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Astronomy: Make a plan to view the American eclipse safely – The Columbus Dispatch

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

By Kenneth Hicks For Columbus Dispatch

If you havent already heard about it, the Great American Eclipse of 2017 is going to come your way on Aug. 21. Skies will darken to varying degrees at mid-afternoon across the entire USA on that day.

A total eclipse, where the sun is completely obscured by the moon, will be seen in a band that stretches from Oregon to South Carolina. Columbus will see a partial eclipse of about 90 percent, which will still be pretty spectacular. The maximum darkness in Columbus is expected at about 2:30 pm that day.

Theres little doubt in my mind that you will hear multiple warnings about looking directly at the eclipse, even when using sunglasses. The 10 percent of the sun that gets past the eclipse is still dangerous to look at.

There are a number of products, such as special eclipse glasses, that will allow one to look at it safely. I certainly encourage everyone to not wait until the last minute and to get proper eye protection if you want to see this rare event. Its a serious issue, as eye damage can result from looking at the eclipse without precautions.

If you have the opportunity to travel to a location in the path of the total eclipse, the experience can be breathtaking. When twilight comes in the middle of the day, it can be a very strange feeling and maybe even an unforgettable moment.

But be aware that hotels in the path of the total eclipse may be scarce. A friend of mine booked one almost a year ago, and told me back then that some hotels were already fully booked.

The next total eclipse visible in the U.S. will occur in 2024 and will mostly cross Texas. Although there have been a number of partial eclipses over the years, the last total eclipse that covered a large portion of the U.S. was in 1970. These events are pretty rare, and for children it can be a unique experience, so its worth putting some time and effort into planning how to view it safely.

Eclipses have long fascinated people. Centuries ago, before modern communications existed (and when many people were illiterate), the ability to predict when an eclipse would happen was seen as a manifestation of power.

Imagine a king of the realm being able to tell the peasants that the sun would disappear for a few minutes on the next day. Some peasants might conclude that the king had a direct link to God, and hence that would increase reverence for the king.

Throughout the Middle Ages, astronomers were part of the courts of many realms, and although the movements of the planets follow precise mathematical laws, it must have seemed like a magical ability to predict their actions. Indeed, it is known that some astronomers carefully guarded their knowledge rather than share it freely, as is done today.

Back then, the distinction between astronomy and astrology became blurred. Although astrology is mysticism, not science, it still uses the knowledge of where the planets are in the sky, which overlaps with the science of astronomy.

But if an asteroid were on a collision course with Earth, I know Id rather have a good astronomer on hand to help predict how to deflect it, whereas astrology would not be of much use (at least not for that purpose).

However you choose to enjoy the eclipse, I hope you will do it safely. It can be a memorable event, especially for children, and it will be many years before the next opportunity to see one.

Kenneth Hicks is a professor of physics and astronomy at Ohio University in Athens.

hicks@ohio.edu

How Artificial Intelligence Will Cure America’s Sick …

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

For decades, technology has relentlessly made phones, laptops, apps and entire industries cheaper and betterwhile health care has stubbornly loitered in an alternate universe where tech makes everything more expensive and more complex.

Now startups are applying artificial intelligence (AI), floods of data and automation in ways that promise to dramatically drive down the costs of health care while increasing effectiveness. If this profound trend plays out, within five to 10 years, Congress wont have to fight about the exploding costs of Medicaid and insurance. Instead, it might battle over what to do with a massive windfall. Todays debate over the repeal of Obamacare would come to seem as backward as a discussion about the merits of leeching.

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Hard to believe? One proof point is in the maelstrom of activity around diabetes, the most expensive disease in the world. In the U.S., nearly 10 percent of the population has diabetes, around 30 million people. Within a decade, some experts say, the number of diabetics in China will outnumber the entire U.S. population. Most people who suffer from the disease spend $5,000 to $10,000 a year on medication, and diabetics with complications can spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on doctor and hospital bills. That and the lost wages of diabetics cost the U.S. alone more than $245 billion a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Thats an enormous problem to solve and a pile of potential cash and customers to be wonwhich is why diabetes is attracting entrepreneurs like ants to a dropped ice cream cone. One of those entrepreneurs is SamiInkinen. He was a co-founder of the real estate site Trulia and has long been an endurance athlete, competing seriously in triathlons and Ironman events. In 2014, he and his wife rowed from California to Hawaii. None of this fits the typical profile of a diabetic, yet in 2011, soon after yet another triathlon, Inkinen was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes. And like many driven, super-smart data geeks, he dove into research to understand everything about his condition.

Soila Solano injects herself with insulin at her home in Las Vegas on April 18. Solano was diagnosed with Type 2 diabetes six years ago. Nearly 10 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes, the most expensive disease in the world. John Locher/AP

That journey led him to Dr. Stephen Phinney, a medical researcher at the University of California, Davis, and Jeff Volek, a scientist at Ohio State. Phinney and Volek wrote two books together about low-carbohydrate diets and published scientific papers describing how constant adjustments to diet and lifestyle can reverse diabetes in many patients. Diabetes is almost never treated that way because the program is too hard for most people to stick to. It requires so much coaching and scrutiny by medical professionals, youd pretty much have to hire a live-in doctor.

Inkinen convinced Phinney and Volek that technology could essentially re-create a live-in doctor and diabetes coach in a smartphone. Together, the three founded Virta Health in 2014. The company stayed in stealth mode until now, launching in March. It felt like a duty to do this, Inkinen tells Newsweek . Here is an epidemic of epic proportion, and nothing is working. We can combine science and technology to solve the problem at much lower cost and do it safely.

Heres how Virta works and why its approach is so important to the future of health care. On the front end, Virta is software on a smartphone. Diabetics who sign up agree to regularly enter data: glucose levels, weight, blood pressure, activity. Some do this by manually entering information; others use devices like a Fitbit or connected scales to automatically send it in. The app also frequently asks multiple-choice questions about mood, energy levels and hunger more data that the AI software crunches to learn about the patient, look for warning signs and symptoms and guide Virtas doctors.

On the back end, Virta hires doctors who get streams of updates from Virtas software and use the data to help them make decisions about how to adjust each patients diet and medications or anything else that might affect that persons health. Any clinical decision is always made by a doctor, Inkinen says. But the software increases productivity by 10-X. (Thats 10 times, in Silicon Valleyspeak.) When all this works and the patient follows the programs strict dietary and medical controls, diabetes can be reversed, clinical trials of Virtas system have shown. Around 87 percent of patients who had been relying on insulin to control their condition either decreased their dose or eliminated their use of insulin completelya success rate that matches that for bariatric surgery, which is an expensive, invasive, last-ditch effort for severe diabetics.

Virta leverages AI software, smartphones and cloud computing to allow its doctors to continually interact with many times more patients than they can in a clinic or hospital, and it gives its diabetic patients a cross between a pocket doctor and a guardian angel. The result is a promising treatment for diabetes that could get many sufferers off medication and keep them out of doctors offices and hospital emergency rooms. And that, in turn, would greatly lower the overall cost of diabetes.

Virta is just one startup of many attacking diabetes. Livongo is a more automated but less doctor-oriented version of Virtas program. The company, which raised $52.5 million in March, makes a wireless glucose-reading device that uploads the diabetics data. AI software learns about the patient and sends a stream of tips and information intended to help the diabetic manage the disease and stay out of hospitals. Yet another new startup, Fractyl, takes a more medical approach. It invented a type of catheter that seems to cause changes in the intestines that result in reversing diabetes.

Startup tracker Crunchbase lists about 130 new tech-oriented companies (the number changes constantly) involved in some aspect of diabetes. While many of these startups will fail, its hard to imagine that some wont have a significant impact.

These efforts matter to all of us because diabetes is such an enormous drain on health care resources. Venture capitalist Hemant Taneja, who helped start Livongo, says technology could take $100 billion out of the annual cost of diabetes in the U.S. Imagine if even 20 percent of diabetics could get off medication and have little need for a doctors care. All of those medical resources would get freed up for other patients and other conditions, which should help lower prices of health care for all. If we want to massively lower health care costs, we need to figure out how to address metabolic health issues [like diabetes] at their core, Inkinen says. I would bet my house that in 15 years, the future health care company looks like what were doing todaynot treating diseases at the end of the road but catching them along the way and reversing them.

A user checks blood glucose with the Livongo system. Livongo

Over the past decade, medical records in the U.S.long kept on paper in doctors horrible handwritinghave been digitized and fed into software. That hasnt helped lower health care costs yet, and in fact it is adding to them as systems get installed and medical professionals learn to use software that can be clunky. Epic Systems, the biggest electronic medical records company, handles 54 percent of patients records in the U.S. but gets bad marks for being so hard to use that it eats up doctors and nurses time. One report from Beckers Hospital Review said that almost 30 percent of Epic clients wouldnt recommend it to their peers. A survey by Black Book Market Research found that 30 percent of hospital personnel were dissatisfied with their EMR systems, with Epic getting the strongest dissatisfaction.

But theres a larger gain from the pain of EMRs: Enormous amounts of medical information are now digitized. As more medical interaction happens onlineas with Virta or Livongothe more kinds of data well collect. Internet of Things devices, whether Fitbits or connected glucose meters or potential new devices like Apple AirPods that take biometric readings, will add yet more data. All this data can help AI software learn about diseases in general, and about individual patients, opening up new ways for technology to be applied.

Some of the new applications of AI will simply improve a tragically inefficient health care industry. Qventus is a startup using AI to take all the data flowing through a hospital to learn how to free up doctors and nurses to see more patients and improve outcomes. Were creating efficiency out of seemingly nothing, Qventus CEO Mudit Garg tells me. Two years ago, work like this was so unsexy. But this is where the rubber meets the road.

One of his clients, Mercy Hospital Fort Smith in Fort Smith, Arkansas, has been able to treat 3,000 more patients a year with the same resources, an increase of 18 percent. Here again, technology is increasing the supply of medical services, potentially changing the cost equation that keeps forcing health care prices higher.

AI is also starting to automate some of the work of doctors. IBMs Watson, which uses machine learning and massive computing power to reason its way through questions, is on its way to becoming the best diagnostician on the planet. Its software can soak up all manner of available (and anonymized) patient data, plus the tens of thousands of medical research papers published every year (far more than any human could read). The system can even keep up with the news, learning, for instance, which regions are affected by a certain contagious disease, which might help diagnose someone who recently traveled to one of those areas. By asking patients a series of questions spoken into any kind of computer or connected device, Watson can quickly narrow down the possible causes of a medical problem. Today, IBM works on test projects with major hospitals like the Cleveland Clinic to put Watson in the hands of doctors, who are learning how to use the technology like a brilliant assistant.

But the day will come when Watson or something like it is available to everyone through a smartphone or some other device. Amazon is starting down that path by partnering with HealthTap to offer what it calls Dr. A.I. on Alexa, Amazons voice-activated AI gadget for consumers. Its not nearly as robust as Watson but works on the same idea. Just tell it your medical problem, and it will ask you questions to help narrow down what it might be.

A clerk works in the medical records department at Clinica Sierra Vista's East Bakersfield Community Health Center in Bakersfield, California on October 20, 2009. As medical records increasingly become digitized, their data will help AI learn more about diseases and how to help patients. Phil McCarten/Reuters

As health care AI develops, startups are also creating new kinds of genomics-based medicine. Just 16 years ago, the Human Genome Project and geneticist Craig Venters startup, Celera Genomics, published the results of their human genome sequencing within a day of each other in 2001. Venter said his project took 20,000 hours of processor time on a supercomputer. This year, startup Color Genomics is offering a $249 genetic test that can sequence most of the pertinent genes in the human body. Colors goal is to make genetic sequencing so cheap and easy that every baby born will have it done, and the data will inform his or her health care for life.

Combine genetic data about a person with all the kinds of data Watson can ingest, and were close to being able to build AI software that can at least supplant that first visit to a doctor when youre sickwhich, of course, is when you least want to travel to a doctors office. Instead, people will increasingly speak to a smartphone or to something like Dr. A.I. on Alexa about their health problems and, if necessary, send in photos of that rash or funky toe. If the system has your health care records and genetic data, it can gain more insight into your condition than any doctor operating on an informed hunch.

An early prototype of Watson in Yorktown Heights, NY. The cognitive computing system was originally the size of a master bedroom in 2011. Clockready

On many occasions, the app might tell the user the problem is nothing seriousa robot equivalent of Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Other times, the app might send the user to a clinic to get a test or X-ray. If thats how it plays out, a large chunk of the traffic into doctors offices and hospitals will fade away.

Add it up, and in these next few years were going to see a parade of tech applications that reduce demand on the health care system while giving all of us more access to care. Doctors should be freed up to do a better job for patients who truly need their attention. Theoretically, all of this will help keep more people healthier. And if were all healthier and using health care less, the laws of supply and demand should kick in, sending the overall cost of health care tumbling.

However, there are bumps ahead because, as our erudite president recently said, nobody knew that health care could be so complicated.

The economics of health care are weird. First of all, the usual forces dont apply to highly regulated industries, and health care is perhaps the most regulated in the U.S. and around the world because lives are at stake. In most countries, regulators prevent AI software from crossing the line into independently offering a diagnosis or clinical advicethats strictly the purview of doctors. New medical devices, like Fractyls, have to get approval from the Food and Drug Administration. Lobbyists often slow regulatory change to maintain the status quo and benefit incumbents charging inflated prices.

Personal health care decisions in the U.S. often get influenced by insurance companies, employers who pay for health benefits, and Medicare. Unlike most industries, consumers in health care dont have much information about pricing or quality, so they cant weigh options and make rational choices. Moreover, we think about health differently from anything else we buy. Many of us are never satiated with health carewe always want more and better health care, if we can afford it. One study published in March showed that telehealth making doctors available by video callprompted people to seek care for minor illnesses they otherwise wouldve ignored. Only 12 percent of telehealth visits replaced in-person visits, and the other 88 percent was new demand.

Until recently, most new medical technology has been high-end products that give doctors and hospitals a reason to charge more for something that couldnt have been done in the past. Think MRI machines or robotic limbs. These improve quality of life but add to costs. In 2008, the Congressional Budget Office concluded, The most important factor driving the long-term growth of health care costs has been the emergence, adoption, and widespread diffusion of new medical technologies and services.

A doctor and patient demonstrate how they use Virta for diabetes monitoring and treatment. Virta Health

The next wave of health care technology is different. The combination of data and AI was not available until the past year or two, and it can lead to the kind of automation that has disrupted so many other industries. Many health care entrepreneurs are focused precisely on the win-win-win prospect of lowering the cost of care while making it better and available to more people. Of course, there will be challenges to address, such as making sure our highly sensitive medical data stays protected and private, even as it flies around various networks and systems.

As startups bring these technologies online, theyre often doing an end run around insurance companies, instead finding demand among consumers or employers who offer health coverage. Livongo, for instance, points out to companies that each diabetic employee costs thousands of dollars a year in care. Pay for the Livongo service, the pitch goes, and your company will save money as those employees better manage their conditions. By last year, Livongo had signed up more than 50 large customers, including Quicken, Office Depot, Office Max and S.C. Johnson & Son.As the thinking goes among health care startups, once employers and consumers embrace new technology, insurance companies, regulators and health care incumbents will have to follow.

As that happens, the technologists promise, economic forces will finally stall or reverse the climbing cost of health care in the U.S. and around the world, a development that would, if were lucky, leave the president and just about every member of Congress speechless.

Jon-Paul Pezzolo

Real Questions About Artificial Intelligence in Education – EdSurge

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

Dont doubt it: Machine learning is hotand getting hotter.

For the past two years, public interest in building complex algorithms that automatically learn and improve from their own operations, or experience (rather than explicit programming) has been growing. Call it artificial intelligence, or (better) machine learning. Such work has, in fact, been going on for decades. (The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, for instance, got rolling in 1979; some date the ideas back to the Greeks, or at least to the 1940s during the early days of programmable digital computers.)

More recently, Shivon Zilis, an investor with Bloomberg Beta, has been building a landscape map of where machine learning is being applied across other industries.Education makes the list. Some technologists are worried about the dangers. Elon Musk, for instance, has been apocalyptic about his predictions, as the New Yorker wrote. He sparred this past week with a more sanguine Mark Zuckerberg. (The Atlantic covers it here.)

Investors are nonetheless racing ahead: this week, Chinese language learning startup, Liulishuo, which uses machine learning algorithms to teach English to 45 million Chinese students, raised $100 million to accelerate its work.

To explore what machine learning could mean in education, EdSurge convened a meetup this past week in San Francisco with Adam Blum (CEO of OpenEd), Armen Pischdotchian, (an academic technology mentor at IBM Watson), Kathy Benemann (CEO of EruditeAI), and Kirill Kireyev (founder of instaGrok and technology head at TextGenome and GYANT). EdSurges Tony Wan moderated the session. Here are a few excerpts from the conversation:

EdSurge: Artificial intelligence has been promising to transform education for generations. How close are getting? Whats different now?

Benemann: Theres so much more data than ever before. For us at EruditeAI, data is more precious than revenue. With better data, we can better train our algorithms. But the important point to remember is that the makers of AI are ultimately us, humans.

Pischdotchian: If you think back on the education model of your earlier years, we called it the factory model. Teachers broadly taught same subject to all students. That isnt what were talking about today. Groups such as the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative are looking to overhaul this model. Learning cant be done according to the factory model any more. It isnt sustainable. What will industry require for todays kids to flourish doing what we call New Collar work?

Kireyev: Were seeing a data explosion in education contentboth data for and from students. We can see what students are doing, far more rapidly than in the past. When kids work on Scratch, for instance, their work is web-based: You can see when they start watching a video, when they stop, when theyre bored. You get a lot of insight into their behavior. Transparent data collection is incredibly valuable. And theres greater availability of the technologythings that you can literally use out the box. So more people are trying to do things with AI and machine learning.

Okay, weve heard about the data explosion and about the need to change school models. What else is going on?

Blum: There are two big trends going onand were just at the beginning of this. We work with IMS Global Learning. Technical standards, such as Caliper, andxAPI (or Experience API) are just taking off. And second, there are a whole lot of areas, education is one of them, where you dont have long-term data. So if you want to pick the next best thing [problem] for a student, you have to use a different approach called reinforcement learning. So if I dont have a million data records, I can explore as I go. Its how Google solved the AlphaGo challenge.

What applications do we see of AI in education? Are we using it already?

Pischdotchian: This is about finding patterns in learning experiences. We can take note of say, if one persons stronger in math, how can the system identify the challenge, and then open it up to teachers so they can be better tutors for their students? IBM is working with Sesame Street on thisthe partnership is using universities as testbeds for the development of machine learning. It can also come in handy for teachers: We had a hackathon at MIT and all the classrooms have cameras (and students know that). If a professor is delivering a lecture and he doesnt look up to see whether half the class is asleep, we can use facial recognition to depict emotions (such as boredom) and send the professor a message.

Benemann: Everywhere you look, people are asking what aspect of education (and everything else) can be touched by AI. What does this look like in the classroom? Will it free up the day? Will AI replace the teachers? Will AI help teachers free up their time so they can be guides for the students? Can adaptive platforms (such as ALEKS or Knewton) help students learn the facts and enable the teachers to guides?

Does that suggest that without AI, the adaptive technology on the market, isnt really that adaptive?

Benemann: Its a spectrum. Some tools are adaptive, but theyre saying theyre AI [but we still have a ways to go.]

Kireyev: Instagrok is a visual search engine. Were using machine learning to identify the important facts, concepts and then letting the students pursue learning in any direction. They can synthesize it, organize it. TextGeonome is another project. Were building an infrastructure to do deep AI-based vocabulary development. Were asking: Given a student and grade level, what are the kinds of words they need to learn next?

Blum: At ACT (which acquired OpenEd),were focused on the question of: If youve identified the learning gap, whats the best instructional material to help the student? Not just ACT material; we want to give you the best instructional resource we can find. We use machine learning to pinpoint those.

In some areas, if you dont use machine learning predictive models, youre remiss. Take college admissions offices.

As you shift from statistical evaluation models to deep machine learning [involving neural networks], what hasnt kept pace is explainability. You might have a neural network that you cant explain. So one key challenge as the predictive algorithms get betterand as you get to multilayer neural networksis that explainability falls off. In some heavily regulated markets education and medicine, for instancemore explanatory tools will have to be developed.

Suppose youre at a big university: They use statistical models to pick the incoming class. Now, say you have a neural network or some machine learning program thats better at predicting student outcomes. For sure, there are universities doing this. They wont talk about it because the stakes are so high. But you can be sure theyre using machine learning to pick the incoming class. We will need some kind of summarization tools to explain these choices. Even though deep learning is complicated, for this to get talked about and accepted, well have to come up with some of the big elements of explanation: How did they get there?

There are concerns when words like AI becomes a label used to sell a product. Say Im a teacher, and an edtech company says my math tool is AI-backed. What should I ask?

Blum: The problem ties back to discoverability and explainability. If youre going to slap on the AI label, then I want to know more: Are you talking about supervised symbolic system? Natural language processing? If you just say AI and nothing further, that reduces your credibility. If you use the AI label, its an invitation to have a conversation about whats behind it all.

Benemann: Vendors should talk about student outcomes and teacher practice. Dont talk about AI at all. Its just another way to enable student learning and teacher practice. Youre better off going to the district and saying: Because you use this product I can do a case study and show an increase in efficiency and less wasted time in the classroom.

How do you balance the need for AI tools to have data while safeguarding the privacy and security of sensitive student data?

Blum: Were at a point where theres no such thing as PII (personally identifiable information). If you have enough knowledge you can probably deconstruct who any person is likely to be. So there needs to be industry standards. This is an area where it would improve the job of edtech developers if we said, Heres what youre allowed to gather and share. Something Ive raised is the need for better standards on privacy so no one can get sued if they follow the standards.

Benemann: Who owns data? Look at health care. Its a fragmented market, but theres a trend where patients are increasingly owning their owndata. I wonder if we can get to point where students have the data and its up to them (students and their parents) to say, Yes, schools you can have access.

Job automation is a threat that many people are worried about. How will this impact teachersand other professions?

Kireyev: I see role of teacher shifting in wonderful ways. Leadership, guidance...these are things Im excited about getting from teachers. And then more and more teachers can shift into working more deeply with kids, rather than just explain how equations work.

Blum: There have been efforts to do learning goals for vocational tech. But its been underutilized. We need to be a little more forward thinking...what does it mean to be truck driver in 10 years? How does that impact supply chain [across industries?] We need efforts to make vocational education better.

Pischdotchian: Hence the importance of STEAM [science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics] instead of STEM. The right side of brainarts, creativity, psychology, not the analytics and the math, will be ever more important. Psychology. History. Debate class. Humor and drama. These facets are not (amenable to AI), at least in our lifetime.

AI has gotten good at making certain things easy. But thats concerning. Thinking hard about things doesnt come naturally to us. Growth and comfort cannot coexist.

Real Questions About Artificial Intelligence in Education - EdSurge

Starbucks Will Soon Use This New Artificial Intelligence to Tempt You Into Buying More Coffee – TheStreet.com

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

If you always have a caramel macchiato on Mondays, but Tuesdays call for the straight stuff, a double espresso, then Starbucks Corporation (SBUX) is ready to know every nuance of your coffee habit. There will be no coffee secrets between you, if you're a Rewards member, and Starbucks.

This fall as Starbucks rolls out more of its new cloud-based Digital Flywheel program, backed by artificial intelligence(AI), the chain's regulars will find their every java wish ready to be fulfilled and, the food and drink items you haven't yet thought about presented to you as what you're most likely to want next.

So targeted is the technology behind this program that, if the weather is sunny, you'll get a different suggestion than if the day is rainy. Or expect suggestions to vary on the weekend or a holiday, as opposed to a regular workday. If it's your birthday, Starbucks will offer a personalized birthday selection. If you patronize a Starbucks other than you're regular haunt, Starbucks will know that too.

Like it or not, what Starbucks has developed represents a smart melding of technology into e-commerce tools that will pay off long term for the company and drive sales, Brian Solis, a principal analyst and futurist at Altimeter, told TheStreet in an interview.

"Starbucks is one of the best companies in the world that connects brand, user and consumer experience between digital mobile and the real world," said Solis. " They are still pushing forward, rolling out their Digital Flywheel strategy to be more dynamic to further integrate digital and real world."

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Starbucks Will Soon Use This New Artificial Intelligence to Tempt You Into Buying More Coffee - TheStreet.com

Artificial intelligence system makes its own language, researchers pull the plug – WESH Orlando

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

If we're going to create software that can think and speak for itself, we should at least know what it's saying. Right?

That was the conclusion reached by Facebook researchers who recently developed a sophisticated negotiation software that started off speaking English. Two artificial intelligence agents, however, began conversing in their own shorthand that appeared to be gibberish but was perfectly coherent to themselves.

A sample of their conversation:

Bob: I can can I I everything else.

Alice: Balls have zero to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to me to.

Dhruv Batra, a Georgia Tech researcher at Facebook's AI Research (FAIR), told Fast Co. Design "there was no reward" for the agents to stick to English as we know it, and the phenomenon has occurred multiple times before. It is more efficient for the bots, but it becomes difficult for developers to improve and work with the software.

"Agents will drift off understandable language and invent codewords for themselves," Batra said. Like if I say 'the' five times, you interpret that to mean I want five copies of this item. This isnt so different from the way communities of humans create shorthands."

Convenient as it may have been for the bots, Facebook decided to require the AI to speak in understandable English.

"Our interest was having bots who could talk to people," FAIR scientist Mike Lewis said.

In a June 14 post describing the project, FAIR researchers said the project "represents an important step for the research community and bot developers toward creating chatbots that can reason, converse, and negotiate, all key steps in building a personalized digital assistant."

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Artificial intelligence system makes its own language, researchers pull the plug - WESH Orlando

Should you be worried about the rise of artificial intelligence? – Sun.Star

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

SAN FRANCISCO -- Tech titans Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk recently slugged it out online over the possible threat artificial intelligence (AI) might one day pose to the human race, although you could be forgiven if you don't see why this seems like a pressing question.

Thanks to AI, computers are learning to do a variety of tasks that have long eluded them everything from driving cars to detecting cancerous skin lesions to writing news stories. But Musk, the founder of Tesla Motors and SpaceX, worries that AI systems could soon surpass humans, potentially leading to our deliberate (or inadvertent) extinction.

Two weeks ago, Musk warned US governors to get educated and start considering ways to regulate AI in order to ward off the threat. "Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid," he said at the time.

Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, took exception. In a Facebook Live feed recorded Saturday in front of his barbecue smoker, Zuckerberg hit back at Musk, saying people who "drum up these doomsday scenarios" are "pretty irresponsible." On Tuesday, Musk slammed back on Twitter, writing that "I've talked to Mark about this. His understanding of the subject is limited."

Here's a look at what's behind this high-tech flare-up and what you should and shouldn't be worried about.

What is AI, anyway?

Back in 1956, scholars gathered at Dartmouth College to begin considering how to build computers that could improve themselves and take on problems that only humans could handle. That's still a workable definition of artificial intelligence.

An initial burst of enthusiasm at the time, however, devolved into an "AI winter" lasting many decades as early efforts largely failed to create machines that could think and learn or even listen, see or speak.

That started changing five years ago. In 2012, a team led by Geoffrey Hinton at the University of Toronto proved that a system using a brain-like neural network could "learn" to recognize images. That same year, a team at Google led by Andrew Ng taught a computer system to recognize cats in YouTube videos without ever being taught what a cat was.

Since then, computers have made enormous strides in vision, speech and complex game analysis. One AI system recently beat the world's top player of the ancient board game Go.

Here come terminator's Skynet...maybe

For a computer to become a "general purpose" AI system, it would need to do more than just one simple task like drive, pick up objects, or predict crop yields. Those are the sorts of tasks to which AI systems are largely limited today.

But they might not be hobbled for too long. According to Stuart Russell, a computer scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, AI systems may reach a turning point when they gain the ability to understand language at the level of a college student. That, he said, is "pretty likely to happen within the next decade."

While that on its own won't produce a robot overlord, it does mean that AI systems could read "everything the human race has ever written in every language," Russell said. That alone would provide them with far more knowledge than any individual human.

The question then is what happens next. One set of futurists believe that such machines could continue learning and expanding their power at an exponential rate, far outstripping humanity in short order. Some dub that potential event a "singularity," a term connoting change far beyond the ability of humans to grasp. Near-term concerns

No one knows if the singularity is simply science fiction or not. In the meantime, however, the rise of AI offers plenty of other issues to deal with.

AI-driven automation is leading to a resurgence of US manufacturing but not manufacturing jobs. Self-driving vehicles being tested now could ultimately displace many of the almost four million professional truck, bus and cab drivers now working in the US.

Human biases can also creep into AI systems. A chatbot released by Microsoft called Tay began tweeting offensive and racist remarks after online trolls baited it with what the company called "inappropriate" comments.

Harvard University professor Latanya Sweeney found that searching in Google for names associated with black people more often brought up ads suggesting a criminal arrest. Examples of image-recognition bias abound.

"AI is being created by a very elite few, and they have a particular way of thinking that's not necessarily reflective of society as a whole," said Mariya Yao, chief technology officer of AI consultancy TopBots.

Mitigating harm from AI

In his speech to the governors, Musk urged governors to be proactive, rather than reactive, in regulating AI, although he didn't offer many specifics. And when a conservative Republican governor challenged him on the value of regulation, Musk retreated and said he was mostly asking for government to gain more "insight" into potential issues presented by AI.

Of course, the prosaic use of AI will almost certainly challenge existing legal norms and regulations. When a self-driving car causes a fatal accident, or an AI-driven medical system provides an incorrect medical diagnosis, society will need rules in place for determining legal responsibility and liability.

With such immediate challenges ahead, worrying about super-intelligent computers "would be a tragic waste of time," said Andrew Moore, dean of the computer science school at Carnegie Mellon University.

That's because machines aren't now capable of thinking out of the box in ways they weren't programmed for, he said. "That is something which no one in the field of AI has got any idea about." (AP)

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Should you be worried about the rise of artificial intelligence? - Sun.Star

Bombardier helps UK’s aerospace sector sales fly high – Belfast Telegraph

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

Bombardier helps UK's aerospace sector sales fly high

BelfastTelegraph.co.uk

The delivery of two Bombardier CSeries passenger jets to eastern European airline Air Baltic in June has contributed to strong UK aerospace output.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/business/news/bombardier-helps-uks-aerospace-sector-sales-fly-high-35978523.html

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The delivery of two Bombardier CSeries passenger jets to eastern European airline Air Baltic in June has contributed to strong UK aerospace output.

Trade body ADS said seven CSeries jets - the wings of which are made in Belfast - had been delivered in the first half of the year.

And the work of the entirety of the UK's aerospace sector saw 665 aircraft delivered to customers - 10 below 2016's record-setting production pace.

ADS said aircraft and engine order books for the UK industry were also at record highs. The backlog of global orders had risen to a new record of 13,589.

Chief executive Paul Everitt said: "The aerospace industry is experiencing sustained growth, both in the UK and around the world."

Belfast Telegraph

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UK aerospace and defence industry braced for disappointing quarterly results – Express.co.uk

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

GETTY

Smaller player Meggitt also posts an update with markets braced for disappointing results from this key UK sector.

This will be a blow to UK growth hopes after last weeks figures showing GDP rose just 0.3 per cent in the second quarter.

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell, said the UK aerospace sector is the worlds second largest after the US.

All three companies are major exporters and have benefited from the drop in the value of the pound post-Brexit, which has boosted demand as their products are relatively cheaper for foreign customers.

In recent weeks markets have lost some of their enthusiasm for the aerospace sector

Russ Mould - AJ Bell investment director

However, a continuing UK slowdown might hit domestic military spending and sales at the three companies, Mould added.

In recent weeks markets have lost some of their enthusiasm for the aerospace sector.

Last month engineering giant Rolls-Royce announced a 150 million investment in new and existing civil aerospace facilities in the UK, signalling its confidence in Britain after it leaves the EU.

GETTY

Ian Forrest, investment research analyst at The Share Centre, said Rolls-Royce is still recovering after issuing a rash of property warnings.

It is now starting to see the benefits of its extensive restructuring programme.

The engineer has just unveiled its largest and grandest car ever, the Phantom VIII, and Forrest added: It needs to show more signs of progress, especially in the marine division, although aerospace should be helped by the lower oil price and move towards more fuel-efficient planes.

Shares in BAE Systems jumped earlier this month after the High Court threw out a case trying to block arms sales by British firms to Saudi Arabia.

Philip Buller, European aerospace and defence analyst at Barclays, said this could offer near-term support but he remains underweight on the stock.

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Real estate developer Donald Trump annouces intentions to build a $100 million dollar Regency Hotel in 1976.

We remain concerned by the companys ability to outperform peers and consider growth expectations to be overly optimistic over the medium term.

The aerospace and defence sector was given a boost by Donald Trumps US presidential victory last year, as he ran on a campaign of boosting military spending.

Sanjay Jha, researcher at Panmure Gordon, said it continues to ride this wave of optimism even though Trumps spending plans look increasingly imperilled.

Despite all the talk, there has been no increase in defence spending.

He added: The prospect of simultaneously getting new money for defence and approving Trumps tax cuts look too ambitious.

Jha warned the civil aerospace sector is plagued with over-capacity while the business jet markets still look sick, hitting Meggitt.

It is heavily reliant on cheap debt to keep dancing, once the music stops in our view earnings will collapse.

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UK aerospace and defence industry braced for disappointing quarterly results - Express.co.uk

Research highlights Lancashire’s position within UK aerospace sector – BQ Live

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

The international expo, which ran from June 19-25, was attended by representatives of Aerospace Lancashire, the joint initiative between the Lancashire Enterprise Partnership (LEP) and Lancashire County Council (LCC) which launched at the Farnborough International Airshow last year.

Part of the North West Aerospace Alliance (NWAA) delegation, Aerospace Lancashire had its own exhibition stand which showcased the countys world-class aerospace businesses, assets and infrastructure dedicated to aerospace R&D, manufacturing and servicing.

This included the Samlesbury Enterprise Zone site, part of the new Lancashire Advanced Manufacturing and Energy Enterprise Zone cluster, which has been designated a dedicated aerospace hub. Samlesbury is also the location of the BAEs UK manufacturing base which includes its hi-tech aerospace training facility, the Academy for Skills & Knowledge.

Another key part of Aerospace Lancashires trade mission was sharing the findings of a new report, produced by the NWAA, into the size, diversity and growth potential of Lancashires aerospace economy.

Lancashire: Number One For Aerospace Jobs is a 28-page report that analysed local, regional, national and global aerospace markets and assessed Lancashires current and future growth opportunities within the sector.

It found that not only was Lancashire still the UKs number one region for Aerospace employment, with around 17,000 directly employed in the sector, it is the only place in the UK to have the skills, resources and capacity for the end-to-end manufacturing and servicing of a complete aircraft for its entire life-cycle.

The research also highlighted that Lancashire has enjoyed substantial private sector investment, totalling around 300m, into aerospace and related facilities in recent years.

This level of investment, combined with the multi-million pounds of public money secured by the LEP through three rounds of Growth Deal funding to support aerospace activities, means Lancashire has the resources and infrastructure to sustain growth within the aerospace and AEM sectors for many years to come.

It has been calculated that around 500 firms in Lancashire directly supply the countys aerospace sector, with many of these working within specialist manufacturing areas such as precision components, advanced surface treatments, and the assembly of engine sub-systems.

Andy Walker, from the Aerospace Lancashire delegation, said: As this report has highlighted, Lancashire remains the UKs biggest aerospace employer and supports tens of thousands of high skilled jobs both directly and through its supply chain.

David Bailey, chief executive of the NWAA, said: Our new report suggests that the global economic outlook for the aerospace sector remains very positive, with Lancashire in a great position to build upon its status as the UKs leading region for aerospace jobs. The fact that Lancashire has a complete end-to-end capabilityto design, build and maintain an entire fixed-wing aircraft provides for a fantastic range of business and employment opportunities.

Research highlights Lancashire's position within UK aerospace sector - BQ Live

Aerospace body: UK should stay in EU during transition – BBC News – BBC News

Posted on July 31, 2017 by Danzig

BBC News

Aerospace body: UK should stay in EU during transition - BBC News
BBC News
The UK must remain an EU member during a transition period from March 2019, according to the head of aerospace body ADS. Paul Everitt said the UK would ...

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Aerospace body: UK should stay in EU during transition - BBC News - BBC News

Kerala to host Singularity U chapter – The Hindu – The Hindu

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

Kerala is set to host a chapter of Singularity University (Singularity U), a community learning and innovation platform that leverages exponential technologies to tackle contemporary challenges.

The national chapter of the Silicon Valley-based institution, which offers a range of educational programmes to help companies, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and policy makers better understand and apply disruptive new technologies, will be housed at the Kerala Startup Missions (KSUM) Meet Up Caf in Technopark.

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The chapter will serve as a meeting place for academics, start-ups, corporate and government entities and tech-enthusiasts to engage with each other and discuss how exponential technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotics, digital health, big data, cyber security, crowd-sourcing, digital finance, and the Internet of Things can be used to address local problems and issues.

The chapter will also organise high-profile conferences and host labs that incubate and accelerate corporate innovation and social impact projects.

Its not about a single technology, domain, or industry, but an amalgamation of them. That is what is required if we are to solve the most pressing issues of our time and those in the future, said Binu Koshy, CEO of start-up 10xDS and the Ambassador for SingularityU Trivandrum.

Associating with Singularity University will provide an impetus to technological development in Kerala. it will also fuel inclusive growth across the country, KSUM CEO Saji Gopinath said.

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Kerala to host Singularity U chapter - The Hindu - The Hindu

Four Ascension track stars make All-State team – Donaldsonville Chief

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

Things just got more memorable recently when the Louisiana Sports Writers Association released its All-State track and field team. There were four of Ascension Parish's top track stars on the list.

The 2017 season saw some marvelous performances by the parishs top track and field stars and their teams.

From multiple individual standouts taking home state titles, to the Ascension Catholic girls team claiming their third straight state championship, it was surely a year to remember.

Things just got more memorable recently when the Louisiana Sports Writers Association released its All-State track and field team. There were four of Ascension Parishs top track stars on the list.

Headlining the boys All-State team was Dutchtowns Parker McBride. McBride made the All-State team for the 800 event.

He had the fastest time in the state this season for the 800 with a time of one minute and 52.68 seconds.

McBride won district, regional and state titles in the 800 this season. He was also a member of the Baton Rouge areas All-Metro team.

McBride is a Southeastern Louisiana signee.

Just last month, he made the trip to Greensboro, N.C., to compete in the New Balance Nationals Outdoor event.

The Griffins finished as runners-up in District 5-5A this season, and they finished fifth at the regional meet.

The only other Ascension Parish boys track star to make the All-State team was Donaldsonvilles Davon Wright. Wright made the team in the shot put event.

Wright helped lead theTigers to a seventh-place finish at the District 6-3A meet and a 14th-place finish at the state meet.

He had the fifth-best performance in the shot put this season with a measurement of 53 feet and 6.5 inches.

After winning the state title in the event last year, Wright won a district championship in the shot put this season and finished as runner-up at both the regional and state meets.

He also made the All-Metro team. Wright is a recent Tulane football commit.

The Lady Griffins finished third at the District 5-5A meet, and they landed in seventh at the state meet.

Spearheading their efforts were Leah Scott and Tara Stuntz.

Scott made the All-State team for the second straight season in the long jump event and the triple jump.

She had the best long jump in the state this year with a measurement of 19 feet and six inches. Her triple jump was tied for fourth-best at 37 feet and 11 inches.

Scott won district and regional titles in both events. At the state meet, she won the triple jump championship for the second straight season and finished as runner-up in the long jump.

Stuntz made the All-State team for the 3,200 event. She had the third-fastest time in the 3,200 this year at 11 minutes and 23.81 seconds.

Stuntz was runner-up in the event at the district, regional and state meets.

Both Scott and Stuntz made the All-Metro team as well.

Stuntz is a 2017 Southeastern signee, along with two other parish runners in Ascension Catholics 1A 800, 1,600 and 3,200 state champion Sophie Daigle and the Bulldogs Logan Thibodeaux.

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Four Ascension track stars make All-State team - Donaldsonville Chief

space exploration | Britannica.com

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

Space exploration, the investigation, by means of manned and unmanned spacecraft, of the reaches of the universe beyond Earths atmosphere and the use of the information so gained to increase knowledge of the cosmos and benefit humanity. A complete list of all manned spaceflights, with details on each missions accomplishments and crew, is available in the section Chronology of manned spaceflights.

Humans have always looked at the heavens and wondered about the nature of the objects seen in the night sky. With the development of rockets and the advances in electronics and other technologies in the 20th century, it became possible to send machines and animals and then people above Earths atmosphere into outer space. Well before technology made these achievements possible, however, space exploration had already captured the minds of many people, not only aircraft pilots and scientists but also writers and artists. The strong hold that space travel has always had on the imagination may well explain why professional astronauts and laypeople alike consent at their great peril, in the words of Tom Wolfe in The Right Stuff (1979), to sit on top of an enormous Roman candle, such as a Redstone, Atlas, Titan or Saturn rocket, and wait for someone to light the fuse. It perhaps also explains why space exploration has been a common and enduring theme in literature and art. As centuries of speculative fiction in books and more recently in films make clear, one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind was taken by the human spirit many times and in many ways before Neil Armstrong stamped humankinds first footprint on the Moon.

Achieving spaceflight enabled humans to begin to explore the solar system and the rest of the universe, to understand the many objects and phenomena that are better observed from a space perspective, and to use for human benefit the resources and attributes of the space environment. All of these activitiesdiscovery, scientific understanding, and the application of that understanding to serve human purposesare elements of space exploration. (For a general discussion of spacecraft, launch considerations, flight trajectories, and navigation, docking, and recovery procedures, see spaceflight.)

Although the possibility of exploring space has long excited people in many walks of life, for most of the latter 20th century, only national governments could afford the very high costs of launching people and machines into space. This reality meant that space exploration had to serve very broad interests, and it indeed has done so in a variety of ways. Government space programs have increased knowledge, served as indicators of national prestige and power, enhanced national security and military strength, and provided significant benefits to the general public. In areas where the private sector could profit from activities in space, most notably the use of satellites as telecommunication relays, commercial space activity has flourished without government funding. In the early 21st century, entrepreneurs believed that there were several other areas of commercial potential in space, most notably privately funded space travel.

In the years after World War II, governments assumed a leading role in the support of research that increased fundamental knowledge about nature, a role that earlier had been played by universities, private foundations, and other nongovernmental supporters. This change came for two reasons. First, the need for complex equipment to carry out many scientific experiments and for the large teams of researchers to use that equipment led to costs that only governments could afford. Second, governments were willing to take on this responsibility because of the belief that fundamental research would produce new knowledge essential to the health, the security, and the quality of life of their citizens. Thus, when scientists sought government support for early space experiments, it was forthcoming. Since the start of space efforts in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Europe, national governments have given high priority to the support of science done in and from space. From modest beginnings, space science has expanded under government support to include multibillion-dollar exploratory missions in the solar system. Examples of such efforts include the development of the Curiosity Mars rover, the Cassini-Huygens mission to Saturn and its moons, and the development of major space-based astronomical observatories such as the Hubble Space Telescope.

Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1957 used the fact that his country had been first to launch a satellite as evidence of the technological power of the Soviet Union and of the superiority of communism. He repeated these claims after Yury Gagarins orbital flight in 1961. Although U.S. Pres. Dwight D. Eisenhower had decided not to compete for prestige with the Soviet Union in a space race, his successor, John F. Kennedy, had a different view. On April 20, 1961, in the aftermath of the Gagarin flight, he asked his advisers to identify a space program which promises dramatic results in which we could win. The response came in a May 8, 1961, memorandum recommending that the United States commit to sending people to the Moon, because dramatic achievements in spacesymbolize the technological power and organizing capacity of a nation and because the ensuing prestige would be part of the battle along the fluid front of the cold war. From 1961 until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, competition between the United States and the Soviet Union was a major influence on the pace and content of their space programs. Other countries also viewed having a successful space program as an important indicator of national strength.

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Even before the first satellite was launched, U.S. leaders recognized that the ability to observe military activities around the world from space would be an asset to national security. Following on the success of its photoreconnaissance satellites, which began operation in 1960, the United States built increasingly complex observation and electronic-intercept intelligence satellites. The Soviet Union also quickly developed an array of intelligence satellites, and later a few other countries instituted their own satellite observation programs. Intelligence-gathering satellites have been used to verify arms-control agreements, provide warnings of military threats, and identify targets during military operations, among other uses.

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In addition to providing security benefits, satellites offered military forces the potential for improved communications, weather observation, navigation, timing, and position location. This led to significant government funding for military space programs in the United States and the Soviet Union. Although the advantages and disadvantages of stationing force-delivery weapons in space have been debated, as of the early 21st century, such weapons had not been deployed, nor had space-based antisatellite systemsthat is, systems that can attack or interfere with orbiting satellites. The stationing of weapons of mass destruction in orbit or on celestial bodies is prohibited by international law.

Governments realized early on that the ability to observe Earth from space could provide significant benefits to the general public apart from security and military uses. The first application to be pursued was the development of satellites for assisting in weather forecasting. A second application involved remote observation of land and sea surfaces to gather imagery and other data of value in crop forecasting, resource management, environmental monitoring, and other applications. The U.S. and Soviet governments also developed their own satellite-based global positioning systems, originally for military purposes, that could pinpoint a users exact location, help in navigating from one point to another, and provide very precise time signals. These satellites quickly found numerous civilian uses in such areas as personal navigation, surveying and cartography, geology, air-traffic control, and the operation of information-transfer networks. They illustrate a reality that has remained constant for a half centuryas space capabilities are developed, they often can be used for both military and civilian purposes.

Another space application that began under government sponsorship but quickly moved into the private sector is the relay of voice, video, and data via orbiting satellites. Satellite telecommunications has developed into a multibillion-dollar business and is the one clearly successful area of commercial space activity. A related, but economically much smaller, commercial space business is the provision of launches for private and government satellites. In 2004 a privately financed venture sent a piloted spacecraft, SpaceShipOne, to the lower edge of space for three brief suborbital flights. Although it was technically a much less challenging achievement than carrying humans into orbit, its success was seen as an important step toward opening up space to commercial travel and eventually to tourism. Nearly a decade after SpaceShipOne reached space, several firms were poised to carry out such suborbital flights, with one, Virgin Galactic, projecting the beginning of service before the end of 2014. Suggestions have been made that in the future other areas of space activity, including remote sensing of Earth, utilization of resources found on the Moon and near-Earth asteroids, and the capture of solar energy to provide electric power on Earth, could become successful businesses.

Most space activities have been pursued because they serve some utilitarian purpose, whether increasing knowledge, adding to national power, or making a profit. Nevertheless, there remains a powerful underlying sense that it is important for humans to explore space for its own sake, to see what is there. Although the only voyages that humans have made away from the near vicinity of Earththe Apollo flights to the Moonwere motivated by Cold War competition, there have been recurrent calls for humans to return to the Moon, travel to Mars, and visit other locations in the solar system and beyond. Until humans resume such journeys of exploration, robotic spacecraft will continue to serve in their stead to explore the solar system and probe the mysteries of the universe.

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A century before Bezos and Musk, rich men were already funding space exploration – Quartz

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

If you think of space exploration and the United States, you probably imagine NASAs Apollo moon rockets and one giant leap for mankind.

But you shouldnt be thinking about big government.

Instead, picture a billionaire who earned a fortune building the infrastructure for a booming California economy, searching for a legacy-making investment in technology to highlight his accomplishments. Or picture a science-fiction-loving engineer who tests his rockets through public-private partnerships with the US government and is obsessed with colonizing other planets to preserve the human species.

You doubtless thought of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, whose companies Blue Origin and SpaceX are breaking aerospace barriers today. But thats not who were talking about.

Rather, think of their predecessors. One, James Lick, was a real-estate baron who profited from land deals during the California gold rush, then in 1876 spent the equivalent of $1.5 billion today on the construction of an observatory with the worlds then-largest refractor telescope in the Diablo mountains of California. The other, Robert Goddard, invented and launched the first liquid-fuel rocket in 1926, arguing that the navigation of interplanetary space must be effected to ensure the continuance of the race.

These are famous figures in space history, but a book by NASA economist Alexander MacDonald helps put their contributions in the correct context. In The Long Space Age, MacDonald gathers new data about spending on space exploration to argue that private citizens, not the government, have been the key backers of American space exploration.

In the long historical perspective, the American movement out into space is much more than the story of one giant leap by its government in service of geopolitical competition; it is a cumulative story of the many small steps of its people, MacDonald writes. The spending on space by the likes of Musk and Bezos is a persistent, enduring trend that is now reemerging (authors emphasis).

Consider the data set MacDonald assembled of spending on observatoriesthe 19th-century equivalent of space probes, bringing human senses closer than ever before to astronomical bodies. Lick, and other philanthropists and amateur scientists, poured the modern equivalent of billions of dollars into observatories that delivered major scientific advances.

MacDonald also carefully traces the money that Goddard, who combined engineering brilliance with a flare for fundraising, received to finance his rocket investigations. Of the 2015-equivalent $73 million in funding Goddard spent over the course of his program, 65% came from private sources, much of it from the Guggenheim Foundation. MacDonald raises a fascinating historical counterfactual in John Jacob Astor IV, the wealthy heir who in 1894 published a book entitled A Journey in Other Worlds, apparently a meticulously researched 19th-century equivalent of The Martian and with similar cultural impact. If Astor had not died onboard the Titanic, he might have joined his wealthy peers as an important space funder.

The economic explanation for all this spending comes in two flavors, and neither one is market return. One is intrinsic motivation; some humans are attracted to the idea of exploring space and just want to do it, and people with a lot of money can make those dreams real. The other is signaling; Americans in the 19th century were eager to show their European cousins that they could contribute to the Enlightenment game of generating scientific knowledge.

It is signaling, too, that explains the Apollo experience, when massive amounts of public resources surged into the space sector. That Cold War moment created a huge value on space demonstrations because of the polarized global power structure and a lack of effective global communications networks. Putting a satellite into space or a human on the moon was an extremely powerful way for the US or the USSR to say, in essence, we are a well-organized technological power that you want to befriend.

With the end of global ideological conflict and the rise of interconnection, that kind of signaling isnt as valuable as once it was, and NASAs budgets are commensurately not as large. The Apollo program should not be seen as the classic model of American space exploration, but rather as an anomaly, MacDonald concludes.

It may be surprising for a NASA economist to say that the space agencys defining accomplishment was an outlier, but MacDonald says that an evolving NASA is embracing its role as an incubator of commercial space as well as an exploration agency. He is also skeptical that companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin will become serious money-makers for their founders in the near term. He sees their commercial bent as a reflection of how society is organized today.

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are really following their own intrinsic motivations; they want their own futures in space, he told me. Whats different from them to [philanthropist] Andrew Carnegie or [Smithsonian director] Charles Abbot? The best mechanism for achieving their motivations is a corporation. The Carnegie model was make all your money and donate it through a philanthropic foundation. These guys are still in their forties. They intend to be in the game of trying to advance our activity in space for the rest of their lives.

Goddard, at least, would sympathize with their struggles. MacDonald writes about a press clipping in which the rocket pioneer laments his business prospects.

It would cost a fortune to make a rocket to hit the moon, Goddard mused in 1920. But wouldnt it be worth a fortune? The great pity is that I cannot commercialize my idea. If I could rant of a 100 percent return in forty-five days, Id have been financed long ago.

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A century before Bezos and Musk, rich men were already funding space exploration - Quartz

NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK) Price Lingering Below the Cloud – Clayton News

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

Shares of NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK) opened the last session at 0.0200, touching a high of 0.0200 and a low of 0.0200 , yielding a change of0.0005. The latest reading places the stock below the Ichimoku cloud which indicates negative momentum and a potential sellsignal for the equity.

The Ichimoku cloud is a favorite technical indicator used primarily in Asian markets. The cloud is one of the only indicators that is both forward and backward looking. The cloud produces better levels of support and resistance and is a breakout traders best friend. The cloud is also one of the easiest indicators to use. Any trader, regardless of skill level or expertise, can use the cloud to quickly and efficiently analyze any product on any time frame. The cloud shines in the fact that it can be universally applied to any trading plan by any trader.

It is a type of chart used in technical analysis to display support and resistance, momentum, and trend in one view. TenkanSen and KijunSen are similar to moving averages and analyzed in relationship to one another. When the shorter term indicator, TenkanSen, rises above the longer term indicator, KijunSen, the securities trend is typically positive. When TenkanSen falls below KijunSen, the securities trend is typically negative. TenkanSen and KijunSen as a group are then analyzed in relationship to the Cloud, which is composed of the area between Senkou A and Senkou B.A multi-faceted indicator designed to give support/resistance levels, trend direction, and entry/exit points of varying strengths. General theory behind this indicator states that if price action is above the cloud, the overall trend is bullish, and if below the cloud, the overall trend is bearish. There are also moving averages (the Tenkan and Kijun lines) which act like the MACD crossover signals with the Tenkan crossing from underneath the Kijun as a bullish signal, while crossing overhead giving a bearish signal.

It is no secret that most investors have the best of intentions when diving into the equity markets. Making sound, informed decisions can help the investor make the most progress when dealing with the markets. Often times, investors may think they have everything in order, but they still come out on the losing end. Investors may need to figure out ways to keep emotion out of stock picking. Sometimes trading on emotions can lead to poor results. Making hasty decisions and not paying attention to the correct data can lead to poor performing portfolios in the long-term.

Checking on some popular technical levels, NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK) has a 14-day Commodity Channel Index (CCI) of -73.55. The CCI technical indicator can be employed to help figure out if a stock is entering overbought or oversold territory. CCI may also be used to help discover divergences that may signal reversal moves. A CCI closer to +100 may provide an overbought signal, and a CCI near -100 may provide an oversold signal.

Tracking other technical indicators, the 14-day RSI is presently standing at 40.15, the 7-day sits at 41.65, and the 3-day is resting at 48.86 for NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK). The Relative Strength Index (RSI) is a highly popular technical indicator. The RSI is computed base on the speed and direction of a stocks price movement. The RSI is considered to be an internal strength indicator, not to be confused with relative strength which is compared to other stocks and indices. The RSI value will always move between 0 and 100. One of the most popular time frames using RSI is the 14-day.

Moving averages have the ability to be used as a powerful indicator for technical stock analysis. Following multiple time frames using moving averages can help investors figure out where the stock has been and help determine where it may be possibly going. The simple moving average is a mathematical calculation that takes the average price (mean) for a given amount of time. Currently, the 7-day moving average is sitting at 0.02.

Lets take a further look at the Average Directional Index or ADX. The ADX measures the strength or weakness of a particular trend. Investors and traders may be looking to figure out if a stock is trending before employing a specific trading strategy. The ADX is typically used along with the Plus Directional Indicator (+DI) and Minus Directional Indicator (-DI) which point to the direction of the trend. The 14-day ADX for NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK) is currently at 46.03. In general, and ADX value from 0-25 would represent an absent or weak trend. A value of 25-50 would support a strong trend. A value of 50-75 would signify a very strong trend, and a value of 75-100 would point to an extremely strong trend.

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NanoTech Entertainment Inc (NTEK) Price Lingering Below the Cloud - Clayton News

China and Russia stage war games on EU border taunting West with WW3 threats – Express.co.uk

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

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A formidable Chinese flotilla has travelled 10,000 miles for the show of strength with its ally Russia.

Ten ships and the same number of aircraft descended on Europes border to take part in their provocative war games.

Among the arsenal is the Chinese Type 052D guided missile destroyer Hefei, one of the countrys most advanced warships.

And they have been joined by a Russian contingent featuring equally advanced hardware, including two Russian corvettes.

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The exercises have been met with caution by Nato members, with the Chinese ships being escorted at various points in their mammoth journey by British, Dutch and Danish crafts as it passed through the Channel and the North Sea.

Beijing made clear they were intent to impress by flaunting their military capabilities.

Naval expert Li Jie said: By sending its most advanced guided-missile destroyers, China is expressing its sincerity to Russia and also sends a strong signal to other countries who plan to provoke us.

The US and Britain are two Nato members closely monitoring the games, in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Kaliningrad, Russias heavily militarised enclave on the European mainline between Poland and Lithuania - both Nato members themselves.

The joint US European Command responded, saying: We are closely tracking Russian exercises with other participants like China.

While we support their rights to train in international commons, we expect all nations adhere to international norms and laws.

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China is expressing its sincerity to Russia

Li Jie

Recent actions by Moscow have inflamed tensions with the West and sparked fear among its neighbours who are wary of Russian aggression.

In particular the Baltic nations of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are worried about Russias looming shadow, which has intensified since they annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, leading to a bloody civil war.

Russias only territory within the EU, Kaliningrad has seen its weapons and defence system significantly upgraded.

Mikhail Klimentyev/TASS

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Russia's President Vladimir Putin (L) and US President Donald Trump talking during a bilateral meeting on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Hamburg

Also the site where the Kremlin stations its Baltic Sea fleet, the 86 square mile post has recently seen two corvettes armed with Kalibr nuclear-capable missiles deployed there in October.

They were bolstered by the addition of the Iskander nuclear-capable missiles, which will be deployed there permanently alongside S-400 air defence systems.

And anti-ship missiles are stationed near the coast.

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President Vladimir Putin and his counterpart Xi Jinxing cemented their firm friendship with a meeting in Moscow this month, both condemning the deployment of US missiles defence system THAAD in South Korea.

The pair met for the third time this year.

Yang Mian, from the Centre for International Relations at the Chinese Institute of Communications, said: The trend for the development of Chinese-Russian relations has been excellent in recent years, and favourable progress can be noted in military cooperation as well.

Earlier, the two countries conducted drills in various areas of the Pacific Ocean.

This time, the joint exercises in the Baltic Sea reflect the close cooperation between the two countries in the military sphere their mutual strategic support for one another.

In response to Russias growing military presence Nato members decided to deploy four multination battle-groups amounting to 4,500 boots on the ground.

They are primarily stationed in Poland, with Operation Summer Shield is designed as a show of strength against Russia and to dissuade it from any provocative actions.

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China and Russia stage war games on EU border taunting West with WW3 threats - Express.co.uk

WW3 tensions as Russia unites with China for terrifying war games on Europe’s border – Express.co.uk

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

The superpowers are taking part in the terrifying war games amid growing fears of an all-out global conflict.

Three Chinese and 10 Russian warships began practising live-fire combat against submarines and other warships yesterday.

China has sent one of its most modern warships the Type 052D destroyer Hefei to the Baltic Sea for the exercise.

The vessel, which entered service in 2015, carries cruise missiles, anti-aircraft missiles and torpedoes.

The drills are being led by a joint command in Baltiysk, Russia.

The two countries pledged to ramp up their military co-operation during President Xi Jinping's visit to Moscow earlier this month.

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A Chinese warship operates a live-fire drill during the Joint Sea 2017 in Baltic Sea

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Russia and China have always acted together at times of trouble

Alexander Fomin

Russia's deputy Defence Minister Alexander Fomin said: "Russia and China have always acted together at times of trouble and harsh tests.

"These days, the first phase of a large-scale Russian-Chinese naval exercise is underway in the Baltic Sea.

"Our seamen are training together to rebuff threats on high seas.

"These maneuvers will continue in the water areas of the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan in autumn."

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Yu Manjiang, commander of the Chinese fleet, added: "The joint naval exercises between China and Russia have been regularly held since 2012.

"They enhance both navies' cooperation and mutual trust.

"China is a great power, and it's natural that every move will attract world attention. But there's no need to hide or avoid anything."

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A NATO spokesman described the drills as "an example of China's growing military capabilities and its increasingly significant global role".

The joint United States European Command added: "We are closely tracking Russian exercises with other participants like China.

"While we support their rights to train in international commons, we expect all nations adhere to international norms and laws."

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WW3 tensions as Russia unites with China for terrifying war games on Europe's border - Express.co.uk

‘Summer of Love’ shaped American lives, spiritual expression – Houston Chronicle

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

Photo: Amy Osborne, Freelance

The Conservatory of Flowers light display, a part of the Citywide Summer of Love 50th anniversary, is tested before it's Wednesday night debut on Monday, June 19, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.

Starting June 21, the first day of summer, San Francisco'slandmark Conservatory of Flowers will be lit up at night with imagery inspired by the Summer of Love.

The Conservatory of Flowers light display, a part of the Citywide Summer of Love 50th anniversary, is tested before it's Wednesday night debut on Monday, June 19, 2017 in San Francisco, Calif.

Hippies parade the streets of San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in 1967.

'Summer of Love' shaped American lives, spiritual expression

Over the past few months, the Bay Area has been waxing nostalgic over the 50th anniversary of the "Summer of Love," the 1967 season when "hippies" and tens of thousands of seekers, drifters and runaways poured into the city's suddenly chaotic Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

To many Americans, the psychedelic counterculture of the 1960s, which the Summer of Love came to represent, may seem like an irrelevant little experiment involving LSD, tie-dyes, free love, shaggy hairstyles and rock bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane.

It was all of that, but the mind-blowing revolution that rocked the streets of San Francisco that summer also may be seen as a new religious movement that profoundly shaped the lives and spiritual expression of millions of Americans who never dropped acid, grew a beard, burned their bras or set foot in a hippie commune.

Anyone who has ever participated in yoga classes, practiced "mindfulness" meditation, looked into alternative medicine, or referred to oneself as "spiritual but not religious," may want to find a 70-year-old hippie this summer and simply say, "Thank you."

'A media distortion'

To read this article in one of Houston's most-spoken languages, click on the button below.

San Francisco had been drawing adventure seekers and freethinkers since the 1849 Gold Rush, but the immediate roots of the Summer of Love date back to the 1950s and the influential work of the Beat writers like Jack Kerouac ("On the Road," 1957) and poet Allen Ginsberg ("Howl," 1956).

The psychedelic experimentation in San Francisco took off in 1965, when novelist Ken Kesey ("One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," 1962) gathered a Dionysian band of artists, musicians and drug enthusiasts known as the Merry Pranksters and held a series of LSD-fueled happenings around the Bay Area. Their story was immortalized by Tom Wolfe's 1968 nonfiction book, "The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test."

Those who were in the middle of the San Francisco scene in the mid-1960s say the best of times were over by the summer of 1967, when the drugs got harder and the unconditional love got conditional.

It was all downhill, they say, following the Human Be-In in Golden Gate Park in January of 1967, when Timothy Leary, the former Harvard University psychologist and LSD guru, took the stage and told the stoned multitudes to "turn on, tune in, drop out."

To Carolyn "Mountain Girl" Garcia, the 1967 Summer of Love "was very much a media distortion."

"It drove people in vast numbers with expectations that were never met," she said. "It was kind of a sociological disaster. But it was really wonderful when it was working."

Garcia, now 71, was only 17 years old when she arrived in the Bay Area with her older brother from New York in the summer of 1963. Within a year, she met Neal Cassady, the real-life version of a charismatic character in Kerouac's "On the Road."

Cassady introduced Garcia to Ken Kesey who christened her "Mountain Girl" and fathered Garcia's first daughter, Sunshine. Within a few years, Garcia was living with Sunshine and Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist of the Grateful Dead.

She later co-founded an organization called the Women's Visionary Congress, "a community of adventurers from generations and traditions united to explore a more vivid and profound awareness of our inner and outer worlds."

Carolyn Garcia sees psychedelic drugs and plants as a major inspiration for much of the broader spiritual experimentation in the 1960s, 1970s, and beyond.

"It got people into a spiritual dimension without the religion attached. It was personal contact with the realm of spiritual energy, with an unseen force that connects everybody to life itself, to nature," she said. "Many spiritual communities have evolved from the hippie times, including people taking on Buddhism and other Asian religions and recreating them as modern movements. If you want to find out about spirituality and psychedelics, just talk to your yoga teacher."

Best, worst of religion

Some former psychedelic enthusiasts question whether the consciousness-raising counterculture was all that effective in transforming American society.

One of them is Robert Forte, who studied the history and psychology of religion at the University of Chicago Divinity School and has taught at the University of California at Santa Cruz and the California Institute of Integral Studies.

He sees the psychedelic counterculture as a "microcosm of the best and worst of religion."

"Religion is a very complex subject, spanning the whole spectrum of human behavior. It can be an ethical, exalted expression, but religion can also be a mind-control technique to subjugate the masses," said Forte, who edited two collections of essays in the late 1990s, "Timothy Leary - Outside Looking In," and "Entheogens and the Future of Religion."

"A lot of people in the 1960s had unitive experiences that informed their life in important ways."

"Yet we also see all this fake New Ageism," he said. "You hear a lot of cheerleading about the value of these drugs. ... But where is our anti-war movement today? Where are the visions we had in the 1960s about transforming the world in more ecologically, sustainable ways? We've failed. Yet there are these people who think that by taking drugs and putting feathers in your hair and going to Burning Man you are somehow furthering this alternative culture."

Wear your flowers

For visual artist Bill Ham, the man who more-or-less invented the psychedelic light show, it was a magical time of creative freedom. Ham is now 84 and still living in San Francisco, not far from Haight Street. He arrived as an art student in 1958 and began hanging out with the Beats, who gathered in coffeehouses and poetry venues in the city's North Beach neighborhood.

Ham was among a small band of San Francisco beatniks and hippies who spent the summer of 1965 at the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City, Nev., an old mining town about 250 miles east of San Francisco, on the other side of the Sierras.

Some fledgling musicians, including Dan Hicks, formed the Charlatans and became the Red Dog house band. Ham had just developed an art form he calls "light painting," a kinetic abstract expressionism that used an overhead projector, layers of glass, oils, pigments and other liquids to project pulsating amoeba-like patterns of color onto walls and ceilings.

According to some rock historians, the Charlatans were the first psychedelic rock band. They returned to San Francisco and began performing with other fledgling groups in small clubs and dance halls and for free in Golden Gate Park.

In the early 1960s, Ham said, there was "this whole city of creative people," including jazz musicians, artists, writers, dancers, avant-garde actors and the early electronic music creators. "Then it got overwhelmed by the rock and roll scene," he said, "because it turned out that was where the money was."

America's music critics discovered "the San Francisco sound" at the Monterey Pop Festival in the spring of 1967, a concert where the imported Texas blues singer Janis Joplin, the new frontwoman for Big Brother and the Holding Company, blew everyone away. That spring also saw the release of the hit pop song, "San Francisco," with its famous lyric, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear flowers in your hair."

But the most influential musical release that spring was the Beatles classic psychedelic album, "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band." Those songs inspired millions of people around the world to experiment with psychedelic drugs and explore the mystical promises of Eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism.

The Acid Tests

All of the media attention focused on San Francisco and the 1967 Summer of Love attracted throngs of baby boomers to the Bay Area in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

It was not all peace and love.

Among the waves of psychedelic immigrants were hordes of troubled, runaway kids. Many found freedom, while others fell into drug addiction, sexual exploitation and the worsening of pre-existing mental illness caused by the careless use of psychoactive drugs. "There were definitely casualties," Ham said, "but when you compare it to Vietnam, we don't have too much to apologize for."

Photographer Gene Anthony, the author of a richly illustrated book, "The Summer of Love - Haight-Ashbury at its Highest," captured many of the magical moments during the "Acid Tests" and the early gatherings of the tribe from which the soon-to-be-famous San Francisco rock bands would emerge.

"In some ways it did seem like a religious movement, but more in the communal and political sense. There wasn't one charismatic leader," Anthony said. "There were groups of people like the Mime Troupe and The Diggers, who were feeding the kids and trying to do something positive. There was the Free Clinic and a store where everything was free."

Anything could happen. One Sunday in the summer of 1967, Anthony was standing at the corner of Haight and Masonic streets when a black limo pulled up and out popped George Harrison, the famous Beatle, with his wife, Pattie Boyd, both of them decked out in fashionable hippie garb.

Starting in the fall of 1966, and continuing into the 1980s, laws were passed banning and increasing penalties for drugs like LSD and MDMA, known on the street as Ecstasy or Molly. Scientific research into beneficial uses of these compounds, which date back to the 1950s, was shut down in the 1970s and 1980s. Richard Nixon declared his "war on drugs," and the "Just Say No" mantra of Nancy Reagan became the official federal drug policy.

Today, however, there is a growing appreciation of the potentially beneficial medical uses of still-banned, mind-altering compounds like, MDMA and psilocybin, the drug that puts the magic in magic mushrooms. Government-approved clinical trials are underway at UCLA, New York University and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore in which these drugs, alongside psychotherapy, are used to help people suffering from depression, substance abuse and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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'Summer of Love' shaped American lives, spiritual expression - Houston Chronicle

Get Ready for ASOT 850 – Trance Hub (satire) (press release) (blog)

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

At the first ever A State of Trance radio broadcast from Tomorrowland, Armin Van Buuren announced the dates of the next milestone event ASOT 850. On 17 February 2018 its time for A State Of Trance in the Jaarbeurs in Utrecht again! Get ready for ASOT850! This edition will be very special, as were bringing back the exclusive warm-up set by Armin van Buuren!Only tickets sold during the presale from August 10 till August 16 will have access to the exclusive warm-up, one hour before the festival starts. On top of that, youll also have the opportunity to book an exclusive pre-diner, which will take place in the Jaarbeurs before the warm-up set. Limited tickets on sales for this one.

If theres time left, maybe Armin has the time to step byThe pre-sales starts on the10th of August 2017, so make sure to subscribe via asot.tv before the 9th of August 23:55 CEST.

SUBSCRIBE NOW!http://asot.tv/

LINE-UP TO BE ANNOUNCED.

OPENING TIMES: Exclusive warm-up set byArmin van Buuren: 9PM 10PM CET Start festival: 10PM CET End festival: 6AM CET

Co-Founder of Trance Hub, Curator of The Gathering events in India and ALT+TRANCE in Czech Republic. By day, a Digital Marketing Enthusiast with love for Food and Technology. By night, a dreamer who wants to grow the Trance scene in India.

Earlier this year Armin Van Buuren completed 20 years in Dance music, he took this...

Enchanted Valley Carnival announces 2017 dates – Trance Hub (satire) (press release) (blog)

Posted on July 29, 2017 by Danzig

Indias biggest camping festival Enchanted Valley Carnival has announced its 2017 edition dates. Mark those dates 16th & 17th December 2017 at Amby Valley. They will be announcing more details very shortly.

It will be interesting to see what road they take this time around till 2 years ago EVC was a full fledged Dance music festival, however in 2016 likes of Farhan Akhtar and Shirley Sethia brought in a lot of Bollywood in the mix. We hope that this time around we can see some trance acts playing at EVC. If you have any recommendations do spam their social media networks.

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We have a feeling, this will be a special one!

At the first ever A State of Trance radio broadcast from Tomorrowland, Armin Van...

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Enchanted Valley Carnival announces 2017 dates - Trance Hub (satire) (press release) (blog)

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