The problem with having a smartphone that you want to use all the damn time is that you’ll spend a big chunk of your day wedded to an outlet. LG believes that nobody should have to suffer such an indignity, and has launched the X power2 as a remedy….
Despite being $500 million richer than it was a few months ago, ZeniMax still isn’t happy about the outcome of its Oculus Rift lawsuit. Reuters is reporting that the video game company behind id Software and Bethesda has filed for an injunction block…
Retirement, for me, is like stepping off the diving board into the deep pool of the rest of my life ― a little scary with no turning back once I’ve done it.
I’m 67, squarely in the crosshairs of the “when should I retire?” conversation. The discussion is generally framed around how much money you need, but trust me, that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
While the average baby born in 1900 didn’t live past age 50, life expectancy at birth today is 78.8 years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If retirement starts at 65, that means a lot of people are looking at 15 to 20 years of doing whatever they desire. Does anyone really want or need 20 years of unstructured time?
For that matter, why do we assume that everyone is ready to stop working at one predetermined age? We aren’t, and the numbers prove it. Over the coming decade, older workers are predicted to be the fastest-growing segment of the workforce, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Among 65- to 74-year-olds, labor force participation will hit 32 percent by 2022, up from 20 percent in 2002. For those age 75 and up, the rate will jump from 5 percent in 2002 to 11 percent in 2022.
The reasons why people don’t retire are multi-faceted. It might be financial ― the recession wiped out their savings or adult kids are still living at home. It could be to maintain health care coverage for a spouse who is too young to qualify for Medicare. But it may be because they like going to the office every day and have no burning desire to do anything else.
The idea of retirement has shifted through the ages. So perhaps today’s concept needs revamping. Here are some ideas:
If someone wants to leave the workforce because they have a bucket list of things to do with their time and money before they die, they should go for it. But I happen to love my job ― which is not to say that I wouldn’t mind a little more time off. I also love to travel and want to see some far-away places.
Instead of the Big R, a much better idea for scratching my travel and adventure itch would be a nice sabbatical.
As Linda Sharkey and Morag Barrett write in The Future-Proof Workplace, “For many, retirement at the end of a career no longer makes sense, but sabbaticals during careers may.”
Once the sole purview of academia, sabbaticals are a hot employee benefit these days. Paid sabbatical leave is offered at just 5 percent of U.S. companies, according to the Society of Human Resource Management. Yet nearly 25 percent of the employers on Fortune’s 100 Best Companies to Work For in 2012 offer the option. Even people who aren’t anywhere near retirement applaud the inclusion of sabbaticals in their benefits package.
Simply put, paid sabbaticals are the things workers’ dreams are made of: a chance to step out of the Dilbert cubicle and pursue a project, travel, break from the daily grind and spend time with loved ones. In other words, a short-term retirement.
Sometimes that’s all we need, regardless of our age.
Why does retirement have to mean that one day you’re a vital part of the organization and the next day you’re chopped liver?
Letting people retire gradually is less jarring to the corporate eco-system than abrupt departures. It gives the company time to hire and train someone for the position being vacated. Remember, it’s not just skills that are walking out the door. Older workers have institutional knowledge that can be hard to replace.
A transition period helps the retiring employees, too. Reducing the number of hours worked ― say, cutting back by 12 hours a week to start ― gives people the chance to figure out how to fill their free time before they’re looking at a yawningly empty calendar. It clarifies why saying “let’s do lunch” when all your friends still have day jobs isn’t a plan.
A happy retirement often requires time to make or re-establish friendships. There are psychological adjustments to be made: coping with the loss of your career identity, replacing support networks you had through work and spending more time than ever before with your spouse or partner. Phasing that in just makes things run more smoothly.
It used to be that once you got the gold watch, the pension checks kicked in and that place where you worked for 40 years was done with you. Now, very little of that happens. Not the gold watch, not the corporate pension and not the experience of staying at one company for 40 years.
But how great would it be to erase the “don’t let the door hit you on the way out” mentality? People need to belong to something bigger than themselves, and places of employment have long assumed a paternal role in our lives. Maybe it’s time companies reconsidered how they treat their retirees.
Instead of kicking them to the curb, keep them involved. Why not give them the same corporate discounts they had when they worked there? How about some free legal advice for estate planning, gym memberships, etc.?
If nothing else, the business sets a tone of respecting one’s elders ― which, with America’s aging workforce, isn’t such a bad idea. And it keeps in touch with a group of people who know a lot about how the company works ― people who could be brought back as mentors, trainers and vacation fill-ins.
The government set my retirement age at 66 ― that is, the point at which I was eligible to collect full retirement benefits from Social Security. But it also allowed me to take a pass on that birthday gift and delay receiving my monthly checks. By not claiming benefits until age 70, those checks will be 32 percent higher.
But 70 is where it stops. There is no additional increase after you reach age 70 even if you continue putting off retirement. Why not? There should be.
The prevailing wisdom says to delay the start of Social Security benefits for as long as possible. But the statistics show that few Americans are listening. Most people claim benefits before their full retirement age. Of those who started receiving benefits in 2012, around 40 percent were 62 years old, the earliest age allowed. That year, a mere 3 percent had waited past their full retirement age to begin claiming benefits.
To be sure, some people can’t wait, for financial or health reasons. But think of how much money the Social Security program would save in the short term if everybody who could do so delayed claiming benefits until age 75. And then when we did collect, the benefits might actually be enough to live on.
Some retirees shun the idea of volunteering. Maybe there’s some old-school thinking at play here where a person’s value is measured in dollars and the idea of giving away your talents and skills just doesn’t sit well.
Someone recently told me that they didn’t volunteer because it would be “taking a paid job away from someone.” Others claim lack of time or even lack of opportunity. Seriously.
In 2014, the volunteer rate among Americans was 25.4 percent and dropping, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s just 1 in 4 adults, and the lowest rate in a decade. (Official data on volunteer rates go back only to 2002.)
If the rates for retirees are at all similar, that’s a tremendous waste of talent.
As educator Charlie Nelms wrote four years after he retired as a university chancellor, “Imagine for a moment the positive impact a corps of organized and trained volunteers could have on the educational achievement of kids who struggle with reading, math or achieving foreign language competence.”
Nelms added, “Just imagine the impact we retirees could have if we each volunteered just one hour a week as a GED tutor or reader for the blind.”
Kind of a win-win, isn’t it?
As for me, I think I’ll be testing out the diving board for a while longer.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
In 2017, calling a web series about women’s experiences on the internet “Woman Online” is controversial, apparently.
“I’ve already been criticized by men online for this web series,” said comedian Sara Schaefer in a recent phone conversation with The Huffington Post, explaining that some online users took issue with the name. “I’m not saying that other people don’t get harassed online, but this web series is about what it’s like to be a woman online. I’m sorry, that’s who I am and that’s what I’m talking about.”
It’s a sentiment that likely many ladies on the internet could empathize with, given the frequent reports of gender-driven trolling women receive online. For example, a 2016 Australian study found that 76 percent of women under 30 experience online harassment. In the same year, writer Lindy West left Twitter after years of being the subject of harassment due to her work, calling the platform “unusable for anyone but trolls, robots and dictators.”
That “Woman Online,” a project Schaefer created with Seriously.TV, reflects this current climate is no accident. The comedian, known for her 2013 MTV show “Nikki & Sara Live,” is fascinated by why people do what they do. As someone whose career is dependent on maintaining an online presence, Sara looked to the internet — and the specific experience of women in that space — as inspiration.
“Social media is, for me personally, an overall positive,” she said, citing the ability of online platforms to spread messages of the marginalized and share different individuals’ experiences. After witnessing the dissemination of information surrounding the Ferguson, Missouri, protests after 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer, Schaefer saw the power of interacting online. “For me personally, it turned my brain on [to realize,] oh, my god, I can’t unsee this. And I can’t not be upset about it anymore.”
“Because of that, in some ways, we’re more sensitive … Everything feels so close, and so big, because of social media,” she said.
Of course, with great tweeting power comes great responsibility, and the democratization of information means, unfortunately, name-calling and threats are elevated to the same level as constructive discourse. Being a woman colors the whole experience in a different hue.
”Every man I know online could post the same thing I post and get completely different responses. There are a lot of gendered insults — cunt, bitch are big ones — that people don’t really say to men. There’s a reason for that,” said Schaefer.
“You know, women have been somewhat marginalized for all of history and again, social media has allowed us a platform to be louder and more unified. That’s scary to some people,” she continued. “I think there are a lot of women who are targeted because they are just speaking.”
The number of stories Schaefer’s found from women led her to want to talk about these issues, well, online. Recent episodes include “What really happens in secret lady Facebook groups?” and “Inside a woman’s dating app.” While occasionally she’s brought on guests, like fellow comedian Jen Kirkman, the series’ most recent episode showcased Schaefer’s own journey to chase down a particularly persistent troll. She begins by reciting some things she’s had said to her on the internet: “Don’t listen to this dumb bitch, she’s barely a comedian.” “This chick’s husband needs to put her back in her place.”
She goes on to tell the story of “Jeff,” a man who created numerous accounts to harass her in various ways, escalating to comments about Schaefer’s mother, who had passed away.
It’s clear that the directive women sometimes receive to “not feed the trolls” wouldn’t cut it in this situation. “Imagine if someone at your work was leaving anonymous notes taunting you about the worst thing that’s ever happened to you,” she says in the video. “Nobody would be like, ‘Oh, just ignore it! They just want attention!”
“On one hand, there’s nothing you can do to prevent [it],” Schaefer explained to me in our conversation. “It’s like telling someone to not go outside if they don’t wanna get mugged, you know? It’s like, well that’s just ridiculous. I have to be able to live my life,” she said.
Each video strikes a blend of education and comedy. “Humor is so powerful,” Schaefer said, noting that it’s an effective way to “communicate the craziness of our world,” especially in a time when fake news, the normalization of hateful speech and strong divisions in politics have taken center stage.
“My feeling now is that comedy is an important way to speak truth to power and hold up a mirror to things,” she said. “Not just against Trump, but against hypocrisy, and forcing people on both sides and in the middle to question how things are going.”
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
The conversation about diversity in Hollywood often centers on fairness. It’s unfair that just over a quarter of speaking roles went to people of color in 2015’s top movies ― that Asians and Latinx nabbed tiny slivers. It’s unfair that women made up less than one-third of protagonists in top movies in 2016. It’s unfair that black, Asian and Latinx actors were completely left out of acting categories in the Academy Awards last year, and the year before that.
It is unfair. Although the Academy announced a small list of Oscar nominees featuring more black actors in 2017, for years, researchers have counted and recounted the vast population of bodies making up content in TV and film, only to find, again and again, that the industry’s struggle to represent people of color, women and other groups the way we see them in real life ― as people with likes and dislikes, habits and whims, hopes and fears ― is endemic.
But it’s not just unfair. Even if we don’t stop to think much about the summer blockbuster we watch to sit in a cool theater on a hot day, or the show we turn on while we’re making dinner, entertainment media saturates our lives. And for decades, researchers have worried over the effect those stories have on viewers.
“We’re pretty confident that, the more TV you watch, the more media you consume, the more likely it is that media ― almost like radiation ― builds up,” Darnell Hunt, director of the Ralph J. Bunche Center for African American Studies at UCLA, told The Huffington Post. “And the accumulated effect is to make you feel that what you’re seeing is somewhat normal.”
“What you see often becomes a part of your memory,” echoed Ana-Christina Ramón, assistant director of the Bunche Center, “and thus a part of your life experience.”
It can even serve as a proxy for experiences audience members haven’t actually lived, shaping their views on people of color and women ― and shaping the way those people view themselves.
“There’s this body of research and a term known as ‘symbolic annihilation,’ which is the idea that if you don’t see people like you in the media you consume, you must somehow be unimportant.”
Nicole Martins of Indiana University
We spoke to several sociologists and researchers about the power of representation, and what the lack of it might mean for people who don’t see themselves up there on the screen. Since the 1960s, research has found expressions of unequal power in media that, according to Michael Morgan, can be “very dangerous” and “very damaging” to people watching.
“I think the moral argument is self-evident. Stories matter,” Morgan, former professor emeritus at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst and author of dozens of reports on media effects, told HuffPost.
“Stories affect how we live our lives, how we see other people, how we think about ourselves.”
That sentiment was common among the researchers we spoke to, although all of them noted that the sociology of representation is a topic infrequently covered specifically. It comes down to a problem common in academia ― the problem of finding subjects and funding, as mentioned by Glenn Sparks of Purdue University and Nicole Martins of Indiana University. Simply put, it’s costly to look into media effects in a large enough group of people over a long enough period of time.
Martins managed to co-author one study, however, about television’s effect on self-esteem with Kristen Harrison of the University of Michigan, published in 2012. Focusing on children, the pair found that TV made subjects feel good about themselves ― if those subjects were white boys. Girls and boys of color, on the other hand, reported lower self-esteem as they watched.
“We feel pretty comfortable that it’s this lack of representation that could be responsible for this effect,” Martins said.
“There’s this body of research and a term known as ‘symbolic annihilation,’ which is the idea that if you don’t see people like you in the media you consume,” she explained, “you must somehow be unimportant.” (In a 1976 paper titled “Living with Television,” researchers George Gerbner and Larry Gross coined the term with a chilling line: “Representation in the fictional world signifies social existence; absence means symbolic annihilation.”)
In Ramón’s words, “You may wonder, ‘Do I matter? Does society value me as a person?’”
The cathartic experience of finally relating to a character on screen has inspired heartfelt essays. As part of a HuffPost series called “When Representation Mattered,” our own Zeba Blay, who is black, explained how she felt empowered by the Spice Girls’ Melanie Brown. “She was unapologetically loud and unapologetically fierce in a way that (in my mere 10 years) I had never seen a black girl have the permission to be,” Blay wrote. HuffPost’s Carol Kuruvilla, whose family hails from India, described how the soccer flick “Bend It Like Beckham” made her feel less alone by not forcing its Indian protagonist to conform to a trope. “Jess wasn’t just the nerdy best friend, the submissive shy girl, or the exotic temptress (all tropes that are far too common for Asian women),” Kuruvilla explained.
Character tropes ― molds that shape dialogue and casting decisions to produce the nerdy Asian math student, the sassy black sidekick, the icy female boss ― do their own damage, too.
For the underrepresented, seeing a character who looks like them can have a limiting effect if that character is restricted to behaving only in certain ways, which don’t reflect the breadth of their life’s experience. If you are a black, Asian or Latinx person who sees an “inauthentic” or “one-dimensional” version of yourself, Ramón explained, you “may wonder if that is all that is expected of you in society.”
“Visual media teaches us how the world works and our place in it,” she said.
“When you don’t see people like yourself,” Morgan echoed, “the message is: You’re invisible. The message is: You don’t count. And the message is: ‘There’s something wrong with me.’”
“Over and over and over, week after week, month after month, year after year, it sends a very clear message, not only to members of those groups, but to members of other groups, as well,” he said.
To all viewers, on-screen representation serves as an important (if undervalued) way to glean information about the world. Hunt pointed to decades-old research out of the University of Pennsylvania that showed a correlation between a range of topics as presented on TV ― violence, integration, women’s rights ― and how people thought about those issues in real life. Over time, they found that people who watched more TV embraced what they called the “TV view of the world.”
“And if the ‘TV view of the world’ was violent, then people assume that the world was more violent,” Hunt said.
And perhaps they would, say, vote for a presidential candidate who claims the nation is drowning in a wave of violent Latinx trespassers because that’s how they look on screen. Or believe that America is mostly over racism because there are secondary black characters in films. Or continue to live their lives not realizing Asian men are, indeed, quite attractive.
“Entertainment provides the seeds under which these things make sense to people, because they’ve seen a thousand images of ‘Latinos are violent,’ or ‘Asians are invisible,’ or ‘blacks are this’ or ‘women are that,’ so it is so easy to exploit,” Morgan said, “because it’s a knee-jerk reaction. It’s this, ‘Oh yes, yes, of course. I know that.’”
Viewers might not think that the shows and films that enrich our lives and let us happily escape after a day or week of the usual routine may affect our view of our neighbors, fellow citizens, or people around the world. And it’s true that Middle Ages fantasy with a reputation for bloodshed or a tap-dancing couple in a sunny dreamland, on their own, might not have too much of an impact. But they are part of a much larger force that consistently dilutes the richly diverse experiences of lives enjoyed by people of color and women.
“We can sit by as this continues for another decade,” wrote some of the researchers who diligently record the makeup of the on-screen population, in a recent report, “or can act to ensure that equality and inclusion are the hallmark of entertainment in the years to come.”
Because it’s not just “not fair.” It’s not right.
— This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.
The United States can be a cruel place to live, as the rise of fascism in the country has caused a shocking increase in hate crimes. And after a terrorist shooting in Kansas, Americans have turned to what has now become a depressingly common ritual in the face of tragedy: Raising money for the survivors through…
Back in January during CES 2017, Samsung announced a new laptop in the form of the Chromebook Pro. Then earlier this month the laptop was finally available for purchase, but if for whatever reason you prefer making your purchases from the Google Store, you’ll be pleased to learn that you’ll now be able to purchase the laptop from Google.
Now if you’re wondering why would you purchase from the Google Store when there are other options available, it is because purchasing directly from Google will result in $20 credit being added to your Google Play Store account. This means that you’ll be able to use that credit towards Android apps, movies, music, books, and so on.
In case you’re learning about the Samsung Chromebook Pro for the first time, here’s a quick recap on what you can expect. The laptop will come with a 2400×1600 display and will be accompanied by a custom hexa-core ARM-based processor. We’re also looking at 4GB of RAM, a couple of USB-C ports, an SD card reader, a headphone jack, and of course it will come with Chrome OS.
So far reviews of the laptop have been pretty positive with regards to the design, but the reviews about it running Android apps aren’t that great, with some reviews claiming that running Android apps on the Chromebook Pro felt slower compared to running it on a phone. In any case the laptop is priced at $449 so if you’re interested then head on over to Google’s website for the details.
Samsung Chromebook Plus Now Available From Google Store , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Yesterday thanks to a leak, alleged specs of the Samsung Galaxy S8 Plus were revealed. For the most part a lot of the specs made sense, save for the RAM which we thought was a bit weird for Samsung to go with 4GB in this day and age where we’re seeing more OEMs starting to pack as much as 6GB.
That being said, so how does the “standard” Galaxy S8 specs compare? Turns out it’s pretty much the same save for the difference in screen size. The alleged specs of the Galaxy S8 were obtained by the folks at Techno Buffalo and according to the specs, we’re looking at a 5.8-inch QHD+ Super AMOLED display.
We’re also looking at a 12MP rear-facing camera, an 8MP front-facing camera, IP68 protection from dust and water, a built-in iris scanner, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, wireless charging support, Samsung Pay, 4G LTE, and it will also come bundled with a pair of headphones that have been tuned by AKG.
Like we said these are pretty much identical to the Galaxy S8 Plus, but then again we guess that’s kind of the point as presumably Samsung just wants to differentiate the phones based mostly on screen size, but you should still take it with a grain of salt for now until the official details have been revealed.
‘Standard’ Samsung Galaxy S8 Specs Revealed , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Last week it was speculated that Matt Reeves could be the director for the standalone Batman movie. Turns out the rumors were right because it has since been officially confirmed that Reeves will indeed be directing the upcoming movie which was previously meant to be directed by Ben Affleck who will also be reprising his role as Batman.
According to a press release, Reeves said, “I have loved the Batman story since I was a child. He is such an iconic and compelling character, and one that resonates with me deeply. I am incredibly honored and excited to be working with Warner Bros. to bring an epic and emotional new take on the Caped Crusader to the big screen.”
Prior to this, it was reported that Reeves was one of the favorites to direct the upcoming movie, although nothing had been locked down yet, but we guess it has all been settled already. Apart from directing, Reeves is also expected to be a producer on the film, although at the moment it is unclear as to who will be credited as the screenwriter or when filming will begin, let alone when it will be released.
Toby Emmerich, President of Warner Bros. Pictures Group added, “We are thrilled to have Matt Reeves taking the helm of Batman, the crown jewel of our DC slate. Matt’s deep roots in genre films and his evolution into an emotional world-building director make him the perfect filmmaker to guide the Dark Knight through this next journey.”
Matt Reeves Will Be Officially Directing Solo Batman Movie , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Smartphones with physical QWERTY keyboards aren’t unheard of but aren’t exactly many. Even fewer are those with keyboards that slide out. And even rarer are those that slide out horizontally in a landscape orientation. That kind of form factor hasn’t been seen since perhaps the Motorola DROID 4, but soon that might appear again, coincidentally in another Motorola smartphone. No, … Continue reading
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