Various web links I found to be of interest recently.
EQRx will focus on medicines still protected by patents; Borisy and his team aren't planning to develop generic drugs or biosimilars (he calls the company's future drugs "equivalars"). He wouldn't name specific drugs they plan to undercut, but said the company will take aim at products introduced over about the last five years, or which will hit the market in the next five. The goal is to get 10 drugs approved over the next decade.
And their planned prices? A fraction of those of competitor medicines, Borisy said -- about one-third to one-fifth of price tags now. He said it's possible because the industry's sky-high prices have left a lot of fat in the system. Cutting inefficiencies and focusing on areas where the biology is proven, Borisy said, will lead to a success rate of closer to one in two or three, versus the industry's current one in 10. And bringing lots of these "equivalars" to market, he said, will achieve the needed scale to be profitable.
Physicists face stagnation if they continue to treat the philosophy of science as a joke. Sabine Hossenfelder
The consequence has been that experiments in the foundations of physics
past the 1970s have only confirmed the already existing theories.
None found evidence of anything beyond what we already know.
...
And so, what we have here in the foundation of physics is a plain failure
of the scientific method. All these wrong predictions should have taught
physicists that just because they can write down equations for something
does not mean this math is a scientifically promising hypothesis.
String theory, supersymmetry, multiverses. There's math for it, alright.
Pretty math, even. But that doesn't mean this math describes reality.
But really -- in the end this just is not a plausible theory in my mind. I'm not ready to accept the ideas of quantum brains, quantum meanings, or quantum societies. The idea of entanglement has a specific meaning when it comes to electrons and photons; but metaphorical extension of the idea to pairs or groups of individuals seems like a stretch. I'm not persuaded that we are "walking wave functions" or that entanglement accounts for the workings of social institutions. The ideas of structures and meanings as entangled wave functions (individuals) strike me as entirely speculative, depending on granting the possibility that the brain itself is a single extended wave function. And this is a lot to grant.
For an alternative view listen to Julia Galef's Rationally Speaking podcast interview:An emerging theory takes principles from quantum physics and applies them to psychology.
Enter "quantum cognition," a new theory which suggests that the
mathematical principles behind quantum mechanics could be used
to better understand another notoriously inexplicable area of study:
human behavior.
...
"It's interesting-when we say something is irrational in decision-making,
it's because it's against what a classical probability-based decision
model should predict," says Zheng Joyce Wang, an associate professor
of communication at Ohio State University and a co-author on both papers.
"But humans don't behave in that way."
"Whenever something comes up that isn't consistent with classical theories, we often label it as 'irrational.' But from the perspective of quantum cognition, some findings aren't irrational anymore. They're consistent with quantum theory-and with how people really behave."
Developing clear thinking for the sake of humanity's future from the
Center for Applied Rationality (CFAR).
Russ Roberts castigates New York Times writer Binyamin Applebaum and others for blaming economists such as Milton Friedman and F.A. Hayek for our economic problems.
RadicalxChange aims to build a clear, coherent, and sustainable alternative to capitalism that embraces markets, egalitarianism, community, and decentralization.
It's about privacy, not marketshare
The mobile web is broken and unfettered tracking and data sharing have made visiting websites feel toxic, but since the ecosystem of websites and ad companies can't fix it through collective action, it falls on browser makers to use technological innovations to limit that surveillance, however each company that makes a browser is taking a different approach to creating those innovations, and everybody distrusts everybody else to act in the best interest of the web instead of the best interest of their employers' profits.
S.T.O.P. fights to end discriminatory surveillance. Our team challenges both individual misconduct and broader systemic failures. We craft policies that balance new technologies and age-old rights. And we educate impacted communities on how they can protect their rights.
Schneier on Security
But keeping untrusted companies like Huawei out of Western infrastructure isn't enough to secure 5G. Neither is banning Chinese microchips, software, or programmers. Security vulnerabilities in the standards-the protocols and software for 5G-ensure that vulnerabilities will remain, regardless of who provides the hardware and software. These insecurities are a result of market forces that prioritize costs over security and of governments, including the United States, that want to preserve the option of surveillance in 5G networks. If the United States is serious about tackling the national security threats related to an insecure 5G network, it needs to rethink the extent to which it values corporate profits and government espionage over security.
Ultimately, blockchain technology is not a panacea, but it is a useful tool when the overhead is justified by the system's needs. A good place to start is by posing the following questions: