Why Writing by Hand Makes Kids Smarter
October 1st, 2020My wife and I have been using Zaner-Bloser handwriting materials with our children. Highly recommended!
Via: Medical Express:
New brain research shows that writing by hand helps children learn more and remember better. At the same time, schools are becoming more and more digital, and a European survey shows that Norwegian children spend the most time online of 19 countries in the EU.
Professor Audrey van der Meer at NTNU believes that national guidelines should be put into place to ensure that children receive at least a minimum of handwriting training.
Results from several studies have shown that both children and adults learn more and remember better when writing by hand.
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“The use of pen and paper gives the brain more ‘hooks’ to hang your memories on. Writing by hand creates much more activity in the sensorimotor parts of the brain. A lot of senses are activated by pressing the pen on paper, seeing the letters you write and hearing the sound you make while writing. These sense experiences create contact between different parts of the brain and open the brain up for learning. We both learn better and remember better,” says Van der Meer.
Federal Government to Conclude Fiscal 2020 With Record Spending
October 1st, 2020
Via: Nextgov:
The federal government’s fiscal 2020 year ends today at midnight and federal spending has eclipsed $6 trillion for the first time ever—and that’s without data from September, the final month federal officials can obligate annual Congressionally-appropriated funds before they expire.
According to data from the Treasury Department, total government spending in fiscal 2020 reached $6.1 trillion by Aug. 31. The 2020 budget deficit now stands at $3 trillion through August—also a first, meaning the government has spent $3 trillion more than it has taken in this year—following 11 consecutive months of deficit spending compounded by the coronavirus pandemic. The current budget deficit is nearly twice as large as the previous highest deficit run in fiscal 2009 amid a national recession.
Hearing Reveals U.S. Government’s Invisible Hand in Protests Around the World
October 1st, 2020Via: Antiwar.com:
Last week, the House Foreign Affairs Committee grilled Michael Pack, who President Trump recently appointed to head the US government’s state propaganda arm, the US Agency for Global Media (USAGM).
Pack was appointed in June and started a big shakeup at the US state media outlets run by the USAGM, like Voice of America and Radio Free Asia. Pack fired senior staffers, pushed out management, and froze funding.
During last week’s hearing, Democrats and Republicans on the committee teamed up to attack Pack for his purges. But what seemed more important to Congress and former USAGM officials was Pack’s move to freeze funds to the Open Technology Fund (OTF). The OTF was formed in 2012 and operated as part of Radio Free Asia for seven years. In 2019, the OTF became an independent non-profit, although it is financed by US taxpayer dollars through the USAGM.
According to former USAGM officials and OTF board members, the OTF supports protesters in other nations across the world. “In many places around the globe, OTF quietly is providing support to protesters,” said Grant Turner, the former USAGM chief financial officer, who Pack removed in August. “So the Hong Kong protesters are protecting their identities from surveillance by OTF tools; protesters in Iran; we’ve seen it in Beirut,” Turner said.
Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, who sits on the board of the OTF, also testified and spoke of how the OTF helps protest movements. “OTF has a long history of supporting internet freedom efforts, and was poised to expand its efforts in Hong Kong,” Kornbluh said. “It was going to serve support for circumvention tools and expand support for digital training.”
U.S. Air Force Has Built and Flown Prototype “Next-Generation Fighter Jet”
October 1st, 2020In case you thought the $1.5 trillion F-35 boondoggle would slow them down…
Via: DefenseNews:
The U.S. Air Force has secretly designed, built and flown at least one prototype of its enigmatic next-generation fighter jet, the service’s top acquisition official confirmed to Defense News on Sept. 14.
The development is certain to shock the defense community, which last saw the first flight of an experimental fighter during the battle for the Joint Strike Fighter contract 20 years ago. With the Air Force’s future fighter program still in its infancy, the rollout and successful first flight of a demonstrator was not expected for years.
“We’ve already built and flown a full-scale flight demonstrator in the real world, and we broke records in doing it,” Will Roper told Defense News in an exclusive interview ahead of the Air Force Association’s Air, Space and Cyber Conference. “We are ready to go and build the next-generation aircraft in a way that has never happened before.”
Car Seats as Contraception
October 1st, 2020Via:SSRN:
Since 1977, U.S. states have passed laws steadily raising the age for which a child must ride in a car safety seat. These laws significantly raise the cost of having a third child, as many regular-sized cars cannot fit three child seats in the back. Using census data and state-year variation in laws, we estimate that when women have two children of ages requiring mandated car seats, they have a lower annual probability of giving birth by 0.73 percentage points. Consistent with a causal channel, this effect is limited to third child births, is concentrated in households with access to a car, and is larger when a male is present (when both front seats are likely to be occupied). We estimate that these laws prevented only 57 car crash fatalities of children nationwide in 2017. Simultaneously, they led to a permanent reduction of approximately 8,000 births in the same year, and 145,000 fewer births since 1980, with 90% of this decline being since 2000.
Leaked Windows Source Code Complied Into Working Operating System
September 30th, 2020Via: zdnet:
The Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 source code that was leaked online last week on 4chan has been confirmed to be authentic after a YouTube user compiled the code into working operating systems.
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NTDEV, a US-based IT technician behind the eponymous Twitter and YouTube accounts, was one of the millions of users who downloaded the code last week.
But rather than wait for an official statement from Microsoft that is likely to never come, NTDEV decided to compile the code and find out for themselves.
According to videos shared online, the amateur IT technician was successful in compiling the Windows XP code over the weekend, and Windows Server 2003 yesterday.
“Well, the reports were indeed true. It seems that there are some components missing, such as winlogon.exe and lots of drivers,” NTDEV told ZDNet in an interview today, describing his work on XP.
NTDEV says these missing components mean that the leaked XP code is not yet in a fully usable state, such as for a “full OS replacement,” but that the code is, nevertheless, authentic.
“Certain files, such as the kernel and the Explorer can be compiled easily. I have tried some programs from the compiled source of XP, and it seems that they are identical to the retail versions of Windows,” NTDEV said.
The Worst Presidential Debate of All Time
September 30th, 2020Via: The Week:
The first presidential debate of the 2020 general election cycle was the most embarrassing spectacle of its kind this country has ever witnessed.
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96 minutes of shouts, insults, interruptions, stray thoughts, and loose babble. It was like witnessing an argument about an arcane procedural rule during a senior bingo night at a nursing home in purgatory. It was vicious, tasteless, witless, and (surprisingly, alas) painfully unfunny.
Elon Musk Says He and His Family Won’t Take Coronavirus Vaccine When it Becomes Available
September 30th, 2020Via: New York Post:
SpaceX founder Elon Musk stirred the pot yet again after claiming that neither he nor his family would take a COVID-19 vaccine even if it was readily available.
The 49-year-old billionaire dropped the bombshell during a Monday appearance on the New York Times opinion podcast “Sway.”
“I’m not at risk, neither are my kids,” Musk told host Kara Swisher about the rationale behind his decision.
During the bizarre exchange, the Tesla CEO decried the nationwide lockdown as a “no-win situation” that has “diminished my faith in humanity.” Musk previously called widespread quarantines “unethical” and “de facto house arrest,” RT reports.
Amazon One: Palm Scanner for ‘Secure’ Payments
September 29th, 2020Via: BBC:
Amazon has announced a new payment system for real-world shops which uses a simple wave of the hand.
Its new Amazon One scanner registers an image of the user’s palm, letting them pay by hovering their hand in mid-air “for about a second or so”, it says.
The product will be trialled at two of Amazon’s physical stores in Seattle.
But the company said it is “in active discussions with several potential customers” about rolling it out to other shops in the future.
“In most retail environments, Amazon One could become an alternate payment or loyalty card option with a device at the checkout counter next to a traditional point of sale system,” it said.
Amazon also said the system could be used for “entering a location like a stadium” or scanning yourself into work instead of using an ID card.
“We believe Amazon One has broad applicability beyond our retail stores,” it added.
SpaceX’s Starlink Satellites Could Make U.S. Army Navigation Hard to Jam
September 29th, 2020Via: MIT Technology Review:
SpaceX has already launched more than 700 Starlink satellites, with thousands more due to come online in the years ahead. Their prime mission is to provide high-speed internet virtually worldwide, extending it to many remote locations that have lacked reliable service to date.
Now, research funded by the US Army has concluded that the growing mega-constellation could have a secondary purpose: doubling as a low-cost, highly accurate, and almost unjammable alternative to GPS. The new method would use existing Starlink satellites in low Earth orbit (LEO) to provide near-global navigation services.
