Tag: technology

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What science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) Shortage?

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What science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) Shortage?
The sector isn’t seeing wage growth and has more graduates than jobs.
By Steven Camarota

The idea that we need to allow in more workers with science, technology, engineering, and math (“STEM”) background is an article of faith among American business and political elite.

But in a new report, my Center for Immigration Studies colleague Karen Zeigler and I analyze the latest government data and find what other researchers have found: The country has well more than twice as many workers with STEM degrees as there are STEM jobs. Also consistent with other research, we find only modest levels of wage growth for such workers for more than a decade. Both employment and wage data indicate that such workers are not in short supply.

Reports by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the RAND Corporation, the Urban Institute, and the National Research Council have all found no evidence that STEM workers are in short supply. PBS even published an opinion piece based on the EPI study entitled, “The Bogus High-Tech Worker Shortage: How Guest Workers Lower U.S. Wages.” This is PBS, mind you, which is as likely to publish something skeptical of immigration as it is to publish something skeptical of taxpayer subsidies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

https://www.nationalreview.com/article/378334/what-stem-shortage-steven-camarota

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A Retiree Digitizes 27 Million Old Newspaper Pages in His Living Room (and Libraries Fight to Catch Up)

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A Retiree Digitizes 27 Million Old Newspaper Pages in His Living Room (and Libraries Fight to Catch Up)

Jim Epstein|May. 18, 2014 1:00 pm

Last March, I profiled Tom Tryniski, an eccentric retiree who has digitized (so far) about 27 million newspaper pages working alone in his living room and has made them free for anyone to search. (Click above to watch the video or click here to read the article.) The story offered an example of Tryniski’s prowess: In 2003, the Brooklyn Public Library (BPL)spent $400,000 digitizing the first 62 years of theBrooklyn Daily Eagle, which was among the most widely read and influential papers in 19th century America. A decade later, the library was still raising money to finish the remaining 52 years of the Daily Eagle’s run. In the meantime, Tryniski digitized all 115 years of the paper in about five months working alone.

The BPL has caught up. The entire run of the paper is now digitized and the library just launched a beautiful new portal that makes it easy to search. The BPL Daily Eagle site is far more limited than Tryniski’s—he’s digitized 639 newspapers including several other Brooklyn titles—but it’s quite a bit faster and easier to use.

So how much did the BPL pay to finish the job? Absolutely nothing.

https://reason.com/blog/2014/05/18/a-retiree-digitizes-27-million-old-newsp

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The Internet’s 51 New Regulators

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The Internet’s 51 New Regulators

The FCC goes ahead with its plan to control Web pricing.

Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler went ahead with his proposal on Thursday to give his agency the power to decide whether the terms and prices of broadband Internet services are “reasonable.” That’s bad enough as political discretion, but according to dissenting Commissioner Ajit Pai, regulators from every state will also be able to get into the act.Mr. Wheeler’s goal is to satisfy the “net neutrality” supporters demanding that every broadband customer receive the same deal, no matter how much bandwidth they consume. Backed by two other Democrats, Mr. Wheeler said he prefers the “reasonable” pricing standard. But he also suggested another, even worse option to regulate broadband prices: reclassifying Internet connections as “telecommunications services.”

For two decades Congress has wisely refused to give the FCC the same power over the Internet that it holds over the telephone system. And for two decades the Internet has enabled a gusher of creativity that was unimaginable over a century of regulated telephony. Mr. Wheeler’s brainstorm to change all this is simply to pretend the Internet is a phone network.

This would apply to today’s broadband networks common-carrier rules that were designed for monopoly telephone companies—and created decades before the inventors of smart phones and social media were even born. Since this designation would automatically impose myriad obligations that have nothing to do with current customer needs—and that many modern firms could not possibly fulfill—the commission would then have to issue a flurry of exemptions (“forbearance” in FCC parlance) to prevent chaos in the market for Internet connections.

https://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304547704579564151980296612?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_opinion&mg=reno64-wsj&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle%2FSB10001424052702304547704579564151980296612.html%3Fmod%3DWSJ_hpp_sections_opinion

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Yik Yak is just the latest we may be able to limit it use or get rid of it altogether but there will be another one just like it along 5 minutes later

Yik-Yak

Yik Yak is just the latest we may be able to limit it use or get rid of it altogether but there will be another one just like it along 5 minutes later

Unfortunately Yik Yak is just the latest mole to whack. We may be able to limit it use or get rid of it altogether but there will be another one just like it along 5 minutes later. Maybe as parents we should step up and teach our kids about respect, responsibility and self confidence instead of focusing our fear and rage at this and other social media outlets.

I installed Yik Yak a couple weeks ago to see what it was about and 99% of the posts are pure sophomoric drivel. Hopefully this should dilute some of the sting associated with the other 1% assuming it’s at all dangerous or hurtful. Comments like “Jimmy is a poopy head” should raise as much concern for our kids collective intelligence level as anything else.

A notice went out that some kid posted something about shooting up a school and the police didn’t seem to give it any credence whatsoever. After reading a couple of days worth of posts myself I have to say that I’m not very concerned either.

I don’t disagree with the doctor here in that the Ap, like any social media outlet, has the potential to be used as a vehicle for hate and bullying. I also agree that social media in general has begun to replace real human interaction and conversation with horrible consequences.

As parents it’s our job to teach our kids about responsible, moderate use of social media since it’s probably here to stay. As for Yik Yak, my message to my kids is why would you want to associate with the morons that post on it in the first place?

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Psychiatrist’s view: Yik Yak is most dangerous app I’ve ever seen

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Psychiatrist’s view: Yik Yak is most dangerous app I’ve ever seen
By Dr. Keith Ablow
Published May 09, 2014
FoxNews.com

Click here to read a letter from Dr. Fishbein to Ridgewood parents and guardians, regarding the negative use of the new social media app Yik Yak by teens.

Here’s something important our society seems to be afraid to say out loud: Despite its name, “social media” is an inherently antisocial medium.

As a psychiatrist I can tell you that Facebook contributes to narcissism, depression and impaired interpersonal relationships. This likely happens because users craft appealing profiles of themselves, twisting their stories along the way, fooling themselves into thinking they have hundreds or thousands of “friends” and finally using a keystroke to block unwanted feedback.

Thank you, Mark Zuckerberg.

But the new Yik Yak app, originally designed for college campuses, is the most dangerous form of social media I’ve ever seen.

Yik Yak can turn a school into a virtual chat room where everyone can post his or her comments, anonymously.  Untruthful, mean, character-assassinating short messages are immediately seen by all users in a specific geographic area.

According to ABC News: “Yik Yak works like an anonymous bulletin board, displaying messages from people in a user’s area that can be voted ‘up’ or ‘down’ on the page.  Tyler Droll, founder and CEO of Yik Yak, said the app was designed to be like ‘a city’s central plaza or campus bulletin board.’”

“‘Yik Yak users interact with everyone around them,’ Droll said.

“’Yakking’ is the welcoming, authentic and anonymous version of tweeting.”

Translation:  Anyone using Yik Yak can turn a school into a virtual chat room where everyone can post his or her comments, anonymously.  Untruthful, mean, character-assassinating short messages are immediately seen by all users in a specific geographic area.

If a student writes, “Susie has an STD,” there’s no way to know if the “yak” is true. But hundreds of other students may see the electronic message, leaving it to the target to defend herself.  

Psychologically, Yik Yak actually removes all pretense of being a person with empathy, genuinely connected to other human beings.

https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/09/psychiatrist-view-yik-yak-is-most-dangerous-app-ive-ever-seen/

 

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Ridgewood Police : Here are some tips to help you identify online scams

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Ridgewood Police : Here are some tips to help you identify online scams 

Protect yourself by reading up on some of the latest and most prevalent scams. If something sounds “off” to you, chances are it’s a scam. By educating yourself, you can learn how to spot a scam, whether it is a soliciting email, a false transaction alert from an auction site, or a work-from-home offer. Empower yourself to know the difference between legitimate online opportunities and cybercrime scams. Below are some very common cybercrime scams:

It’s most likely a scam if…

1. You receive an email stating you won or are inheriting money.

2. It looks or sounds too good to be true.

3. You are asked to wire money instead of sending a check or using an online payment method.

4. The person you are dealing with is out of the country.

5. You are purchasing a vehicle or any other item, and the seller claims to be in a different location than the vehicle.

6. An individual wants to send you a check for more than what you’re asking for an item and requests that you cash the check and wire the extra money back.7.You can work from home and only have to cash checks or “reship” items.

8. You receive an email from your bank asking for any login info, bank account info, or personal info.

9. An offer is unsolicited.

If you ever have any suspicions or questions regarding online transactions, please call your local law enforcement agency to discuss the possibility of the situation being an Internet scam.

Learn more at https://www.victimvoice.org/

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F.C.C., in a Shift, Backs Fast Lanes for Web Traffic

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F.C.C., in a Shift, Backs Fast Lanes for Web Traffic
By EDWARD WYATTAPRIL 23, 2014

WASHINGTON — The principle that all Internet content should be treated equally as it flows through cables and pipes to consumers looks all but dead.

The Federal Communications Commission said on Wednesday that it would propose new rules that allow companies like Disney, Google or Netflix to pay Internet service providers like Comcast and Verizon for special, faster lanes to send video and other content to their customers.

The proposed changes would affect what is known as net neutrality — the idea that no providers of legal Internet content should face discrimination in providing offerings to consumers, and that users should have equal access to see any legal content they choose.

The proposal comes three months after a federal appeals court struck down, for the second time, agency rules intended to guarantee a free and open Internet.

Tom Wheeler, the F.C.C. chairman, defended the agency’s plans late Wednesday, saying speculation that the F.C.C. was “gutting the open Internet rule” is “flat out wrong.” Rather, he said, the new rules will provide for net neutrality along the lines of the appeals court’s decision.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-neutrality-rules.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0

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“The US has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open internet,”

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“The US has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open internet,”
By Richard Waters in San Francisco

A meeting in Brazil this week will reveal whether Washington has succeeded in preventing international anger over the Edward Snowden revelations clouding discussions about future governance of the internet.

São Paulo is to host a two-day international meeting, starting on Wednesday, called by Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff, one of the international leaders who was a target of US surveillance.

International unrest over US and British internet surveillance has weakened Washington’s ability to shape the debate about the internet’s future, according to people involved in the process.

“The US has lost the moral authority to talk about a free and open internet,” said a former senior US government official.

The São Paulo meeting had the potential to become deeply political and expose rifts between countries over future control of the internet, said Greg Shatan, a partner at law firm Reed Smith in Washington. “It was called under extraordinary circumstances, it’s a reaction to a perceived crisis,” he said.

The US made a highly symbolic gesture last month in an attempt to defuse the situation.

In a move that had long been urged by Brussels, Washington said it planned to give up its last remaining direct role in controlling the internet. This involves checking the accuracy of changes to internet addressing made by ICANN, the international body that oversees the system. Though a limited and highly technical function, this has long been a focus for international discontent at US influence over the internet.

https://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4529516c-c713-11e3-889e-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2zVSW5HCG

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Reader says Technology is evolving at such a rate that we will eventually no longer have libraries

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Reader says Technology is evolving at such a rate that we will eventually no longer have libraries

Technology is evolving at such a rate that we will eventually no longer have libraries in the physical books and brick and mortar sense that we know of them today. This probably sounds unthinkable, and I hear the arguments that libraries do a lot more than loan books, but it will simply come down to a continual lessening of library usage and economics. The only reason they will remain operational as long as they will is due to political resistance and a misguided hankering for community spirit.

Microsoft Store

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‘Antisocial network’ Cloak helps users avoid their friends

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‘Antisocial network’ Cloak helps users avoid their friends
UPI 3/20/2014 8:10:00 PM
LOS ANGELES, March 20 (UPI) —
A pair of U.S. developers have created Cloak, an iPhone “antisocial network” to help users avoid running into their friends.

Cloak, created by programmer Brian Moore and former Buzzfeed creative director Chris Baker, is billed as the “antisocial network” and uses check-in data from Foursquare and Instagram to allow users to see the locations of their friends on a map, the Los Angeles Times reported Thursday.

“Avoid exes, co-workers, that guy who likes to stop and chat — anyone you’d rather not run into,” the app description in the iTunes store reads.

The app also allows users to “flag” certain friends and they will receive notifications when the flagged friends show up within a certain range.

The developers said they are planning to add more social networks to Cloak.

https://www.breitbart.com/system/wire/upiUPI-20140320-160456-1784

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iPhone usage tips

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iPhone usage tips
March 15,2014
Marc A. Hirschinger
1:43 PM

Ridgewood NJ, Since many of us have iPhones I thought I would pass along a few tips which may help make using your phone easier and quicker to use.  For starters delete all old phone and text messages.  Close the web pages you have been browsing as keeping these pages open uses a lot of memory.  Clear the browser cache.  Choose the “Settings” icon on your “home” screen and look up the “Safari” and click.  There you will have the ability to clear cache, history and cookies.  Finally, go to “Settings,” “General,” “then “Spotlight Search” or “Search Results and turn off all of the features you do not use, such as “podcasts, audiobooks etc.,”  I hope this helps!  Here is another good tip.  Have a great weekend folks.

wine.com

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U.S. to relinquish remaining control over the Internet

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U.S. to relinquish remaining control over the Internet
By Craig Timberg, Published: March 14

U.S. officials announced plans Friday to relinquish federal government control over the administration of the Internet, a move that pleased international critics but alarmed some business leaders and others who rely on the smooth functioning of the Web.

Pressure to let go of the final vestiges of U.S. authority over the system of Web addresses and domain names that organize the Internet has been building for more than a decade and was supercharged by the backlash last year to revelations about National Security Agency surveillance.

The change would end the long-running contract between the Commerce Department and the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a California-based nonprofit group. That contract is set to expire next year but could be extended if the transition plan is not complete.

“We look forward to ICANN convening stakeholders across the global Internet community to craft an appropriate transition plan,” Lawrence E. Strickling, assistant secretary of commerce for communications and information, said in a statement.

The announcement received a passionate response, with some groups quickly embracing the change and others blasting it.

In a statement, Senate Commerce Committee Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.) called the move “consistent with other efforts the U.S. and our allies are making to promote a free and open Internet, and to preserve and advance the current multi-stakeholder model of global Internet governance.”

But former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) tweeted: “What is the global internet community that Obama wants to turn the internet over to? This risks foreign dictatorships defining the internet.”

The practical consequences of the decision were harder to immediately discern, especially with the details of the transition not yet clear. Politically, the move could alleviate rising global concerns that the United States essentially controls the Web and takes advantage of its oversight position to help spy on the rest of the world.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/us-to-relinquish-remaining-control-over-the-internet/2014/03/14/0c7472d0-abb5-11e3-adbc-888c8010c799_print.html

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Nationwide wave of store closings grows

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Nationwide wave of store closings grows

FRIDAY MARCH 7, 2014, 12:02 AM
BY  JOAN VERDON
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

The experts who keep track of store openings and closings have been forecasting for more than a decade that the day was coming when American retailers would have to pay for building far too many stores.

That day of reckoning, some say, has arrived, with one retail watcher predicting a “tsunami” of store closings this year.

That prediction, by Brian Sozzi of Belus Capital Advisors in New York, was made in January. RadioShack announced this week that it was closing up to 1,100 of its stores, and Staples said Thursday that it was shutting 225 of its locations.

Even retailers that recently have been in expansion mode are trimming their store counts. Teen retailer Aéropostale is planning to close 175 stores in coming years. The Children’s Place of Secaucus, while continuing to open stores, will shutter 125 of its weakest shops by 2016.

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/Nationwide_wave_of_store_closings_grows.html#sthash.yTp8hWWq.dpuf

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Super Science Saturday Comes to Ridgewood March 8

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Super Science Saturday Comes to Ridgewood March 8

Crowd Source a World’s Record Idea, See a 3-D Printer and more
At Super Science Saturday on March 8

Ridgewood NJ, Super Science Saturday 2014 returns to Ridgewood on March 8 and is inviting visitors to crowd-source ideas for a world’s record that could be set at next year’s event. This is just one of the many exciting activities at Super Science Saturday, which returns for its 26th year on Saturday, March 8, from 9 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at Ridgewood High School, 627 East Ridgewood Avenue. Admission is free.

Visitors can select from a menu of world-record-setting ideas or submit a creative one of their own. The winning idea will be tested for feasibility of setting a world’s record at Super Science Saturday 2015.

Visitors to this year’s event also can see a 3-D printer at work, and meet special guests, such as America’s first scientist, “Benjamin Franklin,” and WABC-TV NY Meteorologist Amy Freeze.

The day includes a new favorite—a 26-foot egg drop contest—and ever-popular traditions, such as “The Great Paper Airplane Contest” and model rocket launches on the high school football field at 1:20 p.m.

Scientists from the famed Franklin Institute of Philadelphia will present the day’s featured shows—“How to Build a Storm: The Weather Show” at 9:30 a.m. Super Science Saturday also will have interactive exhibits from dozens of professional and amateur scientists, including solar telescopes, robotics, super-cold science, New Jersey’s special environment, health and medicine, chemistry, and the technology used by our police, fire and EMT professionals.

This event, the largest of its kind in Northern new Jersey, encourages students of all ages—from elementary through high school—to exhibit their experiments in the Hall of Science.  There is still room for students from any school district to sign up and exhibit at www.supersciencesaturday.org.

Super Science Saturday is underwritten for the sixth-consecutive year by The Valley Hospital, which provides state-of-the-art medical, emergency and preventive care in Northern New Jersey, and The Foundation, which supports innovative learning programs and enrichment activities for Ridgewood Public Schools.

Students looking for ideas on science presentations can get help at The Ridgewood Public Library’s Youth Section, or go to the “Kid Zone” section of the Super Science Saturday Web site—www.supersciencesaturday.org. To sign up to as a student or professional exhibitor, or to learn more about the event, visit:www.supersciencesaturday.org

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Ridgewood launches pothole reporting app

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Ridgewood launches pothole reporting app

MONDAY MARCH 3, 2014, 12:14 PM
BY  CHRIS HARRIS
STAFF WRITER
THE RECORD

RIDGEWOOD — Got potholes on your village street? Now, there’s an app for that.

Today is the launch of a new mobile application — accessible through Ridgewood’s official Web site — that was designed to take information about potholes in town.

The “Ridgewood Service Request” or RSR app — the brainchild of John Spano, the village’s street operations supervisor — was designed by Dylan Hansen, Ridgewood’s systems administrator.

Heather Mailander, the village’s interim manager, explained the app during the council’s meeting last week.

“We wanted to come up with an easier way for people to report potholes, especially since we have so many of them due to the weather,” Mailander said. “This will be an easier way to report them.”

– See more at: https://www.northjersey.com/news/Ridgewood_launches_pothole_reporting_app.html#sthash.DnB59E7j.dpuf