Beautiful blushing brides in white wedding dresses. Handsome grooms in black tuxedos. Bridesmaids in matching attire and family arrangements on one side or the other. Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue. A silver sixpence in her shoe.
There are many wedding traditions that seem rather arbitrary if you do not know the history behind them. The most notable of these is the white wedding, and especially the white wedding dress.
Today, the white wedding is meant to symbolize purity, virginity, and innocence. Brides wear their dress to their wedding of white with a white cake and white flowers. A special occasion where no other guest ought to wear white - it is the color of the celebrated bride.
Yet this was not always the case.
Before the 1840's it was almost unheard of to wear a white dress. Upper class people used weddings to showcase their wealth. They would wear fancy, vibrant dresses with furs and silks. Small gems would be embedded into the gown. It would be handmade, expensive, flashy, and fine.
The people of the lower classes dealt with wedding attire a bit differently. Instead of having a dress made for the wedding, these people of lesser means would take their best dress and wear that for the wedding instead.
Both groups, the wealthy and the poor, would wear that same dress again later for other events as the single use dress ideology didn't come about until the 20th century. This was because of a higher wealth.
The white dress came about in 1840 when Queen Victoria married the noble Prince Albert - her first cousin. It was not that the Queen had any particular fondness for the color white that led to this change, instead it was that she had a lovely piece of lace. She wanted very much to incorporate it into her dress. It was a beautiful white color.
Thus her white dress was created. The white caught on particularly well because of two factors. One factor was the queen's popularity. Because she was royalty, other women wanted to follow her choices. The second factor was wealth. Back in that time if whites were stained, they were ruined forever. Thus, wearing a white dress meant you had enough money that you could wear a dress where if anything was spilled upon it, it would have to be thrown out.
Other families of wealth and power loved this aspect and the white dress became more common. However, it was not until World War II that other more middle class families began adopting it. Even still the white dress was not fully popularized and incorporated into tradition until 1981 when Prince Charles married Diana Spencer. Almost a billion people were watching.
The white dress was incorporated into etiquette books and very quickly the Church brought it in as the symbol for purity and chastity.
The actual color for those virtues? Blue, the color of the Virgin Mary.
Tuesday, July 7, 2015
Friday, June 12, 2015
Avoiding the Golem
The golem is a mythological creature that was initially created as a protector, but began to slowly become a corrupt being. A golem is unshaped and often portrayed as stupid and slow.
From this visual comes the golem effect. Let's say you get a new employee at the office. They are just out of graduate school. Inexperienced yet seemingly bright. They're new, so you give them very little work. Of course since they're new they mess up a little bit and so you decide to give them a little less so that they can get used to the work before they take on too much.
Following so far?
Unfortunately they then mess this one up too. "I thought I told you to use indentations" you tell them. They simply nod. Frustrated, you give them a single assignment and tell them to have it done by noon.
Over time their quality begins to fall and so does the amount of work you give them. This is the golem effect. The golem effect is really a simple matter of lower expectations equals lower quality.
So how do you avoid this? You don't want to pile the new person with tons of work they can't handle. That would be asking for disaster, wouldn't it?
In comes the Pygmalion effect. This is where greater expectations equates to greater quality. This of course doesn't mean piling work on your new worker, but it does mean not lowering your expectation on their first couple failures. Tell them you expect them to do great.
Let's go back to our previous example. New, inexperienced graduate student who has come under your management. You hand them their first assignment and tell them they'll do great. Just like before they mess it up a little bit. You go over the stuff with them and tell them they'll do better next time.
You hand them their new assignment, which is not any less work, and you say "this is similar to the assignment before, I know you can do this." The employee hands it back to you with their missing indentations. Instead of lowering your expectations, give them a reminder with their next assignment or suggest they go over the guide again.
As soon as they do okay? Give them more work. Once they can handle something, give them more. Don't ever lower your expectation. Teach them. Give them reminders, and keep them excelling. Eventually your new grad student will have become just as great as your more experienced employees and your business will flourish.
More important than the work you give them is the attitude. An attitude betrays your real expectations. For example, if a teacher walks into a class of students who finds them boring before they've even started, they will be less effective. If they keep getting these kinds of situations, they'll stop trying as hard and eventually put in very little effort - becoming "that boring teacher."
Always remember to use the Pygmalion effect to your advantage. It will help you and the person that needs it. Most importantly, you'll avoid the golem who, besides turning in low quality work, they will also tend to be the worker nobody wants to be around. Because they've given up.
Help your employees: Make your work environment depend on the Pygmalion effect.
From this visual comes the golem effect. Let's say you get a new employee at the office. They are just out of graduate school. Inexperienced yet seemingly bright. They're new, so you give them very little work. Of course since they're new they mess up a little bit and so you decide to give them a little less so that they can get used to the work before they take on too much.
Following so far?
Unfortunately they then mess this one up too. "I thought I told you to use indentations" you tell them. They simply nod. Frustrated, you give them a single assignment and tell them to have it done by noon.
Over time their quality begins to fall and so does the amount of work you give them. This is the golem effect. The golem effect is really a simple matter of lower expectations equals lower quality.
So how do you avoid this? You don't want to pile the new person with tons of work they can't handle. That would be asking for disaster, wouldn't it?
In comes the Pygmalion effect. This is where greater expectations equates to greater quality. This of course doesn't mean piling work on your new worker, but it does mean not lowering your expectation on their first couple failures. Tell them you expect them to do great.
Let's go back to our previous example. New, inexperienced graduate student who has come under your management. You hand them their first assignment and tell them they'll do great. Just like before they mess it up a little bit. You go over the stuff with them and tell them they'll do better next time.
You hand them their new assignment, which is not any less work, and you say "this is similar to the assignment before, I know you can do this." The employee hands it back to you with their missing indentations. Instead of lowering your expectations, give them a reminder with their next assignment or suggest they go over the guide again.
As soon as they do okay? Give them more work. Once they can handle something, give them more. Don't ever lower your expectation. Teach them. Give them reminders, and keep them excelling. Eventually your new grad student will have become just as great as your more experienced employees and your business will flourish.
More important than the work you give them is the attitude. An attitude betrays your real expectations. For example, if a teacher walks into a class of students who finds them boring before they've even started, they will be less effective. If they keep getting these kinds of situations, they'll stop trying as hard and eventually put in very little effort - becoming "that boring teacher."
Always remember to use the Pygmalion effect to your advantage. It will help you and the person that needs it. Most importantly, you'll avoid the golem who, besides turning in low quality work, they will also tend to be the worker nobody wants to be around. Because they've given up.
Help your employees: Make your work environment depend on the Pygmalion effect.
Thursday, June 11, 2015
Where has the Honey Gone?
Recent news has shown us that bees are dying everywhere. Populations are dwindling and people are panicking.
It's something we learned in elementary school. Bees fly from flower to flower, spreading pollen and making honey. We heard that bees are good for the environment, despite how painful it is to be stung. Unfortunately the importance seems not to have fully reached our ears as children, because we are at least partly to blame for their deaths.
In an Oregon Target, customers found 25,000 dead bees in the parking lot, almost an entire hive decimated on that 2013 day. This kind of incident was not just restricted to one area or one time. In 2007, commercial bee owners began reporting a large number of losses across many states. This has continued through the last several years.
In fact, over the last few years, bee losses have continued in the 20-30% range. Because of this and incidents like the 2013 Oregon mass bee death, the EPA and the Department of Agriculture created the Federal Pollinator Health Task Force with goals including "restoring honey bee colony health to sustainable levels" and proposing restrictions on various "highly toxic pesticides."
It has been noted that bees are responsible for nearly a third of our food supply. This isn't surprising considering that besides the delicious honey-laden treats they give, they also supply plants with needed pollination. Some of these plants include almonds, blueberries, and avocados.
In a statement released by Jeff Pattis, of the USDA, "We are one poor weather event or high winter bee loss away from a pollination disaster."
Currently, the thing getting the biggest blame for this bee-mageddon is the use of insecticides, particularly ones that include the chemical neonicotinoid.
The first problem with neonicotinoids is that they are absorbed into the plant. What this means is that they are present in the pollen and nectar that the plant produces. Also of note is that neonicotinoids are used in many common lawn and garden treatments. And they can stay around in your lawn for months or even years after one coating.
Of course this means that bees are exposed to it. Often.
This wouldn't be such a problem except that it is particularly lethal to butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. There is also research that even if it doesn't kill them, it makes them more susceptible to parasites and diseases. Which brings us to the second bee killer.
Parasites. There have been many fingers pointed at parasites like the Varroa Mite for their habit of bringing about diseases. These can spread through the entire colony, bringing a quick death to an otherwise healthy group of bees.
The third biggest issue for bees? Climate change. With climate change come droughts, higher temperatures, and more chaos in terms of storms. Weather becomes less predictable and colonies don't have a way to protect against it.
Unfortunately, nor do the plants they need in order to survive.
There are things you can do, though. Instead of asking where all the honey has gone, consider taking action. You could plant things like clovers and wildflower in your yard or property. Bees will take to these plants and it will help them survive.
A similar thought process goes towards trying to curb global warming by working on your personal emissions.
You could reduce or completely cut out your use of pesticides, including Bayer products which specifically use neonicotinoids. Another option is to call a beekeeper when you find a swarm of bees, so they might relocate them.
Or consider becoming a beekeeper yourself.
It's something we learned in elementary school. Bees fly from flower to flower, spreading pollen and making honey. We heard that bees are good for the environment, despite how painful it is to be stung. Unfortunately the importance seems not to have fully reached our ears as children, because we are at least partly to blame for their deaths.
In an Oregon Target, customers found 25,000 dead bees in the parking lot, almost an entire hive decimated on that 2013 day. This kind of incident was not just restricted to one area or one time. In 2007, commercial bee owners began reporting a large number of losses across many states. This has continued through the last several years.
In fact, over the last few years, bee losses have continued in the 20-30% range. Because of this and incidents like the 2013 Oregon mass bee death, the EPA and the Department of Agriculture created the Federal Pollinator Health Task Force with goals including "restoring honey bee colony health to sustainable levels" and proposing restrictions on various "highly toxic pesticides."
It has been noted that bees are responsible for nearly a third of our food supply. This isn't surprising considering that besides the delicious honey-laden treats they give, they also supply plants with needed pollination. Some of these plants include almonds, blueberries, and avocados.
In a statement released by Jeff Pattis, of the USDA, "We are one poor weather event or high winter bee loss away from a pollination disaster."
Currently, the thing getting the biggest blame for this bee-mageddon is the use of insecticides, particularly ones that include the chemical neonicotinoid.
The first problem with neonicotinoids is that they are absorbed into the plant. What this means is that they are present in the pollen and nectar that the plant produces. Also of note is that neonicotinoids are used in many common lawn and garden treatments. And they can stay around in your lawn for months or even years after one coating.
Of course this means that bees are exposed to it. Often.
This wouldn't be such a problem except that it is particularly lethal to butterflies, bees, and other pollinators. There is also research that even if it doesn't kill them, it makes them more susceptible to parasites and diseases. Which brings us to the second bee killer.
Parasites. There have been many fingers pointed at parasites like the Varroa Mite for their habit of bringing about diseases. These can spread through the entire colony, bringing a quick death to an otherwise healthy group of bees.
The third biggest issue for bees? Climate change. With climate change come droughts, higher temperatures, and more chaos in terms of storms. Weather becomes less predictable and colonies don't have a way to protect against it.
Unfortunately, nor do the plants they need in order to survive.
There are things you can do, though. Instead of asking where all the honey has gone, consider taking action. You could plant things like clovers and wildflower in your yard or property. Bees will take to these plants and it will help them survive.
A similar thought process goes towards trying to curb global warming by working on your personal emissions.
You could reduce or completely cut out your use of pesticides, including Bayer products which specifically use neonicotinoids. Another option is to call a beekeeper when you find a swarm of bees, so they might relocate them.
Or consider becoming a beekeeper yourself.
Monday, June 8, 2015
From Pig Skin to Big Wins - About the Football
Football, or American Football for those of you that are from other countries, is a very commonly played game in the United States. To play football you need a field, a team, a game plan... and then there's the football itself.
Footballs look very different from other sports balls. Instead of a kind of almost completely rounded spherical shape, the football is what is known as a "prolate spheroid" which is an elongated sphere made to look almost cylindrical.
The shape allows the football to be easily spiraled through the air, increasing the speed the ball can achieve and the distance the ball can reach.
Of course, this is just for when the ball is thrown. Footballs can also be kicked and so there are players who train specifically for one of two things. The first is in regards to distance. Punters have to kick the balls as far as they can to get the opposing team away from their goal line. On the other hand, there are players whose objective is more about accuracy and height - to kick field goals.
Footballs used for professional or college level games are made of cow hide leather and inflated to certain specifications to make sure there isn't any kind of cheating. (Deflate gate, looking at you.) Footballs for high school or recreation can instead be made from rubber, or even plastic.
Despite the pigskin moniker, leather (usually cow or deer) has been almost always what professional footballs were made from.
In the beginning, footballs were made of inflated pig bladders. Inflating them was a messy job, so they often stuffed it full of things like straw. That, unfortunately, would change the shape too much for the ball to be effective. They began to surround the bladder with leather and since then, that has been the major material to use.
According to the NFL rulebook, the current ball specifications are:
"The ball shall be made up of an inflated (12 1/2 to 13 1/2 pounds) urethane bladder enclosed in a pebble grained, leather case (natural tan color) without corrugations of any kind. It shall have the form of a prolate spheroid and the size and weight shall be: long axis, 11 to 11 1/4 inches; long circumference, 28 to 28 1/2 inches; short circumference, 21 to 21 1/4 inches; weight, 14 to 15 ounces."
Footballs look very different from other sports balls. Instead of a kind of almost completely rounded spherical shape, the football is what is known as a "prolate spheroid" which is an elongated sphere made to look almost cylindrical.
The shape allows the football to be easily spiraled through the air, increasing the speed the ball can achieve and the distance the ball can reach.
Of course, this is just for when the ball is thrown. Footballs can also be kicked and so there are players who train specifically for one of two things. The first is in regards to distance. Punters have to kick the balls as far as they can to get the opposing team away from their goal line. On the other hand, there are players whose objective is more about accuracy and height - to kick field goals.
Footballs used for professional or college level games are made of cow hide leather and inflated to certain specifications to make sure there isn't any kind of cheating. (Deflate gate, looking at you.) Footballs for high school or recreation can instead be made from rubber, or even plastic.
Despite the pigskin moniker, leather (usually cow or deer) has been almost always what professional footballs were made from.
In the beginning, footballs were made of inflated pig bladders. Inflating them was a messy job, so they often stuffed it full of things like straw. That, unfortunately, would change the shape too much for the ball to be effective. They began to surround the bladder with leather and since then, that has been the major material to use.
According to the NFL rulebook, the current ball specifications are:
"The ball shall be made up of an inflated (12 1/2 to 13 1/2 pounds) urethane bladder enclosed in a pebble grained, leather case (natural tan color) without corrugations of any kind. It shall have the form of a prolate spheroid and the size and weight shall be: long axis, 11 to 11 1/4 inches; long circumference, 28 to 28 1/2 inches; short circumference, 21 to 21 1/4 inches; weight, 14 to 15 ounces."
Introduction
So I plan on doing a lot of sample articles for things and stuff. Like elance, which is a neat place.
But I want a place for them besides my computer and I think other people can benefit from my random content, so here is where all that stuff is going to be.
Just an article emporium.
All rights to the articles are mine and please don't use them as your own, though you can post them wherever if proper credit is given.
Love you all!
Alexandria
But I want a place for them besides my computer and I think other people can benefit from my random content, so here is where all that stuff is going to be.
Just an article emporium.
All rights to the articles are mine and please don't use them as your own, though you can post them wherever if proper credit is given.
Love you all!
Alexandria
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