Feel Good Friday

“”I’ve been running my research lab for almost 30 years,’ says Jennifer Doudna, a biochemist at the University of California, Berkeley. ‘And I can say that throughout that period of time, I’ve just never experienced what we’re seeing over just the last five years.'” Machine learning has a very big upside and this article reflects what I’ve been hearing from my smartest friends. NYT (Gift Article): Suddenly, It Looks Like We’re in a Golden Age for Medicine. “You cannot imagine what you’re going to see over the next 30 years. The pace of advancement is in an exponential phase right now.”

+ “He began his war on telemarketers nearly a decade ago, he said, after one called the family’s landline and said a bad word to his son. He started with an answering machine that said “Hello” a few times before hanging up. Anderson has since rolled out his weapons of mass distraction. He has posted conversations between man and bot, some lasting as long as 15 minutes before the telemarketer hangs up.” WSJ (Gift Article): People Hire Phone Bots to Torture Telemarketers.

+ A Texas Family Passed Up Millions to Turn Their Ranch Into a Nature Preserve. (This would be an unlikely plot twist on Yellowstone.)

+ Oregon becomes the latest state to put ranked choice voting on the ballot.

+ Teen who walked six miles to 8th grade graduation gets college scholarship on the spot. “He thought that full-ride meant he would get a ride to college, like he wouldn’t have to walk here again.”

+ Have a good holiday weekend. I hope to be back to the normal schedule after the 4th, but that will require not being selected for jury duty on Monday…