Attack of the Drones
September 16, 2019
“The test of success is not what you do when you are on top. Success is how high you bounce when you hit the bottom.” – George S. Patton Jr.
Attack of the Drones
Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have grown significantly following an attack on the world’s largest oil processing plant. Several projectiles hit the Abqaiq plant early Saturday morning, leading to fires which have reportedly taken out nearly half of Saudi Arabia’s oil production – which currently accounts for five percent of the global daily oil output.
Operated by Saudi giant Armco, it is uncertain if Abaqiq will ever be fully operational again. Houthi rebels in Yemen claimed the attack, but officials of the Saudi Arabian and United States government do not believe that they have the resources or capabilities to have launched such as large-scale attack.
Late Saturday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo tweeted: “Iran has now launched an unprecedented attack on the world’s energy supply” and also said that “There is no evidence the attacks came from Yemen.” Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif retaliated by accusing Pompeo of engaging in deception and said that blaming Iran would not fix any problems.
- Trump says US ‘locked and loaded depending on verification’ of attack on Saudi oil field (CNN)
- Iran dismisses U.S. claim it was behind Saudi oil strikes, says ready for war (Reuters)
- Factbox: Inside Saudi Aramco’s oil operations (Reuters)
- Attack on Saudi oil field a game-changer in Gulf confrontation (CNN)
- What the attacks on Saudi Aramco mean for oil prices (CNN)
The War In Nigeria Drones On
- A decade has passed since Nigeria’s war with Islamist extremist group Boko Haram began, and despite announcements by President Muhammadu Buhari that the group has been “technically defeated,” reports have shown that militants still roam the countryside – armed and more dangerous than ever before.
- Boko Haram militants are now armed with more powerful drones than the Nigerian military and are well-armed following raids on military brigades. Security analysts and federal officials have conceded that militants currently control four out of ten zones in northern Borno State, and that military forces are demoralized and on the defensive, with weapons falling into disrepair.
- The war with Boko Haram has devastated the population in rural northeast Nigeria, one of the poorest regions on earth, with more than two million citizens being forced out of their homes and over ten thousand more having been killed or injured. The International Committee of the Red Cross said this week that nearly 22,000 Nigerians have been reported missing during the crisis. (NYT $)
Microsoft’s Big Push On Hard Regulations
- Microsoft President Brad Smith recently stated in an interview that he believes the government should regulate big tech companies. A surprising statement considering most big tech executives would love to freely run their companies with no government intervention, Brad Smith expressed fears that Internet giants would “cannibalize the very fabric of this country” if left to their own devices.
- A very different opinion from those he shared twenty years ago, when he said that regulation stifled innovation, Smith now looks back and sees that his initial expectations of major tech and innovation corporations were wrong. They have proven a much larger threat to the political stability of major countries such as the United States that ever-before imaginable.
- United States laws upheld for the past few decades have stated that internet platforms are no liable for the content posted on their sites, allowing companies such as Amazon, Facebook, and Google to grow at supersonic speeds – but many lawmakers and Smith himself believe that it is time to reform those laws.
- How Top-Valued Microsoft Has Avoided the Big Tech Backlash (NYT, $)
- Leak of Microsoft Salaries Shows Fight for Higher Compensation: The numbers range from $40,000 to $320,000 and reveal key details about how pay works at big tech companies (OneZero)
- When the A.I. Professor Leaves, Students Suffer, Study Says (NYT, $)
- There Is No Tech Backlash: Worse, we think there is one. (NYT, $)
- What Is a Tech Company? (Stratechery)
Is it Possible to Have Technology with Privacy?
- Tech companies back U.S. privacy law if it preempts California’s (Reuters)
- Why You Should Completely Wipe Your Phone Every Few Months: Think of it as a digital cleanse. (Popular Mechanics)
- How to Erase Your Old iPhone Before Trading It In (Mac Rumors)
- Clear gigabytes of cached Chrome storage you probably forgot existed (Android Police)
- You care about what you put into your body. So does Ladder. They set out to build supplements that work just as hard as you do.
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The Present and Future (Workforce) is Female
- Women have been quietly changing the landscape of the coal-mining industry since 2010 in Letcher County, Kentucky. Coal mine bankruptcies and layoffs heavily impacted the area, but due to an amazing increase of women joining the workforce, the industry has remained afloat and thriving.
- A boom-and-bust industry, there are over a thousand fewer coal mine jobs in Letcher County than there were a decade ago, and virtually all of those lost jobs were held by men. Despite that, new opportunities have arisen for the wives of ex-coal miners, who once thought only of serving their families and letting their husbands bring in the income. Nursing has become an essential element of the lifestyle in mining cities, allowing for women in the workforce to flourish in the modern coal-mining city.
- New opportunities not only for jobs, but also education has come to fruition as well. Establishing solid foundations for futures not reliant on another individual, women have truly reformed and reshaped the landscape of “Coal Country” after the mines shut down.
- The Battle for a Paycheck in Kentucky Coal Country: At a protest camp in Harlan County, Kentucky, coal miners fighting for better wages have attempted to dispense with contemporary political divisions, at least momentarily. (The New Yorker, $)
Terminator Now: The Rise of the Drones
- It’s understood that when machines take over the lower level or routine jobs humans used to do, it will mean those humans are freed up to perform higher level tasks. What’s less understood is that artificial intelligence will transform higher-skill positions, too — in ways that demand more human judgment rather than less. In other words, as AI gets better at performing the routine tasks, only the hardest tasks will be left for humans to do. And therapists will tell you that wrestling with only difficult decisions all day long is stressful and unpleasant.
- “Decision making is very cognitively draining,” said a former clinical psychologist, “so it’s nice to have some tasks that provide a sense of accomplishment but just require getting it done and repeating what you know, rather than everything needing very taxing novel decision making.”
- It’s a core idea of cognitive-behavioral psychology. People “need both experiences of mastery and pleasure for healthy mood.” It’s important, she said, “to vary the difficulty of the mastery experiences, rather than having everything be super challenging.” (Atlantic)
- What wartime ‘munitionettes’ can teach us about burnout: A short overtime sprint won’t kill you but, as data from World War One shows, consistently putting in too many hours at work hurts employees and employers. (BBC)
- The Shocking Paper Predicting the End of Democracy Human brains aren’t built for self-rule, says Shawn Rosenberg. That’s more evident than ever. (Politico)
Additional reads
- Today’s Culture Wars
- The New York Times Has Abandoned Liberalism for Activism (NY Mag)
- When the Culture War Comes for the Kids: Caught between a brutal meritocracy and a radical new progressivism, a parent tries to do right by his children while navigating New York City’s schools. (The Atlantic, $)
- Remove Richard Stallman: And everyone else horrible in tech. (Medium)
- Andrew Yang Reaches Out to the New Saturday Night Live Cast Member Who Called Him a Racial Slur (Slate)
- End Legacy College Admissions A country struggling with deeply rooted inequality need not continue an affirmative action program for successful families. (NYT, $)
- The Power of Questions (Farnam Street)
- Running Is the Worst Way to Get Fit If you want to be in shape, skip the 10K training and sprint – but don’t jog – to the nearest weight room. (Vice)
- The Communication We Share with Apes: Hand gestures signal the emergence of human language. (Nautilus)