Tuesday, January 8th, 2019
STEPHEN GOLDSMITH & CHRIS BOUSQUET, Professor of the Practice of Government and the director of the Innovations in American Government Program at the Harvard Kennedy School's Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation/ Research Assistant and Writer - citylab
Stephan: Here, I think, is a very good assessment of a trend that I agree is going to transform our lives, as computers and smartphones have done.
An augmented reality view of a city being used as an urban planning tool from MIT Media Lab.
Credit: Ariel Noyman/MIT Media Lab
As today’s cities look for better ways to use the troves of new data at their disposal, augmented reality (AR) offers a new way of bringing this data to life. This technology—which assimilates digital objects and information into the real world via headsets, mobile devices, and other tech tools—has a unique capacity to enliven information and processes via immersive experiences.
AR has captured the public imagination in the form of Pokémon games, Snapchat filters, Minecraft demos, and much more. However, applying this tech to a less sexy task—seamlessly integrating data into everyday experiences—could provide much more concrete value to cities.
In 2016, as a part of its City Science initiative, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab collaborated with the City of Hamburg on a project called Finding Places, using optically-tagged LEGO bricks, simulation algorithms, and augmented reality to model potential locations for refugee accommodations. MIT researchers held dozens of community […]
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Tuesday, January 8th, 2019
Nathan Hurst, - Smithsonian
Stephan: You don't hear much about it but the United States has an almost mind-boggling infrastructure problem. There are major American cities, for instance, still dependent on water systems built in the 19th century. Here is some possible good news about how remediation might be accomplished at a much lower cost than previously anticipated.
Credit: sponner/iStock
Across the northern United States and Canada, homeowners are checking their snow blowers, stocking firewood and draining outdoor pipes in preparation for cold weather. For municipalities, though, winter-proofing water mains isn’t so easy—the pipes travel long stretches underground, and this time of year, frozen ground and temperature differentials cause fine cracks to develop into full-blown leaks, often with catastrophic results.
You see news articles from time to time about sinkholes and water main breaks, but the problem is actually far more widespread, insidious and impactful than the odd chasm in a city street.
The American Society of Civil Engineers estimates in its 2017 Infrastructure Report Card that 240,000 water main breaks occur yearly in the U.S., with 2 trillion gallons of treated drinking water escaping. This means 14 to 18 percent of water treated each day is lost, enough to serve 15 million homes. And it’s worsening; a 2018 study from Utah State University found that pipe breaks in the U.S. and Canada have gone up 27 percent in […]
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Monday, January 7th, 2019
Stephan: America no longer has a rational fact-based government. Instead, decisions are made on basis of ego, corruption, ideology, and theology. The wellbeing of the people hardly figures, as this report demonstrates.
The economic costs of the government shutdown may already exceed the $5 billion President Donald Trump is demanding for a border wall, according to some analysts’ estimates.
The federal government partially shut down two weeks ago when the Senate failed to pass a spending bill that included the border wall funding, beginning a standoff that has carried into the new year.
Nine out of 15 federal departments, along with dozens of agencies and federal programs, have closed or reduced services. Roughly 800,000 federal employees are affected, either because they have been directed to stay home without pay or because they are working but not receiving paychecks during the shutdown.
Some taxpayers may think this isn’t such a bad thing. The drop in payroll and the decrease in government services would mean less taxpayer money spent, right? Actually, no. The truth is that the ongoing partial government shutdown is costing American taxpayers and the U.S. economy overall billions of dollars.
How Much a Government Shutdown Costs
Referring to a 2013 shutdown that lasted 16 days, Rand Paul, […]
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Monday, January 7th, 2019
Bobby Azarian, - Alternet
Stephan: I have been saying for years that fundamentalism, of whatever denomination, is a form of physiologically-based mental illness expressed in a religious context. Here is the proof.
A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.
Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group.
Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For […]
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Monday, January 7th, 2019
Kiera Butler, Senior Editor - Mother Jones
Stephan: Here is some good news and a case study in the Theorem of Wellbeing. We know what works, that's not the issue. The issue is: as a society do we place wellbeing first?
Alabama pre-school teacher Elise Parker talks to her pre-Kindergarten students at Pintlala Elementary School near Montgomery.
Credit: William Widmer
Alabama state senator Trip Pittman had always sort of questioned whether nursery schools were worth the investment. Pittman, a conservative Republican, figured the kinds of things you’re supposed to learn before kindergarten—washing your hands, tying your shoes, minding your manners—might best be taught by parents and grandparents at home. Conservatives often argue that kids who attend preschool fare no better than those who don’t. So in 2013, when a proposal came before the Legislature to expand a state preschool program for four-year-olds, Pittman was on the fence.
The folks from the Alabama School Readiness Alliance, a group backing the proposal, were persistent, though. They were sure they could win the senator over if only he would come see the program in action, and so one day he did. Pittman visited a preschool in Prichard, a small, long-struggling city near Mobile, and came away captivated. “I watched the interaction between the teachers and the students,” […]
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