CircleCount helps you better understand Google+

2013-04-30 22:55:25 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

My TEDx talk on Hedonomics was just posted on youtube. Big thanks to Queen's U for the invite. Check it out :)

2013-02-13 22:18:16 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

‎"The American academic scientist earns less than an airplane mechanic, has less job security than a drummer in a boy band, and works longer hours than a Bolivian silver miner."

2013-01-31 16:22:00 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 4 +1s)

It's Time for MIT to Step Up
It's been quite a while since I've posted to G+, but this article needs sharing.
"First, [MIT] should declare that, within three years’ time, its libraries will cease subscribing to all academic journals and archives that do not make their articles available online to everyone. Second, MIT should require all of its faculty, grad students, and other affiliated researchers to submit their work only to open-access journals. Third, MIT should instruct its deans and other officials to no longer look favorably upon the mere fact of publication in a “prestigious” journal when making hiring and tenure decisions. Instead, promotions should be based on the quality of a person’s work, wherever it’s been published. (This sounds obvious, but most people in academia will tell you that where you publish is just as important as what youpublish.)... more »

2012-12-12 15:49:43 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Testing out the new community feature on G+

2012-07-18 04:23:50 (4 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Elementary

2012-06-22 20:19:49 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 2 +1s)

One Step Closer to Star Trek
Have you always wondered how McCoy's medical tricorder could diagnose patients? Perhaps it was just a simple webcam with MIT software on board.

2012-10-09 05:00:46 (5 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

WHAT VALUE SHOULD WE PUT ON SAFETY?
"A new study by Dr. Sanjay Sharma at Queen’s University in Kingston Ontario looked at the relative safety of Lucentis (retail price $1,700) and Avastin (retail price $100) - two drugs used to treat wet macular degeneration (AMD). The results could influence current health policy trends."

From a behavioral economics standpoint, it's important that the policy makers frame their decision-making correctly if they want to enact policy that has the right impact. For example, how much would you pay to reduce the "number need to harm" from 12 to 1? Is it the same amount you'd pay to assure 12X fewer people were at risk for serious eye inflammation? In most academic studies, the answer is no. People tend to be willing to spend much more for concrete health outcomes (reducing eye-inflammation) than abstract metrics (reducingthe ... more »

2012-06-18 21:19:19 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 4 +1s)

THE SCALE OF THE UNIVERSE
by Cary Huang. Be careful, it will steal you away, though every second is absolutely worth it.

2012-06-18 20:24:30 (0 comments, 2 reshares, 0 +1s)

THE EMBASSY NETWORK IN THE PRESS
A great article interviewing one of our co-founders +Jessy Kate Schingler 

"The Embassy Network is a private club for a new generation. It is a place to call home for professionals and creatives who travel the far reaches of the globe and the mind; a place to share a stimulating environment built around dynamic interaction, creativity, and intention where members can travel and always be at home.

As collaborative work spaces have changed the landscape of business, the Embassy Network pushes creativity to the next level - getting the right people in the room, outside of formality, to cultivate innovation like never before. Members have access to full-time and/or flexible-duration accommodations, and receive access to collaborative space, events, and a global community of like-minded individuals."

2012-06-17 23:46:59 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 0 +1s)

Interior Design Opportunity for New Co-living/Co-working Space
The Embassy Network (http://embassynetwork.com) seeks a summer intern with a creative spirit, confident and flexible aesthetic, and a keen eye for creating spaces that promote collaboration. 

The Embassy Network is a new housing and community venture, looking for a creative/interior designer to realize our first San Francisco co-living space. Think Facebook's graffiti artist David Choe, but in this case with the opportunity to envision and outfit the common areas and short-term accomodation spaces of an 11 bedroom, 7000 sqft victorian home, optimizing it for creativity and collaboration.

Interested? Check out the link below!
http://sfbay.craigslist.org/sfc/med/3083927492.html

2012-03-28 17:40:14 (10 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

MIA UPDATE: Welcome to the many new followers that have added me to their circles over the past month. My apologies for the complete lack of content! I've been out of touch with the community for quite a while, trying to polish off some long overdue academic writing. Nearly at a satisfying end, I hope to be back in action here in the next few days! Keep your eyes out o_0

2012-03-12 19:37:18 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

A New Age of Data Translation
Step one: A new platform to create info-graphics. Step two: (Hopefully) end the age of boring (horribly boring) Powerpoint presentations.

2012-02-28 23:16:38 (2 comments, 3 reshares, 5 +1s)

History at Your Fingertips
What an amazing data project. Old Maps Online allows the user to search for online digital historical maps across numerous different collections via a geographical search. The search results provide a direct link to the map image on the website of the host institution.

2012-02-25 17:51:40 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Teller Reveals His 7 Secrets – Neuroscientists are novices at deception

Magicians have done controlled testing in human perception for thousands of years. Here's his secret recipe to deceive the audience.

1. Exploit pattern recognition.
2. Make the secret a lot more trouble than the trick seems worth.
3. It’s hard to think critically if you’re laughing.
4. Keep the trickery outside the frame.
5. To fool the mind, combine at least two tricks.
6. Nothing fools you better than the lie you tell yourself.
7. If you are given a choice, you believe you have acted freely.

I probably don't need to make the comparison to how the media is used to pacify and placate us or how politicians communicate with us... do I? ;)

2012-02-15 02:20:31 (2 comments, 1 reshares, 5 +1s)

Rare 360-degree Panorama of the Southern Sky

The +Milky Way arches across this rare 360-degree panorama of the night sky above the Paranal platform, home of ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The image was made from 37 individual frames with a total exposure time of about 30 minutes, taken in the early morning hours. The +Moon is just rising and the zodiacal light shines above it, while the Milky Way stretches across the sky opposite the observatory.

The open telescope domes of the world’s most advanced ground-based astronomical observatory are all visible in the image: the four smaller 1.8-metre Auxiliary Telescopes that can be used together in the interferometric mode, and the four giant 8.2-metre Unit Telescopes. To the right in the image and below the arc of the Milky Way, two of our galactic neighbours, the Small and Large Magellanic Clouds, can be seen.<... more »

2012-02-14 01:36:50 (4 comments, 2 reshares, 2 +1s)

Dating, Marketing, and Big Data
"If dating sites want to claim that their matching algorithm is scientifically valid, they need to adhere to the standards of science, which is something they have uniformly failed to do," says Dr. Finkel, associate professor of social psychology at the Northwestern University in Chicago.
"In fact, our report concludes that it is unlikely that their algorithms can work, even in principle, given the limitations of the sorts of matching procedures that these sites use."

Nevertheless, from a Marketing Science point of view, dating sites might be one of the most exciting "big data" resources available, if only to observe user psychology. One of my favorite (non-academic) resources is the OkCupid OkTrends blog, where the dating site does an exciting job displaying data in infographic form. I would argue that the... more »

2012-02-14 00:24:54 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Science Circle- Updated 2.13.12
This is a great circle if you want to follow Science on Google+. As you can see in the underlying database (http://goo.gl/tp06X), we are a diverse group but we all share a common interest- SCIENCE! Add the circle and share it with your friends!

Check out the following post if you're looking for other Science circles, shared circle databases, getting started guides, chrome extensions, etc: http://goo.gl/i604C.

Change Log
This updates my Science Circle that I posted on 1.8.12.
50 profiles were removed in this update.
40 profiles were added in this update: http://goo.gl/0z9KZ.
32 profiles were added on 1.8.12: http://goo.gl/K8ttV.

Are you a Scientist on Google+? Do you primarily post about Science? Add your name to the following database if you would like to be considered for the next shared circle:... more »

2012-02-14 00:02:50 (1 comments, 4 reshares, 4 +1s)

The Necessary Evolution of Copyright
Disruptive technology often leaves a swath of dead businesses in its wake. The Internet changing how we think about media distribution is no exception. This time, however, due to an archaic political system and deep pockets, Big Media may end up causing far more harm than good by clinging to their old business models.

Quoting Peter Sunde, "The problem here is that we're allowing this dying industry to dictate the terms of our democracy. We allow them to dictate new laws (ACTA, SOPA, PIPA, IPRED, IPRED2, TPP, TRIPS, to name a few recent ones) that forbid evolution."

2012-02-09 04:43:30 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Whatever happened to "futurism"? Now, it seems like most futurists have taken the path of cyber/nano technology only for some reason. There was a time when they would make far bolder predictions about society and space travel.

I'd like to see more space travel predictions. Honestly. It's time we go back.

2012-02-09 01:48:11 (1 comments, 2 reshares, 5 +1s)

Biology Doesn't Support Gay Marriage Bans
Sex is not the binary system we think it is, and we can't go around making rules about what people can and can't do based on what anatomy happens to be between their legs. So on top of the fact that gay marriage bans are unconstitutional, unnecessary, and downright petty, they are also terribly unscientific.

2012-02-09 01:46:47 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Preparations continue for +SpaceX 's historic flight to the Space Station
At +NASA 's Kennedy Space Center preparations continue for the upcoming COTS-2 demonstration mission to the +International Space Station . The SpaceX Dragon is complete with trunk at the SpaceX hangar. Preparations continue for the historic mission ahead.

2012-02-08 05:27:44 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

2012-02-08 04:08:47 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Remember how supposedly diners look at the UR of the menu first? Might just be restaurant folklore. (Though this new eye-tracking study was done in a lab - wish the author at least had subjects come in hungry, maybe ordering from a real menu, but alas...)

Here's an excerpt from a book that helped popularize some of these ideas:
http://nymag.com/restaurants/features/62498/

2012-02-08 02:44:24 (1 comments, 3 reshares, 1 +1s)

A Future of Glass
In the future, everything will look like the bridge of the Enterprise, and 80% of the world will be employed as software engineers / graphic artists. Can't wait!

2012-02-08 02:34:34 (4 comments, 4 reshares, 7 +1s)

The Fireplace Delusion
From +Sam Harris's recent blog post:
It seems to me that many nonbelievers have forgotten—or never knew—what it is like to suffer an unhappy collision with scientific rationality. We are open to good evidence and sound argument as a matter of principle, and are generally willing to follow wherever they may lead. Certain of us have made careers out of bemoaning the failure of religious people to adopt this same attitude.

However, I recently stumbled upon an example of secular intransigence that may give readers a sense of how religious people feel when their beliefs are criticized. It’s not a perfect analogy, as you will see, but the rigorous research I’ve conducted at dinner parties suggests that it is worth thinking about. We can call the phenomenon “the fireplace delusion.”

Read on...

2012-02-08 01:50:14 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 4 +1s)

First Mover?
Otavia antiqua, microscopic, sponge-like fossils found in 760-million-year-old rock in Namibia could be the earliest known animals—and possibly our earliest evolutionary ancestors.
From these tiny "sponges" sprang very big things, the authors suggest. As possibly the first muticellular animals, Otavia could well be the forerunner of dinosaurs, humans-basically everything we think of as "animal."

2012-02-07 19:50:15 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The Bellwether Revivals
+Benjamin Wood, one of my greatest friends (and old writing partner) gets pimped out to +The Independent. Oh yes, and they also loved his book!

Some may find the book reads like a contemporary filigree on its illustrious predecessors, but most readers will find themselves transfixed by this richly drawn cast of characters. The fact that Wood can hold his own in such heavyweight company is a measure of his achievement

Pre-order it here: http://www.amazon.com/Bellwether-Revivals-Novel-Benjamin-Wood/dp/0670023590/

2012-02-04 16:21:33 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

Twitter is harder to resist than cigarettes and alcohol, study finds
By James Meikle , The Guardian
Via +Jack Schofield

People are more likely to give in to urge to tweet or check email than other cravings, say US researchers

Read here: http://goo.gl/MTl0J

2012-02-02 07:00:58 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

This is awesome - a forum discussion back in 2003 making predictions about the future... in the year 2012!

The summary of what they got right and what they got wrong is on page 5.

2012-02-02 05:46:58 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

The Anatomy of An Idea
In his recent blog post, author Steven Berlin Johnson does an excellent job exploring the creative process. His take aways:
1. The discovery process is remarkably social, and the social interactions come in amazingly diverse forms.
2. Social networking may actually be more effective than a Google search for subtle and complex questions.
3. You need a broad background of knowledge to prime you for discoveries.
4. Connective branches to important discoveries are more likely to lie in the social layer of commentary about an article rather than the traditional endnotes.
5. People who think the Web is killing off serendipity are not using it correctly.
6. Finally, this simple, but amazing fact: almost none of this--Twitter, blogs, PDFs, eBooks, Google, Findings--would have been intelligible to a writer fifteen years ago.

2012-02-01 18:59:57 (2 comments, 4 reshares, 8 +1s)

Europa on Planet Earth
After drilling for two decades through more than two miles of antarctic ice, Russian scientists are on the verge of entering a vast, dark lake that hasn’t been touched by light for more than 20 million years.
Scientists are enormously excited about what life-forms might be found there but are equally worried about contaminating the lake with drilling fluids and bacteria, and the potentially explosive “de-gassing” of a body of water that has especially high concentrations of oxygen and nitrogen.

2012-02-01 18:40:23 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Is it really just “hi!” or is there more being whispered by a dog’s ass?
In primates, the stories are clearer, if not yet clear. When primates sniff each other, they can use odors to identify individuals. They also identify individuals who smell better, either in terms of their status or their loveliness In terms of the latter, the bacteria being cultivated by these primates on their bodies are, in one form or another, potentially sexy, a garden of foul delight. Yet, what we know about the odors produced by non-human primates still seems to be only part of the story, a hint of a more complicated bouquet.

2012-02-01 00:00:03 (2 comments, 2 reshares, 2 +1s)

The Better Life Index
How do you define a better life? I was inspired to check out this site by an interesting post by +Visually today. What struck me right away: How few countries value income as something that makes "life feel better".

EDIT: Many thanks to +Hadjar Homaie for pointing out my misinterpretation of the graph. The flowers don't represent "values" but instead "conditions" as measured by the OECD, and while I suppose you could argue conditions in a (democratic) country represent the values of its citizens, that's probably a stretch. One subsequent note - the website is aggregating the "values" data though, so perhaps we shall see how well it corresponds in the near future.

2012-01-31 21:58:21 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

Gorillas grin 'to reassure friends'

Our facial expressions play an important role in communicating with those around you. Now, an investigation into the playtime behavior of gorillas reveals that they use facial expressions akin to our smiles and grins to reassure friends of their non-violent intentions. The results, researchers say, could help point to the origins of human laughter.

Researchers have long believed that gorillas, like humans, use facial cues to covey information. Researcher Bridget Waller, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Portsmouth, studies facial expressions in primates to uncover the evolutionary origins of human smiling and laughter. "Through facial signals," writes Waller — along with coauthor Lyndsay Cherry — "individuals can potentially send and receive information and may benefit from coordinating theirbeh... more »

2012-01-31 21:33:15 (6 comments, 1 reshares, 1 +1s)

Should Wall St. Traders Be Genetically Pre-Screened to Help Reduce Bubbles?
A new research study in the January Issue of PLoS One compared the genetic codes of working Wall Street traders to a control group of business students.

Traders who had successful careers, as measured by length of employment, tended to have genetic backgrounds linked to moderate levels of dopamine. In other words, a good trader is likely to have a genetic code that influences a person's behavior toward competitiveness, but not the kind of thrill-seeking behavior in which risk taking becomes an addiction.

Claremont Graduate University professor Paul Zak, who ran the study, suggests the results could be used by Wall Street firms to "weed out both milquetoasts and cowboys from their applicant pool and favor candidates who balance competitiveness with a willingness to play by the rules."

2012-01-31 19:50:12 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

How to Test the Depth of Your Relationship
_Many studies have found that we quite readily mimic the nonverbal behavior of those with whom we interact. Furthermore, the degree to which we mimic others is predicted by both our personality traits as well as our relationship to those around us. _

A recent study conducted by Ivan Norscia and Elisabetta Palagi and published in the journal PLoSONE has found such evidence in the unlikeliest of places: yawns.

"Yawn contagion" was shown to be a predictor of emotional closeness, which suggests it may be the perfect trick to measure the connection between you and that next blind date ;-)

2012-01-28 21:07:13 (1 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Could a Mistake in Our Intuitions Endanger an Entire Species?
“Videos portraying the slow loris as a cute, furry pet increase the demand for slow lorises, fueling the trade,” the petition reads. “Slow loris behaviors, which are caused by stress or fear, are misinterpreted as funny. YouTube has many slow loris videos on the Web site which show the slow loris as a pet, some of which have been watched millions of times. Despite requests to take these videos down, YouTube refuses to see the animal suffering in the slow loris clips.”

2012-01-27 00:56:55 (4 comments, 6 reshares, 0 +1s)

Freedom is Dead
Twitter's decision to enable content censorship on their API

2012-01-23 03:09:06 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 0 +1s)

.@bostonlogan customs are EXTREMELY INEFFICIENT! For the love of god, please look up Trunking http://t.co/uLKWuNjt

2012-01-19 04:58:38 (1 comments, 1 reshares, 3 +1s)

Speaking Out Can Work
Members of the Senate are rushing for the exits in the wake of the Internet's unprecedented protest of the Protect IP Act (PIPA). At least 13 members of the upper chamber announced their opposition on Wednesday. In a particularly severe blow from Hollywood, at least five of the newly-opposed Senators were previously sponsors of the Protect IP Act.

2012-01-19 02:08:40 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 3 +1s)

Oh, yes they can be this stupid. When was the last time they did something "smart"?

2012-01-18 14:15:00 (0 comments, 6 reshares, 6 +1s)

2012-01-18 06:29:32 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 6 +1s)

Stop SOPA

2012-01-18 06:21:47 (0 comments, 1 reshares, 2 +1s)

████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ██ ██████ ██ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ███ ███████ ███████ ██ ██ ███ ███ ██ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ██ ███ ████ █████ ███

2012-01-18 06:21:00 (5 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Hope For The Loner Inside
“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me ... they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very best of them are artists. And artists work best alone .... I’m going to give you some advice that might be hard to take. That advice is: Work alone... Not on a committee. Not on a team.”

2012-01-14 00:26:55 (2 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The study of genetic factors underlying personality traits is making steady progress.

This study reports that a single polymorphism (substituting valine for methionine at position 158) profoundly alters the experience of everyday life events. This polymorphism changes the gene for COMT, an enzyme that metabolizes catecholamines (e.g. Dopamine, Norepinephrine). The substitution accelerates the activity of the enzyme, resulting in lower synaptic dopamine levels. In other words, life seems to be much less rewarding for those affected, particularly those with the Valine mutation in both alleles, as the effect size is quite large.

Full paper:
http://www.nature.com/npp/journal/v33/n13/full/1301520a.html

2012-01-14 00:22:02 (0 comments, 3 reshares, 4 +1s)

2012-01-13 22:03:04 (8 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

The Academy That Giants Built
Today I had the opportunity to visit The American Academy of Arts and Sciences for an MIT Intelligence Initiative (I²) Workshop.

Academy website: http://www.amacad.org/
Workshop details: http://isquared.mit.edu/event_detail/16

In addition to enjoying some fascinating talks by the other I² Fellows, I was impressed by the acceptance letters proudly displayed on the wall. Einstein, Darwin, Babbage, Elliot, Frost, MLK, Bohr - this place was built on the shoulders of giants.

** Another plus: Instead of lecture seating, the auditorium was set up with couches. I could get used to this.

2012-01-12 21:51:19 (6 comments, 0 reshares, 2 +1s)

Do we need AI built on intuition instead of logic?

I love the way +Monica Anderson thinks. Instead of focusing on infallible, logic-based AI, we should be spending our energy trying to develop strong, abduction-based AI. Will it be fallible? Yes, of course. But so are humans, and we've managed to survive this long. As she states:

Some speculate about what might be possible “in principle”, given a universe-sized chunk of computronium and the lifetime of the universe for its computations. They don’t like the abduction-based alternative simply because “It would be just as fallible as a human intelligence”. To these “Shock Level Four” fanboys I say “get a clue”. We need working AI as soon as possible. An AI with the intelligence of the average 14-year old human would be worth a trillion dollars since it would revolutionize everything we use computers for todayand would acceler... more »

2012-01-11 05:15:05 (0 comments, 0 reshares, 1 +1s)

The 5 Data Startups to Watch in 2012
I've been following Visual.ly for a while, and am very impressed. Time to keep my eyes on the other four.