Rikers Island was not built to slow a pandemic. Buildings are decrepit, and the churn of guards and new inmates makes infectious diseases incredibly hard to contain. Over the past several weeks, Rikers has released more than 600 inmates in an attempt to lessen the public health threat posed by a Covid-19 outbreak in the jail complex. But it’s not clear that will be enough.
Guest: Rachael Bedard, senior director of geriatrics and complex care services at New York City’s jail complex on Rikers Island.
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Wiffle Balls are a lightweight alternative to baseballs, better suited for backyards then sports stadiums. The design of the Wiffle Ball guarantees you don't need a strong arm to throw a curve ball. But how does that happen? Engineering professor Jenn Stroud Rossman explains.
We interview Keri Blakinger, a reporter at The Marshall Project who covers prisons, on how jails and detention centers are managing release of inmates to prevent the spread of coronavirus, and how the urgent push to get people out is affecting former inmates.
Government officials say the coming two weeks could be the most difficult yet as some states approach their potential peaks for COVID-19. Other states have begun to ramp down. We discuss that as well as new demographic data that paints an early picture of who is disproportionately affected by the virus.
States all over America are mandating nonessential businesses close, which is forcing lawmakers to decide what businesses should and should not be deemed “essential.” In states like New York and Massachusetts, gun stores have already been told to close their doors. In Texas, on the other hand, the attorney general has said gun stores can remain open during the pandemic.
Cam Edwards, Editor of BrearingArms.Com, joins The Daily Signal podcast to explain why gun shops should be considered essential businesses and how the coronavirus has affected firearm sales.
Plus: we share an interview with Maj Toure, Founder of Black Guns Matter. He explains the mission of his organization and how communities can combat gun violence without restricting Second Amendment rights.
And be sure to check out the Faith on Facebook Resource Hub and find all the tools your church, small group, or Bible study can use to build community and stay connected during the coronavirus.
Where does the word 'Window' derive from? And what does it have to do with a Norwegian architectural historian and a bohemian Austrian poet? On a lyrical journey from death to inspiration, Anne Ulrikke Andersen takes a look through the windows in the life of Christian Norberg-Schulz.
James Ward introduces another curious talk about a subject that may seem boring, but is actually very interesting.... maybe.
Amy Lowell’s seductive flower poetry. A perfect example of the early 20th century Imagism movement in poetry. You can learn more about Amy Lowell at the Poetry Foundation.
Nigeria has seen a small number of Covid -19 cases, largely spread amongst the most affluent, people who travel abroad, However there is concern about the potential of the virus to spread to overcrowded slum areas. In such conditions social distancing measures would be difficult to enforce. What are the alternatives?
The US now has the majority of cases of the virus, New York has been heavily hit, medics have developed an app to help understand the spread of Covid 19 in the community.
The availability of test kits is an issue worldwide, we look at a novel idea, adapting a device made from paper that could help to see whether the virus is present in wastewater.
The WHO has launched international drug trials to tackle covid 19, but none of the drugs involved were developed specifically to target this virus we look at why they might just work.
In medicine, it’s long been recognised that a placebo, a sham medicine or treatment, can have a powerful positive effect on a patient’s health. Part of that effect relies on a person’s belief that an inactive substance or treatment (for example, a sugar pill) is in fact an active drug. Placebos come in many forms and the scientific study of placebo is an active area of research.
With this in mind, CrowdScience listener Nigel got in touch to ask if can placebos be used to improve sports performance? As an amateur sports enthusiast, he’s been reading up on his sports psychology to try and improve his game but he wonders if any coaches or psychologists use placebos to improve performance? Always ready to take up a challenge, presenter Anand Jagatia explores the world of endurance sport to find out how a placebo might used to improve athletes’ performances as well as his own and look at how advances in brain science are helping us understand the unusual neurobiology of placebo.
And what of the amateur golfer or rugby or table tennis player - can placebo help? On an individual level, so called ‘verbal placebo’ is a technique that can help players with anxiety, confidence and concentration, and ultimately make them win more. And what about team sports – when, say, a new manager takes over at an ailing football club, and sparks a massive reversal in poor results, is that placebo effect in action? The CrowdScience team investigates.
In Today's discussion we'll briefly talk about some of the knock-on, or second order affects which the coronavirus disruption is having on our world today, and which may continue into the future. Then for the meat of the show we'll dig into specific areas where bitcoin could, or perhaps is being improved with the creator of one of the most impactful peer to peer technologies live in the world today.
Shownotes for LTB! #433
Topic 1 - Second Order Impacts of Coronavirus Lockdowns
Social distancing and the revenge of the Hikikomori
It’s an extroverts world but we’re all introverts this month
The AOL moment for Zoom meetings and arguing the potato
Interpersonal compression, zoomers and enforced quality time
Will overall deaths go down because of pandemic lockdowns?
The end of “Bus Mode” for Lyft and Uber
Autonomous vehicles, grocery deliveries and the last mile problem
Tampons, cocktail sausages and a very weird month
This episode is sponsored by eToro
A friendly government delivery service?
Opportunities in sterilization and social changes that’ll last
Automated cleansing cycles and Far-UVC
Internet infrastructure, Netflix social signaling and the recycling dilemma
Masks, headphones and the changing standard of social isolation
TOPIC 2 - How the creator of BitTorrent thinks he’s created a less wasteful, more distributed, more secure approach to Nakamoto Consensus
Decentralized systems and the critical success of BitTorrent
Naming projects, vegetables and a list of grains
Proof of Space and Time
Warehouses of computers, competitive money burning and Keynesian stimulus
Proof of Work works and that’s a huge accomplishment, but could be better
Centralization, Nakamoto consensus and Proof of Stake
Moats and losing the battle with ASIC-hard consensus algorithms
“Grinding attacks” as the competitive strategy
Fundamental economics, storage capacity and the loophole
Airdrops for something over-resourced and under-provisioned
Losing money on buying “farming” hardware
The early days of bitcoin mining with CPUs
Power and CPUs, GPUs, FPGAs, and ASICs
Hard Drives ,hard drives, hard drives and hard drives
Storing data as proof, but not peoples data is like Proof of Work; the work isn’t useful, it’s just a measuring stick that doesn’t need your name or a long term commitment
Printing lottery tickets with ASICs vs. a hard drive full of bingo cards
Proofs of Space need Proofs of Time
Less wasteful by using an underutilized resource
More distributed because excess hard drive capacity is already distributed and there is no “ASIC” equivalent possible for hard drives. Just better or faster hard drives
More secure because less wasteful and more distributed equal better security in distributed consensus
Breaking, tweaking and proving proofs of time and space
Miners don’t run data centers
UTXOs, message passing on-chain programming environments and walking a fine line between Bitcoin and Ethereum
Rate limiting wallets and reversible paper wallets
Improving colored coins
Decentralized exchange doesn’t need decentralized exchanges
Farming, pre-farming, farming rewards and trailing emissions
Why pre-farm?
Is it viable to farm with AWS?
Carrying hundred dollar bills and Chia’s business model involves loaning Tokens To Large International Companies
Covenants replicate many banking system benefits without requiring banks or centralization
Complexity, Bitcoin Script and Protocol Level Improvements
This episode was sponsored by eToro.com, with music by Jared Rubens, Gurty Beats and Adam B. Levine. Today's show featured Bram Cohen, Andreas M. Antonopoulos, Stephanie Murphy, Jonathan Mohan and Adam B. Levine with editing by Jonas.
Interview with John W. Loftus. We discuss his newest book " The Case Against Miracles". John and several other writers explains why Miracles likely do not happen. John has several other books on religion: - Unapologetic - Christianity in the light of science - How to defend the christian faith: Advice from an Atheist - Christianity is NOT Great - God or Godless? - The Outsider Test for Faith - Why I became an Atheist - The end of Christianity - The Christian Delusion
