05/08/2018 | Page 2 of 2

Afghan Girl Coders Design Games to Fight Opium and Inequality

By Uponsil | 05/08/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Think Super Mario Bros., but with an Afghan twist. This is how Afghanistan’s first generation of female coders explain their abilities as game-makers after uploading more than 20 games on digital app stores this year.

More than 20 young women in the western city of Heart have established themselves as computer experts, building apps and websites as well as tracking down bugs in computer code.

Like the team of Afghan schoolgirls who rose to fame last year when they competed in a robotics competition in the United States, the coders show what reserves of talent there are to be tapped when Afghan girls are given a chance.

“Coders can work from home and it is in this process women are building a new career path for themselves and for the next generation,” said Hasib Rasa, project manager of Code to Inspire, which teaches female students coding in Herat.

One of the games designed by the all-female team has caught the eye of developers and gamers as it illustrates the scourge of opium cultivation and the challenges the Afghan security forces face as they try to stamp it out.

The 2-D game “Fight Against Opium” is an animated interpretation of the missions that Afghan soldiers undertake to destroy opium fields, fight drug lords and help farmers switch to growing saffron.

Afghanistan is the world’s largest source of opium but it also grows saffron – the world’s most expensive spice – which has long been pushed as an alternative to wean farmers off a crop used to make heroin.

Despite a ban, opium production hit a record in 2017, up 87 percent over 2016, according to a U.N. study.

Khatira Mohammadi, a student who helped develop the anti-opium game, said she wanted to show the complexities of the drug problem in the simplest way.

“We have illustrated our country’s main problem through a game,” said Mohammadi.

At the institute, more than 90 girls and young women, wearing headscarves and long black coats, are trained in coding and software development, a profession seen by some in conservative Afghanistan as unsuitable for women.

In Afghan society, it is unusual for women to work outside the home. Those who do, are mostly teachers, nurses, doctors, midwives and house helpers.

After the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, women regained freedom to work in offices with male colleagues – but many consider working as a software developer a step too far.

Hasib Rasa said girls are encouraged to design original player characters, goals, and obstacles that reflect Afghanistan’s ethos.

The course is exclusively aimed at females, aged 15-25, who are unable to pursue a four-year degree due to lack of funds or hail from families where they are prevented from enrolling in co-education schools.

“In Afghanistan the ability to work remotely is a key tool in the push for equality,” said Rasa.
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Low Rents Drew Residents to Take Risk of Living Near Hawaii Volcano

By Uponsci | 05/08/2018 | No Comments | Science

Jeremy Wilson knew it was risky renting a home in an area with the highest hazard level for lava flows in Hawaii, but it was all he could afford for his family of six.

Now, with magma spewing from cracks in the earth above and below his 3-bedroom home, he fears it could join the 26 other houses destroyed since the eruption of the nearby Kilauea volcano on Thursday, according to Hawaii County Civil Defense.

“I’m a renter but everything we own is in that house,” said Wilson, a 36-year-old social worker, who moved to the Leilani Estates subdivision four years ago and is among 1,700 residents who have evacuated since the eruption.

The semi-rural wooded area, with dirt roads and many homemade “off the grid” houses, is a landing pad for newcomers to Hawaii’s Big Island who cannot afford real-estate prices elsewhere.

“If you want to live in Hawaii, it’s really your only option,” said Wilson, who has been staying with friends along with his two children, wife, mother-in-law and uncle since they were forced to flee.

Keeping prices low in Leilani Estates is the “Zone 1” (out of nine) hazard rating for lava-flows the U.S. Geological Survey gives the area due to “vents that have been repeatedly active in historical time.”

Reminder of 1955 event

Geologists say this week’s activity is beginning to look like an event in 1955 in which eruptions continued for 88 days in the area and covered around 4,000 acres with lava, though few people lived there back then. More recently in 2014, lava threatened the nearby Puna district and the town of Pahoa.

Jessica Gauthier, 47, a realtor in Leilani Estates, said the eruption of Kilauea, about 12 miles (19 km) distant, was a reality check for new residents.

“People move here thinking it’s paradise, and what they learn is that it’s something different,” said Gauthier. Eruptions of lava and toxic sulfur dioxide gas continued within the subdivision, and larger aftershocks from Friday’s 6.9 magnitude earthquake were expected, the observatory said.

A lava flow advanced about a mile from one of ten vents that have opened. As the lava finds a preferred route, some vents are expected to close, putting pressure on others and shooting magma up to 1,000 feet (305 m) into the air. On Saturday it reached heights of 230 feet.

Some residents saw eruptions as inevitable and said if Pele, the Hawaiian volcano goddess, wanted the land back, then she would take it.

‘No stranger to disasters’

Wilson, who grew up in Springfield, Missouri, was less philosophical. He has been trying to rescue his possessions before they are torched.

He was forced back on Sunday when he saw smoke coming from cracks in the road on the approach to his house.

“I’m from Tornado Alley. So I’m no stranger to disasters, but this is something else,” said Wilson. “This is crazy.”
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No One Thinks You’re Humble When You Mention Your Porsche

By Uponbiz | 05/08/2018 | No Comments | Business

You’ve seen it among a group of friends, the inflated and often irritating “humblebrag.”

Maybe it was even you who did it.

Wanting to seem more important or smarter or wealthier or something, whatever, you blurted out how messy your hair looks as you pull off a Taylor Swift-worthy hair toss of your beautiful, long locks. Or you utter something about how irritating the traffic was Friday as you drove your new Porsche Panamera to your parents’ country house.

Or how you can’t believe you got 1580 on your SATs, especially when you didn’t have time to study because you were volunteering at a homeless shelter.

According to new research, the fake “humblebrag” will boomerang.

“Humblebragging, in fact, does not create more favorable impressions than either bragging or complaining,” according to a study authored by Ovul Sezer recently published in Harvard Business Review.

Because sincerity, the researchers said, is more highly valued than competence or success.

How it’s done

There are two types of humblebragging, explained Sezer, who now teaches at University of North Carolina. One is based in complaining and one tries to feign humility.

“It’s like, ‘Oh my god, I’m so exhausted by all these dating requests, like, everyone just asks me out constantly, even in the grocery store,’” Sezer uses as an example. “Or, ‘I’m so tired of being the one my boss trusts in this company.’

“That’s very annoying to hear,” said Sezer.

The humility-based brag tries to make yourself look humble, but not really. Like saying you can’t believe you got into all your dream schools after being at the top of your class all through high school.

Sezer argues that the humility-based humblebrag is often more subtle and less annoying to peers than the complaint-based humblebrag. But either one is likely to repel rather than attract others.

“Research suggests that sincerity is desirable and is seen as particularly fundamental to people’s identity,” she and Harvard co-authors Francesca Gino and Michael I. Norton wrote.

For example, “It lowkey sucks being attractive because then if people don’t like you you know it’s your personality,” reddit user alg0e wrote.

According to Sezer, “The reason why humblebragging fails to pay off, and it’s even worse than just straightforward bragging, is because it comes across as very fake.”

Becoming widespread

With social media, humblebragging has become more visible and maybe even more acceptable.

“With the digitalization of the world, it became more common everywhere. Now when I go to my Instagram feed or I check my Facebook and Twitter, I know that I will see a humblebrag on that day,” she told VOA. “There is something happening that people will be putting on their profiles, and that makes it seem like it’s okay.”

There are ways that you can be proud of your accomplishments and talk about them without bragging or humblebragging.

“I really think the best way to let others know about your accomplishments is really to get a wingman,” she said, describing someone who will promote and boast for you. “If you [are talking] to someone and they say, ‘Oh, he is amazing!’ or ‘She is just wonderful,’ it’s such a powerful way of knowing about someone’s accomplishments because it’s coming from somebody else, so I would highly recommend that.

“Because imagine, if it’s coming from someone else, it’s just like, more beautiful,” she said.

“If there’s no wingman for you, I would say still avoid the humblebrag,” Sezer said. “Because sincerity is very important in life. We really care about whether the people we interact with are being sincere or not.”
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Anti-Semites Use Twitter as ‘Megaphone to Harass Jews,’ says Rights Group

By Uponsil | 05/08/2018 | No Comments | Silicon Valley

Anti-Semites are using Twitter as a “megaphone to harass and intimidate Jews,” the pro-Jewish civil rights group Anti-Defamation League says.

In a new report Monday, the ADL says Twitter users sent out at least 4.2 million anti-Semitic posts in 2017 — an average of 81,400 a week.

“This new data shows that even with the steps Twitter has taken to remove hate speech and to deal with those accounts disseminating it, users are still spreading a shocking amount of anti-Semitism,” ADL chief Jonathan Greenblatt says.

Examples of the hate-filled tweets include Holocaust denial; claims that Jews killed Jesus Christ, a belief long disowned by the Vatican; and such propaganda as Jews control banking and the media.

The ADL is calling on Twitter to take such steps as a terms of service policy clearly banning hate speech, and effective filters that stop such messages from reaching users.

Twitter says it has made more than 30 changes to its operations in the last 16 months to combat hate speech.

“We are an open platform and hold a mirror up to human behaviors, both the good and the bad. Everyone has a part to play in building a more compassionate and empathetic society,” Twitter said in a statement.
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Tourists Flocking to Peru’s Newfound ‘Rainbow Mountain’

By Uponent | 05/08/2018 | No Comments | Entertainment

Tourists gasp for breath as they climb for two hours to a peak in the Peruvian Andes that stands 16,404 feet (5,000 meters) above sea level. They’re dead tired, but stunned by the magical beauty unfurled before them.

Stripes of turquoise, lavender and gold blanket what has become known as “Rainbow Mountain,” a ridge of multicolored sediments laid down millions of years ago and pushed up as tectonic plates clashed. It’s only within the last five years that the natural wonder has been discovered by the outside world, earning it must-see status on Peru’s burgeoning backpacker tourist circuit.

“You see it in the pictures and you think it’s Photoshopped — but it’s real,” said Lukas Lynen, an 18-year-old tourist from Mexico.

The popularity of Rainbow Mountain, which attracts up to 1,000 tourists each day, has provided a much-needed economic jolt to this remote region populated by struggling alpaca herders. Environmentalists, however, fear the tourists could destroy the treasured landscape, which is already coveted by international mining companies.

“From the ecological point of view they are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs,” said Dina Farfan, a Peruvian biologist who has studied threatened wildlife in the area just a few hours from the Incan ruins of Machu Picchu.

As proof, he points to a 2.5-mile (4-kilometer) dirt trail climbed by tourists to reach Rainbow Mountain that has been badly eroded in the last 18 months, scarring the otherwise pristine landscape. A wetland once popular with migrating ducks has also been turned into a parking lot the size of five soccer fields that fills each morning with vans of mostly European and American visitors.

There are more serious threats, too.

Camino Minerals Corp., a Canadian-based mining company, has applied for mining rights in the mineral-rich area that includes the mountain. The company did not respond to a request by The Associated Press for comment on its plans.

Yet the flood of tourists has meant jobs and hard cash for the local Pampachiri indigenous community, which has struggled with high rates of alcoholism, malnutrition and falling prices of wool for their prized alpaca. Many have abandoned nomadic life for dangerous gold mining jobs in the Amazon.

Now, they charge tourists $3 each to enter their ancestral land, netting the community roughly $400,000 a year — a small fortune that has triggered a tax battle with an impoverished, nearby municipality, which has seen no part of the windfall.

The surge in tourists also comes with a responsibility to be good stewards of the environment and their new guests, and Pampachiri community leader Gabino Huaman admits he is not sure they are ready to fully handle it.

“We don’t know one word in English,” he said. “Or first aid.”

Despite the challenges, roughly 500 villagers have returned in the last couple of years to take up their ancestral trade of transporting goods across the Andes. The difference is that now they are hauling tourists on horseback.

“It’s a blessing,” said Isaac Quispe, 25, who quit his job as a gold miner after six of his camp mates were murdered. He returned home and bought a horse that last year earned him $5,200 hauling tourists uphill.

The guides dress in colorful woolen clothes and wide-brimmed, traditional hats to lead the horses.

Farfan, the biologist, said he hopes the Pampachiri can learn from other sustainable tourism endeavors in Peru.

It was the success of one such project, in the nearby town of Chillca, that first put Rainbow Mountain on the map.

For much of the past decade, a group of shepherds had been quietly taking small groups of tourists to the mountain as part of a five-day hike around the fast-melting Ausangate glacier. Over time, and thanks to the stunning photographs posted on the internet, the secret got out.

Today the shepherds of Chillca manage four lodges made of eucalyptus wood with a capacity for 16 tourists each. They are lighted only by candle, but have hot water.

Arriving guests are given shoes made of alpaca leather and wool. At dawn, lodge-keeper Orlando Garcia gently awakens his guests with a love song performed in the Quechua language.

“You always have to be guessing what the client wants, and take care of it so you don’t lose their smile,” Garcia says. “We want them to feel the greatest comfort at almost 16,404 feet.”
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