Science and technology micro-summaries for July 8, 2019
Lessons learned from England's termination of "free" college; The potential harm from genetic screening; How over-eager behavior can be harmful to software projects; 7-Eleven's disastrous payments app launch; Congress calls on Facebook for a Libra moratorium
Straight from my RSS feed:
Links and micro-summaries from my 1000+ daily headlines. I filter them so you don't have to.
- The end of free college in England - University of Texas at Austin professor, Richard Murphy, Columbia's Judith Scott-Clayton, and CEP's Gill Wyness studied the effects of ending free college in England in 1998. Today's tuition rates in England, on average, are 18% higher than America's. They note that before 1998, free education was coupled with rising demand, until rationing had to be imposed, which led to the reversal in policy. In the 21 years since the reversal, funding per full-time student has increased, enrollment rates have doubled, and the gap between high and low income learners has stabilized or even shrunk. The new system makes use of subsidized student loans with post-college payments calculated as a percentage of income to keep the debt manageable. h/t Daniel Lemire
- How Genetic Risk Tests Can Be Harmful - With a few hundred dollars, it is now possible to test for risk from a variety of inherited diseases. However, the article points out that the results aren't always useful, and may sometimes be harmful. Concerns raised include the claims that the results may be misleading or inaccurate, they might increase the health gap between people with European ancestry and others, and they could lead to the implementation of unethical "designer baby" programs.
- Hazardous Enthusiasm and How Eagerness Can Kill A Project - Zerocracy founder and CEO, Yegor Bugayenko, writes about a personality type that he encounters as an architect of open source software. He notes that some developers join projects with high energy and seem to be great contributors for a time. However, when they delve into the nuts and bolts of the project and find things that aren't to their liking, they often try to fix too much too fast and wind up alienating the team and ultimately driving themselves away from the project out of frustration. He also points out that this is a software architect's responsibility to reject changes that reveal this sort of over-enthusiasm.
- 7-Eleven Japan's weak app security led to a $500,000 customer loss - All an attacker needed for a fraudulent transaction was a user's e-mail address, phone number, and date of birth. 7-eleven shut the 7pay app down after just days of operation. It is unclear when or if the app will launch again.
- STEEM US Govt tells Facebook: "Libra must stop!", CEO Shapeshift Erik Voorhees reacts - @skycorridors and Erik Voorhees, CEO of shapeshift, discuss a letter from members of the House Committee on Financial Services to facebook, where the house committee asked Facebook to implement a voluntary moratorium on Libra development. The letter raises the concern that Libra could create a "new swiss-based banking system that is too big to fail." Facebook responded that they look forward to discussions with regulators as the project moves forward. (5% of this post's rewards will got to @skycorridors)
In order to help make Steem the go to place for timely information on diverse topics, I invite you to discuss any of these links in the comments and/or your own response post.
For example, feel free to comment on any or all of these discussion topics:
- Do you think the risks of genetic testing outweigh the benefits? Why or why not?
- Does the Steem blockchain have an equivalent phenomenon among content creators to the over-eager software engineer? Describe it?
- After their unsuccessful first try, if 7-Eleven relaunches their 7pay app, will you use it?
- Do you think Facebook's Libra will launch on schedule, or do you think it will be held up by regulators from around the globe?
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