Category: Science

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Muskovite Continues to Strike

Musk’s Neuralink to Start Human Trial of Brain Implant. Probably just trying to figure out how to shut it down for space travel.

CHATSUM: Elon Musk’s brain-chip startup Neuralink has received approval to begin recruitment for the first human trial of its brain implant for paralysis patients, targeting those with cervical spinal cord injury or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

The UAW needs some better backend …if Twitter messaging is anything important to the cause. Musk’s general outlook on life has become pretty clear. MAGA Spaceboy is out to create havoc and doing a damn good job of it.

I should sign up for the trial!
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Climate

It’s official. We just had the hottest August ever, worldwide.

CHATSUM: The summer of 2023 broke temperature records worldwide, with Gallup, New Mexico reaching 101 degrees, Reno, Nevada reaching 108 degrees, and Kingman, Arizona reaching a staggering 114 degrees. Death Valley also hit 130 degrees, the highest reading on Earth in 89 years.

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Ready to Listen ?

The sky is falling! The sky is falling! Goddamned right it is.

“Southern California is under its first-ever tropical storm watch as Hilary approaches.”

If it tracks straight in, alot of shyt’s gonna get real wet.

It’s only a question of where and how bad now.
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Climate Anxiety

We had an unusually cool, wet spring and early summer here. Many parts of the country baked in record-high temps. Yeah, anxiety might be an issue…

Tell me about it.
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AI Code of Conduct

So powers-that-be (Euro union, etc.) are getting together to gen up some AI control measure. Sounds like a great idea. I’m pretty sure no code of conduct ever deterred determined evil cocksuckers from bending legitimate means to their selfish ends.

I might suggest a better approach to AI could be simply acknowledging the fact this genie is out of the bottle. Assume it will be leveraged for crime, political skullduggery and ordinary scam purposes, with the upshot eventually being human extinction and/or enslavement. Considering how dependent we are on techno-driven society, some of us already felt enslaved to chatbots and byzantine telephone answering systems.

Created with DALL·E, an AI system by OpenAI X Fausto — The earth quaked as the monster lumbered closer, appearing to grow with each step. ignorant of the humanity that fled before it. It didn’t care for their screams or their_ begging as it destroyed everything in its path. Reaching out a hand, the monster grabbed hold of the earth and tore it in two. In a single gulp, it devoured half of the planet, crushing buildings and Relief effort organization put cities beneath its teeth. The skies darkened as thick dust and debris filled the air, blotting out the sun. For miles around, all was quiet except for the sound of the monster’s footsteps as it headed back into the shadows.
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JWST #25: Pandora Starstruck

“When the images of Pandora’s Cluster first came in from Webb, we were honestly a little star-struck,” said Bezanson. “There was so much detail in the foreground cluster and so many distant lensed galaxies, I found myself getting lost in the image. Webb exceeded our expectations.” The new view of Pandora’s Cluster stitches four Webb snapshots together into one panoramic image, displaying roughly 50,000 sources of near-infrared light.

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Integrated Test Joke

Starship’s maiden full-stack experienced a “rapid unscheduled disassembly” following what looked to me like somebody forgot to flip the seperate-enable switch. All those dark engines didn’t look real encouraging either. Probably knew it wasn’t going to make insertion long before watching the spin dance to abort.

Wanna bet they were on some timeline pressure in a years-long lead-time NASA contract?

LATE UPDATE: They didn’t even have the launch pad ready.

This explains the lead-up deadpan from the Muskovite on down: to blondie’s wrapup: Low expectations for the black spaceship that didn’t fly.
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AI-Enhanced Qualifications

The cartoon’s title is just Qualifications. When Randall’s results become people thinking they know what the computer tells them, I’ll start referring to the outcomes as another A-i-i event. We used to call it subversion back in the day, when the targets were enemies of the state. Today’s electronically-acquired targets can be just about anybody when Big Tech, Pharma, or something with an online and/or broadcast presence and enough coding resources wants your money.

Artificially Induced Intelligence.

It’s pretty incredible what seems to “check out” these days…
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Next Generation Space Heroes

Been a big fan ever since I was old enough to read. Now it’s time for a new generation to take the mantle.

PHOTO DATE: March 29, 2023. LOCATION: Bldg. 8, Room 183 – Photo Studio. SUBJECT: Official crew portrait for Artemis II, from left: NASA Astronauts Christina Koch, Victor Glover, Reid Wiseman, Canadian Space Agency Astronaut Jeremy Hansen. PHOTOGRAPHER: Josh Valcarcel
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The Last GEO

Undershot this one a bit. In retrospect, I now remember how long the lead times on this stuff are. They were probably already buying parts for GEO-6 when I made that last prognostication. So good – we have a full GEO constellation to work with, going forward.

“The Space Based Infrared System Geosynchronous Earth Orbit – Satellite-6 (SBIRS GEO-6) was formally transferred from Space Systems Command (SSC) to Space Operations Command (SpOC), March 24, 2023.”

You never know who’s lookin’ on…