Featured Links - September 23, 2024

Links to things I found interesting but didn't want to do a full blog post about.

Sunset clouds

•  ASPI’s two-decade Critical Technology Tracker. "The US led in 60 of 64 technologies in the five years from 2003 to 2007, but in the most recent five years (2019–2023) is leading in seven. China led in just three of 64 technologies in 2003–20074 but is now the lead country in 57 of 64 technologies in 2019–2023." This should be no surprise to anyone.
• Amazing engineering: How to stretch a cruise ship. "Slicing huge cruise ships in half, then welding in an extra segment to lengthen them, is more or less a license to print money for cruise operators – so this 'jumboization' surgery is becoming very common. Let's take a look at how it's done."
• Chinese researchers figure out how to detect stealth aircraft using Starlink satellites. The US military must be very worried about this. 
• The crypto bros who dream of crowdfunding a new country. It's an interesting idea but I can't see how it could be implemented in practice. It's a bit reminiscent of Robert Charles Wilson's The Affinities. 
• 20 Million Cards: A Sports Memorabilia Gold Mine Uncovered in Virginia (gift link). "Three years ago, a businessman bought a collection of roughly 20 million sports cards from its reclusive owner. Now he wants to show it to the world." He has 5 Babe Ruth cards!
• How Google Chrome is declaring war against ad blockers. "Ghostery's CEO and Director of Engineering break down the new Manifest V3 changes, and why they're bad news for anyone who wants to block ads."
• Massive China-state IoT botnet went undetected for four years—until now. "75% of infected devices were located in homes and offices in North America and Europe."
• The Searchers (gift link). "Dave Eggers on NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab."
• Lawsuit wants Canadian lake to be legally defined as a person. "A court has been asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with constitutional rights to life, liberty and security of person in a case that may go further than any other in trying to establish the rights of nature in Canada." This is a central idea in Kim Stanley Robinson's The Ministry for the Future, and I hope it gains traction. If corporations can be legal people, why not lakes?