Interesting Links for 21-05-2020

[andrewducker]

Why do some COVID-19 patients infect many others, whereas most don't spread the virus at all?

(tags:virus pandemic )

Why do some COVID-19 patients infect many others, whereas most don't spread the virus at all?

(tags:pandemic virus )

I am very curious as to how this letter from Michel Barnier is landing with the government

(tags:UK Europe Doom )

The Economics of Jane Austen's World

(tags:janeausten economics )

Billions of pounds worth of clothes made in Bangladesh have been cancelled by UK stores. Buy a box half price and help support workers in crisis

(tags:clothing business pandemic )

Marching Band Sound Delay: Drum Major selective hearing 'cuz physics

(tags:physics sound music speed )

Denmark is opening its schools. Here's what they're doing differently to the UK

(tags:Denmark schools UK pandemic )

Love Can't Make You a Villain: How She-Ra's Catra Helped Make Sense of My Heart

(tags:relationships emotion TV )

Graduate Student Solves Decades-Old Conway Knot Problem

(tags:mathematics )

Mount Everest Is Visible from Kathmandu, Nepal for First Time in Living Memory

(tags:Everest Nepal pollution pandemic )

I would like to live in this surprising house

(tags:housing awesome )

Why Small Children Struggle With Colour Names

(tags:psychology children colour )

Roleplaying Games vs. Storytelling Games

(tags:games roleplaying storytelling )

Comments

[danieldwilliam]

I liked the article on the economics of Jane Austen.

(I think it missed something when calculating Darcy's wealth. It back solved the capital value of his £10,000 a year, mentioned that he also owned an estate but then didn't add the value of the estate to his capital invested in government debt. I think.)

The comparison of wealth over time interests me greatly. It gets in to the questions of what are we measuring when we measure wealth? What is money? What is inflation? How do we account for changes in technology when dealing with inflation.

The usual comments, Darcy might be in the top few hundred richest people in the UK in 1815 but he has zero access to smallpox vaccination, if he wanted to go to visit Australia it will take a year or two, he can only ever listen to live music.

He also lives in a country where famine and plague are not uncommon and where there is not much pooling of risk through social insurance or socialised health care. Which is not a good country to live in.

[naath]

I always assumed the alleged 10,000/year to be from agricultural income, more than investments; but however you slice it it's a LOT of money (but not, probably, Chatsworth sized, even if it has stared as Pemberly).

He almost certainly doesn't have running water or flush toilets (but he has staff to make that less horrid). He's probably never been further than Rome.

Bingley's 5000/year (also a lot of money) seems very 'new money' (Miss Bingley is... not polished the way Miss Darcy is; and they rent Netherfield rather than having a family seat) which probably means (for that much money, at this time) sugar plantation]s in the W Indies; a rather distasteful conclusion.

[azdak]

It could also be cotton (your comment made me wonder if there was another possibility, as I very much hope that Austen wouldn't have wanted Bingley implicated in the slave trade, given that she disapproves of it in Emma and Mansfield Park. So I googled and found this: http://www.jasna.org/persuasions/printed/number35/slothouber.pdf Basically the argument is that the Bingleys being from the North of England is code for "made their fortune in the textile industry", backed up with a lot of examples of how they're a bit infra dig).

[danieldwilliam]

I think (although this may be an unwarranted assumption on my part that I may have made up in my own head) that when people said in Georgian times that "X was worth £1,000" a year that they specifically meant that X had an income from UK government debt of £1,000 a year.

In support of this I pray in aid the "fact" that a) interest bearing government debt as an investment vehicle with the interest service paid for by income tax was relatively new thing in Georgian Britain and b) the British economy in Georgian times was still not a fully market economy - in that not all goods, services or commodities were bought and sold - and that particularly in the country there were still fuedal-like economic transfers going on eg Darcey might have a large estate which allowed him to keep lots of servants and have nice things but that mostly those servants were paid for with a physical share of the estates' surplus agricultural output. Putting it another way, Darcy didn't buy his horse or food for the horse, or the tack for the horse or repairs to the stables - they all came from his estate. I'm not sure how much selling of agriculture there actually was compared to in situ consumption.

I think in 1815 most people still lived and worked in the country but that was about to change and part of the change was a more fluid market for food etc.

But I may be making all of that up inside my head.

Anyhow, £10,000 a year is enough money that he doesn't *have* to care much what anyone thinks of his behaviour.

[momentsmusicaux]

There's a rather big gap in the colour names research, I think -- they've not compared with languages that put colour adjectives after nouns. Presumably if they're right, children who are native speakers of those languages would do better with colour names.

[andrewducker]

That would be fascinating!