The AfPak riddle

The news about a new round of official peace talks between Taliban, the Afghan national government and US envoys are opening the door for some serious considerations about the future in one of the most troubled areas of the world. The Trump administration wants to get out of the country, without the American presence all the allies will withdraw as well, leaving the Afghan government on its own. By all means, Afghan armed forces aren’t ready to stand against the Taliban, nor they could be able to take back control from the warlords in the north.

A few days ago I was thinking about the worst case situation; a full reverse to 2001, with Taliban in control of most part of the country, with ISIS ready to set up shop in Kabul and Pakistan in the role of the unofficial nuclear-powered protector. By all means, it will be a nightmare.  Then I made up my mind, realizing that a significant number of changes had occurred in the last 18 years.

12 Years To Change Everything

This is for all the fuss about climate change. It will not be pretty, but the situation is dire enough to authorize a bit of extra effort.

The Road to Deep Space

In the science fiction novels or scenarios we usually get the picture of an established future. Somehow we got out there and we’re doing something interesting. The background of how we leave our cradle is normally left out or limited to some milestone (i.e. the discovery of a better engine or such). It’s a kind of fast forward to the future that works well in the speculative fiction, but let out the most difficult part of our collective future.

As of 2018, we have a lot of great projects ongoing. Two different unmanned missions will approach asteroids for collect samples, a number of probes are moving around the Solar System, new launch systems are deploying and the next big step, Mars, is in the making. This is great stuff, with tons of new data coming up and a whole lot of good science. Plus, we have a bigger number of players, both in the private and in the public sector, ready to compete in the market and to push for more opportunities in the years to come.

What’s going on in Sweden?

The Ministry of Justice of Sweden noticed last month a press release (look HERE) about their new sexual offense legislation, setting up higher standards for the concept of consent and introducing in their law system two new offenses, “negligent rape” and “negligent sexual abuse“.  The fundamental idea is that there has to be always an explicit consent before having sex, no matter the situation.  It’s a positive change, a sign of awareness about the rising incidence of sexual offenses. Hopefully, it is destined to raise the stakes against all the sexual crimes in all Europe.

Question: what causes the increment in the sexual-related crimes in Sweden?

Living out the comfort zone – a mission for 2017

It’s being a while from my last post, that because “life happens” and even the better plan is still an abstraction from reality. This will be a year of changes, once again. Changes could be really positive, the best are situated in a well-defined area, labeled “out of your comfort zone“.

Numbers don’t lie – the basics in the Clinton defeat

There are dozens, maybe hundreds, of reasons for losing a political campaign even if every effort has been done and huge sums of money have been invested to achieve the result.

Look at this infographic, it’s quite simple to understand.

The comparison of the last three rounds of presidential elections is crystal clear. The Democrat’s number of voters is falling down like a brick. The enthusiasm of 2008, with the victory of Barack Obama, has been widely lost in 2012 and it’s gone with the wind this year.

Brexit – the day after

All right, here we are. The UK held the exit-or-leave referendum and democracy worked again. Like it or not, UK leaves the EU and we’re in a new day, waiting for the future to happen.

What will happen now? Prime Minister David Cameron will accomplish to the article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty (see HERE) giving communication of the results of the referendum to the European Council. From that day, a two-year term starts and at the end of that term, if nothing else happens, every EU treaty subscription from the UK will be declared void. If the UK government starts to negotiate with the EU Commission about the said treaties, this period will be extended for the time needed. Cameron could ask to differ the start of said two-years period to October 2016 – in order to hand over the PM duties to a new leader.

A taste of IoT – Internet of Things

Data cloud graph showing the closing percentage increase or decrease of the New York Stock Exchange. Only the top 500 stocks by volume traded are displayed. Data is from Oct 2001, source: NYSE (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Imagine tomorrow. In the morning, you go out from your flat. The smart door senses your exit, check out if anybody else is in the house, then lock itself sending data both to your smartphone and to the company that ensure safety in the building. You reach your smart car, that unlock itself when you’re in the two yards distance from the door.

Brexit – what will change?

The forthcoming UK’s referendum about the future of the permanence inside the EU of the United Kingdom is important for all the other countries inside such union and for the perspective of the nations that are considering to enter the EU.
No country opted out before and the future choice of the UK citizens will open a door to unknown lands. There’s no procedure to follow, no legal precedents and no historic references to use. EU is not an alliance based on strategical/military agreements like NATO, nor it’s a short list of economic matters.

Spending for the future

I think that we all hear the same old story, no matter the country you live in. “We should stop to waste money on space-related programs, there are so many problems to be solved here! Who cares for probes, telescopes and stuff like that when we have so many people suffering on Earth?”

At first, such an argument could sound good. We have a number of ongoing wars, there are a lot of people under the minimum living conditions, a declining global ecology and  other worrying stuff at hand.