Archive for 2017
October 17, 2017
WAR ON SCIENCE: Stanford professor getting death threats over ‘gaydar’ research.
AT AMAZON, save in Sexual Wellness.
ANN ALTHOUSE ON #METOO: “That sounds like she accepted a date and wanted a relationship (and even liked that the guy was an adulterer). Let’s not mush everything together! This #MeToo stuff could get really stupid. At least she announces I am a fucking fool. I know, she means back then. But she’s using the present tense. . . . Joan Walsh, who is 59 years old, is still selling herself as a naive, innocent girl. She was going out with some other woman’s husband, as far as I can tell. Look, we’re in an important moment, when women can come together and support other women. Don’t mess it up with bullshit like this.”
But they can’t help it, because the herd instinct means no one wants to be left out, even when their only real complaint is that they couldn’t get the boyfriend to leave his wife. Because Me too!
From the comments: “Jump on the wagon and signal virtuous victimhood!”
KEEPING THE SKIES UNFRIENDLY: The Corporate Jet Set’s War on Coach Passengers. The federal government’s air-traffic control system is so awful that even the unionized controllers want to turn it over to a not-for-profit corporation, as Republican leaders in Congress hope to do this month. They’ve got a good chance of succeeding in the House, but prospects are uncertain in the Senate. My piece in City Journal:
Members of Congress are about to face a tough choice: should they vote to replace America’s scandalously antiquated air-traffic control system with one that would be safer and cheaper, reduce the federal deficit, conserve fuel, ease congestion in the skies, and speed travel for tens of millions of airline passengers? Or should they maintain the status quo to please the lobbyists representing owners of corporate jets?
If that choice doesn’t sound difficult, then you don’t know the power that corporate jet-setters wield in Congress. They’re the consummate Washington crony capitalists: shameless enough to demand that their private flights be subsidized by the masses who fly coach, savvy enough to stymie reforms backed by Democratic and Republican administrations.
If they prevail, we’ll be stuck with an air-traffic system mired in mid-twentieth century technology:
Controllers and pilots rely on ground-based radar and radio beacons instead of GPS satellites. They communicate by voice over crowded radio channels because the federal government still hasn’t figured out how to use text messaging. The computers in control towers are so primitive that controllers track planes by passing around slips of paper.
The result: an enormous amount of time wasted by passengers, especially those traveling in the busy airspace of the Northeast. Because the system is so imprecise, planes have to be kept far apart, which limits the number of planes in the air—leaving passengers stranded at terminals listening to the dread announcements about “air traffic delays.” When they do finally take off, they’re often delayed further because the pilot must fly a zig-zag course following radio beacons instead of saving time and fuel by taking a direct route.
Reformers have been trying to fix the system for decades, but the lobbyists for the Gulfstream class like it just the way it is.
WEIRD HOW THE NYT ANNOUNCED A NEW, RESTRICTIVE SOCIAL MEDIA POLICY FOR ITS STAFF JUST AS JAMES O’KEEFE’S LATEST VIDEO SCOOPS STARTED COMING OUT: Senior Homepage Editor Reveals Biased Political Agenda at New York Times.
AIR FORCE SPACE CHIEF: “Space is a war-fighting domain.”
RAY KURZWEIL AND PETER DIAMANDIS, on Disruptive Technologies, Mind-Boggling Predictions, and ‘Dangerous Ideas.’
THE DAM HAS BURST: Amazon Studios chief Roy Price resigns amid Harvey Weinstein claims.
WHEN A MERCEDES S-CLASS FEELS TOO COMMON: Review: 2018 Rolls-Royce Phantom VIII.
AS ALWAYS, THERE’S NO WAY SATIRE CAN TOP REAL LIFE FOR ITS PURE ABSURDITY: Neo-Nazi and National Front organizer quits movement, opens up about Jewish heritage, comes out as gay.
The gay angle is new, but otherwise this was the plot of a 1977 Lou Grant episode, guest-starring a young, pre-Robocop Peter Weller.
BILL WHITTLE: The Story of Friendlyism.
BREAKING: Bob Weinstein accused of sexual harassment by TV showrunner.
That’s Bob, not Harvey.
NEWS FROM 1978: Mazda Is Developing a Rotary Engine for Sports Cars.
TONI AIRAKSINEN: Most College Students Clueless About the First Amendment.
1967: IN 50 YEARS WE’LL HAVE FLYING CARS!
YOU’RE GONNA NEED A BIGGER BLOG: Clinton Corruption Update for October 17, 2017.
PROGRESS? How Google’s Quantum Computer Could Change the World.
For nearly three decades, these machines were considered the stuff of science fiction. Just a few years ago, the consensus on a timeline to large-scale, reliable quantum computers was 20 years to never.
“Nobody is saying never anymore,” says Scott Totzke, the chief executive of Isara Corp., a Canadian firm developing encryption resistant to quantum computers, which threaten to crack current methods. “We are in the very, very early days, but we are well past the science-fiction point.”
Companies and universities around the world are racing to build these machines, and Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., appears to be in the lead. Early next year, Google’s quantum computer will face its acid test in the form of an obscure computational problem that would take a classical computer billions of years to complete. Success would mark “quantum supremacy,” the tipping point where a quantum computer accomplishes something previously impossible.
Soon, Google’s AI might have the power to demonetize conservative commentary videos before they’re even produced.
MORE ORDINARY PEOPLE SHOULD BE TRAINED: After the Las Vegas Shooting, Concertgoers Became Medics.