Year: 2015

A U.S. Army Corps of Engineers soldier recently became the first person to graduate from the Marine Corps's new court reporter course. Sgt. First Class Jason Trumbull will be assigned to the Middle East District following his successful completion of his studies at the Naval Justice School. Trumbull originally planned to attend the Army's program, but instead accelerated through the Marine Corps program. In the past, the military hired contractors for overseas court reporting, but Trumbull's assignment will save the government at least $100,000 annually. Although many Americans imagine court reporters diligently typing away on old-fashioned typewriters, that technique is quickly being replaced by high-tech options. Sgt. Trumbull was trained with the "voice writing" method, which utilizes...

Emojis are quickly becoming a new form of language, and can now be used to actually order food -- thanks to a new app called Fooji. Emojis are smileys and ideograms that smartphone users can text to one another. As a picture is worth 1,000 words, emojis can be used to succinctly articulate complex ideas and emotions easily. For example, the gaping mouth emoji can be used to show just how hungry a smartphone user is. Consequently, smartphone users have started using emojis as pseudo-hieroglyphics, and have innovated their usage. Now, there are emoji art exhibitions, and emoji music videos. The Library of Congress even accepted Emoji Dick in 2013, a translation of Herman Melville's classic into emoji. Linguistic scholars, however, would hesitate to call emoji a language. Sure, there are o...

California is naturally a great state for anyone with a green thumb and an eye toward alternative energy; not only is the state sunny enough year-round to support a solar energy system, but state lawmakers have dedicated plenty of legislation toward protecting homeowners who use wind and solar energy. Previously, alternative energy usage was restricted to the wealthier homeowners in California simply because, despite a 20% increase in solar energy usage over the past 15 years, it’s still expensive to have a complete system installed. The average rooftop solar installation in California costs about $15,000, the SF Gate reports, and an overwhelming majority (67%) of solar arrays installed in Californian homes in 2013 went to households where the total income was between $40,000 and $90,000...

Millennials are now dominating the American workplace, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau, and they're also working more hours per week than employed Americans of any other generation. More importantly, it's becoming clear that these Millennial workers are actually changing the way businesses operate -- for the better. According to a recent survey by Ernst and Young's Global Generation Research, 47% of Millennials are working more hours per week than they worked just five years ago; only 38% of Gen X workers are working more, and only 28% of Baby Boomers are doing so. As TIME and Medical Daily both report, Millennials are struggling more to manage the responsibilities of work, family, and personal life; for this reason, they're placing a higher value on flexibility in the work...