by Christopher Paul on February 9, 2014 David Carr wrote a beautiful article on Medium about Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s the best post I’ve read about PSH since his death a week ago.
In the middle of Carr’s praise for the talent and demeanor PSH displayed throughout his career, one passage stuck out for me — this very emotional and candid description of addiction:
“Chemical dependency does not change — have one and you might die — and recovery does not change — have none and you might live. Addicts live between those two poles, but the hole that they once tried to fill with chemicals always remains, pushed back on a daily basis. Addiction, whether you believe it is a disease or not, is a pirate, constantly on patrol and looking for a weakness so it can climb aboard.”
When celebrities get into trouble for drugs or alcohol, it’s sometimes easy to dismiss their troubles as being fake or falsely generated from their substantial wealth and constant attention. But it’s just as easy to forget that they, like way too many in this world, struggle with demons that get the better of them.
h/t to Jeff Jarvis
by Christopher Paul on February 5, 2014 What is it like to fly over Antarctica?
It’s pretty cool.
via The Atlantic
by Christopher Paul on February 5, 2014 A combination of people not getting vaccinated and a change to how the vaccine was made could be contributing to the spread of a new strain of Whooping Cough.
Early on, the whooping-cough vaccine was considered an unambiguous success story. Over time, though, scientists—as well as crusading vaccine skeptics—raised concerns about the shots’ side effects, which could include high fever and, occasionally, seizures. In the late nineteen-nineties, the U.S. switched to a new formulation, made not from dead, whole cells of bacteria (as the original had been) but from selected components of the bug that would trigger an immune response more safely. Unfortunately, though, the effectiveness of the updated vaccine waned far faster than the old version had, and faster than researchers had expected. This is probably the main reason that whooping cough has surged recently in older children: those who received the newer vaccine as babies became vulnerable again as the doses that they received between ages four and six, and the boosters that they received between eleven and twelve, wore off. (Parents who refuse to vaccinate their children undoubtedly make the problem worse.)
via The Awl
by Christopher Paul on February 4, 2014 From the always awesome (and increasingly popular) Today I Found Out come the history of the grade scale. A few things have changed over the years. ‘E’ used to be a failing grade with ‘F’ not even present (no pun intended). Of course, grades were also more strict then.
The first grade system that most resembles our present day rankings looked like this:
- A: excellent, 95–100%
- B: good, 85–94%
- C: fair, 76–84%
- D: barely passed, 75%
- E: failed, below 75%
A year later, Mount Holyoke modified their grading scale. “B” became anything from 90–94%, “C” was 85–89%, “D” was 80–84%, and “E” was 75–79%. Below that, they added in the dreaded “F.”
I wonder what the true average grade of American kids would be if they used the old Mount Holyoke system.