Category: Science & Technology
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Cuccinelli, the NSA and the Pentagon Papers
By Peter Galuszka Tomorrow, Kenneth Cuccinelli leaves office after an intriguing run as attorney general and as a failed Republican gubernatorial candidate. Say what you want about him (I certainly have) but Cuccinelli can never be accused of being boring. So, it seems especially remarkable that his first task after leaving office will be to…
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Six Reasons to Feel Good about 2014
by James A. Bacon Despite awakening this morning with a hangover resulting from a fabulous New Year’s celebration last night, I was curiously and uncharacteristically upbeat about the year ahead. I still have grave reservations about the fiscal future of this country and I still believe Boomergeddon is in our future. But for some odd…
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The Rise of Personalized Learning
IBM has just published five big predictions for the next five years. A couple of them are germane to Bacon’s Rebellion, but none more so than this. Personalized learning is a very different vision from Massively Open Online Courses (MOOCs), which teach the same material to potentially thousands of students, but it’s just as revolutionary:…
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How Shanghai, Finland and Canada Teach
By Peter Galuszka Not one to be carried away by the STEM craze, I did find it fascinating in today’s editorial page of the New York Times that the United States is way low on the totem pole on math scores for students. We’re below Latvia, Russia and Spain and a little above Sweden, Israel…
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Hokies Crack the No. 40 Spot… in the National R&D Rankings
Virginia Tech’s football team periodically earns a Top 25 spot in the NCAA college football polls, but the ranking that really matters is the annual National Science Foundation (NSF) listing of the nation’s top research universities. Although university spending on research and development was flat nationally in fiscal 2012, Virginia Tech managed to inch ahead…
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Behind a Massey Energy Lawsuit Settlement
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in Business and Economy, Courts and law, Crime, Corrections, Law Enforcement, Disasters and Disaster Preparedness, Economic development, Energy, Environment, Federal issues, Government Finance, Infrastructure, Insurance, Labor and Workforce, Money in politics, Politics, Regulations, Gov’t Oversight, Science & TechnologyBy Peter Galuszka It might have otherwise gone unnoticed, but Bristol-based Alpha Natural Resources, one of the country’s largest coal companies, has agreed to settle a leftover securities fraud lawsuit for $265 million involving Massey Energy Co., the notorious, formerly Richmond-based firm that Alpha bought in 2011. The settlement with the Pension Reserves Investment Management…
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The Man Who Changed Dominion Virginia Power
by Peter Galuszka Back in the 1970s, Virginia Electric & Power Co. was a mess. Its corporate culture was insular and hostile to public input. Its troubled nuclear reactors at North Anna and Surry had major design and safety problems. Their constant outages and big fines brought on the wary eyes of Wall Street. Back…
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Rise Up and Strike, Abused Adjunct Profs!
By Peter Galuszka Despite the common view on this blog that college professors are lazy, closed-minded louts always out on sabbatical, the reality may be something quite different. Cash-strapped colleges across in the country, and in Virginia, are relying increasingly on low-paid adjunct professors to close the gap, especially when they increase the number of…
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ObamaCare: Sound Idea, Bad Private Contractors
By Peter Galuszka With all the bloviating one reads about the introductory failures of ObamaCare, a big, big point is being missed. It could very well be that the concept of ObamaCare is viable if not admirable, but the government badly bungled how it hired an under-performing, private lead contractor for the system. That raises…
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Why Mental Health Care Shouldn’t Be a Budget Cut
By Peter Galuszka The tragedy experienced this week by Sen. Creigh Deeds and his family is drawing attention to how Virginia and the rest of the country mistreat the mentally ill by cutting funding for their care and denying them treatment. Deeds was apparently stabbed by his 24-year-old son, Gus, on Tuesday. Gus, who then…
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Brace Yourself for the Internet of Things
by James A. Bacon The “Internet of Things” is one of the hottest buzz words in the global technology sector today. The phrase refers to a phenomenon, the mass proliferation of Internet-connected devices, that is as world-altering as the invention of the personal computer and the rise of the World Wide Web. Economy and society…
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Smart Cities around the World Are Saving Money Now. How about Your Home Town?
by James A. Bacon Suggested reading for every elected official, senior administrator and department head in Virginia government: “Smart Cities Readiness Guide” published by the Smart Cities Council. This easy-to-read document walks government practitioners (and interested citizens) through the process of using sensor, communications and analytic technologies to collect, communicate and crunch data. Proven smart…
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Disband the ObamaCare Wrecking Crew
By Peter Galuszka As the right wing echo chamber continues to crank up after the botched launch of the Affordable Care Act, here are a couple of items that direct us back to reality. One gives us a picture of how the U.S. really compares with comparable advanced countries with universal or near-universal coverage. The…
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Why Some Health Care Plans Aren’t Worth Keeping
By Peter Galuszka You can almost hear the telexes chattering in the predawn hours sending out coded instructions to eager conservative bloggers. It’s a “red state” alert! Plan “R” for “Roger!” Just like Major General Jack D. Ripper. It’s the go code for attacking Obamacare! So, you have them excitedly dusting off their purple prose.…
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Why McAuliffe Is Saying No to Uranium Mining
By Peter Galuszka Governor-elect Terry McAuliffe has made one of his first pronouncements and it is an important one: he will veto any law the General Assembly passes to lift the decades-long ban on mining uranium in Virginia. The bigger question is whether he was start disassembling the energy-industrial complex that outgoing Gov. Robert F.…