The “Jennifer Aniston neuron” is the foundation of compelling new memory research — Quartz “We have a relatively limited memory capacity and that much of our perception of our memory is in fact an illusion.” ” Looking for the areas of the brain that cause epileptic seizures, Quiroga discovered that one subject had a neuron that steadily fired whenever she was shown a photo of Jennifer Aniston. It didn’t fire for other celebrities, but seemed linked to the concept of Jennifer Aniston. Another subject had a Halle Berry neuron, and another had one that fired in response to Bill Clinton.” The Suit That Couldn’t Be Copied – The New Yorker Among the interesting things about Savile Row is that the people who work there have complete confidence that what they do is genuinely different and better than what other people can do. They appear to invite scrutiny, arguing that when their work is examined, it will be found admirable. Not only did Taub say yes; he also offered to give me a garment, so that it could be taken apart and so that the tailor who was trying to reproduce it would have the best possible information. His reasoning was that something made by Gieves & Hawkes could be taken apart but not put back together again in as lovely […]

9 Elephants in the (Class)Room That Should “Unsettle” Us — Modern Learning — Medium We know that most of our students will forget most of the content that they “learn” in school. As Matthew Lieberman from UCLA notes, “For more than 75 years, studies have consistently found that only a small fraction of what is learned in the classroom is retained even a year after learning.” Jacob Torrey – LANGSEC: Taming the Weird Machines The complexity of our computing systems (both software and hardware) have reached such a degree that data must treated as formally as code. The Superbowl of Protest will be in Cleveland this Year – Global Guerrillas The Federal government gave Cleveland a $50 m security grant to prepare for the convention.  With this money, the city plans to field 4-5,000 officers drawn from around the state.  Here’s what it they plan to equip them with: Commons:Picture of the Year/2015/R1/Gallery – Wikimedia Commons Wikipedia’s photos of the year contest – some really amazing work and CC licensed. The next hot job in Silicon Valley is for poets – The Washington Post Even mundane tasks demand creative effort, as writers try to build personality quirks into the most rote activities. At the start-up x.ai, a Harvard theater graduate is tasked with deciding whether its scheduling bots, Amy and […]

How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds — from a Magician and Google’s Design Ethicist — Medium This is far more than “technology” . . . The “most empowering” menu is different than the menu that has the most choices. But when we blindly surrender to the menus we’re given, it’s easy to lose track of the difference: growth & development – gangster disciples 12. HOW MANY STEPS TO GANGSTA CITY? 63 13. HOW MANY BACK? 36 WHY? YOU ARE LOOKING IN A MIRROR. 14. WHAT’S UNDER THE DRAGON’S RIGHT FOOT? A 6-POINT STAR 15. HOW DO YOU KILL THE DRAGON? WITH A BLUE SWORD 16. WHERE IS GANGSTA CITY LOCATED? IN THE SKY BEYOND THE NORTH STAR 17. WHATCHA CLAIMING? 63 IGD OR 63 BGD Programming Doesn’t Require Talent or Even Passion — Medium * I actually hate programming, but I love solving problems. * There are people who actually like programming. I don’t understand why they like programming. * I’m not a real programmer. I throw together things until it works then I move on. The real programmers will say “Yeah it works but you’re leaking memory everywhere. Perhaps we should fix that.” I’ll just restart Apache every 10 requests. To train future ed-tech leaders, higher ed needs new discipline, some say “The report also called for colleges to train […]