College are you going pay or stay home?

Jared Kushner mocks the ‘eternal-lockdown crowd,’ says he hopes the US will be ‘really rocking again’ by July

“The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.” — George Orwell”

THEY WANT TO TEACH FROM HOME!! BUT THAT’S NOT WHAT THE CUSTOMER IS PAYING FOR.
Heidi Li Feldman on Twitter: “Any institution asking people to sign something like this is making it clear that it knows how dangerous it will be for people to be on campus, is inviting them anyway, and trying to duck accountability.”
All faculty, students, staff @GeorgeMasonU are required to take a COVID training and sign this acknowledgement of risk before returning to campus. Unclear what will happen if you don’t sign.
FOREIGN STUDENTS AT COLLEGE ARE PAYING FULL PRICE FOR EVERYTHING!!!
ICE says international students whose universities move to online-only this fall must transfer or leave the US
As colleges debate how to safely reopen during the COVID-19 pandemic, Immigration and Customs Enforcement gave foreign students an ultimatum on Monday: transfer to a school with in-person classes or depart the country.
@ReichlinMelnick
This is bad. ICE just told students here on student visas that if their school is going online-only this fall, the students must depart the United States and cannot remain through the fall semester.Under the rule ICE announced today, schools like Harvard wouldn’t lose tuition from students forced to leave the United States. Students could “attend” classes virtually—in their home country. But if the choice is stay at Harvard or leave the US… many will choose to transfer.https://twitter.com/i/events/1280222212637593600
https://twitter.com/ReichlinMelnick/status/1280207487573069827

@whet – And don’t forget this part:
” In effect, every American worker in the bottom 90 percent of the income distribution is sending an annual check for $12,000 to a richer person in the top 10 percent.”

THEY ARE SELLING A BRAND NOT AN EDUCATION

IF MONEY IS NO OBJECT GO TO COLLEGE IT’S JUST  AN ELITE FININSHING SCHOOL

Published on May 25, 2020

If you’re on a waiting list for an elite top tier university, you might be getting a call this year. That’s the prediction from NYU professor Scott Galloway. He’s the host of a new show on Vice called “No Mercy, No Malice,” which pulls back the curtain on the decisions and players driving America’s economy.

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/04/20/students-sue-universities-tuition-and-fee-refunds

Betsy Devos found in Contempt fined $100,000 for hurting kids.

Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos in contempt of court

STILL Enforcing Loans On Defrauded College Students.

The government will pay the $100,000, and DeVos will not be personally responsible for the sum.

Ten third-party contractors were involved in collecting the loans, and the judge’s opinion notes that the Education Department didn’t do much to make sure it followed the orders, beyond sending a few emails.

It’s rare for a judge to find a Cabinet secretary in contempt of court. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a presidential candidate, has called for DeVos to resign over this issue.

the Education Department was supposed to simply refund all the money borrowed by students who attended Corinthian during the time it was making false claims.

DeVos Won’t stop  collecting loans from former students of a now-defunct chain of for-profit colleges.

$100,000 will go toward various remedies and legal expenses for students who are owed debt relief from the Education Department after Corinthian Colleges collapsed in 2014, according to the ruling.

more

Toby Merrill, the Harvard University lawyer and director of the Project on Predatory Student Lending who brought about the class action suit on behalf of 80,000 affected students against the Education Department. Harvard Law School
https://www.newsweek.com/education-secretary-betsy-devos-contempt-court-student-loan-scandal-1467672

https://www.npr.org/2019/10/25/773334681/devos-held-in-contempt-of-court-ed-department-fined-100-000-in-student-loan-case

The Project on Predatory Student Lending represents the students in the lawsuit.
https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/judge-fines-devos-100000-contempt-court-91521

Top Betsy DeVos appointee abruptly quits, calls for canceling $925 billion in student loan debt

Trump’s top student loan official resigns — and immediately calls for ditching “fundamentally broken” loan system.

A. Wayne Johnson was appointed by DeVos in 2017 as chief operating officer of the Office of Federal Student Aid, which oversees the more than $1.5 trillion in student debt accrued by millions of Americans. He later moved into a different position, leading an effort to overhaul how the agency handles borrowers and lenders.

A. Wayne Johnson appointed by Secretary Betsy DeVos abruptly announced his resignation on Thursday and called for the cancellation of more than $900 billion in student loan debt.

Johnson told the outlet that repayment trends suggest that much of the outstanding debt will never be repaid and called for an overhaul of the entire student lending system.

Johnson  hopes to be appointed to the Senate seat in Georgia  by Gov. Brian Kemp, a Republican, but will run for the seat in the next election if he is not selected.

Johnson’s plan would forgive more debt than the plan proposed by Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., which would cancel all debt up to $50,000 for families earning under $100,000 per year. Johnson’s plan, which has no income cap, would fall short of the plan proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has called for the cancellation of all student debt.

Rep. Robert C. “Bobby” Scott (D-Va.), chairman of the House Education Committee, is threatening to subpoena Education Secretary Betsy DeVos for more documents related to the department’s role in Dream Center’s actions. Scott says the agency has obstructed the committee’s investigation and refused to answer questions, as emails and letters paint a picture of a federal agency complicit in an effort to place profits before students

Trump administration let nearly $11 million in student aid go to unaccredited for-profit colleges

Mounting evidence shows the Trump administration took extraordinary steps to keep two Art Institute campuses accredited after both lost the designation and access to federal student aid. Now one former student is suing the Education Department for violating its own rules.

https://www.educationdive.com/news/facing-insolvency-dream-center-is-unloading-art-institutes/546114/

Turmoil at Dream Center Colleges Spills Open With Seattle “At-Risk” Designation

#Privacy, #Facebook Coin, Uber, PayPal, Visa to Back Facebook’s GlobalCoin Cryptocurrency

#Privacy, #Facebook Coin, Uber, PayPal, Visa to Back #Facebook’s GlobalCoin Cryptocurrency

Starting with Facebook can’t get into China and 2015 Facebook Announces a Payments Feature for Its Messenger App

2019 #WeChat has become the centerpiece of digital life in China

where people use it to order movie tickets, subway passes, food delivery and rides. If Facebook succeeds in turning its own messaging services into a platform for everything, it could ultimately threaten established services such as Snapchat, Yelp, Venmo, eBay and even Apple and Amazon.

IN CHINA THERE IS NO PRIVACY!

IN AMERICA THERE IS NONE! THANKS TO THE DEMOCRAT$ AND THE REPUBLICAN$

  1. Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: The Scandal and the Fallout So Far Revelations that digital consultants to the Trump campaign misused the data of millions of Facebook users set off a furor on both sides of the Atlantic. https://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-trump-firm-facebook-data-50-million-users-2018-3/
  2. Are you ready? Here is all the #data Facebook and Google have on you
    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/28/all-the-data-facebook-google-has-on-you-privacy
  3. #Trump linked firm Cambridge Analytica collected personal information from 50 million Facebook users without permission https://www.businessinsider.com/cambridge-analytica-trump-firm-facebook-data-50-million-users-2018-3/
  4. Comparing #Obama Cambridge Analytica https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2018/mar/22/meghan-mccain/comparing-facebook-data-use-obama-cambridge-analyt/

Facebook can’t get into China and wants to be WhatsApp China’s top app.

#Tencent-owned WeChat is China’s most popular messaging app and has a mobile payments feature known as #WeChat Pay. #Facebook Coin, which would be pegged to the U.S. dollar and allow users to transfer money through Facebook-owned messaging application WhatsApp, according to Bloomberg.

Facebook wants to be America’s version of China’s WeChat

and started developing its own digital currency to make it easier for users to send money to their messaging contacts. Facebook didn’t offer many details on its digital currency endeavors but said a “new small team” was looking for ways to make use of the type of technology powering bitcoins and other cryptocurrencies.

Facebook has reportedly lined up Uber, PayPal, Visa and others to invest $10 million each in the consortium governing its secretive crypto project.
https://www.coindesk.com/report-uber-paypal-visa-to-back-facebooks-globalcoin-cryptocurrency

Tencent, is more than just a messaging app. It’s what some analysts dub a “super-app” because it offers everything from mobile payments to the ability to book flights and even play games — all without leaving the app. ‘WeChat of the West’
https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/13/facebook-wants-to-copy-wechat-pay-with-facebook-coin-payments.html

The reason why FB wants these partners. To turn every single account holder into a new banking account. Personal and business at the same time. Very centralized indeed. Multiple privacy concerns and contracts. Personal data is at risk.
Facts: 1. Facebook is issuing its own ‘cryptocurrency’
2. Evan Cheng is Facebooks’s Director of Blockchain engineering

One of Facebook’s most senior engineers just became Director of Engineering, Blockchain


3. Evan Cheng is advisor of #chainlink
4. Facebook will need an oracle for the purpose they’re looking for.

Facebook Gave Data Access to Chinese Firm Flagged by U.S. Intelligence

“https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/03/technology/facebook-device-partners-users-friends-data.html

Sarah Jamie Lewis ‏@SarahJamieLewis
Can’t wait for a cryptocurrency with the ethics of Uber, the censorship resistance of Paypal, and the centralization of Visa, all tied together under the proven privacy of Facebook. I’ve always said the thing that cryptocurrency was missing was consortiums of corporations fully invested in the existing financial sector. Who, seriously, looked around the room and said, “shit, we really need to invite PayPal”
Do you trust 2/3 of paypal, visa, uber and facebook <insert other corps here> not to collude to publish contradictory checkpoints? What does byzantine consensus even mean in that scenario? “Facebook won’t control the coin” it will just develop the coin and then assemble the initial members of the consortium after which point the power will be distributed to the consortium members, that Facebook picked, and who are all large corporations.

See, decentralized. “Facebook won’t directly control the coin, nor will the individual members of the consortium — known as the Libra Association. Some of the members could serve as “nodes” along the system that verify transactions and maintain records of them, creating a brand-new payments network, according to people familiar with the setup.”
In the future, Paypal will verify your transaction behind the scenes as you pay for your Uber seamlessly using your phone, just top up your Facebook Libre account with Visa or Mastercard. So much innovation.

Roxana Nasoi @roxanasoi

Ever wondered how PayPal shares your Data? And to who?
Let’s go with the major funnels:
1. PayPal shares your data with Auditors. Internal and external, due to its nature.
2. PayPal shares your data with Customer Services. In the process of handling claims, customer services need access to your account history – so basically they need your historical data information. In case of disputes, they can access the last 30 to 90 days. Maybe even more?
3. PayPal shares your data with Fraud agencies and AML services. You will discover that after $1k to $2k, you need to KYC in order to continue using your account. If you use PayPal for business purposes, but your account is a personal one, you can end up with funds frozen.
4. Next is Financial Products. All those business and personal finance tools you see inside your PayPal dashboard can’t be used without your financial data. To add more, new products are created based on user data patterns. Unknown the extent of external financial products.
5. Don’t forget about your data being shared with Commercial Partnerships. Don’t worry, banks do the same. Apps do the same. Nothing new here.
6. PayPal uses your data for Marketing and PR. Need another example? Try Facebook, Google (Gmail) etc. Data sells, and we can’t really talk about performance and customer experience without backing claims with data reports.
7. PayPal (along with 95% of systems) shares your data with Operational Services.
8. Group Enterprises also have access to your data. Blame it on group dynamics if you want to or on contracts you’ll never have a say in.
9. Commercial Partners (to no surprise) can access your data, as well through a service called PayPal for Partners (Merchants use it).
10. Legal. From disputes to payment protection to lawsuits, to internal or partner legal firms – yes, they can access the data. Or have access to it in some form.
11. Other services and agencies. At some point they argued that government agencies cannot claim access to a user’s data. However, this is an overstatement. Under the premise of fraud, Gov agencies can and will get access. Based on historical examples, we know it’s possible.
This is probably the main reason why we do need crypto. A coded architecture that makes it incorruptible.
“Code is Law”.
Bitcoin has managed to provide a clear first example of incorruptibility, where growth and maturity of one system does not change the core.

Educational CyberPlayGround, Inc. NetHappenings and K12Newsletters 6.2.19

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/