text:
We know Viagra is good at keeping human penises erect. And shouldn't that be enough? Not for one horticultural expert who claims the drug does the same for cut flowers.
David Domoney, a TV personality in the United Kingdom and decorated plant expert says that crushed into the water of cut stems, the chemicals in the erection drug makes flowers last longer.
"You only need a tiny amount of Viagra to stiffen things up nicely," he tells Metro.
Just 1mg, he says, of a 50mg tablet dissolved into water will do the trick. Viagra's nitric oxide—the same chemical that allows a rush of blood to the penis, he says, also keeps blooms erect longer. He goes on to say aspirin works same way, which would be a heck of a lot cheaper. Viagra costs about $20 per pill. But if you've got some Viagra doses stockpiled, they do say flowers can make a home cheery, which could come in handy if you haven't had an opportunity to use your erection drug in a while.
That Domoney would go to such lengths to keep his flowers perky should perhaps not be a surprise considering his strong views on competition (learn more at 2:18 in the video below).
Image: Flickr/Tanaka Juuyoh


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Topic: Intelligence and Psychology, Artificial Intelligence (Read 43505 times)
Power User
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The Intelligence of Crows
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April 15, 2018, 09:46:06 PM »
Power User
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Chinese Eugenics
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Nautilus: Is AI inscrutable?
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Evidence that Viruses May Cause Alzheimer's Disease
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Brain Games for older folks
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The authoritarian Chinese vision for AI
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August 10, 2018, 05:38:18 PM »
Last Edit: December 13, 2019, 08:04:12 AM by Crafty_Dog
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China exporting illiberal AI
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Human Brain builds structures in 11 dimensions; more
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Also see
Last Edit: August 19, 2018, 11:02:26 AM by Crafty_Dog
Power User
Posts: 52571
Stratfor: AI and great power competition
Reply #58 on:
October 18, 2018, 09:52:05 AM »
Aging demographics and an emerging great power competition pitting China against the United States form the backdrop to a high-stakes race in artificial intelligence development.
The United States, for now, has a lead overall in AI development, but China is moving aggressively to try and overtake its American rivals by 2030.
While deep integration across tech supply chains and markets has occurred in the past couple of decades, rising economic nationalism and a growing battle over international standards will balkanize the global tech sector.
AI advancements will boost productivity and economic growth, but creative destruction in the workforce will drive political angst in much of the world, putting China's digital authoritarianism model as well as liberal democracies to the test.
For better or worse, the advancement and diffusion of artificial intelligence technology will come to define this century. Whether that statement should fill your soul with terror or delight remains a matter of intense debate. Techno-idealists and doomsdayers will paint their respective utopian and dystopian visions of machine-kind, making the leap from what we know now as "narrow AI" to "general AI" to surpass human cognition within our lifetime. On the opposite end of the spectrum, yawning skeptics will point to Siri's slow intellect and the human instinct of Capt. Chesley "Sully" Sullenberger – the pilot of the US Airways flight that successfully landed on the Hudson River in 2009 – to wave off AI chatter as a heap of hype not worth losing sleep over.
The fact is that the development of AI – a catch-all term that encompasses neural networks and machine learning and deep learning technologies – has the potential to fundamentally transform civilian and military life in the coming decades. Regardless of whether you're a businessperson pondering your next investment, an entrepreneur eyeing an emerging opportunity, a policymaker grappling with regulation or simply a citizen operating in an increasingly tech-driven society, AI is a global force that demands your attention.
The Big Picture
As Stratfor wrote in its 2018 Third-Quarter Forecast, the world is muddling through a blurry transition from the post-Cold War world to an emerging era of great power competition. The race to dominate AI development will be a defining feature of U.S.-China rivalry.
An Unstoppable Force
Willingly or not, even the deepest skeptics are feeding the AI force nearly every minute of every day. Every Google (or Baidu) search, Twitter (or Weibo) post, Facebook (or Tencent) ad and Amazon (or Alibaba) purchase is another click creating mountains of data – some 2.2. billion gigabytes globally every day – that companies are using to train their algorithms to anticipate and mimic human behavior. This creates a virtuous (or vicious, depending on your perspective) cycle: the more users engage with everyday technology platforms, the more data is collected; the more data that's collected, the more the product improves; the more competitive the product, the more users and billions of dollars in investment it will attract; a growing number of users means more data can be collected, and the loop continues.
And unlike previous AI busts, the development of this technology is occurring amid rapidly advancing computing power, where the use of graphical processing units (GPUs) and development of custom computer chips is giving AI developers increasingly potent hardware to drive up efficiency and drive down cost in training their algorithms. To help fuel advancements in AI hardware and software, AI investment is also growing at a rapid pace.
The Geopolitical Backdrop to the Global AI Race
AI is both a driver and a consequence of structural forces reshaping the global order. Aging demographics – an unprecedented and largely irreversible global phenomenon – is a catalyst for AI development. As populations age and shrink, financial burdens on the state mount and labor productivity slows, sapping economic growth over time. Advanced industrial economies already struggling to cope with the ill effects of aging demographics with governments that are politically squeamish toward immigration will relentlessly look to machine learning technologies to increase productivity and economic growth in the face of growing labor constraints.
The global race for AI supremacy will feature prominently in a budding great power competition between the United States and China. China was shocked in 2016 when Google DeepMind's AlphaGo beat the world champion of Go, an ancient Chinese strategy game (Chinese AI state planners dubbed the event their "Sputnik moment"), and has been deeply shaken by U.S. President Donald Trump's trade wars and the West's growing imperative to keep sensitive technology out of Chinese competitors' hands. Just in the past couple of years alone, China's state focus on AI development has skyrocketed to ensure its technological drive won't suffer a short circuit due to its competition with the United States.
How the U.S. and China Stack Up in AI Development
Do or Die for Beijing
The United States, for now, has the lead in AI development when it comes to hardware, research and development, and a dynamic commercial AI sector. China, by the sheer size of its population, has a much larger data pool, but is critically lagging behind the United States in semiconductor development. Beijing, however, is not lacking in motivation in its bid to overtake the United States as the premier global AI leader by 2030. And while that timeline may appear aggressive, China's ambitious development in AI in the coming years will be unfettered by the growing ethical, privacy and antitrust concerns occupying the West. China is also throwing hundreds of billions of dollars into fulfilling its AI mission, both in collaboration with its standing tech champions and by encouraging the rise of unicorns, or privately held startups valued at $1 billion or more.
By incubating and rewarding more and more startups, Beijing is finding a balance between focusing its national champions on the technologies most critical to the state (sometimes by taking an equity stake in the company) without stifling innovation. In the United States, on the other hand, it would be disingenuous to label U.S.-based multinational firms, which park most of their corporate profits overseas, as true "national" champions. Instead of the state taking the lead in funding high-risk and big-impact research in emerging technologies as it has in the past, the roles in the West have been flipped; private tech companies are in the driver's seat while the state is lunging at the steering wheel, trying desperately to keep China in its rear view.
The Ideological Battleground
The United States may have thought its days of fighting globe-spanning ideological battles ended with the Cold War. Not so. AI development is spawning a new ideological battlefield between the United States and China, pitting the West's notion of liberal democracy against China's emerging brand of digital authoritarianism. As neuroscientist Nicholas Wright highlights in his article, "How Artificial Intelligence Will Reshape the Global Order," China's 2017 AI development plan "describes how the ability to predict and grasp group cognition means 'AI brings new opportunities for social construction.'" Central to this strategic initiative is China's diffusion of a "social credit system" (which is set to be fully operational by 2020) that would assign a score based on a citizen's daily activities to determine everything from airfare class and loan eligibility to what schools your kids are allowed to attend. It's a tech-powered, state-driven approach to parse model citizens from the deplorables, so to speak.
The ability to harness AI-powered facial recognition and surveillance data to shape social behavior is an appealing tool, not just for Beijing, but for other politically paranoid states that are hungry for an alternative path to stability and are underwhelmed by the West's messy track record in promoting democracy. Wright describes how Beijing has exported its Great Firewall model to Thailand and Vietnam to barricade the internet while also supplying surveillance technology to the likes of Iran, Russia, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Malaysia. Not only does this aid China's goal of providing an alternative to a U.S.-led global order, but it widens China's access to even wider data pools around the globe to hone its own technological prowess.
The European Hustle
Not wanting to be left behind in this AI great power race, Europe and Russia are hustling to catch up, but they will struggle in the end to keep pace with the United States and China. Russian President Vladimir Putin made headlines last year when he told an audience of Russian youths that whoever rules AI will rule the world. But the reality of Russia's capital constraints means Russia will have to choose carefully where it puts its rubles. Moscow will apply a heavy focus on AI military applications and will rely on cyber espionage and theft to try and find shortcuts to AI development, all while trying to maintain its strategic alignment with China to challenge the United States.
The EU Struggle to Create Unicorn Companies
While France harbors ambitious plans to develop an AI ecosystem for Europe and Germany frets over losing its industrial edge to U.S. and Chinese tech competitors, unavoidable and growing fractures within the European Union will hamper Europe's ability to play a leading AI role on the world stage. The European Union's cumbersome regulatory environment and fragmented digital market has been prohibitive for tech startups, a fact reflected in the European Union's low global share and value of unicorn companies. Meanwhile, the United Kingdom, home to Europe's largest pool of tech talent, will be keen on unshackling itself from the European Union's investment-inhibitive regulations as it stumbles out of the bloc.
A Battle over Talent and Standards
But wherever pockets of tech innovation already exist on the Continent, those relatively few companies and individuals are already prime targets for U.S. and Chinese tech juggernauts prowling the globe for AI talent. AI experts are a precious global commodity. According to a 2018 study by Element AI, there are roughly 22,000 doctorate-level researchers in the world, but only around 3,000 are actually looking for work and around 5,400 are presenting their research at AI conferences. U.S. and Chinese tech giants are using a variety of means – mergers and acquisitions, aggressive poaching, launchings labs in cities like Paris, Montreal and Taiwan – to gobble up this tiny talent pool.
Largest Tech Companies by Market Capitalization
Even as Europe struggles to build up its own tech champions, the European Union can use its market size and conscientious approach to ethics, privacy and competition to push back on encroaching tech giants through hefty fines, data localization and privacy rules, taxation and investment restrictions. The bloc's rollout of its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is designed to give Europeans more control over their personal data by limiting data storage times, deleting data on request and monitoring for data breaches. While big-tech firms have the means to adapt and pay fines, the move threatens to cripple smaller firms struggling to comply with the high cost of compliance. It also fundamentally restricts the continental data flows needed to fuel Europe's AI startup culture.
The United States in many ways shares Europe's concerns over issues like data privacy and competition, but it has a fundamentally different approach in how to manage those concerns. The European Union is effectively prioritizing individual privacy rights over free speech, while the United States does the reverse. Brussels will fixate on fairness, even at the cost of the bloc's own economic competitiveness, while Washington will generally avoid getting in the way of its tech champions. For example, while the European Union will argue that Google's dominance in multiple technological applications is by itself an abuse of its power that stifles competition, the United States will refrain from raising the antitrust flag unless tech giants are using their dominant position to raise prices for consumers.
U.S. and European government policy overlap instead in their growing scrutiny over foreign investment in sensitive technology sectors. Of particular concern is China's aggressive, tech-focused overseas investment drive and the already deep integration of Chinese hardware and software in key technologies used globally. A highly diversified company like Huawei, a pioneer in cutting-edge technologies like 5G and a mass producer of smartphones and telecommunications equipment, can leverage its global market share to play an influential role in setting international standards.
Washington, meanwhile, is lagging behind Brussels and Beijing in the race to establish international norms for cyber policy. While China and Russia have been persistent in their attempts to use international venues like the United Nations to codify their version of state-heavy cyber policy, the European Union has worked to block those efforts while pushing their own standards like GDPR.
This emerging dynamic of tightening restrictions in the West overall against Chinese tech encroachment, Europe's aggressive regulatory push against U.S. tech giants and China's defense and export of digital authoritarianism may altogether lead to a much more balkanized market for global tech companies in the future.
The AI Political Test of the Century
There is no shortage of AI reports by big-name consulting firms telegraphing to corporate audiences the massive productivity gains to come from AI in a range of industries, from financial, auto, insurance and retail to construction, cleaning and security. A 2017 PwC report estimated that AI could add $15.7 trillion to the global economy in 2030, of which $6.6 trillion would come from increased productivity and $9.1 trillion would come from increased consumption. The potential for double-digit impacts on GDP after years of stalled growth in much of the world is appealing, no doubt.
But lurking behind those massive figures is the question of just how well, how quickly and how much of a country's workforce will be able to adapt to these fast-moving changes. As Austrian Joseph Schumpeter described in his 1942 book, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy, the "creative destruction" that results from so-called industrial mutations "incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating a new one." In the age of AI, the market will incessantly seek out scientists and creative thinkers. Machines will endlessly render millions of workers irrelevant. And new jobs, from AI empathy trainers to life coaches, will be created. Even as technology translates into productivity and economic gains overall, this will be a wrenching transition if workers are slow to learn new skills and if wage growth remains stagnant for much of the population.
Time will tell which model will be better able to cope with an expected rise in political angst as the world undergoes this AI revolution: China's untested model of digital authoritarianism or the West's time-tested, yet embattled, tradition in liberal democracy.
Power User
Posts: 52571
Stratfor: How the US-China Power Comp. shapes the future of AI ethics
Reply #59 on:
October 18, 2018, 09:57:49 AM »
second post
How the U.S.-China Power Competition Is Shaping the Future of AI Ethics
By Rebecca Keller
Senior Science and Technology Analyst, Stratfor
Rebecca Keller
Rebecca Keller
Senior Science and Technology Analyst, Stratfor
A U.S. Air Force MQ-1B Predator unmanned aerial vehicle returns from a mission to an air base in the Persian Gulf region.
As artificial intelligence applications develop and expand, countries and corporations will have different opinions on how and when technologies should be employed. First movers like the United States and China will have an advantage in setting international standards.
China will push back against existing Western-led ethical norms as its level of global influence rises and the major powers race to become technologically dominant.
In the future, ethical decisions that prevent adoption of artificial intelligence applications in certain fields could limit political, security and economic advantages for specific countries.
Controversial new technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence are quickly becoming ubiquitous, prompting ethical questions about their uses in both the private and state spheres. A broader shift on the global stage will drive the regulations and societal standards that will, in turn, influence technological adoption. As countries and corporations race to achieve technological dominance, they will engage in a tug of war between different sets of values while striving to establish ethical standards. Western values have long been dominant in setting these standards, as the United States has traditionally been the most influential innovative global force. But China, which has successfully prioritized economic growth and technological development over the past several decades, is likely to play a bigger role in the future when it comes to tech ethics.
The Big Picture
The great power competition between China and the United States continues to evolve, leading to pushback against international norms, organizations and oversight. As the world sits at a key intersection of geopolitical and technological development, the battles to set new global standards will play out on emerging technological stages.
The field of artificial intelligence will be one of the biggest areas where different players will be working to establish regulatory guardrails and answer ethical questions in the future. Science fiction writer Isaac Asimov wrote his influential laws of robotics in the first half of the 20th century, and reality is now catching up to fiction. Questions over the ethics of AI and its potential applications are numerous: What constitutes bias within the algorithms? Who owns data? What privacy measures should be employed? And just how much control should humans retain in applying AI-driven automation? For many of these questions, there is no easy answer. And in fact, as the great power competition between China and the United States ramps up, they prompt another question: Who is going to answer them?
Questions of right and wrong are based on the inherent cultural values ingrained within a place. From an economic perspective, the Western ideal has always been the laissez-faire economy. And ethically, Western norms have prioritized privacy and the importance of human rights. But China is challenging those norms and ideals, as it uses a powerful state hand to run its economy and often chooses to sacrifice privacy in the name of development. On yet another front, societal trust in technology can also differ, influencing the commercial and military use of artificial intelligence.
Different Approaches to Privacy
One area where countries that intend to set global ethical standards for the future of technology have focused their attention is in the use and monetization of personal data. From a scientific perspective, more data equals better, smarter AI, meaning those with access to and a willingness to use that data could have a future advantage. However, ethical concerns over data ownership and the privacy of individuals and even corporations can and do limit data dispersion and use.
How various entities are handling the question of data privacy is an early gauge for how far AI application can go, in private and commercial use. It is also a question that reveals a major divergence in values. With its General Data Protection Regulation, which went into effect this year, the European Union has taken an early global lead on protecting the rights of individuals. Several U.S. states have passed or are working to pass similar legislation, and the U.S. government is currently considering an overarching federal policy that covers individual data privacy rights.
China, on the other hand, has demonstrated a willingness to prioritize the betterment of the state over the value of personal privacy. The Chinese public is generally supportive of initiatives that use personal data and apply algorithms. For example, there has been little domestic objection to a new state-driven initiative to monitor behavior — from purchases to social media activity to travel — using AI to assign a corresponding "social score." The score would translate to a level of "trustworthiness" that would allow, or deny, access to certain privileges. The program, meant to be fully operational by 2020, will track citizens, government officials and businesses. Similarly, facial recognition technology is already used, though not ubiquitously, throughout the country and is projected to play an increasingly important role in Chinese law enforcement and governance. China's reliance on such algorithmic-based systems would make it among the first entities to place such a hefty reliance on the decision-making capabilities of computers.
When Ethics Cross Borders and Machine Autonomy Increases
Within a country's borders, the use of AI technology for domestic security and governance purposes may certainly raise questions from human rights groups, but those questions are amplified when use of the technology crosses borders and affects international relationships. One example is Google's potential project to develop a censored search app for the Chinese market. By intending to take advantage of China's market by adhering to the country's rules and regulations, Google could also be seen as perpetuating the Chinese government's values and views on censorship. The company left China in 2010 over objections to that very matter.
Ever-improving algorithms and applications will soon prompt queries about how much autonomy machines "should" have, going far beyond today's credit scores, loans or even social scores.
And these current issues are relatively small in comparison to questions looming on the horizon. Ever-improving algorithms and applications will soon prompt queries about how much autonomy machines "should" have, going far beyond today's credit scores, loans or even social scores. Take automated driving, for example, a seemingly more innocuous application of artificial intelligence and automation. How much control should a human have while in a vehicle? If there is no human involved, who is responsible if and when there is an accident? The answer varies depending where the question is asked. In societies that trust in technology more, like Japan, South Korea or China, the ability to remove key components from cars, such as steering wheels, in the future will likely be easier. In the United States, despite its technological prowess and even as General Motors is applying for the ability to put cars without steering wheels on the road, the current U.S. administration appears wary.
Defense, the Human Element and the First Rule of Robotics
Closely paraphrased, Asimov's first rule of robotics is that a robot should never harm a human through action or inaction. The writer was known as a futurist and thinker, and his rule still resonates. In terms of global governance and international policy, decisions over the limits of AI's decision-making power will be vital to determining the future of the military. How much human involvement, after all, should be required when it comes to decisions that could result in the loss of human life? Advancements in AI will drive the development of remote and asymmetric warfare, requiring the U.S. Department of Defense to make ethical decisions prompted by both Silicon Valley and the Chinese government.
At the dawn of the nuclear age, the scientific community questioned the ethical nature of using nuclear understanding for military purposes. More recently, companies in Silicon Valley have been asking similar questions about whether their technological developments should be used in warfare. Google has been vocal about its objections to working with the U.S. military. After controversy and internal dissent about the company's role in Project Maven, a Pentagon-led project to incorporate AI into the U.S. defense strategy, Google CEO Sundar Pinchai penned the company's own rules of AI ethics, which required, much like Asimov intended, that it not develop AI for weaponry or uses that would cause harm. Pinchai also stated that Google would not contribute to the use of AI in surveillance that pushes boundaries of "internationally accepted norms." Recently, Google pulled out of bidding for a Defense Department cloud computing project as part of JEDI (Joint Enterprise Defense Initiative). Microsoft employees also issued a public letter voicing objections to their own company's intent to bid for the same contract. Meanwhile, Amazon's CEO, Jeff Bezos, whose company is still in the running for the JEDI contract, has bucked this trend, voicing his belief that technology companies partnering with the U.S. military is necessary to ensure national security.
There are already certain ethical guidelines in place when it comes to integrating AI into military operations. Western militaries, including that of the United States, have pledged to always maintain a "human-in-the-loop" structure for operations involving armed unmanned vehicles, so as to avoid the ethical and legal consequences of AI-driven attacks. But these rules may evolve as technology improves. The desire for quick decisions, the high cost of human labor and basic efficiency needs are all bound to challenge countries' commitment to keeping a human in the loop. After all, AI could function like a non-human commander, making command and control decisions conceivably better than any human general could.
Even if the United States still abides by the guidelines, other countries — like China — may have far less motivation to do so. China has already challenged international norms in a number of arenas, including the World Trade Organization, and may well see it as a strategic imperative to employ AI in controversial ways to advance its military might. It's unclear where China will draw the line and how it will match up with Western military norms. But it's relatively certain that if one great power begins implementing cutting-edge technology in controversial ways, others will be forced to consider whether they are willing to let competing countries set ethical norms.
Rebecca Keller focuses on areas where science and technology intersect with geopolitics. This diverse area of responsibility includes changes in agricultural technology and water supplies that affect global food supplies, nanotechnology and other developments.
Power User
Posts: 52571
Stratfor: AI makes personal privacy a matter of national strategy
Reply #60 on:
October 18, 2018, 09:59:51 AM »
Third post
AI Makes Personal Privacy a Matter of National Strategy
By Rebecca Keller
Senior Science and Technology Analyst, Stratfor
Rebecca Keller
Rebecca Keller
Senior Science and Technology Analyst, Stratfor
The latest social media scandals have generated a backlash in the United States among internet users who want greater control over their personal data. But AI runs on data. AI algorithms use robust sets of data to learn, honing their pattern recognition and prediction abilities. And much of that data comes from individuals.
(GarryKillian, Andrea Danti/Shutterstock, Robert Zavala/Stratfor)
Growing concern in the United States and Europe over the collection and distribution of personal data could decrease the quality and accessibility of a subset of data used to develop artificial intelligence.
Though the United States is still among the countries best poised to take advantage of AI technologies to drive economic growth, changes in privacy regulations and social behaviors will impair its tech sector over the course of the next decade.
China, meanwhile, will take the opportunity to close the gap with the United States in the race to develop AI.
It seems that hardly a 24-hour news cycle passes without a story about the latest social media controversy. We worry about who has our information, who knows our buying habits or searching habits, and who may be turning that information into targeted ads for products or politicians. Calls for stricter control and protection of privacy and for greater transparency follow. Europe will implement a new set of privacy regulations later this month — the culmination of a yearslong negotiating process and a move that could ease the way for similar policies in the United States, however eventually. Individuals, meanwhile, may take their own steps to guard their data. The implications of that reaction could reverberate far beyond our laptops or smartphones. It will handicap the United States in the next leg of the technology race with China.
Big Picture
Artificial intelligence is more than simply a disruptive technology. It is poised to become an anchor for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and to change the factors that contribute to economic growth. As AI develops at varying rates throughout the world, it will influence the global competition underway between the world's great powers.
See The 4th Industrial Revolution
More than a quarter-century after the fall of the Soviet Union, the world is slowly shifting away from a unipolar system. As the great powers compete for global influence, technology will become an increasingly important part of their struggle. The advent of disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence stands to revolutionize the ways in which economies function by changing the weight of the factors that fuel economic growth. In several key sectors, China is quickly catching up to its closest competitor in technology, the United States. And in AI, it could soon gain an advantage.
Of the major contenders in the AI arena today, China places the least value on individual privacy, while the European Union places the most. The United States is somewhere in between, though recent events seem to be pushing the country toward more rigorous privacy policies. Since the scandal erupted over Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data to target political ads in the 2016 presidential election, outcry has been building in the United States among internet users who want greater control over their personal data. But AI runs on data. AI algorithms use robust sets of data to learn, honing their pattern recognition and predictive abilities. Much of that data comes from individuals.
Learning to Read Personal Data
Online platforms such as social media networks, retail sites, search engines and ride-hailing apps all collect vast amounts of data from their users. Facebook collects a total of nearly 200 billion data points in 98 categories. Amazon's virtual assistant, Alexa, tracks numerous aspects of its users' behavior. Medical databases and genealogy websites gather troves of health and genetic information, and the GPS on our smartphones can track our every move. Drawing on this wealth of data, AI applications could evolve that would revolutionize aspects of everyday life far beyond online shopping. The data could enable applications to track diseases and prevent or mitigate future outbreaks, to help solve cold criminal cases, to relieve traffic congestion, to better assess risk for insurers, or to increase the efficiency of electrical grids and decrease emissions. The potential productivity gains that these innovations offer, in turn, would boost global economic growth.
Using the wealth of data that online platforms collect, AI applications could evolve to revolutionize aspects of everyday life far beyond online shopping.
To reap the greatest benefit, however, developers can't use just any data. Quality is as important as quantity, and that means ensuring that data collection methods are free of inherent bias. Preselecting participants for a particular data set, for example, would introduce bias to it. Likewise, placing a higher value on privacy, as many countries in the West are doing today, could skew data toward certain economic classes. Not all internet users, after all, will have the resources to pay to use online platforms that better protect personal data or to make informed choices about their privacy.
Calls for greater transparency in data collection also will pose a challenge for AI developers in the West. The European Union's General Data Protection Regulation, effective May 25, will tighten restrictions on all companies that handle the data of EU citizens, many of which are headquartered in the United States. The new regulation may prove difficult to enforce in practice, but it will nevertheless force companies around the world to improve their data transparency. And though the United States is still in the best position to take economic advantage of the AI revolution, thanks to its regulatory environment, the growing cultural emphasis on privacy could hinder technological development over the next decade.
The Privacy Handicap
As a general rule, precautionary regulations pose a serious threat to technological progress. The European Union historically has been more proactive than reactive in regulating innovation, a tendency that has done its part in hampering the EU tech sector. The United States, on the other hand, traditionally has fallen into the category of permissionless innovator — that is, a country that allows technological innovations to develop freely before devising the regulations to govern them. This approach has facilitated its rise to the fore in the global tech scene. While the United States still leads the pack in AI, recent concerns about civil liberties could slow it down relative to other tech heavyweights, namely China. The public demands for transparency and privacy aren't going away anytime soon. Furthermore, as AI becomes more powerful, differential privacy — the ability to extract personal information without identifying its source — will become more difficult to preserve.
These are issues that China doesn't have to worry about yet. For the most part, Chinese citizens don't have the same sensitivity over matters of individual privacy as their counterparts in the West. And China is emerging as a permissionless innovator, like the United States. Chinese privacy protections are vague and give the state wide latitude to collect information for security purposes. As a result, its government and the companies working with it have more of the information they need to make their own AI push, which President Xi Jinping has highlighted as a key national priority. Chinese tech giants Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent are all heavily invested in AI and are working to gather as much data as possible to build their AI empire. Together, these factors could help China gain ground on its competition.
In the long run, however, privacy is likely to become a greater priority in China. Chinese corporations value privacy, despite their history of intellectual property violations against the West, and they will take pains to protect their innovations. In addition, the country's younger generations and growing middle class probably will have more of an interest in securing their personal information. A recent art exhibit in China displayed the online data of more than 300,000 individuals, indicating a growing awareness of internet privacy among the country's citizenry.
Even so, over the course of the next decade, the growing concern in the West over privacy could hobble the United States in the AI race. The push for stronger privacy protections may decrease the quality of the data U.S. tech companies use to train and test their AI applications. But the playing field may well even out again. As AI applications continue to improve, more people in the United States will come to recognize their wide-ranging benefits in daily life and in the economy. The value of privacy is constantly in flux; the modern-day notion of a "right to privacy" didn't take shape in the United States until the mid-20th century. In time, U.S. citizens may once again be willing to sacrifice their privacy in exchange for a better life.
Rebecca Keller focuses on areas where science and technology intersect with geopolitics. This diverse area of responsibility includes changes in agricultural technology and water supplies that affect global food supplies, nanotechnology and other developments.
Power User
Posts: 52571
Karl Friston, the Free Energy Principal and Artificial Intelligence
Reply #61 on:
November 17, 2018, 10:42:38 AM »
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Business Intelligence Expert
Reply #62 on:
November 17, 2018, 10:44:40 AM »
second post
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Brainwaves encode the grammar of human language
Reply #63 on:
November 18, 2018, 10:48:11 AM »
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Radical New Neural Network could overcome big challenges in AI
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December 13, 2018, 07:46:51 AM »
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The man turning China into a quantum superpower
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December 23, 2018, 12:10:25 PM »
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Jordan Peterson: Intelligence, Race, and the Jewish Question
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Re: Intelligence and Psychology, Artificial Intelligence
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January 14, 2019, 01:35:09 PM »
Very interesting and scary piece on AI on this week's "60 Minutes"-- worth tracking down.
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AI Fake Text generator to dangerous to release?
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February 15, 2019, 11:48:16 AM »
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Are we close to solving the puzzle of consciousness?
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April 01, 2019, 12:34:53 AM »
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The challenge of going off psychiatric drugs
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April 02, 2019, 12:03:13 PM »
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Chinese Eugenics
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April 13, 2019, 10:47:46 PM »
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An ethological approach to reason
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May 13, 2019, 11:41:49 AM »
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The Geometry of Thought
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September 29, 2019, 08:04:56 PM »
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Logic puzzle
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November 09, 2019, 11:48:42 PM »
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What shapes a polymath?
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November 25, 2019, 09:29:16 AM »
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Article on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
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December 21, 2019, 07:05:59 AM »
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2006: Lanier on Digital Maoism
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December 21, 2019, 07:08:40 AM »
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Jordan Peterson on Depression
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December 30, 2019, 06:39:10 AM »
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New Yorker: Artificial Intelligence and White Collar Jobs
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January 15, 2020, 07:26:37 AM »
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Artificial Intelligence and stock piling of photos
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February 11, 2020, 01:13:17 PM »
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America must shape AI norms or dictators will
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February 28, 2020, 02:51:16 PM »
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Why do smart people do foolish things?
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April 03, 2020, 07:50:27 AM »
Why Do Smart People Do Foolish Things?
Intelligence is not the same as critical thinking—and the difference matters.
Scientific American
Heather A. Butler
Photo by francescoch / Getty Images.
We all probably know someone who is intelligent but does surprisingly stupid things. My family delights in pointing out times when I (a professor) make really dumb mistakes. What does it mean to be smart or intelligent? Our everyday use of the term is meant to describe someone who is knowledgeable and makes wise decisions, but this definition is at odds with how intelligence is traditionally measured. The most widely known measure of intelligence is the intelligence quotient, more commonly known as the IQ test, which includes visuospatial puzzles, math problems, pattern recognition, vocabulary questions and visual searches.
The advantages of being intelligent are undeniable. Intelligent people are more likely to get better grades and go farther in school. They are more likely to be successful at work. And they are less likely to get into trouble (for example, commit crimes) as adolescents. Given all the advantages of intelligence, though, you may be surprised to learn that it does not predict other life outcomes, such as well-being. You might imagine that doing well in school or at work might lead to greater life satisfaction, but several large-scale studies have failed to find evidence that IQ impacts life satisfaction or longevity. University of Waterloo psychologist Igor Grossmann and his colleagues argue that most intelligence tests fail to capture real-world decision-making and our ability to interact well with others. This is, in other words, perhaps why "smart" people do "dumb" things.
The ability to think critically, on the other hand, has been associated with wellness and longevity. Though often confused with intelligence, critical thinking is not intelligence. Critical thinking is a collection of cognitive skills that allow us to think rationally in a goal-orientated fashion and a disposition to use those skills when appropriate. Critical thinkers are amiable skeptics. They are flexible thinkers who require evidence to support their beliefs and recognize fallacious attempts to persuade them. Critical thinking means overcoming all kinds of cognitive biases (for instance, hindsight bias or confirmation bias).
Critical thinking predicts a wide range of life events. In a series of studies, conducted in the U.S. and abroad, my colleagues and I have found that critical thinkers experience fewer bad things in life. We asked people to complete an inventory of life events and take a critical thinking assessment (the Halpern Critical Thinking Assessment). The critical thinking assessment measures five components of critical thinking skills, including verbal reasoning, argument analysis, hypothesis testing, probability and uncertainty, decision-making and problem-solving.
The inventory of negative life events captures different domains of life such as academic (for example, "I forgot about an exam"), health ("I contracted a sexually transmitted infection because I did not wear a condom"), legal ("I was arrested for driving under the influence"), interpersonal ("I cheated on my romantic partner who I had been with for more than a year"), financial ("I have over $5,000 of credit-card debt"), and so on. Repeatedly, we found that critical thinkers experience fewer negative life events. This is an important finding because there is plenty of evidence that critical thinking can be taught and improved.
Is it better to be a critical thinker or to be intelligent? My latest research pitted critical thinking and intelligence against each other to see which was associated with fewer negative life events. People who were strong on either intelligence or critical thinking experienced fewer negative events, but critical thinkers did better.
Intelligence and improving intelligence are hot topics that receive a lot of attention. It is time for critical thinking to receive a little more of that attention. Keith E. Stanovich wrote an entire book in 2009 about What Intelligence Tests Miss. Reasoning and rationality more closely resemble what we mean when we say a person is smart rather than spatial skills and math ability. Furthermore, improving intelligence is difficult. Intelligence is largely determined by genetics. Critical thinking, though, can improve with training, and the benefits have been shown to persist over time. Anyone can improve their critical thinking skills. Doing so, we can say with certainty, is a smart thing to do.
Heather A. Butler is an assistant professor in the psychology department at California State University, Dominguez Hills. Her numerous research interests include critical thinking, advanced learning technologies, and the use of psychological science to prevent wrongful convictions.
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Examples of animal intelligence
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Artificial Intelligence and Special Operations
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We're getting dumber
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The ADHD Brain
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AI wins dogfight
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Artificial Intelligence helps ships and Orca whales co-exist
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China exporting its AI panopticon
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August 21, 2020, 11:48:43 AM »
Sent to me by someone with professional military interest in this subject:
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US-Chinese AI developing rare earth elements
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Crows' Intelligence
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Simple Machines

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Undefeated British fighter Paul Sass (11-0 MMA, 1-0 UFC) and fellow lightweight Michael Johnson (9-5 MMA, 1-1 UFC) are slated to fight at UFC on Versus 6.
UFC officials today announced the fight.
In addition to the matchup, officials also confirmed the rumored location for the Oct. 1 event: Washington, D.C.
It's not clear, though, if the Versus-televised event takes place in actual Washington, D.C. or perhaps nearby Fairfax, Va., which also hosted UFC Fight Night 20 back in early 2010.
It's also not clear if Sass vs. Johnson will be part of the televised main card.
Regardless, the undefeated Sass looks for his 12th straight win and second consecutive victory in the UFC. A veteran of the British fight scene, Sass made his octagon debut back in October and scored a first-round submission victory over Mark Holst at UFC 120. Sass, who's earned 10 of his his 11 victories via submission (eight via triangle choke), has been sidelined by a foot injury since October fight.
Johnson, "The Ultimate Fighter 12" runner-up to Jonathan Brookins, rebounded from that defeat at the show's live finale with a recent first-round TKO of Edward Faaloloto at UFC on Versus 4. The fighter, who trains both at Missouri's Springfield Fight Club and Greg Jackson's New Mexico camp, now has won four of his past five fights.
Five of his nine wins have come via knockout.
For more on UFC on Versus 6, stay tuned to the UFC Rumors section of MMAjunkie.com.
(Pictured: Paul Sass)


text:
Since 2009 IBM scientist Emanuel Loertscher has been designing and supervising the building of six state-of-the-art "noise-free" laboratories for ultra-sensitive nanotechnology research. Now, after having worked for some time more as an architect, he is turning back to his original research in nanotechnology, investigating the use of individual molecules as electronic building blocks.
Emanuel provided answers to some questions about a commentary he provided to a June 2013 special focus edition of Nature Nanotechnology on molecular electronics and about the field in general.
Emanuel Loertscher of IBM Zurich by the media feed-in port in his noise-free laboratory.
Q: Your commentary for Nature Nanotechnology presents an overview of both the historic and recent research done in the field of molecular electronics. How close are we to achieving the early visions of the 1970s?
Emanuel Loertscher: In the 1970s, Ari Aviram and Mark Ratner proposed employing single molecules as functional building blocks in electronic circuits. This is still a revolutionary concept as molecules are nanometer-sized objects, unlike some other nanoscale building blocks where at least one dimension is much larger than 10 nm, sometimes even micrometers in size. However, this makes it very challenging to appropriately contact molecules and to wire them to a circuit.
Nevertheless, over the last 10 years, various tools have been developed that enable transport at the single-molecule level to be studied. Thereby, transport effects far beyond the seminal one, that tried to mimic semiconductor device mechanisms, have been discovered by exploring the quantum mechanics of molecules – such as quantum interference observable even at room temperature – and all of them are considered very attractive for future electronics. However, all these experimental realizations of molecular electronics are still at a very fundamental stage, and far away from practical implementation into electronic circuits.
Q: What is still required to make molecular electronics a viable candidate for future electronics?
EL: As molecules are typically one nanometer in size, they are comparable to the atoms composing the electrodes. Therefore all the details of the molecular junctions matter but are not yet under experimental control. This is particularly true when operating the devices at elevated temperatures or higher electric fields as the metal atoms of the electrode start to move around. In that sense, it's essential to develop a platform where the electrodes are stable under these conditions, leading to better reproducibility of the electrical characteristics and an enhanced long-term stability of the device.
Graphene is clearly the material of choice as it's stable at room temperature and electronically compatible with organic molecules. I'm convinced that the development of graphene structures will synergetically lead to improved molecular electronic devices in the near future.
Q: What do you think the first applications will be for electronic devices made of molecules?
EL: As mentioned, even though 40 years have elapsed, molecular electronics is still in its embryonic state mainly due to a lack of control at the atomic scale. Here, it has to be mentioned that all nanoelectronic concepts will face this challenge when they are ultimately scaled to the atomic level.
Regarding applications, ensemble junctions can be envisioned since single-molecule junctions are prone to large variabilities. Due to the attractive non-linear transport properties of molecules, such as very abrupt switching, I can imagine the first applications to be for computer memory.
Q: Are you currently exploring any research in this area?
EL: One of the largest areas of focus for IBM in this field is designing what we call "the next switch." Moore's Law is going to hit a wall shortly as we can no longer reduce the size of transistors every 18 months. Therefore we are currently investigating the role of molecular electronics to potentially offer novel device concepts, which are ultimately scaled and provide electronic functionalities beyond those of the transistor.
More specifically, we are studying functional molecules where electrical resistance can be switched when the molecule is contacted by two electrodes in a two-terminal device. In contrast to many other devices where a third electrode is needed, the two-terminal concept enables ultimate scaling and therefore the highest integration densities for memory applications.
We are also trying to work towards more realistic devices where the molecules are embedded and sealed in small pores and contacted in cross-bar structures. Just recently I've started a complementary activity using nano-optical means in plasmonic structures to study the assembly and vibrational properties of molecules inside the junction with the goal to correlate optical and electrical experiments.
Q: You've recently completed the design and development of the "noise-free" Labs at the new Binnig and Rohrer Nanotechnology Center. Can these high-tech rooms advance the nanotech field?
EL: The noise-free labs represent a unique environment as all disturbances relevant for our experiments are screened simultaneously to an unprecedented level. For molecular electronics, it enables more advanced characterizations of molecules than before, such as studying their thermoelectrical or optical properties. However, the main issue of the junction's control and stability cannot be solved by going to an ultra-silent environment. As mentioned above, there's no way around developing more stable platforms.
Q: Your outlook summary in Nature Nanotechnology leaves some mystery as to when we will begin to see such devices. What would be your best guess?
EL: The outlook is consciously written in an open way as many promises made in the past did not come true – leading to a legitimate disillusionment, especially in the semiconductor community about single-molecule electronics.
On the other hand, organic electronics – dealing with large ensembles of molecules in contrast to single-molecule electronics – has demonstrated that molecular building blocks can truly compete in terms of fabrication costs with today's predominant technologies. Also, when the roadmap hits dimensions below 5 nm, only molecules will offer accurate control over atomic distances and can still be made identical. This is the point in time when a true paradigm shift from top-down to bottom-up fabrication will take place.
— Chris Sciacca is the manager of communications at IBM Zurich Research Labs, Zurich, Switzerland.
Related posts:


text: Re: lossyWAV 1.4.2 Development (was 1.5.0) Reply #75 – 2016-05-07 14:37:13 Quote from: alter4 on 2016-04-30 09:44:00If I use 1,4,1m with command line '--quality high' Is that option still the best recommended setting for this level of quality or I can improve the quality by adding force hybrid shaping to the command line? Nobody answered so I made comparison of 2 sines signal with " --quality standard" vs "--quality standard -s h" settings.The result is below (hudrid, original and pure standard)http://imgur.com/a/O5eX9Of course the noise in all cases is inaudible but pure standard looks better. I stick to pure standard settings.


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Apostle Dr Kwadwo Safo would not lie. but I can't find a decent link that isn't imbeaded is some player that shows the powered armor
long story short Dr. Safo is an industrialist and religious leader who started the first car company in ghana. Except the cars seem to be made of Chinese parts with no nation of origin indicator.


text:
DOWNLOAD MP3:: Ntokozo Mbambo - My Blessing - Music
Ntokozo Mbambo - My Blessing
Added By:
Nov 07
Review:Download Ntokozo Mbambo - My Blessing mp3 by Ntokozo Mbambo
Moments in Time (Live) Album. Award-winning South African gospel artist, Ntokozo Mbambo, pleasantly surprised her fans when she released a brand new album titled 'Moments In Time (Live)' yesterday, 6 November 2018.
The 27-track live album features singles such as 'I Love My Lord,' 'We Pray For More' and 'KeMorena Jeso Reprise,' which features Ayo Solanke.
The album was released just a day before her birthday, and fans have taken to social media to express their excitement. They also wished the songstress a happy birthday. For the time being, the album is only available for purchase on digital music platforms, and is scheduled to hit the shelves on Friday, 23 November 2018.
php include("../julie.php"); ?>
Previous Track
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Ntokozo M...
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Cliff Swallows - Art Print
Hand-drawn illustration of cliff swallows flying in the sky.
- 12 x 18"
- Made in Montreal
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All orders ship out within 3-5 business days and can take between 1-3 weeks to be delivered depending on location. Click here to see our shipping rates and times.
--FREE SHIPPING on orders over $100 in Canada--
--FREE: Pick up in store!--


text:
By default, Kodo uses standard forward-only JDBC result sets, and completely instantiates the results of database queries on execution. When using a JDBC driver that supports version 2.0 or higher of the JDBC specification, however, you can configure Kodo to use scrolling result sets that may not bring all results into memory at once. You can also configure the number of result objects Kodo keeps references to, allowing you to traverse potentially enormous amounts of data without exhausting JVM memory.
You can also configure on-demand loading for individual collection and map fields via large result set proxies. See Section 184.108.40.206, "Large Result Set Proxies".
Use the following properties to configure Kodo's handling of result sets:
kodo.FetchBatchSize: The number of
objects to instantiate at once when traversing a result set.
This number will be set as the fetch size on JDBC
Statement objects used to obtain
result sets. It also factors in to the number of objects
Kodo will maintain a hard reference to when traversing a
query result.
The fetch size defaults to -1, meaning all results will be instantiated immediately on query execution. A value of 0 means to use the JDBC driver's default batch size. Thus to enable large result set handling, you must set this property to 0 or to a positive number.
kodo.jdbc.ResultSetType: The type of result
set to use when executing database queries. This
property accepts the following values, each of which corresponds
exactly to the same-named
forward-only: This is the default.
Different JDBC drivers treat the different result set types differently. Not all drivers support all types.
kodo.jdbc.FetchDirection: The expected order
in which you will access the query results. This property
affects the type of datastructure Kodo will use to hold the
results, and is also given to the JDBC driver in case it
can optimize for certain access patterns. This
property accepts the following values, each of which corresponds
exactly to the same-named
FETCH constant:
forward: This is the default.
Not all drivers support all fetch directions.
kodo.jdbc.LRSSize: The strategy Kodo will
use to determine the size of result sets. This property is
only used if you change the
fetch batch size from its default of -1, so that Kodo begins
to use on-demand result loading. Available values are:
query: This is the default. The
first time you ask for the size of a query result,
Kodo will perform a
query to determine the number of expected results.
Note that depending on transaction status and settings,
this can mean that the reported size is slightly
different than the actual number of results available.
last: If you have chosen a
scrollable result set type, this setting will
use the
method to move to the last element in the result
set and get its index. Unfortunately, some JDBC
drivers will bring all results into memory in
order to access the last one. Note that if you
do not choose a scrollable result set type, then
this will behave exactly
unknown. The default
result set type is
forward-only, so
you must change the result set type in order for this
property to have an effect.
unknown: Under this setting Kodo
will return
Integer.MAX_VALUE as
the size for any query result that uses on-demand
Example 4.15. Specifying Result Set Defaults
JPA XML format:
<property name="kodo.FetchBatchSize" value="20"/> <property name="kodo.jdbc.ResultSetType" value="scroll-insensitive"/> <property name="kodo.jdbc.FetchDirection" value="forward"/> <property name="kodo.jdbc.LRSSize" value="last"/>
JDO properties format:
kodo.FetchBatchSize: 20 kodo.jdbc.ResultSetType: scroll-insensitive kodo.jdbc.FetchDirection: forward kodo.jdbc.LRSSize: last
Many Kodo runtime components also have methods to configure these properties on a case-by-case basis through their fetch configuration. See Chapter 9, Runtime Extensions.
Example 4.16. Specifying Result Set Behavior at Runtime
import java.sql.*; import org.apache.openjpa.persistence.*; import org.apache.openjpa.persistence.jdbc.*; ... Query q = em.createQuery ("select m from Magazine m where m.title = 'JDJ'"); OpenJPAQuery oq = OpenJPAPersistence.cast (q); JDBCFetchPlan fetch = (JDBCFetchPlan) oq.getFetchPlan (); fetch.setFetchSize (20); fetch.setResultSetType (ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE); fetch.setFetchDirection (ResultSet.FETCH_FORWARD); fetch.setLRSSize (JDBCFetchPlan.SIZE_LAST); List results = (List) q.getResultList ();
import java.sql.*; import kodo.jdo.jdbc.*; ... Query q = pm.newQuery (Magazine.class, "title == 'JDJ'"); JDBCFetchPlan fetch = (JDBCFetchPlan) q.getFetchPlan (); fetch.setFetchSize (20); fetch.setResultSetType (ResultSet.TYPE_SCROLL_INSENSITIVE); fetch.setFetchDirection (ResultSet.FETCH_FORWARD); fetch.setLRSSize (JDBCFetchPlan.SIZE_LAST); List results = (List) q.execute ();


text:
An Alaskan Adventure! Chancellor and Two Seminarians Minister in Kodiak
6-11 March 2013 • Kodiak, Alaska
View an Alaska photo diary by Sdn. Nicholas Roth
By plane, auto and boat, a St. Vladimir's Seminary (SVOTS) delegation of three journeyed from New York to several destinations in Kodiak, Alaska, during the seminary's week of spring break. On their first full day in Alaska, The Very Rev. Dr. Chad Hatfield, SVOTS chancellor/CEO and the former dean of St. Herman Seminary, third–year student The Rev. James Parnell, and second–year student Sdn. Nicholas Roth, presented a workshop for seminarians at sister institution St. Herman's Theological Seminary.
Based on feedback from the students and faculty at St. Herman's, Fr. Chad chose to address the theme "Speaking to Protestants," in which he presented an introduction to Protestant churches and offered counsel about how to engage their missionaries when they come to Alaskan villages. "These missionaries are coming in greater numbers, well funded and well organized," noted Fr. Chad. "In particular, this is a challenge for the Orthodox Church in America (OCA). We have many parishes in Alaska and we need to be sending our own missionaries—catechists and youth workers—to strengthen the faithful there."
In a second workshop, St. Vladimir's students Fr. James and Sdn. Nicholas, both of whom have served several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan and are preparing to be chaplains, spoke about the military chaplaincy and ministry to veterans. "They were so well organized and presented so well!" said Fr. Chad. "For me, there was an enormous amount of satisfaction in seeing two of our seminarians handle themselves so professionally as they communicated at St. Herman's." That evening, the SVOTS delegation joined Alaskan clergy in praying the Akathist before Holy Relics of St. Herman in Holy Resurrection Cathedral, and Fr. James offered another reflection. Then on Friday morning, the newly ordained Fr. James served liturgy at the All Saints of Alaska Chapel. "That was a great joy," he reflected. "I even able to learn some of the Yup'ik liturgical phrases and responses."
"We were warmly welcomed by the faculty and students alike, who showed us great hospitality," added Sdn. Nicholas Roth. "The students were eager and engaging during our presentations, and it was a great opportunity to provide them with information on how to minister to veterans. St. Herman Archivist Daria Safronova was also kind enough to show us some of the Seminary's treasures—the writings, journals, and possessions of St. Innocent and St. Jacob Netsetov."
On Friday afternoon, the special sessions concluded and the trio traveled to the Coast Guard base in Kodiak, where the seminarians had the opportunity to hear Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant chaplains describe their ministry there. Alumnus Fr. Eugene Wozniak (SVOTS '95), who is stationed in Juneau, flew up to Kodiak and arranged the tour and presentations. "The Coast Guard trip was a nice capstone to our time at St. Herman's," said Fr. James. "It highlighted for us how embedded the military community is in Kodiak, and just how important the ministry and chaplaincy is to them."
After the trip to the base, Fr. Chad presented a gift of newly published SVS Press books to the St. Herman's Seminary library. "In addition to thinking about new book donations, our librarian Eleana Silk always makes sure that seconds from our library are sent to the St. Herman's library for use by Librarian Dn. Irenaus Anderson."
In another word of thanks, Fr. Chad noted that "we are always thankful to benefactor Eva Cadwell, who generously supports this yearly exchange between St. Vladimir's and St. Herman's. There has been a strong historical connection between our two seminaries over the years, and we look forward to strengthening that relationship." He added wryly, "the Alaskan seminarians are very keen to travel next year for a basketball tournament with STOTS and SVOTS. They are confident they can beat the Lower 48 seminaries!"
View the photo gallery
Read about Fr. Eugene's Chaplaincy
Read about Fr. Chad's 2012 Summer Alaskan trip


text:
If you ever wondered what all the fuss' is about. Why so much kaumaha and 'eha. It is quite simple. When you hold the whole world in your arms. The struggle to protect and preserve has never had so much meaning. Ho'omau. Unceasing. Preservation. Perserve. E ho'omau kanaka 'oiwi. E ho'omau...
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Posted by Ka`iana at 11:35 PM
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text:
Britain's Prince Charles says the future of food is among the world's most pressing challenges and a U.S. publisher wants to make sure America gets the message.
In a speech last year at Georgetown University, the prince challenged the assumption industrial agriculture is the best approach, delighting U.S. proponents of sustainable and organic agriculture who've been sounding an alarm that the world is on the brink of agricultural disaster.
Environmentalist and author Laurie David was in the audience and said she immediately connected with the prince's message.
"Really, my jaw dropped along with everyone else's because the speech was such a clear and comprehensive explanation of what has gone so wrong with how we produce food in this country and what we need to do to get back on track," David said in a statement.
"The Prince's Speech: On the Future of Food," was published last month as a 64-page paperback book by Rodale Books. It features the text of the prince's speech, with a foreword by author and farmer Wendell Berry and an afterword by farmer Will Allen and writer Eric Schlosser.
The prince, who has been a champion of sustainable food production for decades after moving a farm on one of the royal estates to an organic agricultural system, said the current industrialized farming model promoted as viable in much of the world is putting the Earth and the world's food supply at risk.
"We have to maintain a supply of healthy food when there is mounting pressure on every element affecting the farming process," he said. "Soils are being depleted, demands for water growing ever more voracious, and the entire system is at the mercy of an increasingly fluctuating price of oil," he said.
While the speech was given by a wealthy man, heir to the British throne, it is the poor who have the most to gain by the expansion of sustainable agriculture, activists say.
"The wealthy will always eat well," Allen and Schlosser wrote in the book's afterword. "It is the poor and working people in the United States who need a new, sustainable food system more than anyone else."
The United Nations has called for support for sustainable agriculture as a way to drive green growth and reduce poverty.
The U.N. Environment Program and the International Fund for Agricultural Development says the challenge of feeding more than 9 billion people by 2050 and maintaining productive land and sufficient water resources requires a "more intelligent pathway" for managing the world's agricultural systems.
What can consumers do to help support the effort to promote sustainable food systems?
SustainableTable.org urges consumers to buy food from local, sustainable farms, support a ban on the non-therapeutic use of antibiotics in livestock, support mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food and demand a farm bill that supports sustainable agriculture.
Michael Sands, senior associate of the Liberty Prairie Foundation in Grayslake, Ill., and longtime proponent of sustainable land development and farming, said the prince's book is a positive addition to the discussion of U.S. farming practices and appears to provide an effective way to reach the general public.
The sustainable agriculture, or "good food" movement, has both a strong grassroots organization and growing support within the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Farm Credit Agency.
"The challenge, frankly, is in the middle," Sands said.
Rodale Inc., which publishes magazines such as Men's Health, Prevention, Women's Health, Runner's World and Organic Gardening, reaches more than 70 million people around the world and is the largest independent book publisher in the United States.
Rodale said it has more than 25 million active customers in its database.
"They have this potential, in essence, to put something in front of a quarter of the American public who is initially inclined to the message," Sands said.
Sands said support for sustainable agriculture is growing along with the awareness of the economic benefits, including health, jobs, local community development and the recirculation of food dollars.
The economic message is being promoted in Washington as the U.S. Congress writes a new farm bill.
The National Sustainable Agriculture Coalition released its policy platform last week, calling for a comprehensive approach to farm policy reform that will create jobs, enhance natural resources, improve agricultural productivity and make healthy food widely available.
"Slow job recovery, a rapidly aging farm population, accelerating erosion and nutrient pollution, and atrophied regional food infrastructure can be viewed as a crisis or an opportunity," coalition Executive Director Susan Prolman said in a statement.
U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, says locally grown food is helping to create new market opportunities for farmers and agriculture producers, while also helping to provide families greater access to healthy and nutritious foods.
"Whether a Kansas farmer is growing wheat that will be made into bread in a Kansas bakery, or selling Georgia peaches to schools through a food hub in Atlanta, local food systems mean a win-win for agriculture and the local economy," the Michigan Democrat said at a hearing March 7.
"In Michigan we know that if every household spent just $10 spent on locally grown food, we could put $40 million back into the economy. When we buy local, we support local jobs."
Stabenow said food policy councils, farmers markets, co-ops and food hubs are bringing farmers together with low-income school districts, food banks and grocers in neighborhoods often described as "food deserts" to provide fruits, vegetables and other healthy products to families in need.
Stabenow also said the demand for new, locally grown food has helped to fuel a younger generation of farmers and ranchers to start their own businesses.


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Lloyd A. Karmeier was born January 12, 1940, in rural Washington County, where he attended a one-room grade school and graduated as valedictorian in 1958 from Okawville Community High School. He received his B.S. degree in 1962 and his J.D. degree in 1964, both from the University of Illinois.
Justice Karmeier clerked for former Illinois Supreme Court Justice Byron O. House from 1964 to 1968, served as state's attorney of Washington County from 1968 to 1972, and clerked for former U.S. District Court Judge James L. Foreman from 1972 to 1973. He was engaged in the general practice of law with the firm of Hohlt, House, DeMoss & Johnson from 1964 to 1986. He was resident Circuit Judge of Washington County from 1986 to 2004, when he was elected to the Illinois Supreme Court.
Justice Karmeier is a member of the Illinois Judges' Association, the Washington County, St. Clair County, East St. Louis and Illinois State Bar Associations, and past member of the American Bar Association and the American Judicature Society. He served as a member of the Assembly of the Illinois State Bar Association from 1996 to 2002, and as chair of the Bench and Bar Section Council. He also served on the Illinois Supreme Court Committee on Pattern Jury Instructions in Criminal Cases, chairing the committee from 2003 to 2004. He is a member of the Southern Illinois American Inn of Court and served as President of the Executive Committee from 2003 to 2007.
Justice Karmeier and his wife, Mary, reside in Nashville, Illinois. They have two children and six grandchildren.


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Pfizer breast cancer drug gets breakthrough label
Pfizer Inc. said Wednesday that its experimental pill for advanced, often deadly breast cancer has been designated as a breakthrough therapy by the Food and Drug Administration.
Pfizer shares jumped nearly 3 percent following the news.
The breakthrough designation, created under legislation enacted last summer to fund and improve operations of the FDA, is meant to speed up development and review of experimental treatments that are seen as big advances over existing therapies for serious diseases. Pfizer is working with the agency to determine exactly what research results it will need to apply for approval of the drug.
Palbociclib is being evaluated as an initial treatment for the biggest subgroup of postmenopausal women whose breast cancer is locally advanced or has spread elsewhere in the body. About 60 percent of women with such advanced breast cancer have tumors classified as ER+, or estrogen-receptor positive, but HER2-, or lacking an excess of the growth-promoting protein HER2.
Estrogen-receptor positive tumors have proteins inside and on the surface of their cells to which the estrogen hormone can attach and then fuel growth of cells. These tumors tend to grow slowly and can be fought with drugs that block estrogen's effects.
Meanwhile, about 80 percent of breast cancer tumor cells are HER2 negative. That means that unlike HER2 positive tumors, they don't produce too much of the HER2 protein, which makes tumors grow and spread more aggressively than in other breast cancer types.
New York-based Pfizer is currently running a late-stage study of palbociclib at multiple centers, comparing its effects when used in combination with letrozole with the effects of letrozole alone.
Letrozole, sold under the brand name Femara for about the past 15 years, is a pill that works by inhibiting aromatase. That's an enzyme in the adrenal glands that makes estrogen.
According to Pfizer, palbociclib targets enzymes called cyclin dependent kinases 4 and 6. By inhibiting those enzymes, the drug has been shown in laboratory studies to block cell growth and suppress copying of the DNA of the cancer cells.
Pfizer, which has made research on cancer medicines a priority in recent years, also is testing palbociclib as a treatment for other cancers.
In afternoon trading, Pfizer shares were up 83 cents, or 2.9 percent, at $29.94.
Follow Linda A. Johnson at https://twitter.com/LindaJ-onPharma .


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Contact your healthcare provider by phone before coming to a clinic or hospital if you meet the following criteria:
Symptoms such as fever, cough or shortness of breath, fatigue, headache, muscle or body aches, loss of taste or smell, sore throat, congestion or runny nose.
Contact with someone with confirmed COVID-19 within 14 days of onset of systems
We have located 5 free and income based clinics in or around Omak, Washington.
We listed all of the free, income based health clinics, public health department clinics, community health centers that we have located in Omak, WA. For the most part these clinics are for low income persons or those without insurance.
Review all of the information we have provided for the clinics. Some of them provide a wide array of services ranging from free to sliding scale services. We have provided as much detailed information including phone numbers, emails, and websites where available.
Clinic services we list include:
Medical Clinic Services
Women's Health Clinic Services
Adult Health Clinic Services
Pediatric Dental Clinic Services
Behavioral Health Clinic Services
and more!!
Family Health Center Dental Clini - Okanogan
Location: 4.37 miles from OmakOkanogan, WA - 98840
Sliding Scale
Permanent Clinic. see clinic details
Family Health Centers - Okanogan
Location: 4.45 miles from OmakOkanogan, WA - 98840
Sliding Scale
Permanent Clinic. see clinic details
Tonasket Clinic - Tonasket
Location: 20.85 miles from OmakTonasket, WA - 98855
Sliding Scale
Permanent Clinic. see clinic details
Fhc Brewster Dental Clinic - Brewster
Location: 24.24 miles from OmakBrewster, WA - 98812
Sliding Scale
Permanent Clinic. see clinic details
Brewster Clinic Fhc - Brewster
Location: 24.52 miles from OmakBrewster, WA - 98812
Sliding Scale
Permanent Clinic. see clinic details
Are You Looking For Free Dental Clinics In Washington?Washington Free Dental Clinics
Your Simple Guide to Losing 20 Pounds
The trend in our culture is toward gaining a pound or two every year. This is one trend that you shouldn't follow. You can easily stop this trend and maintain your weight by cutting a mere 100 calories from your diet each day. If you want to rever
Lower Blood Pressure Naturally
High blood pressure, also known as hypertension, is often the underlying cause of a heart attack or stroke in people as young as forty. Both of these things in the top three causes of death in the United States. Anyone who is diagnosed with hypert
How to Naturally Lower Cholesterol
High cholesterol levels can cause cardiovascular disease, heart attack or strokes. There are several ways you can help reduce your LDL (bad) cholesterol and increase your HDL (good) cholesterol levels naturally.
Cholesterol is a waxy
Popular Diets To Avoid At All Costs
According to the CDC, as many as two-thirds of Americans are either obese or overweight, so it is no surprise that losing weight is a big business, spawning a new diet trend every few years. Unfortunately, while fad diets are big on promises, they


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I have a combo box on a form called cboName, already populated with nine names. Nothing is visible in the text portion of the combo box yet. I only want the combo box enabled if the logged on user is one of the nine names. I want the code to loop thru the names and compare them to the logged on user and then enable or disable the combo box (as part of the form load, or very early in the code before the user gets to the combo box). What properties of the combo box do I use to get the text of the names that I originally added using Items.Add so that I can Loop through to compare to the name of the user? Some form of SelectedIndex? Some form of SelectedItem?
I think I should use something like
If cboName.XXX = GetUserName(gUserName) Then
cboName.Enabled = True
cboName.Enabled = False
In this example, gUserName would be tjones, his login name to the system. Timothy Jones would be the corresponding name in the combo box which was added earlier in another part of the code, and which would be returned by the GetUserName function.
But I cannot seem to get the XXX to come up with text name equal to the name (Timothy Jones) that I added with Items.Add. This has got to be simple, but I'm just missing it somewhere.
Can anyone help me here?
TIA for anything anyone can offer.


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Apple's legal department has seen several personnel changes in recent memory. Nancy Heinen left her general counsel position in 2006 after the backdating scandal. Her replacement, Donald Rosenberg, left after less than a year with the company. Then Steve Jobs hired Daniel Cooperman away from Oracle late last year. But there was still the issue of head of corporate law, a position that has been empty since 2000. Not the best of conditions for such a busy legal department.
Well, turns out Cooperman has just drafted Charles Charnas, VP and deputy general counsel at Hewlett-Packard, to become Apple's first head of corporate law in nearly eight years. Charnas worked for HP for 18 years, including overseeing the Compaq acquisition in 2001 and acting as general counsel after the pretexting scandal in 2006. Anna Marie Armstrong, a San Francisco-based legal recruiter, says Charnas has "been known as one of the high-profile heavy hitter corporate lawyers in Silicon Valley for many years."
Charnas' experience will hopefully prepare him for the onslaught of irate dithered display owners and nutballs claiming sexual harrasment with Apple gadgets. If things get too hairy around the office, he can always bust out his guitar and pick a little ditty to chase the blues away, too.


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Tahiti And French Polynesia
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Bora Bora Travel Guide
Bora Bora © Herve
Satellite pictures of the tiny island of Bora Bora, from hundreds of miles above the earth, show it to be almost glowing, its dark green centre surrounded by a coral necklace and an iridescent aquamarine lagoon.
Little wonder that this is the dream destination for celebrities, honeymooners, and lovers who live in splendour in the island's luxurious spas and resorts, while enjoying privacy and anonymity on its magical secluded beaches.
Visitors to Bora Bora touch down on an airstrip (built by US troops during World War II) situated on a motu (islet) in the middle of the beautiful crystal-clear lagoon, and are ferried to the main island. The lagoon forms the centre of activities for holidaymakers, being the stage for numerous adventures, from shark-feeding excursions and swimming with giant turtles to scuba diving, snorkelling, jet-skiing, glass-bottom boat cruises, descending into the 'lagoonarium', kite-sailing, picnicking on a motu, and more.
Bora Bora also offers plenty of cultural and historical attractions, like taking a day trip to a Marae (ancient temple), exploring the World War II-era cannon and relics, browsing the art and craft galleries, watching a Tahitian dance ceremony, and perhaps even braving a traditional tattoo (the skin art is said to have originated here). Bora Bora is a famously dreamy travel destination and more than lives up to its reputation. For a romantic holiday in a tropical beach paradise there is no better choice.
Become our Bora Bora Travel Expert
We are looking for contributors for our Bora Bora travel guide. If you are a local, a regular traveller to Bora Bora or a travel professional with time to contribute and answer occasional forum questions, please contact us.


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Precisely machined, weight- balanced alloy wheel locks help secure your wheels and tires against theft.
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By adding this item to your cart, the shipping option will not be available for your order. The In-Store Pickup option will now be defaulted at checkout.
WARNING: Cancer and Reproductive Harm - www.P65Warnings.ca.gov


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Reality Check: Steak 'n Shake's Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger
Reviews of fast food burgers and a look at how the real life version compares to the advertised beauty shot.
With much of the country broiling away in record-temps this summer, Steak 'n Shake has decided it's the perfect time to roll out their Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger. No sweat, I say. I'm always down for some of the spicy stuff, and for my burger dollar, Steak 'n Shake lives on the higher end of the fast-food/fast-casual spectrum. So on a recent afternoon where the mercury hovered just under 100, I pulled up a stool with a great view of the flattop and told my server to bring the heat.
Open kitchens and on-display cookery are all the rage today, but when Gus Belt started Steak 'n Shake in 1934, he took it to a whole new level. According to official company propaganda, he would wheel steak-filled barrels into the store and grind the meat into burgers right in front of customers. Their "In Sight It Must Be Right" philosophy continues today with a griddle right up front... although the grinding these days is done behind the scenes.
Watching a good short order cook has always been my favorite type of dinner theater; on this day, I watched the griddlemaster (actually, a griddlemistress) pluck two soft beef pucks out of the cooler with a long-tined fork, plop them on the flattop, and flatten them out with a spatula, the rhythmic clinking cadence and fluid choreography of grease-splattered utensils never stopping as the computer screen above scrolled orders and ticked off cooking times relentlessly. 8:26 after my order was inputted, the plated meal was on its way to a runner.
What I got was not unattractive by any means, but not quite a match with the PR shot, either. That striking red salsa from the menu pic wasn't really visible, nor were the sliced jalapeños. The predominant color was that generic fast-food shade of orange, in this case provided by chipotle mayo, with flecks of pepperjack white peeking through. Again, not bad...but if I hadn't known what I ordered, I certainly wouldn't be able to identify this as the Jalapeño Crunch Steakburger ($4.99 with fries) on sight alone.
Under the bun, things looked a tad skimpy. Four jalapeño slices is enough to add kick, but it sure doesn't guarantee it in every bite. I had to look hard to pick out the salsa, which had sort of blended with the chipotle mayo and even seemed to suck up the "crispy fried onions" that theoretically supply this burger with the "Crunch" in its name.
A cross-section autopsy shot only muddied the works. Salsa, mayo, jalapeños, and fried onions had melded together into one generic amalgamation of stuff, with no one ingredient all that discernible from the others. And that's exactly how it tasted. There was some peppery heat in there, and more crunch than I would have predicted (from both the fried onion and the jalapeño slices), but nothing that really fired up my taste buds as being something special. It was a warm, gushy, meaty, cheesy, bready mouthful with a slight crunch and some residual spice.
Thankfully, there was enough of what I already love about Steak 'n Shake to save this lunch run: those golden matchstick fries, a miniature crock of baked beans, a shot of vanilla in my Coke, a milkshake for the road. Steak 'n Shake's double patties were their usual selves as well; if you're a fan of SNS's "steakburgers," there's nothing really wrong with this seasonal LTO, but there's nothing really right with it, either. Not worth making a special trip or deviating from your usual order.
Love hamburgers? Then you'll Like AHT on Facebook! And go follow us on Twitter while you're at it!
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ASCCP Mobile
ASCCP Abnormal Cervical Cancer Screening Guidelines- There's an app for that!
The ASCCP has developed a comprehensive, user friendly app for the Updated Consensus Guidelines for Managing Abnormal Cervical Cancer Screening Tests and Cancer Precursors. Each individual recommendation and the algorithms can be viewed following a few keystrokes to enter important patient data. The app is simple to use and will come in very handy when you are on the fly and busy seeing patients.