George Rebane

It’s ALL in the algorithm.  Most of those who have the means to pay attention and are doing it know that AI is now on the march everywhere.  And suddenly everyone has concerns about AI taking human jobs – what difference a mere ten years makes.  Here we have talked about all this under the rubric of the pre-Singularity years in which we live.  Recently the tech crowd has had another reason to get excited about the latest algorithmic leap that will enable machines to get even smarter and faster.  The advance is called Sparse Fourier Transform (SFT) developed by (now Dr) Haitham Hassanieh and introduced in his award winning MIT doctoral dissertation.  So why get excited?  Well, the SFT computes the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) several times faster for most realworld data inputs like pictures, audio, data patterns, etc.  The FFT is one of civilization’s champion algorithm for improving our quality of life in everything from the music we hear to the movies we watch to the MRI images that diagnose our ills.  It’s also in the basis for enabling GPS and doing all kinds of real complex things that make possible leading edge military systems.  But the huge amounts of data now being thrown at FFT algos makes their ‘fast’ ability suddenly not seem so fast any more.  Enter Dr Hassanieh and his SFT which can extract meaningful information out of datasets several times faster than the FFT.  This will now allow big computers to really do new and marvelous things, and even make possible some mind-blowing apps on your smartphone.  Soon this stuff will also be in the public news.  (more here and here)

French brain drain.  Political analyst and former Paris correpondent for the Daily Telegraph, Philip Delves Broughton, reports that the relative nobody Macron recently became president of France simply because he had little or no competition as a center candidate given voters an alternative to the more risky Marine Le Pen.  As an ever more socialist state, over the last couple of decades France has driven its best brightest to foreign shores.  Broughton goes on to hopefully observe that “France’s brain drain has deprived the country of political talent.  Maybe Macron’s reforms can coax them back.”  His short piece (here) on this important social phenomenon should be a lesson to the rest of the developed countries, including the US, who continue to be swayed by socialism’s sadistic siren song.

China is suddenly stacking up its strategic metals and other commodity inventories.  And it’s doing that way beyond any reasonable projection of its normal industrial needs.  In the past countries have done that as preparation for war or as insurance against sanctions that may be imposed on them for planned bad behavior.  Its increasingly aggressive acts in both China seas must portend something that hopefully is not evading our intelligence services.  Stratfor synopsises its China update – For the past three decades, cheap exports and government-led investment have sustained economic growth in China. And in doing so, they have ensured political stability in one of the world’s largest and most populous countries. But leaders in Beijing understand that that model is unsustainable, and they have therefore begun to develop a new economic model, one built on consumption, an expanded services sector and technological innovation. The move from the old to the new will test the Communist Party’s will to reform and shake the very foundations on which its legitimacy stands.  When you sense your own weakness, you bolster domestic support by raising up foreign threats against which a united stand is necessary.  In the meantime China is actively reaching for world hegemon status by announcing its plan to (re)open overland commercial transport conduits across Asia to Europe and the Mideast along the lines of the fabled Silk Road.  Their antipodal approach here is stereotypically inscrutable. (more here)

[update]  That progressive ‘academics’ have essentially ruined today’s humanities and are making inroads into the hard sciences is known to most well-read people.  English columnist and novelist James Delingpole, who also contributes to Breitbart, recently penned this little piece (here) on the latest peer-reviewed hoax pulled on a gender studies journal.  “Gender studies is a fake academic industry populated by charlatans, deranged activists and gullible idiots.”  It’s a fun but sad read that also presents a new angle on what causes climate change.  And here’s what’s cooking at the American Mathematical Society to straighten out math education and answer that burning question, “What does it look like when everyone’s needs are valued?”  This read is guaranteed to cross your eyes.  Both pieces were brought to my attention by RR readers.

[21may17 update] President Trump’s speech in Riyadh – I think he hit it out of the park. He called out that civilization was fighting “a crisis in Islamist extremism”, and invited all Muslim countries to join in the fight to exterminate its terrorist agencies beginning with ISIS. He pointed out that Iran was fundamentally everyone’s enemy in its support of Islamic terrorism and its intent to dominate the Mideast as its new hegemon. I can’t fathom the omni-obeisant Obama ever coming close to making a speech like that and calling it like it is. And in the aftermath for the first time we are beginning to hear the notion of taqiyya (here) in conjunction with proponents of Islamic terror.  Taqiyya, a concept familiar to RR readers, is specific brand of lies and dissembling which is forgiven Muslims if used to promote the spread of Islam. Now let’s see how well our president does on this historic tightrope of a trip as he travels to Jerusalem.