Instead of looking at only the most common job in each state, I found the top five for a slightly wider view. You still see the nationally popular occupations — drivers, cashiers, and retail workers — but after the first row, you see more regional and state-specific jobs.

The sore thumb in this picture is Washington, D.C., whose top five ordered by rank was lawyers, management analysts, administrative assistants, janitors, and, wait for it, chief executives.

Next step: compare metro areas instead of states for something more apples-to-apples.

Working With Choropleth Maps and Shapefiles

Here’s a tutorial on how to make maps like the above.

Notes

• The Current Population Survey is an ongoing survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau. The downloaded microdata from IPUMS CPS for May 2015 through May 2018.
• I made the maps in R and edited in Adobe Illustrator.
• Like Quoctrung Bui’s map for NPR (which stirred my curiosity), I filtered out the “all other” manager and sales workers, which serve as catch-all categories for jobs that didn’t fit anywhere else.

Tags: jobs, work

It’s hard to believe, but yesterday was the fifth of what Tim and I are officially acknowledging as Reclaim Hosting‘s birthday. I always thought it was the 28th of July, but as I’ll talk about here soon, my memory is entirely unreliable. Reclaim is now 5 years old! That is crazy to me, it has been both very quick and at the same time seems like I have always been a Reclaimer. Time is wild, it’s been 13 years since I took a job at UMW as an instructional technologist, 10 years since EDUPUNK, 8 years since ds106, 6 years since our pilot of UMW Domains, 5 years since we created the best little hosting company around, and now almost 3 years since I followed Tim’s lead and went full time at Reclaim. I think a lot about time on this blog, in fact this blog (and my daddy blog before it) is in many ways dictated by a sense of tracking time and trying to record the quotidian things that would otherwise soon be forgotten by my increasingly porous memory. 

I like recalling the origin myth of Reclaim Hosting, because it makes me smile. I was coming off my lowest point personally; I finally quit drinking and committed to get my mental health in order—no small task for me—and few things could have been further from my mind than starting a company.  Tim and I toyed with striking out with the idea behind Reclaim Hosting in February (?) of 2013 after a trip to Emory University, but that discussion went dormant while we ramped up for the official launch of UMW Domains (which, as it would happen, we spent Reclaim’s fifth anniversary migrating UMW’s servers to Digital Ocean ). But once I returned from leave in the Summer of 2013 Tim approached me after his thankless vacation at the beach dealing with a Hippie Hosting server outage and, rather than throwing up his hands and jumping ship on the server admin life, he wanted to doubled down. He was like, “So, are you back or what?” [I had been mentally absent for a bit.] “Because I think we should start a company?” I was thinking to myself, “Wow, this guy is no joke, he means it?” I did think about stuff like going independent a lot, as most do, but never really committed. But when I saw how serious Tim was and I knew what I knew about him, I immediately committed. That’s the power of Tim Owens. We decided on the name Reclaim Hosting, and that day (or a day later) we were heading to the county clerk’s office to become partners in a small venture that would literally make my life more a fairytale than the ongoing farce it had become

It happened really quick, I had a like $600 left over from the $5,000 Shuttleworth Grant David Wiley got me, and we used that to fund the first two or three months of a new server (clash.reclaimhosting.com) in order to run Reclaim Hosting in parallel with UMW Domains. We got some press immediately from the Chronicle, which jump-started interest by highlighting the fact we were offering folks a domain and web hosting for $12 a year. It was definitely an experiment, but the rush early on was a good sign we may be on to something. I remember the question we kept getting during those early days was will this continue beyond the year? And, we were pretty upfront that we did not know. We were transparent that if it did continue, we could not sustain it at $12 an account, and we would have to rethink pricing, etc. We had about $1400 in the bank in May 2014, which means we were running a profit of around $800—although neither of us were being paid by Reclaim. So whether we could sustain Reclaim was definitely a question mark, but that all changed when the University of Oklahoma reached out in June of 2014 for an institutional setup, then soon after Davidson College, CSU Channel islands, and Emory University—- the rest is history. 

We have operated in the black from day 1; we always had a straightforward business model; we do not prey on our customers with product up-selling or data siphoning; and we remain fiercely independent in that we owe no one nothing—there are no investors we  have to answer to, and when an IT department or security officers find themselves puffing up their chest and making things harder than necessary to enable academic technology, we can simply walk away. In fact, one could argue it is because of those people that we even exist! I am really proud of what we start, and in that 5 years we have doubled in size in terms of people, with Lauren Brumfield growing with us for over 3 years now, and Meredith Fierro filling out support for a year and a half. Growing is tricky, and we remain vigilant of the issues tied up with getting too big too fast and forgetting why we did this to begin with. But you know what, 5 years on not much has changed: our support remains consistently solid; our prices remain as affordable as ever; and our commitment to helping faculty and students explore the open web for teaching and learning is still unflagging. 

So, all this to say happy belated birthday, Reclaim Hosting, I remain a big fan! And, in honor of our fifth anniversary we’re resurrecting our first server, namely clash.reclaimhosting.com, which will truly mark the end of something, i.e., the migration of our last two Reliable Site servers on August 4th (beathap.reclaimhosting.com and joydiv.reclaimhosting.com) will mean all of our critical infrastructure is now on Digital Ocean. A project two years in the making—what did I say about tracking time on the blog? Making the myths one post at a time.

The first steps towards potentially getting competitive ‘eSport’ gaming tournaments into the Olympics have been made.

This weekend, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the Global Association of International Sports Federations (GAISF) hosted an “eSports Forum” at the Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.

There, 150 members of the international Olympic and gaming communities met to discuss the hypothetical official integration of eSports into the Olympics. The IOC and GAISF also formed the ‘Esports Liaison Group’ to continue deliberating on a possible collaboration. The forum noted that it could take time to come to a decision because there currently isn’t an international organization that represents eSports.

Last August, Tony Estanguet, co-president of the top officials for the Paris Olympic Bid committee, said that his organization would hold talks with the IOC to get eSports into the 2024 Paris games.

However, IOC Sports director Kit McConnell was more measured in the recent forum and did not suggest any particular time frame for eSports in the Olympics.

“The eSports Forum was a unique opportunity to hear from a wide variety of stakeholders, including some of the top players themselves,” said McConnell in a statement. “There was a consensus that future collaboration will be based on ensuring that any activity supports and promotes the Olympic values; and while the goal was not to develop a pathway towards the inclusion of eSports on the Olympic programme, we have a strong plan for ongoing dialogue and engagement, and are in a strong position to coordinate and support the wider engagement of the Olympic Movement with eSports.”

Source: International Olympic Committee Via: Engadget

The post Olympic committee hosts forum to discuss officially recognizing eSports appeared first on MobileSyrup.

“If my theory of relativity is proven successful, Germany will claim me as a German and France...

mkalus shared this story from Real Engineering's YouTube Videos.

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mkalus shared this story from Fefes Blog.

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Zur Özil-Sache gibt es in der FAZ ein interessantes Interview mit Übsal Arik. Money Quote:

Was glauben Sie, warum sich Özil immer wieder mit Erdogan trifft?

Viele Sportler machen das und der Grund ist fast immer derselbe: Weil sie Geschäfte in der Türkei machen. Erdogan kann einem da viele Türen öffnen. Der Fußballer Arda Turan hat bei Barcelona gespielt, sich öffentlich für Erdogan ausgesprochen und kurz darauf ein Hotel in der Türkei eröffnet. Später war Erdogan sein Trauzeuge. Der Basketballer Hedo Türkoğlu wurde in Amerika wegen Dopings gesperrt, hat später Erdogan unterstützt und ist heute Präsident des türkischen Basketballverbandes. Özils Berater haben jetzt wohl eingesehen, dass er bei den Sponsoren in Deutschland keinen Fuß mehr auf den Boden bekommt. Also orientieren sie sich in Richtung Türkei.

Das ist natürlich mal ein ganz anderer Betrachtungswinkel für die Aktion.

This week our two cover photos on our Flickr social media channels are: ‘Larung Gar, Tibetan Buddhist city in Sichuan, China’ by Valerian Guillot on Tumblr and Twitter & ‘My Blue eye’ by David Segovia on Facebook and Google+.

Interested in having your photo featured as a cover image on our social media pages? Join the Flickr Heroes group!

The Honorable Mentions for the week are below:

If you want your photo to be considered for next week, submit your best images to the Flickr Heroes group pool by Monday morning. Hint: we’re not big fans of watermarks. Winners are announced in the Flickr Heroes Group, on the blog, and across our social media accounts. Check them out before they change next Monday!

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(This was originally posted on Medium)

If you ever hear that implementing algorithmic decision-making tools to enable social services or other high stakes government decision-making will increase efficiency or reduce the cost to taxpayers, know that you’re being lied to. When implemented ethically, these systems cost more. And they should.

Whether we’re talking about judicial decision making (e.g., “risk assessment scoring”) or modeling who is at risk for homelessness, algorithmic systems don’t simply cost money to implement. They cost money to maintain. They cost money to audit. They cost money to evolve with the domain that they’re designed to serve. They cost money to train their users to use the data responsibly. Above all, they make visible the brutal pain points and root causes in existing systems that require an increase of services.

Otherwise, all that these systems are doing is helping divert taxpayer money from direct services, to lining the pockets of for-profit entities under the illusion of helping people. Worse, they’re helping usher in a diversion of liability because time and time again, those in powerful positions blame the algorithms.

This doesn’t mean that these tools can’t be used responsibly. They can. And they should. The insights that large-scale data analysis can offer is inspiring. The opportunity to help people by understanding the complex interplay of contextual information is invigorating. Any social scientist with a heart desperately wants to understand how to relieve inequality and create a more fair and equitable system. So of course there’s a desire to jump in and try to make sense of the data out there to make a difference in people’s lives. But to treat data analysis as a savior to a broken system is woefully naive.

Doing so obfuscates the financial incentives of those who are building these services, the deterministic rhetoric that they use to justify their implementation, the opacity that results from having non-technical actors try to understand technical jiu-jitsu, and the stark reality of how technology is used as a political bludgeoning tool. Even more frustratingly, what data analysis does well is open up opportunities for experimentation and deeper exploration. But in a zero-sum context, that means that the resources to do something about the information that is learned is siphoned off to the technology. And, worse, because the technology is supposed to save money, there is no budget for using that data to actually help people. Instead,technology becomes a mirage. Not because the technology is inherently bad, but because of how it is deployed and used.

Next week, a new book that shows the true cost of these systems is being published. Virginia Eubanks’ book“Automating Inequality: How High-Tech Tools Profile, Police, and Punish the Poor” is a deeply researched accounting of how algorithmic tools are integrated into services for welfare, homelessness, and child protection. Eubanks goes deep with the people and families who are targets of these systems, telling their stories and experiences in rich detail. Further, drawing on interviews with social services clients and service providers alongside the information provided by technology vendors and government officials, Eubanks offers a clear portrait of just how algorithmic systems actually play out on the ground, despite all of the hope that goes into their implementation.

Eubanks eschews the term “ethnography” because she argues that this book is immersive journalism, not ethnography. Yet, from my perspective as a scholar and a reader, this is the best ethnography I’ve read in years. “Automating Inequality” does exactly what a good ethnography should do — it offers a compelling account of the cultural logics surrounding a particular dynamic, and invites the reader to truly grok what’s at stake through the eyes of a diverse array of relevant people. Eubanks brings you into the world of technologically mediated social services and helps you see what this really looks like on the ground. She showcases the frustration and anxiety that these implementations produce; the ways in which both social services recipientsand taxpayers are screwed by the false promises of these technologies. She makes visible the politics and the stakes, the costs and the hope. Above all, she brings the reader into the stark and troubling reality of what it really means to be poor in America today.

“Automating Inequality” is on par with Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Nickel and Dimed” or Matthew Desmond’s “Evicted.” It’s rigorously researched, phenomenally accessible, and utterly humbling. While there are a lot of important books that touch on the costs and consequences of technology through case studies and well-reasoned logic, this book is the first one that I’ve read that really pulls you into the world of algorithmic decision-making and inequality, like a good ethnography should.

I don’t know how Eubanks chose her title, but one of the subtle things about her choice is that she’s (unintentionally?) offering a fantastic backronym for AI. Rather than thinking of AI as “artificial intelligence,” Eubanks effectively builds the case for how we should think that AI often means “automating inequality” in practice.

This book should be mandatory for anyone who works in social services, government, or the technology sector because it forces you to really think about what algorithmic decision-making tools are doing to our public sector, and the costs that this has on the people that are supposedly being served. It’s also essential reading for taxpayers and voters who need to understand why technology is not the panacea that it’s often purported to be. Or rather, how capitalizing on the benefits of technology will require serious investment and a deep commitment to improving the quality of social services, rather than a tax cut.

Please please please read this book. It’s too important not to.

Data & Society will also be hosting Virginia Eubanks to talk about her book on January 17th at 4PM ET. She will be in conversation with Julia Angwin and Alondra Nelson. The event is sold out, but it will be livestreamed online. Please feel free to join us there!

(Joan Donovan and I wrote the following op-ed for The Guardian.) 

mkalus shared this story from The Guardian.

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From the beginning of this year until now, South Korea has received significant global attention with their current events such as Pyeongchang Winter Olympics and renewed dialogue with North Korea. Acknowledging this urge to blur …

Just a set of tools that if you master them, you can market anything I’ll put a caveat here at the beginning—I’m a self-taught, gone through the fire, and still learning marketer. I started out as a scientist, then web developer, then blogger, then marketer. I’m not saying this to lessen my thesis, I’m pretty […]

Like parsley in your teeth or a hole in your pants, a bad video-call setup is something you’ll hear about only from people who care about you. But even if you have the best webcam, there’s a good chance that your lighting, your backdrop, your connection, or even your unconscious habits are making your Web meetings less polished than they could be.

Nearly every meeting at Wirecutter is a Web-video meeting, and over more than five years of talking to one another through tiny cameras, we’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t. Here’s the best advice from Wirecutter staff, as well as from a few of our expert sources, for getting good video and audio. Whether you’re occasionally working from home, regularly meeting while working remotely, or preparing for a rare video job interview, these tips will help make your virtual presence pleasing and professional.

Check your settings

Zoom, our chosen Web-conference software, has good default settings, and so do most Web-meeting apps. No matter what app you use, though, we recommend checking its settings for these features:

• Video: Enable mirror effect. When you raise your left hand, your hand on the left of your screen rises. This effect prevents confusion when you show people things, or when you have to hide something you notice in the video view.
• Audio: Always mute microphone when joining a meeting. It can be annoying to start talking and realize that you have to unmute, but it’s far better than the alternative—everyone hearing you swearing because you can’t figure out why your headphones aren’t working.
• Audio: Automatically adjust microphone or mic level. This setting is usually enabled by default, and fine to leave on, but if you hear complaints from others that your voice is fading in or out or echoing, try disabling this. Other software on your computer, or the microphone itself, maybe be applying changes or effects that are competing with the Web-conference software’s settings.

Minimize network and computer disruptions

Close competing applications: The folks behind Zoom have tips for making the best Zoom calls that really apply to any video-meeting software. Key among them is limiting the applications that use the two resources precious to any Web-conference app: processor power and network bandwidth. As the writer for Zoom’s blog post puts it:

When streaming 30 frames per second, your camera is taking 30 pictures of you each and every second, then sending them to the processor with instructions to forward the images through Zoom. Zoom uses your processor to send the images to your network card, which transmits the data to its destination. This process requires the energy of your CPU. To engage in the smoothest possible meetings, close any applications you don’t need to use for the meeting itself. It’s that simple.

The best way to find the applications that are eating CPU cycles, bandwidth, and (to a slightly lesser extent) memory is to open your system’s task manager. On Windows, hold down Control+Shift and press Esc. On a Mac, open the Activity Monitor app in the Utilities folder. Chromebooks have a task monitor, too: Hold the Search button and press Esc. On each platform, you’ll get a window that lists your apps and background processes, with CPU and Network columns showing the percentages and amounts of each that they’re using. Close any app you’ve launched that’s consuming notable amounts of CPU (consistently more than 25 percent), bandwidth (any sizable chunk of what you know your connection speed to be), or memory (significantly more than other apps), unless you need that app for the meeting. Avoid shutting down anything you can’t identify, especially those items that seem like system processes.

Test Wi-Fi before the call: This is the most important rule, but also the most ignored. Your connection may seem fine for Web browsing, but that task uses a lot less network bandwidth than a video call. Head to Speedtest, the go-to site for seeing how fast your computer can transfer data across the wider Internet. Zoom uses 1.2 Mbps (megabits per second), both upload (from you to the Internet) and download (from the Internet to you), for a group video call, and 1.5 Mbps both ways if you want to see all the participants in a thumbnail video gallery. Skype and Google Hangouts suggest even more bandwidth for group video calls: 1 to 2.5 Mbps up and 2 to 8 Mbps down for a call with three to seven people. (FaceTime doesn’t specify a minimum bandwidth but is generally a lower-bandwidth service than full conference-call apps.)

If Speedtest shows that your connection isn’t fast enough, try some of the following fixes:

• Try to get closer to your router, and try different rooms to see if interference from other Wi-Fi networks or other devices is a problem.
• If your router supports two frequencies, 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz, try switching between them and running speed tests on each. The 5 GHz channel can be faster but has shorter range; 2.4 GHz generally offers better reception over longer distances, but a lot of devices (and neighboring routers) use 2.4 GHz, so trying both is always worth it.
• If all else fails, use an Ethernet cable instead of Wi-Fi to connect to your router, and see if your connection improves. If you’re at your house and too far away from the router to use even a long Ethernet cable, consider a powerline networking kit for your home office.

Use a good camera and the right lighting

Some computers have a decent built-in camera, but most are mediocre, and the angle from the laptop to your face often produces an inattentive, off-putting look. And if you use a monitor at your desk, with your laptop off to the side, the result is even worse. Buy a webcam, put it on your monitor, and look at the people you’re talking to.

But even with a good webcam, lighting is the trickiest part of setting up a home office or another room for a video chat. As with photography, it’s better to have the light source behind the camera, rather than behind the subject, but nobody wants to put their computer in front of their window. Here are some easy ways to improve your lighting.

• Make use of lamps: You can angle and redirect LED desk lamps, and they have multiple brightness levels and color temperatures. Wirecutter photo editor Michael Hession suggests bouncing the lamp light off a nearby wall rather than pointing it straight at your face. If that doesn’t work, you could try taping diffusion material over your lamp, but you’re better off trying different lighting setups and angles at first.
• Try not to mix light sources: Natural light is great for an office space, but for the light that’s reaching your face, stick to either a lamp setup or a window slightly off to your side—not both.
• Don’t use venetian blinds behind you: The light streaming in through the slats will wreak havoc on many a camera’s automatic light adjustments. Better to use blackout shades or curtains, and to bring in other light (lamps).
• Don’t buy specialty YouTube/vlogger gear: Nobody should buy a softbox just to impress their boss. But you can steal one idea from this Wistia tutorial and this podcast setup guide: Put your lighting at your eye height. Defining your eyes allows you to express more on video, to seem more like yourself. That makes a video call feel more like an in-person meeting, which is as good as a Web meeting can get.

Get good sound

Just as important as being seen is being heard—in our meetings, audio problems are a much bigger obstacle to communication than video issues. Here are some ways to improve how you sound.

• Use an external microphone: Almost any plug-in device—a desktop USB mic, a USB headset or wireless headset, or the built-in microphone on our USB webcam pick—will sound better than the built-in microphone on a laptop. Just make sure your add-on mic is selected in your meeting software’s settings as the input source.
• Place your microphone 5 to 6 inches from your mouth: If you can’t get that close or don’t want to use a separate microphone, try to place your microphone in the path your voice normally projects during a meeting.
• Use headphones whenever possible: Although some laptops and software can automatically mute the microphone when other people are talking, they’re not perfect. Headphones will prevent feedback loops that result from your mic picking up other people speaking.
• Add fabrics to counter echo: If other people are hearing room echo on your calls, the most practical solution is adding fabric to the room to absorb sound. Area rugs, carpeting, drapes, and blinds are reasonable things to try before considering extreme measures like foam soundproofing.

Optimize camera position and backgrounds

• Keep your webcam slightly above your eye level: Assuming you have your monitor set up ergonomically—with your gaze falling about 2 inches below the top edge of the screen—this means you’ll be looking straight ahead at people on the call, which feels more like an in-person meeting. You should also shrink your video window for the call and move it to the top of your screen, near your webcam, to keep your gaze there.
• Not too personal, not too sterile: Dan Roche, a former VP of marketing for webcasting firm TalkPoint, told Liane Cassavoy of PCWorld that you should avoid a Web-call background that is too personal (dishes, dirty clothes, bed sheets), or too sterile and professional (an empty white wall). A bookcase or lightly adorned shelves work, as do houseplants.

Keep it professional

• Minimize or eliminate interference: Avoid dogs, cats, children, spouses, siblings, or anything else moving behind you. Sometimes it’s cute, but it often derails a train of thought or undercuts a moment. To that end, try not to have a door behind you. If your office or room has a door you can close, consider adding a sign, or even a light, announcing when you are in meetings.
• Don’t wear a strapless top or deep V-neck: Besides the potential appearance of being topless when cropped on video, you risk exposure because your video camera is (if you took our advice) positioned above you.
• Avoid reflective or jangling jewelry: Also skip clothing with intricate patterns or notable sheen. This is standard stage and video direction that also applies to being on webcam.
• Don’t spin or roll in your wheeled chair: The effect is disconcerting on video, and the resulting vibrations may sound louder than you realize when your microphone picks them up.

When Erick Cedeno of Bicycle Nomad fame called me up and asked if I had a bike that would be suitable for desert conditions, I said, "Of course! The Piolet would be great. Floaty and tons of mounts for water and gear."

Erick then responded, "But it can't have disc brakes or a threadless stem."

I retorted, "Oh that's fine. The Campeur will be perfect". All the while thinking how can we turn this traditional tourer into a desert tourer? You see, he's going to be riding this Sierra Nevada bound Campeur with UltraRomance for an adventurous bikepacking trip that has some very specific requirements (more details will come later). This is how we built up our Campeur and it is one ripper!

Water capacity is exceptionally important, so we managed to arrange two Mojave Water Bottle Cages with two 40oz Klean Kanteen Bottles inside the main triangle of this 57cm frame. Since these high-capacity cages have five slots (which equates to three available positions), you can really dial in the perfect bottle placement.

The seattube has the cage placed low and the downtube has the cage up high. Under the downtube features a Retro, No Tab Cage with an 18oz bottle totaling 98oz of thirst-quenching fluid.


Next the tires. We have to go as wide as the frame will allow, so we selected these SimWorks Homage 700x43mm tires. The middle tread features a light diamond pattern for gravel and smooth surfaces, while the outer knobs are perfect for dusty, loose terrain and corners.


The dangler and pusher are operated by Dia-Compe Bar-End Shifters with Rustines Covers.


Randonneur Bars and a Grand Cru Quill Stem make for a classic, comfortable combination for long days in the saddle under the oppressive sun.

A bit of waxed thread, fanned by a lighter will keep your non-aero routing nice and tidy.


Lastly, luggage. This Randonneur Bag (the complete Rando Bag lineup will be back in stock in the next two weeks) is supported by the Randonneur Rack with Integrated Decaleur in the Cantilever mount-way, and has since received a Snapper Sack (which also doubles as an extra water bottle holder) and a Cell Phone Pocket. He's also getting a rear Jammer Bag for extra capacity from our friends over at Road Runner Bags.

Here's a complete build list your own perusal: Erick's Desert Campeur

mkalus shared this story from Price Tags.

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The latest docking station for Mobi, Vancouver’s public bike share — across from Waterfront Station (at last).

It’s also across from one of the largest parking lots for car2go and Evo car sharing services, hidden away in Granville Square.

They’ve all been successful. Here’s the latest announcement from Mobi:

Over one million rides in two years

In its inaugural year, Mobi by Shaw Go saw exceptional uptake with over 35,000 users by fall 2017. Today, Mobi by Shaw Go boasts 154 stations, over 1,500 bikes, and over 1 million rides covering over three million kilometres …

Needs Windows 10 and a pen.

More >

Doug Levin, EdTech Strategies, Aug 02, 2018

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I understand why people might have concerns about putting facial recognition technology in schools, but I would like to see better arguments. This article doesn't have them, but one post it links to, this statement by the NYCLU, does. Aside from noting the cost, which at least for the moment is a compelling reason to wait, the arguments are not convincing. The concerns are, of course, "the serious privacy and safety risks." But what are these? "Students will feel like they are constantly under suspicion"...? "Youthful misbehavior or simply hanging out with friends could be criminalized"...? "Students seeking confidential assistance from a counselor or school clinic will be caught in the system’s dragnet"... But these aren't the result of the surveillance. All these are unreasonable attitudes that prevail whether or not surveillance exists. Related: RealNetworks offers free facial recognition software for K-12. Also: PC Magazine Rates the Bets Kid Trackers.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

David Hitchcock, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Aug 02, 2018

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The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has published a new article on critical thinking. It takes the work of John Dewey as its point of departure and casts a very wide net in its attempt to define critical thinking, which according to author David Hitchcock comes down to this: " critical thinking is careful goal-directed thinking." In the educational context, the definition is more nuanced: "The real educational goal is recognition, adoption and implementation by students of those criteria and standards. That adoption and implementation in turn consists in acquiring the knowledge, abilities and dispositions of a critical thinker."

I think Hitchcock has cast a much wider net than is appropriate, conflating critical thinking with scientific reasoning. Scientific reasoning would include "an intellectualization of the difficulty or perplexity into a problem to be solved" and "the use of one suggestion after another as a leading idea, or hypothesis." I'm also sceptical of the characterization of critical thinking as "dispositions", which places this account firmly into the behaviourist camp of Gilbert Ryle. Why wouldn't the article begin with Glaser and Watson, keeping Dewey as a pre-positivist historical note? Why wouldn't it begin with the commonly tested critical thinking skills, "inference, recognition of assumptions, deduction, interpretation, and evaluation of arguments?"

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

IndieWebCamp, Aug 02, 2018

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I've noticed an uptick in the buzz on webmentions recently. According to the W3C page, a Webmention is "a simple way to notify any URL when you mention it on your site. From the receiver's perspective, it's a way to request notifications when other sites mention it." But from the Indieweb perspective, it "is a web standard for mentions and conversations across the web, a powerful building block that is used for a growing federated network of comments, likes, reposts, and other rich interactions across the decentralized social web." The discussion on A List Apart provides a good technical overview. Here's more from Chris Aldrich.

Web: [Direct Link] [This Post]

Public Mobile has announced it’s revamping its Knowledge Base articles and preparing to turn some articles into videos.

The Telus-owned prepaid carrier, which has a strong community initiative, uses Knowledge Base as a go-to spot for help.

The update to Knowledge Base includes a refreshed look as well as updated content. Additionally, the Knowledge Base articles save users times by gathering all information on a topic and putting it in one place. Public Mobile gives the articles a stamp of approval and helps keep them organized.

On top of the revamped Knowledge Base, Public Mobile user ‘will13am’ suggested converting some articles to video.

The idea was bounced around a bit, but now Public Mobile wants to move forward with it.

Furthermore, Public wants community feedback on which articles to convert to video. The company posted a poll alongside the announcement with six potential options.

Community members can vote for three of the six options. Public Mobile will prioritize making videos for the three topics with the most votes. The poll closes on July 27th.

Additionally, the post encourages members to comment with elements that should be in the video.

Finally, the announcement reminds Public Mobile customers that they can earn rewards by helping out the community. Top contributors in the community earn monthly rewards they can use towards their bill.

There are a total of six contributor levels, earning anywhere from a $1 to $20 for a 30 day period.

Overall it’s a very neat system that encourages the community to work together and help each other out. Plus, with the new Knowledge Base articles, it’ll be even easier for people to help each other and earn rewards.

Source: Public Mobile

The post Public Mobile revamps Knowledge Base, will convert articles to video appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Fortnite‘s popular Playground mode is set to return on July 25th, developer Epic Games has confirmed.

Playground mode returns on July 25th!

Set up squad battles with new team select options, skirt around in an ATK and gear up with lots more loot.

Look out for the full list of changes in the 5.10 patch notes. pic.twitter.com/7bK1Wgg98U

— Fortnite (@FortniteGame) July 23, 2018

Playground, as the name suggests, gives players more freedom to explore the world and build structures. The game mode removes the health-draining storm found in standard battle royale matches for one hour to encourage players to do whatever they want.

Epic says Playground will return in update 5.10 with new “special squad select options,” which will presumably let players choose between different team arrangements like ‘2v2.’ Other changes are set to come in the 5.10 update, although fans will have to wait for the full patch notes later this week for more details.

Earlier this month, Epic Games kicked off Fortnite‘s fifth season, adding a slew of new content including golf carts, map warp points and Viking-themed cosmetics.

Via: Polygon

The post Epic Games bringing back Fortnite Playground mode on July 25 appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Retro Games and Solutions 2 Go’s miniature Commodore 64, which was announced a number of months ago and released in the U.K. and other regions back in March, finally has a solid Canadian release date — October 9th, 2018.

The C64 Mini is described as a “50 percent-sized” replica of the world’s bestselling home computer that featured just 64KB of RAM, the Commodore 64.

The NES and SNES Classic-inspired mini computer is set to come pre-loaded with 64 classic Commodore 64 games and includes a classic joystick.

The following are some of the more notable games featured on the mini console: California Games, Winter Games, Impossible Mission II, Boulder Dash, Jumpman, Pitstop II, Speedball II: Brutal Deluxe, Street Sports Baseball, Summer Games II, Temple of Apshai Trilogy, Uridium.

Follow this link for a complete list of C64 Mini games.

Retro Games says that the C64 Mini is “plug-and-play” and that the tiny device is also capable of functioning like a classic home computer, complete with C64 Basic and the ability to develop your own games. Software updates are set to be supported via USB flash drives and the C64 Mini is also compatible with standard USB keyboards.

In terms of video output, the C64 Mini features a max resolution of 720p (1280 x 720 pixels) with 60Hz via HDMI, along with an aspect ratio of 4:3 and a CRT filter to add a classic look to HD games.

The C64 Mini is currently available for pre-order at retailers “across North America,” according to a recent press release. It’s currently unclear how much the pint-sized console will cost in U.S. or Canadian dollars, though earlier reports indicated it would be priced in that $70 USD ($92 CAD range). We’ve reached out to the company behind the C64 Mini for specific Canadian pricing and will update this story when we have more detail.

Despite not hitting store shelves yet in North America, a number of major tech publications, including IGN and Engadget, have already reviewed the mini system, praising its intricate, nostalgic design, but criticizing its weak selection of games.

The post A miniature Commodore 64 is launching in Canada on October 9 appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Tesla has been all over the place lately.

One week the company is hitting its production goals and the next it’s losing more pre-orders that it’s gaining. Now the company is asking its supply partners for discounts on products it’s already bought.

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the electric car company is asking for retroactive discounts from some of its suppliers.

There is speculation that the company is doing this to make back money in an effort to ensure its financial position looks better in the next quarter, but the company has stated to Engadget that “any changes with these suppliers would improve our future cash flows, but not impact our ability to achieve profitability in Q3.”

In a memo that was sent from a global supply manager to some of its suppliers, Tesla claims that the discounts are necessary to help the company continue to operate. Tesla says suppliers should view this as an opportunity to invest in the automaker.

Tesla confirmed to The Wall Street Journal that it’s seeking these discounts on various projects. The company also said that these types of deals are standard in large scale negotiations. Consultants are saying the opposite is true and that it’s very rare to ask for discounts after goods have been paid for.

In a statement from Tesla to Engadget, the car company stated, “Now that we’re in a stronger position with Model 3 production ramping, it is a good time to improve our competitive advantage in this area. We’re focused on reaching a more sustainable long-term cost basis, not just finding one-time reductions for this quarter, and that’s good for Tesla, our shareholders, and our suppliers who will also benefit from our increasing production volume and future growth opportunities.”

The automaker also clarified that it asked less than 10 suppliers for these discounts.

Source: The Wall Street Journal, Engadget

The post Tesla is reportedly asking some of its suppliers for discounts on parts it already purchased appeared first on MobileSyrup.

Many Android power-users out there are familiar with the operating system’s ‘cache partition’ and the ‘clear cache’ option in recovery. However, Android is growing up and shedding some relics of the past, including the cache partition.

For the unfamiliar, the cache partition was a crucial part of software updates for most of Android’s life. When Android downloads an update, it saves the update to the cache partition. Then users restart the device, applying the update to the system partition.

Partitions are divisions in storage on a device to help the operating system manage information separately. In the case of Android, the system partition holds the current OS and the cache partition holds the update information.

While the system isn’t bad, it does have drawbacks.

Problems with a cache partition

For one, updates take much longer this way. The update information must be moved to the system partition and applied to the OS. Then the OS must ‘optimize’ after the reboot to clean up the installation. That’s where that annoying “Android is optimizing” screen comes from.

Furthermore, if there is an error with the update, this method can really break things. There is no system back-up when updates are done this way, meaning changes are final. Fixing things that break requires time, the Android development tools and some familiarity with Window’s command line.

Suffice to say, most people don’t have the time or patience to learn Android’s development tools and how to use the command line.

Thankfully, there’s a better way — and that’s why Google has relegated the cache partition to the past.

Seamless updates

With Android 7.0 Nougat, Google introduced ‘Seamless Updates.’ The feature was borrowed from Chrome OS and touted as a faster, easier way to update your phone.

And for some people, it was.

Seamless Updates does away with the cache partition in favour of two system partitions. Also known as A/B updates, essentially the phone has two systems. One partition may be the active partition — the one the device booted from. The other, dormant partition sits idly by in the background.

When you download an update, it automatically gets applied to the dormant partition. When everything is ready, the system prompts users to reboot the device. During the reboot, the partitions swap — the dormant, update system becomes the active.

This system solves both drawbacks of the cache partition. It’s a lot faster for one. On my Pixel 2 XL, it boots as quickly as normal. My phone is only out of commission for a minute or two, instead of five or more.

It also creates a built-in back-up system. The system can detect an error during the reboot and swap back to the other partition. After restarting, the device can alert the download server and reapply the update. In other words, users should never have to worry about an update breaking their phone.

This system is also why new phones with the feature no longer have the clear cache option in recovery.

Not a perfect system

Unfortunately Seamless Updates isn’t a perfect feature. One small issue with having two positions is that the system takes up more storage space. However, with devices shipping with more storage, this isn’t a huge issue.

Old devices have the biggest problem with Seamless Updates. Getting rid of the cache partition and setting up a second system partition would require users to repartition the entire phone. While it isn’t impossible to do, it would require hooking the device up to a computer. Furthermore, there are a lot of potential issues that could come from repartitioning. Ultimately old phones are better off sticking with the cache partition.

Finally, Seamless Updates aren’t supported by many devices yet. Google’s Pixel line supports the feature, as well as the Essential Phone. The OnePlus 6 is the first OnePlus phone to support Seamless Updates too.

A few HTC, Motorola and Sony phones also support Seamless Updates. XDA Developers has a full list of support devices here.

While many new devices will support the system, one big name is missing. Samsung doesn’t support Seamless Updates yet.

Devices that don’t support the feature will continue to use the cache partition method, regardless of the Android version they run on.

Source: How-To Geek

The post How Google killed the cache partition in Android — and why we’re better off for it appeared first on MobileSyrup.

What’s that, you say? You’ve become tired of regular old boring paper checklists? Well, my friend, today is your lucky day! You, yes, you, can become the proud owner of a brand-spanking-new automatic interactive pre-commit hook checklist! You’re gonna love this! Your life will be so much easier! Just wait until your friends see you. What’s a pre-commit hook? Did you know that nearly 1 out of 5 coders are too embarrassed to ask this question?

mkalus shared this story from museumofcomm on Twitter.

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The latest docking station for Mobi, Vancouver’s public bike share — across from Waterfront Station (at last).

It’s also across from one of the largest parking lots for car2go and Evo car sharing services, hidden away in Granville Square.

They’ve all been successful. Here’s the latest announcement from Mobi:

Over one million rides in two years

In its inaugural year, Mobi by Shaw Go saw exceptional uptake with over 35,000 users by fall 2017. Today, Mobi by Shaw Go boasts 154 stations, over 1,500 bikes, and over 1 million rides covering over three million kilometres …

With thanks to Price Tags contributor Tom Durning who sent in this photograph of Jesus and Colonel Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame having a coffee together on Saturday. No word yet if this was for a film or was just a regular weekly meeting.