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☆ Convicted 'Unabomber' Ted Kaczynski dead at 81
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-10 | by ( Alistair Bell | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

[1/2] Theodore Kaczynski is led out of federal court where he was charged with a single federal weapons violation April 4,1997. June 10 (Reuters) - Ted Kaczynski, former math professor and "twisted genius" who came to be known as the Unabomber when he carried out a 17-year spree of mysterious bombings that killed three people and baffled the FBI, died on Saturday at the age of 81. Kaczynski's younger brother, David, tipped off police that the author's ideas sounded like those of Ted. In 1980, Kaczynski sent a package bomb that exploded and injured United Airlines President Percy Wood at his Illinois home. Kaczynski detailed how modernization has destabilized society, subjected humans to indignities and "inflicted severe damage on the natural world."

Persons: Theodore Kaczynski, Ted Kaczynski, Kaczynski, Kaczynski's, David, Ted, Theodore John Kaczynski, Dale Eickelman, Eickelman, Percy Wood, Hugh Scrutton, Thomas Mosser, Gilbert Brent Murray, Janet Reno, Dan Whitcomb, Phil Stewart, Lucia Mutikani, Daniel Wallis, Diane Craft, Cynthia Osterman Organizations: Federal Medical Center, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Reuters, The Harvard University, University and Airline, Society, FBI, Harvard University, Daily, Harvard, University of Michigan, University of California, Chicago's Northwestern University, American Airlines, Dulles International, United Airlines, Illinois, New, Exxon, U.S, Washington Post, Thomson Locations: Montana, Butner , North Carolina, California, Florence, Florence , Colorado, North Carolina, Chicago, Berkeley, Lincoln, Washington, Sacramento , California, New Jersey, Los Angeles

☆ Ted Kaczynski, better known as the Unabomber, was found dead in his prison cell
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-10 | by ( Michael Belsamo | Associated Press | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +9 min

The infamous Unabomber Ted Kaczynski has died at age 81. "I'm confident that I'm sane," Kaczynski told Time magazine in 1999. David Kaczynski wanted his role kept confidential, but his identity quickly leaked out and Ted Kaczynski vowed never to forgive his younger sibling. Ted Kaczynski was born May 22, 1942, in Chicago, the son of second-generation Polish Catholics — a sausage-maker and a homemaker. His brother fired him and Ted Kaczynski soon returned to the wilderness to continue plotting his vengeful killing spree.

Persons: Ted Kaczynski, David, —, — Theodore, Ted, Kaczynski, Kristie, David's, Linda Patrik, Daniel Boone, Edward Abbey, Henry David Thoreau, Sally Johnson, Hugh Scrutton, Thomas Mosser, Gilbert Murray, Charles Epstein, David Gelernter, Mosser, Susan, Timothy McVeigh, Patrik, Ted Kaczynski's, Susan Swanson, Chicago . Swanson, Clint Van Zandt, David Kaczynski, Swanson, Anthony Bisceglie, Ann Arbor, ___ Balsamo, Derek Rose Organizations: FBI, Service, WASHINGTON, Harvard, of Prisons, Associated Press, Washington Post, New York Times, Industrial Society, Its, American Airlines, Yale University, Oklahoma City, Bennington College, University of Michigan, University of California Locations: Montana, Butner , North Carolina, Florence , Colorado, West Coast, nation's, Lincoln , Montana, California, North Caldwell , New Jersey, Los Angeles, Chicago, America, Ann, Berkeley, Lincoln, Miami

☆ Lessons from the original Industrial Revolution
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Edward Chancellor | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +7 min

These are brilliantly described by Martin Hutchinson, a former Breakingviews columnist, in his new book “Forging Modernity: Why and How Britain Developed the Industrial Revolution”. In fact, several pioneers of the Industrial Revolution were self-taught. The Industrial Revolution can be viewed as the world’s first successful energy transition. The task of financing the Industrial Revolution fell to banks that were scattered across the country, some 800 in all. We are so accustomed to the economic growth sparked by the Industrial Revolution that we tend to view economic expansion as pretty much inevitable.

Persons: Martin Hutchinson, King Charles I, Charles, Duke, Bridgewater, Hutchinson, Josiah Wedgwood, Trent, Samuel, Richard, Adam Smith, William Pitt the Younger, Lord Liverpool, Smith, ”, “, Adam Smith’s, Peter Thal Larsen, Oliver Taslic Organizations: Reuters, Royal Society, Industrial, Nations, Reuters Graphics Reuters, Government, Dudley, Thomson Locations: Britain, England, British, Manchester, Birmingham, Bridgewater, Mersey, Samuel Whitbread’s, West Indies, Netherlands, United Kingdom

☆ A.I. doomers are a ‘cult’ — here’s the real threat, according to Marc Andreessen
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Hayden Field | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +5 min

Andreessen Horowitz partner Marc Andreessen Justin Sullivan | Getty ImagesVenture capitalist Marc Andreessen is known for saying that "software is eating the world." When it comes to artificial intelligence, he claims people should stop worrying and build, build, build. Andreessen writes that there's a "wall of fear-mongering and doomerism" in the AI world right now. Andreessen writes that people in roles like AI safety expert, AI ethicist and AI risk researcher "are paid to be doomers, and their statements should be processed appropriately," he wrote. In Andreessen's own idealist future, "every child will have an AI tutor that is infinitely patient, infinitely compassionate, infinitely knowledgeable, infinitely helpful."

Persons: Andreessen Horowitz, Marc Andreessen Justin Sullivan, Marc Andreessen, Andreessen, It's, it's, Bill Gates, Sam Altman, Demis Hassabis, Ben Horowitz Organizations: Getty Images Venture, Nvidia, Microsoft, Center, AI Safety, Tech Locations: China

☆ The Harvard economics PhD whiz who is teaching generative AI to invest for everyone
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-06 | by ( Kiley Lambert | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Szilagyi has the record for the fastest-ever Harvard Economics Ph.D. (2.5 years), studying under Ken Rogoff. In addition to his economics Ph.D., Szilagyi holds BA and MA degrees in mathematics and economics from Yale. Szilagyi: Toggle is a generative AI startup that sits squarely at the intersection of finance and artificial intelligence. Toggle AI was really born from observing the ever-mounting flow of financial data that we needed to track. Thanks to his support, Toggle AI took off with a mission to provide every investor and advisor with powerful AI tools in an easy-to-navigate, chat interface.

Persons: Jan Szilagyi, Szilagyi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Lombard Odier, Ken Rogoff, Giuseppe Sette, Druckenmiller Organizations: Duquesne Capital, Lombard, Harvard, Yale, CNBC, Summit, Microsoft, Duquesne Locations: Szilagyi, Lombard

☆ Opinion | Are the Warnings About A.I. Overblown?
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-01 | by ( ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

To the Editor:Re “A.I. Poses ‘Risk of Extinction,’ Tech Leaders Warn” (front page, May 31):I read with great interest your article about the potential existential threat of artificial intelligence. Clearly, much anxiety exists concerning the recent, and rapid, developments in so-called large language models, such as that used in ChatGPT. However, we at the Silicon Valley Laboratory have an unpopular belief that artificial intelligence is fast approaching a limit on how well it can perform higher-order cognitive functions such as creativity. We believe that A.I.

Organizations: ’ Tech, Laboratory

☆ Fact Check-UK teacher who misgendered pupil banned for numerous reasons
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

A British man has been banned from teaching for numerous breaches of the Teachers’ Standards code, a Department for Education (DfE) panel report shows, contrary to claims that Joshua Sutcliffe was banned only for using the wrong pronoun when addressing a transgender male pupil. One Facebook user (here) wrote: “So a teacher has been ‘banned’ from HIS profession, simply because HE ‘misgendered’ a student (is it ok to say student?). All the maths teacher did was praise a group of pupils by saying: 'Well done girls'.”Similar posts can be seen here and here. “His conduct... demonstrated a failure to treat pupils with dignity and/or respect and/or a failure to safeguard pupils’ well-being,” the panel added. Joshua Sutcliffe was banned from teaching for numerous reasons, which included, but was not limited to, his misgendering a pupil.

Persons: Joshua Sutcliffe, ”, Sutcliffe, –, “, Mr Sutcliffe, ” Sutcliffe, Tom Allen, Joshua, Read Organizations: Department, Education, LIFE, Agency, Christian Concern, TRA, Reuters Locations: B.i, B.ii

☆ Opinion: We’ve reached a turning point with AI, expert says
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Jessica Chia | Bethany Cianciolo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +33 min

Will general purpose AI — AI that is as capable as humans — eventually take over the world? CNN/Peg Skorpinski “…even though we may understand how to build perfectly safe general purpose AI, what’s to stop Dr. We don’t know if they reason; we don’t know if they have their own internal goals that they’ve learned or what they might be. It is not general purpose AI, but it’s giving people a taste of what it would be like. And so it turns out that you can actually build AI systems that have those properties, but they’re very different from the kinds of AI systems that we know how to build.

Persons: CNN —, ChatGPT, Bill Gates, —, Stuart Russell, Russell, ” Russell, they’ve, Peg Skorpinski “, ” Stuart Russell Russell, ”, STUART RUSSELL, ” Stuart Russell, we’ll, “, it’s, they’re, That’s, Arthur Samuel, Samuel, Travis Teo, I’ve, Garry Kasparov, Kasparov, Stan Honda, There’s, they’re misaligned, you’ve, It’s, that’s, we’ve Organizations: CNN, University of California, IBM Watson Media, Hyundai, Boston Dynamics, Reuters, Microsoft, Artificial, Intelligence, US National Academies, GPT, IBM's, Getty, Federal Aviation Administration, Nuclear Regulatory, PIXAR Locations: Berkeley, ”, Singapore, New York, AFP, ChatGPT, Luxembourg, Cayman Islands, United States, California, —

May 31 (Reuters) - A look at the day ahead in Asian markets from Jamie McGeever. Asian market focus on Wednesday turns to Chinese purchasing managers index figures, which will give the first insight into factory and service sector activity in the world's second largest economy in May. Asian markets on Wednesday might also get some relief from the dollar's slip on Tuesday in line with U.S. bond yields. China's PMI figures for May are expected to show another contraction in manufacturing activity. Service sector activity has been expanding since January, however, and it will be the extent to which that accelerates or slows that markets will be most attuned to.

Persons: Jamie McGeever, China PMIs Organizations: Congress, Relief, Nasdaq, Treasury, PMI, Service, Thomson, Reuters Locations: Washington, Hong Kong, China, Australia, Japan

☆ Ian Hacking, Eminent Philosopher of Science and Much Else, Dies at 87
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-28 | by ( Alex Williams | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Ian Hacking, a Canadian philosopher widely hailed as a giant of modern thought for game-changing contributions to the philosophies of science, probability and mathematics, as well as his widely circulated insights on issues like race and mental health, died on May 10 at a retirement home in Toronto. His daughter Jane Hacking said the cause was heart failure. In an academic career that included more than two decades as a professor in the philosophy department of the University of Toronto, following appointments at Cambridge and Stanford, Professor Hacking’s intellectual scope seemed to know no bounds. Because of his ability to span multiple academic fields, he was often described as a bridge builder. “Ian Hacking was a one-person interdisciplinary department all by himself,” Cheryl Misak, a philosophy professor at the University of Toronto, said in a phone interview.

☆ What Number Comes Next? The Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences Knows.
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-21 | by ( Siobhan Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +2 min

Dr. Sloane is the founder of the On-Line Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, a database of 362,765 (and counting) number sequences defined by a precise rule or property. In 1995, it became an “encyclopedia,” with 5,487 sequences and an additional author, Simon Plouffe, a mathematician in Quebec. A year later, the collection had doubled in size again, so Dr. Sloane put it on the internet. Dr. Pudwell writes algorithms to solve counting problems. “I found this perplexing,” Dr. Pudwell said.

☆ These are the highest-paying college majors, 4 years after graduation—many pay over $100,000
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Morgan Smith | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Your college major can have a profound impact on your income. Within four years of graduation, some majors stand to earn as much as $256,539, while others make less than $10,000 per year, according to a new report from The HEA Group, a research and higher education consulting firm. The top-earning majors are in so-called STEM fields, or degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. Half of the top 10 majors with graduates making the most money are subsets of engineering. Here are the 10 highest-paying college majors, four years after graduation:

☆ Interested in Polyamory? Check Out These Places
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-16 | by ( Valeriya Safronova | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Jace Knight had heard about Somerville, Mass., while working on a Ph.D. at the University of Alabama in 2020. In late March, Somerville passed two more laws extending the rights of nonmonogamous residents, this time banning discrimination on the basis of “family or relationship structure” in city employment and policing. (A similar ordinance, focused on housing, is currently being discussed by the Somerville City Council.) Around the same time these new laws passed, Mx. The city’s attitude toward nonmonogamy was a big factor in the group’s decision to move there, Mx.

☆ Google is bringing an AI chatbot to search results. Here's what it's like
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Samantha Murphy Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

With the update, the look and feel of Google Search results will be noticeably different. Users can now sign up for a waitlist for the new Google Search, which will first launch in the United States, via the Google app or Chrome’s desktop browser. The new Google Search also offers a Perspectives feature to showcase what other people are buying or thinking about, and factoring that into results. Like ChatGPT, the new Google Search and Bard are built on a large language model. Google previously told CNN that Bard would serve as a separate, complementary experience to Google Search, and planned to “thoughtfully” add large language models to search “in a deeper way” at a later time.

☆ Google I/O event: first foldable phone, new tablets and more AI features
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-10 | by ( Samantha Kelly | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +8 min

The Pixel FoldThe Google Pixel Fold is the company's first foray into foldable phones GoogleGoogle became the latest tech company to unveil a foldable smartphone. Like other foldables, the $1799 Pixel Fold features a vertical hinge that can be opened to reveal a tablet-like display. The Pixel Fold is very much a phone first: when it’s unfolded, it opens up into a 7.6-inch screen, and moves on Google’s custom-built 180-degree hinge. Under the hood, the 11-inch tablet is powered by Google’s Tensor G2 chips, which bring long-lasting battery life and AI features to the device. AI features coming to searchGoogle is also moving forward with plans to bring AI chat features to its core search engine amid a renewed arms race over the technology in Silicon Valley.

CNN —Lewis Hamilton is one of the greatest sportsmen of his generation, a seven-time world champion and an influential philanthropist. “The crazy thing is I’m in my 17th year of this sport […] I’m still grafting. I’m still having to work like never before to be able to excel in a sport that’s constantly evolving. “There’s not a lot of Black equity and Black leadership within sports in general, so that’s something I’m really passionate about being a part of changing. I’m really grateful for it.

☆ Opinion | The Evidence Is In: Science Should Be Judged on the Merits
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-04 | by ( Pamela Paul | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +3 min

Consider the increasingly widespread practice of appending a “positionality statement” to one’s research. This is an explicit acknowledgment by the author of an academic paper of his or her identity (e.g., “nondisabled,” “continuing generation”). Positionality statements were first popular in the social sciences and are now spreading to the hard sciences and medicine. The purpose of a citation in an academic publication is to substantiate claims and offer the most relevant supporting research. Many prominent science journals now recommend that before submission, authors run their papers through software programs that detect any citation bias.

☆ Some Colleges Offer Quotes of Competitors’ Prices. Be Wary.
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-29 | by ( Ron Lieber | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

Every year, a new crop of innocents arrive in the marketplace for an undergraduate degree. Schools offer website calculators that estimate what families may have to pay, but they make no guarantees. Aid seekers can’t get a real price quote until they’ve applied and been accepted. As you can imagine, some of these other schools are not thrilled with this state of affairs. So why would an institution that offers instruction in mathematics and economics put out suspect figures?

Even gaining qualifications in Italy didn't help Abhishek, a 26-year-old migrant from India who got a master's degree in mechanical engineering at Turin's Polytechnic University last year. Italy, which is also contending with an exodus of skilled nationals to stronger economies, needs qualified immigrants to fill growing skilled labour shortages, many economists say. In 2023, work permits will be granted to around 83,000 non-EU migrants, according to government data, less than a third of the 277,000 who applied for them. Barbera at Turin University said the lack of migrants in skilled professions has become entrenched and hard to reverse. "Migrants in Italy have virtually no access to the middle class," he said.

☆ We got an exclusive look at the pitch deck that math education startup Innovamat used to raise $21 million in new funding
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-19 | by ( Madeline Renbarger | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Innovamat is a Barcelona-based edtech startup that uses a new way of teaching math to K-8 students. Now, the team has raised $21 million in Series A funding and will expand into the US. The idea for Innovamat, a startup focused on developing a new way to teach math to K-8 students, came to the company's cofounders when they were students themselves. In 2015, Dotti and Piedra spent their free time working as engineering and math teachers at their university's neighboring academy, which helps first year students study and pass important qualifying exams. Check out the 13-slide pitch deck that Innovamat used to raise $21 million in Series A funding:

☆ Reader mailbag: From M&A and MBAs to Elon Musk and bitcoin, all your questions answered
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Dan Defrancesco | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It's easier to leverage misinformation for personal gain within the world of finance than perhaps any other industry. I'm not the type to suggest the only real information you can get on the markets is from established news outlets. Do you think the legacy media is fearful of Elon Musk's new Twitter? I just think the discourse on Twitter is very different from what you'd find on a media website. My position on bitcoin, and the wider digital-currency ecosystem, is that it's too often a solution looking for a problem.

☆ The hat: Mathematicians invent 'einstein' tile that never repeats
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-06 | by ( Jacopo Prisco | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

Called “The hat” because it vaguely resembles a fedora, the elusive shape is an “einstein” (from the German “ein stein,” or “one stone”). “I’m not really into math, to be honest — I did it at school, but I didn’t excel in it,” Smith said. “The hat,” however, is an aperiodic tile, meaning it can still completely cover a surface without any gaps, but you can never identify any cluster that periodically repeats itself to do so. How ‘The hat’ worksThere’s nothing inherently magical about “The hat,” according to Kaplan. “We’re not trying to protect it in any way,” Kaplan said.

☆ AI will eventually free people up to 'work when they want to,' ChatGPT investor predicts
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-30 | by ( Grace Mayer | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

The future of AI could "free humanity" from work, according to OpenAI investor Vinod Khosla. "This large transformation is the opportunity to free humanity from the need to work. People will work when they want to work on what they want to work on," Khosla told Semafor. Back in 2014, Khosla told Semafor, he started thinking about a future with AI, even predicting that eventually most media would be created by AI in the future and that AI will disrupt teaching. AI jobs in tech, mathematics, accounting, and communication fields will be especially at risk, the researchers found.

☆ Elusive ‘Einstein’ Solves a Longstanding Math Problem
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Siobhan Roberts | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +1 min

An aperiodic tiling displays no such “translational symmetry,” and mathematicians have long sought a single shape that could tile the plane in such a fashion. “I’m always messing about and experimenting with shapes,” said Mr. Smith, 64, who worked as a printing technician, among other jobs, and retired early. But he has long been “obsessively intrigued” by the einstein problem. And now a new paper — by Mr. Smith and three co-authors with mathematical and computational expertise — proves Mr. Smith’s discovery true. (Mr. Smith often sports a bandanna tied around his head.)

☆ The 7 fastest-growing STEM jobs that pay over $100,000
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-18 | by ( Isabel Engel | In Isabel--Engel | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +1 min

Growth in the American STEM industry is attributed mainly to the country's growing computer industry. SmartAsset analyzed historic employment growth between 2017 and 2021 and projected employment growth from 2021 to 2031 to identify and rank the country's fastest-growing STEM occupations. Information security jobs top the list of fastest-growing STEM jobs for the second year in a row. STEM jobs overall account for 5.9% of the fastest-growing occupations in the United States. Of the fastest-growing STEM occupations, here are seven that pay over $100,000, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics:

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