Weekly Filet #136: A Case Against Specialists. And more.
This week's top recommendation
Our world has become so complex that you can only have a good understanding in a very narrow field. You need to specialise. It's what most of academia is telling us. This essay from Aeon makes a case for the opposite, claiming that we are «at our best when we turn our minds to many things». One of the key sentences almost reads as if it was copied from the Weekly Filet's (non-existent) mission statement. «Over-specialisation eventually retreats into defending what one has learnt rather than making new connections.»
→ Master of many trades (Aeon Magazine)
Further recommendations
Simple idea, fascinating images: Mount LED-lights on robotic vacuum cleaners and shoot long exposure images while they're cruising across rooms.
→ Roomba Art (Flickr)
Sounds poetic: «When you cut yourself, the wreckage of stars spills out.» Not so much: «You are full of discarded, rejected, and recycled atomic elements.»
→ You Are Made of Waste (Nautilus)
An irritating photo essay about women who are kidnapped off the street, because someone has decided he wants to marry them.
→ Grab and Run: Kyrgyzstan's Bride Kidnappings (Newsweek)
A friendly reminder: It's not enough to have seen and tweeted out this piece. Read and watch it from top to bottom. It's the best, most comprehensive piece on the most important story of the year.
→ NSA Files Decoded (The Guardian)