Week 34
S&P Global: "Europe’s steel industry is set to be a significant consumer of renewable hydrogen and German steelmakers in particular have some of the most advanced plans in the region to tap the new green energy source.
Potential future demand from the German steel sector could amount to 850,000 metric tons per year by 2030, according to German steel association WV Stahl, with producers planning to connect to a national hydrogen pipeline network now under construction, as well as producing their own green hydrogen from electrolyzers onsite, saving 28 t of CO2 per metric ton of hydrogen"
Casimir effect can generate 1 atm pressure between neutral plates 10 nm apart. That is a strong force.. and it is basically free energy, generated due to quantum fluctuations in the aether. Could that be harnessed somehow? Via nano scale turbine generators?
"I looked into [the] character [of VVD]". You auditioned for this exact role in the 2000s.. 🤨? C'mon Doomney.
Not only it's late for an accurate VVD, IMHO if done, it would be boring. VVD story relates to Fantastic Four, who are like, a family.. Two members are siblings, the sister Sue is married to Reed, and VVD is jealous of that? Boring. He wants Reed's family, so he wants to be the dad and tell dad jokes all day long? Boooorriiiing.. Oh and comic accurate means Victor knows magic, Mephisto has his mother he tries to free her, is the king of some distant country that is not even briefly mentioned in any movie yet..
Rumors abound after The Holywood Reporter interview 'doing VVD right' that Doom will be a comic-book accurate. I still see no reason for RDJ to come back for a role unless it is for a variant of earlier roles. THR comments might be aiming to blow smoke up your ass..
There is a deep culture of "hackiness" in Britain.. Many of the hacks I spot these days happen to be English. Some dimwit half-brain broken-record just selling it, blindly, in a rat-a-tat-tat commentary, "my team your team" style, pure monologue, w/ zero proof for brains.. US surely got that aspect of their politics from UK. Where does UK's hack culture come from? A need of the plebs to pledge fealty to some kind of power center (royalty before, plutocrat now) because their livelihood depended on it? And now the plebs turned commentators.
It's good Theo is talking to politicians too, w/ serious questions. I saw Bernie on the other day.
Favorite Theo Von part
The Guardian: "Microplastics are infiltrating brain tissue, studies show"
Is M$haft trying to fight Linux?
The Verge: "Microsoft’s latest security update has ruined dual-boot Windows and Linux PCs"
Business Insider: "[2014] The cache of emails between Apple and Google over their allegedly illegal agreement not to compete for each other's employees is producing more gems.
Pando Daily has found an email exchange between Google chairman Eric Schmidt and Apple founder Steve Jobs about a Google recruiter who was caught trying to poach an Apple staffer.
The staffer was fired, and Jobs reacted by sending a :) in an email"
#Lobbysts #DJT #TheoVon
Noncompete aggrements were ban for companies poaching each other's employees. FTC banned the ban, then federal judge struck down the ban on the ban, meaning private companies can still own your ass.
The Verge: "A federal judge has blocked the Federal Trade Commission’s ban on noncompete agreements that make it difficult for workers to join their employers’ rivals or launch competing businesses. The ruling prevents the FTC’s ban on noncompete agreements from taking effect on September 4th, though the agency could still appeal the decision."
The Verge: "While billionaires have pushed Kamala Harris to depart from President Joe Biden’s antitrust policy, the Democratic Party seems to be doubling down. The word 'competition' comes up 18 times in the party’s 2024 platform, compared to nine in the 2020 version. Other key policy areas, like tackling junk fees and noncompetes, are mentioned several times in the 2024 platform as well, compared to just one passing reference to noncompetes in the 2020 document. Notably, those are areas where the Federal Trade Commission, led by Lina Khan — a target of ire from more business-minded Democrats like Reid Hoffman — has been instrumental"
First FEDI post from space
"@wd9ewk@mastodon.radio
@ai6yr I sent the message to FEDI from my TH-D75 handheld radio, with an Elk Antennas handheld 2m/70cm log periodic antenna. My message packet was retransmitted by the ISS, and received by KO6KL-10 in California, where it was sent to APRS-IS for your APRS > FEDI bot"
"@tante@tldr.nettime.org
Hmm... just wondering what YCombinator is funding these days ...
'Hello, we’re Alex and Devan, and we’re building the low-cost cruise missiles the United States needs!'"
Arab News: "Protesters confront police outside Israeli consulate on 2nd night of Democratic convention"
Komyshivka is gone. RU entered Chasiv Yar. They have a clear field in front of them towards Vuhledar. The Donetsk front does not look good for Ukraine.
Arab News: "UK bolsters fight against migrant crossings.. The interior ministry added that the government aims over the next six months to achieve the highest rate of deportations of failed asylum seekers for five years"
Politico: "RFK Jr. in talks about a possible endorsement of Trump.. Tucker Carlson and Donald Trump Jr. have been facilitating conversations for months"
ABC News: "Day after Putin's visit, Azerbaijan applies to join Russia and China in the BRICS alliance"
Firstpost: "Gaza war effect on West Bank? Israel refuses cash deposits from Palestinian banks"
The Motley Fool: "[2017/04] Meet Hewlett-Packard, the Defense Contractor.. Military contractors come in all shapes and sizes.. Today [HP] renewed an IT support contract with the U.S. Navy, adding another three years of support services for as much as $3 billion in cash.. "
Mike Lynch: He dead (recent news)
Stephen Chamberlain: He dead too. Ran over by car. On the same day as Lynch (was) died.
You don't fuck with the MIC.. you'll get KTA.. Namsayin' N.F.W.M.B. 🤙 W.W.Y.D.F. This is no joke.
BBC: "[2024/06] British tech tycoon cleared in US fraud trial"
Irish Examiner: "[2024/03] Autonomy co-founder Mike Lynch and former finance executive Stephen Chamberlain are accused of scheming to inflate the company's revenue, starting in 2009 and ending with HP's disastrous acquisition of the company in 2011.. Mr Lynch had said HP did not know what it was doing with Autonomy, and was out of its depth in understanding his technology"
If the experience of the past few decades taught us anything it is that while such "revolutions" can cause change they might not lead to what the revolutionists had first in mind, and usually the revolutions themselves are led, channeled towards certain directions by the elites.
The Guardian: "‘A revolution is building’: can young people force change across Africa?"
Newsweek: "Egypt's new capital city is getting a $1 billion skyscraper which will be powered by clean hydrogen, according to the Saudi-controlled real estate firm that's building it... Magnom Properties, a subsidiary of Saudi industrial group Rawabi Holding, is building the 50-storey Forbes International Tower, which will be an office building, according to Reuters. The firm will break ground on construction soon, and it is expected to be completed by 2030"
"@mondoweiss@social.mondoweiss.net
In a resounding victory for the BDS movement, Palestine activists have forced French multinational insurance company AXA to divest from all major Israeli banks and the weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems"
SCMP: "China sets launch date for world’s first thorium molten salt nuclear power station.. Construction of a molten salt nuclear power plant that uses thorium as fuel instead of uranium is set to begin in the Gobi Desert.. The reactor does not need water for cooling because it uses liquid salt and carbon dioxide to transfer heat and generate electricity.
Using thorium as its primary fuel, it means worries over a potential shortage of uranium – the usual fuel used in nuclear reactors – are allayed, as thorium is more abundant than uranium. According to some scientists’ estimates, China has enough thorium reserves to meet its energy needs for 20,000 years. The reactor is scheduled to be completed and operational in 2029, generating heat at a maximum power of 60 megawatts.
Part of the thermal energy will drive a 10MW electric power unit, and the rest will produce hydrogen by splitting water molecules at high temperature"
Forbes: "Sanlorenzo Group Acquires Iconic Sailing Yacht Shipyard And Launches Hydrogen-Powered America’s Cup Chase Boats"
"@micefearboggis@fediscience.org
[Commenting on the Nature article] What irks me is the notion that this happened 'without supercomputers'. You need the training data and initialisation data and verification data, and the only source for that, currently, is reanalysis or climate model output and that's produced by... supercomputers"
Nature: "Weather and climate predicted accurately — without using a supercomputer.. A cutting-edge global model of the atmosphere combines machine learning with a numerical model based on the laws of physics. This ‘hybrid’ system accurately predicts the weather"
"@Theeo123@mastodon.social
A great article from @ProPublica about how letting the plastic industry set its own standard for what does or doesn't count as 'recyclable' has turned the entire situation into a farce"
"@fesshole@mastodon.social
My employer added a clause in my last NDA stating that I was prohibited from saying anything 'disparaging' about the company. Now when anyone asks about job postings I tell them, 'I'm contractually obligated not to say anything disparaging about them.' None have ever applied"
Earth.com: "Gravity measured in the quantum realm for the first time ever.. Scientists have edged closer to deciphering the universe’s enigmatic forces by pioneering a method to measure gravity in the microscopic quantum world. This advancement challenges long-standing puzzles in physics, where the gravitational force, first identified by Isaac Newton, remains elusive within the quantum realm"
"Fortescue has marked a new milestone in its mission to build a green metal supply chain with the start of works at its Green Metal Project in the Pilbara region of Western Australia"
"peterdutoit@mastodon.green
France:
Car parks with space for 80 cars or more are now required by law to be covered with solar panels.
-
Parks between 80-400 spaces have 5 years to comply
-
Parks with spaces of 400+ have 3 years to comply
This will result in about 11 gigawatts of power.
Should be required everywhere!"
Robert Dicke: "[1956] Gravitation without a principle of equivalance.. By analogy with electromagnetic or meson force fields it is reasonable to expect that when viewed sufficiently closely the gravitational effects would be quantum in nature. Stated more exactly, it might be expected that the gravitational force acting on an elementary particle would have its origin in a local interaction of the particle with virtual particles present in the vacuum...
Remembering the virtual electron-positron pairs reputed to be present in the vacuum as a result of zero point fluctuations, it becomes interesting to inquire whether the gravitational effect can be linked to these particles already present. If so, it should be possible eventually to construct a theory of particles and obtain the gravitational interaction as a weak effect connected with more primitive strong interactions...
Gravitation an electromagnetic effect? The fact that many of the properties of gravitation can be accounted for in terms of an interaction with a polarizable medium is an old idea which has recurred from time to time. The physical idea is simply that a space variation in the polarizabilities of the vacuum will lead to a number of results familiar as typical gravitation effects. For example, an increase of the index of refraction of the vacuum in the vicinity of the sun will cause a bending of light toward the sun"
The Hindu Businessline: "[2023/02] Clean energy and hydrogen. Why Thorium is key to our net zero goals.. BARC is working on several technologies for using thorium, of which two are noteworthy. One is the ‘Indian high-temperature reactor’ (IHTR), which is designed to produce heat and, in turn, produce hydrogen through the ‘sulphur-iodine’ method. In this process, sulphuric acid decomposes into oxygen, sulphur dioxide and water under high temperature. When iodine is added to sulphur dioxide and water, you get hydrogen iodide, which again splits into hydrogen and iodine at high temperatures"
Thorium is more abundant than uranium, it generates less nuclear waste.
The Hindu Businessline: "[2023/02] Bhabha Atomic Research Centre’s 5MW pilot project at Visakhapatnam promises to lend a quantum jump to India’s green energy transition.. Apart from coal, thorium is the only abundant energy source in India. Recent developments at the [BARC] give hope that this mineral can be India’s answer to green energy."
To be fair noone needs battery electric cars.. it is inferior technology.
NYT: "‘Bad Blood’ Stalks a Lithium Mine in Serbia.. A Rio Tinto mine that Europe sees as a critical source for electric vehicle batteries has been the target of enormous protests. 'I don’t need green cars. I need green apples and green grass,' said one opponent"
WION: "Over two years after the war broke out, Ukraine and Russia were on the precipice of engaging in indirect ceasefire negotiations in Doha, Qatar, earlier this month. The discussions, however, never went beyond the initial planning stage after Kyiv launched a surprise ground offence in Russia's western Kursk region, according to a report in the Washington Post, citing diplomats and officials familiar with the matter"
Niu York Has Fallen. Komyshivka could be next. UA Kursk incursion, compared to 8/13, continues to expand.
#Frontline #UA #RU 08/13 - 08/19
"@cmorris@mastodon.social
Aid groups and international organisations are calling for a humanitarian pause in fighting in #Gaza to allow for a mass #polio vaccination campaign"
#BigBang #Elements
Twisters good work.
CNBC: "Disney's 'Deadpool & Wolverine' becomes the highest-grossing R-rated film of all time"
"@cosmicray@mastodon.social
MIT dropped its contract with Elsevier, the huge scientific journal company. Their library instead arranged alternate access to journals and tools for researchers to get them. They’re saving $2 million/year"
There is a subtext to WSJ's reporting on the sabotage now; maybe the Kursk incursion is seen by them as "some crazy shit" and they are reminding the readers other "crazy shit" that current UA leadership pulled off in the past, you are being defined in a certain way... That means UA could be creating new enemies, outside the usual corners of US right, and that does not bode well for them.
There is no empire. US direction is influenced by moneyed interests, "a conglomeration of conglomerates", bunch of money grubbing muckmuckers pulling, pushing the high ranking officials, politicians every which way that is useful for them. There is no strategy. There is no foresight. There is no plan. There is no place for public's interest, unless that interest somehow, once in a blue moon coincides with their profit interests (which does not happen often).
No the CIA would not have done the sabotage wout the executive's knowledge. They do whatever the hell POTUS tells them to. There is no deep state.
I would not dare suggest Commando is a B-movie.
We'd mentioned this possibility before. Labeled as the "B Scenario" it is probably more likely the sabotage happened the way described by WSJ. The A Scenario just isn't Biden's style.. The whole thing has that Holywood B-movie adventurism to it, and both Zelensk and the (now fired) UAF ex-chief are at the right age for it. You watch that 80s action growing up you could think NS sabotage is a "cool thing" to do.
The Guardian: "According to the WSJ, the [Nordstream] sabotage operation involved a small sailing boat and a team of six people, a combination of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians with relevant expertise. The operation used private funding but was directed by a serving army general, who reported to Ukraine’s then commander in chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi. Zelenskiy approved the plan, but later backtracked after the CIA found out about it and asked Kyiv to call it off, according to the WSJ’s sources. Nonetheless, Zaluzhnyi pressed ahead with the mission, the report claims"
Tay Zonday: "There is no American 'housing crisis' - there's a supply-hoarding crisis to rig local market prices above the liquidity of local buyer capital.
The policy solution is simple: poison-pill tax all non-occupant-owned housing to force immediate sale to local buyers at actual market rates.
Allowing unlimited non-local capital to supply-hoard vacant housing is simply anti-resident eugenics. Current residents are too poor, so replace them with richer ones - even if it causes widespread homelessness, forced migration and absurd energy costs for the displaced to commute. It's as discriminatory as Federal Housing Administration redlining of black neighborhoods in the 40s"
Reuters: "Thailand's billionaire ex-PM Thaksin Shinawatra granted royal pardon"
"@silverspookgames@octodon.social
Since US invaded our sovereign country, Hawaii also tops the US in police killings, disproportionately Pacific Islander, and Hawaii is by far #1 most economically unequal. (I worked with homeless/at-risk kids in that tent city in Honolulu)"
The money shot right there.. Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics execs.. The war is being fought for them #2023
via #DanielDavis
"@ai6yr@m.ai6yr.org
Then:
'Grandma, why are you saving those bits of twine and pieces of used foil? You can just go to the store and buy new stuff.'
'Grandson, I grew up during the Depression'
Now:
'Dad, why are you collecting all those DVDs and saving files to disk and all that? You can just go to the Internet and find that.'
'Kids, I grew up during the Great Ensh*ttification...'
Remember #2018 in UK when they added stamp duty for second homes, they also introduced an exemption if you bought seven properties at the same time, Jeremy Hunt, the Chancellor at the time went out and bought seven homes... If we allow them these f--kers will bankrupt us all.
The part on corps being involved in real-estate market denying new buyers access was good.. Most of the housing crisis has to do w/ the rich taking more assets than they can use. "Building more homes" cannot be the primary fix. As long as inequality exists, those new homes will be bought by the same corps as an investment.
"Opportunity economy" sounded somewhat Clintonesque.. Was that a cover for "populism"?
Politico: "The vice president Friday briefly touted the economic progress and accomplishments under the Biden administration.. but she said she knows many Americans aren’t yet feeling improving conditions.
'Costs are still too high. And on a deeper level, no matter how much they work, it feels so hard to just be able to get ahead,' she said. 'As president, I will be laser-focused on creating opportunities for the middle class that advance their economic security, stability and dignity...'
Harris... has also leaned further into aggressive attacks on corporations for 'price gouging' and driving up prices at the grocery store. And she has filtered well-worn ideas through a new, unapologetically [lefty] lens.
That has made for a striking contrast from Biden, who never completely warmed to efforts to shift the blame for inflation to big business and often softened his own populist rhetoric with reassurances that he was a 'capitalist.'"