provides links to information management, information sources and other "useful stuff" with a strong bias towards the management of information in a careers guidance context.
As of 17 July 2017 I include mental health information and comment.
I tweet as @careersinfo and am on LinkedIn and Facebook as Hazel Edmunds
an article by Bogdan Oprea, Dragos Iliescu, Vlad Burtăverde and Miruna Dumitrache (University of Bucharest, Romania) published in Career Development International Volume 24 Issue 4 (2019)
Abstract
Purpose
Boredom at work is associated with negative consequences, therefore it is important to investigate whether employees engage in job crafting behaviors that reduce boredom and what are the individual differences associated with these behaviors. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
A questionnaire study was designed to examine the mediating role of job crafting in the relationship between conscientiousness and emotional stability and boredom among 252 employees (Study 1) and in the relationship between Machiavellianism and psychopathy and boredom among 216 employees (Study 2).
Findings
The results showed that conscientiousness is negatively related to work-related boredom. This relationship is mediated by job crafting. Neuroticism and psychopathy are positively associated with boredom at work, but these relationships are not mediated by job crafting behaviors.
Research limitations/implications
The study was based on self-reported measures, which might raise questions of common-method bias, and the research samples contained mostly women and young employees, which raises questions about generalizability of our findings. At the same time, the cross-sectional design does not allow causal inferences.
Practical implications
Organizations can select employees based on their personality for jobs that predispose to boredom and give them enough autonomy to be able to craft them. Moreover, they can identify employees who need support to manage their boredom and include them in job crafting interventions.
Originality/value
Traditionally, boredom at work has been considered as resulting from characteristics of tasks and jobs. The findings indicate that some employees can make self-initiated changes to their work in order to reduce their boredom and possibly its negative consequences.
a post by Mental Health America for the World of Psychology blog
You might not be able to change what is stressing you out, but you can control how you react and respond to stress. If you notice that you’re showing signs of stress, here are some things you can do to help yourself.
an article by Katherine Twamley (University College London, UK) and Pia Schober (University of Tübingen, Germany) published in Journal of Social Policy Volume 48 Issue 2 (April 2019)
Abstract
In April 2015, the UK introduced Shared Parental Leave (SPL), allowing mothers to transfer their maternity leave to their partners from two weeks after the birth or adoption of a child. There has been very limited research conducted on this leave policy to date and knowledge on take-up is poor.
We present findings from an in-depth survey conducted with expectant mothers in two NHS trusts in England on their knowledge, views and plans around leave after the birth of their child and examine variations across educational and ethnic groups.
A total of 575 expectant mothers took part in the survey. Around 7.4 per cent of expectant mothers who were (self-)employed or in education intended to take SPL.
Finances and worries over fathers’ careers were cited as the primary barriers to take up of SPL. Individual entitlement for fathers and knowing others who took SPL increased individuals’ reported intention to take SPL. Applying logistic regression models, we found that knowledge of and access to SPL is correlated with education, ethnicity and home ownership.
Future research and policy design should attend to such issues to ensure equitable access across families.
an article by Samantha B Mackson, Paula M Brochu and Barry A Schneider (Nova Southeastern University, USA) published in New Media & Society Volume 21 Issue 10 (October 2019)
Abstract
The current study examined the association between the social media application Instagram and its users’ psychological well-being.
Participants, both Instagram users and non-users, were surveyed online on measures of depression, anxiety, loneliness, self-esteem, body image, and social comparison. Participants who reported having an Instagram account were also asked about their time spent on Instagram and Instagram anxiety.
To understand the association between Instagram and psychological well-being, the study’s first aim was to compare participants who had an Instagram account with those who did not have one. Results revealed that participants with the application reported lower levels of anxiety, depression, and loneliness, and higher levels of self-esteem, than participants who did not have an account. Furthermore, loneliness and self-esteem mediated the association between having an Instagram account and depression and anxiety.
The second aim of the study was to examine what factors are associated with Instagram users’ reports of anxiety and depression, focusing specifically on participants who reported having an Instagram account. Results revealed that anxiety and depression were predicted by Instagram anxiety and social comparison, respectively.
Overall, these results show that Instagram is associated with psychological well-being.
However, when Instagram users experience Instagram anxiety or engage in social comparison, it is associated with poorer psychological outcomes.
This research provides an insight into the psychological impact that Instagram can have on its users.
an article by Elisa Maria Entschew (Leipzig Graduate School of Management, Germany) published in Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society Volume 17 Issue 3 (2019)
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to address the following question: In times of permanent connectivity, what forms of freedom need to be considered to prevent permanent availability as an unintended consequence? By using the Hegelian perspective on freedom, the paper categorizes three forms of freedom to transfer them to a common, contemporary understanding of freedom relating it to freedom through human-to-human digital communication. The aim is to show that freedom is not only about independence and realizing choices but also about embedding and committing oneself.
Design/methodology/approach
This mainly conceptual paper derives implications based on the Hegelian theory. This is supplemented by an interdisciplinary approach, whereby categories of other philosophers, ethicists, economists and sociologists are applied. The analysis of the contemporary perspective on freedom is enriched by referencing empirical studies.
Findings
Digital communication offers new freedom such as working with fewer restrictions from time and space, especially for knowledge workers. It is theoretically possible to work 24 h per day from anywhere (independence), as well as to decide on the final location and timing of one’s work (realizing choices). When solely focusing on these – seemingly advantageous – forms of freedom in times of permanent connectivity, unintended consequences such as the expectation of permanent availability develop. The key message of the paper is that considering one’s temporal and social dependencies (embeddedness) is an indispensable part of actual freedom to avoid unintended consequences.
Practical implications
Organizations need to invest in moral discernment to understand unintended consequences, as well as to cope with them.
Originality/value
Applying the Hegelian theory on freedom based on digital communication to better understand social dynamics of digital communication is a largely unexplored avenue in the existing scientific literature. The decision to undertake this venture resulted from the identified necessity of understanding freedom better. It is often not clear what is meant by freedom through digital communication. Although freedom is a complex construct, it is often reduced to independence/having a choice and realizing choices. When solely focusing on independence and realizing choices, unintended consequences such as permanent availability often go unnoticed. It is exactly because of these issues that this paper endeavors to examine the (deep) meaning of the powerful, yet complex, term of freedom.
I wasn’t clear from reading this abstract just what the author was saying. Yes, I understand many of the individual words and phrases but not necessarily in the context in which they are used.
Maybe Wikipedia can help.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hegelianism is the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories. His goal was to reduce reality to a more synthetic unity within the system of absolute idealism.
Rational appeals to me but I wonder who decides what is rational.
an article by Michael Brownstein (John Jay College of Criminal Justice/City University of New York, USA), Alex Madva (California State Polytechnic University Pomona, California, USA) and Bertram Gawronski (University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts, Austin, Texas, USA) published in WIREs Cognitive Science Volume 10 Issue 5 (September/October 2019)
Abstract
We identify several ongoing debates related to implicit measures, surveying prominent views and considerations in each.
First, we summarize the debate regarding whether performance on implicit measures is explained by conscious or unconscious representations.
Second, we discuss the cognitive structure of the operative constructs: are they associatively or propositionally structured?
Third, we review debates about whether performance on implicit measures reflects traits or states.
Fourth, we discuss the question of whether a person's performance on an implicit measure reflects characteristics of the person who is taking the test or characteristics of the situation in which the person is taking the test.
Finally, we survey the debate about the relationship between implicit measures and (other kinds of) behavior.
Visual abstract
This article summarizes five ongoing debates regarding the status of implicit measures.
In view of the shortness of the abstract, and to save you reading the whole article, here are some of the highlights. “cultural policy can be both the least and the most important area of government. Yet it remains neglected” “two sets of problems for cultural policy: inequalities that are within the cultural sector; and the impact of culture on social inequalities more generally” “the impact of culture on criminal justice, education, urban regeneration and health has not been fully embraced by government” “much more detailed and strategic thinking is needed to change the relationship between cultural organisations and sections of the public” “The cultural sector has to take responsibility for its role in the continued exclusions of those who do not replicate the white, middle‐class standard that dominates the cultural sector”
6 great inventions from the Civil War
The massive number of casualties and injuries created during these battles necessitated some quick, creative ideas... some of which we still have today.
via the Big Think blog by Brandon A. Weber
The war resulted in more than 600,000 deaths.
About 500,000 were wounded.
The war created a massive need for inventions of various kinds and led to rapid advancement in medicine
There were several things newly invented during the Civil War that became keys to saving lives, as well as taking them. The Gatling Gun and repeating rifles, both invented just before or during the war, became quite effective at slaughter, as well as producing wounded men in unprecedented numbers. The "Murphy" Inhaler, late 1850s. Image source: Antique Scientifica Continue reading
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As Xenophon saw it
Brilliant leader, kind horseman and friend of Socrates: Xenophon’s writings inspire a humane, practical approach to life
via Arts & Letters Daily: Eve Browning in Aeon Socratic dancing as imagined by Honore Daumier. Courtesy Musée Carnavalet, Paris
The band of mercenary soldiers had been on the move through hostile territory for several months when they were told they had enlisted under a lie. They weren’t marching to put down a rebellion; they were instead marching in rebellion. Offers of special duty pay from their leader, Cyrus the Younger, however, calmed their anger and doubt, and on they advanced, dusty boots through the desert, as the heat of late-summer Persia rose around them in shimmering waves. The villages they passed by were hostile and strange: alien languages, customs, religions. There was little fresh water.
They has assembled under Cyrus in order to overthrow his brother and rival, Artaxerxes II, king of Persia. Before they reached his defensive line, they were harried on their flanks and from behind, depleting morale and using up their supplies. At a small village named Canaxa 50 miles north of Baghdad, they finally met the Persian king’s forces, on a day when the noon temperature could have fried a pork chop. As the battle began, Cyrus rashly charged Artaxerxes himself. He was pierced through by a javelin thrown by one of Artaxerxes’ guards, and died on the spot. Continue reading
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30 Words Invented by Shakespeare
via Daily Writing Tips by Michael
William Shakespeare (1564-1616), considered the greatest writer in the English language, used more than 24,000 words in his writings, more than any other author. Of those words, more than 1,700 were first used by him, as far we can tell. He may have made up many of them himself.
How can you possibly understand someone who keeps making up new words? Because Shakespeare made up his new words from old, familiar words: nouns into verbs, verbs into adverbs, adverbs into nouns. He added new prefixes and suffixes to existing words. For example, gloom was already a noun that meant ‘darkness’ and even a verb, but Shakespeare turned it into a adjective, as in ‘the ruthless, vast and gloomy woods’ in Titus Andronicus. Continue reading
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The Situation Before the Balkan Wars
via About History Background
In the XV century, the Turks, occupying Asia Minor, began the conquest of the Balkan Peninsula, the Middle East and North Africa. After the conquest of Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire, which had formed, began to incorporate vast territories in the eastern Mediterranean, in the Black Sea region, and in western Asia. On these lands lived a lot of people differing from the Turks by religion, nationality and worldview. Continue reading
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Ode to a Nightingale’: A Poem by John Keats
via Interesting Literature
‘Ode to a Nightingale’ was admired by contemporary critics and reviewers of Keats’s work. According to one account it was written by Keats under a plum tree in the garden of Keats House, London in May 1819. Keats was inspired by hearing the sound of birdsong and penned this poem in praise of the nightingale. Like ‘Bright Star’ it is a brilliant poem about mortality and the lure of death and escape. F. Scott Fitzgerald took the phrase ‘tender is the night’ from this poem and used it as the title for his 1934 novel. Continue reading Takes me back a few years! This was one of the set pieces for my O-level in 1959. Loved it then and love it still.
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Finer points of murder
via Arts & Letters Daily: Tom Stevenson on the recent history of political assassination in the Times Literary Supplement Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, and his assassin, Mevlut Mert Altıntaş, Ankara, December 19, 2016
Kwame Nkrumah survived at least five assassination attempts. The first three were bombings targeting his car or house. A grenade was thrown at him, causing minor injuries. In January 1964 an assailant entered the Ghanaian presidential residence, Flagstaff House, and fired five shots from close range. A security guard was killed but Nkrumah was unscathed. “Business went on as usual in Accra”, the New York Times reported. The trouble with many attempted assassinations is that the subject refuses to die. A more recent example was the attack on the then presidential candidate, Jair Bolsonaro, in Juiz de Fora, Minas Gerais, in September 2018. Adélio Bispo de Oliveira stabbed Bolsonaro at a rally, piercing his liver and lungs, but Bolsonaro was up and campaigning again within a couple of weeks and went on to win Brazil’s presidency in October. Would-be assassins consistently overestimate the lethality of their chosen tools, believing it easier to kill a man than it really is. A Study of Assassination was an anonymously authored CIA handbook for covert political murder written in 1953 and declassified in 1997. The handbook was produced as a “training file” for operation PBSUCCESS, the codename of a CIA plot launched by the Eisenhower administration to topple the Guatemalan government. The CIA planned to assassinate Guatemala’s democratically elected President, Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, before opting for a coup in 1954 and the institution of a military regime that went on to kill tens of thousands. But the Study is not only a practical guide. It is also a thorough exploration of assassination with a scholarly, if macabre, sensibility in which the author spends nineteen pages contemplating the finer points of murder. Continue reading
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7 of the most interesting fictional drugs
via the Big Think blog by Mike Colagrossi
From the cosmic blast into another being's mind, to rolling bliss or obedient mind-slavery, fictional drugs have it all.
Fictional drugs are a major part of the lore and foundation for many science fiction stories.
The unique effects they have on their characters is an interesting new way to explore important issues.
Many of these fictional drugs are synonymous with the stories that have been told.
Dynasties: painted wolves on the prowl
via the OUP blog by Charles Edworthy African painted dog, or African wild dog, Lycaon pictus at Savuti, Chobe National Park, Botswana by Derek Keats. CC BY 2.0 via Flickr.
The endangered painted wolves are unusual in the animal kingdom for their cooperative social system, through which the majority of animals never reproduce despite reaching reproductive age. It is estimated that less than 5,500 of these creatures exist in the wild, mainly due to human disturbances, in addition to the threat of disease and rival predators.
In the penultimate episode of BBC’s Dynasties, Sir David Attenborough is educating us about painted wolves – also known as ‘African wild dogs’– and we’ve gathered some facts for you to enjoy as an accompaniment to the show. Continue reading I’ve looked and you will need to buy the DVD of the whole series in order to see this episode – or maybe you can beg or borrow. Please do not steal!
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Geode jigsaw puzzles
via Boing Boing by Rusty Blazenhoff
This stunning line of geologically-inspired jigsaw puzzles, named Geode, is the creation of Massachusetts-based generative design studio and retailer Nervous System. [Keep your debit card safely in your pocket!] Continue reading
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A Short Analysis of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s ‘Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers’
via Interesting Literature
‘Beloved, thou hast brought me many flowers’, one of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese, is a fine love poem about her courtship and eventual marriage to her fellow poet, Robert Browning. Continue reading
We’ve been celebrating pagan holidays a long time
Some things have always been worth celebrating.
via the Big Think blog by Robby Berman Stonehenge sunrise. Photo credit: Tony Craddock on Shutterstock
Some lost ancient holidays aren't really so lost after all.
All of us celebrate at least some pagan traditions whether we know it or not.
There are two things that tend to bring humans together: crises and holidays.
Pierre Bonnard's beauty and sadness
via the New Statesman by Michael Prodger
Pierre Bonnard painted what he remembered not what he saw, and his enigmatic pictures are ripe with the immanence of decline. Nude in the Bath (1936-38) by Pierre Bonnard
There is a strand of art that exists on the edge of the mainstream – existing, too, slightly out of time, regardless of when it was made. It takes as its subjects the domestic interior and silence and finds in them both poetry and melancholy. The greatest exponent of this intimism was Vermeer and other leading practitioners number Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779), Vilhelm Hammershøi (1864-1916), and two 20th-century English painters, Howard Hodgkin and Patrick Caulfield. The most prolific though was Pierre Bonnard (1867-1947), who was the prime exponent of “slow” painting during a time of frenetic artistic change. Continue readingabout an exhibition that ended in May. It is still worth reading about the artist if you have no prior knowledge of him as I didn’t. ==============================
Music in history: overcoming historians' reluctance to tackle music as a source
via the OUP blog by Matt Karush Violin Strings by Providence Doucet. CC0 via Unsplash.
Despite their enthusiasm for borrowing from other fields and incorporating new types of source material, many historians remain reluctant to analyze music. For example, when the American Historical Association dedicated its 2015 Annual Meeting to “History and Other Disciplines,” organizers called for work that engaged with anthropology, material culture, archaeology, visual studies, and museum studies, but they were noticeably silent about music and musicology. What explains this aversion? Continue reading
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The Emergence of The Roman Kingdom and City
via About History
Initially, the settlements that emerged on the territory of the city were divided settlements, in which the community played the main role. In the VIII century B.C. a group of primitive settlements appeared in Latia, on the hills of Palatin, Esquilina, Ceelia and Quirinale. The fortified villages were tribal villages located on the tops and upper slopes of the hills. The marshy lowlands between them became habitable only with time, when people began to drain them. The inhabitants of the Palatine Hill burned their dead, like other Latin tribes, while on the Quirinal hill, the deceased were buried in the ground, in wooden decks. Therefore, it is believed that the Palatine and part of Celia belonged to the Latins, and the northern hills – to the Sabines. The first Roman settlers lived in round or rectangular huts, built on a wooden frame with clay plaster; their main occupation was cattle breeding. Not only hills, but also lowlands between them, were mastered for economic purposes. Continue reading
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A Short Analysis of Robert Browning’s ‘How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix’
via Interesting Literature
‘How They Brought the Good News from Ghent to Aix’ begins with the wonderfully rhythmical lines ‘I sprang to the stirrup, and Joris, and he; / I gallop’d, Dirck gallop’d, we gallop’d all three’. This energetic Robert Browning poem describes a horse-ride to deliver some important news, although we never learn what the news actually is. Instead, the emphasis is on the journey itself, with the sound of the galloping horses excellently captured through the metre of the verse. Continue reading
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Tolstoy Untangled: On Donna Tussing Orwin’s “Simply Tolstoy”
Arts & Letters Daily: Bob Blaisdell in the Los Angeles Review of Books
Tolstoy started writing Anna Karenina at the end of March 1873 and finished it in the summer of 1877. He complained about the labor and regularly defamed the novel during and after its composition. In the midst of serializing it at the highest rate a Russian author had ever been paid, Tolstoy wanted to kill himself. From the first drafts and sketches he knew Anna would commit suicide, but he didn’t know how he was going to prevent himself from drowning or shooting himself. In terms of hyperconscious despair, Tolstoy was one with his creation. In A Confession (begun in 1875, revised and completed in 1881), he describes himself looking into the chasm of depression; his head spinning, he was ready to plunge to the bottom, but an unusual (for him) lack of conviction held him back. Continue reading
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The scientific reason you want to squeeze cute things
via the Big Think blog by Evan Fleischer
Researchers appear to have found a neural basis for "cute aggression."
Cute aggression is what happens when you say something like, 'It's so cute I want to crush it!'
But it's also a complex response that likely serves to regulate strong emotions and allow caretaking of the young to occur.
What can psychology tell us about music?
via the OUP blog by Elizabeth Hellmuth Margulis “Music Melody” by MIH83. CC0 via Pixabay.
Music can intensify moments of elation and moments of despair. It can connect people and it can divide them. The prospect of psychologists turning their lens on music might give a person the heebie-jeebies, however, conjuring up an image of humorless people in white lab coats manipulating sequences of beeps and boops to make grand pronouncements about human musicality. Continue reading
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An extinct dog breed once labored in our kitchens, running on spit-turning wheels
via Boing Boing by Cory Doctorow
The Vernepator Cur was once a ubiquitous dog breed in the UK and the American colonies, and it had a job: for six days a week, it ran tirelessly in a wheel in the kitchen that was geared to turn a meat-spit over the fire (on Sundays it went to church with its owners and served as their foot-warmer). Continue reading
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A Short Analysis of the ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ Nursery Rhyme
via Interesting Literature
We tend to associate nonsense verse with those great nineteenth-century practitioners, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll, forgetting that many of the best nursery rhymes are also classic examples of nonsense literature. ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’, with its bovine athletics and eloping cutlery and crockery, certainly qualifies as nonsense. What does this intriguing nursery rhyme mean, if anything? What are its origins? Iona and Peter Opie, in The Oxford Dictionary of Nursery Rhymes (Oxford Dictionary of Nusery Rhymes), call ‘Hey Diddle Diddle’ ‘probably the best-known nonsense verse in the language’, adding, ‘a considerable amount of nonsense has been written about it.’ Continue reading
“I know, things are getting tougher when I can’t get the top off the bottom of the barrel.” ~Jesse Michaels
No one thought I was going to live to see twenty. Including me. In fact, I vividly remember telling my father that it would be miraculous if I saw twenty-five. It wasn’t emotional. It was simply a statement of fact. And yet here I am—mid-thirties, wife, daughter, one on the way, house, job, sense of purpose. What happened?
I was one of those kids with questions. Big questions. “What does it all mean?” questions. I used to wonder what the point of all of this was. As young as seven and eight I remember lying in bed at night trying to understand the nature of the world. I would examine my family, my friends, my fears, my aspirations, looking for the thread that would unravel the existential knot.
I loved to learn, and I was frequently drawn to the sciences in a way that I now see as continuing to look for answers to the big questions. When my friends were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they gave the common answers—policeman, fireman, professional athlete, etc. I think someone said “Batman” (it might have been me…).
an article by Mirjana Ivanović and Aleksandra Klašnja-Milićević (University of Novi Sad, Serbia) published in International Journal of Embedded Systems Volume 11 Number 5 (2019)
Abstract
Nowadays the creation and accumulation of big data is an unavoidable process in a wide range of situations and scenarios. Smart environments and diverse sources of sensors, as well as the content created by humans, contribute to the big data's enormous size and characteristics.
To make sense of the data, analyse and use these data, more and more efficient algorithms are being developed constantly. Still, the effectiveness of these algorithms depends on the specific nature of big data: analogue, noisy, implicit, and ambiguous.
At the same time, there is the unavoidable scientific area of collective intelligence. It represents the capability of interconnected intelligences to collectively and more efficiently solve concrete problems than each individual intelligence would be able to do on its own.
The paper presents an overview of recent achievements in big data and collective intelligence research areas. At the end, the perspectives and challenges of the common directions of these two areas will be discussed.
an article by Fabio Bacchini and Ludovica Lorusso (University of Sassari, Italy and Xlab, Ljubljana, Slovenia) published in Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society Volume 7 Issue 3 (2019)
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to explore whether face recognition technology – as it is intensely used by state and local police departments and law enforcement agencies – is racism free or, on the contrary, is affected by racial biases and/or racist prejudices, thus reinforcing overall racial discrimination.
Design/methodology/approach
The study investigates the causal pathways through which face recognition technology may reinforce the racial disproportion in enforcement; it also inquires whether it further discriminates black people by making them experience more racial discrimination and self-identify more decisively as black – two conditions that are shown to be harmful in various respects.
Findings
This study shows that face recognition technology, as it is produced, implemented and used in Western societies, reinforces existing racial disparities in stop, investigation, arrest and incarceration rates because of racist prejudices and even contributes to strengthen the unhealthy effects of racism on historically disadvantaged racial groups, like black people.
Practical implications
The findings hope to make law enforcement agencies and software companies aware that they must take adequate action against the racially discriminative effects of the use of face recognition technology.
Social implications
This study highlights that no implementation of an allegedly racism-free biometric technology is safe from the risk of racially discriminating, simply because each implementation leans against our society, which is affected by racism in many persisting ways.
Originality/value
While the ethical survey of biometric technologies is traditionally framed in the discourse of universal rights, this study explores an issue that has not been deeply scrutinized so far, that is, how face recognition technology differently affects distinct racial groups and how it contributes to racial discrimination.
an article by Eugenia Lancellotta and Lisa Bortolotti (University of Birmingham, UK) published in WIREs Cognitive Science Volume 10 Issue 5 (September/October 2019)
Abstract
Delusions are symptoms of psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia and dementia. By and large, delusions are characterized by their behavioral manifestations and defined as irrational beliefs that compromise good functioning.
In this overview paper, we ask whether delusions can be adaptive notwithstanding their negative features. Can they be a response to a crisis rather than the source of the crisis? Can they be the beginning of a solution rather than the problem?
Some of the psychological, psychiatric, and philosophical literature has recently suggested that they can. We consider different types of delusions and different ways in which they can be considered as adaptive: psychologically (e.g., by increasing wellbeing, purpose in life, intrapsychic coherence, or good functioning) and biologically (e.g., by enhancing genetic fitness).
Although further research is needed to map the costs and benefits of adopting and maintaining delusional beliefs, a more nuanced picture of the role of delusions in people's lives has started to emerge.
Visual abstract
Delusions are considered to be the mark of madness in popular culture and one of the most severe symptoms of mental distress in clinical practice. In this overview, we acknowledge their adverse effects and raise the question whether they can ever be psychologically or biologically adaptive.
a column by Janine Berg, Marianne Furrer, Ellie Harmon, Uma Rani and Michael "Six" Silberman for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Cross-border, digital labour platforms permit real-time hiring for a range of jobs, from IT programming to graphic design, copywriting and routine clerical tasks. But little is known about working conditions on these platforms or about their employees.
This column begins to fill that gap in the scholarship using an ILO survey of 3,500 workers from 75 countries and five major microtask platforms. It finds that even workers who perform valuable labour for successful companies often do so for low wages and without the protections of a regulated employment relationship.
Hazel’s comment: A friend of mine was involved in this work. Copy writing is paid by the word, you have to do your own research into the subject matter and do not get paid until you have got $100 owing to you.
Lameese Eldesouky (Stanford University, CA, USA) and Tammy English (Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, USA) published in Journal of Personality Volume 87 Issue 5 (October 2019)
Abstract
Objective
We investigated how individual differences in emotion regulation goals predict emotion regulation strategy use in daily life.
Method
Across three studies, we assessed two common types of emotion regulation goals (hedonic, social) and strategies spanning the entire process model of emotion regulation. We conducted two studies using global measures with undergraduates (N = 394; 18–25 years; 69% female; 56% European American) and community members (N = 302; 19–74 years; 50% female; 75% European American), and a nine‐day daily diary study with another community sample (N = 272; 23–85 years; 50% female; 84% European American).
Results
Globally and in daily life, pro‐hedonic goals were positively associated with all antecedent‐focused strategies (situation selection, situation modification, distraction, and reappraisal), pro‐social goals were positively linked to reappraisal, and impression management goals positively predicted suppression. Contra‐hedonic goals were negatively associated with reappraisal and positively associated with suppression in some studies.
Conclusions
The reasons why people regulate their emotions are predictive of the strategies they use in daily life. These links may be functional, such that people typically use strategies that are suitable for their goals. These findings demonstrate the value of an individual difference approach and highlight the motivational component of emotion regulation.
an article by Anique J Scheerder, Alexander JAM van Deursen and Jan AGM van Dijk (University of Twente, The Netherlands) published in New Media & Society Volume 21 Issue 10 (October 2019)
Abstract
This study uses a domestication approach to digital inequality. The aim is to uncover whether and why less-educated families benefit less from Internet use than highly educated families.
The predominantly quantitative approach of digital divide research provides little explanation as to why digital inequalities exist.
Interviews were conducted with the heads of 48 Dutch families.
The results showed that Internet use and routines in the home are shaped differently for families with different educational backgrounds.
In all four phases of domestication, the highly educated demonstrated a critical view toward the Internet, resulting in considered use and redefinition.
Less-educated members tended to be less interested in Internet developments and overall have a less reflective stance. Inequalities between different social strata already arise in the early stages of domestication and are magnified in the subsequent phases.
an article by Eun Go (Western Illinois University, Macomb, USA) and S. Shyam Sundar (The Pennsylvania State University, USA) published in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 97 (August 2019)
Highlights
A compensation effect of high anthropomorphic visual cues on low message interactivity.
Another compensation effect of high message interactivity on low anthropomorphic visual cues.
An expectancy violation effects when the identity cue is combined with message interactivity.
Revealing the identity of the machine can capitalize on expectations.
Abstract
Chatbots are replacing human agents in a number of domains, from online tutoring to customer-service to even cognitive therapy. But, they are often machine-like in their interactions.
What can we do to humanize chatbots?
Should they necessarily be driven by human operators for them to be considered human? Or, will an anthropomorphic visual cue on the interface and/or a high-level of contingent message exchanges provide humanness to automated chatbots?
We explored these questions with a 2 (anthropomorphic visual cues: high vs. low anthropomorphism) × 2 (message interactivity: high vs. low message interactivity) × 2 (identity cue: chat-bot vs. human) between-subjects experiment (N = 141) in which participants interacted with a chat agent on an e-commerce site about choosing a digital camera to purchase.
Our findings show that a high level of message interactivity compensates for the impersonal nature of a chatbot that is low on anthropomorphic visual cues. Moreover, identifying the agent as human raises user expectations for interactivity. Theoretical as well as practical implications of these findings are discussed.
a post by Michelle Kennedy for the Tiny Buddha blog
“Smile, breathe, and go slowly.” ~Thich Nhat Hanh
I felt everything, from my lower back pain flaring up to tightness in my jaw where I clinch and carry my stress. With my eyes still closed, I rolled my shoulders and repositioned the pillow under my butt. Five minutes had passed, and I had no idea how I would ever make it to forty.
I opened my left eye to see if anyone around me was fidgeting as well and saw rows of people sitting in perfect, cross-legged lotus position with straight necks and relaxed jaws next to me.
Our teacher, mindfulness author David Richo, sat in front, a relaxed calm floating around him like morning mist. I sighed, shut my eye again, and tried to concentrate on not concentrating so I could make it through the rest of the group meditation.
Once I remembered that I’d forgotten to pick up my dry cleaning and that I still hadn’t called my best friend back, I relaxed a little more and tried to just “be.” I heard a rooster crowing in the wilderness above the Spirit Rock property, noticed it, and let it go. I re-recognized the back pain and let that go as well.
Social media use, but not texting, predicts technological IPV perpetration.
Multiple forms of in-person IPV perpetration predict technological IPV perpetration.
Prevention should target both technology-specific and general IPV risk factors.
Abstract
Technology creates new opportunities for intimate partner violence (IPV) to occur. There are common risk factors for in-person and technological IPV (tIPV), however considerably less research has investigated technology-specific risk factors.
The current study examined the importance of technology use, technological disinhibition, and in-person IPV perpetration in predicting tIPV perpetration. Data were collected from 278 emerging adults via an online survey.
Participants reported on their IPV perpetration, technology use, and technological disinhibition. Initial results indicated that both technology use and technological disinhibition uniquely predicted tIPV perpetration, but did not interact.
Further investigation showed that social media use, but not texting, uniquely predicted tIPV perpetration.
When in-person IPV perpetration variables were included, several forms of in-person IPV perpetration uniquely predicted tIPV perpetration, however technological disinhibition remained a significant predictor.
These results suggest that, while there are important technology-related perpetration factors, in-person IPV also remains an important risk factor for tIPV.
This points to the necessity for future research to establish how multiple forms of IPV interact and potentially exacerbate each other, as well as to prevent tIPV not only through the discussion of healthy technology use, but to continue to educate about healthy relationships overall.
a column by Gene Grossman, Phillip McCalman and Robert Staiger for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
While tariffs have significantly been reduced in the last decades, other barriers to trade, such as differing regulations across countries, continue to pose obstacles.
This column presents a new framework to analyse how different forms of trade agreements can address these non-tariff barriers. For various economic environments, it discusses whether and how these treaties can achieve global efficiency.
a post by Rev. Connie L. Habash for the Awakening Your True Self blog [via World of Psychology]
Anger gets a bad rap in the therapy – and spirituality – community. It’s labeled a “negative” emotion, and for good reason. When anger runs us and we react to it, it can blow like a volcano and make quite a mess of our relationships.
But the truth is that anger isn’t inherently a bad emotion. In fact, anger, like all emotions, has a purpose and is a necessary part of being a human. Anger matters, and you can learn to work with it in a helpful way.
In a three-minute read the Reverend Connie manages to cover
Why is Anger Important?
The Problem with Anger
The First Essential: Presence
The Inquiry
A Quick Pause to Help You Through It
albeit somewhat sketchily. It is up to me, and maybe you as well, to follow up with information from elsewhere. Anger is a problem for me which tends to lead into hysterics and total loss of control. Not a pretty sight.
Of her discoveries, Rossiter says, "I felt like a modern Alice who had fallen down a rabbit hole into a wonderland of the history of science." (Evyn Morgan)
In 1969, Margaret Rossiter, then 24 years old, was one of the few women enrolled in a graduate program at Yale devoted to the history of science. Every Friday, Rossiter made a point of attending a regular informal gathering of her department's professors and fellow students. Usually, at those late afternoon meetings, there was beer-drinking, which Rossiter did not mind, but also pipe-smoking, which she did, and joke-making, which she might have enjoyed except that the brand of humor generally escaped her. Even so, she kept showing up, fighting to feel accepted in a mostly male enclave, fearful of being written off in absentia.
During a lull in the conversation at one of those sessions, Rossiter threw out a question to the gathered professors. “Were there ever women scientists?” she asked. The answer she received was absolute: No. Never. None. “It was delivered quite authoritatively,” said Rossiter, now a professor emerita at Cornell University. Someone did mention at least one well-known female scientist, Marie Curie, two-time winner of the Nobel Prize. But the professors dismissed even Curie as merely the helper to her husband, casting him as the real genius behind their breakthroughs. Instead of arguing, though, Rossiter said nothing: “I realized this was not an acceptable subject.”
Acceptable or not, the history of women in science would become Rossiter’s lifework, a topic she almost single-handedly made relevant. Her study, Women Scientists in America, which reflected more than a decade of toil in the archives and thousands of miles of dogged travel, broke new ground and brought hundreds of buried and forgotten contributions to light. The subtitle—Struggles and Strategies to 1940—announced its deeper project: an investigation into the systematic way that the field of science deterred women, and a chronicling of the ingenious methods that enterprising women nonetheless found to pursue the knowledge of nature. She would go on to document the stunted, slow, but intrepid progress of women in science in two subsequent volumes, following the field into the 21st century.
WOW. So much I did not know about before reading this long article. Fascinating. I feel just slightly envious. I threw away my chance of university and then went on to have children. Not that I regret the children but what I might have achieved if I had put my mind to it!
an article by Nicolas Burra (Université de Genève, Switzerland) and Ines Mares and Atsushi Senju (Birkbeck, University of London, UK) published in WIREs Cognitive Science Volume 10 Issue 5 (September/October 2019)
Abstract
Gaze or eye contact is one of the most important nonverbal social cues, which is fundamental to human social interactions.
To achieve real time and dynamic face‐to‐face communication, our brain needs to process another person's gaze direction rapidly and without explicit instruction. In order to explain the fast and spontaneous processing of direct gaze, the fast‐track modulator model was proposed.
Here, we review recent developments in gaze processing research in the last decade to extend the fast‐track modulator model. In particular, we propose that task demand or top‐down modulation could play a more crucial role at gaze processing than formerly assumed. We suggest that under different task demands, top‐down modulation can facilitate or interfere with the direct gaze effects for early visual processing.
The proposed modification of the model extends the role of task demand and its implication on the direct gaze effect, as well as the need to better control for top‐down processing in order to better disentangle the role of top‐down and bottom‐up processing on the direct gaze effect.
Visual abstract
Modification of the fast‐track modulator model (Senju & Johnson, 2009). We included an arrow from the task‐relevant modulation and slow information processing.
a column by Stephanie Bergbauer, Jean-Francois Jamet, Hanni Schölermann, Livio Stracca and Carina Stubenrauch for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Recent successes of populist movements in Europe might seem to reflect eroded trust in the EU’s institutions.
This column asks what global lessons can be drawn from recent research on Euroscepticism at the ECB and elsewhere. It argues that taking citizens’ concerns seriously and addressing salient issues, building on a sense of togetherness, and caring about public trust should inspire a course of action at the global level. Insufficient progress along these dimensions has played a key role not only in Brexit, but also in the backlash against the multilateral world order underpinning globalisation.
a post by Gabrielle Garrett for the Tiny Buddha blog
“Nothing changes unless you do.” ~Unknown
In the fall of September 2017, after one of the longest summers of event planning I could have imagined, I quit my job.
As I proudly exited the workforce to pursue my creative talents as a writer, I looked confident and excited on the outside. Yet, in that moment and for the years to follow, I was terrified on the inside.
Even though I’d exited my cubicle walls, head held high, the boundaries, fear, and rules of the office environment followed me around daily for over two and a half years.
I was now my own boss, but I still had the same anxieties as I did when I was reporting to a superior, such as the fear of getting reprimanded for leaving early to work on my writing. I still got jumpy when I would attend a yoga class during “business hours,” or when I’d work on a passion project past 5:00 P.M.
Maybe you’ve had something similar happen in your life, where you’ve changed circumstances on the outside, but on the inside something still just doesn’t feel right.
Oh my. Been there, done that one. "Everything will be OK when ... I start the new job, I get the promotion I deserve, I can afford to buy a house, my personal debts get cleared etc, etc, etc!!"
Democracy is necessary for a free and just society. It is tempting to conclude that democracy is such a crucial social good that there could never be too much of it. It seems that when it comes to democracy, the more the better.
Yet it is possible to have too much democracy. This is not an anti-democratic contention. Holding that democracy is a crucial good is consistent with denying that more is always better. Democracy’s flourishing requires that we avoid overdoing it. In other words, when democracy is overdone, democracy suffers and politics devolves. Let me explain.
an article by Zuzana Uhde (Czech Academy of Sciences, Czech Republic) published in Critical Sociology Volume:45 Issue 6 (September 2019)
Abstract
The article focuses on structural causes of migration, putting forward an argument that such analysis sheds light on key shortcomings of today’s global geopolitical regime.
First the author analyzes structural causes of transnational migration in global capitalism. She argues that transnational migrants represent a structural group of people who find themselves in a similar position in relation to social structures of current global economic architecture even though they do not necessarily have a collective identity.
Second, the author discusses the methodological and practical limits of the current nation-state defined framework of responsibility for global justice which does not respond to structural causes of transnational migration and reproduces the internal contradictions of the international human rights regime.
Following this critical analysis, the author focuses on the possibilities of extraterritorial obligations for justice, which are partly embedded in the current international law.
Then she outlines an argument for a differentiated responsibility for global justice.
a post by María Tomás-Keegan for YourTango.com [via World of Psychology]
Change doesn’t have to be terrifying
Life change — and change in general — is certain to happen. According to the Greek philosopher, Heracleitus, “The only thing that is constant is change.”
If this is true, and I believe it is, coping with life changes, transitions, and the stress and anxiety that comes with it should come more easily to everyone, don’t you think?
Yet, many shudder at the thought of change. Some bury their heads and hope it will go away while others open their arms and welcome the opportunities.
Heracleitus’ philosophy is a good starting point for those who shudder and duck and cover when they face a major change in life. It may help to do a little reframing and think about change differently.
One way to approach change is to go with the flow. Enjoy the ride, as wild as it may be.
This, of course, is easier said than done when you’re coping with life changes and transitions.
Here are 8 easy ways you can embrace change in your life and make it work in your favor:
I am not sure that “easy” is the word I would use for these 8 ways to embrace change but “effective” might work – at least for some people.
So, here I am, posting about change when I know how hard I resist it myself.
Practice what you preach Granny!
Anna Merlan has made a distinguished journalistic career out of covering conspiracy theories, particularly far-right ones, for Gizmodo Media; her book-length account of conspiratorial thinking, Republic of Lies: American Conspiracy Theorists and Their Surprising Rise to Power, is a superb tour not just through the conspiracies that have taken hold in American public discourse, but also in the real, often traumatic conspiracies that give these false beliefs a terrible ring of plausibility.
Continue readingand if you really can’t do that then here is the final paragraph of Cory’s post.
Countering incorrect conspiratorial beliefs is important and urgent work, but it is purely reactive -- ideological fire-fighting. The case that Merlan forcefully builds in her outstanding book is that we need fire-prevention, not just fire-fighting: we need to change the conditions that prime people to believe conspiracies, which is to say, we need to root out corruption and impunity and re-balance the inequality that gives rise to them, otherwise, the fires will become too numerous to extinguish.
an article by Gareth A. S. Edwards (University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK) published in WIREs Climate Change Volume 10 Issue 5 (September/October 2019)
Abstract
This overview adopts a critical social science perspective to examine the state of play and potential futures for coal in the context of climate change.
It introduces key trends in coal consumption, production and trade, before reviewing the relevant literature.
Finding surprisingly little literature directly focused on coal and climate change, it appraises existing work and highlights key areas for future research.
In addition to established literatures on the situated politics of coal and the political economy of coal, new work calling for demand side policies to be supplemented with supply side policies highlights the increasing importance of normative contestations in driving debates over coal. This suggests that scholars must engage much more directly with climate change as an issue, and particularly with the place of coal in a just transition.
Because of coal's mammoth contribution to climate change and the complex political economy which drives its production and consumption, it is likely that coal will remain at the center of difficult questions about the relationship between climate action and development for quite some time.
“Be the change you wish to see in the world.” ~Mahatma Gandhi
As a teen, I was passionately idealistic about justice, love, and compassion. Reading the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Teresa, and other icons of justice inspired a desire to make a big change in the world.
Older people would attempt to temper my enthusiasm with a dose of jaded reality, saying things like, “That’s just the way the world is,” and “You can’t change people.”
I vowed to never be like that. I didn’t want to give into the status quo and turn a blind eye to others being mistreated.
I literally went out into the world and off to college clutching King’s book, Strength to Love, under my arm. I wanted to live my life advocating for justice and fighting for human rights.
The world swiftly punched me in the gut…
Fueled by my passion to change the world, I wrote a fierce letter to the editor on a racial topic affecting my college campus. In response, a group of giggling girls called me late at night, to mock-thank me for being the “white savior” of the campus.
an article by James Bessen for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
Do industries shed or create jobs when they adopt new labour-saving technologies?
This column shows that manufacturing employment grew along with productivity for a century or more, and only later decreased. It argues that the changing nature of demand was behind this pattern, which led to market saturation.
This implies that the main impact of automation in the near future may be a major reallocation of jobs, not necessarily massive job losses.
a post by Nicholette Leanza for the World of Psychology blog
In recent years, researchers have emphasised that mental health is just as important as physical health when it comes to a person’s overall well-being. Our mental health encompasses our psychological, emotional and social well-being and this can impact how we think, feel and behave every day. Mental health strengthens our ability to have healthy relationships, maintain our physical health, make good decisions and reach our fullest potential. Understanding the foundations to good mental health will help you feel happier and more fulfilled in your life. A formula to achieving positive mental health is recognising the three pillars of mental health which are mental flexibility, mindfulness, and resilience.
Makes it sound easy, doesn’t it? Just develop mental flexibility, use mindfulness techniques and be resilient! There are some tips in the post about each of the three aspects and you can, of course, learn more from the additional links into the World of Psychology website.
an article by Sarah Manavis published in the New Statesman
Another roll-out targeted at improving users’ mental health is a step in the right direction – but we should be careful about overpraising desperately needed changes.
Yesterday [18 September], Instagram announced one of the biggest content changes in its history: it will begin censoring dieting and cosmetic surgery posts for under-18s. It also announced that certain content would be removed altogether if deemed dangerous to the general public. These changes are the long-awaited response to calls from body-positivity activists, who claim Instagram has become rife with sponsored posts pushing flat tummy teas, diet pills, lip fillers, and dangerous cosmetic procedures.
Emma Collins, Instagram’s public policy manager explained: “We want Instagram to be a positive place for everyone that uses it and this policy is part of our ongoing work to reduce the pressure that people can sometimes feel as a result of social media… We’ve sought guidance from external experts, including Dr Ysabel Gerrard in the UK, to make sure any steps to restrict and remove this content will have a positive impact on our community of over 1 billion people around the world – whilst ensuring Instagram remains a platform for expression and discussion.”
an article by Joanie Willett and Joe Cruxon (University of Exeter, Penryn, UK) published in British Politics Volume 14 Issue 3 (September 2019)
Abstract
This paper considers local democracy in the UK regarding citizen participation and engagement with Town and Parish councils.
As the first tier of government and primary access point of democracy in England, Parish councils have the opportunity to be deeply connected and responsive to their communities. However conversely, they are the least democratic of all tiers of government, primarily due to low election turnouts and regular co-option.
The paper contributes to a broader literature around improving citizen participation, considering specifically the question of how to encourage stronger engagement in local formal democracy in order to initiate vibrant participatory democracy within local representative structures.
We use an innovative qualitative research methodology and a case study of the UK to find that many of the popular perceptions around Town and Parish councils can be traced to issues of communication.
Consequently, we argue that engaging a more broader demographic, particularly through the use of new technologies such as social media or mobile phone Applications, may present a way forward to develop a vibrant local democratic sphere.
an article by Wilhelm E.J. Klein (City University of Hong Kong) published in Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society Volume 17 Issue 2 (2019)
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to examine exceptionalisms in ethics in general and in the fields of animal and technology ethics in particular.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper reviews five sample works in animal/technology ethics it considers representative for particularly popular forms of “exceptionalism”.
Findings
The shared feature of the exceptionalisms exhibited by the chosen samples appears to be born out of the cultural and biological history, which provides powerful intuitions regarding the on “specialness”.
Research limitations/implications
As this paper is mostly a critique of existing approaches, it contains only a limited amount of counter-proposed alternative approaches.
Practical implications
This is a discussion worth having because arguments based on (human or biological) exceptionalism have more chance of resulting in significantly altered theoretical conclusions and practical suggestions for normative guidance than non-exceptionalist perspectives.
Social implications
The approaches critiqued in this paper have a significant effect on the way the authors approach animals, machines/technologies and each other.
Originality/value
The paper identifies intuitive notions of exceptionalism and argues in favour of a reformist, ethical expansionist stance, which views humanity as residing (and other biological organisms) on the same plane of ethical significance as any other entity regardless of its material composition.
“You are strong when you know your weaknesses. You are beautiful when you appreciate your flaws. You are wise when you learn from your mistakes.” ~Unknown
The most annoying thing for me is to hear someone tell me, “Just stop it!” whenever I am frustrated or discouraged and looking for answers and solutions.
When you’re anxious, and someone tells you, “Stop worrying, it will all be fine…” these words only add fuel to the fire and often make you angry. At least this is true for me.
It reminds me of a funny video I watched about a “unique” therapeutic approach, when a therapist just tells a patient, after listening to their problems with deep emotional issues, “STOP IT!”
“But I can’t just stop it,” the patient responds. “This issue has been within me since childhood, and my mom used to do the same.”
But the therapist just calmly responds, “We don’t go there. Just stop it.”
an article by Chiungjung Huang (University of Education, Changhua, Taiwan) published in Computers in Human Behavior Volume 97 (August 2019)
Highlights
The relations between social network site use and Big Five traits were weak or nil.
The moderator effects of study country and participant gender were mixed.
Effects of the rest of moderators were not supported.
Abstract
This meta-analysis summarized the relations between social network site use and neuroticism, extraversion, openness, agreeableness and conscientiousness.
The overall correlations of social network site use with neuroticism (= 0.08) and extraversion (= 0.09) were about positively small, while conscientiousness had a negative and quite small correlation with social network site use with = −0.04. Openness and agreeableness were not significantly correlated with social network site use with = −0.01. The effects of most moderators, including publication outlet, site participants spent time, scale of time spent, indicator of social network site use, Big Five measure, and participant age were not significant.
In contrast, the effects of country where the study was conducted and participant gender were mixed.
I am unsure as to what this tells me – if anything useful.
a column by Taneli Mäkinen, Lucio Sarno and Gabriele Zinna for VOX: CEPR’s Policy Portal
During the recent financial crises, government guarantees helped reduce the funding costs of banks by providing them with insurance, thus curbing panic in banking systems and financial markets.
This column argues, however, that these beneficial effects can be attenuated when guarantees are risky in the sense that they offer weaker protection in recessions, when the guarantor is more vulnerable, or the guarantees are less certain. Using a large international panel of banks, a significant risk premium is found to be associated with implicit government guarantees.
How art schools created British pop music
via the New Statesman by Stuart Maconie
From Roxy Music to Florence and the Machine, a new book chronicles the long, fertile and symbiotic relationship Wbetween pop music and the art school The American multimedia performance art collective the Residents in the 1970s
When John Lennon sat his O-level art exam in 1957 “there was one question which said to draw something to do with ‘travel’. I drew a picture of a hunchback covered in warts. They obviously didn’t dig that.” Unsurprisingly, he failed in every subject, including art, his favourite and best. “There was obviously only thing one for it,” writes Mike Roberts in his new book; “art school.” Continue reading
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How to improve your rubber band shooting with science!
via Boing |Boing by David Pescovitz
When I was very little, my big brother brought me in to school for show-and-tell. In the lunchroom, a kid fired a rubber band that hit me right in the face. I still remember the welt. This fascinating video uses high-speed footage to explain the physics behind this age-old form of weaponry. It also reminded me of the traumatic experience that forever made me a conscientious objector to the rubber band wars.
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Edward II – Childhood and Youth
via About History
The future king was born on April 25, 1284, in Carnarvon Castle in north Wales. At the place of birth he is sometimes called Edward of Carnarvon. By that time, Wales was ruled by England for less than a year, and perhaps Carnarvon was deliberately chosen as the birthplace of the next royal son: it was a symbolically important place for the Welsh, associated with the history of the Roman Empire, and also the center of the new royal administration in the northern part of the region. The modern day prophet, who believed that the end of time was approaching, foretold a great future for the baby, calling it the new king Arthur, who would lead England to glory. Continue reading
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Tales of the unexpected: 10 literary classics you may not have read
via the Guardian by Henry Eliot A detail from the cover of MP Shiel’s The Purple Cloud. Photograph: Matthew Young/Penguin
The world’s largest library of classic literature is the Penguin Classics series, which has more than 1,200 titles in print. It features all the most famous works of world literature, from Homer’s Odyssey to Ulysses by James Joyce. But as well as its grand galleries and corridors, its illustrious authors and literary landmarks, it has plenty of secret rooms and hidden corners, filled with titles that fewer people read, and these can be just as rewarding to explore.
You might ask whether a book can justify the term “classic” if it only has a handful of readers. I believe it can. There are three essential criteria for defining a classic: it must have endured a number of years; it must have intrinsic literary quality; but, most crucially, it must still be alive, to be able to connect with readers, thrilling them with flashes of recognition and revelation. This is the brilliant paradox at the heart of a classic: it may have been written centuries ago, but its kernel of truth still feels startlingly contemporary.So it doesn’t matter how many people admire a classic; the important thing is what it can do to you. There’s even a particular pleasure when you make a literary connection and you know you’re among a limited number of initiates. “Few people love the writings of Sir Thomas Browne,” wrote Virginia Woolf, for example, about the esoteric 17th-century essayist, “but those that do are the salt of the earth.” So I recommend striking out and investigating those more shadowy shelves. What follows is a personal selection of some less well-known classics. I hope you enjoy these and that they lead you to other lesser known passages in the marvellous library of world literature. Continue reading I have not read any of the books on this list!
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A Short Analysis of Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Looking-Glass River’
via Interesting Literature
As well as writing Treasure Island and Jekyll and Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-94) also wrote the perennially popular A Child’s Garden of Verses (1885), a collection of poems for younger readers including this lovely poem about gazing into the reflective waters of the river. Here is ‘Looking-Glass River’, along with a few words of analysis. Continue reading That reminds me that I have a battered paperback copy of “A Child’s Garden of Verses” somewhere.
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Matter can travel to the future through black holes, predicts new theory
via the Big Think blog by Oasul Ratner
Two new papers say everything we knew about black holes was wrong.
Scientists calculate that black holes don't have singularities at their centers.
Instead, the theory of loop quantum gravity predicts that black holes shoot out matter across the galaxy.
The matter dispersal comes much later in the future.
Music Without a Destination
via Arts & Letters Daily: Matthew Aucoin in The New York Review of Books Debussy: A Painter in Sound
by Stephen Walsh
Knopf, 323 pp., $28.95
Henri Manuel/Getty Images
Claude Debussy, circa 1910
The world of classical music loves an anniversary to celebrate the already-celebrated. The 250th anniversary of Mozart’s birth in 2006 brought performances of all twenty-two of his operas in his hometown of Salzburg, among innumerable other festivities worldwide; the 225th anniversary of his death in 2016 prompted the release of a two-hundred-CD set of his complete works. In advance of the 250th anniversary of Beethoven’s birth in 2020, the German government has declared him a “matter of national importance,” as if he were a precious, rapidly disappearing natural resource. One could be forgiven for wondering exactly why the most-performed composers in history need these promotional blitzes. Continue reading There’ a bit more but the whole article is behind a subscription wall.
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New website of Nottingham photos goes live 100 years after collection was launched
via ResearchBuzz Firehose: West Bridgford Wire Nottingham in 1751 - looking from West Bridgford, with Nottingham Castle to the right and St Mary’s Church to the left
A new website hosting thousands of Nottingham photographs will be launched from 1 November 2018, one hundred years after the city’s photographic collection was established.
The Picture Nottingham site at www.picturenottingham.co.uk builds on the success of its predecessor, Picture the Past, will enable visitors to view thousands of images capturing our rich social heritage ranging over 200 years. Continue reading
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People with a good sense of smell may also be better at navigation
via Boing Boing by David Pescovitz
Recent research suggests that our sense of smell evolved to help us find our way. Now, McGill University neuroscientist Louisa Dahmani and her colleagues support that idea, termed the "olfactory spatial hypothesis." Continue reading
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The Best Poems about Madness Everyone Should Read
via Interesting Literature
It’s been suggested many times that there’s a fine line between the poet and the madman, and sometimes, perhaps, no line at all. And so it’s of little surprise that poets down the centuries have written so frequently about madness, mental turmoil, and other disturbed psychological states. Here’s a selection of the very best poems about madness of various kinds. Continue reading
My career in information management started back in 1987 working on the Training Access Points project. Nearly thirty years later I am still concerned to ensure that end users, and their mediators, have access to appropriate, relevant information in a form that they can understand, at a time and in a place that is right for them. The Internet seems to be for everyone and everywhere but the digital divide gets bigger. By pointing advisers in the direction of resources I hope to increase what can be done to help clients/customers.
I ran my own company for 16 years but am now a semi-retired freelancer.
