A.C. Flory's Blog, page 12

Reverse Diabetes?

I just stumbled on this New Atlas article about research that promises to change diabetes forever:

‘Scientists have tested a new drug therapy in diabetic mice, and found that it boosted insulin-producing cells by 700% over three months, effectively reversing their disease.’

‘The researchers tested the therapy in mouse models of type 1 and 2 diabetes. First they implanted a small amount of human beta cells into the mice, then treated them with harmine and GLP1 receptor agonists. Sure enough, the beta cells increased in number by 700% within three months of the treatment. The signs of the disease quickly reversed, and stayed that way even a month after stopping the treatment.’

https://newatlas.com/medical/diabetes-reversing-drug-boosts-insulin-producing-cells/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=ff8b0b403a-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_07_15_11_33&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-ff8b0b403a-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

From mice to humans is a big step, but it’s a step that may change the lives of diabetics in the not too distant future. Fingers crossed.

cheers,
Meeks

Is America Socialist?

As an Australian who enjoys many of the social safety nets NOT available to ordinary Americans, I found this short, fun video by Robert Reich, to be eye opening.

11 days of annual leave? That’s nuts. We get 4 weeks!

Co-incidentally, Australia happens to be one of the strongest democracies in the world…precisely because we believe that everyone deserves a fair go. Not as charity. Not as some kind of privilege, but as a right.

We ‘pay’ for that right by having to vote, whether we feel like it or not. That means our voting system takes account of everyone in Australia, not just those who shout the loudest. Our extremes are less extreme…because they are moderated by ordinary people who just want to live life quietly, hurting no-one, and being good people.

We are rewarded for being good people by our political system. Not punished.

Have a great weekend,
Meeks

What the future of America might have been if…

Laurie Boris is one of my all-time-absolutely-favourite Indie authors, and while she usually writes contemporary fiction with loads of heart, and sometimes humour, this short story is scifi of the very best kind. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Cheers, Meeks

A Republic, if You Can Keep It

Tech woes, again

My nine year old pc hasn’t died, yet, but since upgrading the operating system to Windows 10, it’s become really, really slow. Every time I want to save a complex vector graphic, I have to manually clear the clipboard and the Temp folder or the system hangs. Part of the blame rests with CorelDraw X8 which doesn’t clear its $hit out fast enough, but most of the blame rests with Windows 10 which is an absolute resource hog.

To cut a long story short[er], I didn’t know what to do about my tech woes until a friend suggested getting a refurbished computer.

What? Apparently, these are second hand pc’s that have been traded in when people buy a new system. The techs check them out, fix whatever’s wrong and on sell them, like a second hand car. I didn’t even know there was such a thing!

Of course, finding a good refurbished pc that I could afford still wasn’t easy, especially as they all came with Windows 11 and Intel cpu’s. I won’t touch Win11 with a ten foot pole, and I’ve been an AMD girl since the year dot… -cough-

None of that is important because… <> …Abraham*, my wonderful local tech guy came to my rescue with a refurbished pc that I knew I could trust. AND…it has an AMD cpu and 16GB of RAM, meaning it’s everything I could want… at a price I can afford, more or less.

Could I be more happy? Well, yes, I’d prefer not to have to go through the misery of setting up a new computer and reinstalling all my most important applications, but at least when I’m done, I’ll end up with a pc that will last me another nine years.

So, I’m going to be a busy girl for a while. If I don’t comment on your posts, please don’t think I’m ignoring you. I’ll catch up once the new pc is up and running properly. Until then, take care and have a great weekend.

cheers,
Meeks

Abraham at OneTouch Computers
Ph:03 9431 4188
9A/38 Bridge St, Eltham VIC, 3095

Sunday Update

I’ve had a fabulous weekend so I thought I’d do a show and tell.

First up:

Edible bread! See? Fluffy on the inside, crunchy on the outside. -dance-

Ever since Covid began, I’ve envied all those people who proudly displayed their homemade bread. Mine was always a flop. Now, almost five years later, I finally managed to bake something good enough to eat. So happy.

Next: we haz a freezer! I’ve only just started putting food into it so I’ll post a pic once it’s nice and full.

Last, but not least, a project that has been bugging me since Anonymole fed one of my Tukti pics into an AI, and a short video came out the other end. The first second or so caught Little Miss’ expression beautifully. The last couple of seconds were terrible, but the seed had been planted: could I do something better?

Ever since then I’ve been playing around with the old fashioned way of creating animations whereby you create a sequence of images and flip through them fast enough to make the character look as if it’s actually moving. This video shows the making of a flip book:

This is my take on the flip book using CorelDraw, vector graphics, and stop motion animation:

My handmade effort is a long, long way from perfect, but those five seconds took a huge amount of work so I’m not going to be too hard on myself. I managed to bring Missy to life, just for a moment or two, and I’m counting that a success.

Hope you’ve all had a fabulous weekend too.

Cheers,
Meeks

Mastercard’s stupid algorithm

I’ll start this post by saying that my beloved, 35 year old freezer finally died a couple of weeks ago. As we are still in protective self-isolation, food shopping is not easy, so we need a freezer to ‘eat out of’. Ergo, we had to get a new one.

No problem, right?

Wrong.

Despite having more than enough money on my Mastercard [debit not credit], the transaction was refused.

What the…???

When I rang the bank, I was told that my payment was blocked because an automated system thought it was a scam. I wasn’t impressed but the customer service person from the bank put it through, and then it was just a case of waiting for the stock to come in.

Two weeks of misery later, the freezer finally arrived yesterday. Yay! The Offspring and I wrestled it out of its box only to find that there was a whopping big dent in the top of the door. We are going to get a refund, so I can’t complain about that, but we are still without a freezer so first thing this morning I went online looking for a retailer who actually had the freezer in stock.

Eureka! The Good Guys had it and they could deliver tomorrow. I grabbed my trusty Mastercard and tried to pay. Transaction refused. What? Again?

An hour and a half later I finally managed to get through to the bank and was told that both Mastercard and Visa now have this algorithm that checks your transaction history, and if it sees an ‘uncharacteristic’ transaction it automatically blocks it.

Guess who only spends money on groceries?

Yup. Apparently because I don’t buy $600 freezers every week, I must be a scammer…

I’m calm now, but earlier today I was shouting into the phone with fury. This was my money we’re talking about, not Mastercard’s money. Not credit. My money. Sitting in my bank account.

Stupid, effing algorithm.

If Mastercard and Visa intend to use these algorithms to prevent scams, then they must also put in place checks and balances to ensure that genuine customers are not humiliated the way I was, twice. One simple way would be to send an SMS to the phone of the person who owns the account. “Did you just make XX transaction?” If ‘Yes’ then the transaction would go ahead. If ‘No’ then it would be blocked.

But no, that’s far too sensible. Instead, Mastercard takes the lazy option and simply blocks any transaction that’s ‘out of character’. -bangs head on keyboard- No human involved. No looking at context. No checks.

And the worst part? The worst part is that this is going to happen again, the next time I make an ‘uncharacteristic’ purchase.

Stupid effing algorithm, and stupid *** Mastercard for putting such a useless security protection in place.

To be honest, I’m this close to taking the scissors to my useless Mastercard. The only reason I don’t is because a normal debit card from the bank can only be used in Australia. If I want to buy anything from an overseas supplier, I have to have a card that is recognized overseas. And that means either Mastercard or Visa. And both companies use this stupid…. -cough-

Welcome to the brave new world of AI. Not happy, Mastercard, not happy at all.

Meeks

Is there a place for AI in creativity?

Friend, author and blogger, Audrey Driscoll, recently used AI narration to create audiobooks of two of her novels. In this post, Audrey looks at some of the issues involved.

It’s a thought provoking post because in recent months? – can it only be months? – AI has blurred the lines between simple, dumb tool, and human-replacement tool. It’s a question we all have to grapple with, and I highly recommend reading all of Audrey’s posts on AI narration.

Thoughts on AI-narrated Audiobooks

cheers,
Meeks

Colorectal Cancer…a possible cure!

Having had cancer [a different one] myself, and having lost friends to cancer, I’m always on the lookout for research that offers hope to those with cancer. And this may be it:

https://newatlas.com/medical/colorectal-cancer-dostarlimab-gxly/

‘In what researchers have called an “unprecedented” response, a new drug that treats locally advanced rectal cancer has shown to have completely eradicated tumors in all 42 patients who took part in the Phase II trial.

The drug, Jemperli (dostarlimab-gxly),…is a hugely promising first-line treatment option, bypassing the need for chemotherapy and radiation. Right now, while traditional treatment is effective, it’s incredibly invasive and impacts long-term quality of life. And ultimately, a third of patients will see their cancer metastasize and become terminal.’

Those results were for one, particular type of colorectal cancer, but the good news doesn’t stop there:

‘Last year, the drug was approved by the FDA as a complementary treatment alongside chemotherapy for endometrial cancer. The pharmaceutical company behind Jemperli, GSK, will now undertake studies on other types of colorectal cancers, hoping for similar impactful results.’

I know these results are in their early stages, but if you, or someone you know, is living with colorectal cancer, there is hope. Hang in there!

And last but not least, apologies for the eye-watering quotes. Due to the issues I’ve been having with the block Quote, I’ve gone back to the old fashioned way of showing quotes. Due to the importance of these particular quotes, I wanted them to really stand out.

Have a great weekend, everyone!

-hugs-
Meeks

Small Modular Nuclear Reactors – not so great

This is a topical post for Australian readers as our Conservative party [LNP] is busy spruiking* nuclear reactors as a ‘better’ alternative to climate change than renewables. They say that the new SMRs [Small Modular Reactors] are far better than the old large scale reactors in every sense – cost, time and output.

According to a report by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) entitled: ‘”Small Modular Reactors: Still Too Expensive, Too Slow, and Too Risky”, the few small reactors built or being built suffer from the same problems as the large ones:

‘The cost of … all three SMRs currently operating (plus one now being completed in Argentina) went way over budget, as this graph shows.’ https://newatlas.com/energy/modular-nuclear-reactors/

I love visual data so here are some of the most eye popping graphs from the report:

The dotted line at the ‘100%’ mark is what they thought the SMR would cost to build. The biiiiig yellow columns show how much more they ended up costing. The one in Argentina [not complete] has already notched up costs 700% more than expected.

And here’s another graph. This one shows the time overruns:

The small, pale grey columns represent how long they thought the SMR’s would take to build. The whopping big dark columns are how long they actually took to build.

And, of course, as with any new technology, an unforeseen problem could easily have long reaching safety repercussions. And that is why no one here in Australia wants a nuclear reactor in their suburb, or anywhere near their suburb.

But risks aside, this is the most telling conclusion from the report:

‘”At least 375,000 MW of NEW RENEWABLE ENERGY generating capacity is likely to be added to the US grid in the next seven years,” they say. “By contrast, IEEFA believes it is highly unlikely any SMRs will be brought online in that same time frame. The comparison couldn’t be clearer. Regulators, utilities, investors and government officials should acknowledge this and embrace the available reality: Renewables are the near-term solution.” https://newatlas.com/energy/modular-nuclear-reactors/

The bold caps and underline are mine. I put them in there because it took two reads for the significance of those numbers to sink in, and I wanted to make sure that everyone ‘gets it’ too.

Honestly, the contrast between wishful thinking, and actual, achievable reality is stark. I don’t know why the LNP is spruiking this technology, but it belongs in La La Land.

cheers,
Meeks

Spruiking: Australian slang meaning to talk up something – e.g. a used car salesman spruiking a car despite knowing it’s full of rust.

Stem cell based ‘wetware’ for biocomputing

Back in February, 2022, I posted an article on wetware that talked about research into the creation of artificial muscle and sensory nerves. Two years later, this New Atlas article describes the creation of a cyborg type system that is:

‘… running up to four living human brain organoids wired into silicon chips.’ https://newatlas.com/computers/finalspark-bio-computers-brain-organoids/

The organoids ‘…comprising about 10,000 living neurons are grown from stem cells. These little balls, about 0.5 mm (0.02 in) in diameter, are kept in incubators at around body temperature, supplied with water and nutrients and protected from bacterial or viral contamination, and they’re wired into an electrical circuit with a series of tiny electrodes.’ https://newatlas.com/computers/finalspark-bio-computers-brain-organoids/

Swiss company – FinalSpark – has already created this biocomputer, and it is open for business:

In case you don’t want to read the New Atlas article, the reason for creating a biocomputer was to reduce the energy consumption of AI which is already having an impact on the environment. Climate change aside, this translates into cheaper computing because ‘…AI training methods burn colossal amounts of energy to learn, but the human brain sips just 20 W.’ https://newatlas.com/computers/finalspark-bio-computers-brain-organoids/

So, using human brain organoids would reduce the impact of AI/robots on the environment, that’s good, right?

But what about the ethical and moral cost of doing so?

This is a link to an article tracing the evolution and history of stem cell research and development: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8105090/ There is a fine distinction made between two different types of stem cells:

‘…pluripotent and omnipotent stem cells is seen as ethically crucial in medicine’s science. After the complete development of the pluripotent stem cells, there is the possible evolution of them towards complete and equal organisms such as the embryo of origin..’ In other words, a complete human being.

The New Atlas article doesn’t specify what kind of stem cells were used by FinalSpark to create their organoids, but I find it hard to reconcile slaving any kind of human brain tissue to a computer. Yet, if this ‘product’ really does reduce energy consumption, and hence the cost of running AI, I can’t see how the corporations that currently control AI development will be able to resist the increase in their profits.

But wait, the truly disturbing part is that the biocomputer developed by FinalSpark is being ‘trained’ via the use of dopamine. https://newatlas.com/computers/finalspark-bio-computers-brain-organoids/

For those who don’t know:

Dopamine is part of your reward system. This system is designed, from an evolutionary standpoint, to reward you when you’re doing the things you need to do to survive — eat, drink, compete to survive and reproduce. As humans, our brains are hard-wired to seek out behaviors that release dopamine in our reward system. When you’re doing something pleasurable, your brain releases a large amount of dopamine. You feel good and you seek more of that feeling.’ https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22581-dopamine

But where there is pleasure there must also be pain – all carrot and no stick doesn’t work very well.

So, these little brain organoids are trained using the same pleasure/pain process that works for you and me. But, of course, they’re not really people…are they?

Knowing how the human brain works, I have never believed that the current crop of AI [sic] will ever become sentient. But…if this humanizing process of AI continues, and increases, where exactly will the wetware part stop?

With close to 9 billion humans already on the planet, the only justification for trying to create your own is if that creation becomes ‘super human’. But which part of humanity will this superhuman exhibit? The empathic, caring side? Or the sociopathic, self-centred side?

I’m afraid I know the answer to those questions, and it ain’t pretty.

Meeks

p.s. What I don’t know is how to turn the bloody block quote OFF. When I use it a lot, as in this post, WordPress chucks a wobbly and makes all subsequent paragraphs into block quotes as well. Getting so sick of this.