Chris Aldrich | Chris Aldrich

🎧 Fearless | Invisibilia (NPR)

Listened to Fearless from Invisibilia | NPR.org

In "Fearless," co-hosts Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller explore what would happen if you could disappear fear. A group of scientists believe that people no longer need fear — at least not the kind we live with — to navigate the modern world. We'll hear about the striking (and rare) case of a woman with no fear. The second half of the show explores how the rest of us might "turn off" fear.

Our evolution certainly hasn’t been keeping up with our level of fear in the modern world. Even simple things like kids playing around their own neighborhood like I did as a kid in the 70’s and 80’s has changed drastically. How can we keep ourselves from being held back unnecessarily?

In Discarded Women’s March Signs, Professors Saw a Chance to Save History | The Chronicle of Higher Education

Read In Discarded Women’s March Signs, Professors Saw a Chance to Save History by Fernanda Zamudio-Suaréz (The Chronicle of Higher Education)

Posters from the rally in Boston will be cataloged and archived.
Dwayne Desaulniers, AP Images
Signs line the fence surrounding Boston Common after the Boston Women's March for America on Saturday. Some of those signs could end up in an archive at Northeastern U.

The signs were pink, blue, black, white. Some were hoisted with wooden sticks, and others were held in protesters’ hands. A few sparkled with glitter, and some had original designs, created on computers with the help of a few internet memes.

Still, at the Boston Women’s March for America on Saturday, hundreds of the signs criticizing President Trump’s campaign promises and administrative agenda ended up wrapped around the fence near Boston Common, laid down like a carpet covering the sidewalk.

Getting Started on Academic Twitter v2.0 | ProfHacker – Blogs, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Read Getting Started on Academic Twitter v2.0 (ProfHacker - Blogs - The Chronicle of Higher Education)

At this year’s MLA Convention, I was invited to give a workshop on getting started on social media, namely, Twitter. It was an interesting full-circle moment for me, as is writing this piece; my first ProfHacker appearance was because of my virtual participation at MLA11.

Weird Flickr URL Trick

Read Weird Flickr URL Trick by Alan Levine (CogDogBlog)

I present to you a URL oddity of no significant value. Impress and amaze your friends.

And it happened pretty much because of a typo.

Ok, here is a URL for one of my recent photos (I kind of like it) (shameless self promotion):

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/32331643261/

It’s a normal, current flickr page:

Now… add an extraneous extra slash at the end of the same URL:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/32331643261//

Woah, it’s the previous flickr design layout!

Note: Logic might assume I could keep slashing back in time to the original white small square design, but alas no.

What use is this? Dunno.

But it is curious. And quirky.

That’s my kind of internet.

Jordan Ellenberg don’t know stat | Rick’s Ramblings

Read Jordan Ellenberg don’t know stat by Rick Durrett, Ph.D. (Rick's Ramblings sites.duke.edu)

There follows a discussion of flipping coins and the fact that frequencies have more random variation when the sample size is small, but he never stops to see if this is enough to explain the observation.

My intuition told me it did not, so I went and got some brain cancer data.

Jordan Ellenberg is called out a bit by Rick Durrett for one of his claims in the best seller How Not To Be Wrong: The Power of Mathematical Thinking.

I remember reading that section of the book and mostly breezing through that argument primarily as a simple example with a limited, but direct point. Durrett decided to delve into the applied math a bit further.

These are some of the subtle issues one eventually comes across when experts read others’ works which were primarily written for much broader audiences.

I also can’t help thinking that one paints a target on one’s back with a book title like that…

BTW, the quote of the day has to be:

… so I went and got some brain cancer data.

Resilient Web Design

Bookmarked Resilient Web Design by Jeremy Keith (resilientwebdesign.com)

The World Wide Web has been around for long enough now that we can begin to evaluate the twists and turns of its evolution. I wrote this book to highlight some of the approaches to web design that have proven to be resilient. I didn’t do this purely out of historical interest (although I am fascinated by the already rich history of our young industry). In learning from the past, I believe we can better prepare for the future.

You won’t find any code in here to help you build better websites. But you will find ideas and approaches. Ideas are more resilient than code. I’ve tried to combine the most resilient ideas from the history of web design into an approach for building the websites of the future.

I hope you will join me in building a web that lasts; a web that’s resilient.

🎧 The Secret History of Thoughts | Invisibilia (NPR)

Listened to The Secret History of Thoughts from Invisibilia | NPR.org

In "The Secret History of Thoughts," co-hosts Alix Spiegel and Lulu Miller ask the question, "Are my thoughts related to my inner wishes, do they reveal who I really am?" The answer can have profound consequences for your life. Hear the story of a man gripped by violent thoughts, and explore how various psychologists make sense of his experience. Also, meet a man trapped inside his head for 13 years with thoughts as his only companion.

What an awesome little podcast Invisibilia is! Can’t wait to catch the rest of the episodes. Interesting to hear the quick overview of the three schools of thought on thought.

I had been hearing commercials for this off and on from other podcasts for almost a year; glad I finally downloaded to listen.

Why You Should Use Zotero To Track Your Reading | BOOK RIOT

Read Why You Should Use Zotero To Track Your Reading by Ashley Bowen-Murphy (BOOK RIOT)

An overview of an app for tracking your reading that offers different tools than Goodreads or Litsy

Here's What Trump's Latest Executive Orders Do

Read Here's What Trump's Latest Executive Orders Do (The Atlantic)

With a penstroke, President Trump withdrew the U.S. from Trans-Pacific Partnership, imposed a federal hiring freeze, and reinstated the ‘Mexico City policy’ on defunding international abortion-related services.

I have a sinking feeling that he spent more time actually signing these than he did reading them.