This week the chirping at night has been really loud in Claremont, California. And so, I set out one night to see if I might get to the bottom of this sonic riot. Snowy tree crickets were not on my mind.
I hypothesized tree frogs chirping at the full moon. I was wrong. It did indeed turn out to be a chorus of little Oecanthus fultoni (i.e., snowy tree crickets). These guys were making all that loud music. Small size, big sound.
Per Wikipedia, American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne once observed about the song of these creatures, “If moonlight could be heard, it would sound just like that.”
And, that is about all I have to say for this short post. So, good night and — if it is summer where you are — may the crickets sing you to sleep!
Well, what can I say? I am simply a sage kind of guy. And, I am not talking about being wise. No, I am talking about being a lover of sage plants (we have four different kinds in our yard, yay!). And, white sage is my point of focus today.
In our region of California, white sage plants — in particular — are suffering terrible abuse in response to the fashion trend of burning sage smudge incense and displaying sage bouquets. In places like the Etiwanda Preserve there have been poachers illegally harvesting pick-ups full of sage for sale to retailers. This results in horrible ecological damage. And, it is an affront to the Tongva and other local tribes in SoCal, for whom the plant is a member of the family.
North Etiwanda Preserve (if image does not display, click the title above to go to the web page) Photo: Doug Lippoldt, 2023 (C)
There is a wonderful short film on white sage and First Peoples that was released by the California Native Plant Society, accompanied by excerpts of wonderful traditional tunes. Filmed on location in our area, it is an official selection of the Cannes Film Festival and just 20 minutes long. This is a good one! I think it will speak to many of us. I know I found it to be very moving.
Check it out! It is free to watch via the link, here (YouTube) or below (via California Native Plant Association web site). And, please take care only to buy sustainable sage, or simply enjoy it in the wild as an observer! (And for my take on Yosemite from a few years ago, check out this post: https://www.q4tk.com/2015/05/25/yosemite-grandeur-even-on-soggy-days/)
A field with its roots established in the 1950s, artificial intelligence (AI) is suddenly much more in the public eye and capable of doing useful things for casual users as well as experts. Its rollout over the coming decade could be a very big deal indeed. AI innovation is advancing. To achieve broad welfare gains and global participation in the AI economy, stakeholders — producers, suppliers, consumers, researchers, regulators and others — will need a safe and trustworthy business environment that facilitates responsible access and technology diffusion.
In a new paper from the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI; Waterloo, Canada), the author examines the concentration of AI innovation and considers factors in the regulatory environment that may support or hinder its responsible diffusion in line with applicable international norms. The paper aims to add to the literature on AI innovation and its diffusion by delivering analysis drawing on a unique combination of firm-level data sources and policy indicators.
The conclusions highlight four priority areas for action in development of international AI governance:
Designation of an international institution to lead on AI regulatory cooperation
Prioritization of regulatory coherence
Build-in of transparency into regulatory processes and AI systems
Promotion of well-regulated data management
The full paper can be found here:
“AI Innovation Concentration and the Governance Challenge“
Folks, I just saw It’s Quieter in the Twilight, a Documentary on Voyager 1 and 2. This is a most wonderful documentary on the epic voyage and unanticipated longevity of the two NASA Voyager spacecraft. They have been traveling through space since I was a kid, boldly going where no human craft has travelled. The documentary tells their story and that of the small, aging support team of 10 or 12 folks at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
The Voyager team has managed to keep these craft operational since 1977. Several members of the team were part of the early Voyager project crews. Meanwhile, the craft have exited from the solar system and are transiting interstellar space. All the while they are sending back useful scientific data on the environment through which they are passing.
The documentary lets the team members tell the story in their own words. It reveals how they see their experience and their assessment of the project situation as of 2022-2023. The humanity of these dedicated folks really shines through. This is the story of an important part of space history and hopefully a few more years of the future as well!
It is interesting to look at the book bans in Florida educational institutions. These are set at the county level and not all counties have imposed bans. The number of complaints targeting each book are small. A few zealots are imposing their will on the other 21.5 million Floridians. Here is the list of banned books as compiled by the FL Dept of Education: https://www.fldoe.org/…/5574/urlt/2223ObjectionList.pdf .
Some three hundred county actions have resulted in the banning of a book. This seems outrageous to me. The list of titles includes a diverse mix, ranging from best sellers to possible junk. Have any of you read, “Assassination Classroom?”. The movie scored just 5.7 on IMDB, but the book turned up at 4.8 on Amazon. Some books may contain controversial material that could prompt a discussion, like “The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood. I don’t see any truly dangerous titles (eg, nothing on how to build a bomb). But, some bans appear clearly mistargeted by most indicators. How about “Relish: My Life in the Kitchen” by Lucy Kinsley (Amazon 4.5), 2013, about growing up around chefs and her memories of foods and tastes? You can read a sample of Relish here: https://a.co/d/fel2lMU .
With climate change, pandemics, the war in Ukraine, and the rise of political extremism, I would rather focus directly on tackling the big existential issues. But, by successfully starting to censor access to literature, the zealots pose a further threat to the health of our society. They could undermine our ability to think critically and to consider the full range of solutions to these bigger problems. And, more basically. they could deprive some of the pleasure of their free choice of a simple good read.
As a young country boy, I moved to the big town in 1980 — Denver — and it was Madame S.T. Ting Wong who taught me to cook via her famous cookbook. Madame Wong saved me gastronomically. Without her encouragement, I might have wound up dining on frozen dinners and carry out. Her writing encouraged me to go to Asian grocery stores with a purpose. Madame Wong moved my gastronomic horizon eastward.
By the way, she was 72 when she wrote the cookbook. And, I learned from the LA Times just now that she went on to teach some big names in Hollywood to cook… “Wong’s former students include Barbra Streisand, Michael Caine, Dinah Shore, Linda Evans, Debbie Reynolds and Wolfgang Puck.” She also taught extension courses at UCLA.
Madame Wong’s recipes are delightful, achievable, and bring a measure of authenticity into the hands of a novice cook. I just found and purchased an old copy of her book on e-Bay. And, I am very much looking forward to reconnecting.
The LA Times celebrated Madame Wong’s life with a special article in 1994. According to Madame Wong, as quoted in the LA Times, “ ‘In life, as in food, there are four kinds of taste,’ she says. ‘Sweet, sour, bitter and spicy. What has happened in your life happens in your food. You must go through these four tastes. If you lose them, that is the end of your life.'” I guess that I had better get cooking, urgently!
A week after a string of storms, the melting snowpack on Mount Baldy is delivering a strong current on San Antonio Creek. Normally, the creek is a placid babbling brook. In some places you might easily step across it. But, not today. Fortunately, the fairly substantial San Antonio dam shields the communities below the mouth of the canyon from potential floods and muds.
As you might anticipate, the normally rather dry San Antonio Canyon looks comparatively lush this season. Drought has plagued the region in recent years. But, over geologic time, strong storm flows have not been so rare, apparently. The creek has carried a significant number of boulders down the slopes. They litter the canyon bottom. Some of the boulders have wonderful graining, with swirls of grey contrasting with creme colored whites. And, the light granite tones are contrasting with the rich emergent green of new grass in this rainy season.
As someone newly transplanted to the Claremont, California, area it is amazing to me to have ready access to such wild spaces. The scale of the Angeles National Forest is immense. It is a wonder to be enjoyed and protected for the generations who will follow.
Pictures worth a thousand words
Strong current in San Antonio Creek, Angeles National Forest, CaliforniaMelting snowpack from Mount Baldy is supercharging the creekRocky terrain along the bottom of San Antonio CanyonA most excellent boulder (check out the wonderful patterns in the grain)
Mitigating global fragmentation in digital trade governance? This post is a short plug for my new paper on international trade in digital products like e-books, streaming entertainment, podcasts, or remote engineering services for businesses in the boondocks. It is hard enough within a country to ensure consumer protection, legal certainty for digital businesses, and transparency on which rules apply when and where. But, if you are trading between countries, the rules of the digital highway are often even less clear. Digital trade accords can help.
What’s the big (digital trade governance) deal, man?
Leading economies are moving to improve conditions for the international digital economy through digital trade agreements. For example, the US-Japan digital trade agreement or the USMCA (NAFTA 2.0) agreement. Such accords can provide an agreed rule book supporting digital trade between countries.
Often, current generation accords offer a measure of improved protection for consumers. They may provide increased certainty for businesses (better consistency of regulation). And they may facilitate transactions (like mutual recognition of standards for e-signatures or e-invoices). Trade agreements can ease the costs of doing business. This is not about deregulation… it is about aligning regulation, streamlining, and closing gaps.
Where the new digital trade deals are in place, preliminary evidence indicates that digital trade may tend to increase and regulatory gaps are closed. This benefits not only the digital businesses (like software vendors), but also consumers using digital goods and services, and businesses that are indirectly digital (ie, those that use digital products intensively like, say, architects).
This paper looks at how five leading digital economies (Canada, the European Union, Japan, Singapore and the United States) are using regional trade agreements to address digital concerns while enhancing trade. And, it considers complementary next steps for digital trade governance at the multilateral level.
Digital trade and the digital trade governance paper
This paper itself is part of digital trade. The publisher is located in Canada. CIGI distributes the paper digitally and directly across borders. Such international trade is a benefit to readers in California (yay, NAFTA 2.0!), Tokyo (yay CPTPP!) or points beyond (thank you WTO for duty-free digital transmissions, but it is time for an updated e-commerce deal please). Plus, the price of this paper is right (it is free!). And, with a 1 1/2 page executive summary in the front, you don’t have to read the whole dadblame paper. This is helpful, if you are pressed for time!
President Zelensky is the right person for this moment in history. He has risen to the challenge. His leadership has transformed Ukraine’s initially-bleak prospects to counter Russian aggression. His speech tonight in the US Congress was emotionally powerful. He has earned our respect through his actions. I am grateful that the US has responded with support on a scale that corresponds to the gravity of the authoritarian threat. In the face of storm clouds, the collaborative international partnership that has emerged among democracies is providing strength that is greater than the simple sum of the inputs from each of the partners.
Here is a gift link to the New York Times coverage of President Zelensky’s speech in the US Congress (21 December 2022).
Soaring above the storm clouds (Photo: D. C. Lippoldt)
The Polish film “Cold War” (2018, Director: Pawel Pawlikowski) is a masterful depiction of the imposition of socialism in Poland after World War II and the impacts this had on peoples’ lives. It is musically powered, well-anchored initially by the traditions of the Central and East European region. Subsequently, this musicality provides openings to take the plot to points beyond, including Berlin and Paris.
Cold War is incredibly evocative of a certain time and place in history. The film interprets the cold war through the prism of a love story and a select group of performers. Mainly set in the 1950s, it presents a scenario with sex, the emergence of rock & roll, and — in one scene — a particular type of drugs. There is way too much smoking by today’s standards.
Pawlikowski shot the film in black and white, which conveys the mood of the time. The dialogue in Polish, with a bit of French and German, reinforces the authenticity. That is, the audio corresponds to the geography of the film. (Viewers can opt for English subtitles.)
The movie provides insights into the historical record for Poland. But, it is also relevant as a lesson and contrasting example in today’s geopolitical context more broadly. The viewer may infer the exceptional value of freedom and openness from the negative experiences presented. And, as depicted, the depth of actual trauma from the socialism of the real cold war should serve to chastise those who would trivialize the term “socialist” to slander their opponents in the US today.
Here is a link to the trailer: Cold War. In the US, it is available for free to Amazon Prime members.
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