Category Archives: Around the World

Gesetzgeber sollte eingreifen

Deutsche Welle: Amnesty: Google und Facebook verletzen Menschenrechte. “Amnesty International schlägt Alarm: Das Geschäftsmodell der zwei US-Internetriesen basiere auf “allgegenwärtiger Überwachung”. Sie hätten eine nie dagewesene Macht über die persönlichsten Daten von Millionen Menschen.”

“Die Bundesregierung und die EU müssten “rechtsstaatliche Rahmenbedingungen schaffen, um die Grund- und Menschenrechte kommender Generationen in einer digitalen Welt zu wahren”, fordert die Organisation. “In einem ersten Schritt sollten die Gesetzgeber es Unternehmen untersagen, den Zugang zu ihren Diensten davon abhängig zu machen, ob die Nutzer der Sammlung und Verwendung ihrer persönlichen Informationen zu Werbezwecken ‘zustimmen'”, verlangt Beeko.

Google und Facebook setzten die erhaltenen Nutzer-Daten ein, um mit Hilfe von Algorithmen Ergebnisse im Interesse der Unternehmen zu erzielen. Das könne die Personalisierung von Werbung sein oder Verhaltensanreize, die Menschen bei den Diensten hielten. Diese Algorithmen könnten als Nebeneffekt die Meinungsfreiheit beeinträchtigen und zu Diskriminierung führen, warnt die Menschenrechtsorganisation.”

“Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”

NPR Science: 50 Years Ago, Americans Made The 2nd Moon Landing… Why Doesn’t Anyone Remember?

“Fifty years ago, astronaut Pete Conrad stepped out of the lunar module onto the surface of the moon.

His first words were: “Whoopie! Man, that may have been a small one for Neil, but that’s a long one for me.”

Conrad, who stood at just 5 feet 6 inches tall, was only the third human to set foot on the lunar surface. He did it on November 19, 1969, just four months after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin made the first lunar landing. However, unlike Armstrong and Aldrin, Conrad and fellow astronaut Alan Bean are not household names.”

“They are indistinguishable”

NPR: Math Looks The Same In The Brains Of Boys And Girls, Study Finds.

“There’s new evidence that girls start out with the same math abilities as boys.

A study of 104 children from ages 3 to 10 found similar patterns of brain activity in boys and girls as they engaged in basic math tasks, researchers reported Friday in the journal Science of Learning.

“They are indistinguishable,” says Jessica Cantlon, an author of the study and professor of developmental neuroscience at Carnegie Mellon University.

The finding challenges the idea that more boys than girls end up in STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) because they are inherently better at the sort of thinking those fields require. It also backs other studies that found similar math abilities in males and females early in life.”

NPR: New Study Challenges The Assumption That Math Is Harder For Girls. “Research shows that when boys and girls as old as 10 do math, their patterns of brain activity are indistinguishable. The finding is the latest challenge to the idea that math is harder for girls.”

“Geary says differences seem to show up later and involve very high-level math tasks. His own research has found that in most countries, female students perform just as well as male students in science-related subjects. Yet paradoxically, Geary says, females are less likely to get degrees in fields like math and computer science if they live in wealthier countries with greater gender equality.”

Space Analogies

Alexander Gerst’s Horizon Blog: Cave Life for Space. “When you ignore some details, it is amazing how similar cave exploration is to going to space. After my experience with CAVES, I can say that, so far, this is the best analogue that I know for astronauts to mentally prepare for space.”

See also ESA: Caves 2019. (YouTube, 5:50min)

“In September 2019 in Slovenia, astronauts from five space agencies around the world took part in ESA’s CAVES training course – Cooperative Adventure for Valuing and Exercising human behaviour and performance Skills.

The six ‘cavenauts’ were ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst, NASA astronauts Joe Acaba and Jeanette Epps, Roscosmos cosmonaut Nikolai Chub, Canadian Space Agency astronaut Joshua Kutryk and Japan’s space agency JAXA’s Takuya Onishi.

The three-week course prepares astronauts to work effectively in multicultural teams in an environment where safety is critical.

As they explored the caves, they encountered caverns, underground lakes and strange microscopic life. They tested new technology and conducted science – much like life on the International Space Station.

Inhospitable and hard to access, caves are untouched worlds and hold many scientific secrets. The astronauts performed a dozen experiments and were on the lookout for signs of life that has adapted to the extremes. They paid special attention to their environment, monitoring air and water quality, and looking for signs of pollution.”

“This isn’t a defense strategy. It’s a commandeering of communications and messaging to create an illusion about what’s happening on Capitol Hill.”

Slate: This Impeachment Won’t Be a Legal or Political Battle. It Will Be an Information War. “Republicans are willing to ignore what’s happening because they think they’ll get away with it. They might not be wrong.” By Dahlia Lithwick.

“Confusing and conflating the legal facts of impeachment with the political facts of impeachment is only the first step in the GOP effort to distort the impeachment process. The follow-up strategy is slowly emerging, and it’s as nihilistic as it is terrifying: The White House and Trump’s Republican defenders seem to understand that this is, at its heart, a messaging war. This is politics in the form of who dominates the airwaves. As such, the thrust of the new impeachment defiance will be to simply deny that any of it is happening in the first place. This isn’t an elaborate attempt to push back or to reframe or to counter the impeachment investigation; it’s a media tactic designed solely to deny its very existence. Wednesday’s revelation that Bill Taylor knew he was dealing with a quid pro quo should be the last nail in the bribery/abuse-of-power coffin. But it won’t be, because none of those concepts even figure in the Republican defense strategy.”

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