India Makes Efforts towards Gender Equality… Through Censorship

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In India, many families are taking their gender preferences a bit too far. Because of the perceived material benefit of having boys, women tend to terminate girl pregnancies more often. This has resulted in the country having one of the worst gender balances in the world.

Various Indian governments have tried to tackle the problem in different ways. The latest such maneuver is asking Google, Microsoft and Yahoo to censor advertisements for services that determine the sex of unborn children:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/20/12986206/google-microsoft-yahoo-india-sex-selection-ad-block^

It’s good that at least they’re trying to do something about the problem. However, throwing the dead cat in the search engine’s yard is a cheap and cowardly solution. And like all such solutions, it won’t do much. The adverts only help certain companies get customers from other companies who don’t advertise. Without the commercials, people will simply turn to whatever word of mouth is available. And in the third millennium, word travels fast, censorship or not.

If India really wants change when it comes to gender equality, then the only option is, of course, education. Children, along with their families, have to carefully and respectfully be given the teachings that will make them realize the importance of gender balance. Pragmatically speaking, the digital age has annihilated pretty much any economic advantage men had over women. In a healthy society women can now contribute as the equals they always should have been. It’s jolly time to get healthy, India.

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China’s Awesome Robotics Challenge

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It’s called RoboMasters and it’s more important than it may seem. At first sight it could be classified as a nerdy game show. It is much, much more than that. The article below (and the video it contains) will beautifully demonstrate:

http://www.theverge.com/2016/9/27/13059144/dji-robomasters-robot-drone-battle-video-frank-wang-interview^

Robotics company DJI has been very smart in how it organized the game show. It’s a beautiful way to attract talent and reward the dedication of China’s students. I feel that this can become a long term commitment, a championship, and could turn out as one of the world’s leading benchmarks in robotics.

This has seriously impressed me. I’m seeing a fascinating amount of innovation and initiative arising from China in the past few years. The country is on the rise in a deeper, more meaningful way than in the “manufacturing powerhouse” decades.

My only worry regarding creating a thinking robot that can defend its base against all attackers is… well… think about it. Despite the scary scenarios that the thought may invite, in fact, I don’t believe artificial intelligence will arise as soon as others think. However, I do think that in a couple of decades it will become increasingly difficult to differentiate between a human and a robot when it comes to certain disciplines. Combat is one of these disciplines. You don’t want this sort of AI in the hands of terrorists.

We’re strolling into uncertain territory. I wish that AI researchers will be careful with all their programming in the coming decades. I wish they will keep ethics in mind and be aware that AI shouldn’t be thought of as some sort of servant, but as a partner. The desire to control and dominate will lead to nothing good.

For now, we could say it’s mostly advanced remote controlled machines fighting in the RoboMasters arena. But sooner or later we might have something that is not that much different from ourselves there, with all the ethical implications this will entail.

Related: more robotic innovation from Asia: here’s Japan’s sweating robot^.

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In GMail You Can Undo Sending an E-Mail

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I know, right? Hell froze over! Now we can actually undo sending e-mails. Remember that time when you pressed CTRL + Enter by mistake? Or when you hit send and just in the same moment saw a horrible mistake? Well, Google comes to our rescue, with the amazing “Undo Send E-Mail” functionality!

Granted, “unsending” an e-mail is possible using some other methods as well, but this is the first time I see a user-friendly method implemented by a major public e-mail provider. And this is why I thought it’s a good idea to make it known to other people.

Here’s how to do it: go to Settings and enable it. Simple, eh? How does it work? I tested this using two accounts of mine. Google will, in fact, delay sending the e-mail for up to 30 seconds.

How to set up Undo Send
How to set up Undo Send

Unfortunately, if you navigate away from the current page after sending the e-mail, I don’t think you can stop it from being sent anymore (at least I couldn’t find any relevant button or menu option when I opened a test e-mail during the undo window of opportunity). Also unfortunately, you cannot undo for more than 30 seconds. But I’m still very happy I learned about his functionality. I have enabled it for both my accounts.

It just... works!
It just… works!

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Amid Souring Relations, Russia Pulls out of Nuclear Treaty

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During the past few weeks and months, there have been some worrying rumblings among the world’s superpowers. We’ve witnessed a serious degradation of relations between Russia and the USA, while China is slowly but surely pursuing its own agenda.

Part of a process of rebalancing itself in the planetary power-play, Russia has recently been involved in military exercises^ together with China. This sends a clear message that the Eurasian superpowers are waking up to the fact that they share more points in common than just the massive landmass they occupy. These military drills were held in the contested waters of the South China Sea. There, the USA has been involved in arbitration between other claimant nation-states. But the balance is quickly shifting^, even as Philippines’ human rights violator^ and political wildcard Rodrigo Duterte cares little about the meddling of far-away USA^ in regional matters.

Last week, Vladimir Putin and Turkey’s Tayyip Erdogan held a joint press conference announcing a revival in economic collaboration^. Turkey has the second largest army in NATO. Rarely have I seen so much rebalancing of powers in the space of just a few months.

From its side, the USA is launching all sorts of diplomatic efforts in an attempt to contain Russia. The first step was to halt collaboration on Syria^ (as marginal and ineffective as it was). Next, the US together with its close allies^ threatened to drag Russia to an international court for war crimes^ (as if Americans hadn’t blown up hospitals and ruined enough countries in the past).

What should worry us most though, is the stench of atomic war that started to make itself felt. A few weeks ago Russia pulled out of an important agreement aimed at lowering the nuclear weapons stockpile of the two superpowers:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/04/world/europe/russia-plutonium-nuclear-treaty.html?_r=0

It may be tempting to condemn Russia as a warmonger, but actually, at least one of its motivations for quitting the agreement is quite reasonable. The USA hasn’t kept its end of the bargain. Instead of totally disposing of its plutonium by using it in power plants, the US is considering stashing it at a nuclear waste disposal location. Granted, the Americans have helped Russia get rid of quite a bit of plutonium through the years. So, as always, the situation isn’t black or white but rather a gloomy shade of gray.

This is not the first time^ in recent memory when Russia has brought its nuclear arsenal into the spotlight. However, it’s quite repugnant that they stooped so low as to allow TV anchors^ to spew crude nuclear propaganda into the minds of their viewers; that’s the sort of antics one would expect from North Korea. Sadly, I feel like Russia might have been pushed in this direction by what it perceives as continued advances into its sphere of influence by NATO^.

Here’s another enlightening synthesis regarding Russian-American relations:

http://www.businessinsider.com/us-russia-relations-trump-syria-2016-10?r=US&IR=T&IR=T^

All in all, what’s happening is quite sad. You’d expect more from the 21st century than superpowers squabbling over petty differences while covertly (or not) fueling the destruction of Syria and many other developing countries (Libya, Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and the list can go on). Insatiable greed is a sign that a species hasn’t yet made peace with the barbaric traits of its survival instinct.

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22 x 22 for PTSD

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22 days ago, I embarked on a challenge to raise awareness about post-traumatic stress disorder. The challenge is one of those things that sometimes flare up through social media. It’s easy to generalize such happenings and to dismiss them as nothing but annoying fads. Luckily, not everybody is prone to generalization. I decided to undertake this challenge not only because PTSD is a mental condition that is familiar to me, but also because a good friend inspired me (he posted a video every time after doing his 22 daily pushups).

For the past 22 days, aside from the 22 pushups that are the subject of the challenge, I also did daily reading about PTSD. During this process, I compiled a rather long list of notes and now, I’ll use that list to bring forth my own effort for raising awareness about PTSD.

Some PTSD history

There is a lot of information about PTSD out there, so I’m not going to repeat it. Instead, I’ll highlight what I consider to be of greater importance. Throughout the years, I’ve learned a bit about PTSD from various online sources. Now, I built upon that knowledge by reading the Wikipedia entry about PTSD^ as well as several other online sources.

In my understanding, PTSD is just a name for a condition that has been around for ages. That condition is an excessive behavioral adaptation of the brain in an attempt to make sure that a traumatic event does not occur ever again (emphasis intended). Seen in this light, PTSD shows itself as a natural protection mechanism. The problem is with shutting down this system when it’s no longer necessary.

PTSD research and treatment really took off after the Vietnam War. There was some study in this area during the World Wars but this particular name (post-traumatic stress disorder) became official in the fourth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (the DSM IV).

It is more common in women. Childhood trauma increases the chances of a person developing PTSD during subsequent traumatic events in adulthood. It has a serious impact on the physical health of people who suffer from it (for example it worsens outcome in chronic diseases such as cancer and diabetes).

Therapy over medication

One of the main take-aways from all of the reading I’ve done is that therapy is a better solution than medication. Not only does it offer better results (statistically speaking), but it also spares the human body from going through the nasty side effects that are caused by most drugs that are popular today. These drugs are messing around with neurotransmitters, often causing havoc in other areas of the organism.

Traumatic events trigger PTSD due to an over-reactive adrenaline response that creates deep neurological patterns in the brain. The generation of painful memories will make an individual hyper-responsive to future situations that share some similarities with the original traumatic event. Because information is tightly intertwined in our memory, a lot of unexpected situations can trigger flashbacks and other symptoms of PTSD. In other words, the traumatic event alters the neural pathways in the brain through the use of neurotransmitters. That is why tampering with these neurotransmitters could help in the process of curing PTSD (some form of therapy is probably still necessary).

Even though the trauma (or, in the case of Complex PTSD, repeated traumas over a long period of time) does change the victim’s physiology, this doesn’t mean that engaging in long-term chemical interference in the brain is a good idea. If medication is indeed the last resort, there are other options than getting patients hooked on antidepressants, including proven methods such as short-term treatment with MDMA combined with therapy sessions^.

Medication might still provide benefits but since we know so little about the inner workings of the brain, it’s difficult to decide which patients will be helped and which will be harmed by it (yes, long-term medication can cause lasting side effects). For now, what the studies show is that therapy works best.

The two main types of therapy used to cure PTSD are cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Due to a lack of differential studies, it is unclear if the eye-movement component of EMDR is really beneficial, but what is certain is that the therapy aspect of it does help patients. The main difference between CBT and EMDR is that in EMDR the patient usually thinks about the traumatic event rather than talking about it.

Awareness helps cure & prevention

Being aware of what PTSD is and how it manifests itself is imperative for both victims and their friends & families. Knowing that somebody has been through a serious trauma, proper measures can be taken. Early access to therapy has been shown to be of some benefit. Knowledge is empowering.

What is most important however is that those that are close to the victim provide social support, are good listeners, rebuild trust and safety, anticipate and manage triggers (probably sounds easier than it is), deal with volatility and anger (ouch) and take care of themselves (this is very important since helping a person weather the effects of PTSD can be quite taxing).

What could we do if a person hides a traumatic event and suffers quietly? Many of the symptoms of PTSD are easy to spot from the outside: intense distress or irritability, avoidance, bouts of anger, developing a destructive addiction, insomnia, and hyper-vigilance, to name a few. Victims of PTSD should be encouraged to seek professional help, but in a way that does not interfere with their feeling of being in control, which more often than not has been seriously affected by trauma.

The US military has developed certain programs to educate soldiers about PTSD and be able to deal with it on the battlefield. It’s a two-edged sword though, as the same knowledge can prevent a soldier to properly adapt back to life at home. It’s still probably better than the alternative, because veterans suffering from PTSD tend to have serious trouble with social integration^.

An explanation that really stuck with me was the fact that upon return, soldiers may feel that they have little in common with their civilian peers. The daily struggles that concern friends and family seem trivial after having experiencing the horrors of war. I can totally see how war can completely redefine one’s scale of suffering. It does not mean that the soldiers lose empathy, but rather that mundane concerns simply fail to register on their emotional radar.

It’s up to us after all

More often than not, PTSD in humans is caused by humans (natural disasters are one of the few stressors that are not human-related). Be it war, rape, child abuse or social abuse, unfortunately, PTSD is mostly a product of our own society. Therefore, the first line of defense against PTSD is improving our society through education and other means, towards a more peaceful approach regarding our peers and the ecosystem we are part of (respecting and acknowledging our surroundings will lead to less damage from natural disasters).

Sports and physical exercise have also been shown to speed up recovery. Not only does physical stimulate the production of euphoria-generating & pain-releving endorphines^, it also builds self-esteem and increases the feeling of being in control. However, the person suffering the effects of PTSD has to be willing to participate in such activities and that can be difficult while in a hurtful state of mind.

Friends, family and healthcare professionals are the ones that have to encourage the desire to get better within those that suffer from PTSD. The wish to get better is there, what is imperative is that the wish is reinforced from the outside.

Even if some sick parts of our society cause PTSD in our friends and family, the healthy part is fortunately there to clean up the mess. I wish that PTSD will slowly but surely become a very seldom occurrence, just like the savage behaviors that often cause it.

Thank you Markus!

The list of notes I made in the past 22 days is located here: www.mentatul.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/22.txt^

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The NSA Goes Commercial with Data Restoration Service

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During its first participation at the International Big Data Conference, the National Security Agency made a surprise announcement:

“We are in a fortunate position that allows us to uniquely compete with Amazon, Google, DropBox and other major cloud providers. Since we already have all our potential customers’ data, instead of charging for data storage like our competitors, our service will provide files and passwords restoration. Say you lose a beloved picture, or you forget some password. You just log in to the all-new NSA Data Restoration Portal and, for a moderate fee, you can recover any of your digital information”, declared Eddie Rainhouse, product manager for the NSA’s new Monetization Initiative that has been created within the Data Collection Services Division.

The news has already caused quite a stir in the cloud computing community. Private companies complain that they can’t compete with the NSA’s eleven billion dollars budget and glowing public reputation.

The famed American security agency has also purchased struggling hard disk maker Seagate in order to “ensure a steady and healthy increase of available storage capacity in order to accommodate more potential customers”.

So far, members of the NSA’s Data Restoration Beta Program seem very satisfied with the service:

“I accidentally wiped my iPhone. I didn’t even have to get out of the house to fix it. I just connected it to my MacBook and accessed NSA’s Data Restoration portal. Twenty minutes and ten bucks later, everything was back in working order. Even my family videos are there, along with all my applications. They even restored my Candy Crush progress. It’s an amazing service!”, declared Manny Datas of Arizona.

Another user, Lo Safeson was saved by the NSA’s PayBack Plus service: “Somebody hacked my Facebook account. I immediately logged in to the NSA portal and I used the Facebook back door system to reset the password of my account. For three hundred dollars I also got an NSA consultant to delete all stolen private information from the hacker’s computer.”

The NSA ensured us that they have a solid authentication service in place that makes sure that nobody except the user and the authorities can access the user’s data. It’s a custom built three-factor login process that uses classified biometric data.

For those that would like to enter the Data Restoration Beta Program, there is an early-hawk discount available until the end of 2016. For your convenience, the NSA has allowed us to publish a list of currently provided services:

  • Full Data Restoration: restores any or all of your devices to the previous state of your choosing. Backups are updated regularly for any data-capable device. The backups will not count against your data quota, since the NSA has working agreements with most Internet Service Providers and is part of International Intelligence Agencies Coalition for Data Safety.
  • Memories Recovery: using this feature, you can recover deleted e-mails or messages from any popular provider. You can also playback old telephone or Skype conversations, as long as they’ve taken place in the past five years.
  • Password Recovery: as the name implies, you can recover your password, in clear text, for any website you visited in the past decade.
  • PayBack Plus: provides counter-attack measures to be used against hackers involved in identity theft. You can remotely delete stolen information and expose hackers to public authorities.
  • Sneaky Peeky: provides read-only access to your NSA history, allowing you to gauge the possibilities of the service and determine what sort of Data Restoration operation you’d like to go for.
  • NSA MVC (Most Valued Customer) Subscription: also known as the NSA Prime, this subscription requires you to pay a small annual fee. Doing so will award you Data Restoration Priority Golden Elephant, as well as tempting discounts for any current or future NSA customer-centric service.

 

 

 

This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.
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Putin Says DNC Hacking Was Public Service

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About a month ago, Putin declared that the hacking of the Democratic National Committee was a service done to the American public. Russia maintains that it had no involvement in the breach carried by hackers based there. Putin’s words have sparked my interest though, for two reasons. But first, here’s the article about the statement:

http://www.providencejournal.com/news/20160902/putin-says-dnc-hacking-was-service-to-public^

First of all, I have to say that indeed, the hacking can be seen as a service to the public. The Americans have a right to know how they are cheated by the Establishment. The information uncovered is probably just scratching the surface, but it’s a start. It’s too bad that many people seem to have lost all initiative to do something about the way the system cheats them. But at least the information is out there.

The second reason why Putin’s statement amused me is: would he say the same thing if somebody would expose deeply sensitive information belonging to the party associated with him, United Russia? I imagine that there’s a fair amount of “funny stuff” to be leaked that would also be in the interest of the (Russian) public. It’s easy to be all righteous when you’re not in the spotlight. To be honest, I believe United Russia’s records contain more dirt than the Democrats’.

Later edit: well isn’t it cute. The USA is a sad panda over what they think is Russia’s meddling in their election. I guess Putin struck a chord. Ouch!

http://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/obama-administration-accuses-russian-government-of-election-year-hacking-229296^

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Connection Between Ultrasound, Autism and Genetic Disorders?

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A recent study has found a possible connection between the severity of autism symptoms in children and ultrasound scans during the first trimester of pregnancy. Apparently, the worsening of symptoms occurs only when certain genetic disorders are involved. But here’s the thing: if ultrasound does have an effect, it means that it affects any fetus, regardless if there are symptoms or not. Check out the article:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/09/160901152140.htm^

Today, we believe that the fetus cannot hear ultrasound. Even so, we’re still talking here about a high frequency vibration which is propagated through the cells of the body in order to be picked up by a receiver. But what if during the ear’s development, the frequencies range it can pick up changes? Even without this study, I was always squeamish about subjecting an unborn being to what is, in my view, a breach of environment.

Don’t get me wrong, ultrasound scans have saved and improved many lives, allowing parents and doctors to be prepared for certain complications. What I’m saying is that ultrasound shouldn’t be abused. There are mothers who perform the procedure for more than ten times during a pregnancy. In Sweden, they only recommend a single appointment, but in many other countries, for example in the South-East of Europe, an echography is made at almost every doctor visit.

During this technology revolution that we’re going through, I think it’s essential to remind ourselves that our methods are still quite primitive in many regards. We should second-guess our practices and always strive to infringe as little as possible upon our bodies. Our cells are sensitive to all sorts of stimuli, and the high frequency vibration of ultrasound might not exactly be indicated for a being whose brain is in early development. It is my opinion that we should invest in finding new methods of diagnostic that are even less intrusive.

Later update: here’s an even more comprehensive article about ultrasound pros and cons: http://www.mamanatural.com/baby-ultrasound/^

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CRISPR. Designer Babies on the Way?

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It was bound to happen sooner or later. CRISPR^, the acronym associated with a major breakthrough in genetic engineering has just brought us much closer to being able to perform arbitrary changes in living organisms. This is important because it may bring us closer to finding cures for thousands of diseases, create anti-aging treatments and even change features in our unborn children.

Below, you will find more information along with an easy to understand video about bioengineering and a future the use of CRISPR might create.

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-video-explains-perfectly-why-crispr-really-will-change-humanity-forever

I found the video to be a bit on the wishful thinking side. Some years ago we thought very highly about mapping the human genome but the results were seriously below optimists’ expectations. While CRISPR is definitely a step forward in our knowledge about the building blocks* of life, using this knowledge is much more complex than a video-cartoon would like to illustrate.

I sometimes feel that these videos bank on our wishful thinking. Even worse, they tend to play down the serious ethical concerns resulting from some of the proposed advances (they claim that we already perform pre-selection of fetuses so why not go further? To me, that’s like saying that using a nuclear bomb is fine if we already used a pistol). Will a poor family in Africa afford to genetically improve their children? Also, let’s not forget that our medicine is still quite primitive and life is not actually made of “building blocks”. It’s all much more complex than that.

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Trump, in. Musk, out. Escaping to Mars

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After months of reading the media coverage about the elections in the USA, the Tesla Motors chief has become seriously depressed. Fortunately, after a meeting with his secret team of advisers, Musk came up with a plan^:

“We realized that there is a fantastic business opportunity here. There are very many Americans who, like me, would prefer to evacuate Earth after the election, regardless of who wins. Therefore, in the coming years, we intend to purchase several mining companies and strip-mine the planet, sending as many people as possible to Mars. For a modest price, of course.”

Around the world, demonstrators gathered in support of the measure. Apparently, the same feeling is felt in many other countries; the feeling that democracy is a fake and that the options on the menu are controlled by the Establishment^.

We’ve reached out to NASA for a comment. We got the following statement out of NASA’s administrator, Charles Bolden:

“We’re really thankful to Elon. Considering that in the following years more and more of our country’s budget will go into buggy fighter airplanes^ and cyber-warfare^, we will probably find ourselves without a job by 2020. We expect that after the elections Elon’s business will… let’s say skyrocket… and he’ll definitely consider hiring us into the sprawling SpaceX empire.”

Not surprisingly, many personalities have already pledged several hundreds of millions of dollars in order to be on the first boat to leave the backward, dying world.

“We’ll bring high quality rap to Mars, we’ll make Mars an artist’s paradise”, said Kanye West, donning a cap with a blinged-out racing car wheel with a picture of Mars in the middle.

Religious personalities won’t be missing either. Here’s what Romanian Orthodox Church leader Patriarch Daniel had to say: “We believe that every man, woman and child has the right to spiritual education. Our 21st century educational model is unsurpassed in the entire Europe. Our Sunday School will provide the perfect spiritual nourishment for the home-sick cosmonaut.”

BREAKING UPDATE: soon after publishing this article, we were contacted by Donald Trump’s campaign HQ with the following statement:

Donald would like to thank you for publishing what is undoubtedly a truth of the modern world. This state of fact has upset Mister Trump for a great many years, which is partially the reason for his sometimes erratic behavior. However, Donald would like to promise that shortly after he is being elected, he will formally request that SpaceX is given at least as much budget as NASA.

Also, as a new-found faithful Christian, Donald will take a page from the Bible and send his flesh and blood, his son, lovingly called Donald Trump Junior, as one of the first colonists to Mars. Mister Trump has asked me to forward the following official statement:

“Donald will sacrifice himself to deliver all Martians from sin. He will work tirelessly from his mansion on top of Olympus Mons to best represent Mars in the colony’s relations with me, Emperor of Earth, Trump the First.”
 

This text has been published in the “Satire” category for a good reason.
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