This is from a few weeks ago, but still worthwhile.  The Economist has an article entitled “The disposable academic: Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time,” which argues that a Ph.D. takes too long and carries too . . . → Read More: Thoughts and links]]> Here are some things that have caught my attention in the last week or two:

This is from a few weeks ago, but still worthwhile.  The Economist has an article entitled “The disposable academic:
Why doing a PhD is often a waste of time,” which argues that a Ph.D. takes too long and carries too little benefit, due in part to oversupply.  While it is true that more universities are using grad students as cheap labor, and postdocs find it difficult to find jobs, the problem is not oversupply of Ph.D.s, but undersupply of positions, as Marc Bousquet argued at the beginning of this year.  Still a worthwhile read, with interesting stats.

Media Commons has published an insightful chapter of Thomas Streeter’s The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet in an open format, with the ability to comment on individual chapters, and an accompanying blog.

Yahoo’s decision to discontinue or sell Delicious left many of us in a panic as we scrambled to export our links.  That may have been hasty, but it has pushed me to try out Diigo, which I am beginning to like.  It seems more robust than Delicious, and I think the social aspects may add a lot to the experience (although I’m not sure quite yet how).  Find me at http://www.diigo.com/user/emarsh to help explore.

For those interested in neuroscience, Brainscanr is a really cool search engine that lists recent publications of various terms, and provides a visual matrix of related terms.  Something like this for media studies would rock. Check out the entry for “attentional shifting“.

In another Media Commons project, In Media Res, a post by Sarah Sinwell from last week entitled “The Art of Seduction: Film Spectatorship in the Age of the Cell Phone.” This was part of a whole week on spectatorship at IMR.

Christy Dena has an inspirational post about transitioning from the “Training Wheels” of  the Ph.D. to whatever comes next.

Some liveblogging about a talk by Julie Cohen about networked selves.

Some of my own stuff:

Have I told you I am coblogging about . . . → Read More: A few links to prove I’m not dead]]> Chuck Tryon has an interesting personal post about the death of Miramax.

Christy Dena has an inspirational post about transitioning from the “Training Wheels” of  the Ph.D. to whatever comes next.

Some liveblogging about a talk by Julie Cohen about networked selves.

Some of my own stuff:

Have I told you I am coblogging about a topic I have been thinking about for a long time: Attention Theory?

On an extremely lighter note, here’s a link to my silly tumblr with which I have no idea what to do, and to which I have just posted a picture of a snake smoking a cigarette.

NPR has been runnin a lot of stories about Detroit latel in their “Remaking Michigan, Retooling Detroit” series. Of particular interest is Detroit’s Big Screen Image Problem, Why Can’t Detroit Cash in on its Music Scene? and Why I Love Detroit, and This Sculpture. . . . → Read More: Some links, many about Detroit]]> Here are some Sunday morning links foryou, many of them local.

NPR has been runnin a lot of stories about Detroit latel in their “Remaking Michigan, Retooling Detroit” series. Of particular interest is Detroit’s Big Screen Image Problem, Why Can’t Detroit Cash in on its Music Scene? and Why I Love Detroit, and This Sculpture. Last Monday on “The Story” Dick Gordon interviewed Jerry Balanger, owner of Park Bar in Detroit, who has a very interesting perspective on business in Detroit, including a fun alternate currency he invented.

Speaking of alternate currencies. here’s an article about it by Douglas Rushkoff, who also has a show and podcast called “The Media Squat” on WFMU.

Back to local, I just discovered this blog page on Wayne State’s site. I looked at a few, and they are interesting, but this is puzzling to me. I don’t know who these undergrads are or how they were selected to blog on Wayne’s main page. There is no “about” section and no contact info for the administrator. What is this?

HASTAC is hosting a discussion called Blogging and Twetting Academia, which has not yet had a ton of activity, but what is there is interesting.