Big Tech: Too Big and Failing | America’s Military: The Art of Weakness | Death ex Machina

PNUT GALLERY
 

Two reports published yesterday reveal just how powerful big technology companies have become, how incredibly irresponsible they are, and how they must be regulated. The first report is a thorough investigation in how Facebook ignored all warnings of Russian interference and manipulation of their website, their aggressive lobbying to influence Congress, and their attempts to use lobbyists to paint George Soros and Apple in a negative light. “Delay, Deny and Deflect: How Facebook’s Leaders Fought Through Crisis.” Please consider deleting Facebook.

The second report is Google’s decision to integrate the health data from DeepMind’s health app (DeepMind is better known for developing the artificial intelligence that beat the “Go” world champion). “The Streams app data is also — to be clear — personal data that the individuals concerned never consented to being passed to DeepMind. Let alone to Google … This is also both deeply unsurprisingly and horribly shocking. The shock is really that big tech keeps getting away with this.”

 
 
 
SEASONED NUTS: QUOTABLE
 

“This generation of Wall Street [ Big Tech] CEOs could be the ones to forfeit America’s trust … they can be singled out as the bonus babies who were so shortsighted that they put the economy [electoral system] at risk and contributed to the destruction of their own companies [and nation]. Or they can acknowledge how Americans’ trust has been lost and take the first steps to earn it back.” – Andrew Ross Sorkin, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street [Silicon Valley] and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System from Crisis — and Themselves [with edits from Daily Pnut]

 
 
 
IN A NUTSHELL: MUST READ
 

America’s Military: The Art of Weakness: The National Defense Strategy Commission, an independent bipartisan congressional committee appointed last year to study the strength of America’s fighting forces, released its findings Wednesday. The wide-ranging, sharply critical 98-page report challenges President Trump’s commitment to a strong military. Overall, the panel gave a thumbs up to the National Defense Strategy issued in January by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis. But members warned that projected budget shortfalls, overtaxed military forces around the globe and other risks were imperiling the plan. The assessment is chilling: “America’s longstanding military advantages have diminished. The country’s strategic margin for error has become distressingly small. Doubts about America’s ability to deter and, if necessary, defeat opponents and honor its global commitments have proliferated.”

Mattis’s defense strategy suggested a shift, from fighting the insurgent wars of the last 17 years, to large state-on-state conflicts. Specifically, a higher priority needs to be placed on confronting China and Russia, as well as North Korea and Iran. Foreign adversaries have been studying the American military, and developing ways to counter longstanding US advantages in projecting power over distances, air and missile defense, cyber operations and electronic warfare. Panel members also warned against allowing the military to exercise too much influence over policy matters vis-a-vis senior defense department officials, as that undermines the bedrock principle of civilian control of the armed forces.

 
 
 
MIXED NUTS: QUICK TAKES ON WORLD NEWS
 

Hackers Rejoice: OK, so it’s not the same as being operated on by somebody who’s never been to medical school. Still… Yoshitaka Sakurada, the cabinet member from Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s Liberal Democratic Party who was put in charge of revising Japan’s cyber security laws ahead of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, admitted this week he doesn’t use computers. Asked how a man who doesn’t use computers could help implement online security measures, Sakurada said the cyber security initiative is a government-wide project and he has confidence in it. Plus, he’s a businessman; he has employees who use computers. Duh. (WaPo)

So No One Told You Life Was Gonna Be This Way: It was the only clue authorities in the seaside town of Blackpool, England had on the man who stole a case of beer, but it was enough. Police in London arrested the suspect a month after a public appeal was posted on Facebook asking for help in finding a suspect who looked just like socially awkward scientist Ross Geller on the TV show “Friends”. One fan of the show’s theme song wrote: “It’s not been his day, his month or even his year.” And just to make sure there wasn’t a real case of mistaken identity, David Schwimmer tweeted from New York #itwasntme. (NYT)

A Great Business School Case Study About Money, Ethics, & A Business School: The Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis has a relatively new and very lucrative global business program, primarily aimed at Asian executives who want an advanced degree in exchange for a whole lot of money. At the same time the university is trying to keep up the progress it has made dealing with sexual assault and harassment complaints, which in past years had prompted serious attention and even a state audit. So when Chinese billionaire Richard Liu, founder and CEO of JD.com, was in Minneapolis two months ago taking part in the business program, and was arrested for allegedly raping a young Chinese student, it “puts the university administration in an impossible situation,” according to the executive director of the city’s nonprofit Sexual Violence Center. (NYT)

Pence Is Pensive On Rohingya Muslims: Vice President Mike Pence is in Singapore representing the US at the Association of Southeast Asian nations (ASEAN) regional summit. On Wednesday he met briefly with Myanmar leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Pence told Suu Kyi he wanted to hear what was being done to resolve the continued persecution of Rohingya Muslims in the country’s northern state of Rakhine. “The violence and persecution by military and vigilantes that resulted in driving 700,000 Rohingya to Bangladesh is without excuse,” Pence said. He also asked about the arrest and seven-year sentence given to two Reuters journalists for investigating a Rohingya massacre. Suu Kyi, who had spent 15 years in jail herself for speaking out against her country’s earlier military dictatorship, has been criticized for failing to stop the current crackdown on the Rohingya. (NPR)

– “Trump Nominates Retired Gen. John Abizaid To Be Ambassador To Saudi Arabia: Abizaid, known for serving as the commander of the U.S. Central Command and overseeing the war in Iraq, is currently the Annenberg Distinguished Visiting Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and works as a private consultant.” (NPR)

 
 
 
SPONSORED NUTS: THURSDAY BOOTS
 

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NUTS IN AMERICA
 

Big Metal Death Machine and Small Metal Death Machine:Massachusetts has the lowest rate of gun deaths in the US, 3.6 per 100,000 in 2016. Alaska, Alabama and Louisiana have the highest, each with more than 21 gun deaths per 100,000. What’s the difference? Massachusetts treats the ability to own and use guns much like the ability to own and use a car, complete with license and registration required. There’s paperwork, an interview and a background check, which could take weeks, just to get a permit to even go to a gun shop. And for private sellers, the buyer must have a firearm license and the transfer gets recorded in state database. And that goes for gifting a gun, too. (Vox)

School Safety In The 21st Century: School shootings are big business. They have fueled the thriving industry of campus safety. School security is a $2.7 billion market, not counting billions more spent on armed campus police officers. There’s armored school doors, bulletproof whiteboards, metal detectors, secret snipers, but no good research on whether these products and services actually protect children from gun violence. The Washington Post sent surveys to every school in its database that had endured a shooting of some kind since the 2012 killing of 20 first-graders in Newtown, Connecticut. Of 79 schools contacted, 34 provided answers. When asked what, if anything, could have prevented the shootings, nearly half said there was nothing that could have been done. Many schools had robust security plans already in place, but still couldn’t stop the incidents. (WaPo)

Fury 2 In 2 Acts: “Trump, stung by midterms and nervous about Mueller, retreats from traditional presidential duties” & “Five days of fury: Inside Trump’s Paris temper, election woes and staff upheaval” (LA Times & WaPo)

 
 
 
SPICY NUTS: OPINIONS
 

– “Donald Trump knows the true meaning of sacrifice” (WaPo)

– “Save Us, Al Gore: Another Florida recount prompts appreciation of a man nothing like Donald Trump.” (NYT)

– “A Saudi Murder Becomes a Gift to Iran: The assassination of a journalist has further hurt the Trump administration’s frail strategy of buddying with Saudi Arabia to restrain Iran’s expanding influence.” (NYT)

– “Saudi Arabia Is Misusing Mecca: In the aftermath of the Jamal Khashoggi murder, the kingdom has exploited the podium of the Grand Mosque in Mecca by using its imams to praise, sanctify and defend the rulers and their actions.” (NYT)

 
 
 
LOOSE NUTS: FASCINATING NEWS
 

– “Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex?: Despite the easing of taboos and the rise of hookup apps, Americans are in the midst of a sex recession.” (Atlantic)

– “Male Insect Fertility Plummets After Heat Waves: Researchers say that temperature’s effects on sperm production could be one factor behind the decline in the world’s insect populations.” (NYT)

– “Wordsworth on Genius and the Creative Responsibility of Elevating Taste: ‘To create taste is to call forth and bestow power, of which knowledge is the effect; and there lies the true difficulty.’” (Brain Pickings)

– “How to avoid losing your memory in the digital age: With Google taking the place of memory, many worry that a vital faculty is eroding. Can memory athletes – who can retain hundreds of numbers in seconds – show us how to get it back?” (Guardian)

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