Temple Grandin is the woman who got her PhD related to animal husbandry despite having autism then designed the humane method of leading cows to slaughter …her method is required in California but not all states are required to use it. Google the movie “Temple Grandin” it’s a cool movie
#1 pick for HN Crowd: The Man From Earth // must see, especially if you like philosophical movies (don't recommend the sequel by the way)
Runner's Up:
Being There // absolute classic and must see for every person, at least once
Peaceful Warrior
The Lion In Winter // one of the best dramas ever made, and unbeatable cast with young
Anthony Hopkins
Predestination // incredible drama about time travel paradoxes
The Interview // Hugo Weaving
Vitus // amazing story about a piano prodigy who fakes losing his talents to have a normal life
The Perverts Guide to Cinema // documentary, Slavoj Zizek's tour de force psychoanalysis of cinema as an art form; addressing the philosophical and psychological question of whether cinema (and other art forms) fulfil your desires, or rather teach/train you both to desire (and what you should desire), thus the sensationalistic and polemical invocation of it as "perverted"
Le Professionnel (French film, not to be confused with the one with Natalie Portman)
Revolver // Guy Ritchie's quote "It took me three years to write this film whereas Snatch took me three months". It is a masterwork metaphor about the ego, ego death, consciousness, meditation, spirituality, and the nature of reality. Recommend reading an interpretation of the film either before or after viewing to better appreciate what is happening in the story as it is most metaphorical.
Rest of the List:
The Big Kahuna, Tao of Steve, Crazy Stupid Love, Megamind, Eyes Wide Shut, Dead Poet's Society, Before Sunset, Gambit, Five Minutes of Heaven, Temple Grandin, Croupier, The Good Guy, 3 Idiots, Limitless, Drive, Whiplash
I have an old book somewhere that said the dairy cow is the most efficient way to convert the grass on a rocky hillside into human-usable protein.
Meat is rather inefficient. Temple Grandin is an autistic woman who designed more humane slaughterhouse systems. A quote in the HBO movie about her sticks with me: "Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be."
Tangential, but if you would like to learn more about her life, there is a movie entitled „Temple Grandin” (http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1278469/). I found it inspiring.
It's very easy to see patterns which aren't present. We as humans are quite good at doing this. How might I confirm that this pattern is present?
To start, let's look at movies that deal with "Scientists, Engineers, Doctors, Researchers, Inventors, Explorers and People who do Amazing Things", from http://www.imdb.com/list/ls050940841/ . These include Apollo 13, Fat Man and Little Boy, Einstein and Eddington, Shackleton, Creation, Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery, Gorillas in the Mist, Temple Grandin, Jobs, and Reach for the Sky.
Of the 31 films (though two are not biographies or based on real-life), 2 are about women (Gorillas in the Mist, Temple Grandin), and the rest are about men. Einstein is certainly high on the list of mythologized people, so mythologization is not limited to women. (Feynman would be another. Infinity (1996) is a biopic about Feynman, but it's not on the list.)
Women appears underrepresented in that list compared to their modern presence in STEM fields. To be fair, the movies include Pasteur from the 1800s, and Harrison from the 1700s. Women were often strongly restricted from doing research in STEM fields during that time.
I saw one non-white person on that list, Vivien Thomas, from the 2004 film "Something the Lord Made".
"Reach for the Sky" from 1956 is "The true story of airman Douglas Bader who overcame the loss of both legs in a 1931 flying accident", and Temple Grandin is autistic. However, since 1956 is rather a long time ago, it does point out the need for a baseline - if the percentage of movies about disabled people has been stable, then it's not a growing pattern. As another example of someone who 'received the mythology treatment', consider "Helen Keller in Her Story" from 1954.
(Howard Hughes, in 'The Aviator' (2004), may also fall into the mentally challenged category, due to his obsessive-compulsive disorder which was present already by the 1930s. I haven't seen the film to see if it touches on his mental illness.)
Films about gay people would have been restricted under the Motion Picture Production Code, so not really seen in films from the 1930s to 1968. That would make it hard to establish a long term pattern. Still, as about 2% of the US adult population (1.2 to 5.6 according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States ) identifies as LGBT, then about 2% of the films about famous people in STEM should concern someone LGBT.
It should not be hard to come up with an evaluation technique, like "all biopics about people in STEM done as movies/made-for-TV movies in the US from 1970 to the present", and redo this same evaluation to see if there is a pattern.
The tricky part is to normalize it. If 2% of the population is homosexual, then what percentage should we expect to see portrayed as they are in movies? If 51% of the US population are women, and 27.9 percent of the PhDs in the physical sciences are women, what patterns should we expect to see in films?
Otherwise you might just be seeing the secular trend that more women are getting involved in STEM, that policies like the ADA make it easier for people with disabilities to get advanced educations, etc.
How have you done the analysis to determine if the patterns you see are due to the expected shift in population distribution of people in STEM, vs. any special sort of mythologization?
A lot of the books mentioned sound fabulous, but are mostly geared towards adults. Here are a couple of suggestions that I used with my 13 year old. We homeschooled him for a year so that he could develop his game app business.
1. Show Me The Money by Alvin D. Hall: This book is by DK books. It is colorful and a GREAT intro to the basics of finance, business and economics.
2. The Young Entrepreneur's Guide to Starting and Running a Business (Completely Revised and Updated) by Steve Mariotti is another awesome book. He was a teacher in a rough inner-city school when he noticed that he could keep the kids attention when he taught math in the context of running a business. He then developed a course around that idea. Your daughter may not want to read the entire book. It's one of those books where you can read different chapters based on interest.
3. One of the homeschool writing classes my son took was How to Write a Business Plan. The teachers used the book The One Page Business Plan for the Creative Entrepreneur by Jim Horan. Great way for kids to learn the aspects of a business. The book is VERY EASY to follow.
Inspirational book for your daughter (I got this for my daughter):
-Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women
WRITING MAGAZINE: New Moon Girls (newmoon.com)
My daughter has a subscription. This magazine and web site is written and edited by the girls.
VIDEOS: Khan Academy
- Economics of a Cupcake Factory
- Raising Money for a Startup (shows the whole process)
- The Business Cycle
VIDEOS: When my daughter was in 5th grade, I used some Schlessinger Media videos on economics to introduce her to the basics of business. I was able to check these out of the library (we are in the Silicon Valley). These videos are:
- Economics for Children: Starting a Business
- Economics for Children: What is Economics
- Economics for Children: Saving, spending, and investing money
INSPIRATION: Resources for your daughter:
- Woman Innovate Mobile (wim.co) - focuses on startups by female founders in the area of mobile products/services.
- Hackbright Academy (www.hackbrightacademy.com) - programming fellowship for women
- JumpThru Women's Business Accelerator (http://jumpthru.net)
- GeekGirl (http://geekgirlcamp.com)
MOVIE: Inspirational movie for your daughter:
- Temple Grandin: shows how Temple Grandin overcame the disabilities of autism and revolutionized cattle slaughter houses so that they would be more humane. Her invention is now used by most slaughter houses. The gore of the slaughter is kept at a minimum in the movie. It is mostly focused on the challenges she faced and overcame.
I do live my own life, quite happily, and don't wallow in self-pity. I merely shared an insight that has helped me make more sense of my life after 30 years of living it. I never said I was unique, merely that I deviated from the norm. "I am a lot taller than most people" does not mean "I am a unique giant, woe is me, doomed to tower over the rest of humanity". It does mean that those people get to complain a bit more about cramped airplane seats.
My advice would be to leave the single-comment psychoanalysis at home, and the platitudes like "live your own life" to the trashy advice columns... Instead, go watch the documentary on Temple Grandin, an autist who is definitely further from the average than I am, and whose awareness of her own nature—as well as her ability to explain it to others—definitely improved her own life.
I recently saw the movie Temple Grandin, a bio of an autistic woman who works with cattle. Her website concerns humane and efficient treatment of livestock. Some fascinating articles.
http://grandin.com/
Hacker Cinema
8 comments on Hacker News
Temple Grandin is the woman who got her PhD related to animal husbandry despite having autism then designed the humane method of leading cows to slaughter …her method is required in California but not all states are required to use it. Google the movie “Temple Grandin” it’s a cool movie
Curated list of favorite underrated movies:
#1 pick for HN Crowd: The Man From Earth // must see, especially if you like philosophical movies (don't recommend the sequel by the way)
Runner's Up:
Being There // absolute classic and must see for every person, at least once
Peaceful Warrior
The Lion In Winter // one of the best dramas ever made, and unbeatable cast with young Anthony Hopkins
Predestination // incredible drama about time travel paradoxes
The Interview // Hugo Weaving
Vitus // amazing story about a piano prodigy who fakes losing his talents to have a normal life
The Perverts Guide to Cinema // documentary, Slavoj Zizek's tour de force psychoanalysis of cinema as an art form; addressing the philosophical and psychological question of whether cinema (and other art forms) fulfil your desires, or rather teach/train you both to desire (and what you should desire), thus the sensationalistic and polemical invocation of it as "perverted"
Le Professionnel (French film, not to be confused with the one with Natalie Portman)
Revolver // Guy Ritchie's quote "It took me three years to write this film whereas Snatch took me three months". It is a masterwork metaphor about the ego, ego death, consciousness, meditation, spirituality, and the nature of reality. Recommend reading an interpretation of the film either before or after viewing to better appreciate what is happening in the story as it is most metaphorical.
Rest of the List: The Big Kahuna, Tao of Steve, Crazy Stupid Love, Megamind, Eyes Wide Shut, Dead Poet's Society, Before Sunset, Gambit, Five Minutes of Heaven, Temple Grandin, Croupier, The Good Guy, 3 Idiots, Limitless, Drive, Whiplash
I have an old book somewhere that said the dairy cow is the most efficient way to convert the grass on a rocky hillside into human-usable protein.
Meat is rather inefficient. Temple Grandin is an autistic woman who designed more humane slaughterhouse systems. A quote in the HBO movie about her sticks with me: "Nature is cruel, but we don't have to be."
https://m.imdb.com/title/tt1278469/?ref=m_nv_sr_1
Tangential, but if you would like to learn more about her life, there is a movie entitled „Temple Grandin” (http://m.imdb.com/title/tt1278469/). I found it inspiring.
It's very easy to see patterns which aren't present. We as humans are quite good at doing this. How might I confirm that this pattern is present?
To start, let's look at movies that deal with "Scientists, Engineers, Doctors, Researchers, Inventors, Explorers and People who do Amazing Things", from http://www.imdb.com/list/ls050940841/ . These include Apollo 13, Fat Man and Little Boy, Einstein and Eddington, Shackleton, Creation, Captain Cook: Obsession and Discovery, Gorillas in the Mist, Temple Grandin, Jobs, and Reach for the Sky.
Of the 31 films (though two are not biographies or based on real-life), 2 are about women (Gorillas in the Mist, Temple Grandin), and the rest are about men. Einstein is certainly high on the list of mythologized people, so mythologization is not limited to women. (Feynman would be another. Infinity (1996) is a biopic about Feynman, but it's not on the list.)
Women appears underrepresented in that list compared to their modern presence in STEM fields. To be fair, the movies include Pasteur from the 1800s, and Harrison from the 1700s. Women were often strongly restricted from doing research in STEM fields during that time.
I saw one non-white person on that list, Vivien Thomas, from the 2004 film "Something the Lord Made".
"Reach for the Sky" from 1956 is "The true story of airman Douglas Bader who overcame the loss of both legs in a 1931 flying accident", and Temple Grandin is autistic. However, since 1956 is rather a long time ago, it does point out the need for a baseline - if the percentage of movies about disabled people has been stable, then it's not a growing pattern. As another example of someone who 'received the mythology treatment', consider "Helen Keller in Her Story" from 1954.
(Howard Hughes, in 'The Aviator' (2004), may also fall into the mentally challenged category, due to his obsessive-compulsive disorder which was present already by the 1930s. I haven't seen the film to see if it touches on his mental illness.)
Films about gay people would have been restricted under the Motion Picture Production Code, so not really seen in films from the 1930s to 1968. That would make it hard to establish a long term pattern. Still, as about 2% of the US adult population (1.2 to 5.6 according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_demographics_of_the_United_States ) identifies as LGBT, then about 2% of the films about famous people in STEM should concern someone LGBT.
It should not be hard to come up with an evaluation technique, like "all biopics about people in STEM done as movies/made-for-TV movies in the US from 1970 to the present", and redo this same evaluation to see if there is a pattern.
The tricky part is to normalize it. If 2% of the population is homosexual, then what percentage should we expect to see portrayed as they are in movies? If 51% of the US population are women, and 27.9 percent of the PhDs in the physical sciences are women, what patterns should we expect to see in films?
Otherwise you might just be seeing the secular trend that more women are getting involved in STEM, that policies like the ADA make it easier for people with disabilities to get advanced educations, etc.
How have you done the analysis to determine if the patterns you see are due to the expected shift in population distribution of people in STEM, vs. any special sort of mythologization?
A lot of the books mentioned sound fabulous, but are mostly geared towards adults. Here are a couple of suggestions that I used with my 13 year old. We homeschooled him for a year so that he could develop his game app business.
1. Show Me The Money by Alvin D. Hall: This book is by DK books. It is colorful and a GREAT intro to the basics of finance, business and economics. 2. The Young Entrepreneur's Guide to Starting and Running a Business (Completely Revised and Updated) by Steve Mariotti is another awesome book. He was a teacher in a rough inner-city school when he noticed that he could keep the kids attention when he taught math in the context of running a business. He then developed a course around that idea. Your daughter may not want to read the entire book. It's one of those books where you can read different chapters based on interest. 3. One of the homeschool writing classes my son took was How to Write a Business Plan. The teachers used the book The One Page Business Plan for the Creative Entrepreneur by Jim Horan. Great way for kids to learn the aspects of a business. The book is VERY EASY to follow.
Inspirational book for your daughter (I got this for my daughter): -Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women
WRITING MAGAZINE: New Moon Girls (newmoon.com) My daughter has a subscription. This magazine and web site is written and edited by the girls.
VIDEOS: Khan Academy - Economics of a Cupcake Factory - Raising Money for a Startup (shows the whole process) - The Business Cycle
VIDEOS: When my daughter was in 5th grade, I used some Schlessinger Media videos on economics to introduce her to the basics of business. I was able to check these out of the library (we are in the Silicon Valley). These videos are: - Economics for Children: Starting a Business - Economics for Children: What is Economics - Economics for Children: Saving, spending, and investing money
INSPIRATION: Resources for your daughter: - Woman Innovate Mobile (wim.co) - focuses on startups by female founders in the area of mobile products/services. - Hackbright Academy (www.hackbrightacademy.com) - programming fellowship for women - JumpThru Women's Business Accelerator (http://jumpthru.net) - GeekGirl (http://geekgirlcamp.com)
MOVIE: Inspirational movie for your daughter: - Temple Grandin: shows how Temple Grandin overcame the disabilities of autism and revolutionized cattle slaughter houses so that they would be more humane. Her invention is now used by most slaughter houses. The gore of the slaughter is kept at a minimum in the movie. It is mostly focused on the challenges she faced and overcame.
I do live my own life, quite happily, and don't wallow in self-pity. I merely shared an insight that has helped me make more sense of my life after 30 years of living it. I never said I was unique, merely that I deviated from the norm. "I am a lot taller than most people" does not mean "I am a unique giant, woe is me, doomed to tower over the rest of humanity". It does mean that those people get to complain a bit more about cramped airplane seats.
My advice would be to leave the single-comment psychoanalysis at home, and the platitudes like "live your own life" to the trashy advice columns... Instead, go watch the documentary on Temple Grandin, an autist who is definitely further from the average than I am, and whose awareness of her own nature—as well as her ability to explain it to others—definitely improved her own life.
I recently saw the movie Temple Grandin, a bio of an autistic woman who works with cattle. Her website concerns humane and efficient treatment of livestock. Some fascinating articles. http://grandin.com/