This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission, which was the first time man walked on the moon. December 11th, 1972 was the last time that man set foot on the moon. This means that it has been over 45 years since man last walked on the moon. I say “man” here because out of the 12 humans who have set foot on the moon, all of them happened to be men. One would think that with all the technological and societal advancements that we have made since the 70s, we would have made it back to the moon again already, and we definitely would have landed a woman on the moon. But alas, NASA had to stop sending men to the moon because they no longer had the money to fund the costly missions. In fact, in today’s terms, the cost of the Apollo missions would be roughly $152 billion. Because NASA stopped sending people to the moon, we now have to pay Russia roughly $80 million per astronaut to send them to the International Space Station. Of course with prices like these, there are going to be plenty of people opposed to furthering space exploration, when the money could be put towards a different area of need.

Here’s the dilemma: do we give NASA more money so that they can send people to the moon again, or do we allocate that money to a more important area of need in the United States? We must ask ourselves if the end goal of getting to the Moon was dedicated to scientific exploration, or was America simply trying to beat the Soviets as a way to show dominance? Interestingly enough, the United States has actually come pretty close to using space as a way to show military dominance over the Soviets through a little operation called Project A119. This was a military initiative undergone by the U.S. Air Force whose purpose was to strike the moon with a nuclear bomb. Yeah, you read that right. During the Space Race and the height of the Cold War, the U.S. Air Force thought there was no better way to show off their power capabilities to the Soviet Union than by nuking the moon. They wanted the Soviets to be able to see the “mushroom cloud” of the nuclear blast from down on Earth, and thus, be struck with intense fear of the United States and its nuclear capabilities. Fortunately, the U.S. didn’t follow through with this plan since scientists determined that they would not receive the “mushroom cloud” reaction from the explosion that they would have wanted.

Thankfully, not everyone views space exploration as a means of promulgating military power like our current president does. Instead, there are people like Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, and Caroline Kennedy, daughter of John F. Kennedy, who have a more peaceful vision for the future of space exploration. In a recent interview with CBS, the Amazon CEO, supported by Kennedy, discussed his theory of The Great Inversion. He explains that currently we send things into space that are made on Earth, but through this Great Inversion, we will have highly manufactured products made in space and then sent back down to Earth. He gives the example of microprocessors as one of these products that would be helpful to have produced in space. Eventually, he believes that the Earth will be zoned solely residential, and that people will be able to choose between living on Earth or living somewhere else in space. If you think all of this sounds optimistic, wait until you hear what’s in store for Bezos’s aerospace company, Blue Origin.

Founded almost 20 years ago, Bezos’s Blue Origin has become one of the top tech companies to achieve many advancements in the field of space travel. Ever since Bezos was in high school, he has believed that the Earth is finite, and in order for the world economy and population to keep expanding, space exploration is the way to go. In fact, Jeff Bezos is so optimistic about space travel, that he believes he will journey to space within his lifetime. He plans to do this by pioneering a new industry dedicated to space tourism. One of his first projects in this new field is that of the suborbital rocket system named New Shepard, after the first American who traveled into space, Alan Shepard.

Aboard New Shepard, passengers will experience an 11 minute flight just above the Kármán Line, the internationally recognized boundary between Earth’s atmosphere and the boundary of outer space. If this sounds like something you’d be willing to try, then I suggest you visit Blue Origin’s website and reserve your seat. That way, when tickets for the 11 minute journey into space go on sale, you can be first in line (along with the many other people who have already reserved their seat too of course). Additionally, on their website you can request to have a payload sent to space on New Shepard for research and technology purposes, but fair warning, this requires a lot of paperwork, so serious inquiries only!

Thus far, New Shepard has successfully flown 8 NASA payloads to space, completed 12 test flights, and most recently, it completed its sixth flight reusing the same rocket and capsule, which further emphasizes the importance of reusability to Blue Origin. As previously mentioned, space travel costs a lot of money, but Bezos believes that we can make it cheaper by creating reusable rockets. In fact, next in store for Blue Origin is New Glenn, a heavy-lift launch vehicle named after the first American to orbit the Earth, John Glenn. Like New Shepard, New Glenn is designed to carry both research payloads and people, but it is expected to have a lifetime of at least 25 missions, and is twice as big as any existing rocket. Thus far, $2.5 billion has been invested in New Glenn, and its first mission is set to take place in 2021. Of course this is a large sum of money, but when you’re the CEO of Amazon, it’s simple.

Since this year is the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, we can’t help but wonder, when are humans returning to the moon? Well according to the Trump administration, Americans will be back on the moon by the year 2024. In order to help NASA achieve this goal, Jeff Bezos and his company have designed a lunar landing module called Blue Moon. But, Bezos’s plan is not to just go to the moon and come right back. Instead, he envisions a lunar colony as the first step in his greater plan to have humans live in outer space. Blue Moon’s framework is essential to achieving this dream, since the landing module is powered by liquid hydrogen, meaning that it is able to be refueled upon landing, since NASA has confirmed the presence of ice found on the moon. Bezos is so optimistic about humans living in outer space that he envisions humans living in O’Neill Colonies, which were first introduced by American physicist Gerard K. O’Neill. These colonies are basically spinning structures that feature agricultural areas, high speed transportation, and even entire cities, all floating in a giant cylinder in outer space. Bezos has described the climate in these cylinders as like “Maui on it’s best day all year long.” Who wouldn’t want to live in such a place? Well, this doesn’t really matter to anyone reading this right now, since we will be long gone by the time these O’Neill Colonies could even be put into use.

On a brighter note, something that we might be able to witness within our lifetime is humans on Mars! NASA actually plans to have boots on Mars by the 2030s. When it comes to private companies though, Bezos is focused on space tourism and going to the moon, whereas, Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX, is more determined to get humans to Mars. Founded in 2002, the goal of SpaceX as stated on their website is to “enable people to live on other planets,” the first of which being Mars. Elon Musk believes that if he could make the cost of flying to Mars equivalent to the cost of buying a $500,000 home in California, then he thinks that there would be enough people willing to buy a ticket, that humans could eventually inhabit Mars. Like Bezos, many of Musk’s aspirations may sound impossible, but we have to remember that at some point in time, humans thought it impossible to put a man on the moon.

But at the end of the day, we must ask ourselves, is the goal to send humans to Mars, or is the goal to colonize Mars? Should we be fixing our own problems here on this planet before we destroy another one? With these questions in mind, one can only wonder, is all of this just a big waste of money? Should we be using the one billion dollar yearly budget that Blue Origin has on something else? Even back when man landed on the moon 50 years ago, there were concerns that the money the U.S. government was spending on space exploration could be better spent. A man named Ralph Abernathy coordinated a group of 500 people at the Kennedy Space Center days before the Apollo 11 launch, as a way to protest the government’s spending on the project, since there were starving children out on the streets. Another reason why people might be hesitant to top companies like Blue Origin and SpaceX making rapid advancements is because there is a possibility that the U.S. government will view these advancements as possible tools of war, like they almost did with the Soviets. But then again, that’s what the Space Force is for, right?

To wrap up this article on a somewhat lighter note, here’s a short list of 10 things you might not have known about the missions to the moon:

1. As a member of the Apollo 14 mission, Alan Shepard became the first man to hit a golf ball on the moon.
2. On the moon, if you were to drop a hammer and a feather at the same time, they would fall to the surface at the same speed.
3. The Apollo 11 crew took remnants of fabric and a small piece of wood from the original Wright Flyer to the moon.
4. Buzz Aldrin took the Holy Communion once Apollo 11 landed on the moon before Armstrong took his famous first step.
5. President Nixon had a statement already written in case the Apollo 11 mission didn’t go as planned, and the astronauts died on the mission.
6. A Jamestown cargo tag from a ship that traveled from England to the New World in 1611 flew to the ISS and back on the 400th anniversary of the colony.
7. The light-saber used by Luke Skywalker in Return of the Jedi was sent to orbit aboard Space Shuttle Discovery to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars trilogy.
8. Commander Mark Polansky took a teddy bear to the moon that was a replica of one owned by a Holocaust survivor.
9. Astronaut Satoshi Furukawa built a Lego replica of the International Space Station while aboard the International Space Station itself.
10. Astronauts trained for walking on the moon in zero gravity by being suspended sideways and walking on a slanted wall.

The post Our Newest Challenge in Space: Privatizing the Delivery and Return of Human Beings appeared first on Occasional Planet.

In 1985, three British scientists working at the British Antarctic Survey stunned the world when they discovered that at certain times of the year a hole opened up in the stratospheric ozone layer above the South Pole. Their observations, backed up by data provided by NASA satellites, were published in Nature magazine in that same year.

Subsequent studies demonstrated that chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), used at the time in air-conditioning and refrigeration systems as well as in aerosol sprays, were tearing open a hole in earth’s ozone layer, causing dangerous levels of ultraviolet, cancer-inducing radiation to reach the earth’s surface.

Just two years later, in August 1987, a unified global community rallied together and finalized The Montreal Protocol, which phased out the production and consumption of man-made ozone-depleting substances.  At the time, America’s Republican president, Ronald Reagan, encouraged the Senate to ratify the agreement, which it did.

In the speech he delivered at the signing, Reagan took the opportunity to underscore both the global nature of environmental challenges and the need for international cooperation. Here are his words:

“The Montreal Protocol is a model of cooperation. It is a product of the recognition and international consensus that ozone depletion is a global problem, both in terms of its causes and its effects.”

This historic agreement—ratified at a time when science still held sway over at least some of public policy—has been hailed as “one of the most successful multilateral agreements in history.”

Before the 2016 election that brought Donald Trump to the White House, preceding administrations had affirmed America’s commitment by joining the international community and agreeing to additional amendments to the protocol. The fifth and most recent amendment, called the Kigali Amendment, was negotiated as late as 2016 with the full support of the Obama administration.

The Kigali Amendment proposes to phase down the production and consumption worldwide of hydro-fluorocarbons (HFCs), which have been used as a substitute in refrigeration and air conditioning since the phase-out of CFCs mandated by the Montreal Protocol. As understanding of climate science has advanced, it’s been proven that HFCs are greenhouse gases that are more potent than carbon dioxide in warming the atmosphere.

Currently, thirteen Republican senators, led by Louisiana’s John Kennedy and Maine’s Susan Collins, have recommended that the Trump administration support their efforts to gain support for ratification of the Kigali Amendment. Tragically, even with the support of the refrigeration and air-conditioning industries and projections of increased manufacturing jobs and significant export growth, the Trump administration is slow walking the proposal and calling for more study on the issue.

Good news

In the big picture, The Montreal Protocol proves that a firm and long-term commitment by the international community to science-based responses to climate change can achieve significant results. According to multiple studies, including one released at the end of 2018 by the United Nations entitled “Scientific Assessment of Ozone Depletion 2018” and another completed by NASA, thirty years after implementation of The Montreal Protocol, the phased elimination of CFCs has done exactly what the scientists had hoped it would. The ozone layer is now on the path to recovery.

And there’s even better news. The Montreal Protocol’s Scientific Assessment Panel now projects that the ozone layer will see almost complete recovery by the middle of the twenty-first century.

That’s great news for the global community. With full, continuing implementation, this still-groundbreaking agreement will have long-lasting health and environmental benefits. It’s estimated that:

• 280 million cases of skin cancer will be avoided.
• Approximately 1.6 million skin cancer deaths will be prevented.
• More than 45 million cases of cataracts will be avoided in the U.S. alone.
• Decreased ultraviolet radiation will prevent reduced agricultural output and the disruption of marine ecosystems.

To view a video on the science of ozone, CFCs, and HFCs, watch here.

The post The Montreal Protocol: Saving Earth’s vital ozone layer appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Awakened recently at four and then six in the morning by the clanking and booming of salt trucks and snow plows lumbering outside my windows,  my restless mind wondered how previous generations in the Northeast, where I now live, coped with keeping their lives on track and the roads and byways open during the snowy, bone-chilling days of winters past.

Life was different then—slower and shorter. But not so different that we wouldn’t recognize the same daily challenges of winter, like stocking up on fuel to heat homes, traveling to work, putting food on the table, getting the kids off to school.

Those early-morning, cold-weather musings led me to consider the history of some of the inventions and innovations we often ignore and take for granted, like snow plows and snow clearing.

From historic accounts we know that early settlers of the New World encountered winters that were far more extreme than the winters they’d left behind. Many didn’t survive, but those that did adapted and, ultimately, thrived. The story of coping with snow and its effects on daily living—and even on survival—is the story of the recognition of interdependence, cooperative effort, planning, adaptation, and slow but steady technical innovation.

Adaptation and innovation

In late February and early March in the second decade of the eighteenth century, the New England snowstorm that became known as the Great Snow of 1717 dumped four to six feet of snow, with drifts reaching twenty-five feet high. Historic accounts document how townspeople labored collectively to dig tunnels between their homes—tunnels that ultimately lasted until spring melt. Mail delivery, the lifeblood of communities at the time, was nearly halted but resumed when young boys, sloshing over the snow on snowshoes, doggedly made their way through the snow-covered landscape. Life and commerce continued through grit and determination. Shovels, manual labor, and the strength and endurance of sturdy bodies working together were the engines that conquered the snow.

In the era of horse-drawn vehicles and the acceleration of town and city dwelling, snow cover became an asset rather than an obstacle, as horse-drawn wagons and carriages were fitted with ski-like runners. Like today’s annual ritual of the changing of regular tires to snow tires, in those days it was off with the wheels and on with the runners. This clever adaptation led to one of the first major mechanical innovations—the horse-drawn snow roller, which flattened the snow to enable the runners to glide more smoothly over the surface.

The 1840s saw the first snow-plow patents for horse-drawn plows, the first of which was deployed In Milwaukee in 1862. In larger cities, like New York and Chicago, city planners were slow to understand the effects of snow removal on daily living and commerce. They failed to realize that as snow was plowed and removed from major thoroughfares, the smaller streets and shops were blocked by the resulting mountains of snow. It was only when lawsuits were brought by disgruntled business owners and residents that city planners were forced to deploy horse-drawn carts and hire legions of workers to hand shovel the mounds into the carts for removal.

The blizzard of 1888 encouraged the development of more comprehensive snow-removal plans, foreshadowing the nearly military-like strategic planning and deployment of equipment and personnel of modern times. It was around that time that it finally dawned on officials in towns and cities that plowing couldn’t be delayed until the storms had passed but needed to start as the storms began.

The twentieth century saw accelerated experimentation and greater strides in snow removal—experiments such as the failed attempts to attach plows to electric trolleys.

More successful strategies, however, were on the way. In 1913, New York City developed the first motorized dump truck. In the 1920s, Chicago introduced a snow loader that was equipped with a giant scoop and conveyor belt.

In the second half of the twentieth century, with the innovations of space travel snow removal was transformed with the advent of satellites that allowed for more accurate forecasting that encouraged better and earlier planning.

Today, the next generation of innovation is already here with driverless, remotely operated snow plows for clearing airport runways, and under-pavement electric, hydraulic, and solar-powered systems for melting snow and ice on driveways, bridges, walkways, parking garages, loading ramps and stairways.

The post Conquering snow, old-style appeared first on Occasional Planet.

These days, there’s an app for just about everything—even for being a refugee. According to the United Nations High Command on Refugees [UNHCR], apps and websites have become a common tool for refugee assistance.

It all started several years ago, when aid workers realized that the vast majority of displaced Syrians were using smartphones. That’s when aid organizations began partnering with developers to create free apps aimed at helping refugees navigate the complexities of starting a new life in unfamiliar territory. According to a recent article in The Atlantic, the most successful of the resulting technologies are helping refugees gather crucial information, reconnect with lost relatives, and establish a legal identity in new countries.

Here’s an incomplete rundown on what’s out there, which ones are working best, and some examples of failures:

What’s out there

The most useful apps and websites are the result of collaborations among well-established aid agencies, says UNHCR:

Refugeeinfo.eu is an online platform providing useful information to refugees making their way through Europe, including services provided by local NGOs and details regarding asylum processes. The website, which is the result of a partnership between Mercy Corps, Google and The International Rescue Committee among others, currently receives up to 3,000 visitors per day.

Refugee Aid app collects and shows information on the location of services provided by humanitarian agencies in several European countries, thus helping aid providers coordinate their efforts, and refugees locate points of assistance. The app has been built in collaboration with several organizations including the British and Italian Red Cross, Save the Children and Médecins du Monde.

Many other apps exist as well—created by well-meaning developers and organizations—but it can be hard to gauge their effectiveness. At Apps For Refugees, you’ll find a variety of options, including:

First-contact.org, a website that “provides refugees with essential information during their journey. It covers data and information about NGOs and situation reports about all countries in Asia andd Europe, refugees might pass through.Countries covered: Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia, Austria, Germany, Greece. Available in Arabic, English and Pashto.

InfoAid  an app with “up to date information for refugees on their way through south-east Europe. It covers all countries on the Balkan route, including updates about the situation at the borders, weather reports for the Turkish Sea, ferry strikes, transportation information, security advisories, information for children traveling alone and many more topics.”

Scanbot, an app that allows refugees to “scan all their important documents with a smartphone and store them as PDF local or in the cloud. Free App and free storage.”

Refunite,  “a web-based platform whose mission is to reconnect refugee families across the globe with missing loved ones.” The organization has projects in 9 countries: Kenya, Uganda, South Sudan, Somalia, Jordan, Turkey, Iraq, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Philippines.

But some of the sites on Apps for Refugees—as well as others not listed on the site—have proven to be failures, says UNHCR:

Take Refoodgee, an app launched by Berlin-based startup Memorado to connect newly arrived refugees with locals through food. It’s been praised by the media, but the app hasn’t been updated for months and only counts a few hundreds users. Refugees Welcome has been dubbed the “AirBnB for refugees” because it pairs refugees looking for a temporary place to stay with hosts in European cities. But one of the app’s employees told the Huffington Post the service couldn’t find enough hosts to keep up with the demand. The number of rooms listed on the app decreased significantly after an initial spike, she explained.

Then there are more blatant cases of failures. The “I Sea” app claimed to allow its users to scour the Mediterranean to spot migrant ships in distress by showing real-time satellite images. But the live feed turned out to be nothing more than a static image of the ocean, and the app was shut down after much uproar.

Why well-intentioned apps fail

“In many cases, well-intended developers find themselves confronted with the realities of operating in an unfamiliar and challenging context,” says UNHCR. Most developers are not prepared for the logistics of working in emergencies. Many agencies have to be involved. And refugees have virtually no internet access.

Another problem is that developers may assume that convenience will make an app successful. What they don’t understand, says UNHCR, is how refugees actually function day-today.

One clear example of this is the multiplication of information-sharing apps aimed at listing useful data such as access points for food, healthcare, or border crossings. We’ve noticed that refugees still prefer to speak with UNHCR staff and partners face-to-face, even when this information is made available online. That’s because rumors, changing rules and regulations, and fluctuating asylum policies have led refugees to seek accurate and up-to-date information from trusted sources. An app built by an outside developer may do little to fill that trust gap.

The future of refugee apps

Looking ahead, many emerging technologies could have applications that would help refugees. For example,

Red Cross and Red Crescent societies have their own reconnection initiative, called Trace the Face. It publishes pictures online of people looking for missing relatives and lets them search photos that others have posted of themselves, filtering by criteria like gender, age, and country of origin. Before long, facial-recognition software could transform this database and others like it into advanced people-finding machines.

Biometric identification tools hold promise, too:

Refugees who want to establish a legal identity in a new country confront countless obstacles—they may have fled without their birth certificate, for instance, if they ever had one. So the UNHCR Biometric Identity Management System, active in 25 countries, collects fingerprints, iris scans, and photographs, and can link them to citizenship records and dates of birth.

Undoubtedly, technology can be useful in humanitarian crises like the ongoing refugee debacle. But the best hope for helping refugees is, of course, to stop creating more of them.

The post Apps for refugees: merging technology and humanitarianism appeared first on Occasional Planet.

It looks like Trump-appointee Ajit Pai over at the FCC is setting his sights on unraveling regulations that guarantee net neutrality.

This radical change would mark a reversal of strong net-neutrality protections put into place during the Obama administration by former FCC chairman Tom Wheeler. The history of how open Internet advocates won the first-round fight for net neutrality and defeated paid prioritization is revealing. After initial missteps in 2014, when Wheeler’s proposal to allow companies like Comcast, AT&T, and Verizon to create pay-to-play fast lanes caused massive online protests and pushback from the tech industry, the future of the open Internet seemed assured. At the time, open-Internet advocates cheered Wheeler on when he reversed course and decided to base net-neutrality rules on Title II of the Communications Act of 1939.

How times have changed. The Trump administration is engaged in a frenzied destruction of a host of Obama-era regulatory protections. It looks like net neutrality may be next on the list. It’s been reported that FCC Chairman Pai has been huddling with telecom lobbyists representing AT&T, Comcast, Charter, Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. These meetings and Pai’s statements to the press seem to be signaling that the chairman is setting the stage for a policy shift that would favor the bottom line of the telecom giants over the interests of everyone else—meaning the interests of every other sector in the economy. In lock step with the broadband industry, Pai has consistently stated his dissatisfaction with the Title II designation, which classifies broadband companies as utilities and subjects them to utility-like regulation.

Reporting from Recode, an online tech blog, indicates that Pai may be considering voluntary compliance to ensure open access. Let’s be honest. That’s a joke by any objective standard. Pai needs to produce a single example of a corporate giant voluntarily deferring on potential profits as well as a commitment by the Trump administration to tough enforcement before voluntary compliance can be taken seriously. This is how Recode reports on the direction Pai may be considering:

“Under Pai’s early blueprint, Internet providers could be encouraged to commit in writing that they won’t slow down or block Internet traffic. If they break that promise, they could be penalized by another agency, the Federal Trade Commission, which can take action whenever companies deceive consumers.”

The issue of net neutrality is the fight that won’t go away. After all, we now live in a world where literally everything depends on affordable, open access to Internet service. The players and the stakes are high. The fight for open access pits the telecom giants in a struggle with the tech industry and the public at large.

What is net neutrality and why does it inspire such passion? Net neutrality is the principle that the Internet should remain a level playing field for all users. Net neutrality preserves the rights of all users to communicate freely online, and net neutrality has been the engine for fostering a new and robust online marketplace.

Who benefits from net neutrality? The answer is everyone and everything except the Internet service providers. Net neutrality fosters job growth, competition, and innovation. It’s essential for small-business owners, online retailers, entrepreneurs, and startups, for online job sites, streaming entertainment providers, free-speech advocates, students, and political, social, and arts groups that lack access to mainstream media.

When it passed rules to protect net neutrality, the Obama administration was hardly a radical outlier in understanding the economic, social, and political benefits of an open Internet. As you can see in the map below, the rest of the connected world understands as well—the exceptions being Russia and China where suppression of free speech is the norm, and net neutrality threatens government control of political dissent.

The American tech industry is another player that understands what’s at stake in this fight. This is how a spokesperson for the Internet Association, a lobbying group for Silicon Valley tech companies, summed up the industry’s battle readiness to fight for strong net neutrality protections and against paid prioritization:

“Internet companies are ready to fight to maintain strong net neutrality protections in any forum. ISPs [Internet service providers] must not be allowed to meddle with people’s right to access content and services online, and efforts to weaken net neutrality rules are bad for consumers and innovation.”

What happens if the service providers win this round and we lose net neutrality? Here’s a short list of what could happen, and it’s pretty grim.

Open access would disappear, and innovation would be stymied. Free speech could be curtailed. Cable and phone companies could create Internet fast and slow lanes and slow down or block Internet traffic as they choose. The fast- and slow-lane system would effectively create online winners and losers. Extra charges could be levied to content companies that could afford to pay for faster speeds and preferential access, thus limiting competition. Those extra charges would be passed on to all of us, and the cost of Internet service would increase for consumers and small businesses. Internet service providers could slow down competitors’ content and block political or social opinions the provider might disagree with.

So get ready everyone. Round two is about to begin.

The post Net Neutrality: Round Two appeared first on Occasional Planet.

“If I had foreseen Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I would have torn up my formula in 1905.” –Albert Einstein.

Next month, “Fallout 4,” a highly-anticipated video game releases. Dealing with various Americans a couple centuries after nuclear war, the Fallout series is known for its strong writing, dark humor, and bleak outlook. “War never changes,” Ron Pearlman bitterly narrates over each game’s introduction. The player character is never able to save the world or return it to what it was. Only slow progress is possible, and only if the player character chooses benevolent options. One entry’s entire quest involves bringing clean water to the inhabitants of DC. Not only does the most recent entry release soon, but we also approach the date in the Fallout universe on which nuclear war broke out: October 23, 2077, the games explain, sees a nuclear exchange between the United States and China that ends life as we know it in a mere two hours.

Some real-life anniversaries accompany this: 2015 is the 70th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as well as the founding of the United Nations, intended to prevent another war capable of destroying the planet. The reason I bring this up (besides my love of video games) is that despite popular perceptions, nuclear disarmament is still a prevalent issue in today’s world. Here are some possibilities for the use or exchange of nuclear weapons:

• First, there is the ever-present fear, not unjustified, that a terrorist group could gain control of a nuclear weapon. As Fareed Zakaria points out in The Future of Freedom, nuclear weapons existed 70 years ago, the era of black-and-white televisions, rotary phones, and no commercial air traffic: The science of creating a nuclear weapon is not so complicated by today’s standards.

• Religious nationalists in India have recently taken power. Under Modi, Pakistan is unstable and beset by its own religious extremists, and both still claim Kashmir.

• North Korea is always as volatile as its current autocrat. It has a tiny stockpile of nukes, but their unpredictability worries world leaders across the globe.

• President Obama, along with other heads of state, is to be congratulated for negotiating the nuclear deal with Iran. However, hardline elements in Iran are still pro-expansion, which is worrying. There is also the outside possibility of an exchange with the State of Israel.

• The United States and Russia are currently at odds over the conflict in Ukraine.

Thankfully, none of these conflicts is particularly likely to escalate into nuclear war, but they are worth considering and keeping an eye on.

I should also point out our own extremists: Senator Jon Kyl nearly undermined the New START treaty with Russia in 2010/2011. His cooperation was secured only with massive pork-barrel projects for his state and a promise of tens of billions of dollars in nuclear modernization. John Bolton, meanwhile, took what appeared to be a pro-nuke stance in a New York Times piece. All this despite the fact that the United States has the most nuclear weapons on high alert in the world (closely followed by Russia, which has more nukes but fewer on high alert).

The threat of nuclear exchange did not end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. It may not be the most pressing problem in the world, but peace activists should continue to work towards a world free of the threat of nuclear destruction.

Check out Isao Hashimoto’s visual representation of every nuclear explosion from 1945 to 1998.

The post “Fallout” [the game] and fallout [the nuclear reality] appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Just a quick chuckle at the expense of St.Louis’ new Ballpark Village, the taxpayer-subsidized bar-and-restaurant venue that adds very little to downtown St. Louis, except for more revenue for the already wealthy owners of the St. Louis Cardinals baseball team:

I’ve just read that Ball Park Village will be hosting a tech conference in September. I find that amusing. Why? Because last week, when I lost my previously avowed Ballpark Village virginity [I swore I wouldn’t support it, but…poof!], I opened the Google app on my iPhone to do a little research over my grilled cheese sandwich and fries at the Cardinals Nation restaurant. When the free internet connection didn’t appear automatically, I asked our server if there was, indeed, free wi-fi in the restaurant. There’s not, she said, because it interferes with the restaurant’s internet credit-card system.

So, there it is. Ballpark Village is hosting a tech conference, featuring some very fast-forward tech companies, in a place where they can’t figure out how to have wi-fi and swipe credit cards at the same time.  Oh, and by the way, the conference is called “Startup Voodoo.” Tee hee.

[Thanks, Arthur Lieber, for the news tip.]

The post Ballpark Village’s technical oxymoron appeared first on Occasional Planet.

People marching in lines. Banners, signs and paraphernalia everywhere. A familiar scene at rallies and protests. At first glance, little beside the intensity has changed since the late nineteenth century when the street first became the stage.

Yet, take another look. The seasoned activists march with their chins raised high. The youth, on the other hand, keep their heads bowed and hug their smart phones. Tweet must be sent. Confirm. A photo is shared. If a protest is not tweeted, did it even take place?

We increasingly consume  information online and use social media for political rants. It’s fair to ask, then: Should we still be marching and protesting in physical space? Riots and rallies seem like phenomena of the distant past.

Enter the digital age. There #Kony2012 awaits. It was a masterfully orchestrated campaign by Invisible Children, a San Diego based group, which caught the world’s attention in 2012 and spawned numerous debates. Few still remember what this was all about (fyi, they have yet to catch that Kony guy). Now, it’s just a case study on how to tap into millennials’ idealism and meet them where they are: online.

The secret to their success is rather simple. Mix sleek graphics with a thirty-minute video laying out the issue in simple terms. Add some punchy lines and a memorable title,  then blast the message via social media. The Invisible Children capitalized on our obsessions with power and fame. They first nudged ‘validators’ of popular culture to tweet and share their simple message. From there, the grassroots took note and kept sharing away. Instantly, the media latched onto the story and spun it through the never-ending news cycle

But the droves of virtual protestors didn’t translate into meaningful change. On the contrary, if you visit the Invisible Children’s website today you will hear Lisa Dougan, Director of Civic Engagement, say “you can’t have a movement without moving.” The group recognized that mobilizing people in physical space is crucial.

Tweets don’t topple dictators; crowds in Tahrir can confirm that. The number of likes doesn’t correlate with the power of the movement. The Green Movement activists in Iran know this best. But when labor activists left the assembly line, there was quite a stir. The suffrage movement was effective because women banded together and marched, even when the bystanders yelled: “Where are your skirts?”  The marriage equality movement is real in some states not because we changed our Facebook profile pictures to equal and red. The movement exists because we continue to wage prolonged legal battles and bear witness to lives lost and love forbidden.

To march and rally is to build a community. Human touch and personal connections are becoming a rare commodity in our tech-enhanced world. The warmth of human bodies gives us strength and courage. Our voices echo louder when we are in a group. Even when there is no one to hear our chant, our cause will live on if we gather.

Yet, we must not become luddites, either. The job of a modern-day activist is to build a strong community using all available tools. We must tweet, record, post and share. Also, let’s not be afraid to test out new advocacy tools, such as Thunderclap – “crowd-speaking” platform amplifying ideas online. The audience no longer looks through the window for news or consults the community board. Instead, they stare at the screen, laugh at lolcats, and subscribe to updates in real time.

Will the new digitally enhanced efforts reap results? The answer is unclear. Decision-makers listen to the whispers of the special interests, while turning the volume of the masses down. We cannot let them get away with it. Instead, let’s turn up the pressure both offline and in the yet-uncharted digital advocacy realm.

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Speed up. Slow down. Block.

Assuming that the above five words are nothing more than a description of Super Bowl tactics would be incorrect. That’s because the words also define tactics the largest Internet service providers (ISPs)—Verizon, Comcast, AT&T, and Time Warner Cable—might soon be using to bolster their bottom line. This radical change to the way in which Internet service comes into our homes, schools, and businesses follows the recent decision by a federal-appeals court to strike down the FCC’s rules governing net neutrality.

To understand what was at stake that day in court, it’s important to understand what net neutrality means. It’s “the principle that Internet service providers should enable access to all content and applications regardless of the source, and without favoring or blocking particular products or websites.”

Now that we’ve got the definition cleared up, let’s rewind the action a bit. That means taking a look at what happened last month in the courtroom of Judge David Tatel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Judge Tatel ruled against the FCC in a case brought by lawyers for Verizon. That decision effectively invalidated the FCC’s application of open-Internet, or net-neutrality, rules that historically have prevented Internet service providers from prioritizing speed and limiting access to content and user applications.

As of today, net neutrality is out. Preferential access is in. If the court’s decision is the final word, Internet users with money to spend will be treated to having their data moved to the head of the line. The rest of us will be sitting in front of our screens tapping our fingers (or worse) in frustration over slower access speeds and may even find ourselves blocked out of content one or more of the ISPs may deem objectionable.

So unless the FCC takes action, ISPs will now be free to cut exclusive deals with cable, television, online retailers, and streaming companies to prioritize Internet traffic. This could lead to a multi-tiered system of up charges and data tracks. There would be slow and fast lanes. Slow lanes would be for companies, organizations, and individuals that can’t afford to get in on the deals. Those poor cousins of the Internet might include schools, libraries, universities, nonprofits, artists posting creative content, researchers using Google and other search engines, activist organizations, small businesses, and start-ups. Fast lanes would be reserved for the largest corporations and the wealthy who could afford to ante up for the privilege.

The implications of Judge Tatel’s decision are broad. The decision threatens to destroy both the level playing field Internet users have enjoyed for more than a decade and open access to the explosion of information sharing. It threatens to increase everyone’s costs for using the Internet. As one writer at the Free Press put it, the disappearance of net neutrality will mean that “the Internet as we know it could be a relic of the past.”

As Michael Copps, former FCC commissioner from 2001 to 2011 and now a public-interest advocate at Common Cause, explains, the loss of net neutrality will mean “playing fast and loose with the most opportunity-creating technology in all of communications history.”

But don’t despair just yet. There is an opening for the FCC that allows the agency to stay in the game. Fortunately, Judge Tatel’s decision actually affirmed two vital concepts: first, the decision upheld the concept of net neutrality as a matter of principle; and, second, it upheld the FCC’s ability to reclassify ISPs as common carriers (the same classification given to companies providing telephone service), which would allow the FCC to apply its rules of net neutrality.

Here’s former FCC commissioner Copps explaining how the FCC can reverse the “flawed decision” it made ten years ago when it classified broadband service as an information service rather than a common carrier and left itself open to the devastating decision in Judge Tatel’s courtroom.

The good news is that the solution is pretty simple. It doesn’t require a new telecommunications statute replete with time-consuming years of legislative horse-trading and special interest lobbying. All it requires is an FCC big enough to own up to its previous mistakes and courageous enough to put our communications future back on track.

Current FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler has not ruled out reclassification but hasn’t shown much enthusiasm for it in his public statements. His official statement following the court’s decision broadly reaffirmed the Obama administration’s commitment to “consider all available options, including those for appeal, to ensure that these networks on which the Internet depends continue to provide a free and open platform for innovation and expression, and operate in the interest of all Americans.”

If, however, the FCC and Chairman Wheeler fail to reclassify ISPs as common carriers, Copps warns that “we are guaranteeing an Internet future of toll-booths, gatekeepers and preferential carriage.”

Even with the setback of the court’s decision, it’s certainly not time to throw in the towel. After all, Internet users are potentially the largest interest group in the country. A few weeks ago a petition sponsored by eighty-six organizations, including the ACLU, Common Cause, Reddit, Avaaz, the Free Press, The Writers Guild of America, Ms. Foundation for Women, and Daily Kos, collected more than one million signatures and was delivered to FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler. The petition declared:

Right now there is no one protecting Internet users from ISPs that block or discriminate against online content. Companies like AT&T, Time Warner Cable and Verizon will be able to block or slow down any website, application or service they like. And they’ll be able to create tiered pricing structures with fast lanes for content providers and speakers who can afford the tolls—and slow lanes for everyone else.

I’m here to remind you, fellow Internet users, that those one million signatures were a drop in the bucket compared to the more than 207 million of us. If every one of us would step away from the screen for a few minutes and get in the game by calling the people who were elected to represent us and demanding they and the FCC protect net neutrality and stop catering to the narrow interests of the corporate world, we could win this one.

Here’s Internet blogger Mark Fiore’s satirical take on the Internet’s future if we allow the court’s decision to stand.

Goodbye Net Neutrality, Hello Gilded Age Internet from MarkFiore on Vimeo.

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“The government this.” “The government that.” These are often the lead-ins for criticisms from right-winger malcontents. To them, it is as if the government is a monolith made up of demons who are secretly plotting to undermine everyone and everything that they value.

From a bird’s eye view, this is silly. Most of the government’s work is to ensure that we – all 318 million of us – are able to live together in a way that minimizing disorganization and suffering while maximizing safety, well-being, and freedom. There is a different but equally valid view of the government from “boots on the ground” where there are 2.7 million federal employees, the lowest figure in 47 years. Are they what some right-wingers think, agents of the devil seeking to insidiously destroy our lives? Hardly. Most are very conscientious hard-working individuals who do their best to provide needed goods and services, often to a public which gripes and complains to and about them.

Sam (not his real name) has worked for the U.S. Postal Service for over thirty years. He has several more years to go until he’s eligible for his full pension. He may not be your ordinary letter-carrier, because he spends a good deal of time thinking about the well-being of his country. He obviously wants what is best for him and his family, but it troubles him that the Postal Service does not have as its primary goal to provide the best possible service to the public. He sees problem number one as the Service being so top-heavy with bureaucrats. It hasn’t always been that way, but in recent years the number of administrators has grown. It’s expanded so fast that many bureaucrats do not have full-time jobs, in the sense that they don’t have constructive things to do in an eight-hour day. Given that situation, they often expand their job description to find better ways for carriers to do the job. This can also be called meddling.

Does this remind you of anything? It’s like education where we have far too many administrators who have little to do but interfere with teachers doing the teaching. [In the United States there are now as many non-teaching personnel in our public schools as teachers.]

Sam says that immediate supervisors understand what carriers do on a day-to-day basis. Many of these individuals have walked or driven a route. They know the difference between promoting efficiency and engaging in trouble-making.

But those in upper management are the ones who trouble Sam and many of his colleagues. At this level there are few administrators who previously have been “boots on the ground.” Sam says that some of them might want to promote sensible rules and regulations, but they are often forbidden from doing so because those above them believe in top-down management. It may make sense to them for postal workers to arrive for work at 8:00 AM, but the carriers know they need to arrive at 6:00 AM to successfully complete delivering the mail in a timely fashion.

It is difficult for a letter-carrier to actually become an administrator. He or she must complete a test. The objective part of the exam is fair, but the one big essay question leads to subjective grading and thus unfairness in promotions. It’s like systemic atrophy which makes it most difficult for the rank and file who have management skills to rise in the system.

Sam points out that things were complicated in 2006 when a Republican Congress with President George W. Bush passed and unprecedented bill which required to Postal Service to fully fund its pension. The Service has until 2016 to fully fund the retirement fund for the next seventy years. No other governmental agency has such a mandate and no known corporation lives under the burden of having this expense item in its annual budgets. Sam thinks that the Republicans want to make it impossible for the Postal Service to remain financially viable. That would mean cut-backs on service which would mean more public complaints which in turn would lead to Republicans trying to privatize the Service. He sees this as just one of many areas where the Republicans want to disassemble the government by privatizing it. It also troubles him that most of his fellow carriers do not see the politics behind so many of the decisions that make their lives more difficult while raising public frustration.

Many Democrats are fighting to strengthen the Postal Service, but it’s a difficult fight. Most members of Congress have somewhat of a blind eye to issues of bloated administrations and it is unlikely that they would try to achieve needed savings in the Service by trimming the bureaucracy. In the meantime, the service needs new equipment, particularly the mechanical mail sorters that use twenty-year old technology and are mechanically breaking down. Other equipment in need of modernization include scanners and vehicles.

Sam is glad that in recent years private carriers such as UPS and FedEx have then teamed with the Postal Service to streamline point-of-delivery service. The Postal Service has an advantage over private carriers in that it must deliver to every address in America. By paying the Postal Service to handle the last step of delivery, UPS, FedEx, and other private carriers are putting needed cash in the coffers of the USPS.

Sam would like to see the Postal Service adopt some of the efficiencies that make private carriers so effective in their work. The Service is not competing with UPS and FedEx for parcel delivery, but it could still make its delivery services more attractive to consumers.

When right-wingers speak venomously about the government, they might do well to exercise more discretion out of respect to the men and women throughout the government who work as hard as anyone in the private sector. They are engaged in making our democracy work in a fashion in which the term “public good” is regarded as a good thing. I’m thankful to Sam, who by the way is a man in uniform, for all he does including bringing creative thinking to his job along with a commitment to the principle of serving the public good.

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