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September 22, 2020

LUMBERTON Surveys to determine the official rate of seat belt usage in North Carolina are currently underway in 15 counties, including Robeson.

The North Carolina Governors Highway Safety Program is partnering with researchers from N.C. States Institute for Transportation Research and Education, who will be conducting roadside surveys now through Oct. 3 at randomly selected sites. Robeson County is one of the 15 counties in the state with the most unstable seat belt usage rate that were included in the sample for the annual statewide seat belt use survey. Other counties in the top 15 are Mecklenburg, Pender, Sampson, Columbus, Alamance, Buncombe, Catawba, Cleveland, Durham, Forsyth, Guilford, Nash, Wake and Wilkes.

Results from the surveys are necessary to qualify for federal seat belt incentive grants. The federal money is used to fund initiatives that support the elimination of preventable roadway deaths across North Carolina.

During the survey, researchers will be observing belted and unbelted drivers and passengers at 120 randomly selected sites. Eight of those sites will be in Robeson County, said Daniel J. Findley, senior Research Associate, N.C. States Institute for Transportation Research and Education.

Trained observers are working in pairs, one observer per traffic direction on opposite sides of a controlled intersection, collecting observations on paper forms using a clipboard. Each site is randomly assigned a specific data collection time period during daylight hours and is observed for one hour.

The goal is to generate an accurate and representative seat belt use rate for the state from a sample of observations, Findley said. The observational data and seat belt use rate will be submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration and the rate becomes the official seat belt use rate for North Carolina for the year.

County-level rates are also calculated from this study, but the overall purpose is to calculate a state-level rate from a sample of observations that is representative of all drivers and right front seat passengers of all passenger vehicles that travel on all roads in the state during daylight hours in all days of the study year, Findley said.

Last years statewide seat belt usage rate was 88.4%, down from 91.3% the previous year. In 2017 the rate was 91.4%.

While this three-year trend is still above the average of many states, a slight decline in numbers reflects thousands of individuals who are simply choosing not to protect themselves and others around them, said Mark Ezzell, NCGHSP director.

Findley said this trend is also reflected in Robeson County. The countys seat belt usage rate in 2017 was 87.3%, increased to 89.5% in 2018, and dropped in 2019 to 84%, showing a decline of more than 5% between 2018 and 2019.

According to the N.C. Department of Transportation, if a motorist is ejected from a vehicle in a crash, the odds are that they will not survive. In 2018, 84% of the people ejected from passenger vehicles in crashes that occurred in North Carolina were killed.

In Robeson County, the number of deaths involving motorists not wearing a seat belt during vehicle crashes has more than doubled from January to July 2020 when compared to the same period in 2019, according to NCDOT. In 2019, there were seven deaths reported as a result of not wearing a seat belt in a crash, and 15 reported during the first half of 2020. Two more deaths were reported in August, according to the NCDOT.

As we approach the month of October, which is by far the deadliest month on our roadways, we need people to start buckling up again and ultimately reduce the injuries and deaths in motor vehicle crashes we are seeing, Ezzell said.

The Saved by the Belt Program is one way Robeson County is addressing this issue. The free course allows people with seat belt violations to attend a two-hour class at Southeastern Health in order to get the first ticket waived.

About 300 people have participated in the class since its inception a year ago, said Phillip Richardson, SeHealth Community Health Services manager.

Classes were halted in March because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Classes resumed June 20 with safety measures put in place, including reducing class sizes to no more than eight participants, having only one instructor per class, temperature screens and health screening questions, mandatory wearing of a face mask, social distancing for seating, and sanitizing before and after class.

The backlog of attendees has been addressed, and we are signing up new participants, Richardson said. The fiscal year 2021 grant has been tentatively approved, and we hope to continue our classes in October.

Saturday will mark the programs 22nd class. Upcoming classes are scheduled for Oct. 10 and Oct. 24. Go to http://www.srmc.org under Calendar of Events to register online.

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Competition set for Thursday designed to test virtual training software - The Robesonian

The world of open source tooling has expanded to welcome JSHint, as the projects maintainers have finally completed the necessary work to adopt the MIT Expat license. Previously, the JavaScript linters code was partially published under the JSON license, with an additional seemingly innocuous clause that stated: The Software shall be used for Good, not Evil. This clause prevented it from being recognized by FSF as a free software license and similarly was not recognized as open source by the Open Source Initiative.

In an essay titled Watching the Ship Sink, JSHint co-maintainer Mike Pennisi describes how the license hurt the project. Despite having captured the distinction of being the most popular JavaScript linter in 2015, the tool has been brutally outpaced during the past five years by its contemporary, ESLint, largely due to the effects of having non-free licensing.

Legally-conscious objectors arent betraying their own dastardly motivations; theyre refusing to enter into an ambiguous contract, Pennisi said. Put differently: theyre not saying, Im an evildoer, theyre saying, I dont understand what you want. This consideration disqualified JSHint from inclusion in all sorts of contexts.

Licensing concerns prevented developers from the Debian and Fedora GNU/Linux distributions from including JSHint. Pennisi even dips into a bit of WordPress history, when he detailed how programming platforms that repackaged JSHintalso reconsidered due to its additional clause.

There was a time when the popular content management system WordPress repackaged JSHint in this way, he said. Once they learned of the JSON license, they replaced JSHint in a matter of weeks. Pennisi referenced a ticket for WordPress 4.9 wherein JSHint was removed from cores implementation of CodeMirror, as well as WordPress build tools.

When a project like JSHint loses users, it also loses contributors, Pennisi said. This slows the addition of new features and the correction of bugs. Timeliness is important for these things, and people perceive delays very negatively. The best example of this comes from JSHints delayed support for async functions.

JSHint had become what Pennisi described as a bizarrely-encumbered JavaScript linter. Unfortunately, the process of going open source after seven years was not as simple as submitting a pull request for a license change. In a series of essays, he unfolds the grueling process of requesting permission from all of the projects 200+ contributors, only to end up receiving one refusal and some who werent available for contact. Ultimately, the JSHint team was forced to rewrite the source code but only for the parts that were contributed by the five people who had not permitted the license change.

At the beginning of August, JSHint updated to use the MIT Expat license in version 2.12.0 and is now GPL-compatible. Pennisis cautionary tale of what he called the liberation of JSHint is a fascinating read that details the struggle of overcoming the challenges of the projects original license. The key takeaway from this story is that software creators should strongly consider the ramifications of licensing up front, even if a large community of users seems unimaginable at first. Open source licensing takes a project further than its creator could ever have brought it alone.

For many people, licensing is an esoteric part of software development, Pennisi said. Its a relatable opinion: the legal frameworks are intimidating, and most considerations can be addressed by simply defaulting to well-known free/open-source licenses.

The trouble is that not all software is distributed under well-known free/open-source licenses. My hope is that the particulars of JSHints decay help folks understand why licensing matters.

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JSHint is Now Free Software after Updating License to MIT Expat - WP Tavern

Following in the footsteps of Canon, Fuji, Panasonic, and others, Nikon has officially released a free Webcam Utility that allows you to use the latest Nikon mirrorless cameras and DSLRs as a webcam for video conferencing and live-streaming, without the need for a capture card.

As with the original releases from Canon and Fuji, the Nikon Beta Webcam Utility (version 0.9.0) is only available for Windows 10 for now. If thats not an issue, downloading and installing the utility will allow you to use the cameras below as webcams over USB by selecting Webcam Utility as the output source in your video conferencing or live streaming app.

Compatible cameras include all of Nikons mirrorless cameras, including the new Nikon Z5, as well as the Nikon D6, D850, D780, D500, D7500, and D5600 DSLRs. Unfortunately, it seems Nikons most affordable entry-level D3500 is not compatible, and there are no compatible Coolpix cameras either.

Notably, there are a few limitations that Nikon wants to point out. In addition to the lack of Mac compatibility:

Weve reached out to Nikon to find out if and when a Mac version of the app might be available, and will update this post if and when we hear back. In the meantime, its worth pointing out that Nikon has partnered with the third-party webcam software Ecamm Live to give users two months free, so it looks like theyre trying to tide people over until they can get their own Mac version sorted out.

To learn more, head over to the Nikon Live Streaming webpage or download the Nikon Webcam Utility and read the full release notes at this link.

UPDATE 8/6/20: Nikon responded to our request for comment, confirming that a Mac version is on the way. You can read their full statement below:

We are planning to release a beta version of the Nikon Webcam Utility software for Mac users. More information, including the release date, will be shared as it becomes available.

See the article here:
Nikon Unveils Free Software that Turns Your Camera into a Webcam - PetaPixel

The fight to stop the spread of COVID-19 is a tireless effort for the medical community, first responders, and government agencies. Personnel on the front lines are working together to save lives and mitigate the impact on citizens and businesses. At times like these, the power of community and collaboration come into sharp focus and show us all what we can accomplish when we work together for a common good.

The technology community has a critical role to play in this fight by driving the creation of innovative tools and putting them into the hands of medical and scientific experts that are leading the way. Making those innovative tools as accessible as possible starts with being free and open. Solutions and software based on a free and open philosophy are exactly that free. Because they don't cost anything and have a low barrier to adoption, they can be immediately placed into the hands of responders, volunteers, and others who need them. And because they are open, these tools can be improved again and again. When governments look to free and open source software, they can quickly innovate and deliver solutions to move forward during a crisis like this pandemic.

Software built on open source has proven critical to success during past periods of crisis. When Ebola struck West Africa in late 2014, staff with eHealth Africa leaned on open source solutions to evolve their efforts to collect, link, and analyze data recorded during the epidemic. At the outset of the virus, it was taking weeks between the identification of a suspected case and laboratory confirmation to start contact traces. By using an open source technology to deploy a call center application, workers could record data at a central location and distribute that data to its district centers. Around the country, these centers were able to receive the data, respond to the alerts, and then add in the follow-up alerts and the rest of the data.

Open source-based search engine technology also enabled immediate indexing of different facets of the call center, so indexes were updated quickly as new data sets became available. With these open source tools, eHealth African played a pivotal role in identifying suspected cases and getting contact tracing in motion sooner during the Ebola outbreak.

All of this was only possible because developers were empowered with open source technology to stand up projects quickly. Open source was the fastest, most affordable, and most flexible way to turn a mountain of data into insights and action that saved lives. Solutions built on a free and open philosophy are already being used in the fight against COVID-19, including geospatial technology that assists with social distancing in public spaces. Several applications to assist with contract tracing are also being developed using open source software. As we advance into an uncertain future, open source solutions will be critical to building the innovative tools responders and agencies need to continue the fight.

Since the COVID-19 crisis began to unfold, many enterprise software firms have started offering their solutions and services for free, but only for a limited time. Eventually, these free offers expire and agencies who have adopted them during a crisis emerge worried about which fundamental services of government will encounter vendor lock-in and be forced into closed and proprietary ecosystems. These limited-time free offerings hinder the ability to innovate confidently in a crisis by making the procurement of software a primary concern over fighting the disease.

Alternatively, software built on open source or even free-forever tiers of pricing are free now and always. Nothing changes about the business model once were out of this crisis.

Its still free and open and it remains that way. The free and open model puts tools into the hands of developers now to manage, search, and analyze various data types in real-time, and that gives IT leaders the visibility and transparency they need to truly implement a data-first strategy to modernize their systems tomorrow as well.

The open source community has a history of collaborating to create solutions that benefit society and communities, especially during a crisis like COVID-19. The benefits of placing tools based on a free and open model were well documented before the crisis and it will remain that way after.

By drawing on the strengths of open source solutions -- quick to stand up, completely free with no potential for vendor lock in, and constantly improved upon by the community -- governments can build solutions that can be built upon in the future. Solutions that can be used in the next crisis.

Together with healthcare workers, scientific researchers, government agencies, and the scores of volunteers helping to stamp out this pandemic, it is through open source that we will light the path to innovation in the future.

We believe that the best products are built in the open, in collaboration with a community of passionate developers and users who push the bounds of whats possible. Join us!

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Free and Open: Accelerating Innovation in the Battle Against COVID-19 - Governing

Loves Family of Companies has signed a co-marketing agreement with InMotion Global to make available to all its factoring customers the AscendTMS transportation management system software at no cost.

The agreement will give all Loves Financial customers access to a full premium subscription of the AscendTMS for free. This includes carriers, freight brokers and third-party logistics providers, the companies said in a joint release.

AscendTMS is already the most widely used TMS software in North America, said Tim Higham, president of AscendTMS. AscendTMS software will run the entire trucking or logistics operations of any carrier or freight broker, and the joint customer can directly access Loves Financial funding services from within the TMS software itself.

AscendTMS offers a full suite of technologies to run a business. According to the company, users of the TMS can track daily freight movements, search real-time loads from major load boards, manage driver pre-planning, dispatch, driver tracking, electronic logging device integration, driver texting, document management, accounting, dynamic reporting, factoring, asset management, driver pay, asset maintenance and alerts, IFTA reporting, and driver qualification. There is also a shipper directory with shipper credit scores.

Our goal has always been to provide a high-level of technical software advantage to customers that makes running their business easier and at 95% less cost with no required technical expertise. This joint Loves and AscendTMS offering provides a solution for companies that wish to lower costs, increase profits and to find better freight, and to do it all electronically, said Higham.

Loves Financial recently expanded with the acquisitions of Vero Business Capital and Foley Business Capital. Loves Financial customers have access to the factoring business as well as fuel discounts, tires, maintenance services and no-fee credit lines with a Loves Express Card.

To receive the free AscendTMS, users need to visit http://www.TheFreeTMS.com and create an AscendTMS account. Within 30 days, the user must send an email to support@inmotionglobal.com with proof they are a Loves Financial Customer to get access for one year.

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Loves offers AscendTMS free to its factoring customers - FreightWaves