Ancient City of Palmyra

ARCHAEOLOGISTS CONDUCTING A STUDY TO ESTIMATE THE MAXIMUM PRODUCTIVITY OF THE LAND AROUND PALMYRA ARE REVEALING NEW INSIGHTS THAT QUESTIONS THE HISTORICAL NARRATIVE.

Palmya is located in present-day Homs Governorate, Syria. Archaeological finds date an early settlement to the Neolithic period, with the first documented mention of the city dating to the early 2nd millennium BC.

Palmyra’s wealth was generated through a system of trade networks, funding the construction of monumental projects such as the Great Colonnade, the Temple of Bel, and the distinctive tower tombs.  READ MORE...

Sea Lion

 

Some of the Best

Downstairs

 

AI Generated Art

As interest grows for AI-assisted artwork programs like DALL-E, so do the controversies surrounding their legal and ethical implications. The newest example of this nebulous realm might be its thorniest yet. As Ars Technica and elsewhere reported yesterday, New York-based artist Kris Kashtanova claims to be the first known artist to receive a US copyright registration for Zayra of the Dawn, a graphic novel featuring latent diffusion AI-assisted artwork.

“I was open how it was made and put Midjourney on the cover page. It wasn’t altered in any other way. Just the way you saw it here,” Kashtanova wrote in an announcement posted to Instagram last week. “I tried to make a case that we do own copyright when we make something using AI. I registered it as visual arts work. My certificate is in the mail and I got the number and a confirmation today that it was approved.” Kashtanova also noted that they first got the idea to show that artists “do own copyright when we make something using AI” from a “friend lawyer.”

Earlier this year, the US Copyright Office ruled against awarding copyrights to AI systems themselves. “The courts have been consistent in finding that non-human expression is ineligible for copyright protection,” the Office reasoned in February, citing previous cases involving attempts to copyright based on “divine inspiration,” as well as that time someone tried to secure copyright protection for a monkey selfie.

Right now, there is a big distinction between granting copyright solely to an AI learning system and granting the same licensing rights to a human who collaborated with an AI learning system on their project, as is the case right now with Kashtanova’s Zayra of the Dawn. That said, critics have already noted that the graphic novel’s title character bears more than a passing resemblance to the actress, Zendaya. Generative image AI programs often rely on celebrities for human references since there are so many widely available photos of them. This usually happens without said celebrities’ knowledge or consent.  READ MORE...

Dirt Bike

Super Earths Are Common

Astronomers now routinely discover planets orbiting stars outside of the solar system – they’re called exoplanets. But in summer 2022, teams working on NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite found a few particularly interesting planets orbiting in the habitable zones of their parent stars.

One planet is 30% larger than Earth and orbits its star in less than three days. The other is 70% larger than the Earth and might host a deep ocean. These two exoplanets are super-Earths – more massive than the Earth but smaller than ice giants like Uranus and Neptune.

I’m a professor of astronomy who studies galactic cores, distant galaxies, astrobiology and exoplanets. I closely follow the search for planets that might host life.

Earth is still the only place in the universe scientists know to be home to life. It would seem logical to focus the search for life on Earth clones – planets with properties close to Earth’s. But research has shown that the best chance astronomers have of finding life on another planet is likely to be on a super-Earth similar to the ones found recently.  READ MORE...

Slow Moving

Letting Hair Go Gray

Caring for your hair properly requires life-long learning. Seemingly every decade, your strands undergo a major change, whether that's puberty, pregnancy, or the natural aging process. But one of the most jarring transitions is when the grays start growing in faster than you can color them, and it feels like you're at the salon for a touch-up every two weeks. At that point, you may wonder: should I stop dying my hair? If you need an added push, read on to hear from hair stylists about the key benefits of letting your hair go gray. Their arguments just might persuade you to cancel your next trip to the salon.

It's a simple fact: if you stop dying your hair, it will become healthier. Just think about what happens when you color your strands. According to Healthline, applying dye lifts the hair's protective proteins so the chemicals can penetrate the strand and change its color. While this might result in a dazzling hue, it weakens the hair, which can cause brittleness, dryness, and overall thinning.

According to Ghanima Abdullah, cosmetologist and hair expert for The Right Hairstyles, this is especially true of dying gray hair, which is already more fragile than fully pigmented hair. Grow your hair out in its natural hue, and you'll likely notice a dramatic improvement in its look, feel, and the level of maintenance it requires.  READ MORE...

Black & White Fish

 

What Have We Here?

As we transition from one month into another month, it is only fitting that I mention other transitions that are taking place in this country...  and, I could have said this great country of ours but I no longer see it as great.  Yes, it is the best place to live and offers the freedoms that other countries do not, but that does not make it great.  LEADERSHIP makes it great...  and right now we have piss poor leadership because we are more interested in playing party politics than doing what is right for the American people.

In other words, what is right for the American people is the following:

• A strong and growing economy
• A strong and powerful military
• Leagal Immigration Only
• Plenty of available jobs
• Low sustainable inflation
• An elite system of education
• Protecting our resources
• Protecting our intellectual property
• Protecting our technology
• Adhering to the rule of law

While this list may seem to be unattainable...  it once was the soul and heartbeat of this country.  It was the bedrock of this country...  our foundation on which we built GREATNESS and became the LEADER or ROLE MODEL for the rest of the world.  That is no longer the case.

We are just seen as a wealthy arrogant nation who wants to tell everybody else what to do and how to do it and when to do it...  

We no longer respect ourselves, so why should we respect others?

1. Our country is in crisis
2. Our country is in turmoil
3. Our country is seriously divided
4. Our leaders perpetuate this division

My question is WHY?

Dog and Steps

 

Values of Penny Coins

In 2009, the United States Mint marked the 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s birth with a four-coin series of circulating commemorative cents. Known as the “Lincoln Bicentennial” series, the program consisted of four different reverse designs marking major milestones in Lincoln’s life.

The 2009 Lincoln Bicentennial Designs
The obverse for Lincoln pennies remained the same in 2009. The difference with the new commemorative coins was the 2009 Lincoln cent reverse.

The first commemorative reverse, named “Birth and Early Childhood in Kentucky”, showed a rough log cabin similar to the one where Lincoln was born.

The second design was named “Formative Years in Indiana”. This design portrayed a young adult Lincoln taking a break from rail splitting and studying with a book. Lincoln was largely self-taught as a young man.

The third design, “Professional Life in Illinois”, shows Lincoln in front of the Illinois State Capitol in Springfield. Lincoln worked as a lawyer in Springfield and served in the State Legislature.

The fourth and final design in the series was named “Presidency in Washington, D.C.”. It shows the United States Capitol under construction as it appeared on the day of Lincoln’s first inauguration. This scene is meant to invoke Lincoln’s determination to rebuild the nation after the Civil War.

The Value of a 2009 Lincoln Cent
The combined mintage of all four designs from both the Philadelphia and Denver Mints was more than 2.3 billion coins. Combined with the fact that many millions of Lincoln Bicentennial cents were saved by the public, it is small wonder that they are so seldom seen in circulation.  READ MORE...

Wavy

Civilizations' Dark Side

When agriculture emerged about 10,000 years ago, people were able to settle in one place; this is when "civilization" emerged.

The term "civilized" has come to connote some group of people who are relatively "advanced" in some important ways relative to others.

The concept of "evolutionary mismatch" forces us to re-examine just how "advanced" our "civilized societies" truly are.

We often think of the modern, "civilized" world as being somehow luxurious and advanced relative to how most people lived thousands of years ago. And some people will often think of others who are "in the third world" or who currently live in nomadic bands, just as our ancestors all did prior to the agricultural revolution, as "less than civilized," which has all kinds of negative connotations.

The evolutionary perspective in the behavioral sciences forces us to truly question this conception of civilization. In the same breath, the evolutionary perspective forces us to question so many features of our own lives today.  READ MORE...

Sanford & Son

Professors Trained At Elite Universities

One in eight tenure-track professors at US institutions got their PhDs from just five elite 

US universities, according to a study.Credit: Paul Marotta/Getty

US universities hire most of their tenure-track faculty members from the same handful of elite institutions, according to a study1. The finding suggests that prestige is overvalued in hiring decisions and that academic researchers have little opportunity to obtain jobs at institutions considered more elite than the ones at which they were trained.

Specifically, the study, published in Nature on 21 September, shows that just 20% of PhD-granting institutions in the United States supplied 80% of tenure-track faculty members to institutions across the country between 2011 and 2020 (see ‘Hiring bias’). 

No historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) or Hispanic-serving institutions (HSIs) were among that 20%, says Hunter Wapman, a computer scientist at the University of Colorado Boulder (CU Boulder) and a co-author of the paper. One in eight US-trained tenure-track faculty members got their PhDs from just five elite universities: the University of California, Berkeley; Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts; the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; Stanford University in California; and the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“It’s not surprising, but it is jarring” to see these data, says Leslie Gonzales, a social scientist who studies higher education at Michigan State University in East Lansing. 

“There’s so much brilliant work and training of brilliant scholars that’s happening outside of this tiny sliver” of institutions, including at HBCUs and HSIs — and it’s being overlooked, she says.  READ MORE...

Big Hair

 

Seahorse

 

End of Our Solar System

Evolution of the Sun during its main sequence lifetime. Each curve shows one of the Sun’s characteristics compared with the current Sun. The red curve shows its luminosity (brightness). Credit: Wikipedia.

This is the 11th and final chapter in the Solar System’s story. It is about the long-term future of the Solar System, which will come to an end in about 100 billion years.

Our Solar System is on its way out. Slowly.

Over the next several billion years, a series of unfortunate events will take place, spanning from the not-so-great to the truly tragic. Afterward, our Solar System will be gone: all of the planets will be lost and the Sun will be a solitary white dwarf. (Pause to wipe away tears).

I will guide us through our Solar System’s future, one step at a time. Since Earth is our home base, I’ll include a key event affecting life on Earth. 

Here are the five steps to come:

1. Earth’s oceans will boil off.
2. The rocky planets’ orbits may go unstable, leading to a potential giant collision between planets.
3. The Sun will become a red giant and swallow the rocky planets.
4. A passing star will trigger a dynamical instability among the remaining planets.
5. A passing star will strip away the final planet.

It is a near certainty that each of these events will happen, with the exception of number 2 (which has only a relatively small probability). But it will take about 100 billion years to reach the end.

Let’s get to it.

1. The end of liquid water (and life) on Earth
The Sun is ever-so-slowly heating up. Today, it’s about 30% brighter than right after it formed. As the Sun converts hydrogen to helium in its core, the mean molecular weight increases, thus increasing the core’s temperature and thus the rate of the fusion reaction (called the proton-proton chain). This slowly increases the Sun’s energy output.  READ MORE...

Moving Through

 

Global Disaster from Artificial Intelligence

Culturally, humanity is fascinated by the prospect of machines developing to the point of our destruction. Whether exploring threats from The Terminator, the Matrix, or even older films such as War Games, this type of story enthralls us. 

It’s not simply technology that fascinates us; what’s compelling is the prospect of technology drastically changing our every-day lives.

Our stories, however, are rooted in reality. As artificial intelligence (AI) is refined over the coming years and decades, the threats may not merely be stories. 

There are many potential ways in which artificial intelligence might come to threaten other intelligent life. Here are 6 realistically possible ways that AI could lead to global catastrophe.

1. Packaging Weaponized AI into Viruses
The world has seen several high-profile cyber-attacks over recent years. Simpler tactics such as Denial of Service attacks have escalated into high profile hacks (such as Experian) and even into ransomware attacks. 

In parallel, the number of interconnected devices and platforms has exploded with the advent of the Internet of Things and increased accessibility to consumer mobile products.  READ MORE...

Arriving

 

Plastic - Lasers - Diamonds

Plastics shocked with a high-energy laser generate nanodiamonds with a range of technological applications. (Image credit: Greg Stewart/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory)

Using ultrapowerful lasers, scientists have blasted cheap plastic and transformed it into tiny "nanodiamonds" — and, in doing so, confirmed the existence of an exotic new type of water. .


The findings could potentially reveal the existence of diamond rain on ice giants in our solar system and explain why these frigid worlds have such strange magnetic fields. The laser-blasting technique could also lead to more Earthly applications.

Nanodiamonds are diamonds that measure just a few nanometers, or billionths of a meter. They have both existing and potential applications, such as turning carbon dioxide into other gases and delivering drugs into the body, study co-author Dominik Kraus, a physicist at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf in Germany, told Live Science.  READ MORE...

Water Moves Shell

 

Sixteen Weeks After Back Surgery

This Wednesday will document 16 weeks since my lower back disk fusion surgery...  5 disks fused...  L2-L3-L4-L5-S1...

My first few weeks was not so much tough as there was minimal back pain, but it was depressing because my improvement was so slow...  Oftentimes, I felt like I was not making any progress at all.  I began walking and built myself up to 1.5 miles each day, only taking Sundays off to rest the body.

I also began therapy on my left hip because I was experience discomfort and the therapy helped but I also discovered that while there was no discomfort in my right hip, it was worst than my left hip but since it was not on the doctor's orders, it could not be treated.

When we went to Myrtle Beach, I walked along the hard sand for a mile each day until I was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection.  When I returned home, my family doctor gave me another dosage of pills because I was not cured.

What I discovered at Myrtle Beach was that my back felt better after a night's sleep on the hard bed that was in our condo.  So, when we returned home, I increased my sleep number bed from 65 to 90 and each morning my back felt better.  I don't know if this hard bed concept will work for everyone but it worked for me.

This Thursday, I meet with my back surgeon and will probably be my last visit with him as I am sure he will release me totally...  I will also asked for therapy on both hips as well as my back as I am not walking with ease and I cannot use either legs without help to walk up stairs.  Other than that, my improvement while greadual is acceptable and I finally feel like I really getting closer to where I was.

Following instructions from the surgeon and walking were the keys to my improvement...  slow progress has got to be mentally acceptable and it was not for me which becomes a mental problem and forces you to make yourself walk...  it would be better if you did not have to force yourself like I did.

So, maybe you can learn from my experiences...

Here Come The Robots

The World Economic Forum (WEF) concluded in a recent report that “a new generation of smart machines, fueled by rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics, could potentially replace a large proportion of existing human jobs.” 

The organization cites that automation will supplant about 85 million jobs by 2025. 

Currently, approximately 30% of all tasks are done by machines—and people do the rest. 

However, by the year 2025, it's believed that the balance will dramatically change to a 50-50 combination of humans and machines.

In a little over 3 months, it will be 2023 which means the year 2025 is only 27 months away...  and, believe me, 27 months is going to fly by especially with a Democratic President until 2024...

1. Robots don't get paid a salary or a wage
2. Robots don't complain
3. Robots don't need unions
4. Robots don't require breaks
5. Robots don't use the bathroom
6. Robots don't get sick
7. Robots don't need to take a vacation
8. Robots can work 24/7
9. Robots don't get pregnant
10. Robots don't drink alcohol
11. Robots don't take drugs
12. Robots don't come to work late

Half our jobs will be performed by robots with artificial intelligence so what will those people do who lose their jobs?  

Will they be taught how to build robots?  

How long will that take?

Will these people have to relocate?

What if they cannot learn the skills?

What about all the illegal immigrants that are coming into the USA, what jobs will they do that robots cannot do?

Who will take care of the people who lose their jobs?

How long will unemployment insurance last?

1. Robots can build solar panels
2. Robots can build cars
3. Robots can unload trucks and ships and aircraft
4. Robots can drive taxis and buses and trains
5. Robots can deliver packages
6. Robots can stock shelves
7. Robots can clean houses and businesses
8. Robots can mow lawns
9. Robots can give directions
10. Robots can take orders at restaurants
11. Robots can handle tech support by phone
12. Robots can make outgoing sales calls
13. Robots can take telephone orders
14. Robots can perform manufacturing jobs
15. Robots can perform assembly jobs
16. Robots can repair vehicles and heavy machinery
17. Robots can do construction jobs
18. Robots can cut trees down and load wood into trucks
19. Robots can repair railroad tracks
20. Robots can deliver the US mail

Shingles Don't Care!!!

We are experiencing high inflation

We are experiencing an increase in crime and violence

We are ignoring our Illegal Immigration crisis at our southern borders

We are ignoring our unemployment problem as employers cannot find workers

We are ignoring the increase of illegal drugs especially fentanyl

BUT SHINGLES DOESN'T CARE

The Liberals and Progressives want to do away with oil and gasoline and go green with electric vehicles even though the rest of the world is not following our lead...  and, regardless of how that movement will destroy our economy...

BUT SHINGLES DOESN'T CARE

The Democrats are so concerned about making sure that Donald Trump does not run again for President that they completely forgot to pay attention to the growth of China's military, economy, US debt owned, and the purchasing of land in the USA...

BUT SHINGLES DOESN'T CARE

The USA is more divided than during the CIVIL WAR...   politically we are divided 49.60 (Democrats) to 49.40 (Republicans)...  this division is exacerbated by the RACISM that exists here in the USA that is perpetuated by BLM, CRT, Being WOKE which is also being pushed by the mainstream media so that it is more of a problem than it really is especially since blacks represent 12% of our overall population....

BUT SHINGLES DOESN'T CARE

Our country is breaking apart, turning upside down, chasing fairy tales and dreams, and the rest of the world is losing respect for this country faster than Queen Elizabeth's funeral...

BUT SHINGLES DOESN'T CARE

Flying Low

 

Wireless EV Charging

goog_1953122263

In our recent explainer on electric vehicle charging, you might have noticed that we didn't mention wireless EV charging. Now common on smartphones, wireless charging works the same way on cars, just at higher power levels and with much bigger batteries. 

But after some demos and news releases during the mid-teens, the technology seemed to fall off the radar.  Behind the scenes, though, engineers were hashing out an industry standard, aided by industry consolidation along the way. 

That's now final, and the first EVs with factory-fit wireless charging systems are starting to appear, albeit not here in the US just yet. But given its ease of use, even for drivers who can't imagine life beyond the gas pump, the potential for adoption seems good.

Ars got its first look at wireless car charging back in 2015. Back then, chip-maker Qualcomm was developing what it called Halo, which it was demonstrating at Formula E races by recharging the battery in a safety car, a BMW i8 plug-in hybrid. 

It wasn't the only outfit developing wireless charging, however. In Massachusetts, an MIT spinoff called WiTricity started playing around with wireless car charging in 2010 after an investment by Toyota.  READ MORE...