection of artists is helping with an online benefit auction. It's a combination of both the family and the artistic impulses - except done to the highest power, not in our own little daily imperfect ways. It's stunning.

And so are the pieces themselves. I'm partial to these and this and especially (as little as I normally like gold) this. And this. And this. And ... well, they're lovely, is what I'm saying.

I don't know, honestly: maybe it'll be crazy expensive and you can't afford any of it. But that'll be a good thing, won't it, because all the money is going to the Kim family fund. But, maybe you could win something beautiful next week for an awful good cause.

You could even save it for a present next year for one of those people who get on your nerves (but who you actually love pretty tremendously).

Kerrin's Weekly Roundup: Crimbo Edition

Hope you do something good for someone.
Hope someone does something good for you.
Hope you have a moment of joy.
Merry Christmas, everybody.

Darfur

Not to get all "Do they know it's Christmas" on you... but go to SaveDarfur.org. Sign a petition, donate five bucks, read up - whatever.

Over 400,000 people have died in the last three years. Almost 3 million are homeless. And it's not stopping. It doesn't have to be holiday time to do something good for somebody. But it does make you think a bit.