Head in the Cloud
Why Knowing Things Still Matters When Facts Are So Easy to Look Up
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Head in the Cloud
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Narrated by:
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Chris Sorensen
About this listen
The real-world value of knowledge in the mobile-device age.
More people know who Khloe Kardashian is than who Rene Descartes was. Most can't find Delaware on a map, correctly spell the word occurrence, or name the largest ocean on the planet. But how important is it to fill our heads with facts? A few keystrokes can summon almost any information in seconds. Why should we bother learning facts at all?
Best-selling author William Poundstone confronts that timely question in Head in the Cloud. He shows that many areas of knowledge correlate with the quality of our lives - wealth, health, and happiness - and even with politics and behavior. Combining Big Data survey techniques with eye-opening anecdotes, Poundstone examines what Americans know (and don't know) on topics ranging from quantum physics to pop culture.
Head in the Cloud asks why we're okay with spelling errors on menus but not on résumés; why Fox News viewers don't know which party controls Congress; why people who know trivia make more money than those who don't; and how individuals can navigate clickbait and media spin to stay informed about what really matters.
Hilarious, humbling, and wildly entertaining, Head in the Cloud is a must-listen for anyone who doesn't know everything.
©2016 William Poundstone (P)2016 Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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Disappointing analysis of future
- By JKBart on 12-10-13
By: Tyler Cowen
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Outnumbered
- Exploring the Algorithms That Control Our Lives
- By: David Sumpter
- Narrated by: David West
- Length: 8 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 25
Our increasing reliance on technology and the Internet has opened a window for mathematicians and data researchers to gaze through into our lives. Using the data they are constantly collecting about where we travel, where we shop, what we buy, what interests us, they can begin to predict our daily habits, and increasingly we are relinquishing our decision making to algorithms - are we giving up this up too easily?
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good reality check for "Cambridge Hyperbolitica"
- By Haggai Elkayam on 08-06-18
By: David Sumpter
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Mindware
- Tools for Smart Thinking
- By: Richard E. Nisbett
- Narrated by: Joe Barrett
- Length: 10 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 509
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 434
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Story4 out of 5 stars 427
Many scientific and philosophical ideas are so powerful that they can be applied to our lives at home, work, and school to help us think smarter and more effectively about our behavior and the world around us. Surprisingly, many of these ideas remain unknown to most of us. In Mindware, the world-renowned psychologist Richard Nisbett presents these ideas in clear and accessible detail, offering a tool kit for better thinking and wiser decisions.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Sound scientific advice on how to live your life
- By Neuron on 08-26-15
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The Formula
- How Algorithms Solve all our Problems…and Create More
- By: Luke Dormehl
- Narrated by: Daniel Weyman
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 447
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 389
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Story4 out of 5 stars 388
A fascinating guided tour of the complex, fast-moving, and influential world of algorithms - what they are, why they’re such powerful predictors of human behavior, and where they’re headed next. Algorithms exert an extraordinary level of influence on our everyday lives - from dating websites and financial trading floors, through to online retailing and internet searches - Google's search algorithm is now a more closely guarded commercial secret than the recipe for Coca-Cola.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Not about algorithms. Not an original book.
- By Landon Rordam on 12-02-14
By: Luke Dormehl
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The Filter Bubble
- What the Internet Is Hiding from You
- By: Eli Pariser
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 309
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 255
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Story4 out of 5 stars 251
In December 2009, Google began customizing its search results for each user. Instead of giving you the most broadly popular result, Google now tries to predict what you are most likely to click on. According to MoveOn.org board president Eli Pariser, Google's change in policy is symptomatic of the most significant shift to take place on the Web in recent years: the rise of personalization.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Now in the top 3 best books I've ever read
- By Brian Esserlieu on 05-26-11
By: Eli Pariser
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Success and Luck
- Good Fortune and the Myth of Meritocracy
- By: Robert H. Frank
- Narrated by: Robert H. Frank
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 218
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 181
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Story4 out of 5 stars 182
How important is luck in economic success? No question more reliably divides conservatives from liberals. As conservatives correctly observe, people who amass great fortunes are almost always talented and hardworking. But liberals are also correct to note that countless others have those same qualities yet never earn much. In recent years, social scientists have discovered that chance plays a much larger role in important life outcomes than most people imagine.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not what is advertised
- By Andre on 04-18-17
By: Robert H. Frank
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Too Big To Know
- Rethinking Knowledge Now That the Facts Aren't the Facts, Experts Are Everywhere, and the Smartest Person in the Room Is the Room
- By: David Weinberger
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 139
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4 out of 5 stars 109
We used to know how to know. We got our answers from books or experts. We'd nail down the facts and move on. But in the Internet age, knowledge has moved onto networks. There's more knowledge than ever, of course, but it's different. Topics have no boundaries, and nobody agrees on anything.Yet this is the greatest time in history to be a knowledge seeker - if you know how.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Good to know ...
- By John B. Fisher on 01-24-12
By: David Weinberger
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An Inconvenient Book
- Real Solutions to the World's Biggest Problems (Unabridged)
- By: Glenn Beck
- Narrated by: Glenn Beck
- Length: 6 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 513
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 138
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Story4 out of 5 stars 137
The world is a mess. It seems that everywhere listeners turn, there's another problem. What is needed now are solutions. If only there was a man who could simplify things, cut through the rhetoric, and fix everything. Then, if he was just able to put all of that insight into something that people could buy...in a store and online...man, that would great. Wait a minute!
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1 out of 5 stars
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Waste of Time and Money
- By Crystal on 04-11-09
By: Glenn Beck
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The Science of Fear
- Why We Fear the Things We Should Not - and Put Ourselves in Great Danger
- By: Daniel Gardner
- Narrated by: Scott Peterson
- Length: 12 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,016
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 674
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Story4 out of 5 stars 678
From terror attacks to the War on Terror, bursting real-estate bubbles to crystal meth epidemics, sexual predators to poisonous toys from China, our list of fears seems to be exploding. And yet, we are the safest and healthiest humans in history. Irrational fear is running amok, and often with tragic results. In the months after 9/11, when people decided to drive instead of fly - believing they were avoiding risk - road deaths rose by 1,595. Those lives were lost to fear.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A rational assessment of the world we live in
- By K Head on 08-29-09
By: Daniel Gardner
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Makers and Takers
- By: Peter Schweizer
- Narrated by: Johnny Heller
- Length: 5 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 49
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 30
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
In Makers and Takers, Peter Schweizer broadens his scope to examine the damaging effects of liberal philosophy on ordinary Americans. Drawing on national polls and academic studies, as well as the revealing testimony of liberals themselves, Schweizer shows that liberals are, on the whole, less honest, less generous, lazier, and more materialistic than their conservative counterparts.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent!
- By Eileen J. O'Connor on 03-08-16
By: Peter Schweizer
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Future Babble
- Why Expert Predictions Fail - and Why We Believe Them Anyway
- By: Dan Gardner
- Narrated by: Walter Dixon
- Length: 11 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 57
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4 out of 5 stars 37
In Future Babble, award-winning journalist Dan Gardner presents landmark research debunking the whole expert prediction industry and explores our obsession with the future. The truth is that experts are about as accurate as dart-throwing monkeys.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Future Babble Babble
- By Karen on 05-04-11
By: Dan Gardner
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Smarter Than You Think
- How Technology Is Changing Our Minds for the Better
- By: Clive Thompson
- Narrated by: Jeff Cummings
- Length: 10 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 82
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 84
In Smarter Than You Think, Thompson documents how every technological innovation - from the printing press to the telegraph - has provoked the very same anxieties that plague us today. We panic that life will never be the same, that our attentions are eroding, that culture is being trivialized. But as in the past, we adapt, learning to use the new and retaining what’s good of the old.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Title should be Getting Smarter Through Technology
- By A. Yoshida on 03-10-17
By: Clive Thompson
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Blindspot
- By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, Anthony G. Greenwald
- Narrated by: Eric Jason Martin
- Length: 7 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 562
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 459
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Story4 out of 5 stars 456
I know my own mind. I am able to assess others in a fair and accurate way. These self-perceptions are challenged by leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald as they explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. Blindspot is the authors’ metaphor for the portion of the mind that houses hidden biases.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Difficult to interpret.
- By Ryan Arnold on 12-21-15
By: Mahzarin R. Banaji, and others
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Bad News
- How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy
- By: Batya Ungar-Sargon
- Narrated by: Batya Ungar-Sargon
- Length: 7 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 181
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 167
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Story5 out of 5 stars 165
Today’s newsrooms are propagating radical ideas that were fringe as recently as a decade ago, including “antiracism,” intersectionality, open borders, and critical race theory. How did this come to be? It all has to do with who our news media is written by—and who it is written for. In Bad News: How Woke Media Is Undermining Democracy, Batya Ungar-Sargon reveals how American journalism underwent a status revolution over the twentieth century—from a blue-collar trade to an elite profession.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Balanced, informative, and insightful
- By J. B. Eibel on 06-06-22
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To Save Everything, Click Here
- The Folly of Technological Solutionism
- By: Evgeny Morozov
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 106
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 88
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Story4 out of 5 stars 87
In the very near future, smart “technologies and big data” will allow us to make large-scale and sophisticated interventions in politics, culture, and everyday life. Technology will allow us to solve problems in highly original ways and create new incentives to get more people to do the right thing. But how will such “solutionism” affect our society, once deeply political, moral, and irresolvable dilemmas are recast as uncontroversial and easily manageable matters of technological efficiency?
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5 out of 5 stars
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The about face shift in view I've been looking for
- By McKane on 03-18-15
By: Evgeny Morozov
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The Age of American Unreason
- By: Susan Jacoby
- Narrated by: Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 14 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 267
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 152
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 154
Combining historical analysis with contemporary observation, Susan Jacoby dissects a new American cultural phenomenon - one that is at odds with our heritage of Enlightenment reason and with modern, secular knowledge and science. With mordant wit, Jacoby surveys an antirationalist landscape extending from pop culture to a pseudo-intellectual universe of "junk thought".
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3 out of 5 stars
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Interesting, but explanation by redescription
- By T. Andrew Poehlman on 07-15-08
By: Susan Jacoby
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The Why Axis
- Hidden Motives and the Undiscovered Economics of Everyday Life
- By: Uri Gneezy, John A. List
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 9 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 92
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 79
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Story4 out of 5 stars 79
Uri Gneezy and John List are like the anthropologists who spend months in the field studying the people in their native habitats. But in their case they embed themselves in our messy world to try and solve big, difficult problems, such as the gap between rich and poor students and the violence plaguing inner city schools; the real reasons people discriminate; whether women are really less competitive than men; and how to correctly price products and services. Their field experiments show how economic incentives can change outcomes.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Some Interesting Insights But Poor Science
- By Harold Toomey on 06-09-23
By: Uri Gneezy, and others