"Things gradually become more terrifying..."

YouTube link.

Wait for it...

Long-term homicide trend

The earliest data points are estimated, but the overall trend is probably valid.  Commentary from Marginal Revolution:

The American data is consistent with European data... Do note that some correction should be made for the fact that violence is less lethal when people are healthier and medical care is more effective.

The bottom line is that there has been a big and welcome decrease in homicide rates in Europe and America over the past several centuries. To put these numbers in perspective, however, note that the homicide rate in New Orleans today is 52 per 100,000 and in Detroit it’s 40 per 100,000 so even with a lower average there is lots of variation. Brazil today is around 22 per 100,000 not too far from America in the 19th century. The homicide rate in El Salvador is 71 per 100,000, in Jamaica (!) 60 per 100,000 and in Honduras 67 per 100,000 — all higher than fifteenth century Europe. Thus, the past was a more violent place but not so violent as to be unknown to the present.

Via The Dish.

What lies beneath

Excavation of one of the Easter Island moai to demonstrate how much of the figure is anchored beneath the ground. 

More info here, more pix here, via.

Pictish warrior

Drawn by John White (1585-1593).  A Pictish warrior holding a human head; nude, body stained and painted with birds, animals and serpents carrying shield and man's head, with large curved sword.  Watercolour touched with bodycolour and white over graphite.

The contemporary English historian John Speed argued that the name Pict meant ‘painted or stained’ and believed that they went naked so as not to cover up their ‘painting and damasking’ which made them look more terrible in war. The Picts took heads as trophies, and they and their neighbours, men and women, bristled with weapons...

It is also worth noting that the paintings and tattoos on this Pict in particular resemble some of the more elaborate sculpted and gilded decorations on court armour of the period, which employed similar fantastic beasts on shoulders, helmets and breastplates.

From the collections of the British Museum, via.

The reading habits of TYWKIWDBI visitors

The poll began when I posted statistics about the reportedly poor reading habits of the U.S. public, and strideranne opined that TYWKIWDBI readers would be quite different.  I decided to find out.  I had no idea what choices to put in the poll, and arbitrarily chose these:

• two books a week or more (>100)
• one book a week ("about 50")
• two books a month ("about 25")
• one book a month ("about 12")
• one book a season ("about 4")
• one or two books a year
• no books, but I read other things

After the first 24 hours of the poll, the first 200 or so responses formed a very nice bell-shaped curve, peaking at the "two books a month" choice.  That was nice, because the peak was right where I was, and it seemed appropriate that I should fit at the median of the readership of the blog.

I set up the poll to last a week, and as the days went by the responses continued to pour in.  I don't have precise demographics of visitors here, but I can sense that there are several groups.  There is a "hard core" that visit every day and comment often.  A larger group (I think the majority of regular readers) come here about twice a week; this is the group for whom I designed the blog when I decided to format it with 25 posts on the front page, which is about 2-3 days of my productivity - so someone who comes twice a week can see all the new stuff without clicking through to the back pages.  Most of these readers are silent "lurkers" (as I am, on most of the sites I visit), and comment only when their expertise is useful. 

Finally, there are also a couple thousand who come on any given day in response to specific posts that have been linked elsewhere; these transients may or may not respond to a poll in a sidebar that is explained in another post.  I rather suspect the poll data mostly reflects the regular visitor.  Here are the final results from over a thousand respondents:

• read over a hundred books a year:  204
• read about 50 books a year:  223
• read about 25 books a year:  234
• read about 12 books a year:  206
• read about 4 books a year:   121
• read one or two books a year:  63
• read no books, but read other thing:  50

I could see the change in distribution happening as the week went by.  The quick responders (people here every day) clustered around 25 books/year, but those who visit once or twice a week read perhaps twice as many books on average, tipping the scale up much higher. 

And, of course, the data only reflect those who respond to the poll, which may or may not be representative of TYWKIWDBI visitors in general. I spent enough years analyzing science data not to be fooled into overinterpreting data like these.  But I do think the poll results are interesting.

What was perhaps most useful were the comments offered in response to the poll, because 60 people offered book recommendations, some of which I've added to my personal "to be read" list.  I think what I'll do in the future is about once a year write a post where people can share their book recommendations, because there is such a variety of interests among visitors here.

Mourning daguerreotype

Most of the Victorian mourning photos I have seen have depicted a deceased child.  This one is a bit different in that the father holds the motherless child in front of a folk art painting of the deceased mother.

Via Mrs. and Mr. 19th Century, via Fuck Yeah, Victorians!

Wool as an absorbent of spilled oil

From a report at The Economist:

Earlier this year, Tecnomeccanica Biellese, an engineering firm that makes machinery for the woollens industry, carried out experiments using greasy wool to see how good the fleece was at gathering oil. It turned out to be very good. Coarse wool (the cheapest sort, with a fibre diameter of between 25 and 40 microns) was able to absorb ten times its own weight of heavy fuel oil, a refinery product similar to crude. Moreover, the oil could be squeezed out and the wool reused. Indeed, even after a dozen immersions in oil, for between 15 and 20 seconds each time, the wool’s absorptive capacity did not decline...

Mechanical mixers fitted between the booms and the hull will increase the wool’s absorptive capacity. As the ship moves through a spill, the oil-impregnated wool will be gathered mechanically up ramps and taken into the ship. As the wool is transported up these ramps any droplets of water attached to it will be shaken off. Once on board the wool will be pressed to recover the oil and then reused.

Mr Ploner estimates it would cost about €1m ($1.5m) to equip a 50-metre vessel to carry ten tonnes of wool. That would be sufficient, in optimum circumstances, to recover over 1,000 tonnes of oil.

Topo maps transformed into art

This is my favorite lake in northern Minnesota, captured by local artist Crafterall, who markets through Etsy -

If you've ever visited the shores of Leech Lake, or cast your line near the reeds in one of its bays, you know that this is a magical place. Leech Lake is Minnesota's third largest lake, home to trophy-sized fish including the famously ugly Eel Pout, and boasts several points on its lake floor where the max depth reaches 150 feet.

This is an original, layered papercut piece, handmade in Minnesota, in a bright set of Aqua blues, and featuring the beautiful Leech Lake. This unique piece is intricately cut from five layers of high quality, acid-free cardstock. The top layer is a bright white, while the layers underneath are in ever-darker shades of color. 

Other lakes and locations are also available.

Via Found Here.

A day in the life of Jeff Berwick...

YouTube link.

... who has been blind for 25 years.  Nicely done.  Created by Accessible Media, a Canadian company -

Accessible Media Inc. (AMI) is a not-for-profit multimedia organization operating two broadcast services, VoicePrint and The Accessible Channel – TACtv, and a companion website (ami.ca). AMI serves more than five million Canadians who are blind, with low vision, print-restricted, deaf or hearing-impaired, learning disabled, mobility impaired, in need of literacy skills or learning English as a second language, by making print, broadcast and online media accessible.

Moral outrage fatigue, chapter 38...

TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie arrived at his son's baseball game this afternoon aboard a State Police helicopter.

Right before the lineup cards were being exchanged on the field, a noise from above distracted the spectators as the 55-foot long helicopter buzzed over trees in left field, circled the outfield and landed in an adjacent football field. Christie disembarked from the helicopter and got into a black car with tinted windows that drove him about a 100 yards to the baseball field.

During the 5th inning, Christie and First Lady Mary Pat Christie got into the car, rode back to the helicopter and left the game...

"It is a means of transportation that is occasionally used as the schedule demands," said Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak in an email. "This has historically been the case in prior administrations as well, and we continue to be judicious in limiting its use."

The governor had no public events on his schedule, offering no insight to where he might have been traveling from. He had a private meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Drumthwacket, the governor's mansion, in Princeton. He is meeting with a group of Iowa donors who have publically expressed a desire to persuade him to run for president in 2012.

Christie was ferried to the field in a brand-new AugustaWestland helicopter, purchased at a cost to taxpayers of $12.5 million.

Text and file photo from the New Jersey Star-Ledger, via Reddit.  I don't know whether in this era of cost-cutting and budgetary constraints politicians are just totally oblivious as to the public's perceptions of their activities, or whether they just don't give a f*** what the public thinks.

Addendum/update June 4:
First this happened -

Facing broad criticism for flying by helicopter to watch his son’s high school baseball game in Bergen County, Gov. Chris Christie refused today to refund the state for Tuesday’s $2,500-an-hour flight. "The governor does not reimburse for security and travel," a spokesman for the governor, Kevin Roberts, said in an e-mail message. "The use of air travel has been extremely limited and appropriate."..

As for Christie’s use of a car to get the 100 yards from the landing site to the ball park, which was ridiculed by Van Susteren and others, Jones said the cars were there for the governor’s safety.
"If the helicopter got called away for a higher priority mission, then the governor would be transported to his next location on the ground," Jones said.

Then this -

After a firestorm of criticism, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie made an about-face Thursday, reimbursing the state for his personal use of a state police helicopter because he said the story had become a distraction from the real problems facing the state.

Remaining unapologetic about his use of the helicopter to attend two of his son's baseball games and a political dinner with GOP campaign contributors from Iowa, Christie said that he has reimbursed the state about $2,100 and asked the state Republican Party to pay about $1,200 for his trip to see the donors.

"There, I fixed it"

Via picshag and Found Shit.

Commercials coming to PBS

Sponsorship arrived many years ago, but now advertisements will be inserted into the body of the programming, as illustrated in the graphic above.  From a report in The Atlantic:

Network executives hope that the new strategy will prevent viewers from fleeing to other stations during the promotional breaks between programs, some of which can last up to eight minutes...

This is sad for two reasons. First, nobody wants to snap out of the Ken Burns zone for even a few seconds. As The Times points out in their coverage, PBS's chief selling point to both audiences and sponsors was the unbroken programming, a format that both felt more authentic and supports the in-depth focus of shows like Frontline or any of the network's many documentaries about everything you didn't think was so exceedingly interesting until you sat down and leaned in for an hour...

Second, this latest shake-up draws further attention to how [PBS] is in trouble. Last week, on the heels of the same meeting during which executives unveiled the new interrupted programming structure, The Times also reported how a number of stations were withdrawing from the network because of record high dues, in some cases to be replaced with programming from religious networks.

"Super cool"

A model presents a casual office wear during a "Super Cool Biz" fashion show, a government-sponsored event featuring outfits appropriate for the office yet cool enough to endure the sweltering heat.

Photo credit AP, via the Telegraph.

Real house prices

Still going down.  "Real," in this case, reflecting adjustment for inflation.  More info on the indexes used, and graphs before inflation adjustment and house priceds compared to rent costs, at Calculated Risk.

Crab spider captures an American Copper

Photo credit Dan Sonnenberg, via Wisconsin Butterflies sightings page.