Prevailing winds will preferentially blow radioactivity towards Russia if it uses nukes. The Winds of War There’s been a lot of talk about the potential for Russia to use nukes in Ukraine. I’ve been one of the worriers. But there’s a factor that hasn’t been taken into account. The wind. Even with a tactical nuke there will be radioactivity. Any mor...
They’re probably the only people in the world he would allow to take over. Families and How to Survive Them You probably know, somewhat dimly, that Putin has 2 daughters, Mariya and Katerina. Putin doesn’t talk much about them and we don’t know much either because he wants it that way. But they’re definitely his daughters, and he seems to have a fa...
MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) was supposed to protect us. Until it can’t. The Experiment from Hell Now we have an interesting and terrifying experiment. That is, a nuclear power that is being at least partially defeated by a non-nuclear power. How does this all end? The theory, ever since nuclear weapons were first developed, is that no-one will...
myNGXY7z6Jce myNGXY7z6Jce There’s talk about a nuclear world war. If only we could be so lucky. Whose Turn Next? The war in Ukraine could well lead to a nuclear war. Whether or not it’s a world war is another matter. Russia has plenty of nukes and maybe, frighteningly, some that we don’t yet have, namely hypersonic missiles. There’s plenty of ways ...
My Point: If we do indeed meet them, this is something you want to know. Full Disclosure: My last post was about the James Webb Telescope and ETs (“Is the JWT (James Webb Space Telescope) a Sitting Duck for ETs?”). My friend, #Tony Barr, best known as the creator of the SAS language and the lead founder of the SAS Institute, asked me this question....
What’s the Point? You can predict the value that nonprofits and government are creating by assessing the value-adding behaviors of their leaders. Full disclosure: This references my research into the financial styles of CEOs (see “The Three Financial Styles of Very Successful CEOs”) Government Childcare Program Not Working (Gasp) Did you see this...
Through a Glass Darkly We’ve all been seeing the press releases about the recent launch of the JWST. Its something else again. It can peer 46 billion light-years, to the edge of our known universe. That’s a really long way. Actually the longest except for the diameter of the universe which is, of course, around 93 billion light years. How in heaven...
Man Bites Dog So, we don’t see this too often, namely that BMW has invented something for autos that Tesla hasn’t. That would be its car that changes color. Yep. You heard that right. In fact, it uses e-ink to do it, that’s the stuff that Amazon uses in its Kindle. So, it’s not really color, not at this stage anyway, since its black and white all ...
We could soon see a new taxonomy of blockchains emerge, including some based on genomics, that could upend how we build systems and things. The Blob Is Coming I’m sure you’ve heard of blockchains. Of course, they’re hot. That’s partly because of their use in cryptocurrencies like bitcoin. But they are being applied to numerous disparate uses as the...
FDA Snatching Victory from the Jaws of Defeat? For those of you have stuck with this blog over the years you will know that I have a particular thing about Alzheimer’s. No, it isn’t because I Have it or anyone close to me has it either. It’s just that it is such a social, economic and psychic tragedy right across the world that causes untold suffer...
It’s Peaceful, Really All these stories about asteroids are great for selling newspapers (digital anyway). So it warms the cockles of one’s heart to read that NASA is sending a flying bomb (kind of) to hit a nasty asteroid, hopefully for a six so it will avoid hitting the Earth (not really, coz it’s only a test). We can all rest easy that this is...
Are Trees More Important Than People? Infrastructure has been the topic du jour. We all know that means stuff like bridges and roads, the physical side. Now we have social infrastructure. That’s stuff like free pre-K and paid family leave. All well and good. But there’s so much money involved a lot of definitions are getting stretched in the proces...
Caption The big social media news is that Facebook is going Meta and metaverse. Will it improve things for the Facebook crowd or make things worse? Now we’re going to have a new type of media which is immersive and allows all kinds of cool things. Be anywhere anytime doing anything, almost in person. Futurati have been dreaming of this for ages. Ma...
Re-Pulsive There’s been much handwringing about the recent disquieting but entirely predictable news that China just completed a test of a hypersonic missile. You might think that being hypersonic is the worrying thing, as in its speed. Here’s the real problem. These missiles can be placed into a fractional orbit. Instead of having to travel the wh...
Gone But Not Forgotten Did you notice that the Feds just announced that 23 bird and fish species have just gone extinct? Of course, that’s a real pity but its not as if there aren’t already millions of species on the planet. And its not as if there aren’t existing species whose populations are being decimated, like fish, insects, honeybees, birds a...
Is There Life Inside a Nuclear Reactor? Every day now we get articles in the press about the possibility of life on Mars, albeit invisible or defunct or both. There’s numerous people globally involved in SETI, the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. And the universe is so incomprehensively massive that, I’ve always though it’s impossible ...
I just read an article about innovation in the Harvard Business Review (“What Evolution Can Teach Us About Innovation”) by Noubar Afeyan and Gary Pisano. Noubar Afeyan is the co-founder of Moderna and a serial entrepreneur in the biotech space. Since he is a luminary in the vaccination area it got me to thinking about, well, vaccinations. He is an ...
Deepfake Fake News Next? Deepfakes are a thing now. They are simply really good fakes. Nowadays many of the videos of politicians are deepfakes. Did you see the videos of Tom Cruise earlier this year on TikTok? They were deepfakes. Those who watched the documentary recently about the traveling chef Anthony Bourdain might know that the editors ins...
I’m in Love with Rocks Consciousness is one of those perennial hardy topics, it just won’t go away but we simply don’t know what it means and how it arises. I’ve even had a little peck at it myself but it’s way above my pay scale (“Shouldn’t AI Apps be Just a Little Bit Conscious?” 20 January, 2021). But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t even mor...
Who Cares About Home Care? How things change! A lot of Americans don’t want immigrants, especially the undocumented ones. But now we have a humongous labor shortage. So much for restricting immigration. Nowhere is the problem more acute than in home care. These days the only home care workers, other than spouses and close family are foreign. Thes...
