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With all the shutdowns, Google is also foolishly throwing away what will be an increasingly important asset - distinguishing between real human identities and bots. False bot negatives waste Google computing resources, while false bot positives waste users' time.

I would happily opt in to having Google use AI on each of their services to see if I behave like a real human and then combine that information across services to give my identity a low-bot-risk rating. As it is I am constantly asked to Captcha prove myself (probably because I perform a large number of unusual complex search queries).

Black hat AI will make bots harder and harder to detect and cybercrime (and disinformation dissemination) easier and easier. Detecting fake identities will soon become crucial and yet almost impossible - and Google could be best positioned to provide that information.

But instead they will let MBA twit bean counters ruin the company. My advice to all corporations - keep MBAs in dungeons, bring them out occasionally for advice and never allow them to make decisions.

Different people learn in different ways. Unlike most people apparently I credit Mims with delaying my taking up electronics. I found his books a complete turn off when I was young - painfully unimaginative and boring. Mims books were the only books available at Radio Shack and in the US, Radio Shack for decades before hacker spaces was in most places the only place to begin to tinker with electronics. The high number of Mims books sold has a lot to do with those decades of "monopoly". The Art of Electronics is what worked for me and many others and I have three hard bound copies that are falling apart from overuse. There may be simpler, fewer- topics-covered alternatives that would be better for very young readers, but AoE is what most teachers in particular that I know swear by.

Stories about Mims always attract comments that make it clear that his writing inspired many to learn electronics. But to give some balance to the starry eyed impression left by the article and many such comments I suggest looking into his Wikipedia page [1] or any other source that talks about his creationist and climate change denialist views and how they have lead to controversy in his life.

I would also strongly recommend against his books for beginners now because even simple projects should at least consider alternatives based on microcontrollers and there are now much better and more comprehensive books that cover the basics that Mims covered and more modern alternatives. I would recommend The Art of Electronics [2] (older editions can be bought affordably) which incorporates learn- from- real- world- bad- design wisdom, and which has a sense of humor utterly lacking in Mims' writing.

1 (with controversy section) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forrest_Mims

2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Art_of_Electronics

The elephant that isn't in the room: China (one Hong Kong station and that's it). Anyone know if their government restricts streaming?

All over the world there are testosterone poisoned males engaging in as much obnoxious behavior as they can get away with (e.g. riding motorcycles with no mufflers). Particulary coming from the Southern US it is absolutely delightful to be in a place where "rednecks" are completley suppressed.

>plants/bacteria need additional energy in the form of sugars to pull carbon out of CO2 in the air.

Sorry perhaps this is not what you meant to write. For anyone who wants an unmangled understanding of photosynthesis please consult Wikipedia or other text of your choice.

There is every likely and unlikely combination of political beliefs to be found in every population including commune members. But I will go out on a limb and try to speak for that population. Relatively few see the communal life as a viable prescription for society as a whole, and most believe that all political and economic systems involve painful tradeoffs. On the other hand most look with horror at purist libertarians rejecting as much enforced sharing in general society as possible. This philosophy is irreconcilable with the view of many, inside and outside of communes who strongly believe that having many kinds of sharing - enforced by a government - is necessary for any civilization worth living in, and eternal vigilance against all slippery slopes presented by governments and corporations is unavoidable (and is not simply avoided by letting free markets run amuck). Many of us are thoroughly familiar with your arguments and adamantly reject them as dangerous, simplistic and in effect evil thinking that we will resist with everything we have.

Kind of like how anti-sense RNA works.

They could call it anti-adsense!

As someone who has spent time at East Wind and Acorn and taken the three week visitor program at Twin Oaks, I hardly know where to begin in disabusing you of the idea that these communities are libertarian. Very few members would self identify as such, and most abhor Hayak style libertarian prescriptions for society as a whole. Members have many motivations for joining but among the most common is wanting to equally share the fruits of their labor - to partially escape the exploitation of their fellow humans that unfettered unregulated capitalism inevitably produces, and which the US social safety net and graduated income taxes in particular only ameliorates inadequately. Twin Oaks publishes an Intentional Communities Directory [1] which has many listings for Europe (which may have more of an available land disadvantage). Twin Oaks has thrived since 1967 [2] and has a very large body of rules and procedures which is one of the ways they free themselves of problem individuals (other communities rely more on shunning which can be quite effective). Generally members are happy, exmembers are glad they lived there, and children are extremely well cared for. As to why there are few (but >0) second generation and lifelong members and as to how the communities coexist with the outside world - as many of them say about their relationship status "it's complicated".

1 https://www.ic.org/directory/ 2 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twin_Oaks_Community,_Virgini...

to summarize in consistent units:

Orris oil 50,000 euros per kg OP BBC story

Ambergris 1,140 euros per kg Wikipedia

Saffron 958-9,583 euros per kg Wikipedia

Mexico has only recently become a major poppy growing heroin producer. Before that the cartels were largely making money by dominating the flow of cocaine produced in South America. http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/english/mexico-primary-source-... A saying in Mexico is that the nation's troubles are due to being so far from God and so close to the United States.

Mostly off topic. Why has China produced most of the serious competition to US software titans? In particular, given that South Korea was way ahead of the rest of the world in cell phone and broadband universality for it's population, why haven't they been the birthplace of any social media or other internet companies that expanded abroad (instead they adopted YouTube and Facebook)?

"As in many animals, honey bees rely on their gut microbial community for a variety of functions, including food processing (25, 26), regulation of immune system (33, 34), and defense against pathogens (17, 27). Perturbations of this system have the potential to lead to negative consequences for host fitness. "

There have been many unexpected effects from the human introduction of long lived synthetic compounds into the environment. E.g. we had to learn the hard way about bioaccumulation and hormonal disruption. Now we are starting to see more and more cases [e.g. 1] where damage to microbiomes may be causing harm and we may need to make such effects part of safety screening and environmental monitoring. Could microbiome effects explain the crash in many insect populations around the world [2-4]?

1 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/1365-2656.12...

2 https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/jun/17/where-ha... 3 http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.... 4 https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Theo_Zeegers/publicatio...

Contradancing does not require any specific footwork and revolves around dancers flowing through and bonding with eventually all the other dancers in a line. It is an all ages activity (from babies in papooses to dancers pushing 100). It is possible for many with disabilities. Around the US I know contradancers who are completely blind and others who are deaf, are amputees or who are in (athlete style) wheelchairs. Engrained in the subculture is the idea that dancers gently guide other dancers who are drifting off course and they constantly adjust their style and speed to match the needs and preferences of each new dancer they meet.

A nice article for someone who knows nothing about Burning Man. If you've been, you will learn little that you don't already know. Burners choose to play in a difficult, often uncomfortable environment. They have a higher than average desire to be challenged - by everything from esoteric math and physics discussions to learning (as novices) moderately advanced contradancing (a radically inclusive danceform [1] that has been analyzed with matrices [2], disclaimer - my camp).

1 http://www.burningmancontradance.com/home/contraintro

2 https://ida.mtholyoke.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/10166/679/4...

The inherently self destructive nature of ICE's make it likely that ICE vehicles will always be more complex, less reliable/ higher maintenance than comparable all electric vehicles. The simplicity advantage of electric will soon take a quantum leap when driveshaft-free 4 motor all wheel drive vehicles hit the market [1].

On the other hand as long as batteries are heavy, ICE's will have a place in aircraft, and I would think the OP's technology could be huge for helicopters.

1 http://www.electric-vehiclenews.com/2017/06/hondas-all-elect...

For a line level palindrome homage to Douglas Hofstadter's Crab Canon see

https://juliagalef.com/2017/02/21/a-poem-for-douglas-hofstad...

What happened to the future where all our transactions were secured by trust rated escrow agents?

I went to a talk by someone who had switched fields to one that involved analyzing portions of cells. After showing a series of slides with diverse, confusing blobs and lines, he said "when I first started this work I would look at a section and not see anything at all. But I have improved to the point that now I can look at a section and see anything I want to".

I hold to my own metaconspiracy theory - that there is a conspiracy to create and promote conspiracy theories. It's Russians and rogue libertarians who want us to fear and hate each other and our government. I mean have you seen all the slick, high production YouTube videos describing the most ridiculous paranoid nonsense? Who's paying for all that? But I have only indirect evidence so I am only metaworried about it.

>tl;dr it can save 6% in a ideal situation, but the extra cost and logistical problems aren't worth it.

Unless you launch by means of a mass driver/rail gun [1] built into the side of Mt Everest with a piggy backed elevator for tourists. Tourists would arrive to a pressurized viewing area at the summit and have the option of donning an oxygen mask, going outside and posing for photos next to a cutout of Sir Hillary. I have never understood why serious rock climbing friends get so upset whenever I have mentioned this idea over the years.

1 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_driver

Thank you for this work. Would that other datasets had such an overseer

Every time this argument is made I wonder how capitalism would look if a fair comparison were made. All the mortality and cruelty of the slave trade and it's aftermath, all the genocide around the world that accompanied colonialism. Marx's ideas would not have created the defacto religious fervor they did if they had not created hope for an alternative to the horrors of 1800's capitalism. The real problem is that humans are too easily swayed by men seeking power who offer simplistic purist solutions. We are better off recognizing that we will always be in an unstable equilibrium where we work constantly creating changing complex mixtures of insights from Marx and Smith and wise humans of all stripes in a never ending battle against entropy and human nature.

Unfortunately "three human Plasmodium parasites" have been found in chimpanzees.

"If malignant malaria were eradicated from human populations, chimpanzees, in addition to gorillas, might serve as a reservoir for P. falciparum."

http://www.pnas.org/content/107/23/10561

"If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe" Carl Sagan (as in the Cosmos remix https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSgiXGELjbc)

Integrate into this mix all the future possibilities created by new materials and AI including better drones, flying cars, advanced forms of collapsible bicycles, and new forms of intercity transport including self carrying luggage and we can expect churn in the ways we transport ourselves and our stuff for a long time.

I would argue (only somewhat tongue in cheek) that our best hope for averting civil war is the obesity crisis - we are too out of shape and too unwilling to risk hunger, to turn our very real animosity for each other into armed conflict.

The definition of parole in this context https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parole_(United_States_immigr...

The amount of street lighting is a complex function (varying a great deal in space and time) of local budgets, changes to CFL/ led/ other technologies, and political desires on the one hand for the perception of fighting crime, and on the one hand much more rarely for less light pollution. I do not see that they controlled for any of this (and can't imagine how they could have). Possibly some of the cited papers that I did not look at might have tried to address this.

Thank you for the link, but there are a few details in the article that conflict with my understanding. Sadly I don't have time at the moment to do the research and write a well documented essay on this subject. I note that that the cited report was from 1997.

For now I'll limit my thoughts to just this:

It would be nice for donors and the general public if there was more transparency in:

the breakdown of end uses of the donated products the safety record of the products the risk calculations behind the deferment questions the accuracy of the blood testing