The women, aged 19 and 20, were working as volunteers for a Toronto-based charity.
from BBC News - Africa https://bbc.in/2I9aL08
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Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Engineers set the standards
It might not seem consequential now, but in 1863, Scientific American weighed in on a pressing technological issue: the standardization of screw threads in U.S. machine shops. Given standard-size threads — the ridges running around screws and bolts — screws missing from machinery could be replaced with hardware from any producer. But without a standard, fixing industrial equipment would be harder or even impossible.
Moreover, Great Britain had begun standardizing the size of screw threads, so why couldn’t the U.S.? After energetic campaigning by a mechanical engineer named William Sellers, both the U.S. Navy and the Pennsylvania Railroad got on board with the idea, greatly helping standardization take hold.
Why did it matter? The latter half of the 1800s was an unprecedented time of industrial expansion. But the products and tools of the time were not necessarily uniform. Making them compatible served as an accelerant for industrialization. The standardization of screw threads was a signature moment in this process — along with new standards for steam boilers (which had a nasty habit of exploding) and for the steel rails used in train tracks.
Moreover, what goes for 19th-century hardware goes for hundreds of things used in daily life today. From software languages to batteries, transmission lines to power plants, cement, and more, standardization still helps fuel economic growth.
“Everything around us is full of standards,” says JoAnne Yates, the Sloan Distinguished Professor of Management at MIT. “None of us could function without standards.”
But how did this all come about? One might expect government treaties to be essential for global standards to exist. But time and again, Yates notes, industrial standards are voluntary and have the same source: engineers. Or, more precisely, nongovernmental standard-setting bodies dominated by engineers, which work to make technology uniform across borders.
“On one end of a continuum is government regulation, and on the other are market forces, and in between is an invisible infrastructure of organizations that helps us arrive at voluntary standards without which we couldn’t operate,” Yates says.
Now Yates is the co-author of a new history that makes the role of engineers in setting standards more visible than ever. The book, “Engineering Rules: Global Standard Setting since 1880,” is being published this week by Johns Hopkins University Press. It is co-authored by Yates, who teaches in the MIT Sloan School of Management, and Craig N. Murphy, who is the Betty Freyhof Johnson ’44 Professor of International Relations at Wellesley College.
Joint research project
As it happens, Murphy is also Yates’ husband — and, for the first time, they have collaborated on a research project.
“He’s a political scientist and I’m a business historian, but we had said throughout our careers, ‘Some day we should write a book together,’” Yates says. When it crossed their radar as a topic, the evolution of standards “immediately appealed to both of us,” she adds. “From Craig’s point of view, he studies global governance, which also includes nongovernmental institutions like this. I saw it as important because of the way firms play a role in it.”
As Yates and Murphy see it, there have been three distinct historical “waves” of technological standardization. The first, the late 19th- and early 20th-century industrial phase, was spurred by the professionalization of engineering itself. Those engineers were trying to impose order on a world far less organized than ours: Although the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the power to set standards, a U.S. National Bureau of Standards was not created until 1901, when there were still 25 different basic units of length — such as “rods” — being used in the country.
Much of this industrial standardization occured country by country. But by the early 20th century, engineers ramped up their efforts to make standards international — and some, like the British engineer Charles le Maistre, a key figure in the book, were very aspirational about global standards.
“Technology evangelists, like le Maistre, spread the word about the importance of standardizing and how technical standards should transcend politics and transcend national boundaries,” Yates says, adding that many had a “social movement-like fervor, feeling that they were contributing to the common good. They even thought it would create world peace.”
It didn’t. Still, the momentum for standards created by Le Maistre carried into the post-World War II era, the second wave detailed in the book. This new phase, Yates notes, is exemplified by the creation of the standardized shipping container, which made world-wide commerce vastly easier in terms of logistics and efficiency.
“This second wave was all about integrating the global market,” Yates says.
The third and most recent wave of standardization, as Yates and Murphy see it, is centered on information technology — where engineers have once again toiled, often with a sense of greater purpose, to develop global standards.
To some degree this is an MIT story; Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web, moved to MIT to establish a global standards consortium for the web, W3C, which was founded in 1994, with the Institute’s backing. More broadly, Yates and Murphy note, the era is marked by efforts to speed up the process of standard-setting, “to respond to a more rapid pace of technological change” in the world.
Setting a historical standard
Intriguingly, as Yates and Murphy document, many efforts to standardize technologies required firms and business leaders to put aside their short-term interests for a longer-term good — whether for a business, an industry, or society generally.
“You can’t explain the standards world entirely by economics,” Yates says. “And you can’t explain the standards world entirely by power.”
Other scholars regard the book as a significant contribution to the history of business and globalization. Yates and Murphy “demonstrate the crucial impact of private and informal standard setting on our daily lives,” according to Thomas G. Weiss, a professor of international relations and global governance at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. Weiss calls the book “essential reading for anyone wishing to understand the major changes in the global economy.”
For her part, Yates says she hopes readers will, among other things, reflect on the idealism and energy of the engineers who regarded international standards as a higher cause.
“It is a story about engineers thinking they could contribute something good for the world, and then putting the necessary organizations into place.” Yates notes. “Standardization didn’t create world peace, but it has been good for the world.”
from MIT News http://bit.ly/2IyWadz
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Richard Grundy: Leading Youth On A Tech JOURNi
BE Modern Man: Richard Grundy
Nonprofit founder and executive, 36, CEO of JOURNi
Twitter: @mrrichgrundy; Instagram: @mrrichgrundy
I cofounded JOURNi along with a fellow BE Modern Man Brian McKinney and Quiessence Phillips. JOURNi’s a nonprofit that focuses on empowering young Detroiters in underserved communities through tech education, design thinking, and entrepreneurship through courses, programs, and events that we facilitate. What makes our org a bit different is that we don’t only teach our students how to build web projects but also how to monetize that skillset on their own through freelancing and entrepreneurship. We also bring in different tech professionals and entrepreneurs, through a speaker series, who can identify with our students and the challenges they may face outside of the classroom. In 2018 alone, we’ve helped to introduce close to 3,000 students to coding.
WHAT ARE YOU MOST PROUD OF IN LIFE?
At this point in my life, I’m most proud of the impact we’re making at JOURNi. We’ve come from running our first program in 2016 to introducing close to 3,000 kids to coding last year. Along the way, we’ve been able to garner support from the Campaign for Black Male Achievement, The Skillman Foundation, United Way for Southeastern Michigan, Ford, Microsoft, and Google among others. We’ve come a long way in how we impact our community and I know that we’ll get better.
HOW HAVE YOU TURNED STRUGGLE INTO SUCCESS?
JOURNi was a part of an accelerator program where I had the opportunity to pitch for a $50,000 grant for the organization. I’ve always struggled with public speaking and it definitely was not a strength in the past. I absolutely bombed the pitch. I didn’t let that consume me that day and continued to make lasting connections on a one-on-one basis with attendees for the remainder of the event. Those connections turned into relationships with people who still support and partner with JOURNi until this day. I’ve also greatly improved my public speaking since then and look forward to any opportunity to do so when talking about JOURNi and the problem that we’re focused on solving.
WHO WAS YOUR GREATEST MALE ROLE MODEL AND WHAT DID YOU LEARN FROM HIM?
I wouldn’t pick any one person, but I would say that I actually learn a lot from my peers and leaders in my area that came before that I get to work with. I’ve learned a lot in the last few years as far as what it means to be a youth developer, how one can carry oneself while in the work and what it means to actually be present.
I’m also learning how the black male leaders that I really admire are all approachable and treat everyone with the same respect regardless of their influence.
HOW DO YOU DEFINE MANHOOD?
I define manhood as understanding the responsibility that a man has to his family and community and proudly carrying out that responsibility. Whether that’s protecting or providing for his family or educating those that came after him, [it means] understanding that there is a responsibility and carrying that with honor.
HOW ARE YOU PAYING IT FORWARD TO SUPPORT OTHER BLACK MALES?
With JOURNi, we support black males through our coding and entrepreneurship programming. This gives me the opportunity to teach young black men a skill that can generate income and then we take it a step further and show them how to actually monetize the skillset through freelance work. We’ve also sponsored a black college tour for two of our earlier black male students. In addition, I’m a part of the campaign for black male achievement Black Male Equity Initiative fellowship in Detroit. After completing the fellowship, I’ll be able to help transfer some of the knowledge learned to the next cohort.
WHAT DO YOU LIKE MOST ABOUT BEING A BLACK MAN?
I think that black men have done some amazing things in American history and continue to do amazing things today. I don’t take lightly the opportunity to stand on the shoulders of those great men from the past to impact and teach in our community or the opportunity to stand shoulder to shoulder with my current peers impacting the community now. Knowing what was accomplished in the past by these men and that we come from the same stock helps to motivate me in my work today.
It’s truly an honor to be recognized as a BE Modern Man of Distinction. I remember years ago entering a Black Enterprise hackathon, which subsequently introduced to me to a black tech community in New York and helped shaped the way I look at community and the work I do today back home in Detroit.
It’s amazing how things come full circle.
BE Modern Man is an online and social media campaign designed to celebrate black men making valuable contributions in every profession, industry, community, and area of endeavor. Each year, we solicit nominations in order to select men of color for inclusion in the 100 Black Enterprise Modern Men of Distinction. Our goal is to recognize men who epitomize the BEMM credo “Extraordinary is our normal” in their day-to-day lives, presenting authentic examples of the typical black man rarely seen in mainstream media. The BE Modern Men of Distinction are celebrated annually at Black Men XCEL (www.blackenterprise.com/blackmenxcel/). Click this link to submit a nomination for BE Modern Man: https://www.blackenterprise.com/nominate/. Follow BE Modern Man on Twitter: @bemodernman and Instagram: @be_modernman.
from Black Enterprise http://bit.ly/2KeJRGy
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New Report: 23 percent of young Black women now identify as bisexual
THE CONVERSATION – Since 1972, social scientists have studied the General Social Survey to chart the complexities of social change in the United States.
The survey, which is conducted every couple years, asks respondents their attitudes on topics ranging from race relations to drug use. In 2008, the survey started including a question on sexual identity.
As sociologists who study sexuality, we’ve noticed how more and more women are reporting that they’re bisexual. But in the most recent survey, one subset stood out: 23% of Black women in the 18 to 34 age group identified as bisexual – a proportion that’s nearly three times higher than it was a decade ago.
What forces might be fueling this shift? And what can learn from it?
Bisexuality among women is on the rise
In the 10 years that the General Social Survey has included a question on sexual identity, rates of identification among gay men, lesbian women and bisexual men in the U.S. haven’t changed much.
Bisexual identifying women, on the other hand, account for virtually all of the growth among those who say they’re lesbian, gay or bisexual. Of all of the women who responded to the 2018 survey, more than 1 in 18 identified as bisexual. One decade ago, only 1 in 65 did.
The most dramatic shift among bisexual identifying women is happening among young people. In the 2018 sample, more than 1 in 8 women from the ages of 18 to 34 identified as bisexual. There were more than twice as many young female bisexuals as there were young lesbians, gay men and bisexual men combined.
That’s a large shift – and it all happened in a relatively short period of time.
Add race to the figures and you’ll see that young Black women, in particular, account for a disproportionate share of this shift.
A few years ago, we wrote about how approximately 18% of young Black women identified as lesbian or bisexual in the 2016 General Social Survey sample. That rate was more than two times higher than for white women or other racial groups – and almost four times higher than for men of any racial group.
By 2018, more than 25% of young Black women identified as lesbian or bisexual. And the majority of that change can be accounted for by bisexual-identifying black women.
In other trends, Black women also led the way
Data like these help us to establish a shift is occurring, but they don’t really explain why it’s happening.
Exploring the “why” requires different methods of analysis, and existing studies – like Mignon Moore’s research on gay identity and relationships among black women – can provide some clues.
But beyond this, other demographic research shows that Black women have led the way in other trends related to gender.
Consider the gender gap in college attendance. As early as 1980, Black women began to outpace black men in completion of a four-year college degree. It wasn’t until a decade later that white women started earning college degrees at a higher clip than white men.
And in the first half of the 20th century, more unmarried Black women started having children. Eventually, more unmarried white women started having children, too.
Perhaps when it comes to sexuality, Black women are also ahead of the curve. If that’s the case – and if this trend continues – we might expect women of other races to follow suit.
A shortage of men?
Cultural forces might also play a role.
Sociologists Emma Mishel, Paula England, Jessie Ford and Mónica L. Caudillo also analyzed the General Social Survey. Rather than study sexual identities, they studied sexual behavior. Yet they discovered a similar pattern: Young Black women were more likely to engage in same-sex sexual behavior than women and men in other racial and age groups.
They argue that these shifts speak to a larger truth about American culture: It’s more acceptable for women to spurn gender norms because femininity isn’t valued as highly as masculinity. Since masculinity and heterosexuality are closely intertwined, men might believe they’ll suffer a higher social cost for identifying as bisexual.
Others have pointed to the shortage of men hypothesis to explore young Black women’s decisions about relationships and marriage. This too might explain why young Black women, in particular, seem more willing to explore bisexuality.
According to this argument, fewer “marriageable” men create a need for women to consider options beyond heterosexual relationships or marriage. A traditional marriage isn’t as necessary as it once was; since women have more educational and economic opportunities, they can afford to be pickier or, possibly, to explore same-sex relationships.
Another aspect of the hypothesis involves the disproportionately high rates of incarceration of Black men in the U.S. It’s possible that because Black women are, as a group, more likely to live in areas with smaller “pools of marriageable men,” they’re more open to bisexuality.
We’re less convinced by the shortage of men argument because it ignores the fact that incarceration rates of Black men haven’t increased over the past decade. Yet over this period of time, the percentages of young Black women identifying as bisexual have grown substantially.
The challenge of surveying sexuality
Finding reliable ways of measuring sexual identity on surveys is more difficult than you might think, and the trend could have been spurred by something as simple as the way the question is phrased in the General Social Survey:
“Which of the following best describes you?”
- gay, lesbian or homosexual
- bisexual
- heterosexual or straight
- don’t know
Of the roughly 1,400 people who responded to this question on the 2018 GSS survey, only six responded “don’t know.” Another 27 didn’t respond at all.
But everyone else selected one of those three options.
Perhaps some respondents didn’t want to neatly tie themselves to the category of “gay” or “straight.” If this is the case, “bisexual” almost becomes a default fallback.
Either way, one thing seems clear: Young people – especially young Black women – are more willing to explore their sexuality. And the ways they are sexually identifying themselves on surveys is only one indicator of this change.
Tristan Bridges, Assistant Professor, Sociology, University of California, Santa Barbara and Mignon R. Moore, Professor and Chair of Sociology, Barnard College
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
The post New Report: 23 percent of young Black women now identify as bisexual appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://on.thegrio.com/2XDwpPD
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‘Pose’ star Indya Moore gets in scuffle with Trump supporter over re-election sign
Indya Moore, one of the breakout stars of FX’s hit show Pose, got into a dustup with a Trump supporter holding a ‘Re-elect Donald Trump, Keep America Great, 2020’ sign.
On friday, Moore was caught on camera snatching the sign from a Dion Cini, who reportedly holds a weekly demonstration with a small group of fellow supporters, across from Trump Tower in New York City.
After Moore snatched the poster out of Cini’s hands, the trans actress stomped on it and seemingly tried to destroy it.
“The actor came over, started kicking a sign, and threw it to the ground,” Cini told DailyMail.com.
Two other people, reportedly friends of Moore, also tried to intervene. Eventually, a cop stepped in to diffuse the situation.
Moore also reportedly said she “didn’t want [Trump supporters as] fans of his show.”
Yesterday Moore took to Twitter to write: “Thank you for loving my community, fighting for us, supporting us fight for ourselves and others who are experiencing an increase of oppression and violence under this current administration.”
Thank you for loving my community, fighting for us, supporting us fight for ourselves and others who are experiencing an increase of oppression and violence under this current administration.
— IAM (@IndyaMoore) June 10, 2019
Moore stars as Angel Evangelista on Pose, which returns for season two this week.
The post ‘Pose’ star Indya Moore gets in scuffle with Trump supporter over re-election sign appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://on.thegrio.com/2XzUcQm
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Rihanna opens up about her billionaire boyfriend and longing to be mom “more than anything in life”
Rihanna’s wild, wild thoughts are becoming pretty tame these days.
The 31-year-old singer and beauty and fashion mogul sat down with Sarah Paulson, her Ocean 8 co-star, for Interview magazine to dish about her personal life, including her new man.
—Rihanna makes history as first woman of color to helm own fashion line with LVMH—
“I got into a new relationship, and it matters to me. It was like, ‘I need to make time for this.’ Just like I nurture my businesses, I need to nurture this as well,” she said about her billionaire boyfriend Hassan Jameel.
“I’ll shut things down for two days, three days at a time. On my calendar we now have the infamous ‘P,’ which means personal days. This is a new thing.”
Rih Rih’s ‘P’ also means she’s prioritizing her life goals. While she doesn’t give in to divulging about whether marriage is on the horizon for the super secretive couple, she does say she wants to be a mom “more than anything in life,” PEOPLE reports.
But contrary to popular belief, the Grammy-award winning singer says she’s not secretive on purpose. She says her shyness comes across as confidence.
“People don’t know that I’m shy… because I kind of pretend it’s not happening people read me as being confident,” she confessed. “I still get nervous going to award shows. What is that? I always feel like everybody’s looking at me.”
Well because we are!
As of late, Rihanna’s been racking up wins in other aspects of her life. She broke records by becoming the first woman of color to run a fashion house with Fenty Maison as part of the LVHM Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton company. And Fenty Beauty and her Savage x Fenty lingerie lines are both booming.
—DUP official, who once opposed Rihanna, elected out of office—
As for a new album, Rihanna’s promises new tracks are on the horizon.
“It’s the reason why an album isn’t being spat out like it used to,” she explained about her busy schedule. “I used to be in the studio, only the studio, for three months straight, and an album would come out. Now, it’s like a carousel. I do fashion one day, lingerie the next, beauty the next, then music the next. It’s like having a bunch of kids and you need to take care of them all.”
But when her music does hit the scene, she promises it will be fun for all.
“It really does suck that it can’t just come out, because I’m working on a really fun one right now. I’m really happy with a lot of the material we have so far, but I am not going to put it out until it’s complete,” she said. “It makes no sense to rush it, but I want it out.”
The post Rihanna opens up about her billionaire boyfriend and longing to be mom “more than anything in life” appeared first on theGrio.
from theGrio https://on.thegrio.com/2X2IrF6
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5 Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs
If you have the goal of becoming a successful entrepreneur, it is crucial you work on improving yourself personally as well as professionally. You can’t hope to achieve long-term business success as an entrepreneur if you aren’t constantly trying to hone the skills necessary to build a viable company. Successful entrepreneurs invest time in becoming better versions of themselves—that tends to build stronger businesses as well as an extensive business network. If this is the year you go all in on entrepreneurial growth, following are five life lessons you ought to learn sooner rather than later.
5 Secrets of Successful Entrepreneurs
Manage Your Emotions
An essential skill you need to hone as an entrepreneur is the ability to manage your emotions. Entrepreneurs who overreact or let their emotions get the better of them tend to make rash decisions not based on hard evidence. Learn to control your emotions and you’re likelier to make smart business decisions.
Your Entrepreneurial Story Is Within Your Control
Your story as an entrepreneur is within your control. How you react to challenges, the effort you put into personal and business growth, and your inner motivation all contribute to your entrepreneurial story. If you don’t like how your journey is progressing, it’s up to you to make the necessary changes.
Analyze Your Doubts
Becoming a successful entrepreneur is not without its challenges. There will be many days where you question your own sanity and ask yourself why you chose to be an entrepreneur. If you focus your efforts on analyzing why you feel like quitting or why you are finding a particular situation stressful, you’ll get at the underlying problem. Once you understand what’s really bothering you, chances are good you’ll be able to address the issue and develop a solution.
Manage Your Mental Energy
How you focus your mental energy has a huge impact on your success (or failure) as an entrepreneur. Business builders who focus their thoughts on positive endeavors tend to have greater success rates than those constantly immersed in negativity. Learn how to train your thought patterns to focus on positive, uplifting endeavors and you’ll have a much more enjoyable entrepreneurial journey.
Increase Opportunities for Those in Your Network
If you want to become a more successful entrepreneur, learn how to increase growth opportunities for others around you. If all you ever do is focus on your own growth as an entrepreneur, you won’t develop an extensive network of individuals who want to see you succeed. Learn to lift others up as you attempt to become a better business builder and your odds of developing a formidable social and business network significantly increase.
Focus on learning these five life lessons and you’ll increase your odds of success as an entrepreneur. Work on becoming a better version of yourself and you’ll not only become a stronger entrepreneur, but you’ll also likely build a better company in the process.
from Black Enterprise http://bit.ly/2MEEMJw
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Jada Pinkett Smith on infidelity and breaking free from husband Will’s idea of marriage ‘Our whole life looked like his dream’
Jada Pinkett Smith goes deep on another episode of her hit Facebook talk show, Red Table Talk.
In monday’s episode, the actress took viewers inside her Hollywood marriage and revealed the some of the challenges that she and Will Smith faced as she tried to break free and live her best life independently.
Pinkett Smith spoke intimately about her journey to navigate her own wants and needs in her life aside from her marriage to her mega-star husband with a conversation with world-renowned therapist Esther Perel, PEOPLE reports.
“Specifically for me, in regards to redefining my marriage as a life partnership was the necessity of autonomy for myself and for Will,” Pinkett Smith said. “And finding the core of us that wanted to be together outside of the constraints of the traditional ideas of marriage because they weren’t working for us.”
She explained: “We went on that journey to find that autonomy and to find the true authentic bond outside of obligation. I don’t want you to be obligated.”
Pinkett Smith spoke candidly about the hard-fought road to help her husband understand that each of them had their own vision of life.
Pinkett Smith said she felt the pressure of trying to fit in his box.
“You have to be the perfect wife, you have to be the source that supports his dreams, no matter what it is, whatever he wants to build you’re there to support that,” Pinkett Smith said.
She added, “Our whole life looked like his dream. I’m his energy source. That’s great, but I’ve got to create part of this life that is designed and looks like me.”
—Ciara opens up about how she healed relationship scars with Future on ‘Red Table Talk’—
And when Jada started to tell her husband about her dreams and desires, she admits it wasn’t easy for him to accept.
“He felt abandoned at first, he felt really abandoned,” she said. “You never want to hurt the person that you love. You never want to create instability that way.”
“It has been one of the most excruciating processes of my life,” Pinkett Smith said. “I’ve wanted to personally break out of Will needing to be something for me because I felt like that was so unfair. And a lot of it had to do with my father issues. I just realized one day, ‘This man is not your father!’”
Perel chimed in: “Or he’s not meant to be everything your father was not.”
“That was the thing, I was like, ‘[Jada], you gotta grow up. You gotta be a woman. That little girl trauma does not work here.’ That was the work I had to do.”
And while Pinkett Smith said that she and her husband haven’t faced any issues of infidelity in their relationship, the actress said she’s been cheated on and been the one to step out on her own partner in the past.
“I had a really interesting experience when I was younger. I had two relationships before Will that were kind of serious to me, where I got cheated on,” Pinkett Smith recalled. “[It] really broke my heart.”
“And then I cheated on somebody I really cared about and let me tell you, me cheating on someone was more devastating than being cheated on,” ahe added. “It actually taught me to forgive when I got cheated on because I understood.”
According to Pinkett Smith, what she learned from the experience is when she was the one getting cheated on, it wasn’t because of anything she’s done or anything wrong with her.
“When I had to look at myself and why I did it, I realized it had nothing to do with my partner, at all,” she explained.
Pinkett Smith and Perel also talked about the different kinds of betrayal that can jeopardize a marriage, including “contempt, neglect and violence and indifference,” according to the renowned therapist.
“I’m asked a lot about, ‘Is there infidelity in your relationship with Will?’ And it’s like, ‘No, but there have been other betrayals of the heart that have been far bigger than I could even think in regards to an infidelity situation,'” Pinkett Smith shared. “When you talk about contempt, resentment, neglect, it can just tear your world apart.”
Red Table Talk airs Mondays on Facebook Watch.
The post Jada Pinkett Smith on infidelity and breaking free from husband Will’s idea of marriage ‘Our whole life looked like his dream’ appeared first on theGrio.
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