Best Jobs For Work-Life Balance

Via Business Insider:

Glassdoor recently sifted through its data to find which professions offer the most flexible schedules, the option to work from home, and allow employees to set their own schedules. In other words: the jobs that provide the best work-life balance. 

Data scientist, SEO specialist, and tour guide top the list.

"By maintaining a healthy work-life balance, we see employees who tend to be satisfied in their jobs," Dobrowski explains. Employees in these jobs are motivated and hard working, yet still avoid burning out, which is good for both the employee and employer.

Click the link to see more: Best Jobs For Work-Life Balance - Business Insider

Do you have one of these jobs? Does offer good work-llife balance?

New York scientists unveil 'invisibility cloak' to rival Harry Potter's

Via Yahoo News:

…this is the first cloaking device that provides three-dimensional, continuously multidirectional cloaking.

Click the link to see more: New York scientists unveil 'invisibility cloak' to rival Harry Potter's - Yahoo News

More progress in bringing Star Trek to life.

Why Academics' Writing Stinks

Via Arts and Letters Daily and The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Why should a profession that trades in words and dedicates itself to the transmission of knowledge so often turn out prose that is turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to understand?

Click the link to see more: Why Academics' Writing Stinks - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Points:

• Is this the reason? “Scholars in the softer fields spout obscure verbiage to hide the fact that they have nothing to say.”
• Is this a reason? “Difficult writing is unavoidable because of the abstractness and complexity of our subject matter.”
• Is this a reason? “…the gatekeepers of journals and university presses insist on ponderous language as proof of one’s seriousness.”

What the writer thinks is the reason: “Their goal is not so much communication as self-presentation—an overriding defensiveness against any impression that they may be slacker than their peers in hewing to the norms of the guild.”

Click through to the article for some enlightening instruction on how to keep your prose clean and classic.

Religion and war

Via Arts and Letters Daily and The Spectator:

On the whole, though, for a millennium in which religion has loomed so large, as a motive for actual war it seems to have been rather secondary. What then explains this obstinate modern conviction that religion is the driving cause of organised bloodshed?

Click the link to see more: Religion does not poison everything - everything poisons religion » The Spectator

Points:

• “…religions are corrupted by success. The more popular they become, the closer they are drawn into the ambit of state power, the more their practice and doctrine have to be remodelled to suit their new overlords.”
• “This [the idea that religion is the cause of most wars] is the misunderstanding which drives fanatical secularists to demand that faith be driven out of the public square and permanently banned from re-entry, like a drunk from the pub he always picks a fight in.”

It may be the same for ideologies (those belief systems generally ending with –ism), which are built on unprovable presuppositions rather than an unprovable deity. For writers of faith, how can you address that issue?

Why Academics' Writing Stinks

Via Arts and Letters Daily and The Chronicle of Higher Education:

Why should a profession that trades in words and dedicates itself to the transmission of knowledge so often turn out prose that is turgid, soggy, wooden, bloated, clumsy, obscure, unpleasant to read, and impossible to understand?

Click the link to see more: Why Academics' Writing Stinks - The Chronicle Review - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Points:

• Is this the reason? “Scholars in the softer fields spout obscure verbiage to hide the fact that they have nothing to say.”
• Is this a reason? “Difficult writing is unavoidable because of the abstractness and complexity of our subject matter.”
• Is this a reason? “…the gatekeepers of journals and university presses insist on ponderous language as proof of one’s seriousness.”

What the writer thinks is the reason: “Their goal is not so much communication as self-presentation—an overriding defensiveness against any impression that they may be slacker than their peers in hewing to the norms of the guild.”

Click through to the article for some enlightening instruction on how to keep your prose clean and classic.

Why I Stopped Hating Christian Music

Via Christianity Today: Why I Stopped Hating Christian Music | Third Culture | A Blog by Peter Chin.



Key statement: "I realized something that made me have a lot more respect and compassion for people who are in the Christian music industry: they are in a ridiculously impossible position."



Main points:

• "Christian music must be theologically orthodox."
• "Christian music must also minister to people."
• "...[They] must then think about all of the other more general considerations of musicianship."
• "Christian artists make music for some of the harshest critics in the world."

The constraints to making Christian music create opportunities for greater creativity. It reminds me of Robert Frost's statement that writing free verse is like playing tennis without a net. The constraints of rhyme and meter, for a poet, aren't restraints. They're a forge for creativity. The same could hold true for the constraints Christian musicians face.

Making the lame walk

Via Instapundit: With Spinal Implant, Paralyzed Rats Can Walk Again | MIT Technology Review.



Key statement: "...the first closed-loop control system that can really adjust leg movements in real time, despite paralysis."

Multi-tasking makes your brain smaller

Found on Drudge: Multi-tasking makes your brain smaller: Grey matter shrinks if we do too much  | Daily Mail Online. On the flip side, this: "training – such as learning to juggle or taxi drivers learning the map of London – can increase grey-matter densities in certain parts."



At 75 participants studied, more research would be needed. An important part would be replication of the study.

Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor?

Can a Computer Replace Your Doctor? - NYTimes.com: Via Drudge Report.



Key points:

• "When is more data actually useful to promote and ensure better health? And when does technology add true value to health care?"
• "One big challenge is that the elusive state we call “health” is not always easily measurable."

Corporate Altruism Is on the Rise

Corporate Altruism Is on the Rise (Infographic) | Inc.com: Across the U.S. Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives are rising in popularity.