Eight people who have worked with Nobel laureate Katalin Karikó allege that the University of Pennsylvania consistently mishandled her and ignored her landmark studies on mRNA technology.
Despite Karikó's essential contributions to science, including her role in developing COVID-19 vaccines, she faced skepticism, funding obstacles, and refusal of acknowledgement from Penn's administration, resulting in her departure to BioNTech in Germany.
Karikó's experiences underscore the necessity for reform in how academic funding is distributed and recognition of talented scientists is provided.
The article tackles various pervasive issues within academia, including misapprehension of a key scientist in COVID-19 vaccine development, problematic grant funding, overhead costs, and bureaucratic hiring.
It discusses the influence of administrators in universities, financial burdens for graduate students, manipulation of grant funds by universities, and flaws in academic metrics, illustrating the stress associated with securing funding.
It also addresses discrepancies among faculty and staff, financial maladministration, concerns about academic quality, missed opportunities, and a case of poorly handled medical trial by a pharmaceutical firm.
The author criticizes Twitter's shift towards encouraging content specifically designed for engagement instead of fostering authentic communication.
They suggest that the pursuit of growth and popularity on Twitter often leads to inauthentic interactions and content.
The professionalization of Twitter and the migration of some users to other platforms is indicated, with the author expressing they might leave Twitter if not for its career and business benefits.
The discussion centers on the decreased authenticity on social media platforms, especially Twitter, and the detrimental effect on user engagement and meaningful conversations.
Participants are concerned about clickbait, algorithm-driven content, influencers, monetization practices, misinformation spread, and the lack of regulation, which all obstruct genuine content visibility.
The conversation advocates for restoring authenticity and purposeful interactions on social media, exploring alternatives like private groups or other platforms, and questioning the challenges in defining and maintaining authenticity in different social contexts due to technology's influence.
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The summary focuses on the rising concerns and discourse on the use of leaded fuel (avgas) in aviation, emphasizing the environmental and health hazards it presents.
It acknowledges the challenges involved in transitioning to unleaded fuel, such as the slow regulatory process and limited availability of alternatives.
Debates are ongoing about the impact of regulations, the priorities of FAA, and concerns over the increased cost and limited access to unleaded fuel.
The article lays out eleven key lessons Google has derived from two decades of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE), stemming from incidents and outages in platforms like YouTube and Google Calendar.
Some noteworthy lessons include the need for scaling mitigation efforts based on outage severity, the implementation of canary testing and a "Big Red Button" for crises, the significance of integration testing, and the need for backup communication channels.
Other crucial lessons include establishing degraded performance modes, automating mitigations, minimizing time between rollouts, and eliminating single points of failure to increase disaster resilience, and recovery.
This Hacker News thread discusses the multifaceted role of Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) and software development.
Topics include the importance of backup communication channels, dedicated SRE teams, prevention strategies for outages and bugs, and testing recovery mechanisms before emergencies.
Discussion participants share experiences and opinions, illuminating the evolving nature of SRE roles within the technology industry.
A new browser engine named goose.icu, developed in JavaScript primarily for educational and enjoyment purposes, is now available but may not be compatible with most sites.
The developer supports open-source learning by sharing the source code of goose.icu, inviting others to explore, learn from, and discover intriguing aspects of its design.
The project challenges the conventional perception that creating a new browser engine is an enormous, if not impossible task.
The discussion covers multiple topics including browser engines, ad blocking, advertising ethics, WebAssembly, and limitations of browsers.
There is a debate about the potential cessation of high-quality free services and the implications of advertising on individuals.
It highlights user experience with qutebrowser, focusing on its minimal GUI (Graphical User Interface) and keyboard-centric design, and explores the risks and benefits of WebAssembly.
The individual has moved to India temporarily due to family medical needs and relies on online services for cost-saving but is facing difficulties due to anti-fraud measures and account restrictions.
They are frustrated with the complexities of tasks that should be straightforward, such as downloading region-specific apps and are disappointed by companies' indifferent attitudes.
The person perceives that product design is primarily aimed at benefiting stakeholders and governments, leading to user frustration and dissatisfaction.
Individuals are experiencing difficulties with online services and international financial transactions such as unreliable fraud detection systems and limiting security measures.
There are also issues with access restrictions, discrimination in hiring, international transactions, and cultural and regulatory barriers, calling for improved payment systems, security, and regulations.
Participants share personal experiences, suggesting alternatives and workarounds to minimise these challenges.
The article discusses SQLite's suitability as a web application database, underscoring features like zero latency, embedded deployment, multi-instance replication, scalability, and simplified development and testing process.
Despite its limitations like the absence of support for subscriptions, external client connections, specific plugins like TimescaleDB, and enums, SQLite is often favored.
Conclusively, SQLite is viewed as a strong choice for many web developers due to its performance, user-friendliness, and cost-effectiveness.
The main topic of discussion revolves around using SQLite for app development, its strengths, and shortcomings compared to other database solutions like PostgreSQL.
Participants share their experiences and opinions on SQLite, considering factors such as scalability, user-friendliness, operational limitations, and the need for web scalability.
The suitability of SQLite is debated among participants, with some suggesting alternative databases and others finding SQLite appropriate for certain use cases. The consensus reveals the choice depends largely on the project needs and constraints.
Consumer Reports tested various chocolate and chocolate-containing products, finding that 16 exceeded their safety levels for heavy metals like lead and cadmium.
Dark chocolate bars, hot chocolate mixes, and certain brownie/cake mixes were identified as products that typically had higher levels of these heavy metals compared to milk chocolate bars.
The report advised consumers to limit consumption of such products, to choose ones with lower contamination levels, and manufacturers to source from areas with lesser contamination, while also suggesting regular testing and rejection of contaminated lots.
A recent study indicates that one-third of chocolate products have high levels of heavy metals like lead and cadmium, traced back to the soils where cacao beans are grown.
Major chocolate companies usually test for heavy metals, whereas smaller ones procure beans from superior quality distributors; California in particular has stricter guidelines for acceptable levels of heavy metals in food.
There is ongoing debate about the health risks of consuming these metals in chocolate products, and whether precautionary measures should be imposed to minimize those risks.
The illustrator has developed a fully-managed data warehouse, ScratchDB, based on Clickhouse, aiming to streamline the process of maintaining an OLAP (Online Analytical Processing) database in production and enhance developer experience.
ScratchDB autonomously generates tables and columns based on JSON structures, manages data streaming and bulk loading, and automatically takes care of shards and replicas. It can operate on regular servers and has already processed large volumes of data.
ScratchDB is open-source, but there's also a paid hosted version. The developer is currently seeking feedback on analytical databases and ways to enhance developer experience.
ScratchDB, an open-source data warehouse, significantly improves the developer experience by automating multiple tasks, handling 4,000 requests per second and managing 2 TB of data with remarkably low server costs.
The author differentiates ScratchDB from other projects, emphasizing the prominence of open-source software and practical infrastructure selections, like Hetzner, for cost efficiency.
The author's goal is to simplify developers' interaction with columnar data and encourages feedback for the continuous improvement of the project.
The article provides a guide on how to use a latent consistency model (LCM) - based on Stable Diffusion - to generate images quickly on a Mac within 4 to 8 steps.
It offers detailed instructions for setting up Python, cloning the LCM script from Github, and installing necessary dependencies to successfully run the script.
It concludes with advice for troubleshooting and further exploration, recommending that readers seek help on Discord and browse the Github repository for more information.
The latent consistency model enables Mac users to quickly generate images, although initial start-up times and weight-loading from disk could affect performance.
Suggestions have been made regarding optimization of this model specifically for Mac laptops, but concerns have been raised about image quality.
Other discussion points include removal of a safety checker for local usage, comparison of Apple's M series Macs' performance with rival devices, and considerations such as power usage, cooling, and software availability on Windows and Linux platforms.
NASA has introduced a novel antenna design, the Large Balloon Reflector (LBR), which employs an inflatable device to facilitate wide collection apertures.
The LBR, backed by NASA's Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) program, is notable for its light weight and compact foldability, enabling easier deployment in space.
Tested on a stratospheric balloon already, the LBR will soon undergo trials on a CubeSat in low Earth orbit, indicating potential usage for lunar and deep-space missions.
NASA has devised a Large Balloon Reflector antenna design with the potential to transform space telescopes and satellite communication, though it presents some challenges.
Inflatable antennas with spherical reflectors are being developed, offering a broader field of view, lightweight, and easy deployment with applications both in space and on Earth.
NASA's NIAC program is investing in research on an inflatable sphere antenna for inter-vehicle communication, with an emphasis on its durability against debris.
A Microsoft fault or potential external attack has impaired email communication within the climate change community, especially involving emails that include the NewClimate URL.
While the email blocking issue has been partially addressed, PDF attachments with the NewClimate URL are still blocked, and recovery of lost emails remains uncertain. This impacts various governmental and non-governmental climate organizations.
Microsoft engineers are actively working on the issue, but the underlying cause is undetermined, and the emails lost in previous weeks might be irrecoverable. This situation could potentially impact preparations for COP28.
Microsoft's Outlook 365 email service is blocking emails referencing the website newclimate.org, causing disruptions for climate change organizations, including hindering the dissemination of important reports.
While the website is not officially blacklisted by Microsoft, the company allows individual organizations to unblock it for their use, raising questions about autonomous censorship controls.
Despite dismissals of intentional targeting or compromised infrastructure, the incident has sparked concerns over big tech companies' potential influence over information dissemination, prompting users to question the extent to which these firms can control or suppress information.
During the US v. Google antitrust trial, it came to light that Google spent $26.3 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine on numerous browsers, phones, and platforms.
This expenditure represents approximately 16% of Google's search revenue and 29% of its profit, with a significant portion paid to Apple for default status in Safari.
The trial centres around the influence of defaults and the question of whether such significant spending to maintain default status impedes competition.
Google allocated $26.3 billion in 2021 to maintain its position as the default search engine, highlighting its dominance in the browser market and influence on mobile platforms.
Users expressed difficulties switching from Firefox to Chrome and adjusting default settings, alongside discussions on potential merits and downsides of using Kagi, an alternative search engine.
Concerns were raised about the anti-competitive nature of paying for default placements and its implications for consumers, sparked mainly by Google's payments to Apple for being the default search engine on Safari.
The discourse revolves around issues of eye strain associated with traditional monitors and the exploration of potential remedies.
Suggestions include adjusting monitor brightness to match ambient light – as commonly done on mobile screens and exploring the use of reflective LCD displays over the standard LCDs.
Other contributing factors to eye strain, such as color balance, backlight design, and personal sensitivities, require further investigation and experiment. Other factors discussed included monitor preferences, ergonomics, and how parental support influences young innovators.
There is a storage bug in Android 14's "multiple profiles" feature that causes data loss and restricts access to device storage, with impacts reminiscent of ransomware.
Initially reported on the Pixel 6, the bug seems to have broader implications, affecting a range of devices.
Criticism has targeted Google's silence and inaction, as the company has not yet acknowledged or assigned the bug for investigation despite over 350 replies on their issue tracker.
A bug in Android 14 is leading to user-profile data loss and bricked phones, with workarounds currently causing further data loss and necessitating a factory reset.
The bug's existence underlines the need for effective data backup and sows discontent among users regarding Android's backup options and Google's response to the problem.
Users are debating on control and customization on Android devices, including potential data loss risks, with GrapheneOS suggested as a potential solution; comparisons to ransomware are made, indicating a serious concern.