Where to get Accurate News

1. Stay away from cable news. It's all info-tainment - a small nugget of actual information, surrounded by opinionated talking heads to make it look 'fair and balanced.' Really they just want you to keep watching the ads. It's not worth your effort to spend time sorting the wheat from the chaff here.

2. Don't believe anything on Facebook or Reddit (or Twitter or any social communication channel) without independent verification. Something in your Facebook feed sounded outrageous? Probably because it's not true. Even the things you want to believe.

3. Newspapers are still the -best- source of well-reported, factual information. Sure, they get it wrong occasionally, but they also have set-in-stone correction policies and publish said corrections as soon as possible.

4. Your hometown paper is a good source of info on local political issues, elections, candidates and scandal/corruption/etc. Sure, it's likely anemic and doesn't do huge, hard-hitting investigative journalism, but you should pay for their web access subscription anyways. It's likely the only source of information about your schools, your city council, and the things that effect you most directly.

5. For national and international news, go the major metro papers. The New York Times is killing it with a full digital team in the newsroom - data driven reporting, great interactive presentations, and huge reputation and reach. These guys, along with the LA Times and Washington Post, etc. can get access and sources that no other organization can, just ask Edward Snowden. Pick one and subscribe online.

6. Go International. Checkout the U.K.-based Guardian, which has really stepped up it's U.S. coverage in the last few years. Check out the BBC. For a really different perspective, check Al Jazeera, the Doha, Quatar based agency that pumps out some solid reporting.

7. PBS. Fund drives, endowments and public funding sources mean the pressure to please advertisers and gain 'eyeballs' is less intense. This results in a sometimes dry reporting style, but tends to be packed with information. News magazine shows on PBS, like Frontline, Nova and Nature are also well-reported and not sensationalist as one expects Dateline or 20/20 to be. You'll never see a "To catch a predator" Frontline documentary, but you might find it tough to keep your blood pressure in check nonetheless.

8. NPR & PRI. Again, public funding means less pressure to please advertisers. Some argue that NPR has gotten soft on corporate reporting as public funding has fallen off. It's possible I suppose, but I still get more info from NPR than whatever jackasses are on KISS FM during my commute. Plus, we have a strong public radio network in my state, so I get a good mix of local, national and international news just by never changing my radio dial.

9. fivethirtyeight.com for data-related reporting, like polling and surveys. These guys are actual statisticians and data scientists that also happen to do reporting. Most of the time, data-reporting is done by journalist with journalism degrees. Nothing wrong with that, but... just saying.

10. If you're really hardcore, look for the insider publications. Wall Street Journal is kind of in this category, targeting traders and NYC bankers, but it's become a bit more mainstream now. Autonews.com is a good one for the automotive industry, for example, or poynter.org for news about journalism. Yup. There's news about news.

But... these are all biased Mainstream Media sources run by The Man...

How do you know if a story is biased? Well, good luck. The Hostile Media Effect pretty much guarantees that you'll feel as though some stories are biased. The best thing to do for this is seek out alternative news sources from around the country and world, and make up your own mind. How is the LA Times reporting this story? The BBC? The Guardian? These are reporting organizations that have their own reporters stationed all over the world.

Take a look at Fox News, or Brietbart even. What are their sources, how does their reporting jive with the other news agencies? If they differ, Why do you think they differ? Is there an agenda?

Undoubtedly many of these news sources are run by large corporate organizations. Reporting is an expensive, resource intensive, and potentially very dangerous endeavor. Journalists need organizations like the New York Times Company, Tribune Company, and, heck, even Gannett to back up their reporting with lawyers and dollars. It's hard to avoid big money, which is why public-funded sources, as well as international sources (which are likely to have different motives than domestic sources, -if- there is a motive present) are important.

Also, understand how news agencies like the Associated Press work. These are usually well-reported, well-vetted articles, but pay attention and realize that when you're reading an AP story in your local newspaper, it's likely that same story has been chopped up and printed in every newspaper in the country and often across the world. This isn't bad, but it can sometimes make it difficult to find different sources of the same event.

IF YOU ONLY DO ONE THING, avoid listening to the talking heads on TV. These are people whom the shows producers know are good at talking on live television, are fairly predictable and will be able to prattle on about what-ifs and maybes for hours if needed. Don't let them replace your own thoughts with theirs.

Source: four years of journalism school, six years working in newspapers, four years working in government. It's tough out there, but reliable sources still exist. Pick your bedfellows wisely.

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Donald Trump is President and the Environment will Suffer

Trump's 100 day plan includes allowing for coal/oil/shale extraction from protected sites, a strong arm for pipelines through protected areas (specifically pointing to Keystone as his champion cause), promises to gut $50 billion of environmental spending to UN programs, promises to undo sanctions on pollution, and also has a bunch of clauses which, if implemented, would impact all fields, but including and especially climate science (such as his desire to require two regulations be removed arbitrarily if one regulation will be passed).

He is appointing a leading climate change denier to the EPA, which he has discussed dismantling all together. He has discussed removing the FDA all together, removing educational advisement from his cabinet, and rewarding companies with tax incentives to expand in destructive areas while simultaneously promising to remove the restrictions put in place to mitigate harm done to the environment in the process.

A lot of this he can get done via executive order. A lot of it beyond that he can get done with house and senate support, which he has.

This is not an instance of conspiracy theories or "what ifs" being thrown around. He has promised these things, and has the tools to deliver. It would literally take him saying "naw nevermind" to stop this from happening.

Any one of the items listed above would cause damage to the environment that will take decades, if not longer to reverse, if it even can be reversed at this point, during a time that we are already losing an uphill battle to protect our environment. And he's not talking about one item. He's talking about all of them, and has the ability, and intent, to do everything he says.

And that's just environment. People have a right to be afraid. I would be afraid with a Clinton presidency because I wasn't sure she'd do enough. I would be afraid with a blue house/senate to stand in Trumps way, because I'd be worried they wouldn't do enough. What we actually have, is a scenario where people who deny climate change are now in un-checked power, and are salivating at the chance to make a quick buck off immeasurable damage to our planet.

The planet will recover and move on, the question is if we will be around when it happens. This is not an issue that we can really afford to "wait 4 to 8 years and vote better next time." We have already reached the emergency point according to any scientist worth listening to.

Forgive me if I don't see much opportunity for "it won't be so bad" when it comes to specifically climate change. I could ignore everything else he's doing (which I won't, but we're speaking hypothetically here) and I think stress and alarm is still perfectly in the scope of reason regarding his promises. Even if we "think" he'll do a ton of damage, but he only does a lot of damage, the damage is too severe and has ramifications too drastic to ignore.

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Welcome to IT

Lets say you work at a company that is a large small business (40-50 million revenue yearly, 100-200 people). Your IT department is a 1-3 man team, because "you're an expense" ...most business people think only sales people make them money. Don't worry that you can't make money if shit doesn't work, only sales makes you money.

Now lets pretend your last major upgrade to the servers was accomplished with a $75,000 budget. Getting that budget with the equipment you demanded was required was hard fought. Some corners were cut on "not absolutely necessary" things, things like a second slightly smaller and slightly slower server to run as a mirror of the first one, a server where you could do all your testing on. That "saved" the company $30,000, right? You just like to spend money, you never make the company any money.

Then, a year later you have something that absolutely has to be done to the server. You are pretty sure it will work, your outside support people are confident it will work, you have no server to test it on because all your other servers are much too small to handle it or are already tasked with other "critical" services. So you go with your best judgement and go live with a big change during the wee hours to cause the least interruption.

1 AM SHIT GOES BAD.

Now you're scrambling. By 5AM you're in a frantic attempt to get back online before major business starts, nothing you or your vendor have tried has worked, they've called in a half dozen of their T3's and developers all to no avail. People are rolling in, shit isn't working. Calls are happening. Pages are going out. 6AM, the owner rolls in. His shit isn't working. You're now thinking about reverting to last night's backup because the changes you were told would work without a hitch were nothing but a giant frozen boot in the nutsack hitch. People are getting really frantic about not being able to do business, nobody can order anything, nobody can sell anything, nobody can maintain inventory, nobody can do anything but sit around with their thumbs up their asses and surf the web. You're just an expense, you don't make the company money.

6:30AM, you make the decision to give up attempts at fixing and instead roll back to the last backup. You start the restore telling everyone "this should be resolved by 9:30AM everyone we have is on it and a full restore should take 2 or 3 hours tops."

9:35 rolls around, 9:40... 10:15 the backup fails at the last point. What the fuck? How the fuck? This is impossible! You make some calls, you explain that you have to attempt rolling back to the offsite backup, yes you understand that will lose the half the day's business and everything will have to be manually entered when the system is back up. You're given the "Well for Christ sake get it back up what do we pay you for!?!" (The go ahead. They have utmost confidence in your abilities.) You start the other restore. It works, but was much slower than the onsite one because fibre is only so fast. 3:00PM you're back online, things seem to be stable again.

3:30, nobody in IT has slept in 32 hours. You're called into a meeting with management. People want answers. You explain that you were assured everything would go smoothly by the vendor, you tell them that you were confident on your role in the upgrade as well. What should have been a 2 hour downtime during the night turned into a 17 hour ordeal. It was an unforeseeable incident. You mention that, "Had we had a working test environment to try this on first, we would have discovered the problem and avoided it."

Nobody wants to hear it. Everything is about reentering the previous day's sales, orders, receivables, inventory adjustments, etc. 4:30 the business day is basically a wipe. The downtime has cost the company a couple hundred thousand in lost business for the day. You're just another expense, you don't make the company any money.

Nobody learns from it other than yourself, a few other people in IT, and the vendor who "has never seen this problem before".

Your request for a new sandbox server is declined. Your request for a 2nd local backup server is seen as "another" frivolous idea.

You're just another expense, you don't make the company any money.

Welcome to IT.

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