Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Jamie Ducharme examines the realities of a COVID-19 surge in progress – as well as the reason to worry that avoidable illness and death is being treated as the new normal. Kailin Yin et al. highlight the harm caused by systemic inflammation and
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THE FIFTH COLUMN: AI Has Nothing To Do With Intelligence
AI Has Nothing To Do With Intelligence AI has nothing to do with intelligence but people believe the marketing hype, mostly because we have a distorted idea of what intelligence is, largely do to the media. Take the quiz show “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader” that says in
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Afternoon Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Ryan Meili discusses how a blinkered focus on austerian “efficiency” and exit strategies prevents the development of care systems capable of meeting long-term needs. And Dione Wearmouth reports on the fallout from the UCP’s insistence on putting performative politics over even those
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Premiers can agree not to poach health care workers from one another, but that’s easier said than done
A week ago, Canada’s premiers ended a meeting in Halifax agreeing that they shouldn’t poach health care workers from one another. Nova Scotia Conservative Premier Tim Houston (Photo: Screenshot of CPAC video). There’s a shortage all round, they seemed to be saying, let’s poach from poor countries instead of each
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Friday Afternoon Links
Assorted content to end your week. – Andrew Freedman examines how the climate breakdown is generating consequences far beyond those foreseen by previous projections. Seth Borenstein reports on the immense loss of Antarctic ice – and the danger it poses to coastal areas in particular. And Michael Mann points to the
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: FTX O’Leary Loves
Watched an AOC Facebook story that mentioned the freshly arrested head of FTX had admitted to donating as much to the GOP as he openly did to Democrats. Is that going to stop the GOP from musing that FTX was a Democrat plot? Former CPC leadership candidate and CBC TV
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s pitch to Calgary’s mayor about trains to the airport, trains to Banff, sounds lighter than hot air
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith yesterday sent a letter to Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek chattering excitedly about plans to expand Calgary’s light rail transit system to Calgary International Airport. Alberta Premier Danielle Smith (Photo: Jake Wright/Manning Centre/Creative Commons). She made sure it was posted to social media for all to see,
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Tuesday Morning Links
This and that for your Tuesday reading. – Winnie Byanyima discusses the importance of cooperation and coordination in responding to a pandemic. But Michael Lee contrasts the consistent message from doctors against the recalcitrance of governments in refusing to implement any public health measures as COVID and other respiratory illnesses
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Monday Afternoon Links
Miscellaneous material to start your week. – Rob Stein discusses the CDC’s recognition that new, more evasive COVID strains are becoming dominant in the U.S. Megan Ogilvie and Kenyon Wallace report on the growing calls for a return to preventative masking in Ontario, while Aline Schnake-Mahl et al. examine the connection
Continue readingAlberta Politics: It was the spring of crypto-hope, now it’s the winter of crypto-despair … Calgary’s promised crypto-boom is off, eh?
It’s always the best of times in Alberta; it’s always the worst of times. Readers may recall how Jason Kenney’s Best Summer Ever was followed by the worst winter ever. But that was just COVID, and never mind the wastewater viral load and all the kids home from school with
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Sunday Morning Links
This and that for your Sunday reading. – Thomas Walkom points out that most Canadians have far more reason to fear an austerity-fuelled recession than any foreseeable level of inflation. J.W. Mason points out that the U.S. Fed is similarly looking to squeeze workers over inflation that has nothing to
Continue readingTHE FIFTH COLUMN: SocialCoin – The Socially Responsible Alternative to Bitcoin
I am placing this concept in the public domain for anyone with the necessary technical skills to create the structures and necessary algorithms to implement it. Wikipedia provides an extensive section on Bitcoin and in particular Bitcoin mining. Essentially Bitcoin is created by an energy wasting computer process they call
Continue readingAccidental Deliberations: Thursday Morning Links
This and that for your Thursday reading. – Pam Belluck reports on a new study showing that people who weren’t initially hospitalized for COVID make up over three-quarters of the U.S.’ long COVID cases, while Andrew Romano discusses the likelihood that people will face constant infection absent better vaccine protection
Continue readingScripturient: Poilievre’s Wacky, Quacky Economics
Pierre Poilievre — aka Skippy — loves cryptocurrency and wants to make Canada the world’s crypto capital. Crypto is a computing process, not a product, it’s well outside the capabilities of individual computer systems to “mine” so it is controlled by large crypto-mining farms owned by corporate interests, using vast
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: Pierre’s Libertarian Economy
So, putative CPC leadership front runner Pierre Poilievre wants to rejig our economy and monetary policy to use cryptocurrency. In Poilievre’s mind, central banks have “too much power”, and expanding the role of cryptocurrency and blockchain technology in our monetary system would start to break that power down. In particular,
Continue readingAlberta Politics: Noisy ‘bitcoin mining’ operation near Edmonton shut down – but cryptocurrency speculators keep eyeing Alberta
So-called “bitcoin miners” operating without permission just north of Edmonton have been told to stop their environmentally unfriendly and, it turns out, noisy activity – for now. A company called Link Global Technologies Inc. last year set up four natural-gas powered generators near an upscale estate community in Sturgeon County
Continue readingThe Cracked Crystal Ball II: A Skeptical View Of Cryptocurrencies
Recently, I have seen a lot of discussion on Twitter about cryptocurrencies, and their validity. The arguments basically boil down to proponents arguing that this technology is the future of currency, and others pointing out a range of problems from "what's the basis of valuation?' to "jeez, something about this
Continue readingSaskboy's Abandoned Stuff: How to use Nanowallet for the NEM blockchain
May 4, 2018 NEM is a cryptocurrency, inspired by Bitcoin and an alt-coin called NXT. It isn’t compatible with Bitcoin, however. For this reason it needs its own wallet, and that wallet for your computer is named Nanowallet*. Nanowallet has some advantages over the mobile phone NEM Wallet version for
Continue readingThings Are Good: Use a Browser Tab to Raise Funds for Charity
Donating money, time, or resources to charities makes the world a better place, but what if you don’t have any of those things to spare? If you’re using the internet via a web browser maybe you can donate some spare CPU cycles though. A new site called Donate Your Tab
Continue readingThings Are Good: Using a Blockchain for a Smarter Energy Grid
Blockchain technology stems from Bitcoin and provides a platform for change greater than Bitcoin itself. Researchers in the renewable energy industry have realized that blockchains can be used to replace outdated billing and tracking. Presently when a company produces energy it requires verification form other companies and each step eats
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