often

26May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS

Look At Atari And Bitcoin – Innovative Products Lead To A Boom In Imitation And Often A Bust

Buried in a dusty landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico, are more than 700,000 discarded Atari game cartridges, including E.T., the 1982 Atari game based on the blockbuster film. This bleak trove of artifacts symbolizes the video game crash of 1983, when consumer demand plummeted and companies like Atari literally dumped their cartridges in the trash. Why did the popularity of Atari video games rise exponentially only to collapse seemingly overnight? As soon as creative original Atari games like Centipede and Space Invaders hit store shelves, many, many imitations flooded the market. Lucrative ideas are often copied and replicated to capitalize on successes by the company that created the original, and by imitators. There are, for example, more than 20 movie sequels to Marvel’s “Avengers” a...

The good-guy image police present to students often clashes with students’ reality

20Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

WORK

The good-guy image police present to students often clashes with students’ reality

Eight days after George Floyd was killed during an encounter with Minneapolis police in an incident that sparked protests around the world, Minneapolis Public Schools terminated its contract for the Minneapolis police to provide officers in schools. “I value people and education and life,” school board chairwoman Kim Ellison told a local newspaper. “Now I’m convinced, based on the actions of the Minneapolis Police Department, that we don’t have the same values.” On June 4, Guadalupe Guerrero, the superintendent of Portland Public Schools in Oregon, followed suit, saying: “We need to re-examine our relationship” with the Portland Police Bureau. “The time is now,” Guerrero tweeted. “With new proposed investments in direct student supports (social workers, counselors, culturally-specific p...

Americans Think They Know A Lot About Politics – And It’s Bad For Democracy That They’re So Often Wrong In Their Confidence

5Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Americans Think They Know A Lot About Politics – And It’s Bad For Democracy That They’re So Often Wrong In Their Confidence

As statewide primaries continue through the summer, many Americans are beginning to think about which candidates they will support in the 2022 general election. This decision-making process is fraught with difficulties, especially for inexperienced voters. Voters must navigate angry, emotion-laden conversations about politics when trying to sort out whom to vote for. Americans are more likely than ever to view politics in moral terms, meaning their political conversations sometimes feel like epic battles between good and evil. But political conversations are also shaped by, obviously, what Americans know – and, less obviously, what they think they know – about politics. In recent research, I studied how Americans’ perceptions of their own political knowledge shape their political attit...

For Poor Performance Abusive Bosses Often Blame A Worker’s Lack Of Effort Or Care When It’s Their Own Biases That May Be The Problem

14Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IMPACT

For Poor Performance Abusive Bosses Often Blame A Worker’s Lack Of Effort Or Care When It’s Their Own Biases That May Be The Problem

Managers may mistreat employees who perform poorly because they assume it results from a lack of diligence rather than other factors, according to research we published in September 2021. Surveys show that about 1 in 7 U.S. workers feel that their manager engages in hostile behaviors toward them. Abusive supervision may range from relatively mild behaviors such as lying or not giving credit for work to more severe actions, such as insults or ridicule. While past research has suggested that it’s the poor performance of workers provoking managers’ abusive reactions, we wanted to examine whether the faulty perception of the supervisor deserves at least some of the blame. So we conducted two studies, drawing on research showing that people are prone to perceptual errors when judging negativ...

Supreme Court Rulings Often Exclude Viewpoints Of Black And Latina Justices – But Always Include The Perspective Of White Males

28Oct

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

POLITICS

Supreme Court Rulings Often Exclude Viewpoints Of Black And Latina Justices – But Always Include The Perspective Of White Males

David Orentlicher, University of Nevada, Las Vegas In recent decades, much progress has been made in diversifying the Supreme Court. While only white males served as justices for more than 175 years, the court now includes three female justices, one Black and one Latina justice. Despite the increased diversity, however, the court’s voting rules often exclude minority viewpoints. Like most other courts, the Supreme Court decides its cases by a majority vote. If at least five of the nine justices agree on a resolution, they are able to determine the court’s decision and impose their preferred outcome. If other justices disagree, they cannot ensure that their views are taken into account by the majority. They can only write a dissenting opinion to express their disagreement with the major...

It’s Designed To Encourage But The Patent System Often Stifles Innovation

17Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

BUSINESS

It’s Designed To Encourage But The Patent System Often Stifles Innovation

Over his career Thomas Edison garnered more U.S. patents than anyone in his time. Edison profited from his patents, but he was also exposed to the dark side of the patent system. He had to contend with lawsuits by other patentees who sought – and sometimes won – a piece of his success. While the patent system is designed to spur innovation like Edison’s, it also hampers it. Easy copying and imitation discourage innovation, because why make the effort if someone else will profit from it? The patent system works by enabling inventors to block unauthorized use of patented technology. Most technologies are developed by many inventors over many years, a process called “cumulative” innovation. Too often, however, early inventors get a patent on a small and perhaps insignificant piece of the te...

Disaster work is often carried out by prisoners – who get paid as little as 14 cents an hour despite dangers

16Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

Disaster work is often carried out by prisoners – who get paid as little as 14 cents an hour despite dangers

Efforts to beat back wildfires ravaging Western states in the U.S. have been hampered this year by depleted numbers of “orange angels” – incarcerated workers deployed as firefighters. Their lower numbers coincide with the early release for eligible prisoners and the quarantining of others to combat the spread of COVID-19. The potential impact that having fewer prisoners to draw upon highlights the crucial role that incarcerated workers play in disaster response. While many people are aware that prisoners work to help contain wildfires in California and elsewhere, less well known is the role incarcerated workers play as a labor source across a variety of disasters throughout the country. As a social scientist, I study the impact of disasters on incarcerated populations. I recently co-aut...

Police officers accused of brutal violence often have a history of complaints by citizens

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

VIDEO REELS

Police officers accused of brutal violence often have a history of complaints by citizens

As protests against police violence and racism continue in cities throughout the U.S., the public is learning that several of the officers involved in the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis and Breonna Taylor in Louisville share a history of complaints by citizens of brutality or misconduct. Decades of research on police shootings and brutality reveal that officers with a history of shooting civilians, for example, are much more likely to do so in the future compared to other officers. A similar pattern holds for misconduct complaints. Officers who are the subject of previous civilian complaints – regardless of whether those complaints are for excessive force, verbal abuse or unlawful searches – pose a higher risk of engaging in serious misconduct in the future. A study published in...

AI algorithms intended to root out welfare fraud often end up punishing the poor instead

3Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

AI, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

AI algorithms intended to root out welfare fraud often end up punishing the poor instead

President Donald Trump recently suggested there is “tremendous fraud” in government welfare programs. Although there’s very little evidence to back up his claim, he’s hardly the first politician – conservative or liberal – to vow to crack down on fraud and waste in America’s social safety net. States – which are charged with distributing and overseeing many federally funded benefits – are taking these fraud accusations seriously. They are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence and other automated systems to determine benefits eligibility and ferret out fraud in a variety of benefits programs, from food stamps and Medicaid to unemployment insurance. Of course, government agencies should ensure that taxpayer dollars are spent effectively. The problem is these automated decision...

School resource officers aren’t arrested often – but when they are, it’s usually for sexual misconduct

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

School resource officers aren’t arrested often – but when they are, it’s usually for sexual misconduct

The presence of law enforcement in schools – better known as school resource officers – has become increasingly common. These officers, who have full law enforcement powers, are supposed to keep students safe. Earlier this year, however, a former Michigan school resource officer – Matthew Priebe – was convicted and sentenced to one year in jail for doing just the opposite. Instead of protecting students from threats, Officer Priebe had been sexually preying on female students, using his power as a school police officer to engage in inappropriate and nonconsensual sexual acts with students. This latest headline is not a singular event. Within the past year, several other school resource officers have been arrested or convicted of sexual misconduct with students. The good news is this kin...