Though it's worth noting that Microsoft has a history of being particularly inept in implementing encryption. Best intentions, sadly, does not make for secure code.

+1

That all being said, going out and playing with some of the established tools, and reimplementing some classic models (or building models off of wet lab papers, or whatever) is going to build you up a great skill set, and make it a lot easier to find a lab position if you want to go that directon (either a paid one or a volunteer one, each has advantages).

I'm personally enough of a biologist to feel compelled to point out that a lot of what has been done in larger networks has diverged from biology in critical ways - some of it might be interesting in its own right, but it's not really neuroscience in any meaningful way.

Get a solid grounding in Neuroscience. (Kandell, Jessel and Schwartz, Principles of Neuronal Science, is the standard text, it's excellent, and highly torrented.) Please, please, please take some time to understand the variety and complexity of single neurons - they are way more complicated than many of the people who model systems with high numbers of neurons let on. Having a system with 100 billion simulated neurons means an awful lot less if the neurons themselves are shit.

Re-implement some classic systems from scratch. Yeah, I mean start with Hodgkin and Huxley, and build up from there. You will learn things from doing that yourself that you'll miss by just diving in with established tools. (And a lot of the established tools have issues.) Itzikevitch, Wilson, and Trautenburg are all favorites of mine off the top of my head. Strogatz is great as an introduction to dynamical systems.

I gotta agree with this.

You can do a lot on your own, and I personally don't see any reason why not to (unlikely a poster above, hey, if you write shitty code, I just won't use it - and it's not like there aren't plenty of neuroscientists writing shitty code because being a theorist doesn't make you a programmer.) But getting more exposure to other people's ideas and pointers to resources is going to do you a world of good. And you don't need much of a background if you have computer skills - people love volunteers.

I'd start looking at Itzekevich, and some of the more complex single neuron systems. (Partly because if you don't understand these, you're unlikely to understand a lot of the reasons why simpler neuron models with a lot more neurons are often a lot less useful than people want them to be.)

Have to run and teach a class, will try to get back to this later.

Actually, no. Even among people with health insurance, our outcomes are worse. Our tech is great. Our doctors are very well trained. That's not all that goes in to quality health care.

...and our outcomes are worse.

And biochar is fertilizer *nods earnestly* (Though to be fair, for a popular article that bit at least might be a fine hair to split.)

My guess is the claim of carbon negativity is that they're sequestering more carbon than they're releasing. (I have no idea if this is true.)

And this is why it's important to understand that while biochar improves soil fertility, it is not fertilizer, and is a viable long term form of carbon sequestration.

Using biochar as a soil amendment does seem, at least in some environments* to sequester carbon for the long term. But I suspect that you are correct that whether this is carbon negative is largely a definitional thing.

* And maintaining soil fertility in tropical climes has historically been particularly difficult. Heck maintaining soil fertility anywhere has been problematic.

Well, modern, except that it seems to have been done widely in the Amazon in precolumbian times.

Slash and burn as practice more recently seems to be a more recent degraded form of the same, under pressure.

*laughs* I was just linking to those above, having not seen yours.

The points that aren't being stressed here is that the biochar sequesters a significant amount of carbon in the soil for the long term, and can significantly improves soil structure and nutrient availability. (It's not a fertilizer, though for a popular article I guess that might be a fine hair to split.) The terms to look up are biochar and terra preta.

I would still prefer to see their numbers, as whether they're "carbon" negative is almost certainly a matter of definition. My guess would be that they're sequestering more carbon than they're releasing into the atmosphere... which is at least arguable. Though only if they've made arrangments to dispose of their biochar in an appropriate way.

It's not exactly fertilizer, though I'd consider that an acceptable shorthand for a popular piece. Adding charcoal to soil can both improve nutrient availability and long term soil structure. (I'm including two link,s biochar being the general concept, and terra preta being a particularly interesting historical example.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biochar
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_preta

Actually, a lot of these you totally can test at home if you're willing to do the upfront costs for equipment.

Not only is this statement sexist drivel, in fact, they have established she would... oh yeah, *write a blog post* for money. If he had named a price, and she had indicated it would be sufficient, further negotiations might be quibbling about the price. It didn't get even that far.

Considering that any time a woman is raped some men (and more occasionally women) have to jump up and say she was lying? Not impressed. I suspect this say more about you than anyone else.

(Yes, women occasionally lie about being raped. At about the same rate as people lie about being the victims of other crimes.)