Cabinet of Curiosities

Are you a musician? Have you ever seen a music stand used for something besides holding music? Did you find it annoying? Or amusing? Or some mixture of both? Me too! I decided to start keeping track of these. Please submit your own examples. http://nonmusicstands.tumblr.com/

leadingtone:

Stokowski’s working copy of the Vaughan Williams Fantasia. One of the most famous and controversial conductors of his time, Leopold Stokowski was born today at London in 1882 and remained active as a conductor until just months before his death at age 95 in 1977. 

(via fyeahmusicaclassica)

Together, these trends suggest a platform built on and supported by expediency. That’s not a long-term strategy, and it can’t compete with a highly capable, highly focused Apple or even a highly invested Microsoft.

On the other hand, owning half the smartphone market is nothing to sneeze at, and that heft gives Android a lot of momentum. 

While the number of faculty-networking sites is growing, and their registered-user figures soar into the millions, their impact on higher education is less clear. Some scholars who are already feeling overwhelmed by the demands of LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, blogs, and e-mail either shy away from the new sites or dabble in them and then let their accounts sit dormant.

Rumor has it that the TV and video streaming service might be planning to switch from its free model to a plan that requires viewers to prove they pay for cable or satellite TV, according to the New York Post.

Studies of daily movement patterns, though, show that your typical modern exerciser, even someone who runs, subsequently sits for hours afterward, often moving less over all than on days when he or she does not work out.

The health consequences are swift, pervasive and punishing.

A review of Psychology’s Ghosts by Jerome Kagan:

Mr. Kagan acknowledges that his critiques are not new, that others have made the same arguments—about the failure to consider cultural influences, about the exasperating DSM, about the flaws in happiness research and the negative side of positive psychology, about the medicalizing of normal problems in living. Yet he makes his case persuasively and readably, with extensive empirical support.

Web 2.0 Is Over, All Hail the Age of Mobile  (via courtenaybird)

(via courtenaybird)

As menial as a Facebook like may be in the overall scheme of life, it’s an announcement to your Facebook friends that you support something, whether it’s a cause, a candidate, a company, or another person. A like also promotes a particular page or newsfeed to your friends, which sounds like quintessential expressive activity.

A review of Rome: An Empire’s Story by Greg Woolf

No one has yet come up with a satisfactory explanation of why Rome expanded as it did. This question isn’t as widely addressed in popular works as the cause of Rome’s fall, but in both instances, it is easier to explain how it happened than to explain why.