Science/Techno Babble Random, Random

[Suliso]

Here is the third part as promised. If that man is not obsessed with Mars I don't know who is.

[ponchi101]

Haven't seen it, but just to comment.
I really wonder why he has the obsession. "Colonizing" Mars will not help one iota to solve our problems here. Simple math: fly 1,000 people a day to Mars, and that is 365K/year. Only one drop taken out from the bucket of problems down here.
I also wonder: are they looking at FARMING in Mars? How do you feed 500,000 people (his goal) in a planer with no arable land?

[Suliso]

I guess only Elon could really answer it. However, I think he's not looking to solve Earth's problems in a way you think. At least not with Spacex (Tesla is more geared for that). What he's saying is that if something awful happens to Earth in the future there would still be Mars left. That is 7 billion might perish, but half a million still left elsewhere to rebuild the human race.

I think we're at least 10 years away from anyone stepping on Mars, more likely 15. While it's true that Musk is making a significant progress with the transportation system there are still other super hard problems ahead - food, propellant production on Mars, radiation protection and so on.

[Suliso]

Here is a different, but also very innovative take on how rockets ought to be developed and built.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Wouldn't a better headline have been "age and size of local coral surprises scientists" ? If the locals already had a name for it how is this a "discovery"? Kind of like the "discovery" of the Americas?

‘No one has noticed it’: 400-year-old giant coral discovered on Great Barrier Reef
Named Muga dhambi by traditional owners , it was uncovered on a marine citizen science course

Royce Kurmelovs
@RoyceRk2
Thu 19 Aug 2021 18.30 BST

Smith said local fishers and researchers had known about the coral for some time but until that moment no one had looked closer.

(...)

The exact species of the coral is unknown as genetic testing has not been done to confirm, but it belongs to the genus Porites sp.

The traditional custodians of Palm Island, the Manbarra people, have named the coral Muga dhambi. The name translates to “Big coral”.

Muga dhambi has been described in the journal Scientific Reports this week with co-authors that included 17-year-old Kailash Cook, who helped measure the coral during the dive, and the “godfather of coral”, 76-year-old Dr Charlie Veron, who helped identify it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... 1629396889

[Suliso]

A nice overview video about silicon chip design and manufacturing. A truly global effort and likely indeed the most complex manufacturing process in the world today. What's not in the video, but perhaps should have been is the manufacturing of ultrapure silicon needed.

[ponchi101]

We talked about this recently. Good to see we are not the only ones
Millions of electric car batteries will retire in the next decade. What happens to them?

[ponchi101]

A nice overview video about silicon chip design and manufacturing. A truly global effort and likely indeed the most complex manufacturing process in the world today. What's not in the video, but perhaps should have been is the manufacturing of ultrapure silicon needed.

The guy obviously only scratched the surface and it is still very impressive.
Now, the geopolitical consequences of the location of some of these companies is huge. For example, TSMC, located in Taiwan, means that if the Chinese were to take over the island, the entire economy of the world has changed. An incredible position for a single company to be in.

[mmmm8]

A nice overview video about silicon chip design and manufacturing. A truly global effort and likely indeed the most complex manufacturing process in the world today. What's not in the video, but perhaps should have been is the manufacturing of ultrapure silicon needed.

The guy obviously only scratched the surface and it is still very impressive.
Now, the geopolitical consequences of the location of some of these companies is huge. For example, TSMC, located in Taiwan, means that if the Chinese were to take over the island, the entire economy of the world has changed. An incredible position for a single company to be in.

The vast majority of semiconductor manufacturing is in Taiwan. Besides TSMC, they have UMC and MediaTek. Yeah, if China were to take over, it would change the supply chain for technology immensely.

[Suliso]

I think these factories would have to be destroyed if China were to invade. Not seeing them giving in willingly, particularly after seeing Hongkong. Recovery from that would indeed be very difficult, some years would pass for sure.

[ti-amie]

[ti-amie]

Apple Issues Emergency Security Updates to Close a Spyware Flaw
Researchers at Citizen Lab found that NSO Group, an Israeli spyware company, had infected Apple products without so much as a click.

By Nicole Perlroth
Sept. 13, 2021
Updated 3:30 p.m. ET

Apple on Monday issued emergency software updates for a critical vulnerability in its products after security researchers uncovered a flaw that allows highly invasive spyware from Israel’s NSO Group to infect anyone’s iPhone, Apple Watch or Mac computer without so much as a click.

Apple’s security team has been working around the clock to develop a fix since Tuesday, after researchers at Citizen Lab, a cybersecurity watchdog organization at the University of Toronto, discovered that a Saudi activist’s iPhone had been infected with spyware from NSO Group.

The spyware, called Pegasus, used a novel method to invisibly infect an Apple device without the victim’s knowledge for as long as six months. Known as a “zero click remote exploit,” it is considered the Holy Grail of surveillance because it allows governments, mercenaries and criminals to secretly break into a victim’s device without tipping them off.

Using the zero-click infection method, Pegasus can turn on a user’s camera and microphone, record their messages, texts, emails, calls — even those sent via encrypted messaging and phone apps like Signal — and send it back to NSO’s clients at governments around the world.

“This spyware can do everything an iPhone user can do on their device and more,” said John Scott-Railton, a senior researcher at Citizen Lab, who teamed up with Bill Marczak, a senior research fellow at Citizen Lab, on the finding.

In the past, victims only learned their devices were infected by spyware after receiving a suspicious link texted to their phone or email. But NSO Group’s zero-click capability gives the victim no such prompt, and enables full access to a person’s digital life. These capabilities can fetch millions of dollars on the underground market for hacking tools.

An Apple spokesman confirmed Citizen Lab’s assessment and said the company planned to add spyware barriers to its next iOS 15 software update, expected later this year.

NSO Group did not immediately respond to inquiries on Monday.

NSO Group has long drawn controversy. The company has said it sells its spyware to only governments that meet strict human rights standards. But over the past six years, its Pegasus spyware has turned up on the phones of activists, dissidents, lawyers, doctors, nutritionists and even children in countries like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Mexico.

In July, NSO Group became the subject of intense media scrutiny after Amnesty International, the human rights watchdog, and Forbidden Stories, a group that focuses on free speech, teamed up with a consortium of media organizations on “The Pegasus Project” to publish a list they said contained some 50,000 people — including hundreds of journalists, government leaders, dissidents and activists — selected as targets by NSO’s clients.

The consortium did not disclose how it obtained the list and it was unclear whether the list was aspirational or whether the people were actually targeted with NSO spyware.

Among those listed were Azam Ahmed, a former New York Times Mexico City bureau chief who has reported widely on corruption, violence and surveillance in Latin America, including on NSO itself; and Ben Hubbard, The Times’s bureau chief in Beirut, who has investigated rights abuses and corruption in Saudi Arabia and wrote a recent biography of the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.

Shalev Hulio, a co-founder of NSO Group, vehemently denied the list’s accuracy, telling The Times, “This is like opening up the white pages, choosing 50,000 numbers and drawing some conclusion from it.”

NSO’s clients previously infected their targets using text messages that cajoled victims into clicking on a link. Those links made it possible for journalists to investigate the possible presence of NSO’s spyware. But the new zero-click method makes the discovery of spyware by journalists and cybersecurity researchers much harder.

“The commercial spyware industry is going darker,” said Mr. Marczak, a researcher at Citizen Lab who helped uncover the exploit on a Saudi activist’s phone.

Mr. Scott-Railton urged Apple customers to run their software updates.

“Do you own an Apple product? Update it today,” he said.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/13/tech ... 2afbcd939d

[Suliso]

Some interesting facts about cars: currently about 2 billion cars (including SUV's and light trucks) on the road worldwide and increasing. Total car production capacity about 100 million per year. So to replace all with electric cars would take at least 20 years if you sold no more ICE cars from tomorrow (obviously impossible). Perhaps it could be sped up to 15 years with an immense effort. Of course this is no argument against starting, just that the transition will take a very long time.

Also I'm reading that lithium ion battery technology improves at a rate of about 8% per year. Doesn't maybe sound so much, but if that stays constant it's still doubling of performance every 9 years. Not exactly Moore's law, but nothing else really improves at the rate of chips and memory. There are a lot of people working on fundamentally new battery technologies as well, but that's a lot more uncertain. Serious scientific and engineering breakthroughs required. Anything new needs to be not only with better energy density, but also price competitive.