#Arkhaven INFOGALACTIC #Castalia House
If you’re in an INDIVIDUAL arbitration action, check your email. If you’re not sure, or if you’re in the group action, THIS DOES NOT MEAN YOU. Do NOT email me to ask if I mean you.
This is going to go on for a LONG time. By which I mean we might be able to expect it to be over by June 2020. I’d hate to imagine how long it would have taken if we weren’t using the Streamlined Rules.
No worries. If we’ve got one thing going for us, it is stamina.
Intel is throwing out many years of engineering. Again! 10 nm is not working for them. And this latest shrink is on them to develop. Too bad they hire so many Indians who are unqualified to do this kind of work. AMD is doing much better and shipping chips in a timely manner. AMD owns the server market hopefully they can take over the desktop and laptop markets too. Much better engineering departments at AMD. The laptop market is being driven by other chip makers working on a variety of new designs. Intel can no longer innovate gadgets which people are using. Apple is also feeling the engineering gap.
All those H1B visa folks are cheap workers but unproductive and mostly untrained. If a company could break themselves of the H1B habit they could hire American engineering students who have been trained. I don’t think companies understand their bottom line is highly effected by the quality of the product they produce. It is not dependent on cheap labor but on skilled labor. Luckily AMD understands this. They will prevail.
Diversity = commitment to shorter and shorter time preferences. This is an intrinsically dyscivilizational development and will eventually lead, not only to technological stagnation, but technological regression.
The Brexit Party is crushing both the Tories and Labour in the European Election polls:
The Brexit Party has surged into the lead in the race for the European Elections after a top pollster predicted Nigel Farage’s new party could win its first election. A second YouGov survey on the state of the party’s ahead of EU Parliament elections shows the Brexit Party rising dramatically from 15 per cent to 27 per cent.
Most of the gain comes at the expense of Ukip – which when led by Mr Farage won the 2014 contest – which plunged from 14 per cent to 7 per cent.
Labour falls to second place on 22 per cent, down two, and the Tories are now third on 15 per cent.
The sensational new result comes after YouGov Political Research Manager Chris Curtis said it was ‘entirely plausible’ Mr Farage could upset conventional wisdom about new parties to top the poll.
Mr Curtis said a combination of a weak Tory party and Mr Farage’s direct attack on Ukip’s drift toward the hard right would all help the Brexit Party.
Adding to the trouble for Theresa May’s party are fears of a ‘donor strike’ amid fury at the Prime Minister’s handling of Brexit.
It would be more than ironic, it would be revolutionary if Theresa May manages to completely destroy the Conservative Party over her treasonous refusal to keep her word and accept that No Deal was better than a bad deal.
A single early poll concerning European elections that should never have taken place is a long, long way from winning in an actual UK Parliamentary election, but it is one hell of a start.
This is an interesting article that addresses how the credit bubble has been caught up in the situation I have described as “credit disinflation” and the way it is now bogging down the US and global economies.
In the San Joaquin Valley, vast irrigation networks convey water thousands of miles to make the desert bloom. But as surface water is conveyed along the open California aqueduct, it both evaporates and collects mineral deposits. The combination of these factors concentrates the water’s salt content. Then, as it is applied to irrigation, the residual salts collect in the soil.
After decades of this, along with the over-application of fertilizer through mechanized fertigation systems, the salt in the soil has built up so that it strangles the roots of the plants. To combat this, over-watering is required, because the irrigation water – while salty – is fresher than the salt encrusted soil. By applying excess irrigation water, the soils around the plants are temporarily freshened up so that crops can grow.
Yet, at the same time, this over-watering accelerates the mass quantity of salt being applied to the soil. There is no outlet for the salt to flush to; the valley is the basin’s terminus. Thus, in this grand paradox, the relative freshness of the excess water that is keeping the farmland alive is, at the same time, the source of the salt that is killing it. Reisner further explains:
“Nowhere is the salinity problem more serious than in the San Joaquin Valley of California, the most productive farming region in the entire world. There you have a shallow impermeable clay layer, the residual bottom of an ancient sea, underlying a million or so acres of fabulously profitable land. During the irrigation season, temperatures in the valley fluctuate between 90 and 110 degrees; the good water evaporates as if the sky were a sponge, the junk water goes down, and the problem gets worse and worse. Very little of the water seeps through the Corcoran Clay, so it rises back up to the root zones — in places, the clay is only a few feet down — water logs the land, and kills the crops.”
So, too, goes the U.S. economy. After nearly a decade of rapidly expanding its balance sheet, and pumping cheap credit and excess liquidity into financial markets, the Fed has produced a similar paradox. They must keep expanding the money base to keep the economy afloat… but in doing so they are ultimately killing it.
Both the credit problem and the salinity problem stem from the same cause: short term time preferences. And, as we know, civilization absolutely depends on long term time preferences, on men planting trees in the shade of which they will never sit.
The USA increasingly embraces the idea that group identity is more important than merit:
Millennials and Generation Z believe representation of all races and religions in the workplace is more important than hiring based on merit, according to a new survey.
Roughly half (51 percent) of Millennials (age 22-39) and Generation Z (age 18-21) said that ‘fair representation of race, ethnicity and religion is paramount to creating the ideal workplace,’ according to the poll of 2,002 Americans conducted by John Zogby Strategies.
By comparison, 48 percent of Generation X (age 40-54) and 42 percent of Baby Boomers (age 55-74) agreed with that statement. Just 15 percent of Generation Z and 32 percent of Millennials agreed with the statement that ‘merit and competition supersede all, even if that results in a workplace that creates minimal diversity.’
Meanwhile, 37 percent of Generation X and 45 percent of Baby Boomers said that merit is more important than diversity.
‘There are really two opposing schools, I guess you could say that there’s one that’s on the side of progressive ideology, whereas the other one is more in line with the way business was always run,’ Jeremy Zogby, a partner in Zogby Strategies, told DailyMail.com. ‘There is definitely a progressive slant in Millennials and Gen Z.’
Among all Americans, 47 percent prioritized diversity in workplace hiring, while 37 percent said merit should matter most.
Just as identity politics trump ideology politics, mediocrity trumps merit in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society. Welcome to life as the Third World has always known it.
This, however, is a trend that you need not accept. Pursue excellence even as you embrace your identity.
But this could be the most catastrophic application of Hultgreen-Curie Syndrome in human history:
Scientists managed to capture the very first direct image of a black hole – and it was all thanks to a graduate at MIT. Three years ago Dr. Katie Bouman, now 29, created an algorithm that collects data from telescopes across the world to stitch together a photograph of the phenomenon which is 55million light years away.
Her work, which essentially turned Earth into a virtual telescope, has been praised across the political spectrum by First Daughter Ivanka Trump, Kamala Harris and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and by A-listers including Sophia Bush and Olivia Munn.
Without her groundbreaking work, the supermassive black hole would be simply impossible to capture because it would need a 10,000-kilometer wide telescope dish to even attempt it. The largest telescope dish in the world currently is just a 1,000ft in diameter.
It’s a magnificent scientific achievement, no doubt about it. But it’s a first, a very big first, and that’s precisely what makes me nervous about the whole thing.
PayPal just banned my account and froze my money for 180 days.
Things are really getting out of hand. And here I thought these people idolized George Carlin!
Military historian Martin van Creveld’s guest analyst considers the current situation in Syria from four different perspectives and arrives at some surprising conclusions:
The situation around Russia in Syria is up for debate. No doubt, Russia would like to lead a reconstruction effort in Syria, in harmony with all relevant partners, including the UN, the EU, the USA, China, India, Turkey, Iran, Israel, the Sunni Arab states including the Golf Council Countries (GCC-states), Egypt and Morocco. However, many of the parties on the list of wished-for partners are strongly hostile to each other, and it might therefore perhaps not be possible for Russia to make all these ends come together, or to cut through the proverbial “Gordian Knot”. If Russia cannot create a reconstruction for all of Syria, which is what Russia wants most of all, then Russia will have to think about a “second option” for Russia’s future presence in Syria.
What might be a “second option” for Russia in Syria?
It would not make sense at any rate for Russia to leave Syria completely. After all, Russia has spent a lot of blood and treasure to achieve the stabilization now achieved, it does not want a resurgence of Sunni extremism by groups like ISIS and similar, and it has strategic interests in Syria, including an air base and a naval base.
However, as a “second option”, if the preferred cooperation for reconstruction of all of Syria should not be achievable, would be for Russia to concentrate and reduce her presence to a part of Syria. Russia can entrench itself in north-west Syria, creating its own zone of exclusive Russian military control and administration together with Syrian forces which are sympathetic to Russia as well as to Syria’s current government. Such a “Russian” zone could consist of a square of Syria consisting of Latakia, Tartus, Homs, and Ma’arat-Al-Numan.
The area mentioned above is already mainly controlled by Russia (incl. Russia-friendly units). Good. The area contains the air and naval bases pivotal for Russian military power. Good. The area will enable Russia to keep naval and air supplies possible from outside. Good. The area is strategically located to enable Russia to reenter all other parts of Syria, north, east and south. Good. The region mentioned contains a great deal of Syria’s population, including many of the Alawites, of which a large part support the existing Syrian government under President Bashar Al-Assad. Russia can thus expect to achieve social stability, without having to allocate a lot of military resources to constantly handle large-scale hostile actions inside this zone. The area holds a great part of Syria’s economic and reconstruction-potential. Good. The ports are open for imports of food, medicine, and raw materials—and being the only ports of Syria, they even control import-export of goods to the rest of Syria. Excellent. The ports will facilitate a reconstructed economy in this area. Great.
I don’t think Russia is going to be overly concerned about reconstruction. Their priority will remain stopping the neocon-inspired imperialist offensives around the world. My take on Israel is that a re-elected and newly empowered Prime Minister Netanyahu is going to prioritize the annexations of the settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and try to dial down the conflict in Syria in the meantime. In light of the failure to unseat Assad or establish ISIS as a proxy army to replace the US military in the Middle East, further securing the Golan Heights and seeking diplomatic approval for its annexation is probably the primary Israeli objective concerning Syria.
The USA increasingly embraces the idea that group identity is more important than merit:
Millennials and Generation Z believe representation of all races and religions in the workplace is more important than hiring based on merit, according to a new survey.
Roughly half (51 percent) of Millennials (age 22-39) and Generation Z (age 18-21) said that ‘fair representation of race, ethnicity and religion is paramount to creating the ideal workplace,’ according to the poll of 2,002 Americans conducted by John Zogby Strategies.
By comparison, 48 percent of Generation X (age 40-54) and 42 percent of Baby Boomers (age 55-74) agreed with that statement. Just 15 percent of Generation Z and 32 percent of Millennials agreed with the statement that ‘merit and competition supersede all, even if that results in a workplace that creates minimal diversity.’
Meanwhile, 37 percent of Generation X and 45 percent of Baby Boomers said that merit is more important than diversity.
‘There are really two opposing schools, I guess you could say that there’s one that’s on the side of progressive ideology, whereas the other one is more in line with the way business was always run,’ Jeremy Zogby, a partner in Zogby Strategies, told DailyMail.com. ‘There is definitely a progressive slant in Millennials and Gen Z.’
Among all Americans, 47 percent prioritized diversity in workplace hiring, while 37 percent said merit should matter most.
Just as identity politics trump ideology politics, mediocrity trumps merit in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic society. Welcome to life as the Third World has always known it.
This, however, is a trend that you need not accept. Pursue excellence even as you embrace your identity.
Indiegogo gets absolutely terrible consumer ratings at Consumer Affairs. 1.5 stars out of 5. And the reviews are pretty incredible, especially in the way Indiegogo appears to be totally indifferent to obvious scams.
These aren’t cherry-picked reviews either. They’re just five of the seven most-recently posted.