Category: News You Need to Know

You Can’t Take the Sky from Me

Swarm Technologies applied to the Federal Communications Commission Fascist Communications Club (FCC) for permission to launch a handful of satellites. The FCC denied the company’s application. But the United States doesn’t have a monopoly on spaceflight so Swarm Technologies shopped around and was able to get its satellites into the air thanks to India. Now the FCC is claiming that it owns all of space:

One company might not have been willing to take “no” for an answer, however. IEEE Spectrum has discovered that the FCC accused startup Swarm Technologies of launching four of its tiny SpaceBEE (Basic Electronic Elements) communication cubesats without obtaining the necessary approvals — in effect, it would be the first satellite maker to go rogue.

The FCC denied Swarm’s application to launch its satellites in December 2017 on the grounds that they posed a safety hazard to other spacecraft orbiting Earth. That apparently wasn’t a deterrent, as the SpaceBEEs appear to have launched aboard one of India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicles on January 12th (you’re looking at the rocket above). Needless to say, that left officials fuming. The FCC revoked Swarm’s approval for a subsequent mission that would have taken place this April, citing an “apparent unauthorized launch and operation” of the four satellites.

The fact that the FCC revoked Swarm Technology’s approval for future missions is especially funny since the company demonstrated that it didn’t need FCC approval to get its satellites into space. But doing so probably fed some petty bureaucrat’s power trip and that’s all government approval is capable of doing in a global economy.

The world has become more connected. It’s trivial to communication with people on the other side of the globe in real time. Traveling across oceans takes a matter of hours, not days or weeks. If the government of a region is standing in your way, you can shop around for a region that will allow you to do what you want to do and transport whatever you need to that region. If worst comes to worst, a company can move itself entirely to a friendlier region.

What Do You Do for Money, Honey

There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch. In this new App Store economy where users are often unwilling to pay even $5.00 for an application, developers have been looking for ways to make ends meet. In-app advertising was one model that was tried but the payoff tended to be subpar. Many game developers shifted to a model based on convincing players to make a bunch of in-app purchases. While that model has been very profitable for game developers, it has been hard to make that model work in non-game applications. Now some developers are experimenting with embedding crypto-currency miners in their software:

The app is Calendar 2, a scheduling app that aims to include more features than the Calendar app that Apple bundles with macOS. In recent days, Calendar 2 developer Qbix endowed it with code that mines the digital coin known as Monero. The xmr-stack miner isn’t supposed to run unless users specifically approve it in a dialog that says the mining will be in exchange for turning on a set of premium features. If users approve the arrangement, the miner will then run. Users can bypass this default action by selecting an option to keep the premium features turned off or to pay a fee to turn on the premium features.

I actually like what Qbix is doing. Users are given options for using advanced features. They can either make a one time payment of $17.99, a monthly payment of $0.99, or allow the application to mine Monero in the background. If the user doens’t like any of those options, the advanced features are disabled but the users are otherwise free to use the application.

Two of the biggest problems I have with the advertising model that powers much of the Internet and some applications are the lack of transparency and the lack of options. Websites and applications that collect user information to provide to advertisers often don’t disclose that they’re collecting information or, even if they do, what kind of information they’re collecting. Moreover, users seldom have the option of paying the developer to disable the data collection. Displaying advertisements also introduces a major malware vector. Numerous advertising networks have been highjacked into serving malware to users. Crypto-currency miners don’t require collecting user information and are harder to turn into malware vectors than advertising networks. The cost is electricity consumption due to high CPU usage, which is why I still appreciate developers who provide an option to pay to disable their crypto-currency miners.

Learning Unfortunate Lessons the Hard Way

I feel bad for the students of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. When they really needed protection, they were abandoned by those who were tasked with protecting them. Unfortunately, a couple of the surviving students are probably going to suffer all over again because they are filing a lawsuit against the school, the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and the Broward County Sheriff’s Department for their roles in failing to protect them:

Two survivors of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., have announced they will sue the school, the FBI and the local sheriff’s office for failing to prevent the deadly February attack.

Anthony Borges, 15, and his family said on Monday that he intends to sues the Broward County Public School District and the Broward County Sheriff’s Office, according to the Miami Herald.

The lawsuit, when it is filed, will allege that there should have been more done to protect students and teachers inside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Feb. 14 when a former student walked into the school and killed 17 people.

These kids already had to learn that when things get bad nobody is going to save them. Now they’re probably going to learn that law enforcers have no duty to protect them.

The students may receive something from the school district but I doubt they will see anything from the FBI or the sheriff’s department. While both of those agencies dropped the ball, they are allowed to do that because the Supreme Court said so. Moreover, since nobody in the United States is allowed to cease paying taxes to a federal or local law enforcement agency that fails to provide protection, the agencies have no motivation to provide protection.

It Gets Worse

The aftermath of the shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School has become like the history of Russia, every chapter can be summarized by saying, “And then it got worse.”

As word spread that an armed attacker was shooting up a Parkland high school, two members of the Miramar Police Department’s SWAT team responded to the scene.

They had been training in nearby Coral Springs earlier that day and wanted to help end a deadly mass shooting that claimed 17 lives.

But their own commander said he didn’t know they were going. And the Broward Sheriff’s Office — worried about over-crowding a chaotic scene with law enforcement officers — didn’t ask for them to show up. BSO already had its own SWAT team in motion.

Eight days after the tragedy at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, the two Miramar officers, Det. Jeffery Gilbert and Det. Carl Schlosser, were temporarily suspended from duty with the SWAT team. They remain on active duty with the department, according to a Miramar police spokeswoman.

While four officers were sitting on the sidelines, whether due to cowardice or being ordered to do so, two officers from the Miramar Police Department SWAT team attempted to respond to the scene. Now they’re the ones being punished.

They’re being punished for disobeying orders. While I can see why one wouldn’t want unexpected people running to a scene to which others are already responding, we know that nobody was responding to the school shooting. That being the case, it seems foolish to punish these two now. But it seems like many departments have developed a culture where following orders is the most important criteria for an officer, not helping those who the department is supposedly tasked with helping.

Sincerity

President Trump is taking the issue of violence so seriously that he’s meeting with executives in the video game industry instead of winding down the country’s overseas wars:

A variety of potential actions have been discussed to limit school violence in the wake of the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, FL last month, from the uninspired option of raising the minimum age of potential gun-buyers to President Trump’s controversial suggestion of arming teachers. But a familiar target for blame appears to be on the mind of the president, as well. In today’s White House press briefing, press secretary Sarah Sanders said that Trump would soon meet with “members of the video game industry” to see what could be discussed around “protect[ing] schools around the country.”

A lot of people are rightly poking fun at Trump for his announcement. Of course many of the same people are also angry because Trump is blaming one inanimate object, video games, instead of another inanimate object, guns. It always amazes me how people can learn only the part of a lesson that jives with their worldview.

Most Hated Person in America

There are several contestants for the coveted Most Hated Person in America award. Trump has been the likely winner for 2018 but now he faces some stiff competition:

The Broward County Sheriff’s Office has identified to Fox News the captain who, according to sources, directed responding deputies and units to “stage” or form a “perimeter” outside Stoneman Douglas High School, instead of rushing immediately into the building, as the mass shooting unfolded there.

Multiple law enforcement and official sources said the commands in the initial moments after Nikolas Cruz allegedly opened fire would go against all training which instructs first responders to “go, go, go” until the shooter is neutralized. As law enforcement arrived, the shooter’s identity and exact location were still unknown.

Multiple sources told Fox News that Captain Jan Jordan was the commanding officer on scene. In an email responding to Fox News’ request for information, a BSO spokesperson wrote, “Capt. Jordan’s radio call sign is 17S1.”

Before giving Jan all of the blame, it should be noted that this remains an allegation. I’m sure the department is desperate to throw somebody under the bus and several officers could be trying to do that with Captain Jan. Unless more information comes to light, it’s difficult to say. But this is America so individuals are guilty until proven innocent so I’m pretty sure Jan will win that coveted award regardless.

No matter how one looks at it, the Broward County Sheriff’s Office really fucked up the handling of this shooting. While it’s easy to pin the blame on a single individual, the problems in the department likely run far deeper than just one incompetent individual.

When You Hire Storm Troopers to Enforce Laws

Apparently the San Francisco Police Department is hiring many of the Storm Troopers who found themselves unemployed after the Empire fell:

Authorities in San Francisco released body camera videos on Tuesday of a dramatic shootout in which police officers fired their weapons at least 65 times in 15 seconds at a murder suspect.

[…]

“Nobody was struck by gunfire during this incident. The evidence in the case so far indicates Armstrong fired two rounds from a weapon, and that seven officers fired 65 rounds from their department-issued weapons,” SFPD Commander Greg McEachern told KTVU.

65 rounds were fired and nobody was hit? That’s almost impressive.

What makes this matter funnier is that these are the people to whom gun control advocates want to give a monopoly on legal gun ownership. While any gun owners is capable of firing 65 rounds and failing to hit a target, they are at least held accountable for their actions. The officers involved in this shooting will probably face no consequences for recklessly endangering bystanders, especially since they were extremely lucky and failed to hit any of them.

Perverse Incentives

Shortly after the school shooting in Florida, a threat was made against a school in Orono, Minnesota. After that threat was made, a GoFundMe campaign was established for the family of the child who issued the threat and managed to raise $31,000:

An online fundraising campaign has raised more than $31,000 for the family of the boy who posted threats on social media last week that triggered the lockdown at Orono public schools.

The GoFundMe page was started with the blessing of the boy’s family on Saturday. The boy, who has autism, was arrested Wednesday at school and is being held at the Hennepin County Juvenile Detention Facility.

[…]

According to the post, the boy “is deeply broken, and the situation is dire. He is despondent, and his special needs condition prevents him from coping with his detention. He is in an immediate health crisis and needs legal representation to navigate through his circumstances and get him the care and treatment that he desperately needs.”

If you read the GoFundMe description, it appears that the boy has been diagnosed with autism but the description doesn’t indicate where on the spectrum the boy falls. However, raising $31,000 for a child who called in a threat to a school is what is called a perverse incentive. Other parents of children with autism looking for a cash payout of tens of thousands of dollars may decide to encourage their child to issue a threat to their school. And, unfortunately, there are parents who care less for their child’s welfare than money and would be willing to pull a stunt like this.

To Cower And Hide

The school shooting in Florida has really demonstrated the incompetency of law enforcement. The Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) was informed about the shooter on several occasions but never bothered to investigate, the local sheriff received 18 calls about the man but never took any meaningful action, and as the bullets started to fly four law enforcers hung around outside of the school instead of going in:

Not one but four sheriff’s deputies hid behind cars instead of storming Marjory Stoneman Douglas HS in Parkland, Fla., during Wednesday’s school shooting, police claimed Friday — as newly released records revealed the Broward County Sheriff’s Office had received at least 18 calls about the troubled teen over the past decade.

One of the pillars of gun control is that nongovernmental individuals don’t need firearms because law enforcers provide adequate protection. But law enforcers have no constitutional duty to protect you and as we saw in Florida they very well may let you get gunned down instead of trying to protect you.

If you find yourself facing a life or death situation, the only person you can rely on is yourself.

A Tolls Is a Toll, And a Roll Is a Roll

Whenever I bring up the subject of privatizing roads, some statist screams, “But then all the roads would be toll roads!” While many private roads would likely be toll roads, at least I would only have to pay for them once:

Roy presented the Minnesota Tolling Study Report to the House Transportation Committee Monday, and fielded questions on how the money would be collected, what the impact on lower income people would be and how it would affect prices of consumer products hauled by trucks.

He told lawmakers this was a “high level study” based on a lot of assumptions, as opposed to a formal feasibility study, which would be more detailed, take longer to do and cost much more. Roy compared the new study to the general range of quotes you get from an auto mechanic after you describe the noise it’s making.

The study estimates that Interstate 94 corridor would generate the most revenue, roughly $5 billion across the next three decades. But it wouldn’t all be pure profit that could be spent on other highway projects.

First you make the tax paying suckers build and maintain the roads then you charge them again for access. That sounds an awful lot like a stadium come to think of it.

While Minnesotans have so far managed to avoid paying tolls on roads, the politicians keep testing the waters because, as the study shows, there is a lot of wealth that can be expropriated by charging the tax payers tolls as well. With billions of dollar on the table, I believe that it’s only a matter of time until Minnesota drops toll booths on its major metropolitan highways. Once that happens the only difference between a private and public toll road will be the fact that you don’t have to also pay taxes for the private one.