Gongol.com Archives: February 2016
February 19, 2016
How things could get worse in the South China Sea
As China sends more non-military ships into the sea, the de facto rules that have applied to encounters between ships of the Chinese and US navies won't necessarily be regarded -- and that raises the odds of misunderstandings and unintended conflicts. That's a serious problem. We're being gamed, hard, on what's happening in the South China Sea: America is appearing to lose an epochal battle without a shot being fired, and it's not as though there's any recourse to be found by appealing to some kind of higher authority. That's the problem with being the solitary superpower in a world where rising powers aren't interested in playing by conventional rules. Someone in Washington needs to get to work on a comprehensive game-theory review of the situation so we can start anticipating the next steps rather than just reacting. As one observer notes, "this is about strategic posture", and it doesn't matter much if the UN laws of the sea say that China's misbehaving -- they're moving forward at flank speed regardless. That means the only way for us to reach an acceptable outcome is to comprehend what the likely next moves are based upon incentives, costs, collaboration, and conflict (or, in other words, game theory), and to start playing this game of real-world chess several steps ahead.
Apple: Oops on that broken-screen iPhone thing
People who got the glass on their iPhones fixed by non-Apple technicians got something called "Error 53". Apple says it was intended to prevent people from bypassing the fingerprint lock, but now they're changing the software to keep the repairs from bricking the phones. The threat of a class-action lawsuit probably didn't hurt.
After the Dow-DuPont merger and three-way split, pretty much everything will just be reshuffled
Des Moines, regrettably, won't get the headquarters operation of the intended agriculture spinoff, but it supposedly won't lose any jobs either
They're setting up an independent committee to figure out what to do next
Consumer behavior as predictor of political persuasion
Psychographics meet politics
Omaha child who froze to death should have had someone to protect her
The most valuable thing government can do is defend the defenseless. That didn't happen here, and someone needs to figure out why.
The rural Midwestern economy continues contracting
The effects of low commodity prices don't stop at the grain elevator
