I loved this movie - the pace of the movie picks up slowly but all the actors have done a brilliant job.
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Traveling Salesman (P = NP)
I loved this movie - the pace of the movie picks up slowly but all the actors have done a brilliant job.
Quote of the Day
We humans, as a species, are interested in communication with extraterrestrial intelligence. Would not a good beginning be improved communication with terrestrial intelligence... with those intelligent masters of the deep, the great whales?
- Carl Sagan
- Carl Sagan
Friday, August 5, 2016
On Mutant Mosquitoes In Florida - They're More Afraid Of The Hero Than The Monster
For one thing, he knows the mosquito is the deadliest creature on earth, the No. 1 killer of humans. Every year sharks kill 10 people. Mosquitoes kill 725,000. The second-biggest killer is other humans, and still, they claim only 500,000 lives.
[---]
So much misinformation is out there. He doesn't know what to do anymore, except keep telling people: Male mosquitoes don't bite. If female mosquitoes are modified and bite you, they can't transfer their DNA. Your children won't become sterile. There is no way for the mosquitoes to mutate. This is unnatural, but it is safe. So many natural things can kill you. The bubonic plague. AIDS. If only he could shake them awake to Zika.
[---]
"There's a lot of information out there — some misinformation — and I want to cover a number of things." This is Michael Doyle, opening the June 22 meeting of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District board of commissioners.
The board typically meets in Marathon, but on this evening, given the topic, it's in the old city hall building in downtown Key West. When the doors open, you can hear the laughter from the bar on the corner, an old haunt of Ernest Hemingway's called Sloppy Joe's.
There is a full crowd, and Doyle plans to take advantage. He starts by reminding the people how deadly the mosquito is and how easy local transmission of Zika would be.
Doyle reminds his audience that DNA is not spread through a mosquito bite. When they eat hamburgers, they are exposed to billions of pieces of cow DNA. They do not become cows. Humans have been bitten by mosquitoes for all of history without taking on their genetic code.
He reminds them that he has a 12-year-old daughter. And that the trial isn't an experiment on humans. "It's how well can this mosquito crash the Aedes aegypti population," he says, reminding them that the FDA, CDC and EPA have found nothing dangerous to humans or the environment.
Then he turns the microphone over to the people.
"Arrogance," says Howard Hubbard.
"There hasn't been enough information," says Mike Tinnell.
"I just wish everybody would slow down a little bit," says Bill Spottswood.
"Experiments are done in a lab," says Gilda Niles.
"We need more boots on the ground," says Oliver Kofoid, and several other people, too.
"Zika is being used as a cover story and a smoke screen," says Diana Bolton.
"My childhood sweetheart didn't die in a war for us to be treated like this" says Jan Isherwood.
On and on and on. From their seats, Lorraine Phelps and her husband applaud.
The commissioners end up voting to let the people of Key West have their say on whether to proceed with Oxitec's technology in a referendum in November's election, the first time a matter of public health will be handed over to popular opinion.
Though the referendum is nonbinding, three of the five commissioners — the three up for election — have pledged to vote according to the people's will.
Derric Nimmo rises from his seat after the four-hour meeting, looking ahead to so much more work to do. Today his public relations mission was about goodwill. For the next four months, he will need to convince these people to keep Oxitec's trial alive.
And if he has learned anything in his time in the Keys, it's that misinformation spreads as easily as the disease.
- More Here
[---]
So much misinformation is out there. He doesn't know what to do anymore, except keep telling people: Male mosquitoes don't bite. If female mosquitoes are modified and bite you, they can't transfer their DNA. Your children won't become sterile. There is no way for the mosquitoes to mutate. This is unnatural, but it is safe. So many natural things can kill you. The bubonic plague. AIDS. If only he could shake them awake to Zika.
[---]
"There's a lot of information out there — some misinformation — and I want to cover a number of things." This is Michael Doyle, opening the June 22 meeting of the Florida Keys Mosquito Control District board of commissioners.
The board typically meets in Marathon, but on this evening, given the topic, it's in the old city hall building in downtown Key West. When the doors open, you can hear the laughter from the bar on the corner, an old haunt of Ernest Hemingway's called Sloppy Joe's.
There is a full crowd, and Doyle plans to take advantage. He starts by reminding the people how deadly the mosquito is and how easy local transmission of Zika would be.
Doyle reminds his audience that DNA is not spread through a mosquito bite. When they eat hamburgers, they are exposed to billions of pieces of cow DNA. They do not become cows. Humans have been bitten by mosquitoes for all of history without taking on their genetic code.
He reminds them that he has a 12-year-old daughter. And that the trial isn't an experiment on humans. "It's how well can this mosquito crash the Aedes aegypti population," he says, reminding them that the FDA, CDC and EPA have found nothing dangerous to humans or the environment.
Then he turns the microphone over to the people.
"Arrogance," says Howard Hubbard.
"There hasn't been enough information," says Mike Tinnell.
"I just wish everybody would slow down a little bit," says Bill Spottswood.
"Experiments are done in a lab," says Gilda Niles.
"We need more boots on the ground," says Oliver Kofoid, and several other people, too.
"Zika is being used as a cover story and a smoke screen," says Diana Bolton.
"My childhood sweetheart didn't die in a war for us to be treated like this" says Jan Isherwood.
On and on and on. From their seats, Lorraine Phelps and her husband applaud.
The commissioners end up voting to let the people of Key West have their say on whether to proceed with Oxitec's technology in a referendum in November's election, the first time a matter of public health will be handed over to popular opinion.
Though the referendum is nonbinding, three of the five commissioners — the three up for election — have pledged to vote according to the people's will.
Derric Nimmo rises from his seat after the four-hour meeting, looking ahead to so much more work to do. Today his public relations mission was about goodwill. For the next four months, he will need to convince these people to keep Oxitec's trial alive.
And if he has learned anything in his time in the Keys, it's that misinformation spreads as easily as the disease.
- More Here
Quote of the Day
Be as careful of the books you read, as of the company you keep; for your habits and character will be as much influenced by the former as the latter.
- Paxton Hood
- Paxton Hood
Thursday, August 4, 2016
Quote of the Day
Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that what have you had? … I haven’t done so enough before—and now I'm too old; too old at any rate for what I see. … What one loses one loses; make no mistake about that. … Still, we have the illusion of freedom; therefore don't be, like me, without the memory of that illusion. I was either, at the right time, too stupid or too intelligent to have it; I don’t quite know which. Of course at present I'm a case of reaction against the mistake. … Do what you like so long as you don't make my mistake. For it was a mistake. Live!
- Henry James, The Ambassadors
- Henry James, The Ambassadors
Wednesday, August 3, 2016
Quote of the Day
I find I am much prouder of the victory I obtain over myself, when, in the very ardor of dispute, I make myself submit to my adversary’s force of reason, than I am pleased with the victory I obtain over him through his weakness.
- Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
- Michel de Montaigne, The Complete Essays
Tuesday, August 2, 2016
What Caused The Demise of Mammoth?
It wasn’t humans: The first people on Saint Paul were Russian whalers who landed there in 1787, well after the last mammoth had gone. It wasn’t polar bears: They also came later. It wasn’t volcanoes: There were no traces of volcanic sediments in the lake during the extinction window. It wasn’t a lack of space: Although Saint Paul had certainly shrunk since its isolation from the mainland, it had reached its minimum size at least 3,000 years before the mammoths disappeared. And it wasn’t a lack of food: Pollen and plant remains in the lake sediments revealed that vegetation on the island was stable when the mammoths were declining.
Instead, the final killer was probably thirst, brought about by changing climate. Saint Paul never had rivers or springs. The only sources of freshwater were shallow lakes—and these were slowly disappearing. When sea levels rise around an island, the salt water also seeps beneath it, creating a wedge that intrudes into lakes, aquifers, and other sources of freshwater. On Saint Paul, this happened between 7,850 and 5,600 years ago, as Graham’s team discovered by analyzing microbes and chemical isotopes in their sediment cores.
This, combined with a drying climate, meant that Saint Paul’s water supplies were getting smaller, shallower, and saltier. That was disastrous for the mammoths. Modern elephants need to drink between 70 and 200 liters of water every day, and mammoths probably needed more to keep cool. An elephant can get rid of heat by sweating, relying on the evaporating moisture to cool its skin. But a mammoth’s dense, waterproof fur would have wicked sweat away from the skin before it could evaporate. To compensate, they must have sweated a lot more, which in turn gave them a truly mammoth thirst.
Ironically, the mammoths probably made things worse for themselves. As they were forced into a dwindling number of waterholes, they would have destroyed the surrounding vegetation, eroded the banks, stirred up the sediments, and slowly filled up the lakes. “They sort of hastened their own demise,” says Graham.
- More Here
Instead, the final killer was probably thirst, brought about by changing climate. Saint Paul never had rivers or springs. The only sources of freshwater were shallow lakes—and these were slowly disappearing. When sea levels rise around an island, the salt water also seeps beneath it, creating a wedge that intrudes into lakes, aquifers, and other sources of freshwater. On Saint Paul, this happened between 7,850 and 5,600 years ago, as Graham’s team discovered by analyzing microbes and chemical isotopes in their sediment cores.
This, combined with a drying climate, meant that Saint Paul’s water supplies were getting smaller, shallower, and saltier. That was disastrous for the mammoths. Modern elephants need to drink between 70 and 200 liters of water every day, and mammoths probably needed more to keep cool. An elephant can get rid of heat by sweating, relying on the evaporating moisture to cool its skin. But a mammoth’s dense, waterproof fur would have wicked sweat away from the skin before it could evaporate. To compensate, they must have sweated a lot more, which in turn gave them a truly mammoth thirst.
Ironically, the mammoths probably made things worse for themselves. As they were forced into a dwindling number of waterholes, they would have destroyed the surrounding vegetation, eroded the banks, stirred up the sediments, and slowly filled up the lakes. “They sort of hastened their own demise,” says Graham.
- More Here
Quote of the Day
The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, Self-Reliance
Monday, August 1, 2016
ICML 2016 Tutorial - Causal Inference for Observational Studies
The goal of this tutorial is to bring machine learning practitioners closer to the vast field of causal inference as practiced by statisticians, epidemiologists and economists. We believe that machine learning has much to contribute in helping answer such questions, especially given the massive growth in the available data and its complexity. We also believe the machine learning community could and should be highly interested in engaging with such problems, considering the great impact they have on society in general.
We hope that participants in the tutorial will:
a) learn the basic language of causal inference as exemplified by the two most dominant paradigms today: the potential outcomes framework, and causal graphs;
b) understand the similarities and the differences between problems machine learning practitioners usually face and problems of causal inference;
c) become familiar with the basic tools employed by practicing scientists performing causal inference, and
d) be informed about the latest research efforts in bringing machine learning techniques to address problems of causal inference.
- Tutorial Here
We hope that participants in the tutorial will:
a) learn the basic language of causal inference as exemplified by the two most dominant paradigms today: the potential outcomes framework, and causal graphs;
b) understand the similarities and the differences between problems machine learning practitioners usually face and problems of causal inference;
c) become familiar with the basic tools employed by practicing scientists performing causal inference, and
d) be informed about the latest research efforts in bringing machine learning techniques to address problems of causal inference.
- Tutorial Here
Quote of the Day
Every moment instructs and every object: for wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; it convulsed us as pain; it slid into as pleasure; it enveloped us in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess its essence, until after a long time.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
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