Category Archives: Technology

How to use technology, and not be used by it, by Simon Black

Posted on September 18, 2022 | Leave a comment

A lot of solid suggestions about how to preserve your privacy and still be a part of the computer and Internet age, from Simon Black at sovereignman.com:

Amazon’s Ring video doorbells likely form the largest private surveillance network the world has ever known.

Millions of Americans allow Ring surveillance cameras to record and store video and audio of all activity at their front door.

Ring maintains access to users’ unencrypted videos, and has admitted in the past that at least four employees improperly accessed doorbell camera recordings.

Then there is Amazon’s Alexa, which is a voluntary wiretap people bug their homes with for the convenience of asking, “Hey wiretap, can dogs eat pancakes?”

Amazon employees can also access certain Alexa recordings.

Google also has a whole line of “smart home” products like cameras, doorbells, and voice assistants called Nest that feed video and audio back to the mothership.

Of course, if you’re a Gmail user, Google also keeps a history of everything that you buy. Every online purchase, travel itinerary, etc. is automatically parsed and logged. Google knows what work you do on Docs. They know your search history, what you like to watch on YouTube, and what you’ve downloaded on your Android device.

These tech companies have such detailed personal information on their users that J. Edgar Hoover would blush.

And they don’t even bother hiding what they do with such enormous troves of our personal data.

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Killer Teslas, by Eric Peters

Posted on September 17, 2022 | Leave a comment

The amazing thing is how Tesla manages to skirt liability. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

Why is it that “speed” (and “guns”) “kill” but Teslas don’t?

Even though Teslas actually do.

No gun ever killed anyone. It took a person to do that. Speed never did, either. Rather, it was the impact with the deceased that did, caused by the loss-of-control of the vehicle – which can and does happen at any speed.

But Teslas actually do kill people. Two of them, just recently. In just one month. The first on July 7. The second a couple of weeks later, on the 24th. Both were motorcyclists. Each was struck from behind by a marauding Tesla driven by itself. Its driver asleep at the wheel – because that’s what Tesla’s “self-driving” technology encourages them to do. If you can’t fall asleep at the wheel in a “self-driving” car, why bother with a “self-driving car”? That would be like buying a boat that’s not safe to float.

Well, the two bikers are now asleep, too. Permanently.

If Teslas were guns, there would be calls to ban them. And these calls would be justified, since – unlike guns – Teslas not only have killed but will kill, again. How many is the only debatable point.

It is an inevitability of the technology – and the psychology.

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What They Aren’t Telling People About EeeeeeeVeeeeeees, by Eric Peters

Posted on September 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

EVs have a few teeny tiny little bitty drawbacks. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

Everyone knows – well, everyone has heard – that EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeeeee are the vehicles for solving what is said to be the “climate crisis” – which is an interesting thing to say, given the EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeees being produced are much more powerful than they need to be to get people from A to B. That requires huge batteries, to store all the electricity needed to make them go very fast, very quickly.

You’d think that would be discouraged – even banned – if there is a “crisis” looming that is being caused by the “emission” of carbon dioxide. After all, more of the latter is being “emitted” than necessary by the utility plants that generate almost all of the electricity that powers over-powered EeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeees.

Does anyone need to get 60 in 2.9 seconds? Or even six? If there is a “crisis,” that is. Yet practically every EeeeeeeVeeeeee on the market is designed specifically to use up more power than is needed for bare-minimum or even economy-car-equivalent basic transportation needs.

This tells you something about the true nature of the “crisis” – and those who say it is one. If a ship on the open sea has sprung a leak and is sinking, do you open more holes below the waterline?

There are some other things about EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeeeeees they aren’t telling you about as well.

You can’t “fast” charge an EeeeeeeeeVeeeeee at home – 

Practically every article gushing about EeeeeeeVeeeeeees will report on the fact that it is possible to “fast”charge an EeeeeeeeeeeVeeee in about 30 minutes. Some will gushingly report that – soon! – you’ll be able to do it in less than 15 minutes. What they never tell you is that you cannot do this at home. Because private homes do not have the capability to “fast” charge an EeeeeeVeeeee. The very “fastest” you can charge an EeeeeeeeeeVeeee at a private home is in around eight-nine hours, on a 240 volt (dryer-type) outlet.

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Here’s Why Toyota Isn’t Going All-In On Electric Vehicles, by Tyler Durden

Posted on September 15, 2022 | Leave a comment

There are pretty good odds that Toyota will not regret its current strategy. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

While many automakers have committed billions of dollars in recent years to develop all-electric vehicles, Toyota has approached the technology with far more caution – opting instead to continue investing in a portfolio of hybrid “electrified” vehicles, such as the Prius.

2021 Prius hybrid

And while the Japanese automaker was a darling of US environmentalists and ‘eco-conscious’ consumers when the Prius came out two decades ago, given that it was among the cleanest and most fuel-efficient vehicles ever produced – Toyota has fallen out of favor with the ‘green’ crowd thanks to its hesitancy to jump into the fray with fully electric vehicles.

“The fact is: a hybrid today is not green technology. The Prius hybrid runs on a pollution-emitting combustion engine found in any gas-powered car,” said Katherine García, director of the Sierra Club’s Clean Transportation for All campaign, in a recent blog post.

As CNBC notes, Greenpeace has now ranked Toyota at the bottom of a list of 10 automakers’ efforts to ‘decarbonize,’ citing slow progress in its supply chain and sales of zero-emission vehicles, which are less than 1% of Toyota’s sales.

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Sky-High Prices Create New Age Of Energy Awareness, by Dan Doyle

Posted on September 13, 2022 | Leave a comment

“Energy awareness” is code for the economy runs on fossil fuels and Green Energy is nowhere close to being able to replace it. From Dan Doyle at oilprice.com:

  • ollowing years of ‘Green Enlightenment, decision-makers are waking up to the fact that blindly following an ESG agenda has led to sky-high energy prices.
  • Europe must not overlook domestic gas resources in its scramble to find new energy sources.
  • The renewable energy rollout needs much more time than it is being given.

An age of awareness looks to be upon us. Personal pronouns, the green movement, the swamp, ESG, DEI, CRT, LGBTQ, regressive therapy, equity, defund the PoPo, and now, perplexingly, oil and gas.   Let’s call it a New Energy Awareness or just Energy Awareness (“EA” if you go in for initialisms).  Consider it a natural progression, a fallout from the previous Age of Enlightened and Entitled Complaint (“EEC”)—a swinging of the pendulum from the farcical to factual. It’s like the new peak oil. But more cultural, less depletion.

How could this be, that oil and gas should suddenly be gaining favor? It seems so unreal, so unexpected, as much so as an honest review of Jared Kushner’s new book.

But there it is, oil and gas are trending positively in the hearts and minds of German politicians. Natural gas is being met with whispered acceptance by green-minded bureaucrats. These are the same government types who spent the last decade shutting down coal-fired utilities and planting the green flag through the hearts of their nuclear plants.  There has become a reordering of priorities, possibly even an admission that the green energy revolution has gone too far, too fast, and that blind acceptance has outrun capacity.  What should have been a thoughtful rollout instead transcended probity to become religious fervor.

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The Next Step, by Eric Peters

Posted on September 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

If the government can drive up the cost of internal combustion cars, it will make electric vehicles seem less expensive. From Eric Peters at ericpetersautos.com:

Last week, California’s ruling elites – the “government” really ought to be referred to in this more accurate way – decreed that no one in California will be allowed to buy a new car that isn’t an electric car – an EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeee – beginning with the 2035 model year.

What will California’s ruling elites decree next?

It is easy enough to predict – because of the problem (for California’s ruling elites) that exists and will remain absent further decrees. That problem being, of course, the vast majority of cars owned by Californians that aren’t EeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeees. This being about 97 percent of the cars in California at the present moment, which is not likely to be even 50 percent by 2035.

And that is probably optimistic – if you are someone who believes everyone or most everyone ought to be driving an EeeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeee.

For one, probably at least 50 percent of the cars currently on the road are likely to still be on the road ten years hence – which will take us to just about 2034, which is the last year it will still be legal to sell other-than-EeeeeeeeeeeeeVeeeeees in California – because almost any car sold this year will still have many years of useful life left in it. So also most of the cars sold in the past five years. And then there are the cars that will be sold in the coming years, all the way up through the 2024 model year.

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Facing the hard facts about the ‘world class’ US Navy, by Roger Thompson

Posted on September 12, 2022 | Leave a comment

Great ships don’t save bad captains. From Roger Thompson at responsiblestatecraft.org:

This goes far beyond the future utility of aircraft carriers. The culture and leadership are diminishing the force’s maritime dominance, too.

The state of modern defense journalism in America is a sad one indeed. For example, I give you a recent article by Kris Osborn, the defense editor for The National Interest. His recent plea for more aircraft carriers for the U.S. Navy reminded me of the late Tom Clancy’s jingoistic boasts about the American military.

Osborn writes:

Nothing in the world can project power like a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, which brings the ability to launch massive offensive strikes from waters offshore, holding targets and enemies at risk. This proven reality explains why the mere forward presence of a carrier can have a “calming” type of deterrent effect. At times, the Navy and Pentagon’s leaders have called for eleven carriers, and have most recently asked for twelve.

This is nonsense. As I pointed out in my 2007 book, Lessons Not Learned: The U.S. Navy’s Status Quo Culture, in war games and mock attacks from 1966 to 2006 — a forty year span — submarines and surface warships from the Soviet Union and Russia, China, Chile, Holland, Australia, and Canada theoretically destroyed the carriers Saratoga, Independence, John F. Kennedy, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Eisenhower, Forrestal, Constellation, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Kitty Hawk and Abraham Lincoln.

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9/11 After 21 Years, by Paul Craig Roberts

Posted on September 11, 2022 | 2 comments

If the official account of 9/11 was true, there would have been a full blown investigation into the incompetence demonstrated by the national security apparatus and heads would have rolled. Instead, we got a flimflam “blue ribbon” white wash. From Paul Craig Roberts at paulcraigroberts.org:

Today is the 21st anniversary of the attack on the World Trade Center in New York City. There has never been an official US investigation of the attack. After much pressure from families of those who died in the collapse of the towers, the White House finally and most reluctantly assembled a 9/11 Commission consisting largely of politicians and a neoconservative staff director to sit and listen to the government’s narrative and to write it down. This is what comprised the 9/11 Commission Report. Afterwards the commission’s co-chairmen and legal counsel wrote books in which they said the 9/11 Commission was set up to fail, that resources and information were withheld from the Commission, and that the Commission considered referring criminal charges to the Department of Justice against some of the government officials who falsely testified before the commission. These confessions were ignored by the presstitutes and had no effect on the government’s highly implausible narrative.

NIST’s account of the collapse is simply a computer simulation that delivered the results NIST programed into the simulation.

For 21 years I reported on the independent investigations and findings of scientists, scholars, engineers, and architects that concluded on the basis of hard evidence that the government’s narrative was a false account. Initially, the distinguished scientists, architects, and engineers who rejected the official narrative were characterized by the presstitutes as “conspiracy theorists,” following the line the CIA had employed against experts who disputed the official narrative of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination. However, over time the efforts of Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth convinced more and more Americans that the official story was false. In recent years polls have shown that half of those polled no longer believe the official narrative.

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Millions Of Electric Car Batteries Retiring By 2030, Are We Ready To Deal With What Could Be Ticking Time Bombs? By Autumn Spreademann

Posted on September 10, 2022 | Leave a comment

What are they going to do with all those toxic electric car batteries? From Autumn Spreademann at The Epoch Times via zerohedge.com:

The evolving landscape of lithium batteries is creating both contradictions and infrastructure hurdles that, according to some, need to be addressed sooner rather than later. A critical component of this is waste management.

Charging sign for electric vehicles (EVs). (paulbr75/pixabay)

More than 6 million electric vehicle (EV) battery packs will end up as scrap between now and 2030, and the recycling and reuse industries are racing to keep up. Some researchers project that recycling alone will be an over $12 billion industry by 2025.

U.S. President Joe Biden wants to make America a key player in the EV battery industry with a $3.1 billion spending package for automobile production to transition away from fossil fuels.

Much of this dream is pinned on a dusty stretch of soil in the Nevada high desert called Thacker Pass. It serves as the lynchpin in Biden’s push for increased domestic lithium production and more EV batteries. That’s because Thacker Pass is the largest hard rock lithium reserve in the United States.

Currently, China dominates the world’s EV battery production, with more than 80 percent of all units developed there.

Yet while Biden’s administration has its sights on the top spot for EV battery production, insiders are pointing out industry trapdoors.

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Asia’s future takes shape in Vladivostok, the Russian Pacific, by Pepe Escobar

Posted on September 9, 2022 | Leave a comment

Once upon a time the U.S. could have been invited into the ongoing development of Eurasia. That option, unfortunately, is off the table, leaving the U.S. trying to sabotage the Russian and Chinese-led effort. From Pepe Escobar at thecradle.co:

Sixty-eight countries gathered on Russia’s far eastern coast to listen to Moscow’s economic and political vision for the Asia-Pacific

https://media.thecradle.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Putin-on-Vladiviostok.jpg

Photo Credit: The Cradle

The Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) in Vladivostok is one of the indispensable annual milestones for keeping up not only with the complex development process of the Russian Far East but major plays for Eurasia integration.

Mirroring an immensely turbulent 2022, the current theme in Vladivostok is ‘On the Path to a Multipolar World.’ Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, in a short message to business and government participants from 68 nations, set the stage:

“The obsolete unipolar model is being replaced by a new world order based on the fundamental principles of justice and equality, as well as the recognition of the right of each state and people to their own sovereign path of development. Powerful political and economic centers are taking shape right here in the Asia-Pacific region, acting as a driving force in this irreversible process.”

In his speech to the EEF plenary session, Ukraine was barely mentioned. Putin’s response when asked about it: “Is this country part of Asia-Pacific?”

The speech was largely structured as a serious message to the collective west, as well as to what top analyst Sergey Karaganov calls the “global majority.” Among several takeaways, these may be the most relevant:

  • Russia as a sovereign state will defend its interests.
  • Western sanctions ‘fever’ is threatening the world – and economic crises are not going away after the pandemic.
  • The entire system of international relations has changed. There is an attempt to maintain world order by changing the rules.
  • Sanctions on Russia are closing down businesses in Europe. Russia is coping with economic and tech aggression from the west.
  • Inflation is breaking records in developed countries. Russia is looking at around 12 percent.
  • Russia has played its part in grain exports leaving Ukraine, but most shipments went to EU nations and not developing countries.
  • The “welfare of the ‘Golden Billion’ is being ignored.”
  • The west is in no position to dictate energy prices to Russia.
  • Ruble and yuan will be used for gas payments.
  • The role of Asia-Pacific has significantly increased.

In a nutshell: Asia is the new epicenter of technological progress and productivity.

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