Big Data - No Hype

Kenneth Cukier says there is not hype behind Big Data.

what's in a gas tax?

ThinkProgress is taking issue with Governor McDonnell's idea to eliminate the gas tax and increase the sales tax.

"McDonnell’s plan will result in the cost of highways being borne by low-income Virginians — as the sales tax disproportionately affects those at the bottom of the income scale who are more likely to spend all or most of their income — and by those who use mass transit, walk or bike. It lets out-of-state drivers who use Virginia’s roads off without paying a single cent. As the Washington Post’s Robert McCartney wrote, 'the gas tax is a nearly ideal way to fund highways. It’s borne by the people who use highways. It penalizes fossil fuel use and thus is environmentally friendly. Out-of-state drivers, rather than Virginians, pay a sizable chunk of it."

I've not been able to wrap my head around this proposal. The more I read the more I think that it is an early 2016 move by the governor to position himself as a tax cutter.

virginians want comprehensive gun rules

From The Richmond Times-Dispatch,

"The Quinnipiac University poll indicates support of 66 percent, to 29 percent opposition, for an armed officer in every school, while 60 percent believe gun purchases should be limited to one per month and 36 percent oppose the idea...According to the poll, Virginians overwhelmingly favor, 92 percent to 7 percent, conducting background checks on people who buy guns at gun shows...Virginians also a support on a ban of the sale of assault-style weapons, 58 percent to 39 percent, and would back a ban on the sale of high-capacity ammunition magazines by 59 percent to 37 percent. 

In other gun issues, those surveyed responded: 

• 64 percent said that if they agreed with a political candidate on other issues, but not on the issue of guns, they could still vote for that candidate, while 24 percent said they could not. 
• 66 percent oppose opposing allowing teachers to carry concealed weapons in the classroom, while 31 percent favor the idea. 
• 59 percent say that the National Rifle Association is more concerned with protecting gun owners’ rights than in protecting gun-makers’ profits, while 33 percent said the reverse. 

On the topic of the most effective way to prevent mass shootings at schools:

• 29 percent say increase government spending on mental health; 
• 27 percent say increase police presence at schools; 
• 24 percent say ban assault weapons; and 
• 16 percent say reduce gun violence on TV and in movies and video games."

The thing that gets me about this entire poll is how solid the opinions are. A majority think the NRA supports gun owners over gun manufactures, but they still want assault weapons (whatever that is) banned. Also most want armored officer in all schools but not teachers carrying concealed weapons. 

Sounds responsible to me. The consensus seems clear. So why all the posturing and controversy? 

dslr posers

I'm not saying this is me. I'm just saying it COULD be me.

wages, training and education. Oh my!

Glory halleluiah!

Finally a good picture of the current employment picture. And no talk of tax cuts for "job creators." So it might be more complicated than there ain't enough jobs? There was talk about training, education and wages. Earth shattering. And please notice that the $12 per hour employees in the segment were doing trigonometry. Thank you 60 Minutes.

win with class

the climate has changed

Our air, sea and land are dirty. We have made them so. They are being cleaned up. Just not by us  - yet.

is this the october surprise

It may not be but kudos to Governor Christie for knowing when politics are not appropriate.

google benefits

Some organizations just get it. By "it," I mean they understand that their success is directly tethered to the strength of their employees. An organization has no product to sell and no way to sell it without employees. The happier and more motived the employees the better product and business development.

Google gets it.

From Mashable.com,

"It’s been long reported that Google treats its employees well, from offering them free food and fitness classes to laundry service and car washes. But according to a recent report, Google recently rolled out death benefits to employees, including a generous offer to pay the spouse or partner of a deceased staffer half of their salary for a decade.

The news of these death benefits — which was first reported by Forbes — also comes with “no tenure requirement,” which means each employee in its 34,000 workforce qualifies. It was put into place earlier this year.

Mashable confirmed with a Google spokesperson that the benefits don’t just stop at salary. The surviving spouse or partner of a deceased employee will also acquire vested stock benefits, and children will receive $1,000 a month until the age of 19. The timeline can be extended if the child is in school full time."

We can have a chicken and egg discussion here if you want, but Google did not get where it is by having a stock-holder focused business approach. 

our government technology, you have no idea

As a kid, in the 80's and 90's, I loved my Popular Science and Popular Mechanics. I tore through every new concept issue of the latest U.S.A. spy plane. The one thing I learned from all those issues of PM was that we have no idea what incredible technology is being used by our government to wage war and provide for our defense. We see examples of this pop up from time to time. One recently released is a CIA dragonfly prototype for audio snooping -- built 40 years ago.



You didn't think those thoughts in your head were yours did you?

guns don't kill people, bullets do

The Aurora shooting has put guns back into public and private conversations again. I've read and been part of a few interactions. It is hard to not get passionate, but with every conversation I learn more about the overall situation.

For example it appears that there may be upwards of 64,000 annually instances where a gun is used to prevent a crime. (The differences are due to sampling, so we really don't know the exact number. Of course each side will use the one that better makes their case.) That number by itself is great, except that the annual hand gun crime rate is in the 500,000 range (according to the FBI). The great thing about that number is that is is dropping. The main culprit for the drop? Cell phones are a big part of it. Seems the criminal world can now connect via their mobiles rather than street meetings (i.e. drug deals). This has not only reduced deaths, but arrests.

The key stat I've come across is most gun violence is caused by persons with past criminal records. Thus a key point of all this - we need better ways of keeping guns away from known criminals. Also only 25% of the country owns a gun and most are multiple owners and located on the east coast and South (shocker). So the South should be safer, right? Not so much. 

It looks like gun regulations are at best moot. Some places with loose rules have high rates (South Carolina) and some with strick rules have low rates (NYC). But for other areas it is reversed. DC is a perfect example. It seems to boil down to enforcement and police work.

WaPo has a great "myths" series when things like this happen. Here is their fact sheet on school shootings. Now is also a good time to revisit their gun control fact sheet.

Money quote,

"...in a groundbreaking and often-replicated look at the details of criminal attacks in Chicago in the 1960s, University of California at Berkeley law professor Franklin Zimring found that the circumstances of gun and knife assaults are quite similar: They're typically unplanned and with no clear intention to kill. Offenders use whatever weapon is at hand, and having a gun available makes it more likely that the victim will die. This helps explain why, even though the United States has overall rates of violent crime in line with rates in other developed nations, our homicide rate is, relatively speaking, off the charts.

As Ozzy Osbourne once said in an interview with the New York Times: 'I keep hearing this [expletive] thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people. If that's the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?'"

geeks trying hard to exterminate the CV

It seems like every week I find another article, often by a CEO of a social media recruiting venture, about how the CV is going the way of the dodo - and that we should all pray for its quick demise.

Sudy Bharadwaj is the latest example.

"For recruiters, social media is becoming less about connecting with friends and colleagues and more about job candidate research. A recent survey by Jobvite reported that 92% of recruiters use social media to find talent, an increase of 3% from last year. Even Facebook is now rumored to throw its hat into the social networking and job search ring, joining social media job search giant LinkedIn. 

Many traditional methods of looking for jobs and job candidates, like faxing resumes to recruiters, are deceased. In the same sense, social networking is replacing many traditional tools of the job search trade, like the resume. 

As CNN’s Doug Gross asked in a recent article, 'What hiring manager is going to make a decision based on an email attachment, when they can browse your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles, read the gory details in your blog and hit Google to find out more about you — good or bad — all in one sitting?' 

In today’s job market, recruiters are placing more emphasis on job seeker personalities depicted on social media profiles and creative resume enhancers than they are single sheet summary of their careers. The vehicles for the presentation of the resume are changing, so why call for traditional resumes at all?"

Has Sudy ever met a traditional hiring manager or HR generalist? These professionals are not necessarily change agents. Plus the traditional CV is a recruiter's one-stop-shopping document for a position's basic requirements. Social media and resume posting sites have no standards. These job hunting and recruiting outlets are also in a major state of evolution. There is a new one every month.

A resume can have many different designs, but it's content is universal and has standards.

corporate welfare is still welfare

From Think by Numbers,

"About $59 billion is spent on traditional social welfare programs. $92 billion is spent on corporate subsidies. So, the government spent 50% more on corporate welfare than it did on food stamps and housing assistance in 2006."

it conforms to me

I found this YouTube on my Google + feed this morning and it struck me. Not just the cool desk that gets away from the static unmovable desks we see in a lot of high schools across the world. What really got me was a comment that one of the 'students' made.

"It conforms to you and you don't have to conform to it." (2:30 mark)

Yup, that pretty much sums up what is lacking in our school systems in this country. You cannot create a mold and put every student in it. You almost have to create a mold for each student.

Before you roll your eyes, no one said educating almost 80 million kids was going to be easy.

GOP needs to sober up

The Virginia Republican party may need to sober up concerning its new majority status. Richard Amrhine has some details on their over-reach.

Who knew... that the assembly session coincided with open season on the poor? The prime example is the double-barreled attack on poor women, by making legal abortions more difficult to obtain while threatening the legal availability of certain contraceptives. If you want to reduce abortions, solution No. 1 is to make birth control, in any of its many forms, more readily available. 

This is common sense to all but the most narrow-minded, such as Del. Robert G. Marshall (R-Prince William), whose "personhood" measure establishes human life at the instant of conception, making certain birth control options out of bounds. Let's point out here that similar "personhood" legislation failed in Mississippi. In Mississippi. 

Another initiative aimed at denying women, poor women in particular, a safe and legal abortion is the ultrasound bill that would require women to pay for the costly and unnecessary procedure before an abortion could take place. And the ongoing push to regulate women's health care centers out of existence? Why not take up all the roads to reduce traffic accidents?

Amrhine's disgust is not limited to radical left wing socialist journalists. Many of the general assembly's movements may also disgust a commonwealth whose population was very satisfied with the direction of Richmond before the GOP obtained a slight majority.

Olympia Meola details the findings of a new Christopher Newport University/Richmond Times-Dispatch survey.

The survey indicates that the electorate is satisfied with the direction of the state and with the status quo on several key matters before the legislature. For example, majorities oppose requiring state workers to pay more toward their pensions and a measure defining life as beginning at conception.

Of the 1,018 registered Virginia voters polled Feb. 4-13, 66 percent want the one-gun-a-month restriction to remain and 31 percent favor repeal. A signature law from former Gov. L. Douglas Wilder's administration, it was enacted in 1993 in response to interstate gun-trafficking problems on the East Coast.

Legislation to repeal the law has won approval in both chambers and is headed to Gov. Bob McDonnell's desk. He's expected to sign it.

Another measure that could reach the governor would require women to undergo an ultrasound before having an abortion. Of those polled, 55 percent say they oppose the requirement and 36 percent support it. The House and Senate have passed versions of the legislation.

Governor McDonnell is riding a nearly 60 percent approval rating and is a leading candidate for the VP spot on the GOP presidential ticket this fall. I wonder if he hopes some of these issues don't make it to his desk?