linkstream2 microblog

Cryptocurrency Will Boost Genome Sequencing
http://www.FrontLineGenomics.com/news/19260/george-church-cryptocurrency-blockchain @NebulaGenomics, a new startup that uses #blockchain to give people control of their own data

QT:{{”
“A genomics startup co-founded by genetics pioneer George Church said yesterday that it seeks to lead the genomic data market by utilizing blockchain, the technology that underlies transactions of
cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin.
In other words, Nebula Genomics will give you cryptocurrency in exchange for your genetic data.
The company will do so by significantly reducing the costs of personal genome sequencing, give you insights about it, secure it using blockchain, and allow you to do whatever you want with the data.” “}}

,A Very Conflicted Football Fan’s Notes
https://www.NYTimes.com/2018/02/03/opinion/sunday/super-bowl-football-fans.html Explains, in a fashion, why we still cling to the sport despite the violence & head injuries

QT:{{”

“It was the begin of a lifetime of competing emotions related to football. With mental-health, safety and social issues mixed with national anthem protests, you’d have to be insane to not be someway conflicted while watching professional football these days.

However, this Sunday I’ll ignore all of these pressing concerns because the team I love more than most things could win the Super Bowl for the first time. I’ll be at my favorite bar, wearing my lucky shirt, with my dad. Unless we’re losing. Then I’ll switch my shirt, my bar and my dad. Nothing’s more important than this game.

Admittedly, this is wrong. I’m now well informed on how repetitive head trauma can lead to a degenerative disease in the brain known as chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or C.T.E. That will not affect me Sunday. For the well-paid warriors battling on the field in
Minneapolis, this game will be a continuation of a system that places money and tradition above their health and lives. For me? It’ll be pure bliss.”
“}}

QT:{{”
“People would suspiciously ask what kind of camera it was before walking away with expressions ranging from offense to pity. “I can’t allow you to take a picture of me with that camera—it’ll be too ugly,” a woman from Chongqing told me. I assured her that I was not a wang hong and would not be posting it, and we reached a compromise: she would take a selfie of us on her Meitu phone, edit her face, and then send the photo to me.”
“}}
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/chinas-selfie-obsession

Yale establishes biomedical data science center
https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2018/02/09/yale-establishes-biomedical-data-science-center

QT:{{
“The field of data science has become particularly relevant in the biomedical realm — in genomic sequencing, imaging data, patient record data, data on molecules like nucleotides, proteins and metabolites and wearable personal health devices,” Gerstein said. “All of these create data streams that are growing particularly large, and there’s a lot of value in mining and integrating these different data streams.” …

“Although this initiative was started by the medical school, it is meant for the whole campus,” Gerstein said. “We want undergraduates to do research and take courses in biomedical data science — and to be engaged in this center.”
“}}

Some that l liked.

QT:{{”

Set an alarm for [specific time, or amount of time]. Ex.: “Set alarm for 10 a.m.” Or “Set alarm for 20 minutes from now.”
Set a timer for [X] minutes.
Note to self [contents of note].
Define [word].
Synonyms for [word].
Etymology of [word].
What sound does [animal] make?
What does the fox say?
How many calories are in [insert food item]?
Do a barrel roll.
Roll a die.
Flip a coin.
Translate [phrase or word] to [language]. Ex.: “Translate ‘where is the bathroom?’ to German.”
“}}

NEW in ’18 – I think

OK Google, Tell Me a Joke
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. Easter egg.
Who are you? Easter egg.

https://www.cnet.com/how-to/complete-list-of-ok-google-commands/

Jim Simons, the Numbers King
https://www.NewYorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/jim-simons-the-numbers-king Highlights the new @FlatironInst & one of its new hires, Nick Carriero, who co-wrote the original Yale pseudogene pipeline, PseudoPipe (Pseudogene.org/pseudopipe) HT @Anne_Churchland

QT:{{”
“Our discussion turned to the Flatiron Institute. Renaissance’s computer infrastructure, he said, had been a central part of its success. At universities, Simons said, coding tends to be an erratic process. He said of the graduate students and postdocs who handled such work, “Some of them are pretty good code writers, and some of them are not so good. But then they leave, and there’s no one to maintain that code.” For the institute, he has hired two esteemed coders from academia: Carriero, who had led my tour, had been recruited from Yale, where he had developed the university’s high-performance computing capabilities for the life sciences; Ian Fisk had worked at cern, the particle-physics laboratory outside Geneva. Simons offered them greater authority and high salaries. “They’re the best of the breed,” he said. Carriero and Fisk sometimes consult with their counterparts at Renaissance about technical matters.
“}}

The Magnetohydrodynamic Drive Is Real – & You Can Build One
https://www.Wired.com/story/the-magnetohydrodynamic-drive-is-realand-you-can-build-one/ Great illustration of the cross product & the weird way #magnetism makes things curl around

QT:{{”
“In the diagram, I have a magnet with the north side pointing down. This produces a magnetic field that also mostly points down (as indicated by the red arrow). Now for the awesome physics part. If you have an electric charge moving in a magnetic field, there is a force on that charge—the magnitude of this force depends on the strength of the magnetic field, the value of the electric charge, and the velocity of the charge. This magnetic force can be expressed as the following equation:

If don’t have a degree in physics, there are three things that are crazy about this equation. First, there is this weird arrow symbol over some of the variables. Nothing to be alarmed about—this just means these are vector quantities so that the direction also matters. Next there is this vector B. This represents the value of the magnetic field. Honestly, I’m not sure why we (physicists) always use B for the magnetic field—but we do. Lastly, there is that big “X”. That is not the sign for multiplication, that is the sign for the cross product. I guess I should also point out that “q” is the symbol for the electric charge.”

“}}

Facebook Job Ads Raise Concerns About Age Discrimination
https://www.NYTimes.com/2017/12/20/business/facebook-job-ads.html QT: “The ability of advertisers to deliver…message to the precise audience most likely to respond is the cornerstone of
$FB…[but]…opportunities only to certain age groups has raised concerns”.

QT:{{”
“The ability of advertisers to deliver their message to the precise audience most likely to respond is the cornerstone of Facebook’s business model. But using the system to expose job opportunities only to certain age groups has raised concerns about fairness to older workers.

Several experts questioned whether the practice is in keeping with the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967, which prohibits bias against people 40 or older in hiring or employment.”
“}}

The Lost Picture Show: Hollywood Archivists Can’t Outpace Obsolescence
https://spectrum.IEEE.org/computing/it/the-lost-picture-show-hollywood-archivists-cant-outpace-obsolescence Lots of useful stats on the costs of data storage for movies: $1k/Tb for 20yr store. 1 big budget film is ~350Pb & $20k/yr to store (1hr TV episode is $12k). Maj archives have >10k hrs.

QT:{{”
Sam Gustman, associate dean of the USC Libraries, says that the Warner archives are now part of 50 petabytes of archived data at USC, which also includes nearly 54,000 video interviews with Holocaust survivors gathered by the USC Shoah Foundation. For 20 years of storage, including power, supervision, and data migration every 3 years, USC charges $1,000 per terabyte, or $1,000,000 per petabyte. That works out to a relatively affordable $2.5 million per year for its current 50-PB holdings. It’s not a money-making business, Gustman adds.

Meanwhile, the motion-picture studios are churning out content at an ever-increasing rate. The head of digital archiving at one major studio, who asked not to be identified, told me that it costs about $20,000 a year to digitally store one feature film and related assets such as deleted scenes and trailers. All told, the digital components of a big-budget feature can total 350 TB. Storing a single episode of a high-end hour-long TV program can cost $12,000 per year. Major studios like Disney, NBCUniversal, Sony, and Warner each have archives of tens of thousands of TV episodes and features, and they’re adding new titles all the time.

Meanwhile, the use of higher-resolution digital cameras and 3D cameras has caused the amount of potentially archivable material to skyrocket. “We went from standard definition to HD and then from HD to UHD,” Peter Schade, NBCUniversal’s vice president of content management, said in an interview. Pixel resolutions have gone from 2K to 4K and soon, 8K, he adds. Codecs—the software used to compress and decompress digital video files—keep changing, as do the hardware and software for playback. “And the rate of change has escalated,” Schade says. “}}

QT:{{”
“Health benefits are harder to quantify, especially in smoggy cities like Beijing. Mobike has found that its bikes are used more or less as much when the air is really bad as when it is not, suggesting that the good done by exercise may be undone by heavy breathing in toxic air. But in less-polluted cities the gains from exercise are larger than the risks from road accidents or air pollution, according to a study of Barcelona in the British Medical Journal.
“}}

How #bikesharing conquered the world
https://www.economist.com/news/christmas-specials/21732701-two-wheeled-journey-anarchist-provocation-high-stakes-capitalism-how Using tech to overcome the problem of theft. Getting health benefits from exercise to counterbalancing breathing polluted air. Reducing congestion a bit.