Quickies
Quickies: Homelessness, a History of the Golden Girls, and Junk Science in the Courtroom
- I’ve been homeless 3 times. The problem isn’t drugs or mental illness — it’s poverty. – “Such low income, combined with a perfect storm of unaffordable rent, incompatible roommates, non-living wages, and an inability to find full-time work, resulted in three bouts of homelessness that forced me to live in my car. And in a few days, it will happen a fourth time for the same reasons.”
- The mystery over the @ sign – “The @ character is the symbol of the internet age, crucial for emails and social networking. But no-one really knows where it came from, writes Claire Bates.”
- Thank You For Being a Friend: An Oral History of ‘The Golden Girls’ – “More than 20 years later, the ladies are still sharing cheesecake, still talking life lessons out on the lanai and still making fans laugh. The final episode of The Golden Girls aired May 9, 1992, but thanks to around-the-clock reruns and a devoted fan base, Dorothy, Rose, Blanche and Sophia have endured in a way other TV characters haven’t.”
- Reversing the legacy of junk science in the courtroom – “Pattern evidence has historically relied on the trained eyes and subjective judgments of human examiners, not on rigorous statistical analysis. It’s not known how much variation exists in the world’s population of shoes, guns, or fingerprints, or just how much similarity between two patterns is enough to suggest a common source.”
- Ladies, don’t smoke, drink or have bad thoughts while pregnant. But for men, anything goes? – “We have countless studies on how women’s daily habits can affect their babies’ health. Shouldn’t we study men too?”
Interesting history of @. I want to know where a few of the other chars came from, though. Like, I never used \ until the computer age.
Being drunk, addicted, or mentally ill are enormous ‘pushes’ toward poverty. And those with those problems may not be reporting them or perceiving them.
I’m surviving on $10,912 per year. Eating, staying clothed and sleeping indoors are the limits of my ambitions in the near term. Even cigarette smoking would push me under at this point.
What poor people need is MONEY. And if they have any, it goes directly into the economy for basic needs. Addicts and drunks need to sleep indoors and receive basic services, just like the ‘deserving’ poor. So yes, the bottom line is poverty. Booze, drugs, and under-treated mental illness DO push people onto the street, by making them poor, or often, just poorer. Exactly the way that medical costs and out-of-control housing costs do.