Mary Ann de Lares Norris is Chief Operating Officer of Oblong Industries. She brings her dog LouLou to Oblong's downtown LA headquarters.; Credit: Brian Watt/KPCC

KPCC recently reported on the tech world’s diversity problem. Technology firms face challenges in hiring diverse staffs of its coders, web developers and software engineers.

It’s also a challenge at nonprofits such as Southern California Public Radio,  parent of 89.3 KPCC, which has always sought to build a staff that reflects the region it serves. The section of that staff that develops the KPCC app and makes its website run is all white and mostly male.

But a small talent pool means the diversity challenge is even greater for nonprofits and even smaller tech firms.

“The first problem is that all of the people working for me are male,” says Alex Schaffert, the one female on KPCC’s tech team.  “I’m kind of focusing on maybe getting another girl into the mix.”

Schaffert can use the term “girl” because she happens to be the leader of the tech team:  KPCC’s Managing Director of Digital Strategy and Innovation. 

Why diversity is important

Schaffert recently launched the topic of diversity – or lack thereof – at a weekly meeting of her team. She expected a “stilted and awkward” discussion from the five white men on her team, but a few of them didn’t hold back.  

“Not having diversity represented on the team leaves us more susceptible to circular thinking and everyone sort of verifying each other's assumptions,” said Joel Withrow,  who was serving at the time as KPCC’s Product Manager. “It impacts the work. It limits what you’re able to build.”

Sean Dillingham, KPCC’s Design and Development Manager, said living in a diverse community is what attracted him to Los Angeles, and he wants diversity in his immediate work team, too.

“When I look at other tech companies, I will often go to their ‘about us’ page, where they’ll have a page of photos of everyone, and I am immediately turned off when I just see just a sea of white dudes, or even just a sea of dudes,” Dillingham said.

Big competition, small talent pool

Dillingham and Schaffert are currently recruiting heavily to fill two tech-savvy positions. When a reporter or editor job opens up at KPCC, Schaffert says close to 100 resumes come in.

"But if you post a programmer job, and you get three or four resumes, you may not get lucky among those resumes," she says. "There may not be a woman in there. There may not be a person of color in there."

In other words, the talent pool is already small, and the diversity challenge makes it even smaller. KPCC is competing for talent with Google and Yahoo and all the start-ups on L.A.’s Silicon Beach. 

Schaffert’s being proactive, mining LinkedIn and staging networking events to attract potential candidates. She’s also trying to make sure KPCC’s job descriptions don’t sound like some she's seen in the tech world.

"If you read between the lines, they’re really looking for someone who is male and is somewhere between 25-30 years old and likes foosball tables and free energy drinks in the refrigerator," Schaffert says. “So you read between lines, and you know that they’re not talking about me, a mother of two kids who also has a demanding career. They're talking about someone different.”

Pay vs. passion

Schaffert's challenges and approaches to dealing with them are similar to those of Mary Ann de Lares Norris, the Chief Operating Officer at Oblong Industries. Based in downtown Los Angeles and founded in 2006, the company designs operating platforms for businesses that allow teams to collaborate in real time on digital parts of a project.

“I think technology and diversity is tough,” Norris told KPCC.  She’s proud her company’s management ranks are diverse, but says only 12 percent of its engineers are female. “Pretty standard in the tech industry, but it’s not great,” Norris says. “We really strive to increase that number, and all of the other companies are also, and it's really hard.”

Like Schaffert at KPCC, Norris works hard fine-tuning job descriptions and communicating that her company values diversity and work-life balance. But sometimes, it just boils down to money.

"We have to put out offers that have competitive salaries,” Norris says, adding that she can’t compete with the major tech firms. "The Googles and the Facebooks of the world can always pay more than we can. So we attract people who are passionate about coming to work for Oblong.  And, of course, we also offer stock options."

KPCC doesn’t have the  stock options, but we’ve got plenty of passion. Could that be the secret recruiting weapon for both small tech companies and nonprofits?  

LinkedIn recently surveyed engineers about what they look for in an employer. Good pay and work-life balance were the two top draws. Slightly more women prioritized work-life balance and slightly more men chose the big bucks. 

Clinical Entrepreneurship professor Adlai Wertman says that, historically, nonprofits and small businesses actually had the upper hand over big companies in recruiting minorities and women.

"There’s a feeling that they’re safer, more caring environments, less killer environments, and we know that corporate America has been the bastion of white males," said Wertman. 

But Wertman says that advantage disappears in the tech world because of the "supply-and-demand" problem with talent. When big firms decide to focus on diversity – as some have recently — they have plenty of resources.

"They’re always going to be able to pay more, and in truth they’re getting access to students coming out of these schools in ways that we as nonprofits and small companies never will," said Wertman. 

Wertman worked 18 years as an investment banker on Wall Street, then left to head a nonprofit on L.A.’s skid row. Now he heads the Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab Enterprise Lab at USC’s Marshall School of Business. He believes that, early on, the big companies have the best shot attracting diverse tech talent. But in the long run, much of that talent will turn back to smaller firms and nonprofits.

"I think ultimately people vote with where they’re most comfortable, where 'my values align with my employer's values, and if I don’t feel those values align, then I’m going to leave,'" Wertman said. "Ultimately, I think, for a lot of women and minorities, there’s a lot of value alignment within communities that are doing good in the world." 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Walter Flores was unemployed for 8 months in 2014 but is now working in sales for Workforce Solutions in Compton; Credit: Brian Watt/KPCC

California's unemployment rate continued its decline in December, ending the year at 7 percent, according to figures released Friday by the state Employment Development Department.

But in Compton, Willowbrook and the Florence-Graham section of Los Angeles County, it remains about double that, data show.

“You might have work this week. But next week, you won’t have work,” said James Hicks, 36, 0f Compton. He's worked in warehouses through staffing agencies, but said the jobs have always been temporary.

Statewide, California has added jobs at a faster rate than the United States for three straight years, according to Robert Kleinhenz, Chief Economist with the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corporation. He pointed out the statewide unemployment rate is now where it was June 2008. 

"All in all, with the recession now five years back in our rearview mirror, we’re finally at the point where we can say that we have shrugged off quite a bit of the pain that occurred back during those times," Kleinhenz said.

The Los Angeles County metro area saw a net gain of almost 71,000 jobs in 2014.  The County's overall unemployment rate has fallen to 7.9 percent from 9.2 percent a year ago.

But Compton's unemployment rate was 13 percent in December.

“I’d rather have a  full-time type of gig, working 40 hours a week, but right now, even if you get 25 hours, it’s a blessing,” said Hicks, the warehouse worker in Compton.

On Thursday, he interviewed to be a guard with a security firm, but was told there weren’t any positions available. He had another security guard job six months ago that he thought might become full time and permanent. 

"It was going all right for about two to three months, until they cut my hours and days," Hicks said. 

Walter Flores lives in La Mirada but currently works as an account executive in the Compton office of Workforce Solutions. He was unemployed for about eight months last year after a car accident.

"Losing what you love to do is a tough one, but I'm back," he said. "2015 is going to be a great year."

Flores said most major warehouse and logistics companies prefer to hire temporary workers through industrial staffing firms like the one where he's working because their needs are sporadic.  

But he said it's still a potential opportunity.

"It doesn't matter that it's a temporary position, as long as you put your foot in the door, and then you let the employer know how much value you are for the company," Flores said.  

Hicks, who's earned a GED, wants to find a program to study physical therapy. But first, he’d like to find a job. 

He said you can't judge Compton’s residents by its unemployment rate.

"Some of us out here who [are] looking for jobs, but sometimes it’s the luck of the draw," he said. "It’s kind of scarce out there.” 

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A rendering of he new stadium and complex to be built near the Forum in Inglewood was released by the Hollywood Park Land Company, Kroenke Group and Stockbridge Capital Group earlier this month.; Credit: Courtesy Hollywood Park Land Company

A measure that would allow an 80,000-seat NFL-caliber stadium to be built in Inglewood could be on that city’s ballot by this summer after developers submitted almost three times as many signatures than needed for a voter initiative.

“22,216 signatures were submitted to the city clerk today,” said Gerard McCallum, project manager with the Hollywood Park Land Company. “It was unbelievable. The response was more than we could have ever anticipated.”

Normally, before construction can begin on any project there has to be an environmental review, but that can take a long time and time is something in short supply for St. Louis Rams Owner Stan Kroenke and his plan to move the team to L.A.

“We would be going through another three year project process, and the current construction wouldn’t allow that,” said McCallum, referring to the redevelopment of 238 acres of the old Hollywood Park site that was permitted in 2009.

“If we were going to make any modifications, it would have to be approved this year,” said McCallum.

To speed things up, developers decided to bring the stadium project directly to Inglewood voters, which required 8,000 signatures.

Once the signatures are verified, Inglewood’s City Council will consider the measure, then developers hope a special election would take place before the start of the next NFL season.

McCallum says construction would begin whether the Rams or any other team decides to move here, though on Monday Kroenke made another move suggesting a return of the NFL to Los Angeles could be closer than it has been at any point during the last two decades, though not until after the 2015 season. From The St Louis Post-Dispatch:

Rams management sent a letter to regional officials on Monday afternoon. The letter said the team was converting its 30-year lease to an “annual tenancy,” effective April 1 and, “in the absence of intervening events,” extending through March 31, 2016.

The notice, which has long been expected, does two things:

• It allows owner Stan Kroenke to pull the team out of St. Louis as soon as 2016, because the Rams lease will now expire at the end of every season. The original lease was to expire in 2025.
• It also legally binds the Rams to play at the Edward Jones Dome next fall — a point on which many here were uncertain.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

A scene from Tomislav Mrisic's "Cowboys (Kauboji)," which screened at the Palm Springs Film Festival.; Credit: Kino films

It has escaped the average filmgoer's notice, but Eastern Europe has been in the midst of a cinematic renaissance for quite a while now. A few individual titles and filmmakers have bubbled to the surface in U.S. cinemas, including Danis Toanovic's Serbian antiwar satire "No Man's Land," which won an Oscar in 2001, and Cristian Mungiu's Romanian abortion drama "4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days," which nabbed the Palme d'Or at Cannes 2007.

Those are both great movies, but they are also the small tip of a very large iceberg. This year, Estonian filmmaker Zaza Urushadze's "Tangerines" — a humanist drama about the Georgian civil war of 1992 — is a leading contender for a foreign film Oscar.

As of now, its main competitor for the trophy would seem to be the Polish film "Ida" by Pawel Pawlikowski, which has taken most of the top critics prizes for foreign film this awards season. And who has heard of Radu Jude, the witty Romanian director of "The Happiest Girl in the World," or Kamen Kalev, Bulgaria's great hope for the cinematic future? Among so many others.

A sort of "Waiting for Guffman" with a Croat twist, the delightful Croatian Oscar entry "Cowboys (Kauboji)" isn't in the same league as the best Eastern Europe has to offer, and in an odd way this is one of its strengths.

Tomislav Mrisic's film utterly lacks pretension, which is not to say that it has no point to make. If there's an Eastern European precedent for "Cowboys'" assured mix of satire, drama and farce, it's probably the "Loves of a Blonde"-era Milos Forman.

Mrisic shares with Forman an acute eye for the foibles of small town bureaucracy and a soft humanism that simultaneously allows "Cowboys" to embrace its rag-tag ensemble of eccentrics and to spoof them mercilessly.

(A screen shot from Croation Oscar entry "Cowboys (Kauboji)")

The plot sees Sasa (Sasa Anlokovic), a failed and hangdog theater director with health problems, returning to his small and economically desolate Croatian town, where he is enlisted by an old friend-turned-local-bureaucrat to bring Big City "culture" to the sticks.

Aware that his lung cancer may have fallen out of remission and that time may be running out for him, Sasa sets about the task of creating what may be his last opus with the clay available to hand: a half dozen unskilled, uneducated and, in most cases, un-hygienic misfits, culled from the dregs of the town. They decide to create a Western stageplay based on their shared love of "Stagecoach," "High Noon" and John Wayne. Something decidedly unlike "Stagecoach" is the result.

There are titters and belly laughs abounding in "Cowboys" — a film that may actually be even funnier to an American audience than it is in Croatia, given Mrisic's deft mangling of the worn-out genre cliches of old school horse opera.

The performances are all solid and specific: This is no undifferentiated cluster of cliche yahoos, but rather a broadly drawn ensemble, in which each character has a specific logic and an unspoken need he or she is trying to fill.

WATCH the "Cowboys" trailer in the original Croatian

Mrisic finds much to mock in his small town provincials, but also much to celebrate. "Cowboys" is a smart film that still sees goodness everywhere it looks, which makes it a refreshing change not just from the American school of rote affirmation comedy but also from the relentless bleakness we associate with so much European fare.

For all the farce on hand, "Cowboys" is in the end a covertly passionate defense of the creative act: Its imperishability and its importance for its own sake, excluding aesthetic considerations. It is also a plea for that hoary old chestnut, the healing power of laughter. While that may read like a cliche, with "Cowboys," Mrisic's point is made.

Off-Ramp contributor R.H. Greene is covering the 26th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival and will be posting regularly from there.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Julio Osorio stands in the Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery near his mother's grave. (Emily Elena Dugdale/KPCC); Credit: Emily Elena Dugdale

The devastating Woolsey fire broke out one year ago. In Malibu, it wreaked havoc not only on hundreds of homeowners but also on the day laborers, housekeepers and gardeners who traveled to the city to work in its affluent neighborhoods.

This content is from Southern California Public Radio. View the original story at SCPR.org.

Google is piloting "Learn About," an innovative AI learning tool using the LearnLM AI model. Unlike standard chatbots, "Learn About" offers an interactive approach, incorporating quizzes, lists, and contextual information for a deeper understanding. Currently in limited release, the platform emphasizes reliable educational sources, setting it apart from general AI tools.

G.H. Cretors has launched a 70-calorie bag of its two organic flavors, Extra Olive Oil and Simply Salted.

Discover AppatMe, the fresh approach to online dating! Using AI, our platform creates deeper, personalized connections for singles across the U.S., moving beyond random matches to deliver tailored, meaningful encounters.

H&M is partnering with Glenn Martens for an Autumn 2025 collection. Known for merging streetwear and couture, Martens joins a line of iconic designers H&M has collaborated with since 2004, when it launched its first designer collection with Karl Lagerfeld. This initiative has made top-tier fashion accessible, reflecting each designer’s unique vision and values across two decades of partnerships.

James Currall will be giving a Plenary Talk on The Tangled Web is but a Fleeting Dream ... but then again... "Just a quick phone call to ask you if you could set up something to archive the University Web site, it should be pretty straight-forward for someone with your technical know-how." It is only a matter of time before someone in "Corporate Communications", the " Freedom of Information Office" or some similar department comes to you with this sort of request. How would you (have you) react(ed) to it? Many acres of virtual text have been penned on the subject of Web archiving (a fair proportion of them no longer available because the sites no longer exist:-) One of the major problems, which is well illustrated by the Wikipedia article on the subject, is that most authors have concentrated almost entirely on "How?" to do it and the (technical) difficulties that arise. The speaker will argue that "How?" is the least of your problems. What is your institutional web site for and what purpose is archiving it supposed to serve. To put it another way, the questions: "What?", "Why?", "When?" and "Where?" come well before deciding if the "Who?" is you, or trying to determine "How?". As usual Currall asks awkward questions and never seems to provide any useful answers, just turning seemingly simple problems in complex, issue-strewn minefields. He hasn't written the talk yet, but you can be sure that it will raise some very fundamental issues and give you something serious to think about and discuss and aside from manufacturing Shakespearean quotes, will probably quote from the most read book in the English Language, although you might feel the need to check that he isn't just making it up!

The work-from-home trend, a shortage of new housing and other factors are leading people to expand their homes and remodel existing spaces. They’re often turning to single-zone ductless products to heat and cool those new living spaces.

Times below are GBT / US Eastern time:

1400 / 0900 Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond President Thomas Barkin speaks on the economy in fireside chat before the Real Estate Roundtable

1500 / 1000 Federal Reserve Board Governor Adriana Kugler speaks on "Central Bank Independence and Economic Outlook" before the Latin American and Caribbean Economic Association (LACEA) and the Latin American Chapter of the Econometric Society 2024 Meeting

2000 / 1500 Powell, as already noted

2115 / 1615 Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams speaks before the "Intermediating Impact: Making Missing Markets" event hosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York

As head of the NY Fed Williams is vice chair of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) and has a permanent vote at the table. .

Just saw this in-store near the checkouts when picking up something else. Seems like good price, may be available in other stores as well. Bought one, not sure where I will be using it yet but can figure that out later!

Stock checker report

"Think they'll still do graduation?" A24 has revealed a second trailer for Y2K, a 1999 party comedy marking the feature directorial debut of comedian Kyle Mooney. Set to debug theaters starting in early December just before New Years coming up. It first premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival to good reviews along with some negative ones, too. Two high school nobodies make the decision to crash the last major celebration before the new millennium on New Year's Eve 1999. The night gets even crazier than they could have ever dreamed when the clock strikes midnight. The hilarious NYE horror comedy stars Rachel Zegler, Jaeden Martell, Julian Dennison, and Alicia Silverstone, also featuring The Kid Laroi, Tim Heidecker, and Fred Durst. Still reminds me a bit of Bodies Bodies Bodies, though it also seems like it's inspired by the antics of This is The End. This looks totally wild and crazy and exactly my kind of ridiculous 90s humor! Tons of fun especially with all tech turning into literal monsters coming after them. Can't wait to watch this. Here's the second official trailer for Kyle Mooney's film Y2K, direct from A24's YouTube: You can rewatch the first trailer for Kyle […]

Blue Origin now has a rocket nearly in one piece as it mated the first and second stages this week of what will be the first ever New Glenn launch from Cape Canaveral.

Save 30% on the Google Nest WiFi Pro at Amazon.

Google Gemini Live may let you talk to it about your uploaded files

Google Fonts - Different emoticons are shown when no fonts are found.

/via Thomas Park

Google Maps - When crossing state lines, you’re welcomed to the new state.

/via Thomas Park

Trello Card Aging Power-Up – Older cards that you’ve neglected start to visibly look aged.  In “Pirate Mode” they crackle and tear.

/via Lauren Miller

Google Forms – Can tell from the language in your question that you will want checkboxes, and changes the question type automatically.

/via Jack Hallahan

Google live sports reporting - There’s a moving green line underneath the ‘Live’ label to indicate and reassure the user that the page is active and reporting the live scores. 

/via @sophieriches08

Google Calendar – When you select one day on Google Calendar it recommends dinner, when you select a week, it recommends a vacation

Google Docs - When you rename an Untitled Document in Google Docs it takes the first line of the document as a suggestion for a title.  Text is highlighted so one stroke of Delete key and it’s gone.

Google – When you search for “kerning”, every instance of the word has a large amount of kerning.

Google Docs - The capitalization options in the ‘Format’ menu are demonstrated in the capitalization names.

/via Eyal Shahar

Pinnacle® Pristine built with HP Technology is oversized.

Pablo Iglesias ha hecho el mayor favor al régimen que dice querer transformar de arriba abajo. Ha embridado la potencia constituyente del 15-M para contenerla en un partido inspirado en el centralismo democrático leninista.

España es el primer país democrático en el que Google cierra su servicio de noticias.

Como hiciera Carrillo a finales de enero de 1977, Pablo Iglesias quiere demostrar al sistema que se ha apoderado del 15-M y que de él depende que esa fuerza constituyente se movilice o se repliegue.

Nadie le preguntó al pueblo cubano qué responder a Google ante su oferta de regalarnos la instalación gratuita de internet en Cuba.

The Swedish automaker has added an entry-level version of the Polestar 3.

Google wants to solve Pixel phones' overheating and battery issues. But not without removing some serious features to save money.

Comic Larry Dean talks at length about his new show.

Wrangler has expanded its retail footprint in India with the inauguration of six new stores. Located in Ujjain, Goa, Indore, Bilaspur, Katihar, and Bareilly, these additions bring Wrangler's total store count to 58 across India.

India's smartphone market is expected to exit 2024 with a low single-digit annual growth, as Apple posted its largest-ever quarterly shipment in India with 4 million units in the third quarter (Q3), according to a new report.

HOLYMAMI is back with her new song, "Centaur," celebrating her Sagittarius spirit. Known for her unique mix of music styles, HOLYMAMI combines punk rock's powerful sounds with catchy rap and…

UK rapper/songwriter/educator BREIS (pronounced breeze) returns with a new informative and enlightening single, "Gimme Dat" that breaks down the dynamics of the music industry. Backed by producer Soliheen's plucky synths…

L.A-based Nigerian-American rapper/songwriter Quinja closes out the year with the Amapiano remix of her single "West Jewel." The original version was released in late 2023  before her debut project and…

Jungle music was found in countless games from the early 90s. This article goes over what jungle is, where it comes from, and why it was the perfect match for PlayStation & Nintendo 64 games.

Rachel Zegler, the star of Disney's upcoming live-action "Snow White" remake, has a message for the 75.6 million Americans who voted for President-elect Donald Trump this year: may you "never know peace."

The post Disney’s ‘Snow White’ Star Rachel Zegler Hopes Trump Supporters ‘Never Know Peace’ — Are Part of a ‘Deep, Deep Sickness in This Country’ appeared first on Breitbart.

The company’s 83-year-old chairman, John Malone, will be the interim CEO.

It feels a little Fear Factory-ish.

Featuring Colin Edwin, Pat Mastelotto, Lorenzo Esposito Fornasari, and Carmelo Pipitone.