Standard Of Cinema and What is Entertainment?

      The standards of cinema have evolved immensely in the last 20 years. One can see that what people considered entertainment 20 years ago would not bring in a large audience today. This raises the question of the involvement of technology within the cinema industry. With the ever-growing technology that is being applied to cinema today, is it that humans are getting harder to entertain or the movie- makers need more special affects to get their vision across?

     There is a large amount of cinema that people consider entertainment that is just embodying the everyday life of an individual or character. On the other hand, a new movie called "Gods and Kings" is absolutely loaded with special effects and epic scenes. It seems also destruction action movies is the new standard for action thrillers. 

      The term comedy is left up to the receiver of the comedy. Comedians like Eddie Murphy were breaking the limitations with what could be said and done with his tight leather apparel and raunchy jokes. It seems today that in order to get an audience to laugh comedians must be that more raunchy and outrageous, compared to the guys poking each other's eyes out. 

     Modern movies also are acting as advocates for the major issues in society. I see it all over. These issues include: gay rights, women equality, and marijuana. It seems one cannot see any genre of movie without seeing at least of these themes being pushed into audience's view. 

     One can see through cinema and comedy where society is going and the direction of the progression of thought. 

This is post number 7, I'm all out of standards at this point! 

Paintball Standards

    Paintball is an unknown sport, but growing very quickly in popularity in the extreme-sport community. Studies in 2006 showed the player increase and support rate was growing faster than snowboarding. But one would possibly say, "What standards could there possibly be involved with paintball?". Well, the rule book is quite lengthy, and doesn't necessarily provide a set of standards per se. But as an active member of the paintball community, there are a few of the big regulation changes over the years that have stuck out to me. The most influential standards I have seen in the sport of paintball is: rate of fire, field size, and team size.

    The RoF, or rate of fire, has been a fluctuating variable ever since I have joined the sport. Back when I played in the New England Paintball League, official National Professional Paintball feeder league, there was no standard rate of fire. The guns, although electronic, were set to semi-automatic, and could only shoot as fast as the finger could pull the trigger. This lead to market competition: guns that could shoot the fastest everyone would by. Those with the best triggers and the easiest to shoot would prevail. Also back then, there were 3 man, 5 man, and 7 man divisions, with the professionals playing with 7 players at a time. But I do recall a time before I got serious about the sport, and was just a spectator, when the professionals were playing with 10 man teams: chaos. And obviously the size of the field is somewhat based on the number of players on the field, which caused everyone to redesign their field layouts when the standards changed.

   Soon paintball officials and players realized the problem in letting the guns be set to semi-automatic: there was no real way to control the rate of fire, and there was a clear advantage to teams with better guns. In an attempt to level the playing field, a standard  RoF of 15 balls per second was set. Although there must have been a difference of opinion amongst organizations, because the NPPL did not adopt the new "ramping" standard. Instead they set a cap on the max RoF one could achieve with just their fingers on semi-auto to 15 balls per second. So a new professional paintball league formed: Paintball Sports Promotions, that adopted this new 15 balls per second standard, and thus x-ball was born.

    Ramping is a technology used in paintball guns, where by if you start pulling the trigger at say, 3 balls per second, the gun will automatically "ramp" up to 15 balls per second, or BpS. X-Ball is the term used by paintball players to refer to this new game where all players would have their guns set to "ramp mode". And boy was it fast paced, the ability to shoot 15 BpS right of the break was invigorating, it suddenly became extremely difficult to survive out of the starting box into your first bunker. Front players would have to run for their lives to make it to the further bunkers while back players put up "ropes" for the opposing team to run through. Teams were going through cases and cases of paint and still, at the end of the day, the usual winner was the one who shot the most. Which I am sure was great for the industry, and fun for the players, for a time, but unfortunately that madness had to come to an end. I am just proud to say I was able to be a part of that era, a part of the effort to set appropriate standards for the game I love.

    When I got to college, The National Collegiate Paintball Association, or NCPA, was a little a head of the curve in terms of standard paintball RoF. Although they had adopted the new field sizes, layouts, and a team size of five that PSP had endorsed through x-ball, they did not support the 15 BpS standard. The NCPA had set a league standard of 12.5 BpS which may not sound like a big difference, but as a player going from one league to the other, the difference was very noticeable.

    Now, with the introduction of the 2014 rule book, PSP has become more tame and reasonable by enforcing a standard RoF capped at 10.2 BpS. I for one am a firm supporter in a standard RoF. Under the rules of semi-automatic, our guns would have to be tested before every game, for certain mods in the gun or tricks one could use called "bouncing" which would almost let you achieve a fully automatic paintball gun. Refs would get to take your gun and unload as much paint as they saw fit before deeming your gun "legal". Which, was frustrating, because a team would have to ensure someone was walking around with extra paint to top you off before entering the field. By enforcing a rate of fire standard, we can make sure that one team does not have an unfair advantage over another, while still keeping the original sport of paintball in mind. Although not everyone has adopted this standard completely, as the NPPL still exists as a separate (failing) entity. it is still believed to be the global standard by most players in the community. 

http://www.paint-ball.org/paintball/statistics.htm

http://ncpapaintball.com/

http://nppl.com/

http://pspevents.com/

http://pspevents.com/rules/#.VIkCUSvF98E

What changed in the fashion industry and what will change

In the past days when everything was still in black and white and people walked in the streets without looking at their phones or tablets, the fashion industry was very different than what it has become today. Back in the day brand was not an issue, the manufacturing of the suit or dress was all that mattered. People at the time were not interested in brand recognition all that mattered was how much money they had to spend on the quality of the product and therefore on the skill of the tailor. I remember I had this conversation with my grandparents once, whom where around at the time when companies like Gucci, Louis Vuitton, and Prada where just small stores at the corner of some street that used to make tailored suits and dresses. Nowadays on the other hand the world of fashion has shifted from an industry where to get high quality clothes you would have them made to your specification by any tailor in town, to an industry where big brands have arisen thanks to successful branding into producing in large numbers high quality products and therefore pushing the hand made market out of the picture. Companies like Prada, Armani, Dolce & Gabbana and Gucci produce average quality products and sell them for extremely high prices. They have managed to steal the higher spending sector of the market because they successfully implemented brand recognition where back in the days tailors would usually advertise through its customers rather then openly like these companies.

If you notice, these companies started their campaign to success with a small but important step, an easily recognizable logo, and if you look today that logo is still in effect. Another aspect they used to strengthen the brand and unify the customers was to introduce the concept of a monogram. Basically what they did was genius, they only produced products with their monogram allover the products they sold. As we have seen today, people shifted from not buying the products because of the monotone color the brand uses or the monogram that is splattered across all the products to buying these products precisely for those qualities and to identify with a richer social class. The question now is if this standard for the fashion industry will stick or if companies like the recently exploding UNIQLO will set a new standard for the fashion industry for the masses.  In the past years UNIQLO has been gaining traction and a serious contender at the table when it comes to fashion. Basically what UNIQLO does and stand for is the pursuit for fashionable clothes with no overcharges due to brand recognition or brand weight, they are in the business to provide quality clothes that follow the fashion trend at a price that does not enrich the pockets of greedy owners, and so far it has been successful. UNIQLO has opened stores in every continent with stores opening in new cities faster then ever, I predict this type of fashion to stick and be a contender to provide fashionable clothes for the masses.

reflections on standards & society

This course has left me with a severe case of standarditus , a condition in which one sees all problems in the world through the lens of standardization.  As a recurring offender of STS courses here at Stevens, I went into the class with tools such as an understanding of Actor Network Theory and an understanding of the political demensions through examples like Winner's bridges and the many automobile examples given throughout Vinsel's classes.  As a computer scientist who keeps up to date on what is going on in open source project standards committess, it would have been a disservice to myself to not take this class.  I had heard the terms de facto, de jure, and concencus before in discussions about standards but lacked an understanding of how these standards processes shaped the way that the standards were made.  I found that the standards game and having John Day speak to the class were extremely helpful at this as to understand how negotiation and personal interest shapes the standards process.  Negotiation takes an understanding of the other person and their position far deeper than what is often gained at a committee table.  Understanding what the best type of standard is for a given problem under constraints such as time and safety is important as not to waste time failing. 

Before this class I had not thought much about the political side of standards.  A standard like any other asset a company may own is part of the strategy when competing for market dominance.  One would hope that the standard is good for innovation and the general public, but after taking this course it is clear that this ideal case is rare.  Even scientific standards committees suffer from this as it is near impossible to not attempt to best represent the interests of your employer.  Standards need to be updated and maintained as the fields that contain said standard and their relationships change.  The standards process is prone to corruption (as is anything inherently political) and those who oversee the process must be vigilant

I enjoyed having two lecturers in the class and thought that brought unique perspectives into discussion.  I thought the later lectures in the course were more helpful being those that focused on a single topic e.g. common core and pollution in west virginia.  Having a single reading I felt made the topics go more in depth.  One thing I think would be helpful would be for us to blog about the topic of the week which could be brought into that weeks discussion.  I also think that a list of what you want us to get out of each reading would be helpful as the readings can be quite long and it is sometimes easy to get lost in the details.  Overall I really enjoyed the course and feel it is and will continue to be useful in the way I think about the world. 

Standards Committee's in Open Source Software

Throughout the semester we have seen a lot of committees. All the ones we have sen have been from standards institutions. Let's look at a community ran one!

Debian advertises itself as the universal operating system. This is because they aim for everything to work well out of the box, and to be easily extendible. Since Debian is the [basis of so many distortions][deb-fork], it can be seen as a standard setting body. It is also one of the most bureaucratic, but in a good way. Unlike many other free software projects, the Debian project is guided by a well structured [constitution][deb-cont]. This constitution guides how all of the decision making processes are made within an organization.

The Debian project is headed by a Project Leader (PL). Their roles and responsibilities are mainly discussed in §5. The PL serves in one year terms, and is voted in by the Debian developers. Each term does not have to last the full year if a developer puts forward a resolution to remove the PL. They appoint members of technical committees, make urgent decisions, or make decisions that no one else has the authority to make. I have not listed all of their responsibilities, but the PL is the main organizational unit, and all committees end up reporting to them.

Another unit is the Technical Committee (TC). TC is the group that makes the finial decisions on technical problems. They also help to mediate technical decisions between developers, if they are unable to. The main other goal of the TC is to offer general technical advice. Any developer can ask the TC about it's views on any matter.

To be honest, I find their voting system pretty wonky. The rules for voting can be found in §A.6. Quorum is based on the min(5, log(number\_devs)/2).
Then depending on the type of vote, there are a few different ways to progress. For simple yes no votes, they are simply tallied up. For votes that require a series of options to be listed, a [Schwartz set][schwartz] is used. Honestly, the Schwartz set is pretty complicated math, but the end result is that each item in a list of options is weighted differently. It would be useful in a situation where no one can decide on a first option, so then the second option would be counted.

Although this is a very brief introduction to Debian's structure, it should start to show how it is organized. It is possible to go into much deeper detail on this topic, but that is for another day. Compared to many other community ran open source project, Debian's is probably the most well structured. One of the cool thinks about this structure is that it is freely copyable. Even though any group could copy Debian's rules, without the proper people taking responsibilities, the rules won't matter too much.

[deb-fork]:  https://www.debian.org/misc/children-distros "Debian Forks"
[deb-const]: https://www.debian.org/devel/constitution    "Debian Constitution"
[schwartz]:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schwartz_set   "Schwartz Set"

Schedule I classification and research of controlled substances

The DEA's classification of substances under the Controlled Substances Act (CSA) is in need of an overhaul as our knowledge of these substances changes. The war on drugs has done little to help society and has made it difficult for individuals to seek help for underlying condtions that are at the root of their drug use. This blog post will look at several controlled substances and how standardization of these substances has made it difficult for researchers to study known and potential applications. Several schedule one substances (meaning high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use) currently have known medical uses but there is little attention towards fixing this classification even for cannabis where the fight is now focused on legalization. Schedule I classification makes it difficult for research labs to get samples of substances and makes testing difficult as there are strict time-consuming protocols defined by the DEA. Schedule I also greatly increases prison sentences for drug possession and other drug related crimes. 

MDMA (the psychoactive drug in ecstacy) is classified under schedule 1 yet has been found to be very effective in treating PTSD. A study performed in 2010 by MAPS (multidisciplinary association for psychedelic studies) concluded that our of a sample of 20 individuals in PTSD treatment, 83% of those who went through MDMA-assisted psychotherapy were cured compared to just 25% without it. Results from a follow-up study in 2012 showed that the treatment was still effective, showing that it could have long term benefits for those who undergo treatment. The medical community has recommended to the US government that MDMA should be placed under Schedule III, and despite two court rulings by the DEA's administrative law judge that Schedule I placement is illegal, it remains there today. The psychoactive compound psilocybin found in magic mushrooms has been found to be effective in treating depression. It has been found to be particularly effective at helping patients reverse negative cognative biases, a phenomenon in which an individual has a greater recall of negative memories than positive ones. Other studies have shown psilocybin to help with obsessive compulsion disorder and cluster headaches. GHB and cannabis are both Schedule I substances with Schedule III applications, a classification which breaks the very definition of Schedule I. GHB helps with narcolepsy and alcohol withdrawl and dependence but is schedule I, unless you call it by its phamacutical name Xyrem, then its Schedule III. Canabis has been found to help with many ailments including pain, nausea, and sleep deprivation. It has also been found to help with epilepsy with public attention being brought through CNN's Dr Sanjay Gupta's special “WEED” where he showed how cannabis was able to help a little girl. Marinol (an isomer of THC) has been classified as Schedule III and is used to treat the same conditions as cannabis leading to many critics asking the question of why THC is Schedule I. 

For these substances and for those I did not mention in this blog, it is clear that the DEA is behind science in the classification of substances. When the medical community is demanding reclassification with a successful lawsuit and yet still nothing happens, it goes to show that standards in government can be dangerous to progress. The Standard for drug classification lays out the criteria for drugs to move between the schedules yet those in charge of seeing it change do nothing about it due to the “war on drugs”. Those who oversee the implementation of a standard need to be held accountable for the maintenance of said standard.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/07/11/mdma-molly-therapy-ptsd-cure/10683963/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/30/opinion/sunday/can-mushrooms-treat-depression.html?_r=0

http://www.vox.com/2014/8/7/5967239/marijuana-legalization-drug-schedule-DEA-FDA-HHS

Standard of Curbing Human Nature For the Purpose of Manners

     Human nature can be called a number of things; primal, aggressive, or anti-progressive. Human nature can also be profiled with the desires that human beings feel in everyday life, whether its eating or relieving yourself. 

     

     The reason that is important is that modern manners do not allow for the desires to come up in daily conversation. The first example that comes to mind is passing gas. Why is it embarrassing to be caught passing gas in a public venue? All humans do it and all humans will feel the need to pass gas eventually in a public venue. Society has determined the standard of manners is to not pass something that may be causing a person pain in the moment. 

    

      Another example would be the idea that anything animal- like that humans do, burping or grunting, is looked down upon in society. Also why is that humans are trying constantly trying to push away from anything that will lead to a connection with them being an animal?

       These are all things humans will do and continue to do in their everyday lives. Therefore this raises the question, If everyone does the mentioned above why is it looked down upon in society? If a standard is decided upon consensus, how is that society was able to brain wash the western world into thinking this was wrong?

     Something that intrigued me was the standard of the manner in which babies are allowed to relieve themselves in oriental culture, especially in China. In China, babies actually have a different zipper where they are able to relieve themselves in the street and society was completely fine with it. My first reaction to hearing this fact was, "That's gross and why?"

     This raises the question, why is in Chinese culture that society is that comfortable with babies relieving themselves and Americans are not allowed to pass gas in conversation? How was society able to brain wash people into either extreme of this situation and why did each society differ in their opinions?

 

What I Took Away from my First STS Class

     Coming into the class, I expected that this experience would open up my eyes. I was thinking that understanding standards and how they impact society would aid me in understanding the world that we live in and how to make it work to my advantage. I was interested in using the power of observation, analysis, and the class to make me into a capable and well- rounded part of society.
      The class turned out to be a success. Now in daily conversation I find myself using the phrase, "Well that's a standard" and being critical of the process in which standards are developed. Currently, my understanding of standards and the reasons that they are developed grew to a level where I feel knowledgeable in the topic. The topic of standards is truly an infectious topic, due to the fact the more one lets it sink into one's mind one starts to see it everywhere.
         The words standards and society are a very good name for the class. Without standards, society would be a chaotic scene. Without society, standards have no reason to be. Society was built on standards (standards of roads, buildings, transportation, work, and food), just to name a few and apparent.
      The manner in which I saw this being applied to business was in the field of competitive advantage. If a competitor could apply the knowledge from this class to how standards almost set the market for a good or service, the company can set the good or service's standard. By raising the "bar" or standard the company will therefore be the industry leader and symbol of the industry.
     To conclude, the class was very enjoyable and intriguing. The class had a good dynamic between business, computer, and engineering majors. The manner in which the information was presented was very chronological and easy to follow. The dynamic between two professors teaching the class with expertise was very interesting and attention grabbing. More classes should have that dynamic.

Thank you for a great semester!

The Clean Air Act

The Clean Air Act passed in 1963 asserts that the Environmental Protection Agency must “update air quality standards every five years, to ensure standards "protect public health with an adequate margin of safety" based on the latest scientific evidence.” According to the Environmental Protection Agency Commissioner Gina McCarthy  the current proposal,  “would lower the current standard of 75 parts per billion (the concentration of ozone pollution in the air we breathe) to a standard in the range of 65-70 parts per billion, while taking public comment on a level as low as 60.”

Of all the standards we studied in this course, relatively few standards had a clause to update the requirements every five years. Especially standards that apply to so many industries including energy, manufacturing, automotive, etc. An aggressive across the board standard like the one regulating air quality standards push industries to innovate and reevaluate their practices. As we have also seen in class the more aggressive the standard is, the more noticeable the change or influence of the standard is after the fact.

Hopefully with this updated air quality standard we will see significant changes. Air quality effects the health of millions of Americans in ways many of us are unaware of. From asthma to drowsiness, even possibly cancer, these are all potential symptoms of dangerously high air quality levels. Commissioner McCarthy describes the economic effects related to these potential health hazards:  “Missing work, feeling ill, or caring for a sick child costs us time, money, and personal hardship. When family health issues hurt us financially, that drags down the whole economy. The good news is that if these proposed standards were finalized, every dollar we would invest to meet them would return up to $3 in health benefits (totaling up to $38 billion in 2025, and going up from there).For our children, that means avoiding up to 1 million missed school days, thousands of cases of acute bronchitis, and nearly a million asthma attacks. Adults could avoid hundreds of emergency room visits for cardiovascular reasons, up to 180,000 missed work days, and 4 million days where people have to deal with pollution-related symptoms.”

I hope that the EPA continues to implement aggressive environmental standards across the board and that eventually the United States can become a leader in sustainable and clean energy. The economic and health hazards of high ozone pollution effects every individual and corporation around the world. By setting this standard, the Environmental Protection Agency is also pushing corporations to become more efficient and innovative with their energy consumption and emissions. Throughout this course we have also seen the powerful effects of standards including safety improvements and innovative changes. I believe that if the Environment Protection Agency continues to implement and enforce these aggressive standards we will see some great changes including safety improvements for the masses and energy efficiency advances. 

Future Plans of the FDA in the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Industry

The main regulatory body at large in the pharmaceutical manufacturing industry is the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The FDA sets de jure standards responsible for protecting and promoting public health through the regulation and management of food safety, pharmaceutical drugs, and many other fields relating to public health. The main body of the FDA responsible for the development and approval of drugs is the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER). The goal of CDER is to ensure that drugs marketed in the United States are safe and effective. CDER recently published a strategic plan to discuss the steps it will be taking to address pressing issues and their proposed ways of enhancing operations over the next five years. One of the main issues outlined in the plan is scientific innovation. CDER admits that not all current trends in the pharmaceutical industry are positive. “Despite the significant advances in basic research witnessed over recent decades, the cost of new drug research and development has never been greater, nor the failure rate in drug development higher” (FDA CDER). It is estimated that the failure rate in late-stage clinical development is around 50 %. One of the major, reoccurring factors contributing to this failure rate is scientific uncertainty. New methods and technologies for gauging the clinical benefits and risks of a drug much earlier in development would help reduce these uncertainties, resulting in a lower cost and risk in drug development. This would allow more innovators to invest in the development of new medicines.

One example of an area that would benefit from a reduction in scientific uncertainty is biotechnology. The pharmaceutical protein products developed by biotechnology processes are derived from complicated expression and production systems that usually involve a genetically modified host cell and growth media. Production conditions can greatly affect the final protein structure, which may result in changes in efficacy or safety of the product. “Understanding the relationships between production conditions, product characteristics, and clinical performance and safety is critical for both innovator biologics as well as biosimilars” (FDA CDER).

The foundation of CDER’s scientific innovation strategy includes addressing scientific uncertainties, collaborating to develop tools and approaches to deal with those uncertainties, qualifying new drug development tools for use in regulatory decision-making, and conducting training on and making informatics and data analysis readily available to reviewers. Once these new scientific standards are established, the FDA can update their regulatory requirements and decision protocols to include these methods. By continuously revising regulatory requirements, the FDA incorporates scientific innovation into their management strategy. All prescription and over-the-counter drug manufactures are required to comply with FDA regulations and therefore integrate scientific innovation into their business and manufacturing model.

CDER’s strategic plan also includes scientific innovation goals and initiatives, including information about when each initiative will start and identifying the key external stakeholders. For example, one of CDER’s initiatives is, “Advancing regulatory sciences related to innovator and generic product manufacturing and quality” (FDA CDER). This initiative is labeled as on-going with stakeholders in academia, regulated industry, research consortia, standards organizations, and other federal agencies. It is interested to note that several of the initiatives have standards organizations as one of the stakeholders. The FDA recognizes that some of the work it does directly affects how standards organizations like ASTM and USP developed their standards. Standard organizations need to aware of the drug approval process and quality regulations outlined by the FDA in order to ensure seamless transition from the research and development laboratory to clinical production and manufacturing. As with many scientific fields, the regulatory bodies and standards organizations of the pharmaceutical industry are interconnected and dependent on each other for proper functionality.

Table 1—CDER’s Scientific Innovation Initiatives

Scientific Innovation Initiatives	Start	Key External Stakeholders
Advancing the Use of Biomarkers and Pharmacogenomics	2013	·         Regulated Industry ·         Research Consortia
Advancing Development of Patient-Reported Outcomes (PROs) and Other Outcome Assessment Tools	2013	·         Patients ·         Research Consortia ·         Regulated Industry
Advancing Development of Drugs for Rare Diseases	2013	·         Patients ·         Research Consortia ·         Regulated Industry
Advancing the Science of Meta-Analysis Methodologies	2012	·         Other Federal Agencies ·         Regulated Industry ·         Academia
Advancing the Development of Predictive Safety Models, Biomarkers, and Assessment Tools (e.g., through public private consortia)	On-going	·         Patients ·         Research Consortia ·         Regulated Industry ·         Other Federal Agencies
Advancing Social and Behavioral Science to Help Consumers and Professionals Make Informed Decisions about Regulated Products	On-going	·         Patients ·         Research Consortia ·         Regulated Industry ·         Academia
Advancing Regulatory Sciences Related to Innovator and Generic Product Manufacturing and Quality	On-going	·         Academia ·         Regulated Industry ·         Research Consortia ·         Standards Organizations ·         Other Federal Agencies
Advancing Regulatory Science Related to the Manufacture, Characterization and Assessment of Biologic Drug Products	On-going	·         Academia ·         Regulated Industry ·         Research Consortia ·         Standards Organizations ·         Other Federal Agencies
Advancing the Development of Electronic Data Analysis Tools to Enhance Review Capabilities	On-going	·         Standards Organizations ·         Private Industry ·         Academia ·         Research Consortia ·         Other Federal Agencies

Source— FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research (CDER): Strategic Plan 2013-2017

Need for standards in computer education

Computer Science is a field that teaches the critical thinking and problem solving skills that are very valuable today, especially in STEM fields. The quality of computer science education in K-12 varies greatly based upon what state and even what school district you belong to. Standards that govern computer science are often bundled with technology standards, causing a majority of states and school districts to treat them as free electives. Groups like the Computer Science Teachers Association (CSTA), Microsoft, and Code.org have begun an initiative to change this by pushing states to offer computer science courses as a core course rather than elective. From 2013 to 2014 the number of states that include computer science as a core discipline increased from 9 to 25 states, a positive trend but not enough given the demand. Computer science jobs are growing at more than 2 times the national average in most states and over 4 times the national average in states like NY, NJ, and California. Data from Code.org shows that by 2020, there will be over 1 million computer science jobs than there are students with computer science degrees if the current education trajectory continues. 90% of schools nation wide still do not offer any form of computer science courses. States who leave these standards decisions to the school districts have been the slowest at adapting to this critical 21^st century need.

There has been a major rebranding of computer science over the last few years to make it more accessible and desirable to today's youth. Fred Humphries, Microsoft vice president of government affairs, during a recent panel discussion at Washington “The fact of the matter is if you’re going to have the job of the future, you better have some type of background in computer science”. A study on student interest in STEM fields by students conducted by the ACT shows that interest is high and improving (over 50% of students taking the ACT were interested in pursuing STEM) . This study also found that students who are interested in pursuing a carrear in STEM scored higher in all sections on the ACT and were more engaged in leadership programs. Computer science skills are directly applicable to all STEM fields and give an advantage to those students who pursue a higher education. I believe that a national standard that states would be incentivised to follow is needed in order to speed up the inclusion of computer science programs in schools. Computer science teachers often feel discouraged as their classes are often looked at as being less important than core discipline classes. Courses are often designed for smaller class sizes which bring a slew of logistical problems that need be addressed. State standards need to adhere to the CSTA criteria as many believe that basic usage (i.e. being able to use a web browser for research or a word processor) is enough. Initiatives like “hour of code” which have been attempted by 48 million students and the code.org intro CS curriculum which 99% of teachers recommend need a backing in standards else their effects are constrainded to the single session. Being able to critically think about technology and the social effects that it has is a necessary skill that is being overlooked in schools. I want to live in a world where legislation about technology is questioned by the masses to prevent those in power from taking advantage of them.

http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2014/11/25/making-it-count-computer-science-spreads-as-graduation-requirement?int=a13909

http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/12/27/tech-companies-work-to-combat-computer-science-education-gap

http://www.usnews.com/news/stem-solutions/articles/2014/11/19/act-student-interest-in-stem-remains-steady-for-2014-graduates

EPA's New Stricter Ozone Standard

Last Wednesday the Obama administration announces a regulation, released under the authority of the Clean Air Act, to curb ozone emission.  This regulation, predicted to be fully in force  by 2050, aims to reduce the smog causing pollutant from the current 75 parts per billion standard, set in 2008 by the Bush administration,  to anywhere from 65 to 70 part per billion.  According to the NY Times’ Coral Davenport, on one end it is hailed as a “powerful environmental legacy” by environmentalists and public health advocated, while at the other a “costly government overreach” by manufactures and industry.  While the new 65 to 70 part per billion proposed standard is estimated to cost industry $3.9 billion to $15 billion in 2050, it is also estimated to prevent 320,000 to 960,000 asthma attacks in children, 330,000 to 1 million missed school days, 750 to 4,300 premature deaths, 1,400 to 4,300 asthma related emergency room visits, and 65,000 to 180,000 missed work days by 2050.  The EPA estimated that the latter economic benefits would outweigh the former by anywhere from $6.4 billion to $38 billion in 2025 depending on what standard is chosen.   

This new standard proposal is finally being pushed forward after it was halted in 2011.  The EPA originally planned to release it that year but with powerful opposition from Republicans and industry, and the approaching 2012 election, Obama decided to release the delay on the grounds of the distressed economy.  But little has changed; the Republican majority Congress, led by majority leader Senator Mitch McConnell, plan to block or overturn the rule, and others like it.  Directory of regulatory affairs for the American Petroleum Institutes, lobbying for the oil industry, said that “the current review of health studies has not identified compelling evidence for more stringent standards, and current standards are protective of public health.”  While EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy wrote in an op-ed for CNN "Critics play a dangerous game when they denounce the science and law EPA has used to defend clean air for more than 40 year. The American people know better."

                As this battle takes full force, how do these standards get set?  According to The Clean Air Act, the EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards (OAQPS) sets the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for harmful pollutants and makes sure these standards are met by various monitoring programs, such as the Ambient Air Monitoring Program, Enhanced Ozone Monitoring, and Air Pollution Monitoring.  There are two types of standards set, primary, which protects against adverse health effects, and secondary, which protects against welfare effects.  There are six criteria pollutants that the NAAQS addresses and the Air Pollution Monitoring program monitors, which are carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and ozone, the one being addressed by the recent smog reduction regulation.  

When an area is found to contain high levels of any of the six criteria pollutants, it is considered a “nonattainment” area.  Levels are measured and reported in accordance to the standards and testing methods developed by the EPA’s Emissions Measurement Center.   States containing nonattainment areas are required by the OAQPS to develop a written state implementation plan in which they outline the efforts they will make to reduce air pollutant levels and reach “attainment”.  But what will this mean for smog ridden states like California, which might end up with many “nonattainment” areas under the new proposal?  According to Scientific American’s Valerie Volcovici, the EPA has “cited flexibility to allow for ‘unique’ situations, such as in California, a massive state with a varied environment.”  But states have up to 20 years to meet the standard before the federal government cracks down.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/27/us/epa-ozone-limits-divide-industry-and-environmentalists.html?_r=0

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/epa-seeks-tighter-ozone-standards-to-cut-pollution/

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2014/11/26/obama-administrationsetsstrictersmogstandard.html

http://www.epa.gov/airquality/cleanair.html

Re. Time Management Meeting Rescheduled. Reason: Time Conflict

        Time is precious… or so we’re told. It’s oddly one of the few aspects of life that people have actually realized are important. Breathing? Let’s burn these leaves and breathe deeply… I mean, I don’t inhale. Hydration? Nah, get me a beer, some vodka, a soda, iced tea, or maybe just skip the drink altogether. I don’t want water, beer has water in it. Food? Give me the best tasting, fattiest, greasiest thing you have… extra bacon. Or maybe I’ll go with the salad that *gag*, or give me like twenty toppings for that salad and a ton of dressing. Sleep? I’m not *yawn* tired… I can keep going.

But time? We don’t live forever. We only have so much time to get things done. How much time will this take? 20 min? I don’t have that much time. Do you have a TL:DR (too long, didn’t read)? A summary? An Abstract? What’s the elevator pitch? Don’t forget to document everything (which will never be read until something bad happens, and then it will be “why didn’t anyone read this?”), but we’ll only cover the abstracted summary of this elevator pitch. Can we go to the movies mom? Sorry, I don’t have enough time.

As of 8:30pm yesterday, my academic “hell-week” is over. Now it’s project time. But what is “hell-week”? I know enough people use it, or at least understand the meaning. I started using it in high school to define the week of school near the end of the year/semester/etc. that everything becomes due for grading. I got the term from watching some videos about the Navy Seals where, during training, they have a “week of hell” where everything happens and they’re given little to no time to sleep, eat, or relieve themselves. It’s not that bad, but when you have between 4 and (not me, but I know some people) 11 classes, and they all have one or more assignments due, stereotypically on the same day, you start to test the limits of human endurance to get everything done.

One interesting observation is that there are multiple people, all going through the same classes, all on the same schedule… yet they all have a personal standard for time management. For me, I needed to write this post, and decided instead to get food. Is this post that low on the “priority list” that I opted to get food then write it? Yes. But for someone else, they might put off sleep for two days in order to finish their own blog post, and any other work they have. In business, deadlines are made for everything, regardless if needed or not. Going to have lunch? Start at 12pm and finish by 1pm. I should get this abstract completed in 15 min, let me setup a calendar entry.

That actually brings up a different point, planners and non-planners. There are some people, such as myself, who if you look at their calendar; lunch, travel, work, personal projects, phone calls, etc. all have a time and place. Now, if you actually did look at my calendar, you’d say “aha, you have free time here, here, and…” halt right there. For all the planning I do, I’m bad at determining how long a task will take. It’s like a gift to determine how long a task will take. Some people can tell you the exact minute they will finish something, others will be years off. Due to bad time prediction, I leave gaps within my schedule so that I can reschedule tasks without destroying my entire schedule or needing to drastically change plans.

The exact opposite would be people who, when you open this same calendar, are greeted by “Welcome! This is your calendar. You can use it to make schedules.” As in, they don’t plan. I’ve heard stories of people who will decide to go see a movie, then in the middle of the movie, leave to get dinner because their friends are going to a local place. Wait, what happened to the movie? “We’ll watch it after we eat.” They never actually watch the movie, but somehow end up watching some small-town’s firework display for the town’s fair. I tend to view these individuals as having more money than the average person, as they always seem to be out doing something, and never doing something on their own or watching the movie at home with friends, or possibly inviting the friends over to try and make something for dinner. Stuff that not only is sustainable, but always seem to be more fun as they are personal instead of superficial. I tend to interact with these people by making a calendar entry “Might <event(s)> with <person(s)>” so I don’t schedule anything important then, as I may never get back.

In terms of standards, it is something we will never have coconscious on, so we operate our own way. In a business, it would practically be de jure, where you are told when something is due. Often in some top-down manner. Stock holders demand results before competitor, CEO wants results a week earlier, higher-ups want it a week before giving it to the CEO, mid-tiers want it a week before that, base-level bosses want it a month before that. Suddenly, you the worker, need to have a meeting to plan the schedule for when tasks are due, and it will somehow end up being “we’re already late, we need to do this double time”.

Time is precious. I tell people to “make time”, a half-joking, half-serious statement as I try to squeeze as much into a small block of time as possible. While it backfires often enough, it has at least given a drive to accomplish more and look for natural efficiency as opposed to reducing quality in my work. One area where there is a de-facto method of time management is travel to more than one location. While mathematics, physics, and problems like the traveling salesmen problem will prove that it isn’t true, it is considered normal/proper/etc. to arrange destinations for a trip in order destinations by way of distance from the prior point. While some now will say it’s to reduce fuel costs, it mainly stems from people want to reduce travel time. Whoever said travel is about the journey, not the destination, obviously never traveled anywhere.

Time is widely viewed as one of the most valuable resources humanity has, but is also one of the least organized. Even organized systems like time zones, calendars, and clocks, while “standardized” within their form, are used differently depending on who is using it and where. Planners and non-planners will work with time in vastly different ways, and even within each of those sub-groups, they will have different ways of scheduling tasks. But as it took me much more time then I was hoping for, I must go and do other work. Time is of the essence.