Skip to main content

Home/ TOK Friends/ Group items tagged california

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Filter: All | Bookmarks | Topics Simple Middle
Javier E

Technology Imperialism, the Californian Ideology, and the Future of Higher Education - 2 views

hackeducation.com/...technoimperialism

imperialism education trends learning ideology california narrative silicon valley

shared by Javier E on 19 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • What I hope to make explicit today is how much California – the place, the concept, “the dream machine” – shapes (wants to shape) the future of technology and the future of education.
  • In an announcement on Facebook – of course – Zuckerberg argued that “connectivity is a human right.”
  • As Zuckerberg frames it at least, the “human right” in this case is participation in the global economy
  • ...34 more annotations...
  • This is a revealing definition of “human rights,” I’d argue, particularly as it’s one that never addresses things like liberty, equality, or justice. It never addresses freedom of expression or freedom of assembly or freedom of association.
  • in certain countries, a number of people say they do not use the Internet yet they talk about how much time they spend on Facebook. According to one survey, 11% of Indonesians who said they used Facebook also said they did not use the Internet. A survey in Nigeria had similar results:
  • Evgeny Morozov has described this belief as “Internet-centrism,” an ideology he argues permeates the tech industry, its PR wing the tech blogosphere, and increasingly government policy
  • “Internet-centrism” describes the tendency to see “the Internet” – Morozov uses quotations around the phrase – as a new yet unchanging, autonomous, benevolent, and inevitable socio-technological development. “The Internet” is a master framework for how all institutions will supposedly operate moving forward
  • “The opportunity to connect” as a human right assumes that “connectivity” will hasten the advent of these other rights, I suppose – that the Internet will topple dictatorships, for example, that it will extend participation in civic life to everyone and, for our purposes here at this conference, that it will “democratize education.”
  • Empire is not simply an endeavor of the nation-state – we have empire through technology (that’s not new) and now, the technology industry as empire.
  • Facebook is really just synecdochal here, I should add – just one example of the forces I think are at play, politically, economically, technologically, culturally.
  • it matters at the level of ideology. Infrastructure is ideological, of course. The new infrastructure – “the Internet” if you will – has a particular political, economic, and cultural bent to it. It is not neutral.
  • This infrastructure matters. In this case, this is a French satellite company (Eutelsat). This is an American social network (Facebook). Mark Zuckerberg’s altruistic rhetoric aside, this is their plan – an economic plan – to monetize the world’s poor.
  • The content and the form of “connectivity” perpetuate imperialism, and not only in Africa but in all of our lives. Imperialism at the level of infrastructure – not just cultural imperialism but technological imperialism
  • “The Silicon Valley Narrative,” as I call it, is the story that the technology industry tells about the world – not only the world-as-is but the world-as-Silicon-Valley-wants-it-to-be.
  • To better analyze and assess both technology and education technology requires our understanding of these as ideological, argues Neil Selwyn – “‘a site of social struggle’ through which hegemonic positions are developed, legitimated, reproduced and challenged.”
  • This narrative has several commonly used tropes
  • It often features a hero: the technology entrepreneur. Smart. Independent. Bold. Risk-taking. White. Male
  • “The Silicon Valley narrative” invokes themes like “innovation” and “disruption.” It privileges the new; everything else that can be deemed “old” is viewed as obsolete.
  • It contends that its workings are meritocratic: anyone who hustles can make it.
  • “The Silicon Valley narrative” fosters a distrust of institutions – the government, the university. It is neoliberal. It hates paying taxes.
  • “The Silicon Valley narrative” draws from the work of Ayn Rand; it privileges the individual at all costs; it calls this “personalization.”
  • “The Silicon Valley narrative” does not neatly co-exist with public education. We forget this at our peril. This makes education technology, specifically, an incredibly fraught area.
  • Here’s the story I think we like to hear about ed-tech, about distance education, about “connectivity” and learning: Education technology is supportive, not exploitative. Education technology opens, not forecloses, opportunities. Education technology is driven by a rethinking of teaching and learning, not expanding markets or empire. Education technology meets individual and institutional and community goals.
  • That’s not really what the “Silicon Valley narrative” says about education
  • It is interested in data extraction and monetization and standardization and scale. It is interested in markets and return on investment. “Education is broken,” and technology will fix it
  • If “Silicon Valley” isn’t quite accurate, then I must admit that the word “narrative” is probably inadequate too
  • The better term here is “ideology.”
  • Facebook is “the Internet” for a fairly sizable number of people. They know nothing else – conceptually, experientially. And, let’s be honest, Facebook wants to be “the Internet” for everyone.
  • We tend to not see technology as ideological – its connections to libertarianism, neoliberalism, global capitalism, empire.
  • The California ideology ignores race and labor and the water supply; it is sustained by air and fantasy. It is built upon white supremacy and imperialism.
  • As is the technology sector, which has its own history, of course, in warfare and cryptography.
  • So far this year, some $3.76 billion of venture capital has been invested in education technology – a record-setting figure. That money will change the landscape – that’s its intention. That money carries with it a story about the future; it carries with it an ideology.
  • When a venture capitalist says that “software is eating the world,” we can push back on the inevitability implied in that. We can resist – not in the name of clinging to “the old” as those in educational institutions are so often accused of doing – but we can resist in the name of freedom and justice and a future that isn’t dictated by the wealthiest white men in Hollywood or Silicon Valley.
  • We in education would be naive, I think, to think that the designs that venture capitalists and technology entrepreneurs have for us would be any less radical than creating a new state, like Draper’s proposed state of Silicon Valley, that would enormously wealthy and politically powerful.
  • When I hear talk of “unbundling” in education – one of the latest gerunds you’ll hear venture capitalists and ed-tech entrepreneurs invoke, meaning the disassembling of institutions into products and services – I can’t help but think of the “unbundling” that Draper wished to do to my state: carving up land and resources, shifting tax revenue and tax burdens, creating new markets, privatizing public institutions, redistributing power and doing so explicitly not in the service of equity or justice.
  • I want to show you this map, a proposal – a failed proposal, thankfully – by venture capitalist Tim Draper to split the state of California into six separate states: Jefferson, North California, Silicon Valley, Central California, West California, and South California. The proposal, which Draper tried to collect enough signatures to get on the ballot in California, would have created the richest state in the US – Silicon Valley would be first in per-capita income. It would also have created the nation’s poorest state, Central California, which would rank even below Mississippi.
  • that’s not all that Silicon Valley really does.
tongoscar

California Is Booming. Why Are So Many Californians Unhappy? - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-economy-housing-homeless.html

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • For all its forward-thinking companies and liberal social and environmental policies, the state has mostly put higher-value jobs and industries in expensive coastal enclaves, while pushing lower-paid workers and lower-cost housing to inland areas like the Central Valley. This has made California the most expensive state — with a median home value of $550,000, about double that of the nation — and created a growing supply of three-hour “super commuters.” And while it has some of the highest wages in the country, it also has the highest poverty rate based on its cost of living, an average of 18.1 percent from 2016 to 2018. That helps explain why the state has lost more than a million residents to other states since 2006, and why the population growth rate for the year that ended July 1 was the lowest since 1900.“What’s happening in California right now is a warning shot to the rest of the country,”
  • “It’s a warning about income inequality and suburban sprawl, and how those intersect with quality of life and climate change.” You can see this in California economic forecasts for 2020, which play down the threat of a global trade war and play up the challenge of continuing to add jobs without affordable places for middle- and lower-income workers to live.
  • As the economy picked up and housing costs resumed their rise, lower-paid service and professional workers moved to distant exurbs, while homelessness spiraled to the point that local political leaders are all but declaring they are out of solutions.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • California is at a crossroads. The state has a thriving $3 trillion economy with record low unemployment, a surplus of well-paying jobs, and several of the world’s most valuable corporations, including Apple, Google and Facebook. Its median household income has grown about 17 percent since 2011, compared with about 10 percent nationally, adjusted for inflation.
  • There are increasing complaints in Oregon, Nevada and Idaho that rents and home prices there are being pushed up by new arrivals fleeing California.
tongoscar

California leads fight to curb climate change | Environmental Defense Fund - 0 views

www.edf.org/...eads-fight-curb-climate-change

shared by tongoscar on 19 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Ten years after the passage of AB 32, California extended and strengthened the limit on greenhouse gas emissions with the passage of SB 32 in 2016. The state raised its goal for greenhouse gas emissions to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
  • California is now demonstrating impressive outcomes from the implementation of its climate policies. After the first decade of AB32 implementation, California's economy is growing while carbon pollution is declining.
  • Expanding the scope of its climate policies, the centerpiece of which is a cap-and-trade program that was extended until 2030.
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • Playing a climate leadership role. In September 2018, the state organized the Global Climate Action Summit, a gathering of world leaders representing governments, the private sector and indigenous people in what became a momentous occasion for subnational climate action, as major companies and jurisdictions lined up to declare or reiterate their climate commitments.
  • Fast-tracking emissions reductions to benefit public health through policies that work in concert with cap and trade.
  • Establishing complementary policies, incentives, and market rules that help the state transition to a low-carbon, clean energy economy through promoting renewables and modernizing and automating energy options in the state.
  • Partnering with other regions and stakeholders, including indigenous peoples, to share California's lessons and experiences from the state's early adoption of comprehensive climate and energy policies. Oregon, for example, is poised to model its carbon pricing program on California’s experience, and is interested in eventually linking to California’s carbon market.
  • California could take further action by codifying an ambitious midcentury greenhouse gas reduction target to ensure continued momentum on climate action.
  • By taking bold action California is a leader on climate change. Hallmarks of its success are strong government leadership, accelerated investment in clean energy, and rapid growth of businesses that contribute to the advancement of the low-carbon economy.
tongoscar

L.A. and California Economy Strong, But Might Take Small Hit from Coronavirus | Califor... - 0 views

www.apparelnews.net/...-strong-might-take-small-hit-c

shared by tongoscar on 22 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • California’s gross domestic product is forecasted to grow 2.0 percent in 2020 and 1.6 percent in 2021, according to the forecast. Los Angeles County’s gross domestic product is forecasted to grow 1.8 percent in 2020 and slow down to 1.6 percent in 2021. The 10-county Southern California region is forecasted to grow at 1.8 percent over the next two years.
  • The economies of Los Angeles County and California have a lot to celebrate, according to speakers at the LAEDC’s forecast-release event, which was held at the Sheraton Grand Los Angeles at The Bloc retail center in downtown Los Angeles. California ranks as the number-one region for investment in new and emerging companies, according to figures that the LAEDC quoted from the Dow Jones VentureSource website.
  • The coronavirus will probably cause pain for the California and Los Angeles economies, mostly in the short term, said Stephen Cheung, executive vice president of the LAEDC and president of the World Trade Center Los Angeles.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • Panic over the coronavirus outbreak has caused the cancellation of at least two apparel trade shows and for major companies such as Apple, which has lowered its earnings forecast for the second quarter of its 2020 fiscal year.
  • Apparel businesses will have to move quickly to replenish inventories. They might choose to manufacture goods in Mexico or countries in the Central American Free Trade Agreement,said Mercedes Gonzalez, director of Global Purchasing Companies, who frequently travels to Latin America.
  • There are possibilities that Los Angeles and American manufacturers could receive a boost from companies looking for new factories. Daniel Antonio, founder of the Los Angeles–headquartered Dirtymilk label, had taken his manufacturing to Los Angeles after a few years of making it in China. “We’re not going back to China. We were victims of the trade war,” he said of Dirtymilk. “Then, next thing you know, you have this outbreak. It’s affecting a lot of people.”
  • “If they weren’t already here, they’re not coming here. They’re looking for other places overseas,” Antonio said. “Vietnam is a major factor right now. A lot of people are talking about Pakistan and Turkey.”
katherineharron

Gavin Newsom takes new tone with Trump as he steers California during coronavirus crisi... - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katherineharron on 28 Mar 20 - No Cached
  • For California Gov. Gavin Newsom, the call that triggered state's full crisis response came in the middle of the night on March 6, and he was waiting for it.
  • The state's lab had been working through the night, and one of his cabinet secretaries was on the line telling him 21 of the 42 crewmembers and passengers tested for coronavirus aboard the Grand Princess Cruise Ship, which was idling in international waters off California's coast, had tested positive.
  • Newsom hung up and immediately called Donald Trump, his frequent adversary, reaching the President around 4 a.m. PT to discuss the alarming results and their next steps, according to California aides involved in the response. By 6 a.m., Newsom had fully activated the Golden State's emergency operations center in the outskirts of Sacramento and begun orchestrating the unloading of more than 2,000 passengers -- diverting them to hospitals, into quarantine and back to their home countries.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • n the past, the pair has sparred in public over everything from the cause of California's wildfires to the state's stringent environmental regulations. Last year, Trump mocked the 52-year-old Newsom as the "do-nothing governor in California"; Newsom, for his part, has insisted his state will stand up to "a bully."
  • "We are clearly operating under a different set of assumptions," Newsom said when asked about Trump's desires during a recent briefing. He added that in their "many" conversations in recent weeks, it has been clear to him that the President understands the "unique challenges" faced by states like New York, California and Washington state.
  • As of 2 p.m. Wednesday, California had 3,006 cases of coronavirus and 65 dead. As the state has ramped up its testing capability the number of people who had been tested rose exponentially midweek, to 77,800, with results pending on more than 57,400 tests.
tongoscar

California prisoner confesses in letter to newspaper that he killed 2 child molesters b... - 0 views

www.foxnews.com/...ss-child-molesters-behind-bars

shared by tongoscar on 22 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • A California prison inmate confessed in a letter that he beat two child molesters to death with a cane while behind bars just hours after his urgent warning to a counselor that he might become violent was ignored, a newspaper chain reported Thursday.
  • “We can't comment on an active investigation," Dana Simas, spokesman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, wrote in an email.
  • Days before the attack, he said his security classification was changed and he was transferred from a single-person cell to a lower-security dormitory pod at the Central Valley facility. Watson called the switch a “careless" mistake and said he had protested the decision.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • Watson wrote that six days after he arrived at the prison, a child molester moved into the pod.
  • Two hours before the attacks the next day, Watson told a prison counselor that he urgently needed to be transferred back to higher-level security “before I really (expletive) one of these dudes up,” but the counselor “scoffed and dismissed" him.
  • “I was mulling it all over when along came Molester #1 and he put his TV right on PBS Kids again,”
tongoscar

Next stop for free college: Cal State University? | CalMatters - 0 views

calmatters.org/...su-california-state-university

shared by tongoscar on 20 Jan 20 - No Cached
  • In yet another push to make higher education more accessible in California, a bill filed in the state Legislature last week would extend the state’s tuition-free college guarantee to four years — and beyond community college — for some students, making it one of the most generous programs in the nation.
  • “If we want a truly debt-free education, you’ve got to begin that conversation by cutting tuition and fees,” he said. “If you don’t tell these kids every single day that you’re going to go to college, it may not be a reality.”
  • While the bill does not contain a cost estimate, the price tag would likely be “in the low hundreds of millions,” said Francisco Rodriguez, chancellor of the Los Angeles Community College District, a bill sponsor. (The overall state budget proposed by Gov. Gavin Newsom last week totaled $222 billion, with nearly $4 billion earmarked for Cal State next year.)
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • Among free college programs nationwide, New York’s Excelsior Scholarship covers four years of tuition at the state’s public universities for students with family incomes of $125,000 or less, provided they attend full-time and stay in the area after graduation. But most state free college plans only pay for community college, which helps contain cost and draw bipartisan support.
  • If passed, it could also increase demand for spots at the already-overcrowded California State University, said Gail Yen, a policy analyst at California Competes, a nonpartisan higher education think tank.  
tongoscar

Housing costs, migration expected to crimp Southern California's economy - Daily News - 0 views

www.dailynews.com/...p-southern-californias-economy

shared by tongoscar on 19 Feb 20 - No Cached
  • Southern California’s economy remains strong, but it’s expected to lag slightly behind the state through 2021, according to a new report.
  • On the plus side, per capita income growth is expected to continue to outpace the nation and state, buoyed by strong employment in the construction, logistics, professional services and healthcare industries.
  • Long-term regional investments in transportation — most notably the Southern California Optimized Rail Expansion — will help boost growth in the area, the report said. The $10 billion capital improvement program, which runs from 2018 through 2028, includes track additions, station improvements and better signals and grade crossings to improve safety where trains cross surface streets.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • It’s projected to generate 1.3 million jobs and provide a $684 billion boost to Southern California’s economy.
  • Southern California is expected to add 129,800 jobs this year and 128,300 in 2021. This year’s biggest employment gain of 52,500 jobs will come in education and health services, the report said, with other sizable increases in leisure and hospitality (20,600), professional and business services (18,900) trade, transportation and utilities (13,200) and construction, natural resources and mining (12,100).
  • The report defines Southern California as a 10-county region that includes Los Angeles, Orange, San Bernardino, Riverside, San Diego, Ventura, Santa Barbara, Imperial, Kern and San Luis Obispo counties.
blythewallick

School Start Times and Teens' Sleep Needs | Psychology Today - 0 views

www.psychologytoday.com/...rt-times-and-teens-sleep-needs

science psychology research brain science knowledge education

shared by blythewallick on 21 Oct 19 - No Cached
  • In 2014, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommended that middle and high school start no earlier than 8:30 a.m. And just this week, California was the first state to pass into law school start times of no earlier than 8 a.m. for middle schools and 8:30 a.m.
  • We know that adolescents undergo significant biological changes that impact their circadian rhythm—as a result, their biological clocks shift so that their bodies naturally want to go to sleep later. However, in many communities, these biological shifts are at odds with school schedules which often have younger, elementary school age youth beginning school later, and older, high-school teens beginning school earlier.
  • As a result of the mismatch between biological changes and earlier school start times, teenagers are often unable to sleep the recommended 8-10 hours per night that is recommended for this age. In fact, national studies show that teenagers are one of the most sleep-deprived groups in the country with only 15 percent getting the recommended hours of sleep.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • The research is clear that sleep is critical for healthy functioning and development at all points across the lifespan. Sleep disturbances have been linked to a host of outcomes including more difficulty concentrating and learning new material, lower academic performance, higher rates of obesity, increased inflammation, higher mortality, and compromised psychological health.
  • researchers found that students slept an average of 34 minutes more after the start time delay. Moreover, the increase in sleep duration was explained by students waking up later (that is, students were still going to bed around the same time). In addition, delaying school start times was also associated with higher grades, lower levels of daytime sleepiness, and fewer first-period tardies and absences. 
  • With California schools leading the way in implementing a delay at the state level, in the next three years, it is my hope that we will have more information and data about all the ways in which school start times impact all levels of a school system (e.g., bus drivers, teachers, students, parents, families, administrators) and for all students.  
edencottone

Ron DeSantis' Florida boast rings hollow (opinion) - CNN - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by edencottone on 25 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • New cases of Covid-19 in the United States have fallen in the last two months to about 55,000 a day.
  • These numbers are promising, but the ups and downs and ups tell an important lesson about keeping perspective in a pandemic. Today's promising numbers would have been horrific at this time last year and are hardly as good as they need to be.
  • No one knows this more than the country's governors. Since the Trump White House dumped the job of handling the pandemic almost entirely into their laps, they have had to respond on the fly.
  • ...10 more annotations...
  • We are already seeing the first wave of "who won and who lost" sorts of stories pitting various governors' responses against each other in horse-race fashion, as if these were early polls for the 2024 presidential election.
  • Then reality stepped in. A surge of summer cases forced the imposition of some restrictions on Floridians, like local mask mandates imposed by mayors in some cities in South Florida.
  • Now DeSantis is claiming again to be a master of pandemic control, as Florida's beach-tourism-restaurant industry is said to be doing well. Never mind that the state's seven-day infection rate of 143.9 per 100,000 population places it 12th highest of the 50 states.
  • For example, as of March 22, over the last seven days, Florida has had the most Covid-19 cases in the country, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the 12th highest per capita case-rate, the fourth highest number of deaths, and the 17th highest death rate.
  • Once celebrated for his pandemic management, he is now getting poor marks on managing. He has not strutted or had roundtables of fan-doctors to sing his praise. But the fact is California's recent numbers are much better than those of Florida, coming in at about 47th in the country with a case-rate 46.8 per 100,000, according to the CDC's data, and fewer deaths as well.
  • Florida is ignoring the death toll and instead pushing the upbeat metrics the governor would like America to pay attention to: jobs are up! and schools are open! DeSantis stood up to the Covid-19 threat like John Wayne would have done!
  • Rather than wallow in reality, she chose to celebrate an active economy and the joys of hunting season (note: the South Dakota new-infection rate is climbing the charts once again and sits at 105 per 100,000 South Dakotans ).
  • These rate-the-governors perspectives ignore a basic fact: it is no time for trophies.
  • Worse, this obeisance to economic and social factors as measure of success creates a series of disturbing false equivalencies as they compare deaths against the economy.
  • Measuring Covid-19 management on anything other than the number of human lives lost is not only disgraceful, it will also almost certainly lead us to make all the wrong decisions once again and usher in yet another Covid-19 resurgence in the US.
colemorris

Covid in California: The state is struggling to contain the virus - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.com/...election-us-2020-55578098

covid

shared by colemorris on 17 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • California was praised for acting swiftly to contain the coronavirus last spring. Now more than 31,000 people have died of the virus in the state.
  • California was the first to issue a state-wide stay-at-home order, and experts at the time predicted the pandemic would peak here in April with fewer than 2,000 lives lost.
    • colemorris
      colemorris on 17 Jan 21
       
      started out so hopeful
  • But since November, deaths have surged by more than 1,000%. In Los Angeles alone, nearly 2,000 people died this week.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Makeshift morgues have been set up across the state, ICUs are full, oxygen is being rationed and ambulance teams have been told not to transport those unlikely to survive the night because hospitals are too full.
  • Disneyland, which has been closed since March, is now being turned into a massive vaccination centre
  • And like most places, Covid-19 has hit Los Angeles' poor the hardest.
  • For every case of Covid in Beverly Hills, there are six times more in Compton. While two people from Bel Air have died, more than 230 people have lost their lives in working-class East LA.
  • As the virus spreads, it's likely mutating more than we know, says Dr Neha Nanda."Maybe the bigger the place, the more variation," she says.
tongoscar

Ridgecrest earthquakes show how small faults can trigger big quakes - Los Angeles Times - 0 views

www.latimes.com/...uake-ruptured-dozens-of-faults

shared by tongoscar on 25 Nov 19 - No Cached
  • When an earthquake strikes, the instinct of many Californians is to ask: Which fault ruptured — the Newport-Inglewood, the Hayward, the mighty San Andreas?
  • But scientists are increasingly saying it’s not that simple.
  • New research shows that the Ridgecrest earthquakes that began in July ruptured at least two dozen faults.
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • The findings are important in helping understand how earthquakes can grow in the seconds after a fault ruptures, when two blocks of earth move away from each other.
  • The results provide even more evidence to support the idea that California faults once thought to be limited by their individual length can actually link together in a much more massive earthquake.
  • “The point is that the Landers earthquake and this earthquake are daisy-chaining up faults that previously were thought to rupture only by themselves, and that’s an important observation,”
  • The study raises the possibility that past earthquakes actually may have been bigger than previously thought.
  • In New Zealand, scientists were stunned at the bizarre map of the faults ruptured in the magnitude 7.8 Kaikoura earthquake of 2016, resembling an upside-down trident aimed at the silhouette of an eagle.
  • On a practical level, the research underscores the potential limitations of state earthquake zones designated to prevent new construction directly on top of faults,
  • Further analysis needs to be done to determine whether the 20 cross faults identified in the Ridgecrest study using computer analysis of shaking records actually broke the ground at the surface, according to Tim Dawson, a senior engineering geologist with the California Geological Survey.
  • A significant achievement of this study, Dolan said, was being able to image what faults look like deep underground, at a depth where earthquakes begin.
  • what this study proves is that the structural complexity continues deep underground where earthquakes begin, Dolan said.That’s important, Dolan said, because it may help scientists determine where future earthquakes are likely to stop, which tends to happen where faults become structurally complicated.
katieb0305

Richmond, California: Paying kids not to kill - CNN.com - 0 views

www.cnn.com/...index.html

shared by katieb0305 on 30 May 16 - No Cached
  • But this is no ordinary group. The mentor is an ex-con working for the city. The teens are suspected of the worst types of crimes but haven't faced prosecution, for lack of evidence. The mentor's job: Get them to put down their guns, stop their violent ways and transform their lives beyond the streets.
  • Fueled by gang violence, neighborhood rivalries and large-scale unemployment among black youth, the violence led to 47 homicides in Richmond in 2007
  • The next year, Boggan saw the killings drop to 27 -- a 40% decline -- as he began his strategy of hiring reformed ex-cons and sending them into the most violent neighborhoods to keep the peace.
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • And so Operation Peacemaker was born. Loosely based on an academic fellowship, the ONS program invites some of the most hardened youth into the fold: often teenage boys suspected of violent crimes but whom authorities don't have enough evidence to charge criminally.
  • They are hooked up with mentors -- the reformed criminals-turned-city workers -- who offer advice, guidance and support to get jobs. If the fellows show good behavior after six months, they can earn a stipend of up to $1,000 a month.
  • In the media, the fellowship is often dubbed "cash for criminals," which makes Boggan's eyes roll. He laughs because, although it's true, the program is so much more. And it's predicated on the most basic of human elements: "We harass them with love and kindness."
Javier E

Measles Cases Linked to Disneyland Rise, and Debate Over Vaccinations Intensifies - NYT... - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...-vaccinations-intensifies.html

science denial vaccine

shared by Javier E on 22 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • This is a serious contagious disease that is preventable. The message is absolutely critical that if you are not vaccinated, you need to get vaccinated.”
  • Health officials said there were pockets across the state, including wealthy neighborhoods in Los Angeles and Orange Counties and enclaves in Northern California, where the exemption rate jumped into the double digits.
  • The vaccination exemption rate among kindergarten students in California — cases in which parents said they did not want their children vaccinated for health, religious or other reasons — was 3.1 percent in the 2013-14 school year, according to the C.D.C. report. Oregon had an exemption rate of 7.1 percent, the nation’s highest, the report found. Health officials said the vaccination rate needed to be above 95 percent in all communities to prevent outbreaks.
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • “The problem is that there are these pockets with low vaccination rates,” said Dr. Jane Seward, the deputy director of the viral diseases division at the C.D.C. “If a case comes into a population where a lot of people are unvaccinated, that’s where you get the outbreak and where you get the spread.”
  • “It’s premature to blame the increase in reports of measles on the unvaccinated when we don’t have all the facts yet,” said Barbara Loe Fisher, the president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a group raising concerns about inoculations. “I do know this: Fifty-seven cases of measles coming out of Disneyland in a country with a population of 317 million people is not a lot of cases. We should all take a deep breath and wait to see and get more information.”
anonymous

Controversial Quantum Machine Tested by NASA and Google Shows Promise | MIT Technology ... - 0 views

www.technologyreview.com/...-quantum-computer-really-works

technology machine tested nasa google psychology knowledge science research

shared by anonymous on 10 Dec 15 - No Cached
  • artificial-intelligence software.
  • Google says it has proof that a controversial machine it bought in 2013 really can use quantum physics to work through a type of math that’s crucial to artificial intelligence much faster than a conventional computer.
  • “It is a truly disruptive technology that could change how we do everything,” said Rupak Biswas, director of exploration technology at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California.
  • ...7 more annotations...
  • An alternative algorithm is known that could have let the conventional computer be more competitive, or even win, by exploiting what Neven called a “bug” in D-Wave’s design. Neven said the test his group staged is still important because that shortcut won’t be available to regular computers when they compete with future quantum annealers capable of working on larger amounts of data.
  • “For a specific, carefully crafted proof-of-concept problem we achieve a 100-million-fold speed-up,” said Neven.
  • “the world’s first commercial quantum computer.” The computer is installed at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, California, and operates on data using a superconducting chip called a quantum annealer.
  • Google is competing with D-Wave to make a quantum annealer that could do useful work.
  • Martinis is also working on quantum hardware that would not be limited to optimization problems, as annealers are.
  • Government and university labs, Microsoft (see “Microsoft’s Quantum Mechanics”), and IBM (see “IBM Shows Off a Quantum Computing Chip”) are also working on that technology.
  • “it may be several years before this research makes a difference to Google products.”
cvanderloo

Heat is a serious threat to dairy cows - we're finding innovative ways to keep them cool - 0 views

theconversation.com/e-ways-to-keep-them-cool-84494

global warming climate change science technology research knowledge

shared by cvanderloo on 27 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • Severe overheating can threaten cows’ health and their ability to get pregnant and carry calves to term.
  • Dairy farmers use fans and sprayers to cool cows in their barns, but there is a substantial need for better options. Existing systems use a lot of energy and water, which is costly for farmers. And climate change is raising temperatures and stressing California’s water supplies.
  • Cows are particularly sensitive to hot weather: Their body temperature is 101.5 degrees Fahrenheit, three degrees higher than humans, and they create a large amount of heat as they break down feed in their stomachs and produce milk.
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • These are all considered signs of heat stress. Once it sets in, cows will produce less milk. They may have trouble getting and staying pregnant, and in severe cases may die.
  • These strategies help cows regulate their body temperature, but use large quantities of water and electricity. The average California dairy farm spends US$140,000 annually on utilities. Furthermore, these systems may be insufficient during extreme heat waves.
  • Our first cooling technology uses mats buried approximately 4 inches underneath the sand bedding where cows lie down. Water flows through the mats and absorbs heat from the cows through conduction.
  • The second technology uses targeted direct evaporative cooling, sometimes referred to as a “swamp cooler,” and fabric ducts to blow cool air on the cows in the areas where cows eat and rest.
  • During our first test phase, we tested all four treatments on 32 cows at UC Davis and collected data on their respiration rates, body temperature, milk yield and behavior, as well as weather, water use and energy use. Data analysis is underway. We anticipate that we will identify at least one option that will cool cows as effectively as current options, but will also save water, energy or both.
martinelligi

Battling bias and other toxicities in natural language generation | InfoWorld - 0 views

www.infoworld.com/...tural-language-generation.html

bias language technology

shared by martinelligi on 12 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • NLG (natural language generation) may be too powerful for its own good. This technology can generate huge varieties of natural-language textual content in vast quantities at top speed.
  • Today’s most sophisticated NLG algorithms learn the intricacies of human speech by training complex statistical models on huge corpora of human-written texts
  • The algorithm can generate samples of news articles which human evaluators have difficulty distinguishing from articles written by humans. It can also generate a complete essay purely on the basis of a single starting sentence, a few words, or even a prompt
  • ...3 more annotations...
  • In addition to human authors who may not be able to keep up with the models’ output, the NLG algorithms themselves may regard as normal many of the more toxic things that they have supposedly “learned” from textual databases, such as racist, sexist, and other discriminatory language.
  • Recent months have seen increased attention to racial, religious, gender, and other biases that are embedded in NLG models such as GPT-3. For example, recent research coauthored by scientists at the University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Irvine; and the University of Maryland found that GPT-3 placed derogatory words such as “naughty” or “sucked” near female pronouns and inflammatory words such as “terrorism” near “Islam.”
  • Recognizing that algorithmic bias may be a dealbreaker issue for the entire NLG industry, OpenAI has announced that it won’t broadly expand access to GPT-3 until it’s comfortable that the model has adequate safeguards to protect against biased and other toxic outputs.
Javier E

Who Decides What's Racist? - Persuasion - 1 views

www.persuasion.community/...who-decides-whats-racist

persuasion racism Critical Theory race Culture Politics epistemology perspective bias

shared by Javier E on 14 May 21 - No Cached
  • The implication of Hannah-Jones’s tweet and candidate Biden’s quip seems to be that you can have African ancestry, dark skin, textured hair, and perhaps even some “culturally black” traits regarding tastes in food, music, and ways of moving through the world. But unless you hold the “correct” political beliefs and values, you are not authentically black.
  • In a now-deleted tweet from May 22, 2020, Nikole Hannah-Jones, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter for The New York Times, opined, “There is a difference between being politically black and being racially black.”
  • Shelly Eversley’s The Real Negro suggests that in the latter half of the 20th century, the criteria of what constitutes “authentic” black experience moved from perceptible outward signs, like the fact of being restricted to segregated public spaces and speaking in a “black” dialect, to psychological, interior signs. In this new understanding, Eversley writes, “the ‘truth’ about race is felt, not performed, not seen.”
  • ...26 more annotations...
  • This insight goes a long way to explaining the current fetishization of experience, especially if it is (redundantly) “lived.” Black people from all walks of life find themselves deferred to by non-blacks
  • black people certainly don’t all “feel” or “experience” the same things. Nor do they all "experience" the same event in an identical way. Finally, even when their experiences are similar, they don’t all think about or interpret their experiences in the same way.
  • we must begin to attend in a serious way to heterodox black voices
  • This need is especially urgent given the ideological homogeneity of the “antiracist” outlook and efforts of elite institutions, including media, corporations, and an overwhelmingly progressive academia. For the arbiters of what it means to be black that dominate these institutions, there is a fairly narrowly prescribed “authentic” black narrative, black perspective, and black position on every issue that matters.
  • When we hear the demand to “listen to black voices,” what is usually meant is “listen to the right black voices.”
  • Many non-black people have heard a certain construction of “the black voice” so often that they are perplexed by black people who don’t fit the familiar model.
  • Similarly, many activists are not in fact “pro-black”: they are pro a rather specific conception of “blackness” that is not necessarily endorsed by all black people.
  • This is where our new website, Free Black Thought (FBT), seeks to intervene in the national conversation. FBT honors black individuals for their distinctive, diverse, and heterodox perspectives, and offers up for all to hear a polyphony, perhaps even a cacophony, of different and differing black voices.
  • The practical effects of the new antiracism are everywhere to be seen, but in few places more clearly than in our children’s schools
  • one might reasonably question what could be wrong with teaching children “antiracist” precepts. But the details here are full of devils.
  • To take an example that could affect millions of students, the state of California has adopted a statewide Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum (ESMC) that reflects “antiracist” ideas. The ESMC’s content inadvertently confirms that contemporary antiracism is often not so much an extension of the civil rights movement but in certain respects a tacit abandonment of its ideals.
  • It has thus been condemned as a “perversion of history” by Dr. Clarence Jones, MLK’s legal counsel, advisor, speechwriter, and Scholar in Residence at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Institute at Stanford University:
  • Essentialist thinking about race has also gained ground in some schools. For example, in one elite school, students “are pressured to conform their opinions to those broadly associated with their race and gender and to minimize or dismiss individual experiences that don’t match those assumptions.” These students report feeling that “they must never challenge any of the premises of [the school’s] ‘antiracist’ teachings.”
  • In contrast, the non-white students were taught that they were “folx (sic) who do not benefit from their social identities,” and “have little to no privilege and power.”
  • The children with “white” in their identity map were taught that they were part of the “dominant culture” which has been “created and maintained…to hold power and stay in power.” They were also taught that they had “privilege” and that “those with privilege have power over others.
  • Or consider the third-grade students at R.I. Meyerholz Elementary School in Cupertino, California
  • Or take New York City’s public school system, one of the largest educators of non-white children in America. In an effort to root out “implicit bias,” former Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza had his administrators trained in the dangers of “white supremacy culture.”
  • A slide from a training presentation listed “perfectionism,” “individualism,” “objectivity” and “worship of the written word” as white supremacist cultural traits to be “dismantled,”
  • Finally, some schools are adopting antiracist ideas of the sort espoused by Ibram X. Kendi, according to whom, if metrics such as tests and grades reveal disparities in achievement, the project of measuring achievement must itself be racist.
  • Parents are justifiably worried about such innovations. What black parent wants her child to hear that grading or math are “racist” as a substitute for objective assessment and real learning? What black parent wants her child told she shouldn’t worry about working hard, thinking objectively, or taking a deep interest in reading and writing because these things are not authentically black?
  • Clearly, our children’s prospects for success depend on the public being able to have an honest and free-ranging discussion about this new antiracism and its utilization in schools. Even if some black people have adopted its tenets, many more, perhaps most, hold complex perspectives that draw from a constellation of rather different ideologies.
  • So let’s listen to what some heterodox black people have to say about the new antiracism in our schools.
  • Coleman Hughes, a fellow at the Manhattan Institute, points to a self-defeating feature of Kendi-inspired grading and testing reforms: If we reject high academic standards for black children, they are unlikely to rise to “those same rejected standards” and racial disparity is unlikely to decrease
  • Chloé Valdary, the founder of Theory of Enchantment, worries that antiracism may “reinforce a shallow dogma of racial essentialism by describing black and white people in generalizing ways” and discourage “fellowship among peers of different races.”
  • We hope it’s obvious that the point we’re trying to make is not that everyone should accept uncritically everything these heterodox black thinkers say. Our point in composing this essay is that we all desperately need to hear what these thinkers say so we can have a genuine conversation
  • We promote no particular politics or agenda beyond a desire to offer a wide range of alternatives to the predictable fare emanating from elite mainstream outlets. At FBT, Marxists rub shoulders with laissez-faire libertarians. We have no desire to adjudicate who is “authentically black” or whom to prefer.
caelengrubb

11 mind-blowing facts about the US economy | Markets Insider - 1 views

markets.businessinsider.com/...conomy-facts-2019-4-1028101291

shared by caelengrubb on 28 Mar 21 - No Cached
  • For more than a century, the United States has been the world's economic powerhouse.
  • The US is on the verge of its longest economic expansion on record
  • Last May, the US economy's streak of more than eight years of economic growth became the nation's second longest on record. It's been a slow climb following the Great Recession, but it's growth nonetheless.
  • ...22 more annotations...
  • But the US also just hit a record 13 straight years without 3% real GDP growth
  • While the US has had a record period of economic expansion, it's not setting the world on fire. It's been a record 13 straight years without reaching 3% real gross domestic product growth. The US has come close, hitting 2.9% growth in 2018, but America hasn't hit a real GDP growth of 3% since 2005, when it grew 3.5%
  • The decade-long expansion has generated 20 million jobs
  • With economic growth stretching the past decade, key figures continue to get better. A 3.4% year-over-year wage growth is the strongest in more than a decade, a good sign as stagnant wages have kept the US middle class at bay
  • Still, the jobless rate fell to 3.8%
  • Sleep deprivation costs the US economy billions of dollars
  • More than a third of the US adult population doesn't get enough sleep, and that costs the US $411 billion through the loss of 1.2 million work days each year.
  • The lack of sleep can come from a variety of factors, whether it's overworking, poor health habits, or even the horrid blue light from electronics
  • About $100,000 separates the middle class from the upper class
  • The sports industry is worth nearly $75 billion
  • Generation Z might spend as much as $143 billion next year
  • Generation Z, the population born between 1997 and 2012, will make up 40% of US consumers by next year.
  • The average car part crosses into Mexico and Canada eight times in production
  • Mexico is the top trade partner, with the US exporting $21.9 billion worth of products to its southern neighbor and importing $27.7 billion, making up 14.8% of all US trade. Canada, meanwhile, makes up 13.8% of US trade as it imports $22.6 billion worth of American goods and sends in $23.4 billion
  • If California were a country, it would have the fifth highest GDP in the world
  • With a gross domestic product of $2.747 trillion, California would only trail Germany, Japan, China, and the US as a whole.
  • The US spends more on defense than the next seven nations combined
  • That $610 billion is good for 15% of all federal spending
  • The US national debt is at an all-time high
  • In February, US government debt hit an all-time high of $22 trillion
  • In 2011, 51% of Americans were considered middle class, and that number grew slightly to 52% in 2016
  • A sports-industry report back in 2015 predicted the market in North America would be worth more than $73.5 billion by this year.
anonymous

Germany Moves Toward Requiring Women On Large Companies' Executive Boards : NPR - 0 views

www.npr.org/...rge-companies-executive-boards

shared by anonymous on 12 Jan 21 - No Cached
  • On Wednesday, Germany's cabinet approved a draft law that would require stock exchange-listed companies with executive boards of more than three members to have at least one woman and one man on those boards.
  • The legislation also contains a provision intended to improve the effectiveness of a 2015 law that requires leading companies' supervisory boards — which are generally chosen by shareholders and don't have executive powers — to have at least 30% of their positions occupied by women.
  • The new law would extend the 30% requirement to companies in which the federal government is the majority shareholder
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • Federal Minister for Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth Franziska Giffey called the law a "milestone" that would ensure there will no longer be women-free boardrooms in these large companies.
  • An October 2020 report by the AllBright Foundation, which advocates for boardroom diversity, found that Germany lags the U.S., France, the U.K., Poland and Sweden in the proportion of women on executive boards
  • The study found that in the U.S., women comprise 28.6% of the executive boards of the 30 largest publicly traded companies.
  • "The perception of Germany is that, because we've had a female chancellor for the last 15 years, Germany is very progressive in that matter, but actually it is not,"
  • In 2018, California became the first U.S. state to require companies based there to have women on their boards of directors.
1 - 20 of 144 Next › Last »
Showing 20▼ items per page