Change around us – Page 8

What ails the newspaper industry?

Recently read several articles pondering what is going on in the collapse of newspaper revenue and the collapse in circulation. One is a lamentation over the loss of life-long career opportunities. Another describes doubling down as strategy to survive. Finally, a different idea on what might be driving the collapse in circulation.

3/2 – The Nation – These Journalists Dedicated that Their Lives to Telling Other People’s Stories. What Happens When No One Wants to Print Their Words Anymore? – A heartsick lament that bemoans the drop from 55,000 full-time journalists in 2007 to 32,900 in 2,015. That drop of 22,000 doesn’t include big layoffs in 2016.

The shrinkage will likely continue – A J-school prof at USC thinks if trends continue for the next three years like the last three, there could be somewhere between one-third and one-half of the 50 largest papers disappear.

Continue reading “What ails the newspaper industry?”

Update on the government players in the wide open frontier of space exploration

Cutting edge tech from 1981, above, will update the Saturn V for the new Space Launch System from NASA. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com — Cutting edge tech from 1981, above, will update the Saturn V (cutting edge in 1960s) for the new Space Launch System from NASA. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

The subsidized, politicized government players in the space race are still in the game. A few articles of interest: the directly subsidized ULA approach, the hidden subsidies in the European approach, NASA’s rolling forward the cutting edge Saturn V technology, and China expanding GPS coverage from their country to worldwide.

1/28 – Behind the Black – McCain and Air Force question ULA military arrangement – ULA receives a payment even if there aren’t any launches in a year. This is to give ULA sufficient funds to keep a critical national defense resource open.

I vaguely remember reading that during the Cold War, big defense contracts would be given to one of the major contractors merely because they didn’t have enough work to keep all their production lines open.

While those approaches made sense 10 or 30 years ago, the concept doesn’t work quite so well when there are multiple private companies developing their own launch vehicles and manned capsules.

Continue reading “Update on the government players in the wide open frontier of space exploration”

Update on the wide open frontier of private space exploration

The competition for getting back into space is strong. Very cool.

1/22 – USAF Space and Missile Systems Center – SpaceX Falcon 9 upgrade certified for National Security Space Launches – Upgraded Falcon 9 has been approved for military launches. Gives SpaceX increased opportunities for USAF work.

2/1 – Behind the Black – Another 5 month slip of first Falcon Heavy launch – Continue reading “Update on the wide open frontier of private space exploration”

Instead of reading about hyperinflation and economic collapse in history, you can watch it play out live. Tune in to Venezuela. – 1

ten trillion Zimbabwe dollars. Not the largest currency in circulation, but close. — Ten trillion Zimbabwe dollars. Not the largest currency in circulation, but close. Tragedy of hyperinflation is playing out again, this time in Venezuela.

The hyperinflation in Zimbabwe resulted in a ten trillion Zim note being worth four cents in American dollars. That would be:

Zim$10,000,000,000,000 = US$.04

When that level of financial devastation happens, it is the result of government policy. Usually socialists pull it off, but German also did so before WWII.

6/30/15 – This is what hyperinflation looks like
8/20/15 – Follow up on Zimbabwe hyperinflation – Government introduces coins for making change

Venezuela

If you are so interested, you can now watch the sad story as it plays out in Venezuela.

2/3 – Wall Street Journal – Inflation-Wrought Venezuela Orders Bank Notes by the Planeload – Usually governments deal with out-of-control inflation by adding two or three zeros to the currency. Instead of the largest bill in circulation being a 100 unit note, the next run of currency is for a 10,000 unit note. In six months or a year there will be a 500,000 or 1,000,000 note in circulation.

Article says the Venezuelan government isn’t doing that because to do so would acknowledge the astronomical inflation. As the saying goes, denial isn’t just a river in Egypt.

Instead of acknowledging that inflation is running out of control, the government of Venezuela is flooding the economy with the same denomination note. In the last several months of 2014, the article says there were three dozen flights of 747s into the country hauling nothing but currency. Over 30 cargo holds filled with currency.

Continue reading “Instead of reading about hyperinflation and economic collapse in history, you can watch it play out live. Tune in to Venezuela. – 1”

More illustrations of disruption from technology

While tech innovations have opened up new frontiers, innovation is disrupting some fields. Here are a few articles making this point that I’ve accumulated recently: newspaper circulation continues to collapse, higher ed is increasingly vulnerable to disruptions, and accreditation agencies (which illustrate regulatory capture) show why disruption is needed.

1/20 – Richard Tofel at Medium – The sky is falling on print newspapers faster than you think – Author pulled together circulation numbers from March 2013 and September 2015 for the 25 largest newspapers in the country.

Guess what? Circulation is collapsing.

Here are just a few of the numbers he accumulated: Continue reading “More illustrations of disruption from technology”

More news on military drone operations

A few articles on military drone operations.

12/27 – Wall Street Journal – Air Force Looks Beyond Officers to Boost Drone-Pilot Ranks – USAF is moving towards having enlisted troops fly drones. To this point rated pilots had to be at the controls. The increased demands for joint operations combined with staffing limits along with the dreariness of the work has created a shortage of qualified pilots. To fill a gap, USAF may use enlisted pilots.

Continue reading “More news on military drone operations”

With all the radical technology changes over the last few decades, have the essentials remained the same?

Unless you have gunpowder and a delivery system for it, I suggest you not mess with this guy and his buddies. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com — Unless you have lots of gunpowder or thousands of buddies , I suggest you not mess with this guy and his 6,000 buddies. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

My friend John Bredehoft provides a different perspective on technology change. On 1/22 at his blog tymshft, he asked Do the essentials change?

He discusses a podcast comparing life today to about 35 years ago. For perspective, that puts us in 1981, or the range of the first year of the Reagan administration.

One of many points I draw from the discussion is related to Jon’s last comment:

But the speed of the processing chip in my smartphone is relatively meaningless.

Phrased differently, the smart phone in your hand may have an operating speed that is thousands or millions of times faster than 30 years ago but that increase doesn’t have an impact on your life in proportion to the increase in speed. Increased operating speed in the last decade probably hasn’t affected your life much at all.

Continue reading “With all the radical technology changes over the last few decades, have the essentials remained the same?”

Fun news on the incredibly wide open frontier of private space exploration – 1/18

SpaceX Dragon capsule in orbit. Photo by SpaceX released to public domain.

If you want to know why I remain so optimistic for our future even though the national political, geopolitical, and economic news is so depressing, check out the space news I’ve noticed in the last week. As Behind the Black often says, the competition is heating up.

One bit of not-so-great news. From Space.com: Video Shows SpaceX Falcon 9 Rocket Land on Droneship, Then Fall Over and Explode. The video is here. SpaceX’s Falcon 9 landed almost dead center on the drone floating 200 miles south of Vandenberg. The engine cut off which means it was landed successfully. Then one of the legs gave out, the rocket tipped over, then exploded. Preliminary guess is that something (a lockout collet?) iced over while on the launch pad.

1/14 – Behind the Black – Orbital ATK and SpaceX win Air Force contracts – ULA does not have engines for its rockets and thus must rely on Russian engines to get our military launches into space. Orbital ATK and SpaceX both have contracts to develop new engines.

The obvious story line here that gives me such encouragement is two new-on-the-scene, privately owned space companies have been called in to help the mega-contractor ULA get out of its mess.

Another big contract:

Continue reading “Fun news on the incredibly wide open frontier of private space exploration – 1/18”

Update on the open frontier of private space exploration; recovery of booster

Launch of Orbcomm mission on top of Falcon 9 booster. Photo courtesy of SpaceX released to pubic domain.

A few more articles on the wide open frontier of space:

12/23 – Popular Mechanics – Two Quick Illustrations to See How Badly SpaceX Beat Blue Origin/Jeff Bezos may have gone for the glory, but he only had a fraction of the challenge – Blue Origin may have been the first company to nail landing of a reusable booster. SpaceX had a far more difficult challenge as illustrated by two graphics in the article.

Recovery of booster. Photo courtesy of SpaceX released to pubic domain.

Continue reading “Update on the open frontier of private space exploration; recovery of booster”

More on low oil prices with particular focus on Saudi Arabia

How fast do you suppose those drillers that scaled back could scale up? Out of focus photo by James Ulvog.

Had been planning to hold this article for a few days because of other posts I’d like to run first. Guess I’d better run it now. At the rate things are deteriorating in the Middle East, need to post it quickly before war headlines make it completely out of date.

12/30 – The Guardian – Recession, retrenchment, revolution? Impact of low crude prices on oil powers. Article walks through what low oil prices may be doing to each country.

A graph shows one factor that is fascinating to me, specifically the price needed to balance the national budget in various countries. Here are the prices a few countries need: Continue reading “More on low oil prices with particular focus on Saudi Arabia”

Why I am so optimistic – 3

The future is so bright we need sunglasses. Image courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

The number of people working in manufacturing has been declining for many years. Those job losses will continue at the same time as technology disrupts other industries causing the loss of more jobs.

This is not a new concept. Technological advances have devastated farm employment over the last 150 years.

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

Prof. Thomas Tunstall pondered Where the New Jobs Will Come From. Sub headline on his 11/4/15 article said:

In 2007 iPhone application developers didn’t exist. By 2011 Apple had $15 billion in mobile-app revenues.

Consider the percentage of the population employed in agriculture over time: Continue reading “Why I am so optimistic – 3”

Why I am so optimistic – 2

200 years ago subsistence agriculture was the norm across the planet. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com — 200 years ago brutal poverty was the norm across the planet. Not so today. Photo courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

Previously mentioned when I look at long-term economic trends I am incredibly optimistic. When I look at the headlines this morning or news from the political world, I am very discouraged.

(Cross-post from my other blog, Nonprofit Update.)

To see one illustration of why I am so optimistic for the long-term, check out a column by Glenn Reynolds at USA Today: Actually, things are pretty good / Free markets and free inquiry have changed the historic ‘norms’ of poverty and violence.

Earlier post summarized in one paragraph what caused this radical improvement.

Here are a final two points from the article I’d like to highlight:

Second, it is possible for us collectively to turn back history.

Continue reading “Why I am so optimistic – 2”

SpaceX successfully lands a first stage booster

[youtube=https://youtu.be/ZCBE8ocOkAQ?t=6]

Space.com provides the great news: Wow! SpaceX Lands Orbital Rocket Successfully in Historic First. On December 21 SpaceX successfully launched 11 satellites into orbit. The secondary objective was to recover the first stage.

On the third attempt to do so, they successfully landed the first stage booster on land. After (not if, but when) they figure out how to do this routinely the cost of a space launch will drop radically. Article says the drop in cost could be in the range of a factor of 100.

One of the commenters on the following video gave this comparison: The flight on 12/21 is like launching a pencil over the Empire State Building, slowing down, and landing softly inside an area the size of a shoe box.

Continue reading “SpaceX successfully lands a first stage booster”

Update on the wide open frontier of technology – 12/21

Lots of amazing things going on in the technology open frontier: military countermeasures to combat drones, registration requirement for small drones goes into effect today, and lots of federal agencies use cellphone spying technology.

12/14 – Space War – Venom could address UAV threat to ground forces –

Continue reading “Update on the wide open frontier of technology – 12/21”

Diverging opinions on the U.S. bill to allow asteroid mining.

Image of asteroid courtesy of DollarPhotoClub.com

I previously mentioned the U.S. House and Senate had passed a bill which would allow private mining of asteroids. Ownership of the asteroids wouldn’t be allowed but a company extracting resources from asteroids would have lawful property rights to the material.

The law was signed – 11/26 – Space Daily – Pres. Obama signs bill recognizing asteroid resource property rights into law – The President signed the bill to allow companies to have ownership interest in resources mined from asteroids. Ownership of asteroids is not allowed, but what you mine you own.

Now for a completely different perspective:

11/27 – Gbenga Oduntan at Space Daily – Who owns space? US asteroid-mining act is dangerous and potentially illegal – Author asserts that activity in space “requires international regulation” which means the US Congress has no authority except to ratify international treaties.

Continue reading “Diverging opinions on the U.S. bill to allow asteroid mining.”