Coding Could Become a Requirement for US Students

It’s becoming increasingly important to master a computer, not just the basic stuff, but also the underpinnings: making apps, building a site, or leveraging the cloud in business. Today, software engineering is one of the highest-paid jobs worldwide, and there are plenty of slices to be had from that financial pie still.

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel knows this. He is rooting for computer science and coding classes in school. Not optionally, but mandatory. Specifically, he wants programming to be a graduation prerequisite

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Humans and Ants May Have More in Common Than We Think

Photo by Thomas Kinto on Unsplash

We hold ants as restless and enduring, hard workers worthy of our utmost respect. But if recent studies are any indication, not all ant species have such a dignified conduct.

Ants are eusocial insects that share a lot of common traits with us humans. Chief among them is social behavior, particularly the fact that both humans and ants solve problems in groups. Like us, ants delegate tasks within the group: “defend the hive,” or “stock up the nest with supplies for the winter.” But there are some types of ants that (apparently) refuse to apply themselves

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Stephen Hawking’s AMA Answers Are In – “Beware of AI”

Photo by Alex Knight on Unsplash

Remember when theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking teamed up with other illustrious minds to sign an open letter warning about the potential dangers of Artificial Intelligence? No? Well, he did, and he also agreed to do an AMA (Ask Me Anything) where everyone could pitch in with their own questions and opinions about the future – not necessarily about AI in particular – and now the answers are in.

Hawking is still bent on making his own artificial voice heard about the perils of AI, so he focused on answering the questions that touched this topic in particular. Some highlights:

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Your Marketing Is In the Hands of Your Customers, Not Your Ad Agency

What is an ad campaign if not a premeditated push meant to woo the public into thinking something good about a particular product or service. Ad campaigns tell you what to think. Truth be told, some of them are impactful or utterly sincere and make perfect sense to exist – such as a nonprofit fighting for equality. But most of them aren’t.

If there’s anything we can learn from the campaigns put forth by NGOs, it’s that advertising – in their case, creating awareness about a cause – is not so much the responsibility of the artists who created the poster or the video, but the responsibility of the follower sharing that content with others in the hope that they will join the crusade

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7 Weird Jobs That You Probably Never Heard Of

Photo by Anurag Harishchandrakar on Unsplash

If there’s one word that perfectly characterizes human society, it’s diversity. People come in plentiful flavors and they have just as many needs. Despite automating the heck out of society, we still need actual human beings to get some jobs done.

Whether you’re unemployed or a millionaire looking for an entertaining read, this list of 7 wacky jobs that you probably never knew existed will surely delight you.

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How to Reinvent Your Company [Infographic]

If your company lacks sustained growth, then it most certainly lacks innovation as well. Maintaining a steady climb requires continual recreation of your company through innovation, according to Prof. Jeff DeGraff.

This infographic created by DeGraff illustrates a “creativization” path that involves setting high quality targets, enlisting deep and diverse domain expertise, taking multiple shots on important goals until you nail them, and experimentation. Creativizing means adding little bits of innovation to ordinary tasks, which translates into a radically different way of running the business

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Quote of the Day by Warren Buffett

Photo by Todd Quackenbush on Unsplash

We tend to think of society as a super-organism that follows strict rules and runs like clockwork. At a macroscopic level, this description is fairly correct. But at an individual level, things tend to differ quite a lot.

Unlike other organisms, humans have the luxurious advantage of deciding whether or not they will do something at any given time. Unless someone is holding a gun to your head, you are pretty much free to do whatever you want, every second of every day. Free will hasn’t always played out well for humanity, but it’s undeniable that we have it in copious amounts.

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The Psychology of Why We Go To Work Every Day

Everyone tells you that you have no obligation to hold on to a life-sucking job just because the pay is good. But the pay is necessary to put bread on the table, often not just for yourself but for a whole family. So how do you manage a situation where you hate what you do but you still have wake up every morning and go to that dreadful job?

As it turns out, you don’t have to do anything. It’s your manager who has to do something about it so that everyone gets what they deserve. But what?

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Everybody Wants Freedom

Photo by Oliur on Unsplash

Thanks to digital, communications have undergone a massive upheaval. For the past few decades we have been using 1s and 0s to conduct any type of conversation. Most people agree that it’s been a life changer.

UK communications regulator Ofcom has commissioned an online survey to investigate how being “connected” at all times has influenced the way we build and maintain relationships using the Internet

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You Won’t Believe How Many Cloud Apps We’ll Have By 2019

Photo by Rami Al-zayat on Unsplash

Software as a Service (SaaS) is a software distribution model where apps are hosted by a vendor or service provider and made available over a network to a range of customers / end users. SaaS is one of the most lucrative cloud businesses today. Right now, the global SaaS market is worth an estimated $49 billion, but in 2018 that valuation will rise by 37% to reach $67 billion, according to research done by International Data Corporation (IDC), Forrester, Gartner, Ovum, and Wikibon.

This is not the first time we’ve heard good news for the cloud industry looking ahead at a five-year roadmap. Just last week

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