A terrific show

LAist has another great podcast series about the space race. This one is called "the other moonshot" and it's about the black engineers who helped get us into space - all the while fighting rascim. 

https://pca.st/podcast/cb671760-4298-013b-f171-0acc26574db2

surely a recession is looming... could a depression be on the horizon too?

As we look at the economy, and the harm that is being done to it - without any thought whatsoever - it becomes clear that we will have a significant economic downturn coming in the near term.

Delon Trusk are dismantling government and slashing payroll without really thinking about the broader economic impacts.  They're thinking like business people.  If you lay off employees at a company, you impact those people, and the local economy in a targeted area.  And the company can right itself and focus on whatever business, while other companies likely will compete for the business that's been dropped.

But if you lay off significant numbers of government employees, that has a broader impact to the country as employees provide services everywhere and there isn't anyone who can step in to a lot of this.  And there is nothing that can fix it.  Unemployment goes up, and businesses that support the people employed will also wind up having an impact.

Consider that if you cut a significant number of people who live in DC then there is an inventory of apartments, there are fewer people getting their suits pressed, restaurants won't be frequented for lunch, and so on.  The downstream impact could be catastrophic.

In fact DC has already put together a multi year forecasted budget and they see that they'll have greater than a $300 million budget shortfall each year - meaning that they won't be able to fund schools, libraries, or even pick up garbage.

Its bad.

Then we look at the ripple effects to housing, cost of living, and consumer confidence.  The stock market is a reflection of that to a degree and traders have no idea which way things will go and so the market goes down.  

Which will likely lead to a recession sometime later this year.

Recession
a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced, generally identified by a fall in GDP in two successive quarters.

And as unemployment starts to spike, while companies are unsure what to do, and really do you trust the knuckleheads in key financial positions to account for inflation?  We may be headed to a depression, as early as 2028 by definition.

Depression
A depression is a severe and prolonged downturn in economic activity. A depression may be defined as an extreme recession that lasts three or more years or that leads to a decline in real gross domestic product (GDP) of at least 10% in a given year. Depressions are far less common than milder recessions. Both tend to be accompanied by relatively high unemployment and relatively low inflation.

 

A 5 year passage of time

When the pandemic started closing everything, my wife and I took a trip down to the Fairchild Botanic Gardens in Miami. 

Being an outdoor garden, they planned to stay open as long as they could. But the county had other plans and they wound up closing a few days after we went. 

They didn't re-open for several months so I only had a few pictures from that visit (as well as some others over the years). They helped my mental state during the closures and whatnot. 

I took the picture on the top in March 15, 2020. 

I went again today, a week before the anniversary of that date and recreated the picture in front of the same rainbow eucalyptus they have growing there. 

The world is very different. And yet here I am in front of a tree that doesn't care what we're  doing. It just grows. 

Leon Lederman

The name might not be a well-known household name, but Leon Lederman won a Nobel prize in Physics back in 1988, for his work with neutrinos.  Its a widely recognized piece of work that he undertook with other physicists to revolutionize how we think about subatomic particles.  And yes, you may also realize he is the discoverer of the Higgs boson particle.

But here's the thing.  In 2012, he started suffering from dementia.  The general care for it was covered under Medicare, which is good. But, as he needed more care, like an aide, or to stay at a memory care facility, Medicare didn't cover that.  

So in 2015,  his wife sold his Nobel prize for just a little over 3/4 of a million dollars.  Because they needed the money to continue to pay for his care.

A Nobel physicist who revolutionized our understanding of the universe had Medicare, and *still* had to sell his medal to cover expenses.  

He died in 2018, and the NY Times did an obituary for him: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/03/science/leon-lederman-died-particle-accelerators.html

There is something so wrong with this situation, with what we have for healthcare in a first world nation, one of the wealthiest EVER.  We can't even care for our people, even the ones that contribute to our betterment.  

What is wrong with us?!

Student solves a 100-year-old math problem

Divya is a grad student at Penn State.  Her graduate advisor challenged her to solve a problem. There's a supposed optimum solution for a rotator's movement., which was proposed by an aerodynamic engineer in Britain - but which appeared to be incomplete.

After poring over the math and applying some scientific curiosity, she came up with a solution that makes rotation more efficient.  And this finding can be applied to many things, but wind turbines will benefit directly.  

"I created an addendum to Glauert's problem which determines the optimal aerodynamic performance of a wind turbine by solving for the ideal flow conditions for a turbine in order to maximize its power output,"

https://interestingengineering.com/science/100-year-old-math-problem-revisited

As always, I remind you to always challenge the paradigm and consider that a theory is based on what we know and is observable - but a theory can always be adapted when we learn more.  

Scientific curiosity for the win! 

Wow! WWII bomb found near Paris

World War II ended 80 years ago, and yet we continue to find explosives and bombs in various locales.  But here is a case where a half ton unexploded bomb was found in a fairly populated area.

They've brought in people to dispose of it, but given its size, location,  and age, it is a delicate operation that may take some time to handle properly.

Its amazing just how much destruction was wrought during that war, and for that matter the Great War that happened 20 years before that.

French Transport Minister Philippe Tabarot said that the huge disruptions were caused by the discovery of a bomb that weighed half a ton. Workers found it overnight while doing earthmoving works near the tracks in the Seine-Saint-Denis region that borders Paris to the north. Bomb disposal experts were called.

https://apnews.com/article/france-paris-gare-nord-unexploded-bomb-d76871a93baee768df2a225922f12d89

Space is hard

Over the last week, we had some space news of note.

SpaceX tried (and failed again!) to launch starship.  The result was similar to the last launch in that they lost control of the upper stage and it pitched uncontrollably and they had to destroy it. 

In this case, the view of the craft and its problem were visible from the east coast of Florida (in spite of the launch from the Texas coastline, it flew eastward).  The reason for the visual was the time of day (sunlight was reflecting at the right angle), the altitude, and the typical trail from the rockets themselves as it pitched.

It was another learning experience for the company, because failure is always an option.  

But it caused problems for airports up and down Florida's coast and triggered a response from the FAA - which undoubtedly will prove "complicated" since Musk dictates what the FAA does and also owns SpaceX (conflict of interest anyone?)

Next up was Intelligent Machines second attempt at a lunar landing.  They launched a few weeks ago, and everything seemed to be going well.  Then when it came time for landing, they had some unexpected thrust from an engine; it landed, but like their last launch, it appears to be not quite upright.  They are getting data back and did deploy the solar panels, so they may be able to salvage some of the mission and meet major objectives.

And finally, we had the other lunar lander that was launched as part of the ride share with Intuitive Machines.  Blue Ghost, from Firefly aerospace, landed successfully and thus becomes the first *successful* moon landing for the US since the Apollo program ended 50 years ago,

  

In their case, I would argue space was hard - but achievable.  We'll learn a lot as they work through their mission objectives.

The good place and its message

I've been watching "The Good Place" which came out a decade ago.  I had never gotten around to it, but I finally decided to give it a go.  Its a lot of fun and deals with some intriguing topics, and includes a Florida-man for some terrific comedy relief.

Anyway, this is worthy of a mention because the underlying premise is that (spoiler if you haven't seen it) the scoring system that sends people to the good place hasn't kept up with our overly complicated world.  You may buy something from a company that doesn't treat its workers fairly, or you don't think about where your product comes from... and that winds up being negative points.

But, there's good from this learning: a theme that emerges is what we do next is more important than what we've done before. We can grow and become better people.

Its uplifting and feels good.  I know the show is from a while ago but there is a lesson in there that becomes even more relevant today.

And that reminds me that the general notion of religion is a bit of nonsense.  Look, if religious belief helps you achieve a form of enlightenment and feels good to you, then I say have at it. 

What I'm talking about is the broad part of religion and a god who wants humanity to succeed. 

How is it that someone like a T-rump (or any of the past "evil doers") can rise to power and make things miserable for the masses, while smart and decent people wind up dying young, having serious diseases, or otherwise have no ability to be that same kind of leader?

There's a flaw in the logic. 

And this is among the reasons that we can’t have nice things

On tariffs

Just a reminder from the university of Nebraska — While the U.S. Constitution grants to Congress the power to levy tariffs on goods, Congress has delegated some of that power to the Executive Branch over time. The U.S. Constitution states in Article I, Section 8 that "The Congress shall have the Power to lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises." Congress passed general tariff legislation until the early 1930s. However, in a move to grant more flexibility to the President to revitalize global trade in the midst of the Great Depression, Congress gave the Executive Branch the power to negotiate tariff reductions within levels pre-approved by Congress through the Reciprocal Trade Agreement Act of 1934. President Franklin D. Roosevelt became the first President to have the authority to levy tariffs and negotiate bilateral trade agreements without the approval of Congress. The Executive Branch has continued to exercise a level of authority over tariffs over the past few decades. In 1962 President Kennedy signed into law the Trade Expansion Act, which allows the President to adjust tariffs based on threats to national security under section 232.3 This is the authority under which President Trump imposed tariffs on steel and aluminum, which have a vast impact on some of the United States' biggest trading partners and many U.S. industries. Since the beginning of the year, there have been bipartisan efforts in Congress to try to regain some of the power that was delegated to the Executive branch to regulate trade.— 

Our elected officials can't simply allow the sitting president take that responsibility upon himself, hurting relations and impacting everyday Americans

A good synopsis of why CEOs do what they do

This tweet from an Amazon co-founder says it all

That's on brand in this day and age.

Sergey Brin - one of Googles cofounders - waxed poetic a few days ago. 

Oh wait. It's not poetic. It's idiotic. 

 "I recommend being in the office at least every weekday," 

Which I think means people can and should work weekends?

 "60 hours a week is the sweet spot of productivity,  [A] number of folks work less than 60 hours and a small number put in the bare minimum to get by... This last group is not only unproductive but also can be highly demoralizing to everyone else."

So he wants to be a leader in AI and to get there, he'll abuse his employees.  Who maybe will get an attaboy for their work?  And he'll make billions. 

Those academy awards

Its billed as celebration of the movies.  But it really boils down to self-promotion and an ability to draw attention to overlooked films and for people that win to have greater asking prices.

But the whole system of selecting movies and ultimately deciding who wins is just a bunch of nonsense.  Around a decade or so ago, you had the discussion about it being about the Oscars being white, since people of various origins and colors were generally overlooked.

And then last night, you saw the pendulum swing a different way.  

There's a movie called Emilia Perez that was nominated for many awards.  Ostensibly, its a musical about a Mexican drug lord who undergoes surgery to become a woman to protect his family and leave his old life behind.  Only.... it fails on every level.  As a musical it includes songs like this one https://youtube.com/shorts/N3w2Lq-jMZQ?si=cpgGqwen-JNA0Yje which is ... wow.

It also fails in the notion of being about transgender.  Yes it does star a trans woman in the lead role.  The problem has to do with the transition happening to escape a past, and how the tropes play out surrounding the storyline.

But mostly it fails at being a Mexican story.  The person behind it is French, and it was filmed entirely in France.  He has little (or as far as I can tell, no) connection to Mexico.  He only presented things he saw in headlines. It tells a story that has no basis in reality and paints a picture of cartels that is one dimensional (and perhaps stereotypical and racist to a point).  And the actors...well, there is one Mexican person in the film. And you could argue that Selena Gomez is of Mexican heritage.  But, most people wouldn't say she's Mexican - and her Spanish is just okay and she has a very American accent.  The lead actress is Spanish (from Spain), and Zoe Saldana is Dominican.  In summary, it was a bit of a miss here too.

The academy apparently nominated it because it ticked boxes of Mexican and transgener and pithy.

And there was also the matter of Best Actor.  Ralph Fiennes turned in a fine performance.  But two members of the academy (the voters) decided not to vote for him.  The reason they gave was that he had won previously... except that he had not.  They proudly said they'd vote for Adrien Brody, who had, in fact, won a best actor award previously (and of course he won again).

The absurdity of that was out on full display. I didn't see either film (yet!), so I can't really comment on the merits of either.  This is simply about how dumb the voting is.

The blame game

Here's something I get a lot from people that I know who are in the maga community in general …. it's that they want to blame everyone else for the world's problems. It's not about anything that's happening with the guy that you love but with everyone else. 

My favorite is blaming the previous administration or blaming some billionaire who has nothing to do with anything. The two favorites go-to guys who everyone seems to point to or George Soros and Bill Gates. 

Why those two? I really don't know, but they come up all the time. Never mind that the guy who is sitting in the White House and basically running the country is a billionaire who is destroying from within. Nope gotta blame some other billionaires because they're bad people in their mind. 

Never mind that George Soros has literally nothing to do with anything related to politics. He contributes and he does have some political action committees that he's involved with and of course he wants things to go his way, but he has no real relation to anything really in government. 

Bill Gates started the Gates foundation that help communities and with food, water, and vaccines and generally ensuring that people have a better way in life … but now he's a bad guy. 

So anyway, in reading through comments on the bottom of different posts, it's sometimes amusing to see the nonsense that people post. It's like a guilty pleasure of mine that I'll read through them just to see what people think because you know you're gonna get some reasonable opinions and then you're gonna get the people who are just nuts and want to say something from an uninformed position 

My example came about when I was reading more on how small farmers are being impacted. someone wrote a diatribe - a thesis if you will -  about how Bill Gates is ultimately irresponsible for all of this because Bill Gates had bought some farms and therefore he's part of the problem, not part of the solution and it's his fault that the prices are going up and it's his fault that the farmers are going out of business 

I'm reading and I'm thinking myself wow how basically ridiculous is that?  When you look at the facts of the matter you realize there's something going on, but then you have this weird point of view that makes no sense and blames Bill Gates for a problem that was created by large corporations by billionaires in different places. 

Corporations and politicians who didn't care about everyday people, and T-rump who lied to them and told him he would and then told them no it's not my fault that this happened … it's someone else's fault!

There's just something so crazy about all of this that we can't seem to control and it really bugs me that we're at this point. 

To our senators on the Zelenskyy meeting

While I don't agree with Mr Trump on his Ukraine policy (and believe he's effectively acting in Putin's best interests as a kind of "Russian asset") this is not about that specifically. 

This is about his "stunt" in the White House that involved inviting President Zelenskyy to come on an official visit, and then proceeding to essentially ambush him with multiple people involved, strong words, shouting, and even a bit of a physical moment where Trump shoved him. 

All played out for the cameras, including a Russian news outlet. 

And then the "icing on the cake" - kicking him out and calling him unreasonable and then complaining about how he dressed. 

On that last point, musk is often seen in the White House dressed "like a slob" and his kids are allowed to run amok. Where is the decorum there?

This is all unacceptable and flies in the face of what we believe diplomacy to be. Henry Kissinger famously said "diplomacy is the art of restraining power"

This was surely not that. 

In fact, if you take the time to read about or first diplomat, Benjamin Franklin, you see where diplomacy comes from for our nation. It requires you to be willing to listen. To be self aware. Not to simply tell everyone what they have to do. 

At what point are you going to say "enough is enough?" And actually say something about the childish reality-show behavior we're seeing in the White House?

You represent us, all Americans. And this behavior, this utter disregard for the mores that have existed for nearly 250 years is absurd, and must be stopped. 

We can disagree on specific agenda items Trump wants. We can argue the merits of policy. 

But we can not argue that the tearing down our history, or place in the world, and how we treat other nations is positive in any way. 

Land of the Lost

I saw this and, well, the truth is that I know more about the tv show Land of the Lost than I probably should (eyes roll). 

For example, it was mostly written by some of the greatest sci-fi writers of that generation. 

But back to the picture. My  mega bonus trivia: members of UCLA's basketball team were inside the sleestack costumes. Including Bill Walton who said it was a hoot. Bill Lambier was in high school in LA and was sometimes there, too.