Creeps used AI

It was probably inevitable. Dazzling new technology gets developed to help people work and create, and then people of evil intention get ahold of it and do bad things.

An Arizona mom was away from home with her daughter when she received a horrifying phone call. She heard her other daughter's voice begging and crying for help. A man's voice then said that he had the 15-year-old in his possession and demanded a million dollars to return her.

Other moms with her called 911 and her husband, and figured out that the girl was at home in her room. It was a scam, a convincing and terrifying attempt to fake a kidnapping. The mom hung up after four frightening minutes.

Artificial intelligence created the voice of her daughter. According to an Arizona professor, the cloning can be done using only three seconds of the actual voice of the victim like you could find on social media. An FBI agent says, "You've got to keep that stuff [public profiles] locked down."

from WKYT

SpaceX COO 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Gwynne started out managing a small team at Microcosm and now manages a large team of about 9,500 at SpaceX. Interested? FYI there are over 1400 job openings.

To be a good leader, she recommends that you be: a good listener, a good motivator, and a good example.

Here she is being interviewed about her SpaceX career at Stanford University:

SpaceX COO

Superstar Elon Musk dominates public attention whenever SpaceX makes news. He founded the company, but he doesn't actually run it anymore. Elon gets headlines, but there's an engineer who runs it.

Gwynne Shotwell is President and Chief Operating Officer of SpaceX. 

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Elon hired her way back in 2002. As Director of Business Development, she successfully negotiated the contract (2008) with NASA to deliver commercial resupply services to the International Space Station. Promotion to the position of president followed. 

Gwynne is a superstar herself. She led the effort to build the Falcon rocket. Under her leadership, SpaceX was the first private company to successfully launch, orbit and recover a spacecraft and send one to the ISS . . plus all the recent SpaceX achievements. 

from Wikipedia

(cont'd tomorrow)

Test often

SpaceX is still working on the original goal Elon Musk had in mind from the beginning: to make humanity "inter-planetary" as a backup plan, because he thinks people may need to flee from a toxic environment, hostile AI, or some other threat.

Starship is the vehicle designated to transport cargo or passengers (up to 100) through space.  This week it was tested with its first-stage booster to see if Starship could achieve orbit. It was the 24th iteration of the vehicle since the prototype (2019).

The test failed in about four minutes, ending in "rapid unplanned disassembly" (RUD). Failed  to complete the mission, yes--but progress was still achieved. According to the Systems Quality Engineering Manager, “The purpose for today’s main milestone is to clear the [launch] pad . . . Every milestone beyond that is a bonus. The further we fly, the more data we can collect.”

Elon congratulated the team.

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from Salvo

Cost rises 45%

Follow-up to these posts

Germany's last three nuclear power plants are closed, a goal set by the government years ago and finally accomplished. They've replaced nuclear power plants, which emit no CO2, with coal mines, the dirtiest sort of energy. 

There will literally be a price to pay.  Energy prices will spike 45% for some customers. The three nuclear plants served about 10 million households.

A number of scientists sent a letter pleading for the power plants to keep operating. An organization advocating for nuclear power put out this video to make their argument against the decision for political reasons. Germany shuts down nuclear plants while continuing to pay Russia for oil while Russia wars against Ukraine. It's complicated.

from Human Events

Pier design 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

The community of Ocean Grove has a historic legacy of Christian faith. As they considered how to design their new pier with multiple endpoints, they found a shape that fulfilled that goal and honored their history as well.

Owned by the Methodist Minister Camp Meeting Association, it was 100% funded by private donors, the public can use it without any fee or beach tag, and no law had to be changed. They are free in America to express their religious faith. Some local people of other views disliked it.

In a related story: Minneapolis changed its noise ordinance to allow loudspeaker broadcasts of the Muslim call to prayer at all times including dawn and late evening. There was no organized opposition. 

The executive director of Minnesota CAIR welcomed the decision, saying that we are a nation founded on freedom of religion. If that principle applies to Muslims in Minneapolis, which it does, then it applies equally to Christians in Ocean Grove. 

from New York Post

Pier design 1

"[A] design process that sought to create an optimal pier," that's how a local official thinks of his city's project to build a new pier to replace the old one. 

Hurricane Sandy (2012) destroyed the old pier at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, on the Atlantic coast.

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One goal of the re-building project was to create several endpoints on the single pier. Inspiration for its new design finally came and the ribbon-cutting ceremony took place last Saturday. A flurry of comments ensued.

from Yahoo News

Walkability 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

According to Walkable City author Speck, several factors make street life - "pedestrian culture" - desirable.  More walking/less driving means an overall saving of money as well as obvious fitness benefits and less CO2 in the atmosphere.  City walkability appeals both to millennials and to empty-nester boomers, who are willing to pay more in real estate dollars to live there.

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Speck helps city governments and planners to incorporate these goals:

• Protect pedestrians from traffic and parking lots
• Bring back awnings and trees
• Make biking easy
• Make public transit more accessible  
• Line streets with interesting store fronts

Walkability 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

There's a term for it according to city planner Jeff Speck's book, Walkable City. If pedestrians are comfortable walking from place to place, if they feel safe and interested in what they see, if they are intrigued and engaged by the street life, the city has walkability.

American cities, according to Speck, are designed for cars. Wide traffic lanes, fast-moving traffic, huge parking lots, clearing of obstacles including trees, all inhibit pedestrians' sense of comfort. These features get cars into and out of cities efficiently, but they discourage walking.

Picture a boring and unpleasant street scene, then imagine how it could be made beautiful and appealing (click on the picture below). That's what this organization does:

photo: walklive.org

Walkable city-scapes are high in real estate value. Millennials (~age 20-32) expect to live in an urban core, or at least 77% of them do. They - and the empty nest boomer generation too - will pick an urban neighborhood that makes city living safe, friendly, interesting. 

Walkability 1

Many millennials want to live in cities. One of my sons did that for three years, but never had the experience he hoped for. He moved to a suburb last summer. A friend enlightened me about the appeal of city living - she longs to walk to her destinations and live among diverse neighbors.

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My son and my friend are right on-trend, and investors are well aware of it. In this NY Times story an investor group has bought a 30-story office building to re-purpose into a combination of residential apartments, retail shops, restaurants, a fitness center - in addition to office space. "Mixed-use" development means more destinations within walking distance.

"Walkability" has been quantified, and you can get a score for hundreds of cities and neighborhoods here.

Not all cities, nor all areas within cities, draw people in. How do you do that, i.e., create city spaces that people actually love? Mayors and city councils have been asking. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Red-pilled 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

When Xaviaer DuRousseau describes himself as "red-pilled," he means he discovered that the truth about his world was quite different from what he had thought all his life - just as the fictional Neo discovered (yesterday's post).

Would it be easier to stay ignorant and comfortably unchanged? Sure, because changing is harder than staying the same. It takes a little of that old virtue, courage, to embrace new information and let it change you.

So here is Xaviaer's story, "How I Accidentally Red-Pilled Myself."

Red-pilled 1

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

It's a modern term, red-pilled. It comes out of a stunning scene in the 1999 movie, "The Matrix."

When Neo meets Morpheus, he's told "Let me give you one piece of advice: be honest." That sets the tone.

Morpheus says, "You know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You know there's something wrong with the world." He offers Neo a choice between a red pill (which will tell him what's true) and a blue pill (which will leave him comfortable, unchanged, and believing an illusion). 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Slimming 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Mounjaro" is the new closest thing to a magic pill. In a trial, the typical person weighing 230 pounds was able to take off up to 50 pounds, about 22% of their weight. Compare that to the 17% achievable with ozempic.

Already being used for type 2 diabetes, it's expected to soon be approved by U.S. regulators for weight loss.

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Eli Lilly & Co. is producing it. Doctors and patients are excited. So it's helping Lilly become the most valuable drug company in the U.S.

Drug companies are way cautious about introducing new drugs to the public. Of course they are and must be. But Lilly has been able to bring mounjaro, which has existed for over ten years, to the public now by speeding up their whole process. 

from WSJ

Slimming 1

Wouldn't it be nice if we all could keep the slim, strong, dependable bodies most of us had in our 20's and 30's? But aging typically brings new challenges, like unwanted weight gain. And, of course, not everyone has a slim body even in their younger years.

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Enter the weight loss industry. If you could just take a pill that would burn off all unwanted fat, that would be so great! Imagine no disciplined workouts or eating programs. For a drug company, to bring that pill to market would be like finding the holy grail.

Sadly, so far there's no magic pill. But "ozempic" is the pill of choice for many. Made for type-2-diabetics, it's proven to lower blood sucrose (sugar) and even reduce appetite. Overweight non-diabetic individuals in a clinical trial lost 15-17% of their weight while those who took a placebo lost only about 2%.

Its cost isn't usually covered by insurance for non-diabetics, but a drug like it is: "wegovy." Except it's been hard to find lately.

Now a new weight-loss pill is on the horizon.

from Forbes

(cont'd tomorrow)

Hoax!

For about two thousand years (since the first Easter) the unbelieving world has speculated that Jesus' disciples just stole the body to make it look like He rose again from death.

Satire can be very funny. Babylon Bee uses satire to make this point: what would the disciples actually get out of lying about Jesus for the rest of their lives? It's not plausible.

Unique 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Believing in the resurrection of Jesus Christ is not a matter of blind, irrational faith. As an event in history, it has more historical documentation than other famous events and people.

The Greek poet Homer lived around the time of Jesus, and wrote the Iliad. There are about 1800 manuscripts of it remaining today. As witness to the life and teachings of Jesus, there are about 25,000 manuscripts in existence today.

The ancient Roman poet Virgil lived around the time of Jesus. The copies of his writing which we have today were written four centuries after he lived. But the life and teachings of Jesus which we have today are first-hand accounts by apostles Matthew and John, written within a generation or two of Jesus himself.

These are examples of the historical reliability of the Christian writings. The Apostle Paul believed Christ rose from death and he preached it.

Is it important to Christianity? Yes it is, as Paul wrote to the believers in Corinth:

"If Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe."

Happy Easter!

from Stream

Unique 1

Easter, coming up this Sunday, is a national holiday in America. But it's also celebrated by Christians all over the world, Christians of every tradition. The famous Renaissance artist Raphael created this painting in 1502:

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Even "nones" (identifying with no religion) can celebrate Easter as the return of spring, life returning to the landscape (if you have winter at your location). Hey, me too - I love the green coming back to nature. 

But this Christian holiday is actually the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. As this author says: it's a stunning, outrageous claim.

He looked ordinary, used only his culture's technology (2000 years ago), and gathered around himself a relatively small band of followers. The apostle Peter explained why they followed him: "You have the words of eternal life."

What mythical god lived a selfless life or went to his grave to redeem human beings?

(cont'd tomorrow)

POC testifies

She's a minority voice and she deserves to be heard.

A pillar of CRT as taught in schools is that white people are all oppressors and that minority race people are all oppressed. But CRT policy and ideology are opposed by persons of color as well as white people. Why is that? It's because nobody really wants their child to feel hopeless. 

This articulate mom (and attorney) testifies that she is opposed to "ethnic studies" as defined in a proposed Minnesota bill. She says everything that sounds good is not necessarily good, that we in the U.S. got rid of the old race-based system - and it's not 1930 anymore.

She doesn't like her kids being told that there's no use in trying to succeed, that black boys would probably not even live until retirement because of racism. Of course she doesn't like that. Black kids - all kids - need a sense of agency, not hopelessness.

"I can see why you white proponents of this bill might support it. It's not your kids being told that they can't succeed, and you get to shed some of your white guilt in the process."

They got sick

Follow up to this post

Residents of that Ohio town where the train derailed in February report that some are getting sick, potentially because of the incident. A million pounds of hazardous chemicals were being transported in the train cars and some of it leaked into a creek and the soil.

Officials decided to channel some vinyl chloride into a trench and ignite it. A big black cloud of smoke from the fire rose over the town. It's not hard to imagine that such a thing would make the air unsafe.

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Federal and state officials told residents that there was no problem with the air or water. But the U.S. Center for Disease Control sent agents to investigate.

During the investigation a month ago, seven of the fifteen investigators developed symptoms like those reported by the residents. It's not proven that those chemicals caused the illnesses. But what does that sound like to you? If I run across a final answer, I'll post it.

from CNN

Tipping beyond

Follow up to this post

Apparently, many of us are being asked for tips whenever we purchase a service, not just when eating a meal at a restaurant. And the tip percentages at restaurants have climbed in recent years. It can give you "tip fatigue."

There was a tipping uptick from the 1950's (10%) to the '70's and 80's (15%) to 2023 levels which range from 15-25%, now averaging around 21%.

Why the recent uptick? The pandemic closings may have been a factor. During that time many ordered takeout (which enabled some restaurants to just stay in business) and felt increasingly sympathetic, to the point that in 2023 the average tip is 73% on remote transactions.

Some restaurants started asking for bigger tips on that ordering/paying tablet right at the table. About 22% of respondents to a survey said that makes them feel pressured to give more than they normally would. So restaurant technology successfully squeezes more out of its customers.

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from CNBC