background preloader

Interesting topics

Facebook Twitter

Trump Tried to Intimidate the Judges, and He Failed - The Atlantic. “Make this one out of cast-iron,” the late Judge John Butzner said to me one day in chambers. “There are going to be a lot of weasels sniffing around it.” I was Butzner’s clerk. He was assigning me to draft an opinion in a case on an abstruse point of federal law. No court had ever decided this particular question—and a lot of money was riding on the answer. Some judges on the Fourth Circuit would object to the result his panel had reached.

Once Butzner’s opinion was published, they might try to persuade the other judges to rehear the case “en banc”—meaning on a bench including all members of the Circuit. It was a high-stress assignment, even though he gave me all the time I needed. Imagine the atmosphere in chambers this week as three Ninth Circuit judges and their clerks worked frantically to produce an opinion in Washington v. They had 48 hours. The opinion is written with remarkable care. It didn’t. Then the benchslapping began. “No,” Flentje said. That’s where cast-iron comes into it. These are the best European countries to live in.

Jakub Marian has created a map of the best European countries, ranked in order of well-being. Marian, writing for his educational blog, has created a map that ranks European countries based on their 'well-being' score. The scoring system was developed the Boston Consulting Group, and it uses 44 different indicators taking in economic, investment and sustainability opportunities to calculate the 'well-being' rating of a country over time. Their 2016 report gives Norway the highest score of 100, while Macedonia has the lowest score in Europe, 42.9. There was no data for Kosovo, and Crimea has been left blank due to its disputed sovereignty. Picture: jakubmarian.com To put these European scores into a global context, Marian notes that the USA scored 83.7, Japan 81.3, Brazil 46.5, and India 32.6.

Linguists will note with interest that all of the countries where a Germanic language is spoken have scores over 90. For more maps check out jakubmarian.com. More: The murder map of the world. Everything you need to know about the golden ratio. The 100 best infographics. Museum of Lost Objects: The Genie of Nimrud. Image copyright Brooklyn Museum Three thousand years ago, a genie graced the walls of an Assyrian palace. Then, probably about 20 years ago, it disappeared, only to re-emerge in London. Since 2002 it's been languishing in police vaults at Scotland Yard, because of difficulties determining the legal owner. The genie is a powerfully built man, with wings sprouting from his back. It was a design particularly popular with the Assyrian king, Ashurnasirpal II, who came to the throne in 883 BC, and made Nimrud his new capital. "Ashurnasirpal and his artists were really the first to decorate many of the rooms in the public spaces within the palace," says archaeologist Augusta McMahon, lecturer at the University of Cambridge.

"One of the key symbols that appeared over and over was this genie or protective spirit. Protective genies came in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Image copyright NYPL Our particular genie had copious amounts of curly hair and a long beard. This can be a challenge. Find out more.

Learning

Curation. Language. FIFA the 'injured party' as officials arrested on corruption charges - reported.ly. Six high ranking FIFA officials were arrested by Swiss authorities at a luxury hotel in Zurich on Wednesday, May 27. Fourteen officials in all, including sports marketing executives, are named in a 47-count indictment for racketeering, wire fraud and money laundering. The investigation info FIFA spans decades-long allegations of corruption in the highest football ruling body. Incumbent FIFA president Sepp Blatter, due to be elected for the fifth time on Friday, was not arrested. Claims have previously been made that Russia and Qatar bought votes to secure World Cup 2018 and 2022. A dossier by English officials presented to the House of Commons claimed “that Qatar and Russia were suspected of using their vast sovereign wealth to seal key support” and swapped votes.

Dawn arrests New York Times journalists Michael Schmidt and Sam Borden were at the Zurich hotel when the arrests began around 6 a.m. The charges CONCACAF headquarters in Miami were searched on Wednesday morning. FIFA’s response. Capital - Is this the answer to office stress? Have you read the latest study about meditation? Probably not, because even as you read this sentence another has likely come out. There is a steady stream of new research and news stories about the benefits of meditation and other mindful breathing practices. As they report, meditation boosts energy, helps with focus, reduces stress and anxiety, increases resilience and possibly, subtly, changes your life and your brain for the better. Of course, not everyone believes in the power of meditation, but once converted, the big hurdle is making meditation fit into your schedule.

Just the thought of cramming another thing into your day is stress-inducing. Here’s a radical proposal: Start your new meditation habit at work. Yup, that work. It turns out, the office is actually an ideal place to meditate specifically because of those reasons. Not only is work likely one of the major causes of your stress, but it is also a victim of it. Find a space Schedule some time Now meditate! Projects » TD. Cpaf-namesindex.pdf. BoredPanda - pandas against boredom! The Complete Guide to Backing Up Your Computer.

There’s a reason people don’t bother backing up their computer: thinking about the task of doing it properly becomes too difficult. The thing about backups is that it’s not a question of if data loss will strike you, but when and how severely. Backups have long been considered to be incredibly complicated, because it meant you’d have to somehow ship your data around, but not anymore. Thanks to the advent of unlimited cloud backup services and ever increasing storage at ever decreasing prices, it’s easier to backup all your content than it was in the past.

There’s one very basic rule to follow when you’re setting up backups: have at least one full backup on-site (at your home or office) and one off-site (a separate physical location). We’ve gathered the best options in this post, so you can get started with backing up your data to a safe place. Considerations How much space will you need?

A primer on RAID via Wikipedia It might sound intimidating, but it’s actually pretty straightforward. Chang_Debbie-thesis.pdf. 20+ Tools to Create Your Own Infographics. A picture is worth a thousand words – based on this, infographics would carry hundreds of thousands of words, yet if you let a reader choose between a full-length 1000-word article and an infographic that needs a few scroll-downs, they’d probably prefer absorbing information straight from the infographic. What’s not to like? Colored charts and illustrations deliver connections better than tables and figures and as users spend time looking back and forth the full infographic, they stay on the site longer.

Plus, readers who like what they see are more likely to share visual guides more than articles. While not everyone can make infographics from scratch, there are tools available on the Web that will help you create your very own infographics. In this article, we’re listing more than 20 such options to help you get your messages across to your readers, visually. Read Also: The Infographic Revolution: Where Do We Go From Here? What About Me? “What About Me?” Vizualize.me Piktochart easel.ly. Gough Whitlam: Former PM heralded new regional dynamic in bringing China in from the cold, setting Papua New Guinea free. By Adam Connors Updated The passing of former prime minister Gough Whitlam is not just a day of mourning for Australia, but also for a region shaped by his expansive policies of outreach to Asia and the Pacific, regional leaders say. Mr Whitlam has been remembered as a visionary and a giant of Australian politics by figures across the political spectrum following his death on Tuesday at age 98.

The two nations Mr Whitlam brought in from the cold and set free between 1972 and 1975 were China and Papua New Guinea, both now major regional economies. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Tony Abbott told Parliament: "1972 was his time. "He represented a new way of thinking, about government, about our region, about our place in the world, and about change itself," he said. It should never be forgotten that in making our own former colony independent, we as Australians enhance our own independence.

"That's the admiration I always had for Gough Whitlam, that he had faith and he had confidence in some of us. " The Rationale for Differentiated Instruction in Mixed-Ability Classrooms. We also know that learning takes place most effectively in classrooms where knowledge is clearly and powerfully organized, students are highly active in the learning process, assessments are rich and varied, and students feel a sense of safety and connection (National Research Council, 1990; Wiggins & McTighe, 1998). We know that learning happens best when a learning experience pushes the learner a bit beyond his or her independence level.

When a student continues to work on understandings and skills already mastered, little if any new learning takes place. On the other hand, if tasks are far ahead of a student's current point of mastery, frustration results and learning does not (Howard, 1994; Vygotsky, 1962). In addition, we know that motivation to learn increases when we feel a kinship with, interest in, or passion for what we are attempting to learn (Piaget, 1978). In the end, we can draw at least three powerful conclusions about teaching and learning. Trevor hates reading. The Tinder effect: psychology of dating in the technosexual era | Media Network. If you are a romantic, you are probably not on Tinder, the latest big addition to the online dating world. Tinder is the aptly named heterosexual version of Grindr, an older hook-up app that identifies available gay, bisexual, or "curious" partners in the vicinity. It is also the modern blend of hot-or-not, in that users are required to judge pictures from fellow Tinderers by simply swiping right if they like them or left if they don't, and 1980s telephone bars, in that phone flirting precedes face-to-face interaction.

Thus Tinder is hardly original, yet it has taken the mobile dating market by storm: despite launching only last year, an estimated 450 million profiles are rated every day and membership is growing by 15% each week. More importantly, and in stark contrast with the overwhelmingly negative media reception, Tinder has managed to overcome the two big hurdles to online dating. First, Tinder is cool, at least to its users. • Hook-up apps are more arousing than actual hook-ups: Ever liked a film on Facebook? You’ve given the security services a key to your soul | Andrew Brown. Why on earth does David Cameron feel the need to call for new digital powers for the security services when they are only beginning to use the ones they already have? Suppose you wanted personality profiles of a quarter of the population of England? Turns out you can mine them from Facebook with publicly published algorithms.

About half the adult population of England uses Facebook at least once a month. About a quarter of us have “liked” more than 250 things there. So it’s really disconcerting to discover that completely banal acts on Facebook can add up to a quite detailed psychological profile. Cambridge and Stanford scientists have discovered that Facebook likes can be mapped on to a personality profile used in clinical psychology so that you can get a remarkably accurate estimate of people’s scores on five well-established dimensions of personality just by analysing several hundred Facebook likes. The results, from most humans, were stunningly inaccurate. Interface: a journal for and about social movements. Welcome - EdITLib Digital Library. Welcome - EdITLib Digital Library. The 100 most followed psychologists and neuroscientists on Twitter. Academic, Professional, & General. Sky guide: What stars, planets and constellations to see in January - Science.

Posted January may not have any spectacular comets or eclipses to herald the New Year, but the January skies will have lots to fill you with wonder, especially if you are an early riser, writes Ian Musgrave. January nights are dominated by the summer constellations of Taurus the Bull, Orion the Hunter and Canis major, Orion's hunting dog hanging over the north-eastern sky.

Orion is probably the most iconic of these, with Orion's belt and sword known as the "saucepan" to most Australians. To the Boorong people of north-western Victoria the belt and sword of Orion, the base and the handle of the saucepan respectively, were Kulkunbulla, two dancing youths. If you are out in the country under dark skies, the stars of the sword look misty. This is the great Orion nebula — the brightest point in the sword/saucepan handle — which is an astrophotography favourite. Above the saucepan is the blue-white star Rigel, while below is the red supergiant star Betelgeuse, which marks Orion's shoulder. ScienceNordic. Why I don't cook at home. Surnames Meanings, Origins & Distribution Maps. A surname is part of a personal name that is passed from either or both parents to their offspring. Customs on the format of surnames change from region to region and their use has changed over time. In most Western nations, the surname occurs at the end of a personal name, after a given name or names.

Conversely some East Asian counties and Hungary place the surname before given names. In most regions and time periods, surnames were assumed based on descent from a male ancestor (usually the father), but in some cases were passed by the mother. Use of the mother's surname is usually due to extenuating circumstances (illegitimacy, posthumous birth, inheritance etc.), though in some regions culture dictated the use of the mother's surname. Many Spanish-speaking nations use both the mother and father's surname to create dual surnames. The earliest surnames in Western Europe grew out of existing methods of distinguishing people.

There are a number of different origins of surnames. Hashtag dismissal 1975. This Graphic Explains 20 Cognitive Biases That Affect Your Decision-Making. Go Green: 6 Surprising Health Benefits Of Green Tea. The green miracle drink from China made its way long ago into the mugs of Americans all across the nation for its touted health benefits.

From a weight loss aid to targeting pancreatic cancer, green tea has evolved into a medicinal drink that caters to a myriad of illnesses. The reality is there are surprising benefits to reap from this magical drink in just one cup. The hot beverage accounts for 15 percent of the tea consumed in the U.S., according to the Tea Association’s latest statistics. Although black tea remains America’s favorite at 84 percent, green tea can invite more positive changes when it comes to your health. Unlike green tea, black tea is processed in a way that allows for fermentation, which depletes the amount of antioxidants and polyphenols found in tea. Black tea also contains less catechins than green tea, which minimizes the benefits of the hot beverage.

Here are surprising health reasons why you should go green and let it be your cup of tea: 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. Pop Music, Teenage Girls and the Legitimacy of Fandom | The Pitch. Photo via Instagram There is no greater cultural crime a young girl can commit than loving pop music without apology. Forever marginalized as the screaming, crying Beatlemaniac, Directioner, or Swiftie, teen girl fandom in 2015 is more powerful and worthy of our respect than ever.

Blogs, fan forums, and other online communities are havens for fans to dissect every tweet and performance their idols offer up, and these spaces are often ruled by teen girls. They worship collectively, exalt in mutual understanding, and celebrate both the bands they adore and one another. But their power has an expiration date, because pop artists earn respect only when they stop appealing to a teen demographic. Pop music is fundamentally about the fans, and when we say things like "fame begets fawning praise" we’re missing a big addendum: it does, except when young female fanbases are the ones stoking the ascent. The end of One Direction: why I'll miss the fans more than the remarkably average boys. Explainer: what is the dark web? Food Timeline: food history research service. Fossil from new dinosaur dubbed 'fluffy feathered poodle from hell' discovered in China.

Nonprofit Tech for Good. Greek-bailout-fund. International Journal for Digital Art History. Google launches Google Photos, a new service independent of Google+ Introducing Curator, a new way to find and display great Twitter content. 2015 Aussie sky guide › Science Features (ABC Science) Astronomy Calendar of Celestial Events 2015 - Sea and Sky.