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Don’t Fear the Robot: It’s Time to Embrace Automation – Go Certify

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Written by Reena Ghosh Published: 27 February 2017

Page 1 of 2

Machine learning is quickly overtaking workers in a variety of job roles and career disciplines. Even in the complex and highly technical IT realm, there is cause for concern. Or is there?

Have robots been making you a bit nervous of late? Not the bad sci-fi kind of robots, with lasers and spaceships. No, I'm talking about the boring everyday industrial robots that are quickly becoming better at doing ... all kinds of different things.

Many have worried that machines that are able to learn, decide, and execute may eventually replace humans even in high-skill jobs. Although the U.S. IT industry saw an increase of 198,200 net jobs in 2015, a number of IT professionals fear losing work to automation and are uncertain about their future in the sector.

Whether the 2013 prediction by Oxford University researchers Carl Frey and Michael Osborne that "47 percent of all jobs in the United States (will) be lost to automation by 2033 is realistic or not, its a fact that machine learning, robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence are rendering a number of occupations obsolete.

Extinction of jobs, however, is nothing new. Over the centuries, many occupations have vanished or morphed into different jobs. The advent of electricity saw lamplighters lose their jobs. Similarly, refrigeration made ice cutters redundant and advancements in phone technology put many a switchboard operator out of work.

So, the question today is not whether jobs will be lost, but which jobs are likely to disappear. Many rote, predictable tasks have already been automated, and efforts are now on to automate cognitive functions such as the collection and processing of data.

As technology continues to evolve, automation will increase but that isnt necessarily a threat. Many see it as an opportunity. Attitude is of key importance here. Engaging with automation rather than resisting it will enable one to successfully adapt.

Whose Job Is Already On the Line?

So, what kinds of IT jobs can already be done by machines, or are likely to be handled in the near future by automated processes? If your role comprises predictable, repetitive tasks, it will likely be automated sooner rather than later. Machines are already capable of performing routine work in predictable circumstances.

For many IT workers, routine work forms only part of their job, in which case job modification is a possibility. As an example, those who spend a lot of time processing data, generating reports and documenting tickets could move on to creative and strategic activity once their more routine tasks are automated.

According to a KPMG survey, roughly 75 percent of U.S. tech CEOs surveyed expected at least 5 percent of roles in marketing, sales and technology to be lost to automation and machine learning. In 2016, McKinsey and Company reported that some jobs at higher skill levels might also be at risk if those jobs could be executed by software programs.

Already, many IT workers use automated tools to perform a variety of functions. Some of the most common automation processes are group policies, custom scripts and update tools.

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Don't Fear the Robot: It's Time to Embrace Automation - Go Certify

Automation likely to displace 60% of workforce: HR honcho – The Hindu

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

The Hindu

Automation likely to displace 60% of workforce: HR honcho
The Hindu
When nearly 60 % of the global workforce is likely to be displaced in future due to automation and artificial intelligence, Mr. Hari said generating workable ideas, and improving delivery mechanism would aid in reshaping organisational culture.

and more »

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Automation likely to displace 60% of workforce: HR honcho - The Hindu

Network Automation: Adding Up the Cost Savings and Benefits – CIO

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Outlining a modern approach to networking that catalyzes and enables digital transformation.

New: Berkeley’s New Ideology: A critique of the Strategic Plan – Berkeley Daily Planet

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

The city staff has proposed a Strategic Plan for Berkeley. The Plan occurs in the midst of severe crises besetting Berkeley, distracting from their resolution. It promotes the interests of the staff as a seemingly autonomous "organization" within city government, rather than an instrument of local democracy. Reducing the people to political consumers, and limiting them to non-participant input, it enlarges the structural chasm between the people and the government that is one of the sources of the present crises.

The odd thing about it is its appearance right in the middle of a number of crises besetting the city. These crises (concerning homelessness and affordable housing) have been the context for a change in City Council itself, and would seem to call for very focused administrative attention, rather than a diversion to a number of other long-term goals. It is as if (by analogy), while the Oroville Dam was coming apart under torrential rains, California engineers spent their time proposing different engineering principles for building dams. In the midst of crisis, that might be beside the point.

This is not a capricious analogy. Rent levels are so high in Berkeley that low income families, if they lose their lease or succumb to exorbitant rent increases, will be washed out of town. Homelessness is increasing precisely because fewer and fewer people can afford the rent. Whole neighborhoods are being displaced and dislocated. The African American population of Berkeley has dropped from 25% to 8%. Five homeless people have died of exposure during the autumn and winter of 2016. Four people have died from carbon monoxide poisoning in the area, possibly because of faulty (unmaintained) heaters. And there has been a forceful (police) repression of a homeless political movement, an intentional community demanding humane resolution of the entire homeless situation.

These crises and their attendant tragedies are not the result of government inefficiency. They result from governmental refusal to confront the impact of economic forces that, if left unchecked, will eventually destroy the economic infrastructure of low income neighborhoods. The implication of the Strategic Plan, that we dont have an idea of what were doing, is belied by the many neighborhood gatherings that have proposed real resolutions to the crises. So what is the real "strategy" here?

The pragmatic dimension of the plan is what one would expect. It enumerates governmental responsibilities such as city maintenance, preservation of infrastructure, community amenities, safety and health, and economic stability. These are listed as "goals," a category that includes efficiency, inclusivity and constituent participation.

And here, a red flag goes up. Why would the responsibilities that constitute the very purpose of government in the first place be listed as "goals"? What might that mean?

For instance, to list "inclusivity" as a goal admits there is an extant degree of exclusion. Does that refer to a prior deafness to neighborhood needs? Or is the Plan initiating a different kind of inclusivity? It offers no critique of any old exclusionism, nor the many forms it took.

One encounters an old form of exclusion in Council meetings. People would line up to speak for a minute without effect, and developers would call neighborhood meetings that were strictly pro forma. This new plan only gives people a webpage on which to have "input." Without dialogic engagement in policy-making, there is no real participation. Participation becomes an empty rhetorical term, as does "efficiency." A councilmember once said (last year), If fewer people would come to speak at these hearings, maybe we could get some work done.

The Plans "effectivity" is focused on who benefits from the achieved goals. In "effectively" accomplishing goals, the city seeks to become the provider of a product. "Benefit" signifies the successful operation of a service organization. But that in turn reduces those who benefit to the level of "consumers," rather than participants that is, the Plan implicitly equates "participation" with "consumption." Has government just become another corporate structure?

Real participation would involve people in policy-making, fostering togetherness in dialogues by which people discuss with each other what needs to be done, and from which policy would emerge. One does not create participation by exchanging an amorphous "inclusion" for a previous "exclusion." One includes by transforming a structure based on monologue into one based on dialogue.

The plan does not speak of dialogue, but rather of inclusion and input.

In her report to Council, the manager announced that webpage responses had already pointed to the issues of homelessness and affordable housing. But that only means they have been reduced to input. That which is destroying peoples lives gets reduced to "issues."

Born of hierarchy, the Plan neglects to include the democratizing of city processes (hearings, development, planning, police comportment, etc.) which should form a basis for resolving the citys crises. Instead, one detects a form of fetishist narcissism insofar as the Plan includes itself as one of its own goals.

The term is originally economic. It refers to corporate stocks, to securities representing ownership interests, and to funds that give owners a claim on profits or earnings. A shareholders claim to capital proceeds would seem to be fairly far afield from racial equality. But the term can also refer to a body of legal and procedural rules i.e. doctrines by which people are treated in an equitable manner. Thus, it can signify a certain freedom from bias, favoritism, or hierarchy. It implies that a person has a claim on a situation, and a claim on being respected, as well as on an ability or right to participate. In that sense, "equity" marks an antipole to exclusion, standing in opposition to inequality, by which it becomes a synonym for "equality."

But we have to be careful here. Equity does not refer to anyones claim on another individual. One can claim treatment equal to other individuals with respect to institutional operations (such as government or the court system). But that is not a claim on an individual. It is a claim on an institution with respect to others. In short, equity refers to a relation between individuals and institutions.

"Equality," however, is bigger than that. Equality is assumed in treating people equitably. It is ones social equality that is recognized when an institution does so. And it is equality that is suppressed when it doesnt. For instance, when the police racially profile people on the street, it marks a refusal to treat people equitably, and thus withholds recognition of equality. Equality becomes an issue when it is a question of an institution approaching an individual.

In short, equity and equality are not the same. Individuals can claim equity (that is, equitable treatment) when they approach institutions. When institutions approach individuals, they can either recognize their equality by treating them equitably or not. Where equity refers to what people can claim, equality refers to what people must defend in the way institutions approach them. Equity is relational and pragmatic, and equality is inherent and fundamental. They move in different ethical directions.

Against slavery, for instance (whether chattel or wage slavery or debt slavery or sex slavery), the desire for freedom expressed in running away or in organizing rebellion is an affirmation of equality against its withholding by the enslaving institution. The bond-laborer seeking freedom is not opting for equity in the institution but expressing equality with it in moving against it. Equity will reappear, perhaps, with the issue of reparations.

In council hearings, constituents come forth and offer input or commentary. They have equity insofar as they are granted equal time in which to speak, as a recognition of their equality with each other. But insofar as the institution (council hearings) only allows them to have a minute or two to speak, and deprives them of the ability to dialogue with councilmembers, they are denied equity with respect to it. They have no claim to have the council listen to them, or to take their concerns to heart. Insofar as this locks them out of the policy making process, it renders the councilmembers an elite.

(To democratize the councils hearings would require shifting its meeting structure whenever a significantly large group of people showed up on an issue, opening the meeting to a form that would enable dialogue between the people and the council, rather than only monologic "input.")

When an institution withholds equity from persons, it is in effect imposing inequality on them. In other words, inequality is something that is done to people through social institutions (and those social institutions can include cultural structures, such as patriarchy or white supremacy).

Equality gives power to humans, to be assumed in the face of institutions, and equity gives power to institutions, against which humans can only make claims and applications. For a democracy, equality of personhood must be an assumption, not an issue. It does not need to be promoted or demonstrated, since it is already the foundation on which people make political decisions about their collective needs. To reduce democracy to a service organization is to reduce equality to equity.

When the Strategic Plan states that one of its goals is to promote and demonstrate racial and social equity, it is adopting an institutional perspective, that of granting equity. This "granting" then expresses another form of hierarchy, the assumption of the power to withhold equality that already characterizes city government. To foster racial equity, what is needed is the cessation of withholding of equity by institutions, an end to the creation of inequality.

Such reference does not appear in the Plan itself, but in the thinking of the staff, as a sense of identity. And this conforms with the staffs previously mentioned self-prioritization. The staffs goals and priorities initiate the Plans central values, to which the rest of the city is subordinated as "input." Overall, it betrays a recognition of boundaries, a status constituted by those borders, and a sense of identification with them. The identity of the organization constitutes a presence that lurks behind walls, a flaunted independence toward the practical work of political implementation, and thus a political distance between government and people.

This is not farfetched. After last November, with a new council elected, the city manager was entreated to stop the police raids on the homeless community as a temporary measure while the new council articulated a better policy. The manager refused, and the police continued their assaults, as a direct repression of this communitys political statement.

It was gratuitous repression. The manager and the police chief knew about executive discretion. They could have chosen to leave enforcement in abeyance for a while. In choosing not to, they expressed their organizational autonomy as a priority over both the council and the people.

The city staff may think of the plan in a problem solving manner, for which a service organization may be most efficient. But the political purpose of defending the people against dislocation and displacement, and against the miseries attendant upon gentrifying development, is not problem-solving. And the staff might euphemize the organizational distance between governance and the people as leadership. But it reduces leadership to an elitist rule-governed exclusion from democratic governance. To arrest the current corrosion of communities requires political will, and involvement of the communities themselves that are affected by that corrosion in making decisions in their own interest.

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New: Berkeley's New Ideology: A critique of the Strategic Plan - Berkeley Daily Planet

National Prison Strike Exposes Need for Labor Rights Behind Bars – Toward Freedom

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Source: Yes! Magazine

Fighting for fair labor practices is so integral to the American identity that the first labor disputes predate the Revolutionary War. Over time, work strikes have helped to end child labor, instituted the weekend, and brought about fair wages. But what remains largely ignored by the labor movement is the forced and rarely remunerated work that takes place in prisonsuntil now.

On September 9, an estimated 24,000 inmates began the first national prison strike to protest long-term isolation, inadequate health care, violent attacks, and what they argue is slave labor. Spearheaded by the Free Alabama Movement (FAM), a network of incarcerated human rights activists, the nationwide protest calls for an end to prison slavery.

Although the 13thAmendment abolished slavery, it exempted criminals. The Federal Bureau of Prisons requires that all physically competent inmates do jobs ranging from kitchen duties to working for corporations, but many of them receive no pay. In some states, prisoners who refuse to do their work are confined to their cell for a 24-hour period.

Whats more, prisoners are often not considered employees, and therefore are not protected by national labor laws such as the Fair Labor Standards Act, which enforces minimum wage.

This begs two questions: What are prisons for? And if cheap labor is part of the answer, then why arent labor unions involved?

The current situation is prisoners taking matters into their own hands by refusing to work or going on hunger strike. Just as other labor movements are initiated from the ground up, inmates throughout the country are banding together to draw light to the unjust conditions they face.

About 29 prisons nationwide are affected by the protest through work stoppages and preemptive lockdowns. It started three weeks ago on the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison uprising, in which inmates seized control of the New York facility after an inmate was killed by guards at San Quentin State Prison in California. It is also the culmination of years of smaller hunger strikes and work stoppages throughout the country. Inmates learned about the protest through smuggled cell phones and literature disseminated by outside allies like the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC), a national group that acts as a liaison for prisoners to organize.

Demands vary from facility to facility.

In South Carolina, inmates are asking for fairer wages and more rehabilitative programs. In Alabama, prisoners have called for an outright abolishment of forced prison labor, and the correctional officers there are supportive. At Alabamas Holman prison, guards didnt arrive at their evening shift on Saturday in solidarity, according to the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee.

Along with work stoppages, inmates have been petitioning legislators and filing lawsuits to seek fair wages, but no concessions have yet been made.

Pastor Kenneth Glasgow, FAM national representative, contends that inmates in Alabama are not receiving the education and rehabilitation needed to become productive members of society once released. The only thing that theyre being used for is to be warehoused, and to be used for free prison labor, he concludes.

Since the early 1990s, thousands of unionized jobs with the Communication Workers of America have been outsourced into prisons. Labor unions have traditionally abstained from supporting prisoners, and even now large ones have failed to endorse the strike. Overlooking prisoners isa detriment to labor unions, because jobs in the public sector have been removed from communities and put into prisons where workers are paid less than minimum wage, says Cole Dorsy, a formerly incarcerated IWOC organizer.

We hope to make a national discussion of the fact that if these jobs were offered in these communities that are heavily policed or considered high drug-trafficking areas at prevailing union wages, they wouldnt have crime in those areas, Dorsy argues. So we can see that the issue isnt really about rehabilitation or law and orderits about keeping 2.4 million people and growing inside of institutions so that they can be a surplus labor [force].

Moreover, the day-to-day operations of the correctional facilities, he says, depends on inmates, from preparing the food to cleaning and providing other maintenance services. The most striking line Dorsy says hes heard from prisoner organizers was their call for other prisoners to stop reproducing the institutions of our confinement.

The strike organizers encourage lawmakers and unions to take a deep look at prison labor and how it affects workers as a whole. Although prisoners own voices are often ignored in conversations about prison reform, FAMs Pastor Glasgow hopes that the protest will allow inmates to have a greater voice in their fate. He urges allies who wish to support the strike to visit local jails and register inmates to vote.

MelissaHellmann wrote this article for YES! Magazine.Melissa is a YES! reporting fellow and graduate of U.C. Berkeleys Graduate School of Journalism. She has written for the Associated Press, TIME, The Christian Science Monitor, NPR, Time Out, and SF Weekly. Follow her on Twitter@M_Hellmann.

The Death of the Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution: Book Review

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National Prison Strike Exposes Need for Labor Rights Behind Bars - Toward Freedom

‘As a lecturer in the 1980s, I kept my sexual orientation to myself’ – Times Higher Education (THE)

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Whenever I see an LGBT+ event advertised on campus I feel joy that attitudes have changed so dramatically and wonderfully over my lifetime.

February was LGBT History Month, and this year is significant because it marks 50 years since the partial decriminalisation of male homosexuality in England and Wales. Universities across the UK have been holding events looking back and celebrating what has been achieved and preparing for the challenges that still face us. Above all, these events provide an opportunity for people to demonstrate their commitment to diversity and a fair and just society for all.

LGBT History Month was established just over a decade ago, following the abolition of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which banned local authorities and teachers from promoting homosexuality or publishing materials that promoted its acceptance as a pretended family relationship.

The University of Leicester has a programme of wide-ranging events open to staff, students and the general public, and Leicester City Council is showing its support by flying the rainbow flag for inclusion and diversity at the town hall and other public buildings.

It is worth noting that in the not-so-distant past, this series of public lectures, research seminars and social events could well have been deemed illegal or, at best, distasteful.

Things have come a long way since I was a teenager, when I was convinced I was the only one with a different sexual identity, and that I had some sort of disease because, growing up, I hadnt heard of any others like me. I grew up in a very ordinary suburb in a small Australian city, and I neither knew nor learned much about sex.

It was only when I got to university that it started to become clear to me that I was not alone, that there were many people out there with different sexual identities.

The change has been wonderful and amazing but, of course, the work is not finished. There are still LGBT+ people (especially transgender) living in fear and hiding. Young people still get bullied and worry about whether they are and will be OK. There are still people who think we should just shut up about it and dont realise that its hard to shut up when a lot of what you see around you is still shouting out that only heterosexual is really normal.

Theres a philosophical argument that we cannot learn from what has happened in the past because it is we in the present who construct our history. I would argue that, in practice, we in the LGBT+ community do have a lot to learn from our history and the activism and bravery that has got us this far.

Starting work as a lecturer in Australia in the early 1980s, I kept my sexual orientation to myself although most people probably realised and I was once denied a position because, I heard later, members of the panel preferred a family man and someone with whom they could feel comfortable.

Thirty years later I can not only come out as a homosexual provost of a leading UK university but can also, I believe, regard my sexual identity as an asset in my work. It has given me first hand experience of the way the mores and prejudices of a society can impact so negatively on the individual. It has given me a taste for justice and doing things properly, and compassion and sensitivity towards people dealing with bullying, harassment or marginalisation.

It is very important to say to younger people that change happens, that good arguments move people, change their minds and move their hearts. Straight people dont think about gay people the way they used to. That is an incredible achievement for activism from "our side", but straight people had to change themselves too. They had to do the work as well, in recognising the humanity and dignity of people who are different and understanding difference as valuable and enriching rather than threatening.

That is why it is so heartening to see so many diverse groups working together to make LGBT History Month a success, and opening up events to the wider community in Leicester.

I hope it is helpful for people who are marginalised, for people who are younger and fear that maybe the world doesnt change, to hear from someone a bit older who says: Yes it does but it doesnt just change by itself, you have to speak it, you have to argue it, you have to live it.

You have to embody the pride and embody the insistence that you are not going to take the lies and the misrepresentations. Good people listen and they respond and they change.

One of the things I am most proud of is that when I was younger, despite the insults and the fear about what taking a stand might mean, I was prepared to play a part in the activism that has created a world in which I am pretty sure the average teenager with a different sexual identity would no longer think they are the only one. There is always someone they can look to, someone who is confident in their skin, has someone who loves them and has a family that loves and respects them.

A lot of people in my generation didnt have that at all. We had no one to show us what the end of the journey might look like.

What is different about the world now compared with 20 or 30 years ago is that there are more allies. Some people are legally required to help you, and not to stand by and watch bullying and harassment, but there are even more people who are morally driven not to stand by. That helps us call it out, shout it out. It strengthens our voice.

Big gains have been made and this is a time to look back at the past and celebrate them. It is also a time to reflect on what still lurks beneath the surface because there is still sometimes a gap between what people say and what they feel.

Here at Leicester, the university celebrates diversity and our leadership reflects that. But it is everyones business. Young people have just as much ability to influence others with their courage, their example and the power of their arguments.

The work is not yet done, and there are times it feels like it is being undone. You wonder why you have to say certain things again.

But change does happen when people decide to act and when they decide to really listen. It happens when people who are advantaged or "normal" understand the justice of the arguments being made by those who are disadvantaged or "abnormal", and do something about it. I know, I have witnessed it.

Mark Peel is Provost at the University of Leicester.

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'As a lecturer in the 1980s, I kept my sexual orientation to myself' - Times Higher Education (THE)

Sinn Fein attacks schools minister over plan to merge two transfer tests – Belfast Telegraph

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Sinn Fein has slapped down the DUP Education Minister's efforts to resolve a decade-old split between two unofficial transfer test providers.

The Belfast Telegraph revealed yesterday that the Association for Quality Education (AQE) and the Post-Primary Transfer Consortium (PPTC) will next week enter talks to agree a single unofficial test system.

The two groups which currently run the unofficial transfer tests - which see more than 14,000 entrants by P7 children across Northern Ireland each year - say they are "eager to work together to find a common transfer test".

The old official 11-plus test was abolished by former Sinn Fein Education Minister Caitriona Ruane in 2008.

In response to that, the AQE and the PPTC were set up by grammar school supporters to run unofficial transfer tests.

However, the two organisations have never been able to agree a single test system.

But in a statement they paid tribute to Peter Weir, saying significant policy changes under his watch offered them a starting point for talks.

When Mr Weir took on the Education portfolio last May, he was the first in the post since the restoration of devolution to back academic selection.

He said he would not reimpose the old 11-plus but would encourage negotiations to find a single unofficial transfer test.

The education brief had been held by successive Sinn Fein members Martin McGuinness, Ms Ruane and then John O'Dowd. All three were strongly against academic selection.

When Mr Weir took office last May he overturned a ban on primary schools being able to prepare pupils to sit the unofficial transfer tests during class hours.

And last October the minister appointed Durham University educationalist Professor Peter Tymms to lead an initiative to investigate whether agreement could be reached for a single transfer test in Northern Ireland.

Following the conclusion of his work this month, the AQE and the PPTC committed to enter talks to agree a single test.

However, Sinn Fein education spokesperson Barry McElduff slammed the progress towards the single test system.

He has claimed there have been improvements in educational attainment in recent years - which he says proves that academic selection is "both wrong and unnecessary".

"Sinn Fein believes strongly that academic selection in our schools has a hugely negative impact on children," he said.

"We are not alone in our opposition to academic selection.

"Many educationalists, parents, teaching unions, and both children's and human rights organisations also oppose academic selection.

"The Human Rights Commission in the north has called for the abolition of academic selection, as it is socially divisive and not in the educational interests of children or young people."

He added: "The huge improvements in educational attainment under successive Sinn Fein education ministers demonstrates clearly that academic selection is wrong and unnecessary."

Belfast Telegraph

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Sinn Fein attacks schools minister over plan to merge two transfer tests - Belfast Telegraph

Committee expected to recommend 100m water charges refunds to those who have paid up – Irish Independent

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Committee sources last night said there was now a growing consensus that refunds should be issued in lieu of the option of pursuing those who had boycotted the charges.

Members are also leaning towards the introduction of an excessive usage charge, which will be levelled on households found to be wasting water.

The measure is a key recommendation in the report produced by the expert commission on water charges.

Special provisions for those on group water schemes will also form part of the package voted on in the Dil, sources say.

But TDs and senators remain split on key issues, including whether the metering programme should be continued.

With the Dil due to debate the issue of water charges next month, the work of the committee has now entered its most critical phase.

There is growing unease within Government that failure to strike an agreement on the issue could precipitate a general election.

While no measures have been agreed, various sources say they believe the issue of refunds has emerged as one of the least contentious issues.

The committee has now sought an option paper in relation to how best to reimburse the one million households that have paid their bills.

It's estimated that refunds will cost the State in the region of 100m.

Given the Dil arithmetic, the overall fate of water charges will depend on whether Fine Gael and Fianna Fil can reach a "compromise", according to senior sources in both parties.

Fine Gael remains in favour of a "modest charge" for households and has said the recommendation by the expert commission that the State becomes the main customer of Irish Water, rather than the household, is doable.

But Fianna Fil is coming under pressure to soften its position, which has changed on several occasions already.

In its submission to the expert commission, the party proposes the abolition of charges and the funding of the water system through general taxation.

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Committee expected to recommend 100m water charges refunds to those who have paid up - Irish Independent

Judge Holds NYPD’s Feet to Fire on Press Credentials – Courthouse … – Courthouse News Service

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

MANHATTAN (CN) Days after the White House banned major media from briefings, the New York City Police Department failed to avoid a lawsuit over a similar deprivation of access, as a federal judge issued a ruling that could have profound ripples for press freedom in the Big Apple.

Members of the NYPD have prevented news photographers from taking pictures, photographer Jason B. Nicholaswrote in an email. They have prevented reporters from witnessing events by confining them to press pens far-removed from newsworthy scenes; and they have summarily revoked the press credentials of journalists who had the integrity and the nerve to speak up, and assert their right to simply do their jobs.

For many New York journalists, obtaining an NYPD press credential is an unavoidable hassle, and photographer Jason B. Nicholas has long had a more rocky journey than most. The department has yanked his pass three times over the past three years, most recently when the New York Daily News sent him to cover a building collapse in Midtown Manhattan on Oct. 30, 2015.

One construction worker had been dead and another trapped when Detective Michael DeBonis and Deputy Commissioner Stephen Davis corralled credentialed journalists into a press pen that was out of sight from the ongoing rescue efforts.

Nicholas slipped away about 150 feet into the street to take photographs. Police accused him of interfering with the operations because he was near an ambulance, but Nicholas insists that he was not close to any emergency workers.

The photographer claims DeBonis physically seized him, before Davis told Nicholas: This is the last time youll do that.

Nicholas sued DeBonis, Davis, then-Commissioner Bill Bratton, the NYPD and the city on Dec. 8, 2015, a little more than a month after the incident.The NYPD has been adamant about its sole discretion to grant or withdraw press credentials, a must-have for reporters seeking to cross police lines to cover crime scenes and emergency zones.

Launching a two-pronged attack on the policy, Nicholas argued that it was a viewpoint-based and arbitrary enforcement, and he decried frozen zones and press pens as too broad to pass constitutional muster.

U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken found that Nicholas stated a First Amendment claim, pushing the case to discovery on Monday.

That press access implicates First Amendment rights and interests held not only by the journalists, but also by the public at large provides additional support for finding a protected interest in NYPD-issued press credentials, Oetken wrote in his 19-page opinion.

For far too long, the NYPD has bullied and interfered with journalists simply for doing their jobs, Nicholas said in a statement.

He added that the decision puts the NYPD on notice that actions like these will no longer be tolerated.

After today, journalists in New York need not fear doing their jobs vigorously, as their jobs are supposed to be done, the photographer said. If, after today, NYPD members interfere with press freedoms, federal judges in New York will hold them accountable.

He likely will keep facing stiff opposition from the New York City Law Department.

We will continue to defend the case, a department spokesman said.

Nicholas acknowledged that he still has a tough row to hoe.

While todays ruling is not the last word in the case, it puts me, and all journalists, on a clear path to victory, he said.

The New York ruling falls on the heels of a national controversy surrounding press access in Washington.

On Friday, President Donald Trump banned the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Politico and other news outlets from a White House press briefing in an action denounced by the American Civil Liberties Union as illegal.

Oetkens ruling today lends support to the ACLUs contention.

It has been held impermissible to exclude a single television news network from live coverage of mayoral candidates headquarters and to withhold White House press passes in a content-based or arbitrary fashion, Oetken wrote today.

Equal press access is critical because [e]xclusion of an individual reporter carries with it the danger that granting favorable treatment to certain members of the media allows the government to influence the type of substantive media coverage that public events will receive, which effectively harms the public, he added.

On top of his career as a seasoned journalist and photographer, Nicholas is quietly racking up a string of pro se legal victories.

At the age of 19, Nicholas started to serve a lengthy prison sentence for manslaughter after he fired a sawed-off shotgun at a young man he thought had been trying to shoot him.

Behind bars, Nicholas organized a union to advocate for the rights of state prisoners in Orange County. He stumbled in getting the case off the ground in federal court before obtaining legal counsel for his appeal.

In 1999, the Second Circuit granted prisoners rights to unionize in Nicholas v. Miller, a decision that paved the way for Nicholas to establish a government education organization two years later.

After serving 13 years in prison, Nicholas earned his bachelors degree and worked as a researcher for legendary defense attorney Ron Kuby.

Nicholas said in an interview that he would continue his current case as an exercise in personal empowerment.

The photographer added another litigation success to his growing list late last year.

On Sept. 17, 2014, Nicholas tried to photograph National Football Leagues commissioner Roger Goodell, who was protected by retired police detective Thomas Crowe. Nicholas says that Crowe slammed into him with his truck, threw him to the ground, punched him, and then had him arrested for assault.

Four months later, the Manhattan district attorneys office dropped the charges after three eyewitnesses backed up Nicolass account. Crowe and the city settled a lawsuit Nicholas filed over the incident for $20,000 last October.

Nicholas said that police tried to shunt him to a press pen again at an NYPD officers funeral on Jan. 4, 2015, even though the ceremony had been open to the public. He says that police briefly confiscated his credentials for filming himself asking for the same access granted to pedestrians.

In addition to his individual due-process claims, Judge Oetken allowed Nicholas to pursue claims that the NYPD has a pattern and practice of interfering with journalists constitutional rights.

The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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Judge Holds NYPD's Feet to Fire on Press Credentials - Courthouse ... - Courthouse News Service

Black History Month: Recovering Our Personal Narrative – Muslim Link

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Captain (Padre) Imam Ryan Carter is a chaplain with the Royal Canadian Military College, based in Kingston, Ontario. Here he reflects on the significane of Black History Month to him as a Black Muslim Canadian.

****

Black History Month is always a month to reflect on my place in this history of Black peoples in Canada and our larger historical legacy. Being Muslim adds a new layer to this annual commemoration.

The Black experience of Islam provides a tremendous vehicle of personal emancipation from this perception that there is only one voice in history. Islam provides a system and worldview wherein diverse voices are able to articulate with legitimacy and authenticity a vision of their faith congruent with the universal and particular. Humans are fallible however, and while Islam provides this system, Muslims often times fall short.

You see, for the Black peoples of the Americas, namely those descendants of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, their Muslim-narrative often times needs recovery. Once recovered, it seems to be constantly denied in the eyes of those who privilege their culture as normative. In mainstream society, those with a demographic privilege are white males, whereas in Muslim subculture it's being Arab, or Pakistani, or Turkish. Other cultures or expressions are seen with a diminutive status.

Ultimately, racism is still an issue in the Muslim community and it comes out in the most pernicious ways that can leave a horrid feeling in your heart. I have been called a Gorilla, impure blood, Abd (slave), and that was just the half of it. Why does racism exist amongst Muslims? How could it ever persist when the Quran and Prophetic example are so explicit in its condemnation? I lamented for years about these painful experiences. My narrative was lost in a sea of people telling me that who I was, was not authentic.

I had a revelatory experience while studying Black theology at Hartford Seminary in the United States. Unlike Canada, America actually has an indigenous demographic of Black American Muslims. This is where I found my new home at the Muhammad Islamic Centre of Greater Hartford. It was there where I found the capacity to be at home with my Black identity in a setting that provided me with the opportunity to explore different narratives of being Muslim and Black. I learned that there can exist in the universe of interpretation, multiple visions of how the Quran speaks to each people. We are not talking about what is authoritative, what is law, what is Halal and Haram. We are talking about the capacity of a community to make sense of this universal revelation in their own space and time. My narrative was recovered.

If there is anything I can impart, is to emphasize that the road to respect and empowerment is to acknowledge our diverse and ancient narrative which has always been in our history but drowned out by generations of systematic oppression. In our current climate where society seems to be regressing in a direction where hate and intolerance is becoming fashionable, Black History Month must be a time where we capitalize our efforts in understanding the reasons why racism is still an issue in our broader Canadian society. To appreciate that Black-Canadians are an integral part of our history, not some exception. In our own Muslim communities, we must allow diverse voices in the Mosques permeated by mono-cultural attitudes and say more than Yes, Bilal was Black, racism is bad in Islam. We as Muslims must also look into our history both contemporary and old and recognize our contributions to some of the racial maladies that exist in our world.

So who am I?

I am the son of John and Yasmin Carter. A Muslim, a son of Canada with a heart which exists on the Islands of the Caribbean. Deep within my conscious I never forget that I am a descendant of Africa, my history is rich and my narrative developing.

This is who I am, and to Allah I give all my praise.

This article was produced exclusively for Muslim Link and should not be copied without prior permission from the site. For permission,please write to info@muslimlink.ca.

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Black History Month: Recovering Our Personal Narrative - Muslim Link

Technology Hits The Fields – Forbes

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Forbes

Technology Hits The Fields
Forbes
During a recent blizzard in Massachusetts, Sonia Lo, CEO of FreshBox Farms, was in a grocery store suggesting to skeptical patrons that they sample her leafy greens. They were picked yesterday, is what she told tasters. She also told them no, they ...

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Technology Hits The Fields - Forbes

Facing a lawsuit from Google over driverless car technology, Uber may finally have met its match – Los Angeles Times

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

On the surface,a Google subsidiarys blistering accusation last week that Uber has stolen its driverless car technology looks like any of the thousands of patent lawsuits piling up in Silicon Valley court dockets.

This one is different, however. And its different in ways that could spell bad news for Uber.

The lawsuit was filed Thursday in San Francisco federal court by Waymo, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. devoted to developing self-driving technology. (Alphabet is the new name for Google.) Waymo is responsible for those bug-shaped cars and other vehicles testing the technology around Northern California. Theyre equipped with sophisticated laser systems that create a 3-D picture of the landscape, allowing the vehicles to navigate around obstacles.

Waymo says that Anthony Levandowski, who was once Googles driverless-car guru, downloaded 14,000 proprietary company files onto his own computer and absconded with them when he left Google to found his own company in 2016. That company, Otto, was soon acquired by Uber for $680 million. Not long after that, Google says, it discovered that Ottos technology was largely identical to its own. The lawsuit seeks damages for alleged infringement of three Google patents and an injunction barring Uber from using any of the technology.

One aspect of the lawsuit that struck some Silicon Valley observers from the first was the extensive detail in the accusations.

Normally in a case like this, theres a lot of innuendo in the early stages, says Eric Goldman, a patent law expert at Santa Clara University law school. But Waymo specified how and when it alleges Levandowski downloaded the files, the breadth of his alleged theft and efforts to conceal his actions, and how it discovered them from an email a supplier sent to members of Levandowskis team and mistakenly copied to a Waymo employee.

Google spent a lot of time and money investigating before it filed the lawsuit, Goldman told me.

Of course, the lawsuit represents just one side of the story. Uber hasnt yet responded in court. In a statement, the company said it had reviewedWaymo's claims anddetermined them to be a baseless attempt to slow down a competitor. Uber added, We look forward to vigorously defending against them in court.

Another unusual aspect of the case, Goldman says, is that Google is bringing it at all. Intellectual property lawsuits are out of character for Google, he says, even though it has so many former employees that a large amount of its IP must be at large in the technology community. They just dont show up as a plaintiff, he says. Moreover, Google is an investor in Uber with a stake of at least $250 million; a Google executive sat on Ubers board until just after Uber acquired Otto.

Google hasnt said much about why this episode should be different from any others, beyond a Waymo blog post that implies it was just too gross an offense to ignore.

These actions were part of a concerted plan to steal Waymos trade secrets and intellectual property, the post reads. Given the overwhelming facts...we have no choice but to defend our investment and development of this unique technology.

I asked Google to elaborate, but havent heard back.

Goldman conjectures further that this might be an asset especially valuable to the Google family, something extra important.If thats so, it underscores the grand expectations for driverless technology, despite indications that it may be oversold. Google has been among the most enthusiastic developers in the field; just last year, Eric Schmidt, its executive chairman, crowed that "the technology worksbecause, frankly, the computer can see better than you can, even if you're not drunk in a car.

The lawsuit says the markets for self-driving cars are nascent and on the cusp of rapid development. It asserts that the companys fleet of self-driving cars has logged 2.5 million miles on public roads, which it says equates to over 300 years of human driving experience. Its arithmetic is murky, however, since Americans alone log more than 3 trillion miles everyyear. In any event, some experts believe that a transition to fully autonomous cars the ones you nap in, rather than paying at least some attention to the road could be decades away.

Obviously, theres a lot at stake in the case for big, brash Uber. The company has built its reputation as a juggernaut by flouting local car-hire regulations and bullying municipal officials who dare to stand in its way. Google may not be as inclined to back off as your city alderman.

As my colleague Tracey Lien observed Friday, the lawsuit capped a bad stretch for Uber. That started with a boycott of the firm after it was perceived to have taken advantage of a taxi drivers strike at New Yorks JFK airport to protest President Trumps immigrant ban. It was followed by a devastating picture of a sexual harassment culture at Uber headquarters posted online by a former engineer, Susan Fowler Rigetti. Now comes Waymos unusually detailed accusation of intellectual property thievery.

The case may also underscore the weakness of Ubers claim to a $70-billion valuation in the private venture market. That valuation had been based on the expectation that Uber was poised to radically reform the transportation-for-hire economy by shouldering vehicle-owning taxi companies and individuals out of the way, replacing them with independent drivers using their own cars. If Google is to be believed, Uber now puts such stake in owning its own capital assets that it waswilling to pay $680 million for the necessary (allegedly stolen)technology.

Moving from a business model in which the company essentially owns nothing but skims a vigorish of 25% or more off the fares paid to its independent contractors, to one in which it owns and must continue to develop a fleet of its own vehicles represents a major change of direction. As transportation expert Hubert Horan observed in a detailed critique of Uber last December, it is unclear why investors would wager billions on the prospect that it will eventually be able to design and build highly sophisticated vehicles more efficiently than competitors such as Google, Tesla, Toyota, Mercedes-Benz, Ford and General Motors.

The allegations in the lawsuit imply that Uber went to great lengths to obtain its driverless technology. The core allegation concerns its light detection and ranging system, orLiDAR, which coordinates and interprets in real timethe signals returned from laser beams bouncing off objects in the real world. Waymo says its LiDAR is the most advanced in the fieldanda trade secret.

According to the lawsuit, while Levandowski was managing Waymo, he was plotting to start his own competing company. Starting in December 2015, he downloaded 14,000 Waymo files, including specifications for its LiDAR system, from a company laptop, the lawsuit alleges,then he erased and reformatted the laptop to eliminate evidence of what he had done. Within weeks he resigned from Waymo and launched Otto. Other Waymo employees soon followed him out the door, taking other trade secrets, the lawsuit says.

Then, last December, a Waymo employee was sent a copy of an email destined for the Otto team. It happened, the lawsuit said,to include a rendering of an Otto circuit board that bore a striking resemblance to a circuit board design that Levandowski had downloaded.

Keep up to date with Michael Hiltzik. Follow@hiltzikmon Twitter, see hisFacebook page, or emailmichael.hiltzik@latimes.com.

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Facing a lawsuit from Google over driverless car technology, Uber may finally have met its match - Los Angeles Times

Foliage-penetrating ladar technology may improve border surveillance – MIT News

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

The United States shares 5,525 miles of land border with Canada and 1,989 miles with Mexico. Monitoring these borders, which is the responsibility of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), is an enormous task. Detecting, and responding to, illegal activity while facilitating lawful commerce and travel is made more difficult by the expansive, rugged, diverse, and thickly vegetated geography that spans both often-crossed borders. To help mitigate the challenges to border surveillance, a group of researchers at MIT Lincoln Laboratory is investigating whether an airborne ladar system capable of imaging objects under a canopy of foliage could aid in the maintenance of border security by remotely detecting illegal activities. Their work will be presented at the 16th Annual IEEE Symposium on Technologies for Homeland Security to be held April 25-26 in Waltham, Massachusetts.

Requisite for effective border protection is timely, actionable information on areas of interest. Leveraging the laboratorys long experience in building imaging systems that exploit microchip lasers and Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes, the research team developed and tested two concepts of operations (CONOPS) for using airborne ladar systems to detect human activity in wooded regions.

"For any new technology to be effectively used by CBP, an emerging sensor must bring with it a sensible deployment architecture and concept of operation," said John Aldridge, a technical staff member from the Laboratory's Homeland Protection Systems Group, who has been working with a multidisciplinary, cross-divisional team that includes Marius Albota, Brittany Baker, Daniel Dumanis, Rajan Gurjar, and Lily Lee. The CONOPS that the engineering team focused on were cued examination of a localized area and uncued surveillance of a large area. To demonstrate the approach, the engineering team conducted proof-of-concept experiments with the laboratory's Airborne Optical Systems Testbed (AOSTB), a Twin Otter aircraft outfitted with an onboard ladar sensor.

For cued surveillance, the use of an airborne ladar sensor platform (whether a piloted or unpiloted aircraft system) might be prompted by another persistent sensor that indicates the presence of activity in a localized area at or near the border. "The area of coverage for cued surveillance may be in the 1 km2 to 10km2 range, and the laboratory has already developed and demonstrated sensor technology that can achieve this coverage in minutes," Albota said.

Uncued wide-area surveillance sorties might be flown long distances and over timelines of days or weeks to establish typical activity patterns and to discover emerging paths and structures in high-interest regions. "The area coverage required under such a CONOPS may reach as high as 300 to 800 km of border, depending on the Border Patrol Sector and vegetation density," Aldridge explained, adding, "Although the current AOSTB's area coverage rate is limited by the aircraft's airspeed, the sensor can image such a region in a matter of hours in a single sortie."

As a start to their field tests to assess their CONOPS, the team flew data collection runs over several local sites identified as representative of the northern U.S. border environment. The sites contained a variety of low-growing brush, thin ground vegetation, very tall coniferous-trees, and leafy deciduous trees. For the tests, the team positioned vehicles, tents, and other camp equipment in the woods to serve as the targets of interest. "We made 40 passes at an altitude of 7,500 feet to allow for a spatial resolution of about 25 centimeters," Dumanis said. "In between each pass, we moved the concealed items so that we could perform post-process analysis for change and motion detection," Baker added.

In this post-processing stage, the team members enhanced the data captured during the flights so that human analysts could then inspect the ladar imagery. They digitally removed ground-height data to reveal the three-dimensional ladar point cloud above ground and then digitally thresholded the height (erased 3-D points above a certain height) to eliminate the foliage cover. The resulting images gave analysts Gurjar and Lee a starting point for approximating the locations of both the planted objects as well as objects that were already on scene.

Searching through vast quantities of ladar data to spot areas for careful inspection is a labor intensive task even for experienced analysts who can recognize subtle cues that direct them to the possible presence of objects in the imagery. For the ladar data to be efficiently mined, an automated method of identifying areas of interest is needed. "One of the ways to alert analysts to potential targets is to track changes in the 3-D temporal data," Lee explained. "Changes caused by vehicle movements or alterations in a customary scene can indicate uncharacteristic activity."

To begin a change detection approach to the discovery of potential targets of interest, the research team registered the before and after ladar data and then subtracted the before data from the after dataset. This process allowed some improvement in the visual identification of vehicles that appeared where there had been none before; however, even a skilled human analyst would find it difficult to spot the small changes that signaled the presence of a vehicle.

A change detection approach, therefore, must compensate for the challenge posed by clutter in the ladar data. This clutter comes from the nature of ladar collection in densely foliated environment. As light travels through gaps between foliage, it bounces off a surface of leaves, ground, or human-made objects. The returned light is collected by the ladar sensor to form the 3-D point cloud. Because the motion induced by a flying platform causes each ladar scan to travel through different configurations of gaps between leaves, different parts of the canopy and shrubbery are sensed by the ladar. "Much of the clutter in our change detection output is from the different levels of canopy detected from different ladar scans," explained Gurjar.

To make the ladar change detection data easier for analysts to search, the team looked to automated object detection, a well-established field in computer vision that has been applied to images and radar data. Since ladar data presents in three dimensions and has unique noise characteristics, the team had to enhance the established automated detection approach with a sum of absolute difference (SAD) technique that factors in the height differences used to construct 3-D ladar imagery. Trials of the SAD technique applied to simulated vehicles in a foliated environment demonstrated that the approach yielded high detection rates and has potential as an automated method for reducing the huge amount of ladar data analysts would have to scrutinize to discover objects of interest.

"Looking forward, we hope to improve the capabilities of automated 3-D change detection to be more robust to natural temporal changes in foliage, expand the number of automatically detected object classes, and extend automated detection capability to full 3-D point clouds," said Lee, with Aldridge adding that they are also interested in exploring alternative aircraft for hosting the ladar system.

In its strategic plan "Vision and Strategy 2020," the CBP has expressed the need to apply advanced technology solutions for border management. Continued development of Lincoln Laboratory's automated approach to using a low-cost ladar system for surveillance of foliated regions may in the future offer another tool that the Department of Homeland Security's CBP can deploy to monitor the growing volume of land border activity.

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Foliage-penetrating ladar technology may improve border surveillance - MIT News

Southampton’s Oriol Romeu wants video technology after EFL Cup final – ESPN FC

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Paul Mariner and Sebastian Salazar discuss Man United's capture of the EFL Cup trophy, and if Southampton deserved more. Claude Puel shares his disappointment and thoughts on video technology after Southampton's 3-2 loss in the EFL Cup final.

Southampton's Oriol Romeu has urged football's rule-makers to bring in video technology after the EFL Cup final was "dramatically'' altered by an erroneous offside decision.

Claude Puel's men flew out the blocks at Wembley and found the net after just 11 minutes as Manolo Gabbiadini turned home from close range, sending the success-starved Saints fans wild.

However, the goal was wrongly ruled off for offside on an afternoon that ended with United lifting the EFL Cup thanks to a 3-2 triumph at Wembley, where the International Football Association Board will convene this Friday.

Video technology is on the agenda for the 131st annual general meeting and Romeu hopes that changes can be made to cut out such crucial errors.

"I think that makes a massive difference in the game,'' the Spanish midfielder said.

"We all players will agree that we want the truth to be part and to be real in the game. If it's a goal, it has to count. If it's not, it can't count.

"Sometimes it can make a massive difference in a final because leading 1-0 will change dramatically the game in the other side.

"We all want to make it clear and to have it better for all the players and for all the referees and for everyone.''

Live video trials in football were given the go-ahead by the IFAB last March, with experimentation of technology that could assist officials with game-changing decisions beginning no later than the 2017-18 season.

Asked if he thinks every player would want it brought in, Romeu added: "Oh definitely, they will agree.

"Everyone wants if it's a goal or if it's not a goal it has to count or it doesn't have to count, it's as simple as that.

"The goal disallowed is something that happens and we cannot do anything about it.

"Also the referees play their part and sometimes make mistakes and sometimes they're all right, we cannot say anything, we all make mistakes.

"About the feelings, they are difficult, it's a difficult game to take because it's a final, you're so close to winning a trophy, it's hard to lose in the last two or three minutes of the game.''

Zlatan Ibrahimovic's last-gasp winner stole the headlines on a day when Gabbiadini underlined his potential at Wembley.

Having seen his opener get ruled out, the 25-year-old attacker cancelled out Ibrahimovic's free-kick and a Jesse Lingard strike with goals either side of half-time.

"Amazing, since he came to the club he's been very good, he scored a lot of goals,'' Romeu said of Gabbiadini.

"As a teammate of him we just want to make him happy to make him keep playing like that way and to keep scoring goals.

"To be fair I think not many had seen him play before. But now since he came here he's been very good, every time he has a chance he puts the ball in.

"That's what we want, that's what we need and we're very happy.''

Gabbiadini's displays certainly bode well for Saints, but they face a battle to stop this season petering out.

Puel's men sit 13th with 13 league matches remaining of a topsy-turvy campaign, which is set to end a run of bettering their finish every season since returning to the top-flight in 2012.

"It's hard [to pick ourselves up],'' Romeu said ahead of Saturday's trip to Watford.

"But we have now a week to come back and if we look into the game and the detail.

"The team has played amazingly and the way we did our jobs today we cannot say anything bad about how we played, how we came back into the game and we were so close.''

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Southampton's Oriol Romeu wants video technology after EFL Cup final - ESPN FC

DUGGAL | Big Bad Technology – Cornell University The Cornell Daily Sun

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

8 hours ago Columns By Hebani Duggal | 8 hours ago

The worst news today is the news about how technology is killing us. The use of social media causes us to meet face-to-face with much less frequency resulting in a lack of social skills or technology creates the perfect recipe for depression with the lack of human contact, overeating, and lack of exercise or being constantly plugged in and connected causes an extra layer of stress that wasnt present before the overuse of technology I can keep going, but honestly Im sure you could type the words bad and technology, and Googles algorithm will be happy to oblige.

Its not so much that these news stories are fake as it is that technology seems to be pit against anything good that could occur in society. Fearing the inevitable shift towards technology accomplishes little else other than an unproductive discussion to which the only logical conclusion seems to be switching off all your devices and hiding in your house.

There seems to be a distinction people draw today of what is real and unreal. Real is what occurs in our everyday, face-to-face interactions while unreal is what apparently occurs online. There is, however, danger in drawing conclusions like this about the technology we engage with on an everyday basis. Technology tends to be a reflection of the kind of people we are and the interactions we engage in on an everyday basis. When we draw a line between technology and real life, however, we do ourselves a disservice in analyzing how technology impacts our everyday lives. Rather than looking at how we may turn away from the technology we employ in our lives, we must look to how we may better understand and benefit from the technologies we have and will continue to use in our lives. Painting the teenagers that spend time on their phones as being too obsessed with technology unfairly identifies technology as the problem, and fails to see the larger context at hand.

We are an independent, student newspaper. Help keep us reporting with a tax-deductible donation to the Cornell Sun Alumni Association, a non-profit dedicated to aiding The Sun.

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DUGGAL | Big Bad Technology - Cornell University The Cornell Daily Sun

Trump Speech: Republican Agenda in Congress Makes Slower Progress Than Promised – NBCNews.com

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Congressional Republicans came to town with an ambitious agenda and high expectations. But as President Donald Trump prepares to deliver his first joint address to the House and Senate, that agenda has not moved as quickly as members or Trump anticipated.

The realities of governing, coupled with challenges brought on by the Trump administration, have thwarted an aggressive to-do list that focused on reversing many of the previous administration's actions.

Trump will take the podium with few legislative accomplishments. However, he is expected to tout his first month in office and promote his goals for the next year in what is expected to be a broad speech full of ideas but short on specifics.

Here's a look at where the Republican agenda stands in Congress:

With a Republican in the White House, the GOP-controlled congress was ambitious in a quick timeline to pass a repeal bill after six years of voting to do just that. But the process was dramatically slowed as some members expressed nervousness about repealing a bill without a replacement and disagreements emerged among Republicans about what a replacement should look like and how to pay for it. Now nearly two months into the session, Congress has yet to present a bill. A draft bill was leaked last week but Republican leaders caution that a new version could emerge. House Speaker Paul Ryan's latest timeline is the presentation of a bill before the full House the first full week of March - a date that is quickly approaching.

Republicans' next big agenda item is tax reform, but tensions have emerged early in the process between each body of Congress and the White House. Central to Speaker Ryan's corporate tax reform plan is something called the border adjustment tax, which taxes any product of good or part imported into the United States. Trump has signaled hesitation on the idea, calling it "too complicated," and Senate Republicans have no interest in what many say would make products more expensive for American consumers. Some have even said it would cause a trade war. The original goal for tax reform was late spring but a more likely timeline appears to be July, before the month-long August recess.

Reversing some of President Barack Obama's regulations is perhaps the biggest accomplishment for Republicans so far. Trump has already signed three measures, including one that rolls back environmental protections. The House passed additional measures that now have to be taken up by the Senate, including one that reverses the ban on allowing mentally ill people from purchasing firearms.

What President Trump wants to achieve

One of Trump's biggest priorities is infrastructure. Republicans in Congress, however, are less eager to spend a proposed trillion dollars on repairing the nation's roads and bridges. Congress hasn't addressed it and with little buy in from Congress, it could quickly be put on the back burner.

Congress is expecting an emergency funding bill this spring to begin funding Trump's wall along the Mexican border, which is expected to cost billions of dollars. Construction won't begin until the funding bill is received.

Because of Democrats' ability to slow-walk the confirmation process, Trump's cabinet is not fully in place. A handful of positions remain open and the nominee for Secretary of Labor, Andy Puzder, withdrew his name after ongoing scrutiny and concerns raised by Republicans. Because the confirmation process has been so time-consuming, the Senate has done little legislating other than putting Trump's cabinet in place.

Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch is on his way to hold courtesy meetings with all the members of the Senate but he has yet to have his confirmation hearings, which are scheduled for March 20.

Allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election and the resignation of former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn after questions about the content of phone calls with a Russian official has forced Congress to take up investigating the developments. It is an investigation that has expanded and is being looked at by at least five committees. While committees can focus on multiple issues at a time, it is using valuable resources and time and a constant story that Republicans are asked about when they'd rather be focusing their news cycle on their legislative agenda.

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Trump Speech: Republican Agenda in Congress Makes Slower Progress Than Promised - NBCNews.com

Report: Significant progress on new Antonio Brown contract – NBCSports.com

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Getty Images

Wide receiver Antonio Brown may have had some uncomfortablemoments with the Steelers during and immediately after their postseason stay, but that didnt stop the team from making a new deal for their top wideout a top offseason priority.

Talks got going earlier this month and it sounds like things are moving along at a good clip. Ian Rapoport of NFL Media reports that the two sides have made significant progress toward a deal that promises to be a very lucrative one for the wideout.

Rapoport adds that the goal is to have the deal wrapped up by the start of the new league year on March 9. Theres no fear of losing Brown as a free agent as he has another year left on his deal, but locking him in would allow the Steelers to take care of the rest of their business with certainty about where things stand for Brown.

Thats not the only date looming large for the Steelers right now. Wednesdays deadline to use franchise or transition tags is also one theyre up against when it comes to their plans for running back LeVeon Bell.

Report: Significant progress on new Antonio Brown contract - NBCSports.com

Watch an 11-year-old explain why you’re making monumental progress – TNW

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Josephine is 11 years old, and opened our conference last year. I wrote this text for her, and then we fine-tuned it together so it would feel natural for her to speak the words in front of an audience of 5,000 people.

We wanted to make sure people understood that working in digital tech is not about just making a quick buck, but that with every small improvement you are making the world a better place.

It was an absolute joy to work withJosephine. She understood what we meant, wasnt shy, and knew the text by heart. She understood that her message was meant to give people goosebumps and get them ready to make the best of our event.

Heresthe full text of her talk:

My name is Josephine, and Im 11 years old. But it would be a mistake to see me as an 11 year old. Because what you are looking at is the future. Im the future.Im going to be your customer, your critic, your opponent, your competitor.

Ill be your enemy, your biggest fan and the person paying your bills.

Im the one that will help you out when youre in trouble and Im the one who will suffer from the worlds problems, or I will fix them.

Today is the first day of this conference, and Im the opening act. Over the next three days you will learn a lot.

You might do a deal, meet a potential partner, and advance your business in a small or big way. And that will be progress. But it wont just be ordinary progress. It will be essential and monumental progress.

At The Next Web we believe that technology is essential for the future of mankind and it is making the world a better place.

I cant solve all the worlds problems in one go. But together we can increase our knowledge, improve technology and take another step towards a better future.

Thats the way to solve the worlds problems, by improving every aspect of it.That is the mindset I want you to have.

You are not just here to be inspired. You are not just here to do business.The work you do is going to make the world a better place.You are not doing this for yourself or for me. You are doing it for a future me, and for your future self.

My name is Josephine, Im 11 years old and on behalf of The Next Web, and my future self, I hope you have a great conference.

I hope you will join me and Josephine again this year and makeessential and monumental progress. See you soon.

Read next: The new Raspberry Pi Zero W computer brings Wi-Fi and Bluetooth for just $10

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Watch an 11-year-old explain why you're making monumental progress - TNW

NCC faces deadline for progress from accrediting agency | Newsday – Newsday

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

Nassau Community College faces scrutiny and judgment this week when its independent academic accreditors meet and are expected to determine whether the schools officials have made enough progress to secure the institutions future.

The Middle States Commission on Higher Education is scheduled to take action on Thursday, nearly one year after a review team placed NCC on probation for failing to show compliance with seven of 14 quality benchmarks needed to keep the college in good standing.

NCC is the largest single-campus community college in the State University of New York system. Loss of accreditation would render its 20,000 students ineligible for federal and state financial aid and hamper their employment efforts. The college would not be able to exist without its accreditation, officials have said.

Addressing the accreditation problem has taken top priority at the school, which is funded by county and state tax dollars as well as student tuition. The notice that Middle States had placed the college on warning last March raised such alarm that it defined the course of the colleges yearslong and sometimes controversial presidential search. NCCs Board of Trustees and SUNY found a new president in W. Hubert Keen, a seasoned administrator, to remedy the accreditation woes and chart the colleges future.

We will reach full compliance by the end of the fall semester 2018, Keen said in an interview last week, noting that Middle States gives institutions up to two years to correct areas of noncompliance. It has been a very large-scale effort involving everyone on campus. . . . However, what I need to point out and this is very important: Yes, in the short term we must comply and remove the probationary status, but we are setting the stage for the long-term future of the college. And that means that we need to build in solid administrative structures that will serve the college well as it goes into the future beyond the restoration of all of the standards.

Keen, 72, had been president of Farmingdale State College since 2007, and in June 2015 had announced that he planned to step down from that post at the end of the 2015-16 academic year. His selection to lead NCC came less than two months after Middle States put the school on probation.

He was endorsed by SUNY Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher and the SUNY Board of Trustees, which holds final approval over any president installed at any one of the systems 64 campuses. With a salary of $225,000, Keen began on Aug. 1 and is NCCs first permanent president since Donald Astrab, who left in 2012 after two votes of no confidence from the colleges Academic Senate.

Among Keens first moves was to sign a separation agreement with Kenneth Saunders, a longtime NCC administrator who had been acting president of the school and a two-time finalist in its presidential searches.

Next, he supported more procedural and ethics training for the NCC Board of Trustees, a 10-member governing board with five voting members appointed by the county and four by the state, plus one student trustee.

In addition, Keen created working committees with representation from all areas of the campus faculty, administration and staff, he said. A new strategic plan for the school also is in the works, Keen said.

Leadership really does matter. SUNY worked really hard to make sure the campus was able to secure a good president, said Johanna Duncan-Poitier, SUNYs senior vice chancellor for community colleges and the education pipeline.

Duncan-Poitier has attended NCC board meetings and has offered the advice and expertise available from SUNY to reverse the Middle States probation. She was present in November when officials from Middle States came to the school for a site visit and said she speaks with Keen weekly to offer support.

The situation at Nassau was really unprecedented. This was unusual because of the number of standards that were not met. But I must say even though theres a lot to be done that they are addressing all of these responsibly and with great rigor, said Duncan-Poitier, who noted NCC is a very big campus and one that is very important to SUNY.

Several faculty leaders, who declined to be quoted because of a new NCC policy on speaking with the media, said they believe Keen has helped bring together the various stakeholders within the college.

Board Chairman Jorge Gardyn said trustees are united in the effort to support Keen and to make the changes necessary to support the mandates provided by Middle States.

The addition of Dr. Keen to the administration at Nassau Community College has been a smooth transition and provided the evolutionary changes to bring together all of the groups on campus the full-time faculty, adjunct faculty and staff with a united vision for the colleges future, Gardyn said.

Reviewers from Middle States, after a three-day visit last March, said NCC needed to hire a permanent president, prevent political intrusion, raise student enrollment and graduation rates and rebuild trust among its constituents.

For years, the college has struggled with allegations of political patronage, a lack of transparency and a vocal faculty leadership that has historically sparred with the administration on the educational and budgetary priorities of the institution.

One major deficiency that Middle States reviewers found was under the standard labeled Integrity. Failing to comply with that standard could mean the college may be called upon to show cause as to why it should not immediately lose its accreditation, according to the Middle States report adopted June 23.

That report pointed to political influences at the college and potential conflicts of interest in regard to the hiring of Kate Murray, the former Town of Hempstead supervisor who began work there Jan. 1, 2016, in a media and governmental relations job. Trustees voted in December 2015 to hire Murray at an annual salary of $151,000.

Keen said a team from Middle States, during the November site visit, assured college officials that additional training for trustees and new policies and bylaws have assured the accrediting agencys officials that progress on that standard was being made.

Murray currently is employed by the college.

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NCC faces deadline for progress from accrediting agency | Newsday - Newsday

Brandon Ingram steps up, and Lakers think they’ll see more progress from the rookie – Los Angeles Times

Posted on February 28, 2017 by Danzig

For one half of a game Sunday afternoon, the Lakers saw signs of what they want to see more often from their first-round pick, Brandon Ingram.

They saw an aggression with which Ingram doesnt always play.

Sometimes I shy away from it a little bit, Ingram said. [Sunday night] I did a good job.

Ingram had his first career 20-point game Sunday against the San Antonio Spurs. His 22 points and 10 field goals were both career highs. He hasnt been the type of player to take over games at any point this season, but that doesnt worry the Lakers. As his coaches work on his physicality, the proper way to take contact and an attacking mentality, they believe theyll see more of this from Ingram.

Hell figure it out, Lakers Coach Luke Walton said. Were very confident that, from what we see every day in practice, hes gonna be a successful player in this league. Well keep pushing him and keep putting him in positions to succeed and to fail, and hell keep figuring it out. When he gets it, hell get it.

Understanding contact, and how he can use it to his advantage, is part of the learning process for Ingram. Team executiveMagic Johnsonworked with him last week on techniques that would make things easier for him on offense. But thats also something Lakers assistant Brian Keefe, who works individually with Ingram, has helped him learn.

Its understandingto use your body, knowing when the contacts coming, knowing when you can be the player that initiates the contact to get your defender off balance, then obviously getting stronger yourself, Walton said.

Ingram is still about as thin as he was when he was drafted. During the season, hes just working on maintaining his weight. As he fills out, he could start to look physically more like Warriors star Kevin Durant.

In the meantime, he and the Lakers are working on what they can better control.

Calderon waived

The Lakers waived reserve point guard Jose Calderon on Monday, after working on a buyout with the veteran guard.

Jose wanted to play and the Lakers were going in the direction of trying to play the younger guys, which we understood, said Mark Bartelstein, Calderons agent. I am really appreciative of Magic and the Laker organization for doing this for Jose. They wanted to keep him around, felt like he was valuable for his team. [There were] some opportunities we thought might be available and Magic was great about accommodating us.

According to reports, the Golden State Warriors would like to sign Calderon if he clears waivers.

Calderon spent most of his career with the Toronto Raptors. In the seven years he played there, the Raptors made the playoffs twice, and never got out of the first round.

The Warriors, meanwhile, have the best record in the NBA. They are heavy favorites to return to the NBA Finals this season.

The Bulls traded Calderon to the Lakers in July for the final year of a four-year contract he signed with the Dallas Mavericks. Calderon, 35, was often inactive for the Lakers, unless injuries required them to play him. He played in 24 of the Lakers 60 games and started 11 times for the Lakers this season.

He hopes to play 15 years in the NBA that would mean three more seasons.

I feel really good physically, Calderon said. I think I still can help and I can play minutes. I will be a free agent this summer, too, to maybe choose a good situation. Here it was great. The wins and losses, I totally understand what theyre trying to do. Ive been here helping all these guys and its been fun. But I guess youve always got that thing inside you, I think I can still play a little bit.

UP NEXT

LAKERS VS. CHARLOTTE HORNETS

When:Tuesday, 7:30 p.m.

Where:Staples Center.

On the air:TV: Spectrum SportsNet, Spectrum Deportes; Radio: 710, 1330.

Records:Lakers19-41; Hornets 25-34.

Record vs. Hornets:0-1.

Update: The last time these teams faced each other, the Lakers built a 19-point lead only to lose the game. The Hornets have been in Los Angeles for a few days. They played the Clippers on Sunday, scoring 121 points and still losing the game.

tania.ganguli@latimes.com

Follow Tania Ganguli on Twitter@taniaganguli

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Brandon Ingram steps up, and Lakers think they'll see more progress from the rookie - Los Angeles Times

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