Yes I am in the AI anti-hype camp. Saving a few URLs for later.
https://www.marvinzhang.dev/blog/rices-theorem-why-automated-testing-will-fail
AI Anti-Hype
May 27, 2026Four in 10 Americans Embrace Some Form of Socialism
March 5, 2020US Healthcare policy contradictions — reducing costs while ensuring private corporations profit
April 6, 2015Why, then, was a single-payer system excluded from consideration and its proponents almost entirely barred from the discussion during the year Obamacare was written? That rejection can only reflect the enormous power of the health industry, which Brill reminds us has the largest lobby in Washington, D.C….
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2015/apr/23/health-right-diagnosis-and-wrong-treatment/
California governor’s water restrictions in face of drought is misplaced
April 2, 2015One thing to note. Agriculture consumes 80% of the state’s water, so the cry for water restrictions for residents and government won’t affect much.
Here are the big water consumers, animal Ag, including alfalfa which is grown to feed livestock (in Asia !).
http://blog.farmusa.org/meat-and-dairy-industry-puts-strain-on-californias-water-supply/
Solar Windows See-Thru Technology
April 1, 2015This technology could mean that one day entire skyscrapers might be able to generate solar power without blocking out light or ruining tenants’ views.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/24/transparent-solar-concentrator_n_5700544.html
New Report Debunks ‘Myth’ That GMOs are Key to Feeding the World
April 1, 2015Heavy investments in GMOs are not producing the projected yields. Traditional cross-breeding still dominates in terms of yields. Profit-driven BigAg innovations do not benefit poor farmers.
http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/04/01/new-report-debunks-myth-gmos-are-key-feeding-world
Taiwan’s Linguistic Gift
August 4, 2010We are seeing a resurgence in the indigenous languages of Taiwan, which is the epicenter of the vast Austronesian linguistic universe.
[All text below are excerpts. Image is from Diamond’s Nature article.]
BBC
In Taiwan, only about 35% of the 500,000 Austronesian indigenous people can speak their tribal language, said Chang Shin-liang, head of the language and culture department of the government’s Council of Indigenous Peoples. 
“We’re facing a dangerous situation for indigenous languages. Seven out of 14 indigenous languages here are listed by Unesco as critically endangered,” said Mr Chang.
– From “Taiwan seeks to save indigenous languages” [here]
Jared Diamond
Blust’s analysis yields an astonishing pattern. Those 1,200 Austronesian languages fall into ten subgroups, of which nine (containing only 26 languages) are spoken only by the non-Chinese aborigines of the island of Taiwan. The tenth subgroup encompasses all Austronesian languages outside Taiwan, from Madagascar to east Polynesia — all 1,174 of them.
It is as if the Indo-European language family consisted of 1,174 closely related Slavic languages, spoken from Britain to Sri Lanka, with all nine other IndoEuropean language groups — Germanic, Celtic, Hittite, Italic and the rest of them — being confined to Ireland. Previous studies had recognized several distinctive Austronesian language groups on Taiwan, but it had not been appreciated that the number was so high.
– From: “Taiwan’s gift to the world” by Jared M. Diamond (2000). Nature 403:709-710. See attached pdf.
World People’s Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth
April 26, 2010When Morales invited “social movements and Mother Earth’s defenders…scientists, academics, lawyers and governments” to come to Cochabamba for a new kind of climate summit, it was a revolt against this experience of helplessness, an attempt to build a base of power behind the right to survive.
[Article is here on Commondreams.org.]
A Tribal News Network… using Cell Phones
April 26, 2010‘”Reporters” call a Bangalore number to upload a news item and a text message goes out to all the phone numbers in the contact list and anyone who wants to hear the report calls in to the same number and the message is played out.’
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8617943.stm
Are Cities The Answer ?
February 20, 2010“The point is clear: environmentalists have yet to seize the opportunity offered by urbanisation. Two major campaigns should be mounted: one to protect the newly-emptied countryside, the other to green the hell out of the growing cities.”
