"Cartoon characters wear the same clothes every day, because their animators are lazy."

"You are not a cartoon character."

From "6 Telltale Signs It's Time to Upgrade Your Style." [A "sponsored" article at Gawker.]

Does that mean Steve Jobs was lazy and needed to upgrade his style? And as long as we're doing lists, we might as well shift over to "18 Famous People Who Always Dress The Same": Jobs, Zuckerberg, Tom Wolfe, Michael Kors, Larry Page...

These people are so not lazy. They're style icons, projecting power. The same clothes every day projects industriousness, efficiency, and — if you pick the right stuff — style.

Remember the scene in "The Fly" (the one with Jeff Goldblum)? He shows his closet:

 [H]is girlfriend,  Geena Davis, asks him why he never changes his clothes.

“What are you saying?” he replies. “I change my clothes every day.”

“Well, how come then you always wear the same thing?”

Goldblum walks over to his closet, opens it, and shows Davis a long rack of identical suits, ties, white shirts, and black shoes. “See?” he says. “What did I tell you?”

Albert Einstein was even less fashion-conscious and reportedly had only one suit of clothes.  Like the Goldblum character, Einstein felt that having to worry about what to wear distracted him from more important work.

Do you follow this path? If you do — or if you were to do this — what do you wear? Why isn't everyone wearing black knit tops and blue/black jeans (or a black skirt with or without tights)?

Will Scott Walker finally get his college degree?

Time Magazine calls attention to the (unnerving?) gap in Scott Walker's resume.

The missing bachelors may seem odd, but it’s one reason Walker’s appeal in the GOP is only rising. Unlike New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie or Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, most Americans would have no trouble imagining sharing a beer with Walker, the age-old likability test. “I always thought I’d get back, and I may still do,” Walker said, explaining he recently helped establish a “flex option” at the University of Wisconsin to allow adults to complete their college education. “Someday, maybe in the next few years, I’ll embark on finishing my degree.”

More details! How many credits does he need? What has he already taken? Casual research indicates he needs 36 credits. Here's the flex option website. I can't imagine him putting time into a college course when he's got so much work to do. And not having a degree gives him some panache, putting him in a set with Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg... and George Washington.

But let's give him some advice anyway. What book learning would you like to prescribe for an American presidential candidate? Let's not burden him with material that duplicates what he's learned on the job. What do you think? Process of Legal Order & Disorder? The History of the American Suburb? Race and Sexuality in American Literature? French Philosophy: Existentialism?

"Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg is taking fire from the left..."

When you're on the left, you need to be left all the way, from your first bite of tofu 'til your last dying day.

"The Silicon Valley aristocrats Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin and Yuri Milner have jointly established the most lucrative annual prize in the history of science..."

"... to reward research into curing diseases and extending human life. The newly created Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences Foundation on Wednesday announces the first 11 winners of an award intended to inject excitement into the sometimes lonely, underfunded quests to understand and combat cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's disease and other maladies. Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook; Brin, who co-founded Google; and Milner, a venture capitalist, have dipped into their fortunes to sponsor awards worth $3m each, compared with a Nobel prize's monetary value of $1.1m."

"I had to sit down on the floor for a while. I thought it must be a practical joke or a Nigerian scam," said Cornelia Bargmann, 51, who has pioneered work on neural circuits and behaviour at the Rockefeller University. "The scale of this is so outsized I think it will have a huge impact on the life sciences." Asked how she would spend the money she hesitated. "It's so far outside my normal planning I don't know. Get the car fixed?"...

Titia de Lange, 57, who researches cell biology, genetics and cancer at Rockefeller university, said the award felt surreal. "I'm not used to having a lot of money. I don't really have possessions." Two women from a list of 11 fairly reflected the percentage of women working at that level, she said. "One would like it to be higher of course."

Young women! Enter the sciences. Silicon Valley aristocrats are dying to give you $3 million. The gender balance must be achieved. No sooner is this wonderful, generous prize announced than the criticism rolls in, gently at first, but you know there is a problem. The aristocrats want the honor of handing out honor and they must comply with the ethical structure of the Silicon Valley culture where they reign. There must be women recipients. 11 prizes? 6 should go to women!

So, ladies, get on it. There's big money here! And yet, women are apparently not so motivated by money. Oh, I don't know, get the car fixed. Gotta sit down on the floor. I don't really have possessions....

So funny. It's men who are offering big money as an incentive. But what if monetary incentives are a male thing, working mostly on men? And yet you have to include the women, equally, because even if women don't care so much about actually getting the money, they care immensely about equality and fairness. And everyone's watching. The symbolism counts, not just the effect of motivating improvements in life for the rest of us. What do you want more — cures for diseases or the appearance of gender equity?