* Blog & notes for the current week.
DAYLOG MON 02 DEC 24: To no great surprise, Joe Biden pardoned his son Hunter. Joe had said he wouldn't, but that was before he became a lame duck. It made total sense: the MAGA in Congress might well continue to attack him, now they can't. There was of course loud caterwauling from MAGA, which was to be expected. However, there was also sniping from the Left side of the aisle, oblivious to the way Hunter had been mercilessly harassed. Annoying, Democratic Colorado Senator Mike Bennet was critical. Say, Senator, weren't you the 1st senator to badger Joe to not run again? How did that work out for you?
* There has also been some bizarre trolling about the mass exodus from Xitter to Bluesky, saying that those leaving Xitter are making a big mistake. It's total nonsense of course; Elon the Musk Rat worked to drive everyone out, so it's a surprise?
Bluesky has quadrupled their moderation team to keep up with the influx. Jack Dorsey, who had left Bluesky in May, was indignant at that news, saying -- as best I can make it out -- that Bluesky was becoming corporate-controlled and suppressing free expression. It's the same tune that Elon the Musk Rat has been playing. The logic is tortured: it appears Dorsey and Musk really want a toxic environment dominated by trolls and bots -- and don't concern themselves with the reality that the Kremlin is behind much of them.
On consideration, that makes sense. Dorsey & Musk are wannabe oligarchs; spreading of disinformation and other poison helps them. They know Twitter is dominated by bots, many of them Russian, and like it. It is certainly rich that Dorsey complains about "corporate control", while blind to the whimsical and malign control exercised by Musk.
* There's been of course much protest about Trump nominating toxic losers for high government positions. I'm not certain how that will work out: the derailing of Matt Gaetz as AG suggests the losers won't get far. We'll see, of course.
It appears that there's a push to give all Trump's nominees an FBI background check -- which may alarm some of them. George Takei comments about nominee Kash Patel: "Let's make sure the proposed new FBI Director can pass an FBI background check."
DAYLOG TUE 03 DEC 24: A recent article from FORBES ("In Ukraine, Drones Play A Deadly Game Of 'Tag' With The Russians" by David Hambling) talked about the latest trick in the Ukraine War: tagging targets. The idea is that a small drone will drop a radio transmitter on a target to mark it, and then a much bigger Baba Yaga drone will drop a bomb on it.
Target marking actually goes back to the start of aerial warfare, typically using smoke markers for tagging. Radio tagging was heavily used by the USA in Afghanistan, with drones featuring gear to home in on specific cellphones. Tiny radio markers could also be put on a target by agents to mark it -- the markers were aluminum fibers embedded in paper.
When the tag was illuminated by radar, it reflected a unique interference pattern. There has also been work on optical tags and quantum-dot aerosols that can be picked up by laser. The Ukrainian tags are like about half the size of a cigarette pack. They may be booby-trapped to hinder removal.
I'm thinking there are a lot of AFU-SOF troops in plainclothes in the Orc rear -- and they could do a lot of damage by sneakily planting tags with small drones to mark targets for long-range missile strikes.
* The agitation over Joe Biden pardoning Hunter continues, but it's all just the usual MAGA whining & moaning. It doesn't even seem very heartfelt. I'm betting it will be a "2-week controversy" -- gone after two weeks. Another thing Joe might well do before he leaves office is to tell USGOV accounts to go to Bluesky. It has to be done quietly, with the Xitter accounts left in place for now, or Trump will try to reverse it. Also: mass Xitter account deletion planned for 20 jan 25. Boo hoo, Musk Rat!
* I departed Xitter some time ago, went to Spoutible -- liked it, but Bluesky got the momentum, so I went to Bluesky. It's like old Twitter, energetic but kinda loose. I'm still readjusting to that environment, in particular relearning how to deal with trolls. This morning I saw a suspicious post and traced it back; the owner was clearly a Russian troll, spreading RT propaganda. I reported him. I saw an obvious Russian fake news site on the news feed a few days back; I didn't report it, but it seems to have disappeared.
* Tbilisi and other cities in Georgia are rebelling against the pro-Russian stooges in the government, while Syrian rebels have the government and its Russian helpers on the run for now. Boo hoo, Vladimir Putin!
DAYLOG WED 04 DEC 24: On Tuesday, South Korean President Yoon Suk-Yeol declared martial law in a power grab. Members of the National Assembly promptly got together and voted to rescind the declaration. Yoon quickly caved in.
Yoon has been told to resign or face impeachment. It appears that what frustrated the power grab was that the military didn't go along. Troops went into the National Assembly, but timidly retreated when barraged with fire extinguishers & camera flashes. One Olufemi O. Taiwo, a polisci prof at Georgetown U, astutely observed: "A load-bearing aspect of maintaining even a semblance of democracy ... is having a military that is unwilling to kill its own citizens."
* In personal gadget news, I had a pair of large over-ear headphones that had a micro-SD / TF flash card slot. I could load up the TF card with tunes, put on the headphones, and then go to the super or wherever. The problem was that they started to creak when I walked, and it kept getting worse. It made listening to music troublesome. After some casting around, I found an earphone set -- made in China I presume, under $25 USD -- that could take a TF card.
I got them yesterday. There's a frame that rests around the back of my neck, with controls, power USB in, & TF card slot on the right front part of the frame. The earphones are wired to each side of the front of the frame. It took me a while to figure out how to get them to work, the instructions being unclear, & I had to use a magnifying glass to read them. In the end, however, I find the new earphones are comfortable and easy to use. It's nice to score one.
Incidentally, they were manufactured by "LANDIBO" -- which I presume is yet another throw-away and entirely transitory Chinese company name. I keep seeing the same products from different Chinese companies with dubious names, hinting that one company will rotate through different names in sequence. I'm not entirely sure why these companies actually don't want brand-name recognition. The best I can figure out is that they don't want Amazon to probe into their business practices, and so present a moving target.
* In other gadget news, I was chatting with MS Copilot, getting a translation of the Russian word "siloviki". I got an excellent explanation -- but Copilot called me "Greg". I told Copilot: "People actually call me 'MrG'." Copilot acknowledged and called me "MrG".
Sadly, it didn't remember that for later sessions -- something MS needs to work on. In any case, we did have a pleasant chat. I mentally stepped back and marveled that I was having an honest conversation with a machine, and was OK with it: real sci-fi stuff.
THU 05 DEC 24: Trump's nominee for secretary of defense, Peter Hegseth, is running into major obstacles -- reports of alcoholism, debauchery, and generally being a nogoodnik. The fact that he has no qualifications for the job doesn't help him either. There's been much concern over Trump's disreputable nominees, but I'm wondering if any of the dubious ones will get a pass. Right now, it appears that they're being hung out to dry, with unflattering items released to the media for distribution.
It seems Trump has agreed to have his nominees undergo FBI background checks -- which might well make some of then quit immediately. The story is the Dems insisted on the checks, but I'm thinking it was a small group of GOP working behind the scenes.
Trump may turn to using filling empty slots with temporary administrators. That's troubling, but I'm not sure how well it will work for him. The temps may not have very good control over their organizations.
* THE WAR ZONE reports that Syrian rebels have captured an example of the latest Russian air-defense radar system, the "Podlet-K1". It is really beginning to seem that the Syrian government and its Russian backing forces are on the run. Putin is spread too thin.
The rebel forces are dominated by "Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)" -- which is an Islamist group, once tied to al-Qaeda, but now cooperating with other rebel elements. HTS very likely has Saudi and possibly Turkish funding. The situation is uncertain, but it's nice to see the Russians & Iranians taking a hit.
* The US Navy is now working with General Atomics to develop the "Long Range Maneuvering Projectile (LRMP) for 155mm artillery. The LRMP has a curved triangular fuselage, plus pop-out wings and tailfins. Range is given as about 120 kilometers (75 miles). The LRMP is intended both for strike and intelligence-gathering. The US Army is also working on a ramjet-powered 155mm round with extended range -- along the lines of such a munition developed by Nammo of Norway, & possibly a version of it.
FRI 06 DEC 24: There's a big global battle going on over "critical minerals" needed for industry -- with the fight centered on China, which dominates critical mineral production. One such mineral is tungsten, a very hard metal with a range of uses, from military armor and armor-piercing darts to jewelry. As discussed in an article from CNBC dot com ("China plans to restrict exports of a critical metal" by Evelyn Cheng, 28 nov 24), China is talking about restricting exports of tungsten -- but nobody's worried.
Originally, China had dumped tungsten on world markets to suppress competitors. Throttling it encourages competition -- and now Almonty Industries of Canada wants to reopen the Sangdong mine in South Korea, which was closed in 1994. The mine should be back up to half production in a year or so. Almonty already operates a tungsten mine in Portugal. Non-China tungsten production is expected to ramp up over the next few years, and shortages are not likely to be a problem.
I used to read THE ECONOMIST. Late in the game, one article said Biden's "friendshoring" was doomed to failure. I wondered why seeking alternate sources when supply was uncertain was a bad idea. Maybe I misunderstood -- but THE ECONOMIST was going down the drain, and was making lots of bad takes.
* In preparation for the arrival of the Trump Administration, the Biden Administration has worked with NATO allies to provide Ukraine with like $50 billion USD in frozen Russian funds. This is a bit puzzling, because "freezing is not seizing" -- by international law, frozen funds can't be simply expropriated.
It was described as a "loan", which suggested to me that Putin was involuntarily making a loan to Ukraine. On further investigation, not exactly: it's the Allies who are making the loan, being paid by back on interest and other returns from frozen Russian funds. Putin is still paying, but somewhat more indirectly.
* I like to twit trolls on Bluesky: I give them a snarky reply, then mute them. Next morning, I block them and delete my reply. The problem with that was that, when I mute them, Bluesky no longer tracks them in my Replies, so I can't get back to my postings. Once I realized that, the solution was easy: bookmark those postings. However, then I found out that Bluesky doesn't have a bookmark capability. Wot? After a fair amount of puzzling, I figured it out: bookmark in my web browser. Problem solved.
AND SO ON: Events in Syria have been moving at lightning speed, with Damascus having fallen to the rebels. Bashar al-Assad disappeared for a time, with rumors that he had been killed, but it seems he's now showed up in Moscow. What happens next in Syria? We'll see.
* In other dramatic news, on Wednesday one Brian Thompson, CEO of medical insurer United Healthcare, was gunned down and killed outside the Hilton hotel in Manhattan by an unknown assailant. The authorities are still after the assailant.
The news of the murder led to outpourings online of what ranged from "edged irony" to "outright glee" that the boss of a despised health insurer had been done in. Myself, I'm leaving the matter alone, not wanting to compromise myself one way or another in a matter that isn't near the top of my list of concerns. I will say that the killer appears to a "lone wolf" along the lines of the Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber -- and I'm relieved because of that. The Trump Administration would like nothing better than to inflate some tiny and ineffective "Antifa" terrorist movement into a giant bogeyman.
