Transplant is "compassionate use" rather than part of a clinical trial.
On Monday, the University of Maryland School of Medicine announced that its staff had completed the first transplant of a pig's heart into a human. The patient who received the heart had end-stage heart disease and was too sick to qualify for the standard transplant list. Three days after the procedure, the patient was still alive.
The idea of using non-human organs as replacements for damaged human ones—called xenotransplantation—has a long history, inspired by the fact that there are more people on organ waiting lists than there are donors. And in recent years, our ability to do targeted gene editing has motivated researchers to start genetically modifying pigs in order to make them better donors. But the recent surgery wasn't part of a clinical trial, so it shouldn't be viewed as an indication that this approach is ready for widespread safety and efficacy testing.
Instead, the surgery was authorized by the Food and Drug Administration under its "compassionate use" access program, which allows patients facing life-threatening illnesses to receive investigational treatments that haven't gone through rigorous clinical testing yet.
The heart used for this transplant did come from a genetically modified line that was specifically engineered to reduce the chance of rejection by the human immune system. //
I hope he gets his pilot's license.
Sooo... who gets the donor's bacon?
Glad a pig was able to save this guy's bacon!
Jacki Kotkiewicz
@jackikotkiewicz
This is the HIGHEST inflation we've seen in OVER 39 YEARS #Bidenflation
Gas: +49.6% since last year
Bacon: +18.6%
Eggs: +11.1%
Chicken: +10.4%
Fresh Fish: +10.2%
Shoes: +6%
Dresses: +8%
Cigarettes: +9.6%
Furniture: +13.8%
Used Cars & Trucks: +37.3%
Car & Truck Rentals: +36%
8:47 AM · Jan 12, 2022
Lastly, it should be mentioned that the Biden administration actually changed the calculation for inflation. In other words, it’s likely that 7 percent number is watered down, making the comparison to 1982 apples to oranges. That’s how bad things are.
Sen. Roger Marshall of Kansas, who is also a doctor, who went there on the DARPA report. First, Marshall notes that there were more deaths under Joe Biden than under President Donald Trump. That’s the chart you see behind him in the following video. But then he tells Fauci that 59 percent of Americans didn’t trust him. Fauci replies that that was a real “distortion of reality.”
Next, Marshall hones in on the gain of function research lie. He noted how DARPA rejected a proposal but the NIAID didn’t reject it under Fauci. Marshall asks why had Fauci previously said that they hadn’t funded gain of function research when the report indicated that they had. He also asks if Fauci would commit to providing all the documents on this subject — unredacted — to Congress by the end of this week.
Fauci denies that they had funded the grant, but Marshall says they would have all the supporting information available. Fauci’s response to that is crazy, claiming that Marshall was “backing down from this,” which didn’t match what Marshall had said. Fauci just keeps saying that Marshall is incorrect, so Marshall challenges him to provide all the unredacted information.
How on Earth do you patch the software on a computer orbiting the Moon? Very carefully.
FRANK O’BRIEN - 1/30/2020, 12:30 PM
In the afternoon of January 31, 1971, the flight thundered away from the Kennedy Space Center on its Saturn V launch vehicle after only a brief 40 minute hold for weather. After restarting the S-IVB third stage for trans-lunar injection (TLI), the command module Kitty Hawk and her crew were on their way to the Moon. //
However, less than four hours before the scheduled landing, controllers noticed that according to the indications on their consoles in Mission Control, the LM's Abort pushbutton appeared to have been pressed. When asked via radio, Shepard confirmed that no one on board Antares had pressed the Abort button—which meant there was a short-circuit or other electrical issue somewhere inside the LM's complicated guts.
This was potentially a mission-ending problem: if the button was pressed and the engine was firing, the LM would immediately begin its abort procedure as soon as the lunar descent started, making a landing impossible.
Under hard time pressure, the ground had to quickly figure out what was wrong and devise a workaround. What they came up with was the most brilliant computer hack of the entire Apollo program, and possibly in the entire history of electronic computing.
To explain exactly what the hack was, how it functioned, and the issues facing the developers during its creation, we need to dig deep into how the Apollo Guidance Computer worked. Hold onto your hats, Ars readers—we're going in. //
Once again the LM’s orbit carried it behind the Moon and out of communications, leaving the crew with just a smattering of procedures and few options. The normal work of finishing the system configurations continued, and the crew maneuvered to the descent attitude, tidied up the cabin, and put on their helmets and gloves. In the meantime, Don Eyles’ team was feverishly working to find a better solution to the Abort bit issue.
Working the problem involved unraveling a complex, daisy-chained series of events. The main landing program, P63, does not perform all of the landing computations itself. Rather, it orchestrates a large number of Jobs and Waitlist Tasks, each performing a necessary part of the effort. Another Job running concurrently was the SERVICER, which sampled attitudes and accelerations that fed into the guidance equations. SERVICER, in turn, scheduled Routine R11 as a Waitlist Task, running every 0.25 seconds. R11 first checked whether aborts are enabled (via the LETABBIT flag), and if so, it then checked the status of the Abort bit. With aborts allowed, and the abort signal set (presumably because the crew pressed the Abort pushbutton), P63 is terminated, the AGC's Major Mode switches to P70, and the abort process begins. //
This was the breakthrough. If R11 could be spoofed into believing that an abort was already in progress, then it didn’t matter if the Abort button was pressed or not—the button's state would be ignored.
But how did R11 actually inform itself about whether or not an abort was executing? The answer was in plain sight on the DSKY: The Major Mode display, under the label “PROG”. //
In less than two minutes after the descent to the Moon had started, the Abort pushbutton had been successfully disabled and the computer was happily managing the descent. All indications were that the next lunar landing would be successfully accomplished in eight more minutes. //
As Antares passed through 32,000 feet (about 9,700 meters), Mitchell became concerned and informed controllers that the radar hadn’t locked on. Houston replied with a suggestion to pull the circuit breaker for the radar, and then power the system back on, which did the trick. Solid radar data began flowing into the computer, and the crew quickly agreed to accept it. Just a few minutes later, Shepard made a smooth and on-target touchdown at the Fra Mauro highlands.
After the mission, when asked if he would have attempted to land without the radar, the notoriously hard-charging Shepard reportedly replied, “You’ll never know.” In Gene Kranz’s Failure is Not an Option autobio, Kranz recounts that Flight Director Jerry Griffin was convinced that Shepard would indeed make an attempt to land without radar, and would just as certainly have had to abort when fuel ran out. //
The idea that a single errant switch could derail a lunar landing attempt was unacceptable. After the mission, a new variable in the AGC code was introduced that allowed the crew to "mask out" (that is, to ignore) the Abort and Abort Stage pushbuttons. The scenario assumed that a failing switch would be recognized well before the descent began, and commands could be entered in time to prevent an inadvertent abort. Like the fix used for Apollo 14, this would make initiating an abort through a pushbutton impossible, and any urgent situation would have to be performed on the Abort Guidance System. //
The recovery from Apollo 14’s Abort switch failure can only be described as brilliant and heroic. But the most important enabler of this effort was that the software, while fiendishly complex, could be understood by a small team of developers. Modern hardware and software, with its extensive protection schemes, virtualization and dynamic program management simply would make such a simple hack impossible. Faced with a comparable problem today, even if the fix were trivial, the solution likely would require large amounts of code to be recompiled, tested and uploaded to the spacecraft. This may not be possible given the short timeframe necessary to save the mission.
In the end, Apollo 14’s fix truly represented the “Spirit of Apollo," where talented teams made the impossible happen.
Q:
As far as I know, current versions of Mozilla Firefox store the saved passwords (encrypted with 3DES) to the logins.json file meanwhile the keys are stored in key4.db (or key3.db in older versions).
If one hasn't set up a Master Key for the passwords, the key database file can then be accessed. In the database, I've encountered an entry that does indeed look like the keys.
| id | item1 | item2 |
|---|---|---|
| password | ... | ... |
So, why possibly are there two 3DES keys in the database? Are they really encryption keys? How can I use them to decrypt the logins.json data? Which keying option is being used?
A:
In the data structure, item1 is the global salt, and item2 contains (in DER encoding) the entry salt and the encrypted key. This key is used to encrypt the rest of the data (per username and password).
The encryption of the master key is done with 3DES-CBC, with a key (and IV) derived from the master password, a global salt and a "per entry" salt. By default, the master password is the empty string. The password's entropy is bounded to 160 bits by sha1, which is further bounded to 112 bits by 3DES. The password is not hardened using multiple iterations of an hash.
The encryption of items (usernames and passwords) is done using 3DES-CBC, with an IV included in the metadata of each item. How IV is generated cannot be guessed from this source of the algorithm.
Unless the IVs are poorly generated, the small amount of data encrypted means that the best attack on 3DES is brute-forcing the master key or the user's password. The upper bound of 112 bits means that is this algorithm is considered weak by today standards: a big organization with huge resources might be able to brute-force the key in a few decades. Quantum computers might break them faster.
In practice, this means that a good, long passphrase must be used as the master password.
For user convenience, web browsers store the account and password entered into the login form when the user visits a website and provide the feature to enter them automatically upon revisiting. The password management feature is enabled by default on Chromium-based web browsers (Edge, Chrome).
Figure. Chrome pop-up suggesting to save password
The information entered when logging in is saved to the Login Data file via the password management feature.
Chrome C:\Users\<User name>\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\Login Data
Edge C:\Users\<User name>\AppData\Local\MicrosoftEdge\User\Default\Login Data
Login Data is an SQLite database file, and the account and password information are saved to the logins table. In addition to accounts and passwords, the time saved, URL of the login site, and the number of times of access is saved to the logins table.
If the user refuses to save account and password information of a site, in order to remember this, the blacklisted_by_user field will be set as 1, the username_value and password_value fields will not have accounts or passwords, and only the origin_url information is saved to the logins table. //
– Collecting and stealing information saved to browsers
– Login account and password
– Cookies
– Autofill
– Credit card information
– Browsers targeted for attack
– All Chromium-based browsers
– All Gecko-based browsers
– Cryptocurrency wallet information
– Seed file saved to the system
Fadavi crowed that the Obama administration was extremely accommodating: “However, the Americans realized very soon that they were the accused, that they were the criminals on death row, and that they are at risk of being targeted by the full force of the IRGC. So they acted quickly.” Clearly the Obama team was trying to smooth over the situation, and Fadavi saw this as a sign of submission: “They replaced the person communicating with us from the aircraft carrier with a woman who spoke Persian. Two out of every three words she said was ‘fine,’ which translated into ‘I am obeying your orders.’ They did very quickly what we asked them to do.”
That incident, Fadavi asserted, was an indication of the nature of the relationship between Iran and the United States today: “This is the status of the Americans, this is the status of the enemies of Allah, and this is the status of those who stand with the axis of Falsehood. We do not have the slightest doubt that at the right time, when we strike America — the Great Satan — and its Zionist followers, we will strike them with great force.” //
Fadavi crowed that the Obama administration was extremely accommodating: “However, the Americans realized very soon that they were the accused, that they were the criminals on death row, and that they are at risk of being targeted by the full force of the IRGC. So they acted quickly.” Clearly the Obama team was trying to smooth over the situation, and Fadavi saw this as a sign of submission: “They replaced the person communicating with us from the aircraft carrier with a woman who spoke Persian. Two out of every three words she said was ‘fine,’ which translated into ‘I am obeying your orders.’ They did very quickly what we asked them to do.”
That incident, Fadavi asserted, was an indication of the nature of the relationship between Iran and the United States today: “This is the status of the Americans, this is the status of the enemies of Allah, and this is the status of those who stand with the axis of Falsehood. We do not have the slightest doubt that at the right time, when we strike America — the Great Satan — and its Zionist followers, we will strike them with great force.”
Dutch Lawmaker Refutes the Claim that '97% of Scientists Agree on Manmade Global Warming' – PJ Media
“How often do we hear,” Baudet says, “that 97% of scientists agree that humans are the cause of climate change; that this climate change is severe, posing a major threat to the planet; and that we need a drastic reduction in our carbon dioxide emissions.”
“All of this, and I do mean all of it, is false. It’s a blatant lie that 97% of scientists agree with it. In reality, only 1.6% agree with [those] statements,” he goes on, after which he explains that there are major disagreements on this among climatologists, geologists, chemists, physicians, and so on.
“This myth” about the 97% was famously propagated by former U.S. President Barack Obama. “On May 16, 2013, he posted, and I quote,” Baudet explains, “’97 percent of scientists agree, climate change is real, manmade and dangerous.’ With this tweet, Obama referred to a paper published the same year by a man named John Cook.”
And that’s where it goes wrong. Because Cook is a “controversial” climate activist who even runs a ridiculous alarmist website called scepticalscience.com. “In this paper, he aims to demonstrate an overwhelming scientific consensus with the obvious intention of strengthening the environmentalist cause. To do so he analyzed 12,000 articles published in learned journals containing the words ‘global warming’ or ‘climate change.’ He then subdivided these articles into seven different categories.” //
That’s right. In fact, only 1.6% of papers stated that mankind plays a significant role in global warming.
Cook made that 1.6% look like 97%, however, and he did so by using some handy statistical tricks. As they say: There are lies, damned lies, and statistics. //
As a result, Baudet concludes, you can only say that a majority of scientists believe that there has been “a slow, marginal warming trend since the 1850s. But the end result that 97% of scientists would agree that man is mainly responsible for this is utter nonsense.
As we recently detailed in a 25,000-word article, Google's messaging history is one of constant product startups and shutdowns. Thanks to a lack of product focus or any kind of top-down mandate from Google's CEO, no division is really "in charge" of messaging. As a consequence, the company has released 13 halfhearted messaging products since iMessage launched in 2011. If Google has anyone to blame for the iMessage's dominance, it should start with itself, since it has continually sabotaged and abandoned its own plans to make an iMessage competitor.
Messaging is important, and even if it isn't directly monetizable, a dominant messaging app has real, tangible benefits for an ecosystem. The rest of the industry understood this years ago. Facebook paid $22 billion to buy WhatsApp in 2014 and took the app from 450 million users to 2 billion users. Along with Facebook Messenger, Facebook has two dominant messaging platforms today, especially internationally. Salesforce paid $27 billion for Slack in 2020, and Tencent's WeChat, a Chinese messaging app, is pulling in 1.2 billion users and yearly revenues of $5.5 billion. Snapchat is up to a $67 billion market cap, and Telegram is getting $40 billion valuations from investors. Google keeps trying ideas in this market, but it never makes an investment that is anywhere close to the competition. //
Google once had a functional competitor to iMessage in the past, called Google Hangouts. Circa 2015, Hangouts was a messaging powerhouse, which in addition to the native Hangouts messaging, also received SMS and Google Voice messages. Hangouts did group video calls five years before Zoom blew up, and it had clients on Android, iOS, the web, Gmail, and every desktop OS via a Chrome extension.
As usual though, Google lacked any kind of long-term plan or ability to commit to a single messaging strategy, and Hangouts only survived as the "everything" messenger for a single year. By 2016, Google moved on to the next shiny messaging app and left Hangouts to rot. //
Despite Google's whining about iMessage, it seems to have learned nothing from its years of messaging failure. Today, Google messaging is the worst and most fragmented it has ever been. As of press time, the company runs eight separate messaging platforms, none of which talk to each other: there is Google Messages/RCS, which is being promoted today, but there's also Google Chat/Hangouts, Google Voice, Google Photos Messages, Google Pay Messages, Google Maps Business Messages, Google Stadia Messages, and Google Assistant Messaging. Those last couple apps aren't primarily messaging apps but have all ended up rolling their own siloed messaging platform because no dominant Google system exists for them to plug into.
It is an incredible mess, and no single Google product is as good as Hangouts was in 2015
The other piece of news, less well-covered but still important, emerged during a news conference on Saturday. NASA's Mission Systems Engineer for the Webb telescope, Mike Menzel, said the agency had completed its analysis of how much "extra" fuel remained on board the telescope. Roughly speaking, Menzel said, Webb has enough propellant on board for 20 years of life.
This is twice the conservative pre-launch estimate for Webb's lifetime of a decade, and it largely comes down to the performance of the European Ariane 5 rocket that launched Webb on a precise trajectory on Christmas Day.
Prior to launch, the telescope was fueled with 240 liters of hydrazine fuel and dinitrogen tetroxide oxidizer. Some of this fuel was needed for course adjustments along the journey to the point in space, about 1.5 million km from Earth, where Webb will conduct science observations. The remainder will be used at Webb's final orbit around the L2 Lagrange point for station-keeping and to maintain its orbit.
So every kilogram of fuel saved on Webb's journey to the Lagrange point could be used to extend its life there. Because ten years seemed like a fairly short operational period for such an expensive and capable space telescope, NASA had already been contemplating a costly and risky robotic refueling mission. But now that should not be necessary, as Webb has at least two decades of life.
A lot of this comes down to the performance of the venerable Ariane 5 rocket. NASA and the European Space Agency reached an agreement more than a decade ago by which Europe would use its reliable Ariane 5 rocket to lift the telescope into space, and in exchange, European scientists would get time to use the telescope. //
The Ariane 5 program also selected the best components for Webb based upon pre-flight testing. For example, for the Webb-designated rocket, the program used a main engine that had been especially precise during testing. "It was one of the best Vulcain engines that we've ever built," Albat said. "It has very precise performance. It would have been criminal not to do it." //
Albat admitted that the days prior to launch were exhausting and nerve-wracking. But soon after the launch, Albat said he and the entire European space community could take pride as Webb took flight and began to unfurl its wings. Now, he said, "I feel totally relaxed." The same can be said for a lot of scientists who have been watching Webb's development for two decades.
It’s one thing for a media outlet to issue a correction after a political figure and/or their handlers have demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the outlet was factually incorrect. It’s another thing entirely for a media outlet to reframe a story and their promotion of it to something more favorable to that politician just because their inner circle had hurt feelings over it.
We saw a similar disturbing instance of the media colluding with Democrats to soften coverage of Biden during the 2020 presidential campaign when the New York Times admitted they changed how they described Biden’s alleged inappropriate touching of women because the Biden campaign complained about it.
As Biden wraps up his first year in the White House, he has held fewer news conferences than any of his five immediate predecessors at the same point in their presidencies, and has participated in fewer media interviews than any of his recent predecessors.
[…]
Biden has done just 22 media interviews, fewer than any of his six most recent White House predecessors at the same point in their presidencies.
The 46th president has held just nine formal news conferences — six solo and three jointly with visiting foreign leaders. […]
Former President Donald Trump, who regularly pilloried the media, did 92 interviews in his first year in office, more than two dozen of those with friendly interlocutors at Fox News. But Trump also held lengthy sessions with ABC News, The Associated Press, the New York Times, Reuters and other outlets whose coverage he impugned throughout his presidency.
Biden’s 22 media interviews have included one-on-one sessions with journalists at three of the major television networks, three CNN town halls, an appearance on MSNBC, a trio of regional television interviews via Zoom, as well as conversations with late night host Jimmy Fallon and ESPN’S Sage Steele. He’s given just three print interviews. //
Planet Ponzi @PlanetPonzi
#JoeBiden Is Not Able To Read A Teleprompter Or Hold A Press Conference Where Questions Are Allowed. #Biden only appears on late-night comedy programs with comedians who serve up prearranged fat meatball pitches.
1:22 PM · Jan 9, 2022
Perhaps what fascinated me the most was the blatant statements many regular people are making about Democrats and Biden. It’s not just the “I did it” stickers at the gas pumps. It is now a cultural phenomenon. Not just a rural one, but it’s spilling over to the suburbs. People are not as afraid to be vocal.
Whether it was visiting one of the tourist traps on Duval St. in Key West on New Years and seeing all anti-Biden paraphernalia for sale, to overhearing loud conversations in Noble, Oklahoma, at a local diner, I noticed that the right is finally getting vocal after being silenced for so long, especially when Trump was president. //
It was never about Donald Trump. Trump was merely a vessel that needed to happen. I’m not even white, but I have felt this attack against American values and heritage for decades now. When I had clientele from the liberal Hollywood elite, one said something powerful to me, “America has no culture.” I chose not to respond but in my head, I was thinking, “Wow, I love American culture, our history, our success.” That shocked me. She was a white liberal who came from the heartland, in the Midwest, but was there so much self hatred, she couldn’t see how great this country is?
Fast forward about 15 years later, the Democrats are even more self-hating about America. I took a road trip across country, one of many I’ve done in my lifetime. Never have I seen so many Trump signs. Rural and suburban America were quiet for so long but now they are tired of being silenced. “Let’s Go Brandon” was the perfect moment for America-loving Americans to express their frustration without being nasty. Compare this to the behavior and nastiness from the left in cities during the Trump years (and even continuing until today).
Jordan highlighted the Select Committee’s double standards in issuing partisan subpoenas exclusively to Republican lawmakers as opposed to Democrats, who are responsible for adequate security at the Capitol. While the Select Committee was ostensibly established to probe the Capitol security failures, Thompson has explicitly refused an inquiry into Pelosi’s culpability as the partisan probe absent of Republican appointees remains focused on retribution against political dissidents. //
Pelosi stands credibly accused of unilaterally delaying the National Guard’s preemptive deployment six times preceding the riot that day a year ago, but the speaker also ignored issues raised in a single hearing from the House Oversight Committee held a year and a half in advance.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/12/16/nancy-pelosi-owns-january-6/
“It is telling that the Select Committee has chosen only to target Republican Members with demands for testimony about January 6,” Jordan wrote Sunday. “I am aware of no effort by the Select Committee to solicit testimony from Speaker Pelosi, House Administration Chair Zoe Lofgren, or any other Democrat Members with responsibility for or oversight of the security posture at the Capitol complex on January 6.” //
Since its inception, the committee, born out of ashes of a failed congressional commission, has focused on punishing political dissidents as opposed to probing the Capitol riot with a legitimate legislative purpose. With no investigation into the security failures that led to several hours of turmoil, the committee has sought to conflate a peaceful White House protest with the violence that erupted at the Capitol before President Donald Trump had finished speaking.
In the process, the committee run by the same bad actors who perpetrated the Democrats’ prior hoaxes have fabricated evidence again, again, again, and again.
https://thefederalist.com/2021/02/19/failed-impeachment-saga-was-an-embarrassment-for-democrats/
According to the transcript for a new interview on “Face the Nation,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Ca) falsely claimed that Republicans were trying to suppress the vote and she called voter integrity laws a “legislative continuation” of Jan. 6. //
But if that wasn’t enough to show how disingenuous this whole effort by the Democrats is, Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC), the Democratic whip and the guy who helped stick us with Joe Biden, gave the game away during an interview Sunday on Fox with Bret Baier. He confessed for the record that this was about federalizing elections, saying “these federal elections cannot be left up to the states, should not be left up to the states.”
There it is. They haven’t actually been that blunt with it before, preferring to cloak it in the false language of “voter suppression” or similar words. But there it is — it’s about taking the control away from the states. They’re power-hungry and no longer even hiding it. //
We must “mature” — to let Democrats do what they want to seize what power they can. Our founders who vested the process in the states were just pikers apparently. What they’re scared of are voter integrity laws that will protect the right to vote. There is no “suppression” going on, but there is a lot of protection against funny business.
PJMoran
7 hours ago
All the US and NATO allies should do is recognize and agree to assist Russia in defense of its borders existing as of January 1, 2013 excluding contested areas of Georgia and areas Japan controls or claims in the east. This of course excludes the Crimea. So then how can the NATO threat survive. Putin needs to sell gas to Germany and the EU. The EU should definitely ramp up LNG reception facilities. Put NATO troops way south of DONBAS adjacent to Armiyansk and at key points bordering the Crimea. Harass electronically Bielogorsk and its satellite facilities. Build up in SE Ukraine. Check where the Crimea gets water from. Get some serious non woke minds running this pitiful Biden roll over show. Remind the Russian people that in the east where large oil and gas and other minerals are abundant that the Chinese have crept into those areas.
Canceling sanctions is a telling example of modern Democrats’ dangerous naivete in foreign affairs. Because they’re uncomfortable with using power, appearing strong. That’s what Barack Obama was apologizing for on that global apology tour. They seem to think goodwill gestures will be reciprocated in big-power diplomacy.
In 2009, Obama tried the same stupidity. As a product of the Chicago Democrat machine, you’d think he would understand that not using your political strengths is a sign of weakness. //
NATO is a defensive alliance coming off 20 years of unsuccessful nation-building in Afghanistan. About half its 29 members do not meet their alliance defense expenditure commitments. And Trump called them out.
But Putin’s position is that the alliance threatens Russia. So, he creates a likely empty threat to invade Ukraine, then maneuvers to be paid off by Biden concessions.
So, tomorrow in Geneva, Russia and the U.S. will meet and then later with NATO ministers in Brussels. Administration officials leaked last week that Biden was going to offer a reduction of U.S. troops in Europe to buy Putin off from doing what he wants us to think he might do.
The U.S maintains about 70,000 troops in Europe, including some 6,000 rotating through Poland and the Baltic states, which used to be in the USSR but now are independent and NATO members.
And, the officials said, Biden would expect similar pullbacks by Russian forces, especially near the Baltic states. Try listing any concessions that Vladimir Putin has made to anyone in recent years. We’ll wait.
As multiple advanced reactor vendors enter the licensing process to build first-of-a-kind demonstration projects, the Nuclear Innovation Alliance (NIA)—a nonprofit “think-and-do tank” that supports the nuclear power industry—has said issues with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s (NRC’s) current user fee cost-recovery model could slow innovation.
In a report released on May 19, the NIA identified how the NRC’s fee model can inhibit advanced nuclear innovation, compared the current model to structures used in other industries and countries, and recommended changes to improve the system. Importantly, the group says reliance on applicant fees limits the ability of the NRC to hire and train staff ahead of expected applications, reducing regulatory efficiency.
Smaller Firms with Less Resources
“We’re at an inflection point with the nuclear industry in the U.S., as well as nuclear regulation,” Alex Gilbert, project manager with NIA, said during an online panel session held to roll out the report. “We’re really moving away from the large, conventional light-water reactors that dominated our initial 40, 50 years of the nuclear industry in the U.S. We’re looking at advanced reactor technologies. We’re looking at new advanced light-water technologies—other non-light-water technologies, and we have a regulatory framework that we’re currently in the process of transforming to adapt to these new technologies.”
According to Gilbert, nuclear reactor development has historically been dominated by a handful of large, multinational corporations. For them, the cost of regulatory fees may not have been a significant financial barrier. But today, many smaller, less-established companies are working to develop new designs, and money is sometimes scarce.
“When we’re looking at the industry that we’re trying to develop, we’re trying to look towards a very vibrant, very competitive future. And so, we need to think about how our regulatory system is impacting new entrants,” Gilbert said. //
Gilbert explained that there are basically two elements to the NRC’s current fee structure. The first is 10 CFR (Code of Federal Regulations) Part 170 fees. These are hourly fees that are charged to applicants when they’re getting a specific item or regulatory engagement of value.
“The easiest way to think about that—and the thing that we focused on—is if you’re trying to get a license at the NRC to build and operate a nuclear facility, that’s something that there’s a discrete value and you’re charged hourly fees. Those hourly fees are actually just under $300 per hour, so that can add up pretty quickly,” said Gilbert.
The second element of the current fee structure is 10 CFR Part 171 fees. These are annual fees paid by existing licensees. These fees actually provide the majority of the funding for the NRC. Although these fees are obviously very important, Gilbert said NIA focused on the Part 170 fees because the group was most interested in understanding how fees affect innovation.
Notably, the report says the NRC’s budget has declined by more than 30% since the mid-2010s due to plant retirements and reduced application activity. This has been accompanied by a 25% reduction in NRC staff. While the existing fleet may be shrinking, indicating a lesser need for NRC staff, the growing pipeline of advanced reactors and the potential obligation for NRC design reviews would signal more staff may be required.
“What we’re concerned about with that kind of efficiency question is getting the right resources for the right project at the right time,” Gilbert said. //
The NIA reviewed fee structures for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to better understand how they were funded. Gilbert felt the FAA and FDA were particularly noteworthy. “These are really interesting regulatory agencies, because they’re very similar to the NRC in that they’re regulating innovative activities,” he said.
In the case of the FAA, even though most of the agency is funded by user fees, those user fees are collected exclusively from economic activities, such as ticket sales. “They’re not charging fees for their review of what’s called a type certification, which is similar to what the NRC does for a reactor license. So, you’re not having that disincentive to innovation,” said Gilbert.
The FDA operates a little bit differently. “They’ve had to actually substantially grow their overall budget over time,” Gilbert explained. “In implementing user fees there, it was really effective when combined with public investment by being able to balance both public and private interests in the funding of the agency. And that’s one of the reasons, among several others, that FDA is considered to have a relatively efficient and effective regulatory review system.”
Meanwhile, the EPA, which regulates many of the nuclear power industry’s competitors, such as coal, gas, and biomass power plants, only requires a small portion of its costs to be covered by fees. “They’re really minor compared to nuclear license fees,” said Gilbert. “So, the way that this fee system has worked out across the federal agency is actually disincentivizing the nuclear industry and kind of raising a roadblock that our competitors are not facing.” //
In its report, the NIA recommended a number of changes to the NRC fee structure, which it felt would spur innovation. For example, it proposed excluding or substantially reducing fees for new license applicants. The report says: “Multiple aspects of U.S. nuclear regulation bring benefits to the public and entities rather than just the applicant. Reduced fees, especially for new designs and innovative technologies, can reflect these broad benefits. Increasing the fraction of the NRC’s budget that is funded from general revenues can incentivize more innovation, improve regulatory efficiency, and ensure the American regulatory environment remains competitive.” Alternatively, NIA said if licensing fees could not be completely replaced, then excluding fees for items such as pre-application, topical reports, and environmental reviews could still bring substantial benefits. //
Peter Hastings, vice president of Regulatory Affairs and Quality with Kairos Power, agreed. “I think some amount of fee could be an effective barrier to that kind of frivolity. She used the term ‘skin in the game,’ and that certainly makes sense—to not necessarily reduce the hourly fee to nothing, but perhaps put in some sort of cost-share that would reduce the overall cost but still require the applicant to demonstrate that they’re serious, even if it’s only through a financial obligation,” he said.
“Any time that you put a cost on something, like a carbon tax, you discourage it,” said Gilbert. “In the case of these hourly fees, you’re essentially charging for innovation. And so, if we’re trying to build a new generation of safer, more economic reactors that can really help restore American competitiveness, we’re kind of creating a regulatory barrier right now to that innovation.”
Gandalf, like all the five wizards of Middle Earth, was a Maia, an angelic spirit of the same order as Sauron. It was the persistence of Sauron’s power into the Third Age that made the Valar of Valinor, a higher order of spirits, wish to send emissaries to aid and inspire those of the Free Peoples who resisted evil. The emissaries would be Maia, clothed in the bodies of Men advanced in age but possessed of great physical and mental power. So embodied, they would lose a great deal of their natural power; they were not meant to exercise force nor to coerce anyone to act. They would also be subject to weariness, hunger, injury, and the risk of death. Possessed of free will, they could also be tempted away from their task.
With his long robes, pointed hat, and immense power, Gandalf the Grey is the archetypal wizard of modern fantasy. Sent to the shores of Middle Earth to contest the influence of Sauron, he was tireless in his task, and the only of the five wizards to hold true to it until the end, according to J.R.R. Tolkien. As the Grey Pilgrim, Gandalf helped to seed the downfall of Sauron in The Lord of the Rings and even in The Hobbit, but along the way, he was transformed into Gandalf the White. This Gandalf was more directly involved in the final conflict of The Lord of the Rings. Yet it is as the Grey that Gandalf is best known, and Ian McKellen and Peter Jackson both preferred the first incarnation of the character. A casual fan may wonder why Tolkien wrote in a change of wardrobe at all.
In Unfinished Tales, a collection of essays and story fragments Tolkien left behind, it was the Maia Olórin who became incarnated as Gandalf. He was proposed for the task by Manwë, wisest of the Valar, though Olórin initially begged not to be sent. He wasn’t up to the task, he insisted, and he feared Sauron. But in Manwë’s eyes, that was all the more reason Olórin should go. Thus ordered, he arrived as the third of the Istari (wizards), appearing the smallest and most aged of them. Yet Círdan the shipwright, who greeted Olórin upon his arrival, perceived him the greatest of the Istari and gave him the Elven Ring of Fire to aid him in his labors. But the ring, and the power he still possessed, were kept veiled in weathered gray robes.
While Saruman the White settled in Orthanc, Radagast the Brown in Rhosgobel, and the two Blue Wizards beyond reach into the East, Gandalf the Grey (as the Men of Middle Earth named him) wandered throughout the West, where the Elves and the descendants of Númenor opposed to Sauron were strongest. He became a good friend to the Elves and to hobbits, while with Men he could be warm and irascible by turns. If Lady Galadriel of Lorien had her way, Gandalf would have been the head of the White Council formed to unite the West against Sauron. But Gandalf refused the position in favor of independence. He did stir the Council to put forth its power to drive the Necromancer – Sauron in disguise – from the fortress of Dol Guldur in Mirkwood, a business which took him away from the dwarves’ quest in The Hobbit. That quest was one he had helped to organize as a means to take Smaug away as a potential ally for Sauron. All this holds true in Tolkien’s books and Jackson’s films, though the timeline and details differ markedly.
Before there was English, or Latin, or even Greek, there was Proto-Sinaitic.
Considered the first alphabet ever used, the Proto-Sinaitic script was derived in Canaan, around the biblical Land of Israel. It was repurposed from Egyptian hieroglyphs that were commonly seen in the area (its name comes from Mount Sinai), and used to describe sounds instead of meanings.
As the first Semitic script, Proto-Sinaitic soon influenced other Semitic languages. It was the precursor to the Phoenician alphabet, which was used in the area of modern-day Lebanon and spread across the Mediterranean and became the basis for Arabic, Cyrillic, Hebrew, and of course, Greek. //
And the study of linguistics shows us why using Greek letters in English isn’t completely farfetched. This visualization from Matt Baker at UsefulCharts.com demonstrates how the modern Latin script used in English evolved from Greek, and other, alphabets.