Pilots' dilemma

Just two years ago, airlines were facing a very serious shortage of pilots. They expected the shortage to get much worse because demand for air travel was supposed to double in twenty years.

Nobody predicted what actually happened. The volume of airline business dropped 96% just three months ago and they're not close to recovered yet. The big airlines expect to offer about one-third fewer flights next year.

That pilot shortage is gone. Airlines are offering early-retirement plans to pilots between the ages of 60 and 65 (mandated retirement age). If enough of them take it, the airlines will only have to lay off . . ten to fifteen thousand pilots.

Biggest concern of the pilots? If their employer airline goes under, the early-out deals will probably never be paid.

Change of mind

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Universities originated in the European Middle Ages (roughly 900 to 1400 A.D.) when Christianity was the primary cultural influence. 

"Natural History" was a common course of study, scholars and students working to understand the natural world and its ordered principles. Being made in the Creator's image, they thought it reasonable that we humans could use our gift of rationality to understand the rest of creation.

Now, however, universities in general take an increasingly hostile position toward Christian views, going beyond nature & science to morality. Many university graduates assume Christian values are inferior and foreign to their own. 

Tom Holland (yesterday's post) assumed that . . until, as a historian, he studied the ancient pre-Christian cultures he was attracted to. He found that his own deeply held values came from the Christian faith, and that they transformed that cruel ancient world.

He calls the writings of the New Testament (Bible) revolutionary, a depth charge into the ancient world. His latest book tells the story, not from a Christian but rather from a secular viewpoint. Can't wait to read it.

Not sacrifcial

Re-post from 2018

From childhood, Tom Holland loved the exciting gods and warriors of ancient Greece and Rome. They were more fun than the Christian God of the church he grew up in. Later the books he read, like Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, confirmed for him that the values and people he admired came from the ancient classics.

Tom became a historian, looking deeply into the accounts and writings of his heroes like Julius Caesar and Leonidas. But he learned enough to discover that their values were not his values. Leonidas supported "murderous eugenics", and Caesar "killed a million Gauls and enslaved a million more."

Tom found that his own values were in sympathy with the God who came to earth to live a sacrificial life to save the people he loved. "In the ancient world, it was the role of gods [to inflict] punishment – not to suffer it themselves." Those gods would not inspire people like the Vanderpools to live sacrificially for others (yesterday's post).

He says that he was wrong about Christianity. "It took me a long time to realize my morals are not Greek or Roman, but thoroughly, and proudly, Christian." 

Ditto for most of the West.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Sacrificial

Re-post from 2018

David and Laurie Vanderpool live in Haiti; they expect to die there. David is a surgeon. They provide clean water, medical care, and food to the poor. They could have air conditioning, fine food, comfort and entertainment in America. But to give their lives to the Haitian poor, they had to give it up. They're Christian missionaries.

They are attacked sometimes by those who practice voodoo. It's a powerful force. "My wife has been held at gunpoint and pistol-whipped. And had a knife to her throat. I know to American ears that sounds sort of, that sounds horrible, you know?" Yes it does.

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Why would anyone live like this when they could have lived a comfortable life? Because they believe God wants them there, and because they think the good they do for the people of Haiti is worth it. 

They see beauty in a life of sacrifice. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

No cobalt

Three years ago I posted that Tesla was going to find a new source for the cobalt required in electric vehicle (EV) batteries. Most of the world's supply came from mines in the Congo, where children worked under dangerous conditions.

Now they've gone beyond re-sourcing the cobalt . . to eliminating cobalt altogether. And that is going to give Tesla another leg-up in the EV car business.

Big electric batteries put EV's out of the reach of many car buyers. They make EV's roughly 30% more expensive than internal combustion engine (ICE) cars to purchase (though they're cheaper to run). Cobalt made the price so high, but no longer.

Tesla's new cobalt-free lithium iron phosphate battery is already being used, with the Chinese government's approval, at the new factory in Shanghai. Purchase price of a new Tesla is going to go down. 

Traditional cars are going to lose some of their advantage. Let's see what happens.

from Forbes

5G smarter

"Objects become apps," is how AT&T's Chief Technical Officer describes the future with 5G (fifth generation). Your smartphone might disappear, replaced by a wristband or a pair of glasses.

image

Much faster internet will mean many more services can move online. Virtual reality and autonomous driving technologies will be enabled.

From 2007 to 2019, AT&T's data transmission increased by 47000%. In the next five years they expect it to grow another 5x.

He thinks 5G may give us geofencing, the ability to wall off data in a home or a conference for more security. Home computing networks could be both secure and portable wherever you take them.

from Mind Matters News

Climate fear 6

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Not much has been said in media about those two methods (yesterday's post) that could mitigate global warming, sun screens and solar power generators in space. But if Chinese scientists do put the latter into effect soon, media will have to report it and we'll hear about it.

More methods are mentioned in Weathering Climate Change which might help prolong our climate stability.

Aerosols could be injected into the stratosphere to reduce global warming by 1.5 degrees C. Harvard University has such an experiment in its future plans. It could be somewhat cheaper, thus more doable, but there might be unintended consequences.

Carbon dioxide (CO2) could be filtered from the atmosphere and stored underground. The technology exists but is expensive.

Various agricultural changes have been suggested such as reform of rice paddy management and red meat alternatives. Ross doesn't mention Allan Savory's work, but I think it should be considered. 

Climate fear 5

(contd from yesterdays post)

Dr. Ross thinks our beneficial, extreme climate stability is ending. In just the last 70 years, the heat effect from human agriculture and industry went beyond offsetting the cooling trend, all the way to a net heat increase.

Draconian demands of environmental activists are beyond what governments can deliver. But Ross says some things could be done to mitigate the danger for a few hundred or maybe thousands of years, if the technology and funding can be achieved.

Some sort of sun screen could shield us from part of the sun's radiation. Even with extremely thin material, the cost of placing it into space is estimated at many billions of dollars. A likely stability problem would have to be overcome as well.

A second proposal would place solar power generators in space. Photovoltaic cells would be made by 3-D printers in space and assembled robotically. Solar energy would be transmitted by microwaves and then converted to electricity on earth. Potentially, solar power generating systems in space could reduce or eliminate the need for fossil fuels. 

Sounds far fetched, but a Chinese team of scientists plans to send the first such systems into space between 2021 and 2025.

from Weathering Climate Change

(cont'd tomorrow)

Climate fear 4

(contd from yesterdays post)

Over the last 9500 years, earth's mean temperature average varied by only a couple of degrees, represented in the right half inch of this graph below. The previous 80,000 years were subject to wild swings of temperature. 

image

Extreme stability enabled human civilization to flourish. Agriculture took off after weather became predictable. Fewer people had to spend most of their lives finding food. A tiny percentage of our population today grows and prepares food for all of us. The rest spend their time building, writing, doing science, research, discovery, art, medicine, digital innovation - whatever they choose. 

We're sure lucky that our climate stabilized. Or . . the Creator fine-tuned our planet home for human flourishing and growth.

(from Weathering Climate Change)

(contd tomorrow)

Climate fear 3

Dr. Hugh Ross of Reasons to Believe published a new book, Weathering Climate Change, on the same topic as last Friday's post. He agrees with Michael Shellenberger on his primary points, that climate change is indeed happening and that environmental alarmists have whipped up counterproductive hysteria over it.

A little history will help. For over two million years ice ages have periodically taken over, spreading sheets of ice and snow on 2/3 of the planet's surface. They happen every ~100,000 years, triggered when earth's mean temperature rises 2-3C over average. Ice cap melt leads to more precipitation; more snow starts a runaway cold trend because it reflects the sun's heat.

A new ice age would have started a couple thousand years ago, but human activity produced a warming trend to offset the historically normal cooling trend.  It resulted in 9,500 years of extraordinary temperature stability . . which is going to end.

(cont'd tomorrow)

Climate fear 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Shellenberger's book, Apocalypse Never: Why Environmental Alarmism Hurts Us All, is being praised by environmentalists who agree that climate rhetoric whips up inappropriate, non-factual fear.

Mr. Shellenberger wants to correct false claims of alarmists. Here are a few of his points:

• climate change is not making natural disasters worse
• carbon emissions are declining in most rich nations
• wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels

As a consistent activist, he's been on a mission over the past few years to save nuclear plants, which are emissions-free.

Much more information is available at the website of his organization, Environmental Progress.

Climate fear 1

Maybe you noticed that recently some celebrities are publishing books that seem to deny a cause they used to believe in. Today's post is about a climate environmentalist who did that. 

Michael Shellenberger does have Climate (global warming) credibility. Back in 2008 Time magazine named him a hero of the environment. 

But now he is apologizing for scaring people: On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.

About half the people surveyed believe that climate change is going to lead to extinction of human beings, all because of fear tactics used by climate change activists according to Shellenberger.

He wrote an article summarizing his argument and published it in Forbes magazine. Forbes left it up for a day, Sunday, and then took it down. Why?

(cont'd tomorrow)

Repair 2

So . . ot my laptop ack after nineteen days, wic tey say is averae. But . . new tins wron. Keys dont all work, and more. So sorry for te disruption! Will ave to take it back to repair. 😟

Bankrupt 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

NBC News is running an ongoing list of major retail bankruptcies since the coronavirus quarantine. 

Many were already struggling before they had to close down their venues. Some may sell off assets or re-organize financially in another way so they can keep part of their business going.

Some recognizable names from the list:

• Gold's Gym - they own and operate 700 gyms
• JCPenney - this century-old retailer plans to publish closing dates for its stores
• Hertz - car rentals
• GNC vitamin and supplements - operates almost 3,000 stores
• CEC which operates Chuck-E-Cheese

Bankrupt 1

Plague and disease have hit human civilizations before. 

The very worst, the Black Death in the mid-1300's, killed 75-200 million people over a few years - when the world only held about 475 million. Imagine if the U.S. lost a similar percentage, roughly 100 million people, today to Covid-19.

During pandemics of the past, governments did not force financial disaster on citizens. They would probably have starved to death if they had to abandon their work. But this time retail shops, restaurants & bars, laundromats, janitors, gyms, hair stylists, etc. were forced to give up their living.

Catastrophe has claimed some of them. Of course it did. How many weeks could they hang on with no income? By mid-May there were already 100,000 business failures in the U.S.

"Tearful, heartfelt announcements about small-business closures are popping up on websites and Facebook pages around the country. Analysts warn this is only the beginning of the worst wave of small-business bankruptcies and closures since the Great Depression."

(cont'd tomorrow)

Juneteenth 2

One hundred local churches in Kansas City, Missouri, came together on Juneteenth (06-19-20) to stand for goodness and against racism. They took this stand on Troost Avenue.

A 365-acre plantation to the east once dehumanized its slaves. Later, minorities were kept on the east side. Laws changed but Troost Avenue still symbolizes the city's segregation.

 Thousands of believers formed a human prayer chain that stretched for more than 10 miles. 

Juneteenth 1

Christianity professes that racism (race determines superiority or inferiority) violates the Biblical doctrine of "imago dei," which says that all humanity was created by God in His own image. It follows that all people are uniquely and inherently valuable.

So churches stand against the sin of racism. Atlanta churches came together earlier this month to do that. 

After a young black man was fatally shot by police in a Wendy's parking lot, the white female police chief of Atlanta resigned from her position. She was replaced by a black interim chief. 

Churches demonstrating in the streets of Atlanta stopped to pray for this man in his new position.

Tesla way up

Back in February of this year, you learned that Tesla stock was rising fast. The rise continued to the point that Tesla is now the most valuable car company, even beyond Toyota.

Mars 2020

If NASA's new off-world helicopter (last Friday's post) is going to land on Mars next February, when does it have to leave earth? 

The answer is that it will launch this summer. To get there by then, the mission must launch between July 17 and August 5, or it will have to wait two more years for the right timing. 

NASA made it one of their top priorities to keep the mission moving forward even through the coronavirus quarantine. Office space at Kennedy Space Center was set apart so the team could keep social distancing while working, and a special aircraft shuttled team members between California and Florida when necessary.

Mars rover "Perseverance" will look for evidence of past life on Mars, and will bring samples back to earth. There's much to do before we land humans on the moon (2024) and eventually Mars. They say:

"All that we build, all that we study, all that we do, prepares us to go."

A thirteen-year-old nerd (self-described) named the rover:

udy

Mars helicopter

An airman once told me that a helicopter flies by "beating the air into submission." It needs air, denser air than an airplane; that's why helicopters can't fly as high as airplanes where the air is less dense. 

But NASA has come up with a helicopter that can fly on Mars, where pressure on the surface of the planet is only about 1% of pressure on earth's surface.

Mimi Aung is NASA's lead engineer developing this helicopter (named "Ingenuity"). It will land on Mars next February with the rover and take three test flights - the first helicopter to fly on another world.

from Space

Repair

My laptop is being repaired! That's why you've seen no new posts for two days. Hopefully, that ends tomorrow. Thanks for being patient.

Tech & Caterpillar

Technology has been freeing people from routine factory jobs they don't want to do for a long time (ex: those big red robots building Teslas). We've come a lot further than that now. With vast amounts of data taken from cameras, vehicles can drive themselves.

A mining company has found a perfect use for that technology. Rio Pinto wants very much to mine copper over a mile below the earth's surface in Arizona. It's 175 degrees there and too dangerous to send human beings into that environment to work. 

But Caterpillar Inc. saw an opportunity. Loaders, excavators, other robotic gear have been loaded with thousands of sensors reporting a gazillion data points, and AI analyzes the data. They have a fleet of 275 autonomous mining vehicles that find the ore, get it out, and transport it to the surface - supervised by technicians hundreds of miles away.

Results: their autonomous fleet has hauled 1.9 billion tons for mining companies . . with zero human injuries. These things are big. A tire is twice the size of an SUV.

Tech & McD's

When you go to McDonald's, do you go inside or do you drive-thru? Apparently a lot of us don't want to get out of the car. Surprisingly, most -- a whopping 70% -- of McDonald's sales come from the drive-thru.

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So the drive-thru window is already McDonald's great strength. That segment of its business deserves the executives' attention, and they made a big move to make it even stronger. They bought Dynamic Yield, an "artificial intelligence powered personalization platform operator," to improve it.

AI technology now allows the drive-thru menu to change and adapt to the circumstances and the customer. Suggestions are made as the customer orders, like a combo meal or an oreo mcflurry on a hot day. AI can anticipate what would likely appeal.

Shorter lines, customer satisfaction, and more sales result.

Now and then

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

"Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own." 

There's no doubt that everyone has challenges that they're battling. But there are blessings to be thankful for, too, and some that might be overlooked are in this re-post from four years ago:

"The last  hundred years in America packed in huge change. Our lives are different in some interesting ways than lives were in 1915. The Bureau of Labor Statistics compiled some of those ways:

• Life expectancy today 79 years, then 54 years
• A third of our population today is under 25 years, then half of the population
• 1% births are outside hospitals today, then 87%
• In today's dollars, the average full-time worker today makes $50k/year, then $16k
• Clothing today is just 3% of our budget, then 13%
• 85% of the population completes high school today, then 18%
• In 1915 the typical work week was 55+ hours

To sum up, we work less today but have much more than they did then. Why? Because the last century (overall) was full of innovation.  Wealth was created by capitalism. Today's culture is much wealthier and healthier - while working less.

HS grad thanks

Dennis Prager has some good ideas about lessons to be learned from the COVID-19 quarantine, especially as it applies to high school graduates. Gratitude is one of them. (In case you wonder whether this is going to be political, it isn't.)

Jobs news

After months of bad news about disease, the economy, racial strife, here's something real good as reported by CNN:

"The [U.S.] job market may be recovering well ahead of schedule."

In April, unemployment was over 14%. Economists worried that unemployment might climb to 20% (recession level) in May because of quarantine-induced business slowdown and failure. But the U.S. "unemployment rate surprisingly fell to 13.3% in May, as the economy gained 2.5 million jobs." 

Why were experts' predictions so far off? Because this economic downturn, unlike normal ones, was engineered on purpose by government. Economists had no experience with this kind, because it's the first to happen.

"There is no underselling it, this was a huge surprise," said one economist. 

Faith bond

In Nashville TN on Saturday night, a peaceful protestor and a policeman started talking. Turned out, they were both Christians. 

"In the midst of Sat's confrontation between protestors & officers at the Central Precinct, Officer Garren Hoskins and the protestor in front of him began talking about their shared Christian faith. Hoskins asked the man to join him in prayer. He put his sign down. They prayed."

Somebody snapped a picture and tweeted it.

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Still a thing 2

(cont'd from yesterday's post)

Pittsburgh is over seven hours by car away from Chicago (467 miles). That's an all-day trip, which will cost you $26 - $51 just in gasoline. If you need to make that trip, would you pay  about $93 . . to be there in 75 minutes?

Mid-Ohio Regional Planning Commission (MORPC) sponsored a study to answer questions like that, to find out if it would be worthwhile to build a hyperloop system to connect these cities.

The study found that over 30 years a hyperloop route would result in the following:

• 1.9 billion autos shifted to hyperloop passengers
• 2.4 million tons of reduced CO2 emissions (over $126 million in emissions savings)
• 450 million commercial truck vehicle hours traveled will be eliminated
• $300 billion in overall economic benefits (nearly $19 billion of that in direct transportation benefits

The conclusion of this study? A hyperloop route between these cities will be successful. Ohio officials want to see it happen. They're a little closer to their vision now.

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Still a thing

 Hyperloop transportation was proposed by Elon Musk as a new form of transportation in 2012. He didn't want to do it himself (create a company to make it a reality) but others did take the idea and started creating it "from the ground up." Progress is slow, but hyperloop is still a thing.

Multiple layers of government have to be onboard to make this new concept happen. They want assurance of safety, economic viability, cooperation from their voter bases, etc. 

It's so appealing: to move passengers or cargo between big cities safely at near-air-speed, with no carbon emissions or exhaust, nearly noise-free, and at affordable cost. (Go to label "Hyperloop" for background.) Pods move through near-vacuum tubes using magnetic levitation.

A new study in the U.S. evaluates the feasibility of building a hyperloop to link Chicago-Columbus-Pittsburgh. 

(cont'd tomorrow)

Back in space

Note: some of our cities are in crisis and I don't plan to address it here. But . . Americans and our global friends, please pray for justice, for goodness, and for truth to be revealed.

Right in the middle of disease and disturbance, we have something to celebrate. Astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley are safe at the International Space Station (ISS). NASA's SpaceX mission Demo-2 was a success.

Thousands of people worked for that outcome. Elon Musk called it a dream come true. NASA Chief Jim Bridenstine was praying (and so was I). 

Falcon 9 rocket lifted Crew Dragon spacecraft into orbit on Saturday afternoon, it circled the earth once, and then it docked with the ISS Sunday morning (video of the docking).

Elon was ecstatic.

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