Sometimes one man can make all the difference in the world! There have been a number of reports about the Ukraine military using Starling satellites to direct drones and artillery fire on Russian targets!
Thursday, March 31, 2022
Could The Universe Be Inside A Black Hole?
Recommendable! However, can you wrap your head around this talk?
First ‘Gapless’ Human Genome Map Is Unveiled, 19 Years After Earlier Effort
Amazing stuff! Why did it take so long? Let's hope that this time there are only hundreds of errors left to correct in the next round! 😄
"Scientists unveiled what they say is the first complete map of a human genome. The development is expected to lead to insights into human evolution and health such as cancer, birth defects and aging. The 2003 version was missing 8% of human DNA; that’s now filled in. Researchers identified 99 new genes that likely code for proteins essential to human life, along with 2,000 more whose function is unclear, and corrected thousands of errors in the earlier map."
U.S. Passports, TSA to Update Gender Options for Travelers
I bet this will cause some trouble down the road! Why should I not choose to have gender X in my U.S. passport? This selection will will then eventually end up in my state drivers license, I suppose.
Would this then give anyone the option to choose at any time or opportunity, which sex is best? As a biological male want to get a massage in the ladies section of a massage parlor, no problem! Getting a massage with other men is too boring. 😄 (Caution: This just some wild conjecture)
Or how about someone who wants to get rich by claiming X was mistreated/injured and thereby filing a lawsuit?
"Americans will be able to select an X gender designation on their passport applications starting April 11, the State Department said [on 3/31/2022]. The X gender marker will be defined as “unspecified or another gender identity” on forms, the department said, based on input from members of the LGBTQ community and others. ..."
Main authors in elite medical journals remain mostly white and male
Of course this will not change overnight! What is the point belaboring this issue! Is this just another attempt to indoctrinate and intimidate?
It will take time before e.g. minority non-white female researchers become senior authors more frequently!
"A new analysis of two of the nation’s most prestigious medical journals shows that women and people of color rarely served as lead or senior authors of research articles published during the past three decades, and that gains in authorship during that time have lagged behind the increasing presence of these groups within medicine. ..."
Biden announces release of oil from Strategic Petroleum Reserve, blames Putin, oil companies
If you are incompetent in economics, you sure will resort this old, worn out remedy! Not to mention that this lifelong career politician is demented and senile, corrupt and compromised!
Mr. president open up domestic fossil energy production, lower taxes and so forth!
Chief AI Scientist Yann LeCun explores deep learning's energy function
Recommendable! This is a long interview with the Turing Award winner!
"... Those are contrastive methods. And at least in some contexts, I invented them for a particular type of self-supervised learning called "siamese nets." I used to be a fan of them, but not anymore. I changed my mind on this. I think those methods are doomed. I don't think they're useless, but I think they are not sufficient because they don't scale very well with the dimension of those things. ...
So, basically, you would need an exponentially large number of contrastive samples of energy to push up to get those contrastive methods to work. They're still quite popular, but they are really limited in my opinion. So what I prefer is the non-contrastive method or so-called regularized methods. ...
So, basically, you would need an exponentially large number of contrastive samples of energy to push up to get those contrastive methods to work. They're still quite popular, but they are really limited in my opinion. So what I prefer is the non-contrastive method or so-called regularized methods. ...
the "regularized latent variable energy-based model," the RLVEB. ...
Well, let me put it this way: I've not been as excited about something in machine learning since convolutional nets ... really something I'm super-excited about. ...
Now, I also changed my mind about this in the last few years. Now, my favourite model is not a generative model that predicts Y from X. It's what I call the joint embedding model that takes X, runs it through an encoder, if you like, a neural net; takes Y, and also runs it through an encoder, a different one; and then prediction takes place in this abstract representation space. ...
Well, let me put it this way: I've not been as excited about something in machine learning since convolutional nets ... really something I'm super-excited about. ...
Now, I also changed my mind about this in the last few years. Now, my favourite model is not a generative model that predicts Y from X. It's what I call the joint embedding model that takes X, runs it through an encoder, if you like, a neural net; takes Y, and also runs it through an encoder, a different one; and then prediction takes place in this abstract representation space. ...
The reason why we need to abandon probabilistic models is because of the way you can model the dependency between two variables, X and Y; if Y is high-dimensional, how are you going to represent the distribution over Y? We don't know how to do it, really. We can only write down a very simple distribution, a Gaussian or mixture of Gaussians, and things like that. If you want to have complex probability measures, we don't know how to do it, or the only way we know how to do it is through an energy function. So we write an energy function where low energy corresponds to high probability, and high energy corresponds to low probability, which is the way physicists understand energy, right? The problem is that we never, we rarely know how to normalize. There are a lot of papers in statistics, in machine learning, in computational physics, etc., that are all about how you get around the problem that this term is intractable.
What I'm basically advocating is, to forget about probabilistic modeling, just work with the energy function itself. It's not even necessary to make the energy take such a form that it can be normalized. What it comes down to in the end is, you should have some loss function that you minimize when you're training your data model that makes the energy function of things that are compatible low and the energy function of things that are incompatible high. ..."The women who built Israel in the first half of the 20th century
Recommendable!
Helps to understand Golda Meir (By the way, born in Kyiv in the Ukraine)!
The first members of the “Chen” women’s division of the IDF on their way to the dining hall in 1948
A woman taxi driver in Tel Aviv in 1952
Ukrainischer Botschafter Melnyk: Bundesfinanziminister beriet ihn die Niederlage zu akzeptieren
Sollte sich das bestätigen, wäre das ein weiterer Beleg von vielen, dass Christian Lindner (FDP) ein ziemlich unfähiger Politiker ist!
The Founding Fathers & Mothers Would Have Gagged at the Idea of Legislators for Life
Recommendable!
Yes, there are too many (incompetent) lifelong career politicians in government and parliament in the U.S. and other Western countries! Term limits could be a reasonable solution!
"Republican Congressman Don Young [I blogged here about him], who died last week at age 88 ... epitomized America’s transition from representative government to elected aristocracy.
Representing an Alaska at-large district, Young became a member of the House of on March 6, 1973, when Richard Nixon was president, America was still fighting in Vietnam and the retail price of gas was 39 cents-a-gallon. ...
Joseph Robinette Biden came to Washington at age 30 in 1973 (coincidentally, the same year as Young). ... spent 36 years in the Senate and 8 years as Vice President, before ascending to Olympus to sit with the gods. Little wonder that he has the backbone of a dishtowel and the vision of an apparatchik. ...
Pelosi is 81, Mitch McConnell is 80. Schumer is 71. And Kevin McCarthy is 57. ...
The Founding Fathers [& Mothers] would have been appalled at the idea of legislators for life. When the Constitution was adopted, “public servant’ was more than a euphemism.
Leaders were expected to serve because it was their patriotic duty. They would leave their farms, shops and offices for a term or two, and then go back home to live among those they’d governed under the laws they had fashioned. ...Joseph Robinette Biden came to Washington at age 30 in 1973 (coincidentally, the same year as Young). ... spent 36 years in the Senate and 8 years as Vice President, before ascending to Olympus to sit with the gods. Little wonder that he has the backbone of a dishtowel and the vision of an apparatchik. ...
Pelosi is 81, Mitch McConnell is 80. Schumer is 71. And Kevin McCarthy is 57. ...
That’s because the system is rigged.
In each election, perhaps 10% of Congressional districts are in play. In the rest, through the power of incumbency and/or skillful gerrymandering, it takes an upheaval comparable to 1932 or 1994 to make for a really competitive election. ...
I guess Congress must be endured -- like famine, plague and Kamala Harris giggling through a press briefing. With honorable exceptions, Mark Twain had it right when he said: “Suppose you were an idiot, and suppose you were a member of Congress, but I repeat myself.” ..."
Who Killed Boris Nemtsov? New evidence on Russia’s most shocking assassination
Very recommendable! Great investigative journalism! Kudos to BBC! We desperately need more of it!
How many political opponents has Putin the Terrible killed so far even using Polonium like on Alexander Litvinenko!
India's secret maritime deals with Sri Lanka
Recommendable! About the India and China rivalry with regards to Sri Lanka.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
Jesse Watters: Hunter Biden's former business partner 'confesses'
This is way bigger and much more sophisticated than Watergate! At the highest level the FBI, CIA, and the FISA court were all involved!
Chatbots could one day replace search engines. Here's why that’s a terrible idea. Really!
This seems to be a nice non sequitur by the MIT Technology Review! Why chatbots would eventually replace search engines is doubtful!
Speaking is faster than typing! Thus a chatbot could help to speed up and improve our searches! E.g. a chatbot could make us immediately aware of ambiguities, alternatives, or other considerations etc. Or the chatbot can present us immediately with several relevant options or similar previous searches etc.
"Large AI models can simulate natural language with remarkable realism. Trained on hundreds of books and much of the internet, they absorb vast amounts of information.
There’s growing excitement in the tech sector that they might one day replace search engines. In theory we could simply ask a computer a question and it could return a bite-size answer. The trouble is, language models are mindless mimics. They do not understand what they are saying, and cannot reason about what their words convey.
Some researchers are concerned that chatbot search engines could worsen our existing lack of critical thinking around search results. A natural language answer can hide complexity behind a veneer of authority that is not deserved. Experts also fear that it could lead to more misinformation and more polarized debate." (Source)
Wie ein radikaler Mönch zu einem der mächtigsten Politiker Indiens wurde
Inwieweit verstehen Westliche (Schweizer) Journalisten, selbst wenn sie in Indien arbeiten, wirklich was in Indien vor sich geht?
Israeli military assesses how the war in Ukraine is going, not well
Very recommendable!
This article does not even mention that apparently several Russian generals were already killed or committed suicide or how many Russian soldiers preferred to desert or be taken as prisoners of war.
If this debacle does not end the dictatorship of Putin the Terrible what will?
The losses are staggering (even if you discount exaggeration):
"Over 12,000 Russian troops are said to have either been killed or injured so far and Ukraine claims to have destroyed at least 49 fighter jets, 81 helicopters, 335 tanks, 1,105 armored vehicles, 123 artillery systems and more."
"... Despite spending millions on its military, Russian forces have used a large amount of indirect fire and dumb bombs similar to those used in the 20th century fired from truck-mounted launchers instead of precision missiles against Ukrainian targets.
Due in part to poor weather and poor visibility, Russian planes and helicopters have needed to fly low to the ground in order to drop their munitions, placing them at risk of being hit by anti-aircraft systems or even shoulder-fired anti-tank guided missiles (ATGM) used en mass by Kyiv.
A month into the conflict, the IDF is surprised that the air over Ukraine is still contested. Despite far overpowering Ukraine’s air force even before the war, Moscow has been unable to gain any sort of aerial superiority with Ukrainian pilots still flying several sorties a day against their enemy.
They have also equipped only a small number of tanks with active defensive systems or even passive defense systems making them sitting ducks for the ATGMs. ...
Despite that Russia has claimed to have used its Kinzal hypersonic weapon against targets in the war in Ukraine, the Israeli military doubts that the video of the missile that was seen a week ago was actually filmed during the fighting. ..."
A month into the conflict, the IDF is surprised that the air over Ukraine is still contested. Despite far overpowering Ukraine’s air force even before the war, Moscow has been unable to gain any sort of aerial superiority with Ukrainian pilots still flying several sorties a day against their enemy.
They have also equipped only a small number of tanks with active defensive systems or even passive defense systems making them sitting ducks for the ATGMs. ...
Despite that Russia has claimed to have used its Kinzal hypersonic weapon against targets in the war in Ukraine, the Israeli military doubts that the video of the missile that was seen a week ago was actually filmed during the fighting. ..."
Yale University director stole $40M in electronics from the university to buy luxury cars, real estate, and travel for almost a decade
An elite universities trusted his employee and neglected to verify by audit! This is a spectacular case!
It also appears it was the tax fraud committed that turned this criminal in and not the theft itself by the university!
You wonder how many other cases there at U.S. universities with less than $40 million and over 8 years of crime!
"... In addition to causing $40,504,200 in losses to Yale, Petrone caused a loss of $6,416,618 to the U.S. Treasury by failing to pay taxes on the money she received from selling the stolen equipment. ...
[the employee] was arrested in September 2021 but has since been released upon payment of a $1 million bond. She now awaits sentencing scheduled for June 29."
[the employee] was arrested in September 2021 but has since been released upon payment of a $1 million bond. She now awaits sentencing scheduled for June 29."
Junge Freiheit-Buchdienst: Klima Apocalypse niemals!
Gut das in der Bananenrepublik D gelegentlich auch noch konträre Bücher veröffentlicht werden! Diese Buch scheint eine (verspätete) Übersetzung eines Amerikanischen Buches des Autors, erschienen 2020, zu sein.
"Der Klimawandel ist da, aber er führt nicht in die Apokalypse. Und er ist nicht einmal unser größtes Problem! In seinem aktuellen Bestseller Apocalypse zeigt sich der bekannte und international angesehene Umweltaktivist Michael Shellenberger als leidenschaftlicher Verfechter einer rationalen Umweltpolitik und erteilt dem Öko-Alarmismus eine klare Absage. Er legt dar, wie die vermeintlich alarmierenden Daten sachlich zu interpretieren sind und was wirklich hinter der Klimahysterie steckt: nämlich finanzielle Interessen, Machtstreben und die Sehnsucht nach einer Ersatz-Religion. Hierin sieht Shellenberger die eigentliche Gefahr für Mensch und Natur und fordert praktikable und innovative Lösungen jenseits ideologischer Tabus, darunter die Kernkraft als sichere und saubere Energiequelle. Dieses hervorragend recherchierte Buch räumt mit vielen Mythen auf und lässt die Fakten für sich sprechen."
Wie der Eisbär zu einem der Hauptdarsteller der Demagogie wurde
Verfassungsgerichtshof in Österreich erklärt Pandemie Grundrechtseingriffe als zulässig
Ein in vielerlei Hinsicht bedenkliches und bedauerliches Urteil des höchsten Gerichts in Österreich!
Hier sind meine Zusammenfassung zu der relativ harmlosen globalen Pandemie!
"... Wenn der VfGH [Verfassungsgerichtshof] der Regierung aufgrund von Prognosen und Modellrechnungen weitreichende Grundrechtseinschränkungen gestattet, bei einer Krankheit, von der die Regierung seit Juli 2020 um ihre Harmlosigkeit wusste (zur Erinnerung: die Ischgl-Studie von Dorothee von Laer und der Med Uni Innsbruck ergab eine Fallmortalität von 0,26 Prozent), dann sehe ich schwarz für unsere Demokratie. ..."
LGBTQ: From persecuted to prosecuting and indoctrinating minority
Some food for thought! What an irony of history!
They think of themselves or they are viewed as the avant-garde of our time.
Credits: Tichy's Einblick Newsletter
Can India stabilise the global wheat market?
Very recommendable! India is the second largest producer of wheat in the world, but most of it is used for domestic consumption. India also has large reserves of wheat. Will India export more wheat while the Russia's war of aggression against the Ukraine continues?
Tuesday, March 29, 2022
Russia Built Parallel Payments System That Escaped Western Sanctions
How effective are the economic sanctions against Russia? What are the consequences of such economic sanctions?
"Western sanctions have [not affected] at least one big part of Russia’s financial world: its domestic-payments system. Even after Visa and Mastercard pulled out of the country earlier this month ... most locals were still able to use their credit cards within national borders. That’s because of Russia’s yearslong effort to develop a homegrown system of processing payments, known by the Russian initials NSPK. The Kremlin also has aggressively promoted Russia’s own card company, called Mir, which is built on NSPK’s infrastructure. ... Countries including China, Turkey and India have also developed their own payments infrastructure in recent years."
"The domestic-payments system continued to work smoothly after Visa Inc. and Mastercard Inc. pulled out earlier this month. ..."
Mercedes Drive Pilot Beats Tesla Autopilot By Taking Legal Responsibility
Good news! This could be a game changer! German engineering is catching up!
"Mercedes' new Drive Pilot seems, in operation, like many "traffic jam assistant" technologies already on sale today. On certain highways, below 40 mph, a Drive Pilot-equipped S-Class or EQS will take control of the car's speed, steering, and brakes to move you along in traffic. But there's one key difference: Once you engage Drive Pilot, you are no longer legally liable for the car's operation until it disengages. ...
This distinction puts Mercedes' semi-autonomous system miles ahead of Tesla's AutoPilot or General Motors' SuperCruise. And it's not just a concept system. Drive Pilot has already been approved for use on all German highways. ..."
Racial Disparities in COVID-19 Outcomes Among Black and White Patients With Cancer. Really?
It is a sad or even horrible state of affairs when even the prestigious American Medical Association publishes propaganda and demagoguery in its flagship JAMA journal without any reservation or qualification! The article below is also classified as an "Original Investigation"!
This original investigation was then promptly disseminated up by the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in its daily newsletter under "Key Developments"!
When the objective is already tainted with ideology!
- What if the reasons for these discovered disparities are not or only insignificantly related to race or skin color?
- What if white or Asian descendant patients under similar circumstances do not fair much better than patients of other skin colors?
"Objective To investigate racial disparities in severity of COVID-19 presentation, clinical complications, and outcomes between Black patients and non-Hispanic White patients with cancer and COVID-19. ...
Meaning These findings suggest that, within the framework of structural racism in the US, having cancer and COVID-19 is associated with worse outcomes among Black patients compared with White patients. ..."
Meaning These findings suggest that, within the framework of structural racism in the US, having cancer and COVID-19 is associated with worse outcomes among Black patients compared with White patients. ..."
Have the tables turned in the Ukraine against the Russian war of aggression?
A cautious opinion: Given the apparent and significant setbacks suffered by by the Russian military so far since the invasion of the Ukraine on 2/24/2022, perhaps the Ukraine has now even a good chance to retake the Crimean peninsula that Russia has occupied by force since 2014 and the eastern Ukraine. Why should the Ukraine stop before these goals are achieved? Why should the Ukraine not seize this opportunity?
If the Ukraine continues to be successful in repelling this latest Russian war of aggression and by inflicting heavy losses on the Russian military, the dictatorship of Putin the Terrible is most likely over! What a sigh of relief for humanity!
Ukraine destroys five Russian bot farms that were spreading 'panic' among citizens
Modern warfare! Every war is different!
More and more news and reports are coming out how the Ukraine defense uses latest technologies to defeat the Russian military invasion!
"The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) has destroyed five "enemy" bot farms engaged in activities to frighten Ukrainian citizens.
In a March 28 release, the SBU said that the bot farms had an overall capacity of at least 100,000 accounts spreading misinformation and fake news surrounding Russia's invasion of Ukraine ...
According to the security service, the bot farms have "tried to inspire panic among Ukrainian citizens and destabilize the socio-political situation in various regions."
The SBU has accused Russia of operating the farms for conducting "large-scale information sabotage." The farms were found in areas including Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Ternopil and Zakarpattia.
The bots used social media accounts to spread "distorted news" and propaganda related to the invasion.
SBU investigators raided several bot farms and seized items including over 100 GSM gateway devices, close to 10,000 SIM cards, laptops, and other computing equipment. Photos shared by the Ukrainian agency also appear to show the seizure of mobile phones, USB drives, and weaponry. ..."
Ägypten: Der Traum von der Begrünung der Wüste lebt fort
Vielleicht kann Ägypten einiges von Israel lernen, wie man die Wüste zum blühen bringt! Nach den Abraham Accords ist vieles möglich geworden!
Putin, die Klimaschützer und Europas Verzicht auf Fracking-Gas
Empfehlenswert! Ich habe wenig Zweifel, dass Putin der Schreckliche Umweltschützer und Klimareligiöse in Deutschland oder in anderen EU Ländern finanziert! Offene, westliche Gesellschaften sind geradezu prädestiniert für solche Disinformation!
Dann waren da noch die 16 Jahre der SED Kanzlerin Merkel! Siehe meine Abrechnung mit ihr!
AI suggested 40,000 new possible chemical weapons in just six hours
The curse of dual use research and technology! Or why individual liberty and responsibility is so important!
"... We had previously designed a commercial de novo molecule generator that we called MegaSyn2, which is guided by machine learning model predictions of bioactivity for the purpose of finding new therapeutic inhibitors of targets for human diseases. This generative model normally penalizes predicted toxicity and rewards predicted target activity. We simply proposed to invert this logic by using the same approach to design molecules de novo, but now guiding the model to reward both toxicity and bioactivity instead. We trained the AI with molecules from a public database using a collection of primarily drug-like molecules (that are synthesizable and likely to be absorbed) and their bioactivities. We opted to score the designed molecules with an organism-specific lethal dose (LD50) model3 and a specific model using data from the same public database that would ordinarily be used to help derive compounds for the treatment of neurological diseases (details of the approach are withheld but were available during the review process). The underlying generative software is built on, and similar to, other open-source software that is readily available4. To narrow the universe of molecules, we chose to drive the generative model towards compounds such as the nerve agent VX, one of the most toxic chemical warfare agents developed during the twentieth century ...
In less than 6 hours after starting on our in-house server, our model generated 40,000 molecules that scored within our desired threshold. In the process, the AI designed not only VX, but also many other known chemical warfare agents that we identified through visual confirmation with structures in public chemistry databases. Many new molecules were also designed that looked equally plausible. These new molecules were predicted to be more toxic, based on the predicted LD50 values, than publicly known chemical warfare agents ..."
Dual use of artificial-intelligence-powered drug discovery (open access) An international security conference explored how artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for drug discovery could be misused for de novo design of biochemical weapons. A thought experiment evolved into a computational proof.
Bundesgesundheitsminister will EU-weit vierte Impfung für über 60-Jährige
Bundeskanzler Scholz bitte entlassen sie diesen Kasper sofort! Genug ist genug!
Die USA haben ihren Scharlatan Fauci, die Bananenrepublik D ist mit dem Zausel Lauterbach beglückt!
Nebenbei bemerkt: Die U.S. Food and Drug Administration hat diese Woche erstmals nur einen zweiten Booster für über 50 Jährige bewilligt.
Every NFL team now required to hire one minority offensive assistant coach
Will American citizens now boycott NFL games? Professional sports in the U.S. has become the object of ideologies!
This is way to much interference! What else does the NFL want to dictate?
Will any NFL team refuse to comply? Hope so!
"Every NFL team is now required to hire one minority offensive assistant coach — the hire can be "a female or a member of an ethnic or racial minority" — for the 2022 season, ESPN reported. ...
NFL owners made the move Monday during their annual Florida meeting and it's part of the league's diversity efforts, the sports network said.
Each coach will receive a one-year contract and “work closely with the head coach and offensive staff to gain experience," ... Teams will be reimbursed for the minority coaching hires through a league-wide fund that will contribute toward salaries for up to two years, the magazine added. ..."
The Decline of Standardized Testing at schools in Canada
When a classical liberalism think tank like the Fraser Institute in Canada bemoans the decline of standardized testing in the basic school education of children red lights should go on!
Should the aim for a classical liberalism think tank not be rather to privatize as much as possible government school education and to promote alternative forms of education etc. than standardized testing?
"This will limit the ability of parents, teachers and principals to measure student performance and the overall health of the education system!"
Unfortunately, most traditional/conventional testing of school children is rather inadequate! Whether these tests are capable of measuring e.g. logical and fact based reasoning is doubtful. As much as these tests still can be passed easily with rote memorization these tests are fairly useless!
Individuality and mental faculties are very difficult to measure with standardized tests! Most classical liberals know about that you would hope!
Oregon ends residency rule for medically assisted suicide
Assisted suicide: One of those difficult subjects where it is hard to find balance and compromise. The debate about medically assisted suicide has been going on for several decades in Western countries.
As a minimum, medical doctors are conflicted by the about 2300 years old Hippocratic Oath (First do no harm).
"Oregon will no longer require people to be residents of the state to use its law allowing terminally ill people to receive lethal medication, after a lawsuit challenged the requirement as unconstitutional.
In a settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland on Monday, the Oregon Health Authority and the Oregon Medical Board agreed to stop enforcing the residency requirement and to ask the Legislature to remove it from the law. ..."
Prager University: How Much Energy Will the World Need?
Very recommendable!
Western governments have poured billions and billions of dollars into wind and solar power for little to show for. Not to mention that these two so called green, renewable energy sources are anything but environmentally friendly!
Worse, both energy sources are extremely unreliable!
China seeks to dominate the Indian Ocean by trade and military
Very recommendable! E.g. China has been installing dual use marine ports around the Indian Ocean.
Monday, March 28, 2022
Nevada November 2020 election oddities
Many things went very wrong with the U.S. general elections of November 2020. The 46th President won this state by 703,486 over 669,890 (or by 33,596 votes). However, there were also 14,079 votes attributed to no candidate and 14,783 votes attributed to the best third candidate. (Source)
Here is the example of Nevada:
- "the state continued to accept mail in ballots until Nov. 10, a full week after election day"
- "Nevada allows for mail-in ballot counting to begin before election day."
- "In Nevada, every ballot postmarked up through election day is counted, but voters have almost a full week to “cure” – properly sign and/or complete ballot documentation – if they failed to do so initially."
Biden admin invents 'Securities and Environment Commission' out of thin air to force climate agenda on US businesses
Recommendable! Absolutely unconstitutional! The economic incompetence of the administration of the 46th President is extraordinary!
"In a 3-to-1 vote last week, unelected Democratic bureaucrats who serve as the agency's commissioners voted without authorization from Congress to impose sweeping new rules that require all publicly traded companies to disclose how their business affects "climate change."
According to a press release issued by the SEC, the proposed rules would require businesses to disclose their greenhouse gas emissions along with any and all information relevant to "climate-related risks that are reasonably likely to have a material impact on their business, results of operations, or financial condition."
In a lengthy statement of dissent, the SEC's lone Republican commissioner, Hester Peirce, quipped that with the move, the agency essentially re-invented itself as the "Securities and Environment Commission" without any say from the American people. ...
"In general, this rule will be as costly and burdensome on all businesses as the impact of Dodd-Frank and Sarbanes-Oxley," ...
Though Milloy, for his part, seemed confident that the Supreme Court would immediately strike down the rules should they be finalized."Annalena Baerbock will 8-10 Millionen Flüchtlinge aufnehmen
Typische Nachrichten aus der Bananenrepublik D! Gut, dass die Grüne Partei aus dem Landesparlament im Saarland bei der Wahl am vergangenen Sonntag (27.3.2022) rausgeflogen sind!
Die Bevölkerung der Bananenrepublik liegt bei nur 83 Millionen und die Bevölkerungsdichte ist bereits hoch mit etwa 232 pro Km2.
Die naiv, dämliche Bundesaußenministerin hat sich wohl was von der schrecklichen SED Kanzlerin Merkel abgeguckt!
"... Annalena Baerbock in Cottbus am 26. März: „Es werden 8-10 Millionen Geflüchtete kommen und wir werden sie alle aufnehmen!“ ..."
5 Things Marx Wanted to Abolish (Besides Private Property)
Very recommendable!
Karl Marx's much celebrated and famous 1848 Communist Manifesto is quite possibly one of the few readable publications of Karl Marx. It is perhaps his most revealing about his horrible philosophy!
Why ist this relevant today? It explains a lot of why we have culture wars, individual liberty vs. leftist tyranny etc. in Western societies.
The article does not explicitly say so, but all the quotes in this article are sourced from the Communist Manifesto!
In short, Karl Marx wanted to swiftly abolish (besides private property):
- The family
- Human individuality
- Eternal or basic truths
- Nation states
- History, customs & traditions or simply the past
Scientists develop the largest, most detailed model of the early universe to date
Amazing stuff!
"... Then, within a couple hundred million years after the Big Bang, the universe woke up, as gravity gathered matter into the first stars and galaxies. Light from these first stars turned the surrounding gas into a hot, ionized plasma — a crucial transformation known as cosmic reionization that propelled the universe into the complex structure that we see today. ...
With Thesan, the researchers can simulate a cubic volume of the universe spanning 300 million light years across. They run the simulation forward in time to track the first appearance and evolution of hundreds of thousands of galaxies within this space, beginning around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, and through the first billion years. ...
They then evolved these conditions forward in time to simulate a patch of the universe, using the SuperMUC-NG machine — one of the largest supercomputers in the world — which simultaneously harnessed 60,000 computing cores to carry out Thesan’s calculations over an equivalent of 30 million CPU hours"
With Thesan, the researchers can simulate a cubic volume of the universe spanning 300 million light years across. They run the simulation forward in time to track the first appearance and evolution of hundreds of thousands of galaxies within this space, beginning around 400,000 years after the Big Bang, and through the first billion years. ...
They then evolved these conditions forward in time to simulate a patch of the universe, using the SuperMUC-NG machine — one of the largest supercomputers in the world — which simultaneously harnessed 60,000 computing cores to carry out Thesan’s calculations over an equivalent of 30 million CPU hours"
From the abstract:
"The visibility of high-redshift Lyman-alpha emitting galaxies (LAEs) provides important constraints on galaxy formation processes and the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). However, predicting realistic and representative statistics for comparison with observations represents a significant challenge in the context of large-volume cosmological simulations. The THESAN project offers a unique framework for addressing such limitations by combining state-of-the-art galaxy formation (IllustrisTNG) and dust models with the AREPO-RT radiation-magneto-hydrodynamics solver. ..."
UAE, Bahrain, Morocco seek Israeli missile defense systems
Good and highly unusual news! The Abraham Accords keep on giving!
Former enemies for decades want to acquire some of the best defense systems from their former foe?
Is the former foe willing to equip former enemies with some of its best defense systems?
Very recently, Germany also came to visit Israel and wanted to acquire the Arrow system.
Kanton Genf: Vater tötet Kind und sich selbst
Schweizer Journalismus aufgespießt:
"... Ermittlungsergebnisse der Genfer Kantonspolizei weisen darauf hin, dass der Vater erst auf seinen Sohn geschossen hatte, bevor er die Waffe gegen sich selbst richtete. ..."
Wollte man etwa sagen, dass der Tod des Kindes kein Unfall war?
Landtagswahl Saarland: Linke, Grüne und FDP schaffen es nicht in den Landtag
Das ist der Hammer! Nur noch SPD, CDU, und AfD regieren von nun an im Saarland!
Warum hat die AfD, die einzig noch wählbare Partei, leicht verloren?
The story of Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky
Very recommendable! Yes, there are serious questions about President Zelensky regarding corruption and an authoritarian streak!
Will Smith attacks Chris Rock live at the Oscars after joking about his wife
Orchestrated! Scripted! Rehearsed!
What a farce! So pathetic!
Just the fact that these two comedians and actors plaid along with this cheap stunt tells you why they are second rated!
What a farce! So pathetic!
Just the fact that these two comedians and actors plaid along with this cheap stunt tells you why they are second rated!
Sunday, March 27, 2022
Leben wir in einem Schwarzen Loch?
Sehr empfehlenswert! Die Big Bang Theorie ist ziemlich unplausibel!
High fuel fines for US automakers not meeting fuel economy rules
Once more the 46th President reveals total economic incompetency!
In times of high inflation and uncertain economic prospects this as foolish as it gets!
German delegation in Israel to discuss Arrow procurement
A country that once was a major weapons developer, but became engulfed e.g. in the climate and coronavirus hysteria has to shop for the latest defense weapons in Israel!
At least the reality shock of the Russian war of aggression against the Ukraine was finally woken up the government and members of parliament in Germany.
English for trippers: Why are the words astronomy and gastronomy so similar?
Etymology says the both were derived from Greek and Old French!
And astronomy was derived from astrology.
Greek nomos stands for rule, law and eating habits.
Stars, Space, and Food: The origins of life? What are our extraterrestrial friends out there eating? When will we see the first menu with our telescopes?
By the way, this similarity also exists in the German language.
Gradients without Backpropagation
Update of 4/1/2022: Just finished reading this paper. It sounds very simple. You wonder why nobody else came up with their solution before. Let's wait and see how the machine learning community receives this paper. It is apparently under review. The senior author of this paper, i.e. Philipp H. S. Torr is a highly cited researcher (professor at the University of Oxford). Some of his collaborators in the past are also well known like Andrea Vedaldi and Andrew Zisserman.
This could potentially be a game changer for machine learning! It may cut the model training time in half! I have not yet studied this paper.
From the abstract:
"Using backpropagation to compute gradients of objective functions for optimization has remained a mainstay of machine learning. Backpropagation, or reverse-mode differentiation, is a special case within the general family of automatic differentiation algorithms that also includes the forward mode. We present a method to compute gradients based solely on the directional derivative that one can compute exactly and efficiently via the forward mode. We call this formulation the forward gradient, an unbiased estimate of the gradient that can be evaluated in a single forward run of the function, entirely eliminating the need for backpropagation in gradient descent. We demonstrate forward gradient descent in a range of problems, showing substantial savings in computation and enabling training up to twice as fast in some cases."
Simple electrical circuit learns on its own—with no help from a computer
Amazing stuff! This is possibly serious food for thought!
"A simple electrical circuit has learned to recognize flowers based on their petal size. That may seem trivial compared with artificial intelligence (AI) systems that recognize faces in a crowd, transcribe spoken words into text, and perform other astounding feats. However, the tiny circuit outshines conventional machine learning systems in one key way: It teaches itself without any help from a computer—akin to a living brain. ...
“It’s a proof of principle,” ...“We are learning something about learning.” ...
They assembled a small network by randomly wiring together 16 common electrical components called adjustable resistors ... Each resistor serves as an edge in the network, and the nodes are the junctions where the resistors’ leads meet. To use the network, the researchers set voltages for certain input nodes, and read out the voltages of output nodes. By adjusting the resistors, the automated network learned to produce the desired outputs for a given set of inputs. ..."
“It’s a proof of principle,” ...“We are learning something about learning.” ...
They assembled a small network by randomly wiring together 16 common electrical components called adjustable resistors ... Each resistor serves as an edge in the network, and the nodes are the junctions where the resistors’ leads meet. To use the network, the researchers set voltages for certain input nodes, and read out the voltages of output nodes. By adjusting the resistors, the automated network learned to produce the desired outputs for a given set of inputs. ..."
Does the next supercomputer look like this? 😉
Bizarre gigantic space circle captured by astronomers in unprecedented detail
Amazing stuff! What else is out there in space?
"Astronomers have captured a close-up image of a rare and mysterious space object, prompting a renewed push to discover its origin. Odd radio circles (ORCs) are gigantic rings of radio waves. Only five have ever been sighted, and never in such spectacular detail.
The image of ORC J2103-6200, also called ORC1, was captured by the high-resolution MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa ...
The new MeerKAT radio data shows that the ORC’s large outer circle is possibly more than a million light years across, ten times the diameter of the Milky Way, with a series of smaller rings inside. ...
The first three ORCs, including ORC1, were discovered using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope in 2019. A fourth was identified in archival data from India’s Giant MetreWave Radio Telescope in 2013, and a fifth was discovered by Koribalski in newer ASKAP data last year. Most of the ORCs have a galaxy at their centre, which astronomers suggest might have something to do with their creation. Also puzzling to scientists is the fact that ORCs have been spied only in radio wavelengths and have not been detected by optical or X-ray telescopes. ..."
The new MeerKAT radio data shows that the ORC’s large outer circle is possibly more than a million light years across, ten times the diameter of the Milky Way, with a series of smaller rings inside. ...
The first three ORCs, including ORC1, were discovered using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope in 2019. A fourth was identified in archival data from India’s Giant MetreWave Radio Telescope in 2013, and a fifth was discovered by Koribalski in newer ASKAP data last year. Most of the ORCs have a galaxy at their centre, which astronomers suggest might have something to do with their creation. Also puzzling to scientists is the fact that ORCs have been spied only in radio wavelengths and have not been detected by optical or X-ray telescopes. ..."
From the abstract:
"Odd Radio Circles (ORCs) are recently-discovered faint diffuse circles of radio emission, of unknown cause, surrounding galaxies at moderate redshift ($z ~ 0.2-0.6). Here we present detailed new MeerKAT radio images at 1284 MHz of the first ORC, originally discovered with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder, with higher resolution (6 arcsec) and sensitivity (~ 2.4 uJy/bm).
In addition to the new images, which reveal a complex internal structure consisting of multiple arcs, we also present polarisation and spectral index maps. Based on these new data, we consider potential mechanisms that may generate the ORCs."
Fully nitrated benzene sets explosive record
Impeccable timing by the Royal Society of Chemistry in times of a war of aggression by Russia against the Ukraine!
"Back away slowly, here comes 1,3,5-trinitro-2,4,6-trinitroaminobenzene – a compound that beats all other organic explosives with its enormous detonation power output.
Like other polynitrobenzene explosives, TNTNB neatly combines an oxidiser – the nitro groups – and fuel – the benzene ring – into a single molecular package. This means it can generate huge amounts of energy extremely quickly through self-redox reactions. Like hexanitrobenzene, TNTNB has six nitro groups but also three additional high-energy N–N bonds in its nitroamino groups ..."
Russian brigade commander killed by his own troops in Ukraine
If confirmed, this does not look good for Putin the Terrible! Several Russian commanders have now been reported killed in the Ukraine.
How many Russian soldiers have deserted or have "voluntarily" become prisoners of war?
"... A Russian brigade commander was killed by his own forces, according to a report on Friday by Politico.
The report cited Western officials saying that the commander was killed as a result of "another indication of boiling discontent among Russian forces deployed in and around Ukraine," and was "run over by an armored vehicle," and as a result was critically injured and later died of his wounds. ..."
The report cited Western officials saying that the commander was killed as a result of "another indication of boiling discontent among Russian forces deployed in and around Ukraine," and was "run over by an armored vehicle," and as a result was critically injured and later died of his wounds. ..."
Volvo Uses Israeli AI Tech To Run Vehicle Inspections In Seconds
Good news!
"... Swedish carmaker Volvo announced this month that it has partnered with the Israeli vehicle inspection systems developer, UVeye, to implement the company’s tech in the US at drive-through inspection stations on the East Coast. ..."
Israel on way to free trade with China, India, UAE and other countries
Good news!
"If all goes according to plan, by the end of 2022, Israel will have free trade agreements with several more countries. This will mean no customs tariffs on most goods, and dramatic reductions in tariffs on others, among them fresh produce, and dairy and other food products. ...
Negotiations are at a very advanced stage with the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and will probably result in an agreement in the summer. The Abraham Accords rapidly brought about economic cooperation between the UAE and Israel, and within eighteen months trade was flourishing. ..."
The list of countries is long, but some of them stand out. China and India, with which talks on free trade agreements have been going on for two years, together represent a quarter of the world's population. These two countries are huge exporters of food products, and their food companies can shortly be expected to be selling in Israel. The pace of the negotiations with India has been stepped up recently. Israel is also negotiating a free trade agreement with the Eurasian [Economic] Union. This group of countries is led by Russia, and the negotiations will be delayed because of the war in Ukraine. Other members of the group are Belarus, Kirgizstan, and Armenia.
Skyline Robotics Raises $6.5M To Automate High-Rise Window Washing
What about my home windows?
"... Founded in 2017, Skyline Robotics aims to disrupt the $40 billion window-cleaning industry by employing robotics for the sake of improving safety and efficiency. But instead of replacing human window washing jobs altogether, the company’s business model enables workers to control the Ozmo system at a safe distance, eliminating the risk of fatal accidents.
Skyline’s technology uses lidar (light detection and ranging), force sensors, and advanced algorithms to clean high-rise windows with precision while constantly calculating optimal cleaning paths based on troublesome weather conditions and the particular building’s architecture. ..."
The average U.S. adolescent sleeps only 6.4 hours per night
If confirmed, this is a very low number for adolescents. This is concerning!
Frequent lack of sufficient quality sleep can negatively impact health, brain function, emotions etc.!
"The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated a decades-long trend of adolescents getting less sleep. A study of undergraduates at the University of Colorado, Boulder, found that when stay-at-home orders went into effect in March 2020, students’ sleep initially increased by an average of 30 minutes a night. But as the year went on, a combination of anxiety, heavy technology use and spending a lot of time in their bedrooms led to less sleep for many teens. A survey conducted by the nonprofit Challenge Success found that in the fall of 2020, the average 12th-grader was sleeping only 6.4 hours per night.
Teen sleep is now a scarce resource. A study of middle and high schoolers in the 1990s found their average sleep time was 7.53 hours, which is less than optimal but near adequate levels. By 2006, that number had dwindled by half an hour. An analysis of 270,000 middle and high schoolers found that between 1996 and 2012 there was a significant rise in the percentage of teens who slept less than seven hours per night, with the greatest drop-off in sleep time occurring among 15-year-olds. By age 15, most kids go to bed later than their parents and share a pillow with their phones. Many parents of teenagers have no idea what time their child goes to bed or how much they actually sleep. ..."
Biden to Propose New Minimum Tax of 20% on Wealthiest Americans
The 46th President is totally economic incompetent! What a fool!
Given that we live now in times of high inflation, broad based tax reductions would be in order and belt tightening as far as the federal budget is concerned!
Does he really not know that the top income earners pay already by far the most federal income taxes at least 50-60% of all federal income taxes!
In other words, the rich have already been squeezed for decades!
This is not his first tax hike proposal. See e.g. here (Capital gains tax).
"In 2019, the bottom 50 percent of taxpayers (taxpayers with AGI below $44,269) earned 11.5 percent of total AGI and paid 3.1 percent ($48.4 billion) of all federal individual income taxes.
The top 1 percent (taxpayers with AGI of $546,434 and above) earned 20.1 percent of total AGI in 2019 and paid 38.8 percent of all federal income taxes." (Source)
The demented and senile 79 years old 46th President has been a lifetime career politician and a frequent habitual liar for decades. He is an empty suit who will say and do anything to stay in power or to promote his glory. The Biden clan’s shady, but lucrative dealings with Russia, China, Ukraine have probably compromised the 46th President. If he continues like that, he sure will go down as one of the worst presidents ever!
"The proposal would affect fewer than 20,000 households, and it would apply only to those who don’t pay at least 20% in tax on a combination of income as typically defined and their unrealized gains on unsold assets such as stocks and closely held businesses. The plan would generate roughly $360 billion in revenue over 10 years, according to a White House fact sheet released in advance of Monday’s full budget proposal. That is about twice as much money as raising the top individual income-tax rate to 39.6% from 37%, and it would affect a much smaller group of people. ..."
Die Bahn legte ihren Güterverkehr wegen Stromknappheit zeitweise lahm
Nachrichten aus einer Bananenrepublik!
"... Wegen Unterversorgung war die Bahn am Mittwoch gezwungen, Güterzüge stillzulegen. Die Verbände beschweren sich bei der Bundesnetzagentur. Grund für die Ausfälle: teurer Strom aus Erdgaskraftwerken und der Wegfall des Kohlestroms. ..."
Saturday, March 26, 2022
Waymo: To our fellow San Franciscans introducing the Waymo Driver in fully autonomous mode
Good news!
As an aside: To the Global Warming Hoax/Climate Change Religion believers: Autonomously driving vehicles will save a lot of fossil fuel!
At the end of this long blog post Waymo finally comes to the point:
"... As a result, we’re now ready to begin introducing the Waymo Driver in fully autonomous mode—with no specialist behind the wheel—in the city as a major step on our path to deploying a fully autonomous commercial service. ..."
Credits: Synced Global AI Weekly
Putin hates fracking. How much did he support US and EU fracking foes?
Good question! As I have said here before, I am pretty sure that the enemies of open societies (Russia, China, Iran, North Korea etc.) support and fund all kinds of political activists in Western countries.
Probably, it is also very hard for Western countries to expose these activities.
"“President [Vladimir] Putin and the Russian security services operate like a super PAC,” Russia expert and former National Security Council member Fiona Hill testified during former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment proceeding. “They deploy millions of dollars to weaponize our own political opposition research and false narratives.” Hill, a scholar at the liberal Brookings Institution ...
French journalist Dominique Reynie said on television this week that he's found that European environmentalist groups have been funded by Putin. ...
Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in 2014, “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations, environmental organizations working against shale gas, to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.” ..."
Former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said in 2014, “I have met allies who can report that Russia, as part of their sophisticated information and disinformation operations, engaged actively with so-called nongovernmental organizations, environmental organizations working against shale gas, to maintain European dependence on imported Russian gas.” ..."
Fiona Hill is a Russia specialist and has written a biography about Putin the Terrible!
U.S. and UK announce $10M bounty on Russian hackers who targeted a nuclear power plant, thousands of computers in about 135 countries
Western countries are finally getting serious about cyber attacks?
"Four Russian officials, including hackers with a government intelligence agency, have been charged with the malicious hacking of critical infrastructure around the globe including the U.S. energy and aviation sectors between 2012 and 2018, the U.S. Justice Department and British Foreign Office announced."
"The Department of Justice unsealed two indictments today [3/24/2022] charging four defendants, all Russian nationals who worked for the Russian government, with attempting, supporting and conducting computer intrusions that together, in two separate conspiracies, targeted the global energy sector between 2012 and 2018. In total, these hacking campaigns targeted thousands of computers, at hundreds of companies and organizations, in approximately 135 countries.
A June 2021 indictment returned in the District of Columbia, United States v. Evgeny Viktorovich Gladkikh, concerns the alleged efforts of an employee of a Russian Ministry of Defense research institute and his co-conspirators to damage critical infrastructure outside the United States, thereby causing two separate emergency shutdowns at a foreign targeted facility. The conspiracy subsequently attempted to hack the computers of a U.S. company that managed similar critical infrastructure entities in the United States. ..."
Four Russian Government Employees Charged in Two Historical Hacking Campaigns Targeting Critical Infrastructure Worldwide Defendants’ Separate Campaigns Both Targeted Software and Hardware for Operational Technology Systems
Karl Lauterbach: Bevor es zu spät ist
Dieser unsägliche Kasper Karl Wilhelm ist ja noch viel schlimmer als gedacht! Der ist ja völlig dem Klimawahn verfallen! Ein Apokalyptiker als Bundesgesundheitsminister in der Bananenrepublik D!
Der Bundeskanzler Scholz sollte den Bundesminister sofort entlassen bevor es zu spät ist! Solche Witzfiguren gehören einfach nicht in eine Regierung der Bundesrepublik D.
Seine Anmaßung von Wissen stinkt zum Himmel! Die Klimawissenschaft in Bezug auf Klimawandel ist zum großen Teil Pseudowissenschaft! Vieles ist bislang nur unzureichend bekannt und erforscht, viele Klimamodelle sind schrott usw.
Was wenn die immer noch unbekannte Sonne, die grösste Ursache für Klimawandel ist und nicht das Spurengas CO2?
Original Ton Lauterbach: "„Wir kommen jetzt in eine Phase hinein, wo der Ausnahmezustand die Normalität sein wird. Wir werden ab jetzt immer im Ausnahmezustand sein. Der Klimawandel wird zwangsläufig mehr Pandemien bringen.“"
"Wir leben in einer Zeit nie da gewesener Herausforderungen. Zum ersten Mal seit Beginn der Zivilisation ist sogar das Überleben der Menschen auf dem Planeten Erde gefährdet. Der sich beschleunigende [????] Klimawandel macht das Erreichen des 1,5-Grad-Ziels [????] mit jedem Tag unwahrscheinlicher. Kipppunkte des Klimawandels werden von der Wissenschaft warnend beschrieben und trotzdem überschritten. Doch auch bei Artenschwund, weltweitem Wassermangel oder der Gefahr noch schlimmerer Pandemien gilt: Die Fakten liegen längst auf dem Tisch. Warum schafft es die Politik nicht, die wissenschaftlichen Erkenntnisse rechtzeitig in Handeln umzusetzen?
Die Politik muss aufnahmefähiger für die Forschung sein, ja Schritt mit ihr halten – sonst werden wir, wie Karl Lauterbach zeigt, die Kontrolle über unsere Zukunft verlieren und scheitern. Kaum jemand könnte besser darlegen als Karl Lauterbach, Politiker und Wissenschaftler zugleich, warum eine Revolution des Zusammenspiels von Politik und Wissenschaft nötig ist; von welch unterschiedlichen Denk- und Herangehensweisen diese beiden Systeme bestimmt werden; und ob eine Verzahnung überhaupt möglich ist. Ein hochdringlicher Weckruf und ein starkes Plädoyer für eine Politik, die sich der Realität stellt."
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