In Efforts to End Bullying, Some See Agenda

Last month, the federal Department of Education told schools they were obligated, under civil rights laws, to try to prevent harassment, including that based on sexual orientation and gender identity. But the agency did not address the controversy over more explicit classroom materials in grade schools.

But efforts to teach acceptance of homosexuality, which have gained urgency after several well-publicized suicides by gay teenagers, are provoking new culture wars in some communities.   Some districts, especially in larger cities, have adopted tolerance lessons with minimal dissent. But in suburban districts in California, Illinois and Minnesota, as well as here in Helena, the programs have unleashed fierce opposition.

“Of course we’re all against bullying,” Mr. DeMato, one of numerous pastors who opposed the plan, said in an interview. “But the Bible says very clearly that homosexuality is wrong, and Christians don’t want the schools to teach subjects that are repulsive to their values.”

Is it any wonder, then, that with parents and clergy making such fierce claims against teaching about diverse family structures, there isn't constant bullying by their kids?


Comments?

Dirty Touchscreens

I read from a recent AOL news article that many of the digital touchscreen products that are now out are can be unhealthy if they are not cleaned. However, touchscreen products are not only affected, even regular dial pads on cell phones are racking up germs and bacteria which could cause the user of the product to obtain a virus. In the article, it referred to British researchers saying that, "the average cell phone is home to 18-times as much bacteria as the handle of a men's toilet room." I found this to be a lot worse than I originally envisioned when I first read the title of the article. However, I can definitely believe this research to be true, because I know personally that I do not take the time to clean my cell phone on a regular basis. Instead, when it smears, like the article states, I usually try to rub it off on my shirt. This only rids of the smudge, but underneath that, there is a ton of bacteria and from that could cause me or anybody else who regular uses a cell phone, or anything that involves regular interaction with your fingers, to become sick.

The article also states that with the viruses being smeared on a touchscreen, that "30-percent of it will find its way to your fingers" and on to other parts of your body, including your eyes and mouth. But it doesn't just end with touchscreens and dial pads. This can include various things that we use on a somewhat regular basis but maybe do not think about. One of these things is an ATM, which I can see how this could be affected by many people with how often I see lines at them. Personally after I use an ATM, I do not usually think, "Hey! Let me whip out my hand sanitizer." Another area where bacteria seems to spread rapidly is at the movies, especially those with 3D and the use of recycled 3-D glasses. So with all this technology that we like to enjoy and can actually interact with using our hands, we need to make sure that we are trying to properly clean them or at least our hands after using them.

On a quick side note, would you pay $8 million dollars for an I-phone for it to be completely dirty?

Texting While Driving Remains A Danger To Teens

A recent study from Nielson has shown that teenagers send and receive 3,339 texts per month. Two years ago, Nielson reported the main reason why teenagers had a phone was for safety. Now, 43% of teens say that the number one reason for having a cell phone is for texting.Virginia Tech Transportation Institute did a study in 2009, which reported that the risk of a crash or near-crash event was 23 times higher when the driver was texting. It’s incredible how fast society changes as new digital technology becomes a social norm. One moment, cell phones were a way of keeping people safe, always having a way to call for help. The next, the use of cell phones has become a hazard to our safety on the road. The number of car accidents that involve text messaging has greatly increased; unfortunately a majority of these accidents involve teenagers. A survey at South Lyon East High School 10 out of 12 students questioned admit that they do text message and drive.

Although the majority of states have made texting while driving illegal, it considered a commonoccurrence. Even major U.S. automobile manufacturers, including General Motors, Ford, Chrysler, and Toyota, support the total ban of using handheld texting devices while drivers are at the wheel. Larry Burns, former head of R&D at General Motors, said that today's younger drivers prefer texting to driving:

“We asked younger people about texting while driving; they told us the driving distracted them from texting.”

What must our society do to eliminate this risk from our teens? Will the law actually prevent people from texting while driving or does the government need to enforce a stricter policy?

Many families have lost their children due to careless decisions on the road. People must realize that texting while driving doesn’t just put that individual in harms way, but also everyone else on the road at that time. It’s time that people make a responsible decision to save the road for driving and texting for free time.

-Kevin Etheridge

Apple To Make Announcement Next Week

Apple is reported to be revealing a new product in the next week and the technology bloggers are going crazy. This time is no different than the past. Bloggers have many ideas as to what they will be previewing but nothing is certain other than a new Mac OS X which was announced by Apple in their invitation. The same invitation also included a picture of a lion which caused many bloggers to believe the new version will be called Lion.

Kit Eaton points out that Apple has filed numerous patents which would suggest that Apple could be unveiling a new touchscreen Mac. This would build on the popularity of the iPad which has been selling remarkably well. Others like Kasper Jade believe the big reveal will be an new version of the MacBook Air. Kasper's source is "a person with a proven track record of pinpoint accuracy."

Also going on in Apple news, for the first time the shares of Apple stock exceeded $300 on Wednesday. It is no surprise to many people that it has reached this milestone and many investors believe it will continue to rise. I don't doubt that at all because with the growing popularity of iPads and the new models of iPods will assure a busy holiday season for Apple. I think Mr. Jobs will be able to buy a couple new turtlenecks come January.

Apple vs. Facebook: Why the fighting?

When apple decided to release iTunes 10 they decided to add some social networking features to it. Steve Jobs demoed iTunes 10 and talked about how great it will be to share your music interests with others and discover new ones.

Finding your friends on Ping should be easy especially since there was supposed to be facebook integration. I signed up for ping immediately when it was released and there was a facebook login. Then soon after I noticed the features weren’t there for integration with facebook. The next day the facebook login was pulled from iTunes.

The big problem was that negotiations between Apple and Facebook were ongoing at the time of iTunes 10’s release. When a third party application wants to access Facebook it can do so without striking a deal with them. The only limitation with this is that there are only 100 million API calls allowed. Apple definitely exceeded this the first night. Facebook and Apple soon after began talks again and the feature is still waiting to be added back to iTunes.

Links:

PC World's Article

All Things Digital Article

Eyetracker news article

This news I found it first at this site

http://www.techtree.com/India/News/Eyetracker_Detects_Sleepy_Drivers_Warns_Them/551-113157-547.html, found a word link to this one http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-20019653-1.html, and landed at the original source http://www.fraunhofer.de/en/press/research-news/2010/10/eye-tracker-driver-drowsiness.jsp.

Basically, this news is about a new invention for automobiles. It was invented in Germany and is being put on display soon. The invention is cameras made to assess your level of sleepiness. The hope is of course to reduce the amount of collisions. It is called "The Eyetracker". As I searched for a post to talk about, this one was one of the first that showed. I have thoughts for and against this. I agree that people falling asleep while driving occurs often and if it can be stopped, yay. I think I would also tend to agree with those who would think that this would be too much. I posed links to the articles I looked at, I wasn't sure if she wanted us to post the entire thing on the blog, feel free to comment. The picture is also from those websites, that was the only one I saw to use.

Social Search: Facebook and Bing

On October 13, 2010 the Facebook PR team and Bing's development team met in Silicon Valley to discuss the details of a new partnership. Starting today, Microsoft will be analyzing data from Facebook to determine Bing user's search results. Searches have been altered to include data pulled from your personal social network.

Facebook's CTO Bret Taylor stated, "Your friends have liked lots of things all over the web, and now instead of stumbling across a new movie or having to look at a friend's profile to see which restaurants they like, we're bringing everything together in one place."

Even though the public announcement of social search is only a day old, Facebook integration is surprisingly robust on Bing already. When searching for movies, dining locations, and news Bing prioritizes search data with results your friends "publicly liked" appearing first.


Searches for people will now prioritize people that are included in your social network and people your friends have included in their social networks. You can even friend request people on Facebook from Bing's search results.

Obviously, social search allows Bing to provide more meaningful results to its users. However, it also means Bing can collect more meaningful data to provide to its advertisers. The social search model is part of the Microsoft and Facebook conquest against search engine giant, Google. Right now, Bing only accounts for ~4% of searches on the web. Microsoft hopes that by adding social aspects to its engine, it will be able to siphon off more Google users.

Will you use Bing now that it has social search?