ANOTHER NCLA WIN: In NCLA Amicus Win, Supreme Court Restores Americans’ Rights to Trial by Jury. “Today, the U.S. Supreme Court struck a blow for freedom and restored the precious right to a trial by jury for Americans confronting the Administrative State. The Court affirmed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision in SEC v. Jarkesy, overturning the Securities and Exchange Commission’s unconstitutional administrative prosecution regime.”
Good, but their Murthy decision on social media censorship was still a disgrace.
Drunkblogging the debate at PJ Media starts at 8:45pm.
THEY MAY ALSO NEED TO PAY SPACEX TO RESCUE THE STARLINER CREW: NASA awards SpaceX $843M to build vehicle to push Int’l Space Station out of orbit. “The ISS is planned for its operational life to finish around 2030, and SpaceX was announced by NASA on Wednesday that it has been commissioned to develop a so called deorbit spacecraft vehicle that will deorbit it in a controlled manner and avoid risking populated areas.”
Once touted as the future of US air superiority, the Next Generation Air Dominance program faces a similarly uncertain future as it potentially goes down a cost-death spiral. This month, Defense One reported that the USAF is considering changes to the NGAD program, which aimed to produce a sixth-generation fighter jet. Defense One notes this is due to budget constraints, technological challenges and evolving concepts of air dominance.
The publication mentions that the Air Force chief of staff, General David Allvin, and Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall have hesitated to continue the NGAD program. The program was expected to select a winner between Lockheed Martin and Boeing this year. However, the USAF’s commitment to the program is now in question, with Allvin emphasizing that no final decision has been made.
Defense One notes the potential cancellation of the NGAD and its significant implications for the US defense industry. Delays in Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program and Boeing’s underwhelming defense performance are contributing factors, along with Boeing’s management issues and Lockheed Martin’s lack of incentives for cost-effective execution.
The US forgetting how to design and build cutting-edge aircraft is like the French forgetting how to make wine.
The first launch for China’s G60 Starlink megaconstellation of over 12,000 satellites is set for early August.
The first satellites are due to leave the factory in Shanghai for Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China in the coming days, according to Shanghai Securities News.
The launch is set for Aug. 5 with the mission expected to carry 18 satellites. The launch vehicle was not stated in reports, but the Long March 6A would be the most capable option from Taiyuan in terms of capacity to low Earth orbit and payload fairing.
The constellation aims to provide global internet access, challenging U.S. projects including Starlink. It is also intended to secure finite orbital slots and frequencies and provide national internet coverage and data security.
Left unasked: without reusable launch vehicles, will G60 turn a profit or just be another cash-sucking state megaproject?
In September of 2018, a friend of mine, a bartender named Rick, came home to a shocking sight. His 85-year-old mother was being interrogated by a reporter from the New York Times. The reporter, Kate Kelly, was interrogating an elderly woman about what parties I went to in the 1980s. Kelly had fast-talked her way into Rick’s house, and Rick’s poor mother had no idea what Kelly was talking about.
Kate Kelly was trying to find dirt on me. My high school classmate, Brett Kavanaugh, was up for a seat on the Supreme Court. Allegations about sexual misconduct had been launched, the opposition researcher and political left had tried to implicate me with Kavanaugh, and the rabid press corp was completely out of control. Thus, they came for me. When I wouldn’t talk, they came for my friends. When my fiends wouldn’t talk, they came for their elderly mothers.
Kate Kelly is one of the reasons nobody is talking to journalists anymore.
Back in 1992, the late Ginny Carroll, of the then-Washington Post-owned Newsweek, admitted on C-SPAN that at the 1992 Republican Convention, she wore a button that said, “Yeah, I’m in the Media — Screw You.”
Nobody should be surprised that their customers feel the same way, and thanks to the Internet, finally have a way to express that opinion themselves.
While it seems hard to believe, the International Space Station (ISS) was put into orbit more than 25 years ago…There is no question that something will need to be done with the ISS when its mission is over. Once the fuel for its thrusters runs out, its orbit will slowly begin to decay and at some point, it will reenter the atmosphere and come down. The ISS weighs 462 tons. It is too massive to fully burn up upon reentry, so at least some of it will reach the surface as a massive fireball traveling at supersonic speed. If it were to strike land in a populated area it could be catastrophic.
Under the current plan, that’s where Elon Musk comes in. SpaceX will need to design, construct, and launch a new type of spacecraft that will dock with the ISS and guide it back into the atmosphere in a controlled fashion. Even that approach isn’t entirely without risk, of course. You don’t have to be off by much to wind up with the space station crashing down into a shipping lane. Even if everything goes flawlessly, we’re still going to wind up with yet another massive hunk of junk littering the ocean floor and we’ll pay more than $800 million for the privilege of doing so.
Michaels, as one would expect, approved the use of his voice, which was trained on his years of work for the broadcaster.
“When I was approached about this, I was skeptical but obviously curious,” Michaels said. “Then I saw a demonstration detailing what they had in mind. I said, ‘I’m in.’”
Michaels has worked on NBC’s Olympics coverage since 2010 (back when he was at ABC, he called the legendary “Miracle on Ice” game), and also was the lead play-by-play announcer for NBC Sunday Night Football. Michaels currently works in the booth for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football.
Notably, an NBCU executive says that a team of NBC Sports editors will review all of the content before it is able to be added to the recaps “for quality, validation and accuracy,” including the pronunciation and intonation of certain names or events.
That addresses one of the big concerns around generative AI, namely around accuracy and context. Having humans check the system before generating the recaps adds a layer of protection.
Still, the artificial intelligence Al Michaels is a major move into generative artificial intelligence from a major media company, one that may provide a template for future offerings, where talent is looped in and (presumably) compensated for their work.
The Hollywood Reporter reported last year that Hanks and Wright are de-aged in the movie through the generative AI-driven tool called Metaphysic Live. “With Here, the film simply wouldn’t work without our actors seamlessly transforming into younger versions of themselves,” Zemeckis explained at the time.
Here marks a reunion for Zemeckis, Roth, Hanks and Wright, who all previously collaborated on 1994’s Oscar-winning film Forrest Gump, celebrating its 30th anniversary next month. Forrest Gump picked up six Academy Awards, including best picture, in addition to wins for Hanks for best actor, Zemeckis for best director and Roth for best adapted screenplay.
Hopefully the technology has advanced sufficiently since 2019’s The Irishman, Martin Scorsese’s glacially-paced made-for-Netflix gangster film starring Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino and Joe Pesci as digitally de-aged waxworks versions of themselves, but the shots featured in Here’s trailer do not look promising:
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