found drama

• The Myth of America’s Tech-Talent Shortage
  Jordan Weissmann writing for The Atlantic. And/but what I want to know is: Who are these companies that are clamoring to hire people on an H1-B because it's supposedly cheaper? The "indentured labor" line reads like a bit of a boogeyman to me, and though I'll buy the bit about stagnant wages being part of the problem, their counter example of "oil and gas engineers" seems like the outlier. (In other words: few sectors are actually experiencing a talent shortage, but nearly all sectors are suffering from stagnant wages.)
  (tagged: economy )
• Hunt on for ‘Eyeball Earth’ Alien Planets
  Charles Q. Choi, writing at Space.com.
  (tagged: research astronomy exoplanets )
• Learning to See
  
  Oliver Reichenstein, writing for Information Architects. It's a long read, and some of it may seem a bit navel-gazing (how many "good vs. great design" articles can a person read before their eyes bleed? how many times can that Steve Jobs quote about "design is how it works" be abused?), but it all comes down to Fingerspitzengefühl.
  (tagged: Fingerspitzengefühl design )
• Is Michael Pollan a sexist pig?
  Emily Matchar, writing at Salon.com:

  Food choices have become important political acts, with deep moral and environmental consequences. As self-righteous and irritating as this attitude can sometimes feel, it’s still speaking to a very real and scary truth. With rising obesity rates, a destructive system of factory farming, and terror-inducing 24/7 news stories about antibiotics in chicken and E. coli in spinach, many people have come to feel that their own food choices are among the most meaningful life decisions they can make.

  And/but:

  It’s easy to forget, in the face of today’s foodie culture, that cooking is not fun when it’s mandatory.

  The title is a bit baiting and inflammatory (no shit?) and it might be more fair to accuse Pollan of being naïve than of being sexist but… She has some interesting discussion in here, even if it meanders a bit.

  (tagged: politics slow food culture )
• What If We Never Run Out of Oil?
  Long piece in The Atlantic by Charles C. Mann. Lots of history about petroleum energy, and lots of discussion of the geo-politics around it. There's some complicated stuff in there but it's worth reading, as it just might give some insight into the complexities of energy politics and policy.
  (tagged: politics petroleum energy )

About Rob Friesel