Do you find yourself forgetting which day it is during the monotony of mid-week? A new study suggests this is because during the week, you’re neither stressed nor excited.
Research published last week in PLOS ONE found that people were more likely to be confused about what day of the week it was on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, and more likely to have a myriad of positive and negative associations with Monday and Friday, more so than other days of the week.
Led by University of Lincoln psychologist David Ellis, the team conducted three surveys of more than 1,200 people overall. In one study they showed that it took twice as long for participants to guess the right day of the week on Wednesdays than on Mondays and Fridays, with Tuesdays and Thursdays falling in between.
Mean response time when participants were asked what day of the week it was.(Courtesy of Rob Jenkins)
The study shows that this could be related to the richness of our associations with each day of the week. People feel more extremely about Mondays and Fridays (negative for Monday and positive for Friday) and associate them with more events, activities, and feelings (i.e. stress, commutes). The middle weekdays had fewer associations.
The number of different associations survey participants had with each day of the week.(Courtesy of Rob Jenkins)
Study co-author Rob Jenkins of the University of York tells Quartz that the team will look next at potential industry trends related to how our moods change across the week. Teasing out the collective swings in mood on different days could “help us understand the large-scale effects of weekdays that we see in health and economics.”
[Editor’s Note: This article was originally posted on Black Girl Nerds last year. It has been republished here with permission.]
As a Black woman who consumes a substantial amount of television, it is invaluable to see images of women and people of color on the small screen.
My flat screen invites my favorite fandoms into my living room and provides an experience that I hope can be both entertaining and fulfilling. However, when it comes to diversity, I have noticed that slowly women and people of color are taking on protagonist roles that we haven’t quite seen before. As a TV viewer, I wouldn’t exactly say that my diversity appetite is fully satiated. In fact, I still hunger for more women who look like me on television. But there are shows that are slowly coming into the fold that are creating characters who look like the people I see walking around my neighborhood every day. Characters who look like people I see at a shopping mall, waiting for my flight at the airport, or riding a NYC subway train.
Racial diversity on television within the last several years has been sparse or relatively nonexistent, depending on which network you elect to watch. Seeing more white faces than faces of color is sadly becoming the status quo. In fact it seems since the ‘80s and 90’s TV shows are actually getting whiter. The monolith of whiteness is both discouraging and dismissive to many non-white fans who want to see images of characters who look like them.
But there are several new shows as of late that are embracing diversity, and are even including marginalized ethnic groups like Black women as the lead protagonists. One example is Sleepy Hollow. Sleepy Hollow reflects multicultural characters so well that it looks like any city in the U.S. As a fiction is doesn’t representation of some alternate universe like in the 1995 film White Man’s Burden.
Abbie Mills, a Black female police lieutenant, leads the show along with her companion Ichabod Crane in fighting the forces of darkness and preventing the impending apocalypse. Sleepy Hollow has become a major part of the fandom community and most particularly the blerd (black nerd) community.
Another TV show that has piqued the interest of many fans is CW’s The Flash. Barry Allen’s childhood friend and secret crush is Iris West, a Black woman played by actress Candice Patton. According to Comic Book Resources, Patton didn’t realize that the comic book character Iris West was white until after she landed the role and started reading the comics. Detective Joe West is portrayed by veteran actor Jessie L. Martin who we all know and love from the binge-worthy show Law and Order.
Greg Berlanti, the creator of both The Flash and Arrow,promises more Black characters to come. He recently stated, “We made the West characters African American so we can eventually head in that direction, absolutely … that’s our hope.” Wally West, also known as Kid Flash, is the nephew to Iris West. If you are following the New 52 series of The Flash comics, Wally West is biracial and is African-American on his mother’s side.The Flash is already a fan favorite among comic geeks because the creators are keeping its narrative pretty consistent with the books. However, the show Gotham has decided to go with a divergent approach, taking creative liberties with its characters.
In Fox’s Gotham series, the villain of the first season and up-and-coming mobster Fish Mooney is a Black woman. Fish Mooney, played by actress Jada Pinkett Smith, is a smooth, Eartha Kitt-sounding, fashionably chic mobstress who is ready to take over Carmine Falcone’s legacy as a crime boss of Gotham city. It is the first time I have seen a Black female character in a prominent role as a villain in a very long time. A Forbes writer stated that Jada Pinkett’s character of Fish Mooney seemed “wildly out of place” and further stated:
“It’s this empty effort at diversity-for-diversity’s sake that ignores realism and narrative in favor of inclusiveness and political correctness, all of which sends ripples through my ability to suspend my disbelief.”
I’m not even sure what the term “diversity-for-diversity’s sake” truly means. I’m bothered at times by the term “diversity,” because it often implies that people of color are utilized as tokens to create a sense of balance. That our presence is here to make the atmosphere more “cultural” or “colorful.” I don’t live in a world that exists in a monolith. I don’t live in a world where my sphere of influence is monochromatic. I live in a world filled with various eccentricities, body sizes, sexual preferences, and cultural backgrounds of people who come from all walks of life.
The writer’s concern alluded to the historical context of the show, in which patriarchy reigns high and women are still submissive characters. Although the TV series Gotham does come with its flaws—one of its main ones being its continuity and timeline errors—the show does not take place in ‘30s and ‘40s as depicted in the comics. Fish Mooney uses a flip cell phone and the cars look reasonably recent. It’s likely the show’s timeline is somewhere in the early to mid 2000s. The writer states, and I’m paraphrasing here, that in the world of organized crime a man of Italian descent is the most likely mob boss, not a woman.
There are a few things wrong with this, which is why TV archetypes have completely altered our perception of reality. Not all crime bosses are Italian and yes women, even Black women can do the job. According to Wikipedia, “Stephanie St. Clair was a female gang leader who ran numerous criminal enterprises in Harlem, New York during the early 20th century.She was a sole independent operator and never came under Mafia control.”
She was portrayed by actress Cicely Tyson in the 1997 film Hoodlum.
Stephanie St. Clair was neither Italian nor a man.
Gotham’s show creators took creative liberties with adding new characters to the popular story of Batman with women like Fish Mooney, and it’s evident that fiction is always based on some element of truth.
Outside of the geek community, TV shows like Scandal and How To Get Away With Murder are also fan favorites for many of us that are hungry for Black female protagonists.
Thank you Shonda Rhimes.
These are only a handful of shows and there are many others that can also be mentioned. However, for every show that represents people of color, there are 10 or more shows that have the “Friends” effect and illustrate a white blanket of cast members. I will never understand shows shot in New York City that are completely void of Black and brown people.
There is a small beacon of hope out there in TV. I’m just happy to finally see women on TV who look like me.
Jamie Broadnax is the writer and creator of the niche blogsite for nerdy women of color called Black Girl Nerds. Jamie has written for Madame Noire and was named part of The Grio’s Top 100. In her spare time, she enjoys live-tweeting, reading, writing, and spending time with her beagle Brandy.
Badalamenti’s involvement is the latest assurance that the Showtime Twin Peaks will continue in the spirit of the original Twin Peaks—assurances like David Lynch’s decision to stick with the project. With Badalamenti onboard, the show’s noir-tinged, “too dreamy” atmosphere should be ...
It has been a pretty incredible year for all things space – New Horizons flyby of Pluto, Messenger’s exploration of Mercury, the total solar eclipse in April, the Dawn mission to Ceres and the Rosetta mission.
But you don’t need to leave the comforts of Earth to enjoy the beauty and wonder of the worlds beyond.
Here are 16 spectacular shots of space and the night sky taken by the talented Earth Capture community.
In the current comics climate of superheroes out-brooding each other and dealing with dystopian scenario after dystopian scenario, it’s easy to forget that comics from the Big Two can also be fun. Well, if you’re looking for pure joy in comics form, run – don’t walk – to your local comic shop to pick up a copy of the newly-released trade, The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1: Squirrel Power.
My only experience with the character of Squirrel Girl was in reading Great Lakes Avengers and reading her stint as a nanny to Jessica Jones and Luke Cage’s baby. I loved the character, but I never would’ve imagined her as the star of her own book. So I’ll admit that I was skeptical when I first heard that Marvel was giving Squirrel Girl her own title. Could a character like that actually carry an entire story? As it stands, the timing couldn’t be more right for Squirrel Girl to burst onto the scene. Readers and film audiences seem to appreciate the lighter tone of Marvel’s material. Couple that with the popularity of the cheery, earnest protagonists of Steven Universe or Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt (OMG, Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt/Unbeatable Squirrel Girl CROSSOVER!), and it’s easy to see why a character like Doreen Green, aka Squirrel Girl, would get her own book.
And boy, can she carry her own story. Her larger-than-life personality is enough to fill a million books, and that’s without the squirrel blood and super powers! After spending her teen years in Avengers Mansion, Doreen is off to college, and she’s determined to be a “Normal College Student.” Well, as normal as she can be with a squirrel BFF that she talks to named Tippy-Toe. This means that Squirrel Girl has to be a big secret, which is a difficult one to keep when you’ve got a huge tail you have to shove in your pants.
The very best thing about the character of Squirrel Girl is that she’s so unapologetically herself. While she might feel bad about a poor choice with regard to saving someone, or something that’s gone wrong in her life, she never sees anything wrong with herself. She talks to squirrels? Awesome – squirrels are great to talk to! Her tail shoved down the back of her pants makes her look like she has a big butt? Awwww, yeah! We should all be lucky enough to have Squirrel Girl-levels of self-confidence.
The other thing that’s amazing about Squirrel Girl is that her greatest power doesn’t come from having squirrel blood…it comes from her strong personality. The thing she’s best at – and the thing that often allows her to defeat villains – is talking to people and becoming their friend. Much like Kimmy Schmidt brilliantly takes down a catcaller by being really, really nice (I REALLY want this crossover to happen! Kimmy and Doreen would be besties!), Squirrel Girl defeats villains like Kraven or Galactus by talking to them, listening to what they have to say, genuinely caring about people, and offering solutions that appeal to what those villains really want and need deep down. She excels at Getting to Know You, and this exchange between her and her best squirrel bud pretty much sums it up:
Squirrel Girl (talking about her need for a secret identity): My enemies might go after my loved ones, T! Tippy-Toe: What enemies are you talking about? You’re the unbeatable Squirrel Girl! Who doesn’t like you? Squirrel Girl: I don’t know! Jerks, I guess?
The thing is, Squirrel Girl gives everyone (even Galactus, even Deadpool!) a chance, because she believes that most people aren’t jerks – they’re just people who are sad or mad about something, and she tries to help them fix it.
Writer Ryan North does an amazing job infusing this character and her story with life. Not only that, North makes it hilarious both through the dialogue and situations in which he puts her, but also via an awesome narration device employed at the bottom of every page that I almost completely missed at first, but once I spotted it, became my favorite part of the book! Along with the flash cards from Deadpool that she consults when she encounters a new villain or weapon. And then there’s the one issue where they do this thing with the letter column…. I won’t spoil it, but it’s too funny! I have never laughed out loud while reading a comic as I have reading Unbeatable Squirrel Girl.
North has an amazing partner in artist Erica Henderson, who seems to be drawing with Joy Itself instead of, you know, pencils. I love that all of her characters, even the villains, seem to be filtered through Squirrel Girl’s optimistic prism so that even dudes like Galactus seem way less scary. I wish we could all see the world the way she does. What’s more, I love how Henderson draws Squirrel Girl herself. Doreen Green isn’t fat, but she’s a sturdy, thicker, muscular girl, and I love seeing that body type on a girl in a comic.
Lastly, I love that the major supporting characters in Doreen’s life at school are characters of color. There’s her awesomely eccentric roommate, Nancy, a black girl who doesn’t fall into any racial stereotypes…mostly because she’s too weird (and slightly cat and knitting crazy), and who proves to be the best friend a girl who’s secretly a squirrel girl could have. And there’s also Tomas, a really nice, nerdy Latino into whom Doreen bumps on move-in day and who may or may not be a potential love interest! And Tippy-Toe has brown fur, which I guess doesn’t really count in this context, but she’s great, so I wanted to mention her.
In addition to the amazingness of the main issues, this trade is also a worthwhile purchase for the awesome variant cover art enclosed, as well as the first-ever appearance of Squirrel Girl in Marvel Super-Heroes #8 from 1991. In it, she has a surprisingly touching first encounter with Iron Man as she tries to apply for the role of his sidekick at age fourteen.
Squirrel Girl is too good for us. She’s not the hero we deserve, but she’s the hero we need, desperately. When shopping for comics on Wednesday, make sure your pile includes The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl Vol. 1: Squirrel Power. It’ll be the best thing you do this week.
While it’s nice that Portland seems to have a sense of humor about itself, a nearby minor league baseball team may have taken things a bit too far with a new set of Portlandia-inspired uniforms. Composed of horrific looking “flannel” tops and “skinny jean” pants—really, just those clothes laser-printed onto whatever baseball uniforms are made of—the Eugene Emeralds’ uniforms are a horrific amalgam of irony and modern technology. Seriously. Just look at these things. Wacky uniforms are minor league baseball’s bread and butter, but what is even going on with those fake pockets? Would Carrie Brownstein wear a flannel shirt that looks like a pajama top from the ’70s? No.
The Cubs’ single-A affiliate is set to wear the fabric nightmares for its August 27 Portlandia Night at PK Park. They’ll play the dubiously-named Spokane Indians, and fans in attendance can bid ...
In a Great Job, Internet! post last week, I alerted readers to a shocking injustice perpetrated by The New York Times against game show fans, pop culture nitpickers, and all those who rally to the cause of truth. To recap: In the latest installment of its consumer-advocate column “The Haggler,” the Times helped a woman who was waiting to receive prizes she’d won on The Price Is Right. David Segal, who writes the Haggler column, indicated that the aggrieved party had won her prizes in Price’s Showcase Showdown round. That was incorrect. In fact, the contestant won the lion’s share of her prizes in the climactic Showcase round—the Showcase Showdown is when players spin a big, colorful wheel for a chance to participate in the Showcase. Confusing the Showcase with the Showcase Showdown is a common mistake but a mistake nonetheless.
As Carol Danvers rides high in the comics as Captain Marvel, it’s hard to remember that she wasn’t the first woman to take on the mantle: back in 1982, Monica Rambeau became that woman. If you haven’t heard of her, though, there’s a reason. Here’s the sad story of the Captain Marvel comics forgot.
I’ve worked only on all-male Engineering teams. Although I’ve been fortunate to work with many respectful and brilliant men, I’ve also worked with a few who lack basic respect for their female colleagues; in job environments where I felt sexualized and demeaned regularly; and under leadership that tracks female workers into “soft-skills” projects and roles, quietly leaving the technical, highly-valued problems to male workers.
I expected a similar culture at Stack — one where I would have to fight constantly to earn the respect that my male colleagues were granted by default — maybe minus the blatant sexual harassment. I’ve been gratified to learn that Stack’s culture toward women is much more positive. Although the Engineering team is predominantly male, the company is taking actionable steps to create a more inclusive workplace.
Addressing unconscious bias
During my first few days at Stack, I came across a document that described our developer hiring practices. This passage caught my attention:
Be careful with “Cultural Fit”. This is often a catch-all for a vague sense of “would not fit in”, which can come to mean “is like me”. If you feel someone is a good or bad cultural fit, you must explain what you mean.
Valid “Cultural Fit” things: self-motivated, passionate, gets stuff done, cares about open source / giving back to the community, likes “default open”, hates office politics / meetings, pragmatic attitude towards tools / best practices, etc.
Invalid “Cultural Fit” things: obvious stuff like race, gender, sexual orientation, religion but also softer things like age, personality or hobbies (does not have to like Magic the Gathering to be a good dev). Assume that your bias is to hire people you “like” and be very careful of that.
Reading this passage made me look more carefully at our Engineering management. From all appearances, they’re of the status quo (straight white men), but the fact that they choose to define company culture with an ear for unconscious bias is special.
Forward-thinking leadership is the first key to shaping an inclusive culture. Even on flat technical teams, managerial attitudes matter a lot — especially on issues that might be “invisible” to the majority of the team. If a manager dismisses casual, misogynistic banter at work as “guys being guys,” then casual, misogynistic banter becomes a valid part of team culture. If a manager hires people who just fit in, it’s easy to “accidentally” create a monolithic culture that is quietly and consistently hostile to difference.
Supportive internal culture
The company hosts regular discussions on internal culture at Stack. These discussions are led by the Diversity and Inclusion Panel, an employee-created committee. Several employees share their experiences via a company-wide chat room, and everyone has the opportunity to discuss and ask questions.
During my first month at Stack, Roberta, one of our developers, shared stories of the sexism and microaggressions that she faced regularly at developer events. She described interactions with male attendees ranging from “you should smile more” to “well, if you can get a job [at Stack], then I should apply.”
Her tone was refreshingly honest and angry. It was an anger that I identified with. At the same time, I was alarmed that she was discussing these issues while working on a predominantly male team. What if co-workers were unable to relate and became defensive? Or what if managers viewed her anger as a threat? In my experience, this is exactly what happens to team members who speak out about discrimination. At best, their concerns are crudely dismissed: “learn to take a joke” or “don’t be so sensitive.” At worst, management is intolerant of criticism: the employee’s reputation is dismantled, their contributions are phased out, and they are fired.
To my surprise, members of the Engineering team were supportive and critical — not just of the industry, but of internal culture. This openness is indicative of a company that wants to embrace true diversity — not just the trendy, cosmetic variety.
“we like having you in our pictures!”
A truly diverse workforce is not easy to achieve. To start, it requires openness toward uncomfortable subjects and a commitment to change. So while a supportive, self-critical discussion is just the beginning, it’s a big step in an industry that likes to pay lip service to diversity while silencing and excluding the very people it claims to support.
So you got Windows 10, but now you're worried that Microsoft is stealing your data, even when you turn most the new features off. Let me explain.
Now that Microsoft's latest operating system is on the market many are concerned of their privacy, and what Microsoft may be doing with the data that is collected. You'll hear FUD about Microsoft collecting your browser history, logging activity, going through files, and much more, but what are they actually doing?
Surprisingly, answers lie in one of the most unread documents on the internet: The Privacy Policy
That's right; One of two documents (the other being the Terms of Service, or EULA in software's case) consumers blindly click, tap. or otherwise choose "Yes I agree" to has the answers to most all everyone's privacy concerns around Windows 10. One need only need to comprehend this policy to have a better understanding of what's going on.
But this is hard; Not everyone is good at grasping some of the terminologies used within these legal documents. That's why I've taken the liberty of grabbing some of the most important concerns and "translating" them below.
1. Microsoft is tracking my location and collecting all my personal information!
Cortana is your personal assistant. Cortana works best when it can learn about you and your activities by using data from your device, your Microsoft account, third-party services and other Microsoft services. To enable Cortana to provide personalized experiences and relevant suggestions, Microsoft collects and uses various types of data, such as your device location, data from your calendar, the apps you use, data from your emails and text messages, who you call, your contacts and how often you interact with them on your device
Microsoft's Cortana assistant, in a manner very much like Google Now, allows you to get personalized results and find relevant information with the click of a button, or the utterance of the phrase "Hey, Cortana?". However many of the software's features cannot function without access to relevant data. For example, when you tell Cortana "Next time I call Aunt Kathy, remind me to pick up flowers", she can't know who "Aunt Kathy" is without access to your contact data. In another example, when you say "Remind me to get orchids when I'm at a florist", Cortana doesn't know when you're at a florist without knowing your location. The more one actually explores what Cortana can do, the more they'll realize how relevant having access to that data can be.
And in the event you don't have any need for Microsoft's personalized assistant, there is actually a master switch that turns it off, with no need to peruse through various options: in Cortana's settings, you can turn off "Cortana can give you suggestions, reminders, alerts, and more.", which will disable Cortana and clear everything about your device collected via Cortana. This doesn't affect interests or other devices; Interests are device-agnostic and manually chosen, and naturally you disable Cortana on a device by device basis. But these have 0 impact on your privacy on the current device.
2. Microsoft is collecting my browser history and everything I do online!
Some Microsoft browser information saved on your device will be synced across other devices when you sign in with your Microsoft account. This information can include your browsing history, favorites, saved website passwords, and reading list. For example, in Microsoft Edge, if you sync your reading list across devices, copies of the content you choose to save to your reading list will be sent to each synced device for later viewing. You can control which information is synced (see Sync Settings). You can also disable syncing of Microsoft Edge browser information by turning off the sync option in Microsoft Edge Settings.
Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer use your search queries and browsing history to provide you with faster browsing and more relevant search results. These features include:
AutoSearch and Search Suggestions in Internet Explorer automatically sends the information you type into the browser address bar to your default search provider (such as Bing) and offer search recommendations as you type each character. In Microsoft Edge, this feature automatically sends this information to Bing even if you have selected another default search provider.
Page Prediction sends your browsing history to Microsoft and uses aggregated browsing history data to predict which pages you are likely to browse to next and proactively loads those pages in the background for a faster browsing experience.
Suggested Sites recommends web contents that you might be interested in based on your search and browsing history.
Browsing data collected in connection with these features is used in the aggregate and you can turn off any of these features at any time. These features will not collect browsing history while you have InPrivate Browsing enabled.
In order to provide search results, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer send your search queries, standard device information, and location (if you have location enabled) to your default search provider.
Both Internet Explorer and Microsoft Edge have the ability to provide enhanced features such as search suggestions in the address bar (standard on most web browsers), as well as enhance load times by predicting and loading pages in the background to save time loading in the foreground later on. These features require access to your search history and browsing history, however.
Your search history allows the web browser to pull up previous web searches along with improving the search suggestion's predictive features. How do you think a search engine, whether it be Google or Bing, is able to predict and list various suggestions for search terms when you begin typing in the address bar? Additionally, Edge sends search history to Bing alongside your search engine of choice, likely both for the improvement of their own search suggestions as well as to ease the syncing process of that information across different machines. It also means that if you switch to Bing your search history is already present, allowing for more relevant results.
As far as your web history, this allows the web browser to better predict the next page you visit, improving the page prediction accuracy and enhancing load times. It also means it can show you past websites and autofill them in the address bar when you start typing.
If you don't wish for either of these functions, you can turn them off respectively in your browser's advanced settings.
3. OMG Microsoft is giving everyone the password to my Wi-Fi!
Wi-Fi Sense allows you to automatically connect to Wi-Fi networks around you to help you save cellular data and give you more connection options. If you turn it on, you will automatically connect to open Wi-Fi networks. You will also be able to exchange access to password-protected Wi-Fi networks with your contacts
Okay, so this one isn't clearly explained in the Privacy Policy. I did say "most all", did I not? Wi-Fi sense is a nifty feature that allows you to connect to hotspots automatically, but it also allows you to share access to your password protected networks. But before you worry that Microsoft is giving people the password to your in-home Wi-Fi, one must know two things:
The sharing capabilities of Wi-Fi sense are opt-in on a case by case basis; You actually have to tell Windows you want to share access for each Wi-Fi network.
Your password is never visibly shared. Windows will send an encrypted form of the password to your friends with Wi-Fi sense compatible devices which will then automatically set up the connection; The password is never viewable by anyone.
No networks are shared automatically. When you first connect to a network that you decide to share, you'll need to enter the password, and then select the Share network with my contacts check box to share that network
...
When you share access to a password-protected Wi‑Fi network by using Wi‑Fi Sense, your contacts don't see the network password. For networks you choose to share access to, the password is sent over an encrypted connection and is stored in an encrypted file on a Microsoft server, and is then sent over an HTTPS connection to your contacts' PC or phone if they use Wi‑Fi Sense.
4. Why does Microsoft still send data even when I disable access?
Microsoft regularly collects basic information about your Windows device including usage data, app compatibility data, and network and connectivity information. This data is transmitted to Microsoft and stored with one or more unique identifiers that can help us recognize an individual user on an individual device and understand the device's service issues and use patterns. The data we collect includes:
Configuration data, including the manufacturer of your device, model, number of processors, display size and resolution, date, region and language settings, and other data about the capabilities of the device.
The software (including drivers and firmware supplied by device manufacturers), installed on the device.
Performance and reliability data, such as how quickly programs respond to input, how many problems you experience with an app or device, or how quickly information is sent or received over a network connection.
App use data for apps that run on Windows (including Microsoft and third party apps), such as how frequently and for how long you use apps, which app features you use most often, how often you use Windows Help and Support, which services you use to sign into apps, and how many folders you typically create on your desktop.
Network and connection data, such as the device's IP address, number of network connections in use, and data about the networks you connect to, such as mobile networks, Bluetooth, and identifiers (BSSID and SSID), connection requirements and speed of Wi-Fi networks you connect to.
Other hardware devices connected to the device.
Some diagnostic data is vital to the operation of Windows and cannot be turned off if you use Windows. Other data collection is optional, and you will be able to turn this data collection on or off in Settings.
It's something called the "Customer Experience Improvement Program", or rather, it's successor, as CEIP appears to be permanently opted out in control panel. Windows will automatically collect data on your machine and how you use it for the purpose of improving the operating system as well as solving issues that arise:
Microsoft employees, contractors, vendors, and partners might be provided access to relevant portions of the information collected, but they’re only permitted to use the information to repair or improve Microsoft products and services, or third party software and hardware designed for use with Microsoft products and services.
You can't fully opt out of sending diagnostic information, but you do have 3 different options on how much data you send. Taken from the Windows 10 Feedback & Diagnostics FAQ:
Basic information is data that is vital to the operation of Windows. This data helps keep Windows and apps running properly by letting Microsoft know the capabilities of your device, what is installed, and whether Windows is operating correctly. This option also turns on basic error reporting back to Microsoft. If you select this option, we’ll be able to provide updates to Windows (through Windows Update, including malicious software protection by the Malicious Software Removal Tool), but some apps and features may not work correctly or at all.
Enhanced data includes all Basic data plus data about how you use Windows, such as how frequently or how long you use certain features or apps and which apps you use most often. This option also lets us collect enhanced diagnostic information, such as the memory state of your device when a system or app crash occurs, as well as measure reliability of devices, the operating system, and apps. If you select this option, we’ll be able to provide you with an enhanced and personalized Windows experience.
Full data includes all Basic and Enhanced data, and also turns on advanced diagnostic features that collect additional data from your device, such as system files or memory snapshots, which may unintentionally include parts of a document you were working on when a problem occurred. This information helps us further troubleshoot and fix problems. If an error report contains personal data, we won’t use that information to identify, contact, or target advertising to you. This is the recommended option for the best Windows experience and the most effective troubleshooting
For those who wish to refrain from sending anything but the most basic information they can do so under the Feedback & Diagnostics page of Privacy in Settings.
5. Microsoft is sharing my information to target ads!
Microsoft uses cookies (small text files placed on your device) and similar technologies to provide our services and help collect data. Cookies allow us, among other things, to store your preferences and settings; enable you to sign-in; provide interest-based advertising; combat fraud; and analyze how our services are performing. Microsoft apps use other identifiers, such as the advertising ID in Windows, for similar purposes.
...
Windows generates a unique advertising ID for each user on a device. Your advertising ID can be used by app developers and advertising networks to provide more relevant advertising. You can turn off access to this identifier at any time in the device Settings. If you choose to turn it on again, a new identifier will be generated.
The advertising ID is essentially cookies for apps; It is personalizing, or "targeting" ads, in a similar manner to cookies. But it's easy to turn off in settings, and it's not really harming anything by having it on. Ads are a fact of software; Wouldn't you at least want to see ads that are tolerable, or in a rather rare occurrence, even likeable?
6. Who is Microsoft sharing this data with, and when?
We share your personal data with your consent or as necessary to complete any transaction or provide any service you have requested or authorized. We also share data with Microsoft-controlled affiliates and subsidiaries; with vendors working on our behalf; when required by law or to respond to legal process; to protect our customers; to protect lives; to maintain the security of our services; and to protect the rights or property of Microsoft.
Microsoft only shares data with affiliates, subsidiaries, and vendors working on their behalf, when required by law, as well as to... It's pretty clearly laid out this time. Reiterating it would only serve to be redundant.
7. Why did Microsoft change all this with Windows 10?
They didn't! Search suggestions and page prediction are features that have existed long before Windows 10, and actually showed up first in browsers like Google Chrome (in the case of search suggestions) before making their way to most browsers you see today. Windows 8.1 also brought the integration of Bing to the system along with location-relevant results, and provided the easy ability to opt out in settings. Other things such as the Customer Experience Improvement Program have existed since at least Windows 7, and the advertising ID has been seen in similar forms on other OSes. In all, only a handful of these new features, and the privacy concerns they bring, are actually in fact new. Most people have just been either unaware or just did not care of their existence in past operating systems and software.
Microsoft is doing nothing out of the ordinary, and despite the daunting appearance of the Privacy settings, it's rather easy to control your privacy. Much of the privacy settings are either intended for third-party apps in the store, and the intent is to give you, the consumer, finer control of what your apps can do then you've ever been given in the past. If anything, Windows 10 puts you more in control then ever before.
The world is waking up to the fact that there is a lot of human information sitting in formats that, while stable, are also harder to transfer to others. Books and writings stand ready to be converted into information. Similarly, information which might be considered “digital” but is in fact trapped in containers that have fallen out of fashion need assistance getting to the modern era: Floppy Disks, Cassettes, Videotape, Film…But a problem arises – it takes time and money to convert these items, and the institutions that exist to help convert them inevitably end up with massive queues and lines to do the work. If the project is split, however, among hundreds or thousands of people, then we have a fighting chance. But these multitudes of a digitizing army need guidance and training. …The overall goal is to be a one-stop shop for information on best practices to convert as much of the non-digital world into digital, preferably without the destruction of the original containers. By links, essays and explanations, this wiki will hopefully grow to allow anyone with items trapped in a non-digital format to give them a shot at immortality.
In order to win over consumers and authorities, Uber has embarked on a publicity campaign in China to prove it’s as Chinese as chopsticks. But now that a competitor is using a tried-and-true Chinese tactic against it, it’s crying foul play.
As Bloomberg reported earlier today, the Chinese media giant Tencent has imposed an apparent block on all things Uber on WeChat, the Chinese social network with over 600 million users. The move is almost certainly designed to protect and promote Didi Kuaidi—the Uber rival that Tencent has invested in, which is present in over 300 Chinese cities. Didi Kuaidi also recently scored funding from China’s sovereign wealth fund.
Searching for Uber in Chinese yields no sign of Uber itself, but rather a number of imitation Uber accounts (it’s not uncommon for imitation brand accounts to be listed right next to real brand accounts on WeChat). The second result, for example, takes one to a WeChat account run by a company that sells water bottles and other knick-knacks, aping Uber’s logo in an apparent bid for visibility. Searching for Uber in English, meanwhile, yields no results whatsoever.
The block also prevents Uber from sending out viral promotions for ride discounts. Scanning QR codes or activating links to Uber yields nothing but an error message on WeChat. Such promotions are vital for any internet company these days, especially Uber, which will frequently offer vouchers on Twitter and Facebook in order to lure first-time customers. But China has no Twitter or Facebook, and WeChat instead serves as the country’s go-to app for all things social.
Last month Tencent responded to Uber’s complaints and said the issues were part of a technical glitch (link in Chinese). If that’s the case, the glitch certainly has not been fixed. Quartz has reached out to Tencent and Uber for comment but has not heard back. We will update this post with any response.
The stakes are high for China’s ride-hailing market. Uber is in the midst of raising a $1.5 billion funding round just for China, while Didi Kuaidi recently closed a $2 billion round. No reliable data exists on who leads China’s market for peer-to-peer ridesharing, but a report from RedTech Advisors (login required) suggests that Uber generates up to 30% of the sector’s gross merchandise volume, despite being in just over a dozen cities.
Uber’s top executives have been vocal about their displeasure about Tencent’s alleged blocks. CEO Travis Kalanick lamented it in his “leaked” letter to investors, before vice president Emil Michaels “spoke out for the first time” about the practice with Bloomberg.
Uber’s predicament is not unusual. On China’s internet, getting jabbed by competitor is so common it’s practically a rite of passage. Alibaba, for example, does not let users navigate directly from its e-commerce marketplaces over to sellers’ WeChat accounts. On the flipside, earlier this year, Tencent blocked an Alibaba promotional scheme that let users send money to one another through WeChat.
Moreover, internet companies outside of China have played just as dirty with one another. When Twitter banned the live-broadcast app Meerkat from accessing its social graph, use shot up for Periscope, Twitter’s in-house competitor. And Uber itself is also no stranger to morally questionable business tactics—the company reportedly hired staff to hail Lyft rides for the express purpose of recruiting drivers, and was even accused of sending out fake requests on Lyft in order to clog the system and frustrate drivers. As local as Uber tries to be, playing dirty knows no borders.
Just how bad is the problem? Looking at 1,071 funded NYC startups launched since 2005, Vettery, a New York-based recruiting website, found a huge majority of founders are white and male, a trend that’s even more extreme among older and often better funded startups. Things have improved over the past decade, but not by much.
Granted, it’s just one city and possibly incomplete. But it does give a good overview of what New York’s founders look like, how far we’ve come, and how much work remains to be done
A lot of any startups have more than one founder, so much of the data adds up to more than 100%. In this dataset, 36% of companies have one founder, 41% have two, 18% have three, and 3% have four.
In 2014, 84.6% of startups had at least one white founder. That’s down from 95% in 2005 but still dramatically out of step with the city’s population. The biggest and most consistent change over time has been increase in Asian founders, rising to 13.8% last year from 4.8% in 2005. The number of black founders has actually fallen to 3.1% from 9.5% over that time, though the average is closer to this year’s number.
On the gender side, there’s been more improvement. Only 4.7% of startups founded in 2005 had at least one female founder. That number was up to nearly 28% last year:
Looking at diversity by startup stage is also illuminating. How many of those minority- and woman-founded startups make it through several rounds of funding, as opposed to petering out after only raising some seed capital?
Startups that have raised multiple rounds of funding tend to be even less racially diverse in terms of their founders. Among companies that have raised three or more rounds, 94% have at least one white founder, 2% have an Asian or black founder, 3% have a hispanic founder, and 13.5% have one from the Middle East:
Nearly 98% of companies that have raised three or more rounds of funding have a male founder, while only 9.4% have a female founder.
There are a growing number of programs devoted to supporting and investing in minority and women founders. But they’re at a disadvantage at nearly every stage, and it’ll take a long time before we see a real shift unless major investors dramatically change their behavior.
Drone combat pro Kyle Ettinger went undefeated in his last tournament, knocking down the other teams’ drones one after another. He’s a drone fight club champion—and he’s only 15.
Kyle picked up his first drone about two years ago while working at a hobby shop, and quickly became hooked. Now his drone-building workspace dominates his family’s garage, where he and his engineer father tinker with making drones more formidable and better designed for aerial combat.
Kyle’s latest customized drone, the Carbon Crusher, is surrounded by a sphere of carbon fiber rods to cushion the drone’s propellers from blows. Kyle and his dad took the Crusher to this year’s Maker Faire in San Mateo, where he went undefeated.
This video from Re/code captures the Carbon Crusher in combat at Maker Faire, and shows Kyle and his dad working on the drone in their garage together. It’s like the old father-son tradition of building boxcars, thrown fifty years into the future. “Being an engineer myself, it’s pretty easy for me to get hooked into what he’s trying to do,” says the elder Ettinger. “I do whatever I can to support him.”
Stephen Colbert's first two Late Show guests will be George Clooney and Jeb Bush — exactly the kind of guests you would expect: very famous, very topical, and practiced on the talk show circuit. But Colbert's Late Show takes a turn starting the night after. He's inviting on SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk for its second night, followed by Uber CEO Travis Kalanick for its third. Both make for very interesting additions to Colbert's first week. It's probably too soon to make anything out of it, but their early appearance certainly gives the impression that Colbert may use his show to bring on tech and business figures with some frequency, rather than focusing on the entertainment world.
Talk show hosts generally keep conversations with their guests as friendly as possible — they're holding conversations more than interviews — but with Colbert coming from a politically oriented background, it'll be interesting to see if he brings a more critical voice to discussions with candidates and controversial figures. Of course, he'll have plenty of more expected guests, too. Other first week appearances include Scarlett Johansson, Amy Schumer, Stephen King, and Kendrick Lamar, who will also be performing. Colbert's Late Show debuts Tuesday, September 8th — exactly two weeks from tomorrow.
While Comcast has started deploying 2Gbps fiber-to-the-home service to certain parts of its territory, much of its network is going to be stuck on cable for years to come.
But customers outside the fiber footprint will still be able to buy gigabit Internet service after Comcast upgrades to DOCSIS 3.1, a faster version of the Data Over Cable Service Interface Specification. Comcast said in April that DOCSIS 3.1 will be available to some of its customers in early 2016 and eventually across its whole US footprint. Last week, Comcast said it wants to complete the whole upgrade within two years.
"Our intent is to scale it through our footprint through 2016," Comcast VP of network architecture Robert Howald said in an interview with FierceCable. "We want to get it across the footprint very quickly... We're shooting for two years." It could take up to three years, the story said.
I hope Colbert invites Clooney up to the stage, then grimaces and say "Oh, sorry hon, I was talking to Amal" and Clooney shrugs and goes back into the audience and Amal comes up instead
Verizon is reportedly issuing a $1,500 refund to a customer who recently discovered that she'd been paying every month for a long-canceled landline. Lauraine Hollyer of Glen Ridge, New Jersey, says she canceled her family's second landline around the year 2000, according to a story today at NJ.com. For a long time, she was not billed for that second line, but the charges apparently re-appeared about five years ago without her realizing it.
"When I was paying the April 2015 bill, I looked to see why my bills were so high," Hollyer told NJ.com. "I realized that my bill included a charge for message rate service and line maintenance of $25.94."
She started checking old bills and determined that she had been paying for the phantom landline since April 2010, "when Verizon changed the format of its bills," the article said. "The monthly charges varied slightly, but the five years of charges added up to $1,500.28." She paid the latest bill, but deducted the $25.94.
It’s a little hard to imagine today, but in the mid-1990s, Microsoft was the most well-known, powerful and exciting technology brand in the world. The launch of Microsoft’s Windows 95 operating system was met with a global fanfare that tends these days to be reserved for Apple product launches, or when Kanye West releases new shoes.
The company spent millions to procure the rights to the Rolling Stones’ Start Me Up (to show off the new Start Menu of course).
And the executive team came out dancing to the song at their launch event in Washington.
Microsoft also produced a bizarre promotional video with the sitcom stars Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry, from Friends.
PC fans went wild.
This fan picked up two copies at the midnight launch in Australia:
(Getty Images/AFP/Torsten Blackwood)
In the US, the new operating system cost $210—that’s about $330 today, adjusted for inflation. (Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 10, is a free upgrade for owners of Windows 7 and 8.1.)
Queues stretched across malls for the midnight launch in Singapore:
(Reuters/Luis D'Orey)
Crowds were thick for the midnight launch of the Japanese version three months later at Tokyo’s Akihabara district, the city’s electronics and gadgets neighborhood:
(AP Photo/KK)
This teenager in Auckland, New Zealand, was one of the first in the world to pick up the new operating system, and he seems appropriately overjoyed at the prospect of task bars, start menus, and surfing the World Wide Web:
(Reuters)
This kid picked up a lot of copies from the now-defunct electronics store CompUSA at the midnight launch in New York City:
(AP Photo/Adam Nadel)
He probably stayed up all night installing the operating system on all his computers. Because it took ages to install.
Here, a sales clerk in Japan shows off Windows 95 and Microsoft Office on a typical beige box computer, replete with myriad peripherals and add-ons, as were usually found on PCs of the time:
(AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)
Bill Gates enlisted the help of talk show host Jay Leno at the official launch event at Microsoft’s Washington headquarters:
(Reuters)
And Gates, in appropriately 90s attire, again showed off the new operating system to Budapest’s parliament a few days later:
It’s unlikely that any new Microsoft product will be released with quite this level of fanfare again—or even the level of Windows Vista. But perhaps we should spare a thought for how excited we were back in 1995.
Except, perhaps, when it comes to the machines they use to record their votes.
According to
the Wichita Eagle, Wichita State mathematician Beth Clarkson has found
irregularities in election returns from Sedgwick County, along with
other counties throughout the United States, but has faced stiff
opposition from the state in trying to confirm whether the
irregularities are fraud or other, less-nefarious anomalies.
Analyzing election returns at a precinct level, Clarkson found
that candidate support was correlated, to a statistically significant
degree, with the size of the precinct. In Republican primaries, the bias
has been toward the establishment candidates over tea partiers. In
general elections, it has favored Republican candidates over Democrats,
even when the demographics of the precincts in question suggested that
the opposite should have been true.
Clarkson’s interest in election returns was piqued by a 2012 paper
released by analysts Francois Choquette and James Johnson showing the
same pattern of election returns, which favor establishment Republican
candidates in primaries and general elections. The irregularities are
isolated to precincts that use “Central Tabulator” voting machines —
machines that have previously been shown
to be vulnerable to hacking. The effects are significant and
widespread: According to their analysis, Mitt Romney could have received
over a million extra votes in the 2012 Republican primary, mostly
coming at the expense of Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich. President
Obama also ceded significant votes to John McCain due to this
irregularity, as well.
Super Opinionated.
![[link]](http://i.imgur.com/bd12MtS.jpg){kind=link}