Month: May 2017

Talkspace online therapy grew 80 percent faster since Trump elected

Business has been booming for online counseling start-up Talkspace ever since President Donald Trump was elected.

Talkspace, which launched in 2012, has been growing 70 to 80 percent faster than projected since November 2016, according to CEO and co-founder Oren Frank. Most of the callers have been millennials, with an average age of 33 to 34.

On Election Day itself, the company had five to seven times more customers than usual, and it had three times the normal volume on January 20, Inauguration Day.

“There’s been a lot of anxiety and stress, which may have been there before,” Frank said. “But it’s definitely been triggered by Election Night and the Inauguration.”

Talkspace lets people work with mental health professionals over the internet. Plans — which start at $32 a week and don’t take insurance — allow customers to select a therapist who they correspond with online.

Talkspace online therapy grew 80 percent faster since Trump elected

When the World Is Led by a Child – The New York Times

At certain times Donald Trump has seemed like a budding authoritarian, a corrupt Nixon, a rabble-rousing populist or a big business corporatist.

But as Trump has settled into his White House role, he has given a series of long interviews, and when you study the transcripts it becomes clear that fundamentally he is none of these things.

At base, Trump is an infantalist. There are three tasks that most mature adults have sort of figured out by the time they hit 25. Trump has mastered none of them. Immaturity is becoming the dominant note of his presidency, lack of self-control his leitmotif.

When the World Is Led by a Child – The New York Times

Was Bo Diddley a Buddha? – The New York Times

When I was in my 20s, I had the good fortune to play guitar as an opening act for the blues legend B. B. King. This lucky break opened many doors for me, and I soon found myself playing with other great blues musicians — Koko Taylor, Buddy Guy and Bo Diddley, to name a few. During one stretch time, Bo hired me whenever he played in Chicago.

Before my first gig with Bo, I spent a full week of intense preparation, learning and rehearsing his songs. On the opening night, he arrived to the venue five minutes before showtime. As he walked onstage in front of 500 shouting fans, I tried to tell him all the songs I’d prepared. He just looked at me blankly through his Coke-bottle glasses, plugged into his amp and launched into a loud, rhythmic riff on his trademark rectangular guitar. He never bothered to tell me what song we were playing, what chord changes were coming, what key we were in, or anything. But, as every blues and jazz musician knows, that’s how it goes.

After the first tune, he realized that I could follow him, and he cryptically shouted, “This monkey is tied, now let’s skin it!”

Was Bo Diddley a Buddha? – The New York Times

Exercise ‘keeps the mind sharp’ in over-50s, study finds – BBC News

Doing moderate exercise several times a week is the best way to keep the mind sharp if you’re over 50, research suggests.
Thinking and memory skills were most improved when people exercised the heart and muscles on a regular basis, a review of 39 studies found.
This remained true in those who already showed signs of cognitive decline.
Taking up exercise at any age was worthwhile for the mind and body, the Australian researchers said.
Exercises such as T’ai Chi were recommended for people over the age of 50 who couldn’t manage other more challenging forms of exercise, the study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine said.

Exercise ‘keeps the mind sharp’ in over-50s, study finds – BBC News

Global warming blamed for record-breaking weather worldwide, scientists say

Record-breaking weather events, especially heat waves but also downpours and droughts, can be linked to man-made global warming, a new study says.

“Our results suggest that the world isn’t quite at the point where every record hot event has a detectable human fingerprint, but we are getting close,” said study lead author Noah Diffenbaugh, a climate scientist at Stanford University.

It’s the first research to look specifically at the link between record weather events of the past several decades and climate change. Diffenbaugh and his team found that in over 80% of the heat records — which included both record hot days and months — there was a clear-cut signal of global warming.

Global warming blamed for record-breaking weather worldwide, scientists say

Forced into pornography: Japan moves to stop women being coerced into sex films | World news | The Guardian

A slew of reports about women being offered modelling contracts, only to be tricked or coerced into appearing in X-rated films, has finally prompted authorities in Japan to confront the darker side of its multibillion dollar porn industry.

Last year, the government launched its first survey of the industry’s recruitment of vulnerable young women and found that 200 among the 20,000 surveyed had signed “modelling” contracts, with more than 50 later asked to pose nude or have sex on camera.

In 2016, 200 women sought help from Lighthouse, which supports victims of human trafficking, and People Against Pornography and Sexual Violence – a dramatic rise from the 62 cases recorded for the whole of 2015 and just 36 the year before.

Forced into pornography: Japan moves to stop women being coerced into sex films | World news | The Guardian

The Center for Parenting Education: Parenting SupportThe Center for Parenting Education | A resource to help parents do the best job they can to raise their children

The Center for Parenting Education (The Center) is committed to educating and supporting parents in their efforts to foster confidence, responsibility, and compassion in their children. Toward this end, The Center offers a multitude of resources, both on the Internet and in person. The Center presents the information on this website as a service to Internet users. By accessing this website, users agree to be bound by the terms and conditions set forth below.

The Center for Parenting Education: Parenting SupportThe Center for Parenting Education | A resource to help parents do the best job they can to raise their children

The Human Toll of Protecting the Internet from the Worst of Humanity – The New Yorker

Henry Soto worked for Microsoft’s online-safety team, in Seattle, for eight years. He reviewed objectionable material on Microsoft’s products—Bing, the cloud-storage service OneDrive, and Xbox Live among them—and decided whether to delete it or report it to the police. Each day, Soto looked at thousands of disturbing images and videos, which included depictions of killings and child abuse. Particularly traumatic was a video of a girl being sexually abused and then murdered. The work took a heavy toll. He developed symptoms of P.T.S.D., including insomnia, nightmares, anxiety, and auditory hallucinations. He began to have trouble spending time around his son, because it triggered traumatic memories. In February, 2015, he went on medical leave.

This story is laid out in a lawsuit filed against Microsoft, late last year, by Soto and a colleague named Greg Blauert, and first reported by Courthouse News Service. Soto and Blauert claim that the company did not prepare them for the stress of the job, nor did it offer adequate counselling and other measures to mitigate the psychological harm. Microsoft disputes Soto’s story, telling the Guardian in a statement that it “takes seriously its responsibility to remove and report imagery of child sexual exploitation and abuse being shared on its services, as well as the health and resiliency of the employees who do this important work.”

The lawsuit offers a rare look into a little-known field of digital work known as content moderation.

<a href=”http://www.newyorker.com/?p=3307932>The Human Toll of Protecting the Internet from the Worst of Humanity – The New Yorker

The Toughest Challenge for Self-Driving Cars? Human Drivers – The New York Times

DETROIT — In just a few years, well-mannered self-driving robotaxis will share the roads with reckless, law-breaking human drivers. The prospect is causing migraines for the people developing the robotaxis.

A self-driving car would be programmed to drive at the speed limit. Humans routinely exceed it by 10 to 15 mph (16 to 24 kph) — just try entering the New Jersey Turnpike at normal speed. Self-driving cars wouldn’t dare cross a double yellow line; humans do it all the time. And then there are those odd local traffic customs to which humans quickly adapt.

In Los Angeles and other places, for instance, there’s the “California Stop,” where drivers roll through stop signs if no traffic is crossing. In Southwestern Pennsylvania, courteous drivers practice the “Pittsburgh Left,” where it’s customary to let one oncoming car turn left in front of them when a traffic light turns green. The same thing happens in Boston. During rush hours near Ann Arbor, Michigan, drivers regularly cross a double-yellow line to queue up for a left-turn onto a freeway.

“There’s an endless list of these cases where we as humans know the context, we know when to bend the rules and when to break the rules,” says Raj Rajkumar, a computer engineering professor at Carnegie Mellon University who leads the school’s autonomous car research.

The Toughest Challenge for Self-Driving Cars? Human Drivers – The New York Times