As planned, there will be a 5.4. 1 release for DragonFly. Matthew Dillonâs work on HAMMER2 will be in there, as will be a fix for keyboard attachment and updates from Aaron LI on dhcpcd support. I will tag and build this weekend, so itâll be just in time for Christmas.
Planet is excited to announce that we have entered into an agreement to acquire Boundless Spatial, Inc., a St. Louis-based geospatial software solutions company. Â The acquisition expands Planetâs commercial business with the U.S. government and commercial agriculture clients. Boundless is a leader in geospatial data management software and is aligned with our objective to deliver novel geospatial data subscription services and accelerate adoption for enterprise customers.
With the addition of Boundless to the Planet organization, we will leverage Boundlessâ technology and expertise deployed inside the U.S. government to further facilitate the utility of Planet products. Â We will also incorporate their strong customer-centric culture, which is at the heart of their success in deploying geospatial data and technologies to customers. Further, this deal will also give us new U.S. Government customers. Â Planet will retain Boundlessâ St Louis, MO office and select staff.
Boundless and the Planet U.S. government team will form a subsidiary called Planet Federal. Â Planet Federal will focus on our growing U.S. government business representing Planetâs commercial products for U.S. government requirements. Â Through this acquisition, we advance our long-term objectives to support and work more closely with the U.S. government as they increasingly look toward commercial products and services that are scalable, cost-effective and reliable.
We are looking forward to the synergy between Planet and Boundless and are thrilled to welcome Boundless to the Planet family!
â¦.
The transaction is subject to customary closing conditions.
Peter Swire proposes a a pedagogic framework for teaching cybersecurity policy. Specifically, he makes real the old joke about adding levels to the OSI networking stack: an organizational layer, a government layer, and an international layer.
Firefox has some great features, but one of my favorites is the ability to disable autoplay for videos. Weâve all had one of those moments: your speakers are turned up and you browse to a website with an annoying advertisement that plays immediately.
This feature stopped working for me somewhere in the Firefox 65 beta releases. Also, the usual setting in the preference page (under Privacy & Security) seems to be missing.
Luckily we can edit Firefoxâs configuration directly to get this feature
working again. Open up a new browser tab, go to about:config, and adjust
these settings:
Set media.autoplay.default to 1 to disable video autoplay for all sites
Set media.autoplay.allow-muted to false to disable video autoplay even for muted videos
Those changes take effect for any new pages that you open after making the change.
The past few years have been an amazing time for encryption. In under a decade, protocols like TLS have gone from a novelty to, essentially, âtable stakesâ for running a secure website. Smartphone manufacturers deployed device encryption to billions of phones, and end-to-end encrypted messaging and phone calls are now available to more than two billion users.
This progress has come with a price. In the U.S. and around the world, law enforcement agencies have begun to express concerns about potential loss of access to data, both in motion and at rest. Various laws have been passed overseas, and a few have been proposed in the U.S. as well. The Department of Justice has recently added some branding to the mix, asking tech companies to deploy âresponsible encryptionâ.
What is âresponsible encryptionâ? Well, thatâs the problem. Nobody on the government side of the debate has been willing to say. In a recent speech, U.S. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein implored cryptographers to figure it out.
In the midst of this debate, this recent article by GCHQâs Ian Levy and Crispin Robinson is a breath of fresh air. Unlike their U.S. colleagues, the folks at GCHQ â essentially, the U.K.âs equivalent of NSA â seem willing to engage and make technical proposals. Indeed, they make one proposal in the article above: a new solution designed to surveil both encrypted messaging and phone calls.
In this post Iâm going to talk about their ideas as fairly as I can â given that I only have a high-level understanding of the ideas. Then Iâll discuss what I think could go wrong.
To give some intuition on the GCHQ proposal, I first need to give a very brief (and ultra-simplified) explanation of how end-to-end (E2E) encryption systems actually work.
The bottom-line idea in E2E communication systems is to encrypt messages (or audio/video data) directly from the senderâs device to the recipientâs device. In principle this bypasses the need to rely on trustworthy infrastructure operated by your provider, which typically means vulnerable servers that could be compromised by attackers. If youâll forgive my silly illustrations, the intuitive picture looks something like this:
In the group chat/call setting, the picture changes slightly, but itâs still the same idea. Each participant encrypts his or her data so that only the other(s) can read the messages. The actual details (encryption keys used) vary slightly between protocols. But in every case, the users encrypt to each other, and service providers are locked out
The problem is that these simplified pictures miss all of technical details. In practice, one of the most challenging problems in any encrypted messaging system stems from handling proper key distribution. Before I can encrypt to you, I need to get your keys. Key distribution is a notorious pain point for encryption systems. In reality, systems like Apple iMessage, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger actually look more like this:
The Apple at the top of the picture above stands in for Appleâs âidentity serviceâ, which is a cluster of machines running in Appleâs various data centers. These servers do many things, but most notably: they act as a directory for looking up the encryption key of the person youâre talking to. If that service misfires and gives the wrong key, the best ciphers in the world wonât help you. Youâll be encrypting to the wrong person.
In some group messaging systems like WhatsApp and iMessage, the centralized portions of the system also determine membership of group chats. In poorly-designed systems, the server can add and remove users from a group at will, even if none of the participants have asked for this. Speaking figuratively, itâs as though youâre having a conversation in a private room â but the door is unlocked and the building manager controls who can come in and join you.
(A technical note: in many cases, group and individual messaging is basically the same thing. For example, systems that support multiple devices connected to a single account, like Appleâs iMessage, donât make a significant distinction between group chat and individual chat. In those systems, you can think of every iMessage conversation as being a group conversation, even if technically the communication is just between two user accounts. Thatâs because each device attached to the two accounts can be thought of as a separate âparticipantâ in this group conversation.)
Most e2e systems have basic countermeasures against the flaws described above. For example, each of the above systems is supposed to inform you when someone joins your group chat, or adds a new device to your account. Both WhatsApp and Signal expose âsafety numbersâ that allow participants to verify that they received the same cryptographic key, which offers a check against dishonest providers.
All of this brings me to the GCHQ proposal.
The Lawfare article I cited above does not present GCHQâs proposal in any great detail. Fortunately, both Levy and Robinson have spent most of the summer on the road, giving several public talks about their ideas. I had the privilege of speaking to both earlier this summer when they visited Johns Hopkins, so I think I have a rough handle on what theyâre thinking.
In its outlines, the idea they propose is extremely simple: the goal is to take advantage of the weaknesses in existing identity management systems, by adding a âghost userâ (or in some cases, a âghost deviceâ) to existing group chat and calling sessions. In systems where group membership is updated by the provider infrastructure, this can mostly be done via changes to the server-side components of the system.
I say mainly, because thereâs a wrinkle. Even if you modify the server side to add unauthorized users to a conversation, most of the existing E2E systems will notify your targets that a new user has joined the conversation. Generally speaking, having a stranger appear in someoneâs group chats is a pretty reliable way to tip criminals off. While the GCHQ proposal doesnât go into very much detail about the implications of this, it seems to follow that any workable proposal would require providers to suppress those warning messages at the targetâs device. So there will be changes at the client application as well as the server-side infrastructure.
(Certain designs like Signal are already hardened against these changes, because group chat setup is handled in an end-to-end encrypted/authenticated fashion by clients, and the server canât just insert users. But both WhatsApp and iMessage currently seem vulnerable to GCHQâs proposed approach.)
Hence, the GCHQ proposal represents a very significant change to the design of messaging systems. Presumably the necessary client-side code changes would have to be deployed to all users, since you canât do targeted software updates just against criminals. (Or rather, if you could rely on targeted software updates, you would just do that instead of the thing that GCHQ is proposing.)
Which brings us to the last piece:Â how do you get providers to do all of this?
While optimism and cooperation are nice in principle, it seems unlikely that communication providers are going to to voluntarily insert such a powerful eavesdropping capability into their encrypted services, if only because itâs a huge and risky modification. This presumably means that the UK government will have to compel them to do so. One possible means is to use Technical Capability Notices, which are part of the UKâs Investigatory Powers Act. Those notices mandate that a provider offer real-time decryption for sets of users ranging from 1-10,000 users, and moreover, that providers must design their systems to ensure this capability is available.
The last part is a bit of a problem.
The real problem with the GCHQ proposal is that it targets a weakness in messaging/calling systems that is well known to providers, and moreover, a weakness that providers have been working to close â perhaps because theyâre worried that someone just like GCHQ (or much worse) might try to exploit it. GCHQ making this proposal virtually guarantees that those providers will move much, much faster.
And they have quite a few options at their disposal. Over the past several years there have been several proposed designs that offer transparency to users regarding which keys theyâre obtaining from a providerâs identity service. These systems operate by having the identity service commit to the keys that are associated with individual users, such that itâs very hard for the provider to change a userâs keys (or to add a device) without everyone noticing.
Similarly, advanced messengers like Signal have âsubmergedâ the group chat management into the encrypted communications, so that the server cannot add new users without the digitally authenticated approval of one of the existing participants. This design, if implemented in more popular service, would seem to kill the GCHQ proposal dead.
Of course, these solutions highlight the tricky nature of GCHQâs proposal. Note that in order to take advantage of existing vulnerabilities, GCHQ is going to have to require that providers make changes to their system. But once youâve opened the door to forcing providers to change their system, where do you stop? What stops the UK government from, say, taking things a step farther, and using the force of law to compel providers not to harden their systems against this type of attack?
Which brings us to the real problem with the GCHQ proposal. As far as I can see, there are two likely outcomes. In the first, providers harden their system and kill off the vulnerabilities that make GCHQâs proposal viable. The more interest that governments express towards the proposal, the faster this will happen. In the second outcome, the UK government (and perhaps other governments)Â force the providers not to lock them out. This second outcome is what I worry about.
More specifically, todayâs systems may include existing flaws that are easy to exploit. But once law enforcement begins to rely on those exploits, the systems can never change or improve. Over time what seems like a âmodest proposalâ using known flaws could lead us to world in which ancient flaws are preserved, and where agencies like GCHQ become the ultimate architect of Apple and Facebookâs communication systems.
This is not a good outcome, and itâs one that will likely slow down progress for years to come.
Astronomers have always wondered whether Saturnâs rings have been around a long, long time or whether they were acquired much more recently. We now have an answer. New NASA research confirms that Saturn is rapidly losing material from its iconic rings as a dusty rain of ice particles pulled in by the planetâs gravity and funneled along its magnetic field straight down into the upper atmosphere.
âWe estimate that this âring rainâ drains an amount of water products that could fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool from Saturnâs rings in half an hour,â said James OâDonoghue of NASAâs Goddard Space Flight Center. OâDonoghue is the lead author of a new study on ring rain in the publication Icarus.
Combining information from the Voyager 1 and 2 Saturn flybys back in the early 1980s with more recent data from the NASAâs highly-successful Cassini mission, which measured âring rainâ rates, the rings have less than 100 million years left to survive. And based on the rate of infall, the rings are surprisingly young, possibly no older than 100 million years.
If you could go back in time and find a safe spot to set up a telescope between the velociraptors and brontosauruses, youâd have likely stared at a ringless Saturn. That means weâre seeing the rings today smack in the middle of their lifetime. It makes you wonder if the paltry ring systems presently visible around Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune were once as grand as Saturnâs is today.
Saturnâs rings are mostly made of chunks of water ice ranging in size from microscopic dust grains to boulders several yards (meters) across. Saturnâs gravity wants to draw in all this icy flotsam and jetsam, but their orbital speeds keeps the chunks where theyâre at. Meanwhile, other forces are at work. Tiny ring particles can become electrically charged by ultraviolet light in sunlight, while bombardment by dust-sized micrometeorites creates puffs of similarly charged particles on impact. Once the particles have an electric charge, they can feel the pull of Saturnâs magnetic field and are drawn in by the pull of the planetâs gravity.
Between micrometeorite munching and UV light, the rings are being slowly eroded and siphoned into the planetâs upper atmosphere similar to how particles arriving in the solar wind are directed along Earthâs invisible magnetic field lines into the ionosphere, where they slam into atoms and spark auroras. At Saturn, once the ring particles arrive in the atmosphere they vaporize and react with other molecules that when energized by sunlight create glowing bands of infrared light that were detected by the dual 10-meter telescopes at the Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Infrared is a form of light we feel as heat.
Various theories have been proposed for the ringsâ origin. If the planet got them later in life, they could have formed when small, icy moons in orbit around Saturn collided, perhaps prompted by a gravitational shove from a passing asteroid or comet. Another theory suggests that a comet or asteroid may have struck one of the planetâs moons, the debris spreading into the rings.
The first signs of ring rain appeared in Voyager 2 data in 1981 when scientists found weird variations in Saturnâs electrically-charge upper atmosphere, changes in the density of the rings and three dark bands encircling the planet at mid-northern latitudes. When the bands were later linked to the shape of Saturnâs gigantic magnetic field, another researcher proposed that electrically charged particles from the rings were flowing down the invisible field lines and dumping water (ice) into the planetâs atmosphere. The water washed away the haze, making it appear dark in reflected sunlight. Add in what weâve learned recently from Cassini and the Keck observations, we finally have a finger on the pulse of the ringsâ dissolution.
The team would like to see how the ring rain changes with the seasons on Saturn. Like the Earth, the tip of Saturnâs axis gives the planet seasons, with the rings exposed to varying amounts of sunlight during its 29.5-year orbit. Since ultraviolet light from the Sun charges the ice grains and makes them respond to Saturnâs magnetic field, varying exposure to sunlight should change the quantity of ring rain.
So, it looks like just 100 million years left? Better start counting âem!
Antonin Januska has posted a video showing how he set up and uses an engineering notebook. Iâm always interested in how people implement engineering/scientific notebooks and Januskaâs video is especially interesting because he implemented his as an Org-mode file.
His idea is that the notebook shouldnât be a log so much as a collection of technical notes to remember how he accomplished some task or even shortcut key sequences that he might otherwise forget. His set up is a nice example of starting slow with Org-mode and learning new features as you need them.
His notebook is a sequence of topics as the top level headings and lists of items or further subheadings underneath the main headings. The most complicated thing he uses is code blocks and he hasnât gotten around to making them executable yet. Again, it shows how far just a little Org-mode can go.
The video is only 10 minutes, 48 seconds so it should be easy to fit it in if your interested in seeing how you might set up an engineering notebook.
Links from reddit.com/r/emacs, /r/orgmode, /r/spacemacs, /r/planetemacs, Hacker News, planet.emacsen.org, YouTube, the changes to the Emacs NEWS file, and emacs-devel.
With a bit more than a week left until Christmas, lighted displays, colorful markets, and Santa's helpers are out in force. From Europe to the Americas and Asia, gathered here as an early gift, is a collection of holiday cheer and light wrapped up in 35 photographs.
On October 1, 1958 â days short of the first anniversary of Sputnik â the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) officially came into being. After months of study and debate in the wake of the launching of the first Soviet satellites, the US government reached a consensus on how the country should proceed into the Space Age when on July 29 President Dwight Eisenhower signed the National Aeronautics and Space Act of 1958.
President Eisenhower presents NASAâs commissions to Dr. T. Keith Glennan (right) as the first administrator for NASA and Dr. Hugh L. Dryden (left) as deputy administrator. (NASA)
NASA was formed around the existing NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics) which had been under the direction of Hugh L. Dryden. Appointed as NASAâs first administrator was T. Keith Glennan with Dryden becoming his deputy. While the military would continue to run space projects related to the needs of national security, all purely scientific space programs under military control would eventually be transferred to NASA. This included, much to the chagrin of some officials in the Department of Defense, Americaâs nascent man-in-space effort.
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The genesis of what would become Americaâs first manned space programs can be traced back to July 14, 1952 when the NACA executive committee passed a resolution to âdevote modest effort to problems of unmanned and manned flights at altitudes from 50 miles to infinity and at speeds from Mach 10 to escape from Earthâs gravity.â The immediate result of this resolution was the X-15 program conducted jointly by NACA, the USAF, and the US Navy starting in December of 1954. This advanced rocket-powered aircraft would fly to the edge of space at 80 kilometers (50 miles) and as fast as Mach 7. It would bridge the performance gap between existing X-planes and what was needed to meet NACAâs ultimate goal (see âA History of Suborbital Crewed Spaceflightsâ).
The X-15 was the first step in bridging the performance gap from the early rocket planes to that required for orbital space planes. (NASA)
The next step led to joint NACA and USAF studies of still higher flying manned aircraft or the âManned Glide Rocket Research Systemâ. Conducted under the aegis of the USAFâs ARDC (Air Research and Development Command) starting in March 1956, this set of studies eventually lead to the âDyna-Soarâ or X-20 program (see âThe Future That Never Came: The X-20 Dyna Soar Aerospace Planeâ). At the same time ARDC also established a parallel research project for a manned ballistic capsule known as âThe Manned Ballistic Rocket Research Systemâ. Since the development of a simple ballistic capsule would require much less time than an aerospace glider, such a program could give the USAF much needed experience in this new environment in the shortest time possible. As had been done in many earlier USAF research programs, NACA was invited to participate.
What would eventually become the USAF X-20 Dyna Soar program would investigate manned flight at orbital velocities. (USAF)
Although there was a vocal minority in the NACA hierarchy who were against involvement in a purely ballistic approach to manned spaceflight, by early 1956 there had already been much research conducted at NACA laboratories on the subject. As a result of hypervelocity experiments performed during June 1952, a team of scientists and engineers under H. Julian Allen at the High-Speed Research Division of NACAâs Ames Aeronautical Laboratory (now NASA Ames Research Center) discovered that a blunt body minimized heating during a hypersonic reentry into the atmosphere.
Work by H. Julian Allen at NACAâs Ames Aeronautical Laboratory in the early 1950s demonstrated that a blunt shape was ideal for reentry. (NASA-Ames)
The previous conventional wisdom held that a slender shape would be preferred but studies had shown that they produced more heat than any known materials could withstand. Allen and his team had now solved this thermal barrier problem with their counterintuitive blunt shape in which 90% of the heat is absorbed by the shock wave generated during reentry. On April 28, 1953 Allen and Alfred J. Eggers, Jr. of Ames co-authored a secret NACA report detailing their findings. This report, which was distributed to missile contractors and the military that spring, heavily influenced the designs of the first generation of ICBM warheads and subsequent manned spacecraft.
High-speed wind tunnel testing at NACA facilities in the 1950s revealed that blunt shapes were best for reentry resulting in a quick evolution in missile nose cone and manned spacecraft designs. (NASA)
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In early 1954, Allen, Eggers and Stanford E. Neice of Ames wrote a now classic paper on atmospheric reentry entitled âA Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Long-Range Hypervelocity Vehiclesâ. In this paper they compared the advantages and disadvantages of three different reentry body configurations: A blunt no-lift body, a high-drag lifting body, and a low-drag gliding body. These three concepts would be the focus of manned spaceflight research in the following years.
Early studies for manned spacecraft concepts at Ames centered on blunt bodies, high-drag lifting bodies like the M-1 and low drag lifting bodies like the lenticular type. (NASA)
Eggers went on to present a modified version of this paper at the annual meeting of the American Rocket Society in San Francisco in June of 1957. At the time he was convinced that a glider would be a better approach to manned spaceflight than a simple ballistic capsule. While the total heat load would be greater, a gliderâs average heating rate would be much lower as would be the g-loads during reentry. A glider would also be maneuverable and allow the pilot to make a precision landing. Unfortunately, it was soon realized that such a spacecraft would be too heavy for any military rockets then envisioned to lift into orbit.
Alfred J. Eggers, Jr. investigated the use of high-drag lifting bodies for manned spacecraft including the M-1 which he developed. (NASA-Ames)
Eggers then began to push for a lighter and simpler lifting-body design (originally proposed in an Ames report on hypersonic flight released in January of 1957) as a compromise between the ballistic capsule and the glider. His design, called M-1, was a triangular shaped craft about 3 meters wide and 2.6 meters long with a rounded underside and a flat top. Looking like a quarter of an egg, this design would minimize heating and g-loads during reentry and allow 320 kilometers of cross-range and 1300 kilometers of down-range maneuverability in a package that military rockets could handle.
A manned orbiting spacecraft concept based on the M-1 lifting body launched by an Atlas ICBM. Click on image to enlarge. (NASA)
The third concept using a simple ballistic capsule was championed by a team at NACAâs Langley Aeronautical Laboratory (now NASA Langley Research Center) who wrote a minority view in the appendix of the January 1957 Ames report. During the mid-1950s Maxime A. Faget, Robert O. Piland and a team of engineers at Langleyâs Pilotless Aircraft Research Division (PARD) had conducted a series of flight tests with models of blunt bodies under the supervision of Langleyâs Associate Director, Robert R. Gilruth, in an effort to extend Allenâs original work. They felt that a blunt, nonlifting shape like a simple sphere would offer the best chances of getting a man into orbit in the shortest time.
A group led by Max Faget and Robert Piland at NACAâs Langley Aeronautical Laboratory concentrated on nonlifting blunt bodies for their manned satellite studies. Four shapes they studied are shown here including the simplest, the sphere, on the left and the eventual choice of a blunt-bottomed capsule on the right. Click on image to enlarge. (NASA)
While the M-1 design held much promise and stimulated further research into lifting bodies (which continues to this day), NACA management began to favor Langleyâs ballistic approach due to its simplicity. In parallel with the USAF efforts in the manned ballistic rocket project (which eventually became known as MIS or âMan-In-Spaceâ) and those of a group of 11 contractors who answered the ARDC call for proposals, Langley engineers continued to slowly develop the design and specifications for a manned ballistic space capsule during the months leading to the Space Age.
Initial work on lifting bodies during the 1950s spurred continued developments in the years to come such as Amesâ M2-F1 and M1-L half-cone as well as Langleyâs lenticular body shown here. (NASA-Dryden)
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After the launch of Sputnik, many in the country were struck by a sense of panic (see âSputnik: The Launch of the Space Ageâ). And with the launching of Sputnik 2 in November 1958 with its canine passenger, it was clear that the Soviet Union were taking the first steps needed to send a man into space (see âSputnik 2: The First Animal in Orbitâ). During this time, NACA leaders sought to determine what role their organization would play in an American manned spaceflight effort. But in addition to the NACA plans and the USAF MIS study (which quickly became MISS or âMan In Space â Soonestâ), the US Army and Navy also started pushing their own proposals for a manned space mission.
A blunt body concept for the USAF âMan in Space Soonestâ or MISS program. Click on image to enlarge. (USAF)
The Army proposal originated from the Wernher von Braunâs team at the ABMA (Army Ballistic Missile Agency). Initially called âMan Very Highâ and later known as âProject Adamâ, their proposal called for using a modified Redstone rocket to launch a manned capsule on a short suborbital flight reaching a peak altitude of about 240 kilometers (see âRedstone: The Missile That Launched America Into Spaceâ). The ABMA proposal was essentially an updated version of the British Interplanetary Societyâs V-2-based Megaroc concept published a decade earlier. The Navyâs Bureau of Aeronautics proposal, called Mer I for âManned Earth Reconnaissance Iâ, envisioned a cylindrical spacecraft with deployable wings launched on a two-stage rocket. As with other aspects of the nationâs space program, ARPA (Advanced Research Projects Agency) was put in charge of coordinating all these efforts in the spring of 1958. From the start ARPA clearly preferred the MISS proposal but whoever finally got the project, NACA was guaranteed a leading role due to their experience in the field.
ABMAâs âMan Very Highâ or Project Adam proposed by Wernher von Braunâs group would launch an astronaut on a suborbital spaceflight using a Redstone missile. Click on image to enlarge. (ABMA)
Still, as the spring of 1958 approached, it was becoming increasingly clear that the nationâs space program would be run not by ARPA but by a civilian agency and NACA had already quietly accepted the task. Because of this and growing differences in opinion between NACA and USAF over the best way to proceed with MISS, NACA began to break out and push its own ideas among the various military and civilian study groups and panels that were set up to consider the issue. In order to bring their concepts into the forefront, NACA sponsored the Conference on High Speed Aerodynamics at Ames from March 18 to 20, 1958 where NACA engineers presented their research for a manned space mission to a group of military, industrial and contractor personnel.
NACAâs concept for a manned spacecraft as envisioned during the summer of 1958. Click on image to enlarge. (NASA)
During this symposium, the NACA managementâs eventual plan was outlined in a Langley paper by Faget, Benjamin Garland, and James J. Buglia. They proposed a 3.35 meter long, roughly conical shaped ballistic capsule with a 2.13 meter in diameter heat sink mounted on its blunt end. The pilot would be strapped into a form fitting couch to better withstand the g-loads associated with launch and reentry. Because the effects of spaceflight on the pilot were totally unknown, the simple capsule would be designed to operate automatically. Unlike the USAF which wanted to develop a new Thor-based launch vehicle for MISS, NACA wanted to use the Atlas ICBM (which had just begun test flights â see âThe First Atlas Test Flightsâ) to orbit their capsule.
Here is Atlas 11A shown before its launch on February 20, 1958 on the sixth flight of the Atlas test program. Langleyâs manned satellite concept proposed to use the Atlas ICBM as its launch vehicle. (USAF)
Once in orbit, the capsule would be turned so that it traveled blunt-side first using small gas jets to control attitude. A solid retrorocket package would then be used to slow the capsule enough to perform a high drag, no-lift reentry into Earthâs atmosphere at the end of the mission. By June 1958 Langleyâs Faget and Charles W. Mathews had already completed the first draft of the manned satelliteâs preliminary specifications based on this concept that NACA officials clearly preferred.
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As ARPA and the USAF continued to jockey for position throughout mid-1958 in a bid to monopolize the manned space program, NACA engineers continued to refine their space capsule design and specifications. But the unofficial competition for the manned space program ended on August 18 when President Eisenhower finally decided that the soon to be created NASA would be in charge. Money ARPA had allocated for MISS would be transferred to NASA along with the funding for other scientific space projects that had been given to NASA.
To ease the programâs transition, a Joint NASA-ARPA Manned Satellite Panel headed by Gilruth was established on September 17, 1958 to make final recommendations to NASA for the manned program. Their proposals were submitted to Glennan and ARPA director Roy Johnson between October 3 and 7. On October 7 NASA formally organized its manned space program and gave it the task of placing a capsule in orbit, investigating the pilotâs reaction to the orbital environment, and safely recovering the pilot and capsule. By the end of October, NASA representatives had already started negotiations to procure the rockets they needed for their project.
NASAâs Space Task Group management team included (l to r) Charles J. Donlan (Associate Director), Robert R. Gilruth (Director), Maxime A, Faget (Flight Systems Chief) and Robert O. Piland (Assistant Chief for Advanced Projects). (NASA-Langley)
By November 5, 1958 NASAâs new Director of the Office of Space Flight Programs, Abe Silverstein, had organized the STG (Space Task Group) at Langley to run the manned space program. Gilruth was appointed as Director of the program with his former Technical Assistant, Charles J. Donlan, assigned as his deputy. Faget became the Flight System Chief in charge of the spacecraftâs design while another former-PARD member, Piland, became Assistant Chief for Advanced Projects. With NASAâs manned space program management team and an initial staff of 33 people in place, the programâs pace began to accelerate.
On November 7, 1958 40 perspective bidders met at Langley for a briefing from STG engineers on their vision of the manned space capsule. About half expressed continued interest in the project and on November 14 they received a copy of the 50-page document entitled âSpecifications for Manned Space Capsuleâ. On December 11 STG received bids from 11 contractors for the manned space capsule. After STG established component assessment teams to review the bids, the long task of choosing a contractor for Americaâs first manned space capsule began.
Concept drawing of NASAâs manned spacecraft included in âSpecifications for Manned Space Capsuleâ. Click on image to enlarge. (NASA)
But as the pace of the manned program began to pick up, there was a need to give the new project a name. While several were proposed, on November 26 Glennan and Dryden choose Silversteinâs suggestion which he had based on Greek mythology. On December 17, 1958 NASA officially announced it â Mercury.
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Follow Drew Ex Machina on Facebook.
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âA History of Suborbital Crewed Spaceflightsâ, Drew Ex Machina, May 5, 2016 [Post]
âThe Future That Never Came: The X-20 Dyna Soar Aerospace Planeâ, Drew Ex Machina, April 10, 2016 [Post]
âRedstone: The Missile That Launched America Into Spaceâ, Drew Ex Machina, April 26, 2016 [Post]
âThe First Atlas Test Flightsâ, Drew Ex Machina, June 11, 2015 [Post]
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David Baker, The History of Manned Spaceflight, Crown Publishers, 1981
William M. Bland, Jr., âProject Mercuryâ, in The History of Rocket Technology, Eugene M. Emme (editor), Wayne State University Press, pp. 212-240, 1963
Alfred J. Eggers, Jr., H. Julian Allen and Stanford E Neice, âA Comparative Analysis of the Performance of Long-Range Hypersonic Vehiclesâ, NACA TR-1382, 1958
Maxime A. Faget, Benjamin J. Garland and James J. Buglia, âPreliminary Studies of Manned Satellites â Wingless Configuration: Nonliftingâ, Proceedings of NACA Conference on High-Speed Aerodynamics (Ames Aeronautical Laboratory, Moffett Field, CA; March 18-20, 1958), pp. 19-34, 1958
Loyd S. Swenson Jr., James M. Grimwood and Charles C. Alexander, This New Ocean: A History of Project Mercury, NASA SP-4201, 1966
Preliminary Specifications for Manned Satellite Capsule, NASA, October 1958
There is now a Hardware Happy Hour in San Francisco:
This group is based upon the idea that you are interested in hanging out and discussing hardware. Please bring a piece of hardware to show off or talk about. Are you interested in hardware, but you havenât built anything yet? Show off software you have built! Or come prepared to talk about the projects you want to build.
There are no organized talks, itâs literally a show and tell at a bar or restaurant. In case you missed it two paragraphs ago, bring hardware. Seriously, just bring anything to talk about
In the central region is a faint triangle of four stars, however, I could only see three. This multiple star is Burnham 1, named after S.W. Burnham. This small group of of bluish-white stars really adds to the beauty of this object. The misty nebula, encapsulating the trio of stars creates a beautiful sight, but thereâs even more to this object. IC 1590, a small and very faint open star cluster is also located within the nebula, but I was unable to see or recognize this cluster during any of my observations.
Image provided by Mario Motta using a 32-inch reflector telescope:
A new variant of the Shamoon malware has destroyed significant amounts of data at a UAE "heavy engineering company" and the Italian oil and gas contractor Saipem.
Shamoon is the Iranian malware that was targeted against the Saudi Arabian oil company, Saudi Aramco, in 2012 and 2016. We have no idea if this new variant is also Iranian in origin, or if it is someone else entirely using the old Iranian code base.
This strip was written after having my tonsillectomy.
I could only eat the very softest of foods. Part of the reason they always push ice cream is that itâs a food that literally becomes a beverage if you hold it in your mouth long enough.
The doctor also recommended applesauce. Iâve always hated applesauce. Iâm from Yakima, home of the Red Delicious apple (which, as Iâve said before, is the crappy fruit thatâs name is a lie). As such, I tend to hold apples in low regard to begin with, and I know for a fact that itâs not the best apples that get âsauced.â
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
In our last plan, we carried out triage activities on the red Jura target, âRock Hall,â including APXS of the target to determine composition, and engineering tests to assess the stability of the rock and its hardness, both of which would affect our ability to drill.
It was decided that this would be a suitable candidate, both geochemically and physically, so todayâs plan will centre around the drilling of what will hopefully be our 19th drill sample for analysis on Mars!
On sol 2260, MAHLI will take a series of images to characterize locations chosen by the rover planners as the areas in which they would eventually like to dump excess sample generated by the drilling. The drilling itself will take place on the morning of the second sol (sol 2261).
Once this has completed, in the afternoon of sol 2261, ChemCam will do passive analysis (i.e., no LIBS, or laser) of the drill tailings, and image the drill hole. Both will be done âin the blindâ (without confirmation images), based on where the rover planners estimate their likely location to be. We will also acquire Mastcam multi-spectral analysis of the drill tailings.
The Environmental theme group requested some Mastcam atmospheric measurements, to be run in the morning and the afternoon of sol 2262. In addition to the afternoon environmental activities, Mastcam will document layering in a hill called âLairig Ghru.â Standard REMS and DAN passive activities are spread throughout the three sol plan.
Written by Catherine OâConnell, Planetary Geologist at University of New Brunswick-Cooper
The post Sols 2160-2162: Go for Drill on the red Jura! appeared first on Martian Chronicles.
From the Intelligent Toasters blog:
This post talks about HyperRAM, what it is, how to interface to it and how to improve the performance of high-speed parallel interfaces. HyperRAM is described well by Cypress. It is essentially a double data rate RAM with a compact 12-line interface that masks the underlying technology of a DDR SDRAM.
Since assembling the two HyperRAM chips on my new OSH Park prototype boards (above), work on the CPC2 has come on in bounds. This lack of large memory was really holding back progress. Iâve completed the ROM/RAM management cores, so that 64 ROMs and 4096KB of RAM is now available to the CPC2, managed by the support processor. Based on the required CPC personality, I can switch out the CPC464/664/6128 ROMs, the BASIC 1.0/1.1 ROM, the AMSDOS ROM and others like my beloved Maxam ROM. The ROMs are stored in the FPGA configuration Flash. Storing 64 ROMs beyond the FPGA configuration image takes just a small fraction of the Flash memory. As they never change, itâs a good place to hold these. In the future, ROMs will also be stored on the backing storage for more volatile images, such as ROMs under development.
Bright or at least relatively bright comets like 46P/Wirtanen donât come by very often. When they do, we want to try and capture a photo to share and remember the sight. Iâve seen dozens of photos of the comet in the past few weeks taken with everything from mobile phones to expensive telescopes. Not surprisingly, Iâve been out snapping away every clear night. And with the recent cornucopia of clear skies over the region, Iâve been busy!
After taking pictures at night for some time, it becomes second nature to set up quickly and have that first image taken within 5 minutes. Hereâs my usual procedure:
Now, just click away, checking the back screen to make sure your exposureâs on target. If the image is too dim, increase the time or dial up the ISO to 1600 or even 3200. If you use a telephoto lens to photograph the comet, youâll have to keep exposures short so the stars and comet donât trail because of Earthâs rotation. With a 200mm lens I can only get away with 2-3 seconds, which means Iâve really got to crank up the ISO. Wide-angle lenses are more forgiving and donât show significant star-trailing up to 30 seconds. If you donât want any trails then youâll need to invest in a special tracking mount.
I use the iOptron SkyGuider Pro EQ camera mount. Others like the Vixen Polarie. You screw the mount onto a tripod and manually align it to the North Star. Sometimes it takes a few minutes for a good alignment but once set, you can shoot longer time exposures at lower ISO speeds for great quality images with pinpoint stars. I typically expose for a minute or two at either f/2.8 or f/4. You can go longer, but after a few minutes, sky glow will overexpose your images.
Lots of astrophotographers now take multiple short exposures of the identical scene and then âstackâ those photos into a single, high-quality image using stacking software. Iâm just starting to do this myself. If youâd like to try it, check out this site for several good software options. One not mentioned there thatâs very popular with amateur astrophotographers is the free RegiStax program. Stacking makes for high-quality, nearly grain-free photos that reveal more details and more stars in your photos.
The moon is starting to get bright, but I encourage you to keep following the comet and maybe even try your hand at photography. The next couple nights will still be good ones, and then you can start up again around Dec. 24 after full moon.
Auer, Executive Agencies, and the Supreme Court
by Curtis Herbert
The Supreme Court recently accepted a very important cert petition, and it will now decide whether to overrule two administrative law precedents: Auer and Seminole Rock. But what is the significance of these cases?
Auer deference, generally speaking, is the practice of deferring to agencies when they interpret their own ambiguous regulations. Seminole Rock does roughly the same thing. When you hear the word âdeferenceâ in a legal context, it is often preceded by âChevron.â But that is not the case here, and itâs important to distinguish between the two. What Auer does is expand upon Chevron deference, adding to the power of agencies. The central holding of Chevron was that courts ought to defer to agenciesâ judgements about Congressional statutes. Auer deference goes one step further, directing courts to defer to agenciesâ interpretation of their own regulations. These cases join Chevron and Brand X to form what some consider the dreaded triumvirate of administrative deference.
The argument against Auer deference, as set forth by the petitioner, goes something like this:
1: Auer deference is simply a judicial policy, and a faulty one at that. It has no underlying constitutional reasoning.
2: Auer deference raises serious separation of powers questions
3: It is also incompatible with due process and fair notice.
These are all interesting claims. They also relate to a case I wrote about very recently, Sessions v. Dimaya, which I will revisit in the context of this case.
The first claim is not only a challenge to the constitutional basis of Auer, but to its practical application. It seems relatively clear (at least to me) that nothing in the Constitution mandates judicial deference to administrative agencies, which did not exist at the time of the founding. In fact, as the petitioners will argue, separation of powers concerns may counsel against Auer deference.
After concluding that there is no constitutional basis for this policy, petitioners then proceed to question its wisdom. Their argument is quite simple, and Iâll summarize it by paraphrasing Richard Epstein on a recent First Mondays podcast: âThe relative advantage of the judiciary is statutory construction, while the relative advantage of agencies is fact-finding.â What on earth does this mean? It means that, generally speaking, judges are better at interpreting statutes and regulations, and agencies are better at fact-finding and policy-making. Judges have legal training and experience, while agencies have more resources and expertise in the areas they are tasked with overseeing. Why, the argument goes, are we throwing away the intelligence and capabilities of judges who specialize in interpretation? This line of reasoning advocates for deference to agencies when they make factual determinations, but not when they make interpretive ones.
The ensuing portion of the argument focuses on perceived separation of powers issues with Auer. Here is an excerpt from the cert petition: âThe court of appeals wholly abdicated its constitutional mandate to exercise independent judgment; it effectively delegated to the VA its authority to interpret legal texts.â (Petition for a writ of certiorari, Kisor v. OâRourke.) The agency is interpreting its own regulations, and, under this theory, it is the obligation of the judiciary to step in and ensure fairness. But, as the petition explains, this does not happen at all under Auer:
âthe sole basis of [the] decision articulated by the court of appeals was that the presence of two competing, reasonable constructions of the regulation obligated the court to declare the regulation âambiguous.â . . . That is all it takes for Auer to apply: a âregulation is ambiguous on its faceâ whenever âcompeting definitions for a disputed term seem reasonable.â
Petitioners noted that because the lower court could find a reasonable reason for its interpretation, the rule was ambiguous, and so Auer deference was in effect. What this does is import a test akin to modern-day rational basis scrutiny into administrative law. So long as the agency can make an argument, regardless of whether it is correct or not, that means there is some ambiguity. And because there is ambiguity, the agency wins under Auer. Therefore, virtually any argument an agency can make will be upheld under Auer. And in the world of Auer, there are no suspect classes. There are no fundamental rights. Itâs rational basis scrutiny all the way. The courts are doing precisely the opposite of what they are supposed to do, and as a result are violating separation of powers principles. Agencies are given free reign, which brings us to the third assertion: Auer conflicts with due process.
The specter of agency regulations and the future of the administrative state were fresh on the justicesâ minds last year in Sessions v. Dimaya. When Justice Gorsuch wrote his concurrence, he was worried about excessively vague laws in civil as well as criminal contexts. He wanted the Court to treat vague laws the same in both contexts. Perhaps it is now even more evident why the plurality in that case declined to extend that standard of review: it might endanger some of the modern administrative state.
Hereâs why this is relevant: what Auer does is incentivise vague and unclear regulations. If you run an agency, why make clear and unambiguous rules when you know that you can interpret vague ones however you want, and the courts will go along with it? What Auer does is make the amount of deference dependent on the amount of ambiguity. As the ambiguity increases, so does the range of interpretations, as well as the likelihood of the interpretation being upheld. When perverse incentives are created, the end result is usually perverse actions. The reason that vague regulations and laws are so dangerous, and teeter on the brink of unconstitutionality, is explained in part in my earlier article, but for a more thorough explanation I suggest Justice Gorsuchâs opinion. Succinctly put, it is essential to the rule of law that citizens be able to know what the law is. That element of the rule of law is not being done any favors by Auer deference.
Thatâs the short version of the argument against Auer. Feel free to take it or stick your pencil through it. I, for one, am looking forward to a fiesty oral argument and some blistering opinions. We can be pretty certain Gorsuch, Alito, and Thomas will vote to get rid of Auer. What position the Chief Justice and Justice Kavanaugh endorse remains yet to be seen. For now, eager anticipation will have to suffice.
Iâm not planning a holiday gift guide this year, though they are fun to do. You can always check previous ones; I try to link to stores rather than individual items.
#definedoesnât necessarily lead to a readable message to the user.The Ware for December 2018 is shown below.
Finishing off the year with a (hopefully) easy one thatâs slightly off the beaten path.
Happy holidays! Stay safe, and stay free.
The Ware for November 2018 is a bias/control board for the HP 2-18GHz YIG-tuned multiplier. I really appreciate this fascinating ware, it reminds me that the MOS transistor is not the be-all and end-all of electronics. Of course, every day we encounter crystals as frequency references, and those are literally shaved pieces of quartz, but here is a sphere of Yttrium Iron Garnet (YIG) being used as a tunable RF filter. Thanks to phantom deadline for contributing this ware, and also congrats to Brian for nailing the ware. Email me for your prize!
From the Tindie blog:
When they first came out, the Game Boy models were the cream of the crop. Even the original DMG model, the screen looked stunning for the time. Despite nostalgia being a powerful thing, the screens havenââ¬â¢t aged well in our post-4K world.
A great way to breathe some life into that screen is toÃÂ use a bivert module. These modules enhance the contrast of LCD displays by biverting/inverting the pixel orientation on the screen. The difference is pretty noticeable too, with a sharp blue appearance and better grayscale saturation.
Iâve observed NGC 1514 thrice with my 15-inch f/4.5 reflector, and itâs wonderfully complex.  The sketch was made at 216à with a UHC filter.  I may not have gotten all the lumps and bumps in exactly the right place, but it gives the general impression.  Sue French Â
Inverted pencil sketch: Â
Positive pencil sketch:
Â
Pencil sketch by Roger Ivester
Â
Richard Nugent of Massachusetts called me this past week, just to share his excitement and fascination concerning his most recent observation of NGC 1514, the âCrystal Ball Nebulaâ using a 20-inch reflector.Â
Â
NGC 1514 in Taurus is sometimes called the âCrystal Ball Nebula,â But I have coined the name âHerschelâs Revelationâ as being far more significant. This is the object that convinced Sir William that nebulae were real and not, as was the belief then, just masses of unresolved stars. His profound insight came at seeing the clear separation of the surrounding nebula from the obvious central star. Yet another of Herschelâs many amazing observations based solely on the visual appearance of an object in his telescopes.  Jim MullaneyÂ
I note with sadness the recent death of Tim May, reported here and here. Before I was a spacecraft engineer I was a Cypherpunk, and Tim was at the core of it all. During his time at Intel, he discovered the source of Single-Event Upsets (SEUs) in DRAM as alpha particles from natural radioactivity in the IC ceramic packages. This contribution is deeply relevant to all of us in the space community today. I will mostly remember him for taking me aside at an early Computer, Freedom and Privacy conference to tell me that my jacket with a dozen pockets stuffed with tech, which young me thought was desperately 1337 and tactical, looked kinda goofy. I don't think I ever wore it again. In certain circles, Tim was the arbiter of cool. |
Robert George is the McCormick Professor of Jurisprudence at Princeton University. He also serves as the director of the James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. He writes frequently about constitutional law, the moral philosophy of law, and religious freedom. I interviewed him yesterday in Princeton.
My questions are in bold; his answers are in plain text.
When you were in high school, you were twice elected governor of the West Virginia Democratic Youth Conference. What compelled you to become so involved in politics?
My grandfathers were coal miners and union men. And of course, a lot of West Virginia politics had to do with union advocacy and issues having to do with miners and working conditions. Now, one of my grandfathers saved up enough money to get out of the mines and start a little business of his own and become a grocer. My other grandfather remained in the mines or working on the railroads as a laborer his entire life. So I came from a strong tradition of labor union advocacy and Democratic party politics. The labor unions and the Democratic party were really one and the same thing. My grandfathers were great supporters of Franklin Delano Roosevelt; they saw political action as important to the cause of justice and to the working family. So it was quite natural for me and my brothers to want to be part of that tradition and be active in politics. Our goal â what we thought the goal of politics was â was to make life better, especially for people on the low end. People who were poor, people who were working class.
What were some of your other interests as a teenager?
Bluegrass music, which I still play a lot of. Again, I grew up in West Virginia, where banjos are issued to little boys at birth, so that came very naturally. And fishing. I loved to fish, I still love to fish, and I grew up doing an awful lot of that.
Where are the good fishing spots around here?
Thereâs good fishing in Lake Carnegie. And the local streams, like the brook that flows near Princeton Day School, have natural fish populations of bass and sunfish and are stocked by the state with trout. Being a West Virginian, I donât care much for catching stocked trout. I like the native fish that we have back home. But I will catch stocked trout in a pinch.
Do you eat what you catch?
I like fish, but I tend to like fish from the sea rather than freshwater fish. The one exception is I do like walleye, but those are pretty rare around here.
You played in a bluegrass band when you were in high school, right?
I did, yeah. And in college, and Iâve done a good deal of performing in the past few years, playing at the Princeton Arts Council or campus venues.
When you were younger, how comfortable did you feel performing?
I was always a bit of a ham, so I was always very comfortable performing. I sang and played guitar and played banjo â a bit of mandolin as well.
Where did you perform?
There were two coffeehouses; this was the heyday of the coffeehouse. And in my hometown, which was a university town, there were two coffeehouses. One was in the basement of the Catholic studentsâ center, and that was called âThe Potterâs Cellar.â And then one was run by one of the Protestant ministries, and it was called, if I recall correctly, âThe Last Resort.â My friends and I played in both of those places. Now, I also played a lot at country dances. There were sportsmenâs associations, sometimes called rod and gun clubs, throughout Appalachia, and we certainly had a lot of those in West Virginia. I also played at dances that were in fire halls and school auditoriums and things like that. When I say dances, I mean country dances. Like square dancing and other kinds of country things.
You donât hear about those kinds of dances in New Jersey.
In Southern New Jersey, there is some of that. In fact, when Iâm down in southern New Jersey â and usually when Iâm there, itâs in relation to some sort of musical activity â Iâm struck by how much itâs like Appalachia. I like southern New Jersey. I like the Pine Barrens. And it does remind me of home in a lot of ways.
After high school you went to Swarthmore. And I read that you were kind of appalled by the decision in Roe v. Wade when that came out.
I wasnât yet at Swarthmore, but I can tell you exactly where I was. I was working a table for our local pro-life group at the West Virginia University student center, which was called the Mountainlair. I was working a table, handing out leaflets and talking to people for our pro-life group, and someone came by and said, âThere was a big decision from the Supreme Court on your issue.â This was January 22nd, 1973. And he didnât know what the decision was â he just said there was a big decision. So we ran off to find a radio and get the news. We found a radio, and we heard that the decision legalized abortion.
It took a while to get clarity on just how extreme the Roe decision was. The early reports indicated that the Court held abortion was lawful in the first trimester, but when people had time to read the decision and digest it, they knew it meant a lot more than that. Abortion had to be legal not only in the first trimester, but through the entire second trimester. Even in the third trimester, abortion had to be permitted where it was indicated to preserve maternal health. But there was such a broad interpretation of health required by the Court; that is, an interpretation that included not just physical health or even emotional health, but a whole range of factors. This meant that for all intents and purposes, under Roe v. Wade, states are forbidden from actually preventing any abortions. Even in the third trimester, when in theory, according to Roe, abortion can be prohibited, it still has to be permitted for health reasons, with a definition of health so broad that just about any abortion that any abortionist is willing to perform would fall within it.
When you heard about that decision, how much of your reaction was antipathy towards abortion, and how much were you aware of the constitutional arguments?
I was in almost complete ignorance of the Constitution and constitutional interpretation at the time. So I was just upset with the decision, because I thought it was deeply unjust to the victims of abortion; namely, unborn children. It was only later, when I began to appreciate the constitutionalist critique of Roe v. Wade â I would say probably not until my college years â that I began to see that there is, in addition to the morally problematic nature of the policy the decision imposed, the deeply constitutionally dubious status of the decision itself.
Who introduced you to the constitutionalist critique â or how did you stumble upon it yourself?
It was really when I began getting interested in law and the philosophy of law in my sophomore year of college. Maybe about 1975 or â76. And just a few years after that I went to law school, where I started reading the writings of critics of Roe â several of whom were sympathetic to the policy Roe put in place, but deeply hostile to the decision on constitutional grounds. A good example of that is John Hart Ely, who was teaching at Harvard Law School while I was there. I didnât have him, unfortunately. I regret that I didnât have him as one of my constitutional law teachers. But I did read his article called âThe Wages of Crying Wolf,â a now-famous essay on Roe v. Wade, and I found that very persuasive. Ely didnât share my moral abhorrence of abortion. If he were a member of a legislature, he made clear he would vote for a pretty permissive abortion policy. And yet he argued that Roe was completely constitutionally unjustifiable.
It was the position of the dissent in Roe v. Wade, which I hadnât paid much attention to â the argument of the two dissenting justices, Rehnquist and White, was not that this decision was wrong because it renders unborn children vulnerable to lethal violence. But rather, thereâs just nothing in the constitution that warrants taking the authority to regulate in this area away from states. Whiteâs dissent famously says that Roe is nothing but an exercise of raw judicial power. Those dissents donât engage the question of the morality of the decision, but they criticize the majority for usurping the authority of the people acting through their elected representatives in the state legislatures.
Who were your favorite teachers in law school?
I started to fall in love with the philosophy of law in college, as Iâve mentioned. And so the teachers that most interested me when I was at Harvard were those who taught philosophy of law. Lewis Sargentich, Henry Steiner, Charles Fried, and Roberto Unger, whoâs the famous critical legal theorist. I was able to take some courses outside of the law school in the philosophy department. I studied with Ronald Dworkin, who was at Harvard as a visiting professor. I would later sit in on his seminars in Oxford, the seminars that he offered jointly with Professors Joseph Raz and John Finnis. In those seminars, on many occasions, the great Oxford legal philosopher H.L.A. Hart would sit in. Those were amazing seminars. It was just an unbelievably great place to be. I describe it to my students as the mecca of the philosophy of law.
Justice Gorsuch followed you there a few years later.
He did. A few years later, Neil Gorsuch came. Like me, he was a graduate student of John Finnis. He wrote a thesis on euthanasia, and that thesis became a book which was published in the series that Iâm general editor of at Princeton University Press.
What role did you play in editing his book?
Well, he sent me the manuscript, and I liked it very much. John Finnis had told me that it was an excellent manuscript, so I was favorably disposed when it came in. I shared some thoughts with him, and there were some adjustments; nothing major. We worked together through the rest of the editing process, and it was produced as a terrific book. Iâm very proud to have it in the series, which is called âNew Forum Books,â and would be proud to have it even had he not gone on to become such a distinguished jurist and eventually Supreme Court justice. Itâs a fine work of scholarship.
For people who havenât read the book, whatâs the gist of Gorsuchâs argument?
Itâs an examination of the legal tradition when it comes to the taking of human life, whether by abortion or euthanasia. And it looks at all the different areas where you have this issue, and tries to sort out what the principles are. What distinguishes euthanasia and abortion from, say, capital punishment and killing in war? Our legal system has always permitted capital punishment. As it happens, Iâm opposed to it, but thatâs neither here nor there. But our system has permitted capital punishment, and itâs believed that there are wars where killing can be justified. So on what principles does it distinguish those kinds of lawful killing from historically unlawful killing and abortion and euthanasia?
In connection with that, he has to do some very interesting intentionality analysis: an examination of the philosophy of human action. For example, he distinguishes whatâs called indirect killing in war from direct killing in abortion and euthanasia â circumstances in which the objective is the death of the person who is killed. Thatâs true in abortion and euthanasia. If you donât get the unborn child, or you donât get the person to be euthanized dead, then youâve failed. Distinguish that from what many argue is indirect killing, for example in warfare, where while youâre allowed to aim right for the heart, you are not intending the death of your victim. Youâre intending to stop his aggression. You know he likely will die â youâre aiming right at the heart in order to stop him. But if you wound him and can capture him, you canât finish him off. You have to, as a matter of strict moral obligation, take him prisoner and even care for him medically in prison. This seems to indicate that thereâs something different about the intentionality of killing in war than there is in abortion or euthanasia. So Neil Gorsuch explored some of those questions in his book.
That kind of intentionality analysis, which was so crucial to his work as a graduate student, appears in his Masterpiece Cakeshop concurrence in a very interesting way. If you have a chance to look at that, youâll see how he deploys that analysis in his debate with Elena Kagan. Theyâre on the same side of the outcome of the case, but they had different reasoning. Kagan wanted it to be a very narrow ruling, and Gorsuch would make it a broad one.
Iâd like to go back to your time at Oxford. Iâm wondering if you had any teachers who were influential to you in terms of their teaching style, or who inspired you to become a teacher yourself.
That all began with my teachers in college; two in particular. One was a teacher of medieval philosophy and religious thought named Linwood Urban. He was not a dynamic teacher, but he was a person who modeled a tremendous amount of care in making sure that his students understood material. He worked with his students to make sure they understood it, and more than merely superficially or notionally, he made sure that his students understood deeply what was happening. So he would tend to work with students in small groups or on an individual basis, even though he wasnât a dynamic lecturer.
James Kurth, who was even more influential in my own decision to become a teacher, was a very dynamic lecturer. I loved just seeing how his mind worked by listening to his lectures. He, like Gorsuch, was a precise and analytical thinker. He was a big influence on me. I certainly didnât go into college with any idea that I would become a professor. In fact, I probably would have laughed if someone said, âYou ought to become a professor.â
What did you think you wanted to be?
A man of affairs. A lawyer, a politician, someone out there in the world doing things, making things happen. But the big event that changed all that was when I read the dialogue Gorgias in a survey course in political theory. I think it was in my sophomore year of college. What Plato taught me is that the fundamental reason for seeking knowledge, whether itâs in your own research or in reflection or in dialogue with others during debates, is the intrinsic value of truth. I had been brought up with a very different understanding of knowledge â really as an instrumental value rather than something intrinsically valuable or inherently enriching. I always wanted to know what you could do with that knowledge, or how will mastering this subject get you a credential or get you ahead or enable you to accomplish some political goal.
But when I read the Gorgias, that turned me around completely on that issue. I began to see that although knowledge can have wonderful instrumental value, and it can help you to get a better job and accomplish your political goals â and if your political goals are good, advance the cause of justice â but even more fundamentally, we should be seeking truth for the intrinsic and inherent value of truth. Truth is something inherently enriching of the human being as the kind of creature we are. And that was what put me on the road becoming a scholar and teacher.
How often do you witness similar epiphanies in your own students?
Oh, many times. And itâs the most gratifying part of teaching. Cornel West and I share this conviction very deeply; we have exactly the same view of this. In our teaching together, we have seen it with our students in seminars. More often than not, the problem is not that people have considered the questions that weâre raising and just rejected our answer or rejected Platoâs answer. Rather, itâs just that theyâve never considered the question. Weâve grown up in a kind of society in which everything is instrumentalized. Itâs a society that doesnât raise enough questions of intrinsic value. And so people have just never thought about that, and itâs an easy sale once youâve presented it.
Then the next step is to make it an existential reality in your life. Because we do have all the other concerns of life, and those can distract us away from appreciating knowledge for its intrinsic value. I was meeting with a prospective Princeton student and her parents here in this office yesterday, and they were at first scandalized by a story that I told. But in the course of the conversation, they became persuaded.
The story I told is this. I said to my kids when they were looking at colleges, âYour mom and I are going to pay for education, and weâre going to make sure you have no loans so you will graduate debt-free. But I will pay for your education on the condition that you not study anything practical.â [laughs] Because my wife and I really strongly believe in liberal arts education â we think thatâs the foundation for life. I didnât want my kids to think that they had to study something practical, learn a skill or a trade or anything like that. When I said that, the parents of this girl were initially scandalized. But as I made the case for liberal arts education as something inherently valuable, inherently enriching, reading Shakespeare and Plato and reflecting on the causes of the First World War and studying the periodic table â all the stuff that is interesting about life â they began to see that thatâs right.
I said that if your daughter goes to a good college, sheâs going to do okay financially. Sheâs going to get a job. If she happens to be interested in some practical thing, thatâs fine if it really engages her intellectually. I wouldnât have actually carried out my threat of not paying for my kidsâ education if they studied something practical. [laughs] I was making a point. But the parents looked at each other and said, we are guilty of pressuring our daughter to study something practical in college. And a lot of parents do that.
A lot of people may have to study something practical, because they have no choice but to make money right after college.
I think if you can afford, as this family certainly could, not to pressure your kids to do that, I think inviting your kids to take advantage of a really broad and deep liberal arts education is a good thing. Thereâs nobody whoâs at Princeton â honestly, thereâs no student here â who really has to focus on preparing vocationally for a profession. Because if you graduate with a Princeton degree, it doesnât matter whether itâs an English literature or Near Eastern Studies or Anthropology or Philosophy degree: youâre not going to starve. Youâre just not. And there are going to be plenty of businesses, big companies that are going to offer you great jobs. Because a lot of companies are looking not for people with undergraduate business degrees, but for people who are good, creative, clear, powerful thinkers, and boy, a liberal arts education trains you to be one of those.
Youâre a busy person. How do you find time to pursue things that are interesting and intrinsically enriching, even if they arenât relevant to your lecture schedule?
I love to read. I read on planes and trains. These days itâs hard because you can never get away from your cell phone, and the temptation is always to work on your computer. But I do love to read, and I read pretty widely, so I go well beyond the areas of my academic specialization. I love reading biographies, I love reading history, I love literature â especially 18th and 19th century American and English literature. Iâve got amateur interests in things like psychology. So thatâs what I do. Thereâs no practical reason for my reading the Brontë sisters or Hawthorne, but I love to do it and I find it very enriching.
Of the books that arenât super practical to your work, which is your favorite?
I do love all of Jane Austenâs novels. I even like âEmmaâ â even the ones that other people donât like, I like. I love Waugh, especially âBrideshead Revisited,â but I like some of his comic novels and his dark novels.
And â these are closer to my professional field â I have a lot of interests in thinkers like Edmund Burke and Montesquieu.
What book do you recommend most often to other people?
Probably the Bible. One big problem today is that people donât know their Bible, and it has tremendous costs in all sorts of areas. You canât understand Shakespeare if you donât understand the Bible. You can scarcely understand Hobbes. You certainly canât understand Lincoln. Now, there are some sections of the Bible you can skim. All the âbegatting.â [laughs] But if you donât know the Bible stories, and if you havenât read the Prophets, certainly the Gospels, youâre not going to understand a whole lot of stuff about literature, politics, philosophy, and the West.
You wonât be surprised to learn that I do an awful lot of recommending of âThe Federalist Papers.â And itâs amazing how few students come into college even knowing what they are. Most students go through college without reading a single one. But you know, you donât understand our political system â even if you bother to read the Constitution, which most students donât. Even if youâve read the Constitution, you donât really get it unless youâve read at least the basic Federalist papers: 1 and 10 and 51 and 78. Really, young people should try to read the whole thing during their college years, or at least sometime by age thirty.
I also recommend Lincolnâs speeches, especially the Gettysburg address â which most students do know â and the second inaugural, which students think they know but donât, and the Cooper Union Address, which most have never heard of. I think his speeches are great. I also frequently recommend Martin Luther Kingâs âLetter from Birmingham Jail.â I think thatâs an important thing for students to read.
I see several copies of âDemocracy in Americaâ on the shelf behind you.
Oh yes! Thatâs a very important book. That one has become more important to me over the years, Iâve noticed. As Iâve gotten older, I find myself in my speeches and writings referencing Tocqueville more and more. There are not as many references to him in my earlier work.
Why do you think that is?
Iâve gotten a greater appreciation of Tocquevilleâs insights into the importance of civil society. To democracy. That of course is what the book is about. Itâs about the preconditions of democracy, the moral and social preconditions. And itâs become clearer and clearer to me that there are really important social and moral preconditions to democracy. You canât just impose a democratic system on any culture; thereâs a kind of plowing of the ground that needs to be there if democracy is to take root.
I love reading biographies, and Iâve got David McCulloughâs wonderful biography of Adams there. I also love his biography of Teddy Roosevelt called âMornings on Horseback.â Fabulous. Not only is Roosevelt very interesting, but âMornings on Horsebackâ is just a wonderful example of the genre of political biography. And we live in a time where youâve got a lot of really superb biographies of statesmen, and others, being done by independent scholars. People who are not university professors and who are not writing for professional specialists, but for a broader audience. And so their work is really readable. I think thatâs great. Itâs a wonderful thing that these independent scholars, who donât have to write to impress their peers in the academy, can write therefore for a broader audience, but at a very high level. Thereâs a lot of things I donât like about our contemporary situation, but weâre living in a kind of golden era of political biographies for ordinary readers.
If you were to write a political biography for ordinary readers, who would you write about?
There would be no need for the one I would write because there are so many good ones, but it would be Lincoln. Yeah, I find Lincoln endlessly fascinating. I think heâs the person about whom the most biographies have been written ever. Maybe Jesus would be ahead of him, but there would be very few others. Another person I would be interested in writing a biography about, if I had that talent, would be Washington. So my choices wouldnât be very interesting: the two most famous presidents.
How about someone with a less gargantuan profile?
Jane Addams. I have friends Iâd love to write biographies of, too. The late Richard John Neuhaus. The late Elizabeth Fox Genovese; I would love to do a biography of her. If I were doing biographies, they would really be fundamentally intellectual biographies. Iâm sort of more interested in peopleâs intellectual lives than other aspects of their lives. But of course I would talk about other aspects, because thatâs all connected to their intellectual lives. Now, you know whoâs done this brilliantly is Allen Guelzo, whoâs written beautifully about Lincolnâs thought. There are biographies that explore the relationship between his experiences from his very earliest ages all the way through his political career, to his intellectual life, to his thought, to his moral life, to his religious beliefs. And I love that kind of thing.
Unfortunately, as far as I can tell, I have no talent for it. [laughs] I donât expect that Iâll produce any biographies, although I have to admit, youâre the first person whoâs ever asked me that question. And I have thought from time to time about doing one.
Why do you think your writing style wouldnât lend itself to a biography?
Maybe I just havenât tried it. But when I think about it, I get daunted. [laughs]
Which writers have been influential to you stylistically?
Iâm not a great stylist. I wish I could claim to be a great stylist. The writers who impress me style-wise are Austen and Samuel Johnson. To the extent that I have any virtues in my writing â and thatâs a very limited extent â itâs from having just read and reread and reread again Austen and Johnson.
What do you admire so much about their writing?
Robust, clear, beautiful command of the language. Choosing the right word â just the right word. Constructing sentences so that theyâre beautiful as well as clear and functional. Making it a pleasure to read. Thatâs what I love about writers like Austen and Johnson.
What are your biggest flaws as a writer?
Parentheses. Iâm constantly, much too often, inserting parentheticals. And my sentences are often clunky, and they go on too long. I know there are teachers who insist on students breaking up their sentences that are too long and complicated, and I donât have a good grip on how to break them up. So I end up with these very long, complicated sentences, and by the time you get to the end you donât know what I said in the beginning. [laughs] Sometimes I stop myself and say, âIâve gotta reconstruct this.â Other times I give up. I get tired of trying. âAh itâs good enough,â and I leave it.
My best editor â Iâve imposed on him way too much â is my student, Sherif Girgis. I run my work past Sherif, and heâs good at cutting out unnecessary words and reconstructing sentences. He is an excellent stylist.
In an interview with Bill Kristol, you said that the quality of studentsâ writing has decreased over the years. What problems are you seeing?
I donât think that high schools are putting much emphasis on written expression. I donât know if thatâs because theyâre teaching for these standardized tests or not, but I have noticed a deterioration. Students are every bit as intelligent, if not more intelligent than when I began teaching. Certainly admission at Princeton has become more competitive as SAT scores have gone up, and I have no trouble with the intelligence of my students. But itâs surprising how many intellectually gifted young men and women not only donât write superbly; they donât write well. So to some extent, colleges and universities are doing remedial work on writing with their students.
How can high school students become better writers?
Itâs all a question of what you read. Read great stuff. And the second ingredient is, write a lot. That was my problem in high school. We were not required, and not even encouraged, do very much writing. When I got to college, writing was just a new thing to me.
When you were in high school, did you read a lot?
I didnât read a lot. I probably read more than most of my fellow students, but not as much as I should have. Again, where I was at that time, I didnât have as much encouragement as I should have. Thatâs no excuse, I shouldnât have needed a teacher to tell me to read â I shouldâve had more sense to do reading for myself. But I did a fair amount. When I arrived at college, I was out of the hills of West Virginia. My fellow students knew things I didnât do, even names like Dostoyevsky. I had never heard of Dostoyevsky. Students would talk about him and âThe Brothers Karamazov,â because they assumed that everyone else knew about âThe Brothers Karamazov.â It took me almost no time to realize that I couldnât fake it. [laughs] I couldnât pretend to know this stuff. I just wasnât going to get away with it.
Â
Other interviews conducted by Anna Salvatore: UChicago law professor Justin Driver, SCOTUSblog founder Tom Goldstein, former Solicitor General Neal Katyal, court artist Art Lien, New York Times Supreme Court correspondent Adam Liptak, UCI Law Professor Leah Litman, litigant extraordinaire Fane Lozman. former Court writer Linda Greenhouse, legal writing expert Ross Guberman, Georgetown professor Shon Hopwood, NPR reporter Carrie Johnson, Fix the Court Director Gabe Roth, IU Maurer Law Professor Ian Samuel, and Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes.Â
The New York Times and Reuters are reporting that China was behind the recent hack of Marriott Hotels. Note that this is still uncomfirmed, but interesting if it is true.
Reuters:
Private investigators looking into the breach have found hacking tools, techniques and procedures previously used in attacks attributed to Chinese hackers, said three sources who were not authorized to discuss the company's private probe into the attack.
That suggests that Chinese hackers may have been behind a campaign designed to collect information for use in Beijing's espionage efforts and not for financial gain, two of the sources said.
While China has emerged as the lead suspect in the case, the sources cautioned it was possible somebody else was behind the hack because other parties had access to the same hacking tools, some of which have previously been posted online.
Identifying the culprit is further complicated by the fact that investigators suspect multiple hacking groups may have simultaneously been inside Starwood's computer networks since 2014, said one of the sources.
I used to have opinions about whether these attributions are true or not. These days, I tend to wait and see.
I think/hope I cleared my backlog of BSD links.
topâs output can be quietly system dependent.
Big waves in Portugal, holiday lights in Europe, New Yearâs preparations in Japan, President Donald Trumpâs former attorney sentenced to prison, images from the asteroid Bennu, a flight with Virgin Galactic, a Christmas event in a Brazilian prison, a giant middle finger in Vermont, and much more
I laughed when I saw this tweet:
omg you guys .org -> .tex -> .pdf is a great work-flow for sharing information. Itâs like #inception though â first #emacs became my OS and now everything I create in Emacs is becoming an #Orgmode file.
â Andrew Goodnough (@agoodno) December 13, 2018
but then I realized that it pretty much described me. First I started doing all my writing in Emacs (and later, of course, as much of everything else as I could) and then all that writing started being Org files.
It occurred to me that Org is like the Borg: it absorbs everything that gets near it. So laugh all you want but you will be assimilated.
How were the Geminids at your place? Did the weather cooperate? We were fortunate in Duluth, Minn. to have mostly clear skies, calm conditions and temperate temperatures with a low of just 16° F. Hey, that 8° above normal! Twice, clouds blasted through and sullied the stars for a half-hour. Otherwise, the Geminids ruled and put on a delightful, non-stop show of fiery Phaethon bits.
I took my own advice and started early around 7 oâclock to look for slow-moving earthgrazing meteors. I wasnât disappointed. None displayed long trails, but they moved slowly compared to later Geminids, and at least one glowed orange, an indicator of its slower flight. Later meteors all looked white to my eye. Around 9-10 p.m., the shower started to pick up speed with occasional spells of one meteor a minute separated by lulls of zilch that lasted as long as 5-7 minutes. I canât tell you how many times I wished I had eyes in the back of my eye. Iâd catch sight now and again of some incredible meteor overhead that shot beyond my field of vision.
The shower was a total grab bag. There were plenty of fainter âmidgesâ and a good show of first and second magnitude meteors that made me cheer in the dark plus a few fireballs that left brief, bright trails called trains. I counted a total 85 Geminids. #18 flashed across the Big Dipper as bright as Venus and about knocked me off my feet. A total âWhoa!â experience. I was walking at the time otherwise I might have had a photo to show you.
Others stood out including one that appeared so close to the radiant that I saw it nearly head on â tiny and bright with only the shortest trail.To keep tabs on the shower and see meteor counts from other observers, check out the International Meteor Organizationâs Geminids 2018 Campaign results.
Throughout, I kept my eye on comet 46P/Wirtanen as it slowly crept toward the Pleiades and its closest approach to Earth on Dec. 16. I finally got to bed at 2:15 a.m. â I mean, I had to stay up till Gemini and the Geminid radiant reached their highest point in the sky. The shower will still be active tonight, so if weather or commitments prevented you from going out last night, try again tonight. You can start early, even as soon as 7 to spot some Earthgrazers, but 9-10 p.m. should be a little better.
While youâre out, look off to the south at the moon, and youâll see itâs got company. The planet Mars will lie just 3.5° (two fingers) to its north. The two favorites are in conjunction tonight. Iâve also got another Comet
Wirtanen map for you. The last one I made was decent, but I was playing around and like this one better. Let me know what you think.
Clear skies tonight!
The right kind of atmosphere may keep a planet habitable even if it crowds the inner region of the habitable zone. But atmospheric evolution involves many things, including the kind of geological activity our own planet has experienced, leading to sudden, deep extinctions. Centauri Dreams regular Alex Tolley today takes a look at a new paper that examines the terrestrial extinction of marine species in the Permian event some 252 million years ago. As we examine exoplanet habitability, it will be good to keep the factors driving such extinctions in mind. Tolley is a lecturer in biology at the University of California and author, with Brian McConnell, of A Design for a Reusable Water-Based Spacecraft Known as the Spacecoach (Springer, 2016). A key question in his essay today: Is our definition of the habitable zone simply too broad?
by Alex Tolley
In the search for life on exoplanets, questions about whether the planet is within the HZ given a plausible atmosphere is based on timescales as a fraction of stellar lifetime on the main sequence. With water may come the emergence of life as we know it, and then the long, slow evolution to multicellular life and possible technological civilization. Planets may initially form too close to a pre-main sequence star to be in the HZ, then enter the HZ, only to leave it again as the star increases in luminosity with age. Earth has experienced about a 30% increase in solar luminosity over its lifetime. The CO2 level needed to maintain a constant surface temperature via the greenhouse effect has had to decline to offset the increased insolation. In 1 to 2 billion years, the further increase in solar luminosity will require the CO2 levels to decline below that needed for photosynthesis, or the Earthâs surface will heat up beyond that sustainable for life.
Yet when considering the environment on a world in the HZ, we should be cognizant that climatic instability may create shocks in the short term that have major impacts on life. Earth has experienced 5 major extinctions based on our reading of the fossil record. The most famous being the dinosaur-killing KT event that ended the Cretaceous and allowed mammals to evolve into the newly vacated ecological niches. However, the largest extinction is known as the Permian extinction, or âGreat Dyingâ when over 95% of marine species became extinct about 252 mya. Unlike the KT event, which was a cosmic throw of the dice, the Permian extinction is believed to be due to massive volcanism of the Siberian Traps that released vast quantities of CO2 into the atmosphere that increased its concentration at least several fold. This caused a rapid temperature rise of 10s of degrees Fahrenheit and was accompanied by ocean acidification.
A new paper by Julian Penn et al suggests that this global temperature change caused the extinction of marine species primarily by metabolic stress and hypoxia.
The core idea is that multicellular, aerobic organisms require critical oxygen pressures to live, with their lowest levels of metabolism during resting, and higher levels for activities, such as swimming or feeding. Sessile organisms may have just a 1.5x increase in active metabolic rate over resting, while energetic organisms like fish may be 5x or more. As temperatures rise, so does the metabolic rate. This, in turn, requires adequate oxygen for respiration. But as the temperatures rise, the dissolved oxygen levels fall, placing additional stress on the animals to maintain their respiration rate. Penn integrated climate models to compute the temperature change and dissolved oxygen partial pressures, with the estimated metabolic rates for the activity of various modern animals to represent Permian species, to determine how ocean habitat temperatures impact the metabolisms of marine genera and probable extinction rates.
Figure 1 shows the relation between metabolic rate and temperature, and the temperature increased metabolic index of ocean habitat by latitude and depth. The polar latitudes and shallower depths show the highest changes in the metabolic index, indicating the most stressed habitats.
Figure 1. Physiological and ecological traits of the Metabolic Index (F) and its end-Permian distribution. (A) The critical O2 pressure (pO2 crit) needed to sustain resting metabolic rates in laboratory experiments (red circles, Cancer irroratus) vary with temperature with a slope proportional to Eo from a value of 1/Ao at a reference temperature (Tref), as estimated by linear regression when F = 1 (19). Energetic demands for ecological activity increase hypoxic thresholds by a factor Fcrit above the resting state, a value estimated from the Metabolic Index at a speciesâ observed habitat range limit. (B) Zonal mean distribution of F in the Permian simulation for ecophysiotypes with average 1/Ao and Eo (~4.5 kPa and 0.4 eV, respectively). (C and D) Variations in F for an ecophysiotype with weak (C) and strong (D) temperature sensitivities (Eo = 0 eV and 1.0 eV, respectively), both with 1/Ao ~ 4.5 kPa. Example values of Fcrit (black lines) outline different distributions of available aerobic habitat for a given combination of 1/Ao and Eo. Credit: Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch, University of Washington.
Figure 2 shows the spatial changes in ocean temperature and oxygen concentrations. Oceanic temperatures rise, particularly towards the poles, and with it a reduction in dissolved oxygen. As expected the greatest rises in temperature are at the shallower depths, particularly with the highly productive continental shelves. Oxygen level declines are most widely seen at all depths at the poles, but far less so in the tropics.
Figure 2. Permian/Triassic ocean temperature and O2. (A) Map of near surface (0 to 70 m) ocean warming across the Permian/Triassic (P/Tr) transition simulated in the Community Earth System Model. The region in gray represents the supercontinent Pangaea. (B) Simulated near surface ocean temperatures (red circles) in the eastern Paleo-Tethys (5°S to 20°N) and reconstructed from conodont d18Oapatite measurements (black circles) (4). The time scale of the d18Oapatite data (circles) has been shifted by 700,000 years to align it with d18Oapatite calibrated by U-Pb zircon dates (open triangles) (1), which also define the extinction interval (gray band). Error bars are 1°C. (C) Simulated zonal mean ocean warming (°C) across the P/Tr transition. (D) Map of seafloor oxygen levels in the Triassic simulation. Hatching indicates anoxic regions (O2 < 5 mmol/m3). (E) Simulated seafloor anoxic fraction Æanox (red circles). Simulated values are used to drive a published one-box ocean model of the oceanâs uranium cycle (8) and are compared to d238U isotope measurements of marine carbonates formed in the Paleo-Tethys (black circles). Error bars are 0.1â°. (F) Same as in (C) but for simulated changes in O2 concentrations (mmol/m3). Credit: Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch, University of Washington.
The authors conclude:
The correspondence between the simulated and observed geographic patterns of selectivity strongly implicates aerobic habitat loss, driven by rapid warming, as a main proximate cause of the end-Permian extinction.
However, while the temperature is the proximate cause, the authors note that other factors are also involved.
âIn our simulations, net primary productivity is reduced by ~40% globally, with strongest declines in the low latitudes, where essential nutrient supply to phytoplankton is most curtailed.â
Ocean acidification is also a potential factor, as we may be seeing today. Acidification will be higher at the poles, creating a habitat barrier for species that require more calcification.
Figure 3 is a schematic of the model, fitting the probable extinction rates to the fossil record. Their model predicts a latitudinal impact of warming that is also suggested by the fossil record. Their explanation for this spatial pattern is that tropical organisms are preadapted to warmer temperatures and lower O2 levels. As the oceans warm, these organisms migrate polewards to cooler waters. However, polar species have nowhere to migrate to, and therefore have a higher rate of extinction.
Figure 3. An illustration depicting the percentage of marine animals that went extinct at the end of the Permian era by latitude, from the model (black line) and from the fossil record (blue dots). The color of the water shows the temperature change, with red representing the most severe warming and yellow less warming. At the top is the supercontinent Pangaea, with massive volcanic eruptions emitting carbon dioxide. The images below the line represent some of the 96 percent of marine species that died during the event. Credit: Justin Penn and Curtis Deutsch, University of Washington.
As our current analog of the Permian climate change impacts the oceans, we are already seeing warm water species appearing in the cold North Atlantic, far north of their historic ranges. We can also expect species like the Arctic ice fish that has no red blood cells due to the high O2 concentrations in polar waters to become extinct as polar waters continue to warm.
What about the extinction of terrestrial life? 70% of terrestrial faunal species went extinct. The attractiveness of this theory is that it also applies to terrestrial life, although the oxygen depletion was not a factor. What is clear as well is that the CO2 increase heated the planet, overwhelming any cooling from dust blown up into the atmosphere, as experienced with the 2 year global cooling after Mt. Pinatubo erupted.
Had the Earth been closer to our sun, or temperatures risen further due to greater volcanic activity, the extinctions might conceivably have been 100% for all multicellular genera. Earth life might have been pushed back to primarily archaea and bacteria. The atmosphere might have reverted back to its Archaean state. If photosynthesizers were still present, how long would it take for aerobic multicellular life to evolve again?
The major extinctions have implications for life on exoplanets. Worlds closer to the inner edge of the HZ may be supportive of life if the atmosphere stays stable. However, as we have seen with the example of the Permian extinction, geologic processes can upset that balance, potentially making a world uninhabitable for a period, forcing any life to be restricted to simpler forms. How frequently could such events cause mass, even total extinctions, on other worlds, despite long-term conditions being favorable for life? It is perhaps worth considering whether the inner edge HZ limits should be made more conservative to allow for such events.
The paper is Penn et al., âTemperature-dependent hypoxia explains biogeography and severity of end-Permian marine mass extinctionâ Science Vol. 362, Issue 6419 (7 December 2018). Abstract (Full Text behind paywall).
Attackers are targeting two-factor authentication systems:
Attackers working on behalf of the Iranian government collected detailed information on targets and used that knowledge to write spear-phishing emails that were tailored to the targets' level of operational security, researchers with security firm Certfa Lab said in a blog post. The emails contained a hidden image that alerted the attackers in real time when targets viewed the messages. When targets entered passwords into a fake Gmail or Yahoo security page, the attackers would almost simultaneously enter the credentials into a real login page. In the event targets' accounts were protected by 2fa, the attackers redirected targets to a new page that requested a one-time password.
This isn't new. I wrote about this exact attack in 2005 and 2009.
For immediate release
OTTAWA (14 Dec 2018) â This morning, Josh Paterson, Executive Director of the BC Civil Liberties Association, reacted to the Supreme Court of Canadaâs ruling in R. v. Boudreault. The Court ruled that the mandatory victim surcharge is, for offenders who are too poor to be able to pay the surcharge, a cruel and unusual punishment that violates section 12 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Paterson stated: âThis is a huge win for fairness in the criminal justice system. Forcing offenders to pay this surcharge even when they had no ability to pay meant that many people were going to jail simply because they are poor. The Court found that this is cruel and unusual punishment that outrages the standards of decency. Even people with a less serious conviction could be dogged for years by collection efforts and the threat of imprisonment due to the fact they could not pay the surcharge. The government violated the constitution in 2013 by removing the discretion of judges to waive the surcharge for offenders who are genuinely unable to pay, and the government was wrong to have defended the law in 2018 rather than simply fixing it in Parliament.â
BCCLA was an intervenor in the case and argued that a punishment that meets the high standard to be considered a cruel and unusual punishment should never be justified under section 1 of the Charter as a reasonable limit on Canadiansâ rights within a free and democratic society. The Court held that it did not have to consider whether the violation of section 12 was justified, because the federal government made no argument on this point.
The Courtâs decision is here: https://scc-csc.lexum.com/scc-csc/scc-csc/en/item/17416/index.do
BCCLAâs full argument in the case can be found here.
BCCLA is represented by Greg Allen of Hunter Litigation Chambers.
The post RELEASE: BCCLA reacts to Supreme Court decision striking down mandatory victim surcharge law that results in poor people being imprisoned because they are poor appeared first on BC Civil Liberties Association.
When bacteria talk, Bonnie Bassler listens. She just never figured that viruses were listening, too.
Since the 1990s, the Princeton University biologist has been studying a phenomenon called quorum sensing, in which bacteria release molecules that indicate how many of their peers are around. Through these messages, they can coordinate their behavior and launch certain actionsâsuch as infectious attacksâonly when their numbers are large enough.
Basslerâs student Justin Silpe has now discovered that a virus can listen in on these signals, for sinister ends. The virus in question is a phageâa spidery thing that infects and kills bacteria. Once it infects its host, it has two modes: wait or kill. If it chooses the latter, it makes multitudes of daughter viruses that fatally burst through the host bacterium, ready to infect others. But what if there are no others around? âIf youâre a virus, if you donât get into another host, youâre doomed,â says Bassler.
[Read: Bacteria send electrical pulses as recruitment ads].
As Silpe found, the phage avoids this fate by detecting the same quorum-sensing signals that the bacteria use to gauge their numbers. It can effectively wait for its hosts to announce that theyâre plentiful, so that when it kills one, its progeny will assuredly find many more. âItâs so cunning to eavesdrop on a quorum-sensing molecule,â says Bassler. âNo one has seen that before.â
Quorum sensing was already a revolutionary concept. As Bassler uncovered its details over decades, she and others were shocked to realize that supposedly simple organisms such as bacteria could communicate and coordinate. But viruses are even simpler. Theyâre not even technically alive! Theyâre entirely different entities from bacteria, yet they are intercepting and interpreting the same molecular messages. Itâs like a rock eavesdropping on a bird.
The seeds of this discovery were planted a few years ago, when Basslerâs team identified a new kind of quorum-sensing system in Vibrio cholerae, the bacterium that causes cholera. It secretes a signaling molecule called DPO, which it detects using a protein called VqmA.
When the bacteria start to infect a host, there arenât many of them around, and the DPO signals they produce drift off into the ether. But as their numbers swell, the signals become more concentrated and start landing on the VqmA detectors. When this happens, it triggers a sequence of genes that reprogram the bacteria, turning off their ability to infect and turning on their ability to disperse. This is partly why âcholera is such an insidious disease,â says Bassler. Through quorum sensing, Vibrio cholerae can wait until the time is right, before âgetting out of the host by the gazillions to infect the next host.â
By searching through online databases, Silpe showed that many closely related Vibrio bacteria also have detectors that resemble VqmA. But so, apparently, did a virusâa phage called VP882, which some Taiwanese researchers had found from a marine Vibrio a decade ago. Was that a random coincidence? A mistake in the database? Or, as Silpe suggested, could the virus somehow be tapping into the messages of its hosts? âI thought, Weâre going to waste a lot of time on this, because itâs a crazy mistake,â says Bassler, cheerfully. âBut thatâs what we do.â
The researchers who found the VP882 virus had retired, but not before putting a sample of the host bacteria in a repository. It took six months for Silpe to track down that precious sample, and fortunately, those bacteria still had some virus inside them.
Through careful experiments, Silpe showed that his hunch was right: The virusâs version of VqmA can indeed detect the same DPO signals that the bacteria release. And when it does, it prompts the virus, which usually lies harmlessly in wait, to start killing its host. âThereâs a funny logic to it,â says Bassler. âAt high densities, cholera, a parasite, wants to leave its host and get into another host. And at high densities, the virus, a parasite of a parasite, wants to leave its host and get into another host. Theyâre doing the same thing [using the same signal molecule].â
The virus isnât just eavesdropping either. Remember how the cholera bacterium uses its VqmA detector to shift from infection to dispersal. Silpe found that the virusâs version of VqmA can launch the same genetic program, forcing its bacterial host to disperse. âThe phage, while itâs preparing to kill cholera, is also messing with hundreds of bacterial genes,â Bassler says. Perhaps thatâs all part of the same strategy: The phage not only ensures that its progeny have plenty of hosts to infect, but also ensures that those hosts spread far and wide.
VP882 has another odd quality: Unlike most phages, which are limited to specific hosts, it can infect a wide range of bacteria. It only listens to the messages exchanged by Vibrios, but Silpe managed to engineer it to eavesdrop on other species, including Salmonella and E. coli. And when it detects molecules that are present only in its targets, it kills them. This random virus is now a programmable assassin that Silpe can set to go after particular targets. âIt was like a gift from evolution to us,â says Bassler.
[Read: A bold new strategy for stopping the rise of superbugs]
For decades, scientists have tried to use phages to treat bacterial diseases, and these phage therapies are especially promising now that many bacteria have evolved to resist traditional antibiotics. But thereâs a catch: Phages are usually finicky in their hosts, so researchers would need to find a different virus for every bacterial infection they want to treat.
Silpeâs work offers an alternative strategy. âThey propose using a promiscuous phage that can infect many different bacterial species, but will only kill in response to a predefined cue,â says Adair Borges, who studies phages at the University of California, Santa Francisco. âItâs an interesting new take on phage therapy [that] allows for even more specificity and control over the bacteria that are killed.â
âThis isnât a phage therapy yet,â Bassler cautions. She and Silpe have only tested their programmed phages in test tubes, and it falls to other researchers to see whether the same approach could work in the clinic. Theyâre more interested in learning more about how phages work in nature, and they note that researchers have long underestimated these viruses. Last year, for example, another group, led by Rotem Sorek from the Weizmann Institute of Science, discovered that some phages have their own version of quorum sensing, trading messages that tell them when to kill their hosts.
âThese are inanimate, non-living viruses,â says Bassler. âThereâs something beautiful about how ancient communication is.â
The newest BSD Now covers the 12.0 release of FreeBSD, handily talks about setting up Synth, and links to an interview of the fellow behind GhostBSD.
There is an excellent episode of the PBS series Frontline about retirement planning that has a lot of good information about mutual and index funds. (Or at least I thought so. I am no expert.)
Itââ¬â¢s also available on Amazon Prime Video. Just search for Frontline, season 31, episode 12
.
As for managed mutual funds, I always wonder, if they really can dependably beat the stock market, why do they need commissions on my money? Wouldnââ¬â¢t they just make money by beating the stock market?
As always, thanks for using my Amazon Affiliate links (US, UK, Canada).
From the apertusº Open Source Cinema project:
The AXIOM photonSDI hardware is an extension board for the apertusº AXIOM Beta open source camera that adds 6G SDI connectivity to its features.
The board has two independent 6G SDI outputs that can both output the same image, different images, or be used in a dual 6G configuration that allows the transmission of 4k video material at 60 frames per second. Additionally the board contains a 6G SDI input for synchronisation and blending and a legacy synchronization input.
Piling on from last week's post, the squid emoji's siphon is in the wrong place.
As usual, you can also use this squid post to talk about the security stories in the news that I haven't covered.
Read my blog posting guidelines here.
(le français suit)
For immediate release
OTTAWA (13 Dec 2018) â Tomorrow, at 9:45am ET / 6:45am PT, December 14 2018, the Supreme Court of Canada will release its ruling in R. v. Boudreault, a case that questions the constitutionality of forcing a poor person convicted of a criminal offence to pay a surcharge that assists victims.
Everyone convicted of a criminal offence is required to pay a surcharge, but when a poor person is unable to pay, the effect is often that the individual is sentenced to imprisonment â on top of any other criminal code penalty to which they may be sentenced. In 2013, Parliament amended the Criminal Code to remove the discretion that judges had to waive the surcharge under certain circumstances.
âIn many cases, people are being sent to jail because they are poor and unable to pay this mandatory surcharge,â said Josh Paterson, Executive Director of the BCCLA. âThis case could find that that is unconstitutional. It could make clear what cruel and unusual punishment means under our Charter of Rights. We argue that certain kinds of punishment are so abhorrent and intolerable that they are never justified.â
Mr. Boudreault argues that the mandatory victim fine surcharge ordered against him are cruel and unusual punishment, contrary to section 12 of the Charter.
BCCLA was an intervenor in the case to argue that a punishment that meets the high standard to be considered a cruel and unusual punishment should never be justified under section 1 of the Charter as a reasonable limit on Canadiansâ rights within a free and democratic society.
BCCLAâs full argument in the case can be found here.
BCCLA is represented by Greg Allen of Hunter Litigation Chambers.
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WHAT: Supreme Court of Canada ruling in R. v. Boudreault
WHEN: 9:45 am ET / 6:45 am PT, Friday, December 14, 2018
Â
Pour diffusion immédiate
OTTAWA (13 déc. 2018) â Demain, à 9h45 (HE) / 14h45 (HP), le 14 décembre 2018, la Cour suprême du Canada rendra sa décision dans lâaffaire R. c. Boudreault, une affaire qui met en doute la constitutionnalité de forcer un individu qui est pauvre reconnu coupable dâune infraction pénale de payer une suramende.
Toute personne déclarée coupable dâune infraction pénale est tenue de payer une surtaxe. Toutefous, lorsquâune personne vivant dans la pauvreté est incapable de payer, il en résulte souvent que la personne est condamnée à une peine dâemprisonnement, en plus de toute autre peine prévue par le code pénal à laquelle elle pourrait être condamnée. En 2013, le Parlement a modifié le Code criminel pour supprimer le pouvoir discrétionnaire selon lequel les juges devaient renoncer à la suramende compensatoire dans certaines circonstances.
« Dans de nombreux cas, des personnes sont envoyées en prison parce quâelles sont pauvres et incapables de payer cette suramende obligatoire , a déclaré Josh Paterson, directeur exécutif de la BCCLA. « Cette affaire pourrait trouver que câest inconstitutionnel. Cela pourrait expliquer ce que signifie une peine cruelle et inusitée dans le cadre de notre Charte des droits. Nous soutenons que certains types de punition sont si odieux et intolérables quâils ne sont jamais justifiés.
LâALCCB était une intervenante dans lâaffaire pour faire valoir quâune peine qui respecte le haut niveau pour être considérée comme une peine cruelle et inhabituelle ne devrait jamais être justifiée en vertu de lâarticle 1 de la Charte en tant que limite raisonnable des droits des Canadiens dans une société libre et démocratique.
Lâargumentation complète de BCCLA dans cette affaire peut être consultée ici.
BCCLA est représentée par Greg Allen, de Hunter Litigation Chambers.
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QUOI: Décision de la Cour suprême du Canada dans lâaffaire R. c. Boudreault
QUAND: 9h45 HE / 6h45 HE, le vendredi 14 décembre 2018
The post Advisory: Supreme Court to rule on mandatory victim surcharge law that results in poor people being imprisoned because they are poor appeared first on BC Civil Liberties Association.
A new email extortion scam is making the rounds, threatening that someone has planted bombs within the recipientâs building that will be detonated unless a hefty bitcoin ransom is paid by the end of the business day.
Sources at multiple U.S. based financial institutions reported receiving the threats, which included the subject line, âI advise you not to call the police.â
The email reads:
My man carried a bomb (Hexogen) into the building where your company is located. It is constructed under my direction. It can be hidden anywhere because of its small size, it is not able to damage the supporting building structure, but in the case of its detonation you will get many victims.
My mercenary keeps the building under the control. If he notices any unusual behavior or emergency he will blow up the bomb.
I can withdraw my mercenary if you pay. You pay me 20.000 $ in Bitcoin and the bomb will not explode, but donât try to cheat -I warrant you that I will withdraw my mercenary only after 3 confirmations in blockchain network.
Here is my Bitcoin address : 1GHKDgQX7hqTM7mMmiiUvgihGMHtvNJqTv
You have to solve problems with the transfer by the end of the workday. If you are late with the money explosive will explode.
This is just a business, if you donââ¬â¢t send me the money and the explosive device detonates, other commercial enterprises will transfer me more money, because this isnt a one-time action.
I wont visit this email. I check my Bitcoin wallet every 35 min and after seeing the money I will order my recruited person to get away.
If the explosive device explodes and the authorities notice this letter:
We are not terrorists and dont assume any responsibility for explosions in other buildings.
The bitcoin address included in the email was different in each message forwarded to KrebsOnSecurity. In that respect, this scam is reminiscent of the various email sextortion campaigns that went viral earlier this year, which led with a password the recipient used at some point in the past and threatened to release embarrassing videos of the recipient unless a bitcoin ransom was paid.
I could see this spam campaign being extremely disruptive in the short run. There is little doubt that some businesses receiving this extortion email will treat it as a credible threat. This is exactly what happened today at one of the banks that forwarded me their copy of this email. Also, KrebsOnSecurity has received reports that numerous school districts across the country have closed schools early today in response to this hoax email threat.
âThere are several serious legal problems with this â people will be calling the police, and they cannot ignore even a known hoax,â said Jason McNew, CEO and founder of Stronghold Cyber Security, a consultancy based in Gettysburg, Pa.
This is a developing story, and may be updated throughout the day.
Update: 4:46 p.m. ET: Added bit about school closings.
Despite being a Vi/Vim user for over two decades when I switched to using Emacs, I learned the default key bindings and never looked back. It was a choice that worked well for me and Iâve never regretted it. Thatâs why Iâm always puzzled by the frequent and loud complaints about those key bindings. One user even asked the Emacs subreddit why people use the default bindings.
Some people prefer the Vim bindings because theyâre easier on the hands. Others, like Xah Lee, have completely different bindings for efficiency reasons. I understand and accept all that but I donât understand why people think the default binding are ridiculous and make no sense.
Over at the Emacs subreddit, c17g makes the case that the defaults make perfect sense and follow an easy to understand scheme. His post strikes me as well reasoned and convincing. Others will, Iâm sure, disagree but if your complaint is that the bindings are too long and hard to understand, then c17g has a cogent counter argument.
Of course, if your complaint is that the bindings aggravate your RSI then your problem is chording and one of the Vi emulation packages is certainly a better bet. If youâre like Lee and want to minimize your lifetime keystrokes, you should take a look at Fly Keys and see if they work for you.
As usual, Emacs doesnât force any particular way of doing things on us so we can all have it our way.
VANCOUVER, B.C. (Coast Salish Territories) â This morning, the Supreme Court of Canada rejected a bid by the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) to fast-track its lawsuit that argues the right to assisted dying is unfairly limited by the governmentâs current law. The trial is expected to take place in November 2019.
Josh Paterson, Executive Director for the BCCLA, stated: âWe will vigorously fight this case at trial, but the result of todayâs decision is that the federal government will have the opportunity to have a second kick at the can and re-litigate lots of factual questions that they already lost in the Carter case. With respect, we are disappointed that the Court has decided not to hear our appeal, which might have stopped the government from having a virtual do-over on the evidence from the earlier assisted dying case.â
At the end of this week, the BCCLA will deliver affidavit evidence from over 30 witnesses in support of its case to the federal government, with more expert evidence expected to be filed next year before the trial.
The BCCLA and Julia Lamb launched the legal challenge, Lamb v. Canada, in 2016, 10 days after Parliament passed Bill C-14 â the governmentâs assisted dying legislation. The civil rights watchdog said the legislation unlawfully restricted eligibility for a medically assisted death to people who were already dying. In particular, the BCCLA argued that the requirement of a âreasonably foreseeable deathâ was in violation of Canadiansâ charter rights, leaving some Canadians trapped in intolerable suffering.
In June of 2017, the BCCLA asked the B.C. Supreme Court to prevent Canada from re-litigating certain factual findings decided in the earlier assisted dying case, Carter v. Canada, the BCCLAâs landmark case that secured the right to a dignified death for suffering Canadians. The BCCLA argued that it would mean a shorter, faster, less expensive trial â which would make it possible to bring relief sooner to suffering Canadians.
The BCCLA lost that application before the B.C. Supreme Court, and the B.C. Court of Appeal refused to overturn that decision. The BCCLA sought to challenge the Court of Appeal decision by seeking leave to the Supreme Court of Canada, but the Court refused to grant leave to hear the appeal this morning.
Read the BCCLAâs argument for leave here.
The post Release: Assisted dying â Supreme Court rejects bid to fast-track assisted dying trial appeared first on BC Civil Liberties Association.
This year, Hawaiiâs Kilauea volcano provided a spectacular demonstration of natureâs power, as earthquakes, eruptions, and lava flows took place and fissures developed from May through August, forcing evacuations and destroying hundreds of homes. But Kilauea was not aloneâout of an estimated 1,500 active volcanoes, 50 or so erupt every year, spewing steam, ash, toxic gases, and lava. In 2018, other erupting volcanoes included the Fuego volcano in Guatemala; Shinmoedake peak in Japan; Mount Sinabung , Mount Agung, and Anak Krakatau (âChild of Krakatoaâ) in Indonesia; Piton de la Fournaise on Réunion Island; Mount Etna in Italy; Villarrica in Chile; the Mayon volcano in the Philippines, and more. Collected below are scenes from the wide variety of volcanic activity on Earth over the past year.
("t" "Todo" entry (file+headline "~/org/tasks.org" "Tasks")
"* %?\n %i\n %a\nAdded: %U")
Last week, Australia passed a law giving the government the ability to demand backdoors in computers and communications systems. Details are still to be defined, but it's really bad.
Note: Many people e-mailed me to ask why I haven't blogged this yet. One, I was busy with other things. And two, there's nothing I can say that I haven't said many times before.
If there are more good links or commentary, please post them in the comments.
EDITED TO ADD (12/13): The Australian government response is kind of embarrassing.