Mosquitoes Now More Irritating to Teens and Young People

 

A new device that has recently been rolled out in the United States named, “The Mosquito” is designed to deliver a shrill high pitch noise only audible to teens and young adults. These devices are used by store and shop owners to ensure that teens are not loitering around their properties. See the full story at CNN.com.

Civil Rights activists are enraged by the new device. Their outrage is centered on one feature of the new device in particular, the same feature that makes this product so appealing to shop owner.  The sound emitted by this device is only audible by younger adults.  The Activists see this as a blatant case of ageism.   Ageism is the act of discriminating against a person or group based solely on their age.

I must tell you, the idea of a device like this gives me mixed feelings.  On the one hand, I have seen the types of people that this device is intended to deter, and I can fully understand why shop owners would feel justified using this product. Often times these loiterers can be more than a nuisance because they could drive away business and even cause property damage.  Authorities tend to dismiss complaints by these business owners because the loiterers or “just kids” and the damage they do is “just a youthful prank.”

On the other hand, I have no doubts in my mind that this product is designed to specifically target younger people, as they are the only ones capable of hearing its high-pitched, shrill sound. This practice by definition can only be considered ageism.

As much as I feel for the shop owners who are driven to spend the $1,500 on this device, the infringement by this device on civil liberties of the youth cannot be ignored. To allow a product like this to become common place in America sets a dangerous precedent.  It would open the door for other products that target specific groups as nuisances. The negative applications for these types of products are as dramatic as the gradient of the slippery slope that this argument is based upon.

As always this is an open forum for all voices to be heard.  Please leave a comment if you have an opinion on how this should be handled.

 

Antiquated Leanings Won’t Boost Salary

 

Network World published an article entitled, “5 IT Skills That Won’t Boost Your Salary.” This article warns of over allocation of time to 5 common IT skills that may not pay off in the long run.

 It is important to know when and where to best allocate your time when you are a developing young professional. It may seem that, in the ever advancing world of technology, any knowledge is good knowledge. This article emphasizes the importance of allocating time efficiently and  effectively in order to avoid being stuck with lame duck learnings.

I would caution the more impressionable reader to take this story with a grain of salt. It is important to remember, many new technologies are based largely off of their predecessors. To understand a programming language that is on the decline may actually give valuable insights and context into understanding the language that is replacing it.

If you liked this post check out: How to Retire Worth Millions

Taxes: Getting the Most for Your Time and Money

Taxes, is there any more dreaded word in the English language? Well … maybe audit. Tax season is upon us and like most Americans, I want to spend as little time as possible and get as much as I can back in the form of a refund. That is why this year when I decided to do my taxes I gave much thought to which preparation method to select. There are several options available in the field of tax preparation. These include: online/desktop software, accountants, and franchise tax preparers.

I have worked for Intuit, Inc. (makers of Turbo Tax) in Mountain View, Calif., for a little more than four months now. As a member of this company, I keep a close watch on all the news that is reported about different tax preparation methods. During this time, I have noticed a clear trend in the recommendations made by popular news outlets. And that trend is to use software, such as Turbo Tax, for your tax returns.

Now, I know that I would appear to be biased, but I assure you that I am just as protective as anyone else with my time and money. I did my own taxes using the Turbo Tax software less because I work for the company than simply because I wanted to get them done quickly and save as much money as possible. I was considering engaging an accountant to do my taxes to save myself time, but after watching a segment on Good Morning America where three tax preparation methods were compared feature by feature, the choice all but made itself.

The Good Morning America segment depicted a married couple using three different tax preparation methods (Turbo Tax, a professional accountant, and H&R Block stores), and it clearly shows the refunds this couple would receive using each. The outcomes were as follows:

TurboTax – TurboTax Deluxe gave the couple a refund of $699.00 at a cost of $44.95

Accountant – The accountant gave the couple a refund of $718.00, which they later realized (after they left his office), was an error because the couple counted a $50 charitable deduction twice. So it really should have been $699.00 after all. The accountant also said that because their return was so straightforward, he didn’t feel comfortable charging them the normal $400.00 and instead quoted a final fee of $300.

H&R Block – HR Block had both a district and regional manager on site to “answer questions.” After finishing their calculations, they also gave the couple a refund amount of $699.00, but charged $450.00, claiming the return was in fact quite complicated and that because they were impacted by AMT, it resulted in additional forms, calculations, etc…

From this segment, it became clear to me the best way to get my taxes done quickly and easily (without giving most of my refund away to pay for preparation) was to use Turbo Tax. I am happy to report that I did just that, and that I am expecting a refund of $1500! The whole process took me about an hour and cost about $50. It was quite easy.

IB Reveals New Video Player for Local Web Sites

Internet Broadcasting, the company I may soon be working for in Sacramento, rolled out a new video player on their locally owned Hearst-Argyle television news web sites on Friday.

The player is both Flash and Silverlight for on demand, which will be useful during the ‘08 Summer Olympics since NBC.com announced it is using Microsofts’ Silverlight for live streaming of the events.

Check out KCRA.com’s new IB player by clicking here. 

Personalized Ads: Coming to a TV Near You

The NY Times Media and Advertisement section has this article on Tuesday about six major cable firms joining forces to figure out how to stop Google from plucking all of the advertising dollars way from television.

The group, which includes Comcast and Time Warner among others, have met and discussed creating a joint company that would allow advertisers to buy customized ads and interactive ads across the companies’ systems.

“Addressable advertising on television is in many ways the holy grail, because it can offer ever more targeting ability than Google,”  said Craig Moffet, a senior analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein and Co. (“addressable” is the industry term for targeted ads).

Target advertising would be a potential gold mine for Cable Companies, and internet search companies like Google, because advertisers could get instantaneous results and would be more willing to spend their $70 billion television advertising pot with cable services.

Google OK, Fed’s Lend Send Stocks Soaring

The announcement on Tuesday that the FTC will allow Google’s acquisition of its online ad-serving vendor DoubleClick sent both the Nadaq and Dow Jones Industrial soaring.

The news that the Federal Reserve will pump $200 billion into the financial system to shore up banks battered by mortgage- related losses also helped a U.S. stock rally that was the highest in five years.

Washington Mutual, Wells Fargo Co, Citigroup Inc. and Bank of America -all savings and loan institutions hit hard by the mortgage crisis- were all up after Tuesday’s announcements.

All major tech stocks rose based on the Google news, which saw its shares go up 5.2 percent to $435.04.

The internet giant’s stock had been hit hard this year and is still down significantly from a high of  $747.24.

Website of the Day– ZML.com

The website ZML.com allows users to download movies directly to their iPods for prices starting at $1.99. And these movies aren’t the ones you find in the bargain bin at Wal-Mart.

Some of the movies I saw while browsing the site include movies that haven’t been released to DVD yet; including: “Atonement”, “Casino Royale”, and even “Goodfellas”.

These prices crush iTunes, which usually sells their DVD’s at store prices. This could be the future of film distribution.

Wiki Website Tests First Amendment Waters

A San Francisco judge ordered the shutdown of a website that asked users to post confidential government information on Friday.

The site, Wikileaks.org, devoted itself to the goal of discouraging “unethical behavior” among the government and corporations by inviting users to post leaked material. Current posts contained information about the engagement of U.S. troops in Iraq, a military manual concerning the operation of Guantanamo Bay and other material focused on corporate waste and wrongdoing.

The decision by judge Jefferey S. White -who said he studied the famous 1971 Supreme Court Pentagon Papers case- is an interesting one to examine, and we can assume will be discussed and rehashed by the Supreme Court at a later date.

From what I know about the First Amendment, the ruling by White is legal according to current law but is also pointless because even though the website held information that could endanger troops currently in combat (i.e. the documents about troop engagements in Iraq). However, my problem with White’s ruling is that unless information is stolen, the public has a right, just as they did with the Pentagon Papers, in knowing what is going on within our Government which is an elected and public entity (or at least should be). Also, how do you prevent the disclosure of these documents in the long run? We are living in the Internet age where information is accessible with the click of a button, even information that is supposed to be hidden can be found and exchanged instantaneously.

Therefore, since the information has already been put in the public domain, White’s ruling doesn’t have a leg to stand on. As my Comm Law professor Sandy Davidson said, once the toothpaste is out of the tube you can’t put it back in. This means once the information by Wikileaks.org has been made public, its public and no First Amendment right can be violated.NY Times Article