suspence
/Only the brave can endure suspense. Mignon McLaughlin
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
The Vulnerability Myth
/The perception that vulnerability is weakness is the most widely accepted myth about vulnerability and the most dangerous. When we spend our lives pushing away and protecting ourselves from feeling vulnerable or from being perceived as too emotional, we feel contempt when others are less capable or willing to mask feelings, suck it up, and soldier on. We’ve come to the point where, rather than respecting appreciating the courage and daring behind vulnerability, we let our fear and discomfort become judgment and criticism.
Our rejections of vulnerability often stems from associating it with dark emotions like fear, shame, grief, sadness, and disappointment—emotions that we don't want to discuss, even when they profoundly affect the way we live, love, work, and even lead. What most of us fail to understand and what took me a decade of research to learn is the vulnerability is also the cradle of the emotions experiences that we crave. Vulnerability is the birthplace of love, belonging, joy, courage, empathy, and creativity. It is the source of hope, empathy, accountability, and authenticity. If we want greater clarity in our purpose or deeper and more meaningful spiritual eyes, vulnerability is the path.
Brené Brown, Daring Greatly
Our Difficult Side
/Knowledge of our own neuroses is not at all easy to come by. It can take years and situations we have had no experience of. Prior to marriage, we’re rarely involved in dynamics that properly hold up a mirror to our disturbances. Whenever more casual relationships threaten to reveal the ‘difficult’ side of our natures, we tend to blame the partner – and call it a day. As for our friends, they predictably don’t care enough about us to have any motive to probe our real selves. They only want a nice evening out. Therefore, we end up blind to the awkward sides of our natures. On our own, when we’re furious, we don’t shout, as there’s no one there to listen – and therefore we overlook the true, worrying strength of our capacity for fury. Or we work all the time without grasping, because there’s no one calling us to come for dinner, how we manically use work to gain a sense of control over life – and how we might cause hell if anyone tried to stop us. At night, all we’re aware of is how sweet it would be to cuddle with someone, but we have no opportunity to face up to the intimacy-avoiding side of us that would start to make us cold and strange if ever it felt we were too deeply committed to someone. One of the greatest privileges of being on one’s own is the flattering illusion that one is, in truth, really quite an easy person to live with.
pursue meaning
/People pursue happiness, but it’s always temporary. Pursue meaning instead. -Emily Esfahani Smith
Articles of Interest - Jan 1
/***TECHNOLOGY
The Biggest Technology Failures of 2017 MIT’s Technology Review
Key trends shaping technology in 2017 Pew Research
This VR Exhibit Lets You Connect with the Human Side of War MIT’s Technology Review
***BIG DATA & AI
Military robots are getting smaller and more capable: Soon, they will travel in swarms Economist
Machine learning is creating never before heard sounds as neural networks begins to take the simple to create the complex (video) Google Inhouse vlogger
Why scientists (especially in physics and astronomy) embrace Bayesian statistics Bloomberg
Are computers intelligent, or just pattern detectors? Exploring the “Beautiful Mind” of neural networks ieee Spectrum
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Twitter’s No. 1 Topic Of 2017? You Guessed It Deadline
Snapchat Copies Facebook Feature For Once With 'A Look Back at 2017' MacRumors
How To Find Your 2017 Snapchat Memories So You Can Relive Your Best Snaps Of The Year Bustle
***MOBILE
Los Angeles is opening a selfie museum New York Post
How to Stop Apps From Listening in on Your TV Habits Life Hacker
***INTERNET
How Hotmail changed Microsoft (and email) forever Arstechnica
Forward your spam to sp@mnesty.com and a bot will waste the spammer's time Boing Boing
***JOURNALISM
Santa Barbara News-Press paper byline sparks controversy KEYT-TV
A day in the life of a print journalism reporter Pueblo Chieftain
Polls show Americans distrust the media. But talk to them, and it’s a very different story Washington Post
MSNBC reporter video-bombed by T-rexes UPI
Spielberg’s ‘The Post,’ with Streep and Hanks, an inspiring journalism saga San Francisco Gate
***JOURNALISM IN 2017
What national news networks were talking about during 2017 Washington Post
Why I started saying ‘reality-based press’ in 2017, instead of ‘mainstream media’ Washington Post
2017 journalism report card HealthNewsReview
***JOURNALISM OUTSIDE THE U.S.
81 reporters were killed in 2017 as threats soared, global journalism group says CBC News
Mexico: Latest murder highlights blurred lines in journalism Associated Press
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
How the Era of the Big-Name News Anchor Crashed to an End The Daily Beast
***FAKE NEWS
Yale University Hackathon Takes Aim At Fake News NPR
Fake news. It's complicated. First Draft Medium
Efforts grow to help students evaluate what they see online Associated Press
Outsmarting Fake News and Dubious Data Harvard Business Review
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Three Goals for 2018 Becoming (my blog)
The Only Way to Keep Your Resolutions New York Times
The Courage to Be Yourself: E.E. Cummings on Art, Life, and Being Unafraid to Feel Brainpickings
What Is Procrastination & How Can We Solve It? An Introduction by One of the World’s Leading Procrastination Experts Open Culture
The Best of Brain Pickings 2017 Brainpickings
Ditch These Seven Bad Habits Before 2018 Start Fast Company
***WRITING & READING
The difficulty is the point': teaching spoon-fed students how to really read The Guardian
To Your Brain, Audiobooks Are Not ‘Cheating’ The Cut
How to Get Your Mind to Read New York Times
***LITERATURE
The Art of Being Alone: May Sarton’s Stunning 1938 Ode to Solitude BrainPickings
The best science fiction, fantasy, and horror novels of 2017 The Verge
Why Should We Read Charles Dickens? A TED-Ed Animation Makes the Case Open Culture
The Top Tech Books of 2017: Part I Wired
The Favorite Literary Work of Every Country Visualized on a World Map Open Culture
The Best Fiction Books of 2017 Booktalk
Flannery O’Connor: Friends Don’t Let Friends Read Ayn Rand Open Culture
***GENDER
How Mary Tyler Moore's Career-Woman Role Inspired A Generation NPR
10 things we learned about gender issues in the U.S. in 2017 Pew Research
***FREE SPEECH
Germany starts enforcing hate speech law BBC
***RELIGION
The Net Worth of The10 Richest US Pastors Cheat Sheet
The Museum of the Bible National Law Review
Atheist Flag Will Be Raised Over Ten Commandments Monument NPR
Trump Scorns Mainstream News, But Not The Christian Broadcasting Network NPR
***RELIGION IN 2017
2017 Has Been A Rough Year For Evangelicals NPR
Biblical Archaeology’s Top 10 Discoveries of 2017 Christianity Today
***ART & DESIGN
The Year in Visual and Interactive Storytelling ProPublica
Fast Company’s Favorite Illustrations Of 2017 Fast Company
Teacher Fired for Showing Students Classical Painting Postcards Containing Nudity Associated Press
20 best album covers 2017 Creative Bloq
10 Best Data Visualization Projects of 2017 Flowing Data
***FILM
The 2017 Storyhunter Staff Picks Awards Video Strategist
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
2017: Traditional Media Stocks Underperform, Digital Media Soars Media Post
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
How do you define sexual harassment? Reuters
Who's More Dangerous - the Sexual Predator or the Enabler? (opinion) TechNewsWorld
***HEALTH
LA Times provides strong overview on study showing vitamin D and calcium supplements don’t prevent fractures HealthNewsReview
The uninsured are overusing emergency rooms — and other health-care myths Washington Post
The Haunting Effects Of Going Days Without Sleep NPR
How to fix the American diet, according to the man who coined the term ‘junk food’ Washington Post
Eat more fish for higher IQ? Announcement skips limitations of an observational study HealthNewsReview
***SCIENCE
'Vast Majority' of Online Anti-Vaxxers Are Women Live Science
How Climate Change Deniers Rise to the Top in Google Searches New York Times
Longreads Best of 2017: Science, Technology, and Business Writing Longreads
Secret Link Uncovered Between Pure Math and Physics Quanta Mag
***PSYCHOLOGY
World Health Organization Thinks Video Games Are Causing a Mental Health Disorder Newsweek
***PHILOSOPHY
God's Answer to Nietzsche, the Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard BigThink
***PRODUCTIVITY
Why Calendars are More Effective Than To Do Lists Medium
5 Books To Buy This Holiday To Boost Your Work In 2018 PSFK
***RESEARCH
Reproducible research: The consequences are somewhat overstated (research opinion) Journal of Experimental & Theoretical Artificial Intelligence
Fallibility in science: Responding to errors in the work of oneself and others (opinion) Peer J
Authorship disputes: How do we avoid “cutting the baby in half”? Hindawi
City University of New York Looking into why some of faculty published in predatory journals New York Post
The president of the Swiss Association for Science Journalism interviews Ivan Oransky of Retraction Watch (audio) swissnex San Francisco
Must Good Science Proselytize? The Grumpy Geophysicist
***HIGHER ED
Only half of all Latino students graduate from college. So what are Texas schools doing to help? Dallas News
No place for 'snowflakes': Conservative Christian college poised to open in 2018 Fox News
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Death threats are forcing professors off campus CNN
Czech university urged to bar new dean over ‘junk journal’ papers Times Higher Ed
Professor who tweeted, ‘All I want for Christmas is white genocide,’ resigns after year of threats Washington Post
Three Goals for 2018
/“Kierkegaard cries out for us to live passionately, and worry more about the problem of living life than trying to fit the social order. His philosophy is all about living this way, even to the point where an outside viewer will be unable to understand your motivation,” writes Scotty Hendricks at BigThink.
1. Be passionate,
2. Focus on living not fitting into some predetermined social role,
3. You will know you are on the right track when people have trouble grasping what motivates you.
Three worthy goals for 2018.
Stephen Goforth
the unlived life within
/Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us.
Steven Pressfield
A 'Not-to-Do List'
/New Year's Eve is time to resolve what you want in the year ahead. Rather than creating a list of resolutions, Jim Collins, author of Good to Great, sits down and does the opposite. Before setting down any strategic objectives, he comes up with three corresponding things to stop doing. So if he decided he wanted to read more, he first determined to unplug the TV.
He suggests you ask yourself what you're:
a) passionate about
b) good at
c) able to make a living doing.
Then consider how you're spending time. How much of it falls outside those three factors? If the answer is most of it, a not-to-do list could be a valuable tool.
one's labors
/One loves that for which one labors, and one labors for that which one loves.
Erich Fromm
Glory in the Flower
/That though the radiance which was once so bright
be now forever taken from my sight.
Though nothing can bring back
the hour of splendor in the grass,
glory in the flower.
We will grieve not,
rather find strength in what remains behind.
William Wordsworth
nothing is easier
/Nothing is easier than to denounce the evildoer; nothing is more difficult than to understand him. -Fyodor Dostoevsky
Figuring out What’s Wrong with our Prospective Mate
/Other people are stuck at the same low level of self-knowledge as we are. However well-meaning they might be, they too are in no position to grasp, let alone inform us, of what is wrong with them.
Naturally, we make a stab at trying to know them. We go and visit their families, perhaps the place they first went to school. We look at photos, we meet their friends. All this contributes to a sense we’ve done our homework. But it’s like a novice pilot assuming they can fly after sending a paper plane successfully around the room.
We need to know the intimate functioning of the psyche of the person we’re planning to marry. We need to know their attitudes to, or stance on, authority, humiliation, introspection, sexual intimacy, projection, money, children, aging, fidelity and a hundred things besides. This knowledge won’t be available via a standard chat.
In the absence of all this, we are led – in large part – by what they look like. There seems to be so much information to be gleaned from their eyes, nose, shape of forehead, distribution of freckles, smiles… But this is about as wise as thinking that a photograph of the outside of a power station can tell us everything we need to know about nuclear fission.
The Philosophers’ Mail
after a lapse of time
/No story is the same to us after a lapse of time; or rather we who read it are no longer the same interpreters. -George Elliot
Articles of Interest - Dec. 25
/***JOURNALISM 2017
From ISIS to taxes: The AP's top 10 stories of 2017 Morning Joe MSNBC
2017 Top Stories Chartbeat
The Best Journalism of 2017 Sports Illustrated
Predictions for Journalism 2018 Nieman Journalism Lab
Charting the news of 2017: The year's events that most grabbed the world's attention Economist
The media today: What’s coming for journalism in 2018? Columbia Journalism Review
***THE JOURNALISM FILM “THE POST”
'The Post': Pentagon Papers Put The Press Under Pressure NPR
Steven Spielberg's The Post Is the Journalism Movie We Need Today TIME
Fact checking ‘The Post’: The incredible Pentagon Papers drama Spielberg left out Washington Post
Steven Spielberg’s The Post makes an entertaining, timely case for the First Amendment Vox
***FAKE NEWS
Facebook admits its original attempt to end fake news failed Daily Dot
How blockchain technology could prevent fake news from spreading Tech Republic
***TECHNOLOGY
Ready Player One and the Troubled Future of VR Technews World
Meet the robot that passed a college class on philosophy and love CNBC
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
How talk radio stays relevant in the digital age Tech Republic
Tempers flare at FCC over record Sinclair fine CNN
Is Radio Headed For a Digital Cliff? Musicomics
A U.S. Station Switched From Bluegrass to Radio Sputnik—and Got Threats From the Feds Bloomberg
The Return of Vinyl Records Daily Infographic
***JOURNALISM
'Journalism is evolving and so is my thinking on it' Poynter
Mexican journalist shot dead at primary school holiday party Associated Press
The rich tried to save alt-weeklies: They haven't helped Mashable
Russian hackers hunted journalists in years-long campaign Associated Press
Journalism branding: Impact on reporters’ personal identities Journalism Resources
***BIG DATA & AI
Six areas where artificial neural networks prove they can surpass human intelligence Venture Beat
Will Artificial Intelligence Become Conscious? Live Science
A look at what happened at machine learning’s big event Economist
8 game-changing data trends that will impact businesses in 2018 Tech Republic
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Instagram now lets you share live videos through direct messages Tech Crunch
The Best of Reddit in 2017The top posts, communities, AMAs, and other highlights from the past year Reddit
CNN is killing its Snapchat news show only four months after its debut Tech Crunch
***SOCIAL MEDIA: FACEBOOK
Facebook uses age-targeted job advertisements, but is that discriminatory? Daily Dot
Facebook drops 'disputed' tags for news stories The Hill
Facebook ‘Messenger Kids’ lets under-13s chat with whom parents approve Tech Crunch
Who’s Watching Facebook TV? Bloomberg
***PRODUCING MEDIA
The World's Best Film School Is Free on YouTube Wired
There will be an explosion of streaming-video services in 2018. A shakeout is inevitable The World In
The 50 Best Podcasts of 2017 The Atlantic
***INTERNET
You Give Up a Lot of Privacy Just Opening Emails. Here's How to Stop It Wired
Google's Year in Search Google Trends
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Missing the Miracle in the Mundane Becoming (my blog)
***LANGUAGE
Whatever! Marist Poll reveals list of most annoying words Poughkeepsie Journal
The importance of pauses in conversation Economist
Vulnerable Words and the CDC Chronicle of Higher Ed
The strange reinvention of Icelandic: A language both ancient and modern Economist
Merriam-Webster's Word Of The Year Is Feminism NPR
***LITERATURE
The Best Books Atlantic Staffers Read in 2017 The Atlantic
Longreads Best of 2017: Essays Long Reads
Derivative Sport: The Journalistic Legacy of David Foster Wallace Long Reads
Books of the Year 2017 Economist
J.R.R. Tolkien Is Our Favorite Father Christmas: For 23 years he role-played in holiday letters to his children Atlas Obscura
***GENDER
Gender Gap in Academic Seminar Questions: Men are far more likely to ask, study finds Inside Higher Ed
The battle to make French a “gender-neutral language” is emphasizing the country’s inherent sexism Quartz
Women Are Invited to Give Fewer Talks Than Men at Top U.S. Universities The Atlantic
Jezebel's Annual, Unscientific List of Best Women, According to Us Jezebel
Women and economics: The profession’s problem with women could be a problem with economics itself Economist
Sinclair Broadcast Group Sued for Sexual Harassment and Retaliation Hollywood Reporter
***FREE SPEECH
Report: Campus speech codes decline for 10th straight year The Fire
College Students Clash Repeatedly Over Free Speech Issues NPR
***RELIGION
Santa Claus Converts To Calvinism, Moves Everybody To Naughty List Babyonbee
Will the Museum of the Bible become a star DC attraction for tour groups? Washington Post
Cardinal Bernard Law, symbol of church sex abuse scandal, dead at 86 CNN
Texas Rangers pitcher and wife donate mansion and 100 acres of land to a Christian charity that provides camps for children with special needs and chronic illnesses ESPN
John Legend cast as Jesus Christ in upcoming NBC live musical CNN
Christianity Today’s 2018 Book Awards Christianity Today
Calif. Megachurch Accused of Practicing Occult in Use of 'Destiny Cards' Christian Post
***RELIGION AND POLITICS
Can Evangelicalism Survive Donald Trump and Roy Moore? (opinion) The New Yorker
Sam Bee: Trump’s devout evangelical following is “an Aryan death cult” (opinion) Salon
***ART & DESIGN
A Strict Olympic Crackdown on Russian Logos and Typography New York Times
California artist weaves faith into acclaimed works, show Religion News Service
***IMAGES
The Most 2017 Photos Ever The Atlantic
Ye Olde Photoshoppe: The manipulation of photographs goes back a surprisingly long way 1843
***MUSIC & AUDIO
Bob Dylan's Gospel Period Sidemen Share Memories of His Most Divisive Era Billboard
How bands display their history on the stage Economist
***FILM
The Next Bechdel Test: We pitted 50 movies against 12 new ways of measuring Hollywood’s gender imbalance FiveThirtyEight
Cult Hit 'The Room' Set for Wide Theatrical Release (Exclusive) Hollywood Reporter
Film remakes that should stay on the storyboard Economist
Every Steven Spielberg Movie, Ranked Vulture
Not even “The Last Jedi” will reverse Americans’ retreat from cinemas Economist
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
This year has seen an explosion of rage about sexual harassment: Will it lead to lasting change? Economist
At Vice, Cutting-Edge Media and Allegations of Old-School Sexual Harassment The New York Times
***RELATIONSHIPS
The rise of long-distance marriage: Financial necessity is encouraging more couples to live apart Economist
***HEALTH
U.S. life expectancy declines for a second straight year and it’s fueled by the drug crisis Washington Post
Silencing is golden: A new era of medicine will come into view The World In
***SCIENCE
The High School Student's Simple Explanation Of Relativity Will Boggle Your Mind Digg
Why Is M-Theory the Leading Candidate for Theory of Everything? Quantam Magazine
***PSYCHOLOGY
Tasks for My Psychological Task Rabbit McSweeneys
Can you really be addicted to sex? 1843
The holiday-suicide myth and the intractability of popular falsehoods The Conversation
***PHILOSOPHY
10 Schools of Philosophy and Why You Should Know Them Big Think
***RESEARCH
Politics Moves Fast. Peer Review Moves Slow. What’s A Political Scientist To Do? FiveThirtyEight
Online tools enable unprecedented access to science research Physics Today
How Badly Can Cherry-Picking and Question Trolling Produce Bias in Published Results? Springer
***RESEARCH & GENDER
Women are held to a higher standard in peer review VOX
***HIGHER ED
Legal Pot? Doesn’t Matter, Colleges Say Inside Higher Ed
Higher Ed New Media Consortium Suddenly Ceases Operations Campus Technology
How much did hacker who taunted Rutgers cost the school? NewJersey.com
What Colleges Need to Know About the Tax Overhaul Poised to Become Law Chronicle of Higher Ed
A Nonprofit Funneling thousands of dollars to student-government campaigns across the country The New Yorker
***TEACHING
Don’t cede the online-education terrain to people whose courses are nowhere nearly as good as your own Chronicle of Higher Ed
Authors of statistics textbook proudly declared, in a footnote, that no one reads footnotes. Photos of the footnote keep going viral Inside Higher Ed
Use of Free Textbooks Is Rising, but Barriers Remain Chronicle of Higher Ed
Controversial question spotted on UCCS final exam KOAA
A Brief History of Students Secretly Recording Their Professors Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT LIFE
E-sports come of age: Why the e-sports industry will boom The World In
Dreamers’ Make Desperate Plea on Capitol Hill Chronicle of Higher Ed
***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS
Want to freelance? Join SPJ's freelancer directory Society of Professional Journalists
Internship Photo Department Patagonia, Ventura, California
2018 Summer Producer Intern National Football League Culver City, California
***ACADEMIC LIFE
On Faculty and Mental Illness Chronicle of Higher Ed
Answers to Christmas Quiz
/1. What did the angels sing to the shepherds?
Nothing. Luke 2:13,14 tells us, "Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel praising God and SAYING, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace to men on whom his favor rests." No where in the Bible does it say that angels sing. Of course, Scripture never says they don't either.
2. In what direction did the Wise Men look to see the star in the sky?
The West. Matthew 2:1,2 reads, "After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, 'Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." The Wise Men were in the East and they saw the star in the Western sky. Had they been traveling toward a star in the East, they would have started from somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.
3. Where did the wise men go to see the baby?
The house--not the stable. Matthew 2:9-11 says, "After (the Wise Men) had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the HOUSE, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him…" By the time the Wise Men would have arrived, Mary and Joseph would have left the stable. It would have taken a while for the Wise Men to arrive. Perhaps a couple of years, since Herod killed children in Bethlehem under the age of two.
4. How many wise men were there?
We don't know. Three is the traditional number, but Scripture only tells us of three gifts.
5. In which season of the year was Jesus born?
Probably Spring. Luke 2:8 tells us, "And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night." It is unlikely they would have been living in the fields during Winter. Spring is the most likely time.
6. What did Mary ride on to Bethlehem?
We don't know. Christmas cards may favor a donkey, but Scripture doesn't tell us.
7. What did the wise men ride on?
We don't know. Christmas cards may favor a camels, but Scripture doesn't tell us.
8. In what country did the Christmas tree originate?
Germany
9. In what century did Christmas celebrations begin?
The 4th century. Christmas carols began in the 14th and 15th centuries. Christmas cards were first sent in the early 19th century.
10. Was there ever an original, real Santa Claus?
Yes. In the 4th Century AD, Nicholas showed acts of kindness and charity early in his life. He served as bishop of Myra (now in Turkey) and was considered a saint since the 6th century.
11. What Christmas tradition commemorating the birth of Jesus did St. Francis of Assisi begin?
The nativity scene.
12. What is frankincense?
a. a precious metal
b. a precious fabric
c. a precious perfume
d. an Eastern monster story
Answer: c. a precious perfume
13. What is Myrrh?
a. an easily shaped metal
b. a spice used for burying people
c. a drink
d. aftershave lotion
Answer: b. a spice used for burying people
14. Did Jesus tell us to remember his birth?
No.
15. What did Jesus tell us to remember?
He told us to remember his death. "…Do this in remembrance of me" Luke 22:19.
Note: All verses from the New International Version
The Digital Deluge
/Distractions clearly affect performance on the job. In a recent essay, Dan Nixon of the Bank of England pointed to a mass of compelling evidence that they could also be eating into productivity growth. Depending on the study you pick, smartphone-users touch their device somewhere between twice a minute to once every seven minutes. Conducting tasks while receiving e-mails and phone calls reduces a worker’s IQ by about ten points relative to working in uninterrupted quiet. That is equivalent to losing a night’s sleep, and twice as debilitating as using marijuana. By one estimate, it takes nearly half an hour to recover focus fully for the task at hand after an interruption. What’s more, Mr Nixon notes, constant interruptions accustom workers to distraction, teaching them, in effect, to lose focus and seek diversions.
Articles of Interest - Dec 18
/***TECHNOLOGY
Robots that Look like Animals (video)
Google Glass, Oculus, HoloLens: The Race for Augmented Reality Glasses Starts Now Wired
CRISPR gene editing moved into humans in 2017Debates about when and how to use the tool in humans take on new urgency Science News
In China, a Three-Digit Score Could Dictate Your Place in Society Wired
AIM, aka AOL Instant Messenger, dead at 20 NY Daily News
Video games could fall foul of anti-gambling laws Economist
***BIG DATA & AI
A quantum communications satellite: The Chinese really beat us on this one Science News
Five programming languages with hidden flaws vulnerable to hackers Tech Republic
AI hedge funds embrace machine learning Economist
***SOCIAL MEDIA
The top 10 memes of 2017, according to Google Daily Dot
Worker rushes back to burning factory in China for phone Daily Mail
Former Facebook exec won't let own kids use social media, says it's 'destroying how society works' Fox News
Hard Questions: Is Spending Time on Social Media Bad for Us? Facebook Newsroom
Facebook's Partnership With Fact-Checkers Gets Off To A Rocky Start NPR
How much news makes it into people’s Facebook feeds? Our experiment suggests not much Harvard’s Nieman Lab
Facebook news feed changes could affect your business's post engagement Tech Republic
***MOBILE
Voice assistants used by 46% of Americans, mostly on smartphones Pew Research Center
***PRODUCING MEDIA
Descript gets $5M to make sound editing like a Word document Tech Crunch
Don’t Compromise Your Ethics When Telling Stories in VR Medium
***INTERNET
Five Times the Internet Was Actually Fun in 2017 New York Times
How a dorm room Minecraft scam brought down the internet Wired
Gmail Quietly Offers New Unsubscribe Feature Media Post
***JOURNALISM
Public colleges limiting journalist access Columbia Journalism Review
New York Times D.C. bureau adds fact-checker Politico
Goodbye to Storify Chronicle of Higher
Longform video leads the way Harvard’s Nieman Lab
How do you use an Anonymous Source? Washington Post
Show a little vulnerability Harvard’s Nieman Lab
The 10 Best Journalism Movies Washington Post
Not fake news, just plain wrong: Top media corrections of 2017 Poynter
Record number of journalists jailed Committee to Protect Journalism
Jealousy List 2017 Bloomberg
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
An insider’s account of the booming business where ads want to be journalism, sort of Traffic
WikiLeaks recognised as a 'media organisation' by UK tribunal The Guardian
Pope Begs Journalists To Avoid 'Sins Of Communication' : The Two-Way NPR
Newspaper Advertising Costs & How to Succeed on a Budget Fit Small Business
New owner to retire iconic Time Inc. name New York Post
***FAKE NEWS
The Numbers Behind Fake News Daily Infographic
‘False News’ Is Safer Than ‘Fake’ Chronicle of Higher
Yes, the Truth Still Matters New York Times
Pope Francis: fake and sensationalised news 'a very serious sin' The Guardian
Google News To Delist Publications That Intentionally Mislead Readers, Mask Country Of Origin Media Post
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
'The Atlantic' Rebuilds Paywall For 2018 Media Post
***PERSONAL GROWTH
The Importance of Making Mistakes Becoming (my blog)
The Batman Effect: Dressing up as a superhero might actually give your kid grit Quartz
Why It Feels So Good to Cancel Plans Last Minute, and How to Stop Life Hacker
For Veterans, a Path to Healing 'Moral Injury' New York Times
Why We Pull Away From Those We Love The Most Digg
***GRAMMAR
This Is The Daily Stormer's Playbook: A leaked style guide reveals they’re Nazis about grammar Huffington Post
The Fine Line Between Errors and Dialect Differences Chronicle of Higher
***WRITING & READING
Poetry's Not Dead, And Here Are Books To Help Appreciate It NPR
The Weaponization of Plagiarism Plagiarism Today
For baby’s brain to benefit, read the right books at the right time The Conversation
20 Words and Phrases for Better Essays Daily Infographic
***LANGUAGE
Oxford's word of the year is a less obvious, more obscure choice Mashable
Beyond “I can’t even” Chronicle of Higher
***LITERATURE
Researchers had an AI bot write a new Harry Potter chapter and it was terrifying The Guardian
You can thank Facebook, Hulu, and Instagram for some of the year’s bestselling books Quartz
Three Books That Capture America In Poetry NPR
***GENDER
The Growing Partisan Divide Over Feminism The Atlantic
42% of US working women have faced gender discrimination on the job Pew Research Center
At ESPN, the problem for women runs deep Boston Globe
***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES
Court Decision Could Force Changes To ATF's Undercover Operations NPR
***LEGAL ISSUES
Slovenian magazine apologizes to US first lady Melania Trump Associated Press
Scandalous Trademarks No Longer Taboo, Court Rules Hollywood Reporter
***RELIGION
R.C. Sproul, theologian and religious broadcaster, dies at 78 USA Today
5 facts about Christmas in America Pew Research
Suit: Ernest Angely's Megachurch Swindled Mentally Ill Woman out of more than 300K CBS Chicago
How A Priest Convinced Robert Mugabe To Step Down NPR
Christian Club Sues University After Being Booted off Campus Iowa City Press-Citizen
Ernest Angley's church and TV station being sued for defaulting on $3.6 million loan Akron Beacon Journal
***RELIGION AND POLITICS
This Evangelical Leader Denounced Trump. Then the Death Threats Started Politico
Religious Bias Is Distorting American Foreign Policy (opinion) The Atlantic
An Evangelical Evaluation Of Trump's First Year NPR
After Trump and Moore, some evangelicals are finding their own label too toxic to use Washington Post
***ART & DESIGN
Guerrilla Public Service Redux 99 Percent
Better design helps differentiate opinion and news Harvard’s Nieman Lab
***MUSIC
Nielsen 360 Study Finds Consumers Love Streaming Music, But Radio Still Strong Billboard
Algorithm is a dancer: Is YouTube starting to determine vinyl reissues? The Vinyl Factory
U2 on 2017's 'Swing to Extremism' and Why Unity Is As Important As Resistance Billboard
Sirius XM Holdings Inc. will pay almost 41% more for the music it plays on its satellite-radio service starting next year Fox Business News
Thelonious Monk’s 25 Tips for Musicians (1960) Open Culture
In a new podcast, our host explores the craft of writing about music Poynter
***FILM
How The Post Became the Hottest Screenplay in Hollywood Vanity Fair
James Earl Jones Didn't Believe Darth Vader Was Luke's Father Hollywood Reporter
Movies You Missed: 'The Muppet Christmas Carol' NPR
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Resources for combating sexual harassment in the newsroom Society of Professional Journalists
There Is No Moral Relativity in Sexual Harassment (opinion) Chronicle of Higher
Women and Power in the Workplace New York Times
Poll: Americans Overwhelmingly Support 'Zero Tolerance' On Sexual Harassment NPR
Catholic Church Singled Out In Australian Sex Abuse Report: The Two-Way NPR
How you can use public records to cover campus sexual assault Student Press Law Center
When harassment drives women out of journalism Vox
Gender discrimination comes in many forms for today’s working women Pew Research
We Got Government Data On 20 Years Of Workplace Sexual Harassment Claims: These Charts Break It Down BuzzFeed
***FAMILIES
Down Syndrome Families Divided Over Abortion Ban NPR
Parents giving children alcohol too young, researchers say BBC
***HEALTH
How healthy is your state? The disparities are stark Stat News
3-D printed microfibers could provide structure for artificially grown body part Penn State
The Future of Genomic medicine The Naked Scientist
'Why am I so tired?' The 10 most-Googled health questions in 2017 CNN
Why New Blood Pressure Guidelines Could Lead to Harm New York Times
CDC director tells staff ‘there are no banned words,’ while not refuting report Stat News
You (and most of the millions of holiday travelers you encounter) are washing your hands wrong The Conversation
***ENVIRONMENT
The world is drowning in ever-growing mounds of garbage Washington Post
Each U.S. Family Trashes 400 iPhones’ Worth of E-Waste a Year National Geographic
***SCIENCE
CDC gets list of forbidden words: fetus, transgender, diversity Washington Post
***PSYCHOLOGY
Older Adults' Forgetfulness Tied To Faulty Brain Rhythms In Sleep : Shots - Health News NPR
***NEUROSCIENCE
Offbeat brain rhythms during sleep make older adults forget UC Berkeley
***PHILOSOPHY
Pickle: A Philosophy and Ethics Podcast for Kids WNYC
God's Answer to Nietzsche, the Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard BigThink
***HISTORY
***RESEARCH
How many papers really end up without a single citation Nature
Strong evidence of bias against research from low income countries BMJ blog
Predatory publishing can no longer be called … a fly in the chardonnay of scholars Scholarly Kitchen
***HIGHER ED
The Political Divide Over Higher Education in America Gallup Poll
Baking Common Sense into the FERPA Cake: How to Meaningfully Protect Student Rights and the Public Interest Notre Dame Journal of Legislation
With an Employee Facing Deportation, Wesleyan’s President Speaks Out Chronicle of Higher Ed
Federal judge temporarily blocks Trump contraception rule Washington Post
Arkansas Baptist president fired over 'lack of transparency' to board, college says Arkansas Online
Students combat human trafficking Northwest Nazarene
***TEACHING
Automatic Course Syllabus Maker Chronicle of Higher
Peer instruction and polling changes teaching Chronicle of Higher
When Students Aren’t as Prepared as They Look on Paper Chronicle of Higher
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Ph.D.s Are Still Writing Poorly, Part 2 Chronicle of Higher
***STUDENT LIFE
The College Student Who Decoded the Data Hidden in Inca Knots Atlas Obscura
The Importance of Dumb Mistakes
/For all of the supposed liberating power of digital devices, (users) might as well be wearing ankle monitors. Technological connectedness has made it much harder for (college students) to make mistakes and learn from them.
Today’s students live their lives so publicly — through the technology we provide them without training — that much simpler errors than mine earn them the wrath of the entire internet.
I got driven downtown in handcuffs for spray-painting “Corporate Deathburgers” across a McDonald’s.
If a Williams student spray-painted “Corporate Deathburgers” on a local building today (not that they ever would), it wouldn’t be hard to imagine someone posting the security footage online. Then the outraged calls and emails and tweets would pour in, demanding that the college disavow Deathburger values. I’d be writing news releases explaining that at Williams we take Deathburgers very seriously. There would be op-eds about the Deathburger problem on American campuses today. And the video would live on: another student weighed down by the detritus of his or her online life.
Thirty years ago, college students could have tried out radical ideas (in the student newspaper). But readership would have been largely restricted to campus, and the paper would have been in circulation for only a day or two. In this climate, there is little room for students to experiment and screw up.
My worry is that we’ve become unwilling to tolerate innocent mistakes — either that or we have drastically shrunk our vision of innocence.
In my own life I made bad choices that went far beyond spray paint. I flunked out of college and at various points narrowly dodged jail time. When I think back to those mistakes, I’m horrified and chastened. I feel fortunate to have survived, to have had the privilege to make amends.
Jim Reische writing in the New York Times
doing evil
/Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction. – Blaise Pascal
We prefer the Apps
/The family that is eating together while simultaneously on their phones is not actually together. They are, in writer Sherry Turkle’s formulation, “alone together.” You are where your attention is. If you’re watching a football game with your son while also texting a friend, you’re not fully with your child — and he knows it. Truly being with another person means being experientially with them, picking up countless tiny signals from the eyes and voice and body language and context, and reacting, often unconsciously, to every nuance. These are our deepest social skills, which have been honed through the aeons. They are what make us distinctively human.
No wonder we prefer the apps. An entire universe of intimate responses is flattened to a single, distant swipe. We hide our vulnerabilities, airbrushing our flaws and quirks; we project our fantasies onto the images before us. Rejection still stings — but less when a new virtual match beckons on the horizon.
Andrew Sullivan writing in New York Magazine