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sissij

Which Trump Will the World See? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-trump-will-the-world-see.html

new york times social media

shared by sissij on 21 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • By advocating an expansive budget through tax cuts and infrastructure spending, Mr. Trump’s plan would most likely lower national savings and propel the United States dollar ever higher, creating the very conditions to widen rather than to narrow the trade deficit.
  • He is doing so in the unrealistic hope that these policies will cause the economy to accelerate from its present 2 percent growth rate to between 3 and 4 percent. And he is counting on such faster economic growth to generate additional tax revenue.
  • A further basic weakness of Mr. Trump’s budget proposal is that it would add stimulus to the economy at the very time that the economy is at or very close to full employment.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • If he does go down that path, he will risk inviting trade retaliation by our trade partners, which could lead the global economy down the road to the beggar-thy-neighbor policies of the 1930s.
  • sissij on 21 Dec 16
     
    This article discussed flaws in Trump's economic policy and his relationship with foreign countries. It's surprising for me to see that tax plays a very complicated role in diplomacy. Increasing or decreasing the tax revenue affects how much money the government has. Mr. Trump is definitely a very successful entrepreneur, but earning money for a government is more complicated than eating money for a company because you have to take care of the benefit of your people, not only yourself. --Sissi (12/20/2016)
sissij

The Downward Slide of the Seesaw - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...nward-slide-of-the-seesaw.html

new york times social media psychology

shared by sissij on 14 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • The older seesaws were wooden planks that often hit asphalt directly, leading to occasional tailbone and spinal injuries, falls and pinched fingers, not to mention splinters. Children could slam each other by dismounting suddenly. Playgrounds that retained old seesaws were exposed to lawsuits.
  • As a result, relatively few playground injuries are now attributable to seesaws. According to data collected by the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission, which sets the safety standards, the top three pieces of equipment associated with emergency room visits between 2009 and 2014 were monkey bars, swings and slides. Only 2 percent of injuries were from teeter-totters.
  • “One little fall or a tooth broken and the next thing you know they are out,” she said.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “I think we have to take the kids out a little bit from the safety bubble,” she said, placing her 2-year-old daughter, Sadie, on a seesaw too.
  • “A seemingly simple plaything actually provides so many important sensory experiences for kids,” she said.
  • “The more we live with the safety standards, the more you see people kind of innovating to bring back types of experiences that maybe for a while you weren’t seeing,” she said. “There’s no reason to think we won’t have traditional seesaws in the park at some point.”
  • sissij on 14 Dec 16
     
    This article mentioned a conflict between safety and experience. Can we be both safe and get the experience of overcoming difficulty? Obviously, we have to sacrifice one thing to get another. I think removing the seesaw is not a good idea if we just do it out of the concern of safety. We can never stay in our comfort zoom because once we grow up, we won't have our parents to protect us every time. Something related to TOK is that our mental shortcut of avoiding danger may not always benefit us. --Sissi (12/14/2016)
sissij

With Mass Protests, South Koreans Wield a Familiar Weapon in a New Era - The New York T... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...th-korea-protests-history.html

new york times social media

shared by sissij on 12 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Then as now, mass protest was a powerful weapon deployed by enraged citizens who felt they had nowhere else to turn but the streets. Thirty years later, it’s clear how far Korean democracy has advanced. Then, South Korea was a dictatorship, protests were outlawed and the threat of torture, imprisonment and martial law ever-present.
  • Students have long been at the vanguard of South Korea’s robust history of protest, drawing on deep-rooted Confucian traditions that elevated scholars as guardians of morality.
  • Yonsei produced its own martyr, 21-year-old Lee Han-yol, who died after a tear-gas canister hit him in the head.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • I saw an older woman, hair neatly coifed, beat a policeman with her handbag. A young father hoisted his little girl on his shoulder, carefully affixing a surgical mask to her face, an imperfect shield from the gas. A student in Kwangju bit his finger and wrote protest slogans in his own blood.
  • At the trial, his father lunged at the three policemen, small and scared now, protected by more than 50 guards. Screams broke out and a purse flew through the air at the judges as the light sentence was read. Women whose sons were still in jail stormed the bus carrying the policemen, throwing bottles against the windows. Plainclothes police shoved the four of them onto the concrete, where they lay unconscious.
  • Laws are still on the books that can be used as tools to stifle dissent. South Korea remains shadowed by legitimate fears of North Korean aggression and espionage, but those were and are exploited by the government.
  • This is not a tame society, for all the comforts its public has won in the years since. This may be the land of Psy and Gangnam style, a country so wired that some of its children are sent to boot camps to wean them from internet addiction.
  • Politicians buck the popular will at their peril.
  • sissij on 12 Dec 16
     
    This article talks about the protests in South Korea. I found that there are deep conflict between the police and the the people. It makes me think of the police brutality we talked about recently. I think the police should protect the people but now they are using martial arts and tear-gas canisters. To what extent should the police yield the protest from the people? I also found it interesting that students are often more eager to attend those protest than adults. They are usually more radical than adults. Is it a good thing to always let out all their complaints? --Sissi (12/11/2016)
sissij

What's the Best Music to Listen to While Working? - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...509948

Music brain science psychology research

shared by sissij on 11 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Worse yet is the possibility that the constant soundtrack is poisoning my writing, with the lyrics somehow weaving into and scrambling my thoughts before they ever hit the keyboard. I try to tune it out, but after all, I’m still, I’m still an animal!
  • It turns out the best thing to listen to, for most office workers, is nothing.
  • An early study called “Music—an aid to productivity,” appropriately found that music could be just that. But the study subjects in that experiment were doing rote factory work, examining metal parts on conveyor belts.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • The boost in productivity the researchers noticed happened because the music simply made the task less boring and kept the workers alert. This also helps explain later studies finding that music helped surgeons perform better.
  • When silence and music were put head to head in more cognitively complex tests, people did better in silence.
  • The more engaging the music is, the worse it is for concentration.
  • But lyric-free music is less distracting, and some of the people whose performance was improved may have come up with subconscious mental hacks to avoid getting sidetracked by music.
  • The reason this doesn’t work for most people, Levitin said, is most people can’t pay attention to very much at once. Lyrics can soak up precious attention, as can flashing lights or a really bad smell.
  • So, I asked Levitin, if listening to music while working is so bad, why do so many of us do it? Simple: We like it, and we can’t tell it’s messing us up.
  • sissij on 11 Dec 16
     
    It's surprising to see that not all music can improve our work quality. Many people always ask for some music while they are going their work, but they don't know that this could mess up their work and concentration. This reminds me of the attention blindness that we have. We are incapable of multi-tasking. The experiment mentioned in this article is also very interesting because it reflects how we interpret the result based on our favor. Even the conclusion we draw from the science evidences could be wrong. This is an example of the sound argument but invalid conclusion. --Sissi (12/10/2016)
sissij

Will 'Skam,' a Norwegian Hit, Translate? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...a-norwegian-hit-translate.html

new york times social media language

shared by sissij on 10 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • OSLO — “Skam,” a racy, emotionally intense, true-to-life Norwegian web and television series, follows a group of Oslo teenagers as they navigate sex, school, drinking, depression, rape, religion, coming out and the pains of status anxiety, in real life and online.
  • Each season of “Skam” centers on one character. Season 3, which wraps up next week, has focused on Isak (Tarjei Sandvik Moe), who is coming to terms with being gay and has fallen for an older boy, Even (Henrik Holm).
  • “‘Skam’ is combining reality and fiction and the line between them isn’t so clear,” said Mari Magnus, 27, the web producer for the show, who writes the text messages and masterminds the Instagram accounts.
  • sissij on 10 Dec 16
     
    I strongly recommend this TV series because it has a very good depiction of the coming of age problems. I really like the way that the TV series switches the main character for every season. The main characters are all in the same story frame but with different identities. I really like this variety of perspectives in the TV series. Something related to TOK is that nobody is the center of the world, or rather there are a lot of different version of the world, so that why when we are referring to the same even we all experience, we may have completely different description. --Sissi (12/9/2016)
sissij

Color of 2017? Pantone Picks a Spring Shade - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ear-2017-pantone-greenery.html

new york times color psychology science brain science

shared by sissij on 09 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Not just any old green, of course: Pantone 15-0343, colloquially known as greenery, which is to say a “yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring.”
  • That is, the Color of the Year for 2017.
  • “This is the color of hopefulness, and of our connection to nature. It speaks to what we call the ‘re’ words: regenerate, refresh, revitalize, renew. Every spring we enter a new cycle and new shoots come from the ground. It is something life affirming to look forward to.”
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  • Certainly the psychology of color ranges from the obvious (red represents aggression; pink is swaddling and calms people) to the chiaroscuro.
  • a combination of yellow and blue, or warmth and a certain cool,” she said. “It’s a complex marriage.”
  • You could argue that the selection is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy, except the point is that the products are already there (otherwise they couldn’t be marketed so immediately), which supports Pantone’s contention that it has identified a burgeoning trend.
  • sissij on 09 Dec 16
     
    I found this article very interesting because it talks about the different impression color can give us. Take the example in this article, the color of the year is greenery because it gives people a refreshing feeling. This is related to how we assign different meaning to things based on our pattern recognition. Since we always see color green in the nature, so it very easy for us to relate green with new life and energy. They way Ms. Eiseman said about color is also very interesting. She saw colors with significant meaning and though green is the kid of the complex marriage between blue and yellow. She even personified the colors. This shows how we tends to assign human properties to completely lifeless objects. --Sissi (12/9/2016)
sissij

In News, What's Fake and What's Real Can Depend on What You Want to Believe - The New Y... - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...tisan-republican-democrat.html

new york times social media bias language

shared by sissij on 09 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • The proliferation of fake and hyperpartisan news that has flooded into Americans’ laptops and living rooms has prompted a national soul-searching, with liberals across the country asking how a nation of millions could be marching to such a suspect drumbeat.
  • In interviews, people said they felt more empowered, more attached to their own side and less inclined to listen to the other. Polarization is fun, like cheering a goal for the home team.
  • The wider problem is fake news has the effect of getting people not to believe real things.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • “It depends on who’s defining it. One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”
  • “All of a sudden they got this big push of registered voters,” Mr. Montgomery said, referring to California. “They were all illegals. The same thing in the state of Washington, Los Angeles and Houston, too.”
  • That type of insult increases the partisan divide. Paul Indre, a project manager for a hardware goods company in Akron, Ohio, who gets his news from podcasts and television, avoids much of online news. But he understands why people go there in a polarized era.
  • sissij on 09 Dec 16
     
    This article speaks a lot to confirmation bias we have when reading news. The recent election is a very good example as people are very polarized. There are half of the people support Trump, and half of the people that hates Trump. Although it is a bad thing that people have different opinions, this time is too extreme. Partly is because of the news we perceive everyday. People are always inclined to find their own side and stick with it because everybody need that feeling of belonging. There is no absolute fake or true news. It all depends on whether you believe it or not. --Sissi (12/8/2016)
sissij

The Future of Privacy - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...the-future-of-privacy.html

new york times privacy bias psychology

shared by sissij on 07 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • Turning Point: Apple resists the F.B.I. in unlocking an iPhone in the San Bernardino terrorism case.
  • Privacy confuses me, beyond my simplest understanding, which is that individuals prefer, to different degrees, that information about them not be freely available to others.
  • What does it mean, in an ostensible democracy, for the state to keep secrets from its citizens? The idea of the secret state seems antithetical to democracy, since its citizens, the voters, can’t know what their government is doing.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • If you have nothing to hide and you trust your government, what can you possibly have to fear? Except that one can just as readily ask: If you have nothing to hide, what do you really have, aside from the panoptic attention of a state, which itself keeps secrets?
  • Is individual privacy and state privacy the same thing?
  • In the short term, the span of a lifetime, many of us would argue for privacy, and therefore against transparency.
  • But history, the long term, is transparency; it is the absence of secrets.
  • The past, our own past, which our descendants will see us as having emerged from, will not be the past from which we now see ourselves emerging, but a reinterpretation of it, based on subsequently available information, greater transparency and fewer secrets.
  • our species is the poorer for every secret faithfully kept. Any permanently unbreakable encryption seems counter to that.
  • So perhaps that desire is as much a part of us, as a species, as our need to build these memory palaces.
  • sissij on 07 Dec 16
     
    I found this article very interesting because it talked about the dilemma in the definition of privacy. I found that our idea of privacy is very complicated. As everybody wants to keep their secret, they are curious of others' secret at the same time. This article also relate privacy with the democratic society. I think it shows one of the weakness of the democratic society: it trying to fulfill the desire of everybody and sometimes those desires contradicts each other. I think privacy is just like freedom, something very theoretical and does not exist in the reality. --Sissi (12/7/2016)
sissij

War Goes Viral: The Atlantic's November Issue - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...503630

atlantic social media technology

shared by sissij on 06 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • the use of social media as both a tool in conflict and a shaper of it, tracking how online chatter has begun to intersect with real-life violence in dozens of armed confrontations around the globe.
  • ISIS is a prime example...and many others are successfully taking cues from the ISIS playbook.
  • Many of the new connections in the coming years will be concentrated in regions most susceptible to violence and conflict.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In China, the “internet hive” no longer roils at foreigners alone, but also at China’s own military; and the U.S. military is now training for the “SMEIR” or “Social Media Environment and Internet Replication.”
  • How is Silicon Valley voting? Clinton: 88%; Undecided: 7%; Neither: 5%; Trump: 0%.
  • In the state, black students like Kenny are nearly four times as likely as their white peers to be charged with disturbing school. At least 22 states have disturbing school laws on the books, varying in their definition of the crime: whether it’s acting “in an obnoxious manner,” prohibiting “boisterous” behavior, or punishing students for “annoying conduct.”
  • sissij on 06 Dec 16
     
    This article talks about how media can be misused and weaponized using the example of ISIS. It also tangent on the politics within America as the media was so one sided during the election. I think the rate of support to Clinton showed by the silicon tech companies also reflects the overwhelming support on medias because they tech-based. --Sissi (12/6/2016)
sissij

Let Women Drive, a Prince in Saudi Arabia Urges - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...audi-arabia-women-driving.html

new york times research bias

shared by sissij on 02 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • he couched his views in economic terms, noting that foreign drivers are typically paid 3,800 riyals, or about $1,000, a month to shuttle women around.
  • The driving ban is enforced by Saudi Arabia’s religious police, and it has been the occasional target of protests. Women were allowed to vote and run in local elections last December for the first time.
  • Ending the ban would allow the kingdom to eventually “dispense with” the services of an estimated one million drivers and would stimulate the economy by allowing women to work by driving other women who did not feel comfortable behind the wheel.
  • sissij on 02 Dec 16
     
    I think this article is very interesting because it shows how religion is conflicted with the modern society. I think religion should be able to adapt with the modern society. It shouldn't be misused for personally considerations and discriminations. It is very hard to make clear the line of proper religion and using it as a reason for our own benefit because religion itself is an invented thing. --Sissi (12/2/2016)
sissij

U.S. Will Ban Smoking in Public Housing Nationwide - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...public-housing-nationwide.html

new york times knowledge Language social media

shared by sissij on 02 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • The final rule followed a period of public comment during which some opponents took exception to the government’s telling people what to do in the privacy of their own homes.
  • In New York, there was also concern about whether police officers would be involved in enforcing the rule; that will not be the case, Housing Authority officials said.
  • “Public housing will go smoke-free and remain smoke-free, and, because of that,” he said, “so many folks are going to live healthier lives and have a better shot at reaching their dreams because they have good health.”
  • sissij on 02 Dec 16
     
    Banning smoking in public housing is still a controversial issue because it touch on whether we have the freedom to decide what we do at home. I think this issue shows that how our freedom is limited in this society. To what extent can we have our own privacy is still a debatable question because we all have a different understanding on how we are related to other people in this society. Or even do we really have privacy? As social animals, we are meant to stay in groups. Also, the last statement of this article sound like a logical fallacy because having a good health and having a better shot at reaching dreams don't really have that much direct relation. I think it is just a small factor. --Sissi (12/1/2016)
sissij

What Not to Say to a Cancer Patient - The New York Times - 1 views

www.nytimes.com/...o-say-to-a-cancer-patient.html

new york times Language psychology knowledge

shared by sissij on 01 Dec 16 - No Cached
  • “Really” I was fine, I told her. But what if I hadn’t been? Would I have wanted to launch into a description of bad medical news at what was supposed to be a fun event? Would I have wanted even to be reminded of a bout with cancer?
  • False optimism devalued what was going on in my body. People were insensitive not from a lack of compassion but from not knowing what is really helpful.
  • What he and those he’s counseled have found to be most helpful were not words but actions
  • sissij on 01 Dec 16
     
    This reading helps me to see how we can do a better job at comforting the patients from the perspective of a patient. Many times, we are so eccentric and think we are doing something good. However, our language might be misunderstand because there is no fixed meaning or definition to any word or language. People from different background, in different mood, or from different standpoint may see the same sentence differently. What we think is appropriate is not necessarily appropriate from everybody else since language cannot fully, clear, or precisely express what we really mean. --Sissi (11/30/2016) 
sissij

Good reasoning needn't make you an unfeeling robot - 1 views

theconversation.com/e-you-an-unfeeling-robot-10524

reasoning bias knowledge

shared by sissij on 29 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • There are two brain networks, called in the literature the “Default Mode Network” and the “Task Positive Network” – and it was shown these activate in different reasoning situations, but rarely together. One network lit up when subjects were asked to reason about physical systems (including the mechanical properties of inanimate objects); the other lit up when subjects were asked to reason about social situations (including the mental states of other people).
  • Some people have jumped to bad conclusions on the basis of this evidence, claiming that it shows “analytic thinking” and “empathy” are in tension, and that when we reason carefully, we can’t see the human cost of our decisions.
  • These are all open questions where the logician, the linguist and the philosopher enter the picture, to help us understand how we can represent and reason about the world.
  • sissij on 29 Nov 16
     
    This article is saying that emotion and reasoning is not in conflict. Although our brain has two distinctive system of thinking, it doesn't tension between thinking and feeling. So our emotion and our reasoning is coexisting. A good reasoning doesn't conflict with moral judgment. Good reasoning is also coming up with possibilities to consider the options to explore. However, this topic is still debatable. --Sissi (11/29/2016)
sissij

Divisions in My Dorm Room - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...divisions-in-my-dorm-room.html

social media bias new york times

shared by sissij on 29 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • If I had voted, however, I would have picked Mr. Trump. I was focused on school. I had no idea that a few days later I would be dismissed as a “Trump supporter” and a person of “privilege” who “reflected an us versus them mind-set” in an essay by my college roommate in this publication — an essay that would go viral and change my life.
  • As minorities, my mother, father, grandparents and I have experienced racial hate. My skin may be light, but I understand discrimination. I may not know each person’s individual experience, but am able to empathize with others.
  • Why should we be afraid to express our opinions? If we see one another not as a Clinton supporter or a Trump supporter, but as human, perhaps we can discover empathy in the troubled nation in which we exist.The narrative should be one of inclusiveness, openness, respect and love. It is not only about making “America Great Again,” it is about making America home again.
  • sissij on 29 Nov 16
     
    This article shows a slice of the conflict that happening around us everywhere since the result of the election is announced. This is from the perspective of a college student who prefer Donald Trump and her reasoning doesn't sound all like crazy, it's rather rational. From the cries and intense argument over the election, we can see that America is still far from being inclusive. People are still very extreme. The one-sided information on the social media might be one of the reason why people are so blinded to only one side and refuse to respect others' choices. --Sissi (11/28/2016)
sissij

The Linguistic Evolution of 'Like' - The Atlantic - 1 views

www.theatlantic.com/...507614

evolution Language knowledge

shared by sissij on 28 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • In our mouths or in print, in villages or in cities, in buildings or in caves, a language doesn’t sit still.
  • What we are seeing in like’s transformations today are just the latest chapters in a story that began with an ancient word that was supposed to mean “body.”
  • So today’s like did not spring mysteriously from a crowd on the margins of unusual mind-set and then somehow jump the rails from them into the general population. The seeds of the modern like lay among ordinary people; the Beatniks may not even have played a significant role in what happened later.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • Like LOL, like, entrenched in all kinds of sentences, used subconsciously, and difficult to parse the real meaning of without careful consideration, has all the hallmarks of a piece of grammar—specifically, in the pragmatic department, modal wing.
  • sissij on 28 Nov 16
     
    I found this article very interesting. The meaning of "like" does not spring from abstract concepts, it's rather related to ordinary people and physical meaning of "body". Also the meaning of similarity also reflects how people views the world. The way an ancient language develop to its modern form shows how the society evolves. --Sissi (11/27/2016)
sissij

Emotions | Being Human - 2 views

www.beinghuman.org/emotions

emotions human science research psychology

shared by sissij on 26 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • They come and go, changing like the weather in April: sunny, rainy, stormy, mild or thunderous. Usually we find a reason why we’re happy or sad, embarrassed, or proud.
  • Although most people feel that emotions are one of the most personal, intimate, private expressions, an evolutionary understanding implies that they are, instead, impersonal mechanisms that we all share.
  • The basic emotions—fear, sorrow, disgust, anger, and joy—evolved as mechanisms to instigate behaviors appropriate to the environments of our distant ancestors.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Guilt signals that we’ve violated morals we believe in; embarrassment shows that we’ve made a fool out of ourselves
  • We evolved lo earn from emotions and they shape our behavior continually. Fundamentally we try to avoid unpleasant emotions and experience pleasant ones because they indicate situations that are either beneficial or harmful for us.
  • sissij on 26 Nov 16
     
    I found this article very interesting because it shows me another aspect of emotion, as a very impersonal shared knowledge that's developed by the logic of evolution. I think there are some similarities between emotions and languages as they both shape our behavior continually, and also emotion can be used a tool of communication in a way just like language. Actually, I think emotions serve as the very primitive form of communication in the early phase of human. --Sissi (11/26/2016)
sissij

Language family - Wikipedia - 0 views

en.wikipedia.org/...Language_family

language knowledge wikipedia

shared by sissij on 26 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family. The term 'family' reflects the tree model of language origination in historical linguistics, which makes use of a metaphor comparing languages to people in a biological family tree, or in a subsequent modification, to species in a phylogenetic tree of evolutionary taxonomy.
  • the Celtic, Germanic, Slavic, Romance, and Indo-Iranian language families are branches of a larger Indo-European language family. There is a remarkably similar pattern shown by the linguistic tree and the genetic tree of human ancestry[3] that was verified statistically.
  • A speech variety may also be considered either a language or a dialect depending on social or political considerations. Thus, different sources give sometimes wildly different accounts of the number of languages within a family. Classifications of the Japonic family, for example, range from one language (a language isolate) to nearly twenty.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • A language isolated in its own branch within a family, such as Armenian within Indo-European, is often also called an isolate, but the meaning of isolate in such cases is usually clarified. For instance, Armenian may be referred to as an "Indo-European isolate". By contrast, so far as is known, the Basque language is an absolute isolate: it has not been shown to be related to any other language despite numerous attempts.
  • The common ancestor of a language family is seldom known directly since most languages have a relatively short recorded history. However, it is possible to recover many features of a proto-language by applying the comparative method, a reconstructive procedure worked out by 19th century linguist August Schleicher.
  • sissij on 26 Nov 16
     
    I found this metaphor very accurate because I think languages certainly have some intimate relationship like family members. Languages are not all very different from one another and isolated. Although people speaking different language may not understand one another, their languages are still connected. I think this article can show that language in some ways are connected like bridges instead of walls. --Sissi (11/26/2016)
sissij

Facebook Said to Create Censorship Tool to Get Back Into China - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...ook-censorship-tool-china.html

censorship bias social media

shared by sissij on 24 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • But the project illustrates the extent to which Facebook may be willing to compromise one of its core mission statements, “to make the world more open and connected,” to gain access to a market of 1.4 billion Chinese people.
  • sissij on 24 Nov 16
     
    As Facebook planning to enter the Chinese market, it has to compromise the government's request on censorship, which ironically opposed Facebook's core mission statement. But I think censorship is not all that bad because the false use of the mass media such as the "fake news"  would make the society very unstable. For a country that has 1.4 billion of population, an totally open and free internet may cause much more problem than a censorship. It all depends on a balance. I hope the more open Facebook and the Chinese government and negotiate their points and reach a balance between too open and too restrained. --Sissi (11/24/2016)
sissij

Your Dog Remembers More Than You Think - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...dogs-memory.html

brain science language research

shared by sissij on 24 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • In people it is called episodic memory, and it involves a sense of self. In animals, it’s called episodic-like memory, because it’s difficult to try to plumb something as elusive as self without the aid of language.
  • Dr. Fugazza and colleagues reported online in Current Biology that this showed that the dogs remembered an event they hadn’t been concentrating on, the trainer’s action. She said one aspect strengthened that conclusion: The dogs tended to lie down immediately when they got back to the mat, suggesting that their heads were in “lie down” mode, not “do it” mode.
  • He said human episodic memory is lost in Alzheimer’s disease and he and others study animal memory in hopes of learning how to combat that loss. The work on dogs offers a new technique that could be very useful, he said.
  • sissij on 24 Nov 16
     
    I found this experiment very interesting because it shows some aspect of how animals memory works. The result can be used to see how memory work without language. I think language and memory have an intertwined relationship because sometimes I can feel that the information stored in my brain is in language rather than abstract form such as knowledge. For example, my memory of chemistry knowledge is stored in English, so when I am reading a chemistry related book in Chinese, I would usually get lost because there aren't any vocals on Chemistry in Chinese in my memory. It would be a very interesting question to consider that how our memory will construct if we don't have a language. There is a kind of mental disease called "aphasia", meaning the loss of ability to understand language. How do they remember things when they lose the ability to assign meanings and communicate? --Sissi (11/24/2016)
sissij

How to become a polyglot - Fluent in 3 months - Language Hacking and Travel Tips - 0 views

www.fluentin3months.com/how-to-become-a-polyglot

knowledge language

shared by sissij on 23 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • In my attempt to expand my horizons and try my best to get to know a country’s culture, learning its language it’s just a natural step to take, which I’ve repeated several times.
  • The priority is to learn how to think in a foreign language.
  • You should be passionate about each language.
  • ...1 more annotation...
  • There is obviously no point in working so hard to learn a language if you will just forget it as you learn the next one. As much practise as possible is needed!
  • sissij on 23 Nov 16
     
    I found this article very interesting because it provides some thoughts that polyglots have on language. Language is a very crucial step to know a country's culture so he learn many languages as he traveled around the world. One point he mentioned in this article is that the priority is to learn how to think in a foreign language. As a English speaker whose mother tone is Chinese, I know the feeling of thinking in a foreign language and how important it is in the efficiency of my learning. As you think in that language, you will speak more naturally and have less awkward phrasing. Language is all about communication, so the more you use it, the more easily you will get a feel of it and handle it. Languages are like shoes, the more you have, the farther you can go. The longer you wear them, the more comfortable you will be. --Sissi (11/23/2016)
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