Tumgik
#lo-tech solutions to hi-tech problems
cagedchoices · 2 months
Text
I was curious to figure out just how broke Caleb is in the context of Westworld season 3 so I started down a complete rabbit hole and I'm now making it everyone's problem.
The average salary of a construction worker in Los Angeles in 2020 was around $38,400, with the upper range sitting somewhere around $43,000 and the lower range likely falling to $33,000 when Westworld season 3 aired. depending on location and other factors such as education level, certifications, additional skills, and number of years spent working in the profession.
Interestingly, Westworld's real world didn’t seem like it had adjusted for 30+ years of inflation, but I suppose it could be explained by the thermonuclear destruction of Paris and most of France and then later on the Russian Civil War. Perhaps the economy had experienced a recession that curtailed the inflation rate and values had dropped and never really recovered. In short, I'm providing 2020 state averages because Westworld season 3 aired in 2020 and it was based on national and state averages for that year.
Caleb has a high school diploma. He also completed 6 years of army service as an infantry and combat specialist. His resume likely features a valuable list of skills such as: Strong Work Ethic, Physical Fitness, Experience With Communications Equipment, Teamwork, Leadership, CPR/First Aid. 
Slightly less applicable skills could be Weapons Experience (although this COULD translate over to skill with operating and maintaining construction tools), and Combat Skills (Quick Reaction Time and the ability to stay calm in a variety of emergency situations are also desirable skills in almost every profession under the sun). He has a lot of functional skills from being in the military, but he lacks the specialized training that someone such as a college graduate majoring in engineering or construction would possess, and without that, he is always going to be a step behind someone who may have more education background.
He has cost of living expenses which most likely includes paying rent for the apartment he lives in. The average cost of monthly rent for a standard one-bedroom apartment in L.A. in 2020 sat at about $1.5k. $1.5k per month over 12 months adds up to $18,000 in annual rent.
That would be nuts. The normal rule is that no more than 30% of total annual income should be spent on rent. Caleb is paying almost 50% of his annual salary for an apartment he is barely ever even at. It’s literally just somewhere he goes to sleep at night. You could literally book a room in a cheap hotel for a year and still not pay as much as poor Caleb seems to be paying in apartment rent. 
Someone please get my boy out of this. Teach him how to use a budget and balance a checkbook or something because clearly he needs the help. Show him what a healthy relationship with money looks like. 😭
Oh, and on top of this, Caleb is paying for whatever medical treatment and housing his mom requires. Average cost of that in our present seems to be somewhere around $10-12,000 per year depending on availability and preference for semi-private or private care. We’ll go with the semi-private option here since it is slightly less painfully expensive. On a payment plan, this would have Caleb paying $833 per month.
Caleb is shown talking to a representative who mentions that cost for treatment can be a challenge and that the best solution might be to move his mother to a state-run care facility instead. Caleb doesn’t seem like he wants to do this. A state-run facility might be cheaper, but maybe they aren’t as high-tech as the one he’s paying all this money for, or maybe their quality of care isn’t as good because of the reduced costs, or maybe there’s just no facilities close to where he lives and he wouldn’t be able to go visit his mom as often if she were moved away. Whatever the honest reason is, he's averse to it and would rather grit his teeth and pay for the expensive private treatment facility even if it leaves him flat broke.
His remaining $10,000 per year… This is most likely going into basic necessities such as: phone/internet services, food, clothing, hygiene maintenance, maybe routine doctor appointments? He knows how to drive a car, but he doesn’t own one in canon and I think that's because of how expensive and impractical it would be when he can just take the metro and then walk to work. No need to worry about burning more money on gas and vehicle maintenance.
He is also enrolled in trauma therapy when we first meet him, which in our world runs about $185 per one session, and then however much each phone call + duration of the call would charge to call service. If he has one therapy session per week, this adds to $740 per month and $8,880 per year. Even factoring in health insurance and Veteran Affairs covering some of the costs, this doesn't leave him very much spending money for himself, but the good news is he ditches the therapy, which isn't helping him anyway, and that leaves him with maybe a little bit of room to breathe.
But it's no wonder that he is stuck running small-time ATM heists, party cleanups, and drug mule jobs for a few hundred dollars through RICO. I’d be surprised if he had more than $1,000 to his name at any time before he started helping Dolores.
1 note · View note
questlation · 11 months
Text
NEW YORK, April 19, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Today, YPO, the global leadership community of more than 34,000 chief executives in 150 countries, announced that Greg Murray, Co-Founder and CEO of KOKO Networks, is the recipient of the organization's 2023 Global Impact Award. KOKO Networks is a Kenyan-based climate-tech company tackling deforestation and carbon emissions caused by using charcoal as cooking fuel in urban homes.  The YPO Global Impact Award is YPO's highest honor to members that recognizes their impact outside of YPO, celebrating CEO impact that is both sustainable and scalable. "Greg and KOKO Networks are paving the way with their innovative approach to combating deforestation and improving the health of Kenyans, finding technology-based solutions that benefit not only the environment but also millions of consumers," says Thayer Smith, CEO of YPO. "He is an inspiration within our YPO community and beyond." According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), charcoal, the dominant fuel used for cooking in urban Africa, is the main driver of deforestation on the continent. Indoor air pollution from burning charcoal causes hundreds of thousands of deaths each year, primarily children under 5 years old, from pneumonia and acute respiratory infections. This pollution is the equivalent of breathing in four packs of cigarettes a day. Murray and his co-founders, Sagun Saxena, Micael da Costa and Nicholas Stokes, set out to tackle this problem through designing and launching a new technology-driven industry that could rapidly transition countries away from charcoal dependence. By providing consumers with a superior solution that is significantly less costly than charcoal, KOKO is scaling rapidly, with over 10,000 new households switching to its clean fuel and carbon platform each week. KOKO, which employs 1,800 staff across East Africa, India and the U.K., manages a network of over 2,000 high-tech KOKO Fuel ATMs located in corner shops in low-income neighborhoods, enabling customers to conveniently and safely access low-cost clean fuel within a short walk of home. KOKO Fuel is now used in the homes of more than 3.5 million Kenyans across six cities, reducing over 4 million tons of carbon emissions each year and protecting family health from the diseases caused by indoor air pollution. Carbon revenues are shared with households via lowering the cost of KOKO Fuel, making it affordable for even the poorest. KOKO Fuel is sustainable bioethanol produced in East Africa from molasses, a byproduct of sugar production, delivering increased incomes to farming communities. Murray says, "We are honored to receive YPO's 2023 Global Impact Award. Ten years ago, we developed an ambitious plan to harness technology, infrastructure and carbon markets to drive energy transition and forest protection at a scale and pace that is meaningful. We are just getting started – there are over a billion people across 60 low-income tropical forest nations who are charcoal dependent and need our networks. We have about 15 years to turn the tide on tropical deforestation, and it simply can't be done without tackling the main commodity demand drivers and giving the forests the space to regenerate. KOKO is a scalable new tool in that fight." Murray was selected from honorees representing YPO's regions around the world. YPO Global Impact Award Regional Honorees: Shadi Bakour, Co-Founder and CEO of Path (Pacific U.S.)Eric Braverman, Founding CEO of Schmidt Futures (Northeastern U.S.)Kenneth C.M. Lo, Founder of O-Bank (North Asia)Luis Javier Castro, Founder of Alejandría (Latin America)Daniel Epstein, CEO of Unreasonable Group (Western U.S.)Renat Heuberger, Founding Partner and CEO of South Pole (Europe)Jonathan Huy Tran, Chairman of Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank (ACB) (Southeast Asia)Greg Murray, Co-Founder and CEO of KOKO Networks (Africa)Nicholas Reichenbach, Founder and Executive Chairman of Flow Alkaline Spring Water (Canada)David Reiling, Chairman and CEO of Sunrise Banks (Mid-America U.
S.)Prashant Sutar, Founder, Chairman and Managing Director of Aryan Pumps and Enviro Solutions (South Asia)About YPO: YPO is the global leadership community of more than 34,000 chief executives in 150 countries who are connected by the shared belief that the world needs better leaders and that business can be a driving force for good. Each of our members has achieved significant leadership success at a young age. They lead businesses and organizations that collectively employ more than 22 million people around the globe and generate over USD9 trillion in combined revenue. YPO members come together to learn and exchange ideas to make a difference in the lives, businesses and communities they impact. Visit ypo.org for more. Logo - https://mma.prnewswire.com/media/1065220/3992696/YPO_Logo.jpg View original content:https://www.prnewswire.com/in/news-releases/ypo-names-greg-murray-the-2023-global-impact-award-recipient-301801241.html Source link
0 notes
mralexsan · 1 year
Text
San Francisco Tech Industry
Today's Twitter news cuts deep to my big fears of being in this industry. First time as a professional I've been through a recession, and seeing such wasteful and abusive management at the expense of so many's livelihoods… and knowing the pain of being laid off... and it being so bad you'd rather throw away your job and livelihood to willingly go unemployed.
Sure, they'll bounce back. But they'll struggle until then.
Building a career.
Proud of our work, keeps us going.
Working class at six figures.
Six figures but struggle to survive.
The World blames the 1% "Liberal Tech Elites" for the problems the 99% made by using the platform themselves.
The problem is thee, never me.
NIMBYs blame change and keep things broken.
The problem is the undesirables - Black People People from Oakland.
Our coworkers who got the axe and are now out on the streets begging to survive The homeless.
Criminals who organized to survive by robbing others because it's too damn expensive to live here because all of the low paying jobs aren't living wages thugs.
Man child billionaire burns millions.
Billions earned stealing tax payer money to fund his shitty car company.
To be a modern day William Randolph Hearst Charles Foster Kane.
Cuts fat for his wasted money, on a company that makes no money.
Making it harder for employees to live and survive.
Fuck Elon Musk.
Dunno, felt like writing my disjointed thoughts on everything. I'm not a Twitter employee, but close enough to some affected. It's a struggle out here if you don't have one of these jobs. Cities like San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose need to density and build to be people friendly, but people here insist on owning a home. The Bay Area and Los Angeles/Orange County is one large surburbia, causing the housing market to soar... And this balding man, whose whole personality is a 14 year old Modern Warefare troll, comes in, demanding we buy his shitty car, congesting roads, calling public transit disgusting when that's the solution to SF/LA's housing/traffic problems.
California has a lot of work ahead. I'm up for the challenge.
0 notes
melbournenewsvine · 1 year
Text
8090 Jasper Lau partner takes charge of major banks
Rise 8090 provides insight into how billionaire money is playing an increasing role in venture capital. Family offices — the private investment firms of the wealthy — have more than doubled their share of venture capital deals in the past decade, and provisions are set to increase even more, according to research from SVB Capital and Campden Wealth published this year. Since early 2021, he has bet 8,090 on more than a dozen healthcare, energy and finance startups, most of them in the United States. He is a major investor in artificial intelligence company Luminous Computing, along with Bill Gates and Uber co-founder Travis Kalanick. Luminous raised $105 million in a Series A round in March, with plans to double the size of its engineering team. With about $200 million in assets, 8090 is a small company but it stands out as a competitor to major Wall Street banks in attracting ultra-rich families. attributed to him:AP “Jasper was the first person to bet on me when I started Luminous,” said Marcus Gomez, CEO of Santa Clara, California, which received about $30 million from 8,090. Problem, it’s one of my first phone calls, and it almost always has a solution.” Lau partially took a break from working on YouTube. As a high school student in 2011, Lau added FiscalNote Holdings founder Tim Huang as a Facebook friend after finding footage on the video platform of the award-winning entrepreneur. The couple spoke and kept in touch. Before starting 8090, Lau helped oversee early stage investments in FiscalNote that he said returned more than 200 percent. Hwang later introduced Lau to Kerem Ozmen, who through his family’s investment firm provided some funding for the $180 million purchase of FiscalNote’s CQ Roll Call media business from The Economist Group in 2018. While FiscalNote shares have fallen since it began trading in August after its merger with Duddell Street Acquisition Corp, the 8090 posted a 62 percent gain on an $18 million convertible bond maturing in July, Lau said. With recession fears mounting, Lau is confident his company’s small size and wealthy backers give it an edge, even if some tech entrepreneurs may prefer taking money from giants like Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz that have survived previous recessions. While the 8090 would normally raise capital on a deal-by-deal basis, it is now finalizing a fund focused on tech founders and increasingly focused on debt transactions as startups avoid separating from equity in this year’s recession. “One might think things are slowing down, but they are accelerating,” Lau said. “Our ability to be agile and fast on our feet at 8,090 gives us an advantage over other venture capital firms that have to go through a lot of bureaucracy.” loading After initially focusing on the younger members of billionaire families, the 8090 now also works with the older generations on their venture investments as well as other areas, such as philanthropy. The company, which has a few employees in Los Angeles and New York, may be seeking more super-rich supporters in the world, but they have to meet specific criteria. “It’s really about finding culturally appropriate families that will be long-term partners with us,” Lau said. “We want families who can actually add more color to what we’ve already put on our canvas.” Source link Originally published at Melbourne News Vine
0 notes
chartlomo · 1 year
Text
Pc clone x
Tumblr media
#Pc clone x how to#
#Pc clone x install#
Showing End Users How The Sausage Is Made Best Practices & General ITīasic scenario is this1 - End user submits issue via email2 - IT investigates and proves issue is with external vendor3 - IT emails vendor4 - Vendor emails back5 - repeat 3+4 until issue is fixed6 - IT emails end user to say it's fixed, or details how to.disk backup technology of PC NETWORK CLONE 5.0 is base on PC DISK CLONE X.
#Pc clone x install#
Step 3: Pick the Disc you would like to format and click Erase. PC Network Clone could install a large number of client computers by only. Press Command + R buttons during the restart process until the device prompts you with the Mac utility window. Today in History: 1142 Possible date for establishment of the Iroquois (Haudenosaunee) LeagueCenturies before the creation of the United States and its Constitution, democracy had already taken root in North America-among a handful of Indigenous nations. If your PC is macOS, you can reset it with these steps. PC Disk Clone X x86 verzia se ejecuta en los siguientes sistemas operativos: Windows. Inicialmente fue agregado a nuestra base de datos en. La última versión de PC Disk Clone X x86 verzia es actualmente desconocida. We also upgrade our knowledge base periodically based on hotest issues that are being discussed over the internet. We manage our Knowledge base according to customer's problems including the questions you are concerning.
Spark! Pro series - 31st August 2022 - The Bacon Day Edition Spiceworks Originals PC Disk Clone X x86 verzia es un software de Shareware en la categoría de Miscellaneous desarrollado por PC Disk Tools. PC Disk Clone Knowledge base would be the best places to get most tutorials and solutions.
take full responsibility of all data including accounting Backups on NAS, Servers, Camera ( recordings).Do Cabling/Crimping as needed ,Set up VPN for remote folks, Pur. guy for a company.That has Servers/ NAS, I manage the PIX firewall.
#Pc clone x how to#
How to keep a record on my phone: of my own calls I will fix or need to fix IT & Tech Careers.
Hi,I would like to ask for your recommendations on how I can capture the websites our end users access during office hours.our current firewall doesnt support it as it only logs HTTP connections and we all know that almost all of the websites now are usin.
Tumblr media
0 notes
barry-aston · 2 years
Link
0 notes
gatebutane6 · 2 years
Text
How To Edit Private PDF Documents
How come PDF records so commonly used?
Tumblr media
PDF data have many features. The PDF format was created for easy report exchange, as well as main gain is that it is displayed just like regardless of the app software and operating system. It can take almost no time to create in fact it is very compact and secure and protect. Nowadays, PDF FILE is a typical document data format which is trusted for many several purposes. What are the disadvantages? Los angeles injury lawyers worked with ELECTRONICO files will be able to tell - they are really very difficult to edit. The reason is PDFs aim at on-screen viewing and not meant for working with the content after the initial creation of the document. Is there a way to edit PDF documents? The requirement to edit PDFs is apparent. What if your document includes spelling problems or wrong numbers? What happens if you need to add an image or maybe change the subject? It would be an inconvenience to start throughout. The good portion is you aren't required to. There are various methods in which you can edit your PDF report. There are on line services that let you mail the computer file in LIBRO ELECTRONICO and obtain it in another format by e-mail. However , these offerings can not be employed for confidential paperwork. The solution is by using professional application such as Smart PDF Converter by SmartSoft. All you need to do is convert the LIBRO ELECTRONICO file to doc, xls or another editable format, do the necessary variations and convert it back to PDF. The main process can take just a couple of clicks. How do I convert PDF documents? Converting https://mopdf.com/ to Hi and other models is quick with Savvy PDF Converter. You don't have to be considered tech professional because the whole conversion approach is fast and simple if you abide by these few steps: 1 ) Go to the method website and download this system. Once you have mounted it on your pc, select the records you need to convert by simply clicking the Put File(s) press button. Smart PDF Converter sustains batch conversions, which means that you can convert multiple documents in addition. 2 . Find the format you wish to convert to. Smart and practical PDF Converter supports various formats, including DOC, HTML PAGE, TXH, XLS, RTF, JPEG and JPEG. 3. Select the folder you wish your document to be kept in and click Sell. That's this! Your EBOOK file very easily easily modified. Smart PDF FORMAT Converter has additional features which will let you indicate the conversion method, as well as converted data file options. For instance , you can choose from Exact or Flowing The conversion process method. The method keeps the report content positioning fixed to stop you from accidentally damaging the record layout. When you need to make important changes in the content material, you can opt for the Flowing method that will allow you to change the articles positioning. Making a PDF data file After you are done with the changes, you may convert the file to PDF. With Smart PDF Converter Pro, this is manufactured as easy as clicking a few control keys. All you need to do is right-click the report, select Come to be PDF as well as program will do the rest in your case. Again, you have several options to choose from. Contain a concept, author identity and controlled by your ELECTRONICO document and as well select from a variety of security adjustments. These are very important features when creating a confidential document: - You can security protect your document. There are two types of passwords that you can use to secure your file -- user password and owner password. If you opt to enter a person password, the document cannot be opened while not entering it. The owner username and password is used meant for modifying the document as well as for changing gain access to permissions. - You can place the encryption level. If you select low encryption level (40-bit RC4), your documents will probably be created swifter. However , to get confidential papers we suggest using substantial encryption level (128-bit RC4) to make sure the file can be inaccessible by means of unintended recipients. Higher encryption is a lot more difficult to break and works with later on versions in Acrobat. - Additionally , you can actually define further security configurations such as enable or prohibit the filling up, signing and commenting in forms. You can also prevent the articles from getting copied, imprinted and/or changed.
1 note · View note
air-pop · 4 years
Audio
“for the shore” by merchandise (2003).
1 note · View note
blueiskewl · 2 years
Photo
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
The Stunning $30 Million Oceanfront Laguna Beach Mansion
It has twin garages, a car turntable and even a driveway engineered to not cause damage.
When building his ultramodern cliff-edge compound just south of California’s laid-back Laguna Beach, Ferrari lover Mark Hammond faced a dilemma: design a garage that would fit the challenging landscape, or park his prized toys somewhere else.
Naturally, the tech entrepreneur (he founded the Retail Equation, a company that helps retailers track fraud in their return processes) chose the former. He created twin subterranean garages at the bottom of a steep driveway, big enough for six cars plus some of his treasured vintage motorcycles.
To spin them around for easy exiting—backing-up any supercar is not for the faint of heart—Hammond specified a showroom-style turntable, and even built an inspection pit for mechanical check-ups.
As for the nightmare of piloting his ground-scraping Italian stallions down the super-steep driveway without grazing pricey bodywork, he came up with an ingenious solution: He got carpenters to build a rough, wooden replica of a Ferrari and rolled it down the driveway over and over until he got the slope just right.
The car-friendly amenities are just some of the remarkable features of this 6,000-square-foot, glass-filled property, which is part of the super-exclusive Three Arch Bay enclave, roughly five miles south of Laguna Beach and 58 miles from downtown Los Angeles.
What goes a long way in justifying that $29.95 million asking is the home’s coveted position overlooking the crashing Pacific, which results in some of the most breathtaking vistas in Southern California. From the west-facing top-floor deck you can watch golden sunsets or gaze out to Santa Catalina Island, while the north view stretches all along the coastline to Long Beach.
For up-close views of the water, take the private staircase down to the property’s own private beach and splash in the ocean or one of the tide pools that fill with every tidal change.
“There are only a handful of truly priceless oceanfront sites in Southern California, and this is one of them,” says listing agent John Cain of Pacific Sotheby’s International Realty.
Records show that back in 2005, Hammond paid $9.5 million for the coveted third-of-an-acre lot containing a barely-standing 1932 home. He then proceeded to spend eight years, and a small fortune, creating this contemporary masterpiece.
The design was the result of a joint effort from three of Orange County’s leading building visionaries; Horst Architects, CJ Light and Associates and Aria Design. Together they faced near insurmountable problems, like being required by California’s Coastal Commission to use 50 per cent of the original home’s rickety wood framing and having to create complex new foundations that involved sinking 20 reinforced concrete caissons into the steep hillside.
Completed in 2014, the ultra-modern home makes the most of its jaw-dropping views through walls of bevel-edged glass, huge glass pocket doors, glass-balconied terraces and an airy, open-plan layout.
Security gates off North La Senda Drive open on to that steep driveway and lead down into the home’s entry. The main living area is designed for indoor/outdoor living, with the pitched-roof kitchen featuring sleek Boffi cabinetry and Calcutta marble. It opens out onto the oversized covered terrace with gas fire pit and spacious living area. The kitchen also spills out into the back of the house, leading to outside dining and covered lounging areas and access to a 50-foot lap pool and separate guest studio.
Take the open glass staircase (or the elevator) down to the lower level and the spectacular primary suite with its incredible ocean views and huge stroll-around closet. There are two other bedrooms down here, as well. This level is also home to Hammond’s beloved “man cave”, with its wine bar and 378-bottle display, poker room and big-screen movie theater. Here, at the touch of a button, curtains on a side wall part to reveal a glass picture window into the garage.
While the Laguna Beach market for super-luxury properties has been on fire for years, the home has been languishing on the market since 2019, when it was first listed for $35 million. Despite price cuts, first to $31.9 million and now to $29.95 million, it is still looking for a buyer.
Part of the problem could be right next door, where a just-completed 5,000-square-foot, five-bedroom, triple-story home on a soaring promontory overlooking sandy Thousand Steps Cove just listed for $10 million less, at $19.99 million. So for true supercar lovers, Hammond’s subterranean garage and other car-focused features just might be the deciding factors.
By Howard Walker.
32 notes · View notes
antoine-roquentin · 5 years
Link
Even more striking than the scale of need are the shifting demographics of who is eating here and why. The homeless population is getting younger, staffers say, and more likely to have children and full-time jobs. In one hour, over taco salad and Fanta, I meet fast-food employees, a former car salesman who lost his home in the financial crisis and a pregnant 31-year-old whose baby is due the same month her housing vouchers run out.
But the biggest surprise about St. Vincent’s may be the state in which it’s located. Just four years ago, Utah was the poster child for a new approach to homelessness, a solution so simple you could sum it up in five words: Just give homeless people homes.
In 2005, the state and its capital started providing no-strings-attached apartments to the “chronically” homeless — people who had lived on the streets for at least a year and suffered from mental illness, substance abuse or a physical disability. Over the next 10 years, Utah built hundreds of housing units, hired dozens of social workers ― and reduced chronic homelessness by 91 percent.
The results were a sensation. In 2015, breathless media reports announced that a single state, and a single policy, had finally solved one of urban America’s most vexing problems. Reporters from around the country came to Utah to gather lessons for their own cities. In a widely shared “Daily Show” segment, Hasan Minhaj jogged the streets of Salt Lake City, asking locals if they knew where all the homeless people had gone.
But this simplistic celebration hid a far more complex truth. While Salt Lake City targeted a small subset of the homeless population, the overall problem got worse. Between 2005 and 2015, while the number of drug-addicted and mentally ill homeless people fell dramatically, the number of people sleeping in the city’s emergency shelter more than doubled. Since then, unsheltered homelessness has continued to rise. According to 2018 figures, the majority of unhoused families and single adults in Salt Lake City are experiencing homelessness for the first time.
“People thought that if we built a few hundred housing units we’d be out of the woods forever,” said Glenn Bailey, the executive director of Crossroads Urban Center, a Salt Lake City food bank. “But if you don’t change the reasons people become homeless in the first place, you’re just going to have more people on the streets.”
This is not just a Salt Lake City story. Across the country, in the midst of a deepening housing crisis and widening inequality, homelessness has concentrated in America’s most prosperous cities. So far, municipal leaders have responded with policies that solve a tiny portion of the problem and fail to account for all the ways their economies are pushing people onto the streets.
The reality is that no city has ever come close to solving homelessness. And over the last few years, it has become clear that they cannot afford to.
Eric (not his real name) is exactly the kind of person Utah’s policy experiment was intended to help. He is 55 years old and has been homeless for most of his life. He takes medication for his schizophrenia, but his paranoia still leads him to cash his disability checks and hide them in envelopes around the city. When he lived on the streets, his drug of choice was a mix of heroin and cocaine. These days it’s meth.
Despite all his complications, Eric is a success story. He lives in a housing complex in the suburbs of Salt Lake City that was built for the chronically homeless. He has case workers who ensure that he takes his medications and renews his benefits. While he may never live independently, he is far better off here than in a temporary shelter, a jail cell or sleeping on the streets.
The problem for policymakers is that Eric is no longer emblematic of American homelessness. In Salt Lake City, just like everywhere else, the population of people sleeping on the streets looks a lot different than it used to.
As the economy has come out of the Great Recession, America’s unhoused population has exploded almost exclusively in its richest and fastest-growing cities. Between 2012 and 2018, the number of people living on the streets declinedby 11 percent nationwide — and surged by 26 percent in Seattle, 47 percent in New York City and 75 percent in Los Angeles. Even smaller cities, like Reno and Boise, have seen spikes in homelessness perfectly coincide with booming tech sectors and falling unemployment.  
In other words, homelessness is no longer a symbol of decline. It is a product of prosperity. And unlike Eric, the vast majority of people being pushed out onto the streets by America’s growing urban economies do not need dedicated social workers or intensive medication regimes. They simply need higher incomes and lower housing costs.
“The people with the highest risk of homelessness are the ones living on a Social Security check or working a minimum-wage job,” said Margot Kushel, the director of the UCSF. Center for Vulnerable Populations. In 2015, she led a team of researchers who interviewed 350 people living on the streets in Oakland. Nearly half of their older interviewees were experiencing homelessness for the first time.
“If they make it to 50 and they’ve never been homeless, there’s a good chance they don’t have severe mental illness or substance abuse issues,” Kushel said. “Once they become homeless, they start to spiral downward really quickly. They’re sleeping three to four hours a night, they get beat up, they lose their medications. If you walk past them in a tent, they seem like they need all these services. But what they really needed was cheaper rent a year ago.”
Other research has found the same connection between housing costs and homelessness. In 2012, researchers found that a $100 increase in monthly rent in big cities was associated with a 15 percent rise in homelessness. The effect was even stronger in smaller cities.
“Once you’re homeless, it’s a steep hill to climb back up,” Bailey said. “When an eviction is on your record, it’s even steeper. And even if you do get back into housing, you’re still one illness or one car problem away from becoming homeless again.”
And rising affluence isn’t just transforming the economic factors that cause homelessness. It is also changing the politics of the cities tasked with solving it. Across the country, as formerly poor neighborhoods have gentrified, politicians are facing increasingly strident calls to criminalize panhandling and bulldoze tent encampments. While city residents consistently tell pollsters that they support homeless services in principle, specific proposals to build shelters or expand services face vociferous local opposition.
“The biggest hindrance to solving homelessness is that city residents keep demanding the least effective policies,” said Sara Rankin, the director of the Homeless Rights Advocacy Project at Seattle University School of Law. The evidenceoverwhelminglydemonstrates that punishing homeless people makes it harder for them to find housing and get work. Nonetheless, the most common demands from urban voters are for politicians to increase arrests, close down soup kitchens and impose entry requirements and drug tests in shelters.
“Homelessness is a two-handed problem,” Rankin said. “One hand is everything you’re doing to make it better and the other is everything you’re doing to make it worse. Right now, we spend far more effort undoing our progress than advancing it.”
No municipality demonstrates this dynamic better than Salt Lake City. Thanks to rising housing and construction costs, the building of new homeless housing has slowed to a trickle. A plan to replace the city’s central homeless shelter with a handful of smaller, suburban facilities has been delayed and scaled down due to neighborhood opposition. In 2017, after years of demands by downtown residents and businesses, Utah initiated a $67 million law enforcement crackdown on the population sleeping on the streets of its state capital. In its first year, the campaign resulted in more than 5,000 arrests — and just 101 homeless people being placed into housing.
And there are no signs that it’s going to get better. The economy is creating new homeless people faster than cities can house them.And the worse the problem gets, the harder it becomes to solve.
“The entire system has stalled,” said Andrew Johnston, the vice president of program operations for Volunteers of America Utah, one of the largest service providers in Salt Lake City. “As the economy has improved, policymakers seem to believe that the market will supply affordable housing on its own. But if you don’t put public and private money into it, you’re not going to get it.”
Three years after she escaped from homelessness, Georgia Gregersen’s most enduring memory is how quickly she fell into it.
“I’m a waitress, I’m at home with a new baby and three months later I’m sleeping in an empty parking garage,” said Gregersen, who now lives in a Salt Lake City suburb.
Her story plays out as a series of unraveling safety nets. She had been trying to get clean for years, but the waitlists for rehab were months long. She got on methadone when she found out she was pregnant, but it cost $85 per week, almost as much as she had been spending on heroin. After her son was born she was eligible for daycare vouchers, but the never-ending paperwork — “something was always wrong or required another appointment” — meant she never actually got them.
Eventually, the cost of childcare and the stress of being a single mom got to her and she relapsed. Within weeks she had lost her job and handed her son over to her parents. Her aunt, with whom she had been staying, asked her to move out.
Sleeping outside made her even more desperate to get clean, but everywhere she turned her options were cut off. Every halfway house and detox center in Salt Lake City was full. When she applied for subsidized housing, a government official told her it would take two years just to get on the waiting list.
“I thought, I’ll probably be dead by then,” she said.
Gregersen spiraled downward in 2015, right around the time Utah announced it had ended chronic homelessness. Unlike the recipients of that experiment — most of whom required 24-hour, lifelong support — Gregersen didn’t need permanent supportive housing. She needed every other form of support to be adequately funded and available when she needed it.
“We always look to one thing to be the answer,” she said, “but I needed everything, and in concert.”
Gregersen’s story perfectly encapsulates the challenge of urban policy in a changing and deteriorating America. Truly ending homelessness will require cities to systematically repair all the cracks in the country’s brittle, shattered welfare system. From drug treatment to rental assistance to subsidized child care, the only way to address the crisis is through a concerted — and costly — expansion of government assistance.
And yet, even as homelessness becomes a defining feature of urban growth, no city in America can afford to meaningfully address it.  
“Politicians keep proposing quick fixes and simple solutions because they can’t publicly admit that solving homelessness is expensive,” Kushel said. Before the 1980s, she points out, most of the responsibility for low-income housing, rental assistance and mental health treatment fell on the federal government.
Since then, though, these costs have been systematically handed over to cities. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of low-income households receiving federal rental assistance dropped by more than half. Hundreds of thousands of mental health treatment beds have disappeared. Despite having far deeper pockets, the federal government now spends less per homeless person than the city of San Francisco.  
The relentless localization of responsibility means that cities are spending more than they ever have on homelessness and, at the same time, nowhere near enough. L.A.’s recent $1.2 billion housing bond is one of the largest in American history. It will construct 1,000 permanent supportive housing units every year — in a city where 14,000 people need one. According to a 2018 analysis, Seattle would have to double its current spending to provide housing and services for everyone living on the streets.
Smaller cities have an even wider spending gap. According to Salt Lake City’s Housing & Neighborhood Development Department, building one unit of affordable housing costs roughly $154,000. Providing a home to all 6,800 people currently accessing homeless services would cost the city roughly $1 billion — two-thirds of its entire annual budget.
“We know that it’s cheaper in the long run to provide housing for homeless people, but cities don’t get money back when that happens,” said Tony Sparks, an urban studies professor at San Francisco State University. Expanding social support and building subsidized housing require huge upfront investments that may not pay off for decades. Though the costs of managing a large homeless population mostly fall on hospitals and law enforcement, reducing the burden on those systems won’t put spending back in city coffers.
“If you know how city budgets work, everything goes into a different pot,” Sparks said. “When you save money on health care, it just goes back into the health care system. It doesn’t trickle sideways.”
But all the challenges of funding their response to homelessness doesn’t mean cities are entirely powerless. For a start, municipal leaders could remove the zoning codes that make low-income housing and homeless shelters illegal in their residential neighborhoods. They could replace encampment sweeps and anti-panhandling laws with municipally sanctioned tent cities. They could update their eviction regulations to keep people in the housing they already have.
Cities can also, crucially, address the huge diversity of the homeless population. Rankin points out that for young mothers, the most frequent cause of homelessness is domestic abuse. For young men, it is often a recent discharge from foster care or prison. The young homeless population is disproportionately gay and trans.
All these populations are already interacting with dozens of municipal agencies that haven’t been designed to serve them. Even without major new funding sources, cities could do a lot better with the systems they already have. Schools, for example, could provide social workers for unhoused students. Libraries could invite health care workers to help homeless patrons manage their chronic illnesses. Law enforcement agencies could reorient themselves around outreach and harm reduction rather than arrests and encampment sweeps.
661 notes · View notes
lightningbuggie · 4 years
Note
for a prompt could you write a short blackwatch!sombra x blackwatch!mccree? it's an au that i quite like, but i can never find any stories for it. feel free not to though! that's totally fine too
McCree was always hesitant to trust new personnel - a trait that stemmed from his Deadlock days - and today was no exception. He didn’t truly understand the purpose of a ‘hacker’ anyway, he couldn’t imagine hacking was any more resourceful than a gun. Reyes apparently thought it was, considering he personally spent months tracking down the recruit in question, and weeks further convincing her to join Blackwatch. Had McCree been asked, he would have said their team was big enough with the cyborg and the witch, but ultimately Reyes made the call and decided they needed one more. 
They brought her in late after work on a Tuesday night, apparently on her request. McCree couldn’t remember the last time Reyes took someone else’s orders so willingly, but he’d obliged her every demand. None of them were even allowed to be at headquarters during her tour, for her ‘privacy’s’ sake. Neither McCree nor the others were particularly pleased.
The day he finally saw her was a whole two weeks after her initiation. They had just finished a mission briefing in a conference room far too grand for their tiny team, and McCree couldn’t understand why Reyes was sticking around after adjourning - he was normally the first to leave. The cowboy quietly left the room with the others, but hung around by the door, taking one last peek inside once Genji and Dr. O’Deorain were out of sight. Back in the meeting room he witnessed a flash of purple, revealing the vibrantly dressed hacker lounging in a seat he had assumed was empty. He watched as she and Reyes chatted for a moment before shaking hands and heading out different doors. The commander approached the door McCree was standing by and he quickly sidestepped away as the door opened. He wasn’t quick enough to get out of view however, as Reyes barely took one step out the door before his eyes found McCree. 
“Settlin’ in the new recruit?” McCree asked, trying not to sound embarrassed.
Reyes held his gaze for a moment before ignoring the question and walking away with a huff.
Genji actually brought her up first. The two of them were going over some floor plans for a building they were meant to break into, and McCree brought up the concern of security cameras.
The cyborg just shrugged, “I’m sure Sombra can take care of them.”
“Sombra?” 
Genji raised an eyebrow as if he didn’t understand McCree’s confusion, “Our new hacker.”
McCree didn’t realize until that moment that he hadn’t even known her name, “Have you spoken to her?”
“Yes. She offered to help upgrade my cybernetics. She seems capable.”
McCree didn’t know what to make of that. He’d like to think Genji had good insight, but he could hear the Deadlock crew in the back of his mind reminding him to never place anyone else’s judgement above your own.
Moira spoke of her next. McCree had entered her office for a pre-mission checkup, something he often put off as long as possible to avoid leaving himself in the hands of the witch. 
Dr. O’Deorain kept her examinations minimal. McCree seemed healthy enough, but she wasn’t happy with the state of his mechanical arm - as was evident by her constant poking and prodding of the metal.
“I intend to run a few minor tests on this.” She told him, cold and clinical.
“How long’s that gonna take?”
“I’m not certain. Sombra raised some concerns on the matter of remote hacking, though we’ve yet to discuss the process or potential solutions. ”
“Not like you to listen to other people’s suggestions, doc.”
She gave him a pointed look, then raised an arm in the direction of the door. McCree took the cue and left. 
It was two nights later when McCree interacted with her for the first time. It was well past when he should’ve been asleep, but the cowboy was busy sitting in their training room going over floor plans for their upcoming operation. He’d been ignoring the ticking of the training room clock, but the ding signalling midnight was finally enough to send him packing back to his room to get some rest. He only made it as far as the living quarters entrance however, before he was stopped by the sight of a dim purple light seeping through an adjoining hallway. He followed the light to its source, a seemingly unassuming door made special only by the violet glow seeping through its cracks. McCree tried the handle and to his surprise the door opened without issue. 
The room was dark, illuminated only by a series of monitors in varied sizes. Most of the screens displayed coded information, while some showed weapons diagnostics, and the largest presented the floor plan McCree had been pouring over all night. He turned his head to the chair sat in front of the monitors, which seated the infamous hacker as she scrolled through some code on screen 2. 
“Close the door if you’re coming in.” She replied offhandedly in a Spanish accent.
Ah. Spanish. All of a sudden ‘Sombra’ made a lot more sense. He closed the door behind him and stepped into the room. This time he took in the other aspects of the space, noting a couch, full bed, and mini fridge occupying the area behind her desk. Far more lavish than any of the other rooms he’d visited, his especially. 
She spoke up again, “Did you notice the same thing I did?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“The plans.” She pointed a manicured nail at the largest screen. “Gabe’s plan could use some work.”
He’d never heard anyone refer to Reyes as ‘Gabe’ before - she was either too valuable to lose or two minutes from being fired. Ten minutes ago he wouldn’t have been confident guessing which, but now seeing how well Blackwatch was treating her, he had some idea. 
He cleared his throat, “Reyes wants us to infiltrate through the east entrance, but I was thinking-”
“The west is closer to the target, why risk being in there longer than you have to?” She finished. 
Her seat was turned around, finally facing him. Her eyes were a shade of purple so electrically bright he couldn’t help but stare. He’d already noticed her half shaved head from his last sighting, but now he could see the implants lining her skull in perfect clarity. She was like nothing he’d ever seen before. 
“That’s what I figured.” He took a step forward, maintaining eye contact. “I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced.”
“I’ve heard a lot about you, McCree.”
“I can say the same. Everyone’s been talking ‘bout you lately.”
“Am I employee of the month?”
“If the doctor likes you, it’s hard to tell.”
Sombra tossed him a mischievous smirk as she stood up. “Sombra.”
He tipped his hat to her in return. “Shadow, huh?” 
“Si, vaquero.” She looked pleased to know he spoke Spanish. Sombra nodded towards the couch and he took a seat, while she walked over to the mini fridge and began rummaging through it. “I’m going to suggest the west entrance tomorrow, I’d appreciate it if you mentioned it too.”
“Sure. Though Reyes mentioned something about that route being too close to where they house their mechs to be viable.” 
She stood up holding a bottle of rum and two lowball glasses. “Nah, I can deal with that.”
“Oh yeah?” McCree was going to comment that it was quite late for a drink, but watching her crack open a new bottle of fairly pricey alcohol was enough to convince him to stay for one. “How do you plan to do that?”
Rather than answer, Sombra just tossed a glass in his direction. His reflexes were normally lighting quick, but seeing as he was caught off-guard, he was just a second too late to reach for the glass. He didn’t have to worry about it breaking however, as his mechanical arm caught the glass with ease, operating completely out of his control. McCree watched in horror as his arm, now sentient, held the glass still as Sombra waltzed over and poured an ounce of rum into it. 
McCree brought his eyes back to her as she poured her own glass. “How’re you doing that?”
She just smiled and wiggled her fingers, purple light emanating from her nails. “That’s my job.”
“I’m gonna ask ya kindly to give me back control of my arm.” He warned. She did, and McCree almost dropped the glass as he suddenly regained command of the appendage. Thankfully he managed to hold onto it, which was good considering he was going to need a drink after that. “Thank you.”
Sombra took a seat on the coffee table itself, her legs resting inches from his. “That’s how I’ll deal with them. If they try to use the mechs I’ll just shut them down.”
“What if they try the same thing?” He asked, taking a sip of his drink. 
“Yeah I know, I’m working on it. You have it easy, your friend Sparrow is a glowing green target. Too easy to hack.” 
“How does hacking him work? Make him throw the mission?”
“And more. I could make him help the enemy if I wanted to.”
McCree downed his drink and set the glass on the table. “Well here’s hoping you don’t.”
Sombra grabbed McCree’s mechanical arm and pulled it on her lap, causing the cowboy to sit forward and press his shoulder against her as she examined his tech. Her nails glided over the indentations, leaving a comfortable cooling sensation in their tracks. He glanced up to watch her features, her brows furrowed, lost in concentration as she tried to solve a problem he couldn’t see. He had to chuckle at the strange intimacy of the moment, but immediately regretted the action as he watched her focus drop. 
“What?”
“Nothin’, just expected you to be dry and serious, but you’re provin’ me wrong. You this comfortable with everyone you work with?”
She let her voice drop an octave, “Only if I like them,” and followed the words with a shameless wink.
McCree chuckled, “You know, my old partner used to tell me to never trust a pretty face.”
She gave him back his arm and studied his face, “You shouldn’t trust anyone, period.”
“Sounds like a rule straight outta Deadlock.”
“More like Los Muertos.” She stood up, swishing her drink around in its glass. 
McCree followed her. “You were in Los Muertos?”
“Mhm,” she hummed as she sipped her rum, walking him to the door. “But that’s a conversation for Friday.”
“Friday?”
“I have an idea for how to set up a stable firewall for your arm, but I’m gonna need a few days. Same time?”
“You sure you want me coming by so late?”
Her smirk returned full-throttle as she opened the door for him, leaning on the door frame with her drink at her lips. “I’ll see you then, McCree.” 
He tipped his hat to her and headed back down the hallway towards his room, using every ounce of strength to avoid turning back as he heard her door shut behind him. The walk back was quiet and introspective. He could practically hear Ashe screaming in the back of his head to be more cautious, but nonetheless as his eyes scanned the ground beneath his feet, watching the light fade with every step, he knew his dreams would be basked in a purple glow.
46 notes · View notes
newstfionline · 4 years
Text
Headlines
The Covid-19 economic shock (NYT) The economy’s recovery from the fastest, deepest recession in U.S. history is likely to be a long, grinding affair. More than $6.5 trillion in household wealth vanished during the first three months of this year as the pandemic tightened its hold on the global economy, the Federal Reserve said this week. That’s roughly equivalent to the economies of the United Kingdom and France combined. “This is the biggest economic shock in the U.S. and in the world, really, in living memory,” Fed Chair Jerome H. Powell said Wednesday. “We went from the lowest level of unemployment in 50 years to the highest level in close to 90 years, and we did it in two months.” Almost 90 percent of the 20 million workers who lost their jobs in April said they had been laid off temporarily and expected to return to their jobs, a possible sign the economy might quickly return to normal. Yet economists are far less sanguine. After a quick initial bounce this year, the economy “will go largely sideways” until a coronavirus vaccine is developed, according to economist Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics.
Tenants behind on rent in pandemic face harassment, eviction (AP) Jeremy Rooks works the evening shift at a Georgia fast-food restaurant these days to avoid being on the street past dusk. He needs somewhere to go at night: He and his wife are homeless after the extended-stay motel where they had lived since Thanksgiving evicted them in April when they couldn’t pay their rent. They should have been protected because the state’s Supreme Court has effectively halted evictions due to the coronavirus pandemic. But Rooks said the owner still sent a man posing as a sheriff’s deputy, armed with a gun, to throw the couple out a few days after rent was due. The pandemic has shut housing courts and prompted most states and federal authorities to initiate policies protecting renters from eviction. But not everyone is covered and a number of landlords—some desperate to pay their mortgages themselves—are turning to threats and harassment to force tenants out. The evictions threaten to exacerbate a problem that has plagued people of color like Rooks long before the pandemic, when landlords across the U.S. were filing about 300,000 eviction requests every month. The data and analytics real estate firm Amherst projects that 28 million renters, or about 22.5% of all households, are at risk of eviction.
Pandemic leads to a bicycle boom, and shortage, around the world (AP) Fitness junkies locked out of gyms, commuters fearful of public transit, and families going stir crazy inside their homes during the coronavirus pandemic have created a boom in bicycle sales unseen in decades. In the United States, bicycle aisles at mass merchandisers like Walmart and Target have been swept clean, and independent shops are doing a brisk business and are selling out of affordable “family” bikes. Bicycle sales over the past two months saw their biggest spike in the U.S. since the oil crisis of the 1970s, said Jay Townley, who analyzes cycling industry trends at Human Powered Solutions. The trend is mirrored around the globe, as cities better known for car-clogged streets, like Manila and Rome, install bike lanes to accommodate surging interest in cycling while public transport remains curtailed.
Mexico desperate to reopen 11 million-job tourism industry (AP) An irony of the coronavirus pandemic is that the idyllic beach vacation in Mexico in the brochures really does exist now: The white sand beaches are sparkling clean and empty on the Caribbean coast, the water is clear on the Pacific coast and the waters around the resort of Los Cabos are teeming with fish after 10 weeks with no boats going out. There are two-for-one deals and very eager staff. It’s all only an airline flight—and a taxi ride, and a reception desk—away, and that’s the problem. There are a number of ways to think about it: Might it be safer to travel than stay home? How much is mental health worth, and, if people are going to socially distance anyway, why not do it in a beautiful, isolated place? On the other hand, despite the pandemic, flights are often crowded, even hotels in Mexico that bend over backward to disinfect everything have little capacity to actually test their employees, and while fellow guests are likely to be few and far between, they also probably won’t be wearing masks. In Quintana Roo state, where Cancun is located, tourism is the only industry there is, and Cancun is the only major Mexican resort to reopen so far. Mexico’s tourism income crashed in April, when it was only 6.3% of what it was one year ago. Hundreds of thousands of hotel rooms were closed. Tourism provides 11 million jobs, directly or indirectly in Mexico, and many of those workers were simply sent home to wait it out.
Top US diplomat finds virtual path into Venezuela amid rift (AP) A year after shutting down the U.S. Embassy in Caracas, Washington’s top diplomat in Venezuela has found a way to slip back inside the South American nation—at least virtually. Each Thursday afternoon, James Story hits the “Go Live” button on Facebook from his office in the U.S. Embassy in Bogota or his home in the Colombian capital hundreds of miles from Caracas. In a freewheeling approach, he answers questions in fluent Spanish from Venezuelans and the few U.S. citizens still in the country, addressing the latest intrigue and turmoil bubbling over in Venezuela and the United States. For 30 minutes, Story talks about everything from Venezuela’s purchases of gasoline from Iran, despite its vast oil reserves, to recent unrest in the U.S. over George Floyd’s death in police custody to accusations that President Nicolás Maduro is undermining Venezuela’s constitution. Story’s low-budget, weekly question-and-answer session on the popular social media platform is a way for Story to get his message out since he’s deprived of traditional tools such as visiting hospitals and schools, talking to local reporters and hosting cocktail parties for power brokers.
Colombia’s confirmed coronavirus cases rise above 50,000 (Reuters) Reported coronavirus cases in Colombia have risen to over 50,000, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday, as neighboring Ecuador approaches the same milestone. The disease overwhelmed Ecuador’s health system, in some cases leaving authorities unable to collect the bodies of the deceased and forcing the government to temporarily store corpses in refrigerated shipping containers. Colombia’s economy has been battered by the twin ills of a coronavirus quarantine put in place by President Ivan Duque and falling oil prices.
Europe’s borders reopen but long road for tourism to recover (AP) Borders opened up across Europe on Monday after three months of coronavirus closures that began chaotically in March. But many restrictions persist, it’s unclear how keen Europeans will be to travel this summer and the continent is still closed to Americans, Asians and other international tourists. Border checks for most Europeans were dropped overnight in Germany, France and elsewhere, nearly two weeks after Italy opened its frontiers. The European Union’s 27 nations, as well as those in the Schengen passport-free travel area, which also includes a few non-EU nations such as Switzerland, aren’t expected to start opening to visitors from outside the continent until at least the beginning of next month, and possibly later.
Surveillance tech (Worldcrunch) Following pushback from Black Lives Matter activists, Amazon has suspended police use of its facial recognition software for one year. IBM followed suit, also announcing it will stop offering its similar software for “mass surveillance or racial profiling.” But the moves come amid a tumultuous few months for so-called “surveillance tech,” which some have touted during the pandemic as a necessary tool to ensure public cooperation to stem the spread of a deadly virus. Despite the potential medical benefits, the use of geolocation technology to curb COVID-19 has raised concerns over fundamental data protection, especially in countries like China, South Korea and Israel where tracking has been more intrusive: enlisting credit card records for purchase patterns, GPS data for travel patterns, and security-camera footage for verification. In Russia, the pandemic proved a convenient excuse to test a nascent, China-inspired citizen monitoring system, backed by a Moscow court ruling in early March stating that the city’s facial recognition system does not violate the privacy of its citizens. Even places not particularly known for their police state-like tactics are pushing limits: In Paris, cameras were installed at the popular Châtelet metro station to monitor mask use, as it is illegal to take public transportation without a mask. Similar (and seemingly well-intentioned) efforts like fast-tracked coronavirus data collection apps have raised suspicions of data protection breaches by both hackers and governments, including in the Netherlands and South Africa. In Germany, a country known for its hard stance on privacy protection, new surveillance tools are being met with a considerable amount of defiance.
American sentenced to 16 years in Russia on spying charges (AP) A Russian court on Monday sentenced an American businessman to 16 years in prison on spying charges, a sentence that he and his brother rejected as being political. The Moscow City Court read out the conviction of Paul Whelan on charges of espionage and sentenced him to 16 years in a maximum security prison colony. The trial was held behind closed doors. Whelan, who was arrested in Moscow in December 2018, has insisted on his innocence, saying he was set up. Speaking after the verdict, U.S. Ambassador John Sullivan denounced the secret trial in which no evidence was produced as an egregious violation of human rights and international legal norms. He described Whelan’s conviction as a mockery of justice and demanded his immediate release.
For Migrants in Russia, Virus Means No Money to Live and No Way to Leave (NYT) Migrant workers from Central Asia, shrugging off the risk of coronavirus infection, have gathered in groups each day outside their countries’ embassies in Moscow, banging on doors and fences and shouting for officials to come out and tell them when they can finally get on a charter flight home. With regular flights canceled, charters offer the only feasible way out for the more than five million migrant workers from former Soviet republics now stranded in Russia as a result of the pandemic, with many living in increasingly dire circumstances. While Russia has been battered by the virus, with the third most cases in the world after the United States and Brazil, the crisis has hit migrant workers especially hard, as they were the first to lose their jobs and often the last to receive medical help. Many have no money for food and, once infected with the coronavirus, have been left in crowded dorms to fight the disease by themselves. Many would like to return to their countries. But they can’t. Before the pandemic hit, more than 15 flights left Moscow each day for various cities in Uzbekistan, Central Asia’s most populous nation. Today, there are only two charters a week, and the embassy’s waiting list has more than 80,000 names.
Press freedom in the Philippines (Foreign Policy) The journalist Maria Ressa, the founder of news site Rappler, has been found guilty of criminal libel by a Manila court in a case Human Rights Watch described as a “devastating blow” to press freedom in the Philippines under President Rodrigo Duterte. Ressa and another Rappler journalist, Reynaldo Santos Jr., were sentenced to up to six years in prison under the country’s cybercrime prevention act of 2012, which includes libel. The article that was deemed libelous predated the law, but a later online update of a typo was enough for prosecutors to consider it worthy of an indictment.
18 dead, 189 hurt as tanker truck explodes on China highway (AP) A tanker truck exploded on a highway in southeastern China on Saturday, killing 18 people and injuring at least 189 others, authorities said. The explosion caused extensive damage to nearby buildings. One photo showed firefighters hosing down a row of buildings with blown-out facades well into the night. The truck carrying liquefied gas exploded around 4:45 p.m. on the Shenyang-Haikou Expressway south of Shanghai in Zhejiang province, the official Xinhua News Agency said, citing local authorities.
Hong Kong families, fearing a reign of terror, prepare to flee the city (Washington Post) China’s Communist Party has haunted Leung’s family for generations. Her father, Guo Yao, fled forced labor and the violent purges of the Cultural Revolution for a better life in Hong Kong, where he arrived with his wife in 1973 to find relative freedom and prosperity. Now, 17 years after the death of her father, Leung is preparing to flee Hong Kong. A new law approved by the Communist Party to take effect this summer will allow China’s powerful state security agencies to operate in the territory, paving the way for political purges and intimidation of government critics by secret police. Officials are pushing to impose party propaganda in schools. With their political freedoms deteriorating, nurses, lawyers, business people and other skilled workers are rushing to renew documents that could provide a pathway to residency in Britain, or finding ways to emigrate to Taiwan, Canada or Australia. Applications for police certificates required to emigrate soared almost 80 percent to nearly 21,000 in the latter half of 2019 from a year earlier, even before the advent of the security law, coinciding with a crackdown on pro-democracy protests. Animal rescue groups have reported an increase in surrendered dogs as their owners leave Hong Kong. Protesters fearing persecution have sought refuge in Germany, the Netherlands and United States. The exodus of talent recalls the pre-handover years, when anxiety over Beijing’s rule drove tens of thousands of people out of Hong Kong.
Netanyahu turns to rich friend to fund corruption trial fees (AP) Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is on trial for accepting gifts from wealthy friends. But that has not stopped him from seeking another gift from a wealthy friend to pay for his multimillion-dollar legal defense. The awkward arrangement opens a window into the very ties with billionaire friends that plunged Netanyahu into legal trouble and sheds light on the intersection of money and Israeli politics. Netanyahu has asked an Israeli oversight committee to allow a 10 million shekel ($2.9 million) donation from Spencer Partrich, a Michigan-based real estate magnate, to fund his legal defense. The request for financial aid from a friend is not illegal, and Israeli politicians have a long tradition of hobnobbing with wealthy Jewish supporters abroad. But to some, the optics of Netanyahu’s request are sketchy. “It is a problem that we have prime ministers who have ties to moguls,” said Tomer Naor, of the Movement for Quality Government in Israel, a good governance group. “When the borders blur, you are blinded by the big money. You want more of it. Then all of a sudden the friend asks for a little favor and that poses a problem.”
Nigeria attacks (Foreign Policy) At least 141 people were killed in two militant attacks in Northern Nigeria over the weekend, both have been claimed by Islamic State West Africa Province. The attacks in Monguno and Nganzai districts of Borno state killed at least 60 people, while a separate attack in Gabio district killed at least 81. The United Nations, which has a humanitarian base in Monguno, said it was “appalled” by the attacks.
1 note · View note
7bm2st7kae · 4 years
Text
writtings Cae 1) It is widely understood that on March 8 we honor women's velour, as a way of expressing thanks to each and every woman in one's life.  Yet, is an International Women's Day (IWD) really needed? By the way, we do not ignore how long women have struggled for their freedoms, and how many occasions they have been abused, harassed or put down.  In reality, women often fall prey to several accidents and equality is far from being achieved. Despite of this, the date was established to put together women from all cultural and ethnic backgrounds around all borders to recognize and continue working for unity, fairness, prosperity and progress in their several decades’ struggle. There is definitely clear evidence today which suggests the incidence of domestic violence against women and children. Racial representation is thus not a gender concern but a social and economic necessity. We will always fight for it, not only on this day but on a regular basis. Women deserve to be noticed and encouraged from across the globe. And, no matter what gender you associate with, or what role you hold, we also ought to dedicate ourselves to fair justice. Unfortunately, there are many attitudes that hinder women's equality, people who claim that we as individuals can not make any change in today's culture and some may also suggest that there is no gender disparity all over.       2) Nowadays we are willing to see anything we want, thanks to the Net.  In addition, it has led us to come up with tv shows of truth or skills, which have definitely enhanced their success over the decades. Yet, because of the excitement it offers, is there something else to watch reality shows than television? TV shows draw all sorts of viewers and we can view them at what ever time of location we want, due to social media. What more, TV shows were created for the intention of attracting the audiences. Programs such as "The Ellen show" more widely known as "The Late Night Show," welcoming popular celebrities to chat about their recent news and ended up playing some type of game. And they're just directed at fun. However, there are many TV shows including "The Voice" or "The X Factor" where contestants have to face/reach certain prompts. In fact, jurors are often too picky, resulting in the participants reacting negatively. What most parents believe is that children who go there to join are revealed, and this may potentially be detrimental to them. As well as getting subjected to negative factors, not just social media. I honestly feel that, irrespective of their programming, tv shows will definitely have a detrimental effect, either on their audiences or on their participants (such as the ridicule and criticism hey often experienced). Additionally, others can also be detrimental to children and teenagers because they can mimic such behaviors or aggressive behavior. 3) Traffic jam is now one of the biggest urban issues owing to the congestion it creates, the disruptions during the peak hours, among others, the road rages. To address this problem, municipalities ought to come up with many methods of rising traffic and preventing the usage of private vehicles in the city center. But how do they possibly? Therefore, most citizens agree that fees will be levied on vehicle owners and businesses, whether commuting through peak hours or parking. The government should then enhance the standard of public transit and allow everyone to utilize it for the revenue collected. Although it is possible that this may definitely be done, tax levies may place undue strain on citizens who have no travel. While taxes do not impact people with a strong economy, it does not affect people with a poor income. On the other side, cities should also undertake an outreach program, raise consciousness about how often traffic delays impact the community and how effective public transit is. Along with this, the initiative may consist of social network advertising, newspapers or radio shows that are low-cost approaches relative to improvements in public transit upgrades. A campaign like this is low key successful, though, since it relies on people changing their behaviors. In my view, the most successful solution will be to introduce taxes in the town at those hours. So far as an urgent remedy is concerned, levying taxes will insure revenue to increase the Efficiency and health of public transit, with residents seeking to stop having their vehicles in the area. 4) Recently I watched “Die Hard,” which came out in July, 1988, is basically two one-hour TV shows, or two one-hour episodes of a police drama, all of which are realized with a specific directorial flair. The first hour is the story of John McClane shouting out a band of terrorists who take over Nakatomi Tower and keep the workers of the Nakatomi Corporation hostage of offices in its thirtieth floor. The police arrive in the second hour, accompanied by the F.B.I., and McClane tries to kill the terrorists with the help of the powers of order. McClane's solitary fight has a spare, elemental force that ludicrously disperses when the police arrive. I should have worked out the film for at most another fifteen or twenty minutes; instead, it drags on for another hour, to achieve full apocalyptic fire and emotional resolution.  To John and Holly, whose marriage had been disrupted by her acceptance of a great job in Los Angeles, the film provides emotional redemption. Thus John remained out of a sense of police duty in New York. This also provides another character's emotional resolution, Al Powell, an L.A. Police officer who had been McClane's key contact for most of the ordeal, via walkie-talkie, with the outside world, a cop in a desk job, on his own request, since his rookie year, when he shot a thirteen-year-old whose toy gun he mistook for a real one. On the other side, "Die Hard" strikingly rejects the cinematographic stereotype of aggressive black villains. The film features three big African-American characters, Al is a comic limo, Argyle's driver, and Theo, the tech whiz of the terrorist band. And the film reflects another ethnic anxiety. The film is based on the Nakatomi Company, led by a Japanese-American man called Joseph Takagi, an symbol of the concern that Japanese high-tech corporations were trying to control the American economy at that time.  I highly recommend this film and if you're into action movies, you'll like it. The main character faces very tough challenges throughout the entire film, and still finds a way to overcome them in a specific and violent way. Much like the special effects, there are plenty of plot twists and cliffhangers that will give you chills.
1 note · View note
theliberaltony · 5 years
Link
via Politics – FiveThirtyEight
Presidential hopeful Andrew Yang is famous for his plan to implement a universal basic income to help Americans who lose their jobs to robots. And that isn’t the only place tech innovation takes center stage in his platform. He also advocates that your online data be treated as personal property that you can choose (or not) to sell to companies like Facebook. In a Yang presidency, election results would be verified through blockchain (an encryption system best known for shoring up cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin), quantum computing research would be better funded, and a Legion of Builders and Destroyers would have the power to overrule local zoning and land-use decisions for the greater infrastructure good. He is definitely the only presidential candidate talking seriously about fighting climate change with giant space mirrors.
But while the Yang platform can occasionally appear to drift toward a bid for a Hugo Award, experts who study the history and sociology of tech say his enthusiasm for and belief in the promise of technology is actually in step with the way most Americans (and the Democratic party, in particular) approach innovation. To the extent that Yang, a political novice whose credentials are largely built on his history as a successful tech entrepreneur, is polling above people like Kirsten Gillibrand and Bill de Blasio, it could be because he’s done such a good job of speaking to a defining aspect of the American psyche: one that both loves and fears tech. If anything, despite the sci-fi trappings of his policies, some experts said Yang might be a little behind the curve — playing to a vision of the future already looks a little retro in its belief that Silicon Valley hype will match reality.
The American relationship with technology is a complicated one. Research suggests that a majority of Americans — 59 percent in a 2014 Pew Research Center poll — have faith that technological advancements will make our lives better in the future. In 2016, the same organization found that 52 percent of us think technology has already had a largely positive effect on society. Those beliefs have long-standing precedent, said Lee Vinsel, a professor of science, technology and society at Virginia Tech, stretching back to the cults of personality built up around 19th century inventors like Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell. “There’s an emphasis on technology and how it grows the economy as an unvarnished good,” Vinsel said.
But those top-line numbers can mask some underlying discomfort with the technological tools we allow into our lives. The same polls that show a majority of Americans looking forward to a tech-enabled future also show a distinct lack of enthusiasm for technologies closer to our fingertips. We may expect unspecified “technology” to make our lives better down the road, but 63 percent of us think opening U.S. airspace to drones will make life worse; 65 percent of us don’t like the idea of robots caring for the sick and elderly; and 78 percent of us would not eat meat grown in a lab if someone set it on our plates.
That’s because cycles of techno-hype and disillusionment are a major part of American culture and public policy, said Taylor Dotson, a professor of social sciences at the New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology. Usually, politicians and the public see a social problem and decide technology will solve it; then, they discover that the solution comes with a whole new set of issues — which they often expect future technology to solve. It’s like the old Simpsons joke describing alcohol as the cause of and solution to all of life’s problems. “Oh, yeah. We see technology in a similar way to that,” Dotson said.
And experts said Yang’s platform taps right into the current American zeitgeist — for example, in the way he is simultaneously grappling with the risks artificial intelligence poses to some job markets, while proposing it as a replacement for other human jobs in other areas. But they also said he’s hardly the first political candidate to look to technology for the answers to societal ills. In fact, the Democratic Party has long considered itself the standard-bearer of scientific expertise, adopting an almost utopian vision of technological innovation since at least the Kennedy years, Vinsel said.
Practically, this means that Democrats have made technology a bigger part of their image over the years. In the 1980s, for instance, “Atari Democrats” wore fancy watches and promoted Silicon Valley boosterism as an alternative to courting labor unions, said Marc Aidinoff, a history doctoral candidate at MIT who has also worked as a junior policy advisor to Joe Biden. That trend continued under Barack Obama, said Mary Ebeling, a professor of sociology at Drexel University. Obama’s technology advisors were heavily recruited from Silicon Valley and many returned there after serving in his administration. And now, it’s not just the Democratic Party pushing tech-based solutions, Vinsel said. At this point, the ideas of technological innovation and economic growth are so linked in the American mind that neither party can step away from tech as a common good without seeming like they are anti-growth.
But Democrats’ tendency to seek solutions in technology for social problems has not always served them well. Ebeling is currently working on a project that explores how adopting electronic health records as part of the Affordable Care Act affected both patients and workers in the medical industry. The electronic records were pushed as a solution to deep-seated problems that weren’t really about technology — boosters promised they’d make healthcare cheaper and solve problems with patient access to consistent medical care. Instead, Ebeling is finding that we spent billions effectively favoring an industry that could never produce the returns it promised. “And lo and behold, by 2019, you have Kaiser Health News reporting on how much harm electronic health records have caused. Literally the death of patients because of medical errors,” she said.
When our faith and enthusiasm in the power of technology hits a wall, the collision happens with all the force of a coyote riding a jetpack. Aidinoff, the former political consultant, thinks we’re in a cultural moment when our belief in the promises of technology are meeting a crushing reality. Since the Cold War, Americans have been assured that the internet and communication networks would serve as liberalizing forces, or as tools to draw repressed countries toward democracy. But since the early 2000s, there have been a string of prominent situations where that ideal wasn’t realized. In the wake of the 2016 election, social media networks have been seen as tools of misinformation and political manipulation. But that wasn’t the first time tech failed us. For instance, dozens of internet cafes were opened in Iraq after the U.S. overthrew Saddam Hussein, and the internet was seen as being instrumental in the democratization of the country. But, Aidinoff said, that same internet access later ended up being a recruitment tool for extremist groups such as ISIS. Hilary Clinton once spoke about the potential of the internet as akin to the fall of the Berlin Wall. “But freedom didn’t happen the way it was supposed to,” Aidinoff said.
That’s a problem for a candidate like Yang — and a problem for any party that wants to view technology as a solution to social ills. Someone framing a campaign around technology as a problem solver and powerful force for good is, in some ways, a few years out of date — as anachronistic as Mark Zuckerberg floating a presidential run. In the end, what’s odd about Yang’s platform might be less that it’s calling for cloud seeding or AI social workers — and more that it’s calling for those things at a time when the relationship between Americans and tech could best be described as “it’s complicated.”
13 notes · View notes
Link
The University of Southern California today (Oct. 2) officially opened Iovine and Young Hall, the new permanent home to the one-of-a-kind school endowed by the music entrepreneurs Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young (Dr. Dre).
“It’s so awesome, we’re really very excited about it,” Iovine tells Billboard. He joined with Dre in 2013 to make a $70 million gift to USC in Los Angeles to create the Jimmy Iovine and Andre Young Academy, where students earn a unique bachelor's degree in arts, technology and the business of innovation.
“Every day that passes, in technology and media, it seems more and more necessary that we need young people to fill jobs that are fluent in both languages, technology and the arts,” says Iovine.
With Iovine’s history as a hitmaking engineer and producer (Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Tom Petty, Stevie Nicks, U2) and head of Interscope Records, and Dre’s platinum-plated career as a rapper, producer and record executive (N.W.A.,The Chronic, Eminem, Aftermath Entertainment), the two teamed up in 2006 to create Beats Electronics, marketing Beats By Dre headphones. After the launch of Beats Music, one of the first music streaming services, Apple in May 2014 announced its purchase of Beats for $3 billion.
While at Beats, says Iovine, he and Dre first encountered the difficulty of hiring staff equally conversant in technology and the arts, specifically music. “And I just said, “Why don’t we start a school and we’ll blend these disciplines.”
During early conversations with USC, Iovine met Erica Muhl, an accomplished composer of contemporary classical music who, at that time, was dean of the Roski School of Art and Design. Muhl became the first executive director of the Iovine Young Academy and, last July, its new dean when the academy was named the university’s newest professional school -- only the 20th full-standing school in USC’s 140-year history.
“Erica got it,” recalled Iovine, of Muhl’s understanding and enthusiasm for the cross-disciplinary program. “It was our idea, but she created the school. It’s something that’s really never been done before.”
The newly opened Iovine and Young Hall is a three-floor, 40,000-square-foot manifestation of the vision that its music entrepreneurs had for a school at the intersection of arts and technology.  (The concept of intersection is even incorporated into its design of the building. It is geographically located where the historic northeast-angled streets of the USC campus meet the north-south street grid of modern-day Los Angeles. A grand central stairway sits at the junction point).
The new building’s interior design reflects the academy’s mission “because the school is collaborative,” says Iovine.
Muhl expands on the point: “As you walk through the building,” she says, “you can see open spaces, glass instead of drywall, communal work stations and a basic flow that has students running into each other all the time, which we hope will also encourage spontaneous conversations and, eventually, spontaneous invention and innovation. So there was a great deal of thought behind how the building would work with everything that the students are hoping to be able to develop for their futures -- and for ours, frankly.”
That bold statement is backed up by the range of fields academy students are exploring -- from health (through a newly introduced minor) to fighting homelessness (through a social-impact fashion brand) to confronting climate change (through a carbon offset venture now backed by the business incubator YCombinator).
“What was inherent in in Jimmy and Dre’s early vision was an education that would allow students to be able to look at problems differently,” says Muhl. As the academy has explored new fields, “the growth into these areas was organic,” she says, “both from a stand point of the students’ interest and the fact that both the curriculum and USC, as a major research institution, made that easy.”
Iovine and Young Hall also includes state-of-the-art “maker spaces” with fabrication equipment, 3D printing, a multimedia lab and more -- like a shop class on steroids.
“I don’t think there’s any accident that I was one of the few women in my high school to take auto shop” jokes Muhl. She notes, more seriously, “ I grew up in very hands-on environments and, of course as a composer over the years, I developed a great respect for the idea of making and critiquing. We do believe in a 'make, fail, learn, iterate’ approach.  Our students seem to love that. They really appreciate being able to take knowledge and apply it as quickly as they possibly and, from applying it, they learn things that can never be learned in just [a classroom] investigation.”
The Iovine Young Academy this fall has just admitted its sixth incoming class, or cohort, and its most diverse yet, with 62% students of color. “We we seek to create, with every cohort, a very broad representation of ethnicity, gender, background, viewpoint and also life goals, and how these students see their role in the world,” says Muhl. “We believe that diversity in all its forms is essential to the development of truly great solutions.”
Iovine emphasizes that he and Dre, aside from endowing the academy, remain deeply involved in its development. “You know, now that I'm retired, I’m really involved,” he says.
Iovine stepped down in 2018 from his full-time role at Apple, and continues to serve as a consultant to the company. But when his use of the word “retired” is met with skepticism, he laughs. “Can I tell you something? No one believes me! I get asked every day: 'What are you doing? What are you doing?’”
One thing he is doing is focusing on the next move of the Iovine Young Academy.
“I believe most kids in our country are leaning [toward] multiple disciplines,” says Iovine. “That’s because they grow up with technology and the arts. So this is a natural thing for them. That’s why we did what we did [with USC] and why we’re going to go to [the level of] high school to get the kids younger. We really care about [creating] the high school,” says Iovine.
Muhl notes that the Iovine Young Academy currently welcomes high school students during summer sessions run on campus by Teens Experiencing Technology or TXT, which seeks to empower young black and Latino boys to become tech entrepreneurs. The academy has also partnered with Apple Professional Learning to share its model of education with other educators.
“We also work anywhere we are invited inside the K-12 environment, to bring what we feel we have learned about educating this generation students into not just high school but also middle school and even grade school,” says Muhl. “We do think we have something to offer. So wherever we can be helpful, we're not shy about rolling up our sleeves and getting in to do the work.”
1 note · View note