Be better.

Easier Way to Collecting Data

I use Microsoft forms and Google forms a lot. A lot. I have to usually collect information from students that I teach or collect customer or contributor information for various projects. It’s not terribly difficult to use either of these products, but sometimes I just wish I could have someone else do it for me.Continue reading “Easier Way to Collecting Data”

Get Your Lost (or Stolen) Stuff Back

Thieves don’t like to be caught, and the worst ones usually aren’t. I was traveling in Europe one summer and a thief grabbed the bookbag of one of the students traveling with my group. Nobody saw the thief or heard anything and the bag’s owner (another college student) only put it down “for a second”Continue reading “Get Your Lost (or Stolen) Stuff Back”

Big Brother is Watching

Depending on your age and perhaps, the politics of your local school board, the first time you probably read or heard the phrase, “Big brother is watching” was in the book (or the movie!) by George Orwell called 1984. In the movie, the citizens were being monitored by the government to keep everyone in theirContinue reading “Big Brother is Watching”

Do you speak Tutnese?

Hashesquatlulo! Wackelulcashomume tuto Tutwacko Tutalulkuck LulPubSus! “Hello! Welcome to Two Talk LPS!” in Tutnese When I was elementary school, I dreaded the Black history lectures, even though they were short. Most of the lectures were limited to slavery and civil rights, and I felt small and insignificant until the topic turned to Dr. Martin LutherContinue reading “Do you speak Tutnese?”

Turn the darn phone off!

I have been working home, long before the Covid-19 pandemic made it a requirement for many office workers. In the past, I struggled with productivity when working on multiple projects. At some point, I realized that mult-tasking was a euphemism and nothing more. I learned to focus on one task at a time for anContinue reading “Turn the darn phone off!”

Zoom keeps things interesting

I bought a new mobile phone a few months ago and yesterday was the first day I watched the “what this phone can do” video. Pretty impressive Motorola phone and I will keep it for at least five years (yes, I do keep my mobile phones that long). If you are like me (and mostContinue reading “Zoom keeps things interesting”

Bias in the Machine

Twitter’s image cropping program that automatically focuses on white faces and ignores black faces Google labeling Black people as primates Facial recognition algorithms that misidentify Black images Bank loan software that penalizes Black and brown credit applicants Industry accepted terminology such as “black list” and “white list” Technology can be as biased or as neutralContinue reading “Bias in the Machine”

Data Purge: Tech as a Partisan Tool

I first read about voting data purges in 2018. It is an tactic to remove legally registered voters form the polls in efforts to, in theory, clean up records of people who have moved to different addresses. In practice, it prevents infrequent voters from voting and it attempts shape the electorate in order to ensureContinue reading “Data Purge: Tech as a Partisan Tool”

Don’t help the scammers!

Have you ever received a collections call about a credit card that you have never used? Have you received a court order for an unpaid loan for a car that you have never driven? Or, has your bank contacted you about purchases you did not make? If you answered yes to any of these questions,Continue reading “Don’t help the scammers!”

Social Media Market Take-down

If you don’t already know about the furor over the gang of day traders at Reddit, then you have been asleep since the capitol riot. I think VOX explained it best: An army of traders on the Reddit forum r/WallStreetBets helped drive a meteoric rise in GameStop’s stock price in recent days, forcing halts in trading and causing aContinue reading “Social Media Market Take-down”