Read-Think-b4-u-Write

Visual Academy recently released a graphic outlining the pitfalls of multitasking. According to the studies they reviewed only 2 percent of us can multitask with any credibility. Here's something I bet you didn't know - you will actually spend LESS time doing any set of activities if you do them one at a time AND that includes studying and homework. Do you know that the majority of students spend over an average of 100 minutes per day on Facebook?!  I know we like to stall as long as possible instead of actually studying, but  that's almost two hours extra time spent "doing homework"! AND...worst of all studies connect a correlation between dropping GPAs and increasing time spent on Facebook.  The average non-Facebooker has a GPA of 3.82 while you Facebook junkies have an average GPA of 3.06. Yikes. Not to mention Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram, Google+, etc., etc., etc. Oh, and when you're finished looking to see what your "...

It is amazing how many college students, 1) Don't know their total student loan obligation; and, 2) Don't know the amount of their loan payments.  This is especially puzzling since students will be repaying their loans for TEN years! Don't get me wrong, I understand how it happens:  students borrow a little or a lot each semester and between school, part time jobs, and homework fail to keep track of all those loans--and they add up! According to Forbes Magazine , "College graduates with the average $27,000 in student loan debt can end up making payments of over $300 a month for 10 long years. There are only so many dollars to go around, and because of the student loan burden, these are people who have difficulty carving out funds to save, pay down debt and invest for retirement. They may have to delay purchasing a home because they are paying up to 15% of their incomes for the college degree that landed them the job." "Oh, well," you say....

Try the hyperloop and get there in 35 minutes-at least that's the proposal of Elon Musk, creator and founder of Paypal and Tesla Motors.  According to Musk, his proposed system would cost $6 billion compared to the high speed rail now being taxpayer funded for a whopping $68.4 billion.  Best of all a round trip ticket would cost $20. How does it work?  According to Visual News , "Musk and his team think that by pumping much of the air out of the tube and creating an atmosphere equivalent to that at 150,000 feet (45,720 meters) the drag within the system would be lowered to such a state that near supersonic speeds are attainable with little resistance. Wheels at this speed are no longer an option (due to stability and drag issues) so instead an ‘air bearing’ would be employed. These would be extremely strong metal plates on the bottom of the pod that blow air through their center; supporting the pod much like the puck on an air hockey table." Passengers wo...

Any reader of comic books knows that superheroes represent something bigger than ourselves, people (or beings) that live to right wrongs in a society that doesn't accept their superpowers.  Huffington Post has a nice slide show about the seven most valuable lessons you can learn from superheroes. No. 1 - We all have alter egos. Like Superman, Batman, or Spider-Man "we too have alter egos—different sides of ourselves that come out, depending on the context and the people we are with. We may think, feel, and act differently when we’re with our parents than when we’re with our children," our friends, professors, or bosses. No. 2 - The Costume Counts. "You don’t have to wear tights or a cape to understand that what you wear affects other people: Whether you’re wearing a unitard, a police officer’s uniform, grungy jeans and a Jack Daniels T-shirt, or a three-piece suit, your 'costume' counts. Based on how you appear, [people] make inferences about ...

If the Bard of Avon had written Star Wars , here's how it would have started: "In time so long ago begins our play / In star-crossed galaxy far, far away." At least that's how Ian Doescher imagines it in William Shakespeare's Star Wars. For those of you stumped by Shakespeare's language this may be a good way to launch into a galaxy some find so far away, a fun way to develop your ear for Shakespeare. William Shakespeare's Star Wars is available at Amazon and as one reviewer put it, ’Tis a tale told by fretful droids, full of faithful Wookiees and fearsome Stormtroopers, signifying...pretty much everything. "Reimagined in glorious iambic pentameter—and complete with twenty gorgeous Elizabethan illustrations-- William Shakespeare’s Star Wars  will astound and edify Rebels and Imperials alike. Zounds! This  is  the book you’re looking for." Luke Skywalker poses like Hamlet in this black-and-white illustration by Nicholas Delort. Here...

Going to the Oscars?  Top your skinny jeans with a sequin top. Going to a business meeting?  Wear a jacket with your skinny jeans. Going to a ball game?  Your Giant's cap will look stunning with those skinny jeans. Going to a funeral?  They make black skinny jeans.   If you watch TV, read magazines, or shop at the mall you would think that everybody from pregnant women to your boyfriend wears skinny jeans.  As a Professor I get to go "back to school" shopping too.  All I want this year are a couple of pairs of slacks.  BUT if you go to Macy's, Target, KMart, Ross, T.J. Max, Old Navy, Sears, or Nordstrom's you would think that everybody wears blue denim skinny jeans. Here's some images you'll never scrub from your brain:  Grandma in skinny jeans!  How about your mom in skinny jeans? Skinny jeans with a muffin top.  Skinny jeans where the crotch is so low you get a moon shot.  And what's up with drop-crotch skinny jea...

D.W. Griffiths ' Birth of a Nation  is billed as the first full-length narrative motion picture.  The story line depicts the Klu Klux Klan as a sympathetic misunderstood organization and African Americans as, at the very least, ignorant, while southern whites were victims. A big part of the problem (at least for Griffith's) was that during Reconstruction African Americans came into political power. Nowhere else in the South did blacks become the dominant force in gaining equality through self-governance than in South Carolina, the only state to have a black majority in the legislature during Reconstruction.  Here's how D.W. Griffiths depicts that august body: Today we wouldn't put up with this kind of overt racism and in 1915 when this movie came out many people didn't put up with it either. The NAACP protested against the film’s fabrications and inaccuracies. Riots broke out in Boston, Philadelphia and other major cities. And Griffith’s legacy ...