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🔗 Human rights 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Freedom of speech 🔗 Philosophy/Logic 🔗 Politics 🔗 Psychology 🔗 Sociology 🔗 Education 🔗 Popular Culture 🔗 Debating

A lie-to-children is a simplified, and often technically incorrect, explanation of technical or complex subjects employed as a teaching method. Educators who employ lies-to-children do not intend to deceive, but instead seek to 'meet the child/pupil/student where they are', in order to facilitate initial comprehension, which they build upon over time as the learner's intellectual capacity expands. The technique has been incorporated by academics within the fields of biology, evolution, bioinformatics and the social sciences.

🔗 Crime 🔗 Africa 🔗 Squatting 🔗 Africa/Ghana

Agbogbloshie is a nickname of a commercial district on the Korle Lagoon of the Odaw River, near the center of Accra, Ghana's capital city. Near the slum called "Old Fadama", the Agbogbloshie site became known as a destination for externally generated automobile and electronic scrap collected from mostly the western world. It was alleged to be at the center of a legal and illegal exportation network for the environmental dumping of electronic waste (e-waste) from industrialized nations. The Basel Action Network, a small NGO based in Seattle, has referred to Agbogbloshie as a "digital dumping ground", where they allege millions of tons of e-waste are processed each year.

However, repeated international studies have failed to confirm the allegations, which have been labelled an "e-waste hoax" by international reuse advocate WR3A. The most exhaustive study of the trade in used electronics in Nigeria, funded by UNEP and Basel Convention, revealed that from 540 000 tonnes of informally processed waste electronics, 52% of the material was recovered.

According to statistics from the World Bank, in large cities like Accra and Lagos the majority of households have owned televisions and computers for decades. The UN Report "Where are WEEE in Africa" (2012) disclosed that the majority of used electronics found in African dumps had not in fact been recently imported as scrap, but originated from these African cities. Agbogbloshie is situated on the banks of the Korle Lagoon, northwest of Accra's Central Business District. Roughly 40,000 Ghanaians inhabit the area, most of whom are migrants from rural areas. Due to its harsh living conditions and rampant crime, the area is nicknamed "Sodom and Gomorrah".

The Basel Convention prevents the transfrontier shipment of hazardous waste from developed to less developed countries. However, the Convention specifically allows export for reuse and repair under Annex Ix, B1110. While numerous international press reports have made reference to allegations that the majority of exports to Ghana are dumped, research by the US International Trade Commission found little evidence of unprocessed e-waste being shipped to Africa from the United States, a finding corroborated by the United Nations Environment Programme, MIT, Memorial University, Arizona State University, and other research. In 2013, the original source of the allegation blaming foreign dumping for the material found in Agbogbloshie recanted, or rather stated it had never made the claim that 80% of US e-waste is exported.

Whether domestically generated by residents of Ghana or imported, concern remains over methods of waste processing - especially burning - which emit toxic chemicals into the air, land and water. Exposure is especially hazardous to children, as these toxins are known to inhibit the development of the reproductive system, the nervous system, and especially the brain. Concerns about human health and the environment of Agbogbloshie continue to be raised as the area remains heavily polluted. In the 2000s, the Ghanaian government, with new funding and loans, implemented the Korle Lagoon Ecological Restoration Project (KLERP), an environmental remediation and restoration project that will address the pollution problem by dredging the lagoon and Odaw canal to improve drainage and flooding into the ocean.

🔗 Computer science 🔗 Philosophy 🔗 Psychology 🔗 Philosophy/Social and political philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of science 🔗 Philosophy/Contemporary philosophy 🔗 Philosophy/Philosophy of mind 🔗 Sociology 🔗 Cultural Evolution

Memetics is a theory of the evolution of culture based on Darwinian principles with the meme as the unit of culture. The term "meme" was coined by biologist Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, to illustrate the principle that he later called "Universal Darwinism". All evolutionary processes depend on information being copied, varied, and selected, a process also known as variation with selective retention. The information that is copied is called the replicator, and genes are the replicator for biological evolution. Dawkins proposed that the same process drives cultural evolution, and he called this second replicator the "meme". He gave as examples, tunes, catchphrases, fashions, and technologies. Like genes, memes are selfish replicators and have causal efficacy; in other words, their properties influence their chances of being copied and passed on. Some succeed because they are valuable or useful to their human hosts while others are more like viruses.

Just as genes can work together to form co-adapted gene complexes, so groups of memes acting together form co-adapted meme complexes or memeplexes. Memeplexes include (among many other things) languages, traditions, scientific theories, financial institutions, and religions. Dawkins famously referred to religions as "viruses of the mind".

Among proponents of memetics are psychologist Susan Blackmore, author of The Meme Machine, who argues that when our ancestors began imitating behaviours, they let loose a second replicator and co-evolved to become the "meme machines" that copy, vary, and select memes in culture. Philosopher Daniel Dennett develops memetics extensively, notably in his books Darwin's Dangerous Idea, and From Bacteria to Bach and Back. He describes the units of memes as "the smallest elements that replicate themselves with reliability and fecundity." and claims that "Human consciousness is itself a huge complex of memes." In The Beginning of Infinity, physicist David Deutsch contrasts static societies that depend on anti-rational memes suppressing innovation and creativity, with dynamic societies based on rational memes that encourage enlightenment values, scientific curiosity, and progress.

Criticisms of memetics include claims that memes do not exist, that the analogy with genes is false, that the units cannot be specified, that culture does not evolve through imitation, and that the sources of variation are intelligently designed rather than random. Critics of memetics include biologist Stephen Jay Gould who calls memetics a "meaningless metaphor". Philosopher Dan Sperber argues against memetics as a viable approach to cultural evolution because cultural items are not directly copied or imitated but are reproduced. Anthropologist Robert Boyd and biologist Peter Richerson work within the alternative, and more mainstream, field of cultural evolution theory and gene-culture coevolution. Dual inheritance theory has much in common with memetics but rejects the idea that memes are replicators. From this perspective, memetics is seen as just one of several approaches to cultural evolution and one that is generally considered less useful than the alternatives of gene-culture coevolution or dual inheritance theory. The main difference is that dual inheritance theory ultimately depends on biological advantage to genes, whereas memetics treats memes as a second replicator in its own right. Memetics also extends to the analysis of Internet culture and Internet memes.

🔗 Visual arts

A pointing machine is a measuring tool used by stone sculptors and woodcarvers to accurately copy plaster, clay or wax sculpture models into wood or stone. In essence the device is a pointing needle that can be set to any position and then fixed. It further consists of brass or stainless steel rods and joints which can be placed into any position and then tightened. It is not actually a machine; its name is derived from the Italian macchinetta di punta. The invention of the tool has been ascribed to both the French sculptor and medallist Nicolas-Marie Gatteaux (1751–1832) and to the British sculptor John Bacon (1740–1799). It was later perfected by Canova. However, similar devices were used in ancient times, when the copying of Greek sculptures for the Roman market was a large industry.

🔗 Computing

PL/0 is a programming language, intended as an educational programming language, that is similar to but much simpler than Pascal, a general-purpose programming language. It serves as an example of how to construct a compiler. It was originally introduced in the book, Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs, by Niklaus Wirth in 1976. It features quite limited language constructs: there are no real numbers, very few basic arithmetic operations and no control-flow constructs other than "if" and "while" blocks. While these limitations make writing real applications in this language impractical, it helps the compiler remain compact and simple.

🔗 Chemical and Bio Engineering

Non-explosive demolition agents are chemicals that are an alternative to explosives and gas pressure blasting products in demolition, mining, and quarrying. To use non-explosive demolition agents in demolition or quarrying, holes are drilled in the base rock as they would be for use with conventional explosives. A slurry mixture of the non-explosive demolition agent and water is poured into the drill holes. Over the next few hours the slurry expands, cracking the rock in a pattern somewhat like the cracking that would occur from conventional explosives.

Non-explosive demolition agents offer many advantages including that they are silent and do not produce vibration the way a conventional explosive would. In some applications conventional explosives are more economical than non-explosive demolition agents. In many countries these are available without restriction, unlike explosives which are highly regulated.

The active ingredient is typically calcium oxide, "burnt lime," and is typically mixed with Portland cement and modifiers.

These agents are much safer than explosives, but they have to be used as directed to avoid steam explosions during the first few hours after being placed.

Many patents describe non-explosive demolition agents containing CaO, SiO₂ and/or cement.

🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software

Norton Commander (NC) is a discontinued prototypical orthodox file manager (OFM), written by John Socha and released by Peter Norton Computing (later acquired in 1990 by the Symantec corporation). NC provides a text-based user interface for managing files on top of MS-DOS. It was officially produced between 1986 and 1998. The last MS-DOS version of Norton Commander, 5.51, was released on July 1, 1998.

A related product, Norton Desktop, a graphical shell for MS-DOS and Windows, succeeded Norton Commander. It came in two variants, Norton Desktop for DOS and Norton Desktop for Windows.

🔗 Disaster management 🔗 Death 🔗 Kansas City 🔗 Missouri

On July 17, 1981, two walkways collapsed at the Hyatt Regency Kansas City hotel in Kansas City, Missouri, one directly above the other. They crashed onto a tea dance being held in the hotel's lobby, killing 114 and injuring 216. As a product of a corporate culture of profound neglect, the disaster contributed many lessons to the study of engineering ethics and errors, and to emergency management. The event remains the deadliest non‑deliberate structural failure in American history, and it was the deadliest structural collapse in the U.S. until the collapse of the World Trade Center towers 20 years later.

🔗 France 🔗 Middle Ages 🔗 Middle Ages/History

The Bal des Ardents (Ball of the Burning Men) or Bal des Sauvages (Ball of the Wild Men) was a masquerade ball held on 28 January 1393 in Paris at which Charles VI of France performed in a dance with five members of the French nobility. Four of the dancers were killed in a fire caused by a torch brought in by a spectator, Charles's brother Louis I, Duke of Orléans. Charles and another of the dancers survived. The ball was one of a number of events intended to entertain the young king, who the previous summer had suffered an attack of insanity. The event undermined confidence in Charles's capacity to rule; Parisians considered it proof of courtly decadence and threatened to rebel against the more powerful members of the nobility. The public's outrage forced the king and his brother Orléans, whom a contemporary chronicler accused of attempted regicide and sorcery, to offer penance for the event.

Charles's wife, Isabeau of Bavaria, held the ball to honor the remarriage of a lady-in-waiting. Scholars believe the dance performed at the ball had elements of traditional charivari, with the dancers disguised as wild men, mythical beings often associated with demonology, that were commonly represented in medieval Europe and documented in revels of Tudor England. The event was chronicled by contemporary writers such as the Monk of St Denis and Jean Froissart, and illustrated in a number of 15th-century illuminated manuscripts by painters such as the Master of Anthony of Burgundy. The incident later provided inspiration for Edgar Allan Poe's short story Hop-Frog.

🔗 Internet 🔗 Computing 🔗 Computing/Software

The Gopher protocol is a communications protocol designed for distributing, searching, and retrieving documents in Internet Protocol networks. The design of the Gopher protocol and user interface is menu-driven, and presented an alternative to the World Wide Web in its early stages, but ultimately fell into disfavor, yielding to the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP). The Gopher ecosystem is often regarded as the effective predecessor of the World Wide Web.

The protocol was invented by a team led by Mark P. McCahill at the University of Minnesota. It offers some features not natively supported by the Web and imposes a much stronger hierarchy on the documents it stores. Its text menu interface is well-suited to computing environments that rely heavily on remote text-oriented computer terminals, which were still common at the time of its creation in 1991, and the simplicity of its protocol facilitated a wide variety of client implementations. More recent Gopher revisions and graphical clients added support for multimedia. Gopher was preferred by many network administrators for using fewer network resources than Web services.

Gopher's hierarchical structure provided a platform for the first large-scale electronic library connections. The Gopher protocol is still in use by enthusiasts, and although it has been almost entirely supplanted by the Web, a small population of actively-maintained servers remains.