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MacArthur Foundation Announces Genius Grants
Chagasi writes: "The MacArthur Foundation has announced this year's
'Genius Grant' awards. The complete list of the 24 recipients can be read
here(1) at
their web site and here(2)
via Google's news service. The
winners include a robotics researcher from Dartmouth studying robotics,
and a paleoethnobotanist from Penn State
studying the ancient plants and foods of prehistoric
peoples."
Does Slashdot have a co-marketting agreement with Google perchance? This is the second reference in the last few hours...
i'm glad to see such diversity on the list of recipients; it goes from trombone improvisationalists to robotics engineers. it's good to see both linear and non-linear genius recognized by the same organization.
His homepage, and research on Speech Recognition and Understanding and Computational Psycholinguistics . They have for example designed a discourse tagging system, in 1997.
Among the other nominees I see we have a seismologist studying earthquakes, a historian studying history, and a novelist writing books.
I have a positive modifier on Troll. When I mod someone Troll their karma should go UP!
Diversity is great, but the Genius grant selection always strikes me as a bit eccentric. Certainly they don't all fit the traditional "genius" profiles. For example:
...
An artist working in three dimensions with glass beads (Lou)
--wow, beads with 3 whole dimensions?
A molecular ecobiologist studying bacterial communication (Bassler)
--I think Gary Larson has this one covered
A journalist chronicling tales of those left behind or left out (Boo)
--hasn't this been done many times over?
Does anyone know whether Genius Grant recipients tend to distinguish themselves above their artistic/scientific peers later in their careers? Or do they just fade back into obscurity?
The winners include [...] a paleoethnobotanist from Penn StateHe should get another grant just for being able to pronounce his field of study. :)
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
Google News, in just a couple days, has firmly established itself as the standard-bearer of news online. Two (The one you're reading and this one) of the last four slashdot articles have referenced Google News.
/. articles (This one again, and this one) where at the top of the Google News SciTech section when they were posted to /.
Two of the the recent
Google News seems to find the good stories and push them to the top *really* fast. I see myself relying on them more and more.
Software Wars
I heard this guy Knight has it locked up.
On the whole list of "geniuses," there are only four minorities on there! The whole list is a total whitewash.
The MacArthur Foundation is racist to the core. The white people should be stripped of their awards, and the awards must be given to the real genius inventors of our multicultural society: blacks, asians, arabs, and latinos -- not whites!
The most prestigious award should be given to Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe for his revolutionary actions in uniting the workers against the white ruling class.
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
(That'll teach me to use 'Preview'... Ok, I'm lying.)
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
I had been wondering how the MacArthur folks can so astutely tell the difference between geniuses and the rest of us, but perhaps it's not that challenging.
"There is a thin line between ignorance and arrogance, and only I have managed to erase that line." - Dr. Science
Reputation can conceal new realities. Blind Loyalty to /. is like any other Blind Loyalty.
The fact is, we need /. because it is the tool where people can speak their mind to the masses. Amazing meme distribution. Amazing freedom.
But, the general subjects that are given to us to discuss, are controlled by the few who run /. They have the power to direct the flow; the focus. And if that power is influenced by business agreements, ie. GOOGLE, then I believe the ethics of the /. community is violated.
A Good Troll is better than a Bad Human.
Toba Khedoori's Drawings. She is one of the chosen.
From the FAQ about MacArthur Fellows:
So calling them "Genius Grants" is apparently not quite right.
Brian
Like Digital Freedoms? Then donate to EFF before they're gone.
Way to go, Macarthur Foundation!
Genius is often recognized only after the person that contained and displayed that genius has passed away... I think that is true because they forgot ME.... AGAIN !
How can we lobby these Foundations to give grants to leading open source people like Larry Wall or Linus ? People who are much more than just good programmers but visionaries in their own right.
Perhaps this will mean less funding for "All (Leftist) Things Considered".
"oohhh... I didn't know Schopenhauer was a philosopher!"
I had been wondering how the MacArthur folks can so astutely tell the difference between geniuses and the rest of us, but perhaps it's not that challenging.
Huh?
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Oh what a great award ;-)
Something tells me these award wouldn't necessarily be used for the kind of projects they might be expecting. "Well first I had a supermodel, then one of the Superbabes then..." ;-)
Then again maybe this is a kind of reverse eugenics; perhaps this IS what it's for. e.g. Richard Stallman got a girlfriend after winning this...
-WolfWithoutAClause
"Gravity is only a theory, not a fact!"I would be much more impressed if a 2d glass bead were made. No depth to the beads would be mind-boggling and so much . . . deeper I guess.
an artist in Los Angeles who creates large but delicate drawings in wax, oil and pencil... could so easily turn into an artist who creates drawings out of ear wax, chewing gum and red crayon
The winners include a robotics researcher from Dartmouth studying robotics, and a paleoethnobotanist from Penn State studying the ancient plants and foods of prehistoric peoples."
Ok, i can see why they would need to tell us what a robotics researcher does, but sheesh, who in the world doesn't know what a paleoethnobotanist does??
An interesting book I read a few years back - Uncommon Genius by Denise Shekerjian. She interviewed a number of the MacArthur Foundation winners to try to determine what makes a genius.
What she found was that none of the winners could imagine doing anything else.... they did what they did out of love for their field.... and that they had all been doing it for a long, long time, day in and day out, just doing their work. Even the youngest winner she interviewed -- who I think was a linguist in his 20's -- had been studying languages since he was 6 years old.
Also some interesting background on the MacArthurs and the Foundation if I recall.....
The fundamental nature of the ordinary man is to go on out and do the best you can. -- John Prine
This is a great book about the Macarthur fellows and the fellowship program, and about creative thinking in general. It contains a series of interviews with forty fellows and tries to understand how they get their ideas.
Anyone want to write a /. review?
Where's Al Gore?
Is this thing on? Hello?
His biography, The Stockholder, by William Hoffman, is forgotten and out of print, but was one of the best business books of 1968. The Library of Congress has a copy.
He set up the MacArthur Awards scheme in his will the way he did to annoy people. (The Skipper probably said "piss people off"; he was that kind of guy.) He thought the other big foundations were too establishment-oriented, and giving money to people outside the academic establishment, and not through it, was intended to annoy academia.
Over the lifetime of the Macarthur Grant,
12 people have won in the category of DANCE, while 11 people have won in the category of PUBLIC HEALTH
Dance, genius, dance!
chrisnull.com - read my book, Half Mast - filmcritic.com - New Architect
filmcritic.com - Movie reviews on Internet time
Did anyone notice how the nominators all seem to be in New England or California?
I saw one CO, TN, and MI. That's all. 4 from NY, 8 from CA, 8 From New England, (Not NY).
There are talented people everywhere, these folks were just in the right place at the right time.
Go Luck!
Not to pick on the bead lady... that's kind of cool, actually. But you see my point, I hope.
My deviantArt site
It's on ABC after Nightline. I'm setting my Tivo for it.
i lyNews/u pclose_email_form.html
r equest.d ll?LIST&room=tv_upclose
"Genius is perhaps something one is born with. Creativity is something I
think which requires effort."
--Daniel Socolow, director MacArthur Fellows Program
It's a cross between the Publishers Clearinghouse Prize Patrol and that
classic television show "The Millionaire," where a man comes to your home
and presents you with a check for $1 million. Suddenly and without
warning, you receive a call that makes you $500,000 richer. But you
haven\222t entered a contest. You've been secretly nominated and then
selected as a MacArthur Fellow.
For this year's 24 winners, ranging in age from 29 to 60, the news came
both as a shock and in strange ways. Photographer Camilo Jose Vergara was
shopping for a mattress when he retrieved a message on his cellphone that
the MacArthur Foundation President was looking for him. Vergara began
photographing the World Trade Center towers in 1970 with the construction cranesbehind them. Today, his exhibition of World Trade Center photographs is
at the New York Historical Society.
He's one of the new crop of MacArthur Fellows correspondent Michele Norris
will introduce you to this evening on UpClose. She'll profile seven of
the winners, including Liz Lerman of Takoma Park, Md., an
award-winning choreographer; George Lewis, a LaJolla, Calif. jazz
trombonist and composer at the University of California, San Diego; Liza Lou, a
+California artist who turns glass beads into something extraordinary; New York+documentary filmmaker Stanley Nelson who picks historical African-American
+subjects for his spotlight; Daniela Rus, an associate professor at Dartmouth
+who works with robots that can change their shape; and Brian Tucker, a Palo
+Alto seismologist who works to minimize damage from natural disasters in
+developing countries.
What these and the other 17 MacArthur Fellows have in common is a sudden
infusion of cash -- $100,000 each year for the next five years -- to
pursue their creative interests or whatever they choose. There are no
strings attached.
They've been nicknamed the Genius Awards. But Daniel Socolow, the
director of the MacArthur Fellows Program tells UpClose: "The true genius
is that the awards are designed to remind us that once a year that
extraordinary talent can be found anywhere."
Richard Harris
Senior Producer
Nightline UpClose
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