Religion’s smart-people problem

Religion’s smart-people problem: The shaky intellectual foundations of absolute faith – Salon.com: “But we shouldn’t be deceived. Although there are many educated religious believers, including some philosophers and scientists, religious belief declines with educational attainment, particularly with scientific education. Studies also show that religious belief declines among those with higher IQs. Hawking, Dennett and Dawkins are not outliers, and neither is Bill Gates or Warren Buffett.”

I Love Field Notes (and Good Marketing)

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Those of you who know me well know that I carry a Field Notes notebook pretty much everywhere inside of their Gentleman’s Memo cover with a Space Pen that has their branding on it. That’s a pic from just now as I was writing this. Note the coffee stain on the notebook cover. Character.

Branding hegemony aside, I do love their stuff. I use notebooks more than any other form of technology (analog or digital) for everything. My notebooks have been my “Inbox” for about 10 years now and I lovingly keep them archived in a special order so I can re-reference things or read back through long ago thoughts as needed. Their notebooks are durable, small, and able to take the daily wear and tear I put on them which can be a considerable amount since they ride in my back pocket when not on a table somewhere.

So in the midst of all the Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Giving Tuesday emails I’ve been receiving from various companies and groups, I was happy to open and then read this one…

Field Notes Brand: “Today only, buy anything and and get a Field Notes ‘Pitch Black’ 3-Pack free. No coupon codes. No minimums. No bull. Heck, you don’t even need to be aware of the deal. If you buy something today, you’re in. But get moving, as we expect Thursday to roll in sometime later tonight.”

Like computer interfaces, the best marketing is marketing that gets out of the way.

Your Email Privacy (Thanks, Government)

Scary, true, and worth your attention if you value your privacy…

Mozilla will let go of Thunderbird | Boing Boing: “There are many good reasons to use standalone email clients, but for Americans one of the most compelling is the absurdly outdated Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, which treats any file left on a server for more than six months as ‘abandoned’ and accessible to law enforcement without a warrant (no, really!). That includes all your Gmail previous to June 2015. Really. All of the efforts to reform ECPA have died on the vine, because law enforcement loves this creaking piece of legislation.”

Vote out your representative if they don’t “understand technology.” That’s not an excuse anymore.

Don’t Hold Up Signs on the Internet…

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We’ve all seen them before and I’m seeing more and more of them now that the Holiday Season is upon us (and today is “Giving Tuesday”).

I know I’ve seen a number of well-intentioned pictures of people holding up signs to support a specific cause on social networks this winter. A large number of those, especially on Facebook, have been churches and religious groups.

I hate to be Donald Downer, but be careful with such postings, especially if they include your face. It’s very (very very) easy to take those and do less-than-well-intentioned things with the images after they’re found via Google Image Search or a Twitter Search or Instagram hashtag search etc.

You’re not Michelle Obama, but that doesn’t mean that your own perception of your network size (or good intention) protects you from the wilds of the internet in 2016 and beyond…

Michelle Obama gave the Internet a sign—here’s what it gave back: “But once Reddit got ahold of the photo, its users—well-known for hosting Photoshop battles such as this—went wild adding anything and everything to the blank page”

So be careful, or you could be espousing something you probably wouldn’t agree with.

Episode 15: Thinking Out Loud 92: Let’s Talk About Self-Editing – Thinking.FM

Elisabeth is joined by author Stacy N. Sergent this week (Merianna is out for family leave) to talk about great pups, NaNoWriMo, writing as a lonesome experience and also a communal experience, the role of editing, and the psychological flow of being a writer.

The post Thinking Out Loud 92: Let’s Talk About Self-Editing appeared first on Thinking.FM.

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My Favorite Music Steaming Service(s)

I agree with the post linked here… Spotify:

Spotify Is the Best Streaming Music Service: “As countless Rdio fans sit back helplessly as their accounts go dark, it’s time to be blunt. Spotify continues to outpace its growing army of competitors, and if you’re going to spend money on a streaming music service, you should sign up for Spotify Premium. Or save a few bucks and get the free version, because it’s pretty damn great, too!”

HOWEVER! I will include the caveat that I love Google Music’s ability to upload my own music and my wife and I (and our newborn and kids) make great use of the uploaded music on Amazon that powers our family’s Echo. Don’t get me started on my 10 year old (heavily) curated Pandora station which makes me pay for Pandora One every year.

It’s a hard-knock-life for us streamers.

But yeah… Spotify at the end of the day.

Becoming Entreprenuerial In Your Profession

Earlier this year, my good friend Thomas (a PhD candidate and officiant of my marriage) wrote a very timely post about his decision to blog despite some who advised otherwise…

Why I Blog — Thomas J. Whitley: “Though many academics have resisted the move toward ‘branding,’ it has long been a part of academia. One’s credentials, what they’ve written, and where they’ve taught make up their brand and determine, to a large extent, who reads them, who assigns them, and who thinks of them for panel invitations and professional society nominations. Branding has only become more important with the ubiquity of information readily available on the internet.”

Whether you’re a teacher, preacher, business, nonprofit, politician, or insurance salesperson… you should blog.

“Giving away” your knowledge results in so many worthwhile returns.

Trust me.

Fusion’s 8 Person Snapchat Team

Fusion is a popular “millennial” lifestyle news / site and has a team of 12 devoted to Snapchat, Vine, and Instagram (8 alone for Snapchat).

I talked about the how’s / why’s news and lifestyle sites are devoting such resources to these networks recently, and this is further validation:

Fusion’s got a 12-person distributed news team: “The digital news site and cable network for millennials on Monday announced a new team to create stories and videos meant to be read and watched exclusively on social platforms. The social newsroom of 12 people includes eight who are focused on Snapchat alone. Others work on Instagram and Vine. Fusion hired Laura Feinstein, a former editor in chief of Vice’s Intel-backed Creator’s Project, to lead the group.”

“News” as we know it in its commodified post-industrial state is changing its delivery mechanism on an increasing pace from newspaper to newspaper delivery to radio to television to cable to the web to social networks to messaging…