ND Smoking Ban Takes Effect

The new smoke-free law officially takes effect today in an effort to make all public places and workplaces smoke-free environments statewide.

According to a press release from the Center for Tobacco Prevention and Control Policy, the law will “protect all people from exposure to secondhand smoke in all enclosed public places of employment.”

The new law, which won in a vote of 66% to 33% in November, states that enclosed public places can no longer allow smoking indoors. This public places include: restaurants, bars, truck stops, guest rooms and common areas within hotels and motels, healthcare facilities, long-term care centers, assisted living centers, retail tobacco stores, hookah establishments, workplace vehicles and licensed gaming facilities.

According the press release, businesses are also required to remove ashtrays from smoke free areas and post no-smoking signs inside buildings and at all entrances, as the law states that smoking is no longer permitted within 20 feet of entrances, exits, windows and ventilation systems.

People were still able to smoke in The Buff in Jamestown on Wednesday, but the establishment has been cleaned and the “smoke smell” removed as of today.

Some businesses in Jamestown, including The Wonder Bar and The Buff, expect the smoking ban to hurt the business bit at first, as most of them report that a good majority of their patrons smoke, but hope that people will return and new customers will come in as the smoking and non-smoking customers get used to the ban.

 

Dodgson also hopes that the ban will make it easier for him to find employees, as their work environment becomes smoke-free.

As all businesses make the necessary adjustments, some, like this lounge owner in Fargo, look to get around the ban, though it may seem to be a fruitless effort for the F-M area’s 12% that smoke. 

In a country that is legalizing marijuana for recreational use, this smoking ban comes as a surprise to many. As smoking cigarettes is a legal activity, many argue that the policy seems backwards as so many other activities become legally and publicly accepted. 

The Decline of Texting?

Probably the most ironic thing about cellphone usage in the last 10 years is how little we actually use our phones, as phones. With many of us favoring text messages (SMS messaging) and emails over phone calls, Americans have begun to consider the phone function of their cellphones as secondary. (Are these the same people that don’t believe in voicemail?)

But now studies have shown that Americans are sending fewer texts, posing the question: What are we using are phones for?

                                                               

For the first time ever, the number of texts sent by U.S. mobile customers has dropped, according to a report published by Chetan Sharma, an independent mobile analyst and consultant. And though the drop is small—only 3 percent—experts are still considering this a significant tell of the future of mobile carriers and their texting plans.

This change is noteworthy because until recently, text messaging had been growing in the United States at a steady rate.

In his report, Sharma also noted that Internet-based messaging services, like Facebook messaging and Apple’s iMessage, have been wearing away at SMS usage and are one of the main causes of this drop. A more significant decline could become apparent as more people begin to own smartphones. About 50 percent of cellphone users already have smartphones.

Now, take a look at how many people use cellphones (and what for) to truly understand the impact of this shift in communication.

According to PEW Research Center Mobile Studies (September 2012):

·         Text messaging users send or receive an average of 41.5 messages on a typical day, with the median user sending or receiving 10 texts daily.

·         Young adults are the most avid texters by a wide margin. Cell owners between the ages of 18 and 24 exchange an average of 109.5 messages on a normal day — that works out to more than 3,200 texts per month — and the typical or median cell owner in this age group sends or receives 50 messages per day (or 1500 messages per month).

·         When asked how they prefer to be contacted if someone needs to reach them on their cell phone, a majority of cell owners (53%) say that they prefer a voice call, compared with 31% who say that they prefer to be contacted via text message.

This isn’t an uncommon trend, either. Around the world, text-message traffic has been shrinking because Internet-powered alternatives are becoming so widely used and often times, much more affordable, if not as simple as a free download.

Experts are saying, however that this is not going to have a major effect on mobile providers, as their data plans and internet fees make up for the loss in text messages.

Personally, I still prefer the old standby of SMS messaging, as do many people. Though I can see why the alternatives are growing, people still want their phone plans to be all-inclusive and on one plan, such as unlimited and shared data plans. But, times are changing, especially in the world of technology.

What's money got to do with it?

Two states, Washington and Colorado, have become the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use and sale as of Tuesday, and economists are saying it could be very helpful to the national economy if the legalization trend continues. 

So far, 18 states have legalized the drug for medical use, and each state has its own possession limits, fees, and requirements. Check those out here. 

According to the Huffington Post, Washington’s law includes a licensing regime, which will be handled by the state’s liquor control board, for growers and sellers only. Initiative 502 (I-502) bans sales to people under 21 and sets a 25% tax on both wholesale and retail sales. These funds will be used for drug prevention, schools and health insurance, according to reports.

Unexpectedly, I-502 was widely supported by state officials and mainstream media, including the Washington Democratic Party and local newspapers. It sets a legal limit on THC blood levels for driving and bans growing for personal, non-medical use.

Amendment 64, Colorado's law, allows personal possession and growing for one’s own use or to give away. Sales will require a license from the state department of revenue and will be taxed up to 15% to fund school construction. According to the Colorado Independent, The Colorado Legislative Council estimates that these sales could bring in around $4 million to $21 million annually, after accounting for initial costs.

Now, more than 300 economists, including three nobel laureates, have signed a petition calling attention to the findings of a paper by Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard economist. His research suggests that if the government legalized marijuana it would save $7.7 billion annually by not having to enforce the current prohibition on the drug. The report added that legalization would save an additional $6 billion per year if the government taxed marijuana at rates similar to alcohol and tobacco.

But with a deficit of $1.5 trillion and counting, it’s still a long way home. And though economists are not directly advocating the legalization of marijuana, the petition does advocate a debate of the benefits of legalization in America.

A lot of figures are being thrown around in this process. For a simpler explanation of the cash flow, take a look at 14Ways Marijuana Legalization Could Boost the Economy.

Oh, yeah...and what do you think? What if this trend continues to the other 48 states?

No cash, no power

AT&T users: remember two weeks ago when our phones were malfunctioning due to local towers being down and scheduled outages? We didn't have our 4G, we couldn’t call, send or receive texts; our phones were worthless for all of, what...two, maybe three days?

We were posting on our Facebooks and Twitter feeds about how much AT&T sucked. But think…at least we had internet. And a home to be on our computer at.

Now imagine what Hurricane Sandy has done. The havoc it has wreaked upon the Northeast. We're not talking about towers being down for repairs. We're talking towers destroyed. We're talking no power, not just no cell service. 

Service providers are scrambling, as we speak, round the clock, to get customers their connections back. It seems damages just cannot be repaired fast enough, as extensive as they are.

According to the Huffington Post, in a statement Thursday afternoon, officials from the Federal Communications Commission said there were “steady improvements” to networks in affected areas, but that “much work remains to be done to restore service fully.” No estimate on how long it would take for wireless service to fully recover was given, though on Wednesday it was reported that repairs could take several additional days.

Thankfully, calls to 911 are still functioning, though a few setbacks, such as location information not coming through and re-routing have been occurring and repairs went underway almost instantly after the storm hit.

Not only are storm victims of the Northeast out of cell service, they’re out of cash, too. Electrical grid failure and massive power outages have ATM’s down and people out of money in situations, such as restaurants (which are serving by candlelight) where only cash can be accepted. 

 

In a place where resources are thin, people struggle to find the essentials.

So, I guess our little local cell service hiccup can be overlooked, yeah? I think so.

I guess what I always get to thinking about in times of natural disasters is how fortunate some of us are and how super storms, such as Sandy, can shake a person’s entire way of life, making access to the internet and our cell phones seem like miniscule problems. 

Yes, here in good ‘ol VC we’ve had our fair share of whether experiences, but really…can you even imagine what it must be like to be living in the aftermath of Sandy? 

Ever heard of a MOOC?

After first making waves in the fall of 2011, MOOC's, or “Massive Open Online Courses,” have been stirring up both positive and negative reviews from experts all over the country. These courses are offered online, completely free of charge, from universities as prestigious as Stanford University and Princeton University. More can be learned about MOOC's and who's using them, here.

And these courses are making a huge impact. When then-Stanford professor Sebastian Thrun opened his graduate-level artificial intelligence course up to any student anywhere, 160,000 students in more than 190 countries signed up.

These free online classes have been described as “revolutionary, the future; the single most important experiment that will democratize higher education and end the era of overpriced colleges,” according to TIME Magazine’s article.

Praise can be heard everywhere about this new idea on higher education. Andrew Ng is an associate professor of computer science at Stanford and hopes to revolutionize higher education "by allowing students from all over the world to hear his lectures, do homework assignments, be graded, receive a certificate for completing the course and use that to get a better job or gain admission to a better school."

“I normally teach 400 students,” Ng explained to the New York Times. According to the article, last semester he taught 100,000 in an online course on machine learning. “To reach that many students before,” he said, “I would have had to teach my normal Stanford class for 250 years.”

But some experts worry that this revolutionary idea may, “leave some students behind.” According to Noliwe Brooks in her article for TIME Magazine, offering free classes from elite colleges could actually widen the learning gap. In this article she describes some of the inevitable downfalls to these online companies that are offering these MOOC’s, including their intention to eventually make profit. She writes, “they just haven’t figured out the best way to do that yet.”

She also describes how students, statistically, do not learn as well from online courses, thus widening the learning gap between those who can afford to attend these elite colleges and those that simply take their free online courses.

Though I think this is an interesting concept, I’m not sure how effective it will be and for how long…and neither are most of the experts as well as those trying it out for themselves.

Reportedly, several TIME magazine staffers have enrolled in MOOCs this semester, including technology writer Harry McCracken. One of his observations: “There are 76,000 people registered for the class, which is more than twice the entire current enrollment for my alma mater, Boston University. Only 13,000 turned in the first written assignment on time. I wonder how many of us will still be at it when the final exam rolls around?”