What3words: the app that can save your life
Police have urged everyone to download a smartphone app they say has already saved several lives.
What3words essentially points to a very specific location. Its developers divided the world into 57 trillion squares, each measuring 3m by 3m (10ft by 10ft) and each having a unique, randomly assigned three-word address. It turned out that 40,000 words was enough to map the whole world.
Why do we need such specific locations? Postcodes sometimes cover large areas in very rural locations - ambulances, fire services and delivery services and trades people may have difficulty finding you. Your sat-nav can quickly go out-of-date if you are moving onto a new housing estate. You may be walking or hiking or climbing in a remote area and get into difficulty.
35 Welsh and English emergency services have signed up for its service and they'd like more people to get the app.
If people do not have the app, the emergency services can send a text message containing a web link to their phones. But this requires a signal (85% of the country is said to have a4G connection). The app does not need a phone signal to tell someone their location, however.
Mongolia has adopted what3words for its postal service, while Lonely Planet's guide for the country gives three-word addresses for its points of interest. Mercedes Benz has included the system in its cars and what3words is now being used in 35 languages.
Some examples are the door of 10 Downing Street (slurs.this.shark), while the area across the road where the press congregate has its own address (stage.pushy.nuns)
Source: BBC News website, What3words: the app that can save your life, 15 Aug. 2019 ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-49319760 )
Sunday, 25 August 2019
Sunday, 18 August 2019
Babies Brains
A fascinating documentary study on babies from birth to two years old.
- Babies are born with 50 trillion nerve connections in their brains. Over time, some little used connections will be pruned and extra connections made through activity.
- At 1 week old, babies respond to faces much more than objects. Activity is found in part of our 'social brain'.
- From 4 months to 1 year, babies love and need one-to-one attention. Long-term social deprivation is harmful.
- At 12 months or even at 7 months, babies will choose the good 'helpful' puppet.
- Parents respond quickly to babies' cries. The sound pattern arouses the parent's amygdala.
- Bonding through laughter decreases stress and boosts immune system. Peekaboo was more likely to cause laughter, followed by stuffing mouth with flannel, ripping up paper, cup on head and last, animals making strange noises. Laughing helps social connection. Babies laugh more with older siblings and find dogs twice as funny as cats.
- Babies temperament shows early - whether they are excitable, calm, cautious.
- Personal preferences about people. Race is easy for babies to distinguish, and who they see around them gives familiarity. They recognise and look for fairness in a person's behaviour, but will prefer to play with someone of the same race. Good therefore to expose them to wide range of people and environments.
- In the 1990s, young children chose gender specific roles (male and female dolls and a range of activities, e.g., washing, housework, rocking the baby, washing the car). In contrast in 2018, toddlers around 2 yrs old chose both genders for all activities apart from washing the car.
- Once babies are walking and more stable physically (around 19 months), they display preferences for specific activities - dancing, lego and building, football, drawing, phones.
- Around 75% of babies use mobile phones daily. Studies show a possible negative impact on sleep and attention, but a positive impact on fine motor control (phone users are better at building a tower from blocks).
- Talking - when do babies learn rules of conversation? Five babies 12 to 14 months watched robot/person demonstration of alternate babbling. Babies then copied 'answering' when the robot 'talked' to them.
- Using 'parentese' helps babies learn speech, as it heightens pitch, lengthens words and stresses rhythm. Babies brains synchronise with the rhythm of speech.
- Where there are multiple languages spoken at home, babies easily learn all they hear. They can detect all possible phonemes (individual sounds that make up words) even when these are very close in sound, where adults cannot, unless they know the sounds in the language(s) they use. However this ability only lasts a short while (between 6 and 8 months) and is gone by the age of twelve months, as brain connections are reinforced or deactivated.
- At 18 months they are communicating verbally with carers as they are more important. At this stage also there is an explosion of words, which speeds up between 18 and 24 months.
- They start to use social words (hiya, thank you). Regional differences in frequency of words in use (thank you, sorry).
- Hearing lots of words means better language ability later and bigger vocabulary later, and so do better at school.
- Babies gain a sense of self at around 21 months when they recognise themselves in a mirror.
- Understanding that other people can feel differently from oneself. Presented with broccoli and crisps, babies typically chose crisps. Shown an adult obviously preferring the broccoli, from about 18 months will give the adults preference to the adult.
- Empathy is thought to develop in stages. First awareness of distress, later wanting to help. Thought this did not occur until 2 years. A 17 month old instant awareness of distress but doesn't know what to do. At 18 months goes to mum 'asking for help'. At 2 years tries to comfort crying baby doll with bottle.
- Self control skills predict better concentration at school, and better at exams.
- Crawling is a baby's first taste of independence. However they have no depth perception and new crawlers will go straight across a clear plastic bridge over a sheer drop. But within a few weeks they have learnt about the risk and will not cross even to reach mother.
- When infants begin to walk their perception of the world changes from the restricted vision of the floor to seeing much more around them, especially people. They also start to carry things and become more independent.
- By age 2 they are wanting to do things themselves and often start nursery at this age. Since parents are not there to help, they must learn to play and co-operate with others. In an experiment where 2 children must each pull a lever at the same time to release a toy after a single demonstration by an adult, they can do this at 2 years.
- Memory. Shown an interesting toy, and then cover it. Young babies lose interest, but by 10 months will pull off the cloth to find the toy. This follows the 8th month growth spurt in the frontal lobes. This ability is also the cause of separation anxiety.
- At 2 years start to keep memory of what is seen and adding information given by adult. Shown a furry rabbit toy named Lucy, then taken to another activity. The adult then tells them the rabbit has got wet and shows them a dry rabbit and a wet one, otherwise identical. Asked to say which is Lucy, one child selected the wet rabbit at 19 months, and 3 out of 5 did so at age 2.
- Tantrums are caused by frustration and best ended by distraction. Babies eventually learn to distract themselves.
Sunday, 4 August 2019
The Story of Immigration to Britain
Bloody foreigners: the story of immigration to Britain by Robert Winder. Abacus, 2005.
Immigrants tend to be entrepreneurial risk-takers and rule-flouters, with a keen sense of individual liberty. Migration can also be forced, either directly (war, famine, political) or indirectly (poverty).
The first settlers of the UK, some 25,000 years ago, probably came from the south. Later waves of settlement followed from the Rhine basin; from southern Europe (dark colouring); and the Celts (fair skin and red hair) from east of the Alps. (Those with dark 'Celtic' colouring are actually likely to be Mediterranean in origin). The Romans forced the local tribes (including the Brythonic, from which we get the term Britons) to the edges of the country in Cornwall (and overseas to Brittany), Scotland and Wales. The Roman army had few Italians; the majority of the troops were Gauls, Hungarians, Germans and some North Africans.
The next invasions were from Northern Germanic tribes - Jutes from northern Denmark, Angles from central Denmark and Saxons from northern Germany, and Vikings. The Celtic language all but vanished and Latin was little used. The Norman (themselves Danish in origin) invasion formed the basis of the English aristocracy. Since this time there have been many migrants over the centuries.
In the 12th century came Dutch textile workers; also Jewish money lenders, though tensions eventually led to their expulsion in 1290. In the 13th century the migrants were Italian financiers, German, Dutch, Italian and French traders and craftsmen. The first gypsies were recorded in c. 1480.
The next centuries saw religion influencing migration. The French Huguenots fled persecution, especially from 1685; the French textile and allied trades suffered from the loss of skills. Then Dutch and Germans brought printing and paper making and artists. At the Restoration of the Monarchy, German and Prussian scholars were joined by Jews fleeing persecution in Europe. When Willam III took the throne, Dutch migrants followed.
In 1709, the Poor Palatines (farmers) came from Germany, fleeing persecution from the new (Catholic) Elector; some intended to go further and try their luck in America. The Hanoverian period saw the arrival of Germans, Dutch, Italians and some Jews from north and eastern Europe. The formation of the East India Company resulted in small numbers of Indians being brought back as servants and seamen, as did the slave trade with African servants. The Acts of Emancipation took down the barriers to immigration (1829 Roman Catholics and 1853 Jews).
In Europe, Britain had a reputation for being a good (if grudging) friend to the displaced. The 19th century saw 'clever' refugees from the failed continental revolutions of 1848: Italy, France, Hungary, Poland and Russia. Victoria's marriage to Albert saw further German migration. Italians first came as street urchins (organised by gang-masters), builders and allied trades; later Italian migrants sold ice-cream and fish and chips. The Irish came as seasonal workers and manual labourers, especially at the time of the Potato famine in the 1840's (Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1707 to 1922).
The 20th century saw a Jewish exodus from Poland, Russia, the Baltic and Eastern Europe. There was a drift of Chinese seamen and African and Caribbean students, plus doctors, lawyers, scholars and entrepreneurs from India. More Jews came in the 1930's as the Nazi party gained power; some went on the the USA. After WW2, some Poles stayed on, while West Indians came for better prospects (and to fill labour shortages). Indians, especially Anglo-Indians, arrived after the India/Pakistan partition in 1948. Hungarians fled the Soviet takeover (1956) and Cypriots fled the Greek/Turkish partition. Other groups were actually or virtually expelled from their home countries: Asians from Kenya (1967) and Uganda (1971), Chinese via Hong Kong (1960's) and Vietnam (1970's). More recent immigrants have been refugees from war-torn areas and economic migrants from Eastern Europe.
Germany and Italy are both federations of once competing sovereignties, while the US is a mix of recent immigrants; Europe is currently promoting the federal model not separate nations. In contrast, in other places ethnic pride has been at the forefront and resulted in enmity: India v Pakistan; Isreal v Palestine; Cyprus; Sri Lanka; Hutu v Tutsi in Rwanda. This should raise warning signs over the current separatist feelings in Scotland and Wales.
Children of migrants are more outgoing than their parents but the next generation occasionally revive rather than abandon the convictions of their grandparents. It seems that the original immigrants need to die before their descendants can accept themselves (or be accepted) as British. Most earlier migrants were keen to blend in, but some recent migrants are not so keen: examples are fundamentalist Muslims who wish to retain Islamic culture and laws, and the northern Punjab Muslims who are reluctant to sever ties with their homeland and family-based culture.
The 2001 Census showed that 7.9% of the population had an ethnic origin, but of these more than half were born in the UK. Immigrants do tend to cluster in certain areas, such as large cities, but are often uncommon in more rural communities. The Census also showed that the population of Scotland had declined by 2% as people moved to London. Headlines on immigration issues rarely note that nearly as many people emigrate each year.
Policies to govern immigration often backfire. Restrictions on short-term economic migrants and human rights acceptance of re-uniting families led to more young men settling and then bringing in wives and children. Since there is a clear correlation in recent British history that when unemployment rises, immigration falls, there could be an argument for self-regulation. Migrants do tend to have larger families; 'British' families remain at an average of 2.4 children. There has been more acceptance of, and actual rates of, 'cross-breeding' in the UK than in other cultures.
RW noted that Irish Aran jumperes were a marketing invention by a German entrepreneur in the 1930's. He chose Aran as the name of a new knitwear range after seeing a documentary on the island. When Irish wool proved unsuccessful, they were made in the Scottish Hebrides.
My note: Kilts were originally loose-fitting, full body and short-skirted garments, similar to Roman togas, that can be traced back to ancient times. Worn exclusively by male warriors in the Scottish highlands, they were made of a checked wool fabric that came to be known as tartan. (Tartan is an old Spanish word that originally described a type of cloth, irrespective of whether it was patterned.) At this time, clans or tribes did not claim specific patterns or colours as their own. However, in 1739, the British military began to organize Highlanders into regiments that wore specific tartans as part of their uniforms. Soon after Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley (pub. 1814) became famous, a commission in London created an official register of clan tartans. Many clan leaders sent samples of whatever they had in the attic. Other tartans came from fabric manufacturers such as Wilson & Son of Bannockburn, who more or less invented designs for customers. Most of today's clan tartans were invented by weavers and revisionist authors using fabricated 'historic' sources in the early 19th century.
END
Immigrants tend to be entrepreneurial risk-takers and rule-flouters, with a keen sense of individual liberty. Migration can also be forced, either directly (war, famine, political) or indirectly (poverty).
The first settlers of the UK, some 25,000 years ago, probably came from the south. Later waves of settlement followed from the Rhine basin; from southern Europe (dark colouring); and the Celts (fair skin and red hair) from east of the Alps. (Those with dark 'Celtic' colouring are actually likely to be Mediterranean in origin). The Romans forced the local tribes (including the Brythonic, from which we get the term Britons) to the edges of the country in Cornwall (and overseas to Brittany), Scotland and Wales. The Roman army had few Italians; the majority of the troops were Gauls, Hungarians, Germans and some North Africans.
The next invasions were from Northern Germanic tribes - Jutes from northern Denmark, Angles from central Denmark and Saxons from northern Germany, and Vikings. The Celtic language all but vanished and Latin was little used. The Norman (themselves Danish in origin) invasion formed the basis of the English aristocracy. Since this time there have been many migrants over the centuries.
In the 12th century came Dutch textile workers; also Jewish money lenders, though tensions eventually led to their expulsion in 1290. In the 13th century the migrants were Italian financiers, German, Dutch, Italian and French traders and craftsmen. The first gypsies were recorded in c. 1480.
The next centuries saw religion influencing migration. The French Huguenots fled persecution, especially from 1685; the French textile and allied trades suffered from the loss of skills. Then Dutch and Germans brought printing and paper making and artists. At the Restoration of the Monarchy, German and Prussian scholars were joined by Jews fleeing persecution in Europe. When Willam III took the throne, Dutch migrants followed.
In 1709, the Poor Palatines (farmers) came from Germany, fleeing persecution from the new (Catholic) Elector; some intended to go further and try their luck in America. The Hanoverian period saw the arrival of Germans, Dutch, Italians and some Jews from north and eastern Europe. The formation of the East India Company resulted in small numbers of Indians being brought back as servants and seamen, as did the slave trade with African servants. The Acts of Emancipation took down the barriers to immigration (1829 Roman Catholics and 1853 Jews).
In Europe, Britain had a reputation for being a good (if grudging) friend to the displaced. The 19th century saw 'clever' refugees from the failed continental revolutions of 1848: Italy, France, Hungary, Poland and Russia. Victoria's marriage to Albert saw further German migration. Italians first came as street urchins (organised by gang-masters), builders and allied trades; later Italian migrants sold ice-cream and fish and chips. The Irish came as seasonal workers and manual labourers, especially at the time of the Potato famine in the 1840's (Ireland was part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 1707 to 1922).
The 20th century saw a Jewish exodus from Poland, Russia, the Baltic and Eastern Europe. There was a drift of Chinese seamen and African and Caribbean students, plus doctors, lawyers, scholars and entrepreneurs from India. More Jews came in the 1930's as the Nazi party gained power; some went on the the USA. After WW2, some Poles stayed on, while West Indians came for better prospects (and to fill labour shortages). Indians, especially Anglo-Indians, arrived after the India/Pakistan partition in 1948. Hungarians fled the Soviet takeover (1956) and Cypriots fled the Greek/Turkish partition. Other groups were actually or virtually expelled from their home countries: Asians from Kenya (1967) and Uganda (1971), Chinese via Hong Kong (1960's) and Vietnam (1970's). More recent immigrants have been refugees from war-torn areas and economic migrants from Eastern Europe.
Germany and Italy are both federations of once competing sovereignties, while the US is a mix of recent immigrants; Europe is currently promoting the federal model not separate nations. In contrast, in other places ethnic pride has been at the forefront and resulted in enmity: India v Pakistan; Isreal v Palestine; Cyprus; Sri Lanka; Hutu v Tutsi in Rwanda. This should raise warning signs over the current separatist feelings in Scotland and Wales.
Children of migrants are more outgoing than their parents but the next generation occasionally revive rather than abandon the convictions of their grandparents. It seems that the original immigrants need to die before their descendants can accept themselves (or be accepted) as British. Most earlier migrants were keen to blend in, but some recent migrants are not so keen: examples are fundamentalist Muslims who wish to retain Islamic culture and laws, and the northern Punjab Muslims who are reluctant to sever ties with their homeland and family-based culture.
The 2001 Census showed that 7.9% of the population had an ethnic origin, but of these more than half were born in the UK. Immigrants do tend to cluster in certain areas, such as large cities, but are often uncommon in more rural communities. The Census also showed that the population of Scotland had declined by 2% as people moved to London. Headlines on immigration issues rarely note that nearly as many people emigrate each year.
Policies to govern immigration often backfire. Restrictions on short-term economic migrants and human rights acceptance of re-uniting families led to more young men settling and then bringing in wives and children. Since there is a clear correlation in recent British history that when unemployment rises, immigration falls, there could be an argument for self-regulation. Migrants do tend to have larger families; 'British' families remain at an average of 2.4 children. There has been more acceptance of, and actual rates of, 'cross-breeding' in the UK than in other cultures.
RW noted that Irish Aran jumperes were a marketing invention by a German entrepreneur in the 1930's. He chose Aran as the name of a new knitwear range after seeing a documentary on the island. When Irish wool proved unsuccessful, they were made in the Scottish Hebrides.
My note: Kilts were originally loose-fitting, full body and short-skirted garments, similar to Roman togas, that can be traced back to ancient times. Worn exclusively by male warriors in the Scottish highlands, they were made of a checked wool fabric that came to be known as tartan. (Tartan is an old Spanish word that originally described a type of cloth, irrespective of whether it was patterned.) At this time, clans or tribes did not claim specific patterns or colours as their own. However, in 1739, the British military began to organize Highlanders into regiments that wore specific tartans as part of their uniforms. Soon after Sir Walter Scott's novel Waverley (pub. 1814) became famous, a commission in London created an official register of clan tartans. Many clan leaders sent samples of whatever they had in the attic. Other tartans came from fabric manufacturers such as Wilson & Son of Bannockburn, who more or less invented designs for customers. Most of today's clan tartans were invented by weavers and revisionist authors using fabricated 'historic' sources in the early 19th century.
END
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