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Daily Archives: September 3, 2018

From punishing to pleasurable, how cursive writing is looping back into (some) of our hearts

Washington Post – “Cursive in all its flowing permutations — the opal-shaped calligraphy of Spencerian, the simplified and precise Palmer Method; the spare D’Nealian, distinguished by its saucy “monkey tails”; the stolid and reliable Zaner-Bloser — was once a staple of American elementary education. In the classroom pantheon of Reading, Writing, Arithmetic, cursive was the writing. In recent decades, cursive was declared moribund, if not dead, after it was shredded from the Common Core in most states, including Connecticut. Typewriters, copiers, computers, phones, a veritable “Murder on the Orient Express” of culprits, had conspired to kill it. By the mid-aughts, only 15 percent of SAT essays were submitted in script. Today, many adults utilize a mash-up of cursive and print that often can be deciphered only by the author. Brigid Guertin, executive director of the Danbury Museum & Historical Society, has struggled to find interns capable of deciphering the sepia-tinted documents of their city’s handwritten past. “The majority of our assets are in cursive and not transcribed,” she said. So three years ago she launched cursive camp, in hopes of training tomorrow’s interns today. Surprisingly, children and parents flocked to it….”

Going Cashless: What Can We Learn from Sweden’s Experience?

Knowledge@Wharton: “Sweden is regarded as the poster child of cashless countries and is expected to become the world’s first cashless society by March 2023. This means that cash will not be a generally accepted means of payment in Sweden. This journey has been powered by various factors such as a robust card payment system, strong… Continue Reading

Why the Future of Data Storage is (Still) Magnetic Tape

From the “I told you so category”…Why the Future of Data Storage is (Still) Magnetic Tape Disk drives are reaching their limits, but magnetic tape just gets better and better “It should come as no surprise that recent advances in big-data analytics and artificial intelligence have created strong incentives for enterprises to amass information about… Continue Reading

Visualizing Data in 3D

Visualizing Data in 3D – “Microsoft has published a free data visualization tool called Charts 3D that allows PC and Surface Hub users to create 3D visualizations of multi-axis data without knowing how to code. After users import datasets, Charts 3D generates an interactive graphic, such as a geospatial plot, scatter plot, or line graph.… Continue Reading

Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2018

The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication released their 2018 Climate Opinion Maps last month (August 2018). Users may create queries that will deliver results specific to “how Americans’ climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support vary at the state, congressional district, metro area, and county levels.” “…Public opinion estimates are produced using a… Continue Reading

Trump issues Order to Cut Federal Government Employee Pay Raises and Locality Pay

Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate Issued on: August 30, 2018: “I am transmitting an alternative plan for pay adjustments for civilian Federal employees covered by the General Schedule and certain other pay systems in January 2019. Title 5, United… Continue Reading

Leonardo da Vinci’s Earliest Notebooks Now Digitized and Made Free Online

Explore Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook: Codex Forster I – “Famous worldwide as the painter of such masterpieces as the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci (1452 – 1519) is also renowned for his notebooks in which he recorded his thoughts and inventions. Five of these fascinating notebooks, bound into three small volumes, have been in our… Continue Reading

Giving Every Part of the World an Address

Bloomerg – Giving Every Part of the World an Address – “A London-based mapping startup called What3Words has developed an address system for the entire world that uses combinations of 3 words for each location. Traditional address systems can be confusing and vary substantially between countries, and developing countries may lack these systems entirely, posing… Continue Reading

Mapping Pre-existing Conditions across the U.S.

Kaiser Family Foundation : Mapping Pre-existing Conditions across the U.S. – Rachel Fehr, Anthony Damico, Larry Levitt Follow @larry_levitt on Twitter , Gary Claxton, Cynthia Cox Follow @cynthiaccox on Twitter , and Karen Pollitz – Published: Aug 28, 2018: “The future of protections for people with pre-existing conditions has once again become a focus of… Continue Reading