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Bill Gates-Funded Super Bananas Ready For Human Testing
The Gates Foundation has a history of supporting GMO research and technology - at least since 2010, when the non-profit invested in a low amount of shares in biotechnology giant Monsanto. Gates has amped up support for GMOs so that "poor countries that have the toughest time feeding their people have a process," adding that "there should be an open-mindedness, and if they can specifically prove [GMO] safety and benefits, foods should be approved, just like they are in middle-income countries." Such support has resulted in criticism and suspicion of the foundation's agenda. As for the worry that GMO seeds are increasingly consolidated in the hands of major agribusiness powers, Gates said in February 2013 - after his foundation reportedly sold the approximately $23 million in Monsanto shares it owned - that there are "legitimate issues, but solvable issues" with GMO technology and wider use. He added that one solution may be offering crops already patented but requiring no royalty dues.
Congressman Asks NSA to Help IRS Find 'Missing' Emails
California Declares Whooping Cough Epidemic
But there's a vaccine for whooping cough so why is there an epidemic? According to Dylan Matthews it's hard to blame any single cause for public health problems like the recent rise in whooping cough, but it's clear that anti-vaccine activists aren't helping. Researchers at Johns Hopkins, Emory, and the California Department of Public Health found that California communities with large numbers of parents claiming "nonmedical exemptions" from vaccines from their kids (that is, parents who don't vaccinate for religious, personal, or other reasons not backed by medical professionals) were 1.73 times more likely to see outbreaks of whooping cough; another study looking at Michigan found high-exemption areas were 2.7 times as likely to experience high levels of the disease. "Unlike some other vaccine-preventable diseases, like measles, neither vaccination nor illness from pertussis offers lifetime immunity," says Dr. Ron Chapman. "However, vaccination is still the best defense against this potentially fatal disease."
No More Dental Drilling with New Tooth Decay Treatment
Around 2.3 billion people are believed to suffer from tooth decay every year, making it one of the most common preventable diseases in the world. Cavities start as a microscopic defect where minerals leak out of the tooth and the enamel is eventually undermined. The new treatment, called Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation (EAER), accelerates the natural movement of calcium and phosphate minerals into the damaged tooth by first preparing the damaged area of enamel, then using a tiny electric current to push minerals into the repair site. "The way we treat teeth today is not ideal. When we repair a tooth by putting in a filling, that tooth enters a cycle of drilling and refilling as, ultimately, each 'repair' fails," says Professor Nigel Pitts. "Not only is our device kinder to the patient and better for their teeth, but it's expected to be at least as cost-effective as current dental treatments. Along with fighting tooth decay, our device can also be used to whiten teeth."
How to Get Better Stories onto Soylent
Quality of the Stories is the Most Important Single Factor Driving Readership
Everybody agrees that readers come to a site like Soylent for the discussion not for the stories. Now it is probably not politically correct for me to to say so, but in my opinion the quality of the stories is the single most important factor that drives readership on a site like soylent of slashdot. The quality of the stories drives the number of the comments which drives the quality of comments. It's chicken/egg. You have to have an interesting story to get the comments started before you have good comments and a good discussion.
Let's Define a Successful Submission
First let's define an objective standard of a successful submission. The purpose of a submission is always to get a critical number of comments going. To me, unless a story gets 10 comments it is a failure. A story on Soylent with twenty comments is a success. A story with thrity comments or above is a huge success. Once readers see that twenty or thirty people have posted they will see it is an interesting story and join in. It's a cummulative effect.
What Determines Story Quality?
In my opinion there are three major factors that determine the quality of the story and increase the number of comments a submission receives: the inherent interest of the story, the headline, and the story itself.
Inherent Interest of the Story Itself
The first factor in a successful submission is the inherent interest of the story itself. Readers want to be challenged, they want the author to tell them something they didn't know already, or something that challenges their view on something and makes them think. That is why I always on the lookout for stories on the internet that challenge me - I figure if a story is interesting to me, then it will be interesting to other people.The first step is the hardest - selecting the story. The right story "writes" itself. The wrong story is impossible to write.
A lot of people think the difficulty of making a submission is in writing the story. NO. Nothing could be further from the truth. The difficulty in making a good submission is in selecting the right story to submit. Once you find the right story, the story practically writes itself. I speak from experience. I've had 19 successful submissions so far in June 2014 and my stories have garnered an average of 35.6 comments each. But for each story I submit, I usually spend 20 minutes finding the right story and then ten minutes writing the story itself.
I constantly see comments on slashdot/soylent on the difficulty of making a submission. Here's a good methodology on selecting the right story that works for me. I find most of my stories on the rss feed on "Hacker News". Go down Hacker News and look for interesting stories - stories that you would be interested in reading yourself. Then go to the comments for the stories. If you see 30 or 40 comments on Hacker News then you know that it is a story that has general interest and will probably get 15 -30 comments on Soylent. If you see a story on Hacker News that only gets half a dozen comments, then it probably won't get more than 3 or 4 comments on Soylent and won't reach critical mass.
The Headline
The second factor in a successful submission is the headline. The first thing I do before I even start to write a story is write the headline. If I can't think of a good headline, then I won't proceed any further. If people don't read your headline and think "that sounds interesting" there is little chance they will read your story. I strive to present the story in the most challenging way possible and the best way to do that is with a great headline. A lot of times I will spend as much time writing and re-writing my headline as I do putting together a story. Before I even start to write a story, I have to have a good headline.
Writing the Story
The final factor in a successful submission is the story itself. Sometimes my final submission uses the same lead sentence as the original article but many times I will find the lead buried in the middle of the article. One problem is the need to condense a 1,500 words article down to 250 words submission and still have something that makes sense. My purpose is not to read a story, digest all the words in it, and then close the book, and rewrite the story in my own words. My purpose is to convey what the original author wanted to say and the best way to do that is to select the parts of the story that contain the essence of the story, put them into a cogent narrative, condense this down to a format suitable, and if possible add another link or two to the story to provide additional depth to the story to anyone who wants to follow the links. I have found that the best way to do that is to select the original author's own words but to re-order them and provide grammatical transitions to condense them down.
It goes without saying that I don't always submit stories that I agree with. My purpose is not to extol my personal philosophy, write about people I admire, or convince you to join my point of view. My purpose is to get you to comment. That means writing an interesting story, whether I agree with it or not. My only measure of success is in the number of comments a story receives - which leads to higher quality comments and a more interesting discussion.
How Often Should Soylent Publish New Stories
I think Soylent is making a mistake if the editors slow stories down too much. I think a lot of the traffic that comes to slashdot/soylent during the day is looking for new stories and checking two or three times a day to see if there is anything new. If they see the same story at the top of the page when they come back three hours later, they will get tired of the site and abandon it.
I think one story an hour is about the right flow and can slow down to one story every 1.5 hours on a slow news day. Of course, during the night, the stories can slow down to one story every two or three hours.
If you want more details on writing a submission for Slashdot/Soylent read an essay I wrote a few years ago on the subject.
Best Regards,
Hugh Pickens
US Hoped Snowden Would Take a Wrong Step. He Didn't.
A year later, Snowden appears to have moved further beyond US reach with his expiring asylum status in Russia expected to be extended this summer. "The FBI doesn't have any capability to operate in Moscow without the collaboration of the FSB," says a former senior US intelligence official who served in the Russian capital. Snowden now lives a life that is constrained by his dependence on the government that granted him asylum and according to ex-KGB Major Boris Karpichkov, spies from Russia's SVR intelligence service posing as diplomats tricked Snowden into seeking asylum in Russia. "When Snowden says that he has 'no relationship' with the Russian government, he means that he hasn't cooperated with their intelligence services in any way and that his asylum isn't conditioned on cooperation," says Snowden's attorney Ben Wizner. "Of course, the Russian government could choose to expel him at any time."
Microsoft Forced to Tap Foreign IP Addresses for Azure
According to Microsoft "IPv4 address space has been fully assigned in the United States, meaning there is no additional IPv4 address space available. This requires Microsoft to use the IPv4 address space available to us globally for the addressing of new services. The result is that we will have to use IPv4 address space assigned to a non-US region to address services which may be in a US region. "
Mars, Ho! Chapter Twenty Two
Golf
"You've been practicing, boss."
"Putting," the CEO replied. "Been practicing putting, that's where I'm weak at this game. First time I ever beat you, Bob."
"Well, Charlie, I was a little off today. And you only beat me by one stroke," Bob said. "That was a great hole three, you eagled that one."
"I got lucky on the initial drive. Bartender, two beers. Guinness draft, please. Bob, you're paying for a change! Oh, bartender, a couple shots of your best scotch, too."
Bob laughed. "Well, that was the deal. Maybe we should try some zero G golf sometime."
"Zero G? Damn, Bob, I'm not twenty any more. That's a young man's sport. Besides, I hate space."
"Really? You run a shipping company and hate space?"
"No, I just hate traveling in it. You did pretty good on number two or I'd have done even better against you. How are we doing on the sabotage front?"
"Come on, we're just starting. You can't just solve a complex problem like that in a few days. Did you finish that report Knolls wrote?"
"No, I got sidetracked by the book Doctor Winters' wrote that Knolls mentioned in his report. Damn, we need to check cargo closer, that book was horrible. I'm sure glad the charity sent her, it might have been catastrophic otherwise.
"Then I read the report she made to her charity. I'll finish Knolls' report when we get back from 'lunch'."
"How did you get Doctor Winters' report? She works for the charity, not for us."
The CEO smiled. "Don't be stupid, Bob."
"So, how much of Knolls' report have you read?"
"Past where he saved her life. You know, Bob, you have a terrible taste in literature. Knolls couldn't write his way out of a paper bag and you enjoyed it? Damn, man."
Bob shrugged. "We were sure lucky the charity sent Doctor Winters."
"Yes, we were. Like I said. And Knolls was even luckier, and is probably glad he had her and the whores, he'd have been a dead man, and probably Kelly as well. Nobody expected what happened."
He continued. "Have you talked to Human Resources to see about training a replacement for Knolls?"
"Of course. I hate to replace him, especially with a greenie. Some of the maneuvers and weapon use he displayed in his second encounter with the pirates should go into our training manuals. "
"Yes, he was a damned good captain. The company will miss him."
"Well, I intent to try and talk him out of retirement."
"Good luck with that! If you succeed you're the world's greatest salesman. I'm taking the afternoon off today, Charlie, I want to be refreshed and rested for the board meeting Monday. Do you want to shoot another nine?"
"Sorry, Bob, I can't. I should have gotten back earlier, I want to finish reading Knolls' report, and I have a meeting with Richardson from engineering. I'm that close to firing that dumb son of a bitch. That was a hell of a boner he pulled, and I'm sure glad you brought the matter to my attention."
"Hell, if I hadn't we should have both been fired!" the underling said, smiling, as if that was ever likely; between the two of them they owned 63% of all company stock.
The CEO laughed. "Yeah," he agreed, "we should have! Look, Bob, enjoy the afternoon and I'll see you Monday morning. Like I said, I have to get going."
"See you, Boss. Bartender, can I get another beer?"
IRS Loses Emails in Tea Party Investigation
According to a veteran IT professional, the IRS' claim that the agency lost two years' worth of former IRS official Lois Lerner's emails is "simply not feasible." Norman Cillo, an Army veteran who worked in intelligence and a former program manager at Microsoft, says it is very difficult to lose emails for good and laid out reasons why he believes Congress is "being lied to" about the Lerner emails: Microsoft Exchange used by the government for their email servers have built-in exchange mail database redundancy and all servers use some form of RAID technology. However, Cillo says it's possible the IRS is telling the truth if the federal agency is "totally mismanaged and has the worst IT department ever." "I don't know of any email administrator that doesn't have at least three ways of getting that mail back. It's either on the disks or it's on a TAPE backup someplace or in an archive server. There are at least three ways the government can get those emails."
A Yank Back to the Past
I was yanked three and a half decades back today, and Rority had absolutely nothing to do with it.
Two things from the past reached thirty five years into the future and snagged me for their apparent enjoyment. They were books.
The first was Pratchett's Strata. I'd ordered a hold at the library over the internet, and when the librarian handed me the book, my reaction was "wow, skinny book." It was no longer than Nobots, which is only 2042 words past the line between a novel and novella.
The story itself didn't yank me back in time, the actual book itself did. It was old. The pages were even yellowing. It was obvious they had purchased this book when it was first released in 1981; at least, that was the year the copyright was registered. I found it odd that Pratchett didn't hold the copyright.
There was the then ubiquitous envelope glued to the inside cover that you just don't see today, because today they're not needed; they're anachronisms. See, those of you younger than thirty can't possibly fathom what it was like, any more than I can fathom the wonder and excitement my grandmother felt when she saw her first airplane at age eight. Grandma was a few months older than powered human flight, being born in 1903.
The envelope was necessary to hold the card, and to tell the truth I don't clearly remember how it worked. But it made me think of the card catalog, and how computers have changed everything. They used to have a card for each book on the shelf in a smallish wooden filing cabinet (this was every library I was ever in, and I was in a lot of them; I'm addicted to reading, particularly nonfiction) and a slip in the envelope contained the names and/or card numbers (you need a library card to check out a book, even today). When you checked a book out, and like I said I might be misremembering this, they would keep the slip and store it with the card from the catalog in a separate case only librarians could access.
Today, of course, there is no card catalog. It's not needed, computers are so much better. Also, as far as I know there were no interlibrary loans. At least, that I knew of then.
Either losses from theft were horrendous, or people are a hell of a lot less honest today because back then, they didn't have those things that scream when you walk out of a store without paying, that they also use in libraries today.
When I returned it today I noticed the ISBN on the back had no bar code. I could have sworn bar codes were older than that, but I guess I was wrong. Just wait, you millennial who is laughing. What was it like when you were two years old. Can't remember?
They were having their annual book sale today, I noticed.
I had reserved another Pratchett title over the internet the day before yesterday, but it wasn't behind the desk yet. So I wander over to the new science fiction, hoping to see Nobots but knowing I wouldn't because I just looked in the "card catalog" on the internet and searched for it by ISBN. But I did see the magic name Pratchett. Along with a co-author named Stephen Baxter. The title was The Long War. Copyright last year. I haven't started reading it yet.
I went up the elevator and had a polite discussion with a young man on the third floor about the two copies of Nobots I had donated a month ago and was assured would be cataloged and put on the shelf, and I walked outside. The books for sale were dirt cheap, two bucks for hardcovers that looked brand new, a buck for full sized paperbacks and fifty cents for smaller paperbacks. One caught my eye, a big, fat paperback book. The illiterate in Wagons, East! who asked the gay bookseller to sell him a "big damned book" would have been pleased with it. It was titled The Writer's Manual and looking at the chapters listed on the back, it looked helpful. So I gave the lady a dollar, went home, and started reading.
The first chapter concerned the tools of writing. These tools included typewriters, carbon paper... WTF? I looked at the copyright date: 1979. This thing must have been in a warehouse for the last three decades. If I had taken a writing class in college, what I had learned would have been completely obsolete by the time I would have needed the knowledge; it's as useful as the vacuum tubes and analog circuits I learned as a teenager. Which is no use at all.
What wasn't obsolete was, as they would say across the pond, bleeding obvious.
How times change... it spoke of publishers' budgets, and how publishers wanted shorter books because printing was expensive and spoke of "one 80,000 word book, or two 40,000 word books?" with the assumption that the publisher would rather publish the two smaller, and trying to publish a big novel wasn't a good idea at all.
Baen won't accept anything shorter than 100,000 words.
Oh, well, it was only a buck. I wonder what I should do with it?
