Group items tagged

"Phil Shapiro The best role models for any cause, open source or otherwise, are people you would admire even if they didn't support your cause. In other words, your support of open source will be more meaningful if you strive to be a good person."

"To solve Windows 10 system crashes, you need to understand what causes the dreaded Blue Screen of Death in Windows 10. "

"Executive Summary GMO Myths and Truths report Genetically modified (GM) crops are promoted on the basis of a range of far-reaching claims from the GM crop industry and its supporters. They say that GM crops: Are an extension of natural breeding and do not pose different risks from naturally bred crops Are safe to eat and can be more nutritious than naturally bred crops Are strictly regulated for safety Increase crop yields Reduce pesticide use Benefit farmers and make their lives easier Bring economic benefits Benefit the environment Can help solve problems caused by climate change Reduce energy use Will help feed the world. However, a large and growing body of scientific and other authoritative evidence shows that these claims are not true. On the contrary, evidence presented in this report indicates that GM crops: Are laboratory-made, using technology that is totally different from natural breeding methods, and pose different risks from non-GM crops Can be toxic, allergenic or less nutritious than their natural counterparts Are not adequately regulated to ensure safety Do not increase yield potential Do not reduce pesticide use but increase it Create serious problems for farmers, including herbicide-tolerant "superweeds", compromised soil quality, and increased disease susceptibility in crops Have mixed economic effects Harm soil quality, disrupt ecosystems, and reduce biodiversity Do not offer effective solutions to climate change Are as energy-hungry as any other chemically-farmed crops Cannot solve the problem of world hunger but distract from its real causes - poverty, lack of access to food and, increasingly, lack of access to land to grow it on. Based on the evidence presented in this report, there is no need to take risks with GM crops when effective, readily available, and sustainable solutions to the problems that GM technology is claimed to address already

"by Monica Thunder on March 26, 2015 Combine the number of overdose deaths caused by heroin and cocaine, and you still haven't matched the number of deaths caused by pharmaceutical prescription medications each year in the United States. In fact, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, pharmaceutical abuse was responsible for about 23,000 deaths in 2013 - that's more than half of the overdose deaths in the U.S. that year."

"This BIOS replacement, UEFI, caused some serious problems with "alternative" platforms. For some time, it was thought UEFI would render Linux uninstallable on any system certified for Windows 8 and up. Eventually Microsoft saw fit to require vendors to include a switch that allowed users to disable UEFI, so that their favorite Linux distribution could be installed. And then some Linux distributions set out to fully support Secure Boot (Red Hat, Ubuntu, SUSE, to name a few). "

"This BIOS replacement, UEFI, caused some serious problems with "alternative" platforms. For some time, it was thought UEFI would render Linux uninstallable on any system certified for Windows 8 and up. Eventually Microsoft saw fit to require vendors to include a switch that allowed users to disable UEFI, so that their favorite Linux distribution could be installed. And then some Linux distributions set out to fully support Secure Boot (Red Hat, Ubuntu, SUSE, to name a few). "

"from the time-for-a-change dept Here on Techdirt we've written many times about the problematic nature of drug patents. They are harmful both directly, in terms of the price distortions they cause and seek to spread to new markets, and indirectly, through the lobbying that the pharma industry deploys to strengthen and extend them, notably in trade agreements such as TPP and TAFTA/TTIP. "

"from the time-for-a-change dept Here on Techdirt we've written many times about the problematic nature of drug patents. They are harmful both directly, in terms of the price distortions they cause and seek to spread to new markets, and indirectly, through the lobbying that the pharma industry deploys to strengthen and extend them, notably in trade agreements such as TPP and TAFTA/TTIP. "

"Ken Starks It's the way of The Internet. What was once a raging firefight between two or more factions, is now a topic dead and forgotten somewhere on Slashdot or within other piles of forgotten Internetia. What was once a topic or cause over which to go to war, now only survives as fodder for The Oatmeal or other hip and funny sites. I'm talking about former the-tempests-in-a-teapot for such things as: #systemd #Mir #it_is_GNU/Linux_you_luddite Well, you get the idea…"

"Ken Starks It's the way of The Internet. What was once a raging firefight between two or more factions, is now a topic dead and forgotten somewhere on Slashdot or within other piles of forgotten Internetia. What was once a topic or cause over which to go to war, now only survives as fodder for The Oatmeal or other hip and funny sites. I'm talking about former the-tempests-in-a-teapot for such things as: #systemd #Mir #it_is_GNU/Linux_you_luddite Well, you get the idea…"

"You don't have to look very far to get head-bangingly upset about the current state of medical and scientific research. Pfizer (maybe) hid evidence that Zoloft use by pregnant women caused heart defects in babies. GlaxoSmithKlein paid $3 billion in fines for a) generating a fake journal article"

"You don't have to look very far to get head-bangingly upset about the current state of medical and scientific research. Pfizer (maybe) hid evidence that Zoloft use by pregnant women caused heart defects in babies. GlaxoSmithKlein paid $3 billion in fines for a) generating a fake journal article"

"The brains of people who get chills when the right song comes on are wired differently than others"

"The brains of people who get chills when the right song comes on are wired differently than others"

"Marco Torres, Prevent Disease Waking Times Hundreds of millions of people indulge in one of the most dangerous drugs which is sold right over the counter. When it comes to harm done to other people and the users themselves, not heroin, crack cocaine, methamphetamines, marijuana or even tobacco come close to the health and safety hazards caused by this one depressant."

" What really causes addiction - to everything from cocaine to smart-phones? And how can we overcome it? Johann Hari has seen our current methods fail firsthand, as he has watched loved ones struggle to manage their addictions. He started to wonder why we treat addicts the way we do - and if there might be a better way. As he shares in this deeply personal talk, his questions took him around the world, and unearthed some surprising and hopeful ways of thinking about an age-old problem. "

"What OpenAI Will Do OpenAI's researchers will be encouraged to publish their work, and any patents awarded will be shared with everyone. They will collaborate freely with both institutions and corporate entities. Today's AI systems are outstanding when it comes to pattern recognition problems, but they're limited to those. OpenAI plans to work to remove those constraints until computers eventually can reach human performance on virtually every intellectual task, Brockman and Sutskever wrote. Doing so correctly could be of huge benefit -- or it could cause incalculable harm. OpenAI's investors consider it important to have a leading research institution that "can prioritize a good outcome for all over its own self-interest," they said. "

Human evolution presents a puzzle. Nothing seems to explain the sudden takeoff of the last 45,000 years-the conversion of just another rare predatory ape into a planet dominator with rapidly progressing technologies. Once "progress" started to produce new tools, different ways of life and burgeoning populations, it accelerated all over the world, culminating in agriculture, cities, literacy and all the rest. Yet all the ingredients of human success-tool making, big brains, culture, fire, even language-seem to have been in place half a million years before and nothing happened. Tools were made to the same monotonous design for hundreds of thousands of years and the ecological impact of people was minimal. Then suddenly-bang!-culture exploded, starting in Africa. Why then, why there?

"the note-taking group performed much worse"