Clear writing seems to be a perennial topic. When I started work, the (retiring) lead editor in Directives had completed a series of writing classes and had incorporated her wisdom in the handbook. 10 years later Jimmy Carter came along and we had to certify that our regulations were clearly written.
Skip ahead to today and this Post piece describes a new effort. The problem is eternal, and the fight against jargon is worthy.
Thursday, July 09, 2015
Dairy Farming in Italy?
I'm sure this isn't representative of Italian dairies. The story about driving cows 100 miles between winter and summer pastures is interesting, though it leaves many questions unanswered. (Since the lead character is a cheesemaker, I'm assuming these are dairy cows, though the wikipedia entry is less clear. ) My big question: when and where are they milked? Milking during the drive seems unfeasible, which would seem to imply milking only at one end of the drive or the other. So these surely aren't milked for the 300 days standard for Holsteins in my youth. And where are the calves--do they make the drive as well?
I vaguely remember in my youth reading about herds in Switzerland going from one pasture to the other. I suppose the same issues arise.
I vaguely remember in my youth reading about herds in Switzerland going from one pasture to the other. I suppose the same issues arise.
Wednesday, July 08, 2015
Something Completely Different: a Cop
Via Kottke.org, this piece written by a New York cop, who used to be an aspiring actress.
Tuesday, July 07, 2015
How History Gets Distorted
The NYTimes in a roundup of interesting stuff mentioned the "EveryThreeMinutes" twitterbot which pumps out a tweet every 3 minutes describing a sale/purchase of a slave in the antebellum South. This is from the site (not up on Twitter, so don't know the terminology).
When you read the reference, available at Google, it's: "Slavery and the Numbers Game: A Critique of Time on the Cross", by Herbert George Gutman
Time on the Cross was a 1974 book which changed the historiography of slavery, as noted in the wikipedia site. Gutman's book and criticism of TofC is briefly described there.
According to the page displayed by Google, Gutman reasons this way: He asserts that 2 million slaves were sold between 1820 and 1860, a statistic I've seen elsewhere. He goes on to say: " If we assume that slave sales did not occur on Sundays and holidays and that such selling went on for ten hours on working days, a slave was sold on average every 3.6 minutes between 1820 and 1860." This is the source for Every3Minutes.
Note, however, that the twitterbot seems to be running 24 hours a day, not 10 hours a day. Gutman is saying 167 slaves are sold every work day( (10 hours * 60 minutes)/3.6), twitterbot is saying 400 slaves every calendar day. How much difference does it make: it implies 5,840,000 sales over the 40 years, not 2,000,000. That's a big difference.
In the twitterbots defense, it's an easy mistake to make. Ordinarily when we say something like: " X people are killed every day by Y", it's 365 days a year, not 200 workdays. Gutman switched the usual basis in his calculations, presumably to make a more impressive case against Time on the Cross.
(I could quibble about Gutman's calculations--using his figures I get 3.74 minutes, not 3.6.
40 years times 52 weeks times 6 days a week (= 12480), minus 10 days for holidays, times 10 hours times 60 minutes = 7,482,000 minutes divided by 2,000,000 = 3.741 minutes. But since I'm going on only the page Google shows me, there may be something I'm missing.)
The bottom line is that twitter will spread the 3.6 minutes figure more widely, and it will become a concrete fact to be used in making history come alive, despite its inaccuracy.
Every Three MinutesLooking at the reference, it seems that the person/people between the twitterbot is stretching a bit: "Every Four Minutes" might be more appropriate if you follow normal rounding rules and don't want to go with "Every3.6Minutes".
@Every3Minutes[In the United States] a slave was sold on average every 3.6 minutes between 1820 and 1860 ~ Herbert Gutman
When you read the reference, available at Google, it's: "Slavery and the Numbers Game: A Critique of Time on the Cross", by Herbert George Gutman
Time on the Cross was a 1974 book which changed the historiography of slavery, as noted in the wikipedia site. Gutman's book and criticism of TofC is briefly described there.
According to the page displayed by Google, Gutman reasons this way: He asserts that 2 million slaves were sold between 1820 and 1860, a statistic I've seen elsewhere. He goes on to say: " If we assume that slave sales did not occur on Sundays and holidays and that such selling went on for ten hours on working days, a slave was sold on average every 3.6 minutes between 1820 and 1860." This is the source for Every3Minutes.
Note, however, that the twitterbot seems to be running 24 hours a day, not 10 hours a day. Gutman is saying 167 slaves are sold every work day( (10 hours * 60 minutes)/3.6), twitterbot is saying 400 slaves every calendar day. How much difference does it make: it implies 5,840,000 sales over the 40 years, not 2,000,000. That's a big difference.
In the twitterbots defense, it's an easy mistake to make. Ordinarily when we say something like: " X people are killed every day by Y", it's 365 days a year, not 200 workdays. Gutman switched the usual basis in his calculations, presumably to make a more impressive case against Time on the Cross.
(I could quibble about Gutman's calculations--using his figures I get 3.74 minutes, not 3.6.
40 years times 52 weeks times 6 days a week (= 12480), minus 10 days for holidays, times 10 hours times 60 minutes = 7,482,000 minutes divided by 2,000,000 = 3.741 minutes. But since I'm going on only the page Google shows me, there may be something I'm missing.)
The bottom line is that twitter will spread the 3.6 minutes figure more widely, and it will become a concrete fact to be used in making history come alive, despite its inaccuracy.
Monday, July 06, 2015
Our Lying Founding Father
Ben Franklin is not trustworthy, as proven by this.
A diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for her country. It looks as if Ben was doing his own black propaganda.
A diplomat is someone sent abroad to lie for her country. It looks as if Ben was doing his own black propaganda.
What, to a Native American, Is the US Flag?
We're coming up on the 12th of July in Ulster, which marks part of "marching season", which refers to the times when the opposing Ulster parties (Protestant/Catholic) parade their flags and banners, sometimes through the opponent's backyard. I just came back from a drive on Elden Street in Herndon, where a number of houses had the US flag displayed. Some perhaps from the Fourth, others probably an everyday display.
A flag is a symbol which cuts two ways--it symbolizes the unity of the faithful and divides the faithful from the infidel. The Ulster example is (or was in the recent past) the most extreme one possible without having an armed conflict; the Herndon example is the most relaxed one possible without having the symbol lose all meaning.
Life is complicated. The Times today has a story on the reconciliation between Vietnam and the US. Accompanying it is a photo showing the Vietnamese and US flags displayed side by side. ("Seventy eight percent of Vietnamese said they had a favorable opinion of the United States in a poll published this year by the Pew Research Center. Among those under 30 years old, it was 88 percent.") Why can Vietnamese and Americans reconcile when Protestants and Catholics can't, or at least couldn't until the end of the 20th century?
And I wonder: to Native Americans, what is the meaning of the U.S. flag? At least outside the thirteen original states, it flew over the military which sometimes defeated their ancestors.
A flag is a symbol which cuts two ways--it symbolizes the unity of the faithful and divides the faithful from the infidel. The Ulster example is (or was in the recent past) the most extreme one possible without having an armed conflict; the Herndon example is the most relaxed one possible without having the symbol lose all meaning.
Life is complicated. The Times today has a story on the reconciliation between Vietnam and the US. Accompanying it is a photo showing the Vietnamese and US flags displayed side by side. ("Seventy eight percent of Vietnamese said they had a favorable opinion of the United States in a poll published this year by the Pew Research Center. Among those under 30 years old, it was 88 percent.") Why can Vietnamese and Americans reconcile when Protestants and Catholics can't, or at least couldn't until the end of the 20th century?
And I wonder: to Native Americans, what is the meaning of the U.S. flag? At least outside the thirteen original states, it flew over the military which sometimes defeated their ancestors.
Saturday, July 04, 2015
The First Fourth of July Celebration
Boston1775 has John Adams' letter to his 12 year old daughter Abigail, the oldest child, recounting the way the Congress, military, and people of Philadelphia celebrated the first Fourth.
Friday, July 03, 2015
Greeks Work Harder Than Germans
The Wonkblog has 15 charts showing differences between Greece and Germany. The fact in the title is the most surprising, closely followed by the fact they work much longer hours than Germans and the fact that Germans only work 26 hours a week
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