The question of whether college is “worth it” continues to be hot.
Last week, the national unemployment rate fell from 7.9 percent to 7.7 percent after a strong Non-Farm Payrolls report. But the unemployment rate differs greatly for people with different levels of education.
Continue reading… “Difference in unemployment by level of education”
Colorado has more than 1.1 million dogs and not quite 350,000 children under 5 years old.
Don’t worry about the “Rise of the Planet of the Apes.” Earth is far more likely to become the “Orb of the Dogs” demographically, as human fertility rates plummet for a slew of reasons, including canines substituting for kids in many households.
Continue reading… “Human birth rate declines, people turn to pets”
The majority of high-achieving kids from low-income backgrounds fail to apply to any selective colleges.
Middle-class American high-school seniors with good grades go through a familiar ritual of the college application process each year. The seniors file a bunch of applications. They submit test scores, grades, essays, and letters of recommendation. They apply to a “reach” school or two and a “safety” school or two along with some in the middle. The idea is to see where you can get in and then decide where you want to go after researching both the quality of the schools on offer and the actual financial cost of attending. This system is a bit stressful and annoying, but basically it works. Students get matched with schools that roughly suit their level of academic preparation and people have a chance to shop around a bit for the myriad forms of financial aid that make college attendance feasible.
The dependable mid-budget, R-rated action movies that Hollywood once relied on are now anything but dependable.
Hollywood has had a series of tent-pole and more modestly budgeted movies that have collapsed at the box office this winter. Revenue and attendance are both down 15 percent from the same period last year, reports the Hollywood Reporter. The industry got some surprise relief this weekend from Oz the Great and Powerful despite middling reviews. It’s also one of the few big new movies of 2013 so far clearly marketed toward kids. If you were to look at the state of the box office in the past few months, you might come away with two impressions: One, the dependable mid-budget, R-rated action movies that Hollywood once relied on are now anything but dependable. And two, Hollywood is basically just for kids.
Continue reading… “The death of the R-rated action movie”
It might not be enough to to just work out at the gym of you spend much of the rest of the day sitting down. A government survey shows that Americans are more sedentary than ever. That is a problem even among people who exercise regularly.
Continue reading… “How little do Americans actually move?”
800 million Android activations have taken place to date and the rate is about 2 million per day.
Android data is occasionally reported by Google. The last time Google reported Android data was in September 2012. We then learned that activations were running at 1.3 million per day and that a total of 500 million total activations had taken place.
Continue reading… “Where are the Android users?”
“Glass-ceiling”
You would do well to move to New Zealand if you are a working woman. If New Zealand is too far out of the way you could try one of the Nordic countries. The Economist has compiled its own “glass-ceiling index” to mark International Women’s Day. The index shows where women have the best chance of equal treatment at work.
Continue reading… “The Economist’s glass-ceiling index”
These days, if you are surfing the Web from a mobile device odds are you are doing it not from a smartphone, but from some type of tablet. For the first time tablets have surpassed smartphones for percentage of website views, according to a study done by Adobe.
Continue reading… “Tablet mobile traffic surpasses smartphone traffic”
Each post is seen by one in three Facebook “friends.”
Do you know who saw the picture you posted on Facebook or what you posted on your timeline? More of your Facebook “friends” saw what you posted than the average Facebook user realizes, according to a study done by data scientists at Facebook.
Continue reading… “Each post on Facebook seen by a third of friends”
If you live in Hawaii, Colorado, or Minnesota then chances are you are happier than those that live in Mississippi, Kentucky, and West Virginia. That’s according to the 2012 Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index. The report that comes out every year surveys 1,000 people each day for 350 days out of the year, asking them questions about work environment, physical health, emotional health, lifestyle behaviors like exercise and smoking, access to things like health care and food, and overall life satisfaction.
Continue reading… “Top 10 happiest states in the U.S.”
Women aged 75 and younger are dying at higher rates than previous years.
There is compelling evidence from a new study that the expectancy for some U.S. women is falling, a disturbing trend that experts can’t explain. The study found that women aged 75 and younger are dying at higher rates than previous years in nearly half of the nation’s counties. many of the women lived in rural areas and in the West and South. For men, life expectancy has held steady or improved in nearly all counties.
Continue reading… “Lifespan declining in women in some parts of U.S.: Study”
Recently, the Institute for Local Self-Reliance compiled this map of all the communities in the country that control their own access to the Internet. There are about 340 of them with publicly owned fiber-optic or cable networks, serving either all or parts of town. Those residents and businesses in the places served don’t have to spar with telecom giants like AT&T and Comcast. They get their Internet instead – like many communities do their electric utility – straight from the city.
Continue reading… “Why there are no big cities that have municipal broadband networks”
By delving into the futuring techniques of Futurist Thomas Frey, you’ll embark on an enlightening journey.
Learn More about this exciting program.