Items to share: 2 December 12

Education Focus:

• Education in the information age: is technology making us stupid? Not a particularly original piece, but a useful overview of current discussions. 

• The many stages of writing a research paper (Boing Boing): just in case you thought they were dashed off on a whim.  

• New MOOC Introduces You to the Wonderful World of Infographics and Data Visualization.  Not until April next year, but it will be interesting to see how it handles the subject. 

• 5 Steps To A PowerPoint Redesign (The eLearning Coach) On re-purposing for e-learning, but good advice overall.  

Other Business:

• Relax ladies, I’m a scientist (Mind Hacks)  Research ethics were not always as strict as today.

• Theresa Christy of Otis Elevator: Making Elevators Go (WSJ.com):  a great behind-the-scenes piece.

• Cheetahs on the Edge: Director's Cut on Vimeo: cheetahs in 1200fps slow-motion

• Dan Ariely: The Encyclopedia of Ethical Failure : a US Defense Department publication on real-life Sergeant Bilkos and more...   

• The Autism Advantage (NYTimes)  on actively recruiting the talents of people on the autistic spectrum--but read the comments, too.

• Mental Health Break (Andrew Sullivan) stunning stop-motion views of autumn colours

• Putting psychological research to the test with the Reproducibility Project: "An ambitious new project is attempting to replicate every single study published in 2008 in three leading academic psychology journals." Why? Because methods and statistics are crude tools.

• My Philosophy Guru (Mark Vernon) Genuinely Useful, Lucid, Informative and Wise: a self-test to find the most appropriate classical philosopher for you to follow.  

• Cost of Pennies: a classic analysis from Randall Munroe of xkcd. Tyler Cowen called this "brilliant". 

• You Are Most Likely to Die at 11 a.m. (Megan Garber) ...just so you know.