Owl

 

China Builds Mockups of US Warships

BEIJING (AP) — Satellite images show China has built mock-ups of a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier and destroyer in its northwestern desert, possibly for practice for a future naval clash as tensions rise between the nations.

China has massively upgraded its military in recent years, and its capability and intentions are increasingly concerning to the United States as tensions rise over the South China Sea, Taiwan and military supremacy in the Indo-Pacific.

The images captured by Colorado-based satellite imagery company Maxar Technologies dated Sunday show the outlines of a U.S. aircraft carrier and at least one destroyer sitting on a railway track.

Maxar identified the location as Ruoqiang, a Taklamakan Desert county in the northwestern Xinjiang region.

The independent U.S. Naval Institute said on its website that the mock-ups of U.S. ships were part of a new target range developed by the People's Liberation Army.

It wasn't clear from the images how many details had been included in the apparent targets, although USNI said it had identified features on the destroyer including its funnels and weapons systems.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said at a daily briefing Monday that he had no information about the images, saying, “I’m not aware of the situation you mentioned."

China's massive military upgrade has emphasized countering the U.S. and other countries' naval forces.

That includes the development of land, sea and air-launched missiles to repel and possibly sink opposing vessels, expressed most emphatically by the land-based DF-21D ballistic missile known as the “carrier killer."  READ MORE...

Clouds

Attending College

My first year in college was in 1966 after graduating from Cairo American College (high school) in Cairo, Egypt, UAR and traveling through Europe for several weeks.

During my college years, I was exposed to both LIBERAL POINTS OF VIEW as well as CONSERVATIVE POINTS OF VIEW...  and, at the time, I was the most liberal person that you could ever imagine.

My degree from college was English but I did not want to teach and my first job was Director of Product Efficacy for a microbiogical media manufacturer.  My second job was Executive Director for the Alamance County Arts Council where I decided to enroll in an MBA program so I could better manage the organization.

My views changed from LIBERAL to CONSERVATIVE as a result of my graduate education.

BUT MORE IMPORTANTLY...  my education taught me HOW TO THINK...  rather than just letting myself be influenced by my personal opinions and feelings even if those personal feelings were inappropriate.

I see myself now as a CONSERVATIVE LIBERAL...

My personality however, is different from most of the general public and I do not think that most of the general public as a result.  As a result of MBTI, my personality has been identified as INTJ...

An Architect (INTJ) is a person with the Introverted, Intuitive, Thinking, and Judging personality traits. These thoughtful tacticians love perfecting the details of life, applying creativity and rationality to everything they do. Their inner world is often a private, complex one.

My personality does not make me worse or better than you...  just different...  but, I can tell you this...  and, you can accept or reject it...  but learning how to think is the best thing that you could ever do for yourself.

• My parents should not tell me how to think
• My church should not tell me how to think
• My teachers should not tell  me how to think
• My government should not tell me how to think

THINKING IS MY RESPONSIBILITY AND ONLY 

MY RESPONSIBILITY...

Inflation

The Consumer Price Index increased from 5% to 6% over the last month...

The Consumer is spending more for:

• gasoline
• food
• clothes
• personal items

Why do we even have inflation?

When there is more money in the marketplace than there are supplies or items to purchase, then the price of those supplies and items will increase...

This is economics 101.

Another way to look at this...

If there are more people looking for work than there are jobs available then the salary paid for those workers will decrease...

If, on the other hand, there are fewer people looking for work than there are jobs available, then the salary paid for those workers will increase...

ANYTIME prices increase, we are experiencing INFLATION.

We are paying about $1 more per gallon of gasoline than we were paying a year ago.

That means you are paying about $15 more for a tank of gasoline than you were last year.

If you purchase a tank of gasoline each week, then gasoline costs to you over a year's period of time will increase by $780...

Now...

if you pay more for gasoline and more for food and more for other items, then your cost of living could increase by $2,500 over the next year....

How is inflation influencing your LIFE???

Where Are You America?

 

Are You Better Off Today?

 

We live in a world of three dimensions:  height, width, depth and since our world moves forward into time rather than backwards or remaining stationary, there are actually four dimensions once we add time to the equation...  and this concept is referred to as spacetime.

I remember a recent commercial about the vehicle Lincoln and the concept that STRESS seems to vanish when driving one of these cars...  so, where does it go?

Well...  what about time?  Where does time go when one is moving forward in time?  Time on a regular basis constantly move into the past as it is experienced, yet, we always live IN THE MOMENT.

So...

since we are always living in the moment...  are you better off in this moment than you were in the previous moment?

UNFORTUNATELY...

no one thinks like this...  and, one might get the impression that no one really cares if they are better off today than they were yesterday...  because all they care about is today or RIGHT NOW...  but, right now is FLEETING...  just like the stress that disappears...  the moment disappears as well...  and it will never return.

So...

what you were yesterday is GONE forever...

IF...

the future is all you have...  then, how do you want your future to unfold?

Do you want it to be like the past... or better?

Hummingbird

 

Pompeii Slave Room

Image Credit : Archaeological Park of Pompeii

Archaeologists conducting excavations at Pompeii’s Civita Giuliana have identified a room used by slaves.

Pompeii was a Roman city, located in the modern commune of Pompeii near Naples in the Campania region of Italy. Pompeii, along with Herculaneum, and many villas in the surrounding area was buried under 4 to 6 m (13 to 20 ft) of volcanic ash and pumice during the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79.

The villa of Civita Giuliana has been studied since 2017, with previous excavations unearthing several rooms, a servant’s quarters, and a ceremonial chariot and stable with harnessed horses.

In the latest series of excavations by the Archaeological Park of Pompeii, alongside the Public Prosecutor’s Office of Torre Annunziata, archaeologists found a room near to where the chariot was discovered, that is believed to be the humble lodgings of the slaves who carried out the everyday work in the Roman villa, including the maintenance and preparation of the chariot.  READ MORE...

Lava

 

Foods For Strong Muscles

There's a reason you don't see a lot of bodybuilders in the over-50 category. Unfortunately, building and maintaining muscle mass doesn't get easier as we age. If you've passed your 50th birthday, you've likely noticed it takes significantly more effort to keep your biceps, pecs, quads, and other muscles rippling like a weightlifter's.

"Our muscles operate by the 'use it or lose it' law," says dietitian and personal trainer Anthony DiMarino, RD, CPT. "Muscles stay strong when they are used and fueled correctly. As we age, we challenge our muscles less and slow down. Our appetites also decrease, creating a challenge to eat enough protein to prevent losses."The good news is, you're not powerless to combat this age-related loss of muscle (known as sarcopenia).

"The best way to build stronger muscles at any age, but especially after 50, is to combine a healthy diet with adequate protein and a well-rounded strength training routine," says Carissa Galloway, RDN, consultant for Premier Protein Nutrition. "While you cannot 'build' muscles with food alone, you also can't build muscles over the age of 50 without the adequate fuel."

And what is adequate fuel? Satiating, high-protein foods. We've rounded up a list of the top dietitian-approved, protein-rich choices to add to your diet for stronger muscles after 50. After, be sure to read up on our list of The 7 Healthiest Foods to Eat Right Now.

Chicken or turkey breast

"The most protein-rich and accessible food would be chicken," says DiMarino. "Chicken breast is super lean and provides a whopping 21 grams of protein in a 3-ounce serving. It tends to be pretty affordable and can be cooked into an unlimited number of healthy dishes!"  TO FIND OUT ABOUT THE OTHER FOODS, CKICK HERE...

Scared

 

How Flat Can it Get?

An artist’s conception of the seven planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system which orbit the star in an exceptinally flat plane. Astronomers have used the extreme flatness of the system to constrain the properties and evolution of the protoplanetary disk. Credit: NASA and JPL/Caltech

The planets of the solar system all orbit the Sun more-or-less in a plane. Compared to the Earth’s orbit, which defines the plane at zero degrees, the orbit with the largest angle is Mercury’s whose inclination is 7 degrees (the angle of the orbit of the dwarf planet Pluto is 17. 2 degrees). 

The orbital characteristics of planets evolve as the protoplanetary disk of gas and dust dissipates, and as the young planets themselves migrate in the disk in response to their mutual gravitational influences and effects of material in the disk. Astronomers recognize therefore that the orbital appearance of a planetary system reflects its evolutionary story.

The planetary system TRAPPIST-1 consists of seven Earth-sized planets orbiting a small star (a mass of only .09 solar-masses) about forty light-years from the Sun. First detected by the TRAPPIST telescopes, follow-up observations with the IRAC camera on Spitzer and the K2 mission, among others, have by now determined the planetary masses to precisions between 5-12% and refined other properties of the system. 

Remarkably, the system is by far the flattest known: its orbital inclination is only 0.072 degrees. This extreme flatness is potentially a very important constraint on the formation and evolution of the system. The system is also very compact with the most distant of its seven planets orbiting only .06 astronomical units from the star (in our solar system, Mercury orbits more than five times farther away). In such a closely packed configuration the planets’ mutual gravitational attractions will be particularly important influences on details like the orbital inclinations.

CfA astronomers Matthew Heising, Dimitar Sasselov, Lars Hernquist, and Ana Luisa Tió Humphrey used 3-D computer simulation of the gaseous disk and planets to study a range of possible formation models including several that had been suggested in previous studies.

Knowing that the gaseous protostellar disk influences the migration properties of the planets, the scientists were also particularly interested in exploring what the minimum disk mass could have been for the TRAPPIST-1 system. They adapted the computer code AREPO, which has been used successfully in the past primarily for cosmological simulations.  READ MORE...

WOW

 

Education

It is assumed by many including myself that we all know how important education is but think of this education only in terms of attending college or a university.  In fact, our high school curriculums are specifically designed with going to college in mind as opposed to pursuing another form of education like the military or the trades:  electricity, plumbing, carpentry, construction, heating and air, network engineering, etc.

Consequently, parents consider their children to be relative failures if they do not go to college...  And, this is a MISTAKE...

Many people are adverse to a career in the military because of the potential of going to war and while it seems wars have become an omnipresent aspect of our lives, there are careers in the military that do not put the individuals in a a war zone scenarios...  like the Air Force for example.

Knowledge is power...  and, that is true...  but, that knowledge does not always have to come from a college or a university...  and, it does not take a college education to become a leader of people.  Unfortunately, leaders come with age and after one pays one's dues...  whatever they might be...

The Golden Rule is the first example of what a leader understands and commands...  DO UNTO OTHERS AS YOU WOULD HAVE OTHERS DO UNTO YOU...

Not a bad lesson to learn...

An Itch

Race for Nuclear Fusion Power

Nuclear fusion, the ‘holy grail’ of energy, has long eluded scientists. In a fusion reaction, hydrogen plasma fuses to become helium under enormous heat and pressure, and releases huge amounts of clean, renewable energy in the process. However, this virtually limitless source of energy faces technical challenges that have thus far been insurmountable.

Scientists have said for decades that generating power from nuclear fusion is only a few decades away – this time, could it be true? Take a look inside the fusion reactors around the world that are bringing us closer to achieving the dream.

Alcator C-mod reactor, MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center, USA

Inside the doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber of the Alcator C-mod reactor at MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center © Bob Mumgaard/Creative Commons

Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) reactor, China

The team at China’s EAST reactor inspect and adjust the device ahead of its record-breaking demonstration in June 2021 © Shutterstock

In a world-first, China’s EAST reactor managed to maintain plasma at 120,000,000°C for 101 seconds © Shutterstock

National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX-U), Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, USA

The NSTX-U reactor has been designed to create a spherical plasma, in contrast to the toroidal (doughnut-shaped) plasmas of other tokamaks © Elle Starkman/Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, France

35 nations have invested in the ITER, which is being built in France © ITER Organisation

The doughnut-shaped chamber at the heart of ITER © ITER Organisation

TO READ ENTIRE ARTICLE, CLICK HERE...

Collapse

 

Controlling Artificial Intelligence

The idea of artificial intelligence overthrowing humankind has been talked about for many decades, and in January 2021, scientists delivered their verdict on whether we'd be able to control a high-level computer super-intelligence. The answer? Almost definitely not.

The catch is that controlling a super-intelligence far beyond human comprehension would require a simulation of that super-intelligence which we can analyze. But if we're unable to comprehend it, it's impossible to create such a simulation.

Rules such as 'cause no harm to humans' can't be set if we don't understand the kind of scenarios that an AI is going to come up with, suggest the authors of the 2021 paper. Once a computer system is working on a level above the scope of our programmers, we can no longer set limits.

"A super-intelligence poses a fundamentally different problem than those typically studied under the banner of 'robot ethics'," wrote the researchers.

"This is because a superintelligence is multi-faceted, and therefore potentially capable of mobilizing a diversity of resources in order to achieve objectives that are potentially incomprehensible to humans, let alone controllable."

Part of the team's reasoning comes from the halting problem put forward by Alan Turing in 1936. The problem centers on knowing whether or not a computer program will reach a conclusion and answer (so it halts), or simply loop forever trying to find one.  READ MORE...

Hop Inside

 

Gold in Backyard

The hoard of gold. Courtesy Norfolk Castle Museum


One man, in one field, has amassed what is now being declared the largest-ever haul of Anglo-Saxon gold coins. The metal detectorist, who wishes to remain anonymous, discovered the 131 coins over the course of 30 years on his own land, finding a few at a time until he gradually built up what is now considered the largest trove ever found.

The East Norfolk-based man first found a coin around 1990, but most of the treasure was discovered between 2014 and 2020. Classed as bullion, the find is made up of mostly Frankish tremisses dating from 580 A.D. to 630 A.D. and contains nine Roman gold solidi, a larger coin worth three tremisses, a gold pendant, two pieces of gold, a small gold bar, and smaller parts of what are believed to be items of jewelry.



Items of gold discovered. Courtesy Norfolk Castle Museum

In a strange twist, an ex-policeman found 10 coins in the same field, tried to pass them off as several different finds to sell them, but was busted in 2017. He was fired from the police and sentenced to 16 months in prison.

“This internationally significant find reflects the wealth and Continental connections enjoyed by the early Kingdom of East Anglia,” said Tim Pestell, senior curator of archaeology at Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery. “Study of the hoard and its findspot has the potential to unlock our understanding of early trade and exchange systems and the importance of west Norfolk to East Anglia’s ruling kings in the seventh century.”  READ MORE...

Pig

 

TRUTH

Truth is the property of being in accord with fact or reality.  In everyday language, truth is typically ascribed to things that aim to represent reality or otherwise correspond to it, such as beliefs, propositions, and declarative sentences.

Truth is usually held to be the opposite of falsehood. The concept of truth is discussed and debated in various contexts, including philosophy, art, theology, and science. Most human activities depend upon the concept, where its nature as a concept is assumed rather than being a subject of discussion; these include most of the sciences, law, journalism, and everyday life. Some philosophers view the concept of truth as basic, and unable to be explained in any terms that are more easily understood than the concept of truth itself.  Most commonly, truth is viewed as the correspondence of language or thought to a mind-independent world. This is called the correspondence theory of truth.

Various theories and views of truth continue to be debated among scholars, philosophers, and theologians.  There are many different questions about the nature of truth which are still the subject of contemporary debates, such as: How do we define truth? Is it even possible to give an informative definition of truth? What things are truth-bearers and are therefore capable of being true or false? Are truth and falsehood bivalent, or are there other truth values? What are the criteria of truth that allow us to identify it and to distinguish it from falsehood? What role does truth play in constituting knowledge? And is truth always absolute, or can it be relative to one's perspective?  SOURCE:  Wikipedia

Sleepy

English Law Effects US Gun Control

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES

Image caption, Guns did not exist in Europe when the statute was passed


A medieval English law dating back nearly seven centuries is now at the heart of the most important US Supreme Court gun case in a decade.

The case - which stems from a New York legal battle - challenges a state law that requires that gun users who want a concealed carry permit first prove they have a valid reason.

To help them determine how broad the rights of America's many gun owners go, the country's nine supreme court judges are also looking back to the 1328 Statute of Northampton, which dates back to the reign of Edward III.

Here's what we know.

What's the case?
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of the New York Rifle and Pistol Association v Bruen, which revolves around New York's laws governing concealed carry licenses.

The laws require that residents who want a license to carry a concealed pistol must prove they have "proper cause" for it and that they face "a special or unique" level of danger.

The plaintiffs in the case, Robert Nash and Brandon Koch, applied for a concealed carry permit but were denied, although they were given licenses that allow them to carry guns for recreational purposes such as hunting and target shooting.

With the support of the New York Rifle and Pistol Association - which is affiliated with the National Rifle Association (NRA) - in 2018 Mr Nash and Mr Koch filed a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of New York's "proper cause" requirement and handgun regulations.

Their case was dismissed by a federal court in New York, a decision that was affirmed by an appeals court. This, in turn, led the Supreme Court to hear the case.  READ MORE...

Over the Water

 

Megafires New Norm

Image caption,The megafire on Evia led to thousands of residents fleeing their homes


World leaders at the COP26 summit in Glasgow are under pressure to respond to global warming, and intense heatwaves and frequent forest fires are becoming an increasing threat around the Mediterranean.

This summer alone Greece was hit by thousands of wildfires, fanned by its worst heatwave in decades. Turkey, Italy and Spain all witnessed dramatic fires in recent months and the fire on the Greek island of Evia was the biggest in Greece since records began.

What happened on Evia was a megafire, an intense conflagration, which took almost two weeks to bring under control.

With more heatwaves forecast for future summers, there are fears that megafires could become the new normal.

"We never expected this," says Nikos Dimitrakis, a farmer who was born and raised in northern Evia. "We thought a part might burn, as in previous fires. But now the entire area was burned."

Image caption, Greeks evacuated the island as the fires turned the sky orange

When the fire reached his land, he told me there was no-one there to help. Surrounded by flames, he grabbed tree branches in a desperate attempt to put out the blaze.  READ MORE...

Pawing

 

Shell Needs Oil to Pay for Green

IMAGE SOURCE,GETTY IMAGES


The boss of oil giant Shell has insisted it can transition to net zero by 2050, but it will need the cash from its oil and gas business to pay for it.

Ben van Beurden dismissed splitting its legacy oil and gas business from its renewables investment, a move urged by activist shareholder Third Point.

Talking exclusively to the BBC, he said the company's plans for greener energy could only be funded by oil and gas.

"At this point in time [the cash] comes from our legacy business," he said.

Mr van Beurden was speaking at Europe's biggest oil refinery at Pernis near Rotterdam, a facility he plans to transform from refining petrol and diesel, to making biofuels and hydrogen over the next decade.

"These things can only be done if you have a facility (like Pernis) to work with and if you have the cash.

"If we have to build a hydrogen plant from a wind farm that we build in the North Sea for a billion dollars that is not going to be funded by a hydrogen business - it will be funded by the oil and gas business," he said.  READ MORE...

Grasses