read | 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?

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 Halle Kiefer

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.

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.

🎧 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.