Reading Circle Books

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Science & Technology

Civility on the Web (or, If you talk, be polite)

The New York Times explores calls for a Code of Conduct (like this from Jimmy Wales, or this from Tim O’Riley) on the web, as well as the motivations and secret lives of the Trolls Among Us; and Clay Shirky, author of Here Comes Everybody, explains why A Group Is Its Own Worst Enemy.

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Male and Female: Equal After All

Cecilia Ford’s investigations into the power of conversation for her new book, Women Speaking Up: Getting and Using Turns in Workplace Meetings, are reviewed here: Researcher finds that women are speaking up; and Janet Hyde, author of Half the Human Experience, has published research that finds no gender differences in math performance.

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The Library Has Landed! Phoenix Takes Books to Mars

Human interactions with the Red Planet have long been a blend of wonder, science, imagination, fear, longing & engineering. In honor of this interplay, The Planetary Society has placed a DVD among the scientific instruments on board the Phoenix Lander that touched down on the Martian south pole this last memorial day. And it carries books.

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Firefox 3: How to Surf the Web

I’ve been using the open-source Firefox web browser since 2003, when a techie friend (thanks, Rocky!) emailed our church list to suggest it as a less virus-vulnerable alternative to the standard Microsoft mess.

That makes me an internet expert 😉 –and since I know everything there is to know, I thought I’d write you this handy guide:

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