Beluga is a simple, yet full-featured, Group Messaging app for both IPhone and Android smartphones, with access for any Web-enabled device through its Web interface. (If you didn't know, we here at Read Write Web like simple-yet-full-featured apps, so Beluga fits right in.) Even feature phone users can get in on the group chat fun, as the app will send messages as SMS... Beluga joins into a crowded space of SMS alternatives, but takes it one step further by giving its users the ability to create "pods" of interaction and adding extremely useful features like geolocation of a individual pod members and picture sharing. If you're all actively chatting and choosing to share your location (notice: you have the option to turn this off or on at any point), then you can switch over to the map view at any point to see where everyone is... There are a couple of strong competitors (such as Group Me) (and Kik, TextPlus, Ping Chat), but if our experience with Beluga at CES tells us anything, our vote lies with the whale. (more)

Certification/CargoCult-central for the Profession of Project Management. They didn't get the "WaterFall is an AntiPattern" memo. (more)

That R. Kelly ‘cult’ story almost never ran. Thank Hulk Hogan for that. (more)

MetaMed Research was a medical consulting firm aiming to provide high-end personalized medical research services. It was founded in 2012 by Michael Vassar. Vassar founded MetaMed to apply the principles of rationality as taught by Eliezer Yudkowsky to medicine (HealthCare), having left Yudkowsky's Singularity Institute to do so... By 2015, MetaMed was defunct, which Tallinn attributed to the difficulty of producing research results and limited interest from consumers. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MetaMed

FaceBook CTO and platform guru Bret Taylor is leaving FaceBook this summer, Kara Swisher is reporting, off to do a startup with Google App Engine founder Kevin Gibbs. (more)

Although it abandoned efforts to rate the quality of colleges (College Education), the federal government (Department Of Education) matched data from the federal student Financial Aid system to federal tax returns. The Department of Education was thus able to calculate how much money people who enrolled in individual colleges in 2001 and 2002 were earning 10 years later... Although earnings of college graduates continue to outpace those of non-collegians by a significant margin, at some institutions, the earnings of students 10 years after enrollment are bleak. College Scorecard (more)

This Therapy Robot That Lives In Facebook Messenger Wants To Treat Your Anxiety (more)

Giles Bowkett noodles on variations of new Organization Models: (more)

changing process of Educating Kids (more)

The Factory Schooling MonoCulture. (more)

Rahm Emanuel wants to add a CPS (Chicago Public Schools) High School graduation requirement: Get acceptance letter (more)

Jeff Atwood seeks a fixing of Mark Down. The so-called "spec" is anything but, and there are dozens of different flavors of Markdown out there, all with differences in the way they behave. While they are broadly compatible, Stack Overflow and GitHub have both tweaked Markdown in ways that can trip you up if you're familiar with one but not the other; compare GitHub Flavor with Stack Overflow Flavor. John Mac Farlane has documented specific issues. Jeff himself had tweaked the implementation at Stack Overflow before they left beta because of user confusion. (more)

Eataly is the largest[citation needed] Italian marketplace (food hall) in the world, comprising a variety of restaurants, food and beverage counters, bakery, retail items, and a cooking school. Eataly was founded by Oscar Farinetti, an entrepreneur formerly involved in the consumer electronics business, and collaborates with Slow Food. Since 1 October 2016, Eataly has been led by Andrea Guerra, the executive chairman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eataly (more)

Corby Kummer on Eataly, a Super Market embracing the Slow Food movement.

Have a meeting in New York City, so going to fly in early to have Sunday in the City. East Village Side Walk time. (more)

Jonathan Alter's profile of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel places a lot of emphasis on his School Reform efforts. (more)

Mission shared by a Team. (more)

The Goal, Purpose, Vision; Context; Meaning Of Life (more)

Michael Feldstein: “Alternative Pathways:” How to Rethink Vocational Education (VoTech, Alternatives To A College Degree) (more)

Praxis says: Apprentice at a StartUp (more)