NEOM - Futuristic Saudi City

 

NEOM, launched with a trillion-dollar budget, is apparently Saudi Arabia's effort to create an economic alternative to oil.

News

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/10/25/neom-saudi-arabia-pushes-ahead-with-its-sci-fi-city-vision.html

https://gizmodo.com/saudi-arabia-the-line-megacity-1849693431

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/23/saudi-mega-city-meant-to-blow-our-forget-crimes-of-its-rulers

Video

Good overview and context, critical perspective:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2b7uMJkvS0o

https://www.youtube.com/c/NEOMChannel

Oxagon - Industrial complex

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_p3kl6FHDY

The Line

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0kz5vEqdaSc

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neom

Business

People on LinkedIn

https://www.linkedin.com/company/discoverneom/people/

Example employee - Industrial engineer studied at Petroleum and Minerals University

https://www.linkedin.com/in/hadikhamees/

Neom.com

https://www.vision2030.gov.sa/v2030/v2030-projects/neom/

Media

Neom Media Village

https://www.neom.com/en-us/newsroom/neom-media-village

"Built to accommodate the immediate and growing demand from regional and international producers for state-of-the-art TV and film facilities, the first three sound stages across the two locations are already operational. A further seven, including a high-tech volumetric production stage, are set to open by Q1 2023"

Bajdah Desert Studios

https://www.google.com/search?q=bajdah+desert+studios&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS972US972&oq=Bajdah+Desert+Studios&aqs=chrome.0.35i39j0i390l5.272j0j4&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

cancer-stopping pill

 

https://studyfinds.org/cancer-stopping-pill/

AOH1996

Gender X job accommodations

 https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/gender-dysphoria-and-the-ada-what-it-7737751/

Gender Dysphoria and the ADA: What it Means for Employers

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On August 16, 2022, a Fourth Circuit panel for the United States Court of Appeals ruled in Williams v. Kincaid that gender dysphoria qualifies as one of the disabilities listed under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). While this recent decision has only just influenced a handful of states under the Fourth Circuit, the larger impact is clear: Transgenderism could now be considered an ADA disability in lawsuits for employer disability discrimination across the nation. 

What is Gender Dysphoria?

According to the American Psychiatric Association (APA), gender dysphoria refers to psychological distress that results from an incongruence between one’s sex assigned at birth and one’s gender identity.  In 2012, the American Psychiatric Association removed the term “Gender Identity Disorder” (GID) in the wake of new research in favor of “gender dysphoria” with the aim of removing the stigma many transgender people face with labeling their experiences as a “disorder.” While this change was an important step for many among the community, the APA has noted that many transgender advocates have viewed the removal of “disorder” as a barrier to accessing transgender-related medical care.

The ADA & Recent Law

The ADA requires a physical or mental impairment to substantially limit a major life activity for a condition to be considered a disability. 42. U.S.C. § 12102(1)(A)  Further, the ADA prohibits public entities from discriminating against, or excluding from participation in the benefits of services, programs, and activities, any qualified individual with a disability. 42 U.S.C. § 12132. Today, federal courts have increasingly taken the stance that gender dysphoria meets the criteria laid out by the ADA for a disability and is therefore afforded protection under anti-discrimination laws.

The first case to declare that gender dysphoria could be considered a disability under the ADA was in the 2017 federal case of Blatt v. Cabela Retail Inc. Early federal cases on the issue of gender dysphoria hinged on the ADA’s physical impairment language in 42 U.S.C. § 12102 which specifically excludes gender identity disorders not resulting from physical impairments. However, as case law has developed, gender dysphoria clearly does not fall under the category of “gender identity disorder” excluded for purposes of disability. While the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, Georgia, 140 S.Ct. 1731 (2020) made strides when the Court ruled that firing an individual for being transgender in the work place was discriminatory, and thus prohibited by law, the decision was based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Title VII forbids sexual orientation and gender identity discrimination and harassment in employment while the ADA provides protection from discrimination in the work place based on physical or mental disability. The expansion of the finding under the ADA in conjunction with protections already present in Title VII provides greater protection under the law for transgender persons in the realm of employment.

Williams v. Kincaid challenged the practice at a Virginia State correctional institute of placing Kesha Williams, a transgender woman, in the men’s general prison population. The court found that certain care and accommodations related to William’s gender dysphoria were denied as a result of her placement with the male population. The reasoning behind the decision in Williams was that the distinction between the now-rejected “gender identity disorder” by the APA and “gender dysphoria” differed dramatically as gender dysphoria may result in physical impairments like intense anxiety or depression. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) has defined “physical impairments” as “any physiological disorder or condition…affecting one or more body systems, such as neurological…and endocrine.” 28 C.F.R. § 35.108(b)(1)(i). This interpretation led to the conclusion in Williams that gender dysphoria is a condition warranting disability and therefore protection against discrimination under the ADA.

How Are Employers Tied Into This?

The court in Williams dealt with an issue arising out of the realm of local and state government under the Title II of the ADA.  Although Title II specifically prohibits discrimination of persons with disabilities by public entities, employers should be advised that Title I applies the same protections surrounding disability to employees in private companies and organizations. Title I forbids any discrimination of an individual with a disability regarding job application procedures, hiring, advancement, firing, employee compensation, job training, or other conditions by covered entities. 42 U.S.C. § 12112(a). The term “covered entities” is broadly defined as any employer, employment agency, labor organization, or joint labor-management committee. It is equally relevant that the EEOC has specifically declared that job discrimination against people with disabilities is illegal if practiced by private employers, not just state and local governments (U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission). Titles I, II, and III of the ADA are all codified in Title 42, chapter 126, of the United States Code and can be found at www.ada.gov. In short, employers will be expected to follow the law as it develops and provide accommodations based on the qualifying disability of gender dysphoria under the ADA.

What Employers Need to Know

As this area of law develops, employers should be aware of what constitutes as “reasonable accommodations” for transgender individuals. Employers will need to stay up-to-date on new requirements for disability interpreted by courts under the ADA to ensure legal guidelines and employment practices are followed. The EEOC lays out the following as reasonable accommodations for qualified applicants with disability:

• Providing or modifying equipment or devices
• Job restructuring
• Part-time or modified work schedules
• Reassignment to a vacant position
• Adjusting or modifying examinations training materials, or policies
• Making the workplace readily accessible to and usable by people with disabilities.

More specifically, the National Center for Transgender Equality lists ensuring restrooms or other facilities consistent with an individual’s gender identity as an appropriate accommodation. Further, reasonable accommodations for restroom access may not limit an individual with gender dysphoria to using a specific restroom or a restroom located at unreasonable distances from the individual’s office or work area. Additional anticipated accommodations may take the form of a modified work schedule or allowing an employee a leave of absence for medical procedures involving gender reassignment or therapy.

Finally, employers should expect to take note of their office and work place culture given these recent changes in the law as to not violate Title VII either. The EEOC states that the intentional and repeated misuse of pronouns to refer to a transgender employee could contribute to an unlawful hostile work environment under Title VII. While the law does not prohibit simple teasing, offhand comments, or isolated incidents, harassment becomes unlawful when it is so frequent that it creates a hostile work environment or results in adverse employment decisions like firing or demoting. Private businesses may want to consider updating their human resource policies if they find them to be outdated as a hostile work environment and lack of accommodations for an employee could find an employer facing both a Title VII and ADA action. 

Some Takeaways

While the decision in Williams is new at the time of the creation of this article, it follows in the wake of several landmark decisions by federal courts on gender dysphoria and its status as a disability under the ADA. As legal precedent has become solidified, more federal and state courts are sure to follow. Under the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, employers are required to provide reasonable accommodations to a qualified applicant or employee with a disability unless the employer can show that the accommodation would be an undue hardship requiring significant difficulty or expense. Employers and hiring agencies should expect to contemplate additional workplace accommodations for transgender employees to satisfy new law on anti-discriminatory practices in the work place.  

References

1. https://psychiatry.org/patients-families/gender-dysphoria/what-is-gender-dysphoria (APA)
2. https://www.eeoc.gov/laws/guidance/your-employment-rights-individual-disability#:~:text=Under%20the%20ADA%20%2C%20you%20have,even%20if%20you%20don’t.
3. https://transequality.org/know-your-rights/employment-general?gclid=EAIaIQobChMIxPWEvorR-QIV0dSzCh2A6Qa6EAAYBCAAEgKi2PD_BwE
4. https://www.eeoc.gov/sexual-orientation-and-gender-identity-sogi-discrimination
5. https://www.ada.gov/pubs/adastatute08.pdf

Forced D&I in Disney Plus' 'Hocus Pocus 2'

 

I was invited over by a friend and his wife with no notion or expectations about this movie, bearing in mind we are approaching Halloween, and this was apparently her favorite childhood film. So, this is geared towards whom? The 8-year-olds of today? Or the 38-year-olds of today who saw the '93 original thirty years ago? Both.

I understand that it's a kid's fantasy movie, and the trend is to make everyone feel included. It's just funny to watch the 1993 film back to back with 2023 sequel. Contrast Hocus Pocus 2's opening hip-hop beat with the original film's typical, evocatively magical string section, and the blatant diversity and inclusion shellacking is stark enough that I couldn't help but giggle and call it out, despite everyone in the room being liberal and having just moved to Atlanta from Minneapolis.

I had no idea Blacks and Latin X (AP Style; happy?) are less prone to wish upon a star without warming things up with a good trap beat or a little reggaetón. If they ever hear a Spielberg-style soundtrack and the usual enchanted British accent, they just might feel oppressed by the Imperialists. 

Although, the Blue Fairy in the new Pinnochio is Black AND has a British accent. Because we know England is where wizards come from, and King Arthur was obviously Black, right? Not just the Black knight. They all were, even Merlin. Come on, "Monty Python" is an innuendo. And the Holy Grail was filled with Colt 45, hence the Quest. Can you imagine that dialogue rewritten in ebonics? Move over Hamilton, watch Ye remake Life of Brian with a vengeance. 

Then, we begin the story in a classroom with a Black and Latin X girl casting a spell over a white male classmate. Ah, the new witches are 'diverse'. Check. Despite the rivalry and tension between the cultures, these two are getting along swimmingly. You'll not prevent us from sacrificing children to our hearts' content so we can remain forever young, you blue-eyed, man-child bastard! At 76, Bette Midler is still moving and singing quite well. She must be a gobbl'n' down some chill'n. Maybe the witches should open their own abortion clinic and keep it on the down-low.

Speaking of people who are no stranger to drag shows and bath houses, I did notice Hocus Pocus 2 features 'Planet Claire' by the B-52s, a cool surf-punk song from the early 80s. We then barely notice the school's office assistant is a tranny. Absolutely nothing to do with the story, and we never see or hear from she/her/hers again. Kind of like when Howard Stern would have lesbians on his show and announce "Look! It's two lesbians and they're kissing!" It's just representation for the sake of it. Who gives a shit about the tranny's story or whether SHE has any powers other than transforming from a man into a man who dresses like woman. It's product placement, just like the scene where they featured 'Walgreen's' logo for what felt like an eternity. 

I only saw the first 15 minutes of the Hocus 2, but apparently there's another scene where a witch flies by people's windows on a broomstick and sees a bi-racial same-sex couple watching TV. Okay, okay. Don't they need an apartment complex full of every marginalized group to truly represent everyone, or just racial and sexual minorities? Little people and Stephen Hawking like to have popcorn and fuck on the couch, too, you know? Or maybe someone jerking off and talking back to the TV to help with the stigma of mental health. 

I suspect if the Klan ever rose up in Salem, Mass. it wouldn't take long to complete their mission because everyone in town knows the Black tour guide at the Salem gift shop should be back from lunch around one o'clock. Their banner would read, "Get Cedric". 

As for any Hispanics, they could only be found touring in Salem after being sent packing by the Hypocrite Honkies of Martha's Vinyard.

To confirm, the latest demographics show Blacks make up less than 7% of Salem, and Hispanics aren't even mentioned. Talk about 'othering'. 

https://worldpopulationreview.com/us-cities/salem-ma-population

• White: 79.21%
• Black or African American: 6.72%
• Other race: 5.73%
• Two or more races: 5.40%
• Asian: 2.61%
• Native American: 0.33%
• Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander: 0.00%

It's equally ironic and ha-ha peculiar to recall the lyrics of Rush's 'Witch Hunt' from 1980, which returns to us today with a twist:

"Those who know what's best for us...must rise and save us from ourselves."

You know, metal is kind of a fantasy genre, why doesn't Metallica throw a little schnizzle in their hizzy? Lars needs to pump up his bass pedal, and...oh, never mind, they have Roberto Agustín Miguel Santiago Samuel Trujillo Veracruz on bass. Check, check, check, check, Samuel? What's not to like? and check!

Anyway, thanks to Disney Plus for reminding us we are all one, big, happy Creature Cantina!

Sony Releases Its First Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids

 

Sony Releases Its First Over-the-Counter Hearing Aids54

Posted by BeauHD on Friday October 14, 2022 @06:00AM from the no-prescription-required dept.

Sony has announced the availability of its first OTC hearing aids, the $1,000 CRE-C10 and $1,300 CRE-E10, built in partnership with WS Audiology. Engadget reports:The devices are built for daily use for those with mild to moderate hearing loss. They're controlled via Sony's "Hearing Control" app that guides users through setup and allows them to personalize settings like volume control. It also allows a "self-fit" that adjusts to appropriate pre-defined hearing profiles "based on thousands of actual, real-life audiogram results," Sony said. The CRE-C10 model (above) offers a battery life of up to 70 hours of continuous use. Sony says they're one of the smallest OTC hearing aids on the market, offering a discreet design that's "virtually invisible when worn" and "exceptional sound quality." It goes on sale this month for $1,000 at Amazon, Best Buy, and select hearing-care professionals.

Meanwhile, the CRE-E10 has a more earbud-like design, powered by a rechargeable battery with up to 26 hours of life between charges. It's Bluetooth compatible as well, so users can connect to devices and listen to streaming audio or music, though only on iOS, Sony says. Those will go on sale for $1,300 sometime this winter at Sony's website.In August, the FDA decided to allow hearing aids to be sold over the counter and without a prescription to adults.

Telepresence: Google project starline holographic video

 

Seems similar to volumetric video.

https://www.wired.com/story/google-project-starline/

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Google%E2%80%99s+Project+Starline

Quantum network

 

https://www.fastcompany.com/90793603/a-new-quantum-network-in-brooklyn-opens-the-door-to-an-untappable-internet

Human workers vs AI

Conclusion at the end:

Humans using AI will  replace humans who don't.

In the Battle With Robots, Human Workers Are Winning' (sfexaminer.com)71

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday October 09, 2022 @07:34AM from the bad-robots dept.

Despite warnings that AI will rob humans of jobs, "Somehow we sacks of meat — though prone to exhaustion, distraction, injury and sometimes spectacular error — remain in high demand," writes New York Times columnist Farhad Majoo. AI has yet to replace humans in supposedly at-risk professions like truck driving and fast-food services.

Majoo's conclusion? "Humans have been underestimated."It turns out that we (well, many of us) are really amazing at what we do, and for the foreseeable future we are likely to prove indispensable across a range of industries, especially column-writing. Computers, meanwhile, have been overestimated. Though machines can look indomitable in demonstrations, in the real world A.I. has turned out to be a poorer replacement for humans than its boosters have prophesied.

What's more, the entire project of pitting A.I. against people is beginning to look pretty silly, because the likeliest outcome is what has pretty much always happened when humans acquire new technologies — the technology augments our capabilities rather than replaces us. Is "this time different," as many Cassandras took to warning over the past few years? It's looking like not. Decades from now I suspect we'll have seen that artificial intelligence and people are like peanut butter and jelly: better together.

It was a recent paper by Michael Handel, a sociologist at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, that helped me clarify the picture. Handel has been studying the relationship between technology and jobs for decades, and he's been skeptical of the claim that technology is advancing faster than human workers can adapt to the changes. In the recent analysis, he examined long-term employment trends across more than two dozen job categories that technologists have warned were particularly vulnerable to automation. Among these were financial advisers, translators, lawyers, doctors, fast-food workers, retail workers, truck drivers, journalists and, poetically, computer programmers.

His upshot: Humans are pretty handily winning the job market. Job categories that a few years ago were said to be doomed by A.I. are doing just fine. The data show "little support" for "the idea of a general acceleration of job loss or a structural break with trends pre-dating the A.I. revolution," Handel writes.
Handel notes that despite AI's high performance in analyzing X-rays, the number of (human) radiologists keeps increasing, with worries that the supply of (human) radiologists may not keep up with demand.

One Stanford radiologist recently argued that instead, "The right answer is: Radiologists who use A.I. will replace radiologists who don't."

AI Music Generators

 

'AI Music Generators Could Be a Boon For Artists - But Also Problematic' (techcrunch.com)29

Posted by EditorDavid on Sunday October 09, 2022 @01:34PM from the techno-music dept.

"Our new robot overlords are making a whole lot of progress in the space of AI music generation," quips TechCrunch, discussing a new project called "Harmonai" backed by Stability AI (creators of the open source AI image generator Stable Diffusion):In late September, Harmonai released Dance Diffusion, an algorithm and set of tools that can generate clips of music by training on hundreds of hours of existing songs.... Dance Diffusion remains in the testing stages — at present, the system can only generate clips a few seconds long. But the early results provide a tantalizing glimpse at what could be the future of music creation, while at the same time raising questions about the potential impact on artists....

Google's AudioLM, detailed for the first time earlier this week, shows... an uncanny ability to generate piano music given a short snippet of playing. But it hasn't been open sourced. Dance Diffusion aims to overcome the limitations of previous open source tools by borrowing technology from image generators such as Stable Diffusion. The system is what's known as a diffusion model, which generates new data (e.g., songs) by learning how to destroy and recover many existing samples of data. As it's fed the existing samples — say, the entire Smashing Pumpkins discography — the model gets better at recovering all the data it had previously destroyed to create new works....

It's not the most intuitive idea. But as DALL-E 2, Stable Diffusion and other such systems have shown, the results can be remarkably realistic.
Its lyrics are gibberish, TechCrunch concedes — though their article also features several audio clips (including a style transfer of Smash Mouth's vocals onto the Tetris theme).

And the article also notes a new tool letting artists opt of of being used in AI training sets, before raising the obvious concern...

The project's lead stresses that "All of the models that are officially being released as part of Dance Diffusion are trained on public domain data, Creative Commons-licensed data and data contributed by artists in the community." But even with that, TechCrunch notes that "Assuming Dance Diffusion one day reaches the point where it can generate coherent whole songs, it seems inevitable that major ethical and legal issues will come to the fore."

For example, beyond the question of whether "training" is itself a copyright violation, there's the possibility that the algorithm might accidentally duplicate a copyrighted melody...

CRISPR for curing HIV

 https://arstechnica.com/science/2022/10/a-bold-effort-to-cure-hiv-using-crispr/

AI bill of rights

 

What starts out sounding like a legitimate concern circles back to the usual suspects, no pun intended.

Let me guess, they want to give robots immunity to declare their right to dominate civilization.

Robots are people, too, and children should think about whether they might want to become robots.

Then, we'll have socialized tech support, and transgenders will push their way into transhumanism, adding peripherals like extra memory and flame throwers. Cut off your tits, add a dick and while you're at it, twist on a machine gun. Accessorize, mix and match. Kim Kardashian, show us the way when you replace your current prosthetic ass with a self-twerking mechanical bull. Maybe she'll accessorize with her next mecha-boyfriend.

...and then, RLM (Robot Lives Matter) will turn us all into cole slaw.

Or maybe this is just a variation on protecting thugs from self-incriminating with their own rap lyrics, A.I. forensics and cameras everywhere are bound to expose something.

White House Unveils AI 'Bill of Rights' (apnews.com)42

Posted by msmash on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:01PM from the closer-look dept.

The Biden administration unveiled a set of far-reaching goals Tuesday aimed at averting harms caused by the rise of artificial intelligence systems, including guidelines for how to protect people's personal data and limit surveillance. From a report:The Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights notably does not set out specific enforcement actions, but instead is intended as a White House call to action for the U.S. government to safeguard digital and civil rights in an AI-fueled world, officials said. "This is the Biden-Harris administration really saying that we need to work together, not only just across government, but across all sectors, to really put equity at the center and civil rights at the center of the ways that we make and use and govern technologies," said Alondra Nelson, deputy director for science and society at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. "We can and should expect better and demand better from our technologies."

The office said the white paper represents a major advance in the administration's agenda to hold technology companies accountable, and highlighted various federal agencies' commitments to weighing new rules and studying the specific impacts of AI technologies. The document emerged after a year-long consultation with more than two dozen different departments, and also incorporates feedback from civil society groups, technologists, industry researchers and tech companies including Palantir and Microsoft. It suggests five core principles that the White House says should be built into AI systems to limit the impacts of algorithmic bias, give users control over their data and ensure that automated systems are used safely and transparently.

LSD-Like Molecules Counter Depression Without the Trip

Scientists have designed compounds that hit the same key receptor that LSD activates without causing hallucinations.

 A single dose produced powerful antidepressant and anti-anxiety effects in mice that lasted up to two weeks. The study was recently published in the journal Nature.