Year: 2017

A memo from Google advising employees on correct thought

10:33 pm

Link here. This memo clarifies for everyone what is expected of Google employees. I especially find this quote informative:

Please remember, as you no doubt read in the Employee Handbook, Google’s commitment to diversity is complete and unequivocal. Any variance from diversity is not permitted and will be dealt with immediately. It is only when all of us think exactly the same thoughts that we can achieve perfect diversity.

Of course, Google is also completely committed to the advancement of science and human knowledge. If history has taught us anything, it is that science can only flourish where the allowable topics of discussion are highly circumscribed. Approved subjects of conversation are posted throughout the campus, so please look before you speak.

I believe some of the problem lately has been a simple misunderstanding of my last memo. Unfortunately, I mistyped that Google “approves of free speech.” I meant to write that Google must “approve free speech.” I want all of our employees to feel perfectly free to express themselves however their political, moral, or religious beliefs impel them; provided of course that they receive prior written authorization.

Read it all. It really explains everything.

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An article in New York magazine claims blonde hair is racism

8:32 pm

Want to see bigotry on display? Read this New York magazine article: Political Peroxide: Blonde privilege

Attributes associated with whiteness — light skin, narrow noses — have dominated American beauty ideals as long as there’s been such a thing. Which means that blondness has always been … charged: The ’50s gave us Doris Day, who once said that her only ambition ever had been to “be a housewife in a good marriage” (“Preordination had other plans”). To be blonde was to be a good American woman, pure of intention and heart — which implied also, of course, that to be a good American woman, pure of intention and heart, meant being blonde. Betty was blonde, Veronica was trouble. Ditto Sandy and Rizzo. Hitchcock liked to cast blondes because he said they made the best victims: “The color was virgin snow that shows up the bloody footprints.”

Fox News and Donald Trump have given blonde hair a new chapter: Now, blonde is the color of the right, for whom whiteness has become a hallmark. Over the past decade or so, as inclusiveness became the hallmark of Obama-era liberals, the left found feminist icons in Rachel Maddow, Samantha Power, and Michelle Obama, who make no apologies for their failure to fit traditional ideals. But #MAGA, Fox News America is a place where all the classic signifiers of privilege and wealth work on overdrive: country-club-issue blue blazers with brass buttons and khaki pants, and above all else, for women, that yellow-blonde, carefully tended hair — a dog whistle of whiteness, an unspoken declaration of values, a wink-wink to the power of racial privilege and to the 1980s vibe that pervades a movement led by a man who still believes in the guilt of the Central Park Five. During that Republican Preppy Handbook era, when Dynasty and Dallas were on TV, the type of conspicuous ostentation that would lead a real-estate developer to sheath his entire apartment in gold leaf was actually in vogue. Look at the movies: Jake’s girlfriend in Sixteen Candles with the lush swoop of thick, blonde locks that ended up stuck in a door (losing the boyfriend to a redhead of all things meant, literally, losing that luscious hair). Johnny, the villain of the Karate Kid films, had a decisive swoosh of blond hair that obscured his headband. We knew, the moment we saw that hair, that small, ethnic Daniel was up against more than another teenager, he was up against privilege itself. [emphasis mine]

Not only is this incredibly stupid, it reeks of hatred and bigotry. You have blond hair? You must associate with white supremacists. You choose to dye your hair blond? You must be a white supremacist!

Don’t be surprised when these leftwing progressive bigots take the next step and strongly suggest that we need a final solution to this problem of “whiteness,” that maybe we should round up all these evil whites so they can’t do society any harm anymore.

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Mars rover update: August 11, 2017

12:34 pm

Summary: After a two week hiatus because the Sun was between the Earth and Mars and blocking communications, both rovers are once again on the move.

Curiosity

For the overall context of Curiosity’s travels, see Pinpointing Curiosity’s location in Gale Crater.

Curiosity panorama, Sol 1782

Vera Rubin Ridge close-up

Since my last update on July 12,, Curiosity spent most of the month waiting out the solar conjunction that placed the Sun between the Earth and Mars and blocked communications. In the past few days, however, the rover has begun to send down images again while resuming its journey up Mt. Sharp. The panorama above, reduced to show here, was taken by the rover’s left navigation camera, and shows the mountain, the ridge, and the route the rover will take to circle around the steepest sections to get up onto the ridge. To see the full resolution panorama click on the picture.

To the right is a full resolution section of the area in the white box. As you can see, the geology of the ridge is many-layered, with numerous vertical seams or cracks. In order to track the geological changes across these layers as the rover climbs, the science team is as expected taking a systematic approach.

Lately, one of our biggest science objectives is to conduct bedrock APXS measurements with every 5-meter climb in elevation. This allows us to systematically analyze geochemical changes in the Murray formation as we continue to climb Mount Sharp. Yesterday’s drive brought us 6 meters higher in elevation, so another touch and go for today it is!

Below is a cropped and reduced resolution image of the most recent orbital traverse image, dated sol 1754. The dotted line shows where I think the rover’s has traveled in the last 28 sols. I have also annotated what I think is the point of view of the panorama above.
» Read more

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Stanford University course to study the evils of “whiteness”

10:51 am

Academic bigotry: Stanford University is planning to offer a course in the fall that will study the evils of “whiteness” in order to figure out how to abolish it.

Citing pundits who say “the 2016 Presidential election marks the rise of white identity politics in the United States,” the upper-level anthropology seminar will draw “from the field of whiteness studies and from contemporary writings that push whiteness studies in new directions.”

Questions to be posed throughout the semester include: “Does white identity politics exist?” and “How is a concept like white identity to be understood in relation to white nationalism, white supremacy, white privilege, and whiteness?”

“Students will consider the perils and possibilities of different political practices,” according to the course description, “including abolishing whiteness or coming to terms with white identity.” The course will be taught by instructor John Patrick Moran. Reached by e-mail, Moran declined to comment, instead directing The College Fix to Stanford communication’s office.

Ernest Miranda, a spokesman for Stanford, told The Fix via e-mail that “‘abolishing whiteness’ is a concept put forward in the 1990s by a number of white historians. Their belief was that if other white people would, like them, stop identifying politically as white, it would help end inequalities.”

If the course was solely designed to look at bigotry, by all races and ethnic groups, I’d applaud it. That it is specifically aimed at only whites and white nationalism tells me instead that this is merely a bigoted way to attack whites, and whites only, as well as to politically smear the people who voted for Trump (as indicated by the first paragraph in the quote above). I note also that this course doesn’t seem to have a problem with those people who focus on their “black identity,” even as it condemns those who focus on their “white identity.” Both are bad, since they are both race-based and bigoted. That the course picks on only one illustrates its bigotry.

If you give money to Stanford University, you might consider this information before you consider future donations.

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University backs down, will allow 9/11 memorial as planned

10:39 am

This is a victory: Southern Methodist University (SMU) has backed down from a decision to shift its annual 9/11 memorial to a remote place on campus so that it might not offend some students.

[In its original decision] the campus administration cited a new “lawn display” policy which, it claimed, tries to balance “the right of all members of the SMU community to express their opinions” and the right to “avoid messages that are triggering, harmful, or harassing.”

A bipartisan coalition of students blasted the policy, including the SMU College Democrats whose co-vice president said “If expression is banned from a part of this campus, that is detrimental to the education of the students.” Fox News reports SMU donors, alumni and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott joined the criticism, as well.

The school changed its mind late Wednesday. “I thank the students from across campus who came together in the spirit of mutual respect and civil discourse to achieve this outcome,” SMU President R. Gerald Turner said in a prepared statement. “Throughout these discussions, students have expressed their commitment to freedom of expression – a value the University shares.”

Conservatives on campus expressed guarded caution, noting that though the university has backed down here, it has also not yet revised its new more restrictive speech policies.

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China admits it will do nothing to stop North Korea from attacking US

10:25 am

In an official editorial, China has admitted that it will do nothing to stop North Korea from using missiles to attack the US territory of Guam.

Beijing is not able to persuade Washington or Pyongyang to back down at this time. It needs to make clear its stance to all sides and make them understand that when their actions jeopardize China’s interests, China will respond with a firm hand.

China should also make clear that if North Korea launches missiles that threaten US soil first and the US retaliates, China will stay neutral. If the US and South Korea carry out strikes and try to overthrow the North Korean regime and change the political pattern of the Korean Peninsula, China will prevent them from doing so.

In other words, China will not stop North Korea from carrying out its attacks, but if it does so China will also not do anything if the U.S. responds.

The editorial is intellectually dishonest however. It also states,

The real danger is that such a reckless game may lead to miscalculations and a strategic “war.” That is to say, neither Washington nor Pyongyang really wants war, but a war could break out anyway as they do not have the experience of putting such an extreme game under control. [emphasis mine]

The highlighted words are simply wrong. It has been very clear now for several years that North Korea is eager for war, and has been doing everything it can to instigate a conflict.

15 comments

Cell towers to the Moon!

10:09 am

Capitalism in space: A startup that intends to land two privately built rovers near the Apollo 17 landing site in 2018 also plans to use basic cell tower technology to relay what the rovers find back to Earth.

Part Time Scientists has a launch contract for late 2018 with Space X as a secondary payload on the Falcon 9 rocket. Becker said the company believes it will be the first private entity to reach the surface of the moon, suggesting that none of the Google Lunar X Prize participants are likely to meet the December 2017 deadline for the competition. (Part Time Scientists itself withdrew from the Google Lunar X Prize earlier this year due to the time constraints of the competition.)

The Falcon 9 will carry the team’s spacecraft, Alina, to the geostationary transfer orbit, a highly elliptical Earth orbit whose highest point is 26,000 miles (42,000 kilometers). From there, Alina will continue on its own to the moon. “We will soft-land on the moon and disembark our two rovers, the Audi Lunar Quatro rovers, with which we are going to drive up to Apollo 17,” Becker said. “The two rovers are essentially mobile phones that will communicate our video stream to Alina, which serves as an LTE base station, and Alina will communicate the data to us,” he said.

What is most significant about this is that even if no one wins the Google Lunar X-Prize this year, it appears that the contest succeeded nonetheless. At least two if not five different companies appear funded and about to launch private rovers to the Moon. Once they demonstrate this capability, they will certainly be positioned to make money offering it to nations and scientists worldwide. For example, NASA and China both want to place probes in remote places on the Moon, near the poles or on the Moon’s far side. If this mission by Part Time Scientists is a success, they will then be able to offer a cheap method for relaying communications from those locations.

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Palin wins first battle with NYTimes in her libel lawsuit

9:58 am

This should be entertaining: A federal judge has ruled that the New York Times editorial writer who smeared Sarah Palin in an editorial will have to testify under oath about that editorial.

The editorial tried to blame Palin for the 2011 Tucson mass shooting by an insane man, even though the New York Times’ own reporting had previously shown without doubt that no such link existed. In order to avoid losing their case, the editorial writer is going to have to claim that he doesn’t read his own newspaper, and thus did not know about the Times own reporting on this story. Otherwise, it will appear that the editorial was malicious and a lie, and thus libelous.

Like I said, this should be entertaining. Either Palin wins the lawsuit hands down, or the New York Times will have to make itself look like a piece of junk. Which, by the way, it has mostly been for the past three decades.

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Cubesat builder becomes cubesat operator as well

9:30 am

Capitalism in space: Cubesat builder Clyde Space has commissioned its first satellite communications ground station, with three more planned.

Essentially, the company appears to be moving to fill a need expressed by its satellite customers. After building their satellite for them, their customers still need someone to run it for them, and the satellite maker is ideally positioned to win that role.

This story also illustrates the continuing simplification of the technology of the satellite industry. Ground stations used to be big complicated facilities, requiring big dishes and lots of land. Now they can simply install an antenna on the roof of a building.

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Russia to spend $630 million to build Vostochny Angara launchpad

9:23 am

Despite years of construction and more than a billion dollars spent, Russia still needs to spend about $630 million more to build the Angara launchpad at its new Vostochny spaceport.

The specified sum does not include the development, manufacture and assembly of technological equipment at the launch compound, the materials say. According to the Roscosmos document, the construction completion and the commissioning of this infrastructure are scheduled for 2022.

Russian Deputy Defense Minister Timur Ivanov who visited the Vostochny spaceport in the Russian Far East in late May was informed that the construction of the launch pad for the Angara carrier rocket at this cosmodrome would cost 58 billion rubles ($968 million) and would be completed in 2023.

It appears that the Russia government is trying to reduce the overall cost and time needed to build this launchpad. I am willing to bet that this effort will fail, and the cost will raise and time to build will lengthen. And even if they meet these new targets, it is still going to take an awful lot of money and time to do it. Construction on Vostochny began in 2010. Angara’s construction began near the end of the 20th century. Overall, they are going to take decades to get this rocket off the ground. Meanwhile, SpaceX should have four launchpads in regular operation, all built for relatively little money in less than five years overall.

I don’t see anyway Russia is going to be able to compete in the global launch market, based on this information.

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