why not?
/Some men see things as they are and say, "Why?" I dream of things that never were and say, "Why not?" – George Bernard Shaw
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
articles of interest - Nov 7
/***ELECTION COVERAGE
The New York Times to Offer Open Access To NYTimes.com November 7-9 New York Times
Nate Silver: Forecasts Showing Clinton With 99% Chance of Winning "Don't Pass Commonsense Test" ABC News’ This Week
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Meme warfare: how the power of mass replication has poisoned the US election The Guardian
Social Media's Increasing Role In The 2016 Presidential Election NPR
Social media leads some users to rethink a political issue Pew Research Center
Twitter still might save Vine by selling it Tech Crunch ***FREE SPEECH
Students at one college were threatened with arrest for handing out copies of the Constitution Business Insider
***LEGAL ISSUES
A Highway Sign Is At Center Of An Unusual Trademark Dispute NPR
Rolling Stone found liable for defamation for fraternity rape story CNN
Jury Finds 'Rolling Stone,' Reporter Liable For Damages In Rape Allegation Story NPR
'Loving' Tells Story Of Supreme Court Ruling Legalizing Interracial Marriage NPR
***BIG DATA
Data Analytics in Higher Education: A Mixed Bag Datanami
Little Data Is Making Learning Personal Wired
Two-thirds of public doesn’t understand data, yet increasingly influenced by data: study Talking New Media
What you can learn from GitHub's top 10 open source projects Tech Republic
***ART & DESIGN
Album Turns Into Something New Each Time It’s Streamed PSFK
***FILM
Decoding the Screenplays of The Shining, Moonrise Kingdom & The Dark Knight: Watch Lessons from the Screenplay Open Culture
***RELIGION
Methodist High Court Affirms Bishop's Decision Overruling LGBT Resolution Christina Post
Amy Grant’s new Christmas album reignites the old ‘What’s Christian enough?’ question Washington Post
The most and least educated U.S. religious groups Pew Research
Evangelicals Consider Whether God Really Cares How They Vote NPR
Religious freedom at stake in this election, but not in the way evangelicals think (opinion) Religious News Service
SD Catholic church: Democratic voters are doomed to hell, Clinton is satanic Union Tribune
Steinberg: Evangelical youths weigh vexing presidential choice (opinion) Chicago Sun-Times
No, John Podesta didn’t drink bodily fluids at a secret Satanist dinner Washington Post
More than $180,000 raised for church burned, marked with ‘Vote Trump’ graffiti Religious News Service
Latino Evangelicals Are The Ultimate Swing Voters That Could Tip Florida's Scale NPR
***MUSIC
The Greatest Invention of One Thousand Years Ago Foundation for Economic Education
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
News Corp, hit by an 11% drop in print ad revenue, records a loss in its Q1 2017 earnings report Talking New Media
***JOURNALISM
When interviewing trauma victims, proceed with caution and compassion IJNet
Profiles in mobile journalism: Defining a new storytelling language IJNet
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
Cuts underway as advertising tumble accelerates Columbia Journalism Review
***STUDENT MEDIA
Censored Liberty University columnist steps down from position at student newspaper Student Press Law Center
***STUDENT LIFE
Millennials: Welcome to the Voting Booth Bloomberg
Millennials Are Drinking the World’s Coffee Supply Dry Vice
College Is A 4-Year-Long Balancing Act For First-Generation Students NPR
Having a Hard Time in College? Take Some Advice From 2 Million Students TIME
Sharp Growth of STDs in College age Population Inside Higher Ed
40% of Millennials fear the election is rigged USA Today
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Behind Door #3 (The Monty Hall Problem) Becoming (my blog)
The Simple Logical Puzzle That Shows How Illogical We Are - Facts So Romantic Nautil
Why We Can’t Finish Things Chronicle of Higher Ed
***SCIENCE
The Science behind 'Doctor Strange' Bustle
***HEALTH
First cases of new superbug in US STAT
How Doctors Could One Day Use Your DNA to Cure You Wired
Use Canada and the WHO’s ‘essential medicines’ as guides for US drug pricing STAT
***PSYCHOLOGY
Why Big Liars Often Start Out as Small Ones New York Times
***NEUROSCIENCE
Vibrant New Brain Scans Reveal What Makes You You Wired
Fear and Your Brain Jstor
***BUSINESS
Why People Stay in Jobs They Hate Bloomberg
***PHILOSOPHY
How Nietzsche Became the Most Absurdly Bastardized Philosopher in Hollywood Slate
How a Philosophy Professor Found Love in a Hidden Library New York Times
Thing-in-Itself brings Kant’s philosophical expression to videogames Kill Screen
Philosophy is cool again (sub. req’ed) Houston Chronicle
A new philosophy of science? Surely that’s been outlawed Oxford University Press
***WRITING& READING
When Vladimir Nabokov Taught Ruth Bader Ginsburg, His Most Famous Student, To Care Deeply About Writing Open Culture
***LANGUAGE
Native English speakers are the world’s worst communicators BBC
Princeton Proposal Would Require all students to Study another Language beside English Inside Higher Ed
215 Hours of Free Foreign Language Lessons on Spotify: French, Chinese, German, Russian & More Open Culture
***LITERATURE
Children's Book Author Natalie Babbitt Dies At 84 NPR
Benedict Cumberbatch Reads Kurt Vonnegut’s Incensed Letter to the High School That Burned Slaughterhouse-Five Open Culture
Friday Reads: Madeline L’Engle Jstor
***ACADEMIC LIFE
***RESEARCH
Now you can see who’s not sharing their trial results STAT
How to improve the quantitative predictions in psychological studies EFPSA
What should you do if a paper you’ve cited is later retracted? Retraction Watch
***RACE
BBC Airs Tone-Deaf Segment On Black People And Fried Chicken Huffington Post
Changing Standards for Collecting Data on Race and Ethnicity Inside Higher Ed
***HIGHER ED
Ballot Measures and Higher Ed Inside Higher Ed
Fear And Anger When Trump Comes To Campus (opinion) BuzzFeed
New Era for Disability Rights in higher education Inside Higher Ed
A jolt to private colleges from the NLRB: Gagging employees violates federal labor law Student Press Law Center
***TEACHING
Do You Make Them Call You ‘Professor’? Chronicle of Higher Ed
200 MOOCs Starting in November Open Culture
***CRIME ON CAMPUS
Feds Investigating Sandusky Fine Penn State $2.4M for Violating Clery: A law requiring schools to report campus crimes and warn people if their safety is threatened US News and World Report
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Students Urge Colleges to Define Rape Culture in their Sexual Assault Policies Inside Higher Ed
a sign
/A sign that someone is growing is that they expose themselves to people and places that are better than they are, different than they are, and more successful than they are. John Maxwell
Behind Door #3
/Remember the old television show Let’s Make a Deal? Monty Hall would given contestants, typically dressed in outrageous costumes, a choice of three doors. The contestant would receive whatever was behind the door they selected. One of the doors had a great prize behind it. Pick that door and you get a valuable gift like a car or a vacation. But behind the other two doors were gag gifts. It might be a rooster or a lifetime supply of paper clips.
There was always one extra twist to the show: Once you pick a door, before revealing what was behind it, Monty would do you the favor of opening one of the remaining two doors and show one of the gag gifts. At that point, he'd let you switch doors if you wanted to do so. You could stick with your original choice as well.
What's the right move? Our instinct tells us to to stick to our guns. But you should go against that instinct and switch. Why? The chances you’ve picked the wrong door is two-out-of-three. But with only two doors left, your odds of getting the great prize goes up to 50-50.
But there’s more afoot here than just winning a prize on a TV game show.
Economist M. Keith Chen says this phenomenon has been overlooked in some of the most famous psychology experiments. He claims The Monty Hall Problem shows there's a logical flaw in the idea of choice rationalization. Choice rationalization is the idea that once we reject something, we tell ourselves we never liked the one we rejected anyway. Psychologists say we do this because it spares us the pain of thinking we made the wrong choice. Chen believes it’s not the act of picking that makes people suddenly prefer one over the other. He claims the preference was there all along. It's just that the preference was so slight it was not initially obvious until other possibilities are cleared out. You can read his own explanation here.
Stephen Goforth
show up
/Show up in your life everyday.
Shame and Lament
/Shame drives me to hide in my room. Lament pulls me into tomorrow. Ryan Shoemaker
rejection
/See rejection as feedback.
assets and liabilities
/Buy assets, not liabilities. People are either liabilities or assets.
who they are
/Respect people for who they are, not for what their titles are. -Herb Kelleher
articles of interest - Oct 31
/***TECHNOLOGY
Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for 2017 Information Management
Top 200 Tools for Learning 2016: Overview Centre for Learning and Performance Technologies
Companies Try Out Selfies as Password Alternatives: Facial-recognition apps use smartphone snapshots to verify identity of customers, taxpayers Wall Street Journal
Concerts put phones on lockdown for a phone-free event (the service has also been used in classrooms) New York Times
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Those Facebook lives from space are fake AF Mashable
Vine is Closed Medium
Do Parents Invade Children's Privacy When They Post Photos Online? NPR
If You’re Mourning The Loss Of Vine, Check Out The New App From Its Co-Founder Tube Filter
Facebook’s fake news problem won’t fix itself Poynter
***BIG DATA
The AI disruption wave Tech Crunch
Which data science functions will be automated in the near future? Forbes
Prediction: By 2020 60% of AI apps will run on the platform of one of 4 companies: Amazon, Google, Microsoft & IBM New York Times
How Apache Ignite pulls RDBMS, NoSQL, and Hadoop data sets into memory for improved performance InfoWorld
What do everyday people-not techies or co's-think about AI’s potential/pitfalls. Will AI will help/hurt the world? Harvard Business Review
Let’s break down 7 data/analytics job titles for today's data pros Information Week
Two-thirds of public doesn’t understand data, yet increasingly influenced by data, study says Talking New Media
What you can learn from GitHub's top 10 open source projects Tech Republic
***ART & DESIGN
Making Art Off The Grid: A Monthlong Residency At A Remote National Park NPR
***FILM
Film and the prez election NPR
***PRODUCING MEDIA
How These Netflix And NPR Vets Plan To Reinvent PodcastsFast Company
***GRAMMAR
Spelling errors to wet your appetite and furl your brow Washington Post
***WRITING& READING
Having an Aspirational Home Library Is Totally Normal Slate
Kurt Vonnegut’s Term Paper Assignment from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop Teaches You to Read Fiction Like a Writer Open Culture
An education expert says reading to kids makes them more curious than giving them phones or tablets Business Insider
***LITERATURE
Hear Marshall McLuhan’s The Medium is the Massage (1967) Open Culture
***RELIGION
The history of Satanic Panic in the U.S. — and why it's not over yet Vox
Few Americans identify with more than one religion Pew Research
Chicago public school cancels ‘Christian’ haunted house depicting Orlando LGBT mass shooting Raw Story
A Suicide Cult’s Surviving Members Still Maintain Its 90s Website Vice
Shared religious beliefs in marriage important to some, but not all, married Americans Pew Research
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
The Long, Weird Transition from Analog to Digital Television Atlas Obscura
Is media bias really rampant? Ask the man who studies it for a living Poynter
Vice’s New Gaming Channel, Waypoint, Kicks off With Three-Day Twitch Stream Tube Filter
***JOURNALISM
A daily’s loss in court may cause journalists to rethink how they communicate Columbia Journalism Review
These Women Reporters Went Undercover to Get the Most Important Scoops of Their Day Smithsonian
For journalists investigating corruption, free tool offers millions of searchable documents International Journalists' Network
How the Global Fact-Checking Movement is Changing How We Train Journalists PBS MediaShift
The 70 Greatest Conspiracy Theories in Pop-Culture History Vulture
Journalist arrested for filming in courthouse has charges dismissed Student Press Law Center
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
Gannett's billion-dollar deal to buy Tronc put on hold Political
***STUDENT MEDIA
UT student paper's anti-Muslim letter stirs controversy Knox News
***HEALTH
Patient Zero in AIDS crisis was misidentified, study says, rewriting early history of virus Stat News
Why Insulin Prices Have Kept Rising for 95 years Washington Post
***NEUROSCIENCE
The Inept Story Behind 100 Missing Brains from the Psych Dept at the University of Texas Atlas Obscura
The Brain Wiring Behind a Frustrating Speech Disorder Wall Street Journal
Why you shouldn’t blame lying on the brain The Conversation
Fear and Your Brain Jstor
***SOCIOLOGY
What a liberal sociologist learned from spending five years in Trump's America Vox
***GENDER ISSUES
'Good Girls Revolt' Takes On Gender Bias In The Newsroom NPR
Odd Vintage Postcards Document the Propaganda Against Women’s Rights 100 Years Ago Open Culture
Mind the (Pay) Gap Scholarly Kitchen
***RACE
A Professor Circled “Hence” On A Latina Student’s Paper And Wrote “This Is Not Your Word" BuzzFeed
***PHILOSOPHY
Stephen Fry Narrates 4 Philosophy Animations On the Question: How to Create a JustSociety? Open Culture
***PERSONAL GROWTH
The strongest political bias Becoming (my blog)
***HIGHER ED
Why the Future of Content Creation in Higher Education Is Digital Tech.Co
The Man Who Shed Light On Why College Keeps Getting More Expensive NPR
Colleges Crackdown Targets Drinking and Sexual Assault New York Times
Liberty University Students Want to Be Christians—Not Republicans The Atlantic
***TEACHING
Community College FAQ: You Teach How Many Classes? Chronicle of Higher Ed
Tips for Effective Online Learning – Community Edition Chronicle of Higher Ed
Private Facebook pages created by students for your course are the new cyber watercooler Chronicle of Higher Ed
***FREE SPEECH
Student forced out for Facebook Comments Inside Higher Ed
One University Asks: How Do You Promote Free Speech Without Alienating Students? (sub. req’d) Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LEGAL ISSUES
In a Copyright Case, Justices Ponder the Meaning of Fashion New York Times
Federal judge smacks down Northern Kentucky's reliance on FERPA privacy to keep secrets in student's sexual-assault lawsuit Student Press Law Center
***CRIME ON CAMPUS
Campus Cop on trial for Murder NPR
BYU police accessed thousands of external agencies' police records, actions questioned Herald Extra
***STUDENT LIFE
Should Students Major in What They Love? Inside Higher Ed
Clerk wanted to block early voting for students Wisconsin Rapids Tribune
‘Not Your Language’: How a Classroom Interaction Led a Student to Speak Out on Microaggressions Chronicle of Higher Ed
Having a Hard Time in College? Take Some Advice From 2 Million Students TIME
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Brigham Young Students Who Report Sexual Assault Won’t Face Honor Code Sanctions New York Times
USF reviewing sex harassment finding at administrator's previous job Tampa Bay Times
Study: Gay and bisexual men are reporting sexual assaults on the campus at the same frequencies as heterosexual women Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. publishers
More details of Baylor's 'horrifying and painful' sexual-assault scandal have emerged Business Insider
Brigham Young Will Grant Disciplinary Amnesty to Sexual-Assault Victims Chronicle of Higher Ed
***TITLE IX
Resident Assistants Find Themselves on the Front Lines of Title IX Compliance Chronicle of Higher Ed
CUNY’s Hunter College Violated Title IX, Education Dept. Says Chronicle of Higher Ed
awakening
/A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain. -The Quaker Reader
people lie
/The reason people lie is to avoid the pain of challenge and it’s consequences.
the point
/The point of life is not to become a more satisfied shopper. -Rod Dreher
articles of interest - Oct 24
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook Says It Still Isn't a Media Company Despite Deciding What's Newsworthy Fortune
Hyperpartisan Facebook Pages Are Publishing False And Misleading Information At An Alarming Rate BuzzFeed
Social-media endorsements are the latest thing in advertising Economist
The Social Mediators: 7 Young Social Stars Share Their Rules For Engagement Fast Company
First Snapchat-Native Documentary Films to Launch From PBS Series POV Variety
***INTERNET
Would You Click on These Fake Gmail Alerts? Motherboard
***TECHNOLOGY
The Feds Already Have Your Face in a Database Gizmodo
The Internet of Things: When Toasters Go Online Blooomberg
Are E-sports Eating Up Traditional Sports Viewership? Watching other people play video games is just as compelling to millennial men as baseball and hockey MIT Technology Review
***ART & DESIGN
Reading Gaol, Where Oscar Wilde Was Imprisoned, Unlocks Its Gates For Art NPR
Tiny Hand Will Be Your New Comic Sans: BuzzFeed News made a font BuzzFeed
108 million web users are color blind. Tips for designing keeping them in mind Ux Planet
Disenfranchised by Bad Design Propublica
***BIG DATA / STATS
Three big data trends that 2016 brought out: Spark, Multi-core Servers, & IoT Dzone
Spark for Scale: the fundamental concepts Social Cops
MachineLearning is like a deep-fat fryer IdleWords
***FREE SPEECH
Writers Group Seeks Middle Ground on Campus Speech Inside Higher Ed
***LEGAL ISSUES
The Billion Dollar Copyright Lawsuit that could Legalize a new kind of Scam Fast Company
Rolling Stone Defamation Trial: UVA Student Who Made Up Rape Story Got Tattoo To Mark It Huff Post
***GENDER ISSUES
Education Department opens civil rights investigation at Baylor University Politico
Connie Chung ‘went through hell’ as a woman in journalism Page Six
'Mansplaining' On 'Jeopardy!' Huff Post
***DIVERSITY
Study: Immigrants Face Backlash But Do The Same To The Next Group NPR
***RACE
Graduation Gap for Black Football Players Inside Higher Ed
ProPublica Reveals Discriminatory Pricing By Computer Algorithms NPR
The Importance of Talking Explicitly About Race Chronicle of Higher Ed
Growing Racial Disparities in Student Debt Inside Higher Ed
Every Asian American has been asked this question. A computer gives the best answer Washington Post
***SEXUAL ASSAULT
Colleges are debating when to notify students about sexual assaults Business Insider
UNM fires professor tied to sexual misconduct allegations Albuquerque Journal
Education Dept. Opens Title IX Investigation at Baylor Chronicle of Higher Ed
***FILM
How Movie Studios Rejected Scripts During the Silent-Film Era: A Cold, 17-Point Checklist Circa 1915 Open Culture
***RELIGION
Evangelicals are a lot more chill about religion and politics than they used to be Washington Post
Dobson is calling for civil disobedience against a California law Associated Press
RIP Jack Chick, father of the Satanic Panic BongBong
***MUSIC
Bob Dylan Set to Share His Gospel Roots CBN
Hear Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies & Ballets in a Complete, 32-Hour, Chronological Playlist Open Culture
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
Print advertising woes are getting worse Poynter
NBCUniversal is doubling its bet on BuzzFeed by investing another $200 million Recode
AT&T Is Buying Time Warner Because the Future is Google Wired
The Next Generation Of Local, Low-Power FM Stations Expands In Urban Areas NPR
German Chatbot Startup Tries to Help Publishers Reach Larger Audience MediaShift
Newsonomics: Here are 10 storylines we’ll be talking about into 2017 Harvard’s Nieman Lab
***BUSINESS
The full-time MBA is under pressure from specialist degrees and online education Economist
Two economists win the Nobel prize for their work on the theory of contracts Economist
***JOURNALISM
Black Christian producer sues CNN because his colleagues kept saying 'Jesus Christ Daily Mail
Kidnapped Journalist Forced To Explain To ISIS Captors What BuzzFeed News Is The Onion
Writing about think tanks and using their research: A cautionary tip sheet Journalist’s Resources
The power of comics journalism Economist
Hacking: What journalists need to know. A conversation with Bruce Schneier Journalist’s Resources
For journalists battling censorship, focus on people, not politics International Journalists' Network
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
It’s 2016, and we’re still arguing whether newspapers should have websites Poynter
Can A.G. Sulzberger Save The New York Times? Vanity Fair
Gannett announces across chain staff layoffs, while ‘tronc’ acquisition rumors continue Talking New Media
***STUDENT MEDIA
Student newspapers trashed over rape story WFTS-TV
Missouri Journalism School Was A Bit Too Bullish Before Middle Tennessee Game
Liberty Blocks its Student Paper Publishing Column Critical of Trump Inside Higher Ed
***STUDENT LIFE
UC Irvine Is Offering E-Sports Scholarships Fox Sports Radio
Student at Washington University in St. Louis reveals 5 apps that people are talking about on campus Business Insider
***SCIENCE
Keep politics out of science? Fugghedaboutit STAT
***HEALTH
The Cure for Cancer Is Data—Mountains of Data Wired
Millennials took Adderall to get through school. Now they’ve taken their addiction to the workplace Quartz
Electrodes in the brain can mimic sensations from the hand Economist
***PSYCHOLOGY
How The Concept Of Implicit Bias Came Into Being NPR
Colleges Turn Online Text Messaging Services to Help with Counseling Demand Inside Higher Ed
Psychiatric patients wait the longest in emergency rooms Washington Post
A new generation of drugs could change the way depression is treated Economist
Social attitudes to faces: Your class determines how you look at your fellow creatures Economist
Hazards of pointing out bad meta-analyses of psychological interventions PLOS
How do politicians get so comfortable with lying? One theory: practice Vox
***NEUROSCIENCE
Space Brain': Mars Explorers May Risk Neural Damage, Study Finds NBC
There’s Such a Think as Too Much Neuroscience New York Times
Brain study shows how small lies grow into whoppers Stat News
Frequent liars show less activity in key brain structure Science News
***GRAMMAR
***WRITING& READING
Student Writing in the Digital Age Jstor
'Blackacre': A Collection Of Poems About 'Searching And Being Buffeted' NPR
Bye-Bye, Cursive Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LITERATURE
Bob Dylan Wins Nobel Prize, Redefining Boundaries of Literature New York Times
#TrumpBookReport trends after debate as people imagine Donald Trump's response to literature Telegraph
11 of literature’s best closing lines PR Daily
The 8 Most Misunderstood Witches In Literature Bustle
Oxford University Press: New edition of Shakespeare's works will co-credit Christopher Marlowe Business Insider
***PHILOSOPHY
John Cleese & Jonathan Miller Turn Profs Talking About Wittgenstein Into a Classic Comedy Routine (1977) Open Culture
***PERSONAL GROWTH
How our brain tricks us when visualizing the future Becoming (my blog)
***HIGHER ED
What You Need to Know About the Overtime Rule and Higher Ed Chronicle of Higher Ed
To an enthusiastic crowd at Regent University, Donald Trump makes his case in final days of campaign Virginian Pilot
***TEACHING
LinkedIn Free Courses Week LinkedIn
A Defense of the Multiple-Choice Exam: Its value may be limited, but there is no better way to test whether students have read the material Chronicle of Higher Ed
***ACADEMIC LIFE
There Is No Excuse for How Universities Treat Adjuncts The Atlantic
What was it like to get a PhD in the 1840s? Physics Today
This photo essay shows what it really means to be adjunct faculty Washington Post
***RESEARCH
How many IRB members does it take to screw in a light bulb?" Anonymous
Why Data Citation Is a Computational Problem ACM
Ask The Chefs: What’s Your Favorite ‘Dirty Little Secret’ About Scholarly Publishing? Scholarly Kitchen
defining goals
/The reason most people never reach their goals is that they don't define them, learn about them, or even seriously consider them as believable or achievable.
Denis Waitley
It's Contageous!
/Not only do you tend to hang out with people like yourself, your friends will influence you toward or away from self-control. Even the people you are forced by circumstances to hang out with (like co-workers) have an influence on your behavior.
That's the finding of researchers who asked participants to watch people either select carrot sticks or cookies to eat before taking tests related to self-control (not involving cookies and carrots). Participants who watched someone eat cookies before the tests did not do as well as those who had watched someone decide to eat carrots.
In another test, participants were told to think of a friend with good self-control. This group performed better on a handgrip test (used to measure self-control) than did the participants assigned to think about a friend with weak self-control. Other tests showed similar results.
Their conclusions: If you surround yourself with people who make wise choices, you are more likely to do the same. You can boost your self-control simply by networking with other people who reinforce positive behavior (or vise versa). And when you show a lack of self-control, you are probably influencing someone else to do the same.
Details of the study are published by the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.
Stephen Goforth
nothing
/Nothing to prove. Nothing to lose.
Slot machines in our pockets
/The capacity of slot machines to keep people transfixed is now the engine of Las Vegas’s economy. Over the last 20 years, roulette wheels and craps tables have been swept away to make space for a new generation of machines: no longer mechanical contraptions (they have no lever), they contain complex computers produced in collaborations between software engineers, mathematicians, script writers and graphic artists.
But it is the variation in rewards that is the key to time-on-device. The machines are programmed to create near misses: winning symbols appear just above or below the “payline” far more often than chance alone would dictate. The player’s losses are thus reframed as potential wins, motivating her to try again. Mathematicians design payout schedules to ensure that people keep playing while they steadily lose money.
Alternative schedules are matched to different types of players, with differing appetites for risk: some gamblers are drawn towards the possibility of big wins and big losses, others prefer a drip-feed of little payouts (as a game designer told Schüll, “Some people want to be bled slowly”). The mathematicians are constantly refining their models and experimenting with new ones, wrapping their formulae around the contours of the cerebral cortex.
Gamblers themselves talk about “the machine zone”: a mental state in which their attention is locked into the screen in front of them, and the rest of the world fades away. A player who is feeling frustrated and considering quitting for the day might receive a tap on the shoulder from a “luck ambassador”, dispensing tickets to shows or gambling coupons. What the player doesn’t know is that data from his game-playing has been fed into an algorithm that calculates how much that player can lose and still feel satisfied, and how close he is to the “pain point”. The offer of a free meal at the steakhouse converts his pain into pleasure, refreshing his motivation to carry on.
These days, of course, we all carry slot machines in our pockets.
Ian Leslie writing in 1843 magazine
articles of interest - Oct 17
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
The Man Who Stood Up To Facebook NRP
Facebook Had an Insane Effect on Voter Registration Gizmodo
How Snapchat is Changing the Way We Communicate PBS Media Shift
***BIG DATA / STATS
How using big data in employment may run afoul of EEOC workplace regs SHRM
Building a framework for and computational AI law: when computer languages and real-world constructs meet Back Channel
The problem with cloud computing is bandwidth: Enter fog computing Forbes
Here’s how The White House wants the U.S. to approach AI R&D Tech Crunch
The cost of forsaking “C.” (get out the Bay Area web/mobile startup echo chamber) Medium
***TECHNOLOGY
'Unsubscribe' Outlines How to Change Your Email Habits NPR
***ART & DESIGN
The History and Usage of Common Symbols Medium
Street Artist Swoon Brings a Spiritual Installation to Detroit The Creators Project
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Don’t insist on knowing who you are before you begin the work Becoming (my blog)
***WRITING& READING
***LANGUAGE
Banter, Locker Room and Otherwise Chronicle of Higher Ed
How Regional Dialects Are Fixing Standard English Atlas Obcura
The Internet Isn’t Changing English. Nor the Converse Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LITERATURE
USA! USA! US … Oh, Never Mind. It’s The Literature Nobel FiveThirtyEight
Why Bob Dylan’s Songs Are Literature New Republic
How does storytelling differ between video games and literature? Gameasutra
***RESEARCH
We got probability wrong and should abandon the well-worn term ‘statistically significant' Aeon
The false academy Springer
Undergraduate academic journals face continuing problems of relevance Columbia Spectator
Access to data: Troubling findings from studies of the past several years The Replication Network
Scientific publishing is self-regulating so poorly that we invite a “Clean Science Act” Scholarly Kitchen
Much academic research is never cited and may be rarely read indicating wasted effort Springer
***GENDER & RACE
Where girls spend the most time on household chores The Atlas
Divided Supreme Court Hears 'Screaming Racial Bias' Juror Case NPR
***SEXUAL ASSAULT & TITLE IX
What a Landmark Finding in a Title IX Case Means for Colleges Wrestling With Sex Assault (sub. req’d) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Title IX Officers Pay a Price for Navigating a Volatile Issue (sub. req’d) Chronicle of Higher Ed
***SEXUAL ASSAULT
Approaches to Sexual Assault would differ under Clinton, Trump Inside Higher Ed
Workplace Sexual Harassment: A Threat To Victims, A Quandary For Bystanders NPR
Can a syllabus be a form of sexual harassment? Inside Higher Ed
Trump Allegations Of Sexual Misconduct Spur Calls To Assault Hotlines NPR
How To Deal With Sexual Harassment On The Job NPR
Baylor group makes waves with homecoming float targeting sexual assault scandal Houston Chronicle
***FREE SPEECH
Americans more tolerant of offensive speech than others in the world Pew Research
***LEGAL ISSUES
A former UVA dean's defamation lawsuit over the debunked Rolling Stone rape story is about to start Reuters
***RELIGION
Megachurch caught in "social media firestorm" disfellowshipping gay member KVUE
Christian group sues to exempt churches from Massachusetts transgender anti-discrimination law Mass Live
Churches Sue Over Attorney General Over Transgender Law NECNl
Okla. Guv Scrambles To Make Christian-Focused Proclamation More Inclusive Associated Press
Bob Dylan's Biblical imagination The Week
The spiritual abuse in InterVarsity’s treatment of LGBT people Religious News Service
Evangelical campus ministry group asks pro-gay staff to quit Associated Press
***RELIGION & POLITICS
A Christian conservative backlash against Trump seems to be building Boston Globe
Mike Pence Visits Liberty University And Tells Religious Voters To Stick With Trump NPR
Why Trump Tape Caused Only One Evangelical Leader to Abandon Him Christianity Today
Evangelical magazine publishes scathing anti-Trump editorial Yahoo News
***MUSIC
The Man Musicians Call When Two Tunes Sound Alike New York Times
'I Feel Pretty Good': A Moment With Brian Wilson NPR
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
YouTube Crushed TV in Total Debate Viewership Wired
***BUSINESS
More than half the world doesn’t understand this basic financial principle Quartz
***JOURNALISM
Just launched: A tool that will make life easier for FOIA reporters Columbia Journalism Review
At a Christian College, Student Journalism Gets Religious (opinion) New York Times
Why it’s important for news organizations to show their corrections Columbia Journalism Review
An economist makes the case for saving investigative journalism Poynter
A New Book Attempts to Define the Value of Investigative Journalism Nonprofit Quarterly
Publishing Hacked Private Emails Can Be a Slippery Slope Fortune
Google News now has a “Fact Check” tag Poynter
N. Dakota charges reporter with 'riot' for covering protest--but gets slapped down by judge LA Times
Criticism of the News Media Takes On a More Sinister Tone New York Times
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
BuzzFeed News, Twitter to partner on election night special Talking New Media
How CNN is ‘future-proofing’ itself Columbia Journalism Review
***STUDENT MEDIA
An unintended consequence of Title IX: Lack of clarity in the anti-sex discrimination statue is being used to censor student media Student Press Law Center
College newspaper defaced with racist message Union Tribune
***SCIENCE
Is our world a simulation? Why some scientists say it's more likely than not The Guardian
Bob Dylan, the songwriter scientists love to quote Science Mag
***HEALTH
Data Mining Is Revolutionizing Our Understanding of Human Weight Change MIT Technology Review
Reviews Of Medical Studies May Be Tainted By Funders' Influence NPR
Someone Called Her 'Just A Nurse,' So She Told Them What Being A Nurse Is All About
Welcome to On Call, a newsletter about hospitals and health care Stat News
Doctors’ political leanings Flowing Data
***PSYCHOLOGY
College students nationwide flood mental-health centers Fox News
John Borghi chronicles his experiences with psychology’s century-old problem with p-values Medium
How The Concept Of Implicit Bias Came Into Being NPR
***NEUROSCIENCE
Brain Implant Restores Sense Of Touch To Paralyzed Man NPR
***PHILOSOPHY
Why I Don't Have a Biblical Worldview and You Shouldn't Either, Says Christian Philosophy Professor Christian Post
***ETHICS
Computational Law, Symbolic Discourse, and the AI Constitution BackChannel
***HIGHER ED
Revolt at Liberty U: Students sharply criticize President for endorsement and continued support of Trump Inside Higher Ed
Religiously Serious, Thoughtfully Secular Chronicle of Higher Ed
***TEACHING
DIY Syllabus: What Goes Into a Syllabus Chronicle of Higher Ed
My Syllabus, My Self New York Times
20 Things Students Say Help Them Learn Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT LIFE
Here's What the Average American Owes After College Fox Business
Want college to pay off? These are the 50 majors with the highest earnings Washington Post
6 Tips For College Students Traveling Alone Huffington Post
capturing passion
/Passion must be captured and directed in order to accomplish actual work.
–Rick Karlgaard