Science and Technology section
The storage of high-level nuclear waste is a controversial environmental justice issue. The nuclear industry would like to create centralized interim (?????) storage for it in Texas and New Mexico. Nice! (at least it’s out of here).
There’s a better solution: we can take a page from the Fluoride book and eat it !
Astronomers agree that there are trillions, maybe quadrillions of stars. They further agree that many of these stars have planets circling them. Billions of these planets enjoy conditions capable of sustaining life as we know it (These are called “Goldilocks” planets).
Probability suggests that at least some of these may, in fact contain life. After all, there’s some form of life almost everywhere on earth no matter how harsh the conditions, from the ice in Antarctica to the deepest trenches of the oceans.
Brattleboro could do much better with technology, and as a result do better as a Town. There are some obstacles in the way, though:
Poor Internet Choices
Brattleboro choices for Internet are rather poor. Hardly anyone here gets 25 megabits down and 3 megabits up, a standard definition of broadband. To approach those speeds one must pay a small monthly fortune.
Computers, mobile phones, artificial intelligence and communication networks provide many benefits, but they have also raised social and ethical concerns, from Facebook and Cambridge Analytica to the growing impact of automation on people’s jobs and lives.
Ethics and technology is the topic of discussion at the next Brattleboro Area Tech meeting to be held on Thursday, June 14 at 6:00 pm in the Hooker Dunham building at 139 Main Street in Brattleboro. The discussion will be led by Karina Assiter, a professor of computer science at Landmark College.
On Monday, May 7th from 6:00pm-7:30pm Brooks Memorial Library will host Vermont-based, digital educator and librarian, Jessamyn West, for a discussion on Digital Privacy on the Main Floor of the library. Jessamyn West is a nationally recognized leader, working on raising awareness and educating the public about technology and the digital divide, while also advocating for libraries to play an increased role in technology education for their patrons.
So says an 86 year old scientist named Mayer Hillman in a new article at The Guardian. It’s well worth a read.
A few of his quotes about runaway climate change:
“The outcome is death, and it’s the end of most life on the planet because we’re so dependent on the burning of fossil fuels. There are no means of reversing the process which is melting the polar ice caps. And very few appear to be prepared to say so.”
As Brattleboro begins down the path toward adding municipal broadband utility, the ACLU has weighed in with a new report “The Public Internet Option – How Local Governments Can Provide Network Neutrality, Privacy, and Access for All.”
The report compares the necessity of internet access to that of electricity and water, and says that the rollback of net neutrality laws and enforcement threatens equal access (as we have for say, roads and bridges).
In the world of computing there a few flavors of reality. Can you tell your VR from your AR? Let’s look at some of the most popular realities available today.
In December it was announced that a chess player with four hours of training beat the world’s world champion chess-playing program. The player was AlphaZero, an AI (artificial intelligence) program operated by Google.
A UFO or Unidentified Flying Object is any real or apparent flying object which cannot be identified by the observer and which remains unidentified after investigation. They are also known as Unidentified Aerial Phenomena (UAPs).
It should come as no surprise that iBrattleboro is a supporter of Net Neutrality. It’s essential for a vibrant, free, all-access internet.
A couple nights ago I was shutting down my computer when, in the process of quitting Firefox, a mysterious screen opened before my eyes with what appeared to be a galaxy of circles and triangles, interconnecting and sprouting new satellites as I watched. Closer inspection revealed it to be a graphic visualization of sites I had recently visited with all the third party sites they had notified in clusters around them. It was a moment out of War Games. Had I been hacked, I wondered? But no, it turned out to be Lightbeam, a browser add-on that allows you to see in real time how your information is being shared on the Internet by the sites you visit, and with whom. I vaguely remember installing it a while back but I never got around to using it, hence my initial surprise when it seemingly opened itself in my browser. But once I saw what it revealed, I was riveted.
Brattleboro is about to change from dual stream to single stream recycling on July 3. The Town of Brattleboro sent out a postcard with a reminder of this date, and a reminder that another big change is coming: plastics 1-7 will now be collected.
Time for an occasional robot roundup, where we look at advances in robotics.
First let me say sorry for the dramatic title, but seriously, DO IT NOW! If you are unfamiliar with what two factor authentication is, it is a way for you to add another security layer for your important logins besides just a password. Many websites and services that contain potentially valuable data will have the ability to use two factor authentication, but it is usually disabled by default.
It’s caused by a virus, and the virus is spread by word of mouth!
Seriously, there is such a thing as wind turbine syndrome, but it’s not caused by the turbines themselves.
It’s caused by negative feelings toward turbines harbored by individuals.
In medical terms, this is called a “nocebo”.
These negative feelings, in turn, are mostly created by anti-wind evangelists who travel the state spreading their gospel of misinformation.
Working in the IT field I often see a common occurrence with businesses and consumers alike. Everyone hears about large companies being hacked or their neighbors computer catching a virus, but often times people do not put as much priority on their computers security as they should. We all hope that it never happens to us, and many people think they are too small to be a target for hackers. The truth is, smaller targets are often easier to attack so instead of spending months trying to penetrate a large corporation or financial institution, hackers will spend far less time attacking many small businesses at once.
I need some advice. VTel has sent around a holiday offer. One level of their service, the lowest, is 2GB of data per month for $10. They say that is equal to about 10 hours of internet usage after which download speed keeps diminishing. They didn’t want to tell me how much it diminishes. They’re answer was, ‘well, that’s when people usually upgrade.” My Fairpoint deal is $15/month, at a slow speed (750 kb/sec), but I can spend 100 hours a month on the net and notice nothing in terms of speed diminishing. In fact it seems that I can spend 24 hours a day on the net, or streaming, and the speed seems the same on the last day of the month as it was on the first.
In a quest for profit and automation, big tech companies are making mistakes that matter to people using their services. Some are small and annoying; others are more significant.
Some examples:
Turn on the Weather Channel in Brattleboro and you’ll be welcomed to Putney. Yes, Putney. The Weather Channel made a switch a year or so ago and decided that the big city in our region, right up there with Albany and Burlington, is Putney.
LinkedIn makes sure to tell everyone that employees in Brattleboro work in the Springfield area. Springfield, MA, that is. So helpful!
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