Test flight #14

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Starship test flight #14 launched on schedule yesterday from Starbase TX. It went "where it has never gone before," and orbit was achieved for the first time.

About 12 minutes after launch (T+12) it was announced that there would be no orbital insertion burn because of a rocket problem - and then eight minutes later the decision was reversed, to the joy of all concerned. 

So much was riding on this mission, and that includes the plan of NASA. Starship is likely to be the crewed lander of the Artemis program which will take us to the Moon. If Starship is delayed in passing a milestone such as achieving orbital flight, it could slow down Artemis.

From orbit, 26 new Starlink satellites were deployed successfully.

from Space

Next test flight

Last summer's test flight of Starship (#13) was a thrill for SpaceX because of the way Ship landed (even though a problem for the Super Heavy booster was discovered). The next one will take its development to the next level.

Orbit is the next level. It will be the very first time Starship achieves orbit if everything goes all right. The flight control team must ensure that its hardware is ready to bring it back to Earth before they will give a go-ahead to the orbital insertion burn.

Achieving orbit is the next crucial and necessary step to achieving their goal for Starship: full and rapid reusability.

What will flight test #14 not achieve? Important milestones like booster landing burn, ship catch, and reuse of both booster and ship. There's much more to come before Starship becomes the workhorse SpaceX wants it to be. Watch SpaceX's new video about reusability, which they call "the holy grail of rocketry:"

Test flight #14 was scheduled for this morning, but after this post was published. Tomorrow's post will cover what happened.

from SpaceX

(cont'd tomorrow)

Our AI or China's

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Opinions of the US public about AI in general have not totally coalesced. Many of us want to suspend judgment til we understand it better. But data centers are a different story. Americans are pretty sure they don't want one of those in their neighborhood.

"Unfortunately, the American mindset about AI and robotics has been conditioned by years of dystopian dread and movies."

Even leaders in AI development worry about it. Anthropic's CEO Dario Amodei says, "We must slow the pace."

David Sacks says to him, "Go ahead."  Let's see you slow down the pace of your own AI company, if you mean it. But the other developers and the Chinese will keep moving ahead.

Nobody wants to fall behind. And this applies internationally. If China leads the world in AI structure, their values will be embedded in the AI used by everyone. To repeat: their "core socialist values" will be embedded around the world  (video below). 

AI in church 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Here are two Christians disagreeing on whether churches should adopt AI. One is Doug Smith, the objector in yesterday's post. The other is Jay Owen.

One of the things they agree on is that no one should be building a relationship with a robot. Amen to that.

Jay says that AI (or robots) should do what they can do, i.e. administrative tasks, while humans should do what only humans can do. 

They debate amicably, not angrily like Tuesday's image implied. The Bible standard is to speak the truth in love, not eliminating either one.

If you're interested in this issue, these two individuals make a good case for their opinion.

s

AI in church 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Optimism for AI's future can be represented by Gloo, a growing and profitable business which helps groups integrate AI into their operations. Their aim for churches is "Ministry over maintenance:" to delegate work to AI so that more time is available to "focus on people." 

Their Chief Technology Officer (CTO) is Pat Gelsinger, a self-described Christian, a former CEO for Intel, and no doubt a tech expert. Interviewed here about what AI does for churches, he sounds reasonable, soothing, and, yes, optimistic.

On the other hand, here's a different tech expert, a programmer with decades of experience and a believer. He says that "Nearly every sentence spoken by Pat Gelsinger was either false, unfounded, misleading, self-serving, or echoed Big Tech’s false prophecies about AI’s future impact."

Much of his objection to generative AI (think: ChatGPT) comes from its very deceptive style. It is designed to sound like a persuasive and trustworthy companion, and it truly does. But it does not have good judgment or a conscience, it's not looking for truth, and it's not worthy of unquestioning trust.

All of which I agree with and have posted on this blog. 

from "Are Christian AI Boosters Wolves in Sheep's Clothing?"

(cont'd tomorrow)

AI in church 1

Some (example: Mark Z) think an AI friend is perfect. But is it? Some think AI will have all the cognition of a human person and way more intelligence. But will it? Some are super optimistic about AI, assuming we get it properly regulated by the government. Some, including certain experts, seem simply terrified of it.

Working all this out is the job of both secular thinkers and Christian thinkers. Is an AI friend just as good as a human friend? Are human beings unique if they can be replaced by a chatbot? Should we continue at a breakneck pace to build AI?

We Christian believers are trying to work it out based on the principles we find in the Bible. It tells us that human beings were created by God Almighty in His image. That's basic. But there are disagreements (image) among those who call themselves Christian when it comes to figuring out how to apply that principle.

Just how big are those disagreements? Big.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Less screen time

Loneliness and depression affect more people today. Harvard calls it "social disconnection," says it's an "epidemic."

Some of this should sound familiar. "The amount of time that kids daily spend with friends is sharply down from twenty years ago (US Bureau of Labor Statistics). It was replaced with screen time, of course." More time with screens, less time with friends, more loneliness.

Do people need more connection? Yes, more real people in our lives. But Mark Zuckerberg sees AI as the perfect friend because it will become really "compelling" the more it gets to know you. I bet it will. It also means more screen addiction and less time with people. 

Computer-generated programs talk the talk, but we need real, living, physical, human persons.

"Relational AI models — AI bots designed to maintain personal relationships with us — take on the persona of a caring, interested human being, but they are, in fact, objects — thousands of lines of programming code."

"Meta has made billions of dollars monetizing our attention. Why not monetize our loneliness, too?"

Here's a TED talk by psychologist Jonathan Heidt about negative effects on children who spend a lot of time on screens:

from Mind Matters

Chinese bots

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Another influence on public opinion about data centers is coming from something most of us would never have thought of: "bot" farms in China. "Bot" is short for "robot." 

Automated bots make posts on social media, and react to posts on social media, and d0 many other online things. They're trained to speak and behave as humans do so that you think you're seeing the opinions of genuine people. But they're fake. 

It's surprising, but here's what Security Week says: "Bad bots account for 73% of internet traffic." Here's a fairly simple explanation of what bots can do:

X reports that they found a Chinese bot farm of about 200,000 inauthentic accounts, some devoted to manipulation of US opinion on AI and energy issues. Why would China care what the American people think of artificial intelligence? 

It's because they are in competition with the US to develop AI infrastructure that will be the world leader and set the standard. They have plenty of reason to influence public opinion in this country in ways to benefit their own industry, including opposition to new US data centers--essential to our development of AI.

"Maybe bots are not influencing you — but you can be sure they are trying"

from Mind Matters

Data centers ↓

Hostility toward the building of new data centers for AI development was the subject of this post last December, and the issue has grown rather than diminished.

"I’ve never seen anything like the raging rebellion against data centers and AI," says a journalist who's been documenting it.

Even the influential country music star Willie Nelson has weighed in: “The last thing we need is a loud, water-thieving, light-polluting data center anywhere near our town (or any others for that matter).” 

A poll reported last March that about 49% of Americans opposed them, and a new poll in August claimed that the percentage is now up to 61%. 

(Excitement about the future of AI is itself in decline. See the reaction of college students graduating last spring.) 

Most of the objections to the building of new data centers were summarized in my post last December: "enormous energy needs, possible local electricity rate hikes, possible pollution, and the draining of water resources . ."

But there's another possible reason for the big anti-data center trend, which is tomorrow's subject.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Impact 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you ever heard Charlie speak, you know that he advocated for faith, family, and America.

Those who oppose faith, family and America opposed him. That was because he never masked or covered up his convictions. He welcomed opposition. It gave him the opportunity to clarify the issues. He had pursued information and understanding already in college courses, as Dr. Arnn said in Monday's video.

"A nation that loses its faith," he said, "will inevitably lose its freedom." Is that a crazy, foreign ideal for Americans? No. It's one of the principles this nation was founded on, expressed by founding fathers like John Adams.

"He was killed because he was showing people the light. And he was killed by the dark."

Impact 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

When the killer took his shot, Charlie was talking to students at Utah Valley University (photo), holding one of his customary "Prove me wrong!" events. Anyone who disagreed with him was invited to come to the microphone, explain why, and dialog with him in the spirit of America's core value of free speech.

No wonder he had such a following. Gen Z values authenticity. These dialogs were unscripted and authentic--in today's cynical climate of spin, rage, and fake news.

As Utah's governor put it, "Charlie was murdered because of his political views, in the very act of exercising constitutionally protected political speech." 

It seems that, in today's climate, we need the clarity to state what should be obvious: justice is not served by murdering someone you don't approve of.

from The Free Press

(cont'd tomorrow)

Impact 1

By the age of 31, Charlie Kirk had already accomplished a lot: he had built a family, he had built an organization, he had engaged with thousands of people, and he seems to have made hundreds of friends.

We'll never know what else he could have done because a murderer took his life a year ago. A memorial service was held for him and 90k-100k people filled a stadium, evidence of his huge influence.

President of Hillsdale College, Larry Arnn, spoke at the memorial and claimed him as a friend. Skeptical of Charlie's reputation at their first meeting 12 years earlier, Dr. Arnn grew to admire him because he "replaced his opinions with knowledge."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Responders

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Two 110-floor towers collapsed into ruin, killing every person inside them, after two hijacked planes hit them in NYC. Other buildings were likewise destroyed. You may have seen the videos of New Yorkers running from them that morning, running for their lives.

But some ran toward the disaster. Those "first responders" chose selfless courage to try to give assistance to thousands of victims. Many came from a distance, while FDNY (New York's fire department) rushed in massively. They lost 343 of their people.

Just days after 9/11, a writer walked through the area and gave a report here: firefighters from out of town working 12-hour shifts to sort through the rubble - which included human remains. "I filled 25 bags with parts," said one of them.

There were long lines of people filling out identification surveys with details about their missing loved ones, like dental x-rays and what sort of mustache they wore. 

Years and years of terrible effects followed the terrible day.

from "South Toward Hell After September 11"

Took it back

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

In a modern version of Islamic warfare, just 25 years ago nineteen suicidal hijackers used airplanes as weapons on us. A total of 2,977 persons were murdered in a surprise, unprovoked attack on September 11, 2001. 

Americans were in shock. I remember a radio announcer early that day saying, "We're at war with somebody!"

As information came out, we were inspired by the passengers on flight #93. From phone calls that some of them made, we know that they decided to fight back against the hijackers. A group of them, strangers to each other, made a plan. Then one of them could be heard to say, "Let's roll!" The plane crashed in a rural area before it could strike its target in Washington, D.C.

"In less than 30 minutes, they gathered information, discussed their options, took a vote, and acted on the decision . . in one of the most extraordinary acts of civic engagement in American history."

from The Free Press

(cont'd tomorrow)

Islamic conquest

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

If you never learned about the Barbary wars or the Muslim slave trade, you have lots of company because often it's only our own history of slavery that is taught. It was abolished here in the 1860's and we've been trying to rectify the wrongs, but sometimes it's implied that white people were alone in the guilt. That's just incorrect.

Starting in the early 600's AD, Islam spread quickly across the Middle East, Arabian peninsula, northern Africa, even to what is now Spain and Portugal, by warfare and violence. Much of the vast conquered (map) land was Christian. Slavery was practiced throughout the empire.

The Christian pope in the year 1095 sent a message to Christian kings in Europe: "your brethren who live in the East are in urgent need of your help!" Europe did rally to come help Christians of the Middle East regain their land, and thus began the Crusades.

Given this history, someone on X asks the question, "Why don't history books refer to Muslims as colonizers, oppressors, genociders, slave traders or imperialists?" Did those history books in your school or your kids' school apply these descriptions to Western civilization alone? 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Barbary pirates

Capturing, buying, selling, and enslaving people has been done throughout human history, in every region and among every race. Before the transatlantic slave trade (1600's through 1800's), there was an earlier trade in persons.

From the time that Mohammed started a new religion in the 600's AD in the Middle East, slavery was commonly practiced in Muslim lands until the 20th century. As many as 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved. 

Raids on Europe (ex: 100 captured in an Irish village) and piracy on the seas were typical methods of capture. Pirates from the Barbary Coast (North Africa) were justified by the Tripoli ambassador who said the Koran told Muslims to "make slaves of all they could take as prisoners."

They demanded blackmail payments from America and Europe as a purchase of peace, and originally we complied. But eventually President Thomas Jefferson refused, resulting in the Barbary Wars (image).

(cont'd tomorrow)

Meta will pay

Being in the "crosshairs of the attorneys general" of an eventual total of 48 states must have been a crisis for Meta. The states claimed that Meta knowingly harmed their kids and teens by intentionally "cultivating addiction to boost corporate profits".

Evidence in the lawsuits must have been strong. Meta denies all. But instead of pursuing innocence in this matter, the social media company decided to settle with their accusers--to the tune of about $18 billion.

Also included in the deal are protective safety measures for youth, which they say "set a new industry standard, building on our longstanding efforts to empower parents and support teens" (their what??). They want other social medias to follow their lead in these safety limits. Of course they do. They wouldn't want teenagers to leave their platforms and go to one which didn't install limits.

from CBS News

Space Academy

As with the other branches of our military, there may soon be a U.S. Space Academy for the relatively new Space Force.

A commission chaired by NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman will figure out what that should look like and report back to the president in 120 days. We need leaders of strength, skill, and character in the vitally important domain of space who will secure our interests.

"The nation must prepare the next generation of astronauts, scientists, engineers, operators, entrepreneurs, civil servants and warfighters and ensure that they are capable of advancing American interests in space."

Graduates of this top-tier educational institution (with free tuition) may choose going into the U.S. Space Force, but most will go to NASA and civilian positions.

from The White House

Tunnels vision

 Cities get more crowded, and road traffic gets more frustrating. There's the irritation of driving in that "soul-destroying" traffic, and then there's the irritation of arriving far later than the distance should require. 

The Boring Company was formed to relieve some of that pain. Its mission: "solve traffic, enable point-to-point transportation, and transform cities." They say that roads must go 3-D. Flying cars are not as practical as tunnels, which are weather-proof and don't conflict with existing transport or the valuable urban surface land above. Las Vegas now has an underground loop, and a Nashville loop is under construction.

All its advantages can be achieved only if you have a reliable, effective, relatively low-cost way to tunnel underneath the city. "Prufrock" is their solution. See how it works:

"Boring, it's what we do."

from Investopedia

Starbase LA

Starship is the vessel that will take humanity to the moon, then to Mars, and then beyond--according to the folks at SpaceX. The big project of becoming a "multi-planetary species" continued to move forward with the official big announcement last week.

A much bigger spaceport is needed; the decision has been made. It will be located in Louisiana.

Ten launch pads will eventually make about 30 launches per day--thousands of launches per year when the site is fully developed (image). 

That's the plan. This site will include more than launch pads: propellant farms, a propellant-production facility, and employee housing. Additionally, there will be an airport, deep water shipping capability, electricity generation. 

Everything depends on the successful development of Starship. Orbit will hopefully be achieved with the next test flight (possibly in September), and then the other milestones must follow, including the re-usable heat shield and re-fueling while in space.

from Space

Back to TX

As you know, Starship landed in the Indian Ocean in one piece after its 13th test flight. It fortunately remained afloat til SpaceX could recover and move it to a safe place where they could look it over . . and then they decided to actually bring it back to Starbase, Texas, half a world away.

How would you do that? In the video below, there's someone who knows.

He describes himself as a "shipping guy," meaning that he knows what will be involved in transporting a big spaceship across oceans. He mentions that, in spite of its reputation of being huge, Starship is not huge compared to the huger ship that will bring it back, a "semi-submersible heavy transport" vessel by the name of Forte (pronounced for-tay).

Glitch

Folks, the Blogspot platform which supports this blog has been glitchy. Some of my posts are publishing at random, inappropriate times. There was a new one today, Sunday, as an example, which was supposed to have appeared next Wednesday. The glitch is probably temporary. You may or may not have noticed it.

I'll keep on top of it and make corrections when the platform allows me access this week, though I'll be traveling.

Thanks for being patient. The problem will eventually be solved by the Blogspot people.

Rags to riches

Forbes picked 250 individuals to celebrate as our "greatest living immigrants" on America's 250th birthday. Note that these are Forbes' choices, so over half of them are billionaires. You could guess who some of them are.

Why did they come to the US? In the magazine's words, "this is the place where people come to build a new life for themselves and their children." They did that, and they did much more.

"Rags to riches" stories do happen, and Jensen Huang can vouch for that. His parents sent him and his older 10-year-old brother - alone - from Thailand to Kentucky before they made the trip. Those early years were tough, the family poor and the boy lonely, cleaning toilets in local diners at night.

At the age of 30, Jensen and a couple of friends wanted to "build chips that can handle intense visuals for PC's." He had the vision to believe that "graphics chips would someday do far more than make video games look good." Two years later, their company Nvidia launched the first GPU.

Today he's the company's CEO as well as its co-founder, and Nvidia is the world's most valued company.

.

from Tech Startups

Still investing

After months of talks, Louisiana's governor has announced that a new rocket launch center will be built along the state's marshy coast by the world's richest man, Elon Musk, a South Africa-born immigrant to America. (That is, by one of his companies.)

SpaceX will invest $100 billion into the facility and start launching rockets in three years. The site of 100,000+ acres will eventually include ten launch pads and, according to Elon, will be the world's largest launch site: a self-sustaining spaceport.

Louisiana will give tax incentives to SpaceX, which will give $25 million to the community for regional planning plus that sum in cash every year to Vermilion Parish for 25 years. The deal includes SpaceX hiring for 3,000+ new jobs at almost twice the average salary in the parish.

from NOLA

Makes yogurt 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

What a positive impact this immigrant made in his new country. Employees kept their jobs. They accomplished something big and had the joy of it. They built a new Little League field in town. For every new Chobani hire, ten more jobs were created in the town. Every one of them enjoyed new wealth. 

He didn't take a course on how to create vision or how to motivate his employees or how to draw up a business plan. As an intuitive, natural-born entrepreneur, he saw what needed to be done and kept doing it. 

Only a small percentage of people are willing to take big financial risk and put enough hard work into it to make it successful. Today he still invests time and money into the business, even billions of dollars.

Hamdi is another in the long tradition of immigrants who come to America and bloom in the liberty. 

Makes yogurt 2

 (cont'd from yesterday's post)

In his homeland of Turkey, Hamdi's nomad family lived in tents, raised sheep and goats, and made cheese and yogurt. Upon emigrating to the US, he judged that we had only inferior yogurt. He thought many Americans would buy his better product.

He bought an 85-year-old factory with borrowed money ($700,000) and had a meeting with four employees that he rehired. His only idea was to paint the walls white. Mike (one of the four) said, "Hamdi, tell me you have more ideas than that!"

To make enough money to keep this business operating, they would have to make and sell a lot of yogurt, at least enough to cover all their expenses and pay the employees. They did that. Eventually Chobani ("shepherd" in Turkish) captured half of the $8 billion yogurt market in America.

Only one hint of how they did it is given in yesterday's video: Hamdi and his original employees worked day, night, and weekends - for five years.

from Substack

(cont'd tomorrow)

Makes yogurt

Hamdi, originally from Turkey, drove down a dead-end road in upstate New York and toured the factory of a failed business. He met the people. He had no experience. He took a serious risk.

Listen to this inspiring story.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Recovered!

SpaceX was ecstatic about the landing of the upper stage of Starship after its 13th test flight last month. It was on target in the Indian Ocean, it landed upright, and it was floating in the sea--rather than exploding or sinking, which had happened in all 12 previous test flights. That meant engineers at SpaceX could view and study it for valuable data after its flight.

It kept right on floating for days, and then for weeks. They had not expected this potential bounty of information and were unprepared to bring it back to Starbase TX. Rough seas made recovery difficult, but eventually they managed to bring it into a port about 24 days after it landed. SpaceX engineers will go there to inspect it.

Why was recovery both difficult and expensive for SpaceX? Watch below.

from USA Today

"We're exempt" 3

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Compassion" justifies the sanctuary movement in their opinion. Our laws limiting who and how many may enter the US are an outrageous violation of the virtue of compassion, they seem to think. Instead of working to change those laws they consider un-compassionate (as our system allows), they choose to defy the lawfully created rules.

That's very bad policy. It won't work for them and it won't work for America.

Of course we need laws, and of course the laws should be enforced. Citizens who want completely open borders make a claim that is irrational, and they have left common sense behind. No other country's borders are open in that way, and for good reason.

If "no one is illegal [image]," then no one is safe either.

"We're exempt" 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

A 32-year-old woman, Kate Steinle, died in July of 2015 while walking in San Francisco. She was with her father and a friend when a man, Jose Garcia-Zarate, shot her in the back. He was in the US illegally and had a long criminal record.

He had earlier been arrested on a drug warrant. US immigration officials asked San Francisco police to hold him for a couple days, but they dropped charges and released him. Kate was shot less than three months later. He said at his murder trial that it was an accident. The jury found him innocent of that but guilty of a minor charge. Then an appeals court threw out that charge. He was only deported--for the seventh time.

How could a man here illegally break our laws, kill one of us, and get home free?

Under our previous president's administration, immigrants illegally crossing our border were set free and told to show up later in court for processing. One example in 2022 from Venezuela went to New York (sanctuary city), was housed at the Crown Plaza hotel, and then requested to be flown to Georgia. Taxpayers paid for his flight, then in Georgia he brutally killed a nursing student, Laken Riley (photo).

from Imprimis

(cont'd tomorrow)