Whaddya think?  The animation is pretty cool too.

[ht NPR and Fil]

Cool article about the rise of public radio in recent years, thanks to a reinvention of the medium by shows like This American life, Radiolab, and Sound Opinions:

I talked recently with Robert Krulwich, who first joined the NPR network just a few years after All Things Considered went on the air in the Nixon era and now cohosts the public radio program Radiolab, and he remembers those days as filled with invention:

“Radio was dead—it was top 40. All the smarties were at the Times or The Washington Post, or if you didn’t want to be Woodward and Bernstein you went to work for Walter Cronkite at the Tiffany network. This group of nutty people wandered in and said, let’s do radio. We’ll reinvent it. Jump thirty-five or forty years ahead and where is Walter Cronkite? What happened to The Washington Post? And guess what, the nutty radio people have suddenly emerged as the focus for a huge audience. And now they have a little of the swagger of the Timesmen.”

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/nov/11/all-programs-considered/?page=1

Building on Phil’s excellent post on motivation, I wanted to share this NPR segment I heard this week, which, ironically, references the same experiment in India about bonus compensation and it’s correlation (or lackk thereof) to performance. The second experiment described I thought was very interesting too, which points more to the feeling of purpose, which the video Phil posted referenced as well.

While the focus of this research tends to be on business organizational health, I think it’s important to point out, in a more general sense, that this is another case where classical economics fails.  People are not perfectly rational entities. This bears repeating every time that any research concludes this, because so much of far-right and center-right economic thought depend entirely on this assumption: People, in the aggregate, are always rational.

The entire field of behavioral economics is like a breath of fresh air to me, because it frustrates me so much that people can believe that psychology, which among other things, studies how people make decisions, plays no role in economics, which is essentially the study of how people decide to spend money.  They are naturally linked.

Let me just start by stating the obvious: Avatar is visually stunning.  The amount of detail and smoothness of its integration put other movies to shame, including those made as soon as 5 years ago.  Place on top of that a 3D technology that is fairly defect-free, and you’re in for a pretty amazing experience.

Now, having said that, Avatar, as purely a movie, is not good.  Stripped of its eye-popping grandeur, it is nothing more than another bad science fiction movie.  Tired plot.  Forced lines.  One-dimensional characters.  Deus ex machinas.  It’s all there.

But why even be concerned with it?  Why not just soak up the sights and have fun, like I would with say, Transformers?

The answer is in this NPR clip:

MASTERS: There is. There will be 10 nominees instead of the usual five. The Academy, I think, was hoping to drum up some excitement, because in the last few years, we’ve had things like “No Country for Old Men,” which may be worthy pictures, but not exactly huge hits. And they’re hoping to get more popular movies into the category, and therefore there would be some rooting interest, which would bolster the ratings for the Academy Awards telecast.

INSKEEP: Oh, my gosh. This is going to be as controversial as the Bowl Championship Series in college football, I would imagine. So quality films are crowding out too much of the attention. They want to make sure that a couple of blockbusters get in there, is that what you’re telling me?

MASTERS: Yes. Last year, the feeling was if only “The Dark Knight” could’ve been nominated, then more people might’ve watched. But…

(Soundbite of laughter)

MASTERS: I’m not making it up, Steve. This is the truth. So there’s a question now as to whether the telecast is sort of the tail wagging the Oscar dog at this point.

INSKEEP: Well, I’m just curious. You are a movie viewer, as well as someone who covers the movie business. Do you think there are 10 movies out there worth an Academy Award nomination?

MASTERS: Well, listen, in reality, every year when there have been five, there’s usually three, maybe, that people think are contenders and the other two that kind of get the courtesy nomination. So this year, it’s going to be only more so. So already, we kind of know not only which movies are the top contenders, but possibly even – based on my Oscar watchers that I happen to like – which one’s going to win. But then the good news for the Academy is the one that seems to be the frontrunner right now is going to be a very large hit. Can you guess?

INSKEEP: “Avatar”?

MASTERS: Yes.

Avatar deserves every award on Earth for any technical movie making category.  There isn’t another movie this year, maybe even this decade, that even comes close in those categories.  But make no mistake, great visuals and groundbreaking techniques are not a replacement for good characters and a compelling story.

There are fun movies, and then there are good movies.  Sometimes they overlap; most of the time, they don’t.

Every Friday morning, I find myself exiting my car at work with either a nice smile on my face, or my eyes a little teared up.  The culprit for this emotional outpouring from a relatively unemotional man is StoryCorps.  NPR’s Morning Edition selects one story from the StoryCorps project to play on Friday mornings.  For those of you unfamiliar with StoryCorps:

StoryCorps is an independent nonprofit project whose mission is to honor and celebrate one another’s lives through listening.

By recording the stories of our lives with the people we care about, we experience our history, hopes, and humanity. Since 2003, tens of thousands of everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps. Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share, and is archived for generations to come at the Library of Congress.

You would think that such an unstructured effort wouldn’t yield very successful content, but I find the stories fascinating, and I think the format is a big reason why.

StoryCorps always has a friend or family member as the interviewer, which gives a much more organic feel to the interview.  It can also yield some heart-tugging moments as well, like this morning’s story:

Or this heart-wrenching recount of a tragedy:

Or this heart-warming story of heroism:

And this heart-filling tale of love:

You can listen to more here.

http://www.npr.org/404

I heard about this great knew archetype, known as an MPDG to insiders, on NPR the other day.  I thought it was awesome.  The description:

The Manic Pixie is, in his words, “that bubbly, shallow cinematic creature that exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures.”

My favorite:

3. Garden State (Natalie Portman)

Pharmaceutical companies have made billions peddling antidepressants to twentysomething white people who are, like, totally stressin’ over people not appreciating them enough. Zach Braff did similarly well peddling two unusual but no less popular antidepressants in Garden State: The Shins and Natalie Portman. Braff’s character is completely transformed when the latter introduces him to the former in a doctor’s waiting room, with the plucky, annoying promise, “It’ll change your life, I swear.” Of course, anything sounds profound coming from such a dreamy woman. Oh, Natalie, your unconventional ways are so inspiring, and your beauty is surprisingly non-threatening! In Garden State, she’s a loveably eccentric little angel in the body of a smokin’-hot goddess, spreading good cheer and tuneful indie rock to depressed boys everywhere.

Check out the rest here.