There are so many stories of heroism from WW II. Terrible times produce great as well as terrible people, I suppose.
Originally shared by Self-Rescuing Princess Society
Sigrid Schultz – the dragon from Chicago
How have I never heard of Sigrid Schultz before? Here was a trailblazing reporter who rose to the position of chief correspondent for Central Europe, making her America’s first woman bureau chief at a foreign desk, and who refused to be silenced by the Nazis at the most dangerous time. I cannot believe that I hadn’t heard of this amazing woman until earlier this week!
She stayed in Germany throughout the 1930s and the lead-up to WW2, filing reports about concentration camps, government assaults on churches and other institutions, telling the truth about increasing persecution of Germany’s Jews, warning about dangerous alliances with other countries, and otherwise trying to convince the world of the atrocities she was witnessing, all while facing both the dangers of being a reporter on the ground and dealing with an uninterested public back home.
I think it’s natural to wonder what we’d do in these kinds of terrible challenges. I sincerely hope I would find the strength to be as fearless as Sigrid Schultz. What a truly remarkable, inspirational woman!
These are about 50:50 pedantic insistence on lost causes (like “data” as plural) and correction of common confusions between similar words (like “home in”). See if you can spot which is which.
Originally shared by Rob Jongschaap
Harvard linguist reveals most misused words in English – Business Insider
‘… Here are some highlights:
Adverse means “detrimental.” It does not mean “averse” or “disinclined.” Correct: “There were adverse effects.” / “I’m not averse to doing that.”
Appraise means to “ascertain the value of.” It does not mean to “apprise” or to “inform.” Correct: “I appraised the jewels.” / “I apprised him of the situation.”
Beg the question means that a statement assumes the truth of what it should be proving; it does not mean to “raise the question.” Correct: “When I asked the dealer why I should pay more for the German car, he said I would be getting ‘German quality,’ but that just begs the question.”
Bemused means “bewildered.” It does not mean “amused.” Correct: “The unnecessarily complex plot left me bemused.” / “The silly comedy amused me.”
Cliché is a noun, not an adjective. The adjective is clichéd. Correct: “Shakespeare used a lot of clichés.” / “The plot was so clichéd.”
Data is a plural count noun not, standardly speaking, a mass noun. [Note: “Data is rarely used as a plural today, just as candelabra and agenda long ago ceased to be plurals,” Pinker writes. “But I still like it.”] Correct: “This datum supports the theory, but many of the other data refute it.”
Depreciate means to “decrease in value.” It does not mean to “deprecate” or to “disparage.” Correct: “My car has depreciated a lot over the years.” / “She deprecated his efforts.”
Disinterested means “unbiased.” It does not mean “uninterested.” Correct: “The dispute should be resolved by a disinterested judge.” / “Why are you so uninterested in my story?”
Enormity refers to extreme evil. It does not mean “enormousness.” [Note: It is acceptable to use it to mean a deplorable enormousness.] Correct: “The enormity of the terrorist bombing brought bystanders to tears.” / “The enormousness of the homework assignment required several hours of work.”
Hone means to “sharpen.” It does not mean to “home in on” or “to converge upon.” Correct: “She honed her writing skills.” / “We’re homing in on a solution.”
Hung means “suspended.” It does not mean “suspended from the neck until dead.” Correct: “I hung the picture on my wall.” / “The prisoner was hanged.”
Ironic means “uncannily incongruent.” It does not mean “inconvenient” or “unfortunate.” Correct: “It was ironic that I forgot my textbook on human memory.” / “It was unfortunate that I forgot my textbook the night before the quiz.”
Nonplussed means “stunned” or “bewildered.” It does not mean “bored” or “unimpressed.” Correct: “The market crash left the experts nonplussed.” / “His market pitch left the investors unimpressed.”
Parameter refers to a variable. It not mean “boundary condition” or “limit.” Correct: “The forecast is based on parameters like inflation and interest rates.” / “We need to work within budgetary limits.”
Phenomena is a plural count noun — not a mass noun. Correct: “The phenomenon was intriguing, but it was only one of many phenomena gathered by the telescope.”
Shrunk, sprung, stunk, and sunk are past participles–not words in the past tense. Correct: “I’ve shrunk my shirt.” / “I shrank my shirt.”
Simplistic means “naively or overly simple.” It does not mean “simple” or “pleasingly simple.” Correct: “His simplistic answer suggested he wasn’t familiar with the material.” / “She liked the chair’s simple look.”
Verbal means “in linguistic form.” It does not mean “oral” or “spoken.” Correct: “Visual memories last longer than verbal ones.”
Effect means “influence”; to effect means “to put into effect”; to affect means either “to influence” or “to fake.” Correct: “They had a big effect on my style.” / “The law effected changes at the school.” / “They affected my style.” / “He affected an air of sophistication to impress her parents.”
Lie (intransitive: lies, lay, has lain) means to “recline”; lay (transitive: lays, laid, has laid) means to “set down”; lie (intransitive: lies, lied, has lied) means to “fib.” Correct: “He lies on the couch all day.” / “He lays a book upon the table.” / “He lies about what he does.”
These challenges include “write a song that listeners are unable to distinguish from a new song by Taylor Swift” and “write a novel that reaches the New York Times bestseller list”. But there are also some, earlier in the list, that humans currently find relatively easy but machines find hard.
Sustainability and self-sufficiency are themes for our future, I believe.
Originally shared by Greg Batmarx
Two acres of land is enough to farm a sustainable food supply for as many as 150 people, and now a San Francisco startup is making it even easier to get that farm growing. Farm From a Box is a shipping container kit that holds all the essentials for setting up a two-acre farm (except the land, of course).
Founders Brandi DeCarli and Scott Thompson got the idea after working on a youth center in Kenya where shipping containers were being used to substitute where infrastructure lacked.
That project didn’t address food insecurity, though, which led DeCarli and Thompson to found their own venture specifically for that purpose.
Farm From a Box is a kit designed to make it easier for all types of organizations to start growing sustainable food. Nonprofit humanitarian agencies, schools, community groups, and even individuals can buy a $50,000 kit, which comes with a complete water system including a solar-powered pump and drip irrigation system.
Together, those features help conserve water by using it more efficiently, delivering water directly to the roots of growing plants.
All of the kit’s components are solar-powered, so the kit also includes 3 kW of solar energy capacity which is enough to power the water pump as well as WiFi connectivity that makes it possible to monitor the farm conditions remotely. Because the built-in solar power technology generates more than enough energy to power the farm’s equipment, the farm is suitable to run completely off the grid.
All the prospective farmer needs to have is viable land, of course, and seeds. Luckily, the Farm From a Box team realizes that farming is largely about skill and science, so the kit also includes three stages of training materials on sustainable farming, farm technology and maintenance, as well as the business of farming.
In a recent interview with Smithsonian Magazine, DiCarli explained that the farm kit was designed to “act as a template” and that it’s possible to “plug in” components that specifically fit the farm’s local climate and the farmers’ needs. Those options include internal cold storage, to help preserve crops between harvest and consumption or sale, and a water purification system, if needed.
So far, Farm From a Box has deployed one prototype at Shone Farm in Sonoma County, California.
A project of Santa Rosa Junior College, the farm is part of a larger outdoor laboratory in which students learn how to cultivate crops in drought conditions, and then the harvest is used to supply the farm’s own community-supported agriculture (CSA) program as well as the college’s culinary arts program.
DiCarli said the Shone Farm prototype turned out to be “more efficient than we had even planned,” with “really high” production and energy output. Farm From a Box has a number of other potential sites lined up already, in Ethiopia, Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan, as well as additional test farms in California and a veteran-partnered site in Virginia.
Putting this one under Collective Endeavour, because that’s part of what we’ll need to be good at in the future.
I’d note that the job I do as a business analyst kind of existed (as a very specialised thing that a few people did) when I was at school, but I wasn’t aware of its existence until several years after I’d graduated from university, with a degree that theoretically doesn’t qualify me to do what I do. Fortunately, people hire me largely for the skills that are mentioned in this article.
(Laura Gibbs will enjoy this one, I think.)
Originally shared by Singularity Hub
“65 percent of children entering grade school this year (2011) will end up working in careers that haven’t even been invented yet.”
