Category: technology

6 July 2021, 6:36 PM

The Parable of the Frog and the Scorpion in Silicon

It appears that Qualcomm has plans to design a competitor to Apple’s M1 chip.

I don’t know if they actually have the technical ability to do this, they dominate the cell phone modem and SoC chip markets, but given their record of monopolistic and abusive business practices, what person in their right mind would rely on them for the technical core of their product?

Qualcomm’s new CEO, Cristiano Amon, says the company will have no problem producing laptop chips to compete directly with Apple’s M1—mainly because Qualcomm now employs some of the key minds behind Apple’s highly publicized breakthrough. Amon told Reuters in a recent interview that Qualcomm will attempt to design its own system-on-a-chip (SoC) for laptops without working with ARM, its partner in smartphone chips.

This SoC would include a 5G modem as well as a CPU. Explaining this strategy, Amon said:

We needed to have the leading performance for a battery-powered device. If Arm, which we’ve had a relationship with for years, eventually develops a CPU that’s better than what we can build ourselves, then we always have the option to license from Arm.

This year, Qualcomm purchased startup Nuvia for $1.4 billion. Nuvia was founded by former Apple employees who had worked on the Apple Silicon transition in the lead up to the launch of the M1.

Amon said that Qualcomm intends to use that Nuvia acquisition to drive the development of new chips for consumer devices, including laptops, to offer computer-makers a counterpoint to Apple’s highly efficient silicon.

Seriously, given their behavior in the past, how could ANYONE trust them not to institute onerous licensing requirements as soon as they have achieved a modicum of commercial success?

You know the senario, “Sorry, but we’ve changed our licensing terms. Instead of the chip manufacturer paying a 30% royalty, the system manufacturer will have to pay a 20% royalty. Have a nice day.”

23 June 2021, 6:09 PM

I’ll Take Deeply Racist Company Culture for $500, Alex

I’m referring, of course, to the Chocolate Factory, AKA Google, who has shuttered a diversity training program because the graduates were systematically underpaid, and too many of the quit.

This is racism presented as performative anti-racism:

Google has scrapped a scheme designed to train and hire engineers from diverse backgrounds – after people who made it through the program to become Googlers complained they were screwed over in pay.

The engineering residency program, known as Eng Res, has run since 2014. It’s aimed at those who don’t quite qualify as entry-level engineers; these folks are then trained up in various departments in the Chocolate Factory, and after a year they’re either hired as a proper developer or dropped.

The idea is to identify and top up the skills of people who show potential but have not had the same opportunities as others to learn and grow, or have faced unfair career-limiting hurdles, prior to applying for a role at Google. Newbie coders get a place at one of the world’s biggest names in tech, and Google gets a workers from a diverse range of backgrounds.

But after completing the program, alumni are given lower salaries, smaller bonus payments, and no stock units compared to their peers, a group of over 500 current and former Googlers have claimed.

Over time, this pay gap creates “systemic pay inequities,” according to presentation given to the web giant’s top brass by Eng Res graduates, Reuters reports.

Now, Google has dropped Eng Res altogether. A spokesperson told The Register a new program will be put in place.

It appears that the salary/bonus/stock option deficit was on the order of tens of thousands of dollars, and followed them throughout their careers.

I gotta figure that this blatant racism is central to Google corporate culture. They think that “Those People” should be grateful for having a place at Google, and that this justifies underpaying them.

Guck Foogle.

4 June 2021, 8:02 PM

I’ll Believe It When I See It

United Airlines has put in an order for Boom Supersonic’s Overture airliner.

There has never been a meaningful Supersonic Transport (SST) that has entered service without billions in public subsidies, so I do not expect this aircraft to see service.

The financial numbers are just not there, as shown by the recent demise of the Aerion supersonic business jet.

I don’t know why United put in an order, but I don’t ever expect them to actually fly the aircraft:

More than half a century after placing options for the European-made Concorde, United Airlines is once again banking on the commercial allure of speed by becoming the first operator to order its spiritual successor—Boom Supersonic’s Overture.

United never flew the Concorde.

The startling deal, which covers orders for 15 aircraft with options on a further 35, is a key milestone toward the revival of faster-than-sound commercial transport and a major boost for the Denver-based startup aircraft manufacturer.

………

The United deal envisages introduction of the first civil supersonic services on transatlantic and Pacific routes by 2029. The Overture will be designed to cruise at Mach 1.7 [Down from earlier goal of Mach 2.2] and carry up to 88 passengers on routes up to 4,250 nm using 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Note that, much like the Concorde, this jet cannot operate at supersonic speeds over land, and even if it uses “Sustainable” fuel, a subsonic airliner will carry more 2 to 3 times people on a gallon of fuel.

The numbers just don’t add up.

22 May 2021, 7:14 PM

This Ain’t Rocket Science

Specifically, supplying oxygen to fighter pilots has been a known quantity for well over 50 years, but somehow or other, Lockheed-Martin has been ~~able~~ unable to make this work on the F-35.

NASA has done a study, and found that the Joint Strike Fighter has problems not shared with other aircraft using onboard oxygen generate systems.

The F-35 office had declared this a tempest in a tea pot, which is typical for them:

Between 2011 and 2017, more than a dozen U.S. Air Force F-35 pilots reported experiencing oxygen-deprivation symptoms. NASA has obtained new information that may help solve the mystery behind these physiological episodes and wants to study the issue more deeply. But the F-35 Joint Program Office is disputing the findings.

The recently released—but not widely circulated—report from the NASA Engineering and Safety Center (NESC) pinpoints a lag time between the pilot’s breathing pattern and the aircraft’s life-support system, due to differences between mask pressure and line pressure. It is the first independent review focused on the hypoxia-like episodes reported by pilots in the Lockheed Martin F-35 for more than a decade.

………

The NESC’s work builds on a 2017 report that assessed pilots’ physiological episodes in other fighter aircraft (AW&ST March 28-April 10, 2016, p. 23). That study was driven by a congressional mandate to the U.S. Navy to conduct an independent review of the episodes in Boeing F/A-18 and T-45 aircraft going back to 2009. But the mandate did not cover the F-35. The new report is part of a larger pilot-breathing assessment that includes F/A-18 and F-15D data using CRU-103 or CRU-60 breathing gear.

………

But the F-35 data set, the first of its kind, was subsequently embargoed by the Air Force, and the NASA team had to wait about a year for the service to release pilot–breathing data for independent analysis. F-35 pilots admitted in interviews with the NESC that information about breathing problems had been suppressed over concerns about protecting the program.

Bottom line: The Pentagon wants its over-priced and under-performing mistake jet, and if a few pilots have to experience suffocation, it’s a small price to pay.

17 May 2021, 6:07 PM

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?

The Washington State legislature passed two different bills repealing the states ban on municipal broadband. One is expansive (H.B. 1336), and the other is more limited in scope (S.B. 5383), authorizing municipal broadband only in areas that are underserved.

There was a rush to pass a bill to break the incumbent provider’s monopoly, and when presented with two conflicting bills, Washington Governor Jay Inslee signed both bills simultaneously, which means that neither bill has precedence.

By simultaneously, I mean that the Governor claims that he signed a bill with each hand at the same time.

First, much criticisms to the State House and Senate for passing two conflicting bills.

Second, I can see no explanation for the Governor’s actions unless he wants to keep this all snarled in litigation for the next few years as a way to suck up to Comcast and it’s Evil Minions^™, who will try to extract every penny from their monopoly rents int he interim:

Washington state went all in on expanding public broadband this year. So much so, that the Legislature passed two different bills aimed at extending high-speed internet to people in rural areas.

It’s possible, however, that two bills aren’t better than one. And they may partly cancel each other out.

Now that Gov. Jay Inslee has signed both measures into law, confusion is mounting about whether the two laws can co-exist.

And that debate may end up in court.

Both House Bill 1336 and Senate Bill 5383 give public utility districts and ports new authority to offer broadband internet. The idea behind both bills is to have those public entities offer broadband in remote areas where private companies don’t operate because it’s not cost effective.

But the authority granted under HB 1336 is broader, said state Sen, Lisa Wellman, D-Mercer Island. Rather than requiring PUDs and ports to focus on offering broadband to people who lack any internet service, the House bill allows the public entities to serve all customers, including people who can already access the internet through a private company, such as CenturyLink or Comcast.

………

Inslee’s office hasn’t done much to clarify matters. In an unusual move on Thursday, the governor signed both bills at the same time, one with his right hand and the other with his left. While most bill signings occur in public and are broadcast on video, Inslee signed these two bills off camera. His office didn’t explain why.

If the bills do conflict with one another, the order in which they were signed into law becomes of paramount importance. In theory, the last bill signed would take precedence over the other. If it was Hansen’s bill, Wellman said she believes her bill’s focus on expanding public broadband in remote, unserved areas would be stripped out.

“It’s such drama, I’m telling you,” said Wellman, the sponsor of SB 5383. “I’ve never been in this situation before and I don’t want to ever be again.”

………

“We are planning to seek clarification from Thurston County Superior Court on how to proceed, as this is unchartered territory,” [Secretary of State Spokesperson Kylee] Zabel wrote in an email Friday.

………

The Washington State Broadband Office is set to distribute hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal money to expand broadband internet access across the state. Under either of the bills that passed the Legislature, public utility districts and ports would be in a better position to take advantage of that influx of new money.

………

However, the dispute over how the two bills interact could complicate public utility districts’ plans to jump into the retail broadband business, he [Russ Elliott, the director of the broadband office] said.

“I think there are a lot of people right now worried whether, if someone implements something in the vein of this legislation, are they subjecting themselves to some sort of a legal battle?” Elliott said Friday. “Unfortunately that may be the way this gets played out — someone challenges what happens under these bills. I would hate to see that.”

The legal battle is the goal. The longer that Comcast, CenturyLink, and Frontier can string this along, the more money they can rake in.

14 May 2021, 5:57 PM

What About Turtles Farting?

A series of studies have revealed that mammals can breath through the butt-holes.

Brought a bit of family lore, about turtles farting, to my mind:

When pressed for oxygen, some fish and sea cucumbers will use their lower intestines to get a little extra out of their environment. Now, a team of Japanese researchers say that mammals are also capable of respirating through their rectal cavity, at least in a lab setting.

The team’s research is published today in the journal Med and describes the capacity for mice, rats, and pigs to survive longer and have more strength in low-oxygen circumstances when given oxygen gas or an oxygen-rich liquid through their rectums, in a process similar to an enema. While fish like loaches and catfish use a similar method to gain additional oxygen in the natural world, this doesn’t appear to be an evolutionary adaptation for mammals. In other words, mammalian bodies can’t naturally do this, but with a little push from modern science, it becomes possible. Previous research has seen oxygen injected directly into mammalian bloodstreams, prolonging the lives of rabbits, but the rectal approach to the low-oxygen problem is novel.

The experiment, while disturbing, was designed to find new ways to save the lives of people whose lungs are failing.

It’s a valuable study, but all I can think about turtles farting.

28 April 2021, 8:12 PM

“Insanely Cheap,” Huh?

It turns out that photovoltaic solar energy has gone from one of the most expensive electricity sources to one of the cheapest in the the past few years.

Rather unsurprisingly, there has been no such drop in the cost of nuclear power.

Increasingly, fossil fuel generators are not competitive, which should help with our climate change problem:

In the year 2000, the International Energy Agency (IEA) made a prediction that would come back to haunt it: by 2020, the world would have installed a grand total of 18 gigawatts of photovoltaic solar capacity. Seven years later, the forecast would be proven spectacularly wrong when roughly 18 gigawatts of solar capacity were installed in a single year alone.

………

“When I got this job in 2005, I thought maybe one day solar will supply 1% of the world’s electricity. Now it’s 3%. Our official forecast is that it will be 23% by 2050, but that’s completely underestimated,” Chase says.

“We’ve got to the point where solar is the cheapest source of energy in the world in most places. This means we’ve been trying to model a situation where the grid looks totally different today.”

………

“The International Energy Agency now says solar is providing the cheapest energy the world has ever seen. But we’re headed towards a future of insanely cheap energy.

“Inanely cheap energy.”

I like the sound of that.

26 April 2021, 7:48 PM

Nevada Governor Backs Off Really Bad Cyberpunk Idea

If you’ve read any Cyberpunk, you are probably familiar with the idea of corporate controlled arcologies, which people are packed in like sardines and subject to the whims of psychopathic corporate drones.

Well the (hopefully soon to be former) governor of Nevada, Steve Sisolak, looked at this, and decided that allowing corporations to incorporate their own municipalities was just the balm that the state economy needed.

It was not well received, so the he’s downgraded to a study, which hopefully means that this idea is well and truly dead:

Nevada Governor Steve Sisolak is retreating from his plan to introduce legislation that would have allowed tech companies to form local governments within the state. Per The Nevada Independent, the governor now instead plans to create a bipartisan committee made up of state Senate and Assembly members to study the idea. At the end of 2021, the group will present recommendations to Sisolak, with one possible outcome being that they suggest he abandon the proposal.

“Innovation Zones is a bold proposal for our State that deserves additional attention and discussion — and not under the pressure of less than 40 remaining days in the current legislative session,” Governor Sisolak said in a statement. “I know that legislators, stakeholders and Nevadans still have questions, and I want those questions to be discussed and answered. I want people to be enthusiastic about this opportunity, not skeptical about a fast-tracked bill.”

Governor Sisolak first floated the idea during one of his State of the State addresses earlier in the year. He positioned Innovation Zones as a way for Nevada to attract tech businesses without the need for measures like corporate tax breaks. Draft legislation obtained by the Las Vegas Review-Journal laid out a system where companies in verticals like cryptocurrency, artificial intelligence and renewables would have had the option to form local governments with the same powers and responsibilities as counties. That means those companies would have had to do things like collect taxes and operate school systems.

Just when you thought that this idea could not get any worse, we find that the big push for this initiative came from a Blockchain firm.

Kill it with fire.

25 April 2021, 5:34 PM

The Just in Time Economy

Now the global chip shortage has moved from automobiles to consumer electronics.

The capitalist system cannot create robustness in markets, because the creation of safety margins are expensive, and inherently unprofitable.

Our hyper-efficient global economy has a glass jaw:

The deepening global chip crunch is spreading to makers of smartphones, televisions and home appliances, according to suppliers in Asia, as companies boost stockpiles of in-demand semiconductors.

Chip supplies have tightened due to booming demand for electronics during the Covid-19 pandemic and outages at large production facilities.

But the shortage has been worsened by hoarding by sanctions-hit Chinese groups, which has made it harder for some companies to secure components for everyday electronics such as washing machines and toasters.

………

LG, a big appliance maker, said the chip shortage had not yet disrupted its production but admitted it was a risk. “We are closely monitoring the situation as no manufacturer can be free of the problem if it gets prolonged,” the company said.

A small TV maker in Seoul said: “It is getting more difficult to secure key components unless you pay higher prices. We have to hike TV prices, reflecting the rising material costs.”

Production of low-margin processors that carry out simple tasks such as weighing clothes in a washing machine or crisping bread in a smart toaster has been affected.

“Microcontroller units are in tight supply, which could be impacting general appliances,” said Randy Abrams, head of Asian semiconductor research at Credit Suisse.

………

Foundries in South Korea said they were unable to satisfy surging orders even while operating at full capacity.

This is why we need governments, and government regulation.

Running a society completely on selfishness is insane.

14 April 2021, 6:44 PM

Russians Test Pulse-Detonation Engine

Russia’s United Engine has has successfully tested a low thrust pulse detonation engine.

The short version of what a PDE is is that it is a formed of pulsed propulsion where instead of just burning the fuel (subsonic combustion) it detonates the fuel (supersonic combustion) creating about 50% more specific thrust. (Ratio to thrust to all mass flow through the engine)

Higher specific thrust engines are more efficient, thermodynamics favors constant volume combustion, particularly at higher speeds.

My guess would be that the first real-world application might be as an afterburner, but seeing as how this program is funded by Rostec, they clearly see space applications:

Russian powerplant specialist United Engine has carried out initial testing of a pulse-detonation rocket motor which has potential application to orbital spaceplanes or hypersonic aircraft.

Pulse-detonation propulsion combusts fuel and oxidizer using detonation waves, with relatively few mechanical moving parts, offering a more efficient thermodynamic cycle than conventional gas turbines.

United Engine’s Lyulka design bureau – part of its Ufa-based UMPO division – has established a specific development project for such powerplants.

Russian state technology firm Rostec says the bureau has completed the first stage of tests for a demonstrator engine.

“In some operating modes the powerplant demonstrated up to 50% increase in specific thrust compared with traditional engines,” it adds, enabling aircraft range and payload to rise by a factor of 1.3-1.5.

Rostec envisions the design being applied to orbital spaceplanes and other future-generation aircraft operating at supersonic and hypersonic speeds.

I think that this is some seriously neat tech, but much like fusion, its application always seems to be about 10 years away.

27 March 2021, 7:13 PM

What, Elon Broke the Law? Pshaw!

The NLRB has ruled that Tesla has openly and repeatedly broken labor law in its anti-union drives.

Seeing as how the car company has been killing and injuring its workers while offering them free frozen yogurt, they pretty much have to break the law to keep the unions out:

Tesla has been ordered to correct its unlawful labor practices, and its supremo Elon Musk must delete a related tweet from three years ago.

In a ruling issued on Thursday, the US National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) concluded that Tesla violated federal labor law in its efforts to discourage workers from unionizing. It directed the company to cease various anti-union actions and policies like claiming workers would lose benefits if they vote for union representation.

The NLRB found that Tesla violated labor law by coercively interrogating employees, threatening them with the loss of stock options if they supported unionization, and enacting unlawful policies like a confidentiality agreement that banned speaking to the press.

The ruling directs the vehicle maker to offer to rehire plaintiff and former employee Richard Ortiz and pay him lost wages, and to strike unlawful disciplinary information from the record of both Ortiz and another employee, Jose Moran.

It further requires Tesla to rescind portions of its 2016 confidentiality agreement that disallow lawful union-related activity under Sections 7 and 8 of the National Labor Relations Act, which the NLRB acknowledged “protects employees when they speak with the media about working conditions, labor disputes, or other terms and conditions of employment.”

The decision also directs self-styled “Technoking” Musk to delete a May 20, 2018, tweet because it implies workers must give up their stock options if they unionize.

I still think that the only to get the lawbreaking to stop is to frog-march Elon Musk out of his offices in handcuffs.

23 March 2021, 6:13 PM

Finally, Someone Suggest Breaking Out the Handcuffs

Someone states the obvious, that if you want to rein in tech giants, start treating them like the criminals that they are.

Between criminal violations of anti-trust laws, violations of wiretapping laws, securities law violations, and conspiracies to violate laws and regulations (Uber, AirBnB, etc.) these guys should be subject to arrest, trial, and imprisonment”

On March 25, the CEOs of Google, Facebook, and Twitter will once again testify before a committee of the House of Representatives, this time about the spread of disinformation on their platforms.

………

Fortunately, there are two options to buy time, neither of which requires congressional action. It merely requires the government to apply regulatory tools that do not get used frequently, namely subjecting business executives to felony prosecution.

The first option is an antitrust case against Google led by the attorney general of Texas that alleges a price fixing conspiracy in digital advertising. The complaint names Facebook as a co-conspirator. Price fixing falls under Section 1 of the Sherman Act, significant because it does not require proof of harm. The attempt itself is a crime. And if, as has been alleged, there is evidence of an agreement for mutual legal defense, there may be a second count. When appropriate, executives can be subject to felony prosecution, punishable by up to three years in prison. Google denies any wrongdoing.

………

The second option would be a securities fraud investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. For a decade or more, journalists have reported evidence of overstated user counts and advertising views by internet platforms. They assert that a material percentage of advertising clicks are manufactured by fraudsters exploiting the lack of transparency in digital advertising. The opacity of all digital ad platforms relative to traditional media and Google’s dominance of digital ad infrastructure have prevented a thorough accounting.

………

Securities law requires public companies to report accurate numbers. For internet platforms, user count and ad views are key to investor sentiment, the latter an essential revenue driver. If ad views are overstated, then revenues must also be overstated. If the overstatement occurred over many years, with the knowledge of the executives, then the SEC has the option to pursue a felony case, creating legal jeopardy for senior executives who may face prison time. Such cases are not common, but the circumstances surrounding internet platforms certainly warrant a thorough investigation.

While it has not been a common practice to use felony cases to reform an industry, these are extraordinary times. The goal is not to put executives in jail, but rather to create incentives for good faith negotiation with corporations whose behavior poses a threat to society and the authority of the government.

It used to be common practice to use felony cases to reform an industry, just look at the prosecutions, and long jail sentences in the 1930s, see the fate of Richard Whitney, former head of President of the NYSE.

He was not the only one.

………

The Biden administration wants to restore faith in government. Its aggressive actions to distribute Covid vaccines and pass the American Recovery Act are important first steps, but not enough. Directing executive branch agencies to enforce the antitrust and securities laws against flagrant violators would be welcome next steps. Doing so against Google and Facebook would begin the process of reforming an industry that continues to act recklessly.

I know I say this a lot, but I want to see them frog-marched out of their offices in handcuffs.

18 March 2021, 6:07 PM

Strange Times Require Strange Tools

Pleased to present for your consideration, the Zoom Escaper, which provides technical subterfuge to allow one to get out of a remote meeting:

Had enough Zoom meetings? Can’t bear another soul-numbing day of sitting on video calls, the only distraction your rapidly aging face, pinned in one corner of the screen like a dying bug? Well, if so, then boy do we have the app for you. Meet Zoom Escaper: a free web widget that lets you add an array of fake audio effects to your next Zoom Call, gifting you with numerous reasons to end the meeting and escape, while you still can.

You can choose from barking dogs, construction noises, crying babies, or even subtler effects like choppy audio and unwanted echoes. Created by artist Sam Lavigne, Zoom Escaper is fantastically simple to use. All you need do is download a free bit of audio software called VB-Audio that routes your audio through the website, then change your audio input in Zoom from your microphone to VB-Audio, and play with the effects.

You can watch a video tutorial on how to set up Zoom Escaper and listen to a sample of the various sound effects here:

If you’re running Zoom Escaper, you can’t actually hear the sound effects yourself. But I was able to test the site’s functionality with the help of my colleague, Verge news editor Chaim Gartenberg. Here was his opinion of the various effects Zoom Escaper had to offer:

Urination: “That sounds very fake. Also, I’m not entirely sure what the plan is to sell this as a reason to leave a call?”

Construction: “This sounds like you literally stood in the middle of a construction site. I think the sounds need to be a bit more muffled to sell it, but it’s very good.”

Man Weeping: “Those are the sobs of a broken man. But who’s crying — is it your roommate, your partner?”

Bad Connection: “This one works really well. Your audio is coming through broken up and disrupted. Get off the call.”

Echo: “Extremely annoying and very convincing. This sounds like a busted Zoom connection. If someone I was speaking to had this, I’d tell them to get it fixed. It wouldn’t be feasible to have a meeting with that.”

Wind: “If you were trying to skive off work, I’m not sure how you’d convincingly sell gale force winds in your own office.”

Dog: “That sounds very real. It sounds like a dog barking outside, but maybe not the sort of thing you’d need to take care of?”

Upset Baby: “That baby sounds decently upset! This is definitely something you should go and check on! Go and take care of your baby!”

This is so very tempting.

Also, it’s art, according to its creator, artist Sam Lavigne.

17 March 2021, 6:28 PM

Looks Like Another Take on the B-70 Valkyrie

Not particularly informative, but the patent application has a bit more information

The B-70 with the wingtips lowered to contain the sonic boom

106 is the Engine, 108 is the nacelle, and 114 is the underside of the wing

Some more detail.

I just came across this brief bit about New Century Transportation & Aeronautics Research’s (NCTAR) concept for a low sonic boom SST, and it seems rather similar to the compression lift concepts developed for the B-70 supersonic bomber in the late 1950s.

It had wingtips that folded down (see picture, those wing tips are each as big as a Mirage III wing) that contained the shock waves generated off of the inlet and fuselage which increased lift.

This contained the pressure under the aircraft and increased lift and so improved its lift to drag ratio. (It also moved the center of lift forward, reducing trim drag at supersonic speeds, but that’s for another post)

It appears taht NCTAR is looking to do the same thing, only with an additional goal of using shock waves and bypass air from the engine to reflect the sonic boom (shock wave) back up to the wing, and hence attenuate the, “Boom.”

Basically shock-waves off the engines, which are located in front of the wing keep the boom, and its pressure contained under the wing, increasing efficiency and reducing boom.

A part of this is that the bypass air is not, as is normally the case, ejected radially, but rather from the bottom of the nacelle, further reinforcing the “wall” that contains the shockwave.

It’s a nifty concept, though I wander what the trade-offs might be:

With the resurgent interest in supersonic air travel, aircraft designers are looking at different ways to work around the problem of sonic booms. Flying supersonic only over water, or at a low enough Mach number to prevent shockwaves reaching the ground or shaping the airframe to minimize boom strength are all approaches being taken with aircraft now in development.

U.S. startup New Century Transportation & Aeronautics Research (NCTAR) has patented (U.S. patent 10,618,638) a different approach: use the engines and their exhaust plumes to reflect and attenuate the shockwaves from the wing and so reduce the sonic boom reaching the ground.

In NCTAR’s concept, the engines are located ahead of a wing that is curved so that, in cruise, the downward-propagating compression waves from the leading edges are focused onto the exhaust plumes. The shockwaves reflect off the shear layer between the freestream airflow and supersonic exhaust plume and back up onto the underside of the wing. This increases pressure under the arched wing and generates additional compression lift to improve supersonic lift-to-drag ratio.

Like I said, kind of nifty, in a B-70 bomber kind of way.

That being said, I really don’t see this for commercial airliners, because even with improvements, the aircraft will be less fuel efficient than their subsonic counterparts, but given the current trajectory of our society, I could see something akin to a supersonic version of a Gulfstream private jet come from this.

10 March 2021, 9:51 PM

Busy Day

It turns out that the phone that I wanted to bring from Sprint to Verizon was simply not compatible.

So this evening, with the aid of Craigslist, I got a cheap phone so that I have something that I can use at the office. (No phone, but I have a phone number and voice mail, not figured out why, but it’s more convenient to use the cell phone, at least until I couldn’t.)

All back to normal now though.

Went through ads, found a phone with more computing power than the entire Apollo program new for 70 bucks.

It’s not ruggedized, but it does have a removable battery, and it’s new in the box, a Moto E6.

So I gotta phone, and my Bluetooth so I can go hands free during meetings.

Royal PITA though.

Also, It appears that I have about a dozen updates to download.

23 August 2016, 7:35 PM

Ummm ……… the Solution Here Is Straightforward. Better Pay and Benefits.

Over at Aviation Week, there is much hand wringing over the fact that their workers are retiring, and they can’t find replacements:

There are two statistics that haunt the U.S. aerospace and defense (A&D) industry when it comes to its workforce: 10% and 2.6%.

The first, according to Aviation Week’s 2016 Workforce Study, is the percentage of the overall workforce who were qualified to retire in the past year. The second is the percentage that actually did.

Industry faces a potential crisis in its workforce, just not the one that formerly predominated. For sure, defense prime contractors, OEMs and top-tier suppliers continue to fear the mass departures possible as the baby-boom generation begins reaching the traditional retirement age—65—en masse. At the same time, employers would like a little more actual turnover because they are eager to staff their companies with the new and younger talent offered by technology-oriented “millennials” because they fear losing those Gen Y workers to the lure of Silicon Valley.

“While retirements are of concern, so too is attrition,” the study says. “As the industry comparison illustrates, the attrition rate for A&D is low, with only the chemical industry coming close to a comparable rate.”

………

But the business risk of seeing so many skilled, experienced workers leave in a relatively short time remains a deep concern, and for good reasons that have been widely documented. According to a National Bureau of Economic Research July working paper by Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen and David Powell, economies face a double whammy of lost productivity and lost labor capacity as working populations exceed 60 years old.

Gee you need something in short supply, if only there were some medium of exchange that would allow you to adjust the value that you assign to it based on that scarcity.

If you are losing skilled staff, then you need to set pay or benefits or job security at a level that will attract a sufficient number of skilled replacements.

21 August 2016, 7:13 PM

This is Getting Insane

We are now scrambling jets to defend its allies in Syria against the Assad regime:

U.S. fighter jets scrambled to eastern Syria this week when Syrian bombers attacked in the vicinity of American and coalition Special Operations forces working with Kurdish and Arab opposition fighters, the Pentagon said Friday.

The unprecedented incident, near the Syrian city of Hasakah, did not result in a direct confrontation or any injury to U.S. or coalition forces.

But it illustrated the increasingly tense and ambiguous Syrian battlefield, where aircraft and ground troops from multiple countries — with multiple agendas and loyalties — are fighting overlapping wars.

Following the initial Thursday incident, the coalition began “actively patrolling the airspace nearby,” a Defense Department official said. Early Friday, “two Syrian SU-24 aircraft attempted to transit the area and were met by coalition fighter aircraft,” which “encouraged” the Syrians to depart “without further incident,” said the official, who spoke on a Pentagon-imposed condition of anonymity.

The Syrian military, engaged in a five-year civil conflict, has generally given a wide berth to U.S. aircraft targeting the Islamic State, as have Russian jets aiding their Syrian ally. But local fighters being assisted by U.S. Special Operations forces on the ground are often opposed to both the Islamic State and the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

………

Marine Maj. Adrian Rankine-Galloway said that the Syrian strikes targeted Kurdish forces in Hasakah on Thursday. Social-media reports indicated that several Kurds were killed in the bombing.

U.S. forces initially contacted Russia, using “deconfliction” channels established to ensure that Russian and U.S. planes over Syria avoid each other, but were told that the bombers in question were not Russian. Ground forces received no response to attempts to contact the planes through a recognized radio channel.

The United States then launched a “combat air patrol,” Rankine-Galloway said. It arrived in the area as the Syrian Su-24 ground-attack aircraft were leaving. While he would not specify from where the U.S. aircraft were launched, the United States maintains a contingent of F-15 fighter jets at Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

So, now the Syrians are bombing the Kurds.

My guess is that this is a result of the recent Turkish and Russian rapprochement: The Turks see any form of Kurdish state as an existential threat to their state, and so the Syrian attacks on Kurdish positions are likely an artifact of this.

The US is clearly unamused by this development, since there are reports that fighters sent to intercept the Syrian aircraft was an F-22, probably because they were concerned about Syrian and Russian SAMs.

The US forces are in a bit of a bind though, because the Turks are implacably opposed to any Kurdish autonomous regions.

The only way the US wins this game is not to play.

10 August 2016, 6:49 PM

The Internet of Things Got Hacked Again, Things that go Buzz in the Night Edition

In news of the coming tech utopia, a network enabled sexual aid has been hacked, and even in the unhacked condition, it sends personal data back to the manufacturer.

The Internet of Things That Can Be Hacked grows daily. Lightbulbs, trucks, and fridges all have computers inside them now, and all have been hacked by someone. But at least you don’t put those inside your body.

Two years ago, someone had the good idea to put a bluetooth connection inside a vibrator, and the We-Vibe 4 Plus was born. The vibrator can connect with a smartphone app that its makers say “allows couples to keep their flame ignited – together or apart”: that is, it can be controlled remotely, while, say, making a video call.

The consequences of a wrong number are left to reader’s imagination.

But at the Def Con hacking conference in Las Vegas, two independent hackers from New Zealand, who go by the handles goldfisk and follower, revealed that the way the vibrator speaks with its controlling app isn’t really secure at all – making it possible to remotely seize control of the vibrator and activate it at will.

In their talk, Hacking the Internet of Vibrating Things, Follower argued that despite titters at the back of the room, the security of a sex toy should be taken seriously. “The company that makes this vibrator, Standard Innovation: They have over 2 million people using their devices, so what’s at stake is 2 million people.”

“A lot of people in the past have said it’s not really a serious issue,” he added, “but if you come back to the fact that we’re talking about people, unwanted activation of a vibrator is potentially sexual assault.”

Potentially worse still, the pair discovered that the app itself was phoning home, letting the manufacturer discover some very intimate information about users.

(emphasis mine)

I want no part of this brave new world.

9 August 2016, 7:55 PM

My Money Is This Being the NSA

A highly sophisticated malware has been discovered more than 5 years after its release into the wild.

It’s level of sophistication indicates that it was produced by a state actor:

Security experts have discovered a malware platform that’s so advanced in its design and execution that it could probably have been developed only with the active support of a nation-state.

The malware—known alternatively as “ProjectSauron” by researchers from Kaspersky Lab and “Remsec” by their counterparts from Symantec—has been active since at least 2011 and has been discovered on 30 or so targets. Its ability to operate undetected for five years is a testament to its creators, who clearly studied other state-sponsored hacking groups in an attempt to replicate their advances and avoid their mistakes. State-sponsored groups have been responsible for malware like the Stuxnet- or National Security Agency-linked Flame, Duqu, and Regin. Much of ProjectSauron resides solely in computer memory and was written in the form of Binary Large Objects, making it hard to detect using antivirus.

Because of the way the software was written, clues left behind by ProjectSauron in so-called software artifacts are unique to each of its targets. That means that clues collected from one infection don’t help researchers uncover new infections. Unlike many malware operations that reuse servers, domain names, or IP addresses for command and control channels, the people behind ProjectSauron chose a different one for almost every target.

“The attackers clearly understand that we as researchers are always looking for patterns,” Kaspersky researchers wrote in a report published Monday. “Remove the patterns and the operation will be harder to discover. We are aware of more than 30 organizations attacked, but we are sure that this is just a tiny tip of the iceberg.” Symantec researchers, in a report of their own, said they were aware of seven organizations infected.

Jumping air gaps

Part of what makes ProjectSauron so impressive is its ability to collect data from computers considered so sensitive by their operators that they have no Internet connection. To do this, the malware uses specially prepared USB storage drives that have a virtual file system that isn’t viewable by the Windows operating system. To infected computers, the removable drives appear to be approved devices, but behind the scenes are several hundred megabytes reserved for storing data that is kept on the “air-gapped” machines. The arrangement works even against computers in which data-loss prevention software blocks the use of unknown USB drives.

………

The main purpose of the malware platform was to obtain passwords, cryptographic keys, configuration files, and IP addresses of the key servers related to any encryption software that was in use. Infected groups include government agencies, scientific research centers, military organizations, telecommunication providers, and financial institutions in Russia, Iran, Rwanda, China, Sweden, Belgium, and possibly in Italian-speaking countries.

I don’t know the specific targets, but the locations appear top indicate that the source of the hack is somewhere in the Fort Mead-DC-Langley axis.