🎧 How to Become Batman | Invisibilia (NPR)

Listened to How to Become Batman from Invisibilia | NPR.org
In "How to Become Batman," Alix and Lulu examine the surprising effect that our expectations can have on the people around us. You'll hear how people's expectations can influence how well a rat runs a maze. Plus, the story of a man who is blind and says expectations have helped him see. Yes. See. This journey is not without skeptics.
Expectations are much more important than we think.

Is it possible that this podcast is getting more interesting as it continues along?! In three episodes, I’ve gone from fan to fanboy.

🎧 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?

Donald Trump’s First Twitter Background as President Was a Photo From the Inauguration of Barack Obama

Read Donald Trump’s First Twitter Background as President Was a Photo From the Inauguration of Barack Obama (Slate Magazine)
President Donald Trump officially took over the @POTUS Twitter account on Friday: The new Twitter background made me wonder: Whose inauguration is this ...

President Donald Trump officially took over the @POTUS Twitter account on Friday:

Donald-Trump-Potus-Twitter-background
Screengrab by the author

Continue reading Donald Trump’s First Twitter Background as President Was a Photo From the Inauguration of Barack Obama

GitHub have published some guidance on persistence and archiving of repositories for academics #openscience

Reposted GitHub have published some guidance on persistence and archiving of repositories for academics #openscience by Arfon SmithArfon Smith (Twitter)
GitHub have published some guidance on persistence and archiving of repositories for academics https://help.github.com/articles/about-archiving-content-and-data-on-github/ #openscience
The crowd from Dodging the Memory Hole are sure to find this interesting!

This Week in Google 388: A Doctor in Industry

Listened to This Week in Google 388: A Doctor in Industry from twit.tv
Jeff Jarvis' report from the World Economic Forum in Davos. Artificial intelligences of the future. Google smartwatch with Android Wear 2.0 to launch February 9th. The most common passwords of 2016. Chelsea Manning's sentence commuted. Samsung Galaxy Note 7 battery fires caused by... the battery, details to follow January 23rd.

Jeff's Number: 2017 Edelman Trust Barometer
Stacey's Thing: Stringify
Kevin's Stuff: Homebrew Website Club, Webmention, Micro.blog
Leo's Tools: The Nicest Place on the Internet, Astronaut.io, The Internet Archive

Word of the day:

A piebald or pied animal is one that has a pattern of pigmented spots on an unpigmented (white) background of hair, feathers or scales.

How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages | The New York Times

Read How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages (nytimes.com)
The U.S.C./Los Angeles Times poll has consistently been an outlier, showing Donald Trump in the lead or near the lead.

Alone, he has been enough to put Mr. Trump in double digits of support among black voters. He can improve Mr. Trump’s margin by 1 point in the survey, even though he is one of around 3,000 panelists.

He is also the reason Mrs. Clinton took the lead in the U.S.C./LAT poll for the first time in a month on Wednesday. The poll includes only the last seven days of respondents, and he hasn’t taken the poll since Oct. 4. Mrs. Clinton surged once he was out of the sample for the first time in several weeks.

Continue reading How One 19-Year-Old Illinois Man Is Distorting National Polling Averages | The New York Times

Constance Wu Slams Casey Affleck’s Oscar Nom | Vulture

Read Constance Wu Is Disgusted by Casey Affleck’s Oscar Nomination: ‘Art Isn’t About Humanity, Right?’ (Vulture)
The Manchester by the Sea actor has been accused of sexual harassment.

Constance Wu Is Disgusted by Casey Affleck’s Oscar Nomination: ‘Art Isn’t About Humanity, Right?’

By

As anticipated, Casey Affleck received a Best Actor Academy Award nomination for Manchester by the Sea this morning. The news served as evidence to some that multiple allegations of sexual harassment against him and a related lawsuit have been successfully swept under the rug, at least in the Academy’s eyes (Affleck has previously denied all allegations against him, and settled the suits out of court for an undisclosed sum). Fresh Off the Boat actress Constance Wu, however, is not about to let the viewing public forget the accusations against Affleck, who is now being celebrated for his talent. “Men who sexually harass women 4 OSCAR! Bc good acting performance matters more than humanity, human integrity! Bc poor kid rly needs the help!,” the actress tweeted sardonically. Continue reading Constance Wu Slams Casey Affleck’s Oscar Nom | Vulture

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.

10 Fantastic Free WordPress Plugins for 2017 (That You May Not Have Heard Of) | @thetorquemag

Read 10 Fantastic Free WordPress Plugins for 2017 (That You May Not Have Heard Of) by John Hughes (Torque)
There are so many plugins out there it can be hard to find really good ones. These ten free WordPress plugins add interesting capabilities.

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)

balloons on strings

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.

He went in to report on crystal meth – before long, Luke Williams was hooked | New Statesman

Read He went in to report on crystal meth – before long, Luke Williams was hooked (newstatesman.com)
The journalist moved into a house of meth addicts to investigate the drug. Within a month, he was using, too.