struggling through things
/When children aren’t given the space to struggle through things on their own, they don’t learn to problem solve very well.
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
The Madman's Narrative
/Consider that two people can hold incompatible beliefs based on the exact same data. Does this mean that there are possible families of explanations and that each of these can be equally perfect and sound? Certainly not. One may have a million ways to explain things, but the true explanation is unique, whether or not it is within our reach.
In a famous argument, the logician WV Quine showed that there exist families of logically consistent interpretations and theories that can match a give series of facts. Such insight should warn us that mere absence of nonsense may not be sufficient to make something true.
Nissim Taleb, The Black Swain
the question
/What is life asking of me?
articles of interest - Jan 2
/***TECHNOLOGY
Police seek Amazon Echo data in murder case Engadget
China’s Already Tested CRISPR on A Human, and the U.S. Is Next BigThink
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Facebook Doesn’t Tell Users Everything It Really Knows About Them ProPulica
***PRODUCING MEDIA
The State of Video in 2016: Social Video, Mobile Video, Heavy Competition Media Shift
***PERSONAL GROWTH
“What important truth do very few people agree with you on?” Becoming (my site)
How Do You Keep From Getting Bored? Researchers Have An Answer NPR
The Science of Willpower: 15 Tips for Making Your New Year’s Resolutions Last from Dr. Kelly McGonigal Open Culture
***FREE SPEECH
‘Free Speech Zones,’ Then and Now The FIRE
The free-speech problem on campus is real. It will ultimately hurt dissidents Vox
***LEGAL ISSUES
DRM vs. Civil Liberties: 2016 in Review Electronic Frontier Foundation
A (rare) faithful reading of FERPA: Court says federal privacy law doesn't penalize one-time release of records Student Press Law Center
DOJ Opens Investigation into Northern Michigan University Self-Harm Policies The FIRE
***ART & DESIGN
20 Free eBooks on Design from O’Reilly Media Open Culture
Mixing Two Photos Together Will Net You Some Surreal Instagram Art Digg
***MUSIC
What Does the World Oldest Surviving Piano Sound Like?: Watch Pianist Give a Performance on a 1720 Cristofori Piano Open Culture
***JOURNALISM
Media in the Age of Algorithms (opinion) O’Reilly Media
***FAKE NEWS
How I Detect Fake News (opinion) O’Reilly Media
The man who studies the spread of ignorance BBC
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
'Profitable' Washington Post adding more than five dozen journalists Politico
Let’s wait for those earnings reports before declaring the resurgence of newspapers, OK? Talking New Media
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Month by Month, 2016 Cemented Science’s Sexual Harassment Problem Wired
Title IX Protects Identities But Can Complicate Justice NPR
***RESEARCH
***SCIENCE
From Crispr to Zika, Here Are 2016’s Biggest Biology Stories Wired
Fake news invades science and science journalism as well as politics Stat News
A new PhD student learns her first lesson: Certainty doesn’t exist in science Stat News
205 Big Thinkers Answer the Question, “What Scientific Term or Concept Ought to Be More Widely Known?” Open Culture
A simple guide to CRISPR, one of the biggest science stories of 2016 Vox
***HEALTH
Three minutes with Hans Rosling will change your mind about the world Nature
Health issues topped the list of scientific studies reaching wide audiences in 2016 Pew Research
***PSYCHOLOGY
Carrie Fisher Inspires Others To Speak Openly Of Bipolar Disorder NPR
How a 6 year old got locked up on Psych Ward BuzzFeed News
***NEUROSCIENCE
A new brain study sheds light on why it can be so hard to change someone's political beliefs Vox
***PHILOSOPHY
This Simple Philosophical Puzzle Shows How Difficult It Is to Know Something Nautil.us
***ETHICS
CRISPR 'Kill' Switch Could Make Human Gene Editing Safer Live Science
***RELIGION
Trump's election voted No. 1 religion story of 2016 Religion News Association
The Religious-Liberty Showdowns Coming in 2017 The Atlantic
Onetime leader of Tampa megachurch joins Trump inaugural team TampaBay.com
Why I Quit My Job at an Evangelical Missionary School Sojourners
Conservative Christians pan 'prosperity gospel' Trump inaugural preacher Washington Examiner
Mark Zuckerberg says he's not an atheist anymore BongBong
2016 Year in Review: Religion and Politics The Atlantic
***HUMANITIES /STEM
Liberal arts education in the Age of Trump Washington Post
***STUDENT LIFE
U.S. Court Reinstates Ban on College's Mandatory Drug Tests of Students Chronicle of Higher Ed
***CRIME ON CAMPUS
Should students be warned when a classmate is facing criminal charges? Student Press Law Center
***ACADEMIC LIFE
How One Group of Teachers Defended Academic Freedom Jstor
the perfect lover
/We waste time looking for the perfect lover, instead of creating the perfect love.
Tom Robbins
we know not
/We know what we are, but not what we may be. – Shakespeare
finding the time
/We find time for anything we really want to do.
Change Talk
/Sermonizing about goals is change-talk. But it is not growth-talk. Each one has a place and a time, but don't mistake one for the other. We can fool ourselves, thinking we are moving forward into growth.. when really, on the inside, we are idle, going nowhere.
Stephen Goforth
come as you are
/We can't tell people to come as they are, but insist they change before they arrive. People grow where they're loved. Bob Goff
a personal notebook
/Successful people track their progress, set goals, reflect, and learn from their mistakes. And they often use some kind notebook to accomplish this. If you want to get somewhere in life, you need a map, and this notebook is that map. You can write down what you did today, what you tried to accomplish, where you made mistakes, and so forth. It’s a place to reflect. It’s a place to capture important thoughts. It’s a place to be able to track where you’ve been and where you intend to go. It’s one of the most underused, yet incredibly effective tools available to the masses.
living out truth
/We can only acquire the truth as part of the process whereby we learn to live out the truth. C. Stephen Evans
our disguise
/We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves to others that in the end we become disguised to ourselves. François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
Encouraging Critical Thinking in Children
/If we want our children or students or employees to express themselves creatively, then we have to give them the opportunity to do so. It doesn’t matter much if we tell them that we value their creative thinking, and then criticize or forestall every idea they propose.
From time to time, I do workshops for teachers, parents, and businesses that are eager to encourage open-ended, exploratory, creative thinking. One unfavorable sign is when someone asks me exactly what they should do to encourage creativity. They want me to tell them step by step, blow by blow. Their desire is an unfavorable sign because if they want a recipe for creativity, the won’t find it. Moreover, someone who wants to be told exactly what to do is not likely to model a creative style, no matter how much they may wish to do so.
Ultimately, you must encourage creative thinking by modeling it. It is hard to encourage creative thinking if you do not model it.
Robert Sternberg, Thinking Styles
our own facts
/We are entitled to our own opinions but not to our own facts. Daniel Moynihan
I’m on a search
/At the trial in which he would be sentenced to death, Socrates (as quoted by Plato) said that the unexamined life isn’t worth living. Reading is the best way I know to learn how to examine your life. By comparing what you’ve done to what others have done, and your thoughts and theories and feelings to those of others, you learn about yourself and the world around you. Perhaps that is why reading is one of the few things you do alone that can make you feel less alone. It is a solitary activity that connects you to others.
So I’m on a search—and have been, I now realize, all my life—to find books to help me make sense of the world, to help me become a better person, to help me get my head around the big questions that I have and answer some of the small ones while I’m at it.
Will Schwalbe, Books for Living
articles of interest - Dec 26
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Why Snapchat’s Design is Deliberately Confusing Prototypr.io
How Facebook Is Transforming Disaster Response Wired
Fake news sets off Twitter confrontation between Pakistan and Israel CBS News
U.S. Customs requesting social media details at border The Stack
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
SoundExchange Releases Most Recent Finance Data Billboard
IHeartMedia’s Debt Refinancing Faces Static As Radio’s Prospects Weaken Deadline
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
The reigning absurdity in the digital news economy Monday Note
‘A very blunt instrument’: The potential and power of mobile notifications Columbia Journalism Review
***BIG DATA
Fencemarking vs. Benchmarking: how to uncover insights using both methods Inside Big Data
Why Deep Learning is radically different from Machine Learning Medium
Big Data, Software Continue to Stump Defense Programs National Defense Magazine
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Hurting from Loss Becoming (my blog)
Make Yourself Happier by Doing One Creative Thing Every Day LifeHacker
***HIGHER ED
K-State Freshman says he plans to drop out; Diatribe against General Education Courses goes Viral Inside Higher Ed
The Gay Rights policies of evangelical colleges and campus groups are increasingly out of sync with student views (sub req.’ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
***WRITING& READING
Professors at America's elite colleges pick one book every student should read in 2017 Business Insider
***LITERATURE
The Art of Cutting Up Shakespeare Jstor
***GENDER ISSUES
Transition Team’s Request on Gender Equality Rattles State Dept. New York Times
How Women Finally Broke Into the Sciences Jstor
***RACE
Legislators criticize UW-Madison professor's course on race (“The Problem of Whiteness”), tweets about shooting of officers Wisconsin State Journal
Oregon: Professor in Blackface Violated Anti-Harassment Policy Inside Higher Ed
Drexel Condemns Professor's Tweet: University issues statement on Christmas Day over post that said "all I want for Christmas is white genocide" Inside Higher Ed
***FREE SPEECH
Encryption App ‘Signal’ Fights Censorship With a Clever Workaround Wired
D.C. appeals court rules that bloggers who compared professor to Jerry Sandusky may be sued for defamation Inside Higher Ed
***LEGAL ISSUES
New York Appeals Court Rules No Public Performance Rights in Pre-1972 Sound Recordings Billboard
Adding Derogatory Caption to Photo Meme Can Be False Light Unconstitutional Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Lawsuit, DOJ review spur Princeton to change mental-health policy Philly.com
Police Department’s Social Media Policy Is Unconstitutional Technology & Marketing Law Blog
***RELIGION
Anti-Trump Evangelical Faces Backlash NPR
One University Confronts Tensions Over Islam With Its Neighbors (sub. req.’ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Why God is a curvy, black woman in 'The Shack' and some Christian critics say it's 'heresy' Chicago Tribune
How a Defense of Christianity Revolutionized Brain Science Nautilus
Megachurch pastor ignites debate after suggesting that Christianity doesn’t hinge on Jesus’ birth Washington Post
Amy Grant On Faith, Songwriting And Christmas Blues NPR
***JOURNALISM
2016’s Great San Diego Journalism Voice of San Diego
***FAKE NEWS
A Professor Once Targeted by Fake News Now Is Helping to Visualize It Chronicle of Higher Ed
Will Search Algorithms Detect Fake News? Media Post
5 new automated fact-checking projects underway Digiday
***FAKE NEWS & PHOTOS
Shutterstock's VP Of Engineering Kevin Lester Talks Reverse Image Search IBT
How Photos Fuel the Spread of Fake News Wired
Artificial intelligence is going to make it easier than ever to fake images and video The Verge
***FAKE NEWS & THE CLASSROOM
Fake News Antidote: Teaching Kids To Discern Fact From Fiction NPR
Teaching 'Truthiness': Professors Offer Course On How to Write Fake News Ed Surge
***STUDENT MEDIA
College Students fight delay of newspaper over provocative Democrat and Chronicle
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Ex-Stanford professor: I was pushed out after reporting sexual harassment The Guardian
Lawsuit: MSU failed to act on early claims of sex abuse by school and USA Gymnastics doctor ESPN
***RESEARCH
The Irony Effect: How the scientist who founded the science of mistakes ended up mistaken Slate
How Academia, Google Scholar And Predatory Publishers Help Feed Academic Fake News Forbes
Once a Year, Scientific Journals Try to Be Funny. Not Everyone Gets the Joke Smithsonian Magazine
***HEALTH
What happens when machine learning meets biology? How big data is redefining biotechnology Tech Republic
Scanning reveals what pregnancy does to a mother’s brain The Economist
Rewriting the Code of Life The New Yorker
***PSYCHOLOGY
EEOC to Employers: Remember Mental Health Conditions are Disabilities Too National Law Review
Researchers Examine Whether First Impressions Are Lasting NPR
What psychologists really think about you lying to your kids about Santa Washington Post
Technology and today’s vast and immensely underserved mental health population Tech Crunch
***PHILOSOPHY
Philosophy Professors Debate God’s Existence Graphic (student newspaper)
A Crash Course in Existentialism: A Short Introduction to Jean-Paul Sartre & Finding Meaning in a Meaningless World Open Culture
the same horizon
/We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon -Konrad Adenauer
just religious talk
/The way we live is what we believe. The rest is just religious talk.
vision and action
/Vision without action is merely a dream. Action without vision just passes the time. Vision with action can change the world. Joel Barker
excellence
/There is no real excellence in all this world which can be separated from right living.
– David Starr Jordan