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Submission + - The Man Who Buried His Teacher (kitchencloset.com)

Submitted by gmezero
gmezero writes: Everything you know about the first AI winter is wrong. It was a hit job. Minsky learned from Pitts and McCulloch. Then he buried their field for twenty years. The same institutional pattern that shaped the first AI winter is running again today.

Comment Gateway Pundit, seriously? (Score 0, Troll) 214

by AndroidCat (#64326597) Attached to: Hertz CEO Resigns After Blowing Big Gamble On EVs
Good lord! Why would you use such an unreliable source like The Gateway Pundit? Even when they are accurate, they're stealing their articles from sites that actually employ journalists. The Gateway Pundit (TGP) is an American far-right[2] fake news website.[1] The website is known for publishing falsehoods, hoaxes, and conspiracy theories.[34]

Comment And who is saying this? (Score 1, Troll) 200

The Toronto Sun is part of Postmedia, an American-owned chain that exercises strong editorial control and is basically Fox North.

Canadian Civil Liberties Association seems legit, but the Canadian Constitution Foundation is part of the Koch Atlas network, slipping far-right American money into Canadian politics.

That doesn't mean that they're wrong, but what they say should be examined carefully for fish hooks.

Medicine

EPA Approved a Chevron Fuel Ingredient That Has a Lifetime Cancer Risk 121

Posted by BeauHD from the not-a-good-look dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from ProPublica: The Environmental Protection Agency approved a component of boat fuel made from discarded plastic that the agency's own risk formula determined was so hazardous, everyone exposed to the substance continually over a lifetime would be expected to develop cancer. Current and former EPA scientists said that threat level is unheard of. It is a million times higher than what the agency usually considers acceptable for new chemicals and six times worse than the risk of lung cancer from a lifetime of smoking. Federal law requires the EPA to conduct safety reviews before allowing new chemical products onto the market. If the agency finds that a substance causes unreasonable risk to health or the environment, the EPA is not allowed to approve it without first finding ways to reduce that risk. But the agency did not do that in this case. Instead, the EPA decided its scientists were overstating the risks and gave Chevron the go-ahead to make the new boat fuel ingredient at its refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Though the substance can poison air and contaminate water, EPA officials mandated no remedies other than requiring workers to wear gloves, records show.

ProPublica and the Guardian in February reported on the risks of other new plastic-based Chevron fuels that were also approved under an EPA program that the agency had touted as a "climate-friendly" way to boost alternatives to petroleum-based fuels. That story was based on an EPA consent order, a legally binding document the agency issues to address risks to health or the environment. In the Chevron consent order, the highest noted risk came from a jet fuel that was expected to create air pollution so toxic that 1 out of 4 people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer. In February, ProPublica and the Guardian asked the EPA for its scientists' risk assessment, which underpinned the consent order. The agency declined to provide it, so ProPublica requested it under the Freedom of Information Act. The 203-page risk assessment revealed that, for the boat fuel ingredient, there was a far higher risk that was not in the consent order. EPA scientists included figures that made it possible for ProPublica to calculate the lifetime cancer risk from breathing air pollution that comes from a boat engine burning the fuel. That calculation, which was confirmed by the EPA, came out to 1.3 in 1, meaning every person exposed to it over the course of a full lifetime would be expected to get cancer.

Another serious cancer risk associated with the boat fuel ingredient that was documented in the risk assessment was also missing from the consent order. For every 100 people who ate fish raised in water contaminated with that same product over a lifetime, seven would be expected to develop cancer -- a risk that's 70,000 times what the agency usually considers acceptable. When asked why it didn't include those sky-high risks in the consent order, the EPA acknowledged having made a mistake. This information "was inadvertently not included in the consent order," an agency spokesperson said in an email. [...] The risk assessment makes it clear that cancer is not the only problem. Some of the new fuels pose additional risks to infants, the document said, but the EPA didn't quantify the effects or do anything to limit those harms, and the agency wouldn't answer questions about them. Some of these newly approved toxic chemicals are expected to persist in nature and accumulate in living things, the risk assessment said. That combination is supposed to trigger additional restrictions under EPA policy, including prohibitions on releasing the chemicals into water. Yet the agency lists the risk from eating fish contaminated with several of the compounds, suggesting they are expected to get into water. When asked about this, an EPA spokesperson wrote that the agency's testing protocols for persistence, bioaccumulation and toxicity are "unsuitable for complex mixtures" and contended that these substances are similar to existing petroleum-based fuels. The EPA did address the concerns in June when it proposed a rule that "would require companies to contact the agency before making any of 18 fuels and related compounds listed in the Chevron consent order," notes ProPublica. "The EPA would then have the option of requiring tests to ensure that the oil used to create the new fuels doesn't contain unsafe contaminants often found in plastic, including certain flame retardants, heavy metals, dioxins and PFAS. If approved, the rule will require Chevron to undergo such a review before producing the fuels, according to the EPA."

Comment Re:90 startups being built by former Twitter emplo (Score 1) 273

> tech companies are especially hard

Wiring harnesses from some entity in China I only have email contact with. Steel sheet metal fab across the country that likely needs months to get my order in. Surprise tariffs on my embedded boards due to Trump's trade war on China. Failures on some of these boards that leave the HDMI displaying, but frozen, and even a serial connection stops responding, so I have no way to diagnose it and suddenly a bunch of support incidents where the box needs to be shipped back.

The tech piece of this is by far the easiest bit of the operation. I guess what I'm asking is, "hard, compared to what?"

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