Daily (tech related) news diet

[martinayotte]

@chwe I've read your post before souper , I didn't read the whole story ...

During souper, watching TV, the same subject comes there in the news ...

In summary from Canadian's news, this chinese scientist is braking ethic rules a lot, the reportage says that if he would do what it did in Canada, he could ended-up with 10 years of prison.

I hope those "newly baken childs" won't become "monsters" since "crisp" isn't safe at all !

[chwe]

probably in most countries around the world. China has the most liberal laws when it comes to genetics.. Might be a reason why a bunch of researchers in this area moved to China..

 

On 11/28/2018 at 2:21 AM, martinayotte said:

I hope those "newly baken childs" won't become "monsters" since "crisp" isn't safe at all !

Depends on definition. As far as I know (and I'm neither an expert in genetics nor crispr), crispr as a technique should be save.. But I would assume we're far away from a complete understanding of our DNA... So we might 'cut out' peaces which shouldn't be cut out.

 

[this part may be a bit 'too general' but I think it's better not going too much into details here...]

Our DNA is the 'blueprint' for all the proteins and they organize then 'more or less' everything else. 3 nuclebases (T, A, C, G - called a codon) from our DNA coding for one amino-acid and a bunch of amino-acids 'glued' together together (sometimes) with some modifications form a protein.

There's some more stuff involved (e.g. RNA) but let's be simple here. Except Methionine (Met) there's always more than one combination which ends in for the same amino acid - nature is smart here, we've redundancy... But there are still possibilities which are not here in this list (e.g. AAA) this parts were called 'junk DNA' in the past before we figured out that it isn't junk... At least not all of it..

It's still not fully clear what the purpose of those non-coding areas of our DNA is for.. We might need it even when we don't understand (yet) what it is for. Also knock out a protein which might save this kids from HI-Virus might not be 'as cool' as you think.. Maybe the same protein has another job which we still need.. Well, only time can tell us if it was a 'good idea'. I personally think we shouldn't mess too much with stuff we don't understand. Interestingly, in a lot of tech-forums/ tech-sites the comments below such articles were more open to modify ourselfs.. Partly arguing with stuff like: humans don't have evolution pressure anymore that's why we should start to 'optimize' ourselfs cause nature can't help us anymore.. What an arrogant position and IMO complete bull shit! There's still evolutionary pressure, maybe not the same kind of pressure a bacteria has.. But not the same doesn't mean ours is weaker.. It's just a different one.

 

Personally I think let humans be humans, rice be rice and corn be corn, I'm not a big fan of GMO food (and newly GMO babies) but our American friend here might have a different opinion on this.. It solves us some problems, but it might open new ones in the future (a bit like nuclear plants )..

 

On 11/28/2018 at 2:21 AM, martinayotte said:

with 10 years of prison.

well but he's still the first..

 

I think this liberal stand-point on genetics 'motivated' researcher to try something like that. If you think you don't have to fear the consequences for doing something like that, you might do it. Let's see what happens.

[TonyMac32]

I try to eat organic when available and cost effective.  I also grow my own vegetables in the summer.  I also cut all the high-fructose corn syrup and a lot of sugar out of my diet, unless I need something to mix my rum or whisky with. 

 

Playing with genetics seems a risky game, but then again scientists love diving into the unknown and the loud ones live lives of pure hubris, thinking their tiny addition to the sum of humanity's knowledge somehow makes them a god.  

[chwe]

I made bacteria lightening green years ago.. Am I god now?

 

 

The gene came from some animals living in the ocean and expressed in a bunch of different cells.. mostly bacteria like E. Coli...

If you now freak around with this gene-sequence you'll end like this:

 

Quote

The diversity of genetic mutations is illustrated by this San Diego beach scene drawn with living bacteria expressing 8 different colors of fluorescent proteins (derived from GFP and dsRed)

 

 

but it's not just joking around making pictures with bacteria you normally find in your toilet...  Normally you add those GFP gene-sequences to something interesting. E.g to a protein of interest. With a fluorescence-microscope you can now look were this protein is:

 

or when attached to cells in animals it looks like this:

and no, that's not photoshop... those mice 'light' up green when exposed to UV light. Normally such experiments are strictly controlled, you're not allowed to manipulate a mouse without clearance from the govt. You write a proposal and govt. and people related to ethics check it if it's ethically acceptable and if it's worth. In china the 'bars' for such an approval are lower that's why a lot of researcher in this field moved to China. I've never worked with animals so I never had to deal with such proposals.

 

[TonyMac32]

Behold the @chwe!  He brought light to the Goo!

 

16 hours ago, chwe said:

those mice 'light' up green when exposed to UV light

I see no downside to fluorescent mice and rats, as long as the genes don't make them poisonous to all the benefiting cats.

 

[chwe]

https://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2018/12/15/the-face-in-the-feces-nature-paper-hides-trumps-visage-in-a-monkey-turd/

 

well read it on your own.. I better don't comment on this one..

 

Only thing I can tell you cause I've access to the full-paper (paywall).. it is there, it's not some sort of a 'hoax'.. chance that this happens 'by mistake' are rather low cause you normally check your stuff really well before send it to nature (they only accept roughly 10% of the stuff which people want to publish in it... ).

[chwe]

German politicians may realize that collecting too much data can bite them back...

 

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Gehackte-Daten-Politiker-beklagen-schweren-Angriff-auf-die-Demokratie-4265847.html (German)

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/01/04/germany_mass_hack_merkel/ (English)

 

Quote

"Contact details such as hundreds of mobile phone numbers and addresses of politicians from the Bundestag and partly also from state politics were reported,"

 

Besides politicians (from most parties except the one which sits on the right side of the Bundestag) also journalists and a few comedians were targeted. Welcome to #Neuland! They might realize that data collection isn't always the best option.. Just a few weeks back Germany's 'Digital State Minister' claimed that privacy in health care data blocks the country from 'being on top in digitization'.. (https://www.onlinepc.ch/business/digitalisierung/datenschutz-blockiert-digitales-gesundheitswesens-1664217.html) well, hopefully all her friends in the party which have a leaked phone numbers tell her that privacy isn't such a bad thing.. (I've no idea if her number was leaked as well, but it might help her to understand how much privacy is worth)...

 

 

 

 

[NicoD]

Don`t ever give your kids a name, use a whistle sound instead. You`ll spare them a lot of misery.

`Hey pfwwwtwt, go help pfjuttfju do the dishes.`

That`s what you get when `professional politicians` take decisions what should be made by professionals in the given domain. They know almost nothing about it, in times where everything keeps getting more complicated.
And listening to experts isn`t their best aspect. They must always know better...
 

Germany + collecting data = bad memories

[chwe]

38 minutes ago, NicoD said:

That`s what you get when `professional politicians` take decisions what should be made by professionals in the given domain.

well we have what you would call a militia parliament.. It's not always that they understand stuff better.. But hey.. data is the new oil.. we might need a few exxon valdez'es or deep water horizons to figure out how this new oil is handled safely..

some other bad jokes..

• we don't understand it fully yet but let's build up a cartel (that's some years ago for the real oil)...
• wherever the pipeline goes.. someone is upset
• once it's in the environment it needs years until it disappears..

seems that this 'dataset' also contains information of their kids (account-names etc.), maybe this helps them a bit to understand the issue better...

 

 

feeling like grandpa simpson

[Tido]

11 hours ago, chwe said:

may realize that collecting too much data can bite them back

I suppose this a call from you against: Vorratsdatenspeicherung

While in this case no Internet-Provider where hacked, they mention AWS, Twitter and such instead.

 

As nobody from the right side was attacked, it looks to me like a strike to the left. Well, the Munich guy who kicked Linux away in favor of Microsoft  got hopefully hacked too :-)

[lxde-OSIREN]

wow.. nice bacteria rick and morty fun  

 

[TonyMac32]

http://www.fdk.com/whatsnew-e/release20181217-e.html

 

Ridiculously low energy, but interesting 

[chwe]

As those doing in science know, Elsevier journals tend to be rather expensive (so for example Tetrahedron, one in my field has an annual subscription fee of ~14k $ for print - keep in mind, normally you read through ~10-50 different journals of your field to get a broad overview of what happens, doesn't mean that you read everything of them it's more like cherry-picking the hopefully good commits) but also often qualitative... Since years libraries and universities complain about those fees but Elsevier didn't really listen to them... This might change in the future cause more and more universities just drop the journal fully or partly (means that they try to publish their results elsewhere, don't provide free peer-review to their journals anymore and don't buy those unlimited access contracts anymore). Nevertheless even journal editors now leave elsevier to found a competitive journal which will be open access..

 

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/01/14/elsevier-journal-editors-resign-start-rival-open-access-journal

 

 

[chwe]

for whatever reason a 'clone gene-sequence into animal and express it' paper got some media attention:

https://futurism.com/genetically-modified-chickens-cancer-drug/

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46993649

 

for those not so familiar with this.. it's not the first time.. people already cloned a spider gene coding for the fiber proteins into goats (no not tom brady :D).. and a few other.. The goal is always to produce *random proteins* cheaper as when you do it in cell cultures. Depending on which cells you must use for it, keeping them alive isn't as easy - people try to use cells like E. coli as often as possible, unfortunately those bacteria cells can't 'grow' everything, bacteria is a rather simple organism.. not able to do the same post-transnational modifications as eukaryotes.. Keeping eukaryotes alive in cell culture medium is expensive (e.g. a lot of work to keep everything sterile).. let an animal do the job might be cheaper as a 'living bioreactor'.. somehow similar to the vaccines and their first trials.

 

 

[chwe]

 

happens when you take a nap during your statistic courses.. seeing A, thinking about B and conclude C.. Unfortunately, it's not only he who should be blamed for it.. Quite a long time we tried to fit every storm, hot weather period, *random climatic phenomena* into this 'climate change thing'.. Not as surprisingly people don't believe it anymore.. The worst thing you can do to a field of science is to steal its trustworthiness.. And at least for a (growing) fraction of the population we must conclude that we achieved this since a few years now.. Well done...

[TonyMac32]

Yeah, it becomes a problem when we get a hurricane that is a 10 or 25 year phenomenon:. "OMG global warming", and then the same people say "So what if Michigan is an icicle? That's just weather". Both sides practice this fallacy, and both sound stupid doing it, it is destructive to science itself, not to mention making world leaders look stupid.


Sent from my Pixel using Tapatalk

[chwe]

53 minutes ago, TonyMac32 said:

not to mention making world leaders look stupid.

well, I'm quite confident that they don't need 'our help' in those days to look stupid..

 

In case someone asks it's mostly the Austrians and the Germans fault why we can observe greenhouse gases (Boltzmann & Planck). For those wanna lock smarter as they are...  A heretical explanation which 'works' is that every gas consisting more than two atoms is a greenhouse gas (e.g. the famous CO2). To be a greenhouse gas, a gas has to absorb near-IR radiation. If you dive now into quantum physics, only so called vibrational& vibrational-rotational transition which change the dipole moment of a molecule are allowed. If you compare now CO2 (greenhouse gas) and N2 (not a greenhouse gas):

Carbon dioxide has two normal modes (2&3) which end in a change of the dipole moment (and one mode without such a change) whereas Nitrogen gas hasn't such a normal mode (only a symmetric stretch). But before we dive more into smart ass mode... I'm by no mean an expert in quantum mechanics I'm more like Dwayne Johnson in No pain no gain... Luckily, smarter people at Harvard rolled the topic better up that I could do it ever on myself from a quantum mechanical standpoint. Feel free to dive into it:

http://acmg.seas.harvard.edu/people/faculty/djj/book/bookchap7.html

They don't try to make up conclusions which their data doesn't cover.. They just try to explain it for people at least somehow able to understand quantum mechanics basically. Unfortunately there aren't as many 'scientific journalists' around the world to analyze and understand scientific papers to come to the right conclusion. In fact they mostly try to catch up some 'dramatic looking' sentences inside a publication to get some attention assuming that every sentence in a publication is so 'well-crafted' that it must be still valid if you change it a little bit. A *random expert* adds then some other dramatic sentences as well and there you get your 'it's the global warming, stupid'-article..  Small hint, not every scientific publication is on such a high level and it needs a lot of skills to break down such an article to make it understandable for the average joe and still being scientifically correct. Unfortunately it often ends in "reading A, thinking it means B and conclude C".. Maybe we could do better try to explain what our research tries to achieve in a manner that the 'average joe' also partly understands what we're doing... Not every detail, but at least partly..

[chwe]

due to digging a bit around for the R2.. this one came up:

https://cateee.net/lkddb/web-lkddb/DRM_FBDEV_LEAK_PHYS_SMEM.html

 

https://patchwork.kernel.org/patch/10619843/

 

 

[chwe]

https://medium.com/@jeffreypbezos/no-thank-you-mr-pecker-146e3922310f

 

seriously? As head of a crappy newspaper you write a mail to jeff bezos hopping that he gets silent once he knows that you've a dickpic of him? With a, whenever you talk about it we'll release the dickpic move in the end??

Quote

6. In the case of a breach of the agreement by one or more of the Bezos Parties, AM is released from its obligations under the agreement, and may publish the Unpublished Materials.

 

you better don't use amazon services for your newspapers it might have some 'maintenance shutdowns' the next days... But here's a blackmailer 101 course for you.. Your target has to believe that the issue is solved after it accepts your deal. Means he gets back the dickpic and is save for the future.. Claiming that you'll keep the pics anyway isn't a smart move.. Cause people don't want to fear that those pics are released in the future..

[chwe]

original isn't available anymore: https://medium.com/@EuropeanCommission/the-copyright-directive-how-the-mob-was-told-to-save-the-dragon-and-slay-the-knight-b35876008f16

But well 'Neuland' dosn't forget things..

https://web.archive.org/web/20190215114522/https://medium.com/@EuropeanCommission/the-copyright-directive-how-the-mob-was-told-to-save-the-dragon-and-slay-the-knight-b35876008f16

____________________________________________

At least Europeans here might be aware of the new copyright thingie the union is preparing.. The first one didn't work that well, so let's add some golden color to this shitbag and hope it passes this time... (unfortunately It's likely that this approach will work..)

 

 

Some insights from the blogpost:

 

Quote

Oh and by the way, no matter what some people (and paid-for campaigns) may tell you, you will never be prevented from having a laugh online. WE ARE NOT BANNING MEMES.

well.. If memes is the thing you think is the most important part of the new copyright laws.. you got it wrong..

 

Quote

Furthermore, there is ample evidence from respected sources, here and here and perhaps here or here or indeed here that ‘Big Technology’ has even ‘created’ grassroots campaigns against the Copyright Directive in order to make it look and sound as if the EU is acting against the ‘will of the people’.

Sorry guy.. If you're an official speaker/writer for the govt./union you shouldn't sound like Sarah Huckabee Sanders nor Kellyanne Conway, otherwise those memes you're so concerned about will show up immediately. 

 

Quote

Information on the Copyright Directive:

• What is the new Copyright Directive all about? (FAQs)
• Some of the common questions around the directive
• Press Release
• Factsheet

 

If a factsheet starts with the 'kissing uncle' jean claude, most people will just laugh at you.. But it's fun to see that the author complains about FB, Twitter, Google etc. and the whole factsheet is full twitter hashtags..

Spoiler

 

and since memes are really important:

 

 

If you want at least sound like you're somehow objective on a topic.. you address at least some of the concerns people have about those new copyright laws.. And don't call everyone against it an blinded dumbass...

(tl;dr he thought that google trolled him cause everybody who wrote him that the new copyright shit he's a fan of wrote from a gmail account.. so it must be fake)

Cause, these 'internet-trolls' are actually real people.. Well, he might have his enlightening moment that those 'neuland' people are real and not algorithm based garbage (or at least partly.. )

 

https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Wir-sind-die-Bots-ueber-1000-demonstrieren-gegen-Artikel-13-4311105.html

 

 

[NicoD]

I can't see any use for this law. Tech companies don't want it, the people don't want it. Only the politicians want it, why? So we wouldn't laugh with them anymore or what? No idea.

I do not understand memes(maybe too old, or just too autistic to understand it), so I don't use it. So that's no problem for me.(I do think everybody must be free to do so)
I'm a content creator and musician. I don't care my content and music is being used. My music is listened too in Russia, on sites where I didn't add it. No idea how, who and why it got there. But I don't care, I like it that people are interested in it. Nobody in Belgium is...
My videos are copied to Chinese websites, I don't get views for that. I don't care.
I think people are just too greedy, and think of rules how they can have more. You've seen it with the music business when MP3's became a thing. Miljionaires like Metallica who feared they'd have a million less, so they'd better sue Napster. For musicians who are not famous free music is the easiest way to be picked up. So they do better with mp3's and free music.

I want money when I play live music, I think that's normal. But when music is played digitally, then I don't see how I could own that. Music must be free to listnen to for everybody in my opinion.
It may not be something only for the "rich" who can pay for it. The same with all art/knowledge.

In my opinion copyrights and patents are for the most very bad. They slow down/stop creativity, innovation, the growing of talent, ....
But I'm mostly alone in most of my opinions, so they don't matter much...
@chwe good read. Tnx for the info, I'm not very aware of all those things.

PS.
In Belgium we're bussy demonstrating for the climate, so it's up to the rest of Europe to demonstrate against this.

[chwe]

2 hours ago, NicoD said:

In Belgium we're bussy demonstrating for the climate, so it's up to the rest of Europe to demonstrate against this.

(he has more of them..)

 

I don't care much about memes.. Sometimes I float @TonyMac32 on PM with some (more or less good ones)... I do understand that artists  (let's call content generators artists too) need to get some revenue out of their work. They spend hours and hours to produce stuff to entertain or inform people on youtube etc... And I think they should participate more from the money google makes with youtube. In the good old days when people still bought CDs and LPs concerts were cheaper cause the band made their money with selling you discs.. I've no idea how much I would pay now for an AC/DC concert.. I assume it's a way more than I paid 10 years ago.. But thinking that only google and FB are against the new copyright law is similar stupid as to claim that only the german newspapers are pro the new copyright law (they have some famous history with their "Leistungsschutzrecht" which turned out to be a 'dead horse' cause they need google more than google needs them - just ask @JMCC how it worked for Spanish newspapers when they thought google will pay them)...

Copyright & patents makes sense to a certain point,  e.g. costs for your research is protected due to patents so that you can make some money until someone else makes money based on your research, not everyone can make/ is willing to make everything open source.. But the only way to avoid 'protected' content on youtube etc. would be to install some 'machine learning/ deep learning' upload filters and I'm not a fan of such an infrastructure - it will make mistakes and those mistakes matters.. Content creators should get a fair amount of the money google makes with them and they should have an easy way to use snippets from other 'content creators' -  so that they participate a second time in case their stuff is reused for something else..  But well, Americans would probably call me a socialist for this opinion...

Calling someone else more or less a google/facebook brainwashed stupid moron only cause he doesn't agree with your opinion is IMO dump.. People might have other opinions or your copyright law that you have.. And if you call them stupid, brainwashed, internet troll etc. they might remember it and vote for someone else the next time they can.. Unfortunately most parties against those 'new copyright law' are seeded on the far right or far left so you better take them serious if you want to avoid a crippled sythem (like the American) where it only matters that democrats throwing dirt to republicans and vice versa.. Progress seems to be rather slow in such a system (as someone seeing it only from an outer point of view)..

[TonyMac32]

1 hour ago, chwe said:

But well, Americans would probably call me a socialist for this opinion... 

I don't see where the government is extorting money from you in that scenario, so no, not a socialist. 

 

1 hour ago, chwe said:

you want to avoid a crippled sythem (like the American) 

 

I am a third party member, you're preaching to the choir.  :-P

[NicoD]

53 minutes ago, chwe said:

But the only way to avoid 'protected' content on youtube etc. would be to install some 'machine learning/ deep learning' upload filters and I'm not a fan of such an infrastructure -

It is already like that for a while. I for example can't upload any travel video's of mine if I put famous music onto it. It's blocked immediatly. Some artists do allow it, but you've got to know which ones. 
 

 

57 minutes ago, chwe said:

I do understand that artists  (let's call content generators artists too) need to get some revenue out of their work. They spend hours and hours to produce stuff to entertain or inform people on youtube etc...

When there's money exchanged and 3rd partys earn, yes, Youtube must pay the content makes, since they create the revenue for Youtube. When cd's are sold, yes the artist must earn. But why should you have to pay for an mp3 what's just data. Nobody loses money and nobody gains money. 
When you play a gig, then the organiser earn money, so the musician should earn too. 

 

1 hour ago, chwe said:

costs for your research is protected due to patents so that you can make some money until someone else makes money based on your research,

I do not agree with that. I find this counterproductive, and there so much abuse because of it. Products that are sold for 10x what's it worth. Certainly in medicine it's very bad. Pharma extorts people and goverments with medicine prices. Many times public money payed for the research, and universities done the work. Still the patent goes to some pharma company who missuses it.
Knowledge should be public for everybody to know/learn. imo. 
 

 

1 hour ago, chwe said:

But well, Americans would probably call me a socialist for this opinion... 

....
 

 

1 hour ago, chwe said:

Calling someone else more or less a google/facebook brainwashed stupid moron only cause he doesn't agree with your opinion is IMO dump.. People might have other opinions or your copyright law that you have.. And if you call them stupid, brainwashed, internet troll etc. they might remember it and vote for someone else the next time they can..

I do not really get how you come upon that. I'm always nice to everybody even when opinions differ. I love to talk to people with another view. And politicians who call others stupid and blame everyone except themselfs for problems that don't even excist do get elected.  We've got them in the Belgian goverment, and many other countries too. Like the orange man in the start of your last post.

 

1 hour ago, chwe said:

Progress seems to be rather slow in such a system (as someone seeing it only from an outer point of view)..

You can't make good compromises with extremists. 
 

[chwe]

32 minutes ago, NicoD said:

I do not really get how you come upon that.

huh.. that wasn't addressed to you.. more to the politicians I quoted in my starter.. not that you get me wrong on this one..

 

35 minutes ago, NicoD said:

But why should you have to pay for an mp3 what's just data. Nobody loses money and nobody gains money. 

well, they might sold less discs.. Production cost for studio etc. are still here.. but the whole music industry was a way to late to get the money out.. Now spotify and apple music gets a large amount of it.. It's not that they didn't saw it.. Napster was a clear signal that they should find a way to deliver their content and make some money out of it..

 

43 minutes ago, NicoD said:

Pharma extorts people and goverments with medicine prices. Many times public money payed for the research, and universities done the work. Still the patent goes to some pharma company who missuses it.

well that's a difficult crippled topic.. I worked in pharma for several years and currently doing pharma related research at university ergo govt. funded. Not everything there is govt. funded, pharma companies also spend a huge amount into research.. This might be a good one if you want to dive into this topic ( @martinayotte, didn't even know that your country has pharma... ): https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5848527/

I'm not willing to nail down this fully, it's a way too much to consider to 'get the big picture'.. Pharma related research is unbelievable expensive.. Rule of thumb, if a device can be used for pharma related research it's roughly 10x the price you would expect.. The actual production costs of a drug is quite often only a small fraction of the price you pay for it.. The majority goes into other channels, including research, customer promotion and also a bigger amount into dividends - just look how much dividends a pharma-company pays yearly to its shareholders, you wouldn't expect it..

 

Not cause I would prefer an open knowledge world everyone has to agree on my opinion.. People should be free to choose a closed environment if they want..

[Tido]

totally off topic, but it won't let you go  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaUAyawLTEA

 

[chwe]

2 hours ago, Tido said:

totally off topic,

let's immediately remove it..

 

 

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3336227/security/nest-secure-had-a-secret-microphone-can-now-be-a-google-assistant.html

 

holly shit.. that made my day.. Hey we got caught by spying.. It's now a feature..

 

Protip: if it's a mems microphone.. just thread it 5-6 seconds with your soldering iron once you spotted it.. A mems normally doesn't survive heat...

[chwe]

seriously? taking the money once from your prisoners isn't enough?

https://www.heise.de/downloads/18/2/6/0/7/4/8/3/Demler-v-Inch-Complaint-Filed-07202845xB3B17.pdf

 

I hope really he wins this one..

 

Edit: It's in English so you can read it..

[TonyMac32]

2 hours ago, chwe said:

I hope really he wins this one.. 

I do as well.  Violating the constitution is a serious problem, even if the government is 100% funded by theft, erm "taxes". 

[Tido]

6 hours ago, TonyMac32 said:

by theft, erm "taxes"

Then you should listen to #866: Modern Monetary Theory  from Planet Money  while commute for example it is just 17 minutes