AFTER OPPENHEIMER
“Now, I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” J. Robert Oppenheimer[1] “In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets, which supplanted so quickly the old one, the first great aggressive war, if it should come, will be launched by suicidal little madmen pressing an electronic button. Such a war will not last long […]
POSTMORTEM: RUSSIA’S WAGNER GROUP, ABORTIVE COUP OR SLEIGHT OF HAND?
“It is not clear what might happen if a military group were to seize Russian tactical nuclear weapons.” Francois Diaz-Martin[1] “All warfare is based on deception …” Sun Tzu[2] “OTR warheads are stored in an incomplete assembly, the so-called readiness stage (sometimes referred to as SG-“4”). This means that the […]
CHINA’S AI: QUANDRY OR OPPORTUNITY?
“By some metrics, China now produces more high-quality research papers in the [AI] field than the U.S. but still lags behind in ‘paradigm-shifting breakthroughs’ … In generative AI, the latest wave of top-tier AI systems, China remains one to two years behind U.S. development and reliant on U.S. innovations, China tech watchers and industry leaders […]
CRAZY DAVE
“I love interesting people with eccentric stories and outsiders of the world.” Paloma Faith “In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.” Friedrich Nietzsche While Ima and I made a brief visit to Bartlesville, Oklahoma earlier this month (June 2023)—looking in on KaLeigh’s cobalt refinery project—my good friend from my Texas Christian University […]
TECHNOLOGY’S FUTURE: THE COLLINGRIDGE DILEMMA
“The [Collingridge] dilemma runs thus: ‘attempting to control a [new] technology is difficult … because during its early stages, when it can be controlled, not enough can be known about its harmful social consequences to warrant controlling its development; but by the time these consequences are apparent, control has become costly and slow.’” D. […]
IS A NEW OPERATION BABYLON IMMINENT?
“By the waters The waters Of Babylon We lay down and wept And wept For thee Zion” Song Babylon Don McLean 1971[1] “If and when Jerusalem acts militarily against Tehran to stop its nuclear ambitions, it will likely involve four different fronts, as Iranian-backed groups in Syria, […]
EVERYONE SHOULD TAKE A CRUISE
“Twenty years from now, you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than those you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from safe harbor. Catch the wind in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” Mark Twain “Land was created to provide a place for boats to visit.” […]
SEABED WARS
“Across the globe, there are more than 400 cables running along the seafloor, carrying over 95% of all international internet traffic … These data conduits, which transmit everything from emails and banking transactions to military secrets, are vulnerable to sabotage attacks and espionage …” Joe Brock “U.S. and China wage war beneath the […]
TRANSFORMATIVE VISION
“I think that the greatest gift God ever gave man is not the gift of sight but the gift of vision. Sight is a function of the eyes, but vision is a function of the heart.” Myles Monroe “Vision is the art of seeing what is invisible to others.” Jonathan Swift “Then, after […]
WADING INTO THE NORD STREAM PIPELINE CONTROVERSY
“The Nord Stream and Nord Stream 2 pipelines, consisting of two pipes each, run largely parallel to each other below the Baltic Sea between the eastern shores of Russia and the northern coast of Germany. Three of the lines, which were at the time full of gas, were severed by underwater blasts that prosecutors said […]