Short Takes – 12-30-23

Logistics: Agema UGV in Ukraine. StrategyPage.com article. Pull quote: “The demand is out there for UGVs that can reliably carry payloads autonomously. For Israel such vehicles are a matter of life and death, and need is constant and continuous. That’s why even the less successful UGVs found work in Israel. American UGV developers followed Israeli progress in this area and developed smaller UGVs that met an urgent need for Western armies that have overloaded their infantry with useful new gear that has the troops, and their commander, desperately seeking a solution to carrying all that useful stuff into the combat zone without exhausting the infantry. Rook and MUTT are not the final word in UGVs that do their job, but demonstrate the worth or continuous improvement of the tech.”

Studying combustion and fire safety. Phys.org article. Pull quote: “Microgravity dramatically influences flames and provides a unique environment for studying combustion. For example, on Earth, hot gases from a flame rise and gravity pulls cooler, denser air to the bottom of a flame, creating the classic shape and flickering effect. In microgravity, this flow doesn't occur and on the space station, low-momentum flames tend to be rounded or even spherical. By removing the effects of buoyancy, microgravity provides researchers a better understanding of specific flame behaviors.”

The Secret Foreign Roots of Tech Titans’ New California City. WSJ.com article. Pull quote: “That pressure dissipated in August when the project’s backers unveiled the plan for a new city. A New York Times article reported the venture’s ambitions and noted its A-list investors, including LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, former Sequoia Capital partner Michael Moritz and philanthropist Laurene Powell Jobs."

Nebraskans Are Sitting on Strategic Metals. Is Mining a Patriotic Duty? NYTimes.com article. Pull quote: “As the hunt for more materials used in batteries continues, energy officials predict more scenes across America like the one in Nebraska, a state with abundant cornfields and cattle but no operating mines. In Utah, a mine has begun producing tellurium. A new cobalt mine in Idaho is expected to be operational this year. New lithium mining is planned for North Carolina, and in California companies are trying out new technology to extract lithium from geothermal brines.”

2022 Liquid Chemical Categorization Updates. Federal Register CG rule correction. Technical corrections to rule published on November 21^st, 2023.

Schools and Libraries Cybersecurity Pilot Program. Federal Register FCC NPRM. Summary: “In this document, the Federal Communications Commission (Commission) proposes a three-year pilot program within the Universal Service Fund (USF or Fund) to provide up to $200 million available to support cybersecurity and advanced firewall services for eligible schools and libraries.”

Marjorie Taylor Greene creates multiple headaches for new Speaker. TheHill.com article. Pull quote: ““Mike Johnson comes in and first thing he starts talking about is passing another CR, and I’m like, wait a minute, what? You just voted against it. That was the whole reason why Kevin McCarthy got ousted, was working with Democrats and passing a clean CR. And you know, for me I was like, what a hypocrisy,” Greene told The Hill.”