n2doc

n2doc's Journal

June 30, 2014

Toon- Maybe "Boom" isn't the right word to use....

June 30, 2014

AP will use robots to write some business stories

AP will announce Monday that it plans to use automation technology from a company called Automated Insights to produce stories about earnings reports. The software means that “instead of providing 300 stories manually, we can provide up to 4,400 automatically for companies throughout the United States each quarter,” AP Managing Editor Lou Ferrara writes in a Q&A.

That does not mean job cuts or less coverage, Ferrara writes: “If anything, we are doubling down on the journalism we will do around earnings reports and business coverage.” Instead, he writes, “our journalists will focus on reporting and writing stories about what the numbers mean and what gets said in earnings calls on the day of the release, identifying trends and finding exclusive stories we can publish at the time of the earnings reports.”

The data for the stories will come from Zacks Investment Research. AP has used automation to produce a “good chunk” of its sports agate for years, Ferrara writes. In May, AP said it had agreed to sell its stake in STATS LLC, which produces sports data. AP contributed to a recent financing round for Automated Insights.

“We flipped the standard content creation model on its head,” Automated Insights CEO Robbie Allen told Poynter’s Sam Kirkland earlier this year. “The standard way of creating content is, ‘I hope a million people read this.’ Our model is the inverse of that. We want to create a million pieces of content with one individual reading each copy.”

more
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/mediawire/257245/ap-will-use-robots-to-write-some-business-stories/

June 30, 2014

Vandals Target Dallas GLBT Monument, Church, Media Buildings

Vandals tagged at least four places with red paint over the weekend, painting "666," the biblical sign of the devil, on monuments and buildings.

Drivers passing the Legacy of Love monument at the corner of Oak Lawn Aveune and Cedar Springs Road couldn’t miss the three large sixes painted in bold red along the monument’s side.

“My heart just sank, just sank — couldn't believe it,” said Brenda Marks, president of The Oak Lawn Committee.

In the past, gay community leaders have gathered at the monument to celebrate court victories.

“This is our neighborhood plaza,” Marks said. “Things that happen that make our community joyful are celebrated here and things that are sad that we commemorate are commemorated here.”

more

http://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/Vandals-Target-GLBT-Monument-And-Church-265140261.html

June 30, 2014

Boom Meets Bust in Texas: Atop Sea of Oil, Poverty Digs In

GARDENDALE, Tex. — From the window of her tin-roofed trailer, Judy Vargas can glimpse a miraculous world. It is as close as the dust kicked up by the trucks barreling by but seems as distant as Mars.

As you walk out of her front yard — where the chewed-off leg of an animal, probably a feral hog caught by a prowling bobcat, rots outside — a towering natural gas flare peeks over the southerly view. Across the railroad tracks and Interstate 35, a newly reopened railroad interchange stores acres of pipe and receives shipments of sand from Wisconsin to be used in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. Next to the terminal is an expanding natural gas processing plant that lies in the heart of the Eagle Ford, a giant shale oil field that here in La Salle County alone produces more than $15 million worth of oil a day, or about one out of every 55 barrels produced in the United States.

This rural patch of thick mesquite in the brush country south of San Antonio had been known for something else. Five miles from here in Cotulla, Lyndon B. Johnson at the age of 20 saw hardship so searing that it would help inspire his war on poverty.

Now, it is the scene of one of the greatest oil booms the country has ever seen. But poverty endures in makeshift, barely governed communities called colonias, such as the one where Ms. Vargas shares her trailer with an ever-shifting assemblage of relatives.

more

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/30/us/boom-meets-bust-in-texas-atop-sea-of-oil-poverty-digs-in.html

June 30, 2014

Politics Derail Science on Arsenic, Endangering Public Health

A ban on arsenic-containing pesticides was lifted after a lawmaker disrupted a scientific assessment by the EPA

MOUNT VERNON, Maine—Living in the lush, wooded countryside with fresh New England air, Wendy Brennan never imagined her family might be consuming poison every day. But when she signed up for a research study offering a free T-shirt and a water-quality test, she was stunned to discover that her private well contained arsenic.

“My eldest daughter said...‘You’re feeding us rat poison.’ I said, ‘Not really,’ but I guess essentially...that is what you’re doing. You’re poisoning your kids,” Brennan lamented in her thick Maine accent. “I felt bad for not knowing it.”

Brennan is not alone. Urine samples collected by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from volunteers reveal that most Americans regularly consume small amounts of arsenic. It’s not just in water; it’s also in some of the foods we eat and beverages we drink, such as rice, fruit juice, beer and wine.

Under orders from a Republican-controlled Congress, the Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 established a new drinking-water standard to try to limit people’s exposure to arsenic. But a growing body of research since then has raised questions about whether the standard is adequate.

June 30, 2014

Rep. Vance McAllister will run for re-election

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Vance McAllister, R-Swartz, will run for re-election.

He told NOLA.com/Times-Picayune Monday that he'll leave it up to the voters to decide whether he stays or goes.

He has scheduled a "special press conference" Monday in Monroe to formally announce his decision to run for re-election this fall in the 5th Congressional District.

McAllister said he spent the weekend with his family making sure "they were on board," and that they are. He said he and they decided to leave it up to voters whether "he stays or goes."

After surveillance video from last December was leaked in April showing him kissing a married staffer, McAllister announced he would serve out the remainder of his term but not seek re-election.

more

http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/06/rep_mccallister_will_run_for_r.html

June 30, 2014