Interesting Links for 12-02-2018

[andrewducker]

UK universities with generous occupational maternity pay schemes double the number of female professors compared with those that offer minimal maternity benefits.

(tags: women babies benefits jobs inequality academia )

How Labour and unions fought to pay Glasgow's women less

(tags: inequality sexism Labour Glasgow unions pay women scotland )

"Here's a list of things that have been said to me, by men, as a Woman in STEM, in the UK, in the 21st century:"

(tags: women academia society OhForFucksSake )

A definitive answer on the impact of interest rates on the stock market

(tags: funny economics video )

Home Office whistleblowers describe a vile, abusive asylum system

(tags: asylum immigration OhForFucksSake uk )

Here's How Taylor Swift Prevents Her Dancers From Leaking Her Music

(tags: security music videos )

How men react to #metoo

(tags: harassment men emotion )

Every single drama ITV announced for 2018 as ‘to be aired’, ‘in production’ and ‘in pre production’ is written by a man.

(tags: men OhForFucksSake tv uk patriarchy )

35 states allow police officers to have sex with women in their custody

(tags: rape sex police usa OhForFucksSake )

Picture of single atom suspended in electric fields wins top science photography prize | The Independent

(tags: physics photos atom science )

Some "things that everyone knows" about the tech industry that you might not know

(tags: Technology advice business )

Musical tastes form when puberty hits

Or, in my case at age 16/17, which is when I first discovered that heavy rock/metal existed, and then kept changing over the next twenty-odd years. The early 90s are probably 'my era' which is also my early 20s.
(tags: music puberty age viaFanf )

How it feels to realise you'll never have a job in academia

(tags: academia grief )

Comments

Picture of single atom suspended in electric fields wins top science photography prize

[jack]

Minimalism run wild! :)

[alithea]

That tech industry thread was interesting, thanks.

And yeah, sadly I'm not surprised by the women in STEM thread, and I've been remarkably lucky.

[calimac]

"Musical tastes form when puberty hits"

Well, that's true for me. I was around 12 and 13 when I discovered classical music, which had never previously hit me, and it's been the heart of my aesthetic life ever since.

The popular music of the time? Couldn't stand it. I'd theatrically retch if I were forced to be in a room with it. Only learned to appreciate some of it well into my 20s, largely because by then some of the 90% of it that was utter trash had fallen away, and I could select what was good from what remained.

[annie_r]

Musical taste seems to have hit me at age 10-11, which is lucky because the year I was 13 (1974) had some real crap (from a top hits google search anyway; there must have been some great stuff in there.) I still listen to old R&B and pre-disco, and semi-unashamedly, dad-rock.

[cmcmck]

I'm not convinced by the musical taste and puberty argument. I was into classical music in single figures and still am. 18-25 at uni and things is when I really learned what music I liked (admittedly I was learning about a lot of other things to like too as you know :o)

[mountainkiss]

The music thing doesn't work for me either. Now mostly uninterested in what I listened to at age c. 13 (80s disco). Classical music started for me at age 10 - 11, then stopped until c. age 16, but the music I liked then is mostly not the music I like now. 22 is the year my music taste was really formed, but it still continues to evolve and has changed a lot over the last three years.

[andrewducker]

I didn't really encounter music that moved me until I was at university. My friends were a wasteland as far as non-pop was concerned. And then I kept exploring, or encountering music in different contexts, and enjoying new things.

I think we're both unusual though.

Mind you, those graphs show that a lot of people do encounter music at other times in their life. The "norm" is just the most common, not even necessarily a massive proportion of the whole.

[mountainkiss]

Very fair comment.

[theandrewhickey]

I think there's a simpler explanation for the music thing, which is that most people don't really like or care about music very much, but it's used by teenagers to signify social group membership, and that when in later life people want some pleasant background noise they choose something they're familiar with. I think people for whom music is a big part of their life are very different in that respect.

[birguslatro]

But would people who don't care much for music be on Spotify? And especially so for older people.

[theandrewhickey]

In my experience, yes. Most of my family use it, and few of them care at all about music. They use its free service the way people use the radio, as a pleasant background noise in the car or similar.

[birguslatro]

For maybe a decade or more I totally stopped listening to music by choice, but of late I've started to again. Yet I'm not interested in going back to the stuff I used to listen to.

One reason for the puberty-music link may be pure nostalgia for the intensity of that time in life. Only the music's still the same.

[fanf]

A belated thought re. music - I remembered Delaney's famous essay "the Golden Age of sf is 13" in which he makes basically the same argument