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Comment Re:Consciousness is not the same thing as free wil (Score 1) 285

You are talking about Incompatibilism and the notion of Free Will as constrained by Hard Determinism (aka Physics/Destiny/God's Plan). They are using the term more on the Compatiblism side, where the key part of Free Will has more to do with the Choices made by an individual based on their own internal motivations (absent external hindrances from individuals and/or institutions). It's one of the more sticky aspects of the philosophic debate of Free Will, because folks often arent operating on the same definition. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Submission + - FDA Finally Approves Cavity-Fighting Liquid That Lets Kids Avoid Dentists' Drill

Submitted by HughPickens.com
HughPickens.com writes: Catherine Saint Louis writes in the NYT that silver diamine fluoride, available in Japan for decades, has now arrived in the United States after Food and Drug Administration cleared SDF for use as a tooth desensitizer for adults 21 and older. Studies show SDF can halt the progression of cavities and prevent them, and dentists are increasingly using it off-label for those purposes. “The upside, the great one, is you don’t need to drill and you don’t need an injection,” says Dr. Margherita Fontana. SDF is already used in hundreds of dental offices and and at least 18 dental schools have started teaching the next generation of pediatric dentists how to use it. “Being able to paint it on in 30 seconds with no noise, no drilling, is better, faster, cheaper," says Dr. Richard Niederman. "I would encourage parents to ask for it. It’s less trauma for the kid.” In Japan, Australia, Argentina and other nations, dentists have been placing SDF on caries lesions for more than 80 years. The value of silver ions to treat tooth decay has been known in this country for well over a century. Silver nitrate was commonly used by the forefathers of modern dentistry. When applied every six months, silver diamine fluoride arrests more than 90% of caries. In children, applying silver diamine fluoride on active lesions once per year prevents caries in other teeth better than fluoride varnish placed four times per year on all surfaces. Fillings, by contrast, do not cure an oral infection. Bacterial infections also cause acne, but a “dermatologist doesn’t take a scalpel and cut off your pimples,” says Dr. Jason Hirsch. Yet “that’s how dentistry has approached cavities.”

Comment Re:Android version (Score 1) 109

by Quantus347 (#52499319) Attached to: Pokemon Go Was Never Able To Read Your Email
The patch that hit this afternoon appears to have added push notifications to the mix, so that may alleviate the issue somewhat.

The wristwatch Pokemon Go Plus has a button on it so that (supposedly) you can catch them, activate Pokestops, etc without having to interact with your phone at all.

Granted, it does seem like the sort of function that would be right smack in the wheelhouse of a Smartwatch, so hopefully they release a smartwatch app to mimic it. But for those of us that like the function but dont want to drop the cash for an actual smartwatch, a $35 dedicated device isnt entirety useless.

Comment Re:This story is garbage (Score 1) 109

by Quantus347 (#52498877) Attached to: Pokemon Go Was Never Able To Read Your Email
Not sure they have that freedom. This was only an issue on the iOS version, not the Android version, and Im assuming that iOS has a different relationship with Google Product permissions. And while Niantic started off as an internal Google startup project, they've since been spun off as their own entity. The change would have to be on Google's side. That being said, your are right in that all of this could have easily been avoided if Google had more accurately named the Permission level, and given a more detailed description of what it could and could not grant to a 3rd party app in it's Help/FAQ.

Comment Re:A much more serious problem... (Score 1) 141

Fortunately the only underage children I've come across playing it were with their mother, who was also playing. She's actually the one that struck up the conversation. It probably helped that we were in the parking lot of the local police station, which has 3 Pokestops (all had Lures going) so a crowd of us were camped and feeling relatively safe.

Comment Re:I don't understand these warnings. (Score 3, Informative) 141

There is a "Nearby" readout that tells you what's close, and it operates on a 0-3 footprint scale. It's essentially a hot/cold game, so you can triangulate enough to work out the proper direction and relative distance until it does actually appear. There is also the fact that they appear in close to the same spot for everyone (within a certain time window) so if somebody else spotted one down a given dark alley, odds are you will too.

Comment Re:This story is garbage (Score 4, Informative) 109

by Quantus347 (#52496495) Attached to: Pokemon Go Was Never Able To Read Your Email
The App had more access than they needed or intended, and more than the Android equivalent. However, it did not have the capabilities that were originally reported. The original blog post that started this sh#t-storm stated that the app could things like "Read all your email, Send email as you, Access all your Google drive documents (including deleting them)[...]" none of which was ever true. The blogger further admitted he'd never actually worked with the google permissions or tested this, and was just inferring (read: being a bit of an alarmist) based on a general description from the Google help page.

So yes, the iOS version of the App can do more than it needs to, and that permissions discrepancy has been added to the long list of things that need to be fixed on this still very young and rather buggy game. But No, the App could never do much of what it was being accused of doing.

Submission + - Two anti-fracking/anti-oil industry environmental papers retracted (retractionwatch.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Two environmental papers, one claiming increased air pollution near fracking sites and the second claiming that the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused air contamination, have now both been retracted because of “crucial mistakes.”

According to the corresponding author of both papers, Kim Anderson at Oregon State University, the journal plans to publish new versions of both papers in the next few days. In the case of the fracking paper, the conclusions have been reversed — the original paper stated pollution levels exceeded limits set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for lifetime cancer risk, but the corrected data set the risks below EPA levels.

The fracking paper received some media attention when it was released, as it tapped into long-standing concerns about the environmental dangers of hydraulic fracturing (fracking), which extracts natural gas from the earth. A press release that accompanied the paper quoted Anderson as warning: “Air pollution from fracking operations may pose an under-recognized health hazard to people living near them.”

Both papers, published in Environmental Science and Technology, were retracted on the same day (June 29), both due to mistakes in reported levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), pollutants released from burning oil, gas, and other organic matter.

They say that the errors were due to an “honest spreadsheet error.”

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