2.01.2025

When they talk about an enormous market for computing power…

AI Needs a Lot of Computing Power. Is a Market for ‘Compute’ the Next Big Thing?


…and when they say that, what they mean is an enormous market for electricity. Because the only way to run all those computers is with electricity.* And that in turn means an enormous market for natural gas and oil. Because burning those fuels is the only viable way we have to generate the electricity.**

Unless we get back to nukes.

*In the 19th Century a guy named Charles Babbage designed a computer that ran on steam. The steam would have been generated by burning coal. 


It's February that's the cruelest month

And here we're marking the beginning of this one with ice.

All. Over. Everything.

And because we have a clear sky today and it's sunny, it's wet ice too.

But not to worry. It's going to warm some by midweek. And rain. And then snow again.

It's a short month. But it already seems long.

For $35 you can watch a movie you don't care about

Or maybe you do care. That's on you.

Either way…

Today and tomorrow. (February 1 and 2.)

Another argument for the Oxford comma

 

The Oxford comma is also drearily called a serial comma.

1.30.2025

And not even peanuts

US military deportation flight likely cost more than first class

More than five times the $853 cost of a one-way first class ticket on American Airlines from El Paso, Texas, the departure point for the flight, according to a review of publicly available airfares.
But it's so.much more fun to play with the big toys.

Greenland is the ice one*

The West’s Arctic Defenses Rely On Some Sled Dogs and Aging Ships in Greenland

Trump isn’t the first U.S. president to express an interest in Greenland. During World War II, when Denmark was invaded by the Nazis, Greenland became a de facto U.S. protectorate. President Harry S. Truman offered to buy the island from Denmark for $100 million in 1946. The Danes declined the U.S. offer but signed the security pact that gives the U.S. the right to build military installations there.

 It's also critical to defending the Atlantic, explains this piece from the Wall Street Journal.

*It's also the world's biggest island. Australia, about triple Greenland's size and also seemingly an island is classified, instead, as a continental landmass.


A lot of sweeping going on

Trump signs sweeping executive orders that overhaul U.S. education system

However, critics swiftly condemned the executive orders as being an attack on LGBTQ students and on the accurate teaching of U.S. history, specifically concerning slavery and racial injustice.

The Donald is doing a lot of sweeping these days. Hard to tell how swept things will remain. Some have been unswept already. (Unswopen?)

This sort of procedure is also known as flailing around.

Just remember, it's only been ten days.

The search for hot drones

‘We’re all having to catch up’: NATO scrambles for drones that can survive the Arctic

COPENHAGEN, Jan 30 (Reuters) - In 2023, Mads Petersen, owner of Greenland-based startup Arctic Unmanned, sat in a car to keep warm while he tested a small drone at minus 43 degrees Celsius (minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit).…

"The battery only lasted for three minutes," he said.
Or warm drones at least. Warmish.

This, of course, is a somewhat exaggerated case of a phenomenon which also affects electric automobiles and trucks. Or any other thing that operates on a battery, in fact. Battery is do not work as well in cold temperatures as in warm. At least, the batteries we know how to make don't.

1.29.2025

The U.S. Department of Education was created in 1979

American Kids Are Getting Even Worse at Reading

The 67% of eighth-graders who scored at a basic or better reading level in 2024 was the lowest share since testing began in 1992, results from a closely watched federal exam show. Only 60% of fourth-graders hit that benchmark, nearing record lows.

 More from Perplexity.ai:

In summary, while U.S. students rank relatively well in international assessments like PISA regarding reading skills, domestic assessments such as NAEP reveal alarming declines in proficiency levels. The disparities among different demographic groups further complicate the picture, underscoring the need for targeted interventions to improve literacy rates across the nation. As educational authorities work to address these challenges, ongoing monitoring and reform will be essential to ensure that all students can achieve their full potential in reading and literacy.

 

Another ho-hum day? Try this instead

Two daredevils walk slackline suspended between hot air balloons

Friedi Kühne and Lukas Irmler took to the skies over Riedering and walked across a slackline 8,202 feet over the ground, breaking the Guinness World Record for highest slackline walk in the process.

The Undeterred

‘Emilia Pérez’ and the Curse of Oscar Bait

Last week, the nominees for the 2025 Academy Awards were announced. The leading contender with 13 total nominations? Emilia Pérez, a French-produced Spanish-language musical about a transgender Mexican drug lord and her underappreciated girlboss defense attorney. The film lost around $15 million at the box office on a relatively modest $26 million budget, so if you haven’t seen it, you likely aren’t alone and shouldn’t feel bad—it wasn’t made for you anyway.

 

1.28.2025

Do not disturb

NATO is deploying eyes in the sky and on the Baltic Sea to protect vital cables.

Power and communications cables and gas pipelines stitch together the nine countries with shores on the Baltic, a relatively shallow and nearly landlocked sea. A few examples are the 152-kilometer (94-mile) Balticconnector pipeline that carries gas between Finland and Estonia, the high-voltage Baltic Cable connecting the power grids of Sweden and Germany[*]. and the 1,173-kilometer (729-mile) C-Lion1 telecommunications cable between Finland and Germany.

*I hope they have a really good fuse panel on that one.

I used to have a chunk of an undersea telephone cable (but not from the Baltic). I didn't cut it out myself; I got it from the factory where it was made. I lost it somewhere along the way, But, as this story notes, it was about the size of a garden hose. Six or eight inches of garden hose, to be precise. 

For a regular price…

…you get your sardines in or maybe, if you're lucky, packed in


 …but for an extra buck or so you can have them…


served in.

Today we are being served.

1.27.2025

I like Perplexity…

Perplexity AI proposes to merge with Tiktok, with US government getting half, source says


… but this is an horrifically bad idea.

Giving the government, and especially the present administration, a piece of the action here is just plain dumb. And, incidentally, also wrong.