Month: February 2013

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College degree as minimum job requirement

The college degree is becoming the new high school diploma, albeit an expensive one, and increasingly a requirement for getting even the lowest-level job.

Consider the 45-person law firm of Busch, Slipakoff & Schuh here in Atlanta, a place that has seen tremendous growth in the college

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-educated population, reports today’s New York

Times.  “Like other employers across the country, the firm hires only people with a bachelor’s degree, even for jobs that do not require college-level skills. Continue reading “College degree as minimum job requirement”

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The other sin of the American South

imgres-2Contemporary American politics cannot be understood apart from the North-South divide in the U.S., as I and others have argued, writes Michael Lind in today’s Salon Magazine.   “Neither can contemporary American economic debates.  The real choice facing America in the 21st century is the same one that faced it in the 19th and 20th centuries — Northernomics or Southernomics?

“Northernomics is the high-road strategy of building a flourishing national economy by means of government-business cooperation and government investment in R&D, infrastructure and education.  Continue reading “The other sin of the American South”

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Art and the economy explained

Experts agree that arts and culture are an important part of the economy – but the precise relationship is complicated.

As governments and organizations increasingly have to justify spending, the big question remains: does investment in the arts stimulate growth, or are the arts the product of economic development? These questions were posed in today’s edition of The Guardian in a story that continues below:imgres-1

“Few people think of the economic impact of visiting a gallery or buying a ticket to the theatre. But arts and culture in the US generated $135.2 billion (£87 billion) and supported 4.1 million jobs in 2010, according to the latest economic snapshot from the non-profit advocacy group, Americans for the Arts. It would seem that the case for continued arts funding is clear cut – enjoying the arts boosts the economy. But experts say the link between arts investment and economic output is tenuous. Continue reading “Art and the economy explained”

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Media non-violence trumps violence

Young children who are encouraged to watch TV programs that depict kindness, respect, and cooperation are more likely to express those traits than kids who watch everyday TV fare that includes fictional violence.

Setting the media violence debate upside  down, researchers have found that low-income boys, who tend to watch the most television, benefited the most in displaying empathy after watching nonviolent shows, reports the Christian Science Monitor.imgres-2

“And many of the parents who were guided on what kind of pro-social content to watch and how to avoid violent shows asked that such advice continue even after the study. Continue reading “Media non-violence trumps violence”

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Introducing the “People’s Satellite”

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In the unlikely surroundings of a windowless basement laboratory at Nasa Ames in California, a revolutionary spacecraft is taking shape.

Through a crowded-funded project, a mini-satellite is being prepared for launch that will, in turn, contain even more tiny satellites representing the donors, as the BBC reports: “Cornell University graduate student Zac Manchester has been lent this lab to develop KickSat. This 30cm- (12in-)  long satellite will contain 200 even smaller satellites, he’s called sprites. Around the size of a couple of postage stamps, these are probably the smallest spacecraft ever developed. Continue reading “Introducing the “People’s Satellite””

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eHarmony blues

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The Christian co-founder of the popular dating site eHarmony is no stranger to sparking controversy in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.Now, however, Neil Clark Warren has gone even further, saying he’s “tired” of the same-sex marriage debate and what he perceives as its negative impact on eHarmony, reports Huffington Post.

“’I think this issue of same-sex marriage within the next five to 15 years will be no issue anymore, Warren told Yahoo! Finance. We’ve made too much of it. I’m tired of it. It has really damaged our company.’ Continue reading “eHarmony blues”

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The end of blimps

And so ends the U.S. military’s dream of mega-blimps strapped with powerful surveillance gear. The Army confirms to Danger Room that it’s killed the last of those lighter-than-air ships, so says DangerRoom

“Say goodbye to the Long Endurance Multi-Intelligence Vehicle, or LEMV. Built by Northrop Grumman, it’s a

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dimpled blimp as long as a football field; seven stories high; and carries a price tag of over half a billion dollars. The plan was to use the blimp over Afghanistan, where its gondola could haul seventons of cargo — including advanced camera gear able to see dozens of square miles of terrain with crystal-clear resolution at a single blink. It would stay 20,000 feet above the warzone for weeks at a time, something beyond the capabilities of any spy plane, manned or piloted. Trials over Afghanistan were slated for early this year. Continue reading “The end of blimps”

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Eat less meat, the scientists now say

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People in the richworld should become “demitarians” – eating half as much meat as usual, while stopping short of giving it up – in order to avoid severe environmental damage, scientists have urged, in the clearest picture yet of how farming practices are destroying the natural world, say today’s The Guardian

“They said the horsemeat scandal had uncovered the dark side of our lust for meat, which has fuelled a trade in undocumented livestock and mislabelled cheap ready meals. ‘There is a food chain risk,’ said Professor Mark Sutton, who coined the term demitarian and is lead author of a UN Environment Programme study published on Monday . ‘Now is a good time to talk to people about this.’

“The quest for ever cheaper meat in the past few decades – most people even in rich countries ate significantly less meat one and two generations ago – has resulted in a massive expansion of intensively farmed livestock. Continue reading “Eat less meat, the scientists now say”

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Grunge and androgyny in make-up

Several strong themes seem to have emerged from the New York fall 2013 fashion collections, including a strong trend for grunge and androgynous make up, reports the New York Times fashion page today:

Grunge: “With its basic theme of anti-glamour, the grunge revival that has lasted several seasons now has been tricky for beauty. ‘There is this thought to try and give grunge more polish, maybe for a more

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considered woman,’ said James Kaliardos, a makeup artist who works with brands like Maybelline, M.A.C. and NARS. “Last season, a lot of brands paid me a lot of money just to put moisturizer on the cheeks,” he said with a wry chuckle. Continue reading “Grunge and androgyny in make-up”

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The Magdalene laundry slave women

imgresAs if the Catholic Church doesn’t have enough problems.

As many as 15,000 Irish women and girls were reportedly held in slave-like conditions in nunneries, where they were held against their will and forced to work in laundries without pay under harsh conditions through the late 1990s.

Originally established to incarcerate Protestant women and girls, the laundries became prisons run by Catholic nuns to house “fallen” women or those “troubled” with problems like learning disabilities. It seems God works in mysterious ways. Continue reading “The Magdalene laundry slave women”

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Gallup’s latest LGBT poll

According to Gallup’s most recent poll of self-identifying LGBT people, the percentage of U.S. adults who say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender ranges from 1.7% in North Dakota to 5.1% in Hawaii and 10% in the District of Columbia, according to surveys conducted from June-December 2012.imgres-2

No qualification was given as to the validity of the survey methodology. Statistically quantifying the LGBT population is subjective. And since the days of Kinsey homosexuality and heterosexuality have been viewed on a continuum rather than a binary scale. Studies like the recent Gallup poll pointing to the statistics are estimates at best. That said, the most widely accepted statistic is that one in every ten individuals is LGBT, with gender identification located on a separate spectrum.   Continue reading “Gallup’s latest LGBT poll”

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Death by asteroid

imgres-1Most people in the U.S. woke up to a spectacular sight this morning: videos from Russian dashboard cameras showing a fireball in the sky crashing down to the Earth, reports Wired Science.  “The 15-meter meteorite impacted the atmosphere and exploded above the Chelyabinsk region of central Russia, injuring an estimated 1,200 people and causing roughly 1 billion rubles ($33 million U.S.) in damage. It was the largest meteorite to hit the country in more than a century.

“It’s hard to know what’s stranger about the event. That a substantial meteorite hit the Earth on the same day as a 50-meter asteroid is making a record-breaking (and completely safe) close pass, that people have been thinking more and more about how to deflect potentially killer space rocks, or that we live in a day and age when dozens of videos of a fairly rare event can be uploaded to the internet and instantly seen worldwide. Continue reading “Death by asteroid”

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Facebook hacked again

Facebook Inc has said that it been the target of a series of attacks by an unidentified hacker group, but it had found no evidence that user data was compromised, reports today’s Al Jazeera.

“’Last month, Facebook security discovered that our systems had been targeted in a sophisticated attack,’ the company said in a blog post posted on Friday afternoon, just before the three-day Presidents Day weekend. ‘The attack occurred when a handful of employees visited a mobile developer website that was compromised.’imgres

“The social network, which says it has more than one billion active users worldwide, also said: ‘Facebook was not alone in this attack. It is clear that others were attacked and infiltrated recently as well.’ Continue reading “Facebook hacked again”

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A valentine from the cat

For most of the 20th century, animals weren’t allowed to have emotions.imgres-4 Your dog didn’t actually love you—it (and it was an “it” back then) was just a stimulus–response machine conditioned to act a specific way in a specific situation, says today’s Valentine edition of Wired Science.  “Scientists who said otherwise—that animals actually had minds capable of thoughts and emotions—were accused of ‘anthropomorphizing’ and ridiculed by their peers. Even researchers as famous as chimp specialist Jane Goodall spent years sitting on evidence that animals could do more than just salivate at the sound of a bell.

‘But over time, that bias waned. Just consider the first sentence (and the title) of Virginia Morell’s new book, Animal Wise: The Thoughts and Emotions of Our Fellow Creatures: ‘Animals have minds.’ Continue reading “A valentine from the cat”

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Who cares about Saturday mail delivery?

Blame it on  Amazon.com.

In an age when hard-copy mail seems out of date, people under 30 are the biggest protesters to canceling Saturday mail deliveries in the U.S.  It seems getting those one-day package deliveries must be habit-forming. African-Americans of all ages don’t like the idea either. But it seems older white people just don’t care much either way, as Pew reports from its most recent survey:

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“A majority of Americans (54%) approve of the U.S. Postal Service’s recent decision to halt Saturday delivery of letters, while 32% disapprove of the decision. The planned end of Saturday mail delivery is a rare government decision that garners bipartisan support – 58% of independents approve of the action, as do 57% of Republicans and 51% of Democrats. Continue reading “Who cares about Saturday mail delivery?”

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Horse-meat lasagna

imgres-3A meat processing firm in the south of France was named Thursday night as having a central role in the horsemeat lasagne scandal as a convicted Dutch fraudster who supplied the meat admitted close ties with the French firm, The Guardian reports today

“A French investigation suggested that meat wholesaler Spanghero was implicated in the scandal of ready-made frozen beef meals that contained horse flesh, affecting supermarkets across Europe. Benoît Hamon, the French consumer affairs minister, said the inquiry showed that Spanghero was the first ‘agent’ in the food chain to stamp the label beef on horsemeat. The investigation suggested the firm ‘knew that meat destined for ready meals was horse’.The French authorities found that Spanghero had profited to the tune of more than €500,000 (£430,000) over six months by marketing the cheap horsemeat as much more expensive beef. Continue reading “Horse-meat lasagna”

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demand rising for morning after pill

The use of morning-after pills by American women has more than doubled in recent years, driven largely by rising rates of use among women in their early 20s, according to new federal data released Thursday.

The finding is likely to add to the public debate over rules issued by the Obama administration under the new health care law that require most employers to provide free coverage of birth control, including morning-after pills, to female employees.imgres-1
Some religious institutions and some employers have objected to the requirement and filed lawsuits to block its enforcement.

Morning-after pills, which help prevent pregnancy after sex, were used by 11 percent of sexually active women from 2006 to 2010, the period of the study. That was up from just 4 percent in 2002. Nearly one in four women between the ages of 20 and 24 who had ever had sex have used the pill at some point, the data show.

More:  http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/14/health/use-of-morning-after-pill-is-rising-report-says.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0

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Online games boom in China

In the five years through 2012, revenue for the Online Game industry in China increased at an annualized rate of 34.4% to $9.3 billion, says PRWebimgres. “The number of online game players in China has been growing 34.7% per year over the period, and about 59.5% of internet users in China are also online game players.

“Although the first online game was designed by a domestic studio, the Chinese online game market was dominated by foreign games in the early years of the industry’s development. Domestic firms only took a leading share of the market in 2006, says IBISWorld. Over the past five years, Chinese-made online games have been increasingly well accepted by the global market, with exports growing faster than total revenue.

“In 2012, the top four players in the Online Game industry in China – Tencent, Netease, Shanda Games and Perfect World – made 61.4% of total industry revenue, which indicates a medium level of concentration. The few large-scale companies that are able to raise enough funds develop high-quality games and buy operation licenses from other companies. However, the majority of enterprises in this industry are small game studios developing lower-quality games.

“As the Online Game industry matures and comes under more regulations, competition will become more intense and profitability is expected to fall somewhat, says IBISWorld. Game companies will invest more into research and development to design better and fancier games. In particular, firms will focus on further penetrating the 15-to-34 age group, offering more social, mobile and browser games to cater to this market.”

For more information, visit IBISWorld’s Online

 

 

More: http://www.prweb.com/releases/china/online-games/prweb10414609.htm

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Copy machines that make guns

imgres-4Worries are beginning to accumulate on the popular applications of what used to be called “rapid prototyping.”  A growing number of devices that create objects from design programs are coming onto the market, potentially allowing just about anyone to make anything at home or at a nearby copy shop. NPR reports about the new concerns over the potential of 3-D printers to make guns or weapon parts.

“You may have heard about 3-D printing, a technological phenomenon that uses a robotic arm to build objects one layer at a time. As people get imaginative and create items in a one-stop-shop fashion, one more creation has been added to the printing line: gun parts.

On the West Side of Manhattan, behind large glass windows, a dozen 3-D printers build plastic toys and jewelry. Hilary Brosnihan, a manager at 3DEA, an events company that sponsored a print pop-up store, says things are moving rapidly. ‘This [3-D printing] is coming down the line; it’s coming down the line very quickly’ Brosnihan says. She also works as a toy manufacturer. The technology has boosted her business, but the idea of printing a gun horrifies her. She says most of her colleagues feel the same way.

“‘They are more of an open-source community that’s about developing things that are useful. And in our terms, weapons aren’t really useful,’ Brosnihan says. ‘Creating a way to adjust your sink faucet so you don’t have issues with it — that’s useful.’ But a lot of Americans do think guns are useful.”

 

Full story at: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2013/02/06/171154845/using-3-d-printers-to-make-gun-parts-raises-alarms

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Why motorists hate bicyclists

Something about cyclists seems to provoke fury in other road users. If you doubt this, try a search for the word “cyclist” on Twitter. As I write this one of the latest tweets is this: “Had enough of cyclists today! Just wanna ram them with my car.” This kind of sentiment would get people locked up if directed against an ethic minority or religion, but it seems to be fair game, in many people’s minds, when directed against cyclists. Why all the rage?imgres-3

I’ve got a theory, of course. It’s not because cyclists are annoying. It isn’t even because we have a selective memory for that one stand-out annoying cyclist over the hundreds of boring, non-annoying ones (although that probably is a factor). No, my theory is that motorists hate cyclists because they think they offend the moral order.

Driving is a very moral activity – there are rules of the road, both legal and informal, and there are good and bad drivers. The whole intricate dance of the rush-hour junction only works because everybody knows the rules and follows them: keeping in lane; indicating properly; first her turn, now mine, now yours. Then along comes a cyclist, who seems to believe that the rules aren’t made for them, especially the ones that hop onto the pavement, run red lights, or go the wrong way down one-way streets.

You could argue that driving is like so much of social life, it’s a game of coordination where we have to rely on each other to do the right thing. And like all games, there’s an incentive to cheat. If everyone else is taking their turn, you can jump the queue. If everyone else is paying their taxes you can dodge them, and you’ll still get all the benefits of roads and police.

In economics and evolution this is known as the “free rider problem”; if you create a common benefit  – like taxes or orderly roads – what’s to stop some people reaping the benefit without paying their dues? The free rider problem creates a paradox for those who study evolution, because in a world of selfish genes it appears to make cooperation unlikely. Even if a bunch of selfish individuals (or genes) recognise the benefit of coming together to co-operate with each other, once the collective good has been created it is rational, in a sense, for everyone to start trying to freeload off the collective. This makes any cooperation prone to collapse. In small societies you can rely on cooperating with your friends, or kin, but as a society grows the problem of free-riding looms larger and larger.

 

For more, see: http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20130212-why-you-really-hate-cyclists