Predominantly millennials with a passion for public transport, urban planning and internet humour, Numtots’ interests intersect in New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens.
Tag: society
The University of Reading is providing fourteen scholarships for refugees. From a tweet by the uni twitter account:
We’ve had feedback over the last week that some people are unhappy with our plan to offer up to 14 scholarships to refugees living in the local area. To these people, we would like to say: Tough. Jog on.
I’m proud of my alma mater ??
Kowloon Walled City
An interactive presentation about Kowloon Walled City from The Wall Street Journal.
Godin on popularity
In general, the search for popular is wildly overrated, because it corrupts our work, eats away at our art and makes it likely we’ll compromise to please the anonymous masses.
Rejection hurts
Researchers at the University of Michigan have found that rejection hurts, and not just in a metaphorical sense. The study found that “social rejection shares somatosensory representations with physical pain” (via nyt). Maybe artists, musicians and poets have been on to something all of these years.
Radical pessimist’s guide to the next 10 years
Douglas Coupland wrote a piece for the Globe and Mail last year titled A radical pessimist’s guide to the next 10 years. In true Coupland fashion, the list is funny and engaging, but hits the mark when you realize that he’s probably right about a lot of it.
Making oatmeal wrong
McDonald’s has somehow managed to screw-up oatmeal.
Others will argue that the McDonald’s version is more “convenient.†This is nonsense; in the time it takes to go into a McDonald’s, stand in line, order, wait, pay and leave, you could make oatmeal for four while taking your vitamins, brushing your teeth and half-unloading the dishwasher. […] Incredibly, the McDonald’s product contains more sugar than a Snickers bar and only 10 fewer calories than a McDonald’s cheeseburger or Egg McMuffin.
Take a fast and healthy staple, pump it full of sugar and chemicals, serve. Sounds like the rest of the breakfast cereal industry, or just pre-processed food in general.
They embrace solitude
Jennifer B. Kahnweiler writes about why introverts can make the best leaders. The five key characteristics of introverted leaders that help them succeed:
- They think first, talk later
- They focus on depth
- They exude calm
- They let their fingers do the talking
- They embrace solitude
The Disposable Academic
The Disposable Academic is a somewhat cynical look at the world of high-level academia. I’ll take the article with a grain of salt, considering the secondary headline reads, “Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time”.
One thing many PhD students have in common is dissatisfaction. Some describe their work as “slave labourâ€. Seven-day weeks, ten-hour days, low pay and uncertain prospects are widespread. You know you are a graduate student, goes one quip, when your office is better decorated than your home and you have a favourite flavour of instant noodle.
Yeah, it can be a bit crap, but it’s on par with a lot of other professions. Talk to the struggling artists, apprentices and interns that toil away in indentured servitude for the betterment of their craft. Some make it big, some never will, most end up in the middle of life’s bell curve and do just fine.
The ruins of Detroit
Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre photographed the the abandoned and decrepit structures of Detroit.
Having photographed old buildings – “mainly disused theatres” – in Paris, they happened upon an image of Michigan Central train station in Detroit while surfing the internet for pictures of abandoned buildings. “It was so stately and so dramatic that we decided right then we had to go,” says Meffre, “but we were naive; we had no idea of the scale of the project, of the vastness of downtown Detroit and its ruins. There is nothing comparable in Europe.”
Be sure to visit the gallery as well.