Geek Knowledge Base
Unless you’re a physicist or an engineer, there really isn’t much reason for you to know about partial differential equations. I know. After years of poring over them in undergrad while studying mechanical engineering, I’ve never used them since in the real world. But partial differential equations, or PDEs, are also kind of magical. They’re […]
American hospitals are being targeted in a wave of ransomware attacks as covid-19 infections in the US break records and push the country’s health infrastructure to the limit. As reports emerge of attacks that interrupted health care in at least six US hospitals, experts and government officials say they expect the impact to worsen—and warn […]
With days still to go before the US presidential election, early voting has already topped half of all votes cast in the 2016 election, and every indication is that the electorate is energized. It makes sense, then, that in this heavily contested, highly polarized political environment (in the midst of a raging pandemic, no less), disinformation […]
Welcome home welcome home oh oh oh the world is beautiful the world. They’re not the most catchy lyrics. But after I’ve listened to “Beautiful the World” half a dozen times, the chorus is stuck in my head and my foot is tapping. Not bad for a melody generated by an AI trained on a […]
Early voting data shows that voter participation in the 2020 US presidential election is already at an all-time high in many states. With only days remaining before voting ends on November 3, more than 70 million Americans have cast ballots. This unprecedented early turnout, and the complications presented by the covid-19 pandemic, have brought intense […]
The US presidential election next Tuesday will shape the world for years, if not decades, to come. Not only because Joe Biden and Donald Trump have radically different ideas about immigration, health care, race, the economy, climate change, and the role of the state itself, but because they represent very different visions of the US’s […]
What happened: Less than a week before the US presidential elections, the CEOs of Facebook, Google, and Twitter appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.The four-hour hearing was meant to focus on Section 230, the regulation that has shielded internet companies from liability for user content. Most questions, however, had little to […]
The fake news: A new weekly satire show from the creators of South Park is using deepfakes, or AI-synthesized media, to poke fun at some of the most important topics of our time. Called Sassy Justice, the show is hosted by the character Fred Sassy, a reporter for the local news station in Cheyenne, Wyoming, […]
Some people might not associate the word “trust” with artificial intelligence (AI). Stefan Jockusch is not one of them. Vice president of strategy at Siemens Digital Industries Software, Jockusch says trusting an algorithm that powers an AI application is a matter of statistics. This podcast episode was produced by Insights, the custom content arm of […]
It’s a cruel irony that the things that make a restaurant appealing are precisely what currently make it dangerous—the intimacy, the coziness, the groups of people deep in conversation, whiling away the hours over drinks and a meal. Eating in a restaurant is one of the riskiest things you can do during the coronavirus pandemic. […]