Posts

Monday: Build That Wall

/4 Comments/in , /by

Poor Ireland. Poor Inishturk. To be forced to consider the onslaught of refugees fleeing political upheaval should one loud-mouthed, bigoted, multi-bankrupt idiot with bad hair win the U.S. presidency. I’m amused at how the Irish in this short film mirror the U.S. albeit in a more placid way. There are some who are ardently against him, some who’d welcome the business, and the rest cover the spread between the extremes though they lean more to the left than the right.

I find it appalling, though, that Trump would install a sea wall *now* after the golf course development has already been established, rather than do his homework upfront before investing in real estate which relies on natural dune formation. This kind of thoughtlessness is completely absurd, and the disgust evident in this film is well merited.

Keep your volume control handy; hearing Trump blathering may set your teeth on edge. Mute for a moment and continue.

Schtuff happens
I couldn’t pull a cogent theme out of the stuff crossing my desk today. I’m just laying it down — you see if you can make any sense out of it.

  • Ramen can get you killed in private prisons (Guardian) — The federal government may have to do more than simply stop using private prisons for federal criminal incarceration. This report by a doctoral candidate in the University of Arizona’s school of sociology suggests states’ prisons operated by private industry may be violating prisoners’ civil rights by starving them. Ramen noodles have become a hot commodity for this reason. Not exactly a beacon of morality to the rest of the free world when incarcerated citizens must scrap for ramen noodles to make up for caloric shortfalls.
  • World Anti-Doping Agency may have been attacked by same hackers who poked holes in the DNC (Guardian) — “Fancy Bear” allegedly had a fit of pique and defaced Wada after Russian athletes were banned at Rio. This stuff just doesn’t sound the same as the hacking of NSA-front Equation Group.
  • New Mexico nuclear waste accident among most costly to date (Los Angeles Times) — Substitution of an organic kitty litter product for a mineral product two years ago set off a chemical reaction un an underground waste storage area, contaminating 35% of the surrounding space. Projected clean-up costs are $2 billion — roughly the amount spent on Three Mile Island’s meltdown.
  • Build that wall! Americans blown ashore in Canada by high winds (CBC) — Participants riding flotation devices on the St. Clair River in the annual Port Huron Float Down were pushed by high winds into Sarnia, Ontario. About 1,500 Americans had to be rescued and returned to the U.S. by Canadian police, Coast Guard, and Border Service. Just a test to see if Canada’s ready for the influx of refugees should Trump win in November, right?
  • Paternity test reveals a father’s sperm actually made him an uncle (Independent) — Upon discovering a father’s DNA only matched 10% of his child’s DNA, further genetic ancestry revealed the ‘father’ had an unborn twin whose DNA he had absorbed in the womb. His twin’s DNA matched his child’s. This is not the first time paternity testing has revealed chimerism in humans.

Commute-or-lunch-length reads

  • Walmart is a crime magnet (Bloomberg) — Holy crap. Communities should just plain refuse to permit any more Walmarts until they clean up their act. Bloomberg’s piece is a virtual how-to-fix-your-bullshit task list; Walmart has zero excuses.
  • It’s in your body, what version is it running? (Backchannel) — Before the public adopts anymore wearable or implantable medical devices, they should demand open access to the code running inside them. It’s absurd a patient can’t tell if their pacemaker’s code is jacked up.
  • Dirty laundry at Deutsche Bank (The New Yorker) — This you need to read. Parasitic banking behavior comes in many forms — in this case, Deutsche Bank laundered billions.

There, we’re well on our way this week. Catch you tomorrow!

Wednesday: Chansons françaises

/2 Comments/in , /by

This Parisian artist is fascinating. Indila is extremely popular in France, mostly because of ballads like this one with multi-generational appeal. Many of her works contain lyrics in more than one language which increases the breadth of her allure. This particular song is indie/dream pop, but she also works in rap and fusion raï — the latter a form of Algerian folk music.

It’s no surprise that some of Indila’s work fuses raï with other genres. She’s of Algerian descent, though she’s said she’s also Indian, Cambodian, Egyptian and Moroccan. Indian influences her work with band TLF in Criminel, African cultures shape her collaboration with Youssoupha in Dreamin’ (the video is set in Arizona, oddly enough), and Middle East in Poussière d’empire with artist Nessbeal.

Do surf YouTube for more of her solo work when you’re in the mood for something sweet and angst-y.

Troubles continue abroad

I-spy

  • UK oversight struggles with MI5’s bulk collection (The Guardian) — Jeepers, it’s like MI5 took lessons from U.S. law enforcement on resisting oversight.
  • Canada’s intelligence agency likewise resists oversight (CTVNews) — Communications Security Establishment (CSE) won’t disclose what information has been shared with other non-Canadian entities which may result in human rights violations. CSE may not spy on Canadians anywhere, but compliance can’t be proven with censored records.
  • Not even going to bother with the Trump+Russia crap here, because it’s all over social media. Probably well-fanned smoke to hide his refusal to release tax returns.

Dick moves
These are among some of the stupidest, rudest, dickiest things in my timeline today. Perps deserve a whack along side the head. Don’t like my language? Tough rocks.

Long-listen
If you have the stomach for it, listen to this Bloomberg podcast in which Laurence Ball, Department of Economics Chair at Johns Hopkins, says the U.S. could have avoided the 2008 crash by rescuing Lehman Brothers. Hindsight is 20/20 — in this case, it’s nauseating, too. Fecking Bush administration…

Hasta pasta!

Friday Morning: Gypsy Caravan

/26 Comments/in , /by


TIME, you old gipsy man,
Will you not stay,
Put up your caravan
Just for one day?

— excerpt, Time, You Old Gipsy Man by Ralph Hodgson

If last week’s Friday chamber jazz was most like me, this genre is next to it. Gypsy jazz is what my grandfather always hoped I’d learn to play; I learned to love Django Reinhardt with Stephane Grapelli at his knee. This stuff makes a bad day move along briskly, makes heavy hearts light. I don’t mind the added filip some smart ass added to the embedded video of Hot Club of Dublin featured here — seems fitting for the tune’s mood.

Unfortunately I have to be away from my desk this morning on a mission of mercy. If I’m stuck someplace with decent WiFi I will try to share a few things I’ve been reading. Otherwise use this as an open thread and tell me what you’ve got planned this weekend — hope it’s something fun!

Oops, last minute adders:

Facebook gets smacked by court for storing biometric content (Reuters) — I really dislike Facebook. Just thought I’d tack that on.

Athabasca tar sands south of Fort McMurray threatened by fire (CBC Calgary) — something-something karma-something

A few more adders:

Aussie company touting anti-Zika virus condoms and gel – what? (Sydney Melbourne Herald) — Are you kidding me? Just use a damned condom. Think about it: plain old condoms are recommended as protection against viral STDs like HIV.

Maps showing borders India doesn’t like may earn jail time and fines (QZ-India) — Wondering why this issue has bubbled up again, not that the border with Pakistan has ever been resolved to India’s satisfaction.

Carnegie Mellon team turn human skin into touch tech (The Verge) — Um, this was done back seven years ago by MIT, called “Sixth Sense,” and released as open source a year later. Still wondering why that tech wasn’t commercialized.

Thursday Morning: Burning Bright

/13 Comments/in , /by

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

— excerpt, The Tyger by William Blake

Props to Fort McMurray, Alberta, Canada, for evacuating a city under immediate threat of fire without any casualties directly attributable to the blaze. There was one death reported due to a vehicle accident, but it’s not clear the accident was caused by the fire or the evacuation process. I don’t know that an American city could have responded as quickly with the same results, but then Fort McMurray’s folks remember the Slave Lake wildfire five years ago in May 2011. Slave Lake, located roughly 250 miles southwest of Fort McMurray, was similarly forced to evacuate its 7,000 residents after 60 mph winds fanned a forest fire out of control and into the town.

In addition to expanded evacuation south of Fort McMurray, another wildfire in northern Alberta approximately 500 miles northwest of Fort McMurray forced evacuation of the town of High Level last evening. Fortunately, cooler weather will help battling this and Fort McMurray’s blaze; temperatures are expected to be 20 degrees cooler than the 88F degree high reached yesterday in Fort McMurray. There’s no rain in the forecast for nearly a week, though.

If you look at a satellite map of Alberta, you’ll note the areas surrounding these two municipalities actually had quite a bit of forest near them to their west (Fort McMurray is south of the Athabasca tar sands production site by a 30-minute drive). I’d like to know how much of this is boreal forest, which was once aggressively protected by Canada — before Alberta’s Stephen Harper became PM, that is. Despite the efforts of NGOs, expansion of the tar sands escalated dramatically from 2006 on. Now that oil prices have plummeted, production at Athabasca may drop, but too late to prevent damage to a wide swath of forest, not to mention the clearing done to support oil and gas development in northwestern Alberta. With the likelihood of wildfires throughout the rest of the summer running high, let’s hope the current Trudeau administration invests heavily in forest restoration efforts to replace growth lost to both fossil fuel production and to fire.

Reforestation is only a start, thought; additional protections going forward are needed as boreal forest is the largest carbon sink on earth, bigger than rain forests. We Americans don’t pay as much attention to Canadian deforestation because the country’s population is much smaller than Brazil. But Canada’s forests are critically important to reducing CO2, locking it up in trees and preserving it in bogs. We’re Canada’s largest trading partner and its largest consumer of wood products. We should be more aware and more responsible for our role in protecting Canada’s boreal forest.

Bits and pieces

  • Ford sinks cash into software company Pivotal (Detroit Free Press) — One of the many recent investment/partnerships with technology firms to augment vehicles’ features. Ford said it would have difficulty doing what Pivotal does. Let’s hope Pivotal is more conscious of cybersecurity than its automotive partners.
  • Former Apple employees to release new AI bot, VIV next week (Apple Insider) — Description sounds like Siri let out of the iPhone, or Amazon’s Alexa on Echo bot. Whatever it is, stay away from me with this stuff.
  • Nearly 300 million email account credentials floated in criminal underground (Reuters) — A massive collection including tens of millions of accounts on Yahoo, Microsoft, and Gmail email services was offered up in exchange for favorable comments in hacker forums. Something about this scenario sounds fishy, especially since the hacker first asked for 50 rubles (about one dollar) in exchange for all the compromised email accounts’ credentials. Some of the accounts belonged to banking, manufacturing, and retail personnel.
  • Has the revolution begun? Shareholders protest Reckitt Benckiser’s CEO compensation (Bloomberg) — Is this the beginning of a trend?

Your assignment today: check your area for wildfire or bushfire risk, and develop a personal evacuation strategy. Fortunately in my area we have standing water after nearly 24 hours of rain. Out of here, gang.

UPDATE — 2:00 P.M. EDT —
Fire’s still spreading across portions of Fort McMurray. Reporter vince McDermott believes he just lost his home this morning while he was at work. Must be just awful to cover a story affecting your community so dramatically and find yourself experiencing loss, too.

Wednesday Morning: Woe, Nelly, Woe

/14 Comments/in , , , /by

I meant woe, not whoa. I do know the difference.

It’s woe I was thinking of when I wrote this next bit.

What would you do if you were told you wouldn’t be paid for last 2 months of a 9-month job?
Let’s say you have kids to feed, a mortgage/car payment/college loan payments to make, childcare to pay, out-of-pocket healthcare costs — you know, all the expenses the average working person has.

In spite of one or more obligatory college degrees, continuing education requirements and mandatory background checks, your job requires you to work in facilities where ‘mushrooms, black mold, fecal matter, dead rodents, no heat‘ are common. It’s a workplace functioning like Flint’s water crisis, and it’s been this way for more than a decade. Fellow employees have had to bring in paper towels and light bulbs from home or solicit them as donations to the workplace.

Because of your employer’s money woes, you may even have made a concession agreeing to collect your pay over 3-4 months instead of the next six to eight weeks you are actually scheduled to work.

And then your employer’s employer says they aren’t going to pay, and you might have to work without pay for the next six weeks. Unpaid, as in violation of labor laws unpaid.

And your employer’s employer has a history of acting both in bad faith and with prejudice. Your workplace hasn’t improved for years; children were permanently poisoned and adults died as a result of their awful handiwork on this and other projects.

What would you do? Quietly stay at your desk working and hope for the best, or walk out in protest to demand action?

The employer’s employer accuses you of all manner of bad things, and is actively undermining your rights to organize, by the way.

Welcome to Detroit Public School system, and welcome to more of Michigan’s obnoxious and toxic GOP-led legislating. Pretty sure the jerks who are causing this latest crisis by grandstanding on teachers’ backs don’t care if the president arrives here in Michigan today.

Dude caught on video sprinkling substance on food arrested by FBI
As if we didn’t have enough to worry about in Michigan, some whackjob has been sprinkling a mixture of hand sanitizer and rodent poison on food in stores, including salad buffets. He was caught on security camera in Ann Arbor, but he is alleged to have sprinkled this mix in multiple stores in Ypsilanti, Saline, Birch Run, and Midland. The mixture is not supposed to be toxic, but who wants to eat remnants of isopropyl alcohol and an anticoagulant? What the hell was this all about anyhow?

Canadian city of 80,000 forced to evacuate overnight due to massive wildfire
Mind-boggling to think of an urban center this size forced to flee on such short notice, but Fort McMurray did just that beginning late afternoon yesterday. Even the local hospital was emptied as fire leaped from undeveloped to developed areas, consuming neighborhoods. 80% of homes in the Beacon Hill neighborhood are ash. Conditions have been unusually warm and dry in the region; the local temperature was 83F degrees before the evacuation notice was issued. Weather conditions today are expected to be hotter (32C/90F) and WSW winds stronger ahead of a cold front, likely spreading the fire even farther to the northeast.

The area around Fort McMurray has only been in moderate drought conditions, yet the fire was explosive, doubling in size in a matter of hours. Can’t begin to imagine what might happen in areas where conditions are drier while this climate-enhanced super El Nino continues.

Volkswagen’s former head of engine and transmission development exits company
Wolfgang Hatz, suspended by VW for his role in Dieselgate, chose voluntarily to leave the company. This bit in NYT’s article is choice:

In 2007, shortly after being named head of engine and transmission development at Volkswagen, Mr. Hatz complained at an event in San Francisco that new rules on tailpipe emissions in California were unrealistic.

“I see it as nearly impossible for us,” Mr. Hatz said of a proposed regulation during the event, which was filmed by an auto website.

In other words, Hatz didn’t see the purpose of the regulation, didn’t perceive a challenge to design truly clean diesel — he saw an obstruction he needed to bypass. Auf wiedersehn, Herr Hatz.

Odds and sods

  • Middle Eastern drought worst in 900 years (NASA) — Drought map of Cyprus, Israel, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Turkey looks awful, but Egypt — wow.
  • Wars might be caused by lack of water (Scientific American) — I sense a theme developing…hey, guess when the Crusades were? 900 years ago.
  • Study shows stocks overvalued often, too long (Phys.org) — Huh. Interleaves with economic social theory of reflexivity, that.
  • Third leading cause of death in U.S.: medical errors (Science Daily) — Grok this: 250,000 deaths a year. You’d think insurance companies and policy makers would look into this, considering annual death toll is like ten times that on 9/11. Imagine if we spend tax dollars on fixing this and improving health care instead of militarizing against the rare-to-non-existent domestic terror attack.
  • Tesla’s residential battery, Powerwall, now for sale (Bloomberg) — Residential solar may now explode with growth. We can only hope.

It’s supposedly downhill from the top of this hump. Race you to the bottom!