A Mexican drug cartel is trying to use bomb-rigged quadcopter drones to assassinate enemies.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/36013/mexican-drug-cartel-now-assassinating-its-enemies-with-improvised-explosive-toting-drones
A massive, accidental explosion ripped through Beirut when a warehouse containing 2,700 tons of fertilizer caught fire. The explosion was equal to 200 – 300 tons of dynamite (0.2 – 0.3 kilotons) and killed at least 190 people.
https://graphics.reuters.com/LEBANON-SECURITY/BLAST/yzdpxnmqbpx/
The 75th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan occurred. Those early, crude nuclear bombs had yields of 12 kilotons and 20 kilotons, and collectively killed about 214,000 people.
https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-53648572
In WWII, the British terrorized Germany with low-flying balloons. Long, strong cords were tied to their bottoms, and they would often entangle in power lines, shorting them out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ioshB6dhe-0
In the 1950s, the U.S. considered using high-altitude balloons to carry nuclear bombs to targets in the Soviet Union.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WS-124A_Flying_Cloud
Here’s a stunning visualization of the 57,000 new satellites that will be launched over the next nine years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqiO2xeMkY0
The two astronauts who made history by launching into space on a commercial rocket have safely returned to Earth.
https://apnews.com/bf77af89c527340793d15a9957d30c84
Space-X had another successful launch of a new space rocket.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-53659702
The first photo of a stealth Blackhawk helicopter has been released.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35342/this-is-the-first-image-ever-of-a-stealthy-black-hawk-helicopter
Anyone familiar with the WWII European Theater will have heard about the feared “German 88mm,” which was the most effective antiaircraft and antitank shell of the War. It could punch through the armor of any Allied tank. I then remembered that postwar American tanks had 90mm cannons, which is only 2mm different from 88mm. It occurred to me: Did we copy the German 88mm cannon after seeing how effective it was in WWII? Kind of! When the War started, the U.S. was already using a 90mm cannon, but only as an antiaircraft weapon. The shell’s ballistics were almost the same as the German 88mm. Only after seeing how effective that type of weapon could be if mounted in a tank did we decide to start doing the same (we made this insight later than the Germans, so our 90mm tanks weren’t ready until 1945). After WWII ended, we realized that tank combat had changed forever, and that 90mm should be the new standard going forward.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8.8_cm_Flak_18/36/37/41
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M48_Patton
If the Soviet T-34 tank was so great, why didn’t the Germans copy it?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vczPA1xGJQI
The Soviet MD-160 is neither plane nor ship, and instead is a totally unique, massive fighting machine designed to skim low over the surface of the ocean. It had six large anti-ship missile launchers. It is now being turned into a tourist attraction.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8665541/Gigantic-1980s-Soviet-vehicle-MD-160-dwarfs-Boeing-747-lies-abandoned-Caspian-Sea.html
The MiG-35 is essentially a modernized version of the MiG-29. Though it sounds like a great fighter plane on paper, few sales have been made, and the new plane’s future is in doubt. Part of the problem is that a bigger, better Russian fighter–the Su-30–costs only 25% more money to buy and operate.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35500/why-russias-mig-35-is-starting-to-look-like-a-dead-duck
An AI just beat a human fighter pilot in a computer simulated dogfight between two F-16s. Both of the virtual planes were restricted to machine guns only. The AI, codenamed “Heron,” demonstrated superhuman accuracy with its weapon and was extremely agile flying its plane.
https://www.defenseone.com/technology/2020/08/ai-just-beat-human-f-16-pilot-dogfight-again/167872/
This U.S. Navy fighter pilot was impressed with the AI.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/35947/navy-f-a-18-squadron-commanders-take-on-ai-repeatedly-beating-real-pilot-in-dogfight
These other two U.S. fighter pilots were not impressed.
https://taskandpurpose.com/military-tech/darpa-artificial-intelligence-dogfight-analysis
Ben Goertzel’s latest thoughts on AGI, including the failure of one of his key predictions for 2020, and the limitations of GPT-3.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2020/08/ben-goertzel-2020-interview-on-artificial-general-intelligence.html
Here’s another impressive demonstration of GPT-3’s capabilities, this time playing “19 Degrees of Kevin Bacon.”
https://twitter.com/danielbigham/status/1295864369713209351
The world’s uncoordinated and largely disappointing response to the COVID-19 pandemic portends badly for our ability to deal with a hostile AGI in the future.
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/wTKjRFeSjKLDSWyww/possible-takeaways-from-the-coronavirus-pandemic-for-slow-ai
This random guy with a math degree from Harvard has built an economic model that seems to indicate the Singularity will happen in 2047.
https://www.openphilanthropy.org/blog/modeling-human-trajectory
A computer just solved a 90-year-old math theorem called the “Keller conjecture.”
https://www.quantamagazine.org/computer-search-settles-90-year-old-math-problem-20200819/
After it becomes impossible to shrink computer chip features any smaller, we’ll still be able to improve their cost-performance by optimizing software, hardware, and algorithms.
https://science.sciencemag.org/content/368/6495/eaam9744
‘How does the iPhone XS compare to the most powerful and expensive supercomputer from 30 years ago?’
https://medium.com/@diego./cray-2-v-iphone-xs-fight-6f05b494efe1
Painting one out of three blades black makes a windmill much more visible to birds, reducing the odds of deadly collisions.
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ece3.6592
Coal consumption in the U.K. has dropped to levels unseen since before the Industrial Revolution.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/aug/09/is-this-the-end-for-king-coal-in-britain
A new spy device can use sound to deduce what shape a key must have to open a specific door lock. A 3D metal printer can then use the data to make a duplicate key.
https://gizmodo.com/researchers-find-a-way-to-copy-keys-using-the-sounds-th-1844774401
Nothing like a long article that makes several predictions about the future, but essentially concludes with: “Or maybe none of what I just said will actually happen.”
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/08/just-small-shift-remote-work-could-change-everything/614980/
In 1891, Oscar Wilde envisioned a future utopia where machines did all the work humans didn’t want to, and the government provided all basic needs for free, freeing people to pursue their passions. Many “transhumanist” ideas are actually quite old.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/wilde-oscar/soul-man/
The impossible has happened: a hurricane that the National Weather Service described as being “unsurvivable” actually had a 99.9999% survival rate.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hurricane-laura-storm-surge_n_5f47253ac5b64f17e1385320
Facial recognition technology is now being used to keep track of the nourishment and health of farm animals. I’ve predicted that more advanced versions of technologies like this will let us track entire populations of animals starting in the 2100s.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/facial-recognition-china-animals-farms-agriculture/2020/08/23/9808c710-d6fb-11ea-b9b2-1ea733b97910_story.html
Over three years ago, computer tycoon John McAfee said that he would…do something obscene in public…if Bitcoin wasn’t worth $500,000 within three years. It’s only worth $11,700 today.
http://dickening.com
Samsung has unveiled an improved, folding smartphone. It has three screens.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53664988
Elon Musk says that the “volumetric efficiency” of a typical car factory is in the “low single digit percentage,” and that the figure can be radically improved. It’s an interesting idea to ponder. Factories usually have very high ceilings, so reducing their height by 50% would presumably double their volumetric efficiency. How come no one thought of that before?
https://www.thestreet.com/tesla/news/elon-musk-talks-tsla-stock-tesla-manufacturing-efficiency
A new way to create magnets has been discovered.
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/31/eabb7721
Mainstream political pundits accurately predicted that Joe Biden would pick Kamala Harris as his Vice President.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/511131-biden-edges-closer-to-vp-pick-heres-whos-up-and-whos-down
https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/09/politics/joe-biden-vp-pick/index.html
A professor with an excellent track record of predicting U.S. Presidential elections says Biden will win this year. He was only wrong in 2000, when the election results were disputed, and the Supreme Court decided the matter, along partisan lines, in favor of George W. Bush. So, if we assume the professor’s model is right, that is Trump’s only route to reelection.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/510754-professor-with-history-of-correctly-predicting-elections-forecasts-that
Elon Musk unveiled his “Neuralink” brain implants. Most experts weren’t impressed.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-53987919
DNA analyses of mummies show that ancient Egyptians were more similar to Europeans than today’s Egyptians are. The latter have more ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms15694#Sec2
Another anti-aging drug has failed during clinical trials.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/17/unity-biotechnology-and-senescent-cell-therapy
Lung cancer death rates in the U.S. have significantly dropped over the last 20 years thanks to better treatments.
https://www.cancer.gov/news-events/press-releases/2020/lung-cancer-treatments-mortality-drop
Great news: a successful vaccination drive in Nigeria has eradicated polio from the African continent. The disease now only remains in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-53887947
More evidence that COVID-19 poses virtually no health risk to children.
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53932294
The FDA has approved convalescent plasma as a treatment for COVID-19. Though the Trump administration trumpeted it as a “historic breakthrough,” it is likely to be expensive and minimally effective.
https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2020/08/24/convalescent-plasma-the-science-and-the-politics
The first case of a person being re-infected with COVID-19 has been confirmed, which means immunity isn’t permanent, at least for some people. For what it’s worth, the man’s second infection was much milder than the first one.
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2020/08/24/asia-pacific/science-health-asia-pacific/hong-kong-first-coronavirus-reinfection/
This prediction from three months ago turned out wrong. Italy has averaged only about 10 COVID-19 deaths per day over the last month, and a second wave hasn’t started there.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/11552856/italy-second-wave-coronavirus-lockdown-eased/
Remember this White House briefing from March 31? The graph behind the podium showed that, with a lockdown, 100,000 – 240,000 Americans would still die of COVID-19. The X-axis was unlabeled, but since the figures in the graphs are shaped like humps, we can conclude that it pertained to the time period corresponding to the virus’ first wave. So in other words, on March 31, the White House said that the first wave of the pandemic would kill 100,000 – 240,000 Americans. The first wave has not ended, and as of today, the U.S. death toll is at least 180,000. Projections from other reliable sources I’ve found indicate that the second wave will start around mid-September, as the weather cools, and that the death toll at that point will be almost 200,000. So the first wave of the virus will end up killing a number of Americans that is nearer the high end of the March 31 projection.
https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/823916343/coronavirus-task-force-set-to-detail-the-data-that-led-to-extension-of-guideline