Nothing is easier
/Nothing is easier than self-deceit. For what each man wishes, that he also believes to be true. -Demosthenes
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
Self-handicapping
/The fear of being unmasked as the incompetent you “really” are is so common that it actually has a clinical name: impostor syndrome. A shocking number of successful people (particularly women), believe that they haven’t really earned their spots, and are at risk of being unmasked as frauds at any moment. Many people deliberately seek out easy tests where they can shine, rather than tackling harder material that isn’t as comfortable.
If they’re forced into a challenge they don’t feel prepared for, they may even engage in what psychologists call “self-handicapping”: deliberately doing things that will hamper their performance in order to give themselves an excuse for not doing well. Self-handicapping can be fairly spectacular: in one study, men deliberately chose performance-inhibiting drugs when facing a task they didn’t expect to do well on. “Instead of studying,” writes the psychologist Edward Hirt, “a student goes to a movie the night before an exam. If he performs poorly, he can attribute his failure to a lack of studying rather than to a lack of ability or intelligence. On the other hand, if he does well on the exam, he may conclude that he has exceptional ability, because he was able to perform well without studying.”
Megan Mcardle writing in the Atlantic
Articles of Interest about religion - Sept 20
/***THE VIRUS
How Can I Tell Whether I Have Flu or COVID-19?
Russia vaccine data called into question as experts worry about global distribution
Survey finds 61% of Americans aren’t comfortable returning to the workplace
***RELIGION & THE VIRUS
Thousands gather for Christian music concert at California Capitol, breaking COVID-19 rules
***RELIGION
Girls tell of terror, abuse at Missouri Christian boarding school under investigation
I Was a Pastor’s Wife. Suicide Made Me a Pastor’s Widow
How a mysterious man fooled a Harvard scholar into believing the 'Gospel of Jesus' Wife' was real
Max Lucado: After I was molested as a child, Jesus met me in my storm
***RELIGION BY THE NUMBERS
10 key findings about the religious lives of U.S. teens and their parents
LifeWay Research “State of Theology” poll
***RELIGION AND POLITICS
The surprise religious group that could decide Trump's fate
Evangelical pastor urges Christians to "mobilize" to fight civil war against left-wing activists
Faith and politics mix to drive evangelical Christians' climate change denial
***RELIGION & THE LAW
Ruth Bader Ginsburg who died Friday was shaped by her minority faith
***RELIGION & RACIAL ISSUES
Black Pastor Wants His Mostly White Congregation To Understand Racial Justice
Televangelist Pat Robertson says Black Lives Matter is trying to destroy Christianity
***CATHOLIC
Judge Amy Barrett's charismatic Catholicism — Who are the People of Praise?
Mark Galli, former Christianity Today editor and Trump critic, to be confirmed a Catholic
***CHANGING NAMES
Prominent Southern Baptists are dropping 'Southern' name amid racial unrest
Evangelicals for Social Action Leaves Behind ‘Evangelical’ Label
***MOVIES
Infidel review: Jim Caviezel again in faith-centric thriller
I just hate them
/“I just hate them,” says one woman when asked why she refused to put one on. “I think I hate them because you have to wear them, and I think it’s more of a ‘you’ve got to wear it’, so I don’t want it.”
“I think, whether you’re male or female, it’s a dominance thing,” replies the man next to her. “I’m in charge, you don’t tell me what to do.”
The interviewees were British drivers who admitted to not wearing their seat belts while in cars in 2008, despite it being a legal requirement in the UK to wear one in the front seat of a vehicle since 1983 and in the back seat since 1991.
William Park writing in BBC Future
The things that you care about
/Fight for the things that you care about. But do it in a way that will lead others to join you. -Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Slow to Anger
/Learning to be slow to anger gives us the time and freedom of mind to decide how we should solve our problems or how we should express our anger. Being slow to anger allows us to respond to conviction, to confess our sins of anger, and to rise above hate to forgive those who have offended us.
Mark Cosgrove, Counseling for Anger
Stretching
/My own happiest times have not been when all was secure but rather when I was stretching to learn to fulfill a task which called for more than I have to give – and I was trying to give it.
Virtual Leaders are Doers
/New data shows that the confidence, intelligence and extroversion that have long propelled ambitious workers into the executive suite are not enough online, because they simply don’t translate into virtual leadership. Instead, workers who are organised, dependable and productive take the reins of virtual teams. Finally, doers lead the pack – at least remotely.
The study shows that, instead of those with the most dynamic voices in the room, virtual teams informally anoint leaders who actually do the work of getting projects done. “They are the individuals who help other team members with tasks, and keep the team on schedule and focused on goals,” says lead author Radostina Purvanova,
As expected, the face-to-face teams chose leaders with the same confident, magnetic, smart-seeming extroverted traits that we often see in organisational leaders. “The people who portray themselves as organised, dependable and reliable look to us like effective leaders,” says Purvanova. But those chosen as remote leaders were doers, who tended towards planning, connecting teammates with help and resources, keeping an eye on upcoming tasks and, most importantly, getting things done. These leaders were goal-focused, productive, dependable and helpful.
In other words, virtually, the emphasis shifts from saying to doing.
Arianne Cohen writing for BBC WorkLife
My optimism
/My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud. – Henry Rollins
Articles of interest about higher ed - Sept 14
/***THE VIRUS
14% of U.S. adults say they have tested positive for COVID-19 or are ‘pretty sure’ they have had it
Medical records suggest coronavirus was loose in L.A. before China even announced its outbreak
***HIGHER ED & THE VIRUS
Texas Tech addressing video of young woman at party saying she has COVID-19
'Astonishingly risky': COVID-19 cases at colleges are fueling the nation's hottest outbreaks
OU Installs PPE Vending Machines On Campus
***CLOSING COLLEGES
Experts Say Colleges Should Rethink Punishing Students For Partying
Despite Warnings, No Clear Advice on Closing Dorms
***OUTBREAKS AT SPECIFIC SCHOOLS
All Michigan State students asked to quarantine due to 'exponential growth' of COVID-19
Ole Miss sees an influx of COVID-19 cases since students returned
A University Had a Great Coronavirus Plan, but Students Partied On
WVU suspends in-person classes amid rising COVID-19 cases
Coronavirus cluster linked to a University of New Hampshire frat party, state says
Dartmouth quarantines 23 Tuck students after party in dorm
Coronavirus Spread At University Of Illinois Leads To Student Lockdown
At Georgia College and State University, one in 10 on-campus students has had COVID-19
***K-12
Volusia school district tries to stop teachers from talking with the media
The extremely weird story of a remote-learning company that’s making parents livid
Virginia's Largest School System Hit With Ransomware
Meet the students thriving in remote learning
***UNIVERSITY RANKINGS
University rankings don’t measure what matters
Here's what changed in this year's U.S. News college rankings
***HIGHER ED
UC Berkeley Fined $2.35M for Clery Violations
Martin Methodist may join the University of Tennessee system
Inside a private university's decision to create a 2-year college
***HIGHER ED AFTER 2020
How forcing colleges to go online could change higher education for the better
Cal State to Stay Virtual in Spring 2021
As colleges opt for hybrid and online-only classes, parents and students look for a cheaper Plan B
Ohio State cancels spring break, makes other changes amid COVID-19
***HUMANITIES
Liberal Arts Colleges Need an Overhaul or They Won’t Survive
Student debt and the end of the liberal arts dream
COVID crisis shows value of a liberal arts degree
***ONLINE CLASSES
Zoom Is Making a Major Change to Protect Security. What You Should know
The surprising traits of good remote leaders: good doers instead of good talkers
Report: Most educators aren't equipped for student-centered learning
***ONLINE CHEATING
Cheating during online class: Is it more common during virtual learning
***ACADEMIC LIFE
University puts white professor on paid leave for using n-word in class
Professor, can you take us through your theory in layman’s terms? … No.
***ADMINISTRATORS
College President Dies After COVID Battle
***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
Christian Colleges Are in Crisis. Here’s What That Means for the Church
Catholic college removed a statue of founder from campus following revelations of slave ownership
Education Department Finalizes Religious Freedom Rule
Houghton College ranks No. 1 in NYS for social mobility, No. 10 in nation no-10-in-nation
At Liberty University, an Evangelical spin on Black Lives Matter
***RESEARCH
Can we estimate a monetary value of scientific publications?
COVID-19 arrived on a meteorite, claims Elsevier book chapter
***PREDATORY JOURNALS
How reliable and useful is Cabell's Blacklist
Dozens of scientific journals have vanished from the internet, and no one preserved them
***STUDENT LIFE
Facebook returns to its roots with Campus, a college student-only social network
College students struggle with uncertain job market after graduation
Recent Articles about Data Science
/Automation will ultimately increase demand for data scientists instead of decreasing it
True purpose of neural networks begins to emerge: DeepFake Smashed Mouths Smashup
The Guardian publishes its first-ever op-ed written entirely by artificial intelligence
Why machine learning remains a niche while and automation dominates business use of technology
How artificial intelligence and robotics are changing chemical research
Blockchain, the amazing solution for almost nothing
Trending data science 2020 topics/tools
Analyzing the logical components of a time series using R
an R package for fitting Bayesian epidemiological models using Stan code
5 free resources for data scientists
Quantum-proof encryption leaps forward
Is natural language processing is chasing the wrong goal
Even job openings for data scientists are in deep decline
An animated video of the top 10 data science tools over the past two decades
Being a selfish jerk doesn’t get you ahead
/“I was surprised by the consistency of the findings. No matter the individual or the context, disagreeableness did not give people an advantage in the competition for power — even in more cutthroat, ‘dog-eat-dog’ organizational cultures,” said Berkeley professor Cameron Anderson.
The researchers found those who scored high on disagreeable traits were not more likely to have attained power than those who were generous, trustworthy and generally nice.
That’s not to say that jerks don’t reach positions of power. It’s just that they don’t get ahead faster than others, and being a jerk simply doesn’t help, Anderson said. That’s because any power boost they get from being intimidating is offset by their poor interpersonal relationships.
Read more in Berkeley News
Miracles
/Miracles are a retelling in small letters of the very same story which is written across the whole world in letters too large for some of us to see. -CS Lewis
Building walls
/Never build a wall until you know what you're walling in and what you're walling out.
False Causality
/We are always in search of patterns. The tendency means that sometimes we even find patterns where none really even exist. Our brains are so trained in this way that we will even make sense of chaos to the extent that we can.
Because our training wires us to seek out patterns, it’s crucial to remember the simple maxim that correlation does not imply causation. Just because two variables move in tandem doesn’t necessarily mean that one causes the other.
This principle has been hilariously demonstrated by numerous examples. For instance, by looking at fire department data, you notice that, as more firemen are dispatched to a fire, the more damage is ultimately done to a property. Thus, you might infer that more firemen are causing more damage. In another famous example, an academic who was investigating the cause of crime in New York City in the 1980s found a strong correlation between the number of serious crimes committed and the amount of ice cream sold by street vendors. But should we conclude that eating ice cream drives people to crime? Since this makes little sense, we should obviously suspect that there was an unobserved variable causing both. During the summer, crime rates are the highest, and this is also when most ice cream is sold. Ice cream sales don’t cause crime, nor does crime increase ice cream sales. In both of these instances, looking at the data too superficially leads to incorrect assumptions.
Rahul Agarwal writing in Built in
Articles of interest about journalism, writing, fakes, & social media - Sept 10
/***JOURNALISM
A crushing moment for journalists facing record attacks, arrests at the hands of law enforcement
The Atlantic gained 20,000 subscribers after Trump dismissed it as a 'dying' magazine
Journalists perceive stories published in local news outlets to be less newsworthy
The Guardian publishes its first-ever op-ed written entirely by artificial intelligence
***WRITING & READING
This American was tricked into writing Russian propaganda
Toronto priest plagiarized when ghostwriting for Canada's most senior Vatican figure: new book
Serious Supply Issues Disrupt the Book Industry’s Fall Season
Who Will Become the Next Ultimate Typing Champion?
Plagiarism is not a victimless offence ($)
***GRAMMAR
Before Texting Your Kid, Make Sure To Double Check Your Punctuation
***STUDENT MEDIA
College newsrooms challenge an industry’s status quo
***FAKES & THE VIRUS
COVID-19 arrived on a meteorite, claims Elsevier book chapter
A film editors descent into corona virus conspiracy theories ($)
***FAKES & FRAUDS
Anti-vax fraud: Brian Deer on how he exposed Andrew Wakefield ($)
Hoaxes Are Making Doctors' Jobs Harder
***DEEPFAKES
DeepFake Smashed Mouths Smashup
Microsoft launches Deepfake detector tool
***QANON
QAnon, other dark forces are radicalizing Americans ahead of election
Decoding QAnon: From Pizzagate to Kanye to Marina Abramovic, this conspiracy covers everything
Here’s Why BuzzFeed News Is Calling QAnon A “Collective Delusion” From Now On
How QAnon Conspiracy Is Spreading In Christian Communities Across The U.S.
***SOCIAL MEDIA
Hate Social Media? You’ll Love This Documentary
TikTok's future is still in limbo, with a week left on the clock
Ranked: The Most Popular Websites on the Web Since 1993
Study: How The Power Of Facebook And Google Affects Local Communities
Court Decision Limits School Officials' Ability to Punish Student Use of Social Media
Snapchat pushing poll worker signups
Visualizing the Social Media Universe in 2020
***PRIVACY & SECURITY
Appeals court finds NSA's mass metadata collection was unlawful
How an Apple Search Engine Could Protect Your Privacy
Amazon Is Spying on Its Workers in Closed Facebook Groups, Internal Reports Show
Tech's deepening split over ads and privacy
How the next iPhone update will expose how companies try to track you
***LANGUAGE
The fragile state of ‘contact languages’
The Linguistic Evolution of Taylor Swift
How Will Language Change if Humans Travel the Stars?
***LITERATURE
On Repetition As a Powerful Literary Tool
***POETRY
'They wanted to drown me at birth - now I'm a poet'