Library "late fees" are now relics of the past

I encountered a discussion of this topic in CityLab:

Chicago libraries will no longer collect late fees starting this month, becoming the largest public library system in the U.S. to do away with overdue fines. The city is also erasing all currently outstanding fees, which is good news to the more than 343,000 cardholders whose borrowing privileges have been revoked for accruing at least $10 in unpaid fines.

Chicago is one of a growing number of cities trying to make access to libraries more equitable. Its own data revealed that one in three cardholders in the public library’s south district, where many of the communities are of color and living in poverty, cannot check out books. That’s compared to one in six people in the wealthier north district. It’s likely that many who have unpaid fines fail to pay them because they don’t have the disposable income to do so...

“Overdue fines are not distinguishing between people who are responsible and who are not,” says Rogers. “They're distinguishing between people who can and cannot use money to overcome a common oversight.”..

He adds that research going as far back as the 1970s shows fears that eliminating fines will deteriorate people’s sense of civic responsibility to return books on time are unfounded....

For many libraries, fines make up just a small share of their operating budget. The Chicago Sun Times reports the Chicago Public Library system collects $875,000 annually in fines, which is not an insignificant amount. But the city says late fines constitute less than 1 percent of the library’s total budget.

The Madison, Wisconsin library system has been fine-free for quite a while now [photo].   Over the years TYWKIWDBI has accrued an uncommon number of librarians and library staff as readers; I'd be pleased to hear your comments and experiences on the subject.

The big business of school graduation ceremonies

The red arrow shows the place to order just the cap, gown, and tassel.

Image amended from the original.

Doublespeak

 

I think the original comment was badly phrased; presumably he meant that the court decision would subtract billions in costs from employers' bottom lines (but the counterargument still stands)/

A "minimum wage machine"

Minimum Wage Machine (2008-2010, updated 2012, and 2016)

Custom electronics, change sorter, wood, plexiglas, motor, misc. hardware, pennies.
(approx. 15 x 19 x 72 inches)

The minimum wage machine allows anybody to work for minimum wage. Turning the crank will yield one penny every 3.24 seconds, for $11.10 an hour, or NY state minimum wage (2018). If the participant stops turning the crank, they stop receiving money. The machine's mechanism and electronics are powered by the hand crank, and pennies are stored in a plexiglas box. The MWM can be reprogrammed as minimum wage changes, or for wages in different locations.

An interesting concept to teach about mindless work for minimal pay.

"Regrets, I've had a few..."

The photo above reminded of one regret.  In the 1960s I owned a small parcel of land (a couple acres) in northern Minnesota.  Not lakeshore, nothing special - some trees and a meadow.  At the time I considered planting a tree farm.  Seedling trees were available at the time at little or no cost from the Forestry Service.  I knew that hardwood trees like walnut would be a good long-term investment, but I was busy with my career and kept deferring the action.  Decades later I sold the parcel for a pittance.

Those trees would now be about 50 years old.  Not fully mature, but substantial in size (assuming no cowboy loggers found them and stole them).  And they would have monetary value as timber:

Black walnut trees are native to the central and eastern U.S, but also do well in other parts of the country, and are grown for both nuts and timber. A walnut orchard can take a few years to come into full production, but then produces up to 6,000 pounds of nuts per acre. Black walnut logs bring premium prices, and have since the 1700s, with single trees bringing up to $20,000. Bruce Thompson, author of “Black Walnut For Profit,” estimates a mature stand of black walnut trees can bring about $100,000 per acre in timber value alone. The fine, straight-grained wood is used for furniture, veneer and gunstocks.

If you are 50 years younger than me, take a hint...

Re socialized medicine

From the MurderedByWords subreddit, where the discussion thread dismantles the lie that medical care in the United States does not involve a waiting time.

"Club sandwich" offered on a 13-hour flight

Image cropped and brightened from the original posted here. 

The problems of minimum wage, lucidly explained

YouTube link.

A five-minute summary shows how the inflation-adjusted minimum wage is lower now than in 1960, how congressional step-changes to the wage are difficult for employers to predict and manage, and how different the United States is from the rest of the world in the implementation of this measure.

I didn't see the narrator's name.  She sounds remarkably like This American Life's Zoe Chace.

Screencap from the video:

And for the record....

Halloween costumes for special needs children

As reported by bizjournals:

Target will offer four costumes this Halloween that cater to children with special needs, including covers that transform a wheelchair into a pirate ship or princess carriage and costumes without the tags and seams that can be problematic for children with sensory-processing disorders. 

The collection is an extension of the disability-friendly clothing the retailer added to its Cat & Jack line two year ago. The Cat & Jack pieces feature heat-transferred labels in place of tags, flat seams and one-dimensional graphics designed to minimize discomfort when in contact with the skin as well as pull-on pants cut more generously to accommodate diapers at an older age...

In April, the company added adaptive pieces to its Pillowfort kids’ furniture collection that accommodate both the need for stimulation and for calming, per Fast Company, including a foam “crash pad,” a desk chair that rocks, a weighted blanket and bean bag chairs with waterproof covers.

Small farms as Airbnb hosts

Excerpts from an article in Vox:

Seren and Steve Sinisi’s livestock farm, Old Crow Ranch in Durham, Maine, touts the tagline “meat so good a vegetarian would eat it.” While meat may be their bread and butter, farm life isn’t cheap. That’s one reason the Sinisis are looking to make extra income by renting out space at pastoral Old Crow to vacationers who’d like a taste of New England farm life...

Lucky for Seren and Steve, city dwellers and suburbanites are hungry to spend their vacation time in a bucolic landscape with the promise of some wholesome downtime and maybe a locally sourced meal. They are part of a growing agritourism trend of family farmers with small to medium farms using their land, food supply, and livestock to attract guests on websites like Airbnb and VRBO, increasing their farms’ revenue and exposure.

The agritourism industry offers farmers an easy, semi-passive form of income. It’s a boon both for farms and for businesses like Airbnb, which profit from the reservations made through their websites. Airbnb recently released data showing that last year there were 57,000 rural listings on the site...

Vacationers have reported looking for more than just a hotel stay — and experiences are built into a farm’s fabric. On a farm stay, guests might have the option to stargaze, enjoy outdoor sports, or see piglets birthed. Airbnb already offers add-on “experiences” that don’t require an overnight stay but include farm events like cooking classes or a “meet the goats at a small farm.” These let farmers host one-off events on their own terms and, according to Airbnb, “create new revenue streams in a way that doesn’t require upfront costs typically associated with starting a new business.”

Ownership of voting machine makers claimed to be a "trade secret"

From techdirt:

Recently, the North Carolina State Board of Elections asked suppliers of electronic voting machines a simple question: who owns you?..

This seems like very basic information -- information the Board should know and should be able to pass on to the general public. After all, these are the makers of devices used by the public while electing their representatives. They should know who's running these companies and who their majority stakeholders are. If something goes wrong (and something always does), they should know who's ultimately responsible for the latest debacle.

It's not like the state was asking the manufacturers to cough up code and machine schematics. All it wanted to know is the people behind the company nameplates. But the responses the board received indicate voting system manufacturers believe releasing any info about their companies' compositions will somehow compromise their market advantage.

Hart InterCivic, a corporation that derives independent actual value from this information not being generally known or readily ascertainable and makes reasonable efforts to maintain the secrecy of this information, requests that it be designated as a trade secret pursuant to G.S. § 132-1.2(1)d. and G.S. § 66-152(3).

One of ES&S's subsidiaries (and there are at least 39 of those) -- Meritage Homes Corp. -- shuffled some securities ownership the same day the North Carolina election board asked it to provide information about the company's ownership. Maybe it's a coincidence. Or maybe ES&S was offloading a politically-inconvenient owner. Whatever the case is, it certainly doesn't look good. 

More at the link, via BoingBoing.  Informed discussion at the Technology subreddit.

Cartoon from XKCD.

On Wall Street bad = good

Explained at the Washington Post:

The Dow Jones industrial average soared more than 260 points on the news that the U.S. economy is creating fewer jobs than expected... But bad news can be good news in the upside-down world of Federal Reserve interest-rate manipulations and presidential interventions to keep the good times rolling...

“The world economy is slowing, inflation is below target, and now the slowing U.S. economy with today’s no-jobs report is the final straw to break the camel’s back for the Federal Reserve sitting on the sidelines,” said Chris Rupkey, managing director at MUFG Union Bank. “Rate cuts are coming. Bet on it.”

Job creation had been the one holdout against a slowing economy. Unemployment is still crouching at a 50-year low of 3.6 percent. But the Labor Department showed that the economy created far fewer jobs last month than experts had forecast, adding the latest piece to a string of disappointing reports that shows a 10-year boom gasping — for an interest-rate cut.

”This looks like the first shot across the bow,” DePalma said. “One of the economy’s only bright spots is finally weakening. The labor reports have been so consistently good that this is a slap across the face. It gives the Fed license to cut rates.”

The odds of a rate cut rose immediately on the news, with futures placing the chance of a Fed interest-rate cut at 79 percent. The chance of a second rate cut by September rose to 95 percent. “The market is happy because the punch bowl is still there,” DePalma said...

”The jobs report is bad news for Main Street and good news for Wall Street,” said Jared Bernstein, who served as the economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden. “It’s a microcosm of our inequality problem. You have wage gains that appear to have stalled, and Wall Street loves that because it means fatter profit margins.”

Management track

Using parking spaces as office spaces

From the BBC:

People have been posting images of themselves using the hashtag #WePark showing themselves working in car parking spaces in San Francisco. The group pays for the space and creates makeshift offices, using Wi-Fi from free internet zones or by using their mobile phones as hotspots. The movement has since spread further afield to France...

"We live in a very expensive real estate market. It's just so crazy to think the way we use our street is not reflective of that and so those parking spaces are just dirt cheap compared to all of the other real estate in San Francisco...

She said: "It was great. Everybody had access and were sitting there working. It was lovely. Someone brought doughnuts, a vase, flowers and a table cloth. I think it's going to be even more fun and advanced next time. You have 12 people working out of a space instead of a vehicle just sitting there doing nothing all day. It's a great use of space...

"Office spaces are expensive and here in France if your company is less than one year old, no one wants to rent you anything, even with warranties. But that's not the real problem, because working remotely is a perfect alternative. The other real problem is the cities that just don't do anything to reduce the polluting cars' activity."

Just to clarify - these people are not squatting in the space.  They are feeding the meter.   My crystal ball says that confrontations are inevitable when somebody driving in a car threatens these people because he/she can't find a vacant parking space near their office or shopping destination.  Interesting.

Robocall blockers

The Washington Post Consumer Tech column has an article about apps for blocking robocalls.

By several estimates, Americans got more than 5.2 billion automated calls in March...

I discovered no service could flag more than two-thirds of the calls on my list, in part because so many robocalls spoof their identities. Those are the calls that look conspicuously similar to your number, or that copy the caller ID of some poor soul who gets lots of angry return calls...

It comes down to how much effort you want to put into battling robocalls and how much personal information you’re willing to share to make it happen. Just adding numbers to your phone’s individual block list won’t get you very far, but there are a few simple steps from which everyone can benefit... 

Discussion and recommendations at the link.  I have been delighted with the efficacy of Nomorobo our our landline, but I haven't yet decided what to do re the cellphone.  I'd be glad to hear suggestions.

Image credit.

Cemeteries are a dying business

Crystal Lake Cemetery’s lush greenery and manicured lawns earned it praise more than a century ago as an “ideal city of the dead.”

Fewer people these days are choosing to spend eternity in this enclave of north Minneapolis.

Owners of the 130-year-old cemetery, the second-largest in Minneapolis, recently offered to donate it to the city after being charged for a nearby road construction project. They say the property has been losing about $300,000 annually for several years largely due to maintenance costs and fewer burials. “If you would like to receive Crystal Lake Cemetery as a gift, from my family, we’ll give it to you free of charge with all documentation,” Bill McReavy, president of Washburn-McReavy, which owns the 140-acre cemetery, said at a recent city hearing.

The city says it is not considering the offer. And McReavy has assured concerned families that his company intends to continue taking good care of the property.

But McReavy’s predicament illustrates the challenge some cemeteries face as more people choose to be cremated — while others would just prefer burial in the suburbs. About 67 percent of deaths in Minnesota this year will result in cremation, up from 49 percent nine years ago, according to projections by the National Funeral Directors Association.

The rest of the story is at the StarTribune.

Farming sunlight

Across the flatlands of Illinois, a new crop is rising among the traditional waves of grain... Hundreds have applied to host acres of solar panels on their property, a move encouraged by a state law requiring that renewable resources provide 25 percent of Illinois power by 2025.

The shift is controversial, and not just because of how it could alter the pastoral landscape. Taking some of the most fertile soil in the world out of production could have serious consequences for a booming population.

Yet farmers point to the uncertain economics of their lives and the need to have other income. Prices last year for the state’s most prominent crops were far below original projections, with University of Illinois data showing corn 7 percent lower and soybeans 15 percent lower. The Trump administration’s trade war with China triggered the steep drop in soybean prices.

Climate change is also spurring some farmers to rent acreage for solar panels, as a way to help combat global warming. “I like to believe I’ve done a small part in trying to slow that process down,” DeBaillie said...

Proposals for midsize projects have become so popular that Illinois is hosting a lottery to determine who will be awarded contracts to sell solar electricity to large power companies in the state, which then delivers it to subscribers.

The state anticipates about 1,000 applications, with many of the proposed projects located on farmland, officials said. About 100 agreements will be issued starting in March.

More information at the Washington Post.

Rural America needs immigrants

As explained by the editor of the Storm Lake Times in northern Iowa:

Here in Storm Lake, Iowa, where the population is about 15,000 and unemployment is under 2 percent, Asians and Africans and Latinos are our lifeline. The only threat they pose to us is if they weren’t here...

One part of the rural condition in American today is that, after college, our young people go to Des Moines or some city beyond for a job in finance or engineering... As rural counties are drained of young people with higher educations, immigrants flow into the vacuum. The influx began 40 years ago and continues today...

So long as there is corn, there will be hogs and turkeys and eggs in Iowa. Somebody will have to do that work. Now, the Storm Lake Elementary School is 90 percent children of color, and about three-fourths of those are Hispanic — mainly from Mexico, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador. We could employ 500 more workers easily if we could find, and find housing for, them...

The demand for meat cutters seems endless. Smaller towns run buses to Storm Lake to pick up immigrants for day work in those factories. They’ll pay you $18 an hour at Tyson to slice pork, plus a hefty signing bonus. The workforce is overwhelmingly immigrant, well over half Latino. Tyson insists they are all legal, yet we figure about a third of the immigrant community in general here might be without papers — who knows?..

In keenest demand here are health-care workers — orderlies, nursing assistants and cafeteria workers to toil for about $12 to $15 an hour in one of Iowa’s largest industries: nursing homes...

Storm Lake’s crime rate last year reached a 27-year low. It is more diverse than ever. Some 30 languages or dialects are spoken here. But the community knows it will wither up and blow away without its young people. Like it or not, legal or not, our young people are predominantly Latino. If there is to be a wall, there will have to be a door for immigrants to find their way here as the better-educated leave for the brighter lights and greener urban pastures.

More here.

Thoughts about a "living wage"

From the "MurderedByWords" subreddit, where there is a discussion thread.

Adaptive technology

YouTube link.

This Ars Technica video provides some context:

YouTube link.

Oversized buttons, finger switches, blowing tubes, foot pedals, and other specialized inputs have long been built for gamers who can't hold onto or efficiently use average controllers (gamepads, keyboards, mice). Recent speeches from company heads like CEO Satya Nadella and Xbox chief Phil Spencer have paid lip service to "inclusivity" in computing and gaming, but this device, the XAC, aims to do the trick by connecting niche add-ons to standard Microsoft hardware.

After exploring the ways hospitals, charity groups, and non-profit organizations already help limited-mobility gamers enjoy the hobby (and pay for unwieldy, specialized gear), in 2015 Microsoft's Xbox research group started an initiative to build an Xbox-branded hub that can bring down costs and frustration for users and caretakers alike. One year later, this skunkworks project received funding and a pathway to become an official Microsoft retail product...

Strange online hack attempts, like fans cutting Xbox One controllers in half just to spread buttons out to more easily reachable places, also suggested that more needed to be done for these players.

Hunter was also frank about the difficulty of getting members of Microsoft's business team to get on board. "We got the question: how many [units will sell]?" Hunter says. "We were like, we don’t know! And we won't know until we ship. The traditional business success metrics... this doesn’t fit into any of those normal metrics. We had to move the goalpost. The [return on investment] is different. This is about allowing more people to play."

Way more at Ars Technica.