Saturday, July 31, 2021

Books: Project Hail Mary - Andy Weir Brings Science Back Into Science Fiction


 (Drivebycuriosity) -  A man awakes in a strange white room, he is weak, bound on a bed, surrounded by robots and he doesn`t know who he is and what happened to him. This is the begin of an amazing science fiction novel: "Project Hail Mary" by Andy Weir ( amazon). I got hooked by the opening and I stayed hooked through the last page  (this is a spoiler free blog).

The novel follows a scientist with a broad knowledge and a can-do attitude. The plot is told in first person. When the narrator`s memory comes back - in flashbacks - we learn astounding things. The protagonist deals with a sheer unending row of problems & setbacks, but he responds with curiosity, stubbornness and an unbreakable will to survive, using his analytical skills and broad scientific knowledge.

Weir brings science back into science fiction. What is regarded as scifi today is often just a fairy tale - like Star Wars. Most science fiction authors also paint a dystopian picture of the future and display technology as danger. But in Weir`s novel science is the solution

The plot is built around tons of sciences (evolution, micro-biology, genetics,  chemistry, quantum physics, cosmology etc.), and the author knotted them together into original & astounding but plausible ideas. Weir has the talent to describe even the most complex phenomena in very easy words. Reading "Project Hail Mary" is good for refreshing school knowledge and to learn a lot more.

In spite of all sciences & engineering the plot stays exciting and kept me on the edge till the last page. The protagonist is very likable and has to fight a lot with his own flaws. "Hail Mary" is fun to read because surprise follows after surprise and the tale is flavored with a lot humor and includes even a quite untypical bromance.

Weir created a classic! 

Saturday, July 24, 2021

Antitrust: The Crusade Against Big Tech Is Irresponsible & Moronic


 (Drivebycuriosity) - It seems there is a crusade going on in the US. Politicians right and left, accompanied by powerful bureaucracies, are performing a crusade against Big Tech, the superstar firms which are driving the US economy. The Biden administration - supported by some populist Republican senators - seems to dislike Big Tech and big companies in general. President Biden signed an executive order allegedly aiming to encourage competition in the economy, but giving  regulating authorities more power and expands their bureaucracies. Biden also appointed Lina Khan, a lawyer and well known anti-Amazon activist, as chairwoman of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), a powerful agency who is supposed to enforce U.S. antitrust law and to promote consumer protection. Customers love Big Tech, Biden`s crusaders don´t. 

The crusaders claim that the Big Tech companies - Amazon, Apple, Google & Facebook - are monopolies. They also declare that Big Tech is too powerful and that Amazon & Co. are harming  the US economy & society. The trustbusters want to restrain Big Tech and maybe even break the big companies apart.

The crusade is based on false claims. Amazon & Co. are not monopolies. They are competing against each other - increasingly so - and against a legion of other firms. The Internet is intensifying competition because it makes it very easy to compare prices and services and to switch to other suppliers. Customers can choose the company which has the best quality, the best service and/or the lowest price which constrains the power of Big Tech. Amazon, Google, Apple & Facebook are big because they serve their customers well - otherwise these customers would shop elsewhere.

Amazon´s competition is increasing all the time. The success of the e-commerce pioneer has been animating a legion of copycats who also benefit from the ascent of e-commerce (and recently from the Covid-19 pandemic). Amazon is competing against huge traditional retail corporations like Walmart, Target, Best Buy & Costco who all developed large online departments. There are also pure online companies like Overstock, Wayfair & Etsy who are copying Amazon`s success. They all are getting better over the time, challenging Amazon more and more. The online sales by Walmart, Target, Best Buy, Wayfair and other competitors are growing faster than Amazon´s, a sign that the competition is getting stronger, not weaker as Biden and his trustbusters claim.

The crusaders dislike Amazon`s marketplace department, where others can sell, and they say that Amazon treats these third-party-sellers unfair. But Amazon`s quarterly reports show that Amazon’s retail partners grow even faster than Amazon`s own online shops and more than 50% of the sales from Amazon`s website are from third-parties. Many of these sellers became large companies themselves. Obviously these third-party-seller benefit from Amazon, because Amazon´s platform gives them access to markets they could not reach otherwise or with much higher costs.

If these third-party seller would be unhappy with Amazon´s services they could switch to different platforms.  Even traditional retailers like Walmart have now their own third-party seller programs and compete with Amazon’s. The third-party sellers also could chose fast growing online platforms like Etsy & Shopify. Even Facebook (and their daughter Instagram) and Google developed online platforms where companies can sell their products & services, independent from Amazon.

Khan and her crusaders ignore that the society is benefiting from Big Tech. Even in the peak of the pandemic Amazon has been capable to support millions of customers and was able to deliver a huge amount of goods to everywhere in the US in very short time. Amazon could fulfill the gargantuan task of supplying America in a crisis because of her sheer size, a dense network of fulfillment centers and a lot of experience in stocking goods and in logistics.

Amazon saved potentially many lives - especially elderly and disabled individuals - by making it possible for them to shelter at home during the current pandemic, shop online and receive necessary goods at their front door in a short time.

Amazon`s success helped many other companies - including small retailers (Amazon`s competitors) - to survive the crisis. Amazon offers a platform for any company (or individual) to sell products online. The e-commerce giant also supplies logistic services for them, including storage, packing and transporting. The giant invested last year more than $18 billion to help independent businesses grow their sales on Amazon. With the help of Amazon other companies, including even small retailers, are also able to sell products nationwide - and often globally. Many of these retailers would not exist without Amazon’s platform.

Today Amazon accounts for less than 1% of the $25 trillion global retail market and less than 4% of retail in the U.S. More than 80 U.S. retailers have annual revenues of more than $1 billion, including Walmart, whose revenues are more than double those of Amazon. Online sales only account for about 20% of total retail sales.

The trustbusters also dislike that Amazon`s AWS (Amazon Web Services) department is the market leader in the fast growing cloud business. AWS gives other companies, even small start ups, cheap access to huge computer power and artificial intelligence (machine learning). Amazon cloud enables companies worldwide  to process a flood of data created and to deal with organizational problems. AWS - and other Amazon services - helped many companies to stay in business during the pandemic and to participate in the recovery. But AWS is challenged by Microsoft, Google, IBM, Oracle and other companies who also want to have a large piece from Amazon´s pie and offer their own cloud services, and Microsoft`s & Google`s cloud businesses are growing even faster than AWS. 

The other Big Tech companies aren`t monopolies either. Nobody is forced to buy Apple`s iPhones, iPads, iMacs, MacBooks and services. Customers can purchase similar products & services from Microsoft, Google, Samsung, Huawei and a lot of other technology companies. And customers can choose between Apple´s iOS and Google`s Android. Nobody needs to use Google services like search & maps. There are other search engines like Microsoft`s Bing, DuckDuck Go & WolframAlpha and people also can use Apple Maps. The Facebook/Instagram tandem competes against Twitter for users and advertiser dollars.

The trust busters claim that Big Tech companies "have hurt small businesses and stifled innovation". Really? Did they ever hear of Uber,  Lyft, Arbnb & Pinterest?  These so-called unicorns came out of nowhere. They were founded just years ago and are already valued $80 billion and more (nypost). 

Contrary to the claims of the trustbusters Amazon did not stop the growth of new online sellers. The Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify, founded in 2006,  reached a market capitalization of about $180 billion, Wayfar, an e-commerce site for home supplies, started in 2002 and reached a market capitalization of around $30 billion  and Casper, launched in 2014, who sells mattresses online, became a brand name almost over night.

Amazon, Facebook & Google are not harming the US economy, quite the opposite. Th Covid-19 pandemic with lockdowns & quarantines would have been even less bearable without cheap & fast deliveries by Amazon, useful information provided by Google search & maps and powerful but affordable devices like iPhones, iPads & Macbooks. Big Tech`s services - often free - helped people to stay at home in the pandemic and to avoid infections. Big Tech`s saved lives and made the recession less harmful. 

The enormous success of Big Tech is stimulating talents to start new & disrupting (innovative) businesses (me-too effect)  and animates huge venture capital funds to invest massively in newcomers, fueling competition & innovation. It seems we are experiencing a Cambrian explosion. According to Benedict Evans, "Tech startup creation has risen by three to four times in the last decade" (ben-evans ). There are so many new & rising companies which are changing society & economy - on the coat-tails of Big Tech.

The trustbusters want to throw sand into the gears of successful companies, which are the engine of the US economy. The crusade leads to more  bureaucracy which " is the death of any achievement” according to Einstein. New regulations and inquiries reduce the productivity & efficiency of Big Tech companies; they shrink their abilities to further innovate because they are occupying management capacities and are slowing decision processes, making business more complicated and costly. Big Tech`s strategic thinkers will be preoccupied with new regulations & inquiries and will have less time & energy for innovations. Instead of thinking about new products & services for their customers and to improve existing ones the strategists will have to think about new laws and how to comply with external bureaucrats and investigations. The  attacks of the trustbusters cause huge costs for Big Tech and may force them to hike their prices and/or reduce their services, which would harm the consumers and the US economy. They also will reduce the capabilities to hire new talents, they also will curb salaries of the employees and translate into higher prices for the customers. Costs & bureaucratic frictions create headwinds which will slow growth of innovative & successful companies and with them the global economy. 

Lina Khan, Tim Wu and other professional trustbusters don`t care that Big Tech create a lot benefits for their customers and the society. Khan & Co.  want to implement more bureaucracy and foster their own careers. Politicians, like Republican Senator Josh, are notching up their career wins by targeting the Big Tech bogeymen (washingtonexaminer). More regulation encourages corruption because powerful politicians & bureaucrats can blackmail corporations by threatening them to regulate them more (ssrn.com).

Politicians from both parties want to profile themselves. Their crusade gets a lot media attention which might attract potential voters and impress political leaders. The trust busters also want to gain more power and acquire more access to tax payer`s money. Lina Khan & Co. seek to expand their budgets and demand more onerous reporting requirements, so they can expand their offices and hire more people which in return gives them more political influence, prestige and higher incomes. "All of this is coupled with an oversized federal presence for enforcement, from greater congressional oversight to enhancing the powers of both the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission through expanded budgets, more onerous reporting requirements, and an invigorated use of merger retrospectives" writes Wayne T. Brough (aier.org ).

Washington`s anti-Big-Tech crusade employs thousands of high paid lawyers - and Biden´s executive order will expand their number. These brigades are burning a lot of tax payers money which could be used for education or health care. The anti-tech crusade creates a lot of highly attractive job opportunities for anti-trust lawyers like Lina Khan and university employees which attracts many young talents. Instead moving into technology, medical research and other sciences, which would benefit the society, these people are wasting their talents in unproductive skirmishes. As a result the anti-tech crusade will slow down economic growth and harm everybody who does not live from the money of the taxpayers 

Did Washington´s trust busters ever notice that there is a world outside of the US? If the US government curbs the American tech giants ore break them up they would support the global competitors. China already has fast growing tech giants like Huawei, Alibaba, Baidu & Tencent;  Latin America`s e-commerce is ruled by Mercado Libre and Russia´s Internet is dominated by Yandex. The foreign giants would be happy to inherit the turf of Google, Amazon & Co. and to overtake the global markets. America`s anti-tech crusade is giving China, Russia and other countries a huge advantage.

Antitrust law is designed to protect the consumers but Washington`s trust busters want to create a bureaucratic world as described by Franz Kafka. The uncertainty of political demands, let alone new regulations imposed through antitrust enforcement threats and action,  amounts to an enormous cost passed directly to American consumers through higher prices and reduced economic dynamism (insidesources). Big Tech are serving the consumers, the society, by spurring price reductions, delivering better quality & innovation. US politicians are making the world a poorer place by fighting the quartet of Google, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple that have helped so many Americans make 2020 a little more bearable" ( twitter)

The crusade is harming companies which are popular with their customers - the majority of the Americans because their services are either for free or cheap. Big Tech is doing a great service to the society the US economy and the US consumers. The crusade is irresponsible and moronic.


Thursday, July 22, 2021

Contemporary Art: Meg Lionel Murphy `s “Traumatica Dramatica” @ The Untitled Space New York


 (Drivebycuriosity) - My wife and I are visiting art galleries again, thanks to the mRNA vaccine which reduces the risk of infection considerably. Last week we saw 2 exhibtions: one @ The Hole Gallery in Manhattan`s Tribeca district (my post)  and another @ The Untitled Space nearby. 

 


 


 This gallery exhibited works by Meg Lionel Murphy, called “Traumatica Dramatica” (untitled-space). I display here my favorites, a very subjective selection as usual. Let the images speak for themselves.

 


 

To be continued.


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Saturday, July 17, 2021

Friday, July 16, 2021

Contemporary Art: Density Betrays US @ The Hole Gallery New York


(Drivebycuriosity) - Normality is back, thanks to Moderna and others vaccines. My wife and I are visiting art galleries again. This week I saw an exhibtion @ The Hole Gallery in Manhattan`s Tribeca district.

 



The art dealer displayed a group exhibitions, called "Density betrays us" ( theholenyc). I show here my favorites, a very subjective selection as usual. On top of the post you can see Chris Coy´s "Wilma's Rainbow 1" (2016);Oil on canvas followed by Joiri Minaya`s  "Emergence I", 2021. Archival pigment print on Hahnemühle paper.



 

Above you can see "Heather" by Emma Stern, 2020, Oil on canvas


 




Above follows "Friends of Grapefruit" by Casja Von Zeipel, 2020. Pigmented silicon, Aqua resin, fishing flies, plastic plants, aquarium plants, curly shoelace, canoe paddle, muscle hook, “New York” sun protection hat, neon green camelbak, car window phone holder, arrow thing, “Pumpkins for Peace” pin, “Hot girl vs tiger” lenticular, key board, book, paint bucket tool belt, camouflage fabrics, pixel printed fabrics, camouflage dog vest, Minnewaska State Park Trail band, iPhone case, “


 



 



Above Angela Dufresne`s "No Longer the Hazardous Forest22, 2018. Oil on canvas and details of it.

 

To be continued,

Friday, July 9, 2021

Economics: More Robots, Please


(Drivebycuriosity) -   There is a lot ado about rising inflation. Prices are climbing faster because there is a strong demand
for goods & services which meets a scarce supply. The reopening of the economy and the massive government stimulus programs are pushing the demand but companies have problems to comply with the rising demand. Many business owners complain that they don´t find enough workers, even when they hike salaries.
According to Yahoo “small business owners are struggling at record levels trying to get workers back in open positions,” The quote NFIB Chief Economist Bill Dunkelberg who declared “owners are offering higher wages to try to remedy the labor shortage problem. Ultimately, higher labor costs are being passed on to customers in higher selling prices.” (finance.yahoo ).

Therefore we need more robots, machines which produce things that people don`t anymore - or not enough. Robots wouldn´t fill the gap immediately, of course, someone has to produce them. But if the scarcity of labor continues, machines would be a great help. 

Machines, including computers, have been substituting labor for a long time. There is a continuing process of automation since the 19th century at least. Even farmers are using more and more robots, for instance for harvesting strawberries or milking cows (wikipedia). These machines are reducing the costs of producing something significantly, making things cheaper and more affordable. Hence robots are raising the living standard of everybody.

Robots also are the answer to another trend - the rising life expectancy. People live longer, so the number of the retired is growing, but the number of people in working age is growing slower or even shrinking. Robots can fill this gap in many cases.

Robots deal also with another problem: Many jobs are dangerous and dirty. Using more machines in unhealthy environments, like mines or radioactive settings, saves lives. Machines don`t get sick and they can continue to work - supporting us with necessary goods & services -  even in a pandemic.

More robots please!


Wednesday, July 7, 2021

Traveling: Some Impressions From A Short Visit To Boston & Cambridge


 (Drivebycuriosity) - The Covid-19 pandemic comes to an end. Moderna`s mRNA and other vaccines allow people to travel again. Last weekend my wife and I took the occasion for a short visit to Boston and the neighbor town Cambridge. 

 

Unfortunately the weather did not cooperate and last Saturday afternoon we experienced just 57 degrees Fahrenheit (14 C) and flooding rain. So we spend most of the day in the hotel room watching soccer on TV (European championship).

 



  

 Boston, founded in the 17th century, belongs to the oldest cities of the US. Massachusetts` capital is a sleepy town, compared to New York City, and mixes  tradition and modernity.

 

 

 


We lodged in a hotel in Cambridge at the Charles River and had a nice view on Boston´s skyline and some of the many bridges.

 



 

To be continued.

Thursday, July 1, 2021

Media: Binge Watching Mare Of Easttown


(Drivebycuriosity) -  In the recent days I was binge watching 
"Mare of Easttown" on HBO Max (imdb). The plot follows Marianne, also known as Mare, who is a cop in Easttown, a tiny place in Pennsylvania. Mare is investigating 2 cases: A young woman was murdered and 2 others  were abducted. In tiny Easttown everybody knows everybody, which makes the investigation really interesting, a source for many twists. But the most interesting part is the Mare character who struggles a lot with her own problems and family issues.

It was pure joy watching Kate Winslett as Mare. I liked the actress before, but she got even better over the years. Even though her character is now a grandma, she is still sexy and it is fascinating who she deals with the professional stress, the many setbacks and all her personal dramas.

I also enjoyed the performance of Evan Peters, as Mare´s rookie cop partner, who really tries to do good. Guy Pearce showed again what a chameleon he could be. Recently I rewatched him in "Lawless" where he incarnated convincingly a creepy and sadist law enforcer, called "Nan" by his enemies ( driveby). This time her represented a very different and likeable person. The wonderful cinematography made the pleasure complete.

"Mare" is a gem, watch it!