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Javier E

Colleges are turning students' phones into surveillance machines - The Washington Post - 0 views

www.washingtonpost.com/...g-locations-hundreds-thousands

surveillance college tech culture privacy

shared by Javier E on 26 Dec 19 - No Cached
  • When Syracuse University freshmen walk into professor Jeff Rubin’s Introduction to Information Technologies class, seven small Bluetooth beacons hidden around the Grant Auditorium lecture hall connect with an app on their smartphones and boost their “attendance points.”
  • And when they skip class? The SpotterEDU app sees that, too, logging their absence into a campus database that tracks them over time and can sink their grade. It also alerts Rubin, who later contacts students to ask where they’ve been. His 340-person lecture has never been so full.“They want those points,” he said. “They know I’m watching and acting on it. So, behaviorally, they change.”
  • Dozens of schools now use such technology to monitor students’ academic performance, analyze their conduct or assess their mental health.
  • ...20 more annotations...
  • The tracking systems, they worry, will infantilize students in the very place where they’re expected to grow into adults, further training them to see surveillance as a normal part of living, whether they like it or not.
  • A flood of cameras, sensors and microphones, wired to an online backbone, now can measure people’s activity and whereabouts with striking precision, reducing the mess of everyday living into trend lines that companies promise to help optimize.
  • “Graduates will be well prepared … to embrace 24/7 government tracking and social credit systems,” one commenter on the Slashdot message board said. “Building technology was a lot more fun before it went all 1984.”
  • Instead of GPS coordinates, the schools rely on networks of Bluetooth transmitters and wireless access points to piece together students’ movements from dorm to desk. One company that uses school WiFi networks to monitor movements says it gathers 6,000 location data points per student every day.
  • The dream of some administrators is a university where every student is a model student, adhering to disciplined patterns of behavior that are intimately quantified, surveilled and analyzed
  • “These administrators have made a justification for surveilling a student population because it serves their interests, in terms of the scholarships that come out of their budget, the reputation of their programs, the statistics for the school,”
  • one feeling is almost universally shared, according to interviews with more than a dozen students and faculty members: that the technology is becoming ubiquitous, and that the people being monitored — their peers, and themselves — can’t really do anything about it.
  • “We’re reinforcing this sense of powerlessness … when we could be asking harder questions, like: Why are we creating institutions where students don’t want to show up?”
  • SpotterEDU chief Rick Carter, a former college basketball coach, said he founded the app in 2015 as a way to watch over student athletes: Many schools already pay “class checkers” to make sure athletes remain eligible to play.
  • “Students today have so many distractions,” said Tami Chievous, an associate athletic director at the University of Missouri, where advisers text some freshmen athletes if they don’t show up within five minutes of class. “We have to make sure they’re doing the right thing.”
  • Students’ attendance and tardiness are scored into a point system that some professors use for grading, Carter said, and schools can use the data to “take action” against truant students, such as grabbing back scholarship funds
  • For even more data, schools can turn to the Austin-based start-up Degree Analytics, which uses WiFi check-ins to track the movements of roughly 200,000 students across 19 state universities, private colleges and other schools.
  • Benz tells school administrators that his system can solve “a real lack of understanding about the student experience”: By analyzing campus WiFi data, he said, 98 percent of their students can be measured and analyzed.
  • A classifier algorithm divides the student body into peer groups — “full-time freshmen,” say, or “commuter students” — and the system then compares each student to “normal” behavior, as defined by their peers. It also generates a “risk score” for students based around factors such as how much time they spent in community centers or at the gym.
  • Some administrators love the avalanche of data these kinds of WiFi-based systems bring. “Forget that old ominous line, ‘We know where you live.’ These days, it’s, ‘We know where you are,’ ” Purdue University president Mitch Daniels wrote last year about his school’s location-tracking software. “Isn’t technology wonderful?”
  • If these systems work so well in college, administrators might argue, why not high school or anywhere else?
  • He now says he wishes schools would share the data with parents, too. “I just cut you a $30,000 check,” he said, “and I can’t find out if my kid’s going to class or not?”
  • Some parents, however, wish their children faced even closer supervision. Wes Grandstaff, who said his son, Austin, transformed from a struggling student to college graduate with SpotterEDU’s help, said the added surveillance was worth it: “When you’re a college athlete, they basically own you, so it didn’t matter what he felt: You’re going to get watched and babysat whether you like it or not.”
  • Joanna Grama, an information-security consultant and higher-education specialist who has advised the Department of Homeland Security on data privacy, said she doubted most students knew they were signing up for long-term monitoring when they clicked to connect to the campus WiFi.
  • “At what point in time do we start crippling a whole generation of adults, human beings, who have been so tracked and told what to do all the time that they don’t know how to fend for themselves?” she said. “Is that cruel? Or is that kind?”
anonymous

Trump Rallies Have Crowds. Biden Rallies Have Cars. Both Are OK With That. - The New York Times - 0 views

www.nytimes.com/...trump-biden-rallies.html

politics trump

shared by anonymous on 02 Nov 20 - No Cached
  • For President Trump, the only thing that really matters is the size of his crowds. For Joseph R. Biden Jr., the road to the White House is full of honking cars.
  • Mr. Trump is defined by his obsession with the size of his rallies, an almost inevitable bookend to his boastful exaggerations about the number of people who attended his inauguration four years ago. For the president, campaigning is a show, and its success is defined by the ratings that come with it: the crowds.
  • Mr. Biden’s socially distanced rallies, which draw hundreds, not thousands, of people in their vehicles, are the physical manifestation of his willingness to sacrifice numbers for safety.
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  • Mr. Trump was holding rallies in five states on Sunday after spending a full day in Pennsylvania on Saturday.
  • Mr. Biden has also faulted Mr. Trump for endangering his own supporters.“I’m being responsible and I’m not becoming a great spreader of Covid,” Mr. Biden said last week, making explicit the distinction that he has been trying to draw for months. Mr. Trump, he said, is “putting thousands of people at risk.”
  • Mr. Trump bragged about attracting bigger crowds than Mr. Biden and former President Barack Obama, who campaigned together on Saturday. “I hate to say it, Obama doesn’t draw any better,” he said. “They went as a twosome and they had less people.”
  • But Mr. Trump is less enthusiastic when the input comes from smaller crowds. On Saturday morning, as he spoke to only about 300 people at his first Pennsylvania rally of the day, Mr. Trump was lethargic and subdued, as if he were privately thinking to himself: Yawn.
  • “A great red wave is forming,” Mr. Trump said on Saturday in Newtown, Pa. “As sure as we’re here together, that wave is forming. And they see it, they see it on all sides, and there’s not a thing they can do about it.”
  • “It’s a great way to show the enthusiasm and get the feeling of a campaign while being Covid safe,” said Jenn Ridder, the national states director for the Biden campaign. “People love them. They love the honking and the noise. I think people want to feel part of something, and especially in Covid.”
  • “The horns can be really cool as far as call and response,” said Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist II of Michigan, who spoke at the rallies in Flint and Detroit. “You have people kind of sitting on top of their cars, or hanging out the window.”
  • “It kind of personifies this campaign,” Mr. Gilchrist added. “Joe Biden is a person who values human connection.”
  • But the format allows for something that has been missing when Mr. Biden gives speeches during the pandemic in front of small groups of reporters: audible feedback from the crowd, even if it is different from the applause at Mr. Trump’s rallies.
  • While President Trump still thrills to the roar of a crowd, even during a pandemic, Joe Biden has found a new way to get audience feedback: through honking horns at his drive-in rallies.
  • Both men put those competing identities on display as they dashed across battleground states over the weekend.
  • Mr. Trump enters his rallies to pounding music and crowds roaring their approval — with few people wearing masks — as he throws Make America Great Again hats into the stands like T-shirts at a basketball game.
  • On Sunday, Mr. Trump also had rallies scheduled in Dubuque, Iowa; Hickory, N.C.; Rome, Ga.; and Opa-locka, Fla. — the last one at 11 p.m.
  • t the event in Flint, Mr. Obama mocked his successor for his “obsession” with crowd size, asking: “Did no one come to his birthday party when he was a kid? Was he traumatized?”
  • For attendees, it is a new experience, and they have different approaches to taking in the proceedings. Some people stay inside their cars, allowing easy access to honking. Others stand near their cars, a position that allows for sign hoisting or flag waving.
brookegoodman

George Floyd death: Jadon Sancho & Marcus Thuram join protests against racism - BBC Sport - 0 views

www.bbc.com/52871279

crisis US

shared by brookegoodman on 31 May 20 - No Cached
  • England forward Jadon Sancho was among a number of sports stars adding their voice to worldwide protests against racism on Sunday.
  • Sancho later wrote on Instagram: "Delighted to get my first career hat trick, a bittersweet moment personally as there are more important things going on in the world today that we must address and help make a change.
  • Two-time Grand Slam champion Naomi Osaka wrote on Twitter: "Just because it isn't happening to you doesn't mean it isn't happening at all."
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  • American tennis player Serena Williams, a 23-time Grand Slam champion, shared a lengthy post on Instagram.
  • Teenager Coco Gauff, who had a fairytale run at Wimbledon in 2019, urged her Twitter followers to "demand justice for George Floyd".
  • Liverpool striker Rhian Brewster wrote a lengthy post on Twitter: "This is way deeper than just pointing out who's staying quiet and whose speaking up."
  • Vanessa Bryant, the widow of basketball legend Kobe, shared an image of her husband wearing an 'I Can't Breathe' t-shirt.
  • Formula 1 champion Lewis Hamilton criticised those in his industry for not speaking out.
Javier E

There's a New Menace Stalking Suburbia. Meet the McBasement. - WSJ - 0 views

www.wsj.com/...eet-the-mcbasement-11665497875

rich house construction size excess culture

shared by Javier E on 23 Dec 22 - No Cached
  • One solution? Go low. “The possibilities are endless,” says Stephen Cheney, owner of Cheney Custom Homes, who is currently constructing a roughly 16,000-square-foot home and guest home with a 5,600-square-foot “bunker” below for a bowling alley, 3-D golf simulator, and spa..origami-wrapper *{margin:0;padding:0;border:0}.origami-top-border{border-top:1px solid #dadada;padding-top:10px}.origami-headline{font-family:Retina,'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-weight:500;color:#333;font-size:18px;line-height:20px;margin-bottom:8px}.origami-image-wrapper{display:flex;margin-bottom:10px;gap:10px}.origami-image-wrapper:last-of-type{margin-bottom:8px}.origami-image{flex:1 1}.origami-image img{max-width:100%;width:100%;height:100%;display:block;max-inline-size:100%}.origami-image figcaption{display:none}.origami-caption{display:block;font-family:Retina,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:300;color:#555;line-height:18.6667px;margin-bottom:4px}.origami-credit{display:block;font-family:Retina,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:300;color:#555;line-height:20px;text-transform:uppercase}@media (min-width:640px){#origami-dac13529-1203-4200-8bb3-a2147cdf655f .origami-hide-on-desktop{display:none}}@media (max-width:639px){#origami-dac13529-1203-4200-8bb3-a2147cdf655f .origami-hide-on-mobile{display:none}}
  • Basements can dwarf homes above. Designer Andrew Kotchen, a principal at Workshop/APD, is working on a 5,000-square-foot Nantucket abode that will have a 10,000-square-foot basement with a basketball court, garage, bedrooms and a wellness space.
  • For the 10,000-square-foot grotto, workers are using the same waterproofing technique as Boston’s Big Dig highway project, Mr. Kotchen says. An emergency pump system and thick concrete slab underneath will prevent the foundation from floating up should water levels rise, he says.
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  • In Aspen, a 5,000-square-foot basement at the confluence of two rivers required “dewatering,” says Ryan Walterscheid, a partner at architecture firm Forum Phi. Workers drilled wells around the site and pumped out almost a billion gallons of water before pouring the foundation. (The water was poured back into the river.)
  • r David Taban, who is trying to build a 23,144-square-foot house, of which 9,829 would be a basement. (He wants to dig down to appease neighbors who worried his home would hurt their views.) But getting a basement of that size required removing 5,346 cubic yards of dirt, which one city planner said would amount to 594 truckloads.
  • Spec developers know the more livable space, the bigger the price tag, says Brett Loehmann, a project manager at McClean Design. “If you don’t have great amenities, you’re not going to be the coolest person on the block.”
Javier E

French Lessons for Defeating Trump - The Atlantic - 0 views

www.theatlantic.com/...678947

france democracy defence response crisis 2024 election politics history

shared by Javier E on 11 Jul 24 - No Cached
  • The lesson was clear: Centrists, liberals, and leftists took the credible threat of right-wing authoritarian rule seriously enough to act quickly and strategically. Behaving as though their country’s future was at stake, they reacted to new information in order to maximize success.
  • No one spoke about personal loyalty to individual candidates. No one spoke about it being a given politician’s turn to be in office. No one said that it was too late to change the plan.
  • The extreme deadline instead became a motivational boon, not unlike the way a capable basketball team may go on a scoring rampage as the clock runs out.
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  • This is exactly how Democrats should have behaved after the debate between Trump and Joe Biden. In the weeks leading up to their convention next month, this is precisely what they should be doing now
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