Space Debris Today

 

Very exciting! SpaceX are now one step closer to their goal of a manned spaceflight with a 100% fatality rate

[image or embed]

— pixelatedboat aka “mr bluesky” (@pixelatedboat.bsky.social) January 16, 2025 at 9:11 PM

What I’m thinnin’ ‘bout - Kings of Confirmation Bias - The World bids Biden adieu

 From ‪Jack Vaughan - USA‬ ‪@jackvaughan.bsky.social‬

https://bsky.app/profile/jackvaughan.bsky.social/post/3lfugzary2c2s

Reading the news: A Euphoric Tech Industry Is Ready to Celebrate Trump and Itself ...

But their Giddiness is based on Confirmation bias that misleads....

Last year was notable because it was the first time that Republicans won the popular vote since 2004 ...

But the victory does not stand out compared with much larger shifts in previous elections, like the 25-point turn toward Democrats in Jimmy Carter’s 1976 victory or the 23-point flip toward Republicans in Richard Nixon’s 1968 win.

However the medias generally go with the Landslide narrative - which is easy for sports-attuned public to go with too ...

After 4 years of incessant Trump trumpeting and Biden bashing the populi were worn out...Biden too!

The drama of quickly switching in new candidate confused as many as it enthused...and Dems lost. But Election Narrative takes form of "Landslide".

The 23-pt. flip when Richard Nixon was elected President of the United States: He received 43.4 percent of the total vote, which represented a margin of victory over the Democratic candidate, Hubert Humphrey, of a scant seven-tenths of one percent of all votes cast.

Humphrey campaign did not start until April. Leaving 7 months to work with. And was gaining in November. Harris had by comparison had less than 4 months.

Biden cites Eisenhower in farewell address. Warns of Tech Oligarchs - as Ike warned of Military-Industrial Complex in 1960. It's the Oligarho-Technologists' power in realm of Media Biden finds most concerning.

NYTimes Related

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/16/us/politics/trump-tech-inauguration-parties.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/15/us/politics/full-transcript-of-president-bidens-farewell-address.html

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/01/16/us/politics/2024-election-washington-gop.html

What I’m thinnin’ ‘bout – Peeves that nag - and some Ecstatic Documentation

 

Hit the road, Jack - The exit of hot shot legal eagle Jack Smith brings out a pet peeve long nagging me. News is based on something being new and important and dramatically so, so there is a bias in the press room toward building up a figure for news purposes. Such was the case with Smith and Robert Mueller. Each having a touch of Sam Waterson [or Abe Lincoln] about them but in the light of history rather thin in terms of effect. Not saying they had it easy, just saying they failed as redemptors. And the press just ran with the easy take at the start of the interludes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/11/us/politics/jack-smith-special-counsel-resigns.html

Why am I including this stuff here? I am ratcheting back from Facebook – and this is why: Meta to End Fact-Checking Program in Shift Ahead of Trump Term -The social networking giant will stop using third-party fact checkers and instead rely on users to add notes to posts. Zuckerberg has no spine – and he joins a parade of appeasers. I can’t in good conscience help him make his money.

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/07/technology/meta-fact-checking-facebook.html

More of the same, Chairman Jordan’s report had an audience of one Elon 'Lonely Boy' Musk. Yes, Zuck’s Nerd crush.

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/10/congressional-report-accuses-jordan-musk-of-weaponizing-govt-to-silence-critics/

Hey let’s dim the lights on the vitriol, Vaughan. Sam Moore passed. No greater live act I am sure than Sam & Dave in their prime. Otis Redding, it’s said, gave up the top spot because they were so hard to follow. Ecstatic Documentation follows … When Something is Wrong/Hold on I'm Coming ... 

Finally, already - Outlook for internet data policy: Still not so rosy - Shifts in internet policy lurk as a new presidential administration takes hold. Likely FCC and FTC leaders are taking test-spins. Some chance this may be another shift on the teeter totter that is 21-st Century Two-Party politics…or something different this time.  I wrote on the topic on Medium to kick of the New Year January 3.

https://medium.com/@jackivaughan/outlook-for-internet-data-policy-still-not-so-rosy-59819d38fc06

The year in reverse

The year here was 2024 - forty years after 1984. The blog chugged on. Blogs are often a repository for anything passing by. Like podcasts, they assume an endlessly involved reader that isn't actually there. Unlike podcasts, blogs don't have a core viewership stuck in commutes. This year, more than others, this blog went with the flow. This year, creative efforts shifted outside the blog, pulling together disparate poems into a collection. So, the opportunity arose to casually and sporadically carry the blog hither and yon.

Foto Descriptor: please create an image of a starry messenger coming to earth, cleaving a brutalist architecture building while a waif like Keene-like child stands in the foreground.

From the Vault 2011 Again - As Assad revs up and flies to Moscow

Archives When buffers overflow their psychic boundaries, rage is feared by peace lovers. In Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, the simmer and pop of ethnic churn cycles always held the threat of breakout. Jerusalem has had these qualities. In fact, Iraq post Saddham is supposed to be a model. News goes bang in the middle but it happens at the edges too.

http://radio-weblogs.com/0115044/2004/04/15.html

Mystery Ice Station - YouTube Vault

the plane bumped about slightly off its

trolley as it gathered speed and lifted.

the lights of the field arched and

streaked. in tracy's view these were

great candle-powered lamps.

the lights - parallel and dance - recall the

teacher's musical staff chalk

contraption he would as a youth play

with on the blackboard after school.

supposed to be being punished.

[Music]

then tracy was in the air and he saw the

canyon's lighter rock strata receding

across the darkness.

the mystery ice squadron boys were out

there. the shroud valley boys too.

he continued to push the throttle while

pirate tearing asleep

near a

snooze 






listen carefullyto the engine

it was difficult music

very white in the watch tower with

maylocks and cigarettes predicting the

dam was key and the aptly named fog

shrouded cast beyond

texaco super b male left to come carry

545

passing arrows 555.

the radio chatter crisp he could see the

light of the tubes that glow through the

enforced balsa dash

even in the darkness the metal hall

shined cleanly it was ship's shape

he studied distant cloud systems he

began to protectively circle the dam.

a water spirit rose up dancing from the

channel it arose a glossy bloom

spinning integral in its own vortex

it walked in a whisk toward tv ranch

growing darker

powered and appeared by a set of mystery

squadron radio wavelets

[Music]

Strongman Trump Returns

 

Democrats lose Senate. Harris wins in VA, MD, Del., NY, NJ, Conn, RI, Mass, NH, Vermont, Ill, Minn, Colo, NM, Wash,Ore, Calif.- 

Neural Nets Nab Nobel

Hopfield circuit

I was pretty lucky to cover neural networks on occasions for EDN Product News in the 1990s. I'd edited articles on the topic previously for ESD. So always paid close attention  .. and more so  as machine learning increasingly concentrated on neural engines. So, when The Nobel Prize for Physics went to Hopfield and Hinton, I shifted from on project and wrote an old style tech news story. A bit of a pleasant rush, especially to complete for Miller Time for my Progressive Gauge Blog.  Here I insert some images that basically show neurals. Admit the story lacked that. JV

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences today announced that neural network science pioneers John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton will be awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics for 2024. The two researchers are cited for “foundational discoveries and inventions that enable machine learning with artificial neural networks.”

The Nobel award is a capstone of sorts for two premier researchers in neural networks. This computer technology has gained global attention in recent years as the underpinning engine for large-scale advances in computer vision, language processing, prediction and human-machine interaction.

Sunnyland Slim - Everytime I Get To Drinkin' (Live Video - 1969)