1 7 16 centre county gazette

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GAZETTE THE CENTRE COUNTY

www.CentreCountyGazette.com

Higgins transitions to county commissioner

Bowled over

Despite a furious second-half rally, the Penn State football team came up short against Georgia in the TaxSlayer Bowl, losing 24-17. The Nittany Lions dropped four consecutive games to finish the season at 7-6./Page 16

January 7-13, 2016

Volume 8, Issue 1

Researchers: Online privacy fosters selfish decisions

WELCOMING THE NEW YEAR

By ALEXA LEWIS

By ALEXA LEWIS

news@centrecountygazette.com

BELLEFONTE — There’s no hiding Democrat Mark Higgins’ excitement to step into his role as the only newcomer to the county’s board of commissioners. “You know, I’m a turnaround guy. I do the near impossible on a dayto-day basis, so I decided to run for county commissioner and I’m going to make sure we talk about things MARK HIGGINS like how do we bring businesses to the region and how do we grow businesses that are already in the region,” Higgins said. After talking to more than 11,000 people in the county in the months leading up to the Nov. 3 election, Higgins received 23 percent of the vote, second to incumbent Michael Pipe. Republican Steve Dershem took the last spot on the board after finishing ahead of former commissioner Republican Chris Exarchos and newcomer Independent Todd Kirsten. Higgins said he was inspired to run for commission after he analyzed other county budgets with the local chamber of commerce and learned that many counties spend upward of $8 million on economic development, while Centre County spends about $25,000 of its $80 million annual budget on the same thing. While Penn State President Eric Barron is expanding the university’s support for economic development and entrepreneurship, Higgins said the county currently lacks the infrastructure needed to keep many new startups in the area once they outgrow the university’s support. Higgins said he is advocating for graduate facilities to help encourage successful startups that are too big for an incubator but cannot afford downtown rent to stay in the area. Higgins has already met with major economic development groups in the county to discuss funding, location and structure of a such a facility. To offset taxpayer costs, there are many grants and charities that help counties fund economic development. “In Centre County, we spend nothing, so we have nothing,” he said. In 2006, three Penn State students started the now successful web-hosting service Weebly, but the company moved to its current headquarters in San Francisco. OrderUp, the online food ordering franchise, was also started by Penn State students, but the company is now located in Baltimore. Not only would startups create jobs in and of themselves, but they also stimulate the local economy, creating jobs across other sectors, according to Higgins. For every startup job, there is between two to five spinoff jobs, he added. Higgins, Page 4 Opinion .................................. 5 Health & Wellness .............. 6, 7

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news@centrecountygazette.com

TIM WEIGHT/For the Gazette

FAMILIES TAKE IN the ice sculptures as part of the First Night State College celebration on New Year’s Eve. The First Night celebration has become a tradition in downtown State College.

Winter weather finally arrives in Centre County By CHRIS MORELLI editor@centrecountygazette.com

STATE COLLEGE — Face it; we’ve been spoiled. When temperatures sailed into the 60s on Christmas Eve, most Centre County residents wondered if the warm forecast would continue into the new year. The answer, quite simply, is no. The weather took a stunning turn over the past seven days as temperatures dipped into the single digits during the first full week of January. According to AccuWeather senior meteorologist Tom Kines, the fact that winter weather is finally here shouldn’t surprise anyone. “It’s January; it does get cold,” Kines said with a laugh. “We have to keep that in mind.” Kines said the warm December temperatures were a little out of the ordinary. “The jet stream really guides weather systems across the country. It also separates the cold air masses in the North from the cold air masses in the South. For the past several weeks, the jet stream has not only been north of us, it’s been unusually far north of us. That’s been putting us in a very mild weather pattern,” Kines explained. However, once the jet stream dipped south, Kines said, the cold air pushed southward across the Northeast. Within less than a week, temperatures went from the 60s into the single digits. “In the overall scheme of things, temperatures getting down into the single digits at night is not that huge of a deal. But the fact that it’s been so mild … we’re just not accustomed to it. It is a huge shock to the system,” Kines said. Temperatures were in the single digits overnight Jan. 4. “This is our coldest air mass since early March of last year, when it got down in to the single digits at night,” Kines said. As for the forecast for the remainder of winter, Kines said not to expect temperatures in the 60s anytime soon. “To get it as mild as it was in December … to have that happen again for such a

Education ............................... 8 Community ...................... 9, 10

UNIVERSITY PARK — It’s no surprise we’re still hearing about online privacy and how online platforms foster a much different set of rules and morals. “As social media makes data increasingly interconnected, preserving one’s own privacy while ignoring the privacy rights of others may make everybody’s data more vulnerable,” said Jens Grossklags, an assistant professor in Penn State’s College of Information, Science and Technology, in a press release. On Dec. 14, a team of Penn State researchers reported at the International Conference on Information Systems in Fort Worth, Texas, that people are more concerned about sharing their own personal information with third-party app developers than they are about sharing their friends’ information. The problem, Grossklags said, is known as interdependent privacy. It means that the privacy of individual consumers depends not only on their own online decisions, but the decisions of their friends. Third-party apps are applications that are created by a developer other than the manufacturer of the device. So, iPhone users, that means any application that Apple doesn’t make is developed by a third party. According to a Penn State press release, the researchers found that participants valued data in their own social media profiles at $2.31 and valued their friend’s social media data at $1.56, when the information was irrelevant to the app’s function. When the data was necessary for the app’s function, the economic value of their own data dropped by $.27, but the value of their friends’ data dropped by $.58. “It turns out they place very little value on their friend’s privacy,” said Yu Pu, a doctoral candidate in the College of IST, in a Dec. 14 statement. That’s a problem, though, when some of these apps misuse that information — a decision completely out of the friend’s control. Many of these apps request access to users’ social media accounts, such as Twitter, Facebook or Google. If users agree to the prompt, Privacy, Page 4

CHRIS MORELLI/The Gazette

BUNDLED UP: Penn State student Kristen Albright walks down Fairmount Avenue on her way to work on a cold Tuesday afternoon.

prolonged period would be highly, highly unusual. Having said that, I think we will have some more mild spells during the month of January. I don’t think we’re going to see temperatures in the 60s, but I certainly think we’ll see some days that are up in the 40s. With some kind of luck, we might get in the 50s.” According to Kines, normal highs for this time of year are the low to mid 30s. “If you’re getting temperatures up into the 40s, that’s 10 to 15 degrees above normal,” Kines said. “That’s pretty significant.” Winter, Page 4

Start the New Year Right ..... 11 Holistic Living directory 12, 13

Sports .............................. 14-17 Around & In Town ............... 18

Submitted photo

PLAYING IT SAFE: A recent Penn State study reveals that people are more concerned about sharing their own personal information with thirdparty app developers than they are about sharing their friends’ information.

What’s Happening ............... 19 Puzzles .................................. 20

Business .......................... 21, 22 Classified .............................. 23


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