Bayou Renaissance Man

Here's an interesting and impressive video showing how giant ship anchor chains are forged.

A lot of people assume that the flukes, or "hooks", at the end of an anchor chain is what holds a ship in place.  Actually, that's seldom the case.  They're there to allow the anchor to "dig in" to the seabed, which in turn enables the chain to pay out in approximately a straight line from that point back to the vessel deploying it.  Usually, what keeps a major vessel anchored is the sheer weight of anchor chain paid out by the ship.  If, say, the water depth is 50 feet, you might find ten, twenty or even more times as much anchor chain paid out, laid out along the sea bed to act as a living "brake" against the forces of wind and tide.  The part of the chain that curves up from the sea bed to the vessel acts as a shock absorber, lessening the direct strain of the ship on the chain lying along the sea bed.  That chain weighs so much that to overcome its inertia and move whatever is attached to it takes a great deal of effort.  Even so, a big enough force (say, a major storm) can certainly accomplish that - which is why so many ships put to sea if a big storm approaches, to ride it out at a safe distance from the land.

See for yourself how big those chains can be.  The video title mentions "warships", but chains this big would apply only to the largest of them (say, an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault vessel).  Even bigger ones will be used aboard supertankers, ultra-large container ships, etc.

Here's how the process works.

Impressive!

Peter

There's a very interesting article over at The War Zone on how Ukraine is training its FPV (first person view) drone pilots to take on the enemy, and win.  Here's an excerpt.

It’s one thing to have drones. It is something else altogether to reliably guide them to dynamic targets across a chaotic and bloody battlefield. While the many videos of attacks on tanks, trucks, and troops like the one below make it look easy, it’s not.

“We have a constant need to train our pilots and operators. The world of unmanned systems is constantly changing and the enemy comes up with certain methods or can prevent us from completing our tasks,” said one of the soldiers, who goes by callsign Teenager. “We have the opportunity to constantly train and improve our skills.”

As he speaks, the video cuts to an FPV drone flying through a net-covered tube obstacle. It’s one of the many hurdles new pilots have to navigate as they become familiar with flying and experienced pilots have to use to refresh their skills.

For rookies, just getting to that stage takes time.

“Our training is done in several stages,” said another soldier, callsign Glory. “It starts with a base of basic summer practices, then the second stage is more complex practices, and then there are application tactics, where our pilots learn to counter the enemy, an imitation of what is on the battlefield.”

The obstacle course offers many challenges, from mockups of building facades to slaloming around metal poles to buzzing through hoops. There are also static targets, like an old automobile ... This training teaches pilots to make kills that look right out of a dystopian movie, including strikes through open windows, doors and tank hatches.

There's more at the link, including photographs and links to some spectacular combat footage.

The trainees are also taught to use a 3D printer in the field, so that they can produce their own spare parts to repair their drones when needed.  I hope the US is watching developments like this closely;  our forces deploy tens of thousands of drones of different sizes, and their operators need to be as up-to-date as possible on actual battlefield tactics, defenses, and so on.

As I've said before:  I'm very glad my military service ended several decades ago.  I'd hate to be on a modern battlefield, where the slightest exposure might mean one or more drones hunting me down and blowing me up.  I'd feel pretty darn helpless out there!

Peter

A very worrying report indicates that airliners may be vulnerable to a clash of technologies that might "mask" dangerously low altitudes.

French investigation authority BEA believes the prevalence of ILS approaches has obscured an underlying vulnerability of aircraft to the risk of terrain collision arising from incorrect altimeter pressure settings.

BEA made the remarks following its inquiry into a serious incident in which an Airbus A320 descended to just 6ft above ground during a low-visibility approach to Paris Charles de Gaulle’s runway 27R.

The ILS was not operational on the day of the incident, 23 May 2022, and the Airhub aircraft (9H-EMU) was conducting a satellite-based approach with barometric vertical guidance.

But BEA found the pilots had set the altimeter reference to 1011mb instead of 1001mb, after being given an incorrect QNH pressure reading by an air traffic controller. This resulted in the jet’s flying a descent path which was 280ft below the required profile.

Although this triggered a minimum safe altitude warning in the control tower, the controller took 9s to inform the crew – by which time the jet was 122ft above ground – and then used incorrect phraseology. The crew did not hear this call, and continued to descend.

BEA says the approach lights had not been switched on, and heavy rain meant the windshield wipers were operating at maximum speed.

After passing what they believed to be the decision height – but with the jet actually much lower, just 52ft above ground – the pilots initiated a go-around, because they had no visual contact with the runway.

The aircraft descended to 6ft, while 0.9nm from the threshold, before climbing away.

There's more at the link.

That's frightening as hell to anyone who flies frequently.  Basically, the aircrew entered an incorrect value, but did not double-check it;  and then they relied on the aircraft's technology, now mislead by their entry, to keep them safe.  It's only by the grace of God and a couple of seconds' leeway that they didn't fly their airliner straight into the ground, killing everyone aboard.

We're seeing this more and more;  aircrew relying on technology to fly the plane rather than doing so themselves.  Automation has become so advanced (?) and so complex that it's easier to simply set a computer to do what you want, then sit back and let the computer figure out how to do it.  If incorrect values have been entered, and the computer uses them in its calculations, you have no way of knowing that the danger exists.

As another example of relying on technology rather than pilot skill and concentration, consider the crash of Asiana Airlines Flight 214 in 2013.

The Asiana pilots said in interviews with the National Transportation Safety Board that they had set the auto-throttles to maintain an air speed of 137 knots. That’s a significantly faster speed than the plane actually achieved as it came in for its landing at San Francisco International Airport on Saturday.

. . .

The pilots’ statements do not resolve the central question of why the Boeing 777’s speed and altitude fell so far out of the normal range for landing at SFO before it hit a sea wall and crash-landed. But outside air safety experts said the statements suggest a risky reliance on technology when the flight crew should have been constantly monitoring the airplane’s speed.

“Whether it was engaged or not working is almost irrelevant,” said Barry Schiff, a former TWA pilot and an air safety consultant. “The big mystery of Flight 214 is why in God’s name did these two pilots sit there and allow the air speed to get so low.”

Experts said the pilots should have been monitoring the plane’s speed every few seconds, and could have manually taken control of the engines at any time.

Again, more at the link.

The first report gives me the shivers.  Six feet off the ground???  Oy gevalt . . .

Peter

I've noted in the past that there are times when Google simply doesn't seem to know what to do with Comments on this blog (and others).  The Blogger platform sometimes deletes comments as soon as they're made, before I get a chance to view them;  at other times, it memory-holes comments that have already appeared on the blog.

Now - at least, for the past week or two - Blogger appears to be sending some perfectly valid comments to Spam, without giving me a chance to moderate them.  What's worse, they appear to be mostly by regular commenters here, who've established a good track record of no spam comments, no profanity, etc. - in other words, no reason to block them or their comments.  I've "un-spammed" at least six comments like that over the past couple of days, and am now forced to manually check my Spam folder a couple of times a day to see whether any others have been redirected there.

I've no idea why this is happening.  I'm very frustrated by it, but the Blogger team don't appear to answer queries at the best of times, so I don't know whether they'll provide any explanation this time round.  I'm sorry for any heartburn this causes commenters - but again, I have no idea why it's happening.

Peter

I note that a proposal to limit the speed of large trucks has been put off until next year.

The Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration will delay a potential rule on speed limiters for heavy-duty vehicles once again — this time postponing rulemaking to May 2025, according to a regulatory agenda.

. . .

The proposal seeks to cover interstate commercial vehicles weighing 26,001 pounds or more equipped with an electronic engine control unit capable of governing the truck, whereby the device would restrict the equipment to “a speed to be determined by the rulemaking,” per the updated agenda.

The issue has drawn critics and supporters. The Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association has said such limits would disrupt traffic flow and lead to more crashes. The Truckload Carriers Association noted room for flexibility with the devices, suggesting 65 mph or 70 mph restrictions and a need to reexamine policy every five years.

There's more at the link.

On the face of it, it sounds like a useful idea.  I've been passed by, and have had to avoid, fast-moving 18-wheelers, and I'm sure many of us have been scared by them on the roads too often for comfort.  However, this is yet another "thin end of the wedge" issue.  If, after a year or two of limited truck speeds, some unelected bureaucrat or progressive-left pressure group claims that lower limits have been a success from a safety perspective, and that therefore lighter vehicles should also be limited in their maximum speed . . . how will that be countered?

I can think of a few good arguments against it:

• In an emergency - for example, if you want to get someone to the hospital in a hurry - a speed-limited vehicle may prevent you arriving there in time to save the victim.
• Sometimes you need speed to get out of the way of a fast-moving hazard (for example, a vehicle barreling along a roadway out of control).  If you can't go faster than your vehicle's speed limiter allows, you may not be able to avoid the resulting accident.

Also, what happens when speed limits are arbitrarily lowered due to external pressures?  As an example, consider the National Maximum Speed Law passed in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis, leading to  Sammy Hagar's famous protest that "I can't drive 55!"  The lowered speed limit was extremely unpopular among almost all motorists, and was abandoned as soon as feasible;  but we don't know whether that outcome would be permitted this time around.  The Karens in our administrative state would doubtless do all they could to grab, and hold onto, yet another way to control us.

Vehicle speed limiters are now mandatory in all European Union nations.  How soon until we face the same official mandate?

Peter

The latest Sequential Art cartoon made me grin wryly - and snarl a little, too.  Click the image to be taken to a larger version at the comic's Web page.

I've had far too many one-sided telephone conversations like that.  When can we have a menu tree that includes, "Press hash to permanently, utterly destroy the company's automated answering system"?  I reckon that would be the most popular and most-used option out there!

Peter

From reader HistoryPerson, commenting on a CNN report about the Boeing Starliner crew capsule, currently docked with the International Space Station pending resolution of several issues with its thrusters and other components:

How many Boeing people does it take to change a light bulb? The answer is unknown because nobody at Boeing knows how to change a light bulb.

Considering how much trouble the Boeing 737 Max airliner program is in, that might be all too appropriate . . .  Remember when Boeing blazed the trail that all other aircraft manufacturers followed?  How are the mighty fallen!

Peter

A journalist and writer ponders what she calls "My last five years of work".

I am 25. These next three years might be the last few years that I work. I am not ill, nor am I becoming a stay-at-home mom, nor have I been so financially fortunate to be on the brink of voluntary retirement. I stand at the edge of a technological development that seems likely, should it arrive, to end employment as I know it.

I work at a frontier AI company. With every iteration of our model, I am confronted with something more capable and general than before. At this stage, it can competently generate cogent content on a wide range of topics. It can summarize and analyze texts passably well. As someone who at one point made money as a freelance writer and prided myself on my ability to write large amounts of content quickly, a skill which—like cutting blocks of ice from a frozen pond—is arguably obsolete, I find it hard not to notice these advances. Freelance writing was always an oversubscribed skillset, and the introduction of language models has further intensified competition.

The general reaction to language models among knowledge workers is one of denial. They grasp at the ever diminishing number of places where such models still struggle, rather than noticing the ever-growing range of tasks where they have reached or passed human level ... The economically and politically relevant comparison on most tasks is not whether the language model is better than the best human, it is whether they are better than the human who would otherwise do that task.

. . .

Many expect AI to eventually be able to do every economically useful task. I agree. Given the current trajectory of the technology, I expect AI to first excel at any kind of online work. Essentially anything that a remote worker can do, AI will do better. Copywriting, tax preparation, customer service, and many other tasks are or will soon be heavily automated. I can see the beginnings in areas like software development and contract law. Generally, tasks that involve reading, analyzing, and synthesizing information, and then generating content based on it, seem ripe for replacement by language models.

There's more at the link.

Hers is a timely article.  With more and more white-collar workers being displaced by artificial intelligence and expert systems, it's going to be an ongoing and increasingly important debate:  what will we do when there's no longer anything that we're needed to do?

This also calls for a re-examination of the much-derided concept of universal basic income.  If automation reduces the number of available jobs far below the number of workers available to fill them, who's going to provide for the unemployed workers?  They can't be abandoned to starve, so some form of UBI appears to be inevitable.  What form that might take is currently being debated world-wide, but that it will be required seems incontrovertible.

Food for thought - particularly for a wordsmith, blogger and writer like myself.

Peter

It's been announced that Russia's Air Force will retire its last remaining Antonov An-22 strategic transport aircraft this year.  The photograph below shows the prototype aircraft at the Paris Air Show in 1965, the year it first flew.

The An-22 was a behemoth.  It could carry up to 80 metric tons (approximately 88 US tons) of cargo, roughly equivalent to today's Boeing C-17 Globemaster III and almost twice the payload by weight of the contemporary Lockheed C-141 Starlifter.  It was routinely used to ferry intercontinental ballistic missiles around the Soviet Union, as well as carry large, heavy cargoes to favored client nations.  It was the largest turboprop-powered aircraft ever built, using the same engines that powered the Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bomber.

The An-22 was regarded by the Soviet Union as a strategic asset due to its missile-ferrying duties, which led to a potentially serious incident back in 1975.  At the time, the Soviet Union was pouring armaments and surrogate forces into Angola to support its favored MPLA "liberation movement" (a.k.a. terrorist organization).  South Africa, with US encouragement, was at the same time intervening on behalf of another such organization, UNITA.  I'm informed by sources I consider reliable that in late 1975, some South African special forces were camped out within sight of the runways at the international airport in Luanda.  They managed to get their hands on a number of man-portable ground-to-air missiles (presumably taking them off MPLA forces that "no longer needed them"), and sent an excited signal back to South Africa saying that they planned to sneak up to the runway and shoot down as many as possible of the parade of An-22's arriving every day, filled with armaments.  They would have been "sitting duck" targets, having no alternative airport within range to which they could be diverted after their long flight down the African continent.

I'm told that this was mentioned in passing between a South African liaison officer and the US embassy in Pretoria, and led to seismic-level upheavals.  The CIA was convinced that if South Africa shot down some of the Soviet Union's scarce strategic transports (only 68 were ever built), the Soviets would react very harshly, escalating the war in Angola out of control, and would probably act against other important US client states around the world.  The reconnaissance forces near Luanda were duly told not to carry out their plan, but to allow the An-22's to arrive and depart undisturbed.  They were bitterly disappointed, and I was told that some of the signals they sent back to Pretoria were "sulfurous" - but they obeyed orders.  I've often wondered what would have happened if two or three of these monster aircraft had bitten the African dust . . .

As far as I know, there's only one An-22 flying outside the Russian Air Force, a privately-owned example operated by Antonov Airlines of Ukraine.  I don't know whether it's still operational.  To give you some idea of the enormous size of this plane, here are two video clips showing its arrival and departure at European airports.

So, at last, a giant of the skies goes to its rest.  It will not be forgotten.

Peter

Yesterday Jeff Childers laid out the growing danger of fully autonomous robotic weapons, which have no conscience and no moral code, and can (and already do) kill without reference to a human operator or a controlling battlefield system.  I agree with him that it's a very disturbing element in warfare, one that threatens not only to make human combat more or less obsolete on the battlefront, but also pass an automated death sentence on anybody - combatant or civilian - in or near that battlefront.

Until very recently — so recently you will be forgiven lack of notice of the change — it was fashionable among elites to wring their hands over letting robots decide whether to kill people. Countless conferences were devoted to the subject, new UN departments were designed, and new job descriptions were drafted, spawning battalions of specialized military bioethicists.

Zing! What was that? That was bioethics flying out the window. Sorry, chaps, pack it in. All those new ethics experts and professors and opinion influencers just became redundant. They are moot.

. . .

On June 4th, 2024 — mark the date — the Washington Post quietly ran an unobtrusive “good news” op-ed headlined, “The Pentagon is learning how to change at the speed of war.” To call it “just an op-ed” would do violence to its malevolent significance. First of all, the author, spy novelist and columnist David Ignatius, is one of WaPo’s most senior writers, and it’s a poorly hidden secret he is inextricably intertwined with the deep security state.

. . .

David’s op-ed began gently chiding the U.S. military for, with the very best of intentions, its antiquated ‘addiction’ to overly complicated, finicky, insanely expensive, super high-tech, human-directed weapons systems, rather than cheap, practical, reliable, and effective alternatives like the Russians are using to beat the Dickens out of Ukraine.

. . .

Most folks now agree the Russians’ pragmatic, entrepreneurial approach in Ukraine has decisively proven its battlefield superiority over our fancy, high-tech, acronymized weapons that took decades to develop: our top-tier M1 Abrams tanks, our PATRIOT air defense systems, our HIMARS and ATACMS missiles, our JDAMS flying bombs, and our networked cluster munitions.

They all literally or figuratively bogged down in the Ukrainian rasputitsa. In other words, stuck in the mud.

But the bigger problem is that all our defense systems, from the most modest mobile artillery unit to the sky-scraping F35 intelligent fighter jet, are all e-something, or i-something. They are all linked together, connected to the internet, in a networked global battlefield information system (GBIS). They were designed to be centrally controllable from the confines of an op center safely concealed under two hundred feet of granite below the Pentagon in Washington, DC.

Unfortunately, the Russians — those ‘incompetent,’ slipshod, gas-station-with-nukes ice jockeys — somehow overtook us in electronic jamming technology. And then kept going, without looking back. The Russians are jamming all our toys!

Our Borg-like, electronically interconnected technology is dead in the water, or in the mud, if it can’t talk to the other parts of itself. Worse, Russian jamming cuts it all off from its handlers thousands of miles away in America. In other words, it’s damned useless, which is why Ignatius predicted it wouldn’t last five minutes against China.

Ignatius’ description of this perfectly foreseeable development understated the terror and panic on the part of U.S. generals. It all worked so well against Saddam Hussein’s disorganized army! But the generals are slowly and reluctantly coming to terms with the fact our entire arsenal is close to useless against near-peer adversaries like Russia and China.

In desperation, and because Ukraine uber alles, all those ethical concerns over autonomous weapons systems instantly became as obsolete as our trillion-dollar aircraft carriers. The ban on machines that kill on automatic has been swept aside.

It’s an emergency, dummy.

Then, Ignatius described the easy fix to the problem. The simple correction is truly autonomous weapons, weapons that can’t be jammed, weapons that don’t have to talk to each other, weapons that push the pesky humans right out of the picture. In the same way the military is now quietly moving aside the humans, David also glided right over the pesky ethical issues, which earned not a single syllable in his column.

. . .

Who’s responsible when the robot goes rogue and wipes out a village, or a wedding, or a whole city? Who’s tried for the war crimes?

Nobody, that’s who. You can’t expect technology to be perfect, dummy.

You can’t put a robot on trial. Come on, be serious.

The government knows full well that public outcry will only slow down the killer robot train. The military is now moving with mind-blowing, demonic, uncharacteristic speed toward building its dystopian, robot-armed future. The first fully autonomous killing machines have already been designed, built, and delivered to Ukraine.

. . .

Ignatius also assured us that the Air Force is, right now, building robotic fighter jets labeled with the grim euphemism “uncrewed.” The robots can keep on fighting, long after the human crews are gone.

Similarly, last month, the Navy formed a new squadron of hundreds of fully autonomous, uncrewed boats, a water swarm with the unwieldy name, “Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft.” GARC doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, but maybe it echoes the last thing dying sailors say.

Instead of applying that awkward acronym, the Navy has nicknamed its new robot squadron the “Hell Hounds.”

. . .

It’s easy to blame Congress for failing to pull the plug, slow things down, or at least hold a public debate. But remember: attractive, well-spoken military analysts constantly deliver confidential, top-secret briefings to Congressmen, direly warning them China will win in five minutes unless we do something.

What can I say? It’s 2024. Here come the terminators, and nothing can stop it. We all knew this day was coming; we just didn’t think it would come from us.

Somebody track down that scrappy Sarah Connor and tell her it’s time to report for duty.

There's more at the link.  Recommended reading.

(Also recommended is this article at Strategy Page, analyzing how drone operations are dominating the war in Ukraine, and assessing their impact.  It doesn't look at the autonomous aspect, but is nevertheless a valuable summary of the current state of the art.)

This is a very ominous development for all the reasons Mr. Childers has stated.  However, think of the wider implications.  Nations ruled by dictatorial elites now have tools at their disposal that can steamroller right over opposition movements, and suppress rebellion and civil war before they even get out of the starting gate.  An oppressive regime no longer needs battalions and regiments and divisions of storm troopers to control its subjects;  it merely needs enough autonomous robots that will do its bidding without moral considerations or ethical hesitation.  A town is rebelling against government authority?  Send in the robots and wipe out every man, woman and child in that town.  There's an outcry afterwards?  Blame the robots, which were "not properly programmed", and put on trial and execute a couple of sacrificial puppets who can be alleged to have been responsible for that erroneous programming.  There!  Problem solved! - and the regime is still in power.  After the third, or fourth, or fifth such town is "depopulated", there won't be many more willing to take a stand for freedom, will there?

If you remove humanity from society, it becomes an inhuman dystopia.  That's what modern warfare is becoming, at least if Ukraine is any example.  What if the rest of society follows suit?

Scary thought . . .

Peter

President Javier Milei has given a very interesting interview to The Free Press.  In it, he discusses how "traditional" economic measures have landed Argentina in very troubled waters indeed, and how he's taking a wrecking ball to the State-dominated economy in an attempt to fix matters by restoring economic freedom.  What's more, it seems to be working - unlike the Biden administration's feckless efforts to control our economy, which are driving it into the dirt instead.

Argentina today is in grave crisis. It has defaulted on its sovereign debt three times since 2001, and a few months ago, it faced an annualized inflation rate of over 200 percent—one of the highest in the world.

Why? What happened?

Argentina’s new president says it’s simple: socialism.

When Javier Milei took office in December 2023, he became the world’s first libertarian head of state. During his campaign, he made his views clear: “Let it all blow up, let the economy blow up, and take this entire garbage political caste down with it.” In case the chainsaw he wielded on the campaign trail left any question about his intentions, during his victory speech last year, he reiterated his vision: “Argentina’s situation is critical. The changes our country needs are drastic. There is no room for gradualism, no room for lukewarm measures.”

There is nothing gradual about what Milei is now doing.

He’s eliminating government ministries and services, cutting regulations, privatizing state-run companies, and purposely creating a recession to curb the out-of-control inflation.

This is why people voted for him: change. They saw someone who could shake things up in a way that could turn out to be lifesaving for the country—even if it meant short-term economic pain. 

. . .

What really makes Milei unusual is that he is the ultimate skunk at the garden party. In a world of liberals and conservatives, he doesn’t represent either side. He is ultra-liberal on economics, but right-wing and populist on rhetoric. He is anti-abortion, but favors the legalization of prostitution. He wants to deregulate the gun market and legalize the organ trade. 

He calls himself an anarcho-capitalist, which basically means he believes the state, as he told me, is “a violent organization that lives from a coercive source which is taxes.” Essentially, he’s a head of state who really doesn’t believe in states. Or at least, not theoretically.

. . .

BW: Can you explain why you think economic libertarianism and anti-wokeism—for lack of a better term—go together? Because for many people here in the States, that’s not a natural pairing.

JM: The way people have been educated has not been for full freedom. The world I’m proposing is a more free world. This is why the culture battle is so important. The culture battle is part of showing the world that for many years, it was mistaken. In fact, what is today politically correct is an abhorrent world because it has loads of socialism. The tendency will always be toward socialism, and that’s the big battle. This is why it is said that the cost of freedom is constant surveillance.

The state exists because humans have failed to live together in peace. And this is why the state government exists. These problems are something that technology could fix. So this is very important because the real world may start to look more like the anarcho-capitalist ideal as technological progress evolves. This is why I’m trying to foster and showcase all technological matters in Argentina, because that will accelerate the progress of freedom. But even economists have not been educated to understand this. 

For now, it seems to be going very well, but what’s quite clear to me is that I will die fighting. I will not surrender.

There's more at the link.  It's all interesting, and well worth your time to read or watch on video.

Peter

I've been in contact with friends and acquaintances in the Houston area since major storms hit that city a couple of weeks ago.  Most of the "lessons learned" in coping with a disaster are ones we've already discussed in these pages.  However, a number of folks had bought or installed power stations, whether stand-alone or "whole home" solutions, and they had interesting things to report.

First of all, these things are expensive.  A minimal setup to run a small home would be something like Bluetti's AC500, coupled with two B300S battery packs (that's just an example - there are equivalent systems from many other manufacturers and vendors).  That can produce up to 5,000 watts of power (double that for a startup load), and supply up to 6,144 watt-hours of power - enough to run most common electrical appliances for a couple of days, if one is judicious about not running too many of them at once.  Such a system typically costs $4,000 to $5,000, or a bit less if one looks for the frequent sales offered by such vendors.  That's far more expensive than a generator.

However, despite their cost, power stations offer advantages.

• The system can plug into a main electrical switchboard, using a connector that shuts off mains power when the backup is in use and vice versa.  That means one doesn't need extension cords running all over the place to be plugged in at a central location.  One can simply use the house's existing wiring and plugs.
• One doesn't have the constant noise, fuel consumption and inconvenience of a generator that requires relatively constant attention.  A small- to medium-size generator can be run once a day to charge the power station, and/or one can plug in solar panels (if necessary, together with the generator) to do the same thing.  I'm informed that 3-6 hours of generator use per day was enough to keep such power stations running.
• The relative lack of generator use meant that the house was not so noisy (and therefore noticeable to thieves and looters).  There was the usual rash of low-lifes trying to steal generators from homes that announced (by the noise) that they were running one.  Without that noise, there was less to alert them.  In a longer-term disaster, one could make sure that one's windows were "blacked out" so as not to reveal light at night, making it even safer.  (If one used solar panels exclusively, not running a generator at all, that would be even quieter.)
• Some of my contacts didn't have large power stations, but had one or two smaller ones, 500W to 2,000W (the sort one can take on a day trip, or camping, or to run a travel trailer's electrics).  They reported that while their smaller units could not run the whole house, they were nevertheless very useful.  One took a 550W unit into his garage, where he had two freezers, and ran them for an hour or two twice a day, which was enough to keep the food inside them safely frozen.  He recharged the small power station with a portable solar panel.  Others used them at night to power CPAP machines and the like.
• On the other hand, some people with large, immovable power stations (such as the Tesla Powerwall) reported that as the waters rose, they came up to the big battery packs mounted on the wall.  For fear of electrocution and other problems, they switched off their installations and did without power for as long as it took for the water to recede.  I know Tesla claims its installation is proof against up to two feet of water, but if I were in those owners' shoes, I'd also be wary of trusting that completely.  Those with more portable power stations simply wheeled them out of harm's way (losing power in the process, of course, but preserving them against future need).

Peter

It looks as if Chinese vehicle manufacturers are leading the way in affordable transport.  Bloomberg reports:

BYD Co. unveiled a new hybrid powertrain capable of traveling more than 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles) without recharging or refueling, intensifying the EV transition competition with the likes of Toyota Motor Corp. and Volkswagen AG.

The upgraded tech, which aims to put more distance between BYD and its rivals, will be launched in two sedans immediately that cost under 100,000 yuan ($13,800), the automaker said at an event live-streamed Tuesday evening from China.

The longer range means some of BYD’s dual-mode plug-in electric hybrid cars can cover the equivalent of Singapore to Bangkok, New York to Miami, or Munich to Madrid on each charge and full tank of gas.

There's more at the link.

I've said for a long time that unless a vehicle can run 500 miles fully loaded, with air conditioner or heater running, through the most extreme weather, without needing time-consuming recharging, I'm not interested:  therefore, electric vehicles have been a no-no as far as I'm concerned.  Hybrids do better, but again, they're not built to carry heavy loads for long distances (something I do fairly often), so I haven't bought one.  BYD's approach marks the first time I've been seriously interested in a hybrid vehicle;  and at that price, it's very affordable.  (Ten will get you one that it won't be that low-cost if it ever reaches the USA.  Our bureaucrats and the Big Three will throw every obstacle in its path that they can to prevent that.)

Frankly, if BYD is that far ahead of Ford, General Motors and Chrysler Stellantis, it deserves to eat their lunch.

Peter

If you said it was a Boeing B-29 Superfortress, you'd be wrong.  It's actually a Tupolev TU-4, an early Soviet-era carbon copy of a B-29, right down to a few combat scars that were slavishly copied from the three B-29's the Soviet Union had available when Josef Stalin ordered its development.

The story of how the Soviet Union copied the B-29 is a long and fascinating one.  You'll find all the details at the "WWIIafterWWII" blog.  Here's an excerpt.

The Soviet Union developed any number of highly effective fighters, ground attack planes, trainers, and twin-engined tactical bombers during WWII. One effort where the Soviets were far behind by the end of the war was strategic bombers. During WWII the USSR had only one (relatively) modern four-engined strategic bomber, the Pe-8.

Less than 100 were completed during WWII. They achieved little while suffering horrendous losses. By the time of Japan’s surrender in September 1945 there were only three dozen Pe-8s remaining. When NATO formed in 1949, they were considered so insignificant that they never even received a reporting name.

Throughout WWII, Josef Stalin sought to obtain American strategic bombers via Lend-Lease; with no success. As soon as Soviet intelligence became aware of the B-29 Superfortress, that type was requested as well. In 1944 the USA rejected the request, along with another attempt later that year and a third request in 1945. The USA considered the Superfortress such an advanced weapon that the requests were barely even given consideration.

. . .

The Soviet Union interned three B-29 Superfortresses during WWII. Until August 1945, the USSR had a non-aggression pact with Japan. Under international law, warplanes of warring parties landing in a neutral third country are required to be interned for the rest of the conflict.

“Ramp Tramp II” landed near Vladivostok on 29 July 1944, after taking an AA hit during a mission over Manchukuo. The damage was not severe but bad enough to make a return home impossible.

“General H.H. Arnold Special” landed at Tsentral’naya naval airbase on the USSR’s Pacific coast on 11 November 1944, after a storm blew it off course during a raid on the Omura aircraft factory in Japan.

“Ding Hao” landed at the same place ten days later after a Japanese AA round hit one of it’s engines. Of the three, it was the most significantly damaged.

All three of these B-29s were airworthy.

. . .

The idea for reverse-engineering the B-29 came not from Andrei Tupolev’s bureau, but rather from Vladimir Myasischchev, who ran his own aircraft design bureau. After the third B-29 was secured during WWII, Myasischchev suggested to Stalin that it would be both feasible and advantageous to reverse-engineer it. Stalin agreed, but for whatever reason, assigned the effort to his rival Tupolev in June 1945.

There's much more at the link, including many photographs.

I'd known about the TU-4 copy of the B-29 for a long time, but this article went into far greater depth than anything I'd read before.  It makes fascinating reading for aviation and military history buffs.  Recommended reading.

Peter

In a recent issue of his regular Global Macro Update newsletters, Ed d'Agostino of Mauldin Economics interviewed Karim Hijazi, a cybercrime expert, about the current state of that field and the growing involvement of AI.  It's a long, multipage newsletter, so I won't even try to go into all it says.  Here's an excerpt to whet your appetite.

Ed D'Agostino:  What is AI's role in all of this? Has it impacted effectiveness of bad actors at all?

Karim Hijazi:  It has. I hate to say it. AI has probably been most embraced in terms of its creativity and its use by nefarious actors or threat actors because as usual, unfortunately, because it affords them the ability to force multiply themselves. That's the number one reason. What they would otherwise need a bunch of people to do they can do... one person can do a whole lot of work with an AI tool that generates an incredible amount of not only the narratives for a phishing email that we talked about, but also the malware itself. It'll actually write the code for the malware that is generally pretty well written. And there's a few tweaks here and there, but what would take weeks or months is done in days.

Ed D'Agostino:  Can you talk a little bit, Karim, about what's at stake here? I mean, we talk about me sitting here in my remote solo office, I get a phishing email. I'm not hooked up to a big company network. Maybe I lose a little bit of data. I think that's how people think of it. Really what we're talking about is the country's critical infrastructure is at risk. What does that look like and how is it at risk?

Karim Hijazi:  Exactly. The everyday person doesn't feel like it can affect them. A lot of where individuals are worried about when it comes to hackers and threats is their identities, maybe their credit card information, their social security number, back to identity. But what's interesting is that in the world we're in now, the interconnectivity between even your computer and mine, by definition, there is one, right? You're looking into your screen and I'm looking into my screen, my camera's picking up my image and sending it to you. There's effectively a link between us. So if you want to think of it from that perspective, right now we're connected. And so if there is, in theory, something on my machine, God forbid, and it wanted to sort of figure out, "Who's Ed?," and it goes into my email and it lurks around and it goes, "Ooh, Ed's got a lot of connections on LinkedIn," or, "He's got a really great follower base on YouTube. He's a good target for me to proliferate myself even further to his audience." So you think about it, that's the first step in terms of its reconnaissance risk. When you start thinking about yourself as a non-player when it comes to why you'd be interesting to a threat actor, you'd be surprised.

The second thing that's really interesting is this is just a micro version of the macro problem, which is supply chain. Supply-chain and third-party ecosystems are the number one challenge that we're having today because a small company leads to bigger company. A bigger company leads to government or critical infrastructure. The pathway, the daisy chain, if you will, is small company, bigger company, critical infrastructure. And from that small company… it could be a work-from-home individual that never left home after COVID because that was the policy of the company but because there's no security protocols at home, they're the easiest targets in the world to get into. The VPN is simply a hypodermic needle into the corporation. The corporation is now access to many other organizations and so on. That's just the super small taxonomy or treeing out of essentially the connections out all the way from the individual to government or critical infrastructure, unfortunately.

Ed D'Agostino:  I think you'd mentioned that some really big cutting-edge technology has been bled out of corporations through this sort of process. Quantuum was one that we talked about yesterday. I thought that we were... I was sitting here looking at IBM thinking, "If IBM gets Quantuum right, this stock is going to go into the moon, maybe we should be looking at it. They seem to be the leaders." And then I spoke with you and you're like, "Well, China's already got all that."

Karim Hijazi:  Unfortunately, China as a nation-state actor has focused heavily on intellectual property theft for years. That's definitely not a new agenda of theirs. It's been their focus for a very long time. I think we all know that from headline news. The problem is they've done it in a multipronged approach. They did it with implants of people, long-term "coverts" through academia that they've had planted for very long periods of time. They've augmented it with things like software and access to environments, through harvesting information electronically. And they've conned people into sharing information as well. That's the other part of this is that they've done a really good job with that. The other thing that's interesting is what people fail to recognize is that nation-state adversaries aren't islands unto themselves. They tend to cooperate. If a Russian or North Korean or Iranian nation-state actor has an initial access into something, they'll broker it to another country for a price. There may be one group in a nationstate adversary that has much better access to something than the other group does, but the other group can pay them for it, and they'll get in.

Unfortunately, there's been an onslaught onto our country in such a way that makes it very difficult for us to sort of manage all those beachheads. And so the asymmetry is very challenging, and it ties back to your AI conversation, which is how has that added to it? Just that, it's added this extra level of pressurization onto the systems that we believe were protecting us, and they are indeed failing. Sorry to be doom and gloom, but...

There's much more at the link.  The entire newsletter is well worth reading if you're interested in computer and information systems security.

It's startling to realize how widespread and prevalent cybercrime has become.  It's far more than just "phishing" e-mails or attempts to listen in on communications channels.  It's now become an exercise in how to kinetically affect an entire nation or sector of a national economy.  In another part of the interview, Karim Hijazi notes:

There's things like water treatment facilities that can have water levels… the pH change or the potability change just ever so slightly that'll cause a mass dysentery effect. Then you've got a flood onto the pressurization of a hospital environment in a specific location. And then as we've seen over the course of the pandemic, you conduct a ransomware attack and put the hospitals in a pressurization state where they can't function unless they pay a ransom, and you can really cause a cascading effect. And that's the doom and gloom scenario, of course. But you're completely right, the big concern is if there's that much access to these environments, what can they effectively do? And how much have we given to technology to take over?

And unfortunately, I know I said AI for the third time in this conversation, but here again is where our reliance on it and our over-excitedness to deliver the responsibility over to it, may be a little foolhardy at this point because once it's in the hands of something that really doesn't have any kind of emotionality or ability to identify... For example, in my company, I do employ a lot of automation and AI, but I also use human intuition and experience and talent to identify these problems that simply, at this point, can't be done through technology. And unfortunately for cost savings and a variety of other reasons, people are choosing to go in the direction where it's all automated. And automation's fantastic when there's nothing coming at it to use it maliciously, but when it can be leveraged against you, you’ve got an issue.

Worrying thoughts.  Again, if you want to learn more about this field and how it might affect any or all of us, I highly recommend reading the full interview for yourself.  I also suggest you subscribe to the newsletter (it's free).  Mr. d'Agostino comes up with some very interesting and useful insights.

Peter

I'm sure most of my readers are aware of the storm that hit the Houston, Texas area last week.  Power transmission pylons crumpled as if they were so much tinfoil, and hundreds of thousands of people are still without electricity.  Floods have complicated travel over much of the region, and haven't drained off yet.  Spare a thought and a prayer for those affected.

Talking to friends in that area, I've been struck by the additional problems being experienced by people with breathing difficulties - asthma, COPD or the like.  I'm hearing reports that those conditions are being aggravated by the humidity down there, which is about as high as it gets in the continental USA (and still is not at its full summer height).  I'm told some patients have had to be admitted to hospital for breathing assistance, while others who rely on electrically powered technology like HEPA filters and CPAP machines are finding it very difficult to cope without them.  Many are using generators, but after several days are running short of fuel for them - and fuel isn't yet reaching local gas stations in the quantities required.  My comments in earlier posts about emergency preparations, suggesting that we add gasoline to our supplies, are confirmed, I guess.

Of interest is that small camping-style "power stations" with solar panels for recharging are proving very effective indeed, more so than I would have believed.  I expected whole-house backup solutions with high-capacity power stations would work well, but I thought the smaller versions wouldn't provide enough power to be useful for long-term outages.  Turns out that's a matter of quantity.  Because the small power stations are relatively low-cost, some people have three or four of them, plus one or two solar panels for recharging.  They can use one to power a HEPA filter, another for a CPAP device, and have one or two in reserve, either being recharged from solar power or standing by ready to replace one already in use.  That's good to know, and good for our budget as well.  There are some real bargains in smaller power stations right now (see, for example, at the time of writing, this 1400W Ecoflow DELTA mini for $549, or this 800W Bluetti EB70S for $399), if you need one.  The larger units, putting out thousands of watts, are also getting cheaper over time;  for a whole house backup or the ability to run fridges and freezers, washing machines, air conditioners, etc. is important, they're still a lot more expensive than generators, but don't need fuel and are whisper-quiet.  Those can be real game-changers, particularly for longer power outages.

A darker side to the power outages in the greater Houston area is that I'm hearing about prowlers, sometimes gangs of them, making their way through darkened neighborhoods, looking for what they can steal.  Assaults have been reported, and attempts to steal generators (because houses using them can be easily identified by the lights, exhaust fumes, etc.)  I'm informed that local cops are, in some cases, tackling the bigger problems around them and ignoring cases where home-owners defend their families and property.  This is Texas, after all, and people are generally pretty self-reliant.  As long as there are no bodies untidily littering the landscape, attracting unwanted attention, there's no harm and no foul.

Part of that security problem, of course, is the lack of working security systems and external lights.  A lot of people rely on burglar alarms, break-in detectors, security lights outside their home, and so on.  None of them work in the absence of power.  I understand some homes that stood out in times past thanks to their security systems (after all, why invest in such systems unless you have something valuable to protect?) have been targeted by gangs after the power went out.  One hopes they had good manual backup defensive and protective systems.  (Again, this is Texas, so that's not unlikely.  I'd hate to estimate how long gang-bangers would last on my street if they tried anything.  I daresay they'd be dealt with in a very short time.  Neighbors here look out for each other.)

Anyway, things are slowly getting back to normal in the Houston area.  Let's hope they have a respite this hurricane season, so they don't have to do it all over again a few months from now.

Peter

I had to laugh at this report.

Almost two centuries after California's gold rush, the United States is on the brink of a lithium rush. As demand for the material skyrockets, government geologists are rushing to figure out where the precious element is hiding.

In September 2023, scientists funded by a mining company reported finding what could be the largest deposit of lithium in an ancient US supervolcano. Now public researchers on the other side of the country have uncovered another untapped reservoir – one that could cover nearly half the nation's lithium demands.

It's hiding in wastewater from Pennsylvania's gas fracking industry.

Lithium is arguably the most important element in the nation's renewable energy transition – the material of choice for electric vehicle batteries. And yet, there is but one large-scale lithium mine in the US, meaning for the moment the country has to import what it needs.

. . .

Expanding America's lithium industry, however, is highly controversial, as mining can destroy natural environments, leach toxic chemicals, and intrude on sacred Indigenous land.

At the same time, however, lithium-ion batteries are considered a crucial technology in the world's transition to renewable energy, storing electricity generated by the wind and the Sun. Finding a source of lithium that doesn't cause more environmental destruction than necessary is key, but a clean solution is complicated.

Pennsylvania sits on a vein of sedimentary rock known as the Marcellus Shale, which is rich in natural gas. The geological foundation was deposited almost 400 million years ago by volcanic activity, and it contains lithium from volcanic ash.

Over vast stretches of time, deep groundwater has dissolved the lithium in these rocks, essentially "mining the subsurface", according to Justin Mackey, a researcher at the National Energy Technology Laboratory in Pennsylvania.

Mackey and his colleagues have now found that when wastewater is dredged up from the deep by fracking activities, it contains an astonishing amount of lithium.

There's more at the link.

Looks like the irresistible force is about to collide headlong with the immovable object, in environmental terms.  The US government and the tree-huggers want to eliminate as much fossil fuel as possible, and are therefore pushing electric vehicles as the solution.  On the other hand, if they want to do that, they have to have lithium for the EV's batteries:  and a major source for lithium now appears to be the fracking technologies they've been trying to ban for years, on the grounds that they're a major source of pollution and other problems.

Which do they want most?  Abundant batteries?  Or abundant gasoline as a derivative of abundant batteries?  Will they do without the latter, even though it means that obtaining the former will be more difficult and much more expensive?  Or will they fuel the vehicles of those of us who reject EV's as being insufficiently developed to be practical, in order to have more EV's to sell to those who want them?

Oh, the irony is delicious . . .

Peter

I hope some of my readers will be knowledgable enough to help with information about a small solar power installation.  I don't want a whole-house, major-league installation:  just enough to charge a couple of power stations in case of need, and perhaps an additional storage battery in due course.

I note that most of the solar power vendors want to charge several times the actual cost of the solar panels, which can be determined easily enough through looking at importers' prices.  I object strenuously to being "milked" like a cow for all the money they can get out of me!  In particular, many of them won't sell solar panels alone - only as part of an overall "solution" that's far more than I either want or can afford.

I'm looking for panels that can generate 500W-1,000W on a good, clear day, although I can go a bit higher if necessary.  I'd prefer to use 2-4 panels, but not more, for ease of portability.  They'll be mounted on a frame (fixed or on wheels) in my back yard, not on the roof.  They have to conform to these specifications:

• Total voltage:12-150V.
• Total power: 3000W max.
• Uses MC4 connectors or adapters.

If I need to reduce the power to charge smaller power stations, or to connect the panels to a power station for charging it, I'll also need the necessary equipment to do that.  They'll be used with Ecoflow and/or Bluetti power stations ranging from 500W to 5,000W in capacity.

If any reader can advise a reasonably good quality solar panel/s to fit that need, please let us know in Comments.  Please also advise on the type of frame that would be most suitable for the back yard, but would allow the panels to be brought under cover or otherwise protected when a Texas hailstorm arrives.  (Those are no fun:  right now, as I write these words, a team of roofers is stomping back and forth over my head, replacing our shingles as a result of a hailstorm last month.)

Also, if any reader can recommend a good introductory text, or video, or Web site to help me better understand the ins and outs of solar power, I'd be grateful.  Right now, I know only enough to be dangerous.  Thanks!

Peter

Twitter/X user Yam Peleg brings us a video clip of ground unmanned vehicles (drones) being attacked by suicide unmanned aerial vehicles (also drones).  Go watch.  It's worth your time.

One suspects this may be the future of ground combat between technologically capable adversaries.  Why risk a human life when you can send an automated system to do his job?  And why counter the adversary with a human when another automated system will be at least as, if not more, efficient?

As I've said before, in this technological age, I'm glad I'm not an infantryman any longer . . .

Peter

As if we didn't have enough problems with our food supply already, it appears that the recent solar storms have created new difficulties for farmers.

The solar storm that brought the aurora borealis to large parts of the United States this weekend also broke critical GPS and precision farming functionality in tractors and agricultural equipment during a critical point of the planting season.

. . .

“All the tractors are sitting at the ends of the field right now shut down because of the solar storm,” Kevin Kenney, a farmer in Nebraska, told me. “No GPS. We’re right in the middle of corn planting. I’ll bet the commodity markets spike Monday.”

. . .

“Due to the way the RTK network works, the base stations were sending out corrections that have been affected by the geomagnetic storm and were causing drastic shifts in the field and even some heading changes that were drastic,” the dealership told farmers Saturday morning. “When you head back into these fields to side dress, spray, cultivate, harvest, etc. over the next several months, we expect that the rows won't be where the AutoPath lines think they are. This will only affect the fields that are planted during times of reduced accuracy. It is most likely going to be difficult—if not impossible—to make AutoPath work in these fields as the inaccuracy is most likely inconsistent.”

These automated systems have become critical to modern farming (often called “precision agriculture”), with farmers using increasingly automated tractors to plant crops in perfectly straight lines with uniform spacing. Precision agriculture has greatly increased the yield of farms, and a 2023 report by the US Department of Agriculture noted that more than 50 percent of corn, cotton, rice, sorghum, soybeans, and winter wheat are planted and harvested with “automated guidance.” Many modern tractors essentially steer themselves, with the oversight of a farmer in the cab. If the planting or harvesting is even slightly off, the tractors or harvesters could damage crops or plant crooked or inconsistently, which can cause problems during the growing season and ultimately reduce yield.

There's more at the link.

I called a couple of farming friends and asked them about this.  All agreed that for the big commercial farms, it might be a very serious problem indeed.  It seems that big automated tractors and other machinery electronically map the location of the seed rows they plant, and use those maps throughout the growing season to navigate to them to spread fertilizer, pull weeds, and eventually harvest the crop.  If the initial maps are not accurate, then future work on those seeds might miss them by feet or yards, meaning that they won't be properly fertilized and protected during their growth.  The harvest from those rows might be reduced substantially as a result.

Can farmers compensate manually for this failure of their automated systems?  I have no idea.  I presume that once seeds start to grow, the plants can be seen with the naked eye and fertilized, weeded, etc. accordingly, but how many commercial farms are set up to work that way?  As far as I know, most of them reduce their workers to a bare minimum prior to harvest, because automated systems do most of the work formerly done by hand.  If they have to revert to the old ways to care for a proportion of their crops, is that even possible today?  Do they have enough staff and older-style equipment to do so?

Another question is, how many farms, and how many seed rows, have been affected?  If farmers planted (say) 10% or 20% of their crops for this year in an inaccurate fashion, will yields be reduced by a similar proportion?  That might be disastrous for contracts, futures trades, exports, and all sorts of other industries that rely on farm production as an input for their own business activities.  What's more, I don't know whether crop insurance, that would pay out if bad weather, drought, fire, etc. affected a farm's production, will pay out over navigational errors like this.  I don't think the problem has ever arisen before, so it's possible the insurance policies don't even mention the issue.

I suspect smaller farms won't be as badly affected, as they're less likely to be able to afford the (very expensive) GPS-guided farm equipment involved.  However, they also don't produce a large proportion of the crops in this country.  "Big Ag" might be in for a torrid time this harvest season - and what will that do to food prices and availability, not just in this country, but around the world?  Commercial farms all over the world use the same technology these days, so the issue is unlikely to be confined to the USA.

Yet another reason, IMHO, to make sure our emergency preparations include a reasonable amount of food in reserve, just in case.  I'm going to keep an eye on the cost of frozen and canned vegetables, flour, etc.  I suspect some may become a lot more expensive as shortages bite.

Peter