Byron In Exile
Frederick Fucking Chopin
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Good Reads
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Balladeer08
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During the French Revolution at the end of the 18th Century, the revolutionary government proposed equal education for boys and girls. They were to be taught exactly the same curriculum, including sex education for both sexes including conception. But while the girls were to be given special teaching on managing pregnancy and childbirth, the boys were to be taught surveying..
No doubt this was to help them find the Lay of the Land.
oggbashan
Dying Truth seeker
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No doubt this was to help them find the Lay of the Land.
It was an essential tool for French soldiers, as was the sex education.
But the girls were taught geometry, science, agriculture, carpentry and metalwork - because they would have run everything while the boys were in the army.
Laurel
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http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3535/3189268106_67c05e47a4_o.jpg
(image from flickr)
The two oldest men in the world died recently. Jiroemon Kimura, a 116-year-old, died in June in Japan after becoming the oldest man yet recorded. His successor Salustiano Sanchez, aged 112 and born in Spain, died last week in New York State. That leaves just two men in the world known to be over 110, compared with 58 women (19 of whom are Japanese, 20 American). By contrast there are now half a million people over 100, and the number is growing at 7 per cent a year.
For all the continuing improvements in average life expectancy, the maximum age of human beings seems to be stuck. It’s still very difficult even for women to get to 110 and the number of people who reach 115 seems if anything to be falling. According to Professor Stephen Coles, of the Gerontology Research Group at University of California, Los Angeles, your probability of dying each year shoots up to 50 per cent once you reach 110 and 70 per cent at 115.
(image from flickr)
The two oldest men in the world died recently. Jiroemon Kimura, a 116-year-old, died in June in Japan after becoming the oldest man yet recorded. His successor Salustiano Sanchez, aged 112 and born in Spain, died last week in New York State. That leaves just two men in the world known to be over 110, compared with 58 women (19 of whom are Japanese, 20 American). By contrast there are now half a million people over 100, and the number is growing at 7 per cent a year.
For all the continuing improvements in average life expectancy, the maximum age of human beings seems to be stuck. It’s still very difficult even for women to get to 110 and the number of people who reach 115 seems if anything to be falling. According to Professor Stephen Coles, of the Gerontology Research Group at University of California, Los Angeles, your probability of dying each year shoots up to 50 per cent once you reach 110 and 70 per cent at 115.
- read the full article Rapid increases in numbers reaching 100, but no change in record lifespan (from Rational Optimist)
oggbashan
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There has been a report in the UK that the oldest person still holding a current driver's licence is 107. There are more than 100 driving licence holders aged 100 or more.
Whether they still drive, or are still alive, is not known, but their licence has to be renewed every three years.
From BBC News:
The RAC Foundation says the UK's oldest licensed driver is a 107-year-old woman, and there are 191 people over the age of 100 with a licence. They are among 4,018,900 people aged over 70 with full UK driving licences.
But how dangerous are older drivers?
The Department for Transport (DfT) says there is no evidence older drivers are more likely to cause an accident, and it has no plans to restrict licensing or mandate extra training on the basis of age.
Drivers under the age of 20 have more fatal accidents than drivers over 75
Over 70s can struggle with high-speed junctions and slip roads
There is some evidence drivers over 80 are at increased risk
There were 10,974 accidents involving drivers over the age of 70 in 2011, says the DfT. That compares with 11,946 accidents involving 17-to-19-year-old drivers and 24,007 accidents involving 20-to-24-year-old drivers. Its statistics do not account for who caused the accident.
Figures also show that 46 drivers aged 16 to 19 died in an accident, while 173 drivers aged between 20 and 29 involved in an accident died. That compared with 59 deaths in drivers aged between 70 and 79 involved in an accident, and 52 over the age of 80.
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Laurel
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Everyone has an uncle they’d rather you not meet.
Please allow me to introduce you to Uncle Rhabdo, CrossFit’s unofficial and disturbing mascot. Uncle Rhabdo is a cartoon commonly referenced in CrossFit literature and representative of a troubling trend among CrossFitters.
He’s a clown. Literally.
The “Uncle Rhabdo” cartoon depicts an exhausted, yet well-muscled clown, connected to a dialysis machine standing next to some workout equipment. Concernedly, his kidney has fallen out and lies on the floor underneath him, along with some portion of his bowel. He’s left a pool of blood on the floor below him, but it’s not clear if this is from the disembowelment, the kidney’s arterial supply, or the collection of fasciotomies he appears to have endured. Uncle Rhabdo, of course, has Rhabdomyolysis.
Rhabdomyolysis, apart from being a subtly pleasant and melodic sounding word, is an uncool, serious and potentially fatal condition resulting from the catastrophic breakdown of muscle cells. We’ll get more into the specifics in just a bit, but first let’s begin with a story.
Everyone has an uncle they’d rather you not meet.
Please allow me to introduce you to Uncle Rhabdo, CrossFit’s unofficial and disturbing mascot. Uncle Rhabdo is a cartoon commonly referenced in CrossFit literature and representative of a troubling trend among CrossFitters.
He’s a clown. Literally.
The “Uncle Rhabdo” cartoon depicts an exhausted, yet well-muscled clown, connected to a dialysis machine standing next to some workout equipment. Concernedly, his kidney has fallen out and lies on the floor underneath him, along with some portion of his bowel. He’s left a pool of blood on the floor below him, but it’s not clear if this is from the disembowelment, the kidney’s arterial supply, or the collection of fasciotomies he appears to have endured. Uncle Rhabdo, of course, has Rhabdomyolysis.
Rhabdomyolysis, apart from being a subtly pleasant and melodic sounding word, is an uncool, serious and potentially fatal condition resulting from the catastrophic breakdown of muscle cells. We’ll get more into the specifics in just a bit, but first let’s begin with a story.
- read the full article CrossFit’s Dirty Little Secret (from Medium)
Laurel
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http://www.theawl.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/rebecca-e1380037716993.jpg
Sophisticated types have long speculated that plenty of letter-writers aren’t real people at all. In 2007, Gawker collected emails from people claiming that many letters in Blender, Organic Style, and Redbook, among others, were invented by magazine staff who signed them with the names of friends and family. Most of their stories were convincing. And when you look at dozens of letters at a time, it’s hard not to be suspicious that so many of them seem to come from generic names in large cities: Good luck finding the “Rebecca Williams” who lives in Chicago and thinks Elvis would be so proud of Lisa Marie and his granddaughters.
But not all writers of peculiarly enthusiastic letters to the editor are fake. I know because I spoke with four of them: two women who published glowing letters about Kerry Washington in the October 2013 issue of Vanity Fair, and two men who recently published letters in People. I chose them because I could find them, and also because their letters were polite and positive, and did not appear to have been culled by the magazine from tweets or online comments, an approach to which many letters sections have turned in recent years. They had different motives—pride, gratefulness, passionate Julie Harris fandom—but they were all very, very real.
Sophisticated types have long speculated that plenty of letter-writers aren’t real people at all. In 2007, Gawker collected emails from people claiming that many letters in Blender, Organic Style, and Redbook, among others, were invented by magazine staff who signed them with the names of friends and family. Most of their stories were convincing. And when you look at dozens of letters at a time, it’s hard not to be suspicious that so many of them seem to come from generic names in large cities: Good luck finding the “Rebecca Williams” who lives in Chicago and thinks Elvis would be so proud of Lisa Marie and his granddaughters.
But not all writers of peculiarly enthusiastic letters to the editor are fake. I know because I spoke with four of them: two women who published glowing letters about Kerry Washington in the October 2013 issue of Vanity Fair, and two men who recently published letters in People. I chose them because I could find them, and also because their letters were polite and positive, and did not appear to have been culled by the magazine from tweets or online comments, an approach to which many letters sections have turned in recent years. They had different motives—pride, gratefulness, passionate Julie Harris fandom—but they were all very, very real.
- read the full article Meet The People Who Still Write Letters To The Editor (from The Awl)
Laurel
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http://media.npr.org/assets/bakertaylor/covers/t/the-king-of-sports/9781250011718_custom-3acc746d5e472a3c8ed34a53a8e75e09c41ae9d7-s2-c85.jpg
Baseball may be America's pastime, but if you're counting dollar signs and eyeballs on fall TV, football takes home the trophy. Part sport, part national addiction, part cult, writer Gregg Easterbrook says, the "game that bleeds red, white and blue" could use some serious reform.
His book, The King of Sports: Football's Impact on America, is a conflicted one, but Easterbrook is OK with that. "I think in our modern polarized debate, we tend to assume that you're either for something or against it," he tells NPR's Robert Siegel. "The intermediate position — that you really like something but you're aware that it has deep-seated problems — is harder to fit into modern discourse. ... I love football, and I want it reformed."
Easterbrook talks with Siegel about some areas of the industry he'd like to change, from youth football, to NCAA athletics, to the National Football League — which was chartered as a nonprofit.
On the NFL's nonprofit status
It's a scandal that I can't understand why people aren't marching in the streets over, I suppose. The headquarters of the National Football League is chartered as a nonprofit — and treated by the IRS as a nonprofit — due to a few key words that were slipped into a piece of legislation 50 years ago. The individual teams probably pay corporate income taxes, but we don't know since most of them don't disclose any figures. Most of them receive public subsidies but don't disclose anything. The top of the NFL — Roger Goodell, the commissioner — his $30-million-a-year paycheck comes from what looks on paper to be a tax-exempt philanthropy.
... Judith Grant Long, a researcher at Harvard, calculates that 70 percent of the cost of NFL stadia has been paid for by taxpayers. In general, the public subsidizes pro football to the tune of around $1 billion a year, is what I calculated in my book. And yet it's phenomenally profitable — subsidized up one side, down the other, and yet a very profitable business.
Baseball may be America's pastime, but if you're counting dollar signs and eyeballs on fall TV, football takes home the trophy. Part sport, part national addiction, part cult, writer Gregg Easterbrook says, the "game that bleeds red, white and blue" could use some serious reform.
His book, The King of Sports: Football's Impact on America, is a conflicted one, but Easterbrook is OK with that. "I think in our modern polarized debate, we tend to assume that you're either for something or against it," he tells NPR's Robert Siegel. "The intermediate position — that you really like something but you're aware that it has deep-seated problems — is harder to fit into modern discourse. ... I love football, and I want it reformed."
Easterbrook talks with Siegel about some areas of the industry he'd like to change, from youth football, to NCAA athletics, to the National Football League — which was chartered as a nonprofit.
On the NFL's nonprofit status
It's a scandal that I can't understand why people aren't marching in the streets over, I suppose. The headquarters of the National Football League is chartered as a nonprofit — and treated by the IRS as a nonprofit — due to a few key words that were slipped into a piece of legislation 50 years ago. The individual teams probably pay corporate income taxes, but we don't know since most of them don't disclose any figures. Most of them receive public subsidies but don't disclose anything. The top of the NFL — Roger Goodell, the commissioner — his $30-million-a-year paycheck comes from what looks on paper to be a tax-exempt philanthropy.
... Judith Grant Long, a researcher at Harvard, calculates that 70 percent of the cost of NFL stadia has been paid for by taxpayers. In general, the public subsidizes pro football to the tune of around $1 billion a year, is what I calculated in my book. And yet it's phenomenally profitable — subsidized up one side, down the other, and yet a very profitable business.
- read the full article NFL's A Nonprofit? Author Says It's Time For Football Reform (from NPR)
pearldiver69
Literotica Guru
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"An Appetite for Wonder" by Richard Dawkins (Nooo, not that one!)
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
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I heard the broadcast and meant to put a link up here. You're way ahead of me (so, what else is new?)
The whole thing is disgusting but fraud, corruption, stupidity and deceit is the price we pay for freedom.
I don't like it but the alternative is worse.
The whole thing is disgusting but fraud, corruption, stupidity and deceit is the price we pay for freedom.
I don't like it but the alternative is worse.
Balladeer08
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My jaw just dropped.
Are you fucking kidding me? A non-profit?
Here I go writing my Congressmen again.
Balladeer08
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Laurel
Kitty Mama
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I find this incredibly interesting.
http://www.popsci.com/sites/popsci.com/files/styles/article_image_large/public/nano.jpg?itok=kYYAI_h5
Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off.
It wasn't a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to do the latter.
[...]
Another, similarly designed study found that just firmly worded (but not uncivil) disagreements between commenters impacted readers' perception of science.
If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.
Comments can be bad for science. That's why, here at PopularScience.com, we're shutting them off.
It wasn't a decision we made lightly. As the news arm of a 141-year-old science and technology magazine, we are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of science far and wide. The problem is when trolls and spambots overwhelm the former, diminishing our ability to do the latter.
[...]
Another, similarly designed study found that just firmly worded (but not uncivil) disagreements between commenters impacted readers' perception of science.
If you carry out those results to their logical end--commenters shape public opinion; public opinion shapes public policy; public policy shapes how and whether and what research gets funded--you start to see why we feel compelled to hit the "off" switch.
- read the full article Why We're Shutting Off Our Comments (from Popular Science)
lovetoread
hello daddy
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Could you imagine not allowing ugly comments on here?
Laurel
Kitty Mama
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There'd be three posts on the board.
But seriously - I've always thought it was a bad idea to have the comments section on the same page as a news article. It gives equal weight to both intelligent experts in the field and idiot trolls/no-nothings/shills.
Laurel
Kitty Mama
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http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/audio/video/2013/9/25/1380121203911/Yelp-review-010.jpg
Searching for a hairdresser? An affordable restaurant? A quality massage? You've probably used Yelp – or some other online review site.
But it was only a matter of time before some of these reviewers got caught out being economical with the truth. In order to highlight the growing prevalence of fake reviews, usually called ‘astroturfing’, the attorney general in New York set up a fake yoghurt shop in a sting called Operation Clean Turf. Eric Schneiderman announced on Monday that 19 companies had commissioned fake reviews on popular online sites. They were fined a total of $350,000.
But this just scratches the surface, so you’ll still need to search with caution; there are 42 million reviews to sift through on Yelp alone, and as many as 90% of consumers rely on online reviews before purchasing online.
Here’s our guide to what a shady internet review looks like:
1) Avoid the hyperbolic review
Spare us the flowery description – if you can’t see someone saying it in a normal conversation, chances are it’s bogus. Here are a couple of examples from La Pomme nightclub, one of the places listed in the sting:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/9/24/1380053176891/f5313eaf-6802-421e-99bd-4b611ccbe2bb-460x208.jpeg
Avoid the cliches and search for detail – that’s what reviews are for. Here's another gem from La Pomme's page, which, by the way, still only manages to net two and a half stars.
Searching for a hairdresser? An affordable restaurant? A quality massage? You've probably used Yelp – or some other online review site.
But it was only a matter of time before some of these reviewers got caught out being economical with the truth. In order to highlight the growing prevalence of fake reviews, usually called ‘astroturfing’, the attorney general in New York set up a fake yoghurt shop in a sting called Operation Clean Turf. Eric Schneiderman announced on Monday that 19 companies had commissioned fake reviews on popular online sites. They were fined a total of $350,000.
But this just scratches the surface, so you’ll still need to search with caution; there are 42 million reviews to sift through on Yelp alone, and as many as 90% of consumers rely on online reviews before purchasing online.
Here’s our guide to what a shady internet review looks like:
1) Avoid the hyperbolic review
Spare us the flowery description – if you can’t see someone saying it in a normal conversation, chances are it’s bogus. Here are a couple of examples from La Pomme nightclub, one of the places listed in the sting:
http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/pictures/2013/9/24/1380053176891/f5313eaf-6802-421e-99bd-4b611ccbe2bb-460x208.jpeg
Avoid the cliches and search for detail – that’s what reviews are for. Here's another gem from La Pomme's page, which, by the way, still only manages to net two and a half stars.
- read the full article Fake Yelp reviews: anatomy of an 'astroturfing' post (from The Guardian)
trysail
Catch Me Who Can
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It's a perfect example of the politicization (and corruption) of science. The folks at Popular Science want to shout down those who have the temerity to disagree.
It's a terrible idea. It reinforces groupthink and the tyranny of the mob. Science is not a popularity contest.
See: Heliocentrism
See: Eugenics
See: Angiogenesis
See: Plate Tectonics
See: H. pylori hypothesis
Laurel
Kitty Mama
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http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2013/09/24/magazine/24-columbo/24-columbo-articleInline.jpg
Over the years, as a writing student and as a working journalist, I’ve received all sorts of advice from teachers and mentors and colleagues. There are timeless tips like “Write what you know” or the even simpler “Rewrite.” There has been other advice tailored more to the moment, like “Start a blog” or the similar but more dubious “Build your brand online!” But in the midst of all this mostly practical advice, the wisdom of one writing mentor has always stuck with me: “Watch ‘Columbo’ reruns.”
This wasn’t advice handed out as a glib aside or a clever joke. This was the advice that my graduate-school professor would give, looking right into my eyes, as he handed me an edited assignment that had bled red all over the page. The advice wasn’t narrowly tailored to the information-gathering process, so integral to any nonfiction writer’s work. No, my teacher would insist that in the essential nature of Detective Columbo lay the answers to the entire set of problems a nonfiction writer could ever face. “Go watch some Columbo reruns,” he would say, with an exasperated sigh.
Over the years, as a writing student and as a working journalist, I’ve received all sorts of advice from teachers and mentors and colleagues. There are timeless tips like “Write what you know” or the even simpler “Rewrite.” There has been other advice tailored more to the moment, like “Start a blog” or the similar but more dubious “Build your brand online!” But in the midst of all this mostly practical advice, the wisdom of one writing mentor has always stuck with me: “Watch ‘Columbo’ reruns.”
This wasn’t advice handed out as a glib aside or a clever joke. This was the advice that my graduate-school professor would give, looking right into my eyes, as he handed me an edited assignment that had bled red all over the page. The advice wasn’t narrowly tailored to the information-gathering process, so integral to any nonfiction writer’s work. No, my teacher would insist that in the essential nature of Detective Columbo lay the answers to the entire set of problems a nonfiction writer could ever face. “Go watch some Columbo reruns,” he would say, with an exasperated sigh.
- read the full article Want to Write Better? Watch ‘Columbo’ (from The New York Times)
Sean
We'll see.
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lovetoread
hello daddy
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I agree totally.
It hurts my heart when I'm reading about how some poor child was killed only to read the nasty comments that have nothing to do with what was on the page.
Colonel Hogan
Madness
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Holy shit. I knew NORAD had plenty of false alarms over the years. I never thought about the USSR.
JohnnySavage
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Second best thread on the GeeBee.
Laurel
Kitty Mama
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Laurel
Kitty Mama
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"When we send people..."
That makes me so happy.
That makes me so happy.
http://i.i.cbsi.com/cnwk.1d/i/tim2/2013/09/19/AP593120967082_620x350.jpg
There is water on Mars. Water, and several other elements that would be important for sustaining life on the red planet. The discovery comes from NASA's rover Curiosity, as part of its mission to explore Mars.
"We now know there should be abundant, easily accessible water on Mars," Laurie Leshin, dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said in a press release. Leshin is the lead author of a study explaining Curiosity's findings published today in the journal Science.
"When we send people, they could scoop up the soil anywhere on the surface, heat it just a bit, and obtain water," Leshin said.
There is water on Mars. Water, and several other elements that would be important for sustaining life on the red planet. The discovery comes from NASA's rover Curiosity, as part of its mission to explore Mars.
"We now know there should be abundant, easily accessible water on Mars," Laurie Leshin, dean of science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, said in a press release. Leshin is the lead author of a study explaining Curiosity's findings published today in the journal Science.
"When we send people, they could scoop up the soil anywhere on the surface, heat it just a bit, and obtain water," Leshin said.
- read the full article Water discovered in Mars surface layer (from CBS News)
