Sorry for the lateness, also not much from today's raft of news (it's been a busy few weeks).
On writing (and being creative) in this time. "And then Ambassador Carol Moseley Braun spoke. Turns out that Braun is a lifelong SF/F reader and her words hit me in just the right way… 'You are needed,' she said. 'Your words and stories are important.'" Also links the various writing award winners and nominees (and other writing news). Thanks, Jason. You're doing good work.
"The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket that boosted astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken into space provided a slightly rougher ride than expected during the later stages of the climb to orbit, but both said Monday they enjoyed their historic trip and marveled at a sooth-as-silk docking with the space station."
"Artificial intelligence (AI) just seems to get smarter and smarter… The surge reflects faster chips, more data, and better algorithms. But some of the improvement comes from tweaks rather than the core innovations their inventors claim—and some of the gains may not exist at all, says Davis Blalock, a computer science graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Blalock and his colleagues compared dozens of approaches to improving neural networks—software architectures that loosely mimic the brain. 'Fifty papers in,' he says, 'it became clear that it wasn’t obvious what the state of the art even was.'" You say that like it's a bug and not a feature.
"We know that global warming is forcing many animals around the world to flee their normal habitats, but now, an exhaustive analysis has shown marine species are booking it for the poles six times faster than those on land."
"How do pieces of virus from different species end up being mashed together? The underlying biology is a uniquely viral twist on a common biological process: recombination." And if you think that's wild, you should see how bacteria do it. Basically, life (like us humans) makes mistakes when it works fast. And virus reproduction is very fast. Also, yes, this is how new viruses get introduced to humans. You may have heard of viruses "learning how to infect humans", well here is how it works. Two viruses infecting the same host animal, and their RNA gets exchanged. Most times (as with all mutations) it doesn't really affect anything or the molecule is unable to reproduce or infect anything and it dies. But all you need is one in a million that takes hold. Because that's the scale we're talking about, hundreds of thousands and millions of virus particles produced.
Unsatisfied with the apocalypse they got (SARS-CoV2), white supremacists and nazis are attempting to bring about the apocalypse they envisioned (race war and social collapse).
"Police officers were among those injured across the U.S. overnight amid continuing protests and violence sparked by the in-custody death of George Floyd in Minneapolis last week."
"A Twitter account that tweeted a call to violence and claimed to be representing the position of 'Antifa' was in fact created by a known white supremacist group, Twitter said Monday. The company removed the account… Before it emerged the account was run by white supremacists, Donald Trump Jr., President Donald Trump's son, pointed his 2.8 million Instagram followers to the account as an example how dangerous Antifa is." That's pretty amazing for an account that was just created and had only a handful (relatively) of followers.
"When Kenston Schools sophomore Chase Tuller organized a 'Rally for Justice' in Chagrin Falls Village for June 2, he had hoped to rouse dialogue around race issues and police violence, both in the country and within his community." And a little about race relations just East of Cleveland.
How go the Trade Wars? "China has told state-owned firms to halt purchases of soybeans and pork from the United States, two people familiar with the matter said, after Washington said it would eliminate special treatment for Hong Kong to punish Beijing… Large volume state purchases of U.S. corn and cotton have also been put on hold, one of the sources said."
"U.S. stocks added to their gains on Wednesday, a day after major equity benchmarks closed at their highest levels since early March, as labor and services data showed a slowdown in the pace of the economic damage wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic." A slowdown of the meltdown… and it's time to celebrate.
"The Taliban have retained close links to al Qaeda and sought its advice during recent negotiations with U.S. officials, despite promising to break ties with the terror group under a preliminary peace agreement with the U.S., according to a U.N. report released Monday." This is my shocked face.
"Many Hong Kong people will find their own way to mark the 31st anniversary of Chinese troops opening fire on protesters in and around Tiananmen Square, after an annual candlelight vigil was cancelled for the first time because of the coronavirus."
"The Drug Enforcement Administration has been granted sweeping new authority to 'conduct covert surveillance' and collect intelligence on people participating in protests over the police killing of George Floyd, according to a two-page memorandum obtained by BuzzFeed News."
"U.S. President Donald Trump’s effort to regulate social media companies’ content decisions may face an uphill battle from regulators who have previously said they cannot oversee the conduct of internet firms." I believe that's called karma. But of course Chairman Pai will roll over for his boss.
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