Weather radar going off-line for upgrades – The State Journal-Register

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John Reynolds Staff Writer @JohnReynoldsSJR

LINCOLN The weather radar used by the National Weather Service Forecast Office in Lincoln will be down this week for the installation of technological upgrades.

The work is scheduled to begin Monday and could last three to four days. The project will be delayed if hazardous weather is on the way, but the latest forecast does not anticipate any weather problems.

Most of (the) week looks to be dry, so it looks like a good time to do this, said James Auten, a meteorologist in Lincoln.

During the outage, radar coverage will be available online from adjacent radar sites including Chicago/Romeoville; Davenport, Iowa; St. Louis; Paducah, Kentucky; and Evansville, Indiana.

The general public isnt the only group that watches the weather radar out of Lincoln.

Springfield Fire Chief Barry Helmerichs said his department gets daily emails from the weather service on the days forecast and it also goes online to check the radar when storms are predicted.

We watch the radar to see the paths of the storms that are coming toward our area, Helmerichs said.

The upgrade will include a new signal processor, which will improve processing speed and data quality, add functionality and increase IT security, Auten said.

According to the National Weather Service, this is the first of four major upgrades, known as service life extension projects, planned in the next five years to replace and refurbish major components of the radar and keep it operational into the 2030s.

Auten said similar upgrades are taking place at radar sites across the country.

The $150 million nationwide investment is being made by the three organizations that operate the radars, the NOAA National Weather Service, the U.S. Air Force and the Federal Aviation Administration.

Auten said the average person watching the radar online at the weather services website shouldnt notice any difference.

What it is, weve already added some new products and upgraded internal software. We are asking the system to do more work, but we havent upgraded some of the mechanical stuff that will allow the system to continue working for the next 15 years or so, Auten said.

Contact John Reynolds: john.reynolds@sj-r.com, 788-1524, twitter.com/JohnReynoldsSJR.

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Weather radar going off-line for upgrades - The State Journal-Register

#SWMEThemes: The Middle East and the New Space Resource … – SpaceWatch Middle East (press release) (subscription) (blog)

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An artistss rendering of a mining operation on the Moon. Image courtesy of OilPrice.com

In the first of our week-long #SWMEThemes on the Middle East and Space Resources, Dr. Tom James of Navitas Resources LLP argues that with its heritage in extracting oil and gas from harshenvironments and recent investments in space programmes, many Middle Eastern countries are well-placed to take advantage of the nascent space resources economy.

The new space resources economy will provide huge benefits for mankind, from pushing technologies forward as we find ways to live sustainably beyond our planet, to improved earth observations to help protect and preserve and improve life back on Earth, to creating new jobs, companies, and opportunities. The Middle East is pouring petrodollars in to the new space economy as it drives its economies to a service and knowledge-based economy and builds its stake in the future of the human race.

As we have witnessed over the past ten years especially, the space industry has becoming more commercialised, with greater investment by the private sector, such as Elon Musks SpaceX and Sir Richard Bransons Virgin Galactic. Both firms have investors from the Middle East, and Virgin Galactic hopes to utilise a spaceport in Abu Dhabi. These new space entrepreneurs are focussed on costs, and this has helped bring downward pressure on launch prices and cost-saving advances in satellite technology have combined to open the door for small and midsize space companies to enter the market, providing new niche services and solutions. These companies, many of whom are basing themselves in the Gulf thanks to pro-active local government support, are well-positioned to serve the increasing demand for bandwidth and services across regions that expect to see large population growth, such as Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

Since Astronaut Gene Cernan was the last man to walk on the moon 45 years ago, we have made little to no progress on new rocket technology or costs or performance of space vehicles, with governments sticking to what worked in the 1960s and 1970s. Now with private firms driving the space race with much larger resources than most governments, we stand on the brink of returning to space this time, to stay. With the annual space economy already sized at U.S.$330 billion a year, its an interesting business to get in to and its attracting increased interest from investors and entrepreneurs.

To really drive the new space economy forward however, we must first reduce the cost of getting stuff in to space from the Earths surface. In space there are many asteroids and mining opportunities for resources to build new larger space ships and space stations and lower costs, but the initial machinery and people to make that happen will have to come from the Earths surface.

Therefore, the most immediate valuable resource that people will pay a premium for in space will initially be water. Made up of hydrogen and oxygen, there is a lot of things you can do with it!

Therefore water has been dubbed the new oil in space and Middle East investors understand the opportunities, as their investment in new emerging commercial space companies and technologies is growing as the region works to shift from an oil-based to a knowledge-based economy and secure a part in the future of supplying energy in space.

Water as Fuel

I expect companies to launch satellites searching for rare gases and metals in asteroids within five years, with actual mining happening within eight.A single asteroid might contain 175 times more platinum than the Earth mines in a year, but its not metal that is the most important commodity in the short term. Its water.

In the long term, most of the commodities mined in space will stay in space to power a low-orbit space economy built around satellites and space stations. In that scenario, water accumulated in space would become the most immediately valuable commodity as it could be used for rocket fuel for interstellar voyages, and to supply oxygen to keep astronauts and space colonies alive. To date all the water for space missions and all the rocket fuel has to be taken to space from the Earths surface and that costs a lot of money as it increases the payload of rockets that must escape the Earths gravity.

A major issue in making access to space cheaper is that every space mission must carry its own fuel for in-space operations, since in-space refuelling does not currently exist. Even if it did, that fuel would have to be lifted and stored on orbit in fuel depots at even higher prices. Currently it costs around U.S.$8,000/kg to $12,000/kg net cost to launch most payloads into low-Earth orbit (LEO). New breakthroughs in technology must be realized to significantly reduce this high cost. We are starting to see some of those technologies now succeed, for example the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket which is truly re-usable and lands itself after a successful deployment of cargo to space. This type of technology, combined with the large reduction in payload in fuel and supplies, is necessary to refuel in space with water and oxygen already extracted there will massively reduce payloads and cost still further. The corresponding cost and price benefit could give customers around a 30 percent discount over expendable rocket versions.

To avoid this high-cost barrier to real progress, a means to provide cheaper propellants in space has to be developed. One such firm, Shackleton Energy, is working on the answer by proposing to mine ice water on the Moon. Water is made up of oxygen and hydrogen, and in turn can create fuel, drinking water, and oxygen to sustain long term colonies in space.

Middle East in Space

The UAE and Saudi Arabia already have space programmes, with the Saudis signing a pact with Russia in 2015 for cooperation on space exploration and the development of a new space station. With the annual space economy having grown to already U.S.$330 billion dollars it is an interesting time for Middle East countries, that must plan many decades ahead in the development of their economies in to digital- and knowledge-based economies, to get in to the space business. Interestingly the majority of the recent growth in the space economy, in absolute terms and as a percentage, took place on the commercial side of the space economy. Commercial products, services, infrastructure, and support industries add up to slightly more than 75% of the space economy, with government spending (24% of total) constituting the remainder. Thats right government spending is now the minority!

Besides investing petrodollars in to a new economy of the future for their society here on Earth, building a space industry in many countries of the Middle East makes a lot of sense from a geographical standpoint. The closer a country is to the equator, the more surface velocity there is from spinning around the Earths axis, meaning space ships need to burn less fuel to exit the atmosphere. In addition from a communication standpoint it is better to have an orbit around the equator and if you launch away from the equator you must burn a lot of extra fuel to correct the trajectory of your rockets after launch. All of this benefits a number of Middle Eastern countries as potential launch sites.

Dr. Tom James has been involved in energy and commodity markets since 1989 and is an international business architect, risk manager, and trading director, having developed his skills and expertise over the years whilst at top tier financial and trading institutions

around the world. He has been consulting to industry since 2004 when he was head-hunted to be a lead designer and risk management advisor for BHP Billitons commodity trading unit. More recently, he has been a Senior Energy Advisor to the United States Department of Defense.During his career, Tom has written and published seven books on commodity markets and trading. Tomis a frequent speaker at energy and commodity conferences in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, and runs training courses throughout the world. He is also a regular commentator on market trends for international news channels including Bloomberg Hong Kong, CNBC, CNBC Asia, and BBC World Service.

Original published at: https://spacewatchme.com/2017/07/swmethemes-middle-east-new-space-resource-economy/

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#SWMEThemes: The Middle East and the New Space Resource ... - SpaceWatch Middle East (press release) (subscription) (blog)

Expert Asserts that Retraining is the Best Response to AI Automation – Futurism

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In BriefA chief strategy officer has stated that retraining is theanswer to the threat that AI represents to jobs and livelihoods.However, several other industry leaders back other solutions tothis major stumbling block in the age of automation. Retraining as Retaining

Jeremy Auger, a Chief Strategy Officer at D2L, an educational technology company, has asserted in a post on entrepreneur.com that the way for humans to maintain their relevance in the labor force in the face of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation developments is through ongoing, career-long retraining. His voice is added to a choir of individuals who are preaching the same message.

Auger argues that AI represents an unprecedented challenge to the work force on account of its cerebral capabilities, which could see it replacing the human workforce in the cognitive space as well as the physical one. He argues that

learning cant end with graduation. To be competitive, companies will need to step up and provide education opportunities themselves, while encouraging self-directed learning so they can ensure that their workers are continually acquiring new skills

Firstly, he argues that we need to change what people learn. Rather than attempt to match AI in ability, we should instead aim to cultivate the skills that AI is unlikely to develop, such as innovation and creativity: seeing connections in seemingly unrelated things. This is the impetus behind other related programs like IBMs P-Tech, which seeks to give children today a more tech-oriented education that befits tomorrows automation-driven world.

He also argues that we should shift the onus of education away from parents and schools, and towards ourselves and the companies we are part of, who should take responsibility for continually providing opportunities for their employees to develop. This is a view shared by David Kenny, IBMs senior Vice President for Watson, who wrote in an article for Wired that we should be

updating the Federal Work-Study program, something long overdue, [which] would give college students meaningful, career-focused internships at companies rather than jobs in the school cafeteria or library

However, retraining and re-educating is not the end-all-be-all answer to the ever-growing issue that is automation.There are rival choirs who are lauding different solutions to AI joining the workforce, which Stephen Hawking states will cause job destruction deep into the middle classes, and Oxford University researchers claim that 47 percent of US jobs are at riskbecause of it.

Bill Gates has proposed taxing robots and corporations in order to provide for people whose jobs are being replaced: he has asserted that Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, Social Security tax, all those things. If a robot comes in to do the same thing, youd think that wed tax the robot at a similar level.

Others have proposed a system of universal basic income (UBI) an income prescribed by the government to any citizen to give individuals the money that they would have earned through a job replaced by automation. People would then be able to work to augment their pay, but would always be able to survive regardless of whether they are employed.

Mark Zuckerberg is an advocator of the UBI strategy, viewing it as a platform for innovation rather than the sad consequence of being exceeded by a robot. He told Harvard graduates that We should explore ideas like universal basic income to make sure everyone has a cushion to try new ideas.

There are a spectrum of views concerning the best response to increasing automation of the working world although none of them seem to guarantee the best situation for AI and humans. However, it is important that we continue to have these conversations now rather than face themafter the problem has progressed much further.

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Expert Asserts that Retraining is the Best Response to AI Automation - Futurism

Practical automation guide and tools for busy bloggers – TNW

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Bill Gates is famous for saying, I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.

However shocking that sounds, putting more work and hours into something doesnt always yield better results. And todays fast-paced online world can be especially tough on businesses that dont manage to keep up.

As a busy blogger, youre probably juggling a multitude of different tasks, many of which are repetitive and frankly, quite boring. For your blog to take off and scale into something greater than a company of one employee, you must use your time efficiently and learn to automate and delegate.

Read on to learn about the practical tools of automation and how to use them to grow your business.

On average 49 percent of companies are currently using marketing automation and the adoption is growing rapidly, as there are 11 times more B2B organizations using marketing automation now than in 2011.

Why is everyone jumping on this new trend? According to various research findings, marketers whove adopted marketing automation count multiple benefits:

Besides helping to improve customer experience, email marketing and, lead management as well as helping to reduce human error in marketing campaigns, the biggest and most important benefit of automation for busy bloggers is that it can save hours and hours of time, which could be spent creating new content and growing the business.

Creating excellent content for your blog is only half the story. You might be a skilled writer and an expert in your field, but churning out high-quality content every day is hardly possible if youre a one-man show. And yet, it doesnt mean you should let your social media presence suffer.

What you need to keep your communication flowing is a rich selection of well-written content that your target audience would find interesting and valuable. By sharing blog posts, videos or infographics created by other bloggers or businesses you will continue to create value for your followers and boost your credibility. Content curation can be an opportunity for bloggers to build their following and figure out the interests and motivations of their audience.

Credit: Pocket

Explore the most popular content curation tools, such as Pocket, Scoop.it, Feedly, and Storify that will help you to discover, save, and distribute the best content from around the web.

The best way to manage the time you spend on social media is by blocking off a few hours in your calendar for content scheduling and getting it all done in one go. Buffer and Hootsuite are the leading content scheduling tools available online that can take the pain out of this boring task. Instead of copy-pasting the same message across different platforms, fiddling with different settings and re-uploading visuals, get all your social media content planned out and scheduled by using a dedicated automation tool.

Credit: Buffer

To get the most of social media automation, be sure to craft your own social media content plan. A robust social media content calendar will not only help you stick to a consistent schedule, but will also make the planning of time-sensitive content easier and help you enforce a healthy sharing ratio. One of the most popular ways for figuring out the ideal ratio for the content youll share on different channels is to use the 411 rule. This rule refers to a practice of sharing four user-centric educational or entertaining posts for every one slightly promotional and one hard sale post.

Credit: Buffer

When it comes to choosing the optimal time to post on social media, youll need to do a bit of heavy-lifting yourself and analyze your audiences behavior and preferences. When are your followers online? When do you see the level of engagement spike throughout the day? Look into the built-in analytics on Twitter or Facebook to determine the best times to push your messages out. Alternatively, you can rely on the clever algorithms that Buffer and Hootsuite both use to automatically schedule your post to go out when theyre most likely to be noticed. CoSchedule have rounded up a number of studies to figure out the perfect times to post and found that:

Although not a WordPress plugin, IFTTT is one of the most versatile automation tools on the market. It can send you a daily email with the GIFs that are trending on Giphy or notify you when a new subscriber is added to your MailChimp list. The possibilities are wide-ranging and exciting.

To maximize the ROI of your email marketing, ensure your workflow is set up properly. Use a WordPress form builder to have a smart-looking subscription form that integrates with your email provider on your site. Then set up an automated workflow on your email platform to trigger a welcome campaign once a new email is added to your mailing list. If you want to quickly capture new leads on your blog and add them to the right mailing list, CaptainForm, a user-friendly WordPress form builder that integrates with MailChimp and GetResponse, is a good place to start.

Credit: CaptainForm

Another cool WordPress plugin that can take some work off your hands is Revive Old Post, which promises to help you keep the old posts alive and drive more traffic by reposting them on social media. To keep your content calendar neatly organized, you can also explore the CoSchedule plugin, which will help you take control of your blogging calendar.

Many bloggers will attest to the idea that hiring a VA right from the start is the best thing you can do for your business. The most common objection here is that it seems counterintuitive to pay someone before you start making money yourself, but it is the only way for you to focus on the most important, revenue-producing tasks and leave the rest in someone elses capable hands.

So where do you find a talented VA that will help you bring order to chaos? Many entrepreneurs scour freelancer marketplaces like Upwork and PeoplePerHour or leverage their personal and professional networks on social media (Facebook and LinkedIn groups, Twitter hashtags).

When hiring a VA, make sure you know exactly what type of tasks youll be outsourcing so that you can look out for the right set of skills. Do they need a good written English? Does it matter what time zone they live in? Do they need any specific knowledge? If youre struggling to wrap your head around this, use Foundrs Hiring a VA checklist to cover your bases.

Credit: Trello

If your VA lives on the other side of the world, you can use tools like Screenmailer to explain projects and tasks in a quick and reliable way. Trello is also an excellent tool to keep track of the progress and make sure youre all on the same page.

Dont be afraid of making a few mistakes here and there theyre not going to kill your business. But there are a few things to keep in mind when it comes to marketing automation:

1) Set goals for each automated effort

You will need a way to measure the success of your marketing automation, so make sure you set goals for each automated effort, such as social media, email workflows, and so on. This will help you to track the performance of automated campaigns and ensure theyre optimized for the best results.

2) Optimize your email automation

Automating your email marketing will be an exhilarating experience. However, its key to remember that adding your leads to onboarding or welcome automation workflows only works if the lists are segmented and you personalize the content that you send. Dont make the mistake of blasting generic emails to the entire mailing list because it will turn people away.

3) Dont get lazy

Marketing automation will save you tons of time, but dont make the mistake of letting things take their own course. Take time every week to re-test and review your automated messages to make sure theyre still relevant. If your engagement rates start to drop, its time to refresh the content and do some A/B testing.

Once you turn your blog into a source of income, your efforts must be focused on growing the business. So you cant spend your days plowing through a to-do list that has no direct (or very little) impact on your revenue. Automating the most time-consuming tasks will free up a lot of time and allow you to scale your business without much investment. And if you decide to hire a VA, there is only one thing to remember never outsource core tasks and youll be just fine!

Read next: Ashley Madison: Sorry for ruining your life, here's $3,500 (or $2)

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Practical automation guide and tools for busy bloggers - TNW

90% of employees see value in automation – Fierce (registration)

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Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation are buzzwords in retail, but what does all this technology mean for the state of the workforce?

Ninety percent of respondents to a recent survey believethat there are advantages to automating tasks at their organization, particularly a reduction in manual errors (48%), an increase in the speed at which tasks are completed (42%) and better quality work product (38%). Specifically, 53% of employees believe they could save about 20 hours a month with automation and 78% of business leaders could save about 30 hours a month with automation.

According to a report from WorkMarket, automation holds real business potential, despite the varying opinions of retail leaders and employees. In fact, while 52% of business leaders are interested in workforce automation, only 29% of employees are interested and 32% of employees also say they feel indifferent about automation.

Respondents agree that automation is more applicable today, while AI still has a ways to go. Less than half, 41%, of leaders are using workforce automation technology while only 13% are using AI. And 56% plan to implement automation into the workforce in the next three to five years compared to 44% for AI.

Almost three-fourths of those interviewed, both leaders and employees, believe at least parts of their job could be automated.While only 6% responded that their entire job could be automated, at least 61% said parts of the job could be automated and another 12% believe most of their job could be automated.

IT issues ranked as the biggest distraction keeping business leaders and employees from doing more important work, 43% and 29% respectively. Another 35% of leaders and 13% of employees cited scheduling meetings.

"Automation should be an integral component of a company's modern growth strategy. Retail companies looking to boost productivity would be wise to consider the impact workforce automation can have on their business. Some interesting findings to support this was the fact that 70% of business leaders surveyed say they're spending about 25% of their time on mundane, non-core tasks," Stephen DeWitt, CEO of WorkMarket,told FierceRetail. "That's about two hours a day. And amajority of business leaders (78%) believethey could save up to three hours a day by automating tasks. These are substantial figures that help reinforce the massive impact labor automation software can have on companies looking to empower their workforce, something retail should be particularly interested in."

DeWitt found the dichotomy between workers thinking that AI software would take over their jobs, to the belief that the technology would help automate mundane parts of their job, to be surprising.

"In fact, not only are robots/AI not coming to take their job, our findings suggest it will actually free up two hours of their day and allow them to become more productive while focusing on better serving their customers. Automation isn't here to strip away someone's livelihood," he added.

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Automation businesses set to thrive in south west by 2050 – Bath Chronicle

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The automation business is set to thrive in the South West in the next 33 years.

Robots are taking on mundane and what-would-be dangerous roles for humans.

And our region looks like it will be one of the areas championing the automation industry.

But it's not all going to be about fast-thinking machines as there will still be a key place for those with the right skills and a capacity to be adaptable.

The Bristol Port Company, which employs 550 members of staff at Avonmouth, and has an annual turnover of 80 million, has a particularly keen eye to the future.

John Chaplin, director of external affairs at the Port said the workplace of 2050 would be a very different place.

Looking more than 30 years is challenging, he said. Further automation seems inevitable with robots increasingly being used to undertake hazardous, unattractive and repetitive roles.

He called for the Government to look at more localised specialist training at post-GCSE/A level that is better suited to the regions local needs to help to create a suitably-adaptable workforce for the future.

Financial giants Hargreaves Lansdown had a similar vision of the future workplace

Danny Cox, a spokesman for the Bristol-based firm, which employs 1,000 people in the city and has a net revenue of 326.5 million, said: In 10 years our information technology team has grown from 30 to around 180 people. There was no such thing as an app then, now we have had nearly 600,000 downloads.

Technology will continue its dominance however it is those businesses which continue to focus on their clients and their changing needs, and who invest in their own people, who will still be successful in years to come.

When asked what one thing should be done to improve the quality of skills in the workplace to boost productivity, he called on the Government to provide the framework for business to thrive.

He said: Amongst other things this means sensible regulation, and proportionate and simple taxation. Thriving businesses attract skilled people to the area and improve the skills and knowledge of their workforce.

Down the road at Myrtle Farm in Sandford, north Somerset, Martin Thatcher employs 206 people at his 72.5 million-turnover Thatchers Cider.

He said: Recent focus on apprenticeships has led to improvements in skills, but there is still much more to be done. We are concerned that schools and universities are giving are young people qualifications, but are not work-ready. So we need redirection of what our young people are taught.

We would like to see more work based training where we as employers can teach people the latest technology as well as traditional methods, but also the responsibility and behaviours expected at work.

We currently support students at Weston College through a work experience and apprenticeship programme. We are also talking to local universities on ways of working together in the future.

Martins vision for 2050 is bright.

In one respect it feels like the world around us is changing so quickly from economic, social and political perspectives that to try and predict what is happening in one years time, let alone 30, is a massive challenge, he said. Yet here at Thatchers we can be certain that we will maintain our focus on being a family business led by our fifth generation by the time 2050 comes around.

At Myrtle Farm we have a commitment to the most advanced technology that allows us to craft the highest quality, consistently great tasting cider for our customers. The workplace of the future will of course see massive changes in technology but I firmly believe that whilst technology may well replace some manual jobs, it cannot replace the individuals enthusiasm and passion that we have within our workplace.

Aerospace giant Airbus employs some 4,000 people at its Filton site. With 2016 revenue of67 billion Euros, the Toulouse-headquartered firm is a global player when it comes to workplace skills. Over the last five years alone Airbus and Airbus Defence and Space have trained 500 external apprentices and a further 300 internal apprenticeships in the UK.

A spokesperson for the firm said: Now we have an Industrial Strategy we need a comprehensive Skills Strategy to underpin it, which effectively links the supply side with the demand side. The demand side for skills will take care of itself the Governments job is to work with industry to forecast what that demand will look like and to shape the skills system to fit so that there is a good supply of the right skills this becomes even more vital in the context of Brexit LEPs have a key role to play in ensuring local demand is matched with local need, and in strategically planning for new investment in the local skills system.

More widely, productivity in the UK has been lagging behind other countries for some time. We produce in five days, per worker, what Germany produces in four. Technological change has the potential to shift that but only if workers actually have the skills needed to work with new technologies we need government to again work with industry to ensure we can give workers the skills they need to adapt and learn how to master the new technologies and digital revolution we are on the cusp of.

To enable this we also need to embed new technologies in the education and skills system i.e. ensuring all apprenticeships have a digital element, using digital technology to teach in schools rather than treating digital as a bolt-on and it means giving existing workers the ability to upskill and reskill as needed for example, by allowing employers to use their levy to fund CPD training or by creating a new training entitlement for each individual worker.

Unsurprisingly, Airbus is already ahead of the curve when it comes to preparing for the workplace of 2050.

In 2050, 60 per cent of jobs are predicted to be new jobs which dont exist today, and in sectors which dont exist today, or will have new digital processes built into them, the Airbus spokesman said.

The Government is currently conducting a review of Industrial Digitalisation to map how Industry 4.0 will change the skills mix needed in different sectors, but by 2050 will we have begun a Fifth Industrial Revolution and what will it look like?

The traditional nine-to-five may not be completely killed off by 2050 but we can expect fewer people to work in such patterns; we can expect more payment by output and employees thanks to technological advances eliminating the need to do many of todays more mundane tasks, may well find that they have more leisure time the trend for 100 years has been to reduce working hours as technological change allows for increased productivity such as Henry Ford reducing from six to five days a week in the 1920s, and Carlos Slim proposing a three day week.

She added: There will be far fewer managers management is the fastest growing area today for apprenticeships and many companies are planning to spend their levy on such training but the need for management of many workers will be wiped out as technological gains make self-management and management by app the norm and we move to more self-empowered and self-managed teams.

Large employers and large workplaces will still exist but technology will make it even easier for new entrants to markets to quickly grow; disruptive technologies will continue to challenge and dislodge established players in the market where was Uber 10 years ago? Where was Netflix? Where was Ocado? Some of todays big names will still exist in 2050 but those that are slow to adapt to new consumer demands will find themselves washed away with the tide of history.

The bolder question is will workplaces even exist at all in 2050? Will work as we know it still need to be done? We cannot predict what even 2025 will look like, such is the pace of technological change.

Another of Bristols big employers is NatWest bank which has its regional headquarters in Temple Quay.

A spokesperson for the 12.4bn turnover bank, said: The skills shortage is a common theme when we talk to customers, not just in Bristol but across the country. We are fortunate here to have the forward-thinking West of England LEP, who are working with the business community to define future needs across different sectors. They are building a road map and linking with further education colleges and universities to make sure this insight is acted upon.

For instance they have agreed 8.7 million in funding for two Weston College projects an Infrastructure Construction Skills Centre and a Health and Active Living Skills Centre. Its this sort of collaboration, planning and investment which would benefit other areas. Its great to see the West of England leading the way.

She added: The workplace of the future will be more digitally focused and more flexible and Bristol is well-placed to lead the way. The city has a very vibrant tech cluster, with ambitious and interesting companies making their home here and a strong ecosystem in place to support them.

Digital innovations are already allowing companies to improve productivity, improve customer and staff interactions, help reduce risk and mean staff can be more mobile. NatWest customers currently use digital more than any other way of interacting with the bank nearly 80 per cent of customers interact with us via digital channels.

In June NatWest launched our digital centre of excellence here in Bristol. The studio will be at the forefront of the banks investment in digital for commercial and corporate customers across the UK, designed to help them reduce their risk and save them time.

Glass Wharf, at Temple Quay in Bristol at the heart of Bristols financial services industry

Developments in digital will mean an increased capacity for businesses and workers to be flexible. We know that flexible working makes employees more productive, so this, coupled with a focus on skills, should mean a workforce which is more empowered and innovative.

Another Bristol-based bank, Triodos, which employs more than 150 people in the city, with a 13.5 billion Euro annual turnover, also has its sights set on the future for skills.

Dan Foster, resourcing manager at Triodos Bank, explained: For the last three years, we have recruited an apprentice into our office services department and on completion of their apprenticeship they have secured permanent roles with us.

We have plans to expand this further across the UK. In previous years we have had numerous internship or placement students, with some returning to us after their degree in to permanent roles.

Apprenticeship is a great way to find people that are passionate about our mission and values as a bank, who become great co-workers and are strong advocates of the work we do.

He added: I think there needs to more support for those who come from more underprivileged backgrounds into employment. We also need employment pathways for people who feel that university is not the route they wish to take in their career. For example, the Apprenticeship Levy has given businesses the opportunity to invest into future co-workers, regardless of background, and nurture the skillset required for careers to thrive and businesses to grow. This is what creates the business leaders of the future.

Dan also has a digital vision of the future: By 2050, I think that the majority of work will be conducted online. There is going to be a big shift for many organisations in terms of where their employees physically work.

This continuing rise in flexible and remote workers gives companies an opportunity to source their employees globally in order to recruit the best possible individuals. At the same time, the disbursement of workers presents major challenges in creating and maintaining a company culture in which employees thrive. The workplace of the future will be able to creatively balance these two forces.

One of the regions biggest employers historically has been Imperial Tobacco, now rebranded as Imperial Brands. The 7.2 billion-turnover company still employs 550 people in and around Bristol.

When asked what one thing should be done, either regionally or nationally by government including LEPs to improve the quality of skills in the workplace to boost productivity, a spokesman for the firm said: We would encourage governments to look towards crafting national educational programmes which develop the specific skills needed to prosper in todays workplace.

Some suggest areas for might include: building commercial awareness to assist with decision-making in business, developing interpersonal skills, including resilience at work and dealing with conflict and improving digital skills.

He also had a clear vision of a different sort of workplace in 2050.

In the short term, were likely to see much more flexible workforces, he said. As technology improves people will hold virtual meetings and increasingly work from home. Companies will have fewer permanent employees and will use specialist contractors on a regular basis sourced from expanded freelance pools. There will be an increase in the gig economy, and more people will likely have portfolio careers working with multiple employers.

He added: In the longer term, developments in AI leading to creations like driverless cars will likely change the global workforce significantly, as machines take over certain tasks traditionally performed by humans. This could have a seismic impact on the employment market moving forward.

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Automation businesses set to thrive in south west by 2050 - Bath Chronicle

Nicaragua a Mirror of Orwell’s Animal Farm? – Havana Times

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The lesson from Animal Farm, by George Orwell, is spot-on for neoliberal Nicaragua of recent years.

By Oscar Rene Vargas (Confidencial)

From Animal Farm by George Orwell

HAVANA TIMES In 1943, the British writer George Orwell (1903-1950) wrote his famous novel Animal Farm. This satirical allegory synthesized the transformation process of the initially inspiring Russian Revolution led by Lenin and Trotsky into Soviet totalitarianism embodied in Stalin.

A man of the Left, George Orwell fought in the Spanish Civil War with the Republicans to be more exact, on the side of the Workers Party of Marxist Unification, which was opposed to Stalinist communists, as their idea was to liberate people. According to him, this was inseparable from a basic demand: the peoples real democratic freedom and socialism.

From this perspective, the events that unfolded during the Spanish civil war and, particularly, the killings in Barcelona, filled him with absolute horror of those in favor of authoritarian methods. Returning to England, he published his testimony in some newspapers and also enshrined his conclusions in his two most famous books, Animal farm and a few years later 1984.

Orwell invents a prophetic fiction in his books, which he uses to develop a great description, inspired greatly by Stalinist or authoritarian regimes, about what could happen to the human race in a dictatorship. 1984 is the book where terms such as Big Brother, Thought Police (Thinkpol) and Newspeak appear for the first time.

Orwell tells us that an authoritarian regime creates a power machine which is the Ministry of Truth or the only official spokesperson, which is essential to consolidate that regime (it simply records events or criticizes journalism for trying to explain events). Then, the Thought Police is organized (making critical thinking dangerous) and Newspeak is created to impose a universal truth on everyone. In order to do this, its necessary to pare language down to a few words which are enough to establish past, present and future events.

If real historic events arent in line with the only official Truths dogma that they want to disseminate, all they have to do is deny this reality and invent new alternative facts and fake news, so as to impose the authoritarian or dictatorial States institutional lie as real and true events. The Ministry of Truths aim is to make citizens degrade their trust for real events and to accept these alternative facts and fake news.

Cover of the 1st edition of Animal Farm.

Many people get angry because they feel they are being mocked, undervalued for their intelligence; others laugh and jokingly celebrate the Ministry of Truths vulgar remarks. But, there are some people who see beyond the farce and discover the threads of political manipulation, the hidden intention to distract people, diverting people as much as they can from their valid and daily worries.

It has to be made clear that the Ministry of Truths goal is to maintain control over the electorate so that they dont hear about news that is counterproductive for the government; thats why they manipulate the reality of what is really happening and censor critical voices.

Going beyond the historical particularism which inspired the book, Animal farm has become a metaphor for the universal perversions that the practice of authoritarian, corrupt and anti-democratic power creates, when rulers from a minority promote themselves as the saviors of the governed when in reality theyre their executioners.

The so-called second phase of the Nicaraguan revolution is made up of a political bloc founded on secret negotiations, individual interests among the old oligarchy and the newer ruling classes, where the people are called upon to rule a country which has been co-opted by a political elite which is smaller in number, more exclusive and more selective every day.

Parochial mindsets have monumental breakthroughs from time to time and cover themselves in a veil of rural messianism which, the victims of wishful thinking, confuse greatness with mere spectacle. Parochial discourse succumbs to the eagerness for greatness and blinded by the temporary shimmer of hope, it combines tragedy with comedy.

Unrestrained capitalism inevitably brings about the widening of gaps between the wealthy and the poor. This isnt a distortion or an economic fault in this system, but is rather one of the inevitable trends of capital accumulation in its historical path.

The lesson of this story for neoliberal Nicaragua in recent years is spot-on. During this time, we have experienced the most scandalous robberies in our history, inexplicable and uncontrollable enrichment of a few, the most perverse cons and the greatest generational disappointment with the moral defeat of the Sandinista revolution and the failure of the so-called democratic transition process.

Oscar Rene Vargas

As wealth continues to accumulate and productive working forces develop, two extreme poles are being established. At one pole, that of the owners of capital, wealth is accumulated; while at the working class pole which produces this wealth with their work, there is increasing poverty, poor working conditions, wage slavery, despotism, ignorance and deterioration.

In order to achieve the perfect and joyous state of civic submission, Stalin (or the dictator of the hour) and his clique of stalwarts took advantage of five powerful tools: betrayal, repression, corruption, propaganda and the short-term memory of those below. Authoritarian power doesnt have a steadfast nucleus of advisers; they are always walking on a tightrope.

We have also seen the rise of an elite regime founded on corruption and immunity deals which have thrown out the window the distinction between organized crime by members of the hegemonic sector, and members of the public sector of different governments. This has thereby reduced societys ability to react as it becomes accustomed to humiliation and it continues to accept, bit by bit, the system of a never-ending government.

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Nicaragua a Mirror of Orwell's Animal Farm? - Havana Times

How bosses are (literally) like dictators – Vox

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Outside contributors' opinions and analysis of the most important issues in politics, science, and culture.

Consider some facts about how American employers control their workers. Amazon prohibits employees from exchanging casual remarks while on duty, calling this time theft. Apple inspects the personal belongings of its retail workers, some of whom lose up to a half-hour of unpaid time every day as they wait in line to be searched. Tyson prevents its poultry workers from using the bathroom. Some have been forced to urinate on themselves while their supervisors mock them.

About half of US employees have been subject to suspicionless drug screening by their employers. Millions are pressured by their employers to support particular political causes or candidates. Soon employers will be empowered to withhold contraception coverage from their employees health insurance. They already have the right to penalize workers for failure to exercise and diet, by charging them higher health insurance premiums.

How should we understand these sweeping powers that employers have to regulate their employees lives, both on and off duty? Most people dont use the term in this context, but wherever some have the authority to issue orders to others, backed by sanctions, in some domain of life, that authority is a government.

We usually assume that government refers to state authorities. Yet the state is only one kind of government. Every organization needs some way to govern itself to designate who has authority to make decisions concerning its affairs, what their powers are, and what consequences they may mete out to those beneath them in the organizational chart who fail to do their part in carrying out the organizations decisions.

Managers in private firms can impose, for almost any reason, sanctions including job loss, demotion, pay cuts, worse hours, worse conditions, and harassment. The top managers of firms are therefore the heads of little governments, who rule their workers while they are at work and often even when they are off duty.

Every government has a constitution, which determines whether it is a democracy, a dictatorship, or something else. In a democracy like the United States, the government is public. This means it is properly the business of the governed: transparent to them and servant to their interests. They have a voice and the power to hold rulers accountable.

Not every government is public in this way. When King Louis XIV of France said, L'etat, c'est moi, he meant that his government was his business alone, something he kept private from those he governed. They werent entitled to know how he operated it, had no standing to insist he take their interests into account in his decisions, and no right to hold him accountable for his actions.

Like Louis XIVs government, the typical American workplace is kept private from those it governs. Managers often conceal decisions of vital interest to their workers. Often, they dont even give advance notice of firm closures and layoffs. They are free to sacrifice workers dignity in dominating and humiliating their subordinates. Most employer harassment of workers is perfectly legal, as long as bosses mete it out on an equal-opportunity basis. (Walmart and Amazon managers are notorious for berating and belittling their workers.) And workers have virtually no power to hold their bosses accountable for such abuses: They cant fire their bosses, and cant sue them for mistreatment except in a very narrow range of cases, mostly having to do with discrimination.

Why are workers subject to private government? The state has set the default terms of the constitution of workplace government through its employment laws. The most important source of employers power is the default rule of employment at will. Unless the parties have otherwise agreed, employers are free to fire workers for almost any or no reason. This amounts to an effective grant of power to employers to rule the lives of their employees in almost any respect not just on the job but off duty as well. And they have exercised that power.

Scotts, the lawn care company, fired an employee for smoking off duty. After Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-NJ) notified Lakeland Bank that an employee had complained he wasnt holding town hall meetings, the bank intimidated her into resigning. San Diego Christian College fired a teacher for having premarital sex and hired her fianc to fill her post. Bosses are dictators, and workers are their subjects.

If efficiency means that workers are forced to pee in their pants, why shouldnt they have a say in whether such efficiency is worthwhile?

American public discourse doesnt give us helpful ways to talk about the dictatorial rule of employers. Instead, we talk as if workers arent ruled by their bosses. We are told that unregulated markets make us free, and that the only threat to our liberties is the state. We are told that in the market, all transactions are voluntary. We are told that since workers freely enter and exit the labor contract, they are perfectly free under it. We prize our skepticism about government, without extending our critique to workplace dictatorship.

Why do we talk like this? The answer takes us back to free market ideas developed before the Industrial Revolution. In 17th- and 18th-century Britain, big merchants got the state to grant them monopolies over trade in particular goods, forcing small craftsmen to submit to their regulations. A handful of aristocratic families enjoyed a monopoly on land, due to primogeniture and entail, which barred the breakup and sale of any part of large estates. Farmers could rent their land only on short-term leases, which forced them to bow and scrape before their landlords, in a condition of subordination not much different from servants, who lived in their masters households and had to obey their rules.

The problem was that the state had rigged the rules of the market in favor of the rich. Confronted with this economic situation, many people argued that free markets would promote equality and workers interests by enabling them to go into business for themselves and thereby escape subordination to the owners of capital.

No wonder some of the early advocates of free markets in 17th-century England were called Levellers. These radicals, who emerged during the English civil war, wanted to abolish the monopolies held by the big merchants and aristocrats. They saw the prospects of greater equality that might come from opening up to ordinary workers opportunities for manufacture, trade, and farming ones own land.

In the 18th century, Adam Smith was the greatest advocate for the view that replacing monopolies, primogeniture, entail, and involuntary servitude with free markets would enable laborers to work on their own behalf. His key assumption was that incentives were more powerful than economies of scale. When workers get to keep all of the fruits of their labor, as they do when self-employed, they will work much harder and more efficiently than if they are employed by a master, who takes a cut of what they produce. Indolent aristocratic landowners cant compete with yeoman farmers without laws preventing land sales. Free markets in land, labor, and commerce will therefore lead to the triumph of the most efficient producer, the self-employed worker, and the demise of the idle, stupid, rent-seeking rentier.

Smith and his contemporaries looked across the Atlantic and saw that America appeared to be realizing these hopes although only for white men. The great majority of the free population in the Revolutionary period was self-employed, as either a yeoman farmer or an independent artisan or merchant.

In the United States, Thomas Paine was the great promoter of this vision. Indeed, his views on political economy sound as if they could have been ripped out of the GOP Freedom Caucus playbook. Paine argued that individuals can solve nearly all of their problems on their own, without state meddling. A good government does nothing more than secure individuals in peace and safety in the free pursuit of their occupations, with the lowest possible tax burden. Taxation is theft. People living off government pay are social parasites. Government is the chief cause of poverty. Paine was a lifelong advocate of commerce, free trade, and free markets. He called for hard money and fiscal responsibility.

Paine was the hero of labor radicals for decades after his death in 1809, because they shared his hope that free markets would yield an economy almost entirely composed of small proprietors. An economy of small proprietors offers a plausible model of a free society of equals: each individual personally independent, none taking orders from anyone else, everyone middle class.

Abraham Lincoln built on the vision of Smith and Paine, which helped to shape the two key planks of the Republican Party platform: opposition to the extension of slavery in the territories, and the Homestead Act. Slavery, after all, enabled masters to accumulate vast tracts of land, squeezing out small farmers and forcing them into wage labor. Prohibiting the extension of slavery into the territories and giving away small plots of land to anyone who would work it would realize a society of equals in which no one is ever consigned to wage labor for life. Lincoln, who helped create the political party that now defends the interests of business, never wavered from the proposition that true free labor meant freedom from wage labor.

The Industrial Revolution, however well underway by Lincolns time ultimately dashed the hopes of joining free markets with independent labor in a society of equals. Smiths prediction that economies of scale would be less important than the incentive effects of enabling workers to reap all the fruits of their labor was defeated by industrial technologies that required massive accumulations of capital. The US, with its access to territories seized from Native Americans, was able to stave off the bankruptcy of self-employed farmers and other small proprietors for far longer than Europe. But industrialization, population growth, the closure of the frontier, and railroad monopolies doomed the sole proprietorship to the margins of the economy, even in North America.

The Smith-Paine-Lincoln libertarian vision was rendered largely irrelevant by industrialization, which created a new model of wage labor, with large companies taking the place of large landowners. Yet strangely, many people persist in using Smiths and Paines rhetoric to describe the world we live in today. We are told that our choice is between free markets and state control but most adults live their working lives under a third thing entirely: private government. A vision of what egalitarians hoped market society would deliver before the Industrial Revolution a world without private workplace government, with producers interacting only through markets and the state has been blindly carried over to the modern economy by libertarians and their pro-business fellow travelers.

There is a condition called hemiagnosia, whose sufferers cannot perceive one half of their bodies. A large class of libertarian-leaning thinkers and politicians, with considerable public following, resemble patients with this condition: They cannot perceive half of the economy the half that takes place beyond the market, after the employment contract is accepted, where workers are subject to private, arbitrary, unaccountable government.

What can we do about this? Americans are used to complaining about how government regulation restricts our freedom. So we should recognize that such complaints apply, with at least as much force, to private governments of the workplace. For while the punishments employers can impose for disobedience arent as severe as those available to the state, the scope of employers authority over workers is more sweeping and exacting, its power more arbitrary and unaccountable. Therefore, it is high time we considered remedies for reining in the private government of the workplace similar to those we have long insisted should apply to the state.

Three types of remedy are of special importance. First, recall a key demand the United States made of communist dictatorships during the Cold War: Let dissenters leave. Although workers are formally free to leave their workplace dictatorships, they often pay a steep price. Nearly one-fifth of American workers labor under noncompete clauses. This means they cant work in the same industry if they quit or are fired.

And its not just engineers and other knowledge economy workers who are restricted in this way: Even some minimum wage workers are forced to sign noncompetes. Workers who must leave their human capital behind are not truly free to quit. Every state should follow Californias example and ban noncompete clauses from work contracts.

Second, consider that if the state imposed surveillance and regulations on us in anything like the way that private employers do, we would rightly protest that our constitutional rights were being violated. American workers have few such rights against their bosses, and the rights they have are very weakly enforced. We should strengthen the constitutional rights that workers have against their employers, and rigorously enforce the ones the law already purports to recognize.

Among the most important of these rights are to freedom of speech and association. This means employers shouldnt be able to regulate workers off-duty speech and association, or informal non-harassing talk during breaks or on duty, if it does not unduly interfere with job performance. Nor should they be able to prevent workers from supporting the candidate of their choice.

Third, we should make the government of the workplace more public (in the sense that political scientists use the term). Workers need a real voice in how they are governed not just the right to complain without getting fired, but an organized way to insist that their interests have weight in decisions about how work is organized.

One way to do this would be to strengthen the rights of labor unions to organize. Labor unions are a vital tool for checking abusive and exploitative employers. However, due to lax enforcement of laws protecting the right to organize and discuss workplace complaints, many workers are fired for these activities. And many workers shy away from unionization, because they prefer a collaborative to an adversarial relationship to their employer.

Yet even when employers are decent, workers could still use a voice. In many of the rich states of Europe, they already have one, even if they dont belong to a union. Its called co-determination a system of joint workplace governance by workers and managers, which automatically applies to firms with more than a few dozen employees. Under co-determination, workers elect representatives to a works council, which participates in decision-making concerning hours, layoffs, plant closures, workplace conditions, and processes. Workers in publicly traded firms also elect some members of the board of directors of the firm.

Against these proposals, libertarian and neoliberal economists theorize that workers somehow suffer from provisions that would secure their dignity, autonomy, and voice at work. Thats because the efficiency of firms would, in theory, drop along with profits, and therefore wages if managers did not have maximum control of their workforce. These thinkers insist that employers already compensate workers for any oppressive conditions that may exist by offering higher wages. Workers are therefore free to make the trade-off between wages and workplace freedom when they seek a job.

This theory supposes, unrealistically, that entry-level workers already know how well they will be treated when they apply for jobs at different workplaces, and that low-paid workers have ready access to decent working conditions in the first place. Its telling that the same workers who suffer the worst working conditions also suffer from massive wage theft. One study estimates that employers failed to pay $50 billion in legally mandated wages in one year. Two-thirds of workers in low-wage industries suffered wage theft, costing them nearly 15 percent of their total earnings. This is three times the amount of all other thefts in the United States.

If employers have such contempt for their employees that they steal their wages, how likely is it that they are making it up to them with better working conditions?

Its also easy to theorize that workers are better off under employer dictatorship, because managers supposedly know best to govern the workplace efficiently. But if efficiency means that workers are forced to pee in their pants, why shouldnt they have a say in whether such efficiency is worthwhile? The long history of American workers struggles to get the right to use the bathroom at work something long enjoyed by our European counterparts says enough about economists stunted notion of efficiency.

Meanwhile, our false rhetoric of workers choice continues to obscure the ways the state is handing ever more power to workplace dictators. The Trump administrations Labor Department is working to roll back the Obama administrations expansion of overtime pay. It is giving a free pass to federal contractors who have violated workplace safety and federal wage and hours laws. It has canceled the paycheck transparency rule, making it harder for women to know when they are being paid less for the same work as men.

Private government is arbitrary, unaccountable government. Thats what most Americans are subject to at work. The history of democracy is the history of turning governance from a private matter into a public one. It has been about making government public answerable to the interests of citizens and not just the interests of their rulers. Its time to apply the lessons we have learned from this history to the private government of the workplace. Workers deserve a voice not just on Capitol Hill but in Amazon warehouses, Silicon Valley technology companies, and meat-processing plants as well.

Elizabeth Anderson is the Arthur F. Thurnau Professor and John Dewey Distinguished University Professor of Philosophy and Women's studies at the University of Michigan. She is the author of Private Government: How Employers Rule Our Lives (and Why We Dont Talk About It (Princeton University Press, 2017).

The Big Idea is Voxs home for smart discussion of the most important issues and ideas in politics, science, and culture typically by outside contributors. If you have an idea for a piece, pitch us at thebigidea@vox.com.

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How bosses are (literally) like dictators - Vox

An oral history of a horrific home invasion that still haunts a Connecticut suburb – Boston.com

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CHESHIRE, Conn. (AP) Its a day seared into the memories of all involved: The July 23, 2007, home invasion in which two paroled burglars broke into a Cheshire, Connecticut, home after dark, terrorized the family for hours and killed a woman and her two daughters.

The viciousness of the crime upended notions of suburban security, delayed the abolition of Connecticuts death penalty, and became the subject of TV shows, documentaries and books. It drew comparisons to the 1959 killings portrayed in Truman Capotes In Cold Blood.

Jennifer Hawke-Petit, 48, was strangled. Her daughters, 17-year-old Hayley and 11-year-old Michaela, were tied to their beds and died of smoke inhalation. Hawke-Petit and Michaela also were sexually assaulted. Hawke-Petits husband and the girls father, Dr. William Petit Jr., was beaten but survived.

The killers, Joshua Komisarjevsky and Steven Hayes, are serving life in prison. They originally were sentenced to death, but Connecticut abolished capital punishment in 2012.

Komisarjevsky picked Hawke-Petit and Michaela as targets when he saw them at a grocery store. He followed them to their home, left and later returned with Hayes.

The two broke in around 3 a.m., smashed Dr. Petits head with a baseball bat as he slept and tied him up in the basement. They tied the two girls to their beds. Later in the morning, Hayes drove Hawke-Petit to a bank, where she withdrew $15,000 under the threat of her family being harmed.

After Hawke-Petit and Hayes returned to the house, Hayes sexually assaulted and strangled her. Komisarjevsky had assaulted Michaela. The intruders poured gasoline around the house, including on or around the girls, set it on fire and fled in the Petits car after police had surrounded the home. They crashed into police cruisers down the street and were arrested.

Dr. Petit managed to free himself and escape out the cellar hatchway as fire consumed the house.

No public remembrances have been announced this year. But as the 10th anniversary approaches, some recollections of that day:

Lyons was working at the Bank of America branch in Cheshire when Hawke-Petit came to withdraw cash. Hayes had driven her to the bank and waited outside, with the threat that her family would be harmed if she didnt get the money.

Lyons said Hawke-Petit did not have any identification, but told Lyons what was going on.

She explained to me that her family was being held and as long as she got the money and got back to the house everybody would be OK, Lyons said. I just knew from the look on her face and the look in her eyes that she was telling the truth. Her eyes told me a look from one mom to another mom.

Lyons approved the transaction, and Hawke-Petit left with $15,000. Lyons called police.

Lyons, who retired in 2010, pays an annual visit to a memorial garden on the site of the Petits former home.

Hawke-Renn was at home in North Carolina, getting annoyed. She was trying to plan a family beach vacation, and her sister wasnt returning her messages.

Then came the call around 2 p.m. from Dr. Petits sister, Johanna Petit Chapman. Hawke-Renn immediately thought something bad, like a car accident, had happened.

I said, Is it the girls? Are they dead?' she asked. She said, Yes. How did you know?'

When Chapman explained what happened, Hawke-Renn did not believe it.

I said to her, Hanna, this sounds like a really sick dream,' she said.

Hawke-Renn remembers screaming, No, no, no. Reality set in when she saw TV news reports at the airport on her way to her parents home in Pennsylvania.

Nearly every year on the anniversary, Hawke-Renn said she wakes around 3 a.m., about the time the killers broke into the Petits home. Over the next seven hours, she imagines her relatives suffering minute by minute.

We have horrific grief, she said. It really does affect you in ways that are hard to describe to people. Its not easy to be anywhere on the anniversary date.

Picozzi drove by the Petits house on his way to work around 4:30 a.m., 90 minutes after Komisarjevsky and Hayes had broken into the house. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

His wife later called to tell him what happened. After work, he joined onlookers outside the Petit house, and then returned home in disbelief.

I was just stunned, he said. I dropped my briefcase and I slumped into a chair next to me. I was devastated.

Picozzi didnt know the Petits well, but he said the murders were the worst thing that happened in his life.

I learned a long time ago I will never ever get over this, he said. Instead, what I have to do is learn to live with it, and Im still trying.

Driving by the Petits property is a constant reminder, he said. He often thinks of what Hayley and Michaela might have been doing now.

Milone got a call from the deputy police chief that morning saying there was a potential hostage situation.

As soon as I got off the phone, just about every apparatus we have fire and police went by my office, he said.

His office and the police department received hateful emails for years after the murders from people upset about the police response. The Petits relatives and others have suggested police could have entered the home and saved the family.

Our police did what they were trained to do, Milone said.

After going to the scene that day and taking part in a news conference, Milone sat alone in his office, in shock.

It was the most surreal experience Ive ever had, he said. It was just horrible. It just sent a chill through everyone, especially because its a small community. Its a safe community.

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An oral history of a horrific home invasion that still haunts a Connecticut suburb - Boston.com

Natural therapy tackles stress and energetic blockages – Henley Standard

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KINESIOLOGY is a natural healing therapy that uses muscle testing to identify imbalances in the bodys structural, emotional and chemical energy and establish its healing priorities.

The most comprehensive of the modern natural therapies, an ICPKP kinesiology session is tailored to addressing your emotional/physical stress and energetic blockages, assisting you and your body to heal these through a range of manual and non-manual therapeutic techniques.

These stresses can include:

l chronic physical and emotional pain

l relationship and work stress

l food intolerances and digestive disorders

l learning difficulties

l mental illness and nervous disorders

l lack of motivation and inability to change old habits

l poor performance levels

Having trained under leading kinesiologist and master healer Edmund Faust in Australia, Lenore Smith works with a wide range of clients from babies, children, mothers and families to professional sports people, business professionals and retirees in her practices in Melbourne and Darwin.

She truly believes every person deserves the optimal physical and emotional balance and personal empowerment kinesiology can provide.

Joining the team at Back in Line, Lenore is delighted to bring the health and wellness benefits of kinesiology to the Henley community.

For more information and to book a session, call 07565 426066 or visit http://www.thebasic elementskinesiology.com.au

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Natural therapy tackles stress and energetic blockages - Henley Standard

Port Pirie’s Soroptimist International group continues to empower, educate and enable women and girls – The Recorder

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17 Jul 2017, 11 a.m.

A local women's empowerment group come together to celebrate their 34th anniversary at the annual handover dinner.

LEADERSHIP: Current President of Port Pirie's Soroptimist International club Debbie Devlin. PHOTO: B'Elanna O'Dea.

The Port Pirie Soroptimist International group celebrated 34 years at their annual handover dinner at the RSL Clubrooms last month.

The groupis one of the largest womens service clubs in the world with more than75,000 members in 132 countries and territories. Port Pirie's group is one of sixcountry clubs in South Australia.

Onlocal, national and international levels, members strive to empower, educate and enablewomen and girls across the world.

At the handover dinner, the honor of Port Pirie SIgroup president was passed on from foundation member Jenny Hughes, to 17-year member Debbie Devlin.

All members have the opportunity to serve as interim president for a term or one or two years as the role provides valuable leadership skills.

During the dinner, club members Elaine Owen and Pam Ayliffe received awards and recognition for 25 years of service.

Kathryn Johnson, Port Pirie Regional Councils infrastructure director,received a Women's Achiever award for her services in building the community. She spoke about the importance of how infrastructure works as a base of unity from which a community can thrive.

Ms Devlin's personal goals for her term is tomaintain the Look Good, Feel Better program, in partnership with breast cancer nurses and professional beauticians. The schemehelps chemotherapy patients to look and feel their best.

The group also hopes, during the redevelopment of the park,to restore and move the Women'sMemorial so that it stands alongside the other similar memorials.

Through fundraising, the group also awards an annual Educational Leadership Bursaryto a female student who has shown merit and determination in her studies and school life.

This year local Soroptimist International plans to raise $600 so that it may be divided equally between the awardees from three high schools in the region,John Pirie Secondary School,Mid North Christian College and St Mark's College.

MsDevlinsays that she loves being a member of Soroptimist International because of the sense of friendship and fellowship it provides. She says she appreciates that she gets to lead adiverse group of interesting, capable and fun-to-be-around women.

All women who want to make a difference and seekreliable friends that care and support are welcome to join.

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Port Pirie's Soroptimist International group continues to empower, educate and enable women and girls - The Recorder

3 reasons why ICT matters for gender equality – International Chamber of Commerce

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For women the world over, information and communication technologies (ICT) can be leveraged for personal security, better access to education and jobs, financial inclusion or to access basic healthcare information. But benefits such as these rely on women having meaningful access to ICT which can be facilitated or prevented by several factors, including affordability, relevant content, skills and security.

SDG 5 aims to achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls and calls for enhanced use of enabling technology ICTs in particular to promote the empowerment of women.

To help turn commitment into action, the International Chamber of Commerce has teamed up with UN Women the global champion for gender equality to host a side-event during the HLPF. The event, entitled Accelerating Womens Economic Empowerment to Achieve the 2030 Agenda will showcase the global efforts stakeholders have embarked on to bring womens economic empowerment to the forefront of all the SDG targets.

Through innovation, investment and development of products and services, the private sector plays an important role in advancing gender equality and improving the lives of women. While women make up more than 50% of the worlds population, they also represent 70% of the worlds poor. According to research, women reinvest 80% of every dollar made back into her family, meaning that practical support for the economic empowerment of women is a crucial step towards eradicating poverty and promoting prosperity.

At the event, ICC will highlight private sector initiatives that are catalysing womens economic empowerment in developed and developing countires and present just how ICT can help advance the global goals.

Here are 3 reasons why ICT matters for gender equality:

The Internet is a great enabler, creating unprecedented opportunities for female entrepreneurs to enter global markets for the first time. ICT provides opportunities to boost small business growth by establishing an international, level-playing field that enables all businesses, regardless of size, location or sector, to compete on an equal footing in global markets. Programmes through partnerships can help realise the opportunities ICT can offer, by boosting skilling,equipping women with digital devices and providing training that helps women teach their respective communities how to make the most of these tools. Todays side event will highlight the importance of multistakeholder collaboration in these efforts and showcase business initiatives that are using ICT to support womens participation in the workforce and aid financial inclusion.

ICT can give women access to basic needs such as healthcare and education. The private sector plays a pivotal role in investing in community-oriented training, deploying infrastructure and delivering a wide range of ICT services to meet these needs. A recently published ICC policy paper on ICT, Policy and Sustainable Economic Development, to be shared at the event, underscores that for countries to enhance the use of enabling technology for the goal goals they must create an enabling environment for sustainable investment.

Women are currently less likely than men to use or own digital technologies, with gaps larger among youth and those over 45 years old. ICT improves efficiency, enhances coordination and improves the quality of information gathered and shared for development planning. For countries to leverage ICT to promote the empowerment of women, governments need to be well-informed about how the ICT ecosystem works in practice, the barriers to access and how challenges can be overcome. ICC aims to raise awareness of the impact that policies on infrastructure, applications, services and user-engagement have on the ICT ecosystem and believes greater understanding of these issues can equip policymakers with a framework to identify appropriate policy approaches.

The ICC/UN Women side-event will take place today Monday, 17 July at UN Headquarters in New York from 13:15 14:30 local time. Participants will include contributors to the UN Secretary General High-Level Panel for Womens Economic Empowerment and speakers from the Government of the United Kingdom, Government of Costa Rica, UN Women, the International Labour Organization, ICC Secretary General John Danilovich, andCarolyn Nguyen of Microsoft who is also Vice-Chair of the ICC Commission on the Digital Economy.

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3 reasons why ICT matters for gender equality - International Chamber of Commerce

Technology Can Be A Tool, A Teacher, A Trickster : 13.7: Cosmos … – NPR

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Those of my generation have seen enormous advances in speech recognition systems.

In the early days, the user had to train herself to the system, exaggerating phonemes, speaking in slow staccato bursts. These days, it's the system that trains itself to the user. The results aren't perfect, but they're pretty darn good.

The development of speech recognition illustrates one facet of the relationship between people and technology. Sometimes, we have to change ourselves to meet the technology where it is. But the goal is often the other way around: to improve the technology to fit us as we are.

That's why it's interesting to reflect on some exceptions to the rule cases where technology isn't just a tool, but also a teacher. Good teachers meet their students where they are, and they adapt their methods accordingly. But the ultimate goal isn't to accommodate the student as he is, it's to change the student by changing the way he thinks and acts. When technology is a teacher, it isn't enough for the technology to adapt; we need to change ourselves, too. This turns out to have some interesting implications.

Consider some examples. Tutoring systems, language learning apps, and educational games are all designed to change our mental abilities. Weight loss apps, posture sensors, and exercise monitors are designed to change the way we behave. The ultimate aim is for YOU to learn Mandarin or achieve some target weight, not to have a device that translates your English into Mandarin for you, or creates the illusion of lower mass.

It's when we consider what it takes to change mental abilities or behaviors that things start to get interesting. Take the case of learning a language. The best teacher isn't necessarily the nicest teacher, or the easiest teacher, or the most flexible teacher. The best teacher (qua teacher) is the one who does the best job getting you to learn the language. In fact, we know from research in psychology and education that the best way to learn is unlikely to be the easiest, or the one that gives you the most immediate sense of mastery. There's value in desirable difficulties features of a task that increase effort, but support better long-term performance. There are also plenty of examples of learning interventions that increase immediate learning, or just the sense of having learned, but that are ultimately less effective than more effortful alternatives.

This means that shaping technology to the aim we care about in these cases some form of learning could depart pretty radically from the more familiar aim of shaping technology to the way we are now: making it comfortable, easy, convenient, and so on. Just as it might be a mistake to evaluate teachers based (only) on student evaluations, it might be a mistake to evaluate these technologies (only) on familiar metrics, such as user ratings and our own impressions from immediate use. We really want them vetted by our future selves; it's their reviews we should be reading.

These issues also apply to technology designed to change behavior, but often there's an additional twist. We typically resort to technology for behavior change when our own good intentions prove insufficient. For all my sincere efforts not to slouch at the keyboard or have a second cookie, I'm guilty of both on a regular basis.

Technological tools for behavior change are a way to nudge ourselves into better behavior. We intervene on our environment to shape ourselves, because we can't simply will ourselves into the target behavior directly. As a result, these technological tools aren't just teachers in the business of sharing information and rational persuasion; they're tricksters in the business of manipulating us albeit at our bidding.

Of course, the relationship between people and technology is more complex (as Alva No has written about here at 13.7). It isn't just that people adapt to technology, and that technology adapts to people. The relationship is dynamic and bidirectional; we are, to use Alva's phrase, "the tool-using species." But our tools aren't merely implements; they are also teachers and tricksters, balancing the values of our current and future selves.

Tania Lombrozo is a psychology professor at the University of California, Berkeley. She writes about psychology, cognitive science and philosophy, with occasional forays into parenting and veganism. You can keep up with more of what she is thinking on Twitter: @TaniaLombrozo

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How Technology Can Solve Workplace Challenges – National Review

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Technology has long been helping peopleparticularly womenin their quest to balance work and family responsibilities. The ability to work from home, tele- and video-conference into work meetings, has created new work paradigms; the internet has created new ways for part-time workers and entrepreneurs to make money from their homes.

Heres another way that technology can help improve work life for women: By giving women access to information about how companies treat their female employees. USA Today explains how one online service is doing just that:

Even with the rise of sites like Glassdoor and Monster, many women are still left wondering exactly how prospective employers handle gender-specific issues in the workplace likefamily leave and pay equity.

To find out, female job seekers are turning to Fairygodboss, a job review site exclusivelyfor women. The site provides crowdsourced intel on how female-friendly company policy is at thousands of businesses.

The 2-year-old start-up just released their2017 rankings of the best companies where women are happiest.

The rankings were based on the responses from almost 15,000 women about overall job satisfaction, gender equityand likelihood of recommendingtheir company to another woman.

The data is pulled from the anonymous job reviews that Fairygodboss usesto create company profiles.

This is great information for employees to have: women who want a company that is dedicated to supporting their advancement, and that will offer flexibility if and when they have children, have a new tool for identifying what companies might be the right fit for them. And its also important for employers to learn directly from employees and prospects what workers want most from their employers. Sites like this will give employers an incentive to try to do right by their workers so that they can earn a reputation as a place where quality employees want to work.

Unsurprisingly, most of the companies that top the list as the best places to work are large and primarily employ higher-skilled workers. But this kind of information could help women and workers at all income scales. Employers that rely more or hourly or lower-skilled workers also have an incentive to attract and retain the best, most reliable workforce possible. They will have to compete against other employers for such workers and will benefit from having a reputation of treating employees well.

Finding solutions to help people balance work and family responsibilities isnt easy, especially because not all workersnot even all womenwant the same type of support from their employers. But more information, and true flexibility, is a key to helping people find employment situations that suit them and to encourage businesses to meet the needs of workers.

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Technology plays increasing role in health care – News-Press Now

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The days of thick medical files and handwritten doctors notes may be numbered as the medical industry continues the shift to digital technology, putting more information and access into the patients hands.

Its the whole ability for patients to be able to do things on the phone. We refer to it as the electronic clipboard, says Brennan Lehman, chief information officer at Mosaic Life Care. Its the ability to do all those things that you do when you come into that office, thats typically on a piece of paper on a clipboard, you can now do it all on your phone remotely.

Mosaic recently was recognized as one of 2017s Most Wired Hospitals for its use of smart phones, telehealth and other digital methods of connecting patients and caregivers.

According to the list, conducted in cooperation with the American Hospital Association and Clearwater Compliance LLC, more than 75 percent of the hospitals offer secure mobile messaging with clinicians, almost 70 percent allow prescription renewal requests on mobile devices and 40 percent offer virtual physician visits.

The one constant is technology is going to change, Lehman says. Any time we put new technology in, its not only just the technology, but its actually the process thats important. Its doctors, caregivers, nurses that all come together to outline the best process and then we support it with technology. Thats really the secret sauce.

Patient portals, online centers for patient and caregiver communication and record keeping, are on the rise. In 2014, about 40 percent of family-practice physicians used portals for messaging, and another 35 percent used the technology for patient education. Approximately a third of caregivers used them to prescribe medication or schedule appointments.

Weve actually built patient portal framework where we can actually sync secure messaging for patients. The patients can actually do virtual visits with their doctors online. They can schedule online. We are trying to create that virtual office, Lehman says. Everyone is going to their phones now. They dont want to actually have to pick up the phone and call someone. ... Patients can engage the way they chose to.

The Most Wired Hospitals list recognizes approximately 400 hospitals nationwide for their digital technology efforts to provide innovative tools for patients and caregivers. Childrens Mercy Hospital, Truman Medical Center and the University of Kansas Hospital in Kansas City area also were recognized. It is the fourth time Mosaic was named to the list, Lehman says.

The patient portal technology also put Mosaic on the list of finalists for the 2017 Innovator Awards, in conjunction with the Most Wired recognition. University of Missouri Health Care in Columbia received one of the three national Innovator Awards for its smartphone app that allows users to track mood, activity and sleep and create an electronic health record.

(Technology) is an enabler, Lehman says. At the end of the day, technology is just a tool. Its the tool that provides the right information at the right time for the clinicians to make the best decisions for our patients.

In the future, the hope is to continue to integrate technology into health care to benefit care givers and patients and provide more opportunities for education, information transmission and improvement, Lehman says. Increasingly, more and more will be in the palm of your hand, he says.

Its continuing to drive more and more to the patients, he says. Not only from the phone, but how do we put more and more technology out into patients homes so they can receive care where they want to be?

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Technology plays increasing role in health care - News-Press Now

Technology offers ‘hidden gems’ to paddlers on Maryland water trail – Baltimore Sun

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Chuck McMillin reckons he uses the Magothy River more than almost anybody else.

The avid kayaker has been exploring the 67 miles of shoreline for more than a decade. But even he learned about new spots after the Magothy River Association recently launched an online water trail guide.

The map denotes 30 points of interest along the trail, as well as hidden gems that might ordinarily be obstructed from view. Seventeen accompanying videos on the associations website give visitors facts and tips on how to access these spots.

McMillin, who organizes kayak trips, said one of those videos taught him how to get to a tucked-away cove through a small opening in the grass. He had been in the area before, but never approached at the angle necessary to notice the opening.

I think the map is making more people aware of the Magothy and these hidden spots, said McMillin, 60. That will make people appreciate the river more, and if they appreciate it more, they will respect it more and want to protect it more.

Water trails have surged in popularity in the last few years, said Lisa Gutierrez, director of the Maryland Department of Natural Resources office of public access, water trails and recreation planning. The state is home to more than 600 miles of designated water trails, according to the department website.

A few have incorporated videos and technology into their guides, Gutierrez said. The corresponding videos at the Magothy provide a birds-eye view using drone footage; they were funded by the Chesapeake Bay Trust.

On the water trails website, an old-fashioned map outlines the path kayakers can take, with a mileage chart that shows how far each highlight is from another. Each point of interest is described beneath, and the user can keep scrolling down to find a companion video.

The videos are usually two to three minutes long, so that explorers can easily pull them up and learn something new while theyre out on the water.

When youre in a kayak, it looks a lot different than if youre in a big boat, frequent kayaker Lisa Arrasmith said. When you have these videos that show you what to look for, its a nice preview so you can spot the landmarks.

The videos tell people kayaking or canoeing on the river what spots to check out, and provides them information about surrounding historical sites, local wildlife and potential obstacles. Some also link to an ongoing initiative by the Magothy River Association, the Living History Project.

The project aims to tell the stories of longtime residents of the watershed, through interviews and photos. One woman, who has lived near Cattail Creek since 1947, discussed how the area has changed over the years as houses were built on what was once open land. The group is hoping to add more videos throughout the summer.

By recording what people remember about the river, its an indication of how far we need to go to restore the river to what it was like in the day, said Paul Spadaro, the associations president.

The health of the Magothy River has been declining in recent years. In 2016, the association gave it a D grade based on water clarity, dissolved oxygen and acreage of submerged aquatic vegetation. The health index dropped five points from the year before.

Our main goal is to do everything we can to protect the Magothy River, said Andrea Germain, who sits on the river associations board. Our thought is that, with the water trail, if we can make it available to more people, theyll become stewards. After seeing the beauty, theyll do whatever they can to protect it.

Last month, the association held a ribbon-cutting ceremony to announce the availability of the water trail guide in a newly built kiosk at Spriggs Farm Park. The park is one of two places, along with Beachwood Park, where the public can launch their kayaks into the Magothy.

This was a big win for us to be able to work with the county and create these two new launch sites for public access to the water, Germain said. It should be open to the public, whether you live on the water or not.

Improving public water access is a priority for Anne Arundel County Executive Steve Schuh, said his spokesman, Owen McEvoy. The kiosks, guides and videos provide a road map for people who might not be familiar with the water, he said.

Going into the summers hottest stretch, the Magothy water trail guide is another feather in our cap when it comes to engaging people to get out on the water in Anne Arundel County, McEvoy said.

Christine Burns created an interactive, online map of the Kings Creek Water Trail in 2015 while serving with the states Chesapeake Conservation Corps. The map, which is also printable, takes visitors through various spots along the trail, introducing them to local wildlife and historical facts.

Burns said technology is a good way to make the water trails more accessible, and deepen the connection between the visitors and the river.

If everyone already has their phone out to take selfies and pictures, Burns said, they might as well learn something.

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Technology offers 'hidden gems' to paddlers on Maryland water trail - Baltimore Sun

Elon Musk likes most technology, but he wants one sector regulated – AOL

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Jake Jones

Jul 16th 2017 8:34PM

Electric cars, an underground "hyperloop" and a manned mission to Mars are all A-OK for inventor and Tesla CEO Elon Musk. But there's one technology he's still holding out on: artificial intelligence.

That's why he encouraged U.S. governors to get out in front of the industry and do some proactive regulating.

Musk met with state governors at the National Governors Association to talk about different kinds of emerging technology. In addition to A.I., Musk talked about solar energy, space travel and self-driving cars.

"AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization in a way that car accidents, airplane crashes, faulty drugs or bad food were not," Musk said.

SEE MORE: Elon Musk Thinks He Has A Way To Make Colonizing Mars Cheaper

But his feelings towards A.I. aren't anything new.

"I mean, with artificial intelligence we are summoning the demon," Musk said at a 2014 event at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Musk warned that the hyper-competitiveness of the tech industry could push developers to work on A.I. before their competitors. And if that happens without any kind of oversight, Musk says it could pose "the greatest risk we face as a civilization."

Back in 2015, Musk helped fund OpenAI, a nonprofit tasked with researching "digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity."

And Musk isn't the only prominent techno-wiz to warn us about A.I. Stephen Hawking has said he believes artificial intelligence could "spell the end of the human race."

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Hyperloop

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Hyperloop tubes are displayed during the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company plans to create a fully operational hyperloop system by 2020.

(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images,)

Elon Musk speaks at the Hyperloop pod competition on January 29, 2017. To accelerate the development of a functional Hyperloop prototype, a high speed transportation system that Musk proposed in 2013, SpaceX staged a student pod competition.

(Kate Allen/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

An employee carries out final checks on a vacuum system before delivery to the Hyperloop transportation system technology applications company at the Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum GmbH factory in Cologne, Germany, on Thursday, June 30, 2016. In 2013, billionaire Elon Musk first unveiled his vision of a transportation system in which capsules hurtling on a cushion of air would whisk people at 700 miles per hour, traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour.

(Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The rLoop team shows their INFIRA pod during the SpaceX Hyperloop competition in Hawthorne, California on January 29, 2017. Students from 30 colleges and universities from the US and around the world are taking part in testing their pods on a 1.25 kilometer-long Hyperloop track at the SpaceX headquarters.

(GENE BLEVINS/AFP/Getty Images)

Sand rises from the track as a test sled is slowed during the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. Hyperloop One stages the first public demonstration of a key component of the startup's futuristic rail transit concept that could one day ferry passengers at near supersonic speeds.

(JOHN GURZINSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

People photograph the interior of a Hyperloop tube after the first test of a propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company plans to create a fully operational hyperloop system by 2020.

(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images,)

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk(C) speaks during the SpaceX Hyperloop pod competition in Hawthorne, California on January 29, 2017. Students from 30 colleges and universities from the US and around the world are taking part in testing their pods on a 1.25 kilometer-long Hyperloop track at the SpaceX headquarters.

(GENE BLEVINS/AFP/Getty Images)

The EDGE pod, the smallest hyperloop pod designed by Keio University in Japan, is displayed during the SpaceX Hyperloop competition in Hawthorne, California on January 29, 2017. Students from 30 colleges and universities from the US and around the world are taking part in testing their pods on a 1.25 kilometer-long Hyperloop track at the SpaceX headquarters.

(GENE BLEVINS/AFP/Getty Images)

Robert 'Rob' Lloyd, chief executive officer of Hyperloop Transport Technologies Inc., gestures as he speaks during Automobility LA ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016. The Connected Car Expo and LA Auto Show press days have merged to form AutoMobility LA. The show is open to the public November 18-27.

(Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A winch supports screws before being inserted into a Dryvac compressing screw vacuum pump at the Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum GmbH factory in Cologne, Germany, on Thursday, June 30, 2016. In 2013, billionaire Elon Musk first unveiled his vision of a transportation system in which capsules hurtling on a cushion of air would whisk people at 700 miles (1,130 kilometers) per hour, traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour.

(Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

An employee holds a bearing ring during the assembly of a Dryvac compressing screw vacuum pump at the Oerlikon Leybold Vacuum GmbH factory in Cologne, Germany, on Thursday, June 30, 2016. In 2013, billionaire Elon Musk first unveiled his vision of a transportation system in which capsules hurtling on a cushion of air would whisk people at 700 miles per hour, traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour.

(Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

A Hyperloop tube is displayed during the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company plans to create a fully operational hyperloop system by 2020.

(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images,)

A recovery vehicle and a test sled sit on rails after the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Hyperloop One stages the first public demonstration of a key component of the startup's futuristic rail transit concept that could one day ferry passengers at near supersonic speeds.

(JOHN GURZINSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

People look at a demonstration test sled after the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company plans to create a fully operational hyperloop system by 2020.

(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images,)

A test sled is propelled along a set of tracks during the first test of the propulsion system at the Hyperloop One Test and Safety site on May 11, 2016 in North Las Vegas, Nevada. The company plans to create a fully operational hyperloop system by 2020.

(Photo by David Becker/Getty Images,)

The pod displayed in the booth for MIT Hyperloop, The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, during the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in Hawthorne, Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 29, 2017.

(REUTERS/Monica Almeida)

The pod cover for team Openloop, a six school alliance including Northeastern, Memorial University, Princeton, Cornell, Harvey Mudd College and the University of Michigan at the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in Hawthorne, Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 29, 2017.

(REUTERS/Monica Almeida)

Team members from WARR Hyderloop, Technical University of Munich place their pod on the track during the SpaceX Hyperloop Pod Competition in Hawthorne, Los Angeles, California, U.S., January 29, 2017.

(REUTERS/Monica Almeida)

A student from the Delft University of Technology inspects the team's pod before it enters the Hyperloop test track. To accelerate the development of a functional Hyperloop prototype, a high speed transportation system that Musk proposed in 2013, SpaceX staged a student pod competition.

(Kate Allen/Toronto Star via Getty Images)

Robert 'Rob' Lloyd, chief executive officer of Hyperloop Transport Technologies Inc., gestures as he speaks during Automobility LA ahead of the Los Angeles Auto Show in Los Angeles, California, U.S., on Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2016. The Connected Car Expo and LA Auto Show press days have merged to form AutoMobility LA. The show is open to the public November 18-27.

(Patrick T. Fallon/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

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Is technology ruining the relationship between parent and child? New study shows yes – ABC FOX Montana News

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BOZEMAN -

Technology is a part of everyday life. A new study shows that kids show more behavior issues the more their parents are distracted by digital technology.

This study, posted by Virginia Mason Memorial took moms and dads from 170 families and asked them certain questions; here is what the data showed.

Parents indicated that their smartphones, tablets interfered with their conversations or other activities with their kids at least once a day.

About half of the parents, devices interrupted activities with their kids even more. Sometimes up to three or more times a day.

When technology interrupted parent-child time, it predicted more problems, like whining and temper tantrums.

Tim Sullivan, says as a parent you need to be able to separate yourself from technology.

Sullivan said, "You tend to get lost a little bit in technology and lose out on the bigger more important things in life, so you got to learn how to shut it off and ignore it sometimes. We like to do a lot of things outdoors; we float the Madison a lot. We go to a climbing Gym, try to do things actively outside and enjoy the beautiful weather."

A couple things you could do to separate yourself are to set times that are specifically meant for your children, for example, as soon as you get home from work, make it play time.

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Is technology ruining the relationship between parent and child? New study shows yes - ABC FOX Montana News

EFF to Minnesota Supreme Court: Sheriff Must Release Emails Documenting Biometric Technology Use – EFF

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A Minnesota sheriffs office must release emails showing how it uses biometric technology so that the community can understand how invasive it is, EFF argued in a brief filed in the Minnesota Supreme Court on Friday.

The case, Webster v. Hennepin County, concerns a particularly egregious failure to respond to a public records request that an individual filed as part of a 2015 EFF and MuckRock campaign to track biometric technology use by law enforcement across the country.

EFF has filed two briefs in support of web engineer and public records researcher Tony Websters request, with the latest brief [.pdf] arguing that agencies must provide information contained in emails to help the public understand how a local sheriff uses biometric technology. The ACLU of Minnesota joined EFF on the brief.

As we write in the brief:

This case is not about whether or how the government may collect biometric data and develop and domestically deploy information-retrieval technology as a potential sword against the general public. That is just one debate we must have, but critical to it and all public debates is that it be informed by public [records]

The case began when Webster filed a request based on EFFs letter template with Hennepin County, a jurisdiction that includes Minneapolis, host city of the 2018 Super Bowl. He sought emails, contracts, and other records related to the use of technology that can scan and recognize fingerprints, faces, irises, and other forms of biometrics.

After the county basically ignored the request, Webster sued. An administrative law judge ruled in 2015 that the county had violated the states public records law both because it failed to provide documents to Webster and because it did not have systems in place to quickly search and disclose electronic records.

An intermediate appellate court ruled in 2016 that the county had to turn over the records Webster sought, but it reversed the lower courts ruling that the county did not have adequate procedures in place to respond to public records requests.

Both Webster and the county appealed the ruling to the Minnesota Supreme Court. In its appeal, the county argues that public records requesters create undue burden on agencies when they specify that they search for particular key words or search terms.

EFFs brief in support of Webster points out the flaws in the countys search term argument. Having requesters identify specific search terms for documents they seek helps agencies conduct better searches for records while narrowing the scope of the request. This ultimately reduces the burden on agencies and leads to records being released more quickly.

EFF would like to thank attorneys Timothy Griffin and Thomas Burman of Stinson Leonard Street LLP for drafting the brief and serving as local counsel.

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EFF to Minnesota Supreme Court: Sheriff Must Release Emails Documenting Biometric Technology Use - EFF

Nick Hostetler Excited By Progress Of White Sox Rebuild – CBS Chicago

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(CBS) Among the many happy people these days at the intersection of 35th and Shields is Nick Hostetler, the amateur scouting director of the rebuilding White Sox who has seen his organization reshape its future the last eight months with blockbuster deals.

The latest came Thursday, with the White Sox sending left-hander Jose Quintana to the Cubs for a haul of four prospects that included outfielder Eloy Jimenez, viewed as a top-10 prospect in the game, along with right-hander Dylan Cease, another major prospect.

Hostetler has a great feel for both of these new prized pieces to the White Sox farm system, which may now be the best in baseball. Jimenez joins a mix of position players that includes Yoan Moncada, ranked as the top prospect by MLB.com, and fellow outfielder Luis Robert, who signed out of Cuba in May.

Last week, Cubs general manager Jed Hoyer said that Jimenez compares to White Sox great Jermaine Dye. Hostetler joined Hit and Run on 670 The Score on Sunday and declined to give a comparison for the 20-year-old Jimenez, but his belief in him is strong.

Eloys just a tremendous talent, Hostetler said. When you have a chance to see him in person and to see how big and strong he is and to think that hes still only 20 years old with that type of power I can see why a Jermaine Dye comp has been put on him. Jeds an extremely smart man, and I wouldnt argue with him on a comp he gives.

Cease joins the White Sox as the latest talented pitcher to join their organization. Theyd previously added Lucas Giolito, Michael Kopech, Reynaldo Lopez and Dane Dunning in trades last December. Now, Cease enters the fold as a 21-year-old with an electric arm.

Hostetler scouted Cease out of high school in Georgia, before Tommy John surgery dropped his draft value in 2014.

He was a three-pitch mix with front-line starter ceiling, Hostetler said of Cease. It was about 97, 98 miles per hour on the fastball with a breaking ball that falls off the table. Hes got a solid feel for a changeup. Obviously, the numbers show theres going to be some refinements that need to be done with the mechanics to help him throw some more strikes.

Look, with our track record with pitching, Ill put that up against anybody in the league. I feel very confident turning a pitcher with his abilities over to our pitching guys.

The White Sox have made tremendous progress in their rebuilding efforts in short time. Their first major move toward a rebuild came with the deal of Chris Sale to the Red Sox in December, which acquired Moncada, Kopech and two others. Days later, the White Sox dealt Adam Eaton to the Nationals for Giolito, Lopez and Dunning.

With the move of Quintana to the Cubs, the White Sox have further stocked a farm system with major prospects. MLB.com ranks the team with nine of the top 68 prospects in baseball. Hostetler knows well that there are more names in the pipeline, too.

Rebuilding became the best route after the White Sox were mired in mediocrity, as general manager Rick Hahn declared almost a year ago. Theyve become better for the future by trading Sale, Eaton and Quintana.

Obviously, this is not something you want to have to do when youre working for a club and youre a scout or scouting director or GM, Hostetler said. You dont want to have to do these things. But at times, you have to. We know that the effort thats been put in now and 2016, 17 and 18 to hopefully, whenever that time comes that all these guys come up and start playing well for us and were winning championships, its all going to be worth it.

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Nick Hostetler Excited By Progress Of White Sox Rebuild - CBS Chicago