Trivia (should have been 8th February)

Rear Brakeman: 1943
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

March 1943
“Walter V. Dew, rear brakeman, on the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe between Chicago and Chillicothe, Illinois, watching the train from the cupola”
Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information
View original post

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An Animated Look At How A Speaker Makes Sound
via MakeUseOf by Dave Le Clair
We use speakers all of the time. In fact, I’d guess that the device on which you are reading this article has a speaker on it somewhere.
Do you know how a speaker works? I’ll admit, I had no idea before I found this awesome animated infographic. Sure, I knew that there was a cone and a bunch of other components that allows them to push the sound towards my ears, but other than that, it was complicated nonsense. Now, I understand, and if you read through this beautiful animated infographic, you will too!
Continue reading and you will understand.

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Novel as Protestant art
The history of literature is not tidy, and the path of the modern novel is particularly long and improbable. Can its origins be traced to Protestantism?… more

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Two Bibles on View in NYC Showcase the Art and Violence of Medieval Books
via Hyperallergic (sensitive to art and its discontents) by Allison Meier

“Saul defeats the Ammonites, is crowned by Samuel, and peace offerings are made,”
Crusader Bible (13th century) (courtesy the Morgan Library & Museum)
Two incredible examples of medieval book art are on rare view in New York: the Metropolitan Museum of Art is hosting the hefty Winchester Bible, and the Morgan Library and Museum is celebrating the Crusader Bible and its vivid battle scenes.
Continue reading

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Why Humans Drink Alcohol: It’s Evolution, Plus Bad Fruit
via 3 Quarks Daily from NBC News

Human ancestors may have begun evolving the knack for consuming alcohol about 10 million years ago, long before modern humans began brewing booze, researchers say. The ability to break down alcohol probably helped human ancestors make the most out of rotting, fermented fruit that fell onto the forest floor, the researchers said. Therefore, knowing when this ability developed could help researchers figure out when these human ancestors began moving to life on the ground, as opposed to mostly in trees.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Music to shoot you by
What is the preferred musical accompaniment to virtual killing? Beethoven, of course. Ted Gioia on the rise of  “first-person-shooter Romanticism”… more

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Group belief
via OUP Blog by Jennifer Lackey

Groups are often said to believe things. For instance, we talk about PETA believing that factory farms should be abolished, the Catholic Church believing that the Pope is infallible, and the U.S. government believing that people have the right to free speech. But how can we make sense of a group believing something.
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A simple trick to improve your memory
via 3 Quarks Daily by Tom Stafford in BBC
Oops, image won't copy!
If I asked you to sit down and remember a list of phone numbers or a series of facts, how would you go about it? There’s a fair chance that you’d be doing it wrong. One of the interesting things about the mind is that even though we all have one, we don't have perfect insight into how to get the best from it. This is in part because of flaws in our ability to think about our own thinking, which is called metacognition.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Who was Bruno Pontecorvo?
The physicist Bruno Pontecorvo was repeatedly accused of spying. But was the real problem our idea of secrecy?… more
This is one of the stories that captured my imagination, I spent far too long reading the review and may even need to buy/borrow from the library the actual book.

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Half-million year old decorative etching on clamshell made by a Homo erectus
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
New Scientist reports on the discovery of the oldest know work of art: a pattern of lines scratched on a freshwater clamshell 300,000 years before humans evolved.
Continue reading

Trivia (should have been 7th February)

None Shall Pass: 1924
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

Washington, D.C., 1924
“Rock Creek Park scenes. Girls on bridge. L-R: Katherine Wren, Norvell Munford, Mary Happer, Cecil Lester Jones, Jessie Adkins, Doris Wagner, Virginia Seldon, Mildred Crosby and Mary Seldon.”
View original post

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Magnificent Mosque photos
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

At Vantage, Iranian photographer Mohammad Rezi's mesmerizing Mosque photography. Gazing at these photos feels like looking into a kaleidoscope.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
American musical
The last theatrical song to hit big, Sondheim’s Send in the Clowns, was written in 1973. Behold the parlous state of the American musical… more

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Climate shocks, dynastic cycles, and nomadic conquests
via OUP Blog by Qiang Chen

Nomadic conquests have helped shape world history. We may indulge ourselves for a moment to imagine the following counterfactuals: What if Western Europe did not fall to seminomadic Germanic tribes, or Western Europe was conquered by the Huns, Arabs, or Mongols, or Kievan Rus did not succumb to Mongolian invaders, or Ming China did not give way to the Manchu Qing? For centuries, the mere mention of the names of Attila, Genghis Khan, or Tamerlane could strike terror into men and women throughout Eurasia.
Continue reading

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Smaug and Friends: Dragons in Literature
via Abe Books by Beth Carswell
It’s been over a decade since Peter Jackson released his blockbuster film adaptation of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Then in 2012, the first installment of Jackson’s three-film treatment of The Hobbit, called An Unexpected Journey, hit the theaters, followed last year by part two, The Desolation of Smaug. And now, at long last, the third and final piece of the puzzle is here. The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies brings Bilbo’s big screen story to an end next week. Which means we get to hear more of Benedict Cumberbatch’s voice through the throat of Smaug.
Continue reading
And here's my favourite dragon, Saphira



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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
The French waiter
Intimidating, maligned, marvelous: He is all precision and speed, with a big dose of drama… more

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Nano Drone – small drone, big fun
via The Red Ferret by Donyae Coles
Drones are everywhere. They’re taking pictures of fireworks, getting attacked by hawks, just everywhere and people love them! A full-size drone might be a bit much if all you want to do is play around with it and don’t plan on attaching a Go Pro to make some stunning mini documentary. If you just want something small to learn with, the Nano Drone, world’s smallest quad-copter, is the drone you’re looking for.
$35-worth of fun

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Discovering microbiology
via OUP Blog by Nicholas P. Money

Microbiology should be part of everyone’s educational experience. European students deserve to know something about the influence of microscopic forms of life on their existence, as it is at least as important as the study of the Roman Empire or the Second World War.
Knowledge of viruses should be as prominent in American high school curricula as the origin of the Declaration of Independence. This limited geographic compass reflects the fact that the science of microbiology is a triumph of Western civilization, but the educational significance of the field is a global concern. We cannot understand life without an elementary comprehension of microorganisms.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
History of love songs
“Love shook my senses, / Like wind crashing on the mountain oaks.” Taylor Swift? No, Sappho. The love song is a timeless form… more

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An Introduction to Hand Saws
via Boing Boing by Steve Hoefer

Steve Hoefer offers another tutorial in basic skills that everyone should know.
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External examining: fit for purpose?

an article by Sue Bloxham (University of Cumbria) and Margaret Price (Oxford Brookes University) published in Studies in Higher Education Volume 40 Issue 2 (March 2015)

Abstract

In a context of international concern about academic standards, the practice of external examining is widely admired for its role in defending standards. Yet a contradiction exists between this faith in examining and continuing concerns about standards.

This article argues that external examining rests on assumptions about standards which are significantly open to challenge.

Six assumptions relating to the conceptual context, the operation and the nature of examiners themselves are analysed drawing on a review of the available evidence. The analysis challenges the notion of a consensus on standards and the potential to vest in individuals the ability to represent that consensus when judging the comparability of academic standards in a stable and appropriate way.

The issues raised have relevance to the UK and to other national systems using external examiners or seeking to guarantee academic standards by, in some cases, adopting quality assurance approaches developed in the UK.

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Work, Bodies and Boundaries: Talking Sexual Harassment in the New Economy

an article by Laura K. Brunner and Maryanne Dever (Women’s Studies Department, University of Maryland) published in Gender, Work & Organization Volume 21 Issue 5 (September 2014)

Abstract

This article examines sexual harassment in the context of the new economy and highlights the manner in which the changing nature of work – and in particular the acknowledged rise of sexualized ‘body work’ – troubles conventional understandings of what constitutes sexual harassment in the workplace and the means to address it.

Using data from a small-scale qualitative study of service workers and professional employees, we explore the ways in which those definitions of sexual harassment now fail to match participants’ accounts of their working lives. We examine sexual harassment in the context of the rise of service roles that require forms of increasingly sexualized ‘body work’ from employees, increased demands for workers to ‘self-manage’, and new flexible modes of employment that blur the boundaries between being ‘on’ and ‘off’ the job.

We conclude that these ‘new’ modes of work may provide the conditions for the revival of ‘old’ stories which limit the capacity of individuals to recognize and label behaviours as ‘sexual harassment’.

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Training older employees: what is effective?

an article by Thomas Zwick (Faculty of Business Management and Economics, University of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany)published in International Journal of Manpower Volume 36 Issue 2 (2015)

Abstract

Purpose
Employees older than 55 years of age have a much lower share in training than other employees. The purpose of this paper is to propose that one of the reasons for this phenomenon that has not been taken into account so far is that their training is less effective.

Design/methodology/approach
This paper shows that training of older employees indeed is less effective in the self-assessment of training participants. Training effectiveness is measured with respect to key dimensions such as career development, earnings, adoption of new skills, flexibility or job security. Besides age a broad range of explanatory variables is included as covariates in a large linked employer-employee data set.

Findings
The paper finds that main reason for the differences in training effectiveness during the life cycle is that firms do not take into account differences in training motivation. Older employees get higher returns from informal and directly relevant training and from training contents that can be mainly tackled by crystallised abilities. Training incidence in the more effective training forms is, however, not higher for older employees. Given that other decisive variables on self-assessed effectiveness such as training duration, financing and initiative are not sensitive to age, the wrong allocation of training contents and training forms therefore is the critical explanation for the lower effectiveness of training.

Originality/value
This paper therefore shows to human resource managers why old employees rate training effectiveness lower and indicates what can be done in order to improve training effectiveness of old employees. It uses a large and detailed data set entailing more than 6,000 employees from about 150 establishments.

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Trivia (should have been) 1 February

Out and About: 1905
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

Nov. 22, 1905
“Lake Shore Drive, Chicago”
A nice day for a carriage ride, and look out for that omnibus
8x10 inch dry plate glass negative
View original post

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Annie and girl culture
via OUP Blog by Jacqueline Warwick

The musical version of little orphan Annie – as distinct from her original, cartoon incarnation – was born a fully formed ten-year-old in 1977, and she quickly became an icon of girlhood. Since then, thousands of girls have performed songs like “Maybe” and “Tomorrow,” sometimes in service to a production of the musical, but more often in talent shows, music festivals, or pedagogical settings. The plucky orphan girl seems to combine just the right amount of softness and sass, and her musical language is beautifully suited to the female prepubescent voice. So what can Annie teach us about what girls are.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
On George Balanchine
Birth of American ballet. Balanchine’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream opened up new possibilities. His motto: “Don’t think, just dance”… more

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Why Replacing Humans With These Robots Makes Sense
via MakeUseOf by Joel Lee
Robots are taking over the world. It’s a concept that’s both exciting and frightening to think about. In the past, we’ve explored jobs that robots can’t steal from humans, but what about the other side of the spectrum?
Are there any jobs where automation and precision are so valuable that robots are actually more deserving of them than humans?
Continue reading some very interesting ideas, with video.

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Druids and nature
via OUP Blog by Barry Cunliffe

What was the relationship between the Druids and nature? The excerpt below from Druids: A Very Short Introduction looks at seasonal cycles, the winter solstice, and how the Druids charted the movement of the sun, moon, and stars: continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
On Bob Hope
Why was Bob Hope so successful? Mostly for the same reason people no longer find him funny: He wasn’t Jewish… more

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Long-forgotten plans for a Haunted Mansion boat-ride
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

From the Long Forgotten blog, a characteristically excellent and thorough going-over of the aborted plan to build the Haunted Mansion as a boat ride-through, much like Pirates of the Caribbean (which may have cannibalized some of the aborted watery Mansion plans).
Continue reading

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Frank Sinatra and the Lost Art of Livin'
via 3 Quarks Daily from Delancey Place

He adored openly and gave not a damn who saw. In the middle of parties, amid any gathering, he blurted encomiums of love and appreciation: ‘Doesn't she look radiant?’, he would say of Bacall. (I remember feeling so happy,’ she said of such eruptions.) Whatever his latest elations and fancies, they were always made grandly audible: ‘No one prettier has ever been in my house!’ ‘You’re beautiful tonight!' ‘You look mah-velous!’ (That was in fact exactly how he said it.) Public proclamation did not faze him; after all, he sang the same sentiments on records and stages – legendarily making every woman feel that he sang only to her.
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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Oliver Sacks and cancer
Oliver Sacks has months to live. There is no longer time for anything inessential – just himself, his work, his friends. And some silliness…. more

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You Won't Believe How Much These 80s Toys, Gadgets, And Video Games Are Worth
via MakeUseOf by Dave LeClair
Might you be sitting on a gold mine in your attic? Some gadgets and toys from the 1980s are actually worth huge amounts of money to collectors. Whether it’s crazy valuable video games, or even the Walkman, which has exploded in popularity thanks to Guardians of the Galaxy, you could be sitting on a ton of money without even knowing it.
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Oops

Just when I was thinking that my mental health was as stable as it could be I “fell off the shelf” or whatever the right expression is.

Today I am sitting in the British Library with the most recent issue of Poverty: Journal of the Child Poverty Action Group (Issue 150 (Winter 2015)) and have realised just how much I’d missed – about poverty and benefits.

Now appreciating the time lag between posts as well.

Back to the grindstone, Hazel.
Pull your socks up (but if anyone actually said that to me I would probably dot them one).

On a brighter note I have been managing to do some other things like an information pack of “approved by Hazel” websites for people with mental health problems (for a church event).

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Trivia (should have been 31 January)

Illinois Central: 1942
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

November 1942 “Chicago, Illinois. Engine taking on coal at an Illinois Central Railroad yard.”
Medium-format negative by Jack Delano
View original post

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Bad to the Bone: The Worst Children in Literature
via AbeBooks.co.uk by Scott Laming

Children can be innocent, inquisitive and the embodiment of hope. But those characteristics make for boring stories. Sometimes authors enjoy creating a fictional child that is just plain nasty. Draco Malfoy might be a bigot and a bully, but he’s rarely dull and is a vital ingredient in the Harry Potter novels. Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory would not be such a tasty read without greedy Augustus Gloop, bratty Violet Beauregarde and the spoiled Veruca Salt.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Book and its author
A white male writer is a writer. The rest are pigeonholed: female writer, black writer, African writer. But literature is a way to seek universality… more

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The development of peace
via OUP Blog by Oliver P. Richmond

The story of peace is as old as the story of humanity itself, and certainly as old as war. It is a story of progress, often in very difficult circumstances.
Historically, peace has often been taken, to imply an absence of overt violence or war between or sometimes within states – in other words, a negative peace.
Continue reading and discover that the writer believes this attitude to peace is wrong. Peace is something positive not simply the absence of conflict.

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Solar system drinking glasses
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow

The Planetary Glass Set comprises ten glasses (one for each planet, plus one each for Pluto and Sol) representing the bodies of our solar system, very very very loosely sized to express their relative dimensions.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Are we morally smarter?
A person of average intelligence today would have been exceptionally intelligent a century ago. We’re getting smarter. Are we getting more moral?… more

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Tate Archive has put thousands of artist artifacts online
via Research Buzz by Tara (Guardian)
“About 52,000 photographs, letters, sketchbooks and technical records offering insights into some of Britain’s greatest 20th-century artists are to be put online for the first time.” (Only about 6,000 are up so far.)
Continue reading

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The earliest known Arabic short stories
via 3 Quarks Daily by Robert Irwin in The Independent

The Ottoman sultan Selim the Grim – having defeated the Mamluks in two major battles in Syria and Egypt – entered Cairo in 1517. He celebrated his victory by watching the crucifixion of the last Mamluk sultan at the Zuwayla Gate. Then he presided over the systematic looting of Cairo’s cultural treasures. Among that loot was the content of most of Cairo’s great libraries. Arabic manuscripts were shipped to Istanbul and distributed among the city’s mosques. This is probably how the manuscript of Tales of the Marvellous and News of the Strange ended up in the library of the great mosque of Ayasofya. There it lay unread and gathering dust, a ragged manuscript that no one even knew existed, until 1933 when Hellmut Ritter, a German orientalist, stumbled across it and translated it into his mother tongue. An Arabic edition was belatedly printed in 1956.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Reasonable science doubters
Vaccines, climate change, GMOs: Conspiracy-minded skeptics have declared war on scientific expertise. In this debate, facts are futile… more

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You Are Wrong About Chocolate…
via Lifehack by Robert Locke

I have to make a confession. I am a chocoholic! I promise that this article will be as balanced as possible but if there is some bias, I am sure you will forgive me.
The Aztecs and the Mayan people of Central America highly valued the cacao plant and its seeds. It seems that the Nahuatl language had the word ‘xocolatl’ for a cocoa drink which means ‘bitter water’.
Continue reading

From the Cradle to the Grave: Funeral Welfare from an International Perspective

an article by Christine Valentine and Kate Woodthorpe (Department of Social and Policy Sciences, University of Bath) published in Social Policy & Administration Volume 48 Issue 5 (October 2014)

Abstract

This article reports on a pilot study examining funeral welfare for citizens from low income backgrounds.

Through a review of funeral welfare provision in 12 capitalist democratic countries it seeks to inform the current system of state support in Britain, arguing that insufficient attention has been given to funeral costs as a policy issue.

Mindful of the British welfare state’s original ‘cradle to grave’ ethos, such attention is ever more pressing in light of rising funeral costs, an ageing population and projected increases in the death rate. Arguing that funeral costs are an issue of income support, the article draws on Esping-Andersen's threefold welfare-regime typology to situate the British system within a comparative study of funeral welfare that identifies similarities and differences both within and between the three welfare-regime types.

On the basis of an empirical example, the article further argues that systems of funeral welfare reflect the relationship between culture, politics and local practice.

The findings indicate that the British system is hampered by a discourse of welfare dependency rather than entitlement, which stigmatises those who need support with funeral costs at a time when they are under pressure to ensure that the deceased person receives a ‘dignified’ send-off.

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Sexual orientation issues with a global workforce

via Personnel Today by Pam Loch

Although it is not currently unlawful, tolerance towards homosexuality in countries such as Russia vary considerably, while others around the world still regard homosexual activities as a crime.

Pam Loch, managing director of Loch Associates Employment Lawyers and HR Advise Me Limited, examines what happens if you have an employee who keeps their sexual orientation a secret and then you require them to work in a country where it is unlawful or not tolerated.

Continue reading

Hazel’s comment:
One of the hazards of reading articles in hard copy publications and then finding the original source online is that it is often several months out of date.
Add to that the fact that I had a massive mental health “blip” last autumn and you have something which is only just less than a year old.
Given the subject matter I doubt that much has changed, except, maybe, to get worse.

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Getting Around When You’re Just Getting By: Transportation Survival Strategies of the Poor

an article by Evelyn Blumenberg (UCLA Institute of Transportation Studies, Los Angeles, California) and Asha Weinstein Agrawal (San José State University, California) published in Journal of Poverty Volume 18 Issue 4 (2014)

Abstract

Researchers argue that transportation expenditures impose a heavy burden on low-income households, many of whom experience difficulty managing their travel costs. However, relatively little research explores how low-income households manage their mobility needs.

To address this issue, this study uses qualitative data from interviews with 73 low-income people living in and around San Jose, California. The interviews reveal the resiliency of low-income families in creatively managing their transportation costs.

However, the transportation survival strategies of the poor can come at a high price – fewer miles travelled and, therefore, reduced access to opportunities that may lift them out of poverty.

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Trivia (should have been 25 January)

Watch Your Step: 1933
via Shorpy Historical Photo Archive – Vintage Fine Art Prints by Dave

CRESCENT LIMITED TRAIN WRECK at ANACOSTIA BRIDGE
WASHINGTON, Aug. 27, 1933 -- Harried by accident, Pennsylvania Railroad officials last night were bringing up heavy reinforcements of workmen and machinery for the task of reopening the main passenger line into Washington, closed by the collapse of the bridge under the Crescent Limited just inside the District near Kenilworth early Thursday. Two persons were killed and 13 injured in the train crash. A huge pile driver swayed from its fastenings yesterday and plunged into the Eastern Branch. This mishap followed the toppling of a telephone pole, which killed one workman and seriously injured another. A score of men missed death or injury as the pile driver careened into the river. The string of mishaps at the wreck scene continued last night when a beam fell from a wrecking train, crushing the foot of William Covington, colored, Baltimore laborer. Covington was taken to Casualty Hospital ...
August 1933, Washington, D.C.
“Crescent Limited train wreck”
Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative
View original post

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Who was the Marquis de Sade really?
via 3 Quarks Daily by Suzi Feay in The Telegraph
The Marquis de Sade, who died 200 years ago today, lived a turbulent life. He was born into an aristocratic Provençal family, enjoying all the privileges of the ancien régime before it took against him; he kept his head through the French Revolution and died, aged 74, in a lunatic asylum. His libertarian writings alienated two kings, a revolutionary tribunal and an emperor. He spent most of his adult life under lock and key: if they couldn’t get him for being bad, being mad would do.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
Temp shifts
The natural world is not easily shoehorned into a mathematical formula. Thus the long, strange history of efforts to reimagine the calendar… more
Fascinating article

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Milky Way over Devils Tower
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

David Lane’s absolutely stunning image of the Milky Way over Devils Tower. If everything’s ready here on the Dark Side of the Moon... play the five tones.
Continue reading

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Created and still developing: an online archive of troubadour crusade poetry. How cool is that?
via Research Buzz by Tara
“Researchers from the University of Warwick are editing and collating the first comprehensive archive of troubadour and trouvere poetry and songs covering the Crusades as part of a new Anglo-Italian research project which will open up the lyric poetry of the medieval troubadours and trouveres to its widest-ever audience. The poetry, some of it long forgotten to modern audiences, will be published on the University of Warwick and University of Naples websites complete with translations, information on manuscripts and earlier editions, and details of the historical circumstances of their original composition and performance.”

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
In love with poetry
When the times are brutal and the news is all lies, great poets experience our loneliness for us. Andrew O’Hagan explains… more

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The history of the newspaper
via OUP Blog by Hannah Charters
On 28th November 1814 The Times in London was printed by automatic, steam powered presses for the first time. These presses, built by the German inventors Friedrich Koenig and Andreas Friedrich Bauer, meant that newspapers were now available to a new mass audience, and by 1815 The Times had a circulation of approximately 5,000 people.
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A master of otherworldly space art
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz

Above, the extrasolar planet 16 Cygni Bb as rendered by artist Ron Miller, illustrator of science, astronomy, and science fiction, and author of The Art of Space: The History of Space Art, from the Earliest Visions to the Graphics of the Modern Era.
Continue reading

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via Arts & Letters Daily – ideas, criticism, debate
How letters tell stories
The alphabet is an arrangement of convenience – maybe a temporary one. Letters are born, grow, fight, change, or die… more

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The legacy of Sinclair’s Spectrum
via BBC News/technology by Leo Kelion, Technology desk editor
Sir Clive Sinclair appears pretty laid back about concerns that he may have hastened the demise of the human race.
His ZX Spectrum computers were in large part responsible for creating a generation of programmers back in the 1980s, when the machines and their clones became best-sellers in the UK, Russia, and elsewhere.
Continue reading (and there’s a video to watch)