The intercept has a long piece on the U.S. military’s misadventures in Africa. Sometimes I wonder if there is really any geopolitical strategy, or if it is as simple as they are fighting us because we’re there, and we’re there because they’re fighting us. If this is the case, there is clearly no military solution. But if the military is making its own foreign policy and conducting diplomacy directly with foreign militaries, is it surprising that military ideas are the only ideas?
Wirecutter has a new review of the latest in robot vacuums. You can spend a lot on a fancy one, but the good news is you can get a very functional one for around $200.
https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-robot-vacuum/
There is something weird about this post, and try as I might I can’t figure out what it is.
This post discusses a variety of philosophical topics including Sartre, “existential dread”, and “optimistic nihilism”, and the simulation hypothesis.
The Philosophy of “Optimistic Nihilism,” Or How to Find Purpose in a Meaningless Universe
this private think tank report on the future of transportation claims to have used a system dynamics approach and to have reached some radical conclusions, like the collapse of private car ownership, the oil industry, and major decreases in the cost of getting around within a decade or so. The buzz phrase is “transportation as a service”.
here are a couple internet startups of note in the shared parking and household/business cleaning arenas. Certainly these have all been done before, but there is room for improved reliability and payment options.
https://www.smartcitiesdive.com/news/parking-network-airgarage-wins-phoenix-smart-city-hack/508031/
https://www.axios.com/cleaning-is-a-profitable-business-for-these-two-startups-2502432673.html
some candidates for Federal Reserve chairman are being mentioned, and the good news is that all appear to have some central banking experience, and none are actually against central banking or espousing weird conspiracy theories!
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/next-fed-chair-yellen-successor-by-jeffrey-frankel-2017-10
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/trump-fed-appointments-by-eswar-prasad-2017-10
I’m at a disadvantage traveling and trying to post on my phone, so my posts may be short for awhile.
So just what is/was Uranium One? According to Lawfare.com, almost nothing. It was a business transaction between a Russian government-linked company and a Canadian company owning U.S. uranium mines. Such transactions have to be reviewed by a panel including many U.S. government agencies, which seems like a good idea. The State Department, overseen by Hillary Clinton at the time is one of the many departments involved. The transaction was reviewed and approved by the book. And seriously, that’s all. To suggest otherwise is propaganda, not professional journalism based on facts and logic. We seem to live in a country now where even educated people don’t realize there is a difference.
https://lawfareblog.com/unpacking-uranium-one-hype-and-law
just in case you want to make broken glass themed candy for Halloween, here is how you can do that.
http://eatthedead.com/2017/10/27/halloween-recipe-glass-shard-skull-cake/
Orkin has released a list of which cities it has trapped the most rats in. Interesting, except they don’t appear to have controlled for population or area. So, the biggest cities have the most rats, which doesn’t tell us much except that rats are present in cities. It would be more interesting to know how many rats are present per square mile or per 1,000 people per square mile. Which I suppose you could try to figure out from this data.
- Chicago
- New York
- Los Angeles (+1)
- San Francisco – Oakland (+1)
- Washington, DC (-2)
- Philadelphia (+1)
- Detroit (+2)
- Baltimore (-2)
- Seattle – Tacoma
- Dallas – Ft. Worth (+4)