When first looking out for a partner, the requirements we come up with are coloured by a beautiful non-specific sentimental vagueness: we’ll say we really want to find someone who is ‘kind’ or ‘fun to be with’, ‘attractive’ or ‘up for adventure…’

It isn’t that such desires are wrong, they are just not remotely precise enough in their understanding of what we in particular are going to require in order to stand a chance of being happy – or, more accurately, not consistently miserable.

All of us are crazy in very particular ways. We’re distinctively neurotic, unbalanced and immature, but don’t know quite the details because no one ever encourages us too hard to find them out. An urgent, primary task of any lover is therefore to get a handle on the specific ways in which they are mad. They have to get up to speed on their individual neuroses. They have to grasp where these have come from, what they make them do – and most importantly, what sort of people either provoke or assuage them. A good partnership is not so much one between two healthy people (there aren’t many of these on the planet), it’s one between two demented people who have had the skill or luck to find a non-threatening conscious accommodation between their relative insanities.

The very idea that we might not be too difficult as people should set off alarm bells in any prospective partner. The question is just where the problems will lie: perhaps we have a latent tendency to get furious when someone disagrees with us, or we can only relax when we are working, or we’re a bit tricky around intimacy after sex, or we’ve never been so good at explaining what’s going on when we’re worried. It’s these sort of issues that – over decades – create catastrophes and that we therefore need to know about way ahead of time, in order to look out for people who are optimally designed to withstand them. A standard question on any early dinner date should be quite simply: ‘And how are you mad?’

The Philosophers’ Mail

December 04, 2017

Articles of Interest - Dec 4

December 04, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Here’s how to use the newly redesigned Snapchat (Hint: It’s not as hard) Recode

Snapchat redesigns confusing app as user growth stalls CNN

5 ways social media has reshaped the PR industry PR Daily

OMG! Texting is 25 years old CNET

10 Things You Can Do Now to Up Your Social Media Game in 2018 Media Shift

***INTERNET

Google Street View can predict voting patterns and race Journalism Resources

***TECHNOLOGY

Should Law Enforcement Need a Warrant to Track Your Cell Phone? Scientific American

When Robots Invade the Kitchen Wired

Game over for virtual reality? Unimpressed, consumers embrace the relevance of augmented reality instead Economist

Deciding At What Age To Give A Kid A Smartphone NPR

A tech pioneer recalls a life spent in virtual reality and reflects on a the growing hubris of Silicon Valley Economist

What DNA Home Testing Can Tell You NPR

Blockchain: A new technology for global health development? Journalism Resources

***JOURNALISM

Who's that interrogating you? These tools can help you avoid a sting Poynter

Here are three tools that help digital journalists save their work in case a site shuts down Harvard’s Nieman Lab

Small-market newspapers in the digital age Columbia Journalism Review

The woman who tried to sting The Washington Post also lied to a Student Press Law Center intern Student Press Law Center

Is It Ever OK for Journalists to Lie? Politico

'Rope. Tree. Journalist' T-shirt was on sale at Walmart.com until RTDNA spoke up Poynter

Toutiao, a Chinese news app that’s making headlines: The remarkable success of a smartphone app that claims to figure users out within 24 hours Economist

How can journalists responsibly cover neo-Nazis? A media scholar gives his advice Vox

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Trump's attacks on CNN helped their revenues far more than his praise helped Fox News, new figures suggest The Independent

New Secret LA Weekly owners cut nearly half the staff LA Times

Digital news outlets are in for a reckoning: Sites like Vox, BuzzFeed and Mashable once seemed poised to overtake their peers in print. No longer Economist

***FAKE NEWS

A satirical fake news site apologized for making a story too real Poynter

How can we stop the train wreck of fake news on Facebook? MuckRack

Experts Say Facebook's Latest Attempt To Stop Fake News Isn't Foolproof NPR

Do teens care about ‘fake news?’ Recode

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

Researchers outside the tech bubble have started using machine learning in unexpected ways. Here are ten of them Beta News

Five ways to fix statistics Nature

MIT and Harvard: we just built one of the largest quantum computer "simulators” ever MIT Tech News

The leap forward this year may be when AI and intelligent process automation are harnessed together IT Proportal

Choosing hyperparameters with population-based training Deep Mind

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Alone Together Becoming (my blog)

Why Trying New Things Is So Hard to Do New York Times

Museum of Failure Opens in LA NBC Los Angeles

***WRITING & READING

How to Get Your Mind to Read New York Times

OMG, the internet is ruining language: Young people’s play with language is often silly and sometimes ugly—but it shows just how much they take it seriously Economist

Wrestling With ‘/s’ (sarcasm) Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LANGUAGE

‘Nothing to See Here’: the Evolution of a Catchphrase Chronicle of Higher Ed

A Map Showing How Much Time It Takes to Learn Foreign Languages: From Easiest to Hardest Open Culture

Just Google It: A Short History of a Newfound Verb Wired

Why One Dictionary Made 'Complicit' Its Word Of The Year NPR

What Are the Most Effective Strategies for Learning a Foreign Language?: Six TED Talks Provide the Answers Open Culture

***LITERATURE

Why So Many Adults Love Young-Adult Literature: Over half of today’s YA readers are over the age of 18 The Atlantic

China’s largest online publisher enchants investors and readers alike: Tencent’s China Literature should profit from millions of Chinese smartphone bookworms Economist

***GENDER

Children are victims in the latest identity-driven culture war Economist

Women in Academia Unite Scholarly Kitchen

Making sense of the culture war over transgender identity: As more people change gender, they are sparking a debate that enrages some and confuses many Economist

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Why America Fails at Gathering Hate Crime Statistics ProPublica

***LEGAL ISSUES

Supreme Court Considers Cellphones And Digital Privacy NPR

Could Joe Scarborough Sue President Trump for Libel? Politico

The Supreme Court’s justices want to enhance privacy protections for a digital age Economist

Watchdog group urges media not to use 'religious freedom' in upcoming Supreme Court case Poynter

***RELIGION

A Beautiful City in the Bible Was Ravaged by Disease and Chaos Because of Climate Change Newsweek

This Evangelical Action Movie Is Giving Away A Free Assault Rifle Fast Company

Temple Baptist Church falls prey to internet meme generator Las Cruces Sun-News

Former LDS bishop calls for church leaders to stop interviewing teens about sexual practices Fox 13

Book review: Family’s agenda behind Washington’s newest museum Washington Post

Samaritan’s Purse Loses Support for Operation Christmas Child VOCM

Christian apologist caught lying about himself for years Raw Story

Ravi Zacharias Responds to Sexting Allegations, Credentials Critique Christianity Today

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

From Roy Moore To Tax Debate, A Spotlight On Christian Nationalism NPR

Westboro Baptist Church Will Protest Trump, Says His Sex Life Puts 'Entire Nation In Peril' Newsweek

Pence tells Christian broadcaster: ‘Trump is a believer’ The Hill

***ART & DESIGN

The rise and rise of performance art Economist

***MUSIC

U2's 'Songs of Experience' Is The Reboot The Band Needed NPR

Tech giants will probably dominate speakers and headphones: Smartspeakers and wireless ear buds are sending the audio industry “horizontal” Economist

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

BuzzFeed hit with layoffs, as digital ad dollars fall short Talking New Media

How new media firms such as Vice and BuzzFeed are losing their gloss New Statesman

The nation’s second largest radio company files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Toledo Blade

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

MPR drops Keillor over inappropriate conduct Minnesota Public Radio

Judge allows Title IX lawsuit to proceed: The suit seeks monetary damages for alleged "indifference" to a student's report that she was raped Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette

#MeToo: reporting on sexual assaults on campus (video)

How common is sexual harassment? Economis

The Legal Recourse For Victims Of Sexual Harassment NPR

How to Start Healing After Sexual Trauma Life Hacker

In Politics, Decisions On Sexual Harassment Allegations A Slow Process NPR

***HEALTH

More than half of U.S. kids will be obese by the time they’re 35, study predicts LA Times

Heart transplants likely to be obsolete within 10 years, says heart surgeon Telegraph

A Hospital Charged $1,877 to Pierce a 5-Year-Old’s Ears: An epidemic of unnecessary treatment is wasting billions of health care dollars a year ProPublica

Many people in China believe gays can be “cured”: Quack treatments are available even in public hospitals Economist

Is the FDA Withholding Data about a Controversial Drug to Protect Its Manufacturer? Scientific American

Smoking cannabis regularly triples severe depression risk, study of Bristol teenagers finds Bristol Post

***RELATIONSHIPS

Parents now spend twice as much time with their children as 50 years ago Economist

People Like People Who Ask Questions NPR

Should I Confess My Internet Stalking to My Date? Wired

Marriage linked to lower dementia risk Fox News

***BUSINESS

This is an American Workday, By Occupation (data visualization) Flowing Data

How Birth Order Relates To Job Success NPR

Here’s all the money in the world, in one chart MarketWatch

How the tax overhaul could affect your bottom line (interactive calculator) Washington Post

***SCIENCE

Technology behind bitcoin could aid science, report says Physics Today

Fallibility in science: Responsible ways to handle mistakes Slide Shares

Why are scientists filing lawsuits against their critics? The Verge

Can science ever be free of our very human biases? (opinion) Laboratory News

***PSYCHOLOGY

Software that finds statistical errors in psychology papers is Surprisingly Accurate Science Mag

Problems in a psychologist’s splashy work on gender ArsTechnica

The “Humans of New York” Photo Project Becomes a 13-Part Video Documentary Series: Watch It Free Online Open Culture

Teenage brains 'not wired for high stakes' BBC

***PRODUCTIVITY

These Gmail searches will dig up stuff you never knew you missed Popular Science

***ETHICS

What's the best way to edit genes with CRISPR? Scientists propose 'rules' to optimize this cutting-edge technology Johns Hopkins University

Do We Have Moral Obligations to Robots? Daily Jstor

Is it ethical for journalists to ask Trump pointedly provocative questions? Harvard’s Nieman Report

***RESEARCH

One Way to Fix Reproducibility Problems: Train Scientists Better The Scientist

Why a Lot of Important Research Is Not Being Done New York Times

The francophone researcher’s dilemma: publish in English or perish? French-speaking researchers are increasingly choosing to publish their scientific articles in English University Affairs

Questionable research practices “are moderately to highly prevalent what they attributed primarily to academic incentive structures” Social Psychology

When a trial fails The New York Times Magazine

Understanding Bias in Peer Review Google Research

Does spin in news stories about medical studies make a difference? BMJ Open

Papers authored by academic and corporate partners are more widely discussed online Nature Index

Authorship wars: academics outline the rules for recognition Times Higher Ed

Federal Trade Commission and National Institutes of Health Take Action Against Predatory Publishing Practices Scholarly Kitchen

***HIGHER ED

What Really Happened At The School Where 'Every Senior Got Into College' NPR

What to Consider When Closing an Academic Program Chronicle of Higher Ed

College Football's Avalanche of Lawsuits Inside Higher Ed

1500+ MOOCs Getting Started in December Open Culture

California sues for-profit school over 'false promises' Associated Press

Christian college’s ‘biblically consistent’ curriculum under fire Times Higher Ed

***TEACHING

Should Laptops Be Banned in Class? An Op-Ed Fires Up the Debate Chronicle of Higher Ed

Don’t Insult Your Class by Banning Laptops (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed

What I Know About My Students Chronicle of Higher Ed

Everyone Hates Course Evaluations Chronicle of Higher Ed

***STUDENT MEDIA

Breitbart, Fox News misidentify Tech's newspaper in 'racist' column The Daily Toreador

After Threatening to Sue a Student Newspaper Writer and Canceled Speech, Scaramucci Resigns From Tufts Advisory Board Chronicle of Higher Ed

Texas State newspaper cuts ties with writer after 'racist' opinion column WFAA

***STUDENT LIFE

Navigating Life On Campus When You're On The Autism Spectrum NPR

Tips to copy edit your résumé The Daily Californian (student newspaper) Daily Cal

November 27, 2017

Articles of Interest - Nov 27

November 27, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***TECHNOLOGY

Will Computers Ever Hear Like People Do? YouTube Video

Americans’ obsession with smartphones shows no sign of abating Talking New Media

NASA Uses Students To Develop Virtual Reality Programs NPR

How much did your town spend on its shot at being Amazon’s second headquarters? MuckRock

Judge: 84-year-old doctor who doesn’t use computer can’t regain license Associated Press

From Linux to Windows 10: Why did Munich switch and why does it matter? Tech Republic

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

Facebook using “proactive detection” artificial intelligence technology to scan posts for patterns of suicidal thoughts Media Post

How labs are being impacted by microfluidics and lab-on-a-chip technologies, cloud computing, machine learning, and AI Technology Networks

Machine learning is still something businesses are talking about, rather than using in any great numbers IDG connect

Amazon Web says it’s launched a cloud service for the intel community that can host software and data classified at the “secret” level.. it's called the "Secret Region" Business Journals

Can a useful definition of “data scientist” be framed, given that ”there isn’t a standardized way of defining, certifying or even quantifying the number of data scientists in the workforce” Datanami

Using neural networks to help devises be able to hear like humans (video) Nat and Friends

New book on geospatial analysis details how to turn remotely sensed imagery into geospatial information Fosters

***SOCIAL MEDIA

How to Join Someone's Instagram Live and Broadcast as a Guest Life Hacker

How LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman would fix social media Recode

Watch Out: If Someone Blocks You on Twitter, You Lose Your DM History With Them Life Hacker

How to Use Instagram's Filters Without Posting Your Photo Life Hacker

***JOURNALISM

Access to city records can take weeks with new online portal Union Tribune

AI Could Help Reporters Dig Into Grassroots Issues Once More MIT Technology Review

The Mexican city where journalism is a life and death matter Irish Times

The best automatic transcription tools for journalists Poynter

Thank you to all the public records officers who make transparency possible MuckRock

Photojournalists in Mexico Show Solidarity Amid the Ruins Harvard’s Nieman Center Reports

***JOURNALISM: THE NYT NAZI PROFILE PIECE

The media today: How not to write about a Nazi Columbia Journalism Review

Where the New York Times article on an American Nazi went wrong Vox

The problem with the New York Times’ chummy profile of a Nazi sympathizer Quartz

The Banality of White Nationalism The Atlantic

The New York Times responded to the outpouring of criticism of its profile of a white supremacist Recode

***TEACHING JOURNALISM

Journalism Schools are on Life Support Michael Koretzky

How Students Covered a Conference Better with Multi-Platform, Multimedia Reporting Media Shift

***FAKE NEWS

In some countries, fake news on Facebook is a matter of life and death Columbia Journalism Review

A woman approached The Washington Post with fake Roy Moore Accusations- the paper turns the tables: illustrating the lengths to which activists have gone to try to discredit media outlets for reporting on allegations Washington Post

Journalists, let’s invest in trust, not just expect it Medium

Investigation of fake net neutrality foes has been stymied by the FCC, New York attorney general says Washington Post

‘Fake news’ seized an Idaho city. A local paper ‘jumped right into the coverage’ Columbia Journalism Review

Tim O’Reilly on ways to put the brakes on “fake news” and rebuild trust on the internet Harvard’s Nieman Center Reports

The Fake News Fueling the Uproar Over Self-Driving Vehicles Tech News Review

***PERSONAL GROWTH

err in the direction of kindness: Do those things that incline you toward the big questions, and avoid the things that would reduce you and make you trivial Becoming (my blog)

Alike: a Poignant Short Animated Film About the Enduring Conflict Between Creativity and Conformity Open Culture

***GRAMMAR

The Interrogation of a TA: University president apologizes after recording reveals how a graduate student was questioned over use of a video, which offended at least one student, of debate on nontraditional pronouns Inside Higher Ed

***WRITING & READING

At what point do we give up on books? Big data has the answer The Guardian

22 Famous Writers Told Us About The Book They're Most Thankful For BuzzFeed News

Drop the jargon and write like a human with the help of this tool Poynter

***LANGUAGE

Answering a Question With a Question Chronicle of Higher Ed

Moderate alcohol consumption improves foreign language skills Research Digest

Dictionary.com chooses ‘complicit’ as its word of the year Associated Press

***LITERATURE

A Digital Archive of 1,800+ Children’s Books from UCLA Open Culture

University Library to remove 170,000 unused books from its libraries WTAE

Top 10 Misquoted Lines from C. S. Lewis Christianity Today

George Orwell's Life In 'The Last Man In Europe' NPR

Author: Racism revealed in Dr. Seuss' work, children's literature Chicago Tribune

***GENDER

How American Women “Kickstarted” a Campaign to Give Marie Curie a Gram of Radium, Raising $120,000 in 1921 Open Culture

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

The legal profession is diversifying Washington Post

***LEGAL ISSUES

Rosie O'Donnell Beats Slander Lawsuit After Blaming 'View' Producer for Media Leaks Hollywood Reporter

An upcoming Supreme Court case that will determine whether law enforcement should be able to access cell phone data without a warrant Washington Post

Zazzle Loses Copyright Jury Verdict, and That’s Bad News for Print-on-Demand Publishers–Greg Young Publishing v. Zazzle Technology and Marketing Law Blog

***RELIGION

Is There an Evangelical Crisis? (opinion) New York Times

Where young evangelicals are headed (opinion) Alan Jacob’s blog

Now It's Liberal States Clashing With the Federal Government Over Religious Freedom: California, Pennsylvania, and others have sued over new policies on contraceptive coverage The Atlantic

A TEDx Talk About Growing Up In A New Zealand Christian Cult You Tube

No, the Swedish Church has not banned the male pronoun for God The Local

How the “Christian Netflix” is making hit movies you’ve never heard of VICE

Views of transgender issues divide along religious lines Pew Research

Kentucky Baptists threaten to kick out churches that think it's OK to hire 'practicing homosexuals' Louisville Courier Journal

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

The confused identity of today’s “evangelical” voter (opinion) Vox

***ART & DESIGN

Seeing a Song: Painting What She Hears Open Culture

60-Second Introductions to 12 Groundbreaking Artists: Matisse, Dalí, Duchamp, Hopper, Pollock, Rothko & More Open Culture

***MUSIC

Christian Rock Artist Josh Lovelace Branches Out To Children's Music In Solo Debut NPR

Record Labels Are Rebounding, But This Startup Could Shake Their Dominance Fast Company

What the hell’s happening to music’s trade press? (And what does it mean for the rest of us?) Music Business

***FILM

‘Lady Bird’ sets Rotten Tomatoes record as best-reviewed movie ever Daily Dot

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

FCC Chairman Defends Repeal Of Net Neutrality NPR

The Internet Broke the Media, and There's No Turning Back Bloomberg

Media’s complicated relationship with VC funding Columbia Journalism Review

Smaller Newspapers Are Doing Just Fine, Thank You, New Report Finds Street Fight Mag

***STUDENT MEDIA

Tufts postpones Scaramucci talk after he threatens to sue student who wrote an unflattering opinion piece about him in the student newspaper Washington Post

Millennials are set to be the most unequal generation yet Quartz

***STUDENT LIFE

Where Millennials Come From And why we insist on blaming them for it The New Yorker

After Protest of Working Conditions, Grad Students at American U. of Beirut Lose Jobs Chronicle of Higher Ed

Dutch university says student cannot defend PhD dressed as a pirate Times Higher Ed

15 Items Every Twenty-Something Should Have on Their Bucket List Study Breaks

How Tech Companies Are Catering To Generation Z Teens NPR

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

How To Apologize For Sexual Harassment (Hint: It Takes More Than 'Sorry') NPR

The industries with the worst sexual harassment problem Washington Post

The Celebrity Perv Apology Generator

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN THE NEWSROOM

One in two women journalists suffer gender-based violence at work International Federation of Journalists

The News Industry Has a Sexual Harassment Problem. #NowWhat? Harvard’s Nieman Center Reports

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT IN HIGHER ED

Professors urge boycott of University of Rochester over allegations of misconduct CBS News

Michigan State hasn’t faced consequences for enabling the biggest sex abuse scandal in U.S. sports Think Progress

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT REPORTERS

When Sexual Assault Victims Are Charged With Lying (opinion) New York Times

For Some Victims, Reporting a Rape Can Bring Doubt, Abuse — and Even Prosecution Pro Publica

***HEALTH

News headlines claiming two therapies were proven ‘equally effective’ for treating opioid use disorder Health News Review

This Is Your Brain on Exercise: Why Physical Exercise (Not Mental Games) Might Be the Best Way to Keep Your Mind Sharp Open Culture

Loyola U makes data-free claim that a ‘simple’ heart test can distinguish between major depression and bipolar disorder Health News Review

Is Alzheimer’s ‘coming for you’? NY Times uses anecdote and an old blood test to warn it might be Health News Review

***SCIENCE

Why are scientists filing lawsuits against their critics? The Verge

Still No Science Advisor at the White House MIT Technology Review

***PSYCHOLOGY

Angry people die sooner Daily Mail

How to Detect When People Are Using the Truth to Lie to You Life Hacker

***PHILOSOPHY

Billionaire LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman says his masters in philosophy has helped him more than an MBA Business Insider

How a Skeptic Became a Stoic Chronicle of Higher Ed

Why Does Materialism Get Such A Bad Rap? Digg

***PRODUCTIVITY

An ex-Google data scientist studied thousands of successful people on Wikipedia — here's what they have in common The Independent

***BUSINESS & FINANCE

Why business school can be dangerous, according to two of Silicon Valley's biggest names Business Insider

How Much You Should Pay Your Babysitter, According to Where You Live Offspring

***RESEARCH

A US Research Integrity Advisory Board is long overdue Nature

This Ivy League Scientist Did A Bunch Of Food Surveys And Somehow Got The Same Number Of Responses Each Time BuzzFeed News

Rewarding negative results keeps science on track (opinion) Nature

Poisoning the well with a within-person design? What’s the risk? Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

PLOS Reports $1.7M Loss In 2016 Scholarly Kitchen

***HIGHER ED

'Elitists, crybabies and junky degrees': Education advocates see growing disdain for U.S. universities (opinion) Washington Post

Interactive graph on the rising cost of college Market Watch

‘Ring by Spring’: How Christian Colleges Fuel Students’ Rush to Get Engaged Chronicle of Higher Ed

***TEACHING

How to Measure Success Without Academic Achievement Ed Surge

How to Escape Grading Jail Chronicle of Higher Ed

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Withering Humanities Jobs: Full-time jobs in English and languages continue to decline, reaching a new low Inside Higher Ed

Big Legal Win for Trans Academic: Federal jury awards $1.165 million, finding discrimination in tenure denial by Southeastern Oklahoma State University Inside Higher Ed

Academic fraud: A question of morals, integrity Straits Times

November 20, 2017

articles of interest - Nov 20

November 20, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

It's time to add quantum technology to the intellectual toolkit of today’s national security policymakers and analysts: here's a quant tech primer for national security pros War on the Rocks

A twist on neural networks intended to remedy a weakness of today’s machine learning systems: the possibilities of Capsule networks Wired

An AI ready to argue with you based on your morals MIT

We urgently need an academic institute focused on algorithmic accountability New York Times

The Pentagon scraped 1.8 billion social media posts over 8 years as part of a global surveillance program-then dumped it on a publicly accessible Amazon cloud server-thanks to a defunct government contractor named VendorX reports Upgrade

Free O’Reilly ebook on how to build real-time data pipelines with Kafka and Spark Memsql and O'Reilly

A simple explanation and comparison of the Apache Spark platform for large-scale SQL, batch processing, stream processing, and machine learning IT World

NSA: shaken to the core by security breaches and spilled secrets: America’s largest and most secretive intelligence agency had been deeply infiltrated says NYT New York Times

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Uptick In Teen Depression Might Be Linked To More Hours NPR

How Instagram Is Changing the Way We Design Cultural Spaces Smithsonian Magazine

Last Year, Social Media Was Used to Influence Elections in at Least 18 Countries MIT Technology Review

What Your Twitter Says About You & Your Mental Health, According To New Research Elite Daily

Facebook adds trust indicators to news articles in an effort to identify real journalism The Verge

How One Woman's Digital Life Was Weaponized Against Her Wired

How Brands are Experimenting with Video on Instagram Stories Video Strategist

***PRODUCING MEDIA

Publishers are wary of Facebook and Google but must work with them - It’s complicated Economist

Not every article needs a picture: It is dumb to keep forcing images into every story online The Outline

***INTERNET

Tim Berners-Lee on the future of the web: 'The system is failing' The Guardian

Spam is Back The Outline

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

FCC votes to loosen media ownership rules CNBC

Entercom Finalizes Merger With CBS Radio, Becoming No. 2 Radio Operator in US Bliiboard

Bad news from Mashable, BuzzFeed, and Vice shows times are rough for ad-supported digital media Nieman Journalism Lab

***JOURNALISM

The Washington Post’s new feature Counterpoint will use AI to show you opinion articles with a different perspective than the one you are reading Harvard’s Nieman Lab

Do Facebook and Google have control of their algorithms anymore? A sobering assessment and a warning Poynter

The Washington Post on Reddit surprises users with its non-promotional, ultra helpful presence Harvard’s Nieman Lab

Journalism Made Possible Because of the Freedom of Information Act-here’s our strange attempt to get you to care about it Propublica

‘Plagiarism-Infested Sports Section’ discovered at California newspaper iMediaEthics

Welcome to your local library, which also happens to be a newsroom Poynter

Reporters Committee appeals to D.C. Circuit Court for information on FBI impersonation of journalists, arguing FBI's initial search for relevant records was inadequate Reporters Committee For Freedom of the Press

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

The Washington Post Is A Software Company Now Fast Company

After Roy Moore threatens to sue AL.com, the publisher puts him on notice to preserve all documents for their countersuit BongBong

***TEACHING JOURNALISM

Why We Need to Teach More Business Skills in the J-School Classroom PBS Media Shift

***FAKE NEWS

Drudge Linked regularly to Russia propaganda in 2016 Washington Post

Russian troll describes work in the infamous misinformation factory NBC News

Fixing Misinformation is a Misguided and Insufficient Strategy Medium

Should Facebook Notify Readers When They’ve Been Fed Disinformation? Fast Company

Today’s biggest threat to democracy isn’t fake news—it’s selective facts Quartz

Journalists share tips for discerning which news is 'fake' The Daily Times

'Way too little, way too late': Facebook's factcheckers say effort is failing The Guardian

‘Breakthrough’ for enlarged prostates? Northwestern’s aggressive PR pitch lacks data and context Health News Review

At Snopes a Peek Down the Right Wing Rabbit Holes The Daily Beast

***PERSONAL GROWTH

I Used to Be a Human Being Becoming (my blog)

Yes, You Have Implicit Biases, Too (opinion) The Chronicle of Higher Education

***WRITING & READING

'OK’ Is a 4-Letter Word The Chronicle of Higher Education

‘The Right to Tell People What They Do Not Want to Hear’ The Chronicle of Higher Education

***LANGUAGE

Mon Dieu! Ma Déesse! The Chronicle of Higher Education

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Q&A: AP’s new race reporter on how her beat is everywhere Columbia Journalism Review

Evaluating Job Satisfaction of Latino Journalists in Multimedia Newsrooms University of Texas, El Paso

Homeland Security official resigns after comments linking blacks to ‘laziness’ and ‘promiscuity’ come to light Washington Post

This Is Where Hate Crimes Don’t Get Reported (visual graphics) Propublica

***FREE SPEECH

Sheriff threatens to bring disorderly conduct charges against the driver of a truck displaying a profane anti-Trump message Houston Chronicle

A University’s Free-Speech Committee Pledges Transparency — Then Closes Its Meetings to the Public The Chronicle of Higher Education

Williams College president: Don’t ignore the real threats in the debate over free speech Washington Post

On overseas satellite campuses, academic freedom is more often promised than practiced The Fire

***LEGAL ISSUES

‘The Slants’ trademark registered today, six years after the application was first filed Washington Post

Trump's Tweets Could Undercut Feds' Silence in Public Records Case: In a FOIA case about the "Russia dossier," Judge is considering what President Trump may or may not know when he tweets National Law Journal

The newspaper ad that changed everything CNN

***TECHNOLOGY

A New Gene-Editing Therapy Would Benefit Kids Most—Here’s Why They Won’t Get It Yet MIT Technology Review

UC Berkeley professor's eerie lethal drone video goes viral San Francisco Gate

***RELIGION

The Enduring Appeal of Creepy Christianity National Review

Ex-members say church uses power, lies to keep grip on kids Associated Press

Newsmax's 100 Most Influential Evangelicals in America News Max

A bisexual Christian man is suing Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission after it refused to hire him because of his sexual orientation Seattle Times

Assaults against Muslims in U.S. surpass 2001 level Pew Research Center

'We are heavily armed,' Tampa church warns Fox 13

Amy Julia Becker: I'm a Christian, but please don't call me evangelical Tulsa World

University chaplain, 46, becomes the Methodist Church's first transgender minister after hiding her true identity for more than 40 years Daily Mail

Victims 'told not to report' Jehovah's Witness child abuse BBC

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Washington Post Magazine's in-depth profile of televangelist Paula White and her role as pastor to President Trump Washington Post

Church leaders hold a rally in Alabama against Roy Moore’s candidacy for US Senate Daily Mail

Poll: Majority Of Evangelicals Would Support Satan If He Ran As Republican Candidate BabylonBee

86 Alabama Baptist pastors sign letter against sex abuse AL.com

A diverse group of Christian theologians release a Declaration to challenge the corruption of Christians in the US Religious News Service

***THE BIBLE MUSEUM

$500-million Museum of the Bible opens amid controversy Tulsa World

How to go to the Museum of the Bible: Tickets, transportation and all the info you need Washington Post

D.C.’s Newest Museum Has a Provenance Problem The Chronicle of Higher Ed

D.C.’s new Bible museum says it wants to avoid politics. But its opening gala is at the Trump hotel Washington Post

***ART & DESIGN

89-Year-Old Japanese Grandma Discovers Photography, Can’t Stop Taking Hilarious Self-Portraits Now Japan Inside

Aesthetics & the Sciences of Mind Philosophy Now

Can a Social-Justice App Be Art? The New Yorker

***MUSIC

A simple twist of faith: Reconsidering Bob Dylan’s “Christian period” Salon

8 Famous Guitar Tones That Were Recorded Straight Into Reverb News

An Interactive Map of Every Record Shop in the World Open Culture

Charles Manson was not a good songwriter BongBong

***FILM

A twitterbot that generates hypothetical Hallmark holiday movies BongBong

***STUDENT LIFE

Ohio State isn’t the first college where students are accused of cheating via GroupMe Inside Higher Ed

Student sues university for ADA violations over service dog in sorority house CNN

Grad Students Are Freaking Out About the GOP Tax Plan Wired

7 Tips For Dating Outside of Your Political Preference Study Breaks

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

He quit JetBlue by sliding out of a plane. Now he has advice for the rogue Twitter employee Washington Post

How making other people’s coffee prepared me for a job in PR MuckRack

News internships (Summer 2018), Associated Press

Summer 2018 Intenrship Institute on Political Journalism in Washington, DC.

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT.. ON CAMPUS

What the Weinstein Effect Can Teach Us About Campus Sexual Assault New York Times

Notre Dame’s new practice of allowing “alternative resolutions” instead of the traditional Title IX hearings has worried campus advocates for survivors Inside Higher Ed

Student speaks out following rape investigation at Hudson Valley Community College News 10

Sexual Harassment and Assault in Higher Ed: What’s Happened Since Weinstein The Chronicle of Higher Ed

A new website generates too-real “apologies” for men accused of sexual misconduct Vox

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT.. IN THE NEWSROOM

CJR Survey: Reporting Sexual Misconduct in Newsrooms Columbia Journalism Review

New York Times suspends top White House reporter amid investigation into sexual harassment allegations AOL News

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Why Some Survivors Of Sexual Harassment And Assault Wait To Tell Their Stories NPR

Pentagon discloses data on sexual assault reports on military bases Reuters

Supreme Court Ruling Could Limit Workplace Harassment Claims, Advocates Say NPR

The myth of the male bumbler The Week

When It Comes To Sexual Harassment Claims, Whose Side Is Human Resources On? NPR

Reckoning With Sexual Harassment NPR

They were sexually harassed at work. They reported it. Here’s what happened Washington Post

Social Media Posts May Complicate Prosecution Of Sexual Assault NPR

***HEALTH

They’re probably taking your blood Pressure Wrong NPR

‘Breakthrough’ for enlarged prostates? Northwestern’s aggressive PR pitch lacks data and context Health News Review

Skipped breast cancer treatments common HarvardKennedy School Shorenstein Center

***SCIENCE

Flat Earthers Now Have Their Own International Conference Because Science And Logic No Longer Matter Digg

Why Stupid Things are Smarter Together Digg

***PSYCHOLOGY

The Serial-Killer Detector The New Yorker

***CRITICAL THINKING

To think critically, you have to be both analytical and motivated Arstechnica

Get Students to Reflect on the Logical Fallacies in Arguments Teacher Boot Camp

***PHILOSOPHY

Tech has a big talent gap, and companies are hiring philosophy majors, says the CEO of CA Technologies CNBC

Why philosophy is so important in science education Quartz

***ETHICS

An AI That Argues With You Based On Your Morals MIT

A Note About Racked’s Ethics Policy Racked

More than 50 tech ethics courses, with links to syllabi BongBong

***RESEARCH

Survey finds high levels of research misconduct in Middle East Times Higher Ed

Need a paper? Get a plug-in: A collection of web-browser plug-ins is making the scholarly literature more discoverable Nature

Reviewer bias in single- versus double-blind peer review PNAS

The Replication Crisis in Economics Wired

Impact of Social Sciences – Metrics, recognition, and rewards: it’s time to incentivise the behaviours that are good for research and researchers The London School of Economist and Political Science

You’re a Researcher Without a Library: What Do You Do? Medium

Scientist puts his dog on the editorial boards of seven predatory journals as proof of their negligence BongBong

***HIGHER ED

Higher ed's nuanced strategy gives it options for navigating tax reform debate Inside Higher Ed

We urgently need an academic institute focused on algorithmic accountability New York Times

Are Academics ‘Asleep at the Wheel’? Op-Ed on Tech’s Influence Draws Scholars’ Fire The Chronicle of Higher Education

For-profit colleges in America relaunch themselves as non-profits Economist

Wheaton’s endowment reaches $450 million, avoids potential new tax Wheaton

Still no word from San Diego Christian; inewsource responds anyway inewsource

Moody Bible to Close Spokane Campus, Cut Chicago Faculty Christianity Today

***HUMANITIES /STEM

How the Humanities helps our veterans The San Diego Union-Tribune

Using Digital Humanities in the Classroom The Chronicle of Higher Education

How studying humanities can help you get a job The Week

***TEACHING

Do Professors Need Automated Help Grading Online Comments? Inside Higher Ed

Yagoda on Last-Naming Professors The Chronicle of Higher Education

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Faculty Members at One More University Push Back at Online Programs The Chronicle of Higher Education

Another Bad Year for History Jobs Inside Higher Ed

Students do not trust teaching by foreign lecturers who speak English with unfamiliar accents Inside Higher Ed

The Dangers of Tweeting at Conferences The Chronicle of Higher Education

Professors are losing academic freedom Washington Post

This Transgender Professor Just Won A $1 Million Jury Verdict In A Major Case Against a University BuzzFeed

November 20, 2017

I Used to Be a Human Being

November 20, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

In the last year of my blogging life, my health began to give out. Four bronchial infections in 12 months had become progressively harder to kick. Vacations, such as they were, had become mere opportunities for sleep. My dreams were filled with the snippets of code I used each day to update the site. My friendships had atrophied as my time away from the web dwindled. My doctor, dispensing one more course of antibiotics, finally laid it on the line: “Did you really survive HIV to die of the web?”

But the rewards were many: an audience of up to 100,000 people a day; a new-media business that was actually profitable; a constant stream of things to annoy, enlighten, or infuriate me; a niche in the nerve center of the exploding global conversation; and a way to measure success — in big and beautiful data — that was a constant dopamine bath for the writerly ego. If you had to reinvent yourself as a writer in the internet age, I reassured myself, then I was ahead of the curve. The problem was that I hadn’t been able to reinvent myself as a human being.

Andrew Sullivan writing in New York Magazine

November 13, 2017

articles of interest - Nov 13

November 13, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***JOURNALISM

Journalists boycott Disney films in solidarity with the L.A. Times CNN

Public radio rethinks its approach to journalism Columbia Journalism Review

Disney Backs Off L.A. Times Ban Following Backlash Hollywood Reporter

Unusual experiment reveals the power of non-mainstream media: Scholars found that small media outlets have a big effect on Twitter discussions Arstechnica

Here's why your local TV news is about to get even worse The Conversation

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Trump wants to punish CNN by breaking up the AT&T/Time Warner deal Recode

Gannett announces management reorganization Talking New Media

***FAKE NEWS

One Way to Fight Fake News: reading laterally Chronicle of Higher Ed

When fake news will be made by pros Monday Note

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

What should this student do? His bosses want him to p-hack and they don’t even know it! Statistical Modeling, Causal Inference, and Social Science

How a data scientist protects his children from the dangers of the tech world The Next Web

Chances are good that classic machine learning will get you where you want to go. And if it can't, the deep learning door is always open House of Bots

How to Invest in AI with few pure-play options and high valuations? And what actually qualifies as an AI stock? Morningstar

Discussion of why Ethics in AI is still a mess, and what practical steps might change the picture Wired

How to Invest in Artificial Intelligence: While there are few pure-play options and valuations are high, experts say it’s wise to pick your spots now Morningstar

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Apple (AAPL) revealed which emoji Americans use the most Quartz

Snapchat redesign is in the works amid weak growth in users and ad sales LA Times

ESPN will produce a daily version of SportsCenter exclusively for Snapchat Recode

***PRODUCING MEDIA

In $25 billion video game industry, voice actors face broken vocal cords and low pay The Washington Post

Instagram is also a huge source of Russian propaganda on social media (Pinterest’s not safe either) Nieman Journalism Lab

Trump's Official Portrait and the Language of Lighting Petapixel

***PERSONAL GROWTH

How to Spot a Liar Becoming (my blog)

Why Canceling Plans is So Satisfying The Cut

***WRITING & READING

Ph.D.s Are Still Writing Poorly, Part 1 Chronicle of Higher Ed

Does English Grammar Allow you to use an Accusative as part of the Subject of a Sentence? (“me and [name]”) Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LANGUAGE

Would language be better if it were polished to perfection? Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LITERATURE

For Dostoevsky, epilepsy was a matter of both life and literature PBS

How a young Ernest Hemingway dealt with his first taste of fame The Conversation

***GENDER

The Perpetrators Of America's Worst Mass Shootings Have One Glaring Thing In Common Digg

Study finds male Ph.D. candidates submit and publish papers at significantly higher rates than female peers on the same campus Inside Higher Ed

Transgender issues sharply divide Republicans, Democrats Pew Research Center

Gender and citation impact in management research Science Direct

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

On diversifying data journalism The Bureau Investigates

To Help Combat Racism, Kansas State U. Will Cancel Classes (for 2 Hours) Chronicle of Higher Ed

***FREE SPEECH

Survey suggests students aren’t the only ones who may have difficulty with free expression on campus. It turns out the public -- across party lines -- is conflicted as well Inside Higher Ed

What’s Fueling the Free-Speech Wars? Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LEGAL ISSUES

Court demands that search engines and internet service providers block Sci-Hub Science Magazine

Taylor Swift's Attorney Rebuked Over Letter Demanding Article's Retraction WBGO

The History and Philosophy of Copyright (video) PetaPixel

Court Rejects Gossip Site’s Fair Use Defense Technology & Marketing Law Blog

A $10 million defamation suit filed by a Stanford University professor against a critic and a journal Retraction Watch

Lisa Bloom Says Bill O'Reilly Is Libel-Proof Hollywood Reporter

Facebook Defeats Lawsuit By User Suspended Over ‘Bowling Green Massacre’ Technology & Marketing Law Blog

***RELIGION

Religious Employers May Not Be Able to Take Away Your Birth Control After All Life Hacker

Here's why this Houston megachurch is flying Russia's flag outside Houston Chronicle

Clergy spouses: Privacy, isolation concerns abound Times Record News

Religion a part of national identity in Central, Eastern Europe Pew Research Center

Key takeaways about Orthodox Christians Pew Research Center

New Museum Invites Visitors To 'Engage' With The Bible NPR

Tennessee Baptist church fights conference shunning over hiring of female pastor USA Today

Buddhism Is More ‘Western’ Than You Think New York Times

A suggestion for younger evangelicals: Lose the label (commentary) Religion News

Baptist convention denounces racism, but not the Confederate flag Baptist News

***RELIGION AND MASS SHOOTINGS

Praying In Response To Mass Shootings NPR

Churches Rethinking Security in the Wake of Texas Shooting NPR

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

No, Christians Don't Use Joseph and Mary to Explain Child Molesting Accusations (opinion) Christianity Today

Roy Moore's alleged pursuit of a young girl is the symptom of a larger problem in evangelical circles LA Times

***MUSIC

What music do psychopaths like? More Bieber, less Bach Washington Post

***HEALTH

A Link Between Alcohol and Cancer? It’s Not Nearly as Scary as It Seems New York Times

Genetically Altered Skin Saves A Boy Dying Of A Rare Disease NPR

The Gross Inequality of Organ Transplants in America New Republic

How Conjoined Twins Are Making Scientists Question the Concept of Self The Walrus

Why Working Women With Migraines Suffer in Silence Splinter News

***PSYCHOLOGY

Christmas Music Could Harm Your Mental Health IFL Science

Psychology's Renaissance Annual Review of Psychology

Brain Scientists Look Beyond Opioids To Conquer Pain NPR

***PHILOSOPHY

The Examined Life: Know Thyself #1 Wireless Philosophy

How Philosophy Makes Progress Daily Nous

On Putnam's Regulative Ideal of Decency Digressions Impressions

***ETHICS

Naming abusers online may be “mob justice” but it’s still justice Quartz

***RESEARCH

Dealing with error and bias in academic research PsyArXiv

Academic journal publishing is headed for a day of reckoning The Conversation

'Null' research findings aren't empty of meaning. Let's publish them Stat News

Why developing countries are particularly vulnerable to predatory journals The Conversation

Publish and perish and buyer beware Otago Daily Times Online News

Reviewing Better Medium

***HIGHER ED

UW-Superior Suspends 25 Programs: Faculty Say They Were Not Consulted Before Programs Were Suspended Wisconsin Public Radio

Congressional committee discusses bill designed to define anti-Semitism; some say it is too broad to be effective on college campuses Inside Higher Ed

When College Classrooms Become Ideologically Segregated, Everyone Suffers NBC News

How Student Concentrations Are Changing at Harvard The Crimson

***TEACHING

Will They Remember Writing It? Helping instructors design a meaningful writing assignment Chronicle of Higher Ed

***STUDENT MEDIA

Syllabus at Duke barred staffers of campus paper from class on hedge funds Inside Higher Ed

The rise of the campus meme Daily Californian

Tips For Writing Your College Admissions Essay The Onion

***STUDENT LIFE

After 10-Hour Hearing, Clemson U. Students Vote Not to Remove Black Leader Chronicle of Higher Ed

Survey shows declines in new international students after years of growth Inside Higher Ed

OSU students caught cheating via "GroupMe" app Local 12

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

Paid journalism internships with December deadlines Student Press Law Center

Program to bring interns of color to nonprofit newsrooms Inn.org

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Trainers, Lawyers Say Sexual Harassment Training Fails NPR

College let teachers quietly leave after alleged sex abuse, and pushed students for silence Boston Globe

Profile of advocate against campus sexual assault who hopes to change the culture of college athletics The Ringer

***ACADEMIC LIFE

What’s to be done about the numerous reports of faculty misconduct dating back years and even decades? Inside Higher Ed

November 12, 2017

happiness depends

November 12, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them. –Leo Tolstoy

November 10, 2017

Desensitized to Lying

November 10, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

When you’re exposed to a strong smell, at first the smell is extremely noticeable, but eventually you stop noticing it as much. With time, any stimulus — a loud noise, a strong perfume, etc. — is likely to provoke a smaller response. The same goes with lying.

We get desensitized to our own lying as the areas of our brain that correlate with negativity become less active. This makes it easier for us to lie in the future.

“The first time you cheat — let’s say you’re cheating on your taxes — you feel quite bad about it,” Tali Sharot, a University College London neuroscientist. But then the next time you cheat, you’re less likely to get that negative feeling. That makes it easier to lie again. And the cycle escalates from there.

Brian Resnick writing in Vox

November 06, 2017

articles of interest - Nov 6

November 06, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***JOURNALISM

Why I Believe in the Future of Journalism as a 10-year-old Reporter Newsweek

Miami demands media stop showing photos of firefighters fired in noose incident Miami Herald

Why it's important to name the shooter Poynter

Plaintiff in Russia dossier suit argues BuzzFeed isn't a real news organization Money Magazine

More in U.S. getting news from multiple social media sites Pew Research Center

It's a journalist's duty to keep collected information safe. Here are some ways to get started Poynter

***FAKE NEWS

Learning To Spot Fake News: Start With A Gut Check NPR

Twitter Sidestepped Russian Account Warnings, Former Worker Says Bloomberg

Dilbert vs. Trump: Why False Facts Have Power Tech News World

***PRODUCING MEDIA

How On Earth Did Email Newsletters Become Popular Again? Medium

How Vimeo Is Preparing For The Future Of Video Storytelling Fast Company

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

Particle physics reveals there is more to wonder about one of the Seven Wonders of the World Science News

Who’s the 2017 World Series champ? Big Data! What the Astros did to win the analytics arms race Tech Republic

Intelligence collection and analysis is a mess in the US intelligence community The Hill

What the founding fathers of Apache Spark are saying and doing about its future ZD Net

The Kaggle 2017 State of Data Science and Machine Learning report Kaggle

A new system that automatically produces code optimized for sparse data MIT

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Do social media threaten democracy? Economist

Representatives From Facebook, Twitter And Google Testify About Russia's Election Influence NPR

Once considered a boon to democracy, social media have started to look like its nemesis Economist

Why Is the U.S. So Susceptible to Social-Media Distortion? (opinion) New Yorker

How Russia Weaponized Social Media With 'Social Bots' NPR

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Our attitudes are shaped much more by our social groups than they are by facts on the ground Becoming (my blog)

Why we pretend to know things Vox

This Is Why We Default To Criticism (And How To Change) Fast Company

***WRITING & READING

7 Pieces of Expert Writing Advice Daily Jstor

***LANGUAGE

The Randomness of Language Evolution The Atlantic

Why You Still Should Learn a Language in the Age of Pixel Buds Daily Jstor

***GENDER

Looking For A Home When Your Name Is Hispanic And Finding Discrimination Instead NPR

Pop Art Posters Celebrate Pioneering Women Scientists: Download Free Posters of Marie Curie, Ada Lovelace & More Open Culture

Gender Bias in Peer Review Scholarly Kitchen

Orange County High-School Students Rebel Against Confederate Mascot The Daily Beast

***FREE SPEECH

Rethinking free speech on campus - Free to be crude and mean Economist

University of Oregon president pens powerful reflection on being shouted down The FIRE

Free speech at American universities is under threat Economist

***LEGAL ISSUES

Taylor Swift’s Team Issued a Defamation Threat Against a Website With 76 Twitter Followers Spin

'Cosby Show' Producer Sues BBC for Using Clips in Bill Cosby Doc Hollywood Reporter

***ART & DESIGN

Professor's artwork uses US flags to make KKK-style hoods CNN

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

FCC Releases Proposed Order to Modify Media Ownership Rules Comm Law Blog

***RELIGION

The NFL Allows Churches To Show Regular Season Football Games: Understanding when and how you can show NFL games in your church Plagiarism Today

Meet the Woke Young People Trying to Make Christianity Cool Again Vice

'It's Our Right': Christian Congregation In Indonesia Fights To Worship In Its Church NPR

The racism in Gen. Kelly’s Civil War comments runs deep in the strand of evangelicalism that helped elect Trump (opinion) Religious Dispatches

What does the revival of Protestantism Mean for the Developing World Economist

Church shootings are so common that there’s a database for them Quartz

Religious leaders and former gang members join forces to reduce crime CBS News

Why evangelicals are deeply skeptical of gun control laws (opinion) Chicago Tribune

Younger evangelicals have never been in a moral majority. This changes how they see politics Economist

***RELIGION AND MUSIC

How Bob Dylan found God, and his fans found another boxset to buy ABC News (Australia)

Review: Thinking Twice About Bob Dylan's Gospel Phase With New Bootleg Box Rolling Stone

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Can We Still Rely On Science Done By Sexual Harassers? Wired

How Human Resources Handles Sexual Misconduct NPR

Finding the Words We Need to Talk About Sexual Assault and Harassment Daily Jstor

Sexual harassment: Who suffers, and how Journalism Resources

***HEALTH

The Limits of Behavioral Economics in Medicine New York Times

***SCIENCE

There is “much more to scientific impact than citations” Nature

How To Win An Argument According To Science Daily Jstor

***PSYCHOLOGY

Carl Jung Psychoanalyzes Hitler Open Culture

“Psychologists really are trying to turn their field around Science News

How One Psychologist Is Tackling Human Biases in Science Nautil.us

Sleep protects against learning fear The Naked Scientist

What eyes and odours reveal about sexual attraction Economist

***CRITICAL THINKING

The work of 213,284 kids was analyzed. These are the writing and critical-thinking skills that stumped students Washington Post

5 Tips for Critical Thinking: What can you do to critically think better in day-to-day situations? Psychology Today

How to Develop Critical Thinking Skills: Use these tips to walk into any situation with the tools needed to set aside intense emotions and make insightful decisions Success.com

***PHILOSOPHY

Death: A Free Philosophy Course from Yale Helps You Grapple with the Inescapable Open Culture

How Alvin Plantinga Paved the Way for Christian Philosophy's Comeback Christianity Today

***PRODUCTIVITY

Google Calendar on the web gets a fresh new look Tech Crunch

***ETHICS

Dealing with Unethical or Illegal Conduct in Higher Education The Scientist

Tiny human brain organoids implanted into rodents, triggering ethical concerns Stat News

***RESEARCH

Prominent scientist sues critic of his work for $10 million Mashable

Do We Need An Adoption Service for Orphan Data? Discover Magazine

Who owns patient data in clinical research? Collabrx

Academic journal publishing is headed for a day of reckoning The Conversation

***HIGHER ED

As ed-tech companies gather more data, they struggle to find its best uses Inside Higher Ed

Evaluating the evidence on micro-aggressions and trigger warnings Economist

Can Design Thinking Redesign Higher Ed? Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Surprising Revolt at the Most Liberal College in the Country The Atlantic

GOP tax overhaul would eliminate tax breaks used by colleges and students Inside Higher Ed

College apologizes for ‘House of Cards’ email Columbia Tribune

200 universities just launched 600 free online courses. Here’s the full list Quartz

Christian Writer Banned From Liberty University Campus After Criticizing Trump Ally NPR

Anthony Scaramucci spoke at Liberty University Salon

***HUMANITIES /STEM

‘Digital’ Is Not the Opposite of ‘Humanities’ (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed

The STEM job opportunities are in computing technology, not the physical or life sciences (CS is the only STEM field where more than half of graduates are employed in their field) New York Times

There Is No Such Thing as ‘the Digital Humanities’ (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed

Study English Lit to acquire 'marketable' skills? That's a bad argument (opinion) LA Times

***TEACHING

How students to steal professors’ passwords on campus and to change grades Inside Higher Ed

In a Volatile Climate on Campus, Professors Teach on Tenterhooks New York Times

Dropping The F-Bomb In Class? Teachers Weigh In NPR

***STUDENT MEDIA

Student Newspaper publishes Letter from the Editor in Protest of Treatment by Administrators Indiana Daily Student

***STUDENT LIFE

Georgetown students vote not to take action against pro-heterosexual-marriage campus group Washington Post

Six Myths About Choosing a College Major New York Times

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Many Academics Are Eager to Publish in Worthless Journals: “The rewards for publishing in predatory journals were greater than for publishing in legitimate ones” New York Times

Senior faculty members on three campuses face disciplinary action or resign over harassment allegations Inside Higher Ed

Professional Development beyond Citations and the Standard Process Scholarly Kitchen

After threats of dismissal, a tenured professor is cleared of plagiarism charges Durango Herald

Abusers and Enablers in Faculty Culture Chronicle of Higher Ed

November 03, 2017

Matching your tasks to your Energy

November 03, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

When considering how to best match your tasks to your energy it’s helpful to consider all the different kinds of work you do, and when would be the best time to do them. Even if you know that you’re naturally a morning person, for example, that alone may not help you best arrange all of your activities, since you can’t do everything first thing. Are you writing? editing? coding data? researching citations for a literature review? creating slides? preparing lecture notes for class? For each activity, consider when you would be best able to do that work well.

You might not know the answers to all those questions yet — so simply observing when you are intuitively drawn to do certain kinds of work, and how difficult or easy it is to complete the task at different times of day, can help you design your schedule to better match your tasks to your energy.

Natalie Houston writing in the Chronicle of Higher Ed

October 31, 2017

articles of interest - week of Oct 30

October 31, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***TECHNOLOGY

U.S. Will Curb ‘Sneak-and-Peek’ Searches Microsoft Sued Over Bloomberg

Amid GMO Strife, Food Industry Vies For Public Trust In CRISPR Technology NPR

Gene editing takes another step forward Economist

Is Alexa Safe for Kids? NPR

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

Video shows how neural network generates photo-realistic unique faces that have never actually existed Gizmodo

Most employed data scientists gained their skills through self-learning or a MOOC.. not a traditional CS degree Tech Republic

A survey of CIOs on Machine learning plans and obstacles Enterprisers Projects

Supervised learning without training wheels Economist

Inside the automated brain: what AI sees when they’re watching us Quartz

“Best-Ever Algorithm” for Huge Streams of Data Quantam Magazine

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Day in the Life of a Snapchat editor Digiday

How Russian Propaganda Spreads On Social Media NPR

The Worst Tweeter In Politics Isn’t Trump Harvard's Nieman Lab

With Huge Fines, German Law Pushes Social Networks To Delete Abusive NPR

CNN’s three month-old daily Snapchat show The Update avoids the “bells and whistles and flashes” Harvard's Nieman Lab

***SOCIAL MEDIA: TWITTER

Twitter Says It Will Ban Ads From Russian News Agencies After Interference In 2016 Election NPR

Some Guidelines for Using Twitter Chronicle of Higher Ed

How to Spot a Twitter Bot Life Hacker

***SOCIAL MEDIA: FACEBOOK

Does Facebook Use Your Phone's Microphone To Eavesdrop On Your Conversations? Digg

America doesn't trust Facebook The Verge

Facebook's Blind Spot: Connecting The World, For Better Or Worse NPR

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

The FCC just ended a decades-old rule designed to keep TV and radio under local control The Washington Post

Myspace Looked Like It Was Back. Actually, It Was A Pawn In An Ad Fraud Scheme BuzzFeed

***JOURNALISM

The Most Revealing Moment in the New Joan Didion Documentary New Yorker

Journalism’s New Patrons: California nonprofit targets individual donors Columbia Journalism Review

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

LA Weekly is being sold to Semanal Media, a mysterious new company LA Times

How Jeff Bezos Reacts to 'Negative' Amazon Articles in Washington Post Fortune

How leading American newspapers got people to pay for news Economist

News personalization could help publishers attract and retain audiences—in the process making political polarization even worse Nieman Reports

***FAKE NEWS

The media's definition of fake news vs. Donald Trump's Politifact

The Fact-Checking Army Waging War on Fake News PBS Media Shift

How Snapchat Has Kept Itself Free of Fake News Bloomberg

Facebook Stumbles With Early Effort to Stamp Out Fake News Bloomberg

Italy Takes Aim At Fake News With New Curriculum For High School Students NPR

***WRITING & READING

The BuzzFeed Style Chronicle of Higher Ed

Journaling with a Helping Hand Study Break

An Artificial Intelligence Bot Writes Stories of the Macabre Atlas Obscura

***LANGUAGE

A history of slang charts the change in taboos Economist

Sir Thomas Browne’s Vulgar Errors Jstor

The Survival of British English Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LITERATURE

The Sad Story of A.A. Milne and the Real-Life Christopher Robin Jstor

New Documentary Joan Didion: The Center Will Not Hold Now Streaming on Netflix Open Culture

The Man Whose Snowy Day Helped Diversify Children’s Books Jstor

Literature: What is it Good For? Study Break

***GENDER

A pernicious and underappreciated source of gender bias may be affecting faculty hiring Sage Journals

Even when women speak less, they are perceived as talking more Applied Psycholinguistics

Measuring the implicit biases we may not even be aware we have The Conversation

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

Majority Of White Americans Say They Believe Whites Face Discrimination NPR

Black Clemson student government vice president alleges racism is behind impeachment trial Inside Higher Ed

***FREE SPEECH

University of California to open free speech center in Washington DC San Francisco Gate

Sessions’ Justice Dept. Is Wading Into Another Campus Free-Speech Case Chronicle of Higher Ed

After a Year of Tumult, Evergreen State Revises a Policy on the Use of Campus Space Chronicle of Higher Ed

Senate hearing explores free speech on college campuses Inside Higher Ed

Congress unlikely to push federal mandate on campus free speech Education Dive

***LEGAL ISSUES

U.S. Solicitor General Will Argue Against Gay Couple in Supreme Court Case involving Refusal on religious grounds to Bake a Wedding Cake for a Same-sex Couple National Law Journal

Google Responds to Lawsuit Accusing YouTube of Censoring Conservatives Hollywood Reporter

Gag order silencing Comic-Con producers declared unconstitutional: Appeals court says silencing online speech over trademark suit is unconstitutional Arstechica

Judge tosses libel lawsuit against AP by Russian oligarch tied to Manafort Politico

***RELIGION

5 facts about Protestants around the world Pew Research Center

After I Adopted Two Black Babies, I Realized My Church Was Full Of Racists Splinter

Buzzfeed takes the time to dig into Megachurch and gets this complex story right Get Religion

The real reason Muhammad Ali converted to Islam Washington Post

Indiana court rules sex offenders can go to church with children: What questions does this raise? Get Religion

George Washington’s church to remove plaque honoring him Daily Mail

How could The Los Angeles Times dodge faith in a story about Kershaw family, mission work? (opinion) Get Religion

Satanic church shames district over corporal punishment New York Post

How the prosperity gospel is sparking a major change in the world's most Catholic country Washington Post

***MARTIN LUTHER

How Martin Luther Changed the World The New Yorker

The Nazis Exploited Martin Luther’s Legacy. This Berlin Exhibit Highlights How Religious News Service

Could the Reformation Have Happened Without Luther? (podcast) The Pietist Schoolman

500 Years Later, Some Issues That Martin Luther Raised Remain NPR

Martin Luther’s ‘dream’ church? It wasn’t in Europe Religion News Service

What to Do about Martin Luther? Context

How Did Martin Luther Become So Popular? Sojourners

3 Ways to Remember the Reformation The Pietist Schoolman

***ART & DESIGN

You draw the chart on how life has changed in the last 60 years BBC

The Washington Post’s augmented reality app to carve a pumpkin Washington Post

Source’s guide for making charts Open News

***MUSIC

How Advertisers Get Away With Using Fake Versions of Your Favorite Songs Pitchfork

***STUDENT MEDIA

Student newspaper takes a close look at school's sexual-misconduct procedure: Finds the university's president is the final arbiter in all cases The Daily Texan

***STUDENT LIFE

Isolation, loneliness for college students persists in a partisan era on college campuses Inside Higher Ed

Georgetown students have filed a discrimination complaint against a campus group promoting heterosexual marriage Washington Post

Clemson Student Vice President who Refused to Stand during the National Anthem is Impeached- will Face Trial New York Times

Millennials it Turns out are Loyal and just as boring as previous workers Economist

Millennials are doing better than the baby-boomers did at their age Economist

Fascism Reached My College Campus, and Now I Can't Look Away The Daily Dot

Opioids on College Campuses New York Times

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

A Look At Workplace Policies Meant To Prevent Sexual Harassment NPR

Suicide, investigation and a lawsuit follow booze-fueled UC Davis School retreat Sacramento Bee

***SOCIOLOGY

List of featured speakers for sociology conference, most of them men, sparks debate and backlash Inside Higher Ed

***HEALTH

Troubling Legacy Of Tuskegee Study, Henrietta Lacks Still An Obstacle In Medical Research NPR

A Paper Claiming Wi-Fi Is Linked To Autism Has Been Accused Of Pseudoscience BuzzFeed

Scientists And Surgeons Team Up To Create Virtual Human Brain Cells NPR

***SCIENCE

A statistical fix for the replication crisis in science The Conversation

Criticizing a scientist’s work isn’t bullying Slate

***NEUROSCIENCE

Algorithm can identify suicidal people using brain scans The Verge

Why it’s time to lay the stereotype of the ‘teen brain’ to rest The Conversation

***RESEARCH

The Cookie Crumbles: A Retracted Study Points to a Larger Truth New York Times

Physicists cozy up to double-blind peer review Physics Today

What it would be like without peer review The Times Literary Supplement

The Publishing Trap! A Table game of scholarly communication The London School of Economics and Political Science

Predatory conferences ‘now outnumber official scholarly events’ Times Higher Ed

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Play has a positive impact on creativity Becoming (my blog)

We're Not As Good At Remembering Faces As We Think We Are NPR

Self-awareness as a leader in higher education does not mean being proud of your faults Chronicle of Higher Ed

***HIGHER ED

A Broadening Battle Over Archives to Share Papers Inside Higher Ed

Four stubborn money myths about private college education News OK

Supposed campus guidelines on costumes not always what they seem Inside Higher Ed

Why we shouldn’t rely on data and algorithms to fix the humanities Chronicle of Higher Ed

Senate Hearings Explore Free Speech on College Campuses Inside Higher Ed

Coursera, the online-education company, has ousted dozens of staff members — including senior-level executives — over the last several months Recode

John Grisham: A Candid Conversation on the Villain in his new Thriller: For-Profit Colleges Chronicle of Higher Ed

Christina College founded by Tim LaHaye can't explain $20 million in expenses CBS-8

Evangelical pastor and author Jonathan Martin, removed from concert at Liberty University threatened with arrest should he return to campus: He recently spoke against LU President Jerry Falwell Jr.’s support for President Trump The News & Advance

Patriotic Education Course at Christian liberal arts college Inside Higher Ed

Liberty U. President Says Trump Could Be ‘Greatest President Since Abraham Lincoln’ Chronicle of Higher Ed

Gay and in Love at an Evangelical College New York Times

***TEACHING

Cross-Disciplinary Collaboration Encourages Conversations About Teaching Chronicle of Higher Ed

What’s the Ideal Mix of Online and Face-to-Face Classes? Chronicle of Higher Ed

***ACADEMIC LIFE

The University of Arkansas system is considering changing its tenure policy to allow professors to be fired for "disruptive conduct" Chronicle of Higher Ed

A faculty strike in Ontario highlights the potential of digital picketing Chronicle of Higher Ed

What to Say After a Student Dies Chronicle of Higher Ed

Professors Are Complicit in Football Players’ Brain Damage (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Pernicious Silencing of the Adjunct Faculty Chronicle of Higher Ed

3 Dartmouth Psych Profs accused of serious misconduct are on leave Washington Post

October 30, 2017

Play and creativity

October 30, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

Play has a positive impact on creativity because— in addition to helping us both mind-wander and diversify— it stimulates positive emotion, which research shows leads to greater insight and better problem solving. Barbara Fredrickson of the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, found that positive emotions increase our cognitive resources by expanding our visual attention. When we feel good, we gain the ability to pay attention to a wider range of experiences. We see the big picture rather than getting bogged down in the details. In other words, if you feel stuck in a rut or you can’t think yourself out of a problem or don’t see a way out of a situation, play may be a way of getting “unstuck” and coming up with innovative ideas.

Just as joy and fun can make you more creative, creativity in turn enhances your well- being. The more creative you become, the more joy you invite into your life. Nikola Tesla wrote, “I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success. . . . Such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”

By naturally tapping into your inner creativity, you reconnect with the joy you had as a child playing. You engage in a positive feedback loop that continues to replenish you with joy and creativity. It makes for an adult life rich with delight and inventiveness.

Stanford psychologist Emma Seppälä writing in the Washington Post

October 25, 2017

articles of interest - week of Oct 23

October 25, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***JOURNALISM

Is your journalism valuable? Poynter

The Guardian’s Mobile Innovation Lab introduced a new type of article for evolving stories Medium

How Fox 32 became the most engaging news publisher on Facebook Digiday

13 things I learned from six years at the Guardian Medium

Pioneering Virtual Reality and New Video Technologies in Journalism New York Times

How to find the useful information hidden on every website Poynter

Five ways to take advantage of Excel list features Tech Republic

Study: Readers are hungry for news feed transparency Columbia Journalism Review

Russian Radio Journalist Stabbed In Neck Amid Anti-Media Violence Huff Post

Czech President holds up replica Ak-47 marked ‘for journalists’ in press conference The Independent

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Journalism’s Broken Business Model Won’t Be Solved by Billionaires New Yorker

Social media crackdowns at the Times and Journal will backfire Columbia Journalism Review

Journalism’s Broken Business Model Won’t Be Solved by Billionaires The New Yorker

***TEACHING JOURNALISM

How Educators Can Discuss Journalists’ Coverage of Violence PBS Media Shift

***FAKE NEWS

Why I Love Fake News (opinion) Politico

Tightening Political Ad Disclosure Rules May Not Curb 'Fake News,' IAB Says Media Post

At New York event, Facebook stays tight-lipped on fake news Poynter

What do ordinary people think fake news is? Poor journalism and political propaganda Columbia Journalism Review

Facebook's new media guidelines are focused on stopping fake news Engadget

Schools fight spread of 'fake news' through news literacy lessons Educational Dive

How to avoid being part of the fake news problem when big stories break Mashable

University of Haifa to offer course on 'fake news' and propaganda Jerusalem Post

***THE BUSINESS OF MEDIA

At BuzzFeed, a Pivot to Movies and Television New York Times

Young subscribers flock to old media Politico

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Openness to new Experiences Linked with Creativity Becoming

The Power of Introverts: Author Susan Cain Explains Why We Need to Appreciate the Talents & Abilities of the Quiet Ones Open Culture

Brain Training Can Improve Memory, But Won't Make You A Genius NPR

***GRAMMAR

Who gives a !@#$ about an Oxford comma (opinion) Daily Cal

***LANGUAGE

Appalachian English Chronicle of Higher Ed

The Day A Texas School Held A Funeral For The Spanish Language NPR

***LITERATURE

Getting Students Excited About Literature Chronicle of Higher Ed

***GENDER

The Sexism That Permeates the Academy (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed

Maria Anna Mozart Was a Musical Prodigy Like Her Brother Wolfgang, So Why Did She Get Erased from History? Open Culture

Don’t Sanctify Us Chronicle of Higher Ed

***RACE & ETHNICITY ISSUES

92 Percent Of African Americans Say Black Americans Face Discrimination Today NPR

Study finds high school teachers have differing expectations of black and white students Inside Higher Ed

Poll: Most Americans Say They Are Discriminated Against, Regardless Of Race NPR

***FREE SPEECH

Does Disruption Violate Free Speech? (opinion) Chronicle of Higher Ed

***LEGAL ISSUES

Federal Judge Unseals New York Crime Lab’s Software for Analyzing DNA Evidence Propublica

Hollywood Confronts a Copyright Argument With Potential for Mass Disruption Who really owns the CG characters in blockbuster films Hollywood Reporter

California judge tosses $417 million talc cancer verdict against Johnson & Johnson Reuters

The Supreme Court Justices Need Fact-Checkers New York Times

***TECHNOLOGY

CRISPR Bacon: Chinese Scientists Create Genetically Modified Low-Fat Pigs NPR

The Fervor Around Blockchains Explained in Two Minutes Wired

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

The Big Data policing revolution has arrived as predictive technologies analyze the future risk Tech Crunch

With commercial satellite imagery, computer learns to quickly find missile sites in China Space News

The 1st demonstration of the ability of quantum machines to outperform classical computers could be just months way MIT Technology Review

Silicon Valley analytic experts on the sort of classes undergrads should take to prepare for data science careers Datanami

Intelligence leaders caution that AI cannot and should not replace the role of the human analyst Fed Tech Magazine

The hardware needs of AI and the hardware needs of traditional software development are diverging in a big way Electronic Engineering Journal

Machine learning demo with your webcam and GIFs Flowing Data

***SOCIAL MEDIA

What Does Facebook Consider Hate Speech? Take Our Quiz New York Times

Social Media Is Scholarship Chronicle of Higher Ed

Facebook splitting news feed could force companies to re-think social media marketing Tech Republic

Facebook's video could finally catch up to YouTube Mashable

Twitter will reveal who's paying for its political ads LA Times

Why the Fact-Checking at Facebook Needs to Be Checked New York Times

How Russians Attempted To Use Instagram To Influence Native Americans BuzzFeed

Snapchat Reportedly Has Piles of Unsold Spectacles Laying Around Daily Dot

The viral story of Taiwan Jones, who learned he failed his midterms on Twitter, doesn’t add up Washington Post

Facebook Tests News Feed that Replaces Publishers with Friends Daily Dot

***PRODUCING MEDIA

Adobe's New Video Editing Tool Looks Incredible (And A Bit Unsettling) Digg

How to edit 360 photos in Photoshop Digital Trends

#SceneStitch: Adobe MAX 2017 (Sneak Peeks) Adobe

60 Second Docs: Freelancers are Opening Windows to the World Video Strategist

***RELIGION

California Gov. Brown vetoes bill prohibiting faith-based codes of conduct Highland News

White Evangelicals Used to Dominate Christian Zionism, but Not Anymore The Atlantic

A misleading article claims millennials are ditching religion for witchcraft and astrology Get Religion

“Almost Like Praying”: The Religious Work of “Hamilton” Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda Religion Dispatches

A new organization will score churches’ on their positions on homosexuality Religious News

Was the Reformation a mistake? A Catholic and a Protestant debate Religion News Service

500 Years Since 95 Theses, Martin Luther's Legacy Divides Some Of His Descendants NPR

Religious tourism center in Mission Valley approved by San Diego City Council Fox-5

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Calif. Megachurch Pastor Blurred Church-State Lines by Featuring Candidate During Service Modesto Bee

Why I am ditching the label ‘evangelical’ in the Trump era Washington Post

***ART & DESIGN

A New Book Gives Us the World as Seen by Black Female Photographers Vogue

2,000+ Architecture & Art Books You Can Read Free at the Internet Archive Open Culture

The Anatomy of a Thousand Typefaces Medium

***MUSIC

Hallelujah!: You Can Stream Every Leonard Cohen Album in a 22-Hour Chronological Playlist (1967-2016) Open Culture

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

Study finds patterns of harassment and sexist treatment of scholars in far-flung locations that offer few of the protections of campuses Inside Higher Ed

Before media firestorms, decades of assaults Axios

Ed Dept. Vigil for victims of sexual assault on campus and in protest changes to federal Title IX Inside Higher Ed

***SOCIOLOGY

Why Some Professions Have Higher Divorce Rates Life Hacker

***HEALTH

Why Hospitals Need Better Data Science Harvard Business Review Harvard Business Review

Video on how drug companies make you pay for wasted medicine Tiny Letter

Anger Over Stereotypes in Textbook Inside Higher Ed

***BUSINESS

This calculator that shows you how long it takes the Kardashians to earn your annual salary Missy Empire

***SCIENCE

Cambridge Site Crashes After Posting Stephen Hawking's Thesis NPR

***PHILOSOPHY

“The Philosopher’s Web,” an Interactive Data Visualization Shows the Web of Influences Connecting Ancient & Modern Philosophers Open Culture

***RESEARCH

New web services are helping authors make data-driven decisions when choosing which journal to submit to The London School of Economics & Political Science

It is time to restore Rules for Authorship of scientific publications Wiley Online Library

The Facebooking of Scholarly Research Scholarly Kitchen

About that peer-review crisis: There isn’t one, at least in terms of quantity, according to a new study of article submissions Inside Higher Ed

Researchers may be part of the problem in predatory publishing CMAJ News

New simulation study says peer review is better at assuring quality than random publication choices, but that some systems of review are better than others Inside Higher Ed

When the Revolution Came for Amy Cuddy New York Times

***HIGHER ED

MIT Introduces Digital Diplomas Inside Higher Ed

Improving Federal Accountability for Higher Education American Progress

Western accrediting agency picks unconventional new leader Inside Higher Ed

The evangelical purity culture left women not only unprepared to fend off abusers, but in many cases unable even to identify abuse for what it was (written by Calvin College professor) Patheos

George Fox University lands national accreditation for Master of Social Work program George Fox

Analysis: Liberty U a rare haven for conservative speakers Campus Reform

***TEACHING

Grad student says she’s under fire on campus and off for using a teaching technique that involves specifically calling on students from underrepresented groups Inside Higher Ed

***STUDENT LIFE

Tips on how to visit a college campus The Philadelphia Tribune

A Christian College Student’s Playlist Study Breaks

***JOBS & INTERNSHIPS

Journalism internships with November deadlines Student Press Law Center

***STUDENT MEDIA

A student newspaper retracts an article for made-up quotes The Rotunda Online

***ACADEMIC LIFE

Transcripts reveal prof’s tough tenure fight with WSU Detroit News

Professors’ Productivity Declines With Age, Right? Maybe Not Chronicle of Higher Ed

October 25, 2017

Openness to new Experiences Linked with Creativity

October 25, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

The aspect of our personality that appears to drive our creativity is called openness to experience, or openness. Among the five major personality traits, it is openness that best predicts performance on divergent thinking tasks. Openness also predicts real-world creative achievements, as well as engagement in everyday creative pursuits.

In our research, published in the Journal of Research in Personality, we found that open people don’t just bring a different perspective to things, they genuinely see things differently to the average individual.

Our findings suggest that the creative tendencies of open people extend all the way down to basic visual perception. Open people may have fundamentally different visual experiences to the average person.

It might seem as if open people have been dealt a better hand than the rest of us. But can people with uncreative personalities broaden their limited vistas, and would this be a good thing?

There is mounting evidence that personality is malleable, and increases in openness have been observed in cognitive training interventions and studies of the effects of psilocybin.

Luke Smillie and Anna Antinori writing in The Conversation

October 17, 2017

what direction

October 17, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

The great thing in this world is not so much where we are, but in what direction we are moving.

Oliver Wendell Holmes

October 16, 2017

articles of interest - Oct 16

October 16, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT

When Does a Sexual Advance Amount to Sexual Harassment? An Attorney Explains Hollywood Reporter

Students storm a professor’s class at Columbia to protest the university’s handling of rape cases Inside Higher Ed

#MeToo made the scale of sexual abuse go viral. But is it asking too much of survivors? Washington Post

***ART & DESIGN

11 Optical Illusions Found in Visual Design Prototypr

Art About Racism: Closed to the Public Inside Higher Ed

Christie’s Unveils a Lost Leonardo da Vinci in New York Vogue

Two new studies paint an intriguing picture about the payoff of arts training Chronicle of Higher Ed

How Futura Became The Most Ripped-Off Typeface In History Fast Co.

***MUSIC

Hear Bob Dylan's Lost Gospel Masterpiece 'Making a Liar Out of Me' Rolling Stone

Hear 1,500+ Genres of Music, All Mapped Out on an Insanely Thorough Interactive Graph Open Culture

A billionaire’s quirky quest to create a mecca for Bob Dylan fans. In Tulsa, Oklahoma The Washington Post

***FILM

The History of Film Censorship The FIRE

***JOURNALISM

The State of Technology in Global Newsrooms ICFJ

The Journalism of Why: How we struggle to answer the hardest question Poynter

Donald Trump just issued a direct threat to the free and independent media (opinion) CNN

GOP lawmaker drafts bill requiring journalists to register with police The Hill

Tips for Data Journalism in the Shadow of an Overbroad Anti-Hacking Law ACLU

10 Journalism Tips That Never Go Out of Style (video) YouTube

Malta car bomb kills Panama Papers journalist The Guardian

Not a revolution (yet): Data journalism hasn’t changed that much in 4 years, a new paper finds Harvard’s Nieman Lab

***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM

Is Brand Journalism Just for Big Businesses? Business2Business

The New York Times posts social media guidelines online for their newsroom accounts Talking New Media

***FAKE NEWS

Twitter Bots Are Trying To Influence You. These Six Charts Show You How To Spot One BuzzFeed News

These two studies found that correcting misperceptions works. But it’s not magic Poynter

Facebook Says Its Fake News Label Helps Reduce The Spread Of A Fake Story By 80% BuzzFeed News

Researchers developing a platform to detect image manipulation Rochester Institute of Technology

***PERSONAL GROWTH

Living purely in opposition to something, rather than for something, hollows you out inside Becoming (my blog)

The flaws a Nobel Prize-winning economist wants you to know about yourself Quartz

***LANGUAGE

An argument over the evolution of language, with high stakes Economist

On Dictionary Day, a tribute to books that offer the last word on language Poynter

***LITERATURE

Mississippi School District pulls ‘To Kill A Mockingbird’ from its Curriculum over Language Sun-Herald

To Read This Experimental Edition of Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, You'll Need to Add Heat to the PagesOpen Culture

***GENDER

Why Photography Can’t Get Woke Bloomberg

Women still earn a lot less than men, despite decades of equal-pay laws. Why? Economist

ASNE's latest diversity survey shows some progress, but newsrooms are still mostly white and male Poynter

***FREE SPEECH

Students Divided on Free Speech Inside Higher Ed

Hecklers shout down California attorney general and Assembly majority leader at Whittier College Washington Post

Why Are Millennials Wary of Freedom? (opinion) New York Times

***LEGAL ISSUES

When is a Facebook ‘like’ a crime? Washington Post

Does the Internet Archive Need the Copyright Rhetoric to Be Useful? Illusion of More

Supreme Court Turns Away Challenge To Google's Trademark Media Post

Microsoft’s fight with the feds over foreign servers is headed to Supreme Court The Verge

Benching NFL players for protesting during the anthem would be illegal (opinion) Vox

Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act Turns 20 Media Law Monitor

***TECHNOLOGY

Tech has made life better, say 42% of Americans Pew Research Center

Social bots as a threat to democracy BoingBoing

***BIG DATA & STATISTICS

The 1st demonstration of the ability of quantum machines to outperform classical computers could be just months way Technology Review

Silicon Valley analytic experts on the sort of classes undergrads should take to prepare for data science careers Datanami

Intelligence leaders caution that AI cannot and should not replace the role of the human analyst Fed Tech Magazine

The hardware needs of AI and the hardware needs of traditional software development are diverging in a big way EE Journal

Machine learning demo with your webcam and GIFs Flowing Data

***SOCIAL MEDIA

Snapchat is getting closer and closer to being a truly useful app with Context Cards Quartz

What Facebook Did to American Democracy The Atlantic

The New York Times Issues Social Media Guidelines for the Newsroom New York Times

Nearly half of U.S. teens prefer Snapchat over other social media Recode

***PRODUCING MEDIA

What do you need to know before creating a podcast? Better News

Deepgram opens up its machine transcription platform to everyone Tech Crunch

***RELIGION

Africa's "reverse missionaries" are trying to bring Christianity back to the United Kingdom Quartz

Hell House: The evangelism strategy that aims to scare people into heaven Christianity Today

How a growing Christian movement is seeking to change America The Conversation

Just What Is the Museum of the Bible Trying to Do? Politico

Sneak peek: DC's huge new Museum of the Bible includes lots of tech — but not a lot of Jesus Washington Post

Female church executive named lead pastor of Willow Creek Chicago Tribune

A growing share of Americans say it’s not necessary to believe in God to be moral Pew Research

Church denies First Communion to fashion-loving girl because she wanted to wear a suit Washington Post

***RELIGION AND POLITICS

Why evangelicals love Trump Politico

Trump, unlikely religious favorite, hails Christian values Washington Post

Donald Trump and the Dawn of the Evangelical-Nationalist Alliance Politico

***SOCIOLOGY

Supreme Court Chief Justice Roberts calls data on partisan gerrymandering “sociological gobbledygook” Inside Higher Ed

First Evidence That Online Dating Is Changing the Nature of Society MIT Technology Review

***HEALTH

This Company Is Trying To Disrupt The Braces Industry And Dentists Are Fighting Back BuzzFeed

***SCIENCE

NASA's visitor center offers a video game filled with bad facts and grammar errors The Verge

***PSYCHOLOGY

Confirmation bias: Why you make terrible life choices Medium

Find Out Which Cognitive Biases Alter Your Perspective Life Hacker

***PRODUCTIVITY

Lessons on Productivity Chronicle of Higher Ed

***HISTORY

I have a message for you (12 minute documentary) New York Times

The Secret Lives of Leonardo da Vinci The New Yorker

***RESEARCH

ResearchGate has reportedly started to take down large numbers of research papers Inside Higher Ed

Automated software saves researchers valuable hours: Online tools are lightening the load for authors and journal editors Nature Index

China’s festering problem of systemic research fraud New York Times

Transparent peer review Nature Index

A study examines 70 years of engineering retractions, finding the main reason for retraction was unethical conduct Taylor & Francis Online

New web services are helping authors make data-driven decisions when choosing which journal to submit to The London School of Economics & Political Science

It is time to restore Rules for Authorship of scientific publications Wiley Online Library

The Facebooking of Scholarly Research Scholarly Kitchen

***HIGHER ED

Florida governor declares state of emergency in advance of Richard Spencer event: The white nationalist leader plans to speak at the University of Florida on Thursday Miami Herald

***TEACHING

They Once Cheated in Class. Now They Teach Chronicle of Higher Ed

A new study shows that students learn way more effectively from print textbooks than screens Business Insider

***STUDENT LIFE

Student art exhibit at Penn prompts fierce debate over suicide Inside Higher Ed

Why Are More American Teenagers Than Ever Suffering From Severe Anxiety? New York Times

Research says college students no more narcissistic than previous generations at that age Inside Higher Ed

University student charters planes to bring supplies to Puerto Rico WTAE

America’s top universities deny students fair hearings The FIRE

***STUDENT MEDIA

How to cover free speech issues on university campuses Student Press Law Center

***JOBS

You Probably Need a Public Portfolio Even If You're Not a Freelancer or a "Creative" Life Hacker

October 16, 2017

Living in Opposition

October 16, 2017/ Stephen Goforth

I've never been around an activist group that didn't turn into an endless series of petty purity tests. I was raised in a church where everyone was looking for more and more inconsequential things to judge each other by.. The natural evolution is toward tighter and tighter criteria for what behavior gets you shunned from the group. The end result is that the central cause can be as pure as the driven snow, and yet the tone will get more and more toxic over time, the members becoming less and less charitable with each other.

You hear experts talk about how extremists get "radicalized." But it really isn't a mystery, and we all form less-murderous versions of this. All it takes is a closed like-minded social circle in which it's considered unacceptable to disagree with the group, and then devote that group to hating something. It doesn't even matter if the thing truly deserves hating -- it still turns toxic. In fact, it works better if it does. "How can you criticize any flaw in our group's behavior when the other side is Nazis! That's literally saying that both sides are the same! The mere existence of pure evil on the other side mathematically means our side is pure good!"

At that point, no criticism is possible and there is nothing to moderate the rage. The rhetoric ratchets higher and higher as each member tries to top each other (to prove their own righteousness by demonstrating they hate the target most), and there is no method for reining it in. Anyone from the inside who takes a moderate tone can be shouted down with accusations of being an enemy sympathizer.

Living purely in opposition to something, rather than for something, hollows you out inside. To be a whole human being, you have to spend your life building something good.

David Wong writing for Cracked

Becoming

ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire

Articles of Interest - week of Dec 11

if then

being good

And how are you mad?

Articles of Interest - Dec 4

Articles of Interest - Nov 27

articles of interest - Nov 20

I Used to Be a Human Being

articles of interest - Nov 13

happiness depends

Desensitized to Lying

articles of interest - Nov 6

Matching your tasks to your Energy

articles of interest - week of Oct 30

Play and creativity

articles of interest - week of Oct 23

Openness to new Experiences Linked with Creativity

what direction

articles of interest - Oct 16

Living in Opposition

Goforth Solutions, LLC