“Loss of smell can be life-changing; it removes an important part of your sense of self,” says Chrissi Kelly, founder of the UK-based charity AbScent, which supports people who have lost the ability to smell. “Smell signals give depth to our social interactions. Erase all that, and your experience of the world is two-dimensional.”
Category Archives: Things I Read
#NASAPOD today is really, really an eye-catcher.
Awesome Arches pic with full moon is staring at me from my #KDE background. I like the extension that serves me new pics every day, like those from NASA from Zachery Cooley.
Eco25 Jury Work in Covid Times … Laudator I am.
Wie, ihr kennt #Donwilhelmsit nicht?
Spoiler: Donwilhelmsit hat eine lange Reise hinter sich, durchs ganze Sonnensystem und wieder zurück zu Erde. Was ich nicht verstehe: Ich dachte, der Mond war ein Teil der Erde?
Unbekanntes Mineral in Mondgestein gefunden – DER SPIEGEL
#globalchange is coming – Das Pandemiezeitalter inclusive
Das Pandemiezeitalter muss nicht kommen – Gesundheit – SZ.de
“Wenn wir nicht rasch gegensteuern, werden wir schon sehr bald wesentlich öfter Pandemien erleben, die sich noch schneller ausbreiten als Covid-19, noch tödlicher verlaufen und die globale Wirtschaft in noch tiefere Krisen stürzen, als wir sie jetzt erleben.”
13.3 quadrillion plastic fibers in California’s environment
A study in California has laid bare the staggering scale of pollution from plastic microfibers in synthetic clothing – one of the most widespread, yet largely invisible, forms of plastic waste.
Perfect Weapon
In under an hour and a half, The Perfect Weapon blisters through the proliferation of cyberwarfare in the last decade-plus: how offensive ransomware and disinformation campaigns have morphed from a undercover sideshow – as late as 2007, cyberwarfare was not even listed as a pressing concern on the US military’s threat assessment – into a relatively cheap, accessible and potentially devastating staple of international relations.
A good read, I am sure: Security Engineering 3rd Edition (PDFs)
Security Engineering – A Guide to Building Dependable Distributed Systems
Security Engineering — Third Edition
open sourced TransCoder
Deep learning to translate between programming languages
We’ve developed and open sourced TransCoder , an entirely self-supervised neural transcompiler system that can make code migration far easier and more efficient. Our method is the first AI system able to translate code from one programming language to another without requiring parallel data for training. We’ve demonstrated that TransCoder can successfully translate functions between C++, Java, and Python 3. TransCoder outperforms open source and commercial rule-based translation programs. In our evaluations, the model correctly translates more than 90 percent of Java functions to C++, 74.8 percent of C++ functions to Java, and 68.7 percent of functions from Java to Python. In comparison, a commercially available tool translates only 61.0 percent of functions correctly from C++ to Java, and an open source translator is accurate for only 38.3 percent of Java functions translated into C++.
distancing, mask-wearing could be in place for 2-3 years even with vaccine
#flogw: Damage uncovered on Antarctic glaciers reveals worrying signs for sea level rise
So viel nachhaltiger: Ende Gelände – Aktivist:innen organisieren eigenes Corona-Tracing
Of course. On-sites instead of In-Office work: Google is first, again.
Google’s Sundar Pichai says future of office is employee ‘on-sites’ – Business Insider
That is why we are here: “Coronavirus: WHO hält Italien für Vorbild”
Danone – Volvic – Mineralwasser: Selbstverpflichtungen haben noch nie geholfen
“Im französischen Volvic fördert der Danone-Konzern riesige Mengen Mineralwasser und bringt die Bevölkerung gegen sich auf. Dort versiegt nun ein Fluss – und der Konzern hat ein warnendes Gutachten zurückgehalten.”
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“Hier abgepumpte Wassermengen sollten dem Grundwasser später wieder zugeführt werden, ist in den Genehmigungsunterlagen zu lesen. Der Konzern solle das “Gesamt-Resultat” dieses Vorhabens selbst überwachen,heißt es weiter.”
Volvic: Wasser marsch! | ZEIT ONLINE
#hingey #hingeyness. #21c Are we living at the ‘hinge of history’? – BBC Future
USA – a split nation before CW2? #toldyouso
Secret ‘Man Cave’ Discovered Below Grand Central
We did that too, but in the eighties… And we did not have the equipment… But a tv and a vcr … and a sofa
Assange: How the US and UK try to silence journalism
The prosecution will be all too happy when coverage of Assange’s extradition hearing devolves into irrelevant tangents and smears. It matters little that Assange’s beard was the result of his shaving kit having been confiscated, or that reports of Paul Manafort visiting him in the embassy were proven to be fabricated. By the time these petty claims are refuted, the damage will be done. At best, public debate over the real issues will be derailed; at worst, public opinion will be manipulated in favour of the establishment.
(…)
It pushes out how Assange’s 2010 publications exposed 15,000 previously uncounted civilian casualties in Iraq, casualties that the US Army would have buried. It pushes out the fact that the United States is attempting to accomplish what repressive regimes can only dream of: deciding what journalists around the globe can and cannot write. It pushes out the fact that all whistleblowers and journalism itself, not just Assange, is on trial here.