Google, US share a China dilemma and other commentary

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Security desk: Google, US Share China Dilemma

Dragonfly, a unique search engine for China, has split Google, reports Bloomberg’s Eli Lake. Thousands of Googlers signed an open letter protesting the project, saying it would help a totalitarian regime censor the web and track Internet users. But hundreds of others (led by Chinese nationals) signed their own letter insisting Dragonfly “is not diametrical but crucial to the company’s mission” of global outreach. That flags an overlooked issue, namely “how the Chinese government pressures and deploys its citizens in order to expand its power and influence.” Indeed, “the role of Chinese citizens in Chinese statecraft is raising concerns in official and unofficial Washington.” Time was when the West felt its companies could make China “more like us.” Now, says Lake, “it’s becoming clearer that it’s just as likely to be the other way around.”

Social critic: CUNY Has an Anti-Semitism Problem

For the past 10 months, Michael Goldstein has been the target of a virulent campaign demanding his removal as an adjunct business professor at Kingsborough Community College, according to Tablet’s Armin Rosen. Hard-left students and faculty accuse Goldstein, an observant Jew, of racism and contend he is “a Trump supporter and a Zionist” who’s being “protected by a network of Zionists.” The threats have been so aggressive that Goldstein “now has a public safety officer and a security camera stationed outside of his office” because he no longer feels safe. Says Rosen: “As in plenty of other historical moments, the treatment of Jews exposes other, barely hidden fissures, even at a community college in the midst of one of the most Jewish places on earth.”

Business editors: Can We Take Three More Years of Blas?

Five years into Bill de Blasio’s mayoralty, contend the editors of Crain’s New York Business, “it feels as though he’s been in office much longer.” He’s worked to tamp down some criticisms of his first term, but “far more disconcerting revelations have emerged” — and “foremost among them is the mayor’s coddling of campaign donors.” It’s now clear that “anyone who forks over a pile of cash can have the mayor eating out of his hand in no time.” Then there are two other “unbecoming habits”: hypocrisy and prevarication. Meanwhile, de Blasio and his wife “have been gallivanting about the country on the taxpayers’ dime to elevate their profile, and he used city funds to pay a $2.6 million legal bill stemming from a political campaign.” Which is why the editors say they’re “grateful for term limits.”

Media critic: Bloomberg Doesn’t Get It on Journalism

Kathy Kiely, who quit as a politics editor at Bloomberg News after being told in 2016 the news agency would not cover owner Mike Bloomberg’s possible presidential campaign, says at The Washington Post that the former mayor is at it again. More actively considering a 2020 run, he told a radio reporter he may order the news service “not to cover politics at all.” That, says Kiely, reveals “a disturbing attitude toward the First Amendment — and democracy generally.” Both he and President Trump, in fact, “are signaling that they shouldn’t have to take a taste of what they’re dishing out.” So she applauds his suggestion that he might sell the business: “Give the terrific journalists who work for you what they deserve, Mr. Bloomberg: Set them free.”

Policy wonk: Public Media Must Reimagine Itself

As he steps down from the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the Manhattan Institute’s Howard Husock at Current suggests that “public media should stop expecting a handout.” It also means taking “a fresh look” at its own role of providing content “that commercial producers fail to do.” Commercial TV, after all, “is no longer the vast wasteland” of the 1960s. And unless local public stations start producing “content which can’t be found on smartphones and tablets, they will have no reason to exist.” Which is why he urges a particular emphasis on “robust local journalism.” It also means CPB board members “must resist cheerleading the system as it is and overlooking its flaws and limitations.”

— Compiled by Eric Fettmann

Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin attend $100M, weeklong wedding

Huma Abedin and Hillary Clinton arrive to attend the wedding of Isha Ambani. AP

Hillary Clinton and Huma Abedin joined a slew of big-name guests at a $100 million, weeklong wedding joining two billionaire Indian families — one of which has given big bucks to the Clinton Foundation.

The former Democratic presidential candidate and her longtime top aide danced up a storm as Beyoncé belted out hits at an extravagant pre-party the weekend before the union of Isha Ambani and Anand Piramal.

Ambani, daughter of India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, who is valued at $43 billion, according to Forbes, tied the knot Wednesday night in Mumbai with Piramal, son of industrialist Ajay Piramal — worth $4.3 billion.

At a pre-wedding bash, Beyoncé performed smashes including “Crazy in Love,” as Clinton — whose husband’s Clinton Foundation has been on the receiving end of sizable donations from Ambani’s family, according to Fox News — got her groove on alongside Abedin, fellow former White House hopeful John Kerry, and some of Bollywood’s most famous faces.

Beyoncé’s show-stopping performance, held at a 16th century palace in Udaipur, included a full backing band and multiple costume changes, with a least one Indian-inspired outfit.

The wedding week was so jam-packed with festivities that it had its own app to help guests get around, Fox reported.

Guests including Bollywood star Priyanka Chopra and musician hubby Nick Jonas — who had their own uber-opulent Indian wedding earlier this month — descended on the fete in private planes and luxury sedans.

The lavish nuptials, which brought 600 guests to the Ambani clan’s 27-story Mumbai home, are estimated to cost about $100 million, reported Bloomberg News.

That sum is said to include hundreds of nearby hotel rooms that the Ambanis reserved for their guests.

The newlyweds’ families can afford it: Mukesh Ambani has holdings in everything from oil and gas refining to telecommunications, while Ajay Piramal made his fortune in pharmaceuticals, financial services and real estate.

The bride, a 27-year-old Yale grad, sits on the board of not one but two companies, while her husband, 33, is the founder of a ­realty company.

Indian weddings are famously extravagant, with even poor families scrimping and saving for years to afford an all-out send-off for their kids into married life.

“A farmer might commit suicide because he can’t save enough money to get his daughter married,” Indian social activist Archana Dalmia told The Associated Press.

Qualcomm wins Chinese court order banning some iPhone models

One of the coolest things about NASA’s new InSight lander that recently arrived on Mars is that it’ll be able to listen closely to sounds generated deep underground. It has the potential to teach us a lot about how Mars works. Before that happens, NASA has to prepare the robot to begin using its powerful instruments. In doing so, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory actually captured the sounds of wind whipping across the dusty Martian surface.

In a new video, JPL explains that InSight’s onboard seismometer began to detect vibrations. The team ultimately determined that the vibrations were the result of wind hitting the robot’s solar panel array and causing them to shake. NASA recorded the vibrations and now you can listen to them yourself.

As the video explains, the pitch of the sound is extremely low and can barely be heard unless you have headphones on and the volume cranked up. A filter that raises the pitch of the sound by two octaves makes it much easier to hear.

The result is a recording that sounds a bit like what you’d hear if you cupped your hands over your ears in a brisk wind.

But NASA didn’t stop there. A separate instrument that measures air pressure recorded the same gusts and sent the data back to Earth. The video includes that recording as well, sped up and filtered so that it’s easier to hear.

It’s pretty cool to be able to hear wind from another planet, even if it sounds exactly like wind here on Earth. It’s also a great demonstration of InSight’s capabilities and a showcase of how powerful and sensitive its instruments truly are. In the near future, JPL will command the robot to deploy its sensors on the ground around its base, and that’s when the real fun will begin.

Turns out sex bots were first dreamed up 2,500 years ago

Painting of Pygmalion and his proto-robot Galatea, left, thought to be an early vision of things to come.

Sex robots are not a bonkers invention of the modern age after all — they were actually conceived by the ancient Greeks.

New research has found that randy members of the Mediterranean classical-era civilization were bent on building sex bots some 2,500 years ago.

In her book, “Gods and Robots,” Adrienne Mayor delves into the weird world of the ancient Greeks and finds numerous accounts of romping with statues that come alive.

Some ancient Greek men developed “statue lust” whereby they fell in love with effigies and even had sex with them.

Mayor said this particular sexual kink arose at a time when Greek and Roman sculptural artistry was achieving a high degree of realism and idealized beauty and some people developed feelings for them.

She said: “Nude cult statues were often treated as though they were alive, given baths, clothing, gifts and jewelry.”

While they did not have the tech know-how, they were able to foresee the possibility of a mechanical maiden.

Mayor says: “In the Pygmalion myth, the sculptor’s ivory statue is clearly…being created for sex.”

After praying to the goddess of love, Aphrodite, she makes Pygmalion’s beloved doll turn into a real woman.

Mayor said: “Its realism became reality supernaturally, thanks to the goddess of love.

“This oft-told ancient ‘romance’ of artificial life takes on new relevance today because it presages ethical questions posed by modern critics of lifelike robotic dolls and AI entities specifically designed for physical sex with humans.

“Although the Pygmalion myth is often presented in modern times as a romantic love story, the tale is an unsettling description of one of the first female android sex partners in Western history.”

Sanders campaign drops $300k on private jet travel

Sen. Bernie Sanders 2018 re-election campaign spent almost $300,000 on private jet service for a recent cross country tour to stump for Democrats and test the presidential waters.
According to federal campaign finance reports, Friends of Bernie Sanders, the senator’s official 2018 Senate campaign committee, spent $297,685.50 with Apollo Jets, a private charter jet service headquartered in New York. The report does not break down the number of trips or where they were taken. The check was issued on Oct. 10, according to the report.

Sanders — who appears likely to run for president again in 2020 — went to nine battleground states to stump for Democratic Party candidates prior to the November mid-term elections. The tour was also considered a way to test support for another presidential run. Sanders ran for president in 2016, finishing behind Hilary Clinton, the Democratic nominee.
Sanders’ cross country tour included stops in Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina, early caucus and primary states in 2020. He also went as far as California to help other candidates.
According to the Federal Election Commission report, the Sanders campaign also gave the New Hampshire Democratic Party $15,000 in October. New Hampshire historically has the first primary after the Iowa caucuses.
Sanders faced nominal opposition in Vermont in his run for a third Senate term. He won in November with 66 percent of the vote. Sanders, 77, runs as an independent in Vermont but as a Democrat when he ran for president.
“He wanted to go where he thinks he can be helpful in energizing the base and bringing in young people and independent voters and working-class voters who supported him,” Jeff Weaver, Sanders’ 2016 campaign manager and longtime political adviser, told the Associated Press about the nine-state tour.
Arianna Jones, senior communications adviser for Friends of Bernie Sanders, said Tuesday: “This expense was for transportation for the senator’s 9-day, 9-state tour to support Democratic candidates up and down the ballot ahead of Election Day.”
“This cost covered the entirety of the tour from Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, South Carolina, Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, California, and back to Vermont,” Jones said. The senator participated in 25 events, Jones said.
Jones said it was necessary to use a private jet service “to allow the senator to campaign in all of the states where candidates wanted his help and get back to Vermont in order to join the Vermont Democratic Party coordinated campaign’s final GOTV efforts. As Bernie often said while encouraging voters to get involved leading up to Election Day, this was the most important midterm election in our lifetimes and he wanted to have maximum impact.”
Jones said the campaign purchased carbon offsets to support renewable energy projects and invest in carbon reduction projects to balance out emissions produced from travel. She said the campaign paid $4,980.00 to NativeEnergy for carbon offsets.
Sanders has reportedly traveled to 17 states this year and 30 since the 2016 election in support of Democratic candidates and several policy issues.
Sanders came under criticism in 2017 after his senate campaign spent a smaller amount with Apollo Jets — $37,568. He was ridiculed for using a luxury service while criticizing the wealthy.
Apollo promises to provide “the luxury, convenience, safety and security that only a private jet flight can offer,” according to its website.
The campaign also reported paying Metropolitan Travel, a Virginia travel agency, $13,500 for transportation at the end of September.
Friends of Bernie reported raising a total of $11.6 million and and total expenses of $7.2 million, according to FEC reports.
During the 2016 presidential election, Sanders spent $5.2 million in private jet services during a six-month period at the end of 2015 to the middle of 2016.

Anritsu BERTWave MP2110A

Welcome to a Biomedical Battery specialist of the Anritsu Battery

The BERTWave MP2110A with battery such as Anritsu MS2721A Battery, Anritsu MS2724B Battery, Anritsu MS2722C Battery, Anritsu MS2726C Battery, Anritsu MS2711E Battery, Anritsu MS2712E Battery, Anritsu MT8212E Battery, Anritsu MS2024A Battery, Anritsu MS2026A Battery, Anritsu MS2036A Battery, Anritsu MS2025B Battery, Anritsu MS2026B Battery is an all-in-one measuring instrument with built-in bit error rate tester (BERT) and sampling oscilloscope, supporting evaluations such as bit error rate (BER) measurements, Eye Mask tests, Eye pattern analyses, etc., of optical modules.
The BERT and sampling oscilloscope are required instruments for evaluating optical modules used by optical communications systems. Until now, evaluation of typical optical modules , such as QSFP28 and SFP28, has required a standalone BERT and sampling oscilloscope, but with an all-in-one built-in 4ch BERT and 2ch sampling oscilloscope, the BERTWave MP2110A eliminates the need for separate instruments, slashing both instrument capital costs and manufacturing costs.
Moreover, the BERTWave MP2110A can simultaneously measure the bit error rate (BER) for up to 4ch at the optical module RX side, as well as simultaneously perform Eye Mask tests and Eye pattern analyses for up to 2ch at the Tx side. In addition, the MP2110A sampling oscilloscope has a sampling speed of up to 250 ksamples/s (six times faster than previous generation instruments) for faster Eye Mask tests and Eye pattern analyses. With support for simultaneous BER measurements and Eye pattern analyses, the BERTWave MP2110A slashes measurement times by up to 65%.

The MP2110A BERT measures bit rates from 24.3 Gbit/s to 28.2 Gbit/s in the standard configuration and from 9.5 Gbit/s to 14.2 Gbit/s by installing Option 093. The built-in sampling oscilloscope supports bandwidths of 40 GHz (electrical I/F), 35 GHz (SMF, optical I/F), and 25 GHz (MMF, optical I/F). In addition, the sampling oscilloscope has a built-in 100-Gbit/s band Bessel filter as standard for measuring optical signals. This excellent performance helps secure higher optical module manufacturing yields.
Moreover, the simplified settings and easy user interface make the MP2110A easy to operate; backwards compatibility with MP2100B remote commands assures trouble-free instrument upgrades.
Additionally, the stable operation resulting from the built-in PC guarantees performance irrespective of the operation environment.
With multi-channel BERT, sampling oscilloscope, high-speed Eye pattern analyses, and Mask Margin measurements, the BERTWave MP2110A improves optical module production efficiency to slash manufacturing costs.

‘Dimension’

(Alice Munro, The New Yorker, 2006)
Alice Munro is one of my favourites, and I loved this one about a grieving woman who goes to an institution to meet her husband.
Doree had to take three buses—one to Kincardine, where she waited for one to London, where she waited again, for the city bus out to the facility. She started the trip on a Sunday at nine in the morning. Because of the waiting times between buses, it took her until about two in the afternoon to travel the hundred-odd miles. All that sitting, either on buses or in the depots, was not a thing she should have minded. Her daily work was not of the sitting-down kind.
She was a chambermaid at the Comfort Inn. She scrubbed bathrooms and stripped and made beds and vacuumed rugs and wiped mirrors. She liked the work—it occupied her thoughts to a certain extent and tired her out so that she could sleep at night. She was seldom faced with a really bad mess, though some of the women she worked with could tell stories to make your hair curl. These women were older than her, and they all thought that she should try to work her way up. They told her that she should get trained for a job behind the desk, while she was still young and decent-looking. But she was content to do what she did. She didn’t want to have to talk to people.
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vulture, and the poor road to rob the teacher too!

The strongest shortest martial arts novel, suitable for people who are afraid of watching long stories, said:
1, to involve three major sects at the same time
2, to include the Jianghumen faction years of resentment and hatred, but also to break the secular ethics.
3, at the same time, the plot will be deductive, and there will be bloody winds and winds. It is extremely much looking forward to the sequel to the novel, while leaving a lot of suspense.
4, the shorter the better
On the second day, someone came to contribute, the full text only has nine words: vulture, and the poor road to rob the teacher too!

Anritsu MP1800A Signal Quality Analyzer

Welcome to a Biomedical Battery specialist of the Anritsu Battery

The Anritsu MP1800A and MT1810A, Signal Quality Analyzer (SQA) series with battery like Anritsu MS2028B Battery, Anritsu MS2721A Battery, Anritsu MS2726C Battery, Anritsu MS2711E Battery, Anritsu MS2712E Battery, Anritsu MT8212E Battery, Anritsu MS2036A Battery, Anritsu S332E Battery, Anritsu S362E Battery, Anritsu S412E Battery, Anritsu S113B Battery, Anritsu S311D Battery, are versatile Bit Error Rate Test Systems (BERTS) for multi-channel BER measurement up to 12.5 Gbit/s and provide various signal analysis capabilities. Additionally, it can be used to perform BER tests up to 50 Gbit/s by combining two MP1800A units with a MUX/DEMUX and synthesizer. A full line of five plug-in modules and various other options support configuration of a flexible test system matching the application. With slots for six modules, Windows®* XP GUI, keypad and rotary encoder, the MP1800A is designed for the R&D market; the less expensive MT1810A has four slots and can be controlled via Ethernet from an external PC running dedicated control software. It is idea for manufacturing and inspection.

Using the MP1800A series with installed MU181000B, MU181000A/B-001, and MX180005A makes it easy to configure an automated system for measuring Jitter Tolerance of multi-channel CPU boards, PC boards, and optical devices forming interconnects in routers, servers, super computers, etc. Up to four channels can be measured in one-quarter the time of previous setups, greatly improving the efficiency Jitter Tolerance tests --- which have been a measurement bottleneck in speeding-up interconnect compatibility tests.

The MP1800A Signal Quality Analyzer series support automatic multi-channel measurement of Jitter Tolerance of CPU boards, PC boards, optical devices, etc., forming interconnects in routers, servers, super computers, etc., and eliminating bottlenecks in speeding-up interconnect compatibility tests.

*Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the USA and other countries.

Features & Benefits:
•Any wavelength from 850/ 1310/ 1550 nm is supported.
•Multi Channel
•Two optical interfaces: SFP and XFP
•Differential Electrical Interface
•43.5 Gbit/s BERTS can be configured when used in combination with the Anritsu 43.5 Gbit/s MUX/DEMUX.