provides links to information management, information sources and other "useful stuff" with a strong bias towards the management of information in a careers guidance context.
As of 17 July 2017 I include mental health information and comment.
I tweet as @careersinfo and am on LinkedIn and Facebook as Hazel Edmunds
a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog
You don’t feel very good about yourself.
You search for a boost everywhere.
In relationships.
On the scale.
At a job you don’t even like.
Even at the bottom of a shot glass.
You feel the need to earn your self-worth, as though it were a bulletin board with gold stars; stars you earn by performing certain deeds and achieving certain accomplishments.
What you forget – or what others helped you forget – is that you are inherently worthy.
an article by Paul Cairney (University of Stirling, UK) published in Evidence & Policy: A Journal of Research, Debate and Practice Volume 13 Number 3 (2017)
Abstract
National governments use evidence selectively to argue that a successful policy intervention in one local area should be emulated in others ('evidence-based best practice').
However, the value of such evidence is always limited because there is:
disagreement on the best way to gather evidence of policy success,
uncertainty regarding the extent to which we can draw general conclusions from specific evidence, and
local policymaker opposition to interventions not developed in local areas.
How do governments respond to this dilemma?
This article identifies the Scottish Government response: it supports three potentially contradictory ways to gather evidence and encourage emulation.
The making of the Muslim world
via the New Statesman by Kenan Malik
Islam has long embraced European modernity – but its values are under threat.
“The Turkish nation,” Mehmed Ziya Gökalp wrote, “belongs to the Ural-Altai [language] group of peoples, to the Islamic umma, and to Western internationalism.” Gökalp was an early-20th-century sociologist, writer, poet and political activist whose work was influential in shaping the reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the main figure in the founding of modern Turkey. What is striking about Gökalp’s argument is that it stitches together three elements that today seem to many to be irreconcilable. “Islam” and “Western internationalism”, in particular, are often seen as occupying opposite sides in a “clash of civilisations”. Continue reading Those of you who find this article somewhat academic may enjoy a novel by Ann Bridge if you can find a copy (other than the one on my bookshelf). "The Dark Moment (1951) traces the decline of the Ottoman Empire and the role of women in the revolution." Wikipedia =============================
Why did all these cows jump off a cliff to their deaths?
Last month, a dozen young cows in Levron, Switzerland mysteriously leapt off a cliff and plummeted to their deaths 165 feet below. A thirteenth cow survived the jump by landing on the others. Continue reading
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The truth about tarot
via 3 Quarks Daily: James McConnachie in Aeon
‘Why does tarot survive?’ In a sense, tarot does encode wisdom – albeit within an invented tradition rather than a secret one. It is a system for describing aspirations and emotional concerns. It is a closed system rather than one based on evidence but, as such, it is not dissimilar to psychoanalysis, another highly systematised, invented tradition whose clinical efficacy depends ultimately on the relationship between client and practitioner. Continue reading
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Challenging Mainstream Thought About Beauty’s Big Hand in Evolution
Are aesthetic judgments about mates invariably tied to traits we see as adaptive and worth passing on? Or, does beauty just ‘happen’?
via Arts & Letters Daily: James Gorman in The New York Times The upright wing pose of a greater bird of paradise.CreditTim Laman/National Geographic Creative
Not long ago, a physicist at Stanford posed a rhetorical question that took me by surprise.
“Why is there so much beauty?” he asked.
Beauty was not what I was thinking the world was full of when he brought it up. The physicist, Manu Prakash, was captivated by the patterns in seawater made as starfish larvae swam about. But he did put his finger on quite a puzzle: Why is there beauty? Why is there any beauty at all? Continue reading
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Justin Johnson plays a song on a 2-string diddley bow
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
I just got back from Maker Faire in San Mateo workshop, where I showed how to make a 1-string diddley bow in 15 minutes. I got back home and found this new video by musician Justin Johnson playing a cool snake-themed 2-string diddley bow. He gets some great sounds out of it.
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Scientists Are Scouring Medieval Texts for Ways to Beat Antibiotic Resistance
via Big Think by Derek Beres
Scale is sometimes hard to understand. When someone reaches one hundred years of age we often shakes our heads in disbelief, hoping the same for ourselves while trying to mine their secrets. Compare a hundred years against the age of the earth and – you’ve likely heard the one about human existence being a mere second if all of history were stretched to a year.
Before, germ theory and vaccines medicine moved slowly. No serious physician would diagnose based on humors today, though that does not mean Hippocrates was completely misguided. His therapy allowed nature to run its course through the patient’s body, which is terrible advice when considering cancer but effectively all one can do when dealing with colds and flus. Sometimes, as we know, the remedy proves to be worse than the sickness. Humoral doctors also tailored specific treatments to each patient, an emerging practice that’s slowly replacing the one-size-fits-all prescription. Continue reading
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In A 12th-Century Iranian Poem, A Vision Of Solidarity We Need Today
via 3 Quarks Daily: Theodore McCombs in Literary Hub Scene from The Conference of the Birds in a Persian miniature. The hoopoe, center right, instructs the other birds on the Sufi path. Wikipedia
“That anyone has ever been able to surpass one of the great figures of the Divine Comedy seems incredible, and rightly so,” wrote Jorge Luis Borges, in his Nine Essays on Dante; “nevertheless, the feat has occurred.” Borges was speaking of the medieval Iranian poet Attar’s allegorical epic, Manteq al-Tayr, or The Conference of the Birds, and the magnificent image that caps the poem, of the mythical bird-deity of Persian literature, the Simorgh. Writers from Rumi to Borges to Porochista Khakpour have drawn on Attar and his sublime Simorgh, a vision of coherence in a divided world. Over eight centuries later, and with an exciting new translation released, by Iranian-American poet Sholeh Wolpé, Attar’s Simorgh still speaks to our moment of change and challenge: a moving and unsettling ideal from a very different, but very relevant time and place. Continue reading
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Why We Fight Wars
via Arts & Letters Daily: Matthew Evangelista in The Chronicle Review Hutu refugees at the border of Rwanda and Tanzania, 1994
“Wars are not barroom brawls writ large,” wrote Barbara Ehrenreich. She was responding to Francis Fukuyama’s claim in Foreign Affairs magazine that men are mainly responsible for military conflicts because “aggression, violence, war, and intense competition for dominance in a status hierarchy are more closely associated with men than women”, and that “statistically speaking it is primarily men who enjoy the experience of aggression”. Ehrenreich, who earned a Ph.D. in cellular immunology before turning to journalism and politics, rejected Fukuyama’s belief that men’s warlike practices were “rooted in biology”, “hard-wired”, “genetically determined”, or “bred in the bone”. Unlike the lethal violence of the chimpanzees who provided the hook for Fukuyama’s article, warfare is organized, institutionalized, and socially sanctioned violence. If we seek to explain it – and not only its gendered dimensions – evolutionary biology is not the place to look. Continue reading
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Did you know these 10 fascinating facts about museums?
via OUP Blog by Steven Filippi “Façade of the British Museum” by Ham, CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
Collections of art, scientific instruments, historical relics, and peculiarities have attracted the curiosity and imaginations of people around the world since ancient times. The museum as an institution developed in antiquity and evolved over the years to encompass and celebrate all aspects of human society, science, art, and history. Museums are vital to the study of the past, how the natural world works, and how cultures have grown and interacted with each other. Museums educate and they inspire. Continue reading
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Vintage isochrone maps show 19th-century travel times
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
In the late 19th century, travel times became a thing of fascination as modes of transportation improved by leaps and bounds (e.g., Around the World in 80 Days, published in 1873). Great thinkers of the day like Francis Galton even devised isochrone maps, which showed how long it would take to get from a central point to other points of interest. Continue reading
an article by Robert W. Fairlie (University of California, Santa Cruz) published in First Monday Volume 22 Number 9 (September 2017)
Abstract
Two decades ago an influential article documented the alarming disparities that existed in access to computers and the Internet between African-Americans and whites (Hoffman and Novak, 1998).
Using the latest U.S. Census Bureau/Bureau of Labor Statistics data on computer and Internet access, I find that the “digital divide” has not been bridged and remains as large as it was two decades ago.
African-Americans and Latino-Americans are less likely to use the Internet on smart phones, computer, tablets or other devices than are whites.
A statistical decomposition analysis reveals that income and education inequalities are the leading causes of the disparities in access to technology. The findings have implications for policies that subsidize broadband to low-income families.
I doubt that the patterns are much different in the UK although I would expect the divide to be age- and income-based rather than race- or ethnicity-based.
an article by Tufyal Choudhury (Durham University, UK) published in Critical Social Policy
Volume 37 Issue 2 (2017)
Abstract
This article addresses the regulation of citizenship in the UK, in particular the recent increased powers of citizenship deprivation against individuals suspected of involvement in terrorism. It examines the genealogy of such a practice and explains the juridical context of its use.
It argues that changes in citizenship policies, broadening state power and removing substantive and procedural safeguards, have eroded equal citizenship by creating a hierarchy among British citizens. This radical policy shift has been enacted in the context of counter radicalisation policies that posit commitment to British values as a key weapon in the ‘war on terror’.
Muslims are at best ‘Tolerated Citizens’, required to demonstrate their commitment to British values. Muslims holding unacceptable extremist views are ‘Failed Citizens’ while the ‘home-grown’ radicalised terrorist suspect is conceived of as the barbaric Other to British values, whose failure as a citizen is severe enough to justify the deprivation of citizenship.
an article by Tobias Mettler (University of Lausanne Chavannes-près-Renens Switzerland) and Michaela Sprenger and Robert Winter (University of St. Gallen, Switzerland) published in European Journal of Information Systems Volume 26 Issue 5 (September 2017)
Abstract
Changing demands in society and the limited capabilities of health systems have paved the way for robots to move out of industrial contexts and enter more human-centered environments such as health care.
We explore the shared beliefs and concerns of health workers on the introduction of autonomously operating service robots in hospitals or professional care facilities.
By means of Q-methodology, a mixed research approach specifically designed for studying subjective thought patterns, we identify five potential end-user niches, each of which perceives different affordances and outcomes from using service robots in their working environment.
Our findings allow for better understanding resistance and susceptibility of different users in a hospital and encourage managerial awareness of varying demands, needs, and surrounding conditions that a service robot must contend with. We also discuss general insights into presenting the Q-methodology results and how an affordance-based view could inform the adoption, appropriation, and adaptation of emerging technologies.
a post by Alexandra Baker for the Tiny Buddha blog
“It's not selfish to put yourself first—it's self-full.” ~Iyanla Vanzant
I’ve always thought of myself as individualistic. When I was a teenager, I often felt the desire to go against the grain, dressing alternatively and shunning bands my peers liked because I felt they were too popular. So it came as a huge surprise to me when my therapist called me a people pleaser the other day.
I recently started cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia, and during the first session my therapist identified that I put other people’s needs and wants ahead of my own.
He’d asked me to give an example of a situation that is currently making me anxious (since anxiety is both a cause and symptom of insomnia), and I told him a landscaper made a mistake in my yard and I was feeling bad asking him to fix it.
The Tale of The Magic Money Tree
via An Awfully Big Blog Adventure by David Thorpe
I’ve been retelling old fables I read as a child. For some reason I've been thinking recently about the one about The Magic Money Tree and thought the time might be right to retell it here. You have to read this through to the end
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Of dogs, apes, and humans
via OUP Blog by Anne Reboul Featured image credit: “Woman, dog, pacsi” by YamaBSM. CC0 Public Domain via Pixabay. It’s the late afternoon and you are in the kitchen, idly beginning to think about dinner, at the end of a long day at work. Suddenly the peace is shattered by the noisy entrance of your dog and your son. Your dog sits by his empty bowl and looks at you with beseeching eyes. If he thinks that you’re not reacting quickly enough, he may produce a single attention-grabbing bark. Your son says: “When do we eat?” On the face of it, your dog and your son have done the same thing: they both, each in his own way, have communicated the same content, that is, “Feed me, I’m hungry!” Admittedly, your son has done so in a rather more articulated way, but that could be a detail. =============================
Is Free Will an Illusion?
via Big Think by Philip Perry
Whether or not we act out a predetermined role in life or set our own course has been argued for time immemorial by philosophers, scholars, and theologians alike. Traditionally, there was an East-West dichotomy. In Eastern philosophies, generally speaking, one was the subject of fate. Continue reading
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Trippy fractal of classical architecture set to classical music
via Boing Boing by Andrea James Depths of Antiquity is Julius Horsthuis’ hypnotic slow-motion dive into fractals generated from images of churches, castles and other imposing edifices of yesteryear. It’s perfectly complemented by Beethoven. Continue reading
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10 Old Viral Videos That You Absolutely Need in Your Life
via MakeUseOf by Anya Zhukova
YouTube is an absolute abyss of weirdness. When you’re looking for something funny, slightly disturbing (in an entertaining way), or just plain strange, you know exactly where to go.
But YouTube wasn’t the first place to find viral videos. In the early 2000s, before YouTube was around, Newgrounds and Albino Blacksheep were havens for strange videos that got to be extremely popular. Forums, humor websites, and even email sharing were popular ways of spreading weird videos. Continue reading
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Science Busts The Biggest Myth Ever About Why Bridges Collapse
via 3 Quarks Daily: Ethan Siegel in Forbes
The collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge on the morning of November 7, 1940, is the most iconic example of a spectacular bridge failure in modern times. As the third largest suspension bridge in the world, behind only the George Washington and Golden Gate bridges, it connected Tacoma to the entire Kitsap Peninsula in Puget Sound, and opened to the public on July 1st, 1940. Just four months later, under the right wind conditions, the bridge was driven at its resonant frequency, causing it to oscillate and twist uncontrollably. After undulating for over an hour, the middle section collapsed, and the bridge was destroyed. It was a testimony to the power of resonance, and has been used as a classic example in physics and engineering classes across the country ever since. Unfortunately, the story is a complete myth. Continue reading =============================
George Washington: the great mind behind early America
via OUP Blog by Kevin J. Hayes “Scene at the Signing of the Constitution of the United States” by Howard Chandler Christy, circa 1940. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
Throughout history, George Washington has been highly regarded for his common sense and military fortitude. When it comes to the Founding Fathers, his intellectual pursuits have been overshadowed by Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, and Alexander Hamilton – who are conventionally considered the great minds of early America.
Despite his relative lack of formal education, Washington remained an avid reader throughout his life. Through comprehensive research, historian Kevin J. Hayes has identified Washington’s devotion to self-education. In the following excerpt from George Washington: A Life in Books, Hayes examines the evidence behind Washington’s overlooked intellectual life. Continue reading
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A Summary and Analysis of ‘Hansel and Gretel’
via Interesting Literature
The meaning of a classic fairy tale
Child abandonment, poverty, gingerbread houses, and an enterprising hero: the fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel has it all. It arguably has one of the most satisfying plot structures of all the fairy tales. Yet as with the other fairy tales we’ve discussed in previous posts, such as the 4,000-year-old tale of Rumpelstiltskin, a number of the plot features of ‘Hansel and Gretel’, and the evolution of the fairy tale, are more complicated than we might remember from the nursery. And a summary and analysis of ‘Hansel and Gretel’ throws up some interesting details concerning the story’s plot and meaning. Continue reading
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We Aren't Built to Live in the Moment
via 3 Quarks Daily: Martin E. P. Seligman and John Tierney in The New York Times Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch
We are misnamed. We call ourselves Homo sapiens, the “wise man”, but that’s more of a boast than a description. What makes us wise? What sets us apart from other animals? Various answers have been proposed – language, tools, cooperation, culture, tasting bad to predators – but none is unique to humans. What best distinguishes our species is an ability that scientists are just beginning to appreciate: We contemplate the future. Our singular foresight created civilization and sustains society. It usually lifts our spirits, but it’s also the source of most depression and anxiety, whether we’re evaluating our own lives or worrying about the nation. Other animals have springtime rituals for educating the young, but only we subject them to “commencement” speeches grandly informing them that today is the first day of the rest of their lives. A more apt name for our species would be Homo prospectus, because we thrive by considering our prospects. The power of prospection is what makes us wise. Looking into the future, consciously and unconsciously, is a central function of our large brain, as psychologists and neuroscientists have discovered – rather belatedly, because for the past century most researchers have assumed that we’re prisoners of the past and the present. Continue reading
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Super-slow-mo video reveals how ladybug wings unfold
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Because ladybug hindwings are covered by an opaque outer shell called an elytra, scientists were not sure how the wings' folding mechanism worked until Kazuya Saito created a clear replacement shell that allowed them to film the process in super slow-motion. Continue readingI didn’t want to spoil this by copying the images! Fascinating.
an article by Eleanor Carter and Adam Whitworth (University of Sheffield, UK) published in Social Policy & Administration Volume 51 Issue 5 (September 2017)
Abstract
Well-being and employment activation have become central and intertwined policy priorities across advanced economies, with the mandation of unemployed claimants towards employability interventions (e.g. curriculum vitae preparation and interview skills).
Compelled job search and job transitions are in part justified by the well-being gains that resulting employment is said to deliver. However, this dominant focus within the activation field on outcome well-being – the well-being improvement triggered by a transition to paid work – neglects how participation in activation schemes can itself affect well-being levels for unemployed people – what we term ‘process well-being’ effects.
Combining theoretical literature with empirical work on the UK's large-scale quasi-marketized Work Programme activation scheme, we develop the limited existing academic discussion of process well-being effects, considering whether and how activation participation mediates the negative well-being effects of unemployment, irrespective of any employment outcomes.
We further relate variation in such process well-being effects to the literature on activation typologies, in which ‘thinner’ work-first activation interventions are linked to weaker process well-being effects for participants compared to ‘thicker’ human capital development interventions.
Confirming these expectations, our empirical work shows that Work Programme participants have, to date, experienced a largely ‘thin’ activation regime in which participants are both expected to, and empirically demonstrate, similar if not lower levels of process well-being than those who are openly unemployed.
These concerning findings speak to all nations seeking to promote the well-being of unemployed people and particularly those perusing ‘black box’ activation schemes based around quasi-marketization, devolution and New Public Management.
a Policy Press blog post (14 September 2017) by Roger Brown, author of The inequality crisis, who explains how economic inequality in Britain and other advanced Western countries has got so bad, and highlights the measures we need to undertake that will start to reverse this devastating trend.
Almost every day now the media carries stories about inequality and its effects.
In the past few weeks, the Department for Health has confirmed that the health gap between rich and poor in England is growing.
Reports by Lloyds Bank and the Social Market Foundation have drawn attention to our disparities in wealth, with a tenth of adults owning half of the country’s wealth while 15% own nothing or have negative wealth.
Respected independent ‘thinktanks’ like the Institute for Fiscal Studies and the Resolution Foundation have repeated their warnings that, at a time when wages generally are only growing slowly, the combination of tax cuts and cuts in welfare benefits means that income inequality will increase further over the next few years.
“Economic inequality has increased in nearly every advanced Western country…”
This is not just an English or British issue. In March, International Monetary Fund (IMF) researchers estimated that the US economy had lost a year of consumption growth because of increased income polarisation. And of course inequality was a major factor in the Brexit vote and in the election of President Trump.
My interest in the subject was first aroused by my work on the introduction of markets into higher education. I found that the associated increase in competition through mechanisms like tuition fees had exacerbated the inequalities between universities and the constituencies they serve, without any significant compensating benefits. This led me to wonder if there might be parallels in the economy and society more generally.
What I established was that economic inequality has increased in nearly every advanced Western country over the past thirty or so years, and that this has led to a huge range of costs and detriments. Moreover, these costs and detriments are not only social. As the IMF research confirms, increased economic inequality has an economic cost as well. Above all, growing inequality is disabling democratic politics as the concentration of economic power is increasingly reflected in a concentration of political power (as can be seen most clearly in the US).
“Growing inequality is disabling democratic politics…”
But whilst nearly everyone agrees that – to paraphrase Dunning’s famous 1780 Parliamentary motion, economic inequality has increased, is increasing, and ought to be reduced – there is no agreement on how this should be done.
Broadly speaking, there are two schools of thought:
One – the ‘market’ view – is that increased inequality is the inevitable outcome of underlying structural developments such as globalisation, skill-biased technological change, and financialisation (the growing economic role of such processes as banking and securities trading) over which individual countries and governments have little control. These changes are leading to what have been termed ‘winner-take-all’ markets where those at the top gain rewards out of all proportion to their contribution to society.
The alternative, ‘institutional’, theory is that it is due to the political choices made in individual countries, and especially the neoliberal policies of deregulation, privatisation, tax reductions, welfare cutbacks and deflation pursued in most Western countries since the mid- to late-70s, but particularly associated with Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan.
I believe that it is the combination of these underlying structural developments with those neoliberal policies that has driven the post-80s rise in inequality, with the US and Britain well above the other wealthy Western countries in the extent to which inequality has grown there over that period.
So the key to reversing, halting or slowing inequality lies in the first place in reversing these neoliberal policies, but without losing the benefits of properly regulated market competition in sectors where it is appropriate.
The following is a short list of measures that would start to reverse inequality in Britain:
Require the potential impact on inequality to be a major test of every other policy or programme introduced by the Government.
Show that we are serious about tax avoidance by reversing the long-term decline in the number of professional HMRC officials.
Progressively adjust the balance between direct and indirect taxation (VAT), increasing the former and reducing the latter.
Increase the income tax rates for higher earners (say, above £60,000).
Introduce some form of wealth tax.
Begin the rehabilitation of the trade unions by repealing most of the 2016 Trade Union Act.
Reverse the cuts in welfare benefits made by the Coalition and Cameron Governments.
Introduce measures that really will force companies to take account of interests wider than those of top management.
Begin to end segregation in education by removing the charitable status of the private schools.
Focus macroeconomic policy on demand and wage growth rather than inflation and corporate profits.
The Labour election manifesto has some proposals on these lines, but no political party has yet really got its mind round the full range of measures that are needed to combat inequality.
Until they do, inequality will continue to increase.
So says Mr Brown who is, obviously, speaking from a specific political viewpoint with which you may not agree. However, I hope that we can agree than widening inequality between those who have and those who have not can, and, in many instances, does, lead to disruption and violence. H
Machines have been displacing humans on job tasks for several centuries, and for seventy years many of these machines have been controlled by computers.
an article by Robin Hanson published in MIT Technology Review
While the raw abilities of these computers have improved at an exponential rate over many orders of magnitude, the rate at which human jobs have been displaced has remained modest and relatively constant. This is reasonably because human jobs vary enormously in the computing power required to do those jobs adequately. This suggests that the rate of future job displacement may remain mild and relatively constant even if computing power continues to improve exponentially over a great many more orders of magnitude.
Even if it takes many centuries, however, eventually robots may plausibly do pretty much all the jobs that need doing. A future world dominated by robots could in principle evolve gradually from a world dominated by humans. The basic nature, divisions, and distributions of cities, nations, industries, professions, and firms need not change greatly as machines slowly displace humans on jobs. That is, machines might fit into the social slots that humans had previously occupied.
However, there could also be much larger changes in the organization of a robot society if, as seems plausible, machines are different enough from humans in their relative costs or productivity so as to make substantially different arrangements more efficient.
Michelle L. Storrod (Rutgers University-Camden, USA) and James A. Densley (Metropolitan State University, Saint Paul, USA) published in Journal of Youth Studies Volume 20 Issue 6 (2017)
Abstract
Based on social media content analysis and focus groups with young people, the current study explores expressive and instrumental uses of the internet among street gangs.
‘Trap rap’ videos posted on YouTube and orientated around life as a drug dealer are identified as the ultimate cultural artefact for denoting London, UK, gang culture. These videos serve an expressive purpose in terms of reputation building, but also shed light on the instrumental business of gangs – specifically, illicit drugs sales via ‘country lines’.
Looking beyond the artefact toward how these videos are created, disseminated, and consumed, reveals the instrumental organisation of gangs and how social rules and behaviours within them are monitored and enforced.
The current study thus contributes to gang research from the UK, and the growing body of literature on gang and gang member use of the Internet, with implications for research and practice.
a column by Martin Ellison and Andrew Scott for VOX: CEPR's Policy Portal
A new dataset for the market value of British government debt makes a long-run analysis of fiscal sustainability and debt management possible. It shows that the 20th century saw a shift to financing debt by inflation and low bondholder returns, rather than through fiscal surpluses. This column uses a counterfactual analysis to show that long bonds have been an expensive way of financing debt, especially after a financial crisis. Had the government issued only three-year bonds since 1914, the level of debt in 2017 would have been lower by 28% of GDP.
I must say that despite being professors of this and that (mainly, of course, economics) the writers for VOX manage to make their subjects understandable (sort of).
an article by Henna Busk (Pellervo Economic Research PTT, Helsinki, Finland and University of Jyväskylä, Finland) published in Labour Economics Volume 42 (October 2016)
Highlights
We examine the effect of benefit sanctions on the exit rate from unemployment using the timing-of-events approach.
The effect of sanctions differs according to the benefits received.
Sanctions increase the exit rate from unemployment to work among flat-rate labour market support receivers.
Sanctions increase the exit rate from unemployment to outside the labour force among earnings-related benefit receivers.
Abstract
This paper investigates the effect of benefit sanctions on the exit rate from unemployment using a unique set of rich register data on unemployed Finnish individuals.
The timing-of-events approach is applied to distinguish between the selection and causal effects of sanctioning.
The results imply that the effect of sanctions differs according to the benefits received. Sanctions encourage unemployed individuals receiving flat-rate labour market support (LMS) to find jobs, whereas unemployed individuals receiving earnings-related (UI) allowances to leave the labour force.
The encouraging effect of sanctions on active labour market policy programmes is relatively small and statistically significant only among LMS recipients.
This real-life Tigger is the most ancient type of cat alive today
via Boing Boing by Caroline Siede
The clouded leopard isn’t just uber-adorable, its genetic blueprint is shared by all modern-day cats.
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Spiders appear to offload cognitive tasks to their webs, making them one of a number of species with a mind that isn’t fully confined within the head
via 3 Quarks Daily: Joshua Sokol in Quanta
Millions of years ago, a few spiders abandoned the kind of round webs that the word “spiderweb” calls to mind and started to focus on a new strategy. Before, they would wait for prey to become ensnared in their webs and then walk out to retrieve it. Then they began building horizontal nets to use as a fishing platform. Now their modern descendants, the cobweb spiders, dangle sticky threads below, wait until insects walk by and get snagged, and reel their unlucky victims in. Continue readingbut be aware that the Quanta article starts with a rather large image (not of a real arachnid but could still frighten some people) =============================
The illegitimate open-mindedness of arithmetic
via OUP Blog by Roy T Cook Formula mathematics blackboard. Public Domain via Pixabay.
We are often told that we should be open-minded. In other words, we should be open to the idea that even our most cherished, most certain, most secure, most well-justified beliefs might be wrong. But this is, in one sense, puzzling. After all, aren’t those beliefs that we hold most dearly – those that we feel are best supported – exactly the one’s we should not feel are open to doubt? If we found ourselves able to doubt those beliefs – that is, if we are able to be open-minded about them – then they aren’t all that cherished, certain, secure, or well-justified after all! Continue reading =============================
Seven Brief Lessons in Physics: a thing of beauty is a joy forever
via Boing Boing by Ferdinando Buscema
Now and then I stumble upon a book that completely blows my mind. The latest of such lucky encounters has been with Seven Brief Lessons in Physics by Carlo Rovelli.
Carlo Rovelli is an Italian theoretical physicist with a solid, international academic career, presently teaching at the University of Aix-Marseille in France. In 2013 he was among the sophisticated minds who were asked the famous Edge.com annual question. The question that year was “What *should* we be worried about?” His reply: “I worry that free imagination is overvalued, and I think this carries risks.” Continue reading =============================
Celluloid Dreams: are film scores the next area of serious musical scholarship?
via the New Statesman by Caroline Crampton
When John Wilson walks out on to the stage at the Royal Albert Hall in London, there is a roar from the audience that would be more fitting in a football stadium. Before he even steps on to the conductor’s podium, people whistle and cheer, thumping and clapping. The members of his orchestra grin as he turns to acknowledge the applause. Many soloists reaching the end of a triumphant concerto performance receive less ecstatic praise. Even if you had never heard of Wilson before, the rock-star reception would tip you off that you were about to hear something special. Continue reading
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Ottonian queenship: powerful women in early medieval Germany
via OUP Blog by Simon Maclean Genealogy of the Ottonians, Chronica St Pantaleonis. Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.
In 2008, archaeologists working on the cathedral at Magdeburg, in eastern Germany, opened an ancient tomb and rediscovered the bones of an Anglo-Saxon princess called Edith. She had died in the year 946, aged only about 30. Her remains were brought across the North Sea for scientific tests which verified the identification via tests on her tooth enamel, indicating that the bones belonged to someone who had grown up drinking water from the chalky landscapes of southern Britain. This Edith was none other than the granddaughter of Alfred the Great (871–99), the king of Wessex who had defeated the Vikings and laid the foundations for his successors to create by conquest the first kingdom of the English. The find was therefore celebrated in the British media as a window onto this legendary moment of English state formation. Continue reading
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What if every human ever born came back to life today?
via Boing Boing by Caroline Siede
The YouTube channel RealLifeLore uses the unusual thought experiment, “What if every human ever born came back to life today?” as a springboard for examining world populations, historical life expectancy, and much, much more. Continue reading
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The Battle of Lincoln
via The National Archives blog by Dr Jessica Nelson
The Battle of Lincoln – one of the most critical battles in medieval history – was fought on Saturday 20 May 1217, 800 years ago. Forces loyal to the English king Henry III fought those supporting his great rival Louis of France, the son of the French king.
You might assume that the English would naturally be on the side of the English king against a French invader, but in fact a great number of the English barons supported Louis. To understand this, we must go back to the reign of Henry III’s father, King John. Continue reading
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The trick to great sand sculpting is the right sand glue
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
In the world of professional sand sculptors, Toshihiko Hosaka is known for his large commissioned works (like this commissioned Colossal Titan from Shingeki no Kyojin) and for creating an environmentally friendly sand glue. Continue to video and a link to further images
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A Life of Thomas De Quincey
via 3 Quarks Daily: Nicholas Spice at the London Review of Books
De Quincey’s size mattered to him. He was uncommonly small. But he was also uncommonly clever, and his ambitions were large. As a young man, he idolised Wordsworth and Coleridge, and then sought them out and tried to make them his friends. For a while they all got on, but then increasingly they didn’t. Wordsworth was in the habit of condescending to De Quincey, but Wordsworth condescended to most people and anyway condescending to De Quincey was hard to resist: ‘He is a remarkable and very interesting young man,’ Dorothy Wordsworth wrote, ‘very diminutive in person, which, to strangers, makes him appear insignificant; and so modest, and so very shy.’ ‘Little Mr De Quincey is at Grasmere … I wish he were not so little, and I wish he wouldn’t leave his greatcoat always behind him on the road. But he is a very able man, with a head brimful of information,’ Southey wrote. As relations soured, the belittlements grew sardonic: for Wordsworth, De Quincey was ‘a little friend of ours’; for Lamb, ‘the animalcule’; Dorothy and Mary Wordsworth took to calling him Peter Quince. Even his friends tended to diminish him: ‘Poor little fellow!’ Carlyle exclaimed to his wife, Jane, who mused: ‘What would one give to have him in a box, and take him out to talk.’
an article by Philip Napoli (Duke University, Durham, USA) and Robyn Caplan (Data & Society Research Institute, New York, USA published in First Monday Volume 22 Number 5 (May 2017)
Abstract
A common position amongst social media platforms and online content aggregators is their resistance to being characterized as media companies. Rather, companies such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter have regularly insisted that they should be thought of purely as technology companies.
This paper critiques the position that these platforms are technology companies rather than media companies, explores the underlying rationales, and considers the political, legal, and policy implications associated with accepting or rejecting this position.
As this paper illustrates, this is no mere semantic distinction, given the history of the precise classification of communications technologies and services having profound ramifications for how these technologies and services are considered by policy-makers and the courts
a report published by Eurofound by Daphne Ahrendt, Eszter Sándor, Adam Revello, Jean-Marie Jungblut and Robert Anderson
The ‘working poor’ are a substantial group, the latest estimate putting 10% of European workers at risk of poverty, up from 8% in 2007. This report describes the development of in-work poverty in the EU since the crisis of 2008, picking up where an earlier Eurofound report on this subject, published in 2010, ended and looks at what countries have done to combat the problem since.
This endeavour is complicated by the policy focus on employment as a route out of poverty, underplaying the considerable financial, social and personal difficulties experienced by the working poor.
The increase in non-standard forms of employment in many countries appears to have contributed to rising in-work poverty.
The report argues the case for greater policy attention and action on the part of governments, employers and social partners, not only through direct measures associated with both the minimum and living wage, progressive taxation, in-work benefits and social assistance, but also and more importantly through indirect measures such as more flexible working arrangements, housing, upgrading of skills and childcare.
an article by Timothy J. Hatton (University of Essex, UK) published in Economic Policy Volume 32 Issue 91 (July 2017)
Summary
The recent asylum crisis has highlighted the inadequacies of European asylum policies. The existing asylum system, which encourages migrants to make hazardous maritime or overland crossings to gain access to an uncertain prospect of obtaining refugee status, is inefficient, poorly targeted and lacks public support. In the long run it should be replaced by a substantial joint programme of refugee resettlement that would help those most in need of protection, that would eliminate the risks to refugees, and that would command more widespread public support.
Analysis of key facts and data includes the determinants of asylum applications and trends in public opinion.
In this light I evaluate the feasibility of three elements for reform:
first, implementing tougher border controls to reduce unauthorised entry;
second, promoting direct resettlement of refugees from countries of first asylum; and
third, expanding refugee-hosting capacity through enhanced burden-sharing among destination countries.
Glenn Hardaker and Atika Qazi (Universiti Brunei Darussalam, Gadong, Brunei), Aishah Sabki, (Beyond Labels Ltd, Huddersfield, UK) and Javed Iqbal, (Independent Researcher, London, UK) published in The International Journal of Information and Learning Technology Volume 34 Issue 4 (2017)
Abstract
Purpose
Most research on information and communication technologies (ICT) differences has been related to gender and ethnicity, and to a lesser extent religious affiliation. The purpose of this paper is to contribute to this field of research by situating the discussion in the context of British Muslims and extending current research into ICT differences beyond gender and ethnicity.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper explores the ICT differences in access and use by British Muslim teenage girls at Islamic faith schools, and ICTs’ perceived influence on learning. The qualitative research was undertaken by conducting 45 semi-structured interviews with British Muslim teenage girls in Islamic faith schools.
Findings
The study provides tentative findings that Islamic faith schools are not only framed by the wider diverse Muslim community, but also by the supplementary schooling of madrasahs. The findings suggest that the home use of ICTs was reinforced rather than compensated for by the Islamic faith schools. This seemed to inhibit many pupils’ access to online educational resources. The authors found that didactic instruction was prevalent and this provided tentative insights into the types of digital inequity experienced by many pupils.
Originality/value
The research into ICT differences in the UK adopted the premise that the unity in Muslim identity increasingly transcends ethnicity and gender in the Muslim community.
“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.” ~Jack Canfield
Imagine with me for a second. You wake up, roll over, and blindly reach to hit your alarm to start the routine of the day. Make the same thing for breakfast. Maybe go to a new coffee place…nah. Same place. Go to work on the same route to the same job you've been at for years.
and so it goes on
“The safety of my comfort zone was what was holding my growth and happiness back.”
The points which Mr Pak makes are all elaborated. I know he is right. I am sure he is right. I am not sure that I can follow his lead.
All development comes from outside your comfort zone, especially from failure.
You'll discover passions you never knew existed before.
You'll become more open-minded and understanding, making you appear wiser and more intelligent.
You'll gain clarity once you ditch mindless comfort-zone distractions.
You'll become a more confident and sociable person.
You'll become a better storyteller without even trying.
You'll discover entire worlds you never knew existed before and the communities that go along with them.
a post by Janet Singer for the World of Psychology blog
As many of us are well aware, obsessive-compulsive disorder is often misunderstood.
Though I do believe progress is being made (albeit slowly) there is still a serious lack of understanding surrounding OCD. Most upsetting to me is when I come across professionals such as doctors, social workers, therapists, and teachers, who have little to no knowledge of what OCD entails.
Imagine this scenario: After a teacher admonishes a student for continuously “playing” with her pencils, markers, and other items on her desk, the eight-year-old girl musters the courage to confide in the teacher that she fears she might seriously harm her classmates if she doesn’t arrange these things “just so.”
The distraught girl must place the items on her desk in a particular way to keep anything horrible from happening. The teacher, alarmed, feels the child might be a threat to others and follows the school’s protocol. Before you know it, the “authorities” are involved, the girl is traumatized, her parents are upset and confused, and goodness knows what else happens.
Now imagine this same scenario, except the teacher in question has a basic understanding of various brain disorders, including OCD. After asking the girl a few questions, it is obvious to the teacher that this child is terrified of her obsessions, has no desire to hurt her classmates but rather desperately wants to keep them safe, and organizes her desk as a compulsion to make sure everything is “all right.” The teacher strongly suspects the girl has OCD and arranges a meeting with the appropriate counselors, as well as the girl’s parents. A referral is then made to a therapist who specializes in treating OCD, an official diagnosis is made, and treatment begins.
an article by Rita Hordósy (University of Sheffield, UK) published in International Journal of Research & Method in Education Volume 40 Issue 4 (2017)
Abstract
This paper analyses how three European countries produce and use data within a specific educational policy field, that of school leaving and graduation. It compares how stakeholders in England, Finland and the Netherlands know what happens to the leavers from schools and universities.
Through gathering evidence about the methodological underpinnings of the school leavers’ and graduates’ information systems (SLGIS) and whose data needs they aim to satisfy, this research provides insight into the discrepancies of data production. Moreover, as stakeholders from the policy and the institutional level are represented to a different extent when SLGIS are set up, the utility of the resulting data in their work is of differing degrees.
The paper models the problems of how SLGIS are set up and utilised, thus suggesting some of the possible solutions.
Using this particular example, the paper highlights the discrepancies of data production and utilisation in terms of the focus, the timing, the methodology and sampling as well as the processes of dissemination.
To provide a wider relevance, the paper outlines key issues around the utility of research evidence.
Cool marble-powered mechanical computer to solve logic problems
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Turing Tumble is a mechanical computer with switches that are activated by rolling marbles down an inclined plane. To program it, you attach plastic switches and components to it. The Kickstarter launched today and it's off to a great start. Continue reading
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Punishing Peccadilloes? Illicit sex at the early Stuart courts
via OUP Blog by Johanna Luthman 16:58 Hampton Court Palace by brian gillman. CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.
At the Tudor and early Stuart royal courts, the careers of influential politicians and courtiers often depended on the preferences of the monarchs: being in the king’s good graces often mattered as much or more for advancements than ability and training. The personality and quirks of the rulers affected many aspects of a courtier’s life, including what today might be considered the most private: their sex lives. When King James I died in 1625, ambitious persons jostling for positions in the formation of Charles’s court would soon learn that the son had different tastes from the father, and expected different behaviors from those around him. While James mostly ignored or tacitly accepted the philandering of his courtiers as long as they kept up a modicum of discretion, Charles was not so forgiving. Under his reign, courtiers soon learned that they had to “keep their virginities,” or “at least lose them not avowedly,” as one courtier wryly remarked. If Charles found out, offenders could face serious consequences. Continue reading
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How much would a star destroyer cost?
via Boing Boing by Andrea James Generation Tech has done a few fun videos estimating the costs of items in the Star Wars universe. In the latest installment, they calculate the cost of a star destroyer. Continue readingand find out for yourself =============================
A purple pursuit
via The National Archives blog by Isabella Whitworth
In 2008, friends invited me to look at a collection of family documents relating to dye manufacture in 19th and 20th century Leeds. As a professional artist and tutor working with textiles I had considerable practical experience using natural dyes and was interested in their individual histories, but had never taken it further. An invitation to view an archive changed the course of my life. Continue readingit is a fascinating story.
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Bosch & Bruegel: From Enemy Painting to Everyday Life
via 3 Quarks Daily: Tim Smith-Laing at Literary Review
They might seem an incongruous pair at first, but historically speaking Hieronymus Bosch and Pieter Bruegel the Elder are a natural duo for comparative study. When Bruegel entered the painters’ guild of Antwerp in 1551, Bosch, who had died in 1516, was still the most famous and imitated artist of the age. Antwerp, the centre of European art production at the time, was home to a whole mini-industry of Bosch imitation and forgery, and Bruegel himself cashed in on the continuing demand for his predecessor’s characteristic style. Look at the Boschian pastiches of his ‘Seven Deadly Sins’ series (1558) or 1557’s Big Fish Eat Little Fish, printed with the misleading inscription ‘Hieronymus Bos inventor’, and you can see why a contemporary dubbed Bruegel a ‘second Hieronymus’. Continue reading =============================
Painting reveals interior of Bruegel's Tower of Babel
via Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza
Artist and animator Katsuhiro Otomo of Akira fame, with collage artist Kōsuke Kawamura, painted this view of the inside of the Tower of Babel, a perfectly fascinating pastiche of Bruegel's original. Continue readingto compare this to the original =============================
What Explains the Bursts of Innovation in the Archaeological Record?
via Big Think by Stephen Johnson
When paleontologists looked closely at the archaeological record from the transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic, they noticed it was punctuated by brief periods during which many new tools, art, and technologies suddenly appeared on the scene. They’ve tended to think these “bursts” of innovation were caused by changes in climate or biology. A new paper, however, suggests sudden innovations were triggered mainly by population growth and migration – a theory that might also explain why some cultures actually lost technologies, like how the Tasmanians mysteriously forgot how to fish. Continue reading
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A French Philosopher Considers the Kids
via Arts & Letters Daily: Malcolm Harris in New Republic
French philosopher Alain Badiou is, by his own admission, a strange voice to be addressing the youth. “Let’s start with the realities:” he begins his new pamphlet The True Life, “I am 79 years old.” Badiou is also a Maoist of May ’68 vintage, an ontologist who uses set theory, and an advocate for a resurrection of “communism.” Now, skateboard over his shoulder, he has a message for the kids. And some of it is pretty good. Continue reading
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Some Very Curious Maps of London
via Big Think by Frank Jacobs
As humans migrate to cities, the list of megacities that dot the globe grows longer each year. But London is a special kind of metropolis. Not as old as Rome, nor as big as Beijing, it can still claim to be the true capital of the world – it has the right configuration of history, charm and global appeal.
No wonder a place like London generates a metric ton of guidebooks every year. - to the frustration of londonists everywhere, because most of these mostly repeat the same old highlights. Curiocity does not fall into that trap. It leaves the tired tropes to those other guides, and provides London with the trivia-rich compendium that befits the British capital so well. Continue reading
an article by Camilla Baba, Ade Kearns, Emma McIntosh, and james Lewsey (Glasgow University, UK) and
Carol Tannahill,
(Glasgow Centre for Population Health)
published in Urban Studies Volume 54 Issue 7 (2017)
Abstract
Urban regeneration (UR) programmes are recognised as a type of Population Health Intervention (PHI), addressing social and health inequalities. Policy recommends programmes involve communities through engagement and empowerment.
Whilst the literature has started to link empowerment with health improvement, this has not been within an UR context. As part of broader research on the economic evaluation of community empowerment activities, this paper examines how health gains can be generated through promoting empowerment as well as identifying whether feelings of empowerment are associated with residents personal characteristics or perceptions of their neighbourhood.
Using 2011 Community Health and Wellbeing Survey (GoWell) cross-sectional data, ordinal logistic regression and simple linear regression analysis of 15 Glasgow neighbourhoods undergoing regeneration with 4,302 adult householders (≥16 years old) was completed. Analyses identified strong associations (P≥ 0.05) between empowerment and the mental health subscale of the SF12v2 and with several items of the Warwick-Edinburgh Mental Well-being Scale (WEMWBS) scale.
Furthermore, residents’ who felt more empowered reported more positive attitudes towards their surroundings and housing providers. This concurs with recent evidence of the importance of residents’ psychological investments in their neighbourhood influencing their sense of place attachment.
Such analyses present initial evidence of the value of investing resources within UR programmes to activities geared towards increasing residents’ empowerment as a means of producing those health gains often sought by more costly aspects of the programmes.
Privacy and Data Protection Volume 17 Issue 7 (July/August 2017) provided information about the first international strategy to come from the Information Commissioner’s Office. International Strategy 2017-2021
To effectively protect the UK public’s personal information in a digital global environment, the ICO needs to co-operate and act internationally. This International Strategy seeks to enhance privacy protection for the UK public.
Recognising that the ICO needs to be agile in an ever-changing world, it will be regularly reviewed and updated in response to new challenges and opportunities.
This international strategy supports our 2017 Information Rights Strategic Plan.
Part one sets out the main challenges we face and their associated priorities.
Part two covers ICO structure and resourcing, engagement and evaluation.
a post for the World of Psychology blog by Julie K. Jones
Your life is important. We all have moments of doubt and fear that can make us feel small, inferior and unworthy. These thoughts do not control us and they have no power over us. We can choose to live a valued and purposeful life that has meaning and invigorates our spirit. Here are some steps that you can take right now to live in accordance with your values, goals and dreams.
an article by Anne E Green (University of Warwick, UK) published in Urban Studies Volume 54 Issue 7 (May 2017)
Abstract
Over the last decade two key changes affecting employability, labour market operation and policy delivery are austerity and the expansion of the use of information and communication technologies (ICT), especially web-based technologies.
Increasingly, given pressures for cost savings and developments in ICT, employers’ recruitment and selection strategies are at least partly web-based, careers guidance and public employment services are moving towards ‘digital by default’ delivery and job seekers are expected to manage their job search activity and benefit claims electronically. So, what are the implications of austerity and technological change for employability?
This article presents a critical review of the literature on ICT and its relation to, and implications for, employability in a context of austerity.
A new framework for employability is presented and those aspects of employability where ICT plays a key role are highlighted.
It is concluded that in the context of austerity and technological change more is demanded of individual job seekers/workers, as they are expected to take greater responsibility for their marketability in the labour market. This means that individuals’ attributes and skills are of enhanced importance in conceptualisations of employability.
ICT skills have a key role to play in employability, but not at the expense of more conventional social skills which remain very important alongside digital literacy.
an article by Brendan Murtagh (Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, UK) published in Social Enterprise Journal Volume 13 Issue 3 (2017)
Abstract
Purpose
This purpose of this paper is to concern with the extent to which social economies can be constructed as alternatives to private and state markets and their purported neoliberal tendencies.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper presents a meta-evaluation of an integrated set of projects supported by philanthropic investment to build finance, skills, entrepreneurship, social enterprises and non-monetised trading in the age sector in Northern Ireland.
Findings
The programme had important successes in stimulating social entrepreneurship, improving employability and showing how social enterprises can be incubated and scaled to offer new services for older people. It also improved skills in contract readiness, but this did not translate into new borrowing or trading models, even among larger NGOs.
Research limitations/implications
In that all economies are, to some extent, constructed and socially mediated, there is value in thinking through the components, relationships and projects that might make the ecosystem work more effectively. This should not just offer a counterweight to the market but could explore how an alternative arena for producing and consuming goods and services can be formed, especially among potentially vulnerable age communities.
Originality/value
The albeit, small-scale investment in a range of interrelated projects shows not only the value in experimentation but also the limits in planned attempts to construct social markets. The analysis shows that social economies need to respond to the priorities of older people, grown from community initiatives and better connected to the capabilities and resources of the sector.
an article by Ann Robinson published in the Guardian Neck fix … the VNS implant sends out weak electrical pulses. Composite: Getty/Guardian Imaging
Steve Collins is a 45-year-old unemployed architect who has been living with severe depression for 15 years. “I’m like a hermit crab hiding under rocks, crouching in dark spaces and only venturing out occasionally; there’s no light, no hope, no way in or out. I’ve been in therapy for years and must have taken at least six different antidepressant drugs. I had ECT (electroconvulsive therapy) and that literally shocked me out of it for a bit, but the depression came back – and the idea of ECT was so shocking for my family. People say: ‘Well, at least you haven’t got cancer.’ But, honestly, I’d rather have almost anything than live like this.”
A new type of treatment, vagal nerve stimulation (VNS), may offer hope for people like Collins who don’t improve with conventional depression treatment. A small battery-powered device like a pacemaker is inserted under the skin in the neck, from where it emits pulses of weak electical current to stimulate part of the vagus nerve. The vagus normally monitors our vital functions; it collects information about our breathing, heart rate and joint position, and sends signals back to the brain that tell it to respond if there are fluctuations.
Typical of my luck. The first time I hear this wonderful voice is a year after he has died. =============================
A Short Analysis of ‘Ring-a-Ring o’ Roses’
via Interesting Literature
The origins of a classic nursery rhyme
‘Ring-a-Ring o’ Roses’ is a well-known nursery rhyme. But this intriguing little quatrain has attracted some surprising speculation and its origins are often erroneously attributed. What does this short rhyme mean? And where did it come from? What is this ring o’ roses and what is it being used for? And why does everyone fall down? The questions multiply. Continue reading
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The Rise of Veronica Forrest-Thomson
A literary cult figure who died decades ago is more relevant than ever.
via Arts & Letters Daily: Adrienne Raphel in Poetry Foundation
“My name is Veronica Forrest-Thomson,” writes Veronica Forrest-Thomson in one of her final poems, “Cordelia: or ‘A Poem Should not Mean but Be.’” But who is Veronica Forrest-Thomson?
For the uninitiated: she’s a literary cult figure, a rising star of British post-World War II poetry and criticism whose career came to an abrupt halt when she died suddenly in 1975, at age 27. Though she wrote only one volume of criticism, she established a legacy essential to post-modern poetry. For decades, Forrest-Thomson was almost entirely unread, except among small cadres of avant-garde writers. But over the past few years, with university symposia dedicated to her work, special journal issues featuring Forrest-Thomson, and the republication of her heretofore nearly impossible to find books, this has changed. Finally, Forrest-Thomson is having her moment. Continue reading
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5 Reasons We Shouldn't Be Afraid of Aliens
via Big Think by Robby Berman
As we perhaps draw thrillingly/terrifyingly closer to discovering life elsewhere in the universe, the chorus of people warning us to be careful what we wish for is growing louder. Most famously, renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has argued for hitting the brakes, reiterating as recently as 2016 his concern about seeking alien contact in his comments about possibly life on Gliese 832c: “One day, we might receive a signal from a planet like this. But we should be wary of answering back. Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus. That didn't turn out so well.” For example, European germs were deadly for the natives and some fear that could happen to us. Continue reading =============================
My Family's Slave: She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. I was 11, a typical American kid, before I realized who she was
via 3 Quarks Daily: Alex Tizon in The Atlantic
Her name was Eudocia Tomas Pulido. We called her Lola. She was 4 foot 11, with mocha-brown skin and almond eyes that I can still see looking into mine – my first memory. She was 18 years old when my grandfather gave her to my mother as a gift, and when my family moved to the United States, we brought her with us. No other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never paid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn’t kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I’d spot her sleeping in a corner, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding. Continue reading =============================
Only recording of Hitler's normal voice
via Boing Boing by Rob Beschizza
In movies and television, Hitler's speaking voice is usually depicted as a dialed-back version of his public speaking performances: even in private he's either shrieking or muttering. The reality, captured only once in a secret recording made in Finland, is unnerving. It's deep and commanding, yet with the same maniacal rhythms. You almost forget that he's admitting, in 1942, that he underestimated Soviet productive capability and would have ignored anyone who told him.
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Delaware Art Museum Puts Over 500 Rare Archives Online
via ResearchBuzz Firehose: Delaware Art Museum
The Delaware Art Museum recently launched its new web-based platform with the Delaware Heritage Collection, allowing selections from the Museum’s 2,000 linear feet of archival material to be seen from anywhere in the world. Original letters from Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood painter Dante Gabriel Rossetti to his mistress, photographs of artist and illustrator John Sloan in his studio, and scrapbooks chronicling the Museum’s history are some of the materials now available online through the new Digital Collections portal. Continue reading
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How a 1,000-Year-Old Religious Edict Shaped the Modern Chicken
via Big Think by Stephen Johnson
Chicken is one of the most consumed meats in the world. The U.S. alone consumes 8 billion chickens per year – about 25 birds per every meat-eater in the country. But just 1,000 years ago, chicken was a relatively rare dish.
New research suggests that a religious edict might have changed that, putting chicken on the menu for millions of people and shaping its evolutionary fate forever. Continue reading
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The Best Sir Thomas Wyatt Poems Everyone Should Read
via Interesting Literature
The poetry of Sir Thomas Wyatt (1503-42) is that rare thing: both of interest from a historical perspective (he lived through one of the most interesting periods of English history) and genuinely innovative and stylistically accomplished. Here are ten of Thomas Wyatt’s best poems, with some information about each of them. Continue reading
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There’s No Science Behind Denying Climate Change
via 3 Quarks Daily: Ethan Siegel in Forbes The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite senses temperature using infrared wavelengths. This image shows temperature of the Earth’s surface or clouds covering it for the month of April 2003. The scale ranges from -81 degrees Celsius (-114° Fahrenheit) in black/blue to 47° C (116° F) in red.
If you didn't know anything about climate science, about the Earth's temperature, about carbon dioxide or greenhouse gases, but you wanted to, how would you go about doing it? You'd begin by constructing a plan for how you'd accurately scientifically investigate the problem. You'd think about the data you'd need to collect and how you'd gather it. You'd think about the measurements you'd want to make and how to make them. You'd think about the sources of error and how to account for them: how to properly calibrate your data from all over the world and from many different time periods. And then you'd bring it together, under one enormous framework, to try and draw a scientifically robust conclusion. Continue reading
My career in information management started back in 1987 working on the Training Access Points project. Nearly thirty years later I am still concerned to ensure that end users, and their mediators, have access to appropriate, relevant information in a form that they can understand, at a time and in a place that is right for them. The Internet seems to be for everyone and everywhere but the digital divide gets bigger. By pointing advisers in the direction of resources I hope to increase what can be done to help clients/customers.
I ran my own company for 16 years but am now a semi-retired freelancer.
Generation Tech has done a few fun videos estimating the costs of items in the Star Wars universe. In the latest installment, they calculate the cost of a star destroyer.
