Gongol.com Archives: October 2024
October 26, 2024
TSMC, the enormous Taiwanese manufacturer of computer chips, has cut off its shipments to a Chinese company that appears to have been funneling chips to Huawei. Huawei is the Chinese electronics manufacturer of dubious ownership: It claims to be employee-owned, but the State Department and other observers say it's controlled by the Communist Party. ■ TSMC operates in a fascinating domain: It might well be Taiwan's most important asset. But it's also expanding in Europe and the United States in a huge way. Their new plant in Arizona is reportedly even more productive than the mature plants in Taiwan.
The administrator of NASA wants someone to investigate Elon Musk and why he has been in personal contact with Vladimir Putin. Musk owns at least a plurality of shares in SpaceX and is thought to have overwhelming voting control of the company. ■ NASA has an obvious interest in the conduct and management of the company. If the controlling partner in the operation is having secret gab-fests with the president of a very large and frequently hostile country, that's something quite different from a pipefitter in Brooklyn calling his grandma in Irkutsk. And the Wall Street Journal reports that it's a matter of "regular contact" between the two since 2022. ■ Starlink, for instance, is a SpaceX subsidiary, and the availability of (and access to) Starlink is playing an important role in Ukraine's war to repel Russian invasion. ■ Americans have broad rights to engage in international business and to hold opinions on global matters. But US Code imposes serious penalties on those who insert themselves into foreign policy to the detriment of the country. Musk occupies such an extraordinary place in economic and technological life that it would be dereliction not to probe more fully what's going on.
Apple is about to update its software to permit certain versions of AirPods to act as over-the-counter hearing aids. The FDA started allowing over-the-counter sales of hearing aids two years ago, and this is the first time they've approved a non-dedicated device to act as a hearing aid using software. ■ We shouldn't underestimate just how useful steps like this can turn out to be. For example, the history of education for children who are deaf or hard of hearing is chock-full of very big struggles to obtain seemingly small accommodations. But today nothing would seem out of place about a teenager wearing AirPods -- and if this development makes the difference to some high-school freshman who might otherwise not be able to afford prescription hearing aids, or who might be self-conscious about wearing them, then it all accrues to the good. ■ All too often, the public perceives accommodations as things we do "for the handicapped". But the reality is that almost all accommodations end up helping some "normal" people all of the time, and almost all of the public some of the time. The same ramp that makes it easier for a paraplegic to get in and out of a building also helps the former marathoner with worn-out knees, as well as the kid who twisted her ankle playing soccer. ■ Likewise, closed captioning, which wasn't even introduced for live programming until 1982, was originally "for the hearing-impaired". But now it would seem out of place to see a TV without captioning activated in a crowded bar or another public place -- locations where even people with abnormally good hearing benefit from the accommodation. And captioning can help many children learn to read. ■ The arrival of hybrid earbuds and hearing aids may not seem like much, but it's exactly the sort of modest, incremental progress that ends up looking much more significant in the rear-view mirror than it looks in advance.
The US Navy is currently operating with two "strategic ends" on the books: "1) Readiness for the possibility of war with the People's Republic of China by 2027, and 2) Enhancing long-term advantage". It's not a secret plan: That's the published policy. And they've chosen 2027 as a target because that's what the Communist Party of China says is its target for surpassing us in war. ■ Here, though, is the deeply unsettling takeaway from the Navy's "Navigation Plan": "The PRC's defense industrial base is on a wartime footing, including the world's largest shipbuilding capacity now at the hands of the PLAN" [People's Liberation Army Navy]. ■ The United States, by contrast, has almost negligible active shipbuilding capacity and has turned away from shipbuilding as a strategic priority. We can change course, but that will require considerable investments in workforce development and production processes. ■ It would also require budgetary commitments from Congress. Big ones. For many years to come. At a time when preparatory investments aren't especially popular and huge deficits are already the norm ($1.8 trillion this fiscal year!). ■ This is a problem that some observers have seen coming for quite a while. And unless we take it seriously now, the amount of future catching-up to be required will only compound. ■ The world is very big and the oceans cover most of it. Spin the globe on Google Earth sometime and see how much of it can only be criss-crossed by long-distance aircraft or patrolled by a blue-water navy. In the absence of guaranteed world peace, stability, and liberalization for a century to come, America needs to maintain, preserve, and enhance the world's biggest navy. Circumstances don't offer us a viable alternative choice.
Would Greek food sell better in America if we knew how to pronounce "gyro"?
It's hard to say it without sounding like either a moron or a pretentious jerk. It might also matter that it's more fun to say "pizza" than "souvlaki".
