- In the “this deserves some reading and pondering but I ran out of time” department: The New York Times has an Artificial Intelligence Special Report. The AI Now Institute had their symposium and published AI in 2018: A Year In Review. And to complete the AI fest, McKinsey released AI problems and promises recently.
- How Amazon, Microsoft, Palantir, & other Big Tech profit from ICE and help abuse migrants.
- It is too bad, given how urgently action is needed, that the science-loving leaders of massive social platforms refuse to band together and use their vast reach to communicate with their billions of users about the real risks of climate change. […] I doubt anyone will do a thing except squeeze more revenue from the moist corpse of the society they’re destroying while fantasizing that in doing so they are molding the world into their own image, in a Bataille-esque narcissistic erotic death waltz, but it’s fun to contemplate!
- IBM just proved quantum computers can do things impossible for classical ones. Big Blue and teams at two universities, proving “quantum advantage.”
- Facebook hires Nick Clegg as head of global affairs. A “foreign minister” for state-ish relations. Clegg not that long ago: “I’m not especially bedazzled by Facebook, I actually find the messianic Californian new-worldy-touchy-feely culture of Facebook a little grating.”
- 🌍 Look to Africa to advance artificial intelligence.
- The Sixth Mass Extinction May Exterminate Mammals in The Next 50 Years. “Nature will need 3-5 million years to recover.”
- Why the Developing World Started Gaining on the West.
- Bit of a weird list but lots of memories: 100 Websites That Shaped the Internet as We Know It.
- 😍🌒 People seemed to like the Europa/Io/Titan gifs, so as an experiment I went and made a short video of them. The Voyage of the Moons.Image data via Cassini Saturn.
- World’s oldest intact shipwreck discovered in Black Sea (2400 years!)
“A ship surviving intact from the classical world, lying in over 2km of water, is something I would never have believed possible.”
Note — Oct 28, 2018