Archive for 2024
January 18, 2024
THE NEW SPACE RACE: SpaceX delays Axiom-3 launch of all-European private crew to ISS.
HMM: Musk wants more voting control at Tesla before expanding automaker’s AI work.
“I am uncomfortable growing Tesla to be a leader in AI & robotics without having ~25% voting control,” Musk said Monday on X.
He said having roughly a quarter of all voting power would “mean I am influential, but can be overridden if twice as many shareholders vote against me vs for me.”
“At 15% or lower, the for/against ratio to override me makes a takeover by dubious interests too easy,” he added.
Musk’s stake in Tesla stands around 13%, according to reports.
Without 25% voting control, Musk said he “would prefer to build [AI] products outside of Tesla.”
Previously: Elon Musk and Others Call for Pause on A.I., Citing ‘Profound Risks to Society.’
ALL OUR INSTITUTIONS HAVE BEEN CORRUPTED: We’d Like the 2020 Election Back: DOJ Admits It Lied About Hunter Biden’s Laptop.
READER FAVORITE: SonoHealth EKG Monitor: Capture Heart ECG Metrics On-The-Go. #CommissionEarned
D.C. PUNDITS SELDOM PAY FOR THEIR OWN LUNCHES: It’s the groceries, stupid: Why the pundits are puzzled by Biden’s putrid polls.
WOEING: Boeing’s stock tumbles after report warns investigation will open ‘a whole new can of worms.’
The Wells Fargo report, entitled “FAA audit opens up a whole new can of worms,” noted that Boeing’s quality control and engineering problems have been ongoing for years. After part of an Alaska Airlines] 737 Max 9 jet fell off the plane mid-flight, the likelihood of the US Federal Aviation Administration coming out of its investigation without significant findings was very low.
“Given Boeing’s recent track record, and greater incentive for the FAA to find problems, we think the odds of a clean audit are low,” the analysts said. “The FAA’s audit is limited to Max 9 for now, but it’s feasible that findings could expand the scope to other Max models sharing common parts.”
The analysts believe the investigation increases significantly the risk that Boeing takes a hit to its production and deliveries, and they downgraded the stock to “equal weight,” down from “overweight,” the equivalent of a “buy” rating.
Plus: Boeing lost $35 billion in market cap this year, dragging down other air travel stocks.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE: ‘Zombie’ retracted papers continue to infect future research, scholars warn.
EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY: Who Had Iran-Pakistan Nuclear War on Their 2024 Bingo Card?
BIG TECH: Apple WILL be banned from selling smartwatches in the US from TOMORROW over claims it stole medical tech – after court rejected tech giant’s appeal. “The order comes after Apple was found to have copied patented medical technology from the California-based biotech company Massimo.”
I’ve talked to a couple people in the industry who are convinced Massimo will win in court and don’t understand why Apple doesn’t just pay up.
COMMANDER SALAMANDER: The Costs of War at Sea: Understanding Scale.
Politically and institutionally – not to mention industrially – the institutions of our nation and those of our allies are sleepwalking in to a systemic shock I am afraid they are not ready for.
Make no mistake, at some point another large war at sea will come. They always do. For every “long peace” there is a “large war.” . . . We will have to fight with what we have, and try to force victory in the face of attrition without relief.
Nobody is really prepared for how expensive a major U.S./China conflict would be. They think they are, but they’re not.
KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: A Glimpse Into Our Gulag Future — Feds Are Cracking Down on Humor. “Given my rather unflattering view of bureaucrats at any level, I was always surprised to find that there were some with a sense of humor. I wonder if they’ll all be fired now.”
LET IT GO: Boomers won’t part with their homes, and that’s a problem for young families.
“Boomers love their homes. Even if they did want to sell, it is now prohibitively expensive for many Millennials,” said Sheharyar Bokhari, senior economist at Redfin, who did the analysis, to CNN. “These are larger homes where there are only one or two people living there and, typically, they bought it a while ago, so it has value.”
This is a change from the historical norm, according to the research. Ten years ago young families were just as likely as empty nesters to own large homes.
The report defines age groups in the 2022 Census data as: adult Gen Zers were 19 to 25 years old, Millennials were aged 26 to 41, Gen Xers were 42 to 57, and Baby Boomers were 58 to 76.
Even though Millennials with kids own half as many large homes as empty nesters, Millennials make up roughly 28% of the country’s adult population, the largest share of any generation.
I’m only 54 but am eager to downsize just as soon as both kids are grown and on their own.
WELL, THAT’S BECAUSE SHE IS, AND SHE SHOULD: Most say Fani Willis ‘compromised’ and should drop Trump prosecution.
THEY SAID NO: Earlier this week, the Supreme Court declined to hear Metropolitan School District of Martinsville v. A.C., a transgender bathroom case. That’s too bad. I thought the amicus brief I worked on had a good argument on statutory grounds, and my colleagues and I were prepared to make an equally good argument on constitutional grounds if the petition for certiorari had been granted. Maybe the Court is waiting for a case that centers on athletics instead. Or maybe they are just timid. I hope it’s the former.
“REGULATORS” NEED TO BE TAKEN DOWN A FEW PEGS: Regulator Forced Financial Industry to Spy on Americans.
THE GLOBAL BABY BUST: Robin Hanson: Five Fertility Fails.
Related: The baby bust is worsening. “Birth rates have been slowly falling for a while. But last year’s drops were notable both for their severity and because they’re now happening sharply in countries that had largely avoided them, such as France. The United States is a striking exception. American births fell only about 2 percent in 2023, to roughly 3.6 million. The baby bust is most severe in East Asia, and China in particular.”
HOW IT STARTED: Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google employees have reportedly shelled out $4.8 million to support Joe Biden since 2019 — and $240,000 for President Trump.
—Business Insider, October 6th, 2020.
How it’s going: Google layoffs continue as tech company eliminates hundreds of jobs in ad sales team.
—USA Today, Tuesday.
AT AMAZON, Shop the Winter Deals. #CommissionEarned
“BAIT AND SWITCH”: Biden Decision To Water Down Houthi Terror Designation Draws Outrage. “The Biden administration moved to reapply sanctions this week on the Iran-backed Houthi rebels, but did so under a weaker federal statute that will not criminalize support for the terrorist group or force American banks to seize their assets, current and former U.S. officials told the Washington Free Beacon.”
Plus: No Crisis at Border, Biden Says.
All is well. Remain calm.
NIKKI HALEY IN 2020: George Floyd Riots must “be personal and painful for everyone:”
(Screenshots in case Haley’s social media team deletes the above tweets.)
As Ron DeSantis told an interviewer in November of last year:
Speaking to a South Carolina radio host this week, DeSantis blasted the state’s former Gov. Nikki Haley for her response to the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of a police officer who’s since been sentenced to more than 20 years in prison.
“It’s important to understand that the death of George Floyd was personal and painful for many. In order to heal, it needs to be personal and painful for everyone,” Haley wrote on Twitter, now known as X, on May 30, 2020, five days after Floyd died.
DeSantis, who’s battling Haley in early GOP primary states to be the main alternative to Donald Trump, accused Haley of “adopting this left-wing mindset.”
“I remember when the George Floyd riots were happening, I called out the National Guard,” he said, as Fox News reported.
“I said I’m standing with police, she was tweeting that it needed to be personal and painful for every single person. I’m thinking to myself, ‘Why does that need to be personal and painful for you or me? We had nothing to do with it.”
For Haley in 2020, it was yet another case of “Riots for thee, but not for me,” to coin a phrase.