Study: Kindle readers have lower comprehension levels
by Mark Tyson on 20 August 2014, 12:00
Tags: Kindle reader
Studies into the impact of digitisation on the reading experience have indicated that what is read in e-books is “significantly”less well absorbed than the same information read from a traditional paper book. In the most recent study it was found that the plot reconstruction ability of an e-book reading subject was most at fault – when the readers were asked to recall story events in the correct order.
The Guardian reports that this latest research paper is the result of a comprehension study of 50 readers, all of whom were given a short 28-page story by Elizabeth George to read. Half of the subjects read the e-book on an Amazon Kindle and the other half read through a paperback. After their reading, the subjects were tested on various aspects of the story.
Readers absorb less on Kindles than on paper, study finds Research suggests that recall of plot after using an e-reader is poorer than with traditional books
Study: Smartphones stunting students’ social skills
August 27, 2014
LOS ANGELES – When you see a tween or teen on the street, in a store, outside a school building, sitting in a car, eating at a fast food restaurant…virtually anywhere…what are they likely to be doing? If your answer is staring at their Smartphone, you’d probably be right. And a new study done by the University of California Los Angeles says that can be a roadblock in a child’s ability to read emotions.
The UCLA psychology department looked at two groups of 11- to 12-year-olds. During the research, one group made significantly more progress than the other. The group deprived of all digital media, even television, performed significantly better at recognizing emotions than those allowed to keep texting and tweeting and talking on Facebook after just five days.
In an article published in Malay Mail Online, Patricia Greenfield, senior author of the study, complained, “Many people are looking at the benefits of digital media in education, and not many are looking at the costs. Decreased sensitivity to emotional cues—losing the ability to understand the emotions of other people—is one of the costs.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) reports that as of 2009 22 percent of teens log on to their favorite social media sites more than 10 times a day, half log on more than once a day. Seventy-five percent own cell phones. Twenty-five percent use them for social media, 54 percent for texting and 24 percent for instant messaging. No doubt those numbers have increased since that poll was published.
Researchers worked with a total of 105 sixth graders from a Southern California public school, a small but significant study. Half of those students spent five days at a nature and science camp where digital technology was strictly taboo. It seems participants were forced to interact with each other face-to-face instead of screen-to-screen.
Bergen County freeholders discuss guidelines for military vehicles
The debate over the militarization of law enforcement in Bergen County reverberated at Wednesday’s Freeholder Board meeting, where a full-throated discussion took place over the wisdom of the Sheriff’s Office accepting two military surplus armored vehicles. (Ensslin/The Bergen Record)
LA Schools’ $1 Billion iPad Fiasco Ends After Corruption Revelations
Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……………………..
Robby Soave|Aug. 27, 2014 1:55 pm
Los Angeles Unified School District is ending its billion-dollar iPad program, which has drawn widespread criticism for distributing expensive devices to teachers who didn’t know what to do with them and students who kept losing or breaking them.
The costly program was considered a total failure, and it’s little surprise that district officials have finally relented and scaled back. More surprising, however, are revelations that District Superintendent John Deasy may have engaged in some crooked bargaining to arrange the deal in the first place.
According to The Los Angeles Times, Deasy’s previous connections to Apple and Pearson—the companies contracted to supply the iPads and instructional materials for them, respectively—amount to a conflict of interest. In hindsight, the bidding process that Apple and Pearson won to score the contracts seems biased in those companies’ favor,The LA Times notes:
Last week, a draft report of a district technology committee, obtained by The Times, was strongly critical of the bidding process.
Among the findings was that the initial rules for winning the contract appeared to be tailored to the products of the eventual winners — Apple and Pearson — rather than to demonstrated district needs. The report found that key changes to the bidding rules were made after most of the competition had been eliminated under the original specifications.
In addition, the report said that past comments or associations with vendors, including Deasy, created an appearance of conflict even if no ethics rules were violated.
Emails obtained by The LA Times show Jaime Aquino, Deasy’s deputy superintendent, advising Pearson officials on how to win the bid.
Millennials aren’t listening to you. That’s a good thing.
Nick Gillespie & Emily Ekins from the October 2014 issue
There was a moment at the 2013 Grammy Awards that captured how millennials are different than Gen Xers and baby boomers, and what it all means for the future of America. After the traditional parade of side-boob-flashing songstresses and tonsorially wackadoo manchildren allegedly flouting convention in utterly predictable ways, the hipster band fun. (whose name is uncapitalized and over-punctuated) was honored with a richly deserved statuette for the catchy generational anthem “We Are Young.”
The song broke big after being featured on the hit series Glee, itself a touchstone of the millennial generation, roughly defined as those born between the beginning of the 1980s and the early ’00s. Glee is set in the sort of high school unimaginable to Americans raised on older coming-of-age fare such asHappy Days, Rock and Roll High School, or even the ultra-G-rated Saved by the Bell. OnGlee, even (especially!) the football players sing in a music club that features a paraplegic guitarist, a Down Syndrome cheerleader, and a lesbian Latina, an ensemble that would have been a punchline just a few decades ago. (As recently as 1983, U.S. Interior Secretary James Watt made headlines for joking that an advisory panel he appointed consisted of “a black, a woman, two Jews, and a cripple,” a comment that led to his resignation.)
fun.’s “We Are Young” is a smart variation on that enduring theme of pop music, the booty call. “We are young,” croons the singer to a lost or near-lost love, “So let’s set the world on fire/We can burn brighter/than the sun.” But then comes the generational twist: After vaguely alluding to “scarring” his lover through some unspecified failure, the protagonist sings: “If by the time the bar closes/And you feel like falling down/I’ll carry you home./I know that I’m not/All that you got.”
What matter of musical strangeness is this, actually acknowledging that your drunken, staggering bedmate could do better than you? “We Are Young” is a song in which the singer is a decent human being and penitent lover, an emotional designated driver rather than the standard-issue letch that has dominated the charts from your grandparents’ “Baby It’s Cold Outside” to your parents’ “Under My Thumb” to the entire hair-metal genre of the ’80s.
The 2013 Grammys, in contrast, were a millennial coming-out party for a different kind of POV. The post-racial, post-ethnic, post-American, post-heteronormative, post-everythinglikes of Rihanna and Bruno Mars and Frank Ocean and Janelle Monae and Skrillex took center stage, and the winningly metrosexual fun. took home top honors for its kinder, gentler love song.
Then came the real intergenerational shocker, when one of the members of the group thanked his parents for letting him live at home “for a very long time.” Did Mick Jagger even have parents? Would Axl Rose have been able to pronounce the word mother, let alone thank her for letting him couch-surf? You could feel a half-century of rebellious rockers, from Jim Morrison to Joey Ramone, groaning in their graves.
Millennials, like F. Scott Fitzgerald’s rich, are different than you and me. For one thing, at around 80 million strong, they’re as big as or bigger than the baby boom—and far more populous than both Gen X (born between 1965 and 1980) and the Silent Generation (1929-1945). They are filled with what at first glance looks like contradictions: More Democratic in their voting behavior than previous generations, and yet more politically independent than any cohort in history. Worryingly unafraid of the word socialism, and yet full-bore in favor of the free market.
It Was a Wild and Crazy Summer of Criminalizing Campus Sex
“In an effort to address sexual assault, college campuses are on the verge of entering into an Orwellian nightmare.”
Robby Soave | August 27, 2014
Students returning to class this fall, consider yourselves warned: This was the summer that federal regulators, state lawmakers, and college administrators got together for a threesome—incidentally criminalizing campus sex in the process.
The debate over campus sexual assault—how much it happens, and how to handle it when it does—has been heating up for a while now thanks to increasing federal intervention, but the latest round of action kicked off at the end of spring, when the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Education (OCR) identified 55 colleges under investigation for failing to report and handle rape allegations. The message to colleges from the federal government was do something, or else.
Colleges are definitely responding to the pressure. Consider Occidental College, which pursued a rape caseagainst a male student for having drunken sex with a female student. Investigators determined that the encounter was consensual, but administrators pursued sanctions anyway, insisting that the female student’s consent was invalidated because she had been drinking. The argument makes no sense—if all drunken sex constitutes rape, then both the accused and the accuser are equally guilty. Nevertheless, the male student was expelled.
Hashing out which person is the initiator of sex and which person is the consenter can be tricky from a legal standpoint. College hookups happen under the influence of substances that impair judgments, and what takes place between the sheets is inherently shrouded from public scrutiny.
But that didn’t stop the California legislature this summer from trying anyway. Responding to the federal government’s call to do something, or else, state lawmakersapproved SB 967, a bill that would force state universities to establish a stricter definition of consensual sex: one that requires the initiator to acquire “unambiguous, informed, freely-given, and voluntary” permission.
That part may not sound so bad—sex, after all, should be absolutely consensual—but forcing college administrators to play the role of judge, jury, and career executioner for the accused students in these cases carries a whole host of problems.
Ridgewood Back to School Updates : School starts on September 4!
8.26.14: The Back-to-School issue of Newsline is out. Click here to view the newsletter as a PDF. Please note that this version has the corrected Back-To-School Night schedule.
NEW! 8.26.14: REVISED Back-To-School Night Schedule: Travell School’s Back-To-School Night begins at 6:30 p.m. rather than 6 p.m. The Willard School Back-To-School Night for Grades K-2 has been changed from September 18 to September 23. Please click here for the newly revised schedule. Please note that this change is an update from that which is printed in the Newsline newsletter sent to Ridgewood homes last week.
8.13.14: Click here to read an opinion piece co-authored by Dr. Fishbein and River Dell Superintendent Patrick Fletcher on unfunded mandates, posted on NJ.com on August 8.
8.05.14: Back-To-School Information: Parents and guardians are asked to update emergency contact information and also are required to review various district policies and grant certain permissions. This Mandatory Annual Online Re-registration process takes place through Skyward Family Access between August 11 and September 12. Detailed instructions will be mailed to homes on or about August 11. For details and links, please click here.
8.12.14: The Ridgewood YWCA offers before and after school programs in the Ridgewood elementary schools. Pleaseclick here for information and registration forms.
The next Regular Public Meeting of the Ridgewood Board of Education will be held on Monday, September 8, 2014 at 7:30 p.m. The public is invited to attend the meeting at the Ed Center, 49 Cottage Place, Floor 3. The meeting will be aired live on FiOS channel 33 and Optimum channel 77. Or it may be viewed live via the district website atwww.ridgewood.k12.nj.us using the “Link in Live” tab.
Click here to view the agenda for the August 25, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
Click here to view the webcast of the August 25, 2014 Regular Public Meeting.
GUESS WHO TOOK UP THE ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE? The BOE took the challenge on August 25 and put the REA up to the test!
Ridgewood BOE takes on the Ice Bucket Challenge Ridgewood Public Schools Published on Aug 25, 2014
Ridgewood NJ, The Ridgewood Board of Education was challenged to participate in the “Ice Bucket Challenge” by Mr. Scerbo to spread ALS awareness. In this video, Board members Sheila Brogan, Vincent Loncto and Christina Krauss challenge the REA to participate.
IRS ethics lawyer facing possible disbarment, accused of lying
By Jim McElhatton – The Washington Times – Tuesday, August 26, 2014
A lawyer in the IRS ethics office is facing the possibility of being disbarred, according to records that accuse her of lying to a court-appointed board and hiding what she’d done with money from a settlement that was supposed to go to two medical providers who had treated her client.
The disciplinary arm of the D.C. Court of Appeals has recommended that Takisha McGee, a section manager in the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility, lose her law license over the charge, which stems from a personal injury case she worked about a year before she joined the tax agency.
FBI Examining Whether Russia Is Tied to JPMorgan Hacking
By Michael Riley and Jordan Robertson Aug 27, 2014 5:04 PM ET
Russian hackers attacked the U.S. financial system in mid-August, infiltrating and stealing data from JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM) and at least one other bank, an incident the FBI is investigating as a possible retaliation for government-sponsored sanctions, according to two people familiar with the probe.
The attack resulted in the loss of gigabytes of sensitive data, said the people, who asked not to be identified because the probe is still preliminary. Authorities are investigating whether recent infiltrations of major European banks using a similar vulnerability are also linked to the attack, one of the people said.
In one case, the hackers used a software flaw known as a zero-day vulnerability in one of the banks’ websites. They then plowed through layers of elaborate security to steal the data, a feat security experts said appeared far beyond the capability of ordinary criminal hackers. The incidents occurred at a low point in relations between Russia and the West. Russian troops continue to mass on the Ukrainian border and the West tightens sanctions aimed at crippling Russian companies, including some of the country’s most important banks.
Why A Six-Figure Salary No Longer Means You’re Rich in Investing by Holly Johnson
I was born in 1980, and I still remember the days when “bringing in six figures” was a sign of extreme wealth and success. It was more than enough to buy the perfect house with a white picket fence, after all, and achieving that sort of income implied a certain level of status that nearly everyone aspired to. You could even say that a six-figure salary was seen as the real “American dream,” simply because earning that much money meant that you had “made it,” at least in financial terms. As a child, I distinctly remember dreaming of a six-figure income myself, and fantasizing about all of the amazing things I could do with so much money.
Times have changed since then, but the public’s perception of a six-figure salary hasn’t necessarily changed with it. With the median household income stuck at around $53,093 in 2014, an annual salary of nearly twice that still seems like more than enough money to succeed and thrive in any economy, no matter the circumstances. However, a convergence of factors have fundamentally changed what it means to rake in a “six-figure salary” in America, and many families who look rich on paper are merely struggling to get ahead along with everyone else.
Why Six Figures Isn’t What it Used to Be
Earning a six-figure salary is still a sign of status and success, but it no longer guarantees a lifetime of wealth like it once did, especially in certain parts of the country. A recent analysis by USA Today goes even further to say that the average price of living the American dream has now risen to $130,000 per year due the rising costs of nearly everything. The authors of the study claim that the American dream is about “finding and pursuing a rewarding career, leading a healthy and personally fulfilling life, and being able to retire in comfort,” adding that only 1 in 8 households in the U.S. currently earn enough to achieve those goals. But, what exactly has changed?
Reader says Don’t blame the State Workers on Pensions
NJ Gov. Chris Christie’s pension moves cost taxpayers and retirees billions Aug 25th 2014 3:05PM
By RYAN GORMAN
Embattled New Jersey Governor Chris Christie faces another possible scandal – this time for possibly costing tax payers nearly $4 billion after diverting state pension funds to Wall Street firms.
Wall Street mega firms Blackstone, Third Point, Omega Advisors, Elliot Associates and The Carlyle Group have reportedly pocketed $3.8 billion dollars in fees since 2010 at a rate triple what was paid to pension fund managers prior to Christie assuming office.
Christie advisor Robert Grady notably had a long career at The Carlyle Group prior to joining the government, according to the International Business Times.
The switch was made in 2010 to give the state “diversified portfolio and maximize returns while appropriately managing risk,” Grady told the trade publication Institutional Investor in a report headlined “New Jersey ups the ante.”
The Carlyle Group has received $450 million in state pension funds while ranking among the top fee earners on Wall Street, according to state disclosure documents.
All management fees paid to firms by the pension have skyrocketed from only $125.1 million in 2009 to nearly $400 million in 2013, according to the New Jersey State Investment Council, which oversees the pension.
Those higher fees coupled with underperforming assets have left the pension with a benefits gap bigger than the state’s entire education budget.
This while the pension eked out a return of only 11.8 percent last year while similar funds average nearly a full percent higher, according to the IB Times.
Both pension funds used by teachers in California saw returns well over 18 percent in June alone, the Associated Press reported. They had expected returns of only 7.5 percent for the whole year.
New Jersey’s fund is also invested at a rate of just over 25 percent in financial firms, according to the NJSIC, more than double any other sector.
At least one person voted against Christie’s diversion plan, and he told the IB Times this outcome was inevitable.
“All the leading players on the [New Jersey State Investment Council] were from the alternative universe and all of their decisions were driven by a political agenda and an investment ideology which had no relationship to facts on the ground,” said Jim Marketti.
“And the facts were that you simply couldn’t justify these investments on the basis of what they cost in fees to generate a dollar of new returns.”
A New Jersey official defended the moves, saying that the state’s pension has earned a return this year of 15.9 percent.
Similar funds are averaging returns of well over 17 percent, according to the IB Times.
This is just the latest in a series of bizarre scandals for Christie that have included the “Bridgegate” traffic tie-up at the George Washington Bridge, the possible bullying of at least one high-profile mayor (Hoboken’s Dawn Zimmer) over Superstorm Sandy recovery funds and scrutiny of real estate deals around the state.
The questionable quandries have put a dent in his reported presidential ambitions as Christie defends the pension problems by saying they are proof retirement benefits to retirees – earned through decades of service to the Garden State – need to be cut.
There’s no word on whether “The Governor” would also demand fees paid to Wall Street also be cut.
The problem with this article is it fails to mention all the graft of prior administrations , looking to blame only Christie while both Corzine and Mac Creepy ( and most of them since Whitman) have far worse records managing the state pension funds ,Mac Creepy even hired non wall street totally unqualified advisors to manage money .
Remember large returns come at a price and you get what you pay for . If they are over charging well that typical politicians ,but the real issue is simple math , while you cant blame most of the workers for taking the checks , you can blame politicians looking for those union contributions to their political campaigns ,while the taxpayer has no representation at the bargaining table ,its a very significant conflict of interest.
The crux of the issues is with all pension systems is that it takes 10 or more workers paying in to take care of every retiree, but productivity and technology continue to shrink the work force .Less workers equal less money being paid in . To make up we increase salaries and hire more people than we should .
Thus a lot of unproductive dead wood . The private sector found this out a long time ago with US Steal, Bethlehem Steal and the auto industry .
After a certain point you read the law of diminishing returns and for the tax base it becomes totally unsustainable ,.
For example in 1900 it took 5000 people to make 1 ton of steal , in 1980 it took 50 , so now the 50 were paying the pensions for 4950 people…ouch .
States like New Jersey are well past the breaking point ,with companies and taxpayers high tailing it out of here , leaving fewer and fewer people to pick up the tab .
Depending on huge returns on wall street for prolonged periods of time is foolish and very dangerous as the article points out fees need to be cut , money borrowed needs to be returned with interest,and retirees living out of state need to be taxed on their pension at a higher rate as well as current state employees need to pay a far
Blackberry Blackout! Nets Refuse to Report That IRS Destroyed Lerner’s Phone After Probe Began
By Geoffrey Dickens | August 26, 2014 | 11:12
On the heels of a Department of Justice (DOJ) lawyer admitting to Judicial Watch that Lois Lerner’s missing e-mails do exist comes another stunning revelation.
On Monday evening the New York Observer reported “the IRS destroyed Lerner’s Blackberry after it knew her computer had crashed and after a Congressional inquiry was well underway.” Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) network coverage of this fishy behavior on the part of the IRS and Lerner? 0 seconds.
There hasn’t been a single story on the Blackberry destruction or the DOJ lawyer’s admission of the existence of Lerner’s e-mails on any of the Monday evening or Tuesday morning shows on ABC, CBS or NBC.
All three morning shows on Tuesday did find time (5 minutes, 32 seconds) to cover the altercation on a plane caused by an unruly passenger upset about the “Knee Defender” product intruding on her personal space.
On August 25, the New York Observer reported the following:
“The IRS filing in federal Judge Emmet Sullivan’s court reveals shocking new information. The IRS destroyed Lerner’s Blackberry AFTER it knew her computer had crashed and after a Congressional inquiry was well underway. As an IRS official declared under the penalty of perjury, the destroyed Blackberry would have contained the same emails (both sent and received) as Lois Lerner’s hard drive.”
Chef John Benjamin of Park West Tavern in Ridgewood on his favorite kitchen tool and least favorite diner requests
AUGUST 27, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2014, 1:21 AM THE RECORD
After graduating from the Culinary Institute of America, John Benjamin worked at some highly venerated restaurants, including Aureole in Manhattan and The French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley. And before he was named executive chef for the Park West Tavern this past December, the soft-spoken 45-year-old Greenwood Lake resident worked as executive chef for eight years at one of New Jersey’s most formal and acclaimed dining establishments, Restaurant Latour at the Crystal Springs Resort in Hardyston. Last month, Park West Tavern received three out of four stars from The Record.
Favorite kitchen tool: Japanese mandolin. It’s good for slicing garlic, potatoes, mushroom, onions very thin. And the Japanese one is plastic, thin and not too expensive – maybe $23. It fits in any kitchen cabinet.
Dish I’m most proud of: Right now we are offering a simple salad of watermelon, heirloom tomatoes and burrata cheese, with a spicy red-wine vinaigrette for $12. I like it ’cause it’s nice and refreshing; it’s light and cool.
What diners don’t know about chefs: The long hours they work —10 in the morning to midnight for me; the dedication we have for the craft we have; the stress.
What irks me most about diners: They want to create their own entrée. Someone will say, “I don’t want the pork in the pappardelle pasta.” But it has pork in it for a reason.
Grease-laden spill cleaned up at Ridgewood treatment plant in Glen Rock
AUGUST 26, 2014, 6:06 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, AUGUST 26, 2014, 6:11 PM BY CHRIS HARRIS STAFF WRITER THE RECORD
Ridgewood officials said municipal workers dealt with a substantial cooking grease spill Tuesday at the village’s wastewater treatment plant on Prospect Street in Glen Rock.
Roberta Sonenfeld, Ridgewood’s village manager, said 200 gallons of “watery FOG [fats, oils, and gases]” spurt from a “burst transfer line” connected to a delivery truck’s storage tank.
Some of the grease ended up draining into the wetlands of a nearby stream that feeds into the Ho-Ho-Kus Brook.
Officials said containment booms were used to control the spill.
“Our vacuum then sucked up the contained material,” Public Works director and Village Engineer Chris Rutishauser said, adding none of the grease reached the water.
Neighbors living next to the plant, sited at the intersection of Rock Road, said Tuesday that the area smelled “like a Burger King parking lot” following the accident. Those neighbors reported seeing village workers in the stream.
Village officials said this is the first time such a spill has happened there, and added that they immediately contacted the state’s Department of Environmental Protection about the spill.
