[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4YYEObxhAE#t=113 450 300]
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On the Matter of Genetic Experimentation
“In a new study published in the peer reviewed Public Library of Science (PLOS), researchers emphasize that there is sufficient evidence that meal-derived DNA fragments carry complete genes that can enter into the human circulation system through an unknown mechanism. (0) I wonder if the scientists at these biotech corporations have already identified this method? In one of the blood samples the relative concentration of plant DNA is higher than the human DNA. The study was based on the analysis of over 1000 human samples from four independent studies. PLOS is an open access, well respected peer-reviewed scientific journal that covers primary research from disciplines within science and medicine. It’s great to see this study published in it, confirming what many have been suspecting for years.
When it comes to genetically modified crops and foods, we really have no idea of what the long term effects will be on the public. The very first commercial sale of genetically modified foods was only twenty years ago in the year 1994. There is no possible way that our health authorities can test all possible combinations on a large enough population, over a long enough period of time to be able to say with certainty that they are harmless. Geneticist David Suzuki recently expressed his concern, saying that human beings are part of a “massive genetic experiment” over many years, as thousands of people continue to consume GMO’s, and it makes sense.
Advances in genome science over the past few years have revealed that organisms can share their genes. Prior to this, it had been thought that genes were shared only between individual members of a species through reproduction. Geneticists usually followed the inheritance of genes in what they would call a ‘vertical’ fashion, such as breeding a male and female -you follow their offspring and continue down the road from there. Today, scientists recognize that genes are shared not only among the individual members of a species, but also among members of different species.
“Our bloodstream is considered to be an environment well separated from the outside world and the digestive tract. According to the standard paradigm large macromolecules consumed with food cannot pass directly to the circulatory system. During digestion proteins and DNA are thought to be degraded into small constituents, amino acids and nucleic acids, respectively, and then absorbed by a complex active process and distributed to various parts of the body through the circulation system. Here, based on the analysis of over 1000 human samples from four independent studies, we report evidence that meal-derived DNA fragments which are large enough to carry complete genes can avoid degradation and through an unknown mechanism enter the human circulation system. In one of the blood samples the relative concentration of plant DNA is higher than the human DNA. The plant DNA concentration shows a surprisingly precise log-normal distribution in the plasma samples while non-plasma (cord blood) control sample was found to be free of plant DNA.” (0)
It’s not like a human being mates with an apple, banana or a carrot plant and exchanges genes. What biotechnology and biotech corporations like Monsanto have done, is they have allowed for the transfer of genes from one to the other without any regard for the biological limitations, or constraints. The problem with this is that it is based on very bad science. The conditions and biological ‘rules’ that apply to vertical gene transfer, at least those that we are aware of, do not necessarily apply to horizontal gene transfer. Biotech science today is based on the assumption that the principles governing the inheritance of genes are the same when we move genes horizontally as they are when they are moved vertically. It just goes to show that GMO’s should be subjected to much more experimentation and rigorous research before we continue to consume them….”
Related article on children’s vitamins
Comments »The Zen of Python
“We are already well into the “end of work.”
The more accurate title would be “The Python (Script) That Ate Your Job.” Python is a computer language whose core philosophy is summarized by “PEP 20 (The Zen of Python)”, which includes aphorisms such as:
- Beautiful is better than ugly.
- Explicit is better than implicit.
- Simple is better than complex.
- Complex is better than complicated.
- Readability counts.
(source: Wikipedia)
As I understand it (from a non-programmer POV), Python enables rapid development of scripts that may not be optimized by some metrics but which work perfectly well in terms of solving a problem in a cost-effective manner.
(Programmers can be highly partisan, i.e. emotionally attached to their preferred language, so I am trying to be as non-partisan and careful as possible here to avoid arousing the ire of either Pythoneers or Python detractors. I am just an ignorant bystander; please don’t shoot the piano player, etc.)
A senior manager at a small tech company recently related a story that illustrates 1) the power of Python (and other scripting languages) and 2) the changing nature of work:
The company had some time-consuming data analysis that needed to get done on a regular basis, and the manager was considering recruiting a (paid) intern to do the work. Instead, he spent four hours writing a Python script which did the work in a few minutes. He named the program “Intern.”
This story is repeated thousands of times a day across millions of tasks. Virtually all of my self-employed friends use technology to enable one person to produce output that would have taken three people in the 1980s.
As management guru Peter Drucker noted, enterprises don’t have profits, they only have expenses. If you are self-employed or own/manage a business, you will immediately grasp the profound truth of this insight.
If you can replace an expensive worker (and every employee is expensive nowadays, due to the high cost of labor and general overhead) with a Python script that can be crafted in a few hours, financial fact compels you to do so: your business has no profit, it only has expenses.
This dynamic is scale-invariant, meaning it is true of all organizations, from one-person businesses up to global corporations and entire nations. A non-profit group only has expenses, and so do churches, cities and nations. Once expenses exceed income, the organization goes bust.
Could I be replaced with a Python script? In some ways, yes: a script could be written that mined the thousands of entries and essays I’ve written for repeating words, phrases and themes, and the script would rehash the material into “new” entries.
But since the script isn’t logging “experience” in the same way as a human does, the script would not be able to replicate dynamics such as changing one’s mind or taking a new direction, although it could randomly generate such behaviors to mimic human development.
Would the script be “good enough” to attract readers? Perhaps; but attracting and keeping readers is not necessarily a problem-state that can be solved with data-mining and pattern matching, as readers seek not just novelty and expressive writing but insight. Any script that rehashed existing material would not be generating new insight; it would simply be repackaging previous insights.
For highly partisan blogs, this might well be “good enough,” since partisan readers actually want to read the same rehashed material again and again: in effect, a script that repackaged “it’s the Demopublican’s fault” with new headlines and slightly different content would closely match the human content generator’s output.
I have no doubt some clever programmers have already played around with generating rehashed content and posting it as a blog written by a human being….”
Comments »Remembering JFK
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xhZk8ronces 450 300]
Comments »Documentary: Kimatica
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Dcyt2fA9GM 450 300]
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Us and Them
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKt2Mhk73J4 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bb-2WVepAUQ 450 300]
Comments »Documentary: Wall Street Code
Cheers on your weekend!
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFQJNeQDDHA 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_HB5Gfo6ouQ 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7MhpFF1vv0 450 300] Comments »Dark Wallet: A Bitcoin Digital Cryptocurrency
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ouo7Q6Cf_yc#t=25 450 300]
Comments »Destroying National Sovereignty and Usurping the Democratic Process With the TPP
“New reports on leaked draft versions of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement indicate threats to the rights of news organizations to publish information critical of large corporations. The multinational trade pact will require member states to surrender sovereign control over domestic copyright laws, as well.
In a story published by the Electronic Frontier Foundation(EFF), the agreement being hammered out by the 12 Pacific rim countries will:
give private corporations new tools to undermine national sovereignty and democratic processes. Specifically, TPP would give multinational companies the power to sue countries over laws that might diminish the value of their company or cut into their expected future profits.
EFF reports that a seemingly benign provision of the TPP agreement called the “investor-state dispute settlement” (ISDS) will revoke the right of domestic courts to settle legal disputes between participating countries and corporations with investments in that country.
In a nutshell, if a corporation feels that its ability to turn a profit on an investment made in a member country is being stymied by the country’s regulatory scheme, then that corporation may bring the dispute to the TPP bureaucracy, completely bypassing the nation’s domestic judicial system.
The EFF story summed up this TPP provision’s assault on national sovereignty:
Apparently a country’s own courts can’t be trusted to administer this kind of lawsuit, so investor-state also requires the creation of a new court. It would be comprised of three private-sector attorneys who take turns being judge and/or corporate advocate.
Even if this kangaroo court ruled in favor of the defendant nation, court costs alone would scare countries from adopting (or enforcing) pro-user policies where they might potentially inhibit investor profits. The investor-state tribunal bills its time by the day and decides for itself how many days to work, so it can rack up as many days of work they want. Given this system, it’s then no surprise that current investor-state court costs average about 8 million dollars per case. So even if it wins, the country has to pay those court fees, the lawyer fees, plus compound interest. That’s money that would doubtless be better spent elsewhere.
The process is absurd as well. Once a decision has been issued, there is no way to appeal it. That’s right, if this court rules that the nation is at fault and has to pay huge fees that could even bankrupt a government, there’s no other way for the country to overturn that decision.
The ISDS section of the chapter on intellectual property in the leaked TPP draft agreement is nearly as “absurd,” however, as the agreement’s mandate forces member nations to enact regulations that require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to privately enforce copyright protection laws.
These private companies — many of which are very small — would be forced to take upon themselves the responsibility of patrolling for and punishing any violation of the copyright laws by its subscribers.
Current U.S. law, specifically the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), would be supplanted by TPP Article 16.3. This provision in the TPP draft document paves the way for a new copyright enforcement scheme that extends far beyond the limits currently imposed by DMCA. In fact, it contains mandates more expansive than even those proposed in the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
ACTA is widely regarded as a threat to Internet freedom, as well as to the legislative power of the Congress. If ACTA is a threat than TPP is an all-out frontal assault.
Regardless of any flaws of the DMCA, it is U.S. law and should not be subject to de facto appeal by the work of a body of internationalists who are not accountable to citizens of the United States.
Apart from the issues of sovereignty, putting such pressure on service providers is a threat not only to the owners of these small business, but also to Internet freedom, as well.
It is the good work of these ISPs that has created the Internet we know today. Were it not for the typically low-cost access these companies provide, the pool of readily accessible viewpoints, opinions, and news resources would be significantly shallower…..”
Comments »Documentary: Surviving Progress
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RT9FfECB8A8 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMmTkKz60W8 450 300]
Comments »A Moment of Clarity
On the Matter of Income Inequality
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ik1y4ZNSjek 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fz0GtKsrwNk 450 300]
Comments »The History of the World in 2 Minutes
Turn up the volume:
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=MrqqD_Tsy4Q 450 300] Comments »Get a Gauge on the Global Economy; Global PMI Dump Being Revealed
“HEADS UP: The world’s biggest economies will be publishing their June manufacturing PMI reports over the next two days. This is our scorecard.
“Fireworks are a given, even without minor considerations like the 4th of July!” exclaimed Societe Generale’s Kit Juckes.
This may be the most closely watched round of PMI reports in a long time as global economic growth hangs in the balance.
Last month, we learned that manufacturing activity was just above stagnation. The chart on the right from Markit summarizes all of the May and April PMI reports.
In recent weeks, volatility has returned to the the global financial markets as the Federal Reserve has signaled it could soon taper its stimulative bond-buying program. But any action would be conditioned on ongoing improvement in the U.S. economic data.
Abroad, China’s massive economy has shown signs of slowing as credit conditions have become tighter.
Meanwhile in Western Europe, the economies continue to be deeply troubled. However, they are also showing signs of improvement.
PMI
At the beginning of each month….”
Comments »Double Whammy in Your Fache
“A simultaneous drop in both U.S. and Chinese manufacturing threatens to give the global economy a double whammy.
American manufacturing companies reported fewer orders in May — the largest drop in their business in almost four years. The Institute for Supply Management (ISM) index fell from 50.7 percent to 49 percent, the third straight monthly drop.
Meanwhile, the China HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) dropped to 49.2 percent from 50.4 in April, the lowest since October 2012.
“This is not a good moment for the world economy,” David Bloom, currency chief at HSBC, told the U.K.-based Telegraph. “The manufacturing indices came in weaker than expected in China, Korea, India and Russia, and then we got America’s ISM.
“We thought we had a clear picture that the US was recovering, Japan was printing money and were we’re back to happy days, and now suddenly a huge spanner has been thrown in the works.”
Business executives attributed the drop in orders to falling government spending, a slowdown in China and a downturn in Europe.
Tightening fiscal policy in the United States is squeezing consumer spending, according to The Telegraph.
“People have been living in a psychological bubble,” Charles Dumas of Lombard Street Research told The Telegraph. “They ignored the cuts but now they are starting to feel it.”
The ISM drop came as a surprise….”
Comments »The Pope Criticizes ‘Savage Capitalism’
“Pope Francis criticized what he called “savage capitalism” on a visit to a food kitchen, in an address in which he called for the values of generosity and charity to be revived.
“A savage capitalism has taught the logic of profit at any cost, of giving in order to get, of exploitation without thinking of people … and we see the results in the crisis we are experiencing,” the pope said.
Francis greeted the men and women coming to the “Gift of Maria” food kitchen, located at the walls of the Vatican….”
Comments »Respect Your Mother or Die
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGeXdv-uPaw 350 400]
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDiPjPG5ArY 450 300] Comments »OECD Says Growth is Picking Up in Most Major Economies
“PARIS (Reuters) – Growth is picking up in most industrialized countries, including in the euro zone, the OECD said on Wednesday, with the United States leading the way.
The Paris-based think tank’s composite leading indicator shows growth firming in Japan and picking up in China while the outlook is improving for Italy and France is stabilizing.
Growth is seen weakening in India, however, while indicators for Russia, Brazil and the United Kingdom point to growth around trend, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said.
The monthly indicator for the 33 OECD member countries inched up to 100.5 in February from 100.4 in January, slightly above the long-term average of 100.0, a level last seen in October.
The euro area’s indicator has been gradually increasing over the past months, now at 99.9 from 99.7 in January and 99.4 in October.
France’s 99.6 reading, from 99.5 in January, suggests that there is no further decline in growth, while growth is picking up in Germany, the OECD said….”
Comments »Documentary: Owned and Operated
This documentary puts together everything I have been saying since i was literally 11 years old.
Friends of mine say why complain, why bitch, and that what i say is too big to tackle too depressing to even think about. They are no longer my friends as i have no time for those who have no humanity.
When i bot my home a bumper sticker on the water heater said “If Nothing Changes, Then Nothing Changes”…while that is true there also comes a time where dislocation comes so slowly or too quick to notice until you are in such excruciating pain you wonder how you will ever get back to normal.
Thankfully, there is hope and wisdom that will get us back to normal. The question is will you participate or be an obstacle ?
Cheers on your weekend!
[youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njSV5LtVmR4 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjWD0JU92lw 450 300] [youtube://http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDRPtg0kmJU 450 300] Comments »A Look at World PMIs
Get a handle on global growth by looking at PMI numbers that are being released over the next two days.
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