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Can we create a new kind of car insurance for a world where we share cars?
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By 2030, the private car, once a proxy for American culture itself, may be dead. Millennials are either none too thrilled at the prospect of purchasing a car, or just cant afford one. Either way, between 2007 and 2011, the number of people between the ages of 18 and 34 who did so declined by 30%. Economists have estimated that private car ownership on the whole will decline in the U.S. by 80% in the next decade or so. The implications for this shift are enormous. Car manufacturers will scramble to stay relevant, and perhaps, the end of Americas love affair with the car could usher in more investment in public transit and safe, walkable, low-carbon streets. As it currently stands, the auto insurance industry is built around a model of private car ownership. Currently, insurance premiums attach to the car, not the driver. So if you lend your car to someone else, who crashes it, you, as the owner of the car and the holder of the insurance, would be liable to pay damages, not your friend. Its easy to see how this model fails to translate across shifts in car usage. In giving up private cars to the sharing economy, perhaps the thing we should be keeping for ourselves is insurance. A new startup called Aritya subsidiary of the insurance giant Allstate, tellinglyis doubling down on helping insurers build out a new model based on driver behavior, not car ownership or traditional demographic factors like gender, zip code, or vehicle model. Arity is using sensor data from smartphones and telematics connections inside carscombined with traditional metrics like insurance claims historyto create personalized driving scores for customers. An algorithm processes behaviors like hard braking, speeding, running lights, and frequency of car usage to build the score, which then influences how much drivers pay for their plan. And crucially, hope is to cover drivers regardless of what car they get into. This sort of usage-based insurance model is not newcompanies like Progressive and State Farm have used driver behavior data to influence individual insurance plans. Arity launched in 2016, in fact, out of a previous Allstate program, called Drivewise, which launched in 2010 to use sensor technology in cars to map driver behavior and adjust premiums accordingly. But Arity, according to the company, has developed more sophisticated tech to more accurately capture and analyze driver behavior. And by creating a product around this model that it can sell, it hopes to make usage-based insurance go mainstream. The startup offers devices that connect to the cars diagnostic port and a software development kit to track everything from how fast the car is moving, how suddenly a driver brakes, how sharply they turn, and how many miles they accumulate. It also developed an app that tracks location and other data; in February, it rolled out a new version that incorporates data on distracted driving and phone use. Arity sells the software to other insurance companies like Esurance aiming to build out more driver-based plans. Its also eyeing partnerships with mobility companies like Uber, which could use the data to create more behavior-based driver scores. As Arity president Gary Hallgren likes to say: I would want to know that my Uber driver has a good rating because he is, in fact, a good driver, rather because his car smells good and he had a good radio station on. Scaling up data around driver behavior also has broader implications for cities, Hallgren says. For instance, Arity is partnering with the city of Chicago, where its based, to share data on where spikes in poor driver behavior occur. The partnership is helping the city identify speeding-prone stretches of road, intersections where drivers dont stop, or corners where they turn especially sharply. This data will help Chicago advance its Vision Zero Action Planpart of a global effort to reduce traffic injuries and fatalities through better street design and policiesby targeting infrastructure improvements and adjusting enforcement.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90239836/can-we-create-a-new-kind-of-car-insurance-for-a-world-where-we-share-cars
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Are demotions on the rise?
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Demotions have traditionally been considered extreme, rare, and a last resort before dismissal, but new research suggests they may actually be somewhat common, and even on the rise. advertisement advertisement According to a recent study by staffing firm OfficeTeam, 14% of workers have been asked to take a lower role, and 46% of HR managers witnessed a demotion at their organization. Of those HR professionals that had witnessed a demotion, 39% said it was a result of poor performance, and 38% indicated that the employee was not succeeding in a new role after being promoted. Another 16% said the demotion was a result of organizational restructuring, while 6% of demotions were voluntary. Demoting anyone does pose a risk, and my recommendation would be to think through it completely, says Jennifer Zweig, a regional vice president for OfficeTeam. A demotion should never come as a surprise if its based on poor performance; they should be aware of what their goals were and how they havent met them, so that meeting shouldnt be a shock. While this is the first study OfficeTeam has conducted on demotions, there is some evidence to suggest they are on the rise. Demotions are most common among those aged 18 to 34, 22% of whom have had their role downgraded during their career, compared with only 10% of those aged 35 to 54 and 3% of workers aged 55 and older. Zweig suggests that younger workers are more likely to have experienced a demotion in spite of having spent less time in the workforce because of generational differences, particularly when it comes to career priorities. For example, if youre more focused on job advancement and promotions versus stability and staying the course, demotions can unfortunately also be something that happen along the way, she says. advertisement The increasing mobility of younger workers may ultimately result in taking on roles and responsibilities they are unqualified for or unable to manage, but author, speaker, and retired professor of management Todd Dewett suggests employers are equally at fault for the higher proportion of demotions among younger professionals. People like to say [younger workers] are less loyal, but of course the exact same is true on the organizational side, he says. Organizations are much more quick to merge, to divest, to right-size, to downsize, to sell off divisions; they make changes much more quickly than they used to. Last resort, not delayed dismissal With lower degrees of loyalty on both sides of the employment equation, Dewett is concerned that demotions are too often pursued in place of an investment in the employees development, or a full dismissal. I suspect its used too often, I suspect its used too bluntly, and I dont believe decision makers fully appreciate the negative possible outcomes associated with this quick fix, he says. Dewett explains that demotions are often necessary and ultimately for the benefit of the organization, but hes concerned with the 39% that the study found to be a result of poor performance. Those are people who should be coached, developed, improved, or let go, he said. You dont take someone who is a problem and demote them and expect great behavior. According to the OfficeTeam study, 52% of those who are demoted quit their jobs soon after. Dewett, however, believes the negative impact of a performance-related demotion can be even more significant, should the employee remain. If [the employer] makes decisions of this type because theyre being shortsighted about financial savings or theyre simply avoiding conflict, people will notice, he said. I would contend theyre actually harming morale. advertisement Not all demotions are made the same Dewett explains that when it comes to demotions, the medium is the message. How an organization delivers the news can play a significant role in how the employee views the decision, and whether they should feel welcome to stay. If you want someone to feel like you want them to continue working for you, youve got to spell that out in so many words, he says. This is why it happened, and more importantly, this is where you might go moving forward. ' If a demotion is accompanied by mentorship and training, clear expectations, and a path toward future advancement, the employee should ultimately feel like they still have a future at that organization, says Dewitt. The more old school organizationsespecially if theyre dealing with a real problem as opposed to a quality asset that just wasnt readywill very often be lacking in transparency, he says. [They might say,] This has happened, youve been judged this way, the role ends here, the new role starts here, heres the responsibilities, heres the pay, do you accept? Those are two existing extremes that are out there. Though the news may sting at first, Dewett emphasizes the importance of the employee analyzing how it is delivered when deciding whether to remain with the company. Companies similarly need to choose their words carefully if they hope to retain a demoted employee. The messaging has to be really carefully crafted in order to be in that 48% where you are able to retain that person, explains author and executive coach Karen Elizaga, who similarly believes transparency and communication are key. You want to know concretely what you can do moving forward to avoid this pitfall, and I would explain what support is available to the employee so they can meet or exceed the expectations of the employer. advertisement How a demotion could ultimately be a good thing According to the OfficeTeam study, 47% of those who were demoted felt upset and disinterested in their jobs, but Elizaga believes that in some cases, a demotion could be a net positive to an employees long-term career. Of course its demoralizing to be demoted, but if you pull yourself back up by your bootstraps and really dig in and really think about what you can do to improve, thats a really positive sign to your employer, she says. Its a total growth opportunity, because it can show how you handle adversity. Difficult as it may be in the moment, Elizaga believes that demotions provide a sink-or-swim opportunity, and those that rise to the occasion could ultimately succeed in ways that wouldnt be possible if they continued to struggle in their previous role.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90231444/are-demotions-on-the-rise
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Could Aurora Cannabis Be a Millionaire-Maker Stock?
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Let's cut to the chase. Yes, Aurora Cannabis (NYSE: ACB) could be a millionaire-maker stock. Given a large enough initial investment and enough time, many stocks -- including Aurora -- could generate returns of $1 million or more. The real question, though, is whether an investor buying a reasonable stake in Aurora Cannabis has a realistic chance of becoming a millionaire from this initial investment over a period of time that's not ridiculously long. Few stocks can achieve such a feat. To pull it off would require a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of a little over 20%. Shadow of dollar sign on top of a pile of marijuana leaves More Image source: Getty Images. What it would take To become a millionaire-maker stock, Aurora Cannabis would need to grow its market cap from around $6 billion today to $600 billion. The marijuana producer would probably have to generate annual revenue in the ballpark of $125 billion to justify that kind of market cap. Assuming the company continues to focus on the cannabis industry, the answer depends on just how big the global marijuana market will be. Aurora itself says that the total global cannabis opportunity is around 200 billion in Canadian dollars, or roughly $150 billion. That's in line with what other marijuana executives state publicly as well. However, the figure only includes medical and recreational use of marijuana. There are several other markets that could be disrupted by cannabis producers, including alcoholic beverages, tobacco, and pharmaceuticals. Canopy Growth CEO Bruce Linton thinks all of these potential markets that could be disrupted total $500 billion in annual sales. Let's assume that Linton is right. If so, Aurora Cannabis would need to capture around 25% of the total global opportunity. That isn't a totally outlandish proposition. Aurora claimed a market share of around 30% in Ontario soon after the Canadian recreational marijuana market opened. Ontario is Canada's largest province and is a very competitive market. Why it's not likely You might have noticed a lot of "ifs" in what it would take for Aurora to be a millionaire-maker stock. Let's add another one: If any of those assumptions fall through, Aurora won't make anyone a millionaire. First of all, the $150 billion global marijuana figure that gets thrown around assumes that recreational cannabis will be legalized in the U.S. and throughout Europe. No European country has legalized recreational marijuana at this point. And while 10 U.S. states have legalized recreational pot, it remains illegal at the federal level. Maybe all of that could change in 25 years. However, there's certainly no guarantee that it will. An even higher hurdle to jump is achieving such a disruption in other markets that it would amount to $500 billion in total annual sales. Aurora Cannabis points to the potential in disrupting other markets, but the company wisely doesn't attempt to project the dollar value of the opportunity. It's also highly doubtful that Aurora Cannabis would attain a 25% global market share. Consider in Constellation Brands' decision to make a major investment in Canopy Growth, the big alcoholic beverage maker estimated that Canopy could realistically capture no more than 15% of the global market outside of Canada. I don't see Aurora topping Canopy Growth by a significant margin.
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https://news.yahoo.com/could-aurora-cannabis-millionaire-maker-190000017.html
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Will Alphabet Earnings Trounce Expectations Again?
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Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) is slated to report its fourth-quarter and full-year 2018 results after the market closes on Monday, Feb. 4. The parent company of search-engine giant Google is going into its report with good momentum with respect to its earnings. Adjusted for one-time factors, Alphabet's earnings have significantly surpassed Wall Street's expectations in each of the three reported quarters of 2018. In the third quarter, revenue grew 21.5% and earnings per share (EPS) jumped 36.5% year over year to $13.06, easily beating the $10.40 the Street was looking for. In the second quarter, revenue increased 26% and adjusted EPS surged 32% to $11.75, trouncing the $9.59 consensus estimate. Alphabet Class A and C shares have both declined 6.8% over the one-year period through Jan. 25. The S&P 500, including dividends, is down 4.3% over this period. The stock, however, remains a solid winner over longer periods, including five years and longer. Here's what to watch when Alphabet reports. Overhead view of a person's hands holding a cell phone with Google's home page showing. Various desk-top items, such as a keyboard, shown. More Image source: Getty Images. Key quarterly numbers Here are Alphabet's year-ago results and Wall Street's estimates to use as benchmarks. Metric Q4 2017 Result Wall Street's Q4 2018 Consensus Wall Street's Projected Change (YOY) Revenue $32.32 billion $38.97 billion 20.6% Adjusted earnings per share (EPS) $9.70 $10.85 11.9% Data sources: Alphabet and Yahoo! Finance. YOY = year over year. Wall Street expects Alphabet's quarterly revenue to grow faster than its earnings on a year-over-year basis. That would indicate that profit margin is contracting. Investors should keep in mind that quarterly results can fluctuate for various reasons, so it's best to consider Alphabet's annual results. For full-year 2018, the Street is looking for EPS of $41.78 on revenue of $136.48 billion, which would translate to year-over-year growth of 30.5% and 23.1%, respectively. For context, here are last quarter's results by segment: Segment Q3 2018 Revenue Growth (YOY) Q3 2018 Operating Income Growth (YOY) Google $33.59 billion 21.5% $9.49 billion 10.6% Other Bets (formerly "Moonshots") $146 million (24.8%) ($727 million) Loss increased by 11.8% Total segment $33.74 billion 21.5% $8.76 billion 10.5% Data sources: Alphabet and Yahoo! Finance. YOY = year over year. Within Google, revenue breakdown was as follows: Google properties: a 22% increase to $24.05 billion. Google network members' properties: a 13% increase to $4.9 billion. Google "other revenue": a 29% rise to $4.64 billion Google: focus on ad growth and TAC, hardware and Cloud Those first two categories comprise Alphabet's advertising business, which accounts for the bulk of its revenue -- about 86% last quarter. The ad business, however, should slowly become a smaller percentage of the company's overall revenue over time, because Google "other revenue" -- consisting mainly of Google Cloud, hardware, and Google Play -- has been growing faster than it and because the company's autonomous-vehicle unit, Waymo, just began being monetized. Investors should focus on Google's core ad business -- and particularly on mobile ad growth and traffic acquisition costs (TAC) -- and growth in its hardware and Cloud businesses. Look for sales of Google Home, the company's smart speaker, to get a boost from holiday sales.
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https://news.yahoo.com/alphabet-earnings-trounce-expectations-again-190000396.html
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Could a giant underwater wall help save glaciers from collapse?
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Each year, the Thwaites Glacier a massive chunk of ice roughly the size of Florida that sits on the western edge of Antarcticashrinks back thousands of feet as it melts, pushing sea levels higher. The glacier could eventually completely collapse, even if humans stopped pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere now. If the entire West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed, global sea levels could rise as much as 15 feet, and create catastrophic conditions in coastal areas. Researchers studied two general designs. In one case, a long pile of sand and aggregate would stretch along the ocean floor in front of glaciers, helping prevent warming ocean water from hitting the base of ice and melting it. (Surface water is colder, and less of a problem for glaciers in Antarctica now.) In another design, 984-feet-high mounds or columns on the sea floor wouldnt form a complete wall, but could help buttress the glacier and resist the flow of ice. The modeling in the studywhich is very preliminarysuggests that both approaches might work. In many experiments, the glacier the researchers modeled collapsed in around 150 years without an intervention. With a massive wall, it could potentially last at least 1,000 years (the models only looked 1,000 years into the future). A smaller wall that blocked only about half of the warm water could give the glacier a 70% chance of lasting that long. The isolated mounds could give it a 30% chance. The study isnt advocating for the walls to be built. But the researchers wanted to begin a conversation in the scientific community and offer up a model that other researchers could improve on, potentially leading to a plan that could eventually be implemented. Even the simplest design would probably be the largest civil engineering project ever attempted. Still, its plausibly within the order of magnitude of human achievements, says Michael Wolovick, one of the studys authors, who worked on the modeling as a postdoc at Princeton University. The project might use as much aggregate as the massive palm-shaped artificial islands built off the coast of Dubai, or Hong Kong International Airport, which was also built on an artificial island. The cost could conceivably be in a similar range, perhaps $10 to $100 billion dollars. But if it worked, it would be less expensive than the changes needed to protect the worlds cities from sea level riseand certainly less than the cost of allowing climate change to proceed unchecked. [Some] models say that society would end up spending several tens of billions of dollars every year around the world on traditional coastal protection, says Wolovick. So addressing the problem at the source might actually be a cost-effective response in comparison.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90239204/could-a-giant-underwater-wall-help-save-glaciers-from-collapse
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What does a more thoughtful disaster response look like?
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On September 14, Hurricane Florence made landfall in the Carolinas. Days after, flood waters continue to rise. Thousands of homesover 4,300 in Bern, North Carolina alonehave sustained damage, and the full effects of the hurricane are not yet known. But the pattern of response to Florence will be more predictable. Already, corporate donors are pledging commitments to aid affected areas, and fundraisers for organizations like Habitat for Humanity, the American Red Cross, and GlobalGiving are under way. These rapid response efforts are crucial, but according to the nonprofit Center for Disaster Philanthropy, they too often signal the end of the line. Around 70% of the money and resources donated after a disaster goes to immediate response efforts, but in reality, recovery requires a long-term investment. Just 5% of money raised after a disaster goes toward extended recovery and rebuilding efforts, which is often where residents find themselves at a loss for aid. While federal programs like FEMA also provide assistance to affected people immediately after a disaster, grants for home repair and recovery generally only amount to a few thousand dollars, with no promise of extended or on-the-ground support. Over the past several years, the CDP has worked to educate corporate donors, philanthropies, and the broader public about effective disaster response strategies (its Disaster Philanthropy Playbook, released in 2016, is a good primer). Now, a coalition of nonprofitsthe disaster relief and recovery organization All Hands and Hearts-Smart Response, Good360, and Global Citizenhave teamed up to get individual and corporate donors alike to pledge to follow a more thoughtful pattern of post-disaster action. The pledge, says All Hands and Hearts cofounder Petra Nemcova, is very simple, but could create significant ripple effects. The Resilient Response pledge outlines a framework for the most effective ways of delivering immediate and long-term aid. It centers around six pillars: Proactive. Philanthropists and nonprofits should begin planning before a disaster strikes to maximize efficacy. Philanthropists and nonprofits should begin planning before a disaster strikes to maximize efficacy. Needs-based. Community needs should be at the center of every action taken and donation made, and aid organizations should listen to what the on-the-ground priorities are before acting. Community needs should be at the center of every action taken and donation made, and aid organizations should listen to what the on-the-ground priorities are before acting. Immediate and long-term. Disaster response should address immediate and long-term needs, staying in communities until the work is done, not just until the news cycle wraps up. Disaster response should address immediate and long-term needs, staying in communities until the work is done, not just until the news cycle wraps up. Resilience-focused. Recovery work should focus on helping communities build back with stronger infrastructure and systems. Recovery work should focus on helping communities build back with stronger infrastructure and systems. Transparent. Donors and nonprofits need to be up front about the actions they plan to take and their commitments, and hold themselves accountable to deliver on promises. Donors and nonprofits need to be up front about the actions they plan to take and their commitments, and hold themselves accountable to deliver on promises. Educational. As aid workers and deliverers learn what works in disaster response, they should educate the public and their networks about how to donate and respond most effectively. These six pillars are meant to guide organizations toward amending some of the shortcomings of the current disaster response system. For one thing: There needs to be an overhaul in the way that the delivery of goods and resources is managed. As CEO of Good360, a nonprofit that works with over 400 large companies to encourage them to donate excess goods, rather than destroying them, Howard Sherman has a lot of experience overseeing how and when resources are allocated. And in the disaster recovery sector, its often not done well. Around 60% of the material goods that arrive in disaster-struck region end up in landfill. Often, its the wrong goods at the wrong time, Sherman says. Following a disaster, recovery usually happens along a curve. The Carolinas are still in the early stages, where many people in communities are still struggling to access basic survival necessities. Right now, it should be about sending life-saving and life-preserving supplies and money to organizations on the ground doing that work, Sherman says. But often, corporate philanthropy efforts will get ahead of the curve. Some companies, Sherman says, start sending rebuilding supplies immediately after a disaster strikes, but those materials overwhelm aid workers and take up space in crucial distribution centers; delivery of those resources should be timed to when the community and residents are ready to actually undertake rebuilding efforts. Often, according to the recovery curve, thats three or four months after the disaster hits.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90238721/what-does-a-more-thoughtful-disaster-response-look-like
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Can New Yorks bold plan to close its jail on Rikers Island build a more just city?
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In 2015, the demand to close Rikers Island the jail complex between Queens and the Bronx in the East Riverbubbled up from a coalition of activist groups and formerly incarcerated people in New York City. Frustrated with the reportedly inhumane conditions at the facility, which range from overcrowdingto the extent that the city has begun housing inmates on a barge adjacent to the islandto use of brutal force on the part of the guards, their request was bold: They wanted to see the city close the complex, and use the money spent convicting and incarcerating people on providing their communities with basic necessities like housing, good food, and quality education. In 2017, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo convened a state commission to examine the possibility of closing Rikers. The commission agreed that it was possible, but it would require repurposing some old facilities, and building a collection of smaller new jails. In mid-August of this year, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasiowho was slow to come around to the idea of closing Rikersreleased the first draft of a plan for transitioning away from the complex. Under the plan, the city would build four new jails, one in each borough, that would house a total of 5,000 peoplea significant decline from the 9,000 that Rikers currently holds. Centering the jails in communities instead of on an island would make visits from family and loved ones more simple, and the city is proposing adding amenities like ground-floor retail and parking around the jails to integrate them into the surrounding neighborhoods. The transition to the new community jails from Rikers, the city anticipates, will take around a decade. For some of the original #CloseRikers advocates, the proposal to build new jails to replace Rikers caused frustration. It really showed that its hard for people to imagine anything beyond still putting people in jail, says Ruben Austria, a youth justice advocate and founder of the Bronx-based nonprofit Community Connections for Youth, which works to advance alternatives to incarceration for young people. But the citys aim of reducing its jail population to 5,000 is actually quite ambitiousespecially for a city of 8 million like New York, says Elizabeth Gaynes, president and CEO of The Osborne Association, a criminal justice reform nonprofit thats working with the city on the plan to close Rikers. New York City already has the lowest incarceration rate of any major city, and has shrunk its jail population by more than 50%from over 20,000in the past couple of decades through a combination of supervised release programming as an alternative to bail, investment in supportive housing, and pre-arrest diversion programs (all of which have benefitted in a reduced crime rate across the city). The closure of Rikers will take that number even lower, and while it will not signal an end to jails in New York City, it will, Gaynes says, necessitate a rigorous rethinking of the justice system that surrounds the citys jails. For the community jail plan to represent a real reform of the jail system in New York City, Gaynes says, it has to extend beyond infrastructure. When looking to reduce the jail population, the city has two levers to pull: how many people it brings into the jails in the first place, and how long they stay. People awaiting trial make up as much as 80% of the population on Rikers, and to ensure that they spend less time in jail, the city court systems will have to work to move cases faster. Gaynes also wants to see the courts move away from money bail as a way to ensure people show up to their court dates, and toward a more supportive way of managing people after they are arraigned. And a real opportunity for reform, Gaynes says, would be for the city to introduce policies decriminalizing low-level offenses like marijuana possession and subway turnstile jumping. Last year, the Manhattan District Attorneys office funded a program that would enable police officers to divert low-level offenders to supportive services offered through three organizations, Osborne among them, as an alternative to arraignment. With the closure of Rikers, theres an opportunity to expand the program beyond the most low-level, so that the city could really explore ways to manage cases that dont require bringing people into custody, Gaynes says. These types of sentencing reforms, while crucial, are only one aspect of ensuring that the transition away from Rikers is a just one. Another, Gaynes says, will for the citys Department of Corrections to ensure that conditions within the new community jails are substantially different and better than those within Rikers. Not only is doing so necessary on the level of humanity, but degraded jail conditions, Gaynes says, are criminogenic. People who commit a crime and are then forced to live through mistreatment in a jail are more likely to re-offend when they are released, especially if are coping with any type of mental illness. The city must not just build new jails, but build capacity for real mental health services within those jails, so people can access treatment, Gaynes says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90226827/can-new-yorks-bold-plan-to-close-its-jail-on-rikers-island-build-a-more-just-city
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Did Princes song in a Capital One commercial just feel . . . wrong?
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Some Emmy watchers found themselves more concerned with a commercial than with the prestigious awards show. On Monday evenings broadcast, Capital One ran a commercial that featured Princes beloved Lets Go Crazy. The clip (which was not meant as a tribute to the late icon) irritated fans who strongly believe The Purple One would have never signed off on his 1984 hit being licensed for . . . a credit card. It was called disgusting, lame, appalling, and nauseating, among other disparaging remarks. Im glad you didnt have to see that, Your Highness, wrote Marcel Walker on Twitter. The beautiful ones always seem to lose out to the greed of commercial America. Others took it as a reminder to always put your affairs in order. As Chic Pope wrote: Remember to leave a will, musical geniuses! Prince sacrilege aside, "Let's Go Crazy" is a terrible message for a credit card commercial. Chris Steller (@chris_steller) September 18, 2018 I am positive #Prince will never allow his music to be played over a commercial let alone a Capital One credit card one. At this point the family is simply just selling out for the money. #LetsGoCrazy #CapitolOne #emmys Preston Lopez (@PrestonLopez) September 18, 2018
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90238290/did-princes-song-in-a-capital-one-commercial-just-feel-wrong
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Was the Emmys ode to Hollywood diversity . . . not diverse enough?
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The primetime Emmys dove headfirst into Hollywoods cesspool of issues. In the shows opening on Monday evening, SNL stars Kate McKinnon and Kenan Thompson burst into a musical number aptly titled We Solved It, which listed the many ways in which the industry has handled sexism, diversity, and lack of Asian representation. It was, of course, a tongue-in-cheek take on what is very much still a flawed system and white-dominated industry. Diversity it not a problem in Hollywood anymore? the duo sing. Nope, we solved it! As the SNL actors reference the #MeToo movement and other timely topics, they are joined by Sterling K. Brown, Tituss Burgess, Kristen Bell, RuPaul, Andy Samberg, and, randomly Ricky Martin. The latter rushes onstage to rebuke the chorus of voices: You havent solved it, he says. This song is too white! Shortly thereafter, One of eachi.e, a dancer of every background, joins the musical. Audience reception was mixed. Some on social media applauded the show for addressing the myriad of Hollywoods problems, albeit in a jazzy song and dance. Others called out the inherent irony that somesuch as women of colorwere not represented in the group onstage. #Emmys Ms. Williams (@MsWilliamsWorld) September 18, 2018
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90238270/was-the-emmys-ode-to-hollywood-diversity-not-diverse-enough
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Is Hulus new ad campaign brain-spray awesome or not?
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Back then, Hulu was ahead of the curve on the idea that people would stream full-length shows and movies. Today its the future of entertainment consumption, and the entire media and entertainment business is entering the fray. Hulu is just one of a growing body of cord-cutting options. The streaming pioneer has spent the last few years building up and marketing its content library and capabilities, adding award-winning prestige TV like The Handmaids Tale, and expanding into live TV. Now the brand is using the Emmys to reintroduce itself to audiences, tapping some of its celebrity roster to remind us that its more than just TV. The ad, which will debut on TV during the awards show on NBC, is part of the platforms new campaign, what CMO Kelly Campbell calls a brand refresh. Refresh may be an overstatement, seeing as the spot utilizes a similarly celebrity-fueled, goofy sense of humor that marked its initial Baldwin campaign. Hulu has dipped into its celebrity rolodex, getting Samira Wiley (The Handmaids Tale), Sarah Silverman (I Love You, America), Sofia Vergara (Modern Family), Miles Brown (Black-ish), Houston Rockets star James Harden, and Los Angeles Rams quarterback Jared Goff to appear. The brand has also described it as being provocative, but its hardly that. The reverse-psychology joke is actually reminiscent of its competitors Netflix is a joke campaign. As broad, wide-net entertainment marketing goes, its tough to go wrong with celebrities making jokes, and this is a solid if pretty standard example. Campbell, who joined from Google last year because of the services potential and its OG status in streaming video, says the success of winning Emmys and Golden Globesas well as growing its subscriber base to more than 20 million and viewers time spent by 50% over the last yearhinted it was time to reexamine who the brand was and how it spoke to its audience. We took a step back and asked if people really know what Hulu is all about, says Campbell. While we found people do have a really strong association with Hulu and televisionour research found we were as strongly associated with TV as Hersheys was with chocolatewe saw that we needed to work on helping our audience understand all Hulu has to offer, but also that they feel enough of a connection to Hulu to stick with us. I obviously wasnt here for the Alec Baldwin campaign, but taking it back to the roots and legacy of the brand was interesting to me, says Nick Tran, Hulus VP of brand and culture marketing, who Campbell recruited from Samsung Electronics. They took an insight and flipped it on its head, and thats what were doing here, too. The Baldwin spot played on the myth that TV rots your brain. We wanted to nod back to that with the idea that better ruins everything. And everyone in the ad represents a different part of our content, between network TV, original programs, and sports.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90237428/is-hulus-new-ad-campaign-brain-spray-awesome-or-not
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Is content validation the next growth industry?
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By now, youve probably seen the fake video of Barack Obama calling Donald Trump a total and complete dipshit. The voice may not be exactly right, but the clipwhich took a team of video pros at BuzzFeed 56 hours to createvividly illustrates the nascent threat of deepfakes, i.e. digitally altered videos that can pretty much make anyone say anything. Deepfake technology is already being used to insert celebrity faces into pornography, and its not hard to see dangerous implications for politics. Putting false statements into the mouths of state actors could easily spur an international controversy, a stock market panic, or even an outright war. Far from science fiction, the threat is so real that DARPA, the U.S. defense agency responsible for emerging military technology, has already assembled an official media forensics lab to sniff out fakes. Adulterated videos, of course, arent the only threat on the fake news front. The 2016 U.S. presidential election offered a convincing illustration of the power of plain old fake headlines and news stories, spread on social media, to sway the course of world events. Since then, weve grown accustomed to second-guessing, and occasionally falling for, dubious stories spread on our feeds. (It doesnt help that real journalism is now being conflated by some politicians with fake news.) In the end, were left deeply uncertain who and what to trustif anything at all. Social media sits at the crux of many of these challenges. Its the primary place people get their news these days and, sadly, one of the places most vulnerable to manipulation. As someone who has built a career in social media, I find this alarming. I have tremendous faith in the power of social channels to create connection and open up dialogue. Networks like Facebook and Twitter have become part of the plumbing of the internet and arent going away. But the spread of fake contentnot just wacky, easily dismissed conspiracy theories but convincing videos capable of making experts do a double takeis a growing threat. To me, the way forward isnt just an algorithm tweak or a new set of regulations. This challenge is far too complex for that. Were talking, at root, about faith in what we see and hear online, about trusting the raw data that informs the decisions of individuals, companies, and whole countries. The time for a Band-Aid fix has long passed. Instead, we may be talking about the digital eras next growth industry: content validation. The burgeoning content validation industry Interestingly, were already seeing a flurry of activity in this arena, as the arms race between fakers and detectives accelerates. The Deepfake phenomenon, in particular, has inspired a growing technological response, outlined recently by Axioss Kaveh Waddell. The startup Truepic, which has just attracted more than $10 million in funding from the likes of Reuters, has set its sights on sniffing out details like eye reflectivity and hair placement, which are nearly impossible to fake across the thousands of frames in a video. Gfycat, the gif-hosting platform, uses AI-powered tools that check for anomalies to identify and pull down offending clips on its site. On the academic and research front, scientists at Los Alamos are building algorithms that hunt out repeated visual elements, a telltale sign of video manipulation, while SUNY Albany researchers have developed a system that monitors video blinking patterns. DARPA and its media forensics team, meanwhile, look for inconsistencies in lighting on AI-generated faces.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90236068/is-content-validation-the-next-growth-industry
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Is Josh Maja taking a massive risk with Bordeaux transfer?
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The Anglo-Nigerian wonderkid quit Sunderland in the midst of his breakout campaign, and now steps into the unknown COMMENT While two of the most high-profile Nigerians in the game todayJohn Obi Mikel and Victor Mosesmade high-profile moves this week, Josh Majas transfer to Girondins de Bordeaux went somewhat under the radar. Maja may not have played in one of the worlds major leagueshe was down in the English League One with fallen giants Sunderlandbut his move could have the biggest impact on the Super Eagles moving forward. Born in the London Borough of Lewisham to Nigerian parents, Maja is yet to declare his international loyalties, although theres reason for Super Eagles fans to hope that they can snare him. Certainly, London-raised stars such as Ola Aina and Alex Iwobi have set a recent precedent and Amaju Pinnick will hope that Maja follows suit. He certainly has a lot to offer, even ifat 20he remains a raw talent. The wonderkid departs as the joint-second highest scorer in the third tier, having netted 15 goals so far this season. Josh Maja: Only John Marquis (16) has scored more goals than @joshmaja (15) in League One this season pic.twitter.com/4NRHutMlin WhoScored.com (@WhoScored) January 22, 2019 He may be one goal behind John Marquis of Doncaster, but its worth noting that Maja has played just 1771 minutes compared to the formers 2520. While Marquis has scored a goal every 158 minutes, Maja has managed a goal ever 118 minutes. Indeed, no player in the division with eight goals or more has scored more consistently than Maja, while his shot accuracy of 61 percent is superior to any of the other six players with 14 goals or more. The forward had finally appeared to have truly found his feetand a run of regular gamesafter enduring various setbacks to date. He was rejected by Manchester City as a youngster, andnotablywas relegated in both of his first two seasons as a professional, as Sunderland tumbled from the Premier League to League One. While Maja scored on his league debut against Fulham last season, it was the only goal hed score last terma sole strike in 17 Championship outingsand despite his promise, it wasnt obvious that hed catch fire as he has in the third tier. Would like to express how much of an honour it was to break through into senior football at such a special club, that is Sunderland AFC. I had many blessed moments during my time at Sunderland. Wishing everyone involved with the club all the best in the future. @SunderlandAFC pic.twitter.com/6mo5lnLW4a Josh Maja (@joshmaja) January 26, 2019 Yet this season has firmly been his breakout campaign, and his goals have been crucial to Sunderlands promotion charge; they currently sit six points off league leaders Luton Town, but with two games in hand. Majas switch to Bordeaux represents a significant step up in the forwards career; his new club will face Olympique de Marseille and Paris Saint-Germain back to back in early February, Sunderland, by contrast, will face Oxford United and Blackpool. However, its also a significant gamble for the starlet, particularly as he departs in the midst of a campaign in which hes finally found his scoring boots. Former Sunderland midfielder Lee Clark was particularly critical both of the strikers decision to move and the clubs decision to cash in now, rather than wait for the seasons end. Give this man a yard inside the area... This will be the outcome. pic.twitter.com/VxXxs5e7Ns Sunderland AFC (@SunderlandAFC) January 19, 2019 "There's nothing good that comes of it, the ex-Huddersfield Town manager told BBC Newcastle. The player is playing first-team football, he's scoring regularly, they've got a great chance of getting promoted to the Championship, which would mean the feel-good factor would keep on going. They could have full houses. "Players in the French league are wanting to come to England, he added. "I know they're playing outside of the top league at the moment, but they're one of the biggest clubs outside of that. "There's no sense to this deal. He's going to Bordeaux, not even one of the biggest clubs in France. "If he was going to PSG, or he was an older player going to have a good time on the French Riviera and play for Monaco, but he's going to Bordeaux. Really delighted to sign for FC Girondins de Bordeaux (@girondins). Very excited for this new challenge, and the next phase in my career at this prestigious club. Would like to thank everyone for their continued support and warm wishes, I am truly grateful. #bordeaux pic.twitter.com/JPPilOsXiu Josh Maja (@joshmaja) January 27, 2019 Clark also expressed some concerns that the move would also represent a step back in the youngsters development. And he's not even going to play, the 46-year-old moaned. He's going to be back to reserve-team football after playing all season as a first-choice striker at a huge club that has got unbelievable support. "It's an amazing deal, it's just crazy for me." Indeed, a switch to Bordeaux does represent a gamble for Maja, with the youngster himself facing an uphill struggle to unseat the likes of Andreas Cornelius, Jimmy Briand, Yann Karamoh or Francois Kamano from Eric Bedouets first-team plans. Beyond that, there are no guarantees that hell adapt to life in a new country, in a new league, with a new club, and at a higher level. While one Nigerian wonderkidAdemola Lookmanultimately made his breakthrough in the Bundesliga with RasenBallsport Leipzig on loan last term, anotherSheyi Ojohas struggled at Stade Reims this term. The wideman, who is on loan from Liverpool, has seen his progress stall in Ligue 1, where hes managed just three league starts this term. In 13 total league outings for Reims, hes yet to register either a goal or an assist, and has wholly failed to build on the momentum he generated during Fulhams promotion campaign last term. Article continues below Nigeria international Samuel Kalu would be a better example for Maja to follow, having made five decisive contributions after leaving Genk on a five-year deal in August. While Maja certainly has the time and the talent to make his name at the Matmut Atlantique, this transfer is a risky one for a player still taking his maiden steps in the sport.
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https://www.goal.com/en-ke/news/is-wonderkid-josh-maja-taking-a-massive-risk-with-bordeaux/hzk96fe2apbi15aj3mpdneohc
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What does landing 3-star QB David Summers mean for Syracuse football?
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Syracuse, N.Y. -- Two weeks after losing a promising young quarterback, Syracuse football reloaded by flipping Class of 2019 Connecticut prospect David Summers from Maryland. Rising redshirt freshman Chance Amie announced his intention to transfer out of SU earlier in January -- a departure that left the Orange with just three returning scholarship quarterbacks in Tommy DeVito, Clayton Welch and Rex Culpepper. And the team-first Culpepper finished last season practicing at tight end. Adding Summers, a three-star prospect from St. Joseph High School in Trumbull, Conn., will bring another quality arm into the program this summer. I would say his strongest skill set is that he has excellent vision, private trainer Leon Clarke said. He anticipates throws very well. He sees some things that I dont think most guys see. As a senior at St. Joseph, Summers completed 56.4 percent of his passes for 2,631 yards, 39 touchdowns and 10 interceptions en route to being named Connecticut High School Coaches Association Player of the Year, according to MaxPreps.com. He racked up 3,227 yards and 49 touchdowns during his junior year, completing 65.1 percent of his passes while throwing just five interceptions. He also logged five rushing touchdowns in each campaign. While its yet to be seen whether Summers will prove himself ready to compete for the backup job during preseason camp, his addition allows the rest of the room to function comfortably and the coaching staff to avoid scrambling for a signal-caller past National Signing Day. With DeVito in line to take the first-team reps, this frees the Orange coaching staff up to handle second-team reps as they see fit. Welch spent all of last season as the teams third option behind Eric Dungey and DeVito, and he appears to be the frontrunner for the backup job. But if Culpepper or Summers earn second-team snaps, they can be split with Welch and the fourth quarterback can run scout team. Or if, after the spring, the staff feels comfortable with Welch as the backup and wants to let Culpepper compete at tight end, Summers can work scout and learn the system while he redshirts. This flexibility was likely going to be achieved in some fashion as SU needed to bring in another quarterback. But to add one with Power-5 offers and a strong relationship with DeVito -- both have trained under Clarke for more than five years -- seems like an ideal scenario. Syracuse has yet to announce practice dates for spring football. Follow Syracuse football on Twitter and Facebook Stephen Bailey covers Syracuse football for The Post-Standard/Syracuse.com. You can follow him on Twitter and Facebook. He can also be reached anytime via email. Syracuse football recruiting: Grad transfer OT Ryan Alexander planning visit
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https://www.syracuse.com/orangefootball/2019/01/what-does-landing-3-star-qb-david-summers-mean-for-syracuse-football.html
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Is council's crackdown on dogs just revenue raising?
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An irate reader was walking their dog and was fined more than $250 by a council officer. An irate reader was walking their dog and was fined more than $250 by a council officer. YOUR SAY: On Thursday, January 17, I and a neighbour were walking our small dogs as we do every day between 7am and 8am and near to the footpath on Memsie Court there was a council van parked. We didn't notice the van and as we drew close we let our dogs off-leash. This isn't a off-leash area so obviously we were doing the wrong thing. As we unleashed our dogs, the council worker approached and asked if the dogs were micro-chipped and we answer yes. She said, "did you know this is not an off-leash area" and we said "yes". The dogs hadn't moved; they just stood there at our feet. Certainly not uncontrollable. After she did this we continued on our walk obviously with the dogs leashed. Later that same day fines were delivered to our mail boxes and that fine for me was $261. I just want to notify readers of the amount of this fine because nowhere on signs where it says penalties will apply does it state the cost of the penalty. I admit to doing the wrong thing but surely a warning would have been appropriate. At no time was a fine mentioned or an amount stated. Great Australian Dachshund Walk: Toowoomba's Queens Park is filled with dachshunds and their owners and organisers are confident of breaking the world record for the biggest number of single-breed dogs to walk in unison with walks around the country. The amount of this fine seems a little incongruous considering it is an amount larger than a speeding fine, possibly larger than a lot of fines for doing wrong in the community. On this notice it was stated that we were fined for "fail to control animal in a public place" and I absolutely dispute that as my dog and my neighbour's dog were just standing with us and didn't move away, therefore they were controlled. It is such a pity that they don't see fit to watch and fine when numerous people along this walk do not pick up their dog's droppings and numerous people break the law with their dogs on weekends when patrols aren't done. In fact patrols have never been seen before along this walk. Indeed I have never seen a patrol anywhere and I have been walking my dog for years. It was decided to patrol this area because of a complaint by one lot of people. I am not complaining at all about being admonished as I was certainly not doing the right thing in unleashing my dog, but she was controlled by voice and it would be better if the council stated an amount of the intended fines or gave a warning for a first offence as these fines certainly seem to be far too high for the stated offence. It would also be a fabulous idea if the patrols (which now seem to have stopped) watch for the people who think leash free means that the dog can drop excrement and they can ignore it. This situation is becoming the norm in Toowoomba. So dog walkers beware. JAN TING, Rangeville
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https://www.thechronicle.com.au/news/councils-crackdown-dogs-just-revenue-raising/3632643/
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Whats the story behind Drew Brees and the Red Sox cap at the Pelicans game?
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Drew Brees attended a New Orleans Pelicans game Saturday (Jan. 26) while wearing a Boston Red Sox cap, which many people took to mean he had a preference for which team wins the Super Bowl next weekend. The New Orleans Saints season ended last week with an NFC Championship loss to the Los Angeles Rams that included a controversial no-call on what the Saints argued should have been pass interference. Had the penalty been called, the Saints could have been in position to attempt a potential winning field goal with little time remaining. Instead, the Rams won in overtime and will face the New England Patriots next week in Atlanta. Drew Brees given a shout-out at tonights Pelicans game. Not necessarily. The 40-year-old quarterback has long been known to be an admirer of Hall of Fame baseball player Ted Williams, who played his full 19-year major league career with the Red Sox. The appreciation Brees has for the Splendid Splinter runs so deep as to be part of the reason he wears No. 9. However, Brees also wore red, white and blue sneakers that have a color pattern similar to the one used by the Patriots. Those colors also arent far from those used by the Pelicans, so perhaps more is being made of this than is necessary. Brees hasnt spoken publicly since the postgame press conference after the 26-23 overtime loss to the Rams. If he makes the promotional rounds during Super Bowl week like has in past years, hell certainly be asked his feeling about the upcoming game.
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https://www.nola.com/saints/2019/01/whats-the-story-behind-drew-brees-and-the-red-sox-cap-at-the-pelicans-game.html
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Why the heck are New Yorkers voting on a Thursday?
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If you live in the state of New York and are standing in line to vote, you may be wondering why you are voting on a Thursday. After all, federal, state, and local elections have been held on Tuesdays since the 1840s. This year is specialand not just because a Sex and the City star is trying to unseat the governor. Normally, New York State primaries would be held on the second Tuesday in September. But this year, that day was Tuesday, September 11. That is not a good day for New Yorkers, as it marks the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which is always a solemn occasion in the city. Additionally this year, September 11 was the final evening of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and one of the Jewish religions High Holy days. Because of these conflicts, the legislature decided to move the election. Not to another Tuesday, but to a random Thursday. Specifically, Thursday, September 13. The date change will most likely depress voter turnout, which is traditionally already low. Ever since a lawsuit in 2012, federal primaries have been held in June. But practically speaking, few people have time to head to the polls three timesJune and September for primaries and then again in November for the general election. New York State already has some of the lowest voter turnout rates in the nation, data show, and having multiple days for primaries only makes it harder. As one expert speaking with CBS Radio noted, there have been some rumblings about moving the state primary to June, when the federal primary is held. That would even save taxpayers at least $25 million in election fees, but incumbents (aka the people in charge of making such decisions) have no interest in making the switch, because when there is low voter turnout, they get the advantage. Thats bad news for the candidates running for governor, lieutenant governor, the state Senate, and the state Assembly who hope to oust an incumbent. In short, if you want a revolution, you have to voteeven if its on a Thursday.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90236586/why-the-heck-are-new-yorkers-voting-on-a-thursday
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Is Bill Gates throwing some shade at Mark Zuckerbergs philanthropy?
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Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg both quit Harvard and went on to found companies that made them billions. Both have pledged to use their vast fortunesthe former via Microsoft money, the latter from Facebookto improve humanity. But their approaches to acting philanthropically definitely differ, so much so that Gates appeared to recently knock the approach his younger counterpart has taken in his charity work. There are aspirations and then there are plans, he told the New Yorker regarding the very broad mission of Zuckerbergs Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, a limited liability company that was founded in 2015 and, according to its website, looks for bold ideasregardless of structure and stage to scale. The groups two biggest stated priorities are biomedical research and education. It is also working on criminal justice reform and affordable housing. When the initiative launched, Zuckerberg drew criticism for stating a seemingly both impossible and reductive goal to help cure all disease in our childrens lifetime, the story notes. The tech titan has since amended that to finding a way to prevent, cure, or manage all diseases within the same time frame. Then Gates added: And plans vary in terms of their degree of realism and concreteness. He also pointed out that Zuckerbergs lofty goals are very safe because theyre so future-oriented. That doesnt mean that theyll succeed so much as defer criticism for a long time. [Y]ou will not be around to write the article saying that he overcommitted, Gates told the New Yorker reporter. Thats a lesson that Zuckerberg may have learned from his earlier dalliances in charitable change making. In 2010, he gave $100 million to the Newark public school district. It was a huge windfall that, the story notes, is generally considered a failure. High school graduation rates there have since improved some, but the money might have had greater impact if Zuckerberg had worked harder to understand what was really needed on a community level and worked to address that. Gates, who has had his own mixed results in education reform, also operates globally in a more community-driven way through The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a $50.7 billion nonprofit grant-maker that, since 2000, has worked with existing charities that specialize in different fields. For example, the group has donated to World Vision, which delivers bed nets to immediately protect against malaria, while simultaneously funding research into larger breakthroughs, like new vaccines. Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan funded their effort by committing 99% of their Facebook stock, and recently gave $12.5 million to an Imaging Scientists program aimed at advancing cellular biology by improving the tools that researchers use to understand and identify diseases. But thats the sort of broad investment that lacks the urgency and built-in benchmarking of many of Gatess commitments.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90235366/bill-gates-is-throwing-some-shade-at-mark-zuckerbergs-philanthropy
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Why cant Apple keep a secret anymore?
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When Apple holds its special event on Wednesday, well already know much of what will be introduced . In fact, these days the company rarely seems to be able to keep the lid on its new offerings until theyre announced. For an organization famous for springing its one more thing surprises on us, lately it seems to be best at springing leaks. In truth, Apples secrecy was never quite as ironclad as legend suggests. The Luxo iMac, the G4 Cube, the infamous case of the lost/stolen iPhone 4 . . . the list of products that were accidentally pre-revealed goes on and on. Still, these leaks were mostly speculation based on snippets of information, fuzzy images of prototypes, or product pages, and magazine covers that went live a bit too soon. Todays leaks are different. Theyre much more consistently accurate and come with fair regularity from reliable sources. Probably not. Times have changed, and the world that iPhone X inhabits is far different from the one into which the original iPhone was introduced. In part, the iPhone itself made it harder to keep secretsvirtually every would-be leaker now has an Internet-connect camera in their pocket. Here are three of the bigger reasons why you may always know more about the next iPhone than Apple would like: 1. More players are involved. It took Apple 74 days to sell its first million iPhones. It now sells that many every day. Producing phones at that rate means involving a lot more people and creating much more infrastructure. That in turn makes it a lot harder to keep a secret. Apple has brought more of the development of irs iPhone components in-houseincluding even chip designbut it still relies on a multitude of suppliers to provide parts, including rival Samsung. The more players involved, the more opportunities there are for leaks. 2. More people care. Apple watching is no longer the sole purview of Cupertino-centric websites and publications. Major outlets that once ignored Apple as irrelevant are certainly watching now. That also goes for specialty publications, like supply-chain and logistics journals. And entire industries now depend on Apple for the their very survival. Case and accessory makers live and die on the ability to be quick to market with products compatible with the ever-changing specs on Apples latest devices. Getting early looks is critical to making sure their designs can be purchased on day one. And since Apple doesnt provide specs or early looks to its upcoming productsat least to the vast majority of makersits up to them to play detective.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90234245/why-cant-apple-keep-a-secret-anymore
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Can the anti-gun-violence movement outraiseand outspendthe NRA?
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The National Rifle Association pours piles of money into elections. The NRA and its affiliates spent more than $50 million supporting seven Republicans and running attack ads against Democrats during the 2016 election cycle alone. Spending that kind of cash has yielded impressive resultsthe gun rights group supported Donald Trump and six Republican Senate candidates in 2016; six of those candidates won their races. advertisement advertisement After every mass shooting, after Newtown and Parkland and Santa Fe, gun violence prevention advocates who know how much the NRAs money matters jump on social media to ask, Why cant we outspend the National Rifle Association and buy our own members of Congress? The advocates come with passion and statistics. They cite 2017 Pew Research Center data: Only 3 in 10 adults in this country own a gun, 68% support bans on assault-style weapons, and 84% support background checks for private sales and at gun shows (a February Quinnipiac University poll put support for universal background checks at a whopping 97%). Yet the question of, Why cant we raise the cash to beat the NRA? often feels rhetorical, a shout of desperation into the void. But as a new school year begins with many parents on edge and gun violence prevention groups gaining momentum, its a legitimate question. Everytown for Gun Safety, a leading gun violence prevention group founded by Michael Bloomberg, who initially seeded the organization with $50 million in 2014, doesnt like to reduce their efforts to simple economics. But they admit donations are already fueling their fight against the NRAs agenda: Bloomberg has kept pumping his own millions into Everytown, but 350,000 individual donors have also join the cause (up from 85,000 donors two years ago). Look at the Virginia races last year in the NRAs own backyard and you see we had a total sweep, says Shannon Watts, founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, part of the Everytown coalition. In 2017 elections, specifically in Virginia, outspending the NRA appeared to prove a decisive factor in the results. Estimates show Everytown spent at least $2.3 million on last years Virginia races versus between $1.5 million and $2 million in spending from the NRA. Everytown endorsed and helped fund Democratic candidates for governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general after the three committed to a range of gun safety solutions and named universal background checks for gun purchases as a top priority. All three won their races. This year they have continued to push for expanded background checks and, in July, Virginia joined a lawsuit seeking to block the distribution of detailed plans for 3D-printed guns. Exit polls report gun policy was the second most important issue in the governors race and polls commissioned by gun violence prevention groups after the election reported gun policy was equally or more important in the other races. This indicates it wasnt just money that made the difference, but voter priorities and Everytowns extensive ground game: We did over 55 canvassing sessions alone for (then candidate, now Virginia governor) Ralph Northam, and when you have boots on the ground, when you have a grassroots army, it matters a lot, Watts says. Of course money funds those boots. advertisement This idea that the NRA is buying congressmen is not an accurate depiction of what is going on, the relationships are much more complex than that, says Kristin A. Goss, a Duke University professor of public policy and political science, and the author of two books about U.S. gun policy. The NRA power doesnt come primarily from its money. Traditionally, the NRAs strength has come from having a very mobilized base. The NRA and other gun rights groups are very organized at the state level and very good at encouraging political participation. But Im not going to say that money doesnt matter in politics, of course it does, Goss says. All movements need money to organize people, to exercise their voice, and to open doors to lawmakers. Money is the mothers milk of politics. Despite unprecedented momentum, the gun violence prevention movement still doesnt have funding on par with gun rights groups. According to recent research by Goss, four leading gun rights groups and their charitable affiliates took in about $437 million in 2016. Conversely, six prominent gun violence prevention groups and their charitable affiliates tallied nearly $95 million, just 22% of their opponents haul. That difference is narrowingGosss research shows a decade ago, gun violence prevention groups brought in less than 3% of the cash of their counterpartsbut it is still a significant gap. The numbers are counterintuitive. Pews findings tell us 19% of gun owners belong to the NRA. This would translate to 13 million American adults, but even the NRA generally touts their membership rolls at around 6 million, and many argue those numbers are inflated (the NRA didnt respond to an interview request for this story). Vastly more people disagree with the NRAs legislative agenda than agree with it. Yet gun violence prevention groups didnt see the same massive post-2016 election surge other organizations saw the ACLU has pulled in approximately $120 million in online donations since the election of Trump; Planned Parenthood added 1.5 million supporters in 2017. Opponents of gun rights activists have spent decades battling what academics call a collective action problem. We assume that because a lot of people share our belief in gun control, any money we give to gun control groups will be a drop in the bucket, so we dont give any money or time at all, says Charlotte Hill, who researches public policy at University of California, Berkeley and writes about money in politics. When everyone acts that way, gun control groups end up under-resourced, even though they have popular support for their policies. advertisement That appears to be shifting as we move toward the midterms. School shootings are commonHill notes before Columbine, the phrase school shooting didnt exist, as it wasnt a common enough category of violence. Anti-gun-violence protests now receive a significant amount of media coverage. Businesses have voluntarily become more strict about gun sales, many raising the age of purchase from 18 to 21 and ending sales of high-capacity magazines and assault-style rifles. But Kris Brown, a president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, finds the most hope in the Democrats surge in turnout in this summers primary elections. We are seeing a record number of people showing up at the polls, Brown says while pointing out the gun violence epidemic is increasingly driving voters to the polls. I am talking about women, youth demographics from 18 to 35, who have historically not shown up in big numbers and now are. If they show up [in November], they are going to vote with us. Another key difference is exit polls, from Virginia in 2017 and through the primaries, show taking on pro-gun rights candidateslong a political death wish (many attribute championing gun control cost Democrats the White House in 2000 and control of Congress in 1994is becoming a winning stance. Where gun law reform once ranked six or seven on a list of issues important to Democratic voters, in recent races it came in at No. 2. Some think it will take a generation or longer, but Brown is more optimistic. If we get enough [of our voters] to turn out in this midterm, I think we have a very strong chance to take back the House, she says. Part of the lack of momentum isnt just lacking the winning votes for our bills on the floor, its that leadership stops bills from even coming to the floor for a vote . . . Just allowing bills to come to the floor will put a huge amount of pressure on the other chamber, and that changes the dialogue around this issue. advertisement Of course to win the House, Democratic candidates need money: 91% of congressional races go to the candidate who raised the most money. And now theyre getting it.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90233606/the-anti-gun-violence-movement-is-catching-up-to-nra-funding
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Could Cory Booker actually be ousted from the Senate?
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Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey took a stand at Brett Kavanaughs confirmation hearings for the U.S. Supreme Court today, and theres an off chance, albeit an unlikely one, that it will result in him being ousted from the Senate. In the hearing, Booker referenced a handful of documents and emails from Kavanaughs time as a White House counsel, during which Kavanaugh discussed racial profiling among other topics. The documents were reportedly marked committee confidential, but Booker couldnt understand why they were confidential as they contained no personal information and posed no national security threat. When no one was able to give Booker a satisfactory answer, he announced he would release them. I am right now, before your process is finished, I am going to release the email about racial profiling, Booker said. I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate. Booker tweeted out the 12 pages of emails, which were tied to discussions Kavanaugh had on racial inequality, including one email thread titled racial profiling. Shortly after Booker released the documents, Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassleys staff released a block of new emailspreviously marked committee confidentialthat had been cleared for public release. The Booker released emails were included in that document dump. Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) followed Bookers lead, tweeting screenshots of an email thread from Kavanaugh regarding Native Hawaiian rights. Typically speaking, its pretty hard to get kicked out of the U.S. Senate. Only 20 members of Congress have ever been expelled, according to the Senates website, and most of those had to do with the Civil War. Many senators have opted to resign instead of suffering the indignity of being ousted. Practically speaking, most Congressional punishment comes in the form of censures, which entail no actual consequences other than a potential loss of leadership roles, or reprimands, which have even less of a real-world impact. The process requires consensus: To fully oust a sitting senator, Article I, Section 5, of the United States Constitution says that expulsion requires a two-thirds vote of the Senate. Once that two-thirds requirement is met, the Constitution allows members to expel one of their own based on self-created rules, without consent from the House of Representatives. Since Republicans dont have a 2/3 majority, its unlikely that Booker will be ousted for his actions.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90232928/could-cory-booker-actually-be-ousted-from-the-senate
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Is big businesss new conscience about plastic waste just greenwashing?
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Plastic has already taken over our households, our electronics, and even our clothesand lately its taken over the news, too. It seems like everywhere you turn, images of plastic waste crowding oceans and beaches are broadcast while yet another corporation announces a ban on single-use plastic items like straws. McDonalds and Starbucks are teaming up to develop a fully compostable coffee cup. Hyatt Hotels, Disney, American Airlines, the Barclays Center and dozens of other major corporations have vowed to phase out offering and using plastic straws. Its a tremendous movement across industries to combat a collective problem, unprecedented in recent memory. Take Starbucks, for example. The coffee giant is aiming to phase out most single-use plastic straws on iced drinks, replacing them with newly developed plastic lids. Starbucks insists the new strawless lids are made from polypropylene content thats widely recyclable, unlike plastic straws. But currently, only around 9% of recyclable plastic is actually recycled. So introducing more single-use options that have a 91% chance of winding up in a landfill or the ocean doesnt seem like much of a real solution. And most companies who plan to phase out plastic straws without developing a substitute said nothing of their continued use of plastic utensils, packaging, and other plastic products. To fairly evaluate corporations response to and responsibilities in the global plastics crisis, its instructive to first take stock of how we got here. It may seem as though we woke up one day this summer suddenly drowning in plastic waste. Thats not completely untrue: Plastic waste has been building up for decades, but until recently, the U.S. shipped most of it half a world away, in China. But on January 1 of this year, China officially stepped down as the worlds landfill and banned the import of other countries solid waste: suddenly the plastic we so casually throw away had nowhere to go. This dilemma was exacerbated by our critical lack of waste management infrastructure. We simply do not have the structures in place to deal with the garbage we produce. The result is that around 275 million metric tons of plastic garbage is created each year, and of that, an estimated 8 million metric tons is dumped into the worlds oceans each year. Over the last 70 years, weve produced approximately 8 billion metric tons of plastic that has to go somewhere. Plastic requires hundreds of years to decompose, eventually breaking down into microplastics that live forever, ultimately either in landfills or our oceans.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90228110/are-new-plastic-waste-bans-just-greenwashing
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Can facial recognition start-ups navigate privacy concerns to seek tech riches?
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Criminals in London attempting to hoodwink the police now have a new challenge to contend with: facial recognition cameras. Dotted around Soho, Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square, the cameras continuously record the faces of thousands of citizens as part of a major trial for the Metropolitan police. Built by Japanese company NEC, the NeoFace system works by analysing the faces of people on a watch list. It measures the structure of each face, including the distance between eyes, mouth and nose. If that face, or one similar, is spotted by cameras, police can instantly track the suspect and call them in for questioning. The Met is believed to have spent more than 200,000 on the technology...
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2019/01/27/can-facial-recognition-start-ups-navigate-privacy-concerns-seek/
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Can Thinx grow up?
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Thinx , the period underwear company, has done some growing up over the last year. Talk to Maria Molland, who was installed as CEO last summer, and shell tell you the less-than-ideal circumstances she inherited are well behind Thinx. This is the story of a very interesting productand a great brand and teamthat went through a little bump in the road, Molland says. Now I dont even think about that bump anymore. Shes referring, of course, to the reports of poor benefits, pay, and work culture that resulted in cofounder and former CEO Miki Agrawal leaving the company last year. Though Molland admits she was initially wary of taking on the role, she also points out that press coverage was misleading. When I walked into this business, it was not as much of a mess as the media portrayed, she says. The team was extremely strong, even well before I got here. Still, Mollands first order of business was to right certain wrongs: She expanded parental leave to 12 paid weeks, raised salaries, increased health insurance subsidies, and brought on an HR chief (though it looks like Thinx is on the hunt for one again). Related: Thinxs PR nightmare is a harsh reminder of why HR still matters Now, Thinx is about to launch a line of period-proof underwear exclusively for teensthe first broader expansion of the brands lineup since Molland came on board. (Knixwear, another period underwear company, also started selling period panties for teens last year.) The teen line, Thinx (Btwn), will come in new sizes and colors, with all three underwear styles available for $23 each. This group of girls doesnt have a lot of innovative solutionstheyve been using pads, which really havent been innovated on in decades, Molland says. We believe that our product is a really good solution because its comfortable, it eases anxiety, and its very akin to products that theyre already using. Though Molland says Thinx (Btwn) was driven by customer demand, its also a logical next step for the brand. Thinxs core product largely caters to millennial women, and sister brand Icon is for older women with incontinence; with Thinx (Btwn), the company is closing the loop, so to speak. Were looking at our overall brand architecture and all the brands that fall under Thinx, Inc as a company and creating a stronger connection between them, Molland says. The goal is that were always creating products that are all about empowering womenright from the time they get their first period, i.e. Thinx (Btwn), to the core line, Thinx, to post-baby as well as later life, with Icon. Thinx even made its first foray into sexual wellness this summer, with a $369 limited edition blanket for leakproof period sex. But it was intended as a conversation piece rather than a true product expansion, according to Mollandthough she notes that it was in high demand and sold out quickly. We wanted this to be something that people felt like they could talk about, she says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90227708/can-thinx-grow-up
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How can we improve our willpower and make better decisions?
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Every Sunday evening, I lay out the clothes Im going to wear for the next five daysfor work and exercisingdown to socks and underwear. I also cook dinner for the entire week and I prepare my lunch for Monday afternoon: a variation of the same salad I bring to work every day. I do these things because it sets me up for the week, but Ive also found that in the process, Ive inadvertently automated certain parts of my life so I dont have to make as many decisions. As I told my cohost Kate on this weeks episode of Secrets Of The Most Productive People, when I get home after a long, stressful day at work, I dont want to think about what I will have for dinner. I just want to heat up a healthy, prepared meal. Researchers have long debated whether or not our willpower and decision-making capacity is finite. One widely cited theory, called ego depletion, argues that its linked to a limited reserve of mental energy, but psychologists have challenged this conclusion in subsequent research. One thing is clear, thoughnot all decisions are created equaland some will require more brain juice than others. This week, we spoke to decision-making expert Sheena Iyengar, professor at the Columbia Business School and author of The Art Of Choosing, about how we can train ourselves and structure our lives to optimize our brain to make better decisions. Tune in to hear more on this weeks episode of Secrets Of The Most Productive People, which you can find on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, RadioPublic, or wherever you get your podcast.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90231435/how-to-avoid-decision-fatigue
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Does a strong January for share markets bode well for 2019?
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While currency markets have been roiled by fears about slowing global growth, trade tensions between the United States and China, the thankfully-ended US government shutdown and ongoing Brexit woes, major share markets have sailed blithely immune. Indeed, US shares are shaping up to turn in the strongest January performance since 1989. The broad measure of US shares, the S&P 500 Index, did slip 0.22 points last week but its January performance so far is a 6.3 per cent gain. "The market is still in the midst of an exceptionally strong start to the year," says Mark Lister, the head of wealth research at Craigs Investment Partners. Advertisement "This bodes well for the rest of the year, with a positive January usually pointing to a robust calendar year performance," Lister says. "When the market is up in January, the likelihood of a positive performance for the calendar year jumps from 72 per cent to 88 per cent, based on returns data since 1950. "Mind you, this relationship has been fairly hit-and-miss during the past 10 years. For example, US shares rallied 5.6 per cent in January 2018 before the S&P 500 finished the year down 6.2 per cent, the weakest return in a decade." Our own benchmark S&P/NZX 50 Index eked out a 0.14 per cent increase last week and is now 3.4 per cent higher than it began the year. Europe's Stoxx 600 Index is up almost 6 per cent for the month so far and even Britain's FTSE 100 index has managed a 1.2 per cent increase. Lister says investors will be looking to the outlook statements of a rash of earnings reports from global brands including Microsoft, Amazon and Apple for a lead on how chief executives see 2019 shaping up. So far, so good, with 22 per cent of the S&P 500 companies reporting already, 71 per cent have beaten earnings estimates and 59 per cent have exceeded revenue forecasts. "The overall earnings growth rate for the S&P 500, compared to the same quarter a year ago, is tracking at 10.9 per cent per annum, on the back of revenue growth of 6.1 per cent," Lister says. "Of those that have reported, about a third have mentioned the shutdown during results calls, with most of these in the financial and industrial sectors." On Friday, in the 35th day of the government shutdown, President Donald Trump capitulated and agreed to re-open the government for three weeks without any of the US$5.7 billion in funding for a wall on the Mexican border that he had been demanding. Other global brands reporting this week include Boeing, Caterpillar, Exxon Mobil and Visa. Investors will also be looking to the first Federal Reserve meeting for the year on Wednesday or 8am Thursday, New Zealand time. "They seem to have done a bit of a back-track, an about-face" as far as further interest rate hikes go," Lister says. "Recent statements from Fed officials (were) seemingly at odds with where the central bank was at just a couple of months earlier." While there won't be any updated forecasts from the Fed, just a short statement, chair Jerome Powell will be giving a press conference. "The Fed is still forecasting two rate hikes this year, but has repeatedly talked about the need for patience in recent communications," Lister says. "Financial markets have responded to the latter and are now pricing only a five basis point increase in the key policy rate in 2019." The latest US employment data is due on Friday but it remains to be seen how much the numbers will have been affected by the shutdown, which saw 800,000 Federal employees either furloughed or working without pay and another 1.2 million contractors without wages. After a very strong 312,000 last month, economists are expecting a more modest 165,000 new jobs to have been created in January. The US unemployment rate is forecast to remain steady at 3.9 per cent.
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https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12197279
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How much will West Suffolk Hackney Carriage fares rise by?
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Changes have been made to Hackney Carriage fares in West Suffolk. Picture: PA ARCHIVE/PA IMAGES PA Archive/PA Images Changes to Hackney Carriage tariffs in West Suffolk are set to be approved this week, which will feature a price hike of 60p upwards for Forest Heath passengers. Share Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in. A review of fares first began at St Edmundsbury and Forest Heath councils in April last year, to align them ahead of the two councils merging into West Suffolk Council this year. The first stage was completed in June which aligned fares without the need for an increase. On Tuesday, January 29, the West Suffolk informal licensing and regulatory committee will agree the final proposals following the last public consultation, with the new fares to be introduced from February 18. For Forest Heath passengers, a standard day fare will cost 60p more for a one mile journey, with fares costing an additional 3p per mile after that, for 12am-6am journeys a hike of 1.90 and 36p per mile jump. Susan Glossop from St Edmundsbury Borough Council said the fares were more in line with 2015 prices for St Eds passengers. Picture: CONTRIBUTED Susan Glossop from St Edmundsbury Borough Council said the fares were more in line with 2015 prices for St Eds passengers. Picture: CONTRIBUTED Fares for Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day will rise by 2.10 for the first mile. Councillor Lance Stanbury, Forest Heaths portfolio holder for planning and growth said: We are committed to improving simplicity and affordability for customers while ensuring fairness for taxi drivers and proprietors. Forest Heath Hackney drivers have not had a fare increase since 2014, something that has been taken into account in the proposals, which mainly affect the starting prices Forest Heath customers would pay. But for those in St Edmundsbury, the changes mean fares are more in line with what customers were paying in 2015. Standard day fares remain the same initial cost with a small rise by 3p per mile, while 12am-6am journeys drop by 10p for the first mile but rise by 36p per mile after. Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Years Day first-mile fares will drop from 8.40 to 7.60. Councillor Susan Glossop, portfolio holder for planning and growth at St Edmundsbury, said: The proposals support our aims of affordability and take St Edmundsbury drivers back more or less to 2015 prices. A joint statement from the pair added: The aim of the Hackney fare review was to keep affordability and avoid a negative impact on the trade, which we believe has been achieved through the rounds of consultation and subsequent adjustments to proposals that will be considered by our licensing and regulatory committees.
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https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/west-suffolk-councils-to-introduce-new-hackney-carriage-fares-1-5867543
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Did Kiwi star Melanie Lynskey become a mum?
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Kiwi superstar Melanie Lynskey has reportedly welcomed her first child, with longtime love Jason Ritter. While the couple have not yet announced anything officially, Us Weekly reports their bundle of joy is at least one month old. The news comes after director Neema Barnette posted a congratulatory message on social media to the happy couple. She wrote on December 18: "Congrats to Raising Dion Co Star Jason Ritter & his wife on the birth of their beautiful Sag baby girl. Babies are a blessing & so is Jason! Advertisement "What a hands down brilliant talent & exceptional human being he is! I'm blessed to have shared creative energy with you. Thank you for giving me a seamless performance." A fan of the Kiwi star also tweeted that she saw the pair with a baby at the airport. "I saw @JasonRitter and @melanielynskey at the airport and I smiled at her and I hope she took that as 'I love you, you've been in so many movies I adore and your baby is adorable,'" she wrote. Neither of the pair responded but Ritter did 'like' the tweet.
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https://www.nzherald.co.nz/spy/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503840&objectid=12197263
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Could mystery of where St Edmund remains are buried be solved finally?
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Video Immense amount of ancient abbey remains undiscovered, studies reveal Crowds gather at St Edmundsbury Catherdral to hear the results of two studies which have taken place on the Abbey of St Edmund. Picture: Ella Wilkinson Archant Further research at the site of Bury St Edmunds ancient abbey will need to be undertaken before the mystery of whether St Edmunds remains are buried in the grounds can be solved. Share Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in. Delegates at the Abbey of St Edmund: Past, Present and Future conference heard on Saturday that despite the historical and archaeological investigations carried out at the site to date, a huge amount remains undiscovered. The results of two studies which capture the significance of the abbeys past and will help shape its future were shared for the first time at the conference, which was held at St Edmundsbury Cathedral. Around 170 people attended to hear the results of a heritage assessment and conservation plan, which were commissioned by the Abbey of St Edmund Heritage Partnership with grant support from Historic England and St Edmundsbury Borough Council. It has long been believed that St Edmund the first patron saint of England could be located in the historic Abbey Gardens, with speculation that he may be buried under the tennis courts. The abbey ruins in Bury St Edmunds Picture: ANDREW MUTIMER The abbey ruins in Bury St Edmunds Picture: ANDREW MUTIMER Consent was granted last year to move the courts, which sit on top of a former monks graveyard, to a different location in the gardens. Next year will mark 1,000 years since the abbey was founded and a number of community events are being planned to celebrate the special anniversary. Robert Everitt, cabinet member for families and communities at St Edmundsbury Borough Council, said: This has been an exciting opening phase to the work of the Heritage Partnership. Of course, further statutory permissions and scans of the whole site will need to be undertaken before we can answer the big question of whether St Edmund is buried under the tennis courts. Crowds gather at St Edmundsbury Catherdral to hear the results of two studies which have taken place on the Abbey of St Edmund. Picture: Ella Wilkinson Crowds gather at St Edmundsbury Catherdral to hear the results of two studies which have taken place on the Abbey of St Edmund. Picture: Ella Wilkinson Whether he is or he isnt, one thing is for sure next year will mark 1,000 years since the abbey was founded, and we can look forward to a series of community events to celebrate our wonderful heritage here in the heart of west Suffolk. The heritage study was carried out by Richard Hoggett and found an immense amount still remains to be discovered, St Edmundsbury Borough Council said. Purcell, an architectural and heritage consultancy, prepared the conservation plan which suggests projects for the future care and interpretation of the Abbey of St Edmund. The abbey area covers 60 acres, including the Abbey Gardens, St Edmundsbury Cathedral, the Great Churchyard, St Marys Church, the former Eastgate Nursery, the former Abbey Vineyards, the Crankles and No Mans Meadow. The Reverend Canon Matthew Vernon, chairman of the St Edmund Heritage Partnership, in the grounds of the Abbey Gardens, in Bury St Edmunds. Picture: WEST SUFFOLK COUNCILS The Reverend Canon Matthew Vernon, chairman of the St Edmund Heritage Partnership, in the grounds of the Abbey Gardens, in Bury St Edmunds. Reverend Canon Matthew Vernon, chairman of the Abbey of St Edmund Heritage Partnership, said: The heritage partnership exists to explore how we can all understand the abbeys cultural, historical and spiritual significance much better. It also aims to conserve it for generations to come, for both local people and visitors to appreciate and enjoy. It was great to be able to present the results of these two studies which are a key part of our work and to invite public feedback that will help shape the future direction of our work. Both studies will be published online on Monday January 28 at www.stedscathedral.org.uk/abbeyofstedmund and www.westsuffolk.gov.uk/abbeyofstedmund A summary of the two studies is also available online and paper copies will be available from Friday, February 1, at the cathedral tourist information point, Bury St Edmunds Library, Moyses Hall Museum, The Apex and West Suffolk House.
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https://www.eadt.co.uk/news/immense-amount-of-abbey-of-st-edmund-remains-undiscovered-1-5867378
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How Good Is Adam Kownacki?
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Lee has written for Ringnews24 for over 7 years and he helps run the site on a daily basis. He has been a fan of the sport of boxing for around twenty five years. He enjoys traveling to watch fights in-particular trips to Las Vegas for big fight nights. Adam Kownacki secured his 19th straight win on Saturday night in New York at the Barclays Center over Gerald Washington. The former world title challenger was wiped out in 2 rounds after a barrage of power punches landed in the 1st round, followed by more in the next which knocked him down hard. But Kownacki had more to do, as Washington managed to get to his feet. The referee allowed the fight to continue for a few more seconds before stepping in to halt the contest. Kownacki is ranked number 8 by the WBC, unranked by the WBA and is number 5 by the IBF. The WBO do not recognise him. So, it looks as if the Polish born heavyweight boxer will need to do some more work in order to keep climbing toward an eventual world championship opportunity. Adam Kownacki was born on March 27th, 1989 in Poland. He moved to the USA when he was seven years old in 1996 and he has remained a resident there ever since. Inspired by watching fights of fellow countryman Andrew Golota, Kownacki started training at Gleasons Gym at the age of sixteen. Success was to shortly follow when he won the New York Golden Gloves tournament the next year and won it again in 2009. Kownacki made his professional debut shortly after that during the same year. Partly due to his three-year long absence out of the ring between 2010 and 2013 due to injuries, it took Kownacki eight more years to fight somebody that could potentially test him. Artur Szpilka was thought to be the one to give him that test, but he found himself beaten in 4 rounds. Iago Kiladze was next, who only managed to survive two rounds longer. Former IBF champion, Charles Martin was unable to come up with any answers and lost by a unanimous decision. And then came along Washington. Kownackis hand speed is pretty good and he always throws punches in bunches. He lacks the versatility of somebody such as Tyson Fury in terms of mobility, preferring to stalk his opposition to try and close the show. His jab is not excellent but it is serviceable. And sometimes he sacrifices defense for offense, something which a good counter puncher and a more athletically gifted fighter could capitalise on. But his power is definitely there, having stopped 15 out of 19 so far. Whether that power could trouble the elites of the division is still to be discovered, but it is has been proven to be more than enough for quality challengers such as Szpilka. His blustery work rate also highly contributes to that. One issue that stands out is his physical fitness. Kownacki does not seem to care much about getting into the best shape possible and often looks very soft. It has not evidently been much of a problem right now, seeing as he is only 29. But give it a few more years and he will start to feel the pace. Things can rarely be successfully achieved half-heartedly in boxing. Looking at it objectively, Kownacki may have something to trouble the likes of Deontay Wilder, who is fundamentally flawed. The American has had to fight tooth and nail during some of his WBC title defenses against fighters that other more solid champions of the past and present would have dealt with more handily. However, Kownackis skill set probably would not be enough to give Anthony Joshua a run for his money due to his more mature boxing style. Give it a couple of more years for Adam to work on his flaws and improve what he has and it could be a different ball game. There is no rush at the moment. It is all about how much Kownacki wants it. I believe it partially is. But I am not sure if it fully is. Adam, just keep punching.
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https://www.ringnews24.com/2019/01/27/how-good-is-adam-kownacki/
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Should the Chargers bring back Denzel Perryman?
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During his press conference after the Patriots loss, general manager Tom Telesco was adamant that the team will make linebacker a priority this offseason. He did comment on whether free agent Denzel Perryman would be apart of those plans. The University of Miami product played 386 snaps for the Chargers in 2018. For reference, Joey Bosa played 314 snaps. Bosa missed the first two and a half months of the season. During his four years with the Chargers, Perryman never started more than 11 games. When Denzel plays, he makes a difference. He had 30 solo tackles in 2018. 22 of those were stops. Thats pretty dang good. The issue is being reliable. Unfortunately, thats something the hard hitting linebacker hasnt been during his career with the Chargers. Some might want Perryman back on a prove it deal. If its a veteran minimum for a year, theres nothing wrong with that. The Chargers are holding all the cards in this scenario, however. Theres no need to overpay Perryman. If anything, the team should move on and bring in guys they know will be available for a full season.
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https://chargerswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/27/should-the-chargers-bring-back-denzel-perryman/
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How cold does it have to get for Iowa schools to cancel classes?
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CLOSE Winds have died down, but the bitter cold will linger. Temperatures below zero are expected Friday with wind chills as low as -20 degrees. Des Moines Register A statewide deep freeze has Iowa parents with one eye on the temperature gauge and the other glued to school cancellation updates. We asked officials from several Des Moines metro districts. And while we found there's no magic number, most said a wind chill of -25 to -30 degrees is when discussions about delaying or calling off classes begin. Thats certainly a time we would consider canceling school, said Samantha Aukes, an Ankeny Community School District spokeswoman. Buy Photo Amber Bellville of Ankeny pulls son Zachary, 3, in a wagon as she picks up her 6-year-old son, Scott, from school in November 2015. (Photo: Michael Zamora/The Register) Des Moines Public Schools, with its high number of students who walk to school, doesn't start considering cancellation until the National Weather Service issues a wind chill warning. That happens when the wind chill reaches -25. That means parents might want to start making alternative plans for this week. Temperatures are expected to reach 25 degrees Monday, but daytime highs are expected to quickly drop for the rest of the week, according to the National Weather Service. Morning wind chills could dip to between -22 and -25 degrees Tuesday, -30 on Wednesday and -20 to -25 on Thursday, said Jim Lee, a National Weather Service meteorologist in Des Moines. When that happens, the time it takes exposed skin to contract frostbit falls rapidly. Youre talking under half an hour, Lee said. Read or Share this story: https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2019/01/27/cold-weather-schools-cancel-des-moines-ankney-west-des-moines-weather-service-wind-chill-freezing/2680405002/
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https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2019/01/27/cold-weather-schools-cancel-des-moines-ankney-west-des-moines-weather-service-wind-chill-freezing/2680405002/
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What will it take to get gen Z to ditch smartphones for wearable cameras?
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Once upon a time, our digital lives were lived in a text-based world, but these days our social personalities are, more often than not, transmitted and mediated by video. This is even truer for the so-called social media influencers and homegrown online content creators, who shoot and stream their every moment on YouTube, Snapchat, or Instagram. advertisement And yet despite video being the dominant medium for young people, devices aimed at making wearable or fashionable portable cameras have generally flopped. One of the first examples, Google Glass, instantly got a bad rap for being a creepy tech product. Theres GoPro, whose business has been flailing over the last year, and Snaps Spectacles, a product that attempted to be a fashionable, wearable camera but lost momentum after some early praise. The take-home from all of this may be that the kids simply like their phones or rudimentary webcams. Now another device is about to enter the fray courtesy of a newish company called Opkix, which raised a $5.4 million in series A funding last year. The company just completed another $5.7 million round of series B funding, which it says gives it a valuation of $200 million. Opkixs first productOpkix Oneis a small, wearable cameraprecisely for the kinds of social content creators who live and die by video. According to its CEO, C. Lawrence Greaves, this new camera is an attempt at being both useful and fashion forward. Its a rectangular, small piece of hardware that looks very much like a portable cell-phone charger. You can hold the camera or attach it to objects like glasses or extension poles. The camera, says Greaves, gives you the option to capture content without having to have your smartphone out. The market Opkix is going for is precisely the younger people on social media. Content creators are absolutely changing the universe, Greaves tells me. Kids these days want to be YouTube celebrities and Instagram influencers. Essentially, the new stars are people who are recording every aspect of their lives, and Opkix thinks it can provide a device thats not a smartphone that will aid this pursuit. There are, however, some hurdles. For one, though the Opkix One is portable, it can only continuously record something for twelve minutes without recharging. Greaves explains that the company is working on improving this limitation for future devices, but when it comes to social video, most of the videos will be recorded in short bursts. Additionally, the Opkix One will not be able to live-stream videosomething that many social media stars do love to do. Greaves explains that the camera, in this current model, couldnt support that function, given the amount of heat it would produce if it were simultaneously recording and uploading online. He adds, We certainly have aspirations for a future of live stream. Essentially, what the Opkix One provides is a small camera on which users can record short videos. They can then upload the video to the companys app to edit, which can then post it on to the social media platform of the users choosing. The hope is a product that offers better qualityand is perhaps a little more attractivethan a smartphone. He adds that older people should like the product, too, because it lets them record moments in life without having to fumble with their phones. The Opkix One will retail for $350; people can buy a bundle that includes various accessories for $500. In some ways, it feels like weve gone down this road before. Endless features have been written about the future, or lack thereof, of wearables. Maybe the timing is right. With this latest cash infusion, Opkix hopes to continue building out its products and making them even more usable. All the same, well have to see if this generation of social movie-makers actually wants to ditch their phone. And, given the state of past products, thats a big if. Correction: An earlier version of the article misstated the money raised in this latest Series B round and the amount of time the device can record without needing a charge. The story has been updated. We regret the error.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90222713/what-will-it-take-to-get-gen-z-to-ditch-smartphones-for-wearable-cameras
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Can these pre-fab modular apartments help house the homeless?
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In late July, trucks pulled up to a vacant lot in Berkeley, California, carrying shipping-container-sized studio apartments, each already fully built inside. It took four days to stack the Lego-like apartments into a new building. In total, preparing the site and finishing the building took four months. With traditional construction, the same project might take a year. advertisement advertisement The new 22-unit building will be leased to the University of California and used for grad student housing rented at market rates. But the design is a variation of the type of building that the developer, Panoramic Interests, thinks could be used to build housing for the homeless more affordably and quickly than standard construction. A version of the design called the MicroPadwith even smaller studio apartments, at 160 square feet versus the 300-square-foot student apartmentsis the most efficient way to provide housing for the homeless, says Patrick Kennedy, the owner of Panoramic Interests. The MicroPad, like the student apartments, is designed to come fully furnished (in the case of the student apartments, even the coffeemaker was installed in the factory, and a built-in sofa converts to a bed at night). Nine-foot ceilings, large windows, and a layout inspired by capsule hotels make the space feel bigger than it actually is. Unlike a room at a homeless shelter, someone living inside would have full privacy, soundproofing, a private kitchenette, and bathroom. The steel body of the apartment is designed to provide protection from fire, flooding, and pests. The units are meant to be part of supportive housing complexes for homeless people, meaning that social services would also be available on-site. On a construction site, the developer would prepare a conventional foundation with all of the conventional utility connections. After all of the units are stacked in place, the water and electrical systems are connected, a skin and roof are added to cover the building, and stairwells and hallways are completed on location. The solution has drawn interest from cities like San Francisco, which spends more than $300 million on homelessness a year. But it has been slow to progress. Kennedy first began pitching the design to the City of San Francisco a few years ago, suggesting that the city could lease land to keep costs lowfor example, the apartments could be built on a city-owned parking lot, while keeping the parking underneath. The city considered the idea, but it faltered, Kennedy says, because unions wanted to preserve local construction labor. Right now, MicroPad units would be built in a factory in China because American factories couldnt handle the jobno American manufacturers make all-steel modules. The process uses the same technology as manufacturing shipping containers, and there are no container manufacturers in the U.S. The apartments can be stacked as many as eight stories high, with the space on single parking lot providing homes for hundreds of people. In San Francisco, where more than 7,000 people are homeless, one building wouldnt house everyone, but a network of the buildings potentially could. advertisement Unions have fought tenaciously [against] any kind of prefab and especially prefab from China, he says. I think that the politicians, at least in San Francisco, have been intimidated by them. (San Franciscos Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing didnt respond to requests for comment.) A representative for the San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council told Fast Company that the union is absolutely opposed to outsourcing work from the United States to any other country. The company is also talking with cities like Los Angeles, but it has faced other challenges common to projects for housing homeless people. Not many people want to have a permanent homeless housing development in their district or in their neighborhood, Kennedy says. So I think thats part of the problem as well. The first MicroPad development for homeless people may be built in Richmond, California, where the county government has federal funding for new supportive housing. The county has yet to choose a developer, but sees several advantages of a design like the MicroPad. Prefabricated small units provide a smart and efficient way to spend one-time funds from HUD for housing our homeless population with dignity, says John Gioia, vice chair of the Contra Costa Board of Supervisors. They provide many living spaces within HUDs required timeframe for construction. Their compact footprint and stackable nature make them easier to site, and makes them flexible enough to provide on-site amenities and services that meet the needs of the residents. The design could also potentially be quickly replicated in other parts of the county. Small units are a good solution for the many homeless people who are living individually, says Richmond Mayor Tom Butt, and the design is more economical than the type of tiny house villages that other cities have been piloting for the homeless. Its a lot more economic to build a multi-unit building, whether its MicroPads or something else, than it is to build little individual units, he says. So if you have a limited amount of money to spendwhich everybody doesdoing these tiny home villages just makes no sense. Because of the volume of construction happening in California now, including in areas that burned in wildfires and are now rebuilding, there is a shortage of construction workers. Thats another reason that prefab construction makes sense, Butt says. Its a challenge for [developers] to find construction companies and find and put together construction crews that can work on these things on any kind of a schedule. Berkeleys new student apartment building was more expensive to build than Kennedy initially projected. Even though the apartments were finished in a factory, a large amount of work still had to happen on the site, including steps that wouldnt happen in a normal construction project, like crane operators carefully lifting each apartment into place. The site, at a busy intersection, was also a difficult space to work. But Kennedy says that he viewed the project as research and development. advertisement The first time around is always more expensive, and we probably learned a dozen ways to do it better next time, he says. We also got a very good idea about the economies of scale we need to realize the economies in prefab construction. Ideally, he says, a project would include a couple hundred apartments, and the site would be less constrained by heavy traffic. He believes that the method is still far less expensive than traditional construction. Compared to one building with studio apartments for the homeless currently under construction in San Francisco, he says, he expects that the MicroPad would cost less than half as much. Though the new building in Berkeley rents at market rate, the design could also be used to provide affordable housing for people who were not previously homeless. The state government is working to support prefab housing like the MicroPad. I think its pretty clear that factory-built housing can be produced more quickly, for sure, and often more cost-effectively than traditional stick-built housing, says Ben Metcalf, director of the California Department of Housing and Community Development. So if youre talking about, for example, homeless populations, theres a huge desire to move quickly in terms of creating those housing opportunities, and a real impatience with the traditional process, which might take two to three years. One challenge, he says, is producing units at a large scale when the industry is new, though Panoramic Interests has gotten around this by working with the Chinese factory. The state department is responsible for inspecting and certifying factory-built housing, and is currently training local building inspectorsmany of whom are unfamiliar with the permitting processto help projects run more smoothly. Metcalf believes that factory-built housing will grow in California, though manufacturers attempting similar work have failed in the past. I think the difference maker today is actually just the real explosion in costs of construction, he says. Prefab housing is also increasingly being used for backyard cottages, a solution for affordable housing that is quickly growing in cities like Los Angeles. In Berkeley, Kennedy is hoping that when people see the new apartment building, it will build support for the buildings he wants to create for the homeless. We think that once people get a chance to go through the [Berkeley] project and see the high quality of construction and the speed and the cost savings that they may decide that its worth challenging the opposition, he says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90219330/can-pre-fab-shipping-container-apartments-house-the-homeless
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What was ex-Pentagon spokesperson doing in Old City of J'lem?
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Chief Pentagon Spokesperson Dana White spoke about her first trip to Israel Sunday, as part of a delegation led by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach and including actress Roseanne Barr. "It is such a thrill to be here, in the City of David," White said. "It is my first time in Israel. I brought my mom, and it's her first time. It's been a dream of hers. So I was so grateful for the rabbi [Boteach]'s invitation. Israel is such an incredible partner to the United States and as a Christian it means so much to me. I touched the Kotel [Western Wall], and it's magical. So I'm grateful to be here. I'm grateful to the minister [Miri Regev], to the rabbi [Boteach] for having us here and I look forward to future visits here." She later emphasized how thrilled she was to be in Israel with her mother, both for the first time, and the close partnership between the two countries. "As a Christian, you have no idea how much I learnt about my own faith through Judaism. And it is a miracle to be here, to walk where Jesus has walked, to be in the City of David," she said. White thanked Israel's culture minister Miri Regev, and American Rabbi Boteach. The latter who came on the delegation as well with Roseanne Barr. "So thank you minister, thank you rabbi, for the invitation. Thank you Roseanne for creating this opportunity for me. Thank you so much. Thank you all"
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http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/258196
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Does anyone really think Tofurky is meat?
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Plant-based substitutes for animal products have rapidly grown in popularity, but the sector still has a few challenges to overcomeincluding their category definition. Last month, the FDA took aim at nut-based dairy alternatives , with commissioner Scott Gottlieb questioning whether they have the right to use the term milk. Now, vegan meat is under attack. On Monday, Tofurkyi.e., the grandfather of this whole crazefiled a lawsuit against the state of Missouri in an attempt to keep describing its products as meat. A new state law, which goes into effect Tuesday, prohibits food companies from labeling products as meat or using terms like sausage if theyre not from harvested livestock or poultry. The Oregon-based company stresses that it in no way misrepresents its products ingredients, which the new Missouri law claims such terminology potentially does. (Does anyone in their right mind pick up a Tofurky link and actually think its meat?) Tofurky would, in essence, need to change all of its packaging, labels, and marketing. The Missouri Cattlemens Association, which supported the statute, said its not terribly concerned with plant-based companies such as Tofurky. It takes bigger issue with newer science attempting lab-grown meat, which it believes needs to be disclosed to the consumers once available. According to an Israeli startup called Future Meat Technologies, which just got a large investment from meat giant Tyson Food, that reality isnt too far away; clean meat produced from animal cells may be in restaurants by the end of 2018. Tofurky CEO Jaime Athos filed the suit along with several other disgruntled parties, including the Good Food Institute, American Civil Liberties Union, and Animal Legal Defense Fund. The coalition hopes to overturn the law, which they say threatens the rights of the entire plant-based industry. We feel this law is unnecessary, assumes lack of consumer sophistication, and intends to slow the growth and accessibility of plant-based proteins, Athos said in a statement provided to Fast Company. Demand for plant-based proteins has sky-rocketed domestically and abroad. As brands and products enter the market, we must assure a level playing field for all manufacturers, to allow consumers to clarify their preferences, by way of purchase intent each week. Beefing up Nielsen reports that plant-based sales account for 20% of food and beverage dollars spent by Americans, with beef alternatives making up 44% of that. Impossible Foods (which produces Impossible Burgers) is amping up for increased demand: The brands Oakland facility will soon produce 500,000 pounds of meat each month to satisfy demand from the 3,000-plus restaurants it now serves. Beyond Meat, meanwhile, just built an impressive food lab to create new faux-meat creations.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90228121/does-anyone-really-think-tofurky-is-meat
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Can architecture help heal Genoa after a devastating bridge collapse?
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Genoa is Italian architect Renzo Pianos hometownand after a bridge in the Mediterranean port city collapsed August 14, killing 43, Piano described himself as overwhelmed for his wounded city. According to The Guardian the architect, who won the Pritzker Prize in 1998 and has built structurally innovative buildings (and bridges) all over the world, is now pledging to help it rebuild with a new bridge. Days after the tragedy, Piano spoke critically of the way architecture and engineering is practiced in his home country to La Repubblica, saying that Italy isnt practicing a scientific approach to building construction. This is called diagnostics. In medicine nobody does anything without a diagnosis. How do you determine if you need medicine or an operation or just a bit of rest? he said, according to a translation by the Art Newspaper. Only a precise diagnosis guarantees an effective medical intervention. Bridges, homes, and all constructions should be treated like living bodies. Pianos pledge may be more than a gesture by the countrys master architectits also a call for unity by a senator, since Piano is one of six senators for life in the Italian Parliament, which means he has a tenured vote. The collapse of the bridge has turned up the heat on the political tension between Italys anti-establishment Five Star Movement, which as Bloomberg reports had opposed a highway project in Genoa that would have eased traffic on the bridge, and the anti-immigration party it shares power with, the League, which was for the building project. Five Star, which rose to power quickly over the past year, blamed the collapse on the private company responsible for maintaining the bridge, while the populist League cited EU policies. The tragedy has become a picture window onto a fraught political moment for Italyand according to The Guardian, Piano believes a new building project could be a symbol around which to rally. He described the theoretical project as a positive moment of unity and cooperation. It must be a place where people can recognize the tragedy in some way, while also providing a great entrance to the city, he told the paper. All this must be done without any sign of rhetoricthat would be the worst trap. But I think we will stay away [from that] and instead try to express real pride and values. That is what Genoa deserves. Whether or not Pianos proposal for a new building project comes to fruition, his bigger point seems to be about the application of building science toolsthe diagnostics, as he put it, that could have detected and perhaps prevented calamity in Genoa. As Italys populist parties struggle for control, infrastructure could become the hinge upon which their power swings.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90227386/can-architecture-help-heal-genoa-after-a-devastating-bridge-collapse
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How Did Jay Lenos Old-Timey Car Wind Up in Mary Poppins Returns?
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Photo: VALERIE MACON/AFP/Getty Images If you, like comedian Julie Klausner, fought the winter blues by transporting yourself into the fantastical world of Mary Poppins Returns at your local theater, only to be perplexed at why Jay Leno gets a special thanks mention at the end of the credits this very esoteric mystery has been solved, and with a fun ending! Thanks to our friendly chimney sweep Lin-Manuel Miranda who got wind of Klausners inquiry on social media, the former Tonight Show host ended up getting a prominent shout-out not because of a joke or, we dont know, silver fox hair maintenance, but because of his willingness to lend the film one of his many cars for a special project. Apparently there is a car sound effect from the 1930s that they could not replicate, and someone realized Jay Leno had the car they needed, Miranda tweeted. To record the sound effect. Wait @julieklausner I asked about this when I saw that! Apparently there is a car sound effect from the 1930s that they could not replicate, and someone realized Jay Leno had the car they needed. To record the sound effect. There is your answer and hello. https://t.co/5NOGMAcpP7 Lin-Manuel Miranda (@Lin_Manuel) January 27, 2019 Leno is a rich man, and a rich man who owns just about every car you can imagine. (He also currently hosts Jay Lenos Garage on CNBC, because hes a gearhead with that many cars to share with the world. Dont feel bad, Grand Tour hosts!) Vulture reached out to Disney to see which car he was nice enough to loan the Poppins crew for the day, so in the meantime were going to guess his 1931 8-liter Bentley Mulliner. You know, a car for normal folk!
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https://www.vulture.com/2019/01/how-jay-lenos-old-car-ended-up-in-mary-poppins-returns.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+nymag%2Fvulture+%28Vulture+-+nymag.com%27s+Entertainment+and+Culture+Blog%29
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How did Call the Midwife film the cleft lip and palate baby?
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For the first time, Call the Midwife has introduced us to a newborn with a cleft lip and palate. Advertisement Little Baby Kirk needs a lot of care and attention when he comes into the world, and his mum Betty Marwick (Lisa Ellis) is overwhelmed. Even the midwives are unsure how to react, with Nurse Valerie Dyer (Jennifer Kirby) borrowing medical textbooks to read about the condition. No. While Call the Midwife usually recruits real babies to play newborns on the show, in this particular case they had an animatronic baby made for close-up shots. CGI was also used to make the scenes more realistic. Dr Turner actor Stephen McGann explains: That is animatronic. Thats a wonderful piece, like we did with the thalidomide baby. That was a very, very clever piece of a melding of CGI and of a real baby. He adds: The effects are so amazing now. And Im still amazed by them. So youre able nowadays with the technology to show the immediacy of it The immediacy of a problem like that in the face of a mother and do it justice. When a babys face doesnt join together properly during development in the womb, they can be born with a cleft lip and palate. A cleft lip is a gap in the upper lip, while a cleft palate is a gap in the roof of the mouth which leaves an opening into the nose. The severity can range: some babies will be born with a small split to the lip or an opening at the back of the mouth, while others will be born with a wide gap reaching up to the nose or a split running all the way along the roof of the mouth. For newborns, cleft lips and cleft palates can cause serious issues, including difficulty feeding (because they cannot form a good seal on a nipple or teat with their mouth) as well as hearing problems, dental problems and speech problems. Surgery to correct a cleft lip is usually carried out between three and six months, while cleft palates are repaired at 6-12 months. The surgery may leave a small pink scar above the lips, but most children treated for cleft lip or palate are able to lead completely normal lives once the issue is corrected. In the UK, cleft lip and palate is the most common facial birth defect, affecting around one in every 700 babies. Advertisement Call the Midwife continues on Sundays at 8pm on BBC1
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https://www.radiotimes.com/news/tv/2019-01-27/how-did-call-the-midwife-film-the-cleft-lip-and-palate-baby/
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Has International Business Machines (IBM) Finally Bottomed Out?
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Shares of IBM (NYSE: IBM) jumped 8% on Jan. 23 after the tech giant's fourth-quarter numbers beat analyst expectations. Big Blue's revenue fell 3% annually to $21.8 billion, marking a second consecutive drop but surpassing estimates by $30 million. Its non-GAAP net income fell 8% to $4.4 billion and its non-GAAP EPS declined 6% to $4.87, which still beat expectations by a nickel. On a GAAP basis, which included tax reform charges in the fourth quarters of 2017 and 2018, IBM posted a net profit of $2 billion -- compared to a loss of $1.1 billion a year ago. However, IBM's tax-related charges of $1.9 billion during the quarter were much lower than the $5.5 billion it paid last year. An IBM Multicloud Manager. More Image source: IBM. IBM expects its non-GAAP EPS to rise at least 0.7% to $13.90, compared to the consensus forecast for flat growth. That forecast includes gains from the recent sale of some of its software assets to HCL Technologies and its acquisition of Red Hat (NYSE: RHT), which should close in the second half of 2019. It also expects to generate $12 billion in free cash flow (FCF) for the full year, compared to $11.9 billion in 2018. On the surface, Big Blue's growth still looks mediocre. Yet some investors might be wondering if IBM's post-earnings rally indicates that the stock -- which hit a multiyear low last month -- is finally ready to climb higher. First, the bad news... IBM's entire turnaround hinges on the growth of its "strategic imperatives" (SI), which include its higher-growth cloud, analytics, mobile, social, and security products and services. IBM's SI revenues rose 9% to $39.8 billion over the past 12 months and accounted for half of its top line. Unfortunately, that still represented a significant slowdown from its double-digit growth in previous quarters: Metric Q1 2018 Q2 2018 Q3 2018 Q4 2018 SI revenue (trailing 12 months) $37.7 billion $39.0 billion $39.5 billion $39.8 billion Year-over-year growth 12% 15% 13% 9% Data source: IBM quarterly reports. IBM's total cloud revenue rose 12% to $19.2 billion over the past 12 months, while its closely watched cloud services revenue went up 18% to $12.2 billion. Those growth rates, which also decelerated over the past year, look dismal compared to the cloud growth rates of Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) and Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT). Amazon's AWS (Amazon Web Services), which competes against IBM's public cloud platform services, grew its revenues by 48% annually to $18.2 billion during the first nine months of 2019. Microsoft, which competes against IBM in the public, private, and hybrid cloud markets, reported that its commercial cloud revenues rose 47% annually to $8.5 billion in the first quarter of 2019. Three of IBM's core business units also generated weak growth during the fourth quarter. Its technology services and cloud platforms revenue stayed flat on a constant currency basis at $8.9 billion, reflecting the weakness of its cloud business; its systems revenue tumbled 20% to $2.6 billion, partly due to cyclically weak demand for IBM Z mainframe systems; and its global financing revenue slid 9% to $402 million.
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https://news.yahoo.com/international-business-machines-ibm-finally-200700538.html
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When will tech worker wages start growing again?
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Were all used to rolling our eyes when we see headlines about the obscene wealth in Silicon Valley: Jeff Bezos making $6.2 billion in 5 minutes, Sean Parkers $9 million wedding in a redwood forest, tech CEOs building expensive underground bunkers in case of doomsday. And the inequality is getting worse, in and out of the tech sector. While CEOs at the 350 biggest U.S. companies earned an average pay of $18.9 million in 2017a steep 17% increase from the previous yearwages for the average U.S. worker grew just 0.2% during that period, according to a new study by the Economic Policy Institute. Average tech sector wages ($112,890) are more than double the average national wage ($54,520), but they also remain relatively stagnant. Wages increased by just 2.1%, which adjusted for inflation, is essentially flat, according to a CompTIA report. Its been a source of frustration for many in the industry, considering that demand is so high. In May 2018, employers posted 314,000 tech job openings and only filled 8,700 of them, and the Bureau of Labor Statistics projects employment of software developers to grow 24% through 2026, faster than the average for all occupations. In recent years, there have been a number of factors to explain this sluggishness: managed service providers driving down rates through volume-based negotiation for talent, and theres been an increased use of foreign workers on H1B visas at lower salaries. But this should change soon, says Harley Lippman, CEO of staffing firm Genesis10, pointing to the intense competition for highly skilled workers and the Trump administrations crackdown on H1B visas. That will put more demand on companies to increase wages, Lippman says. I was talking to a Fortune 500 client the other day and the CIO told me for the first time that theyre talking about raising salaries.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90220675/when-will-tech-worker-wages-start-growing-again
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Whose quota is it anyway?
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Union Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, while defending the Constitution (124th Amendment) Bill, 2019 that provides 10 per cent reservation in jobs and education to the economically weaker sections (EWS) in the general category, announced on the floor of Parliament that sixes are hit in the slog overs of a cricket match. More sixes will come, he asserted. Indeed, sixes are, and will be, hit by the batting side, both at the Centre and the states. The governments of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh, for example, announced loan waiver schemes within a week of assuming office without analysing how the benefits would reach the vulnerable sections of the farming community or giving a serious thought to the impact these measures would have on agriculture in the long run. Advertising An easy defence of such measures is that non-conventional shots are played in the slog overs as there is no time for rational calculation. The argument could well be, Lets first win the battle for Delhi in 2019 and we would then start thinking about goals of efficiency, equity and sustainability for informed policymaking. In the context of reservation for EWS, I have always held that the children of the poor from the upper castes vegetable vendors, construction labourers, challenged individuals, self-employed or unemployed widows deserve reservation as much as the children from Dalit households, who have enjoyed high economic and social status, say, for two generations. Let us then reserve 10 per cent seats for the poorest 10 per cent of the households, not covered under reservation. I would not be surprised if this principle enjoys some measure of support among a cross-section of the countrys population. The finance minster, while talking about direct tax collection, has often argued that given our democratic structure, it is difficult to work out clear operational criteria to identify the people who must pay taxes. In fact, more than two years after demonetisation, the government has not taken action against the account holders who deposited old currency well above their normal cash balance. Clearly, it fears losing votes. The dearth of will and capacity to target the new quota to the actual poor is evident from the criteria that are likely to be fixed for identifying the potential beneficiaries. Persons from households with annual earning below Rs 8 lakh, possessing agricultural land below 5 acres, a plot less than 100 yards in a notified municipality or below 200 yards in the non-notified municipal area would be eligible for the reservation. The new amendment also allows the states to set income cut-offs to decide who constitutes EWS. They can even exceed the criteria set by the Centre. It also allows the states to notify EWS from time to time on the basis of family income and other indicators of economic disadvantage even if they are adequately represented in government jobs. SCs, STs and OBCs account for 70 per cent of the population and are entitled to 49.5 per cent reservation in the government sector. The eligibility issue thus pertains to the remaining 30 per cent or 39 crore people, who fall under the general category. Calculations based on available data suggest that about 95 per cent of the people in the general category will be eligible under the new criteria. It is not difficult to understand who would be the real beneficiaries of the rather generous eligibility criteria for determining economic deprivation. It is very likely the middle class, those who work in the private sector where it is difficult to establish the income-level and the unscrupulous who can con the system through false declarations, would grab the benefit. The children of street vendors and agricultural labourers have very little chance to benefit from the new quota. Indeed, whenever anyone has shown the benevolence of defining poverty with a high cut-off point, the real motives has been to help the top 10 to 20 per cent among the eligible. It is not a level-playing field. And the poor, as defined by the Tendulkar or Rangarajan Committees, stand very little chance of benefiting from the new quota. It is absurd to believe that Muslims would benefit from the quota, simply because they have a higher share among the poor. Very few Muslims would be in the top 20 per cent among those eligible for the EWS quota. The immediate beneficiaries of such measures would clearly be the batting side at the Centre and the states. They are likely to reach out to the common masses with the message that the government really cares for them. Unfortunately, the poor do not constitute a votebank and can be swayed by promises. When they realise who the real beneficiaries are, it is too late. Advertising The above conclusion with regard to loan waivers, reservations in general category and a host of similar decisions is, of course, based on the assumption that the voters do not care for long-term development concerns and can be bribed with short-term or imaginary benefits.
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https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/ews-general-category-quota-sc-st-supreme-court-5557300/
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What is VUCA and why both employers and employees are facing the brunt of it?
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Organisations today need 247 innovative pool of employees, those who can just keep innovation pumping at all levels of business. By Vidya Hattangadi VUCA is an acronym used to describe the state of business, political, societal and ecological world. VUCA stands for Volatility, Uncertainty, Complexity and Ambiguity. The world is experiencing a crazy spin of events because too many uncertainties have plagued it. Most organisations exist by adapting to complexities and by behaving flexible because they operate in multiple countries. We are seeing new trends in organisational structures seemingly evolving as fast as they can be identified. Multinationals need to fight tough competition given by local players. Developing economies neither are behind the developed ones, nor show signs of competing with them. Emerging markets are different; they appear backward in some ways and advanced in others. For example, Chinas telecommunications infrastructure is newer and better than that in most parts of the US. At the same time, approximately 300 million Chinese live on less than $1 a day, according to the World Bank. In India, the educated elite who command international wages flourish in a nation with high rates of illiteracy. In Russia, abundant venture capital coexists with murky property rights and intimidating bureaucratic barriers. These disparities arent likely to disappear soon, and theyre creating unique markets. Local businesses have fragmented the business world and multinationals have a tough time fighting them. In most organisations, there is a dearth of experienced professionals. Strategies are developed in the boardrooms, which are implemented fitfully. Lack of proper guidance and strong leadership make organisations vulnerable from inside. Many organisations are taking time yet to learn and get stabilised. Both employers and employees are facing the brunt of the VUCA world. Volatility: It is ever-increasing. Brexit is a good example of the VUCA world. Britains exit from the European Union took the world by surprise. A consequence of this political factor has affected economics, commerce, regulatory system and emotional perception of the people at large. Britain will be isolated from their major trading partners, i.e. the eurozone. That is surely not a healthy thing for global trade. The real shocks are yet to come. After Brexit, political and security effects would be more important to the US. The potential economic gains and losses for the US in Brexit are small, apart from the TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) arrangement, which would result in substantial economic gains for the US. The US will miss the influence and global perspective that the UK brings to the EU decision-making process, particularly around foreign policy, security and defence. The TTIP is a planned agreement focused on lowering trade tariffs and removing costly regulations on business across the Atlantic. These barriers include labour rights, food safety rules and banking safeguards put into place following the recession. Syrias war shows no sign of stopping. Syria can be described as several interconnected wars. Its not government-versus-rebels narrative it started out as in 2011. The US pressure on Turkey to deal with the ISIS will actually make Turkey more vulnerable to attacks from terrorist groups. Brazil is unable to address its growing fiscal deficit. The war between North Korea and South Korea, and the political instability in many parts of world has increased volatility. The geographical, political, ecological, economical changes are too much of a burden on business organisations. Uncertainty: It is linked to volatility. Making systematically-sound strategic decisions under uncertainty requires mature strategies in a framework for determining the level of uncertainty surrounding strategic decisions and for tailoring strategy to that uncertainty. Smart business organisations are reworking on their decision-making frameworks in which decisions can be executed. Management techniques were always based on assumptions about the future, and the use of planning is a major tool of management control. In todays world, they are made for the present. Mergers, acquisitions and takeovers have reached a peak globally because firms are seeking to position and reposition themselves. Complexities: Globalisation has pushed the boundaries of doing business, which has only created a wide gap between developed and underdeveloped markets, increasing the competition from new entrants. Globalisation has put pressure on businesses of all sizes to tap international customer base. From a technology point of view, businesses need to review all processes and see how their legacy and systems can cope with. The biggest fact today is that the start-ups are giving competition to established businesses in many sectors; bigger and established players are dumbfounded due to creativity and innovation from smaller firms. Organisations today need 247 innovative pool of employees, those who can just keep innovation pumping at all levels of business. Ambiguity: Too much of information keeps pouring in from everywhere, creating more and more ambiguity. Customers have a lot of information and they are confused about what to buy, how to buy, from where to buy, at what price to buy. For any given product, there is substitution. Customer loyalty is out of business dictionary. Everything has become complex: marketing, sales, pricing, operations, R&D, a firms infrastructure, supply chains, buyer behaviour, big data systems, economic models, getting finances everything is challenging. Due to random organisational structures, the authority and responsibility lines have becomes blurred, which creates a big leadership challenge. Due to blurring responsibilities of managers, internal complexities keep growing in organisations. Employees get busy playing the blame game and politicising the work atmosphere. The same is with governmentsblurring responsibilities gives way to non-transparency in systems. Globalisation has paved way for a growing number of multichannels at all levels, from governments to citizens, and each is stumbling with their own set of priorities and responsibilities. The conclusion: VUCA is equal to uncertainty.
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https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/what-is-vuca-and-why-both-employers-and-employees-are-facing-the-brunt-of-it/1456602/
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Is the new Google Guarantee program worth the hassle?
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Avery Swartz is a tech consultant who advises small businesses on all things digital. She is also the founder of Camp Tech, a tech training company for businesses and individuals across Canada. Alphabet Inc.'s Google has rolled out a new service in Canada that promises to help your professional service business stand out from the crowd. Businesses in the program will have Googles badge of approval next to their listing in the search engines results. The Google Guarantee program is a feature of the companys Local Services ads service, which launched in Canada in late 2018 in the Toronto and Vancouver areas. The program is currently only available in Canada for plumbers, heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) professionals and locksmiths, but is expected to be rolled out for other service providers down the road. Story continues below advertisement Google started testing Local Services ads in San Francisco in 2015 and has expanded to more than 30 metropolitan areas in the United States. In the United States, Local Services ads are available for service categories including locksmiths, plumbers, electricians, HVAC services, carpet cleaners, house cleaners and garage door services. Local Services ads are similar to Google Ads (previously called Google AdWords), in that they appear at the top of search engine result pages when someone is doing an internet search. Businesses only pay Google when a lead is generated through Local Services ads. Google provides a forwarding phone number in the ad, and leads are tracked through those phone calls. If privacy is top of mind for your business, be warned: A recent Star Metro report says both sides of the phone calls are recorded by Google. The service provider is only charged for the calls that come through from Google and can set a weekly budget based on the average number of leads theyd like to receive. Unlike Google Ads, which anyone can create, Local Services ads have a detailed application process. Google vets each service provider, verifying that they have insurance and meet all local licence requirements. They also perform background checks on the business and the owner. Jumping through the extra hoops can be worthwhile, though, as the end result is an ad in Google with a special designation: a Google Guarantee. When a customer books through Google Local Services, the service is Google Guaranteed for up to $2,000 money back if the customer is unhappy. The Google Guarantee badge appears right in the ad itself. On the customer side, the Google Guarantee is compelling. Odds are, when someone is searching for a plumber, HVAC or locksmith service, theyre in a moment of need. They have a problem, need it fixed fast, and are likely to book a service right away. It can be hard for the customer to determine whos trustworthy in a Google search though, as reputable service providers have to compete against shady businesses who may be buying Google Ads to stand out. Service providers with a Google Guarantee designation appear first in search results (higher than Google Ads). This helps instill customer trust and provide peace of mind. Brock Murray is co-founder and chief operating officer of seoplus+ , an Ottawa-based digital marketing agency. He has been following the rollout of Local Services ads in the United States and is excited to see them launch in Canada. He sees the appeal in Local Service ads, particularly because of their ease of use. "I like that from business owners perspective, its really simple to use, Mr. Murray says. Its a very easy way to get leads at a predictable cost. Story continues below advertisement Story continues below advertisement Mr. Murray suspects that Google will expand the types of professional service businesses eligible for Local Services ads beyond the plumbing, HVAC and locksmith industries into other services as theyve done in the United States. He encourages businesses to try Local Service ads as early as they can, as being one of the first service providers to have the Google Guarantee can be a key differentiator against competition. "The first ones who get Google Guaranteed are going to be getting the traffic. If youre not, youre going to fall behind, Mr. Murray advises. Lior Shaykevich, owner of Toronto Pro Locksmith, has experimented with Local Services ads. Its fantastic. It gets me to the top and shows the actual businesses that are capable of doing the job and makes me stand out, he says. Mr. Shaykevich was able to set up his Google Local Services account himself, and spending about $400 a week, he says he is receiving an estimated five calls a day. Thats a relatively low cost for each lead when compared with Google Ads, where it can cost a business $30 to $40 for each lead-generating click to appear at the top of a search for Toronto locksmith. As more businesses sign up for Google Local Services ads, the cost to compete could rise. "As more people get on it, thats when theyll drive up the prices. Just like AdWords five years ago, Mr. Murray says.
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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/small-business/marketing/article-is-the-new-google-guarantee-program-worth-the-hassle/
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Why is it still so hard to find women CEOs on Google Images?
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You cant be what you cant see, Marie Wilson of the White House Project said back in 2010. According to a new study, Google Images may not be helping to improve the situation. AdView analyzed employment data to determine the number of women in various jobs (baker, call-center worker, CEO), and then calculated the number of women who showed up in Google Image search results for the same roles. While women make up about 28% of chief executives (at least, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics), they made up only 11% of the CEOs that show up in a Google Image search, according to AdView. (When we tried the search, at least one of those CEOs was Gal Gadot, who is a Wonder Woman, but not a CEO, as far as we know.) Granted, Google Image search results are not frozen in time (they change based on things such as the news cycle, for instance), but the lack of women CEOs in these results raises important questions about the lack of representation of women leaders in media, and how that relates to their lack of representation in the real world. The number of women in chief executive roles at major companies actually declined 25% this year, according to Fortunes 2018 list of female CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. There were 24 women, down from 32 the year before. Part of the reason there are so few women in those roles is that women are 18% less likely to be promoted to manager than their male peers. Perhaps more womenand menneed to be reminded that women are CEO material, too. And thats something Google Images could help with by changing the perception of CEOs to include more women in search results. Reached for comment, a Google spokesperson did not provide an on-the-record statement about the study.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90215758/why-is-it-still-so-hard-to-find-women-ceos-on-google-images
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Does the universal symbol for disability need to be rethought?
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Ninety-three percent of people with disabilities dont use a wheelchair, even though the universal symbol that identifies this group is a person in a wheelchair. Liam Riddler, a creative at Londons McCann office, points to his brother, who suffers from Crohns diseasea condition that causes inflammation of the digestive tract, potentially causing pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, and malnutrition. Its an invisible disability: Nobody would know about it by looking at him. Most people dont understand why he may need to use accessible toilets or take advantage of priority seating. Riddler doesnt claim to have an answer, but he and Carrana want to spur discussion around the issue with a project they have titled Visability93. Half provocation and half an effort to distill the graphical essence of these disabilities, the project is a crowdsourced competition that asks designers to submit their ideas about how to best graphically represent people with different invisible disabilities using individual symbols. So far they have 29 new icons (which you can download as a typeface here) that range from mental illnesses like anxiety, bipolar disorder, or depression, to physical conditions like asthma, arthritis, or diabetes. Theyre using them in posters to raise awarenessand starting to imagine how they could potentially be applied in public to remind people that not all disabilities are visible. Today, disability is represented by the International Symbol of Access (ISA), which was created by Danish design student Susanne Koefoed back in 1968. Its a strong graphic of a person in a wheelchair that has had tremendous success in conditioning societies all over the world to respect and give preferential treatment and access to disabled people. Riddler agrees that the current symbol is extremely powerful and successful. But he points out that it really only works well for people with more visible disabilities, like those using wheelchairs or other visual aids. In some instances, someone with an invisible disability might be mistaken for an able-bodied person, and as a result be subjected to abuse and unfair judgment as to why theyre using disabled-access facilities, he explains via email. This, he says, can lead to unwarranted embarrassment, shame, and withdrawal from society. Visability93 is meant to educate and provoke discussion around the issue in general, and the group is working with designers, people with disabilities, and charities that represent these disabilities on the project. In some situations in the United States, its illegal to ask what someones disability isbut that doesnt always stop it from happening. The emotional and psychological costs can be high. When I talked to the people in my life who have invisible disabilities, they confirmed that it can be really upsetting when someone asks what their disability is before allowing them to bring their service dogs into a hotel or bar. But they also told me something else: that their disability is a private matter, which they dont wish to broadcast in publicwhich is why the current, generic ISA symbol is exactly what they want. We dont profess to saying everyone with an invisible disability wants to openly reveal their disease to the public, Riddler says. However, shouldnt people have the option to do so if they wish, without being discriminated against?, he continues. We have spoken to a range of people living with invisible disabilities and have had reams of positive and some skeptical feedback. But thats what were looking for.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90216071/does-the-universal-symbol-for-disability-need-a-redesign
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What If We Treated AI Bias Testing Like Clinical Drug Trials?
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As society struggles with how to best address AI bias, many solutions have emerged, from creating new minimally biased open training datasets to using name and shame campaigns to embarrass companies into doing better. Every new AI product would have to declare the demographics it has designed its algorithm to work best for and register with an independent testing agency that would test its accuracy on each of those demographics and generate a public report detailing how it performed on each. A significant driving force behind the biases of todays AI solutions is the simple fact that companies refuse to pay for minimally biased training data. AI systems of today are nearly exclusively trained using only what free off the shelf data their creators can get their hands on. Companies rarely even consider the idea of paying to collect or curate training data that has a lower bias level. Creating massive new minimally biased open training datasets available to everyone for free would have a profound impact on replacing industrys current obsession with using only free training data with a focus on using good data. However, even if minimally biased data was freely available, companies would still face the economic tradeoffs of balancing bias minimization with model filesize, execution speed and accuracy on their core customer demographics. In the end, economics will always win and companies will simply manually curate bias back into minimally biased data in order to focus on their target demographics. Similarly, name and shame campaigns have limited utility. To the degree they are well aligned with economic drivers, from acquiring vast new economically valuable customer bases to meeting the needs of large governmental clients, the biases they identify will be addressed with or without the campaign. In contrast, as a quarter century of name and shame campaigns relating to accessibility reminds us, no amount of public scrutiny will lead companies to invest in correcting bias they do not see as economically harmful even if it has severe impacts for society. As AI algorithms increasingly power modern society, the impact when they go wrong can be devastating, from limits on freedom and exercise of basic rights to exclusion from the democratic process to judicial bias to outright loss of life. This suggests that the casual collaborative self-evaluation approach used to evaluate AI bias today is insufficient as the dangers of AI bias grow. In contrast, other domains with substantial potential for societal harm like the introduction of new medical treatments, undergo extensive clinical trials that document their differing impacts on different demographics. The developer would be required to declare the target demographics they believed their product should work well for and/or had been optimized for. The tool would be submitted to a central independent AI testing authority that could be either governmental or a non-profit with total independence from any of the companies. The testing agency would evaluate the products results on a set of demographic test datasets designed to mimic its real-world performance for those demographics. For example, a company that declared its product was intended only for use in the United States by non-accented American English speakers would be tested using a dataset comprised of such speakers, while a company declaring its product was accent independent and could work on any form of English worldwide would be tested on a vastly more diverse dataset comprised of English speakers from across the world. To ensure companies did not improperly tune their products for the tests themselves, new benchmark testing datasets would be released quarterly, with product improvements being measured against their original testing benchmarks and each new benchmark as it became available. As new forms of bias gain prominence, the testing agency could add new benchmarks to test for them and companies could declare whether their products should be tested for those forms of bias. Market forces would ensure that companies are incentivized to have their products certified against each new major bias topic. The end result would be a form of nutrition label for each AI product listing its intended set of target demographics and its performance on each of those demographics. Such a clinical trial process could begin as an entirely voluntary initiative that would afford companies that subjected their tests to certification the economic advantage of being able to tout their low bias on demographics of greatest interest to their customers and government regulators. Over time, certain fields such as governmental judicial or law enforcement use and commercial applications like hiring systems might require certain certifications. Putting this all together, by centralizing and systematizing our approach to evaluating AI bias, we would force companies to disclose their target demographics and offer the public an independent trustworthy evaluation of how well their products serve those demographics, with results that can be directly compared across the marketplace.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2019/01/27/what-if-we-treated-ai-bias-testing-like-clinical-drug-trials/
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Can emotional AI make Ankis new robot into a lovable companion?
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If theres a robot uprising anytime soon, it seems unlikely to start in our living rooms. Robotic vacuums like Roomba sell well because they are so handy. But other types of home robotspets and companions from Sonys Aibo robo-pooch to the recently shuttered Kuri (backed by Bosch)have flopped due to both prices and expectations that have been set unreasonably high. advertisement advertisement If any company can eventually bring us a domestic robot like Rosie from The Jetsons, Anki is a good bet. Started by three Carnegie Mellon Robotics Institute graduates in 2010, the company has racked up over $200 million in venture funding. More important, its attracted customers. Anki has already sold 1.5 million robots by taking what it sees as the easiest route into the home: toys. The star is a manic little bulldozer-looking bot called Cozmo that drives around a tabletop and plays simple games with light-up cubes it carries about. Cozmo was the best-selling toy (by revenue) on Amazon in the U.S., U.K., and France in 2017, according to one analysis. With claimed revenue of almost $100 million last year, Anki says it could already be cash-flow positive if it chose. But its instead plowing the money into a 10- to 15-year goal to get us from Roomba to Rosie. Weve always known from the beginning that this is not a toy company, says CEO and cofounder Boris Sofman. So Ive been stalking Anki for over a year, anticipating the next phase of its steady march to the robotic future. In June, the company was finally ready to talk and show me a new product that was still in the awkward stages of development. After a lot of introductory remarks, Sofman finally plops the new robot on the table. Its a slightly larger, gray version of Cozmo, named Vector. And at first blush, its a letdown. I immediately recall the scene in This Is Spinal Tap, when, due to a typo in the instructions, a stage piece that should have been an 18-foot-tall replica of Stonehenge was instead an 18-inch miniature. Likewise, Ive been expecting something biggerfiguratively, and literally. But then I listen to Sofmans pitch. The rehashed outside appearance allowed Anki to focus on radically more advanced internals and helped keep costs down. Cozmo lists for $180; Vector will run $250 and do a whole lot more when it ships in October. (To target early adopters, Anki is launching the robot on Kickstarter at a discount price of $200.) advertisement The fundamental advance for Vector is that hes autonomous in a way that Cozmo isnt. Ankis first robot was a bit like the Mechanical Turka robot built in 1770 to play chess against humans. It was a hoax, of course. A person hid inside the cabinet that the animatronic figure was mounted on, controlling its moves. For Cozmo, the person in the box is a Wi-Fi-connected smartphone running an app that controls the robot. By contrast, Vector has his own mind. (While Anki has long insisted that Cozmo is gender neutral, its made no pretense with Vector. Everyone I meet with unfailingly refers to the robot as he or him.) We basically took that whole thing, says Ankis computer vision technical director Andrew Stein, gesturing to my iPhone, and shoved it inside of his head. Vectors brain is a quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 212 chip. Its far from top of the line for a phone, but within the budget that Anki set for Vectors parts. The thing that was way too expensive two or three years ago is now in our range, says Stein. From toy to pet While he may resemble Cozmo, Vector is designed to serve a very different role, as an always-on companion for everyonerather than an occasional diversion for the kids. He requires a lot more intelligence to read his environment and pick up cues from the humans he shares a home with. Cozmo springs to attention when you call its name, making twittering sounds, and lifting its bulldozer-like arms up and down. If you ignore Cozmo, the bot gets more in your face, or makes loud, obnoxious snoring sounds. Vector feigns much higher social awareness. When I meet a rough version of the robot at Ankis lab, hes just hanging out. Cartoon eyes, represented on a 184 x 96-pixel screen, appear to casually scan around the room. (The robot actually sees through a 720p wide-angle camera mounted just below the screen.) advertisement Those eyes appear to open wide when Meghan McDowell, Ankis director of program management, calls, Hey Vector, come here. The robot drives off his charger toward her, looks up toward me, and makes some of its characteristic twittering noises. If we maintain eye contact, Vector will become animated, making more gibberish sounds and perhaps raising his arms for a fist-bump (actions inherited from Cozmo). We could also play a game, such a hand of blackjack, with cards displaying on his tiny face/screen. At one point, McDowell pets the touch sensors on top of Vector, causing his eyes to roll around in mock bliss. But when we ignore Vector, he gets the hint and does his own thing, driving around the tabletop to find and stop just before its edges (using infrared sensors), or deliberately bumping into things like a cup to see if he can push them. This isnt aimless play. With a laser scanner and other sensors, Vector is building a digital representation of his environment using a sophisticated process called simultaneous localization and mapping (SLAM)a technology also used in high-end robot vacuums. Vector also has a four-microphone array on top, allowing him to discern the direction of sounds, and his camera continuously watches for action. We want him to be inquisitive, to map his environment, says McDowell. But you wanna keep him on all the time in your home, so we dont want him to be annoying. Alexa on wheels Vector can do some useful things that Cozmo cant. Connected to a home network and the internet over Wi-Fi, he offers Alexa-style utilities like displaying weather information for requested cities, setting a timer, and speaking answers to questions like, What is the capital of Idaho? Still, hes a long way from attaining the empathetic personality and useful capabilities of a robot such as the Jetsons beloved housemaid. Thats to be expected, says Anki cofounder and president Hanns Tappeiner. Were essentially inching our way toward that goal, he says. Though Ankis aspirations still extend far beyond what Vector currently delivers, the new bots processor, sensors, and other components enable artificial intelligence technologies that were out of reach a few years ago, and certainly when serious engineering work on Cozmo began in 2013. advertisement That earlier robot, for instance, is hard-coded to detect a few specific objects: its cubes and its charger. And it uses commodity software to discern the faces of humans, cats, and dogsroutine technology that appeared in point-and-shoot cameras over a decade ago. Vector, however, runs a neural network thats being trained to understand the entire world around himan ongoing process that will continually expand his visual intelligence through online updates. The big achievement for launch: Vector detects people, even when faces arent visible. If youre not at the right angle, or theyre not facing you, how does the robot know youre there? says Stein. A dog or cat wouldnt need face-to-face contact to know its human had come home, for instance, and neither should Vector. So Steins team trained a convolutional neural network (CNN)a popular deep-learning AI technology that mimics the brains visual cortex. Using the often blurry and distorted footage that Vectors camera captures as he moves around, Stein has been teaching the CNN to detect people from the back or the side, for instance, up to about 10 feet away. Even if hes looking down and can only see my torso, [he should] realize, hey, theres probably a head floating above that torso, says Stein. And Cozmo has no idea. Im just a blob of stuff just like everything else. Vectors people-awareness seems to be working in the various robots I meet during my visits. After McDowell calls one in the lab and he rolls over to her, for instance, he then pivots toward me and looks up, his cartoon eyes widening to indicate that hes seen me. One of the next vision challenges is to understand human body poseswhats happening when arms and legs are in particular positions, for instance. Thats going to benefit us as were building robots that are driving around the home and are going to need to understand people as they move around, says Stein. advertisement Another challenge is what Anki calls objectnessdiscerning that something is a discrete object even if the neural network has never encountered its kind before. This is a further step in exploring and understanding an environment. If I want to recognize 100 specific objects, I would argue thats an easier problem than making a vision system that just knows what an object is, says Stein. Its a more abstract concept . . . Its a philosophical question. To illustrate, he shows me some heat map video from the neural network training. The software highlights areas that may represent discrete objects, mistaking a wood grain pattern on the tabletop for a three-dimensional entity. Subtle intelligence Sophisticated as Vectors vision system is becoming, its just one input to the robots complex simulation of emotional intelligence. Cozmo is a clown that zips around, makes noise, make faces, and plays games. It does pick up basic stimuli, such as hearing its name or seeing a face its been taught through the companion app, but its ultimately an unsubtle attention hog. That was our first push into a characterful robot, so I think we went a little bit over the top, says Brad Neuman, Ankis AI tech director. His task is to build a robot that has both character and some social intelligence. A key part of that is what Anki calls stimulation. When stimulation is low, the robot is chill, says Neuman. Vector is studiously observing but not acting out. Then if you start making noise, or make eye contact with the robot, and certainly if you say Hey Vector, that spikes [stimulation] way up, he says. But Vector also picks up subtler actionsperipheral movement and noises, for instance, or the room lights turning on and off. If he gets stimulated enough, hell drive off his charger and start to socialize with you, explains Neuman. Say your name, greet you, give you a fist-bump, potentially. Like Cozmo, Vector mostly makes gibberish sounds when playing or hanging out. So its a bit unsettling when he speaks for the first time. Vector has a retro robot-sounding voicedeep but soft, a bit tinny and echoey. Im probably projecting, but the matter-of-fact tone sounds a bit sarcastic when I go over 21 on blackjack, and he says, You busted. advertisement Neuman shows me a visualization of Vectors Emotion Enginea graph of input levels over time. A green line representing stimulation rises as more and more things are introduced to a virtual Vector in a simulated test environment were watching. Those stimulations have a limited lifetime. As things quiet down, the lines drop, and Vector gets the hint that he should go back to a chill mode. Thats what happened as McDowell and I were chatting with each other and Vector set off exploring on his own. Vector doesnt just get excited or bored, though. There are four dimensions to his emotional state: the level to which he is stimulated, happy, social, and confident. Hearing his name stimulates Vector, for instance, but it also makes him more social. Vectors confidence is affected by his success in the real world. The hooks on his arms sometimes dont line up with those on his cube, for instance, and he cant pick it up. Sometime he gets stuck while driving around. These failures make him feel less confident, while successes make him more confident and more happy. Self control Vectors behavior follows a hierarchy. The highest level is what kind of things should the robot be doing right now, says Neuman. Is his battery super-low, and he needs to recharge? Different behaviors flow from these high-level states, in response to events and the states of his Emotion Engine. Vector isnt following a simple script, then. Hes improvising, based on a soup of different, ever-changing inputs and a wide variety of possible actions. All that creates the illusion of life, but also a challenge to rein in. advertisement Neuman had originally wanted to build a more complex intelligence, in which Vectors personality evolved through a rewards system that reinforced certain behavior patterns. And once you work with design people and product people you learn, no, you have to be able to impose certain constraints on the system, says Neuman. For instance, Vector needs to consistently indicate when hes sending data like voice commands up to the cloudby pausing and blinking his LEDs. This clarifies why the robot has suddenly stopped moving and also that data is being sent to a third-party speech-recognition service. (Anki says it does not archive audio, but compiles anonymized stats of what questions and phrases people use.) This is one of Vectors global interruptstriggers that stop whatever hes currently doing and set him on a different path. Neuman compares it to hearing the doorbell ring when eating dinner. That interruption causes you to put the fork down and go to the door. The most powerful interrupt is the wake phrase Hey Vector, which he understands even without pinging the internet. But through an online natural language processing service, the robot also needs to understand other phrasesincluding Hey Vector, shut up!that indicate hes getting annoying and should switch into a more chill mode. Ideally, nobody is ever [going to decide], Oh hes too loud. Im going to turn him off, put him in the drawer, and be done with it,' says Neuman. One of Neumans key goals for the coming year is to minimize the times when users have to be so blatant for Vector to learn and adapt to the way people behave. So if you want to interact with the robot, he should be there and interacting with you and be very responsive, he says. But if you just want to look at him every now and thenand have him almost like a bird in a cage instead of a bird that stands on your shoulder and runs around your couchyou can do that. You can choose to interact more sparingly, and he respects that. Team bird is one of three main contingents at Anki, says McDowell. Another group sees Vector as resembling a cat, for his sense of independence. But I kind of feel like team dog because he does help you, she says, and he wants to help you. advertisement Vectors helpfulness is pretty limited so far. For about the same price, a Roomba can clean your floors. And for a lot less money, Alexa or Google Home can play music, control connected appliances, provide traffic reports, and much more. But with a powerful processor, a Linux operating system, and internet access, Vector has room to grow. Anki promises to keep expanding Vectors capabilities. A context-aware security camera or a voice interface to home automation systems are conceivable upgrades, for instance. Vector may also get upgrades from a dedicated following of coders. As with Cozmo, a popular teaching tool in university robotics classes, Anki will also encourage tinkerers to write new code that expands Vectors capabilities. Anki will provide a Python software development kit (SDK) for Vector, as it has for Cozmo; and it may add a C# SDK so coders can write mobile apps that interact with the robot. Though Vector may eventually offer Alexa-like utility, that will not be the main reason for buying one. The selling feature is this illusion of a living presence in your lifenot as active as a bird, cat, or dogbut also easier to feed and care for. Related: How Misty plans to build the most personable, programmable robot ever Ankis staff has accepted the illusion. McDowell speaks to Vector as if he really were alive, and sentient. Are you frustrated by that? she says, in a motherly tone, as he keeps banging into a laptop on the table. Hanns Tappeiner looks like hes completely smittenmaking big eyes and ooh and ah sounds at the robot as if he were a real child. advertisement Every inventors creation is their baby. But a car or phone or TV can be commercially successful without needing to encourage similar parental feelings in everyone who buys it. Vector, though, requires a feeling of love from customers, and buy-in to the narrative that he is a living creature. Since Vector is still a work in progress, its too early for me to make the call on whether Anki has succeeded. The last 10% of developing a product is where much of the finesse happens. Even in rough form, though, I found Vector to be pleasant companydefinitely more amiable than Cozmo. Although Tappeiner cautions that Anki is only inching toward its goal of a true robo companion, the company has already made a leap with Vector.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90179055/can-emotional-ai-make-ankis-new-robot-into-a-lovable-companion
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Is it possible to multitask?
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You probably spend many of your working hours multitaskingwhether you realize it or not. From working with multiple tabs open (guilty), writing an email while talking to your colleagues on Slack (also guilty), or eating your lunch while reviewing a document (guilty again!). While you may even realize that your productivity suffers when you try to do two things at once, avoiding multi-tasking is extremely hard to do. In this weeks episode of Secrets of the Most Productive People, my co-host Kate Davis and I spoke to UT Austin psychology professor and longtime Fast Company contributor Art Markman. We dive into what multi-tasking does to your brain, and whether some people are truly better at it than others. Art has some advice for you too! Tune in this week on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, RadioPublic, or wherever you get your podcast to find out more.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90214445/is-it-possible-to-multitask
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Whats the best way to get Americans to actually recycle?
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In 2010, Pepsi set a goal : The company wanted to help raise the recycling rate for drink containers in the U.S. from around 38% to 50%. The company and PepsiCo Foundation spent $55 million on recycling efforts, from the Dream Machine a kiosk that with rewards for recycled bottlesto support for the Closed Loop Fund , which helps cities implement curbside recycling. But the most recent numbers for the U.S. beverage container recycling rate show that it has dropped slightly rather than grown. Pepsi is now spending $10 million to seed a new program to help build out recycling infrastructure in the U.S., with a goal of raising a total of $100 million for the effort. But while the infrastructure is neededright now, about a quarter of American households dont have access to curbside recycling, and even some of those who do have to opt-in or subscribe to use itrecycling advocates say that the work may not be enough to make more people recycle. Its possible that a change in the law might accomplish more. In Germany, 98% of plastic bottles are recycled. In British Columbia, 75% are recycled. In the U.S., plastic bottles are recycled at an even lower rate28%than other containers. The reason why most bottles and cans in Germany are recycled is straightforward, advocates say: Like a handful of U.S. states, the governments require bottle deposits. When you buy a six-pack of beer or a can of Spezi in Berlin, you pay a little extra for the containers, and if you bring them back to the storefeeding them into a machine that automatically recognizes what kind of bottle or can youve pushed insideyou get the deposit back. Its blatantly obvious, says Susan Collins, president of the nonprofit Container Recycling Institute, that this type of deposit scheme leads to higher recycling rates. The beverage industry, along with the grocery industry and waste hauling industry, has lobbied hard against bottle bills in the past. In Massachusetts in 2014, when advocates wanted to expand an existing bottle bill to include more types of bottles, industry groups spent more than $9 million to defeat the proposal. Similar fights have happened in other states. The money is being spent, ongoing, in an invisible way, says Collins. The industry, which also lobbies against other regulation, such as soda taxes, has cited concerns about convenience and cost. The laws vary by state, but bottlers typically have to pay for collecting and recycling containers. The industry says that redemption centers cost three times as much as running municipal recycling programs. Bringing bottles back to a store or redemption center takes more effort for consumers than putting bottles in a bin at the curb (on the other hand, these laws also tend to create underground industries of collectors who pick through trash cans and recycle for those who dont take the time themselves). The drink industry believes that city recycling systems make more sense. PepsiCo says that it has spent the last several years learning how best to invest to deliver the most recycling, and its new grant, given to the nonprofit Recycling Partnership, builds on that experience. What youre seeing now is kind of a culmination of what we have learned, says Tim Carey, senior director of sustainability at Pepsi. What we found was the number-one place to invest in the short term is really curbside [recycling], because theres so many underserved communities. The funding will also support increasing access to recycling in apartment buildings, along with education. As You Sow, a nonprofit that originally pushed Pepsi to try to stem the flow of cans and bottles into landfills, says that the work that the Recycling Partnership does to fix the problems of recycling at a local level is useful. But the scale is not yet large enough to make a difference, says Conrad Mackerron, senior vice president of As You Sow. The new plan calls for $15 million from other companies and $75 million in support from cities that may not necessarily be able to afford it; Mackerron believes that to make a change, the total funding would need to be at least 10 times larger. He also says that bottle deposits are known to work. Nobody seems to want to look at the obvious, which is to have a law requiring it, he says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90212124/whats-the-best-way-to-get-americans-to-actually-recycle
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Is the marvel of LED lighting also a blight on global health?
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Light pollution is often characterized as a soft issue in environmentalism. This perception needs to change. Light at night constitutes a massive assault on the ecology of the planet, including us. It also has indirect impacts because, while 20% of electricity is used for lighting worldwide, at least 30% of that light is wasted. Wasted light serves no purpose at all, and excessive lighting is too often used beyond what is needed for driving, or shopping, or Friday-night football. The electric light bulb is touted as one of the most significant technological advancements of human beings. It ranks right up there with the wheel, control of fire, antibiotics, and dynamite. But as with any new and spectacular technology, there are invariably unintended consequences. With electric light has come an obliteration of night in much of the modern world; both outside in the city, and indoors during what was once nightaccording to the natural position of the sun. Life has evolved for several billion years with a reliable cycle of bright light from the sun during the day, and darkness at night. This has led to the development of an innate circadian rhythm in our physiology; that circadian rhythm depends on the solar cycle of night and day to maintain its precision. During the night, beginning at about sunset, body temperature drops, metabolism slows, hunger abates, sleepiness increases, and the hormone melatonin rises dramatically in the blood. This natural physiological transition to night is of ancient origin, and melatonin is crucial for the transition to proceed as it should. We now know that bright, short-wavelength lightblue lightis the most efficient for suppressing melatonin and delaying transition to night-time physiology; meanwhile, dimmer, longer-wavelength lightyellow, orange, and red, from a campfire or a candle, for examplehas very little effect. Bright light from the sun contains blue light, which is a benefit in the morning when we need to be alert and awake; but whether we are outdoors or indoors, when bright, blue light comes after sunset, it fools the body into thinking its daytime. I expressed the first serious concern about the potential health consequences of electric light at night 30 years ago, when I asked whether over-lighting might increase the risk of breast cancer. It was during the 1980s, just as researchers were finding that a fatty Western diet might not much alter the breast-cancer risk in individuals, that a friend from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle pointed me to research on the impact of melatonin. Lowered levels of melatonin (an effect of over-lighting) had been traced to heightened levels of oestrogen (at least in rodents), a clear breast-cancer risk factor when fatty diets were not. Later evidence has shown that women who work the night shift are at higher breast-cancer risk. Evidence suggests that circadian disruption from over-lighting the night could be related to risk of obesity and depression as well. In fact, it might be that virtually all aspects of health and wellbeing are dependent to one extent or another on a synchronised circadian rhythmicity, with a natural cycle of bright days and dark nights. Putting a finer point on the risk is The New World Atlas of Artificial Night Sky Brightness, published in 2016. The atlas uses data from NASAs Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite to estimate skyglow across the globe. The images in the atlas are either dazzling or horrifying, depending on how you look at it. In its coloured maps of cities and countries, using brighter colours to show greater skyglow, Europe and North America appear ablaze. According to the atlas, the Milky Way cannot be seen at night by one-third of humans. In Europe, its not visible to 60 per cent of people, and in North America, its a whopping 80 per cent. The current lightmare traces back to the 1950s, when a road-building frenzy, including construction of the Interstate Highway System, aimed to solve the problem of congestion in the United States. But the roads turned out to increase congestion and pollution, including light pollution, too. In retrospect, the result was preordained: build a bigger freeway, and more people will use it to the point where there is more congestion than before the new road.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90214285/is-the-marvel-of-led-lighting-also-a-blight-on-global-health
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Why did Facebook and YouTube need cover from Apple to ban Alex Jones?
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The tech sector today appears to have finally turned against Alex Jones and his conspiracy-mongering InfoWars empire, with Apple, Facebook, YouTube, and Spotify all now banning content from the show. But when it comes to such ethical stances, timing and motivation is often more important than the action itself. Over the weekend Buzzfeed News reported that Apple had removed five of six Jones and Jones-related podcasts from its iTunes and Podcasts apps because they violated its rules on hate speech. Note that Apple didnt just zap single offending podcasts, but rather the listings for whole podcast titles. YouTube and Facebook had previously deleted individual Jones/InfoWars videos in the past, but never came close to banning the Jones/InfoWars pages and channels full-stop until now. Apple deserves credit for taking actionand it has long proven that its not afraid to engage in big-time political and legal battlesthough its worth noting that it may have had the least to lose from its banning of Jones. The company doesnt earn its money from social content in the way that Facebook and YouTube do, so it risks less in cracking down on inappropriate content. Still, and most importantly, Apple appears to have provided cover to Facebook and YouTube to remove Jones and InfoWars pages and channels from their sites. Its likely that neither Facebook nor YouTube would have 86d Jones on their own, neither wanting to be the lone target of criticism from the alt-right crowd howling about Joness First Amendment rights. Now, with Apple, Facebook, and Alphabet/Google/YouTube all taking similar action, it appears that the tech community is acting together, and thats how its being reported in the press. (Spotify, too, removed specific Jones podcasts from its service last week, but only after Apple took action did the company remove all of Joness content.) Any of these tech giants could have acted alone without cover from Apple. They all have specific language against hate speech in their content rules.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90214250/why-did-facebook-and-youtube-need-cover-from-apple-to-ban-alex-jones
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What if the Earth has enough resources for us all after all?
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In a recent Nature Sustainability paper, a team of scientists concluded that the Earth can sustain, at most, only 7 billion people at subsistence levels of consumption (and this June saw us at 7.6 billion). Achieving high life satisfaction for everyone, however, would transgress the Earths biophysical boundaries, leading to ecological collapse. advertisement advertisement Despite its seeming scientific precision, the claim is oldthe latest iteration of the longstanding assertion that our population and consumption might soon exceed the Earths fixed carrying capacity. The concept, tellingly, owes its origin to 19th-century shipping, referring to the payload capacities of steam ships. It jumped from the inanimate to the terrestrial at the end of the 19th century, describing the maximum number of livestock or wild game that grassland and rangeland ecosystems could sustain. Applied to ecology, the concept is problematic. Cargo doesnt multiply of its own volition. Nor can the capacity of an ecosystem be determined from an engineers drawings. Nonetheless, environmental scientists have, for decades, applied the concept to human societies with a claimed precision that belies its nebulous nature. The ecologist William Vogt was the first to do so in the 1940s, predicting that overuse of agricultural land would lead to soil depletion and then catastrophe. In the late 1960s and early 70s, Paul Ehrlich focused on food production, and the Club of Rome on material resources; while latter-day environmental scientists and activists have focused more on the effects that pollution and habitat destruction will have on the Earth systems that human well-being depends upon. But all hold the same neo-Malthusian view of human fertility and consumption. From the 18th-century arguments of Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus onwards, prophets of environmental doom have imagined that in response to abundance, humans would respond with moremore children and more consumption. Like protozoa or fruit flies, we keep breeding and consuming until the resources that allow continuing growth are exhausted. In reality, human fertility and consumption work nothing like this. Affluence and modernization bring falling, not rising fertility rates. As our material circumstances improve, we have fewer children, not more. The explosion of human population over the past 200 years has not been a result of rising fertility rates but rather falling mortality rates. With better public health, nutrition, physical infrastructure, and public safety, we live much longer. Today, in the U.S., Europe, Japan, much of Latin America, and even parts of India, fertility rates are below replacement, i.e., the average number of children born per woman is below two. Much of the rest of the world will likely follow suit over the next few decades. As a result, most demographers project that the human population will peak, and then begin a slow decline, in some cases before the end of this century. advertisement For this reason, todays warnings of impending ecological collapse mostly focus on rising consumption, not population growth. As many now acknowledge, our social biology might not function like protozoa, but capitalism does. It cannot survive without endless growth of material consumption. There is no particularly well-established basis for this claim, and plenty of evidence to the contrary. The long-term trend in market economies has been toward slower and less resource-intensive growth. Growth in per-capita consumption rises dramatically as people transition from rural agrarian economies to modern industrial economies. But then it tails off. Today, Western Europe and the U.S. struggle to maintain 2% annual growth. The composition of affluent economies changes as well. Manufacturing once accounted for 20% or more of economic output and employment in most developed economies. Today, it is as low as 10% in some, with the vast majority of economic output coming from knowledge and service sectors with significantly lower material and energy intensities. For decades, each increment of economic growth in developed economies has brought lower resource and energy use than the last. Thats because demand for material goods and services saturates. Few of us need or want to consume more than 3,000 calories or so a day or live in a 5,000-square-foot house. Many Americans prefer to drive SUVs, but there is little interest in hauling the kids to soccer practice in a semi-truck. Our appetites for material goods might be prodigious, but there is a limit to them. Even so, that doesnt necessarily mean we wont exceed the planets carrying capacity. Some environmental scientists claim that we have already surpassed the Earths carrying capacity. But this view is deeply ahistorical, assuming carrying capacity to be static. In fact, we have been engineering our environments to more productively serve human needs for tens of millennia. We cleared forests for grasslands and agriculture. We selected and bred plants and animals that were more nutritious, fertile, and abundant. It took six times as much farmland to feed a single person 9,000 years ago, at the dawn of the Neolithic revolution, than it does today, even as almost all of us eat much richer diets. What the palaeoarcheological record strongly suggests is that carrying capacity is not fixed. It is many orders of magnitude greater than it was when we began our journey on this planet. advertisement There is no particular reason to think that we wont be able to continue to raise carrying capacity further. Nuclear and solar energy are both clearly capable of providing large quantities of energy for large numbers of people without producing much carbon emissions. Modern, intensive agricultural systems are similarly capable of meeting the dietary needs of many more people. A planet with a lot more chickens, corn, and nuclear power might not be the idyll that many wish for, but it would clearly be one that would be capable of supporting a lot more people consuming a lot more stuff for a very long time. Such a future, however, is anathema to many proponents of planetary limits, suggesting hubris of the highest order. But if it is, it is at least born of optimism, of the conviction that with wisdom and ingenuity humans can continue to thrive. Demands to restrict human societies to planetary limits, which environmental scientists and advocates claim to know prospectively, suggest something much darker. Viewing humans in the same way that we view single-celled organisms or insects risks treating them that way. Malthus argued against Poor Laws, in the belief that they only incentivized the poor to reproduce. Ehrlich argued against food aid for poor countries for similar reasons, and inspired population-control measures of enormous cruelty. Today, demands to impose planetary boundaries globally are couched in redistributive and egalitarian rhetoric, so as to avoid any suggestion that doing so might condemn billions to deep agrarian poverty. But they say little, specifically, about how social engineering of such extraordinary scale would be imposed in a democratic or equitable fashion. Ultimately, one need not advocate the imposition of pseudo-scientific limits on human societies to believe that many of us would be better off consuming less. Nor must one posit the collapse of human societies to worry deeply that growing human consumption might have terrible consequences for the rest of creation. But threats of societal collapse, claims that carrying capacity is fixed, and demands for sweeping restrictions on human aspiration are neither scientific nor just. We are not fruit flies, programmed to reproduce until our population collapses. Nor are we cattle, whose numbers must be managed. To understand the human experience on the planet is to understand that we have remade the planet again and again to serve our needs and our dreams. Today, the aspirations of billions depend upon continuing to do just that. May it be so. Ted Nordhaus is an author, environmental policy expert, and the cofounder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute in California. He is a coauthor of An Eco-Modernist Manifesto (2015). He lives in Oakland. advertisement This article was originally published at Aeon and has been republished under Creative Commons.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90207943/what-if-the-earth-has-enough-resources-for-us-all-after-all
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Is it possible to totally unplug on vacation?
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Its the end of July, and if you havent already taken some time off, hopefully you have a vacation planned soon. Taking a vacation is not a given in our being busy is a badge of honor work culture. In fact, last year, more than half of U.S. workers still had unused vacation time left over by the end of the year. But if you do take a vacation this summer, its likely that youll check a few work emails here and there. While you might think that doing so shows how dedicated you are to your job, not taking time off to disconnect can make you less productive at work because you havent given your brain time to recharge. In this weeks episode of Secrets of the Most Productive People, we hear some advice from organizing and productivity consultant Julie Morgenstern. Listen as we explore the hidden benefits of taking a truly disconnected vacation, how to prepare for extended time out of the office, and how to deal with the deluge of email when you return. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Google Play, or wherever you find your podcasts.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90204663/is-it-possible-to-totally-unplug-on-vacation
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Can mussels be the sustainable snack that saves the ocean?
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We left the dock at San Pedro just as the dawn light broke over a slate grey sky, a glassy black sea. Our craft, the Enterprise, a 72-foot-long World War II-era military grade landing vessel, was headed six-miles offshore, to the Catalina Sea Ranch, where the crew would be harvesting its crop of mussels for the day. advertisement advertisement The landside operation of the Ranchreally more an aquatic farmis run out of a few converted shipping containers stacked inside an old warehouse in the Port of LA, the largest port in North America. Before we embarked, I was given a quick tour of Berth 58, the 60,000-square-foot warehouse where the Ranch has its research hatchery, labs, and offices. There were other startups in the space, including the support team for a guy who plans to swim across the Pacific Ocean. Phil Cruvers goals are even loftier and more radical than a trans-oceanic swim. Cruver, the founder and CEO of the Sea Ranch, aims to revolutionize the food industry and aquaculture. Mussels are the key. The Thing About Mussels The thing about mussels is that they are easy and will grow just about anywhere, unlike most bivalves, which are often particular. Oysters need a bedsand or mud will do. Clams require the same. Whelks and snails want room to roam, forage, or hunt. Even cockles and scallops can be a little fussy about what surface theyll attach to. Give it just about anything even somewhat solida rock, a shard of coral, or a line of rope dropped into the seaand it will take root. Or, not root: It will grow a beard, a mesh of silky filaments, threads of byssus, a fiber constructed of proteins and keratins that grows and fastens the mussel tight to its chosen perch. That mussels are not simply easy but also wonderfully profitable first came to Cruvers attention many years ago, in a roundabout way. He was reading about a company that cleaned oil rigs, which is something he likes to doread about companies, especially if they are sort of off-kilter and niche, the type of company he might have started. Cruver, 73, has started quite a few, including one that installed some of the wind turbines outside of Palm Springs. Im not a scientist. Im not even an environmentalist. Im an entrepreneur, Cruver is quick to say. He said this to me a few times, first over the phone, and again aboard the Enterprise, chugging out to see the mussel farm. How Cruver had come to start his mussel concern had everything to do with that funny company he was reading about all those years ago, the one that scraped the undersea legs of oil rigs, cleaning them of their accumulated sea-growth every six months. Much of the growth was mussels, and the guy who owned the company had a nice little side business, selling the scraped off mussels, up to 500,000 pounds a year, all along the California coast, mostly around Santa Barbara. It was as profitable a venture as one was likely to find, and Cruver was intrigued. Theyre growing that fast? Cruver began to call around to various scientists, checking the numbers. They checked out. Roping Mussels The Ranch, six miles off the shore of Long Beach, Calif., is 100 acres, in federal waters, and right on the edge of the continental shelf, where nutrientsfree and natural mussel feedwell up from the depths. His building permit for the Sea Ranch (which isnt, of course, a building at all) is through the Army Corps of Engineers. The mussels grow on loops of rope, attached to lines that start 20 feet below the oceans surface that are anchored down to the sea bottom, several hundred feet below. Cruver estimates he could harvest nearly 50,000 pounds of crop per line every 12 months, on a rolling basis, so hes harvesting year round. His initial spend has been a little more than $1 per pound, which hes beginning to sell to a seafood distributor for $2.25 a pound, a profit of over 50%. His first harvest was in June last year, and hes on track to have 100,000 pounds this year. Already, Cruver is talking about expansionfrom 100 acres to 1,000 acresand national distribution. advertisement RELATED: A More Sustainable Future Includes A Lot Of Farmed Fish Before wed embarked, Lindsey Cruver, Phils daughter, showed me around the labs where she tests the health and genetics of the mussels grown on the Ranch, so they could selectively breed the fastest growing and healthiest specimens. She also tests wild mussels against the farmed crop, and wild scallopsanother bivalve Cruver is looking into farming. The wild samples were scraped from the oil rigs a few miles farther out to sea from the Sea Ranch site. She then showed me a cryopreservation laba series of blocky steel fridges and glass bottleswhich is where she freezes the sperm, eggs, and mussel larvae for further testing, as well as for storage. The cryo lab was almost like a seed bank: a means of keeping mussel crop production consistent and on a more human market driven schedule when nature often had a way of veering off. Though a mussel is an animal, its existence is a lot closer to a plant than, say, a cow, which is why the Ranch runs a lot more like a farm. On a global scale, aquaculture is fairly new, and the industry is developing quite quickly. In the past decade, farmed fish overtook wild catch in sheer amount produced and, in the last few years, more seafood was farmed than beef. Like cattle ranching, stockyards, and slaughterhouses, the dramatic ramp-up of farmed seafood has caused all manner of problems. There are environmental problemsmasses of fish kept in small pens give off masses of wasteand labor problemsin much of the world, many aquaculture workers are paid close to nothing, or nothing at all. It is basically impossible to industrialize anything, particularly a food source, without introducing an imbalance to both the economy and the environment. But farmed bivalves like mussels might be, if not entirely different, certainly a more hopeful and intriguing alternative. After all, their existence is a lot more like a plant: they are filter feeders and have no central nervous system. According to the Monterey Bay Aquariums Seafood Watch program, because farmed mussels arent fed anything, and the water isnt fertilized, there is no effluent concernno radical environmental imbalances that lead to sudden algal or jellyfish blooms, say. Mussels And The Environment Better still, farmed mussels can improve the water around them. The Seafood Watch report adds that mussel farming has been shown to increase water quality at the farm site through removal of excess nutrients and phytoplankton. Farmed mussels are a best choice, according to the reportthe rare seafood (or any food) thats nearly guilt-free. For both environmental and ethical reasons, you still may be better off not eating animals at all, but even some vegans make an exception for certain bivalves. The bigger issue with farmed mussels is that most of them come from elsewhere, which is usually far away. And, because they have to travel some distance to arrive at our plate, the environmental costs are high, because it takes burning loads of carbon to get them to where you can eat them. The vast majority of the farmed mussels in America come from Canada, and most of those (over 80%) come from the waters off Prince Edward Island, where some 50 million pounds are harvested each year. Though Americans are eating more seafood than ever before (about 16 pounds per person, per year) its still a pretty small amount of the food from animals that we consumewe eat nearly twice as much cheese as we do seafood, for example. Of all seafood, shellfish is a fraction, of which lobster and crabs and oysters and clams dominate. advertisement RELATED: Why We Must Double The Amount Of Fish We Farm By 2050 The farmed mussel industry in America is but a fraction of a fraction, just a few million pounds per year, though its growing quite quickly. A series of statistics Phil Cruver holds dear: That per capita consumption of mussels in the U.S. is a mere .15 pounds, while in Europe its about 5 pounds a person. In New Zealandwhere farming mussels is a robust industryits 33 pounds. If he could get California and its 40 million residents to consume mussels at something approaching the European rate, thatd be 200 million pounds of mussels, and hed have a business that could net close to half a billion annually. Thinking about all the different ways we get our foodthe various systems and their costs (both environmental and economic)is very tricky. But this is what Halley Froehlich, a researcher who focuses on global marine production and climate change at UCSBs National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, does all day. Whats the difference between producing a cow, versus a mussel? is a question she studies carefully and attempts to answer. In the end, nothing is ever a zerothere are inputs, and there are outputs, she told me. Unlike cows, or chickens, or salmon, or shrimp, or tilapia, or even some plants (palms, or oil from palms, in particular)bivalves are as close you can come to zero impact. Pretty damn close, Froehlich told me. She then listed off all the things that could go wrong while farming shellfish, things that have to do with growing a lot of the same species, and not only the same species, but a particularly genetically similar variety of the same species (a monoculture), in very close proximity, and very close to shore. Disease spreads more easily, or the farm-grown population can enter the wild and take over, which is what happened with farmed zebra mussels, which have taken over many lakes, including the Great Lakes. Offshore farming, though less common in the U.S., is quite possibly safer and better for all surrounding species. There isnt simply more space, but fewer toeholdsor byssus holds, as the case may be. The genetically similar farmed mussels would have a much tougher time making their way into the wild population, suspended on rope miles out at sea, Froehlich explained. Cruver certainly thought the open water provided greater opportunity. Out here, his crop grew rapidly, and no one seemed bent on disturbing it. But he was keenly aware of the marketing problem he faced for future expansion: he could grow all the mussels he wanted but shellfish loving Americans still prefer oysters or clams. Its all branding, Cruver said. We need Leonardo DiCaprio to eat a mussel pizza and talk about how devastating shrimp is to the environment. Then, wed be set. But this was a problem for another day, back on land. Harvest Time As the Enterprise motored down the small channel outside Berth 58, I noticed a few gigantic and strangely shaped boats docked nearby. One was nearly square and seemed to be made of only concrete. Another had arms like an upturned claw crane from an arcade. A third featured, near its stern, a tall arching tent, concealing whatever was underneath. Thats SpaceX, Cruver said, nodding in the direction of the three strange ships. Then, he looked back across the channel. Bob Ballard is here, too, he nodded in the direction of the Nautilus, a ship the discoverer of the Titanic uses for undersea explorations. advertisement Once we entered the open sea, Matt Grant, the 22-year-old manager of operations on the Ranch and captain of the Enterprise, put on some loud classic rock, and the small crew got to work. Below us, the two deckhands, Joey Prieto and Darin Boehm, began moving lines, checking pulleys, and sorting equipment. After a little more than an hour, we reached the patch of sea, marked only by buoys, where the mussels grew, where theyd first been dropped on lines wrapped in socks filled with mussel seed (fertilized mussel eggs.) Grant hopped out of his captains chair and joined Prieto and Boehm on the deck, where the trio began harvesting. First, Grant hooked a small crane to the line that ran parallel to the ocean surface, 20 feet below, from which several more lines, the grow lines, filled with mussels, dropped another 50 feet into the depths. As each grow line was being hoisted up by the motorized crane, Prieto leaned way out over the water and carefully pulled and scooped and coerced the line filled with grown mussels closer and closer to the side of the Enterprise. Sometimes, sections of mussel-laden rope broke off and quickly disappeared into the water. Occasionally, nearly the whole heavy rope gave way. More often, Prieto expertly cradled the load toward the ship, and he and Grant moved the prize toward the mouth of a machine that stripped the line of its mussels. Boehm, still working the crane, then lowered the line. After an especially heavy, mussel-filled line made it successfully onboard and into the mouth of the stripping machine, Prieto and Grant yipped, shook hands, and cackled at the crop as it crackled and fell off the line. Once stripped, the mussels traveled through a series of cleaning and sorting mechanisms and, finally, into a huge blue barrel that filledfirst slowly, then all at oncewith the shiny black bivalves. But now, standing on the deck in the patchy daylight, watching mussel after mussel fall into the barrel, where itd soon be bundled and, later that day or the next, brought to market, I found myself hypnotized. The Enterprise slowly chugged and drifted alongside the row of undersea rope lines, the men worked, and Cruver, standing over the railing looking down upon his deck, quietly observed. Usually, he didnt come out on the ship, but he tried to visit the Sea Ranch any chance he got. He might soon be growing enough mussel in California to begin elbowing out markets farther afield, like Prince Edward Island Thats 3,000 carbon-spewing airlifted miles away! Cruver shouted over the harvesting machinery. Its local, better than sustainableregenerative! Now, Im not a scientist but he trailed off beneath the roar of the engine, the crunch and whirr of the machines. But I knew where he was going. Ryan Bradley is a writer and editor based in Los Angeles.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90206744/at-the-catalina-sea-ranch-roping-mussels-is-the-thing
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What if Amazon just opened a lot of smaller headquarters?
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No, Amazon isnt setting up more headquarters anytime soon. What Im saying is thats a good thing. Cities that dont win should actually be happy to not be the site of yet another sprawling corporate campus. When HQ2 is finally built, Amazons new headquarters will bring enormous changes to its city. Some seemingly good: Amazon plans to hire 50,000 and spend $5 billion locally just to build and operate its sprawling campus. Some wages will rise. Current homeowners and realtors will do great. Focused onif not blinded bythose rewards, cities competed fiercely against each other to offer Amazon multi-billion-dollar tax breaks. New Jersey, for example, offered a $7 billion tax package to lure HQ2 to Newark. The problem is that paying for companies to move to your city is an increasingly discredited approach. Tax giveaways and business location incentives offered by local governments are often wasteful and counterproductive, according to a broad body of research, wrote a diverse group of economists and policymakers in a petition created earlier this year. Many people, though, are starting to wake up to the fact that mega-headquarters might not be the most important thing to lureperhaps people are. And looking at Amazons disruptive effects on the quality of life of its current hometown, Seattle, its increasingly clear that luring HQ2 isnt just expensive, its also likely to spell disaster for many who currently live in the winning city. To get a sense of how fast Amazon grows and how drastically it impacts a city, lets take a trip back to 2010. Thats when Amazon first moved into its current HQ in Seattles South Lake Union neighborhood. Back then, Amazon had 5,000 employees. Today, just eight years later it employs eight times that amount that and plans on adding 15,000 more, bringing it to a total of 55,000 Seattle-based employees by the early 2020s. To accommodate that many employees, Amazon has become something of a real estate hegemon in its own backyard. As of 2017, its 8 million (and counting) square feet of office space was equal to the next 40 biggest employers footprints combined and occupy almost 20 percent of all Seattles prime office space.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90208446/what-if-amazon-just-opened-a-lot-of-smaller-headquarters
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Can better design help overcome opposition to helping the homeless?
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In the past six years, Los Angeless homeless population rose 75% . On a given night in the city, around 55,000 sleep on the street, or in cars or under the shelter of a tent. The issue is multifaceted, driven in large part by the citys rising rents and reluctance to build the types of dense, affordable units that could house people living on lower incomes. Residents and city officials alike recognize the need for extreme measures to mitigate the housing shortage: Voters recently approved a tax that would create $4.6 billion to build 10,000 units over the next decade, and a new developer fee is expected to create an additional $100 million per year for affordable housing. Through its recently approved Accessory Dwelling Unit initiative, the city could soon also see around 10,000 new homes pop up in residential yards. But these solutions will be years in the making. Los Angeles needs a way to house thousands of people cheaply, with dignity, as soon as possible. Mayor Eric Garcettis A Bridge Home plan, introduced earlier this year, aims to do so by allocating around $20 million toward building a homeless shelter in each of the citys 15 council districts. These shelters are intended to be temporary stop-gaps to house people while construction begins on new units. But gaining resident approval to site 15 homeless shelters throughout the city has proven difficult, even as council members have approved Garcettis plan. Without a vision from a design perspective, people tend to think the worst, says Marty Borko, executive director of the L.A. District Council for the Urban Land Institute, a nonprofit thats extensively studied homelessness in Los Angeles, and advised the city as to how to address it. ULI initially recommended expanding the shelter system to Garcetti in December, and that evolved into the Bridge Home plan. But ULI realized that without a design concept, residents were going to learn of a shelter going up in their neighborhood, and push back. ULI is a member-based organization that comprises architects, real estate developers, landscape designers, and others invested in the urban landscape. The nonprofit tapped three teams of architects to design concepts for the types of shelters that could emerge as a result of the bridge housing plan. These designs arent final, theyre simply meant to act as a starting point for when the city gets approval. But more importantly, the goal is to quell the usual opposition by neighbors to offering homeless services near them by replacing fear-mongering with actual plans. Over the course of a recent afternoon, the three teams crafted designs that they hoped would alleviate the typical local concerns around homeless shelters. First, traditional shelters are generally not designed with dignity: Its not unusual to see cot beds lined shoulder to shoulder throughout a large room, with little light or access to good outdoor space. And these utilitarian buildings are often community eyesores.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90211841/can-better-design-help-overcome-opposition-to-helping-the-homeless
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Would tax cuts entice super funds to invest their billions in ag?
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Despite solid returns available from investing in agriculture, Australias cashed-up superannuation funds might need tax incentives, or other financial bait, to arouse their serious interest in partnerships with the farm sector. If its not going to happen naturally, maybe a marriage between super funds and Australian agriculture should be arranged, says agribusiness partner with global law firm King and Wood Malleson, Heath Lewis. With the ag sector pleading for fresh capital investment to help bankroll its productivity growth, including much-needed upgrades to infrastructure, technology and export supply chains, Mr Lewis said the lack of interest shown by Australian funds was illogical. Our $2.8 trillion superannuation sector one of the richest pension pools in the world invests less than 0.3 per cent of its reserves in agriculture. Conversely, overseas pension funds are buying Australian farms and farm services businesses every month. Lacking experience Last month a federal government inquiry reported local super funds saw farming as unappealing and hard to understand for a variety of reasons, including the lack of detailed performance data available to them and because fund managers lacked experience and empathy with agriculture. The data challenge was compounded by the super industrys limited internal capacity to understand what was available and where to find interpretive support. The question now is what priority will be given by government and politicians to the paucity of investment in agriculture by Australian super funds - Heath Lewis, King and Wood, Mallesons The joint parliamentary inquiry panel called for the formation of a superannuation and farm sector investment working group to promote better business processes and structures to attract more investment to agriculture. It urged an upgrade to the statistical information collated by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) so it better reflected the data detail and timeliness required by investors. Perth-based Mr Lewis said it was positive to see a bipartisan House of Representatives committee study the industrys poor appetite for farming, and then unanimously recommend government agencies generate more useful data, as well as other potentially helpful courses of action. But the inquiry mostly highlighted issues previously aired in the governments Agriculture White Paper and other reports. The question now is what priority will be given by government and politicians to the paucity of investment in agriculture by Australian super funds, he said. I fully understand governments arent keen to intervene in markets, but if this issue is as important as this government and the agriculture sector keep saying, Id imagine some fiscal and tax dials can be moved slightly to motivate the super industry to improve its familiarity and skills in agricultural investment. Heath Lewis The people working in these two sectors are from quite different backgrounds, but if theres extra incentive for a short period promoting some collaborative strength, the flow-on benefits to the economy could be significant. RELATED READING: Mr Lewis noted fiscal incentives to pump prime industry development were nothing new to Canberra, although in the current political climate the challenge was to keep politicians focused on good, long term policy initiatives rather than short term populist distractions. However, committee chairman, Rick Wilson, was confident Agriculture Minister David Littleproud would follow through on the recommendations early this year, as would Joel Fitzgibbon if voters supported Labor government at Mays federal poll. As a former rural banker, David has strong empathy with the need for fresh financial liquidity in the ag industry and this issue did generate considerable interest in Parliament House as well as across the farm sector, he said. Farmers willingly talk about their industry to themselves but were not necessarily doing a good job about explaining the industry to others. - Rick Wilson, Member for O'Connor Mr Wilson, a farmer and the Member for OConnor, said the committee did not recommend tax incentives, partly because requests which may cost the federal budget more money were are unlikely to get any serious attention at this point. He was, however, convinced forming an industry investment working group to promote better business structures and collaboration, and more useful productivity data from ABARES would be valuable to super fund managers and analysts. Rick Wilson We need to disseminate information and promote agriculture as a sound investment, he said. Farmers willingly talk about their industry to themselves but were not necessarily doing a good job about explaining the industry to others. Yes, it has commodity price fluctuations, weather volatility and even unhelpful exposure to sensitive political issues. But the super industry has plenty of capacity to better understand those challenges and realise directing some liquidity to agriculture rather than tollways returns good dividends, and provide valued funds to help the industry expand. Ag results speak volumes Latest Australian Farmland Index results based on a basket of 51 agricultural investment properties worth $1.03 billion shows since March 2015 returns have totalled almost 14 per cent, with income running at 6.18pc and capital appreciation at 7.42pc. The result confirms the strength of the ag sector as compared to the equity market in 2018, said farm index co-ordinator, Frank Delahunty. The local share market put in its worst yearly performance since 2011 after the key benchmark ASX 200 fell almost 7pc last year, wiping $120 billion off the value of investors' portfolios. Its human nature to adopt a more negative response to something if you dont understand it, especially if it involves stepping outside your comfort zone. - Frank Delahunty, Australian Farm Index Unfortunately, despite its strong performers and the good fundamentals, agriculture suffers from the fact superannuation industry gatekeepers just dont know the industry, Mr Delahunty said. Its human nature to adopt a more negative response to something if you dont understand it, especially if it involves stepping outside your comfort zone. Ive known investment managers to book a business class flight overseas to explore a potential opportunity in London rather than fly to western NSW to learn about whats in their own backyard.
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https://www.farmonline.com.au/story/5871069/what-will-motivate-super-funds-to-invest-in-ag/?src=rss
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Are Trumps Attacks on Mueller Working?
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Subscribe to our free newsletters. As House Democrats ramp up their investigations into ties between President Donald Trump and Russia, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll has found that a clear majority of Americans supports their efforts. About six in ten adults want Democrats to dig into the 2016 Trump campaigns potential collusion with Russia, financial ties between Trump and foreign governments, and Trumps bizarre relationship with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yet, half of respondents said they had just some or no confidence that a final report from special counsel Robert Muellers ongoing investigation into the relationship between the Trump campaign and Russia would be fair and even-handed. Although the survey was conducted in the days just before Mueller charged longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone with lying, obstruction, and witness tampering, that level of skepticism raises questions about whether the attacks on Mueller by Trump and his allies have sowed doubt about the special counsel as being a partisan prosecutor, which has no basis in fact. For two years, the president has sought to discredit the Russia investigations as a witch hunta phrase he has tweeted more than 160 times over the past two years, according to the Trump Twitter Archive, including twice since Stones indictment on Friday. WITCH HUNT! Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 27, 2019 Greatest Witch Hunt in the History of our Country! NO COLLUSION! Border Coyotes, Drug Dealers and Human Traffickers are treated better. Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 25, 2019 Trump has also specifically gone after Mueller himself: A day after Muellers team said that that Paul Manafort, Trumps former campaign chairman, had breached a plea agreement and repeatedly lied to them, Trump attacked Mueller as a conflicted prosecutor gone rogue. The Fake News Media builds Bob Mueller up as a Saint, when in actuality he is the exact opposite, Trump tweeted last November, arguing that Mueller is only looking at one side and not the other. Meanwhile, in a report published last month, cybersecurity firm New Knowledge found that multiple Russian-directed social media accounts have long used similar attacks. In 2017, as journalists began to further uncover disinformation spread by the Internet Research Agencythe Russian propaganda operation whose principals Mueller eventually indictedIRA accounts began targeting the Trump-Russia investigations. It used derision and disparagement, New Knowledge researchers concluded, to create and amplify the narrative that the whole investigation was nonsense, that Comey and Mueller were corrupt, and that the emerging Russia stories were a weird conspiracy pushed by liberal crybabies. ' Partisan suspicions that Trump and the Russians have attempted to sow about Mueller may have had other effects. While most Americans support the ongoing House investigations, 46 percent said they believe Democrats will go too far in their efforts to investigate Trump. And Americans have cooled on impeachment, according to the Washington Post-ABC News poll; a majority believe that Democratic lawmakers should continue to hold off on impeachment proceedings, based on what is currently in the public record.
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https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2019/01/are-trumps-attacks-on-mueller-working/
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Is The World Ready For The Exodus Of Hundreds Of Thousands Of Stateless Persons From The Gambia?
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66 SHARES Share Tweet The danger is looming. Foroyaa has been warning the government on a daily basis but no sign of remedy is in the offing. Foroyaa has cautioned the government to be alert that the current method of issuing ID cards before carrying out constitutional reform on citizenship would leave hundreds of thousands of people stateless and without national documents, thus leaving then with no option but to leave The Gambia in search of a country that would accept them as citizens. Such a development would be catastrophic. The state ought to hold a cabinet meeting to stem the tide of this emerging catastrophe with speed. Delay is not an option.
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https://foroyaa.gm/is-the-world-ready-for-the-exodus-of-hundreds-of-thousands-of-stateless-persons-from-the-gambia/
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Are The Government And Its Development Partners Listening To The CRC?
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30 SHARES Share Tweet The CRC leadership is not silent. They are telling the Gambian people and the world that they do not have the funds required to carry out the task they are assigned to perform with speed and diligence. They are working according to their own pace based on the availability of resources. The most important aspect of the whole reform process is constitutional reform. This constitutes the foundation of the Republic. Without a constitution there can be no republic. Hence maximum effort should be made to look into the financial difficulties being experienced by the Constitutional Review commission. Failure to give due regard to the concerns expressed by the Constitutional Review Commission is an acknowledgement of total lack of interest in building a third republic. As it stands all the laws remain intact and their interpretation must be based on the existing Constitution. Hence in actual fact the system remains intact until the desired reforms take place. Foroyaa would try to interview the Office of the Attorney General to find out why Supplementary Appropriation allocations of resources are not requested for to address the problems of the Constitutional Review Commission.
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https://foroyaa.gm/are-the-government-and-its-development-partners-listening-to-the-crc/
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Is striving for inbox zero really worth it?
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Ive often felt there are two types of people in the world: those who have hundreds or even thousands of unread emails, and those who break out in hives just thinking about that first group. In recording the latest episode of Secrets of the Most Productive People , I learned that my cohost Anisa falls into that first group, while Im squarely in the second. I have long believed a clean inbox is critical in order to get things done and make sure nothing gets missed. But after talking to organizational expert and productivity coach Janine Sarna-Jones, I learned that its less about how many emails you have than how you manage them. That means your strategies for combing through your inbox every day, but it also means how you manage your time and set expectations for the ways you want other people to email you to begin with. In the end, it turns out that the number of emails isnt the most important thingits what you do with them. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, RadioPublic, Google Play, or wherever you find your podcasts.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90179282/is-striving-for-inbox-zero-really-worth-it
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Can there be peace in the southern Philippines?
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Two bomb blasts on Sunday are a reminder that the security situation in the southern Philippines remains fragile. At least 20 people have been killed in twin bombings in the Muslim-majority southern Philippines on Sunday. The first explosion happened during Sunday Mass inside the Catholic cathedral in Jolo, the capital of Sulu province. A second blast occurred as soldiers arrived at the scene. Scores of people were wounded. The attacks followed last Monday's referendum in the Mindanao region, which overwhelmingly voted for more self rule in the culmination of a decades-long peace process. But the proposal was narrowly rejected in Jolo and Sulu province. The timing of Sunday's bombs has raised questions over whether the attack was meant to derail the peace process. Presenter: Laura Kyle Guests: Jose Antonio Custodio - defence & security analyst, former consultant to the National Security Council in the Philippines Emma Leslie - director, Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies Steve Rood - former Philippines country representative, The Asia Foundation Source: Al Jazeera News
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https://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2019/01/peace-southern-philippines-190127191524576.html
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Is union-busting Tesla the best hope to rebuild the middle class?
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Capital & Main is an award-winning publication that reports from California on economic, political, and social issues. advertisement advertisement Both Michael Sanchez and Robert Jimenez owe their fortunes to Californias auto industry. But their personal and professional trajectories couldnt be more different. Sanchez, a Tesla assembly line worker, is on a leave of absence due to chronic back pain from a repetitive-motion injury that sidelined him two years ago. He and his wife, Mona Liza Sanchez, rent a very old broken-down house in Hayward. Homeownership in Northern Californias pricey East Bay is not on his radar, even in this blue-collar suburb south of Oakland. They lavish their affections on our babies, by which Sanchez, 39, means their cats and dogs. Their economic situation has caused them to delay starting a family. Source: California Budget & Policy Center analysis of U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey and Decennial Census data. Note: Middle income is defined as having household income that is two-thirds to twice the median household income for the county of residence. advertisement Meanwhile, Jimenez, who retired in 2005 after 35 years at a Chrysler-owned supplier in downtown Los Angeles, owns a house in Montebello, just east of Los Angeles, and put his two children through college. His career flourished during the auto industrys golden age, which began after World War II and was nourished by the federal governments massive investment in road building. In Jimenezs day, California was second only to Michigan in auto manufacturing, and homeownership was a much more attainable aspiration. We are whats left of the middle class, he says. Investment analysts scrutinized Teslas announcement, made earlier this month, that it met its 2018 production goals for the mass market Model 3, after the company blew past deadline after deadline. But another critical question looms for taxpayers who, according to a 2015 Los Angeles Times analysis, have invested nearly $5 billion in public aid to Musks companies. Back then, more than 60% of California households could be considered middle income, according to Sara Kimberlin, senior policy analyst with the non-profit California Budget and Policy Center. By 2016, that number had dipped to below 50%. Some of the decline can be attributed to the loss of thousands of manufacturing jobs, many of them high-paying union jobs, like the ones that afforded Jimenez and his family a piece of the California Dream. The 2010 opening of the Tesla plant in a shuttered Fremont auto factory gave hope to Sanchez, who, unlike Jimenez, went to school to study the auto trade. He was hired initially as a temp for $17 per hour in 2012. It took him three-and-a-half years to earn his first raise, a feat he says he accomplished by sending emails to Musk, the human resources department and everybody in between. When he injured himself, Sanchez was making $20 per hour and change on the night shift. The starting wage at Tesla has since been raised to $19 per hour. By contrast, Sanchezs wife, who is 40, had earned $34 per hour after five years of working on the assembly line at the same plant when it was unionized, according to Sanchez. She left the Fremont factory in 2009, when it closed. It had been operated by Toyota and General Motors in a joint venture. An overriding concern of Michael Sanchez has been Teslas alleged lack of attention to safety. Sanchez worked on the luxury Model Xs underbody with his arms always above his shoulders, his neck straining as he looked up. Tesla should aim to [make] it where peoples bodies are not going to break down as time goes on, he says. advertisement Sanchez fell back on a tried-and-true method of raising workplace standards. In the summer of 2016, he joined the United Auto Workers effort to unionize the Fremont factory, which currently employs 10,000 people and is Californias sole auto manufacturer. Plant safety is one of the UAWs chief organizing issues at Tesla, which has received media attention for its higher than average rates of serious injuries, and for injury-reporting lapses, which the company disputes. A successful union drive could also serve as a model for jump-starting the middle class in California, according to Harley Shaiken, a University of California, Berkeley professor who specializes in labor and education. In fact, labor advocates have long argued that unions benefit workers more broadly. A recent study, published by economists Henry Farber, Dan Herbst, Ilyana Kziemko and Suresh Naidu, draws from early polling data to show that high rates of unionization lead to lower levels of income inequality across the board. Shaiken also claims that the benefits of unionization would not just accrue to the workforce but to the company as well. A union could ensure that workers speak more freely, more openly, now making things more effective in the production process, he says. Musk has not greeted the union effort warmly. In May, he wrote on Twitter: UAW destroyed once great US auto industry & everyone knows it. He also tweeted that those who joined the union might give up stock options for nothing, referring to an employee benefit currently available to all Tesla workers: an equity grant, which vests over a four-year period, and stock they can buy at a discount. The UAW charged that Musks statement was an act of retaliation against employees for union organizing and a violation of labor law, in a complaint filed with the National Labor Relations Board in May. Source: Union Membership and Coverage Database, available at www.unionstats.com, compiled from the US Census Bureaus Current Population Survey by economists Barry Hirsch of Georgia State University and David Macpherson of Trinity University. Peter Leyden runs Reinvent, a media company that moderates roundtables with tech entrepreneurs and political leaders concerned about sustainability and the future of work. On the matter of compensation, Leyden suggests that having employees hold an equity stake in the company offers a different way to think about your involvement at the company that is more geared toward the future than bargaining for wage increases. The growing value of Teslas stock, Musk argued in a blog post to employees last year, can make its workers wealthier than their counterparts in unionized plants. advertisement Yet Jon Luskin, a certified financial planner at Define Financial, based in San Diego, believes employees are better off with higher wages than stocks. He urges Tesla employees to sell their stocks as soon as they vest. Imagine if Tesla goes under tomorrowdo you want to lose your job and lose your investment? Shaiken says employees should not have to choose between unionization and having a stake in the companys success. He points out that workers at General Motors, which is covered by a union contract, took home almost $12,000 extra this year due to a profit-sharing deal with the company. Early last year Michael Sanchez was leafleting the Fremont factory as a volunteer UAW organizer when security guards ordered him to leave. One guard told him that unions are worthless, according to testimony that he provided to an administrative law judge during a trial before an NLRB-appointed judge in June, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. The NLRBs general counsel says the company violated federal law that protects workers rights to act collectively. Hearings on the matter are expected to resume in September. This has all the hallmarks of 1930s resistance, in the 21st-century context, says Shaiken. He adds that such resistance could have real consequences beyond Tesla, upending a decades-old social contract between employers and workers. No one at Tesla has ever, or will ever, have any action taken against them based on their feelings on unionization, Tesla said in a statement to the NLRB last year. Of course, the path to the middle class that Robert Jimenez helped forge is not as clear as it once was. When he helped organize the Chrysler-owned auto parts supplier in 1968, union membership in the state stood at about 32%. Last year, only 16% of Californias workforce belonged to unions, and the union membership rate is far lower in the private sector. The UAW has recently lost votes in right-to-work Tennessee and Mississippi. advertisement Peter Leyden characterizes unions as appropriate for 20th-century mass production, but anachronistic in contemporary high-tech manufacturing. He envisions a new model of labor-management relations that he describes as flexible, adaptable, risk-taking and in sync with the entrepreneurial and innovative instincts of the people running the companies. But Nelson Lichtenstein, a UC Santa Barbara historian, argues that Musk is shifting risk onto workers rather than encouraging experimentation, since employees who feel less secure in their jobs will be reluctant to speak up. If youve got a kid and mortgage and car payment, you need a predictable income. Thats what unions do, he adds. It is Musk and other union critics, says Shaiken, who promote false and outdated notions of auto unions, which often work collaboratively with the companies they represent. As an example, he cites the former General Motors and Toyota joint venture that previously ran the Fremont plant, where constant improvement was the goal. Tesla, he claims, is pursuing a hard ideological argument rather than a pragmatic, high-tech way of identifying how to optimize the production process and valuing workers at the same time. A competitive, profitable Tesla and a union are not incompatible, but thats up to the workers there, he says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90203828/is-union-busting-tesla-the-best-hope-to-rebuild-the-middle-class
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Is WeWork worth $40 billion or $3 billion?
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WeWork is not your typical real estate company. Rather, according to CEO and cofounder Adam Neumann , its a community and a state of consciousness, bringing people together to change the world. Investors agree: They think Neumanns sweeping vision is worth $20 billion at the very least, and maybe as much as $40 billion . But for all Neumanns ambition to expand beyond coworking and into housing, education, and more, WeWorks core real estate business remains its primary source of revenue. The company charges a monthly fee for access to a desk or dedicated office, and it currently boasts 256,000 customers, or members. In the first quarter of this year, those members generated $342 million in revenue, double last year. That pace of growth sets WeWork apart from established office providers like IWG and Regus. Not in the slightest, according to an analysis by the Financial Times. Compare WeWorks revenue to those competitors, applying the same multiple, and Neumanns company is worth $3 billion, tops. Even compared to a startup unicorn like Airbnb, the FT argues, WeWorks value appears inflated, based on sales. Put another way, anyone willing to invest in WeWork at a $40 billion valuation would have to believe that each of the companys members is worth $156,250. Regus members, by contrast, are worth around $11,300. Of course, the FTs conservative analysis is based on a snapshot of WeWork today, without taking into account the growth trajectories of the companys newer business lines. A few years from now, WeWork expects its enterprise business to comprise a considerably larger portion of sales, as it signs contracts with bigger and bigger customers. Forays into housing and education, while still unproven, hold similar promise. Whether public markets ultimately value WeWork at $3 billion or $40 billion is no mere academic question. A companys valuation affects its ability to recruit talent, for example. It can also serve as a source of immediate wealth for founders, who are increasingly choosing to cash out some of their equity through secondary transactions, in advance of an exit.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90179736/is-wework-worth-40-billion-or-3-billion
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Whats next for #MeToo in the restaurant industry?
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The restaurant industry feels to me like Wall Street did in 1996, OpenTable CEO Christa Quarles says. Thats one reason Quarles felt compelled to host a family-style dinner this month at Shuka, a Mediterranean eatery in New York, with women whove made food their business. The event was the second of OpenTables Open Conversations dinners, an experimental series that kicked off earlier this year in San Francisco, after a wave of sexual harassment allegations washed over the restaurant industry. advertisement advertisement The first order for these dinners was really to create space and forum for conversation. And from there, I think everybody wants to know that this isnt just about having the cathartic conversation. While thats super important and frankly very much needed, its also to create space for whats next,Quarles explains. Over plates of mezze, the women in attendance debated everything from tipping to whether to boycott a Mario Batali restaurant. I spoke to Quarles and the other women who hosted the event about how the industry is evolving post-#MeToo, and what restaurateurs are thinkingand acting onnow. Awareness and education Even for women in the industry, the sexual misconduct allegations against celebrity chefs like Batali and Ken Friedman were revelatory. I didnt realize quite the extent, says Bowery Group restaurateur Vicki Freeman. I dont know if I had my head in the sand. It was this very big wake-up call to me. Some of Freemans employees have come forward with harassment allegations, even prior to the #MeToo movement. While she took such allegations seriously, Freeman confesses she felt those incidents were part and parcel of working in restaurants. I have to admit there was a tiny part of me that was like, Get over it,' she says,as someone who has dealt with that in my own time. I was a waitress until I was 30. Now, all that has changed. I dont know what part of me thought that was okay in any way, shape, or form, she adds. I completely dont feel that way anymore. Our CEO @cquarles is taking on sexual harassment in the restaurant industry with the help of powerful culinary leaders because "no industry is immune." https://t.co/Nod8bded9u #TimesUp #86This pic.twitter.com/7fWU4C6ITq OpenTable (@OpenTable) February 28, 2018 As in other sectors of the hospitality industry, the most vulnerable parties in a restaurant can be the least equipped to reportor even detectmisconduct. Thats why educating workers is a crucial piece of addressing harassment and revamping workplace culture. Chef Ashley Christensen recently wrote a post urging her peers to invest in human resources. I know intimately how tight the margins are in our business, but it is so crucial to find room in the budget for this resource, she wrote. I think its almost impossible as a business owner to review situations between employees in a truly neutral manner, and having a skilled HR director allows us to provide that resource and safe zone to our team. advertisement advertisement Shifting culture Everyone says the answer is to own your own restaurant, Diamond says. Thats easier said than done. Women are said to account for about half of culinary graduates but are underrepresented in the chef ranks. Supporting women to own and run scalable businesses is something the Foundation really wants to get behind, as we believe it is a key to shifting the culture, Reichenbach says. While its true that women restaurateurs can set the tone and culture as owners, that assumes they want to (and can) take on that responsibility. Being a working womanespecially a working motheris difficult in any industry, but particularly so in the restaurant business. If a restaurant employee has kids, working a night shift will, for example, require childcare at night. And as Diamond points out, not everyone wants to be a restaurant owner. I think one of the interesting things about the women in the world that [Cherry Bombe covers] is theyre really carving out their own paths in this industry, whether theyre caterers or bloggers; whether theyre opening small cooking schools, or they are recipe testers and work out of their homes, Diamond says. There are so many different roads into this industry. Gabrielle Hamilton sure thinks so. The Prune chef opted to partner with Friedman after April Bloomfield left The Spotted Pig and dissolved their partnership. Hamiltons decision was criticized by folks within and outside the industry. (Hamilton doubled down, adding that everyone is a better spouse their second time around.) I can think of 1,000 people who deserve redemption more than Ken Friedman, Diamond says, arguing that Friedman should have divested from his restaurant group. The fact that anyone would want to sweep in and save or redeem Ken Friedman is ridiculous. But in a post-#MeToo reality, women in the industry will have to make decisions like this one. Hamilton may have given Friedman a second chance he doesnt deservebut she also saved a lot of jobs. Of course, that doesnt change the fact that The Spotted Pigs employees will have to work under Friedman. I feel like what those employees are going through is a completely different form of harassment, Diamond adds. Having to choose whether to stay and work at a tarnished eatery for a disgraced restaurateur, or go stand on the unemployment line, is its own form of harassment.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40587066/whats-next-for-metoo-in-the-restaurant-industry
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Can Davos De-Davos Itself?
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In a time of pitchforks, you could almost say going to Davos is a rebel move. O.K., thatd be dumb to saythough maybe no dumber than whats been offered by many of the thought leaders on stage this week. So lets say instead that Davos, or the annual gatherings of the World Economic Forum (WEF) that take place there, is easy to hate. The spectacle of billionaires seeking out the thoughts of other billionaires in a luxurious Swiss setting might as well be lab-devised to create Bolsheviks. When the WEFs strategic communications chief combats stories about swarms of private-jet users with an article highlighting 14% less private jet use in 2019 compared to 2018 and notes, of these jet-users, that we also ask that they share planes, you have to wonder if hes trying to bring down WEF from within. But enough jabs. O.K., maybe not. Lets keep going. Just look at some of the panel titles. If you can read the words Building Sustainable Markets or Storytellers: The Road to Resilience without succumbing to a one-handed motion unfit to describe in a family publication, well, kudos to you, my classier friend. As the writer Brian Merchant summed up the week in a much-circulated tweet, a room full of billionaires laughed tauntingly at @AOCs [Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs] 70% marginal tax prop, Bill Gates scoffed at notion the system was broken, hinted critics were communists, and Tony Blair laughed at idea his cohort was responsible for any global malady. Here Ill save you a Google search and provide a link to Communist Party USA, while the urge is fresh. But, O.K., for real this time, enough jabs. Orneriness is too easy. After fresh evidence two weekends ago that many American journalists have thrown away their brains, and maybe souls, in the aftermath of 2016, reducing their foes to stereotypes that would embarrass even Archie Bunker, were reminded of the importance of breaking out of ones own thought grooves. Everyone should make a habit of arguing against their own ideas. So this writer will try to defend, rather than disparage, last weeks billionaire confab. To start with, Davos has wised up. At least a little. Theres still the selection of safe talks about sustainable development or the hydrogen economy, to which rich people can nod along, unfazed. But there are also panel discussions like Is This the End or Beginning of Globalism? or Is the West Paralyzed? Those arent easy or safe. Nor is the panel Preparing for Future Migration Scenarios, one that refers to a population explosion in Africa, where the number of people is set to double to over 2 billion by 2050, placing growing pressure on the borders of neighboring Europe. Writer Anand Giridharadas, author of the book Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World, recently told CNNs Christiane Amanpour that Davos should end, calling it a family reunion for the people who, in my view, broke the modern world. But the alternative to having those who broke the world discuss the big questions in transparent public settings is to have them do so behind closed doors, or not at all. Lets zoom in on the word charade. Its widely echoed. As economist Branko Milanovic recently put it, Davos is a place where elites love to advocate for equalityso long as nothing gets done. Hes not all wrong, but its still an overstatement, of course. Yes, Davos attracts a lot of hypocrites and posers, but so do many things that have the capacity to do good. Like politics. You can complain about where and how Bill Gates directs his philanthropy, but you cant deny that he has poured billions into his efforts. So have many of those who were in Davos last week. However in thrall to discredited ideas many of them might be, they are trying to do some good. Finally, in the spirit of non-tendentious journalism, let us roll the tape on some of the earlier examples of Davos egregiousness that I cited. We can start with my own selective quoting of the imperfect communications chief. Yes, his request that private jet users carpool remains funny (at least to me), but he also adds if they have to use them. And the context is that hes disputing reports of thousands of private jets descending on the city, arguing that the real number is probably under 100. Well, watch the tape. An event moderator, Heather Long of The Washington Post, brings up Alexandria Ocasio-Cortezs idea of a 70-percent tax on the wealthy and then directs a question to panelist Michael Dell, whos worth an estimated $28 billion: Michael Dell, do you support this? The audience laughs. Id chuckle, too, and not out of scorn for A.O.C.s idea. And theres no way to know how many billionaires, if any, are in attendance, let alone a room full. After Dell explains why hed be opposed to the tax hike, partly on economic grounds, fellow panelist Erik Brynjolfsson, a business professor at MIT, points out that the United States once had even higher tax rates, and growth was still robust. In short, a billionaire on a panel made a shaky assertion and then got bested by a knowledgeable co-panelist, all in public. You decide. Asked by an interviewer whether philanthropy is pointless, because it fails to address a fundamentally broken system, Gates answers, Well, the, Iif people think [waving his hands around as if to come up with something] Communism works better or something, I don't know. To me, the system could constantly be tuned, and Im a believer in an estate tax and more progressive taxation. Look, to be candid, I hate to defend someone whose time in power left a trail of destruction at home and abroad. But heres what happened. At the end of an 18-minute interview, Amanpour played Blair the tape of Giridharadas calling Davos a reunion for people who broke the world. You cant argue with that, right? she asked. Blairs responsewith a laugh, yeswas, I can. And Blair proceeded to defend Davos as a worthwhile gathering despite the criticisms. This, not Blairs record, was the topic. Theres a bigger point here. Agitprop and cartoons are useful, even necessary, in wartime, when zeal for the fight must be sustained. Its a question many writers and public figures, deep into resistance mode, are failing to ask themselves. For their credibility, thats fatal. For societal cooperation, its also fatal. Thats why the douchebags of Davos have gotten this defense. It could have been any popular demon, but they were the ones in the news. These are bitter times, but sometimes the most important war to fight is the one against those who insist on being at war.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/can-davos-de-davos-itself
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Why Wont Roger Stone Shut Up?
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Just days after being indicted, Roger Stone continued his media blitz Sunday appearing on ABCs This Week with George Stephanopoulos. Stephanopoulos asked Stone about possibly cooperating with Special Counsel Robert Muellers Russia probe, as Mueller has not asked to speak with Stone to date: Are you prepared to tell the truth about your dealings with him to the special counsel, the truth about your dealings with the campaign? Stones answer contradicts itself. He first said that he would speak with Mueller about wrongdoing by people that he knows about. But then said he doesnt know about any wrongdoing. And then said that he would answer honestly about the wrongdoing. JUST IN: @GStephanopoulos: "Any chance you'll cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller if he asks?" Roger Stone: "That's a question I'll have to determine after my attorneys have some discussion I would certainly testify honestly" https://t.co/PAbc4RuByr pic.twitter.com/yTWpkkBq3F This Week (@ThisWeekABC) January 27, 2019 Thats a question Id have to determine after my attorneys have some discussion. If theres wrongdoing by other people in the campaign that I know about, which I know of none, but if there is, I would certainly testify honestly. I would also testify honestly about any other matter, including any communications with the president. Its true we spoke on the phone, but those communications are political in nature, theyre benign and there is certainly no conspiracy with Russia. The presidents right. There is no Russian collusion, Stone answered. Stephanopoulos also asked Stone whether he had discussed receiving a pardon with Trump. Absolutely, positively not, Stone said. I have never discussed a pardon [for myself]. After reminding everyone that he is not perfect I am human and I did make some errors but theyre errors that would be inconsequential within the scope of this investigation Stone went on to complain about the way he was arrested this past week, a note he strikes in every media appearance in an obvious attempt to secure public sympathy. I think the way I was treated on Thursday is extraordinary. I think the American people need to hear about it, Stone said. Its fascinating how many of Trumps surrogates who are in legal jeopardy think it is wise to speak to the media. Even those who are not in a legal line of fire like Rudy Giuliani, who supposedly is acting as Trumps attorney, seems to do more harm than good for his client and his own reputation with every media appearance. What motivates this cast of characters is anyones guess. The strategy, if you can call it that, seems to be in line with Trumps longtime thought process of engaging with the media no matter how bad things may be going. Trump has a long history of reaching out to the press, even before his political career, sometimes as himself or acting as his own fake spokesman, John Miller, when things were going terribly for him. He has employed this tactic to defend his personal life, litigate public breakups as his divorces played out in the tabloids, and to set a false narrative about what a great businessman he was while half of his businesses were going bankrupt. Some who have been indicted or who have cooperated with Muellers Russia probe have kept relatively quiet or have not spoken to the media at all like Paul Manafort, Michael Flynn and, to a lesser extent, Michael Cohen, who has mostly let one of his attorneys, Lanny Davis, do most of the public speaking for him. While others like, Stone, Carter Page, Jerome Corsi, Sam Nunberg, and Michael Caputo, all of whom are involved with the Russia probe, seemingly cant say no to a media request. Maybe all of this comes down to who thinks they have a chance of a pardon from the president and who is just living by Roger Stones adage: The only thing worse than being talked about is not being talked about.
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https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/why-wont-roger-stone-shut-up-785160/
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Is the Billionaire Ex-C.E.O. of Starbucks the Next Jill Stein?
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As Donald Trumps approval ratings sink, at least one potential independent candidate is considering shaking up the 2020 field. Former Starbucks C.E.O. Howard Schultz, who has been flirting with a presidential run for years, said in a 60 Minutes interview airing Sunday that he is seriously entertaining the prospect of challenging Trumpand, by extension, the entire Democratic Party, too. Schultz, who stepped down as Starbucks C.E.O. last year, stopped short of confirming his White House aspirations during his chat with CBS anchor Scott Pelley. Still, he laid the groundwork for his argument that an independent candidate is necessary to defuse Americas increasingly toxic partisan politics. We're living at a most fragile time, Schultz said. Not only the fact that this president is not qualified to be the president, but the fact that both parties are consistently not doing what's necessary on behalf of the American people and are engaged, every single day, in revenge politics. The full 60 minutes interview airs Sunday at 7:00 P.M. The prospect of Schultzs run has understandably worried Democratic strategists, who liken such a high-profile independent bid to that of Jill Stein or Ralph Naderboth of whom were blamed for siphoning Democratic and Republican voters in hotly-contested elections. One strategist told The Atlantic, Trumps strategy has always been divide and conquer, and this plays directly into his hands. [Schultz is] Ralph Nader without any of Naders redeeming qualities. Schultz identifies as a Democrat, but would run as an independent to avoid diluting a 2020 pool that includes California Senator Kamala Harris, former HUD secretary Julin Castro, Hawaii Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Maryland Congressman John Delaney, and entrepreneur Andrew Yang. New York senator Kirsten Gillibrand, Massachusetts senator Elizabeth Warren and Indiana mayor Pete Buttigieg have also announced exploratory committees, while many speculate that Vermont senator and 2016 breakout Bernie Sanders will soon enter the race. Several outlets have reported that the White House is particularly afraid of a challenge by former Vice President Joe Biden or Texas Congressman Beto ORourke, who very nearly won a Senate seat last year in Texas. As a 65-year-old white man with no history of public office, Schultz would have his work cut out for him. He is passionate about racial justice issues, but his clumsy attempts to discuss race at Starbucks were widely mocked on the left. His extreme wealth$3.4 billion, according to Forbesis enough to make him a target of Democrats in an era when the left is focused income inequality, while also far short of the formidable $47.5 billion war chest that Michael Bloomberg would bring to the campaign. Still, Schultz sounds like somebody who wants to test the waters. Whether his nonpartisan message would appeal to voters, at a time when most Americans are caught up in the culture war, is question for Schultzs pollsters.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2019/01/howard-schultz-2020-campaign-starbucks
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Are Singaporean pre-schoolers more independent than we think they can be?
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Its been said before that Singaporeans tend to be helicopter parents. But one group of parents has decided to let go, and send their tiny tots out on their own for the first time, to see the results. Advertisement Whether children in Singapore are too pampered or sheltered has been a matter of perennial debate. Now, some parents are finding out the answers for themselves as they send their tiny tots out on their own for the first time. In the case of Nathanael, an only child aged five years and one month, his mother Serena Ong sent him from their home in Simei to his fathers office in Marina One. I dont want him to be spoilt or to overly depend on us for stuff, she said. Ms Serena Ong with Nathanael. Advertisement Advertisement He is one of six boys and three girls aged two to five years old who were given a chance to be independent by running errands alone, with their missions captured on camera by the programme On The Red Dot. They included children who were crossing traffic junctions by themselves for the first time, with a production crew of 12 disguised as passers-by to follow their every move and ensure each childs safety. And as their parents learnt, in confronting the question of whether a child is old enough to do something, there would be doubts and surprises. (Watch the episodes here.) THE BLANKET BRAVO Ms Ong had her reservations even before her son left home. The set-up had been simple enough: Nathanael thought his father had left his laptop behind and needed it urgently, but mum could not leave home because someone was repairing the television. And the boy initially volunteered to help. Then he changed his mind and started wailing, even as Ms Ong told him to bring along his favourite blanket. She said: At this point, my heart started to (go) like, Should I still carry on with this task? Nathanael carrying his blanket. Her son would have to walk about 400 metres to take a bus, alight after two stops and take the train from Upper Changi station to Downtown station. From there, it is about 200m to his fathers workplace. He did not get far in his first attempt and ran home scared, which made his mothers heart ache. But I know if I push him a little, he can do better, said Ms Ong, who eventually had to take him to the bus stop before he agreed to soldier on by himself for the rest of the journey. Once he reached the MRT station, he was back to his normal self, saying aloud as he was on the escalator: Oh, first time. So fun. Listening out for the train announcements, he was able to alight at the right station which impressed his mother and then get to the right office building, where he asked the concierge to call his father, Mr Yong Kai Keong. While admitting to his dad that he took very long to cry and cry, Nathanael let on that he felt proud of his efforts, and said: So, in times of emergency, I can help. Reviewing the footage of her son made Ms Ong cry a little. I think hes grown up. This brought me back to the first day when he had to go to pre-school, when the teacher said, No, you can go home. Hes fine, she recounted. He doesnt need me any more. Sometimes I think the separation anxiety is from the mother and not the child. Lying down on a seat at Marina One, waiting for his father. He has since become more independent, she added, so to me, its like, wow; that boost of confidence really helped him a lot, and Im glad I didnt give up and pressed on. INDEPENDENCE DAY For Ms Atiqah Halim, she wondered whether her son Dani, aged three years and 11 months, should have been given his task to pass his fathers mobile phone to him after it was over. While she would not have called him an independent child, as he always wanted to do the same thing his brother did, she reckoned: Maybe he can; its just that he has never had the chance to (be independent). Ms Atiqah Halim with Dani. Last year, the family welcomed their third child, and Dani has been adjusting to his new role from baby of the family for three years to elder sibling. It is a familiar scenario for families. And that was why another parent, Mrs Uma Jacob, decided to give her four-and-a-half-year-old son Noel the task of buying some things from the supermarket while taking care of his visiting two-year-old cousin. Noel recently became a big brother, and with Mrs Jacob having her hands full with two boys now, the working mum needed him to be more independent. I wanted Noel to step out of his comfort zone, where he feels as if he can accomplish this task on his own, she said. Noel bought the eggs his mum wanted, but not diapers and wet wipes, so that he could still hold on to his cousin. In Noels case, the supermarket was 160m away. Dani, meanwhile, was asked to buy lunch first and take the food, along with his fathers mobile phone, to their new flat almost 1km away from their current Tampines home. Its not just a test for Dani, but I think its a test for us as well, said Ms Atiqah. Its interesting because Singapore is quite a safe country, yet were very protective of our kids. So to let go of our kids is quite a challenge. Running his first errand alone was a challenge for Dani too. And it was not long before he found himself inconsolable and heading back to his mother. Dani crying. She persuaded him to give it another go. And he did, talking to himself to keep going. How do I go to my house? he asked at one point. He figured it out and delivered the phone to his father, Mr Suhardi Suradi, but forgot to buy lunch. After he went back to his mother by himself again she asked him if he was scared, and he said yes. That was what made her wonder about his task. But in the end, she thought that asking him to buy food from a specific cafeteria may have been the only unnecessary complication. Hes quite proud of the fact that he managed to send the phone to his father. We probably will remind him, Hey, you did this That means youre a big boy, she said. Its a proud moment for the family. Dani delivering his father's phone. THE GRANDPARENTS REACT Danis maternal grandparents were among the senior family members who watched the footage of these children in action. And grandpa Ab Halim Huzir was waiting for that moment when his grandson mustered the confidence to set off by himself. During our days, we were different. We were really independent. But nowadays, because children are a bit more pampered, I can say they lack confidence, he said. Mdm Ana Lim, who looks after twin grandsons Mingyu and Mingzheng aged four years and four months during the day while their mother works, did not think such young children could do such tasks. The two boys were told to buy bread, cheese, and ham from a supermarket 50m from their block, and then go to a playground that is a two-minute walk away to prepare a picnic for their mum Serene On. Asking them to buy stuff is something they cant do. They always stick close to their mother. How can they be on their own? questioned Mdm Lim. But that was why single mum Ms On thought it would be a good experience and hoped to see how they respond to the challenges and how they behave because ... they rely on me a lot. Mingyu (left) and Mingzheng didn't buy all the picnic ingredients, nor make a sandwich for their mum until she arrived. But she lets them "run a bit" now, instead of holding them "so tightly". Grandpa Wan Bock Thiaw, on the other hand, felt that his grandson Ninja, aged two years and 11 months, had got a chance to do something special. The boys mother Chelsea is a second-generation owner of a frog farm in Lim Chu Kang, and she thought her son could start helping out with simple things. So she asked him to scrub a frog pen and feed the fish in two ponds while navigating around the one-hectare farm without his parents, as well as deliver frog meat to a neighbouring farm. And when Mr Wan saw him feeding the fish, and singing to himself while doing so, he said: I bet no one else (so young) in Singapore does this. When I was his age I was probably sitting around, waiting to be fed. Ninja is "a bit afraid to get himself hurt" and is "used to having someone around to give him guidance", said dad Deon Brand. That is, until his tasks. His daughter added: As parents, we let our fears kind of cloud our judgement on what we think a kid going on three years old might be able to understand or what they can do. YES, THE GIRLS CAN Although most children do not grow up on a farm, they do have to adapt to different situations during their childhood as parents would know. Charlotte, aged four years and 10 months, had to deal with that when her family returned from the United States last year. And mum Min Poh thinks she did better than expected. Still, new situations are tough for her. Ms Min Poh with daughter Charlotte. Sometimes shes a little bit like a deer caught in the headlights, said Ms Poh. I wanted her to be more comfortable with situations she doesnt know or cant really predict. Her challenge was to bring her brothers jiu-jitsu belt to his class 470m away in Katong, and walk another 400m to retrieve a library book from her grandmothers place. It tested not only her resolve she ran back home panicking at first but also her road safety skills, as she had to cross a junction by herself for the first time. Like Dani, she waited for others to cross before she started across. I was impressed and happy that whatever I said a million times sunk in, said her mother. Shes also braver than I thought. So that was reassuring. Following the map her mum drew. Charlotte proudly told her grandmother that she made the trip by herself, and said to her mother after returning: I was scared the first time, but I was happy. It was fun at the last (part). That was enough for dad Peck Choon Hong to want her to continue doing errands, since shes definitely capable of it. For Ms Yoong Ying Ying, whose family has a small restaurant at The Grandstand on Turf Club Road, she was also glad she could task her five-year-old daughter Joy with delivering food within the shopping complex. It made me realise that if I had given her opportunities earlier, shed have become a more confident child, said Ms Yoong. Joy made three deliveries within a 100-metre radius of her parents' cafe. Among the parents, perhaps Ms Yvonne Lian had more reasons than most for wanting her five-year-old daughter Chloe, who had never gone anywhere unaccompanied, to become self-reliant. She might be dyslexic, so I hope that she can learn from young to open up and adapt to things more easily, said Ms Lian. I hope she can discover more about herself. At the same time, I can discover more about her capabilities. If Chloe has dyslexia, it may impair her sense of direction and affect how well she remembers instructions. And her task had several steps. Ms Yvonne Lian explaining Chloe's task to her. At the Aranda Country Club, she had to find the fish pond and the shop close it, buy a fish tank and decorate it, and catch 10 fishes to bring back to her mother in the lobby. She did forget, but was so determined the second time round that she spent two hours on her task. Stretched mentally and physically at the end, she could not secure the lid of the tank or carry it further. But the little trooper made it back eventually sobbing from the effort into her mothers embrace. The experience showed Ms Lian, who had imagined Chloe would give up halfway, how far her daughter could go. This is like 1,000 per cent power up. My daughter has grown up, she said. I can see that she can run more errands by herself. Thats enough for Mummy. RESISTING THE URGE TO HELP To close her fish tanks lid, Chloe had sought the help of an uncle passing by, or so she thought. In actual fact it was a cameraman. But when the tank started to weigh her down, just two minutes away from her mother, the production crew resisted the urge to help, to give her a chance of completing the task on her own terms. And such decisions on whether to intervene by assisting a lost or crying child were challenging ones for the team to make, said series producer Mak C K. When Chloe said she couldn't carry her tank, a cameraman told her to gather her strength before walking back. Having consulted with child psychologists and the Japanese production team behind the original Old Enough! series (with 29 years of experience making the programme), we learnt not to simply give in to our natural instincts to help a child showing any signs of discomfort, he said. If the child wasnt in any form of physical danger, we kept a close watch and tried to give him/her the opportunity to overcome any setbacks by himself/herself. In doing so, the children are given the opportunity to gain confidence and feel proud of themselves for helping out their parents successfully," he added. Asked what surprised him the most, Mr Mak cited the way the children behaved when seemingly unsupervised. Almost of all them rose to the occasion and pursued their tasks single-mindedly. Even their parents themselves were surprised, he said. Sometimes we witnessed the children growing up right before the camera lens. Thats a magical moment captured for their parents (and the children) to cherish forever. Watch the series here, an adaptation of the Japanese hit television show Old Enough! New episodes of On The Red Dot air on Mediacorp Channel 5 every Friday at 9.30pm.
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https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/cnainsider/singaporean-preschooler-independent-errands-parenting-old-enough-11171562
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Who is Jordan Fisher Dating?
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Singer, dancer, and actor Jordan Fisher can be seen tonight playing Mark Cohen on FOXs Broadway adaptation Rent: Live. Ladies, if youre wondering whether or not Fisher has a girlfriend, he does: his childhood sweetheart, Ellie Woods. The Couple Made Their Relationship Instagram Official in 2017 In the beginning of 2017, both Fisher and Woods shared a photo on their Instagram accounts of the two of them in Times Square. Fisher was in town starring in a little Broadway musical called Hamilton (no big deal), and this was when the two friends started to take their friendship to the next level. The Two Grew Up Together In a Theater Company in Birmingham While 2017 was their official start date as boyfriend and girlfriend, the two have known each other for a while. Fisher told J-14, We grew up in a theatre company together in Birmingham. We were just friends. It took us a long time for all of a sudden, like a year and a half ago we were kind of like Lets see what this could be. I was working on Hamilton at the time. I was like Come to New York. Ill take you on some dates and lets just figure it out. So, she came to New York, I took her on some dates, and that was it! Around the same time, Woods posted a photo on Instagram from 2012 with the caption, Wow. Oof. We have come a long way, my dear. #throwback #2012. Fisher commented on the post writing, Good Lord. If only I knew how to properly articulate how happy you make methis would be so much easier. You truly make me the happiest person on earth. So grateful to have you and to have had you in my life for all these years. Even more grateful that I get to call you my person. Woods Was Fishers Biggest Fan When He Competed on Season 25 of Dancing With the Stars While Fisher is busy pursuing his singing, dancing, and acting career, Woods is working toward a college degree, but that didnt mean she didnt have time to be Fishers number one stan. Whether in the live audience or watching from home, Woods often made posters and t-shirts to cheer her boo on. Fisher ended up winning the season after competing against celebrities like Lindsey Stirling, Frankie Muniz, Drew Scott, and Nick Lachey. Fisher even holds the record for most perfect scores by a celebrity in a season (nine), surpassing Bindi Irwin (Season 21) and Laurie Hernandez (Season 23). We have 11 years of friendship and that turned into something really beautiful and special. Just committing to the idea of making it work and being together is something you just do. You just make it work and make it happen. Every three weeks, somebody is on a plane to see each other if its a day or two, if its a week, if its a long weekend. We make it work, said Fisher. While She Does Post on Social Media, Woods Otherwise Tries To Stay Out of the Spotlight While Fisher and Woods do post about each other on social media, you wont see Woods walking any red carpet with her beau. Regardless, that doesnt stop Fisher from gushing about his love during interviews or on TV.
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https://heavy.com/entertainment/2019/01/who-is-jordan-fisher-dating/
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Can 2018s progressive candidates overcome the power of money in politics?
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On June 15, the two Democratic candidates in the running for the seat in New Yorks 14th Congressional district faced off in a debate. The optics were striking. Joe Crowley is 56 years old, and hes served in Congress for 19 years, starting off in a seat to which he was appointed to, Hes a white man representing a district that is just 18% white, and while he supports some progressive policies like immigration reform and Medicare for All, his funders include big banks and energy utilities. Hes the fourth most powerful Democrat in the House. His challenger, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is 28 years old, and she grew up in the Bronx. She organized for Bernie Sanders and protested the Dakota Access Pipeline at Standing Rock. This is her first political campaign, and shes running on a platform of universal healthcare, free public college, and the abolition of ICE. advertisement advertisement They face off in a vote in the Democratic primary in New York on June 26. Its a race that mirrors many happening across the country this year, as progressive candidatesmany of them running their first-ever campaignsattempt to challenge more established Democrats. Ocasio-Cortez, like many progressive candidates, knows her campaign is a long shot. I knew I was going into one of the most machine-controlled races in the United States, and I knew going into it that this whole deck was going to be stacked against me, she tells Fast Company. So from the very beginning, I decided I wasnt going to use that deck. Not using that deck, to her, means refusing corporate money, and instead relying on a base of small individual donations from constituents to fuel her campaign. People who have volunteered for her campaign have remarked on the energy around it, and Ocasio-Cortez has secured endorsements from MoveOn, Black Lives Matter, and a number of left-progressive groups like Justice Democrats and Our Revolution committed to getting progressive candidates powered by grassroots donations, not corporate money, into office. Our Revolution has endorsed a broad range of candidates, from governor to city council and 38 so far have won; Justice Democrats is focused on Congress and endorsed 48 House and Senate candidates; 13 so far have won the nomination for the November election. In the 14th district, Crowley is heavily favored to win if you look at the most salient metric in American politics: the money (incumbency helps a lot, as well). Crowley has raised millions of dollars; the Blackstone Group and Consolidated Edison number among his 1,312 donors. Ocasio-Cortez has raised just over $550,000. In the 2014 midterms, the better funded candidate won the seat 91% of the time. Its funding, after all, that allows campaigns to advertise and to reach constituents, and in a year when the Democratic Partys main aim is to regain a majority in Congress, it makes sense to focus on candidates who can run powerful, well-funded campaigns against Republican challengers in the November elections. But this year, spurred in large part by Donald Trumps election, a wealth of Democratic candidates1,192, to be preciseregistered to run primary campaigns in districts across the country. Some districts have seen pools filled with as many as seven left-wing candidates. A number of those candidates, mostly first-timers, are running on extremely progressive platforms, and others toe a more moderate line. As the Democratic Party aims to support the candidates it sees as the most likely to win in November, in this years primaries, its largely been backing more established, centrist candidatesand especially those with more funds. But some progressives feel that this approach is keeping them locked out of advancing to the November elections by default, and keeping the Democratic Party out of touch with its voting base. As the primaries evolve into the 2018 Midterms, the Democratic Party should consider how it might evolve to support a greater diversity of candidatesincluding those that are running small-dollar campaigns and finding successes who, like Ocasio-Cortez says, are using a different but potentially compelling deck. A disconnected party For the Democratic party, theres a special urgency this year to ensure that whichever candidate makes it through the primary can win against the Republican nominee in November to ensure a Congress that can work against Trumps policies. advertisement As such, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of the House Democrats whose purpose it is to help Democrats win House seats, has selected several candidates this year in competitive primaries on the left to help support through a combination of funding and consulting support. Candidates with backing from the DCCC not only receive funding of at least $1,000 (and often much more)they also gain access to the organizations network of consultants for strategic support throughout their campaign. In Texass 7th district, for instance, the DCCC attempted to pull some strings on behalf of Lizzie Pannill Fletcher in a race over the more liberal, Medicare-For-All candidate Laura Moser, and backed Republican-turned-Democrat Brad Ashford over progressive Kara Eastman in Nebraskas 2nd district. Ann Kirkpatrick, a centrist Democrat in Arizonas 2nd district who opposes Medicare for All and, during a previous turn in Congress, voted to extend tax cuts for corporations, was one of the first candidates the DCCC publicly supported this election cycle, over the more progressive Mary Matiella, who ran on raising the minimum wage and supporting universal healthcare (they face off on August 28th). In a now widely circulated bit of audio that Levi Tillemann, a progressive running for Congress in Colorado in the June 26th primary, recorded during a meeting with House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, the issue of the DCCCs involvement in Tillemanns face-off with his primary rival, corporate lawyer Jason Crow, came up. Hoyer explained to Tillemann that the party and the DCCC were backing Crow because the current Colorado members of the House selected him as the preferred nominee. So your position is, a decision was made very early on before voters had a say, and thats fine because the DCCC knows better than the voters of the 6th Congressional District, and we should line up behind that candidate, Tillemann said in response (The Intercept secured a copy of the audio and reported on it). Thats certainly a consequence of our decision, was what Hoyer had to say in response. And that decision was likely made on the basis of fundraising prowess. The DCCC is reported to carry out a practice called rolodexing, in which it assesses a candidates viability by her ability to raise at least $250,000 from the contacts in their phone alone. An election for the people For progressive candidatesespecially first-timers, and those who are refusing to accept corporate dollarsthat initial $250,000 bar would be a near-impossible one to clear. And yet, such candidates are not automatic write-offsnor should they be. In Nebraskas 2nd district, for instance, the progressive Eastman won the Democratic nomination despite refusing corporate money and being outraised by her primary opponent, the DCCC-endorsed Ashford. In Texas 7th district outside of Houston, the race between Fletcher and Moser went to a runoff. Two progressive candidates ran to take on left-centrist John Morganelli in Pennsylvanias 7th district, and instead of splitting the vote, one of them, Susan Wild, won. The candidates would argue yes. The party, they feel, is overlooking a key metric: the number of constituents these candidates have mobilized to donate to their campaigns. While the total funding pool these contributions amount to may be smallbarely even crossing that initial $250,000 threshold in some casesthe sheer number of individuals those contributions come from, in many cases, surpass the number that bigger-dollar candidates post. That indicates a broader voting base, and that, some progressive candidates feel, should get more attention from the party. (The value of this metric extends beyond assessing progressive candidates: Centrist Conor Lamb won a razor-edge victory over his Republican opponent in a special election in Pennsylvanias 18th district in March, raising over $3 million on an average contribution of $33. And in the 2016 election, Donald Trump had enormous success with small-dollar donors.) Jess Phoenix, a volcano scientist who made an ultimately unsuccessful run for the nomination in Californias 25th district, built her campaign on grassroots donations; she did not accept corporate dollars for her campaign. As someone who has been through the political process, she believes that the party needs to adjust its framework for whom it decides to support in the primaries, and especially how it advises first-time candidates. Phoenix ultimately lost not to the corporate lawyer Brian Caforio, whom the DCCC backed in an unsuccessful run in 2016, but to another grassroots candidate, Katie Hill. Phoenix thinks the energy around her and Hills campaigns during the primary should send a signal to the party that voters are looking for something different in their candidates. Right now, were essentially sending professional fundraisers to Congress and wondering why nothing gets done, Phoenix says. There are people from all sorts of backgroundsteachers, service-sector workers, single parentswhose perspectives would be great to have in Congress because they could speak for people like them, she adds. But the way our politics is currently structured, were never going to hear their voices. Altering the metric by which the Democratic Party assesses the popularity of candidates could help get more diverse representatives into office. If the party looked at the number of individual campaign donors, rather than the sheer volume of money raised, it could get a clearer sense of how a candidate is relating to her constituents and will ultimately perform in the district, according to Erin Hill, the executive director of ActBlue, an online fundraising platform for progressives and Democrats. Ocasio-Cortez feels similarly: While Crowley has outraised her by around $2.5 million, she has over 13,500 individual donors. He has just over 1,000; small individual contributions account for 0.79% of his overall campaign money (because candidates are not required to disclose information about donations less than $200, these numbers are often hard to come by; Ocasio-Cortezs campaign disclosed them to Fast Company). As it currently stands, the party has no stake in recognizing or supporting her campaign because Crowley, with his established position in Congress and deep pockets, is likely a shoo-in. But she feels that there needs to be a way to create a more level playing field, so that if a long-shot candidate decide to run and, like herself, meet a surprising level of support from the community, she wont be ignored by the party. You need money to run a campaign, but the money alone is not going to get the community to love you and know you, she says. The hope is that the DCCC could grow to recognize more diverse indicators for a candidates strength, and either broaden its support for candidates in the primaries, or conserve its resources for the general election and throw its $162 million weight behind whichever candidate the people vote through in the primaries. Toward a more even playing field The Democratic Party leadership maintains that supporting moderate candidates with deep pockets is the clearest path to victory. But Corbin Trent, a Justice Democrats cofounder, says that the Democratic Party has lost the connection to American working families and to the people in this country. That connection frays when individuals feel that their vote or campaign contribution is not powerful enough to get their candidate elected or get their issues passed. The spate of progressive candidates running this year may not have large campaign funds, but they are running on policies like Medicare for All, which public polling shows the majority of registered Democrats support, and free public education, which would benefit the low-income and working-class constituents the party has consistently struggled to reach. advertisement Candidates like Ocasio-Cortez and Phoenix believe that shifting to a political system that prioritizes individual campaign contributions over corporate dollars will help re-establish that lost connection. For the party to remain relevant, Ocasio-Cortez says, it needs candidates who do not accept money from institutions like fossil fuel, pharmaceutical giants, and Wall Street. Of course, this is part of a much larger conversation around the need to re-establish a limit on donations from corporations and nonprofits set up to funnel money toward candidates, but the fact that progressive candidates (and established Democrats like Kristin Gillibrand and Cory Booker) are eschewing corporate money shows that theres momentum in the party to reimagine how campaigns are funded. Furthermore, when constituentsparticularly young peoplefeel overshadowed by large corporate donors and the party recognition they bring with them, they are less likely to vote and engage politically. Candidates who instead run small-donor-powered campaigns give their constituents a direct avenue to impact and also, Ocasio-Cortez says, create a wide political base for themselves that is able to give to the campaign multiple times. While the partys concerns about a progressive, small-donor-funded candidates ability to amass the resources to contend in the November elections are valid, they should be a reason to figure out new ways to support these candidates in larger elections, rather than a reason to stymie their campaigns in the primaries. One nonprofit, Swing Left, is already setting up the infrastructure to address this issue. Rather than backing particular candidates in the primaries, Swing Left amasses small individual donations into what it calls district funds during the primaries and then distributes themin lump sums as much as $1 millionto the eventual nominees against Republican candidates. Its hacking campaign finance, says founder Ethan Todras-Whitehill. This is a transition year for the left wing of American politics. While the Democratic Party, understandably, is rattled by the outcome of the 2016 election, its doing little differently in choosing candidates than it has in previous elections. But all signs indicate there is an appetite on the left for something different: In the remaining primaries, which include Missouri, Kansas, Washington State, and Arizona, around 30 progressive candidates, including Matiella in Arizonas 2nd district, will face off to potentially join those who have already secured seats in the November election, including Eastman in Nebraska and Lisa Ring in Georgias 1st district, who won in a landslide on a progressive campaign in a deep red part of the state. Whether that appetite is enough to overcome the traditional metrics remains to be seen. It may be too late this year for the party to shift how it responds to the wave of progressivism coming up from its grassroots, but they will feel it eventually: Even if candidates like Ocasio-Cortez do not win the nomination, their runs for Congress are having an effect: Crowley, for instance, signed on to support a Medicare for All bill after she registered as a challenger.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40589156/can-2018s-progressive-candidates-overcome-the-power-of-money-in-politics
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Should I come out at my job interview?
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Last spring I spoke on a university career panel for LGBTQ students, who voiced one particular concern over and over: Should I out myself during the hiring process? advertisement advertisement This is a tricky question, Erin Uritus, CEO of Out & Equal Workplace Advocates, acknowledges. On the one hand, our countrys biggest companies are actively recruiting LGBT employees and executives. Fortune 500 companies know that they wont be able to compete without a diverse workforce. In that case, she says, it could be a great benefit to come out pre-offer. Yet Fortune 500 companies employ less than 18% of the U.S. workforce, and Uritus notes that its still legal for organizations to discriminate against LGBTQ employees and job seekers in 28 states, so the risk is absolutely there. Compounding it further, many states that dont offer explicit protections to LGBTQ workers have passed additional laws countermanding local and municipal ordinances designed to extend them. Related: What its like to come out at work The case against coming out As a general rule, any factors that dont directly impact a candidates ability to do the job are supposed to be left out of hiring decisions. Volunteering those details while interviewing for a position needlessly opens you up to potential bias. Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act disallows some forms of discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, but they offer only partial cover at best for queer workers. For one thing, these rules apply only at companies with 15 or more employees. For another, the question of whether the prohibition against sex discrimination applies to trans and gender-nonconforming people remains a matter of dispute within the very branch of government charged with enforcing it. The Justice Department under Attorney General Jeff Sessions has declared outright that it doesnt, countering rulings issued during the Obama Administration by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission (the agency established by Title VII) to expand that definition in precisely the opposite direction. The legal gray area this intra-agency dispute has created doesnt exactly give LGBTQ employees solid ground to stand on when invoking federal anti-discrimination statutes in court. After all, she points out, many companies are spending a lot of money and time on recruiting, retaining, and promoting a diverse workforce. Coming out in the interview process helps them do this job better and highlights the unique and valuable perspective youll bring to the team. Indeed, employers that arent investing in diversity probably wont be great places for LGBTQ people to work. What its like to be out at work Not every queer employee may agree, however. Some of the graduate students I spoke with a few months ago were research scientists competing for field-work grants that would take them to some of the most socially conservative parts of the country. For many, advancing their careers meant accepting work opportunities where the expectation of LGBTQ inclusivity simply isnt on the table, and some considered that a livable compromise. When Fast Company teamed up with the WNYC Studios podcast Nancy to poll nearly 3,000 LGBTQ workers on their employment experiences, we found many navigating these tradeoffs in idiosyncratic ways. Some queer professionals make career decisions that surprise even themselves (while realizing how unfair it is that they have to make them to begin with). One startup employee recently explained to Fast Company that shes chosen to stay closeted while working in the South because, as she puts it, My professional self supersedes my being out at work. It is not a huge part of who I am at work. Of course, not everyone even gets an opportunity to weigh these unwelcome compromises; sometimes options are limited, and you just need a job. Related: What its really like to be out at work in the Trump era How to find a queer-friendly workplace For LGBTQ employees who do have the wherewithal to choose their employers selectively, though, Uritus suggests making inclusivity a top criteria for deciding where to apply. A good starting point is the Human Rights Campaigns annual Corporate Equality Index, which ranks over 600 major employers on their LGBTQ-inclusive policies, from adoption benefits to the charities they give to. advertisement In addition, Uritus says, Id encourage job seekers to search inclusion on the companys website pre-interview. These answers will highlight the risk (or benefit) to coming out in the interview process. Uritus says that these signals typically arent just window-dressing (a common fear among LGBTQ employees, many of whom are familiar with brands pandering to them as consumers); in working with such employers, Out & Equal has found those to be signs of genuine inclusion. Map: Heres everywhere in the U.S. you can still get fired for being gay or trans Finally, Uritus says, theres no right or wrong way to out yourself to a prospective employer if you choose to do so. People come out in all kinds of ways in the interview process. We see young people add that they were a leader in their university queer resource center to their resume; we know people casually mention their husband or wife in the interview process; and weve heard candidates mention that one of the reasons they are applying with the company is the companys commitment to LGBT inclusion, she says. If you live in a state where its legal to be fired or not hired for being LGBT, Uritus adds, I can certainly understand the fear in disclosing, and everyone needs to make their own decision around that security. But if youre confident that youre applying at a company that values diversity, your answers here should be a help, not a hindrance.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40587988/should-i-come-out-during-the-hiring-process
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Will Decelerating Growth Continue When Facebook Reports Earnings?
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Facebook (NASDAQ: FB) has endured a stunning fall from grace over the past year. The Cambridge Analytica scandal was just the first in a seemingly endless series of missteps, mostly concerning users' data privacy and the role of bad actors on its platform. Most recently, Facebook has been dealing with slowing user growth, something the company has been signaling for some time. The combination of these factors and the recent market correction had caused Facebook's stock to lose as much as 40% of its value in the second half of 2018, though it has recently recouped some of those losses. Facebook is scheduled to release the financial results of its just-completed fourth quarter on Wednesday, Jan. 30, after the market closes. Let's take a look at the company's third-quarter performance and its most recent forecast to see if they provide any insight into what investors can expect from the upcoming earnings report. The back of a young man wearing a Facebook shirt working at a computer screen filled with code. More Image source: Facebook. Decelerating revenue growth For the third quarter, Facebook reported revenue of $13.7 billion, up 33% year over year. While this result might seem enviable, it missed analysts' consensus estimates of $13.78 billion and represents a rapid deceleration from the company's performance in the two previous sequential quarters, which produced year-over-year growth of 42% and 50%, respectively. Third quarter operating margins also took a hit against the prior-year quarter, declining 800 basis points from 50% to 42% of revenue. This resulted in diluted earnings per share of $1.76, an increase of just 11% compared to the prior-year quarter. The biggest cause for the financial shortfall was slowing user growth. Monthly active users increased to 2.27 billion, up 9.6% year over year, while daily active users grew to 1.49 billion, up 9.3% against the comparable quarter. European users contracted for the second quarter in a row, which hurt overall user growth. Facebook updated how it counts existing users during the quarter, which also took a toll on aggregate numbers. Expectations for the quarter For the fourth quarter, Facebook didn't provide specific metrics, rather, it provided the following guidance. The company is expecting revenue growth to decelerate by a mid- to high-single-digit percentage, which would result in a decrease of 5% to 9% compared to the 33% growth it achieved in the third quarter. Spending will also be higher, with full-year expenses growing between 50% and 55% compared with 2017 -- when spending topped $20.45 billion. Backing out the year-to-date expenses thus far puts fourth-quarter costs in a range of $8.84 to $9.87 billion. This would result in operating margins of between 40% and 46%, so there's a chance for sequential margin improvement. While we don't want to get caught up in Wall Street's short-term mindset, knowing its expectations can provide context regarding investors' overall sentiment toward the company. Analysts' consensus estimates anticipate revenue of $16.4 billion, up 26% year over year, near the midpoint of management's guidance, and earnings per share of $2.19, an increase of 52% over the prior-year quarter. Investor takeaway Challenges remain for Facebook and its investors. The company is continuing its ongoing battle with fake news and those who would seek to manipulate its users. The increase in spending is designed to address some of those issues. The slowing revenue growth will likely continue until user confidence is restored, which won't happen overnight. We'll know more when Facebook reports earnings on Wednesday. More From The Motley Fool Danny Vena owns shares of Facebook. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Facebook. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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https://news.yahoo.com/decelerating-growth-continue-facebook-reports-211500618.html
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Did Big Tech just help kill New Yorks revenge porn bill?
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New Yorks state legislature was working on passing a law that would have made so-called revenge porn a misdemeanor punishable by up to a year in jail. But the bill was just effectively killed, and now its supporters are blaming Google. The bill would not only have made the nonconsensual dissemination of sexually explicit images a misdemeanor, but it would have also helped victims sue web platforms for failing to remove the offending images. Its that last part that appears to have lured Google and web-hosting sites into the fray. According to the New York Post, the Internet Associationthe self-proclaimed voice of the internet economy and a lobbying group that works on behalf of Google, Amazon, and many other tech giantslobbied hard against the bill. What the Post calls its 11th hour campaign led the state Senate to take no action on the bill before leaving for summer recess, effectively killing the legislation until next year. The bill had already passed the Assembly, and New Yorks governor, Andrew Cuomo, had pledged to sign it, which is why advocates for its passing are understandably frustrated by the loss. Big Tech, especially Google, created the revenge porn problem, attorney Carrie Goldberg, who led the lobbying efforts for the bill, told the Post. And now, just as we were about to enable victims to demand removal of their most intimate material from the internet via this law, Google renews its abuse. Neither Google nor the Internet Association would comment on the record, but both say they are not opposed to revenge porn legislation, and no one wants revenge porn on their websites. Internet Association and our member companies share the goals of New York State policymakers who want to rid the internet of non-consensual sexual imagery, John Olsen, Internet Association Director, Northeast Region, said in a statement. We already work to prevent bad actors from using platforms to engage in this terrible activity. We will continue working with lawmakers who are committed to solving this problem. A rep for the Internet Association said that the group has not opposed other states efforts to enact revenge porn legislation, such as the bill that was passed in Rhode Island recently. As for Google, the search giant already has an established process for requesting that explicit photos shared without content be removed from Google search results. However, it cannot remove images from the websites where they are hosted. Its not just internet entities that were opposed to New Yorks bill. The New York Civil Liberties Union had concerns about how such a law would be enforced. The organization released a statement saying that the bill, as written, would fail court challenges and could end up tossing teens in jail for exercising bad judgment and poor impulse control at the intersection of sex and technology.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40588280/did-big-tech-just-help-kill-new-yorks-revenge-porn-bill
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Can manufactured homes help the housing crisis?
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For someone living in Sunnyvale, California, where the proximity to the headquarters of companies like Apple has helped push the cost of an average house to around $2 million, and a one-bedroom apartment now goes for more than $2,700 a month, the cheapest place to move might be a local mobile home park called Plaza del Rey. That might not necessarily last: A hedge fund bought the park in 2015 and has been driving up rent for the land, which residents pay on top of the mortgage for their manufactured homes. (A home, on its own, can sell for as little as $150,000 for a two-bedroom, though space rent is now $2,000 a month.) But its an example of a potential solution that can be overlooked in the conversation about affordable housing. Manufactured homes are already somewhat common. A new report from Apartment List calculates that one in 18 Americans, or 17.7 million people, live in a manufactured home nationwide; the average monthly housing cost is $564, versus $1,057 for a typical house or apartment. In the 100 largest metro areas, people living in mobile homes spent around 40% less, on average, than others. At a time when the lowest-income families cant rent an affordable two-bedroom apartment anywhere in the country, and only 11% of low-income households get Section 8 support for housing, the report found that 1 in 10 people households living below the poverty line lives in a manufactured home. Mobile homes are kind of the last really cheap unsubsidized sorts of housing in most places, says Sydney Bennet, a senior research associate at Apartment List. Theyre particularly common in some areasin Lake Havasu City, Arizona, for example, around 25% of the population lives in manufactured homes. Production swelled in the 1980s when the government cut funding for affordable housing. But new construction, despite the need, is slow. One challenge is zoningcommunities heavily restrict where the homes can be installed, whether on single-family lots or in traditional mobile home parks. I think a lot of it really comes down to the stigma around living in a mobile or manufactured home, says Bennet. I think theres still a lot of stereotypes about the communities who live in those areas . . . and maybe policymakers dont consider it a desirable option. Thats the case despite the fact that manufactured homes can, of course, be well-designed. In some areas, this type of housing may not be feasible. In densely populated areas, land costs are quite high, and it is very difficult to build even high-density affordable housing, says Laurie Goodman, vice president of housing finance policy at the nonprofit Urban Institute, who has also studied the current state of manufacturing housing and how production has declined from past decades. Lower density housing, single family, or manufactured housing would be impossible. Still, Bennet points out that even in the ultra-expensive Bay Area, some cities are now considering allowing RVs to park in empty parking lotsa temporary solution that echoes the format of a trailer park. Tiny houses, which can also be manufactured affordably but dont face the same stigma as traditional mobile homes, are slowly beginning to show up in new communities as well as individually on private land. (Most new manufactured homes are now built on private land rather than in communities, Goodman says.)
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40587942/can-manufactured-homes-help-the-housing-crisis
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Can the beauty industry make over the gender norms it created?
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In 2013, U.K.-based makeup artist and influencer Joseph Harwood entered The You Generation, an online talent contest jointly hosted by Simon Cowell and YouTube. When Harwood, who identifies both as transgender and non-binary, went on to win the competition, the response from its organizers was disheartening. Harwood was informed that hed won the contest and its $75,000 grand prize, but little publicity followed aside from a few tweets. He found this strange for a tournament that had stretched over the course of an entire year. In the end, Harwood claims, I never got any follow-up interview posted, not even a video on YouTube celebrating his win. He suspects that they wanted the girl next door to be the face of whatever marketing plan they had in the background. (After repeated requests for comment YouTube referred Fast Company to Cowell, who was unavailable as of press time.) advertisement advertisement advertisement Harwood isnt convinced these changes represent the peak of inclusiveness in the industry. The face of beauty has kind of smudged out a lot of people that were gender-nonconforming or who were transgender, he says (Harwoods website notes that he identifies with any pronouns, as long as theyre said with a smile), with the upshot of reinforcing stereotypical femininity. Back in 2015, Harwood shared the same management team as influencers like Gutierrez and Patrick Starr, the latter of whom has also collaborated with MAC on multiple cosmetics lines. Harwood claims that their agency tried to brand all three of them as the new face of boys in makeup, suggesting that makeup is still for women but that men can wear it, tooimplicitly keeping those gender demarcations intact. But I was never the boy in makeup to begin with, he says, because it wasnt my gender identity. Three eyed raven #shewinzzzz A post shared by Joseph Harwood (@josephharwood) on Sep 7, 2017 at 2:27am PDT Related: What its like to work at a cosmetics counter as a black trans woman in Mississippi Change from within Frustrations like Harwoods are already having an impact. Millennial and Gen Z customers are the coin of the realm for beauty companies, much as they are for consumer brands generally. And as the industry has sought to reach them where they are (i.e., scrolling Instagram more likely than flipping through print magazines) retailers have tapped social media influencers to move product, ceding some of their own power in the process. Discerning customers dont hesitate to call out brands for product-development foibles and demand that cosmetics lines mirror the diversity of skin tones and gender expressions that fill their social feeds. What were seeing in the beauty industry is [that] our customers are holding us more accountable, and I think thats a really great direction to be going in, Brandi Halls, director of brand communications at cosmetics retailer Lush, explains. Businesses out there are serving the consumer, and if the consumer isnt giving us feedback, how can we ensure that were representing them all? Still, she adds, Some companies are responding better than others. advertisement advertisement The many faces of authenticity Until that happens, Giancarlo has found that niche brands like hers can carve out loyal audiences, fulfilling demand among trans and gender-nonconforming customers who are underserved elsewhere. Smaller labels also have more flexibility to live their values from production to marketing, she says, whereas larger brands are typically beholden to corporate overlords and slower to evolve. (Fluide makes its products in the U.S. and markets them as cruelty-free; MAC sells in China, where animal testing is required to bring beauty products to market.) And as a queer person, Giancarlo feels uniquely positioned to speak to her customer base. I never saw beauty companies representing beauty in the way that I wanted to wear makeup, she says. In high school, I felt like I had to wear makeup to fit in. And it just kind of had this cultural gendered heaviness to it. That experience informs Fluides lineup, which focuses more on what Giancarlo thinks of as entry-level products like lipstick, glitter, and nail polishproducts that are multipurpose and accessible. A lot of gender-nonconforming or gender non-binary folks have complicated histories with makeup, Giancarlo explains; for some, its less about using cosmetics to subvert gender norms than the freedom to embrace another set of them. That can be especially true for older people in those communities, who may be less immersed in the wide spectrum of gender expressions celebrated across Instagram and YouTube, let alone encounter a direct-to-consumer brand like Fluide. When those consumers walk into a department store or even a Sephora, chances are theyll still be confronted mainly with images of cisgender women radiating conventionally feminine beauty. @coreybilous #makeup #makeupaddict #makeupartist #makeuponfleek #makeuptutorial #mua #lgbt #love #loveit #loveothers #loveyourself #lgbtq #lgbtpride #transwomen #transgender #translove A post shared by JECCA MAKEUP (@jeccamakeup) on May 17, 2018 at 1:30am PDT This was a big reason why U.K.-based makeup artist Jessica Blackler, who often books older transgender clients, launched Jecca, a cosmetics brand whose first product is a color-correcting palette that can cover up beard stubble (plus under-eye circles and blemishes, she adds). My clients felt like, Okay, were in 2018 and were becoming more inclusive, but why should we support that? Blackler says. Her clients worried that beauty brands shifts toward gender fluidity was superficial, merely for trend purposes and marketing purposes, not a reflection of a true desire to support the problems and the struggles that the LGBT community still faces. To Blackler, Jeccas ultimate reason for being isnt to sell makeup, its to give back to its community of consumershopefully putting to rest those fears of exploitative marketing and superficial gestures of inclusivity generated by other brands. The company partners with an LGBTQ charity to which it also donates 5% of its profits. We care enough to actually move the industry forward, says Blackler, rather than just jump onto it because everyone else is.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40584028/can-the-beauty-industry-make-over-the-gender-norms-it-created
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How should we remember the problematic rapper XXXTentacion?
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The 20-year-old Florida native found breakout success on SoundCloud thanks to his 2015 single, Look At Me, which eventually led into his second studio album, called ?, which debuted at No. 1 back in March. But XXXTentacions success is inextricably linked to a history of violence that has sparked a debate about how he should be remembered. When news of his death broke, fans and celebrities flooded social media with the typical outpouring of grief, prayers, and RIPs. There were also those who werent so quick to forget XXXTentacions many appalling offenses, which included a 2016 domestic abuse case in which the rapper was charged with aggravated battery of a pregnant woman, false imprisonment, domestic battery by strangulation, and witness tampering. In todays cancel culture, where there can understandably be a zero-tolerance attitude toward a public figures transgressions, any moderate ground can be fraught with land mines of insensitivities and victim blaming. In a series of tweets, singer Jidenna brought up some noteworthy points in defense of XXXTentacion while not shying away from his violent behavior: R.I.P @xxxtentacion No one can be so self-righteous that they are happy when a youth dies. The young still have the capability to reform. God bless the kids. #xxxtentacion Jidenna (@Jidenna) June 18, 2018 For the record, I was never in support of his ways, especially his domestic abuse which I found to be horrific. But I will never demonize an individual without criticizing the society and/or circumstance in which they were raised. Especially someone under 21. Jidenna (@Jidenna) June 18, 2018
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40586994/how-should-controversial-rapper-xxxtentacion-be-remembered
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What are those light poles for at Tremont?
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The in basket: Jeff Colescott of Port Orchard writes, I just drove through the under-construction roundabout at Pottery Avenue and Tremont Street in Port Orchard and noticed what looks like stop light poles at each one of the entrances to the roundabout. The lights are currently covered but the shape looks just like a three-light fixture. I have never seen anything like these at any other roundabout. Any idea what these might be? The out basket: Mark Dorsey, public works director for Port Orchard, replies, They are for South Kitsap Fire and Rescue use only, will be flashing amber 97 percent of the time. The emergency vehicles will use their Opticom emitters to change the lights as they approach. I asked if the companion roundabout just down the hill on Tremont will also get them, and Mark said, No, weve placed conduit for future retrofit, but Pottery is the more crucial intersection for SKFR. The district has a fire station on Tremont just a couple hundred yards from Pottery. Call 360-792-9217 or email [email protected]. Travis Baker (Photo: -) Read or Share this story: https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/local/2019/01/27/what-those-light-poles-tremont/2682242002/
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https://www.kitsapsun.com/story/news/local/2019/01/27/what-those-light-poles-tremont/2682242002/
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How Does Romance Is A Bonus Book Compare To Younger?
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Translating the TV Land hit Younger, which stars Sutton Foster, Nico Tortorella and Debi Mazar, into a Korean drama was never going to be simple, but thats the task taken on by the new drama Romance Is A Bonus Book, starring Lee Jong Suk and Lee Na Young. The original comedy-drama was created and produced by Darren Starr and is based on the novel Younger by Pamela Redmond Satran. The k-drama version is produced by Studio Dragon for the Korean television station tvN and features Lee Na Youngs first drama appearance in nine years. Some plot alterations have taken place to appeal to a Korean audience, but it remains a winning story. Spoilers ahead: The first hurdle a Korean version has to overcome is the fact that Fosters character Lisa lies about her age. Its a lot harder to avoid talking about your age in Korea since so much of the way people relate to each other or even speak to each other is based on their relative age. Whats different is that instead of lying about her age, Lee Na Youngs character Kang Dan Bi has to lie about her education and experience, ditching accomplishments rather than years. Whats the same is that both women took time off from their careers to raise a child and that works against them when they apply for a job. Whats the same in both cases is that the main character lost her home due to her husbands shortcomings. And in both cases, the financially destitute, single mom has a daughter to support who is attending an expensive school. Both women are desperate for a job. Whats different is that Fosters character has a quirky artist friend who is prepared to share her loft in trendy Williamsburg. Lee Na Young's character has friends but no one is offering her a couch, so she is secretly living in Lee Jong Suks house. Its a classic k-drama trope that a man and woman are forced to live together before they find out how well they fit together. Both women work for a publishing company. In Younger, Fosters character Lisa wears a fun collection of funky secondhand clothes to her job. That might not work in a Korean office, so a fairy godmother of sorts gets her counterpart some designer clothes. In both cases the clothes make the character look younger than her years. The biggest difference between the original and the k-drama remake is that Lee Na Youngs character knows her future employer, who is obviously already in love with her. In this drama Lee Jong Suk, who recently played a doomed poet in Hymn of Death, plays a professor, editor, and author. He is five years younger than her and they've been friends since childhood. In the American story, Younger, Fosters character is actually the same age as her publisher, although pretending to be younger, but then considerably older than the young tattoo artist she dates. In both versions a younger man is interested in an older woman, but given the ages that the characters are supposed to be, Lee Na Youngs character could wind up in a love triangle with two younger men. The other romantic possibility is the freelance book designer played by Wi Ha Joon, who is supposed to be eight years younger. By the end of the first episode hes already charmed Lee Na Young's character by finding her lost heels and slipping them on her feet, Cinderella style. The younger man character definitely got a makeover in the k-drama version. He's far less edgy than Tortorellas tattoo artist. Dating a tattoo artist gives Fosters character an exciting new perspective, so it remains to be seen what Wi Ha Joons character will offer. Lee Jong Suk is popular actor with a long string of successful k-dramas, including Pinocchio, Doctor Stranger, W and While You Were Sleeping, so this drama is likely to earn good ratings. Even if it veers from the original American story, both stories still offer an important lesson. Judging women negatively for interrupting a career to raise children is short sighted. Raising a child confers many practical skills that can help you succeed in the workplace. Both stories explain why employers should perhaps step beyond simple hiring prejudices and take a chance. Exactly reproducing Younger would have been impossible, but the k-dramas compendium of romance, publishing and top stars, is likely to make Romance Is A Bonus Book a hit.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/joanmacdonald/2019/01/27/how-does-romance-is-a-bonus-book-compare-to-younger/
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What do dads want for Fathers Day? How about parental leave?
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advertisement advertisement Get him parental leave. Thats right. Its the best gift you could get for dad. In the US, only 40% of workersmen or womenhave access to, and can afford to take, unpaid leave guaranteed by the Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993 (FMLA). Compare that with Sweden, Norway, or Iceland, where every parent has access to over a year of paid parental leave, and well over 90% of eligible men take some portion of that time. Too often, we think its because men dont want to take parental leave, that theyre either too committed to their jobs or traditional gender roles that exempt them from the diaper-changing realities of parenthood. But according to recent research by the think tank Promundo, in partnership with Dove Men+Care, nearly 3 of 5 dads say they would be willing to change jobs if it meant they could be involved in the early weeks or months of caring for a new child. Fathers strongly agree that both genders should make taking all their parental leave a top priority. And the payoff is great. When men do take parental leave, theyre happier, their partners are happier, and their children are happier too. Nearly 9 out of 10 dads (87%) report being more satisfied with their livesincluding their sex liveswhen they can be the kind of caregivers they want to be. Everybody wins! So its not really the case that fathers dont want parental leave. Its not a demand question. The demand is there. In many cases, its a supply question. For far too many men, parental leave isnt even available. Nearly three-fourths of the men surveyed (73%) agreed that there is little workplace support for fathers. And remember that we have no national policy of paid parental leavenot even for women. The U.S. is one of only four countries in the world that offer no paid parental leave to anyone. (The other three, in case youre curious, are Lesotho, Swaziland, and Papua New Guinea.) And lets face it: For most workers, unpaid leave is synonymous with no leave at all. As a result, three-fourths of men, and just over half of all women, said theyd have to work at least part time during parental leave. In the absence of a national policy of paid parental leave, some municipalities and states are stepping up to offer parental leave to their municipal employees, matching some private corporations that are also developing parental leave policies. advertisement Washington, D.C., Boston, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, and Minneapolis all now offer paid parental leave. If we preach about family values, we have to practice valuing families by putting resources in place to support them. But even where parental leave is available, men still face tremendous pressure not to take itfrom other men. When I interviewed dozens of men a few years ago for the Harvard Business Review, many told me stories of wanting to avail themselves of a policy their company offered, only to face colleagues who questioned their commitments to their jobs, or supervisors who said things like, Well put you on the daddy track, and, Well, youll never make partner. Men who seek to truly balance work and family face a barrage of disapproval based on negative and antiquated stereotypes. Related: These are the companies that actually give new dads a decent amount of time off How we can make it happen So if men are going to be able to do what they want to do, which is to be fully present in the lives of their infants, they are going to need parental leave. We all can support that by insisting that unions, municipalities, companies, states, and yes, eventually, the federal government institute paid parental leave for all. And we also can stop the disapproving banter or workplace penalties as men seek to do what any good about-to-be father would do. Instead of, Whats wrong with him? we might say, You go, man, you have the right priorities for this company! A man who is committed to his children is a man Id want to work beside. advertisement So this year, yeah, forget the gift of the tie. Hell never wear it anyway. Vote for candidates who support parental leavefor both women and men. Agitate for it in your workplaces and communities. Insist that companies offer it to their employees. In short, support his efforts to tie the ties that really bindthe ones that connect us to the ones we love, starting at birth. Michael Kimmel is SUNY distinguished professor of sociology and gender studies at Stony Brook University, where he directs the Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities. He is the author of Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40584752/what-do-dads-want-for-fathers-day-how-about-parental-leave
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How can we unlock the power of the innovation system for good?
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The answer depends on a broad system of forces. Forces that generate new inventions, that successfully commercialize new products out of these inventions, that provide capital to support commercialization and scaling, and that provide value to a wide number of customers. Each of these forces is driven by the idiosyncratic ingenuity and persistence of daring and creative individuals and depends on a robust institutional setting to create the conditions for these individuals to thrive. Meeting our sustainability challenge will require massive innovation across multiple industrial sectors. We need the concerted effort of numerous stakeholders: innovators, managers, investors, consumers, federal policymakers, state and local officials, activists, the media, foundations, NGOs, universities, and everyday citizens. We will need to harness the power of each of these players to have the best chance to save the Earth. Here are some thoughts on what each can do: Innovators For those intrepid innovators among our readers, our advice is simple: Go do it! At its most basic level, innovation is a numbers game. Most new technologies and businesses are going to fail. That is the nature of innovation and entrepreneurship. The more people who experiment, the more likely that a disruptive sustainable technology will emerge. Even those who fail help push the innovation system forwarddiscovering potential paths forward and identifying paths that are unlikely to succeed and thus should be avoided. Of course, from both an individual and society perspective, we would like more success than failure, but that is where others can help. Managers Most big companies today are worried about disruption. This fact suggests more resources will be poured into being part of the cutting edge of technology compared to preserving old worlds. This is a good thing for our sustainability challenge. For large companies, this involves partnering with universities and research labs, and investing in, and in some cases purchasing, entrepreneurial ventures. Challenge your employees to do more in their personal and professional lives to support sustainability. Ask your suppliers to pursue sustainable products and services. Last but not least, invest in the complementary products and resources that will allow disruptive innovations to flourish. Your firm may not invest the disruptive technology, but you can still capture value from it by possessing crucial complementary assets, such as manufacturing and distribution capability. Investors For private investors: You are the fuel for the innovator engine. Allocating capital to the best ideas is your number one task. Sustainable innovations come in very different shapes and sizes varying greatly in both their risk profile and potential payback time. Diversity in funding mechanisms is critical. Some ventures will lend themselves to traditional venture capital. Others will require more patient capital. Thus, we encourage investors to innovate novel funding mechanisms that address this diversity of needs. Crowdfunding, impact investing, green bonds and equity-based incubators are all relatively new and intriguing vehicles for advancing sustainable technologies. Lets keep experimenting with alternative funding models. Consumers Our advice for consumers is straightforward: Consume less, but when you need to make purchases, buy more sustainable goods. Of course, this is not as simple as it sounds. This conundrum gets to our second bit of advice: Demand transparency. Require producers to explain the environmental impact of their goods. This ask may require some coordination, lobbying for the government or third parties to create labeling programs or certification schemes. But if you can make it work, you can change the marketplace such that what works for the environment wins. That could be the single greatest contribution any individual could make toward our sustainability challenge. Not necessarily. Smart federal policy can be an incredible catalyst for innovation. Basic R & D is a public good that is not easily financed in the private sector. Federal funding of research toward sustainable technologies is critical. Extended patent protection for sustainable technologies and creating innovation prizes are two other ways to turbocharge innovation efforts. Policy should also encourage more competition and entrepreneurial entry. For example, reduce regulatory and paperwork burdens for entrepreneurs getting started and create rules that encourage crowdfunding and other creative ways to finance startups. In addition, push for strong antitrust enforcement that prevents concentration of market power that may thwart innovation.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40584371/how-can-we-unlock-the-power-of-the-innovation-system-for-good
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Can San Franciscos new UFO toilets fix its hygiene problem?
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New public toilets are coming to San Francisco. The citys Department of Public Works announced Monday that it has selected a new design by architectural firm SmithGroupJJR to replace the citys old Parisian-style green public toilets. The new kiosks look like spaceship pods made of liquid metal. Hopefully, these UFOs will abduct the citys terrible hygiene problem. The new pods are called AmeniTrees. SmithGroupJJR designed them to be modular. Each pod will be built from a set of panels that can be rotated and repeated to create different shapes and sizes. Theres a smaller pod that acts as an information kiosk, and a the larger one thats a toilet. We can only hope that people dont confuse them. The pods aesthetic is futuristicfitting for the citys rampant technophiliawith a shiny glass and metal skin that can contain static or digital displays to use for in advertising and city information. According to SF Weekly, the new design closely matches the look of other new public infrastructurethe canopies for the stops of the Bay Area Rapid Transport system that connects San Francisco and Oakland with areas in Alameda, Contra Costa, and San Mateo counties. Each pod also comes with a water recycling system, which collects rain for different uses, like cleaning the interior, flushing the toilets, or watering the plants and trees that come with each pod. Native Californian plants are an integral part of each pod design, serving to beautify and shade the areas. The design blends sculpture with technology in a way that conceptually, and literally, reflects San Franciscos unique neighborhoods, SmithGroupJJRs design principal Bill Katz tells me in an email. Together, the varied kiosks and public toilets design will also tell a sustainability story through water reuse and native landscapes. Its a good narrative. Better than the one I imagined of launching pods paid by Silicon Valley bros to get rid of all the homeless people they hate. Its yet to be seen if the new AmeniTrees are going to have any effect on the citys hygiene problem. ).
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90175867/can-san-franciscos-new-ufo-toilets-fix-its-hygiene-problems
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What did the Bears do in the Pro Bowl?
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Mitch Trubisky looks to pass in the Pro Bowl. | AP Photo/Mark LoMoglio Here is a quick look at how the Bears seven Pro Bowl players performed Sunday at Camping World Stadium in Orlando. QB Mitch Trubisky Trubisky entered the game with 22 seconds remaining in the first half and departed in the fourth quarter. He was 5-for-9 passing for 38 yards. He also threw an interception. Jets safety Jamal Adams made a hard tackle on Trubisky in the third quarter. It came during a failed flea-flicker play. Trubiskys arm also was hit on his third attempt of the game, which resulted in any ugly collision between Adams and Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard as both players went for the ball. CB Kyle Fuller Fuller intercepted Colts quarterback Andrew Luck in the second quarter. Fuller, who was guarding Steelers receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster, was ruled down by contact, but he celebrated in Bears-like style by taking a family photo in the end zone with his NFC teammates. DL Akiem Hicks Hicks was credited with two tackles. He was the only Bears defender to start the game. FS Eddie Jackson Jackson played in his first game since injuring his right ankle in Week 15 against the Packers. He nearly intercepted an under-thrown pass by Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes on the sideline. RB Tarik Cohen Cohen had a two-yard carry from the AFCs 6. He gained 17 yards with a nice spin move on his first punt return but it was negated by a penalty. OL Cody Whitehair, Charles Leno Jr. The NFC team allowed six sacks.
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https://chicago.suntimes.com/sports/bears-pro-bowl-2019-mitch-trubisky/
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When will Google defend democracy?
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As the 2018 midterm elections approach in the U.S., Googles power to influence undecided voters remains overshadowed by Facebooks personal data crisis. advertisement advertisement advertisement With respect to news, search engines are a bigger source than social media. Although an often cited 2016 Pew study found that a majority, 62%, of U.S. adults got news on social media, the devil is in the details. If you unpack that statistic, youll find that 18% do so hardly ever. Added to the 38% of Americans who never got news on social media, the same study suggests that social media is a negligible source of news for 56% of Americans, also a majority. You Google it. This fact is supported by a recent international survey that found that 74% of participants reported using search engines to fact-check information they found on social media. Googles executives rarely make public responses to critiques of its search system. But in 2015, my colleague Robert Epstein published an article in Politicoentitled How Google Could Rig the 2016 Electionand that did the trick. Googles head of search at the time, Amit Singhal, responded with his own article, calling Epstein a conspiracy theorist, stating that there is absolutely no truth to Epsteins hypothesis that Google could work secretly to influence election outcomes and that Google has never ever re-ranked search results on any topic (including elections) to manipulate user sentiment. Singhals first claim is hard to believe, unless you dismiss our research, our replication, and the independent research built on our findings. Search engines do have the capacity to shift peoples opinions, including who to vote for. His second claim, that Google never ever re-ranked search results, also doesnt quite hold up: The EU recently fined the company U.S. $2.7 billion for ranking its own services higher in search results than its competitors. Defending democracy Another one of the Judiciary Committees questions to Google also struck a chord with me: How do you monitor the ability of foreign entities to influence and interfere with U.S. elections? advertisement This question struck me because Ive been developing systems for exactly this purposepreserving search rankings and analyzing them for systematic differencesfor several years. In the course of this work, however, Ive come to believe that freeing the democratic process from technologically enabled influences is virtually impossible without the cooperation of modern tech giants. Facebook is now offering to collaborate with academic researchers who can measure and perhaps lessen or prevent undue influence on elections, and Twitter is doing something similar. Related efforts are also bringing transparency to other platforms like YouTube and Reddit. At an upcoming conference, I will present the latest system Ive been designing with Christo Wilson, a leading scientist in the field of algorithm auditing, for monitoring search rankings for partisan bias. With a little assistance from Google, no more than Facebook is offering, accurately monitoring or preventing search engine influence in the 2018 elections is actually a feasible goal. Without the companys help, things look bleak. Although Google is an advertising business, its core is composed of creative and intelligent individuals who care deeply about the impact their work has on the world. This is evidenced by the recent letter signed by more than 3,100 Google employees protesting the use of their work in warfare technology. Nearly a dozen Google workers went so far as to resign in protest. Perhaps the day is fast approaching when Google will step up, as Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit have, to help defend democracy from the new world of computational propaganda. Perhaps there is already a letter circulating internally and gathering signatures. With state and federal primary elections already underway, lets hope so. Ronald Robertson is a PhD student in Network Science at Northeastern University. This essay was republished under a Creative Common license from The Conversation. Read the original here.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90175200/when-will-google-defend-democracy
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Cant embrace self-driving carshow about skipper-free boats?
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Confidence in the future of self-driving cars took a hit earlier this year when a robotic Uber mowed down a woman as she crossed a street in Tempe, Arizona. The ride-sharing service shut down its test program in the state after the March fatality as debate erupted over the technology and how to regulate it. In the scheme of things, Tempe was a blip in the robot revolution, even with the loss of life. Just last week, in fact, Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi announced she still has confidence in the companys driverless future, and that testing will resume this summer. If the idea of being in a car with no driver gives you agita, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a plan that might make you seasickcaptain-free boats. Theyve developed tech to run autonomous boats that could be used as water taxis or move cargo around urban waterways. Imagine shifting some infrastructure services that usually take place during the day on the roaddeliveries, garbage management, waste managementto the middle of the night, on the water, using a fleet of autonomous boats, says Daniela Rus, director of MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab. Rus is a coauthor of a paper on the boat project presented last month at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Brisbane, Australia. The rectangular-shaped seafaring robots, equipped with computing hardware and GPS systems for navigation, would be able to link up like a freight train for bigger hauls or even to form temporary bridges or platforms for events like festivals or concerts, the researchers say. The research is part of a project called Roboat, run by MITs Senseable City Lab and the Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Metropolitan Solutions. The researchers previously tested an autonomous boat that was able to cruise Amsterdams famed canals. In some respects, developing autonomous boats may be easier than land vehicles, since commercial vessels already carry transponders to signal their positions to other ships, and a conservative approach can involve effectively steering around anything thats not water.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40578134/cant-embrace-self-driving-cars-well-how-about-skipper-free-boats
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Is H&Ms new influencer-driven line the future of fashion?
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At H&Ms new youth-oriented /Nyden label, fashion designers are out, and entertainers and sports heroes are in. While the concept is nothing new (think Venus Williams and Kanye West), /Nydens approach is. Instead of building around one big name, the brand is turning to a series of celebs who have passionate followersor tribes. advertisement advertisement The most recent is British-Albanian singing sensation Dua Lipa. If you havent heard of her, its probably because youre not part of her tribe. The 22-year-old, who launched her career on YouTube and has 12 million Instagram followers, mostly from the gen Z set, is partnering with /Nyden to create a capsule collection expected to resonate with her fans. Besides Lipa, /Nyden has also locked down German soccer defender Jrme Boateng and Justine Skye, a Los Angeles-based singer/songwriter. The brand has also hinted that other co-creators might include tattoo artist Doctor Woo, and Swedish actress Noomi Rapace. The plan is for these celebs to draw from their own experiences and tastes while working with the brands team to create their lines. Skye says that her pieces will combine inspirations from Brooklyn, where she grew up, and Los Angeles, where she now lives. Boateng says that while hes known for a streetwear aesthetic, his collection will reveal other parts of his style. Its all part of a creative evolution at /Nyden as it shifts from in-house designs to its tribes concept. The brand quietly launched in January and been teasing where its heading on Instagram and through email newsletters. In April, it released black-and-white T-shirts emblazoned with the word tribe, and others with images with the brand name. This week, it released another collection, mostly of leather jackets with bold details like studs and fringes, as well as hoodies and T-shirts featuring animal images. Drop 1 Monday, 04.06.18 Sign up on nyden.com to access. A post shared by /Nyden (@wearenyden) on Jun 2, 2018 at 3:31am PDT The leather collection is the last one that is not created in collaboration with /Nydens growing stable of celeb influencers, who will use their social media followings to announce when their capsule lines drop. The mastermind behind the business strategy is five-year H&M veteran Oscar Olsson, who is molding /Nyden to respond to the way that young people shop today. advertisement The stakes couldnt be higher for H&M. The Swedish company has been in a downward slump, with sales plummeting 14% last year, leaving a $4.3 billion pile of unsold clothes. H&M pioneered fast fashion, the concept of quickly churning out cheap knock-offs of runway styles. It was a winning concept in the 90s and last decade, but in the current retail climate, H&M isnt clicking with consumers. To say that the tattooed and bearded Olsson thinks out of the box is an understatement. He once entertained the notion that the world might just be a hologramyou know, like The Matrix; and finds inspiration not from other fashion houses but, rather, entrepreneurs like Elon Musk and the late Steve Jobs. He most recently headed up H&Ms Innovation Lab. Were trying to create a new system and connect with consumers in new ways, he explains. We have one take on the future of fashionon what fashion could beand we want to go for that. At the heart of /Nyden is the idea that fashion is no longer about designers telling us what to wear. Instead, trends bubble up from communities of people, each with their own unique tastes and sensibilities, who gravitate toward influencers who reflect their style, like Lipa or Boateng. To become more relevant to a young audience, we want to try to design fashion together with them, he says. The power is shifting from a brand into the people. And people have been structured from the earliest of times in what we call tribes. Olsson believes that a brands responsibility is to create clothes that respond to these subcultures. Olsson explains that the slash at the start of the brands name actually refers to this idea of co-creationthink Lipa/Nyden. (Thats one mystery solved.) advertisement Among a group of a hundred people, there are just a few that inspire others on style and fashion, he says. We want to invite those tribe leaders into the process and give them a platform to tell interesting and authentic stories to their audiences. Even though /Nydens goal is to highlight the diverse tastes and aesthetics of a wide range of different tribes, Olsson says that there will be a unifying thread in everything it makes. Its hard to identify what this underlying aesthetic is, since the brand has only released two collections so far, but he promises that it will be there. We want to be as elastic as we can be, while still having the voice of /Nyden, he says. /Nyden has its own ethics and personality, which is all about empowering these tribe leaders. You will be able to recognize the /Nyden soul across the different capsules. He points to Spotify, where many of the most-played songs are often collaborations between different musicians. While listeners love the fresh new sounds, they can still identify each of the collaborators in the mix. We try to create fashion like you create pop music, he says. You need to live up to your own craft, but interesting things happen when you start to interact with other tribes and other talent. It makes sense that H&M would give birth to a brand like /Nyden. In many ways, Olssons brand is an updated version of fast fashion. Rather than drawing inspiration from top designers, it is making clothes based on of-the-moment trends in real communities around the world. This also involves putting out collections quickly, so they are responding to consumers immediate needs. But there are risks that come along with making clothes so quickly. Part of the reason consumers have lost their appetite for fast fashion is that there has been a growing awareness about the devastating impact it has on workers and the environment. Some consumers are also annoyed by how quickly these cheaply made garments fall apart. advertisement H&M has responded to these concerns by investing heavily in developing a sustainable supply chain and offering transparency into the way it treats workers. It has also recently launched a new brand called ARKET that focuses on creating reasonably priced garments of the highest quality. Olsson says that /Nyden will be able to take advantage of H&Ms logistics to create ethical and durable clothing. I think the word relevant is better than fast, Olsson says. All fashion in the future will be fast, so that will not be enough to differentiate you. The future is more about authentic movements that are connecting deeply with groups of consumers.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40564929/is-hms-new-influencer-driven-clothing-line-the-future-of-fashion
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What if we killed the job interview?
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advertisement advertisement Most of us have experienced the futility of job interviews, or at least had to answer some of these dreadful questions. Yet its virtually impossible to get a job without going through an interviewand usually more than one. But the trouble is that interviews arent as useful as employers think. Indeed, organizations can still make great (and arguably better) hiring decisions without them. Unthinkable as it may sound, there are at least three important data points that suggest replacing interviews with other, more predictive measures is the way to go. Related: Its time to start conducting more scientific job interviews Job interviews have limited value for predicting performance The most comprehensive scientific study to date on the predictive power of different recruitment tools suggests that the typical job interview provides very little valuable information over and above psychometric tests, which tend to be both quicker and cheaper to administer. For example, once you know a candidates score on a test of general learning ability, a typical job interview will only improve your ability to predict their performance in a given role by 4%, the analysis found. Interviews are more useful when theyre totally structured and standardized, to the point of resembling a multiple-choice questionnaire; this can increase their accuracy by up to 13%. Yet very few real-world interviews follow a rigorous format. Interviewers usually prefer to go with the flow, stubbornly relying on their own intuition. Most of the attributes interviewers try to evaluate by gut feela candidates competencies, skills, personality, values, culture fit, and so onare more rigorously inferred from other data like resumes, simulations, tests, and past performance ratings. Interviews certainly create opportunities for candidates to make claims about these qualities, but as I argue in my latest book, theres little reason to believe them. Indeed, theres not much overlap between the talents people say they have and the ones they actually possess. (Plus, interviewers often use the idea of good culture fit to justify hiring people from their own in-groups.) advertisement advertisement But the main reason job interviews are likely to stick around is that its hard for employers and recruiters to accept that their natural talents for identifying potential arent as strong as they may think. Yes, some people are extremely good at interviewing and evaluating others potential suitability for a job, but the vast majority overestimate their abilities on that front. Which, after all, is only human.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40579524/what-if-we-killed-the-job-interview
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Can NYCs next big park recapture the magic of the High Line?
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The High Line opened almost a decade ago. It was a moonshot project, but the final design, stretching 1.5 miles along an abandoned elevated railway on Manhattans West Side, set a new precedent for what a park could beand how it could transform a city, for better and for worse. advertisement advertisement Now, the landscape architects behind the High Line, James Corner Field Operations, are opening an ambitious new park along the Williamsburg waterfront in Brooklyn on the site of the Domino Sugar Factory, which was operational from the mid-1880s until 2004. After a decade of rezoning, gentrification, and rising housing costs, the park is a consolation prize for the South Williamsburg community, which is starved for public open space. With it will come four high-rise residential buildings (one of which is already built), and the old factory itself will be restored and transformed into office space and retail. But while Domino Park might be a $50 million carrot for an area that has vehemently fought most new development, it sure is a beautiful one. Underwritten by the development company Two Trees, the park shares a design ethos with Field Operations work on the High Line: Rather than dismantle pieces of the old sugar factory and pave over everything with newness, the projects head designer Lisa Switkin decided to preserve some of the factorys industrial equipment and integrate it into the design of the park. Old syrup tanks, screw conveyors that mixed the sugar together, and even towering cranes are stationed around the six-acre park, acting as peons to history and pretty set pieces that will likely make this park just as Instagrammable as the High Line. I feel like a lot of the waterfront parks are an erasure of everything that was there, Switkin says. For us it was the opposite. In that sense, Domino Park is the successor to the High Line. There was a balance on the High Line between trying to amplify and respect what was there and add also new life and new programs and uses, Switkin says. I think that philosophy carried over to this project. But the parks stunning views and thoughtful design doesnt tell the full story. Its also the result of a decade-long battle for affordable housing and accessibility as Brooklyn continues its steady march toward gentrification. Living history (and a dog park) I visited Domino Park on a sunny May morning, when most of the landscaping had been put in and workers were putting the final touches on the park, which is set to open this coming weekend. It is a beautiful place, with the dramatic roar of the Williamsburg Bridge on its southern end and the city skyline as attention-grabbing as ever. The park is laid out in a series of sections, with more activity-based areas closer to the bridgetheres a dog park, bocce ball court, a small turf field, and a regulation sand volleyball court. At first glance, the volleyball court is surprising. In a predominantly Latino area, you might expect that the designers would prioritize having a full-sized soccer field. But Switkin says that the locals have a particular affinity for volleyball, something Rob Solano, the executive director of community group Churches United for Fair Housing, who was born and raised in South Williamsburg, confirms. He says that a group of Argentine nuns at the Saints Peter and Paul church start teaching the neighborhoods children to play volleyball as early as second grade. As we walk further north, the park gets more expansive and less prescriptive. Theres a courtyard directly in front of the old factory, with a series of large stairs made from salvaged wood from the factory that doubles as seating, and one of those fountains that spurt short jets of water that kids love to run through. Because the community also wanted a park that was family friendly, the developers commissioned a custom play structure that tells the story of how sugar is refinedand regardless of the history, kids will probably have a blast climbing all over it. A taco stand by restaurateur Danny Meyer called Tacocina will provide food and drink, and theres a larger picnic area at the parks northern end. Switkins crowning achievement is an elevated walkway called Artifact Walk that uses the old columns from the now-demolished sugar warehouse to provide another breathtaking view of the city skyline. You dont see it now, but there were all these other buildingsthe packaging house, and the raw sugar warehouse, Switkin says. They were all connected by these little catwalks. It was part of the texture and the way people got around, so we wanted to bring a little bit of that story back. advertisement Pieces of the factory dot the entire park, supported by robins egg blue scaffolding (the inside of the factory was covered in the same turquoise hue). To choose which elements of the factory to use, Switkin walked the entire site and pointed out particularly fascinating or visually impactful pieces of equipment. Theres something really visceral about being here and being next to these huge pieces of the machinery, she says. We were just trying to find a way that we could install that same sense of awe in the park. Switkin and her team began working on Domino Park in 2012, just weeks after Hurricane Sandy hitshe remembers walking to Two Trees office in Dumbo for their first meeting because the subways were downand the storms devastating impact informed the parks design.The 100-year storm is always this hypothetical thing you have to plan for, Switkin says. It had just happened so it was on everyones mind. In response, the team had to calculate a new floodplain elevation, and ended up raising the ground level of the park between five and eight feet. The plants Switkin and her team chose are mostly natives that can act like sponges for floodwaters. And one benefit to creating a street between the park and the buildings is that it sets the buildings even further back from the water than whats requiredadding extra protection from future storms and flooding. The central plaza in the park was also designed to act as a floodplain if necessary. For visitors, that choice has an immediate impactit puts them further from the water. So, to help people feel more connected to the river, Switkin and her team designed a cutout segment in the middle of the park where you can see down to the piers piles and watch the water surging back and forth. Visitors will be able to walk over a short metal bridge across this pier reveal, where towering syrup tanks beautifully frame a shot of the bridgeperfect for Instagram. Confronting gentrification When much of the Brooklyn waterfront was rezoned in 2005enabling towers to sprout in Williamsburg, Greenpoint, and nearby Long Island City, Queenscommunity groups were in dire opposition.There was a lot of concern around affordable housing, about open space, and access to the waterfront, and industrial retention, says Ward Dennis, a historic preservation consultant and long-time community member who has lived in Williamsburg for 25 years. I think when you look back at it after 13 years or so, there has been some affordable housing, probably not as much as everybody thought and certainly not as much as the community wanted to see. The Domino factory closed in 2004 and was bought by the for-profit company Community Preservation Corporation Resources, which went through the rezoning process to transform the land into residential high rises with a plan many community advocates fought against. It was along the lines of what you see everywhere else along the waterfront, but they supersized it, Dennis says. advertisement After the city approved the plan, which eventually won the support of affordable housing advocates, the CPC became mired in financial troubles. The current developer of the Domino site, Two Trees, bought the area in 2012 for $185 million. Two Trees, best known for turning the Brooklyn neighborhood of Dumbo into luxury condos and tech offices, decided to take a different approach to engaging with the community. People were definitely fed up with new development, says Dave Lombino, the managing director for external affairs at Two Trees. They were in the midst of gentrification, they had felt there were a bunch of promises made on behalf of the city and developer that werent kept. To gain the communitys trust, Lombino and Two Trees CEO Jed Walentas hosted regular charrettes and meetings to stay in touch with locals and get their input on their designs. One change included turning an entire building site into an open square, which makes the park directly accessible from the street. The compromise was that the residential buildings are tallersomething the community decided it could live with. We were part of the Domino rezoning. Originally we didnt support it. By the end of it, it was just too good to pass up, Solano says. It has maximum affordable housing, a public park, and a tremendous amount of outreach. Seven hundred of the buildings 2,300 units will be affordable for very low-income New Yorkerscouples must make less than $29,000 per year to be eligible for a $640 per month one-bedroom. The park is the other big consolation for the neighborhood. Ultimately, the company will have spent more than $50 million on building Domino Park, which will open ahead of most of the development. The developers have carefully put in a public road between the still-to-be-built residential towers and the park, so it feels more accessible to the neighborhooda key critique they heard during feedback sessions. While the decision to turn some of the land into a road might not be the most obvious design feature of the park, it is perhaps the most crucial one. We normally dont think [the parks are] for us, that its for the people on the waterfront, Solano says. Many of New Yorks waterfront parks, like those in Battery Park City and Long Island City, do feel like a private yard for the million-dollar high-rise condos that tower over the river. Visitors to the park have to walk through the skyscrapers to access what is supposed to be a public open space. advertisement Much of the outreach was aimed at overcoming residents skepticism that the park wouldnt belong to them. A lot of these people are 65-year-old seniors. To get them to the water, something that has been blocked out in their eyes, it takes an incredible amount of sensitivity. You cant just email them, Solano says. To ensure the locals knew the park was being built for them, Two Trees held meetings in local churches, printed flyers in Spanish, and held a seminar on applying for affordable housing so residents knew how to take advantage of it. That takes money and resources and a commitment to do that, Solano says. If you dont then you end up having a park with [just] white people. Despite the companys efforts and Solanos praise, Domino Park may still end up the purview of the affluent New Yorkers who move into Two Trees residential buildings as theyre built over the next decade. Regardless of developers efforts to design the park for the existing community, the design alone wont curb the steady march of rising rents in the neighborhood. Proximity to Domino Park will be yet another selling point for South Williamsburg and encourage more outsiders to come and make their homes there. While construction continues on those buildings and within the old refinery building itself, it will be hard to forget that the park will live in their shadow. Still, Dennis is optimistic. By extending River Street and creating the park across the street, it does hopefully eliminate the idea that this is somebody elses front yard and it certainly makes a wider and more ample public space, he says. I think itll be very popular. It creates the longest access point to the waterfront yet made in Williamsburg and Greenpoint, and it does it in the middle of the south side, which has some of the worst access to public space. Perhaps Domino Park will point toward a new paradigm for developing New York Citys waterfront property. By bringing the city to the park, Lombino certainly hopes it will. The sugar factory building itself, which will one day become office space, is central to that plan. We had the refinery building, which is an extremely rare and amazing piece of historical fabric around which our entire design was conceived, Lombino says. To preserve that and activate that was going to be our best weapon at knitting it together with the neighborhood and making it an interesting and exciting urban placepart of New York City.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90174744/can-nycs-next-big-park-recapture-the-magic-of-the-high-line
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Is the freelance economy really shrinking?
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There are fewer temporary workers today than there were in 2005, according to a much anticipated report on contingent workers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics released this morning. The new data offers some insight into the number of people who rely on temporary work for income, but experts say it may not paint a full picture of the changing nature of work. As the Aspen Institute noted in a statement shared with Fast Company, While the Contingent Worker Supplement (CWS) data shows a slight decrease in the number of workers who rely on contingent or alternative arrangements for their main job, it does not provide information about the number of workers that engage in this type of work to supplement their income. BLS researchers included the freelancing survey as a supplement to the monthly Current Population Survey, which goes out to 60,000 households in the United States. For the first time the CWS, which was first instituted in 1995, includes four new questions intended to study app-based labor from the likes of Uber, Lyft, TaskRabbit, and Fiverr. The last time the CWS was conducted was 13 years ago. Related: Why the governments new gig economy data might already be outdated Unknown labors Since then, work has changed significantly in ways that make nontraditional employment increasingly difficult to quantify. A 2016 study by economists Lawrence Katz and Alan Kruger found that 94% of the 10 million jobs added to the U.S. economy were from alternative work arrangements. Thats not to say everyone is working for Uber, though; in the decade following the 2008 financial crisis, Americans have turned to a variety of work arrangements, cobbling together full-time jobs, personal businesses, and side gigs to make ends meet. Many of them arent getting traditional employment benefits as a result, exposing a significant segment of the labor force to new vulnerabilities. The nature of contract work is that it is temporary. Historically, contractors have ranged from plumbers to home designers who could set their own rates for work performed over of defined time period or for a designated type or number of tasks. With the arrival of other app-enabled gigs, the definition of contract work has had to evolve. In the Uber model, a middleman sets the price of the job, collects a fee on that price, and connects an independent worker with work. Because the worker is technically self-employed (a technicality thats now at the center of lawsuits around the country), she has to cover the costs of car insurance and maintenance, as well as her own healthcare, childcare, and work leave.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40582526/is-the-freelance-economy-really-shrinking
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Could U.S. Warships in Taiwan Strait Trigger an EMP Attack?
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When two U.S. Navy warships sailed through the Taiwan Strait on Thursday, a Navy spokesman said it was only routine. Besides, added U.S. Pacific Fleet spokesman Lt. Commander Tim Gorman, the operation was in accordance with international law. It demonstrates the US commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific, he added, explaining that the US Navy will continue to fly, sail and operate anywhere international law allows. China has challenged that assessment for years, claiming that it has sovereignty over the island and that Taiwans status as a separate Republic of China isnt legitimate. Accordingly, China sent several military jets near the southern tip of the island late Thursday to make the point. When the Navy sent two surface combatants through the Strait in October and then again in November, China responded by sending multiple warships of its own into the area. The only thing more dangerous than arrogance on the part of the U.S. Navy is the ignorance of just how China could turn off the lights in America if it wanted to retaliate with prejudice. As far back as 1996, the communist Chinese government knew that the United States was vulnerable to a nuclear Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) set off in the atmosphere above the country. An article published by the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) Chinas military arm exposed that vulnerability: Some people might think that things similar to the Pearl Harbor Incident are unlikely to take place during the information age. Yet it could be regarded as the Pearl Harbor Incident of the 21st century if a surprise attack is conducted against the enemys [the United States] crucial information systems of command, control, and communications by such means as electronic warfare, electromagnetic pulse weapons, telecommunications interference and suppression, computer viruses, and if the enemy is deprived of the information it needs as a result. Even a super military power like the United States, which possesses nuclear missiles and powerful armed forces, cannot guarantee its immunity. In their own words, a highly computerized open society like the United States is extremely vulnerable to electronic attacks from all sides. This is because the U.S. economy, from banks to telephone systems and from power plants to iron and steel works, relies entirely on computer networks. When a country grows increasingly powerful economically and technologically it will become increasingly dependent on modern information systems. The United States is more vulnerable to attacks than any other country in the world. Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, a former staff member of the House Armed Services Committee, reminded his readers in July 2017 that Russia was also aware of that vulnerability: Russia made a thinly veiled EMP threat against the United States on May 2, 1999, in an apparent effort to blackmail the U.S. to stop the Balkans War. During the spring of 1999, tensions between the United States and Russia rose sharply over Operation ALLIED FORCE, the North American Treaty Organization (NATO) bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. A bipartisan delegation from the House Armed Services Committee of the U.S. Congress met in Vienna with their Russian counterparts on the Duma International Affairs Committee, headed by Chairman Vladimir Lukin. The object of the meeting was to reduce U.S.-Russia tensions and seek Russian help in resolving the Balkans War. On May 2, during the Vienna meeting, Chairman Lukin and Deputy Chairman Alexander Shabanov chastised the United States for military aggression in the Balkans, and warned that Russia was not helpless to oppose Operation ALLIED FORCE. [Said Lukin]: Hypothetically, if Russia really wanted to hurt the United States in retaliation for NATOs bombing of Yugoslavia, Russia could fire a submarine launched ballistic missile and detonate a single nuclear warhead at high altitude over the United States. The resulting electromagnetic pulse would massively disrupt U.S. communications and computer systems, shutting down everything. No internet. Nothing. [Added Shabanov]: And if that didnt work, wed just launch another missile. Apparently frightened by the potential threat, Congress did what it usually does in the face of a crisis: It created a committee to study the matter and come up with recommendations. Called The Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack, it was created in 2001 to assess the following: 1. the nature and magnitude of potential high-altitude threats to the United States.... 2. the vulnerability of the United States military and civilian systems to an EMP attack; 3. the capability to repair and recover from an EMP attack; and 4. the feasibility and cost of hardening [those] systems against an EMP attack. The committee studied the threat and made more than a hundred recommendations to Congress, which Congress ignored. Soon thereafter, the committee was shut down. The committee was resurrected in 2015 and its results freshened. It issued a series of reports, the last one in July 2017. That last one didnt see the light of day until Thursday, January 24. Bill Gertz, national security reporter, editor, and columnist for the Washington Times for 27 years before moving to the Washington Free Beacon, reviewed it and learned that those threats are real: China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are already building such weapons. Its been part of their military strategies for years: Nuclear EMP attack is part of the military doctrines, plans, and exercises of Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran for a revolutionary new way of warfare against military forces and civilian critical infrastructures by cyber, sabotage, and EMP, the report states. This new way of warfare is called many things by many nations: In Russia, China, and Iran it is called Sixth Generation Warfare, Non-Contact Warfare, Electronic Warfare, Total Information Warfare, and Cyber Warfare. Nuclear-electronic warfare also is called Blackout War because of its effects on all electronic devices. The report warned that millions of U.S. citizens could die if any of these countries did launch a nuclear weapon to create an EMP: Potential adversaries [i.e., the United States] should understand that millions could die from the long-term collateral effects of EMP and cyber-attacks that cause protracted black-out of national electric grids and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures. A single nuclear weapon can potentially make an EMP attack against a target the size of North America. Any nuclear weapon detonated at an altitude of 30 kilometers [18.6 miles] or higher will generate a potentially catastrophic EMP. A super-EMP warhead, in the possession of Russia or North Korea, could put at risk the best protected U.S. assets, even threatening the survival of the U.S. nuclear deterrent. Image: NicoElNino via iStock / Getty Images Plus An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
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https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/31313-could-us-warships-in-taiwan-strait-trigger-an-emp-attack
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Why dont more apps work with Siri?
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When Apple opened up Siri to third-party apps a couple years ago, the consensus among developers was that the system was still too limited. advertisement advertisement Instead of letting app makers build whatever voice skills they wanted, like what Amazon had been doing with Alexa, Apple restricted Siri to six domains, including messages, audio and video calls, ride booking, payments, and photo searches. Support for lists, notes, and QR codes arrived last year, but you still cant use Siri to play music in Spotify, launch a video in Netflix, or order a pizza from Dominos. Yet even within the categories that Siri does support, uptake from developers has been spotty. You can send messages by voice with Viber or Telegram, but not Facebook Messenger or Signal. You can take notes in Evernote, but not in Microsoft OneNote, Google Keep, or Simplenote. You can add to-do list items in Todoist or Any.do, but not in gTasks or Trello. You can send payments using Venmo, but not PayPal. When trying to use Siri with third-party apps, I wish I could is a common refrain. Its probably due to a combination of factors: Theory 1: Users arent asking for Siri support The most simple explanation is that app developers have limited resources, and dont see the point in supporting Siri when users arent demanding it. Thats the rationale offered by Peter Oehler, the chief operating officer of project management app Zenkit. Being able to add a task or check list items with Siri might be useful in theory, but Oehler imagines that these features would only benefit a tiny fraction of Zenkits total user base. And so far, even those users arent asking for Siri support. Weve gotten feedback from more than 10,000 users of Zenkit, and are exchanging emails and chats with them. Nobody has demanded Siri integration, Oehler says. advertisement Ryan Hanna, the founder and vice president of product for workout app Sworkit, also isnt seeing any demand for Siri support from users. We focus more on the challenges of our actual users and what theyre going through. For them, getting a workout in, there are no barriers in their way that being able to launch it by voice would actually solve, Hanna says. Weve literally never had anyone tell us, Hey, I wish you were doing this. ' Theory 2: Apple isnt pushing for Siri support Even if the apps you use do support Siri, youd be forgiven for not knowing it. While Apples App Store has feature sections for apps that support other recent iOS features, such as AR, iMessage stickers, and iPad drag-and-drop, no such spotlight exists for Siri apps. And if you ask Siri what apps it supports, all it does is search the App Store for the word support. Currently, the only way to find out if an app supports Siri is through trial and error. At the same time, Zenkits Peter Oehler feels that hed be going out on a limb to support Siri with no guarantee of reciprocation from Apple. From the perspective of a software development company like mine, Apple is nothow would I say itthey are not pushing you, Oehler says. By comparison, Oehler points to a recent collaboration with Canonical, the company behind the popular Linux distribution Ubuntu. Zenkit worked with Canonical to build a Snap that can easily install and update the app across many flavors of Linux. In exchange, Canonical promoted Zenkit on its blog and in social media, and also surprised Zenkit with a banner ad on the Ubuntu website. Even though Linux users make up a fraction of Zenkits potential user base, Oehler felt the investment was worthwhile. advertisement If Im working with Apple, I deliver something to them, and they will not do anything for me, Oehler says. You are absolutely depending on the App Store, or on things you cannot influence, and you cannot cooperate with them. You are just delivering, and maybe you will get big, or maybe you will fail. Meanwhile, other companies are doing more to get developers on board with their voice assistant skills. Amazon, for instance, participates in Alexa workshops and hackathons year-round, and also encourages enthusiasts to hold their own meetups. Google hosts its own events and online talks for Assistant developers, and allows new developers to get detailed, custom feedback on their voice Actions. Although Apple provides lots of online documentation for SiriKit, it doesnt appear to hold any Siri-related events outside its annual developers conference. (Apple has also reportedly seen several senior engineers in charge of third-party Siri integration either leave or move off the project, according to The Information.) Related: Amazon is finally helping developers turn Alexa skills into money Theory 3: Adding Siri support isnt always simple When app developers do get around to supporting Siri, they might find that doing so takes a lot of work. Matteo Rattotti, one of the developers behind the popular writing and notetaking app Bear, says Siri support required some changes to how the app works. To work with SiriKit, an app must support iOSs Intents extension, which defines all the ways that the app can interact with Apples voice assistant. While extensions are powerful, they can only read an apps data through a shared container, which is separate from how the app stores data by default. Moving data into a shared container can be tricky and error-prone, Rattotti says, and once inside, it cant be backed up by iCloud or iTunes. advertisement Also, Siri works differently depending on whether its being accessed from iOS, MacOS, an Apple Watch, or a HomePod, and developers must make sure to communicate those differences to users, Rattotti says. All of this means adding Siri support can be a complicated endeavor. For us, it was just a low-priority task because were a very small company, and we had a really big backlog of features to add, and SiriKit requires some architectural changes, Rattotti says. Related: Alice in Putins wonderland: How Russias AI assistant compares to Siri And Alexa Theory 4: Rival tech giants may want to hamstring Siri One of the most conspicuous holes in Siris app support comes from Google. You cant use Siri to start a Duo video call, send a message in Hangouts, transfer money with Google Pay Send, take a note in Google Keep, or search images with Google Photos. Other tech giants also have limited Siri support. You can place calls and send messages with WhatsApp, but you cant use Siri for messages, calls, or payments in Facebook Messenger. You can use Microsofts Skype for calls and messages, but cant take notes in OneNote or search images in OneDrive. You also cant send messages with Amazons Alexa app or search images in Prime Photos. All of these companies have their own voice assistant ambitions. Amazon has Alexa, Google has Google Assistant, Microsoft has Cortana, and Facebookat least until recentlywas planning to launch a smart speaker with a focus on Messenger features. This is just speculation on my part, but these companies might not be eager to make Siri more powerful by connecting their most popular apps. advertisement Related: Google Ups Ante In Voice Assistant Wars With Startup Investment Plan Theory 5: Voice control is still young Its worth noting that in the cases of Zenkit and Sworkit, theyre not currently supporting other voice assistants either. Zenkits Peter Oehler says hes considered working with Alexas to-do list voice commandscompared to Google and Apple, he sees Amazon as less likely to try and its own competing project management software that competes with Zenkitbut its not on the upper part of our roadmap. Likewise, Sworkit evaluated Googles voice assistant platform last year, but ultimately decided to focus on features that customers were asking for. While he says that voice assistants could be usefulespecially for controlling workouts within an apptheyre currently too limited in what they can do. If the experience in your app can be just as good without actually looking at the device, thats when I see SiriKit being better off, he says. Thats unlikely to happen anytime soon. Voice assistants still act mainly as extensions for existing apps and services, performing a limited number of functions quickly instead of duplicating everything a proper app can do. And with Siri in particular, those functions are still limited to a narrow set of app categories. advertisement Perhaps as SiriKit expands to more kinds of apps, more people will become comfortable using Siri for those simple commands, and developers will feel more pressure to add their own support. But for now, theyre not in any rush. If youre not Facebook or the really big ones, you can wait for how the market will develop, Zenkits Peter Oehler says. We are not losing anything if we wait. This post has been updated to clarify the terms of Zenkits collaboration with Canonical.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40580297/why-dont-more-apps-work-with-siri
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Can the U.S. meet the goals of the Paris dealdespite Trump?
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In the year since Trump announced that he was pulling the U.S. out of the Paris agreement the historic climate deal to cut emissions enough to keep the global temperature rise well below two degrees Celsius, and ideally, under 1.5 degreesthe U.S. is still making progress in spite of the federal governments lack of support. More than nine gigawatts of renewable electricity was added to the American electric grid over the last 12 months. In 2017, U.S. carbon emissions from energy fell to the lowest level in 25 years. Electric vehicles had their best year in sales. Twenty-seven coal plants announced plans to close in 2017; more coal capacity was retired in the first 45 days of 2018 than in the first three years of Obamas first term. McDonalds, Hilton, and the candy giant Mars pledged to cut emissions in line with Paris agreement, joining a long list of other companies. Budweiser pledged to switch to renewable electricity for brewing beer; Apple reached a goal to power all of its operations with clean energy. Cities like Minneapolis and Norman, Oklahoma committed to getting 100% of their electricity from renewable energy, joining more than 80 other American cities and counties with the same goal. A coalition of states is working together to put a price on carbon. Hundreds of cities, states, and businesses publicly pledged support for the Paris agreement in the wake of Trumps announcement. I think it was taken by a great many people as a symbol of an abdication of American leadership in the world, and they felt the need not only to act but to speak out, says Carl Pope, vice chair of Americas Pledge, an initiative launched by former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and California governor Jerry Brown that is tracking and quantifying non-federal climate action and working to mobilize more. A new microsite lists some of the progress from the last year. Some of the climate action occurring now is a continuation of work that was already underway, but the fact that more people are talking about it is helping ramp up ambition, Pope says. When people who are doing things on their own because they make sense start speaking out and they discover that a lot of other people are doing the same thing . . . then I think people get a lot more ambitious, he says. I think what youre seeing now is the beginning of the ambition-building phase of the process. Economics are helping drive some of the changes. In many regions, its cheaper to build a new solar or wind power plants than a new fossil fuel plant. And in some places, like Colorado, the price difference is so great that its cheaper to pay to build a new renewable energy plant than it is to keep buying power from existing coal plants. Texas, which historically generated and used more coal than any other state, will start generating more electricity from wind than coal in 2018. That is not because [Texas Governor Greg Abbott] has had a change of heart about climate, says Pope. It is happening because there are a lot of extremely practical businesses in Texas that want cheap electrons. The Trump administrations efforts to loosen environmental regulations havent been particularly effective. The administration suspended the implementation of the Clean Power Plan, an Obama-era policy designed to fight climate change. But the U.S. is still on track to meet the goals of the Clean Power Plan in 2019, 11 years ahead of schedule. Everything Trump has said about the utility sector and bringing back coal is complete vaporware, and hes had no impact at all, Pope says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40579333/can-the-u-s-meet-the-goals-of-the-paris-deal-despite-trump
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Can crypto currencies make fundraising less sexist?
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When Bulgarian software developer Natalia Karayaneva attempted to explain her idea for a blockchain-supported decentralized real estate market to venture capitalists in 2016, she kept running up against the same problem. Some of the dozen or so firms she sat down with understood blockchain technology, others understood her plan to disrupt the cross-border real estate market, but none could wrap their heads around both. But instead of asking questions that might help fill in those knowledge gaps, Karayaneva says many were fixated on personal issues. ' According to a recent study, only 4% of entrepreneurs who received funding or made an exit last year were women, and only 13% were minorities. The discrepancy is often blamed on a lack of representation amongst the upper ranks of the VC community, where only 6% of decision makers are female. Recently, a new fundraising option has shown promise as a potential way to bypass the traditional VC boys club, but recent complications and issues are threatening its future. After searching for an institutional investor to lead a fundraising round of approximately one to three million, Karayanevas chief blockchain architect suggested selling tokens to the public using a prototype of the platform as a proof of concept. These tokens could ultimately be used as currency on the platform once operational, and early adopters could potentially see the value of these tokens increase as the platform grows. What appealed to us mostly was an opportunity to grow a community immediately, said Karayaneva. Its not a lead investor and a few other investors that will dictate our future roadmap, but instead its the market and the community who were accountable to. The coin rush In September 2017, Karayanevas company, Propy, sold $16 million worth of tokens using bitcoin and ethereum in a matter of weeks, without giving up any equity in the business. The value of that pool then increased to $50 million when the price of the crypto currencies skyrocketed in December. Unlike the male-dominated VC funding path, which relies on relationships and your presentation to two or three groups, token sales earn confidence through merit, she says. I do believe its easier for female founders to raise funds [with tokens] because they dont pitch personally in a room of investors, but they pitch the idea online with research and white papers.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40575787/can-crypto-currencies-make-fundraising-less-sexist
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Is Tom Peterss long-running excellence gospel burning us out?
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When management guru Tom Peters pronounces the word excellence, hes thinking about the short term. His latest book, The Excellence Dividend: Meeting the Tech Tide with Work That Wows and Jobs That Last, which was published in April, contains a chapter titled, Excellence Is the Next Five Minutes. It features the following liturgy: advertisement advertisement EXCELLENCE is your next conversation. Or not. EXCELLENCE is your next meeting. Or not. EXCELLENCE is shutting up and listeningreally listening. Or not. Peterss decades-long obsession with excellence in business dates back at least to 1982, with his best-selling In Search of Excellence, followed three years later by A Passion for Excellence. And of course, Peters is also well-known for his landmark Fast Company essay, The Brand Called You, from 1997, which casts excellence seeking as a solo affair, something that secures individuals portable strengths no matter where or how they happen to apply them. Today Peters hasnt so much shifted that frame as tilted it to size up the looming specter of automation. Yet in his latest book, Peters writes approvingly of Vernon Hill, founder of Commerce Bank and Metro Bank. Very long hours have been one signature of the Commerce/Metro experience, Peters points out. [The] branches are open a previously unheard-of seven days a week (and until midnight on Fridays! ). I asked Peters, in a recent phone interview, whether he thinks a workforce like Hills, powered by this sort of excellence, can still deliver the same payoffs in 2018. Not only do those long hours sound like a recipe for employee burnout, but the convenience of always-open bank branches might no longer be the measure of excellent service in an age of mobile banking and peer-to-peer payment apps. Peters was characteristically intelligent and open-minded on this issue. I think your point is well taken, he reflected. I really do think I could have gone a lot further in general, and specifically in this book, on that topic. Related: How demographics, automation, and inequality will shape the next decade It matters because excellence costs employees time and energy, as Peters well knows. It also costs their organizations time and money. The trick, which Peters has devoted his professional life to, is to figure out how to sync up those costs and benefits so that the latter stack up higher than the formerthe dividend of his book title. Fail to do that, and the pursuit of excellence may burn you out even before automation threatens your livelihood. For organizations, then, its crucial to start thinking as hard about employee experience as about customer experience. Here are a few ways to do that, taking a page or two from Peters. Every successful organization looks at its numbers to understand how the sales process is going, but not every organization think about how to recognize and reward, say, top-notch customer service. The Excellence Dividend models how to do this. Its essentially an annotated compendium of case studies in, for example, great customer service. Your organization might likewise anthologize narratives of excellence and share them in different ways. Imagine a Moth-like storytelling event, featuring employees talking about their experiences in the field. Or perhaps leave a notebook open in the employee cafeteria where people can record their own anecdotes. Maybe even start a book club, inviting your teams to read inspiring books together and discuss them in Slack. These small-scale efforts can help keep people striving to do betterand to understand what better looks like as technology inevitably reshapes the organizationwithout requiring them to work later or harder. Hire right and pay fairlyacross the board In Hills case, one of the things he prides himself on is that he is overstaffed, Peters told me. The reality is, they are not beating the shit out of people. In the modern economy, in which workers havent reaped proportionate benefits of rising productivity, excellence depends on having enough first-rate players in the fieldand paying them enough to stick around. In other words, over-investing in talent. One thing I was careful to do before touting Hill to the sky, says Peters, is I went to one or two websites where people comment on their employer, and by and large he does very well on that measure, which I think is a pretty good measure. Hes right. Employees need the time and flexibility to have personal lives, to recover from giving it their alland that doesnt just go for the most in-demand roles. Burnt-out employees in one corner of your workforce affect your entire workforce. Its counterintuitive at a time when employers are looking to automate as many roles as possible to save money, but its likely a competitive edge: Across every functional area, make sure to hire more than enough employees to allow everyone to have a life outside of work. advertisement Always be training Again and again, Peters insists on training. Best training wins! he emphasizes in The Excellence Dividend. Top-notch, ongoing training is another crucial investment in human capital that can help workforces adapt to change rather than getting steamrolled by it. For decades, Peters has understood that excellence and sustained learning are bound together, and that its up to employers to provide growth opportunities that not only prepare employees for the future but make them feel somethingliterally. Are your training courses so good they make you tingle? he asks in the book, and then answers: If not, why not? Peters is also right to insist that training cant be a rote activity; its got to profoundly engage and challenge employees, and its got to be repeated regularly. The better-educated employee, the more excellent one. Encourage autonomy Theres one core feature of Peterss excellence gospel that has stood the test of time better than any other, and its the insight that excellence is both personal and situational. Its about being present and putting forth ones full, honest effortwhich means organizations need to step back and learn when to leave people alone. Theres no excellence checklist; employees need general guidelines but not exhaustive rulebooks. Its a bit like improvisational theater. Organizations that seek excellence must give employees permission to go off script as long as they understand their ultimate role in the show. People need enough freedom to maneuver independently, Peters rightly believes. And as authorities on motivation and performance have repeatedly found, there can be no excellence within workforces that snuff out autonomy, mastery, and purposewhether through burnout or anything else. Thats as true within the next five minutes as it will be five years hence. advertisement Ken Gordon is the content, conversation, and community strategist at EPAM Continuum.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40578699/is-tom-peterss-long-running-excellence-gospel-burning-us-out
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Is Congress likely to go for AOCs Green New Deal?
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Mark Talarico, Brooklyn, NY The concept of a Green New Deal (GND), first called for in a 2007 New York Times op-ed by Thomas Friedman, has been in the news lately thanks to a protest outside of Nancy Pelosis office in mid-November a week after the 2018 mid-term elections when Democrats took back the House. The goal of the GND is to put America at the forefront of green technologies to meet or exceed our Paris climate treaty commitments while boosting the economy and reducing economic inequality. Think of it as like President Franklin Delano Roosevelts original New Deal that helped get Americans back on their feet economically after the Great Depression through the creation of millions of federally-funded jobs that not only employed people but boosted U.S. economic productivity. The GND aims to give Americans a leg up in profiting off the transition to greener energy sources while simultaneously reducing the divide between the haves and have-nots. At that November protest, hundreds of activists affiliated with the so-called Sunrise Movement showed up to call on Pelosi to back omnibus economic stimulus legislation that would put millions of Americans to work on facilitating the transition to an economy powered by 100 percent renewable, emissions-free energy. Later that day incoming Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez showed her support by proposing the creation of a new House Select Committee on a Green New Deal tasked with detailing a national, industrial, economic mobilization plan capable of making the U.S. economy carbon neutral while promoting economic and environmental justice and equality. There are so many different progressive issues that are important, and climate change and addressing renewable energy always gets to the bottom of the barrel, Ocasio-Cortez told The Intercept. That can gets kicked from session to session and so what this just needs to do is create a momentum and an energy to make sure that that it becomes a priority for leadership. At least 45 House members have expressed support for the GND, while eight likely Democratic presidential candidates (including Jay Inslee, Cory Booker, Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren) are also behind it. And with the majority of Americans favoring taking strong action against climate change even if it means higher taxes, implementing some of kind of GND seems like a no-brainer. But environmentalists might not want to hold their breath. For starters, Ocasio-Cortezs proposal for the creation of a new House Select Committee on a Green New Deal wont be ready for a full House vote until 2020. Also, just because 40 members of Congress are supportive now doesnt say anything about where the other 395 Congresspersons stand, let alone the 100 members of the still-Republican-controlled Senate. Meanwhile, conservative critics point out that a Green New Deal could actually hurt the economy more than help it given how reliant we are on abundant and cheap fossil fuels. Even some liberals worry that the GND is trying to bite off more than we can chew. Only time will tell if something like the GND will become the law of the landand many greens are keeping their fingers crossed. CONTACTS: Thomas Friedmans A Warning from the Garden, https://goo.gl/zQ324A; Sunrise Movement, www.sunrisemovement.org; Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, ocasio-cortez.house.gov. EarthTalk is produced by Roddy Scheer & Doug Moss for the 501(c)3 nonprofit EarthTalk. To donate, visit www.earthtalk.org. Send questions to: [email protected].
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https://augustafreepress.com/is-congress-likely-to-go-for-aocs-green-new-deal/
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What is a VA Rehab Loan?
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The VA requires any home that a veteran buys to be in move-in condition. In other words, its safe, sanitary, and has enough space for your family. Click Here. Luckily, you may be able to use the VA rehab loan. While you cant do a lot of renovations, the loan doesnt provide you with up to $35,000. The VA allows lenders to give you these funds to help you fix up a home to meet the VA guidelines. This is one loan, so you only need to make one payment. Youll get the funds to buy the home as well as fix it up all in one closing. Unlike other rehab loans, the VA rehab loan is fairly simple to maneuver. Only Certain Renovations are Allowed As we mentioned above, you may only make renovations that bring the home up to the VAs code. You cant make cosmetic changes or use the funds for major renovations. The VA Minimum Property Requirements include: All utilities must be in proper working condition The water must be safe to drink and use The roof must have at least 3 years of life left on it The septic system must be working There cannot be mold or mildew in the basement, attic, or crawlspace There cannot be any lead-based paint in the home There cannot be evidence of pest or termite damage You must have year-round access to the home from the street The home must fit your family Getting the Work Done Once you decide what work you need to have done, you must run the information past the lender. You must also let them know the information of the contractors that will do the work. The contractors must be licensed and insured. You may want to choose a contractor that has done VA renovations before, as they will know how the process works. Click to See the Latest Mortgage Rates. The lender will assign a VA inspector to your project. The inspector will make sure the work is done right. The inspector is also the one that signs off on the project, allowing the contractors to get paid. If the inspector notices any cut corners or other issues with the work done, he may not clear the home for funds disbursement. Trouble With the VA Rehab Loan The only trouble you may have with the VA rehab loan is finding a willing lender. Just because the VA allows the program doesnt mean lenders want to take the risk. The VA doesnt fund the loans or even underwrite the loans. The VA approved lender does everything. Some lenders dont want to take the risk that is involved when loaning you more money than the home is worth in order to bring it up to code. If you have trouble finding a lender, you can use a mortgage broker. A mortgage broker has relationships with hundreds of lenders. They will know who you can go to right away to get your VA rehab loan. If you dont want to use a broker, you can also do your own research online to find a willing VA lender that is approved to write loans in your area. The VA rehab loan can help you get a loan to buy a home that doesnt quite meet the VA guidelines. It may take a little more legwork and time to get the home you want, but it is possible with this flexible loan program. Click Here to Get Matched With a Lender. Click to See the Latest Mortgage Rates
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https://www.blownmortgage.com/va-rehab-loan/
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Why is the royal family website downplaying Meghan Markles acting career?
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Meghan Markle is now officially part of the firm, i.e., the British royal family, which means she gets her own monarchy websiteexcept the inclusive move seems to heavily favor her charity work over her acting credits. Following the royal wedding this past weekend, the American-born bride was added to the familys official website. In the about section, Markles history starts with her campaign to change a sexist TV ad when she was just 11. It goes on to list her work with soup kitchens, womens organizations, environmental groups, and refugee camps. I am proud to be a woman and a feminist, reads an enlarged pull quote. Its an impressive resume, and no one can doubt the newly dubbed Duchess of Sussexs commitment to social causes. Shes earned herself the title of activist and humanitarian, much like another beloved royal, Princess Diana. But theres one thing alarmingly absent from the many kudos lauded on Markle: her acting career. To find details on that, you need to scroll down to her biography page, which devotes a mere paragraph to the actresss seven years on the USA Network show Suits. Markle, it should be noted, only finished filming Suits recentlyher finale episode aired less a month ago. And yet she gets two whole lines before the narrative quickly returns to a more royal-centric cause, namely, the commonwealth. Whilst working on Suits, The Duchess moved to Toronto, Canada where the show was filmed; she feels very connected to Canada, as it became a second home to her, reads the site.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40575579/why-is-the-royal-family-website-downplaying-meghan-markles-acting-career
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Can Disney/Pixar find a #MeToo middle ground with a John Lasseter comeback?
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The news that Disney executives have discussed bringing back John Lasseter, the Pixar and Disney Animation chief creative officer who took a leave of absence last November over allegations that he had inappropriately hugged and kissed employees, was met with surprise and head-shaking earlier this week when it was reported by the Wall Street Journal. advertisement advertisement One former Pixar executive told Fast Company that many Pixar employees were incredulous at the news that they might again be working with Lasseter, who became known amongst staff for alcohol-infused, sloppy behavior at movie premieres and unwanted advances in the workplace. Lasseter announced his leave in an email to staff in which he apologized for missteps that made staffers feel disrespected and uncomfortable. He said that time away would give him the opportunity to start taking better care of myself, to recharge and be inspired. Ever since, a debate has raged within Disney about whether Lasseter would come back, as Fast Company reported in April. One entertainment executive called the possibility of Lasseter returning a dumb move for Disney, saying it appears the company is putting more value on one bad senior guy than many low-level employees. Sources spoke with Fast Company on the condition of anonymity out of fear for retribution from within the industry. He should not be allowed to return, said one high-level publicist who has no connection to either Disney or Pixar. He has a years-long problem touching and being aggressive with women. Thats a pattern and its called sexual harassment. I dont know how you turn that sows ear into a silk purse, from a communications or any other standpoint. But there are some who wonder if perhaps we are entering new phase of the #MeToo era, a phase where highly visible companies like Disney can find a middle ground when it comes to handling employees who have been caught up in a sexual harassment scandal. That at least seems to be under consideration for offenders whose actions are not on the Harvey level, as one person put it, referring to Harvey Weinstein, the movie mogul whos been accused of multiple rapes and whose name has come to define the #MeToo movement. The accusations against Lasseter are limited to inappropriate touching and kissing. Even in a post-Weinstein world, not everyone accused of bad behavior has been thrown to the curbHBO did not fire The Deuces James Franco, for instance. But companies in Hollywood have largely embraced a sweeping, zero-tolerance approach when accusations surface. Because right now, thats what we have. You get accused, youre obliterated. Disney seems to be suggesting that there is an alternative. The company is reportedly having discussions about bringing Lasseter back in a reduced role that would limit his managerial duties but allow him to still have creative influence at Pixar and Disney. Beyond writing and directing films at Pixar, and providing all-around creative input on films there and at Disney Animation, such as Frozen and Moana, Lasseter dreams up and works on theme park attractions. Disney declined to comment for this story. One publicist who is not affiliated with Disney says that the company is trying to create a solution that protects their workers and their staff while also recognizing that everything isnt a 10. Everything doesnt require banishment. Thats like saying a shoplifter should get life imprisonment. If Disney can pull this off, the publicist continued, it shows that theyre looking to figure out a smart business decision and also do the right thing and protect their employees. But Disney itself appears wary of this maneuver and how it will be received. The WSJ story was rife with caveats, saying that Lasseters return is being discussed at Disney, and that It is still possible (Lasseter) could leave altogether or come back with his old job unchanged. advertisement One source says that Disney overall has been indecisive in the way its handled Lasseter. When you look at NBC and the way theyve dealt with Matt Lauer and others (accused of sexual harassment), theyve been very concise and public. But the language around this, the way its been handled, is so squishy. Although Disney CEO Bob Iger visited Pixar recently, according to a source, he did not address staff, who, like their colleagues at Disney Animation, have been in the dark about future leadership at the company. Lasseter, too, has been quiet. He hasnt been seen or heard from since he announced his leave of absence last fall, though a source says its believed he is in Italy with his son P.J. Theres no way John would be able to exist in a scaled-back role, says one source who has worked with Lasseter. Its not in his DNA. That might work for two weeks. Then theres the question of whether employees would accept his return, and whether Disney, which is highly sensitive to its perception in the media and on Wall Street, would come out of it all unscathed. advertisement For now, the company seems to be testing the waters. But there is only so much time to keep experimenting: The deadline for Lasseters six-month leave is Monday. Then again, the Journal story had more squishiness on that front, reporting, It is also possible that Monday will pass with no decision.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40573771/can-disney-pixar-find-a-metoo-middle-ground-with-a-john-lasseter-comeback
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Can sludge from dams turn deserts into farmland?
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Al Qudra Lake, a reservoir in Dubai, sits in the middle of the desert. But in September, a stretch of sand near the lake will become a nearly instant garden. A pilot project will test a new process for turning desert into arable land. Afforest for Future, the startup running the pilot, wants to solve the problem of needing more farmland while also solving a second problemreservoirs, like the lake in Dubai, can fill up with sediment over time. That muddy sludge takes up space needed to store water, and if the process goes on long enough, the dam can no longer be used. But if the sediment is scraped out of a dam, treated, and then spread over sand, it can help turn a previously barren area into a farm interspersed with trees. Some older techniques for planting on arid land can take a decade or longer. Now, if we look at a desertfor example, the Sahara or Saheland we work on the soil, it takes 10 to 15 years to create soil from the sand, says Vesela Tanaskovic, the startups CEO. But if we do some soil amendments, then of course we can speed up this process. As she worked on a Ph.D. at the Technical University of Vienna, Tanaskovic developed a process that can work in a day. The company tested the technique at a small scale at NASAs Ames Research Center in 2017 as part of an accelerator program at Singularity University. As rivers flow into reservoirs, if the dam isnt properly maintained, it fills up with sediment. The new process excavates this sediment, grinds it into tiny pieces at a treatment facility, and then pumps a mix of mud and water through pipelines to cover sand in the desert. In the moment when its dispersed, basically, it immediately creates topsoil, she says. If you plant an agroforestry system, you can preserve this soil for generations. The soil could also be used to plant trees alone, which could happen in areas where the sediment is polluted. But the startup believes that it typically makes the most sense to plant both treeswhich can provide shade, suck up CO2, and support endangered speciesand crops. As populations quickly grow in the Middle East and North Africa, theres even more need for local food. The new gardens need to be purposefully planted so that it sinks carbon but also brings food and jobs, says Tanaskovic. The UN estimates that 23 hectares of arable landan area about the size of Grand Central Stationis lost each minute to drought and land degradation. In a year, 12 million hectares of potential farmland may be lost, driven by a variety of causes, from overgrazing to climate change. In some cases, a shift to arid, barren land can happen fairly quickly. In Dubai, the area where the pilot will take place has been desert for more than 11,000 years. Multiple other projects are testing different approaches to plant on arid land and deal with desertification. One massive effort to plant trees in Africa, the Great Green Wall, evolved into a project that helps combine tree planting and agriculture and use regenerative agriculture techniques. In Mongolia, a long-term project has planted trees and shrubs in the desert to keep sands from encroaching on nearby farmland. Chinese researchers also developed a paste that helps retain water in sand, and transformed sand dunes into cropland. Norwegian scientists developed a nano-claymicroscopic clay particles in waterthat works in a similar way.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40569072/can-sludge-from-dams-turn-deserts-into-farmland
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Why do most US consumers not know (or care) about 5G?
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A recent poll of more than 5,000 connected consumers in the US found that 59% didnt know that carriers are actively working on rolling out 5G, and 38.1% are not excited for the next generation of networking technology. Choose No, I have never. or Yes, I have.. VS 41453 Votes Oops! Seems like something went wrong. Reloading might help. 7425 Votes Oops! Seems like something went wrong. Reloading might help. We are super excited about 5G here in our editorial office. But the buzz around the next generation of mobile networking seems to be limited to tech enthusiasts and industry insiders. This baffles me, personally, but the stats dont lie. In a recent study commissioned by T-Mobile and conducted by HarrisX, found that more than half of American consumers that own a device connected to the Internet didnt know that 5G was just around the corner. There were some other really interesting findings too. Of those Americans who are aware of 5G, 64% expect it to be widely available before 2020, and they are expecting improvements in reliability, speed and wider coverage. Other areas that consumers are hoping 5G will improve are smart energy grids and real-time translation software. Opinion by David McCourt "Widely available" by 2020 is not realistic in my opinion. 50 50 3 participants Americans universally agree that it is critical for the US to invest in technological innovation, which has widespread benefits including job creation, improved emergency services, manufacturing, transport and education. Close to one in three Americans view the US as the global leader in 5G, with 28% undecided and the rest opting for a host of other countries. A summary of the expectations for 5G amongst American consumers. / HarrisX / T-Mobile Lets unpack that a little. The first thing that jumps out to me is the idea that 5G will be widely available in the US before 2020, less than a year away. That seems optimistic, to put it lightly, in my view. Sure, some of the first high-band spectrum auctions have already taken place in the US, with UK auctions spanning 2019 and 2020, but it is going to take before 5G is widely available. The 5G antennas are going up in some cities, but because of the range is significantly lower than 4G/LTE, more antennas are needed to get widespread coverage than the previous generation. There was also some other, perhaps less revealing conclusions from the HarrisX study. Men are more likely to say theyre aware of 5G than women, but I suspect that male willingness to claim knowledge is not limited to cellular mobile communication... Interestingly, there was no difference between younger (18-24) and older Americans in terms of awareness of 5G. Those who expect 5G to be difficult to adopt cited reasons such as costs and resistance to change. Many people dont adapt to change well, and 5G seems very different from 4G, said one respondent. Perhaps one of the most interesting findings for me was that, of those aware of 5G, almost a third think that it is already available. As I wrote about recently, AT&T recently rebranded portions of its LTE network as 5G Evolution, adding 5G E icons to some smartphones, but that is not reaching enough users to account for the 29% of 5G-aware Americans who think the network is already available. AT&T's 5G Evolution network, which runs on 4G technology... / The Verge Providers, at least in Europe, don't expect 5G on smartphones to play a major role for the normal consumer before 2022, something that only 3% of 5G-aware Americans agree with, with most saying it will come sooner. Finally, the research provided a breakdown of the US cities that are most excited of 5G. Respondents from Miami were the most excited, followed by Charlotte and Houston. People in Minneapolis are more excited for 5G than those in San Francisco, the home Silicon Valley. Los Angeles is more excited than Philadelphia, but not as excited as New York. Seattle is the city least excited for 5G. Im going to take all of this regional data with a pinch of salt. One of the possible reasons for the lackluster buzz around 5G in America could be the current networking infrastructure. A different report by RepeaterStore from October 2018, found that almost 20% of American consumers still struggle to get a reliable 4G LTE signal. HarrisX didnt address this issue in its report, but its an important finding. On the eve of the 5G rollout, 19.7% of consumers reported coverage issues with regular 4G LTE signal at home or at work. The report stated that: 8 years into the roll-out of LTE, its clear that a significant portion of consumers still has coverage problems. Of course, this is only 20% of respondents to one study, but it makes you wonder. You can see the full HarrisX report below. Let us know!
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https://www.androidpit.com/us-consumers-on-5g
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