In my language this statement :

The anti-science crowd wins again

Says that science (good) is being defeated by the anti-science crowd (bad). From there it follows, if people are against this product of science, then they are against science.

Therefore, all science must be good. And all people against ANY product of science are therefore ‘anti-science’

In the face of the established historical record of over 100 lawsuits brought against farmers, the amended PUBPAT complaint asserts, “Monsanto implicitly acknowledges that its transgenic seeds can contaminate the property of non-transgenic farmers,” but in its asserted “commitment” to not sue farmers over “inadvertent,” and “trace” amounts of contamination, the company fails to define either term. Therefore, the Complaint argues, “the clear implication is that Monsanto indeed intends to assert its transgenic seed patents against certified organic and non-transgenic farmers who come to possess more than ‘trace amounts’ of Monsanto’s transgenic seed, even if it is not their fault.”

When Monsanto sued family farmer Percy Schmeiser in Canada over contamination caused by transgenic seed blown off a passing neighbor’s truck, it cost him a half million dollars to fight them, and he had to mortgage his farm to raise the money, Patterson recalls. In the process, he lost control over 50 years of his own traditional, non-transgenic seed development work, according to Patterson and published reports telling the Schmeiser story. “Monsanto reportedly spent $4 million on their case against Schmeiser,” Patterson says. Percy Schmeiser told him Monsanto had 19 lawyers at one point in the courtroom up against his own single lawyer. “In the school yard and in the NFL, that is called ‘piling on,’” he concludes. https://www.centerforfoodsafety.org/press-releases/763/family-farmers-amplify-complaint-against-monsantos-gmos-reinforcing-their-arguments-with-two-dozen-additional-plaintiffs

They don’t own anything, the modified something that came with the planet, and they want everyone on the planet to be forced to use it, and them to pay them for the privilege. I’ve never been to Msto HQ but I’d give Dollars to Donuts that that is printed on the wall.

The implication is: that by it’s nature -All Science Is Good® All science is cool. Is neat. But not all good. There a many genies, we suffer from that we can not put back in the bottle. Some of us ‘Science for a living’, and still don’t think ‘All Science Is Good’.

proven. there’s a list of new inventions that were proven safe in 1950. Do we think they were just idiots back then?

Also its about directing cash from the sale of ‘Golden rice’ far more than about having these folks afford good food.

https://grain.org/en/article/10-grains-of-delusion-golden-rice-seen-from-the-ground

I’m no expert but these folk are almost

While many doubt the ability of golden rice to eliminate vitamin A deficiency, the machinery is being set in motion to promote a GE strategy at the expense of more relevant approaches. The best chance of success in fighting vitamin A deficiency and malnutrition is to better use the inexpensive and nutritious foods already available, and in diversifying food production systems in the fields and in the household. The euphoria created by the Green Revolution greatly stifled research to develop and promote these efforts, and the introduction of golden rice will further compromise them. Golden rice is merely a marketing event. But international and national research agendas will be taken by it.

The promoters of golden rice say that they do not want to deprive the poor of the right to choose and the potential to benefit from golden rice. But the poor, and especially poor farmers, have long been deprived of the right to choose their means of production and survival. Golden rice is not going to change that, and nor will any other corporately-pushed GE crop. Hence, any further attempts at the commercial exploitation of hunger and malnutrition through the promotion of genetically modified foods should be strongly resisted.

Nothing was taken away. It’s literally just combined with another port now. That’s not how either Apple or Samsung adapters work. The converters to a bit more than change the shape of the plug.

I didn’t respond to _any arguments you made. I thought you posed the question ‘why?’

[ confirmation bias at play. you have switched to bluetooth. it meets or exceeds all your needs. you don’t see much public indication to the contrary. you figure bluetooth is the best. ]

1. simplicity the cable just works. no configuration. no pairing .un pairing, figuring why it worked yesterday

2. Audio quality - bluetooth is lossy. we just were given AptX lossless in 2021 ( another confirmation bias ) “Sounds great to me” “I can’t hear the difference”.
   2 things are both possibly true though: I can’t hear the difference. Other people hear a big difference. this seems impossible to some people. As if their senses are the apogee of human sense.

3. lag. new codecs lower latency, but lag lag lag. You couldn’t possibly use your device as a synth/music instrument and ‘play’ the lag is far to great. Same with games.

4. whats the big deal. This is a bias for the plug users - would it hurt to keep it? we’ve always had it. The work is already done. Its already baked in the cake, why you gotta take it out?

5. Investment - I have really good headphones. I have really good earbuds. Yes there are adapters but they are finicky exactly when you want them to just work. They inevitably break. They often downgrade the sound - I have 3 usb to audio adapters for android that all hiss for no reason.

The issue is that when the marketers are selling us a ‘clean vision of the future’ they purposefully gloss over the things they are taking away. Then they paint the people who feel pain because of the change as neanderthals who wouldn’t know better if it bit them. When they do know better. They had better (for them) and progress made it worse (for them). To which the marketers generally say - you should be someone else.

167532282 :-) good times

You are not the only one.

This weeks game of ‘Internet pile-on’

its a good warning, but there’s no new info here.

• the scanners are usually not technically x-ray, some are mm wave, some are xray backscatter.
• the technology can see through clothes and produce a grainy bw image of a naked person
• the tech is very closed, and the customers are NDA’d into not letting the public know anything
• the enhanced privacy changes don’t change the device - its still taking naked pictures of people, its just doesn’t show them to the operator.
• before you look, as of a couple years ago there are just about 6 images from these devices out there on the internet. (iirc, there is a researcher who bought one off of ebay to study, but lost track of their work. )
• its in use in border patrol type operations to see into the trailers, trucks and cars.
• no one can prove they aren’t keeping a database of naked people. ;-)

https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy-pia-tsa-ait.pdf

https://www.rapiscan-ase.com/resource-center/technology/z-backscatter-x-ray-imaging

Which is a end-game around E2E. Saying ‘the message is encrypted’, but yes, I look at all messages before and/or after violates the expectation of E2E.

… its the scale.

we’ve had photograph manipulation since the photograph. we’ve not had the ease and scale which we are about to have. and its not the same.

anyone can open the box at the corner and mess with a traffic light. and has been able to since we had them. now give me the ability to mess with all the traffic lights in a city.

the difference is scale.

just some critical thinking notes.

The title says: “Findings Cast Doubt…” One might expect that the core of the essay will be … findings. One might expect that as with most commonly taught English writing practices, the first paragraph would both outline the point, and give a brief summary of the point.

Seven, eight paragraphs in, the ‘Findings’ are still being teased.

This type of article … accurate or not, is working through a ‘Palm reader’ technique, where they build up a series of ‘connections with the subject’, a long line of ‘Yeses’ then they slowly begin to introduce _their points. The technique is able to slip past some percent of critical thinking, because the person has been led down a path of agreements.

Again accurate or not, it couches the ‘Findings’ in a sea of ‘everyone knows’, ‘modern scholars agree’ , ‘doubts have existed from the beginning’. These are not facts, they are well worded disparaging digs, which contextualize the subject to their bias.

Media Contact: Office of Media Relations MediaRelations@fcc.gov For Immediate Release FCC VOTES TO REQUIRE CABLE AND SATELLITE TV PRICING TRANSPARENCY New ‘All-In’ Pricing Rules Will Address Consumers’ Confusion on Hidden Fees in Cable and Satellite TV Billing

WASHINGTON, March 14, 2024—The Federal Communications Commission today adopted new rules requiring cable and satellite TV providers to specify the “all-in” price clearly and prominently for video programming service in their promotional materials and on subscribers’ bills. The FCC aims to eliminate the misleading practice of describing video programming costs as a tax, fee, or surcharge. This updated “all-in” pricing format allows consumers to make informed choices, including the ability to comparison shop among competitors and to compare programming costs against alternative programming providers, including streaming services. TV providers often use deceptive junk fees to hide the real price of their services. The FCC is putting an end to this form of price masking, increasing competition, and reducing confusion among consumers. These new rules require cable operators and direct broadcast satellite (DBS) providers to state the total cost of video programming service clearly and prominently, including broadcast retransmission consent, regional sports programming, and other programming-related fees, as a prominent single line item on subscribers’ bills and in promotional materials. The record demonstrates that charges and fees for video programming provided by cable and DBS providers are often obscured in misleading promotional materials and bills, which causes significant and costly confusion for consumers. These new rules continue a series of consumer-focused proposals to combat junk fees and support transparency for consumers. In addition to this “all-in” pricing, the Commission is preparing to upcoming launch of the mandatory Broadband Consumer Labels and has proposed to eliminate early termination fees from cable and satellite TV providers. Action by the Commission March 14, 2024 by Report and Order (FCC 24-29). Chairwoman Rosenworcel, Commissioners Starks and Gomez approving. Commissioners Carr and Simington dissenting. Chairwoman Rosenworcel, Commissioners Carr, Starks, and Simington issuing separate statements. MB Docket No. 23-203

Here’s a subtle thing…we say both the manufacturers and consumers have choices.

The manufacturer has the choice between all the thousands of possible ways to deliver a product, and picks one or two. A consumer has the choice between those two. ( or do without )

Those are all valid choices, but they are not alone of equal weight

most definitely that. not the other. The guy who played Pavel Checkov, the Enterprise’s navigator. Not the noted author born in 1860.

Yes, this is a bit outside the screen problem, but it is pertinent to car UI. Buttons/Joysticks give a form of tactile feedback, they don’t give positional feedback. Take a button. Pushing it does give tactile feedback (she feels that she pushed the button), but it’s quite possible that the button wasn’t pushed enough or long enough to register the push, same with joystick up/down. Flipping a switch for example is different. The position changes, and latches. She is certain that her intentions (turn on the light) were either carried out or not, because the switch with either be in position one or two. Buttons/joysticks require a second evaluation, to check that the button knows it was pushed. It’s a subtle difference, but serious. Sliding the gearshift all the way forward, we just know it’s done. Likewise pulling up on the handle, hearing the ratchet sound, I know that my parking brake is on.

What about the one sided ability to change a contract??

A year from now Roku pop up says “Click to Accept” , the text says **"this contract means you’ll have to give us your first born child? ** My reasoning says if they can do one then they can do the other. There is nothing that would prevent them from adding ‘fees’, or ‘subscriptions’ or simply turning off the device. (!)

This is egregious. We bought something. In normal commerce, the contract was set in stone at that moment. The seller can’t roll up 2 years later, change the contract, force you to agree before you can use your device, and then say , well maybe if you beg, you can opt out.

For more thinking about this issue for software/hardware makers a good read is “Enchanted Objects” by David Rose.

iirc. He says we’re in a ‘Glass Rectangle’ phase, where makers are stuck on screens, Like Xhibit in Pimp my ride - we put 22 screens in your car. They know how to “screen” and they use it the solution to all problems. It’s like an infatuation, where you just can’t see another way. There are entire sciences of Human Machine Interaction that explain why these designs are messed up, and the designers are aware, and have chosen otherwise.

2016 Actor Antov Yelkin who played Checkov is killed by his 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee, pinning him to his mailbox and fence. Because it didn’t have a gearshift. It has a thing that looks like a shift but is a joystick.

Would you believe there is also a brigade working for years to make Tesla look terrible? https://stopelonfromfailingagain.com/

People. go figure.