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	<title>Tim McCormick</title>
	<link>http://tjm.org</link>
	<description></description>
	<lastBuildDate>Sun, 29 Jan 2012 07:46:57 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>The Well-Mannered Palo Alto Downtown Library</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ok, new in town, got apartment, car, job.  What next?  Local library card, of course.  So today I went to the downtown branch of the Palo Alto City Library, a short walk away from me on Hamilton St., and did my usual &#8220;mystery shopper&#8221; routine of wandering in, pretending to know nothing, and asking about [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2012/01/29/the-well-mannered-palo-alto-downtown-library/</link>
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		<title>old Palo Alto Post Office, and our disappearing public space</title>
		<description><![CDATA[This weekend I stopped in to the downtown Palo Alto post office, which is a lovely Mission / Spanish Revival building from the 1920s.   (see note on history below).
I had the idea of requesting a PO Box there, as it would be useful to have this as an address and it would be enjoyable to [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2012/01/17/old-palo-alto-post-office-and-our-disappearing-public-space/</link>
			</item>
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		<title>I Buy a Car:  75 Years of Brand Identity and Good Typography Pay Off for Volkswagen</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I have to say, going to California, Silicon Valley, new job, all important; but buying a first car: pivotal.
Although, a lot of cars seem to me quite competently designed but undistinguished, or only subtly so. Older Jettas had a more distinct, angular style, but current ones like my grey 2010 Jetta S are quite similar [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2012/01/15/i-buy-a-car-75-years-of-brand-advertising-and-good-typography-pay-off-for-volkswagen/</link>
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		<title>What is College For?  A View from the Clouds</title>
		<description><![CDATA[&#8220;What Is College For?&#8221; Notre Dame philosophy professor Gary Gutting recently asked, in the NYT.  Answer:  basically, it&#8217;s for ideas.
Gutting&#8217;s article was interesting to me as perhaps one of the purest examples of &#8220;Ivory Tower&#8221; thinking I&#8217;ve ever seen.  Interesting, perhaps disturbing, and finally unconvincing.
His evidence for the value of college to students is&#8230; self-reported [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2011/12/25/what-is-college-for-a-view-from-the-clouds/</link>
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		<title>Fact-checking: a battle for hearts and minds</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I look at the &#8220;fact checking&#8221; movement and recent partisan / political disputes over it, and suggest a need to go beyond principles of objectivity, and to embrace political strategy, learning theory, and empirical evidence about how to have impact.  As recently commented by political organizer Biko Biker, the first rule of effectiveness is:  meet [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2011/12/25/fact-checking-a-battle-for-hearts-and-minds/</link>
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		<title>US Public High Schools Dominate Siemens Westinghouse Science Competition</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Elite Public High Schoolers, Predominantly Asian-American, sweep Siemens / Westinghouse Prizes
To survey the high schools of the 2011 Siemens Competition in Math, Science, &#38; Technology winners (descendent of the former Westinghouse Science Talent Search) is to see American secondary, public education at its impressive peak.  Polished web sites burst with notices of state champion teams, [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2011/12/10/us-public-high-schools-dominate-siemens-westinghouse-science-competition/</link>
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		<title>&#8220;The Information Diet&#8221;:  five objections to the model</title>
		<description><![CDATA[One of the most interesting recent developments in media discussions is Clay Johnson&#8217;s work and forthcoming book on &#8220;The Information Diet.&#8221;
Overall, I think &#8220;information diet&#8221; is in interesting and powerful concept.  Yes, let&#8217;s take charge of our lives, in this as in other ways, to innovate and design and choose.
However, before adoping this metaphor [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2011/12/02/the-information-diet-five-objections-to-the-model/</link>
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		<title>American Scholar&#8217;s &#8220;A Jew in the Northwest&#8221;:  local yokel responds</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Reviewed: &#8220;A Jew in the Northwest&#8221; by William Deresiewicz.  The American Scholar, Winter 2012. http://theamericanscholar.org/a-jew-in-the-northwest/
From what I gather, the path that led William Deresiewicz to be living in Portland (OR) and writing about it for highbrow journal The American Scholar began with childhood in suburban New Jersey, then going all the way to New [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2011/12/02/american-scholars-a-jew-in-the-northwest-local-yokel-responds/</link>
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		<title>Truth Goggles: the Enlightenment Dream of Automated Fact Checking</title>
		<description><![CDATA[comment submitted to TechCrunch article  &#8220;True Or False? Automatic Fact-Checking Coming To The Web – Complications Follow&#8221; by Devin Coldewey, 11/28/2011.
&#62; &#8220;the layering of reference and context onto the information you read&#8221;.
This exists generally in the well-tested paradigm of citation and  reputation, as it functions for example in peer-reviewed literature.   It  seems [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2011/11/30/truth-goggles-the-enlightenment-dream-of-automated-fact-checking/</link>
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		<title>Brainpickings: more about curation vs parasitism</title>
		<description><![CDATA[further comment posted on Maria Popova&#8217;s post on Brainpickings.org: &#8220;Free Ride: Digital Parasites and the Fight for the Business of Culture&#8221;:
&#8220;Maria, I agree with you fully, there are dubious practices out there  regarding online content, which may endanger the creation and curation  of the culture that we want.   Also, there are interesting new [...]]]></description>
		<link>http://tjm.org/2011/11/28/brainpickings-more-about-curation-vs-parasitism/</link>
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