I assume you’re talking about another country, because in Denmark there was no general curfew under Covid (attendance to events might have required proof of negative COVID test or vaccination, but shops never did).
It’s intentional and requires quite a lot of focus.
The original paper [0] mentions electrodes are placed over Broca’s area (speech production, translates words to mouth movements) and motor area (adjusts the mouth movements). It’s attempted speech, not thoughts.
There is a lot of fear in mainstream media and populace of devices decoding thoughts, but that is a significantly harder problem, at this moment on the level of sci-fi of Civilisation Type II on Kardashev scale. There is a reason why the electrodes are not over Wernicke’s area instead (language comprehension and production).
I find this distinction unnecessarily nitpicky in this context. A BCI can be implement using EEG as an input so yes, you can definitely make a BCI using PiEEG.
130dB SNR is also not too shabby for a low-cost device, I wonder how it compares in a real world scenario with some of the OpenBCI offerings. For now at least it seems to be a cheaper option to OpenBCI Cyton with a comparable performance, unless I missed something.
Grant application and advancement in scientific careers. As a junior researcher, you either publish in impactful peer reviewed journals or you don’t get your PhD. As a senior researcher, you either publish in impactful peer reviewed journals or your PhD student doesn’t get the PhD degree (this hurts both of you). Moreover, you won’t get grants so you can’t even hire a PhD student in the first place.
While scientists’ prestige might be a part of the equation, it’s mostly the academic leaderships and fonds that have brought us here.
Not only does English get you by in most big cities, a fair amount of European citizens are multilingual and often it’s the neighbouring countries that people speak the language of.
You'll bet by in English as a tourist, but you probably aren't getting a job with just English, and you're definitely not holding down a full social life either. Despite the EU's efforts at integration, Europe is still effectively separated by languages and cultures way beyond anything in North America.
> Every in-demand field of study is guarded by the all-important grade-point average from High School. If yours is too low, well, sorry, you’re just not going to study psychology or become a midwife. It doesn’t matter whether you came from an underprivileged background, did a million extracurriculars, or hail from an ethnic minority. You either make the grade for your first choice or you pick something else to study.
This is not Denmark specifically, it’s just Europe, and it’s not even true.
In Denmark there’s something called Quota 2, which is an admission track that is not based on the average, but on extra-curriculars, volunteering, work experience, …
Ofc it’s easier if you have the average and a lot depends on what subjects you choose to graduate from, but not all is lost even if you chose the wrong subjects. If you need let’s say extra physics classes, a lot of universities/schools offer pre-university courses which can teach you the subject in the summer and you can apply for your dream programme the same year.
A lot of people actually start university and then later find out it’s not what they like and switch to another programme or (trade) school after a year. Generally, in Denmark, you can study what you want, unless you’re really ill-equipped for some reason (but then you probably have bigger issues to resolve first).
That being said, I don’t know about any way how you can get into a university programme based on being a member of an ethnic minority.
In Denmark the situation is a tad different. A lot of immigrants of Middle Eastern descent have rather poor English and their Danish is much better (they need to be somewhat fluent in Danish in order to stay). Their kids’ English is however on par with “native” Dane’s kids.
The inability to blend in, IMO, is primarily language based. I have a better hold of Danish than most of my international friends and I have also felt more welcome in Denmark than them. Folks that have been in Denmark for 5 years longer, are even more homey in Denmark IME (regardless of skin colour, mind you).
This is obviously anecdotal evidence, I am sure there are some older folks that aren’t as accepting (my friends are generally young, as I am). But still, a lot of them can be open minded.
I am reminded of this story a friend of mine has told me. She ran an org helping immigrants in Denmark and one of the activities she organised was connecting immigrants willing to learn the language with older folks in care homes who longed to speak to more people.
An older resident lady has told her once that while she is not keen on those immigrants from Middle East, Muhammad is a very nice person whom she enjoyed spending time with. So much about accepting other cultures and people is about exposure (probably why cities are more liberal than countryside)
I think English knowledge is a generational thing, irrelevant of background. People who migrated earlier had to learn the local language, because English knowledge was not prevalent back then. Their kids are just like all the others, and speak English because it's a must in a globalized world.
I think that a major issue for people who are not fluent in the local language is that it's always an effort for the group to switch to a foreign language. People's English skills differ, and some of them might have it harder to articulate themselves. I personally think that the burden is on you to learn the language and not on them to learn English - as a guest, you should honor the house rules, just like you are expected to respect local laws and customs. If you plan to stay, learning to speak the language is a must. I've seen many fellow expats try to skip this hurdle though, taking classes to reach some minimum required level (here it's B1 if you want to attain a German citizenship) and then going back to expecting everyone to accommodate for them. Some people I know have been living here for close to a decade and they still struggle to order food.
While US has ratified the Universal Declaration of Human rights[1], I am not sure how binding it is. There are also two Conventions about statelessness that US has not signed, and maybe that’s why similar revocations of citizenship has happened in the past[2] Even though link discusses a case where a terrorist lost the citizenship, not a law-abiding doctor, the grounds for revocation were the same - diplomatic immunity at the time).
I understand that the point of an abstract is to tell a researcher in the field whether or not the paper is worth reading. I don't think the authors of this paper understand that, though. My reaction was "well, that's two minutes of my life I won't get back."
