Category Archives: Uncategorized

Yeah, don’t ask.
Source: Hubbs Movie Reviews

1962’s Jack The Giant Killer has good sets, mediocre special effects, and a bad story. This is a story from medieval England, as a sorceror attempts to steal away the Princess from the King of Cornwall. His giant gains the princess, but falls to a lowly farmer; knighted, he now must pursue the again-abducted princess, this time over the seas. His first ship stripped from him, he falls in with a lone Viking on his boat, who gives him an imp, imprisoned for, ummm, I forget how many years, who matches magic with the sorceror. The good guys are good guys, the bad guys are, for no ready reason, really really bad, and the hurdle this movie attempts to bound over the is that low one labeled “Light Entertainment,” for there is nothing really to contemplate and think about it, no moral questions, no ambiguous characters, nothing really; Jack gets the girl in the end.

A witch, a witch!

Monsters abound, in classic stop-action style, and also in the traditional mode, they appear to be lackwitted, even if one of the giants has two heads – for no discernible reasons. I did think the witches were inventively done, however.

The editing and special effects was mostly average for the era, but in one combat scene the fighting was just wrong – one moment the good guy has a whip, next he has a sword, and, maybe as one might expect from a farmer, he’s just awful with his weapon.

The acting was OK. The actor playing the sorceror reveled in his role; the other actors are adequate, but clearly everyone’s there to collect a paycheck; this isn’t Art by any stretch of the imagination.

Maybe when you have the season’s head cold and can’t stand to sleep any longer, this will serve the need of something to distract you from angry virus; otherwise, don’t waste your time unless you’re a devotee of the lead, Kerwin Mathews.

precuneus:

Location of Precuneus in red.
Source: Wikipedia

Further clues on how to tackle itch come from brain imaging studies. Many brain areas activated by pain are also active during itch, but one area that seems distinctively responsive to itch is the precuneus. This brain region is involved in visual processing and memory, says Gil Yosipovitch at the University of Miami, Florida. “We can’t pinpoint what the precuneus does in itch, but it’s uniquely activated with itch and not pain,” he says. [“Itch: When pain feels good“, Stephani Sutherland, NewScientist (26 November 2016, paywall)]

Regarding Minneapolis’ inquiry into changing their bank from Wells Fargo, a reader writes:

Good luck with that, I say. Wells Fargo will then turn around and move out of Minneapolis, where they’re a major tenant in a number of buildings.

Which is, in itself, an expensive proposition. I suspect moving is something they’d prefer not to do without good reason – especially if it involves more bad publicity, on top of their problem with sham accounts. And that’s not going well – The New York Times reports Wells Fargo is attempting to use arbitration rather than litigate a class action suit, much to the detriment of their customers:

In congressional hearing rooms and on national television, Wells Fargo has vowed to make things right for the thousands of customers who were given sham accounts.

The bank’s new chief executive, Timothy J. Sloan, in his first week on the job, said his “immediate and highest priority is to restore trust in Wells Fargo.”

But in federal and state courtrooms across the country, Wells Fargo is taking a different tack.

The bank has sought to kill lawsuits that its customers have filed over the creation of as many as two million sham accounts by moving the cases into private arbitration — a secretive legal process that often favors corporations.

Lawyers for the bank’s customers say the legal motions are an attempt to limit the bank’s accountability for the widespread fraud and deny its customers their day in open court.

Source: Scheldt.us

Perhaps Wells Fargo doesn’t consider the common citizen a worthy customer. It’s thoroughly possible they’d prefer to go the corporate customer route. But you’d think corporate customers would take a look at this rather bad behavior and maybe just take their business elsewhere.

Because, at the moment, it appears money is in charge at Wells Fargo, and this is a very bad thing for an entity dependent on good relations with the community. If I were a Wells Fargo customer … I wouldn’t be.

Returning to this dormant thread, I recently learned that three local for-profit educational institutions are in trouble. First up is ITT Tech, shutting down last September, according to NPR, because…

… ITT shut down all of its 137 locations. The federal government cut off student aid because the school’s accreditor found it had lied about its graduation and job-placement figures.

This leaves the students with debt and credits which may be worthless, the story says. MPR News more detail on recruiting tactics:

When he first moved to Miami, Waltter Teruel says, working as a recruiter for ITT Technical Institute was a welcome change from his life in New York where he had been selling antiques and life insurance.

As a recruiter, Teruel says, ITT Tech took care of the pitch to potential students for you. Recruiters used scripts set out in detailed PowerPoint presentations and got long lists of prospective students to call. But soon the welcome change faded. “Most of these students, they were looking for a job,” not more school, says Teruel.

When ITT Technical Institute closed, employees began to share tightly designed sales tools, like those PowerPoints, that offered a glimpse into the strategy that helped the company grow to more than 130 campuses across the country.

But those same tactics ultimately contributed to the company’s downfall, when the Department of Education ruled, in part because of its aggressive recruiting, ITT could no longer enroll new students using federal loans.

Those tactics?

[Tereul] says if you filled in your information, you’d get a call from one, or maybe 10, recruiters. The rule set out in the ITT training materials instructs recruiters to call “a minimum of three times a day for the first three days.” This was known as the 3×3 rule.

The goal was to reach people as soon as possible after a lead was generated, and then get them to come in for a meeting. Teruel says recruiters were supposed to frame the meeting in person as a “coming attraction” and avoid answering too many questions on the phone. “Maybe if you give them too much information, they won’t want to come in.”

He says recruiters would try to appear as if they were swamped with meetings, “How about today at 2 o’clock, or tomorrow at 11 o’clock in the morning?”

And it got personal. On-campus visits began with a questionnaire, the WITY, or “what’s important to you.” Teruel says that served as a backbone for the interview. If an applicant said “I’m tired of making minimum wage,” or “I want to better support my family,” recruiters would remind them what brought them there in the first place.

Next up, Globe University and the Minnesota School of Business, having common ownership, as noted in this press release by the US Department of Education:

The U.S. Department of Education announced today that participation in the federal student aid programs will end this month for Globe University (Globe) and Minnesota School of Business (MSB), two for-profit colleges under common ownership. This enforcement action is in keeping with the Department’s ongoing efforts to protect students, safeguard taxpayer dollars and increase accountability among postsecondary institutions.

The Program Compliance and Enforcement Units within Federal Student Aid determined that Globe and MSB are ineligible to participate in federal student aid programs because Globe and MSB have been judicially determined to have committed fraud involving Title IV program funds. Additionally, both institutions knowingly misrepresented the nature of their criminal justice programs and the transferability of credits earned to other institutions. These callous acts of misrepresentation left many students without the credentials necessary for their chosen careers and no options to continue their studies at other postsecondary institutions. Many graduates incurred thousands of dollars of debt but had limited options for successful job placement in their chosen fields.

“Globe and MSB preyed upon potential public servants – targeting those with a sincere desire to help their communities.” said U.S. Under Secretary of Education Ted Mitchell. “These institutions misrepresented their programs, potentially misleading students, and abused taxpayer funds, and so violated federal law, which is why we removed them from the federal student aid program. This is a sober reminder that not all institutions deliver on their advertised promises.”

Local NBC affiliate KARE11 notes Globe’s reaction:

We continue to fight hard for and alongside our nursing students, and those in every other program who are working so diligently to earn a degree to better their lives and the lives of their families. We believe the Office of Higher Education’s Order reaches far beyond what was necessary, penalizing students in every program for findings related to a single program that is no longer offered. Our nursing students routinely have a high first-time pass rate on the NCLEX, are successful in their careers, are passionate about their profession and are in great demand in their industry. It is imperative they be allowed to complete their program. Not allowing those students to complete not only has a devastating impact on them, it threatens the quality of health care for all Minnesotans. We appreciate how strongly and passionately many of our students have advocated for our Schools and we will continue to do the same for them.

Source: Piero Amadeo Infante

Notice how Globe University has become critical for the very survival of the healthcare industry of Minnesota – at least in their minds. To the mature citizen, it’s a mindset that says, We can say anything we want because honesty is not our paramount value. I wouldn’t trust that company with taking care of a cinder block, much less my education.

STUDENT, student, customer. This is true for traditional schools as well – I recall an interesting story out of Iowa some 35 – 40 years ago, where private Drake University was facing falling enrollment. They had been reducing tuition, to no avail. A new president came in and boosted tuition – and enrollment began growing. It appears students were using tuition as a proxy for education quality. [I have no idea if that story is online anywhere.]

So it’s not only a for-profit problem, but the real problem is that a private-sector originated school will, in all probability, bring private-sector methods to bear on the problem – and education is a fundamentally different sector, so the methodology can be glaringly wrong, not only resulting in the failure of the venture, but in people getting hurt as well.

Which is just as true within authentic private-sector transactions.

But the takeaway is to realize that the age-old educational institutions have developed appropriate methodologies for student recruitment, not to mention the rest of the student life cycle, from housing to the actual incidence of education. The message that education must change, must be replaced by private entities, is becoming an increasingly dubious message as we see these crash and burn amidst charges of fraud. Perhaps this is a case where the societal knowledge of previous generations is superior to today’s assertions – the realization that different sectors of society have different methods for good reason.

For all the complaints concerning the Iran nuclear deal, the whining of the Iranian hardliners is far more telling about the deal – they hate that they danced with the Great Satan, and looks like they lost. So now they’re looking to take out their frustrations on the Iranian Finance Minister, according to Changiz Varzi in AL Monitor in an article tellingly entitled “Iranian hard-liner alleges FM Zarif is American spy“:

On Dec. 3, Hossein Allahkaram, the head of the coordination council of Ansar-e Hezbollah, a semi-official paramilitary organization, alluded to Iran’s foreign minister being a US spy. On his official Instagram page, Allahkaram wrote, “Some believe that [Zarif’s] exceptional ties with American intelligence entities are undeniable. … Reuters had reported that the phone numbers of American politicians and intelligence officials, such as [Vice President] Joe Biden and [former Secretary of Defense] Chuck Hagel, are saved in Zarif’s cellphone, which [Zarif] hurriedly denied.” Allahkaram’s post continued, “Interestingly, [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, in a secret meeting with a high-ranking [Iranian] official, said that ‘according to our information, Zarif is an American agent.’”

Though the reasons for what happened next remain unclear — with some speculating that the Office of the Supreme Leader directly chastised Allahkaram — he subsequently did a U-turn and edited the Instagram post to remove the espionage allegation against Zarif and apologized for “any misunderstanding [he] might have caused.” Yet a screenshot of his original post was widely shared by Iranian social media users, especially on Twitter. One user tweeted, “Is it not a crime to [falsely] accuse [the] FM? Mr. Prosecutor, you have again showed favoritism.” …

A well recognized problem with public companies is their distraction with the short-term at the expense of the long-term. The clamor of shareholders, and even executive staff who have “aligned their interests with shareholders”, to meet quarterly goals can leave companies sensitive to such criticisms vulnerable to problems which may require long-term, resource-heavy solutions. This can range from products becoming obsolete to global environmental problems.

Recognizing this, several companies have come together to create FCLT Global:

FCLT Global is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to developing practical tools and approaches that encourage long-term behaviors in business and investment decision-making.

We take an active and practical approach to achieving our goals by conducting research, convening business leaders, developing educational resources and actionable recommendations, and generating broad awareness of ways in which a longer-term focus can increase innovation, economic growth and future savings.

FCLT began in 2013 as an initiative of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and McKinsey & Company, which, together with BlackRock, The Dow Chemical Company and Tata Sons, founded FCLT Global in July 2016. In addition to our Founding Members, we involve other Member organizations from across the investment value chain, including asset owners, asset managers and corporations, that are committed to achieving long-term tangible actions that benefit businesses, markets and society more broadly.

Will they get traction? Their introductory presentation lays out the problem… but doesn’t seem to have solutions in mind.

Ever wonder about the responsibilities of the youngest Cabinet slot, the Department of Homeland Security? Paul Rosenzweig posts a review of the job responsibilities on Lawfare:

The ideal Secretary would have a comprehensive knowledge of a variety of topics and a wide-range of personal and managerial characteristics.  To be clear, this mythical person does not exists, but as we measure Gen. Kelly (or anyone else) for the job consider this.  Among the substantive areas of expertise a Secretary needs are:

• Border security — More than 400 million people cross our borders every year.  Most are people we wish to welcome; a few are not.  Understanding that problem is likely the principal goal of DHS.  Likewise DHS screened roughly 2.5 million containers of goods annually (these are rough numbers, of course).

• Trade — At the same time the border is being secured, the Secretary has to manage a system that permits trade goods and visitors to enter our country for lawful purposes.  A world without imports and exports would be nearly impossible to imagine, and every 30 seconds added to screening procedures translates, almost directly, into hundreds of millions of dollars in costs.

And etc etc etc. Paul neglects to measure Trump’s appointee, General Kelly, against the responsibilities.

The scandals continue in a veritable flood, and the latest report comes courtesy Ron Klain:

Donald Trump gave his Foundation’s largest donor a CABINET spot yesterday. Did you see blaring headlines? Imagine if HRC had done that??

Yes, indeedy, the appointment of Linda McMahon – another inexperienced millionaire whose sole qualification appears to be that she gave a lot of money to the Trump Foundation. Is it fair to suggest that the possession of wealth is a fair proxy for ability in a Cabinet post? This appears to be the bet.

But this is certainly a scandal. Will the GOP step up to the plate and reprimand their President? The current hierarchical structure strongly suggests not.

Concerning the proposed last gasp measures, a reader writes:

The Democratic propaganda machine has historically not been effective enough to do something like this. There should be continuing “outrage” that the Republicans have refused for 9 months to consider Obama’s appointment.

Absolutely. And whoever is selected and approved should always be known as the illegitimate justice. The absolute refusal to even participate in the formal process is a shame and a good reason for the Democrats to throw rocks into the gears at this juncture, and is a measure of the immaturity of the members of the GOP who participated in this.

The City of Minneapolis is looking to the future – and putting the squeeze on monster bank Wells Fargo. Local news station WCCO has a report:

The city of Minneapolis is calling out Wells Fargo, saying they are looking into taking their business elsewhere.

The city council voted unanimously to explore ways they can stop doing business with banks that invest in the fossil fuel industry.

The council points to Wells Fargo’s backing of the Dakota Access Pipeline as an example.

“This is about looking at the options that we have as a city to use our taxpayer dollars in a responsible way, in a way that will protect the environment and the people,” said Councilmember Alondra Cano.

She says she proposed looking into how the city could end its relationship with Wells Fargo after her constituents showed concern that the nation’s fourth-largest bank is backing the pipeline project. And it is not just the environment she is concerned about.

Talking to a former Wells Fargo employee, he estimated the Minneapolis account to be significant, and stated that Wells Fargo is hip deep in the fossil fuel industry. While just Minneapolis isn’t going to be shifting Well Fargo out of the fossil fuel industry, a few more hits like this might make them start thinking about it.

Applause for Minneapolis.

If you’ve been hearing that the Democrats may still have a chance to installed Judge Garland into SCOTUS, but don’t really know what’s going on, Aaron Blake describes the two scenarios in WaPo here. The first is to take advantage of the Senate supposedly being out of session while the new members are sworn in. In this scenario, Obama would make a recess appointment, which is good for a year. SCOTUS has had recess appointments before, but it’s rare.

The second basically comes down to taking advantage of the fact that, come January 3rd, for a short while, the Senate doesn’t have 100 members, but only 66 – and the Democrats will have a 36-30 advantage. For those few minutes, Garland could be renominated, considered, and confirmed. Supposedly.

The legal thicket is formidable. The cultural consequences – either way – are deeply confusing. For most, it’s a question of whether the damage of the potential IJ¹ to liberal causes is worth starting a strong Cold War between the Parties. One facet that might not be immediately obvious, though, is the continuing evolution of the GOP. As it continues to head further to the right, will its strength and influence shrink? Will Trump’s swamp, getting deeper and deeper with every billionaire he nominates, ultimately drown the outrage of such a maneuver – successful or not? There’s a lot of calculated risks here, and I suspect the Democrats are just shaking their heads at these proposals.

But, just as a way to fire the imagination, they’re interesting.

¹Illegitimate Justice.

Sure glad these are small.

A synesthete is someone who, upon experiencing an input on one input, may experience an input on another input as well. Some of the best well known are those who associate colors with numbers. One of the rarest? NewScientist (26 November 2016) has the info:

WHEN you think about last April, what do you imagine? If you see a crisp image of a calendar in front of you, you might be a calendar synaesthete. …

Only a few people have calendar synaesthesia. To find out if they are having a real sensory experience, a team led by Vilayanur Ramachandran at the University of California, San Diego, tested two synaesthetes.

One [synaesthete], known as ML, sees her months as occupying an asymmetrical “V” shape. When asked at intervals to draw her calendar on a screen using a laser pointer, the angles and lengths of the V shape were always identical.

ML also appears able to use her calendar to easily navigate backwards through time. When asked to recite every third month backwards, she took 1.88 seconds per month, compared with 4.48 seconds in eight non-synaesthetes (Neurocase, doi.org/bs3j). “During the task we noticed that ML appeared to be inspecting her calendar,” says Ramachandran.

The cross-connections in one’s brain are fascinating. I have to wonder if there are evolutionary implications in synaesthetes. Nothing springs right to mind, but I’d be happy to entertain thoughts on the matter.

Some Egyptian are working on reviving an old martial art, as Menna Farouk reports in AL Monitor:

Players of an ancient Egyptian martial art are striving to revive it and turn it into a sport that aims to foster morals, respect and chivalry. Tahtib was once known as a martial art but has since changed into a stick game or dancing art. Its players now say that they want it to be an internationally recognized martial sport. …

Fourteen Hours (1951) doesn’t mess about getting to the central incident of this drama – a young man, Robert, standing on a ledge on the 15th floor of a skyscraper in New York City. From this incident erupts a number of psychological studies: of Robert, his mother, his father, the traffic cop trying to talk him down, the crowds below, even a divorcing couple. Each is a reaction to this central incident, as Robert battles his daemons, his despair, and his insecurities, while the cop deals as an old-time cop should with the barriers in his way – hard-nosed bulldozer when he can, otherwise talking his way around those who have their own ideas.

In terms of characters, some have that important feel that they have a life once the cameraman stows his instrument, while the rest are more drawn only for their roles; most of the leading cast feels quite lifelike. The story, if you like solid, if unspectacular, tension, is filled with mystery, refusing to reveal everything in the first ten minutes, leaving us to wonder what is driving this man to waver about on the ledge – and this cop to sit there with him.

The cinematography is quietly spectacular, utilizing, without overusing, unusual camera angles that illuminate the scene as various people might see it, from Robert’s view to that of a photojournalist searching for that perfect shot.

This is not a perfect movie. I wasn’t sweating with tension, sitting on the edge of my seat, sucking the enamel off my – nevermind. An occasional aside from the audience is not out of the question. But I enjoyed the exploration of the sick crevices of this man’s mind – and what appears to be motivating this sad behavior.

It’s listed as film noir, but I don’t think it quite qualifies. Regardless, if you like that sort of atmosphere, where a man’s life balances on the edge of a building, you could do worse than Fourteen Hours.

Having now read the Wikipedia entry, I’m a little scared. Too many deaths during production.

Susan Landau and Cathy O’Neil give an example  on Lawfare of how artificial intelligence is not quite as fool-proof as might be hoped:

Consider the recent example of Microsoft’s Tay-bot. This conversation-ready twitter bot was hastily removed sixteen hours after it was first put out. Tay had been carefully trained to avoid discussions of Eric Garner, but within a day the bot was spewing racist and anti-Semitic obscenities. According to Microsoft, this was because it was being trained through a “coordinated attack” by groups of Twitter users. And if you think we can get away with having bots that don’t “learn” from their interaction, we cannot. Without a dynamic interactive component, the bots will be obviously not human. We should learn our lesson from the Tay-bot; AI is simply not very smart yet.

One wonders how much ‘parenting’ the bot received. After all, the only intelligent beings who we respect are ourselves, so I (with my one college course in AI back in the 1980s <- this is known as self-snarking) would expect that our regimen for building an AI should include a ‘parenting’ phase, akin to our own – basically a supervised learning phase during which basic morality / ethics is instilled.

Judging from the reaction of the bot to the Twitter users, no such phase took place, and the bot, with no directives for, let us say, “right thinking”, went off the rails at the prompting of the “bigger boys”.

Regardless of the motivations of the Twitter users, I applaud their activities, as it exposes a flaw in this approach to AI. Fortunately for researchers, once they get the parenting phase right, then it should be a simple matter of copying that moral direction into each subsequent bot.

Unfortunately, parenting can be a hard thing to do. It might take years to finally get it right.

(A forgotten post, a little late.)

The mission to make judges the plaything of the masses continued unabated this election season, as Christie Thompson of The Marshall Project reports:

Outside groups spent more money on campaigns for seats on top state courts nationwide than ever before, an analysis by The Brennan Center for Justice shows. At least one seat was at stake in 27 states on Election Day.

Special interest organizations — most of which don’t have to disclose their donors under campaign finance laws — put a record $19.4 million into TV ads for judicial candidates, over half of all TV spending in these races. The Republican State Leadership Committee spent the most of any group, putting $4 million into eight different races as part of its stated effort to elect more conservative justices.

The spending largely failed to unseat the judges it targeted. In Kansas, Washington and Mississippi, for example, justices held onto their jobs despite costly efforts to remove them.

But spending by outside groups isn’t expected to drop off. As some experts pointed out, many judges were able to win re-election because they had plenty of money in their corner, too. “I think it can be misleading to just look at money going to challengers who lose and then concluding the money had no impact,” said Alicia Bannon, who closely follows judicial elections as senior counsel for the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “I fear the lesson is that money is important and may encourage more spending.”

And the idea that judges need money to remain judges is a very poor proxy for quality judicial results. In the Kansas retention battle, previously mentioned on this thread, Christie has some numbers for us:

The four justices targeted by the ads won their retention election with support from roughly 56 percent of voters. But Justice Caleb Stegall, who was not targeted in the ads, won with 71 percent.

Ya know, the whole idea of appointed judges, unaffected by the latest opinion polls, is a profoundly conservative, and I think good, idea – but if we trace the money, we find it’s conservative PACs and individuals who tend to throw money into these elections, and who appear to agitate for elected judges. Of course, the signal outrage are claims of “legislating from the bench”, and, according to Wikipedia, this goes all the way back to Thomas Jefferson, if under different phraseology. But sometimes decisions that go against you are simply decisions that go against you. Continuing to fight a legal battle by changing how the referees are picked, to be honest, smacks of sore losers who are stubborn because that’s how they were brought up, not to respect justice and the law.

Stanford scientists are trying to work out how birds fly:

From the press statement:

As a graduate student working with Stanford mechanical engineer David Lentink, Eric Gutierrez trained this member of the second smallest parrot species in order to precisely measure the vortices it creates during flight. Their results, published in the Dec. 6 issue of Bioinspiration and Biomimetics, help explain the way animals generate enough lift to fly and could have implications for how flying robots and drones are designed.

“The goal of our study was to compare very commonly used models in the literature to figure out how much lift a bird, or other flying animal, generates based off its wake,” said Diana Chin, a graduate student in the Lentink lab and co-author of the study. “What we found was that all three models we tried out were very inaccurate because they make assumptions that aren’t necessarily true.”

Fortunately, it only took a goggle-eyed mini-monster to show them the way.

In November, NASA & NOAA launched the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite — R series. Its purpose?

GOES-R launch. Credit: NASA/NOAA

GOES-R series satellites will provide images of weather pattern and severe storms as frequently as every 30 seconds, which will contribute to more accurate and reliable weather forecasts and severe weather outlooks. GOES-R’s environmental data products will support short-term weather forecasts and severe storm watches and warnings, maritime forecasts, seasonal predictions, drought outlooks and space weather predictions. GOES-R products will improve hurricane tracking and intensity forecasts, increase thunderstorm and tornado warning lead time, improve aviation flight route planning, provide data for long-term climate variability studies, improve solar flare warnings for communications and navigation disruptions and enhance space weather monitoring.

Gotta wonder if this would be going up under a Trump Administration. I wonder if this is going to contribute to the predicted problem with overloaded computer resources, as discussed here.

The appointments planned by Trump continue. Lawfare‘s Christopher Mirasola evaluates the two latest:

[Marine General John] Kelly [for DHS] has spent his entire professional career in the Marines. Until February 2016, General Kelly was the commander of U.S. Southern Command, overseeing military operations in South and Central America. Unlike other regional combatant commands, Southern Command is known for emphasizing “soft power,” and playing a particularly active role in humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, and local military training. Before his time at SOUTHCOM, Kelly previously commanded forces in Iraq and was an aid to Defense Secretaries Leon Panetta and Robert Gates. …

General Kelly is likely to face an easy confirmation. Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson told reporters that Kelly “would be an outstanding pick.” Former Obama administration Defense Secretary Leon Panetta also endorsed Kelly, saying that “he has led our women and men in uniform and understands what it takes to keep our nation safe.”

And for ambassador to China?

[Iowa Governor Terry] Branstad has had experience with China, and Chinese President Xi Jinping in particular, over the course of his governorship. He first met Xi in 1985 during Xi’s visit to Iowa as a provincial agricultural official. The pair subsequently reconvened in 2012, when Xi was vice-president of China. …

Branstad’s appointment has been met with expert approval, and he is likely to be easily confirmed. China scholar Bonnie Glaser said that the appointment “means that the Trump team understands that it is important to have an ambassador who has access to Xi Jinping.” Obama administration Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also commented that Branstad is “tenacious, and trust me, with the Chinese, you need to be tenacious.”

These two seem a little more reasonable than most.

NewScientist (26 November 2016) reports that SpaceX is planning to put thousands of communication satellites in orbit in order to enable a faster Internet:

The satellites will orbit at between 1150 and 1275 kilometres above Earth. SpaceX plans to kick things off with an initial constellation of 1600 satellites followed by a further 2825, all of which will be put into four orbital shells to improve coverage.

Geostationary orbit is at an altitude of 35,786 kilometres, so we’re not talking about a relatively high orbit, which would also engender high latency on the network; the article doesn’t say so, but perhaps concerns about high latency motivated the relatively low orbit. This is also more than the total number of satellites currently in orbit. But the real surprise?

Similar projects are being developed by Airbus, Virgin Galactic and Boeing, among others.

Source: NASA

I am led to speculate as to the average cost of putting a single satellite in orbit, and to wonder if this is potentially a spectacular waste of resources through duplication of effort. NewScientist notes that at the 800 satellite mark, SpaceX will be able to put the majority of the world online, and, if you think about it, thus begins the growth of dependency. This reminds me of a bit of history: J. J. Hill, a railroad baron, developed his empire in part by buying the land around the railroad as he laid the track and then gave it, or sold it cheaply, to immigrants who would then require the services of the railroad in order to get supplies and ship their crops. Could a similar scheme have been hatched at SpaceX? I think of this in connection with satellite replacement, because that’s a non-trivial cost – but if SpaceX can build the demand for the communications, they may be able to cover replacement costs easily.

Speaking of, I am unsure as to the lifetime of these satellites, and the possibilities of collisions with current and future satellites. Presumably, SpaceX has given this some thought …

The old horror classic Donovan’s Brain (1953) came across our plate recently. Starring Nancy Davis (Reagan) and Lew Ayres, it starts with a scientist, his wife (a nurse), and his alcoholic assistant, who happens to be a surgeon. They are experimenting on monkey brains at the home lab when a plane crashes nearby. The lone survivor’s brain is saved; it¹ recovers, and then begins to grow and exhibit powers, now that it’s been loosed of its burdensome, failing body. Eventually, it tries to take over the scientist and implement its ambitions.

Sounds awful, doesn’t it?

It’s not. Once the concept of working telepathy is accepted, the rest of the story falls into place. The dialog is good, including a number of unexpected, yet logical responses which indicate the writers dealt in more than canned phrases. The story features ambition, setback, reaction to the setback, surprise twist. The characters are well-drawn, and the acting, if not stellar, is good enough to support the movie. The technical aspects are adequate to the demands of the movie. The brain is pleasingly cheesy.

In the end, it disappoints a little as the ending seems predictable, yet it had to end somewhere. Themes might have been more deeply explored, it could have been darker, and yet, it … was good enough.

It’s not earth-shattering, but on a cold January afternoon, when the snow is blowing and you’re wondering if the Arctic is taking up residence on your porch, you could do worse than to watch Donovan’s Brain.

¹Do brains have gender?

… and agree to treat President-elect Trump in a singular way. This occurred to me as I was reading Steve Benen discussing, One More Time (yeah, I’m crabby about it now), how Trump likes to lie. In this case, it’s about all the illegal votes supposedly cast against him:

… it was just last week when the president-elect raised questions about the validity of his own election, insisting via social media that he secretly won the popular vote he lost “if you deduct the millions of people who voted illegally.”

A wide variety of Republican officials, each of whom know Trump was lying, have defended the falsehood. Vice President-elect Mike Pence went so far as to say it’s “refreshing” to hear Trump speak his mind, even when he’s making demonstrably false claims.

But now we have evidence that even the president-elect’s lawyers have no use for their client’s dishonesty. Trump may claim there were “millions” of fraudulent ballots cast, but Trump’s legal filings say the exact opposite.

Trump’s attorneys went on to complain in its filing that Jill Stein “aims to sow doubts regarding the legitimacy of the presidential election.” And that, evidently, is problematic – because it’s Donald Trump’s job to sow doubts regarding the legitimacy of the presidential election.

The interviewers would agree to a simple protocol. During the interview, on his first attempt to assert a whopper, the interviewer stands up, and politely says, “That’s a self-serving lie, Mr. Trump. That’s unacceptable in a President. You are dismissed from this interview. Leave now.” And then have him escorted out while the interviewer turns his back.

Yep. Shame him. Note that self-serving is emphasized; I can accept that a President lies for purposes of foreign relations, although I would hope such a tactic is used sparingly. But for self-aggrandizement? To make himself feel better about his second-place finish in the popular vote?

Shame him.

It may not correct his behavior, but it would certainly make me feel better.

And for the interviewer who worries about losing access to someone who thinks he’ll soon be the most powerful person on Earth, just remember: Donald Trump is just another American citizen. Temporarily, he has a little more power, a little more influence. But it excuses nothing. Just as we might do this to our neighbor, it should be done to him.

Here in Minnesota, until today it’s been a comfortable and warm fall. But apparently all that heat’s going to head north and displace a lot of cold, cold air, according to NewScientist (26 November 2016):

SOMETHING is rotten in the state of the Arctic. Temperatures there have been an extraordinary 20 °C higher than the norm at this time of year.

For a few days, the sea ice began melting at a time when it should have been forming fast. And even before this melt, the ocean had been freezing over so slowly that the seasonal extent of sea ice over the past month was already the lowest ever recorded at this time of the year.

These unprecedented events are the result of unusual weather. Cold air from the Arctic has spilled south as far as Beijing, resulting in unusually cold weather across large parts of Asia, while warm air has flowed north to replace it. Climate change may be increasing the likelihood of this kind of event, by weakening the fast winds that circle the Arctic and keep the cold air locked in.

They end by noting a meteorologist commenting that this may indicate “all bets are off”. Earlier today I noted a report on the next few weeks weather being colder than usual, so this may be taken as a bit of confirmation. Right now we lack the required snow cover for the perennials to survive the winter, to cushion them from the occasional crossing over the freezing mark. Will we get that? We have been fortunate in getting some precipitation during this unusually warm start to the winter, as a former farmer has pointed out to me – rather than running off in the spring, as it might normally do, it’s soaking into the ground and, hopefully, reaching the aquifers.

Although I wonder if that’ll have an impact downstream (that is, down the Mississippi River), or if the precipitation amount doesn’t really matter that much.