Wednesday, May 3, 2006
On Friday, April 28, Wikinews interviewed Ethan Zuckerman, the founder of Geekcorps, a non-profit organization that sending people with technical skills to developing countries for development projects. Ethan has also founded Global Voices Online and helped found Tripod.com, the free web-hosting company now owned by Lycos. He serves a fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society. Tripod.
The interview was held publicly in a dedicated IRC channel.
- What insipred you to get behind Geekcorps, and has there been a big Geekcorps mission, yet?
I got interested in Geekcorps because I’d lived in Ghana as a student in 1993 and 1994While over there, I was amazed at just how little internet connectivity was availableI did a bit of volunteer work helping wire an environmental organization, but basically the only people who had regular net access were US embassy employees.So I was fascinated to learn that my friends in Ghana were getting online in the late 1990s, and I wondered whether anyone would start building net-based businesses, as people were doing in the USMy wife and I went back to Ghana to visit friends and found that there was a huge deal of enthusiasm about the web and the potential it represented, but almost no expertisepeople were really desperate to learn, but very few people were able to teach at the same time, I was ready to step down from Tripod, and I knew a lot of burned out geeksI started wondering whether some of my friends would be interested in sharing their skills in the developing world and whether that would be a useful thing to dolots of international development folks seemed to think it was a good cause, so I started working on it fulltime.We ended up sending about 100 people overseas over the four years I was involved with the projectwe usually sent about 6-8 to a country at a time, working with a variety of businesses, NGOs and government agencies biggest projects were in Ghana, Mali, Mongolia, Senegal.
- With Geekcorps you pushed the idea that newly tech-savvy citizens of developing countries could start online businesses to do digital work for the developed world. But from an American perspective, that’s outsourcing, the bane of US workers. How do you justify working towards a goal that might cost Americans their jobs?
Basically, I’m concerned about the ability of people all over the world to make a good living, send their children to school, build nice houses, have enough food and clean water, etc there’s clearly something of a tradeoff offered by all sorts of globalization – as millions of Chinese are lifted out of rural povery, industrial manufacturing jobs in the US disappear but the US has a pretty good history of innovating and creating new jobs in fields that require a lot of intellectual endeavor the US continues to found interesting software companies, pioneer new net services and generally do a lot of the interesting development on the cutting edge of tech I think a lot of routine coding jobs are up for outsourcing, but I don’t think that people who design software – or who manage the outsourcing and software development process – are going away any time soon it’s very hard to outsource creative activities – it’s somewhat easier to outsource repetitive processes.I think we need to worry less about individual job loss and more about the ability to continue creating new projects. at the same time, I’m very excited to see companies in the developing world moving up the value chain as well, starting to innovate and create new projects as well…
- Lately you’ve been involved with projects including Global Voices and Worldchanging. Where and how do the two dovetail, and where and how do they differ? What are the strengths of each?
They’re very different projects and communities, WC is a magazine -it’s a chance for a small group of smart people to write original content on green issues it’s a lot less global than GV – perhaps overly focused on the US and Europe – and has a tight subject focus GV is an edited aggregator People are not so much writing original, opinionated content on GV as they are linking to other content indeed, we ask people to try very hard not to be especially opinionated on GV. Not NPOV, but a similar perspective – you point, you don’t advocate<ethanz> also GVO is huge – 10 regional editors, about 60 regular contributors, a network of about a thousand blogs we regularly link to the community has a very different feeling – much more international, more 24/7. both are fascinating projects, successes in their own ways, but quite different on the tech issues, a little – in both cases, we’re taking very simple weblog tools and asking them to support very large communities. And a little bit on the issue of how they interface with mainstream media in both cases, we’re interested in amplifying memes and getting them picked up by popular press as well as on the web.
- Isn’t that a contradiction? you’re asking people to be “less” opinionated, but not asking them to be unopinionated?
Blogs are essentially about opinion, asking for NPOV in the blog space misses the point – we want to know what opinions people in Syria have but we want our middle east editor to try to fairly represent the different opinions taking place in that space that said, he’s got an opinion as well so asking for NPOV isn’t the right thing to do – asking him to point to a diversity of opinions is, in our case
Geekcorps can be found online at www.geekcorps.org and Global Voices Online is at www.globalvoicesonline.org.
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Submitted by: Mark DeRosa
Coenzyme Q10 is one of the many controversial substances attached to autism. This vitamin-like substance works as an antioxidant, which means it has many practical and supplementary uses. Among the approved medical uses of Coenzyme Q10 include:
Treatment for various metabolic disorders. When a particular individual cannot produce sufficient amount of coenzyme, Coenzyme Q10 can be beneficial as a means to supplement the natural enzymes that are not produced.
Coenzyme Q10 is also currently being used as supplement to treat migraine. A research at the National Center for Biotechnology Information proves that Coenzyme Q10 is effective as a means to treat migraine even with a very low dosage.
Also, Coenzyme Q10 is used to treat cancer, as well as alleviate side effects caused by cancer medications and treatments.
These are only a few of the generally accepted uses of Coenzyme Q10 as a supplement. In terms of using Coenzyme Q10 for autistic individuals, however, the consensus is far from being achieved. Still, many sectors do encourage the use of Coenzyme Q10 as an autism supplement. Why? Because, as mentioned earlier, Coenzyme Q10 is an antioxidant.
Antioxidants are important substances in the body that prevents free radicals from damaging ones cells and other important organs. Free radicals can be acquired from food intake. When the food is digested, these free radicals are produced. In a healthy persons body, the antioxidants can battle the free radicals to prevent any further damage. However, the same cannot be said for the individuals with autism. These people have an unusually low antioxidant count in their bodies. This condition is inherent among people suffering from the brain development disorder. Without sufficient number of antioxidants, the free radicals are free to damage cells. Unfortunately, brain cells are among the cells that are attacked by these free radicals. To be sure, it has not been determined where this is the cause or an effect of autism. However, the fact remains: without sufficient antioxidants in the body, the free radicals can do damage.
This is where Coenzyme Q10. As a substance that functions as an antioxidant, Coenzyme Q10 has the capacity to cancel the effects of free radicals. This means that the body of infected individuals can be free from the harmful effects of these chemicals. To be more precise, Coenzyme Q10 prevents the oxidation of cells. Oxidation, too, is a process that can cause damage. While oxidation can be caused by free radicals, it is a natural process wherein the cells of the body wither or die due to damages. Coenzyme Q10 protects the cells so they can maintain their proper form. Without the free radicals and by preventing or delaying the process of cell oxidation, the bodyspecifically, the brain of a child with autismcan develop further, especially with the help of other supplements.
Coenzyme Q10 can be acquired through autism supplements. Many offer supplements that provide Coenzyme Q10 alone, in order to fully provide the body will all the antioxidants it will need. Of course, Coenzyme Q10 will work better if it works in conjunction with other supplements and treatments. For instance, Coenzyme Q10 is usually taken by those who follow the casein and gluten free diets. In any case, Coenzyme Q10 is a beneficial substance, so one will do no wrong taking this precious substance.
About the Author: For more information on
Autism Vitamins
, and
Autism and Fish Oil
, please take a look at our
Supplement Guide for Autism.
Source:
isnare.com
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Monday, May 9, 2005
Workers at Newport Chemical Depot in Indiana have completed a successful test-run of a chemical reactor designed to dispose of Cold War stockpiles of VX nerve agent.
After encountering initial difficulties when the temperature in the reactor grew too high, workers were able to adjust the speed of the device. 180 gallons of VX and water were turned into a caustic but far less lethal compound, that can be further reprocessed into an inert substance.
A residue of 14 parts VX per billion remained; the Army’s eventual goal is less than 20 parts. One drop of VX can kill a grown man.
The conversion of the VX stockpiled at the facility is projected to take two years. Then the drain cleaner-like waste product with its small residue of VX will need to be sent to another facility for reprocessing into a safer, biodegradable compound.
A controversial plan has Dupont doing the reprocessing at their facility in New Jersey, and dumping the compound into the nearby Delaware River.