We’re back from vacation, Al Hirt is playing in the background as I record some LPs we picked up thrifting on vacation, and it’s time to clear out the links. If you are planning your weekend, tomorrow will bring a review of “The Vibrator Play“, and if I get my act together, Monday will bring highway page headlines and updates. So let’s get to this…
- Writing Cursive and the Brain. Over in the Westchester in the 1960s and 1970s FB group, they are talking about fountain pens, nuns, and cursive writing. Now, I never had the nuns, but I do use fountain pens and my cursive is horrible. I mention this because of an interesting article discovered this week about what learning cursive does to the brain. scientists are discovering that learning cursive is an important tool for cognitive development, particularly in training the brain to learn “functional specialization,” that is capacity for optimal efficiency. In the case of learning cursive writing, the brain develops functional specialization that integrates both sensation, movement control, and thinking. Brain imaging studies reveal that multiple areas of brain become co-activated during learning of cursive writing of pseudo-letters, as opposed to typing or just visual practice. There is spill-over benefit for thinking skills used in reading and writing. To write legible cursive, fine motor control is needed over the fingers. Students have to pay attention and think about what and how they are doing it. They have to practice. Brain imaging studies show that cursive activates areas of the brain that do not participate in keyboarding.
- Do Your Remember the “Enter ↑” Key? Speaking about the 1970s, how many remember HP calculators. I remember them well — a friend had the first HP programmables, whereas I was using the SR-52 and SR-56 from TI. Well, it seems that HP calculators — especially the old ones — are still very popular (especially amongst the financial crowd). Financial planners still use them to quickly run everything from routine amortization schedules and compound interest calculations to 30-year mortgages and far more complicated problems. Further, the older, the more worn, the more faded the keys, the higher the esteem in which they are held.
- “We Shall Overcome” and History. This week was the anniversary of the March on Washington, and one of the stories that emerged was about a well-known song: “We Shall Overcome”. Have you ever wondered where that song comes from? Huffington Post has a nice exploration of its history. The song’s origins go back to a refrain that slaves would sing to sustain themselves: “I’ll be all right someday.” Southern Black churches adopted the song and by 1901 a Methodist minister, Charles Tindley, published a version entitled, “I’ll Overcome Someday.” In 1945, Black members of the Food, Tobacco, and Agricultural Workers Union from Charleston, South Carolina revised the song as part of their struggle and sang it on their picket lines. They sang: “We will overcome, and we will win our rights someday.” Two years later, several of the union’s activists brought the song to the Highlander Folk School, an inter-racial training center in rural Tennessee for labor and civil rights activists founded in 1932 by Myles Horton, an educator and minister who believed in the “social gospel.” It grew from there.
- Modern History. Speaking about history, a call for papers has gone out regarding the history of Computer Security. Yup, the field in which I work is finally old enough that people are starting to study its history. I wasn’t there at the beginning, but I’ve been there for many years of it. I’ll note we’ll be exploring some of it in New Orleans this December at ACSAC 2013. Come and join us.
- Copyright and Images. Here’s an interesting article that my friend Val alerted me to. Evidently there is a show on SyFy called “Heroes of Cosplay”. Turns out, they are using images without crediting or paying the creator of those images: the photographers. So the photographer called them on it. A lawsuit has been filed, and NBC/U is being non-responsive. So the photographer went public.
- Salmonella on the Side. Two interesting articles dealing with Salmonella. In the first, NPR is reminding us not to rinse fresh meat before cooking it — it appears that there is a large risk of contamination of kitchen surfaces from the invisible splash that results. In the second, the NY Times is reporting on another source of salmonella contamination — the spices that we use in the kitchen. This one is particularly hard to trace, as spices have specialized harvesting methods, and often spices are multiple years old (they are not used fresh), so tracking the outbreak is even harder.
- Whole vs. Juice. To hear the late Jack LaLanne talk, juicing makes everything better. Well, perhaps not everything. Andrew Ducker alerted me to this piece, which notes that whole fruit is actually much much better for you than juice. Drinking juice is drinking sugar.
Music: The Best of Al Hirt (Al Hirt, Ann Margaret): “The Best Man”
