Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
Thomas Hawk posted a photo:
date stamped on slide, November 27, 1986. Handwritten on slide: "Chef and host Larry Clawson -- Larry's Apt. -- Phoenix"
MENLO PARK (ANP/RTR) - Meta heeft intern onderzoek naar de mentale gezondheidseffecten van Facebook en Instagram gestopt, nadat het "causaal" bewijs vond dat het gebruik van de socialemediaplatforms een negatieve impact had. Dat blijkt uit niet-gecensureerde stukken in een collectieve rechtszaak die door Amerikaanse schooldistricten is aangespannen tegen Meta en andere socialmediaplatforms.
In een onderzoeksproject uit 2020 met de codenaam 'Project Mercury' werkten Meta-wetenschappers samen met onderzoeksbureau Nielsen om het effect te meten van het "deactiveren" van Facebook en Instagram. Daaruit bleek dat "mensen die een week stopten met Facebook, minder sterke gevoelens van depressie, angst, eenzaamheid en sociale vergelijking rapporteerden", stellen de interne documenten.
Meta publiceerde de bevindingen niet en liet geen vervolgonderzoek doen. Het bedrijf verklaarde intern dat de negatieve resultaten waren "vervuild door het bestaande medianarratief" rond het bedrijf, hoewel de bedrijfsleiding was verzekerd dat de conclusies klopten.
MENLO PARK (ANP/RTR) - Meta heeft intern onderzoek naar de mentale gezondheidseffecten van Facebook en Instagram gestopt, nadat het "causaal" bewijs vond dat het gebruik van de socialemediaplatforms een negatieve impact had. Dat blijkt uit niet-gecensureerde stukken in een collectieve rechtszaak die door Amerikaanse schooldistricten is aangespannen tegen Meta en andere socialmediaplatforms.
In een onderzoeksproject uit 2020 met de codenaam 'Project Mercury' werkten Meta-wetenschappers samen met onderzoeksbureau Nielsen om het effect te meten van het "deactiveren" van Facebook en Instagram. Daaruit bleek dat "mensen die een week stopten met Facebook, minder sterke gevoelens van depressie, angst, eenzaamheid en sociale vergelijking rapporteerden", stellen de interne documenten.
Meta publiceerde de bevindingen niet en liet geen vervolgonderzoek doen. Het bedrijf verklaarde intern dat de negatieve resultaten waren "vervuild door het bestaande medianarratief" rond het bedrijf, hoewel de bedrijfsleiding was verzekerd dat de conclusies klopten.
NOORDWIJK (ANP) - De Koninklijke Nederlandse Redding Maatschappij (KNRM) heeft tijdens haar jaarlijkse benefietgala in Noordwijk 1.848.000 euro opgehaald. Dat is ruim 30.000 euro meer dan vorig jaar en daarmee een nieuw recordbedrag. Het was de negentiende keer dat het benefietgala werd georganiseerd. Er schoven 650 gasten aan.
Het gala werd gepresenteerd door Humberto Tan. Edsilia Rombley, Veldhuis & Kemper en Davy Keys traden op. Aan het einde van de avond werd de opbrengst symbolisch overhandigd aan KNRM-directeur Jacob Tas, die op dat moment werd omringd door een aantal van de ruim 1500 vrijwilligers die betrokken zijn bij de KNRM. De KNRM zegt het opgehaalde geld te besteden aan investeringen die de veiligheid van al deze vrijwilligers zullen verbeteren.
De 45 reddingsstations van de KNRM komen jaarlijks ruim 2500 keer in actie, waarbij ruim 3500 mensen worden gered.
"Another page told potential investors Stardust had already run low-altitude experiments using 'test particles'," the article notes:
[P]ublic records and interviews with more than three dozen scientists, investors, legal experts and others familiar with the company reveal an organization advancing rapidly to the brink of being able to press "go" on its planet-cooling plans. Meanwhile, Stardust is seeking U.S. government contracts and quietly building an influence machine in Washington to lobby lawmakers and officials in the Trump administration on the need for a regulatory framework that it says is necessary to gain public approval for full-scale deployment....
The presentation also included revenue projections and a series of opportunities for venture capitalists to recoup their investments. Stardust planned to sign "government contracts," said a slide with the company's logo next to an American flag, and consider a "potential acquisition" by 2028.
By 2030, the deck foresaw a "large-scale demonstration" of Stardust's system. At that point, the company claimed it would already be bringing in $200 million per year from its government contracts and eyeing an initial public offering, if it hadn't been sold already.
The article notes that for "a widening circle of researchers and government officials,
Stardust's perceived failures to be transparent about its work and technology have triggered a larger conversation about what kind of international governance framework will be needed to regulate a new generation of climate technologies." (Since currently Stardust and its backers "have no legal obligations to adhere to strenuous safety principles or to submit themselves to the public view.")
In October Politico spoke to Stardust CEO, Yanai Yedvab, a former nuclear physicist who was once deputy chief scientist at the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission. Stardust "was ready to announce the $60 million it had raised from 13 new investors," the article points out, "far larger than any previous investment in solar geoengineering."
[Yedvab] was delighted, he said, not by the money, but what it meant for the project.
"We are, like, few years away from having the technology ready to a level that decisions can be taken" — meaning that deployment was still on track to potentially begin on the timeline laid out in the 2023 pitch deck. The money raised was enough to start "outdoor contained experiments" as soon as April, Yedvab said. These would test how their particles performed inside a plane flying at stratospheric heights, some 11 miles above the Earth's surface... The key thing, he insisted, was the particle was "safe." It would not damage the ozone layer and, when the particles fall back to Earth, they could be absorbed back into the biosphere, he said. Though it's impossible to know this is true until the company releases its formula. Yedvab said this round of testing would make Stardust's technology ready to begin a staged process of full-scale, global deployment before the decade is over — as long as the company can secure a government client. To start, they would only try to stabilize global temperatures — in other words fly enough particles into the sky to counteract the steady rise in greenhouse gas levels — which would initially take a fleet of 100 planes.
This begs the question: should the world attempt solar geoengineering?
That the global temperature would drop is not in question. Britain's Royal Society... said in a report issued in early November that there was little doubt it would be effective. They did not endorse its use, but said that, given the growing interest in this field, there was good reason to be better informed about the side effects... [T]hat doesn't mean it can't have broad benefits when weighed against deleterious climate change, according to Ben Kravitz, a professor of earth and atmospheric sciences at Indiana University who has closely studied the potential effects of solar geoengineering. "There would be some winners and some losers. But in general, some amount of ... stratospheric aerosol injection would likely benefit a whole lot of people, probably most people," he said. Other scientists are far more cautious. The Royal Society report listed a range of potential negative side effects that climate models had displayed, including drought in sub-Saharan Africa. In accompanying documents, it also warned of more intense hurricanes in the North Atlantic and winter droughts in the Mediterranean. But the picture remains partial, meaning there is no way yet to have an informed debate over how useful or not solar geoengineering could be...
And then there's the problem of trying to stop. Because an abrupt end to geoengineering, with all the carbon still in the atmosphere, would cause the temperature to soar suddenly upward with unknown, but likely disastrous, effects... Once the technology is deployed, the entire world would be dependent on it for however long it takes to reduce the trillion or more tons of excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to a safe level...
Stardust claims to have solved many technical and safety challenges, especially related to the environmental impacts of the particle, which they say would not harm nature or people. But researchers say the company's current lack of transparency makes it impossible to trust.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader fjo3 for sharing the article.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Art Prints available of these Utah National Park posters. Designed in the sensibility of midcentury amusement park posters, these prints are meant to evoke the joy of visiting these breathtaking wonderlands.