Art: “Inner Beauty” can mean different things #stingray
Posted By RichC on July 13, 2019
Tropical Storm Barry expected to make landfall as a Hurricane
Posted By RichC on July 13, 2019
As of Friday night 7/12/2019, Barry is a slow moving tropical storm baring down on the US Gulf Coast. According to projections, the wind is not the primary concern, although it is expected to be at hurricane strength as it makes landfall. The bigger problem is the already high "near record" Mississippi River height with an expected storm surge of up to 9 feet and drenching rains adding more water. If I were anywhere near Barry’s landfall, I’d be seeking somewhere dryer to wait out the storm. It is going to be a very wet weekend from Texas to the Florida panhandle.
Tech Friday: The challenges of policing speech on social media
Posted By RichC on July 12, 2019
There are challenges from users and governments facing several of the companies who make money advertising to the millions of eyeballs and the marketing of users personal data. We all want “free services,” but most people dislike the collection and selling of their personal data or having to sift through advertising … especially when it emulates a news or personal feed. BUT … besides the privacy issues associated with high profile social media sites like Facebook and Google, there is the recent mandate that they step-up their game when it comes to what users share on their platforms. Google’s YouTube component has been hammered with what shows up “next” in “kids” feeds to the point the company has moved to create a “playground” if you will of kids safe videos. The plan is that questionable content would not show up on a YouTube stream (good luck with that considering the billions of videos with embedded content – the algorithms better be good). This entire screening has taken on “policing speech” duties for supposedly non-biased employees who write the code to automatically screen and for “people” to make judgmental decisions.
Since I’m primarily only on Twitter, I’ve noticed the pro-active efforts that might be succeeding, but also has created a outrage when screeners without notice or any
arbitration have locked out users (their prerogative I suppose?). To understand the challenge would be to know and notice some of the high profile users who have lost their privileges. It has been heavily skewed towards provocative conservative speech, but for Twitter’s part they claim their evolving rules are protecting people, classes of people and groups from “hateful conduct” (a fairly broad and encompassing term).
Twitter’s recent update focused on “dehumanizing speech around religion.”
“After months of conversations and feedback from the public, external experts and our own teams, we’re expanding our rules against hateful conduct to include language that dehumanizes others on the basis of religion,” the company wrote on its Twitter Safety blog.
Twitter is a dead bird at the moment …
Posted By RichC on July 11, 2019
I tend to use Twitter $TWTR as my daily newsfeed and choice of social media comment platform, but on Thursday afternoon this week, it is not working. For me, it is no big deal, but for reporters and politicians, it is the way they communicate nowadays. It will be interesting to hear what caused the outage.
Beautiful early morning summer driving in Ohio
Posted By RichC on July 11, 2019
For decades I drove the Cincinnati to Cleveland/Akron/Warren Ohio drive at 4AM each week, but in recent years business has changed and the drive is no longer a regular thing. Part of me misses that early morning trip, but the other part that remembers snowstorms, construction and traffic delays does not. This past week I did enjoy the morning sunrise on my bug spattered windshield. 🙂
Children are online A LOT, so how do we protect them?
Posted By RichC on July 10, 2019
Oh for the good ol’ days when we read cereal boxes in the morning and just wanted the trinket inside or collected box tops while learning “delayed gratification.”
Kids online: ”81% of the world’s children and 92% of US children now have an online presence before they turn 2. In the US, 95% of teens report having (or having access to) a smartphone … and 45% of those teens are online on a near-constant basis.”
How to Protect Our Kids’ Data and Privacy
YOUTUBE IS CURRENTLY under investigation by the Federal Trade Commission following complaints that the platform improperly collected data from young users. It’s unclear how much data this might be, but there’s reason to believe it could be a lot. For many kids, YouTube has replaced television; depending on how parents use online platforms, children could begin to amass data even before birth.
Catch up post after our 2019 Fourth of July Family weekend
Posted By RichC on July 9, 2019
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Congratulations – 130 yrs for the Wall Street Journal newspaper
Posted By RichC on July 8, 2019
As a newspaper oriented guy from years ago, I have a soft spot for ink on paper and digital journalism (started as local newspaper photog when in high school and worked for Knight Ridder in the 1980s). Even my eventual career path followed from what I learned working for newspaper companies. But as a subscriber, I have only continued to pay for one newspaper subscription over the long term … and that is the Wall Street Journal. Today is the papers 130 anniversary … that’s a long time (click photo on left).
Thankfully for me and avid readers of the paper, they are one of the most successful newspapers. They are well respected (37 Pulitzer Prizes) and report the “news” right down the middle when it comes to politics. The editorial side does lean conservative and remains the leading news publication for those who count on business and investment news stories.
Congratulations to all who have contributed, and continue to contribute, to the Wall Street Journal newspaper and there online portal, WSJ.com’s success.
Technology, communication, parenting and The Lord’s Prayer
Posted By RichC on July 7, 2019
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A big thanks to Taylor for planning a Reds-Indians family day
Posted By RichC on July 6, 2019
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Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee
- lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
- digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.