https://daily.jstor.org/testing-americans-tolerance-for-surveillance/

In essence, surveillance, broadly defined, is when we’re intentionally watched, monitored or tracked by a third party—usually for their own purposes. This sounds terrifying, and many people would be quick to say so. In theory Americans value our privacy. In practice, we’ll readily cede it for select reasons: safety being the first,
convenience being the second.

Right after 9/11, the majority of Americans were willing to cede privacy and civil liberties in the name of safety, in a state of high alert and acute fear. Having the government scan their e-mails may have seemed a small price to pay in case they detected danger in a few. (And, it is important to note, as time has passed, Americans have been less and less comfortable with infringement on their information as their sense of security re-establishes itself.)

The internet, which has become a cornerstone of many people’s daily functioning, is only technically free—to access almost any service, you need to give up your basic details. Yet, to get food delivered, have groceries delivered to their doors, do banking in their pajamas, and have entertainment and access to the sea of information at their fingertips, people seem happy to let Facebook or Google or Yahoo mine their accounts.

https://theconversation.com/nikola-tesla-the-extraordinary-life-of-a-modern-prometheus-89479

The 75th anniversary of Tesla’s death on Jan. 7 provides a timely opportunity to review the life of a man who came from nowhere yet became world famous; claimed to be devoted solely to discovery but relished the role of a showman; attracted the attention of many women but never married; and generated ideas that transformed daily life and created multiple fortunes but died nearly penniless.

https://pilotonline.com/opinion/columnist/guest/article_d3cee0ef-3fcc-5709-b79d-053e0aa41c80.html

AS HAMPTON ROADS experiences a rare snowstorm, I offer these observations from a career working in local government.

Some local and state officials will make the mistake of claiming to be prepared or ready. They’re not. They can’t be. It would not make financial sense.

http://blog.apastyle.org/apastyle/2012/05/missing-pieces.html

Most APA Style references are straightforward to write—the guidance and examples in Chapter 7 of the Publication Manual and on this blog make that possible. We’ve written a good deal about the architecture of a generic reference (the four basic pieces of author, date, title, and source). Sometimes, however, one or more of those pieces is missing, and writing the reference can get more difficult. This post will help you adapt the classic APA Style reference template to fit any situation where information might be missing, as well as show you how to create the corresponding in-text citations for those
references.

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/12/26/17-striking-findings-from-2017/

Pew Research Center studies a wide array of topics both in the U.S. and around the world, and every year we are struck by particular findings. Sometimes they mark a new milestone in public opinion; other times a sudden about-face. From an increase in Americans living without a spouse or partner to the impact of Donald Trump’s presidency, here are 17 findings that stood out to us in 2017.

http://blog.pmean.com/semi-structured-interviews/

This is a very helpful guide on collecting qualitative data through a semi-structured interview. It emphasizes the need for probe questions and on behaviors that you should adopt to put your subject at ease and get the best information possible.

https://daily.jstor.org/the-science-of-traffic/

Often the cause of a jam is evident, as in the case of a crash or construction. But the biggest threat to traffic flow is actually a slow vehicle. Drivers get caught in what’s called a slow-moving bottleneck, caused by a vehicle moving slower than the flow of traffic in one lane of a multi-lane road. Even though traffic never stops, a traffic jam forms as if an actual blockage had occurred.

A car behind the slow vehicle has to brake and slow down, forcing the car behind to brake, and so forth. The slowdown spreads upstream of the slow vehicle in a wave, called a shockwave. Now, the car behind the slow vehicle will try to get around it. In tight traffic, a desperate car trying to pass the slow vehicle will inevitably pass close in front of a car in an adjacent lane. That forces the driver in that lane to brake, propagating a shockwave in that lane as well. These slowdowns will propagate sideways through other lanes as cars try to evade the slowdown and then backwards as new slowdowns are created.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/here-are-the-real-boundaries-of-american-metropolises-decided-by-an-algorithm/

When we think about where we live, usually our ideas start with political boundaries—we’d say we live in a particular state, city, or town. Ask about a neighborhood, sports team loyalties, or regions not defined by borders, though, and it might get a little fuzzier. In densely settled places like the East Coast, sprawl can make it hard to draw lines around places, too. Where in New Jersey does the New York City region end and the Philadelphia region begin?

http://www.people-press.org/2017/12/14/government-gets-lower-ratings-for-handling-health-care-environment-disaster-response/?utm_content=buffer04ebf&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

Since 2015, opinions about the federal government’s handling of several major issues have become less positive and much more partisan. Yet majorities continue to say the government should have a “major role” on such issues as defending against terrorism and helping lift people from poverty. And views about government’s role, unlike its performance, have changed only modestly over the past two years.

Public trust in government, meanwhile, remains close to a historic low. Just 18% say they trust the federal government to do the right thing “just about always” or “most of the time” – a figure that has changed very little for more than a decade.

And while more Republicans say they trust the government today than did so during the Obama administration, just 22% of Republicans and even fewer Democrats (15%) say they trust the government at least most of the time