SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A letter from 2020
A long time ago, on a green site, far, far away, there was an article A Letter from 2020. The original links to the Letter have not worked for many years. But the web archive still has it. (September 18, 2000 -- so just over 20 years ago.)
You've got to remember that this pessimistic letter from 2020 was written back in more primitive times. AOL disks still came in the mail. Encarta was a thing. Everyone was confused about what "dot NET" actually was.
This letter is about patents, copyright and creeping IP protection. Consider this "logic": An SN article is digital, and on a computer. Therefore it is "software". Therefore patentable under software patent law.
Dear Me,
I'm not sure if reading this letter is illegal. I thought it only fair to warn you; it might be better to just destroy it.
The actual writing has been a bit of a chore. Word.NET isn't what it used to be. Even Microsoft.NET couldn't afford to patent everything, so whilst I can do Find, there's no Replace anymore. One good thing about having only one legal operating system is that it's very stable. I'm glad they never update Windows.NET; anyone can live with three or four crashes a day and the hourly rent is less than I pay for my apartment.
I try to remember what it was like when I was a kid but it's really difficult; the world has changed so much since then. I found a paper book the other day that described the rise and fall of something called the "Internet". It started out with people putting up links on computers so that they could follow the link and read things on other computers for free. After it got to be popular, companies started to create machines with lots of links that you could search to find things of interest. But someone put up a link to something illegal and got sued and had their machine shut down. This happened a few times and people started to take the links off their machines. The search engine companies were the first to go and without them, you couldn't find anything. Eventually no one put up links anymore because the legal risk was too great. The important thing is that it reduced terrorism. I'm not sure how it could have worked anyway. Anything I write on my computer or any music I create gets stored by Word.NET and Music.NET in encrypted formats to protect my privacy. No one but me, Microsoft.NET and the National Corporation can read or hear my stuff even if they could link to it.
I shouldn't admit it, but sometimes I go to certain places and speak to the subversives. I know its wrong but their warped views on things have some kind of morbid fascination. For example, I spoke to someone who claimed to be a historian the other day. She had courage all right, admitting to an illegal activity like that. I hadn't understood why it was illegal until she explained. History, she told me, gives you context. You can compare today with some time in the past; ask questions like, "are people better off", "look at the different forms of doing business", "compare corporate records or the rights of citizens" (I think she meant employees).
But what interested her was that future generations will know nothing about us; all our records and art are stored digitally, most of it will simply disappear when no one rents it anymore -- remember the sadness when the last digital copy of Sgt. Pepper was accidentally erased? And the data that does survive will all be encrypted and in proprietary formats anyway -- even if there were historians they'd have no right to reverse engineer the formats. I can vaguely remember that people used to have physical copies of music and films, although I'm not sure how that was possible, or what the point was when we can rent whatever we like from the air interface. I don't think it matters that those who come after us can't read our writings or hear our music or see our films; these things are temporal anyway, if no one rents them then they can't be worth keeping.
The saddest subversive I met claimed to be a programmer. He said that he was writing a program using Basic.NET. He must have been insane. Even if his program worked he wouldn't be allowed to run it. How could one person possibly check every possible patent infringement in a program they wrote? And even if he hadn't infringed he couldn't sell it without buying a compatibility license from Microsoft.NET and who could possibly afford that? He had said something about gippling the software, which apparently means giving it away, but mad as he was, even he knew that under WUCITA that would be illegal.
These subversives really don't seem to understand that a few restrictions are necessary for the sake of innovation. And progress has been made. We don't have spam since most people can't afford an email license due to the expensive patent royalties. Our computer systems all have the same operating system, user interface and applications so everyone knows how to use them, and although they crash and don't work very well, we all know the limitations and can live with them. We have no piracy of intellectual property since we rent it as we want it and have no means of storing it.
It was the USA that showed the world the way of course. First the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, then more and more software patents. The Japanese followed suit. The Europeans were a problem, which is only to be expected, with their anti-business un-Christian socialist tendencies. Fortunately, common sense prevailed, helped along by the good old dollar I've no doubt and they accepted both software patents and a redefinition of copyright to suit global corporations. Once the USA, Japan and Europe had uniform intellectual property laws to protect our corporations and our way of life, everyone else had to play ball or they couldn't trade. The result has been that every algorithm and computer program and every piece of music and film (after all music and film can be put into digital form and are therefore a form of software) have been patented. No more variations on Beethoven (unless you've got the patentees approval). No more amateur participation in music or film which might risk lowering standards. No more challenge to established business and business practices.
I'm crazy to have written I know. But I am so happy in the world and I remember how unhappy I used to be. I wanted to somehow pass back to you the knowledge that its all going to be okay, that the world really is getting better.
Sincerely,
Mark.
Considering the age of this letter, how much of it is coming true?
This seemed like a timely topic that should be disgust.
Don't Read This Journal Entry
If you get the point of this journal it will only make you sad.
If you don't, then you're an empty shell of human.
Either way, it's not a good scene. So don't read this journal entry.
The 10 most important things I’ve learned about trust over my 100 years
By George P. Shultz
December 11, 2020George P. Shultz is a former U.S. secretary of labor, treasury and state, and was director of the Office of Management and Budget. He is a distinguished fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution.
Dec. 13 marks my turning 100 years young. I’ve learned much over that time, but looking back, I’m struck that there is one lesson I learned early and then relearned over and over: Trust is the coin of the realm. When trust was in the room, whatever room that was — the family room, the schoolroom, the locker room, the office room, the government room or the military room — good things happened. When trust was not in the room, good things did not happen. Everything else is details.
There are countless examples of how that lesson was brought home to me across the past century, but here are 10 of the most important.
1
I first saw the concept in action at home by observing how my parents treated one another and their friends and family. One hundred years later, I can still sense the steadfast love that my parents had for each other and for me, their only child. My mother made our home comfortable and welcoming; my father took me on jaunts out into the world, from his Wall Street office on Saturday mornings to a cross-country train trip when I was 8 years old. My early boyhood memories underlined the joy of family closeness and how it creates powerful bonds of trust.2
During World War II, I served in the Pacific theater in a Marine outfit that included a sergeant named Palat. I have forgotten his first name, but I have never forgotten the respect and admiration — the deep-seated trust — that he inspired. When Palat was killed in action, it brought home to me more than ever how pitiless war can be. Later in life, I thought about the loss of this trusted, beloved sergeant when I advised President Ronald Reagan about military action: Make sure it is just, I said — and equip the troops for victory.3
As a graduate student at MIT in the late 1940s, I worked with Joe Scanlon, a former research director for the United Steelworkers union. He would visit steel plants where costs were out of control and rearrange their practices, giving workers a voice in how their jobs were set up and, in many cases, a chance to receive a bonus based on increased productivity. This was later called the Scanlon Plan. I saw how Joe rebuilt bonds of trust between the workers and management that had been frayed or broken. Ultimately, both sides benefited, as did the country.4
In the 1960s, I was part of a committee studying changes in the meatpacking industry. Armour planned to open a plant in Worthington, Minn., an all-White small town. Black workers from a closed plant in Kansas City had seniority claims on the new jobs. In that era of great racial friction, trouble might have been expected. Yet the town’s civic leaders made it clear to us: Black families would be welcomed. Many of those families scouted Worthington and liked what they found. The visitors from Kansas City turned out to be tithers, so the churches in Worthington competed for them. Their faith led to trust. Trust was built — and quite a few families made the move.5
President Richard M. Nixon formed a Cabinet committee in 1970, when I was labor secretary, to address school segregation persisting, illegally, in seven Southern states. We formed biracial committees in each state to advise us. The discussions were civil, but there was little trust in the room. Then, by arrangement, Attorney General John Mitchell joined us. Mitchell was regarded by many White Southerners as “their” man. I asked him what he planned to do about the schools. Mitchell growled, “I am attorney general, and I will enforce the law.” Then he left. No nonsense. Opponents of school segregation could trust the administration.6
Trust was essential in every aspect of the desegregation effort. As we moved each of the seven states’ advisory committees to agreeing on how the schools would be desegregated, we usually waited until the matter was essentially settled before bringing in the president to add the final touch. But with the Louisiana group, not as much progress had been made as I had expected before Nixon’s scheduled noon arrival. I apologized to him and said, “This time, you’re going to have to finish the job yourself.” But it wasn’t a gamble. I knew the president and trusted that he would rise to the occasion — and he did.7
Often in my career, I saw that genuine empathy is essential in establishing solid, trusting relationships. In 1973, when I was treasury secretary, I attended a wreath-laying ceremony at a World War II memorial in Leningrad with the Soviet foreign trade minister, Nikolai Patolichev. As we walked, Patolichev, a tough old guy, described the staggering death toll in the Battle of Leningrad. Tears streamed down his face, and his interpreter was sobbing. When we were about to leave, I said to Patolichev, “I, too, fought in World War II and had friends killed beside me.” Looking out over the cemetery, I added, “After all, these were the soldiers who defeated Hitler.” Facing the cemetery, I raised my best Marine salute, and Patolichev thanked me for the show of respect. Later on, to my surprise, I found that I had earned the trust of Soviet leaders as a result of this visit.8
One day, as secretary of state in the Reagan administration, I brought a draft foreign policy speech to the Oval Office for Reagan to review. He read the speech and said, “That’s fine,” but then began marking it up. In the margin on one page, he wrote “story.” I asked what he meant. “That’s the most important point,” he said. Adding a relevant story will “engage your readers. That way, you’ll appeal not only to their minds but to their emotions.” Telling a story, he made me understand, helps make your case in a way that no abstraction can: A story builds an emotional bond, and emotional bonds build trust.9
Reagan brought his own ideas about trust to Cold War adversarial relations. He nurtured a trusting relationship with Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, one that basically helped to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear weapons. Reagan’s famous formulation: Trust, but verify. The agreement was self-bolstering, because successful verification enhanced the sense of trust, and greater trust promoted verification.10
“In God we trust.” Yes, and when we are at our best, we also trust in each other. Trust is fundamental, reciprocal and, ideally, pervasive. If it is present, anything is possible. If it is absent, nothing is possible. The best leaders trust their followers with the truth, and you know what happens as a result? Their followers trust them back. With that bond, they can do big, hard things together, changing the world for the better.
Source: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/11/10-most-important-things-ive-learned-about-trust-over-my-100-years/
Intel Retreats From the 10-Core
This has been known for a while, but there are more details. The i9-10900K ("Comet Lake") is a 10-core CPU with 20 MB of cache, while the i9-11900K ("Rocket Lake") will have just 8 cores and 16 MB of cache. Given a 10-15% IPC increase, the 11900K will have slightly worse multi-threaded performance. Rocket Lake will support PCIe 4.0, however, and it increases memory support to DDR4-3200 from 2666/2933.
Rocket Lake can probably beat AMD's Zen 3 in single-threaded and gaming performance, although AMD could try another "XT" refresh to stay on top. One advantage of doing so is that it forces tech reviewers to look at essentially the same CPUs again, except with newer drivers and a small performance bump. It would also allow AMD to maintain the elevated MSRPs for the new CPUs while letting the older ones drop a bit.
Intel's Alder Lake CPUs are scheduled to come later in 2021, on a "10nm" node, with DDR5 memory support. These will use a hybrid architecture with up to 8 big cores and 8 small Atom cores. Intel may advertise the top model as having "8 cores, 24 threads", since Atom only has 1 thread per core and is weaker. "16 cores, 24 threads" would be the less scrupulous possibility.
I'll be keeping an eye out to see which CPUs become the first to ship with Microsoft Pluton, since that will probably mark the last generation of x86 CPUs some of you will consider buying.
GOP is crumbling
Can't fuck those lefties? No worries, we'll carve the GOP.
Trump blows a hole in the GOP on his way out
Trump rails against Barr, Kemp, other Republicans over election loss
MAGA Protesters Chant ‘Destroy the GOP’ at Pro-Trump Rally
Where does the Republican Party go after Trump?
Whether Donald Trump continues to remain a powerful presence in Republican politics will be determined in the months to come. But one thing seems certain, both parties need to make sure that middle America - like Ohio - does not feel ignored.
Cooper & Kirk, FPC File Supreme Court Petition
GunBanCase.com - BREAKING: Cooper & Kirk, FPC File Supreme Court Petition for Review in Folajtar v. Barr Second Amendment Challenge
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 11, 2020) — Today, Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced the filing of a petition seeking a writ of certiorari asking the United States Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit’s decision in Lisa Folajtar v. Attorney General Barr. A copy of the petition can be viewed at gunbancase.com.
Ms. Folajtar is represented by David H. Thompson, Pete Patterson, and Steven Lindsay of Cooper & Kirk, PLLC, Joshua Prince of Civil Rights Defense Firm, P.C., FPC Director of Legal Strategy Adam Kraut, and FPC Director of Research Joseph Greenlee, who authored the authoritative article on the history of arms prohibitions based upon his original research, also available at gunbancase.com. The Foljatar case was recently discussed in multiple major news outlets, including an article by New York Times Supreme Court reporter Adam Liptak, “Justice Barrett’s Vote Could Tilt the Supreme Court on Gun Rights,” and a Fox News editorial by law professor Jonathan Turley, “Gun-rights case tailor made for Justice Barrett, Supreme Court. Here's why.”
“The courts would never countenance an attempt by the government to permanently bar Ms. Folajtar from exercising her fundamental rights to free speech and free exercise of religion merely because she at one time was convicted of a nonviolent felony,” explained Supreme Court counsel of record, David H. Thompson of Cooper & Kirk, who recently argued before the High Court for the petitioners in Collins v. Mnuchin. “Yet the Third Circuit held that the government can forever strip Ms. Folajtar of her fundamental right to possess firearms for self-defense based on a one-time conviction of a tax offense. As Judge Bibas explained in dissent—and as Justice Barrett explained in a similar case when on the Seventh Circuit—such a punishment has no connection whatsoever to the historical justification for limiting the Second Amendment rights of certain individuals: dangerousness. It therefore is unconstitutional, and we hope the Supreme Court agrees to hear this case and confirm that the government has no basis for depriving nondangerous individuals of their Second Amendment rights.”
“The Government’s argument that a person’s inalienable right to keep and bear arms can be denied in perpetuity as a result of a single non-violent felony conviction is neither supported by the text of the Constitution nor the history and original public meaning of the Second Amendment,” said attorney Joshua Prince. “As Judge Bibas makes clear in his dissent, the lifetime, total ban imposed upon Ms. Folajtar, and others like her, is not longstanding and has no connection to any governmental interest.”
“Ms. Folajtar is a law-abiding woman who simply wishes to exercise her natural and fundamental right to self-defense in her home,” commented Adam Kraut. “The Government’s lifetime ban applied to her cannot withstand constitutional scrutiny. And more, there exists a certain irony that the Government strips an individual of their Second Amendment rights for making a false statement on a tax return when our Founders took up arms against the King after refusing to pay taxes.”
“There is no historical precedent in American history for disarming nonviolent persons like Ms. Folajtar,” noted FPC’s Joseph Greenlee. “In fact, some founding-era laws expressly allowed people who mishandled or withheld money owed for taxes to keep their firearms. As Judge Bibas explained in his Third Circuit dissent, historically, individuals were disarmed only if they were dangerous. We hope that the Supreme Court will hear this case and put an end to the unjust and ahistorical prohibitions on nonviolent felons.”
“The Supreme Court should grant review in this case to right an outrageous injustice that affects millions of non-violent individuals and clearly establish the proper test for lower courts to apply in Second Amendment challenges,” said FPC President Brandon Combs. “Ms. Folajtar’s petition, lead by the outstanding counsel of Cooper & Kirk, presents an ideal vehicle for the Court to address these important issues in 2021, including many other cert. petitions already filed and that will be submitted this term.”
FPC recently filed another petition for cert. in a similar case, Holloway v. Barr. The petitioner, Raymond Holloway, is represented by FPC Director of Research Joseph Greenlee, Supreme Court counsel Erik Jaffe, Joshua Prince of Prince Law Offices, and FPC Director of Legal Strategy Adam Kraut.
Firearms Policy Coalition and its FPC Law team are the nation’s next-generation advocates for the right to keep and bear arms and adjacent issues, having recently filed several major federal Second Amendment lawsuits including challenges to the State of Maryland’s ban on “assault weapons” (Bianchi v. Frosh), the State of Pennsylvania’s and Allegheny County’s carry restrictions (Cowey v. Mullen), Philadelphia’s Gun Permit Unit policies and practices (Fetsurka v. Outlaw), Pennsylvania’s ban on carry by adults under 21 years of age (Lara v. Evanchick), California’s Handgun Ban and “Roster” laws (Renna v. Becerra), Maryland’s carry ban (Call v. Jones), New Jersey’s carry ban (Bennett v. Davis), New York City’s carry ban (Greco v. New York City), the federal ban on the sale of handguns and handgun ammunition by federal firearm licensees (FFLs) to adults under 21 years of age (Reese v. BATFE), and others, with many more cases being prepared today. To follow these and other legal cases FPC is actively working on, visit the Legal Action section of FPC’s website or follow FPC on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube.
Firearms Policy Coalition (firearmspolicy.org) is a 501(c)4 nonprofit organization. FPC’s mission is to protect and defend constitutional rights—especially the right to keep and bear arms—advance individual liberty, and restore freedom through litigation and legal action, legislative and regulatory action, education, outreach, grassroots activism, and other programs. FPC Law is the nation’s largest public interest legal team focused on Second Amendment and adjacent fundamental rights including freedom of speech and due process, conducting litigation, research, scholarly publications, and amicus briefing, among other efforts.
The Folajtar case is another important lawsuit that is part of FPC’s comprehensive strategy to defend freedom, advance individual liberty, and restore the Constitution and its guarantees for individuals throughout the United States. Individuals who wish to support the lawsuit can do so at JoinFPC.org and www.firearmspolicy.org/folajtar.
FPC is urgently seeking individual and FFL plaintiffs for a number of lawsuits that are being prepared to challenge laws and policies that infringe on fundamental rights, including (but not limited to):
Laws and policies that prevent individuals from purchasing and/or possessing so-called “assault weapons” (semi-automatic firearms with standard characteristics) and “high-capacity” magazines (standard magazines that hold more than 10 rounds)
Laws and policies that prevent 18-20-year-old young adults (under age 21) from obtaining handguns from FFLs and carry loaded, operable arms in public for self-defense
Laws and policies that prevent individual adults (over the age of 18) from carrying loaded handguns and other arms outside of their home
Laws and policies that prevent individuals from acquiring and/or possessing handguns and other arms without first acquiring a “purchase permit”
Laws and policies that prevent individuals from acquiring or possessing firearms due to a conviction for a non-violent crime, or mental health adjudication that did not involve an involuntary commitment
Laws that prevent honorably discharged veterans from acquiring or possessing firearms because they have been classified as “a mental defective” due to the agency’s determination that they “lack the mental capacity to contract or manage his or her own affairs” because they need assistance managing VA benefits and have a fiduciary
If someone you know meets the criteria above, or if you would be interested in participating in litigation as a supporting FFL, please contact us:
On the web at www.firearmspolicy.org/hotline
By email at potentialplaintiffs[at]fpchq.org
By phone at (855) 252-4510 (FPC Legal Action Hotline available 24/7/365)
If you would like to support FPC’s Folajtar case and many other pro-Second Amendment lawsuits, legal action, and research, please chip in $5, $10, $25, or whatever you can at https://www.firearmspolicy.org/donate or Join the FPC Grassroots Army at JoinFPC.org.
I fully expect a LOT of gun control laws to be overturned with the current makeup of the Supreme Court. As you can see above, people like Firearms Policy Coalition have just been waiting for this opportunity.
Welcome, again, Justice Barrett!
Sorry folks, I'm not linking all the links - if you're really interested, click on the FPC link, where all the links are easily clickable.
media wars?
As has been noted, much of the world has declared war on right, Republican, or conservative viewpoints. We've followed GAB's evolution off and on, here on SN. It would appear that, having overcome multiple obstacles in the past, GAB is under attack from a new angle.
This is the email from GAB:
At 8:38pm on Wednesday December 9th Gab received an email from Walden Macht & Haran LLP notifying us of a Gab account, @EnemiesOfThePeople, that was in breach of our Terms of Service.
The Gab account was created just a few days ago and featured the personal addresses, photos, and more of election and government officials, which is against our terms of service. The account also made direct threats of violence towards these individuals, which is against the law as well as our terms of service.
This type of content has no place on Gab and we have a longstanding history of zero tolerance for illegal behavior. At Gab we believe that free speech and open discussion are the best ways to solve problems and disagreements, not violence.
Within minutes of receiving the email alerting us to the existence of this account we took immediate action by backing up the account information for law enforcement and then terminating the account from our service.
We took it one step further by alerting the Gab community to this behavior and noted that our community members should report this type of illegal activity to our moderation team immediately if they come across it.
At 9:34pm, less than an hour after being alerted to the existence of this account, our attorney replied to Walden Macht & Haran LLP to let them know that we took immediate action to terminate the account.
At 3:49pm Thursday afternoon Reuters published an article covering this story and neglected to reach out to Gab for comment before publication. In the story Reuters falsely claimed that the account remained active on Gab even though it had been suspended within minutes of it being brought to our attention the night before.
We have since sent the following retraction request to the editor of Reuters as well as the three “journalists” on the story. We believe it’s important to transparently lay out the order of events here to highlight how “journalists” recklessly print whatever they want without fact checking or asking the subject of a story for comment on the matter at hand.
Click here to read our full email exchange with Reuters.
Please also share it so other people can learn how the legacy media vipers operate.
Reuter's article on the "enemies of the people" "enemies of the nation" and associated accounts.
https://news.gab.com/2020/12/10/gabs-statement-on-the-website-targeting-u-s-election-officials/
That link reiterates most of the contents of the email I received, along with a chain of emails with Reuters.
https://gab.com/a/posts/105353449973018161
An appeal from Torba for GAB members to be on the lookout for other accounts that violate the law, and violate TOS.
https://gab.com/enemiesofthenation
It appears that the account "enemiesofthenation" still exists on the servers, but the content is obscured. I have little idea what that means for legal purposes.
Having missed the opportunity to view the content published by "enemies of the people", I can't make a judgement on how bad it is. Obviously, it was bad enough that Torba felt he was obligated to take it down.
Waiting to see who, besides Reuters, goes on the attack over this incident.
Santa is a gay ass hoplophobic incel
Since this is 2020, tis the season for breaking little kids’ hearts and telling them they can’t have the toys they really want for Christmas. That seems to be the M.O. of a politically correct Santa at a suburban Chicago mall who told a tyke he wouldn’t bring him a Nerf gun this year. Because violence, or something.
That kind of thing may make Shannon Watts grin like the Grinch, but the confused little boy broke into tears. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oUUdW2bTa3Y
In a Facebook post, the kid’s mom wrote . . .
My poor baby. This was the first year Michael was excited to go see Santa. It was supposed to be magical but instead I had to watch my sweet little boy fight back tears because Santa told him No because of his own personal beliefs. I had to think fast and explain to him that this Santa was just a helper and not the real guy. I just wanted to console my baby and get him out of there, flipping out on Santa would have only made it worse. His Elfie is going to bring him a Nerf gun directly from the North Pole, from the real Santa, tonight.
The video - https://www.facebook.com/bellasabella/posts/10164251332880328 or https://twitter.com/WhiteHovse/status/1335855946405437440
Fortunately, the mall quickly canned Woke Scold Santa and sent the real Kris Kringle over to the kid’s house with an apology and a Nerf gun almost as big as he is.
Jolly Justice! The mall got rid of #WokeSanta & took the little boy the nerf gun. Worth a watch! #MerryChristmas & #StandUpForAmerica!
— Chip Roy (@chiproytx) December 8, 2020
Let’s hope the PC jerk who made little Michael cry ends up boiled in his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. Humbug.
Better get those Nerf guns before the next Sandy Hook!
Apparently, there was a video hosted on Twitter, showing the real Santa delivering the Nerf gun - but all I get is a "not found" message.
Human population growth
For me, my eyes were opened to the subject by Hans Rosling [added link to Wikipedia entry] who over the past couple of decades before his death in 2017, popularized knowledge of the above. Unfortunately, it appears that most of his discussion is in the form of videos, but some of those have transcripts.
The TL;DR of these is that there is a global shift in almost all countries to greater wealth per person, lower fertility per woman, and a great slowing in the percentage growth rate of humanity. Supporting evidence for that is an almost linear growth rate for 60 years (which means declining percentage growth rate), said improvement in wealth per person, smaller family sizes globally, and a global shift in age distribution to older generations. Further, in the first video Rosling describes an ongoing slide in these metrics over the decades to more positive values. These trends continued after the date of that talk (in 2006). So in particular, we're not on the out-of-control exponential population growth train. We have an opportunity to get things to work out.
I'll finish with a quote from the transcript for the first talk describing the above slide.
This is where I realized that there was really a need to communicate, because the data of what's happening in the world and the child health of every country is very well aware.
So we did this software, which displays it like this. Every bubble here is a country. This country over here is China. This is India. The size of the bubble is the population, and on this axis here, I put fertility rate. Because my students, what they said when they looked upon the world, and I asked them, "What do you really think about the world?" Well, I first discovered that the textbook was Tintin, mainly.
(Laughter)
And they said, "The world is still 'we' and 'them.' And 'we' is the Western world and 'them' is the Third World." "And what do you mean with 'Western world?'" I said. "Well, that's long life and small family. And 'Third World' is short life and large family."
So this is what I could display here. I put fertility rate here -- number of children per woman: one, two, three, four, up to about eight children per woman. We have very good data since 1962, 1960, about, on the size of families in all countries. The error margin is narrow. Here, I put life expectancy at birth, from 30 years in some countries, up to about 70 years. And in 1962, there was really a group of countries here that were industrialized countries, and they had small families and long lives. And these were the developing countries. They had large families and they had relatively short lives. Now, what has happened since 1962? We want to see the change. Are the students right? It's still two types of countries? Or have these developing countries got smaller families and they live here? Or have they got longer lives and live up there?
Let's see. We start the world, eh? This is all UN statistics that have been available. Here we go. Can you see there? It's China there, moving against better health there, improving there. All the green Latin American countries are moving towards smaller families. Your yellow ones here are the Arabic countries, and they get longer life, but not larger families. The Africans are the green here. They still remain here. This is India; Indonesia is moving on pretty fast.
In the '80s here, you have Bangladesh still among the African countries. But now, Bangladesh -- it's a miracle that happens in the '80s -- the imams start to promote family planning, and they move up into that corner. And in the '90s, we have the terrible HIV epidemic that takes down the life expectancy of the African countries. And the rest of them all move up into the corner, where we have long lives and small family, and we have a completely new world.
RTX 3080 Mobile - 16 GB of VRAM?
The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 mobile outed with 16 GB of VRAM, a GA104 GPU and 6,144 CUDA cores
The first details of the GeForce RTX 3080 mobile have appeared online. Not only do they offer an insight into what to expect from high-end gaming laptops next year, but they also raise the question about the continued existence of merely a 10 GB edition of the desktop variant of the RTX 3080.
[...] The apparent confirmation of NVIDIA equipping the mobile version of the RTX 3080 with 16 GB of VRAM raises questions about its desktop counterpart, though. Currently, NVIDIA only sells a 10 GB edition, but there had been rumours about it releasing a 20 GB version. NVIDIA had allegedly cancelled this SKU, but a recent EEC registration by MSI suggests otherwise. It would be strange for NVIDIA to sell mobile GPU with 60% more VRAM than its desktop namesake, so maybe a 20 GB variant of the RTX 3080 is on the way after all.
Coming to a $2,500 laptop near you.
(Previous mobile flagship was the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 Super Max-Q with 8 GB of VRAM. Edit: Max-Q is the same thing but with a lower TDP of 80 Watts instead of 150 Watts, still great for warming the lap.)
Australian Wine
Politicians urge people to buy Australian wine in defiance of China
Politicians from various Western countries have asked consumers to buy Australian wine in order to fight back against China's punitive tariffs on the beverage.
China is the most important export market for Australian wine, and winemakers are scrambling to find new markets following Beijing's decision to slap tariffs of up to 212% on Australian wine imports amid an escalating trade war between the two nations.
China rejects Australian PM's call to apologise for 'repugnant' tweet
China’s foreign ministry has rejected calls from the Australian prime minister to apologise over an inflammatory tweet over war crimes allegations, insisting it is Australia that should be saying sorry for the loss of life in Afghanistan.
The prime minister, Scott Morrison, had demanded the Chinese government apologise and take down a “repugnant” foreign ministry tweet that depicted an Australian soldier cutting the throat of a civilian in Afghanistan.
[...] The tweet was accompanied by an inflammatory image that appears to depict an Australian soldier cutting the throat of a young civilian holding a sheep, together with the words “Don’t be afraid, we are coming to bring you peace!”
[...] At the ministry of foreign affairs’ regular press conference on Monday, Zhao did not appear. Instead Hua Chunying, director of the ministry’s department of information, addressed media, doubling down on Zhao’s tweet.
“The Australian side has been reacting so strongly to my colleague’s tweet. Why is that? Do they think that their merciless killing of Afghan civilians is justified but the condemnation of such ruthless brutality is not? Afghan lives matter,” Hua said.
Hua said Australian soldiers committed “heinous crimes”, detailing some of the more graphic findings from the Brereton report, and the Australian government owed the Afghan people a formal apology.
WeChat blocks Australian Prime Minister in doctored image dispute
The Chinese social media platform WeChat blocked a message by Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison...
China's WeChat blocks Australian PM in doctored image dispute
China’s WeChat social media platform blocked a message by Australia Prime Minister Scott Morrison amid a dispute between Canberra and Beijing over the doctored tweeted image of an Australian soldier.
[...] Morrison took to WeChat on Tuesday to criticise the “false image”, while offering praise to Australia’s Chinese community.
In his message, Morrison defended Australia’s handling of a war crimes investigation into the actions of special forces in Afghanistan, and said Australia would deal with “thorny issues” in a transparent manner.
But that message appeared to be blocked by Wednesday evening, with a note appearing from the “Weixin Official Accounts Platform Operation Center” saying the content was unable to be viewed because it violated regulations, including distorting historical events and confusing the public.
Hong Kong Activists Sentenced For Their Role In Anti-Government Protest
A trio of young Hong Kong opposition activists have been sentenced after pleading guilty to organizing a demonstration last year as part of a larger protest against Hong Kong's receding autonomy.
Their sentencing on Wednesday is the latest blow to the region's opposition movement, which seeks to preserve Hong Kong's limited autonomy from Beijing.
The three — Joshua Wong, Agnes Chow and Ivan Lam — have been held without bail since pleading guilty in late November for organizing and participating in the protest last year that surrounded police headquarters. Wong, Chow and Lam, all in their 20s, are also founding members of the now-disbanded Demosisto opposition political party.
