Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
John Quiggin 
Our oceans of data are now transparent.
As are the oceans.
James Wimberley says:
June 18, 2023 at 7:23 pm in “Daniel Ellsberg has died”: “Hedy Lamarr’s bright idea for radio control of torpedoes faces the big problem” … “the two wires also propelled the torpedo by being pulled from a spool in the torpedo like a child’s toy, was not practical for wide use.”
Except now… the ocean like air is rendered transparent by technology.
Causing – Dead submariners. Showing us – AUKUS idiocy.
Send out scout drones. Find torpedo wire and trigger electromagnetic pulse to fry electronics. Spoof location of of “magnetic signature of the target”. Providing time to launch both ither countermeasures and or attack. Both dead in the water.
As some wag said – AUKUS submarines are floating coffins.
“Torpedo hit
…
“… of which 267 kg are high-tech explosive, and which have the punch of half-a-tonne of TNT.
“The Mk48 can be guided by a wire that reels out behind it, or it can find the target by itself. Once it gets close enough to the target, it first uses sonar to aim for the centre of the ship. When it’s really close, it uses the magnetic signature of the target as a trigger to explode, when it’s about 15 metres directly under its hull. The depth and location are quite critical. The 267 kg of high explosive almost instantaneously all turn into a huge volume of gas.
“First, the actual explosion generates a very high pressure shock wave. This rams into the middle of the underside of hull of the ship at about 1.5 kilometres per second.
“Second, the shock wave crushes the underside of the hull, and also lifts it up. It bends the ship bend upward in the middle, like a banana. The upper decks of the ship crack apart. After a few hundredths of a second, the shock wave has come and gone. But within a few more fractions of a second, the expanding bubble of gas from the explosion then hits the underside of the hull. The bubble reaches a maximum size of about 18 metres across, and it maintains the massive upward force on the bottom of the hull, once the shock wave has passed. So the ship is bent upwards in the middle in two stages – from the shock wave and then the expanding gas.
… [3rd, 4th, 5th …]
https://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2005/09/01/1448475.htm
*
Now let us target a group of submarine sympathizers. Most will be ‘hit’ by the ‘message’ as it will be ‘under their radar’.
NeoData will replace NeoLiberalsism with NeoPower optimizing with – “Loading 651,464 audience segments”
From ONE category “Political Issues” in “We Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You”, I can specifically target:
– GunRights+ Advocates+Immigration Control Advocates+Pro Life Supporters
Or
– Marijuana Reform Supporters+Gun Control Advocates+Pro Choice Supporters+Womens Equality Advocates+Organized Labor Supporters+LGBTQ Advocacy
Augment above filters with “Deep Root Analytics > Defund Police Persuadables” and a noisy tiny minority are given a megaphone, mobilised in time to trigger and disrupt, and finance campaigns.
Then add “Political donations for candidates and causes”+ “Lifestyle > Political > Flags & Trump” and you get the picture.
And then target propaganda either way politically. Or in the case of rapacious capital – both persuasions for maximum profit.
Go on. Pretend you have all the answers and need a loyal group. String together some segments and realize – Power.
There is a handy Search funtion on page:
“Show 20 more random results
“Loading 651,464 audience segments”
Either way – they come for us all.
Until my data is my data, and a complete citizen jury system and constant referenda enshirined in Constitutions, efforts to provide fairness, equality and timely action on climate change will be beholden to owners of data, and those using such segmentation. These people will always be able to bend the arc of policy in their favour. To humanity and the planets detriment.
*
“From “Heavy Purchasers” of Pregnancy Tests to the Depression-Prone: We Found 650,000 Ways Advertisers Label You
“A spreadsheet on ad platform Xandr’s website revealed a massive collection of “audience segments” used to target consumers based on highly specific, sometimes intimate information and inferences
By Jon Keegan and Joel Eastwood
June 8, 2023
Adrián Astorgano
..
“.But the exposure of a collection of audience segments this size offers consumers an unusual look at how they and their families are packaged, described, and categorized by ad companies.”
Political
“Many segments were related to political beliefs, political activity, and contentious issues such as gun control, immigration, and LGBTQ rights.
Political issues
Marijuana Reform Supporters
Gun Control Advocates
Gun Rights Advocates
Womens Equality Advocates
Immigration Control Advocates
Immigration Rights Advocates
Environmental Conservation
Organized Labor Supporters
Pro Choice Supporters
Pro Life Supporters
LGBTQ Advocacy
Marriage Equality Opposition
Animal Rights Supporters
Political activity
Attended or willing to volunteer for a political protest
Voting history by candidate, election, and state propositions
Political donations for candidates and causes
Voter registration status
Political profiles
Ultra-Conservative Streaming TV-Viewer
Deep Root Analytics > Defund Police Persuadables
Deep Root Analytics > Anti Defund Police
Lifestyle > Political > Flags & Trump
Lifestyle > Political > Doves
Social Profiles by Type > Black Lives Matter Supporters
Location-based political targeting
Extensive geofenced segments from Foursquare (Factual) and from political ad firms Rising Tide Interactive, DSPolitical. Voters by congressional district.
Psychological Profiles
Profiles involving people’s feelings and psychology were numerous, offering advertisers a menu of consumers grouped by sentiment and mental health.
Lifestyle
Tattoo Addicts
Hipsters
Indulgent Dog Owners
Households with Trendy Moms (BlueKai)
Financial
Pensions & Ports
Khakis & Credit
Leveraged Life
McMansions & Merriment
Aspirations and Dreams – Happiness Seekers
Aspirations and Dreams – Love Aspirers
Aspirations and Dreams – Money Driven
Brand personas
Lone Wolves
Receptive to emotional messaging
Rebellious spirits
Concerned with self-image
Confident and Social
Status Shopper
Personality
Extraversion – Jokers
Extraversion – Party Animals
Extraversion – Frustrated Extraverts
Neuroticism – Trapped
Neuroticism – Stress Reactors
Neuroticism – Self Lovers
Neuroticism – Easily Deflated
Neuroticism – Internal Escapists
General Attitudes – I generally get a raw deal out of life
Dealing with Stress – Hot and Cold
Dealing with Stress – Emotional
Dealing with Stress – Bottled Up
Agreeableness: Disinterested
Agreeableness – Rat Racers
Agreeableness – Low
Love – Passionate Lovers
Love – Rollercoaster Romantics
Financial
Some of the most colorfully described audience segments came from consumer credit agencies Equifax and Experian. Segments are branded with alliterative names like “Silver Sophisticates” and “Progressive Potpourri” that reflect the political and socioeconomic makeup of the household. Some of these brand-name segments promise a package of economically stressed individuals to target with names like “Struggling Elders” and “Tight Money.”
Economic challenges
Strugglers and Strivers – Meager Means
Strugglers and Strivers – Credit Reliant
Small Town Shallow Pockets
Urban SurvivorsTight Money
Tough Times
Mid – Life Strugglers – Small-Town Families
Credit Crunched – City Families
Seniors
Rough Retirement – Small-Town and Rural Se
Struggling Elders – Small-Town and Rural S
Retiring on Empty – Singles
Wealth
Birkenstocks and Beemers
Progressive Potpourri
Silver Sophisticates
Picture Perfect Families
American Royalty
Diamonds and Pearls – Wealthiest Retirees
Champagne Tastes – Executive
Empty Nesters
Military
Veterans are the subject of several audience segments, as are active and retired members of the military.
Military personnel
Occupation > Active Military
Military Personnel – Retired Military
Military Families
Veteran Associations
Military Veteran Business Owners
Cricket Wireless > Q2 Competitor Subscribers & Military Visitors
Cricket Wireless > Q2 Local Competitor Store Visitors & Military Base Visitors
Location and Geofencing
“Consumers are packaged according to their location history and movements.”…
…
https://themarkup.org/privacy/2023/06/08/from-heavy-purchasers-of-pregnancy-tests-to-the-depression-prone-we-found-650000-ways-advertisers-label-you
*
We, us, you are a victim of your own data. You are transparent to capital and power. And may be targeted within one browse. Feelin’ lucky punk?
(Apologies if too long, yet the sheer number of categories needs listing to show – above is just a few – how many ways they can come for you)
Cut carbon by a third.
Smart and simple. Will it scale? Looks like it will.
“A Finnish firm thinks it can cut industrial carbon emissions by a third
“Running a turbine backwards can produce green heat
…
“Spinning up
“The easiest way to think about Coolbrook’s system is as a gas turbine in reverse. A conventional gas turbine—as used in power stations or jet engines—burns fossil fuel to create a hot, high-pressure gas that spins rotor blades. That rotational energy can be used to run a thrust-generating fan (as in jet aircraft) or converted to electricity in a generator (as in a power station).
The new system begins instead with an electric motor. The motor spins the turbine’s rotors. Gas or liquid is then fed to the turbine. Once inside, the rotors accelerate the stuff to supersonic speeds, and then rapidly slow it again. The sudden deceleration transforms the kinetic energy contained in the accelerated gas or fluid into heat. If the motor is powered by green electricity, then no carbon dioxide is produced.
…
https://www.economist.com/science-and-technology/2023/06/07/a-finnish-firm-thinks-it-can-cut-industrial-carbon-emissions-by-a-third
https://coolbrook.com/
John, will existing subscriptions to this blog carry over to substack, or should we resubscribe at substack?
Resubscribe at Substack, please. Transferring subscriptions is beyond my technical ability.
“JinkoSolar has announced the construction of a 56 GW vertically integrated PV factory in Shanxi province, China, while Longi has started building a 100 GW wafer and 50 GW production facility.” https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/16/chinese-pv-industry-brief-jinko-to-build-56-gw-vertically-integrated-pv-factory/ Of course the capacity is in GW per year.
This is consistent with the IEA report of a truly massive expansion of PV production capacity under way. To give you an idea of the scale, the total PV installed in Australia today, after 20 years or so, is 30.5 GW. I wonder if Chinese coal-mining firms are reading the same news.
Swiss voters have backed a climate law committing the country to net zero emissions by 2050. It’s a specific piece of adopted legislation, on which a right-wing party forced a backstop referendum, so it’s clearly an operational decision not an aspiration. As far as I can seen the commitment does not cover indirect emissions embodied in imports, but time will tell. The large majority in favour (59%) should settle the question for some time. The conservative Swiss tend to do what they say, after long pauses for reflection, so it’s a very promising signal. Nuclear power does not seem to have been an issue, as there are no Swiss businesses who see it as a profitable opportunity.
More surprisingly, Swiss voters also supported a minimum 15% tax (as in the OECD agreement) on the profits of tax- resident multinationals.
https://www.euronews.com/green/2023/06/19/electricity-sinkhole-or-important-step-forward-swiss-citizens-to-vote-on-new-climate-law
The capacities being produced in China are massive. Add to that the desire of the US and EU to reduce their dependence on China, means there will be a lot of PB produced in coming years.
The Australian Antarctic Program Partnership tweeted a thread yesterday (Jun 20) including:
Zack Labe tweeted yesterday (Jun 19) the graph below, which better shows that while sea ice is growing (Austral winter), it’s growing much slower than average. The deviation is huge.
Professor Eliot Jacobson tweeted yesterday (Jun 19):
Meanwhile Leon Simons tweeted yesterday (Jun 19) a graph showing the North Atlantic Sea Surface Temperature is still at an extreme record high. 1.15°C above the 1982-2011 mean.
The Australian BoM needs a bigger Y-axis (maxing out at +2.8 °C) for their latest El Niño forecast (model run dated 17 Jun 2023):
+3.0 °C by October 2023; and
+3.2 °C by November 2023.
See the latest tweet today (Jun 21) from Prof Eliot Jacobson:
Prof Jacobson then followed with this:
Geoff Miel quotes Prof Jacobson;
“And to get an idea of just how massive the developing El Niño could be, the previous record high super El Niño peaked at 2.6°C in November/December of 2015. The 1997 El Niño peaked at 2.4°C. And this one is now modelled by the BoM to break 3.0°C.”
Eric Topol has switched to climate and snagged Al Gore. And AI as always to the fore.
Al Gore and the looming El Nino:
“The ocean currents–we’re already seeing it with the jet stream in the northern hemisphere. You may have seen on the weather maps. They’re now using these a lot where it’s getting loopier and more disorganized. That’s what the last few winners has, has pulled these big loops, have pulled arctic air down into areas far south in the US and in other regions, by the way. And it’s making a lot of the extreme events worse. Now, we’re entering an El Nino phase in the Pacific Ocean comes around every so often, and this one is predicted to be a strong one, and that’s going to accentuate the temperature increase.”
*
“Al Gore: The Intersection of A.I. and Climate Change”
Eric Topol
JUN 21 2023
…
“But there are many other extremely worrying manifestations that aren’t getting much attention. I do think we’re going to solve this, Eric. I’m very optimistic, but the question is whether we will solve it in time. We are what’s the right way to say this? We’re tiptoeing through a minefield with tripwires and toward the edge of a cliff. I don’t want to torture the metaphor, but actually there are several extremely dangerous threats to ecological systems that are in a state of balance now, and are being pushed out of their equilibrium state into a different format.
…
“… I could go on, but the net and balance out the good news and the bad news we are gaining momentum. And soon we are going to be gaining on the crisis itself and start deploying solutions faster than it’s getting worse. So I remain optimistic, and I always remind people, if you doubt we have the political will to see this through, remember that political will is itself a renewable resource.
“The Intersection of A.I. and Climate Change
Eric Topol (11:27):
…
Al Gore …
https://erictopol.substack.com/p/al-gore-the-intersection-of-ai-and
h/t nakedcapitalism
Prof Eliot Jacobson tweeted a graph of the temperatures of the North Atlantic on the Summer solstice, June 21, for every year 1982-2023. Sigma exceeds 4.0 for the first time.
Leon Simons tweeted that the whole 40,000,000 km² of the North Atlantic Ocean is 0.7°C warmer than ever – I think he means within the instrumental record – and is 1.3°C warmer than average!
And the Global Sea Surface Temperature Anomaly also reached a record high (again..) of +0.72°C. Compare 2023 (as the El Niño emerges) beside the Super El Niño years 1997 and 2015:
But Canadian wildfire smoke and Sahara dust blocking sunlight from reaching the surface may start to moderate temperatures in the coming days to weeks.
Things appear to be falling apart in Russia right now. Prigozhin and the Wagner mercenaries (25,000 strong) have commenced an insurrection of some kind on Russian soil.
I am not going to try to predict what might happen. It seems a fair guess however that this will not make Russia stronger. It might even be seriously destabilizing.
Next: Add Targeting by neural network. We cannot tell how we ended up targeting the anorexic with diet food and worse. The experts agree i´ve been told. I m still inclined to think there would be ways to avoid that even when KI technology does some of the work, if nothing else with some basic overrides for the obvious worse things. German philosophers are a conservative bunch of strange people.
“Guesstimate is that the global long COVID population is something like 400 million people.” – Professor Danny Altman, The Independent SAGE.
400 million people is 1 in 20 persons in the world. This situation is still worsening.
Japanese Study.
A recently released Japanese study reveals COVID reinfection data based on medical billing records:
Interval between infections:
Wave 1 to 3 (W/T) : 16.9 months;
Wave 4 (Alpha) : 13.6 months;
Wave 5 (Delta) : 10.9 months;
Wave 6 (Omicron) early 2022 : 7.3 months;
Wave 7 (Omicron) autumn 2022 : 3.7 months.
CDC report.
“Trends in Laboratory-Confirmed SARS-CoV-2 Reinfections and Associated Hospitalizations and Deaths Among Adults Aged ≥18 Years — 18 U.S. Jurisdictions, September 2021–December 2022”
Weekly / June 23, 2023 / 72(25);683–689
“Summary
What is already known about this topic?
Although SARS-CoV-2 reinfections have increased, U.S. epidemiologic trends and associated severe outcomes have not been characterized.
What is added by this report?
During September 2021–December 2022, the percentages of reinfections among all COVID-19 cases, hospitalizations, and deaths reported by 18 U.S. jurisdictions increased substantially as new Omicron lineages became predominant. Increases were more pronounced among adults aged 18–49 years compared with those among older persons.”
Summation of above – IMO.
These data and reports show that the global COVID-19 pandemic was still worsening, at least up until the end of 2022 in major advanced countries. There is nothing in the data to suggest that anything is getting any better in 2023. The continued addition of long COVID cases suggests deteriorating world health and the data show reducing life expectancy. Continued trends, like Australia’s hospitalization rates and death rates indicate that COVID-19 infections with serious consequences continue unabated and at high “endemic” rates. This process is adding to the Long Covid burden faster than recovery or remission can remove people from that tally.
All this indicates an unsustainable process, undermining the health and economy of Australia (and the world). While this crisis continues unaddressed, we are sealing the doom of our collapse just as we are doing with unaddressed climate change. We will be in very serious and perhaps terminal trouble, existentially, if we don’t radically change our approaches to these crises. Time to dither and prevaricate has run out.
I agree with Charels Hugh Smith that we confuse “happy stories with systems”.
Ikon re “Time to dither and prevaricate has run out.”
CHS: “If you question the Hollywood ending, you’re dismissed as a doom and gloomer, a discontent who grumbles about happy endings and techno-marvels.”
From:
“This Is Why Nobody Will Do Anything Until It’s Too Late”
…
“By the time inputs and processes have materially changed, it’s too late to reverse the process and go back in time. Once resource extraction processes break down, inputs are no longer available in the needed quantities to feed all the processes of globalized, industrialized production and transport. Since all these processes are tightly bound systems, that is, interconnected, the breakdown of any one supply chain or process quickly topples dominoes throughout the system.
“In addition to confusing happy stories with systems, human hubris manifests in another way: we like to think that minor tweaks here and there that don’t inconvenience us will magically change the negative outputs (resource depletion, environmental ruin, etc.). This is why we love the Hollywood stories about electric aircraft (our very own electric helicopter–yowza!), electric vehicles, recycling the carboard boxes from FedEx, UPS and Amazon, and so on: we get all the comforts and conveniences we’re accustomed to, and we get to be environmentally-sustainable saints, too: it’s all sustainable and ecological and warm and fuzzy.
“Except it isn’t. That’s a fairy tale, not a system.
“If you question the Hollywood ending, you’re dismissed as a doom and gloomer, a discontent who grumbles about happy endings and techno-marvels.
…
https://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2023/06/this-is-why-nobody-will-do-anything.html
Apologies for the Amazon link turning into Kindle.
Charels Hugh Smith
– My Hidden History (outdated, but offers some additional pages)
– My Non-Fiction Books (8)
– My Novels (7)
– Extra-Special Bonus Aphorisms
Archives
https://www.oftwominds.com/bio4-14.html
A YouTube video was published on Jun 8 titled A True Paradise: WHERE WE ARE HEADING – Kevin Anderson, duration 0:16:25. Climate scientist Kevin Anderson warns that continuing on our current path could result in a 3-4 °C temperature rise by the end of the century, a catastrophic outcome to be avoided at all costs. He cautions against believing the political rhetoric about progress in the fight against climate change and calls on us to push for bold policy changes.
IMO, this should be mandatory viewing for politicians, academics, journalists, and the business communities.
An example of Kevin Anderson’s message included from time interval 0:13:02:
“But the message of hope, if there’s any thread of hope in this, is that it is a choice to fail. We have so far repeatedly; I’m going to say ‘we’ – what I mean is, effectively, our leaders politically, academically, in the journalistic community, across the board, those people that have framed this debate, have chosen actively to fail for three decades. And when they have breakfast with their own children, then I hope they are thinking about what they have deliberately, what we have deliberately imposed upon their future. But as I say, it’s a choice. And the great thing about choice is we can choose a different way out of this.”
“Russian mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin says Moscow’s war in Ukraine is based on lies.” – ABC TV.
Hmmm, so what was Prigozhin doing there with his mercenary army? Making money out of other people’s deaths, I guess. Some people in Russia are so desperate for change that they welcomed Prigozhin and Wagner when they took over Rostov. It’s tragic and portends ill for Russia.
A while ago, IIRC, I predicted (in a very general fashion) that warlord-ism would be the result in collapsing regions of the world. It looks like Russia is close to that now. Russia has a large number of private armies or Private Military Companies (PMCs).
http://informnapalm.rocks/pmc_rush
So, I am sticking my neck in prediction. Russia will become a failed state and descend into warlord-ism. What does that mean when it’s the nation in the world with the most (apparently) functional nuclear warheads? This is very concerning to say the least.
ICYMI/FYI:
* The higher the Earth Energy Imbalance (EEI) number is, the faster that heat accumulates, and the sooner the Earth System breaches high warming thresholds.
Some climate scientists think the rapid reductions in sulphur emissions, as a consequence of the IMO2020 regulation requiring the maximum amount of sulphur in shipping fuels be reduced from 3.5% to 0.5% by 1 Jan 2020, has increased the EEI. The same NASA satellites show a large and sudden increase in Absorbed Solar Radiation in the regions where emissions have reduced most.
* The slower than usual growth of Antarctic sea ice extent in 2023 continues:
* 1:20 of the world’s population is estimated to have long COVID. A disease that is actively destroying peoples lives. Per the CDC almost 20% of those with Long Covid haven’t worked in a year.