Michael Bates: June 2013 Archives
Links: Auto trails and named highways
Highway history: Massive collection of links from the Federal Highway Administration
Auto trails links from AmericanRoads.us
North American Auto Trails: Lists of hundreds of trails, including single- and two-state trails
1923 map of transcontinental trails
Early Texas Trails
Old Spanish Trail
National Park-to-Park Highway map
Pikes Peak Ocean-to-Ocean Highway map segments
Lincoln Highway
From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System - Highway History - FHWA
How America went from hundreds of unofficially named auto trails (National Old Trail, Lincoln Highway, Ozark Trail, Dixie Highway, to name a few) to a national numbering system for US Highways in 1926. This article also explains how the Chicago-Los Angeles was almost numbered US 60 and why it was changed to US 66.
Curing and smoking your own bacon at home.
Infographic: Social Media Image Sizes and Tips | 4:15 Communications, LLC
A handsome infographic showing layouts and image sizes on Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, Google+, and Instagram.
The Dangers of Unrestricted Plan B Access « Commentary Magazine
"In a world where a 26-year-old is young enough to still qualify as a child on their parent's health insurance, a child of 10 years of age can walk into any neighborhood drug store and purchase a massive dose of hormones with no oversight or supervision, not from their parents and not from medical professionals. As any parent will tell you, they are deluged with permission slips-to ride the bus, to participate in after-school activities, for the school nurse to administer Tylenol or prescription drugs. In this culture of treating young adults as toddlers, which the president and his fellow liberals do nothing but perpetuate, the FDA and White House's decision is glaringly hypocritical. A child cannot decide to take a pain reliever for a headache while on the school campus, but they can have full access to a powerful drug that might have an impact on their development."
A Guide to Tulsa's Nightlife... | The Lost Ogle
Chelsea, the Tulsa correspondent for an obscure social blog, rates the pros and cons of partying in Brookside, Cherry Street, the Bob Wills District, the Blue Dome District, and south Tulsa.
How-To Geek: How To Remotely Backup Your Data for Free with CrashPlan
"If you simply use the CrashPlan software without a CrashPlan account you can backup your data to a secondary drive on your computer, another computer on your home network, and to your friend's/brother's/mom's computer all for free--don't worry the data is encrypted via the Blowfish algorithm. Want to add cloud-based storage into that? You can backup 2-10 computers for a mere $10 a month with unlimited storage--it's an outrageous bargain compared to other cloud-based storage solutions."
How-To Geek: What Files Should You Backup On Your Windows PC?
"The primary principle of backing up your data is that any important data should exist in two or more physical locations at once. You cannot create a backup and delete the original, or else it is no longer really a backup."
The Power (and Peril) of Praising Your Kids -- New York Magazine
"For a few decades, it's been noted that a large percentage of all gifted students (those who score in the top 10 percent on aptitude tests) severely underestimate their own abilities. Those afflicted with this lack of perceived competence adopt lower standards for success and expect less of themselves. They underrate the importance of effort, and they overrate how much help they need from a parent....
"Psychologist Wulf-Uwe Meyer, a pioneer in the field, conducted a series of studies where children watched other students receive praise. According to Meyer's findings, by the age of 12, children believe that earning praise from a teacher is not a sign you did well--it's actually a sign you lack ability and the teacher thinks you need extra encouragement. And teens, Meyer found, discounted praise to such an extent that they believed it's a teacher's criticism--not praise at all--that really conveys a positive belief in a student's aptitude....
"But it turns out that the ability to repeatedly respond to failure by exerting more effort--instead of simply giving up--is a trait well studied in psychology. People with this trait, persistence, rebound well and can sustain their motivation through long periods of delayed gratification. Delving into this research, I learned that persistence turns out to be more than a conscious act of will; it's also an unconscious response, governed by a circuit in the brain. Dr. Robert Cloninger at Washington University in St. Louis located the circuit in a part of the brain called the orbital and medial prefrontal cortex. It monitors the reward center of the brain, and like a switch, it intervenes when there's a lack of immediate reward. When it switches on, it's telling the rest of the brain, "Don't stop trying. There's dopa [the brain's chemical reward for success] on the horizon." While putting people through MRI scans, Cloninger could see this switch lighting up regularly in some. In others, barely at all...."
Monty Hall's best deal | David Suissa | Jewish Journal
How the generosity of a man-about-town in Manitoba got Monty Hall back in college and on a path to success.
"The Semantic Index of North American, British and Irish traditional instrumental music with annotation, formerly known as The Fiddler's Companion"
RELATED:
Tulsa musician Scott Pendleton, who plays rhythm guitar for Pendleton Family Fiddlers and at many area fiddle contests, has developed an iPhone app called Tune Chords with chords for hundreds of the most popular fiddle tunes (click for the list, with key and category for each one).
And the Tennessee Old-Time Fiddlers' Championship web page has clear definitions of the three types of songs required in fiddle contests: breakdown, waltz, and tune of choice.
