Tag Archives: world

Social Networking Employs More People Than We Think

by NobleTroyysmvr Posted on October 26, 2014

Mother Jones

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This is a pretty amazing story from Wired reporter Adrian Chen about the army of workers who spend their days monitoring the raw feeds of social networking sites to get rid of “dick pics, thong shots, exotic objects inserted into bodies, hateful taunts, and requests for oral sex” before they show up on America’s morning skim of Facebook and Twitter:

Past the guard, in a large room packed with workers manning PCs on long tables, I meet Michael Baybayan, an enthusiastic 21-year-old with a jaunty pouf of reddish-brown hair….Baybayan is part of a massive labor force that handles “content moderation”—the removal of offensive material—for US social-networking sites. As social media connects more people more intimately than ever before, companies have been confronted with the Grandma Problem: Now that grandparents routinely use services like Facebook to connect with their kids and grandkids, they are potentially exposed to the Internet’s panoply of jerks, racists, creeps, criminals, and bullies. They won’t continue to log on if they find their family photos sandwiched between a gruesome Russian highway accident and a hardcore porn video.

….So companies like Facebook and Twitter rely on an army of workers employed to soak up the worst of humanity in order to protect the rest of us. And there are legions of them—a vast, invisible pool of human labor. Hemanshu Nigam, the former chief security officer of MySpace who now runs online safety consultancy SSP Blue, estimates that the number of content moderators scrubbing the world’s social media sites, mobile apps, and cloud storage services runs to “well over 100,000”—that is, about twice the total head count of Google and nearly 14 times that of Facebook.

Given that content moderators might very well comprise as much as half the total workforce for social media sites, it’s worth pondering just what the long-term psychological toll of this work can be.

We often hear about how the new app economy is largely a jobless economy, but thanks to the general scumminess of human beings maybe that’s less true than we think. Cleaning up the internet for grandma is a grueling, never-ending job that, for now anyway, can only be done by other, less scummy, human beings. Lots of them.

It’s true that the “basic moderation” jobs are largely overseas and don’t pay much, but second-tier moderators are mostly US-based and are paid fairly well. As you’d expect, though, most don’t last long. Burnout comes pretty quickly when you spend all day exposed to a nonstop stream of torture videos, hate speech, YouTube beheadings, and the entire remaining panoply of general human degradation. That’s what the rest of Chen’s story is about. It’s a pretty interesting read.

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Social Networking Employs More People Than We Think

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Amazon Must Be Stopped – Sort Of

by NereidaFregoso Posted on October 25, 2014

Mother Jones

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Enough of this cancer nonsense. Let’s agree and disagree with Matt Yglesias today (not that I’m comparing him with cancer, mind you).

First off, the disagreement. In the current issue of the New Republic, Franklin Foer pens a righteous rant against Amazon as an evil, marauding monopoly that needs to be crushed. It warmed the cockles of my heart, since Amazon’s almost Luthor-like predatory strategies against startup competitors leave me cold. That’s one reason I choose not to do much business with them. But legally? I may not like the way Amazon went after Diapers.com, but let’s face it: they’re nothing close to a monopolist in that space. Yglesias is right that in most of their business lines they should be left alone. Walmart and Target and Google and a tsunami of aggressive startups will keep them plenty busy.

However, there’s an exception: e-books. Yglesias has no sympathy for big book publishers, and he has a point. These are pretty gigantic companies in their own right, and although I suspect he gives their business practices short shrift in some important ways, there’s not much question they often seem pretty antediluvian. But this goes too far:

It is undeniably true that Amazon has a very large share of the market for e-books. What is not true is that Amazon faces a lack of competition in the digital book market. Barnes & Noble — a company that knows something about books — sells e-books, and does so in partnership with a small outfit called Microsoft. Apple sells e-books and so does Google.

Amazon has a huge share of the e-book market, and pretty much everyone—including Yglesias, I think—believes that Barnes & Noble is only a few steps from the grave. Unsurprisingly, Nook funding is in free fall. Sony has exited the e-book market and Kobo isn’t far behind. Even Apple, as mighty as it is, has only a tiny market share after several years of trying.

In theory, this is a great opportunity for an innovative startup. Startup costs are modest since there’s no physical inventory to worry about. Publishers are eager for new entrants. Maybe a smart startup could appeal to consumers with a great new e-reader concept. Or a better recommendation engine. Who knows? There are loads of possibilities. The problem is that no startup can possibly compete with a huge incumbent that’s willing to sell e-books at a loss. There’s no VC on the planet willing to fund a trench war like that.

So Amazon really does have a monopoly position in this market that it sustains via predatory pricing and heavy-handed business practices—against publishers both big and small—that might make John D. Rockefeller blush. Tim Lee pinpoints a big part of the problem:

I mostly agree with my colleague Matt Yglesias’s argument that Amazon is doing the world a favor by crushing book publishers. But there’s at least one way US law gives Amazon excessive power, to the detriment of publishers, authors, and the reading public: ill-conceived copyright regulations lock consumers into Kindle’s book platform, making it hard for new e-book platforms to gain traction.

….In 1998 music publishers got Congress to pass the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which made it a federal crime to unscramble encrypted content without the permission of copyright holders.

….While the law was passed at the behest of content creators, it also gave a lot of power to platform owners. If you buy a movie on iTunes, you’re effectively forced to continue buying Apple devices if you want to keep watching the movie. Tools to transfer copy-protected movies you’ve purchased from iTunes onto another platform exist, but they’re illegal and, accordingly, not very user-friendly.

Amazon has taken advantage of the DMCA too. Kindle books come copy-protected so that only Amazon-approved software can read it without breaking the law. Of course, software to convert it to other formats exists, but it’s illegal and accordingly isn’t very convenient or user-friendly.

And that creates a huge barrier to entry.

Aside from my general distaste for Amazon, I happen to think the Kindle app is kind of sucky. The Nook app is better, so I buy my e-books via Barnes & Noble. But the Nook app has its own problems, and you may prefer Kindle. That’s great! Competition! But I’m keenly aware that B&N is likely on its last legs, and then what? Amazon will have even less incentive to improve its reader, especially on less popular platforms.

I like competition. And it can’t be emphasized too much that the DRM issue is driven heavily by publishers, not just by Amazon. Nor is there a simple solution. Arguments of the techno-utopian “information wants to be free” crowd aside, there are pretty self-evident reasons why authors and publishers don’t want their books to be instantly available for free within a week of being published.

Nonetheless, this is a problem that begs for a solution. Partly it’s driven by DMCA restrictions. Partly it’s driven by those antediluvian publishers. And partly it’s driven by Amazon’s genuine monopoly position in the e-book market, which stifles innovation and promises to get even worse in the future.

So sure, leave Amazon alone in most of its business lines. But in e-books? Nope. They’re a monopoly in every sense of the word, and they use predatory practices to stay that way. They may offer cheap books, but in the long run it’s vibrant competition that truly benefits consumers. Regulating Amazon would hardly solve all our e-book problems—far from it—but it would be a start.

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Amazon Must Be Stopped – Sort Of

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Environmentalists Don’t Like Europe’s New Climate Plan. Can Obama Do Better?

by Rosemary226 Posted on October 24, 2014

Mother Jones

Environmental groups are warning that a new European agreement to slash greenhouse gas emissions by 40 percent by 2030 sets the bar far too low.

The pact—which was reached early Friday in Brussels—makes the European Union the first major bloc of countries to commit to emissions targets ahead of next year’s crucial climate change talks in Paris. At the Paris meeting, world leaders will attempt to hammer out a global agreement that will keep warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

The Guardian reports that in addition to their commitment to cut greenhouse emissions by 40 percent, European leaders also agreed to increase the portion of the region’s energy that comes renewable sources to 27 percent by 2030. That provision is legally binding for the EU as a whole, but not on a national level, potentially opening the door to disagreements about how to get there. The third notable part of the pact is a plan to increase energy efficiency by 27 percent, but that target is not legally binding.

Oxfam—the global development NGO—slammed the deal as “insufficient,” saying the targets are too low and not enforceable enough. The group’s Deputy Director of Advocacy and Campaigns, Natalia Alonso, said in a statement: “Today’s deal must set the floor not the ceiling of European action, and they must arrive in Paris with a more serious offer.” Oxfam called for a much for aggressive policy: 55 percent cuts in emissions.

Greenpeace also criticized the deal, saying the EU leaders pulled the “handbrake on clean energy.”

“These targets are too low, slowing down efforts to boost renewable energy and keeping Europe hooked on polluting and expensive fuel,” the group said in a statement.

Greenpeace EU managing director Mahi Sideridou added, “The global fight against climate change needs radical shock treatment, but what the EU is offering is at best a whiff of smelling salts.”

Nevertheless, European leaders hailed the deal as a major breakthrough. “This package is very good news for our fight against climate change,” said Jose Manuel Barroso, the European Commission president.

Angela Merkel, the German chancellor, said the pact “will ensure that Europe will be an important player, will be an important party, in future binding commitments of an international climate agreement.”

World Resources Institute, a leading climate policy research group, struck a more conciliatory tone than other environmental groups, while also calling for more aggressive targets. “Despite facing a dismal recession and difficult internal debate, European leaders demonstrated their resolve by staying the course,” said the institute’s director of climate and energy programs, Jennifer Morgan, in a statement. “At the same time, it is clear that all of the targets could have been—and should have been—more ambitious.”

The deal raises the stakes for other countries to get serious about climate commitments ahead of Paris. According to the Guardian, it contains a clause that would trigger a review of the new targets—potentially torpedoing today’s agreement—if other countries don’t come to the table with comparable proposals next year.

It remains unclear precisely what the US government will seek at next year’s negotiations. Early indications suggest the Obama administration is considering a plan that would require countries to limit emissions according to a specific timetable but wouldn’t dictate to individual countries how deep those cuts would be.

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Environmentalists Don’t Like Europe’s New Climate Plan. Can Obama Do Better?

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China’s coal use is actually dropping for the first time this century

by RoseCableflsy Posted on October 22, 2014

China’s coal use is actually dropping for the first time this century

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22 Oct 2014 4:27 PM

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We told you last week that the Chinese people are concerned about pollution — according to Pew, they care about it more than we Americans do. And their leaders have been saying, somewhat vaguely, that the country is going to take action and do something about it.

Now, an analysis by Greenpeace suggests that China’s coal use may actually be falling — for the first time this century.

Any kind of decrease in China’s use of coal is a big deal. In large part because of coal, the country’s CO2 emissions have grown rapidly since the beginning of the last decade. In 2007, China surpassed the U.S. to become the world’s biggest emitter. In fact, over the last 15 years, China’s emissions were in large part responsible for the increase in emissions globally. So today’s news is a nice surprise.

Greenpeace’s Lauri Myllyvirta writes:

The data suggests the world’s largest economy is finally starting to radically slow down its emission growth, and it comes ahead of key talks next year on a new global climate and energy deal.

The latest 3rd quarter data reinforces a trend towards falling coal use which started in the second quarter of 2014 and suggests China’s annual coal use may end up down on the previous year.

Significantly the latest data showed that even as power consumption grew by 4% (based on government data) coal demand for power generation actually fell by 1%.

Myllyvirta does note that these data are volatile. And China has plans to bring more than 60 coal-to-gas plants online, which, according to a separate Greenpeace analysis, would spew a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.

Still, China’s economy isn’t shrinking, and neither is its energy consumption. So this data showing that coal use is declining is a hopeful reminder that a growing China does not have to come hand-in-hand with growing emissions.

That should be happy news for climate hawks in the U.S. — particularly those seeking to block coal exports from North America’s west coast to Asia.

But, it’s a win-some, lose-some kind of news day: The U.S. Energy Information Administration just released data today showing that our energy-related emissions grew by 2.5 percent last year — that’s a fairly significant increase. And U.S. power plants upped their use of coal by 4.8 percent. Ironically, you can blame increased demand for heating during the polar vortex — which was itself likely the result of climate change — for the uptick in our emissions.

Source:
China’s coal use actually falling now (for the first time this century)

, Greenpeace.

China’s coal use falls for first time this century, analysis suggests

, The Guardian.

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How the World Series Might Just Help the GOP Win the Senate

by KishaAnsell Posted on October 21, 2014

Mother Jones

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Kansas City sports fans aren’t used to celebrating. The town’s NFL team, the Chiefs, hasn’t won a playoff game since 1994. The Royals, the other major sports franchise in town, hadn’t made a playoff appearance since 1985. But local baseball fans are experiencing a rare bit of jubilation this year. Not only did the Royals sneak into the playoffs as a wild card, they won the AL pennant last week and are hosting the San Francisco Giants in game one of the World Series Tuesday night.

That’s an exciting development for any millennial-aged sports fan from Kansas City who has lived a full life without post-season baseball. It’s also welcome news for a pair of Republican politicians from Kansas, Gov. Sam Brownback and Sen. Pat Roberts, both of whom are battling their way through tight reelection bids: Research has shown that important wins by local sports teams around election season can boost an incumbent’s performance.

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Post by Governor Sam Brownback.

A 2010 study by researchers from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles and Stanford University’s business school looked at presidential, gubernatorial, and senate elections between 1964 and 2008, and overlaid their outcomes with results from college football games. When the local team won within two weeks of the election, the incumbent on the ballot received 1.05 to 1.47 percent more of the vote on Election Day.

But not all sports fandom is created equally, with certain victories carrying extra weight. When one of the teams that the researchers termed “locally important” won ahead of an election, they found that it could boost the incumbent’s vote share by as much as 2.42 percent—a large enough margin to swing any close contest. “We find clear evidence that the successes and failures of the local college football team before Election Day significantly influence the electoral prospects of the incumbent party,” the researchers wrote, “suggesting that voters reward and punish incumbents for changes in their well-being unrelated to government performance.”

The researchers attributed these results to an improvement in overall happiness among voters around the election, boosting a willingness to support the political status quo when they’re feeling content about other parts of their lives. The recent success of the long-struggling Royals reaching the championship round would certainly make the cut as a now important team. “These are different times in Kansas City,” declares the Boston Globe. “Passengers arriving at Kansas City International Airport on Monday were greeted with stacks of blue and white balloons with yellow crowns on top.”

Though the Royals are actually from Kansas City, Missouri, they’ve got plenty of boosters just across the border in the Sunflower State. About 20 percent of Kansas’ population resides in Johnson County, the ring of suburbs outside Kansas City and one of the pivotal electoral zones that could decide whether Brownback and Roberts get to keep their jobs next year.

Brownback, who won by 30 points four years ago, has struggled in polls against his Democratic opponent all year as voters have turned against him over his giant tax cuts and efforts to purify the state GOP. And questions about Roberts’ residency hurt his image enough that independent Greg Orman has run about even with Roberts since the Democratic candidate dropped out of the race. Both races have tightened as Election Day approaches, so don’t be surprised if Roberts and Brownback strut around town in royal blue until November 4.

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How the World Series Might Just Help the GOP Win the Senate

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This could be the hottest year on record, again

by LilySSHLikup Posted on October 21, 2014

This could be the hottest year on record, again

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21 Oct 2014 3:06 PM

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Hold onto your hats. Or parasols. It’s getting warmer.

The land and sea temperatures are in for last month, and it was the hottest September in 135 years of record keeping by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. May, June, and August also set records.

That means 2014 has tied 1998 for the warmest first nine months on record — and it will likely surpass 2010 for warmest year on record. In fact, there’s been a lot of record breaking these last few years. The AP’s Seth Borenstein reports:

If 2014 breaks the record for hottest year, that also should sound familiar: 1995, 1997, 1998, 2005 and 2010 all broke NOAA records for the hottest years since records started being kept in 1880.

“This is one of many indicators that climate change has not stopped and that it continues to be one of the most important issues facing humanity,” said University of Illinois climate scientist Donald Wuebbles.

Some people, mostly non-scientists, have been claiming that the world has not warmed in 18 years, but “no one’s told the globe that,” [NOAA climate scientist Jessica] Blunden said. She said NOAA records show no pause in warming.

In North America, temperatures were all over the map in the first nine months of this year. In the contiguous U.S., it was only 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit over the 20th century average. The West, however, was much warmer; California was a record-breaking 4.1 degrees above average.

So if your neighbor, or uncle, or hairdresser, or senatorial candidate doubts that the world is warming — because, hey, it was cold in some states this year, it even snowed! — here’s a chart with the latest data you can direct him or her to:

Temperature anomalies (or variations from average) for the first nine months of each of the last 135 years.

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Dot Earth Blog: Is There Room for Agreement on the Merits and Limts of Efficient Lighting

by Myrna Posted on October 21, 2014

Seeking constructive dialogue on the merits and limits of clean, efficient lighting. See original article here:  Dot Earth Blog: Is There Room for Agreement on the Merits and Limts of Efficient Lighting ; ; ;

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Dot Earth Blog: Is There Room for Agreement on the Merits and Limts of Efficient Lighting

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With Training Program, Central Park Conservancy Spreads Its Wealth

by Myrna Posted on October 19, 2014

The group’s Five Borough Crew program targets fields and lawns in parks that need restoration work the most. Original link:   With Training Program, Central Park Conservancy Spreads Its Wealth ; ; ;

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With Training Program, Central Park Conservancy Spreads Its Wealth

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The Anthropocene is here, whether geologists make it official or not

by Brittan6935 Posted on October 18, 2014

Age of Us

The Anthropocene is here, whether geologists make it official or not

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18 Oct 2014 7:00 AM

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Humans rule the world, for worse or for worse. This week, a 30-strong team of geologists, ecologists, and climate scientists from around the globe are meeting in Berlin to discuss whether we’ve entered into a new geologic “epoch of humans.” Their question, in Greek-inspired sciencese (scienglish? scienceGreek?): Is it time to declare the Holocene officially over and the Anthropocene underway?

Our question, in plain English: Does it even matter what these highbrows decide? The sixth mass extinction, a remarkable build-up of atmospheric carbon dioxide, rapid sea-level rise, and the halving of the world’s wildlife populations — all human-caused — prove that the Anthropocene is upon us.

Popular discourse and scientists of every stripe aren’t waiting around for a royal decree from the egghead society to declare the Age of People a real phenomenon. CBS News reports that more than 500 scientific studies published this year alone have referred to the current time period as the Anthropocene. Grist has published dozens of stories about the Anthropocene concept, dating back to this 2008 think piece.

The big bureaucratic body that makes decisions about geologic time periods — the International Commission on Stratigraphy — responded to the overwhelming adoption of a term they’ve not formally approved by setting up this Anthropocene Working Group and giving it until 2016 to hash out a proposal.

So who’s in this little club? Twenty-nine men and one woman, which prompted this from the Twittersphere:

What these mostly white men are debating is whether humanity is leaving an impact on the earth that will affect the geologic record as much as other events that have marked new chapters in the planet’s history. If the ICS ultimately approves such an amendment to the geologic time scale, then somewhere a golden spike will be driven into a particular exposed rock layer to mark the epochal transformation.

Making it all official would be cool, but we don’t need their gilded nail to identify where humans took over the globe. That point in time will be distinguished by a layer of substances practically nonexistent in the pre-industrial geologic record: plastic particles, plutonium and other radioactive isotopes, as well as polyaromatic hydrocarbons and lead released by fossil fuel burning.

It would be a downer note to leave the story on that note. Instead, a poignant response to ecological-economic thinker Kate Raworth’s “Manthropocene” tweet:

Source:
Anthropocene: is this the new epoch of humans?

, The Guardian.

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The Anthropocene is here, whether geologists make it official or not

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Here’s Obama’s latest strategy for a global climate deal

by PearlXHKPliajoj Posted on October 16, 2014

Here’s Obama’s latest strategy for a global climate deal

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16 Oct 2014 3:29 PM

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Obama’s chief climate negotiator, Todd Stern, has outlined the kind of global deal he might press for at the big U.N. climate conference in Paris in December 2015 — a summit negotiators have pinned their hopes on for finally hammering out a deal to reduce emissions. And while a plan is better than no plan, this one’s not as strong as many climate hawks would hope.

The plan Stern outlined during a speech at Yale earlier this week — a plan first suggested by New Zealand — would legally require countries to pledge to cut their greenhouse gas emissions to hit a 2025 goal. It would also legally require countries to periodically report to the international community how much progress they’ve made toward their goal. But it would not tell countries what their goal should be, nor would it legally require them to actually hit it. In August, Obama administration officials described this type of plan to The New York Times as a way to “name and shame” the world’s biggest emitters.

The danger of this kind of approach is that big-time polluters might commit to a target at the U.N., but then, faced with the realities of their own domestic politics, do little to reach it. “Shame” might not be enough of a deterrent for those nations struggling to keep their word.

So: Imagine telling your friends you’ll cut back on eating ice cream, detailing for them your plan to cut your ice cream consumption — and then, a week later, telling your friends, around a mouthful of ice cream, that you may not be able to keep your pledge. Your decision not to stick to your plan, and to face your friends’ shaming, would be informed by how much you care about your friends’ opinions, and how addicted you are to ice cream — just as big emitters’ decisions to hit their targets would dependon how much they care about international opinion and their ability to shift off of fossil fuels.

Stern acknowledged that this sort of nonbinding agreement will have some detractors. But there are benefits too! he said. For one, it would prevent big polluters from opting out, as happened with the 1997 Kyoto Protocol. Stern:

First, many countries, including major ones, won’t be willing to make their mitigation commitment legally binding at the international level, and once some balk, the premise of a legal form applicable to all unravels. Second, many countries, if forced to put forward a legally binding commitment, might low-ball that commitment out of anxiety about what legally binding might mean in this context. Third, the accountability provisions that are legally binding in the New Zealand approach do most of what is needed in any event — allowing others to understand clearly what the mitigation commitment is and to track whether it is being implemented.

Another reason the U.S. would be interested in avoiding a legally binding climate agreement is that such an agreement would likely have to be ratified by a two-thirds majority in our Senate. And that just won’t happen. Even if Democrats retain control of the Senate in next month’s midterms, there would still be too many climate change–denying conservatives who would get in the way of a treaty. As Grist’s Ben Adler wrote in August:

In theory, this means that 34 senators, representing as little as 7.5 percent of the American public if they come from the least populous states, can block any global action on climate change. The U.S. is the world’s biggest economy, and many other big nations won’t join an agreement if we won’t.

For the world to have any hope of reaching an agreement on greenhouse gas emissions, Obama’s negotiators will have to circumvent congressional Republicans. Stern’s agreement will have to be carefully constructed to dodge the Senate.

The approach is similar to the one Obama has taken domestically, using executive action via the EPA, instead of pushing legislation, which could make bigger changes to environmental policy but would inevitably die in today’s Congress. These executive actions — such as efforts to control power plant emissions and vehicle emissions — will also give the U.S. more authority in upcoming negotiations, Stern said.

Negotiators will be working on this plan further at the U.N. climate summit in Lima, Peru, this December, and hope to have the new agreement hammered out ahead of the 2015 Paris summit. Many are looking to that summit in 2015 as the last chance to reach the no-more-than-2-degrees-Celsius-of-warming target that scientists have put forward to avoid some of the really awful effects of climate change — and that, despite 20 years of climate negotiations, is still gradually slipping away.

Source:
Obama’s Climate Diplomat Explains What a Paris Emissions Deal Should Look Like

, National Journal.

U.S. considers climate change plan that would mandate emission cuts

, Los Angeles Times.

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