Technology: January 2019 Archives
How much can forests fight climate change? - Nature
Gabriel Popkin writes:
"That doesn't mean that all forests cool the planet, however. Researchers have known for decades that tree leaves absorb more sunlight than do other types of land cover, such as fields or bare ground. Forests can reduce Earth's surface albedo, meaning that the planet reflects less incoming sunlight back into space, leading to warming. This effect is especially pronounced at higher latitudes and in mountainous or dry regions, where slower-growing coniferous trees with dark leaves cover light-coloured ground or snow that would otherwise reflect sunlight. Most scientists agree, however, that tropical forests are clear climate coolers: trees there grow relatively fast and transpire massive amounts of water that forms clouds, two effects that help to cool the climate....
"Williams has found that some resist considering albedo effects, including representatives of companies hoping to sell carbon credits for forest projects. 'Even other scientists sometimes have disbelief in the magnitude of the albedo effect, or even its existence,' he says.
"'I have heard scientists say that if we found forest loss cooled the planet, we wouldn't publish it.'"
youtube-dl: Internet video command-line downloader
"youtube-dl is a command-line program to download videos from YouTube.com and a few more sites. It requires the Python interpreter, version 2.6, 2.7, or 3.2+, and it is not platform specific. It should work on your Unix box, on Windows or on macOS. It is released to the public domain, which means you can modify it, redistribute it or use it however you like."
How To Write A Takedown Request Without Running Afoul of the Streisand Effect | Popehat
"Nobody wants a defamatory attack upon them to be read by a hundred times more eyes as a result of their own efforts. No lawyer drafting a cease and desist letter wants to become an internet meme. So how, in an internet culture that birthed the Streisand Effect and Carreon Effect, can you vindicate your rights without making things worse for yourself? How -as a victim of defamation or copyright infringement, or as the attorney for such a person -- can you send a takedown demand without finding yourself infamous?"
Postnatural Intelligence by David Lloyd Dusenbury | First Things
"[Mary] Shelley [in the novel Frankenstein] may have been the first to see that humankind will only know that it has constructed a real 'Talker'--a linguistically expressive, intellectually creative machine (or living being)--at the precise moment it realizes that this device can no longer be trusted."
How to Stop Websites From Asking to Show Notifications
How to reject notification requests automatically on Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari.
And this link will tell you how to block notifications on Chrome for Android.
