* 22 entries including: capitalism & socialism (series); videogames boom (series); Hamas funding; Israel-Hamas war | legal actions against Meta, Google, & FOX; long-range hypersonic weapons | RR turbogenerators | AeroSHARK; efficient data centers; Russian trolling | my Razor A6 kick scooter; fly connectome; Israel-Hamas war | shaky Trump | Japan & South Korea do aid; LionGlass | folding glass | paper battery; inverse vax for auto-immune diseases; Iran hostage deal | UKR in Africa | net neutrality restored; AI for bacterial studies | capybara diet | no male chicks; EU Digital Services / Markets Act; & NY judgement against Trump | Colorado Springs balloon fiesta.
* HAMAS FUNDING: As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("Who Funds Hamas?" by Hadeel Sayegh, John O'Donnell, & Elizabeth Howcroft, 13 October 2023), the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas is financially supported by a global financing network to funnel support from charities and supportive governments, passing cash through Gaza tunnels or using cryptocurrencies to bypass international sanctions.
However, following the terror attacks by Hamas on Israel in early October 2023, there's been a crackdown on the money network, with Israeli police saying they have frozen foreign bank accounts linked to Hamas fundraising and blocked cryptocurrency accounts used to gather donations. How much of a dent that put into Hamas fundraising is hard to say.
Matthew Levitt -- a former US official specialized in counterterrorism -- believes the bulk of Hamas' budget of more than $300 million USD came from taxes on business, as well as from countries including Iran and Qatar or charities. Hamas raises funds in other Gulf countries and gets donations from Palestinians, other expatriates and its own charities.
Levitt adds that Hamas, sanctioned as a terrorist organization by the USA and countries such as Britain, has increasingly used cryptocurrencies, credit cards, or dodgy trade deals to avoid mounting international restrictions. However, Hamas said recently that it was moving away from crypto, having suffered painful losses with it. Worse for Hamas, cryptocurrency's ledger system can make transactions with it traceable -- it's not as secure as it was once made out to be.
Researchers at TRM Labs, which tracks cryptocurrency transactions, say that cryptocurrency transactions conducted by Hamas have dropped precipitously since 2021, the Israelis claiming they've seized almost 190 crypto accounts linked to Hamas.
More generally, by 2022, Hamas had established a secret network of companies managing a half-billion USD of investments in companies from Turkey to Saudi Arabia, with the US Treasury imposing sanctions on them.
The US State Department says that Iran provides up to $100 million USD annually in support to Palestinian groups including Hamas, moving the money through shell companies, shipping transactions, and precious metals. The Israelis have long accused the Islamic Republic of shipping arms to Tehran. The Iranians barely bother to deny it, since backing the Palestinian cause is a high and publicly visible priority of Tehran.
Gas-rich Qatar too has paid hundreds of millions of dollars to Gaza since 2014, at one time spending $30 million USD per month to help operate Gaza'a sole power plant and to support needy families and public servants in the Hamas-run government. Qatar's support for Gaza is not much like that of Iran's, however; Qatar's funding for Gaza actually passes through Israel, with Israeli and UN officials hand-carrying the cash over the border.
The cash is distributed directly to needy families and public servants in Gaza; each family or individual must sign next to their name that they've received the cash. One copy of that sheet goes to Israel, one goes to the UN and one goes to Qatar. A Qatari government official said: "Qatari aid to the Gaza Strip is fully coordinated with Israel, the UN and the US."
Qatar is performing a careful balancing act. The country hosts the Al Udeid Air Base, headquarters of US Central Command, while simultaneously allowing the presence of Hamas and Taliban officials. The Qataris have positioned themselves as regional mediators, and so far everyone seems to accept it.
As for Hamas, although the money flow to the organization seems to have been disrupted to an uncertain degree, it's very difficult to say it's being choked off. Hamas is resourceful and clever, able to come up with new schemes when the old ones aren't working any more. Those schemes may be disrupted in turn, to be replaced by another set. The money war continues.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Israel's war against Hamas terrorists in Gaza is grinding on slowly. The USA and other Western nations have asked for restraint on the part of the Israelis, but nobody seriously thinks the Israelis wouldn't t respond to the Hamas attacks on Israel. Videos show an Israeli penetrating munition punching through a building and plunging deep into the ground, detonating to blow up in an underground complex -- with flames bursting out of the mouths of about a dozen tunnels.
It appears there's been some fighting in the north with Hizbollah in Lebanon, and Iranian-backed militias in Syria have launched drone attacks on US installations in the area -- with the US responding with precise and limited strikes on militia targets, obviously trying to avoid escalation. Yemen's Houthi rebels also launched Iranian-made kamikaze drones and cruise missiles against Israel, with all shot down by the missiles of a US destroyer.
There are no signs at present that the conflict will escalate further, though that could change. Most likely, the fighting in Gaza will continue for months until it is spent, with the headlines gradually receding to the back pages. After all, fighting between Israel and the Palestinians is nothing new. What happens over the longer run is entirely unclear.
In the meantime, the squabbling online between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli factions is at a hot pitch. For myself, I'm staying out of the crossfire. It's like monitoring a volcanic eruption in some distant land: there's great destruction, people are getting hurt, but there's no taking sides in the disaster.
After the fighting started, there was a rash of videos online of Palestinian sympathizers tearing down publicly-posted fliers describing Israelis taken hostage by Hamas. I had to think: "Give it a few days, and there will be pushback." Indeed, the videos now show those who tear down the fliers being angrily confronted, along with some confrontations between Palestinian and Israeli sympathizers being broken up by the cops.
* George Takei, of STAR TREK fame, is a popular X/Twitter poster, and had this to say about the various crises we are enduring:
George Takei / @GeorgeTakei: I don't know the answer to many of the world's great problems. But have they tried diverting all power to the forward array? That worked for us often.
SnarkTank / @TheSnarkTank99: Darn, and here I've been angling the deflector shields. I've clearly been using the wrong franchise.
Jason Judge / @JasonDJudge: Are we allowed to mention reversing the polarity? Or is that taboo?
* 42 US state Attorneys General (AG) are now bringing a lawsuit against Meta -- the parent company of Facebook and Instagram -- for intentionally rigging their algorithms in a way that harms children by getting them addicted to their platforms. The basis for the lawsuit was described in a CNBC report:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Meta designed its Facebook and Instagram products to keep young users on them for longer and repeatedly coming back, the attorneys general allege. According to the federal complaint, Meta did this via the design of its algorithms, copious alerts, notifications and so-called infinite scroll through platform feeds. The company also includes features that the AGs allege negatively impact teens' mental health through social comparison or promoting body dysmorphia, such as "likes" or photo filters.
END_QUOTE
That may not seem to be anything more than clever design of a product, but 42 state AGs wouldn't have pressed the case unless they thought they could win. As far as damages go, it's hard to put a dollar value on them, but the settlement in this type of case is often a mix of a massive fine, along with court-ordered changes in transparency, programs funded by Meta to help kids, limits on how far Meta can go, and court oversight into the future. The judge could, in the extreme, break up Meta.
One Frances Haugen, previously a Facebook official, said during Congressional testimony in 2021 that Facebook's algorithm could steer young users from something relatively innocuous such as healthy recipes to content promoting anorexia in a short period of time. She proposed a solution for Facebook to change its algorithms to stop focusing on delivering posts that create more engagement and instead create a chronological feed of posts for Facebook users. That, she said, would help Facebook deliver safer content. Haugen was bitterly critical of Facebook, saying:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
I saw that Facebook repeatedly encountered conflicts between its own profits and our safety. Facebook consistently resolved those conflicts in favor of its own profits. The result has been a system that amplifies division, extremism and polarization -- and undermining societies around the world.
END_QUOTE
Meta, of course, provides online media to all age groups, not just kids -- but kids provide the strongest legal lever into the company. What happens with the lawsuit remains to be seen.
* In related news, the Department of Justice (DOJ), along with 38 state attorneys-general, is taking tech giant Google to court, accusing the company of abusing its online-search monopoly to obtain bigger profits, snuff out competition, and slow innovation. The case hinges on how Google pays smartphone makers and other companies big money to make the Google Chrome browser the default on devices. Users don't have to stick with Chrome, but most do so, giving Google a big advantage.
This leveling of the playing field is unlikely to be remotely fatal to Google In early 2020 Europeans won the right to pick their default search engine when they set up devices powered by Google's Android mobile operating system. Since that time, Google's share of European search has edged down from 94% to 90%. A similar reduction in the USA would cost Google billions of dollars, but the company would retain the bulk of its revenue.
The trust-busters have to prove that Google really is a monopoly, and that it is abusing its monopolistic position. Google is offering a lively defense. The outcome of the trial will determine the trajectory of future trust-busting efforts by the Biden Administration.
* Fox News is also getting its fair share of abuse. The Media and Democracy (MAD) Project, a US advocacy group focusing on media issues, is petitioning the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to deny renewal of the broadcast license of channel Fox 29 in Philadelphia, on the basis that Fox broadcast "knowingly false narratives about the 2020 election" on Fox News Channel, its cable station. The MAD petition also addressed "the broader question of whether Fox retains the basic qualifications" of being an FCC license holder. The petition is open for public comment before the FCC makes a decision. The FCC board only recently came under Democratic control, so it's an open question as to what the decision will be and how far it reaches.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (70): Libertarianism ended not as a consistent socio-economic system, but as an inconsistent grab-bag of ideas. The libertarianism of the Trump era was less inspired by reputable scholars such as Friedrich Hayek or Milton Friedman than by Murray Rothbard (1926:1995), who devised an extreme libertarian system known as "anarcho-capitalism". Rothbard wanted the end of all government, with people instead forming voluntary associations to pursue the aims of their groups. There would be no laws, simply privatized courts to resolve disagreements, and no public police, just hired police and voluntary security associations.
Rothbard envisioned a "completely level playing field", but it doesn't take too much imagination to realize that what he really wanted was a hereditary capitalist oligarchy along medieval lines, with the rich and powerful concentrating power in monopolies without restraint and becoming laws unto themselves.
This is exactly the nightmare scenario that Teddy Roosevelt warned against. There were claims that the Trump era represented the triumph of Rothbard's thought, but in reality he'd never been anything but a mouthpiece for Right-wing capitalist barons. What actually emerged into view along with Trump was a sort of mindless anarchism, a gut anger against government, regulation, and taxes -- heavily tainted by bigotry.
That view of the world was sometimes called "vulgar libertarianism", but that lowest common denominator was all that was left once the quibbling and intellectual pretensions of formal libertarianism were stripped away. Underneath the effusive praise of liberty lurked a doctrine, to the extent that it could be nailed down, that was emphatically anti-democratic, verging on fascistic. For all their high-flown talk, what they ended up with was Donald Trump, who had no ideology, no concern except the pursuit of self-interest, no appeal except to their anger.
It was the inevitable result of decades of Rightist propaganda, funded by reactionary billionaires who promoted the "culture wars" against diversity, LGBT rights, environmental action, indeed against cultural change in general -- less out of any conviction than as a war against the state to eliminate taxes and regulation. Companies on the wrong side of the culture wars, not incidentally, were attacked; capitalism in general did not benefit, merely the capitalists who liked Trump, and they only benefited as long as Trump clinged to power. Ronald Reagan wouldn't have been happy to see what his revolution became.
* Trump was replaced in the White House by Joe Biden (born 1942), previously Obama's vice president, Biden's initial task being to get the COVID-19 pandemic under control. Vaccines against COVID-19 had been developed, so the government did successfully ensure that vaccines were widely available, the result being the biggest adult vaccination program in history. The vaccine could not prevent people from contracting the disease, but it greatly reduced its mortality. The Biden Administration also sent out a third, particularly generous stimulus check.
Life began to return to normal as the death rates fell. In the spring of 2023, the pandemic emergency was declared over. However, the high inflation lingered in a gradually declining fashion, being slowly taken down by high interest rates maintained by the Fed. There were persistent worries that a recession was just around the corner, but in good part thanks to the stimulus checks, employment remained high and the economy kept rolling along, if in a somewhat bumpy way. There were complaints that the high inflation in the USA was due to the stimulus checks -- but the inflation was a global phenomenon, not particularly higher in the USA than elsewhere, with inflation hanging on in countries that had been much more fiscally conservative.
The supply-chain snarls were gradually ironed out, but that didn't mean a return to the globalist status. The Biden Administration did not reverse the bipartisan hostility to China that had become overt in the Trump Administration, Xi Jinping having demonstrated authoritarian and imperialistic inclinations, particularly in making threats against Taiwan.
The Biden Administration instead promoted regional trade blocs, calling the approach "friendshoring", in which trade links were to be established with allies that shared common values, with trade deals linked to environmental and social concerns. There were protests that stopping trade with China was economically self-defeating, but the Biden Administration made it clear that wasn't the intent. The intent was to find alternatives to China and reduce Chinese leverage, the effort being on a long-term basis. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* WINGS & WEAPONS: As discussed in an article from AVIATIONWEEK.com ("US Navy Budgets $3.61 Billion For 64 Boost-Glide Missiles" by Steve Trimble, 23 March 2023), the US Navy has now allocated $3.61 billion USD to buy the first 64 hypersonic "Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS)" missiles. CPS envisions a long-range missile that would be launched from ships or subs, and carry a hypersonic glide vehicle (HGV). The Navy plans to field the CPS missile on the ZUMWALT-class destroyers in 2025.
The US Army is already working on deployment of the "Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW)", with an HGV and a reported range of 2,775 kilometers (1,725 miles). It is fired from a two-round transporter / erector / launcher trailer. The Army is working with the Navy on the project, and it seems both the CPS and LRHW use the same rocket booster: a two-stage booster with a diameter of 98 centimeters (34.5 inches). It is not clear how common the HGV is between the two weapons.
* According to an article from NEWATLAS.com ("New Rolls-Royce Turbogenerator Upgrades Any eVTOL's Range And Payload" by Loz Blain, 13 July 2022), aircraft engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce is now introducing a line of lightweight, efficient turbogenerators designed to power hybrid eVTOL aircraft.
Battery-powered aircraft are a coming thing, but they have range problems. To obtain longer range, an electric aircraft needs an efficient, lightweight generator burning fuels. Rolls-Royce plans to provide turbogenerators for a wide range of aircraft, with outputs ranging from 500 to 1,200 kilowatts. The company is developing a power distribution systems, to allow the current to be directed to charge up the battery pack or power the electric motors directly.
* According to a report from German airline Lufthansa, a collaboration between engineers at Lufthansa Technik and chemicals & coatings manufacturer BASF has resulted in the creation of "AeroSHARK" -- a thin-film coating that can be applied to an aircraft's skin to reduce drag and improve fuel efficiency.
Lufthansa researchers took a clue from nature, specifically shark skin, finding that it is carpeted with "riblets", tiny protrusions that reduce drag. They got in touch with engineers at BASF, who developed a clear thin film that is similarly carpeted with riblets, each 50 micrometers high. The researchers found that by applying the skin to the fuselage and engines of a Boeing 777, they could reduce fuel consumption by 1.1%. Swiss International Airlines plans to coat all 12 of its 777-300ER machines with AeroSHARK from the summer of 2023. Lufthansa is now coating all of its large cargo aircraft with the new skin.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIDEO GAMES GO BOOM (4): Video games have long had a connection with movies, though video games movies have a reputation for being cheesy. Nonetheless, the connection between the two is strong and getting stronger.
Welcome to the Seoul-area headquarters of NCSoft, a South Korean developer of globally popular games. It's a high-tech place -- except in the basement, where sound-effects guru Lee Seung-gi, who spent eight years in the film industry, uses simple tools to get his job done. To conjure the noise of a skeletal monster rising from the earth, he crunches crab shells. For a laser gun, he hooks a slinky to the back of a chair and flicks it: PEEOWW! He says the hardest sound effect to get right are footsteps, recorded in a tray of gravel: the sound varies with the mood of the character.
Making a blockbuster game is now like making a blockbuster movie, with a comparable budget and timetable. The two businesses increasingly share production techniques and expertise -- to the point where some envision a single production process. Another effect is that that game studios become more focused even than film studios on monetizing a few successful franchises.
When Allen Adham and two college friends founded what is now Blizzard Entertainment in 1991, making a game wasn't that big of a project. "Rock n' Roll Racing", one of Blizzard's early hits, had a development team of ten. Today at Blizzard's campus, in the Los Angeles area, some games are developed by teams of over 500. Improvements in graphics capability have led to new jobs; a team of people might only work on lighting effects. Rod Fergusson -- who is in charge of Blizzard's "Diablo" series -- say that in some ways, games are a tougher job than movies: "Movies have a language and a process that everyone understands. With games, you have to reinvent the camera every time."
An AAA game, the most sophisticated sort, might take anything between three and seven years to make. Not much is said about budgets, but "Cyberpunk 2077", one of the hottest releases of 2020, was said by its Polish developer, CD Projekt, to have cost the equivalent of about $275 million USD -- which is big money even by Hollywood standards.
Movie people are moving into games and the reverse. Asad Qizilbash -- head of PlayStation Productions, which makes films and TV series based on Sony's games -- says: "There's a lot of crossover now with these various labor markets ... the skill set is very interchangeable."
Neil Druckmann of Naughty Dog -- who created "The Last of Us", a hit PlayStation game involving an apocalypse of human "zombie fungus" -- co-wrote a TV adaptation released by HBO in 2023, which also became a hit. HBO's cinematographer paid a return visit to Naughty Dog to share TV techniques. In Los Angeles actors and writers increasingly split their efforts between video and game entertainment: Keanu Reeves had a role in "Cyberpunk 2077", while George R.R. Martin, creator of the GAME OF THRONES series, wrote the backstory for "Elden Ring", one of 2022's biggest games. So far, however, comedy hasn't translated well into the game environment.
Hollywood, in return, has tried to leverage off games. For a long time, movie adaptations of games have been notoriously bad, one gaming boss saying of a game-derived movie: "One of the worst movies I've ever seen." However, things are looking up. "The Last of Us", as noted, has been a big hit, while Sega's "Sonic the Hedgehog 2" and Sony's "Uncharted" were hits in 2022. Netflix has dozens of game adaptations in the works.
Game-based movies and TV are getting better as games become more sophisticated, but today's producers grew up with games and understand them. Utsumi Shuji of Sega says: "If you talk with Hollywood people, they're big fans of gaming. They know all our IPs [intellectual properties]." Julia Alexander of Parrot Analytics, a research firm, believes that game-based movies will rise as interest in superhero movies declines: "Gaming will be in the 2020s what comics IP was in the '00s and '10s." [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* EFFICIENT DATA CENTERS? As discussed in an article from BBC.com ("Can We Make The Internet Less Power-Thirsty?" by Michael Dempsey, 10 February 2023), the modern internet is dependent on buildings full of computers, called "data centers". All those computers draw a good deal of power, about as much as a middling-sized town.
The problem is visible in Ireland. There are about 20 data centers in Dublin, built by Microsoft and Amazon, with 75 altogether across the country, and more in construction. They're overwhelming the electrical grid; projections suggest they will consume over a quarter of all the power generated in Ireland by 2029. The Irish government has reacted, establishing sustainability as a precondition for approval of new data centers, the government saying that "new-build data centers must be able to flexibly reduce power consumption".
The new mindset is visible in a new data center, opened at Grange Castle on the outskirts of Dublin. It connection to the electricity grid is managed by software from the firm Eaton in conjunction with energy giant Enel. If the wider electricity grid is under stress, the electricity to the data center is shut off and backup systems immediately kick in. Since data centers can't afford downtime, they all have backup power systems -- typically in the form of a battery-backed uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and a diesel generator, with the UPS handling the load momentarily until the diesel generator gets up to speed.
At Grange Castle, Eaton's UPS intervenes and frees up power on the grid when the grid's electrical frequency fluctuates in a way that indicates it is under stress. That might be when power from unstable sources, such as Ireland's vast wind farms, dips. Many data centers already remove demand from the grid for a pre-scheduled period, using technology from companies such as Schneider Electric and Vertiv -- but the system at Grange Castle is said to the first that does real-time adjustment.
Ciaran Forde -- a physicist at Eaton who works with data centers -- says the system acts like a pressure valve, yanking the data center off the grid for valuable interludes. The Irish grid operator reimburses the owner of the data center for the flexibility. Jay Dietrich -- from the Uptime Institute, which certifies data centers for resilience and reliability, and previously employed by IBM as an expert on energy policy -- believes that the income is a big motivator for the owners. "They're not doing this for noble reasons. They are doing it for cash flow and revenue."
The problem isn't restricted to Ireland, of course. In 2022 London's governing body, the Greater London Authority, wrote to housing developers in the west of the capital warning they could face long waits, up to a decade, before new developments could be connected to the grid. Although there is a housing shortage across London, data centers in the Thames Valley were hoovering up electrical capacity, not leaving enough to support other growth in the region.
New technology fixes are being developed. At Brunello, a town near the Swiss border in Northern Italy, data management business Pure Storage is putting a data center on a digital diet, using software that spots duplicated storage of data and deletes the duplicates, on an ongoing basis. That sounds like more tweaking, but even with the overhead of the monitoring, Pure claims they can cut power consumption of a data center by up to 80%. Pure CEO James Petter -- previously of the British Army and Coca-Cola -- says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
We design our equipment around the principle of lowering power use. And right now, all the requests we get from prospective data center customers are about power consumption. They used to ask about technology and price first, but today carbon emissions and renewables are what count. It's all about carbon footprints, everyone's on the bandwagon.
END_QUOTE
Petter says that the push toward energy efficiency has taken off over the last two years. However, he doesn't believe that data centers will run out of steam any time soon: "The macro trend is for data to increase. I do think innovation will continue, there will be new ways of storing the data."
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("US Intelligence Report Alleging Russia Election Interference Shared With 100 Countries" by Jonathan Landay & Simon Lewis, 20 October 2023), Russian disinformation campaigns have become a fact of life -- denied only by Russian trolls and their local accomplices, to end up proving the fact.
This last Friday, the USA sent an intelligence report to more than a hundred countries that described how the Kremlin is using spies, social media, and Russian state propaganda media to erode public faith in the integrity of democratic elections worldwide. The most specific reason for sending out the report was the upcoming 2024 US elections, which are already being targeted by Russian trolls.
A senior State Department official said that Russia was encouraged to intensify its election influence operations by its success in amplifying disinformation about the 2020 US election and the COVID-19 pandemic: "Success breeds more, and we definitely see the US elections as a catalyst."
The report was sent in a State Department cable to more than 100 US embassies in the Americas, Europe, Asia and Africa for distribution to host governments. The report stated that Russian disinformation operations between 2020 and 2022 sought to "undermine public confidence in at least 11 elections across nine democracies, including the United States," adding 17 others were targeted by less visible efforts.
The report said that Russia "utilizes both overt and covert mechanisms, including influence networks and proxies managed" by Russian spy services. As an example, Russia's FSB security service secretly worked to intimidate election workers, organize election day protests, and "sabotage overseas voting" in an unnamed European country's 2020 election.
Russian state media claimed polls would be undemocratic and "amplified false claims of fraud" in advance of multiple elections in Asia, Europe, the Middle East and South America between 2020 and 2021. Russia also used social media platforms and "proxy websites" to spread doubts about the integrity of elections, the report said. It described Russia as "the leading culprit" conducting operations to undermine public faith in the conduct and results of elections. China has had similar intent, but has never gone nearly as far as Russia.
The report recommended that countries work to mitigate Russian election interference through sanctions, information sharing, expulsions of Russian spies, and travel bans.
* In somewhat related news, Ron Filipkowski, a well-known "Never-Trumper" on X/Twitter, reported that a MAGA troll named Douglass Mackey has been sentenced to 7 months in jail for attempting to trick black and hispanic Democratic voters out of their votes in the 2016 election by spreading false information during the 2016 elections.
Mackey set up a Twitter account under the name "Ricky Vaughn". He sent out fake advertisements, saying that the lines at polling places were long and encouraging people to "legally" vote by text, providing a fictitious text number. The advertisements were designed to look as if they were coming from the Hillary Clinton campaign. One ad was written in Spanish, and the other featured a black woman holding a sign that said: "African-Americans for Hillary."
Both Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor-Greene have asserted that Mackey did nothing wrong and should not have been prosecuted. Of course, election fraud is illegal, and Mackey's foolish scam was guaranteed to be found out. The interesting thing about this story is that it demonstrates how action against traditional mail fraud and the like is becoming more common on the internet.
* I've been interested in acquiring a cheap, lightweight method of transportation -- one experiment leaving me dependent on crutches for a time. More successfully, I obtained a Razor A6 adult kick scooter and have been cruising around the neighborhood with it.
It looks much like a kid's kick scooter, but is bigger; I'm 190 centimeters tall (6'3") and can ride it standing up. The wheels are also bigger, like 25 centimeters (10"). I've been going up the learning curve on riding. It's not at all equivalent to a bicycle, being more laborious and slower, though it's easily twice as fast, on the average, as a brisk walk. It also requires caution in riding, one particular problem being that I can't look around to see what's behind me; I'm thinking of getting a head-mounted rearview mirror. Using the heel brake also takes some getting used to, and I'm having to physically condition myself so I can handle longer rides.
It was less than $120 USD, so it works well enough for the price. The scooter folds in half using a slider knob, which is a little tricky to use, but I'm getting the knack of it. I can easily fold it up and throw it in my car. The big wheels are solid and so the scooter rattles teeth on rough roadway. I'd like to get one with bigger wheels and pneumatic tires.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (69): What about environmental regulation? Should the state work to control climate change, for a big example? To the extent that libertarians accepted the existence of environmental problems -- they were often inclined to dismiss climate change as a hoax, when it was increasingly obvious to everyone with sense that it was for real -- they felt the "magic of the market" would address the problem.
That leads to the subject of business regulation, to which libertarians were typically opposed, saying: "Industry should be self-regulating!" -- meaning "unregulated". The rationale, when anyone bothered to say it, was that consumer pushback would be enough to keep businesses in line, the hidden message being that weak to nonexistent pushback was preferable to regulatory authorities.
Going further, should the state perform antitrust actions? Libertarians generally said NO -- and, when the issue of monopolies came up, often said they weren't really an issue. Should businesses have the right to treat employees any way they like, or should the state impose common standards, such as a minimum wage? It was all very well for libertarians to say workers had the freedom to quit bad jobs, but what if bad jobs were the only ones available? History shows the balance of power tends to rest with bosses and not workers. Of course, libertarians were in favor of union organization, but similarly opposed laws that prevented the bosses from breaking unions.
Should businesses be allowed to discriminate? Of course -- if it had been left to libertarians, we'd still have segregation. As far as diversity in general went, libertarians generally spoke in favor of equality of women and of ethnic minorities, as well as LGBT rights, but were also generally against any state action to support diversity, seeing efforts to do so as unjust preferment -- the preferment of white males by default being seen as unobjectionable. As for education, libertarians were inclined to be opposed to public education, with some inclination to promote school vouchers.
Another difficulty for libertarianism was the use of military force, with libertarians often inclined to a certain peculiar sort of pacifism, similar to the isolationism common in the USA before World War II. To be sure, they could point to the many failures of American use of military force, from the Vietnam War to the invasion of Iraq, but that was still blind to the reality understood by Franklin Roosevelt: it was absurd to allow Hitler to run wild and become stronger, only being willing to take him on once he posed a direct threat to the USA. Democracy, for all its flaws, had to be defended against totalitarianism.
Of course, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, nobody raised any objection to fighting back, with isolationism disappearing almost overnight. Indeed, FDR was criticized on the Right for being poorly prepared, oblivious to the way the Right had often opposed preparations for war.
More extreme libertarians liked to declare: "Taxes are theft." More often, they admitted, much like most other people, that taxes were a disagreeable but necessary evil, and acknowledged the need for some sort of government. However, they were inclined to envision it as "minarchism", sometimes called the "night watchman state", with:
Such a minimalist state would be intended, in effect, to support property rights, or in other words would serve the interests of the Haves and do nothing for the Have-Nots -- who, incidentally, libertarians were inclined to call "parasites", at least as long as the Have-Nots thought the state should do anything for them. It would also do nothing to promote the common welfare, or deal with mega-emergencies such as pandemics or climate change. What about common infrastructure, like roads? Would they be all toll roads?
In practice, of course, a minarchist government, being confronted with such challenges, would have to address them, and wouldn't be so minimal after doing so. Under Jefferson and Madison, the US Federal government was about as close to a minarchism as it ever was, with the War of 1812 demonstrating the impracticality of the doctrine, bringing the USA to the edge of ruinous defeat. Jeffersonianism was a dead end. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* Space launches for September included:
[01 SEP 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-13 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0221 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[02 SEP 23] IN SR / PSLV-XL / ADITYA L1 -- An ISRO Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV) was launched from Sriharikota at 0620 UTC (local time - 5:30) to put the "Aditya L1" solar observatory into space, at the L1 / inside Sun-Earth Lagrange point.
Aditya L1 was built in-house at ISRO, had a mass of 1,475 kilograms (3,250 pounds), and a design life of five years. It was fitted with a suite of seven instruments for solar studies:
Aditya L1 was the first ISRO solar observatory and the first ISRO probe to be placed at L1.
[02 SEP 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / TSLT0 x 8, TKLT0 x 2 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 1425 UTC (local time + 8) to put the second of two installments of the Space Development Agency's "Tranche 0 Transport / Tracking Layer" satellites into orbit. There were 8 Transport satellites & 2 tracking satellites.
Once completed, Tranche 0 will include 20 optically-connected data transport satellites and eight optically-connected missile warning / missile tracking satellites equipped with wide-field-of-view sensors. SDA plans to field the first operational generation of the "Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA)" constellation, Tranche 1, beginning in late 2024. Tranche 1 will include 126 Transport Layer satellites, 35 Tracking satellites, and 12 tactical demonstration satellites (T1DES).
[04 SEP 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-12 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0247 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 21 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[05 SEP 23] CN YS / CERES 1S / TIANQI 21:24 & -- A Ceres 1S booster was launched from a Yellow Sea platform at 0934 UTC (local time - 8) to put the four Guodian Gaoke "Tianqi 21:24" internet-of-things satellite into orbit. This was the first flight of the Ceres 1S sea-launched booster variant.
[06 SEP 23] CN JQ / LONG MARCH 4C / YAOGAN 33-03 -- A Long March 2C booster was launched from Jiuquan at 1814 UTC (next day local time - 8) to put a secret "Yaogan 33-03" payload into orbit. It was apparently a military surveillance satellite.
[06 SEP 23] JAPAN TG / H2A / SLIM, XRISM -- An H2A booster was launched from Tanegashima at 2342 UTC (next day local time - 9) to put the "Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM)" lunar lander and the "X-Ray Imaging & Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM)" X-ray telescope into space.
XRISM was placed into a 550-kilometer (340-mile) circular low-Earth orbit inclined 31 degrees to the Equator. The SLIM lunar lander was originally placed in the same orbit, but then used its own engines to gradually get to the Moon.
XRISM was a replacement for the "Hitomi" orbiting X-ray observatory, which was lost during checkout phase after launch in 2016. XRISM carried a concentric grazing-incidence X-ray telescope, feeding two instruments:
XRISM had a launch mass of 2,300 kilograms (5,070 pounds). It was 8 meters (26'3") long and 3 meters (9'10") in diameter. Its twin solar arrays, when extended, spanned 9 meters (29'6").
The SLIM lander was Japan's third attempt to land on the Moon, following the unsuccessful "Hakuto R" and "OMOTENASHI" missions failed. SLIM was an outgrowth of the "SELENE B" lander proposed at the turn of the century, with SLIM was proposed in 2012. The SLIM lander had a launch mass of 700 kilograms (1,540 pounds). It featured twin main engines, powered by storable propellants, along with 12 control thrusters.
SLIM spent four months getting to the Moon, then spent a month in orbital checkout. It landed in Mare Nectaris, under the direction of a landing radar, laser range finder, and a navigation camera. One of the major goals of the mission was to test out the precision navigation. It had five fixed landing legs with crushable "one-shot" shock absorbers. Thin film solar panels on the probe provided power, while an S-band communication system connected SLIM with Earth. The probe carried a multi-band spectral camera designed to measure the composition of rocks surrounding the landing site.
A small probe known as the "Lunar Exploration Vehicle (LEV) 1" separated from SLIM just before landing to image the site. SLIM also carried the ball-shaped "SORA Q" mini-rover AKA "Lunar Exploration Vehicle (LEV) 2", designed by Tomy, the Japanese toy maker who invented the transformers toys. In addition, NASA provided a laser retroreflector to enable precise measurement of the distance between Earth and the landing site, similar to the ones aboard Chandrayaan 3 and the Apollo missions.
The H2 family has been Japan's workhorse launch vehicle for nearly 30 years. The H2's first flight was in 1994, while the H2A first flew in 2001 after the H2 was retired following a launch failure in 1999. The H2B first flew in 2009 for HTV cargo ships to ISS and last flew in 2020. The H2 family overall has launched communications and weather satellites, lunar and interplanetary probes, and military reconnaissance satellites along with other payloads.
The H2A is the only vehicle still active in the H2 family of rockets, and the H3 is due to replace it. However, the H3's first flight in March 2023 ended in failure, with the second stage was implicated in the failure. The H3 second stage is very similar to the H2A's, so common failure modes had to be cleared before the XRISM-SLIM launch could fly.
[09 SEP 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-14 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0312 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The Falcon 9 first stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[10 SEP 23] CN TY / LONG MARCH 6A / YAOGAN 40A:C -- A Long March 6A booster was launched from Taiyuan at 0440 UTC (next day local time - 8) to put the three "Yaogan 40A:C" satellites into orbit. Apparently they were a "flying triangle" to perform SIGINT tracking of adversary naval assets.
[10 SEP 23] USA CC / ATLAS 5 / NROL 107 (USA 346:348) -- An Atlas 5 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 1247 UTC (local time + 4) to put a classified payload into geostationary orbit for the US National Reconnaissance Office. The mission was designated "NROL 107" and labeled "Silentbarker"; it was actually a triplet of satellites, designated "USA 346" to "USA 348". The booster was in the "551" vehicle configuration with a 5-meter (26.4-foot) fairing, five solid rocket boosters and a single-engine Centaur upper stage. This was the last Atlas 5 launch for NRO.
[12 SEP 23] USA VB / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 7-2 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 0657 UTC (previous day local time + 8) to put 21 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit. The booster stage landed on the SpaceX drone ship.
[15 SEP 23] USA VB / FIREFLY ALPHA / VICTUS NOX -- A Firefly Alpha light booster was launched from Vandenberg SFB at 0228 UTC (previous day local time + 8) on the "Victus Nox" -- Latin for "Conquer the Night" -- mission to put a payload into orbit for the US Space Force. It was a demonstration of a "quick launch" capability, in which a payload is put into orbit with minimal lead time.
The payload was manufactured by Millennium Space, a subsidiary of The Boeing Company. Most of the specifics regarding the satellite are unknown, though it was announced it will perform a space domain awareness mission. This involves the tracking and monitoring of other objects in orbit, along with predicting possible orbital threats.
VICTUS NOX was as the third mission launched by Alpha -- a two-stage small-lift orbital-class rocket developed by Firefly Aerospace. With a maximum payload capacity of 1,170 kilograms (2,580 pounds) to low-Earth orbit (LEO) and standing at approximately 29.5 meters (96'9"L) tall, Alpha has a higher mass-to-orbit capability than other small satellite launch vehicles, such as Rocket Lab's Electron (300 kilograms / 660 pounds to LEO).
Firefly's first orbital launch attempt with Alpha in September 2021 ended in failure after an engine shutdown at T+14 seconds into the flight. The company reached orbit with Alpha on the second flight as part of the "To the Black" mission in October 2022, though the satellites were deployed at a lower-than-planned altitude. As such, the payloads reentered the Earth's atmosphere approximately one week after launch.
Alpha's first stage features four Reaver 1 engines, which are fueled using RP-1 kerosene and liquid oxygen (LOX). Each Reaver 1 motor produces a maximum thrust of approximately 200 kN (20,390 kgp / 44,955 lbf) and achieves a specific impulse of 296 seconds in a vacuum.
Reaver 1 utilizes a "tap-off" combustion cycle, in which hot gases from the combustion chamber are routed through the turbopump turbines before being exhausted. This forgoes the need for an extra gas generator, decreasing engine complexity and cost. The majority of Alpha's construction consists of carbon-fiber composites, including the 2.2-meter (7'3") diameter payload fairing.
In addition to launch vehicles, Firefly is also continuing to build the Blue Ghost lunar lander, which will take NASA payloads to the surface of the Moon under the agency's Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. The first of these missions is due to launch no earlier than 2024 atop a SpaceX Falcon 9, with the company being awarded a second mission in March for a launch in 2026.
Earlier in the week, Firefly stated that it had won a third CLPS contract award from NASA to provide radio frequency calibration services for the "Lunar Surface Electromagnetic Experiment at Night (LuSEE-Night)" observatory, which will be deployed on the far side of the Moon during the Blue Ghost 2 mission. LuSEE-Night will measure low-frequency radio emissions during the lunar night, providing insight into the early history of the universe and its "Dark Ages."
[15 SEP 23] RU BK / SOYUZ 2-1A / PROGRESS 85P (MS 24 / ISS) -- A Soyuz 2-1a booster was launched from Baikonur at 1544 UTC (local time - 6) to put a Progress tanker-freighter spacecraft into orbit on an International Space Station (ISS) supply mission. It was the 85th Progress mission to the ISS.
[16 SEP 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-16 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0338 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[17 SEP 23] CN XC / LONG MARCH 2D / YAOGAN 39-02A:C -- A Long March 6A booster was launched from Xichang at 0415 UTC (local time - 8) to put the three "Yaogan 39-02A:C" satellites into orbit. Apparently they were a "flying triangle" to perform SIGINT tracking of adversary naval assets.
[19 SEP 23] NZ / ELECTRON / ACADIA 2 (FAILURE) -- A Rocket Labs Electron light booster was launched from New Zealand's Mahia Peninsula at 0645 UTC (local time - 13) to put the "Acadia 2" SAR radar-imaging satellite into orbit for Capella Space. The booster did not make orbit due to a second-stage failure.
[20 SEP 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-17 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0338 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[21 SEP 23] CN JQ / CERES 1 / Jilin-1 Gaofen 04B -- A Ceres 1 booster was launched from Jiuquan at 0459 UTC (local time - 8) to put the "Jilin-1 Gaofen 04B" Earth remote sensing satellite into orbit.
[24 SEP 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-18 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0338 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
[26 SEP 23] CN JQ / LONG MARCH 4C / YAOGAN 33-04 -- A Long March 2C booster was launched from Jiuquan at 2015 UTC (next day local time - 8) to put a secret "Yaogan 33-04" payload into orbit. It was apparently a military surveillance satellite.
[27 SEP 23] IR / QASED / Noor 3 -- An Iranian Qased booster put the "Noor 3" surveillance satellite into orbit for the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps.
[30 SEP 23] USA CC / FALCON 9 / STARLINK 6-19 -- A SpaceX Falcon 9 booster was launched from Cape Canaveral at 0200 UTC (previous day local time + 4) to put 22 SpaceX "Starlink v2 Mini" low-Earth-orbit broadband comsats into orbit.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIDEO GAMES GO BOOM (3): Game streaming has a more fundamental problem than latency. Utsumi Shuji -- co-chief operating officer of Sega of Japan, a leader in video games from the start -- believes that games are less adaptable to subscription than other media because their consumption is concentrated. Utsumi, who was at Warner Music Japan when music moved to subscription, says listening to a song "takes only two to three minutes, whereas when you play a game it's going to take a long time. You don't play 30 games at the same time, but with music you listen to 30 [songs] easily."
An ordinary gamer will only play a handful of different games, some of them taking a long time to master; what sense does it make for such players to have access to a library of hundreds of titles? Very little. There is a "push" factor to subscriptions, since people are more willing to try new games if they don't have to buy them individually -- but sampling lots of games doesn't mean much change in the status quo if they only stick to a handful of them.
Besides, if the players don't have to buy games individually, that cuts into sales. Sony delays putting games on its PlayStation Plus service until they have had a window as one-off purchases for $70 USD. Microsoft, which is pushing its Game Pass, is more aggressive about subscriptions, releasing most games immediately to subscribers. Nick Lightle, a media consultant formerly at Spotify, says the question is "whether they're going to see enough incremental subscriber growth to more than offset what they otherwise would have expected through just direct sales of those games."
If Microsoft acquires Activision, with its inclination to introduce popular games, Lightle believes Microsoft may reconsider: "That's where I think we'll start seeing some pressure on that model." Hollywood studios such as Warner Bros have gone back to theatrical windowing, after the cannibalization of box-office receipts proved too costly.
Yet another problem with subscription services is that the economics don't work well for third-party developers: instead of selling games, they have to negotiate with the service providers to get a cut of revenue, leaving them at the mercy of providers. Google, which gave up making games of its own, struggled to keep Stadia sufficiently stocked. Some developers do see subscriptions as a good way of gaining exposure to wider audiences, and are willing to go on subscription for older games that don't sell much any more.
Of course, huge MMO games, such as "Fortnite", operate on a subscription basis, which nobody minds -- but only one game is provided, and the money all goes to the developers. Otherwise, game subscriptions seem like an uncertain business, and may not amount to more than a niche. Of course, it would be nice for MMO games to offer accessory games as a sweetener, but they won't be big-time games.
[ED: Android games are typically cheap apps. One common and workable ploy is to offer a free version to play with, then sell a full-function version to players who liked the freebie. However, it's been more the custom as of late to provide a free app with ads, or sell accessory packages. Games with ads aren't an inherent problem -- except for the fact that the ads can be so intrusive as to make it hard to play the game. As far as selling accessories go, that can degenerate into an exasperating "pay to play" model not so different from a subscription. Some even try to sell subscriptions to the games, even when they're hardly in a league with "Fortnite".] [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* FLY CONNECTOME: Research on the "connectome" -- the wiring of a brain -- has been discussed here in the past, According to an article from ECONOMIST.com "After Larval Fruit-Flies, More Complex Brains Are Next", 11 March 2023), researchers have now released the most elaborate connectome wiring map yet -- that of a fly larva, tracing out the about 548,000 synaptic connections between 3,016 neurons.
This research is the result of over a decade's worth of effort, begun at the Janelia Research Campus in Virginia, as part of its FlyEM project. The work began by slicing the larval brain into thousands of layers for scanning with an electron microscope (EM), with researchers then labeling and analyzing the images to produce the map.
The researchers have extracted insights from the map. They found that 41% of the brain neurons form "recurrent loops", providing feedback to their upstream partners. These shortcuts and loops resemble contemporary artificial neural networks. Regions of the fly's brain associated with learning had more loops in their circuitry, with downstream neurons connecting back to those close behind them, than other regions of the brain -- suggesting iterative processing of signals. Such loops might encode predictions, and that a fly learns by comparing the predictions with actual experiences. Information about the taste of a leaf, for example, might enter a neuron simultaneously with a prediction based on previous meals. If the taste differs from prediction, the neuron may secrete dopamine, a chemical capable of rewiring the circuitry to create a new memory.
Marta Zlatic -- a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge and an author of the latest research -- list three steps in a connectome study:
Consider analyzing how a fly decides to move forward. The fly's brain has to be scanned while it moved, with regions that show activity inspected to see how the connectome is activated. Multiple flies would have to be analyzed in the same way, since brain wiring varies at a detail level between individuals. The "comparative connectomics" exercise would nonetheless be able to trace out how the fly's brain works at a higher level, and the variations in operations at a detail level.
Another branch of the FlyEM team is tackling the adult fruit-fly connectome, which has ten times more neurons and a vastly larger visual cortex. Other groups are facing down the zebrafish, but the biggest game at the moment is the mouse. With a brain volume a thousand times bigger than the fruit fly's, researchers are currently advancing one cubic millimeter at a time. Still, says Moritz Helmstaedter at the Max Planck Institute for Brain Research in Frankfurt -- who leads one such project -- a full mouse connectome is achievable, if several hundreds of million dollars away.
Of course, the ultimate goal is the connectome of the human brain, a thousand times bigger still and vastly more complex. Nobody can say when it will happen, but few doubt that it will. In any case, Zlatic says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Now we have a reference brain. We can look at what happens to connectivity in models of Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases and of any [neuro]degenerative disease.
END_QUOTE
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: After the brutal Hamas attack on Israel starting on 7 October, Israeli military forces have been preparing to invade the Gaza Strip, softening up targets with airstrikes. Palestinian civilians have been ordered to leave northern Gaza, but it appears Hamas fighters won't let them go.
It is likely that Gaza will be partly or even completely flattened, with the underground tunnel complexes built by Hamas destroyed by penetrating bombs and other specialized weapons. Civilian casualties are likely to be high in the end, with the Israelis being criticized for their offensive. I don't think they care very much. For myself, I'm not happy with any of it, but I'm not involved in any way, my mindset is purely passive; it's been variations on the same story all my life. I wouldn't have a different reaction if a volcano popped up in Gaza and incinerated the place.
The Iranians are threatening to intervene, but it seems unlikely they will. There have been complaints by Ukrainians that the crisis in Gaza is crowding out the war in Ukraine, but in a few weeks, the headlines from Israel will recede. In the meantime, after the Ukrainians put a dent in Russian lines at Avdiika, the Russians have been furiously counter-attacking to drive the Ukrainians out. So far, the Russians have been slaughtered in their efforts. They haven't given up yet. Putin has ordered his generals to counterattack, and so the bodies pile up.
* Donald Trump is continuing his shaky campaign for the presidency, with those hearing his speeches wondering about his mental health. Some of it was misreading the teleprompter, which Trump has done before, but there was also a session where Trump clearly believed Barack Obama was still president. One X/Twitter poster suggested:
Mr.Eddie / @MrEddie8976: Obama should call Trump and tell him: "That's right, Donnie, I'm in charge, and I'm sending the DOJ to get you. HAHAHAHAHA!"
And then hang up.
I'm finding it ever harder to think that Trump will even be the Republican nominee. How could it happen while he's being demolished in court? Many in the media think Trump still represents an electoral threat to Joe Biden, oblivious to the reality that Trump is riding a slow-motion train wreck of cataclysmic proportions.
* As something of a follow-up to the item on collaboration between Japan and South Korea run here in September, an article from ECONOMIST.com ("China Isn't The Only Country Giving Out Goodies In Asia", 21 September 2023), the Asia-Pacific region is in great need of aid and development money. China has emerged as the biggest source of funds, most notably President Xi Jinping's "Belt and Road Initiative" to improve infrastructure and lower obstacles to trade. However, some recipient countries are getting fed up with China, while obtaining aid from other countries -- particularly Japan and South Korea.
In South-East Asia, for example, China is the single biggest provider of official aid, providing about $5.5 billion USD a year, a fifth of the total. However, while China is strong in infrastructure, with nearly 40% of all development finance in that sector), Japan funds transport slightly more than China does. South Korea is level with China in communications. China dominates energy, but in water and sanitation it is barely there. Incidentally, except via the World Bank, the USA isn't investing heavily in the region.
Chinese arrogance tends to breed resentment among recipients. It delivers fewer projects than promised, and often relies on Chinese companies and workers, with less emphasis on local hiring and training. Chinese aid, in part, amounts to subsidies for Chinese companies. Borrowers from China's two main policy banks don't give good deals, while there is sometimes corruption and shoddy work. In Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and Laos, Chinese loans have turned sour as borrowers struggle to repay. It's hard to get specifics on the problems, since the Chinese are not transparent in their actions. That doesn't win them friends, either.
Japan is not new to aid and development in the region, having been doing so from the 1950s, partly as an apology for wartime aggression. Today the Japanese build not only things, but also capacity. Unlike China, Japan often works with local contractors. Complex new subway systems, such as in Jakarta or Manila, come along with technical assistance on how to operate them. Surveys show Japan as easily the most trusted power in the region. Young Japanese, defying a tradition of annoying chauvinism that didn't make friends, go overseas as volunteers on Japanese poverty-alleviation projects, establishing trust.
Japanese organization helps, too. Unlike China, Japan makes development-assistance loans generally at favorable rates -- primarily through the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which also provides first-class Japanese expertise for advice and training. The Japan Bank for International Co-operation (JBIC) provides project financing for infrastructure development. JICA and JBIC form a winning team. In India and Bangladesh, Japan is the biggest bilateral donor. In the Philippines, says one South-East Asian diplomat, Japan "does all the heavy lifting" among donors, competing "very, very aggressively" against China.
South Korea's aid approach is much like Japan's. As an exporting powerhouse, it has huge dollar holdings to recycle and a set of high-class companies in areas such as infrastructure, mining and communications to back up its aid strategy. It helps that such companies are active in the region anyway. President Yoon Suk-yeol wants to elevate his country into the ranks of the world's ten biggest donors, having sharply increased aid spending, these days with an emphasis on health care. South Korea is also not seen as an overbearing power, while its games, music, films, and food tend to be popular in recipient countries.
As noted previously, relations between Japan and South Korean are getting better, with the two countries talking about aid collaboration. They are complemented by Australia, the key donor to Pacific island states and keen to expand in South-East Asia, with the Aussies also talking of working with "like-minded" partners. Trying to get them to work together is complicated, but they are very much linked by belief in the same things: transparency, anti-corruption, the rule of law, safe sea lanes and so on.
That dovetails with the American-led plan for a "free and open Indo-Pacific", devised with China's contempt for international rules and imperialist territorial and maritime claims in mind. That means aid assistance is edging into security policy. Japan, for example, provides the Philippines with patrol boats to police its waters against piracy and smuggling; the same boats keep an eye on intruding Chinese vessels, including warships. Projects to help improve ports, which could be used for both civil and military purposes, are similarly double-edged.
Aid workers do not like having to deal with security issues, the reality is that development assistance and security, butter and guns, are now interlinked in the Asia-Pacific region. China's push for regional dominance ensures that they will stay interlinked.
* I got my third COVID booster shot on Friday the 13th. I got a flu shot a month ago and I woke up in the night as one big ache -- I took painkillers the next day and was OK the following morning -- but the COVID booster caused me no trouble at all. I've started to mask again when I go out in public, I do so from 1 October to 1 April. It's no bother, and even if spares me a cold, it's worthwhile.
As far as the COVID booster goes, I said on X/Twitter: "This is my fifth COVID shot. So far, I haven't died, turned into a zombie, or improved my 5G reception."
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (68): The ascent of Donald Trump to the US presidency was the transitory zenith of the influence of libertarian thought.
The basic concept of libertarianism, as already discussed, is that the state has no right to restrict the free choices of citizens. Underlying this doctrine is the "non-aggression principle (NAP)", which dictates that nobody has the right to coerce others, and use of force is only just in defense of personal rights. In the libertarian view, "anything peaceful and voluntary" should be allowed, so long as it does not infringe on anyone else's life, liberty, or property. That means the state as well, with the use of police or other "men with guns" to enforce laws being seen as a threat to personal liberty.
Exactly how such broad principles could be applied was a matter of debate among libertarians, since libertarianism was so open-ended as to hardly be an ideology -- a grab-bag of ideas on common general themes. Libertarians generally took pride in the diversity of their views, though outsiders were inclined to see them as incoherent, merely scattered around the Right outfield.
In any case, seemingly straightforward libertarian principles rarely turned out to be simple in practice -- one use example being tobacco smoking. While most libertarians acknowledged that smoking was bad for health, they felt that it was an individual decision and the state should not attempt to discourage or restrict it. Of course, libertarians were not so inclined to complain about laws forbidding the sale of tobacco products to minors, and similarly couldn't readily answer any of the other difficulties posed by smoking:
Libertarians could claim a win in that, preceding and during the Trump era, there was a push in the USA to decriminalize recreational drug use, legalizing and regulating the sale of marijuana. Decriminalization still posed problems, it was just that the problems were less troublesome than those that followed from criminalizing it, with the management of the problem being more like that applied to tobacco products. Efforts to decriminalize harder drugs were conducted very carefully.
The same unrealism afflicted all libertarian opposition to regulation. Should the state ensure food and drug safety in general? The libertarian answer was generally that civil lawsuits would be enough to provide food and drug safety, but that would mean consistent regulatory oversight would be replaced by a much weaker and inconsistent process of litigation that would in no way be efficient, with many victims not actually knowing exactly what caused them harm. It would not only reduce the public to the status of guinea pigs, but lay the burden of regulation on the guinea pigs.
Much the same could be said of state oversight of the medical profession: who with any sense and decency would want quacks and frauds to make money off sick people by selling them fake cures? It's profitable to do so because people who are sick are often desperate and may have no good options. Shouldn't such desperate people, so the argument goes, be free to pursue whatever cures they feel might help? They already can, they can give money to quacks if they want, but the state needs to be in a position to say they're wasting their money, giving it to people lacking honest qualifications and whose only concern is greed. Only the quacks would argue otherwise. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* GIMMICKS & GADGETS: As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("LionGlass Boasts 10x The Strength Of Regular Glass" by Michael Irving, 3 July 2023), ordinary glass is harder than ordinary steel, but glass has an obvious problem: it's brittle and shatters easily. Now, researchers at Pennsylvania State University have come up with a new "Lionglass" that is not only much harder to break, but also requires less energy to produce.
The most common form of glass, used in everything from windows to drinking glasses, is known as "soda lime silicate" glass. Manufacturing this common material requires furnaces that get up to 1,500 degrees Celsius (2,732 degrees Fahrenheit), meaning a lot of energy consumed and high emissions. In addition, such glass is made from quartz sand, soda ash and limestone, the latter two of which release CO2 when melted.
Penn State researchers investigated new formulations for glass -- the result being a new family of glasses collectively called "LionGlass". They exchange the soda ash and limestone for either aluminum oxide or an iron compound. The silica content can vary from 40% to 90% by weight. The switch not only cut direct emissions, but reduced the manufacturing temperature by up to 400C (720F), reducing energy consumption by about 30%.
Some compositions of LionGlass were also found to have crack resistance that was at least 10 times higher than that of standard soda lime glass. The Penn State researchers think that's underestimating how sturdy the glass is, one saying: "We kept increasing the weight on LionGlass until we reached the maximum load the equipment will allow. It simply wouldn't crack." The sturdiness implies that LionGlass windows could be thinner and lighter than those made with conventional glass.
* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Origami-Inspired Technique Used To Created Folded Glass Objects" by Ben Coxworth, 28 March 2023), three-dimensional glass objects have been traditionally produced by blowing or molding, with 3D printing more recently having been used as ell. Chinese researchers have devised a new approach to fabricating 3D glass objects, using folding.
The origami-inspired process was devised by Xu Yang, a graduate student working in the lab of Professor Xie Tao at Zhejiang University. Xu started by mixing nanoparticles of silica into a solution of a photosensitive liquid polymer and other compounds. Exposure to ultraviolet light then converted the solution into a solid cross-linked polycaprolactone polymer, loaded with the silica beads,
Xu cut the material into flat translucent sheets with mechanical properties similar to those of paper -- with the material folded into origami-based shapes. Heating the polymer at about 130 degrees Celsius (265 degrees Fahrenheit) when folded or stretched would adjust the polymer to ensure it kept it shape. Once the item was in final configuration, Xu heated it to 595C (1,100F), which melted away the polymer -- and finally turned up the heat to 1,260C (2,300F), which fused the glass beads, resulting in forming a smooth, transparent finished product.
Obvious, the scheme can produce more elaborate objects than are possible with glass moulding or blowing. It's also faster than 3D printing, plus it doesn't result in the coarse, layered look of many 3D-printed items. The researchers are investigating using the same approach to fabricate ceramic objects, for example using beads of titanium dioxide or zirconium dioxide.
* As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Water-Activated Paper Battery May Lead To Greener Disposable Tech" by Ben Coxworth, 28 July 2022), printed batteries are not a new idea, but they've had little or no impact so far.
Researchers Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science & Technology (Empa in its German acronym) have demonstrated a promising paper printed battery that cheap and is eco-friendly -- because it's activated by water, and degrades after being discarded. The battery consists of one more linked cells. Each cell measures a square centimeter; its paper substrate is impregnated with sodium chloride (table salt). One end of it has a wax coating, to which two wires are attached.
Printed onto one side of the paper is an ink containing graphite flakes, which serves as the cathode. An ink containing zinc powder, which serves as the anode, is printed onto the other side. A layer of graphite flakes and carbon black is then laid down on both sides of the paper, to provide electrical connections to the wires. When the battery is wetted, the salty paper becomes an electrolyte between the two electrodes.
Just two drops of water were sufficient to activate a single cell within 20 seconds. The battery had an open-circuit voltage of 1.2 volts. The cell's voltage dropped appreciably after an hour, but it could still generate half a volt for another hour, if two more drops of water were added.
Lead scientist Professor Gustav Nystroem -- who earlier developed a biodegradable mini-capacitor -- believes that with further engineering, drying of the paper shouldn't be nearly as much of a limiting factor. He sees the battery as useful for applications such as "smart" shipping labels, environmental sensors, and disposable medical diagnostic devices.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIDEO GAMES GO BOOM (2): As video games have become a mass medium like television, the industry has become more like other media industries. Movies and TV have been revolutionized by streaming and subscription models; companies like Netflix are wondering if the same approach will work with gaming. Games are increasingly resource-intensive productions, much like blockbuster movies, with game studios needing to mitigate the risk and cost just like movie studios do.
In much the same way, video services like YouTube and TikTok have turned home movies into a multi-billion-dollar industry that steals attention from professional media -- while games like "Roblox" and "Minecraft" leverage off user creations. More generally, "massive multiplayer online (MMO)" games like "Fortnite" have user participation and interaction as the basis of their operation -- something that doesn't really happen in TV and movies. Significantly, mass user interaction has led to the same content-moderation headaches that currently afflict social networks.
Gaming is, in short, becoming a major influence on 21st-century culture, just as movies and TV were major influences on 20th-century culture. However, movies and TV were dominated by the USA; games, in contrast, are a global enterprise, and mean a dilution of US dominance. Politicians are becoming aware of this fact and it's making them nervous.
* Digital streaming of music and video is now well-established. In music streaming, Spotify, Apple, and Amazon compete for dominance; music streaming provides two-thirds of the recorded-music industry's revenue. The biggest video streaming service is currently Netflix, with 230 million subscribers. Most Hollywood studios now have their own streaming platforms, Streaming accounts for over a quarter of TV viewing in America.
Traditionally, gamers buy games one-by-one, or play free games that make money from in-game advertising. Game-makers now want to get into the streaming business, pushing game subscriptions instead of just selling games:
The alleged selling point for a game streaming service is not only the ability to obtain a lot of games, but to offload processing for the most sophisticated games onto a remote server. However, although game streaming has been growing, there are good reasons to think it's not really the wave of the future. Google closed its Stadia game-streaming service in early 2023 after barely three years. The problem, it turned out, was that fast internet wasn't common enough or fast enough to support a good gaming experience. Even if the video was fast enough to keep up, the "latency" -- response time to commands -- was unacceptable. Netflix, which says it is not trying to build a console replacement, has in mind casual and middling games that are not too latency-dependent. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* AUTOIMMUNE VAX: As discussed in a press release from the University of Chicago ("New Vaccine Can Completely Reverse Autoimmune Diseases Like Multiple Sclerosis, Type 1 Diabetes, and Crohn's Disease", 13 September 2023), researchers at the University of Chicago have developed an "inverse vaccine" that can reverse autoimmune diseases such as multiple sclerosis and type 1 diabetes. The vaccine erases the immune system's memory of specific molecules so that it no longer attacks healthy tissues.
Researchers from Pritzker Molecular Engineering, under the direction of Dr. Jeffrey Hubbell, demonstrated a procedure that can suppress the autoimmune response linked to multiple sclerosis. Traditionally, vaccines provide an "antigen" target like that of a pathogen to alert the immune system to attack it. The immune system does have mechanisms that permit it to ignore such targets in its own tissues.
The PME researchers took advantage of how liver naturally marks molecules from broken-down cells with DO NOT ATTACK flags to prevent autoimmune reactions against cells that die by natural processes. PME researchers coupled an antigen with a molecule resembling a fragment of an aged cell that the liver would recognize as friend, not foe. The team showed how the vaccine could successfully stop the autoimmune reaction associated with a multiple-sclerosis-like disease.
The auto-immune response traces down to the immune system's T cells which, as a central element in the complicated immune system, recognize intruders for attack, and then retain a memory of them for later. On occasion, T cells will recognize healthy cells as foreign. In people with Crohn's disease, for instance, the immune system attacks cells of the small intestine; in those with multiple sclerosis, T cells mount an attack against myelin, the protective sheathing around nerves.
Jeffrey Hubbell -- the Eugene Bell Professor in Tissue Engineering -- and his colleagues knew that the body has a mechanism for ensuring that immune reactions don't occur in response to every damaged cell in the body. The phenomenon, known as "peripheral immune tolerance" and carried out in the liver. The research team found out that tagging molecules with a sugar known as "N-acetylgalactosamine (pGal)" could take advantage of this process, with the molecules sent to the liver where tolerance to them develops. Hubble explains:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
The idea is that we can attach any molecule we want to pGal and it will teach the immune system to tolerate it. Rather than rev up immunity as with a vaccine, we can tamp it down in a very specific way with an inverse vaccine.
END_QUOTE
The researchers focused on a disease similar to multiple sclerosis found in test animals. The team linked myelin proteins to pGal and used the resulting vaccine on the test animals; the immune system stopped attacking myelin. The researchers conducted tests with other auto-immune syndromes and got similar results.
At present, autoimmune diseases are generally treated with drugs that suppress the immune system. Hubble says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
These treatments can be very effective, but you're also blocking the immune responses necessary to fight off infections and so there are a lot of side effects. If we could treat patients with an inverse vaccine instead, it could be much more specific and lead to fewer side effects.
END_QUOTE
Initial phase I safety trials of an inverse vaccine have already been carried out in people with celiac disease, an autoimmune disease associated with consumption of wheat, barley, and rye, while phase I safety trials are underway in multiple sclerosis. Those trials are conducted by the pharmaceutical company Anokion SA, which helped fund the new work and which Hubbell cofounded. Hubble says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
There are no clinically approved inverse vaccines yet, but we're incredibly excited about moving this technology forward. In the past, we showed that we could use this approach to prevent autoimmunity -- but what is so exciting about this work is that we have shown that we can treat diseases like multiple sclerosis after there is already ongoing inflammation, which is more useful in a real-world context.
END_QUOTE
[ED: This is potentially a game-changer, but it needs to be thoroughly validated. Miracle cures do happen, but they are rare.]
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed on ECONOMIST.com, on 18 September 2023, Iran and America each exchanged five prisoners in a deal sweetened by America's unfreezing of $6 billion USD of Iranian assets, primarily oil revenues, held in South Korea. The released hostages included Siamak Namazi, an Iranian-American businessman held since 2015 -- his father was detained a year later when he went to Iran to secure Siamak's release and held until 2022 -- and Morad Tahbaz, an Iranian-American environmentalist who also holds British citizenship. However, Iran is still holding dozens of other hostages, and Iran is arresting more of them. A Western diplomat who had been based in Iran says: "The Islamic Republic isn't a banana republic, but ... it still behaves like a mafia state."
Iranian officials shoot back that their adversaries don't play fair with Iran, so why should Iran play fair with them? Their wrath has been inflamed by American sanctions, and by the unloading in August of Iranian oil from a tanker America had seized and taken to Texas. Hostage-taking maintains Iran's image as a rogue state, working against tourism and foreign investment -- but the short-term cash is attractive to an impoverished state that faces public discontent in the face of soaring inflation and a plunging currency.
The money was sent to Qatar, and its use will be monitored to limit it to humanitarian purposes. The deal is seen as an encouraging sign of a diplomatic thaw, with Iran planning talks with other Gulf states, most significantly Iran's arch-rival Saudi Arabia. The Iranians are also having discussions with the Americans, on subjects such as Iran's nuclear enrichment program, the supply of Iranian combat drones to Russia, and Iranian threats against the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq.
Few think that the 2015 agreement to limit enrichment, abandoned by the Trump Administration, will be revived -- all the more so because the Iranians are already well past the limits, being on the threshold of building the Bomb. It seems more likely that the Iranians will come to an agreement with the Saudis, each side promising not to build the Bomb if the other doesn't. The Bomb is a highly ambiguous weapon, one that nobody dares to use, and can be seen as more of an expensive liability than an asset.
Driving the diplomatic outreach is the regime's need to bolster international support as the Islamic Republic struggles with plans for the succession of its 84-year-old supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and taking on its greatest threat: its disaffected population. Public demonstrations began a year ago, after the death of Mahsa Amini, an Iranian woman detained for showing her hair. More than 500 Iranians were killed in the months of protests that followed.
The authorities have suppressed the dissent. Riot police and bully boys on motorbikes roam the streets to prevent demonstrations, while cafes have been shut down to prevent youths from congregating. Of course the discontent hasn't gone away, Iranians speaking of growing tensions. Resistance takes subtle forms: women refuse to wear the mandatory headscarves and refuse to pay fines, or "cash-for-hijabs" as Iranians call them, for breaking the dress code. Security people, knowing they are seen as enemies of the people, wear balaclavas to hide their identities. Nobody is expecting the tension to relax any time soon.
* The war in Ukraine rages on, with a recent video suggesting the fighting between Ukrainian and Russians has spread to Africa. Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group have footholds in a number of African countries, in general supporting thug African regimes. Wagner mercenaries are also fighting in Sudan, working against the government there.
In the video, a special unit sniper of the Ukrainian Defense Intelligence Directorate (GUR) is seen lying prone on a rocky outcrop in Sudan, firing rounds from his silenced rifle at a target near a house in the distance. Other videos show Ukrainian attacks on Wagner in Sudan using drones. General Kyrylo Budanov, the GUR commander, commented that he would neither confirm nor deny Ukrainian activities in Africa, but added:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Anywhere across the world we will be seeking and hunting down Russian military criminals, and sooner or later that time will come whenever they are. That is why we shouldn't be surprised when in any territory, something [bad] happens to Russian military criminals.
END_QUOTE
The war in Ukraine will end, but the Ukrainians will still have scores to settle with the Russians.
* Not all that incidentally, US funding for Ukraine was put at risk in a budget battle, in which the MAGA caucus in the House of Representatives threatened a budget shutdown. A temporary budget resolution was indeed passed, but with no Ukraine funding. That was consequently followed by the eviction of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy of the GOP, leaving a leadership vacuum.
The House GOP is split between MAGA and non-MAGA, with only the MAGA extremists really wanting the job of Speaker. The GOP has a slender majority, while the House Democrats have made it clear they will only vote for their minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, as Speaker. The GOP is now in an extremely difficult position, saddled with a good deal of comical anger at the Democrats for not sorting out the GOP train wreck. They can't, and they sensibly don't want to even try. As one "@SundaeDivine" put it on X/Twitter: "Not our circus -- not our monkeys."
* During the Trump Administration, the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) discarded the policy of "net neutrality" -- that is, the idea that internet service providers (ISP) could not constrain or skew access to the internet over their services. As discussed in an article from REUTERS.com ("US FCC Chair Proposes To Restore Net Neutrality Rules" by David Shepardson, 26 September 2023), the Biden Administration's FCC is now moving to restore the net neutrality policy.
FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel is asking her colleagues on the FCC board to perform an initial vote on October 19 to bring back net neutrality, the policy having been originally been created in 2015, during the Obama Administration. Why did it take so long to restore the policy? Because Democrats were only now able to obtain a majority on the 5-person board. Nobody expects any snags in the vote.
Rosenworcel said the repeal "was problematic not only because it wiped away enforceable, bright-line rules to prevent blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization" and it also "had a lot of downstream consequences." The revived rules will introduce something new, giving the FCC the right to block, on national security grounds, authorization of companies that might be controlled by foreign adversaries.
The repeal of the net neutrality regulations caused no real problems because twelve states, most significantly California, passed their own net-neutrality laws, leaving ISPs generally as stuck with net neutrality as they had been before. Industry groups tried to strike down the California law, but in 2022 a three-judge panel of the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled unanimously that the California law stood. The industry groups then gave up.
PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* CAPITALISM & SOCIALISM (67): In the spring of 2020, the Trump Administration was confronted with a major crisis: a global pandemic of a respiratory disease labeled COVID-19. The initial reaction of most governments was to establish lockdowns and encourage the wearing of face masks, while funding fast-track development of vaccines.
The Trump Administration's handling of the pandemic was confused, with Trump authorizing pandemic-control measures -- while publicly encouraging his followers to defy them as an unreasonable infringement on their personal rights. That confused story needs to be discussed elsewhere; what is relevant to this discussion was that the pandemic resulted in massive economic disruption as people were thrown out of work and supply chains became profoundly snarled.
The Federal Reserve kept interest rates low and employed quantitative easing to keep the money supply flowing, while the Trump Administration provided public support benefits and initiated a business loan program -- the second of which was marked by a degree of corruption. Businesses scrambled to adapt to the supply-chain chaos in a tight labor market; the end result was swelling inflation.
Businesses also became more permissive about working from home, with videoconferencing, particularly using the Zoom system, being used to create "virtual offices". There was much talk at the time about remote work becoming a norm, with headquarters buildings to become redundant, but later employers would backtrack on the concept. Nonetheless, the pandemic did raise the profile of remote work for the longer run. The pandemic was still in full burn when Trump left office in early 2021. He didn't go quietly, but that is another confused story that needs to be discussed elsewhere.
* The supply-chain crisis accompanying the pandemic partly had its roots in Trump's trade war with China, but China had also ceased to be a low-cost labor source. The push was increasingly towards regional, not global, economic blocs, and also better coordination with suppliers; indeed, businesses often found it troublesome to trace back through their suppliers, and found themselves in trouble when the weak links in the chain broke. The mantra of "just in time" had been conventional wisdom from the 1980s, but now its limitations had become apparent, with businesses attempting to build up stocks to protect themselves against supply-chain disruption. That helped snarl the supply chains even more.
This was happening at a time when a technological revolution was in progress in supply chains, driven above all by Amazon. Amazon had pioneered streamlined order and rapid delivery of product, with customers able to track deliveries online. Amazon maintained a huge network of supply centers, using intensive computing power -- including leading-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technologies -- to coordinate and schedule deliveries from suppliers and to customers.
Amazon even experimented with using drones to deliver product, as a step toward greater automation of the process, but it didn't pan out for them. However, the use of drones for delivery did become increasingly significant in undeveloped countries where the transport infrastructure was primitive. More generally, speed and control became critical, with the prevalent traditional logistics systems struggling to keep up, suffering from antiquated scheduling technologies and little ability to trace shipments.
Incidentally, during the decade AI technologies had become increasingly important, though much of what they offered was only partly visible: smarter search engines, games, and automation. There were great worries about massive unemployment thanks to AI, but the concerns were exaggerated -- if not without a basis in reality. [TO BE CONTINUED]
START | PREV | NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* SCIENCE NOTES: As discussed in a press release from the University of Michigan ("AI Runs 10,000 Experiments A Day On Bacteria To Speed Up Discoveries" by Michael Irving, 8 May 2023), scientific experiments can generate vast amounts of data that tax human patience. Fortunately, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is now available to automate experiments. A new platform dubbed "BacterAI" can perform as many as 10,000 experiments per day to learn about bacteria.
The human body is home to trillions of microbes, living both inside and out. Some are pathogens, but others are important to maintaining health. Research into our "microbiome" is a hot topic these days, but it is challenging. Paul Jensen, the lead in the University of Michigan research, says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
We know almost nothing about most of the bacteria that influence our health. Understanding how bacteria grow is the first step toward re-engineering our microbiome.
END_QUOTE
AI is good at digesting huge datasets and finding patterns, and so is useful as a probe of the great complexity of the microbiome. Traditionally, AI machine learning has been all about feeding the AI system a massive dataset from which it extracts patterns, but that only works when there is such a dataset available. Studying bacteria with AI is problematic, since we only have good data on about 10% of bacteria.
Jensen and his research team developed BacterAI to address this problem. It creates its own dataset by designing experiments for laboratory robots to run one after another, with the results of each informing the next. BacteriaAI uses the data obtain to devise a set of generalizations and rules that the researchers can use to probe more deeply in specific directions.
In a demonstration, BacterAI was able to perform 10,000 experiments per day; by the 9th day of the sequence, it was able to predict the outcome of the experiments 90% of the time. The researchers see this capability as informing the development of new drugs or other useful molecules.
* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("Capybaras Thrive" by Rebecca Dzombak, 31 March 2023), some animals have not been able to adjust to the spread of human habitation, but others have thrived. One that has is the "capybara", a "rodent of unusual size" -- in fact the biggest living rodent, which naturally lives in vast grasslands, wetlands, and rivers throughout South America.
The name "capybara" is derived from an indigenous phrase for "grass eater", but now researchers have found they could subsist on leafy forest plants just as easily. This herbivorous flexibility appears to be one of the big reasons as to why the capybara co-exists with human habitation so readily.
Sao Paulo is Brazil's most densely populated city, but capybaras get along fine there. Marcelo Magioli -- an ecologist at Instituto Pro-Carnivoros in Brazil -- says that at "the University of Sao Paulo, you'd see them every day, grazing" on campus. They also roam along roadways and invade farm fields.
Magioli wanted to learn about the actual diet of capybaras, so he and his colleagues sampled hair from 210 capybaras in 13 different populations living in natural to heavily modified environments around Brazil. The team also sampled two populations in the Pantanal -- South America's massive, flooded grassland. The researchers focused on carbon isotopes, which gave a clue about how much grass versus forest plants the animals ate.
As expected, capybaras that could invade farm fields were eating up crops: corn and sugarcane are grasses, comfortable foods for the rodents. However, capybaras in more fragmented, urban areas and in the Pantanal -- where forests are encroaching into grasslands -- ate on trees, vines and even cacti that were available to them instead of selectively searching out grasses. Some capybaras ate both.
While the flexible diet might mean capybaras have survived some big ecosystem changes, it has downsides. Crop-eating capybaras can get too fat and suffer poor health, as well as be seen as pests by farmers for eating or damaging crops. Comfort around infrastructure means more get hit by cars, and ticks the rodents carry can transmit deadly Brazilian spotted fever to humans. Magioli believes that wild corridors reconnecting fragmented landscapes could let natural predators control capybara populations, decrease contact with humans, and restore an ecological balance.
* As discussed in an article from BBC.com ("Gene-Edited Hens May End Cull Of Billions Of Chicks" by Pallab Ghosh, 13 December 2022), chicken farming is focused on production on of hens, with not so much need for roosters. The consequence is that most male chicks are destroyed, which is both inhumane and a nuisance. About seven billion male chicks are slaughtered by the egg-producing industry each year shortly after they are born because they are of no commercial value. Sorting out the males from females is time-consuming, and of course controversial: the German government has banned the mass killing of male chicks.
Israeli researchers have edited DNA into the Golda hens that can stop the development of any male embryos in eggs that they lay. The DNA is activated when the eggs are exposed to blue light for several hours. Female chick embryos are unaffected by the blue light and develop normally. The gene edit is minor and should not be controversial -- unlike gene splicing, gene editing is effectively impossible to distinguish from natural mutations. Dr. Enbal Ben-Tal Cohen, who led the research, says:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
Farmers will get the same chicks they get today, and consumers will get exactly the same eggs they get today. The only minor difference in the production process is that the eggs will be exposed to blue light.
END_QUOTE
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* VIDEO GAMES GO BOOM (1): As discussed in a survey from ECONOMIST.com ("Ready, Player Four Billion: The Rise Of Video Games", 20 March 2023), video games have been around for roughly half a century. They used to be seen as kid stuff, but now they are a global phenomenon, played by all ages.
In Bangalore, India, 92-year-old Trichur Rukmani is a video game enthusiast. She doesn't always spend a lot of time on them, but plays daily for at least 10 minutes -- longer when she can spare it, saying: "I do it when I am free from other things." She doesn't have a game console, instead playing on her smartphone or tablet. Her favorite is the puzzle game Wordle; she enjoys the gameplay, but also likes the way the gameplay allows her to interact with family halfway around the world. Her 93-year-old husband also likes video games.
In 2022, about 3.2 billion people -- 2/5ths of global population -- played video games. The number has been rising at about 100 million people per year, with a big jump during the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020. In developed countries, two-thirds of the population plays video games, almost half of them women. And although video games are still disproportionately a young person's hobby -- 90% of Britons in the 16:24 age range play video games -- the habit is common among older folks, with about half of those in the 55:64 range playing as well. Why not? Forty years ago, many of them were playing Pac-Man on arcade machines. Globally, there are more console owners aged 35:44 than aged 16-24.
The big driver of video gaming has been the global spread of the smartphone. Even a cheap smartphone today has more computing power than a top-of-the-line gaming console of 20 years ago. App stores have thousands of game titles to choose from, with the games often free to download -- though, thanks to "in-app purchases", they can become expensive. 60% of app store downloads are games. Mobile games account for about half the consumer expenditure on video games.
Omdia, a data company, estimates that the game market will be worth about $185 billion USD in 2023. That's not counting hardware and accessories, as well as in-game advertising, which is probably worth an extra $65 billion USD. Big money has attracted big corporate players, with seven of the ten most valuable tech firms involved in gaming:
In 2022, consumer spending on gaming did fade, since inflation crimped household budgets, and the end of lockdowns meant people had other things to do besides games. Apple imposed new rules on mobile advertising that limited the flow of games to customers, while the supply-chain problems that came along with the pandemic throttled shipments of game consoles. However, the market is clearly growing in 2023, with gaming moving towards the top category of entertainment. Its value has already exceeded that of books, music or movies, with video games competing with TV for the top rank.
Consumers spend more on video games than on streaming services such as Netflix, and will soon spend more than on pay-TV. Overall television revenues are still greater than those for games, but the gap is narrowing. A poll in 2021 by Deloitte, a consultancy, found that while previous generations of Americans picked TV and film as their favorite home entertainment, Generation Z -- those under 25 -- ranked gaming first. [TO BE CONTINUED]
NEXT | COMMENT ON ARTICLE* EU DIGITAL LEGISLATION: The European Union has traditionally been ahead of the USA in regulating the internet, with the EU now having introduced a pair of acts to that end: the "Digital Services Act (DSA)" and the "Digital Markets Act (DMA)". They were intended to provide order to the hodge-podge of national regulations that had arisen.
The DSA requires that most online platforms feature:
The requirements are tougher for online platforms that have 10% of the EU population in their user base. These "very large online platforms" must give users the right to opt out of recommendation systems and profiling, share key data with researchers and authorities, cooperate with crisis response requirements, and conduct external and independent auditing.
The DSA maintains the current EU rule according to which companies that host other's data are not liable for the content unless they actually know it is illegal, and upon obtaining such knowledge do not act to remove it. This "conditional liability exemption" is more restrictive than the broad immunities given to intermediaries under the US "Section 230 CDA" rule in the USA.
EU member states will also have access to the mechanisms of platforms' recommendation algorithms, with platforms required to briefly explain why specific ads are directed to specific users, and also to justify why they remove specific content. In addition, platforms have to release a biannual report on their content moderation efforts, and they are prohibited from using "dark patterns" -- that is, misleading user interfaces that trick users into inadvertently agreeing to, for example, share their data.
The DMA applies to a much smaller subset of companies, specifically those with 45 million monthly active users and / or an annual turnover of at least 7.5 billion euros. Such "gatekeeper" firms include Alibaba, Amazon, Apple, Google, Meta, Microsoft, TikTok, Wikipedia, and X/Twitter. While the DSA focuses more on protecting the rights of individual users, the DMA gives European regulators power to crack down on anticompetitive and unfair business practices, including over how large Big Tech platforms collect and use data. The DMA prohibits platforms from combining data sources without explicit opt-in, as well as from preferencing their own products and services.
The overriding principle in both acts is to protect consumer privacy, and in particular to protect children. The DSA and the DMA will be enforced by different enforcement bodies. The European Commission is the primary enforcer of the DMA, but EU member states will have to coordinate their own governing bodies for DSA enforcement.
The DSA follows on from the EU "Electronic Commerce Directive 2000", which defined illegal content on the internet, required transparent advertising, and raised barriers to disinformation. The DSA and the DMA were submitted to the European Parliament in 2020, being approved in 2022, going into effect on 25 August 2023, with internet firms required to be compliant by the beginning of 2024.
Google and Meta have replied to the acts with plans for compliance. Amazon has legally protested being a "gatekeeper" company, but doesn't seem likely to get very far. Online platforms that don't comply with the DSA's rules could see fines of up to 10% of their global turnover, 20% for repeat offenses; in principle, if they refuse to clean up their act, they could be banned from the EU. Given that Elon Musk has all but completely abandoned content moderation on his X/Twitter in the name of "absolute free speech", he's likely to have problems with the EU.
COMMENT ON ARTICLE* THE WEEK THAT WAS: Donald Trump is currently facing four criminal trials, with a total of 91 felony counts. Lost in this shuffle, at least until this last week, was a civil suit against Trump being pushed by New York State Attorney General Letitia "Tish" James, with Trump being accused of tax fraud. The trial will start on 2 October and will last at least two months.
AG James had accused Trump, his sons Don JR and Eric, and the Trump Organization of inflating the value of their properties by more than $2 billion USD, claiming the defendants issued false records and financial statements to get better terms on loans and insurance deals -- and, by understating the value of the assets, to pay less tax. She's after $250 million USD in damages and a ban on Trump's business activities in the state.
The case had been dragging through the New York courts for several years, with AG James expressing exasperation at Trump's expert delaying tactics. To speed things up, she asked for a summary ruling on whether Trump had committed fraud. On Tuesday, Judge Arthur Engoron of the New York State bench judged that Trump had indeed committed fraud, and ordered the cancellation of business certificates that allow some of the former president's businesses, including the Trump Organization, to operate in New York. That won't dissolve his company, but could end his control over signature New York properties such as Trump Tower and the Trump Building at 40 Wall Street.
Judge Engoron noted in his decision that Trump:
Judge Engoron commented: "The documents here clearly contain fraudulent valuations that defendants used in business. That is a fantasy world, not the real world."
The upcoming trial will now focus on a more narrow set of six remaining claims and determine the size of any potential penalty. Trump has of course denounced the ruling as another "witch hunt" and called the judge "highly politicized". Trump's lawyers had tried to get the case thrown out and only succeeded in antagonizing the judge. He fined five Trump attorneys $7,500 USD each for making "preposterous" arguments already rejected by the court, and fueling what he called their clients' "obstreperous" conduct.
Incidentally Eli Mystal, a lawyer and commenter who takes a dim view of Trump, was wondering why he didn't see the headline:
NY Judge To Trump: "YOU'RE FIRED!"
I suggested back that would be a heading the NEW YORK POST would use, but they're Trump backers, so no.
Anyway, could this civil trial lead to Federal investigation of Trump's taxes? Is one going on already that hasn't been announced? The trick is that the fraudulent property valuations mean nothing for Federal taxes, since the Federal government can't tax property, and the fraud against insurers and the like are state crimes as well. However, the leak of Trump's taxes by the NEW YORK TIMES suggest the Feds have plenty of ammo to use against Trump in the context of taxes -- for example, hiring on his kids as "consultants" with hefty payments, and then charging them off on taxes. Trump thought he could get away with anything. It needs to be proven to history that he can't, so no other clown tries it again.
* In the meantime, Trump is flirting with jail. Outgoing Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley made some remarks about his dealings with Trump that Trump didn't like, with Trump suggesting that Milley should be executed. Special Counsel Jack Smith, the Federal prosecutor going after Trump, filed a complaint with Tanya Chutkan, the Federal judge in charge of that particular case, saying that Trump was engaging in witness intimidation and tampering. The Feds don't want to put Trump in pre-trial confinement, but he seems to be forcing them to do so. What happens remains to be seen, but this Friday General Milley, in his retirement speech, cut Trump down to size:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
We don't take an oath to a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don't take an oath to a wannabe dictator. We don't take an oath to an individual. We take an oath to the Constitution, and we take an oath to the idea that is America, and we're willing to die to protect it. Every soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, guardian and Coast Guardsman, each of us commits our very life to protect and defend that document, regardless of personal price. And we are not easily intimidated.
END_QUOTE
I increasingly wonder if it is realistic to think Trump will be the GOP presidential nominee in 2024. How can that work, when he'll be in court so much of the time? What makes that even more bizarre is the reality that the GOP doesn't have any other candidates that are as credible. "That's REALLY bad!"
* In other chaos, the MAGA caucus in the House of Representatives tried to manufacture a government shutdown this weekend, but it was called off at the last moment. A temporary budget was passed, the only constraint being that it didn't have funding for Ukraine. Since Congress is about 75% pro-Ukraine, that problem will likely be fixed quickly. The MAGA insurgency now appears to be heading for a train wreck.
As a footnote to this ongoing farce, the House MAGA went into a frenzy when Representative Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) pulled a fire alarm, with a security camera photo released of him doing it, the claim being that he had been trying to derail the House vote. In reality, Bowman was leaving the Cannon Building -- an office building, south of the Capitol Building across Independence Boulevard, closer to the Library of Congress than the Capitol -- and nobody in the Capitol Building heard the alarm.
The door was locked, and there was a confusing sign on the door that Bowman, who was in a hurry, didn't quite understand, leading him to pull the alarm. MAGA trolls continued to insist that he did it deliberately, but could not explain why he would have wanted to. There does remain the interesting question of who leaked the photo -- somebody in building security, as a first guess, presumably a government employee, who was way out of line to help push a disinformation narrative. Anyway, Spoutible's Chris Bouzy commented:
BEGIN_QUOTE:
I want to delay McDonalds from ending their breakfast menu this morning. Hold on while I pull the fire alarm at Burger King.
END_QUOTE
[ED: As it turned out, the security video showed Bowman taking down the NO EXIT sign and then pulling the alarm, so it was no accident. It was still ridiculous to think he was trying to delay the vote; it seems he was just impatient to get out, and did something foolish. He was censured for it.]
* I've lost interest in taking long tourist trips, but for the time being I'm still taking regional trips. I got to looking around online for regional balloon fiestas, and found there was one in Colorado Springs over Labor Day weekend, the first weekend in August. I equivocated on going, but then I found the "Labor Day Lift-Off" had a drone lightshow. I'd never seen one before, so I decided I would go.
It was only a two-hour drive south from Loveland to Colorado Springs, going down Interstate 25. The only tricky thing was finding the park in Colorado Springs where the balloon fiesta was supposed to take place. I got into Google Maps and figured out where to go, going down to street view to visually trace out the route.
I got up very dark and early on Saturday, 5 August, and was soon on the road. It was an easy drive, the only complication being getting to the park in Colorado Springs. One of the things about going to street view on Google Maps is that it's hard to gauge distance, and I overshot the park. No worries, I looped around and got a parking spot, paying $15 USD for the privilege.
I was still on elbow crutches at the time, but I made my way to the center of the park. It was a bit chillier than I expected and I hadn't taken a jacket or sweatshirt, so I used a large towel I kept in the car as a shawl; it did the job. I got in position just in time for the drone lightshow. It was fun, but not particularly imaginative.
That done, I had to kill time for the Sun to come up and the balloon lift-offs to start. I should have brought my camp chair, too, but I hadn't thought of it either -- partly because airshows sometimes discourage people from bringing in gear like that. I did end up playing, along with some kids, with two cute and affectionate corgi dogs.
The lift-offs finally began and continued for two hours or so. I was thinking the Labor Day Lift-Off would be much smaller than the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta that I had attended in 2014, but it was still a big event, with about 70 balloons, including a fair number of special-shape balloons. The launch area in the park was well smaller than had been in Albuquerque, so they had to phase balloon launches. I got a ton of pictures.
The launches over, I went back to the car and left, going back north. I ate lunch at the Fazoli's Italian restaurant on 120th Street North in Denver; it's right off I-25 and easy to get to. I'd forgotten to check operating hours there before I left, so I'd stopped there on the way south to confirm that it did open at 1030 AM and had scheduled myself accordingly. Having eaten, I drove back to Loveland, fueled up my car, and went home.
It was a cheap trip, only $54 USD including food and fuel, and it was definitely worthwhile. I probably won't go to another balloon fiesta again, however. I've seen two of them -- I've seen them all.
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