Live HD Feed from the International Space Station. It may take two clicks to get it going. The feed is from alternating views of 4 different cameras (if screen is black, then the Station is on the dark side of the Earth). If you mouse over “Live” in the right bottom corner of the screen you will see a full screen toggle option.
What makes this so much more compelling to watch than an ordinary satellite feed is that you know there are humans up there with these cameras.The International Space Station travels in orbit around Earth at a speed of roughly 17,150 miles per hour (that’s about 5 miles per second!). This means that the Space Station orbits Earth (and sees a sunrise) once every 92 minutes!
It is clear we have a long way to go in the development and use of social networks. Our sense is that our desire to be happy will lead to new social networking venues, more personalized to our individual needs. As Douglas Adams put it in Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, “…And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean, and most of them were miserable, even the ones with digital watches.”
MIT Technology Review August 29, 2014
Evidence Grows That Online Social Networks Have Insidious Negative Effects.
A study of 50,000 people in Italy concludes that online social networks have a significant negative impact on individual welfare.
Online social networks have permeated our lives with far-reaching consequences. Many people have used them to connect with friends and family in distant parts of the world, to make connections that have advanced their careers in leaps and bounds and to explore and visualize not only their own network of friends but the networks of their friends, family, and colleagues.
But there is growing evidence that the impact of online social networks is not all good or even benign. A number of studies have begun to find evidence that online networks can have significant detrimental effects. This question is hotly debated, often with conflicting results and usually using limited varieties of subjects, such as undergraduate students.
Today, Fabio Sabatini at Sapienza University of Rome in Italy and Francesco Sarracino at STATEC in Luxembourg attempt to tease apart the factors involved in this thorny issue by number crunching the data from a survey of around 50,000 people in Italy gathered during 2010 and 2011. The survey specifically measures subjective well-being and also gathers detailed information about the way each person uses the Internet.
The question Sabatini and Sarracino set out to answer is whether the use of online networks reduces subjective well-being and if so, how.
Sabatini and Sarracino’s database is called the “Multipurpose Survey on Households,” a survey of around 24,000 Italian households corresponding to 50,000 individuals carried out by the Italian National Institute of Statistics every year. These guys use the data drawn from 2010 and 2011. What’s important about the survey as that it is large and nationally representative (as opposed to a self-selecting group of undergraduates).
The survey specifically asks the question “How satisfied are you with your life as a whole nowadays?” requiring an answer from extremely dissatisfied (0) to extremely satisfied (10). This provides a well-established measure of subjective well-being.
The survey also asks other detailed questions such as how often people meet friends and whether they think people can be trusted. It also asked about people’s use of online social networks such as Facebook and Twitter.
This allowed Sabatini and Sarracino to study the correlation between subjective well-being and other factors in their life, particularly their use of social networks. As statisticians they were particularly careful to rule out spurious correlations that can be explained by factors such as endogeneity bias where a seemingly independent parameter is actually correlated with an unobserved factor relegated to the error.
They found for example that face-to-face interactions and the trust people place in one another are strongly correlated with well-being in a positive way. In other words, if you tend to trust people and have lots of face-to-face interactions, you will probably assess your well-being more highly.
But of course interactions on online social networks are not face-to-face and this may impact the trust you have in people online. It is this loss of trust that can then affect subjective well-being rather than the online interaction itself.
Sabatini and Sarracino tease this apart statistically. “We find that online networking plays a positive role in subjective well-being through its impact on physical interactions, whereas [the use of] social network sites is associated with lower social trust,” they say. “The overall effect of networking on individual welfare is significantly negative,” they conclude.
That’s an important result because it is the first time that the role of online networks has been addressed in such a large and nationally representative sample.
Sabatini and Sarracino particularly highlight the role of discrimination and hate speech on social media which they say play a significant role in trust and well-being. Better moderation could significantly improve the well-being of the people who use social networks, they conclude.
Read the article below to consider how and whyyou publish, and view where the publishing world it headed.
Why The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge Is A Social (And Financial)Blockbuster
Written by JOHN DEIGHTON – Previously published by Forbes
August 20, 2014
In 2009, technology researchers at Forrester published a report entitledWe Are All Media Companies Now, that looked at how publishing firms were dealing with the shift from a distribution paradigm to one based on consumption. By 2014, the paradigm is being experienced not just by companies but increasingly by individuals. People who useFacebookandTwitterTWTR-0.07%are for all practical purposes running little media houses, and face the problem of their much larger brethren, where will the next story come from? Originality is too time-consuming: emulation is inevitable. Fads ensue.
What gets emulated? Anything that can contribute to social capital. The content must be easy to create but not as easy as photographing one’s morning cappuccino. For example, someone in Toronto snapped a selfie with the controversial mayor Rob Ford, and overnight hunting Rob Ford became a Toronto sport, and your face next to his became social currency across Canada.
It’s easy to write off these fads as simple stunts of digital narcissism, but they matter to marketing because they carry incidental meaning. It was not lost on Ford’s reelection team that media coverage on Facebook was as good as, perhaps better than, press coverage. Selfies with Ford carried the incidental meaning that he was one of the people, a fun-loving regular guy. He began to make himself selfie-friendly.
Brands too ask how they can become incidental props in these viral stunts. The challenge brands encounter, however, is that their involvement could come off as merely jumping on the bandwagon because spreadable stunts tend to carry no meaning beyond the stunt itself. Take “planking” for example. An early Facebook fad, planking is the act of lying face-down in an incongruous place. It is the epitome of digital narcissism and any hint of motive other than ‘look at me,’ just clouds the picture.
By contrast, the ALS ice bucket challenge offers an example of a brand harnessing the energy of a narcissistic fad on social networks in service to the brand itself. The usual elements are there, an act that is incongruous, not easy to do and screams ‘look at me.’ Yet here, the incidental meaning is not at all dissociated from the personal meaning. I’m making myself uncomfortable for ALS. I’m recruiting the anti-ALS cause to enhance my personal capital. Alas for marketers looking for low-cost market impact, few commercial brands enhance personal capital. Few are as powerful as cause brands.
How has it worked? As of Wednesday, August 20, The ALS Association has received $31.5 million in donations compared to $1.9 million during the same time period (July 29 to August 20) last year.
This remarkable increase in their fundraising potential is largely due to the snowball effect of cause marketing coupled with a social medial fad. Celebrities are jumping in on the action. Sports teams are not far behind. In fact, almost everyone who is challenged by a friend, co-worker, or family member joins in. If ice buckets can help fund research to shed light on a terrible disease, such as ALS, more power to them, and may their tribe increase.
John Deighton is the Harold M. Brierley Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School.
As people try to understand the death of Robin Williams, it is valuable to find a teaching that helps us all deal with many of the same issues in our lives.
This post is about moderation. Without becoming judgmental in any way, it is important to realize that we all must moderate our actions if we are to strike a balance with life’s experiences. Ultimately we can experience joy throughout our lives in such a way that every moment is precious.
It is difficult to consider moderation in our age of exuberance and super sizing. But, Zen teaches us about moderation and taking the middle path. This practice is life saving and ultimately a more joyful experience. Extremes take their toll in causing us pain and suffering in the long run. It is better to enjoy our lives and reduce suffering through wise choices and moderation.
Take a deep breath; then exhale and consider where you are, and wisely take your next best step.
Moderation
Taking your own life or that of another living being is an extreme act, one of finality. Pain and suffering are part of life, an important element of our existence. As Sakini put it, “Pain makes man think, thought makes man wise, and wisdom makes life endurable.”
We don’t have to face suffering alone or take extreme measures to avoid it. Moderation allows for small adjustments that can overtime reduce suffering to a tolerable level.
Life can be taken in sips of both the joyful and the painful. This is our life to live, we should not throw it away, no matter how hard it may be…it is far too precious to everyone in our world.
Be blessed…bless yourself.
How much money is spent on nuclear weapons around the world…weapons if ever used will mark the end of civilization? Imagine if that money was used to make sure everyone had reasonable access to a key element of life, safe water, so that all of our “civilization” could have a reasonable chance to live a full life.
Today’s water situation in Iran is a cautionary example of how the leaders of the world, bent on domination, are pushing development ahead of basic human needs.
The following article on the water crisis appeared in the Washington Post written by Jason Rezaian:
Iran’s water crisis the product of decades of bad planning
TEHRAN — Iran is headed for a water shortage of epic proportions, and little is being done to reverse a decades-long trend that has reduced the country’s water supply to crisis levels.
Visitors walk on salt-covered rocks that were once deep underwater at Lake Oroumieh in northwestern Iran. (Ebrahim Noroozi/AP)Changes in the global climate, a century of rampant development and heavy subsidies on water and other utilities are all contributing to a situation that is likely to get much worse.
“Our water usage is twice the world standard and considering the situation in our country, we have to reduce this level,” Massoumeh Ebtekar, a vice president and the head of Iran’s Department of Environment, said in a recent speech.
Currently Iranians use on average 250 liters of water per day each day. Comparatively, Iranians uses much less water than residents of the United States, who lead the world using nearly 400 liters per day, but Iran and other dry Middle Eastern countries do not enjoy the abundance of fresh water sources of the Americas or Europe. Accurate data for Iran’s neighbors Iraq and Afghanistan is not available, but other countries in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, consume water at levels similar to Iran, although their populations are much smaller.
With Iran’s annual precipitation only at a third of the global average, heavy overconsumption has ravaged the country’s available water resources. A 2013 study by the World Resources Institute ranked Iran as the world’s 24th most water-stressed nation, putting it at extremely high risk of future water scarcity.
While Iran has several large desalination projects, and even plans to sell some of its water to neighboring countries, converted saltwater is only seen as solution for areas close to the country’s two main saltwater sources, the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf, as the transportation costs of moving the water to the remotest regions of Iran are too high.
Throughout Iran, landscapes are being transformed as scientists warn that the already arid country runs the risk of becoming a vast desert.
Urmia, a salt lake in Iran’s northwest, which was once the largest in the Middle East, has been depleted to just 5 percent of its former volume over the span of only two decades. TheZayandeh river, which flowed through Iran’s heartland, is mostly a dry bed, as it has been diverted and dammed to provide irrigation for farms throughout the country.
Disappearing lakes and dried up rivers are the outward symptoms, but the root causes are less visible, stemming from the techniques and habits of a more traditional and less mechanized era.
“In less than 50 years, we’ve used all but 30 percent of our groundwater supply, which took a million years to gather and it’s getting worse and worse due to unsustainable development,” said Nasser Karami, an Iranian physical climatologist who is currently an associate professor at the University of Bergen in Norway.
Iran’s population has more than doubled since the 1979 revolution and grown eightfold since 1900.
After six years of below-average rainfall, few Iranian authorities acknowledge the depth of the problem, instead offering quick fix solutions that do little to address the looming long-term impact on Iran’s climate and landscape.
“I have repeated it several times, that if water consumption in Tehran is managed and controlled we will not need rationing this summer. If people reduce their water consumption by just 20 percent there won’t be any need for action,” Seyed Hossein Hashemi, the Tehran governor, said on June 20 in an interview with Jahan News.
In recent days, the city of Karaj, a sprawling suburb of Tehran with 1.6 million inhabitants, implemented a rationing plan. Other major cities seem certain to follow suit in the coming days.
For a society that has become accustomed to heavily subsidized utilities including water and has never been given proper education on managing its natural resources, convincing Iranians to make adjustments will be challenging.
“We don’t realize that we’re making life for the future impossible for our own uses today. We shouldn’t only think about living comfortably today at the expense of tomorrow,” Karami said.
Among the symptoms of Iranians’ disregard for water conservation are unregulated gardening taps in public parks that flow for hours on end; the widespread practice of hosing down hot and dusty concrete to cool it down; and faucets that are habitually left running in kitchens around the country.
Environmental experts say that any solution will need to extend beyond conservation to include a long-term strategy to reverse the damage done to groundwater supplies in recent years.
“We’ve over exploited our groundwater, which is sort of a hidden water resource. People believe they can use it as though there is an unlimited supply. We are in a severe drought, but we could have prevented these kinds of problems, or least come up with a better plan,” said Mehdi Mirzaee, a professor of water resource management at Tehran’s Islamic Azad University.
Iran’s water problems go far beyond the everyday consumption habits of its nearly 80 million citizens. Agricultural use, which accounts for 90 percent of Iran’s water usage according to statistics released by the Islamic republic’s Environmental Protection Organization in May, is also in need of massive reform. State estimates put the amount of water wasted in agricultural irrigation at 60 percent.
“Going back 3,000 years, our ancestors knew where to grow, where not to and how to use water and irrigate their land wisely. But we have put aside all their valuable experiences and ruined lands and water resources by digging wells, diverting water and creating and abandoning dams,” Bijan Farhang Darehshori, an Iranian environmental activist, said.
(Jason Rezaian has been The Post’s correspondent in Tehran since 2012. He was previously a freelance writer based in Tehran.)
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…so we should ask ourselves, if Iran’s water crisis is because of bad planning, does that not indicate that we as a global population, at the mercy of our crazy leaders, need to take charge of our best interest and set safe water as a top priority?
It is time to reject “leaders” that perpetuate the insanity that killing is the answer to our problems, and chose to follow those principles that lead to our survival as humans living with very precious resources.
Ethiopia: World’s Poorest Have Least Access to Safe Water – UNICEF
Almost four years after the world met the global target set in the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) for safe drinking water, and after the UN General Assembly declared that water was a human right, over three-quarters of a billion people, most of them poor, still do not have this basic necessity, UNICEF said to commemorate World Water Day.
Estimates from UNICEF and WHO published in 2013 are that a staggering 768 millionpeople do not have access to safe drinking water, causing hundreds of thousands of children to sicken and die each year. Most of the people without access are poor and live in remote rural areas or urban slums. UNICEF estimates that 1,400 children under five die every day from diarrheal diseases linked to lack of safe water and adequate sanitation and hygiene.
“Every child, rich or poor, has the right to survive, the right to health, the right to a future,” said Sanjay Wijesekera, head of UNICEF’s global water, sanitation and hygiene program. “The world should not rest until every single man, woman and child has the water and sanitation that is theirs as a human right.”
The MDG target for drinking water was met and passed in 2010, when 89 per cent of the global population had access to improved sources of drinking water — such as piped supplies, boreholes fitted with pumps, and protected wells. Also in 2010, the UN General Assembly recognized safe drinking water and sanitation as a human right, meaning every person should have access to safe water and basic sanitation. However, this basic right continues to be denied to the poorest people across the world.
“What continues to be striking, and maybe even shocking, is that even in middle income countries there are millions of poor people who do not have safe water to drink,” Wijesekera added. “We must target the marginalized and often forgotten groups: those who are the most difficult to reach, the poorest and the most disadvantaged.”
According to UNICEF and WHO estimates, 10countries are home to almost two-thirds of the global population without access to improved drinking water sources. They are: China (108 million); India (99 million); Nigeria (63 million); Ethiopia (43 million); Indonesia (39 million); Democratic Republic of the Congo (37 million); Bangladesh (26 million); United Republic of Tanzania (22 million); Kenya (16 million) and Pakistan (16 million).
Ethiopia is on track to achieve the Millennium Development Goal target related to water-62 per cent of the population should access improved sources of drinking water by2015 against the MDG target of 57 per cent. More than half of the households (54 per cent) have access to an improved source of drinking water, compared to 35 per cent in2005 and 25 per cent only in 2000 (EDHS 2011).
However, the country is lagging behind on sanitation targets. While the MDG target for access to improved sanitation facilities is 51 per cent, only 8.3 per cent (EDHS 2011) ofthe population has access to improved sanitation. Children in school are especially vulnerable as the National Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Inventory data shows that only 33 per cent of school have improved sanitation facilities for students and teachers, and only 31 per cent have access to water.
“While the theme this year is the inter-linkage between water and energy, we should focus on women and children as the primary beneficiaries of water in Ethiopia,” saidSamuel Godfrey, Chief of WASH in UNICEF Ethiopia.
Huge disparities in the quality of water and sanitation infrastructure lie between the urban and rural area. In most rural areas across Ethiopia, water scarcity, inferior water quality, lack of sanitation facilities and inappropriate hygiene behaviors threaten the well-being of communities. There is also an urgent need to address the issue of separate sanitary facilities. Girls are often reluctant to use facilities, even if they are clean, because toilet blocks and hand washing facilities (important for menstrual hygiene) rarely provide the level of privacy and security they require.
“It is vital that girls should not feel marginalized and lose their self-respect due to lack of WASH facilities in schools. We need to foster an environment where girls maintain their dignity and focus on their school attendance and achievements,” stresses Mr. Godfrey.
In order to harmonize the WASH efforts in the country, the ONEWASH program has been launched in 2013, bringing together four ministries: Water Resources; Health; Education; and Finance & Economic Development. ONEWASH attempts to modernize the way water and sanitation services are delivered; improving the health situation, decreasing the drop-out rates of children in schools, and making financing for Water Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) more effective. Above all, the program contributes significantly in meeting both the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) and the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) targets.
This week, UNICEF launched a global social media campaign to demand action for the 768 million people without access to safe water. Followers on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram will be asked to discuss what water means to them through the use of photography and the hashtag #WaterIs to help raise awareness of what it means to live without access to safe drinking water.
School sick days could be reduced with safe drinking water
Sat, 15 Mar 2014
Providing free drinking water in schools could be key to helping people in developing countries lift themselves out of poverty according to research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).
Research published today shows that schools providing clean water report fewer children off sick. It is the first study to investigate whether providing drinking water in schools can reduce absenteeism.
After thinking “Gracy’s Lagoon” was completed a few weeks ago, the birds have flown back to the easel for some touching up, along with the rocks…etc.
Gracy’s Lagoon 2
Seems like hanging it on the wall was an invitation to enjoy and examine, only to see things that might still be “improved.” And…back to the painting studio.
So, when is a painting really done? Some famous artists have carried their work around for years, like Leonardo and his “Mona Lisa” which he loved so much he carried it with him wherever he traveled. It could be that a friendship develops with some works and their creators. It could also be that the relationship is heightened when others show interest in a particular piece…making the artist more aware that others are looking at this work, so it better be as good as they can make it.
Perhaps, it is not until the work finally leaves the artist’s possession that the work is really completed.
