Random News Stories

[Frank Cox]

Apparently the price of the grain increased between the "signing" of the contract and the delivery date.

I suspect (without any proof, of course) that the farmer wanted his thumbs-up to be ambiguous so if the contract price was higher than the spot price he would deliver on the contract, otherwise he could sell on the spot market and say "what contract?"

[Leo Enticknap]

I guess the key to this is how reasonable it was for the vendor to assume that the emoji indicated acceptance of the contract. If they had swapped similar texts in the past and the business took place without any dispute, I'd say very reasonable. If the two parties were doing business for the first time, I would argue that this was the wrong decision.

Telegraph:

John Goodenough, Nobel laureate who helped to develop the lithium-ion rechargeable battery – obituary

He was the oldest Nobel Prize-winner for his work in doubling the lithium battery’s energy potential and making it less volatile

By Telegraph Obituaries 6 July 2023 • 7:00pm

John Goodenough, who has died aged 100, was a materials scientist who became the oldest winner of a Nobel Prize at 97, when he won a third of the £740,000 2019 Prize in Chemistry for his contribution to the development of the lithium-ion battery.

The rechargeable battery has helped to fuel the global revolution in portable electronics, transforming technology with power for devices ranging from cellphones, computers and pacemakers to electric cars – and its development, much of which took place at Oxford University, should have been a British success story.

Instead, like computers, the internet and civil nuclear power, it became an example of the country’s failure to commercialise its scientific innovations. British companies remain bit players in a global lithium battery industry dominated by Japan, South Korea and China.

It was Goodenough’s co-laureate, the Nottingham-born Stanley Whittingham who, in the early 1970s, managed to build the first rechargeable lithium battery. Much of Whittingham’s original research had been carried out at Oxford before he was lured to the US to take up a fellowship at Stanford University, and was later hired by Exxon Research.

Whittingham’s battery, however, suffered from safety issues. In 1980, working at Oxford, where he was head of inorganic chemistry, Goodenough doubled the lithium battery’s potential and made it less volatile by using lithium cobalt oxide as a cathode, creating the right conditions for a vastly more powerful and useful battery.

Subsequently, the third laureate, Akira Yoshino of Meijo University in Japan, succeeded in eliminating pure lithium from the battery, instead basing it wholly on lithium ions, which are safer. This made the battery workable in practice.

A plaque at Oxford University records the year Goodenough and two colleagues “identified the cathode material that enabled the development of the rechargeable lithium-ion battery ... This breakthrough ushered in the age of portable electronic devices.”

Goodenough continued to carry out important research at Oxford, but when he won the Nobel Prize he expressed his frustration that the university had forced him to retire in 1986 aged 65, after which he had moved to the University of Texas at Austin. “I fled,” he said. “I didn’t want to retire. They don’t make you retire at a certain age in Texas. It’s foolish... I’ve had 33 good years since I was forced to retire in England. That’s why I left. I’m working every day.”

John Bannister Goodenough was born on July 25 1922 in Jena, in the eastern part of Germany, the second of four children of American parents Erwin Goodenough, a postgraduate student at Oxford, and Helen, née Lewis. The family returned to the US when John was an infant and settled in Woodbridge, Connecticut, his father later becoming a professor of the history of religion at Yale University.

As he recalled in a memoir, Witness to Grace (2008), John had an unhappy childhood. His parents were emotionally distant and as a boy he suffered from undiagnosed dyslexia and was dismissed as backward at primary school.

Sent to the Groton School, a private boarding school, aged 12, he rarely heard from his parents, and when he went on to Yale to read mathematics, his father gave him just $35 even though his tuition fees were about $900. “I said I will never take another penny from home. I never did. I worked 21 hours a week for 21 meals during my undergraduate days,” he recalled. “I had a scholarship for my tuition. And I worked. My old headmaster had arranged for me to have jobs tutoring sons in wealthy homes in the summer.”

Through hard work and determination, supported by rigorous educational standards at Groton and Yale, Goodenough overcame his dyslexia. He left Groton top of his class and graduated from Yale after wartime service as an army meteorologist in Newfoundland and the Azores.

He then went on a government scholarship to the University of Chicago, where he studied physics under Clarence Zener, Edward Teller and Enrico Fermi, and took a master’s degree followed by a doctorate. After working briefly for Westinghouse, he joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Lincoln Laboratory, where he and fellow scientists helped to lay the groundwork for random access memory (RAM) in computers.

In 1976 he moved to Oxford, where he began his research on batteries. At first there was little interest in his lithium-ion battery. Oxford declined to patent it and, as Goodenough recalled, he and his fellow scientists regarded it as “just something to do ... I really didn’t anticipate cellphones, camcorders and everything else.”

Goodenough received no royalties for his work on the battery. “You become well known when somebody makes money out of what you do, when somebody else becomes a billionaire,” he reflected ruefully in 2019. “Whatever I’ve done, the lawyers have managed to siphon it off. Keep your hands away from lawyers.”

But in any case he cared little about money, donating whatever came with his awards to fund research and scholarships.

In 1986, after retiring from Oxford, Goodenough was appointed Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science at the University of Texas at Austin, where he remained active well into his 90s, latterly working to find the “Holy Grail” of renewable energy – a battery that he hoped might one day store wind, solar and nuclear energy.

Goodenough’s honours included the US National Medal of Science, presented to him by President Barack Obama in 2011. On the day his Nobel Prize was announced he was in London to receive the Royal Society’s Copley Medal, the world’s oldest scientific award.

In 1951, John Goodenough married Irene Wiseman, who died in 2016. There were no children.

John Goodenough, born July 25 1922, died June 25 2023

Well he as a high achiever, to put it mildly! I'm guessing he must have realized that there is a hard limit to which li-ion can be scaled up (even in its variants, such as li-poly) before the barriers of cost, safety, end energy density become an insurmountable problem, given that after retiring, he worked on ways of high capacity energy storage: presumably, though the article doesn't say, based on fundamentally different chemistries.

[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/national/farm...3-97ed5f1e26d1

SWIFT CURRENT, Sask. — A Saskatchewan judge says an emoji can amount to a contractual agreement and ordered a farmer pay more than $82,000 for not delivering product to a grain buyer after responding to a text message with a thumbs-up image.

The Court of King’s Bench decision, released in June, found a thumbs-up emoji indicated Chris Achter agreed to a contract to deliver flax to South West Terminal in November 2021.

The company’s grain buyer had sent an image of a contract to Achter through a text message earlier in the year and the Swift Current farmer responded with an emoji.

The farmer argued that the emoji indicated only that he’d received the contract, not that he accepted its terms.

His lawyers argued that allowing an emoji to act as a signature for contracts would open the floodgates for cases interpreting the meaning of the images.

Justice Timothy Keene says in his decision that emojis are the new reality in Canadian society and courts must meet the new challenges that the images will bring.

[John Craig]

tickets for wait for me at HOME cinema in manchester this weekend are now out guys i've just bought mine https://homemcr.org/film/wait-for-me/

[Leo Enticknap]

From Newsmax:

Lawsuit: Feds Hiding 'Grassy Knoll' Film

By Sandy Fitzgerald | Saturday, 27 May 2023 12:51 PM EDT

The heirs of a man who recorded the assassination of late President John F. Kennedy are suing to get the original film — which could reveal discrepencies in widely held views, such as if there were multiple shooters in the attack and not a lone gunman — back from the federal government, who they say has been hiding it for decades.

The footage, shot by Orville Nix, a Dallas maintenance man who died in 1972, was filmed from the center of Dealey Plaza while Kennedy's limousine drove into where the ambush was to take place on Dallas' Elm Street, and shows what is believed to be the only unobstructed view of the "grassy knoll" when the fatal shot was taken, reports The New York Post.

The Nixes not only are seeking the release of the film but $29.7 million in compensatory damages.

Some researchers claim that additional snipers were concealed on the knoll, and they believe the film will show that.

"It would be very significant if the original Nix film surfaced today," Jefferson Morley, author of "The Ghost" and other books about the CIA, told the Post, explaining that with modern digital image processing the film would become a new piece of evidence.

"There's a significant loss in quality between the first and second generation," when it comes to an analog film like Nix's, he added.

The original film was last examined in 1978 by photo experts whom the House Select Committee on Assassinations had hired, leading the panel to conclude that "two gunmen" likely fired at Kennedy and he was "probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy."

However, the experts were in doubt about whether the movie showed the other gunmen, and the complete film disappeared. There are some imperfect copies, including one used in Oliver Stone's movie "JFK."

But now, 45 years later, more advanced computer analysis of the original film could solve the mystery, so the Nixes are returning to court after a lawsuit they filed in 2015 was dismissed.

In their lawsuit, filed in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, D.C., the Nix family includes dozens of documents to trace the original film's path.

Back in 1963, just after the assassination, the press agency UPI paid Nix $5,000, or about $50,000 in current dollars, for a 25-year license on the film. The agency promised to return it to him in 1988, but Nix died in 1972 and the rights passed to his wife and son.

However, his family was not notified when the House committee subpoenaed the film in 1978, and their lawsuit claims the National Archives and Records Administration has lied to them, claiming never to have had the "out-of-camera original" film.

The committee's analysts, though, delivered the film directly to the Archives office in 1978, evidence in the filing shows.

Time may be running out for the film to be useful, however, as it is "at or near the end of its lifespan," and modern image processing should be completed, Kenneth Castleman, a former NASA senior scientist and prominent expert who studied the film in the early 1970s told the Post.

"Working directly from the original, assuming it's still in good shape, might reveal data that is not visible on the copies," he said."There are new techniques to bring up detail in an image that might possibly bring out new information that was not visible previously."

Castleman, who in 1973 analyzed an element seen in Nix's film that some believed showed a marksman with a raised rifle near the Dealey Plaza pergola, said the image "was definitely not a person" but three bright spots in some frames.

He doesn't think further analysis of the film will change his analysis.

Despite having devoured several books and documentaries about the JFK assassination, I have to confess to not having known of any home movie apart from Zapruder's having captured it, but at the same time being a little surprised: home movie cameras were becoming popular among the upper middle classes as the 1960s progressed, and I would have thought it unlikely that only one amateur cinematographer was among the crowds who went to see JFK's motorcade that day. I have for a long time wondered if others did shoot footage that might have contained significant evidence, but, having seen the media circus that developed around Zapruder (especially his interactions with the federal government and Time over the rights) and the interpretation of his film by conspiracy theorists, simply never revealed the existence of their movies beyond immediate family and confidantes.

Assuming that NARA has stored this reel in a temperature and humidity-controlled vault since they acquired it in 1978 (and the role of atmospheric control in conserving acetate and nitrate film was well understood by then), it should still be in physically good shape. Unless it's stored in tropical, rainforest-like conditions, vinegar syndrome is not going to do serious damage to acetate film in only 15 years.

If Nix's movie was shot on Regular 8 Kodachrome and through typical 1960s home movie camera optics, as Zapruder's was, I agree with Kenneth Castleman that it's unlikely to give us any revelations, even after scanning in 8K on a Spirit or an Oxberry and then digitally post-processing/enhancing it up the wazoo. But if it's 16, there might be significantly more detail there, as well as the different angle. I'll be intrigued to see it (and the experts' verdict on it), if it does enter the public domain.

[John Craig]

some new news coming from me is that there is a new film called wait for me, that has been confirmed to be shown in the cinemas in the next few months, they even have some q&a screenings which i think i might go to as i like some of the actors featuring in this film the trailer really drew me to it ! https://www.waitforme-film.com/where-to-see-it/

[Frank Cox]

https://canoe.com/news/local-news/sn...7-fa81902d134e

SNAKE ATTACK: Snake-swinging man busted for beatdown in Toronto


The 45-year-old accused is charged with assault and causing suffering to an animal Snake that!

A man used a snake as a weapon during a street fight in the area of in the area of Dundas St. and Manning Ave. — west of Bathurst St. — just before midnight on Wednesday.

In a video posted to social media, one man can be seen swinging a python snake at another man who tries to defend himself.

A Toronto Police vehicle then pulls up and officers break up the fight and make the men lie down on the ground.

Toronto Video Of Year Contender ( man beats man with SNAKE)
Yes, you read that right, buddy is attacking another man in Toronto @ Dundas and Manning, it is believed with a snake….peak Toronto.#Toronto pic.twitter.com/Mo9UFjf5OR
— Kyle.Taylor (@livingbyyyz) May 12, 2023

“That was a weird one,” Const. Cindy Chung said.

In a statement released Saturday, police said they received a call about a man threatening people with a python snake and officers were dispatched to the area.

“It is alleged that a man was walking down the street holding a living python snake,” Const. Laura Brabant said. “The man approached the victim with the python.”

“There was a physical altercation and the man used the python to attack the victim,” she added.

Brabant said officers arrived on scene quickly and arrested a suspect.

Laurenio Avila, 45, of Toronto, faces charges of assault with a weapon and causing unnecessary pain and suffering to an animal.

The accused appeared in Old City Hall court via video link on Thursday and was remanded into custody.

It unclear what happened to the snake.

[Leo Enticknap]

On the criminal stupidity stakes, this is quite impressive.

Dutch police arrest fake ‘Boris Johnson’ for drink driving

Officers say they do not believe the real former British prime minister was in the country at the time of the alleged drink driving crash

Dutch police have revealed that a man arrested on suspicion of drink driving was found to have a driver's licence identifying him as Boris Johnson.

The fake Ukrainian document, complete with the former British prime minister's picture and correct birth date, was “issued” in 2019 and valid until the end of the year 3000.

Police spokesman Thijs Damstra said the discovery came after officers investigated a crash shortly after midnight on Sunday in which a car hit a pole near the Emma Bridge in the northern city of Groningen.

The car was abandoned but officers were later told that the driver was standing nearby on the bridge.

“The person could not identify himself and refused to undertake a breathalyser test,” Mr Damstra told news agency AFP.

The 35-year-old man, from the small town of Zuidhorn west of Groningen, was arrested and police searched his car.

“Inside, police found a fake driver's licence belonging to Boris Johnson,” Mr Damstra said.

“Unfortunately for this person, we did not fall for his forgery,” Groningen police added on its Instagram account.

Police could not say where the forged document was made but public broadcaster NOS journalist and former Russia correspondent Kysia Hekster wrote on Twitter that fake driver's licences could easily be bought in tourist shops in Ukraine.

Mr Damstra added: “As far as I'm aware, the real Mr Boris Johnson was not in the Netherlands at the time.”

bojo_pic.jpg

If I'm reading between the lines of the article correctly, it is easy (once you've figured out how to get in to Ukraine and then back out again without being shot or blown up) to purchase phony driver licenses in Ukraine that look pretty convincing, with whatever name, DoB, and photo on them you wish. So this idiot chose to buy, and then attempt to use, one in the name of a very high profile individual, and furthermore one that 99.9% of Europe's population know is (a) not Ukrainian, and (b) around three decades older than the fake license's owner.

[Leo Enticknap]

In that case, the SpaceX spokeshole must have had it rehearsed in advance.

Running it a close second would be a time in the 1990s when spokesholes for the British National Health Service were under strict orders to use the phrase "resulted in a negative patient outcome" instead of "the patient died," whenever they made a statement to the media. My aunt and uncle were NHS doctors at the time and were endlessly making jokes about it.

[Randy Stankey]

That's an old term. I've heard it said and have used it, myself, at least, since I was a teenager.

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/RUD#English

Noun

rapid unplanned disassembly (plural rapid unplanned disassemblies)

(engineering, euphemistic) An explosion or breakup of a vehicle, usually an airplane or a rocket.

Usage notes
(explosion): This is also formulated in slightly altered forms, as Rapid Unscheduled/Unexpected/Unplanned/Uncontrolled (self-)Dissassembly, with the "U" varying between forms, and "self" occurring in some variants.

[Martin McCaffery]

"Unplanned, Rapid Disassembly"

Whomever came up with this euphemism earned his/her pay. The real question is did they have it in their pocket before the launch, or was it spontaneous?

[Randy Stankey]

I just watched a video by Scott Manley about the explosion of Space-X's Starship rocket:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8q24QLXixo

From what I understand by watching the video, the rocket was, pretty much, doomed from the moment they touched it off.

The launchpad wasn't properly designed to withstand the forces from the rocket's exhaust and there wasn't any means, built in, to deflect the exhaust in a safe direction. The destruction of the pad and the ground beneath kicked up debris which damaged the rocket even before it left the launchpad.

All throughout the flight, the rocket's computer systems were trying to stabilize the failing rocket until it finally reached the breaking point. The rocket began to tumble and, eventually, it bent in the middle. It was losing altitude for almost half a minute before its "Mission Termination" system activated. Either the rocket blew itself up or it automatically self-destructed. I wasn't able to tell which.

Scott Manley commented that, even though the rocket suffered an "Unplanned, Rapid Disassembly" (Blew up) the Space-X team gathered a whole lot of telemetry data that they will use in future launches.

While I agree with the statement, "We haven't failed. We have simply discovered another way that doesn't work," I don't agree with the philosophy of throwing money at a problem until you figure it out. There are plenty of ways to design, build and test rockets without simply lighting the fuse, sticking your fingers in your ears and hoping you don't hear an earth shattering KABOOM!

I have seen other videos by Manley, regarding Space-X, which said that some of their earlier designs were doomed to fail before they started because of some design flaws or because they failed to take into account some factor which they should have. In this video, Manley said that the ground on which the launchpad was built was soft, saturated with ground water and was fundamentally unstable.

I think that Elon Musk, building rockets, operates the same way I did when I played with model rockets as a teenager. (Launch and pray.) The only difference is that he's got a bazillion dollars to play with while I had to save my pennies from my allowance.

Basically, musk gambles with billions of dollars and hopes things pay off. If he blows up enough rockets, one of them is bound to fly, eventually. That's no way to run a business.

I just hope nobody gets killed in the process.

[John Craig]

news alert: new film coming out soon to cinemas called Wait For Me

[Leo Enticknap]

And to be fair, SpaceX's R & D philosophy is to destroy prototypes in testing as a strategy to gather data very quickly with which to make a big leap to the next, far more reliable iteration, rather than the slow and cautious approach. But "rapid unscheduled disassembly" an a euphemism for blowing up was just too good to ignore without a giggle.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

There is a video online of the debris and rocks it kicked up. I'm thinking the 5 first stage engines that failed may have been due to that. It sure sat on the ground a while before it left the pad... as for stage 2, we'll have to wait and see what they find. The only rocket I can think of that never failed in any of it's flights is Saturn V. The first test flight and I believe Saturn 8 almost self destructed from POGO oscillations. But they solved that by adding baffles in the fuel tanks. During design they also had massive oscillations in the engine that was traced to the multi hole nozzel combustion head. But that was on the test stand in Huntsville, and solved before a rocket ever flew.