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Details on India’s mixed paper import crackdown (Resource Recycling, 2020)
India has grown as a downstream market for U.S. mixed paper in recent years. "India, the largest overseas market for U.S. mixed paper, has tightened quality standards & reduced its recycled fiber import volume. Imported mixed paper will be allowed a maximum of 1% contamination and will face more rigorous inspections. The move threatens to close a major outlet for U.S. mixed paper: From January through November 2019, India imported 1 million short tons of mixed paper from the U.S., or 41% of all U.S. mixed paper exports."
“The new Indian implementation is potentially catastrophic for the U.K.,” said Simon Ellin, CEO of the U.K.-based Recycling Association. After China, India is the second-largest export market for U.K. recovered packaging, Ellin said, and the country bought more than 400,000 metric tons of U.K. fiber in 2019, most of which was mixed paper. “If they implement a 1% tolerance on non-fiber content, then it is an extremely brave person who would continue to export mixed papers there – source separated or co-mingled,” Ellin said.
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Scientists Use Stems Cells From Frogs To Build First Living Robots (The Guardian)
Research Paper: A scalable pipeline for designing reconfigurable organisms - by Sam Kriegman, Douglas Blackiston, Michael Levin, and Josh Bongard (2020)
Abstract
: "Here we show a scalable pipeline for creating functional novel lifeforms: AI methods automatically design diverse candidate lifeforms in silico to perform some desired function, and transferable designs are then created using a cell-based construction toolkit to realize living systems with the predicted behaviors. Although some steps in this pipeline still require manual intervention, complete automation in future would pave the way to designing and deploying unique, bespoke living systems for a wide range of functions."
#Comment: Impressive research and ongoing work - congrats! But beyond the praises, please allow me to offer some critical reflections: As usual, the media (and researchers) is willingly mislabeling and exaggerating. Evolutionary Soft-robotics, ALife etc. are progressing, sure. But is this a "first living machine", as is loudly claimed in some of the articles about this work? Humans still lack a functional, semi-universal definition of what constitutes "living". Such questions are by and large still at the same stage, as when Schrödinger published "What Is Life?" in 1944. The reporting on this research contains many other such fantastical claims ("Xenobots SOON could be used to deliver medicine to humans" etc.), presented as hard science/engineering reality - even it clearly encompasses a manifold of unsolved hard problems and questions and is deep in fundamental research territory. More humbleness and restraint would serve all involved parties very well. It makes for good science and a robust public discourse, unlike the hype driven 15min-of-fame click-bait madness of today.
Related: My mini docu "Life": EP 1 on Artificial Life, and EP 2 on Neurorobotics
More media news clips feat. the research:
Computer-designed organisms - interview with Josh Bongard
Computer designed organisms. Aired on CNN Jan 19, 2020.
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WikiLeaks reveals Bin Zayed’s opinion on Saudi royal family
The New York Times reported that Bin Zayed: “Put much of his enormous resources into the counter-revolution, and he cracked down on the Muslim Brotherhood and built a hyper-modern security-based state, where everyone is monitored in search of the slightest whiff of Islamic inclinations.”
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Happy New Year! Berbers in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia celebrate the year 2970.
The Berber calendar is the agricultural calendar traditionally used by Berbers. It is also known as the fellaḥi (ﻓﻼّﺣﻲ "rustic" calendar). The calendar is utilized to regulate the seasonal agricultural works. The Islamic calendar, a lunar calendar is considered by some as ill-adapted for agriculture because it does not relate to seasonal cycles. More...
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“The nations, of course, that are most at risk of a destructive digital attack are the ones with the greatest connectivity. Marcus Ranum, one of the early innovators of the computer firewall, called Stuxnet 'a stone thrown by people who live in a glass house'.” ― Kim Zetter, Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon
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Japanese Hanging Scroll of Bodhidharma seated on grass. From Song of the Brush. Found via "Daily Life as Spiritual Exercise, by Karlfried Graf Dürckheim"
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"Disruptors: How Circular Start-ups Can Accelerate the Circular Economy Transition" - Whitepaper by Thomas Bauwens et.al, Utrecht University (2020)
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News from Boeing: In one message, an employee is quoted as saying the Max was "designed by clowns, who are in turn supervised by monkeys."
Related: Fired CEO Dennis Muilenburg gets $80.7 million on exit from Boeing
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“Behind the rock in the dark probably hides a tiger, and the coiling giant root resembles a crouching dragon” (暗石疑藏虎，盤根似臥龍) - Yu Xin (513–581)
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“Study requires calm, talent requires study. Without study there is no way to expand talent; without calm, there is no way to accomplish study.” - Zhuge Liang
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Researchers: Are we on the cusp of an ‘AI winter’? (BBC)
The article includes a #Comment by me: "The manifold of things which were lumped into the term "AI" will be recognised and discussed separately. What we called 'AI' or 'machine learning' during the past 10-20 years, will be seen as just yet another form of 'computation'" - Samim Winiger. #ML
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Documentary: False Flag: Submarines against Olof Palme / The Reagan Method
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AI-Written Articles Are Copyright-Protected, Rules Chinese Court (worldipreview)
Machines Are Learning To Write Poetry (newyorker)
#Comment: The real test for "Creative A.I" capabilities, is if it can generate such highly advanced forms of bullshit, akin to what humans (authors, lawyers, bankers, artists, etc.) "thinking" and writing about A.I produce regularly. I doubt it...
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The Vikings erected a runestone out of fear of a climate catastrophe (Uni Gothenburg)
"Several passages on the Rök stone – the world’s most famous Viking Age runic monument – suggest that the inscription is about battles and for over a hundred years, researchers have been trying to connect the inscription with heroic deeds in war. Now, a new interpretation of the inscription is being presented. The study shows that the inscription deals with an entirely different kind of battle: the conflict between light and darkness, warmth and cold, life and death."
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"The aim of this work is the sustainable multi-use management of fishery resources, to which we try to contribute via numerical modelling."
From site on "Ecological Modelling" - by Fabio Boschetti
