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Source: http://video.msnbc.msn.com/cnbc/50669238/
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Saturday, February 2, 2013
Here's what would happen if every state split its electoral votes
By Chris Wilson
The outrage wholesaler known as the Virginia legislature?the people who brought you the transvaginal ultrasound?considered legislation this week to allot the state?s 13 electoral votes to the winning presidential candidate in each of the state?s congressional districts, rather than to the overall winner of the statewide vote. The bill died in committee, but you can expect to hear about this idea a few more times. National Journal?s Reid Wilson reported in December that several Republican-controlled states that voted for President Barack Obama are considering a similar policy.
Two states, Maine and Nebraska, already split their electoral votes this way, and the primary effect is to aggravate those of us who make election maps for a living. The states currently have two and three members of the House of Representatives, respectively, and tend to reliably elect Democratic and Republican candidates and presidents, also respectively. (Obama snagged one of those Nebraska electors in 2008, which was uncommon.)
Virginia is a different story.? Even as the state has gone from reliably Republican to highly competitive, Republicans dominate the House delegation. There is a simple explanation: The state is highly gerrymandered, with the Democratic base concentrated into a few districts.
It would be highly unfair for only a few states to adopt this system, but one might think it would work out OK if every state were to split its electoral votes this way. In fact, the way congressional districts are presently drawn, a national tally of congressional districts would often be even less fair than if just a few states did it.
In the following interactive, you can see how the 2000, 2004 and 2008 elections would have played out if each state had split its electoral votes. (Because not all states report their election results by district, it will be awhile before we have reliable 2012 figures.)
The 2000 election is particularly striking: George W. Bush lost the popular vote but comes out with 62 more electoral votes than Al Gore. (This assumes you award each state?s extra two electors by the winner of the popular vote in each state, though you can try it by the winner of the most congressional districts as well, as the Virginia law proposed.)
In all cases, the split system benefits Republicans, though not always unfairly. The 2008 election, divided this way, produces a result that much more closely resembles the popular vote than the state-by-state results do.
That?s assuming, however, that your definition of ?fair? in some way encompasses the idea that the winner of the popular vote should win the election. In fact, efforts to undermine the popular vote are as old as the country. The most notable example is the Senate, which awards equal power to Wyoming (population 576,412) and California (population 38,041,430).
In essence, the entire country is gerrymandered along state lines. Traditionally Democratic voters are concentrated in smaller regions that have a disproportionately small presence in the electoral college, given that even the sparsest states get a minimum of three electoral votes.
I am strongly in favor of redistricting the country, state border by state border. In the interim, any effort to allot presidential electors by congressional district will increase the likelihood that a man or woman will once again win the highest office without winning the most votes.
Source: http://news.yahoo.com/presidential-elections-by-congressional-district-interactive-130828943.html
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Friday, February 1, 2013
Science cafes offer a sip of learning
ORLANDO, Florida |
ORLANDO, Florida (Reuters) - Americans may be turning away from the hard sciences at universities, but they are increasingly showing up at "science cafes" in local bars and restaurants to listen to scientific talks over a drink or a meal.
Want a beer with that biology? Or perhaps a burger with the works to complement the theory of everything?
Science cafes have sprouted in almost every state including a tapas restaurant near downtown Orlando where Sean Walsh, 27, a graphic designer, describes himself and his friends as some of the laymen in the crowd.
"We just want to learn and whatever we take in, we take in. But we're also socializing and having a nice time," said Walsh, who a drank beer, ate Tater Tots and learned a little about asteroids and radiation at two recent events.
Others in the crowd come with scientific credentials to hear particular scientists lecture on a narrowly focused field of interest.
But the typical participant brings at least some college-level education or at least a lively curiosity, said Edward Haddad, executive director of the Florida Academy of Sciences, which helped start up Orlando's original cafe and organizes the events.
"You're going to engage the (National Public Radio) crowd very easily here," said Linda Walters, a marine conservation biologist from the University of Central Florida who has lectured twice at the Orlando-area science cafes.
Haddad said the current national push to increase the number of U.S. graduates in science, technology, engineering and math, or the STEM fields, is driving up the number of science cafes.
In Orlando, an Orange County STEM Council consisting of business, government and educational leaders recently asked Haddad to help two interested parties launch new science cafes in the downtown library and in a large new town development.
The U.S. science cafe movement grew out of Cafe Scientifique in the United Kingdom. The first Cafe Scientifique popped up in Leeds in 1998 as a regularly scheduled event where all interested parties could participate in informal forums about the latest in science and technology.
Traditionally held in pubs and restaurants, the Cafe Scientifique would start as a short lecture, followed by a short break to re-fill glasses, and then an open discussion, according to the organization's website.
The American movement of independent cafes is loosely organized at the sciencecafe.org website created by public broadcaster WGBH's NOVA science program. Haddad said NOVA several years ago provided a few hundred dollars of seed money to groups around the country that wanted to start a cafe.
However, anyone with a venue, a speaker and a marketing plan can start one. On the sciencecafes.org website, an interactive map shows the location of cafes across the United States and around the globe from Islamabad, Pakistan, to Antwerp, Belgium, to the Hawaiian islands.
Some cafes have cropped up in bookstores, theaters and high school campuses.
In Viera, Florida, about 60 mostly retirees regularly pack a pizzeria to hear speakers from the well-regarded Brevard Zoo or NASA's nearby Kennedy Space Center. In Daytona Beach, scientists from the internationally known Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University draw standing-room-only crowds at a local coffee shop.
Haddad said his hope for the cafes is to engage the public and generate excitement about the STEM fields that might filter down to the next generation.
"My feeling is STEM begins at home, with students who are being brought up by parents or relatives who have some interest in science and may encourage them to do that," Haddad said.
Attending a cafe does not guarantee a speaker as engaging as the popular host of television programs Bill Nye the Science Guy, as Walsh learned when he got lost in the extensive jargon of one lecture.
"I don't know that every scientist is gifted with the ability to work a crowd as well as deliver a lecture on targeted radiation therapy for tumors," said Walsh. "If you can find one that hits both those things, they should have their own television show."
(This story corrects web address in the 13th paragraph to sciencecafes.org from sciencecafe.org)
(Editing by Kevin Gray and Kenneth Barry)
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Golf: Olympic legend Phelps signs golf equipment deal
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Twitter back up, 'incident resolved'
"Something is technically wrong," says Twitter's home screen.?"Thanks for noticing???we're going to fix it up and have things back to normal soon."
Yes, Twitter is down.?At 10:28 a.m. ET, the company's status page indicated only that "Some users may be experiencing issues accessing Twitter. Our engineers are currently working to resolve the issue."
It could perhaps be related to the major update Twitter rolled out Wednesday, providing better viewing of large photos, and greater compatibility for Web video.
We'll keep watching for its return, or any further?indication as to what caused the outage, so stay tuned.
Updated 10:50 a.m. ET: Twitter.com appears to be up, but downforeveryoneorjustme.com is still reporting it to be down.
Updated 2:50 p.m. ET: Twitter updated its status page with the following statement:
We experienced intermittent issues affecting web and mobile users, globally, between approximately 7:00?a.m. and 9:50?a.m. PST.
This incident has now been resolved. We apologize to users who were affected by this, and we?re working to ensure that similar issues do not occur.
Wilson Rothman is the Technology & Science?editor at NBC News Digital. Catch up with him on Twitter at @wjrothman, and join our conversation on Facebook.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/technology/technolog/twitter-down-1B8189701
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'Jeopardy'-winning super computer headed to college
TROY, N.Y.?? Watson, the supercomputer famous for beating the world's best human "Jeopardy!" champions, is going to college.
IBM is announcing Wednesday that it will provide a Watson system to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, the first time the computer is being sent to a university. Just like the flesh-and-blood students who will work on it, Watson is leaving home to sharpen its skills. Course work will include English and math.
"It's a big step for us," said Michael Henesey, IBM's vice president of business development. "We consider it absolutely strategic technology for IBM in the future. And we want to evolve it, of course, thoughtfully, but also in collaboration with the best and brightest in academia."
Watson is a cognitive system that can process massive amounts of data, including natural language. To beat "Jeopardy!" champions in 2011, it was fed the contents of encyclopedias, dictionaries, books, news dispatches and movie scripts. For its medical work, it takes in medical textbooks and journals. After it takes in data, Watson can provide information like a "Jeopardy!" answer, a medical diagnosis or an estimate of financial risk.
IBM, which provided a grant to RPI to operate Watson for three years, sees it as a way to help it boost the computer's cognitive capabilities.
Artificial intelligence researchers at RPI want to do things like improve Watson's mathematical ability and help it quickly figure out the meaning of new or made-up words. They want to improve its ability to handle the torrent of images, videos and emails on the Web, the sort of unstructured information that is overwhelmingly fueling the data boom.
For Selmer Bringsjord, who heads RPI's department of cognitive science, getting a crack at Watson is like a car aficionado being tossed the keys to a souped-up Lamborghini. Bringsjord said he and his graduate students could potentially focus on providing Watson with a deeper understanding of the structure of sentences and how dialogues unfold.
"If I can make a tiny, tiny contribution in that direction, given how historic the system is, I'd be very happy and I think my graduate students would be as well," Bringsjord said.
The original Watson remains at IBM's Research Headquarters in Westchester County, about 100 miles south of the school. RPI has hardware fully dedicated to running the system's software at its supercomputing center in the Rensselaer Tech Park near the school. RPI's version of Watson has 15 terabytes of memory, enough to store a massive library. It will allow 20 users to access the system at once.
IBM has worked collaboratively with other outside institutions on Watson, such as Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City, New York-based Citigroup Inc. and the Cleveland Clinic. But this is the first time hardware fully dedicated to running the Watson software is being installed at a college.
Officials with IBM and RPI say Watson's college tenure also will prepare RPI students for jobs in cognitive science and "big data," a field where demand is quickly outpacing supply. John Kolb, RPI's chief information officer, said he would like the next generation of the school's technology graduates "to help IBM take Watson to the next level."
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/50641571/ns/technology_and_science-tech_and_gadgets/
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To create personal customer connections, employees must be 'one ...
Regardless of how much time and energy you spend developing infrastructure to facilitate positive customer ?moments,? or points of contact between members of your organization and your customers, you?ll need to put even more sweat into? ensuring that your people make good use of it. Consider a 2:1 investment ratio of people vs. technology -- for every dollar you spend purchasing a new technology, spend two on the people who?ll use it.
While the investment may be significant, keep in mind that you?re investing directly in the ability to capitalize on the customer moments that drive your revenue. A recent poll by IBOPE/Zogby International demonstrates the growing importance of the customer moment. 83 percent of respondents said they?re willing to spend more on a product or service if they feel a ?personal connection? to the company ? one fifth said they?d pay 50 percent or more if they felt the company ?put the customer first.?
How do you, the CIO, facilitate a personal connection between company and customer? This question is just as easily answered by examining how technology can alienate your customers. When they have to wait, repeat themselves or talk to multiple reps in pursuit of a single answer, you?ve got problems.
You can solve this by investing properly in your employees? ability to intuitively wield your technology. This may mean training people from non-technical departments on the technical aspects of your system, or training your IT staff on the departmental use of the platforms. The aforementioned 2:1 ratio involves more than training, however. It?s a holistic process that starts with identifying your customer?s and employee?s pain points, and ends with perfectly marrying the technology to your employees. The end-goal should be to enable your people to engage with customers as easily as neighbors in a small town.
If you want that 50 percent greater expenditure from the customer who feels that you put them first, follow the general philosophy of making the technology serve the people, and not the reverse.
When investing in your people?s mastery of your technology, here are a few areas to consider:
- Socialize it.?Social media is indispensable to customer service, so it?s logical to make it part of technology training. Social media enables people to connect in real-time, crowd-source ideas, and share lessons learned. It can also create a sense of camaraderie, and alert you to employees? frustrations. According to Michael E. Nichols, social learning can foster a culture of experimentation -- your employees may invent uses for your platform that you hadn?t even thought of.?
- Train your ?true believers? first. Start with the people/departments you think are most likely to quickly grasp the platform?s functionality and value. As much of the battle is cultural, a few of the right people tooting your new application?s horn will lend momentum to your initiative. ?
- Demonstrate how it?ll solve their problems. If training doesn?t take place within the context of making their pain points less painful, good luck driving engagement! Side note: This assumes that the user?s needs were taken into account when selecting the technology -- if this isn?t the case, you may be in for a rough ride.
- Teach to the learner?s needs. People learn in different ways, and have extremely varied levels of comfort with technology. I know it?s hard for IT folks to swallow, but there are highly intelligent and gifted people out there who still can?t figure out email. So be sure your training program takes into account learning style, as well as tech acumen.
- Provide ongoing support. Training should be a process, not an event. Ideally this doesn?t mean yanking people off to seminars, but rather giving them bite-sized chunks of learning that they can digest periodically without interrupting workflow. As people learn differently, offer a variety of sources -- online forums, video tutorials, webinars, an IM help desk. Also, making your team available for one-on-one instruction may serve a dual purpose of not only helping employees ramp up, but also giving IT staff a chance to connect personally with people in other departments and gain an understanding of their day-to-day challenges. Besides, if your technology is worth its salt, it?ll flex and iterate to the increasingly dynamic business cycle, upping the ante for continual training.
- Make it a game. According to Lucas Mearian, ?That innate ability to solve problems, which comes with the promise of a gaming-style reward of greater social status, will become a standard for solving complex problems that even the greatest supercomputers could not hope to achieve.? We?re not trying to outsolve supercomputers -- just improve customer service -- but the same holds true when it comes to helping employees master what hopefully isn?t terribly complicated technology. Using game dynamics?to drive adoption means leveraging what has motivated Homo sapiens since the dawn of time -- self interest and self-aggrandizement. Creating a system of rewards for engagement can win over those who otherwise may resist change to the last breath. Keep it simple though -- more Angry Birds, less Dungeons & Dragons.
- Protect your people from vendor-produced training manuals at all cost. These are usually confusing, and will create resentment toward you. If you must use them, make it a punishment for those who perform poorly...just kidding! The Constitution outlaws cruel and unusual punishment. Besides, there?s a reason we don?t use caning in school anymore.
Source: http://blogs.computerworld.com/educationtraining/21691/people-vs-technology-21-factor
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