10 non-work-related items that I found fun or interesting

Wild Bill Hickok: A Frontier Legend, 135 Years Gone via Britannica Blog by Gregory McNamee
On 2 August 2 1876, a young man named Jack McCall came up behind a man in a bar in the Black Hills of the Dakota Territory and shot him in the head. When asked why he did it, McCall claimed that the man had killed his brother – a claim that, it turns out, was not true. An inquest in the town of Deadwood, inclined to forgive drunkenness and violence, acquitted McCall of premeditated murder, but a jury in Yankton was less understanding. It sentenced McCall to death, and the young man was hanged, his motive still unknown, on 1 March 1877.
Read in full

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Junot Díaz is a connoisseur of catastrophe: Haiti, post-Katrina New Orleans, Fukushima. In the wreckage, he finds revelation. "Sometimes we have to look in the ruins for hope"...more

#E2sday: The Evolution of Knowledge Management from Stephen Abram
Knowledge management has become an important and vital practice in the enterprise. As we have shifted from an industrial-based society to an information-based one, many jobs and tasks have been automated by machinery. The result is a smaller workforce and the advent of the knowledge worker – an employee whose job depends on tacit information that is rarely documented, limiting an organization’s ability to draw upon it in the future. Implementing solutions to collect and preserve tacit knowledge has become a high priority, allowing companies to create digital libraries of employee experiences and practices for future generations. The transfer of knowledge has evolved from the written word on rocks and paper to spoken stories heard live via telephones to digital, virtual, real-time communities on the web. Today’s #E2sday looks at the evolution of knowledge management, starting from our ancient foundation to today’s high tech solutions.
View the infographic and get more information about #E2sday

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
We are living in the middle of a revolution in consciousness, writes David Brooks. Like theology and philosophy, brain science will change how we view ourselves and the world...more

How Technology Makes Us Better Social Beings via 3quarksdaily by Azra Raza From Smithsonian:
“There has been a great deal of speculation about the impact of social networking site use on people’s social lives, and much of it has centred on the possibility that these sites are hurting users’ relationships and pushing them away from participating in the world,” Hampton said in a recent press release. He surveyed 2,255 American adults this past fall and published his results in a study last month. “We've found the exact opposite—that people who use sites like Facebook actually have more close relationships and are more likely to be involved in civic and political activities.” More here

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The state’s grasping hand even reaches into the pockets of generations unborn, says Peter Sloterdijk. Call it, “The pillage of the future by the present”...more

Solar Cells That Work Without the Sun via Big Think by Big Think Editors
What’s the Latest Development?
A new photovoltaic energy-conversion system developed at M.I.T. can be powered solely by heat, generating electricity with no sunlight at all. “The key to this fine-tuned light emission, described in the journal Physical Review A, lies in a material with billions of ... ” Read More

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
McSorley's was a bar in a village in a city. But how can you have a village in a city? Robert Day wondered. By the end of August that summer, he understood...more
A really good read! Opens up ideas I haven't thought about for years.

5 Websites That Alert Book Lovers About New Book Releases via MakeUseOf by Saikat Basu
Any book lover will tell you that there’s nothing that beats the pleasure of browsing the aisles of a bookstore and leafing through new books. Discovering new books and new authors (and liking them) is akin to El Dorado for a book lover. But just like everyone else, the digital age has given the book lover another set of eyes to find out what new books are getting released and where to grab them. Welcome to the world of book tracking and notification services.
Today, we have social communities built around books (Shelfari, GoodReads), online recommendation engines (e.g. What Should I Read Next), and online retailers like Amazon which can alert you when a book becomes available. All of them have their own way of notifying you of new book releases. Some are tailor made around your interests while some are broad based with weekly or monthly newsletters. The five book recommendation websites mentioned below belong to the former and are like homing missiles when it comes to alerting you about new releases.
Read the list for yourself

via Arts and Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Carbon fibre and aluminium are so 2009. The latest in bicycles is the bamboo frame. It makes for a smooth, organic ride with less vibration...more

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