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Anti vaxxers will not have a platform on Pinterest

Pinterest has decided to remove all medical not verified by  the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This is to avoid the spread of unreliable information online that is quite prevalent in Facebook and other platforms. The CEO  Ben Silbermann said, “If you don’t take some responsibility for what people see, you’re at some level responsible for the downstream consequences of that.” 

This is a big step on misinformation available online.  “ They took a similar approach to users searching for terms associated with clinical depression and anxiety. Under the guidance of clinical psychologists, Pinterest designed a product called “Compassionate Search.”” The 320 million (and growing) users will not have unreliable data forwarded to them or will be bombarded with false information.

I appreciate this movement forward taken by Pinterest as this is a safety issue. Measles is recurring even more than before because adults think they do not need vaccines. Adults are dying from a disease that can simply be forever gone if everyone had a shot done like it happened for smallpox. 

Article available here: https://www.vox.com/recode/2020/1/17/21070875/pinterest-vaccines-ben-silbermann-medical-anti-vaxx-recode-decode-kara-swisher-podcast?fbclid=IwAR15LBU-27bdOc1zB17hP64ZmQMNxc04OhFX__3Z3v1_45M7uxStWsHERNw

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Women in STEAM Awards

Article entitled “ Women In Technology Announces Winners of the 2019 Women of the Year Awards; Winners announced for the annual event celebrating girls and women in STEAM” here commented can be found here- Source NexisLexis (UK) - Database available in Dublin City University -

I am glad this type of awards exists. It’s one of them. I never heard of STEAM, which stands for  science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM). I am glad arts is included there. I believe that Arts is part of Science (I know it’s controversial).

They are all Americans, but I cannot help but notice a pattern there. There are 3 PoC in the winners’ list. Amongst, one is a man and one is highschooler.

So there are changes coming but it’s slow. I feel like awards like that should be more inclusive not because of skin colour but because I am pretty sure they are women in the same position that would represent more the diversity of the American population. Also, it may reflect that women of colour (WoC) are not in those positions in the first place. And that’s a bigger problem!

The Winners were:

Non-Profit Organization Category Winner: Connie Haynes - Chief Executive Officer Georgia First Robotics

Non-Profit Education Institution Category Winner: Lynn Fountain – Principal Research Scientist Georgia Tech Research Institute

Small/Emerging Organization Category Winner: Karen Houghton – VP and Venture Partner Atlanta Tech Village and Atlanta Ventures

Medium/Mid-Size Organization & Private Educational Institution Category Winner: Dorren Schmitt – Director of Information Technology The Weather Channel

Large/Enterprise Organization Category Winner: Noni Gonzalez – VP, Commercial Applications InterContinental Hotel Group (IHG)

Also presented at the event…

“Build Her Up” Special Award Winner: DeWayne Griffin – Enterprise Technology Executive – Data State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Companies® (a man)

Volunteer of the Year Award Winner: Rachel Bagnell – Director of Transformation at ADP CEO of Innovative Events

Girl Of The Year Award Winner: Sri Vaishnavi Ghantasala – High School Senior Chattahoochee High School

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Article missing slightly on why women do not do STEM

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/boys-and-girls-have-an-equal-aptitude-for-math-so-why-are-there-are-so-few-women-in-higher-paying-stem-jobs-2019-11-12

"Expanding Your Horizons" by ukagriculture is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In this article, it is pointed that girls and boys have the same aptitudes to do maths and therefore comes to the conclusion that women should, therefore, engage more in STEM. The authors question this and agree that discrimination is the main factor in the lack of women in STEM. 

Well, it’s a part but if they had done more research in gender studies, they would have seen that these disparities are grown over a lifetime of discriminations for your girls to women. Yes, patriarchy is active from a very young age and it builds over time and adds to a woman’s burden of not being seen capable of doing Maths, or being a Doctor, etc... So when I see that the article is referencing this author writing this article entitled “Gender Gaps in Math Performance, Perceived Mathematical Ability and College STEM Education: The Role of Parental Occupation“. The author is right: Parental occupation limits the potential access to Maths. But it is missing on the real explanation that is the social class of the parents is really behind it. 

I won't go in a whole sociological analysis and a gender analysis of why both of these works are not right. I don't have the time. They are no wrong in what they are saying, they are just missing on a whole field of work that is sociology and gender studies. And that’s the problem. These authors do not realise how interdisciplinary their work is. And how this type of article would mean if it were accurately representing what is really happening for girls all their youth and how patriarchy actually limits them in developing skills like Maths.

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Eileen Collins (b. 1956) is a former NASA astronaut. She was the first female pilot and commander of a Space Shuttle.

She was an instructor pilot and assistant professor in mathematics at the US Air Force Academy when she was selected to be an astronaut. Her first space flight took place in 1995, and two years later she became the first female Shuttle Pilot, an achievement for which she received a Harmon Trophy.

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There was a small controversy over the last 2 weeks after the removal of gifs of “Baby Yoda” from the Mandalorian (disney+). The Mandalorian is set after “the fall of the Empire and before the emergence of the First Order” (StarWars.com 2019) and is currently the most-in-demand streaming series after Stranger Things (Netflix) (Metro 2019).

First thing first, it’s not baby Yoda. It’s a baby that looks like the Yoda we saw in episode 5 and 6 (The Empire Strikes Back & The Return of the Jedi), showing the fall of the Empire. I thought I would clarify for confusion since Yoda dies (not a spoiler at this point) in Episode 5. It seems that we always assumed he was one of a kind if you did not watch Episodes1-3. Turns out there are several others looking like Yoda (Wookipedia 2019). However we always assumed there were only old beings. But we were wrong and the Mandalorian is showing us just that: they are born and therefore go through their baby stage.

That is not the controversy, that’s a small recap on Star Wars. The Mandalorian has had several ones of them. Feminist Twitter has pointed out little interaction with women it has had.  Anita Sarkeesian (@anitasarkeesian) got herself trolled (again) about pointing this out (Twitter 2019). But this is not the biggest controversy that raged for a couple of days.

No, the one that raged was the removal from Disney (which own Star Wars) of gifs of “Baby Yoda” in Giphy, which is a platform for gifs that WhatsApp and other use (CNN 2019). Originally Disney was worried about copyright issues (Irish Examiner 2019). I am wondering however why would they be worried about copyrights on this. There are 4 gifs total and yes, they are adorable. I don't get the copyright issue at all. I am however speculating that it was a way to get people to talk about “Baby Yoda” and therefore the Mandolorian. A publicity stunt in short! Anyway, it got resolved. You can know tweet or WhatsApp baby yodas in gifs(Variety 2019).

Irish Examiner 2019: https://www.irishexaminer.com/breakingnews/discover/baby-yoda-gifs-available-to-share-again-after-being-removed-from-giphy-966828.html

Metro 2019: https://metro.co.uk/2019/11/26/mandalorian-smashes-stranger-things-demand-streaming-series-ever-11223719/

StarWars.com 2019: https://www.starwars.com/series/the-mandalorian

Twitter 2019: https://twitter.com/anitasarkeesian/status/1197578501064314881

Variety 2019: https://variety.com/2019/digital/news/baby-yoda-gifs-giphy-copyrights-1203415617/

Wookipedia 2019: https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Yoda%27s_species/Legends

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I am terrified by an all technology world. We are getting more and more dependent on the devices and they all work on electricity. Maybe I have read/ seen too many scary dystopian fictions but the first thing that goes is often electricity! How people will be locked in their house because of the devices that were running the house!

Do y’all ever just get ANGRY about how cool technology is inevitably used for evil. Like, smart homes could be such an exciting concept?

Imagine: your home is entirely voice activated. You can run yourself a bath when you’re exhausted and sore without having to get up to turn the water on. You can alleviate your anxiety about having left the stove on without having to leave work. The roomba can find your glasses for you when you drop them and all you have to do is ask.

Now imagine that this is all on a closed circuit! Your TV can predict what shows you’ll like, but it won’t give that information to a company that will use it for disturbingly specific advertisement. And everything has manual overrides, just in case.

Can you imagine a future where every car is self-driving? Maybe even solar powered? Or better yet, apply those same concepts to widespread public transportation! We could almost completely eliminate traffic jams.

My house could feed my cats while I’m on vacation! My fridge could tell me when I’m low on milk! I could brew coffee without getting out of bed!

Hell, most of this stuff already exists!

But nooooo, I can’t have any of it because there are people and companies out there who will actively use that stuff against me and I don’t want fucking Amazon to know what kind of underwear I own.

I’m not bitter or anything.

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Is Tik-Tok the new Vine?

Every year or so, there seems to be a new trend in the Apps world. This year, it seems that Tik-Tok is the new Snapchat which was the new Vine (RIP). In fairness, I stopped caring about those apps, as I don't have enough time in the day for them. Instagram is perfect. Tik-Tok is even more fast-paced than the stories on Instagram, bringing new “trends” overnight. 

I have one or two questions on this: is a trend here to stay or disappear overnight? I would like to think the former. Like the 80s or 90s fashion trends that are never leaving.

My second question is what happens to the data? Indeed, 

‘The company itself, which is owned by Chinese artificial intelligence startup ByteDance, now faces backlash over allegations of censorship and improper data collection and storage’ (ABC 2019).

According to the ABC news article(very light in content with a very headline), people are more focused on making money out of their “talents” than worry about who owns what and where it is stored. 

As pointed out by Fox News (I know!), 

‘The app became the most downloaded in the world in the first quarter of 2018 with an estimated 45.8 million downloads and it has been most popular among children under 16, despite TikTok requiring users to be at least 13.’ (FoxNews 2019).

I have to take that last sentence with a pinch of salt as it seems to have been edited out or missing out something.  However, it is a worldwide phenomenon (not a trend yet) and it is directed towards young adults and teenagers. I am not sure this will stay a trend. However, the owners of the data will be probably delighted to own materials for years and years to exploit.

source: ABC 2019. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/inside-tiktok-craze-concerns-chinese-data-collection-censorship/story?id=66768839

source: FoxNews 2019. https://www.foxbusiness.com/technology/tweens-tiktok-social-media-safety-conversations-schools

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Women’s spacewalk a success (no surprise there!)

After canceling their women-only spacewalk in March 2019, two women, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir finally went into space this Friday, ‘spending more than seven hours replacing a battery unit that failed last week’ (Houston Chronicle 2019). They were programmed for another type of mission but the failed battery changed a little bit NASA’s plan.

What is so annoying is first that after making such a big deal of the March mission, it was canceled due to a second spacesuit suitable for a woman. Secondly, it should not be news. Women have been to space since Valentina Tereshkova in 1963. Americans had to wait for Sally Ride, 20 years later to go to space. Currently, according to the app People in Space (free), there are 6 people in the ISS. Two women are there with four men. It should not be news that women can do missions in space. The news is the lack of ability from NASA to anticipate that they might go to space at the same time... This a major failure form NASA to recognize that women astronauts had to overcome so many hurdles. By the way, not one woman has set foot on the Moon yet!

Source: Houston Chronicles. 2019. https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/space/article/NASA-s-first-all-female-spacewalk-has-officially-14543988.php

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A final thought on this: many media after the first news pointed out that Esther Duflo was the wife of one of two men who got the Nobel Prize.

As illustrated in this article, women in STEM or social sciences have an puhill battle againt the media for their representation to their true value: https://www.marketwatch.com/story/as-esther-duflo-wins-the-nobel-prize-in-economics-heres-the-uphill-battle-women-face-in-the-field-2019-10-14?link=MW_latest_news

We need more women in STEM

With the Nobel prizes season over, there is one (again) observation that has been made (again): Where are the women? This year again, at the exception of the Literature category, no women received a Nobel Prize. The Literature category is on its own a full other blog post as it was 2 prices for 1 and one of the recipients (not Olga Tokarczuk, which is technically a 2018 recipient), is a “genocide apologist”. 

As PRI.org puts it: “Of the more than 600 Nobel Prizes that have been given out in the sciences, just 20 have gone to women.”  That’s 3.3% of women receiving the 1 million Krones price! It’s not like women do not work in Science. They are there but they do not participate in the final steps that lead to a Nobel Prize. Recent studies suggest that women have been winning more science awards, but those awards often pay less, are lower status, and have to do with teaching, not research. 

I am on a Facebook group of women cademics and they all have the same complain: they are asked to the small work, the teaching, the admin, the taking care of difficult students. They do it but at the same time, their careers advance less and slower. This is why a Nobel Prize in Sciences, not Literature because in that category women tend to win more often, is very unlikely to happen to a woman, let alone a woman’s team or even more, a woman of color. Because the Nobel Prizes are very white and very manly. And this needs to change, fast!

Keep reading

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This needs to be edited because today the Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded to an Indian man, a woman and an American: https://news.yahoo.com/trio-win-nobel-economics-prize-poverty-103745862.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9kdWNrZHVja2dvLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAIM9XMRx05MvULrjfVljsQVVdbmMtt3KG-oW0bhnoIeWMvSfaMRE3ur2INRyV7Q5uVjElessKwBILgvQvJ8_B10TUH3P3w3jxPFmbppUzt6dRXbQ9f1vdUqyEwlW-rTuQMwp8XnKPs1a7u99yHHC6OMKOxSXCreKnXhn6brV4CFC.

This news makes me look bad as I was complaining before about the lack of POC (persons of colours) and women in the awarding process. 

We need more women in STEM

With the Nobel prizes season over, there is one (again) observation that has been made (again): Where are the women? This year again, at the exception of the Literature category, no women received a Nobel Prize. The Literature category is on its own a full other blog post as it was 2 prices for 1 and one of the recipients (not Olga Tokarczuk, which is technically a 2018 recipient), is a “genocide apologist”. 

As PRI.org puts it: “Of the more than 600 Nobel Prizes that have been given out in the sciences, just 20 have gone to women.”  That’s 3.3% of women receiving the 1 million Krones price! It’s not like women do not work in Science. They are there but they do not participate in the final steps that lead to a Nobel Prize. Recent studies suggest that women have been winning more science awards, but those awards often pay less, are lower status, and have to do with teaching, not research. 

I am on a Facebook group of women cademics and they all have the same complain: they are asked to the small work, the teaching, the admin, the taking care of difficult students. They do it but at the same time, their careers advance less and slower. This is why a Nobel Prize in Sciences, not Literature because in that category women tend to win more often, is very unlikely to happen to a woman, let alone a woman’s team or even more, a woman of color. Because the Nobel Prizes are very white and very manly. And this needs to change, fast!

Keep reading

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We need more women in STEM

With the Nobel prizes season over, there is one (again) observation that has been made (again): Where are the women? This year again, at the exception of the Literature category, no women received a Nobel Prize. The Literature category is on its own a full other blog post as it was 2 prices for 1 and one of the recipients (not Olga Tokarczuk, which is technically a 2018 recipient), is a "genocide apologist”. 

As PRI.org puts it: “Of the more than 600 Nobel Prizes that have been given out in the sciences, just 20 have gone to women.”  That’s 3.3% of women receiving the 1 million Krones price! It’s not like women do not work in Science. They are there but they do not participate in the final steps that lead to a Nobel Prize. Recent studies suggest that women have been winning more science awards, but those awards often pay less, are lower status, and have to do with teaching, not research. 

I am on a Facebook group of women cademics and they all have the same complain: they are asked to the small work, the teaching, the admin, the taking care of difficult students. They do it but at the same time, their careers advance less and slower. This is why a Nobel Prize in Sciences, not Literature because in that category women tend to win more often, is very unlikely to happen to a woman, let alone a woman’s team or even more, a woman of color. Because the Nobel Prizes are very white and very manly. And this needs to change, fast!

Screencapture from the Nobel Prize website

More on Lise Meitner — the forgotten woman of nuclear physics who deserved a Nobel Prize...

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NASA Has Released The Largest Picture Ever Taken. It Will Rock Your Univ...

In class last week, we were talking about images definitions. The smaller the image is the least it can be “blown up” on the screen. Because it’ll have a lot of pixelated squares and the definition will be terrible. That reminded me of the time NASA released the biggest picture taken, Indeed, NASA released in 2015 (NASA 2017) the largest picture ever taken: a composite photo with 1 trillion stars in it. So no matter how you try to make it bigger on the screen it won’t be pixelated. the picture is ‘a mammoth 1.5 billion pixel image (69,536 x 22,230) and requires about 4.3 GB disk space’ (Sachdeva, 2015) of only a part of the Andromeda galaxy. When you click on it, you can “travel” within space. It takes you deeper and deeper into space, basically. It is composed of stars and emptiness (and probably other objects in between). What is impressive in this is the fact that actually it’s the size of an average movie illegally downloaded from the net. But way more interesting. 

Sources:

NASA. 2017. https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/hubble-s-high-definition-panoramic-view-of-the-andromeda-galaxy

Sachdeva, Maanya. 2015.  https://www.scoopwhoop.com/news/wow-nasa/ 

Video: YouTube, Jamshid Mosavat. 

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When the impossible can happen

A paper, with no specification on whether it has academic sources and no date from Google was leaked by NASA. It was said in the paper that

“According to the paper, Google’s quantum computer attained quantum supremacy by successfully performing a calculation known as a random sampling problem, which would be practically impossible for even the best supercomputer.”(UNILAD 23/09/2019)

The speculations are that a supercomputer would take up to 10 000 years to achieve a similar result, whereas in this case, the “quantum” computer took only three minutes and 20 seconds. This would be revolutionary. It is even more mind-blowing that “quantum” computer doesn't obey the same rules as “traditional” computing: It is not binary, 0, 1. It is able to consider binaries as 0 and 1 simultaneously. And a “quantum” computer doesn't even look like a computer.

photo: Getty Images

More importantly, this success in “quantum” computing seems legitimated by the fact that it was NASA engineers that worked on that particular project (and paper). NewScientist and Wired both recounted the news that came and both tried to explain what it would mean for the future of computing. In short, as NewScientist puts it: “Though that’s impressive, there’s no practical use for it.” (NewScientist 26/09/2019).

So what does this mean? I think from the articles from Wired and NewScientist  (we can exclude UNILAD, even though they were the first bringing that topic to my attention) the possibility of doing ultra-complex algorithms is now a dream that scientists had come to reality. What it means for us, basic computers users, nothing more than usual. We can resume our life checking Facebook or Tumblr without the fear that “quantum” computing will interfere in the near future.

Sources: https://www.unilad.co.uk/technology/google-achieves-quantum-supremacy-by-solving-impossible-equation/?fbclid=IwAR1nI7rb8AmtRrEFYsgysbR6KcD_AJF4bzmzcekLfS0-sTvnwGyAZgdKM5w

https://www.wired.com/story/why-googles-quantum-computing-victory-is-a-huge-deal-and-a-letdown/?itm_campaign=TechinTwo

https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/9kedqd/ok-wtf-is-googles-quantum-supremacy

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2217835-google-has-reached-quantum-supremacy-heres-what-it-should-do-next/