* This is an archive of my own online blog and notes, with weekly entries collected by month.
* THE WEEK THAT WAS: As discussed in an article from ECONOMIST.com, ("Lessons From Russia's Cyber-War In Ukraine", 30 November 2022), on 24 February 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine. At the same time, Russian computer hackers attacked a satellite communications system run by Viasat, a US firm, used by Ukraine. Victor Zhora -- head of Ukraine's defensive cyber-security agency -- says that the result was "a really huge loss in communications in the very beginning of war." Simultaneously, "wiper" programs that delete data appeared on hundreds of Ukrainian computer systems. Later, in April, hackers working for Sandworm -- suspected to be a front for GRU, Russia's military-intelligence service -- used malware named "Industroyer2" to attack Ukraine's electricity grid.
There is, however, no strong evidence that the attacks had much effect. The lights stayed on as the battle for Kyiv raged. The banks were open. Unlike 2015 and 2016, when cyber-attacks caused blackouts, electrical networks were not disrupted, nor were information systems. Lindy Cameron -- head of Britain's National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) -- says that the Russian assault was "probably the most sustained and intensive cyber-campaign on record." The threat was big, but as Sir Jeremy Fleming -- her boss at GCHQ, Britain's signals-intelligence agency, of which the NCSC is a component -- comments that Ukraine's response was "arguably the most effective defensive cyber-activity in history."
The Russians had been performing cyber-attacks on Ukraine for years, and by 2022 the Ukrainians were ready for them. Crucial services were shifted to data centers elsewhere in Europe. Ukraine's armed forces, aware that satellites might be disrupted, had prepared alternative means of communication, and so the attack on Viasat had little effect on the military.
Not surprisingly, the Ukrainians also got a lot of help in their cyber-war. NATO enhanced its co-operation with Ukraine was by granting access to its cyberthreat library, a repository of known malware, while the US and Britain provided direct assistance. They were actually not far ahead of the Ukrainians. Marcus Willett -- a former head of cyber issues for GCHQ -- said: "It is likely that the Ukrainians taught the US and the UK more about Russian cyber-tactics than they learned from them."
Zhora says that private cyber-security companies have also played a big role -- noting in particular ESET, a Slovakian firm, and Microsoft. ESET helped track Industroyer2, while Microsoft officials say they deployed artificial intelligence (AI) systems that helped detect attacks on networks. Microsoft has been providing assistance free of charge, likely in part recognizing that the war is an advanced research lab in cyber-security that will teach the company a great deal. Another reason for the lack of Russian success was that many of Ukraine's industrial systems are antiquated, not network-enabled, and so resistant to hacking.
There has been some commentary suggesting that Russian hackers are greatly over-rated, that their work has been, on occasions, clumsy and disjointed. The skeptics paint Russia as a sloppy cyber-power, good at breaking things, but noisy and imprecise. Daniel Moore -- author of OFFENSIVE CYBER OPERATIONS, a recent book on the subject -- says that every one of Russia's known attacks on critical infrastructure, in Ukraine and beyond, has been prematurely exposed, been riddled with errors, or has spilled over beyond the intended target. He says: "There were significant operational failings in almost every single attack that they have ever carried out in cyberspace." In contrast, he points to Stuxnet, an Israeli-American cyber-attack on an Iranian nuclear facility over a decade ago, as far more sophisticated than what the Russians have been doing.
Others reply that the Russians may be more capable than they have shown themselves to be, that they were expecting an easy win in Ukraine, and saw no reason to take down infrastructure that would quickly fall into their hands anyway. The easy win didn't happen, and the war dragged on; Russia's hackers had to adapt to new challenges. However, sophisticated attacks like that on Viasat demand long preparation, prominently deep reconnaissance of target networks. A recent research paper showed that GRU's attack on Ukraine's power grid in 2015 had taken 19 months of planning, while that in 2016 had required two and a half years. In the absence of long-term planning, Russian cyber-attacks on Ukraine became more haphazard and easy to defeat. It is possible the Russians are working on more sophisticated attacks that take time to prepare, but the Ukrainians aren't being idle in the meantime.
There is, finally, the question of the value of offensive cyberwarfare in the first place. Ciaran Martin -- Cameron's predecessor at the NCSC -- says that cyber warfare is important, but that the Ukraine conflict has illustrated "the severe limitations of cyber as a wartime capability." The Stuxnet attack on Iranian nuclear facilities was impressive, but he calls it an exception, a "Moon landing" of offensive cyberwar, demanding a serious superpower investment. Martin says that cyber is not "some magic invisible battlefield where you can do stuff you can't get away with normally." It's easy to be a nuisance on computer networks, but not so easy to seriously cripple them. In addition, such attacks are "easily attributed" and invite retaliation. Martin says: "Despite all the hype, Putin has not seriously troubled the West at all in cyberspace since the invasion."
It is also the case that trying to cripple computer networks with malware is a feeble exercise when Russia has the option of attacking them with missiles. It is likely that offensive cyber warfare is much less important in wartime than information warfare -- where the Ukrainians have been flying rings around the Russians, who have been reduced to unbalanced propaganda -- and particularly intelligence gathering. A Ukrainian former politician in the know confirms that the most valuable contribution of the country's cyber-forces is extracting secrets, such as details of European companies that are violating American sanctions on Russia. He says: "There are some other things I can't talk about, but it's pretty impressive work." The full story may not be known for a generation.
* I bought an Acer desktop PC in 2016, and recently it started misbehaving every now and then -- mysteriously locking up and so on. I wasn't sure that there was anything fundamentally wrong with the PC, but I had been using it all day since I bought it and it was getting old. I figured that it would be wisest just to buy a new PC and be done with it.
I accordingly ordered a renewed Dell desktop PC, dating from 2021, from Amazon. The new PC had a quad-core 3.7GHz CPU, compared to a 2.7GHz quad-core CPU in the old machine; the Dell also had a terabyte solid-state drive (SSD), compared to the terabyte hard disk in my old machine. In addition, the new PC had some high-speed USB ports, plus built-in wifi and bluetooth, which the old PC lacked. I was a bit surprised it still had a CD-ROM drive, but clearly there are still a lot of CD-ROMs sitting on shelves that need to be accessed. The Dell cost me about $525.
I had been tinkering with ideas for making my system more portable, organizing my personal files into two modules of files that could be "plugged in" to a new computer, possibly on a USB flash drive if the computer didn't have a lot of flash itself. That helped me a lot in porting to the new PC, though there were glitches that needed to be fixed. No worries, I cleaned up the system while re-installing it and learned new tricks. When I got done setting it up, I found out that the PC actually had two SSDs, one 250GB and the other 1TB, and that I had installed my files on the 250GB SSD. Not a problem, I just moved the two modules over to the 1TB SSD with little difficulty.
It took me a day's work to get things going properly, with more difficulties over the following days: "Oh right, I have to download a driver for my laserjet printer." I'm generally running well now. The new PC is impressively fast -- I don't think it's just the faster CPU, it's also the clean operating system, and in particular the SSD. The SSD should also last well longer than a hard disk drive.
In getting the new PC, I moved up from Windows 10 to Windows 11, which wasn't much of a change, except for cleaning up the right-click menus to make them more resistant to being polluted by software endlessly adding menu selections to them. One noteworthy change was that Microsoft has deprecated the 3D Paint program they were pushing for Windows 10, and restored the older Paint program with cosmetic changes. Turned out few users really wanted 3D, and they were unhappy at losing some of the functionality from the old Paint.
I'm not sure what will happen with the old Acer desktop. I'll re-install Windows and try it as a game machine, but if problems persist, I'll have to junk it. By coincidence, one of my old notebook PCs, which I had been using in the kitchen, completely died at about the same time I was converting to the new desktop. I had a cheap Windows tablet PC available, so I just swapped them out. I just ordered a cheap refurbished Microsoft Surface tablet, on the assumption that my other old notebook is unlikely to last much longer. It should arrive soon.
* As discussed in an article from SCIENCENEWS.org ("A Rare Collision of Dead Stars Can Bring a New One to Life" by Nikk Ogasa, 22 February 2022), two stars have been discovered that are hundreds of times as bright as our Sun turn out to have peculiar chemistries, being are covered in carbon and oxygen. Other stars have been found with similar characteristics, but these two are unusual in that they seem to have active helium fusion in their cores. Study coauthor Nicole Reindl, an astrophysicist from the University of Potsdam in Germany, says: "That has never been seen before," says
Tiara Battich, an astrophysicist from the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany, and her colleagues, suspected that the usual stars were formed from the merger of two white dwarf stars -- dense, white-hot fossil stars at the end of their line of evolution. The scenario envisioned is that one of the two was rich in helium, while the other contained lots of carbon and oxygen. These two white dwarfs were in a mutual orbit, drawing closer as tidal stresses sapped the energy of their motion. Eventually the helium-rich white dwarf devoured its partner, spewing carbon and oxygen over its surface -- and increasing the mass of the sum star enough to re-ignite nuclear fusion in its core.
To investigate, Battich and her team simulated the evolution, death, and eventual merging of two stars. The results of the simulation suggested that the researchers were on the right track. However, it's more likely the carbon-oxygen white dwarf will devour the helium white dwarf, since carbon-oxygen white dwarfs are usually the more massive ones. Battich says that it "should happen very rarely." -- and the rarity of these peculiar stars says that it is indeed infrequent.
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: The Ukrainian city of Kherson was formally liberated from Russian forces on 11 November 2022. A recent posting in Ukrainian, from the handle "@den_kazansky", described the assault on Nova Kakhovka, up the Dnipro River from Kherson, with the brutal effect of US-made HIMARS/GMLRS vividly described. A highly-edited version follows:
QUOTE:
Many commenters, for some reason, say that the primary use of HIMARS/GMLRS was to destroy dense concentrations of Russian artillery. However, what I've been told by those who were at Nova Kakhovka suggests that is greatly understating the case: HIMARS was not just destroying artillery, but the entire military infrastructure in the city, all the depots and warehouses, any place where military activity was observed. There were hundreds of corpses of Russian soldiers; civilians suffered as well.
Warehouses were torn up, entire city blocks blown away. It wasn't just artillery, tanks, APCs, BMPs, personnel, and materiel; everything was blown up. Survivors remember Nova Kakhovka with horror. All buildings with any presence of Russian armed forces were hit, as were road crossings. It appears the story was the same in all major cities and places that RuF occupied.
HIMARS not only wiped out artillery concentrations, but over the summer ground down Russian regular forces, as well as the puppet militia of the L-DPR. Some Russian units tried to jam GPS, but GMLRS missiles also have an inertial guidance system to stay on track if GPS signals can't be picked up. The jamming wasn't effective until the missiles were close to their targets, and so the accuracy of the strikes wasn't degraded.
Russian forces grow weaker by the month; replacement weapons and hastily-mobilized troops have not been able to compensate for losses. The original Russian plan was that the occupation of Ukraine would be complete by the spring, or at longest summer, of 2022. Instead, the Russians are steadily losing, with neither the capability nor the will to reverse their fortunes. The Russians will continue to feed troops into the Ukraine meat-grinder, until they have been completely destroyed. How much longer they can prolong the war is hard to say, but it can be said they will be defeated.
END_QUOTE
Late breaking news indicates a set of long-range strikes against Russian forces across the southern front. Details are not available yet, but they appear to have been devastating. Phone intercepts suggest that Russian desertions are increasing as winter sets in. A Georgian soldier in Ukrainian service caught a video of a spectral wolf crossing the road, its eyes gleaming in the headlights of his vehicle. One suspects wolves in Russian-controlled territory are eating well these days.
* This last week, the US managed to secure the release of Britney Griner, an American basketball player, from Russian custody. She had been arrested in February 2022 after a few cartridges of hashish oil had been found in her luggage. She was exchanged for Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was serving a 25-year sentence in a US prison.
This was a real coup for the Biden Administration -- but MAGA trolls were determined to use it against Biden. First, they complained that Paul Whelan, an ex-Marine who had been arrested in Russia in 2018 on spy charges, hadn't been released as well. That didn't fly because the Biden Administration had been trying to spring Whelan, but the Russians weren't agreeable. Members of Whelan's family publicly backed up the administration. The fact that the Trump Administration made no visible effort to obtain his release was also significant.
The trolls then, without missing a beat, criticized the Biden Administration for having the nerve to make a trade for a female lesbian black athlete in the first place. They're not even really trying to hide the bigotry any more. There were, it was said, even efforts to link the Griner exchange to Hunter Biden's laptop computer. The only good thing that can be said about this is that the audience for the crazy is diminishing. Incidentally, Griner is 206 centimeters (6'9") tall and weighs over 90 kilograms (200 pounds). I doubt many of the other inmates tried to push her around.
Anyway, Jack E. Smith (@7Veritas4) -- mentioned here two weeks ago -- explained on Twitter what the hangup on Whelan was: "We offered the entire Trump family in exchange. Eric was the deal-breaker."
* In another Twitter commentary, one Tom Nichols (@RadioFreeTom), a defense intellectual and a curmudgeonly old-style Republican who has no liking for MAGA, was told that: "80% of conservative outrage is just someone finding out how stuff works for the first time." Nichols replied:
QUOTE:
Years ago, a guy came to a book talk I gave who was absolutely outraged when he found out that five permanent members of the UN Security Council could veto anything, and he asked me if our Supreme Court knew about it. I assured him that they had been briefed.
END_QUOTE
* Mega-billionaire Elon Musk is persistently in the news these days, having taken over Twitter, the social-media firm, and now converting it into a playpen for Right-wing trolls. One of the first things Musk did was fire much of the workforce, without bothering to give them severance pay they were entitled to. In consequence, Musk was sent a letter dated 1 December 2022 by one Akiva Cohen, which began as follows:
QUOTE:
I am a partner at Kamerman, Uncyk, Soniker, & Klein, PC, counsel to many of the employees you recently laid off from Twitter INC ("Twitter"), and I'm sure you have been expecting this. Ever since you took over Twitter, you've been attempting to tap-dance your way out of Twitter's binding obligations to its employees, which includes paying the agreed severance to thousands of people you laid off just in time for the holidays. If basic human decency and honor isn't enough to make you want to keep your word, maybe this will:
If you don't unequivocally confirm by WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 7 that you intend to provide our clients with the full severance Twitter promised them, we will commence an arbitration campaign on their behalf, with each employee filing a separate individual arbitration, as required by the terms of your arbitration agreement. [As per legally defined] arbitration rules, Twitter will be required to pay the arbitration costs for each individual arbitration and arbitrator. ... not only will you lose on the merits, but even if you somehow won, the victory would be Pyrrhic: Twitter will pay far more in attorney's fees and arbitration costs than you could possibly "save" in severance due our clients.
END_QUOTE
Cohen continued: "And to be clear, Elon, you will lose, and you know it." Cohen detailed the terms of Twitter's agreement with its employees in terms of severance, then said: "And I know, I know, you're going to argue that my clients aren't entitled to what you promised them, for reasons that don't bear scrutiny." Cohen went on to scrutinize Musk's flimsy arguments and demolish them. He concluded:
QUOTE:
Look, you have time to avoid all this. You can still choose to keep your word, and Twitter's, and pay your ex-employees what you owe them. For whatever it's worth to you, you should know that if you do, what you pay will actually flow to them, not us as their attorneys; we've agreed not to take any contingency fee if Twitter does what it agreed to do, without requiring litigation.
Or you can double down on breaking your word and screwing over your ex-employees as they head into the holidays. If so, deposing you will be a joy, and you should be aware that [the laws] will allow us to obtain an award against you, personally, and not just Twitter the company.
We're not holding our breath, but we hope what's right and keep your word. Either way, we'll be ready. If you'd like to reach me to discuss, you have my contact information.
END_QUOTE
Cohen added in a tweet:
QUOTE:
You can only violate people's legal rights and your own word so far before they lawyer up and come after you. I really do hope Musk changes his mind and does the right thing -- the employees deserve that. But it'll be fun as hell if he doesn't.
END_QUOTE
Current status of the issue is unclear; there's no sign Musk met the deadline. [ED: As of January 2025, the lawsuit had been dismissed, but had been appealed.]
It is impossible to say how Musk will react, because his behavior has become ever more erratic. He appears to be suffering from a progressive schizophrenia, being worse than he used to be, and it seems steadily becoming more incoherent. Case in point, Musk is now calling for the prosecution of Dr. Anthony Fauci. Dr. Fauci is now a private citizen and doesn't need to tolerate being targeted for more attacks -- another big lawsuit for Musk?
Incidentally, with regards to deadlines, a video made the rounds on Twitter, going back to 1999 in Kosovo -- with German commander Helmut Harff telling a Serbian officer, in English: "You have to leave in 30 minutes." The Serbian officer protested, with Harff replying in a steely deadpan: "That's the end of the discussion. You now have 28 minutes."
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: In the last week, senior Ukrainian military officers indicated that the Russians were preparing a new offensive, featuring a drive on Kyiv, in February or thereabouts. Informed observers were very skeptical -- admitting that the Russians might be planning such an operation, but they were so depleted that they would not be able to carry it out. Retired US Army General Barry McCaffrey told MSNBC's Nicole Wallace:
QUOTE:
I think it'll be something they try. They're desperate. Strategically, I think they've already lost the war. Operationally, they're not able to deal essentially with a very active, aggressive Ukrainian military force. So now they've defaulted to a position where they are going to destroy much of the civilian infrastructure in Ukraine, but I cannot see them regaining the initiative to seize Odesa or try to seize Kharkiv. I don't think it's going to happen.
These people have lost too much equipment, too many people, and they haven't learned from their mistakes. Their logistics are a mess. Their manufacturing base can't keep up with the war they are fighting. As long as the West stays with Ukraine, which I think is going to happen.
END_QUOTE
* In the meantime, the winter in Ukraine is getting colder, with the expectation that the Ukrainian Army could go on the offensive once the ground freezes. Might we expect Melitopol to be recaptured in the not-too-distant future? In any case, it's important to keep the Russians on the defensive, lest they recover their balance.
The Russians are continuing their missile and drone bombardments of Ukraine's cities. Many of the attackers are intercepted, but some still get through. Ukrainian citizens do not seem to be deterred. One Olga Rudenko (@olya_rudenko) wrote on Twitter:
QUOTE:
A passer-by on the street in central Kyiv now, carrying what looks like a small power generator and talking on the phone in the most casual voice imaginable: "Yes, they're hitting Kyiv now again, but it's OK. Yes, there's no water now. Probably no electricity. It's OK."
END_QUOTE
The Ukrainians have started to hit back against bases in Russia used to launch the attacks, with the weapon of choice being the antiquated Russian Tupolev Tu-141 reconnaissance drone, converted to cruise missile. The Ukrainians have also armed the similar but substantially smaller Tu-143, and apparently obtaining new-build long-range drones for the attack role.
* The Ukrainian government operates a "crowdfunding" website named UNITED24 to obtain funds from donors all over the world. The Ukrainians have proven highly adept in public promotions of their cause -- and decided that one of the best spokespersons they could get would be Mark Hamill -- Luke Skywalker of the STAR WARS franchise -- and gave him a call at his home in Malibu, California.
Hamill, now 71, had been supportive of Ukraine on his popular Twitter feed, but he still wondered if he was being pranked. He ended up talking on Zoom to Ukrainian President Volodymir Zelenskyy, who told him:
QUOTE:
For Ukrainians, this means a lot. As in STAR WARS, good will triumph over evil, and light will overcome darkness. With you in the team, there's no other way around it.
END_QUOTE
At present, Hamill's focus is on an "Army of Drones" initiative, to fund purchase of RQ-35 Heidrun fixed-wing drones from Sky-Watch of Denmark. Hamill calls them "benign" and "non-lethal" -- but that's not exactly the case. They don't carry munitions themselves, but they can spot targets for strikes by artillery or other lethal assets.
Hamill has been active for the Democrat cause during elections. President Joe Biden even wrote him a letter, which he read for the first time during the Zoom call: "Oh. This is the first time I've seen it, my wife has told me about it."
* CNN's Jamie Gangel conducted an interview of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and outgoing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, over lunch at Hunan Dynasty, a popular Washington DC Chinese restaurant. Excerpts of the conversation are interesting:
QUOTE:
JG: You actually first met at a meal like this, in 1987?
CS: It's like January, and George Miller -- who was my roommate, my landlord -- he said: "There's a new person joining our group, her name is Nancy Pelosi, she's the new Congress member from San Francisco, and she --" before I met her "-- will become the first woman Speaker." That's what he said, God's honest truth.
JG: He was right.
[Schumer said they talk on the phone all the time, with Pelosi shooting back that he uses an old-fashioned flip phone, and it would be easier if he would just get a smartphone: "I could just text him." Schumer described their relationships as "almost like brother and sister." As for Trump:]
JG: He famously nicknamed the two of you "Chuck & Nancy". I think you both knew that Speaker Pelosi got under his skin. Right? ["Right, yes."] Was there a strategy when you went into a meeting? Was there a Good Cop / Bad Cop?
NP: He's just inaugurated. This is an historic moment -- the President of the United States. So I'm thinking: "How is he going to begin? Is he going to quote the Constitution? American history? A poet? The Bible?" [pause]: "You know, I won the popular vote."
CS: That's how he started.
NP: Then I said: "Mr. President, that's just not true."
[Gangel reviewed some of Pelosi's "greatest hits" against Trump, including her sarcastic applause, tearing up his State of the Union address, and the famous photo of her taking him on in a White House meeting. Gangel asked Schumer:]
JG: Looking back at those moments, what was going through your mind?
CS: "He doesn't stand a chance!" Heh heh heh ... "He doesn't know what he's up against!" I tell people Nancy instinctively knew how to handle Trump because for her first 35, 40 years of life, she raised five children, and she knew how to deal with children, and that's what helped her deal with Trump, because he ultimately was a child.
NP: We had a different approach. Chuck is a New Yorker --
CS: Brooklyn!
NP: Brooklyn. So they spoke their own kind of, they understood each other.
[Gangel brought up the Biden presidency, with the response:]
NP: I think Joe Biden has done an excellent job as President of the United States. I hope that he does seek re-election. He's a person with great vision for our country. He's been involved for a long time so he has great knowledge of the issues, and the challenges we face. [Joe Biden is] the most empathetic president. He connects with people. The vision, the knowledge, the strategic thinking is all here [pointing to her head]. The empathy is from the heart. And I think he's a great president.
CS: Look at what he's accomplished.
JG: You think he should run again?
CS: Yeah, he's done an excellent, excellent job, and if he runs, I'm gonna support him all the way.
[Gangel then asked what would happen if Trump were re-elected in 2024:]
CS: I don't think it'll happen. The American people have gotten wise to him -- took a little while, but they did.
NP: I don't think we should talk about him while we're eating.
END_QUOTE
[ED: Unfortunately, Schumer was wrong: Trump was still dangerous, even more dangerous than he was before.]
* The concept of "gravitricity" -- raising masses to store energy -- has been mentioned here in the past. As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Lift Energy Storage System: Turning Skyscrapers Into Gravity Batteries" by Loz Blain, 31 May 2022), researchers at the International Institute of Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Vienna, Austria, have come up with a scheme to use elevators in skyscrapers to store energy.
The "Lift Energy Storage System (LEST)" would make use of the existing elevator systems in tall buildings. Many of such are already designed with regenerative braking systems that can harvest energy as a lift descends. The LEST would also make use of vacant spaces throughout the building, ideally close to the bottom and top. The idea is that elevators not otherwise in use could haul weights from the bottom to the top at times when excess renewable energy is available, and then drop the weights back down to the bottom to generate electrical power -- which could be used locally, or sold back to the power grid.
The IIASA team suggests that the weights could be carried by rotor crawlers that would pick the weights up from unused spaces, put them on elevators, and then take them off again. The weights would still allow passengers to be carried. Under optimum conditions, storage efficiency could be over 90%. The LEST's installed capacity energy storage cost is estimated at about a third of battery storage. Of course, there are practical issues to be considered -- a big one being figuring out how much additional weight could be carried on the top floors of a skyscraper -- but the idea remains intriguing.
* Robots based on animal forms, discussed here in the past, are nothing new. As discussed in an article from NEWATLAS.com ("Robotic Rat May One Day Search for Survivors at Disaster Sites" by Ben Coxworth, 19 April 2022), a team of researchers at the Beijing Institute of Technology under Professor Quing Shi have come up with a new take on the concept: a robot rat.
The research team calls it the "Small-sized Quadruped Robotic rat (SQuRo)". It's modeled on the common Norway rat (rattus norvegicus) and is about the same size, weighing about 220 grams without payload -- though it can carry a payload almost the size of its body weight. It has two degrees of freedom in each of its four legs -- meaning the legs can move forward and back, as well as side to side -- along with two in its waist, and two in its head.
This arrangement gives the robo-rat a flexibility like that of a real rat, for example allowing it to turn within half its body length, It can squeeze through narrow passages, climb slopes, get over obstacles, and right itself after falling. Its onboard processor automatically shifts between four motion modes, as sensed by the load on the limbs. SQuRo only weighs 220 grams, while being able to carry 200 grams of payload, including cameras and other sensors. Applications of a production version would include searching a disaster area for survivors.
BACK_TO_TOP* THE WEEK THAT WAS: On 21 December 2022, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy addressed a joint session of the US Congress, being greeted as he came to the podium by Vice President Kamala Harris and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. After thanking his hosts in detail, Zelenskyy said:
QUOTE:
Against all odds and doom-and-gloom scenarios, Ukraine didn't fall. Ukraine is alive and kicking. Thank you. And it gives me good reason to share with you our first joint victory: We defeated Russia in the battle for minds of the world. We have no fear, nor should anyone in the world have it. Ukrainians gained this victory, and it gives us courage which inspires the entire world.
Americans gained this victory, and that's why you have succeeded in uniting the global community to protect freedom and international law. Europeans gained this victory, and that's why Europe is now stronger and more independent than ever. The Russian tyranny has lost control over us. And it will never influence our minds again.
... This battle is not only for the territory, for this or another part of Europe. The battle is not only for life, freedom and security of Ukrainians or any other nation which Russia attempts to conquer. This struggle will define in what world our children and grandchildren will live, and then their children and grandchildren.
It will define whether it will be a democracy of Ukrainians and for Americans -- for all. This battle cannot be frozen or postponed. It cannot be ignored, hoping that the ocean or something else will provide a protection. From the United States to China, from Europe to Latin America, and from Africa to Australia, the world is too interconnected and interdependent to allow someone to stay aside and at the same time to feel safe when such a battle continues.
Our two nations are allies in this battle. And next year will be a turning point, I know it, the point when Ukrainian courage and American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom, the freedom of people who stand for their values.
END_QUOTE
He described his visit to the besieged city of Bakhmut, speaking of the intense battle there, the superiority of Russians in numbers, and the resilience of the defense:
QUOTE:
The Russians' tactic is primitive. They burn down and destroy everything they see. They sent thugs to the front lines. They sent convicts to the war. They threw everything against us, similar to the other tyranny, which is in the Battle of the Bulge. Threw everything it had against the free world, just like the brave American soldiers which held their lines and fought back Hitler's forces during the Christmas of 1944. Brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same to Putin's forces this Christmas.
Ukraine holds its lines and will never surrender. So, so, here the front line, the tyranny which has no lack of cruelty against the lives of free people -- and your support is crucial, not just to stand in such fight but to get to the turning point to win on the battlefield.
END_QUOTE
To finally defeat the invaders will, he continued, mean more support from the USA -- more and new weapons, more sanctions on Russia, more funding:
QUOTE:
Financial assistance is also critically important, and I would like to thank you, thank you very much, thank you for both financial packages you have already provided us with and the ones you may be willing to decide on. Your money is not charity. It's an investment in the global security and democracy that we handle in the most responsible way.
END_QUOTE
As far as peace proposals went, Ukraine and the USA are on the same page:
QUOTE:
The restoration of international legal order is our joint task. We need peace, yes. Ukraine has already offered proposals, which I just discussed with President Biden, our peace formula, 10 points which should and must be implemented for our joint security, guaranteed for decades ahead and the summit which can be held. I'm glad to say that President Biden supported our peace initiative today. Each of you, ladies and gentlemen, can assist in the implementation to ensure that America's leadership remains solid, bicameral and bipartisan. Thank you.
END_QUOTE
He presented a Ukrainian battle flag to Harris and Pelosi, concluding:
QUOTE:
This flag is a symbol of our victory in this war. We stand, we fight, and we will win because we are united -- Ukraine, America and the entire free world. ... may God protect our brave troops and citizens, may God forever bless the United States of America. Merry Christmas and a happy, victorious New Year. Slava Ukraini.
END_QUOTE
Zelenskyy got a standing ovation -- with a few of the MAGA Members of the House refusing to stand. MAGA critics made much of the fact that he showed up at the White House and Congress wearing field fatigues, but he did so as a sign of solidarity with the troops in the field. Winston Churchill did the same at least once during World War II; it certainly wouldn't have flown well if he showed up in a military dress uniform. It is a good bet that he cleared it with the White House before he came.
* After intensive legislative activity, the US Congress passed a $1.65 trillion USD spending bill just before going on Christmas break. The bill included $772.5 billion USD in nondefense discretionary spending, up about 6% from last year; and defense spending of $858 billion USD, an increase of $76 billion. Other items included $45 billion USD for Ukraine -- the Biden Administration had only asked for $37 billion USD -- and $40 billion USD for disaster relief. Other items included:
Arguably most significantly, the omnibus bill included the Electoral Count Reform Act, which would overhaul an 1887 law governing how Congress counts and ratifies presidential elector votes. Donald Trump and his minions attempted to overturn the 2020 election by former Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to certify the election on 6 January 2021. That wouldn't have worked out in any case, but it could have greatly complicated the transition of power. The reform bill now makes it clear that Congress's role in ratifying states' Electoral College votes is ministerial, and that the vice president's role is merely to count the votes publicly. It also raises the threshold to sustain an objection to a state's electors from one House member and one senator to one-fifth of both chambers. That would prevent a handful of extremists from trying to derail an election, while permitting Congress to object to obvious fraud at the state level.
Some things didn't make the cut, an interesting one being protections for financial institutions handling legal marijuana businesses -- the fact that the Federal government still considers marijuana illegal clashes with states where it is legal and makes finances troublesome. This has been going around for some time, and will continue to be an issue.
In any case, the US government is funded to September. Some of the MAGA extremists in the House complained, saying it didn't give them room to perform a government shutdown in the near term -- which is likely why more than a few Republicans voted for it.
* A TikTok video of a rather unpleasant Russian woman spouting what appeared to be lunatic anti-Ukraine propaganda in Russian made the rounds on Twitter, with most replies in Ukrainian or possibly Russian. One was by a German fellow named Thomas Kapitel (@thomaskapitelh1) and read: "Was fuer ein grusliges Weib!" -- which translated as: "What a creepy woman!"
I replied to him: "Gruseliges ... that has the right sound for what it means." He replied in turn: "In Deutsch, that's spooky, weird, and yucky in one word." German is a very expressive language for certain sorts of things.
* I mentioned getting a new desktop PC a few weeks back. I got up to speed on it quickly, but I knew I'd run into a few more things to patch up, and did. The first was that the VIM text editor wasn't handling non-English characters in text I pasted into it the way it had on my old PC, which was causing me annoying difficulties. I finally figured out that I needed to specify the UTF-8 character set in the VIM configuration file, and it all worked as before.
That did leave me with the strange problem that some text files would give me a "readonly" error when I tried to save them -- but all I had to do was run an override save on them, and then they worked normally. Another little thing I had to deal with was the fact that I had various programs I don't use regularly or at all in the Windows startup list by default, and finally got around to disabling them.
Yet another thing I had to patch up was to get a free conversion utility to turn Youtube music videos I download into MP3 audio files. I had been using the Lexis audio editor on the old desktop, but I ran into complications trying to download it: it was a for-pay app now, and the downloads I could find didn't look safe. Some more poking around led me to the "OcenAudio" free audio editor, which is actually cleaner and better than the Lexis audio editor. I'll have to give OcenAudio a donation, it's very nice.
Along similar lines, I needed a tool to perform mass format conversions of image files. I had been using the CoffeeCup Software converter, which was an old if useful piece of junk, but ran into the same problem: it wasn't free any more, and it was hosted on dubious websites. After some confused searching around, I found the IMG Candy online converter, which is easy to use and works well. For now, licensing is only required for commercial use, but that could change -- but the website doesn't even ask for donations, so they don't seem greedy. I'd give them a donation if they let me.
* As discussed in an article from THEDRIVE.com ("Here's Everything We Now Know About The Army's New Squad Rifles" by Dan Parsons, 20 April 2022), the US military has been working towards updating their standard troop firearms.
Following an evaluation over the past two years of three weapon systems, the Army announced in April that Sig's XM5 rifle was chosen to replace the AR-15-derived M4/M4A1 carbine, and the belt-fed XM250 light machine gun to replace the M249 / FN MAG squad automatic weapon within the close combat forces. They are together labeled the "Next Generation Squad Weapons (NGSW)" system.
Both of the new firearms are based on Sig's popular MCX line, a piston-operated derivative of the classic Stoner AR-15 family. They're chambered in 6.8x51 mm, a departure from the NATO-standard 5.56x45 mm cartridge fired by the M4 and the larger, more powerful 7.62x51 mm round fired by the service's new Squad Designated Marksman Rifle and other weapons. The rounds use a hybrid-metallic casing that reduces its overall weight. There's long been dissatisfaction with the hitting power of the 5.56 mm round, with the 6.8 mm round being seen as a good compromise against the heftier 7.62 mm round.
The first contract was modest in scope, only ordering a handful of weapons plus ammunition, just to get the production line going. The Army plans to buy a mix of about 107,000 M5s about 13,000 M250s. The production M5 and M250 weapons will go into introductory service in 2024, but only to "close combat" forces. Other units will retain the M4 carbine, the 5.56 mm M249 SAW machine gun, and the 7.62 mm M240 MAG machine gun.
The M5 is somewhat shorter and heftier than the M4, while the M250 weighs slightly less than the M240 MAG. Both weapons will be used with the M157 Fire Control Optic unit, a ruggedized high-tech sight, featuring a variable magnification optic with 8x magnification, backup etched reticle, laser rangefinder, ballistic calculator, atmospheric sensor suite, and compass. The 6.8 mm ammunition used by the NGSW is unique to them among US military firearms; it is unclear if it will become a NATO standard.
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