an article by Mihaela Kelemen and Anita Mangan (Keele University, UK) and Susan Moffat (New Vic Theatre, UK) published in Sociology Vol 51 Issue 6 (December 2017)
Abstract
Definitions of volunteering are widespread and complex, yet relatively little attention is given to volunteering as unpaid work, even though it intersects with the worlds of paid employment and the domestic sphere, cutting across individual/collective and public/private spaces.
This article advances a typology of volunteering work (altruistic, instrumental, militant and forced volunteering/‘voluntolding’) that illuminates the complexity and dynamism of volunteering.
Using qualitative data from a study of 30 volunteers to explore practices of volunteering as they unfold in daily life, the typology provides much-needed conceptual building blocks for a theory of ‘volunteering as unpaid work’.
This perspective helps transcend the binaries prevalent in the sociology of work and provides a lens to rethink what counts as work in contemporary society. It also invites further research about the effects of ‘voluntolding’ on individuals and society, and on the complex relationship between volunteering work and outcomes at a personal and collective level.
Wednesday, 31 January 2018
It's Okay to Be Who You Are – Forget Approval and Show Your True Colors
a post by Daya for the Tiny Buddha blog
How often do you find yourself doing things just because you have to and not because you want to? I’m not talking about the hard work we do to improve at our jobs or the responsibilities we have to our families. I’m referring to those things we do just to please others, to project a certain image of ourselves to the world that isn’t in line with who we really are.
A few years ago, I was searching within myself to find out who I really was.
I’d been so obsessed with creating a mask that people would love that I could no longer recognize myself in the mirror.
I am an ambivert, and I don’t express my feelings much. I tend to smile rather than squeal with joy. I fall silent rather than shout with anger.
Because of these traits, people used to call me “poker face,” and I felt as if something was wrong with me. Determined to shed this label, I forced myself to be loud and attended all social events with my friends in spite of exhaustion. But deep inside all I wanted was a quiet appointment with myself.
Continue reading
“Don’t trade your authenticity for approval.” ~Unknown
How often do you find yourself doing things just because you have to and not because you want to? I’m not talking about the hard work we do to improve at our jobs or the responsibilities we have to our families. I’m referring to those things we do just to please others, to project a certain image of ourselves to the world that isn’t in line with who we really are.
A few years ago, I was searching within myself to find out who I really was.
I’d been so obsessed with creating a mask that people would love that I could no longer recognize myself in the mirror.
I am an ambivert, and I don’t express my feelings much. I tend to smile rather than squeal with joy. I fall silent rather than shout with anger.
Because of these traits, people used to call me “poker face,” and I felt as if something was wrong with me. Determined to shed this label, I forced myself to be loud and attended all social events with my friends in spite of exhaustion. But deep inside all I wanted was a quiet appointment with myself.
Continue reading
The effect of age on willingness to take risks
a column by Thomas Dohmen, Armin Falk, Bart Golsteyn, David Huffman and Uwe Sunde for VOX: CVEPR&rsquo's Policy Portal
Many developed countries have ageing populations, with potentially major economic, political, and social consequences in the near future. Using Dutch and German panel data to control for cohort and period effects, this column investigates the relationship between age and risk attitudes. The results suggest that willingness to take risks declines with age, implying that societies may become more risk-averse as their population ages.
Continue reading
Many developed countries have ageing populations, with potentially major economic, political, and social consequences in the near future. Using Dutch and German panel data to control for cohort and period effects, this column investigates the relationship between age and risk attitudes. The results suggest that willingness to take risks declines with age, implying that societies may become more risk-averse as their population ages.
Continue reading
Read it and weep: why is replying to emails so hard?
an article by Amelia Tate published in the New Statesman
Replying to emails is not, technically, hard. You click a button marked “Reply”, press some plastic keys, give your screen a quick glance, and hit another button marked “Send”. Yet despite the fact it’s not physically challenging in any remote, back-in-my-day-we-had-to-walk-15-miles-through-the-emails way, replying to the unanswered messages festering in your inbox can feel psychologically daunting.
For me, emails are like a playground game of “hot potato”. Someone unimaginably irritating has the audacity to chuck you one, you fling it out of your hands as quickly as possible, and spend the rest of the game (the game is your life, friends!) dreading the moment it’s going to get thrown back. Yet despite the fact I feel better if I reply to emails quickly, most of my days are spent being a digital dawdler, wasting hours holding the potato (to clarify, the potato is still a metaphor).
Why do I do this? Why is replying to emails so hard?
Continue reading
Replying to emails is not, technically, hard. You click a button marked “Reply”, press some plastic keys, give your screen a quick glance, and hit another button marked “Send”. Yet despite the fact it’s not physically challenging in any remote, back-in-my-day-we-had-to-walk-15-miles-through-the-emails way, replying to the unanswered messages festering in your inbox can feel psychologically daunting.
For me, emails are like a playground game of “hot potato”. Someone unimaginably irritating has the audacity to chuck you one, you fling it out of your hands as quickly as possible, and spend the rest of the game (the game is your life, friends!) dreading the moment it’s going to get thrown back. Yet despite the fact I feel better if I reply to emails quickly, most of my days are spent being a digital dawdler, wasting hours holding the potato (to clarify, the potato is still a metaphor).
Why do I do this? Why is replying to emails so hard?
Continue reading
Ombudsman finds fault in seven out of ten homelessness complaints
via the Local Government Lawyer blog [thanks to Inner Temple Library] 15 December 2017
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found fault in 70% of complaints about homelessness it investigated in detail in 2016/17.
In a report, Still no place like home, the LGO said it had received around 450 complaints during the year about services by English authorities. One in three of those complaints came from outside of London.
The Local Government Association called on the Government to include measures in the Local Government Finance Settlement to tackle the problems identified.The Ombudsman's report also said:
Homelessness was increasingly affecting families from areas and professions who previously might never have expected to face problems finding somewhere to live, but who had been forced to call on their local council’s help by the increasing unaffordability of private tenancies.
It was "worrying" that problems remained four years after the LGO's report on councils’ inappropriate use of bed and breakfast accommodation to house families and children. There were still “too many cases where councils are acting unlawfully by placing homeless households in bed and breakfast accommodation for lengthy periods of time”.
Families who have been stuck for significantly longer than the six-week legal limit– some for more than two years – were increasingly having to stay in conditions where damp or infestation was a problem, often affecting their physical and mental health.
The LGO’s report gives local authorities best practice guidance. It also offers councillors and scrutiny chairs a number of questions they can ask of their own authorities to ensure they challenge the number of families left in unsuitable accommodation for too long.
Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Our cases show many pre-conceived ideas about the people affected by homelessness simply no longer ring true. The increasing cost of private rents has meant we have seen a shift towards more people in professions such as nursing, and their families, becoming affected.
“Many of these families are being placed in poor quality accommodation, for periods significantly longer than the six-week legal limit. And we’re seeing signs the problems are growing more acute, particularly with an increase in the length of time families are having to stay in temporary accommodation.
“More worrying still, we are finding that many families are not being told of their review rights when placed in unsuitable accommodation, so they have no information on how to challenge the decision and improve their circumstances.”
Cllr Martin Tett, the Local Government Association’s Housing spokesman, said: “This research demonstrates that housing is becoming more and more unaffordable, and that urgent measures are needed to tackle our national shortage of affordable homes. Councils are facing immense pressures when it comes to temporary accommodation, having to house the equivalent of an extra secondary school’s worth of homeless children every month, and the cost of providing temporary accommodation has trebled in the last three years.
“Local authorities do all they can to place people in the best accommodation available, but the reality is that with limited housing options, councils often find themselves having to extend stays in temporary accommodation, as the only alternative is that families and individuals find themselves out on the streets. With limited housing stock and a £5.8bn overall funding shortfall by 2020, councils are doing all they can to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place, but they urgently need more funding and resources from government.
“At the root of all of this is our desperate need to supply more affordable homes in the long term, and to help people most at risk of homelessness immediately. That means the Government lifting the housing borrowing cap across the country, and allowing all councils to borrow to build, and adapting welfare reforms to make sure that housing remains affordable for low-income families, because the need is urgent, and new homes won’t appear overnight.
“These are both measures that could be taken in the upcoming Local Government Finance Settlement, and we would urge the Government to do so.”
And if anyone can easily find a copy of this 2017 report I would be grateful if you would comment on this post and let us all know where to find it.
I thought I was at least a reasonably competent information searcher but all I can find is the 2013 report (even when the link says 2017).
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman found fault in 70% of complaints about homelessness it investigated in detail in 2016/17.
In a report, Still no place like home, the LGO said it had received around 450 complaints during the year about services by English authorities. One in three of those complaints came from outside of London.
The Local Government Association called on the Government to include measures in the Local Government Finance Settlement to tackle the problems identified.The Ombudsman's report also said:
Homelessness was increasingly affecting families from areas and professions who previously might never have expected to face problems finding somewhere to live, but who had been forced to call on their local council’s help by the increasing unaffordability of private tenancies.
It was "worrying" that problems remained four years after the LGO's report on councils’ inappropriate use of bed and breakfast accommodation to house families and children. There were still “too many cases where councils are acting unlawfully by placing homeless households in bed and breakfast accommodation for lengthy periods of time”.
Families who have been stuck for significantly longer than the six-week legal limit– some for more than two years – were increasingly having to stay in conditions where damp or infestation was a problem, often affecting their physical and mental health.
The LGO’s report gives local authorities best practice guidance. It also offers councillors and scrutiny chairs a number of questions they can ask of their own authorities to ensure they challenge the number of families left in unsuitable accommodation for too long.
Michael King, Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman, said: “Our cases show many pre-conceived ideas about the people affected by homelessness simply no longer ring true. The increasing cost of private rents has meant we have seen a shift towards more people in professions such as nursing, and their families, becoming affected.
“Many of these families are being placed in poor quality accommodation, for periods significantly longer than the six-week legal limit. And we’re seeing signs the problems are growing more acute, particularly with an increase in the length of time families are having to stay in temporary accommodation.
“More worrying still, we are finding that many families are not being told of their review rights when placed in unsuitable accommodation, so they have no information on how to challenge the decision and improve their circumstances.”
Cllr Martin Tett, the Local Government Association’s Housing spokesman, said: “This research demonstrates that housing is becoming more and more unaffordable, and that urgent measures are needed to tackle our national shortage of affordable homes. Councils are facing immense pressures when it comes to temporary accommodation, having to house the equivalent of an extra secondary school’s worth of homeless children every month, and the cost of providing temporary accommodation has trebled in the last three years.
“Local authorities do all they can to place people in the best accommodation available, but the reality is that with limited housing options, councils often find themselves having to extend stays in temporary accommodation, as the only alternative is that families and individuals find themselves out on the streets. With limited housing stock and a £5.8bn overall funding shortfall by 2020, councils are doing all they can to prevent homelessness from happening in the first place, but they urgently need more funding and resources from government.
“At the root of all of this is our desperate need to supply more affordable homes in the long term, and to help people most at risk of homelessness immediately. That means the Government lifting the housing borrowing cap across the country, and allowing all councils to borrow to build, and adapting welfare reforms to make sure that housing remains affordable for low-income families, because the need is urgent, and new homes won’t appear overnight.
“These are both measures that could be taken in the upcoming Local Government Finance Settlement, and we would urge the Government to do so.”
And if anyone can easily find a copy of this 2017 report I would be grateful if you would comment on this post and let us all know where to find it.
I thought I was at least a reasonably competent information searcher but all I can find is the 2013 report (even when the link says 2017).
Innovative app boosts literacy and social inclusion
an article by Catherine Jewell, Communications Division, WIPO published in WIPO Magazine (December 2017)
It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. This was the case for Daniela Galindo, a young social entrepreneur from Colombia.
Her younger sister, Julis, was born with a disability that does not allow her to speak, making it extremely difficult for her to communicate with her family and the wider world – a source of great frustration for both Julis and her family. Determined to find a way to communicate with her sister and improve her quality of life, Ms. Galindo developed a software application that now promises to transform the lives of millions who live with disabilities and for whom communication is a daily challenge.
The idea for the application emerged at a family dinner when Ms. Galindo and her parents were brainstorming about ways to better communicate with Julis. “We were in a restaurant sharing ideas and my Dad sketched out what is now our user interface on a napkin,” she explains. It took two years to turn the idea into reality. When Ms. Galindo graduated from her studies in computer science and business in 2011, she set up her company, Hablando con Julis, and set about developing the app. “We initially developed the solution for my sister to resolve a family issue,” she says. “The application changed my life. I found out who my sister is, what she wants, everything about her. It has also changed her life.”
Continue reading
It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. This was the case for Daniela Galindo, a young social entrepreneur from Colombia.
Her younger sister, Julis, was born with a disability that does not allow her to speak, making it extremely difficult for her to communicate with her family and the wider world – a source of great frustration for both Julis and her family. Determined to find a way to communicate with her sister and improve her quality of life, Ms. Galindo developed a software application that now promises to transform the lives of millions who live with disabilities and for whom communication is a daily challenge.
The idea for the application emerged at a family dinner when Ms. Galindo and her parents were brainstorming about ways to better communicate with Julis. “We were in a restaurant sharing ideas and my Dad sketched out what is now our user interface on a napkin,” she explains. It took two years to turn the idea into reality. When Ms. Galindo graduated from her studies in computer science and business in 2011, she set up her company, Hablando con Julis, and set about developing the app. “We initially developed the solution for my sister to resolve a family issue,” she says. “The application changed my life. I found out who my sister is, what she wants, everything about her. It has also changed her life.”
Continue reading
How policy shapes long-term care arrangements
a column by Daniel Barczyk and Matthias Kredler for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Ageing societies and the increase in female labour force participation are putting pressure on governments to take a more active role in caring for the elderly. Using European and US data, this column investigates the responses of families to long-term care policy. The results suggest that care arrangements are strongly influenced by policy, and highlight the importance of accounting for informal care when evaluating reform proposals.
Continue reading
Ageing societies and the increase in female labour force participation are putting pressure on governments to take a more active role in caring for the elderly. Using European and US data, this column investigates the responses of families to long-term care policy. The results suggest that care arrangements are strongly influenced by policy, and highlight the importance of accounting for informal care when evaluating reform proposals.
Continue reading
Monday, 29 January 2018
A First Aid Kit for When Life Falls Apart
a post by Helena Önneby for the Tiny Buddha blog
“What if pain—like love—is just a place brave people visit?” ~Glennon Doyle
It’s one of life’s greatest paradoxes: When life is easy, everything seems easy. When life is hard, everything seems hard.
This one keeps coming back to me and I keep trying to figure it out. Why do we end up in these spirals of “all good” or “all bad”? How can we get out of the “all bad” faster next time we get trapped? How can we help ourselves get out of there?
I’ve had periods in my life when all seemed lost. When I haven’t been able to fathom ever getting out of bed with ease again. When I’ve thought my current situation would go on forever or I’ve been convinced that suffering was my destiny.
My struggles have often been linked to physical illness. With six different autoimmune diagnoses, I truly felt my life was over. Before even turning thirty years old my life prognosis was far from optimistic.
I call this period, and others like it, the black hole. I managed to get out of there at that time via some major lifestyle changes, involving my body, mind, and spirit.
But I’ve also realized that, most of the time, it’s the internal, silent struggle that challenges us the most. And, sure, I’ve visited there again in the recent five years, and I know I probably will in the future. I think it’s part of the human experience.
Continue reading
I found this post really useful.
“What if pain—like love—is just a place brave people visit?” ~Glennon Doyle
It’s one of life’s greatest paradoxes: When life is easy, everything seems easy. When life is hard, everything seems hard.
This one keeps coming back to me and I keep trying to figure it out. Why do we end up in these spirals of “all good” or “all bad”? How can we get out of the “all bad” faster next time we get trapped? How can we help ourselves get out of there?
I’ve had periods in my life when all seemed lost. When I haven’t been able to fathom ever getting out of bed with ease again. When I’ve thought my current situation would go on forever or I’ve been convinced that suffering was my destiny.
My struggles have often been linked to physical illness. With six different autoimmune diagnoses, I truly felt my life was over. Before even turning thirty years old my life prognosis was far from optimistic.
I call this period, and others like it, the black hole. I managed to get out of there at that time via some major lifestyle changes, involving my body, mind, and spirit.
But I’ve also realized that, most of the time, it’s the internal, silent struggle that challenges us the most. And, sure, I’ve visited there again in the recent five years, and I know I probably will in the future. I think it’s part of the human experience.
Continue reading
I found this post really useful.
Six Ways To Make Psychotherapy More Effective
a post by Rachel Fintzy for the Cultivating Contentment & Happiness blog [via World of Psychology]
Entering into psychotherapy can be the beginning of an impactful journey into a more fulfilling life.
Yet often people complicate this process and sabotage their progress due to misconceptions about what therapy entails. Accepting the following truths can help maximize your chances of making your therapy experience more effective.
Entering into psychotherapy can be the beginning of an impactful journey into a more fulfilling life.
Yet often people complicate this process and sabotage their progress due to misconceptions about what therapy entails. Accepting the following truths can help maximize your chances of making your therapy experience more effective.
- Accept that growth and change can feel uncomfortable at times.
- Accept that choosing to enter into psychotherapy does not mean that you are damaged.
- Accept that your therapist cannot (or should not) tell you what to do about important decisions.
- Accept that lasting change does not usually happen overnight.
- Accept that not every therapy session will contain “aha” moments.
- Accept that your therapist keeps boundaries for good reasons.
The effects of strategic news sources on media coverage
an article by Armando J.Garcia-Pires (Centre for Applied Research at NHH, Bergen, Norway) and Hans Jarle Kind and Lars Sørgard (Norwegian School of Economics (NHH), Norway) published in Information Economics and Policy Volume 41 (December 2017)
Highlights
Media firms regularly depend on contacts with well-informed news sources when they cover business and government affairs. However, news sources might have their own agendas and prefer that some information is hidden from the public.
In this paper, we model the relationship between news sources and media firms as informal contracts based on trust and punishment. The interactions between these two types of agents may have a significant impact on the completeness of news coverage in the media.
Profit maximizing media firms may deliberately hide information from their audiences in order to maintain a long-term relationship with a source.
We find that this cunning behavior might become more intensified the tougher the competitive pressure in the media market, since a newspaper risks to lose the source to a rival if it does not withhold information to please the source.
JEL classification: L14, L82
Highlights
- Media firms regularly receive information from well-informed news sources.
- News sources might prefer that some information is hidden from the public.
- Profit maximizing media firms may deliberately hide information from their audiences.
- Media firm competition might imply that less information is published.
Media firms regularly depend on contacts with well-informed news sources when they cover business and government affairs. However, news sources might have their own agendas and prefer that some information is hidden from the public.
In this paper, we model the relationship between news sources and media firms as informal contracts based on trust and punishment. The interactions between these two types of agents may have a significant impact on the completeness of news coverage in the media.
Profit maximizing media firms may deliberately hide information from their audiences in order to maintain a long-term relationship with a source.
We find that this cunning behavior might become more intensified the tougher the competitive pressure in the media market, since a newspaper risks to lose the source to a rival if it does not withhold information to please the source.
JEL classification: L14, L82
Consequences of increased media competition
a column by Julia Cagé for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Conventional wisdom holds that more media competition makes citizens more informed, and that it improves the functioning of democracies. This column tests this claim using data on local newspaper circulation in France. It finds that increased media competition leads to business stealing and to a decrease in the coverage of public affairs news by local newspapers. It also has a negative impact on local election turnout. While competition is key to the quality of the media environment, the results highlight that more media competition is not necessarily socially efficient.
Continue reading
Conventional wisdom holds that more media competition makes citizens more informed, and that it improves the functioning of democracies. This column tests this claim using data on local newspaper circulation in France. It finds that increased media competition leads to business stealing and to a decrease in the coverage of public affairs news by local newspapers. It also has a negative impact on local election turnout. While competition is key to the quality of the media environment, the results highlight that more media competition is not necessarily socially efficient.
Continue reading
Why Life Seems to Speed Up over Time, and How to Slow It Down Again
a post by Paul Ratner for the Big Think blog
When you are young, time often passes quite slowly. Each birthday is a monumental occasion. Long lazy summers seem to never end. We remember trying to make the clock hands move faster with our minds as we sat bored in class. But as we grow older, life seems to speed up. Birthdays aren’t as big a deal. You’d almost rather not even notice them as you feel like you're barreling towards old age. Why does it feel like this? Is time really moving faster somehow?
A research team from the University of Kansas ran a study to understand this phenomenon. They tested the theory, first proposed by philosopher Douglas Hofstadter, that time appears to speed up because we start grouping distinct individual experiences into larger “chunks”. When we are young we have many big moments, experiencing things for the first time. So going to a park could be quite a big deal, with many memorable sensations there. But as you grow older, going to that park offers fewer and fewer new experiences. You start collapsing them into memory “chunks,” putting everything that happened simply under “a walk in the park” - making the span of time feel brief.
Continue reading
When you are young, time often passes quite slowly. Each birthday is a monumental occasion. Long lazy summers seem to never end. We remember trying to make the clock hands move faster with our minds as we sat bored in class. But as we grow older, life seems to speed up. Birthdays aren’t as big a deal. You’d almost rather not even notice them as you feel like you're barreling towards old age. Why does it feel like this? Is time really moving faster somehow?
A research team from the University of Kansas ran a study to understand this phenomenon. They tested the theory, first proposed by philosopher Douglas Hofstadter, that time appears to speed up because we start grouping distinct individual experiences into larger “chunks”. When we are young we have many big moments, experiencing things for the first time. So going to a park could be quite a big deal, with many memorable sensations there. But as you grow older, going to that park offers fewer and fewer new experiences. You start collapsing them into memory “chunks,” putting everything that happened simply under “a walk in the park” - making the span of time feel brief.
Continue reading
Wednesday, 24 January 2018
10 for today starts with Leonardo da Vinci and ends, predictably, with a poetry post from Interesting LIterature
Leonardo da Vinci Hid Invisible Drawings in His Sketches. Now High-Tech Scanners Have Brought Them to Light
via ResearchBuzz Firehose: Kate Brown in artnet news
Leonardo da Vinci's The head of a youth (c.1510). Courtesy the Royal Collection Trust.
To mark the 500th anniversary of the Leonardo da Vinci‘s death, a collection of his drawings are going on a UK tour next year. But if you think that “Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing,” as the show is called, is just a Renaissance man greatest hits tour, think again. There will be surprises.
Some 144 extraordinary illustrated works will be displayed in 12 simultaneous exhibitions at various cities across Britain. These exhibitions will open in tandem in February 2019, before being brought together to be exhibited that May at the the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. All in all, there will be a total of 200 sheets on display there, making it the largest exhibition of the artist’s work in over 65 years.
The revelations in the show come thanks to modern technology. Infrared light is used to show hidden drawings and alternative versions of Leonardo’s sketches.
Continue reading
==============================
A Short Analysis of Lola Ridge’s ‘Mother’
via Interesting Literature
On a little-known poem by a forgotten modernist
Lola Ridge (1873-1941) is not much-remembered now, much less read. Yet she was one of a number of female modernist poets active in the first half of the twentieth century: poets who helped to move English (or Anglophone: Ridge herself was not English) verse away from roses and iambic pentameters and into fresh new territory. Her short poem, ‘Mother’, gives a snapshot of her distinctive style.
Continue reading
==============================
Poaching with Piers Plowman
via the OUP blog by Sebastian Sobecki
When an army of Kentish insurgents gathered south of London on 12 June 1381, the firebrand priest John Ball is said to have addressed them with a subversive proverb: “When Adam delved and Eve span, where was then the gentleman?” On the following day, the rebels flooded into London, orchestrating spectacles of political violence. They razed the sumptuous Savoy Palace of John of Gaunt, King Richard II’s despised uncle, and beheaded both the treasurer of England and the archbishop of Canterbury.
The Great Rising of 1381 was a politically literate revolt. The rebels clamoured for social justice; they demanded dignified labour conditions and, above all, access to land and game. Their access to reading and writing reveals that they also received support from what Kathryn Kerby-Fulton calls the “clerical proletariat”. This was England’s first revolution, anticipating in its scope and ambition many of the lofty goals laid out three hundred years later in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s milestone treatise On the Social Contract (1762).
Continue reading
==============================
The philosophy of David Hockney
via 3 Quarks Daily: Roger White at n+1
There are some painters whose influence on the course of painting is so diffuse as to become unremarkable. This is the case with the illustrious octogenarian David Hockney. Without him, it’s hard to imagine the category of queer figurative painting, for example, or the casual semi-abstraction seen lately in much American art. The point goes double for painting in Los Angeles, the city where Hockney has made most of his work, with its cerulean swimming pools, indolent bathers, and cubist highways, and which now looks (the city, and much of its painting) like the displaced Yorkshireman’s art.
Continue reading
==============================
Frivolous, Empty and Perfectly Delightful
via Arts & Letters Daily: Joseph Epstein in CRB
“The object of all good literature,” thinks Sue Brown, a chorus girl and a character in P.G. Wodehouse’s novel Summer Lightning, “is to purge the soul of its petty troubles.” Something to it, quite a bit actually, though Céline, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, and a number of other modern writers who pass for serious would strenuously have disagreed. The writing of P.G. Wodehouse—the author of some 95 books of fiction and three of memoir, recently republished in a handsome hardbound collection by Everyman’s Library in London and The Overlook Press in New York—was not merely unserious but positively anti-serious, and therein lay much of his considerable charm.
Continue reading
And maybe remind yourself, as I did, that it’s ages since I read any PG Wodehouse although I have several of his books on my bookshelf.
==============================
Watch a powerful new simulator depict how galaxies form
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Illustris TNG is a theoretical astrophysics project that created the most detailed simulation of the universe to date, and it turns out that black holes influence the distribution of dark matter.
Continue reading
==============================
1,300-year-old Anglo-Saxon cross presented to Cambridge museum
via the Guardian by Maev Kennedy
As well as the cross, gold and garnet pins, an iron knife, glass beads and a chain were also found in the grave. Photograph: Stuart J Roberts/ University of Cambridge
A beautiful gold and garnet cross, found on the breast of a teenage girl buried lying on her own bed about 1,300 years ago, has been presented to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.
The girl’s grave was found in 2011 by University of Cambridge archaeologists only a few miles from the museum, on land at Trumpington being developed for housing. The bed on which she lay – probably her own – had rotted into the soil centuries ago leaving only the iron supports, but the cross stitched onto the dress which became her shroud was still gleaming.
Continue reading
==============================
Anger is temporary madness: The stoics knew how to curb it
via Big Think by Massimo Pigliucci
People get angry for all sorts of reasons, from the trivial ones (someone cut me off on the highway) to the really serious ones (people keep dying in Syria and nobody is doing anything about it). But, mostly, anger arises for trivial reasons. That’s why the American Psychological Association has a section of its website devoted to anger management. Interestingly, it reads very much like one of the oldest treatises on the subject, On Anger, written by the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca back in the first century CE.
Seneca thought that anger is a temporary madness, and that even when justified, we should never act on the basis of it because, though ‘other vices affect our judgment, anger affects our sanity: others come in mild attacks and grow unnoticed, but men’s minds plunge abruptly into anger. … Its intensity is in no way regulated by its origin: for it rises to the greatest heights from the most trivial beginnings.’
Continue reading
==============================
Watch some strange ways strong magnets interact with copper plates
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
YouTuber NightHawkInLight got his hands on some thick copper plates and some neodymium magnets, then showed some of the strange ways the two materials interact.
Continue reading (and watching)
==============================
10 of the Best Poems about the Heart
via Interesting Literature
Are these the greatest heart poems?
Poets have often written about the heart. Whether they’re discussing desire, or being broken-hearted by loss or unrequited love, or the boundless joy they feel in their hearts when encountering the wonders of the natural world. Here are ten of the best poems featuring hearts.
Continue reading
Not sure about best but the ten quoted contain eight of my favourites.
via ResearchBuzz Firehose: Kate Brown in artnet news
Leonardo da Vinci's The head of a youth (c.1510). Courtesy the Royal Collection Trust.
To mark the 500th anniversary of the Leonardo da Vinci‘s death, a collection of his drawings are going on a UK tour next year. But if you think that “Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing,” as the show is called, is just a Renaissance man greatest hits tour, think again. There will be surprises.
Some 144 extraordinary illustrated works will be displayed in 12 simultaneous exhibitions at various cities across Britain. These exhibitions will open in tandem in February 2019, before being brought together to be exhibited that May at the the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace. All in all, there will be a total of 200 sheets on display there, making it the largest exhibition of the artist’s work in over 65 years.
The revelations in the show come thanks to modern technology. Infrared light is used to show hidden drawings and alternative versions of Leonardo’s sketches.
Continue reading
==============================
via Interesting Literature
On a little-known poem by a forgotten modernist
Lola Ridge (1873-1941) is not much-remembered now, much less read. Yet she was one of a number of female modernist poets active in the first half of the twentieth century: poets who helped to move English (or Anglophone: Ridge herself was not English) verse away from roses and iambic pentameters and into fresh new territory. Her short poem, ‘Mother’, gives a snapshot of her distinctive style.
Continue reading
==============================
via the OUP blog by Sebastian Sobecki
When an army of Kentish insurgents gathered south of London on 12 June 1381, the firebrand priest John Ball is said to have addressed them with a subversive proverb: “When Adam delved and Eve span, where was then the gentleman?” On the following day, the rebels flooded into London, orchestrating spectacles of political violence. They razed the sumptuous Savoy Palace of John of Gaunt, King Richard II’s despised uncle, and beheaded both the treasurer of England and the archbishop of Canterbury.
The Great Rising of 1381 was a politically literate revolt. The rebels clamoured for social justice; they demanded dignified labour conditions and, above all, access to land and game. Their access to reading and writing reveals that they also received support from what Kathryn Kerby-Fulton calls the “clerical proletariat”. This was England’s first revolution, anticipating in its scope and ambition many of the lofty goals laid out three hundred years later in Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s milestone treatise On the Social Contract (1762).
Continue reading
==============================
via 3 Quarks Daily: Roger White at n+1
There are some painters whose influence on the course of painting is so diffuse as to become unremarkable. This is the case with the illustrious octogenarian David Hockney. Without him, it’s hard to imagine the category of queer figurative painting, for example, or the casual semi-abstraction seen lately in much American art. The point goes double for painting in Los Angeles, the city where Hockney has made most of his work, with its cerulean swimming pools, indolent bathers, and cubist highways, and which now looks (the city, and much of its painting) like the displaced Yorkshireman’s art.
Continue reading
==============================
via Arts & Letters Daily: Joseph Epstein in CRB
“The object of all good literature,” thinks Sue Brown, a chorus girl and a character in P.G. Wodehouse’s novel Summer Lightning, “is to purge the soul of its petty troubles.” Something to it, quite a bit actually, though Céline, Samuel Beckett, Edward Albee, and a number of other modern writers who pass for serious would strenuously have disagreed. The writing of P.G. Wodehouse—the author of some 95 books of fiction and three of memoir, recently republished in a handsome hardbound collection by Everyman’s Library in London and The Overlook Press in New York—was not merely unserious but positively anti-serious, and therein lay much of his considerable charm.
Continue reading
And maybe remind yourself, as I did, that it’s ages since I read any PG Wodehouse although I have several of his books on my bookshelf.
==============================
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Illustris TNG is a theoretical astrophysics project that created the most detailed simulation of the universe to date, and it turns out that black holes influence the distribution of dark matter.
Continue reading
==============================
via the Guardian by Maev Kennedy
As well as the cross, gold and garnet pins, an iron knife, glass beads and a chain were also found in the grave. Photograph: Stuart J Roberts/ University of Cambridge
A beautiful gold and garnet cross, found on the breast of a teenage girl buried lying on her own bed about 1,300 years ago, has been presented to the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge.
The girl’s grave was found in 2011 by University of Cambridge archaeologists only a few miles from the museum, on land at Trumpington being developed for housing. The bed on which she lay – probably her own – had rotted into the soil centuries ago leaving only the iron supports, but the cross stitched onto the dress which became her shroud was still gleaming.
Continue reading
==============================
via Big Think by Massimo Pigliucci
People get angry for all sorts of reasons, from the trivial ones (someone cut me off on the highway) to the really serious ones (people keep dying in Syria and nobody is doing anything about it). But, mostly, anger arises for trivial reasons. That’s why the American Psychological Association has a section of its website devoted to anger management. Interestingly, it reads very much like one of the oldest treatises on the subject, On Anger, written by the Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca back in the first century CE.
Seneca thought that anger is a temporary madness, and that even when justified, we should never act on the basis of it because, though ‘other vices affect our judgment, anger affects our sanity: others come in mild attacks and grow unnoticed, but men’s minds plunge abruptly into anger. … Its intensity is in no way regulated by its origin: for it rises to the greatest heights from the most trivial beginnings.’
Continue reading
==============================
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
YouTuber NightHawkInLight got his hands on some thick copper plates and some neodymium magnets, then showed some of the strange ways the two materials interact.
Continue reading (and watching)
==============================
via Interesting Literature
Are these the greatest heart poems?
Poets have often written about the heart. Whether they’re discussing desire, or being broken-hearted by loss or unrequited love, or the boundless joy they feel in their hearts when encountering the wonders of the natural world. Here are ten of the best poems featuring hearts.
Continue reading
Not sure about best but the ten quoted contain eight of my favourites.
Thursday, 11 January 2018
n its first year, the Trump administration has reduced public information online
a post by by Andrew Bergman and Toly Rinberg for the Sunlight Foundation blog [with grateful thanks to ResearchBuzz Firehose]
From the redesign of the White House website to the removal of hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) webpages about climate change, the Trump administration, as part of transforming the federal government in its first year, has already left a distinct mark on federal websites.
In some cases, we’ve observed politically motivated and otherwise unexplained removals of documents and entire websites. The Department of the Treasury removed a non-political, research report about corporate income tax from the Office of Tax Analysis website. According to numerous sources, the report was likely removed because it was at odds with Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s tax policies.
Despite widespread concern in the beginning of 2017, we do not have evidence that data has been removed from federal websites almost a year into the Trump presidency. The one exception we know of is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s animal welfare datasets, which was taken down and then partially returned following public outcry and several lawsuits.
What we have seen are substantial removals and overhauls of webpages, documents, and entire websites, as well as significant shifts in language and messaging across the federal Web domain. We know this because we’ve been monitoring tens of thousands of environmental federal webpages at the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) and keeping tabs on relevant reporting and investigations by members of the press and civil society in our roles as Sunlight Fellows.
Continue reading although be aware that the many links are pale blue on white which I found difficult to follow.
From the redesign of the White House website to the removal of hundreds of Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) webpages about climate change, the Trump administration, as part of transforming the federal government in its first year, has already left a distinct mark on federal websites.
In some cases, we’ve observed politically motivated and otherwise unexplained removals of documents and entire websites. The Department of the Treasury removed a non-political, research report about corporate income tax from the Office of Tax Analysis website. According to numerous sources, the report was likely removed because it was at odds with Secretary Steven Mnuchin’s tax policies.
Despite widespread concern in the beginning of 2017, we do not have evidence that data has been removed from federal websites almost a year into the Trump presidency. The one exception we know of is the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s animal welfare datasets, which was taken down and then partially returned following public outcry and several lawsuits.
What we have seen are substantial removals and overhauls of webpages, documents, and entire websites, as well as significant shifts in language and messaging across the federal Web domain. We know this because we’ve been monitoring tens of thousands of environmental federal webpages at the Environmental Data & Governance Initiative (EDGI) and keeping tabs on relevant reporting and investigations by members of the press and civil society in our roles as Sunlight Fellows.
Continue reading although be aware that the many links are pale blue on white which I found difficult to follow.
Why Negative Thinking Has Cognitive and Emotional Benefits
a post by Derek Beres for the Big Think blog
Grandmaster chess player Garry Kasparov contemplates a move in a match against grandmaster Fabiano Caruana during the final day of the Grand Chess Tour at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center in St. Louis on August 18, 2017. (Photo: Bill Greenblatt/AFP/G
Positive thinking has long been championed in American culture. While optimism is part of our biological inheritance – when we’re not hopeful about the future, anxiety and depression can easily transform into suicidal tendencies – positive thinking and positive psychology grew into billion-dollar industries, beginning with Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 book, The Power of Positive Thinking.
Whereas the first self-help book, Self-Help, an 1855 volume by Scottish political reformer Samuel Smiles, was a tribute to the importance of failure, Peale’s objective was quite different. After introducing the concept of “positive thinking”, he taught a continuous and permanent state of optimism. He sold over five million copies while remaining on the NY Times bestsellers list for 186 consecutive weeks, even as he was dubbed a con man and his theories were clinically challenged.
Peale’s message was too seductive for a growingly dissatisfied culture like America, in which more is never enough. This messaging was repeated in 2006 when an equally dubious writer published The Secret, taking the metaphysics of positive thought to new heights. Rhonda Byrne promised that if you weren’t living right, you weren’t thinking right, which set up readers to experience serious guilt – and to purchase subsequent courses, books, workshops, and the rest of the incredible catalog of add-ons that followed.
Continue reading
Grandmaster chess player Garry Kasparov contemplates a move in a match against grandmaster Fabiano Caruana during the final day of the Grand Chess Tour at the Chess Club and Scholastic Center in St. Louis on August 18, 2017. (Photo: Bill Greenblatt/AFP/G
Positive thinking has long been championed in American culture. While optimism is part of our biological inheritance – when we’re not hopeful about the future, anxiety and depression can easily transform into suicidal tendencies – positive thinking and positive psychology grew into billion-dollar industries, beginning with Norman Vincent Peale’s 1952 book, The Power of Positive Thinking.
Whereas the first self-help book, Self-Help, an 1855 volume by Scottish political reformer Samuel Smiles, was a tribute to the importance of failure, Peale’s objective was quite different. After introducing the concept of “positive thinking”, he taught a continuous and permanent state of optimism. He sold over five million copies while remaining on the NY Times bestsellers list for 186 consecutive weeks, even as he was dubbed a con man and his theories were clinically challenged.
Peale’s message was too seductive for a growingly dissatisfied culture like America, in which more is never enough. This messaging was repeated in 2006 when an equally dubious writer published The Secret, taking the metaphysics of positive thought to new heights. Rhonda Byrne promised that if you weren’t living right, you weren’t thinking right, which set up readers to experience serious guilt – and to purchase subsequent courses, books, workshops, and the rest of the incredible catalog of add-ons that followed.
Continue reading
Wednesday, 10 January 2018
Into Africa
a post by Adrien Couderc for the DEMOS blog
As the UK looks to enhance its reputation as a ‘global leader in free trade’ after Brexit, the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, has argued that Britain should look to strike free trade deals with emerging countries. So far, much of the focus has been on deepening trade relationships with India and China – but Africa too has been cited as a potential trade opportunity for Britain. Yet the lazy assumption that emerging countries will automatically queue up for trade partnerships with Britain could exasperate post-colonial tensions. To move beyond this, the government will need to rethink its whole approach to international trade and explore free trade agreements that can balance liberalisation alongside social protection. And in Africa, this will mean establishing a pathway towards reciprocity that understands and recognises the national interest of African countries as well as our own.
Africa’s market of 1.2 billion people holds huge promise in terms of boosting UK trade. First of all, Africa has enormous potential for growth – in 2017, nine of the fastest growing economies in the world were in Africa. Secondly, the emergence of an African middle class, a key potential source of demand for manufactured goods, is an untapped opportunity for British exporters. The growth of African markets will also increase the demand for UK services exports. For example, The City of London is already exploring how the UK fintech industry could be at the forefront of developing innovative solutions to make mobile banking widespread for a continent where nearly 80 per cent of adults do not have access to formal banking services. For instance, WorldRemit, a London startup, is already facilitating online money transfer for millions of people across the continent – providing a crucial lever for financial inclusion in Africa.
Continue reading
As the UK looks to enhance its reputation as a ‘global leader in free trade’ after Brexit, the International Trade Secretary, Liam Fox, has argued that Britain should look to strike free trade deals with emerging countries. So far, much of the focus has been on deepening trade relationships with India and China – but Africa too has been cited as a potential trade opportunity for Britain. Yet the lazy assumption that emerging countries will automatically queue up for trade partnerships with Britain could exasperate post-colonial tensions. To move beyond this, the government will need to rethink its whole approach to international trade and explore free trade agreements that can balance liberalisation alongside social protection. And in Africa, this will mean establishing a pathway towards reciprocity that understands and recognises the national interest of African countries as well as our own.
Africa’s market of 1.2 billion people holds huge promise in terms of boosting UK trade. First of all, Africa has enormous potential for growth – in 2017, nine of the fastest growing economies in the world were in Africa. Secondly, the emergence of an African middle class, a key potential source of demand for manufactured goods, is an untapped opportunity for British exporters. The growth of African markets will also increase the demand for UK services exports. For example, The City of London is already exploring how the UK fintech industry could be at the forefront of developing innovative solutions to make mobile banking widespread for a continent where nearly 80 per cent of adults do not have access to formal banking services. For instance, WorldRemit, a London startup, is already facilitating online money transfer for millions of people across the continent – providing a crucial lever for financial inclusion in Africa.
Continue reading
10 for today starts with a "map" of languages and ends with manuscripts found in the Sinai Deszert
Beautiful chart displays native speakers of world’s languages
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Spanish designer Alberto Lucas López created this gorgeous infographic that shows the proportion of native speakers of each major language.
Continue reading
You really do need to see the infographic for yourself. At full size it is simply stupendous.
=============================
Engraved bones are ‘evidence of cannibalistic rituals by early humans’
via the Guardian by Hannah Devlin, Science correspondent
The researchers suggest the engravings may have been part of an elaborate post-death ritual carried that culminated in the deceased being eaten. Photograph: Bello et al (2017)
Engraved bones unearthed in a Somerset cave have revealed new evidence of macabre cannibalistic rituals carried out by early humans in Britain.
The latest analysis of the bones, which were first discovered in the 1980s in Gough’s Cave in the Cheddar Gorge, show signs of having been filleted using sophisticated butchery techniques, decorated and gnawed by fellow humans around 15,000 years ago.
Previous investigations of the remains, belonging to a three-year-old child, two adolescents and at least two adults, already pointed to the grisly possibility that the individuals had been eaten by fellow early modern humans.
Continue reading
=============================
Martin Gardner puzzle: red, white, and blue weights
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Here’s a good puzzle from Martin Gardner's Mathematical Circus. The book is out of print but used copies are cheap.
Problems involving weights and balance scales have been popular during the past few decades. Here is an unusual one invented by Paul Curry, who is well known in conjuring circles as an amateur magician
You have six weights. One pair is red, one pair white, one pair blue. In each pair one weight is a trifle heavier than the other but otherwise appears to be exactly like its mate. The three heavier weights (one of each color) all weigh the same. This is also true of the three lighter weights. In two separate weighings on a balance scale, how can you identify which is the heavier weight of each pair?
=============================
Not drowning but suffocating
via 3 Quarks Daily: Edward Lucas in More Intelligent Life
Some cities you go to for the galleries, some for the restaurants, some for the nightlife. You visit Venice to stroll through the alleys, bridges and squares that make up the most beautiful public space in the world. The walk that is richest in architectural delights and historical significance follows the route from the Rialto Bridge to St Mark’s Square. The bridge was the hub of the trading empire that brought in the booty and paid for the city’s unique concentration of artistic masterpieces. The merchants of Venice hung around the bridge for information on promising deals and lost cargoes. “What news on the Rialto?” asks Shylock.
Wiggle eastwards from the business district of the ancient city through the narrow passageways and sotoporteghi (alleys that pass through buildings) and you emerge through the great arch at the base of the 15th-century clock tower and into Venice’s political and religious heart – St Mark’s Square. The walk is a little more than half a mile, and shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes. It will, though. Much longer. For during the warm months of the year the route is jammed with a slow-moving flotilla of tourists. Many are oblivious to those around them, having tuned out to listen to their guide through their headsets. You become wedged, unable to go forwards or back.
Continue reading
=============================
What happened next to the giant Larsen C iceberg?
via the Guardian by Nicola Davis
View of the A68 iceberg on the 30 July 2017, taken from a European Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite image. Photograph: A. Fleming, British Antarctic Survey.
Scientists have revealed exactly how the trillion-tonne A68 iceberg broke free of the Antarctic ice shelf last month – and say it has spawned smaller icebergs
The fate of the giant iceberg that broke free from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf last month has been revealed.
Twice the size of Luxembourg, the trillion-tonne iceberg known as A68 was found to have broken off the ice shelf on 12 July after months of speculation about a rift which had been growing for years, with the iceberg “hanging by a thread” for weeks.
Continue reading
=============================
How to thrive as a fox in a world full of hedgehogs
via 3 Quarks Daily by Ashutosh Jogalekar
The Nobel Prize winning animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz once said about philosophers and scientists, “Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing”. Lorenz had good reason to say this since he worked in both science and philosophy. Along with two others, he remains the only zoologist to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. His major work was in investigating aggression in animals, work that was found to be strikingly applicable to human behavior. But Lorenz’s quote can also said to be an indictment of both philosophy and science. Philosophers are the ultimate generalists, scientists are the ultimate specialists.
Continue reading
I found this fascinating. I wonder if you will.
=============================
1,650 year old unopened wine bottle looks like it should stay that way
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Josh Jones at Open Culture looks at the Speyer wine bottle, the oldest (and possibly grossest) unopened bottle of wine.
I'm no sommelier, but it looks as if it turned.
Continue reading
=============================
A Short Analysis of Shakespeare’s Sonnet 53: ‘What is your substance, whereof are you made’
via Interesting Literature
A summary of Shakespeare’s 53rd sonnet
‘What is your substance, whereof are you made, / That millions of strange shadows on you tend?’ Sonnet 53 is pored over and analysed by Cyril Graham in Oscar Wilde’s brilliant short story ‘The Portrait of Mr W. H.’ (1889), about a man who thinks he’s discovered the identity of the mysterious dedicatee of the 1609 edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Believing ‘Mr W. H.’ to be a boy-actor named Willie Hughes, Wilde’s protagonist cites this sonnet as part of his internal evidence: the ‘strange shadows’ are the various roles played by the actor on the Elizabethan stage. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence such an actor as Willie Hughes ever existed. Nevertheless, this makes Sonnet 53 immediately interesting – but as closer analysis reveals, we don’t need any high-flown theories or interpretations to find this sonnet of interest.
Continue reading
=============================
On the value of intellectuals
via OUP Blog by Brad Kent
“George Bernard Shaw near St Neots from the Millership collection” from the Birmingham Museums Trust, CC BY-SA 4.0 viaWikimedia Commons.
In times of populism, soundbites, and policy-by-Twitter such as we live in today, the first victims to suffer the slings and arrows of the demagogues are intellectuals. These people have been demonised for prioritising the very thing that defines them: the intellect, or finely reasoned and sound argument. As we celebrate the 161st birthday of Bernard Shaw, one of the most gifted, influential, and well-known intellectuals to have lived, we might use the occasion to reassess the value of intellectuals to a healthy society and why those in power see them as such threats.
Continue reading
=============================
The Invisible Poems Hidden in One of the World’s Oldest Libraries
via Library Link: Richard Gray in The Atlantic
Two photos of the same pages from an ancient manuscript. The left is a normal image. The right is a special composite image that illuminates underlying erased words.
For centuries they have gathered dust on the shelves of a library marooned in a rocky patch of Egyptian desert, their secrets lost in time. But now a collection of enigmatic manuscripts, carefully stored behind the walls of a 1,500-year-old monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, are giving up their treasures.
The library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery is the oldest continually operating library in the world. Among its thousands of ancient parchments are at least 160 palimpsests – manuscripts that bear faint scratches and flecks of ink beneath more recent writing. These illegible marks are the only clues to words that were scraped away by the monastery’s monks between the 8th and 12th centuries to reuse the parchments. Some were written in long-lost languages that have almost entirely vanished from the historical record.
Continue reading
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Spanish designer Alberto Lucas López created this gorgeous infographic that shows the proportion of native speakers of each major language.
Continue reading
You really do need to see the infographic for yourself. At full size it is simply stupendous.
=============================
via the Guardian by Hannah Devlin, Science correspondent
The researchers suggest the engravings may have been part of an elaborate post-death ritual carried that culminated in the deceased being eaten. Photograph: Bello et al (2017)
Engraved bones unearthed in a Somerset cave have revealed new evidence of macabre cannibalistic rituals carried out by early humans in Britain.
The latest analysis of the bones, which were first discovered in the 1980s in Gough’s Cave in the Cheddar Gorge, show signs of having been filleted using sophisticated butchery techniques, decorated and gnawed by fellow humans around 15,000 years ago.
Previous investigations of the remains, belonging to a three-year-old child, two adolescents and at least two adults, already pointed to the grisly possibility that the individuals had been eaten by fellow early modern humans.
Continue reading
=============================
via Boing Boing by Mark Frauenfelder
Here’s a good puzzle from Martin Gardner's Mathematical Circus. The book is out of print but used copies are cheap.
Problems involving weights and balance scales have been popular during the past few decades. Here is an unusual one invented by Paul Curry, who is well known in conjuring circles as an amateur magician
You have six weights. One pair is red, one pair white, one pair blue. In each pair one weight is a trifle heavier than the other but otherwise appears to be exactly like its mate. The three heavier weights (one of each color) all weigh the same. This is also true of the three lighter weights. In two separate weighings on a balance scale, how can you identify which is the heavier weight of each pair?
=============================
via 3 Quarks Daily: Edward Lucas in More Intelligent Life
Some cities you go to for the galleries, some for the restaurants, some for the nightlife. You visit Venice to stroll through the alleys, bridges and squares that make up the most beautiful public space in the world. The walk that is richest in architectural delights and historical significance follows the route from the Rialto Bridge to St Mark’s Square. The bridge was the hub of the trading empire that brought in the booty and paid for the city’s unique concentration of artistic masterpieces. The merchants of Venice hung around the bridge for information on promising deals and lost cargoes. “What news on the Rialto?” asks Shylock.
Wiggle eastwards from the business district of the ancient city through the narrow passageways and sotoporteghi (alleys that pass through buildings) and you emerge through the great arch at the base of the 15th-century clock tower and into Venice’s political and religious heart – St Mark’s Square. The walk is a little more than half a mile, and shouldn’t take you longer than ten minutes. It will, though. Much longer. For during the warm months of the year the route is jammed with a slow-moving flotilla of tourists. Many are oblivious to those around them, having tuned out to listen to their guide through their headsets. You become wedged, unable to go forwards or back.
Continue reading
=============================
via the Guardian by Nicola Davis
View of the A68 iceberg on the 30 July 2017, taken from a European Copernicus Sentinel-1 satellite image. Photograph: A. Fleming, British Antarctic Survey.
Scientists have revealed exactly how the trillion-tonne A68 iceberg broke free of the Antarctic ice shelf last month – and say it has spawned smaller icebergs
The fate of the giant iceberg that broke free from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf last month has been revealed.
Twice the size of Luxembourg, the trillion-tonne iceberg known as A68 was found to have broken off the ice shelf on 12 July after months of speculation about a rift which had been growing for years, with the iceberg “hanging by a thread” for weeks.
Continue reading
=============================
via 3 Quarks Daily by Ashutosh Jogalekar
The Nobel Prize winning animal behaviorist Konrad Lorenz once said about philosophers and scientists, “Philosophers are people who know less and less about more and more until they know nothing about everything. Scientists are people who know more and more about less and less until they know everything about nothing”. Lorenz had good reason to say this since he worked in both science and philosophy. Along with two others, he remains the only zoologist to win the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. His major work was in investigating aggression in animals, work that was found to be strikingly applicable to human behavior. But Lorenz’s quote can also said to be an indictment of both philosophy and science. Philosophers are the ultimate generalists, scientists are the ultimate specialists.
Continue reading
I found this fascinating. I wonder if you will.
=============================
via Boing Boing by Andrea James
Josh Jones at Open Culture looks at the Speyer wine bottle, the oldest (and possibly grossest) unopened bottle of wine.
I'm no sommelier, but it looks as if it turned.
Continue reading
=============================
via Interesting Literature
A summary of Shakespeare’s 53rd sonnet
‘What is your substance, whereof are you made, / That millions of strange shadows on you tend?’ Sonnet 53 is pored over and analysed by Cyril Graham in Oscar Wilde’s brilliant short story ‘The Portrait of Mr W. H.’ (1889), about a man who thinks he’s discovered the identity of the mysterious dedicatee of the 1609 edition of Shakespeare’s Sonnets. Believing ‘Mr W. H.’ to be a boy-actor named Willie Hughes, Wilde’s protagonist cites this sonnet as part of his internal evidence: the ‘strange shadows’ are the various roles played by the actor on the Elizabethan stage. Unfortunately, there’s no evidence such an actor as Willie Hughes ever existed. Nevertheless, this makes Sonnet 53 immediately interesting – but as closer analysis reveals, we don’t need any high-flown theories or interpretations to find this sonnet of interest.
Continue reading
=============================
via OUP Blog by Brad Kent
“George Bernard Shaw near St Neots from the Millership collection” from the Birmingham Museums Trust, CC BY-SA 4.0 viaWikimedia Commons.
In times of populism, soundbites, and policy-by-Twitter such as we live in today, the first victims to suffer the slings and arrows of the demagogues are intellectuals. These people have been demonised for prioritising the very thing that defines them: the intellect, or finely reasoned and sound argument. As we celebrate the 161st birthday of Bernard Shaw, one of the most gifted, influential, and well-known intellectuals to have lived, we might use the occasion to reassess the value of intellectuals to a healthy society and why those in power see them as such threats.
Continue reading
=============================
via Library Link: Richard Gray in The Atlantic
Two photos of the same pages from an ancient manuscript. The left is a normal image. The right is a special composite image that illuminates underlying erased words.
For centuries they have gathered dust on the shelves of a library marooned in a rocky patch of Egyptian desert, their secrets lost in time. But now a collection of enigmatic manuscripts, carefully stored behind the walls of a 1,500-year-old monastery on the Sinai Peninsula, are giving up their treasures.
The library at Saint Catherine’s Monastery is the oldest continually operating library in the world. Among its thousands of ancient parchments are at least 160 palimpsests – manuscripts that bear faint scratches and flecks of ink beneath more recent writing. These illegible marks are the only clues to words that were scraped away by the monastery’s monks between the 8th and 12th centuries to reuse the parchments. Some were written in long-lost languages that have almost entirely vanished from the historical record.
Continue reading
Tuesday, 9 January 2018
The forgotten unemployed: 300,000 jobless Britons not claiming benefits
an article by Peter Walker, political correspondent published in the Guardian
The DWP said anyone who thinks they are entitled to out-of-work benefit should contact Jobcentre Plus. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
Study finds many people are not claiming support they are entitled to and warns some are put off by the benefits system
About 300,000 British people without jobs or on very low wages are not claiming benefits they are entitled to, according to a thinktank study urging the government to focus more attention on the issue.
The report from the Resolution Foundation says the “forgotten unemployed” are disproportionately likely to be older women or young men, who are missing out on at least £73 a week and potentially far more.
While many appear not to claim benefits because they have other means of support – for example living with a partner in work or with parents – the report warns that some people, particularly women, are put off by a benefits system viewed as complex and overly punitive.
The report, titled Falling Through the Cracks, urges the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to do more to examine the reasons why so many eligible people do not claim, arguing that the rollout of universal credit would be a good moment for this.
Continue reading
The DWP said anyone who thinks they are entitled to out-of-work benefit should contact Jobcentre Plus. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA
Study finds many people are not claiming support they are entitled to and warns some are put off by the benefits system
About 300,000 British people without jobs or on very low wages are not claiming benefits they are entitled to, according to a thinktank study urging the government to focus more attention on the issue.
The report from the Resolution Foundation says the “forgotten unemployed” are disproportionately likely to be older women or young men, who are missing out on at least £73 a week and potentially far more.
While many appear not to claim benefits because they have other means of support – for example living with a partner in work or with parents – the report warns that some people, particularly women, are put off by a benefits system viewed as complex and overly punitive.
The report, titled Falling Through the Cracks, urges the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) to do more to examine the reasons why so many eligible people do not claim, arguing that the rollout of universal credit would be a good moment for this.
Continue reading
Time for some housing honesty
a post by Matthew Whittaker for the Resolution Foundation blog
The return to work after Christmas is never easy. Unless you’re an estate agent: they love January. Following the pre-Christmas lull, families rush back into wanting to buy and sell their houses (helped in part by the traditional post-festivity spike in family breakdown). But for an increasing number of us, house hunting is becoming little more than an exercise in window shopping (or ‘property porn’ if you’d rather).
The share of the population owning a home has been falling since 2003, with particularly profound consequences for younger families. As the chart below shows, today’s 30 year olds (that is, the oldest members of the millennial generation born between 1981 and 2000) are only half as likely to own their house as their parents were at the same age.
Continue reading
The return to work after Christmas is never easy. Unless you’re an estate agent: they love January. Following the pre-Christmas lull, families rush back into wanting to buy and sell their houses (helped in part by the traditional post-festivity spike in family breakdown). But for an increasing number of us, house hunting is becoming little more than an exercise in window shopping (or ‘property porn’ if you’d rather).
The share of the population owning a home has been falling since 2003, with particularly profound consequences for younger families. As the chart below shows, today’s 30 year olds (that is, the oldest members of the millennial generation born between 1981 and 2000) are only half as likely to own their house as their parents were at the same age.
Continue reading
The potential for lifelong learning in dementia: a post-humanist exploration
an article by Jocey Quinn and Claudia Blandon (Plymouth University, UK) published in International Journal of Lifelong Education Volume 36 Issue 5 (2017)
Abstract
Numbers of people with dementia are projected to grow to 682 million globally by 2050. However, despite this escalation, the widely-promoted positive vision of lifelong learning throughout all ages does not extend to people with dementia. Constructions of learning for those with dementia are predominantly limited to the management of symptoms.
The focus on retrieval of memory does not seem to allow for the emergence of the learner as a ‘new beginner’ or as a teacher. This paper focuses on a recent study, Beyond Words, to challenge dominant assumptions about dementia and learning.
Using a post-humanist theoretical framework, this longitudinal qualitative study explores the benefits of community music for those who face problems communicating with words: such as those with dementias, autism, learning difficulties and brain damage.
Rather than characterising them as ‘non-verbal’ it positions them as ‘post-verbal’ and able to communicate in different ways. Moving away from discussions of ‘selfhood’, the paper uses a post-humanist approach to explore an agentic assemblage including one person with dementia from the study and also explores how another participant teaches important lessons about materiality and time.
It demonstrates that learning and ‘new beginnings’ and ‘becomings’ can and do take place at advanced stages of dementia, challenging the assumption that dementia is a wasteland for learning. It also shows how people with dementia have much to teach researchers about living and learning.
Abstract
Numbers of people with dementia are projected to grow to 682 million globally by 2050. However, despite this escalation, the widely-promoted positive vision of lifelong learning throughout all ages does not extend to people with dementia. Constructions of learning for those with dementia are predominantly limited to the management of symptoms.
The focus on retrieval of memory does not seem to allow for the emergence of the learner as a ‘new beginner’ or as a teacher. This paper focuses on a recent study, Beyond Words, to challenge dominant assumptions about dementia and learning.
Using a post-humanist theoretical framework, this longitudinal qualitative study explores the benefits of community music for those who face problems communicating with words: such as those with dementias, autism, learning difficulties and brain damage.
Rather than characterising them as ‘non-verbal’ it positions them as ‘post-verbal’ and able to communicate in different ways. Moving away from discussions of ‘selfhood’, the paper uses a post-humanist approach to explore an agentic assemblage including one person with dementia from the study and also explores how another participant teaches important lessons about materiality and time.
It demonstrates that learning and ‘new beginnings’ and ‘becomings’ can and do take place at advanced stages of dementia, challenging the assumption that dementia is a wasteland for learning. It also shows how people with dementia have much to teach researchers about living and learning.
Monday, 8 January 2018
Lifehacker: How to Teach Your Kids to Spot Fake News
a post by Leigh Anderson for the Offspring blog [with grateful thanks to ResearchBuzz Firehose]
Image: www.vpnsrus.com via Flickr
How to teach kids to spot fake news?
First: Teach everyone to spot fake news.
When I was a child, my parents had access to only a few news sources: our local paper, the big-city dailies (for us, the Washington Post and the New York Times) and the nightly news. Kids today have … the entire internet, with every crackpot theory and faked moon landing right at their fingertips. Even the distinction between “media” and “journalism” has blurred to the point that many adults don’t know if anyone can be trusted at all.
Which means that parental responsibilities now include giving your kids the tools to assess whether a given story is real – backed up by solid reporting – or biased, or totally and completely fake. Or Russian propaganda. To this end, educators are developing curricula to encourage “media literacy” in the face of an onslaught of, well, media bullshit and a president who’s actively trying to discredit responsible journalism. To get an idea of how parents can help their kids separate fact from fiction, I spoke to two people who are deep in the media-literacy trenches.
Continue reading
Image: www.vpnsrus.com via Flickr
How to teach kids to spot fake news?
First: Teach everyone to spot fake news.
When I was a child, my parents had access to only a few news sources: our local paper, the big-city dailies (for us, the Washington Post and the New York Times) and the nightly news. Kids today have … the entire internet, with every crackpot theory and faked moon landing right at their fingertips. Even the distinction between “media” and “journalism” has blurred to the point that many adults don’t know if anyone can be trusted at all.
Which means that parental responsibilities now include giving your kids the tools to assess whether a given story is real – backed up by solid reporting – or biased, or totally and completely fake. Or Russian propaganda. To this end, educators are developing curricula to encourage “media literacy” in the face of an onslaught of, well, media bullshit and a president who’s actively trying to discredit responsible journalism. To get an idea of how parents can help their kids separate fact from fiction, I spoke to two people who are deep in the media-literacy trenches.
Continue reading
2018 risks being a standstill year on pay
a post by Torsten Bell for the Resolution Foundation blog
2018 looks set to be a standstill year. On the biggest political issue of our time we will spend all 365 days of it leaving, but not out of, the EU. It also looks set to be a standstill year for our economy as most people experience it – on pay and employment we may well end it pretty much where we began.
That flat pay may be seen as good news shows quite how far we’ve come as a country. The recent catastrophe of wages in Britain has well and truly managed our expectations. The living standards story of 2017 was the return of shrinking pay packets – still £15 a week below their pre-crisis peak and not forecast to fully recover until 2025. Far from catching back up, we’ve started digging again.
Continue reading
2018 looks set to be a standstill year. On the biggest political issue of our time we will spend all 365 days of it leaving, but not out of, the EU. It also looks set to be a standstill year for our economy as most people experience it – on pay and employment we may well end it pretty much where we began.
That flat pay may be seen as good news shows quite how far we’ve come as a country. The recent catastrophe of wages in Britain has well and truly managed our expectations. The living standards story of 2017 was the return of shrinking pay packets – still £15 a week below their pre-crisis peak and not forecast to fully recover until 2025. Far from catching back up, we’ve started digging again.
Continue reading
Sunday, 7 January 2018
8 Quick and Easy Meditation Techniques to Calm Your Anxious Mind
a post by Lori Deschene for the Tiny Buddha blog
Have you ever found it hard to motivate yourself to do something that was good for you, only to eventually do it, feel amazing, and wonder why you waited so long?
That’s what meditating was like for me. Even though I knew I could do it for only five minutes each day to feel calmer, less stressed, and more present, I found excuses not to do it regularly for years.
I’d tell myself five minutes wasn’t enough; I really needed thirty or more, and I didn’t have that time, so why bother?
I’d lament that I was too anxious to sit still (ironic, considering that I knew meditating could calm my anxiety).
I’d complain that my environment was too distracting (irony yet again, since meditation ultimately helps us focus and better deal with distractions).
And then there was my most commonly used excuse: “It just doesn’t work for me.”
Of course it didn’t “work.” I wasn’t meditating with any consistency. And when I did, I got impatient with my own busy brain, like watching the proverbial pot that wouldn’t boil, instead of simply easing into the experience.
Continue reading
It will never work for me if I have to sit like that. Replaced hip joints simply do not like being used in that way. However, sitting up straight in a high-backed chair (not lounging on the sofa), with feet firmly on the floor is good. Also good is lying flat on your back with knees bent bringing your spine into contact with the floor/mattress.
Have you ever found it hard to motivate yourself to do something that was good for you, only to eventually do it, feel amazing, and wonder why you waited so long?
That’s what meditating was like for me. Even though I knew I could do it for only five minutes each day to feel calmer, less stressed, and more present, I found excuses not to do it regularly for years.
I’d tell myself five minutes wasn’t enough; I really needed thirty or more, and I didn’t have that time, so why bother?
I’d lament that I was too anxious to sit still (ironic, considering that I knew meditating could calm my anxiety).
I’d complain that my environment was too distracting (irony yet again, since meditation ultimately helps us focus and better deal with distractions).
And then there was my most commonly used excuse: “It just doesn’t work for me.”
Of course it didn’t “work.” I wasn’t meditating with any consistency. And when I did, I got impatient with my own busy brain, like watching the proverbial pot that wouldn’t boil, instead of simply easing into the experience.
Continue reading
It will never work for me if I have to sit like that. Replaced hip joints simply do not like being used in that way. However, sitting up straight in a high-backed chair (not lounging on the sofa), with feet firmly on the floor is good. Also good is lying flat on your back with knees bent bringing your spine into contact with the floor/mattress.
What could the latest life expectancy projections mean for the State Pension Age?
a post by David Finch published in the Resolution Foundation blog
At the end of last week [probably 1 December 2017], the ONS published the latest future projections showing its best estimate of how long we can expect to live. We don’t automatically associate our living standards with factors like health or how many years of life we may have. But just like income, life expectancy is an important indicator of our standard of living. As our recent report found, these projections have big implications for people’s living standards in later life.
In perhaps a growing, and worrying, theme for prosperity-linked metrics, expected improvements in life expectancy have been revised down. As the chart below shows, a person born today can now expect to live for about a year and a half less than previously thought. That may not seem significant over a lifespan totalling 90 years, but it represents a lost decade of improvement, with expectations now back to where they were under 2006-based projections. It is not just income that is little improved since the financial crisis.
Continue reading
There is talk of “live long and prosper” but I would prefer to live a shorter time if the longer means it will be endured in poverty.
At the end of last week [probably 1 December 2017], the ONS published the latest future projections showing its best estimate of how long we can expect to live. We don’t automatically associate our living standards with factors like health or how many years of life we may have. But just like income, life expectancy is an important indicator of our standard of living. As our recent report found, these projections have big implications for people’s living standards in later life.
In perhaps a growing, and worrying, theme for prosperity-linked metrics, expected improvements in life expectancy have been revised down. As the chart below shows, a person born today can now expect to live for about a year and a half less than previously thought. That may not seem significant over a lifespan totalling 90 years, but it represents a lost decade of improvement, with expectations now back to where they were under 2006-based projections. It is not just income that is little improved since the financial crisis.
Continue reading
There is talk of “live long and prosper” but I would prefer to live a shorter time if the longer means it will be endured in poverty.
IPSAS [International Public Sector Accounting Standards] on Social Benefits
Posted by Guohua Huang on the International Monetary Fund’s Public Financial Management blog
Providing social benefits to the public is a critical responsibility of governments. However, concerns have been raised about the financial sustainability of social benefit policies in many countries.
One recent IMF study showed that, without further reforms, spending on age-related programs (pensions and health) would increase by 9 percentage points of GDP in advanced countries and 11 percentage points of GDP in less-developed countries, between 2015 and 2100.
The fiscal consequences are potentially dire. Such spending increases could lead to unsustainable public debts, require sharp cuts in other spending by governments, or necessitate large tax increases that could stymie economic growth.
Even though the sustainability of social benefits is an important policy issue, there is no an international standard on how to appropriately account for the related liabilities and expenses. The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) has been criticized for not issuing any standards on this issue.
For example, when assessing the suitability of IPSAS in the EU member states a few years ago, the European Commission stated that the coverage of IPSAS was incomplete, and expressed concerns about its applicability to some important types of government flows, such as taxes and social benefits. IPSASB’s oversight body, the Public Interest Committee, has been recommending IPSASB to focus its resources on social benefits and other key issues of public policy.
Continue reading
Providing social benefits to the public is a critical responsibility of governments. However, concerns have been raised about the financial sustainability of social benefit policies in many countries.
One recent IMF study showed that, without further reforms, spending on age-related programs (pensions and health) would increase by 9 percentage points of GDP in advanced countries and 11 percentage points of GDP in less-developed countries, between 2015 and 2100.
The fiscal consequences are potentially dire. Such spending increases could lead to unsustainable public debts, require sharp cuts in other spending by governments, or necessitate large tax increases that could stymie economic growth.
Even though the sustainability of social benefits is an important policy issue, there is no an international standard on how to appropriately account for the related liabilities and expenses. The International Public Sector Accounting Standards Board (IPSASB) has been criticized for not issuing any standards on this issue.
For example, when assessing the suitability of IPSAS in the EU member states a few years ago, the European Commission stated that the coverage of IPSAS was incomplete, and expressed concerns about its applicability to some important types of government flows, such as taxes and social benefits. IPSASB’s oversight body, the Public Interest Committee, has been recommending IPSASB to focus its resources on social benefits and other key issues of public policy.
Continue reading
When do climate change, sustainability, and economic development considerations overlap in cities?
an article by Scott E. Kalafatis (Michigan State University, USA; College of Menominee Nation, Keshena, USA) published in Environmental Politics Volume 27 Issue 1 (2018)
Abstract
Overlaps between economic development, sustainability and climate change objectives have both political and practical implications for the development of policies addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, little empirical research has systematically investigated factors underlying these overlaps.
Here, survey responses from 287 cities in the US are used to explore associations between the presence of such overlaps and these cities’ policy actions and contextual conditions.
Patterns in the presence of these overlaps are described, which help shed light on the political economy underlying policymakers’ considerations about overlapping climate change mitigation and adaptation considerations with economic development or sustainability.
Policymakers’ considerations about the possible political co-benefits and political trade-offs of these objective overlaps will play a critical role in shaping interconnected policy responses to complex challenges like climate change in the years ahead.
Abstract
Overlaps between economic development, sustainability and climate change objectives have both political and practical implications for the development of policies addressing climate change mitigation and adaptation. However, little empirical research has systematically investigated factors underlying these overlaps.
Here, survey responses from 287 cities in the US are used to explore associations between the presence of such overlaps and these cities’ policy actions and contextual conditions.
Patterns in the presence of these overlaps are described, which help shed light on the political economy underlying policymakers’ considerations about overlapping climate change mitigation and adaptation considerations with economic development or sustainability.
Policymakers’ considerations about the possible political co-benefits and political trade-offs of these objective overlaps will play a critical role in shaping interconnected policy responses to complex challenges like climate change in the years ahead.
Healthy Ways to Navigate Your Grief
a post by Margarita Tartakovsky for the World of Psychology blog
Even though my dad was hooked up to the most high-tech ventilator in the hospital and had five chest tubes connected to his body, I thought he’d come home with us. Sure, the recovery wouldn’t be easy, but we’d take it slow, and eventually, he’d return to his healthy, energetic self.
At his funeral, I really wanted to say something, to make everyone there understand just how kind-hearted, funny, playful, brave, and resilient my father was. This was a special person, and I yearned, a yearning that knotted my stomach, for others to feel that. Instead, I stayed silent as the rabbi read through paragraphs we’d provided, paragraphs that barely captured the beauty of my dad.
Continue reading
Even though my dad was hooked up to the most high-tech ventilator in the hospital and had five chest tubes connected to his body, I thought he’d come home with us. Sure, the recovery wouldn’t be easy, but we’d take it slow, and eventually, he’d return to his healthy, energetic self.
At his funeral, I really wanted to say something, to make everyone there understand just how kind-hearted, funny, playful, brave, and resilient my father was. This was a special person, and I yearned, a yearning that knotted my stomach, for others to feel that. Instead, I stayed silent as the rabbi read through paragraphs we’d provided, paragraphs that barely captured the beauty of my dad.
Continue reading
New online platform aims to be a game-changer for accessible ICT
via e-Access Bulletin (November 2017)
An accessibility resources platform that claims to be “the first of its kind in the world” has been launched.
DeveloperSpace aims to be a comprehensive portal for information on inclusive digital content and systems, for a wide-ranging audience. Although primarily aimed at developers, designers and anyone building digital systems or content, the site has been created to foster collaboration between different industries and disciplines, in the hope of creating and sharing what the site calls ‘accessible solutions’ to ICT accessibility problems.
To identify and address these problems effectively, computer-users with a range of impairments were involved at all stages of building DeveloperSpace.
Key features of the site include an ‘Accessibility Masterlist’ (which gives information on a range of ICT accessibility features, such as alternative computer settings and audio enhancement), ‘Quicksheets’ (summaries of topics such as social media accessibility and PDF readers) and tutorials on a range of topics, such as inclusive e-publishing and accessible web games.
Other features include a question and answer forum and a ‘Challenges’ section, where people can volunteer to solve accessibility tasks, sometimes for prize money or funding. One challenge is based around improving a ‘photosensitive seizure tool’ (which detects flashing web content that could cause seizures in some users) so that it can be released as open source, carrying a reward of $10,000.
DeveloperSpace was created as the main outcome of the European Commission-funded Prosperity4All project and is part of the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII), both of which aim to drive forward inclusive technology development and access to these technologies.
Gregg Vanderheiden – Prosperity4All’s Technical Coordinator and Director and Professor of the Trace R&D Center at the University of Maryland – told e-Access Bulletin that as well as providing key resources, another aim of DeveloperSpace is to collate knowledge and ideas from across the board. He said: “A goal is to bring together input from consumers and all members of a development team – specialists, testers, teachers, researchers and more – to provide individual guides about particular aspects of the site that may be helpful to them.”
Speaking about what makes the platform the ‘first of its kind in the world,’ Vanderheiden said: “The DeveloperSpace differs from other sites in that it looks at the problem comprehensively, providing tools for all types of information and communication technologies – including anything with a digital interface.”
DeveloperSpace has already been used to help build and improve a number of accessibility projects, some of which are highlighted on the site. These include printing services for visually impaired students and a programme to create accessible video for refugees in the Netherlands.
Find out more at the DeveloperSpace website.
An accessibility resources platform that claims to be “the first of its kind in the world” has been launched.
DeveloperSpace aims to be a comprehensive portal for information on inclusive digital content and systems, for a wide-ranging audience. Although primarily aimed at developers, designers and anyone building digital systems or content, the site has been created to foster collaboration between different industries and disciplines, in the hope of creating and sharing what the site calls ‘accessible solutions’ to ICT accessibility problems.
To identify and address these problems effectively, computer-users with a range of impairments were involved at all stages of building DeveloperSpace.
Key features of the site include an ‘Accessibility Masterlist’ (which gives information on a range of ICT accessibility features, such as alternative computer settings and audio enhancement), ‘Quicksheets’ (summaries of topics such as social media accessibility and PDF readers) and tutorials on a range of topics, such as inclusive e-publishing and accessible web games.
Other features include a question and answer forum and a ‘Challenges’ section, where people can volunteer to solve accessibility tasks, sometimes for prize money or funding. One challenge is based around improving a ‘photosensitive seizure tool’ (which detects flashing web content that could cause seizures in some users) so that it can be released as open source, carrying a reward of $10,000.
DeveloperSpace was created as the main outcome of the European Commission-funded Prosperity4All project and is part of the Global Public Inclusive Infrastructure (GPII), both of which aim to drive forward inclusive technology development and access to these technologies.
Gregg Vanderheiden – Prosperity4All’s Technical Coordinator and Director and Professor of the Trace R&D Center at the University of Maryland – told e-Access Bulletin that as well as providing key resources, another aim of DeveloperSpace is to collate knowledge and ideas from across the board. He said: “A goal is to bring together input from consumers and all members of a development team – specialists, testers, teachers, researchers and more – to provide individual guides about particular aspects of the site that may be helpful to them.”
Speaking about what makes the platform the ‘first of its kind in the world,’ Vanderheiden said: “The DeveloperSpace differs from other sites in that it looks at the problem comprehensively, providing tools for all types of information and communication technologies – including anything with a digital interface.”
DeveloperSpace has already been used to help build and improve a number of accessibility projects, some of which are highlighted on the site. These include printing services for visually impaired students and a programme to create accessible video for refugees in the Netherlands.
Find out more at the DeveloperSpace website.
Researchers to study school records for clues on suicide and self-harm
an article by Haroon Siddique published in the Guardian
Project aims to identify risk factors by comparing school and health records, paving the way for early intervention
School pupils in a playground. There were 98 suicides among 10- to 14-year-olds in the UK between 2005 to 2014. Photograph: Vesa Moilanen/Rex Features
Researchers are embarking on an ambitious project to see whether a child’s school record can provide vital clues as to whether they are at risk of suicide or self-harm.
Nearly one in 10 young people self-harm or have suicidal thoughts but understanding of the causes is limited, making prevention difficult.
By analysing anonymised school data for 180,000 10- to 17-year-olds in south London, including on attendance and performance, and linking it to their health and hospital records, researchers hope to identify the most important risk factors, paving the way for early intervention.
The lead researcher, Rina Dutta, a senior clinical lecturer in the psychological medicine department at King’s College London, said young people felt under more pressure than in the past, which had led to self-harm becoming almost normalised.
Continue reading
I must be cynical. It is all very well identifying the young people at risk but who is available to support them through their trauma?
Project aims to identify risk factors by comparing school and health records, paving the way for early intervention
School pupils in a playground. There were 98 suicides among 10- to 14-year-olds in the UK between 2005 to 2014. Photograph: Vesa Moilanen/Rex Features
Researchers are embarking on an ambitious project to see whether a child’s school record can provide vital clues as to whether they are at risk of suicide or self-harm.
Nearly one in 10 young people self-harm or have suicidal thoughts but understanding of the causes is limited, making prevention difficult.
By analysing anonymised school data for 180,000 10- to 17-year-olds in south London, including on attendance and performance, and linking it to their health and hospital records, researchers hope to identify the most important risk factors, paving the way for early intervention.
The lead researcher, Rina Dutta, a senior clinical lecturer in the psychological medicine department at King’s College London, said young people felt under more pressure than in the past, which had led to self-harm becoming almost normalised.
Continue reading
I must be cynical. It is all very well identifying the young people at risk but who is available to support them through their trauma?
Saturday, 6 January 2018
Responsiveness of wives’ labour supply to husbands’ job loss
a column by Julia Bredtmann, Sebastian Otten and Christian Rulff for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Little is known about how unemployment shocks are absorbed within the household. This column uses longitudinal micro data for 28 European countries to investigate the effect of husbands’ job loss on wives’ labour supply. Overall, there is evidence that women increase their labour supply in response to their husband losing a job. However, the response varies over both the business cycle and across different welfare regimes.
Continue reading
Little is known about how unemployment shocks are absorbed within the household. This column uses longitudinal micro data for 28 European countries to investigate the effect of husbands’ job loss on wives’ labour supply. Overall, there is evidence that women increase their labour supply in response to their husband losing a job. However, the response varies over both the business cycle and across different welfare regimes.
Continue reading
What’s a Narcissist’s Punishment?
a post by Darius Cikanavicius for the Psychology of Self blog [via World of Psychology]
Photo by: Thomas Hawk
How Abusers Get Away with Their Behavior
People with strong narcissistic, psychopathic, or sociopathic tendencies, abusers, manipulators, and otherwise harmful people tend to hurt others. Sometimes they do it overtly, even proudly, and in other cases it’s covert or maybe even unconscious. Sometimes it’s well planned and calculated, while other times it’s careless and reactionary.
Sometimes these people are identified and are forced to accept the consequences of their wrongdoings, while other times they get away with their behavior. And in certain social environments they, horrifyingly, are rewarded for their narcissistic and otherwise hurtful behavior.
It’s no surprise that people who like to abuse and manipulate others tend to look for positions of power. They seek careers as CEO’s, lawyers, politicians, police officers, celebrities, and so on. Some go into helping and teaching fields and work as doctors, therapists, priests, or teachers.
All of it serves two purposes. One, you have (legal) power over others. And two, you are perceived as respectable, educated, even caring, so you increase your chances of getting away with your bad behavior.
Continue reading
Photo by: Thomas Hawk
How Abusers Get Away with Their Behavior
People with strong narcissistic, psychopathic, or sociopathic tendencies, abusers, manipulators, and otherwise harmful people tend to hurt others. Sometimes they do it overtly, even proudly, and in other cases it’s covert or maybe even unconscious. Sometimes it’s well planned and calculated, while other times it’s careless and reactionary.
Sometimes these people are identified and are forced to accept the consequences of their wrongdoings, while other times they get away with their behavior. And in certain social environments they, horrifyingly, are rewarded for their narcissistic and otherwise hurtful behavior.
It’s no surprise that people who like to abuse and manipulate others tend to look for positions of power. They seek careers as CEO’s, lawyers, politicians, police officers, celebrities, and so on. Some go into helping and teaching fields and work as doctors, therapists, priests, or teachers.
All of it serves two purposes. One, you have (legal) power over others. And two, you are perceived as respectable, educated, even caring, so you increase your chances of getting away with your bad behavior.
Continue reading
December article
Determining Factors for Cyberbullying Prevention Programmes
an article by Cristina Hennig Manzuoli and Liliana Cuesta Medina (Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia) published in International Education Studies Volume 10 Number 12 (2017)
Abstract
This study reports on the first stages of a larger project to develop an ICT-supported cyberbullying prevention programme that fosters development of children’s communication skills for the safe use of social media.
To establish baseline data on the incidence and growth of cyberbullying in Bogotá, Colombia, we applied a Revised School Violence Questionnaire (CUVE-R) to a population of 1355 fifth-grade pre-adolescents.
The results show that cyberbullying is at an early stage in the surveyed educational institutions, and we make specific recommendations on developing cyberbullying prevention programmes that foster effective communication and self-regulatory skills supported by multimodal strategies and ICT tools.
Full text (PDF 9pp)
an article by Cristina Hennig Manzuoli and Liliana Cuesta Medina (Universidad de La Sabana, Chía, Colombia) published in International Education Studies Volume 10 Number 12 (2017)
Abstract
This study reports on the first stages of a larger project to develop an ICT-supported cyberbullying prevention programme that fosters development of children’s communication skills for the safe use of social media.
To establish baseline data on the incidence and growth of cyberbullying in Bogotá, Colombia, we applied a Revised School Violence Questionnaire (CUVE-R) to a population of 1355 fifth-grade pre-adolescents.
The results show that cyberbullying is at an early stage in the surveyed educational institutions, and we make specific recommendations on developing cyberbullying prevention programmes that foster effective communication and self-regulatory skills supported by multimodal strategies and ICT tools.
Full text (PDF 9pp)
A Brief Guide to Carrying Out Best Interest Assessments
a post by 39 Essex Chambers [via Inner Temple Library]
A: Introduction
Remember that this is neither legal advice (although based firmly on the law) nor is its intended audience those of us who may have our capacity assessed. It is always useful to know how the law is supposed to work.
A: Introduction
- The purpose of this document is to provide for social workers and those working in front-line clinical settings a brief overview of the law and principles relating to the assessment of best interests. Its focus is on: (a) how to apply the MCA 2005 principles when assessing best interests; and (b) how to record your assessment, primarily in the context of health and welfare decisions. It is a companion to our brief guide to carrying out capacity assessments.
- This document cannot take the place of legal advice. In any case of doubt as to the principles or procedures to apply, it is always necessary to consult your legal department. Nor does it take the place of the MCA Code of Practice, to which professionals must have regard; it does, however, summarise case-law that has been determined since that Code of Practice was written which has made clear how the MCA 2005 is to be applied.
Remember that this is neither legal advice (although based firmly on the law) nor is its intended audience those of us who may have our capacity assessed. It is always useful to know how the law is supposed to work.
This Is How Much the Most Profitable U.S. Corporations Make a Second
a post by Robby Berman for the Big Think blog
Neil DeGrasse Tyson noted in 2014 that if Bill Gates was walking down the street and saw money on the ground, if it was any less than $45,000 he’d actually be losing money to stop and pick it up. That’s how fast his wealth accumulates. (This was 2014, mind you, so who knows how much that figure would be now.) While not quite in Gates’ bracket, the same idea applies to a number of corporations, whose profits accrue so lickety-split that it’s dazzling. TitleMax has put together an infographic of what the 31 most profitable companies made each second of 2016.
Continue reading
Neil DeGrasse Tyson noted in 2014 that if Bill Gates was walking down the street and saw money on the ground, if it was any less than $45,000 he’d actually be losing money to stop and pick it up. That’s how fast his wealth accumulates. (This was 2014, mind you, so who knows how much that figure would be now.) While not quite in Gates’ bracket, the same idea applies to a number of corporations, whose profits accrue so lickety-split that it’s dazzling. TitleMax has put together an infographic of what the 31 most profitable companies made each second of 2016.
Continue reading
'Improv saved my life': the comedy classes helping people with anxiety
an article by Rachael Healy published in the Guardian
Once the domain of aspiring performers, improv courses are increasingly being attended by students experiencing mental health problems
A ComedySportz UK improv workshop to help with anxiety and social fears.
Photograph: Sean Mason
“Your heart’s beating faster, you feel all these eyes on you, your body reacts with panic.” No, it’s not the discarded first line of Eminem’s Lose Yourself, but Alex MacLaren’s description of how his students feel in work meetings, job interviews or even the pub. MacLaren teaches improvisational comedy at the Spontaneity Shop in London. At first, its courses attracted performers. Now, he estimates half his students are seeking help with anxiety or confidence.
It’s a trend noted by other improv teachers. In Manchester, Brainne Edge runs workshops as head of ComedySportz UK. In the past five years she’s seen the proportion of non-performers attending her courses rise to around 75%.
Sarah Farrell, 40, a graphic designer from Manchester and Ryan Kelly, 34, head of digital at a London creative agency, are two such students. Farrell was struggling with social anxiety and depression. Kelly was preparing to be best man at a friend’s wedding and was dreading the speech. They are both fans of the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway? and imagined how the confidence needed to perform in an improv show could help them.
Continue reading
Once the domain of aspiring performers, improv courses are increasingly being attended by students experiencing mental health problems
A ComedySportz UK improv workshop to help with anxiety and social fears.
Photograph: Sean Mason
“Your heart’s beating faster, you feel all these eyes on you, your body reacts with panic.” No, it’s not the discarded first line of Eminem’s Lose Yourself, but Alex MacLaren’s description of how his students feel in work meetings, job interviews or even the pub. MacLaren teaches improvisational comedy at the Spontaneity Shop in London. At first, its courses attracted performers. Now, he estimates half his students are seeking help with anxiety or confidence.
It’s a trend noted by other improv teachers. In Manchester, Brainne Edge runs workshops as head of ComedySportz UK. In the past five years she’s seen the proportion of non-performers attending her courses rise to around 75%.
Sarah Farrell, 40, a graphic designer from Manchester and Ryan Kelly, 34, head of digital at a London creative agency, are two such students. Farrell was struggling with social anxiety and depression. Kelly was preparing to be best man at a friend’s wedding and was dreading the speech. They are both fans of the TV show Whose Line is it Anyway? and imagined how the confidence needed to perform in an improv show could help them.
Continue reading
Identifying the influences of demographic characteristics and personality of inveterate drunk drivers on the likelihood of driving under the influence of alcohol (DUIA) recurrence
an article by Do-Gyeong Kim (University of Seoul, Republic of Korea) and Yuhwa Lee (Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology, Gyeonggi-do, Republic of Korea) published in International Journal of Urban Sciences Volume 21 Issue 2 (2017)
Abstract
Driving under the influence of alcohol (DUIA) is one of the main factors that cause severe traffic crashes and is considered a grave offence under the law. As shown by existing research and statistics, one of the characteristics associated with DUIA is that DUIA offenders are more likely to be rearrested for DUIA conviction.
This means that in order to eradicate DUIA, the personal, psychological, and socio-cultural characteristics of habitual drunk drivers should be examined and intensive efforts are required to manage these types of offenders. This study aims to identify how the personality traits of DUIA recidivists influence the likelihood of DUIA recurrence on urban roads.
The personalities of the drivers were divided into four dimensions
based on the Korean version of the Eysenck personality test.
Four additional attributes related to drivers’ information were included:
From the analysis results, six variables were found to be significant and five variables except for educational background had a positive correlation with the possibility of DUIA recurrence.
Regarding drivers’ personality traits, drivers with a higher psychoticism (P) and lie (L) had a 118% and 102% higher possibility of DUIA recurrence, respectively.
The results of this study are expected to contribute to a reduction in DUIA-related traffic accidents by preventing DUIA recidivism through follow-up management such as a continuous monitoring for drivers with a higher propensity for DUIA recurrence and by establishing regulations that can administer strong punishments for DUIA recidivists.
I cannot work out any stronger punishment than lose your licence, lose your car, lose your spouse and home, and lose your job except that once someone gets to that stage they are on the streets begging and are no longer a candidate for a DUIA conviction.
Abstract
Driving under the influence of alcohol (DUIA) is one of the main factors that cause severe traffic crashes and is considered a grave offence under the law. As shown by existing research and statistics, one of the characteristics associated with DUIA is that DUIA offenders are more likely to be rearrested for DUIA conviction.
This means that in order to eradicate DUIA, the personal, psychological, and socio-cultural characteristics of habitual drunk drivers should be examined and intensive efforts are required to manage these types of offenders. This study aims to identify how the personality traits of DUIA recidivists influence the likelihood of DUIA recurrence on urban roads.
The personalities of the drivers were divided into four dimensions
- psychoticism,
- extroversion,
- neuroticism, and
- lie
based on the Korean version of the Eysenck personality test.
Four additional attributes related to drivers’ information were included:
- gender,
- blood alcohol concentration (BAC),
- drinking frequency, and
- educational background.
From the analysis results, six variables were found to be significant and five variables except for educational background had a positive correlation with the possibility of DUIA recurrence.
Regarding drivers’ personality traits, drivers with a higher psychoticism (P) and lie (L) had a 118% and 102% higher possibility of DUIA recurrence, respectively.
The results of this study are expected to contribute to a reduction in DUIA-related traffic accidents by preventing DUIA recidivism through follow-up management such as a continuous monitoring for drivers with a higher propensity for DUIA recurrence and by establishing regulations that can administer strong punishments for DUIA recidivists.
I cannot work out any stronger punishment than lose your licence, lose your car, lose your spouse and home, and lose your job except that once someone gets to that stage they are on the streets begging and are no longer a candidate for a DUIA conviction.
You’ve Beaten OCD – Now What?
a post by Janet Singer for the World of Psychology bog
For many people, the journey through obsessive-compulsive disorder and back to good health is a long one. Getting the correct diagnosis, or even just recognising you have OCD, often takes years. Then comes the search for appropriate treatment, followed by a long-term commitment to therapy and hard work. We know recovery is possible, but it is rarely a “quick fix.”
I try to imagine what it must feel like, after being controlled by OCD for so long, to finally have your life back? Relief. Gratitude. Excitement!
Yes, but for many, also add trepidation and confusion, with a helping of uncertainty.
What do I do – NOW?
Continue reading
One of the things I learned the hard way from many meetings with various Al-Anon groups is that the alcoholic partner you have lived with for x number of years will not be the non-drinker that he becomes as a sober person.
As a sober person he suddenly has to learn how to fill the hours that were previously taken up with finding money for alcohol, drinking same and then sleeping it off again. Also he would have to face the demons that disappeared when the bottom of the bottle was reached.
What Janet is saying in this post is similar. You’ve given so much money and time to your OCD. What DO you do now?
H.
For many people, the journey through obsessive-compulsive disorder and back to good health is a long one. Getting the correct diagnosis, or even just recognising you have OCD, often takes years. Then comes the search for appropriate treatment, followed by a long-term commitment to therapy and hard work. We know recovery is possible, but it is rarely a “quick fix.”
I try to imagine what it must feel like, after being controlled by OCD for so long, to finally have your life back? Relief. Gratitude. Excitement!
Yes, but for many, also add trepidation and confusion, with a helping of uncertainty.
What do I do – NOW?
Continue reading
One of the things I learned the hard way from many meetings with various Al-Anon groups is that the alcoholic partner you have lived with for x number of years will not be the non-drinker that he becomes as a sober person.
As a sober person he suddenly has to learn how to fill the hours that were previously taken up with finding money for alcohol, drinking same and then sleeping it off again. Also he would have to face the demons that disappeared when the bottom of the bottle was reached.
What Janet is saying in this post is similar. You’ve given so much money and time to your OCD. What DO you do now?
H.
Friday, 5 January 2018
Understanding everyday life and mental health recovery through CHIME
an article by Myra Piat (Douglas Mental Health University Institute, Montreal, Canada and McGill University, Montreal, Canada) Kimberly Seida,(McGill University, Montreal, Canada) Judith Sabetti (Montreal, Canada) published in Mental Health and Social Inclusion Volume 21 Issue 5 (2017)
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how daily life reflects the recovery journeys of individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) living independently in the community.
Design/methodology/approach
The go-along technique, which blends participant observation and interviewing, was used to gather data from 19 individuals with SMI living in supported housing. Data were analyzed through the CHIME framework of personal recovery, which includes social connectedness, hope and optimism, identity, meaning in life, and empowerment.
Findings
Applying the CHIME framework to qualitative data reveals the multiple ways in which everyday experiences, within and beyond formal mental healthcare environments, shapes personal recovery processes.
Research limitations/implications
Combining novel methods and conceptual frameworks to lived experiences sharpens extant knowledge of the active and non-linear aspects to personal recovery. The role of the researcher must be critically considered when using go-along methods.
Practical implications
Practitioners working with this population should account for the role of socially supportive and financially accessible spaces and activities that support the daily work of recovery beyond the context of formal care and services.
Originality/value
This study utilizes an innovative method to illustrate the crucial role of daily and seemingly banal experiences in fostering or hindering personal recovery processes. It is also the one of the first studies to comprehensively apply the CHIME framework to qualitative data in order to understand the recovery journeys of individuals with SMI living in supported housing.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to understand how daily life reflects the recovery journeys of individuals with serious mental illness (SMI) living independently in the community.
Design/methodology/approach
The go-along technique, which blends participant observation and interviewing, was used to gather data from 19 individuals with SMI living in supported housing. Data were analyzed through the CHIME framework of personal recovery, which includes social connectedness, hope and optimism, identity, meaning in life, and empowerment.
Findings
Applying the CHIME framework to qualitative data reveals the multiple ways in which everyday experiences, within and beyond formal mental healthcare environments, shapes personal recovery processes.
Research limitations/implications
Combining novel methods and conceptual frameworks to lived experiences sharpens extant knowledge of the active and non-linear aspects to personal recovery. The role of the researcher must be critically considered when using go-along methods.
Practical implications
Practitioners working with this population should account for the role of socially supportive and financially accessible spaces and activities that support the daily work of recovery beyond the context of formal care and services.
Originality/value
This study utilizes an innovative method to illustrate the crucial role of daily and seemingly banal experiences in fostering or hindering personal recovery processes. It is also the one of the first studies to comprehensively apply the CHIME framework to qualitative data in order to understand the recovery journeys of individuals with SMI living in supported housing.
Harnessing the power of technology in medical education
a post by James Gupta for the OUP (Oxford University Press) blog
Rodion Kutsaev. Public domain via Unsplash
Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality. Gamified Learning. Blended Learning. Mobile Learning. The list of technologies that promise to revolutionise medical education (or education in general) could go on, creating an exciting yet daunting task for the course leaders and educators who have to evaluate them. The visceral appeal of technology is understandable: technology is cool, and it’s increasingly a part of student’s lives and therefore something that they expect to be integrated into their curriculum.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that use of technology is only a means to an end, and without a clearly defined implementation plan and goal, projects are often doomed to fail. Medical schools therefore have the difficult job of balancing student demand for technology with resource constraints and opportunity costs. This isn’t easy, especially considering that technology is evolving at such a rate that it is very difficult to find traditional evidence-based appraisals of these implementations, before the technology that was being tested is obsolete.
Considering this, it’s easy to see how unchecked enthusiasm for technology could be disastrous, if medical schools were to take too many risks and replace traditional-but-proven learning models with exciting-but-unproven tech-based alternatives. An example of this can be seen in ‘Problem Based Learning’, an intuitively appealing idea that medical schools could modernise their approach to teaching by creating a curriculum that traded traditional lectures for small, group-based discussions where students were ‘put in charge of their own learning’ and encouraged to solve problems.
Continue reading
Rodion Kutsaev. Public domain via Unsplash
Virtual Reality. Augmented Reality. Gamified Learning. Blended Learning. Mobile Learning. The list of technologies that promise to revolutionise medical education (or education in general) could go on, creating an exciting yet daunting task for the course leaders and educators who have to evaluate them. The visceral appeal of technology is understandable: technology is cool, and it’s increasingly a part of student’s lives and therefore something that they expect to be integrated into their curriculum.
However, it’s worth bearing in mind that use of technology is only a means to an end, and without a clearly defined implementation plan and goal, projects are often doomed to fail. Medical schools therefore have the difficult job of balancing student demand for technology with resource constraints and opportunity costs. This isn’t easy, especially considering that technology is evolving at such a rate that it is very difficult to find traditional evidence-based appraisals of these implementations, before the technology that was being tested is obsolete.
Considering this, it’s easy to see how unchecked enthusiasm for technology could be disastrous, if medical schools were to take too many risks and replace traditional-but-proven learning models with exciting-but-unproven tech-based alternatives. An example of this can be seen in ‘Problem Based Learning’, an intuitively appealing idea that medical schools could modernise their approach to teaching by creating a curriculum that traded traditional lectures for small, group-based discussions where students were ‘put in charge of their own learning’ and encouraged to solve problems.
Continue reading
Racial projections: cyberspace, public space, and the digital divide
an article by Genevieve G. Carpio (University of California Los Angeles, CA, USA) published in Information, Communication & Society Volume 21 Issue 2 (2018)
Abstract
Scholars of critical race studies, urban history, and information and communications technologies (ICTs) share an interest in the relationship between spatial and racial disparities, including the quality of basic infrastructure, degrees of connectivity, and participatory culture.
However, contemporary research on the digital divide struggles to link historical legacies of uneven development, as well as social justice strategies, with digital participation in urban spaces. By examining contemporary digital art that critiques the spatial inequalities encountered by U.S. racial minorities, this article illustrates how public intellectuals use ICTs in ways that draw upon past strategies to territorialize space for political ends.
It focuses on digital pop-ups, open-air installations that cast images onto public space using projectors. Historicizing these new efforts illustrates a continuity of tactics engaged by communities of color in response to socio-spatial inequalities in the urban United States, such as the 1970s mural movement’s efforts to re-politicize spaces of exclusion.
While existing literature finds that digital inequality results in differential digital human capital, this research indicates that place-based claims, such as digital pop-ups, are important sites for combatting racial injustice and creating more inclusionary spaces, especially among youth adults.
Abstract
Scholars of critical race studies, urban history, and information and communications technologies (ICTs) share an interest in the relationship between spatial and racial disparities, including the quality of basic infrastructure, degrees of connectivity, and participatory culture.
However, contemporary research on the digital divide struggles to link historical legacies of uneven development, as well as social justice strategies, with digital participation in urban spaces. By examining contemporary digital art that critiques the spatial inequalities encountered by U.S. racial minorities, this article illustrates how public intellectuals use ICTs in ways that draw upon past strategies to territorialize space for political ends.
It focuses on digital pop-ups, open-air installations that cast images onto public space using projectors. Historicizing these new efforts illustrates a continuity of tactics engaged by communities of color in response to socio-spatial inequalities in the urban United States, such as the 1970s mural movement’s efforts to re-politicize spaces of exclusion.
While existing literature finds that digital inequality results in differential digital human capital, this research indicates that place-based claims, such as digital pop-ups, are important sites for combatting racial injustice and creating more inclusionary spaces, especially among youth adults.
Thursday, 4 January 2018
How Terminology Impacts the Emotions Surrounding Sexual Abuse
a post by Rebecca Lee for the World of Psychology blog
The terms surrounding sexual assault are hazy. With more people publicly sharing their stories of sexual assault, the details and technicalities have snagged. Everyone knows sexual abuse is horrific, but the vagueness of intention meeting action can create doubt. The description of assault is difficult enough to understand, but what about the other terminology?
Since the #MeToo movement, disclosure of sexual abuse has become far more common in the media. As a society, we have recognized the abuse of celebrities and politicians. Our responses have varied, not just because of the status of those accused/accusers, but because the issue is rampant. Some choose to ignore, others choose to protest.
No matter the level of abuse, words like ‘victim’ or ‘perpetrator’ can shape the way we feel toward the event, the one who caused the sexual assault, and the assaulted. Since language is a powerful tool in shaping mental health and awareness, each definition needs to be articulated clearly.
Sexual harassment and sexual assault are both used to understand various meanings of unwanted sexual attention. Is the emotional response different if a woman says she was assaulted vs. harassed? If she’s ‘underage’ or 18, does that warrant more or less comforting? Should the stress and magnitude of the abuse match the stress and magnitude of someone who displays concern from an equally murky word in a similar category? Since sexual abuse is very rarely portrayed as the complicated (knowing the abuser) and questioning (was the abused dancing suggestively?) type of trauma that it is, ‘assault’, ‘rape’, and ‘harassment’, might not accurately represent the way someone is expected to feel.
Continue reading
The terms surrounding sexual assault are hazy. With more people publicly sharing their stories of sexual assault, the details and technicalities have snagged. Everyone knows sexual abuse is horrific, but the vagueness of intention meeting action can create doubt. The description of assault is difficult enough to understand, but what about the other terminology?
Since the #MeToo movement, disclosure of sexual abuse has become far more common in the media. As a society, we have recognized the abuse of celebrities and politicians. Our responses have varied, not just because of the status of those accused/accusers, but because the issue is rampant. Some choose to ignore, others choose to protest.
No matter the level of abuse, words like ‘victim’ or ‘perpetrator’ can shape the way we feel toward the event, the one who caused the sexual assault, and the assaulted. Since language is a powerful tool in shaping mental health and awareness, each definition needs to be articulated clearly.
Sexual harassment and sexual assault are both used to understand various meanings of unwanted sexual attention. Is the emotional response different if a woman says she was assaulted vs. harassed? If she’s ‘underage’ or 18, does that warrant more or less comforting? Should the stress and magnitude of the abuse match the stress and magnitude of someone who displays concern from an equally murky word in a similar category? Since sexual abuse is very rarely portrayed as the complicated (knowing the abuser) and questioning (was the abused dancing suggestively?) type of trauma that it is, ‘assault’, ‘rape’, and ‘harassment’, might not accurately represent the way someone is expected to feel.
Continue reading
Wednesday, 3 January 2018
Childhood Neglect and the Impact of Invalidation
a post by Rebecca Lee for the World of Psychology blog
What happens when “nothing” happens? A lot. Childhood and adolescent neglect can have a profound and lasting impact on adults. Unlike sexual and physical abuse, some may find it difficult to understand the impact that absence had on their life. While neglect is a form of abuse, since the “action” of the crime is the lack thereof, identifying the problem may be tricky.
What is neglect?
Continue reading
What happens when “nothing” happens? A lot. Childhood and adolescent neglect can have a profound and lasting impact on adults. Unlike sexual and physical abuse, some may find it difficult to understand the impact that absence had on their life. While neglect is a form of abuse, since the “action” of the crime is the lack thereof, identifying the problem may be tricky.
What is neglect?
- Failure to provide basic needs such as food, supervision, and shelter
- Allowing a child to use alcohol or drugs
- Failure to educate a child/provide schooling
- Failure to provide medical attention
Continue reading
An emotional step toward automated trust detection in crisis social media
an article by Shane E. Halse, Andria Tapia and Anna Squicciarini (Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA) and Cornelia Caragea (University of North Texas, Denton, USA) published in Information, Communication & Society Volume 21 Issue 2
Abstract
To this date, research on crisis informatics has focused on the detection of trust in Twitter data through the use of message structure, sentiment, propagation and author. Little research has examined the usefulness of these messages in the crisis response domain.
In this paper, we characterize tweets, which are perceived useful or trustworthy, and determine their main features as one possible dimension to identify useful messages in case of crisis.
In addition, we examine perceived emotions of these messages and how the different emotions affect the perceived usefulness and trustworthiness.
Our analysis is carried out on two datasets gathered from Twitter concerning Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the Boston Bombings in 2013. The results indicate that there is a high correlation between trustworthiness and usefulness, and, interestingly, that there is a significant difference in the perceived emotions that contribute to each of these.
Our findings are poised to impact how messages from social media data are analyzed for use in crisis response.
Reading the title of this piece I was prepared for personal crisis such as severe distress but it is interesting to note the impact of Tweets on environmental and terrorist crises. H.
Abstract
To this date, research on crisis informatics has focused on the detection of trust in Twitter data through the use of message structure, sentiment, propagation and author. Little research has examined the usefulness of these messages in the crisis response domain.
In this paper, we characterize tweets, which are perceived useful or trustworthy, and determine their main features as one possible dimension to identify useful messages in case of crisis.
In addition, we examine perceived emotions of these messages and how the different emotions affect the perceived usefulness and trustworthiness.
Our analysis is carried out on two datasets gathered from Twitter concerning Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the Boston Bombings in 2013. The results indicate that there is a high correlation between trustworthiness and usefulness, and, interestingly, that there is a significant difference in the perceived emotions that contribute to each of these.
Our findings are poised to impact how messages from social media data are analyzed for use in crisis response.
Reading the title of this piece I was prepared for personal crisis such as severe distress but it is interesting to note the impact of Tweets on environmental and terrorist crises. H.
Employment discrimination on the basis of class? Can we do anything about it?
a post by Tristram Hooley for the Adventure in Career Development blog
![84cebcfb9d84b5d0cf309f9ff31bebc5[1]](https://adventuresincareerdevelopment.files.wordpress.com/2017/12/84cebcfb9d84b5d0cf309f9ff31bebc51.jpg?w=723)
I’ve worked in quite a few different workplaces and researched and consulted in a lot more. In pretty much all of them, when you first come in from the outside you tend to notice a type. One workplace might be made up pretty much entirely of blond women called Emma. Another is stuffed to the rafters with check-shirted blokes called Steve.
Some of this is a fairly inevitable tendency for birds of a feather to flock together and for similar types of people to be drawn to similar types of jobs. One of the problems with this situation is that once we’ve been in an environment for a while we tend not to notice the similarities so much and to focus on the differences. Of course all of the Emma’s aren’t the same – eventually we come to mainly notice the fact that Emma A rides a bike, while Emma B is a bell ringer and Emma C is always ten minutes late back after lunch.
The challenge is that people tend to forget that they are in homogeneous environments and feel that they mix with a very diverse group of people. One of the problems comes when we start talking about ‘organisational fit’ as a criteria for recruitment. A desire for organisational fit comes from a desire to ensure that people get along and that new hires will be able to work effectively with the rest of the team. But, if you take a step backwards organisational fit/culture fit takes on a fairly sinister twist. The organisation is vetting new recruits to ensure that they are similar to the majority culture within the organisation.
Continue reading
I’ve worked in quite a few different workplaces and researched and consulted in a lot more. In pretty much all of them, when you first come in from the outside you tend to notice a type. One workplace might be made up pretty much entirely of blond women called Emma. Another is stuffed to the rafters with check-shirted blokes called Steve.
Some of this is a fairly inevitable tendency for birds of a feather to flock together and for similar types of people to be drawn to similar types of jobs. One of the problems with this situation is that once we’ve been in an environment for a while we tend not to notice the similarities so much and to focus on the differences. Of course all of the Emma’s aren’t the same – eventually we come to mainly notice the fact that Emma A rides a bike, while Emma B is a bell ringer and Emma C is always ten minutes late back after lunch.
The challenge is that people tend to forget that they are in homogeneous environments and feel that they mix with a very diverse group of people. One of the problems comes when we start talking about ‘organisational fit’ as a criteria for recruitment. A desire for organisational fit comes from a desire to ensure that people get along and that new hires will be able to work effectively with the rest of the team. But, if you take a step backwards organisational fit/culture fit takes on a fairly sinister twist. The organisation is vetting new recruits to ensure that they are similar to the majority culture within the organisation.
Continue reading
9 Beliefs You Have to Let Go If You Want to Find Inner Peace
a post by Benjamin Fishel for the Tiny Buddha blog
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~Adyashanti
I don’t know exactly when it happened.
It was probably about eighteen months ago, maybe a couple of years. I can’t really remember, and it doesn’t really matter.
I was up to my neck in stress, and having one of those days.
It was one of those days where you wake up late and your neck is a little stiff. One of those days where you skip breakfast, and you immediately feel that you’re behind schedule on every little piece of work. Where you have calls that you’ve forgotten to make, and emails that you’ve forgotten to send. One of those days where you know there’s no way you’ll have time to go to the gym later, even though today’s the day you need it the most! Just one of those days.
So I got home from work, sat in my meditation chair, and tried to calm myself down. But the stress and the frustration weren’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going to simply breathe it away.
As I sat there, struggling to relax, I found myself more and more wound up, until a deep pressure was gripping my forehead. Suddenly, in a split second, I just let go, and the flood gates poured open.
Continue reading
“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretense It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.” ~Adyashanti
I don’t know exactly when it happened.
It was probably about eighteen months ago, maybe a couple of years. I can’t really remember, and it doesn’t really matter.
I was up to my neck in stress, and having one of those days.
It was one of those days where you wake up late and your neck is a little stiff. One of those days where you skip breakfast, and you immediately feel that you’re behind schedule on every little piece of work. Where you have calls that you’ve forgotten to make, and emails that you’ve forgotten to send. One of those days where you know there’s no way you’ll have time to go to the gym later, even though today’s the day you need it the most! Just one of those days.
So I got home from work, sat in my meditation chair, and tried to calm myself down. But the stress and the frustration weren’t going anywhere. I wasn’t going to simply breathe it away.
As I sat there, struggling to relax, I found myself more and more wound up, until a deep pressure was gripping my forehead. Suddenly, in a split second, I just let go, and the flood gates poured open.
Continue reading
Experts Predict 20 Major Quakes Over the Next Year
a post by Robby Berman for the Big Think blog
Haiti, 2010 (COLIN CROWLEY)
The earth doesn’t spin at a constant speed. Various things can affect its rotation. Activities in its mantle and core affect it, as can atmospheric changes and ocean patterns. We’re not talking about big fluctuations in speed, but since 2011, the earth has been turning just a bit slower than usual, by a few-thousandths of a seconds. This has made our equator a bit smaller, like the best diet plan ever that lets you get thinner while moving around less. Unfortunately, though, tectonic plates haven’t see an equivalent reduction in size, and that means they’re beginning to feel the squeeze. And that can mean more seismic events at the surface.
Geologists Roger Bilham and Rebecca Bendick went through the historical records for other slowdowns over the last 117 years and found an alarming correspondence between slowdowns and an increase in the number of major earthquakes. They presented their findings at a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America.
The geologists conclude that a slowing in the earth’s spin tends to precede increased seismic activity by 5-6 years, and thus the current deceleration may signal a higher number of major earthquakes for 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. These would be temblors of 7 or higher in magnitude. 2017 has so far experienced seven such quakes. Bilham and Bendick say we may see, on average, 20 of them in each of the four years.
Continue reading
Haiti, 2010 (COLIN CROWLEY)
The earth doesn’t spin at a constant speed. Various things can affect its rotation. Activities in its mantle and core affect it, as can atmospheric changes and ocean patterns. We’re not talking about big fluctuations in speed, but since 2011, the earth has been turning just a bit slower than usual, by a few-thousandths of a seconds. This has made our equator a bit smaller, like the best diet plan ever that lets you get thinner while moving around less. Unfortunately, though, tectonic plates haven’t see an equivalent reduction in size, and that means they’re beginning to feel the squeeze. And that can mean more seismic events at the surface.
Geologists Roger Bilham and Rebecca Bendick went through the historical records for other slowdowns over the last 117 years and found an alarming correspondence between slowdowns and an increase in the number of major earthquakes. They presented their findings at a recent meeting of the Geological Society of America.
The geologists conclude that a slowing in the earth’s spin tends to precede increased seismic activity by 5-6 years, and thus the current deceleration may signal a higher number of major earthquakes for 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021. These would be temblors of 7 or higher in magnitude. 2017 has so far experienced seven such quakes. Bilham and Bendick say we may see, on average, 20 of them in each of the four years.
Continue reading
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
