1 trillion & counting ...

Afghanistan is a treasure trove of rare earths and mineral resources countries all over the world are lusting for, thanks to Russia doing the surveys back in the 60's and 70's proving the treasure trove does exist, a fact China is counting on in terms of telling the Taliban they are the only country able to get access to said resources to such a degree that will generate enough revenue for both entities to thrive, something the US had no concept of doing in it's never ending quest to feed the maw of the MIC.

Deep beneath the ground in one of the world’s poorest countries sits at least $1 trillion of untapped mineral resources, according to a report published by Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum [PDF]. The South Asian country of 38 million people is estimated to hold more than 2.2 billion tonnes of iron ore, 1.3 billion tonnes of marble and 1.4 million tonnes of rare earth minerals.

According to Scott Montgomery, a geologist who has studied the extent of Afghanistan’s resources, the country requires a minimum of seven to 10 years to develop large-scale mining to become a major source of revenue.

and ...

1 Trillion and counting indeed.

Quantum Spin Ice

Particles with the quantum property called spin, illustrated by the blue arrow, can’t agree on an orientation in a type of material called quantum spin ice. Elia Maru Studio/Science Source

The fine-structure constant α is of dimension 1 (i.e., it is simply a number) and very nearly equal to 1/137. It is the "coupling constant" or measure of the strength of the electromagnetic force that governs how electrically charged elementary particles (e.g., electron, muon) and light (photons) interact.

In English, the FSC is the basis for life as we know it.

The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice, physicists calculate in the Sept. 10 Physical Review Letters. The new calculation hints that quantum spin ice could give a glimpse at physics within an alternate universe where the constant is much larger.

With an influence that permeates physics and chemistry, the fine-structure constant sets the strength of interactions between electrically charged particles. Its value, about 1/137, consternates physicists because they can’t explain why it has that value, even though it is necessary for the complex chemistry that is the basis of life (SN: 11/2/16).

If the fine-structure constant throughout the cosmos were as large as the one in quantum spin ices, “the periodic table would only have 10 elements,” says theoretical physicist Christopher Laumann of Boston University. “And it probably would be hard to make people; there wouldn’t be enough richness to chemistry.”

It's all about geometry yet again.

In quantum spin ices, particles (black dots) are located at the corners of an array of pyramids (red). Normally, the spins of the particles (green arrows) arrange so that two are pointing into the pyramid and two out. If that rule is broken, as illustrated, quasiparticles called spinons (orange and blue) form.

S.D. Pace ET AL/PRL 2021

The issue now is, can researchers actually create this most exotic of materials because if they can, the notion of existence being a multiverse construct may actually be proven to be true.

For no good reason ...

Dr. Gonzo, a moniker actually assigned to Oscar Zeta Acosta in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a book penned by Hunter S. Thompson,  the "outlaw" writer who turned journalism upside down by mixing drugs, perception and outrage, viewed America as one monumental self induced hellscape.

Yours truly brings up this crazed period in American history after viewing Gonzo, the documentary on the esteemed H. S. Thomson and his faithful side kick, Ralph Steadman, an artist for the ages transforming the grotesque into something quixotically beautiful, sorta like seeing a Jackson Pollock drip painting under the influence of LSD. 

Mr. Steadman has frequently aimed to shock with his drawings — nightmarishly funny compositions in which spidery lines intersect with clouds of spilled and sprayed ink.

Credit...Ralph Steadman/Sony Pictures Classics

He had done a few good sketches but so far we hadn’t seen that special kind of face that I felt we would need for the lead drawing. It was a face I’d seen a thousand times at every Derby I’d ever been to. I saw it, in my head, as the mask of the whiskey gentry — a pretentious mix of booze, failed dreams and a terminal identity crisis; the inevitable result of too much inbreeding in a closed and ignorant culture. One of the key genetic rules in breeding dogs, horses or any other kind of thoroughbred is that close inbreeding tends to magnify the weak points in a bloodline as well as the strong points. In horse breeding, for instance, there is a definite risk in breeding two fast horses who are both a little crazy. The offspring will likely be very fast and also very crazy. So the trick in breeding thoroughbreds is to retain the good traits and filter out the bad. But the breeding of humans is not so wisely supervised, particularly in a narrow Southern society where the closest kind of inbreeding is not only stylish and acceptable, but far more convenient — to the parents — than setting their offspring free to find their own mates, for their own reasons and their own ways. (“Goddam, did you hear about Smitty’s daughter? She went crazy in Boston last week and married a nigger!”)

Another problem was his habit of sketching people he met in the various social situations I dragged him into, then giving them the sketches. The results were always unfortunate. I warned him several times about letting the subjects see his foul renderings, but for some perverse reason he kept doing it. Consequently, he was regarded with fear and loathing by nearly everyone who’d seen or even heard about his work. He couldn’t understand it. “It’s sort of a joke,” he kept saying. “Why, in England it’s quite normal. People don’t take offense. They understand that I’m just putting them on a bit.”

For no good reason, a 2014 flick about Steadman, works as the title for this blurb as there is no good reason to discuss the insane late 60's to early 70's unless one lived it as yours truly did. Anything did go as sex, drugs and rock & roll was the mantra in an era producing the best music and art seen in America along with the lie of Viet Nam, the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy and, of course, Tricky Dick, one of the 5 worst presidents in US history. 

Nixon/Agnew ... forever

Jonathan Swift's A Modest Proposal comes to mind here does it not?

Zen & the art of Freediving ...

Alexey Molchanov at Dean’s Blue Hole, in the Bahamas.

This amazing GQ photograph showing Alexey Molchanov starting his free dive bespeaks the notion of Zen in describing a sport demanding both physical prowess and mental transcendence at the same time. 

Like other activities in which the sublime is sought, danger is an animating feature. Blackouts are frequent, especially at shallow depths, even for the most skilled divers. Pressure, which builds as one goes deeper, can rupture the soft tissues of the ears, throat, and lungs if it's not properly managed. The risks are deceptive. There is a temptation to go deeper before one is ready, which means that even the world's best tend to bite off only incremental gains in depth. There are no shortcuts in freediving; no cheat codes to water pressure, buoyancy, and gravity. At the surface, after reacquainting with the air, there can be loss of motor skills, uncontrollable shaking, blackouts, blood. Death is rare, but ever present. At this same competition in the Bahamas eight years ago, a young American from Brooklyn who was quickly ascending the ranks of the world's elite divers (perhaps too quickly, some say) died in this very cove, above this very blue hole. Safety protocols are always improving, but the specter lingers. It is not a stretch to suggest that when we humans deliberately cut off our access to oxygen, and then exert ourselves in athletic performance, we are inviting disaster, or at least tempting fate. And yet this is what it's all about. When we tempt fate in this way, our bodies and minds surprise us. This is the allure of the practice of freediving.

“He's really untouchable in pretty much all the disciplines at this time,” Vertical Blue founder William Trubridge said of Molchanov in July. 

There is a moment not much deeper into the dive when the body realizes that it is not getting oxygen the way that it usually does. This is, in part, the effect of the elevated carbon dioxide in the system. Bodies react differently, but among less advanced divers there is often an involuntary panic that sets in, convulsions or contractions; an internal spasm by the cells and alveoli, which scream for fresh air. And yet, if you pass through this traumatic phase, on the other side there is one of those unlocked secrets of the body: more oxygen. If pushed to its limit in this way, the body flips a switch, part of the mammalian diving reflex, like toggling to a reserve tank of gas. It is just one of the body's many extraordinary automatic mechanisms for staving off death—drowning, asphyxiation, brain damage, whatever—and one of the mechanisms that freedivers train to exploit. Blood begins to flow in from the extremities to the core, to the lungs and vital organs, drawing limited oxygen away from less critical body parts to those necessary to sustain life. Alexey can feel the capillaries in his lungs expand and the capillaries in his extremities constrict. A warming occurs all over. A bear hug from the depths.

Read the entire GQ piece to learn why Zen is so important to the concept of Freediving 

Ensō (c. 2000) by Kanjuro Shibata XX. 

Some artists draw ensō with an opening in the circle, while others close the circle.

Luna yet again

Harvest Moon 21

Mood Indigo

The Traveler

Reflections

Harvest Moon 2

"That's a fine payday,"

Courtesy of Oscar Stilley

Well, the first would be bounty hunter is "gonna" sue a doctor who performed an abortion in Texas under the dictates of SB.8. Seems he might need the money given the fact he can't practice law these days. 

To whit ...

‘Cranky’ Disbarred Lawyer Sues Texas Doc Who Broke Abortion Ban

“A libertarian sorta fella" tells the Beast that he’s suing an abortion provider to test the new law—and “if there's money to be had, it's going to go in Oscar's pocket.”

Oscar Stilley, a 58-year-old Arkansas man, got up early on Monday morning and decided to sue Dr. Alan Braid, the San Antonio doctor who's openly defied Texas' state ban on most abortions.

"I was cranky," Stilley joked. "So I filed a lawsuit."

"That's a fine payday," said Stilley, but the cash is only part of why he filed the complaint against Braid.

Stilley said he's been watching the saga unfold from his home in Arkansas. "I know what the proponents of this law are doing," he explained. "They're trying to inject uncertainty so that the doctors are going to say, 'Oh, my goodness, this could bankrupt me.'"

A sterling citizen to be sure.

In his complaint, Stilley describes himself as "a disbarred and disgraced former Arkansas lawyer" currently "on home confinement" from prison, where he's 11 years and 5 months into a 15-year sentence for tax evasion and conspiracy.

In Stilley's words, his sentence is a product of having gotten "crossways with the tax division." (Prior to that, he was a lawyer for 19 years, during which time he was also jailed twice on charges of contempt.)

It's just the beginning as the US doesn't have loser pays. 

Steganography

HOTLITTLEPOTATO

Steganography (/ˌstɛɡəˈnɒɡrəfi/ (About this soundlisten) STEG-ə-NOG-rə-fee) is the practice of concealing a message within another message or a physical object. In computing/electronic contexts, a computer file, message, image, or video is concealed within another file, message, image, or video. The word steganography comes from Greek steganographia, which combines the words steganós (στεγανός), meaning "covered or concealed", and -graphia (γραφή) meaning "writing".[1]

Said practice is used for good and bad depending on who's using the tech.

YOU KNOW ALL too well at this point that all sorts of digital attacks are lurking on the internet. You could encounter ransomware, a virus, or a sketchy phish at any moment. Even creepier, though, some malicious code can actually hide inside other, benign software—and be programmed to jump out when you aren't expecting it. Hackers are increasingly using this technique, known as steganography, to trick internet users and smuggle malicious payloads past security scanners and firewalls. Unlike cryptography, which works to obscure content so it can't be understood, steganography's goal is to hide the fact that content exists at all by embedding it in something else. And since steganography is a concept, not a specific method of clandestine data delivery, it can be used in all sorts of ingenious (and worrying) attacks.

Steganography is an ancient practice. When spies in the Revolutionary War wrote in invisible ink or when Da Vinci embedded secret meaning in a painting that was steganography. This works in the digital world, too, where a file like an image can be stealthily encoded with information. For example, pixel values, brightness, and filter settings for an image are normally changed to affect the image's aesthetic look. But hackers can also manipulate them based on a secret code with no regard for how the inputs make the image look visually. This technique can be used for ethical reasons, such as to evade censorship or embed messages in Facebook photos. But these methods can also be used nefariously. For security defenders the question is how to tell the difference between an image that’s been modified for legitimate reasons and one that’s been changed to secretly contain malicious information.

Peniarth MS 423D is a volume of astrological texts written in Latin. It is a transcript, dated 1591, of Steganographia by Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516), which was originally written in the late 1490s. Steganography is the act of writing in a secret code. This version is in the hand of Dr John Dee, Queen Elizabeth I's ‘favourite philosopher’.

Hidden in plain sight ...

Bloatware

Lars Tunbjörk / Agence VU / Redux

Too many managers, especially in America, says it all in terms of why this country is so constipated in trying to get anything done of consequence. As per one example as to why this is so ... The Army now has more four-star generals serving on active duty than the Army and Air Force combined had during World War II.

The fiasco continues.

America has too many managers.

In a 2016 Harvard Business Review analysis, two writers calculated the annual cost of excess corporate bureaucracy as about $3 trillion, with an average of one manager per every 4.7 workers. Their story mentioned several case studies—a successful GE plant with 300 technicians and a single supervisor, a Swedish bank with 12,000 workers and three levels of hierarchy—that showed that reducing the number of managers usually led to more productivity and profit. And yet, at the time of the story, 17.6 percent of the U.S. workforce (and 30 percent of the workforce’s compensation) was made up of managers and administrators—an alarming statistic that shows how bloated America’s management ranks had become.

 Houston, we have a problem.

The United States, more than anywhere else in the world, is addicted to the concept of management. As I’ve written before, management has become a title rather than a discipline. We have a glut of people in management who were never evaluated on their ability to manage before being promoted to their role. We have built corporate America around the idea that if you work hard enough, one day you might become a manager, someone who makes rather than takes orders. While this is not the only form of management, based on the response to my previous article and my newsletters on the subject, this appears to be how many white-collar employees feel. Across disparate industries, an overwhelming portion of management personnel is focused more on taking credit and placing blame rather than actually managing people, with dire consequences.

Exactly

Liquid Light circa 2021

 

Source: Daniel Falcao/Unsplash

Polaritons are hybrid particles made up of a photon strongly coupled to an electric dipole. Examples of such a dipole include an electron–hole pair in a semiconductor, which forms an exciton polariton, and the oscillating electrons at the surface of a metal, which creates a surface-plasmon polariton.

Said entities are the key to future practical applications of liquid light.

In 2017, a group of researchers from Polytechnique Montréal, Canada, and Italy’s CNR Institute of Nanotechnology teamed up to conduct an experiment that demonstrated that light can achieve a superfluid state at room temperature. Previous studies had already confirmed the possibility of light existing as a superfluid, but all previous experiments needed to use ultra-low temperatures near absolute zero to bind photons together strongly enough to for them to behave as molecules and turn into a superfluid.

During the 2017 experiment, an ultra-thin film made of organic molecules was sandwiched between two highly reflective mirrors, and this setup was further subjected to a 35 femtosecond (10⁻¹⁵ seconds) laser blast. This intense light-matter interaction led to the formation of a superfluid.

"The extraordinary observation in our work is that we have demonstrated that superfluidity can also occur at room temperature, under ambient conditions, using light-matter particles called polaritons.

JJ Ying/Unsplash

Why liquid light matters.

The production of liquid light at room temperature promises interesting developments in the field of electronics, healthcare, data science, and many other domains:

• The number of transistors installed on a semiconductor chip is widely described as increasing by a factor of two every two years (also known as Moore’s law). This growth is necessary to meet the growing demands in increased speed needed for fast data transfer. In 2016, researchers at the University of Cambridge created a polariton switch capable of conducting electro-optical signals at high speed. This liquid light-based device has the potential to overcome the physical and technical limitations faced with current transistor chips. 
• A research paper titled Phenomenological consequences of superfluid dark matter with baryon-phonon coupling, published in September 2018, theorizes that dark matter (85% matter in the universe is dark matter) is also superfluid. If this theory is proven correct, then there is a possibility that further research on liquid light (which is also a superfluid) may increase our understanding of dark matter and dark energy.

And so it goes - Kurt Vonnegut

The World Island circa 2021

Back in 2015, yours truly chanced upon Sir Halford Mackinder's extraordinary take on world politics with his notion that the future of world power will reside in Euro-Asia, the great landmass connecting three continents forever separate from North and South America and Australia. Seems his prescient analysis is spot on given just how inept and bankrupt the US (and west) has become regarding it's obsession with endless war and it's total lack of understanding why The Art of War really matters for the continued wellbeing of any entity wishing to call itself a viable nation.

A Chinese bamboo book, closed to display the cover. This copy of The Art of War (on the cover, "孫子兵法") by Sun Tzu is part of a collection at the University of California, Riverside. The cover also reads "乾隆御書", meaning it was either commissioned or transcribed by the Qianlong Emperor.

With this in mind ...

China’s capture of Eurasia, should it be successful, will be but one part of a far grander design for control over what Victorian geographer Halford Mackinder, an early master of modern geopolitics, called the “world island.” He meant the tricontinental land mass comprising the three continents of Europe, Asia, and Africa. For the past 500 years, one imperial hegemon after another, including Portugal, Holland, Britain, and the United States, has deployed its strategic forces around that world island in a bid to dominate such a sprawling land mass.

While for the last half-century Washington has arrayed its vast air and naval armadas around Eurasia, it generally relegated Africa to, at best, an afterthought — at worst, a battleground. Beijing, by contrast, has consistently treated that continent with the utmost seriousness.

The journey of a 1000 miles begins with a single step. Lao Tzu

While that aid to liberation movements once had an ideological undercurrent, today it’s been succeeded by savvy geopolitics. Beijing seems to understand just how fast Africa’s progress has been in the single generation since that continent won its freedom from a particularly rapacious version of colonial rule. Given that it’s the planet’s second most populous continent, rich in human and material resources, China’s trillion-dollar bet on Africa’s future will likely pay rich dividends, both political and economic, someday soon.

With a trillion dollars invested in Eurasia and another trillion in Africa, China is engaged in nothing less than history’s largest infrastructure project. It’s crisscrossing those three continents with rails and pipelines, building naval bases around the southern rim of Asia, and ringing the whole tricontinental world island with a string of 40 major commercial ports.

Such a geopolitical strategy has become Beijing’s battering ram to crack open Washington’s control over Eurasia and thereby challenge what’s left of its global hegemony. America’s unequalled military air and sea armadas still allow it rapid movement above and around those continents, as the mass evacuation from Kabul showed so forcefully. But the slow, inch-by-inch advance of China’s land-based, steel-ribbed infrastructure across the deserts, plains, and mountains of that world island represents a far more fundamental form of future control.

As China’s geopolitical squeeze play on Afghanistan shows all too vividly, there is still much wisdom in the words that Sir Halford Mackinder wrote over a century ago: “Who rules the World Island commands the World.”

Any questions?