thinking of sex
/A man (really in love) really hasn’t leisure to think of sex. He is too busy thinking of a person. The fact that she is a woman is far less important than the fact that she is herself. – CS Lewis
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
wobbly furniture
/Craving emotional stability? Then start by fixing your shaky chair. A Canadian study found a connection between sitting in a wobbly chair and assumptions about judging relationships.
University of Waterloo Researchers divided volunteers into two groups. The group sitting in shaky furniture not only saw instability in the relationships of others but also said that they valued stability in their own relationships more highly. The researchers’ conclusion: Even a small amount of environmental wobbliness will encourage a desire for emotional balance and security.
Details of the study were published in the journal Psychological Science.
Stephen Goforth
articles of interest - March 13
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens New York Times
Fake news scammers use his picture of Facebook so he took Facebook to court Back Channel
Google is Slackifying Hangouts Mashable
Culling Your Social Media Past Chronicle of Higher Ed
Facebook, Instagram ban tools police use to spy on you Daily Dot
Skepticism over Snapchat Stock (sub. req.’ed) The Week
***TECHNOLOGY
Quantum technology is beginning to come into its own Economist
Hackers and governments can see you through your phone’s camera — here’s how to protect yourself Business Insider
Conformity, nostalgia and 5G at the Mobile World Congress Economist
The strangeness of the quantum realm opens up exciting new technological possibilities Economist
***JOURNALISM
What News-Writing Bots Mean for the Future of Journalism Wired
Time for Journalists to Encrypt Everything Wired
Russia’s RT Network: Is It More BBC or K.G.B.? NY Times
A journalism student's response to Trump's attack on media USA Today
***FAKE NEWS
Facebook combats fake news with new warning label Chicago Tribune
Facebook Enlists Fact-Checkers To Probe Disputed Stories NPR
Why Facebook and Twitter have a civic duty to protect us from fake news Wired
Chinese media confuse Trump satire with news CNN
Technology sites begin paying attention to role being play by Google and Facebook in ‘fake news’ controversy Talking New Media
In A Crucial Election Year, Worries Grow In Germany About Fake News NPR
5 fake stories that just won't go away CNN
Lessons From the Fake News Pandemic of 1942 Politico
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
Alphabet's Eric Schmidt: 'Big data is so powerful, nation states will fight' over it: “I'll bet my career” Business Insider
Employing a Naive Bayes classifier to create a model to classify an article as fake or real Open Data Science
Amazon machine learning to predict marketing campaign response Gigaom
NY Times profiles Trump campaign Big Data co; experts say claims are “exaggerated” New York Times
Creating service level agreements for big data from IT Technology Republic
***PERSONAL GROWTH
When children ask why Becoming (my site)
***LANGUAGE
Why words die: How to keep lexical treasures from keeling over Economist
Google’s Gboard will now translate text into another language as you type The Verge
***LITERATURE
Jane Austen poisoned by arsenic? Not so fast, experts say CNN
Alt-Right Jane Austen: The alt-right wants to co-opt her as a symbol of meek, old-fashioned white womanhood. They don't have a clue Chronicle of Higher Ed
Free Download: The Book Lover’s Guide to Coffee Open Culture
***FREE SPEECH
Colleges are ground zero for mob attacks on free speech, lawyer says Washington Post
***GENDER
The Gender Gap in Publications Inside Higher Ed
Cleveland bookstore flips around 1000s of titles written by men ABC News
Science remains male-dominated But a new report says females are catching up Economist
***RACIAL ISSUES
Study: Blacks more likely to be wrongfully convicted CNN
In Georgia, reaction to KKK banner is a sign of the times Washington Post
***RELIGION
20/20 on Gay Conversion Therapy ABC News
White Evangelicals Believe They Face More Discrimination Than Muslims The Atlantic
Could Southern Baptist Russell Moore lose his job? Churches threaten to pull funds after months of Trump controversy Washington Post
***ART & DESIGN
Knowing Your Type: Lessons from a typography expert Explore
***MUSIC
The Neural Systems of People Who Don't Enjoy Music The Atlantic
Italian Band Soviet Soviet Denied Entry To The U.S., Jailed And Then Deported NPR
All of the Music from Martin Scorsese’s Movies: Listen to a 326-Track, 20-Hour Playlist Open Culture
***FILM
Mesmerizing Map Renames LA Streets After Your Favorite Films Wired
***RESEARCH
Using Text Analysis to Discover Work in JSTOR Chronicle of Higher Ed
Research funds are wasted on reformatting manuscripts Nature
Can a film count as research, and if so, can a journal publish it? Times Higher Education
Remedy for Reproducibility: Opening a Dialog to Explore the Complexities Society for Laboratory Automation
***SCIENCE
Inside the Anti-Science forces of the Internet BuzzFeed
A big step towards an artificial yeast genome: Success would usher in true genetic engineering Economist
***HEALTH
Alexa Now Offers Medical Advice, Because Your Hypochondria Wasn't Bad Enough Gizmodo
‘Stunning’ gap: Canadians with cystic fibrosis outlive Americans by a decade Stat News
The rise of the medical selfie Economist
***PSYCHOLOGY
Your Personality Completely Transforms As You Age Huffington Post
Review of book about the man who invented the Rorschach test The Week
GOP plans to strip addiction mental health coverage for millions Forbes
The Secret History of Emotions Chronicle of Higher Ed
As opioid overdoses rise, police officers become counselors, doctors and social workers Washington Post
The Psychology of the Sample Sale Racked
***NEUROSCIENCE
Neuroscience Study Finds Ads on Pandora Outperform TV and Radio Spots Ad Week
***SOCIOLOGY
The Hidden Systems at Work Behind Gentrification Motherboard
***PHILOSOPHY
A Case For Majoring In Philosophy Forbes
Are We Living Inside a Computer Simulation?: An Introduction to the Mind-Boggling “Simulation Argument” Open Culture
***HIGHER ED
177 Private Colleges Fail Education Dept.’s Financial-Responsibility Test Chronicle of Higher Ed
The Most Cringeworthy Monuments to Colleges’ Innovation Jargon Chronicle of Higher Ed
Republican State Lawmakers Seek to Ban ‘Sanctuary’ Campuses (sub. req.'ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Four in 10 colleges are seeing drops in applications from international students Inside Higher Ed
Intellectual intolerance poses an existential danger to the university (sub. req.'ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
How Colleges Can Open Powerful Educational Experiences to Everyone (sub. req.'ed) Chronicle of Higher Ed
Scandal’s Constant Drip Means a Relentless Spotlight at Baptist School Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT MEDIA
Holy Cross Student Newspaper Considers Name Change After KKK Confusion WBZ-TV
Kentucky's attorney general said he'd intervene in two lawsuits, against student newspapers over open-records cases involving sexual assaults Lexington Herald Leader
Student journalists deserve more protection (opinion) NJ.com
***STUDENT LIFE
College professor says: Let your kids choose their own major Washington Post
Carleton University comes under heavy criticism after gym scale removed CBC
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Campus Rape Victims Are Waiting Years For Title IX Complaints To Be Resolved BuzzFeed
Judge: Federal Lawsuit Against Baylor University Can Proceed Associated Press
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Northwestern U. Is Accused of Violating Academic Freedom Chronicle of Higher Ed
Digital sociologist and social-media consultant picks Five books everyone should read to understand technology and social media Chronicle of Higher Ed
the glory
/A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, 'darkness' on the walls of his cell. C.S. Lewis
when children ask why
/Children not only need to hear our conclusions (Do this! Do that!) they need to know the thought process that got us to those conclusions (Here's why you should do this or that). They need context. If you only offer orders and rules, then we are not teaching, not serving them as parents. We are just pontificating.
It's hard work articulating why we believe what we believe. We may hesitate, out of fear, to tell our children the honest "whys." Perhaps if we share, they will discover our secret weaknesses or find flaws in our reasoning. But rather than hiding our imperfections, if we let them know we are fallible as they are, we share with them a common bond and a true honesty. Rather than just trying to pour truth into their heads, we can help them make the marvelous discovery that they have something to contribute to our lives as well. We are fellow struggles, learning how to live right in a confusing and challenging world.
Stephen Goforth
the strong man
/It is the characteristic excellence of the strong man that he can bring momentous issues to the fore and make a decision about them. The weak are always forced to decide between alternatives they have not chosen themselves. -Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Painful Memories
/If you suffer from great, recurring anger, the cause could be painful memories, rooted in childhood. Charles Dickens said, “Injustice is the most painful hurt in childhood”. All of us remember times, especially in our youth, when we were "done wrong." Healing from this is a process that can take a great deal of time. It also takes reprogramming our thought patterns, so we don't react to current situations as if they are part of past injustices. Don’t stuff the past down. Are you on the road to healing? Are you a little further along today than you were yesterday? Life is not about having arrived, but “becoming.”
Stephen Goforth
what counts
/It is not what you accomplish but how you behave that counts.
Accountability
/Holding people to the responsible course is not demeaning; it is affirming. Proactivity is part of human nature, and although the proactive muscles may be dormant, they are there. By respecting the proactive nature of other people, we provide them with at least one clear, undistorted reflection from the social mirror.
Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People
Being Bored Out of Your Mind Makes You More Creative
/Boredom might spark creativity because a restless mind hungers for stimulation. Maybe traversing an expanse of tedium creates a sort of cognitive forward motion. “Boredom becomes a seeking state,” says Texas A&M University psychologist Heather Lench. “What you’re doing now is not satisfying. So you’re seeking, you’re engaged.” A bored mind moves into a “daydreaming” state, says Sandi Mann, the psychologist at the University of Central Lancashire who ran the experiment with the cups. Parents will tell you that kids with “nothing to do” will eventually invent some weird, fun game to play—with a cardboard box, a light switch, whatever.
The problem, the psychologists worry, is that these days we don’t wrestle with these slow moments. We eliminate them. “We try to extinguish every moment of boredom in our lives with mobile devices,” says Sandi Mann, psychologist at the University of Central Lancashire. This might relieve us temporarily, but it shuts down the deeper thinking that can come from staring down the doldrums. Noodling on your phone is “like eating junk food,” she says.
So here’s an idea: Instead of always fleeing boredom, lean into it. Sometimes, anyway.
Clive Thompson, Wired
articles of interest - March 6
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Big data, financial services and privacy: Should our bankers and insurers be our Facebook friends? Economist
How YouTube Is Changing Our Viewing Habits NPR
Driven to distraction: Smartphones are strongly addictive The Economist
Emojis Begin Cropping Up Outside Of Your Smartphone NPR
***PRODUCING MEDIA
Why the Internet Didn’t Kill Zines New York Times
Traditional TV’s surprising staying power The Economist
***TECHNOLOGY
The Golden Age of Email Hacks Is Only Getting Started Wired
'Stupid Hackathon' Delivers Intentionally Useless Tools (an app which misdiagnoses you with exotic diseases and a Facebook messaging app that makes your friend wait for a message that will never come) The Verge
***BIG DATA
NY Times Profiles Trump Campaign Big Data Company New York Times
Will Big Data Fuel a New Religion When the Algorithm Understands you better than you do? Wired
Machine Learning Impact: New Tools for Bankers Make Save 360K Lawyer Hours Bloomberg
Why Literature is the Ultimate Big-Data Challenge Economist
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Fear that we are missing out on something Becoming (my site)
***WRITING& READING
Online tools allowing students to paraphrase academic work are facilitating plagiarism Inside Higher Ed
Journaling Showdown: Writing Vs. Typing LifeHacker
It took Donald Trump three tries to spell 'hereby' correctly on Twitter The Week
***LANGUAGE
The Language Wars Jstor
***LITERATURE
The New Yorker's new bot will tweet 92 years worth of poetry at you Poynter
***GENDER
Supreme Court: Racism can upend jury verdicts USA Today
Women's studies has changed over the years -- and it's more popular than ever USA Today
***RACIAL ISSUES
Want to Profit Off Your Meme? Good Luck if You Aren’t White Wired
Two Mizzou students arrested for anti-Semitic messages St. Louis Today
Literature report shows British readers stuck in very white past The Guardian
Racial Gap Among Senior Administrators Widens Inside Higher Ed
Blacks more likely to follow up on digital news than whites Pew Research Center
White Supremacists Ramp Up Efforts To Recruit College Kids Vocativ
How The Internet Fueled The Rise In Hate Crimes In California Fast Company
***FREE SPEECH
Supreme Court Considers Whether N.C. Law Violates First Amendment NPR
A conservative author tried to speak at a liberal arts college. He left fleeing an angry mob Washington Post
A Scuffle and a Professor's Injury Make Middlebury a Free-Speech Flashpoint Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LEGAL ISSUES
Internet firms’ legal immunity is under threat The Economist
High court sidesteps ruling on transgender rights Politico
***RELIGION
Alabama Megachurch asks for its own police department AL.com
Peter Popoff, the Born-Again Scoundrel GQ
Religious Freedom Debate: Liberty To Some, Anti-Gay Discrimination To Others NPR
'The Shack' review: Grieving man embarks on spiritual quest Chicago Tribune
Deadly storms damage churches, Baptist college Baptist Press
Technology transforms ancient art of Bible translation Orlando Sentinel
Muslims and Islam: Key findings in the U.S. and around the world Pew Research Center
The key to understanding evangelicals’ upside-down support for the travel ban Religion News Service
Does 'Logan' Have More of a Christian Message Than 'The Shack'? Relevant
Ranking evangelical universities according to their Klout score Washington Times
***MUSIC
Music's Weird Cassette Tape Revival Is Paying Off Fast Company
The Weirdest Thing About How Music Triggers Memories New York Mag
***JOURNALISM
How a pop-up magazine experiment is turning journalism into performance art PBS
California Supreme Court says officials' emails are public records abc7.com
Science covered in the news is more likely to be overturned Stat News
America’s State Secrets and the Freedom of Information Act Jstor
The Associated Press' plan to put hyperlocal data in the hands of reporters Tech Crunch
How youth navigate the news landscape Knight Foundation
10 innovative data visualizations of Trump’s first month in the White House StoryBench
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
Journalism Fights for Survival in the Post-Truth Era Wired
How The New York Times Is Clawing Its Way Into the Future Wired
***PSYCHOLOGY
These brain scans show how dying is very personal Fast Company
***NEUROSCIENCE
Ben Carson Just Got a Whole Lot Wrong About the Brain Wired
***ETHICS
Embryo Experiments On Human Development Raise Ethical Concerns NPR
***CRITICAL THINKING
How to Fine-Tune Your Bullshit Detector Fast Company
***HIGHER ED
***ONLINE CLASSES
***STUDENT MEDIA
Judge Boots UCSD’s Satirical Newspaper Out of Court CourtHouse News
Iowa’s college-based newspapers adapt to digital readers Des Moines Register
***STUDENT LIFE
10 Reasons Why C Students Are More Successful After Graduation The Huffington Post
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Northwestern U. Is Accused of Violating Academic Freedom Chronicle of Higher Ed
***RESEARCH
Copyright compliance and infringement in ResearchGate full-text journal articles SpringerLink
Peer-review activists push psychology journals towards open data Nature News & Comment
Fear that we are missing out on something
/We overschedule our days and complain constantly about being too busy. We shop endlessly for stuff we don’t need and then feel oppressed by the clutter that surrounds us. We rarely sleep well or enough. We compare our bodies to the artificial ones we see in magazines and our lives to the exaggerated ones we see on television. We watch cooking shows and then eat fast food. We worry ourselves sick and join gyms we don’t visit. We keep up with hundreds of acquaintances but rarely see our best friends. We bombard ourselves with video clips and emails and instant messages. We even interrupt our interruptions.
And at the heart of it, for so many, is fear—fear that we are missing out on something. Wherever we are, someone somewhere is doing or seeing or eating or listening to something better.
I’m eager to escape from this way of living. And if enough of us escape, the world will be better for it.
Will Schwalbe, Books for Living
articles of interest - Feb 27
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Spotify expands its push into original content with new podcasts Tech Crunch
You might want to rethink what you're 'liking' on Facebook now Mashable
***PRODUCING MEDIA
How to Shoot a 360 Video Wired
With help from Google and YouTube, McClatchy is trying to figure out the next big thing in video Poynter
Periscope Producer Now Available to All Users on Mobile, Web Ad Week
***INTERNET
Under Pressure to Prove Its Ads Actually Work, Google Opens Up Wired
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
New models for new media: Is there life for technology firms beyond Wall Street? Economist
America’s latest spectrum auction: Despite poor proceeds, the sale model is worth copying Economist
***JOURNALISM
GateHouse Media parent signals cuts as it preps to buy more newspapers Boston Business Journals
Traditional media firms are enjoying a Trump bump Economist
We Avoid News We Don't Like. Some Trump-Era Evidence New York Times
The New York Times is experimenting with mobile-specific headlines Digiday
Fair Use: Journalism Can’t Succeed Without It Electronic Frontier Foundation
How The Media Are Using Encryption Tools To Collect Anonymous Tips NPR
***FAKE NEWS
The Dangers of Fake News Spread to Data Visualization PBS Media Shift
The Internet Made ‘Fake News’ a Thing—Then Made It Nothing Wired
How to Spot Visualization Lies Flowing Daa
The Religious Origins of Fake News and “Alternative Facts” Religious Dispaches
***GRAMMAR
Is the common advice about avoiding dangling participles in writing Sound? Chronicle of Higher Ed
Revenge of the copy editors: Grammar pros find internet stardom Columbia Journalism Review
***WRITING& READING
Study: The perfect blog post length—and how long it should take to write PR Daily
***LANGUAGE
The Dictionary of American Regional English has issued its quarterly online update Chronicle of Higher Ed
The Language Jstor
***LITERATURE
The many contradictions of Jonathan Swift Economist
Grad Student Discovers A Lost Novel Written By Walt Whitman NPR
There’s a new way for novelists to sound authentic. But at what cost? Washington Post
***GENDER
Administration rescinds guidelines that said Title IX applied to discrimination based on gender identity Inside Higher Ed
Trump's Election Drives More Women To Consider Running For Office NPR
Models Are Still Pressured To Be Ultra-Thin, Survey Says NPR
***RACIAL ISSUES
Racial Incidents Upset Students at Several Campuses Inside Higher Ed
Candidate: Blackface part of 'good night at church' Shreveport Times
***FREE SPEECH
The 10 Worst Colleges For Free Speech: 2017Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58ac64bfe4b0417c4066c2f1
Sean Spicer raged against First Amendment after college newspaper misspelled his name as ‘sphincter’ Raw Story
***LEGAL ISSUES
Judicial originalism as myth Vox
Nursing student removed from program over Facebook posts seeks Supreme Court review SPLC
***TECHNOLOGY
FaceApp uses neural networks for photorealistic selfie tweaks Tech Crunch
Gene editing, clones and the science of making babies Economist
20 years ago the world met the first adult clone, a sheep called Dolly. Her legacy lives on Economist
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
Can big data tech correlate the various logs and ultimately tame the bloated IT chaos? Daanami
Quantzig's top 10 reasons to be excited about data analytics in 2017 Quartz
“What we’re interested in is automating the scientific method” throughprobabilistic programming Wired
You might be getting your Big Data TOO clean. Why it can be useful to keep thegarbage Tech Republic
***RELIGION
Family Christian Bookstores to close Detroit Free Press
Most white evangelicals approve of Trump travel prohibition and express concerns about extremism Pew Research Center
Evangelicals can no longer speak as one voice (opinion) Religious News Service
Many countries make it hard to marry someone from another religion Economist
Vancouver Christians collide over televangelist Franklin Graham The Star Phoenix
An underground network among faith groups is readying homes to hide immigrants CNN
Ex-congregants reveal years of ungodly abuse Associated Press
LGBTQ Advocates Fear 'Religious Freedom' Bills Moving Forward In States NPR
Evangelicals at Dartmouth Dartmouth Review
A majority of white evangelicals approve of Trump's Muslim ban Mic
Oklahoma Missionary Sentenced to 40 Years for Sexually Abusing Children KTLA
***ART & DESIGN
Why Art Matters to America New York Times
Netflix’s Abstract: The 3 Must-See Episodes Designlab
***MUSIC
Google built an AI that will play piano duets with you Business Insider
***ACADEMIC LIFE
Communication studies lecturer claims restrictions on class enrollment because of his conservative views Daily Bruin
Activism on the rise among college faculty Education Dive
***RESEARCH
Content referenced in scholarly articles is drifting, with negative effects on the integrity of the scholarly record London School of Economics and Political Science
***HEALTH
When Evidence Says No, but Doctors Say Yes (Long after research contradicts common medical practices, patients continue to demand them and physicians continue to deliver. The result is an epidemic of unnecessary and unhelpful treatments) The Atlantic
Advice From Patients On A Study's Design Makes For Better Science NPR
***PSYCHOLOGY
Why Facts Don't Change Our Minds New Yorker
***SOCIOLOGY
Last Night’s Oscars Tour Bus Bit Underscored a Deep Divide Wired
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Ever wondered why certain people are able to resist temptation? Here's what researchers say is their secret.. Becoming (my site)
***HIGHER ED
Evangelical leader Falwell: It was Steve Bannon’s idea that I lead education task force Washington Post
State Budget Cuts Hit Universities NPR
Liberty and Bob Jones Universities May run afoul of Obama’s Title IX protections for LGBT students Inside Higher Ed
Baylor coach urges violence against parents who think Baylor’s unsafe New York Post
***HUMANITIES /STEM
Liberal Arts College Students Are Getting Less Artsy Inside Higher Ed
***TEACHING
***STUDENT LIFE
Michigan State plans to ban Whiteboards from dormitory room doors in attempt to limit bullying Inside Higher Ed
How to exert self-control
/Ever wondered why certain people are able to resist temptation? A Florida State University study indicates their secret is not sheer will power but rather consciously avoiding situations that test their self-control, The Wall Street Journal reports. Researchers recruited 38 volunteers and rated their levels of self-discipline using a series of 13 questions. Half were ranked as above average, half below. The students were then given an anagram to solve and told they could either start it immediately in a noisy student lounge or wait until a quiet lab became available. Among those with below-average self-control, most went for the lounge; among those with better self-control, most chose to wait for a quieter place to work. Previous studies have found that everyone has finite stores of willpower, which can be exhausted by repeated temptations. So researchers said the wisest way to pursue a goal—such as academic success or weight loss—is to structure your environment to minimize distraction and temptation.
articles of interest - Feb 20
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
WhatsApp is rolling out its own version of Snapchat (and Instagram) Stories Recode
Cheat Sheet: All Facebook Chatbot Interactions Chatbots Mag
Pinterest introduces ‘real world’ Search Engine The Verge
What's Up With Hive, a Nascent Successor to Yik Yak Chronicle of Higher Ed
Facebook Wants Great Power, But What About Responsibility? NPR
The Queen Wants to Pay You to Tweet on Her Behalf Mental Floss
It’s a weird time to be in charge of Sweden’s Twitter account The Verge
WhatsApp Changes Everything With Its New 'Status' Feature Forbes
Social Media Impersonation Exploding, With Brands In The Crosshairs Media Post
***TECHNOLOGY
Gene Editing Bloomberg
Patent Office Upholds Controversial Gene-Editing Ruling : Shots NPR
What is the best way to address a voice assistant? 1843 Magazine
***ART & DESIGN
Art Market vs. Predator 1843 Magazine
***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA
Apple Vowed to Revolutionize Television. An Inside Look at Why It Hasn’t Bloomberg
***JOURNALISM
The Macedonian Teens Who Mastered Fake News Wired
Get to know the Enemies of the People Dallas Morning News
Journalists react to being called ‘the enemy of the American people’ Poynter
Journalists, Battered and Groggy, Find a Renewed Sense of Mission New York Times
What Do the Next 5 Years Hold for Higher Ed Technological Innovation Ed Surge
In Trump’s anti-press rhetoric, a dark echo from the past: A movie called "An Enemy of the People" Poynter
***FAKE NEWS
University of Michigan to offer class helping students fight fake news Detroit News
The corpse factory and the birth of fake news BBC
Documentary championed by Trump featured bogus interviews, Swedish police say Daily Dot
Trump campaign sends survey on media bias that is, well, pretty biased Boston Globe
Google expands fact-checked news to Brazil, Mexico & Argentina Tech Crunch
The new civics course in US schools: How to spot fake news Associated Press
How Wikipedia Is Cultivating an Army of Fact Checkers to Battle Fake News Pacific Standard
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
How Facebook and Google could disrupt the subscription model for news Monday Note
Snap paid out $58 million to media companies last year Recode
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
How Yahoo’s internal Hadoop Cluster does double-duty on Deep Learning Next Platform
7 emerging technologies critical to the future of IT including dark analytics, mixed reality and blockchain Information Week
Data may not lie, but they can be interpreted in ways that have the same effect Bloomberg
A few tricks to clean data quickly Data Science Central
MIT: a technique that lets machines learn to recognize concepts in images/text much more efficiently Technology Review
How data lakes work & can help eliminate cost/time involved in working w/large amounts of data Dzone
A general Machine Learning technique to make predictions applicable to large amounts of unstructured data Data Science Central
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Savage Love and Marriage Becoming (my site)
Widowed man dedicates life to fostering terminally ill children ABC News
***WRITING& READING
Expresso App: Type or paste in text to see different metrics of your writing
***LANGUAGE
An earpiece that Translates Languages Simultaneously Financial Times
My New Crush on the Dictionary Chronicle of Higher Ed
Linguist's 'big data' research supports waves of migration into the Americas Science Daily
***LITERATURE
The Novel of the Century by David Bellos review – the story of Les Misérables The Guardian
Can Poetry Keep You Young? Science Is Still Out, But The Heart Says Yes NPR
***GENDER
The World’s most famous human-rights lawyer is working with a former Sex Slave to put Islamic State in the dock 1843 Magazine
***RACIAL ISSUES
The Purely Accidental Lessons Of The First Black 'Bachelorette' NPR
Millennials in many countries are more open than their elders on questions of national identity Pew Research
***FREE SPEECH
The Campus Free Speech Battle You're Not Seeing Jezebel
Young people and free speech The Economist
***LEGAL ISSUES
Court Sides With Drug Legalization Group in Speech Dispute Inside Higher Ed
Facebook Wins Battle Over Text Alerts Media Post
***RELIGION
When people claim to be Christian and commit violence in the name of Christianity, most Americans say that person wasn’t really Christian but when people claim to be Muslim and commit violence in the name of Islam most Americans say that person is really Muslim Public Religion Research Institute
Creationist Ken Ham’s Giant ‘Noah’s Ark’ To Feature Dinosaurs vs. Giants Diorama Huffington Post
Congressional subcommittee hearing on “The State of Religious Liberty in America”
Southern Baptist leader apologizes for legal brief supporting the building of a New Jersey mosque Baptist News
Trump Adviser’s Megachurch Withholds Major Donation from SBC Christianity Today
Norma McCorvey, Jane Roe of Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion nationwide, dies at 69 Washington Post
Episcopal Church Sues Trump Administration Over Travel Ban NPR
***RESEARCH
For Want of a Copy Editor the Sense Was Lost Chronicle of Higher Ed
How to Write a Scientific Peer Review: A Guide for the New Reviewer Canadian Science Publishing
The Place of the P-value in interpreting scientific results Stat News
***HEALTH
The Next Pseudoscience Health Craze Is All About Genetics Gizmodo
Could your Fitbit data be used to deny you health insurance? The Conversation
Health insurer calls analysed for signs of disease in your voice New Scientist
Wearable Fitness Devices Don’t Seem to Make You More Fit New York Times
***PSYCHOLOGY
***PHILOSOPHY
How Machiavelli Really Thought We Should Use Power: Two Animated Videos Provide an Introduction Open Culture
***PRODUCTIVITY
Top 10 Productivity Tips From Former Presidents Life Hacker
***HIGHER ED
The Shaky Science of Microaggression Chronicle of Higher Ed
Maybe College Isn't the Great Equalizer Inside Higher Ed
University drops logo opposed by many students because it featured university without a capital U. Inside Higher Ed
Bob Jones University regains nonprofit status 17 years after it dropped discriminatory policy Greenville Online
***UNIVERSITIES AND IMMIGRATION
Minnesota philosophy professor writes that immigrants have low IQs and refugees are part of "religious-political cult" Inside Higher Ed
Stanford says no to ‘sanctuary campus’ label Mercury News
***ONLINE CLASSES
Pixar & Khan Academy Offer a Free Online Course on Storytelling Open Culture
***STUDENT MEDIA
WNKU sold to religious broadcaster for $1.9 million WLWT
Committee hears testimony on student press freedom protection bill Indiana Daily Student
***STUDENT LIFE
College student suspended after filming teacher saying Trump's election was 'an act of terrorism' Orange County Register
Undocumented Students’ Fears Escalate After a DACA Recipient’s Arrest Chronicle of Higher Ed
Here Are The 10 Most Painful Spots To Get A Tattoo Daily Inofgraphic
***ACADEMIC LIFE
You Will Be Assessed and Found Mediocre: How to cope with the endless urge to evaluate every aspect of faculty work Chronicle of Higher Ed
Finding Great Value
/When God wants to give you something of great value, how does he go about it? Does he wrap it up in a glamorous and sophisticated package and hand it to you on a silver platter? No, more than likely he buries it at the heart of a great big tough problem and watches with anticipation to see whether you have what it takes to break the problem apart and find at its center what might be called the pearl of great price.
Stephen Goforth
Why we Gossip—It’s not what you think
/Did you hear what happened at yesterday's meeting? Can you believe it?
If you find those sort of quietly whispered questions about your co-workers irresistible, you're hardly alone. But why are we drawn to gossip?
A study out of the Netherlands suggests it's because the rumors, innuendo, and hearsay are ultimately all about us — where we rate in the unofficial local hierarchy, and how we might improve our standing.
"Gossip recipients tend to use positive and negative group information to improve, promote, and protect the self," writes a research team led by Elena Martinescu of the University of Groningen. "Individuals need evaluative information about others to evaluate themselves."
"Contrary to lay perceptions," the researchers assert, "most negative gossip is not intended to hurt the target, but to please the gossiper and receiver."
The researchers write, "Negative gossip makes people concerned that their reputations may be at risk, as they may personally become targets of negative gossip in the future, which generates fear."
Fear is hardly a pleasant sensation, of course, but it can be a motivating one.
Beyond providing "emotional catharsis and social control," confidentially treaded information about the competence, or lack thereof, of a co-worker can be "an essential resource for self-evaluation."
true self
/We grow toward true self in a space where our growth is not driven by external demands but drawn forward, by love, into our best possibilities.
Parker Palmer
articles of interest - Feb 13
/***SOCIAL MEDIA
Is Google Maps trying to be a social network? The Verge
Yik Yak is secretly pivoting to group messaging The Verge
***PRODUCING MEDIA
The ear training guide for audio producers NPR
***TECHNOLOGY
Google figured out a way to zoom and enhance photos just like in the movies TheNextWeb
***BIG DATA & STATISTICS
A crash course in understanding numbers: A Field Guide to Lies and Statistics Economist
A Litany of Problems With p-values Statistical Thinking blog
A generalMachine Learning technique to make predictions applicable to large amounts of unstructured data Data Science Central
1300 tech experts were asked: Will the net overall effect of algorithms be positive or negative? Pew Internet
Google releases massive visual databases for Machine Learning Data Science Central
***JOURNALISM
Trump Accuses Media of Not Reporting Voices He Hears in Head The New Yorker
8 Ways to Write Shorter Stories Poynter
The boundaries of journalism — and who gets to make it, consume it, and criticize it — are expanding Harvard’s Nieman Lab
The New York Times Claws Its Way Into the Future Wired
Facebook is beginning to reach out to local newsrooms Poynter
Kellyanne Conway’s interview tricks, explained Vox
6 essential digital journalism tools from Reported.ly International Journalists’ Network
***FAKE NEWS
Want to resist the post-truth age? Learn to analyze photos like an expert would Quartz
Trump Accuses Media of Not Reporting Voices He Hears in Head New Yorker
Era of hoaxes, fake news keeps Snopes Writers Busy Union Tribune
Librarians take up arms against fake news Seattle Times
***STUDENT MEDIA
Remove gag from student journalists Seattle Times
***GRAMMAR
White House list of underreported Terror Attacks Riddled with Grammatical Errors Washington Post
***WRITING& READING
How to provide context when Writing about numbers Poynter
***LANGUAGE
We Just Added More Than 1,000 New Words to the Dictionary Merrian-Webster
How Not to Teach Chinese Chronicle of Higher Ed
Study about words’ effect on mood to be retracted after investigation finds evidence of data manipulation Retraction Watch
***LITERATURE
Joyce Carol Oates' New Novel Begins With An Abortion Doctor's Murder NPR
William Faulkner’s Home Illustrates His Impact on the South NPR
How A Jane Austen Character May Have Looked In Real Life NPR
***GENDER
In Just 5 Moves, Grandmaster Loses And Leaves Chess World Aghast NPR
***FREE SPEECH
How a polarizing election, a free-speech fight, and a real-life internet troll made the U. of Washington turn on itself Chronicle of Higher Ed
The ACLU Explains Why They're Supporting The Rights Of Milo Yiannopoulos NPR
Conspiring to stifle free speech is a crime: Glenn Reynolds USA Today
Brown U's campus speech faces its first test, with a scholar using racial and religious slurs Insider Higher Ed
How Canceling Controversial Speakers Hurts Students Chronicle of Higher Ed
***LEGAL ISSUES
***RELIGION
Mormons formally launch worldwide online college program Associated Press
Southern Baptist retailer removes black hip-hop artist’s album that includes the word ‘penis' Washington Post
100 evangelical leaders sign ad denouncing Trump's refugee ban CNN
Conflict Over Trump Forces Out an Opinion Editor at The Wall Street Journal The Atlantic
Christians Say Hollywood Ignores them but they ignore Great Films about Faith (opinion) Washington Post
***ART & DESIGN
The Met Makes Its Images of Public-Domain Artworks Freely Available through New Open Access Policy Met Museum
Netflix’s New Documentary Series About “the Art of Design” Premieres Today Open Culture
How font choices create contrasts in your design Poynter
***RESEARCH
Trial results need to be better presented, so that readers can understand and act on the results The BMJ opinion
The pros and cons of A.I. in publishing Science Friday
***HEALTH
The doctor’s dilemma: is it ever good to do harm? The Guardian
Thanks to AI, Computers Can Now See Your Health Problems Wired
***PHILOSOPHY
Steve Bannon Cited Italian Philosopher Who Inspired Fascists New York Times
***PRODUCTIVITY
IFTTT: The smart person's guide Tech Republic
***PERSONAL GROWTH
Defining Success Becoming (my site)
***HIGHER ED
Betsy DeVos has family and likely financial connections to The College FixInside Higher Ed
Forged racist emails cause stir at University of Michigan Associated Press
Colleges Prepare for Chaos in Wake of Violent Protests Inside Higher Ed
17 Universities Join N.Y. Legal Challenge to Trump Immigration Ban Chronicle of Higher Ed
***HUMANITIES /STEM
Designing a Lab in the Humanities Chronicle of Higher Ed
'The Great Shame of Our Profession': How the humanities survive on exploitation Chronicle of Higher Ed
***STUDENT LIFE
The Number Of Hungry And Homeless Students Rises Along With College Costs NPR
Depression Strikes Today's Teen Girls Especially Hard NPR
How to prepare for disaster when you're studying abroad USA Today
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Baylor is not alone in protecting athletes from punishment for sexual violence and other troubling behaviors for years Inside Higher Ed
Baylor Sanctioned By Big 12 After New Revelations About Sexual Assault Controversy NPR
Stanford Drops Lawyer Who Advised Students in Sexual Assault Cases New York Times
***ACADEMIC LIFE
If a high school senior displays a swastika at his school, should colleges be told? A teacher is being punished for doing just that Inside Higher Ed
Satirical academic social media accounts go serious to protest Donald Trump Inside Higher Ed
Collegiality and Disability Chronicle of Higher Ed
Academic writing under pressure from a culture of counting The London School of Economics and Political Science
are you in the mix?
/You don't have to be "deep" or constantly talking about profound issues. You just need to be "in the mix" so that you venture outside of your box. People who don’t peek out and over the lids of their cardboard hovels live in very small worlds. They may follow others into change, but they do not own it.
One way to clarify who is in the mix and who is not, is to ask, "Would I go to this person for advice when some significant life issue confronted me?" Not just for encouragement or some sage piece of advice--but because this person is a fellow struggler.
These types of friends and acquaintances are "in the fight" to move beyond white picket fences and 9-to-5 jobs. They whet your appetite for substantive relationships and make you want to become more than what you are. These are friends who are open to paradigm shifts in their own lives. They are not just focused on “straightening you out” so that you will become more like them. They want to grow like you do.
Stephen Goforth