I was/am surprised by the number of academic researchers who don't have libgen, sci-hub, and reddit r/scholar on "speed dial." Universities pay for access to most of the relevant articles, but still, you will come across articles that you don't have legal access to. I can't understand the mindset of "Oh, I can't get that article I'm interested in without paying for it? Whatever."
It appears you're correct, I knew I should have read more than one CNN article about it, why WOULD they mention a little detail like that? I will point out that the pipeline crossing over the water supply just narrowly avoiding the reservation would concern me.
Off topic, I'm pissed I have to concede the point to such a biased source.
You and I both know that some activists HAVE probably "put their money where their mouth is" and surprisingly climate change isn't solved. They're ignored as whackos which they are, and they lack any power to actually do more than pat themselves on the back. Real solutions will require more than voluntary personal lifestyle changes.
If they did that, trolls would be laughing about exhaling carbon dioxide. Anyone trying to do something charitable gets the scorn of basement-dwellers, logic doesn't enter into it.
Also, not all the protest is about climate change. The pointlessly violent manhandling of the initial protesters ensured this turned into a bigger deal.
I assume also there's something about it being native american land. Even if 100% of the native americans in question approved of it, is there a DUMBER place to route an oil pipeline through for PR purposes? I assume yosemite, yellowstone, and the grand canyon were too far out of the way, and running it through central park would have required too many permits.
It's not being used to prove that smoking is bad, it's being used to understand how smoking damages the airways, and probably will eventually be used to look for treatments to reverse it. Given the sheer number of cigarette smokers in the world despite the known dangers, that would be extremely profitable AND would reduce healthcare spending maybe. So, yes, there are new things to think about than is smoking bad, and they are thinking about them.
The machine involves real human lung cells, so it's inside of some type of air-controlled incubator. I had a labmate who used to smoke in a fume hood. Kind of stupid given the toxic and flammable chems we had in there. Probably stupid also that we didn't dispose of them properly, but no one died, so... meh...
Specific to biology, a lot of the research funding has been diverted from basic research to "what can we do with it right now(ish)" research, called "translational" research.
It's not an inherently bad idea, people are sick and dying now, having everyone work on pie-in-the-sky stuff that might pan out 30 years from now isn't great either, but I'm not sure the balance is working out. I don't know how one measures that either except for 30 years in the future. And I think that if something really is ready to jump to being used in hospitals in a short time, maybe private industry should fund that. IIRC, what people are willing to spend on medical stuff is a bit more than nickels and dimes. Something like 28 kajillion dollars? If it was going to be profitable soon, the government shouldn't be funding it IMHO, investors should be.
To be fair, there's still revolutionary stuff coming out. Induced pluripotent stem cells are less than a decade ago, and CRISPR/Cas9. Organoids are also I think going to be pretty big, the NIH is funding those reasonably well. So I'd say that the grants and patents focus isn't exactly destroying science.
I think you're giving climate change deniers too much credit. Deniers of any strain don't really need any fodder for what they believe in. 9/11 and sandy hook "truthers" obviously have nothing much concrete to point at for their insistence. The fossil fuel industry is able to conjure up enough FUD to keep skepticism alive even if researchers HAD behaved ideally.
Furthermore, I'd question whether climate change skepticism is the real barrier to dealing with the issue. I think inertia and apathy on the part of the public are far bigger impediments. Most americans don't go frothing at the mouth if you mention climate change. They just think "meh". Highlighting the scary specific predictions is likely more effective at motivating them.
Finally, FFS, that's how science works, you make predictions based on the data you have at the time. It's not a crystal ball. Why is the public consistently surprised that sensationalist headlines aren't 100% certain? "Eggs are bad, eggs are good, hurr hurr hurr, may as well smoke this cigarette, it's probably good for me in a few years."
I think the overpopulation thing is people being smug jerks to those who have children, or those who want to look down on other cultures. The fear that Africa and India are going to overtake Europe and the US on the world stage by breeding is a common thought in some right wing conspiracy circles, and it gives them a reason to feel superior. Like the movie Idiocracy with racism. It has more than enough logic to it to convince your uncle who is sure Obama is Kenyan.
I've found funny people on vine. It took some digging though, which might be part of why it failed to take off. As far as only trying for comedy, yeah, five seconds isn't enough time to do much more than a simple gag.
Sometimes constraints on stuff people make up ends up working better. Scientific research presentations that are 15 minutes to half an hour are usually the good talks. Presentations where the researcher is allowed to blabber on and on about their snail penis research which they think is the most important human endeavor ever? Even if I liked snail penis research, it would be unbearable. At the other end of seriousness, webcomics that limit themselves to 3 panels seem to be better for longer than the ones that wank off about "infinite canvas."
So I thought vine might be interesting because of that. And there are some really creative, clever, funny vine videos. Certainly I've found better stuff there than youtube. Seems like every fucking youtube video on anything of interest to me has about half a minute of pointless logos, followed by minutes of introduction that are redundant with the title. There isn't any of that in vine for obvious reasons, it's all content.
I think five seconds may have just been too constrained. Ten seconds might have worked. Maybe 30 seconds. I dunno. But I think there would have been some viable and interesting video service that could have cut a lot of crap found in youtube.
I've heard suggestions that state "someone is learning how to take down the internet." I don't have the background to understand these suggestions. Isn't it possible though that some state actor did this as an experiment to see the response and how much damage an attack like this could do?
You won't see widespread fiber to the home in your lifetime. Running all new wiring, to every house, in every neighborhood, in every city, was never a good idea. Would I like gigabit fiber? Of course. Who wouldn't. But the U.S. is too big
Comes up every time someone discusses the sorry state of internet in the US. Size has nothing to do with it. We don't need to run fiber to every square mile of death valley. 3% of the united states land is urbanized. We don't need to cover even all of THAT. If you live in Lander WY, you accept you're not going to have great internet offerings. Farmer Brown in western kansas isn't going to start a rebellion if LA gets fiber and his cows don't. But how many cities aside from the three that Google Fiber did have sensible fiber?
It's a start, but Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and the other big guys undoubtedly have other strategies to undermine those efforts. Suing to stop them for unfair competition is only the first defense. With Google fiber, they engaged in misinformation campaigns that didn't work, but they'll get better, and IIRC, google had to lobby KC to allow google to touch their phone lines without being shot on sight.
Break up the telecos, seize their copper, and send the executives to Rikers for massive fraud and anti-competitive behavior, and fiber will follow....
You won't see widespread fiber to the home in your lifetime.
I suspect there's a vast difference between the modernizing that Obama and anyone else sane would be doing. After Trump's comments about leaving NATO (and basically anything else) I can't imagine he'd be interested in keeping with the nuclear test ban.
On the topic of Russians, I'm going to assume that this is Putin trying to help his employee Trump win. If Trump can't tweet, he can't keep reminding voters of all the reasons they want to vote against him. And the only way to keep Trump from tweeting is to take out Twitter.
You already knew that the DNC liked team-player, loyal soldier Hillary rather than independent, more-interested-in-protesting-than-governing Sanders. The e-mails conclusively proved only that. They did not show that sanders was cheated.
I'm becoming concerned that Wheeler actually is, as feared, a shill for comcast et al. I'm wondering if the net neutrality issue he tried to push was designed to fail, I'm not a lawyer nor have I read much about it. Now he's backing down from opening up the cable industry to competition. Is it possible his job was just to lull us into not worrying about it, and letting the telecos get everything they want?
I'm guessing there's plenty of wiggle room, though IANAL and I've never heard of the certification they revoked.
I'm guessing, for example, that if they ACTUALLY came up with something that works, you'd find the certification reinstated. They have a lot of high powered investors who can pull some strings.
And while it was based on snake oil, I'm still impressed with Holmes' ability to sell it. If anything, that's MORE impressive! She must have some amazing salesman skills. As well as zero ethics. Don't get me wrong, she very much should be out of a job and in jail, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were coming, but still, she has some talent, clearly.
While it is written as a smear, I don't find it to be a very effective smear. It may be weird, but it's not like Gawker is saying "He SUCKS THE BLOOD OF CHILDREN FOR SEXUAL GRATIFICATION." It's not superstition or witchcraft or obviously morally wrong despite gawker's spin on it.
"Peter Thiel wants to live longer? OH DEAR GOD, WHAT A MONSTER! He should be content with living as long as God intended, a ripe old 45!"
I'm a biologist, and I think it's great that someone in silicone valley is funding something which could actually add years and health to my life rather than another app for sharing pictures people making duck faces. So maybe you're just not the right type of nerd, but I find it VERY germane here and interesting, and not a smear.
"Secret" here has a different meaning. Geochurch is fond of media attention, he's been on Colbert, does big interviews, he promotes himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he contacted news himself afterward. Not knocking him here, this stuff isn't like a sex scandal, it doesn't exactly promote itself without effort, and I think people should be informed about this stuff.
I do doubt that he made it "secret" though specifically to make it more headline grabbing. I expect he made it closed so it woudln't be public disclosure and wouldn't prevent him from patenting stuff. IIRC, he's peripherally involved in the CRISPR patent that will likely generate billions. The technology reported here undoubtedly has a giant amount of potential if patented as well.
I have also heard statements that they made it closed so when published it would get into better journals and be more novel. I'm skeptical about this, as the top journals are still going to gobble it up, and also Church could practically record himself farting and it would be considered for "Science."
Slashdot Mirror
I was/am surprised by the number of academic researchers who don't have libgen, sci-hub, and reddit r/scholar on "speed dial." Universities pay for access to most of the relevant articles, but still, you will come across articles that you don't have legal access to. I can't understand the mindset of "Oh, I can't get that article I'm interested in without paying for it? Whatever."
GAAAAAAH! STOP it with the reasonable points!!!
It appears you're correct, I knew I should have read more than one CNN article about it, why WOULD they mention a little detail like that? I will point out that the pipeline crossing over the water supply just narrowly avoiding the reservation would concern me.
Off topic, I'm pissed I have to concede the point to such a biased source.
Transport contributes to about a quarter of our CO2 emissions and personal transport accounts for maybe 63% of that as far as I can tell. So cars are not the cause of nor the solution to climate change. After cars, what next? Agriculture contributes a lot, I suppose you'd argue they should grow their own food. Power is another big contributor, so they should go without power.
You and I both know that some activists HAVE probably "put their money where their mouth is" and surprisingly climate change isn't solved. They're ignored as whackos which they are, and they lack any power to actually do more than pat themselves on the back. Real solutions will require more than voluntary personal lifestyle changes.
If they did that, trolls would be laughing about exhaling carbon dioxide. Anyone trying to do something charitable gets the scorn of basement-dwellers, logic doesn't enter into it.
Also, not all the protest is about climate change. The pointlessly violent manhandling of the initial protesters ensured this turned into a bigger deal.
I assume also there's something about it being native american land. Even if 100% of the native americans in question approved of it, is there a DUMBER place to route an oil pipeline through for PR purposes? I assume yosemite, yellowstone, and the grand canyon were too far out of the way, and running it through central park would have required too many permits.
It's not being used to prove that smoking is bad, it's being used to understand how smoking damages the airways, and probably will eventually be used to look for treatments to reverse it. Given the sheer number of cigarette smokers in the world despite the known dangers, that would be extremely profitable AND would reduce healthcare spending maybe. So, yes, there are new things to think about than is smoking bad, and they are thinking about them.
The machine involves real human lung cells, so it's inside of some type of air-controlled incubator. I had a labmate who used to smoke in a fume hood. Kind of stupid given the toxic and flammable chems we had in there. Probably stupid also that we didn't dispose of them properly, but no one died, so... meh...
Specific to biology, a lot of the research funding has been diverted from basic research to "what can we do with it right now(ish)" research, called "translational" research.
It's not an inherently bad idea, people are sick and dying now, having everyone work on pie-in-the-sky stuff that might pan out 30 years from now isn't great either, but I'm not sure the balance is working out. I don't know how one measures that either except for 30 years in the future. And I think that if something really is ready to jump to being used in hospitals in a short time, maybe private industry should fund that. IIRC, what people are willing to spend on medical stuff is a bit more than nickels and dimes. Something like 28 kajillion dollars? If it was going to be profitable soon, the government shouldn't be funding it IMHO, investors should be.
To be fair, there's still revolutionary stuff coming out. Induced pluripotent stem cells are less than a decade ago, and CRISPR/Cas9. Organoids are also I think going to be pretty big, the NIH is funding those reasonably well. So I'd say that the grants and patents focus isn't exactly destroying science.
I think you're giving climate change deniers too much credit. Deniers of any strain don't really need any fodder for what they believe in. 9/11 and sandy hook "truthers" obviously have nothing much concrete to point at for their insistence. The fossil fuel industry is able to conjure up enough FUD to keep skepticism alive even if researchers HAD behaved ideally.
Furthermore, I'd question whether climate change skepticism is the real barrier to dealing with the issue. I think inertia and apathy on the part of the public are far bigger impediments. Most americans don't go frothing at the mouth if you mention climate change. They just think "meh". Highlighting the scary specific predictions is likely more effective at motivating them.
Finally, FFS, that's how science works, you make predictions based on the data you have at the time. It's not a crystal ball. Why is the public consistently surprised that sensationalist headlines aren't 100% certain? "Eggs are bad, eggs are good, hurr hurr hurr, may as well smoke this cigarette, it's probably good for me in a few years."
I think the overpopulation thing is people being smug jerks to those who have children, or those who want to look down on other cultures. The fear that Africa and India are going to overtake Europe and the US on the world stage by breeding is a common thought in some right wing conspiracy circles, and it gives them a reason to feel superior. Like the movie Idiocracy with racism. It has more than enough logic to it to convince your uncle who is sure Obama is Kenyan.
Oh snap, that IS the case! Sorry! I was thinking that reporting the numbers as they come in well before election day probably presents some issues.
Why exactly? So it's easier for republicans to close polling stations in black neighborhoods?
Mail-in votes are currently being counted in a lot of states. And I don't know what your last point has to do with anything. Vote anyway. Take a pic anyway if you feel like it.
I've found funny people on vine. It took some digging though, which might be part of why it failed to take off. As far as only trying for comedy, yeah, five seconds isn't enough time to do much more than a simple gag.
Sometimes constraints on stuff people make up ends up working better. Scientific research presentations that are 15 minutes to half an hour are usually the good talks. Presentations where the researcher is allowed to blabber on and on about their snail penis research which they think is the most important human endeavor ever? Even if I liked snail penis research, it would be unbearable. At the other end of seriousness, webcomics that limit themselves to 3 panels seem to be better for longer than the ones that wank off about "infinite canvas."
So I thought vine might be interesting because of that. And there are some really creative, clever, funny vine videos. Certainly I've found better stuff there than youtube. Seems like every fucking youtube video on anything of interest to me has about half a minute of pointless logos, followed by minutes of introduction that are redundant with the title. There isn't any of that in vine for obvious reasons, it's all content.
I think five seconds may have just been too constrained. Ten seconds might have worked. Maybe 30 seconds. I dunno. But I think there would have been some viable and interesting video service that could have cut a lot of crap found in youtube.
Shh! You'll be modded to hell by all the libertarians running around here!
I've heard suggestions that state "someone is learning how to take down the internet." I don't have the background to understand these suggestions. Isn't it possible though that some state actor did this as an experiment to see the response and how much damage an attack like this could do?
You won't see widespread fiber to the home in your lifetime. Running all new wiring, to every house, in every neighborhood, in every city, was never a good idea. Would I like gigabit fiber? Of course. Who wouldn't. But the U.S. is too big
Comes up every time someone discusses the sorry state of internet in the US. Size has nothing to do with it. We don't need to run fiber to every square mile of death valley. 3% of the united states land is urbanized. We don't need to cover even all of THAT. If you live in Lander WY, you accept you're not going to have great internet offerings. Farmer Brown in western kansas isn't going to start a rebellion if LA gets fiber and his cows don't. But how many cities aside from the three that Google Fiber did have sensible fiber?
The issue is exclusively oligopolies and their ability to lobby. Verizon proved as much with New York.
End restrictions on municipal broadband.
It's a start, but Comcast, Verizon, AT&T and the other big guys undoubtedly have other strategies to undermine those efforts. Suing to stop them for unfair competition is only the first defense. With Google fiber, they engaged in misinformation campaigns that didn't work, but they'll get better, and IIRC, google had to lobby KC to allow google to touch their phone lines without being shot on sight.
Break up the telecos, seize their copper, and send the executives to Rikers for massive fraud and anti-competitive behavior, and fiber will follow....
You won't see widespread fiber to the home in your lifetime.
Yeah, I know...
I suspect there's a vast difference between the modernizing that Obama and anyone else sane would be doing. After Trump's comments about leaving NATO (and basically anything else) I can't imagine he'd be interested in keeping with the nuclear test ban.
On the topic of Russians, I'm going to assume that this is Putin trying to help his employee Trump win. If Trump can't tweet, he can't keep reminding voters of all the reasons they want to vote against him. And the only way to keep Trump from tweeting is to take out Twitter.
It's mainly affecting the east coast, sure, but also Ohio which Trump needs to win.
Seems like a much more straightforward than using trolling to help him win.
If you read the e-mails as proof it was rigged, then you read what you wanted to read and would have believed anyway. Fivethirtyeight demonstrated that the convention was not rigged.
You already knew that the DNC liked team-player, loyal soldier Hillary rather than independent, more-interested-in-protesting-than-governing Sanders. The e-mails conclusively proved only that. They did not show that sanders was cheated.
I'm becoming concerned that Wheeler actually is, as feared, a shill for comcast et al. I'm wondering if the net neutrality issue he tried to push was designed to fail, I'm not a lawyer nor have I read much about it. Now he's backing down from opening up the cable industry to competition. Is it possible his job was just to lull us into not worrying about it, and letting the telecos get everything they want?
I'm guessing there's plenty of wiggle room, though IANAL and I've never heard of the certification they revoked.
I'm guessing, for example, that if they ACTUALLY came up with something that works, you'd find the certification reinstated. They have a lot of high powered investors who can pull some strings.
And while it was based on snake oil, I'm still impressed with Holmes' ability to sell it. If anything, that's MORE impressive! She must have some amazing salesman skills. As well as zero ethics. Don't get me wrong, she very much should be out of a job and in jail, and I wouldn't be surprised if that were coming, but still, she has some talent, clearly.
While it is written as a smear, I don't find it to be a very effective smear. It may be weird, but it's not like Gawker is saying "He SUCKS THE BLOOD OF CHILDREN FOR SEXUAL GRATIFICATION." It's not superstition or witchcraft or obviously morally wrong despite gawker's spin on it.
"Peter Thiel wants to live longer? OH DEAR GOD, WHAT A MONSTER! He should be content with living as long as God intended, a ripe old 45!"
I'm a biologist, and I think it's great that someone in silicone valley is funding something which could actually add years and health to my life rather than another app for sharing pictures people making duck faces. So maybe you're just not the right type of nerd, but I find it VERY germane here and interesting, and not a smear.
"Secret" here has a different meaning. Geochurch is fond of media attention, he's been on Colbert, does big interviews, he promotes himself. I wouldn't be surprised if he contacted news himself afterward. Not knocking him here, this stuff isn't like a sex scandal, it doesn't exactly promote itself without effort, and I think people should be informed about this stuff.
I do doubt that he made it "secret" though specifically to make it more headline grabbing. I expect he made it closed so it woudln't be public disclosure and wouldn't prevent him from patenting stuff. IIRC, he's peripherally involved in the CRISPR patent that will likely generate billions. The technology reported here undoubtedly has a giant amount of potential if patented as well.
I have also heard statements that they made it closed so when published it would get into better journals and be more novel. I'm skeptical about this, as the top journals are still going to gobble it up, and also Church could practically record himself farting and it would be considered for "Science."
Obviously: Floridian refugees moving into your town. Do you want florida man living in a van near you?