[Popular STEM] Curating the Internet: Science and technology digest for November 22, 2020

IEEE Spectrum's weekly selection of awesome robot videos; Nature: five rules for evidence communication; A Steem author reports on the takedown of the Arecibo radio telescope; Putting a damper on callout culture; and A new Zoom hack reveals private texts from shoulder movements

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Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.

First posted on the Steem blockchain: SteemIt.

1. Video Friday: Matternet Launches Urban Drone Delivery in Berlin - This week, the IEEE Spectrum weekly selection of awesome robot videos includes
   • A trailer video of the from the Cave Circuit Virtual Competition in Darpa's subterannean challenge.
   • A video of the winning idea from the KUKA Innovation Award. The winner was team HIFUSK (High intensity focused ultrasound surgery based on KUKA robot) from Italy's Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna.
   • Urban Drone Delivery from Matternet.
   • Justin Roiland, co-creator of Rick and Morty in an unboxing video of Butter Robot, a butter serving robot.
   • A biped robot from DRL learns skipping and other gaits on video.
   • and more.
   
   Here is a video of robots playing diablo:
   
   
   
   


2. Five rules for evidence communication -
   1. Inform, not persuade
   2. Offer balance, not false balance
   3. Disclose uncertainties
   4. State evidence quality
   5. Inoculate against misinformation
   -h/t Judith Curry


3. STEEM: Arecibo radio telescope will be decommissioned - Steem's @sarahjay1 highlights report that the National Science Foundation (NSF) has decided to decommission and disassemble Puerto Rico's Arecibo radio telescope. Once the world's largest radio telescope, the facility is being taken down after 57 years of operation. The 305 meter, 900 ton platform is located in a sink hole and it suffered several mishaps this year including a cable slippage and related damage in August and November. Inspection revealed other problems, and it was determined that the necessary repairs could not be implemented safely. The decom plan is expected in the near future along with a series of drone photographs of the telescope. The facility will preserved for its lidar equipment and also for use as a tourist attraction and weather facility.


4. What if Instead of Calling People Out, We Called Them In? - One of the first rules of thumb that I remember learning about management practices in business is, "Praise in public, criticize in private." Here's an argument that similar norms should be adopted on social media in order to end the "outrage cycle" and mitigate the harms of online moral outrage. -h/t Heterodox Academy


5. Zoom hack reveals text contents by viewing shoulder movement - As Zoom rose to unanticipated prominence due to its utility during the Coronavirus Pandemic, it has been accompanied by newly emerging problems such as embarrassing hot-mike gaffs, problems with lighting and video quality, and an intrusion that came to be known as "zoom bombing". Now a new risk has been added to the list by a research team at the University of Texas. By examining shoulder movements and using their software to compare those movements against a catolog of previous movements, the team says they are able to identify the words that participants are typing in "private" side chats for 75% of words in a controlled environment or 20% in an uncontrolled environment. -h/t Bruce Schneier. Schneier adds:

   Accuracy isn’t great, but that it can be done at all is impressive.




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