You love your iPhone

“Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) tests, my team looked at subjects’ brain activity as they viewed consumer images involving brands like Apple and Harley-Davidson and religious images like rosary beads and a photo of the pope. We found that the brain activity was uncannily similar when viewing both types of imagery…. In short, the subjects didn’t demonstrate the classic brain-based signs of addiction. Instead, they loved their iPhones.” - http://nyti.ms/raqhvY

Truthy Project

Wall Street Journal reports on The Truthy Project. “In an era of digital deception, scientists at Indiana University are using Twitter to investigate the nature of truth, lies and politics.” - http://on.wsj.com/nqIHEs

Where the Skills Are

“Today’s students need a stronger focus on teamwork, persuasion, and entrepreneurship; a better integration of liberal arts with technological literacy; and an emphasis on the social intelligence that makes for creative collaboration and leadership.” This month’s Atlantic on cities: http://bit.ly/rgpPGC

Lev Grossman's "From Scroll to Codex"

“And until I hear God personally say to me, ‘Boot up and read,’ I won’t be giving it up.” - Lev Grossmann, “The Mechanical Muse: From Scroll to Codex,” - http://nyti.ms/nX1254

Please Read

A note to students: “If you don’t find it in the index, look very carefully through the entire catalogue.” - Unknown, Sears, Roebuck, and Co. Consumer’s Guide, 1897

Dirty Secrets of Search

Dirty Secrets of Search: http://nyti.ms/evSWrV ”…just because we don’t talk about it,” he said, “doesn’t mean we won’t take strong action.” - “Matt Cutts, the head of the Webspam team at Google, and a man whose every speech, blog post and Twitter update is parsed like papal encyclicals by players in the search engine world.”

Google and the face of God

“I’m in San Jose and I’m going to visit Google. If you look up ‘Google’ on Google from Google, you see the face of God.” Conan O’Brien

Schwartz on Aristotle

Interesting TED talk by Barry Schwartz on the public political need for Aristotle's practical virtue: http://bit.ly/dXPs9a

Psychology of Time and Being

Psychology of Time and Being at: http://nyti.ms/e66Y2Y 

In short, some psychologists say, the findings support the philosopher Martin Heidegger’s observation that time “persists merely as a consequence of the events taking place in it.” Now researchers are finding that the reverse may also be true: if very few events come to mind, then the perception of time does not persist; the brain telescopes the interval that has passed.

A Shadow Scholar Speaks

The man who writes your students' papers tells his story on the Chronicle of Higher Education: http://bit.ly/ewKkfV.

"I do a lot of work for seminary students. I like seminary students. They seem so blissfully unaware of the inherent contradiction in paying somebody to help them cheat in courses that are largely about walking in the light of God and providing an ethical model for others to follow. I have been commissioned to write many a passionate condemnation of America's moral decay as exemplified by abortion, gay marriage, or the teaching of evolution. All in all, we may presume that clerical authorities see these as a greater threat than the plagiarism committed by the future frocked."