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Daily Archives: July 9, 2016

Database of Places, Language, Culture and Environment

About D-PLACE – the Database of Places, Language, Culture and Environment From the foods we eat, to who we can marry, to the types of games we teach our children, the diversity of cultural practices in the world is astounding. Yet, our ability to visualize and understand this diversity is often limited by the ways it traditionally has been documented and shared: on a culture-by-culture basis, in locally-told stories or difficult-to-access books and articles. D-PLACE, which stands for ‘Database of Places, Language, Culture, and Environment,’ represents an attempt to bring together this dispersed corpus of information. It aims to make it easy for individuals to contrast their own cultural practices with those of other societies, and to consider the factors that may underlie cultural similarities and differences. So far, D-PLACE contains cultural, linguistic, environmental and geographic information for over 1400 human ‘societies’. A ‘society’ in D-PLACE represents a group of people in a particular locality, who often share a language and cultural identity. All cultural descriptions are tagged with the date to which they refer and with the ethnographic sources that provided the descriptions. The majority of the cultural descriptions in D-PLACE are based on ethnographic work carried out in the 19th and early-20th centuries (pre-1950). In linking societies to a geographic location (using a reported latitude and longitude) and language, D-PLACE allows interested users to simultaneously consider how cultural practices relate to linguistic ancestry, practices of neighbouring cultures, and the environment. D-PLACE makes visualizing these relationships easy, with search results available as a table, on a map, or on a linguistic tree. While D-PLACE is designed to be expandable, most of the initial cultural data in D-PLACE were originally compiled by two anthropologists, George P. Murdock and Lewis R. Binford, each relying on hundreds of individual references. Murdock and Binford’s core datasets are described in more detail in the Data Source section. The D-PLACE team is made up of scientists with a broad range of interests who share a passion for interdisciplinary inquiry. More information on: citing D-PLACE, related publications, and the technology and source code. D-PLACE is a work in progress. We welcome suggestions for corrections and/or for additional data…”

Gallup – Public Opinion Context: Americans, Race and Police

Frank Newport – “The deaths of five police officers in Dallas, along with the recent deaths of two black men in Louisiana and Minnesota at the hands of police, highlighted — again — the importance of understanding attitudes of the American public, including blacks and whites, toward the police and criminal justice system…” Continue Reading

EFF – Senate Still Considering Giving FBI More Power to Spy on Browser History

Via EFF – “Despite strong opposition in Congress and from the grassroots, the FBI is still pushing to expand its National Security Letter (NSL) authority. The proposed amendments would allow the FBI to serve companies with NSLs and obtain a wide range of Internet records, known as Electronic Communication Transactional Records (ECTRs), including browsing history. … Continue Reading

Foundation works on cycling program to help ADHD kids

Specialized Foundation created to tackle ADHD 501c3 foundation funds research and cycling programs for kids “It’s a personal issue for Specialized founder Mike Sinyard, who said he has long struggled with ADHD symptoms himself and then later with his son, Anthony, who was prescribed Ritalin. Sinyard and Specialized are hopeful that exercise — or, more… Continue Reading

Essay – After Deference

Pojanowski, Jeffrey A., After Deference (July 7, 2016). Missouri Law Review, Vol. 81, 2017, Forthcoming. Available for download at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=2806435 “This essay explores what judicial review of agency interpretations of law would look like if the Supreme Court abandoned Chevron deference in favor de novo review. It concludes that such an alternative regime has… Continue Reading