Quote:Leonard Reiffel’s many achievements as a physicist included two entirely unrelated things — one a down-to-earth development that changed sportscasting and another a far-fetched idea that, had it happened, might have changed the course of history.

In sports broadcasting, Dr. Reiffel invented the Telestrator, which allows announcers to draw lines and circles on a television screen to show how a play developed.

But even more compelling was his role in a top-secret study for the Air Force that asked a simple question:

How about blowing up a nuclear bomb on or near the moon and seeing what happens?

Soon after the Soviet Union launched the Sputnik satellite into orbit in 1957, sending jitters throughout the United States that it was losing the space race, the Air Force posed the hypothetical question to a group of scientists, Dr. Reiffel among them.

Project A119, as the study was called, secretly examined the scientific and military benefits of launching an intercontinental ballistic missile carrying a nuclear bomb the size of the one dropped on Hiroshima and detonating it on or near the surface of the moon. Whether that was even possible in the late 1950s is highly questionable.

A lunar detonation, the study said, would serve military goals by supplying information about the “detection of nuclear device testing in space and concerning the capability of nuclear weapons for space warfare.”

As for the political impact, Dr. Reiffel, who was then the manager of physics research at the Armour Research Foundation, a laboratory that was part of the Illinois Institute of Technology, wrote in the panel’s report in 1959 that “positive effects would accrue to the nation first performing such a feat as a demonstration of advanced technological capability.”

Spoiler alert: The plan was never executed and the moon survived, intact, to host six Apollo moon landings.

Decades later, Dr. Reiffel revealed that the Air Force had been interested in staging a surprise lunar explosion, and that its goal was propaganda. “The foremost intent was to impress the world with the prowess of the United States,” he told The New York Times in 2000. “It was a P.R. device, without question, in the minds of the people from the Air Force.”

Dr. Reiffel, who later helped NASA identify touchdown sites on the moon for the Apollo lunar module, died on April 15 at a hospital in Chicago. He was 89. Romayne Rickhoff, Mr. Reiffel’s longtime assistant, said the cause was complications of pancreatic cancer.

Dr. Reiffel (it’s pronounced like rifle) was an inventor with dozens of patents, but the Telestrator resonated the most.

...

During his varied career, Dr. Reiffel worked for a year at the University of Chicago for the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi; wrote a novel, “The Contaminant” (1978), about a biomedical attack by rogue American officers against the Soviet Union; delivered radio commentaries on science that won a Peabody Award; consulted for the Apollo program’s scientific staff; and ran a company that developed teleconferencing products.

But the work he did at Project A119, where his hypothesizing yielded no tangible results, remains a Strangelovian reminder of Cold War tensions. In 2000, he recalled in the journal Nature when he and the others on his staff were asked to assess how the lunar surface and its chemistry would react to a nuclear bomb.

“The cost to science of destroying the pristine lunar environment,” he wrote, “did not seem of concern to our sponsors — but it certainly was to us, as I made clear at the time.”

NY Times (archived)

Quote:The mutiny inside OpenAI over the firing and un-firing of chief executive Sam Altman, and the implosion of X under owner Elon Musk, are not just Silicon Valley soap operas. They’re also reminders: A select few make the decisions inside these society-shaping platforms, and money drives it all.

The twin dramas that have captured the tech world’s attention are ongoing. X is still seeing advertisers leave — including, most recently, Paris Hilton’s company, whom X chief Linda Yaccarino recently championed as proof the company is still culturally relevant. And while Altman is back at OpenAI, the final composition of its nine-member board remains unknown.

...
Musk and Altman share a relish for the spotlight. After suing the liberal advocacy group Media Matters for a report showing how ads on X sometimes appeared alongside pro-Nazi content, Musk on Tuesday posted a message, under a picture of him holding a katana, saying, “There is a large graveyard filled with my enemies. I do not wish to add to it, but will if given no choice.”
OpenAI and X: Promises of populist technology, shaped by a single man

Quote:Manar Abu Dhabi continues through January 30, 2024, and you can explore more on Denevan’s website. You might also enjoy this music video from earlier this year, directed by Owen Brown of CTRL5 and featuring the band ARIZONA, which centers around a 90,000-square-foot installation by Denevan in a dry riverbed in the American Southwest.

Manar Abu Dhabi continues through January 30, 2024, and you can explore more on the artist’s website.

Wander Through a Geometric Field of 448 Sculptures in Jim Denevan’s ‘Self Similar’

Quote:Key Findings

Check Point Research is actively tracking the evolution of SysJoker, a previously publicly unattributed multi-platform backdoor, which we asses was utilized by a Hamas-affiliated APT to target Israel.

Among the most prominent changes is the shift to Rust language, which indicates the malware code was entirely rewritten, while still maintaining similar functionalities. In addition, the threat actor moved to using OneDrive instead of Google Drive to store dynamic C2 (command and control server) URLs.

Analysis of newly discovered variants of SysJoker revealed ties to previously undisclosed samples of Operation Electric Powder, a set of targeted attacks against Israeli organizations between 2016-2017 that were loosely linked to the threat actor known as Gaza Cybergang.

Hamas SysJoker Backdoor

Quote:DARPA eyes creation of next-generation semiconductor manufacturing hub

WASHINGTON — The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency said it plans to award a contract next summer to establish a U.S. hub for advanced microelectronics manufacturing.

The program, dubbed Next-Generation Microelectronics Manufacturing, will fund the research and equipment to create a domestic center for prototyping cutting-edge fabrication techniques, which DARPA hopes will give the U.S. semiconductor industrial base a leading edge. The goal is to stand up the capability by 2029.

The center will focus on 3D heterogeneously integrated microsystems, or 3DHI – an advanced approach to microelectronics fabrication. The premise of 3DHI research is that by integrating and packaging chip components differently, manufacturers could disaggregate functions like memory and processing to significantly improve performance.

The U.S. imports a large portion of its advanced semiconductors from Taiwan and China, who dominate the global market. Concern has grown in recent years about an over reliance on foreign supply chains for these critical microsystems, which power cars, cellphones and major Defense Department weapons.

(11-29-2023, 05:18 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote:

(12-01-2023, 04:53 AM)EndtheMadnessNow Wrote: ...In a ground breaking discovery that's sure to shake the very foundations of Egyptology, archaeologists have
unearthed an ancient photo depicting the construction of the pyramids. The photo, estimated to be around
12,000 years old, shows a group of workers clearly taking their work very seriously."

Quote:On April 27, 1986, American electrical engineer and business owner John R. MacDougall (using the pseudonym "Captain Midnight") jammed the Home Box Office (HBO) satellite signal on Galaxy 1 during a showing of the film The Falcon and the Snowman. The message, broadcast for four and a half minutes, was seen by the eastern half of the United States (accounting for more than half of HBO's 14.6 million subscribers at the time) protesting HBO's rates for satellite dish owners, which he considered too expensive. MacDougall was working at his second job as an operations engineer at the Central Florida Teleport uplink station in Ocala, Florida, and vied with a technician at HBO's communications center in Hauppauge, New York, for control of the transmission. The technician attempted to increase uplink power but gave up because of the risk of damaging the satellite. MacDougall eventually abandoned his control of the satellite.

Under an agreement with the prosecutor, he plea bargained and was sanctioned with a $5,000 fine, one-year unsupervised probation, and a one-year suspension of his amateur radio license. The jamming received much attention in the U.S., with one executive dubbing the intrusion an act of "video terrorism". As a consequence of the incident, the United States Congress passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (18 U.S.C. § 1367), making satellite hijacking a felony. The Automatic Transmitter Identification System was also developed in response to this incident.

Captain Midnight wiki

Quote:Born in Paris in 1928 to Russian parents, Erwitt spent his childhood in Milan, then emigrated to the US, via France, with his family in 1939. As a teenager living in Hollywood, he developed an interest in photography and worked in a commercial darkroom before experimenting with photography at Los Angeles City College. In 1948, he moved to New York and exchanged janitorial work for film classes at the New School for Social Research.

Erwitt traveled in France and Italy in 1949 with his trusty Rolleiflex camera. In 1951, he was drafted for military service and undertook various photographic duties while serving in a unit of the Army Signal Corps in Germany and France.

While in New York, Erwitt met Edward Steichen, Robert Capa and Roy Stryker, the former head of the Farm Security Administration. Stryker initially hired Erwitt to work for the Standard Oil Company, where he was building up a photographic library for the company, and subsequently commissioned him to undertake a project documenting the city of Pittsburgh.

In 1953, Erwitt joined Magnum Photos and worked as a freelance photographer for Collier’s, Look, LIFE, Holiday and other luminaries in that golden period for illustrated magazines.

In the late 1960s, Erwitt served as Magnum’s president for three years. He then turned to film: in the 1970s, he produced several notable documentaries and in the 1980s eighteen comedy films for HBO. Erwitt became known for benevolent irony, and for a humanistic sensibility traditional to the spirit of Magnum.
Elliott Erwitt / Magnum Photos

Quote:Based on one of the greatest video game series of all time, Fallout is the story of haves and have-nots in a world in which there’s almost nothing left to have. 200 years after the apocalypse, the gentle denizens of luxury fallout shelters are forced to return to the irradiated hellscape their ancestors left behind — and are shocked to discover an incredibly complex, gleefully weird and highly violent universe waiting for them. From executive producers Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy, the creators of Westworld, and starring Ella Purnell, Walton Goggins, Aaron Moten and more. Arriving on the 12th of April on Prime Video.

Quote:THE TRIUMPH OF SCIENCE

Two weeks to flatten the curve will have to come to an end one year or another, and now, as certain Covid policies are loosening, some people worry that we may be failing to follow the Science. I want to reassure the followers of Science that, temporary setbacks notwithstanding, Science has done remarkably well. Two years of lockdowns, mandatory masks, mandatory vaccines, and all of this at a global scale, is no small feat. It is an impressive accomplishment deserving of commemoration.

I have painted two pictures of Science. I will also share two quotes from the previous two centuries. These two quotes and the past two years should provide ample context for the paintings.

“We are on the Eve of a new Reformation and if I have a wish to live thirty years, it is that I may see the foot of Science on the necks of her Enemies.” – Written in 1859 by T.H Huxley (Famous naturalist and grandfather of Aldous Huxley)



In every age the men who want us under their thumb, if they have any sense, will put forward the particular pretension which the hopes and fears of that age render most potent. They ‘cash in.’ It has been magic, it has been Christianity. Now it will certainly be science” – Written in 1958 by C.S Lewis



About the artist: Jordan Henderson lives in the Northwest of the United States. He works in oil paints, and charcoals. A portfolio of his works can be viewed at either of his websites.

https://jordanhendersonfineart.com – Original Paintings

https://jordan-henderson.pixels.com – Fine Art Prints

Quote:Sanity, Her Son, and the Credulous

This woman thinks, she observes, she reflects upon and analyzes her observations, and ultimately she acts in a manner that is sensible and principled. Her son will grow to be strong and sensible; their conduct provides beauty and clarity in a world of muddled morals and confused thought, thought that is dull and grey, thought that is but repetition of the status quo.

This painting is the culmination of a long, careful, visual exploration of the world that I see today, the world that I see when I go to get groceries, or run an errand. The mundane world only looks boring because we are used to it, we see it everyday, but the prosaic has never been more than a deceptively simple facade for a fascinating place where nearly everything we do has spiritual, and ethical significance. Often we must observe the everyday world with great care to perceive these things, but sometimes they surface in an obvious manner. Imagine throwing dust on an otherwise invisible person, masks are like that; power struggles, and beliefs are now proclaimed, for all to see, with a prominent symbol.