INSTITUTO DE EDUCACIN SUPERIOR EN LENGUAS VIVAS J.R.

Trabajo Prctico N1
Taller de Herramientas Informticas
Prof. Mariano Marn
Alumna: Julieta Marcolla
/04/2015

Trabajo de recopilacin y formateo de artculos periodsticos.

Julieta MarcollaTP1-Herramientas Informticas

Fact-checking Floridas Legislature at the

halfway point
Legislative committees have
discussed a long list of issues
including whether to allow
guns on college campuses,
how to change school tests
and whether to allow online
voter registration and expand
Medicaid.

Guns on college campuses

House and Senate panels have voted in favor of a proposal that would let concealed
weapon license holders who must be 21 have their guns on college campuses.
That brought up an interesting comparison: What are students at greater risk for?
Being shot or attacked by alligators?
According to the state of Florida, you are almost twice as likely to be attacked by an
alligator than by someone who happens to carry a conceal-and-carry permit, and that
was a study over the first 10 years of the conceal-carry law in Florida, said Erek
Culbreath, president of Florida Students for Concealed Carry, speaking at a Senate
Higher Education Committee hearing on March 16.
Floridas concealed weapon permit program started in 1987, so Culbreath was referring
to 10 years of data starting at that point.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has documented the number
of alligator bites on people between 1948 and November 2013 for a total of 357 bites.
The gun data is based on an approximation using permit revocations based on misuse
of a firearm that may or may not accurately reflect the number of attacks. Between
October 1987 and February 2015, the state revoked 9,636 concealed weapon or firearm
license permits, according to state. Of that group, 168 were revoked for misuse of a
firearm. However, in 2011 the state stopped providing a breakdown for the reasons that
permits have been revoked.
These statistics, imperfect as they are, do support the notion that both kinds of attacks
are uncommon. But its a stretch to say the evidence confirms youre at twice the risk
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for a gator attack. We find the statement has an element of truth but ignores other
information that would give a different impression. So we rate it Mostly False.

School tests
The Legislature has faced a backlash from teachers and parents over the amount of
standardized tests it puts students through.
The Florida Badass Teachers Association leveled this attack before the session: Florida
students take an array of standardized high stakes tests which eat up as much as 45
school days per year.
Test days do appear to have risen in recent years, and students are not only affected by
the tests they take themselves, but also by the impact of other students in their school
taking tests. However, pinpointing the number of days that students take standardized
tests is difficult, because it varies widely depending by grade, school, district and other
factors. We rated this claim False.
Meanwhile, on day 1 of new computerized standardized tests, students and
administrators across the state couldnt log on to the tests.
During a House Education Appropriations Committee meeting March 12, chairwoman
and state Rep. H. Marlene OToole, R-Lady Lake, put the blame solely on the cyber
attack.1
On the testing problems, many of you may have read in the media, that the problem
was not that of a vendor, the problem was not that of the test materials itself, it was the
product of a cyber attack, she said.
Actually, a vendor update was responsible for the initial problems that kept students
from logging onto the new testing system. The cyber attack was another problem that
happened later in the week. OToole admitted she misspoke. We rated this claim Mostly
False.

Online voter registration

Sen. Jeff Clemens, D-Lake Worth, sponsored a bill to allow online voter registration.
This is actually just simply a more secure, accurate and cost-efficient way of doing
voter registration, he said at a Senate Ethics and Elections committee hearing Jan. 20.
Experts who study online registration say there have been no reports of actual security
breaches or fraud. If designed in a way to account for security, online registration
reduces opportunities for fraud and errors.
1 I dont think this is true.
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However, experts warned that both online and paper systems can have potential
pitfalls. We rated this claim Mostly True.
(Clemens bill is scheduled to be heard by a subcommittee April 2.)

Craft beer expansion

The Senate is revisiting whether to allow Floridas craft brewers to sell their wares in
64-ounce growlers, the most common size nationally for consumers to take home suds
straight from the tap.
Susan Pitman, a board member for a collection of drug abuse prevention groups called
the Florida Coalition Alliance, didnt take issue with the size of growlers while testifying
in a Senate committee about SB 186, but she did ask lawmakers to consider regulating
pour sizes in beer-tasting rooms. She said breweries needed limits to help prevent
alcohol abuse. She said Florida has made good progress on reducing alcohol abuse, and
it should be careful not to go backwards.
While the country as a whole has seen a decline in youth drinking, the state of Florida
is a leader, with double-digit drops in 30-day teen alcohol use, she said.
Regular surveys show there has been a steady decline in alcohol abuse by teens
according to several measurements, including whether young people had tried a drink
within the last 30 days. Its difficult to make exact comparisons between national and
state numbers, but a Florida survey shows double-digit drops for both middle- and
high-schoolers over the last decade.2
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found a decline of about 8 percentage
points among high-schoolers in the same period, but reached double digits when we
went back just a little further.

2 Over the last ten years.

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Colorado Lawmakers Scramble to Keep

Millions in Marijuana Taxes
By JACK HEALYAPRIL 1, 2015
A year after Colorado
became the first state to
allow

recreational

marijuana

sales,

millions of tax dollars

are rolling in, dedicated
to

funding

school

construction, marijuana
education
and

campaigns

armies

marijuana

of

inspectors

and regulators. But a legal snarl may force the state to hand that money back to
marijuana consumers, growers and the public and lawmakers do not want to.
The problem is a strict anti-spending provision in the state Constitution that touches
every corner of public life, like school funding, state health care, local libraries and road
repairs. Technical tripwires in that voter-approved provision, known as the Taxpayers
Bill of Rights, may require Colorado to refund nearly $60 million in marijuana taxes.
Adam Eidinger, chairman of the DC Cannabis Campaign, rolled a joint at the
campaign's offices in Washington, D.C. on Thursday. The culture has always been
here, said Mr. Eidinger. I think this is going to make private gatherings more
cannabis friendly. I like to call it legalization without commercialization.Republicans
Warn Washington to Think Twice About Legalizing MarijuanaFEB. 26, 2015
Brandon Coats, 35, is suing his former employer after his use of legal medical
marijuana to treat painful spasms led to his dismissal for violating the companys drugfree workplace rules.Legal Use of Marijuana Clashes With Job RulesSEPT. 7, 2014
Lawmakers are scrambling to figure out a way to keep that money, and they are hoping
Colorado voters usually stingy when it comes to taxes and spending will let them.
In rare bipartisan agreement on taxes, legislators are piecing together a bill that would
seek voters permission to hold on to the marijuana money.

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Despite our anti-tax feelings in the state, theres an exception being made when it
comes to marijuana, said Michael Elliott, the executive director of the Denver-based
Marijuana Industry Group, a trade organization that has not taken a position on the
refund issue. The industry is making a huge economic impact.
But anti-tax feelings run deep here, and some anti-tax groups said they would fight any
effort to deprive the public of a refund, even if it amounts to only $11 or less a person.
It should go back to the taxpayers, said Gregory Golyansky, the president of the
Colorado Union of Taxpayers. When government tries to keep the money that
rightfully belongs to the taxpayers of Colorado, it is an enormous issue. There should be
a tax refund.
Selling, taxing and regulating a federally outlawed drug were never going to be easy for
states at the forefront of marijuana legalization. And as Colorado, the first state to
legalize recreational use, enters its second year of retail marijuana sales, it is
confronting a range of unpredictable problems. Among them, two neighboring states
and several sheriffs have sued to strike down Colorados law, saying that marijuana is
flowing out and that the states law enforcement officers are looking the other way
regarding violations of federal law.

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PERSONAL TECH
With Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge, Samsung Tries to Regain Its Footing
APRIL 1, 2015

Samsungs internal code name for its latest top-of-the-line smartphones, the Galaxy S6
and S6 Edge, is Project Zero, signaling what Samsung calls a return to
fundamentals.
The code name also suggests that Samsung finally seems to understand the many
criticisms that have long been leveled at its phones: the plastic hardware looked cheap,
the most promoted features were mostly useless and the software was too complicated.
Samsung, according to Samsung, has realized the errors of it ways.
The realization was born out of necessity. Samsungs market share and profits in the
smartphone business have plummeted over the last year. The company, which is based
in South Korea, is in the unenviable position of getting squeezed from the bottom by
the affordable phones made by Chinese upstarts like Xiaomi and at the top by Apples
powerhouse line of iPhones.
The elegant new Galaxy phones, which went on sale in the United States last week, are
aiming to pull Samsung out of that pickle. But while the phones are magnificent to look
at, they are most likely not quite enough to fix what ails the company.
Despite improved hardware, the S6 and S6 Edge still lack compelling software.
Unlike Apple, Samsung has never managed to create a built-in suite of software and
services to keep people hooked to its own phones. And there are few obvious ways for
Samsung to address this glaring flaw.
You can argue that theyre in phase one of fixing their software, which is getting rid of
a lot of the junk, said Jan Dawson, an independent technology analyst who anticipated
Samsungs recent troubles. But we havent really seen phase two, which would be
building its own stuff. We havent really seen much of that so far.
The question of what Samsung can do to differentiate its phones is urgent. Samsung
became the most popular smartphone maker in the world by producing alternatives to
the iPhone at attractive prices, and by outspending all of its rivals on marketing. More
than any other company, Samsung developed phones with big screens, a surprising hit
with consumers.
But last year, Apple produced its own big phones. They were also a hit, and Samsungs
spiral accelerated.

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The holidays were particularly brutal. Samsungs smartphone sales in the last quarter
of 2014 declined from the year before, while the overall market grew, according to the
research firm Gartner. By some estimates Apple claimed more than 90 percent of the
profit in the smartphone industry during the holidays.
Samsung is still the largest smartphone maker in the world, but its share fell from
about 31 percent to less than 25 percent between 2013 and 2014, Gartner reported. And
in China, widely considered the big growth market for phones, Samsung was ranked
fifth behind Xiaomi, Apple, Huawei and Lenovo during the last quarter, according to
the research firm IDC.
The new S6 and S6 Edge which are nearly identical to one another except that the
Edges screen curves intriguingly, though mostly uselessly, on its left and right side
are at least an answer to critics who say Samsungs devices look cheap.
The S6 phones are made out of aluminum and glass rather than the plastic in
Samsungs older phones. Both the S6 and S6 Edge strongly resemble Apples iPhone.
The S6 in particular looks like Apples brother from another mother. Samsung has also
co-opted many of the design ideas for which its fans have long criticized Apple. The new
Galaxys no longer offer a removable battery, for example, or a slot for add-on storage
cards, and unlike the Galaxy S5, the S6es arent waterproof.
Samsung goes far in checking off every other hardware box: The S6 and S6 Edge are
blazingly fast, their cameras are excellent, their fingerprint sensors work very well, and
with an add-on charging pad they can be recharged wirelessly.
But if the new phones are beautiful and functional, they are still something of a pain to
use. The S6 and S6 Edge run Samsungs modified version of Googles Android
operating system. Despite Samsungs engineers efforts to clean up the software, the
phones interface is a hodgepodge of odd design decisions and overly complicated
functions.
The situation is made worse by the many companies competing for space on your
phone. Open a new Galaxy and youll find a host of duplicative apps preloaded by
Samsung, Google, your carrier and even Microsoft, an ostensible competitor of both
Samsung and Google. The crush of apps would be funny if it werent so annoying. Why
does a brand-new phone have two web browsers, two email apps, two app stores, a
handful of music and video services and four different messaging apps?
The new phones also do little to help Samsung compete with lower-priced alternatives
in Asia.

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In the international market for phones, Samsungs Galaxys are relatively expensive.
They sell for about the same price as Apples latest devices, $199 and up with a two-year
contract, or more than $650 without a contract. But powerful phones made by lowpriced Chinese sellers, like the OnePlus One, often sell for less than half the price of
high-end Samsung and Apple devices.
If you pay the premium price to Apple, you get a phone with a well-designed operating
system, no overlapping preloaded apps, and a host of services that often work very well,
like iMessage, Apple Pay and expanding compatibilities with Apples personal
computers and devices like the Apple TV and, soon, the Apple Watch. You can criticize
Apples sticky ecosystem as a form of consumer lock-in, but Apple sure has built a
luxurious prison, and customers are willing to pay extra for it.
If you pay that premium to Samsung, you dont get a whole lot more than you can get
on, say, a phone made by Xiaomi, OnePlus or any of a dozen smaller players.
Samsung appears to understand the dilemma. Minhyouk Lee, the head of Samsungs
mobile design team, said in an email that the companys new user experience flow is
simpler and easier, with features and settings that are displayed in a more natural and
intuitive way. Samsung has also been working on better services like Samsung Pay, a
wireless payment service that will allow you to use your new Galaxy phones to pay for
items at a wide range of stores more stores than can accept Apple Pay. But youll
have to wait until this summer to use it, when it goes online in a software update.
Still, Samsungs long history of subpar software might not inspire droves of customers
to buy into its world. Whats more, since Samsungs phones are based on Googles
operating system, customers are better off buying into that companys services because
theyre usually better designed and will work on most other Android phones.
The reality is that Samsung doesnt have anything thats better than Googles services
in most categories, so from the consumers perspective its not clear that theres any
benefit for Samsung to make its own stuff, Mr. Dawson said.
Hence the catastrophic question for Samsung: If lots of other, cheaper, almost-as-good
phones run Android, why pay extra for a Samsung?

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