DON’T CALL IT AN SUV: Rolls-Royce reveals Cullinan SUV at a price of $325,000.
Rolls would prefer that you referred to the Cullinan as an “all-terrain high-bodied car.” And whether you love the look or hate it, it is unmistakably Rolls-Royce.
Author Archive: Stephen Green
May 11, 2018
BLUE ON BLUE: Facebook’s ‘so white and male’ leadership highlights bigger diversity issue. “Where’s the progress?”
Make them live up to their own rules.
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: F-22s & F-35s Will Launch Recoverable Gremlins Attack Drones.
FRONT-RUNNER: The Gambler Who Cracked the Horse-Racing Code. “Bill Benter did the impossible: He wrote an algorithm that couldn’t lose at the track. Close to a billion dollars later, he tells his story for the first time.”
STEPHEN KRUISER: Daily Barrage of Anonymous Sources Is Neither News nor Journalism. “It is lazy though.”
CONE OF SILENCE (UNDERSEA EDITION): Device could make underwater objects appear invisible to sonar.
The device makes sound waves scatter around an object making it invisible to sonar detection.
In order to achieve this, the researchers used a “smart” material with special properties.
The researchers have outlined their work at a major scientific meeting in Minneapolis, US.
When a ship sends out a signal to detect objects in the ocean or to map the sea floor, the signal bounces back in a way that makes it appear as if the cloaked object isn’t there at all.
Amanda Hanford and her team at Pennsylvania State University in State College designed a 90cm (3ft) -tall pyramid out of perforated steel plates that could do just that.
The smart “metamaterial” they developed for use in the “cloak” forces sound waves to spread their energy around the object, making it undetectable to underwater sensors.
Interesting, although over the last few years real progress has been made in non-acoustic methods of detecting large underwater objects, such as nuclear missile submarines.
STARBUCKS: Bathrooms for All!
HOT MIC: There are reports coming in of two school shootings in the LA area, but details are still sketchy.
More to come, I’m afraid.
CHUTZPAH: Disgraced Former A.G. Schneiderman Sued Pro-Lifers For ‘Unwanted Physical Contact.’
That’s hypocrisy big enough to choke on.
THE INTERNET OF THINGS: Researchers can now send secret audio instructions undetectable to the human ear to Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa and Google’s Assistant.
A group of students from University of California, Berkeley and Georgetown University showed in 2016 that they could hide commands in white noise played over loudspeakers and through YouTube videos to get smart devices to turn on airplane mode or open a website.
This month, some of those Berkeley researchers published a research paper that went further, saying they could embed commands directly into recordings of music or spoken text. So while a human listener hears someone talking or an orchestra playing, Amazon’s Echo speaker might hear an instruction to add something to your shopping list.
“We wanted to see if we could make it even more stealthy,” said Nicholas Carlini, a fifth-year Ph.D. student in computer security at U.C. Berkeley and one of the paper’s authors.
Mr. Carlini added that while there was no evidence that these techniques have left the lab, it may only be a matter of time before someone starts exploiting them.
May?
LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Mole in the Trump Campaign and Much, Much More. “I wonder who it is? Strassel wraps up her piece by urging the President to declassify all the documents associated with this investigation. I agree.”
21ST CENTURY HEADLINES: I Was Kicked Off The Harry Potter Ride For Being Too Fat For The Seats.
One of the 20-something ride managers walked over and asked us all to step off because of a “safety” issue. We were ushered through a door to what looked like a backstage area where another 20-something employee rattled off a spiel about “safety” and “three clicks” and having to “try out a safety seat.” That’s when we all knew that I hadn’t actually made it onto the Hogwarts ride.
The four of us were taken to the beginning of the line where another 20-something informed us that for safety reasons, the restraint covering a rider’s chest must click down three times. She asked us to try out the test seat and my friends all looked over at me because I was obviously the fat one who caused our current predicament.
I took the bullet and pulled the restraint over my shoulders, pressing down as tightly as I could, my precious E-cups getting smashed into my chest and up around my neck. One click. That’s all I could manage.
“Lax safety standards” isn’t something most people look for in an amusement park.
LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: ‘No one wants to be last in line.’ Seizure of Venezuela oil assets may start wave.
The decision, which came amid the accelerating deterioration of Petroleos de Venezuela S.A.’s production capacity, could lead creditors to try to seize other Venezuelan assets abroad, including oil exports, to recover the more than $40 billion they claim they are owed.
“Creditors are now saying to themselves, ‘Look, we now have confirmation that you can go out and embargo PDVSA,’ and many of them are going to rush into court to ask for their own seizures,” said Antonio De La Cruz, executive director of Inter American Trends in Washington, D.C.
“We are at the start of a snowball” rolling downhill, added Russ Dallen, managing partner of Caracas Capital Markets, an investment bank in Miami. “Now that people have started to file lawsuits, we are going to see a run because no one wants to be the last in line.”
Plus: As inflation devastates Venezuela, artists make purses and paintings out of bills.
Coming soon: Everybody’s a trillionaire!
ANOTHER POINT IN TRUMP’S FAVOR: Turkey’s Erdogan tells Iran’s Rouhani that U.S. decision on nuclear deal wrong.
YOU DON’T SAY: When It Comes to Iran, Threats and Pressure Get Results.
Obama gave them billions and didn’t even get a lousy t-shirt:
This principle was best illustrated in a particularly testy moment during the final days of the 2015 nuclear negotiations. Western foreign ministers were trying to keep in place a U.N. conventional arms embargo on Iran, and they brought up the regime’s support for terrorism throughout the Middle East. Iran’s foreign minister, Javad Zarif, responded that he could bring American and European governments before The Hague for their support of Saddam Hussein in the 1980s. “Never threaten an Iranian,” he said, according to multiple reports at the time.
With apologies to Zarif, threatening Iran’s regime has worked in the past and may be working again now. Just look at the reaction Tuesday evening from Iran’s largely powerless president, Hassan Rouhani, to President Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 nuclear deal. Rouhani did not begin uranium enrichment or kick out inspectors. Instead he announced that Iran would remain a party to the agreement with Europe, and would begin negotiations on changes.
Rouhani, who lacks real political power, of course could be overruled. Other Iranian leaders have threatened to restart the nuclear program. What’s more, the Iranians will no doubt try to press America’s European allies for more concessions to an already weak nuclear bargain.
But if history is any guide, the Iranian regime won’t push too far if its leaders believe Trump’s threats are credible.
As we learned yesterday, it’s the Israelis they really have to worry about — and by backing out of the nuclear deal, Trump has let the Israelis off the leash.
TOM STEYER’S MOTHER’S DAY AD: All Young Republicans Are Charlottesville White Nationalists.
May 10, 2018
YOUR DAILY TREACHER: Quai James Did Something Terrible to a Hasidic Child, and Then Did Something Surprising. “Not everybody who does something bigoted is genuinely hateful in their hearts.”