Monthly Archives: August 2017

Normandy’s D-Day beaches invaded by green algae – Reuters

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COURSEULLES-SUR-MER, France (Reuters) - Normandy's D-Day beaches, where Allied troops landed in June 1944 to free Europe of Nazi occupation, are being invaded by green algae.

Beaches such as Omaha and Juno, visited by millions of tourists each year, struggle with the algae, which is not toxic, but the stench as it decomposes can be a turnoff.

"It's gross, the algae stinks as it rots and it attracts flies," said Sylvie, who lives in Caen.

Ever day, resort towns use tractors to shovel the algae to the far end of the beaches at low tide, but winds push the green, red and brown seaweed back onto the beaches where in some areas it piles up metre-deep against the boardwalks.

"We sometimes get complaints at tourist offices, with people asking where the algae comes from, but people who know Normandy are used to it," said Nathalie Papouin, deputy head of the Terres de Nacre tourist office.

The Calvados region in western France gets about 9 million visitors per year, of whom nearly half visit the D-Day beaches.

Benoit Mouline, an official with the Calvados environment service, said the algae comes back every year, especially around mid-August, when northeasterly winds and strong tides cut it from the rocks on which it grows and throw it onto the beaches.

Unlike in Brittany, Normandy's algae growth is not primarily the result of agricultural fertilizer runoff and waste from pig farms washing into the sea.

"This year we have had a lot of northerly winds, and some local people say there's more algae than before, but that may be subjective," said Benjamin Potel of the Clean Coast association.

Climate change could also play a role, he said, as warmer waters boost algae growth and reduce the number of shellfish and other organisms that feed on it.

"The amount of algae never diminishes, it steadily increases over the years," said Stephane Dobriansky.

His startup company Ecovalgue plans to work with resort towns to collect some of the up to 20,000 tonnes that wash up on the Normandy coasts annually for use in cosmetics, animal feed and bioplastics.

Reporting by Geert De Clercq; Editing by Robin Pomeroy

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Normandy's D-Day beaches invaded by green algae - Reuters

Palm oil that spilled onto Hong Kong’s beaches turned into crude gasoline – South China Morning Post

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Half of the palm oil washed ashore on beaches two weeks ago will be turned into 50 tons of crude gasoline to go on sale next week, according to a biodiesel company.

One hundred tons of palm stearin, about the weight of a blue whale and half of the total amount collected from Hong Kongs beaches, arrived at ASB Biodiesels plant in Tseung Kwan O Industrial Estate on Wednesday morning.

The oil would first be turned into biodiesel, a green fuel that emits low levels of greenhouse gases when burned, and then crude gasoline to be sold next week, the citys biggest waste oil treatment firm said.

We have kept a watchful brief on the oil spill incident since it happened, said CEO Cheung Siu-ming.

We would like to help society solve the problem by turning the palm stearin into biodiesel and investing in society, adding that all profits after operational costs would be donated to local green groups and NGOs, which have yet to be chosen.

Two hundred tons of white, jelly-like oil clumps washed up on Hong Kongs beaches after two ships collided in the Pearl River estuary 4km southwest of the city, resulting in one of the worst environmental cases in recent years.

About 40 per cent was contaminated, ASB said, meaning it had to be purified before being turned into biodiesel.

The most difficult part is to separate the sand and the oil, Cheung said. We have to remove and treat this totally before we can process. Any that is too contaminated to be purified will go to a landfill near the industrial estate.

The rest of the palm oil will be treated by a second biodiesel company.

Almost all palm oil has now been cleared from the citys beaches and 11 out of the 13 that were closed have been reopened.

The Environmental Protection Department has promised to continue routine clean-up operations as trace amounts of palm stearin pellets may still be found in the sand.

We can observe that there is almost no more palm stearin left in the water. Only a small amount is left on Lamma and along Hong Kong Islands southern coasts, environment undersecretary Tse Chin-wan said during an inspection at Middle Bay beach in Southern district a week ago.

A government spokesman said yesterday the Cape DAguilar Marine Reserve and the nesting site of Green Turtles in Sham Wan on Lamma Island have by and large been cleaned up. As at noon on Thursday, the government departments had collected some 211 tons of palm stearin recovered on the sea surface and at the beaches.

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Palm oil that spilled onto Hong Kong's beaches turned into crude gasoline - South China Morning Post

Rip current risk lowers, but caution still advised at Mass. beaches – The Boston Globe

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Swimmers were advised to be careful on Thursday as the effects of Hurricane Gert were still causing higher than usual waves and rip currents.

Even as Hurricane Gert subsides hundreds of miles out in the Atlantic Ocean, its effects are still expected to be seen across Massachusetts beaches Thursday, the National Weather Service said.

Dangerous swimming conditions and high waves will likely not reach Wednesdays levels, although caution is still advised in coastal waters.

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Rip currents are still going to be strong today, but not nearly as bad, National Weather Service meteorologist Lenore Correia said. She added, Were not expecting nearly as high waves as we were yesterday.

They are definitely not going to be as bad, she said of Thursdays coastal conditions, although she told swimmers to definitely use caution.

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Waves on the southern Massachusetts coast swelled over 10 feet tall in some places Wednesday, and one man died after being found unresponsive off a Nantucket beach.

Correia said waves were likely to only reach 2 to 3 feet Thursday, and possible rip tides would calm through the day, but still cautioned beachgoers to use your best judgment along southern shores.

The National Weather Service tweeted that swimmers should continue to use caution if youre going to the beach today! The service also said that there would be a moderate riptide risk along eastern Cape Cod and the southern and eastern side of Nantucket.

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Correia said the possible risks early Thursday will probably diminish throughout the day as Hurricane Gert gets even farther away from us.

Aside from the currents and waves, Correia said Thursday should be mostly clear today and pretty sunny, dry, highs in the low- to mid 80s, and a pretty nice day.

Much better beach day than yesterday, she said.

The service said there will likely be quiet weather for the first half of the night Thursday, with temperatures cooling into the lower 60s, with possible showers late at night and into Friday morning.

Friday could see unusually high dewpoints, with a low risk of showers in the morning developing into the possibility of heavier showers or thunderstorms later in the day. Temperatures are expected to range from the mid 70s to low 80s during the day, and could fall back to the low 70s as storms continue through the night.

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Rip current risk lowers, but caution still advised at Mass. beaches - The Boston Globe

Dennis works to ‘take back our beaches’ – Cape Cod Times (subscription)

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Madeleine List

SOUTH DENNIS The selectmen this week appointed members to a new committee focused on beach safety in response to anger and concern among residents and visitorsover allegations that teenagers were seen having sex at Mayflower Beach on the Fourth of July.

The Beach Safety and Monitoring Committee is an ad hoc advisory committee charged with providing recommendations to the Board of Selectmen for dealing with beach safety, rule enforcement, traffic congestion, beachgoer drop-offs, parking and other issues.

On July Fourth, Dennis police arrested five teenagers after fourwere allegedlyseen having sex in the water and a fifth repeatedly ignored police orders to leave the area. An officer suspected they had been drinking alcohol, according to a police report. The incident attracted a crowd, and a videoposted on Twitter of the teens being arrested while onlookers chanted U.S.A. went viral.

The incidentsparked anger among many full- and part-time residents, about 60 of whom crowded into Dennis Town Hall for a Board of Selectmen meeting a weeklater and implored selectmen to help reverse what they described as the deteriorating quality of town beaches.

The selectmen decided to form a committee made up of residents and representatives from existing town committees to focus solely on the complaints.

The seven-member volunteer committee includes representatives from the Beach Committee, the Beach Management Advisory Task Force and the Road Safety Task Force as well as full- and part-time residents to represent the north- and south-side beaches and serve as members at large. The director of the Natural Resources Department, director of the Beach and Recreation Department, town engineer and staff from the Department of Public Works and Dennis Police Department will provide support to the committee.

The selectmen appointed four citizen members to the committee Tuesday night.

Ive seen the demise of the north-side beaches in recent years, so Id love to be a part of the solution as opposed to constantly complaining about the issue, Wendy Thurmond , a summer resident of Dennis and an at-large member of the new committee, said at the meeting.

Though the communitys attention hasbeen focused on Mayflower Beach since the Fourth of July arrests, all of Dennis 19 public beaches are affected by the same issues, said Connie Mooers, who will serve on the new committee as the representative from the Beach Management Advisory Task Force.

Its a reaction to things that have been building for years, she said. At this point, we have to pull the reins in to see what we can do to take back our beaches.

As the number of visitors to Dennis beaches grows every year, Mooers said she sees rules being broken with increasing frequency. Some possible solutions could include more beach monitors, heightened police presence, additional signs, or training on beach rules for people who buy stickers, she said.

Researching costs and feasibility of potential solutions and recommending what will work best for the town is the committees main purpose, she said. The committee must submit its recommendations by November, according to its charge.

The temporary committee will be disbanded once it has fulfilled its duty.

Although two other bodies, a committee and a task force, deal with beach issues, Mooers said the creation of the new committee was not redundant. The issue of safety is large enough to require the full attention of a committee, she said.

"The problem is bigger than the Beach Committee," she said.

Paul McCormick, chairman of the Board of Selectmen,agreed that a third beach-related committee was necessary to focus on the issue and said he hoped the new committee could prepare some recommendations before special town meeting in October.

We also wanted a committee that would meet relatively quickly so that if we needed some funding, we could get an idea of what that funding might be before fall town meeting, he said. It's time to focus on the problems we've been having at our beaches.

The new committee will hold its first meeting at 6 p.m. Monday at Dennis Town Hall. Committee members will elect officers, set a meeting calendar and discuss deadlines, among other topics, according to the committee agenda.

Follow Madeleine List on Twitter: @madeleine_list.

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Dennis works to 'take back our beaches' - Cape Cod Times (subscription)

Shark (and Whale) Week for Real on Ocean Beaches – East Hampton Star

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Off Wiborgs Beach in East Hampton on Friday, beachgoers saw a whale breach the ocean waters, one of many such sightings over the past week. George Anderson

Ocean beaches on the eastern end of Southampton Town were briefly closed Monday afternoon after lifeguards in Sagaponack spotted what appeared to be a shark close to the beach. The decision came after days of apparent shark sightings in East Hampton Village and elsewhere.

Beachgoers have also been marveling at humpback whales feeding off the South Fork shoreline for several weeks.

Ed McDonald, the beach manager for East Hampton Village, said swimmers and surfers should not be alarmed. There has never been a shark attack off East Hampton beaches.

Sharks, like the whales and dolphins, are coming closer to the shore because of an increase in menhaden, a kind of densely schooling, oily fish known locally as bunker.

There has been so much incredible life in the water, thanks to the schools of bunker, Mr. McDonald said yesterday. Its like an aquarium out there. Its like taking a trip to the New England Aquarium.

Whales, apparently humpbacks, have been spotted frequently in the last month off the south-facing beaches, including at Two Mile Hollow, Main, and Georgica in East Hampton, Atlantic Avenue in Amagansett, and at Scott Cameron in Water Mill.

Beaches to the west of East Hampton Sagg Main, Mecox, and Scott Cameron were closed by Southampton Town officials on Monday after lifeguards tracked a shark moving west from Peters Pond.

We cant confirm it was a shark, but given his experience and the size of the fish that was spotted, our chief lifeguard, Sean Crowley, felt it best to take precaution, said Kristen Doulos, the Southampton Town parks director. Bathing beaches were open again on Tuesday morning.

Mr. McDonald was aware of the closings in the neighboring town, as well as reports that people bait-fishing off Georgica Beach had caught a sandbar shark. He said sandbar sharks, also known as brown sharks, can be recognized by their large dorsal fins; they are not aggressive.

Sandbar sharks feed on menhaden, snapper, and crustaceans. Landing sandbar sharks is prohibited in New York waters. According to the State Department of Environmental Conservation, anyone who inadvertently hooks one should cut the line or leader as close to the sharks mouth as possible while it is still in the water.

Harvey Bennett of the Tackle Shop in Amagansett said that mako, dusky, brown, sand tiger, and thresher sharks had been caught in the surf here since about July 4, this weekend, over 15 that I heard of. In photographs from his tackle shop customers that Mr. Bennett shared with a reporter, the sharks appeared to be about four or five feet long and under.

There were no shark sightings at the guarded beaches in the Town of East Hampton, John Ryan Jr., the chief town lifeguard, said. However, he said they are out there, feeding under the baitfish. If a shark were seen at the surface, the lifeguards would pull people out of the water, he said.

We have to understand, Mr. Ryan said, we share the ocean with them. . . . I swim in the Atlantic and Im never worried in any way. Sharks are, as far as Im concerned, more afraid of us than we should be of them.

The closer the bunker schools come to shore, the closer predators come. You can see them from the beach. It looks like a huge dark spot in the water, Mr. McDonald said of the smaller fish. Theyve been about 400 yards off the shore, but occasionally they come up right against the beach. Ospreys, too, are a part of the feeding frenzy.

While sharks can cause fear among beachgoers and swimmers, humpback whales are a welcomed attraction. The whales are absolutely gorgeous, Mr. Ryan said, adding that the sight of them breaching the surface has been quite impressive.

The humpbacks have been blasting and putting on shows, Mr. McDonald said. A friend on a whale-watching boat told him that the whales have been going under the bunker schools and coming up with their mouths open wide.

Great white sharks are also out there, of course. OCEARCH, an organization that researches and tracks marine species, tagged a great white it called Mary Lee in the waters near Cape Cod, Mass., five years ago, and she has frequently been tracked along the coast of Long Island, including off East Hampton.

Earlier this week, the musician Jimmy Buffet joined an OCEARCH expedition off Montauk and helped tag a young great white that the crew named JD, in honor of Mr. Buffetts father, James Delaney Buffett.

The five-foot-long males most recent ping on a satellite tracking system was midday Tuesday within sight of the beach in Wainscott.

With Reporting by David E. Rattray

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Shark (and Whale) Week for Real on Ocean Beaches - East Hampton Star

Two beaches show high E. coli levels; Sunset Park advisory lifted – Traverse City Record Eagle

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TRAVERSE CITY A couple of beaches in the region showed higher levels of bacteria this week and officials warn, with recent rain, water quality will be affected.

All Grand Traverse County beaches measured in safe ranges of the E. coli bacteria, according to the county health department's weekly beach sampling report.

The report included the lifting of a level 2, partial body contact advisory for Sunset Park beach, which was restricted for a month after a week of elevated levels of E. coli. Levels dropped for the last three weeks but it remained under an advisory until the monthly mean level of bacteria also fell.

Samples from the Northport marina and Beulah Beach on Crystal Lake both showed elevated levels of E. coli, prompting a partial body contact advisory for the beaches, according to the Benzie-Leelanau District Health Department's report.

Beaches that tested outside of a safe range of the bacteria were retested Thursday, with results to be completed and released Friday morning.

The report warned that Thursday's rain likely will make for poorer water quality results as rain typically washes more of the bacteria into the water.

The National Weather Service forecasts rain for most of the day Thursday, with new rainfall measuring at about a tenth to a quarter of an inch.

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Two beaches show high E. coli levels; Sunset Park advisory lifted - Traverse City Record Eagle

Everything you need to know about the Northwest Florida Astronomy … – The Northwest Florida Daily News

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SAVANNAH EVANOFF @SavannahEnwfdn

If the 2017 total solar eclipse reignites your love for space and astronomy, you need to check out the Northwest Florida Astronomy Association.

Tom Haugh, the outreach coordinator, said it is the communitys resource for astronomy accuracy. Whether its a rumor about Mars being bigger than the moon or a question about what to do with an old telescope sitting in the closet, the club can help.

I get all the time, Hey, my kid's interested in astronomy. His birthday is coming up. What telescope should I buy? Haugh said. Thats like asking, Hey, I need a car, which is the best one?

Community members can attend club meetings or events to learn about astronomy, ask questions and receive technical help. The group encourages visitors to bring their own telescopes, Haugh said.

The Northwest Florida Astronomy Association donated telescopes to five libraries to check out: Fort Walton Beach Public Library, Hurlburt Field Base Library, Crestview Public Library, Valparaiso Community Library and Niceville Public Library.

You can check out a telescope and take it home, Haugh said. It comes with star charts and instructions and everything you need to start your astronomy adventure.

The organization encourages families to join or attend events. It even offers ladders for shorter observers to use the telescopes.

The group hosts meetings at 7 p.m. the fourth Saturday of every month at the Northwest Florida State Colleges observatory, Building 750, 100 E. College Blvd., Niceville.

Saturn is one of the groups favorite objects to view, Haugh said.

You can tell when this is the first time somebody has seen Saturn, Haugh said. You dont have to ask them the question: 'Did you see it? When somebody first sees Saturn, theres almost always a vocal response, I can see the rings, It looks just like (in) the books.

"To see a parent, child or a grandparent have just that one spark. Thats worth it.

For more information on the Northwest Florida Astronomy Association and its upcoming events, visit nwfastro.org.

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Everything you need to know about the Northwest Florida Astronomy ... - The Northwest Florida Daily News

Travelers from around the world share eclipse camaraderie, anxiety at astronomy conference – Casper Star-Tribune Online

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Everen Brown has chased eclipses to every continent. Hes seen them from a rural village in the African country of Gabon, the Gobi Desert, Easter Island and a Russian icebreaker in the waters around Antarctica.

And this week he followed the celestial event to Casper, the first place within driving distance of his Utah home.

It never gets old, he said Wednesday, surrounded by a small portion of his collection of space memorabilia. Every eclipse is flavored by its location.

For serious eclipse chasers, the days leading to the event are stressful, he said. People worry endlessly about the weather, about having the right equipment into the midday dusk, about being in the right location with the best view. Browns unfazed, however. This is his tenth eclipse after all.

Anxiety about the phenomenon a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for most people was evident in the bits of conversations floating through the halls of the Parkway Plaza Hotel during the first day of AstroCon, the annual convention for astronomy fans organized by the Astronomical League. People fretted in the hallways about the early weather forecasts for the big day and the expected crowds.

But anxious chatter was also interspersed with excited conversations almost unintelligible to an outsider. Telescope salesmen bantered amicably about their trade, swapping numbers and acronyms with ease. People wearing a variety of eclipse-themed t-shirts (one of the most popular designs demanded Where will YOU be on August 21, 2017?) introduced themselves and gushed about the main event.

More than 900 people signed up for the conference this year hundreds more than the usual attendance, said Charlene Bradley, one of the staff members in charge of registration. By noon on Wednesday, more than 600 attendees had already arrived in Casper.

The license plates in the parking lot showed the distances people traveled. Several Colorado plates were joined by the likes of California, Michigan, Maryland, Illinois and Florida. A map inside the registration room showed that some attendees have come even farther: Australia, Germany, Russia, Spain, Peru.

Along with field trips to local museums and a series of talks by prominent scientists and writers, including NASAs own eclipse expert, attendees can browse dozens of booths set up in the exhibition hall.

Thats where Brown showed off his collection of space memorabilia for sale and tried to gauge others interest in a trip to Antarctica for the eclipse that will occur there in 2021. By early afternoon on Wednesday only a few hours in to the conferences four days he had already gathered the names of several potential cruise mates.

The small portion of his stockpile extras Brown doesnt want and doesnt mind selling included Apollo 11 commemorative cups, postcards, Apollo 17 earrings, lapel pins, necklaces, magnets, even spoons. Brown couldnt begin to estimate how many pieces are in his entire collection. Instead, he put it this way: A few years ago he bought 1,700 pounds of memorabilia from one man. And thats only a portion of his collection.

But of all the trinkets he brought, he was most proud of a pin he designed himself featuring the jackalypse, the dark image of a jackalope eclipsed over the sun.

I may have gotten a little carried away, he said with a laugh. But its a good way to have fun and destress.

Other vendors hawked a variety of products, ranging from space-themed soap to high-end telescopes worth tens of thousands of dollars. In the opposite corner from Brown, a couple sold something a little different: real-estate for the avid astronomer.

Tom and Marla Simstad moved to a mountain range in rural southern New Mexico after retiring from real estate development in Indiana. There, they hoped to have access to beautiful night skies unfettered by unnatural light.

However, they feared that neighbors would eventually move nearby and pollute the night sky with their light. So they bought the entire mountain, all 170 acres, in the hopes of creating a haven for those who love to peer into the night sky.

Its just like a golf community, except for astronomers, Marla said.

Since 2004, they have developed a number of home sites and are now joined by 12 other full time residents in their community, the New Mexico Skies Astronomy Enclave, along with 35 who are there part-time or have not yet relocated to the mountain. Its not uncommon for landowners to build their backyard observatory domes before they put down foundations for their homes, Marla said.

Several fellow vendors walked up and said hello while the Simstads handed out pamphlets to the people who passed by their booth. The couple have met a number of people while traveling the astronomy convention circuit to promote their community. Those initial introductions later turn into lunches and real friendships, Marla said. Now when they travel to a convention or trade show, they almost always know somebody there.

Its really a community, she said.

Follow crime and courts reporter Elise Schmelzer on Twitter @eliseschmelzer

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Travelers from around the world share eclipse camaraderie, anxiety at astronomy conference - Casper Star-Tribune Online

Eclipse Safety With The Bob Dylan Of Astronomy: FIU Professor Studies And Sings About The Stars – WLRN

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On Monday afternoon, the moon will move in front of the sun, creating a solar eclipse.

South Florida wont see a total eclipse -- you'll have to travel a bit farther north. But many people here have plans to watchthe partial eclipse, including Dr. James Webb, head of Florida International Universitys Stocker AstroScience Center.

Webb researches and teaches on space, but he's also a talented guitarist. He's combined his passions to release an astronomy-themed album called "Reaching For the Stars." Webb also performs regularly at lectures and events on FIU'scampus.

"I grew up in the '60s and '70swith a lot of good bands around, and I loved the music. But I was always left a little bit cold by the words," Webb said. "I thought if they could have true astronomical meaning, that would be cool. Nobody does that, so I started writing my own songs about astronomy."

WLRNs Kate Stein spoke with Webb about his musical influences, the new NASA telescope that's NOT named after him andhow to see the eclipse safely(he recommends solar glasses or -- since many manufacturers are sold out -- making a pinhole camera).

Webb is scheduled to perform at FIU'seclipse watch party, which starts noon Monday at the StockerAstroScience Center on the Modesto A. Maidique campus.

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Eclipse Safety With The Bob Dylan Of Astronomy: FIU Professor Studies And Sings About The Stars - WLRN

Montana astronomy group travels to Idaho to view eclipse – KTVH

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GREAT FALLS On Monday, a total solar eclipse will pass over North America, the first time one has crossed completely over the continent since 1979.

The path of 100 percent totality will pass through parts of Wyoming, Idaho, and South Dakota.

Most of Montana will see a partial solar eclipse, where sun obscuration will be greater than 80 percent, and more than 90 percent in parts of southern Montana. In Helena the moon will obscure just over 93 percent of the sun, darkening the sky over the Capital City.

John Thomas, thepresident of the Central Montana Astronomy Society,is traveling with a group to a remote campsitenear Idaho Fallsto view Mondays total solar eclipse.

We thought that by starting in January to find reservations that we wouldnt have any problems, he said. We were wrong there. We were just flat lucky that we found this place that were going to.

Thomas said the Societyhas looked forward to theevent for the past sixor sevenyears. This will be his first total solar eclipse.

I have seen a couple of partial eclipses, he said. Ive never seen an annular eclipse, never seen one of those, so thats on my bucket list.

Thomas said there are several eclipses in the futureincluding one in 2024 and another in 2044 butneither will follow the same path as Mondays eclipse making it a unique experience for viewers fromcoast to coast.

Its going to cover almost 4,000 miles across the United States totaland more people will see this than have ever seen an eclipse in recorded history, he said.

Hell taketwo telescopes along for the trip so he can view the sunin generaland specialized lights. The telescopes computerized mountalso featuresa GPS that will help Thomas track the eclipse.

My cameras would be mounted on the telescopes looking through the scopes and tracking the eclipse the whole time were observing it, he said.

He added that even with the impressive technology thats been developed to view events like a solar eclipse, its just as important to take a step back and enjoy the night with your naked eye.

Dont spend all your time taking pictures, dont spend all your time looking through the scope there, he said. Spend about 30 seconds looking at it with your eyes cause youre not going to see it again yknow?

Thomas said the groups campsite shouldgeta clear view of Mondays eclipse.The campsite is around 9,000 feet in elevation and they hope to beat any smoke in the air.

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Montana astronomy group travels to Idaho to view eclipse - KTVH

Eclipse on the menu at next ‘Astronomy on Tap’ – Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

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Photo by: Robin Scholz/The News-Gazette

University of Illinois Professor Joaquin Vieira is leaving Sunday, Aug. 20, 2017, for Goreville in Southern Illinois, where he and his sons will camp out and catch Monday's total solar eclipse.

URBANA If you want to brush up on your solar-eclipse facts and maybe pick up a pair of eclipse glasses here's your chance.

The ongoing "Astronomy on Tap" informational series continues today with a session devoted to Monday's big event.

It's scheduled for 6 to 7 p.m. at Pizza M, 208 W. Main St., U.

The University of Illinois Department of Astronomy launched the monthly series in 2016 to answer big questions about the universe and share scientific discoveries with the public in a fun way a conversation with beer, not a lecture, as Professor Joaquin Vieira puts it.

The venue holds about 100 people, and the department will have free eclipse glasses to hand out to folks who want to watch it on Monday, Vieira said.

Vieira and most of his colleagues in the department will be in Goreville, in southern Illinois, on Monday afternoon, one of the best places to view the eclipse. He's leaving Sunday and camping there with his sons.

"I've never seen one," Vieira said Wednesday. "I'm really excited. It's going to be a very poignant and powerful demonstration of our place in the cosmos."

He watched a total lunar eclipse a few years ago, and even that was more powerful than he anticipated.

"You realize we are just a little rock floating in space, going around a giant ball of gas, with another rock going around us," he said. "You get that feeling, 'OK, we're out here, too. We're part of the cosmos.'"

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Eclipse on the menu at next 'Astronomy on Tap' - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

Dubai looks to the stars as Dh50 million Astronomy Centre to open next month – The National

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Hasan Al Harriri founder of the Al Thuraya Astronomy Centre. A soft opening is expected in September 15. Anna Nielsen for The National

Dubais Dh50m astronomy observatory will open next month and a landmark astronomy resort in the Marmoun desert is planned for next year, as the city seeks to tap into an enduring fascination with the stars that draw in old and young alike.

After some delays, construction of Al Thuraya Astronomy Centre is complete and a soft opening is expected in September 15. The grand opening will be on National Day, December 2.

The centre will be home to a telescope with a one metre diametre mirror. First announced two years ago, it will have an academy with classrooms and labs, an outside observation deck, a 100-seat theatre an astronomy shop, a cafe and an library. The 2,696 square building located in Al Mushrif Park will have landscaped gardens in the shapes of constellations. Construction began in 2015.

The Dubai Astronomy Group currently has 7,000 general members and is in the process of recruiting 40 new employees for the new centre. The centre will be educate the public on the Mars 2117 Project, a national plan to build a city on Mars in one hundred years.

Thuraya will be a place where everyone to come and meet together, said HasanAl Hariri, the centres director and chief executive of the Dubai Astronomy Group. Its going to have lots of places where people come and enjoy themselves and create a road map to Mars.

Our Sheikh Mohammed has given us a mandate to go to Mars 2117 to build a Mars city so we want to pave the road for that. Our Sheikh Mohammed he is a very visionary man and when he says something like that it means we have to develop ourselves, we have to come up to do something which is beyond normal people. We have to go to Mars.

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Read more on UAE astronomy

Love for the night sky leads Emirati to build private spacer observatory

Dubai astronomer's lifelong passion for stargazing

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Mr Al Hariri envisions a Mars camp at the observatory that stimulates life on the Red Planet.

We want to give people the chance to live on Mars. They will have no atmosphere, they will have no food, they will have no soil. They will have to prepare everything for themselves.

Planning has already begun on the next project, the Marmoun Astronomy Resort, a dark sky reserve 40 km away from the city so that tourists and researchers can observe the skies in complete darkness. The municipality has designated land, said Mr Al Hariri.

We want to make it an astronomy resort so people can come throughout the year and enjoy the beautiful sky, he said. We are anticipating my 2018 we will have this available. At the moment its on the drawing board in collaboration with the municipality. We hope that to finalise it this year so we can start construction early next year.

The next project will be an observatory in the Hatta mountains, with a tentative 2019 opening.

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Perseid meteor shower to light up UAE desert skies this weekend

My UAE: Getting starry eyed with Hasan Ahmad Al Hariri

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Mr Al Hariri was speaking on the sidelines of a desert viewing of the Perseids meteor shower in Marmoun desert south of Dubai.

An estimated 500 people came out to a free talk and sightings on the Perseids hosted by the Dubai Astronomy at Al Mushrif Park. On Saturday night, about 40 people came to a closed event. There has been a growing interested in astronomy with the growing popularity of photography.

Mr Al Hariris 12-year-old daughter, Amna, helped visitors take photographs of the ringed planet Saturn through a 23cm telescopeusing iPhones.

The annual meteor shower is one of the most popular events in the celestial calendar but this years meteors were outshone by a three quarter moon that rose over the eastern horizon shortly after 10pm. Only a handful of meteors were visible but there will be another chance to watch meteors at the Leonids meteor shower in November and the Geminid meteor shower in December.

Al Hariri spoke about constellations, traditional navigation and stories learnt from his grandmother.

She used to tell us, dont switch on the air conditioning. Go sit outside. Live in nature. Touch and feel nature. Then you will be good, healthy.

By his grandmothers measure, Saturdays gathering was a success.

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Dubai looks to the stars as Dh50 million Astronomy Centre to open next month - The National

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom on Free Speech, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet Addiction. – WIRED

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I sat down with Kevin Systrom, the CEO of Instagram, in June to interview him for my feature story, Instagrams CEO Wants to Clean Up the Internet, and for Is Instagram Going Too Far to Protect Our Feelings, a special that ran on CBS this week.

It was a long conversation, but here is a 20-minute overview in which Systrom talks about the artificial intelligence Instagram has been developing to filter out toxic comments before you even see them. He also discusses free speech, the possibility of Instagram becoming too bland, and whether the platform can be considered addictive. Our conversation occurred shortly before Instagram introduced the AI to the public.

A transcript of the conversation follows.

Nicholas Thompson, Editor-in-Chief: Morning, Kevin

Kevin Systrom, CEO of Instagram: Morning! How are you?

NT: Doing great. So what I want to do in this story is I want to get into the specifics of the new product launch and the new things youre doing and the stuff thats coming out right now and the machine learning. But I also want to tie it to a broader story about Instagram, and how you decided to prioritize niceness and how it became such a big thing for you and how you reoriented the whole company. So Im gonna ask you some questions about the specific products and then some bigger questions

KS: Im down.

NT: All right so lets start at the beginning. I know that from the very beginning you cared a lot about comments. You cared a lot about niceness and, in fact, you and your co-founder Mike Krieger would go in early on and delete comments yourself. Tell me about that.

KS: Yeah. Not only would we delete comments but we did the unthinkable: We actually removed accounts that were being not so nice to people.

NT: So for example, whom?

KS: Yeah well I dont remember exactly whom, but the back story is my wife is one of the nicest people youll ever meet. And that bleeds over to me and I try to model it. So, when we were starting the app, we watched this video, basically how to start a company. And it was by this guy who started the LOLCats meme and he basically said, To form a community you need to do something, and he called it Prune the trolls. And Nicole would always joke with me, shes like, Hey listen, when your community is getting rough, you gotta prune the trolls. And thats something she still says to me today to remind me of the importance of community, but also how important it is to be nice. So back in the day we would go in and if people were mistreating people, wed just remove their accounts. I think that set an early tone for the community to be nice and be welcoming.

NT: But whats interesting is that this is 2010, and 2010 is a moment where a lot of people are talking about free speech and the internet, and Twitters role in the Iranian revolution. So it was a moment where free speech was actually valued on the internet, probably more than it is now. How did you end up being more in the prune the trolls camp?

KS: Well theres an age-old debate between free speechwhat is the limit of free speech, and is it free speech to just be mean to someone? And I think if you look at the history of the law around free speech, youll find that generally theres a line where you dont want to cross because youre starting to be aggressive or be mean or racist. And you get to a point where you wanna make sure that in a closed community thats trying to grow and thrive, you make sure that you actually optimize for overall free speech. So if I dont feel like I can be myself, if I dont feel like I can express myself because if I do that, I will get attacked, thats not a community we want to create. So we just decided to be on the side of making sure that we optimized for speech that was expressive and felt like you had the freedom to be yourself.

NT: So, one of the foundational decisions at Instagram that helped make it nicer than some of your peers, was the decision to not allow re-sharing, and to not allow something that I put out there to be kind of appropriated by someone else and sent out into the world by someone else. How was that decision made and were there other foundational design and product decisions that were made because of niceness?

KS: We debate the re-share thing a lot. Because obviously people love the idea of re-sharing content that they find. Instagram is full of awesome stuff. In fact, one of the main ways people communicate over Instagram Direct now is actually they share content that they find on Instagram. So thats been a debate over and over again. But really that decision is about keeping your feed focused on the people you know rather than the people you know finding other stuff for you to see. And I think that is more of a testament of our focus on authenticity and on the connections you actually have than about anything else.

NT: So after you went to VidCon, you posted an image on your Instagram feed of you and a bunch of celebrities

KS: Totally, in fact it was a Boomerang.

NT: It was a Boomerang, right! So Im going to read some of the comments on @kevins post.

KS: Sure.

NT: These are the comments: Succ, Succ, Succ me, Succ, Can you make Instagram have auto-scroll feature? That would be awesome and expand Instagram as a app that could grow even more, #memelivesmatter, you succ, you can delete memes but not cancer patients, I love #memelivesmatter, #allmemesmatter, succ, #MLM, #memerevolution, cuck, mem, #stopthememegenocide, #makeinstagramgreatagain, #memelivesmatter, #memelivesmatter, mmm, gang, melon gangIm not quite sure what all this means. Is this typical?

KS: It was typical, but Id encourage you to go to my last post which I posted for Fathers Day

NT: Your last post is all nice!

KS: Its all nice.

NT: Theyre all about how handsome your father is.

KS: Right? Listen, he is taken. My mom is wonderful. But there are a lot of really wonderful comments there.

NT: So why is this post from a year ago full of cuck and #memelivesmatter and the most recent post is full of how handsome Kevin Systroms dad is?

KS: Well thats a good question. I would love to be able to explain it, but the first thing I think is back then there were a bunch of people who I think were unhappy about the way Instagram was managing accounts. And there are groups of people that like to get together and band up and bully people, but its a good example of how someone can get bullied, right. The good news is I run the company and I have a thick skin and I can deal with it. But imagine youre someone whos trying to express yourself about depression or anxiety or body image issues and you get that. Does that make you want to come back and post on the platform? And if youre seeing that, does that make you want to be open about those issues as well? No. So a year ago I think we had much more of a problem, but the focus over that year, over both comment filtering so now you can go in and enter your own words that basically filter out comments that include that word. We have spam filtering that works pretty well, so probably a bunch of those would have been caught up in the spam filter that we have because they were repeated comments. And also just a general awareness of kind comments. We have this awesome campaign that we started called #kindcomments. I dont know if you know the late night show were they reads off mean comments on another social platform; we started kind comments to basically set a standard in the community that it was better and cooler to actually leave kind comments. And now there is this amazing meme that has spread throughout Instagram about leaving kind comments. But you can see the marked difference between the post about Fathers Day and that post a year ago on what technology can do to create a kinder community. And i think were making progress which is the important part.

NT: Tell me about sort of steps one, two, three, four, five. How do you you dont automatically decide to launch the seventeen things youve launched since then? Tell me about the early conversations.

KS: The early conversations were really about what problem are we solving and we looked to the community for stories. We talked to community members. We have a giant community team here at Instagram, which I think is pretty unique for technology companies. Literally, their job is to interface with the community and get feedback and highlight members who are doing amazing things on the platform. So getting that type of feedback from the community about what types of problems they were experiencing in their comments then led us to brainstorm about all the different things we could build. And what we realized was there was this giant wave of machine learning and artificial intelligenceand Facebook had developed this thing that basicallyits called deep text

NT: Which launches in June of 2016, so its right there.

KS: Yup, so they have this technology and we put two and two together and we said: You know what? I think if we get a bunch of people to look at comments and rate them good or badlike you go on pandora and you listen to a song, is it good or is it badget a bunch of people to do that. Thats your training set. And then what you do is you feed it to the machine learning system and you let it go through 80 percent of it and then you hold out the other 20 percent of the comments. And then you say, Okay, machine, go and rate these comments for us based on the training set, and then we see how well it does and we tweak it over time, and now were at a point where basically this machine learning can detect a bad comment or a mean comment with amazing accuracybasically a 1 percent false positive rate. So throughout that process of brainstorming, looking at the technology available and then training this filter over time with real humans who are deciding this stuff, gathering feedback from our community and gathering feedback from our team about how it works, were able to create something were really proud of.

NT: So when you launch it you make a very important decision: Do you want it to be aggressive, in which case itll probably knock out some stuff it shouldnt? Or do you want it to be a little less aggressive, in which case a lot of bad stuff will get through?

KS: Yeah, this is the classic problem. If you go for accuracy, you will misclassify a bunch of stuff that actually was pretty good. So you know if your my friend and I go on your photo and Im just joking around with you and giving you a hard time, Instagram should let that through because were friends and Im just giving you a hard time and thats a funny banter back and forth. Whereas if you dont know me and I come on and I make fun of your photo, that feels very different. Understanding the nuance between those two is super important and the thing we dont want to do is have any instance where we block something that shouldnt be blocked. The reality is its going to happen. So the question is, is that margin of error worth it for all the really bad stuff that gets blocked? And thats a fine balance to figure out. Thats something were working on. We trained the filter basically to have a one-percent false positive rate. So that means one percent of things that get marked as bad are actually good. And that was a top priority for us because were not here to curb free speech, were not here to curb fun conversations between friends, but we want to make sure we are largely attacking the problem of bad comments on Instagram.

NT: And so you go, and every comment that goes in gets sort of run through an algorithm, and the algorithm gives it a score from 0 to 1 on whether its likely a comment that should be filtered or a comment that should not be filtered, right? And then that score is combined with the relationship of the two people?

KS: No, the score actually is influenced based on the relationship of the people

NT: So the original score is influenced by, and Instagram I believeif I have this correcthas something like a karma score for every user, where the number of times theyve been flagged or the number of critiques made of them is added into something on the back end, is that goes into this too?

KS: So without getting into the magic sauceyoure asking like Coca Cola to give up its recipeIm going to tell you that theres a lot of complicated stuff that goes into it. But basically it looks at the words, it looks at our relationship, and it looks at a bunch of other signals including account age, account history, and that kind of stuff. And it combines all those signals and then it spits out a score of 0 to 1 about how bad this comment is likely. And then basically you set a threshold that optimizes for one-percent false-positive rate.

NT: when do you decide its ready to go?

KS: I think at a point where the accuracy gets to a point that internally were happy with it. So one of the things we do here at instagram is we do this thing called dogfoodingand not a lot of people know this term but in the tech industry it means, you know, eat your own dog food. So what we do is we take the products and we always apply them to ourselves before we go out to the community. And there are these amazing groups on Instagramand I would love to take you through them but theyre actually all confidential but its employees giving feedback about how they feel about specific features.

NT: So this is live on the phone to a bunch of Instagram employees right now?

KS: There are always features that are not launched that are live on Instagram employees phones, including things like this.

NT: So theres a critique of a lot of the advances in machine learning that the corpus on which it is based has biases built into it. So DeepText analyzed all Facebook commentsanalyzed some massive corpus of words that people have typed into the internet. When you analyze those, you get certain biases built into them. So for example, I was reading a paper and someone had taken a corpus of text and created a machine learning algorithm to rank restaurants, and to look at the comments people had written under restaurants and then to try and guess the quality of the restaurants. He went through and he ran it, and he was like, Interesting, because all of the Mexican restaurants were ranked badly. So why is that? Well it turns out, as he dug deeper into the algorithm, its because in massive corpus of text the word Mexican is associated with illegalillegal Mexican immigrant because that is used so frequently. And so there are lots of slurs attached to the word Mexican, so the word Mexican has negative connotations in the machine learning-based corpus, which then affects the restaurant rankings of Mexican restaurants.

KS: That sounds awful

NT: So how do you deal with that?

KS: Well the good news is were not in the business of ranking restaurants

NT: But you are ranking sentences based on this huge corpus of text that Facebook has analyzed as part of DeepText

KS: Its a little bit more complicated than that. So all of our training comes from Instagram comments. So we have hundreds of raters and its actually pretty interesting what weve done with this set of raters: basically, human beings that sit there and by the way human beings are not unbiased thats not what im claimingbut you have human beings. Each of those raters is bilingual. So they speak two languages, they have a diverse perpsective, theyre from all over the world. And they rank those comments basically, thumbs up or thumbs down. Basically the instagram corpus, right?

So you feed it a thumbs up, thumbs down based on an individual. And you might say, But wait, isnt a single individual biased in some way? Which is why we make sure every comment is actually seen twice and given a rating twice by at least two people to make sure that there is as minimal amount of bias in the system as possible. And then on top of that, we also gain feedback from not only our team but also the community, and then were able to tweak things on the margin to make sure things like that dont happen. Im not claiming that it wont happenthats of course a riskbut the biggest risk of all is doing nothing because were afraid of these things happening. And I think its more important that we are A) aware of them, and B) monitoring them actively, and C) making sure we have a diverse group of raters that not only speak two languages but are from all over the world and represent different perspectives to make sure we have an unbiased classifier.

NT: So lets take a sentence like These hos aint loyal, which is a phrase that I believe a previous study on Twitter had a lot of trouble with. Your theory is that some people will say, Oh thats a lyric, therefore its okay, some people wont know it will get through, but enough raters looking at enough comments over time will allow lyrics to get through, and These hoes aint loyal, I can post that on your Instagram feed if you post a picture which deserves that comment.

KS: Well I think what I would counter is, if you post that sentence to any person watching this, not a single one of them would say thats a mean spirited comment to any of us, right?

NT: Right.

NT: So I think thats pretty easy to get to. I think if there are more nuance in examples, and I think thats the spirit of your question, which is that there are grey areas. The whole idea of machine learning is that its far better about understanding those nuances than any algorithm has in the past, or any single human being could. And I think what we have to do over time is figure out how to get into that grey area, and judge the performance of this algorithm over time to see if it actually improves things. Because by the way, if it causes trouble and it doesnt work, well scrap it and start over with something new. But the whole idea here is that were trying something. And I think a lot of the fears that youre bringing up are warranted but is exactly why it keeps most companies from even trying in the first place.

NT: And so first youre going to launch this filtering bad comments, and then the second thing youre going to do is the elevation of positive comments. Tell me about how that is going to work and why thats a priority.

KS: The elevation of positive comments is more about modeling in the system. Weve seen a bunch of times in the system where we have this thing called the mimicry effect. So if you raise kind comments, you actually see more kind comments, or you see more people giving kind comments. its not that we ever ran this test but Im sure if you raised a bunch of mean comments you would see more mean comments. Part of this is the piling-on effect, and I think what we can do is by modeling what great conversations are, more people will see Instagram as a place for that, and less for the bad stuff. And its got this interesting psychological effect that people want to fit in and people want to do what theyre seeing, and that means that people are more positive over time.

NT: And are you at all worried that youre going to turn Instagram into the equivalent of an East Coast liberal arts college?

KS: I think those of us who grew up on the East Coast might take offense to that *laughs* Im not sure what you mean exactly.

NT: I mean a place where there are trigger warnings everywhere, where people feel like like they cant have certain opinions, where people feel like they cant say things. Where you put this sheen over all your conversations, as though everything in the world is rosy and the bad stuff, were just going to sweep it under the rug.

KS: Yeah, that would be bad. Thats not something we want. I think in the range of bad, were talking about the lower five percent. Like the really, really, bad stuff. I dont think were trying to play anywhere in the area of grey. Although I realize, theres no black or white and were going to have to play at some level. But the idea here is to take out, I dont know, the bottom five percent of nasty stuff. And I dont think anyone would argue that, that makes Instagram a rosy place, it just doesnt make it a hateful place.

So you feed it a thumbs up, thumbs down based on an individual. And you might say, But wait, isnt a single individual biased in some way? Which is why we make sure every comment is actually seen twice and given a rating twice by at least two people to make sure that there is as minimal amount of bias in the system as possible. And then on top of that, we also gain feedback from not only our team but also the community, and then were able to tweak things on the margin to make sure things like that dont happen. Im not claiming that it wont happenthats of course a riskbut the biggest risk of all is doing nothing because were afraid of these things happening. And I think its more important that we are A) aware of them, and B) monitoring them actively, and C) making sure we have a diverse group of raters that not only speak two languages but are from all over the world and represent different perspectives to make sure we have an unbiased classifier.

NT: So lets take a sentence like These hos aint loyal, which is a phrase that I believe a previous study on Twitter had a lot of trouble with. Your theory is that some people will say, Oh thats a lyric, therefore its okay, some people wont know it will get through, but enough raters looking at enough comments over time will allow lyrics to get through, and These hoes aint loyal, I can post that on your Instagram feed if you post a picture which deserves that comment.

KS: Well I think what I would counter is, if you post that sentence to any person watching this, not a single one of them would say thats a mean spirited comment to any of us, right?

NT: Right.

NT: So I think thats pretty easy to get to. I think if there are more nuance in examples, and I think thats the spirit of your question, which is that there are grey areas. The whole idea of machine learning is that its far better about understanding those nuances than any algorithm has in the past, or any single human being could. And I think what we have to do over time is figure out how to get into that grey area, and judge the performance of this algorithm over time to see if it actually improves things. Because by the way, if it causes trouble and it doesnt work, well scrap it and start over with something new. But the whole idea here is that were trying something. And I think a lot of the fears that youre bringing up are warranted but is exactly why it keeps most companies from even trying in the first place.

NT: And you wouldnt want all of the comments on your,You know, on your VidCon post, its a mix of sort of jokes, and nastiness, and vapidity, and useful product feedback. And youre getting rid of the nasty stuff, but wouldnt it be better, if you raised like the best product feedback and the funny jokes to the top?

KS: Maybe. And maybe thats a problem well decide to solve at some point. But right now were just focused on making sure that people dont feel hate, you know? And I think thats a valid thing to go after, and Im excited to do it.

NT: So the thing that interests me the most is that its like Instagram is a world with 700 million people, and youre writing the constitution for the world. When you get up in the morning and you think about that power, that responsibility, how does it affect you?

KS: Doing nothing felt like the worst option in thew world. So starting to tackle it means that we can improve the world; we can improve the lives of as many young people in the world that live on social media. I dont have kids yet; I will someday, and I hope that kid, boy or girl, grows up in a world where they feel safe online, where I as a parent feel like theyre safe online. And you know the cheesy saying, with great power comes great responsibility. We take on that responsibility. And were going to go after it. But that doesnt mean that not acting is the correct option. There are all sorts of issues that come with acting, youve highlighted a number of them today, but that doesnt mean we shouldnt act. That just means we should be aware of them and we should be monitoring them over time.

NT: One of the critiques is that Instagram, particularly for young people is very addictive. And in fact theres a critique being made my Tristen Harris who was a-classmate of yours, and a classmate of Mikes, and a student in the same class as Mikes. And he says that the design of Instagram deliberately addicts you. For example, when you open it up it just- KS: Sorry Im laughing just because I think the idea that anyone inside here tries to design something that is maliciously addictive is just so far fetched. We try to solve problems for people and if by solving those problems for people they like to use the product, I think weve done our job well. This is not a casino, we are not trying to eke money out of people in a malicious way. The idea of Instagram is that we create something that allows them to connect with their friends, and their family, and their interests, positive experiences, and I think any criticism of building that system is unfounded.

NT: So all of this is aimed at making Instagram better. And it sounds like changes so far have made Instagram better. Is any of it aimed at making people better, or is there any chance that the changes that happen on Instagram will seep into the real world and maybe, just a little bit, the conversations in this country will be more positive than theyve been?

KS: I sure hope we can stem any negativity in the world. Im not sure we would sign up from that day one. Um, but I actually want to challenge the initial premise which is that this is about making Instagram better. I actually think its about making the internet better. I hope someday the technology that we develop and the training sets we develop and the things we learn we can pass on to startups, we can pass on our peers in technology, and we actually together build a kinder, safer, more inclusive community online.

NT: Will you open source the software youve built for this?

KS: Im not sure. Im not sure. I think a lot of it comes back to how good it performs, and the willingness of our partners to adopt it.

NT: But what if this fails? What if actually people actually get kind of turned off by instagram, they say, Instagrams becoming like Disneyland, I dont want to be there. And they share less?

KS: The thing I love about Silicon Valley is weve bear hugged failure. Failure is what we all start with, we go through, and hopefully we dont end on, on our way to success. I mean Instagram wasnt Instagram initially. It was a failed start up before. I turned down a bunch of job offers that would have been really awesome along the way. That was failure. Ive had numerous product ideas at Instagram that were totally failures. And thats okay. We bear hug it because when you fail at least youre trying. And I think thats actually what makes Silicon Valley different from traditional business. Is that our tolerance for failure here is so much higher. And thats why you see bigger risks and also bigger payoffs.

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Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom on Free Speech, Artificial Intelligence, and Internet Addiction. - WIRED

Beyond the Hype in AI: Implementing and Maintaining Artificial Intelligence FTW – Bloomberg Big Law Business

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Beyond the Hype in AI: Implementing and Maintaining Artificial Intelligence FTW - Bloomberg Big Law Business

The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence – HuffPost

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Many experts believe that artificial intelligence (AI) might lead to the end of the worldjust not in the way that Hollywood films would have us believe. Movie plots, for example, feature robots increasing in intelligence until they take over the human race. The reality is far less dramatic, but may cause some incredible cultural shiftsnonetheless.

Last year, industry leaders like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, and Bill Gates wrote a letter to the International Joint Conference in Argentina stating that the successful adoption of AI might be one of humankinds biggest achievementsand maybe its last. They noted that AI poses unique ethical dilemmas, whichif not considered carefullycould prove more dangerous than nuclear capabilities.

How can we implement AI technology while remaining faithful to our ethical obligations? The solution requires systematic effort.

Transparency is the key to integrating AI effectively. Companies may mistakenly assume that ethics is merely a practice in risk mitigation. This mindset only serves to deadlock innovation.

Create a company ethics committee that works with your shareholders to determine whats ethical and whats not from the outset. Align this moral code with your business cultural values to create innovative products while increasing public trust. An ethics committee member should participate in the design and development stages of all new products, including anything that incorporates AI. Integrity is essential to the foundation of an organization. Your ethical mindset must therefore be proactive, not reactive.

A solid ethical foundation leads to good business decisions. It wouldnt make sense, for example, to build a product that you later determine will affect the industry negatively. By applying your ethical code from the start, you create a positive impact while wisely allocating resources.

An ethics committee, however, doesnt tell a design and development team what it can and cant do. Instead, the committee encourages the team to pursue innovation without infringing on the companys cultural values. Think of it as an important system of checks and balances; one department may be so focused on the potential of a new innovation that members of the department never pause to consider the larger ramifications. An ethics committee can preserve your business integrity in light of exciting new developments that have the potential to completely reshape your organization.

AI is still a relatively new concept, so its possible to do something legal, yet unethical. Ethical conversations are more than just a checklist for team members to follow. They require hard questions and introspection about new products and the companys intentions. This Socratic method takes time and may create tension between team membersbut its worth the effort.

Dont know where to begin with your ethical code? Start by reading the One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence from Stanford. This report reviews the impact of AI on culture in five-year timespans, outlines societys opportunities and challenges in light of AI innovation, and envisions future changes. Its intended to guide decision-making and policy-making to ensure AI benefits humankind as a whole.

Use this report as an informed framework for your AI initiatives. Other ethical framework essentials include:

One tech industry concern is that failure to self-police will only lead to external regulation. The Stanford report maintains it will be impossible to adequately regulate AI. Risks and opportunities vary in scope and domain. While the tech industry balks at the idea of oversight, the Stanford report suggests that all levels of government should be more aware of AIs potential.

A committee of tech leaders plans to convene this month to discuss the ethics of AI intelligence, and the possibility of creating a large-scale best practices guide for companies to follow. The hope? That discussion will breed introspection, leading all AI companies to make ethical decisions benefitting society. The process will take time, and tech companies are notoriously competitive. But in this we universally agree: its worth the effort.

Article first seen on Futurum here. Photo Credit: HoursDeOuvre via Compfight cc

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The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence - HuffPost

Artificial intelligence takes aim at online fraud – Idaho Statesman (blog)

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Idaho Statesman (blog)
Artificial intelligence takes aim at online fraud
Idaho Statesman (blog)
There was a time, not long ago, when consumers cast a wary eye the product quality, uncertain customer service and, most of all, the security of online transactions. Today, we shop online for everything from cars to medications to movie tickets to ...

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Artificial intelligence takes aim at online fraud - Idaho Statesman (blog)

Boeing Talks 3D Printing for Aerospace – ENGINEERING.com

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On the ground floor of 3D printing technology for years, aerospace manufacturers first began adopting the various additive manufacturing (AM) processes for use in prototyping. With each advance in the technology, they have been there as AM was used for the creation of tooling to, most recently, the mass manufacturing of end parts.

GE increased its role in the industry dramatically when it acquired two metal 3D printer manufacturers and formed GE Additive. GE, however, isnt the only aerospace company thats taken AM to the skies. Also ahead of the pack is Boeing, which has been flying 3D-printed parts since 2003.

A part 3Dprinted by Norsk Titanium for Boeing. (Image courtesy of Norsk.)

As a manufacturer with a leading role in the 3D printing space, Boeing may be able to offer key insight into the various platforms that make up AM and how they are currently being used in aerospace, as well as how they can and will be used in the industry in the future. To gain some of this insight, ENGINEERING.com spoke to Leo Christodoulou, director of Structures and Materials, Enterprise Operations and Technology at Boeing.

As the number two federal contractor, behind Lockheed Martin, Boeing was awarded over $16 billion in taxpayer funds in 2015. Being so closely tied to the federal government has historically given the aerospace manufacturer access to some of the Department of Defenses leading projects.

In 2003, for instance, Boeing was a part of a U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory effort to qualify and fly a metal 3D-printed part on the F-15 fighter jet. The project arose when a replacement part was needed, but the lead time for tooling would be too long. Additionally, the part was going to be made from titanium, rather than with aluminum forging, as had been the case in the past. This would reduce corrosion fatigue associated with the aluminum part.

To produce the titanium pylon rib, a laser powder feed deposition process, a form of directed energy deposition (DED), was used. The part became the first 3D-printed metal part to qualify and fly on a military aircraft. Almost 14 years later, Boeing now has over 50,000 3D-printed components of various types flying on aircraft today.

As if reliving the past, Boeing is turning to DED once again to produce structural components for its 787 Dreamliner. Working with Norsk Titanium and its rapid plasma deposition technology, the company will 3D print what could be the first titanium structural components for an aircraft.

Boeing and Norsk have been working together since 2016 to first see if the parts produced by Norsk could meet Boeings requirements, and then whether they could meet those of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) program. The companies are anticipating that additional FAA approval for the material properties and manufacturing process will be obtained this year.

DED processes do not offer the same geometric complexity as selective laser melting, but, by 3D printing near-net-shape parts and then machining them to their final shape, its possible to speed up turnaround time, reduce material waste and reduce costs.

Christodoulou explained, Some technologies offer better complexity than others, but even though some [like DED] dont offer as much complexity, they still provide value in terms of buy-to-fly ratio. If you have an expensive material like titanium, for example, you can reduce the cost of how much you have to machine away and the buy-to-fly ratio tends to be very high. Even with a technique where the processes do not give you the buy-to fly ratio, you can gain a lot of value by not having to buy all the material that you machine away.

This may be clearly demonstrated with the 787 Dreamliner. By leveraging plasma deposition from Norsk, Boeing aims to cut costs by $2 to $3 million.

Although DED may have been one of the first technologies that Boeing leveraged for the production of an end part, it has become just one of many within the companys repertoire, according to Christodoulou.

AM for us is a toolbox in a toolbox. AM is not really one single technology. Its a range of technologies. These technologies are applied differently in polymeric systems, composites, metals, and potentially ceramics. Different classes of material employ different processes, and each material class has multiple processes that one might consider, Christodoulou said.

The largest toolbox is the whole manufacturing or production system, Christodoulou continued. That production system has all of the traditional processes that we currently use, whether its fiber placement machines or machining of aluminum, whether its casting, forging, rolling, resin infusionAM is one part of an entire manufacturing system. Its never going to replace them all. It might not replace any of them.

Among the other AM tools in Boeings toolbox is fused deposition modeling from Stratasys. The company has been working with Stratasys to develop its Infinite Build technology, which has a hypothetically infinite build direction on the horizontal axis.

If you talk about AM, people think of a 3D printer somewhere ina box. What we did when we worked with Stratasys was we worked to take AM out of the box, creating a system by which we could remove parts and, in a sense, make them infinitely long, Christodoulou said.Were not constrained by the volume now of a box, but our ability to have a stable process that will work for maybe three weeks, 24/7,nonstop. Its all about that stability of the process.

The aim for using a technology that is capable of producing such large components may not be for 3D printing end parts necessarily, but also manufacturing aids. Last year, Boeing and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) won a Guinness World Record for producing the largest solid 3D-printed item. It wasnt an aircraft wing that the partners printed, but a large piece of tooling used to secure the 777X composite wing skin for drilling and machining.

Christodoulou said,That part doesnt have any mechanical requirements for flight, but it has very strict requirements in terms of dimensional control because its the tool on which we build parts that do fly.

The machine used to produce the part was the Big Area Additive Manufacturing (BAAM) system from Cincinnati Inc. Although the BAAM is relatively new, Boeing doesnt just use any new 3D printer to make parts for the sheer novelty and marketability of it. According to Christodoulou, every technology and part goes through a rigorous quality control process.

The adoption of a given technology is commensurate with its maturity. Some technology is more mature than others, so its more likely to meet our requirements than others, Christodoulou explained. We have full intention to capture the benefits of new technologies as they come along, but our implementation is based on using technologies and processes that are stable so that they are reproducible.

One of the key elements in Boeings development and adoption programs is the ability to demonstrate reproducibility. This holds true not just for AM, but for all of its manufacturing tools. Christodoulou said that Boeing has very stringent process specifications for how to build a given part and the settings on the machines. Once stability has been demonstrated across processes on multiple machines and in multiple installations across the globe, the company develops a database compiling the properties of parts. This enables Boeing to have data that supports the use of a particular process to manufacture a specific component.

This is true not just for processes, but for materials as well. Among the most recent materials Boeing is experimenting withOXPEKK, a form of laser sintered polyetherketoneketone developed by Oxford Performance Materials (OPM). OPM will be supplying over 600 parts for the Boeing Crew Space Transportation (CST)-100 Starliner spacecraft, which is meant to carry up to seven passengersor a combination of crew and cargoto low-Earth orbit destinations like the International Space Station.

An OXFAB Complex Structural Component 3Dprinted by OPM for the Boeing CST-100 Starliner. (Image courtesy of OPM.)

And while Boeing is qualifying processes on the production front, one of the biggest challenges according to Christodoulou is in the culture of manufacturing and design. This is because industry has become accustomed to designing for existing production technologies. 3D printing, however, opens up the ability to produce parts that were impossible to make with traditional techniques, such as complex geometries with internal structures.

Unlike other aerospace companies adopting AM technology, Boeing doesnt rely entirely on in-house production, Christodouloupointed out. Instead, Boeing tries to strike a balance between in-house work and leveraging its supply chain.

65 percent of our work is done outside of Boeing by our suppliers, Christodoulou said. We have 20 sites within our walls that perform some form of AMfrom Puget Sound to St Louis to Mesa to overseas, in the UK and Germanybut we have to balance between our internal activities and our supply chain. In many cases, the value proposition for us is to work collaboratively with our supply base and exploit their expertise and their capital investment. For example, Norsk has made a lot of capital investments in its technology that we dont necessarily want to duplicate. I would rather work collaboratively with them. We value and appreciate the contributions of our suppliers.

Additionally, Boeing is not a machine manufacturer, like GE. So, while it may make sense for GE to acquire 3D printer manufacturers like Arcam and Concept Laser, Boeing does not plan to build and sell AM machines.

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Aerospace industry showcased at business after-hours event – WDTV

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BRIDGEPORT. W. Va. (WDTV) -- Members of the aerospace industry got together Thursday to show the community just what they have to offer in North Central West Virginia.

The Robert C. Byrd National Aerospace Education Center was the site for the Harrison and Marion Chambers of Commerce joint business after hours event.

It was meant to showcase the growth of the aviation industry in North Central West Virginia.

"The aviation industry is something that's just going to grow. There's going to be more and more people, whether it be for pilots, or mechanics or aviation specialists of any kind, so it just creates a lot of opportunity, close to home," said Rick Rock, director of the North Central West Virginia Airport.

"We have a marvelous training program that takes the citizens of West Virginia, provides them with the high technology training they need, to get jobs in this career field," said Thomas Stose, Director of the National Aerospace Education Center.

Major General Jim Hoyer was also at the event. He said this industry shows the true potential of the Mountain State. Hear him compare the tale of two cities and how this industry can mean big things for the state in the attached interview.

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Aerospace industry showcased at business after-hours event - WDTV

South Dakota Civil Air Patrol to hold Aerospace Extravaganza Aug. 17-20 – Watertown Public Opinion

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SIOUX FALLS Aerospace education is one of the three congressionally mandated missions of the Civil Air Patrol. This weekend, aircraft and vehicles will bring officers and cadets from across the state to Sioux Falls to participate in the South Dakota Wings Aerospace Extravaganza for 2017.

The mission base will be at the headquarters of the Sioux Falls Composite Squadron at the Sioux Falls Regional Airport.

Cadets will have the opportunity to fly on powered aircraft orientation flights in and around Sioux Falls area. In addition, cadets will be ferried in groups to Worthington, Minn. where they will participate in glider orientation flights.

Cadets at mission base will also take part in a plethora of activities including building and testing flying model gliders, launching model rockets, flying radio-controlled model powered aircraft and gliders, flying computer flight simulators and receiving instruction in how control surfaces affect flight dynamics.

Also included in the weekends activity is a guided tour of the South Dakota Air National Guards 114th Fighter Wing facility at Joe Foss Field.

Project Officers for the Aerospace extravaganza are Lt. Col. Todd Epp, commander of the Sioux Falls Composite squadron, and Lt. Col. Buck DeWeese, vice commander of the South Dakota Wing of the Civil Air patrol. Epp can be contacted at 605-351-5021 and DeWeese at 605-641-2362.

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South Dakota Civil Air Patrol to hold Aerospace Extravaganza Aug. 17-20 - Watertown Public Opinion

Aerospace Arizona Association attends tour of Falcon Field Airport – Sierra Vista Herald

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MESA Approximately 20 members and guests of the Aerospace Arizona Association attended a tour on Aug. 3 of Falcon Field Airport in Mesa. The group learned of the airports history, its current uses, and toured several of the businesses operating on and adjacent to the airport campus.

The tour of Falcon Field Airport was beneficial both as an educational opportunity and a networking tool for our members, said Mignonne Hollis, executive director of Arizona Regional Economic Development Foundation (AREDF) who serves on the advisory board for Aerospace Arizona Association. This is just one of the many ways the Association is helping to advance the unmanned and aerospace industries as whole for our state.

The aerospace and unmanned industry sectors are vital economic drivers for the economy for the state, Hollis said. Arizona is ranked second in the nation for aerospace and defense systems manufacturing jobs, employing more than 11,700 people. In 2016, Arizona was ranked first in the nation by Price Waterhouse Cooper for aerospace manufacturing attractiveness. In response, AREDF formed the Aerospace Arizona Association to promote growth and innovation within these industries throughout the state of Arizona.

Falcon Field Airport was established in 1941 as a military airport during World War II to train British Royal Air Force and American pilots. Following the war, it was deeded to the city of Mesa as a municipal airport. Although the city still maintains the contract for airport operations, it is self-sufficient and all airport revenue is used for capital improvement and airport expenses. More than 90 businesses are located at Falcon Field and it provides over 1,300 jobs.

The first stop on the airport tour was a visit to the CAE Flight Training Academy. CAE provides simulator-based training for several national and international airlines, including American Airlines and JetBlue. The Aerospace Arizona tour group got to see first-hand both the training simulators and classrooms that are used to train future pilots from all over the world.

The group then toured the production lines for Boeings Apache and Unmanned A160T Hummingbird systems in their facility adjacent to Falcon Field. The Mesa site has produced Apache helicopters since 1984 and the manufacturing technicians in the facility both assemble and paint aircraft onsite.

The efficiency, precision, and highly trained workers in the Boeing production line were evident throughout the tour. The group learned that a continual effort to reduce production times while keeping quality at the highest levels is essential to Boeings contract with the U.S. Army for production of these rotorcraft. Employee efforts to improve manufacturing processes and reduce the sites environmental footprint were also significant and many improvements have been made on the campus over the years toward becoming a more sustainable facility.

Finally, the group visited the DEAGA Helicopter offices where they are the exclusive U.S. distributor of Cicar helicopters and trainers. Attendees learned of the history of DEAGA USA, the subsidiary of Chinese public company DEA General Aviation Holding Company. At the Mesa location, they specialize in the sales, support, training and assembly of the Cicar range of products.

The Cicar training system is a unique helicopter training platform that that uses eight self-directional wheels which allow a helicopter operator in training to easily and safely move in all directions. It also has air tank that has pneumatic cylinders allowing the helicopter pilot to rise and descend adjusting the level of difficulty during the training session. Additionally, the entire system is co-operated by a teacher who can automatically disable it remotely in case of any emergency. This system of training has helped to eliminate accident risk for students and instructors during early flight training as well as created a reduction of between 60 and 90 percent of the hourly cost of flight training for beginning pilots.

Submitted by Laura Jones Martinez, communications/marketing specialist, Arizona Regional Economic Development Foundation

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Aerospace Arizona Association attends tour of Falcon Field Airport - Sierra Vista Herald