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What Does Facebook Messenger Mean For The Future Of Political Propaganda?
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When Facebook first unveiled News Feed in 2006, its 10 million users threatened to revolt. In a matter of months, though, the redesigned product took off with users and, ultimately, advertisers. The familiar, blue-bordered scroll of news articles and baby pictures now reaches 2 billion people around the world and accounts for much of the companys more than $30 billion in annual advertising revenue. advertisement advertisement But in 2017, News Feed is more controversial than ever, under fire for reinforcing partisan viewpoints by creating social echo chambers, spreading misinformation, and, through its targeted advertising tools, possibly enabling election interference. As investigations unfold into how Russian intelligence operations manipulated Facebook, its clear that News Feed has become a political weapon capable of striking painfully close to homeand some users are rethinking its place in their lives. The controversy exacerbates a more basic business problem for News Feed: Revenue growth has been falling every quarter for the past year, and Facebook executives have suggested to investors that News Feed capacity is, in part, the culprit. With ads already littering users feeds, there is dwindling real estate available for additional ones, and the quality of the experience is starting to suffer. Amid this complex maelstrom of controversy and stuttering growth, Facebook has been increasingly turning its attention to another form of social interaction: messaging. Last year, for the first time, the worlds largest messaging platforms surpassed the worlds largest social networks in terms of monthly active users. Messenger, Facebooks satellite app for private conversations, has 1.3 billion monthly users; WhatsApp, which Facebook acquired for $22 billion in 2014, has 1.3 billion monthly users of its own. Whether these platforms are the next big revenue spigotor the next frontier of exploitationmay be one of the biggest questions facing Facebooks future. So far, both Messenger and WhatsApp are largely unmonetizeda fact that seemed to irk CEO Mark Zuckerberg on a recent earnings call, when he mentioned wanting to move a little faster in bringing more ads to chat. The comment set off a flurry of investor speculation: Wall Street knows that if Zuckerberg and his team can turn one or both of their enviable messaging assets into revenue generators on par with News Feed, the windfall would be enormous. (WeChat, the messaging app run by Chinas Tencent, elevated the parent companys annual ad revenue from zero to $4 billion in the span of just two years.) The question is whether Facebook can introduce brands into chatand then turn on the revenue tapwithout sabotaging the implied intimacy of messaging, or following News Feed into a credibility crisis. The task of solving that delicate puzzle has fallen to David Marcus, Facebooks vice president of messaging products. A dignified but unassuming presence at Messengers Menlo Park headquarters who favors faded jeans and speaks with the slight accent of a native Parisian, Marcus has helped Messenger add 1 billion monthly active users since he left PayPal to join Facebook in 2014. Before Marcus took over, Messengers positioning in the market was unclear. Between Gchat, iMessage, Skype, and Snapchat, there was no shortage of options for private digital conversations. Marcus quickly concluded that Messenger needed more compelling features to draw in users. In the past few years, he has helped introduce augmented reality, group video chat, video-chat filters and masks, stickers, social games, and more to lure in Facebook users with media-rich ways to chat that are particularly attractive to groups of people. advertisement By offering richer tools for people to communicate, weve managed to make it more and more of a primary messaging platform, he says. When youre not the incumbent, you need to differentiate. Marcus has also had to be creative in introducing ad products to the platform. In recent months, his team has launched Click to Messenger ads, which take users from a News Feed or Instagram post to a conversation with a brand in Messenger; Messenger Inbox ads, which appear alongside open threads with friends and family; and Sponsored Messages, a retargeting product that allows advertisers that have previously conducted a conversation with a user to reengage. The goal is to get people communicating directly with brands and small businesses from within the Facebook ecosystem. Businesses want to open more conversations with potential customers or existing customers, Marcus says. He predicts that, before long, people will have a habit of coming to Messenger for every business interaction, from haircut scheduling to UPS tracking, because the experience will be far superior to that of 1-800 numbers, email order confirmations, and Twitter. Much of Marcuss vision relies on chatbots, which can automate replies within Messenger. Brand interactions, in a messaging context, perform better when they are personalizedtaking into account, for example, a users order history or color preferences. Brands also have to insinuate themselves into a very intimate environment, full of exchanges with friends and family, at exactly the right time. A few years ago, it would have been prohibitively expensive for marketers to individualize their interactions this way. But thanks to AI, an area in which Facebook has invested heavily, chatbots are now getting better at personalizing on a mass scale. Meanwhile, Messenger is getting a boost from Facebooks 70 million active businesses. In a matter of months, tens of thousands have appeared on the chat platform. Users can chat with Kim Kardashians bot about her weekend plans, buy movie tickets via Fandango, and book a Mercedes test drive. There are even some Messenger-only businesses: SnapTravel, for example, uses bots and human travel agents to book hotels via chat. The majority of these business accounts are still manned by real people, who respond asynchronously. But Messenger is encouraging brands to create automated experiences, despite the fact that many still come across as a bit, well, stupid. A Trulia bot, for example, didnt understand my interest in renting an apartment in a Brooklyn brownstone, something that would take just a few clicks on a website like StreetEasy. An Adidas bot, designed to showcase the brands fitness studio, was stumped by my simple buy shoes query. advertisement Yet Messenger bots are doing one thing remarkably well: With every interaction, they are collecting data and developing profiles of users. Although Facebook is still a long way from bringing the AI it has developed for News Feed ad targeting to Messengers conversational context, Marcus is laying the foundation. In July, at a daylong event designed to showcase and gather feedback from a dozen of the 100,000 developers that are now active on Messenger, he updated attendees on Messengers latest AI capabilities, designed to help bots better understand unstructured user questions. A big requirement to automation is understanding what people are asking, he said. So Facebook was making its natural-language-processing knowledge available to developers. Its a little geeky, but it actually will enable automation at scale. Deploying conversational data doesnt just help developers create business bots for brands; it also gives Messenger an edge with its own virtual assistant, dubbed M. Earlier this year, the assistant started inserting third-party bot suggestions into private conversations, as a way to encourage people to interact with them. If users are receptive, M could become a powerful way to start building business-to-consumer chat across the Messenger user base, says Kemal El Moujahid, director of product management for Messenger Platform and M. The ultimate vision is to create an all-encompassing ecosystem along the lines of WeChat, which serves as a gateway to chat, news, shopping, and more for a billion Chinese consumers. The whole thesis is, users are going to be able to run their life from Messenger, El Moujahid says. [Users] want to be able to play a song, book a restaurant, all within Messenger. So by making it very efficient for businesses to deliver these services in a frictionless way, then were really serving our users. Adding the ability to transact would be a natural extension. Without question. In the midst of the Russian ad investigationwhich has now extended to how Russian agents used Messenger to communicate with usersFacebook is enhancing the way it discloses political advertisements (and all ads, period) and creating a searchable archive of federal-election related ads. That solution is much more unwieldy on Messenger, where ads take the form of one-on-one conversations. Its one thing to be selling a product at the exact right time, says Robyn Caplan, a researcher at the Data & Society think tank, of Facebooks ad targeting. Its another thing to start selling ideas at the exact right time. Weve created specific guidelines around ads in past media regimes. advertisement And then theres the question of how company might identifyor interceptpropaganda and bad actors in the intimate context of Messenger, which could be near-impossible. On the one hand, if successful, Messenger is creating a personalization machine, powered by Facebooks enormous data sets, that could help the messaging service move well ahead of its competitors. (Imagine, for example, a version of M that morphs from text-based chat to vocal assistant on a Facebook-designed home deviceand leaves Alexa in the dust.) But the rise of Messenger ad tech also raises the dark specter of content so individually specific that it could change user behavior in the voting booth or even incite users to real-world violence. These disturbing scenarios have already played out in real life, catalyzed by the other messaging service Facebook owns: WhatsApp. For years, Facebook has asked users to hand over personal data in return for social utility. With Messenger, Facebook is offering them commercial utility as well. But for people who are already wondering if News Feed has become too influential, the price to pay may be simply too high. This story has been updated to reflect Facebooks new political ad disclosure rules.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40490938/what-does-facebook-messenger-mean-for-the-future-of-political-propaganda
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Can Snapchats Redesign Give It Facebook Appeal?
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Earlier this month, Snapchat cofounder Evan Spiegel made a stunning admission : The social media service, he told shareholders on the companys third-quarter earnings call, is too confusing. Thats not news to anyone who has ever laid eyes on the app, which has long faced criticism for being unintuitive, but it was an extraordinary about-face for Spiegel to own up to that appraisal and acknowledge the interface required drastic change. The 27-year-old product wunderkind had previously skated by on the idea that Snapchat was designed for a younger (and more lucrative) audience, non-millennials be damned. But with growth slowing and revenue continuing to disappoint, Spiegel told shareholders his team needed to make the app more accessible, particularly to users over the age of 34. The one thing that we have heard over the years is that Snapchat is difficult to understand or hard to use, he explained. As a result, we are currently redesigning our application to make it easier. Ever since then, theres been endless handwringing over what this redesign would mean for Snapchats future. Spiegel, ever a defiant personality, had always resisted cries to make the design more mainstream; Snapchat kept its cool, some argued, partly because it was an app only millennials seemed to intuitively grasp, which helped stave the demographics from joining that those users might consider uncool, like, say their parents or teachers or bosses. But today, the company, known as Snap, unveiled Spiegels big redesign, and it appears the hoopla was for naught. Although there are a number of welcome improvements, it is far from the grand rethink Spiegel seemed to promise just weeks ago, and nowhere near a whole new Snapchat as the company called it in a blog post. If anything, in terms of the UI itself, it feels more like a humdrum incremental update. More pressingly, its not clear why this iteration would once again mesmerize millennials or demystify the service for non-millennials. For the most part, the new Snapchat is about tidying up the apps myriad content portals. Spiegels central premise is that social media services, in order to offer a cleaner experience, need to separate the social from the media. In other words, all your social content on Snapchat is now arranged in one Friends page, to the left of the main camera screen, while the more premium content, whether published by news outlets, TV networks, or independent creators with big followingsvloggers, celebrities, athletesis corralled together to the right, on the Discover feed. Its roughly the same paradigm as the apps previous version, but with more consistency: Chats with friends, for example, are now listed in the same feed as your shared Stories, whereas before they were split up on separate pages. Likewise, content from community creators, such as celebrities, will be increasingly pushed into the Discover tab, as opposed to before when they were sprinkled among items shared with your friends, as if Kim Kardashian were just another bestie. The company also says its working to surface content better tailored to your tastes to keep up with its growing number of media partnerswhich stands at 70, up from around a dozen when Discover first launchedas well as to personalize your Friends feed, so its ordered by the people you interact with more frequently. I had expected more daring changes, or at least more obvious ones. If Snapchat really wanted to make the app more accessible to older generations, there is so much low-hanging fruit the team couldve gone after. For example, in the years since launch, the app has become a patchwork of cryptic iconography: There are endless color-coded or free-floating icons for every type of content sent and received, indecipherable without a user manual. The apps gestures, once novel, feel incredibly unpredictable without intuitive navigational markers; swiping down, for instance, brings up a separate discovery tab, which seems superfluous. And there are countless product features, which, while compelling, are crippled by confusing rules and often oddly hidden like Easter eggs. Take, for example, Snapchats Paintbrush, which can filter images so they look like works of art. Its a fantastic tool, but its inexplicably unavailable if you take a picture directly from within the Snapchat app. Rather, an image must be taken with your phones native camera service; uploaded to Snapchat by swiping up to the Memories tab to import it from the camera roll. From there, you must click a button in the upper-right corner to bring up a menu, click edit, and only then will you find the elusive Paintbrush icon, which otherwise doesnt exist anywhere else within the app. It has been nearly a year since the feature launched, and any new user would need these directions to figure out how to use it.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90152625/can-snapchats-redesign-give-it-facebook-appeal
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When Is The U.S. Going To Ban The Internet Of Things For Children?
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Germanys equivalent to the FCC, the Bundesnetzagentur, has prohibited the sale of childrens smartwatches with eavesdropping capabilities . The agency is even urging parents to destroy them because they pose a real threat to childrens privacy and the privacy of others. Meanwhile, in the U.S., neither government agencies nor corporations are doing anything to avoid this very real danger to our rights. Parents can use these childrens watches to listen in to the childs surroundings without detection via an app, according to the Germans Federal Network Agency President Jochen Homann. The German authorities have classified all these watches as unauthorized transmitting equipment, citing investigations into parents [that] were using them to eavesdrop on teachers in lessons. The threat isnt just from parents misusing smartwatches, though. These devices have terrible security and privacy policies, from giving third parties access to your childs usage data without your explicit agreement to forbidding parents from deleting their kids data if they choose to. A few weeks ago, the Norwegian Consumer Council (NCC) and the security firm Mnemonic issued a strong warning against buying these type of devices, arguing that all of them have privacy issues. European Union regulations ban these privacy practices, but no EU-wide ban has been enacted on these productsyet. These warnings from Norway and Germany dont even delve into the fact that all of these devices can be hacked by malicious third parties. Indeed, Germany already banned an internet-connected smart doll called My Friend Cayla, not only because it also was effectively an illegal concealed transmitting device but because it could be hacked both to spy on and to interact with kids in terrible ways. And lets not even talk about the security risk of all that information stored in the cloudwe know that many of these companies just dont seem to give a damn about data security. This ban is just the latest and largest warning about the Internet of Things. European authorities were already planning to regulate these wearable devicesthe EU thinks these machines have the potential to empower its citizens, but it believes that strong privacy policies should be put in place to avoid putting their rights at risk (you can download its report here). Its probably only a matter of time before the European Union imposes sanctions against manufacturers making and selling these ill-conceived and poorly designed devices for kidsand adults too. Nothing. We know that U.S. regulatory authorities like the FCC are quite lax when it comes to privacy, a lack of enthusiasm that is shared by the government spy agencies. Consumers should demand prompt action from lawmakers before its too late because it doesnt seem like designers and corporations are going to do a good job protecting our privacy on their own. Failing that, we should simply follow the advice of agencies like the Bundesnetzagentur and just stop buying these terrible devices completelyat least until we see strong legislation regulating every single aspect of data collection, storage, and security.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90151786/when-is-the-u-s-going-to-ban-the-internet-of-things-for-children
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Is Howard Stern itching for a fight?
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Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window) Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window) Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window) I love Howard Stern, but he might want to retract his comments on Jeff Van Gundy, whom he called a midget and a douchebag. Stern a lover, not a fighter has never won a brawl since he was regularly getting his butt kicked as a kid in Roosevelt, LI. Van Gundy, the former Knicks coach now broadcasting for ESPN, started it when he criticized Stern for leaving his courtside seat for a Knicks-Nets game at the Garden before the final buzzer, even though the Knicks had a 27-point lead. Stern, who gets up at 4 a.m., responded on his SiriusXM show: Say it to my f - - king face. Next time Im at the Knicks game, you can come up to me and talk to me about it and Ill explain it to you, you midget. Van Gundy, who is listed as 5-foot-9, was a hard-nosed All American point guard who led Nazareth College to the NCAA tournament in 1984. Stern is 6-foot-5 but not an athlete. In the 90s, he played one-on-one basketball against E Street Band guitarist Nils Lofgren, who is 5-foot-4. Howard was beaten like a rented mule. Lets hope, for Sterns sake, it doesnt get physical.
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https://pagesix.com/2014/04/09/is-howard-stern-itching-for-a-fight/
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How do foundations support open source software?
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An open source software's (OSS) sustainability relies on passionate developers willing to contribute to the project. Therefore, a project's survivability depends on its ability to retain developers, onboard new ones (i.e., newcomers), and, maybe more importantly, create a community of users who promote its adoption and use. As OSS projects grow, contributors tend to organize and create communities to drive the development process. However, many projects lack formal models, especially governance models, to structure and manage the (potentially large) community around them. Support to deal with all kinds of organizational decisions (including legal and economic aspects) is a huge concern for all projects. In fact, I previously reported some results on transparency and governance models from the top 25 starred projects in GitHub. In a nutshell, the results were encouraging, but a lot of effort is still needed. OSS foundations In other domains, nonprofit initiatives and foundations (either public or private) organize to provide the legal and economic infrastructure for a community. They can also define a number of internal regulations regarding, for instance, the activity, membership, and decision-making process for nonprofit and non-governmental organizations. Similarly, in recent years, there have been a number of foundations created around OSS. Software foundations are nonprofit organizations whose mission is to provide the grounds required for open and collaborative software development. They also provide a legal framework for individual volunteers and enable the donation of resources for the public benefit. However, there is a high variety among foundations, and information about their differences is scarce. Take, for example, the Apache Software Foundation and the Linux Foundation, two of the most well-known software foundations. They follow different strategies for managing the projects they cover. While the Apache Software Foundation proposes a meritocratic system, where different committees control and drive the development of several software projects (and the board oversees the whole process), the Linux Foundation follows a flexible approach and serves as an umbrella for its projects, which can deploy specific development processes, and concentrates more on promoting the benefits of OSS. As part of my research in the SOM Research Lab, I studied the different flavors of OSS foundations and their impact on the development of OSS projects. The goals are: 1) to give a clear picture of the current state of the art of software foundations, and 2) to help developers make informed decisions when creating new foundations or choosing to join an existing one. We built a dataset of 89 software foundations, which were analyzed according to their scope, openness, and influence on their projects' development practices. We presented the study's results in the Software Engineering in Society track at the International Conference on Software Engineering 2018. Our research paper (which you can read online) received ICSE 2018's Software Engineering in Society Paper Award. Exploring OSS software foundations To facilitate the query and understanding of software foundations in the context of OSS, I have recently published a website that summarizes the results of our study. We check every foundation in our dataset to find out whether its main goal is to support the development of a specific set of software projects. Other goals may include training, certification, or evangelization of open source in general. This studies the foundations' distributions from a geographical point of view (i.e., whether the foundation has an international or a local character). A foundation can serve a specific project, a set of projects, or as an umbrella for a number of smaller foundations, which use it to simplify their creation, management and legal processes. We focus on independent foundations. Beyond development, foundations may aim to help projects with things like nurturing the community or facilitating the creation of new and related projects. These goals are normally stated in a foundation's mission and mentioned on its website or in its bylaws. Surprisingly, a significant number of foundations provided no explicit information on their missions. The website presents results in both a bar graph and a list, which can be queried according to a foundation's name or the above dimensions. Each entry in the list shows the selected foundation's name, status, and dimension values. A deep analysis of the results also helps clarify the role OSS software foundations play in the development of OSS projects, as we explored in our research paper. This work is similar to chooseafoundation.com, but we include a longer list of foundations. Even so, our list is not exhaustive and may include errors. I would like to keep it as updated as possible, so do not hesitate to send me an issue if you find any error or a missing foundation.
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https://opensource.com/article/19/1/oss-foundations
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Will The Latest Keystone Spill Change The Fate Of The Nebraska Pipeline?
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On Thursday, days before Nebraska regulators decide whether to grant a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline in the state to TransCanada, the company behind the project, the first Keystone pipelinewhich runs from Canada through the Great Plainsspilled around 210,000 gallons of oil in South Dakota. Activists opposing Keystone XL say that its more evidence that the project shouldnt move forward in Nebraska. Were never surprised when TransCanadas pipelines spill, says Jane Kleeb, founder of Bold Nebraska, an anti-pipeline group, and head of the Nebraska Democratic Party. This is now the seventeenth leak since TransCanadas Keystone 1 pipeline began operation starting in 2010. They used foreign steel, which is much weaker steeland in fact, they have used faulty steel, from an Indian company called Welspun. So were not surprised when we hear news that it leaked. In one spill of 400 barrels of oil in 2011around 12 times smaller than the newest spilla rancher discovered crude oil spurting out of a pumping station in North Dakota. The leak was blamed on a section of pipe that was installed incorrectly. In another spill of an estimated 400 barrels in 2016, the company discovered that a small weld anomaly had caused a slow leak over a longer period of time. The Nebraska Public Utilities Commission will make its decision on permitting for the new Keystone XL pipeline on Monday morning, in one of the last steps for the controversial project. Because of the influence of TransCanada when the state wrote laws about pipeline permitting, the commissioners are not supposed to review oil spill risks as they consider the new pipeline. [TransCanada] spent over a million dollars over just a two-year period lobbying 49 state senators, says Kleeb. They made sure that the public service commission could not review oil spill risks and other pipeline safety measures, which is a familiar thing that big oil companies do in states. They lie to states and these state senators dont have time to do the research on their own. They tell them that they cant regulate pipeline safety risk, which is a lie, they can. Still, she says, its likely that the latest news will make a difference. You cant look at a spill of this size and not think to yourself, What if that was the Sand Hills, what if that was the Niobrara River, what if it was the Platte River? So I think that yes, it would have an impact on peoples decisions. The decision on Monday is likely to be very close. I think it will be a 3-2 split either way, and I think there will be a long haul in front of us with legal challenges to the decision. Theres a formal appeals process that either side could go in. I dont think this will be the last you hear from Keystone.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40497960/will-the-latest-keystone-spill-change-the-fate-of-the-nebraska-pipeline
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Has milk ever won any wars?
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Spare a thought for evolution, and its impact on what we are able to eat. Our food has been evolving alongside the changes to our environment and how we live, and has even been the catalyst for great change in our civilisation. Richard Wrangham, a renowned primatologist, argued in his 2013 book Catching Fire that it was learning how to cook that made us truly human. He argues that not only did being able to eat cooked food allow our brains to grow but that cooking around a fire provided a social space and a focal point for early communities. One such evolutionary strain was the emergence of lactose tolerance, and its thought that this ability may have even won wars. Anthropologists believe that before the rise of agriculture about 10,000 years ago, humans didnt really drink milk beyond infancy, and probably didnt drink the milk of other mammals. In the last 20 years, a great understanding of how our genes evolve and mutate have led some scientists to look at the link between domestic farming and lactose tolerance. There is a theory that this genetic mutation may have proven advantageous for particular cultures. In their book The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution, anthropologists Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending point to lactose as a possible stepping stone to the success of certain civilizations over others. The Proto-Indo-Europeans were rather backward in the realms of technology and social complexity, they write in the 2009 book. Sumerians invented the wheel, writing, and arithmetic and had cities and extensive irrigation systems at a time when the Proto-Indo-Europeans had, at most, domesticated the horse. We suggest that the advantage driving those Indo-European expansions was biological a high frequency of the European lactose-tolerance mutation. Genetic mutations The Evolution Of Us is a two-part Netflix documentary looking for clues in the genome to understand humankinds evolution. Many genetic mutations affect our ability to digest food and some may have changed the course of history, states the narrator. In the early 13th century the Jin Dynasty boasted perhaps the largest army in the word. In neighbouring Mongolia, Genghis Khans army would have been tiny by comparison yet they would go on to conquer the Jin Dynastys giant army. The Mongolian warriors may have had a secret weapon hidden in their DNA their ability to drink large quantities of horses milk and cheese made them leaner and stronger fighting machines. This genetic mutation brought practical advantages, too. Jack Weatherford, author of Genghis Khan and The Making of the Modern World, explains in the documentary that the Mongol armys horses doubled up as transport and food source, giving them a huge advantage over their Chinese neighbours who relied on a diet of carbohydrates which had to be carried around with them. They may have only had 100,000 soldiers, says Weatherford, but every soldier was a warrior.
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https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/food-and-drink/has-milk-ever-won-any-wars-1.3761209?localLinksEnabled=false
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Whats at stake when it comes to giving up meat?
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Meat has been getting a lot of bad press of late. First Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he was trying to cut back so he could do his bit for the health of himself and the planet. Then a major piece of research was published which made it clear that people in this part of the world will have to reduce their intake of meat and dairy by as much as 90 per cent if we are to avert a climate catastrophe and reverse the current obesity epidemic. The research by 20 influential food scientists, published in the Lancet Medical Journal, said the global food system as it is currently operating is unsustainable, and driving the planet towards environmental destruction while simultaneously leaving billions of people either hungry or obese. If it was to be widely adopted, the Lancets healthy, sustainable reference diet would see the average Irish persons beef and lamb consumption reduced to just 7g a day, which is equivalent to roughly half a meatball. People would also be limited to 7g of pork a day, equivalent to a single cocktail sausage, and just 29g of chicken or one and a half chicken nuggets. Dairy consumption would also be curtailed to just one glass of milk a day (250ml) or less if you partial to the occasional slice of cheese in a cracker or dab of butter on your toast. Under the guidelines people would be allowed to eat 200g of fruit, 300g of vegetables as well as beans, pulses, wholegrains and nuts. The reports recommendations, if adopted, would have major implications for the Republics 12 billion food and drink industry, which is heavily centred on beef and dairy production. Beef is the single largest component of this trade worth 2.5 billion annually to the Irish economy. The Lancet people think we should be paying more for the luxury of eating meat. To promote the shift to a healthier diet the Eat-Lancet Commission which is a collaboration of the Oslo-based Eat foundation and the medical journal proposes measures including the introduction of a meat tax akin to the sugar tax, and the withdrawal of certain products altogether. The environmental and societal health costs of food supply consumption should be fully reflected in pricing by introducing taxes, the report said. That is not good news, obviously, but by giving up meat or dramatically cutting back people could save themselves a packet. Consumption Around 87,000 tonnes of beef are consumed in Ireland each year, which is around 19kg per person. A further 45 000 tonnes of pork is consumed, which is around 10kg, with a further 10kg of chicken consumed annually. Lamb consumption is around 3.5kg per capita. If we price beef at 13 per kg steak is dearer, mince is cheaper Irish people spend around 250 on it each year. Pork is considerably cheaper, and if we give it an average price of 7 per kg, the cost per year is 70. Chicken is worryingly cheap in Ireland, with many roasting chickens priced at 5 or even less. If we give it a per kg price of 3, the annual cost is just 30. Lamb varies in price significantly, but if we assume a price of 15 per kg, then the annual cost per person is 52. If a household is made up of four people, the annual spend on meat alone could easily come in at over 1,600. Spending on milk, cheese, butter and fish add considerably to that cost, so as it stands a typical Irish household is probably spending more than 2,000 each year on products the Lancet people think we should stop eating. Shannon Forrest is ahead of the curve. I gave up meat around four years ago when I was travelling in India and Pakistan. I loved meat, and was one of the people who would happily have had it for breakfast, lunch and dinner, but in that part of the world I was afraid of getting food poisoning so I decided to stick to the vegetables. I noticed I had more energy, my skin was clearer and I was sleeping better, but I didnt think too much about it. When she got home she started eating meat again and her skin worsened and she felt more lethargic. So she joined the dots and gave up meat for good. Ive definitely saved money as a result. Anyone who says you dont spend less when you are not eating meat is just wrong. If there are no visits to the butchers counter you are going to spend less, and you are going to be able to buy more fruit and vegetables. That is just a fact. Mind you, the money I saved I ended up spending on other things, so its not like I still have it, she adds, somewhat ruefully. Absurd She says she would never force vegetarianism on others, but describes attempts by hard-core omnivores to ridicule non-meat eaters as absurd. In the wake of the Lancet report being published, Kerry TD Danny Healy-Rae said bluntly that them fellas that are talking about stopping eating meat never worked hard. Forrest describes that comment as insane. I am not an activist or the type to go on Peta marches, but when I hear people saying that people who dont eat meat cant function as well as people who dont it makes by blood boil. Almost by coincidence, Forrest ended up running a vegetarian and vegan cafe in Tramore, Co Waterford, called Bia and Brew with her chef partner. People said we were mad opening where we did when we did, but since we started last November we have been getting busier and busier. Nuala N Chonghaile is a long-time vegetarian who decided to do Veganuary and she has not bought any products which have come from animals since the beginning of the year, and she too says she saved money. I did it for moral and ethical reasons and for the environmental reasons, she says. Before Christmas we would have bought a lot of premium meat, things like organic chickens and wild fish, and we have definitely saved money since we stopped buying products like that. I cook and bake a lot and have been using a lot of dried pulses and they are very cheap, but I think if you buy meat substitutes they are more expensive. She says she uses Flora Vegan for baking and that costs the same as the regular Flora. It is no Kerrygold but it is fine. She also uses oat milk for her porridge, and while it is more expensive than regular milk it does last longer. And last week she made vegan pizza using vegan cheese. It was more expensive and not all that nice. She has chickens so has not given up eggs, and can have honey from bees she also keeps. Meat substitutes She says that anyone looking to dramatically cut down on their meat and dairy consumption should do it in stages, and try not to swap in meat substitutes. It will be more expensive and will disappoint. There are some meat substitutes that may not disappoint. Marks & Spencer, for example, has been rolling out some very good meat replacement products in recent months, with many almost as nice as the real thing. There is a significant price differential however. A kilo of vegan mince in M&S is 16.67, which is around twice the price of meaty mince, while its sweet potato and red pepper sausages cost 13.70 per kg compared to 7 for Kearns old school sausages. While the price of meat-free alternatives are high now they will fall as such products become more mainsteam, while the consequences of continuing to eat meat like theres no tomorrow are only ever likely to climb. CUTTING MEAT AND DAIRY OUT COMPLETELY REQUIRES SOME EFFORT Sarah Keogh is a one of Irelands leading dietitians and nutritionists, and she is certain that people who dramatically cut back on meat and dairy will see significant savings, although she says that for it to happen in Ireland will require a huge cultural shift. We could dramatically reduced the level of meat we consume, but I think it will be harder in Ireland because of how much we rely on meat and dairy, and because of an absence of education. It is definitely cheaper, there is absolutely no doubt about that. Beans and lentils cost a lot less that meat, particularly if you buy dried and soak them. Even the supplements that might be needed are not overly expensive. She says, however, that cutting meat and dairy out completely requires some effort. The big issue is protein, and how to get all of you daily protein requirements you if you are on a vegan diet. It is something that needs to be approached with great care. You need to look at beans and pulses and lentils, and you need to eat a lot of them. She says she has noticed a significant shift in how veganism is approached in recent years. When vegans came to me 20 years ago and asked what they needed to do to ensure they had a healthy diet without eating meat or dairy I would tell them that they had to take supplements, particularly Vitamin B12. Some people would also need extra Vitamin D, and others might need additional calcium. The vegans I advised then were happy to take the supplements but I have noticed that many vegans now are reluctant to do that, and they are refusing to take supplements because they dont perceive them to be natural products. She suggests the reluctance will lead to problems further down the road for many people. A deficiency in Vitamin B12 can damage the nervous system and that damage can be irreversible, so I would be most concerned about that cohort that are really anti-supplements. She also suggests that people need to take care when it comes to their protein intake. While pulses and beans provide plenty of protein they need to be consumed in higher quantities than meaty equivalents. I would also be careful about some of the meat substitutes on the market, and some vegan burgers and pies. People can eat they instead of meat and think they are getting like for like when the reality is some of these products do not have the required level of protein. It varies wildly between brands, but some products I have seen have no more than 3g of protein in a serving when a person needs 20g of protein in their main meal.
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https://www.irishtimes.com/news/consumer/what-s-at-stake-when-it-comes-to-giving-up-meat-1.3768060?localLinksEnabled=false
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Is Kroger A Bargain At An Almost 5-Year Low P/E Ratio?
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Kroger (KR) has remarkably underperformed the market in the last two years. During this period, the stock has lost 12% whereas the S&P has gained 15%. Due to this underperformance, the retailer is currently trading at an almost 5-year low P/E ratio of 13.7. Given also that Kroger is growing its earnings per share, the big question is whether the stock has become a bargain. Business overview Kroger is the largest supermarket chain in the U.S. It has almost 2,800 stores in 35 states and serves more than 60 million households every year. Kroger has always operated on razor-thin margins. During the last decade, its operating margin has fluctuated between 1.4% and 3.3%. data by YCharts As this margin is calculated before the interest expense and the taxes are subtracted, it is evident that the company has little room for further compression of its margin. Consequently, when Amazon (AMZN) announced the acquisition of Whole Foods in the summer of 2017, it sent shockwaves to Kroger, which plunged on the news. Amazon reduced the prices in Whole Foods from the first day after the completion of the acquisition so the market was afraid that the margins of Kroger would shrink further due to competitive pressure. Competition has heated more than ever in the retail sector, as the large retailers have engaged in a price war via a series of aggressive strategic moves. Krogers management has admitted that it is facing great pressure from the price reductions of Walmart. Moreover, Whole Foods recently expanded its grocery delivery service to several key regions. Furthermore, according to a report of Bloomberg, Amazon is planning to open about 3,000 cashier-less stores by 2021. On the one hand, fierce competition is the definition of what investors should avoid. On the other hand, the effect of the takeover of Whole Foods by Amazon on Kroger has been much smaller than initially expected. Just a few days before the end of the fiscal year of Kroger, it is safe to assume that the company has grown its earnings per share by 5% over last year, from $2.04 to $2.14. Kroger is also expected to grow its earnings per share by another 5.6% in its next fiscal year, to $2.26. Moreover, the UBS annual consumer survey recently showed that the number of Amazon Prime members who purchase groceries at least once per month decreased over last year. The resilient performance of Kroger can be attributed to its strategic project called Restock Kroger, which aims to increase its operating income by $400 M by 2020 thanks to cost savings and the enhancement of efficiencies. In addition, Kroger has exhibited firm results thanks to its quick adjustment to the changing landscape in the retail sector. For instance, the retailer has grown its digital sales by more than 50% for several consecutive quarters. Growth prospects Kroger is doing its best to enhance its margins, mostly via its Restock Kroger project. However, this is much easier said than done. To be sure, its operating margin has dropped from 3.0% in 2016 to 1.8% in the last 12 months. Therefore, as competition will remain intense for the foreseeable future, it is prudent not to expect meaningful margin expansion in the upcoming years. Despite the margin pressure, Kroger has grown its earnings per share by 5% in the fiscal year ending at the end of January. However, it is critical to note that the company has reduced its share count by 10% this year thanks to an aggressive share repurchase program, which has been funded mostly from the sale of the convenience stores business to EG Group for $2.15 B. This means that the earnings of the company have decreased approximately 5% this year. The reasons behind the lackluster business performance are suppressed selling prices and rising transportation costs. As the stock has been trading at low P/E ratios in recent years, share repurchases have been efficient in reducing the share count and hence management should be praised for using the proceeds of the asset sale so efficiently. On the other hand, as buybacks have mostly been funded from the above asset sale, investors should not expect the aggressive buybacks to persist. Instead, it is reasonable to expect the company to repurchase its shares at a 3%-5% average annual rate in the upcoming years. As the earnings of the company have a weak momentum due to the heating competition, it is reasonable to expect the earnings per share to grow at a lackluster pace at best. Dividend Kroger has raised its dividend for 12 consecutive years and is now offering a 1.9% dividend yield, which is approximately equal to the yield of the S&P. The dividend payout ratio is too low, as it currently stands at 26%. This may lead some investors to think that the company will raise its dividend at a fast pace in the upcoming years. However, this is not likely to happen. Due to the heating competition in the retail sector, Kroger has been investing heavily in its business, in an attempt to adjust to the fast-changing business landscape. Consequently, the company has posted very poor free cash flows lately. In each of the last three years, the free cash flows have been less than 1/3 of the operating cash flows. It is also worth noting that the company recently disclosed that it would raise $1.2 B through a debt offering. Therefore, as dividends are funded from free cash flows, the company does not have much room for meaningful dividend hikes. Thats why it raised its dividend by only 6% in each of the last two years. Valuation Kroger is currently trading at a P/E ratio of 13.7, which is an almost 5-year low level. data by YCharts As this valuation level is not expensive, it renders the share repurchases of the company efficient. On the other hand, Target (TGT) is trading at a similar valuation level, as it has a trailing P/E ratio of 13.1. Moreover, given the relentless competition in the retail sector, the weak business performance of Kroger (excluding its buybacks) and its lackluster growth prospects, its current valuation seems reasonable. Final thoughts Kroger is doing its best to adjust to the fast-changing business landscape and the company has performed much better than the market feared when Amazon acquired Whole Foods. However, the tailwind from aggressive share repurchases will soon attenuate. In addition, the company is investing heavily in its business in order to remain competitive. As a result, it is likely to continue posting weak free cash flows and lackluster earnings growth. Therefore, the stock does not seem to be a bargain right now. Instead, it seems reasonably valued. Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
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https://seekingalpha.com/article/4235877-kroger-bargain-almost-5-year-low-p-e-ratio
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Is South India the new Uttar Pradesh of Indian politics?
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NEW DELHI: PM Narendra Modi 's visit to the southern states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala on Sunday to address public gatherings and launch new projects could possibly be the BJP's alternative route to sitting on the treasury benches in the 17th Lok Sabha after May 26 - and there are reasons why the party is feeling bullish rather than bluish over its electoral prospects down south.It used to be said in Indian parliamentary politics that the party which captures a majority of the 80 Lok Sabha seats in Uttar Pradesh (UP) gets to rule at the Centre - the southern states might just provide that extra heft for the BJP which has faced a drubbing in the recent assembly polls in the Hindi heartland states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, along with losing Chhattisgarh.People attend the public meeting in Madurai on SundayIn total, the five states and one UT (Puducherry) in South India - Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Telangana - offer 120 seats and except for Karnataka, where the BJP has a state government in power and 17 Lok Sabha seats out of 27, it's a non-entity or thereabouts in all other states. It has just two seats - in alliance - in Tamil Nadu, 0 in Kerala, where it was his second visit in less than 2 weeks and just 1 seat in Telangana, a leftover after its alliance partner TDP walked out of the NDA and 2 seats in Andhra Pradesh.PM Modi, even while addressing a rally in Madurai where he laid the foundation stone for an AIIMS , refrained from criticising any of the regional parties - reserving his ire only for the Congress and the Communists with indications that the saffron party is considering an alliance with the ruling AIADMK, which won 37 of the 39 Lok Sabha seats in 2014. In fact, earlier this year, Modi himself didn't rule out the possibility of allying with the AIADMK. Then of course there's the X-factor, in the form of Rajnikanth, the Tamil superstar whose admiration of Modi is no secret.The Supreme Court decision on Sabarimala - allowing women in the 10-50 age group entry to the Lord Ayyappa Temple - has come as a blessing for the BJP and its core constituency as the decision consolidated the staunch Hindus against the Kerala government of the communists who insisted of implementing the SC order, angering a majority of the Hindus. In fact, at his rally in Thrissur, Kerala, Modi pounced upon the opportunity to accuse the state government of being insensitive to the people's cultural beliefs - a hint at the Sabarimala controversy . He also accused the UDF government of framing former ISRO scientist Nambi Narayanan for spying - the scientist, who was acquitted of all charges by the SC, was conferred the Padma Bhushan this year.
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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/is-south-india-the-new-uttar-pradesh-of-indian-politics/articleshow/67717719.cms
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Can A Less-Clunky Reddit Keep Its Loyal Users?
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Steve Huffman says hes embarrassed by the underlying programming that currently powers Reddit, the social media platform he cofounded in his dorm room alongside Alexis Ohanian in 2005. advertisement advertisement My identity is of an engineer, programming is my first love, and when Im talking to engineers at work and giving them advice theyre like Go away, Grandpa, Ive seen the shit you wrote,' he said. Having such outdated underlying code powering Americas fourth most visited website (the worlds ninth most visited)with approximately 300 million monthly active usershas made innovating the platform difficult. After all, the company just released its first mobile app last year and only just began allowing users to upload videos directly this past summer. Related: Steve Huffman: Reddit Has Been Home To Some Of The Most Authentic Conversations As a result that bare-bones interface has become a trademark of the platform and a key part of its charm. Huffman acknowledges that Reddits users are quite protective over the platform, and that some may fear that a redesign will alter those elements that attract them to it today. People fear change, and we share their concern, because we love Reddit too, but in order to survive we need to evolve, so thats what were doing, Huffman told Fast Company during the Web Summit technology conference in Portugal last week. Im trying to set (users) expectations and get some feedback so I can adjust (our plans). In an effort to ease the transition, Reddit hasnt put many firm dates around the development and rollout of the redesign, allowing for additional testing and tweaking if necessary. advertisement Huffman says the redesign process began last spring with the team using a combination of data and intuition to create some initial prototypes and mock-ups, before they began gathering feedback from users. Weve got real users using it, and we keep expanding that pool of real users, he said. Weve got another big wave next week, and later this month or early December well allow people to opt-in and volunteer [to test it]. Though the website seeks to achieve the critical mass of other social platforms like Twitter and Facebook, Huffman doesnt really consider them competitors, nor does he fear Reddit is in danger of losing what makes it distinct from them. Our success doesnt have to come at the expense of someone else, we just try to build the best thing we can for our users, he said. I think theres room for people to be edgier [on Reddit than Facebook]. Related: Why Online Harassment Is Still Ruining LivesAnd How We Can Stop It advertisement Where the social media sites do overlap, however, is in the backlash theyve received in recent years for not doing enough to prevent cyberbullying, political interference by foreign governments, and allowing controversial viewpoints to spread through their platform. Reddit refined its content policy last week and is working to enforce those standards aggressively, according to Huffman. In accordance with that effort Reddit recently banned a number of controversial communities from the platform, including one that advocated violence against women and others used by neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups. Though previous attempts to rid the website of controversial content was met with backlash from some who called it an attack on free speech, a recent study by the Georgia Institute of Technology suggests the latest wave of bans have been successful in reducing hate speech on the platform overall. The new content policy defines the unwelcome content as anything that can be considered spam and illegal (such as unlicensed entertainment), involuntary pornography, anything that encourages or incites violence, personal or confidential information, or anything that misrepresents or impersonates others. Our content policy isnt long, but its crisp, said Huffman. That stuff we enforce aggressively, and were getting more and more effective at it over time; but those are behaviors, not beliefs. Huffman explains that while the website is becoming more vigilant in policing abusive and potentially dangerous behavior, its not up to them to censor the viewpoints expressed by its users, so long as they are in line with that content policy. advertisement I feel very strongly that you should be free to have beliefs and share them and talk about them, even if theyre offensive or not mainstream; sometimes because theyre not mainstream, he said. Im concerned that were in a political environment where Im hearing more and more conversations about policing what people can say and what beliefs are right and wrong, and I believe thats dangerous and contrary to the founding principals of the United States. Its a tough line to walk for a company that wants its users to feel like they can be free and unfiltered while still being friendly and welcoming to new users. As a result the redesign will seek to better identify various types of users and cater to their individual needs, rather than taking a one-size-fits-all approach. For example, regular users will continue to see the subreddits they follow on the home page, along with suggestions of new ones to consider, while new users will be greeted differently depending on their path of entry. For example, if you ask a question on Google and arrive to a comment page on Reddit, thats not the time to say Hey, we think youll like these other communities, youre in the middle of a chore, said Huffman. Thats very different than someone who just comes to check the site out to see whats going on, and well treat you very differently. Huffman predicts that the redesign will launch in the first quarter of 2018, but stresses that the site will continue to grow moving forward. Thats the whole point; now we have a platform on which we can evolve and continue to evolve, he said. Were not going to launch this and wait another five years to fix things again. I hope.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40493456/can-a-less-ugly-reddit-keep-its-loyal-users
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Does Visual Intelligence Equate To Actual Smarts?
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Not necessarily. A new study shows that visual ability is actually its own kind of intelligence thats entirely unrelated to IQ, and that people vary widely in how visually intelligent they are. That means that some peoples powers of observation are simply more developed, making them far better at tasks like matching fingerprints or interpreting X-raysor, say, being able to differentiate between slightly different typefaces or sense when the alignment of an interface element is just a bit off. The research, which was recently published in the journal Cognition, initially focused on how widely visual skills vary among people. Vanderbilt University professor Isabel Gauthier created a test to see how well people could identify objects theyve never seen before. Its hard to assess someones visual intelligence by showing them images of well-known objects like dogs and cats, because their ability depends mostly on how much experience the person has had with that object. So instead, Gauthier invented entirely new, computer-generated types of creatures, playfully called greebles, ziggerins, and sheinbugs. The pink greebles have rubbery protrusions in varying places, while ziggerins resemble wooden joints, and the sheinbugs look like, well, bugs, with lumpy bodies and a varying numbers of legs. Gauthier showed the study participants two of each of the three creature types. Then, she and her team presented each participant groups of three slightly different creatures, one of which theyd seen in the first part of the test and two of which were new, and asked them to identify which object was most familiar to them. More than 2,000 people took the test, and the results showed that if someone could pick out one greeble theyd seen before from a group of greebles, they did similarly well with ziggerins and sheinbugsdespite how different the pink creatures look from the others. In essence, someones ability to differentiate between greebles was an accurate predictor of their overall visual ability. The researchers also asked participants to take an IQ test, and they found that visual intelligence was independent from general intelligence. It is surprising because it is rare, Gauthier tells Co.Design in an email. General intelligence is by definition the common abilities that are relevant to a lot of different tasks, so it is pretty rare for an ability to be fairly independent from general intelligence. Gauthiers study didnt address how you might improve your visual ability, but she says that based on previous work, its likely that your high visual intelligence is based on a mix of genetic and environmental factors. She believes that her findings will enable better testing of visual intelligence, which would be useful in predicting peoples performance. For instance, maybe aspiring doctors should be asked to take a visual intelligence test, in addition to the MCAT.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90150899/does-visual-intelligence-equate-to-actual-smarts
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What Is It About Working At eBay That Makes Women Start Businesses?
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If youre looking to buy anything from an apple slicer to a zero turn mower, chances are good that youll find it (used or new) on eBay. And while you can type entrepreneur into the search bar and discover a plethora of pithy inspirational gear, you wont be able to find the secret sauce thats turned at least 15 women from eBay employees into successful startup founders. advertisement advertisement The massive marketplace captured attention not long ago for encouraging intrapreneurship so existing staff could innovate and create new ways to grow the business. However, when Fast Company talked to several of the former eBay employees-turned-entrepreneurs, we learned that there were other factors that inspired them to launch their own companies. Heres what they told us. Collaboration, Not Competition Two and a half years ago, Kristina Klausen, an eBay veteran of over 10 years, made the leap to start PandaTree, a language learning platform for children that allows them to talk via live video with a tutor using the companys proprietary language curriculum. The company has since raised $2 million in funding and doubled the number of customers quarter over quarter growth (although she declined to give exact figures). Klausen contends that spending over a decade in a variety of roles allowed her to build a formidable set of skills required to start a business. But she cites other reasons for the inspiration. One was [eBay founder] Pierre Omidyar, says Klausen, Its hard not to be inspired by his success. He wrote the site over a long weekend and grew it into a groundbreaking company. Klausen points out that eBay went on to create access to economic opportunities for entrepreneurs all over the world (Fashionphile and Nasty Gal are just two of the examples of how selling a few items on eBay grew into multi-million dollar operations) and Omidyars commitment to creating a level playing field always came through. This played into the idea for PandaTree because it would not only develop future global citizens, but it would also give tutors economic opportunities. The nature of having a marketplace [at eBay] was that it fostered real collaboration between employees, she recalls. That camaraderie extended into the early days of Klausens startup when she tapped other former colleagues knowledge and experience on everything from cracking Facebook marketing to refining her pitch. Klausen notes that while many of these female founders started businesses that cater to families, they are generally not in competition with each other. The other women have all been there, she says, so we help each other out. The Importance Of Curation Mauria Finley spent six years at eBay, three of which were at PayPal, where she led new ventures and the team that launched PayPal Mobile. She went on to lead the lifestyle shopping categories at eBay before moving to product management organization for the buyer-facing site. At eBay, my group had an amazing charter, Finley explains, our job was to think about each category of e-commerce and figure out how to win against Amazon. Although Finley knew it would be tough to match Amazon on price and convenience for commodities, she spied an opening for categories where consumers are looking for curation, help with discovery, and service. So when she thought about founding her own company, it was important to play to that competitive edge. At Citrus Lane, we offered a monthly box that introduced moms to great products for their kids, says Finley. The company grew quickly to $12 million in revenue and after three years was acquired by Care.com for $48.6 million. advertisement But the entrepreneurial itch was still strong, so Finley started Allume last month with $3 million investment led by True Ventures and angel investors she worked with at eBay and PayPal. We match busy women with personal shoppers who shop the entire internet to find them amazing clothes. Clients talk directly with their stylists via text messaging and clients are in control of what they order, she explains, We are a marketplace business model, not a subscription box model. Build And Lead Elena Krasnoperova worked at eBay Inc. for nine years between 2003-2010, and again in 2011-2012 after the company she joined was acquired by PayPal. Like the others, she held a variety of positions from business analytics to operations. Krasnoperova launched two businesses, both of which are still running. In 2014, she started SimplyCircle, a parent communication platform for schools used by more than 2,000 schools across the country. This past May she launched Calroo, a productivity app that helps busy parents coordinate their family schedules and logistics. Krasnoperova says she tapped her extensive professional network from eBay to raise capital for SimplyCircle. I also leveraged my eBay/PayPal network to recruit employees (the first three employees were all eBay/PayPal alums), she says. Although shes bootstrapping Calroo, Krasnoperova says shes leveraging her eBay network again to raise funding for the next phase of growth. My first three roles at eBay/PayPal all start with build and lead, Krasnoperova points out. As an intrapreneur, she was building teams from scratch to solve problems and find opportunities. When she returned to PayPal she was part of several of the companys firsts, including building the supply chain for PayPal Heres hardware and its first joint venture with Softbank. Even though eBay and PayPal were already very large and very successful companies when I worked there, the entrepreneurial (and intrapreneurial) spirit was very much alive, Krasnoperova notes. Executives like Simon Rothman, Jeff Jordan, Dana Stalder, Michael Dearing, and David Marcus empowered me to think and act as an entrepreneur, she recalls, so building my own companies was a natural transition. All About The Mission Stephanie Tilenius was at eBay for nine years between 2001-2010 and her last role was senior vice president of eBay Marketplaces, but she also spent time working at PayPal. We always said PayPal would be bigger than eBay someday and now its true, she observes, PayPal is now bigger than eBay, Goldman Sachs, and AMEX. After a short time at Google and KleinerPerkins, she started Vida in 2014. Her father had gotten sick and was dealing with four chronic conditions at once which Tilenius and her siblings were trying to help manage. I had a passion for IoT and mobile telehealth and couldnt help but think how these technologies could assist in helping someone like my father, she explains, Nothing like Vida existed, so I felt I had to build it. advertisement Maynard Webb, eBays COO, did invest as an angel early on, but Tilenius says that the $28 million of venture capital she raised didnt all come from within the eBay network. However, she too, notes that she felt like an entrepreneur within the organization during her time there as well as by the global community. I was inspired by the consumers and businesses that were using eBay to live out their dream, put their kids through college, make a living doing what they love, she says. I feel honored to continue in that tradition with Vida, where we are helping people transform their lives through better health. Tilenius says currently more than 40,000 individuals have used Vida to prevent, manage, or overcome their chronic conditions. Its all about the mission, she says, its what keeps me going. Networking Every Step Of The Way Ritu Narayan spent three and a half years as group product manager for the seller platform at eBay before she launched Zm in 2016. We are backed by Sequoia Capital, says Narayan, for which she also credits her eBay network for making investor introductions, as well as for recruiting and finding vendors and service providers. So far, according to Narayan, the business has grown 300% year over year and with a very capital efficient model of growth. She says that eBays culture of innovation, hackathons, and product demo days influenced her during her tenure. My choice [of business] was very largely influenced by my background in marketplaces at eBay and the impact I had seen it can make it at both the user and seller side, she observes. I used my experience to solve my own and 53 million families problem in the U.S.: how to find safe, reliable, and flexible rides for their children to schools and activities while still at work. Make A Meaningful Impact On Peoples Lives Lorna Borenstein can remember during her four years at eBay that she launched eBay Canada out of her guest room with a newborn. My parents were thrilled, she quips. A number of years after that she founded Grokker in 2012. The on-demand network allows employees to tap into wellness programs through video, experts, and community. The digital subscription service expanded to on-demand through leading cable-TV providers such as Comcast and Sky in the U.K. Led by a team that is half women today, Grokker is available as a total wellness solution for enterprise clients in 172 countries. I financed the first six months of Grokker and then reached out to individual investors I knew from my eBay days, including Josh Kopelman, who was a close friend from eBay and founded First Round Capital, and Vinod Khosla, who I met through an introduction in the early 2000s from Maynard Webb, eBays then-CTO, she explains. Although these introductions and connections helped Grokker raise $22.5 million, Borenstein says being part of a founder-led company was really inspiring. advertisement Back when I joined eBay, I was interviewed by cofounder Jeff Skoll, who was still working in the office every day, she recalls. His clear passion for the business he created, even after he had become a multi-billionaire, spoke volumes about what truly drives an entrepreneur: your personal vision for having a meaningful impact on improving peoples lives, says Borenstein. In eBays case, it was about democratizing commerce, she says, but in Grokkers case, it is about enabling physical and emotional well-being for all. Same driver, which is the impact on helping people, Borenstein says, but different application.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40494143/how-working-for-ebay-inspired-these-women-to-become-entrepreneurs
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Should Facebook Notify Readers When Theyve Been Fed Disinformation?
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Last week, YourNewsWire.com, a website that traffics in wild conspiracy theories, published a blog post falsely claiming that the gunman in the recent Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting was found to be a member of an anti-fascist group targeting white conservative churches. The post rapidly spread online while reputable fact-checking sites including Snopes and PolitiFact raced to debunk the story within 24 hoursbut not before it was shared more than 250,000 times on Facebook. advertisement advertisement The dynamic highlights a fundamental problem with fact-checking in the era of viral misinformation and disinformation disseminated on social media: Even when erroneous reporting is caught fast and disproven or corrected swiftly, theres no system in place to ensure the true story will ever reach the people who consumed or shared the false news in the first place. Facebooks efforts to resolve the issue have lately come under fire. Critics argue that the social networks solution, which involves third-party fact-checkers like PolitiFact and the Associated Press manually tagging questionable articles featured in News Feed with a disputed reporting label, is superficial and slow, a days-long process thats no match for the scale and speed of fake news. It also doesnt address the users who read the articles before they were flagged. That has left some, including Senators Mark Warner and Jack Reed, wondering whether Facebook and other tech companies like Twitter and Google ought to implement a farther-reaching fact-checking service that could notify users retroactively if they fall prey to disinformation. Senator Reed proposed the idea earlier this month at the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on Russias manipulation of the tech platforms during the 2016 election. Pressing Facebook general counsel Colin Stretch on whether the company feels an obligation to notify the 126 million (or more) people reached by ads and content from Kremlin-linked operatives and troll farms on Facebook, Reed asked if they had the technical skill to implement such a system. Senator Warner later compared the concept to a hospital that realizes it inadvertently exposed patients to a disease. The medical facility would have to tell the folks who were exposed, he said. (A public petition launched on Change.org last month also calls on Facebook to notify its American users if they were exposed to Russian propaganda; so far it has received more than 88,000 signatures.) It would be, Reed suggested, the social network equivalent of a newspaper correctiononly one that, with the tech companies expansive data, could actually reach its intended audience, like, say, the 250,000-plus Facebook users who shared the debunked YourNewsWire.com story. At first glance, it seems like an obvious, impactful band-aid to viral disinformation and misinformation. But as a number of experts in this field tell Fast Company, nothing about this issue is simple. At Facebooks scale, any technical solutioneven one as seemingly uncomplicated as a fact-check notifiercarries with it sweeping connotations, a reality that demonstrates just how intractable the fake news problem is for Silicon Valley. It would be great for people to know when they are exposed to false or misleading information, says PolitiFacts executive director Aaron Sharockman. Sure, in fact, Id imagine its pretty easy. In the Senate hearing, Facebooks Stretch indicated there would be substantial technical challenges associated with notifying users that theyve been subjected to disinformation. (The company has struggled to offer a definitive estimate of users impacted by Russian propaganda campaigns, and has been accused of deleting data useful to researchers trying to understand those efforts.) But generally speaking, its absolutely not technically difficult, says Krishna Bharat, a former research scientist at Google who led the search giants early News product efforts. Facebook, Twitter, and Google, after all, have built their businesses around tracking exactly what their users click. They are already telling users before they share [a disputed story]; they could equally tell you after its shared, Bharat continues. Frankly, its probably a little easier to do so after you shared it because [fact-checkers] would have more time to say it was disputed. ' When asked about Senator Reeds idea, a Facebook spokesperson declined to speculate on whether this type of fact-checking system would be technically feasible, contrary to Stretchs testimony. Were aware that there is still a lot of work to do and we are continuing to iterate with our fact-checking partners on multiple techniques, the spokesperson says. Theres no one-size-fits-all approach that works everywhere, which is why weve been working on a diverse range of potential solutions. Related: Instagram Played a Much Larger Role In Russias Propaganda Campaign In any case, its likely the company will have to leverage its technology and distribution channels more to scale its fact-checking efforts. Senator Reed was asking the right questions, says Arjun Hassard, a product head at Factmata, a London-based startup focused on developing AI-driven tools to reduce online misinformation. In his view, third-party fact-checking is only a part of the solution. To accelerate the process (Bloomberg recently reported Facebooks partners only have the resources to debunk a handful of stories per day), the big tech players will need to rely more on automation and machine learning to detect and dispute false news. I think manual fact-checkers are extremely well-intentioned and important, but they are dealing with a robust, complex, and evolving enemy, Hassard says. Ministry Of Truth Many observers, though, doubt the tech companies will ever go so far as to implement some sort of retroactive notification system or build similarly forceful fact-checking tools. One reason theyve outsourced the fact-checking process is because theyre wary of being perceived of as publishers; Facebook, Google, and Twitter claim theyre mere tech platforms, and thus are not liable for the content propagated on their services. The [tech] platforms are very hesitant to do anything manually because they know it doesnt scalethere is a cultural problem inside these companies in terms of doing any one-off fixes, says Bharat. Its a slippery slope where they would be forced to editorialize everything, and they dont like to editorialize anything. Once they start doing something manually in one context, they are going to be asked why they dont do more: Oh, what about this other context? They also worry about tinkering with things where they may be accused of political bias. advertisement In other words, they dont want to be seen as a 1984-style Ministry of Truth, dictating to the public whats real or not. Its not hard to imagine any number of fraught scenarios where it might appear that Big Facebook is acting as a not-impartial arbiter of truth. PolitiFacts Sharockman says he likes the idea of being able to reach affected users directly with facts but cautions that it would represent a pretty aggressive response from platforms like Twitter and Facebook and one that I think would be met with a lot of backlash from users. Others argue theres low-hanging fruit Twitter, Facebook, and Google could go after without causing too much hand-wringing. So as not to feel so intrusive, perhaps Facebook could experiment with an opt-in fact-checking notification system that allows users to choose from a list of fact-checking partners, who could send them, say, a monthly list of stories they clicked that the partners later disputed. Maybe Google could only warn users of the most egregiously false reportingthe content that crosses PolitiFacts Pants On Fire threshold, like a recent news story on YouTube about former President Barack Obama being arrested for smuggling drugs in Japan that went viral and has since racked up nearly 300,000 views. Or perhaps Twitter could devise a tool to enable a select group of reputable news organizations to amplify corrections to readers who clicked, retweeted, or favorited reports that were later retracted. Its an age-old problem on the platform, whereby the original post garners thousands of retweets compared to the fraction of attention the corrected tweet usually receives. Only recently, for example, reporters sent a story rocketing across Twitter that implied President Donald Trump committed a faux pas at a koi pond; when that turned out to be misleading, however, there was no way for the journalists to issue a correction that could reach all the users who continued to spread the now-debunked story across the network. (Spokespeople for Google and Twitter declined to comment for this story.) Bharat recommends another measure: find ways to buy fact-checkers more time to check the facts. Before a misleading story spreads too far across the social networks, Bharat suggests the tech companies could put triggers in place to flag a questionable story for human review, say, when it hits 10,000 shares online. If machines find warning signals in the contentlike evidence of hate speech or hyper-partisanship, or that the link is being shared by users or bots who have a history of spreading false newsat that point, I think they should take the foot off the gas pedal and slow this [sharing] down while its being checked, he says. In that way, ideally, PolitiFact could dispute the reporting long before a false story like YourNewsWire.coms on the Texas shooter ever reaches hundreds of thousands of shares. (Facebook has said links with this label cut future impressions by 80%.) Slow down the spread andif it turns out to be falsehit the brakes completely to make this thing disappear, Bharat says. The tech companies can do that. Badge Of Honor Even if some of these ideas were implemented, theres a greater concern for big organizations engaging with more fact-checking efforts: Rather than convincing users that a story is debunked, labeling it false might actually inversely give the article more credibility in some cases. That a story is disputed by Facebook or PolitiFact could become whats called a badge of honor among readers predisposed to believe in conspiracy theories like the Hillary Clinton Pizzagate story. advertisement More academic research is finding that what appear to be effective methods for combating mis- or disinformation may not be sothat calling it out as fake news very often cements it further and tends to give it more distribution among those inclined to buy into it due to personal biases, says a former Twitter executive familiar with the companys efforts on this front. Pushing a notification to users about disputed reporting, this exec adds, may only enhance this backfire effect. To counter this issue, researchers have recommended more consumer education around what fake news looks like, as well as more analysis of who the most effective messengers are to deliver fact-checked contentwhat one academic study calls ideologically compatible sources. That is, rather than Facebook promoting a fact-check label or notification, it might resonate more with some people if Fox News delivers a clarification on Pizzagate, just as it would likely be more digestible for others if MSNBC issued a correction on the Trump-koi pond faux-controversy. Or, better yet could be like receiving either bit of information from a trusted friend. Whats been found again and again, says the former Twitter exec, is that peer shame is a really effective way of getting someone to back off from engaging with or redistributing misinformation or fake news. Related: Alphabets Eric Schmidt On Fake News, Russia, And Information Warfare Indeed, among some groups inside Twitter, the hope (or fantasy) is that users will self-police. As Twitter acting general counsel Sean Edgett said in response to Senator Reeds questioning on this topic, the real-time dialogue happening on the social network can combat a lot of this false and fake information right away, so when youre seeing the tweets [with misinformation or disinformation], youre also seeing a number of replies showing people where to go, where other information is thats accurate. Facebook, too, has explored ways to promote user-generated content that expresses disbelief about news stories, albeit with mixed results. Still, regardless of whether these types of solutions could be more aggressively rolled out, a larger question remains over whether any of them will actually sway user sentiment around false news. But some observers believe its important for the tech companies to keep transparently testing new ideas, even versions of the one Senator Reed proposed, not only to learn what does work but also to continue studying in the process why and how certain news stories manipulate public opinion. Most of the solutions that the tech companies would readily leap to may actually make the problem worse than better, the former Twitter exec says. Still, this source adds, better for them to keep pushing ahead with experiments, even if not all of their solutions prove sustainable or scalable. Its a start, this person says. Take the low-hanging fruit first.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40495447/should-facebook-notify-readers-when-theyve-been-fed-disinformation
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Where will 2020 Democratic National Convention be held?
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Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton acknowledges the crowd at the end on the fourth day of the Democratic National Convention at the Wells Fargo Center, July 28, 2016 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) The "when" has already been decided for the 2020 Democratic National Convention, but the "where" remains up in the air. The Democrats will gather from July 13-16 in 2020 to officially nominate their candidate for president, but its just a matter of whether the convention will be held in Houston, Miami or Milwaukee. The Republicans have already chosen Charlotte, North Carolina as the host city for their convention from Aug. 24-27, 2020. All candidate cities are required to have at least 15,000 hotel rooms within a 20-minute drive of the convention area and ideal plans for transportation and security. Heres a breakdown of each citys bid to host the Democratic convention in 2020. Houston Why it should be chosen as host The facilities are spacious and outstanding, from the gleaming Toyota Center as the main site to the George R. Brown Convention Center. Two massive international airports help the case for Houston, as well. Houston also hosted the 1992 Republican National Convention and regularly plays host to some major sporting events. Not only that, but visitors would need to be prepared to sweat, considering the mid-July heat. Miami Why it should be chosen as host Theres nothing like the appeal of beaches, yachts on the ocean, palm trees and luxury hotels. Theres no shortage of all that in Miami. Just like Houston, the facilities arent too shabby, either, with American Airlines Arena and the Miami Beach Convention Center being good modern venues. Why it shouldnt July is the heart of hurricane season in Florida, and even if that doesnt pose a threat, the hot and humid summer temperatures wont be comfortable. In addition, the vote of rural America was a big reason why President Donald Trump won in 2016, and Democrats might want a site that appeals more to middle-class voters as a measure, even if it's a small one, to prevent a repeat of that happening. Milwaukee Why it should be chosen as host Milwaukee has never hosted a major party convention, so you can bet the city would be excited and ready to roll out the red carpet. With it being summer, the cooler weather actually gives Milwaukee an advantage over Houston and Miami. A brand-new arena, the Fiserv Forum, opened last year and would be used as the main site. There is also the element of Milwaukee being in the blue-collar Midwest, which could present a nice look to middle-class voters. Why it shouldnt While there are enough hotel rooms to make a bid, Milwaukee doesnt have quite the quantity and quality of options Houston and Miami boast. The Democrats also might prefer a more traditionally glamorous city for their big moment. Let us know below! Graham Media Group 2019
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https://www.clickorlando.com/news/politics/where-will-2020-democratic-national-convention-be-held
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Can Puerto Rico Be The Model For A Renewables-Powered Energy System?
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In the small Puerto Rican town of Loza, after Hurricane Maria took out the power grid, residents started washing clothes in a local riverfilled with bacteria that then made many people sick. But at a local church, a new solar microgrid now powers donated laundry machines, along with a refrigerator for food and medicine and outlets for charging phones. The microgrida combination of solar panels, battery storage, and other equipment, completed last weekis one of 15 that the battery-storage company Sonnen is rapidly deploying with partners over the next several weeks to respond to the disaster on the island, which is still mostly without power more than a month after the hurricane. Like another microgrid that Tesla is building next to a childrens hospital in San Juan, its a renewable alternative to the diesel generators that are also in use. But its also one piece of what could become a much more renewably powered grid for the entire island. The case for a shift to more renewables seems clear. Sunshine is more abundant in the Caribbean than in California or Spain. The amount of wind is competitive with states like Texas, which leads the U.S. in wind energy production. New renewable energy is affordable to build, and could help cut electric bills in a place where residents have been paying twice as much as Americans who live on the mainland. Still, the local utility has resisted solar and wind in the past. A renewable energy law passed in 2010 required Puerto Rico to get 12% of its electricity from renewable sources by 2015; That year, the utility was only at around 3%. They were flagrantly out of compliance, says Cathy Kunkel, an energy consultant for the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis. The utility, which was also heavily in debt, was pushing to invest millions in natural gas instead. But the hurricane may have altered that direction. I think one of the things that has changed dramatically as a result of the hurricane is an interest by private solar developers in getting into Puerto Rico, she says. That interest from private capital in getting involved is one of the crucial pieces towards shifting the political landscapes in Puerto Rico around this issue . . . [the utility] has not been able to attract private capital for its investment plans, and so now the fact that there are private solar interests that are coming in and attempting to assist with the rebuilding could make a huge difference. Sonnen made its plans to help the island as Hurricane Maria approached. Through a newly formed foundation, the company is funding microgrids to power key serviceslike the laundry machinesin locations that most need help. It wants to build a couple of hundred of the microgrids across the island. In the next natural disaster that happens, thats pretty inevitable, the bottom line would be that you would have this more resilient humanitarian footprint that is pretty much ready for people to go to, says Blake Richetta, senior vice president and head of U.S. operations for Sonnen. They would know theres a microgrid at this church, this community center . . . and they could go get whatever they need: food, water, medicine, clean clothes.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40490241/can-puerto-rico-be-the-model-for-a-renewables-powered-energy-system
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Could The iPhone Xs Most Inane Feature Actually Be Its Best?
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Some may point to Apples devoted fans. If Apple started calling Phil Schillers socks Bionic Skins and released a video of Jony Ive waxing lyrical about their aeronautics-grade wool, Apple fans would buy them. (In fact, Apple already did something like this.) But there are only so many fanboys in the world capable of sinking $1,000 on this fragile glass sham. Others may argue that the key to the iPhone Xs predicted success is the natural iPhone upgrade cycle. A Morgan Stanley report published by BGR predicts that in 2018, Apple will ship 262 million iPhones on strong replacement demand. Of those, the analysts estimate 47% will be the iPhone X. Indeed, 122 million OLED glass sandwiches is a lot. But still, even if we believe these projections, the majority of the upgrades will go to other iPhoneslike the more sensible option, the iPhone 8. Apples diehard fans and the ebb and flow of the upgrade cycle may be factors, but Im going to put all my chips on the feature that I think will make the iPhone X not only a success among the fanboys and the upgraders, but perhaps even among many Android users: those stupid animoji. Yes, the thing everyone laughed about at the keynote: Apple has an exclusive proposition in this silly featurea feature that all kids and many adults secretly love, as The Verge declared this week. A Google Search returns 2.9 million entries on animoji, with 133,000 in the last week alone, and hundreds of thousands of news articles. Were addicted to it, says the site Popsugar. Silicon Beat calls it viral gold. On Reddit, hundreds agree that you shouldnt buy an iPhone X because animoji will ruin your life. Theres a whole Animoji Karaoke subreddit. People are recreating famous movie scenes with the technology. On the other side of the smartphone divide, dozens of fake animoji apps have appeared overnight, trying to scam envious Android users who are frantically searching for an animoji app after being exposed to the ongoing animoji viral wildfire. Theyre out of luck. While Samsung and other Android manufacturers race to clone a similar 3D camera technology, all of those Android users will have to wait or switch to iPhone X. As animoji spread from screen to screen, they may go from being a novelty to an object of desirethe Next Big Thing. It wouldnt be the first time that a piece of software has made all the difference; killer apps have helped launch new hardware before. Several killer apps saved the Apple Macintosh from destruction and catapulted it into success back in the late 1980namely Word, QuarkXpress, and Photoshop. The IBM PC became the number-one personal computer in the world arguably because of WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3. The iPhone itself debuted with three killer apps (Mail, Safari, and iPod) that made it the must-have smartphone regardless of its much-reviled lack of keyboard. While its hard to compare animoji to these genuinely useful pieces of software, consumer-facing apps are increasingly important drivers. You could argue Instagram was a killer app for two years, the time between its first iOS and Android releases. Android users coveted it badly. The same thing happened with Snapchat after it debuted on iOS in July 2011envious fandroids bit their nails for more than a year before it hit their phones.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90150300/could-the-iphone-xs-most-inane-feature-actually-be-its-best
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Can A New Model Of Apprenticeships Save Whats Left Of The California Dream?
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By Here is a novel ideaapprenticeships. These were used for decadesuntil the unions killed them offeither pay dues to a union or you could not learn a vocation. Now, we may be forced to go back to training those for whom a mediocre college education is worthless. Be carefulthis is NOT about training workersit is about unions getting money. The passing of AB 235 allows for the establishment of a new form of apprenticeships in the state of California. While maintaining the current criteria for traditional trades, the bill will establish a new pathway for apprenticeship programs in industries such as healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and Information Technology. Industries that are continuously developing and upgrading are prime for work-based learning. The bill also calls for the formation of the Interagency Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship (IACA). The IACA, which will be under the Division of Apprenticeship Standards, is being created to provide direct guidance on the new apprenticeship programs. The overall purpose of the advisory committee will be to determine the standards, agreements, as well as pre-apprenticeship, certification, and on-the-job training/retraining programs pertaining to the new apprenticeships. You can be assured the unions will control the processget tax dollars to run these programs, then force workers to pay dues if they want to work. It is just another scam. Apprenticeships are neededleave the corruption out of the process. Peter Ortiz , Forbes, 1/25/19 The once healthy middle class in the state of California is currently on life support. Formerly a bastion of social mobility, the Golden State is currently experiencing high levels of income disparity and a lack of opportunity. California ranks 4th in the nation for highest income inequality . Forty percent of our states households struggle to afford a roof over their heads . This has resulted in a mass exodus of working-class families who have historically called the west coast their home. Despite the need for new talent, access to middle-income careers in the states profitable tech industry continues to be inaccessible to many young adults. A disconnect between the skillset of the states workforce and the needs of the local industry has created a skills gap. Current trends show that California will confront a serious skills gap by 2030 with a shortfall of 1.1 million workers with the skills needed to meet economic demand. Our state leaders are very aware of this disconnect and have passed Assembly Bill 235 (AB 235) to create a pathway to 21st-century careers through apprenticeships in emerging industries. The passing of AB 235 allows for the establishment of a new form of apprenticeships in the state of California. While maintaining the current criteria for traditional trades, the bill will establish a new pathway for apprenticeship programs in industries such as healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and Information Technology. Industries that are continuously developing and upgrading are prime for work-based learning. The bill also calls for the formation of the Interagency Advisory Committee on Apprenticeship (IACA). The IACA, which will be under the Division of Apprenticeship Standards, is being created to provide direct guidance on the new apprenticeship programs. The overall purpose of the advisory committee will be to determine the standards, agreements, as well as pre-apprenticeship, certification, and on-the-job training/retraining programs pertaining to the new apprenticeships. Research firm Gartner reports that by 2020, 75 percent of organizations will experience visible business disruptions due to [infrastructure and operations] skills gaps, which is an increase from less than 20 percent in 2016. In order for Opportunity Youth young adults who are out of school and out of work to become a source of entry-level talent, Californias education and workforce systems must be more responsive to employer demand. Private sector internship, apprenticeship, and pre-apprenticeship models successfully focus on employment training on a specific job or set of skills, thereby meeting the precise needs of the labor market. Many evolving industries are particularly suited to worksite-based learning because skills needed by those industries involve usage of expensive equipment that requires constant upgrading. Through investment in work-based education, individuals will have a skill set aligned with the needs of the jobs. Apprenticeships have long served as a pathway to the middle class for traditional blue-color workers. In fact, apprenticeship is increasingly seen as a way to promote access and equity for women and people of color in new and developing industries. The same could be true in Californias economy. By combining both in-class study and on-the-job training, apprenticeship programs develop quality professionals in an array of different industries and professions in an efficient and cost-effective way. Apprenticeship programs have also shown to have a greater return on investment for employers such as reduced recruiting cost, a more predictable and reliable supply of skilled labor, improved employee retention, and improved employee productivity. Similarly, apprenticeship graduates earn substantially more over a career than their counterparts who did not complete an apprenticeship. There are several benefits to an apprenticeship pipeline for young adults. In industries of innovation, employers have long sought out young talent because they bring new energy and ideas to the workplace. According to a study on the topic of age diversity in the workplace, having multiple generations on staff directly results in a larger knowledge base. This, in turn, has a positive impact on overall company performance. By developing, and operating training programs that are focused on the recruitment and success of opportunity youth, we can begin to prepare for an aging workforce that is getting ready to retire, while closing a skills gap that would otherwise result in economic stagnation . The success of Californias new apprenticeship model rests greatly on the merit of the appointed members to the Interagency Advisory Committee on Apprenticeships. The committee will be filled by ex-officio members of the state department as well as six individuals appointed by the Secretary of Labor and Workforce Development. The committee will advise the chief of apprenticeships on issue, rules, and regulations that establish minimum wages, maximum hours, and working conditions for apprenticeship agreements in non-building trades. It is vital that there is a voice on the committee that will advocate for Opportunity Youth and communities that have traditionally not been represented in the targeted industries. Without careful consideration and an advocate for inclusion, this new model of apprenticeships can easily be made inaccessible to the many Californians that need it the most. Despite Californias current skills gap, our state has been able to establish itself as a hub of innovation in the country with a Gross Domestic Product of $2.7 trillion . The fact that the leaders in our state have come together to build this new form of apprenticeships displays their desire to do whats right for the many Opportunity Youth of California. It is important that leaders of industry, non-profit, and the public sector collaborate to address disconnect in our workforce and employment systems. Only through intentional policy solutions can we build an economy that truly works for all.
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http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/can-a-new-model-of-apprenticeships-save-whats-left-of-the-california-dream/
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Will car-loving Angelenos say yes to congestion pricing?
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By Triple taxation is the goal of the government of Los Angeles. Buy gas for your car and pay a tax. Pay off transportation bonds and pay a tax. Now they are looking at charging you to drive your car only at the hours government allowsand if not, pay a high fee to get to work. Of course, this pushes people out of the area and out of State. We know that if this gets started, the rest of California will followthink it is expensive nowwait till they TRIPLE charge you for driving your car. Might as well give in and call yourself a Texan. Metro CEO Phil Washington has floated congestion pricing in LA County as one way to fund transit projects that are already planned under Measure M but need to be sped up in time for the 2028 Olympic Games. He and transportation expert Michael Manville join DnA to explain congestion pricing, how its applied and whether its viable in a region where alternative options are limited and Angelenos assume a right to drive. Manville tells DnA that congestion pricing is the only proven way to alleviate traffic woes because it addresses what really is the root cause of traffic congestion, and the root cause of traffic congestion is that the price to drive on busy roads at busy times is too low to the drivers. This also adds to the high cost oif doing business in Californiaforcing companies to move out of State as well. This is a great way to assure California stays in a PERMANENT RECESSION. Hosted by Frances Anderton , KCRW, 1/22/19 We are talking about congestion pricing. Thats a fee charged to drivers on peak routes at peak times. It is meant to encourage people to drive at other times or to use public transit and other ways of getting around. Metro CEO Phil Washington has floated congestion pricing in LA County as one way to fund transit projects that are already planned under Measure M but need to be sped up in time for the 2028 Olympic Games. He and transportation expert Michael Manville join DnA to explain congestion pricing, how its applied and whether its viable in a region where alternative options are limited and Angelenos assume a right to drive. Manville tells DnA that congestion pricing is the only proven way to alleviate traffic woes because it addresses what really is the root cause of traffic congestion, and the root cause of traffic congestion is that the price to drive on busy roads at busy times is too low to the drivers. He explains the economics of it in human terms: Right now somewhere in Los Angeles County there is someone on their way to give birth who is being slowed down by someone on their way to buy potato chips. LA Metro chief Phil Washington explains how he would implement the charge; he responds to the criticism that it is a regressive tax and to whether it might be premature in a region that has such limited alternative ways of getting around. When asked how hell handle the backlash from Angelenos for whom driving is completely embedded in the lifestyle here, he says: Doing nothing is not an option here. Its not an option. We can continue to do nothing and have the reputation of L.A. County all over the world as just a congestion dead zone. And, he adds, there will be headwinds. There will be people opposing what we are proposing here. But leadership is dangerous.
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http://www.capoliticalreview.com/capoliticalnewsandviews/will-car-loving-angelenos-say-yes-to-congestion-pricing/
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Could another tech bubble be about to burst?
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There were many disconnects between last weeks World Economic Forum and the real world. One of the most notable was the techno-optimism displayed by many participants, which was in sharp contrast to what the markets themselves are expecting from the technology sector this year. The coming spate of initial public offerings in particular looks shaky. Ubers chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi was all over Davos, talking up the companys forthcoming initial public offering. But the talk had a whiff of desperation. Uber, along with Lyft and a host of other large, still-private tech companies such as Slack and Airbnb, are likely to try to go public sooner rather than later not only because of worries about a coming recession and volatile markets, but because they have grown so fat on private funding, it is unclear whether the market will be able to sustain their valuations. (Ubers, for example, is pegged at $100bn.) They want to get their money while the getting is good. It is a situation that is both similar, and not, to the dotcom boom and bust that occurred at the turn of the century. Back then, I was working in venture capital in London. Companies like the now-defunct, LVMH-backed online retailer boo.com the pets.com of Europe were spending millions on glossy ads, and would-be entrepreneurs were trolling for easy money at First Tuesday networking events. Then, as now, we were at the late stages of a credit cycle, with too much money chasing too little value. And then, like now, investors were counting on a spate of hot IPOs to pour a little more kerosene on markets that were clearly over-inflated. We all know how that ended, on both sides of the Atlantic. That is not to say that there wasnt value created then, as there has been now. For every unsuccessful dog food retailer or expensive T-shirt purveyor that went out of business in the dotcom bust, there were miles of broadband cable laid, which created the infrastructure that companies such as Google now capitalise on. Today, the sharing economy has markets and conveniences where before there were none. The real difference between the two eras is in the capital markets themselves. Venture money collapsed post-2000, came back up, fell again after the financial crisis, then rebounded to record levels after 2014. The number of new start-ups has proliferated. Yet the number of IPOs has fallen. This is due to a paradox while technology has made starting a company cheaper, becoming a success is now more expensive. That is because of an arms race to build the next unicorn start-up, one with a market capitalisation of over $1bn. As University of California academics Martin Kenney and John Zysman put it in a forthcoming paper on the shifts in start-up funding, entitled Unicorns, Cheshire Cats, and the New Dilemmas of Entrepreneurial Finance, start-ups are each trying to ignite the winner-take-all dynamics through rapid expansion characterised by breakneck and almost invariably money-losing growth, often with no discernible path to profitability. Over the past five or so years, theres been a massive growth in the number of venture-capital-backed unicorns. Companies such as Uber, Lyft, Spotify, and Dropbox can lose money hand over fist, and yet still continue to grow in valuation. Indeed, it is all part of the new business dynamic. Low barriers to entry result in many competitors and a race to spend as much as possible to grab market share. Not only do the private companies that emerge from this unproductive cycle become bloated, so too do the venture funds themselves. Billion-dollar venture funds, once unheard of, are now commonplace. Last year, Sequoia raised an $8bn seed fund, and SoftBank a whopping $100bn fund. Big, of course, begets big. As more and more heavyweight VCs bid up the value of start-ups, others have to follow. Its up or out. The result has been not only a new bubble in IPO markets, but the undercutting of a host of public companies that actually have to worry about profits. The classic examples would be Ubers disruption of the taxi industry, or Airbnbs of hotels. This may be good for some of the VCs who can use the inflated values of unicorns on their books to raise more money and charge more management fees. But I cant see how it is good for economic value overall. Massive debt financing of unprofitable firms to create monopolies might benefit some entrepreneurs and investors, but it distorts capital and labour markets and is anti-competitive. As long as investors are willing to accept growth as a metric for value, the music can keep playing. But as the University of California academics note, unicorns are mythical beasts. This year, their financial reality, as well as the sustainability of the current funding model, will be subject to some much-needed testing. Some of the new crop of hyped-up companies may eventually turn into Cheshire cats, disappearing and leaving behind only the grins of those who got out before the bubble burst. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2019
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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/markets/could-another-tech-bubble-be-about-to-burst-1.3773072?localLinksEnabled=false
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What Happens When Land Is More Expensive Than The Buildings On Top?
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Its often said that cities like San Francisco and New York are expensive because they lack housing. Lots of people want to move there to live and work, which pushes up prices. But this argument isnt completely accurate. The cost of housing is also a reflection of the way cities do and dont allow new development, economists say. Between 1980 and 2010, San Franciscos housing prices surged by roughly 200%. Partly that was because the city put aside only 30% more land for new buildings over that time (much less than more expansive places). In the name of preservation and character, San Francisco resisted changing its fundamental design pattern. Rather than building higher and filling in available space (densifying), it largely maintained its traditional low-rise look-and-feel. Issi Romem, chief economist at BuildZoom, a construction marketplace, points out that the Bay Area actually has plenty of space to build if it wanted it. He estimates that 75 to 100 million people could live in the metro region, if it adopted the same people-per-mile density of Manhattan or Paris. Romem argues that high land prices are reflective of restrictive zoning that reduces affordability. In cities like San Francisco and San Jose, the cost of constructing houses is relatively small compared to the cost of acquiring the underlying dirt. High home value to replacement cost ratios are a good indication that the housing supply is restricted, meaning that people who are willing and able to pay enough to support new housing construction are being excluded by limits on density, Romem writes in a blog post. Property values in San Francisco are roughly three times the cost of replacing just the home sitting on the land, according to Romems analysis of dozens of metro areas. Most of the value is in the terra firma, not the woodwork.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40487403/what-happens-when-land-is-more-expensive-than-the-buildings-on-top
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Can A Pay-By-The-Minute Gym App Make Memberships History?
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Admit it. Your daily gym routine can get, well, boring. Same machines, same sauna, same sweaty guy who refuses to wipe down the treadmill. advertisement advertisement A new app called POPiN is helping fitness buffs mix it up by giving them pay-per-minute access to gyms outside their health club plans. For POPiN CEO Dalton Han, the idea was rooted in his own passion for working out and the desire to get a piece of the sharing ecnomy. ' the former app consultant recalls. Consumers could already get day passes, sans the commitment, he knew. But at $30-$50 for the average 45-minute workout, theyve never been popular. With technology, we can really make it frictionless to walk into a health club, Han tells Fast Company. I knew there has to be a better design, a better way to do this. Its with that mind-set that Han cofounded POPiN. The Apple and Android app allows customers to access premium membership-only health clubs and pay just for the minutes spent on premises. As the website asserts, We work out of multiple spaces, on multiple projects, and have virtual access to everyone, everywhere. It is time for workouts to keep up with our hectic lifestyles. advertisement Popping into one of our favorite locations for an afternoon workout. @mercedesclubnyc has INCREDIBLE facilities, but don't just take our word for it. Download POPiN to access to this exclusive club and see for yourself! A post shared by Popin (@popinnyc) on Jul 20, 2017 at 1:19pm PDT POPiN launched in mid-July with four luxe New York City health clubs, including the 80,000-square-foot Mercedes Club and exclusive CompleteBody in the Financial District. These are bright, airy clubs with sleek retractable-roof pools, indoor basketball courts, jacuzzis, and spacious spasthe kind of places that can command $200-a-month memberships. Han, along with cofounder and COO Austin Cohen, say their app is meant to complement and add variety to ones workout schedulebe it strength training, cardio, or relaxationnot necessarily replace standard memberships. Fitness aficionados already have similar apps to choose from an la carte menu of various boutique classes (ClassPass), and at-home training convenience (Peloton), but POPiN aims to get them back to the gym itself. The appeal of gyms over boutique classes is the free access to equipment as well as timingyou can show up whenever you likewhereas classes are at specific times and charge penalties for cancellations. advertisement Were looking to create an environment that not only makes it more affordable, accessible, and convenient [to use gyms] but really enables people to fit fitness into their daily lives instead of having to structure their daily lives around that [fitness] schedule that theyre locked into, explains Cohen. Ther International Health, Racquet & Sportsclub Association reports that cost is the No. 1 reason non-gym members cite for not joining, while 44% of former members cite cost for why they left. Second to cost is actual use: Only half of members go on a regular basis. The guilt of an unused gym membershipor as some call it, the gym donationis what often spurs many members to throw in the towel altogether. The Washington Post cited a study of nearly 8,000 gym members that found that the average member paid an average of more than $17 per visit if they were actually splitting their membership per use. With POPiN, users pay between 15 and 26 per minute. A 45-minute workout comes to around $8the cost of a fast food meal, says Dalton. Users simply check in at a gyms front desk, where the concierge accounts for the time they start and the time they finish. Then, much like the Uber app, a meter reflects how many minutes are spent, followed by a charge and receipt. The gym splits the fee with POPiN, which takes 20%. We figured out a way to allow consumers to access and utilize beautiful workout spaces whenever they want without a membership or commitment, Dalton says. Were really offering a lifestyle here and not just a treadmill, if you will. advertisement In the coming year, POPiN plans on expanding to more metro areasspecifically on the West Coastonce the team receives further feedback from New York City users. The startup has an angel investor, but intends to raise more money this fall. Of course, an app that offers a per-minute alternative to membership seems undoubtedly unappealing to most gym franchises. As Han explains, We had to do some work to make the gyms understand what we were doing. He did so by pointing out that most health clubs are virtually empty during the day, and often even during peak hours. Perfect day for an afternoon dip at Mercedes Club! Only POPiN let's you fast pass your way into the best health clubs New York has to offer. #POPiN A post shared by Popin (@popinnyc) on Jul 31, 2017 at 2:31pm PDT Were not against membership, Han clarifies, were just catching a market that they are not targeting. The cost-effective solution also offers gyms the ability to potentially lure commitment phobes toward a membership should they enjoy their stay, thereby coming full circle. advertisement Theres also, as Cohen points out, the non-member dollars spent on campus: Most will buy a smoothie at the juice bar, a T-shirt at the shop, or a massage at the spa. Its getting additional people in the doormaking money off of thatwith the potential to then upsell them membership, says Cohen. For gyms in this day and era where you know the landscape is changing so quickly and new boutique gyms are popping up on every cornerits a fantastic opportunity to make themselves competitive.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40465730/can-a-pay-by-the-minute-gym-app-make-memberships-a-thing-of-the-past
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Will Kevin Spaceys Awful Response To Harassment Claims Inspire More LGBTQ People To Name Names?
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In the first days after the Harvey Weinstein scandal broke earlier this month, a surprising voice joined the chorus of sexual assault survivors: actor and former NFL linebacker Terry Crews. He detailed, in a series of tweets , the story of a Hollywood executive groping his genitals at an event in 2016. It was a stark reminder that sexual harassment and assault are an industry-wide problem (in every industry) that crosses all genders and orientations. For the most part, Crewss story has been the only high-profile allegation about a man, from a man, and Crews never revealed the executives identity. The focus has seldom strayed from the parade of actresses going public with disturbing stories about Weinstein and director James Toback. (And Amazons Roy Price. And Lionsgates Andrew Kramer. And on and on.) Perhaps thats about to change. Last night, BuzzFeed published a story in which actor Anthony Rapp alleged that Kevin Spacey made a sexual advance when Rapp was 14 years old. Hours later, Spacey responded with a statement that did not deny the alleged behavior, but did confirm long-standing rumors of his homosexuality. As many have pointed out, Spaceys statement conflates being gay with being a pedophile and insinuates that being drunk is an excuse for pedophile predation. This line of thinking reinforces and validates some of the more unfounded and damaging views held by homophobesnamely, that all gay men are child predators. Several people, including Dan Savage and Wanda Sykes, have also accused Spacey of using his coming out as a way of deflecting attention from the seriousness of Rapps accusations. The statements only saving grace is that it is so off-putting, in so many ways, that it might spur others to action. It could be the story that inspires more LBGT survivors to come forward with stories of abuseand shed light on how show business treats young talent. Although former child star Corey Feldman has been vocal about the urgency of investigating pedophilia in Hollywood, there has been a dearth of prominent voices joining him. It could be the perceived stigma of having this dark chapter of their lives out in full view of the public, or the fear that no one will believe them. (Both of which are fears that all the women accusing Weinstein and other predators have had to overcome.) Rapps courageous revelation should send a signal to other victims that the world is ready to listen to them.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40488682/will-kevin-spaceys-awful-response-to-harassment-claims-inspire-more-men-to-name-names
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Can public C of E services be defended?
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Paul Hurt Providence Road, Sheffield, S6 According to the British Social Attitudes Survey, affiliation with the Church of England (C of E) has never been lower in all age groups: it amounts to only 2 per cent of young adults. I attend the event in the city centre or at Weston Park. Like ones throughout the country, it takes the form of a C of E service. We attend to remember the fallen, to show gratitude for their sacrifice, to show gratitude and appreciation for present members of the armed forces, not to witness a C of E service. Sometimes, a decline in support for an organisation is unfair, but not in this case. There are and have been many, many exceptional C of E members but the catalogue of C of E failings is long. Edward Wightman was the last person in this country to be burned alive for heresy. He had denied the Trinity and questioned the status of the Church of England. The C of E still remembers and celebrates John Calvin, who denounced Michael Servetus (also burned alive after denying the Trinity). The Bishop of Sheffields doctoral thesis was on the subject of John Calvin! The C of E remembers and celebrates to this day St Augustine, who actually taught that unbaptised babies are in hell. A large number of Anglicans believe in hell, of course, although not for unbaptised babies. I understand that the Bishop of Sheffield has evangelical beliefs, with a conservative tendency. Perhaps he may be able to comment on this doctrine, perhaps on John Calvin as well.
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https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/your-say/can-public-c-of-e-services-be-defended-1-9560350
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Can Alphabets Jigsaw Solve Googles Most Vexing Problems?
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Jared Cohen, the CEO of Jigsaw, surveyed the craggy valley from the back of a gray SUV as it wound toward the Khyber Pass, the mountainous roadway connecting Afghanistan and Pakistan that had become a hotbed of Islamic extremism. The arid landscape was beautiful, but Cohen, who is Jewish and was raised in an affluent Connecticut suburb, knew the excursion was risky. This was his fourth visit to Pakistan. Colleagues had told Cohen he was insane for goinghis ransom insurance wouldnt protect him against the frequent roadside bombs in the areabut hed still decided to take a 12-hour flight to Dubai, where he caught a connection to Lahore and drove to Islamabad and then on to Peshawar, in the north of Pakistan. At the direction of Pakistans former foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar, Cohens host, they rode in one car, with a security detail following a short distance behind to avoid attracting undo attention. advertisement advertisement Around noon, they pulled into a village compound, where Cohen, 35, donned a robe and turban, and for the next four hours immersed himself in Pashtun issues. Through Rabbani Khars connections, he was able to meet with tribal leaders, clerics, smugglers, survivors of drone strikesanyone who could help him better grasp the challenges crippling the region. A Rhodes Scholar and former State Department policy wonk who worked under Condoleezza Rice and Hillary Clinton, Cohen is fluent in Swahili and has journeyed to 103 countries, often amid turmoil. Once, according to Cohen, he snuck into eastern Congo by hiding in a truck under a pile of bananas during the Great War of Africa. He tells me hes been kicked out of Syria twice, and mentions he cant go back to Cairo after conspiracy theories arose suggesting that he had a hand in the 2011 Egyptian revolution. A self-described investigative anthropological researcher, Cohen was in Pakistan acting as an attach for Jigsaw, the Alphabet subsidiary that defines itself as an incubator building tools to make the world safer. It evolved out of Google Ideas, an internal think tank Cohen cofounded in 2010 with Eric Schmidt, the former Google CEO and current Alphabet executive chairman, to address geopolitical challenges with technology. Facebook and Twitter helped spread free expression during the Arab Spring, and yet social media is also being used to disseminate messages of hate, with terrorist attacks coordinated on WhatsApp and beheadings aired on YouTube. If theres one core tenet of Cohens philosophy, its that you cant solve these problems from behind a MacBook. Google prides itself on data and AIand Jigsaw does as wellbut Cohens company also leverages anecdotes and human intelligence to inform its products. Cohen and team have ventured to Iraq to interview ISIS defectors to learn about the groups online messaging tactics, and to Macedonia to meet with trolls who traffic in social media disinformation. With Alphabets engineering resources, Jigsaw translates this research into internet tools that combat hate speech, detect fake news, and defend against cyberattacks. Cohens eight-day visit to Pakistan in December provided firsthand insights into what methods extremists are now using to recruit new members online, which Jigsaw aims to circumvent using targeted advertising to counter terrorist propaganda. The trip also gave him a valuable network of new contacts, who were impressed an American business executive trekked so far despite the safety risks. You have to be willing to show up, Cohen tells me one day at a garden near his Manhattan apartment. To them, Im no longer some random person in the tech sectorIm the guy who ate a lamb shank on their blanket five minutes from the AfPak border. Although Cohens mission sounds philanthropic, Jigsaw operates as a business, no different from any of Alphabets moonshots. Yet Cohen says theres no stress on the group to generate a profit. For now, its value to the enterprise is the ancillary benefits of protecting Googles myriad other businessesAndroid, Gmail, YouTubefrom the worlds worst digital threats. And if, in the process, Jigsaw can help address some of the most acute unintended consequences of digital communication, all the better. I dont think its fair to ask the government to solve all these problemsthey dont have the resources, says Schmidt. The tech industry has a responsibility to get this right. advertisement Jigsaws headquarters are located on the second floor of Manhattans Chelsea Market, reached by a locked stairwell entrance near a gelato stand. Not even Googlers have key-card access. Inside are the typical trappings of an Alphabet-funded spaceplush noise-canceling work pods and fruit-flavored Hint waterbut Cohen has subverted the usual playful themes: Conference rooms here are named for oppressive states like North Korea and Belarus. When I meet Cohen in his office one morning in early August, hes wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, hunched over his desk with a life-size wax figure of Theodore Roosevelt looking over his shoulder. Cohen, who has black curly hair and the ever-unshaven look of a harried hedge-fund analyst, is obsessed with American presidential history. He is working on a book about transitions of White House power, and his two-room office is a shrine of POTUS bric-a-brac, along with propaganda posters hes collected during his travels to Pyongyang and Iran and photos of him with world leaders, including Pope Francis and King Abdullah of Jordan. Its increasingly rare to find Cohen at the office. With two young daughters and a life spent juggling global summits and foreign travel, Cohens schedule is hectic. Friends describe him as a cross between Tintin and Dos Equiss Most Interesting Man, who might be found at the gym in Chelsea with his artist-buddy Jeff Koons, or falcon hunting with his wife in the UAE. Dana Perino, the Fox News commentator and former White House press secretary, jokes that hes the personification of #goals, the millennial hashtag that denotes life aspirations. Hes climbing in the Grand Tetons one day and by the weekend hes taking his girls to get a pedicure, Perino says. Arianna Huffington, another close friend, says, With Jared, theres never a moment you run out of things to talk about: He can cover everything from how to put your baby to sleep to how to deal with cyberterrorists. Cohens jet-setting joie de vivre has helped him build an eclectic Rolodex, but its also instrumental to how he learns. Jareds never been some tea-sipping diplomat who learns from a leather chair, says Alec Ross, the Maryland gubernatorial candidate who overlapped with Cohen at the State Department. Hes happiest landing in conflict zones where half the people around him want to take him for ransom and the other half want him dead. Cohen grew up traveling. His artist mother and psychologist father took him on trips to the Middle East and Africa. Once, on a trip to Egypt when he was 10, his parents lost him in a crowded section of Giza and found him moments later atop a strangers camel. He was a nerdy kid, with a severe facial twitch that made him self-conscious enough to feel he had to excel at sports in high school in order to avoid getting made fun of (he was an all-state soccer goalie), but travel was his favorite extracurricular, and during high school he spent summers living with host families in Thailand and Tanzania. By the time he got to Stanford, his twitch had gone away, and his frat brothers mostly remember Cohen as an affable guy, though not without quirks: His TV was set 24/7 to the news, and he painted large murals depicting the Rwandan genocide that decorated the common area of Theta Delta Chi. He always seemed to be planning his next adventure, like the one where he spent part of his freshman-year summer with the Maasai people of Kenya, herding sheep and at times living off a mixture of goat milk and iron-rich dirt. You have to be a 19-year-old to think thats a good idea, Cohen laughs. advertisement In 2003, he won a coveted Rhodes Scholarship and punctuated his two years at Oxford doing research trips to the Middle East. In Iran, he encountered youths using mobile devices and Bluetooth to skirt the societys rigid rules, his first taste of disruptive technology in an autocratic country. His research (which led to his second book, Children of Jihad) impressed Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who hired him at 24 to join her staff. During his four years at the State Department, Cohen earned a reputation for being brash, leading envoys to increasingly hostile areas to talk with unlikely charactersgangsters, prisoners, pirateseven when it went against standard protocol. After discovering how tech-savvy activists were using Facebook to organize protests against the longtime insurgent group FARC, Cohen ventured to Colombia to meet with themlikely the first diplomatic channel established on a social network in U.S. government history, he jokesand soon found himself opposite President George W. Bush in a two-hour briefing on the global war on terror. When Cohen presented his findings, he recalls, Bush looked up, then at Condi, then at Cheney, and then back at me and said, Thats awesome. Slideshow: Stanford grad, Rhodes Scholar, State Department wonk, author, painter Jared Cohens accomplishments have launched him into a rarefied orbit. Cohen appeared on The Colbert Report at 26 following a New Yorker profile, and some career foreign service officers resented his rising status, viewing his ideas about technology as naive. (Cohen would tell colleagues he was determined to push the State Department to a point where he could mention Twitter in meetings without getting laughed at.) But even his eye-rolling detractors admit he was uncannily smart, and his supporters felt he was empathetic and egoless. Jared looks at things with new eyes, says Secretary Rice. He would come into my office and say, I have an idea, but it might be stupid. I remember saying, Jared, dont start your presentation that way. Staying on through the transition to the Obama administration, Cohen continued his work under Secretary Hillary Clintonuntil he almost lost his job. In June 2009, as street demonstrations were heating up in reaction to the Iranian presidential election, Cohen caught wind that Twitter would be pausing its service for maintenance. Concerned that the move might quash the viral spread of protests in Tehran, Cohen reached out to Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey and urged him to postpone the shutdown. Obama administration officials were lividCohens action appeared to violate the administrations policy of non-interferenceand, after the story landed in The New York Times, recalls Ross, then a senior adviser to Clinton, President Obama is said to have fumed aloud, Who is Jared Cohen, and why havent we fired him yet? Clinton protected Cohen, and the incident eventually became a shining example of what her team was beginning to refer to as 21st-century statecraft, a paradigm shift in diplomacy that encouraged taking advantage of growing digital influences to shape modern geopolitics. By that point, Cohen and Ross had started organizing what they called tech delegations to see what Silicon Valley and Washington could accomplish together overseas. They corralled technology leaders like Dorsey, prominent VC Shervin Pishevar, and Mitchell Baker of Mozilla to visit places ranging from Syria and Mexico to Pakistan and Congo. What Cohen reveled in most was the business worlds lack of government constraints, as he witnessed on a 2010 trip to Russia with theneBay CEO John Donahoe. We were there to discuss corruption and free speechyou can imagine how far that gets diplomat to diplomat, Cohen says, recalling that Donahoe announced that Russia was too corrupt for eBay to conduct business there. Suddenly the Russian deputy prime minister wants to follow [Donahoe] all the way to the airport to have another conversation. advertisement On the very first techdel, Cohen brought Eric Schmidt to Iraq, where the two bonded while wearing flak jackets. Cohen was mesmerized by Schmidts intellect and ability to suggest ideas unlikely to have occurred to anyone from the State Department. Eric was asking things like, Why arent you laying fiber-optic cables underneath roads when youre paving them? Cohen recalls. Why are you investing in low-orbit satellite when everyone is going to be using mobile phones soon? About a year later, during lunch at Dos Caminos in New York, Schmidt convinced Cohen to join Google. Schmidt didnt exactly know what they would do together, but he knew he wanted to invest in Cohen. Schmidt recalls thinking that Cohen had a scalable mind, one that would be of consequence. People like Jared make things happen, he says. You want to work with him, for himto be in his orbit. The two soon launched Google Ideas, labeling it a think/do tank, a corny name that led early employees to overemphasize the dooooo part loudly, out of fear that it would become just another ivory tower. I thought this was going to be an arms-length academic exercise, says Yasmin Green, an early Ideas employee, whom Cohen recruited from Googles business focused on sub-Saharan Africa. Sources familiar with the groups evolution say that Google Ideas was a hodgepodge of people brainstorming pie-in-the-sky concepts, and many expected Cohen to start churning out white papers on net neutrality and other hot-button policy issues at any moment to justify the groups existence. It was rocky going at first, but he stayed the course, says New America CEO Anne-Marie Slaughter, Cohens boss at the State Department who originally introduced him to Schmidt. Cohen was still maturing as a leader and growing accustomed to an even higher-flying life under the wing of Schmidt, and he wasnt afraid to tell employees in weekly meetings about his struggles as a manager. So many people [I know] just want to figure out how they can make a billion dollars and run the world, but Jared is not about that at allhe has real values, says Ian Bremmer, founder of the Eurasia Group, who says Cohen would reach out to ask if he was screwing up and would agonize when he felt he got something wrong. Who do I meet? But hes really grown comfortable in his own skin, Bremmer says. Many attribute Cohens growing confidence to Schmidts tutelage, especially as the two embarked on writing a book together. For research, they traveled to more than 35 countries and developed a close relationship. Theyd sit opposite each other on laptops punching out bullet points on Google Docs, detailing their trips to Libya and North Korea. Cohen remembers a time in Pakistan when Schmidt sat down with the Pakistani armys chain-smoking chief of staff, and the two sized each other up in silence through plumes of smoke before Schmidt deftly maneuvered the conversation forward. Eric has this diplomatic craft where he will say things like, I apologize for asking this questionplease help me understand, an informal deference that disarms people who might expect condescension, Cohen says. If I ever go back into government, thats the kind of diplomat I want to be. When I ask what the two did for fun, Cohen responds, Oh, well, when Eric travels, he likes to go see data centers. Cohen and Schmidts book, The New Digital Age, appeared in 2013, with glowing blurbs from Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright. It predicts how technology will make the future more utopian in some ways and more dystopian in others. It could easily double as an internal memo that details how many of the search giants pervasive productsincluding YouTube and Gmailhave inevitably become entwined in geopolitical issues, good and bad. What Lockheed Martin was to the twentieth century, technology and cyber-security companies will be to the twenty-first, the two wrote. But Lockheed Martin creates products, and to have a true impact Ideas would need to move in that directiontoward what would soon become Jigsaw. Thats when it became more than just a marketing campaign, Schmidt says. advertisement Cohen and Schmidt had witnessed the power of internet activism during the Arab Spring, when Wael Ghonim, then Googles head of marketing for the Middle East and North Africa, used Facebook to help organize rallies against the Mubarak regime in Egypt, and became an influential symbol in the protests. [Google cofounder] Sergey [Brin] was really interested in why it was being referred to as the Facebook Revolution, recalls Scott Carpenter, Jigsaws managing director. When Cohen and Schmidt wrote in their book that the tech world ought to be ready for the next 5 billion people coming online in developing or oppressed countries, they clearly meant the next 5 billion consumers. Just look at the strides Shenzhen-based tech giant Huawei has made in the Middle East and Africa, spreading what Cohen and Schmidt call Chinas sphere of online influence. For the countries not connected yet, theyre either going to get built out with Chinese technology, explains Cohen, or theyre going to get built out with more democratic technology. That is, tech from Googleor one of its Western competitors. Case in point: Cuba. In June 2014, Cohen and Schmidt traveled to meet with Cubas foreign minister, Bruno Rodrguez. With coordination and encouragement from White House officials, they arrived in Havana to promote internet freedom, but Cohen says he also brought a list of Google products that werent available because of sanctions. Within four months, we got Earth, Picasa, Chrome, and Google Analytics available in Cuba, says Cohen, who insists he wasnt aware of the Obama administrations ambitions to end the embargo, but the timing of their visit left Google in a good place to reap the benefits. When the announcement came, we had many more open doors of people in Cuba who were interested in talking to us, because they remembered that we showed up when it was unpopular. Some see Jigsaws efforts to effect geopolitical change as a libertarian fantasy, a privatized version of the State Department with unprecedented power. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange went so far as to suggest that Cohen is Googles director of regime change who builds power in endless soirees for the cross-fertilization of influence between elites and their vassals, under the pious rubric of civil society. Google has a long history of government involvementthe National Science Foundation helped fund Brin and cofounder Larry Pages earliest research on organizing the worlds information while they were still students at Stanfordand the company has reportedly served as a contractor for government agencies since blossoming into a multinational corporation. But theres been an evolution in the relationship between Silicon Valley and Washington. There was this rocky period where the government was waking up to the Valleys importance but still had this attitude of bossing it around, like, You have to do this! And take down this terrorist content! And XYZ! says the World Economic Forums Zvika Krieger, who established the State Departments first office in Silicon Valley. Then it became, No, [tech companies] dont. We dont work for you. And so it quickly evolved from a head-butting, adversarial relationship to a recognition that government doesnt have a monopoly on impact. Edward Snowden also signaled a major turning point in this power dynamic. Snowdens leaks of sweeping U.S. spy activities revealed the extent to which firms such as Google had been vulnerable to NSA hacking. These revelations, Carpenter says, built mistrust between the tech community and Washington, adding that Alphabet doesnt want to be seen as an AT&T or MCI, the telecom giants that had a longtime relationship with the NSA and proved key to the Bush administrations warrantless wiretapping initiatives. After Snowden, Carpenter says, [Alphabet] does not think of itself all the time as an American company, but a global company. advertisement The companys relationship with the White House has only worsened under President TrumpJigsaw doesnt have many connections within Rex Tillersons stripped-down State Department, which has curtailed its Silicon Valley operations, according to two knowledgeable sources. Although Cohen says Jigsaw is still willing to work with the White House on areas where their values align, he stresses that Jigsaw isnt doing the bidding of governments. Were not doing these things because somebody in a dark suit and dark sunglasses told us to. Establishing a clear Alphabet doctrinethe goals, the limits, the moral groundwork for the global companyis now at the heart of Cohens post. Cohens supporters argue that, with his unique pedigree, hes the best person to lead the charge, especially if other tech companies follow suit. [Silicon Valley] has immense power, in many ways unchecked, says Admiral James Stavridis, the former NATO supreme allied commander and current dean of Tuftss graduate school of international affairs, who is a mentor to Cohen. But thats why you need responsible people like Jared, who understand how to stand on the right side of the line and not take a private effort too far. Schmidt says that there are limits to what we can dowere not a country, though we certainly have influence. Were trying to promote what we consider to be the values of the internet. Of course, Schmidt is downplaying the ultimate effect of these kinds of efforts. In a 2014 public discussion with Cohen at Stanford, Schmidt talked about the importance of bringing the internet to repressed places like Pyongyang, which he thought would lead the populace to question the autocracy. All we have to do is get a little doubt in, and that country will fall over, he said of North Korea. Days after visiting Cohen in his office, I squeeze into a product meeting down the hall, in a tiny nook with two rows of shelf seating. A team leader clicks through slides on the screen at the front of the room detailing a Jigsaw groups recent Nairobi trip, which coincided with the Kenyan presidential election and involved excursions into Kibera, one of Africas largest slums, to investigate how residents were utilizing technology and dealing with online censorship and fake news. The group references how they bumped into a Facebook team in Nairobia sign that Jigsaw isnt alone in its interest in these spacesand attendees hurl out questions throughout the discussion, asking about the impact of products like YouTube, Google Maps, WhatsApp, and Twitter, and posing questions such as Whats the UX of going to vote in Kenya? Jigsaws employees are a mix of engineers and researchers, who have built out a portfolio of more than a dozen products. Since Alphabet spun out Ideas and rebranded it Jigsaw, in February 2016, Cohen has narrowed the companys focus to geopolitical issues that present both a complex engineering challenge as well as a direct security threat. Montage, for example, is a tool that crowdsources analysis of YouTube footage from conflict zones to identify evidence of war crimes. Another, Perspective, which launched earlier this year, employs machine learning to filter out toxic language online and is now utilized by The New York Times. Slideshow: Heres how Jigsaw approached the problem of online terrorist recruitment by ISIS to create Redirect Method The company is under no pressure to charge for these products yetthe team says theyd like to get to breakevenbut theyre already delivering value for other Google properties, whether by cleaning up content on YouTube or making popular Android apps (like that of The New York Times) more usable. Another product that Jigsaw developed, to help activists and journalists in autocratic countries thwart phishing attacks, led to improved security measures on Gmail and Chrome. I cant think of a single thing were working on where there is not some part of Google that were either learning from or sharing our knowledge with, Cohen says. advertisement And therein lies Jigsaws true ROI. If virulent toxicity and cybersecurity problems continue to infect techs biggest platforms, they could represent an existential threat to Silicon Valleys bottom line. A lot of these issues are driving at [techs] core business interests, says the WEFs Krieger. If Facebook and Google become havens for extremist speech, bullying, terrorist content, fake news, videos of beheadingsthen they become platforms nobody wants to spend time on. In many ways, this new reality has already arrived. The Jigsaw team didnt have to travel to Kenya to find chaos. Around the time I joined their meeting, Trump threatened nuclear war with Kim Jong-un via Twitter, and the U.S. was still reeling from the deadly clashes in Charlottesville, Virginia, fueled by white supremacists who used Facebook and YouTube to foment anger. And a Google employee named James Damore tested the companys appetite for free expression, writing a memo that parroted gender stereotypes, which went viral and got him fired. Soon, right-wing organizations were promoting protests against the so-called Goolag. Cohen is careful not to talk about Trump or explain how the U.S. presidential election has changed Jigsaws approach. Yasmin Green, who was born in Iran and is one of many living in the U.S. who stand to be affected by proposed travel bans, explains that it doesnt do Jigsaw any favors to talk about politics. Strategically, it makes more sense for the company to focus on the problem behind the problemthat is, state-sponsored networked propagandarather than, say, Trump. If you become consumed with the politics or the actor, youre really missing the opportunity, she says. But sources close to Cohen say Trump has obviously changed the Jigsaw calculus. Even Schmidt acknowledges that the two made a significant error in not grasping sooner the extent to which governmentsessentially what the Russians didwould use hacking to control the information space, adding that Jigsaw is now looking at the technology behind information warfare. I worry that the Russians in 2020 will have a lot more powerful tools. Jigsaws current political position is somewhat precarious since the Breitbart crowd may regard Jigsaws core mission as a direct affront to Trump, whose ascent benefited from the kind of misinformation and distortion campaigns Jigsaw stands to challenge. Eurasia Groups Bremmer says that Trumps election makes Alphabet more vulnerable to criticism and scrutiny from the White House. Alphabet and Jigsaw want to make it impossible to allow people to manipulate search, to manipulate news, to manipulate facts, Bremmer explains. And that is deeply problematic to Trump. As if the political landscape werent tricky enough, Jigsaw also faces challenges navigating the minefield of Alphabets own shareholder interests. This past summer, New America CEO Slaughter fired a scholar at the think tank not long after he praised the EU for leveling a $2.7 billion antitrust fine against Google. Schmidt, who has provided significant funding to New America and served as its chair until 2016, had expressed displeasure about the scholar to Slaughter, the type of corporate strong-arming that appears to conflict with Jigsaws ideals about the free flow of information and its moonshot goal of ending online censorship. Schmidt and Cohen avoid directly responding to the controversy. When I ask about the connotations of a powerful corporation influencing these types of issues, Schmidt interrupts, I dont agree with you, with your choice of words. I want to be clear: Were not trying to influence outcomes with Jigsaw. advertisement The common concern about Alphabet is that it has grown too powerful, and that Jigsaw, by extension, represents a potential new digital form of imperialism. Yet throughout my reporting, the chief criticism I heard is that Jigsaws accomplishments are thin and that the jury is still out on the efficacy of its products. Its hard to reconcile that Jigsaw is supposedly tackling the worlds nastiest problems yet has just around 60 employees. Unless it does, Jigsaw could prove nothing more than a form of digital tourism, with Cohen as the chief tour guide. Cohen is used to this criticism. Hes faced cynicism throughout his career that his work melding diplomacy and technology is superficial. Jared has always had a knack for being in the right place at the time, riding one zeitgeist to the next, says one of his harsher critics. But the problems Jigsaw is going after are real, and so too are the consequences if it doesnt. [In the coming years,] there will be a lot more pressurea moral sense of obligationon Silicon Valley to [solve] these problems, Secretary Rice says. I hope theyre willing to fix them, because the worst thing that can happen is that the government just starts regulating things it doesnt understand. Its true Cohen sometimes seems as if hes a character in a Salman Rushdie novel, appearing at pivotal points in a countrys historyin Tunisia right after the revolution, in Libya after Muammar el-Qaddafis death, in Tanzania right before the embassies were bombed. But his face lights up with a genuine elation when he talks about the people hes met in his travelsabout what hes learned and the positive influence he hopes to have on them, from the women hes interviewed who have escaped the clutches of the Taliban to endangered activists in Syria who have become his close friends. In the rawest sense, I feel like I was put on earth to do these things, he says. Its how I understand the worlds problems. On a recent trip to Papua New Guinea, Cohen visited with the people of Chimbu, a remote and mountainous province where the indigenous tribesmen coat themselves from head to toe in skeleton war paint. The macabre makeup was originally meant to scare off rival tribesnow its more for showand Cohen couldnt resist asking to join in their ritual skeleton dance. Stripping down to a grass belt, the natives used their fingers to smear charcoal on his body and face, shrouding his eyes in orbs of black, and rubbed white dye made from clay on him in the shape of bones and teeth. Cohen, of course, looked ridiculous, but it didnt matter. It helped him see through their eyes. Cohens guide told him he was likely the first American to participate in their tradition, which the locals apparently appreciated. Even after the ceremony was over, Cohen kept the mask on. As he drove back to the nearest town, local boys and girls would run alongside his car, pointing and laughing hysterically at the scary-looking foreigner. Cohen just smiled back and kept on moving.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40474738/can-alphabets-jigsaw-solve-the-internets-most-dangerous-puzzles
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Why Would Tesla Lay Off Hundreds Of Workers When Its Ramping Up Production?
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Labor activists believe it may have something to do with wanting to exchange vocally pro-union workers with temps that are cheaper to employ and easier to control. Those are the questions the labor organizing campaign at Tesla is asking, after the company issued a wave of terminations, allegedly linked to performance issues among its 33,000 employees. Several members of the campaign, known as A Fair Future at Tesla, were among those fired, and they all claim to have had excellent performance records. None have been able to obtain the negative reviews that were supposed to be the rationale for their firing. Tesla announced the firings, which are reportedly still continuing, last week. Though no official number of terminations would be given, estimates range from 400 to 1,200. The company did not give advance notice under the WARN Act because, it insisted, they were performance-based terminations, not layoffs. Like all companies, Tesla conducts an annual performance review during which a manager and employee discuss the results that were achieved during the performance period, said a Tesla spokesperson in an emailed statement. As with any company, especially one of over 33,000 employees, performance reviews also occasionally result in employee departures. The terminations struck many as strange. Tesla wants to ramp up production of the highly anticipated Model 3, a more affordable electric vehicle. CEO Elon Musk set a goal of 20,000 completed cars per month by this December. But in the third quarter of 2017 Tesla finished just 260. Musk has cited production bottlenecks for the poor output. But firing workers and retraining replacements seems a hindrance to, not an improvement on, this goal. Also, Tesla fashions itself a high-growth company, and mass terminations arent something high-growth companies do. Furthermore, fired employees claim they never had the kind of review that would explain the terminations. I had great performance reviews. I dont believe I was fired for performance, said Daniel Grant, a production associate at the plant for three years. Grant claims he was injured on the job on a Friday, and fired the following Monday. The company didnt show me or others our most recent reviews when they fired us.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40483602/why-would-tesla-lay-off-hundreds-of-workers-when-its-ramping-up-production
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Who is behind the Philippine church bombings?
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MANILA (Reuters) - Philippines security forces investigating a deadly twin bombing at a church on a predominantly Muslim southern island are zeroing in on what they say is an affiliate of the militant Abu Sayyaf Group. Philippine Army members secure the area outside a church after a bombing attack in Jolo, Sulu province, Philippines January 27, 2019. Armed Forces Of The Philippines - Western Mindanao Command/Handout via REUTERS Twenty people were killed and more than 100 wounded in Sundays attack on Jolo island, shocking a region that only days earlier delivered a resounding yes in a plebiscite on greater autonomy for the Muslim-dominated south. Jolo is a stronghold of the militant Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), making it a prime candidate. More specifically, authorities believe the bomb attack was orchestrated by a faction called Ajang-Ajang, which is notorious for kidnapping and extortion in Sulu province. It is the first time the military has mentioned this group. Police believe Ajang-Ajang carried out the attack in revenge for the deaths of relatives killed during military operations against Abu Sayyaf. According to Rommel Banlaoi, head of the Philippine Institute for Political Violence and Terrorism Research, the groups members consider themselves soldiers of martyrs and appear highly capable, having pulled off such a devastating attack when security was tight for the referendum. This group outsmarted law enforcement authorities, Banlaoi said. Sulu has been receiving threats coming from this group. Abu Sayyaf, which means Bearer of the Sword, was founded in the 1990s with its roots in a separatist cause that it long since abandoned. It lacks a central command and operates in cells across the Sulu archipelago. The group has grabbed headlines for bombings and pledges of allegiance to Islamic State and links to al Qaeda, but its main activities have been piracy and kidnapping. It is notorious for brutality, posting videos of captives, foreign and local, begging for their lives. Those for whom ransoms are not paid are often decapitated. The ASG is fragmented, comprised of various clans or family-based factions operating under different commanders in different areas. But ASGs radical streak cannot be ignored. Isnilon Hapilon, a faction commander from Basilan, was anointed as Islamic States emir in Southeast Asia. He was credited with bringing together foreign fighters and members of various groups from Mindanao island to occupy Marawi City in 2017, under an alliance known as Dawla Islamiya, which sought to carve out an Islamic State territory. The fighters held Marawi through five months of air strikes and ground operations, but collapsed within a week of the military killing Hapilon. His death does not appear to have weakened Abu Sayyaf. Islamic State, via its Amaq news agency, claimed responsibility for the church attack, although the details it gave were not consistent with those from authorities. The group said the attack was twin suicide bombings, rather than remotely detonated devices, and its death toll appears to be exaggerated. Security analyst Banlaoi considers Ajang-Ajang to be pro-Islamic State, noting that it is led by the father-in-law of Malaysian operative Amin Baco, who was involved in planning the Marawi occupation. That has been widely assumed and should not be ruled out. The region as a whole voted overwhelmingly in support of autonomy, although the plan was narrowly rejected in Sulu, where some influential politicians had opposed it, including a Supreme Court challenge. The separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which opposes the Abu Sayyaf, is likely to dominate the transition authority and the elected government of the new Bangsamoro administration. That could threaten some political interests and patronage arrangements in Sulu and be seen as a challenge to Abu Sayyafs power. However, the timing of the bombings - six days after the vote - raises some doubts. Not soon. Offensives from 2001 by the Philippine military with help of U.S. special forces under Operation Enduring Freedom made some progress in killing senior commanders but that led to splintering and increased kidnapping to raise funds. In recent years, ASG has started to engage more in piracy. President Rodrigo Duterte has offered talks but has also promised to wipe them out. He has created a Jolo-based infantry division, to be comprised of 4,500 troops by 2022, to go after the ASG and last month oversaw the deployment of its first 840 personnel. In a Jan. 9 report, the Jakarta-based Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict argued that non-military measures were key to defeating ASG. It advocated capturing and interviewing militants rather than killing them, which could be critical to understanding ASG networks and identifying possible policy interventions.
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https://in.reuters.com/article/philippines-security/who-is-behind-the-philippine-church-bombings-idINKCN1PM0H6?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FINworldNews+%28News+%2F+IN+%2F+World+News%29
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Can We Redesign The Way We Talk About Gun Control In America?
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After a gunman shot and killed 58 people and injured hundreds more at a music festival in Las Vegas the night of October 1, America awoke reeling with a fresh pain painted over a familiar heartbreak. In the United States, mass shootings have become an epidemic, an endless cycle that we cant seem to straighten out into anything resembling an endpoint. A headlineNo Way To Prevent This, Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happensrepublished continuously on The Onion on the occasion of every new mass shooting, encapsulates the epidemic of the past several years, which we denote by where they happened: Newtown, San Bernardino, Charleston, Orlando, and, now, Las Vegas. advertisement advertisement By nature, humans are an adaptive species. Whether or not we do so consciously, when the horrific becomes the expected, we adjust. The morning following a shooting, we tend to take in the tragedy and feel horrified, yet we also manage to go about our days. Fred Dust, partner and global managing director at the design company Ideo, also suspects that Americans common baseline on issues of gun control is more extensive than surface tensions would indicate. A distilled version of the conversation around gun control tends to pull in two directions: On the one end, there are the 18% of Americans who believe gun laws should be less strict; on the other are the 52% who are pushing for more restrictions like background checks for purchasers and a licensing process for sellers. But the two camps, Dust believes, share more common ground than they realize. Whats preventing them from collaborating across their beliefs is the polarized structure of the conversation. The gun control debate, he says, forces people to chose a side, rather than emphasizing the need for consensus. At Ideo, Dusts work positions design as a tool for positive impact. But its not only physical spaces and structures that can be engineered for good; conversations can be designed; language can be productively repurposed (Dusts talk at the Fast Company Innovation Festival next week will walk through the concept of designing dialogue to further social good). Whats for certain, he says, is that we cant continue to retreat into our polarities and into acceptance mode, which is impeding our ability break the cycle of mass shootings. He often poses an experiment to his friends, in which he asks them to tell him exactly where they were when they heard the news break about Sandy Hook, or about Charleston or Orlando. Though youd be hard-pressed to find an American born before 1995 who couldnt tell you where they were when the planes hit the World Trade Center on September 11, people have no ability to place themselves in the context of mass shootings, Dust says. Weve paved over the ability for these things to really take hold. By taking a design approach to the conversation around gun violence and encouraging people to reach toward common ground, Dust wants to give people a way to connect more empathetically to the fundamental issues. The Time To Talk About It Is Now Acceptance of these horrific eventsor sending out thoughts and prayers and essentially, by doing so, further separating yourself from the situationDust says, is the worst we can hope for. Its the least likely way that we are ever going to see change. What is similarly unproductive: Skirting the call for change in the aftermath, as the White House did after the Las Vegas shooting, saying that now is not the time to talk about gun control. Moments of mourning are a natural point to have deep conversations, Dust says. Look to organized religion, Dust says, for how dialogue can be organized following a great loss. From Judaism (sitting shiva) to Catholicism (wakes), we see examples of designated mourning periods structured around bringing people together in conversation. advertisement In his research on times of personal crisis at Ideo, Dust has come to understand that the times immediately following trauma are when people feel most moved to make a change, and to do so in a constructive way. Its interesting to see how, when you lose someone close to you, youll often take that moment to make a significant change in your life, Dust says. I think that can happen on a societal levelin moments of mourning, we can begin to think about dialogue. That dialogue, Dust says, will be most productive if it approaches the issue through the lens of a shared humanity. Jumping right into the policy debate cold, without delineating the very human need to be having this conversationnone among us wants to experience the loss of a loved one to unmitigated violencewill keep us stuck in the same immobile silos of Second Amendment versus gun control. What Dust is suggesting is a collective reckoninga deep breath that allows us to ask why do we need to have this conversation before having it. The why, he suspects, will sound similar from both camps. Speaking Different Languages However, theres a sense in which people on both sides of the gun debate are often speaking different languages. Gun advocates bristle at arguments from people calling for increased regulation, saying that their ignorance around the particular points of firearm knowledge precludes their right to legislate on the issue. That way of thinking, Dust says, only serves to deepen the divide between the two parties. You often see particular industries or organizations create a specialized language, Dust says. Take healthcare: The language thats needed between a doctor and a nurse and the staff to make sure theyre responding quickly to something is not our language, he says, and we, as patients, feel alienated by it. Specialized language is detrimental in conversations intended to bridge gaps between people. Even among people on the same side of the debate, language can stand in the way of consensus. Ideo hosted numerous conversations with activist groups working against gun violence in the wake of the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. We had about 30 different groups in the room and they couldnt agree on a common language that would allow them to figure out how to move forward, Dust says. Within those groups, you have people who talk about gun violence as an epidemic, and talking about it purely within the language of epidemiology, and other people talking about it in terms of behavioral economics. We were in a room with a collective agreement, but no collective language, Dust adds. Setting aside language and knowledge accessible only to people in specific groups will allow a more relatable dialogue to grow. Finding Common Ground Take the phrase we often reach toward in the aftermath of a mass shooting: gun control. It feels like theres an American sense that responds quite well to the idea of rights, and not so well to the idea of control,' Dust says. Dust believes that this small point could the origin of a new type of conversationaround how the right to carry arms is ultimately infringing on our right to peacefully gather. advertisement One of the things that we see out there, as were doing our research at Ideo, is the presentation of an undercurrent of fear in so many Americans now, and it doesnt really matter where they sit politically, Dust says. We need to be seeking out ways to bring out the notion that we are all carrying some fears that are common. Which is what makes the statement made by Caleb Keeter, the lead guitarist in the Josh Abbot band, which had played a set at the festival, particularly compelling. Though Keeter has been criticized for abandoning his support of the Second Amendment only after standing in close proximity to open fire, his reason for doing so appeals to our common fear and desire to protect ourselves. Members of the bands crew, he wrote on Twitter, possessed concealed handgun licenses; there were firearms in their bus. But the guns, Keeter realized, were useless: Even had they reached the bus, holding the weapons wouldnt protect them from the bullets flying, and their firearms might have identified them as perpetrators, not victims. Second Amendment proponents often say that guns are necessary to protect themselves; Keeters experience proved to him that they are not, and he responded by advocating for gun control. It was so powerfulhe was saying this fundamental thing that many people believe will keep them safe actually turned out not to be true, Dust says. Focusing the gun control conversation on the emotional undercurrents of fear and safetyinstead of the political and linguistic splits that overlay them, Dust says, will point us toward consensus. Talking of bridging the debate presupposes an irreconcilable divide in the conversation. Starting from the point of none of us wants to feel afraid might allow us to progress together. One way to do so, Dust suggests, is abandoning the concept of healthy debate, which is what Americans default to in the face of contention. The debate construct necessitates two clearly delineated sides arguing toward victory; only one winner is possible. And what does that right to safety look like? For some people, right to safety looks like carrying a firearm; Keeter formerly fell in this camp. For others, it looks like a unilateral ban on guns. Most people in America would advocate for an end to mass shootings; calling for an outright end to guns becomes more complicated, however, when you bring in questions of individual right to possession or use by law enforcement. advertisement A two-sided debate doesnt allow for the nuances at work in this conversation, Dust says, nor does, necessarily, focusing on guns as the core of the issue. To try to create more conversations around difficult issues, Ideo has built a framework called Creative Tensions. Instead of a debate format, where two participants are asked to respond to questions, Ideo will lay out a tension on the stage, with two poles at either endfor instance, guns make me feel afraid at one end, and guns make me feel safe at another. In this case, four participants will arrange themselves along the tension in relation to how they feel; Ideo will also ask the audience to do the same. What we see is that people may find themselves standing next to each other, but thinking about things in slightly different ways, Dust says. It allows them to find affinities, and it allows people to tell stories to explain why they are standing where they are, and that builds empathy, Dust says. Creative Tensions is an exercise that can be deployed in small group settings or at town halls, but what Dust is hoping for is a way to translate the ethos of the design into a national conversation. Focusing on the spectrum of opinions, rather than the polemics, Dust says, could help people to see that our fundamental desire for safety could be strong enough to point us toward a consensus. Were in a place where we have to think about new modes of dialogue, he says, because the ones we have now just fail us.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40479143/can-we-redesign-the-way-we-talk-about-gun-control-in-america
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Can Personal Carbon Trading Take Off On The Blockchain?
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Most of us subscribe to the science of climate change, but few of us actually make strenuous efforts to reduce our carbon footprint. We might buy the odd energy-saving lightbulb, yet many of us will still board a flight to see Grandma at Thanksgiving. A single flight from New York to Denver, let us remind you, produces the equivalent CO2 emissions of driving a car 7,500 miles a year which is to say, a lot. Thats the hope behind CarbonX, a new loyalty program founded on blockchain technology. It works like this. CarbonX buys carbon offsets under a United Nations-backed scheme called REDD+. This certifies greenhouse gas reductions from forestry and ecosystem remediation projects around the world. CarbonX converts those credits into a cryptocurrency, in the form of a token called CxT. Then it sells on these tokens to retailers and manufacturers, who use them to incentivize consumers to make more sustainable choices. So, you might get a token for taking a ride-hailing service instead of a personal vehicle, or if you buy locally-produced seafood rather than importing it from South Asia, where it incurs lots of air miles. Consumers are rewarded with the tokens at the time of purchase, which they store in a digital wallet and can then use to buy other products and services. For example, if Home Depot offered you a token for buying a fuel-efficient lawnmower, you might be able to use that against another purchase from the store. Now, all this might sound a little complicated and foreboding for the average consumer. But the people behind CarbonX, which is based in Canada, assure me the actual complex workings will be hidden from view. For consumers, the process will appear as a smooth user interface; the transactions between offset, token and end-products will be seamless, they say. Plus, blockchain technology will enable a loyalty scheme thats more decentralized and less expensive to manage than todays versions, they argue. Blockchains are databases spread over multiple users. They were first developed as a way to track transactions of bitcoin currency but have since been adapted in many other industries, including financial services, supply chain management, music, and energy. They create permanent records of eventsfor instance, the transfer of bitcoin from one computer to anotherand are considered incorruptible. No single person in a blockchain can amend a block (or record) without changing other blocks that refer back to it, and doing so requires the consensus of other machines making up the network. In other words, a blockchain is a consensus truth agreed among its participants. Blockchains are thought to be particularly conducive for loyalty schemes, where tracking transactions across multiple sites and multiple companies, is currently a cumbersome process. Carbon credits are the perfect candidate for an asset on a blockchain because they can be easily tokenized, Don Tapscott, a leading futurist and co-author of the best-selling book Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World tells Fast Company. For it to be peer to peer and on an open network, you need an Internet of Value. '
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40479414/can-personal-carbon-trading-take-off-on-the-blockchain
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Can Basic Income Plus The Blockchain Build A New Economic System?
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This story reflects the views of this author, but not necessarily the editorial position of Fast Company. advertisement advertisement advertisement UBI is a progressive idea whose time may be coming, but the devil is in the details. Most of this support is for a UBI based on government fiat currencies like the dollar or the euro. It is almost exclusively locked into a welfare frameas a wage subsidy to address layoffs expected from automation, or as a way to reduce government welfare billsin other words, a different way of dealing with problems within the current economic paradigm. Existing power structures continue to reign, debt creation still controls the money supply, and the infinite material growth on a finite planet logic of extractive capitalism is left untouched. It might sound utopian, but its really just an idea that exists not too much further along from todays existing trends. The dominant trend here is between centralization and decentralization. Industrialized capitalism was an era of centralization: companies grew to vast proportions by exploiting economies of scale and vertical integration (where companies control more and more aspects of their business in-house). Governments formed increasingly large blocs: NATO, USSR, EU. The new economic age of the internet and the blockchain is shaping up to be one of decentralization. As the geopolitical landscape continues to shift from American hegemony to a multipolar world, a raft of inherently decentralizing technologies are coming online. Harvesting solar power is becoming cheaper than burning fossil fuels, ushering in household-level micro-generation of near-zero marginal cost electricity. Mass production of consumer goods is being decentralized by 3D printing: cameras, musical instruments, glassware, houses, cars. Theres even a 3D printer that can make all the parts for another 3D printer. But the blockchain is the technology that has the potential to bring all these other developments together to usher in a new age of collaborative social organization and post-capitalist economic logic. Blockchains are not owned by any one authority, so the applications built on top of them will need to be governed by their users. The applications that make the most sense in this context are neutral platforms facilitating peer-to-peer exchange, without the coercive social contracts of governments nor rent-collecting middlemen in the form of gigantic tech firms. advertisement The implications for the foundational logic of our economic systems are quite thrilling: cryptocurrencies represent nothing less than an opportunity to redesign money. This is critically important because fiat money systems have one design flaw that could ultimately prove fatal. Just about every dollar, yen, or euro in existence is created by commercial banks with accompanying debt that must be returned with interest. It is rented out to the population temporarily, until it is destroyed when people pay back their debts with interest. This system leads to both local and international wealth inequality, but it has remained in place for centuries because it honors capitalisms prime directive: prioritize the production of more capital above all other things. Unfortunately, it is also a driver of climate change and ecological collapse, since the endless reproduction of capital as we do it now inevitably causes depletion of natural resources (we are now overshooting the earths capacity for renewal by a catastrophic 64% annually). With such a negative system seemingly locked into place as the planet careens towards one disaster after another, there has never been a better opportunity to create a new system of money based on universal basic income. And since these currencies can be designed with todays existential challenges in mind, we can do things like strongly incentivize local trading and disincentivize exploitation of distant workers and ecosystems. This in turn has the potential to undercut the logic of cheap, mass-production techniques currently at the heart of our throwaway culture. Were designing and building one example of a positive currency in the world of cryptocurrency, called Circles. In the Circles system, money gets created at the individual level and without corresponding debt. In other words, money starts with the person creating it (i.e. it appears for the first time directly in their account). It does not come to us from a central authority like a bank or a government or even an employer. This means that it is evenly distributed before it enters the marketplace. Instead, money takes on grassroots characteristics. A smart contract creates new currency units at the same fixed rate for each user, and these users create relationships of trust between each other to exchange their newly minted money. This means that the system doesnt need to be controlled by any one party, as the value of the currency automatically emerges from the trust relationships that users create. As with any cryptocurrency, bootstrapping an ecosystem that uses this new money system, and grows in ways that keep the specter of inflation in check, will not be easy. But it is entirely possible. And an important distinction is that Circles is meant to work just fine at local scales, where networks of trust already exist and can easily be transcribed onto the blockchain. From the users point of view, joining the new UBI economy may soon be as easy as downloading an app, connecting with their friends and loved ones, and heading to the nearest shop for lunch. As exciting as this may sound, the technology for cryptocurrency on the blockchain is not yet fully mature or ready for mainstream adoption. Early cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin have problems such as the built-in early-adopter advantage that is already in the process of replicating old power structures. And we still need to work on the user experience and find solutions for distributed currency exchange. Although the road to mainstream adoption is unpredictable, the quantum leap in popularity and interest that these technologies experienced in 2017 is very encouraging. The pace of innovation is now overwhelming, as each new level of sophistication builds directly on other recent breakthroughs. People are no longer asking if solutions can be found to the biggest problems with cryptocurrencies and blockchain technology, but when. advertisement For any of this to deliver on its promise, we have to want it to. We have to think systemically. We must recognize the social, economic, and spiritual dimensions of the polymorphous crises we currently face and commit to responding accordingly. This will require embracing an idea that some may find counterintuitive: localization. We will not retreat back to the pre-globalization days, but we have to bring economics back to a more human and local level. We have to reinvigorate local communities. We have to stimulate and grow the informal economy upon which most of us rely in our daily lives: the caring and sharing that we automatically do with each other but which has no recognized value in the current economic paradigm because it doesnt register as profit or loss. This is merely one sketch of one potential direction into the future. There are many dimensions to our current crises; they are political, economic, social, spiritual, and technological. We have looked through the technology lens here, because it is so ripe with promise. The point is, none of this is impossible. We just need innovations to deliver on their promises and people to fight tirelessly for a more fair society. When we talk about the possibility of environmentally responsible post-capitalism, this is the type of future we can envision. It wont be anything like we have seen before. Falling back on dogmas like socialism or communism as our only off-the-shelf alternatives is entirely too reductive for our purposes, and undersells our potential as ingeniously inventive creatures. The digital renaissance is already giving some shape to the future. Our job is to help midwife it into full existence, before some less equitable, less safe alternative snatches it away from us. Our survival could very well depend on it. Martin Kirk is cofounder and director of strategy for The Rules, a global collective of writers, thinkers, and activists dedicated to challenging the root causes of global poverty and inequality. His work focuses on bringing insights from the cognitive and complexity sciences to bear on issues of public understanding of complex global challenges. Andy Milenius is CEO of DappHub: a self-organizing network of logicians, researchers, designers, and developers spread out across the globe that creates the infrastructure for decentralized applications. He is especially interested in the mechanism design of cooperative governance, advocating for humanist values in emerging technologies, and solarpunk aesthetics.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40482312/can-basic-income-plus-the-blockchain-build-a-new-economic-system
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Are We Getting More Mainstream Blockbusters from Netflix and Amazon?
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At last years Sundance Film Festival, Amazon Studios purchased five films, while Netflix scooped up 10. Most notable among them was The Big Sick, which Amazon plopped down a historic $12 million for, and Mudbound, which Netflix topped with a $12.5 million check. Both films were met with critical praise and, more importantly, Oscar nominations. The Big Sick is up for Best Original Screenplay, while Mudbound notched four total nods, including Best Supporting Actress for Mary J. Blige. All things considered, the streaming companies busy activity at Sundance has paid off quite well, which makes their complete inactivity at this years festival all the more curious. Amazon was reportedly interested in Laura Derns buzzy The Tale but backed out at the last minute and allowed HBO to scoop it up for $7 million, Business Insider reports. Netflix was said to be interested in Sam Levinsons Assassination Nation, even making an eight-figure offer, but was outbid by Neon and the Russo Brothers AGBO $10 million offer, per Variety. When all was said and done, neither streamer left Sundance with a property. Frankly, I was confused, Jessica Lacy, ICM Partners agent and head of its film finance division, told THR. Given the mandate to release 80 films a year on Netflix, and given [Amazon Studios VP] Jason Ropells statement that Amazon is definitely still in the independent film space, I found it surprising that they didnt go after any films in a meaningful way. Perhaps we shouldve seen this coming from Amazon. In September of last year, it was reported that the studio was beefing up its production budget for 2018 and developing three ambitious and expensive sci-fi TV series in an attempt to reach a broader audience. While Transparent and The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel have been critical hits, Amazon has not yet produced a widespread mainstream must-see series in the vein of Netflixs Stranger Things or Hulus The Handmaids Tale. Internally, the company was planning a strategic shift to elevate itself out of the niche content business. This was all put in motion by former Amazon Studios head Roy Price, who stepped down due to sexual harassment allegations. Yet CEO Jeff Bezos seems to be continuing that mission, as hes preparing to make Amazons new Lord of the Rings series the most expensive TV show of all time. Its not too great of a leap to assume the streamer is applying the same logic to its film division, especially after its professional relationship with Woody Allen has deteriorated in the wake of continued sexual assault allegations against the filmmaker. While we shouldnt expect Amazon to start dropping Marvel-like blockbusters anytime soon, its possible that their focus on independent films may have lessened over the last year. As for Netflix, the tide began to change this year when it released Will Smiths $90 million big budget action flick Bright, which was viewed by 11 million people within its first three days and has already received the greenlight for a sequel. Okja, which the studio released over the summer, was a far superior film, but likely didnt come close to the same amount of viewings. Elsewhere, the streamer struck a deal with Paramount Pictures for the international rights to Natalie Portmans upcoming eco-thriller Annihilation, which was a great move. The company is also in discussions with Paramount about acquiring the worldwide rights to the third Cloverfield film, which we think is a less great move. On top of all that, Netflix also put down $100 million for the highly-anticipated gangster pic The Irishman, directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. The streamers are continuing to push for more commercial fare and taking more control of their destinies by looking inward to develop content, Verve partner Bryan Besser told THR. Prestige-seekers such as A24, Fox Searchlight and Focus Features also sat out Sundance, which may say something about this years crop of films. But if were reading the tea leaves correctly, Netflix and Amazon Prime Video subscribers may be in store for bigger offerings. Whether or not thats a good thing is up to the viewer.
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https://observer.com/2018/02/netflix-amazon-sundance-blockbusters-oscars/
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Can Netflix Slay The Mouse?
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In August, Disney sent a missile into the media stratosphere when it abruptly announced that it was creating a pair of digital streaming services : one built around ESPN sports programming that will launch in 2018, and one devoted to Disney entertainment, to debut in 2019. This alone wasnt shockingDisney has long discussed creating its own streaming apps. But then CEO Bob Iger dropped another crucial detail: Disney will end its lucrative licensing deal with Netflix in 2019 and transfer Disney Animation and Pixar films, as well as TV shows from the Disney library, to its own service. Suddenly, the target became clear. Disney was going to war with Netflix. Five days later, Netflix retaliated by announcing a multiyear production deal with Shonda Rhimes, whose Shondaland dramas (Scandal, Greys Anatomy) have been a centerpiece for Disney-owned ABC for the past decade. Disneys rejoinder came in September, when Iger announced that the company would also pull Marvel and Lucasfilm (i.e., Star Wars) content from Netflix to put on its entertainment app. The battle lines within the entertainment world are quickly being redrawn. Just a few years ago, Netflix was still regarded as an online video upstart, and its content chief, Ted Sarandos, was preoccupied with trying to become HBO faster than HBO can become us, as he said in 2013. Today, with more than 100 million worldwide users, 91 Emmy nominations for original shows this year, including Stranger Things and The Crown, and a $7 billion content budget for 2018 (nearly three times that of HBO), Netflix has eclipsed its onetime rival in many ways. Its now racing to transform into something even bigger: a one-stop entertainment empire that not only launches new shows and movies seemingly every day, but also creates zeitgeist-rattling brands that extend beyond the living room and into physical products. In other words, Netflix wants to become Disneybefore Disney can become Netflix. Its a dynamic being repeated across industries, from finance to hospitality, as technological innovations proliferate: The digital disrupter and the legacy player are coming into direct competition. The stakes are high for both Netflix and Disney. With content and distribution pipelines fusing across the entertainment industry, Netflix needs to prove that it isnt dependent on licensing other companies shows and can become a creative powerhouse in its own right. (Disney will surely not be the last studio to pull its content from the service, although Piper Jaffray analyst Michael Olson estimates that Netflix will have 150 million subscribers by 2020, with or without Frozen.) Disney, meanwhile, needs a streaming arm to build powerful, direct relationships with viewers, which will be increasingly important to sustaining its many other divisions, from toys to theme parks, in a world of growing entertainment options. That means Disney must build a digital presence that has, so far, eluded the company. Disneys biggest streaming experiment to date, DisneyLife, launched in the U.K. in late 2015, offering Disney and Pixar movies and Disney Channel TV shows. It failed to take off, crippled by a $15-a-month price tag, nearly twice that of Netflix. Disney has traditionally been a premium product, says Eric Jackson, founder and president of the media hedge fund EMJ Capital. But in streaming, Disney is starting from being compared to Netflix. Some analysts suggest that Disney may have to price its new entertainment app as low as $5 a month to woo current Netflix subscribers into signing up for another service. Another challenge will be keeping people engaged, month after month. The task is similar to Disneys efforts to get people to take their kids to Disneyland to see Mickey and Minnie once a year, says Blair Westlake, the former chairman of Universal Television and head of media and entertainment for Microsoft, only on a more frequent basis and in a much more crowded market. Disney will also have to create the kind of seamless, user-friendly interface that companies such as Netflix and Hulu have perfected over the years. Although Disney invested $2.5 billion to become the majority owner of BAMTech, which is building the back end of its apps, it still needs to attract and empower tech talent to develop its new services. Who comes out of MIT and Stanford and goes, I want to work at the Walt Disney Company. I want to work at Time Warner. I want to work at Viacom.? says BTIG analyst (and relentless Disney bear) Rich Greenfield. They dont want to work for media companies stock. There isnt the upside potential, and there isnt the work environment that there is in Silicon Valley. If you spend a day at the Google campus and spend a day at the Disney campus, theyre totally different experiences. Disneys strength, of course, is the intimate hold that it has on consumers around the worldand the myriad mechanisms it has to reinforce that embrace. Disney love seems to materialize simply from breathing air, such that a 3-year-old who has never seen The Little Mermaid will still proudly wear an Ariel T-shirt, listen to the soundtrack, and read Little Mermaid books from the libraryall with little encouragement from her parents. This depth of engagement will help the company mobilize its new digital offerings. Internet entrepreneur Jason Calacanis has posited that Disney could offer a free trial of its streaming services to all of its theme-park guests and instantly amass millions of subscribers.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40473821/can-netflix-slay-the-mouse
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Would we pay higher stamp duty if we marry before buying together?
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Q Please can you advise me whether my partner and I should wait until we marry to buy a new home together or not. I own three rental properties and would probably need to sell my current home to buy with my partner. I am unsure if we would be liable for the extra stamp duty on the purchase if we marry before buying, or if I alone would pay on 50% of the purchase if we are tenants in common. VF A How you jointly own property whether as tenants in common or joint tenants makes no difference to how stamp duty is charged. Both the standard and higher rates of stamp duty are charged on the full purchase price of the property. There was a fairly technical and untested tax loophole around the legal definition of what constituted a major interest in a property, which meant that married couples could, in theory, get out of paying the higher rate of stamp duty by being tenants in common rather than joint tenants. But this loophole was closed last November, so how you own property no longer makes a difference. If you sell your current home and buy another one to live in with your partner/spouse, the standard rather than higher rate of stamp duty will apply because you would be selling a main residence and replacing it with another. However, if your partner already owns property and doesnt plan to sell it to buy with you, the higher rates will apply whether you are married or not. But if they were to sell their old home within three years of buying another with you, you would be able to get a rebate of the extra 3% added to the standard stamp duty rate.
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https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/jan/28/would-we-pay-higher-stamp-duty-if-we-marry-before-buying-together
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Was ist die Deutsche Umwelthilfe?
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Stuttgart, Dsseldorf oder Berlin die Deutsche Umwelthilfe, kurz DUH, setzt ein Diesel-Fahrverbot nach dem anderen mit Klagen durch. Dieselfahrverbote, Unterlassungsklagen - die Deutsche Umwelthilfe (DUH) macht mit ihrem Geschftsfhrer Jrgen Resch eine Schlagzeile nach der anderen. Dabei ist die DUH verglichen mit anderen Vereinen wie dem NABU (Naturschutzbund Deutschland e.V.) ein relativ kleiner Umwelt- und Verbraucherschutzverein. Dauer 02:23 min Das ist die Deutsche Umwelthilfe Stuttgart, Dsseldorf oder Berlin die Deutsche Umwelthilfe, kurz DUH, setzt ein Diesel-Fahrverbot nach dem anderen mit Klagen durch. Nach eigenen Angaben hat die DUH derzeit etwa 5.641 Mitglieder und Frdermitglieder. Frdermitglieder zahlen Spenden, haben in der Mitgliederversammlung aber kein Stimmrecht und sind nicht whlbar. Stimmberechtigt sind bei der DUH 361 Mitglieder. Der NABU nennt fr sich eine Gesamtmitgliederzahl von etwa 664.000. ffentliche Frderung von der EU, dem Bund und den Lndern Laut ihrem Jahresbericht 2017 hat die Deutsche Umwelthilfe etwa 8,3 Millionen Euro Einnahmen. Zum Vergleich: Der NABU nennt in seinem Jahresbericht 2017 Ertrge von etwa 44,5 Millionen Euro. 20 Prozent der Einnahmen der Deutschen Umwelthilfe sind Frdergelder von der EU, dem Bund und den Lndern. So hat das Bundesumweltministerium die DUH beispielsweise fr das Projekt "SmartRathaus, Kommunaler Klimaschutz durch digitales Gebudemanagement" im Zeitraum von 2018 bis 2020 mit 497.944 Euro untersttzt. Jrgen Resch, der Chef der Deutschen Umwelthilfe, gilt als umstritten. Video herunterladen (6 MB | MP4 ) Die DUH als gemeinntziger Verein Mehr als ein Drittel der Einnahmen der DUH sind laut Jahresbericht 2017 Spenden von Privatleuten, Frdermitgliedern, Unternehmen und Institutionen sowie Sponsoring. Wer der DUH etwas spendet, kann diese Gelder steuerlich absetzen, da die DUH ein gemeinntziger Verein ist. Ob ein Verein gemeinntzig ist, das berprft das Finanzamt anhand gesetzlich festgelegter Kriterien. Im Falle der DUH ist es das Finanzamt Singen. Die Deutsche Umwelthilfe ist vom Umweltbundesamt als klagebefugter Umweltverein nach dem Umweltrechtsbehelfsgesetz anerkannt. Insgesamt sind das 119 Vereine. Diese Anerkennung ermglicht es Vereinen, in Umweltfragen vor den Verwaltungsgerichten zu klagen. Die DUH kann also vor Gericht auf die Einhaltung von gesetzlich geltenden Stickoxidgrenzwerten klagen. Stand Januar tut sie das nach eigenen Angaben in 35 Stdten. Elf Urteile sind gefallen, alle zugunsten der DUH. Klageberechtigter Verbraucherschutzverein Die Deutsche Umwelthilfe verklagt aber auch Unternehmen oder Hndler, die gegen Verbraucherrechte verstoen. Das kann sie, weil sie auf der Liste der klagebefugten Einrichtungen des Bundesamtes fr Justiz steht. Auf dieser Liste steht beispielsweise auch der ADAC, der Deutsche Mieterbund e.V. oder etwa die Verbraucherzentralen. Wenn ein Unternehmen bei einem Produkt beispielsweise einen falschen Kraftstoff- oder Energieverbrauch angibt, dann mahnt die DUH das Unternehmen ab oder reicht sogar Unterlassungsklage ein. Der Groteil bezieht sich laut DUH auf den Immobilienbereich, 40 Prozent auf den Fahrzeugbereich. Insgesamt seien es etwa 30 Abmahnungen pro Woche, also etwa 1.560 pro Jahr. 400 Flle gehen davon vor Gericht. Gewinnt die DUH, dann muss das Unternehmen alle gesetzlichen Kosten der Auseinandersetzung zahlen. Verstt das Unternehmen weiter dagegen, muss es auch noch eine Art Strafe an die DUH zahlen. Kritiker sprechen von "Abmahn-Verein" Durch dieses Vorgehen hatte die DUH laut ihrem Jahresbericht 2017 etwa 2,2 Millionen Euro Einnahmen. Kritiker sagen, die DUH sei ein "Abmahn-Verein" und mache mit den Unterlassungsklagen Geld. Die DUH sagt, dass sie wie andere klageberechtigten Verbraucherschutzverbnde stichprobenhafte Kontrollen durchfhren und festgestellte Verste verfolgen msse. Zudem erziele sie hieraus keine Gewinne, sondern finanziere die Kontrollttigkeit und die Verbraucherberatung. Dieselfahrverbote, Unterlassungsklagen - die Deutsche Umwelthilfe nutzt als relativ kleiner Umwelt- und Verbraucherschutzverein vor allem bestehende Gesetze, um ihre Ziele durchzusetzen.
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https://www.swr.de/swraktuell/Deutsche-Umwelthilfe-Resch-Dieselfahrverbote-Tempolimit-Grenzwerte,umwelthilfe-hintergrund-100.html
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Will the interim budget provide a lifeline to realty?
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In a way, this year's interim budget, the last from the present NDA government before the Lok Sabha elections, is set against a similar backdrop as its first (albeit not full) budget of 2014-15 when the real estate sector was reeling under a major financial crisis. As such, it is expected of the February 1 budget to provide a liquidity lifeline to revive the realty sector, recently hit by the crisis in the NBFCs that have been a major source of its funding. The Modi government's first budget had contributed to considerably improving the investment climate by liberalising the FDI norms in the construction sector, besides injecting Rs 4,000 crore to the National Housing Bank (NHB) to promote affordable housing and introducing REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) with tax incentives to unlock a new source of financing for cash-strapped developers. So, on the one hand, while that budget focused on boosting supply through increased investment, on the other hand, it provided a recipe to boost demand by increasing the home loan interest exemption limit by Rs 50,000 and raising the income tax limit by Rs 50,000. And now, five years later, in the wake of the real estate sector facing the initial disruptive impact of progressive reforms like RERA and GST, the sector is looking up to the government to provide it a similar budgetary booster dose, both on the supply and demand side. Though the key reforms undertaken by the NDA government have brought in the much needed transparency and fair play in realty transactions, yet the restrictive provision of maintaining escrow accounts under RERA to check misuse of customer funds has resulted in liquidity constraints for the developers, made worse by the crisis in the NBFCs. Hundreds of housing projects across India are today stalled for want of funds, in turn driving down the real estate sentiment. It is in this backdrop that the sector is looking up to the new budget as a saviour to provide some kind of lifeline to the stalled projects. It is expected of the budget to create a stressed asset fund to take up incomplete projects. The industry captains are also hoping that the budget may provide some incentives to stressed asset companies to encourage them to undertake stalled projects. And to further boost supply, the industry has on its budget wishlist a long-pending demand of introducing a structured single window clearance system. The supply constraint can be considerably tackled by boosting flows from banks to the sector. This can be achieved through a policy initiative to grant industry status to real estate, though in the backdrop of NPA-struck banking, this looks unlikely, especially as the infrastructure status earlier granted to affordable housing has not brought in the desired results in terms of cheaper bank funding. Incentivised policies to promote rental housing and boost construction skills and technology are also required which may ultimately improve home affordability. While the liquidity crunch has been adding to the supply side problems, the current crisis in the real estate sector has a lot to do with home affordability. As such, it is expected of this budget to follow the first budget of the NDA government in enhancing the income tax limit as well as increasing the home loan interest deduction limit. And as inflation has shown signs of relaxation, going forward, the reduction in interest rates, especially subsidised interest rates for affordable housing, along with tax benefits in home insurance, may well bring home ownership within comparatively affordable limits. Besides unaffordable home prices, the high transaction cost (12 per cent GST for standard housing and 8 per cent for affordable housing), in addition to 6-7 per cent stamp duty, has been playing spoilsport in reviving housing. The government may well bring down the GST to 8 per cent and 5 per cent, with input tax credit, to make it more or less tax neutral. Further, there is likelihood of bringing down the GST on construction material like cement to boost home affordability, paving the way for speedy revival of housing. (Vinod Behl is Founder & Editor, Ground Real(i)ty Media) --IANS vinod/vm/am/mr
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https://in.news.yahoo.com/interim-budget-lifeline-realty-071607248.html
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Will interim budget give a liquidity lifeline to realty sector?
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In a way, this year's interim budget, the last from the present NDA government before the Lok Sabha elections, is set against a similar backdrop as its first (albeit not full) budget of 2014-15 when the real estate sector was reeling under a major financial crisis. As such, it is expected of the February 1 budget to provide a liquidity lifeline to revive the realty sector, recently hit by the crisis in the NBFCs that have been a major source of its funding. The Modi government's first budget had contributed to considerably improving the investment climate by liberalising the FDI norms in the construction sector, besides injecting Rs 4,000 crore to the National Housing Bank (NHB) to promote affordable housing and introducing REITs (Real Estate Investment Trusts) with tax incentives to unlock a new source of financing for cash-strapped developers. So, on the one hand, while that budget focused on boosting supply through increased investment, on the other hand, it provided a recipe to boost demand by increasing the home loan interest exemption limit by Rs 50,000 and raising the income tax limit by Rs 50,000. And now, five years later, in the wake of the real estate sector facing the initial disruptive impact of progressive reforms like RERA and GST, the sector is looking up to the government to provide it a similar budgetary booster dose, both on the supply and demand side. While the liquidity crunch has been adding to the supply side problems, the current crisis in the real estate sector has a lot to do with home affordability Though the key reforms undertaken by the NDA government have brought in the much needed transparency and fair play in realty transactions, yet the restrictive provision of maintaining escrow accounts under RERA to check misuse of customer funds has resulted in liquidity constraints for the developers, made worse by the crisis in the NBFCs. Hundreds of housing projects across India are today stalled for want of funds, in turn driving down the real estate sentiment. It is in this backdrop that the sector is looking up to the new budget as a saviour to provide some kind of lifeline to the stalled projects. It is expected of the budget to create a stressed asset fund to take up incomplete projects. The industry captains are also hoping that the budget may provide some incentives to stressed asset companies to encourage them to undertake stalled projects. And to further boost supply, the industry has on its budget wishlist a long-pending demand of introducing a structured single window clearance system. The supply constraint can be considerably tackled by boosting flows from banks to the sector. This can be achieved through a policy initiative to grant industry status to real estate, though in the backdrop of NPA-struck banking, this looks unlikely, especially as the infrastructure status earlier granted to affordable housing has not brought in the desired results in terms of cheaper bank funding. As inflation has shown signs of relaxation, a reduction in interest rates, especially subsidised interest rates for affordable housing, along with tax benefits in home insurance, will make home ownership more affordable Incentivised policies to promote rental housing and boost construction skills and technology are also required which may ultimately improve home affordability. While the liquidity crunch has been adding to the supply side problems, the current crisis in the real estate sector has a lot to do with home affordability. As such, it is expected of this budget to follow the first budget of the NDA government in enhancing the income tax limit as well as increasing the home loan interest deduction limit. And as inflation has shown signs of relaxation, going forward, the reduction in interest rates, especially subsidised interest rates for affordable housing, along with tax benefits in home insurance, may well bring home ownership within comparatively affordable limits. Besides unaffordable home prices, the high transaction cost (12 per cent GST for standard housing and 8 per cent for affordable housing), in addition to 6-7 per cent stamp duty, has been playing spoilsport in reviving housing. The government may well bring down the GST to 8 per cent and 5 per cent, with input tax credit, to make it more or less tax neutral. Further, there is likelihood of bringing down the GST on construction material like cement to boost home affordability, paving the way for speedy revival of housing. (By Vinod Behl, via IANS)
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https://www.ibtimes.co.in/will-interim-budget-give-liquidity-lifeline-realty-sector-790873
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Will 'Ilaiyaraaja 75' event be held sans any hurdle?
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Vishal Krishna, president of the Tamil Film Producers' Council (TFPC), is confident of organising 'Ilaiyaraaja 75' without any trouble despite facing opposition from a section of people within the guild. Tamil Film Producers' Council's planned event 'Ilaiyaraaja 75' was hit by one more roadblock after S Ve Shekher lodged a complaint against the officer bearers of the council for the alleged misappropriation of funds. S Ve Shekher along with four others filed a complaint with the Chennai Commissioner of Police alleging Vishal and his colleagues of involving in financial malpractice recently. He claimed that the office bearers of the TFPC have spent Rs 8.75 crore from the guild's fixed deposit, while paying a hefty amount for Ilaiyaraaja for the two-day concert to celebrate 75 years of the Music Maestro. Speaking with the media, S Ve Shekher said that he does not have any personal issue against Vishal and he filed the complaint against the officer bearers of the council. Prior to the complaint, the Madras High Court, while responding to a petition filed by producer JSK Sathish Kumar over financial irregularities, sought an explanation from the council. As a result, uncertainty over the event has loomed among the fans. The TFPC has organised the event on 2 and 3 February at YMCA Grounds in Chennai. The first day of the event will see some of the big names of South India performing to the songs of Ilaiyaraaja's hit songs. On the second day, the Music Maestro will perform live. The event is expected to have the presence of the singers from across the country. From Rajinikanth to Kamal Haasan, the leading names from Kollywood will be attending 'Ilaiyaraaja 75'.
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https://www.ibtimes.co.in/will-ilaiyaraaja-75-event-be-held-sans-any-hurdle-790866
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Is Aamir Khan not interested in making 'Mahabharata' anymore?
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Aamir Khan's track record in Bollywood is something that would act as a reference point for many. From picking up some unconventional, out-of-the-box topics and converting them into massy entertainers; Aamir certainly has an edge over others when it comes to excelling the craft of filmmaking. No wonder, when the speculations of Aamir Khan directing and acting in magnum opus 'Mahabharata' started doing the rounds, audience and fans' joy knew no bounds. If there was anyone who could have come up with something as grand and opulent, it had to be Aamir. And when the news started floating around, the audience was convinced to buckle up for an entertaining, outstanding filmy ride. Few reports had claimed that even Shah Rukh would be seen playing a pivotal role in the film and that, the film would be made in series since its impossible to capture the entire saga in few hours. However, Aamir's recent statement has made us think otherwise. As per a Hindustan Times report, Aamir has clarified that he never made any such announcement about the film and is busy choosing from the four brilliant projects lined up for him. "I never announced Mahabharat. You all assumed I'm making it then you assumed I'm not! When I want to make something I'll tell you," he said. Not just this, he also seemed pre-occupied with other projects and said that his next two projects demand him to be in a lean and fit state and thus he would just be focusing on it. He also expressed his desire to produce any or all of the four good scripts he has been offered. Well, how long will we have to wait to hear an official announcement remains to be seen.
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https://www.ibtimes.co.in/aamir-khan-not-interested-making-mahabharata-anymore-790862
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Do We Really Need A Gadget To Stop Us From Using Gadgets Now?
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Socialight is a lamp that only lights up if you put your phone on top of it. Its like the new version of the phone stacking game from 2012: People put all their phones on the table at the beginning of dinner; then the first person to use the phone would pay the check. Socialight is designed to fix this problem. The devicedesigned by SVA Products of Design student Kevin Cookwas inspired by the old phone stacking game, and functions similarly: The light only turns on when its hidden magnetometer detects a phones electromagnetic field. [The] consequence for removing your phone is darkness, and I think thats a pretty unambiguous cue to put your phone back down and enjoy the meal and your company, Cook writes. Unfortunately, it only takes one nice person to light up a table full of assholes with phones glued to their faces. People who want truly meaningful face-to-face conversations just dont use their phones at dinner. People who are constantly stuffing their egos with social media will find a way to avoid changing their behavior. The third possible case is the latter group of people sharing their intimate occasion with the former. No device can change human nature without more of an incentive or punishmentespecially when, in this case, escaping meaningful conversation is a strong incentive for using the phone at dinner. As a friend once told me: When I go on dates, I never take my phone out. I just go to the toilet to pee whenever I want to check my messages. Its good advice if you want to be famous for having a tiny bladder, and hide the fact that youre a social dolt in the process. Maybe everyone needs a Socialight to remind them not to be a jerk to others. Dont date my friend unless he brings one of these to dinner.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90145565/do-we-need-a-gadget-to-stop-us-from-using-gadgets-now
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Is Mixed Reality The Future Of Computing?
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Alex Kipman knows about hardware. Since joining Microsoft 16 years ago, he has been the primary inventor on more than 100 patents, including Xbox Kinects pioneering motion-sensing technology that paved the way for some of the features in his latest creation, the holographic 3D headset called the HoloLens. advertisement advertisement But today, sitting in his office in Microsofts headquarters in Redmond, Washington, Kipman is not talking hardware. Hes discussing the relationship between humans and machines from a broader philosophical perspective. Whether we interact with machines through screens or stuff that sits on our heads, to him, its all just a moment in time. The Brazilian-born Kipman, whose title is technical fellow at Microsofts Windows and Devices Group, enthusiastically explains that the key benefit of technology is its ability to displace time and space. He brings up mixed reality (MR), Microsofts term for tech that mixes real-world with computer-generated imagery and will, some day, according to Kipman, seamlessly blend augmented and virtual reality. He says that one of the most exciting features of MR is its potential to unleash displacement superpowers onto the real world. Humans attach value to the feeling you get when physically sharing a space with another person, which is the reason I took a 10-hour flight to have a face-to-face conversation with Kipman. But if you could have this type of interaction without actually being here, he says, life suddenly becomes much more interesting. My daughter can hang out with her cousins in Brazil every weekend, and my employees dont need to travel around the globe to get their job done, he continues. With the advent of artificial intelligence, we could still be talking, but Im not even here anymore. One day you and I are going to be having this conversation, youll be sitting on Mars, and Ill have been dead for 100 years. Our job as technologists is to accelerate that future and ask how we do that. Microsoft is betting on mixed reality to help launch us into the future. Which brings us back to hardware. The availability of the right device at the right price will be a factor in whether consumers adopt MR (though devices alone arent likely to jump-start a MR revolution, if the slow sales of VR systems are any indication). While the HoloLens is the only self-contained holographic computer on the market (unlike the Oculus Rift or HTC Vine, it doesnt need to be attached by cables to an external device), the $3,000 smart glasses have served more as proof of concept than a consumer product. Now Microsoft wants to change that. This fall, the company is launching the Windows Mixed Reality Headsets, its first major attempt to sell the concept to the general public. Though still closer to virtual reality than a perfect AR/VR hybrid, the new device repackages some of the main features of the HoloLenssuch as its advanced tracking and mapping capabilitiesat the more affordable price range of $300-$500. The headsets will be available in different forms via a number of hardware partners, including Dell, HP, and Samsung, and will enable users to create 3D spaces that they can personalize with media, apps, browser windows, and more. advertisement As Microsoft sees it, introducing a platform that lets anyone in the general public build their own digital world is the first step in achieving that leap into the world of tomorrow. If you believe, as we do, that mixed reality is the inevitable next secular trend of computing, its going to involve productivity, creativity, education, and the entire spectrum of entertainment, from casual to hardcore gaming, Kipman says. Perfecting Mixed Reality Kipman is not the only one whos bullish about mixed reality. The California-based startup Avegant is working on a platform that presents detailed 3D images by stacking multiple focal planes, which the company calls light field technology. Applications are endless, says Avegant CEO Joerg Tewes, from designers and engineers directly manipulating 3D models with their hands, to medical professors illustrating different heart conditions through a lifelike model of the human heart for their students. At home, consumers might find themselves surrounded by virtual shelves full of their favorite products. Mixed reality enables people to interact directly with their ideas rather than screens or keyboards. Yet in order to do all of that, mixed reality devices need to support virtual imagery that seems to be a plausible part of the real world and act in a cohesive way with it. According to Professor Gregory Welch, a computer scientist at the University of Central Florida, most of the technology developed so far has yet to achieve that balance. MR is particularly difficult in that respect because there is no hiding the imperfections of the virtual, nor the awesomeness of the real, he says via email. He and his research collaborators found that in some cases, the relatively wide real-world view afforded by the HoloLens could harm that all-important sense of presence. Where a healthy human can see approximately 210 degrees, the display of the HoloLens only augments the middle of your field of view 30 degrees or so. In the experiments that Welch and his team conducted, the disconnect between the real and augmented landscape diminished the sense of immersion and presence in their subjects. That means that if you are looking at a virtual human in front of you (as we did in our experiment), you will only see a portion of them floating in space in front of you, Welch says. You have to move your head up and down to paint a perception of them, as you cannot see the entire person at once, unless you look at them from far away (so they appear smaller). The problem appears to be that your brain is constantly seeing the normal world all around, and that apparently overrides many perceptions or behaviors you might otherwise have. Welch further explains that in demonstrations we see today with HoloLens or Apple ARKit, for example, virtual objects can appear to be fixed on a flat surface, but beyond the basic shape and visual appearance, the software usually doesnt recognize many important physical characteristics of the object, such as weight, center of mass, and behaviors, or the surface its onmuch less any idea about the real-world activities occurring around the objects. If I somehow roll a pair of dice on a virtual table, it will likely not fall when it reaches the edge, and surely wont bounce according to its type and the material of the floor, he explains. advertisement In a paper that Welch coauthored with Professor Jeremy Bailenson, the director of Stanford Universitys Virtual Human Interaction Lab (VHIL), they outline some of the results of their research, which shows how virtual content is much more impactful when it behaves in the way we would expect physical objects to behave in the real world. In my lab, we are starting to use the HoloLens to understand the relationship between AR [augmented reality] experiences and subsequent psychological attitudes and behaviors toward the physical space itself, Bailenson says. For example, he explains that his experiments indicated that virtual humans who ghosted through real objectsi.e., passed through them rather than going around or avoiding them as you would in the real worldwere perceived as less real than ones who visibly obeyed the laws of physics. Advances in mixed reality are likely to bring us headsets that are increasingly affordable and lightweight, but it is also possible that at least some of our future interaction with this technology will not involve wearables at all. Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR), for instance, which Welch developed with colleagues years ago, allows you to use projectors to change the appearance of physical objects around you, such as a tables material or the color of a couchwithout glasses. Of course SAR wont work for all situations, but when it works, its really compelling and liberating, Welch says. There is something magical about the world around you changing when you dont have anything to do with itno head-worn display, no phone, nothing. You just exist in a physical world that is changing virtually around you. Happy Thursday party people. Make sure to bring your #Glyph along for the ride! A post shared by Avegant (@avegant) on Apr 6, 2017 at 3:27pm PDT A Virtual Tool For A Collaborative Real World Nonny de la Pea, founder and CEO of the immersive media company Emblematic, helped pioneer the use of virtual reality as a reporting and storytelling medium. Known as the godmother of VR, she believes immersive technologies are the closest thing to giving audiences the view from the groundi.e., putting them right on the scene of a journalists report as its unfolding. She sees the HoloLens as having the potential to increase the quality and depth of our understanding of the world, particularly with the volumetric capture technique, which creates a 3D model of subjects via multiple cameras and green screen. advertisement Microsoft started offering high levels of realism using volumetric capture, something thats just becoming part of the journalism tool set, de la Pea says. Emblematics own After Solitary, an award-winning documentary produced in partnership with PBS and the Knight Foundation, used this technique to give the audience a more visceral sense of the psychological trauma of long-term imprisonment. The main shift that mixed reality promises to bring about is that content will not be anchored to any one particular device. MR uses building blocks (real-world objects or computer-generated ones) to create environments that people enter and use to interact with one another. In that context, devices become a window that allows you to look into and access those worlds, rather than a repository where your personal content lives (like your smartphone). Kipman points out that in these shared real/virtual environments, our relationship with computing changes from a personal to a collaborative onefrom devices storing your own individual content, to common creative spaces mediated by technology. This has profound implications for how we will design apps in the future, according to Kipman. If, for example, you create a virtual statue and place it as a hologram on top of a table in your living room, another person with a different mixed reality device should still be able to see your statue when they enter that room and move it around if they wish. Thats because the device does not store your content, but rather scans and maps the environment to determine what objects (both real and virtual) inhabit it. These concepts require you to redefine an operating system in the context of mixed reality, Kipman says. You have to build a foundation that goes from the silicon to the cloud architecture that enables this shift from personal computing to collaborative computing. And these things take time. Kipman smiles. Until it doesnt, then it just picks up and youre like, What happened?
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40470073/is-mixed-reality-the-future-of-computing
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Has Enugu State unlocked the model for genuine community development in Nigeria?
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Akpugo-Ezedike-modern-market-completed-and-awaiting-commissioning Akpugo-Ezedike-community-modern-market-just-recently-completed Akpugo-Ezedike-modern-market-completed-and-awaiting-commissioning2 Ede-Enu-Edeoballa-community-Girls-secondary-school Gburu-Gburu-cottage-hospital-Ogbozalla-Opi Ede-Enu-Edeoballa-community-Girls-secondary-school3 Gburu-Gburu-cottage-hospital-Ogbozalla-Opi.jpg-3 Gburu-Gburu-cottage-hospital-Ogbozalla-Opi.jpg-2 Ede-Enu-Edeoballa-community-Girls-secondary-school2 Enugu State governments landmark Visit Every Community (VEC) programme looks to be delivering on its mandate despite several gaps and inconsistencies. Enugu State, capital of the South East geopolitical zone, has 99 problems but a shoddy intra-state road network isnt one of them. The Visit Every Community Programme which, for ten years now, has uncovered access roads as the most pressing development need of the people. Enugus impressive road network stretching for miles and connecting urban areas to rural communities is one of the states most impressive characteristics. These roads, perhaps more noticeable to a first-time visitor than the countless self-congratulatory billboards and posters of Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi, have been credited as the most visible achievements of the states landmark Visit Every Community (VEC) initiative. Started in 2009 by then Governor Sullivan Chime, VEC is a state government led initiative created to enshrine an environment where governance is all-inclusive and citizens take a leading role in solving development problems. The model for VEC is an inclusive data gathering one and starts from the grassroots. A special committee made up of indigenous community members alongside state and local government officials, is empowered to identify the most pressing needs of the people in every single one of the states 472 indigenous communities. The VEC committee gets its mandate by visiting the states 472 indigenous communities across 17 local government areas and finding out from the people through focus groups discussions and direct interactions, their Key Developmental Needs (KDN). The findings are analyzed and prepared into reports, which are then fed up to the state government. Upon receiving the VEC reports, the governments role is to budget appropriately and decide where resources are needed the most. State agencies like the World Bank assisted Community and Social Development Project (CSDP) and the Rural Water and Sanitation Agency (RWASA) are then commissioned to execute the projects. At least that was how VEC operated at inception. Narrating the oral history of VEC at his Enugu GRA residence, Head of VEC Directorate, Dr Eric Oluedo, who initiated the programme during his stint as Commissioner for Special Projects, describes VEC as a direct feedback from the federal governments now rested Visit Every Ward programme on Immunization circa 1995. One of the drawbacks of that project, gleaned from Oluedos tenure as local government chairman, was that the immunization services rarely got to the wards and almost always stalled at local government level for various reasons including logistics and manpower. Oluedo recalled I tell you during the first (VEC) visits, some communities were shedding tears that they have never seen this kind of thing on earth, government coming to them and it was humbling. Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyis government assumed office with a pledge to consolidate on the achievements of the Sullivan Chime administration. True to his word, Ugwuanyi kept faith with VEC, promising that the programme would form the back bone of the states budgeting process. In 2016, Ugwuanyi created a directorate of VEC within the governors office and appointed as head, Oluedo, who also served in the Chime administration in different capacities as Commissioner of Agriculture as well as for Rural Development. One community, one project However in 2017, changes were made. VEC was repositioned and the One Autonomous Community, One Project programme was introduced as VECs flagship agenda. Under this new initiative, royal fathers (Igwes), town union leaders and civil societies were pooled together to execute on behalf of their communities, projects not exceeding 10million Naira- payable in two tranches- that directly benefit their communities. In Enugu State, the community is the simplest development unit, made up of a collection of villages. Each community is under the administration of the President General (PG) of the development union, so named because they also supervise the leaderships of all the union branches in the diaspora. Under the states community driven development approach, after the VEC committee visits to the various communities, the key development needs are penciled down to two priority needs per community. Government pays an initial deposit of five million Naira to an account jointly run by the Igwe and town union leadership, usually the PG. These two officials are automatically signatories to the bank accounts that received these projects. In the communities, the Igwe and PG set up a community project management committee, an inclusive team whose mandate is to oversee the execution and delivery of the projects. The One autonomous Community one Project adjustment was to directly address and reduce the disturbingly high reports of project abandonment and duplication of efforts associated with VEC. In Akpugo Ezedike, a community located in Uzouwani local government for instance, a water project earlier commissioned under the VEC program failed to function shortly after the contractors selected by a government agency delivered the project. The contractors were not bothered to report to the community stakeholders who would benefit from the project. According to Prince Celestine Ozor, president general of Akpugo Ezedike community, VEC as presently designed, represents democracy in action. He explained his communitys focus, We thought of using the first tranche to embark on the rehabilitation of the old non-functioning borehole but the greater number of people, especially women, chose a market square instead because at the moment there is no functional market in the community, outside of the road side markets. However, we are proposing that if we get the second fund, we are going to use part of the fund to rehabilitate the failed borehole and connect the water to some areas. Monitoring VEC For Oluedo who midwifed the birth of VEC and has supervised it for the last ten years, he still speaks fondly of the achievements of the past nine years. Not so much the last year. His present title as Head, VEC Directorate is mostly ceremonial. Basically a one-party state, Enugus economy is centered around government and not many people are willing to speak publicly against government for fear of repercussions. However interviews with persons including civil society leaders who are conversant with the various iterations of VEC now point out that the One Community One project programme leaves a lot of gaps in terms of monitoring and evaluation. Hon Nelson Ede, who joined VEC in 2014 as a state officer observes that for purposes of accountability and uniformity, it made sense for the ministry of rural development to oversee the agencies that implement the projects. I believe the governor knows what he is doing but when you release government money, at the end of the exercise there should be an assessment. I believe our governor will do that so they know the communities that complied with the VEC report. No one is doing that now. Igboke Onyebuchi Martin, project manager, Advocacy Partnership for Good Governance (APAGG) and a VEC civil society liaison officer observes thus, VEC is a great programme and I have seen it work when applied properly but there must be accountability and effective monitoring and evaluation when dealing with public funds or else it becomes another jamboree. This reporter went out into the field visiting some communities to observe the effectiveness of the one community one project as well as look into rumors of mismanagement of funds and poor quality projects that have trailed the programme. The general impression from communities visited across three local governments is that communities who have benefited from the 5milliion Naira mobilization fee have been able to put them to use, putting up structures at various levels of completion. However familiar challenges persist though. From abandoned projects to completed structures that arent functional, it would seem that despite community ownership, the main threat to VEC may be the apathy and unwillingness of government to see the project through till the end. In Akpugo Ezedike for instance, the community agreed on a modern market and cooperation between the community- via a project monitoring committee-, Igwe and PG delivered a structure that was about 90% completed at the time of this reporters visit. The structure looked abandoned though with overgrown weeds circling the immediate environment. According to the PG, the market is awaiting commissioning by government officials so efforts can be transferred to securing the second tranche. Margaret Okeke, a native of Akpugo Ezedike says that the community is excited about the market. We are impressed with the work that the PG and his team have done so far and we are waiting till they start allocating shops so that our women can have proper places to be trading goods instead of standing under the sun, she said in Igbo. In Ogbozalla Opi community, Nsukka LGA, a primary health centre was identified as the second key development need. On a visit to the site, a modest bungalow with a sign post identifying it as Gburu Gburu Cottage hospital (named after Governor Ugwuanyi). The building was plastered and roofed but still far from being habitable with tiling, ceiling, electrification and plumbing work yet to be completed. The PG of the community, Ignatius Okoro in a telephone conversation confirmed the updates on the construction process while expressing hopes of completing the project with the second tranche. We need to tile the place, do plumbing work, purchase beds, even the doctors quarters, then ask the governor to post doctors to assist us. According to him, labourers and artisans who worked on the building were sourced from within the community and from nearby Nsukka community. Even though the hospital is not yet functional, indigenes are optimistic that the project will be beneficial. Eddy Ogbaru, an electrician says that so far the project has brought on jobs for laborers and artisans and once fully functional, indigenes can stop travelling far distances to treat common illnesses. The success of the project in Ogbozalla Opi so far is tied to the working relationship existing between both Igwe and the PG. Okoro describes their relationship as harmonious. He said, My Igwe is a technocrat, retired civil servant and former secretary to the state government. So we never had any problem. The Igwe of Ogbozalla Opi, Fabian Ogbebor highlighted this cordial relationship as the key to the progress recorded in the VEC project. He told this reporter via phone call, We would like the governor to come and see what we have done so far and then released the second tranche because we have so much more to do. This cooperation did not filter in to every community and the projects have suffered for this. Ede-Enu Edeoballa community in Nsukka local government area identified the extension of the communitys secondary school as the key development need. At the time this reporter visited the site, construction on a classroom block was barely half way done with roofing or plastering yet to commence. Comrade Kingsley Kelechi, a community youth leader and PhD candidate at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, expressed disappointment both with the pacing of work and the entire structure of the governments intervention. According to him, governments lax attitude towards monitoring of the projects finances has left his communitys project at the sole discretion of the Igwe, If you ask me, they gave the projects to carry the Igwes along politically. Our communitys project was solely executed by the Igwe. I offered to mobilize my own people, the youths, so that they can even offer direct labour but he never wanted us to be part of it at all. Because if you come into it, that means you get to know what is going on there. The Igwe received us very well but the response he gave us was not very clear and up till today, the youths were not carried along. Efforts to reach the Igwe were not successful. Upon visiting the community, this reporter was informed that the Igwe was away on official duties. The phone number that was made available to reach him failed to connect after several attempts. Seeking inclusivity For some other communities in Enugu State, VEC sounds like a good idea but they have been unable to benefit for one reason or the other. One of VECs thematic areas is the full application of the chieftaincy, town union and neighborhood laws in community administration. But in trying to ensure efficient use of staff of office for Igwes and certificate of returns for PGs, the state may have alienated a percentage of its citizens. Amuokpo Nike in Enugu East LGA has had no Igwe for about ten years now due to several tussles that claimed the lives of at least two contenders. Even when there is an active town union and elected PG in place, the community and several others in similar situations do not qualify for any VEC intervention as the traditional leadership is the first criteria communities must meet to qualify. Engineer Joseph Ogbu is a community leader who has been involved in attracting government presence to Amuokpo Nike. He complained, The PG is the development head of the community. Igwe is a ceremonial title. VEC is a government project. It surprises me that the VEC money must be paid to the Igwe. During elections they come to us and we as Amuokpo Nike citizens vote. It doesnt seem fair. Head, VEC directorate, Eric Oluedo insists that the state government takes seriously the responsibility of providing peace and security and VEC is one of those tools. He said, When we started, for some communities, their key need was for their Igwe or community to be recognized. Some of these needs are related to simple policy and all it took was for the Commissioner in charge to be notified of what is happening, then the problem was fixed. VEC solved many of these tussles and urged communities to resolve their issues so they can all benefit. Another effect of the insistence on having the Igwes as co-administrators of the VEC projects is that it efficiently recognizes only men in leadership positions. The PGs all have women wings but the best that our women can hope for is to be part of the project management committees. These are women development unions that have delivered multi-million Naira projects in their communities in the past and someone says only Igwes and the (male) PGs should lead. Ogbu complained Government projects tend to have a certain standard across the board. A government-built health centre in Awgu for instance is likely to be similar in size, structure and specification to one in Nkanu or Udi. One of the criticisms of VEC is that these uniform standards are likely to be abandoned as communities adapt VEC projects according to their peculiar needs. A government official who preferred to remain anonymous claims that because the state government allows a free hand in project implementation, substandard projects have been delivered in some communities. A culvert that does not quite function as one, roads that are swiftly eroded as soon as they are completed and civic centers that are never functional. The Future of VEC For the communities in Enugu state, VECs One Community One Project has helped bring development at a micro level that is felt by the people and the consensus among several persons this reporter interacted with is that the programme should be continued. Chike Ugwu is a community mobiliser from Amagunze in Nkanu East Local Government Area who has witnessed firsthand the usefulness of VEC projects. Over the years, my community has gradually opened up to the rest of the state thanks to the VEC rural access road construction projects. Beyond that, VEC has helped reduce instances of unrealistic budgeting, project failure and duplication. Projects create jobs for indigenes, especially in rural areas, promote community sensitization and allow citizens take ownership, leading to better maintenance and sustainability in service delivery. But the lapses are too critical to be overlooked. The VEC directorate more or less abandons its monitoring and evaluation responsibilities once monies are released from governments coffers and the projects are left to run unsupervised with little attention to quality assurance protocols. Because of this, detailed financial reports for the One Autonomous Community One Project are difficult to come by and the PGs and Igwes do not consider keeping up-to-date financial records a priority. In the communities visited, reports were not readily available as PGs and Iwes were simply not used to the scrutiny. A promise by the PG of Ogbozalla Opi to send a summary has hasnt yet materialized as at the time of filing this report. It is lapses like this that make civil society advocates and watchful beneficiaries unsatisfied with the structure of VEC. Comrade Kelechi observed, Dont get me wrong, the community is happy that government is bringing development to them. The community equally wants to ensure that the money is used appropriately. If government wants to ensure transparency, they should carry the youths, the women and the church alongside the traditional rulers and the town union presidents so all of them can join hands to help one another Prince Ozor is more optimistic about VEC. He said, Dont forget that in the past, we have had situations where no one was accountable for anything and the contractor comes from far away. Getting the community directly involved in the projects is a more useful amendment because the community owns the project and should anything go wrong, at least the Igwe and PG are from the community and can be held responsible. *This investigation was supported by Ford Foundation and the International Centre for Investigative Reporting.
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https://ynaija.com/has-enugu-state-unlocked-the-model-for-genuine-community-development-in-nigeria/
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Can A More Comfortable Mammogram Encourage More Women To Get Examined?
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One medical technology company has a simple but novel way to encourage women to get a mammogram exam: Make it less painful. Hologic just announced its SmartCurve breast stabilization system, which features a curved compression surface that mirrors the shape of a womans breast. Its compatible with Hologics Genius 3D Mammography exam and reportedly does not affect image quality, accuracy, or a technologists workflow. According to a recent Kadence Inc. survey of 10,000 women, discomfort was the leading reason for why women avoid a mammogram. During these exams, patients breasts are painfully compressed in order to thin out the tissue. Hologic circumvents this with a curved surface that reduces pinching and does not squish breasts with such intensity. Comfort during a breast exam is almost entirely driven by how the breast is compressed and how long its compressed, Tracy Accardi, Hologics global vice president of research & development, breast health & skeletal imaging, tells Fast Company. Our time of compression is significantly less than any of our competitors. She adds that the technologys proprietary curved surface lets it enable a better distribution of force over the entire breast. This innovation, reports the company, provides a far more pleasant experience: According to their own clinical studies, 93% of women who experienced pain with standard mammography have found the new system to be more comfortable, and 95% would recommend it to others. Thats a pretty big deal, says Accardi. Beyond their test patients, the SmartCurve is also finding support from celebrities. Sheryl Crow, Genius exam spokeswoman, said in a statement: Ive already been telling women that the Genius exam is the best option for their annual screening. Now that its also a more comfortable exam thanks to the SmartCurve system, Im urging women everywhere to stop making excuses and ask their doctors about the Genius exam today.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40472679/can-a-more-comfortable-mammogram-encourage-more-women-to-get-examined
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What Do People Want When They Give To Nonprofits?
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In June 2017, the New York Yankees New Yankee Stadium Community Benefits Fund got called out for not really benefiting those it was set up to serve. The fund, created to offset the fact that the stadium gobbled up 25 acres of public parkland, should eventually give out $40 million in grants and sports equipment, plus over a half-million game day tickets to community groups in the South Bronx. But, as the New York Times reported , many early gifts have been channeled to neighborhoods that had less need for improvement or inspiration than those now in the shadow of the stadium. In some cases, distributions ended up at groups that share board members with the fund. Thats just the latest in a long stretch of charitable malfeasance, which in recent years has included the Wounded Warrior Projects reportedly lavish spending on its on own staff instead of programs to reduce combat stress among veterans, and four major cancer charities, all with ties James Reynolds Sr., allegedly diverting a combined $187 million in fundraising to cover the lucrative employment of those who worked there, instead of putting the money toward cancer patients. The philanthropy sector has historically faced a trust problem. In 2015, about one-third of Americans reported that they thought charities were spending funds unwisely. Globally, that trend held true, too. Trust in groups to operate effectively reaching a historic low of 63% in 2015. All of which makes the results the inaugural 2017 Global Trends in Giving Report, an online sector survey put out by the Public Interest Registry, a nonprofit the manages often philanthropic domain extensions like .org and .ngo, and Nonprofit Tech For Good, an online resource for nonprofit professionals, pretty surprising. In a survey of over 4,000 people who had given within the last year, which spanned 95 countries, 92% still believe that NPOs and NGOs are ethical and can be trusted with 96% saying that these groups are essential for creating social change. Among those, 45% were giving across borders, most commonly to developing world spots in abject poverty or forcing refugee crises like India, Syria, and Kenya. Trust issues or no, some groups are obviously doing a great job inspiring people to give. While the distribution of overall donation amounts fell along a predictable path with baby boomers topping gen-Xers, followed by millennials (those who have the most money and security can often afford to give the most away) the rest of the data offers some instructive lessons about what exactly makes current donors feel generous. The answer: a mix of tactics, but those with a digital arsenal are prospering. While nonprofit groups may be slow to adopt a social media strategy, 75% of those giving say they rely on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to feel connected. Another 25% say such posts directly inspire them to give, a process thats become ever easier as Facebook has added donation tabs and Facebook and Twitter can easily embed calls for crowdsourcing from groups like GoFundMe.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40469133/what-do-people-want-when-they-give-to-nonprofits
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What's got four legs and costs Sweden a billion kronor a year?
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In a new report the agency notes that the population of rowan, aspen, willow and oak is below target across more than half of Sweden's elk regions (the entire country apart from the north-western mountains). The trees are considered important not only in terms of biodiversity, but also as a source of food for elk and deer, who at the moment spend too much of their time munching exclusively on Sweden's pine trees. READ ALSO: Swedish forest agency calls for more elk to be killed off The Local has previously reported on the damage caused to pine trees by hungry elk, and the forest agency estimates in its new report that it costs forestry owners around a billion kronor ($110 million) every year. The agency hopes that by increasing the number of deciduous trees, it will diversify the elk population's eating habits by steering them towards other tree species and make them eat less of the pine forest. "But they will eat pine trees anyway. You could say that it is like potato to the elk and is important food," the agency's wildlife expert Christer Kaln told Swedish radio on Monday.
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https://www.thelocal.se/20190128/whats-got-four-legs-and-costs-sweden-a-billion-a-year-elk-moose
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Has Purpose Made Brands Forget How To Be Cool?
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I used to think Liam Gallagher was the epitome of cool. He was that old-fashioned kind of rock star who threw actual TVs out of windows, got arrested, took so much crystal meth before a gig that he forgot the words to Wonderwall, and turned his acceptance speeches into comedy roasts before they were even a thing: Right, whos first thenIts got be you there with that weird haircut. How many haircuts you got there, four? Being a bad guy, a nihilistic egotist with slick trainers and a directional haircut, that was cool in the 90s. Despite the 90s revival, there hasnt been a revival of the rock and roll prick. Culturally, it seems, weve moved on. Like smoking or borrowing unlimited amounts of money, its all cool until you get cancer or accidentally collapse the world economy. In the last few decades, cool has undergone some fundamental and, frankly, practical changes. The good news is you dont have to fling your iPad off the balcony. Cool is still about aesthetics. It always will be, despite its generational variations. From ironic millennial pink to the pared back streetwear of Gen Z, style is the key to cool. Cool continues to be about confidence too, the self-assured swagger that led James Jebbia to call his brand Supreme. But heres the twist: You can have all the aesthetics and all the confidence and you dont have to be the bad guy. You can have the good trainers and the directional haircut without being a total nut job. You can be kind, progressive, make a positive difference and still be cool. In fact, its this powerful combination that is driving modern culture forward. Cool is Kendrick Lamar being the best rapper in the world and taking politics head on. Cool is the 10 minutes of silence in Master of None that takes the viewer inside the world of a deaf New Yorker. Cool is the radical queerness of Frank Oceans Blonde. Cool is Beyoncs Black Panther homage. Cool is Broad Citys feminism. Cool is balance. Cool is both. Since purpose became a brand strategy, cool has taken a back seat. To do purpose, to really stand for something in the world, brands must be earnest, they must show that they mean it, they must hold a mirror up to the real world and conduct social experiments to show that they genuinely understand. Weve wrongly assumed that doing purpose means you cant be cool, but Id go as far as to say being cool is a necessity. When we made Absoluts Endless Kiss film, we were determined to break all of the purpose rules. We wanted to combine the seething, sexiness of a Levis advert or a Tarantino film, with the brands unequivocal support for equal love. We wanted zero compromise on either side. Think pool halls, plaid shirts and street cast actors reminiscent of a Dazed shoot rather than an advert. Think sexual pride that some people found difficult to watch. We wanted to be both sensual and radical. Both cool and purposeful. And we wanted to do it all with the confidence of a topic that we truly believe in, because purpose should give you the confidence of conviction, it shouldnt hold you back. Our follow up film, One Night, has a single purposeful message: the world needs creativity to progress. Its an open invitation to create the change you want to see in the world, a riff on Ghandi without any of the worthiness. It features Elvis, Nina Simone and Frida Kahlo. Its the story of progress told through some of the coolest moments in the worlds cultural history.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40472048/has-purpose-made-brands-forget-how-to-be-cool
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Will I make a profit on the Greencore share buyback?
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I am a small Greencore holder dating back to post Irish Sugar privatisation in December 1991. I find the current offer very confusing and much of the advice inconclusive at best. I am trying to calculate my CGT [capital gains tax] liability, if any, but cant find the original documentation. I have been referred to a company in the UK who want to charge me 200 to provide historical share prices. This seems very unfair of Greencore to its loyal small shareholders who have stuck with them through thick and thin. Mr W.G., email Im not sure who referred you to a company that is looking to charge 200 for basic information that Greencores investor relations people the people whose role it is to work with shareholders have to hand. I sure hope it wasnt Greencore. You are one of the hard core of loyal Greencore shareholders who have been there at every point on what has been, on occasion, a very bumpy ride. You invested in what was, back in 1991, a sugar manufacturing company; now it is a convenience food business essentially a giant sandwich-manufacturing company. And, almost 28 years on, it is little surprise that youd be somewhat at sea in figuring out whether the current tender offer is worth your while. To recap for new readers, Greencore, having sold off its US business unexpectedly, has decided to return 509 million (about 580 million) of the 93 million it got in that deal to shareholders. The original plan was to pay a special dividend of 72 pence a share but this was changed after some shareholders objected on the grounds that it would expose them to significant income tax bills. Now, the plan, subject to approval on Tuesday, is to buy back shares worth up to the 509 million at a price of 195p a share. If everyone takes part, this means they will have just over 36 per cent of their Greencore holding bought back by the company. If some decline, others can sell back more shares. If 509 million worth of shares is not offered by investors, the company may still issue a special dividend to all shareholders for the balance albeit much less than 72p a share. Initial public offering Well, back in 1991, the price at which you would have bought the shares in what was the first initial public offering of an Irish semi-State company was 230 Irish pence a share. If you were an employee or a beet grower, you got the shares at a 20 per cent discount 184 Irish pence. Im assuming youre not. Of course, back in 1991 and in subsequent years, you could index purchase prices to allow for inflation when calculating capital gains. This indexation was phased out by Charlie McCreevy in his term as minister for finance in 2003. He did this after halving the rate of CGT to 20 per cent from 40, though it has since crept up again to its current rate of 33 per cent. For shares bought after April 6th, 1991 (the Greencore flotation was actually on April 26th), the indexation multiple in 2003 was 1.406. On that basis, the indexed price for your 230p share purchase was 323.4p. Then, of course, we moved to euro. Allowing for that means the adjusted purchase price for your shares was 410.6 cent. For working out your profit or loss on the initial investment, that is the key figure. So far, so good. But share ownership is rarely as straightforward as that. Companies have rights issues and placings when they are looking to raise money and this dilutes your holding unless you buy up those rights. Shares can also be split, largely if the headline price makes them less attractive to prospective shareholders. In Greencores case, we have had both. and the company has helpfully given me the details of those events. Back in 1996, the company had a share split where it offered shareholders one new share for every one they owned at no cost. Effectively this doubled the absolute number of shares you held but your percentage holding in the business was unchanged. You dont tell me how many shares you bought initially in the business so, for the purposes of illustration, I will say you bought 100. You can adjust the figures to match your own particular circumstances. So, post-split, your 100 original shares are now 200. But instead of each having an adjusted purchase price of 410.6 cent, it is now half of that 205.3 cent. If you never participated in any subsequent rights issue, that is the effective purchase price of your current holding, as Greencore is now UK listed and the tender offer is in sterling, you need to convert that purchase price to sterling. The figure at the time of writing is just over 180p. So, at the 195p tender price, you would be making a profit of 15pence (17 cent) a share. In 2011, the company offered shareholders the right to buy five new shares for every six shares they already owned. The offer price was 46 cent a share, well below the 54 cent at which the shares were trading at the time. If you availed of your rights for the 200 shares in the company that you then held, you would have bought another 166 shares. The 46 cent purchase price for those shares alongside the 205.3 cent price you effectively paid per share for the original 200 shares meant the blended or average purchase price for your entire shareholding now drops to 133 cent per share. In 2016 when Greencore went to buy Peacock Foods in the US, it launched another deeply discounted rights issue. Investors were offered another nine shares for every 13 they held at that time. By this time, the company was listed in the UK and the price of the new shares was 153 pence, almost a third cheaper than the market price. Assuming you bought into that rights issue, you could have acquired a further 253 shares in the company. It would have cost you another 387.09 to buy, or at the prevailing euro rate at that time, 478.07. And at the end of that process, you would now have 619 Greencore shares. The average price per share of the entire holding at that time, in euro terms, would have been just shy of 1.56. Profit So, if you were to sell the entire holding into this buyback assuming you can because others dont choose to, you would be making a profit of about 60 pence sterling a share or just shy of 68 cent a share. However, the company has only committed to taking 36.1 per cent of your shareholding. You can seek to sell more but it depends on demand. You can, of course, sell less, or none at all; that is your choice. You also need to recall the standard rule of stack market transactions first in, first out. So, if you are selling 36 per cent of your holding, it will be those shares you bought first that are sold into the offer first. In your case, assuming you took part in all the rights issues, 36.1 per cent of your holding would be 223 shares. The first 200 would be the original 100 shares, each of which was split in two in 1996. That would yield a profit of about 15 pence sterling per share not a lot for a 28-year investment. The balance of 23 shares would come from that first rights issue. As they cost just 46 cent, the profit on a 195p (about 2.22) tender price would be significant, but it is still only 23 shares at that price. The bottom line is you will make a profit regardless ranging from 17 cent a share on your original holding to 48 cent on the 2016 rights issue and up to 1.77 on the 2011 rights issue shares. If you just sell the 223 shares, you will still hold 396 Greencore shares and the average weighted purchase price of those would be 1.37 a share. Of course, if you didnt take part in the rights issues at all, then you still have 200 shares for your original holding of 100, and you have the right to sell 72 to them into the tender. As you have a CGT exemption in any one year of 1,270, you will not have any tax bill regardless of how many shares you own or sell into the tender offer. Lot of figures there but I hope it helps. Please send your queries to Dominic Coyle, Q&A, The Irish Times, 24-28 Tara Street, Dublin 2, or email [email protected]. This column is a reader service and is not intended to replace professional advice.
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https://www.irishtimes.com/business/personal-finance/will-i-make-a-profit-on-the-greencore-share-buyback-1.3768038?localLinksEnabled=false
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Can We Build A Global Internet From Swarms Of Satellites And Tech-Company-Backed Balloons?
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Ten years ago, the world population was 6.6 billion; 3 billion of those people lacked access to broadband internet connectivity. Fast forward a decade to 2017, and the global population has risen by 1 billion, but so has the number of disconnected people. Its quite troubling that despite all the progress over the last 10 years, we still have a huge portion of the worlds population thats not covered by broadband, says Rupert Pearce, CEO of the British telecommunications company Inmarsat and chairman of the Broadband Commission for Sustainable Development s working group on technologies in space and the upper atmosphere. The Broadband Commission was set up by the UN and the International Telecommunications Union in 2010 in an effort to expand internet access to meet the Millennium Development Goals; the Sustainable Development Goals replaced the MDGs in 2015 and set out a target of reaching universal broadband access by 2020. Each year, the Broadband Commission releases a report detailing the state of broadband; this years report, which came out on September 15, finds, Pearce tells Fast Company, that the growth of connectivity around the word has stalled. But another report, released several days after by the Broadband Commission, lays out a way to re-energize the effort toward global connectivity: supporting advancements in high-altitude and satellite communications technologies. Were in the middle of an extraordinary revolution for space-based and upper-atmosphere technologies, delivering coverage and capabilities at a low cost that will make them a realistic new tool to close the digital divide, Pearce says. The report details three specific technologies that will be instrumental in bringing about this rise in connectivity. The first are standard geostationary satellites, which float around 3,500 kilometers above the equator and keep pace with the Earths rotation; from the ground, they appear stationary. Broadband-providing geostationary satellites have existed since the early 1990s, but a new generation, called high-throughput satellites (HTS), are employed by internet providers around the world, using multi-beam coverage to substantially increase broadband penetration and reliability. The early geostationary satellites used one wide beam that could target a vast area of landone satellite, Pearce says, can reach as much as a third of the worldbut the single beam could only deliver around 1 to 3 Gbps of broadband. By sending out multiple beams, a HTS can deliver around 150 Gbps, with the potential to increase to 500 as the technology becomes more sophisticated. Non-geostationary satellite orbits (NGSOs) use similar technology to geostationary satellites, but they operate anywhere from 500 to 2,000 kilometers above the earth, and can, as a result, target a smaller land mass. Instead of tracking with the pace of the Earths rotation, they move across the horizon in a cluster of hundreds or thousands, and deliver continuous coverage by replacing themselvesimagine a swarm of satellites, not unlike a flock of migrating birds, delivering a steady stream of broadband to the remote places of the world. OneWeb is preparing to launch a constellation of 648 satellites that will operate at an altitude of around 1,200 kilometers, and will over download speeds of up to 50 Mbps worldwide; its expected the swarm will start delivering internet to customers as early as 2019. The third advancement is High-Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS), which are smaller instruments, like balloons or drones, that fly just around 20 to 50 kilometers off the ground and deliver surgically precise connectivity to specific locations. Facebook is testing a drone project, called Aquila, that Mark Zuckerberg claims will be able to provide internet access to the 4 billion people without it across the world; Googles Project Loon, operated through its innovation lab Alphabet X, is testing service delivered through high-altitude balloons. Despite Zuckerbergs claim to be able to close the digital divide with Facebooks drones alone, its important, Pearce says, that these innovations work in concert. The geostationary satellites can provide a base layer of fallback coverage; the swarms of smaller satellites can deliver more targeted regional coverage; HAPS will be most useful in particularly remote areas where harsh environmental conditions make consistent coverage more difficult to sustain.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40469080/can-we-build-a-global-internet-from-swarms-of-satellites-and-tech-company-backed-balloons
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What is Crawley Town's women's player pathway?
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The womens game is one we take seriously at Crawley Town, with female football development and the Womens Player Pathway being the most developed it has ever been. Crawley Town now provide more opportunities than ever before, for those girls who have a passion football and want to play in a supportive and girls only environment. Crawley Town now provide more opportunities than ever before, for those girls who have a passion football and want to play in a supportive and girls only environment. In the Womens Player Pathway, there is something for everyone. At Crawley Town, we aim to help all ages, from girls aged 5 years-old to a 61 year-old seasoned campaigner with their progression in football. We give Girls and Women the opportunity to fully explore different levels of football and pursue their football dreams, as well as give them an opportunity to improve their fitness in a friendly and supportive environment. Crawley Town now provide more opportunities than ever before, for those girls who have a passion football and want to play in a supportive and girls only environment. Our Pathway begins with SSE Wildcats, which is a girl-only programme aimed at girls aged 5 11 at the Crawley Town FC 3G Ballcourt. This programme is 3 per session with the first session free and takes place every Friday from 5pm 6pm. The FA programme gives the girls regular opportunities to play football and take part in an organised setting, where the emphasis is on fun and engagement in a safe environment. Our coaches believe in giving everyone the opportunity to build their skills in football and as part of this session, we separate into groups based on the girls ages and skill level, providing each group with their own coach to work alongside. Premier League Girls is a funded programme, which constitutes 30 sessions at each satellite centre football coaching for girls aged 11+. Like the Wildcats session, we believe in making sure all of the girls are catered for, so each session is spilt into 2 groups based on age, each having their own coach to support and help the girls improve their skills. By splitting the group into age groups, it allows the coaches time to really nurture and support the girls, enabling participants to get what they need out of each session without being held back by a large age gap. The latest Premier League Girls session to start takes place at the Crawley Town 3G Ball Court at 6-7pm on Fridays. If you are 11-18 and interested in joining, simply turn up or give us a call on 01293 410 000 extension 4. Adam Wicking, Premier League Project Co-ordinator, said this about the new programme, Its a fantastic opportunity to bring together girls from all over the area, who all have the same common interest, engaging in football. Finally, we have the nationally acclaimed Crawley Old Girls (COGs), which offers recreational football to women from 16+. The COGs train at the Crawley Town 3G Ball Court on Wednesdays at 7.30-8.30pm (beginners) and 8.30-9.30pm (advanced), and every Thursday from 7-8pm (intermediate). A participant from COGs said this about the benefits of the sessions, I had never played football before but the sessions have helped me to develop skills through the coaching support we receive at each session. "A bonus is making new friends who have a similar drive and love for playing since joining the programme. COGs have helped me to be the fittest I have ever been, which makes coming to these sessions even more enjoyable. For more information on our Womens Player Progression or just our Girls sessions throughout the week, head over to our website: https://www.ctcommunityfoundation.com/community-development-1 For more up to date information, follow our social media to keep up to date with all our programmes daily; Facebook: Crawley Town Community Foundation, Twitter: @CrawleyTownCF, Instagram: @CrawleyTownCF and Youtube: Crawley Town Community Foundation. SEE ALSO Crawley Wasps' winning run comes to an end against Chichester | Crawley Town Community Foundation's Development and Elite Centres due to face Chelsea and Crystal Palace in 2019 | NCS scheme another great success
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https://www.crawleyobserver.co.uk/sport/football/what-is-crawley-town-s-women-s-player-pathway-1-8786525
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Can Andy Rubins Essential Phone Take On The Smartphone Giants?
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When Rubin, the inventor of the Android operating system and godfather of the smartphone market, surveys the industry today, he sees squandered opportunities everywhere. The open-source platform he brought to the masses while at Google, which commands roughly 85% of the market, is overwhelmed with bad user experiences, he says. Devices from makers such as LG and Huawei are uninspired. They used to have Steve [Jobs], but now Jony [Ive] is like a disembodied voice that occasionally comes on stage [at events]. The worlds biggest and most successful company doesnt have a human side to it, Rubin argues. Instead weve settled into a schedule of incremental rollouts. In the U.S., the market is dominated by duopoliesApple and Samsung in hardware, and iOS and Android (which account for all but 0.4% of smartphone sales) in platform. And then there are the four big carriers, lording over retail distribution channels with their outsize marketing budgets and multiyear contracts. These dynamics have stifled innovation, critics say, with the giants focused on holding their leads and other makers churning out cheap devices to avoid becoming rounding errors. This is why early adopters often have to hunt for devices from lesser-known companies to experience the latest specs. And why American consumers have had to wait until last week to see an edge-to-edge screen on an Apple phone, nearly a year after such displays began showing up in the Chinese market. One of the biggest challenges for device makers in the U.S. is scale. When youre expected to sell hundreds of millions of units, your appetite for taking hardware risks changes substantially, says Tony Fadell, who helped pioneer the iPod and iPhone at Apple and went on to found Nest. [The Apples and Samsungs] have to innovate more cautiously, Fadell says, because they dont want to lose market share or trip up their revenue, which can be disastrous, as we saw when Samsung fouled up. Theres simply less urgency to innovate at the top: According to one report, Apple swallowed up 104% of all smartphone profits one quarter last year (a figure made technically possible by its competitors losses). Thats not to say the big guns arent introducing some laudatory additions to the market. Googles Pixel phones offer the sleekest implementation yet of Android. And Apple aims to break out of its cycle of incremental hardware upgrades with its new ultra-high-end handset, iPhone X, which features a gorgeous OLED display and novel facial-recognition technology. Rubin himself isnt just sniping at these issues from the sidelines. Three years after leaving Googlewhere he spent a decadethe 54-year-old engineer turned entrepreneur has designed the device he always wanted through his new startup, Essential. Called simply the Essential Phone, the $699 device is a stripped-down, carrier-agnostic handset with a titanium shell, a ceramic casing that enhances wireless signals, and a snap-on 360-degree camera (which Rubin hopes will seed a whole ecosystem of attachable accessories). Of course, designing a hot product and making it a hit that can shake up a multibillion-dollar marketplace are two very different tasks. As the Essential Phone starts competing with Apple and Samsung this fall, it is a bellwether for whenand ifinnovation might finally re-emerge in the U.S. mobile market.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40457372/can-andy-rubins-essential-phone-take-on-the-smartphone-giants
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What Comes After User-Friendly Design?
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User-friendly was coined in the late 1970s, when software developers were first designing interfaces that amateurs could use. In those early days, a friendly machine might mean one you could use without having to code. advertisement advertisement Forty years later, technology is hyper-optimized to increase the amount of time you spend with it, to collect data about how you use it, and to adapt to engage you even more. Meanwhile, other aspects of our tech have remained difficult to use, from long, confusing privacy policies to a lack of explanation on why and when your data is being collected, much less how its being protected. While some aspects of apps and platforms have become almost too easy to useconsider how often Facebook invites you to check out a friends latest update or new commentothers remain frustratingly opaque, like, say, the way Facebook crafts advertising to your behavior. The discussion around privacy, security, and transparency underscores a broader transformation in the typical role of the designer, as Khoi Vinh, principal designer at Adobe and frequent design writer on his own site, Subtraction, points out. Over the past decade or so, businesses and companies have come to realize that design is valuable, and theyve been aggressive about pursuing design talent and putting design at the forefront of their process, he explains. I talked to a range of designers about how we got here, and what comes next. A few years ago, one Google exec claimed that after it tested 41 shades of blue for its Gmail ads in 2009, the company saw a $200 million windfall. Its a well-worn anecdote now, but it underscores the fact that data analytics are still a new tool in the design world. Working with data is still relatively new to designers, says Vinh. Analytics have been around since the beginning, but they started getting much richer and much more consumable by product designers and the product team 10 years ago or so. Being able to make fine-grained observations about the way people use a product ties design directly to engagement. At the same time, insights from psychology have helped designers use behavioral science to increase engagement, too. Its easy to see the invisible hand of these new tools everywhere, once you start looking. Dont overwhelm people with settings and menus. Dont expect them to spend a lot of time reading a privacy policy. Make interfaces slick and fast and usable. Reduce friction. Send regular notifications with rewards. Turn your product into a game. Be their friend. Yet, as a culture, we seem to slowly be growing more waryboth of the time we spend with technology, and the data with which we supply it. A string of high-profile data breaches, most recently of the personal information 143 million U.S. consumers by Equifax, are making consumers more cognizant of data security (if not necessarily more cautious). New products, like Amazons AI-powered, camera-equipped Echo Look, and Googles initiative to screen users for depression, are also raising serious questions about privacy. Meanwhile, dark UX, which deceptively tricks or forces user behavior, has surfaced more publicly; for instance, Sonos recently admitted that its speakers may cease to function if users dont accept its new privacy policy. Even here on Co.Design, founding editor Cliff Kuang has questioned the ethos of user-friendly design: Modern user experience is a black box that has made it easier and easier to consume things, and harder and harder to remake them, he wrote after the 2016 election. We should not give in. We should make better things. advertisement Meanwhile, a new vanguard of technologists is advocating for designers to step into the fold and leadincluding Simply Secure, a three-year-old nonprofit that helps designers, developers, and companies build products that are more secure and more transparent. For years there was such a huge UX trend toward seamlessness and concealing as much as possible in the interest of making things user-friendly, says Ame Elliott, Simply Secures design director. Now, as discipline, interaction designers and UX experts have a lot of hard work to do to think about how to expose those seams in appropriate ways. In part, Simply Secures approach focuses on educating designers themselves about best practices (some of which you can read about here). That means convincing the design community that privacy and security are part of their ambitthat these issues arent boring or impossibly complex, but rather are design problems that demand elegant design solutions. Elliott points to an example of transparent UX from WhatsApp: the apps automatic delivered and read receipts, communicated through blue checkmarks. Love them or hate them, they give you information about the apps behavior, and they also change your behavior, Elliott points out. That makes them a great model for clear, transparent UX design. How do you take the simplicity of that check mark for read receipts, and apply that to voice, and apply that to smart cities, and apply that to autonomous vehiclesall these other emerging technologies? she asks. How do we give people immediate feedback about how the system is working? Simply Secure hosts workshops, offers design support, and offers an online database of best practices for transparency, security, and privacybut in a broader sense, it wants to push designers at large to think about these issues as fundamental to their jobs. I want to come forward and say, Hey, UX designers, you have a leadership opportunity hereto step into a deeper role unpacking some of these privacy and ethical issues,' Elliott adds. Elsewhere in the industry, designers are grappling with similar ethical questions about engagement and optimization. Emily Ryan, a UX designer who tweets under the handle @UXIsEverywhere, has experienced the dilemma both as a designer and a user. Ryan recently found herself trying out a mobile gameand immediately wasted two hours (and $1.99) playing it on her couch without a second thought. It was a very strange moment where a light went off, she remembers. Its a balance any designer with a brief to design an effective, engaging experience has to strike: You want people to spend money on your game and you want them to spend time in it, but there comes a point where that can become detrimental to whats good for them and whats healthy for them. Tristan Harris, Googles former design ethicist, has become a prominent voice in this area. Harris frequently points out invasive and addictive UX pops up well outside of the gaming world. For instance, notifications and menus that ping you dozens of times a day, demanding your attention and engagement. Interactions like pull to refresh, seen on Instagram, Facebook, and dozens of other apps, are based on the proven psychological principle of intermittent variable rewards, where a user action is followed by a random reward, like a new message or photo. Its the same principle that makes slot machines so incredibly addictive. Harris has argued that companies must take responsibility for these addictive patterns, and give users more control over them. For example, they could empower people to set predictable times during the day or week for when they want to check slot machine apps, and correspondingly adjust when new messages are delivered to align with those times, he wrote in a recent essay on Medium. advertisement For designers at large technology companies, wanting to do the right thing can present a complex dilemma. Its an uncomfortable position to be in as a UX designer when, as Ryan puts it, the clock is ticking, and the client is paying, and the product manager needs something done. In her experience, the best way to shift a clients perspective is to get specific about what it could cost them. Ryan comes from the cybersecurity world, but after becoming UX competency lead at Deloitte Digital in 2016 she is developing an idea she calls strategic UX. Its a method of proving to a client why a dark UX pattern should be avoided, even if it seems like its the right call from their perspective. Making a monetary case against it. Part of getting a business to make the right decision is to tie that back to money, she explains. So instead of saying this is morally wrong, its Hey, heres what you should be doing, and its just good business to do this. And heres all of the times when people havent done it, and this is what it cost them. ' Followed by subsequent thanks from other users! The article lost readership bc of #badux #darkUX pic.twitter.com/rSv6BoMA7y Emily Ryan (@uxiseverywhere) August 23, 2017 Consider the paginated listicle. Youve seen them across the internet, forcing you to click through a series of slides to read the article. Ryan points to one recent example on the site IHeartDogs.com, The 10 Least Obedient Dog Breeds, which makes you click through a series of slides, each with its own ad, to read the list. On Facebook, the first comment is a reader listing the entire content of the story so no one else has to click through all of the ads. Followed, of course, by other readers thanking them profusely for saving them the trouble. At the end of the day, if you have a user whos not happy, theyre going to find this workaround, she says. And all of a sudden, theyre hacking their own experience, and your UX is going right out the window and its a wasted effort not doing anything good for the client. The listicle might seem like an effective and sticky bit of UX for publishers who want to juice traffic and ad impressions. But until you say, heres the amount of money youre losing doing that, theyre not going to change it, Ryan says. She admits that this approach takes longer and is harder than taking the path of least resistance. Making the case still falls on the designers shoulders. What were seeing now is just the beginning of a discussion around the ethics of UXand the uneasy balance between whats good for a company and whats good for people will surely evolve alongside technology itself. But one thing seems certain: Friendly no longer seems like the right word for describing good digital design thats transparent, ethical, and respectful of users.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90139957/what-comes-after-user-friendly-design
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Was soll die Arbeiterkammer leisten?
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Alle fnf Jahre haben Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer die Mglichkeit, die politische Richtung der Arbeiterkammer mitzubestimmen, indem sie das Parlament der Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmer whlen. Am 28. Jnner beginnt die Wahl in Vorarlberg und Tirol, als letztes Bundesland whlt am 28. Mrz die Steiermark. Bei Fragen rund um die Rechte von Arbeitnehmerinnen und Arbeitnehmern dient die Arbeiterkammer als Anlaufstelle. Dieser Service umfasst rechtliche Beratung, Informationen zu Aus- und Weiterbildungen sowie Fragen rund um Familie, Gesundheit und Beruf. User "Joe W." ist ein Fan der Arbeiterkammer und schtzt die Strke der Organisation: Aber auch bei gesetzlichen Entscheidungen wie dem krzlich eingefhrten Zwlfstundentag bringt sich die Interessenvertretung ein. Sie positioniert sich damit auch politisch. Die AK "soll und darf nicht als nur mehr parteipolitisches Instrument missbraucht werden", schreibt Poster "Zeitgeistterrorist": Die Wahlbeteiligung im Jahr 2014 lag bei 40 Prozent. Wahlberechtigt sind alle Arbeitnehmer, somit knnen mehr als drei Millionen Menschen an der Wahl teilnehmen. (haju, 28.1.2019)
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https://derstandard.at/2000096901650-1704/Was-soll-die-Arbeiterkammer-leisten?ref=rss
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Does Sucker Punch actually suck?
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Reviews for Zack Snyders new movie, Sucker Punch, not only position the film as one of the years worst, but its come under fire for being a massively misogynistic movie masquerading as a female empowerment piece. I understand where the hate is coming from the story is almost non-existent in this acid-trip Alice in Wonderland with guns and boobs but you cant deny its a visually striking world that only continues to assert Snyders eye for effects. Given the dismal opening weekend box office ($19 million earned, $82 million to make), chances are you have yet to see Sucker Punch, so check out the first five minutes below and decide if you made the right decision.
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https://pagesix.com/2011/03/31/does-sucker-punch-actually-suck/
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Can Initial Coin Offerings Give New Life To Social Good Companies?
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Startups normally raise money from venture capital or seed funds, from banks, or via crowdfunding. But recently, blockchain technology has produced a new possibility: initial coin offerings (ICOs), where instead of issuing equity, debt or perks, entrepreneurs launch a virtual currency, in the form of a coin or token. ICOs, which skirt normal financial regulation and allow companies to go directly to investors, have proved hugely popular and yet hugely controversial. A cross between crowdfunding and a conventional equity IPO, they could be the future of finance, heralding an entirely new way to raise funds. Or, critics say, they may be a flash-in-the-pan: a hot 2017 craze that falters before it gets stable footing. To Paul Allard, CEO of newly formed Impak Coin, ICOs offer an opportunity to get more capital to socially beneficial companies and to break the stranglehold of traditional players in the startup financing market. The money raised from Impak Coin, which is now on sale and has raised more than $1 million so far, will go to fund impact-type businesses (that is, companies that produce a social return as well as a financial one). Allard hopes to build a wider ecosystem of investors and companiesincluding a fully fledged bankoutside the traditional financial realm. The system will help ordinary citizens to spend their money in a company that is accredited and recognized as social impact company. It will help these companies raise their capital and their sales, he says, in an interview. If, as an investor, I have a couple of thousands of bucks, I cant participate in the impact investment world. But with this app and platform, youll be able to do it. Dozens of mostly blockchain startups have launched ICOs in the last 12 months, issuing coins and tokens to buyers that have grown to a value of hundreds of millions of dollars. The largest so farfor blockchain startup Tezosraised $230 million in just two weeks. With names like CompCoin, Blocktix, and SkinCoin, the ICOs come from different industries, from financial services to online tickets to electronic sports, and offer different types of currency. Some ICOs are token sales. That means buyers are purchasing the right to participate in the company, for instance, to buy its products and services once they are available. One token might, for example, buy data storage or cybersecurity services with a new startup that has yet to launch. Other coins give buyers actual ownership of shares, or future profits, and are more akin to digital stock certificates. Tokens and coins are normally tradable in secondary exchanges, as investors speculate that their value could rise, or fall, over time. ICOs, which have raised more money this year than early-stage VC funding, have raised worries that investors (or issuers) could be harmed in the process. Even Allard agrees that the market is frothy, like the dot-com internet boom of the late-1990s. Last month, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission said it might class some of the virtual currencies as securities and therefore subject to its regulatory oversight. And Chinese regulators have declared ICOs in that country illegal. The news prompted worries of a widespread crackdown and a dampening of interest in the coin market.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40456378/can-initial-coin-offerings-give-new-life-to-social-good-companies
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Will Blockchain Revolutionize Global Real Estate Next?
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Blockchains are best known for keeping track of who owns purely digital currencies like bitcoin, but government agencies and for-profit companies are increasingly exploring how the digital ledgers can be used to track ownership of something very tangible: real estate. advertisement advertisement Currently in the United States, land records like deeds, oil-and-gas rights filings, and mortgage documents are housed in more than 3,000 county courthouses and city halls across the country. While some jurisdictions have made certain data searchable online, those digital files are often created through labor-intensive processes, like clerks scanning paper documents submitted by buyers, sellers, and their lawyers. As a May report from the office of the Cook County Recorder of Deeds in Illinois wrote, If a record is received over the counter, it is immediately scanned and converted to a digital computer file, and the original is immediately returned to the customer with a physical label placed on it indicating the time and date of receipt and its unique document number. Many offices still rely primarily on paper documents, particularly for older records. That can make figuring out who has rights to a particular piece of land cumbersome and even vulnerable to errors or out-and-out fraud. Theres a reason that the U.S. title insurance industry, which insures property owners against defects in ownership records, sees about $17 billion in revenue every year, according to research from analyst firm IBISWorld. Advocates say blockchains could help cut transaction and record-keeping costs, boost accuracy, and trim the risk of fraud. Blockchain software bundles records of transactions into structures called blocks, where each block contains a cryptographically secure fingerprint of the blocks that have come before it in a growing ledger. The blocks are generally distributed to people across the internet, and the digital fingerprints mean that anyone can catch attempts to tamper with data in previous records. And having the data stored across multiple computers reduces the risk of losing information to disaster or sabotage. It can greatly reduce fraud, reduce transaction friction, and cut down on closing costs, Ragnar Lifthrasir, founder and CEO of the Orange County, California, real estate blockchain startup velox.RE, tells Fast Company via email. Earlier this year, velox.RE and the Cook County Recorder of Deeds took part in a pilot project exploring how blockchain technology could be used to store property records in the 5.2-million-resident county, which includes Chicago. Its only one of a number of such tests taking place around the world, exploring how the new technology can be applied to improve the age-old problem of tracking real estate ownership. advertisement Its totally critical that a land registry is based on the best technology, says Henrik Hjelte, CEO of ChromaWay, a Stockholm blockchain startup that completed a pilot earlier this year with the Swedish land registry and a number of banks. Blockchain is far from the first technology to track land records. The Cook County report points to biblical references to land records protected in earthenware jars, and mathematical historians say much of basic geometry was developed to keep track of land boundaries in the ancient world. The famed medieval Domesday Book was compiled to document land rights in the time of William the Conqueror. More recently, land recording offices in the United States have been early adopters of technology, from photographic copying to microfilm and digital databases. But while property owners in modern Western democracies more or less take for granted that the ownership of land can be figured out, thats not necessarily true in other parts of the world. Blockchain proponents frequently point to the work of Peruvian economist Hernando de Soto, who argues that people in many countries suffer when unclear ownership makes it hard to sell or borrow against real estate. And poor documentation can make it easier for corrupt officials to redistribute land to their allies. The majority of countries in our world have the following issue: people just losing properties because of someone changing records in a database, says Valery Vavilov, CEO of blockchain startup BitFury. BitFury is part of a project in the Republic of Georgia to record new land ownership documents to its Exonum blockchain system, with periodic digital snapshots duplicated to the bitcoin blockchain for added redundancy. Right now, documents are doubly registered on the blockchain and in traditional records systems, but if all goes well, people will be able to actually buy and sell property solely through the blockchain. And while Vavilov says Georgia is currently known for its accurate land records, having data stored on a distributed ledger ideally would make fraudulent land transfers by any corrupt future governments harder. Even in countries where ownership transfers look different from what we see in the Western world, blockchains may still be useful for tracking records. A startup called Bitland is working on a blockchain pilot program in Kumasi, Ghana, in an area where land transfers generally need to be approved by a local chief and officials from the central government. But recording the final transaction to a blockchain makes it harder for any of those parties to tamper with those records later on, says chief operating officer Elliot Hedman. advertisement Now the government cant change it any time they want to. The chief cant. The person who uploaded the document cant, he says. In this part of the world, double spending, double selling happens all the time. The benefits from blockchain technology may not be limited to records traditionally kept by governments: In the United States, sloppy and sometimes dishonest record keeping around mortgages leading up to the 2008 financial crisis led to years of lawsuits between homeowners, banks, and investors who had bought stakes in home loans. The investors who bought the loans on the secondary market ended up with products they didnt expect, says Peter Kirby, CEO of the Austin-based blockchain startup Factom. The mortgage industry was a record-keeping nightmare. I think thats fair to say. In March, Factom launched a blockchain-powered data tracking tool called Harmony for the mortgage industry, creating a tamper-proof audit trail for loan-related documents. The system is currently in pilot stage, and the company plans to deploy it with a few clients over the next couple of months, Kirby says. Putting blockchain solutions for U.S. land ownership into production is likely to take more time, experts say. One challenge is that simply loading new records into the database as theyre created isnt enough. Before blockchains can fully replace an existing system, someone will have to digitize all the historic records currently gathering dust in the county courthouse basement. Otherwise, anyone verifying the chain of title for a particular property will have to consult both the blockchain and the historic paper records. Another issue is that land records are currently distributed across thousands of jurisdictions and 50 states, and while blockchain technology might ultimately save time and money, state laws and local practices cant switch systems overnight. I do believe that in the fullness of time, well see real estate in the U.S. all recorded and tracked in some distributed ledger system, says Lewis Cohen, a partner at Hogan Lovells, a law firm that worked on the Cook County pilot. Realistically, its going to take some time to deal with the fact that right now we have 3,200 counties, and even if you take it to the state level, we still have 50 states.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40449268/will-blockchain-revolutionize-global-real-estate-next
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Are Green Buildings Killing Us?
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Not according to researchers from the nonprofit research institution Silent Spring , who found dozens of harmful chemicals in newly renovated, LEED-certified low-income public housing in Boston. While some of these chemicals came from outside products the residents brought when they moved inlike cleaning supplies, beauty products, and even furnituremany others came from the building itself. We often slap this word green in front of things and assume that means something, says Robin Dodson, the lead author on the paper who studies chemical exposure at Silent Spring. It was renovated according to green standards, and if you could see me, Im putting that word in quotes. The researchers at Silent Spring arent alone in calling attention to the harmful chemicals in building materials. The U.S. Green Building Council has come under fire from researchers in the past for presenting a false assurance of health and safety in its LEED-certified buildings. Meanwhile, Google is building a green materials database and decision-making tool meant to make our buildings less poisonous. Dodsons research, which took years to complete, is a glimpse into an aspect of green architecture about which little is known. In 2013, Dodson and her team took air-quality samples at a low-income public housing development in Boston that was being renovated to achieve the LEED certification. It presented the perfect chance for the researchers to test the apartments air quality before anyone moved in, and then after residents were occupying each space. The comparison was crucial, since it helped distinguish which chemicals came from external products and which came from the building. They tested for almost 100 different chemicals including phthalates (commonly found in nail polish remover), flame retardants, pesticides, and formaldehyde, which have a variety of adverse health effects like hormone disruption, reproductive disorders, lower IQ, asthma, and cancer. Ultimately, the researchers found harmful flame retardants, including a carcinogen that can cause lower fertility in men, that appeared to come from building materials. Meanwhile, another flame retardant found in their tests had been banned from use in 2005, but was likely used in an old piece of furniture that a resident brought into their new apartmentan example of how pervasive harmful chemicals can be once theyre used. The scariest finding: In all 37 tests they did, the researchers found formaldehydecoming from the building and from the residentsthat exceeded safe levels determined by the EPA. Formaldehyde is used in a wide range of products and building materials, and its been shown to cause cancer in lab animals. High exposure might also cause cancer in humans. Dodson argues the study is proof that the building industry needs to dramatically shift how it thinks about health as an element of sustainability. Green building standards need to do a better job thinking about the chemicals and materials being used, Dodson says. Its not just about energy efficienciesare we improving health? Googles green materials database, called Portico, could help with that goal. Because the company has instituted its own strict standards for building its many campuses around the world, the database is a central depository for everything the companys architects and builders have learned. The more than 2,600 materials in the database are each given ratings based on Googles stringent internal health and sustainability guidelines and where it stands on external certifications, like LEED and Living Building Challenge. Portico now has a limited number of usersincluding the architecture firm Perkins + Willwith the goal to open it more broadly in the future.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90142917/are-green-buildings-killing-us
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What are England's options after suffering humiliating first Test defeat to West Indies in Barbados?
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Captain Joe Root offered no excuses as England succumbed to a miserable defeat in the first Test against the West Indies. Unheralded off-spinner Roston Chase picked up a scarcely believable haul of eight for 60 - the sixth best by a Caribbean bowler - as the Windies wrapped up a 381-run thrashing on day four in Bridgetown. Having spent the previous 48 hours being skittled for 77 in their first innings then flogging themselves in the field as Jason Holder and Shane Dowrich put them to shame with an unbeaten stand worth 295, England's muddled response to Chase's gentle examination was merely the latest in a series of heavy blows. Root accepted his side let themselves down badly in their first outing of the year, while simultaneously calling for a big response to prove their pedigree. Here, we look at the options available to the selectors as England look to bounce back in Antigua...
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2019/01/28/englands-options-suffering-humiliating-first-test-defeat-west/
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Did The Apple Brand Just Lose Another Shred Of Its Rebellious Spirit?
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A football player in Massachusetts, a country boy from small-town Mississippi, a ballet dancer, an Olympian, a blind marathoner, a father of a nine-year-old, a 99-year-old world traveler all read their letters to Tim Cook, thanking him for the benefits of the watch that has helped them get in shape, monitor medical conditions, and help save their lives. Its touching stuff, featured in a beautifully shot (albeit long) commercial. But its not an Apple ad. I mean, it is an Apple adthe newest spot for the Apple Watch, which was unveiled during the most recent Apple Event that launched the new iPhone, Watch features, and more. But the latest spot doesnt feel very much like an Apple ad. It feels more like a really good insurance company ad. Not long ago, I asked a handful of advertising execs for a Fast Company magazine piece to share their candid thoughts on what some of the worlds biggest brands were up to. One named Apple as a pick for Most Overrated Brands, saying, Im a true Apple fan, but I feel like the brand is still running on a lot of juice they had based on the things Steve Jobs created. He created something that knew what it stood for and who its enemy was. As a brand, I dont feel that from Apple anymore. Theyve lost their spirit and that sense of who theyre for and against. To me, the advertising is getting soft. It feels like a typical big company. But there are a lot of great and talented people there. Even the more emotionally charged ads used creative ways to get us misty-eyed, like the 2013 Christmas spot or the Your Verse iPad ad that used a Robin Williams monologue from Dead Poets Society to talk about tech. Single tear territory. But this new commercial, as nice as it is, plays like a straight-up video testimonial, with no Apple-esque quirk to the format. Or at least not enough. In fact, it almost feels like two ads in one, with the unfortunate effect of each one diluting the other. There is a fitness spotthe blind marathoner, the push-ups at night lady, the Olympian, the skinny dude who wakes up at 5:30 a.m. And there is a medical spotthe football player, car accident guy, the nine-year-old diabetic. Both hinge on real-life stories of determination, inspiration, and ultimately, the products utility. But maybe if the company had hit one of those notes harder, focused on one rather than both, it would be a more impactful, more uniquely Apple-ish ad. That CCOs line, It feels like a typical big company came straight to mind when I watched the ad. Those wordsplus the parents in that funny old Samsung pisstake, whom Im betting LOVE the new spot. Perhaps. But its worth noting when a big part of that companys valueits brand image and personalityis shifting from that of a rebellious, creative risk-taker to a benevolent tech overlord in our daily lives. Both can make great ads, they just, uh, think differently about them.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40467393/did-the-apple-brand-just-lose-the-last-shred-of-its-rebellious-spirit
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Will Coca-Cola be sold during the Super Bowl?
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ATLANTA An 11Alive viewer asked an important Atlanta question that has taken quite a bit of digging to find an answer to. "Will Coca-Cola be served during the Super Bowl?" Atlanta-based Coca-Cola is a sponsor of the Atlanta Falcons and is a primary vendor of Mercedes-Benz Stadium. On the other hand, Pepsi signed a major contract with the NFL a number of years ago as the soft drink sponsor of the Super Bowl. Coming to Atlanta brings with it, a unique situation. Thanks to our partners at the Atlanta Business Chronicle, we have found the answer. RELATED: Chick-Fil-A won't be open at the Super Bowl 2019 Pepsi is loving its role as an NFL sponsor during the Super Bowl in Atlanta. It has been renting out billboards around town painted in Pepsi blue saying: "Pepsi in Atlanta. How refreshing," or "Hey Atlanta. Thanks for hosting. We'll bring the drinks," or "Look who's in town for Super Bowl LIII." Pepsi also owns Gatorade, which will be on the field hydrating athletes. It also owns Frito-Lay, which has the Tostitos Cantina attraction at Super Bowl LIVE where fans can meet NFL greats and can participate in tailgating games and food challenges. RELATED: Pepsi takeover | Coke rival pouring money into Atlanta advertising There are a number of other special quirks in the Coke versus Pepsi 'cola wars' in Atlanta. The NFL has a perimeter downtown where only NFL sponsors can be on display. The World of Coke is actually inside that perimeter, but it is still permitted to operate during Super Bowl Week. Another quirk -- and this is a big one -- is that Coca-Cola is a sponsor of the Atlanta Falcons. Plus, Coke has pouring rights inside Mercedes-Benz Stadium. During the Super Bowl, the self-serve fountain drinks inside the stadium will continue to sell Coca-Cola products. Pepsi products will be available at limited locations, such as eight branded kiosks within the stadium. Pepsi products will also be available in all NFL League suites as well as all Pepsi-sponsored local NFL team suites. The remainder of the suites will feature Coca-Cola products. The cups that will be sold also will have generic Super Bowl branding without the Pepsi logo, according to Mike Egan, senior vice president and general counsel of the AMB Group, which owns the Falcons. So, to get back to the original question -- the answer is yes, Coca-Cola will still be sold at Mercedes-Benz Stadium during the Super Bowl. MORE SUPER BOWL NEWS What you need to know before you go to Super Bowl LIVE Falcons fans try to buy billboards in New Orleans but can't Super Bowl Experience Guide | What to know before you go
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https://www.wfmynews2.com/article/sports/nfl/superbowl/will-coca-cola-be-sold-during-the-super-bowl/83-b1e4ba83-846e-422e-b413-5e60f4469427
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What Are Solar Storms Doing To The GPS Of Whales?
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A series of sperm whale strandings saw 29 of the animals beached across the North Sea in early 2016. As these whales are not normally found in the North Sea, the strandings were a bit of a mystery . But a study is now proposing that the solar storms that cause the northern and southern lights (aurora) could be to blame for the ill-fated whales ending up on the beaches. In their seasonal migrations between warmer equatorial waters and the squid-rich Norwegian Sea, sperm whales generally dont travel through the North Sea. Instead, they migrate along the western coast of the British Isles. The North Sea is far too shallow for the whales, and their favorite squid prey (Gonatus fabricii) generally isnt found there either. So once the whales entered the North Sea, its likely that they became disorientated, trapped in the shallow waters, and ultimately beached. Necropsies performed on the whales suggested that they were healthy and well nourished, and so why they had entered the North Sea at all was a mystery. It is thought that some animals can get a sense of direction from the Earths magnetic field. Indeed, cetaceans, which includes whales and dolphins, are thought to be able to navigate using magnetoreception just like migrating birds and bats. The recent study suggests that the whales detour into the North Sea was the result of a geomagnetic storm interfering with the whales magnetic navigation system. The authors propose that these storms, which are the result of explosions of particles from the sun, created disturbances in the Earths magnetic field. They specifically identify two geomagnetic stormsoccurring on December 20-21, 2015, and December 31, 2015 and January 1, 2016which they argue could have caused disturbances strong enough to confuse the whales into traveling down the east coast of Shetland, rather than the west. They suggest that a series of magnetic mountains, which have a magnetic field that is stronger than the surrounding area, would normally act as a barrier to the whalespreventing them from straying into the North Sea. During the storms, however, the local magnetic field was altered so much that these magnetic mountains appeared invisible to the whalesallowing them to pass into the North Sea. Powerful Impact The idea that geomagnetic storms cause navigational issues for animals is somewhat new, but previous studies have shown that homing pigeons and migrating birds, for example, have trouble navigating through regions of magnetic anomalies. One study has found that the number of honeybees returning to their hive seems to drop significantly during geomagnetic storms, though the exact link remains unknown.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40465593/solar-storms-could-be-interfering-with-whale-navigation
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Should Ernest Koroma Protect His Legacy By Resigning From Politics?
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The long awaited Commission of Enquiry in Sierra Leone is due to commence this week, and this is against the backdrop of accusations and counter-accusations that have dogged the whole process since its inception. In spite of the variances in interpretations or perceptions of the commission, we can all agree on one thing: Corruption needs and must be tackled in our country. No country is immune from corruption. Sadly the level of corruption in our country had become a normalcy, rather than the exception; and there can be no better reason to tackle this canker worm. But amidst the political cacophony that is emerging, some quarters in the opposition APC party have been whispering whether the former President Dr. Ernest Bai koroma should resign from active politics now. Ernest is the current Leader and Chairman of the party, but many are now questioning the wisdom of such a decision. The former President has been included in the guest list for the Commission; thanks to allegations of financial impropriety and by virtue of his position as the former head of the past government; corporate responsibility. Ernest reportedly confirmed to BBC correspondent Umaru Fofana (Sierra loaded, 31 March 2018) immediately after voting then, that he will retire from politics after a couple of months. It is now 8 months into the new regime and he remains the Leader and Chairman of the opposition APC Party; contrary to expectation. The expectation that Ernest should have retired from active politics may have been born from the examples set by his predecessors. We know that Ernest had tried to install himself as a leader for life. Not even the late Pa Sheki, the main founder of the APC brazenly accorded himself such a title. But even Pa Sheki retired from active politics after imposing the late President Momoh on us. The same could be said of the late Tejan Kabba, Pa Berewa, and even Valentine Strasser. But why did and does Ernest continue to hang on to an increasingly diminishing power, you may ask. Ernest left the country immediately after the last election results, to enjoy a well-earned rest. This coincided with the inception of the Commission of Enquiry, which is largely populated by members of the erstwhile government. It is no doubt that a political vacuum had set in among the rank and file of the APC party then. That is what you get when you endow one person with all the power, and keep it propped with sycophancy. It was therefore not surprising that with his absence on the political scene, many people alluded to the APC as a rudderless ship without a captain. This was the time that many looked for leadership to counter the political juggernaut of the SLPP that had set in, apparently brushing aside what it saw as dead wood in its path. There were sweeping dismissals and suspensions, laced with new appointments as the change of guard took hold. Many saw these changes as alarming, and the victims needed little reason to conclude that it is a witch hunt and a vendetta against the APC party; thanks to its party political denominator. Others, especially APC stalwarts, understandably saw the roll call of the alleged culprits of corruption as an exercise of political cleansing, a witch hunt and an attempt to decapitate the APC. The call for Ernest to return and steady the ship had become deafening. His eventual and long awaited return was not only meant to steer the ship and give direction, but provide a fulcrum and reassurance to a party that was still licking its wounds from reality. Many would have questioned how much clout Ernest carried or continues to carry in the APC. His attempt to rally the members was seen by many as the death throes of a party in disarray. Ernest did his best to rally the party by humbly apologising and taking the blame for the partys failure to hold on to power. A good starting point though. But what many people saw were the embers of a once united party. Many have since concluded the rot had set in after the convention in Makeni. It is no secret that the APC convention in Makeni left a serious amount of political blood on the APC carpet. The number of aspiring candidates for the flag bearer and running mate positions was unprecedentedly high. The fact that these candidates continued their campaigns up to the eve of the convention was suggestive that they were all confident of a chance at the opportunity. There can be no doubt that Ernest had wanted to oversee a democratic process, or a semblance of democratic process in choosing his successor. And there can be no doubt that he may have had a word or two in the ear of all the aspirants; leaving each and every one confident that they stood a chance to succeed him. It goes without saying that the outcome of that convention, which saw the little known Dr. Samura appointed as the flag bearer, will go down as one of the biggest political earthquakes in the history of the APC. The aspirants felt let down, and that Ernest had led them up the creek without the paddles. The rest is history. If we are going to be honest, that marked the beginning of the visible fissures that is now emerging along the echelons of the APC party. Unlike previous campaigns, people hardly saw any of the top guns campaigning independently for and on behalf of Dr. Samura. It was largely left to Pa Ernest, to chaperone Dr Samura up the length and breadth of the country; first to introduce him to the country, and to show his own supporters that he was the chosen one. This act was reminiscent of Pa Shekis selection of Brigadier Momoh; but unlike the latter, there was no opposition to take advantage of the political void; thanks to the one party state. The emerging cracks in the APC were evident but true to form, the APC members put the party above individual interests, grinned their teeth and soldiered on through the elections. The dismal showing of the party in the first round of ballots served as a wakeup call. There was a seeming landslide support for the SLPP in the South and East of the country, with in roads made in areas that were once regarded as the strongholds for the APC. This was glaringly so in Bombali district, the supposed homeland of the APC. This showing was enough for politicians to capitalise on tribal and regional sentiments. This was in no doubt a rude awakening for the APC, but efforts to rally the troops around tribal and regional lines by both parties proved too little too late. Sam Sumanas C4C party had partly put paid to that. The damage had been done, and Sierra Leone had decided. This moment may have not marked the beginning of the abuse of our tribal affiliations by our politicians, but it took it to another level of unprecedented heights. Sadly, this is how we have found our collective peace and security at risk today, thanks to the unenviable penchant of our politicians to use abuse and misuse our God given rights to belong. Many people are wondering why Ernest is still hanging about. Cue the re-entrance of Sam Sumana. We know that Sam Sumana and Ernest are komanehs (In-laws), but his recent homage Ernest in Makeni has set tongues wagging. While Sam Sumana as usual, has remained tight lipped, the conspiracy merchants have gone head and anointed him as replacement to lead the APC to victory, come 2023. I can see Dr Samura popping the champagne, and members of the C4C Party building monuments in honour of Sam Sumana at opera, in Koidu Town. But that is for another day for discussion. You can vilify Ernest until the cows come home. But we should also be honest enough to admit that in spite of the public scandal surrounding the Hajj gate, Ebola and Mudslide, Ernest did very well with many other projects in our country. I am sure that World Best will be the first person to acknowledge and recognise that its time to hang his boots. Politically, Ernest is one of the rare presidents in our history, and in Africa that never imprisoned or killed political opponents. I stand to be corrected. These are legacies worth preserving. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you. Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. Ernest should think about his legacy, because he is writing it every day. Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter (M. L. King). Dont forget to turn the lights off when you leave the room
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http://www.critiqueecho.com/should-ernest-koroma-protect-his-legacy-by-resigning-from-politics/
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Is Victor Foh a Blessing or a Curse To Sierra Leone Politics?
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A basic principle of democracy is that parties have to accept that their opponents are sometimes going to win. Fight the election hard, maybe even bitterly, but at the end of the day, politicians and parties need to accept their opponents can and sometimes should be able to win elections and wield political power. If you are living in a country called Sierra Leone, you may be tempted not to believe this anymore. Dramatic events unfolded over the last two weeks with explosive ramifications for the political landscape have indicated the fragility of the mind over a space of time. Both involved former vice presidents showing loyalty or disloyalty as some cynics and armchair critics may want you to believe. These acts go well beyond the normal democratic give and take, where political parties battle over the rules of elections at the margins. Some far, APC fans will rightly argue that they are not ideology opposed to democracy in the way that, say fascists and Islamists are. A case of two tales occurred within the opposition All Peoples Congress party involving one time Vice President Sam Sumana who visited the former President, Ernest Koroma at his residence in Makeni, in a bid to quell the feud between the two that eventually led to the sacking of the former. A move widely acclaimed by die- hard APCers as the beginning of the reconciliation spree that is badly needed in the party. Sam Sumana may have angered most of his outside fans who thought he should have consulted his base before patching up this debacle. Sam Sumana conducted interviews on different channels about his decision, citing national reconciliation and forgiveness. On the flip side, call him a maverick, shrewd and intelligent politician in the personality of Victor Foh. He has served the APC party since its formative stage, spanning during the hey days of the party in power. He has walked his way through the ranks of the party structure to the second post of Vice Presidency. Few years ago, some ardent supporters of the APC party applauded the controversial appointment of Victor Foh as the Vice President, following the sacking of Sam Sumana, the then VP. To some supporters like Kebbie Turay of Philadelphia, this shows that the party acknowledges the efforts of its loyal sons and daughters. At the time, Victor Foh was rewarded for his tremendous work towards re-energizing the party from a low spirit to the highest peak in political posture. During the interregnum when the name of APC was a taboo to the ears of many Sierra Leoneans, it was the likes of Victor Foh, Eddie Turay, and late Serry Kamal that stood the times and confronted the people of Sierra Leone. He was subsequently implicated in a treason trial that condemned him to death. After his release, Victor Foh re-emerged from the political wilderness and campaigned vigorously to bring back the APC party to power. During his swearing in ceremony at State House, he famously informed the audience that, I will serve Ernest Koroma and the APC party till death. This infamous swearing in drew many criticisms from far and wide, indicating his lapses for fundamental constitutional responsibilities. Naturally, many expected an intelligent politician like Victor Foh to take an oath to defend the constitution and serve the country and not an individual. To fast forward the contributions of Victor Foh to the APC party, history will be fair for his remarkable role he played in bringing the new faced virgin politician, Ernest Koroma into the limelight. It was the effort and hard work of Victor Foh that brought Ernest Koroma from the defunct Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the top echelon of the party. In his stride to acquire the presidency, Ernest was an unknown figure within the party and for a shrewd politician like Victor Foh to sail troubled waters and clinch the flag bearer spot was an uphill task. Victor Foh was really smart to see potentials in Ernest that few people saw and he transformed those potentials into a president serving two terms. For some, it could be considered as a blessing to have Victor Foh in the political limelight. As his nickname (High Barb) suggests, Victor Foh has not only been the most influential figure in the APC party but also a cunning, unreliable and intimidating adversary within the APC party. In a recent interview aired on local radio stations in the country, Victor Foh came out with a scathing attack on his party and its leadership including his former Chairman and Leader of the party, Ernest Koroma. He has opened a Pandora box with millions scratching their heads on how the party was administered. The interviews were explosive and startling with many APC stalwarts viewing it as washing dirty linens in the open public. Though many may agree with Victor Foe that all was not rosy within the party, especially where the party allowed many presidential contestants to campaign and spend huge chunks of money and time, many may want to say, Victor Foh should have used the mechanisms within his party to resolve these issues. Many accused Victor Foh of giving a legal cover to the ruling Sierra Leone Peoples Party to conduct a cruel interrogation to break the back of the party. In Victor Fohs view, the erstwhile presidents sense of mission drove him to seek power without limit and his indifference to public opinion verged on contempt. Whereas Sam Sumana remained quiet over his treatment by the former president, Victor Foh has been on the opposite side. His vitriolic attack on his former boss and the party has been seen as a sell out and many have even doubted his loyalty and genuine concerns to the party that made him the first native son of his hometown to achieve such positions in the history of the country. The result is that the All Peoples Congress commitments to norms that protect democracy should continue and not to disintegrate at an alarming pace. What we have learned a lot in the last couple of years about the nature of democracy is that democratic rules and norms depend on the ability of the elites and coordinate on it, rather than allow few shenanigans to destroy the party that propelled them into prominence. Victor Foh may not be the best of politician to adore in terms of principles, but his resilience in standing with his party in the midst of turbulence, humiliation and victimization should be commended and a forensic surgery should be done in the party, so good sons and daughters will prevail and defend the party even in the midst of adversity. Dont kill the messenger and allow the message to flourish, that is what my late father would say. May God bless Sierra Leone.
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http://www.critiqueecho.com/is-victor-foh-a-blessing-or-a-curse-to-sierra-leone-politics/
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Can Techie Parents Reinvent School For EveryoneOr Just Their Rich Kids?
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Six-year-old Tiana had just gotten her ice cream machine working for the first time, and she was triumphant. Wrapped in hot pink decorations and duct tape, the device was now capable of churning out flavors that the young scientist planned to dub Mint Speshel and Tianas Dlitght. advertisement advertisement Eyes wide, Tiana turned to her teacher, Shira Leibowitz. Shira, this is the most important day of my career, she declared. Leibowitz, a founding team member of startup Portfolio School in Manhattans Tribeca neighborhood, recalls that story with a laugh. Portfolio School has been designed to look and operate more like the workplace of the future than the classroom of today, but no one expected students to internalize that approach quite so literally. They view themselves as working, says Leibowitz, who has a doctorate in education. Theyre never learning something because one day theyll need it, theyre learning something because they need it right now. As in a modern office, a typical day at Portfolio School revolves around individualized goals and collaborative, interdisciplinary projects. Tianas ice cream machine was the culmination of a unit called learning is delicious, which ran the course of the fall 2017 semester. As students explored that theme and built their machines, they learned about science (states of matter), math (measurement), and history (the commercialization of ice). When I first visited the school one morning last October, Tiana had just produced a trial batch of mint ice cream and proudly shared a bowl with me. I made it, she said as I sampled a spoonful, green leaves and all. advertisement Portfolio School is at the vanguard of a movement of startup schools seeking to foster learning experiences, like Tianas, that map to the jobs of the future. Many are micro-schools, where students of different ages occupy a single multi-purpose space. Many are based on the Montessori method, which emphasizes curiosity and guided choice. And nearly all of these startup schools aim to personalize learning by using technology to deliver individualized lessons alongside group activities. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the founders of this new wave of schools are often former technology executives who have started families. In their previous roles they ushered in a new way of working, now prized across industries, which values collaboration, creativity, and iteration. They look at traditional school, with its textbooks and lock-step progressions, and see the need for revolution. Portfolio School cofounder and CEO Babur Habib fits that profile exactly. He grew up in Pakistan, where he attended public schools, and moved to the U.S. to pursue his PhD in engineering. (He and cofounder Doug Schachtel, who manages operations, met on the squash courts at Princeton, where Habib earned a doctorate in engineering.) Early in his career, Habib designed and debugged microprocessors. Later, he cofounded an education company that was eventually acquired by Intel in 2014. After the deal closed, Habib spent a year managing the integration. Around the same time, his daughter Sophia was born. That was the eye opener, he says of his stint developing educational mobile and tablet applications at the hardware processor. I visited so many schools, talked to so many administrators. Over time he grew to share school leaders frustrations. Constraints, like classroom design, limited their ability to experiment with technology. Theres so much room to reimagine this stuff, says Habib. If things are changing in the real world, why arent they changing in schools? Other parent-technologists have arrived at a similar conclusion. advertisement In the heart of Silicon Valley, Khan Academy founder Sal Khan established a complementary lab school that he describes as Montessori 2.0., infused with the type of video-based math lessons that Khan Academy has popularized since 2007 (early Snap investor Hemant Taneja sits on the lab schools board). Across the country, former Google executive Sep Kamvar created Wildflower Montessori, which launched as a storefront school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 2014, and has since added nearly a dozen locations. And then there is AltSchool, a network of micro-schools that is the brainchild of another former Google executive, Max Ventilla. He has managed to recruit an executive team that includes parent-leaders from Airbnb, Uber, and Zynga. I want something better for my childthats whats motivating a lot of these high-tech entrepreneurs, says Tony Wagner, a former teacher who now serves as an expert in residence at Harvards Innovation Lab. Wagner, who advises Portfolio School, sees the growing interest in startup schools as both a reaction against the dominance of test-prep pedagogical regimes and an embrace of the knowledge and skills that future jobs will likely reward. The big leap were trying to make is moving away from content standards to performance standards, Wagner explains. Can you use knowledge, can you apply knowledge? Demonstrating mastery of chemistry, in this line of thinking, would involve designing a study and presenting the findings, rather than memorizing the periodic table. Content is not as important anymore. Content is in our back pockets, literally, Habib says, gesturing toward his iPhone. That is the central thesis of this school. We feel that the creative process of taking an idea and then producing something out of it is so important, so important for the future. But as Habib and other parent-founders are discovering, turning lofty pedagogical aspirations into daily reality for a small group of children is no easy task. advertisement It requires patience, for one. Habib, who previously taught physics at Stanford and authored papers on quantum dots, has had to learn how to explain the basics to tiny beginners. During one of my visits to Portfolio School, I found Habib at a whiteboard, teaching long division to an advanced 7-year-old. Habib and Schachtel are not trained educators, but they have taken a hands-on approach in their schools classrooms and made a point of hiring expert counterparts. After recruiting Leibowitz, they signed on engineer-turned-teacher Nancy Otero, who previously created digital fabrication labs for schools in China, Brazil, and Spain. At Portfolio, Otero installed a Makerspace in one corner of the rented ground floor space that the school occupies. Wire cutters, a sewing kit, and other tools hang from pegboards on the wall. There is also a soldering iron, which Portfolios kindergarteners wield with surprising aplomb. We dont distinguish for the kids between a pencil or a scissors or a 3D printer or a laser cutter or a book or an online science simulation, says Leibowitz. They use what they need when they need it to learn and to create, so that its seamless. Its not now were going to technology, now were going to the art room. ' That approach was evident one day in February, as Tiana and another student experimented with a circle of LEDs powered by an Arduino and surrounded by pieces of flame-shaped plastic. The students, who were studying color, had decided to construct a campfire. As a first step, they had to get their code working. On a glowing screen, they reviewed the logic for one possible effect: to startup loop add 4 white add 4 yellow add 4 orange add 4 red advertisement Otero glanced at their progress, nodding. Kids this age can do amazing things, she said. The color unit, which had been inspired by a movie about prehistoric cave paintings in France, would conclude with a shadow puppet show presented to parents and guests. In addition to light, students were learning about the chemistry of pigments, the use of camouflage in nature, and rainbow myths in ancient cultures. Look, masterpiece! Tiana said, holding the campfire aloft as she floated past the kid-size table where students were pausing for a mid-morning snack of carrots and grapes. Before Portfolio, Tiana was homeschooled by her mother, Jackie, who paused her Wall Street career to oversee a schedule that included piano and violin lessons and trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But Jackie felt limited by her own breadth of experience: I only knew traditional school. At Portfolio, she says, They have a vision even above my vision, and they can implement it. Though a high achiever by any standard definitionshe majored in math and economics as an undergraduate, and earned a Stanford MBAJackie has little interest in the status markers of academic success that dominate New Yorks competitive private schools. Its good for the parents to brag, but its meaningless for the kids, she says. Portfolio, in contrast, emphasizes the virtues of intrinsic motivation. advertisement They put the challenge back to the child, and I love that, she says. Theyre teaching how to be a self-sustaining learner. [Tiana] feels she can do anything. Over morning coffee and biscuits at Bubbys Tribeca, around the corner from Portfolio, Habib and Schachtel reiterate that vision. It should never be more about school than learning, or succeeding just to get the right grades and get into the right school, Schachtel says. Growing up, he logged one accolade after anotherPrinceton diploma, Columbia MFAbut struggled to find purpose in his studies, and later in his work. You get on this track, he says. Like Habib, Schachtel envisions that Portfolio students will one day attend top universitiesbut thats not the expectation thats put upon kids and the driving motivator. Of course, if Portfolio students do happen to aim for the Ivies, many years from now, they will be readyperhaps even at an advantage. Our approach of building impressive student portfolios from the age of 5 is preparing them for admissions, says Leibowitz, who notes that top schools, including MIT, now review portfolios of student work alongside essays and other application materials. advertisement Plus, she adds, If [students] are still taking SATs when these guys are preparing for college, well teach them strategies for the test as if it were any other project. We want all the doors to be open to them. For $35,000 per yearPortfolios current tuition rateparents expect nothing less. And therein lies the tension facing private startup schools like Portfolio, many of which rely on wealthy parents to get off the ground but aspire to serve children of all backgrounds by selling products and services like teacher training and project-based curricula to their public school counterparts. The steep price that Portfolio parents pay ensures that their children are taught by PhDs and given access to resources like a Makerspace. Meanwhile, at nearby Manhattan public schools, teachers with STEM backgrounds are a rare luxury, and budgets are so tight that parents routinely pay for Kleenex and other basic supplies. Theres a huge gap that exists, says Karen Panetta, dean of graduate engineering at Tufts University, despite the proliferation of free online lessons and tools designed to introduce science and technology concepts. Panetta, who researches the use of robots in classrooms, has observed that standardized testing limits teachers willingness to devote time and energy to experimenting. All these resources are out there, but the educators themselves are so tied by requirements. With such a chasm in place, its unclear whether Portfolio-branded educational aids and training would be able to produce the same outcomes in third-party schools that Habib expects to see in his own classrooms. Of the startup schools founded by tech-savvy parents, AltSchool is the farthest along. The B-Corp has raised $173 million in funding to date, a staggering sum for an educational institution (Mark Zuckerberg is among the backers). In addition to operating a network of micro-school locations, the company recently started making its technology available to partners. Unlike Portfolio, which sees an opportunity to develop and sell curricular materials, AltSchool is focused on designing flexible tools for tasks like classroom management and parent communication. advertisement If AltSchool founder Ventilla has a pedagogical bias, it is toward participatory lessonslike most of the educational entrepreneurs in this new era. Students should be encouraged, at every stage of the learning process, to adopt an active stance toward their education, Khan wrote in his 2012 book, The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined. They shouldnt just take things in; they should figure things out. Tiana and her peers had that type of learning experience during Portfolios first year, and so too did Habib and his founding team. They scrambled throughout the spring to create lessons and projects that incorporated student interests, with largely promising results. As part of a unit on domesticated animals, Portfolios students welcomed two guinea pigs into their classroom and designed a custom house for them, complete with sensors and webcam. They built a three-story castle, Habib recalls with pride. One boy, 9 years old, trained a neural network to tell the two guinea pigs apart, using the webcam video feed, so that he could analyze their behavioral patterns. An investor who happened to attend Portfolios end-of-year presentation described the student as immediately employableto his parents great surprise and Habibs great delight: This is the first time the parents dont know as much as the kids do. More precisely, the parents dont know as much as the kids do when it comes to technology. But they do know the importance of education, and its simple, instinctual math: Paying top-dollar today for access to the top jobs of tomorrow is always worth the price.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40417817/can-techie-parents-reinvent-school-for-everyone-or-just-their-rich-kids
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Is Fahad Mustafa taking a jibe at web series starring Mehwish Hayat?
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Pakistans acclaimed film and TV personality Fahad Mustafa has taken a jibe at short films and web series at the sort of content they are creating, terming it to be cheap. The Mah-e-Mir actor turned to Twitter to express his disapproval at the kind of content evident on-screen that is heavily reliant on the use of abusive language and sexual connotations. Nudity ,abusive language and just talking about sex is not content .lets not call it freedom of speech ! Actors selling themselves very cheaply its not cool at all .web series and short films needs to be a little dignified or they should just call it porn .., the actor had tweeted. While the tweet could very possibly be aimed at anyone, many social media users couldnt help but speculate whether the Jeeto Pakistan star was hinting at the recently launched web series by Wajahat Rauf starring Mehwish Hayat, titled Enaaya which has also faced ample contention from all around for its usage of abusive language. However, to drive away conjectures, the actor posted a clarification that the statement of contention was solely for the content producers outside of Pakistan. I love you @wajahatrauf and you know it ... my tweet was about foreign content and not yours people just trying to create an issue out of nothing ... Best of luck for your upcoming film and what ever you do in future my friend, he stated.
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https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/424762-is-fahad-mustafa-taking-a-jibe-at-mehwish-hayats-new-web-series
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Can The iPhone Change The Way We Live Again?
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The iPhone changed technology in 2007, but it was the App Store that changed our lives a year later. It brought us Yelp to pick a restaurant, Instagram to share our dinner, and Uber to order the car home. Next week, Apple will announce the next iPhone, and it promises to have the biggest software upgrade weve seen since the original App Store launched: augmented reality, enabled by a development software inside iOS 11 called ARKit. While the new iPhone will feature useful upgrades like better cameras, ARKit is what could take augmented reality mainstream. Thats because there are over 700 million iPhones in the wild. In a single OS update, Apple will put a wave of new AR apps in millions of hands. AR is a chance for Apple to change how we use our phones again, on the scale of the App Store. Yet despite the excitement of analysts, there are some serious design problems Apple needs to solve to succeedand they may be too large for the beloved iPhone to bear. There May Never Be A Killer AR App Today, the most successful AR app is Pokmon Go. It began as a viral phenomenon, using AR to drive millions of people into underutilized public spaces and down dark alleys in the middle of the night. Long after the news headlines died down, it remains one of the most popular games in the world, with 65 million monthly active users. The app is immensely successful, and, yet, it doesnt leverage AR as an essential tool in everyday life. Flicking a pokball, while entertaining, is not as indispensable as getting directions with Maps or hailing a car with Uber. Its a huge app, but its not a killer app. Gaming is a highly experimental arm of the app market, after all. We are willing to suspend our needs for conventions when it comes to having fun with a video game. Thats far harder to imagine than an overzealous nerd playing AR Super Mario Bros ruining your next picnic. AR may remain primarily an entertainment technology, used in games and creativity-driven apps. The Ergonomic Problem The greatest limitation to AR on the iPhone is simply that its still a phone. Facebook has called AR on mobile phones a gateway to inevitable glasses on your face, positioning the technology as part of a broader spectrum of plugging in. Its a feasible argument, and perhaps Apple feels the same way and ARKit is just a gateway to an iPhone that lives inside our retinas. But for now, the impact AR can make is limited to what people are willing to do while holding a four-inch rectangle in front of their noses.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90139328/can-the-iphone-change-the-way-we-live-again
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Could These Robotic Kelp Farms Give Us An Abundant Source Of Carbon-Neutral Fuel?
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Off the coast of Catalina Island near Los Angeles, a prototype of a new kelp elevatora long tube with seaweed growing on it that can be moved up and down in the water to access sunlight and nutrientswill soon begin tests. If the study works as hoped, the startup behind it, Marine BioEnergy, wants to use similar technology, driven by robotic submarines, to begin farming large tracts of the open ocean between California and Hawaii. Then it plans to harvest the kelp and convert it into carbon-neutral biocrude that could be used to make gasoline or jet fuel. We think we can make fuel at a price thats competitive with the fossil fuel thats in use today, says Cindy Wilcox, who cofounded Marine BioEnergy with her husband Brian Wilcox, who manages space robotics technology in his day job at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory at California Institute of Technology. Other biofuels, such as ethanol made from plant waste on corn fields, have struggled to become commercially viable, particularly after oil prices crashed. Solazyme, a company that planned to make biofuel from algae (and predicted in 2009 that it would be cost-competitive with fossil fuels within two or three years), ended up pivoting to make food products under the name TerraVia, and has now declared bankruptcy. Kelp might have a chance of faring better. Unlike plants on land, it has little lignin or cellulose, fibers that make processing more difficult and expensive. In the right conditions, it can grow more than a foot a day, without the need for the irrigation or pesticides that might be used on land. A key to the companys concept is farming in the open ocean, where there is room to grow vast quantities of kelp. Youre going to need a lot of kelp in order to make it cost-competitive with something like coal, fossil fuels, or natural gas, says Diane Kim, a scientist at the University of Southern Californias Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies, which is helping run the proof-of-concept study of Marine BioEnergys technology at Catalina. In order to grow that much kelp, you really have to move outside the normal range of where kelp is found, which is along the coast. Kelp doesnt typically grow in the open ocean since it needs both sunlight found near the surface of the water and nutrients that are found near the ocean floor (it also needs to anchor itself to something). In the 1970s, during the oil embargo, the U.S. Navy began investigating the possibility of farming kelp in the open ocean, pumping deep ocean water filled with nutrients to kelp anchored near the surface. But anchors often failed in ocean currents, and after the embargo ended, government interest faded.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40458564/could-these-robotic-kelp-farms-give-us-an-abundant-source-of-carbon-neutral-fuel
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What Does It Cost To Start A New Farm?
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The average age of an American farmer is now 58.3a number thats been increasing for three decades. About 40% of farmers are 65 and over. And fewer younger people are entering the profession than ever before. The last census from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows the number of new farmers (defined as being on the job less than 10 years) fell by about 20% between 2007 and 2012. While many young people are attracted to working the land and giving up dizzy-making urban lives, theyre also likely put off by prohibitively high startup costs. Thats according to Shawn Williamson, an accountant in St. Louis, Missouri, who recently carried out an in-depth analysis of what it would cost to set up a farm from nothing. The answer: an amount of money that makes the idea of creating a more robust independent farming economy seem impossible. Williamson himself owns several farm properties (which he rents out). Recently he was thought-experimenting with some friends about what it would cost to set up an agricultural operation from scratch. That is, a farm that actually produces a decent incomesay enough for a family of four to live comfortably (at least $50,000 a year). It was a lot more than Williamson and his buddies thought, chiefly because of high land costs. According to Williamson, you need $5,157,500 to set up a new decent-sized grain farm in Iowa; $2,695,000 for a new dairy farm in Nebraska; and $4,477,500 for a wheat growing operation in Kansas. Williamson estimated and collated the figures in two articles for the site Successful Farming. He worries that the costs for young people coming into the industry are too high, and that farming isnt replenishing its stock of practitioners, so America can produce the affordable food it needs. Wheres a young guy or gal going to get $5 million or $3 million to be a farmer?, he says in an interview. Its a coming, quiet, slow moving emergency, I think. When you have the average farmer in his upper fifties and not many people coming behind, all of sudden there arent any farmers anymore. Williamson thinks it would actually be impossible for someone to borrow $5 million, just like that, to start a farm. They would almost never do it that way because they couldnt. No bank would say, Oh, you have a million dollars, Ill loan you four more, on a wing and a prayer, he says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40458330/what-does-it-cost-to-start-a-new-farm
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Can Apple Make Us Forget About The iPhones Home Button?
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The Home button on the bottom of the iPhone is as old as the iPhone itself, and has always been central to operating the device. On current phones its used for turning on the display, authentication, app navigation, activating mobile payments, talking to Siri, and returning to the home screen. Even when youre not quite sure how to get to this function or that, a press on the Home button is at least a good start. Now, like the headphone jack before it, the Home button is reportedly going awayat least on one of the phones Apple is expected to announce in September. Apple, Bloombergs Mark Gurman reports, will instead use a new software bar at the bottom of the screen of the forthcoming top-of-the-line iPhone (possibly called the iPhone 8) as the focal point of some new screen gestures to accomplish at least some of the classic Home button functions. Users may swipe up on the bar to open the phone. They might use some other gesture to view and switch among the apps they have open. One of the core functions of the Home button, fingerprint sensing for authentication and security, probably cant be handled in the new software bar. Apple will likely have to place the Touch ID sensor on the back of the phone, or, as rumors have suggested, do away with Touch ID altogether and rely on a facial recognition laser and sensor on the front of the phone to identify users. Either way, the removal of Touch ID from the front of the iPhone represents a fundamental change to the way well use the device. The fingerprint sensor is used not only to secure data on the phone itself but also to secure mobile payments via Apple Pay and in apps like Uber. It might not be easy for some. For a while at least, I will likely find myself absent-mindedly pressing on the bottom front of the new phone to wake it up or find an app I want. A Trade-off Apple may not have set out to get rid of the Home button. But its importance was overridden by the desire to cover almost the entire front of the new iPhone with an OLED display, allowing the company to put a screen similar in size to that of the iPhone 7 Plus (or even bigger) in the smaller form factor of the iPhone 7.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40460928/can-apple-make-us-forget-about-the-iphones-home-button
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What Makes a Healthy Community?
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Some of the key components of healthy communities include access to parks, green spaces, recreational facilities and places to exercise like sports fields, swimming pools, golf courses and ice rinks. Building healthy communities is becoming a priority for cities, urban planners and others. The city of Vancouver has a formalized Healthy City Strategy and Calgary and Toronto have similar plans. Improving the opportunity to cycle, walk, run or take public transit to work or school by changing the built environment is a growing area of research and could significantly influence your daily physical activity. Community design features, such as connected streets, a mix of residential, commercial, educational and employment areas, bike paths, and good public transit can support an active commute; whereas green spaces, waterways, walking paths, trails and recreation facilities can promote physical activity. Exercise is one of the biggest determinants of health and where you live can have an influence on getting you out the door. With an aging population, staying active and healthy is more important than ever. The 2016 Canadian census showed that, for the first time, there are more adults over the age of 65 years than children under the age of 15. According to a report on healthy living by Canadas Chief Public Health Officer, Dr. Theresa Tam, building communities that promote being active is important. Approximately 80 per cent of Canadians live in urban areas and the urban sprawl that surrounds most major cities is a big problem that has been linked to sedentary lifestyles, easy access to unhealthy food, more time spent driving, less physical activity and higher rates of obesity. Studies have shown that people benefit from living near natural areas. The ability to visit a natural area close to home, promotes both healthy living patterns and also contributes to a reduction in stress. In fact, just looking out the window at trees, shrubs, grass, water and other natural features is a proven stress reducer. City planners and urban developers recognize the importance of green spaces and this is being reflected in formal plans and policies. The Vancouver Healthy Cities Plan has a goal of having all Vancouver residents live within a five minute walk of a park. And, as of 2014, 92.7 per cent of residents lived within 400 metres of a park or green space. Visiting a natural environment will provide you with a restorative effect that is soothing and calming. While nature lovers have long cited the positive effect of enjoying the outdoors, in the past few years, science has begun to actually measure these effects. Rigorous studies have proven that accessing a natural environment has a positive effect on blood pressure, immune functioning and performance on standardized neurocognitive tests. Researcher Frances E. Kuo, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, studies the connections between health and access to nature. She puts it this way: Access to nature, whether it is in the form of bona fide natural areas or in bits or views of nature, impacts psychological, as well as social functioning. Greater access to green views and green environments yields better cognitive functioning; more proactive, more effective patterns of life functioning; more self-discipline and more impulse control; greater mental health overall; and greater resilience in response to stressful life events. Less access to nature is linked to exacerbated attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms, more sadness and higher rates of clinical depression. People with less access to nature are more prone to stress and anxiety It is clear that communities with nearby natural areas such as river valleys, grasslands, lakes or even mountains hold a healthy advantage for their residents. Living close to city parks is also a contributing factor to a healthy community. Parks provide a place for neighbours to congregate and make social connections, an important determinant of wellness. They also promote physical activity in many forms. Playgrounds with swings, climbing equipment and slides encourage children to be active, develop social skills as they meet other kids and gain confidence in their physical abilities. And, with parents watching from the sidelines, social interaction is a possible outcome. Playgrounds arent just for kids anymore. A number of communities in Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver and other cities worldwide, have created outdoor fitness parks. These facilities are provided by local municipalities and are free to anyone. The first generation offered static elements like logs to balance on and bars for pull ups. But they have progressed to more sophisticated equipment that focus on strength, cardio and balance. A study commissioned by the Alberta Urban Municipalities Association concluded that residents living near outdoor fitness parks felt they improve health, increase physical activity, and enhance a sense of community in their neighbourhood. Many also appreciated that it was freely accessible. According to Marie Beha and Caroline F. Hansen on the blog Sharing.Lab The rationale for government-funded outdoor gyms has its roots in The Nudge Theory. The main idea behind this concept is that subtle changes in government policy can incentivize people to do things, which are in their own interest, without actually giving them direct orders to do so. Another feature of a healthy community is access to pathways which encourage residents to walk, run and cycle. Calgary, Toronto and Vancouver all have extensive cycle networks with designated routes linking outlying communities with the downtown core. Many of these are plowed and sanded in the winter, giving rise to a growing population of hardy, year round commuters. Communities that are situated on or near these networks give residents easy access to cycling for pleasure or commuting purposes, providing a healthy and pollution-free method of getting from one location to another. The number of Canadians on foot and cycling is increasing. In Vancouver a 2016 survey by the city showed increasing numbers of pedestrians and cyclists with 27 per cent of all trips made on foot and seven per cent made by bike. People are also on the move in Toronto where the number of pedestrians and cyclists is growing. Cycle Toronto reports as many as 34 per cent of all trips are made on bike in some neighbourhoods, mainly mixed-use residential communities close to downtown, with a city-wide increase of 15 to 20 per cent over a decade. Calgary too is reporting an increase in the number of its pathway users. Data was last collected by the city in 2016 over a period of several months with totals as high as 75,957 pedestrian, 34 wheelchair and mobility scooter users, and 29,030 cyclists counted at 90 locations over one six-hour period. Aside from the obvious health benefits of walking, running and cycling, these forms of transportation contribute to a cleaner environment with no emissions. That in turn encourages more people to get out into the environment. Whether your community has sidewalks is something that you may overlook but it has an impact on active living. Walking along the side of the road just isnt an attractive option for people who want to walk. Its not safe or aesthetically pleasing to amble along the edge of a road with cars speeding by. Neighbourhoods with sidewalks have much more appeal and will have an influence on whether you decide to walk. And there are a lot of fringe benefits to living in a community with sidewalks. Real Estate studies have shown that communities with sidewalks are more desirable and people are willing to pay more to live there. Sidewalks help improve access to local services and transportation and even help keep crime down by encouraging people to be out and about in the community. Even the design of front yards can have an influence on the health of the community. Yards where people have flowerbeds and lawns require them to go outside even if its just to cut the lawn. This creates a connection with nature which helps with overall mental health. In addition, it gives them an opportunity to socialize with neighbours and pedestrians going by. So the next time you head out into your neighbourhood, take a look at how it stacks up in terms of health and fitness. If it ticks all the right boxes, youve scored a win in community health. Published in Inspiration Issue January/February 2019.
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http://impactmagazine.ca/health/healthy-spaces/what-makes-a-healthy-community/
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Are we really ditching cows milk in Norfolk for a plant-based alternative?
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Cleo Rainey from Norwich took part in our taste test. No thanks say the people of Norfolk who, when put to the test, said they were NOT moo-ving over from cows milk. Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in. Share Email this article to a friend To send a link to this page you must be logged in. Sales of milk made for humans from trendy alternatives like soya, coconut and almond may be growing particularly among the younger generation but in Norfolk, the preference is still for a pint of good old fashioned full fat blue top from the cow. The EDP asked members of the public their opinion on the kind of milk they drank. All said they preferred cows milk and local dairy farmer Jonny Burridge, who drinks two litres a day, said it was the best natural, vitamin-filled product available. Despite a huge growing market for trendy milks promoted in smoothies and takeway coffees and people being encouraged to cut back on their intake of cows milk and become a reducitarian it seems the natural product milked from the cow is still Norfolks favourite. The people we spoke to ranging from 18-67 in age all said they drank cows milk over alternatives and all could detect which was the real thing when asked to sample different milk including soya, almond and coconut. Chris Sidell from Wymondham liked the taste of coconut milk during our taste test. Picture: Neil Didsbury Chris Sidell from Wymondham liked the taste of coconut milk during our taste test. Picture: Neil Didsbury Cleo Rainey, 20, from Norwich, said: I live with students so Ill have what theyre having. Everyone is having a bad time right now but a hot topic is that the dairy industry is sometimes a bit controversial and the environmental impact is the bigger issue. Louisa Scott, 18, from Dereham, said: I do like soya milk but we have cows milk at home so I drink it. Chris Sidell, also 18, from Wymondham, said: Ive never had almond milk before, I prefer coconut milk but I usually drink cows milk. Dairy farmer Mr Burridge who produces about two million litres of milk a year from his 236 strong herd at Manor Farm, Fundenhall, said: I find it a very disappointing attitude to want an alternative to what is a natural product, it has everything in it and all the vitamins you need compared to many of the artificial milks which have iron and vitamins added to them. I love my job looking after the girls who are milked voluntarily on robots, when they want to be milked. There is a global stock shortage so I am buoyant about the future because I can see a significant price rise. It comes as a recent BBC report found in a survey of 2000 people aged 18-24, a quarter had reduced their consumption of cows milk or completely cut it out in the past two years, citing their dislike of animal welfare and the environmental impact as the reason.
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https://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/business/are-we-ditching-the-dairy-norfolk-still-loves-milk-from-the-cow-1-5868232
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Have Designers Lost Control Of Design?
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Its a question that designers struggle with, as the products and interfaces they help bring into the world can have unintended consequences, from spreading fake news to exacerbating mental health problems . Even tech luminary and Nest founder Tony Fadell has expressed regret about the products he brought into the world . The gap between what the designer creates and what the people who use it actually touch has gotten really big, Webb says. Thats a problem because designers are trained to base their work on empathy for the user and the users needs. When products and interfaces are persuasive, engaging, and maybe even psychologically manipulative, they havent been designed with empathy. Theyve been designed to be so user-friendly that they take advantage of the users weaknesses. This is a unique problem of the software age. Historically, design was about making physical things, whether it be office chairs or album covers. Now, designers are codersor at least working within the constraints of codetyping inputs into a computer that conjure up an interface that lives across millions of screens. That shift has occurred in tandem with a new design process. Designers create the parameters that dictate interfaces, which are then A/B tested and optimized based on how users interact with them. (Designers have always done user testing, of course, but its much harder to change a physical object than it is a piece of code.) Now, the constant tweaking of software creates a never ending design process, where every click is another piece of data to optimize. The thing that generates the most money or that people use the most wins, he says. So who actually designed that? One example: the Amazon Echo ecosystem, which consists of skills that other companies and individuals can create so users can access their products through the Echo. Designers of these skillswhich can do things like give you a recipe, guard your secrets, and even tell you about the flat Earth conspiracywork within constraints so that their skill fits within the Echo interface. But theres no guarantee of the quality or usefulness of any of the 15,000 skills that the Echo currently offersthe only measure is popularity. Its more like a scaffolding [where] loads of creators can throw an interface at the wall and see whats most popular, he says. And then thats what everyone uses. Whos actually designed that user interface? Engagement becomes the chief metric, and just because something holds someones attention doesnt mean its good for the user. Take the Facebook Newsfeed, which has arguably been optimized to hold your attention within an inch of its life. Facebook boasts that its users spend an average of 50 minutes on its various platforms per day. But the same algorithms that enable this incredible amount of user engagement also enable sensationalist fake news to spread like wildfire. The problem was so bad during the lead-up to the 2016 election that it may have contributed to Donald Trumps win.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90138032/have-designers-lost-control-of-design
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What Does A Great Travel Experience Sound Like?
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There are so many elements that contribute to a truly authentic travel experiencethe memorable places you visit, the local culture you experience, the residents you meet. While some affordable hotel chains prioritize predictability from one city to the next, others believe its a unique local experience that keeps guests coming back. advertisement Launched in 2005 as a stylish yet more accessible boutique hotel, Aloft Hotels aims to give guests a deeper understanding of the place theyre visiting. But with more than 125 properties on six continents, creating a program that taps into the local culture in each city is no small challenge. It requires creativity, passion, and a crystal clear sense of what the brand itself represents. Alofts answer is Live at Aloft Hotels, which brings guests together with musicians from both the local area and the national stage for intimate performances at the hotels W XYZ bar. In a recent interview with FastCo.Works, Bridget Higgins, senior director of global brand management for Aloft Hotels, shared how the music program came about and how its changing the guest experience. Bridget Higgins: Live at Aloft Hotels is a platform for our guests to connect with the local music scene, and to experience whos new and next in musicwhether theyre visiting Portland, Nashville, or Abu Dhabi. The artists run the gamut from young, local up-and-comers to more well-known performers like Bronze Radio Return or Ingrid Michaelson or Gavin DeGraw. The shows are free, and theyre not only for our guestslocals attend as well, especially when theres a performer with a big following around town. In certain cities, the W XYZ bar has become a hot spot in its own right, especially on show nights. Live at Aloft Hotels is a time and a place where guests and locals come together to have a couple of drinks, hear some music in a really intimate setting, and often, meet the band and hang out after the show. advertisement BH: From the start, weve attracted guests who want to be somewhere fun, but at a lower price point than most boutique hotels. Aloft Hotels can be found in a variety of marketsin the heart of the worlds largest cities or in smaller markets and sometimes outside of the downtown areas. In these places, there was a lot of room to stand out in the select service market and bring something more unique, more tied to the culture of the city than your average chain hotel. Along the way, we learned that musicians and bands on tour were naturally gravitating toward us because of that social aspect, the stylish design, and the price point. At the same time, we were looking for new ways to activate our public space and tie in the local scene. It all made sense. You see some hotels offer a local craft beer, or hire a local chef, but we realized the thing that spoke the loudest about our brand, and what our guests were looking for, was live music. BH: Music is a facet of the brand that goes beyond the live shows. Its the first thing you notice as you walk into the hotel. We play our custom playlist throughout the open public space a bit louder than other hotels. Its a big part of the vibe. We update the music throughout the space frequently and will include the bands that are playing on tour with us. We even ask the bands to create playlists featuring music theyre inspired by. We also promote bands from Live at Aloft Hotels through download cards that we give out at check-in, so guests can have access to a new song or album for free and can take that music home with them. BH: I think the reason weve been successful is because the music taps into a passion point for both the brand and the guestsits authentic. We approached it from a deep understanding of who our audience was and worked to give them an experience thats meaningful to both them and us. We also benefit from strong partnerships. Our guests are the kind of people these bands want to get in front of, and we make sure the experience is really attractive to the bands. Were not throwing money at people to get them to come play. Bands come to us a lot of the time and ask to be a part of what were doing. They understand theres a lot more to Live at Aloft Hotels than playing in a hotel lobby. BH: Our hope is that they have a great experience. That they discover a new band or get to chat with an artist about a song they love. That they feel like theyve discovered something cool about the city theyre visiting, something they can take back home with them. Theres a band called Blue October thats played our stage maybe 20 times, and they have a very loyal fan base that turns out every time to see them close up at a small venue and to chat with them afterward. Theres a level of excitement as well as intimacy there. That experience is what were going for, whether youre seeing a band for the first time or theyre already your favorite. advertisement To see who is playing at an Aloft Hotel near you, visit LiveAtAloftHotels.com. This article was created for and commissioned by Aloft Hotels.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40454614/what-does-a-great-travel-experience-sound-like
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Can We Trust Dating Apps And Music Services To Police Hate Speech?
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In the aftermath of last weekends neo-Nazi violence in Charlottesville, weve watched tech companies scramble to quash hate speech online. And its not just infrastructure-level providers like GoDaddy, Cloudflare, and Google. Media services and social apps are declaring their own war on offensive sentiments within their respective platforms as well. advertisement advertisement Spotify, Deezer, Google, DistroKid, and CD Baby all released statements last week vowing to pull hateful music from their services. So did dating apps like OKCupid and Bumble, each of which announced an approach to dealing with hate speech on their platforms. While few people can muster up legitimate gripes with pulling down content laced with violently racist and otherwise hateful rhetoric, some are sounding the alarm about the long-term implications of handing this kind of authority over to tech companies whose standards and methods for policing hate speech are not always fully disclosed to the public. Whether theyre using algorithms, human moderators, or some combination of the two, the inner workings of these systems are often shrouded in mystery. Fast Company asked several companies about their internal processes for policing hate speech and got a few variations of the same answer: We cant tell you. Unlike First Amendment issues in the public square or in the traditional media, hate speech and censorship online are not governed by legal precedents or a set of centralized rules. Rather, each platform and service provider sets its own policy and establishes its own system for dealing with hate speech. This, digital free speech advocates warn, could become a problem in the future. Maybe there is room to develop more granular guidelines about types of content and where platforms should have a responsibility, if anywhere, to deal with content of these kinds, says Jeremy Malcolm, a senior global policy analyst at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Right now, its all very ad hoc. It often depends on whos at the desk that day. Its not a conducive environment to free speech, at the end of the day. advertisement In a recent blog post co-authored by Malcolm, the EFF criticized moves by Cloudflare, Google, and GoDaddy to shut down white supremacists onlinenot out of deference for the viewpoints of sites like The Daily Stormer, but rather because of the dangerous precedent set by companies quashing unpopular speech at the infrastructure level of the internet. The same mechanics used to wipe neo-Nazis from the web, EFF reminds us, could just as easily be used to stifle nonviolent speech in the future. Drilling down further from the internets infrastructure into social networks, music services, and dating apps, the potential for heavy-handedness or blowback is no less serious, according to the EFF. Weve already seen the sometimes blurry lines between hate speech and legitimate expression confuse the algorithms and human moderators tasked with keeping apps and networks free of hate. Facebook famously blocked the historical photo a Vietnamese child running from a napalm attack and the video of Philando Castille being killed by a police officer. It has also mistakenly shuttered accounts by LBGTQ members (for using words like dyke to describe themselves, for example) and women of color who shared screenshots of racist harassment. On YouTube, videos of the U.S. military destroying Nazi monuments during World War II were taken down for violating hate speech policy. And in its quest to eliminate ISIS recruiting videos and other extremist propaganda, YouTube has given the ax to content with historical and legal value, like videos that document war crimes in the Middle East. advertisement Policing Music With Opaque Standards Hate speech can take many forms, from antisemitic slogans shouted in the streets of Charlottesville to Islamophobic epithets tweeted by people with frog avatars to Hitler-worshipping, violence-inciting lyrics shouted by an underground hardcore band. But not every example is quite as straightforward as these, especially in a medium as nuanced and artistically open-ended as music. Last week, Spotify pulled down music by white power and neo-Nazi bands identified in a post published on Digital Music News (with some help from the Southern Poverty Law Center) and pushed out its own playlist called Patriotic Passion in response to events in Charlottesville. Before long, Deezer, Google, and CD Baby followed suit and zapped white supremacist music from their catalogs. Bandcamp, the artist-uploaded DIY music storefront, told Fast Company that it saw a small lift in reported accounts that were dealt with in accordance with Bandcamps longstanding policy against hateful content, which the company says it has always enforced. Bigger, subscription-based platforms like Spotify and Googles music services seemed to engage in a game of white supremacist whack-a-molewhat appeared to be a sudden, knee-jerk response to the fallout from Charlottesville. While most of these companies have long had policies against hate speech in place, they werent aggressively enforcing them. In 2014, Apple removed from iTunes artists whose music spread white power messages, following pressure from the SPLC. At the time, Vices Noisey wondered why Spotify, Google, and Amazon werent doing the same. Art is very different than other types of speech, Malcolm says. The courts will treat art differently. For example, pornography is treated with a bit more latitude when its in an artistic context. You can say the same for music. Music that expresses violent thoughts in lyrics doesnt mean it should be treated like a blog post declaring you want to kill. When asked how it evaluates hate speech in music, a Bandcamp rep says that it relies on its community to flag hateful content for internal review and that its usually pretty obvious when songs violate its policies. For an online community as close-knit and progressive as Bandcamps, that approach may be enough. advertisement Reps from Spotify and Deezer were equally vague in their descriptions of how content is evaluated. Spotify forbids content that favors hatred or incites violence against race, religion, sexuality, or the like, a company spokesperson says over email. Spotifys internal review process, the rep explains, relies on public lists of forbidden content like Germanys Federal Review Board For Media Harmful to Minors (or BPjM, an acronym of the German translation). The BPjM, a controversial index of digital content deemed harmful to young people in Germany, is not published, so theres no way to know exactly whats on it. Last year, the German industrial metal band Rammstein sued the countrys government after being included on the BPjM. While its primary objective is to blacklist violent, racist, and other inappropriate media, the BPjM has been criticized for de facto censorship and the stifling of free speech. Spotify says it also uses data from the Southern Poverty Law Center to identify hate music, ultimately relying on human moderators to judge and take down songs. Spotify explicitly bans any music that is in clear violation of our internal guidelines, which includes content that incites hatred or violence. We asked the company for details on these guidelines, as well as information about who determines which music is in violation of them. They declined to clarify. In the case of last weeks white supremacist music takedown, Spotify was tipped off by a blog post on Digital Music News. But there does not appear to be an easy way for the general public to flag hateful music for review. When asked how users can flag objectionable music, a Spotify rep declined to comment. So, other than an overarching prohibition on music that incites hatred or violence and that draws guidance at least in part from Germanys BPjM media index, we know next to nothing about how Spotify finds, evaluates, and removes music that is purported to encourage hatred and violence. The policy raises bigger questions about the parameters and limitations of Spotifys music-zapping machinery. Perhaps most obviously, theres a lack of detail about whatever line may exist between inciting hatred and violence and simply referencing those things. Some genres of music have inherently violent lyrics, Malcolm says. They tend to be thematically about that darker side of life. That doesnt mean that theyre violent people. advertisement There are various sub-genres of heavy metal and hip-hop, for instance, laden with lyrics that most of us would agree are violent and even potentially hateful. Each of these examples (not to mention countless others) may well fall under some exception to Spotifys content guidelines, but at the moment its broadly-worded policy and lack of public details offer no indication one way or the other. At Deezer, a content team reviews our catalog deeply and listens to the music to make sure there is no direct hateful speech within the flagged content, David Atkinson, head of label relations at Deezer, told us via email. We do not condone any type of discrimination or form of hate against individuals or groups because of their race, religion, gender, or sexuality, especially any material that is in any way connected to any white supremacist movement or belief system. Again, in most cases this policy could offer a clear roadmapDeezer at least calls out white supremacist ideologies specificallybut details about the parameters and how theyre enforced are just as elusive as other examples. And as the EFF is keen to point out, these solutions may satisfy us amidst the anti-Nazi fervor, but we have no way of knowing how theyll be implemented in the future. Things can get even murkier when it comes to dating apps. Services like Tinder, OKCupid, and Bumble have plenty of experience dealing with harassment and hate speech (indeed, Bumble itself was born out of a desire to make dating apps less hostile to women). Most of these apps already have strict policies against violent or hateful language. So it didnt come as much of a surprise when the gun-wielding white supremacist featured in Vices gripping mini-documentary about Charlottesville was banned for life from OKCupid last week. Earlier this year, Tinder banned a user for disparaging a woman with racist and misogynist epithets. We were alerted that white supremacist Chris Cantwell was on OkCupid. Within 10 minutes we banned him for life. OkCupid (@okcupid) August 17, 2017 advertisement Bumble seemed to take things one step further when it announced a partnership with the Anti-Defamation League designed to ban all forms of hate on the dating app. Through a combination of human moderators and algorithms, Bumble says it will flag profiles (and presumably messages) containing known hate symbols and words associated with racism and hate. The ADLs database of hate symbols is publicly available, but the glossary of hateful words that Bumble says it will use to flag offensive content is not public. This is notable because while the ADL does extensive work combating bigotry and monitoring hate groups, the organization is also heavily involved in political advocacy in defense of Israeli policy. For Malcolm, that presents a problem. There are other groups that you could go to that dont have that political agenda that would be a far better partner, he says. It seems reckless to hand that power over to an organization like that. The ADL did not respond to a request for comment. The ADL has been accused in the past of working to silence and delegitimize political opponents like the philosopher Noam Chomsky and the late historian Tony Judt, both harsh critics of Israels policies toward the Palestinians (and both Jewish). The group has also been accused of blurring the line between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, with critics of Israeli policy and advocates of Palestinian sovereigntymost recently Black Lives Matter activists and Pink Floyds Roger Watershaving to defend themselves against claims of engaging in hate speech. When asked what terms are included in its ADL-inspired glossary of hate words, Bumble declined to specify, citing the iterative, ever-changing nature of this list. When asked specifically about whether any terms related to Palestinian rights or related activism were included on the list, Bumble declined to comment. The odds of this happening are unknown, since Bumblelike the rest of the companies we talked todeclined to go into specifics about how its policies are defined and enforced. While the EFF has concerns about the swiftness and blunt nature of the past several days speech-policing, Malcolm admits theres no easy answer. Certainly, some kind of universal tech-industry guidelines of the sort Malcolm alluded to earlier could help, but even then theres no guarantee that such principles would be adopted by everyone. In general, he says, it might be best for companies to leave content decisions alone until compelled to by a court. But such a hands-off approach likely wouldnt sit well with many users of these same services, who are anxious about the volatile political climate and dont want to feel threatened while browsing a playlist or dating pool. As a society, weve shifted some of the responsibility for defining and policing unsavory speech from courts and media organizations that are beholden to the First Amendment to technology companies. Maybe itll have an impact on Nazis using the internet, but what other impacts is it going to have? Malcolm says. Rarely do we find that censoring the internet is a good solution for any kind of problem.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40454402/can-we-trust-dating-apps-and-music-services-to-police-hate-speech
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Could Danny Glover be the lethal weapon Airbnb needs to make its platform more equitable?
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This morning, Airbnb announced that actor Danny Glover will now be advising the company on how to attract more hosts of color. Specifically, Glover says hell be helping to promote information sessions on how to be a host . Working with partners like the NAACP, we will host information sessions and run online and offline campaigns aimed at engaging the people who can benefit from home sharing the most. As an advisor, I will be on the ground doing whatever I can to promote these effortsparticipating in trainings and events, working with local organizations and faith-based leaders, and getting to know more of the hosts who empower our communities. The tie-up with Glover follows a commitment Airbnb made in March to double the number of hosts in areas dominated by minorities. Last month, the company announced a collaboration with the NAACP to design classes aimed at informing people of color about the economic benefits of hosting. Airbnb has previously been criticized for discrimination on its platform. Canceled bookings based on race have led to the hashtag #Airbnbwhileblack, as well as the emergence of competitor platforms designed specifically for people of color. The service has also come under fire for having mostly white hosts in areas dominated by people of color. The company has since tried to make its platform more equitable and free of bigotry.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40457628/could-danny-glover-be-the-lethal-weapon-airbnb-needs-to-make-its-platform-more-equitable
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Can Steelcases Office Of The Future Make Corporate America Rethink The Drab Modern Workplace?
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There may be days you dread going to the office. Your 8-by-10-foot cubicle is starting to feel cramped. Your Instagram filters all look beige, and no matter how you adjust your lumbar support, your neck feels like that of a sick cranes. Scenes from Office Space seem achingly poignant, not for their satirical bite, but their verisimilitude. You feel about as creative as a brick wall. But imagine, for a moment, a different option: Youre seated on the plush fabric of a high stool in a richly colored room Eero Saarinen might admire. It is called the Ideation Hub. It registers as a conference room, but there is no straight-grained rectangular table, no one fumbling with a laptop to pull up their PowerPoint presentation, or smiling awkwardly in an out-of-sync video conference. Instead, your colleague is marking up a book-length document with a stylus on an 84-inch-wide, wall-mounted Microsoft Surface Hub collaboration device; all of her annotations are saved in the Cloud and linked to your laptop. You can see the whole spread; the budget, the notes from the legal team, everything. So can your colleagues in Munich who are making their own notes and suggestions. People arent sitting quietly and staring at their thumbs. Theyre openly sharing ideas. This scenario isnt merely speculative. Office design company Steelcase has created a new off model, which it calls Creative Spaces, a suite of five Microsoft Surface-enabled workspaces (called, respectively, Ideation Hub, Maker Commons, Focus Studio, and Respite Room) designed to promote creative thinking, improve collaboration, and foster a more fluid, egalitarian work environment. You cant keep working the same way youre used to in your cubicle, with your head down buried in your computer, says Chris Congdon, director of Global Research Communications for Steelcase, as we angle through throngs of smartly dressed interior designers in the companys showroom at NeoCon 2017, an annual trade show where the spaces co-developed by Steelcase and Microsoft are on display. She explains how the nature of work has shifted over the past two decades, demanding more creativity and collaboration. Where offices were once inspired by Frederick Taylors theory of scientific management, the whole Ford assembly-line model of individual specialization, represented architecturally in segmented cubicle grids and offices scaled and located according to rank and hierarchy, the Creative Spaces model operates as a more fluid, interdependent ecosystem. Definitions and models of creativity differ, Congdon says, referencing a Steelcase study called Creativity, Work, and The Physical Environment, but most researchers concur that creativity is associated with both divergent thinking (generating many ideas or alternative solutions to a problem) and convergent thinking (assessing several possibilities and selecting the best solution). Although design thinking has understood this ebb and flow for decades, it has been slow to materialize in office design. Broad, open vistas and high ceilings can give people the mental space they need to generate abstract ideas. So can an informal seat in the back of a conference room. At the same time, an enclosed solitary space encased by sound-proofed glass can create a better atmosphere for intense, head-down focus. But one office setting is not better than the other. Both are important. Historically, weve thought we design one space for people to work in thats going to meet all their needs, Congdon says. But creative work doesnt look like this at all. Its about a fluid, iterative process, spaces for focused work, idea incubation, and ideation as a team. She leads me to the Duo Studio, where large-scale, side-by-side Microsoft Surface Studio computing devices rest on adjustable height desks. The 28-inch display screens rotate into 20-degree drafting tables; they can be drawn on with a stylus or manipulated as touch screens. Surface Dial, a wireless rotational device that looks and functions a bit like the spinner in an arcade game, replaces floating windows and drop-down menus with scroll-through shortcuts. Theres a cozybut not too cozyarea with a chaise lounge facing a large wall-mounted computer monitor. Here, someone can come in to review creative concepts, but focused work can resume quickly: privacy and focus are kept in balance with collaboration and distraction.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40448771/can-steelcases-office-of-the-future-make-corporate-america-rethink-the-drab-modern-workplace
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What triggered the crash of Zee group companies' shares on Jan 25?
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Subhash Chandra Bose's Essel Group companies have been in the news for the past week for all the wrong reasons, due to which their stocks and market capitalisation have taken a hit. The debacle began on January 24, when The Wire reported that the Essel Group carried out transactions with companies that are under the scanner for suspected deposits during demonetisation. The media report claimed Nityank, formerly known as Dreamline, has directly or indirectly transacted with shell companies for an amount of Rs 5,000 crore, and these include listed and huge corporate entities. After this report was released, the shares of the Essel group companies tanked. Zee Entertainment lost nearly 26 percent on January 25, Zee Learn lost 18.49 percent and Zee Media Corp lost 9.05 percent. Meanwhile, Dish TV lost 32.74 percent and Essel Propack's shares plunged 16.08 percent. The company, however, told investors in a conference call "it has nothing to do with the news reported by the Wire" and that it initiated legal action against The Wire Media Group. A Zee spokesperson said the transactions referred to in media reports, "regarding involvement of Essel Group companies", had been "undertaken with due approvals and compliance of applicable laws and regulations and through proper banking channels. The said investigation or the mentioned transactions do not have any bearing or connection with any of the operating entities of Essel Group". The share price plunged amid a report that lenders had sold the promoters' pledged shares. "At promoter level, there was a continuous increase of pledged shares that was 41.93 percent of promoter holding in December 2016 to 59.37 percent of promoter holding in December 2018 resulting in 24.71 percent of total shareholding as pledged. This was mainly taken to fund other promoter group companies that are heavy investment and low cash generating," Sameer Kalra, President of Target Investing, said. Another set of news that was in public domain regarding Zee Entertainment was that the promoters were in talks with three companies, including Sony Pictures, to sell half of their stake. Chandra reportedly had extensive meetings and discussions on the proposed stake sale in the UK and the US. Chandra issued an apology to the group's lenders, non-banking finance companies and mutual funds after the company's shares tanked on January 25. He claimed that 'negative forces' were trying to sabotage the Zee entertainment stake sale, while also admitting that he had committed some mistakes. Chandra did not address the Nityank issue in his statement. The Essel Group promoters conducted a meeting with the lending entities comprising mutual funds, NBFCs and banks. The lenders assured the investors that there will be a speedy resolution process. "I am pleased to share that we have achieved an understanding with lenders. We have always valued their immense trust and faith sown in us and the positive and progressive outcome of the meeting is a true example of the same. I am very positive that we will continue to take such positive steps in rising up from the current challenging times, with support of all stakeholders," Chandra said.
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https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/what-triggered-the-crash-of-zee-group-companies-shares-3442821.html
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What's next for Karthik Subbaraj after Rajinikanth's Petta?
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Karthik Subbaraj has tasted his biggest ever box office success in the form of Rajinikanth's Petta. The movie has shown that he can make commercial movies with ease and not just new-age films aimed at the youths. He quit his high-paying IT job to pursue his dreams in films and made his debut in Pizza in 2002. The horror thriller starring Vijay Sethupathi was a massive hit after garnering unanimous positive reviews. His next film was Siddharth's Jigarthanda, which also tasted commercial success as well as won critical appreciation. His next movie Iravi was received well by the critics, but did not fare well at the box office. His fourth venture Mercury was a silent film which released in multiple languages. After doing content-heavy films, he opted to direct Rajinikanth in Petta, which was an out-and-out commercial film. Now, all eyes are on his next film. Karthik Subbaraj had announced a movie with Dhanush two years ago, but it was put on a backburner after he got a call to work with Rajinikanth in Petta. Now, the director is going to revive the movie and work on the said project. The director has said that he will commence the shooting in the next few months. The upcoming movie will be funded by Y Not Sashikanth of Iruddhi Suttru and Vikram Vedha fame. It is said to be a gangster film set in London. It was rumoured that Hollywood stars Al Pacino or Robert Di Nero might be part of the mega-budget flick.
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https://www.ibtimes.co.in/whats-next-karthik-subbaraj-after-rajinikanths-petta-790877
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Are John Krasinski and Emily Blunt Hollywoods new golden couple?
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The power pair are filling up newsfeeds with their #relationshipgoals content. Since they have been stepping out together on the awards circuit, theyve been generating most adorable couple in Hollywood headlines (The Hollywood Reporter even got the exclusive rare joint interview), as well as #CoupleGoals hashtags and fashion approval. The most irritating thing about them is that theres nothing irritating about them. As moviedoms First Family, they are perfect casting. Krasinski is the smart dude-next-door: Jim from The Office with added Jack Ryan heroism. Blunt is the refined Brit with kick-ass credentials: Mary Poppins/Young Victoria meets Edge of Tomorrow. Right now, they could probably clean up with a joint-authored vegan cookbook, or a range of organic bed linens. Sign up to our Film Today email Read more There are many famous actors who married civilians and lived happily ever after, but when two stars collide, the odds are stacked against them. They have competing careers, egos and personality flaws to balance. You came together as equals, a few years later youre Ryan Phillippe gritting your teeth through Reese Witherspoons Oscar speech and wishing youd done Cruel Intentions 2. Doubling your star-wattage also immediately turns you into a Couple of Interest for the paparazzi, which is sure to make matters worse. The best option is to pretend youre not really married and hope nobody puts one and one together like Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds, say. Krasinski and Blunt pledged to keep their careers separate. But they then broke their rules by making hit horror A Quiet Place together. It was one of the highest-grossing movies of 2018 (budget: $17m; box office: $341m worldwide). Between that and Blunts Poppins, they are practically glued to the red carpet, which means more #CoupleGoals content, such as the recent Hollywood Reporter romcom-like video Q&A. There is currently a vacancy for this type of couple: successful yet domestically cosy; stable, relatable, and not the least bit dangerous. Since the departure of the Obamas, America has hardly had the White House to look to for such role models. British royalty, steeped in unearned privilege, doesnt really cut it, either. Movie stars must fill the void. However, compared to the tempestuous, extravagant, semi-mythical relationships of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton, or Winona Ryder and Johnny Depp, or even Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton, todays conscious couples seem rather safe and dull. Blunt and Krasinski are probably fine with that, and good luck to them. As long as they dont win any awards this month they should be all right, but one over-gushy acceptance speech from either could tip the balance.
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2019/jan/28/bluntinski-why-john-krasinski-and-emily-blunt-are-hollywoods-new-golden-couple
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Is Silicon Valley In Denial Over The Threat Of An Unthinkable War With North Korea?
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The situation with North Korea has been brewing for years, across several presidencies, going clear back to Bill Clinton. Kicking the can down the road has long been more politically expedient than confronting the belligerent communist nation. advertisement advertisement Over the past year, North Korea began to seem more dangerous, with the combination of missile tests and threatening language toward South Korea and the U.S. And this week, when Trump threatened North Korean leader Kim Jong Un with fire and fury like the world has never seen before, the situation seemed headed for a moment of truth. Regrettably, its a situation that involves weapons that can kill many millions of people at the push of a button, and a couple of decidedly volatile and unpredictable world leaders. A waror even an accelerating movement toward warcould, needless to say, have a range of effects on tech companies, all of them serious. Companies like Apple, Microsoft, and other hardware makers have most of their products manufactured in Asia. Thousands of components suppliers are located in Asia, many on the Korean peninsula. Apple lists 16 South Korean companies in its 2017 supplier list. One of the biggest, Samsung, is the largest supplier in the world of semiconductors, displays, and memory for consumer tech devices. (Its also, of course, the biggest phone maker in the world.) LG produces display components and phones, among many other things. All told, South Korea has more than 100 major companies providing products and services all over the world. War in East Asia would be a many-dimensioned tragedy, and one of those dimensions is that the global smartphone industry would pretty much grind to a halt. In the Valley, few people are seriously worried about war, nuclear or not. Yale professor of management and political science Paul Bracken told me that for most tech leaders, the idea of war against North Korea is still nothing to immediately act upon. It seems to me that in the American consciousness, its still unthinkable that there could be a war that could destroy significant parts of the Korean industrial base, Bracken said. I dont think its been absorbed yet that that could happen. advertisement Bracken is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and advises private equity funds, accounting, and insurance companies, as well as several arms of the U.S. government. The unthinkable mind-set might explain why the U.S. stock market barely reacted to Trumps provocative fire and fury threat (although the CBOE Volatility Index jumped 11% and markets in South Korea and Japan fell.) The procurement people at large tech companies who manage supplier relationships are very likely now beginning to think about alternative sources for the components they buy from East Asian companies, Bracken told me. But, he said, its unlikely this thinking has reached the point where an officer is compelled to go before the board of directors and request funds for an official study into the situation. Related: Using Cyberattacks To Stop North Korean Nukes Not Easy, Experts Warn But events over the next several months could make the unthinkable seem thinkable. The U.S. and North Korea have taken a few steps on an escalation path that could lead to war. (This article in the Economist describes just how easily this process could progress.) Until earlier this week, the situation looked like a small, noisy, belligerent country challenging a superpower, while the superpower relied mainly on behind-the-scenes diplomacy and sanctions to control the situation. Trumps fire and fury comment, arguably, transformed the relationship into one based on threatening each other with the most powerful weapons in the world. A Years-Long Recovery If this tit-for-tat dynamic was to continue and advance beyond words to aggressive actions, symbolic or otherwise, the situation could take on the appearance at least of an escalation toward war. Such situations are subject to all manner of miscommunications and misjudgments on both sides that can push the situation to the brink in unimaginable ways. If war in East Asia began to seem inevitable, technology businesses in that part of the world would be disrupted. Workers at manufacturing facilities and suppliers would stay home from work. Orders might run way behind or go unfilled. advertisement The crisis could also generate a humanitarian crisis that could put severe stress on South Korea and China in social, political, and economic ways. If a military attack by the U.S. and South Korea on North Korea seemed imminent, millions of North Koreans would likely rush over the border to South Korea and China. Creative Strategies analyst Tim Bajarin recently spoke with a South Korean tech leader who said that eventuality is his worst fear. The executive added that it could take years for South Korean officials to restabilize the region. And it could take years longer for tech companies to get back to producing and delivering their products on time. Related: The Dangerous Mission To Undermine North Korea With Flash Drives U.S. tech companies are increasingly dependent on China, both for component parts and manufacturing, and for the masses of consumers it hopes to win there. A military conflict on the Korean peninsula could also put China, a sometimes hesitant ally of Pyongyang, into a defensive position against the U.S., and would strain those business relationships. China is getting to be a much tougher environment for U.S. technology companies on a number of fronts, from intellectual property to rules and regulations, Bracken said. With so much of the worlds manufacturing and components supply in the region, the global tech economy would suffer, which would pull down the rest of the U.S. economy. The long-term effects could break in many different ways. advertisement U.S. tech companies may end up bringing some of their far-flung affiliates back home. . . . they may think its a danger and that they may have to shift some of their operations out of there to lower their vulnerability in theater in South Korea, Bracken said. The whole thing is really a big mess. One Valley executive told me the U.S. economy could actually benefit, because some suppliers and manufacturers might see East Asia and especially South Korea as too risky a place to do business and decide to move operations to the U.S. While I am utterly disgusted by this line of thinking, I would put it beyond fanatic nationalists such as Bannon or Trump to be attracted to the fact that a war in Asia will drastically reduce imports from Asia and bring back manufacturing to the U.S., the person said. If that were to happen, the cost of tech products might increase (due to the cost of new infrastructure builds and more expensive labor), but so might job growth here at home. Of course, war in the nuclear age is too high a price to pay for any positive economic outcomes. Bracken says the world needs to get used to a nuclear North Korea. Any realistic opportunity to neuter the nation using military force passed long ago, he believes. The risks are just too great. While its doubtful North Korea could actually deliver a nuclear payload to the continental U.S., its quite possible it could deliver one to Seoul or Tokyo. Whats needed now is a calm, long-term, bilateral containment plan that at no time pushes Kim Jong Un into a corner where pushing the red button seems like the only option.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40451115/is-silicon-valley-in-denial-over-the-threat-of-an-unthinkable-war-with-north-korea
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Has SABC axed its political editor?
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The SABC has apparently shown its political editor, Dumisani Hlophe the door - barely five months into the job. Sowetan has learnt that Hlophe, who has not been at work recently, had being released from his contract during probation as the SABC exercised its right to terminate his employment contract due to alleged poor performance. Hlophe had allegedly taken special leave, but insiders at the public broadcaster have confirmed that he was not returning and that had been communicated to him. He only began his tenure as political editor: SABC News and Current Affairs on September 3. Despite numerous attempts for his side of the story since last week, Hlophe had not responded to Sowetan requests for comment by the time of going to print.
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https://www.sowetanlive.co.za/news/south-africa/2019-01-28-has-sabc-axed-its---political-editor/
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Can Tidals fourth CEO in two years help it stay afloat?
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At this point, Im surprised none of my friends or coworkers have had a stint as Tidals CEO. The Jay Z-owned music subscription service went through three chief executives in just two years and just hired its fourth: Richard Sanders, the former president of the Google-backed music royalties collection startup Kobalt , where he served for five years. Even as the music subscriptions have explodedand now make up most of the music industrys revenueTidal has struggled to grow past a few million customers, despite the star power of Jay Z and several other big name artist co-owners. Earlier this year, the company got a $200 million investment from Sprint in exchange for ownership of one-third of the company. The Sprint deal offers Tidal access to the mobile carriers millions of customers, although the specifics of the deal and what it means for Tidals subscriber base have yet to be fully defined. Spotify recently reported that it has 60 million paying subscribers, while Apple Music is catching up with nearly half that. Tidalwhich is also in a dispute with Kanye West over money he says hes owedhas been without a chief executive since March of this year, when then CEO Jeff Toig quietly left the company. Toig previously served a short stint at the beleaguered SoundCloud as its chief business officer. Read more: Spotifys Plan To Win Over Anxious ArtistsAnd Win The Streaming War
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40450472/can-fourth-ceo-in-2-years-help-streaming-service-tidal-stay-afloat
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How Much Is Snap Hurting From Facebooks Imitations?
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As Snap stares down its second earnings report, its stock price is hovering somewhere around $13, nearly half of Snaps share price during its IPO back in March. With its lockup period lifted , Snaps early investors are now allowed to sell off their stock, and come August 14, its employees will be free to do so as well. In five short months, the lukewarm response to Snaps much-hyped IPO has turned the company into something of a cautionary tale for startups eager to go public. (Even Morgan Stanley, which helped take Snap public, downgraded its stock last month.) Last quarter, Snap gained 8 million daily active users, bringing its total count to 166 million daily active users. But Instagram Storiesa knockoff of Snapchats Story featurehad clocked 250 million daily active users as of June. That makes sense: Instagram had a built-in user base of more than 500 million users when it launched Stories a year ago. For brands and influencers with loyal audiences on Instagram, its a no-brainer: Instagram Stories is more intuitive than Snapchat and allows Instagram users to reach their followers without the hassle of switching apps or luring their audience to another platform. While Instagram is the biggest offender, Facebook has also infused its other platformsWhatsApp, Messenger, and Facebooks flagship appwith features borrowed from Snap. In fact, Facebook is enough of a threat that Snap even considered taking the issue to antitrust regulators, as The Information reported today. Also coming down the pipeline is Stamp, Googles response to Snapchats Discover platform, which is already being tested with publishers. All of this seemingly doesnt bode well for Snaps user growthor retention, presumably. The Value Of A Snapchatter: Now Up To $1.19 That being said, Snap claimed in its IPO filing that it can generate revenue from existing users in developed areaswhich, if true, means Snap doesnt need to rely on bringing in new users. In other words, if Snap cant lean on user acquisition the way Facebook can, it needs users with disposable income. (You might recall reportswhich Snap denied, of coursethat CEO Evan Spiegel said Snap wasnt interested in expanding to poor countries like India.) To that end, while some advertisers may be shifting to Instagram, the likes of advertising giant WPP have decided to invest more heavily in Snapchat this year; Snap has also upped its ad tech to make Snapchat more appealing to larger advertisers. According to Recode, Snaps average revenue generated per user is estimated at $1.19 for Q2, which is an increase of 138% from the same quarter last year. That indicates slower year-over-year growth than what Snap recorded during the past two quarters, but its something for shareholders to hold onto. Since its IPO filing, Snap has insisted on calling itself a camera company. But one of its biggest investments continues to be content. Snap recently inked a $100 million two-year deal with Time Warner, which will produce 10 original shows per year. Snap also has deals in place with ABC, NBC, ESPN, and countless other media companies. And earlier today, Axios reported that Snaps first original show, Good Luck America, boasted five million unique viewers per episode during its second season; in total, the shows second season drew 29 million unique viewers. MaybeagainSnap is onto something after all.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40450757/snapchat-snap-q2-earnings-facebook-imitations
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Why Do Some Children Learn To Lie Faster Than Others?
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For the liar, telling a lie has obvious costs. Keeping track of the lies one tells and trying to maintain the plausibility of a fictional narrative as real-world events intrude is mentally taxing. The fear of getting caught is a constant source of anxiety, and when it happens, the damage to ones reputation can be lasting. For the people who are lied to the costs of lying are also clear: Lies undermine relationships, organizations, and institutions. However, the ability to lie and engage in other forms of deception is also a source of great social power, as it allows people to shape interactions in ways that serve their interests: They can evade responsibility for their misdeeds, take credit for accomplishments that are not really theirs, and rally friends and allies to the cause. As such, its an important step in a childs development and there are cognitive building blocks that must be in place in order to successfully lie. One way research psychologists have sought to understand the reasoning behind the choice to lie versus tell the truth is to go back to when we first learn this skill in childhood. In some studies, researchers ask children to play a game in which they can obtain a material reward by lying. In other studies children are faced with social situations in which the more polite course of action involves lying instead of telling the truth. For example, an experimenter will offer an undesirable gift such as a bar of soap and ask the child whether he or she likes it. Yet another method is to ask parents to keep a written record of the lies that their children tell. In our recent study, my colleagues and I sought to understand childrens thinking processes when they were first figuring out how to deceive other people, which for most children is around age three and a half. We were interested in the possibility that certain types of social experiences might speed up this developmental timeline. Watching Children Discover How To Deceive We invited young children to play a simple game they could win only by deceiving their opponent: Children who told the truth won treats for the experimenter and those who lied won treats for themselves. In this game, the child hides a treat in one of two cups while an experimenter covers her eyes. The experimenter then opens her eyes and asks the child where the treat is hidden, and the child responds by indicating one of the two cups. If the child indicates the correct cup, the experimenter wins the treat, and if the child indicates the incorrect one, the child wins the treat. Children played 10 rounds of this game each day for 10 consecutive days. This method of closely observing children over a short period of time allows for fine-grained tracking of behavioral changes, so researchers can observe the process of development as it unfolds.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40449585/why-do-some-children-learn-to-lie-faster-than-others
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Do avid Twitter users actually watch anything on Twitter?
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Never. Keep in mind Stelter and, presumably, many of his followers are representative of Twitters core user basemedia types. Meanwhile, Twitter continues to invest in live streaming, as CEO Jack Dorsey and others reiterated during the companys most recent earnings call; Twitter doubled its live content this year, streaming 1,200 hours in the past quarter. By Twitters count, 55 million people watched live content on the platform last quarteran increase of 10 million from Q1. If anything, the results of Stelters (very informal) poll might confirm what we already suspect: There may not be much overlap between Twitters most active users and the folks watching live content on Twitter.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40452115/do-avid-twitter-users-actually-watch-anything-on-twitter
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Were Rita Ora and Brooklyn Beckham having an affair?
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music It was alleged that Brooklyn Beckham and Rita Ora were together for a little while before the former's parents, David and Victoria Beckham, banned him from seeing Ora again and sent him back to New York Brooklyn Beckham and Rita Ora. Ora's photo/Official Instagram account If reports are to be believed, British singer-songwriter Rita Ora (28) had a secret fling with Brooklyn Beckham (19), the eldest son of footballer David Beckham, and fashion designer and former Spice Girl Victoria Beckham. According to The Sun, Victoria had been worried on discovering that her then 18-year-old son was having an affair with Ora, who was then 27. A source said, "Posh (Victoria) apparently made it very clear that she didn't approve of the romance, which sparked following a London dinner in May 2017." It was alleged that Brooklyn and Ora were together for a little while before the former's parents banned him from seeing Ora again and sent him back to New York. The source further added, "Posh saw a couple of texts they had been sending. She didn't want her boy being led astray, and didn't want them partying together. David and Victoria were adamant the pair shouldn't date and made it very clear they didn't approve." While Brooklyn and Ora aren't together anymore, they're said to be on good terms with each other. Along with being a popular singer, Ora is also an actor best known for playing Mia Grey, Christian Grey's sister in the Fifty Shades of Grey movie franchise. The 'Girls' and 'Your Song' hitmaker will be next seen in Pokmon: Detective Pikachu, a sci-fi action comedy film. Brooklyn Beckham, on the other hand, is a popular model and photographer. Also read: David Beckham's son Brooklyn gets new 'mama's boy' tattoo Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates This story has been sourced from a third party syndicated feed, agencies. Mid-day accepts no responsibility or liability for its dependability, trustworthiness, reliability and data of the text. Mid-day management/mid-day.com reserves the sole right to alter, delete or remove (without notice) the content in its absolute discretion for any reason whatsoever
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https://www.mid-day.com/articles/were-rita-ora-and-brooklyn-beckham-having-an-affair/20307187
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Can We All Agree That Plastic Straws Are Totally Unnecessary?
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We suck. Some of us suck more than others, but really, we all do, or have at sometime. We suck because collectively, we toss 28 billion pounds of plastic into the oceans each year. We suck because those bits of floating trash, like six-pack rings and soda bottles, are strangling fish and sea creatures and killing coral reefs from the inside out. We suck because we know all this and continue to buy up and discard plastic anyways. And we suck because theres one type of single-use plastic in particular that is, when you think about it, totally unnecessary, yet we continue to use: straws. For the month of September, the Lonely Whale Foundation, a clean-ocean advocacy nonprofit set up by actor Adrian Grenier and entertainment entrepreneur Lucy Sumner in 2015, will be running a campaign in Seattle to point out just how ridiculous our reliance on straws is. Across the U.S., we use and toss around 500 million plastic straws each day, which totals out to around 12 million pounds of plastic waste over a year. Plastic straws are made from the petroleum by-product propylene, which is, in larger iterations, recyclable, but because straws are so tiny, they, along with other small items like bottle caps, slip through the cracks in the recycling conveyor belt and end up in landfill, and from there, the ocean. Once in the ocean, that same small size renders them especially pernicious to wildliferecall the video of a sea turtle with a straw embedded in its face that went viral in the summer of 2015. What the Strawless September campaign (part of the Lonely Whales larger Strawless Ocean initiative) and its digital leadup, the #StopSucking challenge, want to prove is that its possible for life in a city to go on without plastic straws. The Lonely Whale has coordinated an expansive effort across the city to get restaurants, facilities, and events to trade out plastic straws for paper alternatives, and for customers to say no, thanks. And leading up to September 1, the nonprofit is coordinating the #StopSucking challenge to get people across the country to think more actively about their plastic-use habits. Theres at least 20, if not more, plastic straw campaigns out there already, Dune Ives, the Lonely Whales executive director, tells Fast Company. One, Be Straw Free was launched by Milo Cress, then nine years old, who went door to door in his hometown of Burlington, Vermont asking businesses to stop offering straws after he realized that the one he received at a restaurant was unnecessary to his drinking the soda he ordered. We wanted to find a way into the conversation and add to what all these ocean-health organizations have been doing for years, Ives says. And what they landed on as a solution was humor.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40454616/can-we-all-agree-that-plastic-straws-are-totally-unnecessary
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Will Vicky Kaushal play Rakesh Sharma in Ronnie Screwvala's Salute?
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bollywood Ronnie Screwvala has previously backed Kaushal-starrers Love Per Square Foot, and Uri: The Surgical Strike Vicky Kaushal, Aamir Khan and Shah Rukh Khan The changing faces of Rakesh Sharma in the cinematic adaptation of the former astronaut's biopic has left cinephiles scratching their heads. While first choice Aamir Khan was caught unaware when prodded about reports of Shah Rukh Khan stepping away from the film - even insisting that an official announcement from SRK be awaited before jumping to conclusions - another portal suggested producer Ronnie Screwvala's blue-eyed boy Vicky Kaushal may slip into the role. Screwvala has previously backed Kaushal-starrers Love Per Square Foot, and Uri: The Surgical Strike. However, in a previous interview to mid-day, SRK had spoken about his role, stating, "I maintain a certain arrogance about [fictional] roles. But, when playing a real-life [person], you need to maintain the dignity of the character, because that's how people will see [the person], and you are no one to break that [perception]." The long-in-the planning biopic on astronaut Rakesh Sharma is also said that Bhumi Pednekar is now being considered as the female lead in Salute. Salute will be produced by Ronnie Screwvala and Siddharth Roy Kapur. Apparently, the Rakesh Sharma biopic was picked for an Independence Day, 2018, release. However, with this development, many things will change now. Catch up on all the latest entertainment news and gossip here. Also download the new mid-day Android and iOS apps to get latest updates
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https://www.mid-day.com/articles/will-vicky-kaushal-play-rakesh-sharma-in-ronnie-screwvalas-salute/20307170
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Can Ionic Materials Design A Rechargeable Battery That Unseats The Lithium-Ion?
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Most of the world is betting on lithium-ion as the future of batteriesElon Musk for one. When fully up and running in 2020, Teslas Gigafactory 1 is expected to churn out 50 million kilowatt hours of lithium-ion power packs a yearenough for plenty of Model 3s and home Powerwall storage units . But not everyone shares the prevailing wisdom about lithium-ion. Bill Joy, for instance. The Sun Microsystems founder and Silicon Valley legend is betting on what he says is a cheaper, safer technology. Its a solid-state alkaline battery that uses some of the same materials as everyday batteries, like those in flashlights and TV remotes. But its also rechargeable, making it suitable for uses like electric cars and power storage for grids and homes. Lithium-ion batteries have the advantage of high energy density, relatively low weight, and that they retain power after being recharged hundreds of times. Moreover, as theyve become the default for electric vehicles and cell phones, their cost has fallen by at least 73% in seven years. But Joy argues that lithium-ion will remain relatively expensive in the long term because theyre made with relatively rare metals like nickel, cobalt, and lithium. Whats more, lithium-ion has the occasional, though not negligible, tendency to catch fire. The batteries can short and overheat because of minute faults in the manufacturing process (for example, faults in separators that keep chemicals in the cells apart), or because of mishandling during transport. Airlines continue to discourage passengers from putting lithium-ion batteries into aircraft holds, lest they burn up. Last year, Samsung was forced to recall more than 1 million Galaxy Note 7 smartphone batteries amid safety fears. And lithium-ion will explode if you poke it with a stick or another sharp object. If you puncture [a lithium-ion] battery and create a short, it will catch on fire and create a really violent fire that you cant put out with a normal extinguisher, Joy says. Joy does, of course, have an interest in pushing the explosive qualities of lithium batteries: He has invested in a company called Ionic Materials, which uses a plastic-like polymer for its electrolyte. While still five years away from coming to market, it appears to be safer than lithium-ion, which have liquid electrolytes. A promotional video for Ionic shows its batteries keep working even after someone fires bullets directly into the surface. Ionics polymer works with standard battery chemicals like zinc and manganese dioxide, which are more abundant than the material used for lithium-ion. And, it can be molded into different shapes. Joy says the electrolyte can be combined with a standard cathode and anode material, like zinc and manganese dioxide, and rolled into a plastic sheet like Saran Wrap. That means the batteries could potentially be arranged around a carperhaps in the floor or roofinstead of always in metal housing under the hood, as with electric cars today.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40453858/can-ionic-materials-design-a-rechargeable-battery-that-unseats-the-lithium-ion
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Can the Ravens' run-heavy offensive scheme work in a pass-happy era?
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According to coach John Harbaugh, Baltimores offense will center on the run again in 2019. To answer that, well have to look at how it fared for the Ravens recently. Rookie quarterback Lamar Jackson started in seven regular-season games in 2018. In those seven games, the Ravens averaged a staggering 229.6 rushing yards, which includes their 159-yard performance against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 16. But when Baltimore met the Chargers again in the playoffs just two weeks later, the Ravens had only 90 rushing yards on 23 attempts. Related 7 dream free agents for Ravens in 2019 offseason Los Angeles was first team to see Baltimore twice with Jackson under center. That tells us that teams with extra time to study film knew where the Ravens were going with the ball and figured out a game plan to limit their speed on the outside and power inside. Baltimores playoff loss to the Chargers also tells us the Ravens did a terrible job offensively of making adjustments to put Jackson and company in the best position to succeed. By the time the offense made adjustments to begin passing more, it was too late. The playoff loss led to Baltimore parting ways with Mornhinweg and promoting Roman. So to a point, the Ravens also agreed with the notion they didnt make proper adjustments on offense for the wild-card matchup. The answer is yes. But the Ravens success running the football will depend on Jacksons development as a passer. Todays NFL is about being balanced offensively. The teams that reached the AFC and NFC championship games the New England Patriots, Kansas City Chiefs, New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams all ranked in the top 16 in rushing and passing yards per game. The best offenses are able to keep opposing defenses honest by both passing and running. While running the ball 40-plus times a game worked well for Baltimore in the second half of the regular season, it begged defenses to figure it out. If Jackson cant take advantage of that or the Ravens continue to limit him, their offense will continue to be one-dimensional and easier to stop. But, as Harbaugh said in his State of the Ravens press conference, Baltimore will center on the run next season. However, Harbaugh noted it would trickle down to play-action passes and straight dropbacks. The Ravens will have to utilize the run to set the tone but will need to rely on Jackson becoming more comfortable as a passer to take advantage of defenses playing to stop the run-heavy scheme. Baltimore has used that concept before to solid results after selecting Joe Flacco in the 2008 NFL draft. Whereas the Ravens once used Flaccos deep ball to offset their run game, Baltimores offense now seems conducive to a more efficient and quick passing attack to offset the run. That will mean Jackson will have to be far more accurate with his passes and better learn how to read defenses before the snap. Over the course of the regular season, Jackson completed only 58.2 percent of his passes, which ranked second among all rookie quarterbacks. Jackson particularly struggled in the pocket, tossing misplaced check-down passes and screens that were all too often at the receivers feet. Jackson was hot-and-cold with his accuracy, often forgetting his mechanics when pressured or too excited. But he also flashed some brilliance, throwing great passes with touch. The issue for the Ravens will be consistency for Jackson something hes set to work on in the offseason. As long as Baltimore opens things up for Jackson in their passing game, the run-heavy scheme can work for the Ravens. Even then, should the scheme falter, a top-notch Baltimore defense could pick up the slack and still give the team a fighting chance. Gallery 195 best photos from Lamar Jackson's rookie season with Ravens -- Belee' dat
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https://ravenswire.usatoday.com/2019/01/28/can-the-ravens-run-heavy-offensive-scheme-work-in-the-nfls-pass-happy-era/
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Could The Tech Purge Of Hate Sites Backfire And Actually Harden The Views Of Extremists?
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The tech crackdown on hate sites has been fast and furious: In the four days since white supremacists and neo-Nazis marched in Charlottesville, GoDaddy, Google, and WordPress all denied domain registration for The Daily Stormer, Facebook started deleting white nationalist accounts, and PayPal said it wouldnt do business with hate groups, among other efforts. There is no place for hate in our community, wrote Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg in a post. And yet the push to remove such bigots and racists from the public sphere could backfire, say experts in how to counteract white supremacism and neo-Nazism. advertisement advertisement Many of the web-hosting firms and services that are cutting off hate sites say that its necessary to help prevent violence at future rallies by those inspired by such rhetoric. Thats why weve always taken down any post that promotes or celebrates hate crimes or acts of terrorismincluding what happened in Charlottesville, explained Zuckerberg. With the potential for more rallies, were watching the situation closely and will take down threats of physical harm. That potential for future violence was also cited by GoDaddy, which has long defended its decision to register the Daily Stormers domain by claiming that its a free speech issue. The company reversed course after the hate site published a post that mocked Heather Heyer, the young woman killed when she was run over in a car reportedly driven by a white supremacist in Charlottesville on Saturday afternoon. Given their latest article comes on the immediate heels of a violent act, we believe this type of article could incite additional violence, which violates our terms of service, a spokesperson told CNN. Certainly, extremists from neo-Nazis to ISIS members have long recruited new members online, via websites or their social media presence. And making their vile content harder to find is sure to reduce its exposure to young minds, who might be lured by their heinous ideologies. But when it comes to reintegrating such extremists back into the community, to teach them the value of empathy and love, such censoring or ostracizing tactics may actually backfire, says Sammy Rangel. The former gang leader spent years in a maximum security prison, seething with violence and taking part in race riots, before he learned the power of forgiveness. Now, he helps lead Life After Hate, a group founded by former white supremacists who now seek to help extremists transition out of their belief system and way of life. Shutting down these sites is going to have a double-sided effect, says Rangel. It makes such extremist rhetoric less visible, but it fuels the extremists to dig in further with their justifications because they take it as proof of their grievances rather than an indication of their own wrongdoing, he tells Fast Company. It also could play into their narrative of themselves as an oppressed group thats being unfairly maligned, even helping them attract new recruits. But Rangel does believe that online platforms have an important role to play and should be much more socially conscious and responsible. These extremists tend to use the internet within filter bubbles and they need to be exposed to new ideas and ways of thinking. In the midst of his rage, Rangel says his needs were being met through his gang lifestyleviolence felt like the natural way to express what we were all going through and anyone outside our group was the enemy. But in prison, a counselor started talking to him and exposed him to new ideas. Once I felt that he was listening, I wanted to talk more. Not challenging me and make me feel like I was evil or crazy. Eventually, that counselor showed him how to empathize with the main scapegoat in his life, his mother, and to see that she was a victim too. I started to identify with her, to seek and pursue forgiveness. That experience guided his new life and how he approaches extremists. Instead of condemning them and shaming them, he tries to have a dialogue. Provoke friendship instead of anger Sammy Rangel (@sammyrangel) July 15, 2017 The majority of their contacts happen through social media, he says, using that presence on Twitter and Facebook and other platforms as a counter-narrative for those who are questioning their way of life and then developing a connection with that person. One particularly compelling example of social medias role at changing minds is that of Megan Phelps-Roper, the granddaughter of the founder of the Westboro Baptist Church, the extremists who picket the funerals of fallen soldiers to preach their message of hate. She ran the churchs Twitter account, posting homophobic and anti-Semitic diatribes until a Los Angeles rabbi reached out to her and started engaging in a dialogue about religion with her over Twitter for months and months. advertisement @meganphelps you know, for an evil something something, you sure do crack me up (((Jewlicious))) (@jewlicious) November 4, 2009 They eventually became friends and she left the church and now calls herself a peacemaker. She says that the best way to deal with extremists is to engage with them and share your own views, outlining her four principles: dont assume the worst, ask questions, stay calm, and make the argument. Phelps-Roper believes that the general approach to Charlottesville is flawed, and that shutting down sites is not an effective strategy. Isolating people with those ideas often serves only to push them deeper into echo chambers and further their sense of persecution, she wrote in an email. From my own time with Westboro and also from the hundreds of stories Ive heard from others with similar experiences, it seems so clear that civil engagement is an incredibly potent antidote to extremism. I absolutely believe that the best way to oppose bad ideas is by promoting and advocating and defending and living better ones not by using force or violence (which tends to push people deeper into extremism and will surely make it more likely that those we oppose will also resort to violence) and not by isolation. Her example serves as one way to increase engagement, but in general social media can make it very difficult to encounter different points of view. As has been much analyzed since Trumps election, Facebook and Twitter allow users to create their own information bubbles, exposed only to the views of their ideological allies and isolated from opposing viewpoints. As Rangel explains, the same algorithms that surface ads on Google for products you searched for just minutes ago also serve to reinforce your worldview on platforms like Facebook. Theyre tracking your keystrokes and providing what you think is a choice but its focused on what youve already expressed as your interests. As a result, extremists tend to be insulated in a world of similar viewpoints and wont see that post about a good deed performed by someone they consider their enemy. advertisement Several years ago, he set out to try to disrupt that cycle of what he calls selective information processing and started a project with another group, Against Violent Extremism (AVE) to use technology to stop radicalization, with the support of Google Ideas and the Gen Next Foundation. We wanted to create counter-narratives with a counter algorithm to expose extremists to different viewpoints when they were online. We couldnt stop hateful messages from surfacing online, but theres nothing to stop us from putting our message out there too, exposing them to those opinions and stories. But that project remains a work in progress and for now AVE publishes stories of redemption to increase the peace.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40455345/could-the-tech-purge-of-hate-sites-backfire-and-actually-harden-the-views-of-extremists
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Will the new Apple Watch finally make smartwatches a mainstream thing?
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The new Apple Watch has gone into the final stages of production testing at Taiwanese manufacturer Quanta and will soon be headed into full production, according to a report today from Chinas Economic Daily. The new Watch, which will reportedly contain its own internet connection via an cellular radio, will likely be announced at a press event next month. The Economic Daily report says the new device wont become immediately available after the event, however, but rather will show up sometime during the holiday quarter later in the year. The new Watch might help fire up consumer interest in smartwatches, which are still climbing up the mainstream adoption curve. Less than 10% of adults wear them right now, according to a report published today by the research house NPD Group. NPD believes consumers embrace of the devices will begin to accelerate in the next couple of years, saying about 15% of U.S. adults will be wearing them by 2019. Thats a growth of 60% from Q2 2017 through Q4 2018, NPD says, driven in large part by anticipated new product introductions from market leaders. Here NPD is clearly pointing to the Apple Watch, which is now the runaway leader in the smartwatch space now that some makers of Android-powered smartwatches have backed away from the market after tepid sales. Currently, according to IDC, Apple Watch is in third place in the overall wearables marketplace (including fitness trackers), behind Fitbit and Xiaomi. Read more: With WatchOS 4, The Apple Watch Might Finally Free Us From Our Phones
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40455367/apple-watch-series-3-can-smartwatches-go-mainstream
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What does US Shutdown mean and how does it affect the Indian economy?
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No compromise on the wall, says President Donald Trump. In the normal budget process in the United States, Congress appropriates funds by September 30 of every year for the following fiscal year to various federal department and agencies in the country by passing the appropriation bill. These government agencies are dependent on the annual funding approved by the Congress and as per the procedural requirements, they need to submit their requests. Once the requests are submitted, Congress is required to pass them, following which the US President signs the budget legislation for the next fiscal year. If it does not happen, then a continuing funding resolution or a temporary funding measure is enacted. If the Congress cant even agree on that, then the government shutdown takes place. Current shutdown On December 22, 2018, the US government announced a partial government shutdown, which happened due to disagreement with the US President over the funding for the wall between Mexico and US to control the flows of immigrants. On 25th January 2019, the government temporarily called off the partial government shutdown, after the US President Donald Trump and Congressional leaders agreed to a stop-gap spending bill. This was the third government shutdown in 2018 after a 3-day shutdown on 19th January 2018 and one-day shutdown on 9th February 2018. The functions of the government have been resumed temporarily by passing a bill to fund the federal agencies till 15th February. However, the possibility of another shutdown still looms if the Congress and the US president do not reach a deal over the funding for the wall at the Mexico border. On January 4, Trump reportedly said that he would not clear a budget without a $5.7 billion wall on the border with Mexico since it is a key piece of Trumps immigration policy. The recent US government shutdown has not affected the Indian economy/markets. As the domestic equity markets tend to be entwined with the US equity markets, a possible contagion could have occurred through currency and stock markets. However, both US markets and dollar remained unaffected, and therefore reaction of the Indian markets also remained muted, according to CARE Ratings, Immediately after the shutdown, the Indian rupee gained strength marginally, helped by the weakness in the US currency. However, as the dollar recovered, the rupee too ranged between Rs 69-71 per dollar, it added. Nevertheless, the IT sector, which gathers maximum revenue by way of outsourcing to the US companies, might feel some pressure in the coming months with either delayed payments or deferment in the new offshore projects, it added. Besides, the exports to the US may also get affected with dried up demand from the US consumers, impacting trade deficit.
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https://www.financialexpress.com/economy/what-does-us-shutdown-mean-and-how-does-it-affect-the-indian-economy/1457176/
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Are my workers throwing a sickie?
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Business agony uncle, Sir John Timpson, tackles staff sickies and perfect exits. A I'm not surprised that the first Monday in February has been labelled "National Sickie Day". Coughs, colds and flu do peak at the end of January, but I suspect that many of those off work next week will feel fully fit and have a normal temperature. When I chaired our local Citizens Advice bureau many years ago, I discovered that people tend to put their problems on hold until after Christmas a stressful time in itself when family issues often come to the boil. It's the same in business, so be realistic; your desks are empty because disillusioned colleagues skipped work to attend job interviews. February can be a depressing time. In the Thirties, my grandfather would spend the whole month in the Caribbean. He always asked to be left in peace and never received any sales figures, as he knew that they would be poor. His customers found the month so cold and miserable that they postponed spending until the days got a bit longer.
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https://www.telegraph.co.uk/connect/small-business/are-workers-throwing-sickie/
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Will Novak Djokovic surpass Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal?
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The world No 1 produced a sensational performance, described as "truly a perfect match" by the Serb, to beat his great rival Nadal 6-3 6-2 6-3 in two hours and four minutes in Melbourne. Djokovic will now have his eyes set on completing the calendar slam for the second time in his career as he continues to bridge the gap to both Nadal and Roger Federer with unrelenting desire. 1:29 Novak Djokovic wins a record seventh Australian Open after beating Rafael Nadal in straight sets in Melbourne. Novak Djokovic wins a record seventh Australian Open after beating Rafael Nadal in straight sets in Melbourne. Nadal conceded after defeat the five months he spent away from the game, in the second half of last season, to undergo ankle surgery left him well short of the required physical resilience to deliver his best tennis against Djokovic. Federer, who saw the defence of his title end in the fourth round, has revealed his intention to feature at the French Open for the first time since 2015. At 37 he is the member of the trio with time running out the most to add to his incredible haul of 20 Grand Slam titles. Nadal will aim to celebrate a 12th Roland Garros victory but Djokovic is without doubt back playing at his peak and in great physical condition. Most Grand Slam singles titles Player Total Australian Open French Open Wimbledon US Open Roger Federer 20 6 1 8 5 Rafael Nadal 17 1 11 2 3 Novak Djokovic 15 7 1 4 3 Use our vote above to have your say on who will go down as the greatest Grand Slam champion in the men's game... We have the tennis season covered from all angles via our website skysports.com/tennis. Head to our app for mobile devices and iPad, or follow our Twitter account @SkySportsTennis to join in the conversation.
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https://www.skysports.com/tennis/news/31870/11619416/will-novak-djokovic-surpass-roger-federer-and-rafael-nadal
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Should Companies Ban Workplace Relationships To Deter Harassment?
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When the sexual harassment allegations against Justin Caldbeck surfaced in late June, one of the first Silicon Valley figures to speak out publicly was LinkedIn founder and Greylock partner Reid Hoffman . Outrageous and immoral behavior that ignores the power relationship. Greylock seems to be practicing what Hoffman preaches. This week, The Information reported that Greylocks COO, Tom Frangione, had been asked to resign last month when the firm learned of some behavior that would represent a significant lapse of judgment. Frangione had reportedly entered into an inappropriate relationship with an employee, though according to Axios, the relationship was consensual. Within three days of first hearing the claims, we investigated, asked for Toms resignation, and he agreed, Greylock told Fast Company in a statement. And thats not all: We care deeply about our team and about having a positive work environment. We have already taken immediate and specific action with regard to HR, including bringing on an HR lead, and establishing a 3rd party point of contact for Greylock employees. We are also training our entire team, and formalizing our broad code of conduct policy. The decency pledge did what it was designed to do. It made people feel safe coming forward with information about unacceptable behavior. We are grateful to the team members who came forward because it allowed us to act on the matter swiftly. Its clear Greylock acted swiftly in part because of Hoffmans public stance, but also because of the very public discussion of Silicon Valley culture wrought by Caldbeckwho resigned in June after reports that he sexually harassed multiple women and that his behavior had been something of an open secret in Silicon Valley. In contrast, Greylocks response was a conscientious one, and one that indicates that Hoffman and the firm mean what they say. But it also raises questions about romantic relationships in the workplace, whether they can coexist alongside workplace power dynamics and whether they should be welcome in the workplace at all. Hierarchy Matters It goes without saying that workplace hierarchies complicate even consenting relationships between managers and employees. I wrote recently about how we could legally regulate the VC-founder relationship, to help address and deter sexual harassment even in an informal setting. But consenting relationships are a gray area. Its tempting to say yes in this moment. But laying down the law is extreme and might ultimately be ineffective. Workplace relationships are already frowned on at many companies; anyone carrying on a relationship with a coworker, particularly at a smaller company, probably keeps it under wraps, regardless of what their employee handbook prescribes.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40448493/should-companies-ban-workplace-relationships-to-deter-harassment
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Will the Democrats New Climate Panel Be Able to Bring the Heat?
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A new select committee on climate is taking shape on Capitol Hill, spurred by the demand from incoming Democratic freshmen for a Green New Deal to accelerate the shift to clean energy by 2030. Newly elected Democrats lobbied hard for one of the nine Democratic slots on the committee, while Republicans were mum. Democrats will announce this week who made the cut. Republicans will then name six members to serve on the 15-member committee. Who the GOP chooses is critical, says Melinda Pierce, legislative director for the Sierra Club: Will they be climate deniers determined to put sand in the gears, or folks at least willing to explore the issue? Who will get the nod has not leaked from either party, which is uncharacteristic for Congress. Chairing the committee will be Rep. Kathy Castor (D-FL), serving her sixth term representing a district in Tampa, Florida, one of the states thats been hardest-hit by climate change. She had to evacuate her home last year as Hurricane Irma was bearing down. Environmental groups are thrilled with Castor, says Pierce. Shes got seniority, shes close to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and shes committed to identifying solutions and holding events around the country to highlight the impact of climate change. One of most interesting ironies of this panel is that New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), who ran on the Green New Deal in the 2018 election, doesnt even seem to want a seat on the new committee. She is credited with reviving the idea of a special committee to focus on climate. The original select committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming was created after the Democrats won the House in 2006 and disbanded by the Republicans when they took back the House in 2010. But the new committees not as broad as Ocasio-Cortezs vision, and she kind of took herself out last week, saying she didnt want to over-extend herself after landing two plum assignments on House Oversight and Financial Services. The phrase global warming is now banished from public discourse, replaced by the more benign climate change, and former Rep Ed. Markey (D-MA), who chaired the original House committee, is now Massachusetts Senator Markey. In an interview with Boston media after the 2018 election, he hailed the dawn of a new era and voiced support for a congressional resolution to create a Select Committee on a Green New Deal to develop a plan for the United States to become greenhouse gas emissions neutral. Except its now the Select Committee on the Climate Crisis. Not as catchy as Green New Deal, perhaps, but less problematic once Democratic leaders realized all that was encompassed in the slogan that helped AOC topple the fourth-highest ranking Democrat in the House in her primary win over Joe Crowley last September. The Green New Deal promises to switch to clean, sustainable energy by 2030, two decades ahead of what most experts think might be attainable. It calls for increasing taxes on the wealthy, the retro-fitting of buildings coast to coast, and federal job guarantees for everyone who wants to work. These are great goals that arent going anywhere anytime soon. And with no chance of passing a Republican Senate, more seasoned Democrats stung by decades of right-wing tax-and-spent taunts are not eager to jump into the briar patch. Truth is, once we see who each party selects to serve on the committee, it should be easy to judge what its work output will be. Theres a wide array of members who ran on strong energy platforms and climate change agendas that Chairman Castor has a long list to work through, says Christy Goldfuss, senior vice president in charge of energy and environmental solutions at the Center for American Progress. Not a one, not even from the environmental groups, who were lobbied hard by Dems wanting them to put in a good word. On the Republican side, several more moderate members who belonged to the bipartisan Caucus on Climate Solutions lost their reelection bids. That makes it more likely the GOP will name climate deniers to the new committee, says Goldfuss. The climate panel will not have the power to subpoena people, and its members will not vote in committee to advance legislation. But thats OK, says Goldfuss. The idea is to have a dedicated group of members and staff focused laser-like on climate, upping the ambition and looking across the policy landscape. Limiting the panels power has the added benefit for the House Democratic leadership of controlling turf battles, especially with Democrat Frank Pallone (D-NJ), a long-time environmental champion, now chairing the powerful House Energy and Commerce committee. He opposed the creation of the select committee as unnecessary since his committee has the principle jurisdiction to advance legislation on climate change. Pallone has a long track record on the environment. Sources say he has come to terms with the new committee, seeing it as a resource that can identify solutions and feed ideas to his committee to advance legislation. House Energy and Commerce has such a broad mandate, covering everything from health care to telecom, that peace and harmony has a chance to prevail. Castor will retain her seat on Energy and Commerce while chairing the climate committee, which should help ease communications. The last time the Democrats controlled the House, the select committee headed by Markey helped pass cap-and-trade legislation in 2009 to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The Senate never took it up, the 2010 Tea Party wave returned the House to the Republicans, and the rest is history. Now the Democrats are back in power, the climate crisis is here, and lawmakers have a chance to begin to rewrite history. Whether this committee does anything of value will depend on Castor, and her willingness to buck the forces that have kept a lid on efforts to combat climate change. Shes already come under fire for accepting campaign donations from the fossil fuel industry, a practice she agreed to end when activists called her out on it. She is highly rated by mainstream environmental groups, but this is a new day, and she will be under scrutiny as much by climate activists as climate deniers.
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https://www.thedailybeast.com/will-the-democrats-new-climate-panel-be-able-to-bring-the-heat?source=articles&via=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thedailybeast%2Farticles+%28The+Daily+Beast+-+Latest+Articles%29
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Does A Crackdown On Sex Trafficking Threaten The Future Of The Internet?
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When a bipartisan posse of the top lawmakers in the country proposed a law called the Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act this week, it must have seemed to them like the ultimate no-brainer, a rare sign of unity during this bitterly fractious era. Yet this piece of legislation, which seeks to crack down on online platforms that knowingly proliferate illegal sexual trafficking content, is anything but a slam dunk. Its bitterly opposed by Silicon Valley and represents just the latest dispute in a long-running debate over the right balance to strike between online freedom and civic responsibility. Over 20 senators have signed off on the bill, which specifically targets one of the holiest texts in the tech sector: Section 230. This portion of the Communications Decency Act passed in 1996 protects internet companies from being liable for the offensive content that is posted on their platformsit is why Reddit and Facebook arent legally responsible for what its users say. Section 230 is one of the pillars of online free speech, as well as many technology giant business models. Without this one tiny provision of the law, neither Facebook nor Google would likely have grown as dominant as they are today, since they would have been considered liable for any and all of the content posted to its sites. The Stop Enabling Sex Traffickers Act focuses specifically on this one provision of the law as a way to combat sites like Backpage.com, which are notorious for hosting classified ads for sex workers, thus enabling sex trafficking. The idea is that Section 230 would be amended to say that websites that knowingly facilitate sex trafficking lose their legal protection. The fear, however, is that changing the law would result in unanticipated consequences that could significantly alter the way we use our favorite platforms like Facebook and Twitter, changes that would only be figured out years later in court. Currently, Section 230 serves as a very powerful shield for internet companies as well as the foundation of the internet as we know it, says Santa Clara University School of Law professor Eric Goldman. Most of the sites people use, he explains, are built upon third-party content. So without the ability for platforms to freely publish such content, going online would be a much different experience, potentially resulting in less online freedom. Given that, Goldman fears any significant legal ramifications resulting from an amendment to Section 230, noting that theres no telling how potential litigators will try to interpret the new provisions. Already Section 230 has a few exclusions about the sort of content that is not protectednamely federal criminal law, intellectual property law, and electronic communications privacy lawand those exceptions have prompted numerous lawsuits against internet companies. Any shift that allows for more exclusions will result in even more litigation, says Goldman. And its not even clear if this law will accomplish what it sets out to accomplish. The law is targeting Backpage, he says, but its unclear what will happen if Backpage exits the industry. Does that make the lives of the victims better? Goldmans point is that by specifically targeting Backpage (which, its true, was the only example given by all of the senators introducing the bill) its unclear whether this focus actually does anything to stop sex trafficking, which has systemic roots in poverty, immigration policy, and sexism, among others.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40447612/does-a-crackdown-on-sex-trafficking-threaten-the-future-of-the-internet
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Can Encouraging Breastfeeding Around The World Boost The Global Economy?
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China may be a world leader in solar installations, general manufacturing, and overall purchasing power but in another way, too much reliance on modernization is costing it dearly: Not enough mothers are breast feeding anymore. Just 21% of kids under six months old in the country are being reared exclusively on their mothers milk, according a recent analysis by Alive & Thrive, a global nonprofit for nutritional health. Thats a problem because not all formulas are good approximates, especially in places with loose label policing. In 2008, 300,000 Chinese babies got sick from tainted formula that contained an unsafe industrial additive called melamine; many developed kidney stones. On the flip side, breastfeeding might make many children more healthy. Mothers milk carries antibodies that can battle bacteria and viruses, protecting against issues like diarrhea and pneumonia, either of which can be life threatening for babies. Overall, studies show better outcomes for children who were breastfed longer. In China, the related loss in economic potential and health-related expenses are estimated to cost the country $66 billion annually, over a half-percent of the Chinas gross national income. Its the sort of trend that many of other countries are repeating: Globally, the organization says the world is losing about $300 billion annually from women not breastfeeding. About 820,000 children die from complications of being fed differently. To fix that, the Global Breastfeeding Collective, a philanthropic coalition that includes the World Health Organization, UNICEF, and 20 related heath and nutrition nonprofits like 1,000 Days and Alive & Thrive, has launched a $5.7 billion fundraising campaign to get more kids back on the nipple. The goal is to convince potential donors, including foundations, various NGOs, and government making health investments, to boost the current rate of those exclusively breastfeedmeaning just that and nothing elsefor their first six months from 40% to 50% by 2025 by investing things like public health campaigns and prenatal counseling, and better medical facilities with trained staff to encourage the practice. We really need to act now to fully realize the benefits of breast feeding, says France Begin, a senior advisor with UNICEFs infant and young child nutrition division. Prioritizing breast feeding will save lives, save money, and will lead to better health and economic outcomes for generations to come. This all sounds pretty dire but like many health issues the impact from not breastfeeding is unevenly distributed. The hot zone isnt really America, where parents who choose not to breastfeed often have access nutritional equivalents that have been safety tested, alongside excellent medical facilities to treat illnesses that are often less common anyway because of better sanitation and hygiene practices. Its developing world and rapidly industrializing spots where a lack of many of these factors creates a cascading threat.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40445871/can-encouraging-breastfeeding-around-the-world-boost-the-global-economy
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Does The Constitution Need A Redesign?
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The original Constitution of the United States , housed in the National Archives, is instantly recognizable to anyone who studied U.S. historythink We the People in large, elegant script. But the Constitution most people read, if they read it at all, usually comes in the form of a pocket-size book or digitized, search-able text. Recently, a surge in enthusiasm for the documents have also compelled artists to copy the Constitution by hand , and the New York Times to print an annotated version in its Sunday paper . Then theres New York City branding agency ThoughtMatter, which has created its own version of the Constitution: a riso-printed, pink-and-blue booklet that wouldnt look out of place at a zine fair. The agency has rendered the 230-year-old document in the common visual vernacular of today, in the hopes that it will help school kids learn about the Constitution. With a Kickstarter campaign for the project, which ended this past weekend, ThoughtMatter set up a buy-one-donate-one model to get the redesigned document into underserved schools. Its by far the most stylish Constitution this writer has ever seen. But in a time of intense political turmoil and deep partisan divisionsand a president who doesnt seem to have read the Constitutioninterest in these documents isnt necessarily tied to the way they look. For Julie Silverbrook, a lawyer and executive director of the Constitutional Sources Project, a constitutional literacy nonprofit in Washington D.C., the benefit is that eye-catching visuals have the potential to attract a new readership. Silverbrook believes that everyone should have access to the Constitution and an opportunity to read it in full. Shes the kind of person who gives out pocket constitutions on Halloweencomplete with candy taped in the center to make sure kids will open it. After reading an article about ThoughtMatters redesigned Constitution in the Huffington Post, Silverbrook reached out to the agency to see how they could work together to get the Constitution in the hands of more people. [ThoughtMatters Constitution] is designed in a way to get you to actually open it, Silverbrook tells Co.Design. The thing that drew her initially to the design was the pink papersomething she thinks will appeal specifically to women and girls, but also to kids and people for whom digging through a centuries-old document is not their particular thrill. Its not black, white, and red, she says. That gets peoples attention. Silverbrook draws the connection between ThoughtMatters sleekly designed booklet and the emergence of the pocket Constitution decades ago. As Betsy Woodruff writes in a excellent article for Slate, while pocket Constitutions often bring to mind the riled-up Tea Party evangelists who contributed to their current popularity, the mini-booklets have actually been around since the mid-1960s. The pocket Constitution made an televised appearance during the Watergate hearings, thanks to Democratic senator Sam Ervin, chair of the Senate Select Committee to Investigate Campaign Practices, who liked to wave his around to make a point. Its been used for theatrical effect everywhere from the courthouse to the White House to presidential primary debates. And even in the digital age, its still common for lawyers and politicians to carry one around. Citizens are guardians of the Constitution, and the pocket constitution was specifically designed for people to own it, Silverbrook says. Advocacy organizations both liberal and conservativefrom the ACLU to the Heritage Foundationprint them out en masse to distribute to people. The one that the Constitutional Source Project disseminates is the official version that the government prints. It was created over 30 years ago for the U.S. Bicentennial, and as Silverbrook sees it, its ripe for an update: People interact and read visual text in a different way than they did 30 years ago, she says.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/90135015/does-the-constitution-need-a-redesign
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What does the Anne Arundel school board's new election policy mean for its president?
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The Anne Arundel County school board has tried to unseat its president twice in the span of two months. The first attempt came in December, when District 33 member Eric Grannon called on the board to bypass policy and elect a new president. Grannon made a similar move Wednesday, and members have indicated they are ready for change. Under President Julie Hummer, the school system has piloted diversity- and inclusion-centered coursework, improved high school graduation rates, and earned a national award for increasing educational equity. But new board policy means Hummers second presidential term could be upended. The board on Wednesday adopted a new policy that will reschedule board officer elections to early December. Members used to vote for their president and vice president in July after new appointees were sworn in but that model no longer works as the board transitions to a fully elected body. And, to deal with the unique composition of a school board that is only partially elected, the new policy also calls for board elections at its next meeting on Feb. 6. This was done to give new members an opportunity to elect their leaders, said policy committee chair and student board member Josie Urrea. The main thing that we were considering was ensuring that it would align with the first meeting for the new members that will be elected in the upcoming years, Urrea said about the new officer election date. I support Julie all the way, but I do believe the newly elected board members should have a say on who the board leaders are. Board members first discussed changing its election policy after Grannons attempt to unseat Hummer in December. His motion to skirt the old election policy and vote for new leadership failed, but just narrowly. Grannon made a second move to oust Hummer on Wednesday, the same day the new policy was approved. But, after fears of breaching policy, the board agreed to wait. Hummer said some of the pushback shes received from fellow board members could be personal. I think its obvious, by the tone of some board members and facial expressions, that this is personal and thats unfortunate, Hummer said. It suggests to me that their judgment may be clouded and theyre not doing whats best for the school system. Grannon did not respond to requests for comment. His Anne Arundel County Public Schools email box is full and cant receive messages, according to an automated email received by a reporter for The Capital. Hummer plans to stick it out. She said she may speak at the Feb. 6 meeting, but doesnt plan on campaigning. Vice President Terry Gilleland appears to be a popular contender for the boards leading seat. He is one of the current boards longest-serving members. Grannons already nominated Gilleland for president twice. Gilleland did not immediately respond to an interview request. Dana Schallheim said shes voting for Gilleland. The two went head-to-head in the District 5 school board race, but Schallheim said they share a lot of the same views. Hes the right person to serve during this transition period, Schallheim said. During the campaign, it should have been clear to most people that Terry and I agreed on a lot of different policies. She also cited disapproval in board leadership felt by some county residents. While Hummers administration represents districtwide improvements, the school system has also been suffering. Hate and bias-related incidents are on the rise and, according to statewide educational data, Anne Arundel County schools are being outperformed by neighboring districts. Hummer said her job as president includes a lot of behind-the-scenes work, like longterm planning, setting meeting agendas and representing the school board at county events. Theres a lot of things that are not seen by the public. I think most board members dont understand. I didnt fully appreciate it until I became president, Hummer said. I know the time constraints of many of our fellow board members, so I have really worked hard to rework my schedule. Its also the presidents job to deal with members when they are late to meetings or dont show up. Some board members dont like to be held accountable, Hummer said. The former special education teacher said she will continue to do her job if she loses her presidential seat. Her term on the board does not end until 2020. I could be (voted out). That happens with every election, Hummer said. Whatever the majority of the board decides is not going to change what I say or do. I will continue to serve and speak out, and do whats best for children. While the school board president sets the tone and direction for the body, the public will not be able to weigh in. Board members will take nominations and vote before the public comment portion of the Feb. 6 board meeting. Support local journalism. Subscribe to The Capital today CAPTION Kallan Benson, 14, of Crownsville, is advocating for a green amendment to the Maryland state constitution, which would make access to clean water and air a human right. She is crocheting butterflies to hand out to state legislators during the coming Maryland General Assembly session. Kallan Benson, 14, of Crownsville, is advocating for a green amendment to the Maryland state constitution, which would make access to clean water and air a human right. She is crocheting butterflies to hand out to state legislators during the coming Maryland General Assembly session. CAPTION Kallan Benson, 14, of Crownsville, is advocating for a green amendment to the Maryland state constitution, which would make access to clean water and air a human right. She is crocheting butterflies to hand out to state legislators during the coming Maryland General Assembly session. Kallan Benson, 14, of Crownsville, is advocating for a green amendment to the Maryland state constitution, which would make access to clean water and air a human right. She is crocheting butterflies to hand out to state legislators during the coming Maryland General Assembly session. CAPTION Jonathan Hutson of Gambrills talks about his reasons for volunteering as a victim for a first responder training exercise in Annapolis on Thursday, Dec 6. Jonathan Hutson of Gambrills talks about his reasons for volunteering as a victim for a first responder training exercise in Annapolis on Thursday, Dec 6. CAPTION West Street in Annapolis is packed with people attending the annual Chocolate Binge Festival. West Street in Annapolis is packed with people attending the annual Chocolate Binge Festival. CAPTION The USS Sioux City, a Freedom-class littoral combat ship, is this week's Home of the Week. The USS Sioux City, a Freedom-class littoral combat ship, is this week's Home of the Week. CAPTION The local Toys For Tots distribution was held Saturday morning during an event at the Anne Arundel Community College. The local Toys For Tots distribution was held Saturday morning during an event at the Anne Arundel Community College. twitter.com/lauren_lumps
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https://www.capitalgazette.com/news/schools/ac-cn-board-policy-20190127-story.html
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Who Will Clean Up Silicon Valleys E-Wasteland?
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Last April, Apple released its 58-page Environmental Responsibility Report, an ecological progress report for the 2016 fiscal year, which boasted of a number of sustainability and safety initiatives under the high-profile leadership of Lisa Jackson, a former Environmental Protection Agency administrator. However, a subsequent report published by Vices technology vertical Motherboard found that Apple had instructed third-party recyclers to shred its old products, rendering them ineligible for reuse or repurposing, even when stored data could be safeguarded without destruction of the hardware. Apples shred-agreement policies offer a telltale glimpse into a burgeoning environmental issue: electronic waste. The years 2014 and 2015 produced approximately 41 million tons of e-waste each (less than one-sixth of the e-waste in 2014 were estimated to have been recycled); projections for 2017 approach 50 million tons. Unlike ordinary household trash, e-waste contains heavy metals and hazardous chemicals; smartphones use lead, mercury, and brominated flame retardants, whose toxicity and lack of biodegradability have long threatened the health of humans, animals, and the environment. Waste also requires the mining of conflict minerals (coltan, wolframite, cassiterite, and gold), whose funding of the Congolese civil war, for example, has long been documented and which are found in smartphones and laptops. Furthermore, as these minerals finite supply attenuates, miners must look to deep-sea alternatives. Coltan is needed for the antennas on [smartphones] to actually get those WiFi signals . . . and there really arent that many sources of it around the world, says deep-sea ecologist Andrew Thaler. We dont have a very good pipeline to reuse these minerals after theyve lived out their life in a piece of electronics resources . . . As were exhausting ore bodies on the surface, much like with oil exploration, were going deeper and deeper into the ocean to try to find these resources. Theres no federal law requiring e-waste to be recycled, and procedures nationwide are often fragmented and cumbersome; only 25 states have implemented legislation. In addition, e-waste recycling is largely privatized, placing its control in the hands of profit-driven businesses. In 2013, the New York Times reported that insufficient governmental oversight of the recycling programs of companies like Sony, Toshiba, and Apple had begotten fraud among recyclers who were buying paperwork to inflate the quantity of waste collected.. Third-party facilities recycling streams may also prove noxious; contracts with manufacturers and adherence to environmental protocol vary, affecting how much waste can actually be responsibly recycled, and businesses that depend on the market value of recyclable materials may opt to abandon their stockpiles or dump them in landfills when materials become obsolete. One growing problem is cathode ray tubes [which are commonly found in television and computer monitors from previous decades], says Freyja Knapp, a PhD candidate in Environmental Science Policy & Management at the University of California, Berkeley. The leaded glass is a real problem. The barium in them is a problem. [The] markets have declined for many of the facilities that process CRTs, and you see a lot of abandoned facilities with big piles of leaded glass just laying there. The Role Of Planned Obsolescence Whats arguably most responsible for this, however, is the manufacturing model of planned obsolescence, in which software and hardware become incompatible or antiquated, or hardware isnt designed for durability. Smartphones may begin to malfunction after two years, for example, or fail to support recent operating systems or app versions if theyre two or three versions removed from the latest models. (iOS 10, the operating system Apple introduced in late 2016, proffers a number of tactile features that require an iPhone 6S or later model.) This also manifests in larger appliances. In 2015, ENDS Europe found that electronic goods lifespans were dwindling, noting that the proportion of all units sold to replace a defective appliance grew from 3.5% in 2004 to 8.3% in 2012; the percentage of large household appliances that had to be replaced within the first five years also grew from 7% in 2004 to 13% in 2013.
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https://www.fastcompany.com/40443695/who-will-clean-up-silicon-valleys-e-wasteland
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