simple
/Simple can be harder than complex: You have to work hard to get your thinking clean to make it simple. But it’s worth it in the end because once you get there, you can move mountains. Steve Jobs
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
articles of interest - May 8
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Why Social Media Isn't Always Very Social NPR
Business publishers are enjoying traffic spikes from LinkedIn Digiday
Facebook debuts a Twitter-like ‘Latest Conversations’ feature that shows public posts about buzzing topics Tech Crunch
7 ‹Title Tag› Hacks for Increased Rankings + Traffic Moz
Don’t Let Facebook Make You Miserable New York Times
Not Your Dad's Keyword Tool: Advanced Keyword Research Use Cases Moz
***GRAMMAR
A Deliberate Front-Page Typo? Australia Media Watchers Debate AdWeek
Grammarly raises $110 million for a better spell check Tech Crunch
***WRITING & READING
In Praise of the First Person Chronicle of Higher Ed
The Elements of Style: "50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice" BongBong
False Titles Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LANGUAGE
Translation platforms cannot replace humans: But they are still astonishingly useful Economist
The Linguistic Trickery of False Friends Jstor
The 23 Most Common Languages In The World Daily Infographic
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
Sinclair Broadcasting acquires Tribune Media Talking New Media
***JOURNALISM
What it's like to report in one of the world's deadliest places for journalists LA Times
The U of M journalism school renames itself for a Trump donor City Pages
J-Schools Dump Accreditor Inside Higher Ed
How We’re Learning To Do Journalism Differently in the Age of Trump ProPublica
Lapse of Northwestern’s accreditation sheds light on fast-moving world of journalism education Poynter
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
The New York Times reports higher revenue, income as digital subscriptions surge in Q1 Talking New Media
McClatchy loses $95.6M in Q1, due to falling print advertising and impairment charges Talking New Media
Gannett newspapers are hiding an important local story Columbia Journalism Review
How the New York Times saved itself: Subscriptions, not ads Recode
***FAKE NEWS
6 Ways to Fight the Spread of Fake News, from AP’s Fact Check Team Associated Press
The Age of Misinformation: How Online Platforms Shape American Discourse The Atlantic
Google Rewrites Its Powerful Search Rankings to Bury Fake News Bloomberg
Combating Fake News: An Agenda for Research and Action Harvard's Shorestein Center
Facebook Drops Accounts in Fake News Fight Associated Press
***GENDER
Harvard Business School Moves To Study More Diverse Cases NPR
Jury Awards $1.4 Million to Former Senior Female Athletics Official in gender and sexual orientation discrimination lawsuit Press Citizen
Measles sweeps an immigrant community targeted by anti-vaccine activists Stat News
Overwatch helped pave the way for the first women’s college in esports Polygon
Does Gender Matter in Workplace Culture? Daily Infographic
***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES
American University is dealing with a racist incident on its campus. It is not alone Washington Post
This ACLU Lawsuit Over A Mississippi County Sheriff's Office Could Be A Sign Of Big Things To Come BuzzFeed News
***FREE SPEECH
States Consider Legislation To Protect Free Speech On Campus NPR
How Censorship Works New York Times
***LEGAL ISSUES
A Photographer Sued a Student Over a School Project. Guess How That Turned Out (hint: fair use wins) Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Can a pastor legally defame members of his flock from the pulpit? Charlotte Observer
Can Your Employer Fire You For Posting Vacation Photos to Facebook? Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Why More Historians Are Embracing the Amicus Brief Chronicle of Higher Ed
You Can’t Be Fired For a Facebook Post Calling Your Boss a “LOSER” Technology & Marketing Law Blog
Teaching Law In An Age Of Anxiety Huffington Post
How Should a Lawyer Respond to a Yelp Review Calling Him “Worst. Ever.”? Technology & Marketing Law Blog
***TECHNOLOGY
We Were Warned About Flaws in the Mobile Data Backbone for Years. Now 2FA Is Screwed Mother Board
***BIG DATA
Why it may be better to have fewer predictors in machine learning models? KD Nuggets
Just how accurate are algorithms at spotting fake news? Data Science Central
Where we stand with automated Machine Learning ..and where it is likely going KD Nuggets
***RELIGION
Ending Catholicism in England and introducing the Reformation was a messy and conflicted process Economist
Read the full text of Trump’s executive order on religious freedom Washington Post
Though still conservative, young evangelicals are more liberal than their elders on some issues Pew Research Center
Openly Gay Bishop At Center Of Controversy In United Methodist Church NPR
Evangelicals and the Supreme Court (opinion) Religion News Service
The IRS rarely targets pastors. But a preacher was once arrested — for saying the word ‘fork’ Washington Post
***ART & DESIGN
With This Interactive Font Map, You Have No Excuse For Defaulting To Helvetica On Everything Digg
The Weird Words and Phrases Designers Use to Test Their Fonts Wired
Most popular colors used by most popular sites Flowing Data
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
It Took Years For A University To Punish This Professor After Harassment Allegations Were First Made BuzzFeed
Doing the Right Thing in Sexual-Misconduct Cases (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Sex assaults in high school sports minimized as 'hazing' Associated Press
***SCIENCE
Mixing Thermodynamics and the Quantum World to get quantum thermodynamics Wired
***HEALTH
The remarkable promise of cell-free biology Economist
***PSYCHOLOGY
For college students grappling with mental illness, the world can seem colorless USA Today
***RESEARCH
The Future of Peer Review The Scholarly Kitchen
Progress toward openness, transparency, and reproducibility in cognitive neuroscience Wiley Online Library
Steady, strong growth is expected for open-access journals Physics Today
***PERSONAL GROWTH
The line separating good and evil Becoming (my blog)
***HIGHER ED
A Public University Acquires A Big For-Profit, And Raises Big Questions NPR
Holy Cross VP paints bleak future for college in emails mistakenly sent to students South Bend Tribune
***HUMANITIES /STEM
John F. Kennedy Explains Why Artists & Poets Are Indispensable to American Democracy (October 26th, 1963) Open Culture
***TEACHING
The Hidden Costs of Active Learning Campus Technology
***STUDENT MEDIA
College papers find one way to adjust to digital: Print less often USA Today
***STUDENT MEDIA: TROUBLE IN KANSAS
Student Newspaper to print last edition despite suspension of journalism program Hutch Post
Community College student journalists say they are being squelched. The journalism professor who advises the paper has been suspended Inside Higher Ed
***STUDENT LIFE
Forget FOMO. In Digital Minimalism, It’s All About The Fear Of Burning Out Fast Company
On Campuses Far From China, Still Under Beijing’s Watchful Eye New York Times
UK student drops from ceiling to steal statistics exam Kentucky.com
Shifting Incomes for Young People Flowing Data
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Accreditor’s new rules are forcing a professor who has taught philosophy for 50 years to stop doing so, because her Ph.D. is in English Inside Higher Ed
Why can writing a paper be such a pain? Jari Saramäki
Professor says she’s giving up a tenure-track job in the U.S. and taking her family back to Canada over racism directed at her Nicaraguan-born spouse Inside Higher Ed
Court says Catholic University was justified in punishing a professor for using his blog to criticize a graduate student by name Inside Higher Ed
Desire and Love
/To love is an act. To be in love is a state.
Desire says Fidelity is passive. Love says Fidelity is active.
Eros is a love that sees and then desires. Agape is a love that knows and then grows.
Eros wants to use you. Agape wants to know the person.
Eros seeks love and desire itself. Agape seeks the beloved’s best.
Eros seeks to be in love. Agape seeks to love.
Eros says desire is love. Agape says desire’s place is within the process of love.
Stephen Goforth
fail with honor
/Rather fail with honor than success by fraud. – Sophocles
A Puritan
/Puritanism. The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy. H. L. Mencken
the quest for truth
/The quest for truth, at least the truth about the most important things, cannot be divorced from the quest to become the kind of person we need to become. C. Stephen Evans
Unleashing Change
/Allow a sense of pragmatism to hang over every project. This will help to make room for other possibilities besides our originally chosen path. If you fall in love with your creation and marry your effort, you may join the most frustrated of groups--people who fight the process rather than allowing their efforts to become living documents of creativity, which are always in process. You have to make room in your head for change to be a part of that process rather than seeing it as something extra, a burden beyond what is necessary. Make room for change before you start your task and then you'll be ready to adopt to shifting circumstances, new revelations, and emerging goals.
Stephen Goforth
articles of interest - May 1
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
The saga of a YouTube family who pulled disturbing pranks on their own kids The Washington Post
Leaked document reveals Facebook conducted research to target emotionally vulnerable and insecure youth News Australia
Yik Yak, the once popular and controversial college messaging app, shuts down USA Today
***PRODUCING MEDIA
Digital Publishing: How the New York Times and Washington Post are Changing the Podcast Field Editor & Publisher
People Don’t Want Something Truly New, They Want the Familiar Done Differently Medium
How YouTube’s Shifting Algorithms Hurt Independent Media New York Times
***INTERNET
The secret lives of Google raters Ars Technica
***TECHNOLOGY
The Impact of Virtual Reality on Learning Campus Technology
***JOURNALISM
Digital transformation in newsrooms means focusing on readers not platforms Medium
The Media Bubble is Real — And Worse Than You Think Politico
In Mexico, ‘It’s Easy to Kill a Journalist’ New York Times
Will Twitter Replace The Photojournalist? Forbes
Northwestern journalism school lets accreditation lapse (Dean: the process is "flawed" and not useful) Chicago Tribune
***FAKE NEWS
Hate the News? Wikipedia’s Co-Founder Wants You to Edit It Wired
The Future Of News Is Visuals (And How This Millennial-Led Startup Is Reinventing It) Forbes
Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales launches Wikitribune, a large-scale attempt to combat fake news Nieman
Facebook tapped a New York Times vet to help fight fake news and make money for publishers Business Insider
It turns out people are very bad at estimating the magnitude of the fake news problem Nieman Lab
What Web Page Structure Reveals on News Quality Monday Note
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
A peek inside the ‘black box’ of #MachineLearning systems; checking the logic of Neural Networks Stanford
Where we stand with automated Machine Learning ..and where it is likely going KD Nuggets
In much of science, Bayesian methods are becoming increasingly central to finding small needles in huge haystacks The Conversation
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
IHeartMedia shares drop amid warning it may not survive another year My San Antonio
Twitter to launch 24/7 news streaming service with Bloomberg Venture Beat
***PERSONAL GROWTH
When you plan a trip to Italy but land in Holland Becoming (my blog)
***LITERATURE
Why You Love the Smell of Old Books Daily Jstor
***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES
Anti-Semitic Incidents Spike Since Election, Jewish Watchdog Says NBC News
Policing for civil forfeiture profit The Week Magazine
How to Be an Ally to New Minority Scholars (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Is it OK to eat at a barbecue joint when the founder was a white supremacist? The New Yorker
School of Medicine is in danger of losing its accreditation because of a lack of diversity Stat
Can College Cure Racism? Daily Jstor
The ‘hotbed of anti-Semitism’ isn’t a foreign country: It’s U.S. college campuses Washington Post
***FREE SPEECH
Students campuses nationwide issue statement calling free speech Inside Higher Ed
Addressing the Real Crisis of Free Expression on Campus (opinion from the President of the Newseum) Newseum Institute
Too PC Or Not PC? The Debate Over Free Speech On Campus 1a.or
***LEGAL ISSUES
Judge blocks release of unpublished Prince songs Minnesota Public Radio
White House official says 'we've looked at' changes to libel laws that would restrict press freedom ABC News
Supreme Court won't review San Diego minister's lawsuit against gay therapy ban Reuters
***RELIGION
Religion Could Be More Durable Than We Thought NPR
Consecration of gay bishop against church law, says United Methodist top court Religion News Service
The Christian Agenda Behind Inmate Education: For prisoners, learning often comes with evangelical strings attached Chronicle of Higher Ed
Sub-Saharan Africa experienced largest increase in religious restrictions in 2015 Pew Research Center
SoCal Megachurch Sued Over Investment Fraud Courthouse News
Alvin Plantinga wins Templeton prize Catholic News Agency
Evangelicals of Color at a Crossroads Religious Dispatches
Share on Twitter Share via Email If it doesn’t stem its decline, mainline Protestantism has just 23 Easters left Washington Post
Among white evangelicals, regular churchgoers are the most supportive of Trump Pew Research Center
***MUSIC
How Ed Sheeran perfected the art of being a mainstream misfit Vox
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Doing the Right Thing in Sexual-Misconduct Cases (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Expelled for sex assault, young men are filing more lawsuits to clear their names Washington Post
The AP conducted a year-long investigation into student-on-student sexual assault in schools Associated Press
Sociology Chair steps down, denies alleged harassment among faculty is the cause Daily Camera
NY community college president resigns after he is recorded blaming alleged assault victim Associated Press
***HEALTH
End-of-life care: A better way to care for the dying The Economist
***RESEARCH
6 Common Flaws To Look Out For in Peer Review Publons
Va. man pleads guilty to scamming $500,000+ in federal education funds, science grants WJLA
107 Studies Published in a Cancer Journal Have Just Been Retracted Science Alert
***HIGHER ED
Analysts and some colleges worry Blackboard is stretching itself too thin Inside Higher Ed
Colleges Rush to Ramp Up Online Classes (sub. req’ed) Wall Street Journal
White Religion Profs at Seminary Apologize for Tweet where they posed as Gang Members Inside Higher Ed
Small private colleges stand to lose both money and student diversity in continually seeking to outbid each other for students, a new study warns Chronicle of Higher Ed
***TEACHING
Paraphrasing tools, freely available online, can fool plagiarism detection software, study finds Inside Higher Ed
A troubling new way to evade plagiarism detection software(And how to tell if it’s been used) Retraction Watch
***STUDENT MEDIA
High school journalists' investigative feat fuels calls for legal reforms Student Press Law Center
***STUDENT LIFE
First Year Students are More Politically Polarized that Ever Inside Higher Ed
Half of millennials could be competing with robots for jobs The Washington Post
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Blind Spots that Require New Faculty Roles (a new analysis of survey data by USC researchers) The Changing Faculty
Opportunity often comes disguised
/Opportunity often comes disguised in the form of misfortune - or temporary defeat.
majoring in the majors
/Our main business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand-Thomas Carlyle
Lovable
/No sooner do we believe that God loves us than there an impulse to believe that he does so, not because he is love, but because we are intrinsically lovable.. But then, how magnificently we have repented.. (so) we next offer our own humility to God’s admiration. Surely, he’ll like that? If not that, our clear-sighted and humble recognition that we still lack humility. Thus, depth beneath depth and subtlety within subtlety, there remains some lingering idea of our own, our very own, attractiveness.
It is easy to acknowledge but almost impossible to realize for long, that we are mirrors whose brightness if we are bright, is wholly derived from the sun that shines upon us. Surely we must have a little – however little – native luminosity?
We want to be loved for our cleverness, beauty, generosity, fairness usefulness. The first hint that anyone is offering us the highest love of all is a terrible shock.
CS Lewis, The Four Loves
Opportunity is missed
/Opportunity is missed by most people because it is dressed in overalls and looks like work. Thomas Edison
Open your mouth
/Open your mouth only when you can improve on the silence
The only cure for suffering
/The only cure for suffering is to face it head on, grasp it around the neck and use it.
– Mary Craig
taking the shot
/You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.. - Wayne Gretzky
articles of interest - wk of April 24
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
How Social Media Is Changing the Conversation Surrounding Addiction (opinion) Ad Week
The Platform Effect: In France, Snapchat takes the lead in producing political content Digiday
How WeChat Spreads Rumors, Reaffirms Bias, and Helped Elect Trump BakcChannel
Facebook’s plans to augment reality are as dystopian as they are smart The Verge
Not everyone in advanced countries uses social media Pew Research Center
LinkedIn Officially Unveils Matched Audiences Platform Media Post
How to See If Your Instagram Posts Have Been Shadowbanned Life Hacker
***PRODUCING MEDIA
This Handy Tool Makes It Easy To Visualize Whatever System You Can Imagine Digg
Here’s How Much Money You Can Make With Memes High Snobiety
An Interview With @youvegotnomale Who Literally Makes Memes for a Living Vice
***INTERNET
Sneaky Exploit Allows Phishing Attacks From Sites That Look Secure Wired
China’s internet giants go global Economist
***JOURNALISM
The narrative journalists challenge: Seeing stories from a human perspective' Journalism.co
Great local reporting stands between you and wrongdoing. And it needs saving Washington Post
How Deeply Do Americans Distrust Mainstream Media Really? Vanity Fair
***FAKE NEWS
How A False Story About A Husband And Wife Being Twins Ended Up On Major News Websites BuzzFeed
France has a fake news problem, but it’s not as bad as the US The Verge
***PERSONAL GROWTH
This is perhaps the biggest differences between highly successful students and mediocre ones Becoming (my site)
4 Things that set Successful CEOs apart Harvard Business Review
How Elon Musk Learns Faster And Better Than Everyone Else Medium
For most of history, people didn’t assume they deserved to be happy. What changed? (opinion) Quartz
***GRAMMAR
For the Love of God, Stop Putting Two Spaces After a Period Mel
Adverbs and United Airlines Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LANGUAGE
Seven Linguist-Backed Tips for Making Powerful Protest Signs Life Hacker
A Linguistics Lover's Tour of the World Atlas Obscura
Trump’s Elements of Style McSweeney’s
***LITERATURE
Torching the Modern-Day Library of Alexandria The Atlantic
***GENDER
Impact of Social Sciences – Female scientists are considerably more likely to be mistakenly cited as if they were males and vice versa The London School of Economics and Political Science
'The Handmaid's Tale' Is Among A Resurgence Of Dystopian Literature NPR
Crime and gender: A partial explanation for why men commit more crime Journalists Resources
***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES
WKU student leaders urge free tuition for black students as slavery reparations Lexington Herald Leader
Asian Americans used to be portrayed as the villains. How did they become a ‘model minority’? The Washington Post
Census may change questions on race, Hispanic origin for 2020 Pew Research Center
***FREE SPEECH
It's difficult for public institutions to meet legal tests and keep speakers from campus Inside Higher Ed
Berkeley Campus On Lockdown After Loose Pages From ‘Wall Street Journal’ Found On Park Bench The Onion
***LEGAL ISSUES
Supreme Court Asked to Save Abbott and Costello "Who's on First?" Copyright Hollywood Reporter
This Is Spinal Tap’s $400 Million Lawsuit Bloomberg
A Worrisome Harbinger of Changes in Copyright Law Chronicle of Higher Ed
Conservatives Groups Sue Berkeley Over Ann Coulter Cancellation New York Times
The on again, off again relationship between FOIA and White House visitor logs Muck Rock
***TECHNOLOGY
Smartphones are common in advanced economies, but digital divides remain Pew Research Center
Cloning voices:Imitating people’s speech patterns precisely could bring trouble Economist
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
Big Data analysis shows aspects of Western media coverage infected with Russian propaganda Technology Review
***RELIGION
Christian Teen Magazine 'Brio' Returns With A 'Biblical Worldview' NPR
Russia Labels Jehovah's Witnesses An Extremist Group NPR
Sub-Saharan Africa will be home to growing shares of the world’s Christians, Muslims Pew Research
Former Baptist state exec sues North American Mission Board for libel, interference in business relationships Baptist News
A WikiLeaks prosecution would endanger the future of US journalism The Guardian
Dispute heats up over who should keep "Lunar Bibles" from Apollo 14 mission Associated Press
Catholic college in Kansas wipes ‘yoga’ from names of classes the Kansas City Star
***MUSIC
***FILM
Filmmaker Shows Us How Fake Nature Documentaries Really Are Digg
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
Yahoo’s Demise Is a Death Knell for Digital News Orgs The Atlantic
The Guardian pulls out of Facebook’s Instant Articles and Apple News Digiday
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus (book review) New York Times
***SCIENCE
An Interactive Visualization of Hegel’s Science of Logic (Available on Github) Open Culture
***HEALTH
Why are we dragging our feet when more automation in health care will save lives? (opinion) The Conversation
***PSYCHOLOGY
Why Conspiracy Theories Are So Appealing Life Hacker
Why Some People Are Born Anxious Life Hacker
***PHILOSOPHY
The philosopher's guide to understanding the 'self' The Week
Philosopher Andrew Taggart is helping Silicon Valley executives define success Quartz
***PRODUCTIVITY
Why Multitasking Is Bad for You TIME
Can Placebos Work If You Know They're Placebos? NPR
***ETHICS
The new Oprah movie about Henrietta Lacks reopens a big scientific debate Vox
***RESEARCH
Retractions of neurosurgical papers are on the rise, says a new paper that finds that duplicated publications and plagiarism were the top reasons for retraction World Neurosurgery
The 20% Statistician: Five reasons blog posts are of higher scientific quality than journal articles Daniel Lakens
Conflict Over Sociologist's Narrative Puts Spotlight on Ethnography Chronicle of Higher Ed
***HUMANITIES /STEM
Why My Humanities Degree Is Anything But Useless (opinion) Unwritten
Hey, Computer Scientists! Stop Hating on the Humanities (you need ethics training) Wired
***TEACHING
Creative Ways to Help Students Recover From Failure (opinion; sub. req'ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Getting Our Students Wrong Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT LIFE
Millennials don’t switch jobs any more than Gen Xers did Pew Research Center
As colleges embrace e-sports, there are thorny questions about who, if anyone, profits LA Times
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Aftermath of a Professor's Suicide: A death this week leads to renewed discussions about academics and mental health Inside Higher Ed
Are Full-Timers and Administrations Maintaining a Caste System that Excludes Adjuncts Academe Blog
Nontenured Faculty Should not be assessed by Student Evaluations in this Politically Charged Atmosphere (opinion) Inside Higher Ed
clever or pleasant
/"My mother used to say to me, 'Elwood' -- she always called me Elwood -- 'Elwood, in this world you must be oh-so clever, or oh-so pleasant.' For years I was clever. I'd recommend pleasant -- and you may quote me."
–Jimmy Stewart as Elwood P. Dowd in HARVEY
What sets apart highly successful students
/One of the major differences we found between highly successful students and mediocre ones: average students think they can tell right away if they are going to be good at something. If they don't get it immediately, they throw up their hands and say, "I can't do it." Their more accomplished classmates have a completely different attitude-and it is largely a matter of attitude rather than ability. They stick with assignments much longer and are always reluctant to give it up. "I haven't learned it yet," they might say, while others would cry, "I'm not good at history, music, math, writing, or whatever." Traditional schooling rewards quick answers-the person with the hand up first. But an innovative work of the mind, something that lasts and changes the world, demands slow and steady progress. It requires time and devotion. You can't tell what you can do until you struggle with something over and over again.
Ken Bain, What the Best College Students Do
our hearts are restless
/O God, Thou hast made us for thyself, and ours hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee. –Augustine
Focusing on the Bright Spots
/Suppose that you go to bed tonight and sleep well. Sometime, in the middle of the night, while you are sleeping, a miracle happens and all the troubles that brought you here are resolved. When you wake up in the morning, what’s the first small sign you’d see that would make you think, “Well, something must have happened – the problem is gone!”
The miracle question doesn't ask you to describe the miracle itself; it asks you to identify the tangible signs that the miracle happened. Once (someone has identified) specific and vivid signs of progress... a second question is perhaps even more important. It's the Exception Question: "When was the last time you saw a little bit of the miracle, even for just a short time?"
There are exceptions to every problem and that those exceptions, once identified, can be carefully analyzed, like the game film of a sporting event. Let's replay that scene, where things were working for you. What was happening? How did you behave? That analysis can point directly toward a solution that is, by definition, workable. After all, it worked before.
Chip & Dan Heath, Switch