Choosing a Career

Find Your Passion is Awful Advice.  When the going gets tough, the soft start whining. 

So says The Atlantic in its current issue at https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/07/find-your-passion-is-terrible-advice/564932/

"Resource Nationalism" Is Coming

Early 2012 Argentina’s oil industry was controlled by Repsol, the Spanish energy giant, through YPF, its local subsidiary. By the end of the year, this was no longer the case. By then President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner's leftist government had nationalised the oil sector, stealing YPF with the stroke of a pen.

The experience for investors in Repsol was an elevator drop so jarring I suspect many were left with their spines sticking out the top of their heads. We can all scoff and laugh at the poor bastards and say, "Well, what did you expect investing into yet another Latin American backwater grasping at fading socialist ideas in order to stay in power?" And to be sure, the third world loves to dance to Marxist music, but I've more than a sneaky suspicion, in fact I'm pretty convinced we're going to see it, and not just from crazy bitches south of the equator. Resource nationalism, that is. The problem for oil companies, and indeed resource companies of many stripes, is that they have to go where the deposits happen to be. Contrast this to industries such as manufacturing, where factories can be built wherever wages are lowest, you simply can't outsource energy production. One Thing Leads to Another In 2016 I wrote an article arguing that we'd see what I called the rise of the "Strong Men" where I suggested the following: "Now I could write an essay on the ramifications but let me provide you with 3 important things to watch out for:   1. Political cohesion and stability can no longer be relied upon as politics becomes inward looking with everything from trade deals to central bank swap lines being renegotiated or cancelled altogether.   2. Global coordinated central bank action. The era of global coordinated monetary policy which we’ve been experiencing since the GFC, especially with the three largest players (ECB, FED and BOJ), will be looked back upon with nostalgia by the current clutch of central bankers who muddy the halls of power. Policy will increasingly be driven with greater sensitivity to nationalist rather than international concerns, which brings me to…   3. Liquidity in the financial system which has stemmed from easing monetary policy is already contracting. In a world where derivatives traverse borders, connecting financial systems like never before, a liquidity crisis presents enormous tail risk in a leveraged world." The first point I was making about political cohesion and stability has many knock on effects. It's not just about the sort of trade wars we're seeing erupting now. It will almost certainly include "protecting strategic resources". Something else to consider is that while it seems prescient to have correctly identified the present day renegotiating of trade deals, it's worth pointing out that with a lack of political cohesion comes an increased level of distrust and anxiety. And markets tend to exhibit their love for anxiety much like Maxine Waters exhibits her love for Donald Trump — not so much. So we can expect more of that. That resource nationalism more often than not turns out to be naïve, dangerous, and stupid won't stop it from happening. What it does bring is supply disruption and often supply destruction, both of which are wildly bullish for the respective commodities involved while simultaneously being somewhat dangerous since nobody wants to wake to find they've been Kirchener'd. Europe When we look at what's going on in Europe and the EU in particular it's clear to me that all the "kumbaya, let's make love not war, we're all brothers in this" little episode is rapidly coming to a close. The EU itself, like so many socialist policies, sounded wonderful on paper, especially to academics educated in "liberal" economics who managed to completely ignore hundreds of years of history where such things have been tried, tested, and found to be complete rubbish. Unfortunately, it's built up not just a lot of monetary problems. Here's TARGET2 imbalances. Whoo boy!

But also a lot of social angst amongst the populaces in member states. That we are where we are quite frankly sucks. I really like Europe but what's been created by the left-leaning political groups, especially those foie gras-eating pointy-shoed suits in Brussels, is a situation where member countries have opened themselves to all manner of dangers. Dangers in both domestic security (which is why the murder rate in London has been skyrocketing, and many parts of European cities are now "no-go" areas), but importantly also in international security. And it is the international affairs that are interesting for the resource space. When you think security, you can think of tanks and guns and stocky men with crew cuts. But no country has real security unless it has energy security. Which brings me to Germany, for example, who have managed to increase their reliance on others for their energy needs. For a full take-down feel free to go read my take on how Germany took stupid to a new level, where, amongst other things, I mentioned: "It was back in 2010 when there were a number of anti-nuclear protests in Germany and, the following year, not coincidentally soon after the Fukushima disaster, Merkel’s government announced it would close ALL of its nuclear power plants by December 2022. Since then Germany has permanently shut down eight of its 17 reactors."   And this: "In particular, after realising that subsidising solar in a country that only rarely actually enjoys sunlight was particularly verdammt dumm, they are now pushing ahead to build what is known as the “Nord Stream 2” project. This is a $10Billion pipeline that will transport natural gas from Siberia all 3,000 km to the motherland. Economically this makes a lot of sense. Geopolitically? None.   That is to say they’ll be doing business with Russian companies, Gazprom to be precise. This places them under Putin’s thumb while simultaneously pissing off their US counterparts." And so now here we sit two years on and Merkel and Trump are slinging poo at each other. The question one needs to ask is this: When will Germany (and indeed other EU members) decide that energy security is probably not a bad thing? Because when push comes to shove, it's going to become more important than keeping the hemp wearing, soy latte drinking crowd happy and pretending that the world's a safe cosy place where everyone can afford to be inclusive and run their Tesla's on unicorn farts. The current turmoil within Merkel's own coalition party indicates trouble already exists. Just wait until the EU really starts to fall apart. It'll be a scramble to secure borders and the chaos of restructuring trade agreements will ensure that it'll be "hunker down" time. In fact, governments will be looking around claiming all they can, because bargaining chips will be necessary.

And when that happens, we want to be very very well positioned because it'll be resources that benefit, in particular energy. In fact, it's one of the reasons I spent so damn long hunting for a technical expert that understands the resource space. Because what do I know about the technicalities of resources?

-- Chris MacIntosh, founder of Capitalist Exploits https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/h/hcl4r6hbecgm/?&th=1648a8392ebff348&v=c

 

Cave Rescue in Thailand

Tham Luang Cave Rescue

Twelve members of a junior football team, aged 11 to 17, and their 25-year-old assistant coach, became stranded in the cave Tham Luang Nang Non (Great Cave of the Sleeping Lady) in Thailand's Chiang Rai Province on 23 June 2018. Shortly after they had entered the cave, heavy rains partially flooded it, blocking the exit and forcing the group to go deeper into the cave to avoid the water.

Efforts to locate them were hampered by rising water levels and strong currents in the cave system. No contact was made for over a week. The rescue effort expanded into a massive operation amid intense worldwide media coverage and public interest. On July 2, after advancing through narrow passages and muddy waters, British divers found all of the missing group members alive on an elevated rock about 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) from the cave mouth. Rescue organizers discussed various options to extract the group: whether to teach them basic diving skills to enable their early rescue, wait until a new entrance was found or drilled, or wait for the floodwaters to subside at the end of the monsoon season months later. After days of pumping water from the cave system and a respite from rain, the rescue teams hastened to get everyone out before the next monsoon rain, which was expected to bring a potential 52 mm (2.0 in) of additional rainfall and was predicted to start around 11 July. Between 8 and 10 July, all of the boys and their coach were rescued from the cave, with four of them being escorted out on each day.

Over 1,000 people were involved in the rescue operation, including Thai Navy SEALs and volunteers and technical assistance teams from multiple countries. One death occurred during the rescue: Saman Kunan, a 38-year-old former Thai SEAL, asphyxiated on 5 July while attempting to pass through a narrow passageway on return to the cave entrance after delivering supplies of air to the interior.

Disappearance

Tham Luang Nang Non is a karstic cave complex beneath Doi Nang Non, a mountain range on the border between Thailand and Myanmar. The system is 10 kilometres (6.2 mi) long and has many deep recesses, narrow passages and tunnels winding under hundreds of metres of limestone strata. Since part of the cave system is seasonally flooded, a sign advising against entering the caves during the rainy season (July–November) is posted at the entrance.

On 23 June 2018, a group of twelve boys aged between 11 and 16 from a local junior football team named the Wild Boars and their 25-year-old coach, Ekapol Chantawong, went missing after setting out to explore the cave. They planned to have a picnic to celebrate the 17th birthday of one of the boys, Peerapat Sompiangjai. The group was apparently stranded in the tunnels by sudden and continuous rainfall after they had entered the cave. A ranger of the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation alerted authorities to the missing group after seeing their unclaimed belongings at the cave entrance.

Search and Contact

Military divers searched the cave. A Thai Navy SEAL diver said the water was so murky that even with lights they could not see where they were going underwater. After continuous rain, which further flooded the cave entrance, the search had to be periodically interrupted. After four days, the Thai Navy SEALs were joined by a group of 30 personnel of the United States Indo-Pacific Command, and by British cave diving rescue experts Richard Stanton, John Volanthen, and Robert Harper, who brought Heyphone LF radios borrowed from the Derbyshire Cave Rescue Organisation.

Policemen with sniffer dogs searched for shaft openings that could provide alternative entrances to the cave branches below. Drones and robots were used to improve the search effort; however, no technology currently exists to scan for people deep underground.

The twelve boys and the coach were discovered, all alive, on 2 July, at approximately 22:00 by Stanton and Volanthen, whose efforts were overseen from outside by Harper. The group was found on a narrow rock shelf about 400 metres (1,300 ft) beyond the "Pattaya Beach" chamber, named after an above-ground beach in Thailand. Volanthen was placing guidelines in the cave to later assist others in navigation. He ran out of line, which led him to swim to the surface—there, he found the missing team and its coach. The ledge where they were found is about 3.2 kilometres (2.0 mi) from the cave mouth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tham_Luang_cave_rescue

Electrical Power from Waste Heat

New Sandia solid-state silicon device may one day power space missions

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — July 9, 2018 -- Directly converting electrical power to heat is easy. It regularly happens in your toaster, that is, if you make toast regularly. The opposite, converting heat into electrical power, isn’t so easy.

Researchers from Sandia National Laboratories have developed a tiny silicon-based device that can harness what was previously called waste heat and turn it into DC power. Their advance was recently published in Physical Review Applied.

This tiny silicon-based device developed at Sandia National Laboratories can catch and convert waste heat into electrical power. The rectenna, short for rectifying antenna, is made of common aluminum, silicon and silicon dioxide using standard processes from the integrated circuit industry.

“We have developed a new method for essentially recovering energy from waste heat. Car engines produce a lot of heat and that heat is just waste, right? So imagine if you could convert that engine heat into electrical power for a hybrid car. This is the first step in that direction, but much more work needs to be done,” said Paul Davids, a physicist and the principal investigator for the study.

“In the short term we’re looking to make a compact infrared power supply, perhaps to replace radioisotope thermoelectric generators.” Called RTGs, the generators are used for such tasks as powering sensors for space missions that don’t get enough direct sunlight to power solar panels.

Davids’ device is made of common and abundant materials, such as aluminum, silicon and silicon dioxide — or glass — combined in very uncommon ways.

Silicon device catches, channels and converts heat into power

Smaller than a pinkie nail, the device is about 1/8 inch by 1/8 inch, half as thick as a dime and metallically shiny. The top is aluminum that is etched with stripes roughly 20 times smaller than the width of a human hair. This pattern, though far too small to be seen by eye, serves as an antenna to catch the infrared radiation.

Between the aluminum top and the silicon bottom is a very thin layer of silicon dioxide. This layer is about 20 silicon atoms thick, or 16,000 times thinner than a human hair. The patterned and etched aluminum antenna channels the infrared radiation into this thin layer.

The infrared radiation trapped in the silicon dioxide creates very fast electrical oscillations, about 50 trillion times a second. This pushes electrons back and forth between the aluminum and the silicon in an asymmetric manner. This process, called rectification, generates net DC electrical current.

The team calls its device an infrared rectenna, a portmanteau of rectifying antenna. It is a solid-state device with no moving parts to jam, bend or break, and doesn’t have to directly touch the heat source, which can cause thermal stress.

Infrared rectenna production uses common, scalable processes

Because the team makes the infrared rectenna with the same processes used by the integrated circuit industry, it’s readily scalable, said Joshua Shank, electrical engineer and the paper’s first author, who tested the devices and modeled the underlying physics while he was a Sandia postdoctoral fellow.

He added, “We’ve deliberately focused on common materials and processes that are scalable. In theory, any commercial integrated circuit fabrication facility could make these rectennas.”

That isn’t to say creating the current device was easy. Rob Jarecki, the fabrication engineer who led process development, said, “There’s immense complexity under the hood and the devices require all kinds of processing tricks to build them.”

One of the biggest fabrication challenges was inserting small amounts of other elements into the silicon, or doping it, so that it would reflect infrared light like a metal, said Jarecki. “Typically you don’t dope silicon to death, you don’t try to turn it into a metal, because you have metals for that. In this case we needed it doped as much as possible without wrecking the material.”

The devices were made at Sandia’s Microsystems Engineering, Science and Applications Complex. The team has been issued a patent for the infrared rectenna and have filed several additional patents.

The version of the infrared rectenna the team reported in Physical Review Applied produces 8 nanowatts of power per square centimeter from a specialized heat lamp at 840 degrees. For context, a typical solar-powered calculator uses about 5 microwatts, so they would need a sheet of infrared rectennas slightly larger than a standard piece of paper to power a calculator. So, the team has many ideas for future improvements to make the infrared rectenna more efficient.

Future work to improve infrared rectenna efficiency

These ideas include making the rectenna’s top pattern 2D x’s instead of 1D stripes, in order to absorb infrared light over all polarizations; redesigning the rectifying layer to be a full-wave rectifier instead of the current half-wave rectifier; and making the infrared rectenna on a thinner silicon wafer to minimize power loss due to resistance.

Through improved design and greater conversion efficiency, the power output per unit area will increase. Davids thinks that within five years, the infrared rectenna may be a good alternative to RTGs for compact power supplies.

Shank said, “We need to continue to improve in order to be comparable to RTGs, but the rectennas will be useful for any application where you need something to work reliably for a long time and where you can’t go in and just change the battery. However, we’re not going to be an alternative for solar panels as a source of grid-scale power, at least not in the near term.”

Davids added, “We’ve been whittling away at the problem and now we’re beginning to get to the point where we’re seeing relatively large gains in power conversion, and I think that there’s a path forward as an alternative to thermoelectrics. It feels good to get to this point. It would be great if we could scale it up and change the world.”

The research was funded by Sandia’s Laboratory Directed Research and Development program.

https://share-ng.sandia.gov/news/resources/news_releases/heat_power/#.W0QBKX4naS4

Drugs Free of Side Effects

A new technique for precisely targeting molecules within cells is paving the way for safer drugs that are free of side effects

University of Virginia – July 6, 2018 -- Researcher J. Julius Zhu, PhD, of the School of Medicine, and his colleagues have developed a way to manipulate molecules from compartment to compartment within individual cells. Amazingly, the same molecules do different things depending on their location, the researchers determined. By manipulating the molecules, scientists can determine exactly which locations to target with treatments, while avoiding locations that would cause harmful side effects. That will lead to safer drugs and more effective treatments.

“The problem with side effects is caused because you just could not distinguish the molecules doing different things in the same cell,” Zhu explained. “If you blocked a molecule, you blocked it regardless of what it was doing. And that usually has unwanted side effects. Almost every drug that can treat disease has side effects, either major or minor, but usually they always have something.”

More Precise Precision Medicine

Until now, drugs have targeted molecules in a very general way. If a molecule was thought to be harmful, researchers might try to develop a drug to block it entirely. But Zhu’s new work highlights the downside of that shotgun approach. A molecule might be causing problems because of what it’s doing in one part of the cell, but, at the same time, that same molecule is doing something entirely different in other parts — perhaps something tremendously important. So shutting it down entirely would be like trying to solve the problem of traffic congestion by banning cars.

Now, rather than crudely trying to block a molecule regardless of its many functions, doctors can target a specific molecule doing a specific thing in a specific location. That adds a new level of precision to the concept of precision medicine – medicine tailored exactly to a patient’s needs.

Safer Drugs and Medicines

Zhu, of UVA’s Department of Pharmacology, thinks the technique will be useful for many different diseases, but especially for cancers and neurological conditions such as autism and Alzheimer’s. Those, in particular, will benefit from a better understanding of what molecules at what locations would make good targets, he and his colleagues note in a new paper sharing their technique with other scientists.

The technique will also speed up the development of new treatments by letting researchers more quickly understand what molecules are doing and which should be targeted.

“The idea [behind the technique] is actually very simple,” Zhu said. “But it took us a lot of years to make this thing work.”

Findings Published

Zhu and his team have described the new technique in the scientific journal Neuron. The research team consisted of Lei Zhang, Peng Zhang, Guangfu Wang, Huaye Zhang, Yajun Zhang, Yilin Yu, Mingxu Zhang, Jian Xiao, Piero Crespo, Johannes W. Hell, Li Lin, Richard L. Huganir and Zhu.

                              https://newsroom.uvahealth.com/2018/07/06/safer-drugs/

Alaska's 1958 Megatsunami

The 1958 Lituya Bay megatsunami occurred on July 9 at 22:15:58, following an earthquake with a moment magnitude of 7.8 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of XI (Extreme). The earthquake took place on the Fairweather Fault and triggered a rockslide of 30 million cubic metres (40 million cubic yards, and about 90 million tons) to fall from several hundred metres into the narrow inlet of Lituya Bay, Alaska. The impact was heard 50 miles (80 km) away, and the sudden displacement of water resulted in a megatsunami that washed out trees to a maximum elevation of 520 metres (1,710 ft) at the entrance of Gilbert Inlet. This is the most significant megatsunami and the largest known in modern times. The event forced a re-evaluation of large wave events, and recognition of impact, rockfall and landslide events as a previously unknown cause of very large waves.

A 2010 model examined the amount of infill on the floor of the bay, which was many times larger than that of the rockfall alone, and also the energy and height of the waves, and the accounts given by eyewitnesses, concluded that there had been a "dual slide" involving a rockfall, which also triggered a release of 5 to 10 times its volume of sediment trapped by the adjacent Lituya Glacier, as an almost immediate and many times larger second slide, a ratio comparable with other events where this "dual slide" effect is known to have happened.

Lituya Bay has a history of megatsunami events in modern times — the 1958 event is one of many evidenced, but due to its remoteness was the first for which sufficient data was captured at the time, to confirm the nature of the event.

Rockfall from the Earthquake

The earthquake caused a subaerial rock fall in the Gilbert Inlet. Over 30 million cubic meters of rock fell from a height of several hundred meters into the bay, creating the megatsunami. Two people from a fishing boat died as a result of having been caught by a wave in the bay. In Yakutat, the only permanent outpost close to the epicenter at the time, infrastructure such as bridges, docks, and oil lines all sustained damage. A water tower collapsed, and a cabin was damaged beyond repair. Sand boils and fissures occurred near the coast southeast of there, and underwater cables that supported the Alaska Communication System were cut. Lighter damage was also reported in Pelican and Sitka.

After the earthquake it was observed that a subglacial lake, located northwest of the bend in the Lituya Glacier at the head of Lituya Bay, had dropped 100 ft (30 m). This proposed another possible cause to the production of the 100-foot (30 m) wave which caused destruction as high as 1,720 feet (520 m) above the surface of the bay as its momentum carried it upslope. It is possible that a good amount of water drained from the glacial lake through a glacial tunnel flowing directly in front of the glacier, though neither the rate of drainage nor the volume of water drained could produce a wave of such magnitude. Even if a large enough drainage were to take place in front of the Gilbert Glacier, the run-off would have been projected to be on the opposite side in Crillon Inlet. After these considerations it was determined that glacial drainage was not the mechanism that caused the giant wave.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1958_Lituya_Bay_megatsunami

2018 China-USA Trade War

The 2018 China–United States trade war began after U.S. President Donald Trump announced, on 22 March 2018, an intention to impose tariffs of US$50 billion on Chinese goods under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, citing a history of "unfair trade practices" and theft of intellectual property. In retaliation, the Chinese government imposed tariffs of its own on over 128 U.S. products, including most notably soybeans, a major U.S. export to China.

Tariff Announcements

U.S. President Donald Trump signed a memorandum on 22 March 2018 under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974, instructing the United States Trade Representative (USTR) to apply tariffs of US$50 billion on Chinese goods. In a formal statement, as required by the section, Trump said that the proposed tariffs were "a response to the unfair trade practices of China over the years", including theft of U.S. intellectual property. On 2 April, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce imposed tariffs on 128 U.S. products including aluminium scraps, airplanes, automobiles, pork products, and soybeans (which have a 25% tariff), as well as fruits, nuts, and steel piping (15%). The next day, the USTR published a list of over 1,300 categories of Chinese imports worth $50 billion on which it planned to impose levies, including aircraft parts, batteries, flat-panel televisions, medical devices, satellites, and weapons. In retaliation for that announcement, China imposed an additional 25% tariffs on airplanes, automobiles, and soybeans, which are the top U.S. agricultural export to China. On 5 April, Trump directed the USTR to consider $100 billion in additional tariffs.

Trump has denied that the dispute is a trade war, having stated on Twitter in April 2018, "that war was lost many years ago by the foolish, or incompetent, people who represented the U.S.", and adding that "now we have a Trade Deficit of $500 billion a year, with Intellectual Property Theft of another $300 billion. We cannot let this continue." U.S. commerce secretary Wilbur Ross stated in a CNBC interview that the planned Chinese tariffs only reflected 0.3% of U.S. gross domestic product, while press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders stated that the moves would have "short-term pain" but bring "long-term success".

In May, China canceled orders of American soybeans. On 20 May, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, in an interview on Fox News Sunday said that, "We are putting the trade war on hold". The White House announced on 29 May that it will impose a 25% tariff on $50 billion of Chinese goods with "industrially significant technology;" the full list of products affected to be announced by 15 June, and the tariffs will be implemented "shortly thereafter". The White House also says it will announce and impose investment restrictions and enhanced export controls on Chinese individuals and organizations to prevent them from acquiring U.S. technology, to be announced by 30 June, and be implemented "shortly thereafter." The BBC reported on 3 June that China had "warned that all trade talks between Beijing and Washington will be void if the U.S. sets up trade sanctions."

On 15 June, Trump declared in a short White House statement that the United States would impose a 25% tariff on $50 billion of Chinese exports. $34 billion would start 6 July, with a further $16 billion to begin at a later date. China's Commerce Ministry accused the United States of launching a trade war and said China would respond in kind with similar tariffs for US imports, starting on 6 July. Three days later, the White House declared that the United States would impose additional 10% tariffs on another $200 billion worth of Chinese imports if China would retaliate against the US tariffs. The Chinese Commerce Ministry replied quickly that China would "strike back hard."

American tariffs on $34 billion of China goods came into effect on 6 July. China activated retaliatory tariffs for the same amount. The tariffs accounted for 0.1% of the global gross domestic product.

Reactions to the Announcements

Following announcements of escalation of tariffs by the U.S. and China, representatives of several major U.S. industries expressed their fears of the effects on their businesses. Organizations critical of the intensifying trade war included National Pork Producers Council, American Soybean Association, and Retail Industry Leaders Association. Several mayors representing towns with a heavy reliance on the manufacturing sector also expressed their concerns.

Proponents of the increased U.S. tariffs included Scott Paul, president of the Alliance for American Manufacturing.

In anticipation of tariffs going into effect, stock prices in the U.S. sustained significant losses for the two weeks prior [to the effective date]. Paradoxically, on 6 July, when the tariffs went into effect, markets rebounded and rallied due to positive jobs report. Asian markets similarly ended the day on a positive note.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_China%E2%80%93United_States_trade_war