Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. NetHappenings and K12Newsletters 6.2.19

SCIENCE  – STEM

• Find a School – Discover the right school for your child.

• The history of sign language

• The contemporary Icelandic belief in elves explained

• Anatomy of a Perfect Album: On Joni Mitchell’s Blue

• Joel Bernstein lifetime achievement award for photography

• Virality Is Dead

• David Epstein on the Genius of the Self-Taught Musician

• Personas of a Rock ‘N’ Roll Icon

• 737 MAX Disaster fatal consequences

• US Customs Facial Recognition Photos Data Breach

• Why airport face scans are a privacy trap

• GPS Degraded Across Much of US

• Online Spreadsheet Discloses Museum Workers’ Salaries

Find a School – Discover the right school for your child.
Find and compare K12 Schools and School Districts in the USA and Territories.  https://k12playground.com/

ARTS – STEAM

The history of sign language
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2019/05-06/creation-of-sign-language/

Anatomy of a Perfect Album: On Joni Mitchell’s Blue
“ONLY A PHASE, THESE DARK CAFÉ DAYS.”
https://lithub.com/anatomy-of-a-perfect-album-on-joni-mitchells-blue/
Mitchell starts the record right off with wanderlust, her first words: I am on a lonely road and I am traveling, traveling, traveling, traveling, amplifying the feeling later: I am on a lonely road and I am traveling / Looking for the key to set me free. By boat, plane, foot, and ice skate, her whims and fancies take her to a Greek island, Paris (she doesn’t like it there), Spain, Las Vegas, maybe Amsterdam and Rome, and return home to her Ithaca, which is California. You hear Mitchell’s original Canadian-ness when she lands on the word “sorrow” as “soe-row” on “Little Green,” a poignant 1967 song, revived for this recording, from the perspective of a young single mother, also in the reverent way she intones the Canadian national anthem, “O Canada,” in the middle of “A Case of You.”

Friend  JOEL BERNSTEIN Musician / Photographer / Writer / Archivist  Compilation of Photographs – all the album covers you know
2018 IPHF FEATURES PROFILE ON JOEL FOR HIS LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD [ friend during junior high / high school times ]
https://www.edu-cyberpg.com/Ringleaders/joel.html

Images of rock legends from Laurel Canyon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6OXzsUQWpg

“Virality Is Dead
I’m an independent concert promoter going on 40 years now. My clients are now only a few, and I work them nationwide. Without question, Facebook “boosted posts” are quietly putting radio and print out of business in terms of how to get the word out on a cost-effective basis. And you don’t really need virality anymore in order to promote an artist or event.
I’m not talking Facebook “ads,” but “boosted posts.” Users see these posts from the artist’s page in their newsfeeds and can share them organically, unlike “ads,” which cannot be shared. I used to spend thousands of dollars breaking a show with print ads and radio. I won’t mention the act or the market, but recently I spent $1000 on a print ad in a major metropolitan market and… in a literal example of the old saying… “Did 10 tickets.” That’s right. I sold exactly 10 tickets, not even covering the cost of the ad. I spent a fraction of that amount on boosted Facebook posts and did 500 tickets. And you wonder how the Russians spent only $100k on Facebook and turned an entire election in 2016? ~ Brian Martin”
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Investors-say-promoter-owes-them-2-million-3242597.php

David Epstein on the Genius of the Self-Taught Musician
https://lithub.com/david-epstein-on-the-genius-of-the-self-taught-musician/

What David Bowie Borrowed From William Burroughs On the Shifting Personas of a Rock ‘N’ Roll Icon
https://lithub.com/what-david-bowie-borrowed-from-william-burroughs/

Online Spreadsheet Discloses Museum Workers’ Salaries
http://www.artnews.com/2019/05/31/google-spreadsheet-museum-workers-disclose-salaries/
In another sign of increasing demand for transparency at art institutions across the world, museum workers have begun making public their salary rates via a Google Spreadsheet document that began circulating on Friday morning. Titled Art/Museum Salary Transparency 2019, the document allows users to add information about the terms of their employment and their rates of pay at some of the biggest museums in the world.

Folklore: The contemporary Icelandic belief in elves explained
http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20181217-the-elusive-hidden-people-of-iceland

Overview of the ArtPlace/DAISA initiative (download a copy of the report) here: https://www.artplaceamerica.org/agriculture-food
The report argues that “integrating artistic and cultural practices with food and agriculture enables a creative and inclusive process and ensures community members see their identities, histories, and interests reflected in the work.” ~ Clifford Murphy – Folk & Traditional Arts Director | Multidisciplinary Arts National Endowment for the Arts

SCIENCE  – STEM

Don’t smile for surveillance: Why airport face scans are a privacy trap
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2019/06/10/your-face-is-now-your-boarding-pass-thats-problem/

How Boeing’s Bean-Counters Courted the 737 MAX Disaster Just when the smallest jet should have been replaced with a new model, the company fell into tight-fisted hands—with fatal consequences. https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-boeing-bean-counters-courted-the-737-max-disaster

US Customs And Border Protection’s Database Of Traveler Facial Recognition Photos Was Stolen In A Data Breach
“CBP learned that a subcontractor … transferred copies of license plate images and traveler images collected by CBP to the subcontractor’s company network. The subcontractor’s network was subsequently compromised by a malicious cyber-attack.” https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/daveyalba/the-us-governments-database-of-traveler-photos-has-been

GPS Degraded Across Much of US
Blog Editor’s Note: Even as a Presidential Advisory Board was discussing GPS as “the Gold Standard” for satellite-based navigation last week, the system may have been operating in a degraded mode.
On Sunday the Federal Aviation Administration held a teleconference to discuss the issue that seems to have persisted for several days.  While not “failing,” GPS signal quality seems to have degraded and this is impacting some equipment and services. Specifically, the aviation safety Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast system has been impacted across much of the United States. FAA has posted the following map depicting the areas impacted:
These problems have delayed and cancelled flights, possibly by the thousands. The FAA seems to have addressed some of this problem by issuing waivers for some aircraft to fly without operable ADS-B safety systems, as long as they stay on pre-planned routes and below 28,000 ft altitude.
Speculation on some on-line forums point to specific manufactures’ equipment and aircraft that are primarily effected. Previous degradation in GPS signal quality, such as the SVN-23 caused problem in January 2016, have shown that equipment from different vendors react differently to the problem. Some are unaffected, some go offline, and some just perform poorly.
The January 2016 SVN-23 degradation caused much of the nation’s ADS-B system to be unavailable for much of the day. Other receivers and systems were impacted also. Cellular networks, first responder systems, digital broadcast, and numerous other systems were impacted.
Watchstanders at the US Coast Guard Navigation Center seemed unaware of the problem early Monday morning, but promised to investigate and respond.
https://rntfnd.org/2019/06/10/gps-degraded-across-much-of-us-ads-b-impacted/