Just interesting news to me.
Electric and magnetic forces are the ones we understand the best. I believe these forces will help us understand the rest. These guys are finding out that even between galaxies there may be strong magnetic fields.
>>> “These force fields — the same entities that emanate from fridge magnets — surround Earth, the sun and all galaxies.”
www.quantamagazine.org/the-hidden-magnetic-universe-begins-to-come-into-view-20200702/
We need something new about Intellectual property laws and not political this time.
>>>
“Intellectual property law is supposed to promote experimentation, not hold it back. A similar problem in 17th-century England led to the precursor of our own system of patents and copyrights. In those days British monarchs often granted monopolies to courtiers in exchange for money or political support.”
This caught my attention on Hacker’s News because my mother used to drive me at school in one of them. My father bought it from a farmer who used it to go to the far end of his fields. When he bought it, it was only going in reverse. Needless to say, we had the only model in town…
>>>
“The Isetta is an Italian-designed microcar built under license in a number of different countries, including Argentina,[1] Spain,[2] Belgium,[3] France,[4] Brazil,[5] Germany,[6] and the United Kingdom”
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta
This is part of the cost of a general lockdown. Sometimes, a school might be the only place where a child is safe.
>>>
“For many children, it’s been boring, frustrating and sometimes depressing. However, for others, it’s been deadly, because the coronavirus lockdown has seen them fall prey to a wave of increased domestic abuse.”
Ha! encore un petite loi passée en douce… Pour moi, le pire, c’est que la plupart des téléphone portable sont basés sur Linux (Android) ou bien Darwin/BSD (Ios) (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwin_(operating_system)). Ils ont utilisé le logiciel libre de façon à pouvoir imposer leur propre propriété intellectuelle.
>>> “En quoi consiste l’initiative ? Entre autres, la loi fédérale sur le droit d’auteur ( LFDA ) et le code pénal fédéral envisage des amendes millionnaires et des années de prison pour ceux qui reproduisent ou retransmettent du contenu, modifient des logiciels ou réparent du matériel sans autorisation.”
fr.sott.net/article/35872-Mexique-Reparer-vos-propres-appareils-pourrait-vous-mettre-en-prison
Again with territorial disputes. I am surprised to learn that about birds singing.
>>>
“Birds sing to mark their territories and attract prospective mates. Traditionally, white-throated sparrows in western and central Canada sing a song distinguished by its three-note ending.”
gizmodo.com/a-viral-new-bird-song-in-canada-is-causing-sparrows-t-1844245103
I like OpenStreetMap. I think theirs maps are prettier. The response time is quick and the details are amazing. They do not have satellite view and “Street View” but for real mapping usage they are great.
They have the best rendering of rivers in my view (with the Transport Map).
There is also a OpenSeaMap that is getting very good. It is more popular in Europe than North America.
>>>
“Its unparalleled global coverage — from roads and rivers to pharmacies, forests, and much more — makes OpenStreetMap a vital resource for building high-quality visual maps and navigation services for every part of the world.”
blog.mapbox.com/openstreetmap-a-global-map-for-worldwide-insight-4e041cbf1ec1
What I found the most frustrating about this whole COVID thing is that some government got between us and our physicians by banning the use of this hydrochloroquine. The pretext was that if we start using it for COVID, patients that really needs it for other diseases would miss it. That is absurd. That thing cost almost nothing to produce and if you can afford to pay everybody some money to “stay at home”, you can certainly afford to boost production on that stuff. If it does not cost much it should not be very difficult to make. There is no proof that it is working. Come on!! For a while it was the only thing that had a CHANCE of working. If I am dying I will take that chance, specially if my doctor can prescribe it to me legally.
That is the real problem with socializing medical care, doctors are no more in control. The same when you let a group of insurance company control medical care.
>>>
“What we found is that of those patients treated with hydroxychloroquine there was a 13% overall mortality; in the patients that were not treated with hydroxychloroquine there was a 26% mortality,” said Dr. Steven Kalkanis, CEO of Henry Ford Medical Group.
www.fox2detroit.com/news/henry-ford-says-their-study-found-hydroxychloroquine-helps-lower-covid-19-death-rate
I will generally use exiting code to complete a task. I am able to create new code but I am also very good at understanding existing code. With the years, I find that using existing code is very often the best economical (read least effort) way to go. I have also used whole systems of software to accomplish something it was never designed to do. With success. It is just a matter of how you look at things. I you can picture the stock market as general store, you might be able to use a sophisticate inventory replenishment system to pick up what stock to buy and what to “put on sale”.
Lately I have been using a trick I call “encapsulating”.
Say I am frustrated with a program like “vlc” that is not doing what I want. Instead of trying to change the source code and spending multiple hours of study, I would just call it from a script (or even another program) and then I can do whatever I want before and after that program (again, say “vlc”) executes.
It is working 90% of the time currently. In other words, with very little work, I am able to get what I want.
This guy is saying that deciding to rewrite from scratch is the worst idea.
>>>
“The idea that new code is better than old is patently absurd. Old code has been used. It has been tested. Lots of bugs have been found, and they’ve been fixed.”
www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/
It looks like this continent will lead the way into REAL use of cryptocurrencies. I mean the use of cryptos as money to exchange goods and services.
>>>
““Africa is one of, if not the most promising region for the adoption of cryptocurrencies. This is due to its unique combination of economic and demographic trends. While the overall adoption is relatively low, the potential is enormous, the growth is rapid, and the development is likely to become defining for the cryptocurrency industry going forward.””
news.bitcoin.com/crypto-use-cases-in-africa-on-the-rise-according-to-luno/
Warming or cooling, that is the question.
” > The mainstream propaganda media has milked Siberia’s June heatwave to within an inch of its life. Tens of thousands of alarming, one-sided articles have been released onto the web like a plague of obfuscation.”
electroverse.net/siberias-record-heatwave-set-to-end-this-weekend-to-be-replaced-by-record-cold/
Another example of how Intellectual Property laws are actually slowing human progress.
“… we found that articles downloaded from Sci-hub were cited 1.72 times more than papers not downloaded from Sci-hub and…”
I am not a fan of drug dealers but I would never use an encryption scheme that is in the hand of a single entity. Open source systems and fully distributed peer to peer systems (a la tor or bitcoin) are best for me.
I use pgp whenever I can. It is not easy to use and I think it is not widely available because some entities are putting the brakes on a general acceptance. That alone is a good reason to trust it. The problem is always in the implementation and the underlying support structure. The more sensitive your needs are, the more investigation you need to put into these underlying support structure.
BTW, if I was an Encrochat associate, I would lay low for a while… hehe!
“Police monitored a hundred million encrypted messages sent through Encrochat, a network used by career criminals to discuss drug deals, murders, and extortion plots.”
www.vice.com/en_us/article/3aza95/how-police-took-over-encrochat-hacked
At least, with bitcoin, there is less possibilities of fake bitcoins.
“One of China’s largest gold jewelry manufacturers, Kingold Jewelry Inc., has been using fake gold to secure loans…”
news.bitcoin.com/gold-industry-83-tons-fake-gold-bars-secure-2-billion-loans-china/
This is another example about too much relying on a single entity. I would prefer a peer to peer video platform like https://peer.tube/ and ask for money like patreon for support. I think people will donate happily to good content. There is no need for a middlemen to get a cut on creators revenue.
“…Stefan Molyneux, received more than $100,000 in cryptocurrency donations after he was banned from Youtube on June 29, 2020. ”
This is a good lesson for people who use cryptos to only transfer fiat money from one place to another. One can’t rely on something that is controlled by another (ie: fiat money). It is best to leave it in cryptos IMO.
“Governments in nearly 100 countries have been sharing offshore bank account information…”
news.bitcoin.com/11-trillion-offshore-assets-100-countries-84-million-bank-accounts/
COVID19 is real, everything around it is questionable like usual. This is a very good analysis of the surrounding of that phenomenon in Canada.
“…being the 153rd anniversary of Confederation, I would like to follow Laurier’s example, exercising my freedom to question and my duty to preserve our civil liberties. ”
and
“Why are we Including “Probable” Cases of COVID in the Official Figures?” ”
www.sott.net/article/437417-COVID-deaths-in-Canada-A-questionable-statistic
Interesting to me because I think I was born left handed and then “forced” to use my right hand when learning to write. I use my right hand to write but mostly my left hand to do everything else, specially in sports like golf or baseball or hockey. This next text is mostly debunking the myth that military leaders are best with the left hand.
“While there may (or may not) be some truth to the claim, it is a mistake to make a rule out of such anecdotal evidence and cherry-picked data. ”
Apparently left-handed people would get electrical stimulation on the wrong side of the brain when getting therapy about depression and recalcitrant anxiety. Their emotion brain hemispheres seems to be reversed.
“Treatment for the most common mental health problems could be ineffective or even detrimental to about 50 percent of the population, according to a radical new model…”
www.sott.net/article/388735-Why-being-left-handed-matters-for-treatment-of-mental-health-problems
I like Benjamin Franklin a lot. His experiment with a kite and electricity inspired me, when I was 16 to get a kite flying during an electrical storm and drive a lightning into a specific spot on the ground where I previously stocked some charcoal. The idea was to transform that form of carbon to diamonds under the great pressure and temperature attain with the lightning. It fails, but it was a great adventure and a lot of fun.
“Many Canadians (and Americans) find themselves shocked when confronted with the fact that Canada’s first postal service and first newspaper were both created by… Benjamin Franklin!”
http://canadianpatriot.org/why-canada-failed-the-ben-franklin-challenge-in-1776/
Interesting article about the birth of vim and “line” editors. I am a vim fan. Besides punch cards in my early programming, I used TECO which was very cryptic but I was able to adapt quickly to ed, ex, vi and finally vim. Some people prefer emacs but it did not pass my first test of a nice program so I remained with vi and vim.
I do not like to be hijacked by any software, so my first step is to check how easy it is to get out of the program. I should be able to get out in less that 2-3 keystrokes or 2-3 clicks. If so, it indicates a good design to me.
“What I am trying to say that vim is an effort of over half a century of good idea accumulation, putting lots of effort into being backward compatible.”
https://pragmaticpineapple.com/how-did-vim-become-so-popular/
I think their device is a LED flashlight with a dark red filter. The visual spectrum is normally around 380-740nm, so their technique stand at right about the edge of out spectrum. Maybe that is why it is ‘exercising’ the eyes.
“Researchers found the 670nm light had no impact in younger individuals, but in those around 40 years and over, significant improvements were obtained.”
https://www.sott.net/article/437352-Declining-eyesight-improved-by-looking-at-deep-red-light
It will be nice to follow up on this and see how they will resolve that. I always feel there is too much fuss and tyranny over Intellectual Property. I think it protects the middleman more that the creator. Even property in itself is hard to justify in the absence of extensive agriculture. Hunting territories are a different kind of ‘properties” than farms.
“The EFF has revealed it is teaming up with law firm Durie Tangri to defend the Internet Archive against a lawsuit targeting its Open Library. According to court filings,…”
Je pense que la grande faiblesse de l’être humain est de vouloir se faire plaisir à tout prix. Il faut apprendre à se contrôler nous-même sinon on se fait contrôler par d’autres. Les méthode de contrôle passent aussi par les “petites drogues” (ie: Café, Nicotine, Alcool, etc.) ainsi que les drogues produites par notre propre corps (endorphines, sex, jeux, etc.).
“L’exportation d’opium de l’Inde britannique vers la Chine, financée par l’État, a été sans doute la plus grande et l’opération la plus persistante de trafic de drogue de l’histoire.”
https://fr.sott.net/article/35852-Le-trafic-de-drogue-colonial-et-l-Empire-britannique
Something happens around 12800 years ago and that led to some big changes in our way of life. Some people thinks that agriculture and civilization started at that time. Maybe we had some previous civilizations but, for me, the more important question is why we started agriculture in the first place.
I do not think agriculture is an easier way of life or an easier way to get food. When I look at fishermen, I see hunting and specially trapping is a lot easier than agriculture.
There is a point to make about the stability of food supply with agriculture. Then again, we are starting to see the benefits of fasting in our current time.
I suspect also, that a fixed system (agriculture) is subject to variations in the environment (flood, drought, hurricanes, twisters, etc.), the same as moving systems (hunting, gathering, fishing, trapping, etc.), but the advantage of moving systems is that they can go to more stable places.
Civilization is based on trade. In the case of modern fishermen, it is easy to see that they are trading. Maybe it would be possible to create an entire civilization not based on agriculture.
“Earth Sciences Professor Edward Keller of the University of California at Santa Barbara writes as follows: “If the hypothesis of the impact is correct (and I am very impressed with the data) it is perhaps the most important hypothesis in the Earth Sciences,…”
I think that smoking has been with us since we started to control fire. When you think about it, making a fire in the wilderness, you are already “smoking” some king if vegetable. It is not a big step to start experimenting with other herbs. It looks like these people had good results with some other herbs.
“Until now, the use of specific smoking plant mixtures by ancient people in the American Northwest had only been speculated about. ”
https://www.sott.net/article/437198-Non-tobacco-plant-identified-in-ancient-pipe-for-first-time
I have been obsessed with gravity since my teenage. It looks like another thing that we, as human, can’t wrap our head around. We need more and more “observations” and less “theorising”. We desperately need more ways to observe and “out of our head”, so to speak.
“The pendulum itself is not a quantum object. But it’s operating at the interface where gravity and quantum mechanics can play together.”
https://www.sott.net/article/437187-Pendulum-may-reveal-gravitys-secrets
Many people think that bitcoin is heading for bigger value, but on a near future, this might also be true;
““This is a new model I’m working on, it picks the start of exponential bull runs,” Woo tweeted.”
May you live in interesting time. The sky in July 2020;
“The lunar eclipse… And more moon magic…
…Jupiter and Saturn will blaze in the sky…
…Alpha Capricornids and the southern Delta Aquarids showers peak on the same nights, …”
https://www.sott.net/article/437202-A-trifecta-of-astronomical-shows-coming-in-July
There is still much confusion about the term “hacker”. I think this guy has the right view. Hackers are human, they are not absolute black and absolute white hats. They are all grey with different shadesm but he is right about have a Responsible Disclosure Policy.
“Not having a Responsible Disclosure Policy or retaliating against well-intentioned white hat hackers (hackers that hack for good) is like having a sign in front of your establishment saying “No Good Guys Allowed”.”
https://medium.com/@yakko.majuri/the-internet-is-too-unsafe-we-need-more-hackers-c9742fc1a03b
We should study the sun more. I am happy that some of us, like them,
do study it more thoroughly. I was not aware that you could study the sun using sound waves (helioseismology) to study the sun.
“At the beginning of a solar cycle, sunspots emerge at mid-latitudes. As the cycle progresses, they emerge closer and closer to the equator. To explain this “butterfly diagram,” solar physicists suspect that the deep magnetic field is carried toward the equator by a large-scale flow.”
It is also a good tutorial on lynx. I think lynx should come available in any “unix” distribution. The “text only” is a nice break from the “javascript” world we live in nowadays. HTML took over the internet a while back but there are plenty of other protocols that existed and we forgot. Gopher is one of them. I am also thinking of usenet.
BTW, you can also use lynx as a basic file manager. Try “lynx .” and have fun.
“One of the things you will notice about gopherspace is the speed with which you can move around in it. Gopher is faster than the rest of the Internet, because opening Gopher pages doesn’t entail downloading megabytes of Javascipt. ”
Copyright is not a good way to give money to a creator. Alexandre Dumas became very rich and there were no copyright laws in his time.
“A quiet rebellion against copyright is being waged on a single website by a freelance coder, using cryptocurrency where PayPal won’t do. ”
https://www.coindesk.com/blackballed-by-paypal-scientific-paper-pirate-takes-bitcoin-donations