We're climate researchers and our work was turned into fake news
Science is slow. It rests on painstaking research with accumulating evidence. This makes for an inherently uneasy relationship with the modern media age, especially once issues are politicised. The interaction between politics and media can be toxic for science, and climate change is a prominent example. Take the recent “deep freeze” along the US east coast. Colleagues and I experienced similar frustrations in late 2017, after we published a paper in the scientific journal Nature Geoscience, in which we concluded that there was more headroom than many had assumed before we breach the goals of the Paris Agreement. The essence of good science is to continually update, challenge, improve and refine, using as much evidence as possible. We emphatically did not show that climate change was “less bad” or “happening slower” than previously thought. Our study took a microscope to that question. A (non-)story of revolution Some challenges could yet be proved right. Science against spin
Nearly 48 million Twitter accounts could be bots, says study
A big chunk of those “likes,” “retweets,” and “followers” lighting up your Twitter account may not be coming from human hands. According to new research from the University of Southern California and Indiana University, up to 15 percent of Twitter accounts are in fact bots rather than people.
Beyond the Bitcoin Bubble
The blockchain world proposes something different. Imagine some group like Protocol Labs decides there’s a case to be made for adding another “basic layer” to the stack. Just as GPS gave us a way of discovering and sharing our location, this new protocol would define a simple request: I am here and would like to go there. A distributed ledger might record all its users’ past trips, credit cards, favorite locations — all the metadata that services like Uber or Amazon use to encourage lock-in. Call it, for the sake of argument, the Transit protocol. How would Transit reach critical mass when Uber and Lyft already dominate the ride-sharing market? As Transit began to take off, it would attract speculators, who would put a monetary price on the token and drive even more interest in the protocol by inflating its value, which in turn would attract more developers, drivers and customers. Even decentralized cryptomovements have their key nodes.
2018 Social Media Trends Report: 10 Major Trends to Know in 2018
Social media is changing at a rapid pace. For example, the content format Stories was introduced on several major social media platforms slightly more than a year ago. Now, it’s one of the most popular content individuals are posting. More than 300 million people are sharing stories on Instagram and WhatsApp separately every day, and 70 million people were posting daily to Messenger Day just six months after its launch. Due to its popularity, many businesses are now posting stories regularly, too. To succeed on social media, it’s essential to stay ahead of the curve and understand the latest social media trends. Top 10 social media trends to know for 2018 This report is inspired by the annual Internet Trends report by Mary Meeker, a partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Here’s a quick overview of the ten major social media trends happening right now: We will dive into these ten major social media trends below. 1. Here are the current user base of the six major social media platforms:
The Washington Post’s ongoing database of President Trump’s false or misleading claims during his first year in office. - Washington Post
Low-Stakes Writing and Critical Thinking
"The most important thing about it for me is that it's not censored, and it's not too highly structured," explains James Kobialka, a UPCS seventh-grade science teacher. “Students aren't being told exactly what to do. They're allowed to have freedom, and they're not so worried about it that they try to write what they think they want me to see, or that they're tempted to plagiarize. Low-stakes writing: Increases students' comfort with expressing their ideas and empowers student voice Creates more investment and ownership in student learning Prepares students for high-stakes writing and testing Is adaptable for any subject Allows for differentiation UPCS offers only honors curriculum. About 75% of UPCS students have learned English as their second language, and students enter the school two to three years below grade level in reading and math. When students write a high-stakes essay or take their high-stakes exams, they're prepared. How It's Done Strategy 1: Grade Low-Stakes Writing Simply
2017: The Year Identity Went Mainstream - One World Identity
It was a landmark year for the identity industry in 2017. Driven by a series of high-profile news events, the importance of identity was catapulted to the forefront. The Equifax data breach illustrated the importance of data privacy, while the success of bitcoin, highlighted the excitement around decentralization. As such, consumers, regulators, and private industries alike have begun to realize there is tremendous value in understanding identity as a concept, the importance of identity, and how it can be leveraged to improve everything from an individual’s daily routine to corporate business strategies. This shift in focus sparked an incredible amount of growth across the industry. Over the past year we have witnessed a bevy of new startups be created to help solve the challenges of identity of things (IDoT), regulatory concerns, personal fitness, and many others. OWI’s 2018 identity landscape contains 755 companies across 3 segments, 22 categories, and 46 sub-categories.
23 januari – Internationale Dag van het Handschrift
Dag van het Handschrift Wellicht vraag je jezelf af waarom nu precies vandaag Dag van het Handschrift wordt gevierd c.q. herdacht. Dag van het Handschrift is vandaag ter herinnering aan de geboortedatum van John Hancock, een Amerikaans staatsman. Hancock was de voorzitter van het Continental Congress dat de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring aannam, en was de eerste die de Onafhankelijkheidsverklaring op 4 juli 1776 ondertekende. Waarom schrijven zo belangrijk is Het leren schrijven heeft meer om het lijf dan alleen leren om mooi te schrijven, de nadruk ligt vooral op léésbaar schrijven. Wat voor kinderen geldt, geldt ook voor volwassen; het is belangrijk om de verbindingen in je hersenen te (blijven) onderhouden door middel van stimulatie. Dyslexie In mijn blog van 13 augustus “Dag van de Linkshandigen” stip ik het al aan, kinderen die linkshandig zijn hebben meer kans dat ze dyslectisch zijn. “Dorp” of “drop”? Het begrip dyslexie was niet een erg gangbaar begrip begin jaren ’70. In training!
No, Uranium One investigation has not led to an indictment
Several news websites have reported that the investigation of wrongdoing involving Uranium One and Hillary Clinton bagged its first indictment. Facebook users flagged a post from a site called Republican News as suspicious and possibly fake. The website’s Jan. 13 headline said, "First indictment issued in Russian bribery case tied to Obama-era Uranium One deal." That post echoed similar reporting by the New York Post, which announced "there’s an indictment in the FBI probe of the Uranium One scandal," also on Jan. 13. There was an indictment, but the Justice Department doesn’t tie it to the Uranium One deal. Instead, the charges come out of a 2014 investigation of an American-based kickback scheme that defrauded millions of dollars from a subsidiary of the Russian nuclear agency Rosatom. The kickback scheme and Rosatom's 2010 purchase of a controlling interest in the Canadian company Uranium One were entirely separate. But it provided no evidence. Let’s unpack this. The indictment Our ruling
