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Hugh Laurie is Back on TV With Avenue 5 – TVOvermind

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

Fans of Hugh Laurie rejoice. The talented actor will be returning to American television in a new show, Avenue 5. Laurie is probably best known for his Emmy-nominated turn as the titular doctor on the show House MD. Although, some fans may recognize him for his early work as a well-known British comedian. His new project, Avenue 5, is described as a sci-comedy about a pleasure cruise in space gone wrong. Interested viewers can tune into HBO in January 2020, to watch the shows premiere. In the meantime, heres everything you need to know about the show.

The series is set in the not too distant future, 40 years from now. It starts out with what sounds like a dream vacation: a luxury cruise through space. Unfortunately, that dream takes a dark turn. At the center of the plot is the titular spaceship, Avenue 5. The cruise will face an unspecified problem at some point in its journey, causing distress for both the passengers and the crew. Overall, the series is said to be about space tourism. Most of the action will also take place in space, with only one major character having a role set on earth. Its doubtful that the show will stay so narrow in focus though. Knowing the production team, it will probably tackle quite a few topics. In terms of tone, the show is another in a new resurgence of sci-fi comedies. As a whole, sci-fi has grown in popularity over the last few years, owing to a slew of excellent genre films. On television, shows like The Orville have proven that people enjoy smart, humorous sci-fi. Avenue 5 seeks to round out that group by adding its own spin to the space travel narrative. Expect a lot of satire and plenty of irony from this new show, setting it apart from some of the lighter fare.

Hugh Laurie takes the lead role as Ryan Clark, the captain of the ship. Hes a charming, ideal leader, who has mastered his public appearance. As for his real personality, that may not be as perfect. With him in the disaster are the ships billionaire owner, Herman Judd, and his go-to woman, Iris Kimura. (Played by Josh Gad and Suzy Nakamura, respectively.) Although on the ship with everyone else, its clear from the trailer that these two have other priorities besides passenger safety. Theyre more caught up in preserving Hermans life and fortune. Other key characters include Matt Spencer, played by Zach Woods, and Rav Mulcair, played by Nikki Amuka-Bird.

Fans of The Office will probably recognize Zach Woods from his role as Gabe. Woods gamely portrayed Gabes particular brand of strangeness, so hes sure to shine in his new role as Matt Spencer. Spencer is in charge of customer relations on the ship, although his nihilism may make that job difficult. Meanwhile, Rav Mulcair is on earth, trying to deal with the disaster as the head of mission control. Shes described as being odd, although its not clear how that aspect of her personality will come into play. Ethan Phillips, Lenora Crichlow, Rebecca Front round out the rest of the cast, as key passengers and crew aboard the vessel. Theyre all on board for different reasons, but its clear theyre not the sort to sit calmly in a disaster.

The show was created for HBO by Armando Ianucci. Fans of television may recognize Ianucci as the creator of another great comedy, Veep. Veep was a very different show, focused on modern politics, rather than future space exploration. Having run for seven seasons, the show was much loved and earned numerous awards. Despite a change in location and genre, expect Ianucci to bring his same biting wit to Avenue 5. Even though the show is set in the future, its clear that it will satirize issues currently faced by viewers. In the trailer, there are already signs that classism and capitalism are both going to get the comedy treatment. Other executive producers on the show include Simon Blackwell, Tony Roche, Kevin Loader and Will Smith. As a team, theyre bringing experience from movies like My Cousin Rachel, and other satirical shows like Succession. Many of them have also worked together previously with Iannucci, on Veep.

Currently, you can only watch Avenue 5 on HBO. If you have HBO through your cable provider, you can watch it on TV like any other prime-time show. Youll also have access to recording and On Demand services, depending on your plan. For anyone who has cut the cord with cable, you can still enjoy the show. Download the HBO Go app, or add HBO as part of a Hulu streaming subscription. Keep in mind, with both options you will have to pay in order to access the HBO show library. If you do use Hulu or HBO go, youll also be able to stream the show. This means you can watch it on any device, including your television. Hulu is compatible with a range of devices, including Roku, Apple TV, and Fire TV Stick.

Its hard not to have high expectations for Avenue 5s premiere, especially given its cast and production crew. Veteran actors like Hugh Laurie and Josh Gad are sure to deliver. Theyve both done comedy and drama, which is ideal for satire work. And many of the other cast members have proven their comedic chops as well. The show runners are equally adept, having a wealth of successful television shows and movies between them. With so much talent at the helm, its hard to see Avenue 5 being a flop. At the very least, the show will be good for a few laughs. Check it out in January 2020 to see if you agree.

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Hugh Laurie is Back on TV With Avenue 5 - TVOvermind

A self-declared space nation called Asgardia is planning a fully functioning space economy and wants help from – Business Insider India

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

A self-declared space nation that wants to operate a fully-functioning society in space has started laying out its vision for establishing an off-world colony.

The Space Kingdom of Asgardia is a genuine project to set up a nation entirely in space, with hundreds of thousands of members paying "residency'" fees and a parliament that is in the process of forming the foundations for its society.

Ambitiously, the space nation is looking to the likes of Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos to get them there. Both billionaires have also set up commercial space firms.

The project, founded by billionaire Russian scientist and politician Igor Ashurbeyli, is currently chaired by former British politician Lembit Opik.

"The obvious candidates are SpaceX and Blue Origin," Opik told Business Insider, citing Musk and Bezos' respective ventures in interstellar travel. "They're the best game in town in terms of space launches. Their rockets are the taxis that can take us where we want to go."

But can the dream of Asgardia ever become a reality? In an interview with Business Insider, Opik showed a passion for statecraft, detailing every facet of his space-based society, including an overview in foreign policy, banking regulation, business opportunities, and the creation of a new digital currency called "Solar."

"First, there will be the businesses operating within Asgardia itself, and we've already got a small list of candidates there, who could provide us with goods and services, such as ballpoint pens designed to be used in space, specific types of insurance for space-dwellers - whatever," he said.

"Then of course, there will be businesses who want to sell us things, like Mr Musk or Mr Bezos... If you've got a big rocket and can take us into space, we might buy it off you," he added.

Asgardia was founded by Ashurbeyli in 2016 - or "Year 0" in the Asgardian calendar - and it now boasts an elected body of 150 members from all over the world, after online elections last year. Its incumbent Prime Minister is Ana Diaz, a lawyer from Venezuela, and its chief justice is Zhao Yun, a fellow lawyer from Hong Kong. Opik was voted in last year as head of parliament.

Ashurbeyli is understood to have invested around $12 million of his own money into the project to date, while another $2 million has been paid in by members of the public.

At present, Asgardia has three tiers of members: "followers", "residents", and "citizens."

According to Opik, more than a million followers have already signed up for free worldwide, while another 300,000 are paying an annual 100 ($110) residency fee. This weekend, he and his colleagues in the Asgardian parliament will debate how much to charge for citizenship (i.e. those eligible to live on Asgardia when it is launched).

"We are planning for the long-term," he said. "So we've got to make sure we get everything absolutely right."

"I'd rather be a day-tripper than a homesteader," he said. "My job is to help the settlement of space but probably not settle there myself."

In 2017, the kingdom sent its first satellite into Earth's orbit, making it, in its own words, "the first nation to have all of its territory in space".

The tiny satellite, Asgardia-1, is currently floating around Earth and about the size of a loaf of bread. It contains a 512GB hard drive loaded with "the nation's constitutions, national symbols, and the personally-selected data of the Asgardian citizenship".

Under the rules of the United Nations, Asgardia could technically qualify for recognition as a state, as more than 100,000 people look set to apply for citizenship. But it's unlikely it will be acknowledged as a sovereign nation any time soon.

Business Insider previously contacted the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) to clarify whether current space law would permit the existence of a nation or territory in space. They directed us to the text of five UN treaties that govern activities in space.

Article II of the first and most important part of that legal framework, called the Outer Space Treaty, prohibits "national appropriation" of anything in outer space "by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means".

But Opik remains optimistic despite the opposition, telling us the project has "taken up so much of [his] life". Once established, he insists Asgardia will take a neutral stance on all Earthly matters. "We will not interfere in Earthly matters, and we hope they would not interfere in ours... We want what any sovereign nation wants: recognition."

Elon Musk did not respond to a request for comment.

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A self-declared space nation called Asgardia is planning a fully functioning space economy and wants help from - Business Insider India

NASA astronaut rates space movies based on how realistic they are – Yahoo News

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

Hollywood loves making movies set in outer space. But how does the actual science in these films measure up? Garrett Reisman, a former NASA astronaut and a former director of space operations at SpaceX, reacts to 10 memorable scenes from famous space movies, rating each scenario based on its accuracy. Find out what black holes, microgravity, nitrogen jetpacks, vacuum chambers, sound waves, polycarbonate visors, centrifugal forces, the Coriolis effect, and lunar soil tell us about the accuracy of iconic space movies.

Can you hear something explode in the vacuum of space? Is it possible for spaceships to run out of fuel in the middle of space travel? Why do movies often get it wrong when it comes to rotating space stations? Reisman explains the science underlying these and many other space movie phenomena, including the physics of the Death Star in "Star Wars"; dangerous space debris in "Gravity"; artificial gravity plates in "Star Trek"; Matt Damons Iron Man stunt in "The Martian"; crash-landing on a desert planet in "Spaceballs"; and event horizons, wormholes, and Einsteins theory of relativity in "Interstellar." What went so horribly wrong in the real-life NASA Apollo 13 mission and did the 1995 Tom Hanks movie get all its facts right?

He breaks down why scuba divers and astronauts both have to worry about decompression sickness, what's with the bending light inside the tesseract in "Interstellar," why Sandra Bullock should have held on to George Clooney in "Gravity," why Chris Pratt would get something called barotrauma in "Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 1," and whats so impressive about Stanley Kubrick's depiction of Space Station V, the fictional spinning spacecraft in "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Reisman is a NASA veteran who was selected as a mission specialist astronaut in 1998 and went on to fly on all three of NASA's space shuttles: the Space Shuttle Endeavour, the Space Shuttle Discovery, and the Space Shuttle Atlantis. He's spent months at a time on the International Space Station and performed three spacewalks over the course of his missions. Post-NASA, Reisman went on to head space operations at Elon Musk's SpaceX from 2011 to 2018, helping the aerospace company prepare for human spaceflight. He continues to serve SpaceX as a senior space advisor while also teaching at the University of Southern California Viterbi School as a professor of astronautical engineering. Reisman's been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and has been featured on "The Colbert Report" with Stephen Colbert.

Reisman is the author of the upcoming book "Down to Earth."

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For more from Reisman:

http://garrettreisman.com/

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Science Behind the Fiction: Rick and Morty’s time machine runs on Dark Matter. What is that? – SYFY WIRE

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

A crass animated television show on Adult Swim isn't the first place you'd think to turn for realistic scientific ideas. Yet, Rick and Morty finds a way to sneak in more real-world science than your average issue of Nature, between copious jokes about buttholes and existential despair.

Of course, not all of the episodes are focused on lampooning cutting edge technology and hypotheses. Take this week's episode, "The Old Man and the Seat," for instance, which focused almost entirely on Rick's particular bathroom habits.

Despite the occasional detour toward literal potty humor, though, the show's real bread and butter often comes down to scientific deep-cuts. Across its three seasons, with the fourth airing now, Rick and Morty has touched on dozens of concepts that have their roots in actual scientific inquiry, from the multiverse to hive minds and mech suits. Just to name a few.

But none of those adventures happen at all if Rick can't traverse existence with Morty in tow. One of the ways he does that is by use of his ship, which, according to the Season 1 episode "M. Night Shaym-Aliens!," is powered by concentrated dark matter.

After finding himself at the mercy of nefarious aliens (nefarious being a variable term in the Rick and Morty world), Rick realizes he's been placed inside an artificial environment with a single purpose: Uncovering his recipe for concentrated dark matter, the fuel for accelerated space travel.

It's a secret valuable enough that the Zigerions are willing to invest vast technological resources to developing several layers of photo-real simulations to uncover it.

In the end, Rick gets the better of them, delivering a false recipe of two parts plutonic quarks, one part cesium, and a bottle of water. The result is not the promised concentrated dark matter, but instead, a deadly explosion. Zigerions may have incredible simulation tech but they missed a few key chemistry lessons. Cesium is highly reactive and reacts explosively when in contact with water. No word on the impact of adding plutonic quarks.

One is forced to wonder, however, if dark matter would actually make good fuel for a spacecraft.

WHAT IS DARK MATTER?

That is the question. The answer: We don't really know. In fact, we know a whole lot more about what it isn't. For decades, physicists have suspected there was more going on in the universe than we could see. Models of the way stars move give hints at a major player just outside our view.

This is something we've been grappling with for a long time, to varying degrees. The astronomy field has always been plagued with the knowledge that there is more out there than we can see.

Going back centuries, astronomers suspected a large, "dark" object in our solar system. We knew it should be there because of the gravitational pull it exhibited on other nearby objects, yet, observing it was beyond our technological ability at the time. That changed in 1846 when Neptune's existence was confirmed.

Each new discovery chips away at our ignorance and paints a clearer picture of the universe we inhabit. The continued existence of dark matter, in the modern context, only underlines how much we still don't understand, how much there still is to learn. Because things still don't add up.

In short, when we model the universe, the way things move and interact, and the way it expands, we just can't account for our observations with the matter we've been able to identify.

According to NASA, in order to make sense of what we observe, the universe needs to be made up of roughly 68 percent dark energy and 27 percent dark matter, leaving only 5 percent for the sorts of stuff we're familiar with.

We can't account for dark matter with black holes. The number that would be needed in order to fit the bill would result in gravitational lensing all over the place, and we just don't see that. Antimatter also doesn't work, as we're missing the sorts of radiation that would come as a result of matter-antimatter explosions. Basically, all the kinds of matter we know about, in the amounts that would be needed to account for the measured gravity, would have a corresponding signature we could measure. And, yet...

What remains is the conclusion either that we have a fundamental misunderstanding of physics, or there is some other form of matter that we've yet to identify. We've given that stuff, whatever it is, the moniker "dark matter."

That isn't to say scientists have no idea what dark matter is. In fact, all we have are ideas. It's possible that dark matter is, in fact, the normal sorts of stuff, only more difficult to detect; brown dwarfs could account for some it, white dwarfs, neutron stars, and, of course, black holes. Even still, it's unlikely.

The leading hypothesis is that dark matter is comprised of WIMPS (weakly interacting massive particles).

These particles are orders of magnitude more massive than protons but have weak interactions, hence the name, making them difficult to detect. There are also hypothetical particles that could fit the bill, but have yet to actually be detected (hence their being hypothetical). That's the sort of thing the Large Hadron Collider might uncover in future experiments, as it smashes protons together hoping to get a glimpse at exotic matter.

A heretofore undiscovered neutrino is another candidate. Neutrinos are common particles. So common that each of us is being bombarded with them all the time. But they rarely interact with matter. Approximately 100 trillion neutrinos pass through your body every second, but detecting them can be difficult. Most neutrinos will pass through you and the rest of the Earth before zipping back out into space without interacting with a single atom along the way.

In an experiment published in the journal Science, researches fired trillions of neutrinos, every second, at a detector for fifteen months. In that time, they measured only 134 interactions. They are incredibly stealthy.

Those scientists banking on a new type of neutrino as a dark matter candidate propose a particle that interacts with matter only by way of gravity. If such a particle were discovered, it would explain the excess gravity in the universe and our inability to see what's causing it.

COULD IT FUEL A SHIP?

That depends entirely on what dark matter turns out to be. If, in the end, we discover that dark matter is the same sort of stuff we're used to, it likely won't offer any new avenues for space travel. But if it turns out to be exotic, if it's something totally new, then it might open the door to some truly astonishing spacecraft.

Using conventional chemical rockets, a trip even to the nearest star would take so long as to make the trip hardly worth taking, at least for humans.

NASA is planning to launch a new spacecraft, the Parker Solar Probe, in December 2024. If all goes to plan, it will become the fastest spacecraft to date, clocking in at 430,000 miles per hour (692,000 km/h) at its top speed.

Even at that rate, that craft would take nearly 7,000 years to traverse the 25.67 trillion miles to our nearest stellar neighbor, Proxima Centuari.

The strides we've taken in exploring space over the past several decades are nothing to scoff at, but chemical rockets just aren't terribly efficient and, if we hope to get beyond our own neighborhood, we'll need something new.

That's where dark matter may come in.

Some scientists believe dark matter may be made of particles with no charge, called neutralinos. If that's the case, these particles would also act as their own antiparticles. And, based on what we do know about dark matter, chiefly its abundance in the universe, they'd be free for the taking.

From a practical standpoint, this means you could launch a ship with very little onboard fuel. Additionally, dark matter could be collected while in transit and made to interact with itself, creating antimatter reactions that are 100 percent energy-efficient. Compared to current engines, which operate at less than a percent fuel efficiency, such an engine would entirely change the way we move through space.

According to a paper by Jia Lui, a physicist from New York University, such an engine could accelerate a craft to near the speed of light in a few days. And, from there, not even the sky's the limit.

Whether or not we'll ever uncover precisely what dark matter is, or if it can be utilized for space travel, remains unseen. For now, Rick is keeping that knowledge for himself.

The good news for any Zigerions out there is, once we find it, you won't need any complex recipes to make it work.

Until then, we'll have to placate ourselves with the fictionalized adventures of a mentally unstable inventor and his grandson.

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Science Behind the Fiction: Rick and Morty's time machine runs on Dark Matter. What is that? - SYFY WIRE

Watch Elon Musk lose it after Tesla Cybertruck Armor Glass …

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

Tesla unveiled its next game-changing vehicle last night. The Tesla Cybertruck is a fully electric pickup-ish vehicle with an undeniably futuristic look and a whole laundry list of great features. One of those features is Tesla Armor Glass which is supposed to be impact-resistant. It is not impact-resistant.

In a demonstration, a separate piece of Teslas glass was compared to a chunk of standard auto glass. The Tesla glass held up to an impact while the other piece cracked. Then, Tesla boss Elon Musk tempted fate, asking one of his fellow presenters to attempt to break the glass installed on the Cyber Truck prototype on stage. That was a bad idea.

The small metal sphere that was pitched at the truck hit the window dead center and completely destroyed it. The projectile didnt puncture the glass, which appears to be laminated, but it did completely shatter it. This was clearly an unexpected result, as Musk quickly uttered Oh my f**king God before joking that maybe the throw was a bit too hard.

With a lighter touch, the sphere was then thrown at the trucks rear window. It was an attempt to save face, and it was obvious that the impact was lighter this time around. It didnt matter, and the rear window shattered just the same. The crowd giggled and Musk promised theyd work on it.

Now, its important to keep in mind that this is a pre-production vehicle. If Tesla wants to make its windows impact resistant, it certainly has the ability to make that happen. Still, it wasnt a great look, and perhaps the worst part was that there was still plenty of presentation left to go, and Musk spent the rest of the event talking about all of the Cybertrucks highly advanced features while standing in front of a vehicle with two busted windows. Oof.

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Watch Elon Musk lose it after Tesla Cybertruck Armor Glass ...

Elon Musk says the Tesla 2020 Roadster ‘maybe won’t need a key at all’ – Business Insider

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

A Tesla fan tweeted at Elon Musk Wednesday with a modest request for the new Tesla Roadster: a socket near the driver meant to hold the key fob.

The Tesla founder and CEO responded by teasing a feature of the next Roadster: owners "maybe won't need a key at all."

The new Tesla Roadster was unveiled in 2017 and touted as an upgraded version of Tesla's original Roadster, which was produced between 2008 and 2012. The new Roadster will do 0-60 mph in 1.9 seconds, the company said, and its base model will start at $200,000.

It's not clear whether Musk was serious about his claim that the car might not require keys, or whether keys would be replaced with an app or some other way of identifying the driver. Musk has previously teased other Tesla features on Twitter he tweeted in October that future Teslas may allow drivers to customize their car horn, replacing it with fart or goat sound effects.

The new Roadster was initially expected to arrive in 2020, but Musk has hinted that it may come later he Tweeted in September that the next Model S will go into production in late 2020 and that the next Roadster will "come later."

A Tesla spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.

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Elon Musk says the Tesla 2020 Roadster 'maybe won't need a key at all' - Business Insider

Elon Musk Ordered to Stand Trial in Cave Explorers Defamation Case – The New York Times

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

A federal judge delivered a pair of legal setbacks to the tech billionaire Elon Musk this week, rejecting Mr. Musks attempt to throw out a defamation lawsuit brought against him by a British cave explorer whom Mr. Musk had accused on Twitter of being a pedo guy.

The judge, Stephen V. Wilson in United States District Court in Los Angeles, also ruled that the explorer, Vernon Unsworth, was not a public figure meaning the bar will be lower for him to prove defamation.

Judge Wilson ordered Monday that a jury trial begin on Dec. 3. He denied Mr. Musks argument that the case should be tossed because his statement, a shortened version of the word pedophile, was a throwaway insult not to be construed as fact.

Mr. Musk had also argued that Mr. Unsworth was a public figure because of his participation in a high-profile rescue of a youth soccer team trapped in a cave in Thailand last year. Public figures need to meet a high legal bar called actual malice essentially knowing a statement is false when the statement is made and making it anyway to prove defamation.

But in an 18-page order, Judge Wilson said that Mr. Unsworth was a private figure, who needed only to meet a lower bar that Mr. Musk acted negligently to recover some damages.

This case creates the perfect storm, where a jury is going to tell us what they think about this kind of conduct on social media, said L. Lin Wood, a lawyer for Mr. Unsworth. If they do what I believe they must under the evidence, the message is going to be strong: Dont do this, and to Musk: Dont do it again.

In response to questions about Judge Wilsons ruling, a lawyer for Mr. Musk, Alex Spiro, said, We look forward to the trial.

Mr. Unsworth sued Mr. Musk in September 2018, months after the two clashed over the cave rescue. The children, who were part of a soccer team, and their coach were trapped by rising water.

Mr. Musk had sent a team of engineers from the companies he leads Tesla, SpaceX and the Boring Company to help retrieve the children. The engineers produced three miniature submarines that Mr. Musk thought could have helped with the rescue, according to Judge Wilson, but the head of the search operation rejected the idea as impractical.

In an interview with CNN in July 2018, Mr. Unsworth called the submarine idea a P.R. stunt.

He can stick his submarine where it hurts, Mr. Unsworth said. It just had absolutely no chance of working.

Mr. Musk lashed out at Mr. Unsworth on Twitter in a series of posts and called him a pedo guy. Mr. Musk later deleted and apologized for those messages.

In an email to a BuzzFeed reporter about Mr. Musks statements, Mr. Musk urged the reporter to stop defending child rapists and suggested that Mr. Unsworth had had a child bride. Mr. Unsworth has denied all of Mr. Musks accusations.

Both the email and the tweets are part of Mr. Unsworths defamation claim. He is seeking damages in excess of $75,000.

Laura Prather, a First Amendment lawyer with the law firm Haynes and Boone who is not involved in the case, said the determination that Mr. Unsworth was a private figure made it much easier for him to succeed in trial.

With actual malice, you have to basically have known that what you were saying was false, she said. With negligence, its just whether or not you exercised due care.

Erwin Chemerinsky, dean of the University of California, Berkeley, school of law, said that Mr. Musk had faced an uphill battle to get the suit thrown out. Mr. Unsworth is not a well-known public figure and an accusation of being a pedophile is very damning.

Mr. Chemerinsky, who teaches First Amendment law, said the facts of the case were so distinctive that it would be difficult to predict what could happen going forward.

What you have here is, the plaintiff being involved in a tragedy, Elon Musk accusing him of being a pedophile, the plaintiff not really being a public figure and Elon Musk being a huge public figure, he said. Id be very cautious about generalizing because its such a unique set of facts.

Elon Musk Ordered to Stand Trial in Cave Explorers Defamation Case - The New York Times

Elon Musk Just Retweeted A Ford Announcement And It Was A Classy (And Hugely Strategic) Move – Forbes

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

SpaceX chief Elon Musk answers questions after the 2019 SpaceX Hyperloop Pod competition at the ... [+] SpaceX headquarters in Los Angeles on July 21, 2019. - 21 teams from around the world competed in the event which sees their pods race on the 1.25 kilometer Hyperloop test track. (Photo by Mark RALSTON / AFP) (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)

In business, there are two possible scenarios when it comes to competition.

On the one hand, when a major company enters your market segment, it can cause quite an uptick in interest (and sales) for all parties involved. The axiom a rising tide lifts all boats applies here. The best example of this in recent years is the large-screen television market. No one player is dominant. Were all looking for a way to watch Netflix. Theres plenty of room in the market for companies like Hisense and TCL to compete with Sony and Samsung.

Yet, theres also another scenario: A worthy upstart can steal away customers and market share. Ive always wondered if the Apple iPhone (released in 2007) would have been even more dominant than it is now if Google had not invented the Android phone (in 2008). In reality, there are way more Android phones in use today than iPhones by a large margin. One recent report mentioned how almost 75% of all smartphones use Android.

Its too soon to say what will happen with electric vehicles. According to the EEI, EVs still only account for about 2% of all cars sold. In Q1 of this year, only about 61,000 of them were sold.

What do we know for sure? Elon Musk is going with scenario one above. And, all it took is one tweet.

Recently, the famous entrepreneur retweeted an announcement by Ford Motor Company. Although Ford has dabbled in the electric car market for years and toyed with the idea, the announcement of the 2021 Mustang Mach-E SUV made a big splash. The car looks awesome, and Musk seemed to agree. He congratulated Ford on the announcement and welcomed the competition.

You might wonder: Why is that?

Musk is not at all afraid to share his opinions. He does not mince words. However, he is also smart enough to know that a major new addition to the market tends to capture attention even from those who have never thought about buying an electric car. And maybe those same customers will reconsider a Tesla vehicle instead.

All boats, youve been lifted.

One of my favorite unofficial stats is that Ford sells more trucks in one day than Tesla sells for all of their makes and models for the entire year. Im sure that changes year to year and month to month, so theres no way to really verify it as accurate, but the point is that Ford is a major automaker and Tesla is a startup.

Its a curious thing from a social media standpoint. My views have changed over the years about what is worth sharing and what is worth keeping private, and what helps a brand and what hinders one. The trolls are alive and well. Musk retweeted the congratulations in a public setting (he has almost 30 million followers).

Now well see if this is the tweet that jumpstarts an industry.

Elon Musk Says They’re Working On Plugging The 4,400-Mile Supercharger Gap Between Europe And Asia – Jalopnik

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

A few hours before Elon Musk debuted the delightfully deranged Cybertruck, he tweeted something less delightful but equally deranged. When a Twitter user asked him about getting some Superchargers in Ukraine, Musk replied, why stop at Ukraine?

A full Supercharger route from London to Shanghai?! That would certainly be neat.

Lets put aside the fact that the United Kingdom is a series of islands so, strictly speaking, one cannot drive from there to Shanghai. In any event, this got us wondering, approximately how many more Superchargers does Tesla need to install to complete this modern Silk Road?

The answer: 30, at least.

That is a screenshot from Teslas Supercharger network map. Red dots are Superchargers. On the route from London to Shanghai (which the Tesla routing system and Google Maps cannot complete) the easternmost Supercharger in Europe is in Katowice, Poland.

Meanwhile, the westernmost Supercharger in Chinaif approaching from Kazakhstan via Ukraine, which Musk clearly alluded to in the tweet replyis in Xian, although in the future one might be better off taking the yet-to-exist highway through Russia.

So, as the bird flies, Tesla must plug a roughly 4,400 mile gap in the Supercharger network in order to make London-to-Shanghai a theoretically possible electric car journey.

Of course, thats as the (very tired and likely dehydrated) crow flies. Driving will add hundreds of miles if not more to the route by taking, ya know, roads. But lets call it at 4,400 miles for now.

The lowest-range Tesla for sale right now is the base Model 3 with an advertised range of 250 miles. But due to vagaries in terrain, wind, weather, and a host of other factors that could influence range, including people driving older Tesla models, even putting Superchargers every 200 miles might be cutting it a little close. After all, I hear AAA service is pretty poor in the Gobi desert. Lets call it at 150 miles just to be on the better-safe-than-sorry side.

So, Tesla would have to install 30 Superchargers to make London-to-Shanghai a reality, assuming there are no other gaps in the network.

That might not sound like a lot, and if we were talking about charging stations in major metro areas, it wouldnt be. But putting a Supercharger in the middle of the goddamn desert or unpopulated high plains or mountain passes is a tad more logistically complicated than in a Southern California shopping center.

And for what? Who is actually going to drive from Europe to China? Who is going to use the Tesla Superchargers in the middle of nowhere?

I dont mean to jump to conclusions, but it is possible, slightly possible, Elon Musk something without thinking it through.

Elon Musk Says They're Working On Plugging The 4,400-Mile Supercharger Gap Between Europe And Asia - Jalopnik

It Took Elon Musk Exactly 5 Words to Reveal What He Looks for in Every New Hire (and It’s Not a College Degree) – Inc.

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

As CEO of Tesla and Space X, Elon Musk is leading two of the most innovative companies in the world. But even someone as smart and talented as Musk knows you don't innovate alone.

"You want to make sure that...if somebody great wants to join the company that they actually get an interview. This is actually one of my big worries. Like, if Nikola Tesla was alive today, could he get an interview? And if not, we're doing something wrong. And I'm not totally sure he would get an interview. So, if one of the most brilliant engineers who ever lived could maybe not get an interview, we should fix that and make sure we're not barring the doors from talent, or that we're looking at the right things.

"Generally, look for things that are evidence of exceptional ability. I don't even care if somebody graduated from college or high school or whatever... Did they build some really impressive device? Win some really tough competition? Come up with some really great idea? Solve some really tough problem?"

Musk concluded the point with a remarkablequestion:

"What did they do that was clear evidence of exceptional ability?"

Five words that should be memorized by every hiring manager and recruiter, in every company:

Clear evidence of exceptional ability.

So, what matters more than a degree? Intelligence, for one--along with emotional intelligence. The desire and ability to consistently learn and improve. And the hard skills needed to do the job at hand.

The more "exceptional ability" a candidate can demonstrate in these areas, the greater their potential to contribute to your company.

So, what does evidence of exceptional ability look like? And how can you make finding it part of your hiring practices?

It's easy to say "you'll know it when you see it," but the truth is that's not always the case. It's easy for recruiters and hiring managers to miss said evidence if they don't know how (or where) to look.

Here arethree suggestions to help your organization identify clear evidence of exceptional ability in job candidates:

Ask them to solve a problem.

To help sift through your crop of candidates, pose a problem they'll need to solve. It could be a typicalproblem they'dbe dealing with on any given day of the week (like how to deal with an irate customer). Or, it could be a more complex problem that your company is grappling with on a larger scale.

As you analyze candidates' answers, lookfor critical thinking skills, and the ability to clearly articulate thoughts and solutions.

Hold a contest.

A contest can be a great way to identify job candidates with potential to excel.

For example, every year Microsoft hosts a hackathon duringits One Weekfestival, which is part science fair and part tech expo. Employees are encouraged to bring their "world-changing ideas" to life. One Week is extremely popular among Microsoft employees, and has helped transform the company's reputation into a "cool employer."

Of course, your company's contest can focusonnew hires. But Microsoft's hackathon is a perfect example of how to identify current employees with potential to advance. This is important for two reasons:

"This feels like, collectively, we're building toward more creativity," said one longtime Microsoft employee about the One Week hackathon. "It's why we're here."

Test for skills.

Rather than focus on what school someone went to or what type of degree they have, a handful of companies have discovered that exceptional talent comes from various backgrounds.

For example, a few years ago LinkedIn pioneered REACH, an engineering apprenticeshipthat gives opportunities to candidates "who are passionate about coding, have a strong interest in continuing to independently learn and grow, and are willing to put in the work to achieve their goals and better their community."

To be considered, applicants should expect to complete both an essay application and a coding challenge, to help recruiters determine their skill level.

What's not required from candidates? A college degree.

Of course, what qualifies as an ideal candidate will likely be different for your company than for others, and will also depend heavily on the position you're looking to fill.

But great companies know that no position is permanent--and there's always room forgreat talent. So,if you're interested in hiring people who can help improve your company and move it forward, remember those five simple words:

Clear evidence of exceptional ability.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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It Took Elon Musk Exactly 5 Words to Reveal What He Looks for in Every New Hire (and It's Not a College Degree) - Inc.

To many, the strategy adopted by Elon Musk and Tesla seems chaotic but its actually brilliant – Scroll.in

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

Few companies have attracted as much praise, derision, scepticism and enthusiasm as Telsa Motors and its founder Elon Musk. Having interviewed Elon Musk and the Tesla leadership as part of my research, one of the questions Im asked most frequently is: how can you make sense of Teslas wild strategies? The latest example is the move to create a Gigafactory for car batteries just outside Berlin.

Part of the challenge in understanding Teslas strategy are the commentators. These range from short-selling to star worship. Many ask the wrong questions, such as why Tesla isnt making any money a question appropriate for a mature business, but not a growth one. While all businesses must be sustainable in the long run, Tesla is like most rapid growth companies that eat up more cash flow than they produce while in the early growth phase.

But the biggest part of the challenge may simply be understanding Teslas strategy. Why would a new company, already taking on the Herculean task of introducing an entirely new type of car to the market, also take on the incredible risk of building some of the worlds largest battery factories? Or for that matter, a dealership and repair network? Or a charging network? Or, even crazier, a solar power business?

On the surface, it makes no sense and there is no doubt that it introduces more risk to the company, increasing its chances of failure. But when viewed through the lens of the decades of research on technology strategy, Teslas approach takes on a different light.

The big challenge to understanding Teslas strategy is that most of us only look at it from one level of analysis. Namely, when we see Tesla, we see a company that produces cars. But when I teach executives how to invest in future technology, I encourage them to think at multiple levels of the technology stack: not just products, but also components and systems. So lets take a closer look at Tesla.

At the level of the product, although a Tesla looks the same as other vehicles, underneath the hood the vehicle has a fundamentally different architecture both in terms of hardware and software. This matters because a long research tradition underscores that when incumbents face a new technology architecture, they struggle to understand and adapt.

Even though they can see what the technology is, they struggle to adapt both because they are reluctant to give up the existing capabilities they have perfected over decades and to fully integrate the new ones. Although incumbents may imitate the new architecture, they have a hard time overcoming the way they have done things in the past and to match the superior performance of the new, purpose-built architecture.

You can see evidence of this playing out in the auto industry. Early electric vehicles produced by incumbents on internal combustion engine architectures paled in comparison to the Tesla, and even newer blank slate efforts sometimes dont quite measure up. Its always the little things that get in the way such as the fact that most vehicles built by other manufacturers have up to five separate software systems rather than a single integrated system like a Tesla, which gives a performance advantage.

If we lower our level of analysis to the level of components, rather than products, we see the Tesla strategy in a different light again. What we know about technical systems is that, as they mature, the value migrates to the bottlenecks that control the systems performance.

This is why in the PC industry, Intel has made so much money for decades while hard drive and modem manufacturers made peanuts. Intel controlled the bottleneck to the performance of the PC whereas hard drive manufacturers did not.

The bottleneck for electric vehicles now and in the future is the batteries. If Tesla can dramatically lower the prices of batteries by manufacturing at scale, they lower the barriers to adoption for electric vehicles. But more importantly, the battery bottleneck isnt going away any time soon, which means, if they succeed, Tesla controls the biggest profit pool in the future of auto manufacturing.

Lastly, if we raise our level of analysis above components and products, to the level of systems, we see Tesla in yet another light. The truth is that consumers dont want products, they want solutions. Most car makers deliver products. But Tesla tries to deliver a complete experience: car, upgrades, charging, insurance the whole bundle. And as a result, the majority of Tesla owners talk in glowing terms about their Tesla, both because it is a great car, but also a great solution. In what other vehicle do you wake up in the morning to find new self-driving features?

Lets be clear the risks are high. Tesla has compounded major bet upon major bet by having a multi-level strategy that targets components, products and systems. Everything has to go well to succeed. But if the stars align, its a brilliant strategy at all levels.

This article first appeared on The Conversation.

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To many, the strategy adopted by Elon Musk and Tesla seems chaotic but its actually brilliant - Scroll.in

Elon Musk Just Tweeted a Response to Ford’s New Electric Mustang Announcement, and It’s Most Excellent – Inc.

Posted on November 23, 2019 by Danzig

Ford made headlines this weekend when it unveiled the Ford Mustang Mach-E, an all-electric crossover SUV. The Mach-E is the beginning of a new EV strategy that will compete directly with Tesla's upcoming Model-Y, a new SUV that is scheduled to begin production next summer.

Elon Musk quickly took to Twitter to respond to Ford's announcement. Did he chide his competitor for taking so long to develop its electric vehicle technology? Did he take a shot at Ford for its interior, which features a large center display screen that looks much like the one featured in most Tesla models?

If you're surprised by Musk's response to Ford, you shouldn't be. For years, the famous CEO has insisted he's not competing with larger automakers. Rather, he's trying to spur them on.

Musk reiterated this point in a remarkable blog post way back in 2014. It was then that Musk announced that Tesla would, "in the spirit of the open source movement...not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology."

Musk went on to explain that Tesla initially pursued patents out of concern that larger car companies like Ford would copy its technology and then use their massive resources to overwhelm Tesla. But Musk soon realized that the opposite had become reality: At the time, EV programs at the major automakers were "small to non-existent."

"Given that annual new vehicle production is approaching 100 million per year and the global fleet is approximately twobillion cars, it is impossible for Tesla to build electric cars fast enough to address the carbon crisis," Musk continued. "By the same token, it means the market is enormous. Our true competition is not the small trickle of non-Tesla electric cars being produced, but rather the enormous flood of gasoline cars pouring out of the world's factories every day."

Fast forward to today. Musk's plan seems to have worked: Several major auto manufacturers have announced plans to release electric vehicles in the upcoming years. In the meantime, Tesla's position as market leader has only strengthened. And despite some serious turnover in its senior employee ranks, Tesla still has a reputation for attracting some of the world's best and brightest engineers. (That might have something to do withits CEO's hiring philosophy.)

Considering all this, it seems we can take Musk's tweet at face value: genuine encouragement for a challenger making strides in a market that's long overdue for more competition.

In other words, now the real fun starts.

The opinions expressed here by Inc.com columnists are their own, not those of Inc.com.

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Elon Musk Just Tweeted a Response to Ford's New Electric Mustang Announcement, and It's Most Excellent - Inc.

Euthanasia – American Life League

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

When we talk about euthanasia, what exactly do we mean? Today, we usually hear about euthanasia in the health care context. For our purposes, euthanasia amounts to doing, or not doing, something to intentionally bring about a patients death. Because theres so much confusion surrounding the term, lets make sure we understand what euthanasia is not.

It is not euthanasia to administer medication needed to control painthats called good medical care. It is not euthanasia to stop treatment that is gravely burdensome to a patientthats called letting the patient exercise the moral option to refuse extraordinary medical means. It is not euthanasia to stop tube-feeding a patient whose diseased or injured body can no longer assimilate food and waterthats called simply accepting death.

In these circumstances, pain control, refusing extraordinary means, and stopping feeding may all allow death. Butand this is crucial to our understandingunlike euthanasia, their purpose and intent is not to bring about death.

Actually, euthanasia could be called a form of suicide, assisted suicide, or even murder, depending on the patients level of involvement and consent. To define euthanasia this way, though, seems to diminish its threat. After all, arent there laws or, at the very least, strong social taboos against suicide, assisted suicide, and murder?

Unfortunately, when it comes to the sick and disabled, this is no longer entirely true. And, the rationale and cultural forces behind the movement that brought this about threaten even more to tear down the legal and social barriers to killing.

Most of us know about Jack Kevorkian and his efforts to help ailing people commit suicide. Many of us may not realize, though, that Kevorkians maverick image masks a serious crusade that is building on emerging legal and cultural trends. Our society is poised to accept euthanasia on demandand worse. What we dont know about that could kill us.

In sum, it is vitally important to understand that everyones most basic rightthe right to lifeis in jeopardy when our law and collective morality no longer view all persons as equally worthy of life, solely on the basis of our common humanity. Not only is it the right thing to do, it is also in our own best interests to protect and cherish weak and vulnerable members of our human family.

In order to do that, we must educate ourselves and others about the growing threat of euthanasia, vigorously oppose its legalization, and pray for the wisdom and compassion to properly comfort, care for and dissuade those considering suicide.

The information on euthanasia is a PowerPoint Presentation (2007) prepared for American Life League by Julie Grimstad, Executive Director of Life is Worth Living, Inc.

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Euthanasia - American Life League

Right to euthanasia for people tired of life supported by most Dutch – The Irish Times

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

For the first time a majority of the Dutch population supports the idea of euthanasia for those who say theyre tired of life although they remain physically healthy, a survey shows.

In 2002 the Netherlands became the first country in the world to legalise euthanasia as a form of painless escape for terminally ill patients with the emphasis on those experiencing hopeless and unbearable suffering.

The procedure remains tightly controlled. Two doctors are required to agree independently in each case that the legal conditions have been met. However, theres a growing debate about whether or not availability should be broadened to include those who feel their lives are at an end.

As a result, controversial new legislation is to be tabled in parliament by the centre-left party D66 early next year that would make euthanasia available to citizens over 75 who believe their lives are complete and who wish to have control over how and when they end.

The new representative survey by the national statistics agency will be good news for D66 because it shows clearly for the first time that public attitudes to euthanasia are changing, and that that change is very much in line with the partys proposed new guidelines.

They survey shows the same overwhelming support for euthanasia as before, with 87 per cent of the population favouring its availability in certain controlled circumstances, 8 per cent opposed to it in all circumstances and 5 per cent with no opinion.

In religious terms, the greatest support for the procedure at 98 per cent comes from those who describe themselves as non-religious, with the greatest opposition from Muslims and orthodox Protestants.

However, within those broad parameters theres been an important shift, with 55 per cent of those surveyed now of the view that euthanasia should be available in cases where people feel tired of life while being in good physical health. Thirty-two per cent remain opposed to this.

As regards other specific hard case situations, 80 per cent agreed with its provision in cases of advanced dementia where the wish had been made known in advance.

Seventy-five per cent were in favour for terminally ill children and people with severe mental disorders.

The lower age limit for assisted suicide is currently 12, and while a third of respondents said they believed the age should be lowered to include younger children in distress, roughly half said they felt age should play no role in the decision at all.

The survey confirms that although it remains controversial and some cases become high profile, euthanasia is still used infrequently. There were 6,126 deaths by euthanasia in 2018, amounting to 4 per cent of the people who died in the Netherlands last year.

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Right to euthanasia for people tired of life supported by most Dutch - The Irish Times

Euthanasia – Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

Euthanasia is when a person's life is ended because of disease or pain, which has made them suffer. This is different from assisted suicide, where a person helps someone kill themselves. It is also different to murder, where the reason is not suffering, but to kill for the killer's own ends. Euthanasia can be voluntary, where the person who dies asks for help in ending their life. Where the person is unable to make their decision known, it is usually called non-voluntary euthanasia. Where someone is killed against their will, it is usually called murder.

Euthanasia is illegal in most countries. It is permitted in a small number of countries, such as the Netherlands, Belgium and Victoria, Australia.[1] Where it is permitted there are many rules, and only in cases where the patient is terminally ill. Though euthanasia is not legal in the United States, doctors can assist people to kill themselves. This is legal in Washington, Oregon, and Montana. Physician Assisted Suicide (PAD) is different to euthanasia; it is about who gives the medication to end a patients life. The World Federation of Right to Die Societies says physician-assisted suicide means "making lethal means available to the patient to be used at a time of the patients own choosing." In these cases the patient takes the legal dose of poison themselves, it is not given by the doctor. It is euthanasia when the doctor has the main role in ending the patients life by giving the poison.

Euthanasia can be active or passive, and voluntary, non-voluntary and involuntary. Many people see important differences and they can accept some types but not others.

Passive euthanasia means letting a person die. A terminally ill person is allowed to die, even if treatment could help them to live longer. This includes removing life support, such as a ventilator which is being used to keep the person alive, or by not giving them food or water. Active euthanasia means doing something to end a person's life. This could be giving them an injection or pills that will cause their death.[2]

Some people see passive euthanasia as a more acceptable choice, because it is not a deliberate act to kill. However, others argue that once someone has decided to allow another person to die, they should make it as fast and as painless as possible, and then act to bring about their death. This is also known as mercy killing.[3]

Voluntary euthanasia is when someone asks to be allowed to die or to be killed. This is often seen as the best option by people who believe in euthanasia, because it is clear that the person wants to die. If the person can not say that they want to die, but people think that they would ask to die if they could, then it is non-voluntary euthanasia. Non-voluntary euthanasia is a choice for people who are in a coma or who are very young, as they can not say what they want. Involuntary euthanasia is when someone is killed even though they asked not to die, or when they could have asked to die but did not.[4] Many people think that this is murder, not euthanasia.[5]

These types of euthanasia can be mixed. If someone asks to die, and another person gives them an injection that will kill them, then it is active voluntary euthanasia. Someone in a coma who is kept alive with a ventilator, and the doctors turn it off and they die, would be passive non-voluntary euthanasia.[6]

Some people believe that euthanasia should be allowed, and some people think that it should not.

Some people believe that allowing euthanasia will result in bad things happening. If it is allowed for people asking to die, then it might be allowed for people who are very sick but are not able to ask to die. If that happens, then maybe it would be allowed for people who are very sick and will not recover, but do not want to die. This is called the "slippery slope" argument.[7]

People who believe in the slippery slope argument point to times when this happened. In Germany, Adolf Hitler allowed disabled children to be killed, and called it euthanasia. People now agree that this was wrong, but if euthanasia was allowed it could happen again. They think it is too big a risk to allow euthanasia at all.[7]

Other people say there is a big difference between killing a very sick person who asks to die, and killing a child with a disability. They do not think euthanasia will lead to bad things. They say that Hitler's actions were not euthanasia.[7]

The American Medical Association (AMA) and other doctors believe it is a doctor's role to help, not kill people.[source?] In one study 76% of doctors said they would not carry out euthanasia, even if it was legal.[source?] They feel patients would not trust them. In the Netherlands where euthanasia is legal, 60% of older people in one study were scared that their their doctors would kill them.[source?]

Palliative care is when people who are ill and going to die are given special care to make them more comfortable. It may include hospice care, when the patient is sent to a special hospital for people who are dying. Palliative care can involve pain relief and help for the patient and family to come to terms with death. In some cases, doctors will give patient drugs which make them stay asleep, so that they will not feel pain.[8][9]

Palliative care is not perfect, and so it is not always seen as a replacement for euthanasia. There is still some pain, and there can be other side-effects, where the patient can still feel very sick. Palliative care is not available for all people, and not all people who wish to die through euthanasia are so sick that they will die soon. Some people have healthy bodies, but they are suffering in other ways, and palliative care will not always help them.[7]

The principle of double effect was first described by Thomas Aquinas over 700 years ago. It says that it is sometimes alright to do a bad thing if something good happens, and if a bad ending was not wanted.[10] Aquinas used the example of self defense: sometimes a person will kill someone who attacks them, but killing was not what the person was trying to do. They only wanted to protect themselves. So even though killing someone is bad, wanting to protect themselves was not.[11]

Some people say that doctors may treat a person to reduce the their pain, and as a result the person will die sooner. If the doctor gives the treatment in order to help the patient die, then it is euthanasia. But if the doctor gives the treatment in order to stop the pain, and does not intend for the patient to die, then it may not be euthanasia, even if the doctor knew that the treatment would kill the patient.[11]

Suicide is when a person kills themselves. Sometimes when a person is very sick they need help to die, and this is called assisted suicide.[12] In some countries people are allowed to help as long as they do not kill the person,[13] and it can be seen as a more acceptable option because it must be the person's own decision.[12] Because the assisting person did not kill, it is not always considered to be euthanasia. [7]

[1]

Originally posted here:

Euthanasia - Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Is there tikanga around euthanasia? – RNZ

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

Debate has emerged as to whether euthanasia has a place in te ao Mori, with some saying it doesn't sit with the Mori worldview of death, and others saying whnau should have the choice.

A Taranaki urup. Photo: RNZ / Robin Martin

The End of Life Choice Bill, which would allow people to end their lives if they have six months or less before they die, passed its third reading last week, with the public set to vote at a referendum next year.

Maata Wharehoka, from Parihaka, has been reviving traditional methods of death and burial, with her whnau-run business, Kahu Whakatere Tppaku.

She said that based on the knowledge of her whnau, there was a form of euthanasia in pre-colonial Mori society, which involved speeding up death for people who had become wholly dependent on others for their needs.

"They didn't have food and water, and they were put outside and regardless of the weather, that's where they were placed, now, what I do know, if they didn't die immediately they were then put out into wharemate, and the wharemate was built for them to die in."

She supports legalisation of euthanasia because it would help the wairua of the person dying, leave the world faster with less pain and suffering.

"I believe that we should never have to endure the pain that some people have to go through, that we should be able to choose a time to pass over."

Ngti Porou anglican priest, Reverend Chris Huriwai, who opposed the bill, said euthanasia went against the Mori worldview on death.

"When I hear conversations and krero around euthanasia, straight away my mind flicks to how we as Mori frame our tangihanga rituals, how we understand death, and fundamentally this idea of death as something that is unwanted, something that is an aitua or an accident or something unfortunate, and I wonder how that impacts on our tikanga when we start to express more agency in that space.

"So if a whnau or a person elects for that to take place, then how do we reconcile that with our acceptable practice and tikanga around tangihanga as it stands now."

The End of Life Choice Bill passed its third in Parliament last week and puts the issue to a referendum next year. Photo: RNZ / Dom Thomas

He said that from what he had learned from the tohunga Papa Amster Reedy, euthanasia was foreign to the tikanga of Tairwhiti, but he said this might not necessarily be the case for Mori across the country.

"I think it's important we don't just call it all tikanga Mori, because tikanga Mori doesn't exist."

"We're diverse, we're fluid, we're not a homogenous group of people, so those conversations need to happen on levels smaller than tribal levels, so hap conversations need to happen and whnau conversations need to happen around what our accepted tikanga is."

Dame Iritana Twhiwhirangi agreed there was no one tikanga, and she supported the right for whnau to make a decision for themselves.

"Our people, from what I remember, made the decision together. They didn't rely on outside determinations for them and together that was their tikanga, that's what they focused on, they made their decisions and I support that."

New Zealand Nurses Organisation kaiwhakahaere Kerri Nuku said Mori nurses were polarised on the issue, but agree that it should be up to whnau Mori.

Mori nurses were looking to set up hui at different marae after Christmas, where Mori could discuss what legalisation of euthanasia would mean for them and their whnau, similar to consultation that occured around changes to the Coronial Act.

Whangarei MP Shane Reti said during the third reading debate that he opposed the bill, both as as a doctor and a Mori.

Tmaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare supported the bill Photo: RNZ / Richard Tindiller

He singled out many of the Mori Labour MPs who supported the bill, asking them what their "Mori heart' was saying.

Tmaki Makaurau MP Peeni Henare responded by saying that historically, Mori had ways of speeding up the process of death if a disease or sickness was incurable.

He said that to him, tikanga is mana motuhake - Mori being to make the decision which is right for them.

MP for Te Tai Hauuru Adrian Rurawhe said that the overwhelming majority of people in his electorate told him at eight public hui they did not want this bill.

"We talk about kaupapa Mori, terms that just roll of our tongue - manaakitanga, rangatiratanga, aroha - it even frames our international identity but will it frame what we want for our families in this bill, I say it will not, because it is fundamentally opposed to those kaupapa."

List MP Willie Jackson told Parliament that three high-profile Mori leaders, he had spoken with said "they were tired of hearing this was a violation of our culture".

"All were unanimous that in their view tikanga evolves, tikanga changes and there is no one tikanga," he said.

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Is there tikanga around euthanasia? - RNZ

Euthanasia referendum best approached with a cool head and open mind – Stuff.co.nz

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

OPINION:Now that New Zealanders have been passed the responsibility of decidingwhether euthanasia is to be legalised it is time to take the passion out of an impassioned debate.

Between now and when the referendum is held next year we have a moral duty to put aside our prejudices andlisten with an open mind to all sides.

We need to be conscious there will be those in thisdebateseeking to hijack ouremotions. Yet we also need to understand they'll be doing sofrom a position of absolute sincerity.

At its most basic it appears an easy choice. Should we be allowed to end our lives when we are terminally illand death is just six months away, or should we not.

READ MORE:* Euthanasia bill passes 69-51,the final decision a referendum* Historic right to die bill passes first hurdle* Should Kiwis have the right to die with 'dignity'?* Jackson: Dying with dignity should be a right

The issue is much deeper than that. Itbelies the simple yes or no answer a referendum requires.

It's the right to dignity in your final days versus therisk of being coercedinto ending it.It's individual freedom versus thestate's duty to protect the individual and the ability of medical scienceto keep us alive versus a subjective judgment on what quality of life we must have to make it worth living.

ROSS GIBLIN

David Seymour celebrates his euthanasia bill passing on Wednesday night. It will now be included on a referendum at next year's election.

It could also bethat once you've familiarised yourself with the details of the billyou realise you support euthanasia yetreject thisapproach as flawed. The same could be true for the reverse.

Thereare certainly cases where denying someone theability to end their own life appears cruel and unusual. Few could argue lawyer Lecretia Seales' last days alive weren't made more painful by her inability to end it.

The manner of herdeath was heartbreaking. Not just because of the pain she was inbut also because of how much she sacrificed pushing for change, even when it was clear she would never benefit from that change.

Her death will certainly be used to argue for the right to end your life. Suffering like that endured by Sealesis often compared to how we treat sick animals, a demonstration that animals are treated more humanely.

Yet such a statement that so aggressively grabs for your sense of outrage must also include that this "humanity" is largely extended to avoid personal cost.

Each year millions of animals die grislydeaths in this country. From any objective viewpoint they are not treated better than humans. Not even close.

Being open to understanding the gravity of this decision meansacknowledging the validity of qualified opinions, no matter how much they clash with your values.

As a GP, National MP Shane Reti's views must be recognised as having insights those outside the medical field may not be able to appreciate.

When he says he would not want the spectre of euthanasia hanging over every consultation, we should take that on board as reasonable and consider how this bill could change the doctor-patient relationship.

Yet his other comment that the world would have lost some "brightness" had Beethoven ended his life six months earlyto relievethe suffering his cirrhosis was causing, is an appeal to our emotions rather than our logic.

Euthanasia will not result in a dearth of high culture. And surely, as a nation, we don't want to prolong an individual's suffering simply to increase the range of amusements available to us.

Whatever decision the referendum yields, that we are even having it shows the current system is not meeting our needs.

It is time to talk about what those needs are. Strip away the fears, strip away the emotions, look past the simplistic arguments, keep it reasonedand be prepared to listen.

Then let your decision come from that.

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Euthanasia referendum best approached with a cool head and open mind - Stuff.co.nz

Kent Co. Animal Shelter is overflowing due to high intake numbers coupled with lower euthanasia rate – WZZM13.com

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich The Kent County Animal Shelter took in 678 cats and dogs during the month of October alone.

"We've been steadily increasing since July," said KCAS program supervisor Namiko Ota-Noveskey. "We can't really explain why that is."

On top of a high intake number, the shelter has also been working to bring down its euthanasia rate, which means there are more animals in the shelter at any given time.

"We are moving animals as quickly as we can, but we are struggling to maintain the overall health of a large number of animals," Ota-Noveskey said.

Read more: Kent County shelter euthanized most dogs and cats in Michigan during 2017

KCAS gained attention last year for having one of the highest euthanasia rates in the state during 2017. Ota-Noveskey, who was brought on in May of this year, said they are constantly working to reduce that rate.

She said the current live release rate for cats is nearly 80% and the live release rate for dogs is close to 70%.

A 90% live release rate is the requirement for shelters that are considered 'no-kill.'

With help from rescue groups and other shelters, KCAS has been able to transfer animals more frequently to keep up with intake. The shelter has also offered fee waivers on cats for months at a time. With dogs, Ota-Noveskey says the staff is doing more extensive behavior assessments to determine the best type of home for each pet.

The longer the animals stay at the shelter, though, the more prone they are to things like upper respiratory infections and stress, Ota-Noveskey said.

"We are doing what we can," she said. But, they need adopters.

Bissell Pet Foundation is hosting an Empty the Shelters event on Nov. 22 and 23 solely to help KCAS adopt out more animals.

"Shelter dogs are not damaged dogs," Ota-Noveskey said. "I am pretty certain you will find one you like, and they all need a home. A shelter is just a temporary place this cannot be a home."

Long term, Ota-Noveskey hopes the shelter can work with community members to understand why intake numbers continue to be so high.

"Are people losing housing? Are they not financially able to care for [their pet]? Are landlords still discriminating against certain breeds? There are some things I think we can address as a community," Ota-Noveskey said.

HOW TO HELP:

Click here to learn about volunteering at KCAS

Click here to learn about adopting from KCAS

Opinion | Life is special, nobody has the right to end their own – The News Record

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

The approval of the principle "right to die" is dangerously trending up.

In August, New Jersey became the seventh state to legalize assisted suicide. Euthanasia is now responsible for 4.5% of deaths in the Netherlands, with many of those including people who werent terminally ill.

These are old people who may have health problems, but none of them are life-threatening, bioethicist Scott Kim told CBS. They're old, they can't get around, their friends are dead and their children don't visit anymore. This kind of trend cries out for a discussion. Do we think their lives are still worthwhile?"

Assisted suicide is often conflated with euthanasia, which has different motives, but with the same results. Assisted suicide is usually defined as helping a person end their life. Euthanasia is essentially a nicer sounding version of assisted suicide. Amazingly, euthanasia has 73% of American support in a 2017 Gallup poll. This is downright horrifying.

Assisted suicide and euthanasia in bare-bone terms, is the practice of helping people kill themselves. The principle in favor of assisted suicide and euthanasia is known as right to die, that one is entitled to end their life.

Objectively, if one wants to deny themselves life sustaining treatment, I feel that is understandable. We didnt have these life sustaining devices until recently. Denying themselves life sustaining treatment is just letting life go through its intended course. The National Health Service distinguishes this from euthanasia. The BBC says The NHS says withdrawing life-sustaining treatment can be part of good palliative care and should not be confused with euthanasia.

But to me, you arent ending your life; youre letting life carry itself on which is very different from euthanasia or assisted suicide.

I have much sorrow for those who are terminally ill. However, that doesnt mean you should end your life.

Does one have the right to die? Well philosophically speaking, no. If you believe that people have the right to be born, then yes, one has the right to die. You have to be born to die. But since most believe the right to choose outweighs that, then the right to die isnt a philosophically consistent one.

People often forget how the practices of the right to die, euthanasia and assisted suicide are seen in the eyes of the society: murder. In the majority of states, the preservation of life is considered the biggest priority.

In terms of law, the Supreme Court has ruled that from FindLaw, the government's interest in preserving life and preventing intentional killing outweighed the patient's interest in the liberty to choose to die, regardless of the patient's condition.

Supreme Court Justise Neil Gorsuch once said, Once we open the door to excusing or justifying the intentional taking of life as 'necessary,' we introduce the real possibility that the lives of some persons (very possibly the weakest and most vulnerable among us) may be deemed less 'valuable,' and receive less protection from the law, than others."

The right to die forgets how special life really is.

Continued here:

Opinion | Life is special, nobody has the right to end their own - The News Record

Long Beach City Council to consider increasing allowed pets from 4 to 6 to reduce animal euthanasia – Signal Tribune

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Danzig

The City of Long Beach may soon allow residents to have up to six pets in their homes, two more than it currently allows.

Gerardo Mouet, director of Long Beachs Parks, Recreation and Marine Department, stated in a Nov. 15 memo to the city manager that next month the city council will consider amending an ordinance to increase allowed pets from four to six and also regulate animals brought into the city for adoption.

The purpose of the amendments is to promote the Long Beach Animal Care Services (LBACS) Compassion Saves approach designed to minimize the number of animals euthanized, Mouet said.

According to the memo, LBACS already reduced the number of its animals euthanized by 82% between 2010 and 2018, dropping from 5,651 to 1,044. It also increased pet adoptions by 370% from 144 to 677 during that period.

Courtesy City of Long BeachA table from a Nov. 15 memo to the Long Beach city manager showing how Long Beach Animal Care Services (LBACS) reduced animal-euthanasia rates and increased adoptions between 2010 and 2018.

As recent as 2012, LBACS started seeing less animals coming into the shelter due to effective population-control efforts, Mouet said in the memo, adding that it reduced euthanasia rates with the help of a 2015 spay-and-neuter ordinance and partnering with adoption organizations.

Mouet further stated that city staff plans to work with spcaLA (the Los Angeles Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) which is housed in the same facility as LBACS in negotiating a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to maximize the effectiveness of LBACSs Compassion Saves approach.

That approach stems from an April 16 LBACS study session showing the positive impact of animal population-control efforts. The City had created a task force the previous October following results of a two-phased city-auditors report on LBACS completed last year. The City also hired a new LBACS manager, Staycee Dains, last February.

Along with deficiencies in LBACS operations, the audit noted that though they maintain separate leadership and identities, both LBACS and spcaLA are housed at the P.D. Pitchford Companion Animal Village in Long Beach, with a 55-year lease-back agreement expiring in 2053. LBACS leases part of the facility from spcaLA for its shelter operations and the City pays spcaLA 50% of the total facilitys operating expenses, according to the audit.

And though LBACSs live-release rates (LRR) of animals have increased, the audit found that the LRRs and impound improvements strained LBACSs resources and spread thin the shelters staff.

It also found deficiencies in LBACSs standard-operating procedures, resulting in inconsistent decision-making, conflicting shelter practices and changes implemented without proper direction and explanation.

No killThough Mouet said the three proposed steps are designed to aid LBACSs effectiveness in reducing euthanized animals, Dr. Patricia Turner of No Kill Long Beach, an advocacy group calling for no animal to be put down unless it has untreatable pain or illness, told the Signal Tribune that the steps are too limited.These actions dont go far enough, Turner said, adding that the real problem is LBACSs physical and operational proximity to spcaLA.

The MOU must establish LBACSs independence from spcaLA [] as its own entirely city-operated animal shelter and facility so that they can operate at scale to meet the needs of the people of Long Beach, she said.

Turner said that such a separation would allow LBACS to operate full-service adoption and foster programs and a robust volunteer program.Ideally, spcaLA would not be associated with the City of Long Beach, she said. They are on taxpayer land.

Turner also said that the MOU should require transparency by spcaLA about the outcome of animals under its care, such as how many it euthanizes or sends out to adoption, foster care or to other shelters.

That MOU is the most important thing, Turner said when comparing the three steps.

The step of limiting the number of animals brought into the city for adoption is a response to the general perception that spcaLA brings in animals from other places, Turner said, but noted that the memo doesnt specify that organization as the problem.

Nothing in this memo, in regards to animals being brought into Long Beach, mentions spcaLA, she said. It applies to anybody.

Turner said therefore a person who finds a kitten in Lakewood couldnt by law bring it to the Long Beach shelter, nor could a rescue organization that finds a dog in neighboring Compton bring it in for adoption.

It places a burden on these rescue organizations who are already overburdened, under-resourced and theyre doing the work that LBACS should be doing of adopting animals out, she said. LBACS is not adopting large numbers of animals out because spcaLA doesnt want them to. Its just foisting the problem back on the community.

She remarked that the 677 adoptions LBACS reports is small next to comparable cities like Sacramento, whose shelter managed 5,000 adoptions. That citys website states that the shelter sent out 5,037 dogs and cats for adoption last year and 4,321 as of October this year.

And regarding the proposed ordinance amending the number of pets people can have, Turner said her organization advocates for eight rather than six but said such laws dont impact animal welfare by themselves.

If youre concerned about animal welfare, the laws dont do anything in terms of changing human behavior except to deter responsible people who would take good care of a larger number of animals from having them, she said, adding that Sacramento allows up to 10 pets per household. Sacramentos website states that residents can harbor up to three dogs and seven cats.

Public opinion supports a no-kill policy and stronger adoption efforts, Turner said, but also noted that LBACS and spcaLA practices affect all pet owners.If your dog gets out, your dog could go to the shelter, Turner said. And if he gets sick, [] he could be killed.

Shelter progressDespite these concerns, Staycee Dains, LBACS manager, told the Signal Tribune that she collaborated with Mouet on the steps and is hopeful for continued progress.She said that the City has already made great strides in reducing its stray-animal population following the four-year-old spay-and-neuter ordinance.

Courtesy City of Long BeachGraph from Phase 2 of the City of Long Beachs audit of its animal-care services showing increases in live-release rates of animals in recent years

The City increasing its limit of how many pets residents can have will further reduce the stray-animal population, she said.The idea is to allow people to have more animals so they can adopt more animals from the shelter, she said.

Dains said she is also hopeful that the MOU with spcaLA will formalize the ways in which their operations work together, especially as LBACS has evolved over the past decade.

We really want to make sure our efforts are collaborative and make sure whatever were putting into place is going to be definitely beneficial for the LBACS shelter animals she said. Im very hopeful that we will be able to come up with a memorandum of understanding.

Dains added that LBACS will begin negotiations as soon as possible and expects the process to be short, hoping to complete the agreement early in 2020.

Dains said she is also confident in LBACSs Compassion Saves model to ensure the animals in its care get everything they need and especially an appropriate outcome, whether that means being returned to an owner, adopted, placed in foster care or sent to a rescue organization.

We want to make sure that were making excellent outcome decisions for them, Dains said. Making sure that animals are getting to their outcome as soon as possible is a really important part of the Compassion Saves model.

Dains said she is also pleased with reforms allowing volunteers to come on board faster.

Weve streamlined some of our training so that those who can come to the shelter and go through the screening process and be trained has been thankfully truncated, she said.

She added the City has opened up the window of time it can screen volunteer candidates by contracting with another organization to provide such services as fingerprinting.

People wont have to wait from their orientation to their processing time, which for some people could be weeks, Dains said. Weve definitely seen an increase in volunteer retention from going to that process.

More volunteers have allowed LBACS to develop new programs, such as behavior rehabilitation for dogs, Dains said.

Prior to starting this program, [some dogs] were not getting their needs met and so would languish in the shelter [and] their behaviors would become increasingly concerning because they werent getting the right type of enrichment, like getting out of their kennels and getting the right type of handling, Dains said.

She noted that a lot of the dogs at the shelter have been through trauma and need someone to guide them through that experience through specific activities with volunteers, such as educational training that helps them cope with the shelter environment.

It has made a huge difference in the stress level of our dogs in our kennels and the ease of volunteers being able to handle the dogs, she said.

As for cats, Dains said her own office has become the place for especially scared cats to calm down before continuing into the shelter.

People have been so invested and have really made a lot of personal sacrifices to see our animal-services department succeed, Dains said. Were very excited to keep up the momentum and progress that everyone in our community has worked on for so many years.

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Long Beach City Council to consider increasing allowed pets from 4 to 6 to reduce animal euthanasia - Signal Tribune

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