In the news

From the NYT, an article about defining productivity by work produced, not hours spent: They Work Long Hours, but What About Results?

"...a measurement system based on hours makes no sense for knowledge workers. Their contribution should be measured by the value they create through applying their ideas and skills."

It's aimed at a different work environment than academia, but I still found parts of it useful. Most notably:

"In general, don’t waste your time creating A-plus work when B-plus is good enough. Use the extra time to create A-plus work where it matters most."

This I have to keep in mind, particularly for teaching.

Yet more movies

I just saw Looper and enjoyed the hell out of it. Props to the script: the foreshadowing was very, very subtle. Also, I appreciated the fact that the writers didn't rely on a cast of stereotypes, but developed their minor players. Hell, even red-shirt assassin-guy got some character development, and he was only on screen for, like, 5 seconds.