bananas
bananas's JournalNarendra Modi of India Meets Pakistani Premier in Surprise Visit
Source: New York Times
It started with a private phone call by the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif of Pakistan on Friday morning to wish him a happy birthday.
About four hours later, Mr. Modi landed in the Pakistani city of Lahore for an impromptu visit with Mr. Sharif, giving such little notice that Mr. Sharif’s national security adviser could not make the journey from Islamabad in time.
It was the first visit to Pakistan by an Indian premier in almost 12 years. The tense relations between India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed nations, have long worried American policy makers, who fear that proxy wars between the two countries could flare into a real one. Mr. Modi is also highlighting India’s role in Afghanistan, including providing military assistance, which risks angering Pakistani leaders.
But with his flash of spontaneous personal diplomacy on Friday, Mr. Modi appeared to send a strong public message that the ambiguous course he has taken toward Pakistan has shifted to embrace engagement, not confrontation. It is a message that his administration has hinted at in recent weeks, seeking to sketch out a road map for talks with Pakistan on terrorism and trade.
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Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/26/world/asia/narendra-modi-nawaz-sharif-india-pakistan.html?_r=0
Kudos to all who prayed for peace this holiday season!
Bing Crosby - Do You Hear What I Hear (1963)
The Apocalyptic Fear in ‘Do You Hear What I Hear’
It’s the nativity story, retold during the Cold War.
Spencer Kornhaber, Dec 16, 2015
When Bing Crosby or Robert Goulet or Carrie Underwood sing of “a star, a star, dancing in the night with a tail as big as a kite,” it evokes the biblical Star of Bethlehem, leading the magi to the son of God.
It also evokes a nuclear missile.
Noël Regney and Gloria Shayne Baker wrote “Do You Hear What I Hear” in 1963, around the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, in response to the existential dread they felt because of the Cold War. “In the studio, the producer was listening to the radio to see if we had been obliterated,” Regney once explained. “En route to my home, I saw two mothers with their babies in strollers. The little angels were looking at each other and smiling.” This inspired the first line of the song: “Said the night wind to the little lamb … ”
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The lyrics are impressionistic, writerly, about a chain of communications between objects animate and not; I have always felt a bit frightened at the notion of “a voice as big as the sea.” The mentions of The Child make the song Christian, of course. But when there’s the command for “people everywhere” to pray for peace, the import is beyond any one religion
Baker once said that because of the fearful mood of the nation at the time, she and Regney had a hard time singing “Do You Hear What I Hear” without crying: “Our little song broke us up.” There’s reason enough for it to have the same effect today, unfortunately.
1968 Apollo 8 crew reading Genesis on Christmas
1968 Apollo 8 crew reading Genesis on Christmas
DerekSypniewski
Published on Nov 1, 2013
During the first ever manned trip to another space object, while orbiting the Moon for the very first time by human beings, on Christmas Eve 1968 the crew of Apollo 8: astronauts Frank Borman, Jim Lovell and Bill Anders have appropriately decided to send a message to Earth by reciting first 10 verses from Book of Genesis (English King James Bible version).
Fourty five years later at the time of writing, this message is still the most distant message ever sent and received by human beings.
Hats off to those 3 brave space pioneers, who went where no one else have ever gone before - and still hasn't!
Sadly, their trek won't be superseded by any farther manned flight in any foreseeable future, and if such trip should ever proceed, most likely it won't happen during our lifetime... since even a short video with mere portion of a sound from such flight - half a century later - is being at least tried to be squeezed for profits by multiple international corporations (some ain't even American!), obviously it only can and will get worse in the world run by global corporations instead of by the people, because no profits = no more space exploration; corporations running US governments (and most of the world today) obviously don't give a damn about science. If something/anything doesn't bring immediate profit, it won't get any funding anymore...
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Sound from NASA tape copy has been enhanced for better clarity; tape noise has been removed, but original transmission's noise has been left intact intentionally.
Visuals have been created from the famous "Earth Rise" photograph taken right before the reading by Astronaut Bill Anders aboard Apollo 8.
Image and sound sources courtesy of
Unites States National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
© ℗ 2013 DEREK SYPNIEWSKI
ISRC CA0V91309231
THIS VIDEO IS FREE FOR NON-COMMERCIAL HOME USE ONLY.
ANY OTHER USE OF THIS VIDEO AND/OR IT'S SOUNDTRACK, IN IT'S ENTIRETY OR ANY PORTION OF THEREOF, REQUIRE LICENCE FROM THE COPYRIGHT OWNER.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
(I had to add above copyright note to prevent any further scammers, see update below)
The Bathtub Curve, Nuclear Safety, and Run-to-Failure (xpost)
I posted this in Good Reads last month,
Throckmorton added some important information.
Fri Nov 27, 2015, 12:28 AM
bananas (26,477 posts)
The Bathtub Curve, Nuclear Safety, and Run-to-Failure
The NRC’s Operating Experience Branch issued a report on component failures from 2007 to 2011. More than 75% of the failures examined in this study involved components used longer than their recommended service lifetimes. The NRC’s report referred to it as being “run-to-failure.”
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Deliberately running safety components beyond service lifetimes until they fail is not only irresponsible, it is illegal. The NRC must not run away from its charter and obligation to protect public health and safety by failing to stop this lawbreaking nonsense.
Read the rest: http://allthingsnuclear.org/dlochbaum/the-bathtub-curve-nuclear-safety-and-run-to-failure
1. The maintenance rule 10-CFR-50.56 has changed the designation
It is now run to maintenance. What a farce.
After 28 years as a system engineer at a nuclear plant, I quit 2 years ago. Accident day is coming to US plant and I no longer wanted deal with it.
ExxonMobil and Sierra Club Agreed on Climate Policy—and Kept It Secret
Source: Bloomberg
A forgotten accord reached in 2009 may yet have relevance for the future of U.S. climate policy.
ExxonMobil and Sierra Club may be thought of as natural enemies, particularly when it comes to a question so tricky as how to address climate change. That's what two men named David thought, too, when they first met in 2008 to talk about a climate policy with very little support: a national tax on industrial carbon dioxide emissions. Secretly, however, they found that a common problem—the threat of unwieldy legislation—can for a time scramble the very idea of friends and enemies.
“Demonizing people is not a good idea,” said David Bailey, who at the time managed climate policy for ExxonMobil in Washington. “I realized that people at the Sierra Club don’t all have horns and a tail, and—I think—likewise.”
His negotiating partner at the time, David Bookbinder, was the chief climate counsel for the Sierra Club. The two wonks, working for organizations that are typically locked in opposition, recognized a shared interest in finding an alternative direction for U.S. climate policy. It took nearly a year and more than a dozen meetings to come up with a short document that bridged a huge chasm. It turns out that America's biggest oil company and one of its most iconic environmental groups could collaborate. What they came up with has gone unacknowledged until now—and it could provide a path past an intractable impasse on climate policy.
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The document—available here (PDF)—consists of 10 ideas that might shape a national carbon tax. A bill should set the U.S. on an emissions path that takes into account global climate-change risk and establishes an independent body to adjust the tax, when appropriate. Legislators should refund 90 percent of the tax to Americans, with the rest marked for research, technology deployment, and relief for coal communities.
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Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-12-22/exxonmobil-and-sierra-club-agreed-on-climate-policy-and-kept-it-secret
This reminds me of how Stanford Professor Martin Hellman described his first meeting with NSA chief Admiral Bobby Ray Inman:
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I had the privilege of experiencing this approach first hand in the 1970’s. Back then, NSA was used to having absolute control over all American cryptographic research, so they were rankled when I started publishing papers that they would have classified above Top Secret. I had developed my results without access to the classified literature, so I thought I should be free to publish my work – plus, there was a growing personal and commercial need for encryption that could not be met by classified algorithms. NSA saw things differently, and some elements within the Agency warned that I could be thrown in jail for publishing my work. This confrontation drew major media coverage, including coverage in Science, TIME magazine, and the New York Times.
That battle was in full swing when Inman took over as Director of NSA and, against the advice of all his advisors at the Agency, decided to pay me a visit to see if he could defuse the conflict. I’ll never forget his cutting through the initial tension by telling me, “It’s nice to see you don’t have horns,” which is how the career people at NSA had been portraying me. I repaid the compliment, since their threats had produced a similar picture of NSA in my mind. Inman went on to tell me that he couldn’t see the harm in talking, and talk we did. With that kind of “out of the box” thinking on Inman’s part, what had been an adversarial relationship eventually blossomed into a friendship with enough trust and understanding that Inman is one of the charter signers of my petition asking Congress to authorize a study of the risk inherent in our current nuclear posture.
<snip>
Japan FSA to fine Ernst affiliate $16.5 million over Toshiba audit: source
Source: Reuters
Japan's financial regulator will fine an Ernst & Young affiliate after the firm's audit of Toshiba Corp failed to spot the nation's worst accounting scandal in four years, a source familiar with the process told Reuters on Tuesday.
The Financial Services Agency (FSA) will fine Ernst & Young ShinNihon LLC 2 billion yen ($16.5 million) and suspend it form taking on new business contracts for three months, in a decision expected to made on Tuesday, the source said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter.
Toshiba said on Monday it would book a record net loss this year and cut about 5 percent of its workforce as the sprawling conglomerate, reeling from the $1.3 billion scandal, focuses on chips and nuclear energy.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-accounting-ernst-idUSKBN0U505S20151222
Toshiba to book record loss, cut 5 percent of workforce this year
Source: Reuters
Toshiba Corp said on Monday it would book a record net loss this year and cut around 5 percent of its workforce as the sprawling conglomerate, reeling from a $1.3 billion accounting scandal, focuses on chips and nuclear energy.
But analysts question whether streamlining can return the 140-year-old Japanese bulwark to dominance considering falling profit margins in the chip industry and a nuclear phase-out in developed countries since the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
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"Toshiba said it will focus on chips but it will take time for profit to regrow," said analyst Hideki Yasuda of Ace Research Institute. Profitability at Toshiba's nuclear business including U.S. subsidiary Westinghouse is also a concern, Yasuda said.
Toshiba last month said Westinghouse wrote down assets by $1.3 billion over the 2012 and 2013 business years. Analysts have also said Westinghouse faces increasing competition from Chinese and Russian builders of cheaper reactors.
Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-toshiba-restructuring-announcement-idUSKBN0U40IH20151221
SpaceX Makes History: Successfully Launches, Lands Falcon 9 Rocket
Source: NBC
SpaceX's successfully launched a Falcon 9 rocket on Monday night, the first from the private spaceflight company since its rocket exploded on liftoff in June.
The first stage of the rocket, used to propel the payload to 100km (62 miles) or so until the second stage takes over, then successfully landed on Earth again at a prepared landing zone. This is the first time SpaceX has ever attempted to land a rocket on land. Previous attempts, all unsuccessful, were attempted on floating landing pads.
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Read more: http://www.nbcnews.com/tech/innovation/spacex-set-attempt-first-rocket-launch-falcon-9-explosion-n483921
It landed at Cape Canaveral.
We've entered a new era in human history.
Congratulations to everyone at SpaceX!
SpaceX Orbcomm-2 launch and landing
The ORBCOMM launch is targeted for an evening launch from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, Fla.
If all goes as planned, the 11 satellites will be deployed approximately 20 minutes after liftoff, completing a 17-satellite, low Earth orbit constellation for ORBCOMM.
This mission also marks SpaceX’s return-to-flight as well as its first attempt to land a first stage on land.
The landing of the first stage is a secondary test objective.
"Liberating the Smalltalk lurking in C and Unix" by Stephen Kell
LIBERATING THE SMALLTALK LURKING IN C AND UNIX
Most programmers make a clear distinction between dynamic, interpreted languages such as Smalltalk and Ruby, and statically compiled languages such as C and C++. Dynamic languages are seen as being slow, yet easy to use, and with advantages of introspection, integrated tooling, flexibility and rapid prototyping. Compiled languages are seen as fast, yet lacking the aforementioned benefits, and requiring understanding of impenetrable binary files and esoteric tools. Interfacing the two is even worse, involving FFI "dark magic", complicated further by the fact that the infrastructures supporting one or other kind of language work quite differently. "Static" generate binaries sitting directly on the operating system, while dynamic languages exist inside interpreter-like virtual machines.
Does it have to be this way, or is there a unifying model? Can we get the best of both worlds: fast compiled binaries that nevertheless support introspection and other dynamism, and dynamic languages that integrate with compiled code without FFI magic? This talk introduces liballocs, an infrastructure which exposes the dynamism hiding in the arcane linking and debugging infrastructure of a Unix process, along with a small extension to C toolchains that enables fast dynamic access to data created by statically compiled code. Together they can be said to unleash a "hidden Smalltalk" inside the C and Unix model of programs and processes. Come prepared for a journey that takes your perceptions of the boundaries between dynamic and static languages and turns them on its head.
Stephen Kell
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Nice hair!
I haven't watched the video, but I liked the title and he has nice hair!
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