The debate over screen time is typically accompanied
by a good deal of finger-wagging: The digital experience is a ruinous habit,
akin to binge-eating curly fries, gambling on cock fights or drinking whiskey
with breakfast. Meanwhile, social
scientists who are trying to study the actual psychological effects of screen
time are left in a bind. For one thing,
good luck finding a “control group” of people living the nondigital life or
anything close to it. Children pick up
devices early, and by their teens are spending six hours a day and more on
screens—with phones, laptops and iPads, guzzling from the spigot of Netflix,
Hulu and YouTube. Moreover, standard
measures such as “average daily Facebook usage” are now practically
meaningless. Consider what a person can
do in just the time it takes to wait for a bus:
text, watch a comedy skit, play a video game, buy concert tickets, take
five selfies, each with a different set of cartoon ears. Learning how that behavior shapes an
individual’s life experience requires an entirely new approach, one that
recognizes that screen time is no mere habit but now a way of life. So argued a consortium of social and data
scientists recently in the journal Human-Computer Interaction. The phrase “screen time,” they noted, is too
broad to be scientifically helpful; it cannot remotely capture the fragmented,
ever-shifting torrent of images that constitutes digital experience. Researchers have linked daily time spent on
specific platforms, like Facebook, to measures of well-being and
mental health. But to build a more
compelling understanding of the effects of digital experience, they’ll need far
more, the new paper argues. Scientists
need to look over people’s shoulders, digitally speaking, and record
everything, on every device, that an individual sees, does, and types. The researchers call this ultra-fine-grained
record a “screenome,” adapting the
concept from “genome,” the full blueprint of one’s genetic inheritance. Each person’s daily screenome is similarly
unique, a sequential, disjointed series of screens. Benedict Carey https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/31/health/screen-time-mental-health-screenome.html
See also How to Freeze Cauliflower Without Blanching by Robin Coe at
The Crimean War commenced in 1853 and ended three
years later, in 1856. A coalition of Ottoman, British, French and
Sardinian forces opposed the Russian Empire in Crimea. The casus belli was of a religious nature. The Russians considered the rights of Orthodox
Christians in the Holy Land, then under Ottoman control, were being
jeopardized. What is considered today to
be the real reason behind the conflict was a much more geopolitical matter. In the mid-19th century, the Ottoman Empire
was losing its foothold in Europe and was on the verge of collapse. The lifelong dream of the Russian Empire was
to expand westwards, towards the Balkans and the Mediterranean. Britain, France, and Sardinia considered such
a shift of power to be far too dangerous for them in the long run. The coalition decided to invade Crimea and
put an end to any potential Russian expansion.
After a year of fighting resulting in success for the coalition, Russian
forces were defending against the siege of Sevastopol. The city was the principal naval base on the
Black Sea held by the Russians, thus making its capture a top priority for the
coalition―one which could very well end the war in the Crimea. A significant force of British troops,
together with French and Ottoman reinforcements was sent to secure the smaller
port town of Balaclava, south of Sevastopol. The coalition was attempting to establish a
perimeter for the protracted siege as they had agreed that a direct attack on
the city would incur the loss of too many lives. Realizing British troops were exposed and
that they were too few in numbers to hold such a position, the Russian General
Pavel Liprandi decided to act to relieve the siege and disrupt the coalition’s
supply route. He mustered an army of
25,000 men to confront the coalition forces defending Balaclava on October 25,
1854. On the southern part of the front,
more than 2,500 Russian cavalrymen descended on the first line of defense of
the British Light Brigade’s field camp which was held by hastily constructed
Ottoman redoubts―enclosed defensive emplacements. The Ottomans could not hold the line and they
were ordered to retreat to the second line of defense held by the Sutherland
Highlanders 93rd (Highland) Regiment under the command of Sir Colin
Campbell. The Russian forces consisted
mainly of skilled cavalry which was extremely mobile and deadly once in full
charge. It was unbelievable--a force
that had stood so thin with little chance of survival not only routed the enemy
but was unified in its demand to pursue and annihilate the remaining Russian
troops. A correspondent for The Times,
William H. Russell, who was present at the battle immediately wrote of the
courage presented by the British troops. He illustrated the scene quite vividly, noting
that between the Russian charging cavalry and the British regiment’s base of
operations stood nothing but a “thin red streak topped with steel”―the Thin Red
line of the 93rd. It was from Russell’s
article that the phrase The Thin Red Line was derived. The successful defense was praised in Britain,
partly because the costly war was becoming more and more unpopular among the
general public. Also, it served as a
distraction from one other not-so-glorious event that took place during the
Battle of Balaclava. The infamous Charge
of The Light Brigade took place on the same day. Due to a misunderstanding in the chain of
command, the Light Cavalry attempted a frontal assault against an artillery
battery, which repulsed them, inflicting enormous casualties. Nevertheless, thanks to the 93rd, the Thin
Red Line remains an expression representing a thinly spread military unit
holding firm against an overwhelming attack.
See graphics at https://www.warhistoryonline.com/history/origin-expression-thin-red-line.html
The verb “to ballyhoo,” meaning to promote with extravagant praise,
appeared around 1911. The origin of
“ballyhoo” in these senses is not known with certainly, but there is no lack of
theories. Also, "ballyhoo” is old nautical slang for an inferior
ship (probably taken from the Spanish “balahou,” small schooner), a name for a
species of fish (more properly the “balao”), and the name of the mythical
“ballyhoo bird,” supposedly sporting four wings and two heads. There is, in County Cork, Ireland, a town
named “Ballyhooly” (“Baile Atha hUlla” in Irish), which was apparently, at some
point in the past, famous for its street fights and rowdiness. In
the 19th century, “ballyhooly” was used as a euphemism for “hell,”
especially in the sense of harsh treatment, chaos or confusion (“What the
ballyhooley do you call this?”, 1927). It seems entirely possible that a
shortened form of “ballyhooley” came into more general use around the beginning
of the 20th century with the “loud
ruckus or fuss” meaning it has today. http://www.word-detective.com/2010/06/ballyhoo/
Ultra-high temperature
processing (UHT), ultra-heat
treatment, or ultra-pasteurization is a food processing technology that sterilizes liquid
food, chiefly milk, by heating it above 135 °C (275 °F)--the
temperature required to kill spores in milk--for 2 to 5 seconds. UHT
is most commonly used in milk production, but the process is also used for
fruit juices, cream, soy milk, yogurt, wine, soups, honey, and stews. UHT
milk was first developed in the 1960s and became generally available for
consumption in the 1970s. The heat used
during the UHT process can cause Maillard browning and change the taste
and smell of dairy products. An alternative process is HTST pasteurization
(high temperature/short time), in which the milk is heated to
72 °C (162 °F) for at least 15 seconds. UHT milk packaged in a sterile container, if
not opened, has a typical unrefrigerated shelf life of six to nine months. In contrast, HTST pasteurized milk has a
shelf life of about two weeks from processing, or about one week from being put
on sale. A significant percentage of
milk sold in the US as organic food is
UHT treated.
New York City has a surprising number of quiet, shady
retreats. Shaded parks and playgrounds line Riverside Drive,
cemeteries form a belt between Brooklyn and Queens, and there's an old-growth
forest at the northern tip of Manhattan.
More than 8.6 million people live in the city, and 7 million trees grow
alongside them. Nature Conservancy magazine
Summer 2019
Poet, writer and musician Joy Harjo—a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation—often draws on
Native American stories, languages and myths. "I think the culture is bringing me into
it with poetry—that it's part of me," Harjo says in an interview with
NPR's Lynn Neary. "I don't think
about it . . . And so it doesn't necessarily become a self-conscious thing—it's
just there . . . When you grow up as a person in your culture, you have your
culture and you're in it, but you're also in this American culture, and that's
another layer." Harjo, 68, will represent
both her Indigenous culture and those of the United States of America when
she succeeds Tracy K. Smith as the country's 23rd poet laureate consultant in poetry (that's the official title) this fall. Her term, announced June 19, 2019 by Librarian
of Congress Carla Hayden, will make her the first Native American poet to serve
in the position. Lynn Neary and Patrick Jarenwattananon https://www.npr.org/2019/06/19/733727917/joy-harjo-becomes-the-first-native-american-u-s-poet-laureate
June 20, 2019 It sounds like a crazy tabloid headline: Humans
are growing little horns in the back of their skulls. Except it comes not from a tabloid but a
peer-reviewed study in Scientific Reports. Australian researchers say more people,
young ones especially, are showing up with what’s known as an “enlarged
external occipital protuberance” on the back of their skulls, just above the
neck, reports the Washington Post. The leading theory is that these spikes are
caused by all the time people spend hunched over their phones. It’s throwing the body out of whack, resulting
in the formation of what’s been variously described in coverage as bone spurs,
phone bones, a bird’s beak, and head horns. (The study itself includes an X-ray photo.)
If you have one, you’d likely be able to feel it with your fingers,
notes the BBC. It might even be
visible as a little bump if you’re bald.
(Texting takes a heavy toll on your neck—about 60 pounds’ worth.)
http://librariansmuse.blogspot.com Issue 2114
June 21, 2019
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