Friday, June 23, 2017
Flying Cars
From Wired -
Can’t Decide What Kind of Flying Car to Get? Try These 10
By Jack Stewart
COMMUTERS OF THE world, rejoice. The long-promised age of the flying car is finally here—more or less. Big-name companies around the world are showing honest to goodness flying machines in action, and promising to make them available to the public soon. This sudden shift can be pinned on recent tech advances: Better motors, batteries, and lightweight materials mean designers’ dreams can now be built. The flexibility that comes with compact electric motors gives engineers almost total free reign, and man have they taken advantage.
https://www.wired.com/2017/06/flying-car-concepts-prototypes?mbid=nl_62217_p10&CNDID=
Can’t Decide What Kind of Flying Car to Get? Try These 10
By Jack Stewart
COMMUTERS OF THE world, rejoice. The long-promised age of the flying car is finally here—more or less. Big-name companies around the world are showing honest to goodness flying machines in action, and promising to make them available to the public soon. This sudden shift can be pinned on recent tech advances: Better motors, batteries, and lightweight materials mean designers’ dreams can now be built. The flexibility that comes with compact electric motors gives engineers almost total free reign, and man have they taken advantage.
https://www.wired.com/2017/06/flying-car-concepts-prototypes?mbid=nl_62217_p10&CNDID=
Wednesday, June 21, 2017
Right to Bear Arms? Not Us.
An excerpt from the Atlantic -
Do African Americans Have a Right to Bear Arms?
And if so, why won’t the justice system or the NRA stand up for it?
By DAVID A. GRAHAM
Philando Castile’s shooting death, at the hands of a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, one year ago, was numbingly similar to a string of other killings of black men by police. But Castile’s shooting was notably different in one crucial respect: Castile was licensed to carry a gun. He carefully informed Officer Jeronimo Yanez—exceeding his legal requirements under Minnesota law, though following the advice some gun-rights advocates offer for concealed carriers when stopped by police. And yet Yanez almost instantly shot him. That aspect made the case a central focus not just for Black Lives Matter activists, but for some gun owners, too.
As I wrote at the time, Castile’s killing raised the question of whether African Americans truly have a right to bear arms in practice. Even setting aside the questionable grounds under which Yanez had pulled Castile over (a malfunctioning taillight is a classic pretextual stop police use to question black drivers), Castile had done everything right.
There’s a long history of African Americans attempting to arm themselves to defend against state violence. During the post-Civil War period, many blacks armed themselves to protect against white supremacist violence. Southern governments responded by attempting to strip the right to bear arms. A century later, the Black Panthers made a habit of openly carrying guns as a way of displaying to racist police officers in Oakland that African Americans couldn’t be pushed around. In response, the California legislature passed a ban on open carry, and Governor Ronald Reagan signed it into law.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-continued-erosion-of-the-african-american-right-to-bear-arms/531093/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-062117
Do African Americans Have a Right to Bear Arms?
And if so, why won’t the justice system or the NRA stand up for it?
By DAVID A. GRAHAM
Philando Castile’s shooting death, at the hands of a police officer in Falcon Heights, Minnesota, one year ago, was numbingly similar to a string of other killings of black men by police. But Castile’s shooting was notably different in one crucial respect: Castile was licensed to carry a gun. He carefully informed Officer Jeronimo Yanez—exceeding his legal requirements under Minnesota law, though following the advice some gun-rights advocates offer for concealed carriers when stopped by police. And yet Yanez almost instantly shot him. That aspect made the case a central focus not just for Black Lives Matter activists, but for some gun owners, too.
As I wrote at the time, Castile’s killing raised the question of whether African Americans truly have a right to bear arms in practice. Even setting aside the questionable grounds under which Yanez had pulled Castile over (a malfunctioning taillight is a classic pretextual stop police use to question black drivers), Castile had done everything right.
There’s a long history of African Americans attempting to arm themselves to defend against state violence. During the post-Civil War period, many blacks armed themselves to protect against white supremacist violence. Southern governments responded by attempting to strip the right to bear arms. A century later, the Black Panthers made a habit of openly carrying guns as a way of displaying to racist police officers in Oakland that African Americans couldn’t be pushed around. In response, the California legislature passed a ban on open carry, and Governor Ronald Reagan signed it into law.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/06/the-continued-erosion-of-the-african-american-right-to-bear-arms/531093/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-062117
Shocking Behavior or Not?
An excerpt from the Root -
Video of a White Woman Demanding a White Doctor Shocked Everyone ... Except Black Doctors
By Michael Harriot
A viral video of a woman at a Canadian clinic demanding to see a white doctor has the internet buzzing about her demands. While many are shocked by the woman’s insistence that she will allow only a white doctor to treat her son, there is one group of people who are not shocked by the video, or by the woman’s brazen display of racism:
Black doctors.
While the internet may be clutching its pearls, according to numerous studies and anecdotal examples, nonwhite doctors and nurses see this all the time. The Root spoke with 12 black medical professionals who all say they have encountered similar situations, some routinely.
http://www.theroot.com/video-of-a-white-woman-demanding-a-white-doctor-shocked-1796299094
Video of a White Woman Demanding a White Doctor Shocked Everyone ... Except Black Doctors
By Michael Harriot
A viral video of a woman at a Canadian clinic demanding to see a white doctor has the internet buzzing about her demands. While many are shocked by the woman’s insistence that she will allow only a white doctor to treat her son, there is one group of people who are not shocked by the video, or by the woman’s brazen display of racism:
Black doctors.
While the internet may be clutching its pearls, according to numerous studies and anecdotal examples, nonwhite doctors and nurses see this all the time. The Root spoke with 12 black medical professionals who all say they have encountered similar situations, some routinely.
http://www.theroot.com/video-of-a-white-woman-demanding-a-white-doctor-shocked-1796299094
Live in CA and Need a Job?
An excerpt from the NY Times -
California Today
By MIKE MCPHATE
Need a job?
California’s state government has at least 3,800 openings it wants to fill.
In a push to do so, the state human resources agency recently introduced a revamped jobs website, branded under the name CalCareers.
The site lets job seekers search using filters such as location and job category.
There are currently openings for lawyers, lifeguards, nurses, plumbers, music therapists and Jewish chaplains.
The postings, helpfully, give expected salary ranges. The top listed minimum salary? About $274,000 a year to be a chief dentist in California’s correctional system.
If that’s a little beyond your expertise, don’t worry. According to the website, there are plenty of openings that require neither a degree nor experience.
https://jobs.ca.gov
http://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/2017/06/21/california-today?nlid=38867499
California Today
By MIKE MCPHATE
Need a job?
California’s state government has at least 3,800 openings it wants to fill.
In a push to do so, the state human resources agency recently introduced a revamped jobs website, branded under the name CalCareers.
The site lets job seekers search using filters such as location and job category.
There are currently openings for lawyers, lifeguards, nurses, plumbers, music therapists and Jewish chaplains.
The postings, helpfully, give expected salary ranges. The top listed minimum salary? About $274,000 a year to be a chief dentist in California’s correctional system.
If that’s a little beyond your expertise, don’t worry. According to the website, there are plenty of openings that require neither a degree nor experience.
https://jobs.ca.gov
http://www.nytimes.com/newsletters/2017/06/21/california-today?nlid=38867499
Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Side Effects of Too Much Power?
An excerpt from the Atlantic -
Power Causes Brain Damage
Over time, leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise.
By JERRY USEEM
If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger believe that he’s sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage?
When various lawmakers lit into John Stumpf at a congressional hearing last fall, each seemed to find a fresh way to flay the now-former CEO of Wells Fargo for failing to stop some 5,000 employees from setting up phony accounts for customers. But it was Stumpf’s performance that stood out. Here was a man who had risen to the top of the world’s most valuable bank, yet he seemed utterly unable to read a room. Although he apologized, he didn’t appear chastened or remorseful. Nor did he seem defiant or smug or even insincere. He looked disoriented, like a jet-lagged space traveler just arrived from Planet Stumpf, where deference to him is a natural law and 5,000 a commendably small number. Even the most direct barbs—“You have got to be kidding me” (Sean Duffy of Wisconsin); “I can’t believe some of what I’m hearing here” (Gregory Meeks of New York)—failed to shake him awake.
The historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.” But that’s not far from where Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, ended up after years of lab and field experiments. Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury—becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-061917
Power Causes Brain Damage
Over time, leaders lose mental capacities—most notably for reading other people—that were essential to their rise.
By JERRY USEEM
If power were a prescription drug, it would come with a long list of known side effects. It can intoxicate. It can corrupt. It can even make Henry Kissinger believe that he’s sexually magnetic. But can it cause brain damage?
When various lawmakers lit into John Stumpf at a congressional hearing last fall, each seemed to find a fresh way to flay the now-former CEO of Wells Fargo for failing to stop some 5,000 employees from setting up phony accounts for customers. But it was Stumpf’s performance that stood out. Here was a man who had risen to the top of the world’s most valuable bank, yet he seemed utterly unable to read a room. Although he apologized, he didn’t appear chastened or remorseful. Nor did he seem defiant or smug or even insincere. He looked disoriented, like a jet-lagged space traveler just arrived from Planet Stumpf, where deference to him is a natural law and 5,000 a commendably small number. Even the most direct barbs—“You have got to be kidding me” (Sean Duffy of Wisconsin); “I can’t believe some of what I’m hearing here” (Gregory Meeks of New York)—failed to shake him awake.
The historian Henry Adams was being metaphorical, not medical, when he described power as “a sort of tumor that ends by killing the victim’s sympathies.” But that’s not far from where Dacher Keltner, a psychology professor at UC Berkeley, ended up after years of lab and field experiments. Subjects under the influence of power, he found in studies spanning two decades, acted as if they had suffered a traumatic brain injury—becoming more impulsive, less risk-aware, and, crucially, less adept at seeing things from other people’s point of view.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/07/power-causes-brain-damage/528711/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-061917
How to Fight Superbugs
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/530826/how-to-fight-superbugs/?utm_source=nl-atlantic-daily-061917
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