Wall Street Journal Video:
http://www.wsj.com/video/disney-cuts-ties-to-youtube-superstar-pewdiepie/AF3B6886-3245-4C48-AD5D-098F1E1ABEA9.html
PewDiePie's Response Video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lwk1DogcPmU
This really shows how the News today became an industry, not a service. The news (even well reputed news sources) are extremely biased to the extent of speaking falsehood. Have you ever clicked a "click-bait" looking title? After reading the actual content, the reader is almost always disappointed or has a "meh' response as the title is exaggerated compared to the content itself. Wall Street Journal's video and articles (along with other news sources) took so many things from Pewdiepie's video out of context, I actually thought they were straight-up trolling the viewers. I realized eventually that these news sources new that 99% of the viewers would simply read the article, take it as truth, and move on, never taking time to watch pewdiepie's videos to check the truth. News sources today have taken advantage of that and literally writes whatever they want to. The goal isn't to inform the reader or present factual truth. Most new sources today has a goal to get the most click/views, and thus creates the most controversial news (taking things out of context) to get more views on their webpage. I personally, would recommend the Philip de Franco show on youtube as a reliabe and non-biased news source.
2017년 6월 13일 화요일
2017년 6월 6일 화요일
Kenya election: Kenyatta blames primaries chaos on turnout (with Response)
Kenya election: Kenyatta blames primaries chaos on turnout
Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta has blamed huge voter turnout for the chaos at his party's primaries on Friday, which led to them being cancelled.
In many areas across the country, there were delays, with some skirmishes also reported as contestants accused their opponents of rigging.
Mr Kenyatta admitted to reporters that not enough election materials had been provided.
The primaries are in preparation for August's national poll.
The election will take place nearly a decade after disputed election results fuelled violence that left more than 1,000 dead and 500,000 displaced.
However elections in 2013 passed off relatively peacefully.
Mr Kenyatta said his Jubilee Party had underestimated the number of people who would turn out for the nominations.
"Let us avoid pointing fingers," he said in a series of tweets.
@JUBILEEPARTYK
@JUBILEEPARTYK
@JUBILEEPARTYK
Mr Kenyatta called on voters and contestants to be patient as the party prepared to repeat the vote in the affected areas.
The Jubilee party was holding primaries in 21 out of the 47 counties on Friday, most of them party strongholds.
Nominations in the capital Nairobi had already been pushed back to Monday. The remaining counties will nominate their candidates on Tuesday.
Parties must hold their primaries by Wednesday, the election authorities have said.
Last week, similar polls for the opposition Orange Democratic Movement led by former Prime Minister Raila Odinga witnessed violence, particularly in the western Kenya region.
Mr Kenyatta is seeking a second term in office.
He is being opposed by a coalition of opposition parties known as the National Super Alliance, which is expected to announce its presidential candidate next week.
Cited:
"Kenya Election: Kenyatta Blames Primaries Chaos on Turnout." BBC News. BBC, 22 Apr. 2017. Web. 06 June 2017. <http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-39679089>.
Response:
I think it's great that he isn't blaming opposing sides for the chaos as it will spur more violence. I hope things go peacefully like the last election. This article is from the BBC, isn't biased by the looks of it and is written to update readers on what's happening in the Kenyan Elections this year.
Response:Your Guide to the Main Political Players in Kenya’s Elections
Excited for the results this year- not that it will affect me in any way. Since I'm leaving to college in a couple of months, this elections should mean nothing to me. However, I love Kenya and is interested in how things turn out. By the looks of it, the main figures are actually son of the first president (Jomo Kenyatta), son of the first vice president(Jaramogi Odinga) and others. Even Korea's previous president (President Park) was the daughter of a dictator who ruled Korea for 25 years. Although this is not the case for Kenya necessarily, we can see these figures highlighted as they are descendants of iconic figures. Anyways I hope the election goes well and there is no violence involved throughout the entire process.
Your Guide to the Main Political Players in Kenya’s Elections
Your Guide to the Main Political Players in Kenya’s Elections
by
2017년 3월 7일 화요일
Response: Deforestation in Brazil increased 30% in 12 months, agency says
It's quite ridiculous how many trees people can cut down in such a short amount of time. I also read this other article that talked about how people lost the motivation to preserve the amazon rain forest. It was like a movement for a while and then it kind of stopped. A lot of things can get done once the media gets the world's attention and it goes viral. When that heated viral subject disappears in the news people often forget and move on. I personally like trees and this is really disheartening. As part of my research project this article was a good read. No bias, just good informative article.
Deforestation in Brazil increased 30% in 12 months, agency says
RIO DE JANEIRO – In the 12-month period that ended last August, deforestation in Brazil increased in almost 30 percent.
It is an all-time record that has set off a loud alarm among scientists, environmentalists and everyone who knows that the region is not only the so-called “lung of the planet” but also home to about 2.5 million species of insects, tens of thousands of plants and about 2,000 birds and mammals.
According to the latest report by the National Institute for Space Research (INPE), the Brazilian agency that monitors deforestation, between July 2015 and August 2016 roughly 3,100 square miles went up in smoke mostly to give way to farmland and further cement the country’s position as the world’s top exporter of meat products.
Activists and experts agree that such depredation has been in large part possible to the loosening of the nation’s environmental laws and also to budget cuts that have left vast stretches of rain forest to the mercy of greed.
Cristiane Mazetti, a spokesperson for Greenpeace, said the Forest Code of 2012 brought about a sort of “deforestation amnesty” that contributes to the increase of tree felling by creating a sense of impunity.
She said the issue is hardly getting any government attention and that apathy seems to have taken over.
"We live a political moment in Brazil that puts the environmental issue in second, maybe third,” she told Fox News. “Congress spent a year focused on the impeachment vote of former President Dilma Rousseff and now prioritizes the approval of austerity measures. It has not allowed this issue to advance," she said.
In addition, the allocation of funds for surveillance, monitoring and prevention has been dropping dramatically. In 2015 approximately $22 million were devoted to this end; in 2016 only $7 million were used for this purpose, according to the Environmental Ministry data.
To put an end to what some are calling an epidemic, in 2015 Greenpeace introduced a bill in Congress calling for a “zero deforestation policy.” It was filed along with 1.4 million signatures supporting the initiative.
The bill is currently in the consultation phase, which means the population has until the end of 2017 to issue opinions and recommendations.
Environmentalists hope that the new law will reinstate some of the regulations that they say protected the land. Before 2012, any tree-cutting had to be justified and explained by a number of government agencies. Today, all that is required is a single permit issued by the Ministry of Agriculture in a matter of weeks.
Greenpeace has dubbed Agriculture Minister Blairo Maggi “the largest forest destroyer in Brazil.”
According to Paulo Barreto, a researcher at the Instituto do Homem e Meio Ambiente da Amazônia (Imazon), the steady expansion of the country's farming borders is also being stimulated by an increase in cattle prices.
However, he said Brazil could still benefit from its oversized livestock – the largest in the world – without dilapidating the Amazon rain forest if “the government was vigilant, if it didn't change the rules. But when the [deforestation] threat increases and government weakens protection — that mix leads to this escalating situation," he said.
Large infrastructure projects in the Amazon region, such as the new Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant, in the state of Para, have worsened the problem by “leading to a disorderly urban growth of the site, pollution and even the flooding of various areas," according to the Socio-Environmental Institute (ISA).
No wonder that in the INPE report released recently, Para is at the top of the list, with approximately 1,200 square miles (38 percent of the state) of deforested land in just 12 months.
Environmentalists say the magnitude of the threat demands a serious effort by the government and the world.
"There is also a lack of ambition to combat the problem,” Mazetti said. “Last year, the government set a goal to end illegal deforestation by 2030. But if we [continue to] allow this practice, admittedly illegal, for another 15 years, how can we achieve this goal?" she said.
Work Cited:
Torres, Carolina. "Deforestation in Brazil Increased 30% in 12 Months, Agency Says." Fox News. FOX News Network, 16 Feb. 2017. Web. 07 Mar. 2017. <http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/16/brazil-lost-almost-one-third-its-amazon-rain-forest-in-12-months-agency-says.html>.
Work Cited:
Torres, Carolina. "Deforestation in Brazil Increased 30% in 12 Months, Agency Says." Fox News. FOX News Network, 16 Feb. 2017. Web. 07 Mar. 2017. <http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/02/16/brazil-lost-almost-one-third-its-amazon-rain-forest-in-12-months-agency-says.html>.
2017년 2월 28일 화요일
'Good vibration' hand pumps boost Africa's water security (Response Included)
The simple up-and-down motion of hand pumps could help scientists secure a key water source for 200 million people in Africa.
Growing demand for groundwater is putting pressure on the resource while researchers struggle to accurately estimate the future supply.
But a team from Oxford University says that low-cost mobile sensors attached to pumps could solve the problem.
Their study shows that pump vibrations record the true depth of well water.
While fresh water from Africa's rivers and lakes is hugely important for people, it is dwarfed by the amount of groundwater available, estimated to be 100 times greater than the annual renewable fresh resource.
Groundwater lies in aquifers under the surface of the earth and is often extracted from wells by pumps. In many places these are simple devices, operated by hand.
In 2012 the Oxford research team started a trial in Kenya where hand pumps in 60 villages were fitted with data transmitters.
The idea was they would monitor the motion of the pump and the amount of water extracted on an hourly basis - if the pump wasn't working, a message was sent to a repair company and workers were dispatched to fix the problem.
The innovation cut the average repair time from over a month to less than three days.
Now the scientists have found another way to interpret the data from the accelerometers fitted to the pump handles.
They discovered that when the water is being drawn from a deep aquifer, it produces different vibrations than when the liquid comes from a shallow one.
"It's quite a simple and elegant solution to estimating groundwater and how it varies over time," co-author Dr Rob Hope from Oxford's School of Geography and the Environment told BBC News.
"In East Africa at the moment there's quite a severe drought, in South Sudan, Somalia, Ethiopia and Kenya, and a lot of this might be dealt with earlier with these sorts of systems.
"If you can predict that groundwater levels are going down rapidly, rather than getting to problem and dealing, with it you can predict it much earlier on."
While the accelerometers and mobile data technology in the system is a fairly simple arrangement, the statistical analysis of the information is quite sophisticated.
Researchers took recordings of pumping lasting between 20 seconds and three minutes at different sites in Kenya and Oxford.
The scientists say the vibration value analysis is akin to the complex systems that monitor vibrations in aircraft.
"This project is a great example of using the latest developments in low-cost mobile sensors and machine learning," said lead author Dr David Clifton, associate professor of engineering science at Oxford.
"Working closely with development experts, we can help tackle water security, which is an issue of huge importance in the developing world."
There are now about 300 sensors installed across Kenya as an early warning system and some 15,000 people who are paying small premiums for rapid repairs. There has been very little damage or attempts to steal the technology in the communities in which they are installed, as people value the service.
The researchers believe the system can be rapidly scaled up and rolled out to other communities. With up to a million hand pumps dotted around Africa, they believe there is now a great opportunity to capture highly useful groundwater data.
What is groundwater?
When water falls as rain or snow, much of it either flows into rivers or is used to provide moisture to plants and crops. What is left over trickles down to the layers of rock that sit beneath the soil.
And just like a giant sponge, this groundwater is held in the spaces between the rocks and in the tiny interconnected spaces between individual grains in a rock like sandstone.
These bodies of wet rock are referred to as aquifers. Groundwater does not sit still in the aquifer but is pushed and pulled by gravity and the weight of water above it.
The movement of the water through the aquifer removes many impurities and it is often cleaner than water on the surface.
This "accidental infrastructure" could allow a network of hand pumps across the region to transmit data to the cloud to create a public dataset that would be widely used.
"Rather than just seeing these pumps as concrete and iron littered around Africa, these systems could be the little sentinels giving you this very valuable information," said Dr Hope,
"Mining companies, agriculture, institutional investors and communities could all benefit from this.
"I've been working in Africa for 15 years and I think it's one of the most exciting things that we've been working on and the results that we've had have been very promising."
Response
This article talks about how the 'Good vibration' hand pump is saving so many lives around Africa by providing a close water source. I experienced this first hand as I lived in a place called Namulanda (Uganda) and the first two years or so, we had no tap water. We used rain water that was clean or semi-clean water from a 'Good vibration' hand pump nearby when rain water from the tanks ran out. It was funny because you would see a line of native Ugandans and a random Asian in the middle. Water truly is the most important aspect in solving poverty in Africa as it provides sanitation, surplus of time (for jobs and other activities etc), and literally life (agriculture, just drinking water etc.) This article had no bias except for the fact of praising the British for helping out Africa with these pumps. They are doing a good job to be honest. Go water.
Work Cited
McGrath, Matt. "'Good Vibration' Hand Pumps Boost Africa's Water Security." BBC News. BBC, 24 Feb. 2017. Web. 28 Feb. 2017. <http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-39077761>.
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