Interesting Links for 29-07-2022

[andrewducker]

1. It's Not Just Loot Boxes: Predatory Monetization Is Everywhere in Gaming

(tags:games money gambling )

2. AlphaFold reveals the structure of the protein universe

(tags:biology protein ai )

3. Drought and disease exposure led to Europeans adapting to milk consumption

(tags:milk evolution humans europe )

4. The Fallout From Apple's Bizarre, Dogged Union-Busting Campaign

(tags:apple unions OhForFucksSake )

5. Why Google Sued the Descendants of a Railroad Tycoon and a Civil War General (tiny plots of land in inconvenient places)

(tags:google property law )

6. Typical UK families are £8,800 poorer than their counterparts in comparable countries

(tags:inequality uk OhForFucksSake )

7. Keir Starmer has shown his true colours as a pound-shop Blair, reheating Tory dogma about unions

(tags:unions labour politics uk OhForFucksSake )

8. Putin's occupation of Ukraine falters as bankers, doctors and metal workers boycott key jobs

(tags:russia ukraine )

9. The French Data Protection Commission bans Google Analytics

(tags:france dataprotection europe )

10. UK's only gender identity clinic for children is being replaced by eight of them

(tags:LGBT transgender youth children healthcare )

11. Scientists reanimate dead spiders as robot gripping claws

(tags:spiders death technology cyborg )

12. Edinburgh Council wants to know what you think about the licensing of short term rental accommodation

(tags:Edinburgh housing rental viaDanielDWilliam )

13. A poem about science fiction authors by CS Lewis

(tags:CSLewis poetry scifi )

14. Upscaling and an Important Note About Photo "AI"

(tags:photos photoshop ai )

Comments

[zz]

> 12. Edinburgh Council wants to know what you think about the licensing of short term rental accommodation

ugh, choosing between edinburgh council and airbnb is like deciding which flavour of shit to have for dinner.

[movingfinger]

13. Pot, kettle, black, Lewis.

[channelpenguin]

2. Martin Jones, ex-Lounger, did protein-folding prediction program as his PhD in the early 90s @ Aberdeen. I'm not sure if it's needed 30 further years of tech for AlphaFold, or if that was ground-up more recently, or we could have been there sooner if Martin's work had continued.

(He also did predictive text as his final year project in 88-89 - thought it had few uses, maybe for disabled people).

[andrewducker]

The size of the datasets for these things and the amount of processing power they've needed is just ridiculously immense. I don't think there was enough processing power on the planet back then.