Geek talk. The tech behind this blog which takes any link that I find interesting and, instead of curating it for LinkedIn / Twitter / Facebook, curates it here on something I have control over broke. I accidentally upgraded the server to PHP8 and an old function in PHP each() no longer worked. Took...
Crowds of regular people are as good at moderating fake news on Facebook as professional fact-checkers
Source: niemanlab.org
A new study shows how Trump and the RNC duped traditional media into covering mail-in voter fraud: "To the extent that the mass media model we identify here is the primary driver of information disorder, it will not be cured by more fact checking on Facebook."
Source: niemanlab.org
My next tweet could be generated by a deep-learning neural network. I've been training one. Would anyone notice the difference? Could I just hand over tweeting to my machine? Method: downloaded the last 3200 Tweets that I posted using allmytweets.netpruned the dates off and removed the RTs by using some...
Source: agnate.co.uk
If I wanted to find those who have a "conservative ideology" - so that I could share my views or influence them - I would do the following: set up a new account and start making contactsshare several of those technology scare hoax stories that you see posted e.g. Dance of the Pope virus video, the Andrea...
Source: historynewsnetwork.org
Energy conference cancelled after College concern. Professor Martin Marshall, Chair of the Royal College of GPs, said: “We deeply regret that a booking was accepted to host an event at our headquarters that conflicts with the College’s longstanding commitment to combat the impact of climate change...
Source: rcgp.org.uk
Harvard professor says surveillance capitalism is undermining democracy: In her new book, “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism,” HBS Professor emerita Shoshana Zuboff outlines her belief that surveillance capitalism is undermining personal autonomy and eroding democracy — and the ways she says society...
Source: harvard.edu
Archivists Are Trying to Make Sure a ‘Pirate Bay of Science’ Never Goes Down: A new project aims to make LibGen, which hosts 33 terabytes of scientific papers and books, much more stable. "It’s hard to find free and open access to scientific material online. The latest studies and current research...
Source: vice.com
Publication bias is a challenge in science and a criticism of the influence of industry. In the domain of biosciences and drug development more accountability (e.g. the FDAAA 2007), editorial and peer-review training (as suggested by the Cochrane Collaboration), and statistical techniques (as championed...
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. “This brutal, shattering glimpse of the fate of millions of Russians under Stalin shook Russia and shocked the world when it first appeared.” Should have read this humbling but uplifting book a long time ago. Places you in a hard labour...
Source: amazon.co.uk
College students who go off Facebook for a week consume less news and report being less depressed: When users stop getting news from Facebook, they don't necessarily start getting it somewhere else.
Source: niemanlab.org
Lift Weight, Not Too Much, Most of the Days. “Greasing the groove, as Tsatsouline explains it, means not working your muscles to the point of failure. A common idea in weightlifting is that you should lift until you can’t do another rep, purposely damaging muscle tissues so they grow back bigger....
Source: theatlantic.com
This book is outstanding - brief, proudly retro, humorous, and genius. A great introduction to the last 60 years of AI. To know a subject so well that you can reduce it to a Ladybird-style book readable by all is a gift. We could all learn from this level of presentation.
It is available online...
Source: amazon.co.uk
Putting a leash on Google and Facebook won’t do much to save the traditional news model: "Social media and search give advertisers better tools to target messages to more precise groups of potential consumers. It is a phenomenally better mousetrap."
Source: niemanlab.org
Virtual worlds can have good as well as negative effects: Psychologist Pete Etchells on his book, Lost in a Good Game. " ... a psychologist at Bath Spa University in England but still an avid gamer, Etchells specializes in understanding the behavioral effects—both positive and negative—of video...
Source: arstechnica.com
Interested in shared decision making? What does it really mean to remove the distance between a doctor and their patient or family when managing the most complex of medical cases? Then read this. Matt Morgan, a colleague of mine from OnExamination days, an intensive care specialist in Cardiff, has written...
Source: simonandschuster.co.uk
Thinking about the workforce of the future? Then I highly recommend this best-selling book by Adam Kay - a trainee doctor in the NHS having burnt-out in his training before becoming a fully qualified Obstetrician. It is important reading for anyone wondering how the world of busy medical staff could...
Source: twitter.com
Phrases of the day: selective exposure, selective perception, principles knowledge, vicarious trial, change agent, and cue-to-action. I’ve been reading Everett Rogers’ book Diffusion of Innovations with a ‘learning lens’ on. I’m fascinated that the adoption of innovations is so analogous to...
Source: amazon.co.uk
Slate’s Facebook traffic has dropped by 87 percent since 2017. (Anyone else wanna share numbers?)
Source: niemanlab.org
Betraying the Science on Vegan Nutrition: After the prolonged comment thread in Harriet Hall's review of this book in July, given the controversy, we were willing to consider a guest post offering another perspective. In this case, the perspective, from a dietician, is similar to Harriet's, the main...
Source: sciencebasedmedicine.org