Articles of Interest - Oct 22

***TECHNOLOGY

Water.io building a platform for the future of consumer products: Get ready for a future in which your favorite products act like helicopter parents  Fast Company

Blockchain’s impact on retail: fewer counterfeits, faster product recalls  Vox

Digital immortality: How your life’s data means a version of you could live forever  MIT Technology Review

These magical sunglasses block all the screens around you  Wired  

The Pentagon is studying an insect army to defend crops. Critics fear a bioweapon Washington Post

Thousands Of Swedes Are Inserting Microchips Under Their Skin  NPR

 ***JOURNALISM

With help from journalism students, Miami man freed after 12 years behind bars for murder   Miami Herald

Rural areas are rapidly becoming news deserts  Axios 

5 investigative journalism tipsheets  IJNet

Reuters is offering eight $5,000 photojournalism grants  Reuters 

To defend journalism, we need to defend the truth and not just journalists  Vox

Citizens Count on the Illinois Freedom of Information Act but Keep Getting Shut Out  Propublica

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

News industry seeks exemption from Congress to take on Facebook, Google  NOLA

***FAKE NEWS

Faced with a daily barrage of news, college students find it hard to tell what's real and what's 'fake news'  Northeastern 

2014: Nvidia uses tech to prove moon landing couldn't be faked. 2018: Nvidia updates its conspiracy debunk to show how it can be done now  Cnet 

Fake News Is Poisoning Brazilian Politics: WhatsApp Can Stop It (opinion)  New York Times   

Quiz: How well can you tell factual from opinion statements?  Pew Research Center

These New Tricks Can Outsmart Deepfake Videos—for Now  Wired 

Could Somebody Please Debunk This?’: Writing About Science When Even the Scientists Are Nervous  New York Times   

We’re Tracking Misinformation About The Migrant Caravan Headed To The US  BuzzFeed

Disinformation, ‘fake news’ and influence Campaigns on Twitter  Knight Foundation 

***FAKE NEWS & FACEBOOK  

Facebook launches “Hunt For False News” debunk blog as fakery drops 50% Tech Crunch

In Facebook’s Effort to Fight Fake News, Human Fact-Checkers Struggle to Keep Up  Wall Street Journal

Facebook has a fake news 'war room' – but is it really working?  The Guardian

As Midterms Approach, Facebook Ramps Up Disinformation Fight  NPR 

***BIG DATA & AI  

A video about the process of using machine learning to fighting cancer (video) Real Engineering

Why the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics has many problems  Quanta Magazine 

Three common mistakes that consistently plague analytic endeavors  Health Catalyst

 ***SOCIAL MEDIA  

What happens when Facebook goes down? People read the news  Harvard’s Nieman Lab 

Why brands you've never heard of are flooding your feeds  Axios

When Loved Ones Die, What Do We Do with Their Text Messages?  Boston Magazine

***MOBILE 

By the time you finish this article, 400K Americans were probably robocalled  NBC News

Who Is 'Scam Likely,' and Why Are You Receiving Calls From Them?  Digital Trends

Apple fixes its new bagel emoji with cream cheese and a doughier consistency  The Verge

***PRODUCING MEDIA 

Emotion and Identity: the key to compelling mobile videos  Reuters  

 ***PERSONAL GROWTH 

The people behind the AI Curtain: “So much of what passes for automation isn’t really automation"  Becoming (my blog)

***GRAMMAR

Why the book “Do I Make Myself Clear?” is “Dreadful”  Chronicle of Higher Ed Ω

Trump's bizarre grammar boast has Twitter users scratching their heads AOL News

***WRITING & READING

How to Become a Highly Productive Writer  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

New York Times, 12 writers celebrate their favorite libraries  New York Times

Judy Blume’s Are You There, God? It’s Me, Margaret … to be made into a movie  Deadline

***LANGUAGE

‘Smarmy’: How It Was Born and Survived  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Is your coworker an assclown or an asshat? Linguists explain the difference  Quartz

2018, in a Word. But What Word?  Chronicle of Higher Ed  

How Are We Supposed to Have Fun? The possibility of fun’ as an adjective  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LITERATURE

The genius and legend of Anne Frank’s diary A new graphic adaptation is faithful to its spirit. But her proper medium is words  Economist  

A literary history of New Orleans  Economist

Two Ernest Hemingway stories that were rarely seen to be published next year  NBC News

***GENDER   

Women’s voices are judged more harshly than men’s  Economist

‘Transgender’ Could Be Defined Out of Existence Under Trump Administration  New York Times 

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES 

Is It Still Okay To Use The OK Hand Emoji? The once innocuous hand sign is now being spread by white supremacists as a symbol of white power  Digg

Mapping the predominant race in 11 million neighborhoods across the country  National Geographic 

Charlottesville’s Other Jim Crow Legacy: Separate and Unequal Education  Propublica 

When England play overseas, it is always the voice of the angry, white, male racist that shouts loudest   The Independent  

Government spends millions to guard Confederate cemeteries  Associated Press

***FREE SPEECH

Trump’s Attacks on the Press Are Illegal. We’re Suing: A coalition of free-press advocates is taking on the president  Politico

Kennesaw State, student group settle campus speech lawsuit  AJC 

***LEGAL ISSUES 

Stormy Daniels Loses Her Defamation Suit Against Trump — and Has to Pay His Legal Fees  Yahoo

A Conservative Group’s Closed-Door ‘Training’ of Judicial Clerks Draws Concern  New York Times  

Photographer Suing Andy Warhol's Estate Claims His Work Isn't "Transformative"  Hollywood Reporter

Lawsuits Over Paparazzi Images on Instagram Raise Celebrity Questions Over Right of Publicity The Fashion Law Blog  

***MAGAZINES 

Saturday Evening Post’s archives now available digitally  New York Post

Heads roll at 'Cosmopolitan' amid the magazine industry roller coaster Crain’s New York

***INTERNET 

I Ditched Google for Bing. Here's What I Found—and What I Didn't  Wired  

***RELIGION

Eugene Peterson who translated ‘The Message’ translation of the Bible Dies  Christianity Today 

It’s Getting Harder to Talk About God: The decline in our spiritual vocabulary has many real-world consequences (opinion)  New York Times   

Mediaite founder Dan Abrams to launch Christian sermon streaming network  The Hill

Judge dismisses claims against SBC in Pressler sex abuse case Baptist Standard 

Deep In The Desert, A Case Pits Immigration Crackdown Against Religious Freedom  NPR

Evangelicals Are Confused about Christianity's Core Beliefs, Survey Says  Christian News Headlines

Zondervan Settles Plagiarism Case involving Author Christine Caine  Publishers Weekly 

***RELIGION & HISTORY 

Bible Museum says five of its Dead Sea Scrolls are fake  CNN

Pagans against Genesis Confused, inferior and philosophically unsound: the Greco-Roman critique of the Old Testament could have been written today  Aeon

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Founder of the Christian Broadcasting Network says arms deal is more important than Khashoggi Vice 

Can a Christian foster care group legally reject non-Christian families?  Vox

***GOOD NEWS

Carmel Valley couple spending year aboard hospital ship in Africa Union-Tribune

Fifth Grader Runs 50 5K’s In 50 Days For Grandpa’s Lung Cancer CBS San Francisco

Chicago man makes 500th blood donation: 'You actually get an opportunity to save someone' Chicago Tribune

North Carolina town raises money to build inclusive playground for all kids WRAI

BBQers Set Friendly Rivalries Aside to Serve Meals, Hope to Hurricane Michael Victims Yahoo News

Paralyzed man completes Portland half marathon  KOIN

This tiny pizzeria has served over 142,000 slices to the homeless for free NBC

***ART & DESIGN

Finalists of the 2018 Architectural Photography Awards  My Modern Met

Write people up for their design crimes with this ticket book  Fast Company

Rhythm in web Typography  Better Web Type

Write people up for their design crimes with this ticket book  Fast Company

Two New York City museums announced they would reject funding from Saudi-linked groups for scholarly programs on Middle Eastern  New York Times

Film in the Digital Age: An Interview with 4 Photographers  PetaPixel 

***THE STORY BEHIND THE ART  

Banksy Releases Behind The Scenes Footage Of Art-Shredding Frame  Digg

The Story Behind the Mysterious Guillotine on a Brooklyn Roof  Vice

***MUSIC 

Here are the hits of the past 25 years that we’ll be listening to for the next 100 Slate

He’s sold 150 million albums and been famous for five decades: But do we really know Elton John?  Vulture

Classical music concert in Sweden descends into brawl over rustling chewing gum packet Independent

Sparring Candidates Duet In Music While They Duel For Votes  NPR

How the Sears Catalog Disrupted the Jim Crow South and Helped Give Birth to the Delta Blues & Rock and Roll  Open Culture 

20 Years Of Cher's 'Believe' And Its Auto-Tune Legacy NPR

***FILM

‘Crazy Rich Asians’ Finally Lands a Release Date in China Variety

The 30 Best (Truly) Independent Films of the 21st Century The Ringer

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT 

93 women join lawsuit against the University of Southern California over sexual misconduct by university gynecologist  New York Post

The assistant director of Western Washington University's counseling center was fired for sexual harassment  The AS Review 

U. of Texas Overhauls Program on Masculinity to Avoid Stigma  Chronicle of Higher Ed

#MeToo inspires wave of old misconduct reports to colleges Associated Press

***SOCIAL ISSUES 

Edible cottonseed is now a thing — and it could have big implications for world hunger  Vox

Homeless Students in New York Public Schools at Record High  New York Times   

The myth of meritocracy: who really gets what they deserve?  The Guardian

Nearly six-in-ten Americans say abortion should be legal in all or most cases Pew Research Center 

The average age one would classify someone as “old” is now 74, up from 68 in 2009  Harris-TD Ameritrade

***VOTING 

DHS finds increasing attempts to hack U.S. election systems ahead of midterms  NBC News

Making Sense Of The Patchwork System Known As Voter Registration NPR

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

How to run a calm workplace A management book that is refreshingly different  Economist

What We Often Get Wrong About Automation  Harvard Business Review

The real deal on TV home-remodeling shows  The Washington Post

Nice People Have Emptier Wallets - Scientific American  Scientific American 

Even janitors have noncompetes now: Nobody is safe  The Washington Post

Why no one really knows how many jobs automation will replace  Recode

***HEALTH

Obesity surgery may lower heart attack danger in diabetics  Associated Press 

Feds crack down on stem cell clinics that touted autism treatments, blindness cures  Stat News

What we know about the mysterious polio-like virus spreading across the US.  Quartz

Simple stickers may save lives of heart patients, athletes and lower medical costs for families  Purdue University

Science says fluoride in water is good for kids. So why are these towns banning it?  NBC News 

Antibiotics May Soon Become Useless. Now What?  Wired 

Colorado Facebook groups organize play dates to intentionally share chickenpox  9news 

Fixing Your Hearing and Vision Loss Can Keep Your Memory Sharper  NPR

The Problem With Probiotics  New York Times

***HEALTH & FOOD 

This Is What Would Happen to Your Body if You Only Ate Fruits and Vegetables  Vice

Southern Diet Blamed For High Rates Of Hypertension Among Black Americans  NPR

***FOOD 

Microplastics found in 90 percent of table salt  National Geographic

Yamei Kin, The Chinese Doctor Who Introduced Tofu To The West  New York Times 

Why people in rich countries are eating more vegan food  Economist  

A food critic visits New York's pizza museum  (video)  New York Magazine

The man who has eaten at more than 7,300 Chinese restaurants, but can’t use chopsticks and doesn’t care for food  South China Morning Post 

***FOOD PRICES 

All The Ways Restaurants Are Scamming You Into Buying Overpriced Meals (video)  Digg

Coffee Rust Threatens Latin American Crop; 150 Years Ago, It Wiped Out An Empire  NPR

***TRAVEL

30 of the most stunning landscapes to visit in the US.  Conde Nast Traveler

15 Best Fall Hiking Trails: Our Favorite Fall Hikes in the U.S.  Condé Nast Traveler

***SCIENCE

When science hits a limit, learn to ask different questions  Aeon

The big picture: Even scientists are being automated  Axios 

Scientists grow functioning human neural networks in 3D from stem cells  Science Daily

***PSYCHOLOGY 

How one bench and a team of grandmothers can beat depression  BBC 

The limits of fMRI and neuroimaging  The Verge

New evidence that the “chaotic mind” of ADHD brings creative advantages BSP

Addressing Mental Health Effects, a Year After the Tubbs Fire in Sonoma  Wired 

I woke up unable to speak English BBC  

Your Facebook posts can reveal if you're depressed  Wired 

***NEUROSCIENCE  

Electrical properties of dendrites help explain our brain’s unique computing power MIT Tech Review

People who have a good sense of smell are also good navigators Science News

***PHILOSOPHY

The Art of Logic by Eugenia Cheng review – the need for good arguments  The Guardian 

Philosophers Name the Best Philosophy Books: From Stoicism and Existentialism, to Metaphysics & Ethics for Artificial Intelligence  Open Culture 

***PRODUCTIVITY 

I've Interviewed 300 High Achievers About Their Morning Routines: Here's What I've Learned New York Times

***HISTORY  

The history of two slogans: “American Frist” and “The American Dream” Economist

***ETHICS 

Judging by reaction to recent plagiarism cases, I don’t think plagiarism matters much to most Christians Throckmorton Blog

New Plagiarism Allegation Leveled Against Prominent Christian Counselor, Trump Adviser Tim Clinton Augusta Review

***RESEARCH 

This year’s “Worst Pseudoscience Award” Goes to Anti-Vax Fraud Andrew Wakefield  Gizmodo

Retractions are not uncommon and are increasing in frequency  BMJ 

How a typo in a catalog number led to the correction of a scientific paper — and what we can learn from that  Retraction Watch

A blame-free approach to research misconduct  Nature Index

How I got through my publication drought  Science Mag 

The Case Against Alphabetical Naming of Authors  Inside Higher Ed

***RESEARCH & ECONOMISTS 

Do Economics Journals Enforce Their Data Policies? The Replication Network

Economists care about where they publish—to the cost of the profession  Economist

***RESEARCH PUBLISHERS 

An Academic Publisher Vanishes  Discover Magazine  

China awaits controversial blacklist of ‘poor quality’ journals  Nature

The editors of JAMA talk about their experience with retractions  JAMA network 

***HIGHER ED

DeVos Calls Democratic Senator’s Public Criticism of Draft Title IX Rules ‘Unbecoming and Irresponsible  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

In Admissions, Harvard Favors Those Who Fund It, Internal Emails Show The Crimson

Vancouver’s Clark College Closes for a day in Response to Planned Patriot Prayer Protest Willamette Week 

Can an Innovative Online College Help Adults Stay Employed?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

A judge who also works as an adjunct law professor at NYU rejected a $350-million lawsuit against the institution by employees  Washington Square News

Handpicked Attendees for Conservative Speaker at USC over fear of disruption  Inside Higher Ed

The evangelicals creating champions for Trump at Liberty University  The Guardian 

***HIGHER ED & HEALTH 

Hand, foot and mouth disease is breaking out on numerous campuses: officials struggle to contain the spread  Inside Higher Ed

New Purdue Health Plan Boots Employed Spouses  Inside Higher Ed

On College Campuses, Making Overdose Medication Readily Available  NPR

$4000 Giant inflatable colon used for instruction stolen from University of Kansas Cancer Center  Associated Press

***TEACHING

Why One Science Professor Has Students Write a Children’s Book  Chronicle of Higher Ed

To Prevent Loneliness, Start in the Classroom  CityLab

****ACADEMIC LIFE  

Why Does Graduate School Kill So Many Marriages?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Jury: American University discriminated against a former professor on the basis of her age when it denied her tenure  Inside Higher Ed

So Your Ph.D. Program Is Not Going ‘As Planned’?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

University of Montana says 22 faculty members are leaving Missoulian

Professors at Florida International University are demanding the administration eject its Turning Point USA chapter from campus  Miami New Times

***STUDENT LIFE 

College students broadly mistrust news: Fake Kardashian gossip probably won’t help  Harvard’s Nieman Lab

Established firms try dancing to a millennial tune  Economist

UNC student who poured blood and ink on Silent Sam Confederate statue found guilty of misdemeanor  News Observer  

Hoax at Harvard: Impersonator Dupes Dozens With Fictitious George Bush Lecture  The Harvard Crimson  

Mapping Which Neighborhoods Are Buried In Student Debt  CityLab

Why do millennials love bullet journals? Control  Vox 

***STUDENT LIFE: POLITICS  

Millennials Need to Start Voting Before the Gerontocracy Kills Us All  New York Magazine 

College Voting in the 2018 Midterms: A Survey of US College Students  College Reaction

The people behind the AI Curtain

“So much of what passes for automation isn’t really automation,” says writer and documentarian Astra Taylor. She describes a moment when she was waiting to pick up her lunch at a cafe, and another customer walked in, awestruck, wondering aloud how the app knew that his order was ready 20 minutes early. The woman behind the counter just looked at him and said, “I just sent you a message.”

“He was so convinced that it was a robot,” Taylor says. “He couldn’t see the human labor right in front of his eyes.”

She calls this process fauxtomation: “Fauxtomation renders invisible human labor to make computers seem smarter than they are.”

“AI” usually relies on a lot of low-paid human labor.

Katharine Manning Schwab writing in Fast Company

Spotting Liars

We’re bad at accurately interpreting behavior and speech patterns, said James Alcock, professor of psychology at Canada’s York University. Learning is based on getting regular feedback, he told me. Try to add 2 + 2 and someone will tell you whether you got it right or wrong. Over time, that feedback allows you to know when you’re right. But there’s no systematic un-blinding to tell you when you correctly guessed whether you were being lied to. The feedback we get on this is spotty. Often there is none. Sometimes the feedback itself is incorrect. There’s never a chance to really learn and get better, Alcock said. “So why should we be good at it?”

Take people whose job it is to professionally detect lies — judges, police officers, customs agents. Studies show they believe themselves to be better than chance at spotting liars. But the same studies show they aren’t, Alcock said. And that makes sense, he told me, because the feedback they get misleads them. Customs agents, for instance, correctly pull aside smugglers for searches just often enough to reinforce their sense of their own accuracy. But “they have no idea about the ones they didn’t search who got away,” Alcock said.

Maggie Koerth-baker, writing in fivethirtyeight

 

Articles of Interest - Week of Oct 15

***TECHNOLOGY

The Pentagon is pushing technology that allows the possibility of super-soldiers that remotely control robots with their brains  The Atlantic 

Microsoft to make over 60,000 patents available to the Linux community & join the Open Innovation Network  Ars Techinica

I’m very sorry, but you’re going to have to learn to love the blockchain  Tech Crunch

Teaching Robots to be Comedians  1843

Why we can’t quit the QWERTY keyboard  MIT Tech Review 

At 10 trillion frames per second, this camera captures light in slow motion  Tech Crunch

Nearly a quarter of US households own a smart speaker, according to Nielsen The Verge 

A Drone-Flinging Cannon Proves UAVs Can Mangle Planes  Wired 

Why Gene Editing Will Create So Many Jobs  BBC 

 ***SOCIAL MEDIA  

How self-love got out of control Social media, reality TV, politics … has narcissism become the new normal?  The Guardian

Snapchat launches first slate of original shows  Axios 

The Teens Who Rack Up Thousands of Followers by Posting the Same Photo Every Day  The Atlantic 

An online decency moderator's advice: Blur your eyes  BBC  

People keep dying taking selfies, this study reveals how  The Next Web

Instagram Has a Massive Harassment Problem The Atlantic  

***INSTAGRAM

Why Instagram’s founders are resigning: independence from Facebook weakened  Tech Crunch 

Instagram Tests Tapping instead of Scrolling  Tech Crunch 

***FACEBOOK

Facebook to ban misinformation on voting in upcoming U.S. elections  Reuters

Facebook Hack Included Search History and Location Data of Millions  New York Times

Facebook prototypes Unsend 6 months after Zuckerberg retracted messages  Tech Crunch 

***MOBILE 

The smartphone app that can tell you’re depressed before you know it yourself  MIT Tech Review 

Google's cyber unit Jigsaw introduces Intra, a new security app dedicated to busting censorship Tech Crunch 

***JOURNALISM

We Can Use Robots But We Still Need Journalists  European Journalism Observatory  

How Journalists at Local and National Outlets Are Evolving Different Skill Sets  Harvard’s Nieman Reports  

“Press” offers a look at journalism’s wretched side  Economist

Do journalists pay too much attention to Twitter?  Columbia Journalism Review 

Longtime Archivists Outline What They've Learned From Watching Decades Of News  NPR 

2018 has been a brutal year for journalists  Washington Post  

The CIA had a policy of ignoring declassification requirements  MuckRock  

After Journalist Disappears, Companies Reconsider Saudi Investment NPR

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM 

Bloomberg Media is using text-to-audio to keep app users engaged  Digiday

Is Blockchain The Future Of Journalism? Two Entrepreneurs Take A Chance  Forbes 

***TEACHING JOURNALISM 

U. of I. journalism class to study 'Trumpaganda' — the president's approach to the news media Chicago Tribune

What to Teach Journalism Students When Their Field is Under Attack? Editor & Publisher

***FAKE NEWS

Deepfake Videos Are Getting Real and That’s a Problem  Wall Street Journal

The Viral Story About A Competitive Barefoot Runner Demanding People Sweep Up Acorns Is A Hoax  BuzzFeed News

Memo to the media: Stop spreading Trump’s fake news (opinion)   Washington Post

The University of Michigan Center for Social Media Responsibility has released a tool called the "Iffy Quotient" to track the prevalence of misinfo spread on Facebook and Twitter  Univ. of Michigan 

CBS sees surge in US Flat Earthers who say there’s no rover on Mars: ‘Most people think we’re idiots’ Raw Story 
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/10/cbs-sees-surge-us-flat-earthers-say-theres-no-rover-mars-people-think-idiots/

The Fix for Fake News Isn't Code: It's Human  New York Times

How pro-trust initiatives are taking over the Internet  Axios

Kyrie Irving apologizes to US teachers for spreading flat-earth conspiracy theories  Quartz

Sasse warns of deepfake "perfect storm"  Axios

***BIG DATA & AI  

M.I.T. Plans College for Artificial Intelligence, Backed by $1 Billion  New York Times

Machine Learning fails simple test for children—what it will take to get past an Achilles’ heel of computer vision systems  Quanta Magazine 

Here’s why a few simple rules are often more effective than flashy AI  Axios

The Pentagon is pushing technology that allows the possibility of super-soldiers that remotely control robots with their brains  The Atlantic 

The value of big data/analytics/AI doesn’t come from collecting the data or deriving insight from it —value comes through action  CIO 

No, quantum computing isn’t going to revolutionize AI anytime soon—and that’s according to a panel of experts in both fields  MIT Tech Review 

 ***PERSONAL GROWTH  

Our Kids are Watching Us  Becoming (my blog)

***GRAMMAR

It’s time to talk about “It’s”  The Outline

***WRITING & READING

Stephen King’s 20 Rules for Writers  Open Culture 

A sensible, free guide to negotiating book contracts  BoingBong

***LANGUAGE

Mapping the geographical usage of pop versus soda

When My Class Discussed ‘Mischievious’  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Coca-Cola, trying to mix Maori with English, accidentally puts "Hello, death" on vending machine  BongBong

***LITERATURE

25 National Book Award finalists announced  NPR 

A prestigious university just awarded a literary prize to one of its janitors  Quartz  

Inside the Rooms Where 20 Famous Books Were Written  Literary Hub

How Instagram Saved Poetry  The Atlantic 

Why Should You Read Don Quixote?: An Animated Video Makes the Case   Open Culture 

***GENDER   

New York City creates gender-neutral 'X' option for birth certificates  Reuters

A Deaf Jewish, Asian, Trans Model Just Made History  The Forward 

Amazon scraps secret AI recruiting tool that showed bias against women  Reuters

First-Year Law Students’ Reported Ranking Female Peers by Appearance in Private Group Chat The Cornell Daily Sun  

Here’s what the stark gender disparity among top orchestra musicians looks like  Quartz

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES 

California has a racist past. But removing monuments sparks debate about how to reflect an ugly history  Los Angeles Times

DNA databases are too white: This man aims to fix that MIT Tech Review

***FREE SPEECH

Elon University event highlights First Amendment rights  The Times News

50 Years Later, Raised Fists During National Anthem Still Resonate NPR

***LEGAL ISSUES 

Why is a Lisbon soccer team trying to unmask Portuguese bloggers in US court?  Ars Techica

Did Uber Steal Google’s Intellectual Property?  The New Yorker

Stairway To Heaven Is Not Blurred Lines  Tech Dirt

***PRIVACY & SECURITY 

The Employer Surveillance State: The more bosses try to keep track of their workers, the more precious time employees waste trying to evade them  The Atlantic

New Pentagon weapons systems can easily be hacked  Phys.org

It Took 9 Seconds to Guess a DoD Weapons System Password   Wired  

We Are All Research Subjects Now - The Chronicle of Higher Education  Chronicle of Higher Ed

A Guide to Law Enforcement Spying Technology  Electronic Frontier Foundation 

No One Can Get Cybersecurity Disclosure Just Right  Wired  

***PRODUCING MEDIA

The iPad Is Soon, Finally, Getting a Full Version of Adobe Photoshop  Gizmodo

***INTERNET

The Internet’s keepers? Wayback Machine Director Mark Graham outlines the scale of everyone's favorite archive  Ars Technica

DuckDuckGo hits new milestone of 30 million private searches per day  The Verge

Dropbox will now scan your images for text  The Verge

Oral History of the Early Days of ICANN: A Perspective From Europe  Circle ID  

***RELIGION

Texas evangelical groups are suing for the right to discriminate against LGBTQ workers Vox 

The US witch population has seen an astronomical rise  Quartz

Millennial Men on Joining, and Then Leaving, the Priesthood  MEL Magazine

Why 3 Christian pastors seek to join 5-member Corona City Council in November  The Press-Enterprise 

***RELIGION OUTSIDE THE U.S. 

U.S. Pastor Released From Turkey After Spending 2 Years In Prison  NPR

China gives legal basis for ‘re-education camps’ for ‘religious extremists’  South China Morning Post 

New Embassy In Jerusalem Attracts Devout Christians From The U.S.  NPR 

***RELIGION AND U.S. POLITICS

'I love him so much I can hardly explain it': Evangelical leaders praise Trump after pastor's release  Politico 

Freed Pastor Brunson thanks Trump in White House meeting  MSNBC 

***GOOD NEWS

Canada surgeon operates on teddy bear for 8-year-old boy  BBC 

Wounded Army vet makes it to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro  CBS News

School social worker writes notes of encouragement to all 600 of his students  Lancaster Eagle Gazette

NYC library lets job seekers check out interview attire  New York Times

New pilot takes elderly residents of his village on their first flight ever  The Times of India 

Toddler in need of a new liver and kidney gets both right before her birthday  ABC News

Soldier Whose House Was Looted Gives Away Money Raised for Him  People  

Texas Boy Thought to Be Nonverbal Can Speak After Dentist Discovers He's 'Tongue-Tied'  Inside Edition

***ART & DESIGN

New font is designed to boost your memory  Cnet 

White supremacists are taking their design seriously—and we should, too  Quartz

A map of every building in America  New York Times 

That Painting of Trump Having a Diet Coke With Abraham Lincoln Is Now Hanging in the White House  TIME 

Buckminster Fuller Creates Striking Posters of His Own Inventions  Open Culture

***MUSIC 

Leonard Cohen wrote a poem called “Kanye West Is Not Picasso”  Consequence of Sound

Trump Signs Sweeping New Music Licensing Legislation  Variety

The ridiculous amount of money baby-boomer rockers still make on tour  Quarz

Why are so many rappers on LinkedIn?  The Guardian

When Lyft passengers find out their driver is actually Chance the Rapper  BongBong

 ***FILM

More and More Movies Are Reflecting Our Fear of the Internet  Wired

‘Call Me By Your Name’ Director Plans Film Inspired by Bob Dylan’s ‘Blood on the Tracks’ Rolling Stone

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA  

Spotify Launches New Program for Podcasters  Variety  

The Growth of Sinclair’s Conservative Media Empire  The New Yorker

***STUDENT LIFE

Police release body camera videos of college students being pulled over at gunpoint  Yahoo 

Social media videos designed to inspire millennials to help fill more than 200 officer vacancies Union Tribune  

For millennials, a regular visit to the doctor’s office is not a primary concern  Washington Post 

Michigan high school cheerleader gives out pot brownies in exchange for homecoming votes  Freep

How to Get Fortnite on Any Android Phone Now  Life Hacker

The Cornell Note-Taking System: Learn the Method Students Have Used to Enhance Their Learning Since the 1940s  Open Culture 

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

Producer  Tribune Media, San Diego

Local News Team  The Herald, Rancho Cucamonga

Reporter (entry level)  Woodland Daily Democrat, Woodland

Social Media Intern  Illumina, San Diego

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT  

Anonymous Website Aims to Out Sexual Assaulters at U. of Washington  Chronicle of Higher Ed  

After a year of #MeToo, American opinion has shifted against victims  Economist

Coming To The Right Answer By Themselves: Talking With Boys About Sexual Assault  NPR

Amid #MeToo, New York Employers Face Strict New Sexual Harassment Laws  NPR

#MeToo hashtag used over 19 million times on Twitter  Axios

How 3 Colleges Changed Their Sexual-Assault Practices in Response to a National Survey  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***VOTING

What to Do If You Get Turned Away at the Polls  Life Hacker

Young Voters Might Actually Show Up At The Polls This Year FiveThirtyEight

***SOCIAL ISSUES 

With Kavanaugh Confirmed, Both Sides Of Abortion Debate Gear Up For Battle  NPR

5 facts about U.S. suburbs  Pew Research Center  

Deported parents may lose kids to adoption  Associated Press  

Migrant Children in Search of Justice: A 2-Year-Old’s Day in Immigration Court  New York Times

Selfie deaths: 259 people reported dead seeking the perfect picture  BBC

***BUSINESS & FINANCE 

Tech Workers Now Want to Know: What Are We Building This For? New York Times

Uber drivers and other gig economy workers are earning half what they did five years ago Recode 

If you do any of these things online, you could hurt your credit  MSNBC

The Dark Reason So many Millennials are miserable and broke  Moneyish 

From scoreboards to trackers, games have infiltrated work, serving as spies, overseers and agents of social control  Aeon 

***ENVIRONMENT

How to Write About a Vanishing World Scientists chronicling ecological destruction must confront the loss of their life’s work and our planet’s riches  The New Yorker

'Hyperalarming' study shows massive insect loss  The Washington Post 

Among the Ruins of Mexico Beach Stands One House, Built ‘for the Big One’  New York Times

***HEALTH 

If Your Medical Information Becomes A Moneymaker, Could You Get A Cut?  NPR  

Mapping out the nation's opioid crisis county-by-county  Visual Capitalist

***HEALTH: RESEARCH 

Human Retinas Grown In A Dish Reveal Origin Of Color Vision  NPR  

An elusive molecule that sparks multiple sclerosis may have been found  Science Mag

Mosquitoes Genetically Modified To Crash Species That Spreads Malaria  NPR

***HEALTH: PREVENTION 

Sleep: how much do we really need?  The Guaridan  

Vitamin D Supplements Don’t Lead to Stronger Bones  New York Times

***HEALTH: CHILDREN

The average sticker price for U.S. childbirth: $32,093  Axios 

Number of babies born with syphilis has more than doubled since 2013  USA Today  

More kids are going without vaccines  Axios

***FOOD

New Swedish Museum Spotlights World's Most Disgusting Food  NPR

All 50 states, ranked by their food  Thrilist 

Millennials Kill Again. The Latest Victim? American Cheese  Bloomberg

The banana is dying. The race is on to reinvent it before it's too late  Wired

***ANIMALS

Wild chimpanzees share food with friends  Max Planck Society    

Spitfire the whippet jumps 31 feet, sets a new world record for dogs (w/ video)  SB Nation 

Goats will make return to Anaheim – for yoga, not Disneyland  OC Register

More than 100 mountain goats removed from Olympic National Park   The Olympian 

Americans spend $70 billion on pets, and that money could do more good (opinion)  The Conversation

***PSYCHOLOGY 

Why Modern Clinical Psychology May Be in Trouble  Psychology Today 

Reunite After Separation at Birth: An Unethical Psychology Experiment Separates Families  The Atlantic

How to Support Someone Who's Had a Miscarriage, Explained By Redditors  Life Hacker

How to Help Girls With ADHD  Life Hacker

***NEUROSCIENCE  

The heroes of science who are unlocking the brain  Popular Mechanics 

Humans Are Hardwired to Tell History in Stories. Neuroscience Tells Us Why We Get Them Wrong TIME

***PHILOSOPHY

The History of Philosophy Visualized in an Interactive Timeline  Open Culture 

Meet the philosopher behind “the good place”  Quartz 

***PRODUCTIVITY

The lost art of concentration: being distracted in a digital world  The Guardian\

***HISTORY 

The creepiest urban legend in every state  Thrillist 

Only 1 in 3 Americans would pass the U.S. citizenship test  Las Vegas Sun

The Library of Congress Launches the National Screening Room, Putting Online Hundreds of Historic Films Open Culture

The Best Overall History Podcast Is 'In Our Time'  Life Hacker 

***ETHICS

How Americans Described Evil Before Hitler  The Atlantic

Codes of ethics probably don’t work Fast Company

***RESEARCH 

The extremely mad professors:Why 3 academics wrote 20 whole fake papers and think other people got played  The Outline  

How to write a thorough peer review  Nature 

Researcher Requests for Inappropriate Analysis and Reporting  Annals of Internal Medicine   

An Ethics of the System: Talking to Scientists About Research Integrity  Springer

US courts of appeal cases frequently misinterpret p-values and statistical significance: an empirical study  OSF 

Ex-researcher who stole funds sentenced to play piano  Stat News

Was cancer scientist fired for challenging lab chief over authorship?  Science Mag

***HIGHER ED

Report: 4 Million Californians Left College Without Earning a Degree  Inside Higher Ed 

Confidence in Higher Education Down Since 2015  Gallup

Jerry Falwell Jr.: President Trump freed Pastor Brunson from Turkey because Trump is a good and moral person  Fox News

***TEACHING 

How to Improve Your Teaching-Philosophy Statement  Chronicle of Higher Ed

One Way to Help Students Become Knowledge Creators  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Our Kids are Watching Us

I do a lot of surveys with people between the ages of 20 and 40, and I ask them to describe who they are now and to reflect on their childhood. Now, we have to be very clear that this is a very imperfect method of getting data about people’s childhoods, because there are all kinds of memory biases. But one of the most consistent findings is the association between the person’s current level of materialism and how they perceived their parents using things when they were growing up.

So in other words, parents who act in ways that value things, parents who make a lot of sacrifices to get a lot of things, parents who get a lot of joy from buying things, parents who talk a lot about things—they tend to have adult children who act the same way. Now, part of this is probably some bias as people recall their childhoods, but I don’t think that’s all of it. The helpful thing for parents here—and also the harmful—is yes, peers are really important, but our kids are watching us. Our kids are learning from us. A lot of what kids take to be normal comes from what they see us doing. Kids are going to learn what their relationship with products should be by looking at our relationship with products.  

Marsha Richin quoted in The Atlantic

a Well-Meaning Lie?

When caught lying (paternalistically or otherwise), people often defend themselves by saying they lied to protect the other person. But before lying to protect someone’s interests or feelings, ask yourself not only whether you are lying to protect them, but also whether that person would believe your lie was well-intended if they found out. In several studies, we found that people were not likely to believe paternalistic lies were well-intended, and reacted poorly to these lies even when the liar communicated good intentions. However, people were more likely to believe that paternalistic lies were well-intended when they were told by people who knew them well or had reputations as helpful, kind people.  

Even though paternalistic lies are often well-intentioned, if uncovered, they will usually backfire. Lying may be helpful when there is no ambiguity about the resulting benefits for those on the receiving end. But in most other circumstances, honesty is the best policy.    

Adam Eric Greenberg, Emma E. Levine, Matthew Lupoli writing in the Harvard Business Review 

Articles of Interest - Oct. 8

 ***TECHNOLOGY

The Robots Are Coming To Las Vegas  NPR 

New satellite technology may lead to faster internet  Axios

California passes law that bans default passwords in connected devices  TechCrunch

How Good — And How Secure — Is Facial Recognition Technology?  NPR

History of IoT (graphic)  Daily Infographic 

***BIG DATA & AI 

A new neural network framework claims to be faster and require less training than rivals  ZD Net

U.S. trails behind Russia, China in organizing militarily in space  Axios 

Call it self-automation, or auto-automation if you like—what to do when coders automate their duties, who should reap the benefits  The Atlantic 

 ***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Understanding owned social content is key to an effective social media strategy  Nielson

Google+ to shut down after security bug  CNN

***FACEBOOK 

Why You Shouldn’t Use Facebook to Log In to Other Sites  New York Times

Facebook is making a video camera  Tech Crunch

The new Facebook hoax you should know about  10 News

The Facebook hack exposes an internet-wide failure  Wired 

***MOBILE  

The Presidential Text Alert Has a Long, Strange History  Wired 

How to ‘turn off’ the presidential text alert test  Wired 

Cult of Mac’s 50 Essential iOS Apps [The complete list, sorted!]  Cult of Mac

***INTERNET

See what we searched for over the past two decades  20 years 

Netflix Consumes 15% of the World's Internet Bandwidth  Variety***PERSONAL GROWTH 

Intelligence and personality can be developed  Becoming (my blog)

In Praise of Mediocrity  New York Times 

 ***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA  

Ad industry finally embraces privacy rules  Axios  

Billboards — yes, billboards — are having a heyday in a digital world  Recode

***JOURNALISM

Want razor-sharp focus in your audio stories? This group activity can help  NPR

The Washington Times settles lawsuit with Seth Rich's brother, issues retraction and apology for its coverage  CNN 

A Reporter Who Wore A MAGA Hat While Covering A Trump Rally Has Been Fired  BuzzFeed News

Newsroom employees earn less than other college-educated US workers  Pew Research Center

ProPublica's experimental journalism  Wired 

A beginner's guide to joining NYC's journalism community

***JOURNALISM OUTSIDE THE U.S.

Bulgarian TV host Victoria Marinova raped and killed  Committee to Protect Journalists  

What To Know About The Mysterious Disappearance Of Saudi Journalist Jamal Khashoggi  Digg

Journalist’s Expulsion From Hong Kong ‘Sends a Chilling Message’  New York Times  

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

This is the state of nonprofit news in 2018  Harvard’s Nieman Lab 

Tronc changing name back to Tribune Publishing  Chicago Tribune 

***FAKE NEWS

How the Kavanaugh information war mirrors real warzones  Wired 

More research suggests that Twitter’s fake news “strategy” is either ineffective or nonexistent  Nieman Journalism Lab 

Daniel Radcliffe and the Art of the Fact-Check:  Researching his role in “The Lifespan of a Fact,” the actor embeds in The New Yorker’s fact-checking department  New Yorker 

Even the best AI for spotting fake news is still terrible  MIT Technology Review  

***GRAMMAR

‘Different Than’ or ‘Different From’: Which Should You Say?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LITERATURE

William Faulkner was really bad at being a postman  Lit Hub

The Chronicles of Narnia being made into new movies by Netflix  Entertainment Weekly

Sikh Poet Jasmin Kaur calls out white feminists for co-opting her work  Daily Dot  

Mary Shelley’s Obsession with the Cemetery  Jstor

***GENDER   

Viral video of Russian woman bleaching manspreaders was anti-feminist propaganda  The Verge

Instagram Now Home to Classic Feminist Literature  New York Times

Female Nobel prize winner deemed not important enough for Wikipedia entry  South China Morning Post 

Largest wave surfed – female  Guinness World Records

CERN suspends physicist over remarks on gender bias  Nature 

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Iowa State University paid $100,000 to settle a former tennis player's civil-rights complaint  Iowa State Daily  

The Legendary Black Surfer Who Challenged Stereotypes  Atlas Obscura
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/who-is-nick-gabaldon-surfer

***DIVERSITY

Explore new data on the race, ethnicity, and gender of students at more than 4,300 colleges and universities  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Building Diversity in Science, One Interaction at a Time  Undark 

***LEGAL ISSUES 

A look at an anonymous sexual-assault-accusations website and the issue of libel  Dynamics of Writing 

Media asks Tennessee high court to boost press protection  Fox 13

UK Copyright if there’s no Brexit deal  The 1709 Blog 

Blogger Defeats Defamation Claims Over Posts Claiming a “Scam”  Technology & Marketing Law Blog

***RELIGION

The Night Missionaries Smuggled One Million Bibles into China  Mental Floss

America’s clergy are teaming up with scientists  Wired 

Paige Patterson, ousted Baptist seminary leader, to teach ethics course  Religion News Service 

'God Friended Me' a CBS faith-based comedy  Washington Times

The Christian Broadcasting Network launches CBN News Channel  Religion News Service

Bayesian inference and religious belief  Andrew Gelman Blog 

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Christian Zionism  Aeon

Christian nationalism, explained through one pro-Trump propaganda film  Vox

***GOOD NEWS 

Local woman, 85, is world's oldest trapeze artist  Union-Tribune

The Sometimes Stranger: Night after night, this Plano man visits his wife with Alzheimer's  Dallas News

Couple that met as kids at St. Jude's gets married there nearly 30 years later  People  

First-grader unable to play outside forms special bond with school resource officer  WKRG

Soldier Whose House Was Looted Gives Away Money Meant for Him  People 

***ANIMALS

Injured Turtle Gets Around With the Help of Custom Wheelchair Made of Legos  Inside Edition

Does it really matter if one animal goes extinct?  Phys Org

***ART & DESIGN

Roald Dahl's Matilda confronts Donald Trump in new statue  CNN 

Meet The MacArthur Fellow Disrupting Racism In Art  NPR

What's The Tallest We Could Theoretically Construct A Building?  Digg

How Jackson Pollock became so overrated (video) 

A Giant Mural of Robin Williams Goes Up in Chicago  Open Culture 

***BANKSY 

Banksy painting 'self-destructs' moments after being sold for $1.4 million at auction  CNN

Banksy show us how he destroyed his art (video)

***SPORTS  

U.S. Charges 7 Russian Intelligence Officers With Hacking 40 Sports And Doping Groups  NPR

***STUDENT MEDIA  

OU College of Law associate dean resigns amid controversy surrounding views published in 2014 book  OU Daily 

***STUDENT LIFE 

College students with preschool-aged children are twice as likely as their childless classmates to drop out of college  Taylor & Francis  

Life After College is Weird: advice on navigating the postgraduate world  New York Times 

‘Selfie’: One Word to Characterize a Generation  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Graduates Are Told They Can Do Anything With Their Degrees. Is That Why They Feel Lost?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Ohio State plans esports program across 5 colleges  Education Dive

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

Create a ‘Personal Brand,’ and Other Tips Learned During a Day With a Recruiter  Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Key to Career Growth: Surround Yourself with People Who Will Push You  Harvard Business Review

Here are more than 80 journalism internships and fellowships  Poynter 

The Washington Post and Instagram launch a midterm elections fellowship for student journalists  Washington Post

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT  

Dear dads: Your daughters told me about their assaults: This is why they never told you  Washington Post

How Police Investigate Sex Crimes  NPR  

How Daughters Are Talking To Their Fathers About Sexual Assault  NPR

Shamed into silence: Female journalists are disproportionately targeted for sexual harassment and assault — and I'm proof  Poynter 

How Minnesota’s criminal justice system often fails victims of rape and sexual assault Minneapolis  Star Tribune  

***#METOO

After One Year Of Headlines, #MeToo Is Everywhere  NPR

The 84 cases that defined the first year of #MeToo  Vice 

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT ON CAMPUS 

Student-created website allowing for anonymous sexual assault allegations vulnerable to defamation charges  The Daily (Univ of WA student newspaper) 

TCU fires back after conservative comedian proclaims rape culture is a myth  Star-Telegram

Professor blasted for saying sexual assault is a prerequisite for manhood  New York Post

Students protest professor's 'satirical' blog on sexual assault  Fox-5

Rutgers refuses to investigate some sexual harassment claims. Are students at risk?  New Jersey.com  

A high schooler in Texas accuses two other students of raping her: Few believed her.  Her hometown turned against her. The authorities failed her.  Washington Post

***SEXUAL ASSAULT & THE KAVANAUGH HEARING

Brett Kavanaugh And The Problem With #BelieveSurvivors  NPR

The junk science Republicans used to undermine Ford and help save Kavanaugh (opinion)  Washington Post  

Every time Ford and Kavanaugh dodged a question, in one chart  Vox

***SOCIAL ISSUES 

In Louisiana, You Can Be Sent Away for Life Even If Jurors Say You’re Innocent  Mother Jones

 ***VOTING 

Interactive on how easy (or hard) it is to vote in every state  Washington Post 

5 Things You Need to Know About 2018 Election Security  Voice of America 

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

MBA applications in the US have fallen for the fourth year in a row  Quartz

Visualizing the World's Tech Giants 2018  How Much 

***ENVIRONMENT

Climate scientists are struggling to find the right words for very bad news  Washington Post 

Major Climate Report Describes a Strong Risk of Crisis as Early as 2040  New York Times

***HEALTH

What the Mens’ Calf Size Says About Their Health, According to Science  Fatherly 

How long different drugs stay in your body  IFL Science

How Gym Selfies Are Quietly Changing the Way We Work Out  GQ

Climate and city density key factors governing flu outbreaks: Study  Axios  

A Surgeon So Bad It Was Criminal  Propublica 

***HEALTH & WEIGHT

A lack of insurance is leading more Americans to have weight loss surgery in Mexico  Vox

Everything You Know About Obesity Is Wrong  The Huffington Post

***FOOD 

Where Did the Taco Come From?  Smithsonian Magazine 

Over one-third of US adults eat fast food at least once a day  CDC

FDA Bans Use of 7 Synthetic Food Additives After Environmental Groups Sue  NPR

***PARENTING 

Raised by YouTube: The platform’s entertainment for children is weirder—and more globalized—than adults could have expected  The Atlantic 

Ending Sexual Violence by Raising Better Boys  Slate 

***SCIENCE

Watch Scientists Accidentally Blow Up Their Lab With The Strongest Indoor Magnetic Field Ever  Mother Board

All the planets we've found in the Milky Way — so far  Axios

***PSYCHOLOGY 

I Suffer From Depression and Have PTSD Symptoms  Medium

The Psychological Make-Up of Conspiracy Theorists New research identifies pro-conspiracy ways to see and understand the world  Psychology Today 

***NEUROSCIENCE   

How much control do you really have over your actions? These brain regions provide clues   Science Mag

Best Brain Game To Stave Off Alzheimer's Could Be Your Job  NPR

***PHILOSOPHY

A philosopher explains how our addiction to stories keeps us from understanding history  The Verge

***RESEARCH 

A trio’s systematic trolling of journals yields seven accepted papers  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

'Real' fake research hoodwinks US journals  AFP 

A New Series on Scholarly Productivity: ‘Are You Writing?  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Academic Grievance Studies and the Corruption of Scholarship  Areo Magazine

Why it’s so difficult to correct the scientific record  Less Likely 

How a failed psoriasis study pushed a whole field forward  Salon

What the ‘Conceptual Penis’ Hoax Does and Does Not Prove  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***HIGHER ED

Universities roll out digital student IDs  10 News

UWM is bleeding faculty, but its budget is balanced for the first time since 2012  Journal Sentinel

Hey, Alexa, Should We Bring Virtual Assistants to Campus? These Colleges Gave Them a Shot  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

We Are Building the Most Inclusive, Exclusive Colleges in America!  McSweeney’s 

***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS 

Meet the activists creating safe spaces for LGBTQ students at the nation’s most conservative colleges  Medium 

Brad Paisley and wife team with Christian university to open free grocery store for those in Nashville  World Religion News

Saint Mary's College president abruptly resigns  South Bend Tribune

This SoCal Christian College Supported Gay Relationships: Then It Abruptly Changed Its Mind  LAist 

***TEACHING

What to Do About Contract Cheating  Campus Technology 

Furor Over Blended and Active Learning  Inside Higher Ed 

Survey: 1 in 4 Professors Ban Mobile Phone Use in Class  Campus Technology

5 Tips for Using Multiple-Choice Tests to Bolster Learning  Chronicle of Higher Ed

Updating pedagogy for the mobile phone era  Small Pond Science

***ACADEMIC LIFE  

Meet the Academics Who Nabbed This Year’s MacArthur ‘Genius’ Grants  Chronicle of Higher Ed

USC Students rally, call for firing of professor after controversial email  Daily Trojan

For Some Scholars, a Full Professorship Calls for ‘a Lot of Paperwork’ That ‘Doesn’t Mean Anything’  Chronicle of Higher Ed
 

Intelligence and personality can be developed

A “fixed mindset” assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can’t change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. 

A “growth mindset,” on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness.

The “growth mindset” creates a passion for learning rather than a hunger for approval. Its hallmark is the conviction that human qualities like intelligence and creativity, and even relational capacities like love and friendship, can be cultivated through effort and deliberate practice. Not only are people with this mindset not discouraged by failure, but they don’t actually see themselves as failing in those situations — they see themselves as learning.

Maria Popova writing in BrainPickings

Conversation Hogs

We’ve all been involved in those irritating conversations where we never seem to be able to get a word in edgewise. Unfortunately, we may have been on the other side, too. Mr. Post Senning said it was crucial to “share the conversation pie. Share half if there are two of you, a quarter if there are four. The share of the pie is never as large as what involves you listening.” 

To be a true conversation superstar, try these tips: 

• Be attentive and give eye contact.

• Make active and engaged expressions.

• Repeat back what you’ve heard, and follow up with questions. 

• If you notice something you want to say, don’t say it. Challenge it and go back to listening. 

• For bonus points, wait an hour to bring up that thing you didn’t say earlier.

And keep in mind that when you say something declarative, seek out the other person’s opinion as well.

“If I say, ‘The Jets don’t stand a chance,’ I’m entitled to my opinion, but I have to say, ‘What do you think?’ afterward,” Ms. Fine said. “You don’t want to be a conversational bully.”

Jen Doll writing in the New York Times

The importance of doing things solely because we enjoy them

We are all so very busy. Between work and family and social obligations, where are we supposed to find the time for hobbies?    

But there’s a deeper reason, I’ve come to think, that so many people don’t have hobbies: We’re afraid of being bad at them. Or rather, we are intimidated by the expectation — itself a hallmark of our intensely public, performative age — that we must actually be skilled at what we do in our free time. Our “hobbies,” if that’s even the word for them anymore, have become too serious, too demanding, too much an occasion to become anxious about whether you are really the person you claim to be.   

 If you’re a jogger, it is no longer enough to cruise around the block; you’re training for the next marathon. If you’re a painter, you are no longer passing a pleasant afternoon, just you, your watercolors and your water lilies; you are trying to land a gallery show or at least garner a respectable social media following. When your identity is linked to your hobby — you’re a yogi, a surfer, a rock climber — you’d better be good at it, or else who are you?  

Tim Wu writing in the New York Times 

Articles of Interest - Week of Oct. 1

***TECHNOLOGY

How algorithms are controlling your life And why you should probably pay closer attention  Vox 

The secret data collected by dockless bikes is helping cities map your movement  MIT Technology Review 

Will L.A.’s Anti-Terrorist Subway Scanners Be Adopted Everywhere?  Scientific American

Internet, social media use and device ownership in U.S. have plateaued after years of growth  Pew Research Center 

Google teams up with T-Mobile on more-accurate 911 location data  Cnet  

Are Delivery Drones Commercially Viable? Iceland Is About to Find Out  IEEE Spectrum 

Voice Phishing Scams Are Getting More Clever  Krebson Security 

***TECHNOLOGY & POLITICS  

US mid-terms: Hackers expose  BBC  

Justice Department Sues California To Block State's Net Neutrality Law  NPR 

***JOURNALISM 

Partisans Remain Sharply Divided in Their Attitudes About the News Media  Journalism.org

Neo-Nazi activist behind racist robocalls linked to threats of Idaho newspaper  The Guardian  

As marijuana goes mainstream, reporters wrestle with terminology  Columbia Journalism Review 

How cable news networks covered the Kavanaugh-Ford hearing  Washington Post 

New target for POLITICO: California  Politico  

How social media and engagement roles came to newsrooms Sarah Marshall  

How to get reluctant sources to talk on the record  Andrew Seaman

WashPost adds editor’s note on child molester article, says man had ‘sex with’ child instead of rape  iMediaEthics

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

What will happen when newspapers kill print and go online-only? Most of that print audience will just…disappear  Harvard Nieman Lab  

Apple News is giving the media everything it wants—except money  Slate   

Oklahoman sells to GateHouse Media, lays off several newsroom staffers  Poynter

Most Western Europeans get news from TV as print reading lags  Pew Research Center

***FAKE NEWS

Tracking Down Fake Videos  NPR 

Billionaire LA Times owner: 'Fake news' and how it spreads a cancer  CNBC

A master class in how to verify a video using digital tools Columbia Journalism Review

Why Humans Are Bad At Spotting Lies  FiveThirtyEight  

Why A New Fake News Law In Singapore Could Be A Big Test For Facebook, Google, And Twitter BuzzFeed News

***BIG DATA & AI 

AI may not be bad news for workers-a new report argues there’s no need to fear the software..in the end it can help them with their jobs  Economist  

Cheat Sheets for AI, Neural Networks, Machine Learning, Deep Learning & Big Data  Becoming Human 

Companies are over-using complex AI techniques when they would be better served with simpler approaches  Axios

 ***SOCIAL MEDIA 

Why Snap will get acquired before 2020, probably by Amazon  Recode

Facebook discloses “security issue” affecting 50 million accounts  Axios

***PRIVACY & SECURITY  

That sign telling you how fast you’re driving may be spying on you  Quartz 

Facebook Is Giving Advertisers Access to Your Shadow Contact Information  Gizmodo 

Keep Your Data Secure With Mozilla's Newest Tools  Life Hacker  

A Small Google Chrome Change Stirs a Big Privacy Controversy  Wired 

No Cash Needed At This Cafe. Students Pay The Tab With Their Personal Data  NPR

***INTERNET

Surprising SEO A/B Test Results - Whiteboard Friday  Moz  

Internet Inventer Tim Berners-Lee wants to remake the web to help you protect your data MIT Technology Review

***PERSONAL GROWTH  

The False Loops of Social Media  Becoming (my blog)

***WRITING & READING

Boys Don’t Read Enough  The Atlantic 

How to identify anonymous prose Forget lodestars and concentrate on the fingerprints  Economist 

6 Tips to Shape Up Your Writing  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

***LANGUAGE

A Cliché With Staying Power  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Yowza! 300 new words added to Scrabble dictionary  The Guardian

From Criminal Slang to Modern Acceptability: ‘Kibosh’  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

‘Himpathy’ Is a Societal Illness. But at Least We Have a Word for It  Chronicle of Higher Ed  

What’s the Fastest-Growing Language in the U.S.? You’ll Never Guess  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

How the English Failed to Stamp Out the Scots Language Against all odds, 28 percent of Scottish people still use it Atlas Obscura 

***LITERATURE

A Man Reads ‘Little Women’ (Continued)  Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Reimaging Homer: In “The Silence of the Girls”, a captured woman becomes the main character Economist 

Flannery O'Connor Renders Her Verdict on Ayn Rand's Fiction: It's As "Low As You Can Get"  Open Culture

***GENDER   

Most Powerful Women  Fortune

There’s one big reason women are freezing their eggs, and it’s not career  Quartz 

Few women executives at top US companies despite modest gains this decade Pew Research Center   

California is 1st state to require women on corporate boards  Associated Press

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES 

UC Davis to open groundbreaking Filipino studies center  NBC News

Study reveals bias against women's basketball teams from historically black colleges  Inside Higher Ed 

Escondido students spell racial slur in photo during senior picnic  NBC San Diego  

***DIVERSITY 

Diversity Fatigue Is Real And it afflicts the very people who are most committed to diversity work  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LEGAL ISSUES 

The War over Music Copyrights  TechCrunch 

JR Smith says NBA will fine him for new tattoo of Supreme brand logo  ESPN

US Supreme Court declines to take Martins Beach case — a win for California's landmark coastal access law  LA Times 

New trial ordered in 'Stairway to Heaven' copyright lawsuit  Associated Press  

***RELIGION

The Talmud Is Finally Now Available Online  Open Culture 

Europe’s Oldest Intact Book Was Preserved and Found in the Coffin of a Saint  Open Culture

‘New Age’ beliefs common among both religious and nonreligious Americans  Pew research Center

Hillsong: ‘What a Beautiful Name’ for a New Denomination Spanning ‘Oceans’  Christianity Today

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Poll: 48% of white evangelicals would support Kavanaugh even if the allegations against him were true  Vox 

***GOOD NEWS 

Turn Your Office into 'The Office' with This Incredible Prop Auction  Vice

Students raise money to send a janitor on the first vacation he's had in almost a decade  CNN

4-year-old girl named Florence inspired to help victims of Hurricane Florence  CBS News

Montana centenarian credits Cheetos for long life  Great Falls Tribune

 ***ANIMALS

UK airport sniffer dogs good at finding sausages, but not drugs  Reuters

California judges will soon be able to consider a pet's well-being when awarding custody in a divorce  LA Times 

North Carolina woman arrested for practicing veterinary medicine without a license after saving abandoned pets during Florence  CBS News 

***ART & DESIGN

The surprisingly dark history of the color pink  Fast Company 

How To Learn Calligraphy (for beginners)  MojoTech 

Sculpture or human organ? these photos make it hard to tell  Wired

***MUSIC 

Musicians celebrating new bill that helps them get paid  Axios

How Grammy-winning producer Oak Felder turns his laptop into a studio  The Verge

***FILM & TV 

Mara Wilson reflects on sharing her life with a literary icon — and thinks about who Matilda might have grown up to be  Vanity Fair  

Netflix Is Planning a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure ‘Black Mirror’  Bloomberg

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA  

Network TV's leadership crisis  Axios 

***STUDENT LIFE

So What Are You Going to Do With That Degree? Physics Majors Get That Question, Too Chronicle of Higher Ed 

Millennials Are Causing the U.S. Divorce Rate to Plummet  Bloomberg 

Need Help Paying For College? There's An App For That  NPR

The Most Powerful New Voting Bloc in America Doesn’t Vote  Medium

A Majority of Teens Have Experienced Some Form of Cyberbullying  Pew Research Center

Marijuana use is now as common among baby boomers as it is among teens, federal data shows Washington Post

Law Student Dresses As Spider-Man To Accept His Degree  LADbible

Texas Attorney General backs decision to expel student who chose not to stand during the Pledge of Allegiance  MSNBC 

Catholic U. students protest dean who disparaged Kavanaugh accuser  Washington Post 

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

The Lie Generator: Inside the Black Mirror World of Polygraph job Screenings  Wired

List of internships across the country in video production, social media and investigative reporting   Student Press Law Center 

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT 

Kavanaugh case unfolds as DeVos readies sexual assault rule  Associated Press 

***SOCIAL ISSUES 

Is Rent Control An Answer To California's Housing Crisis?  NPR  

Suicide rate spikes among young US veterans  The Guardian  

Detailed New National Maps Show How Neighborhoods Shape Children for Life  New York Times

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

How Much You Must Earn to Afford a House in the 50 Largest U.S. Cities  How Much

The high costs of staff turnover Workers are losing their chains  Economist 

The American Dream Is Harder To Find In Some Neighborhoods  NPR

After Budget Cuts, the IRS’ Work Against Tax Cheats Is Facing “Collapse”  Propublica

A Shocking Number of Killers Murder Their Co-workers The Atlantic

***VIDEO GAMES

There are too many video games. What now?  Polygon  

Fortnite Is So Big It Can Bully Sony And Nintendo  IGN

***ENVIRONMENT

California leads subnational efforts to curb climate change: Local authorities and companies are crucial if global carbon-emissions targets are to be met  Economist 

***HEALTH 

Antibiotics for appendicitis? Surgery often not  Ars Technica

Infectious bacteria hibernate to evade antibiotics  Univ. of Copenhagan  

80,000 people died of flu last winter in U.S., the highest death toll in four decades  Chicago Tribune 

Flu on a flight! How to avoid getting sick on a plane  NBC News

Middle-age drinkers more concerned about reputation than health risks, study says  CNN 

Scientists Who Sparked Revolution In Cancer Treatment Share Nobel Prize In Medicine  NPR

***HEALTH OUTSIDE THE U.S.

Chinese Soup Ingredients May Hold Key to Fighting Dementia  Bloomberg

How the anti-vaxxers are winning in Italy  The Independent  

***TRAVEL

You can now fly with weed out of Los Angeles International Airport  Business Insider

***FOOD

The Eternal Life of the Instant Noodle  BBC

You Should Be Eating Pie for Breakfast  Eater 

A Breakthrough for U.S. Troops: Combat-Ready Pizza  New York Times

Frites, chips, fries, whatever Europeans want to call them — they’re shrinking  Washington Post  

***PARENTING

Limiting children's screen time linked to better cognition  BBC  

Crafty kids are finding ingenious ways to thwart Apple's 'Screen Time' feature  The Next Web 

How motherhood changes the brain  Boston Globe 

New app is helping parents track their children  Washington Post

The epic rise and fall of the name Heather: It has falled out of fashion faster than ny name in history  Quartz 

***PSYCHOLOGY  

A bone-marrow transplant treated a patient’s leukemia -- and his Schizophrenic delusions, too: Some doctors think they know why New York Times

Your weird dreams actually make a lot of sense (according to neuroscience and psychology)  NBC News

***PHILOSOPHY

Unpublished and Untenured, a Philosopher Inspired a Cult Following  New York Times

***PRODUCTIVITY

Google Maps now helps you plan group events Engadget 

Research: Women and Men Are Equally Bad at Multitasking  Harvard Business Review 

***RESEARCH  

Assessing the impact of retraction on the citation of randomized controlled trial reports: an interrupted time-series analysis  Sage

The “problem” of predatory publishing remains a relatively small one and should not be allowed to defame open  The London School of Economic & Political Science 

Austrian agency shows how to tackle scientific misconduct  Nature

The Failed Replication of a Retracted Study  The 100% CI 

 ***HIGHER ED

3 Ways That Colleges Suppress a Diversity of Viewpoints  Chronicle of Higher Ed

A University Comes Undone How scandal and corruption brought down a college sports powerhouse  Chronicle of Higher Ed

What It Means When a U.S. College Has a Religious Affiliation  WTOP

Liberty University sends 300 students to D.C. to support Kavanaugh  Lynchburg News & Advance

APU reinstates ban on LGBTQ relationships on campus  San Gabriel Valley Tribune 

APU enters 2018-19 school year in $17 million cash flow shortfall  ZuNews

***TEACHING

Teacher fired after refusing to abide by ‘No zero' policy when students didn't hand in work  WFTV 

How to Be a Generous Professor in Precarious Times  Chronicle of Higher Ed

***ACADEMIC LIFE 

Longtime UT professor resigns amid probe of sexual misconduct accusations by current, former students  Knox News 

Why Did These Scholars Suddenly Find Their Twitter Accounts Suspended?  Chronicle of Higher Ed  

Baylor professor resigns after Title IX complaints  Waco Tribune

How to Treat Visiting Assistant Professors With Dignity  Chronicle of Higher Ed

The False Loops of Social Media

“We crave some sense of closure, some sense of being done,” says Tim Wu, a Columbia law professor and author of The Attention Merchants. “Much of social media tries to prevent you from ever having that feeling.”

Social media sites, in particular, are designed to create what he calls “false loops,” where you never reach the end of what you can do on the platform. He thinks that goes against our way of making sense of the world: Humans have a natural predilection toward creating experiences and narratives that start and end, like the social ritual of eating dinner with a friend, or attending a concert, or even reading an article. But social media tends to disrupt these things–unlike a well-planned story or meal, Wu compares experiencing social media to a buffet, where nothing really goes together. Coincidentally, you also end up stuffing yourself and feeling ill.

“Our brains like to close things out,” Wu says. “I think that a lot of design now is trying to turn all of us into obsessive-compulsives by making it so the loops are never closed.” Film and TV offer a compelling parallel. “How do you feel after going to see a really great movie, as opposed to channel surfing for three hours?” he says. “It’s a complete difference. One has a beginning, middle, and an end, versus you saw half of 10 shows and kind of got into something that didn’t develop all the way through.”

Katharine Schwab writing in Fast Company