WOTV4women.com | Middle school girls receive empowering messages at Beautiful U WOTV4women.com Dr. Carolyn King from Pine Rest shared amazing messages of hope and empowerment to the girls at Beautiful U. Dr. King's energy is unmatched, and she uses her personal experiences to relate to the girls. She explained that growing up in a diverse way ... |
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Middle school girls receive empowering messages at Beautiful U - WOTV4women.com
The biggest and most immediate challenge government faced as it entered the democratic transition was the unacceptable high levels of poverty and inequality inherited from the apartheid government that still define the new South Africa today. The challenge was even complicated and compounded by the crushing high level of government debt that was sitting at just over 50% of GDP in 1995 and the unemployment rate that had risen to over 30% of the labour force (using the expanded rate). These massive macro-economic and fiscal limitations were at the centre of the complex and constraining reality that was inherited by the pot-apartheid government. They served to handicap options for policy innovation for the new democratic government severely.
The policy response to poverty and unemployment was obvious and urgent. No political democracy can survive and flourish if the mass of our people remain in poverty, without land, without tangible prospects for a better life. Attacking poverty and deprivation must therefore be the first priority of a democratic government. (The Reconstruction and Development Programme 1994).
This policy statement attests to the fact that the mass democratic movements went into the post-apartheid negotiations driven by a very high sense of consciousness for social justice. The current level and extent of the social wage package is very redistributive and forms the largest proportion of the national budget compared to other developing countries and is a direct policy response to this debilitating legacy of apartheid. The package is broad extending from social grants, free public health, no fee schools, water and electricity subsidies for the indigent at municipality level to free RDP hoses. However, for this to remain sustainable, the current size of the tax base must increase incrementally on the back of an increasing economic growth. Both of these conditions have not been met for almost a decade.
The policy conundrum arising out of this is that given the stubbornly high structural unemployment and wealth and income inequality, the economic trajectory we have chosen emphasizes high skills and technology rather than the labour intensity that is needed to absorb the high unemployment demographic that is under-educated and unskilled. It is instructive to observe that this capital and skills intensive growth translated into rising wages for the formal and increasingly regulated labour market and increasing profits for the owners of capital. The informal labour sector on the other hand has been decimated due to casualization and decreasing job opportunities. This is the situation and dynamic that is driving the increasing inequality and poverty.
The central issue and question is why is it that the current political leadership paid less attention to obvious strategies that could have made a significant impact on mass employment and growth. Why is it, for example, that criminal and gross incompetence was allowed to grow and erode the provision of quality education for all and the efficient implementation of the land restitution programme? These are the two key areas that could have driven personal empowerment and individual enterprise for many people. It is difficult not to conclude that the growth of corruption and selfish pursuit and abuse of political power have replaced the virtue of consciousness for social justice that motivated the mass democratic movement at the beginning of the democratic transition.
The crisis in education is especially worrying as an area of spectacular policy failure. A little less than 50% of the population is under the age of 25 and just over 20% are between the ages of 15 to 24. Despite the promise of a better life for all various forms of inequalities continue to hobble their opportunities for upward social movement. The barriers that were created during the apartheid era continue to exist well into the democratic era in education, employment, business opportunities, land and housing.
The strong correlation between wealth and education means that in general poorer learners, who generally receive poor quality education, perform worse academically and get trapped into intergenerational poverty. And, the painful fact is that the South African Democratic Teachers Union (SADTU) is heavily complicit in efforts to undermine the pursuit of accountability in teaching. SADTU is a key member of COSATU in the governing Tripartite Alliance. The conclusion that the level of consciousness for social justice is waning in the governing party is unavoidable.
Quality education can indeed become a revolutionary and transformative force for a society characterised by high levels of income and wealth inequality and that is also in a democratic transition. It is therefore not unreasonable to conclude that the disruptive efforts of SADTU neatly qualify them as a counter revolutionary force
This is a very worrying picture but there is emerging optimism in the fact that the improving level of competitive electoral politics is accelerating and that a new political order may be emerge in the 2019 national elections.
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Reducing incarceration with technology
Twenty new jurisdictions have joined the Safety and Justice Challenge, an initiative to reduce over-incarceration and address racial and ethnic local justice disparities through innovative criminal justice reforms.
A national $100 million initiative by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the challenge works to tackle such issues as gender-responsive risk and needs assessment, culture-based case management and recidivism reduction approaches, and enhanced services for people with mental illness involved with the justice system, the foundation said in its announcement of the new grant winners.
Many of the solutions involve using technology to drive down jail usage and reduce racial and ethnic disparities in local justice systems.
Durham County, N.C., is developing an automated notification system to prevent failure-to-appear warrants and arrests. People facing criminal court charges would receive text or phone notices regarding their scheduled court dates, in an effort to decrease the number of people who end up in jail because of missing a court date.
People forget things. Its only human, Durham County Clerk of Superior Court Archie L. Smith III said in a statement. Medical providers generate appointment reminder calls to insure that health needs are timely met. We will provide reminder calls such that legal obligations can be timely addressed.
Adams County, Colo., is developing a data linking system to better understand the correlation between mental health crises and crime. It will analyze how many critical incident response calls are related to mental health crises and divert people with mental illness from incarceration to treatment. The county will develop a dashboard and analytical tool to monitor progress onredirecting people with mental illness to treatment to reducethe unnecessary use of emergency services and the jail.
The intent of the system will be to share data between health providers in the jail and community to improve continuity of care, according to minutes from the Data Sharing Task Force Colorado Commission on Criminal and Juvenile Justice. We know people stay in prison/jail longer and return more without continuity of care.
San Francisco is developing a web-based recidivism analysis dashboard, integrating data from multiple justice agencies to support the development of data-driven sentencing and supervision policies that will help the city assess its progress in reducing racial and ethnic disparities in the criminal justice system.
This dashboard will offer an interface that would allow key decision-makers to review information in real time and make decisions about resource allocation for supervision or programming, according to the San Francisco Sentencing Commission City and County of San Francisco. "It would also be a tool to inform the public about how we are collectively reaching our goal to reduce recidivism in the criminal justice system."
The 20 communities will receive short-term support of $50,000 each from the foundations Innovation Fund and expert technical assistance in designing and implementing local reforms. They are also eligible for future funding opportunities, and have access to the resources, peer learning opportunities and expertise of theSafety and Justice Challenge Network.
About the Author
Kathleen Hickey is a freelance writer for GCN.
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More than two-thirds of the earths surface is covered with water, but most of it is useless for healthy human hydration. Excluding seawater, glaciers and polar ice caps, less than 1 percent of the planets life-sustaining water isin lakes, rivers, streams and underground aquifers. Much of that readily available drinking water requires treatment to eradicate harmful microbes and toxins.
As a result, access to clean drinking water is limited and precarious for many of the worlds people. Water scarcity profoundly affects 1 out of 9people, according to the Water Project, and most illnesses in underdeveloped countries are linked to poor water and sanitary conditions. Natural disasters like the 2010 Haiti earthquake or the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami can lead to emergency situations that affect millions of people who lose access to potable water.
The sheer number of impoverished peoplewho are teetering on the edge of access to clean drinking water prompted a team of researchers at the State University of New York at Buffalos school of engineering and applied sciences to figure out a way to improve solar distillation, a long-established, cost-effectiveyet problematic process of extracting clean drinking water from contaminated sources using simple materials and sunlight.
We have a lot of need for this technology and we hope we can collaborate with people, organizations and agencies to develop this, said Qiaoqiang Gan, associate professor of electrical engineering at the university and a co-author of arecent studydescribing a new method to improve the efficiency of using sunlight to distill clean drinking water.
The idea of using the suns heat to vaporize and recondense water has been known since at least the 4th century B.C. when the Greek philosopher Aristotle first described that salt could be removed from seawater using the suns heat to create water vapor. Suchsolar stills have been used since the industrial revolution, but one major drawback to the technology has beenthe output. Evaporation and condensation arenot fast processes, and most solar stills, especially simple, low-cost ones, are unable to produce enough water to sustain one person in survivalist mode.
But rising awareness of water scarcity issues has led researchers like Gan and his team in Buffalo to apply new techniques to make solar distillation more efficient. Their solar vapor generator and condenser uses porous paper covered with carbon black, a materialthat has a near-zero reflectivity and therefore absorbs a higher amount of solar heat. The carbon-covered paper is then placed over floating white polystyrene foam and a thermal insulator that helps concentrate the solar heat onto the carbon layer. The device is thenplaced on the surface of a dirty water source while the paper acts as a sponge and the carbon as an evaporator. The vapor then condenses on the angled wall of the vaporizer, seeping into a culvert that collects the potable water.
Gan and his teamhave claimed that their prototype produces as much as three times more potable water as comparable solar stills, or about 4.2 cups an hour under sunny conditions. The average healthy adult needs about eight cups of water aday. Crucially, this is all done using cheap materials that can be scaled, meaning arrays of floating stills could be tappedin emergency situations to provide a considerable amount of fresh drinking water to a disaster-struck community, especially in the sunnyparts ofAfrica, Asia and Latin America.
In November, the researchers registered a company called Sunny Clean Water and are hoping to have a production-ready version of their prototype by the end of the year.
Gan, 37, spoke to Salon about his teams work to improve the efficiency of a renewable-energy-using technology thats been around for a very long time.
What attracted you to this project?
Water stress is a global challenge, and its become more and more significant, including in the U.S. The water quality in the U.S. should be the highest in the world, but actually we still have a lot of accidents of contamination which jeopardizes our citizens health. Then there are those resource-limited countries and developing countries, like China and India. Everyone is interested in this issue. We feel that we can do this better.
What does this prototype do that makes it better than other methods of water purification?
Currently, the main technology for water purification is not solar energy based at all. They use reverse osmosis. This technology pushes saltwater or contaminated water through membranes so that clean water can go through. This is the mainstream technology.
But the main disadvantages are, first of all, you have to consume a lot of energy to push the water through these membranes, and secondly the amount of clean water produced is relatively small, leaving a significant amount of water left behind that has a higher concentration of contamination. This wastewater introduces more significant environmental issues. So these are the two major disadvantages.
What are the disadvantages of using solar energy to produce clean water?
A solar water still is a supplementary technology. We cannot compete with the high level of productivity of the mainstream technology [in terms of the output of clean water]. Developed areas of the world would still want to use the high-productivity technology.But our aim is to focus on areas where huge populations suffer from lack of access to clean water.
Think about, for example, Africa. Weve received responses from South African companies that are very interested in this technology. A lot of small areas, for example islands the people there cannot afford those energy-consuming, environmentally unfriendly high-productivity systems. Solar stills are a better option. They can provide the minimum required amount of clean water.
How much water can you theoretically produce with your solar still?
Currently our practical productivity is around 1kilogram per hour per square meter. That means if we have 1 square meter [of contaminated water], after one hour we can produce 1kilogram [or about 4.2 cups] of clean water under full sunlight.
Its totally dependent on solar energy, so if its cloudy or raining, you should not expect as much clean water. Tropical countries have a lot of solar energy therefore I dont think this is a big problem. Currently the practical rate of productivity is around 1kilogram, but the upper limit is about 1.4 to 1.5 kilograms [or 6.3 cups] per hour per square meter.
The basic need for an individual is about 2 kilograms of water [or 8.45 cups] per day under full sunlight. So if we had eight hours of full-sun illumination, then we would be able to generate 5to 8kilograms of water, which could meet survival needs for a small family. We want to improve this performance and have a lot of engineering things yet to do.
Your prototype is about the size of a small refrigerator. A larger solar still would presumably be able to produce more clean water.
Definitely. Weve set up a company to commercialize this technology and we plan to scale it up, much like a solar panel array with many, many solar panels in a given area. We can do a similar thing for solar water stills.
Could you use solar panels to make the solar stills more efficient by adding more heat to the evaporation process?
Its possible. And the water evaporation could also cool down the solar panels, which is good for their performance. If we can find some collaborator in the solar-panel industry, then we can combine the systems. This would be a very good system.
More here:
University's solar-powered still improves ancient water cleaning technology - Salon
Artificial intelligence, natural-language processing, and bots integrated into messaging apps will create new opportunities to interact with users via their mobile devices. (Image: Just East)
Mobile technology like smartphones will be changing in ways many users can't even imagine today, and much of this change will come from trends such as the rise of the Internet of Things (IoT), augmented reality (AR), and virtual reality (VR).
The convergence of devices, bots, things, and people means organizations will need to excel at mainstream mobility and prepare for the "post-app" era, according to research firm Gartner Inc.
The future of mobility will offer ubiquitous services provided anywhere, by any person or thing, to any person or thing, said David Willis, vice president and distinguished analyst at Gartner. Alternative approaches to interaction and service delivery will spring up, and code will move from traditional mobile devices and apps to the cloud, he said.
It's clear that mobile has become an integral part of doing business today. Gartner has estimated total shipments of 2.37 billion devices (including laptops, tablets, ultramobiles, and mobile phones) and 293 million wearable products for 2016. It projects shipments of 2.38 billion devices and 342 million wearables in 2017.
The proliferation of devices means they are now omnipresent within the business environment, reinventing the way people interact and work, Willis said.
While users are always looking for new and compelling experiences with apps, the importance of apps in delivering services will diminish, and the emergence of virtual personal assistants (VPAs) and bots will replace some of the functions performed by apps today, he said.
"App mania has created a horrible experience for customers," Willis said. "There are too many of them. Many large brands have multiple apps in the same app store. Consumers are abandoning apps at an alarming rate. App fatigue has set in."
Users are settling on fewer, more trusted apps, Willis says. "The brands that are the most reliable, trustworthy, and are the easiest to deal with will win," he says. "We used to say that if your customers need a manual, you've lost. Now, if your customer has to train and configure their experience, you've lost."
Newer tools and technology developments such as wearables, IoT, VR and AR are changing the parameters of customer experience with mobile, Willis said. "It's going to be a dynamic, immersive, and highly varied world out there," he said.
The growing use of wearables and "bring your own thing" such as smart power sockets and smart light bulbs in the workplace will introduce new ways of interacting and new platforms, Willis said, diluting the need for specific mobile app experiences.
A lot of the innovation in the mobile technology market in the future will not come within the devices themselves, but in the things that communicate with the devices. Gartner predicts that by 2018, 25 percent of new mobile apps will talk to IoT devices.
Advancing technologies such as artificial intelligence, natural-language processing, and bots integrated into messaging apps will create new opportunities to interact with users seamlessly via their mobile devices, the firm said.
VIDEO: Here's how Facebook envisions you being social in VR
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Here Comes the SunPower:With the way the weather has been around the region lately, and more rain coming down everywhere, the sun shining in the clear blue sky has been as rare as a day without the soul-crushing gridlock along our parking lot-like freeways.
But, all the clouds and the rain couldnt dampen the enthusiasm that greeted San Jose-based SunPower after thesolar-technology company signed a deal to provide solar-panel technology to the Cajon Valley Unified School District near San Diego. SunPower investors liked the thought of the company going back to school so much, so to speak, that they sent SunPower shares up 8.8 percent to close Tuesday at $8.58.
All in all, signing up a school district near San Diego isnt that big of a deal. However, with the solar-panel market seen as being in a bit of a holding pattern for now, SunPowers new deal suggests the company is still able to sign contracts, and that there is growing confidence in its technology. The company is viewed as setting itself up for 2018, when the solar-panel industry is expected to turn around and grow, again.
So, in spite of all the rain right now, SunPower is finding a way to shine.
Middle Innings:
The Old Boss is Back, In a Way: Chances are that late last week, you focused your attention on what you were going to do during the three-day Presidents Day holiday weekend. For me, it was spending the time up at Yosemite celebrating the latest anniversary of my 29th birthday with my family and some friends.
So, no one would blame you for missing that former Cypress Semiconductor Chief Executive T.J. Rodgers decided to sue the company he founded, and led for more than three decades.
Rodgers said he was suing Cypress in order to obtain books and records related to what he called irreconcilable conflicts of interest involving the semiconductor companys executive chairman, Ray Bingham. In a statement, Rodgers cited Binghams ties to Canyon Bridge Equity Partners a private equity firm Rodgers said is backed by the government of the Peoples Republic of China and which is attempting to buy chipmaker Lattice Semiconductor as evidence that Bingham may not be acting in Cypress best interests.
Canyon Bridges pending $1.3 billion acquisition of U.S. programmable logic maker Lattice Semiconductor, a company Cypress has attempted to acquire on two previous occasions, clearly demonstrates that Canyon Bridge competes directly with Cypress, Rodgers said in a statement. As Cypresss Executive Chairman, Ray Bingham has intimate knowledge of the Companys M&A (mergers and acquisition) strategy and Rodgers believes that Bingham can use that knowledge to benefit Canyon Bridge to the detriment of the Company and its stockholders.
Rodgers is more than just an angry ex-boss who is shaking his fist at the place where he used to work. When he retired as CEO last year, Rodgers had been the only chief executive Cypress ever had since Rodgers founded the company in 1982. And with more than 8.6 million shares of Cypress stock, Rodgers remains the companys single-largest individual shareholder, so his opinions are likely to have some impact with Cypress other stock owners.
Rodgers also said he was nominatingDaniel McCranie and Camillo Martino for Cypress board of directors. McCranie is chairman of On Semiconductor, while Martino is on the board of directors of MagnaChip Semiconductor. Rodgers said he would send out McCranies and Martinos names as part of a proxy statement to Cypress shareholders who will be able to vote for the nominees at Cypress next annual meeting.
Bottom of the Lineup:
Heres a look at how some leading Silicon Valley stocks did Tuesday.
Movin on Up:In addition to SunPower, gains came from Coupa Software, Advanced Micro Devices, Finisar and Extreme Networks.
In the Red:Decliners included Quotient Technology, Depomed, Pandora Media, TiVo and Shutterfly.
The tech-focusedNasdaq Composite Indexrose 0.5 percent to 5,865.95.
The blue chipDow Jones Industrial Averageadded 0.6 percent to end the day at 20,743.
And the broad-basedStandard & Poors 500 Indexalso rose 0.6 percent to finish at 2,365.38.
Quote of the Day:I would be wrong to allow my poor choice of words to detract from my colleagues important reporting, so today I am resigning from Breitbart, effective immediately. This decision is mine alone. Conservative provocateur Milo Yiannapoulous, who resigned his editor position at Breitbart amid a controversy over comments he had made related to pedophilia.
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Biz Break: SunPower shines with new solar panel technology deal - The Mercury News
Introduction
Nowadays, almost every automaker possesses considerable resources to develop self-driving technology for cars, which is the next big step for the automotive industry. The market for autopilot technology is clearly huge, which is evident by an estimation, that approximately 100 million "connected" cars with the capacity of self-driving will be shipped in 2021.
While most auto manufacturers try to invent their own solutions, they will be forced to collaborate with technology companies in fields of both software and hardware to bring self-driving cars to roads. Therefore, in this article, I provide a list of the most promising publicly traded tech corporations, which should be considered by investors who would like to try to profit from the development of autonomous driving.
Technology overview
First of all, let us very briefly look at the technology. The final solutions of each automaker will be different, but still they will share some common characteristics.
In general, autopilot uses three types of sensors: cameras, ultrasonics/radars and lidars. Each sensor performs its own function and has different abilities. Radars are able to detect moving objects in the surroundings of a vehicle but are unable to detect lines or traffic lights, and they are not very precise at human detection.
Lidars have similar features, but can more easily detect humans but are also more expensive than radars. The primary sensors are cameras, which can detect all objects, including lines, traffic lights and pedestrians. However, cameras fully rely on software to process all the input, therefore, using only cameras is difficult for a self-driving car system.
Then, all the input from the sensors needs to be processed and analyzed, which is made possible by the use of Deep Neural Networks (DNN). DNN is a code, which lies in the basis of every autopilot and it helps recognize objects, distinguish them, and make decisions on what to do. For instance, DNNs are needed to recognize borders on the road, the colors of a traffic light, or discern a sedan from a truck. In the end, the software system inside the car's computer processes all the information and operates the steering wheel and pedals, thus safely driving a car to a destination.
To illustrate how exactly neural network recognizes objects and makes decisions, Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA) provided a video of autopilot in motion, which can be seen here.
Companies:
Nvidia (NVDA)
Nvidia is considered to be the pioneer of hardware related to autopilot technology. The company has already proven its superiority in terms of automotive infotainment systems (i.e. cars on-board computer systems) with its Visual Computing Module, which uses Tegra chips to provide graphics to a vehicle's interior screens.
Nvidia currently counts such automakers as Audi (OTCPK:AUDVF), Porsche (OTCPK:POAHY), BMW (OTCPK:BMWYY), Tesla, Honda (NYSE:HMC) and Mini as its customers for digital cockpits claiming "more than 10 million cars on the road today" are powered by Nvidia. Through the first 3 quarters of 2016, the corporation derived 7.6% of its revenue from the automotive industry, and I believe that corporation is going to maintain these relationships to develop autopilot technology.
The latest autopilot hardware introduced by Nvidia is its Nvidia Drive PX 2 - a car computer that uses artificial intelligence to support autonomous driving. The system is able to derive and use data from all kinds of sensors like cameras, lidars, radars, and ultrasonic sensors, locating a vehicle in space and on a map, planning a safe path and being aware of all objects around a car.
Nvidia describes the product as follows:
DRIVE PX 2 can understand in real-time what's happening around the vehicle, precisely locate itself on an HD map, and plan a safe path forward. It's the world's most advanced self-driving car platform-combining deep learning, sensor fusion, and surround vision to change the driving experience.
Moreover, the corporation's autopilot technology is powered by another of Nvidia's invention - the Nvidia DGX-1 supercomputer, which enables fast machine learning on the basis of deep neural networks. This means that a car supported by DRIVE PX autopilot is able to continuously develop its ability to detect possible collisions and understand types of objects in its range of vision, thus making autonomous driving even more safe and precise.
Nvidia already provides the autopilot technology hardware for all new Tesla cars, running a Tesla-made software - neural network for vision. I expect that in the near future most carmakers that are interested in autonomous driving will implement the computer made by Nvidia, since it is currently the most powerful and well-developed solution. Therefore, Nvidia corporation will inevitably benefit from future collaborations, and the company's growth will be positively impacted by Nvidia's exposure to the increasing autopilot market.
While Nvidia should definitely be included in a portfolio of autopilot technology companies, I consider the current price level of Nvidia stock to be too high to buy. Its P/E ratio is an astronomical 55.0 and the price increased by more than 400% over the last year. Additionally, preliminary data shows 2.7 times growth of net income from 2016 to 2017 and it will be hard for the corporation to maintain this pace of growth over the long term.
The notable support levels of Nvidia stock are around $100 and $90, and the range between them, representing around a 40 P/E ratio, seems to be reasonable to consider a buying opportunity. However, taking into consideration the market rally we currently see, it is possible the price may not drop to these levels.
Delphi Automotive (DLPH) and Mobileye (MBLY)
Another notable company is Delphi Automotive PLC based in the United Kingdom. The corporation provides vehicle components and is especially interesting due to its safety technology solutions and electrical architectures. Autopilot technology is to some extent based on these very same safety systems, and therefore it is possible for Delphi to develop autonomous driving solutions based on its own existing products, which the company is already doing.
It is also interesting to note that Delphi received 22% of its net sales from the two huge automakers (9 months ended September, 2016) - General Motors (NYSE:GM) and Volkswagen (OTCPK:VLKAY), which are also working on providing autonomous cars in the nearest future. This shows that the existing ties with the automotive industry can enable Delphi to bring to life its autopilot solutions and quickly commercialize products for autonomous driving.
There are many examples of Delphi's efforts in the autopilot market. In 2015, Delphi in collaboration with Audi demonstrated its autonomous vehicle technology with a cross-country trip in the USA. The self-driving Audi car installed with Delphi's solution drove "99% of the time" controlled only by a computer without any human interaction. Moreover, in 2016, Delphi was selected by Singaporean authorities to implement an autonomous mobility concept in the state. The company is expected to provide a fleet of autonomous vehicles and develop cloud-based mobility software.
One of the most important alliances for Delphi in terms of autonomous driving is with another vehicle products supplier - Mobileye, from Israel. In 2016, the two companies revealed their partnership, which was formed in order to provide fully automated cars by 2019, while other automakers were expected to achieve this only by 2020-2021.
In turn, Mobileye, the supplier of vehicle localization and mapping software and machine learning solutions, is another corporation, which should be considered by investors who are willing to gain from autopilot development. Although the corporation lost its one important client, Tesla Inc., in late 2016, Mobileye claims that "13 automakers are working with Mobileye to enable autonomous driving." Moreover, about 27 corporations from the automotive industry use the corporation's solutions in terms of safety on roads.
Both Delphi and Mobileye should be included in a portfolio of autopilot technology companies. I find the financial situation of both companies to be in good shape. For instance, from 2011 to 2015, Mobileye's revenue grew by 80% on average, and I expect that the growth will continue in the near future.
This is primarily because Mobileye's average price for autopilot products (which will consist of cameras, driving policy algorithms and mapping) is expected to be in the range of $400-500, which is "10 times above $45 ASP Mobileye currently records for individual ADAS (safety) solutions." The price of Mobileye's stock rose by around 20% in 2017 and any pullback can be considered as a buying opportunity.
Regarding Delphi Automotive, the company's stock is trading with an 18.0 P/E ratio, which is considerably lower than the industry average. Additionally, despite ongoing restructuring, Delphi managed to have stable net income in 2016 and declared an increase in cash from operations exceeding the Street's 4Q forecast. The stock price of Delphi already increased by 13% in 2017 and now is near a 2-year high showing good performance. I believe the current price level ($75-76 as of February, 15) can be considered by investors as a buying point.
NXP Semiconductors (NXPI), Qualcomm (QCOM) and Cisco (CSCO)
NXP Semiconductors N.V. is a semiconductor company, which has a good portfolio of products including car audio and car vision products for safety. NXP already has 14.4% of the automotive semiconductor market, and the company's chips are already implemented by many carmakers including Tesla, Daimler (OTCPK:DDAIF), BMW and Audi.
I consider the company as a potentially big player in the autopilot market. This is not only because autonomous driving solutions will require some existing products from NXP (like safety car systems, microcontrollers and sensors), but also because the corporation has a high potential for developing new solutions based on existing technologies. For instance, NXP already provides transaction security systems and in-vehicle networking products, which can easily be transformed into new solutions to enhance vehicle networking security and establish connections between cars on roads making a cloud-based communication system.
Thus, NXP with Cisco made the first step to achieve inter-vehicle networking by making an investment in Australian company Cohda Wireless. The company specializes in radio systems and software that will allow vehicles to establish communication networks between them. This will enable vehicles to share information such as current speed, heading, and "whether they are braking or accelerating."
Qualcomm seems to be interesting due to its expertise in data communication, but the main value of the corporation is its Qualcomm Strategic Initiatives segment (QSI) which invests in early-stage companies in various industries, among which are different communication systems. Moreover, the corporation made an offer to buy the aforementioned NXP Semiconductors, in which case, Qualcomm will have direct exposure to the automotive market.
Regarding buying points of NXP, the corporation's stock is consolidating in the range that is 10% lower than the price offered by Qualcomm ($100 against $110). This is because the company has high short-term expenses, and due to that fact, NXP is likely to show negative income in the near future. However, if the corporation will eventually be bought by Qualcomm or will receive a counteroffer, the gain for the investor is inevitable.
Both Qualcomm and Cisco are trading with P/E ratios, which are significantly lower than the industry average (17.2 and 15.7 against 27.7 and 22.5 respectively). At the same time, the corporations show solid operating margins and very strong returns on equity (ROE) that are higher than the industry average. Cisco's stock price has already risen by 10% in 2017 showing a very strong pace and I believe current price levels (around $32) are good moments to buy the stock. Qualcomm shares have dropped by 13.36% in 2017 but have now consolidated near $55 level, which is a good opportunity to invest in the company.
Intel (INTC) and Microsoft (MSFT)
Both tech giants show their mobility in terms of thinking, since they are involved in developing many future technologies. For instance, I already wrote how these blue-chip corporations work on the blockchain, and now I expect they will work closely with automakers to bring autonomous cars to life. Thus, Intel has already revealed at CES 2017 its collaboration with BMW claiming they will start testing autonomous technology on the roads by the second half of 2017.
In turn, Microsoft took another approach saying it will try to integrate its existing products, like Azure cloud, Windows, and Office 365 into vehicles of established auto manufacturers. Therefore, I believe both Intel and Microsoft should be included in a self-driving technology portfolio.
Regarding moments for making investments in Microsoft and Intel, I restate my valuations made in the previous article and consider current price levels for both stocks ($64 and $36 respectively) as good moments for buying. These points represent around a 30 P/E multiple for Microsoft and a 17 P/E multiple for Intel.
Conclusion
Overall, the technology of self-driving requires many separate products to be combined to achieve a comprehensive solution. Clearly, many tech companies will try to become involved in autonomous driving development and gain from this market opportunity. However, I believe that the 8 corporations described in this article are the most promising options for investors who want to profit from the autopilot expansion.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours.
I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Editor's Note: This article discusses one or more securities that do not trade on a major U.S. exchange. Please be aware of the risks associated with these stocks.
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Self-Driving Technology: 8 Tech Companies For Investment - Seeking Alpha
MediaPost Communications | Viva Technology is coming back to Paris with its ginormous tech conference TechCrunch If there's one word that can describe Viva Technology (or VivaTech for short), it's that it's a ginormous conference. While it was just the first edition last year, 45,000 people made their way to Paris to talk about all things tech. VivaTech is back ... Publicis Groupe Has High Expectations For Viva Technology II |
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Development in any field is closely associated with the growth of technology. Cricket is no exception. Technological advancement is an indispensable part of the game now. Analytics and numbers determine the value of a player and every move is closely monitored to determine his strengths and weaknesses. A small fault can be easily exploited with the assistance of sophisticated software.
In this scenario, when a batsman or a bowler shows rapid progress at the international level, it indicates the humongous amount of work hes put in to strengthen his technicalities. He works hard at developing his repertoire.
Ravichandran Ashwin and Virat Kohli have created history in Test cricket. The former became the fastest to reach 250 Test wickets and the latter scored double century in four consecutive series. These feats are extraordinary to say the least.
Gone are the days when the game was played for fun. The young players entertained the crowd with their talent.
I wonder if those players would have succeeded the same way in todays world when subjected to scrutiny every single time.
Juggling formats
The modern generation of players are juggling with three formats of the game. They have to constantly change their approach without disturbing the base of the technique. The aspects that matter shot selections, variations of bowling have to be right. Alas, they hardly have the time to practice the technique.
The variables also change with formats. In Tests, solid technique and patience are of utmost importance. Whereas in a shorter format, patience goes for a toss. Its the strike and economy rates that matter the most.
Against this background, when a player performs exceedingly well, it is a reflection of his intelligence and hard work.
There is no room for imperfection here. Both Kohli and Ashwin seem to have really worked hard at the nets to ensure the perfection they want to achieve.
If Kohlis geometrical precision in his batting and fitness are commendable, Ashwin has relentlessly worked on his variations.
He is mesmerising them by using different tactics. He keeps the batsmen guessing which gives him an upper hand.
His manoeuvre reminds one of the duel between Ian Chappell and E.A.S. Prasanna in the 1969 series. Ian Chappell, Ian Redpath and Doug Walters continuously challenged Prasanna and Bedi even on rank bad turners by stepping out to them. This approach benefited them.
Before the advent of technology, the spin bowlers had more difficulties picking up wickets. That was an era when the batsmen played sweep shots after misjudging the line. Even the umpires were reluctant to uphold a leg before wicket appeal.
Things are different now. There is a significant increase in the number of LBW dismissals due to the DRS. In the nine Tests that have been played this season, Ashwin has bagged a total of 61 wickets out of which 15 are LBW. Out of the 48 wickets that Jadeja pocketed so far, 12 are LBW. The percentage of LBW dismissals can be gauged from these figures: which are 28 and 32 respectively.
Unlike some of earlier teams this Australian team has practised at Dubai on slow turners. The players are an attacking lot. The added advantage for them is that most players have played in the IPL and are accustomed to the pitches here.
Though there are four to five left-handers, their attacking style could still be nerve-racking for Indian bowlers.
Employing the sweep
The Australians have also revealed that sweep is their only way to tackle spinners. When Matthew Hayden swept against the left-arm spinners, it is important to note that barring Harbhajan Singh, others were of poor quality. This approach cannot be followed blindly now.
Ravindra Jadeja is a wicket to wicket line bowler who cant be swept away that easily. He is a smart customer. With his accuracy, the advantage of DRS will be in his favour. The Australians will have to tread carefully and have a better game plan.
When it comes to swing bowling, both the teams have skilful bowlers to perplex the batsmen with their talent. While the visitors are aware of the reverse swing that Indian seamers use effectively with SG Test ball, they too have bowlers of higher speed to bamboozle Indian batsmen with reverse swing. It will be riveting to see what combination both the teams choose.
The series against Australia is a big one. Considering Indias triumph in all formats and the visitors aggressive nature, this will certainly be an exciting one. Deep analysis, numbers and software have given a whole new meaning to game plan.
It is obvious that the visitors will dissect each move and plan a counter-attack of their own. The first Test will set the tone for the entire series and it will be exhilarating to watch if India can continue its winning streak with its formidable team.
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In a fit of productivity, I did my taxes early this year. They were a bit more complex than usual, so I set aside some time to click through TurboTax and make sure I got everything right. Throughout the process, the online tax-preparation program repeatedly reassured me that it had helped me identify every possible tax deduction I qualify for, and made sure I didnt make any mistakes. Attractively animated progress bars filled up while I waited for TurboTax to double- and triple-check my returns.
But as I watched one particularly slick animation, which showed a virtual tax form lighting up line by lineyellow or greenI wondered if what I was seeing actually reflected the progress of a real task being tackled in the background. Did it really take that long to look over every detail of my returns, which is what the page said it was doing? Hadnt TurboTax been checking my work as we went?
I sat down with my colleague Andrew McGill to figure out what was going on in the background. We combed through the source code powering TurboTaxs website, and soon confirmed my suspicion: The animation was fixed. It didnt appear to be communicating with the sites servers at all once it began playingand every TurboTax user saw the same one, which always took the same amount of time to complete. (The same went for at least one other page which purported to show the progress of TurboTaxs checks for every possible tax break with three animated bars.)
But why? Why misrepresent how long it takes to complete a process, and take up unnecessary time doing so?
Its not because TurboTax delights in messing with its clients. Instead, the sites artificial wait times are an example of what Eytan Adar, a professor of information and computer science at the University of Michigan, calls benevolent deception. In a paper he published in 2013 with a pair of Microsoft researchers, Adar described a wide range of design decisions that trick their usersbut end up leaving them better off.
Benevolent deceptions can hide uncertainty (like when Netflix automatically loads default recommendations if it doesnt have the bandwidth to serve personalized ones), mask system hiccups to smooth out a users experience (like when a progress bar grows at a consistent rate, even if the process its visualizing is stuttering), or help people get used to a new form of technology (like the artificial static that Skype plays during quiet moments in a conversation to convince users the call hasnt been dropped).
The word deception has a negative connotation, and lying to users is generally frowned upon. But Adar says its actually a useful, beneficial tool if deployed correctlyand that designers have been tricking their users for years, even if they preferred not to think of it that way.
Curiously, the case of the TurboTax animations is a departure from most of the deceptive practices Adar studied: Rather than covering up a system slowdown, its introducing one. The delay, it turns out, is meant to build customers confidence in the product to which they just entrusted all their financial information.
The process of completing a tax return often has at least some level of stress and anxiety associated with it, said Rob Castro, a spokesperson for TurboTaxs parent company, Intuit. To offset these feelings, we use a variety of design elementscontent, animation, movement, etc.to ensure our customers peace of mind that their returns are accurate and they are getting all the money they deserve.
Adar made a similar decision in a game he designed as an experiment nearly two decades ago. The game, which involved two people negotiating on a price on two separate mobile devices, culminated in a complex step: Both participants bids were encrypted, transmitted wirelessly, and compared, and a software program would show whether or not a deal could be reached.
Despite its complexity, this step was nearly instantaneous in the games first iteration. But the speed confused people. Their reaction was, Wow, was that it? Adar said. That was sort of a bummer for us. He devised a tweak: Instead of happening immediately, the final step launched launched an onscreen animation, which took over the screen with asterisks
The security theater appeared to work. Their delight seemed to increaseand maybe their confidence as well, Adar said. (The difference was anecdotal; the researchers never formally tested participants reactions.)
Although designers dont always like to talk about it, the practice of building in artificial waits isnt uncommon. Last year, Fast Companys Mark Wilson discovered that Facebook uses the same trick on its safety page. He turned up other examples, too: a loan-approval app that builds suspense before delivering results to avoid making customers suspicious, and a site for delivering personalized phone-plan recommendations that slowed down its response time in order to convince users they were actually getting custom results. Examples abound on Twitter, like this progress bar on a Verizon webpage thats just a timer.
Wilson cited a 2011 paper from a pair of Harvard professors that studied this effectthey named it the labor illusionin detail. They found that websites that made their operations look easy were actually less satisfying to consumers. When websites engage in operational transparency by signaling that they are exerting effort, people can actually prefer websites with longer waits to those that return instantaneous results, they wrote. Even when those results are identical.
But not every benevolent deception is designed to make people think the system theyre interacting with is in total control. One trick in particular injected uncertainty into a visual representation of dataand triggered near-heart attacks across the country.
The online election-day dashboard on The New York Times included a set of three dials across the top, displaying the newspapers best guess at Hillary Clinton and Donald Trumps shares of the popular vote, their electoral college votes, and their chance at winning the presidency. Throughout the night, the needle on each of the gauges danced and wiggled, starting in what appeared to be deep Clinton territory and ending, well after midnight, squarely on a Trump victory.
The needles were in constant motionback and forth, back and forthadding to the anxiety of the moment. A few enterprising readers dug into the pages source code, found that the needles were jiggling randomly, and let out their rage on Twitter. More than one person used the word irresponsible.
Gregor Aisch, one of the Times designers behind the election dashboard, justified the needles quiver on his blog the following week. The needle only wandered within the margin of error of the forecast at any given moment, Aisch explained. The movement was designed to emphasize the live, ever-changing nature of the forecast, while visualizing the uncertainty included in the models output. The forecast became more precise as the night wore on, and so the needle jittered less and less.
I asked Aisch whether the blowback to the anxiety-inducing dials made him to reconsider any of his teams decisions. It didnt. The visualization accurately depicted what it was meant to, he said, and hed use a similar tactic if he were designing the dashboard again. The negative response may have really been misdirected anger at the vote tally, he predicted. During election night, we were simply the first ones to destroy the hopes of a lot of people, Aisch said. Hence, we took the fire.
The one thing Aisch said hed do differently is not to display each candidates chance of winning as a percentage. To most, he said, an 80 percent chance of a Clinton win seemed like a home run, when it fact, her victory was far from certain. Nobody would ever trust contraceptives if their chance of failure was one in five, but we made many people believe that Clinton had a clear advantage, Aisch said.
When Twitter users pulled away the curtain and Aischs deception was revealed, some felt theyd been maliciously tricked. A deception, after all, works best when its deceiving people.
I asked Adar if there was a point at which deception crosses from benevolent to malevolent. He set down three ground rules: Designers should prefer non-deceptive solutions to problems, their deceptions should measurably improve the product, and the userif askedshould prefer the deceptive solution. (Of course, most designers wont have the chance to ask their users whether or not they want to be tricked, so they have to make that call on their own.)
But a deception thats beneficial to a user doesnt necessarily have to set the designer back. In fact, Adar says, a good deception usually benefits everyone involved: Happier users keep coming back to useand perhaps pay fora well-designed service.
Take the TurboTax example. Its design touches may make customers less stressed during tax season, and make them feel better about their finances. They, in turn, will come back and keep paying for the service every year.
But TurboTax has another incentive to keep the process from moving as quickly as possible. Its service is a friendly guide through the thorny jungle of credits, benefits, deductions, and forms that Americans must tromp through every year, and its in Intuits best interest to make that jungle seem as thorny and inhospitable as possible. The company regularly lobbies to keep the complicated U.S. tax code in place, and opposes proposals that would radically simplify it.
So a few extra seconds of animations that make you feel like TurboTax is slaving away diligently on your returns is sure to make you feel betterbut it also keeps you in awe of what Intuits software is doing. When, at the end, it asks you to fork over 50 or 100 bucks for the effort, those few seconds might make pulling out your credit card a little easier.
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February 21, 2017 by Chris Gebhardt
The Russian Federal Space Agency, Roscosmos, launched the Progress MS-05/66P resupply mission to the International Space Station on Wednesday morning aboard the final Soyuz-U rocket in history. Liftoff from pad 1/5 at the Baikonur Cosmodrome was on schedule at 05:58:33 GMT (00:58:33 EST, 11:58:33 local time) beginning a two-day orbital rendezvous with the Station.
Progress MS-04 investigation wrap up:
Following confirmation of the most probable cause of the Progress MS-04 launch failure on 1 December 2016, Roscosmos ordered a complete third stage engine replacement on the last remaining Soyuz-U carrier rocket, which will be used to launch Progress MS-05 to the International Space Station.
The engine replacement is also being carried out on the third stage of the Soyuz-FG rocket, which is used to launch the crewed Soyuz missions to the Station.
It is understood that this engine replacement was made with an 11D55 (RD-0110) engine built in 2016, instead of the previously installed 11D55 engine that was produced in 2014 with the engine that failed on MS-04s launch.
There is confidence within Roscosmos that the newly installed, 2016-built engine does not suffer from the same quality assurance issues that plagued the MS-04 third stage engine.
The inquiry into Decembers launch failure concluded that the destruction of the oxidizer turbopump led to the disintegration of the 11D55 engine, thats shredding parts ruptured the oxidizer tank resulting in the loss of mission and vehicle.
The destruction of the oxidizer pump either resulted from the presence of FOD (Foreign Object Debris) or from an assembly violation.
Following engine replacement, the third stage for the final Soyuz-U rocket was transported back to the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in mid-February, where it was brought into the Launch Vehicle Integration and Test Facility (LV ITF).
Moreover, it was announced on 21 Februarythat all future Soyuz rocket flights (starting with Progress MS-05) carrying uncrewed Progress and crewed Soyuz capsules will fly with rocketcams to monitor the flight and stage separations.
Processing campaign for MS-05:
While the investigation and corrective actions to the third stage of its carrier rocket occurred, workers at Baikonur continued to process the Progress MS-05 spacecraft itself for launch.
On 10 February, Technical Management and the State Commission confirmed Progress MS-05s readiness for propellant fueling and compressed gases filling operations following completion of loading operations of the final dry cargo elements of Progress payload.
All told, Progress MS-05 is carrying nearly 3 tonnes of supplies, equipment, food, clothing, consumables, and Station maintenance items to the ISS.
Among the various payload elements is an Orlan-MKS spacesuit.
The first new Orlan-MKS suit was lost on Progress MS-04. Because of this loss, its unknown at this point whether the sole Russian EVA scheduled for this year will be able to take place, as the EVA can only occur once two Orlan-MKS suits are aboard Station.
By 14 February, Progress was fueled and filled with compressed gas and was subsequently delivered to the Spacecraft Assembly and Testing Facility (SC ATF), where it was mated to its transfer compartment on 16 February.
This was followed by the designers inspection, which occurred on 17 February, and encapsulation into its payload fairing that same day.
Late on the 17th, the encapsulated Progress MS-05 spacecraft was transported from the SC ATF to the LV ITF.
On 18 February, Progress was mated to the third stage of its Soyuz-U booster, and the third stage was subsequently mated to the second/core stage of the Soyuz.
Following final engineering review and approval, the Soyuz-U rocket with Progress MS-05 attached was transported by rail to Gagarin Start, pad 1/5 at Baikonur on the morning of 20 February.
Once erected on the launch stand, the launch table was rotated to align the Soyuz-U into the proper orientation so that its pitch maneuver will result in the rocket flying on the correct azimuth to orbit.
The veteran Soyuz-U rocket lacks the ability to perform a roll maneuver in flight; thus that element of flight must be accounted for by the launch pad.
Launch timeline and major milestones:
Progress MS-05 lifted off from Baikonur at 05:58:33 GMT (00:58:33 EST; 11:58:33 local time) on the final Soyuz-U rocket.
Twenty-seconds prior to liftoff, the Soyuz-Us four strap-on boosters and core stage engine began their ignition sequences, ramping up to full thrust for last-second health checks before the vehicle was released from the pad.
At liftoff, the four boosters each measuring 19.6 m (64 ft) in length and 2.68 m (8.8 ft) in width produced a combined total thrust from their RD-117 engines of 342,009 kgf (754,000 lbf) while the core stages RD-118 engine produced 80,830 kgf (178,200 lbf).
Total liftoff thrust of the Soyuz-U was 422,839 kgf (932,200 lbf).
Once airborne, the rocket ascended vertically for the first few seconds before performing a pitch maneuver to begin its downrange track over Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation.
The four boosters, each burning 39,598.6 kg (87,300 lbs) of LOX (Liquid Oxygen) and RP1 (rocket refined kerosene), helped push Soyuz through the dense lower atmosphere and accelerate the rocket to 1.5 km/s (0.9 mps).
At T+1 minute 58 seconds, the boosters separated from the core stage, having consumed a combined total of 158,394.4 kg (149,199.87 lbs) of propellant.
Booster separation marked the technical completion of first stage flight, with core stages RD-118 engine taking over sole propulsive duties having assisted the four boosters during first stage flight.
The core stage of the Soyuz-U stands 27.1 m (88.9 ft) tall, is 2.95 m (9.7 ft) in diameter, and is powered by a single RD-118 engine.
Carrying 92,986 kg (205,000 lbs) of LOX/RP-1 propellant, the core stages RD-118 engine produces a maximum thrust of 10,096.9 (kgf) 222,600 lbf in a vacuum.
During second stage flight, the payload fairing was jettison at T+2 minutes 39 seconds at an altitude of 85 km.
Second stage flight then culminate at T+4 minutes 45 seconds via a hot staging event that saw the shutdown of the RD-118 core stage engine followed two seconds later, at T+4 minutes 47 seconds, by the ignition of the third stage engine.
Once the ignition command to the third stage was issued, a separate command to the pyrotechnic system between the core and third stages severed the connecting bolts.
The third stages 11D55 engine produces 30,391 kgf (67,000 lbf) and carries 22,811 kg (50,290 lbs) of LOX/RP-1.
The third stage 6.7 m (22 ft) long and 2.66 m (8.7 ft) in diameter took the Progress MS-05 spacecraft to its initial orbit via a 3 minutes 58 second burn.
Progress MS-05 separated from the third stage at T+8 minutes 49 seconds, at which point Progress was in a 193 by 245 km orbit inclined 51.66 to the equator.
Once Progress registered its separation from the third stage, the spacecraft commanded the deployment of its solar arrays and KURS navigation antennas as well as initiate pressurization of its Unified Propulsion System.
Shortly after this, Progress MS-05 will pass over the new ground tracking station near Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russias far east.
Communication between Progress and this tracking station will confirm the vehicles initial health and orbital parameters.
It is hoped that Progress MS-05 will finalize S-Band uplink ability from the newly activated ground tracking station which is understood to be the final element needed to certify the facility as operational, thus allowing same-day launch and docking operations of the new MS- series of Progress and Soyuz vehicles with the International Space Station.
Since that is not yet possible, Progress MS-05 will perform a standard, two-day rendezvous with Station, arriving for an automated docking at the Stations Pirs docking compartment on Friday, 24 February at 03:34 EST.
In all, Progress MS-05 was the 157th Progress mission since the program began in 1978 for resupply efforts of the Salyut 6 space station and the 68th Progress mission to the ISS, counting the two Progress flights that were not designated as resupply missions because they delivered module elements to the Station.
Including Wednesdays launch, 68 Progress missions will have launched to ISS to date, with Progress MS-05/66P being the 65th attempt of a Progress family vehicle to successfully reach the Station, following the Progress 44 launch failure in August 2011, the Progress 59 launch mishap in April 2015, and the Progress 65 launch failure in December 2016.
Soyuz-Us retirement flight 43 years and 787 missions:
The flight marked the 786th and final flight of the Soyuz-U rocket.
Production of this Soyuz rocket variant was discontinued in April 2015 following disintegration of political relations between the Russian Federation and Ukraine, where portions of the Soyuz-Us guidance system was built.
With Progress MS-05, the Soyuz-U will complete a historic career with the rocket being the longest-serving launch vehicle in history after entering service on 18 May 1973.
The first flight of Soyuz-U carried Kosmos 559, a Zenit military surveillance satellite.
Since that time, the Soyuz-U has conducted 785 launches, 764 of which were successes and 22 of which were failures including the Soyuz T-10a crewed mission which caught fire on the launch pad with the crew onboard (with the crew escaping to safety via the Soyuzs launch escape system).
For its historical numbers, the Soyuz-U fire on Soyuz T-10a, which occurred on 26 September 1983, is counted as a failure but not as a launch as the vehicle never actually left the pad.
Thus, there is a mismatch in the total number of mission successes/failures when compared to the total number of launches/flights with 764 successes and 22 failures equalling 786 against 785 launches.
To this end, Progress MS-05 was the 787th scheduled mission of the Soyuz-U, but was the 786th launch of the rocket.
In all, Soyuz-U was designed in the late-1960s/early-1970s as an upgraded hence the U designation version of the original Soyuz rocket.
It is part of the R-7 family of rockets, which are based on the R-7 Semyorka missile, and was primarily constructed at the Progress Factory in Samara, Russia.
While most of its missions have been uncrewed, Soyuz-U was used to launch crewed Soyuz missions.
The rockets first crewed flight, Soyuz 16, occurred in December 1974. Soyuz 16 was the USSRs (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) dress rehearsal for the 1975 Apollo-Soyuz Test Program flight.
Following the success of Soyuz 16, Soyuz-U launched the Soyuz 19 mission in July 1975 as the USSR half of the Apollo-Soyuz Test Program.
Soyuz-U also launched the Soyuz 21 mission, the first flight of a crew to the Salyut 5 space station.
In all, Soyuz-U crewed flights continued until 25 April 2002, when the rocket was used to launch the Soyuz TM-34 spacecraft with a three-person crew for a short-duration stay aboard the International Space Station.
TM-34 not only marked the final use of the Soyuz-U for crew transportation missions, but also the final flight of the TM-series Soyuz.
With a career spanning 43 years 9 months 4 days, Soyuz-U has the longest lifetime of any orbital rocket and holds the record for most launches in a single calendar year of 47 flights, which occurred in 1979.
Moreover, it is one of the most reliable rockets in history, with a total mission success rate of 97.2% (counting Soyuz T-10a but not MS-05s scheduled launch).
(Images: Roscosmos, NASA)
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Longest-serving rocket in history bids farewell with Progress MS-05 ... - NASASpaceflight.com
SAN JOS, Costa Rica Any worries about a shock early exit for the Americans at the 2017 CONCACAF U-20 Championship were dispelled with a three-goal second half in the 4-1 victory over Haiti on Tuesday.
But despite the daylight in the winning margin, this was certainly a grind for the US U-20s as they picked up a much-needed three points.
Certainly, we were affected by the first loss we didnt expect. But when the boys come down here and participate in the tournament, [they] realize that actually every win down here is difficult, said head coach Tab Ramos afterward. Even the wins like tonight, when you see the scores at the end it takes a lot of work to get to that point in games, and I think the boys are starting to figure that out.
The Americans held the bulk of the possession in the first half, but they were lacking in the final third as their passing wasnt as sharp as required.
After erasing Haitis early lead from the penalty spot, Brooks Lennons first of three goals on the night, a burst of pace really started to affect Haiti, leading to openings the US could exploit.
The one thing we said at halftime was we wanted to play the ball a bit faster, said Ramos. I think at times, we played so slowly that it sort of gave Haiti opportunity to set themselves and defend well and not give us any space to penetrate. In the second half, we started to play the ball forward quickly and break lines. We found it easier to get opportunities.
With the three points in the bag and arguably the easiest game of the group coming up on Friday against St. Kitts & Nevis, qualification to the second group stage looks to be just about in the bag. But Ramos team cannot look past any team in this competition, especially after what happened against Panama.
After the attacking outburst that earned them victory on Tuesday, the Americans feel that first loss was an aberration that is behind them, and that theyre growing into the competition.
Were going to progress every game that we play here, and get better and better every time we step on the field, said Lennon, a Real Salt Lake academy product currently on loan with RSL from Liverpool FC. I think we just need to keep playing together and keep moving forward and well get wins.
We knew what had to be done today and we got it done. Now we look forward to St. Kitts.
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Commuter railroads have made some progress installing a potentially life-saving train technology, though they still have a long way to go, according to new analysis from the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).
The improvement comes as the commuter railroad industry has lagged behind the efforts of freight railroads in implementing positive train control (PTC), which automatically slows down a train that is going over the speed limit and will eventually be required by law.
As of the end of last year, 30 percent of passenger rail locomotives and cab cars are equipped with PTC, up from 29 percent in the first half of 2016. Meanwhile, 50 percent of the necessary PTC radio towers have been erected, up from 46 percent.
The APTA analysis was based on responses from the groups members and quarterly reports from the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA).
"The commuter rail industry continues to make significant progress in implementing positive train control, said Richard A. White, the APTAs acting president and CEO. "The progress on this complex safety technology demonstrates the industry's relentless focus on safety."
Congress had originally given commuter and freight railroads until the end of 2015 to install the technology, which can prevent derailments, collisions, crashes and improper track switching. But as railroads struggled to meet compliance deadlines, lawmakers pushed back the implementation date to at least Dec. 31, 2018.
Recent deadly train crashes including a speeding New Jersey Transit train that slammed into Hoboken Terminal have stepped up pressure on railroads.
The APTA data show that commuter railroads across the country still have a long way to go in adopting positive train control, in part because of the steep cost of the technology.
BNSF Railway, a top freight railroad in the U.S.,has even called on Congressto help passenger railroads get into compliance. As a freight railroad, it may sound out of line, but I actually urge Congress to fund passenger commuter rail funding for positive train control, Matthew Rose, executive chairman of BNSF, told a Senate panel last week.
I cant imagine a more difficult train wreck for us to have to go to where we have the positive train control on the freight rail, and the passenger or commuter train didnt because of lack of funding.
PTC implementation is projected to cost the commuter rail industry more than $3.5 billion in capital expenses and $100 million annually in additional maintenance costs, the APTA said.
Since 2008, Congress has doled out over $650 million in federal grants for installing the technology, as well as a nearly $1 billion loan to the New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority, according to the FRA.
"The installation of PTC is challenging for a number of reasons, including from a technical perspective. PTC was not a mature technology when Congress mandated it in the Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008," said White.
"Beyond the technological challenges that have to be addressed, there are significant issues in regard to the costs, scarce qualified resources, and adequate access to track and locomotives for installation and testing."
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Commuter railroads make progress installing life-saving tech | TheHill - The Hill
Cyrus Moulton Telegram & Gazette Staff @MoultonCyrus
WORCESTER - A black man may have been elected twice to the White House, but activist Nyle Fort told an audience at Worcester State University on Tuesday that the struggle for racial equality in America continues.
Racism, more than anything is a system of injustice, Mr. Fort told about 20 students and community members at Worcester State. We still live in a knowingly not just racial, but racist society.
Mr. Fort, 27, is a youth pastor, freelance writer and grass-roots community organizer based in Newark, New Jersey, as well as a masters of divinity candidate at Princeton Theological Seminary.He visited Worcester State Tuesday for a talk entitled "Black in America - Race, Protest and Democracy,' which he combined with a lengthy question-and-answer session.
Mr. Fort said most people think of racism as overt; involving the Ku Klux Klan and nooses. But he said racism in modern society is much more subtle and deeply rooted throughout American institutions - including in economics, healthcare, housing, academia, and a criminal justice system where 2.7 million people are imprisoned, including 1 million blacks, a disproportional rate.
And nobody - even the most racially sensitive - are immune to these institutions.
If the American empire is burning, all our clothes are burning, Mr. Fort said.
But he said students have the opportunity to bring about equality.
Mr. Fort noted that it was black students who organized sit-ins at segregated lunch counters during the civil rights era. Protests in Ferguson, Missouri, were led by young activists, and the rise of African-American studies in higher education was driven by black students, he said.
There have always been particular opportunities for college students, Mr. Fort said. Use the resources of institutions for social change.
And students and community members had lots of questions about how to bring about this social change.
Asked about how to combat inherent - albeit not willful - white privilege, Mr. Fort urged students to recognize that white supremacy or racism not only is bad for blacks but for all. He noted that not all Flint, Michigan, residents are black and that not all whites who embraced the Confederacy benefited under the unjust institution of slavery.Rather, in seeking to explain why many poor whites have historically voted against their own self interests, Mr. Fort called racism a disease ... that will make people do things that are bad for them, willfully.
Asked whether he espoused integration or segregation, Mr. Fort said integration holds the state responsible for equality and provides for multi-racial solidarity and coalition building. But he also said its goal is to give people access to a problematic pie.
He also spoke fondly of attending Morehouse College, a historically black college, which exposed him to the vastness of black life. But he also said such segregated institutions were problematic for very pragmatic reasons.
Attendee Martin Marinos, an instructor of global studies at Worcester State, said he appreciated how Mr. Fort spoke both of racial identity and economic inequality.
Its an important thing to know your identity, Mr. Marinos said. But you shouldnt ignore the broader issue of economic inequality. ... You shouldnt lose sight of the bigger picture.
As for Mr. Fort, he said after the talk that he hoped students understand and wrestle with how entrenched racism is in American society, despite signs of progress.
Though we have a black face in a high place, the masses of black people are still suffering from racism, Mr. Fort said.
And he hoped he inspired students to do something about this.
Students in particular have the capacity to resist racism and to re-imagine society, Mr. Fort said. We together - not one individual, not one messiah, not one Dr. King - can come together and actually do something. Because racism is not God made, it is man-made.
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Worcester State speaker: Symbolic progress but racism remains - Worcester Telegram
The Ghana midfielder was a second half substitute as the Madrid team defeated Bayer Leverkusen on the road
Thomas Parteywas sent in to shore up the midfield and protect the advantage asAtletico MadriddefeatedBayer Leverkusen4-2 in the Champions League on Tuesday.
The 71st minute substitution was the second appearance for the 23-year-old Ghanaian midfielder in this seasons competition.
The visitors took the lead with a well struck left-footed shot by Saul into the back post on 17 minutes as they started the game with a lot of confidence which brought early opportunities.
They doubled their lead on 25 minutes when Antoine Griezmann found himself freed by Kevin Gameiro who kept two defenders busy, and the French striker coolly slotted home.
The hosts got one back through Karim Bellarabi three minutes after the break but Gameiro restored the two goal cushion soon after when he won and converted a penalty in a terrific man of the match performance.
Coach Diego Simeone sent on Partey in place of Gameiro to shore up the midfield and keep their advantage soon after they conceded an own goal after goalkeeper Angel Moya tipped a save onto the knee of Stefan Savic.
Substitute Fernando Torres then scored a header four minutes from time to ensure they took a two goal cushion to Madrid for the return leg in a fortnight.
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Thomas Partey's Atletico take big step towards UCL progress - Goal.com
Crain's Detroit Business | Duggan speech to focus on progress in Detroit's neighborhoods Crain's Detroit Business Mayor Mike Duggan's annual State of the City address tonight will be a "celebration" of progress in Detroit's neighborhoods and efforts to improve life in the city, according to a top mayoral aide. "You can expect him to really talk a lot about what is ... |
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Duggan speech to focus on progress in Detroit's neighborhoods - Crain's Detroit Business
Renault is targeting fifth place in the constructors' championship in 2017 and admits the unknown of Honda prevented the French manufacturer from aiming higher.
The new Renault was launched in London on Tuesday, with Renault Sport president Jerome Stoll making clear the team's target of fifth place for the coming season. Managing director Cyril Abiteboul admits the top three teams of 2016 will likely continue to lead the way but believes Renault has a chance to be best of the rest.
"I expect Mercedes, Ferrari and Red Bull, in no particular order even if I have a preferred order to be at the front," Abiteboul said. "Then I would expect ... it's a big unknown for us what Honda will have done in terms of engine development because I am sure McLaren is capable of producing a very decent car, in particular with such a dramatic change to the aero regulations.
"Then I think it will be interesting to see the mix. We should be fighting against Williams, Force India, Toro Rosso. We have the same power unit as Toro Rosso, they have two very good drivers, they are very well established, so we believe that we should be fighting against these type of teams."
Asked by RACER if the target of fifth place is because he is unsure what Honda will do and what could lead to McLaren leapfrogging the midfield, Abiteboul replied: "Yeah, you discovered me! Exactly. My cover is blown now!
"No, absolutely. It's that sort of thing when you're thinking about your target, you are not really thinking about who is behind, you're thinking about who is ahead. We know Mercedes, Ferrari, Red Bull will be ahead. The question is McLaren, Renault, I have my view on Williams.
"I think this season will also really be an arms race. I really feel for the teams who are under-resourced because clearly when I see this car that we are presenting today is not the car that will test in Barcelona and the car in Barcelona is not the car that will race in Melbourne. Race by race we've got an introduction of new parts.
"Frankly, I have been in a small team [Caterham], you know that it was not super successful, but I really feel for those teams that will have to keep that resource, the regulations will be very difficult for small teams. I think most of the car build budget for Force India will be gone by now just to cope with the new regulations. So that is something that we are also taking into account. With the level of resources that we have we should be easily capable of beating teams like Haas, like Force India and so on and so forth."
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Zoltan Istvan is a transhumanist, journalist, politician, writer and libertarian. He is also running for Governor of California for the Libertarian Party on a platform pushing science and technology to the forefront of political discourse. In recent years the movement of transhumanism has moved from a niche collection of philosophical ideals and anarcho-punk gestures into a mainstream political movement. Istvan has become the popular face of this movement after running for president in 2016 on a dedicated transhumanist platform.
We caught up with Istvan to chat about how transhumanist ideals can translate into politics, how technology is going to change us as humans and the dangers in not keeping up with new innovations such as genetic editing.
New Atlas: How does transhumanism intersect with politics?
Istvan: For me you can never make any headway in the universe, or on planet Earth, if you don't involve politics because so much money for innovation or research and development comes from the government and so many laws about what you can do. Genetic editing, chip implants, can you get a brain implant that makes you smarter than other people? These things are often directed by the government determining whether it's illegal or not. You can either be thrown in jail or not thrown in jail so you must have a political footprint, you must have attorneys on the ground, you must have that kind of legal position that can explain things in terms that a government will understand.
One of the things that happened to me was that when I became a public figure in the movement, I realized very quickly there was zero political framework for this entire movement. It was one of the reasons why I founded the Transhumanist Party and also then went through the process to become the 2016 nominee.
As part of his 2016 Presidential campaign Zoltan Istvan traveled through the United States in a bus shaped like a coffin(Credit: Zoltan Istvan)
You've recently announced your run for California governor as a libertarian. How do you reconcile the small government "hands off" ideals of a libertarian ideology with your transhumanist goals of keeping technological innovations accessible to all?
Well, tranhumanism began as a libertarian philosophy really, with most early people who though about it having the point of view that we should have the right to merge with machines, we should have the right to overcome death.
To actually make real headway in politics it would takes years, maybe decades, to get the transhumanist party with enough funding and infrastructure to make a difference. But with the libertarians you walk directly into a party that got four million votes for Gary Johnson, its 2016 presidential nominee. Four million votes is a lot of votes.
That's one of the reasons why I am running for the libertarian party. Its not that in any way am I changing my science or technology beliefs. It just happens to be that the libertarian philosophy is pretty equivalent with tranhumanism and it fits very well for the next journey of my life.
What do you see the government's role is in preventing technological inequality between the rich and poor?
In my opinion the government should obviously be around to make sure we don't create a dystopia. Everyone thought the transhumanist party was totally optimistic of technology and while it totally is, it is also very fundamentally concerned with things like being able to go onto eBay and for a thousand dollars buy some kind of a virus making kit where you can create a virus that could take out millions of people. Or the idea of artificial intelligence, some people just want to let AI run wild whereas I'm not really sure we want a species on Earth that is smarter than human beings. I'm not sure that makes any sense.
So despite the optimism of the transhumanism party and that political element, we were also very conscious that inequality was growing because of technology. That said the standard of life was improving around the world even if inequality was growing. But still, I think the role of transhumanism in politics is not just to say, 'this is the greatest thing ever, let's go full force with whatever new technological development is happening.' We need to be concerned about these things.
Transhumanists can play a political role by stepping up and saying there are limits to where technology goes, and at the same time some things like genetic editing are things that we should put our foot down and say this should be open market. We should find out where this takes us and seek to improve ourselves as human beings. As you probably read all the time, Christian America is literally trying to shut down genetic editing and they are only getting certain types of things going. It's just like when George W Bush ran the government and stopped stem cell funding for seven years. They are trying to do the same thing now with genetic editing, which is perhaps the most promising science of the 21st century. This is where transhumanists have to stand up and just say no, this has to be determined by the market. If people start creating monsters and those monsters do evil things that's a whole different story, but what we're trying to do right now is eliminate cancer, augment our intelligence so we can become smarter, and do away with hereditary diseases. Very few people in congress are talking about it, yet it is probably the most important science of our time.
So for example in terms of genetic editing that creates IQ boosting - how do you manage that so it's not just an expensive process only available to the rich? Do you agree there needs to be a heavy regulatory hand from the government to ensure we don't move towards a dystopian future?
Tough question. I would've answered in the past that certainly some regulatory hand has to be involved, and I still think some regulatory hands have to be involved. I just think at this point in time we're not really talking about the rich becoming super smart and the poor not getting these kinds of technology. We're just fighting for the right to even do experiments.
I do believe that there's a libertarian version of universal health care and universal income out there that would be good. I just think at the very top of the food chain is where we really need to let people, those very rich and super innovative people, do exactly what they want to do. But as a left-leaning libertarian I'm probably always going to say that some regulatory hand has to be in there to protect the poor.
My entire goal, and one of the things I'm standing behind is that we all have a universal right to indefinite lifespans. That's something I can promise you in the 21st century will become one of the most important civil and ideological rights of humanity. That everybody has a right to live indefinitely. Right now we still think death is natural but that's gonna be changing over the next five, ten, fifteen years.
I want people to feel entitled to an indefinite lifespan where if they choose to live for a long period of time they will. And to get there we're gonna need some type of government hand that says, enough with the bandaid medicine, enough with your Christian antics where you must die to meet God and it's okay to age. I believe aging is a disease. I believe the government needs to classify it as a disease. We need to tackle aging, let's stop it.
It's not really libertarian or democratic or republican. It's a humanitarian point of view. People should have the right to live as long as possible. We should stop trying to fix the human body when we need to realize that moving beyond the human body is probably the very best scenario for getting rid of some of the maladies and diseases we suffer from. And you can call this universal health care, the libertarians may get all grumpy and angry, but the reality is I think there is a very libertarian nature to it. The most important thing about the libertarian point of view here is private property, and this private property extends all the way to yourself. If you see yourself as something that wants to be left alone, then you want to be left alone, not only from other people, but from the ravages of nature, from the ravages of disease and I think the libertarian calling could be to come up with these solutions that could change humanity forever so we really could live a truly libertarian life where you're not constantly attacked. We're all being bothered by biological issues so I'd like to take that libertarian philosophy one step further and apply that to the human body.
You've done a little biohacking yourself. Can you tell us about the chip in your hand and what it does?
On my bus tour recently, the very first stop on that four month tour was this place called Grindfest. All the biohackers across the country fly in and they do things to themselves. They put chips in, they electrocute each other, they party, they do drugs, it's a very free society. One of the things I did was I got chipped. I got a tiny little implant in my hand. It's about the size of a grain of rice and it allows me to open my front door. I'm trying to get the software right now to get my car to start with it. It also sends out a text message if you get close enough to me and have the right software. It can do all sorts of little things.
The biohackers are some of the most important people in the transhumanist movement. They're some of the ones that are really out there beyond the academics of it. They're doing things, they're testing things. I'm a big believer that a lot of people will get chip implants soon. I'm a surfer and when I go surfing I don't have to hide my keys underneath my car somewhere or worry about them getting wet. I just go because the housekeys are in my hand.
Do you think there is a line in how far human enhancement and augmentation can go before we can't really classify ourselves as humans anymore?
I would say that when we start really merging with machines, maybe over the next five or ten years, that's when mainstream people will say yes, we are fundamentally crossing that line of becoming less human.
I think when we start affecting our thoughts, and that's gonna come through the neural laces or the neural prosthetics. When you start getting into the matrix you're really no longer a human being, but the reality is that we're probably going to keep the best of our human traits with us for a long time. There's this idea that we may not ever even see that change because it happens so slowly and it will be hard to diagnose when it does. We'll always just think, oh, we're who we are.
So you're not afraid that we're moving into a phase where we are potentially losing an essential sense of self or individuality through this augmentation? You're embracing a future with a new type of human?
Oh I'm totally embracing it! I have called for the end of humanity as we know it and I don't mind mincing the words at all. The reality is that I think the human body is frail. I don't want to say the human body is evil, but I don't like it. I'm not a fan of the human body. I think it's something that is designed to be replaced and replaced as quickly as possible.
When you tell me that a third of everybody I know dies from heart disease and my father has had four heart attacks, I'm not saying the human body is something wonderful. I'm saying look, the heart is a terrible frigging mechanism. Awful mechanism. Terrible. We need to replace it and we need to replace it quickly. Frankly you could say the same thing about the human body as a whole. Every single part on the human body has to go and can be substantially improved. And will be substantially improved over the next 25 years.
We need to get over this idea that the body is something holy. Of course this is classic Christian ideology teaching us that, the human body is holy, marriage is holy, all these things are holy. Listen, none of that is holy. The only thing that really makes sense is what's most functional to increase our living standards for ourselves, for our families and for our community and humanity as a whole. And frankly, to do that, the most functional thing is to upgrade ourselves. To get rid of limbs. To get rid of blood. To get rid of breathing air. To get rid of eating and pooing. I mean if you were to create a machine, you had all the power in the world, you would never create a human being. You would never create the human mind, three pounds of meat. It's nowhere near as sophisticated as the Empire State building having servers lined up to the windows. Here, in just a few years we're gonna see exactly how complex a machine we can create.
The human mind is something that's just evolved over a period of 150,000 years from being essentially apes and we think we're really smart, but we have no idea the sophistication we can get to. If you look at the trajectory of how intelligence is increasing in the machine world. If you take that out a hundred years, just on that trajectory, the artificial intelligence would probably be approximately one trillion times smarter than a human being. We have no idea what a trillion times smarter than our brains would look like. I think we should do the best to be that change and go with it rather than be left behind.
Do you see it as an imperative to augment ourselves so as to make sure that AI doesn't speed past us and render us irrelevant? Elon Musk recently said that artificial intelligence could at some point view us as house cats in terms of usefulness.
Hah, house pets would be lucky! We would be much more like ants! If an ant sees a human being it has no idea what that human being is. It just sees something moving in its vision. In fact I've often speculated that this is why we have never made contact with any other species out there or any other kinds of intelligence. Any other intelligence out there is almost certainly going to be some kind of machine, perhaps even more complex than we even know.
Elon Musk is 100 percent right. That is why the Transhumanist Party never advocated for artificial intelligence to go beyond the human being. I would not be surprised whatsoever if machines suddenly decided, why would we want to keep humans around?
What I have advocated is that we need to spend more time working on neural prosthetics so that when we create an AI that can become smarter than us we can directly tie ourselves into that AI and become an intrinsic part of it. So that anywhere the AI goes, we also go. That's the only way I'd like to let loose a machine like that, where we were a huge part tied directly into it.
Just finally, is there a specific area of research or technological development that is happening right now that excites you?
To me the most important development of the last decade, or even century, is genetic editing. It's here, it's real and it's now. It's not just about giving babies blue eyes or brown eyes or blonde hair or black hair. It's about going in and eliminating cancer before you ever get it. It's going in and saying, this is something that Einstein had in his brain and we're going to create a genetic component so that you have it and then all of a sudden you are 20 percent better in physics than you would have been.
And this is something that the Chinese have been working on and leading the way. They're moving forward on it in ways that America is totally stopped on because we have all these laws in place. So we're very much stuck at a point where the most important science, being genetic editing, we could lose our entire teeth on it while Asia takes the lead.
What does it matter if a couple of hundred million Chinese kids have augmented intelligence that makes them twenty to thirty percent smarter than us, but for religious reasons Americans aren't? What happens in the fifteen years after that? There is no way to compete against them.
It becomes a great controversy not only between rich and poor but between Chinese citizenry and American citizenry. This is a very real civil rights debate that America and the world has to have. Everybody knows how thorny it is, but none of the politicians want to discuss it because it is so thorny. There is no right way about it and yet the technology is here and we all know it has the potential to completely change human nature.
Ed's note: This interview has been lightly edited and condensed for clarity.
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Zoltan Istvan on transhumanism, politics and why the human body has to go - New Atlas
Photo courtesy of Leonid Afremov
At 18 years old, a sixth of my life is quite possibly already over, maybe even a fifth. Never again will I be absolutely absolved from responsibility, the way I was when I was three and had all the time in the world, sparing not a thought to matters that did not involve Clifford the Big Red Dog. All that stretches before me is a sea of taxes and Social Security and grocery shopping truly an appealing prospect.
My God, how fleeting and fragile life is! But to my thinking, while were here, theres no reason not to enjoy ourselves. Ive never bought into the existence is futile and meaningless crap. It seems like such defeatist thinking. Doesnt perpetual bitterness get tiring after a while? Isnt constant cynicism exhausting to maintain?
I would call myself a hedonist, though that invites negative connotations. A hedonist is, to many minds, someone who engages in mass debauchery: wild orgies and gross overindulgence and the like. The word hedonism is evocative of sex, because sex is the highest and purest form of pleasure, right?
Thats not what I mean. The ticket is to appreciate the simple things: the smell of rain, loose leaf jasmine tea and Leonid Afremov paintings. Yeah, its cliche, but its true. Finding beauty in the mundane, putting a positive spin on whatever crosses your path, because thats just so much more fun. Being alive wasnt a choice, but youll sure get a hell of a lot more out of it if you stop taking it so seriously. Dont you want to feel good, genuinely good, rather than the perverse pleasure derived from hunkering down in your basement and festering in your own misanthropy, secure in your self-perceived superiority over your fellow human beings?
I simply cannot fathom why one would choose to commit suicide. Why cut your life short, when its still saturated with potential droplets of pleasure? Youve never ordered a crepe in a Paris cafe or bathed in the crystalline Reykjavik hot springs or stood on the edge of the Grand Canyon and shouted your name to hear it reverberate against the rust red ravines. There is so much yet to explore. If I could, I would snatch up all the time you relinquished when you decided to end it all and add it to my own stockpile. I would never have enough to check off everything on my bucket list.
Of course, I grew up am growing up surrounded by a dense layer of packing peanuts, safely cushioned from the crushing blows life is capable of dealing. I freely admit to my naivete. But I have only my own experience upon which to base my philosophies, and I find it incredible that people would choose to throw away the greatest gift they have ever received.
I want to travel this world and experience everything it has to offer me, soak it all in. I want to milk every last droplet of pleasure from my existence, wring it dry, until it crumbles into a powdery dust. Except I cant. In this capitalistic society, free spirits and independent thinkers are actively discouraged; all America wants is another automaton to join the workforce. Id need money to carry out my dreams, and to obtain money, Id need to work, and by the time Id have retired, my bones will creak and my joints will ache and any opportunity of carrying out my dreams will have slipped away quietly while I was preoccupied with the daily nine-to-five grind.
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