The End of Reflection

An excerpt:

There are many moments throughout my average day that, lacking print reading material in a previous era, were once occupied by thinking or observing my surroundings: walking or waiting somewhere, riding the subway, lying in bed unable to sleep or before mustering the energy to get up.

Now, though, I often find myself in these situations picking up my phone to check a notification, browse and read the internet, text, use an app or listen to audio (or, on rare occasions, engage in an old-fashioned “telephone call”).

Read more in the NYT.

Nice find, +Sharyar Aziz 

Can Neuroscience Understand Donkey Kong, Let Alone a Brain?

"Two researchers applied common neuroscience techniques to a classic computer chip. Their results are a wake-up call for the whole field." Read more in the Atlantic.

Computers could develop consciousness and may need 'human' rights, says Oxford professor

Read more in Telegraph.

Women Entrepreneurs

Why does this still happen?

We also found that women non-technical entrepreneurs received significantly lower ratings than non-technical men. In fact, a non-technical degree can raise the ratings for male entrepreneurs, while they are detrimental to women.

Read more at Stanford's Clayman Institute.

Former NASA Chief Develops Brain-Like Chips

Dan Goldin’s startup, KnuEdge, has been working in secret for 10 years on a new kind of computing that mimics the human brain. Read more in the WSJ.

One Unspoken Reason Behind the Microsoft-LinkedIn Deal

Read more in Dealbook.

The day we hired a blind coder — judge by skills and experince, not disability

Read more in Medium.

Think Less, Think Better

"Honing an ability to unburden the load on your mind, be it through meditation or some other practice, can bring with it a wonderfully magnified experience of the world — and, as our study suggests, of your own mind." Read more from Moshe Bar, a neuroscientist at Harvard, on the science behind meditation.

For Teenagers, the Pleasure of ‘Likes’

Read more in the NYT.

First Human Test of CRISPR Proposed

This is big. Read more in MIT Medicine.

One Unspoken Reason Behind the Microsoft-LinkedIn Deal

Worth reading in Dealbook. Talks about how LinkedIn steered investors towards adjusted EBITDA, which didn't include its heavy reliance on stock-based compensation -- and how that became a source of pressure to make the acquisition happen.

Google Expects Different Answers From Men and Women on a Question Used to Predict Job Success

Check out the question in NY Mag.

Thanks, Sam

Mom Thinks She Found Teen’s Drugs, Hilarious Texts Follow

I normally don't post things like this, but I couldn't stop laughing reading it.

Thanks, +Claire Packer 

DHL employs robot as picker's best companion

Hiring a programmer? Ditch the coding interview and get back to basics

Read Dan Kim's post in Medium.

Getting Over Stage Fright With the Help of Your Smartphone

Ummo featured in the NYT!

Thanks, +Brodie Boland 

Recruitment, Resumes, Interviews: How the Hiring Process Favors Elites

"For those who didn't go to prestigious schools, don't come from money, and aren't interested in sports and booze—it's near impossible to gain access to the best paying jobs."

Read more in the Atlantic.

Thanks, +Zuhair Khan 

The Paradox of Declining Female Happiness

"Women tend to be less happy than men in marriage. Why does the media insist otherwise?" Read more in PS Mag.

Thanks, +Alessia Bhargava 

Unless You’re Oprah, ‘Be Yourself’ Is Terrible Advice.

"We pay a high price socially, personally and professionally for being authentic. There’s a better alternative." Read more in the NYT.

Thanks, Dad

Are dreams predictions?

"Dreams might not be omens or prophecies in a mystical sense, but they do have a distinct psychological predictive power." An excerpt that reminds me of Mary Meeker's prediction that most of our search will not be via text, but rather via images and speech:

REM sleep emerges from evolutionarily ancient brain networks. All mammals (including humans) have REM sleep with its characteristic rapid eye movements. Animals lack the language skills to support complex thoughts but it is likely that they think through images.

Read more in Aeon.

The foul reign of the biological clock

"It seems like the concept of the biological clock has been with us forever. In fact, the metaphor was invented in the late 1970s. And it has been used to reinforce sexist ideas ever since." An excerpt:

These facts have been reported occasionally – almost always as news of a “male biological clock”. The need to append the adjective “male” to the phrase “biological clock” hints at why this data has mostly gone ignored: society speaks as if only women had bodies. 

According to the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, of couples seeking treatment for subfertility in the United States, 40% discover that the problem is being caused by the “female factor”, 40% of the time it is the “male factor”, and 20% of the time they cannot tell. Women and men are found to experience fertility problems at roughly equal rates, but you would never know it from reading most press coverage of the subject. Our assumption seems to be that reproduction is a female responsibility first and foremost. Anything going wrong with it must be a woman’s fault.

Read more in the Guardian.

New Quantum 'Cat State' Can Be in Two Places at Once

This blow my mind. Read more in Gizmodo.

Thanks, FE

It’s the hard days that determine who you are

It's commencement speech season. Here's an excerpt from Sheryl Sandberg @ Berkeley.

You will almost certainly face deep adversity. There’s loss of opportunity: the job that doesn’t work out, the illness or accident that changes everything in an instant. There’s loss of dignity: the sharp sting of prejudice when it happens. There’s loss of love. And sometimes there’s loss of life itself. 

The question is not if some of these things will happen to you. They will. Today I want to talk about what happens next. About the things you can do to overcome adversity, no matter what form it takes or when it hits you. The easy days ahead of you will be easy. It is the hard days — the times that challenge you to your very core — that will determine who you are. You will be defined not just by what you achieve, but by how you survive.

Read more in the Boston Globe.

Thanks, +Claire Packer 

The World Bank is eliminating the term “developing country” from its data vocabulary

Read more in Quartz.

Thanks, +Daniel Romero 

The Quiet Crisis unfolding in Software Development

Read more in Medium.

Elon Musk believes we are probably characters in some advanced civilization's video game

Read more in Vox.

Thanks, FE

PayPal's mission to diversify, one mom at a time

The payments company starts a return-to-work program called Recharge in another push by the tech industry to provide more workplace flexibility. Read more in cnet.

In-app purchases overwhelm new app sales

A new Gartner survey reveals that mobile users are more willing to spend money on in-app features than they are to pay to download an app in the first place. Read more in Business Insider.

Thanks,  +Yasmin Razavi 

Educate Your Immune System

Our bodies are confused by this 21st-century world. Read more in the NYT.