Tuesday, July 11, 2017

I didn't forget my software buddies - Github


Learn by doing at Cal Poly with GitHub and Raspberry Pi

Professor Chris Lupo has taught at California Polytechnic State University for eight years and recently revamped his upper-level Architecture course using GitHub Classroom. In this post, he shares his workflow for deeper insight into student work, efficient debugging, and community support.

Open tools lead to a hackable classroom practice

At California Polytechnic State University, the motto is “learn by doing”, so it follows that students learn with real-world tools, rather than with board work and problem sets.
There's evidence of this learning philosophy in the tools teachers choose—particularly in open source projects GitHub Classroom and Raspberry Pi.
In group work, we do a lot with Raspberry Pi and students get into the habit of making sure they push to get it on their other systems, or so their partners can download changes. The flow encourages strong development habits. Push early, push often—that kind of thing.
Chris uses Classroom to distribute starter code and create individual and group assignments.

Diagnose, collaborate, fix: a debugging workflow that doesn’t hurt

Chris uses Classroom, GitHub’s collaboration features, and Raspberry Pi to work with students when they get stuck. Here's a quick overview of his workflow:
Quickly access a student repository. Assignments set up through Classroom automatically add Chris as a collaborator, and the dashboard clearly presents a list of student work.
As soon as students click an “invitation link” from Chris, Classroom creates a new repository for them.
Here’s the output from GitHub Classroom in Chris’s course.
Clone and comment in-context. Students can see where changes need to be made and leaves comments directly in their code.
Test the fix on his own Raspberry Pi.
Push the code back to the student’s repository, with fixes and comments.
This workflow solves the cumbersome task of transferring files. Both instructor and student can work from their own environments, instead of switching between computers.
I can clone their work, connect to the Raspberry Pi that I have access to, and run their code. From there I can work with them directly on their code base to show them what steps to take and how to move beyond their current problem. After we work together, I can push the code back to them when we’re done.
I have access to everybody's code all the time. I've not had that capability prior to using GitHub Classroom.

An active community of teachers helping teachers

When Chris has questions about Git or best practices, he reaches out to the GitHub Education Community for advice from other teachers.
I've also found the community really helpful for support. For example, I learned about a script named orgclone that was really useful for me in repository management.

  Adapt Professor Lupo’s assignments:
Use Raspberry Pi assignments for a university setting:

Speak at GitHub Universe: three weeks left to submit proposals

Katrina is an Open Source Advocate at GitHub. As a frequent speaker and proposal reviewer for conferences like GitHub Universe, she's seen hundreds of speaker proposals—and written a few as well.
GitHub Universe is returning to San Francisco this fall, and we're looking for new voices to lead our breakout sessions. Your stories are unique, and having lived them, you're the best person to share your insights with others. If you're new to speaking, don't let that stop you. We're more interested in your experience solving problems than how many talks you've given.
With our submission deadline approaching on July 28, we're inviting you to share your session idea with us. Speakers will receive an honorarium and travel accommodations to make sure budget isn't a limiting factor in your decision to participate.

How to make your speaker proposal stand out

Here are some tips to keep in mind as you refine your speaker proposal.
Put your audience first.
Identify who can benefit most from your story. Even if it’s a first-person experience, tell it to those individuals in a way that helps them connect with it. Make them feel like they’re a part of your experience by framing it in terms of similar experiences they might have and what they can do with the information you’re sharing.
Set the stakes.
Establish a problem you’re addressing and why people should care. This is separate from the solution. Your audience will only care about a solution if you set up the problem in a way that helps them understand it and apply it to their experiences.
Work towards a solution.
After your audience understands the problem, help them understand how to approach it and what’s novel about your approach. It’s ok if you don’t have it all figured out, but make your experience actionable for others and describe possible solutions.
For more tips, check out Sarah Mei’s “What Your Conference Proposal is Missing”.

A few of my favorite Universe 2016 sessions

There were a lot of memorable sessions last year, but these ones stood out as particularly impactful.
Anjuan Simmons, "Lending Privilege"
Anjuan takes the often divisive topic of privileged and marginalized groups in technology, and puts each audience member on both sides of the divide. He makes the topic relevant to everyone and leaves nobody feeling like they’re to blame. After reframing and providing a place where we can stand together, he helps us look ahead with practical, actionable advice. It's a thoughtful, insightful talk that the audience continued to discuss throughout the conference.
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This isn't a permanent solution, it's temporary fix

*Follow the link, scroll to the bottom of the page and enroll.
https://www.systemsnicaragua.com/hot-new-tech
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We no longer have the numbers of mentally competent people to guide ourselves

*I'm going to catch it for this one yet: There are babies having babies, people can't even feed themselves properly, no one exercises, everyone is running around praying to God but not doing anything else, pharmaceuticals rule our lives, we believe anything the TV portrays, we have no idea how to manage money, people read with little to no comprehension, we allow ourselves to be injected with free government shots, most Americans don't even have a survival strategy, we have highly technical vehicles and when they stop running on the highway - we raise the hood (WTF?), crack heads / pill heads and alcoholics are allowed to reproduce and we're so pathetic that hygiene is something that we think about from time to time. I can continue...

 Why Americans need to re-think their beliefs on socialism
I wont say who this is and most are too stupid to know.

To the editor: The popular definition of “socialism” reflects a worldview in which government takes control of everything, leading to an inevitable failure, as we have seen in the former Soviet Union and some other countries. ("Bernie Sanders has some explaining to do," Op-Ed, Oct. 21)
The fact that many “socialistic” countries are doing well, as we can see in many parts of Europe, and with Canada, does not seem to faze Americans.
What is most stunning is that Americans cannot see that the United States is to a certain degree a socialist country, as Social Security, Medicare, public libraries, the Army, fire and police departments, the freeways and other public programs clearly exemplify.
Those who don't like socialism should stop cashing their Social Security checks and burn their Medicare cards.








Sen. Bernie Sanders, a presidential candidate, is right. The term “socialism” needs to be clarified. Ultimately, Americans need to figure out that government is not the problem, but in a lot of cases it is the solution staring at us.
It's too late for Bernie and now you will pay.

To the editor: When Trump refers to Sanders as a communist, he is displaying his profound ignorance of history and politics. Unfortunately, his followers see the terms “liberal,” “leftist” and “progressive” as also communist.





Contrary to columnist Doyle McManus' assertion, Sanders shouldn't explain what socialism means, but he should make clear he is opposed to all ownership of private property by the state, one-party rule by the proletariat and an uprising of workers to overcome nationalism and capitalism. Sanders has some “'splaining” to do
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Enlisting Technology to Fight Obesity

*After living in C America and SE Asia I arrived back here in Cocoa Beach some 40 odd days ago (My half way point to leaving - Hooray) and what I have witnessed you'll never see anywhere else on the planet. I don't wish to be rude yet a 5 minute walk through Wal-Mart is all it takes.
 I need to share one more thing: Living in NY, NY, I often witnessed old men / women feeding pigeons in the park and quite a few smoked as I do. But do you know what I never saw in my many years of living there? I never saw an old obese man or woman feeding the pigeons.
 Rule number 1 - Breakfast is my biggest meal of the day, they taper off in calories / gain in fiber throughout the rest of my day. (Old Bear Creek, NC. trick)

Introduction
Obesity has recently reached pandemic proportions. As Reuters reported earlier this year, “The percentage of Americans who are obese (with a BMI of 30 or higher) has tripled since 1960, to 34 percent, while the incidence of extreme or “morbid” obesity (BMI above 40) has risen sixfold, to 6 percent.” According to the CDC, major health consequences related to obesity include coronary heart disease, Type 2 diabetes, cancer, hypertension (high blood pressure) and more. The estimated toll of obesity on the U.S. economy has been estimated to be $190 billion. What is especially troublesome is child obesity. Although there is a substantial consensus across the board in the media and the political world regarding the magnitude of the problem, the solution to the problem remains elusive.
This post explores alternative approaches and methods for fighting obesity and highlights the role social tools and technology can play in this battle.
Government Legislation
For example, “The U.S. health care reform law of 2010 allows employers to charge obese workers 30 percent to 50 percent more for health insurance if they decline to participate in a qualified wellness program,” according to the same Reuters report.
New York’s Mayor Bloomberg wants to ban selling sodas and other sugary drinks in servings larger than 16 ounces, convinced doing so is a “way to fight obesity in a city that spends billions of dollars a year on weight-related health problems.”
The key difference between the two initiatives is that while the Obamacare provision is based on statistically proven correlation between obesity and costly weight-related heath prices, Mayor Bloomberg’s initiative seems to have no such correlation. As such, it may penalize a portion of the public that is not obese and chooses to drink larger cups of soda.
Corporate Role
While food processing offers many benefits such as food preservation, financial savings (because it is much cheaper to mass-produce food), and time savings (by reducing the amount of time families spend cooking), it is also the source of the many unhealthy food products on the market today.
This is exactly where corporate responsibility can be demonstrated by major corporate entities that have the power to influence food manufacturers to produce healthier processed foods.
A good example of this type of corporate responsibility has been displayed recently by The Walt Disney Company, which recently announced that “all products advertised on its child-focused television channels, radio stations and web sites” must meet a certain nutritional standard.
Education
Education — especially at a young age — can provide children, and later adults, lifelong tools to eat more healthily. Michelle Obama launched her own campaign against child obesity back in 2010 by encouraging more physical activity and starting an organic White House garden. Since then, she has served as a role model to promote a healthy lifestyle.
Another great role model in the area of healthy nutrition is Chef Jamie Oliver, who was awarded the prestigious TED Prize for creating “a strong, sustainable movement to educate every child about food, inspire families to cook again and empower people everywhere to fight obesity.”
Personal Responsibility
Personal responsibility starts with each one of us that makes a decision to fight family obesity. As part of personal responsibility, we are expected to develop healthy living habits, starting with the selection of healthy food items. Just imagine the positive impact that exercising personal responsibility on a massive scale would have on healthy nutrition. After all, if everyone would only buy healthy products, then companies would stop manufacturing unhealthy products, as there would be no demand for them. The primary challenge with exercising personal responsibility, however, is that successful execution of this commitment is contingent upon consumers’ ability to analyze information on healthy nutrition and select the healthiest products.
With more than tens of thousands of products on average in a typical supermarket, this can be a daunting task. This is where web and mobile technology helps.
Technology to the Rescue
Instead of consumers researching the nutrients and ingredients of each and every product, a nutritional algorithm running on a computer can do it for them. This algorithm, developed by experts based on scientific nutritional research, can analyze a database of food items’ nutrients and ingredients, and recommend healthy options. This algorithm can run on mobile devices and enable consumers to select healthier products in real time.
Several companies have developed algorithms that can guide consumers to make healthy food choices, including Fooducate, ShopWell and wHealthy Solutions. The services offered by these companies also provide information regarding healthier alternatives, and educate consumers on various topics relating to healthy nutrition. For consumers who don’t have access to computers or smartphones, NuVal compresses the data per label into a single number that is presented at the grocery stores on the shelf tag.
While expert rankings are very valuable, in this day and age of social networks, consumers expect to get more than just numbers from the experts. They want to participate in and contribute to the review process to collectively benefit from the wisdom of the user community. Combining expert rankings with communal wisdom has been used quite effectively in a variety of social platforms in other fields such as TripAdvisor, Yahoo Movies, etc. wHealthy Solutions’ FoodSmart is one such social app that enables users to rank “taste” and write their reviews on food items, where they can then be combined with expert rankings.
Conclusion
There is no single silver bullet in fighting obesity. Government legislation, corporate responsibility, education and personal responsibility, combined with web and mobile services, can all help people eat healthy and fight obesity. People who reach a decision to exercise their personal responsibility and develop healthy eating habits for themselves and their families are encouraged to use the web and mobile services to help with planning and shopping for healthy food items. These individuals can also help other families fight obesity by contributing to development of the communal wisdom by writing their product reviews on social platforms.
For more by Michael Segal, click here.
For more healthy living health news, click here.
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And here we are

*I believe that the next practical thing for Systems Nicaragua to do would be to set up free 10 minute network consultations. Some of the questions I receive from this blog and my website can be answered in seconds. Let me know what you think > ntech-solutions@live.com


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How to Build a Home Network That Will Make Any Business Jealous

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Top 10 Basic Network Troubleshooting Tools Every IT Pro Should Know



Network troubleshooting tools are a necessity for every network administrator. When getting started in the networking field, it is important to amass a number of tools that can be used to troubleshoot a variety of different network conditions.
While it is true that the the use of specific tools can be subjective and at the discretion of the engineer, the selection of tools in this article has been made based on their generality and common use. This article reviews the top 10 basic tools that can help you troubleshoot most networking issues.

10. Ping

The most commonly used network tool is the ping utility. This utility is used to provide a basic connectivity test between the requesting host and a destination host. This is done by using the Internet Control Message Protocol (ICMP) which has the ability to send an echo packet to a destination host and a mechanism to listen for a response from this host. Simply stated, if the requesting host receives a response from the destination host, this host is reachable. This utility is commonly used to provide a basic picture of where a specific networking problem may exist. For example, if an Internet connection is down at an office, the ping utility can be used to figure out whether the problem exists within the office or within the network of the Internet provider. Figure 1 below shows an example of the ping utility being used to obtain the reachability status of the locally connected router.
ping
Figure 1: Ping utility

9. Tracert/traceroute

Typically, once the ping utility has been used to determine basic connectivity, the tracert/traceroute utility can used to determine more specific information about the path to the destination host including the route the packet takes and the response time of these intermediate hosts. Figure 2 below shows an example of the tracert utility being used to find the path from a host inside an office to www.google.com. The tracert utility and traceroute utilities perform the same function but operate on different operating systems, Tracert for Windows machines and traceroute for Linux/*nix based machines.
Tracert/traceroute
Figure 2: Tracert/traceroute utility

8. Ipconfig/ifconfig

One of the most important things that must be completed when troubleshooting a networking issue is to find out the specific IP configuration of the variously affected hosts. Sometimes this information is already known when addressing is configured statically, but when a dynamic addressing method is used, the IP address of each host can potentially change often. The utilities that can be used to find out this IP configuration information include the ipconfig utility on Windows machines and the ifconfig utility on Linux/*nix based machines. Figure 3 below shows an example of the ifconfig utility showing the IP configuration information of a queries host.
Ipconfig/ifconfig
Figure 3: Ifconfig utility

7. Nslookup

Some of the most common networking issues revolve around issues with Dynamic Name System (DNS) address resolution issues. DNS is used by everyone using the Internet to resolve commonly known domain names (i.e. google.com) to commonly unknown IP addresses (i.e. 74.125.115.147). When this system does not work, most of the functionality that people are used to goes away, as there is no way to resolve this information. The nslookup utility can be used to lookup the specific IP address(es) associated with a domain name. If this utility is unable to resolve this information, there is a DNS issue. Along with simple lookup, the nslookup utility is able to query specific DNS servers to determine an issue with the default DNS servers configured on a host. Figure 4 below shows an example of how the nslookup utility can be used to query the associated IP address information.
Nslookup
Figure 4: Nslookup utility

6. Netstat

Often, one of the things that are required to be figured out is the current state of the active network connections on a host. This is very important information to find for a variety of reasons. For example, when verifying the status of a listening port on a host or to check and see what remote hosts are connected to a local host on a specific port. It is also possible to use the netstat utility to determine which services on a host that is associated with specific active ports. Figure 5 below shows an example of the netstat utility being used to display the currently active ports on a Linux machine.
Netstat
Figure 5: Netstat utility

5. PuTTY/Tera Term

When connecting to a variety of different types of equipment, a telnet, SSH or serial client is required; when this is required both the puTTY and Tera Term programs are able to provide these functionalities. The selection of one over the other is strictly a personal preference. Figures 6 and 7 below show both puTTY and Tera Term being used to connect to a host via SSH.
PuTTY


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Trump administration grudgingly faces reality on the Iran nuclear deal


Secretary of State Rex Tillerson sent a letter, April 19, to House Speaker Paul Ryan announcing that Iran appears to be in compliance with a multi-nation agreement aimed at limiting Tehran's access to nuclear material. (Reuters)
As a candidate for the presidency, Donald Trump agreed with all his Republican colleagues that the Iran nuclear deal that the United States negotiated along with China, Russia, Great Britain, France and Germany was a disaster, a catastrophe, a calamity. But now, the Trump administration is taking the position that it might actually be working out fine:
The Trump administration has notified Congress that Iran is complying with the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal negotiated by former President Barack Obama, and says the U.S. has extended the sanctions relief given to the Islamic republic in exchange for curbs on its atomic program.
However, in a letter sent late Tuesday to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the administration has undertaken a full review of the agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.
While that review might be a preview to some future action to undermine the agreement, what we’re seeing here is yet another iteration of a now-familiar pattern, in which candidate Trump made absurd claims and promises, but then President Trump is forced to confront reality and backtracks from the dangerous or simply ridiculous positions he took before. That has happened on a wide variety of domestic and foreign issues; just this week we learnedthat the administration may not pull out of the Paris climate accord after all, despite Trump’s prior belief that climate change is a hoax concocted by the Chinese to harm American manufacturers.
On the campaign trail, Trump called the Iran agreement, in which it curtailed its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief, “the dumbest deal perhaps I’ve ever seen in the history of deal-making.” At various times he threatened to tear it up: “My number-one priority is to dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran.” But he never said much about what specifically he objected to in the agreement, other than the fact that it was negotiated by the Obama administration and so therefore it must be bad.
In this he was no different from most Republicans. He did complain about the fact that the deal included the release of Iranian funds that had been frozen in western and Asian banks, though he described it in false terms, as though he believed that American taxpayers were simply handing over cash to the Iranian regime. “We give them $150 billion, we get nothing,” he’d say, which was false in multiple ways. First, we weren’t “giving” them anything — the funds in question belong to Iran. Second, it wasn’t anywhere near $150 billion; estimates of what they would actually get were more in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion. But again, it’s their money. And as to whether we “get nothing,” what we got were restrictions on their ability to pursue nuclear weapons, which was the whole point.
But as with most complex policy issues, there was no indication Trump had any idea what he was talking about. When speaking to AIPAC in March 2016, he said, “I’ve studied this issue in great detail — I would say actually greater by far than anybody else.” The audience, which was largely friendly to him, burst into laughter.
So where are we now, and where do we go from here? While it’s within the Trump administration’s authority to abandon the deal, doing so would accomplish less than nothing. First, the agreement includes those five other world powers, which haven’t shown any interest in canceling it. So Iran and those countries could uphold the agreement without the United States. The administration could impose more sanctions on Iran, but the reason the old sanctions regime was effective in crippling Iran’s economy was that so much of the world upheld it; if only the United States imposed new sanctions, Iran could still get much of what it needs elsewhere.
Alternatively, Iran could decide to walk away from the deal if the United States does, which would mean kicking out the inspectors and and lifting restraints on their uranium-enrichment program. How that would be to anyone’s benefit is difficult to fathom.
What almost certainly won’t happen, however, is a complete renegotiation to get a “better” deal as Trump envisions it. The negotiations to arrive at the existing deal were extremely complex and delicate, required extensive technical and diplomatic expertise, and took years to complete. Even if the other countries were interested in a renegotiation, which they aren’t, the Trump administration frankly just isn’t up to it. I’m reminded of how President Barack Obama made Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz part of the negotiating team, because as a renowned nuclear physicist, Moniz’s insights were critical to getting the details right. Trump’s energy secretary is Rick Perry, who, when he was offered the job, was surprised to learn that it didn’t actually consist entirely of promoting American oil and gas.
I don’t doubt that the Iran deal still sticks in Trump’s craw, not only because it was negotiated by the Obama administration, but also because his conception of a “good deal” is one in which we get everything we want and the person on the other side gets nothing. For instance, if you negotiate a deal in which a music store owner sells you a bunch of pianos, then you take the pianos and refuse to pay for them, you’ve made a good deal. Deals have a winner and a loser, and if you’re not the winner, you’re the loser. Trump seems to find the notion of a deal that benefits everyone to be unsettling.
So far, that does seem to be how the Iran deal has worked out: they’ve gotten something they wanted (relief from sanctions), and we’ve gotten something we wanted (curbs on their nuclear program). That doesn’t mean the deal is perfect in every way, or that Iran doesn’t present problems in other areas, or that we might not have future conflicts with them. But as Jim Mattis said during his confirmation hearings for defense secretary, “I think it is an imperfect arms control agreement — it’s not a friendship treaty.” And, “When America gives her word, we have to live up to it and work with our allies.”

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REFLECTIONS ON ETHICAL ASPECTS OF NANOMEDICINE Rafael Capurro

Great article yet very long winded.
These reflections on ethical aspects of nanomedicine are followed by excerpts from  R.A. Freitas' opus magnum with short comments.

 On ethical aspects of nanotechnology see:
- The Nanoethics Group
- European Group on Ethics and New Technologies to the European Commission
- Bibliography and Links
- Springer Journal on NanoEthics 




Introduction

 According to Freitas nanomedicine is
“ […] (1) the comprehensive monitoring, control, construction, repair, defense, and improvement of all human biological systems, working from the molecular level, using engineered nanodevices and nanostructures; (2) the science and technology of diagnosing, treating, and preventing disease and traumatic injury, of relieving pain, and of preserving and improving human health, using molecular tools and molecular knowledge of the human body; (3) the employment of molecular machine systems to address medical problems, using molecular knowledge to maintain and improve human health at the molecular scale.” (R. A. Freitas:  Nanomedicine, Vol. I: Basic Capabilities, Georgetown (Texas) 1999, p. 418)

Following this vision, nanomedicine will change in a short, middle, and long term perspective the life of individuals and societies in many regards. These changes are of major ethical relevance as far as they concern human self awareness, as well as the respect, responsibility, and care we owe to each other and to the environment. Similar challenges that have been predicted of information technology, genetics and brain research have to be grasped in their convergence. Nanomedicine should be ethically located, as Freitas does, within a healing vision without excluding the question of enhancement. 

Ethical Aspects of Nanomedicine on a short, middle, and long term perspective
The ethics of nanomedicine can be conceived as prospective responsibility on a short, middle, and long term perspective (5, 10, 20 years). But obviously this kind of predictions are subject to unexpected breakthroughs.
On a short term perspective nanomedicine faces ethical questions that arise mainly from the knowledge gaps concerning the risks of interventions using:

 Nanomedical products
Nanocosmetic products
Nanodelivery vehicles / systems / implants
Nanodiagnostic tests
In general, due to the present lack of knowledge the precautionary principle, i.e., the responsibility to take preventive action to avoid harm to human health or the environment in a situation where knowledge gaps prevail, should be applied particularly in case of the invasive use of nanotechnology in the human body. There are knowledge gaps with regard to the toxicity of nanoparticles and nanomaterials not only for the human body but also for the environment. 

 The dangers of affecting the human brain with nanotechnology are among the most controversial ethical aspects particularly if such interventions are beyond a healing perspective. The preservation of human identity should be respected in all such interventions as well as in research projects dealing with them.


On a middle term perspective nanodevices and nanomedical products will be used in all medical fields. This rises ethical questions of responsibility at a local and global level. Particularly questions of data protection and privacy arise as in the case of genetic testing. Nanodiagnostic tests will rise the question of healing expectations that in many cases will not be fulfilled. The gap between diagnostic and healing possibilities will affect the relation between the physician and the patient concerning informed consent as well as the right of the patient not to know. Nanomedical implants, drugs and treatments will rise the question of justice and fairness in the health care system as well as between rich and poor societies (nano divide) in case such drugs and treatments do not happen to be better and cheaper as the ones used today which is one of the promises of nanomedicine so far. 
There is  also the question of patents in this field, i.e., the question whether artificial configurations of chemical elements can be considered as inventions.
On a long term perspective nanotechnology envisages not only the creation of autonomous nanomachines to be used inside the human body but the enhancement and even transformation of the human body and human identity particularly in case they were used to modify the human brain.
The use of nanomachines in the human body implies the risk that due to a damage in the onboard computer this could not be appropriately steered. The threat of nanomachines  (fighting nanorobots) will become real not only in war situations but also in case they were produced and used by terrorists in everyday life. This could also lead to new forms of ubiquitous surveillance and monitoring becoming a new threat to privacy and autonomy.
From an ethical viewpoint it is not desirable to create autonomous nanomachines as far as they could become not only out of control but even able of acting in an own initiative (automated decision-making) eventually against their human designers. This so called black goo scenario is at present purely science fiction but it shows ad limine not only undesirable but also unacceptable effects of what sometimes is being called a transhumanist vision. This vision becomes a nightmare in case the human race is conceived as something capable of being superseded on the basis of nanotechnological self annihilation. The reverse is a healing vision in which nanomedicine is viewed at the heart of a human- and  life-centered scenario. This vision is affirmative towards technology in general and nanotechnology in particular as far as any technology means a transcendence of what is naturally given by creating something artificial. In other words, technology belongs to human self understanding. The ethical limits of self-manipulation arise at the moment when such changes become a threat to human self awareness based on a radical transformation of the human body. But this limit leaves a broad field of possible applications that will concern the enhancement of human capabilities which are not per se a threat to human dignity but might lead to a better life through an improvement of healing methods, new materials improving the quality of life etc. It is difficult to foresee now such positive and negative effects including the gray goo scenario, i.e., the impact of self-replicating nanomachines in the ecosphere. 



Conclusion

 The view of the human body from a nano perspective is basically reductionist  similar for instance to the view of the human brain as a computer, now a nano-computer. This reductionist view can give rise to the naturalistic fallacy, i.e., to the idea that human phenomena can be changed or influenced at the nano level without telling the manipulator what changes are more or less desirable. It enforces the misleading belief that all human diseases could eventually be treated and eliminated by advanced nanotechnology. The potential benefits of nanomedicine are wrongly extrapolated into a view of the human being as a mere composition of atoms and molecules. It is hard to believe that on the basis of manipulations at the nano level the condition humaine between birth and death can be changed. 

 The utopian idea of a longer life of, say, two or three hundred years on the basis of nano-manipulation looks at least from the perspective of today’s political and economic situation more like a nightmare than a utopia. It can be considered also a cynical perspective in view of what should and could be done with the help of nanomedicine in order to alleviate real human pain. Such utopian visions are misleading not only with regard to the expectations of patients but also of the public opinion and of politicians responsible for public funds for research projects envisaging such perspectives. 

ANNEX

 Freitas' on Ethics of Nanomedicine with Short Comments
Freitas' outstanding book on Nanomedicine is quoted from: http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI.htm

1) 21st Century Medicine 
http://www.nanomedicine.com/NMI/1.2.1.13.htm
"The very earliest nanotechnology-based biomedical systems may be used to help resolve many difficult scientific questions that remain. They may also be employed to assist in the brute-force analysis of the most difficult three-dimensional structures among the 100,000-odd proteins of which the human body is comprised, or to help ascertain the precise function of each such protein. But much of this effort should be complete within the next 20-30 years because the reference human body has a finite parts list, and these parts are already being sequenced, geometered and archived at an ever-increasing pace. Once these parts are known, then the reference human being as a biological system is at least physically specified to completeness at the molecular level. Thereafter, nanotechnology-based discovery will consist principally of examining a particular sick or injured patient to determine how he or she deviates from molecular reference structures, with the physician then interpreting these deviations in light of their possible contribution to, or detraction from, the general health and the explicit preferences of the patient. In brief, nanomedicine will employ molecular machine systems to address medical problems, and will use molecular knowledge to maintain human health at the molecular scale.".

 Full article > http://www.capurro.de/nanoethics.html
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How to unlock cellphones

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The 10 Most Overlooked Tax Deductions / Turbotax

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29 Smart Ways to Make Money on the Side in 2017

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