No rules
/There are no rules of architecture for a castle in the clouds. -G K Chesterton
ideas that challenge / comfort / inspire
A step into authenticity
/Transition may not be simply a step toward an outlook that is more appropriate to the life-phase that we are actually in. It can also be a step toward our own more authentic presence in the world. That would mean that we come out of a transition knowing ourselves better and being more willing to express who we really are, whenever we choose to do so. It would also mean that we are more often willing to trust that who-we-really-are is all right—is valid and a person capable of dealing with the world.
William Bridges, The Way of Transition
Articles of interest about journalism, social media, fakes & more - Jan 7
/***THE VIRUS
Covid-19 immunity likely lasts for years
U.S. Is Blind to Contagious New Virus Variant, Scientists Warn ($)
New Study Shows What Causes Brain Damage In COVID-19 Patients
***JOURNALISM
Why it’s so difficult for journalists to get inside hospitals to document COVID-19 cases
How Newspapers Reacted To The Insurrectionist Takeover Of The US Capitol
The role of Mark Schlefer in the development of the Freedom of Information Act ($)
Examining How The Trump Years Helped To Shape The Media
***THE BUSINESS OF JOURNALISM
Study: Newsrooms Lost Over 16,000 Jobs In 2020
How Britain’s first black female TV reporter was forced out
Gazette announces layoffs, buyouts amid pandemic
The Courier Journal will be printed remotely with the closing of its downtown presses
Newspapers And TV Stations Got Special Access To PPP Loans. Digital Media Didn’t
***FAKES & FRAUDS
QAnon Conspiracy Theories And Misinformation: 'Bonkers' What Americans Believe
On Facebook and Twitter, people are posting a lot about misinformation
Channel 4 under fire for deepfake Queen's Christmas message
***CONSPIRACIES & THE VACCINE
Misinformation Spread By Anti-Science Groups Endangers COVID-19 Vaccination Efforts
***CONSPIRACIES & THE ELECTION
No, antifa did not invade the Capitol
False Claims Fuel Trump's Election Result Disinformation Campaign
How Election Fraud Claims May Disenfranchise Black Voters
***SOCIAL MEDIA & APPS
Facebook Pages Redesign Eliminates 'Like' Button To Focus On Followers
Twitter and Facebook Lock Trump’s Accounts After Violence on Capitol Hill
Politicians Turn To TikTok To Appeal To Younger Voters
Best apps to download now for your new iPhone or iPad
***PRIVACY & SECURITY
App privacy labels show stark contrasts among messaging apps
SolarWinds hack may have been much wider than first thought
Flash is finally dead. Here's how to remove it from your computer
Security camera installation: 8 tips from the pros
The coming war over location data
***LITERATURE
With 'The Great Gatsby' In Public Domain, Artists Riff On Classic Story
In 'Great Gatsby' Prequel, Narrator 'Nick' Finally Gets His Own Backstory
'The Great Gatsby' Enters Public Domain
The Post-Trump Future of Literature (opinion) ($)
***POETRY
Poetry Escapes The Beauty Bind In 'Wound From The Mouth Of A Wound'
The New Yorker’s Year in Poetry
How Poets Use Punctuation as a Superpower and a Secret Weapon
The great thing
/The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day. –CS Lewis
These people are your real friends
/As we grow up, we realize it becomes less important to have more friends and more important to have real ones. Remember, life is kind of like a party. You invite a lot of people, some leave early, some stay all night, some laugh with you, some laugh at you, and some show up really late. But in the end, after the fun, there are a few who stay to help you clean up the mess. And most of the time, they aren’t even the ones who made the mess. These people are your real friends in life. They are the ones who matter most.
Marc & Angel Chernoff, 20 Things to start doing in your relationships
Articles of interest about religion (& the virus) - Dec 5
/***THE VIRUS
This COVID-19 vaccine distribution tracker lets you see where the doses are going
California funeral homes run out of space as COVID-19 rages
New Research Shows How Covid-19 Can Trigger Brain Damage
Coughing, sneezing, vomiting: Visibly ill people aren’t being kept off planes
A psychologist's guide to changing the minds of anti-maskers
Doctors discovered a new way to tell which coronavirus patients will get worse
You’re Infected With the Coronavirus. But How Infected?
***RELIGION & THE VIRUS
Greek Church tells priests to ignore pandemic closure order
Evangelical Singer's Plans For Skid Row Concert Backfires
Joni Eareckson Tada Asks for Prayer After Contracting COVID-19
What It Looks Like To Be A Hospital Chaplain In A Pandemic
Religious nonprofits scramble to get donations to match the surge in need ($)
New Mexico megachurches fined $10K for violating coronavirus restrictions
How The Pandemic Has Affected The Ways People Worship
***RELIGION AND POLITICS
Congressman concludes congressional prayer with 'amen and awoman'
Pelosi appoints first woman as House chaplain
Are Ads Against Ga. Senate Candidate Also An Attack On Black Churches?
***RELIGION & THE LAW
Mass. top court grapples with 'ministerial exception' to anti-bias laws
Mormon church sued over role in Scouts abuse scandal
Pa. transit system to pay atheist group $275,000 in legal fees after refusing its ads
***MEGACHURCHES
California Megachurch Hosts Large Crowd For New Year’s Eve Wedding
More Hillsong pastors resign amid megachurch’s ongoing scandal
Tennessee megachurch holds packed, maskless services
***RELIGION & RACIAL ISSUES
After permit approved for whites-only church, small Minnesota town insists it isn't racist
D.C. Church Sues Proud Boys For Tearing Up Black Lives Matter Sign
***CHRISTIAN CELEBRITIES
Justin Bieber Says He's No Longer Part of Hillsong Church Amid Scandal
Ignoring warnings, Kirk Cameron hosts 2nd caroling event as COVID-19 cases surge in Ventura County
***PARACHURCH MINISTRIES
Ministry roiled by late founder’s sexual misconduct scandal
Christian-based organization to move national headquarters out of Colorado Springs after 3 decades
Religious nonprofits scramble to get enough donations to match the surge in community needs ($)
***RELIGION OUTSIDE THE U.S.
The Men Who Lost Their Wives to ‘Eastern Lightning’ Also known as “Church of Almighty God”
Self-renewal and Failure
/The self-renewing man is versatile and adaptive. He is not trapped in techniques, procedures, or routines of the moment. He is not the victim of fixed habits and attitudes. He is not imprisoned by extreme specialization.
For the self-renewing man, the development of his own potentialities and the process of self-discovery never end. It is a sad but unarguable fact that most human beings go through life only partially aware of the full range of their abilities. By middle-age, most of us are accomplished fugitives from ourselves. How long is it since you have failed at anything? If it is long, you are in poor shape. If you are sufficiently adventurous, sufficiently willing to try new things, you will stumble fairly often.
John Gardner, published in the Saturday Review XLVI, Jan. 5, 1963
Why are conspiracy theories popular?
/People who feel powerless or vulnerable are more likely to endorse and spread conspiracy theories. This is seen in online forums where people’s perceived level of threat is strongly linked to proposing conspiracy theories. Conspiracy theories allow people to cope with threatening events by focusing blame on a set of conspirators. People find it difficult to accept that “big” events (e.g., the death of Princess Diana) can have an ordinary cause (driving while intoxicated). A conspiracy theory satisfies the need for a “big” event to have a big cause, such as a conspiracy involving MI5 to assassinate Princess Diana. For the same reason, people tend to propose conspiratorial explanations for events that are highly unlikely. Conspiracy theories act as a coping mechanism to help people handle uncertainty.
Stephan Lewandowsky & John Cook, The Conspiracy Theory Handbook
those who wander
/Not all those who wander are lost. -JRR Tolkien (born Jan 3, 1892)
Thinking & Acting
/Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought. -Henri Bergson
When things go wrong and break your heart
/Things don't go wrong and break your heart so you can become bitter and give up. They happen to break you down and build you up so you can be all that you were intended to be. –Charles T. Jones
Data Science articles - Dec 2020
/10 data analytics trends to follow in 2021—starting with augmented predictive analytics
China launches remote sensing satellite in final scheduled orbital launch attempt of the year
Overlooked aspects of text preprocessing for natural language processing and machine learning
The entanglement of Artificial intelligence with quantum mechanics
Does Programming Depend More on Math or Language Skills?
Let’s talk about meta-Learning as a part of machine learning
A brief history of machine learning
Predictive Analytics May Not Be So Predictive: today’s risks pose a new set of challenges for decision-makers
Which machine learning algorithm should I use?
Amazon Web Services launches new tool to detect bias and blind spots in machine learning
Essential math for data science: probability density & mass functions
MIT: How leaner subnetworks within neural networks can complete the same task more efficiently
In the journal Nature: a team of physicists report the most precise measurement yet of the fine-structure constant that shapes the universe
Google computer scientists: machine learning algorithms are prone to a previously unknown problem
MIT says its machine learning models show the COVID-19 vaccines may not do as well covering people of Black or Asian genetic ancestry bec of a lack of genetic diversity in clinical trials
If you're developing machine-learning models right now, then you really have no way to do some kind of red teaming models
The magic formula for flourishing
/In 1938, a group of researchers began an intensive study of 268 students at Harvard University. The plan was to track them through their entire lives, measuring, testing and interviewing them every few years to see how lives develop.
As this study — the Grant Study — progressed, the power of relationships became clear. Body type was useless as a predictor of how the men would fare in life. So was birth order or political affiliation. Even social class had a limited effect. But having a warm childhood was powerful. As George Vaillant, the study director, sums it up in “Triumphs of Experience,” his most recent summary of the research, “It was the capacity for intimate relationships that predicted flourishing in all aspects of these men’s lives.”
It’s not that the men who flourished had perfect childhoods. Rather, as Vaillant puts it, “What goes right is more important than what goes wrong.” The positive effect of one loving relative, mentor or friend can overwhelm the negative effects of the bad things that happen.
In case after case, the magic formula is capacity for intimacy combined with persistence, discipline, order and dependability.
But a childhood does not totally determine a life. The big finding is that you can teach an old dog new tricks. The men kept changing all the way through, even in their 80s and 90s.
The men of the Grant Study frequently became more emotionally attuned as they aged, more adept at recognizing and expressing emotion.
David Brooks writing in the New York Times
How to shape the future
/The future is shaped by men and women with a steady, even zestful, confidence that on balance their efforts will not have been in vain. They take failure and defeat not as reason to doubt themselves but as reason to strengthen resolve. Some combination of hope, vitality and indomitability makes them willing to bet their lives on ventures of unknown outcomes.
John Gardner, Self-Renewal
Birth & Pain
/Seldom or never does a marriage develop into an individual relationship smoothly without crisis. There is no birth of consciousness without pain. -Carl Jung
Drinking bacon grease for breakfast
/If you seek advice from a very old person about how to become very old, the only person who can provide you an answer is a person who is not dead. The people who made the poor health choices you should avoid are now resting in the earth and can’t tell you about those bad choices anymore. That’s why it’s difficult not to furrow your brow and wonder why you keep paying for a gym membership when Willard Scott showcases the birthday of a 110-year-old woman who claims the source of her longevity is a daily regimen of cigarillos, cheese sticks, and Wild Turkey cut with maple syrup and Robitussin. You miss that people like her represent a very small number of the living. They are on the thin end of a bell curve. There is a much larger pool of people who basically drank bacon grease for breakfast and didn’t live long enough to appear on television. Most people can’t chug bourbon and gravy for a lifetime and expect to become an octogenarian, but the unusually lucky handful who can tend to stand out precisely because they are alive and talking.
David McRaney, You are not so Smart
Articles of interest about higher ed (& the virus) - Dec 28
/***VACCINES
CDC issues new guidance about vaccinations for people with underlying health conditions
What happens if you miss your second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine? (podcast)
How will you be told when it's your turn for a COVID-19 vaccine? It's complicated
There’s one major problem with coronavirus vaccines
Can Employers Require Workers To Get A COVID-19 Vaccine?
***THE VIRUS
Fauci shares Biden's concern that 'darkest days' may be ahead in Covid-19 fight
Disinfecting Surfaces And Parcels To Fend Off The Coronavirus May Be Overkill
***HIGHER ED & THE VIRUS
How the Pandemic Is Imperiling a Working-Class College ($)
Fauci: Vaccines Should Allow CA Colleges to Teach in-Person Next Fall
Massachusetts grad student, parent suing over flu vaccine requirement
***HIGHER ED & POLITICS
Biden’s Education Department will move fast to reverse DeVos policies
Changes in the Federal Student-Aid System
Congressional Deal Would Give Higher Ed $23B
***SEMESTERS TO COME
Fauci: Vaccines Should Allow CA Colleges To Teach In-Person Next Fall
Roanoke College delays spring semester after cyberattack
***HIGHER ED
California university signs historic pact with Mexico’s government
***LAYOFFS & FURLOUGHS
University of Hawaii faculty union sues to stop furloughs
Illinois Supreme Court: Community Colleges Cannot Replace Laid Off Tenured Faculty with Adjuncts
***HIGHER ED IN COURT
Judge temporarily stops University of Iowa from cutting Women’s Swimming and Diving
Pitt cardiologist sues school after backlash to his article on affirmative action
***CHEATING
Naval Academy exams being reviewed for 'inconsistencies'
Backlash Over Leniency at West Point After 73 Cadets Are Accused of Cheating ($)
West Point accuses more than 70 cadets of cheating in worst academic scandal in nearly 45 years
NYC is Paying $2 Million For Anti-Plagiarism Software After Firing Teachers
How teachers are sacrificing student privacy to stop cheating
California Bar Exam Flagged A THIRD Of Applicants As Cheating
***ACADEMIC LIFE
University of Evansville faculty vote no confidence in realignment plan
Appeal Filed In Harvard Circumcision Case
Washington State researcher resigns after his colleagues caught him fabricating data
***ADMINISTRATORS
Methodist University president resigns, effective immediately
University of North Carolina at Greensboro provost fired after just six months
Austin Peay State University President
Chapman University president self-isolating at home after testing positive for coronavirus
***CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS
The Priesthood of All Professors? Court to Consider ‘Ministerial Exception’ for Gordon College
Chicago area Lutheran college lays off 51, closes 15 programs
Catholic College Expels Faculty Union, Citing NLRB Decision
***LIBERTY U
Liberty Students 'Embarrassed' by Falkirk Center, Says Student Body President, Vice President
***RESEARCH
Survey: 51% reported being were aware of colleagues’ scientific misconduct
How a grad student discovered an error that might affect hundreds of papers
How accurate are citations of frequently cited papers in biomedical literature?
Are authors who post data entitled to co-authorship of any future papers that use those data?
Do You Have a Conflict of Interest? This Robotic Assistant May Find It First
Meta-Research: Journal policies and editors’ opinions on peer review
Retractions are on the rise in medical research
***STUDENT LIFE
What Congress Could Do to Keep More College Students Enrolled
More info is available about which college majors pay off, but students aren’t using it ($)
In Rural America, Fears About The Future Abound As Fewer Students Go To College
At 3 Top Universities, Black Student Body Presidents Make History
Alabama College Student Arrested in Fatal Campus Shooting
UT Austin graduate students face issues getting personal protective equipment from university
College students recruited as teachers to keep schools open
***STUDENT MEDIA
Journalism students report on COVID's impact while living it
Penn State student newspaper refuses to negotiate predatory contract with staff (opinion)
***SEXUAL HARASSMENT & ASSAULT
Security lapses at Eckerd College led to campus rape, lawsuit says
U of South Carolina professor facing sexual harassment lawsuit no longer teaching
28-year-old man arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting student on Orange Coast College campus
***RACIAL ISSUES ON CAMPUS
How one very old Census record spurred a reckoning at Johns Hopkins University ($)
Seven Women of color denied promotion accuse San Jose State University president of discrimination
***FREE SPEECH ON CAMPUS
UT agrees to dismantle Campus Climate Response Team
A Cheerleader’s Vulgar Message Prompts a First Amendment Showdown ($)
When life buries you
/There were two groups... those who didn't die and those who came back to life. - Ester Perel