Daily Archives: April 23, 2017

What we can learn by not using technology – The Advocate

Posted: April 23, 2017 at 12:44 am

The passing of veteran Mississippi newsman Bill Minor has been widely noted.

What may not be as readily known is a trait shared by many of his generation of pre-technology reporters the ability to observe, store and retrieve observations banked in their memories.

I met Minor in August, 1968, in Jackson, Mississippi. I had dropped out of the seminary in New Orleans to spend three months in Jackson working on a political campaign. The idea was to save money and return to New Orleans in December with enough in the bank for the January semester.

My job was simple, but mentally challenging for one who knew so little. I was to turn out a daily press release, get it approved by the boss and distribute it to the half dozen Jackson media outlets before the 4 p.m. news cycle at the wire services.

An experienced person could have written the material in an hour. It sometimes took me until 2 p.m. to get the final copy through the eyes of the boss, himself a walking almanac of national and state political facts.

My office desk was surrounded by a large dictionary, thesaurus and a congressional directory, plus file folders stuffed with information about state politics and government.

By contrast, as I made my rounds to distribute the press release, I noticed how lean the work spaces were for the citys news people. Jim Saggus at the Associated Press operated out of a tiny room on the news floor of The Clarion Ledger. Andy Reeses United Press International quarters were in an office building not much larger. Two chairs and a teletype machine pretty much filled the rooms. Desks at all the places were usually barren except for a manual typewriter. The same could be said for the the press room at the state capitol, where the only color was a green and white Draft Dot bumper sticker someone had slapped across a grey desk. The reference was to a failed dream of someone to get Dorothy Johnson in the 1967 race for governor. Her husband, Paul Johnson Jr., could not succeed himself.

These veteran news people did not need to look up a lot of facts. They already knew that Jamie Whitten was elected to Congress in 1941 and that Paul Johnson Jr. made his first try for governor in the same decade. It was in their heads.

In about 1970, Clarke Reed, chairman of the Mississippi Republican Party, invited columnist William F. Buckley to Greenville for a dinner speech. A group, including Bill Minor, boarded a small plane for Greenville. Afterwards, when we arrived back in Jackson, it was at least 10 p.m. Minor only had precious minutes to go somewhere and pound out the Greenville story before a midnight deadline. Next morning a complete account of the event was in the paper.

No big deal? Maybe not today. But that was a time before things were portable and quick. There were no personal computers, cellphones, email and all the available resources on the internet.

Today I drive to New Orleans once a week to teach an English composition class. The students are working adults. Most are soldiers, police officers and health field professionals.

I tell them to observe, soak up their impressions, store it in their memory and later retrieve it all out when they write an assignment.

Sometimes they smile and remind their teacher from another era that they have technology to make all this easier.

Yes, I smile back. Use all your technology and be grateful for it. But dont pass up the opportunity and enjoyment to train your mind to pay attention and store all the interesting things around you.

Comer lives in Plaquemine

Advocate readers may submit stories of about 500 words to The Human Condition at features@theadvocate.com or The Advocate, EatPlayLive, 10705 Rieger Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70809. There is no payment, and stories will be edited. Authors should include their city of residence.

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What we can learn by not using technology - The Advocate

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Cal Newport on taking your life back from technology – Vox

Posted: at 12:44 am

I was asked recently to name a book that changed my life. The book I chose was Cal Newports Deep Work, and for the most literal of reasons: Its changed how I lived my life. Particularly, its led me to stop scheduling morning meetings, and to preserve that time for more sustained, creative work.

Which is all to say that Im a bit obsessed with Newports work right now, and particularly his account of how the digital environment we inhabit is training us out of concentration and into distraction in ways that are bad for our minds, bad for our work, and ultimately bad for the world. So I invited him onto my podcast for a long, searching conversation about the role technology is playing in our lives.

In conversation, Newport doesnt disappoint. For him, the idea of deep work isnt a mere productivity hack its a path toward a better life, and a way of retaking control from technologies that are built to addict us more than theyre built to aid us:

Ezra Klein

There can be a way in which this conversation sounds like it is about making people into hyper-productive widget makers. One of the things I thought was interesting in the book was that your argument is that this is the way to work less, to have gotten enough done that at 5:00 pm, or whenever it is you leave, you can actually go home and spend the time with your family.

Cal Newport

If you prioritize depth, focusing intensely on things that matter, being skeptical of the shallow things that don't, it doesn't make you into an automaton. Actually, it embraces, and I think, amplifies, what makes you human. Doing deep thinking, for example, is a deeply human activity. It's something that only humans can do. It's immensely satisfying.

I'm a long advocate of what I call fixed schedule productivity, where I fix my work schedule first. That's the stake in the ground I start with. Everything else about my career decisions, how I work, what I take on, what I do in the day, all works backward from I want to be done at 5:30. I think my life is the opposite of hyper-scheduled.

I end the book with this quote. "A deep life is a good life." It's not just about making you more productive. A lot of the discussions that are just starting to emerge around technology in this time and its role, not just professionally, but in our lives, in our politics, are fascinating. I think people like Jaron Lanier and Douglas Rushkoff are writing books that are going to be seen as classics 25 years from now.

But Newport isnt just a philosopher of technology. Hes intensely practical about how to wrest your time and attention back from all the programs built to distract and obsess you.

Ezra Klein

Let's say you're listening to this, and you're persuaded, but you don't really know where to begin. What are the first three steps you would urge somebody to take?

Cal Newport

In terms of trying to actively promote depth in your life, start putting on your calendar some appointments with yourself to do deep work. Go a couple weeks out and treat those appointments like you would a doctor's appointment or a meeting with an investor. If someone tries to schedule something during that time, you say, "No, I'm busy from one to three, but here's when I'm available."

People understand the semantics around the meetings and appointments. They're willing to work around it. You don't have to explain why. Start with a moderate amount, say three or four hours a week. Have it on the calendar. Have it protected. And during those prescheduled times, maintain the zero-tolerance distraction policy. During those times, not a glance at the internet, not a glance at the phone.

The second thing is, take some step to start gaining back cognitive fitness. Most people are not willing, for example, to just blanket quit social media; but I would suggest a couple things. One, take social media applications off your phone.

I've had a lot of people who say, "I can give you 19 reasons why I have to use social media, why it's so important in my life," and then they do this experiment where they take it off their phone so it becomes 10 percent more difficult to log in to Facebook or Twitter. They stop using it altogether.

They realize, "Okay, wait a second. Maybe I was telling all these stories about the key role it plays in my life, and why I always have to be looking at it, but once I added just a slight impediment, I stopped using it altogether." I think it helps sort of reassess the value, but more importantly, you take the addictive aspects out of the service while still maintaining your access to the information or other value that you get out of it.

The third thing I would recommend is starting to schedule the time you do novel, distracting, stimulating things. You could schedule lots of times, but it should be scheduled times. Maybe after work, you say, "From 8 to 10, I'm going to break out the laptop and just go nuts, no holds barred. Social media, whatever. But until 8, none of it."

Or, "Okay, at work, I'm going to check my email, check on all of this at this time, this time, this time, this time." All the other times in between, even if you feel like you want to do it, you don't. This is all about just practicing that muscle of "I want stimuli, and I said no." Even if you've scheduled 25 blocks during the day when you're going to look at stimuli, that still gives you 25 blocks between those times where you're going to feel like you want to check stimuli and you say no. Every time you do that, that's helping to break the Pavlovian connection. That's usually how I get people started. Get it on the calendar, start cleaning up your cognitive fitness.

Most of the conversations on my podcast are how to think about things differently. This one is too, but its more importantly about how to do things differently, and why you should do them differently.

I can say, with no exaggeration, that talking to Newport has changed how I spend my time and how I think about the flashing icons on my toolbar. You may not agree with what he says, but its a perspective worth hearing.

You can listen to my full conversation with Newport (not to mention my past conversations with Chris Hayes, Tyler Cowen, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Arlie Hochschild, and more) by subscribing to The Ezra Klein Show on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can stream it off Soundcloud.

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Uptake Technologies CEO: Our technology could have detected … – CNNMoney

Posted: at 12:44 am

"Flint should not have happened," said Keywell, the co-founder of more than a dozen companies, including Groupon, in the latest Boss Files podcast with CNN's Poppy Harlow. "If Uptake's tools would have been monitoring the water supply quality, then you would have known about the earliest indication and you would've solved it."

Uptake's analytics software helps predict and prevent failures and increase efficiencies across a range of industries -- from infrastructure to locomotives to health care. The company's goal is to use its data to provide its large, multinational clients increased productivity, reliability and safety.

Listen to the Boss Files podcast with Poppy Harlow and Uptake CEO Brad Keywell

"Now, human beings have to solve a problem, but we would've known about it the minute something turns on," he told Harlow. "It takes anecdote out of the equation, and it puts science and predictive insight into the equation."

Launched in 2014, Uptake has since reached a reported $2 billion valuation and now employs more than 700 people. In 2015, it was named hottest start up of the year by Forbes. It has also won some big clients, such as Caterpillar and Berkshire Hathaway Energy.

In this race to command a top spot as a provider of the Internet of Things, Keywell has some stiff competition -- including behemoth GE.

But it's a race the 47-year-old serial entrepreneur believes he can win.

Related: United Way CEO on Trump: Focus on policy, not personality

"Our core advantages are speed and agility and quality of execution, because we are eliminating, or all but eliminating drama, nonsensical politics and bureaucracy," Keywell said.

Keywell has a track record of making big ideas happen. Not only is he the co-founder of Groupon and several other startups, he also helped start Lightbank, a venture capital fund that has invested in more than 100 companies.

In 2011, he launched the now annual Chicago Ideas Week, one of the largest innovation and ideas gatherings in the world with more than 30,000 attendees and over 250 speakers.

"The primary goal was to sort of satiate my appetite for intellectual recreation, or curiosity, and just an acknowledgement that we didn't have what I thought we needed, in the Midwest, in Chicago."

Related: Wells Fargo CEO: I'd be ok with my kids calling our ethics line

And he's committed to seeing Chicago rise as a tech hub. "I would argue that Chicago is one of the centers of innovation between the coasts, if not the center of innovation," he said.

But it also means working on some tough issues, like Chicago's growing youth unemployment and violent crime.

When asked if the private sector could be part of the solution, Keywell doesn't hesitate to say "we can be part of it... when I hear about a good idea, I say 'Let's get involved.'"

Beyond Chicago, Keywell is also willing to tackle another problem facing the tech community: the lack of funding for women-led startups

The father of two daughters, Keywell said he is "strong believer" in creating opportunities for people across a range of backgrounds. "Creating opportunities is a good thing, and... I think it's mentorship that really makes a difference," he said.

"I'm in the game, and my two cents of the conversation is: What can we do?" he told Harlow. "I say to people that are part of my team 'Let's do everything we can do, to be part of the solution.'"

CNNMoney (New York) First published April 21, 2017: 6:08 AM ET

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North Hills Catholic schools making progress on consolidation – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Posted: at 12:43 am

A lot of progress has been made sorting out the final details of theregionalization of Catholic schools in the North Hills, but administrators said there is still much more work to be done.

Two months after the Catholic Diocese of Pittsburgh announced formal plans to combine seven schools into three, the nine-person board overseeing them has announced tuition rates and preschool hours. Coming next are teacher assignments which are expected this week and proposals for new names, mascots and colors, which will be finalized in time for next school year.

It is a tight timeline, but we are blessed with a lot of great people in place with this whole process, said Michael Killmeyer, the new regional administrator for the schools.

The diocese announced last fall that 11 schools in the North Hills wouldregionalize, in an effort to consolidate resources and address rapidly declining student enrollment.The school changes are part of the larger On Mission for the Church Alive restructuring plan, in which the diocese is attempting to combine an evangelistic push with the need to get leaner amid declining membership and Mass attendance. A similar model eventually will be put in place at all schools throughout the diocese, which has seen a 50 percent drop in overall elementary school enrollment since 2000.

St. Alexis in McCandless and St. Alphonsus in Pine will merge, with the pre-kindergarten students based at St. Alexis and students in kindergarten through eighth grade at St. Alphonsus. St. Sebastian will merge with St. Teresa of Avila, both in Ross, with students in first through eighth grade based at St. Sebastian and the pre-kindergarten and kindergarten students at St. Teresa of Avila. St. Mary of the Assumption in Hampton, St. Bonaventure in Shaler and St. Ursula in Hampton will combine, with the pre-kindergarten students at St. Bonaventure and students in kindergarten through eighth grade at St. Mary. St. Ursulas school, which was founded in 1911, will close in June.

The remaining 10 schools will be overseen by a non-profit, North Hills Catholic Elementary Schools, which will be run by a board of five pastors and four lay people.

St. James School in Sewickley and Christ the Divine Teacher Academy also will be included in the new governance structure. Assumption and Northside Catholic schools will be included in the regionalization and spend the next year developing strategic plans, but no changes to those schools are planned for the next school year, diocesan officials said.

Certainly, with any type of announcement that things are going to change, people are going to be skeptical and respond, said Rev. Kevin Fazio, chair of the new board and pastor at St. Alphonsus Church.I think folks are beginning to see the fruits of this hard work and prayer.

Some parents have taken to Facebook to express their frustrations with the regionalization process as a whole. At first, many were worried that combining the schools would mean doing away with the kindergarten through eighth grade model that is so distinctive to Catholic elementary schools. And even though that model has been preserved, some have taken to Facebook to voice concerns about the quick turnaround for the restructuring and higher-than-expected tuition at some of the schools.

But Meredith Kandravy, head of the parent teacher guild at St. Mary, said more parents have been attending the open houses and other registration and fundraising events. Some may have beendisenchanted with the process, she said, but more people seem optimistic about the changes.

Were definitely getting a lot more people who have been giving it a chance, she said.

Parents are being asked to provide input for the new names and mascots for the merged schools. All of that will be discussed at the next board meeting in May and then submitted to Bishop David Zubik for approval, Father Fazio said. The schools will also be forming new parent and athletic associations.

The board plans to announce which teachers will be remaining at the new schools this week. The number who are retained will be based on the current number of students who have enrolled for next year, Mr. Killmeyer said. If enrollment continues to increase, the board may hire more teachers back.

I can empathize with the parents, Mr. Killmeyer said.Theyre very vested in this and trying to help. Theyre anxious to hear what teachers will be in place.

Among the other aspects of the merger the board will be working through are fundraising and finances, Father Fazio said. As part of the new regionalized structure, the 32 parishes in the North Hills will all help support the schools financially. The details of that arrangement still need to be worked through, which will take some time because the diocesewide On Mission plans for parish consolidations will be rolled out over the next five years.

Elizabeth Behrman: Lbehrman@post-gazette.comor 412-263-1590.

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UConn Football Spring Session Closed; Edsall Encouraged By Progress – Hartford Courant

Posted: at 12:43 am

Following the UConn football team's Blue-White Game Friday night at Rentschler Field, coach Randy Edsall was as he will continue to be reluctant to heap too much praise on players he's still getting to know, players he will always demand more from.

"I don't want to give them too much sugar," Edsall said. "You do that, they start getting fat."

With that said, and with fact that only so much can be accomplished through 14 practices at the Shenkman Training Center and a glorified one before fans in East Hartford, Edsall and the Huskies came out of the spring period encouraged by strides made.

For most of May, June and July, coaches and players will work separately. The onus is on players to improve their stock, and improve the team, by continuing to work independently on what the team worked toward collectively for the past month.

"Train hard, live right, be right," defensive lineman Foley Fatukasi said. "Hard work, and things will go our way."

The next time UConn returns to The Rent it will be to host Holy Cross in the season opener Aug. 31. The team reports for preseason camp July 27. By then, about 20 incoming freshmen will have arrived and this whole "REStorred" and "Edsall 2.0" project will be in full swing.

"The best compliment I can give Randy is he's a professional," athletic director David Benedict said at halftime Friday. "He's an experienced head coach, 17 years of head-coaching experience, and he's bringing all that to bear as he's putting together this program. As Randy said before, getting this program back to where it used to be is a process, and Randy is all about that process.

"I think he's got a great group of assistant coaches, and he's letting them coach. The difference between how Randy is managing the program vs. how it was being managed previously, it's different. You can do it both ways and be successful, but Randy is that true CEO head coach, and he allows his coordinators to direct their sides of the ball, and he is really focused on specific things."

Players are embracing what are drastically different alignments and responsibilities that come with Rhett Lashlee's up-tempo offense and Billy Crocker's 3-3-5 defense.

"We definitely made some strides," quarterback Bryant Shirreffs said. "There are a lot of areas where we need to get better. But [during spring], collectively, we got a lot better."

Edsall did single out a few players who impressed him either Friday night or throughout camp freshman receivers Keyion Dixon and Quayvon Skanes, and senior running back Arkeel Newsome.

Among defensive players, Edsall said, "One guy I thought has been really consistent is [senior linebacker] Junior Joseph. We've got to get him to be a little more vocal, bring a little more of a leadership presence. And [senior defensive lineman] Cole Ormsby he's got a toughness about him and kind of grew on me as we've gone through the spring. He's a physical guy and likes to be physical. There are guys who did some really good things. Now we have to get [other] guys to step up and make more things happen."

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Hillary Clinton warns LGBT progress may not be secure under Trump – CBS News

Posted: at 12:43 am

New York, N.Y. Hillary Clinton told an audience of LGBT advocates Thursday night that the progress theyve achieved in recent years may not be secure under the Donald Trump administration, and urged them to keep fighting.

I know that the election hit a lot of us hard, Clinton said of her bitter loss to Trump in November. But I can tell you this: Even when it feels tempting to pull the covers over your head, please keep going.

The audience at the fundraising dinner for The Center, an LGBT community group in New York, greeted Clinton with multiple standing ovations and cheers as she accepted the organizations Trailblazer Award. One of the biggest cheers came when she reiterated remarks she made in Geneva in 2011 as secretary of state: Gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.

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CBS News legal analyst Rikki Klieman discusses the issues at stake as the Trump administration shifts policy on LGBT rights.

But I think we have to face the fact that we may not ever be able to count on this administration to lead on LGBT issues, Clinton said. Lets remember, 2018, the midterm elections ... We can never stop fighting.

It wasnt just in the U.S., Clinton said, that were seeing clouds gathering on the horizon.

Weve heard terrifying accounts from Chechnya of gay and bisexual men being taken from their homes and families, tortured, even killed, she said. The United States government yes, this government should demand an end to the persecution of innocent people.

In America, she said, the progress that we fought for ... that we celebrated and maybe even (took) for granted may not be as secure as we once expected.

She spoke of protections for transgender students being rescinded, and proposed cuts in funding for HIV and AIDS research.

I thought of all our efforts to try to achieve an AIDS-free generation, and we were on the way, she said. We can, if we stay on that path, finally realize that dream but not if we are forced off.

Clintons appearance was one of several in recent months where she has been greeted with huge ovations including several at Broadway shows. She joked at the dinner that she realized she was preaching to the choir, but added: Thats OK, I love standing ovations.

She also quipped that the evening had posed a dilemma for her: Shed had the choice, she said, of attending the dinner or seeing Bette Midler in Hello, Dolly!

I really struggled to figure out which event would best reflect my commitment to the community, she said, adding that she had struck a compromise she put on her Sunday Clothes a song title in the show and came to the dinner.

Clinton ended her speech by sharing what she called her new mantra the kind of thing that does pop into your head when youre out in the woods.

When a good friend or loved one says, Quit yelling at the television set, she said, Just remember: we need to resist, insist, persist and enlist.

Also honored was designer Marc Jacobs, who received the groups Visionary Award and is a longtime Clinton supporter. When asked what he thought Clinton should do now she has said her only plans for the moment are working on her book and finding new ways to help people he said, I wish she were doing what we voted for her to do. But that didnt happen.

Clinton herself gave no hints in her speech about her future, but did note that she had made a new discovery: Sleep is good.

I highly recommend it, she said. When I wasnt walking in the woods, I was catching up on my sleep.

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PHANTOMS: Postseason experience should accelerate Sanheim, Lyon progress – Burlington County Times

Posted: at 12:43 am

ALLENTOWN, Pa. When it comes to Ron Hextalls long-term rebuilding plan, Flyers fans have just one question: How long?

The consensus is multiple years, and it all depends on how fast kids like defenseman Travis Sanheim and goaltender Alex Lyon develop.

We already know about Ivan Provorov and Travis Konecny. They were splendid in their rookie seasons with the Flyers. And two older rookies, 24-year-olds Jordan Weal and Mike Vecchione, could be well on their way to regular jobs in the NHL.

But the progress of hopefuls such as Sanheim, Lyon, Sam Morin and Robert Hagg is still a bit up in the air. The learning curve could be accelerated by the Phantoms' appearance in the American Hockey League playoffs.

Sanheim could be the one who bears the most watching.

The first-round (17th overall) draft pick in 2014 has been lauded for his overall game, particularly in the area of transition play, since he became property of the Flyers.

In fact, he was named best defenseman at the 2014 IIHF World U18 Championships, after leading all backliners with six points in seven games.

Since then, its been a steady rise through the ranks, including 162 points in 186 games with the Calgary Hitmen (WHL) and a stellar 10-27-37 campaign in the recently concluded Phantoms season.

So while the prime objective of this postseason is to achieve as much team success as possible, analyzing the individual play of talents such as Sanheim also carries high priority status.

The 21-year-old native of Elkhorn, Manitoba, understands that.

Obviously, teams look at playoff experience, proven winners, Sanheim said after Friday nights 1-0 overtime loss to Hershey in Game 1 at the PPL Center. Thats something were trying to build toward. We didnt want this result tonight.

Some believe Sanheim, with his smooth, effortless skating stride and above-average two-way play, could be ready for the big time when Flyers training camp opens in September.

Hextall will be watching Sanheims efforts with particular attention.

This is the pinnacle of the season, right here in the playoffs, Hextall said. Guys are performing their best right now. Theyre giving themselves a leg up in September.

Coach Scott Gordon said Sanheim began the season believing that, with the teams blessing, he had to be an offensive force. But then he realized he had to put more focus on the defensive side of the puck.

Gordon was discussing the play of Phil Myers in junior hockey, how he was playing big minutes and perhaps not giving everything he had at both ends of the rink, but the same might have applied to Sanheim.

The kids come in from junior and there are things in their game that they have to get out as pros, he said. Phil went from 27 to 30 minutes a night (with his junior team, Rouyn-Noranda of the QMJHL) and, when you play that much, you will find shortcuts to take. Those become habits.

We saw that with Travis at the beginning of the year. He was asked to get offense for the team (at Calgary), so he was up on the play all the time, milling around an opponents net. As a result, almost neglecting the defense part of it. To his credit, after about three weeks of that, we didnt see it the rest of the year.

Meanwhile, Lyon, a free-agent signing out of Yale, caught everyone a little by surprise with his first year of play with the Phantoms.

Basically, he wrested the starting job away from Anthony Stolarz, considered by many to be a contender for duty with the Flyers next season. Stolarz spent the better part of two months with the Flyers as backup to Steve Mason while Michal Neuvirth recovered from a knee injury.

But when Stolarz returned to Allentown, Lyon didnt just step aside and hand back the No. 1 job. Now hes getting a chance to prove that was no fluke by performing under fire, like he did Friday night when he kept the Bears off the scoreboard for the first 60 minutes and then some.

We really liked Alex; we went after him hard, Hextall said. There was a lot of interest in him (from other NHL teams), obviously.

"We liked the way he played, we liked the professionalism, his preparation for a game, the way he played a game. Very solid technically.

Am I surprised by the good year he had? No. The part you dont know about a college kid, he hasnt played a ton of hockey. How was it going to go as the season progressed? He didnt fall, so he did a good job.

Lyon appreciates this opportunity.

While youngsters such as Carter Hart and Felix Sandstrom might be ranked higher on the organizational goalie depth chart, theres nothing that says Lyon cant climb past those guys in the next little while.

A big playoffs here would help the cause.

I think anybody who was in the building tonight would say thats an NHL atmosphere, said the 24-year-old Lyon, who went 17-14-5 with a 2.74 goals-against average and .912 save percentage. (Hextall) is exactly right. Im going to learn as much as I can in this stretch. And try to have a little fun. Its going to be a very valuable experience.

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5G Progress, Realities Set in at Brooklyn 5G Summit – IEEE Spectrum

Posted: at 12:43 am

5G technologies are early in their development, and the business cases for them are a bit fuzzy, but wireless researchers and executives still had plenty to celebrate this week at the annual Brooklyn 5G Summit. Theyve made steady progress on defining future 5G networks, and have sped up the schedule for the first phase of standards-based 5G deployments.

Now, the world is just three years away (or two, depending on who you ask) from its first 5G commercial service. Amid the jubilance, reality is also starting to set in.

While attendees can agree that 5G networks will incorporate many new technologiesincluding millimeter waves, massive MIMO, small cells, and beamformingno one knows how all of it will work together, or what customers will do with the resulting flood of data. The video below provides a primer on these technologies, and a hint of what we can expect.

This was my second year attending the two-day summit, an annual gathering organized by NYU Wireless, and here are my observations from the first day:

1. Update from AT&T

For the past year, AT&T has tested early 5G technologies at 4 gigahertz, 15GHz, and 28 GHz from its labs in Austin, Texas. Like many of its competitors, the company is currently focused on fixed wireless, which means providing over-the-air broadband Internet service between two stationary points.

Already, the company has used high-frequency millimeter waves (roughly between 30 and 300 gigahertz)to provide superfast Internet service at speeds of 1.5 gigabits per second to one enterprise client. (Its service is broadcastat 28 GHz.)

Now, Dave Wolter, assistant vice president for radio technology and architecture, said AT&T plans to expand its fixed wireless trials to serve roughly 10 pilot customers in the Austin area this year.They'll bea mix of residential properties and small businesses.

For its enterprise trial, the company installed a transmitter on top of one of its buildings, with a clear line of sight to a receiver placed about 250 meters away on an upper floor of a clients office building. The only problem was that the clients office had double-coated windows, which are energy efficient but block millimeter waves. To make the trial work, AT&T had to switch out those windows for a single-coated variety.

Moving forward, Wolter expects 39 GHz become AT&Ts key frequency for fixed wireless, as well as for mobile devices. AT&T recently acquired Straight Path Communications, which had vast spectrum holdings for both 39 GHz and 28 GHz.

Its still an open question of what customers will do with their upgraded serviceand how much they will pay for it. When an audience member asked Wolter to name an application that he believes will justify the capital expenditure that AT&T must shell out for spectrum holdings and a 5G build-out, Wolter deferred.

Good question, and I hope our business folks are working on that, he said.

2. Massive MIMO

High-frequency millimeter waves have been all the rage in wireless circles for the past few years, and NYU Wireless led much of the early work that catapulted them to fame. But this year, the summit organizers devoted an entire session to massive MIMO, which seems to be having a bit of a moment.

There have been several big stories about massive MIMO since last years event, including new world records in spectral efficiency, the worlds first commercial trials, and early mobile trials. Facebook even got in the game with Project ARIES.

In the past year, weve actually shown that [massive MIMO] works in reality, said Ian Wong of National Instruments. To me, the biggest development is that the skeptics are being quiet.

Massive MIMO builds on a 4G technology known as multiple input, multiple output, or MIMO.This technologyuses many antennas, combined with signal processing, to communicate with several users on the same frequency, at the same time. With it, carriers have added capacity to crowded frequency brands below 6 GHz, where most consumer electronics operate today.

The actual definition of massive MIMO was the subject of some debate during the session, but Fred Vook, an engineer at Nokia, describes it as the extension of traditional MIMO to a large number of controllable antennas. And by a large number, he means more than eight antennas, though some massive MIMO arrays have 100 or more.

Based on the days conversation, massive MIMO has solidified its place as a foundational 5G technology. 4G was the first system to start out with MIMO, and we expect 5G will be the first system to start right off the bat with massive MIMO, declared Durga Malladi, a senior vice president at Qualcomm.

Theres certainly more work to be done (one of the stickier questions is how to integrate gobs of antennas into a smartphone) but the general outlook for massive MIMO now feels rather upbeat.

I truly believe that theres no other technology below 6 GHz that can give 5G gains, other than massive MIMO, said Wong.

3. 5G New Radio

Earlier this year, a slew of companies petitioned 3GPP, a group that defines 5G standards, to speed up the schedule for describing 5G New Radio. This standard is imporotant, because it will set the terms for the air interface by which base stations communicate with mobile devices, with the goal of improving performance and ensuring consistency across carriers and manufacturers.

Those companies were particularly interested in one type of 5G New Radiowhats called non-standalone, as opposed to standalone. At the summit, Malladi of Qualcomm described the difference between the two like this: In one mode, you rely upon 4G as an anchor, and in the other one, you deploy 5G without 4G as an anchor.

The thinking is that a non-standalone 5G New Radio could be deployed more quickly, because its meant to be integrated into a 4G core network, whereas standalone 5G New Radio would operate on a brand new 5G core network (which is a much bigger undertaking to deploy and relies on even more standards).

In an afternoon panel, five executives confirmed their interest in developing non-standalone 5G New Radio as quickly as possible, and allowing the standalone version to lag behind. This suggests 5G will look and function a lot like 4G LTE in its early phases, before eventually migrating over to a spiffy new core.

In March, 3GPP accepted the accelerated schedule for non-standalone 5G New Radio, which should be defined by the end of this year. Some companies now expect to deploy their first standards-based 5G networks with it as early as 2019.

4. Will 5G live up to the hype?

Over the past few years, engineers and executives have set sky-high expectations for 5G. Theyve spoken of 5G as the wireless network that will unleash radical new technological advances in every possible realm, and promised that it will enable autonomous cars, streaming virtual reality, and remote surgeries.

Much of the talk at this years summit was as bold as ever. In a keynote about how 5G would improve industrial systems, Kenneth Budka of Bell Labspredicted that 5G technologies would fundamentally transform human existence.

This year, though, such grandiose statements were also punctuated with more sobering analyses. A generous helping came from Seizo Onoe, chief technology officer of NTT DOCOMO, who has developed something of a reputation for pouring cold water on 5G expectations.

During his keynote, Onoe said he has noticed an informal law during his time at DOCOMO: The wireless industrymanages to achieve great leaps of success only in even-numbered generations. By his measure, 2G and 4G were truly transformational, while the improvements that came with 1G and 3G were mostly incremental.

Applying this law to 5G, I would say we have to wait until 6G to fill all the expectations of 5G, he said. Stay tuned.

IEEE Spectrums general technology blog, featuring news, analysis, and opinions about engineering, consumer electronics, and technology and society, from the editorial staff and freelance contributors.

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Millimeter waves, massive MIMO, full duplex, beamforming, and small cells are just a few of the technologies that could enable ultrafast 5G networks 27Jan

Controversy flares as rivals rush to launch 5G services 30Dec2016

Facebook's Yael Maguire talks about millimeter wave networks, Aquila, and flying tethered antennas at the F8 developer conference 19Apr

Full duplex could double the capacity of wireless networks, making it a key technology for 5G 1Apr

Just hold it in front of your face, and youre in 29Mar

University of Michigan researchers spoof an accelerometer by hitting the right note 17Mar

Instead of a dedicated antenna, the company's approach radiates radio-frequency signals from the ground plane 14Mar

Dont expect early 5G service in South Korea to reflect what carriers elsewhere have described 8Mar

The company knows it needs to ditch the dongle, and believes Li-Fi-enabled chipsets will be here soon 1Mar

Almost limitless bandwidth beckonsif we can tame a wild region of the spectrum 23Feb

Cellphones as a fifth-order elaboration of Maxwellstheory 20Feb

To help, a federal project examines how wireless signals propagate in industrial settings 14Feb

Now telecom companies fear interference from 50,000 SatPaq devices 13Feb

A tiny CMOS-based terahertz transmitter can hit 105 Gb/s 9Feb

She manages a team of 15 engineers responsible for plotting Verizons next big move 3Feb

The Annikken Andee U shield is a bridge between the Arduino and your mobile devices 27Jan

A new terahertz modulator demonstrates dizzying data speeds of 28 Gb/s 24Jan

Ethertronics says its antenna steering technology can remove Wi-Fi dead spots and let you cut your cable TV bill 17Jan

In 2017, Samsung will likely release a smartphone that transforms into a tablet 30Dec2016

The US military's annual tech wish list is out, and it's loaded with new digital tools and devices to fight terrorism 12Dec2016

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UNI Coach Mark Farley pleased with progress as spring football ends – The Gazette: Eastern Iowa Breaking News and Headlines

Posted: at 12:43 am

Apr 22, 2017 at 3:20 pm | Print View

CEDAR FALLS The new coaches are up to speed, and the players are up to speed about them. No wonder Mark Farley sounded so upbeat late Friday afternoon, on the eve of his Northern Iowa football teams final spring practice.

I am excited, Farley said. When we went into spring, we had four or five new coaches, a new group of receivers. You just didnt know how everything was going to gel because you didnt just have new players, you had new coaches.

Four brand new assistants, to be specific, including a new offensive coordinator. Thats a lot of potential upheaval.

But UNIs 15 spring practices went very well, according to Farley. The 15th and final was Saturday morning.

It was the same message as in years past, but it was somebody else giving it, Farley said. The attentiveness was much greater this spring. They were listening to every word, responding every way they could. Then you had coaches working like it was the middle of the season, getting ready for the biggest game of the year every week. Because they were trying to stay ahead of the players, making sure they understood it as a group.

I just saw the extra effort put in by the players and the coaches ... I saw the results of it.

This promises to be a strong Panthers club this fall, as it seeks to return to the FCS playoffs after a frustrating 5-6 record in 2016. UNI lost five games by six points or less.

There are 11 returning starters and 54 letterwinners.

Number one (thing) is that toughness, Farley said. It goes right back to the line of scrimmage with your offensive line. It starts there and ends there. Trying to create that edge in that front seven, our offensive line and tight ends. Then, in turn, they are going against our defensive line and linebackers all the time. We put extra emphasis there.

Farley said he liked how his o-line improved as spring ball went along. The Panthers return three starters there.

The defensive line also was good, he said, specifically mentioning the re-addition of Adam Reth, who missed all of last season for believed academic reasons.

I thought the defensive line was impactful every practice, Farley said. When you get a guy like Adam Reth back to lead the group, and guys like Preston Woods, I thought the line made an impact in every practice for us with their experience and talent. They showed up every day, made an impact and changed the course of practice many times.

The second half of camp was spent more on the skill positions. Farley said quarterback Eli Dunne continues to improve and look more comfortable running the offense.

He started the last half of the 2016 season.

There is some question right now about running back, where UNI lost Tyvis Smith and Michael Malloy. Farley said he expects the position to be filled by committee, with Trevor Allen, Marcus Weymiller and JVeyon Browning.

Receiver appears it will be a strength for the 2017 Panthers. Guys like Daurice Fountain bring size and strength, guys like Jalen Rima bring speed, quickness and game-breaking ability.

Rima emerged as the 2016 season progressed as both a big-play receiver and kickoff/punt returner. It was telling that Farley mentioned the freshman from Cedar Rapids Prairie in the same sentence as Arizona Cardinals running back (and UNI grad) David Johnson.

What I learned last year about Jalen is the challenges you put in front of him are critical, because he always rises to them, Farley said. Hes one of those players that you do not know (about) until you put him into a situation. Then its like All right, he passed that test. You can check that box off.

Hes more of a quiet guy, very similar to David Johnson in that any challenge you put in front of him, he conquers. Hes as fast as anybody on the field, but Ive never put a clock on him. Nobodys caught him, yet, but its one of those things where it doesnt look like hes running that fast. Hes got a lot of those same characteristics as David Johnson. To be compared (to) a guy like that is pretty good.

Northern Iowa opens its 2017 season Sept. 2 at Iowa State. The home opener is the following week against Cal Poly.

l Comments: (319) 398-8259; jeff.johnson@thegazette.com

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UNI Coach Mark Farley pleased with progress as spring football ends - The Gazette: Eastern Iowa Breaking News and Headlines

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Did the Movie-Theater Audience Ruin Personal Shopper for Me? – New York Magazine

Posted: at 12:40 am

Photo: Hany Rizk/EyeEm/Getty Images

A few weeks ago, I agreed to see a movie Id heard nothing about. Kristen Stewart was in it; this was all I needed to know. The film was Personal Shopper, in which Stewart plays a sullenly hip assistant to an older actress, not unlike her role in Clouds of Sils Maria both movies were written and directed by Olivier Assayas. I liked Clouds, but I hated Personal Shopper. So did everyone I saw it with: my girlfriend and another couple, Caroline and Laura. (I tell you our entire viewing party was queer women only because there is no demographic more likely to give any Kristen Stewart vehicle the benefit of the doubt.) It wasnt just us, either; people around us shifted uncomfortably in their seats, and snickered at lines not meant to be funny. A scene revealing a series of incoming text messages meant to incur dread made my theater giggle, not gasp. I felt okay about whispering baffled feedback to my seatmates Im sorry, did the ghost just ride the elevator? because I could hear other peoples confused and incredulous murmurs too. It was as if our entire theater took a silent, psychic vote, and together ruled Personal Shopper very bad.

When we left the theater, I Googled reviews for the movie, and was surprised to find a pretty positive critical reception (80 percent on Rotten Tomatoes). Were we crazy not to like it? Whose taste was bad: the critics, or an entire audience at the Sunday matinee? I asked another trusted friend whod seen the movie what she thought, and she said she liked it. Then I asked her how her theater had reacted to it did they laugh? She said no. They were quiet, almost reverent. I wondered if our divergent crowds had affected our ability to enjoy the movie.

The answer, apparently, is more than you think. Weve all seen a blockbuster comedy that seemed funnier among a raucous crowd than it did upon a second rewatch at home, but this phenomenon isnt just social its biological. According to research done by psychologist Uri Hasson, movies can have a synchronizing effect on human brains. People in a theater tend to blink at the same time, and in some cases, fMRI scans revealed that viewers brains were active in the same areas, at the same times, when watching the same movie together. This unifying effect is particularly pronounced in highly cinematic films movies that make heavy use of quick cuts and camera angles meant to direct our attention, like Gravity, or Mad Max: Fury Road. Hasson admits these effects dont necessarily speak to the quality of the film, or our enjoyment of it, but they do suggest a tendency toward like-mindedness in the movie theater. A group of people watching the same movie are, after all, responding to a set of shared stimuli.

Then, too, there is the human tendency to mirror the emotions of those around us. A.J. Marsden, assistant professor of psychology at Beacon College, refers to my Personal Shopper experience as a kind of emotional contagion meaning that human beings are always transmitting our emotions to those around us, to be picked up unknowingly, and sometimes unwillingly.

If youre in a theater and everybody in there is just rolling and having a good time, chances are, those positive emotions are going to rub off on you, and youre going to enjoy it more than if you were in a quiet theater or by yourself, says Marsden. Even in a dark, ostensibly quiet room, we are constantly picking up cues from the people around us: Hearing even one quiet giggle or muffled sob can affect the way we process the movie in front of us. For my theaterful of Personal Shopper viewers, it might have been over from the first skeptical Ha! From there on out, everything was (inadvertently) hilarious.

Part of this behavior is more or less assimilationist: People want to share the popular reaction of the group around them. You want to fit in, you want to be part of the social crowd, says Marsden. You dont want to be an outsider. I tell her this sounds a lot like middle school, but she says its something closer to survivalism. In order for us to survive we have to understand what other people are thinking and feeling, she says. Its a form of empathy or emotional intelligence. In a way, its also a coping mechanism by laughing with my fellow audience members, I bonded with them, and I enjoyed our shared experience more than I would have if Id had to sit through it in silence. When I saw Deadpool a truly awful movie, I dont care what anyone says the mutual eye-rolling and sighing shared between my girlfriend and me made sitting through it tolerable.

For me, I dont think a silent, adoring theater would have been enough to save Personal Shopper a crowds reaction might supplement or enhance your own when they align, but when the two dont match up, youre more likely to leave the theater feeling contrarian or confused. If the general vibe of the group doesnt match up with how you feel or what you believe, you can actually go the other way and become very reactive against the crowd, says Marsden. Either way, you get to leave the theater feeling sure that youre right, and your taste is impeccable. How nice is that?

The Internet Isnt Making Us Dumber Its Making Us More Meta-Ignorant

Dont just fill the time change the way you think about the time.

A new study linked diet soda to stroke and dementia.

Scientists arent entirely sure why allergies make you fuzzy-headed, but they have a theory.

People with severe mental-health problems really are suffering, and it doesnt make sense to scrub the language we use to pretend they arent.

Its great for your fitness, but it has other, more surprising benefits, too.

The psychology (and biology) of watching with a crowd.

Most of the time, your nose cant detect your own body odor.

Psychologists deconstruct the power of the most popular girl in school.

The best thing I can do for my surgeons is to try to be a book of knowledge.

There seems to be a recent, nobly intentioned uptick in parents insisting children play and dress in gender-conforming ways.

It covers a lot of ground, from the best messaging approaches to how to get people to act in more energy-efficient ways.

Done right, it can actually be a pretty useful activity.

New census data shows that this trend really has grown staggeringly, but that most young people living at home are working or in school.

It can be draining. But it doesnt have to be.

A new study found our social networks can encourage us to exercise.

If you want to relate, it might be better to admit that youre a little lost, too.

A new study explores what plenty of parents already know.

In a country plagued by really poorly thought-out criminal-justice policies, this is a nice departure.

It can actually be a useful way to spend your time.

A new study found taking antidepressants when pregnant has fewer risks than previously thought.

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Did the Movie-Theater Audience Ruin Personal Shopper for Me? - New York Magazine

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