In science, ideas require experimental or observational validation

Out in the depths of space, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is already revolutionizing what we thought we'd find as far as distant galaxies go. However, the claim that "This disproves the Big Bang" isn't being made scientifically, but rather by a crackpot attempting to prop up his long-discredited ideas. Here's what we know, based on their actual scientific merits and in context, so you won't get fooled: not now, and not ever. //

A recent revolutionary assertion has gone viral, claiming that the Big Bang never happened, and that the latest data from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has proven it. The notion of the Big Bang has never sat well with many — all the way from its earliest incarnations in the 1920s (via Georges Lemaître) and the 1940s (from George Gamow; apparently you had to be named “George” to realize this) — and has been continuously challenged since its inception. However, the evidence has remained overwhelmingly in its favor ever since the 1960s, and no other serious competitors have ever been able to reproduce its successes. Which leads one to wonder: what are the merits, if any, of this latest claim? Could it be true, and if so, how and why? //

The modern Big Bang

Originally, the Big Bang was a simple idea that grew out of three facts, all put together.

1. In Einstein’s general theory of relativity, a Universe filled with any uniform distribution of matter and/or energy will not be stable in a static configuration: the fabric of space in that Universe must either contract or expand.
2. Observationally, there are spirals and ellipticals in the sky, and they lie well beyond the Milky Way; their distances can be measured.
3. Also observationally, the light from these spirals and ellipticals appears to be shifted, with more distant objects exhibiting a greater redshift in direct proportion to their distance: consistent with an expanding Universe.

By combining these three facts, we’d conclude that the Universe — if it’s expanding and becoming less dense today — must have been smaller and denser in the past. We can extrapolate this back farther and farther, to even very early times if we like, and recognize that our modern Universe must have emerged from a denser, smaller, more uniform state in the very distant past.

The first person to synthesize this information together was Georges Lemaître, who did it in 1927, although others would independently come to the same conclusion, including Howard Robertson in 1928, Edwin Hubble in 1929, and Arthur Walker a few years later. //

It might be hard to believe, but we only started seeing our very first science results from the JWST in mid-July, 2022. (That recently, really!) Perhaps the biggest surprise — other than the astounding technical performance of the telescope, which is arguably twice as good as it was designed to achieve on many fronts — is what it’s seen in the realm of galaxies. While we knew JWST would push far past what Hubble’s limited capabilities have seen, we had no idea its performance would be so revolutionary in such an early stage of its observation campaigns.

• There are greater numbers of galaxies out there than Hubble ever saw, including at distances that Hubble would never be sensitive to.
• Some of these galaxies appear more evolved, more massive, and at earlier stages than not only we’d previously seen, but than many models and simulations had expected.
• Some of them might even be massive and quite evolved at epochs between 200 and 350 million years after the Big Bang; the current confirmed record-holder, from Hubble, was already 407 million years after the Big Bang.
• Many of these galaxies, even the earliest ones, are shaped like disks, rather than being irregular. JWST’s superior resolving power and imaging capabilities have shown this even for galaxies that previously, with Hubble, looked like irregular blobs.
• And finally, nearby galaxies, in contrast to what Hubble saw, appear smaller and more compact with JWST’s improved resolution.

Sen. Joe Biden wanted a sweetheart deal for the banks that stripped student loans of bankruptcy protections, and it created a train wreck. //

In general, borrowers burdened by too much debt and unable to pay their loans can usually discharge them in a personal bankruptcy case. Some debts, particularly those owed to the government, are not dischargeable. But consumer loans and credit card debts generally are dischargeable. //

Why did Biden staunchly back this change — even as Democrats like Teddy Kennedy denounced it for “sacrific[ing] Americans to the rampant greed of the credit card industry”? Because Biden was a long-time water carrier for the credit card and banking industries. And both he and his family profited from that arrangement.

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flight tracking unfiltered

Il reste maintenant la question qui nous a amené ici : que se passe-t-il si on roule à 110km/h au lieu de 130km/h ? Cela correspond à une diminution de seulement 15% de la vitesse.

Mais on voit que pour les frottements aérodynamiques (la source principale de consommation), ce qui compte c’est le carré de la vitesse ! En utilisant une vitesse de 110km/h, on trouve une valeur de 42 MJ (au lieu de 60) pour le travail de cette force. Notre total de 72 MJ se trouve donc réduit à 54 MJ, soit une diminution de 25% de la dépense énergétique.

On voit donc que du fait que les frottements aérodynamiques (80% du total) dépendent du carré de la vitesse, une diminution de vitesse de 15% engendre une diminution de consommation de 25%. Évidemment, il faudrait un peu raffiner en regardant la façon dont le rendement du moteur dépend de l’allure, etc., mais une fois de plus ça donne l’ordre de grandeur qui nous permet de raisonner quantitativement.

Solar Panels surface area required to power the world:

how much surface area for solar panels vs. surface area of fossil fuel or nuclear power stations?

After I tell people not to use easily phishable MFA, the first question they ask is what is and is not easily phishable? I have written dozens of articles explaining the types of MFA solutions which are easily phished and bypassed, including the precursor companion article for this article, explaining why you should not use easily phishable MFA, which is located here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/dont-use-easily-phishable-mfa-thats-most-roger-grimes

The most common question I get is which MFA solutions are not so easy to phish and bypass?

This article lists MFA solutions and types which appear to be phishing-resistant.

I’ve been saying that complexity is the worst enemy of security for a long time now. (Here’s me in 1999.) And it’s been true for a long time.

In 2018, Thomas Dullien of Google’s Project Zero talked about “cheap complexity.” Andrew Appel summarizes:

The anomaly of cheap complexity. For most of human history, a more complex device was more expensive to build than a simpler device. This is not the case in modern computing. It is often more cost-effective to take a very complicated device, and make it simulate simplicity, than to make a simpler device. This is because of economies of scale: complex general-purpose CPUs are cheap. On the other hand, custom-designed, simpler, application-specific devices, which could in principle be much more secure, are very expensive.

This is driven by two fundamental principles in computing: Universal computation, meaning that any computer can simulate any other; and Moore’s law, predicting that each year the number of transistors on a chip will grow exponentially. ARM Cortex-M0 CPUs cost pennies, though they are more powerful than some supercomputers of the 20th century.

The same is true in the software layers. A (huge and complex) general-purpose operating system is free, but a simpler, custom-designed, perhaps more secure OS would be very expensive to build. Or as Dullien asks, “How did this research code someone wrote in two weeks 20 years ago end up in a billion devices?”

This is correct. Today, it’s easier to build complex systems than it is to build simple ones. As recently as twenty years ago, if you wanted to build a refrigerator you would create custom refrigerator controller hardware and embedded software. Today, you just grab some standard microcontroller off the shelf and write a software application for it. And that microcontroller already comes with an IP stack, a microphone, a video port, Bluetooth, and a whole lot more. And since those features are there, engineers use them. //

Rob K • August 26, 2022 8:40 AM

“it’s easier to build complex systems than it is to build simple ones”

I think this is better stated as it’s easier to re-use existing complex systems than it is to build simple ones from scratch

The Israel Salt Company, for example, has struck a deal with the Mekorot desalination plant in the southern port city of Eilat to make high-quality table salt from the leftover sodium.

“A brine discharge line and other discharge facilities are not needed,” wrote a pair of researchers in 2007, adding “non-homogenous salinity distribution profile of the sea is prevented, leaving the sea fauna and flora at this beautiful resort city untouched.”

Ten years later, a study from the Australian government found in the absence of such an arrangement, excess salt runoff can be carefully dropped into the open ocean without significant changes in the ocean’s salinity. //

According to researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), concentrated desalination brine can be converted into chemicals with market value.

In a 2019 report, a team of scientists outlined how direct electrosynthesis of desalination waste can produce sodium hydroxide and hydrochloric acid, both of which are also useful ingredients in plant operations themselves.

Sodium hydroxide, also known as “caustic soda,” can be used to pretreat incoming seawater and lower its acidity, allowing membrane filters to last longer. Plants creating their own sodium hydroxide would no longer need to purchase the chemical from a third-party seller when the product can be made onsite. In fact, plants could make so much of it that excess products could be sold on the open market as another stream of revenue.

Hydrochloric acid from recycled brine discharge can also be used as a cleaning chemical inside the plant, or can be exploited to produce hydrogen. Hydrogen is an emissions-free fuel, the only byproduct of which is water when consumed in a fuel cell to generate electricity.

Both hydrochloric acid and hydrogen are lucrative byproducts that could be sold off by plant operators in addition to excess sodium hydroxide.

One day, we will look back at social media companies like ByteDance (Tiktok) and Meta (Facebook and Instagram) and compare them to tobacco companies like Philip Morris (Marlboro) and R.J. Reynolds (Camel). For a time, Big Tobacco enjoyed immense profits and popularity. But eventually, Big Tobacco’s culpability in causing immense physical harm to Americans — and in trying to obscure the science regarding that harm — became known. They were eventually held accountable for their deceptive advertising to children using “Joe Camel.” We are living at a moment when we are just learning of the social and psychological harms of social media, and of Big Tech’s efforts to obscure those harms from the public. //

Morell and her fellow policy experts list five actions that states can take now while they wait for Congress to enact more rigorous requirements for online companies. They include: mandating robust age-verification measures for social media platforms by requiring a driver’s license, credit card numbers, or another form of identification to create an account; requiring parental consent for minors under 18 to open a social media account; mandating full parental access to minors’ social media accounts; requiring social media companies to shut down access to their platforms for all 13- to 17-year-olds’ accounts during bedtime hours (generally 10:30 p.m. – 6:30 a.m.); and including a private cause of action to enable parents to bring lawsuits on behalf of their children against tech companies for any violation of the law.

Morell foresees internet companies’ dislike of “patchwork state laws” as working to the benefit of parents and children, since altering how they do business in one state would likely spur them to make their policies identical across the country.

Morell adds that the private cause of action clause is key, because, “If individual parents are empowered to bring a private lawsuit against these tech companies for violating the law, that could be very costly to their business, and they would take that seriously. [Private cause of action suits] are one of the most effective means of enforcing laws.”

Not only didn’t Gorbachev bring communism to an end or intend to “liberate” anyone, if it were up to him The Warsaw Pact would still exist, tens of millions of Eastern and Central Europeans would still be under the grip of Moscow, and hundreds of millions more would still be living under communism. This isn’t counterhistorical speculation. Decades after the Iron Curtain came down, Gorbachev was still openly lamenting the fall of the USSR, one of the most nefarious empires man has ever known:

The Soviet Union offered lots of prospects to those who lived there, and it could have had a future if it had modernized and adapted to new challenges. Yes, I regret [its collapse] very much.”

In other words, Gorbachev didn’t believe real communism had been tried yet.

Perhaps the best one could say about the man was that he led from behind. Indeed, the world was blessed that such a weak and feckless man, forced to his knees by the failures of a socialist economy and the bravery of others, resisted the impulse to deploy force to keep long-occupied European nations in the Soviet fold as had his predecessors. .... Of course, not being Stalin is perhaps the lowest moral bar that exists in the universe. Gorbachev passed it, winning the Nobel Peace Prize for “the leading role he played in the radical changes in East-West relations.”

The Western sanctification of Gorbachev was a function of a media abhorring the notion of giving Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thatcher or Pope John Paul II any credit for creating the economic, political, moral, or military conditions that forced Gorbachev to move forward with glasnost and perestroika. (Read Margot Cleveland’s excellent piece on the topic.) Even Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev’s successor, pushed for quicker democratizing and reforms of the Soviet political system and, in the end, impelled the last strongman to abdicate his power and call it a day.

But more than any of those men and women, it was Hungarian Prime Minister Miklos Nemeth who deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize and whose actions in 1989 hastened the end of the Iron Curtain and Berlin Wall.

In March of 1989, Nemeth informed Gorbachev — not the other way around — that the small nation was going to “remove completely the electronic and technological protection from the Western and Southern borders of Hungary.” A few months later, East German tourists began testing the Hungarian border and succeeded in escaping to the West. By August of 1989, the Hungarians had opened the Austria frontier, allowing 13,000 East Germans join the West. Tens of thousands would follow.

Taxpayer | August 28, 2022 at 9:43 pm

Journalism is about covering important stories.. with a pillow, until they stop moving

amwick in reply to Taxpayer. | August 29, 2022 at 7:19 am

The guy whose pic is to the right (@RonColeman) has a twitter hashtag… he just says #journalism. I call it #carpetjournalism because they cover things up, and they lie…

Rooker-Feldman doctrine bars any effort to relitigate what was decided against a litigant in state court. No federal jurisdiction in a lower federal court for what is effectively a collateral attack on a state judgment. Only exception is federal habeas corpus.

Energy costs are expected to rise 80 percent in the UK this winter. //

Cologne’s [Germany] magnificent cathedral — normally lit throughout the night — now goes dark over night. Public buildings, museums and other landmarks — such as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin — will no longer be illuminated overnight either….
The southern city of Augsburg decided to turn off traffic lights.

Spain: Congress agreed to temperature limitations — air conditioning no cooler than 27 degrees Celsius, or nearly 81 degrees Fahrenheit.
After 10 p.m. shop windows and unoccupied public buildings won’t be lit.

Italy: Air conditioning in schools and public buildings has already been limited in what the government labeled “Operation Thermostat,” starting in May.
Italy is one of the European countries most reliant on Russian energy.

France: While roughly 70% of its energy comes from nuclear power, France has committed to cutting natural gas consumption as well.
Shopkeepers will now be fined for keeping doors open and air conditioning running, a common practice.
Illuminated signs will be banned between 1 a.m. and 6 a.m. //

Russia meanwhile is so confident in its position that it’s burning an estimated $10 million in natural gas every day rather than sending it to the European Union. Putin’s antics have caused alarm among Europeans as they prepare for the annual cold spell that is not caused by global warming, but is actually caused by the tilt of our planet’s axis: //

Fox News host Tucker Carlson took notice, and came with his usual fire on his Monday show:

Last year, only about 6% of Germans used wood to heat their homes, but that has changed dramatically. Demand for firewood in Germany has risen so fast that there is none left to buy. You can’t get it, so desperate Germans are now cutting their own wood, scouring the forests like their ancestors for sources of heat. //

Europe is descending into poverty. Did you know that? Had someone told you that?

We have saved Europe over and over again, with our military forces in WWI and WWII, and with our financial might with the 1948’s Marshall Plan. I don’t have confidence that we can do it again.

Resistance to nuclear power is starting to ebb around the world with support from a surprising group: environmentalists.

Where does your state fall? The Heritage Foundation's Election Integrity Scorecard ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on the strength of their election laws.

https://www.heritage.org/electionscorecard/pages/all-state-scores.html

Hawaii may be paradise for vacation spots, but the Aloha State comes in last place in a ranking of all 50 states based on the strength of their election laws.

Going into the midterm elections Nov. 8, the nominal battleground state of Nevada comes in second to last in laws promoting clean and honest elections, while California—the largest state in the nation—is third from the bottom, according to The Heritage Foundation Election Integrity Scorecard. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

Heritage’s scorecard ranks the states and the District of Columbia based on factors such as voter ID implementation; accuracy of vote registration lists; absentee ballot management; restrictions on ballot trafficking, also known as ballot harvesting; access for election observers; vote-counting practices; and restrictions on private funding for election administration.

Rounding out the 10 worst states are Oregon at 48, Vermont, Washington and New Jersey in a tie, and Massachusetts, New York, and Nebraska at 42.

The District of Columbia came in at No. 25.

Nebraska scored 0 out of 20 in the category of voter ID, but scored well in other categories, Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen, a Republican, said.

“If Nebraska had voter ID, we’d be in the top 15,” Evnen told The Daily Signal. “There is a voter ID initiative petition that would put it on the ballot in November. If it goes on the ballot, we believe that it would be overwhelmingly adopted.”