Ad Astra: Musk’s School at SpaceX

June 26th, 2018

I had heard of Musk’s private school before, but I didn’t have a sense of what actually went on there. My wife and I are homeschooling three (soon to be four) children, so we are always on the lookout for interesting feats of pedagogy.

Via: Ars Technica:

In a corner of SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, California, a small, secretive group called Ad Astra is hard at work. These are not the company’s usual rocket scientists. At the direction of Elon Musk, they are tackling ambitious projects involving flamethrowers, robots, nuclear politics, and defeating evil AIs.

Those at Ad Astra still find time for a quick game of dodgeball at lunch, however, because the average age within this group is just 10 years old.

Ad Astra encompasses students, not employees. For the past four years, this experimental non-profit school has been quietly educating Musk’s sons, the children of select SpaceX employees, and a few high-achievers from nearby Los Angeles. It started back in 2014, when Musk pulled his five young sons out of one of Los Angeles’ most prestigious private schools for gifted children. Hiring one of his sons’ teachers, the CEO founded Ad Astra to “exceed traditional school metrics on all relevant subject matter through unique project-based learning experiences,” according to a previously unreported document filed with the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

“I just didn’t see that the regular schools were doing the things that I thought should be done,” he told a Chinese TV station in 2015. “So I thought, well let’s see what we can do. Maybe creating a school will be better.”

In an atmosphere closer to a venture capital incubator than a traditional school, today’s Ad Astra students undertake challenging technical projects, trade using their own currency, and can opt out of subjects they don’t enjoy. Children from 7 to 14 years old work together in teams, with few formal assessments and no grades handed out.

Ad Astra’s principal hopes that the school will revolutionize education in the same way Tesla has disrupted transportation, and SpaceX the rocket industry. But as Musk’s sons near graduation age, the future of Ad Astra is unclear. Will Musk maintain interest in the school once his children move on? And even if he does, can a school of fewer than 40 students ever be anything more than a high-tech crèche for already-privileged children?


Richard Dolan Interviews Catherine Austin Fitts: Missing Trillions and The Secret Space Program

June 26th, 2018

Via: Richard Dolan:


Senior Scientist at Allergan, Vaccine Researcher Shot to Death as He Slept Beside His Daughters at Remote Campsite

June 25th, 2018

Via: Heavy:

A 35-year-old California man was killed while camping with his daughters in Malibu Creek State Park and police are investigating the mysterious case as a homicide. No suspects have been identified. Tristan Beaudette was shot in the upper torso early in the morning of June 22, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a press release.

…

Tristan Beaudette was originally from Fresno. According to the Fresno Bee, Beaudette was a valedictorian at Edison High School in 2000. He graduated from the University of California San Diego in 2005 with a degree in chemistry, according to his Linkedin profile. Beaudette spent a year as a summer research intern at IBM. He then began pursuing his Ph.D in chemistry at UC Berkeley in 2005, completing his studies in 2010. He wrote a thesis entitled, “Synthesis and Biological Evaluation of Acid-Degradable Polymeric Materials for Protein-Based Vaccine,” a research project, ” focused on the design, synthesis, characterization, and implementation of acid-sensitive polymeric microparticulate and nanoparticulate vehicles for vaccine and drug delivery applications,” he wrote on Linkedin.

While at Berkeley, Beaudette was a graduate student instructor and worked on several research projects that were focused on pharmaceuticals and vaccines, according to his Linkedin profile. He wrote that he, “Synthesized polyacrylamide, polyacetal, and polysaccharide-based acid-degradable microparticles and used in vitro and in vivo techniques to characterize their ability to elicit cell-mediated immune responses for applications in vaccines and cancer therapy.” He also wrote, he, “Developed methods for chemoselective particle functionalization for use in targeted drug and gene delivery.” And, “Led a multidisciplinary team of chemists, immunologists, and biologists in an NIH-funded collaborative project involving the design of novel protein-based vaccine formulations,” while also composing, “multiple scientific research proposals. Presented and published graduate work at national conferences and in peer-reviewed journals.”

You can read his publications here.


A Team of AI Algorithms Just Crushed Humans in a Complex Computer Game

June 25th, 2018

Via: MIT Technology Review:

Five different AI algorithms have teamed up to kick human butt in Dota 2, a popular strategy computer game.

Researchers at OpenAI, a nonprofit based in California, developed the algorithmic A team, which they call the OpenAI Five. Each algorithm uses a neural network to learn not only how to play the game, but also how to cooperate with its AI teammates. It has started defeating amateur Dota 2 players in testing, OpenAI says.


NSA’s Wiretap Rooms in Eight U.S. Cities

June 25th, 2018

Via: The Intercept:

THE SECRETS ARE hidden behind fortified walls in cities across the United States, inside towering, windowless skyscrapers and fortress-like concrete structures that were built to withstand earthquakes and even nuclear attack. Thousands of people pass by the buildings each day and rarely give them a second glance, because their function is not publicly known. They are an integral part of one of the world’s largest telecommunications networks – and they are also linked to a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

Atlanta, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, Seattle, and Washington, D.C. In each of these cities, The Intercept has identified an AT&T facility containing networking equipment that transports large quantities of internet traffic across the United States and the world. A body of evidence – including classified NSA documents, public records, and interviews with several former AT&T employees – indicates that the buildings are central to an NSA spying initiative that has for years monitored billions of emails, phone calls, and online chats passing across U.S. territory.

The NSA considers AT&T to be one of its most trusted partners and has lauded the company’s “extreme willingness to help.” It is a collaboration that dates back decades. Little known, however, is that its scope is not restricted to AT&T’s customers. According to the NSA’s documents, it values AT&T not only because it “has access to information that transits the nation,” but also because it maintains unique relationships with other phone and internet providers. The NSA exploits these relationships for surveillance purposes, commandeering AT&T’s massive infrastructure and using it as a platform to covertly tap into communications processed by other companies.

Flashback: Mark Klein


Pentagon Prepares to Create Temporary Camps for Illegal Immigrants at Two Bases

June 24th, 2018

Via: Reuters:

The U.S. military is preparing to build temporary camps at two military bases to house immigrants, Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said on Sunday, in the latest sign of a growing U.S. military support role for President Donald Trump’s politically charged immigration policies.

Mattis, speaking to reporters during a flight to Alaska, did not specify the names of the bases or say whether they would house immigrant children or their parents, or both.

“The details are being worked out … about exactly how much capacity they need at the two bases, what other kinds of facilities they need built,” Mattis said, as he disclosed the request for the facilities from the government’s Department of Homeland Security.

Related: Trump Says Illegal Immigrants Should Be Deported with ‘No Judges or Court Cases’


Did Stonehenge Builders Use Pythagoras’ Theorem 2,000 Years Before the Greek Philosopher Was Born?

June 23rd, 2018

Via: National Post:

THE builders of Britain’s ancient stone circles such as Stonehenge used Pythagoras’s theorem 2,000 years before the Greek philosopher was born, experts have claimed.

A new book, Megalith, has re-examined the geometry of Neolithic monuments and concluded they were constructed by sophisticated astronomers who understood lunar, solar and eclipse cycles and built huge stone calendars using complex geometry.

More: Megalith: Studies in Stone


Researchers Fish Yellowcake Uranium from the Sea With Acrylic Fibers

June 23rd, 2018

Via: IEEE:

Researchers at the U.S. Energy Department’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) and LCW Supercritical Technologies made use of readily available acrylic fibers to pull five grams of yellowcake—a powdered form of uranium used to produce fuel for nuclear power reactors—from seawater.

The milestone, announced in mid-June, follows seven years of work and a roughly US $25 million investment by the federal energy agency. Another $1.15 million is being channeled to LCW as it attempts to scale up the technique for commercial use. The effort builds on work by Japanese researchers in the late 1990s and was prompted by interest in finding alternative sources of uranium for a future time when terrestrial sources are depleted.

Nuclear power plant operators increasingly want their facilities to run for up to a century, says Gary Gill, a researcher at PNNL who led the seawater extraction effort. But within decades, he says, terrestrial sources of uranium could be depleted or prove to be too expensive for use in commercial reactors.

A 2017 assessment by the World Nuclear Association says that roughly 445 reactors worldwide, with a combined 390 gigawatts of generating capacity, require around 75,000 tons of uranium oxide concentrate each year to operate.

In the U.S., an expected surge of demand for uranium to fuel a fleet of new reactors largely dried up after the 2011 accident at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. More recently, low natural gas prices have hurt the economic case for nuclear power plants, leading some developers to scrap plans for new units and a number of utility operators to consider closing existing ones.

Before it stopped reporting on U.S. uranium reserves a decade ago, the DOE’s Energy Information Administration said terrestrial uranium reserves could meet anywhere from 10 to 23 years’ worth of demand, depending on market prices. EIA pointed out at the time that domestic U.S. uranium mining supplied around 10 percent of U.S. requirements for nuclear fuel.

Unlike terrestrial sources that can be mined at specific locations, uranium in seawater shows up in concentrations of around 3.3 parts per billion. With a total volume estimated at more than 4 billion tons, there is around 500 times more uranium in seawater than in land-based sources. As a result, the widely dispersed sea-based resource could last for thousands of years, Gill says.


Flying Dragon Robot Transforms Itself to Squeeze Through Gaps

June 23rd, 2018

Via: IEEE:

It’s a modular flying robot powered by ducted fans that can transform literally on the fly, from a square to a snake to anything in between, allowing it to stretch out to pass through small holes and then make whatever other shape you want once it’s on the other side.


Supreme Court Says Warrant Necessary for Phone Location Data

June 22nd, 2018

Via: Cnet:

The US Supreme Court has ruled in favor of digital privacy.

In a 5-4 decision on Friday the justices said that police need warrants to gather phone location data as evidence for trials. That reversed and remanded a decision by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Carpenter v. United States is the first case about phone location data that the Supreme Court has ruled on. That makes it a landmark decision regarding how law enforcement agencies can use technology as they build cases. The court heard arguments in the case on Nov. 29.

The dispute dates back to a 2011 robbery in Detroit, after which police gathered months of phone location data from Timothy Carpenter’s phone provider. They pulled together 12,898 different locations from Carpenter, over 127 days.

The legal and privacy concern was that police gathered the four months’ worth of Carpenter’s digital footprints without a warrant. A Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals judge ruled that cellphone location data is not protected by the Fourth Amendment, which forbids unreasonable search and seizure, and therefore didn’t require a warrant.

In the Supreme Court’s ruling, Chief Justice John Roberts wrote that the government’s searches of Carpenter’s phone records were considered a Fourth Amendment search.

Related: “You work it backwards to make it clean”


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