Rotundus.com

The last paragraph of this post:

I finally finished this post as today I felt, I don’t why, the acute pain of being alone. However as I stopped for dinner I had fish and I reflected on (the now confirmed) story of Jonathan Fletcher (the retired single minister of Emmanuel Wimbledon) who used to have fish cakes for Christmas lunch alone. And I reflected while families feasted perhaps Jonathan’s meal helped him better remember the feast is yet to come.

That sounds ... rather ... depressing.

Counting the Cost (Accurately)

"Why tallies of Christian martyrs vary so widely."

Green German gov battles to keep fossil powerplants running

"The German government is engaged in increasingly heated negotiations with energy companies in an effort to stop them closing carbon-emitting power plants which have been rendered unprofitable by the national renewables policies. ... government policies mean that whenever a renewable plant generates any power it will take priority on the grid. This means that fossil plants get to sell less electricity, and also that their costs rise due to being turned on and off all the time."

Erase the Red Line

"The notion that killing with gas is more reprehensible than killing with bullets or shrapnel came out of World War I, in which chemical weapons, introduced by the Germans in 1915, were used extensively. The British emphasized the weapons’ inhumane aspects as part of their ongoing program to entice the United States into taking their side in the war. It is estimated that the British quintupled their gas casualty figures from the first German attack for dramatic effect. As it happened, chemical weapons accounted for considerably less than one percent of the battle deaths in the war, and, on average, it took over a ton of gas to produce a single fatality. Only about two or three percent of those gassed on the Western front died. By contrast, wounds from a traditional weapon proved 10 to 12 times more likely to be fatal. After the war, some military analysts such as Basil Liddell Hart came to believe that chemical warfare was comparatively humane -- these weapons could incapacitate troops without killing many."

'Tomatoes are Christian,' Egyptian Salafi group warns

Apparently "The group based its claim on the fact that a shape resembling a cross is revealed when one cuts a tomato in half."

Lion Attacks an Intruder in Its Den at Taipei Zoo

"A lion attacked a man who jumped into its zoo enclosure here Wednesday and shouted, 'Jesus will save you!' at the animal"

The Passive House: Sealed for Freshness

"Passive House advocates claim their buildings require 10 to 35 percent as much energy as standard buildings, while others, like Mr. Holladay, put that at closer to 50 percent."

Israelis Facing a Seismic Rift Over Role of Women

On the Israeli ultra-Orthodox. One thing rather suggestive of problems: "The community places Torah study above all other values and has worked assiduously to make it possible for its men to do that rather than work. While the women often work, there is a 60 percent unemployment rate among the men, who also generally do not serve in the army."

Is the US the only country where more men are raped than women?

"The figures on rape may be uncertain, but we could lower the sexual assault rate in American jails – if we had the political will"

Every once in I while I wonder how much of a disconnect there is between the science, engineering, and technology world and that of the general population. Take Squirrely Nerd Gets Fashion Chemistry, an episode of the TV show What not to wear. Basically they take a female scientist, shame her for dressing horribly and tell her that her wardrobe will work against her future success.

Compare to the following excerpt of the blog post Women in IT: ‘If you want to be taken seriously, dress like a man’:

If you want to be taken seriously in IT, you need to dress like a man,” he told me. ... He told me that standing out was a distraction and customers would judge me less based on my looks if I tone down my appearance. We talked about keeping my hair pulled back and wearing more neutral attire like the rest of the guys on the team. I took his advice—traded my heels and Ann Taylor outfits for Gap khakis, button-down shirts and comfy Clarks. ... I figured it didn’t hurt to try. I wish I could tell you his advice was all wrong, but I can’t. Very soon after I stopped wearing makeup and started dressing more like man, I noticed a change in people’s interactions with me. I got fewer comments about what a surprise it was to see a woman in my role, and people started to ask me advice on IT topics. I established myself in this new career and it felt good.

So in other words, the nerdy clothing style that the show What Not To Wear tried to eliminate in favour of a "more professional" wardrobe to promote future success seems to actually have had the reverse effect in the IT environment described above. In most IT environments and most science labs that I've been around dressing too "professionally" (regardless of gender) tends to get translated as "I'm in marketing" in pretty much any situation other than perhaps a conference presentation or an interview with the media.

(For those who'd instead advance the argument that dressing as she did would leave her doomed to permanent spinsterhood - destined to become a crazy-cat-lady - it seems worth noting that at the time this episode of the What Not To Wear show was put on the air the woman in question was actually about to get married and her fiance seemed pretty indifferent about it).