Elsewhere for October 19, 2019

You should read this for 10/19/2019:

Books, Writing, and Language

From Jennifer Cochran Biederman : The Future of Field Notes

Paging through my father’s field notebooks after he passed away, I discovered a deeply meaningful archive of memories. While he had used these pages to publish dozens of articles related to the natural history of fish, herpetological, and invertebrate fauna, here and there among the Latin names and GPS coordinates were brief notes that documented the happy days that my family had tagged along with my father in the field. Bookmarks in time – these passages are a gift and reminder that, for some, the duality of being a field scientist and parent/spouse/companion are best when intertwined.

Education

Exclusive: Turf War Blocked CFPB From Helping Fix Student Loan Forgiveness Program

The nation’s most powerful consumer protection agency sent examiners into companies that run student loan call centers to try to fix a troubled loan forgiveness program. But the Department of Education blocked the bureau from getting the information it needed, NPR has learned.

Food and Drink

Classic Bolognese Sauce You can use canned or fresh tomatoes, but you’ll need ground beef, ground pork, ground Italian sausage, and a little pancetta.

Researchers Find Dietary Changes That Help Treat Inflammatory Bowel Disease

A History of Chop Suey “A dish which arrived with the Gold Rush, spread with the railway and endured prohibition was Chinese by origin, but claimed by America.”

chicken tikka masala

History and Archaeology

Archaeologists unearth a Bronze Age warrior’s personal toolkit The finds were associated with one person, one of many who died in a fairly large battle along Germany’s Tollense River, c. between 1380 and 1250 BCE.

The ancient kit contained a bronze knife with a curved blade, an awl decorated with ladders and rows of triangles, and a bronze chisel, along with an assortment of bronze scraps and small ingots. Wear marks on the chisel suggest that someone probably used it to cut bronze fragments like the ones in the kit. The curved blade of the bronze knife, with structural reinforcement on the back side, looks as if someone recycled a sickle to make it. There were also a few tubes made of rolled bronze.

Science and Nature

Cats High On Catnip

Society

For the first time ever, taxes on the 400 richest Americans were lower than taxes on everyone else

In 2018, for the first time in recorded US history, the 400 richest American households paid a lower rate of tax than any other group of American taxpayers: 23%, down from 70% in 1950 and 47% in 1980.

Women’s Work

How Susan Kare Designed User-Friendly Icons for the First Macintosh

If it wasn’t for needlepoint, the computer graphics we have come to know and love today might have looked a lot different. Pioneering designer Susan Kare was taught by her mother how to do counted-thread embroidery, which gave her the basic knowledge she needed to create the first icons for the Apple Macintosh 35 years ago.
“It just so happened that I had small black and white grids to work with,” she says. “The process reminded me of working needlepoint, knitting patterns or mosaics. I was lucky to have had a mother who enjoyed crafts.”

💩🔥💰 Trumpery 💩🔥💰

Never-Before-Seen 💩🔥💰 Tax Documents Show Major Inconsistencies

Donald Trump’s businesses reported some expenses, profits and occupancy figures for two Manhattan buildings, giving a lender different figures than they provided to New York City tax authorities. The discrepancies made the buildings appear more profitable to the lender — and less profitable to the officials who set the buildings’ property tax.

The Turkish president apparently threw 💩🔥💰’s ridiculous letter in the trash

Pay It Forward and Make It Better

How the U.S. Could Have an All-Renewable Energy Grid