Индийская политика

2023-12-30 05:28:50
Очень интересные фигуры в воздухе приделывает Индийская политика: в мае 2024 года выборы в парламент — далее выборы премьера, правый консерватор из Гуджарата Моди планирует второй срок, и его министр иностранных дел Джайшанкар летит в Россию, где обещает встречу двух лидеров в 2024 году, а главным гостем на национальный праздник Индии - позвали Макрона, после визита в Пекин имеющего репутацию политика, выстраивающего политику, отличную от Вашингтона.

Я много раз говорил о глубоких неявных противоречиях между Байденом и Моди — и скорее всего, окончившийся ничем визит последнего в Вашингтон, заставил ставить на оппозицию. Моди не демонстрирует готовности бросить Индию в топку войны с Китаем, про QUAD давно ничего не слышно. Можно поздравить Китай с развалом антикитайской коалиции в Евразии. Палестинская кровавая жатва не сделало США популярней в стране, проекты трафика из Индии в Европы явно буксуют.

Индия явно делает ставку на ресурсную подушку Россию и нейтралитет к Китаю — на стоящих на пороге Гражданской войны США Индия ставку делать не готова.


Бессменный с 2014 года премьер страны, 73-летний Моди готовится сравняться с рекордным правлением Неру — эпоха долгих правителей Востока обусловлена долгим периодом смены эпох и вектора глобального развития. Моди бы не ставил на Россию, Францию и в конечном счёте Китай, если бы не сделал глубокий и обоснованный вывод о туманности американского будущего.

США в ходе СВО проиграли не только битву за Россию, за Китай - но и за Индию. Россия выиграла ещё одного союзника, Китай приобрёл осознание, что безопасность его Западных и Северных рубежей во многом зависит от России.

Россия и Китай могут праздновать укрепление евразийского трио. Встреча трех лидеров, скорее всего, состоится на саммите БРИКС в июне 2024 года в Казани, который укажет на неизбежный закат Запада.

России нужны в Индии свои гражданские порты - для начала территории туристического назначения - в перспективе возможность создания военно-морских баз.





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DOT looking at airline frequent flyer programs for unfair practices

2023-12-26 14:44:55

The Department of Transportation is in the early stages of looking into airline frequent flyer programs and checking whether airlines have engaged in unfair or deceptive practices, Reuters first reported and the agency confirmed to TPG on Thursday.

In what appeared to be the early stages of an exploratory effort, the DOT has met in the past several weeks with airline representatives to discuss various aspects of the programs, according to Reuters, while a DOT spokesperson confirmed in a statement that the airline is “actively meeting with U.S. airlines and gathering more information on this issue.”

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“We plan to carefully review complaints regarding loyalty programs and exercise our authority to investigate airlines for unfair and deceptive practices that hurt travelers as warranted,” the statement added.

Included in the topics the DOT is exploring with airlines are the transparency practices surrounding booking award tickets, along with aspects surrounding the devaluation of miles over time, the transferability of points and miles, and the nature of notice given to customers when making changes to the program, according to Reuters.

Frequent flyer programs have drawn increasing scrutiny from federal lawmakers and agencies in recent months.

In October, Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) asked DOT and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) to detail their enforcement actions amid “troubling reports that airlines are engaged in unfair, abusive, and deceptive practices with respect to these loyalty programs.”

“In practical terms, this means airlines can make changes to their points programs without notice to consumers, as long as the programs’ terms of service reserve the right to do so,” the senators wrote in a letter to the agencies. “As a result, these programs incentivize consumers to purchase goods and services, obtain credit cards, and spend on those credit cards in exchange for promised rewards — all while retaining the power to strip consumers of those rewards at any moment.”

Delta domestic first class
DAVID SLOTNICK/THE POINTS GUY

The letter came roughly six weeks after Delta Air Lines announced changes to the elite statuses in its SkyMiles frequent flyer program. Those changes, some of which the airline partially walked back while leaving others in place, drew customer ire and served to underscore the unilateral control that the airlines hold over the programs, along with the few restrictions or regulatory statutes surrounding them.

Many of the changes to Delta’s program served to reward those who spend and engage more with the airline, particularly heavy users of its co-branded American Express credit cards.

“While these programs may have originated to incentivize and reward true ‘frequent flyers,’ they have evolved to include co-branded credit cards and now often significantly or exclusively focus on dollars spent using these co-branded credit cards,” Sens. Durbin and Marshall wrote in the October letter.

Durbin and Marshall, along with other legislators, have separately sponsored legislation that would affect the payment networks used by some credit card issuers. Airlines and issuers have lobbied against the legislation (as has The Points Guy, citing the possibility that rewards programs would be negatively impacted by the proposed law).

Related: DOT fines Southwest up to $140 million over 2022 holiday meltdown

Co-branded credit cards have become big business for airlines over the past decade, boosting valuations of their frequent flyer programs and driving billions of dollars in annual revenue for the carriers.

During an earnings call in January, Delta said that it added 8.5 million SkyMiles members to its rolls in 2022. In 2020 the airline said that it had 100 million members. The airline said in June that nearly 1% of the U.S. GDP is spent on its co-branded credit cards.

In 2020 during the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, United used its MileagePlus loyalty program to secure a $5 billion loan, valuing the program at nearly $22 billion.

Delta and United declined to comment on the DOT initiative, while other airlines did not return TPG’s request for comment.

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Sandoy prepares for festivities as mammoth undersea tunnel to open on December 21st

2023-12-19 14:18:04

For the people of Sandoy and the rest of the Faroes, Christmas comes early this year, with the end of Sandoy’s relative isolation—on December 21st, the new Sandoy Tunnel (Sandoyartunnilin) will finally open to the public, and for a period, driving through it will be toll free.

The opening of the giant undersea tunnel connecting the islands of Sandoy and Streymoy comes a good 20 years after the opening of the Faroe Islands’ first such road tunnel, the Vagar Tunnel (Vágatunnilin), which provided a fixed link between the islands Streymoy and Vágar.

Two more subsea tunnels were added in 2006 and 2020, respectively—the Northern Tunnel (Norðoyatunnilin), between the islands Borðoy and Eysturoy, and the Eysturoy Tunnel (Eysturoyartunnilin) between the islands Eysturoy and Streymoy. 

The Sandoy Tunnel, the Faroes’ fourth subsea tunnel, is also the longest road tunnel in the Faroes to date, stretching as far as 10,8 kilometers.

No wonder many people are excited over the impressive new piece of infrastructure that makes Sandoy part of the socalled Mainland.

Earlier this year, Hanna á Reynatúgvu, a member of the Municipal Council of Sandur, the largest settlement on Sandoy, told Local.fo that local residents there hope to see a change in the downward population trend.

“With this new tunnel, our island will be fully connected to the Mainland, with Tórshavn just half an hour’s drive from here,” she said. “That is a huge change and will bring many possibilities and options.”

Teitur Samuelsen, CEO of government-held tunnel owner and operator Eystur- og Sandoyartunlar, told broadcaster KvF earlier this month that the Sandoy Tunnel will remain toll free for its first 23 days of operation—that is, until January 12th, 2024.

When the Eysturoy Tunnel opened to the public three years ago, using the tunnel was free of charge until for the first 23 days after its inauguration; hence the new tunnel will be tollfree for just as long, he noted.

The combined cost of building the Eysturoy Tunnel and the Sandoy Tunnel, amounts to approximately 2.6 billion DKK (349 million EUR), according to Eystur- og Sandoyartunlar. The toll rate for using the Sandoy Tunnel will be the same as that for using the Eysturoy Tunnel, we’re told.

With the opening of the Sandoy Tunnel, a new bus route has been established to provide scheduled public transport between Sandoy and Tórshavn, ferry and bus operator SSL announced. On the day of the opening, retiring ferry Teistin—one of the only means of public transport between Sandoy and Streymoy for many years—will be making a few final trips between Gamlarætt and Skopun; from 4 to 6 PM the ship will be open to the public at the port in Skopun to offer people a chance to bid the ferry route a proper goodbye.

A grand opening ceremony in the afternoon of December 21st is slated to take place near the mouth of the tunnel at Traðardalur, Sandoy. According to Visit Sandoy, it will feature keynote speeches alongside several events immediately prior to and after the official opening. The events include a public run through the tunnel as well as a bicycle race plus exhibitions, open houses and more. 

View photos of the tunnel…

The post Sandoy prepares for festivities as mammoth undersea tunnel to open on December 21st appeared first on Local.fo.

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2023 was the year the economics of tech caught up with reality

2023-12-18 20:33:32

As a precocious teen looking to improve my college application, I sat in on a business studies class. I figured taking two extra A-Levels at night school alongside those I took during the day would make me irresistible to admissions tutors. The class I watched examined if it was worth a large factory keeping its own trucks and drivers in-house rather than outsourcing them. The data showed selling the trucks and firing the workers was more expensive in the long run, and yoked the company to the whims of any third-party logistics company in the local area. Not to mention, if you don’t own a mission-critical component of your business, you’re a lot less powerful when negotiating with your suppliers. But the teacher, and the class, all agreed it was smart to sell it all because it made a bigger profit in the quarter and was cheaper for the next two years. These people had never considered if something bad would happen, and how to prepare for it. It was at this point I realized my values were out of step with the commercial orthodoxy and opted not to take the course.

I mention this because I’ve always thought the people in the tech industry with all the money are probably halfway savvy about how All Of This Is Meant To Work. I’d told myself that what, to me, appeared illogical and self-defeating was because they were playing a game of six-dimensional chess on a board I was too dim to see. Unless, of course, the economics of our industry are so unmoored from reality that everyone’s just pretending, or deluding themselves. And more than a decade of cheap money and lax regulation means everyone’s behaved a little bit sillier than they should have. Now the lights are coming up and everyone’s looking to see what’s actually going on, there’s nowhere for these apparently smart people to hide.

It’s stopped making sense for investors

Exterior of wework office building in the City of London area, London, England. (Photo by: Matt Pope/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
UCG via Getty Images

The Silicon Valley mindset is easy to grasp: If you’re lucky enough to have spare cash, put a small bit of it behind some kids with a big idea. All it takes is for one of those bets – emphasis on the word bet – to win and you’ll get a slice of some pretty big profits. In an era where zero interest-rate policies mean it’s almost free to rack up extraordinary debt, it’s a better route than heading to Las Vegas with your 401k. Not to mention the special cachet and attention you can garner by presenting yourself to the world as a “guru.” But you might have noticed that a lot of high-profile bets haven’t been coming off of late, wasting a lot of cash in the process.

Take WeWork, which this year filed for Chapter 11 after working its way through $16.9 billion since 2014. What logic can we apply to its main backer, Softbank CEO Masayoshi Son*, to justify him burning the GDP of Jamaica on such a venture? Especially when Regus, which performs the same decidedly un-techy role of renting temporary office space, owns its properties and makes a small but regular profit every non-COVID year, was available to buy outright for a fraction of the cost? How did this amount of money pass from one company to another without any sort of internal or external oversight? And why did he think that WeWork’s nicer interior design and a beer tap on every floor was such a big draw? The only theory that holds water is that Son was so blindsided by promises of vast future profits (from office rental) that he lost any sense of self-restraint.

That mix of cheap credit and the promise of unbelievable future returns can be applied across the tech industry, too. It might help explain why the cost of streaming has leapt so high while the catalogs available have shrunk. The studios weren’t hurting for profit in the days before Netflix, but the fact it was valued like a tech company enabled it to rack up huge debts. That led plenty of studios to leap onto the bandwagon in the hope of getting some of that mythical profit. In the early days, the hope was that the sheer number of people paying for content would balance out the low cost. But now growth has stalled and there’s still $14.30 billion of debt, plus an audience with an ever-increasing desire for new content.

It’s stopped making sense for consumers

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA - SEPTEMBER 25: The Netflix logo is displayed at its corporate offices on September 25, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. Hollywood is awaiting the final vote on a tentative contract agreement between over 11,000 Writers Guild of America members and Hollywood studios in the nearly 150-day writers strike. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
Mario Tama via Getty Images

The debt swinging around Netflix’s neck, and the necks of those who followed it into the streaming world save for Amazon, Apple and Warner Bros***, is directly related to this gold rush. And it’ll need to be paid off to the investors and banks who handed over billions of dollars in expectation of vast rewards further down the line. Which is why the cost of a standard Netflix subscription has pretty much doubled since 2011 – with Premium plans now costing $23 a month. Given the scattershot nature of streaming libraries and the fact Netflix can’t be your sole source of entertainment, most consumers have more than one subscription going at the same time. That’s been fine, more or less, while times are good, so what happens when the world’s economies all start to slow down and you’re looking to make room in your monthly budget?

It’s worth remembering new technologies are expensive, both in cost and how much time and effort you spend to get to grips with them. But while technology has had some world-changing hits in the past – personal computing, the internet, smartphones and, uh, social media – it’s been a while since we’ve had anything that big. But the industry can’t help but keep hyping the next big thing even if it’s obvious to anyone with eyes that it’s not going to be a winner. We’re at the peak of the hype cycle for machine learning, which its boosters tell us will automate us all into obsolescence in a decade or so**. The problem is, whenever you actually sit and try to use a generative AI, the results are underwhelming, so great is the gap between the promise and the reality. Take Google’s new AI which managed to give fake answers to spreadsheet-level questions like who won an Academy Award last year. You can already see the itchy feet of those hoping the Humane Pin will be the Next Big Thing despite its risible introduction video.

Consumers lose out here not just because of these expensive boondoggles but because they suck up all the oxygen from everything else. Many of these technologies were designed not to solve real-world problems, of which we have plenty, but to dazzle investors, placate Wall Street and dupe credulous buyers. It doesn’t help that generative AI, like crypto before it, uses a significant amount more energy than it should, exacerbating climate change. Sadly, when all the attention and money shifts to the next thing, we’ll all be poorer for it, both for the folks who were duped into reading machine-written articles about the importance of volleyball, and the folks who got laid off because some genius thought GPT-3 would do a better job without oversight.

It’s stopped making sense for workers

Embracer Group is a Swedish game publisher that loaded up on debt to buy every small studio and IP it could get its hands on. In 2018, CEO Lars Wingefors told GamesIndustry his company would eschew a “fewer, bigger, better” strategy in favor of a “diversified” lineup. In 2021, it said it had access to more than $2 billion in cash and credit to continue its spending spree, bankrolling a slew of newer, smaller titles. That included reviving TimeSplitters developer Free Radical to start work on a new game in the long-dormant cult series.Two years after that, the company admitted that a deal worth $2 billion in revenue over six years had fallen apart and that it would have to cut costs. Free Radical has now been closed, putting the last two years’ worth of work on the shelf and close to 1,000 people across Embracer have lost their jobs.

Across the industry, countless jobs have been lost as even profitable companies look to trim their headcount. Spotify CEO Daniel Ek even said the quiet part out loud when admitting the company “took advantage of the opportunity presented by lower-cost capital” to staff up. Now that the economic situation has shifted, and money isn’t as cheap as it used to be, the company is letting 1,500 people go less than a month before the holidays. Big names who have also trod the same path this year include (deep breath) Amazon (multiple times), ByteDance, LinkedIn (twice), Epic Games, Lyft, Metabook, Dell, Google and Microsoft.

Reality’s going to hit us in the face like a shovel

Domino effect concept for business solution, strategy and successful intervention,insurance
krisanapong detraphiphat via Getty Images

When I was a kid, a relative worked for a company that made and sold slot machines for adult gambling. I must have been 10 when he came over and set up a game where he gave me a pound in 2p pieces, which I could wager on the outcome of a deck of cards. He’d rigged the game so that, despite all of the pledges to double my cash as my funds shrunk, I’d wipe out. It was a valuable lesson in why it’s not a smart idea to gamble your money, given by someone who saw it up close and personal every day.

The other lesson he taught me was the vow of gratitude he would utter often, which was doubly amusing given his atheism. Whenever there was a bad story in the news, or a tale of corporate woe closer to home, he’d say “there but for the grace of God go I.” Because he knew that so much of what happens in our lives is governed by chance, so it’s pointless to claim it was wisdom. We should always remember that none of us are untouchable, and that the worst phrase in the English language is “what could possibly go wrong?” It’s just a shame that so many of the supposed great minds in the technology industry didn’t get the chance to learn this lesson when they were young enough to appreciate it.

* Wikipedia – hardly a symbol of partisanship – has gone studs-in on Son. At the time of writing, his biography says “his reputation as an investor rests almost solely on his $20 million initial investment in Alibaba Group in 2000.” Given the rest of his track record – and the fact he is presently in debt to his own company to the tune of several billion, ouch.

** I do wonder how many of its backers who spend their days worrying about Roko’s Basilisk have thought about how they’ll be treated by the 85 million or so people suddenly forced into serfdom.

*** Warner Bros. malaise is more directly related to the debt tied to the various buyouts and sales that has seen it shifted from one corporate parent to another. Not that the streaming wars has helped here, but it's fair to say that its problems are a different realm to those of its peers.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/2023-was-the-year-the-economics-of-tech-caught-up-with-reality-153052312.html?src=rss Взято отсюда

Looking back at 25 years of the ISS

2023-12-07 22:39:27

Wednesday marks the 25th anniversary of the International Space Station’s (ISS) physical assembly in orbit. On December 6, 1998, the crew aboard the space shuttle Endeavor attached the US-built Unity node to the Russian-built Zarya module, kicking off the modular construction of the ISS. A quarter century later, we look back at the milestones and breakthroughs from one of humanity’s most impressive marvels of engineering and international cooperation.

The ISS, which orbits the Earth 16 times every 24 hours at a speed of five miles per second, has been inhabited by researchers for over 23 years. It’s the product of five space agencies from 15 countries. NASA, Roscosmos (Russia’s national space agency), ESA (European Space Agency), JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) and CSA (Canadian Space Agency) have contributed to the station’s assembly and operation.

From ink to orbit

Its official journey began in the early 1990s when the United States’ Freedom (ordered by President Ronald Reagan in 1984) and Russia’s Mir-2 space station projects were in danger of (literally) never getting off the ground. Freedom was in jeopardy primarily due to a lack of Congressional funding amid rising costs, while Mir-2 was on the brink partially because of financial hardships following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

On September 2, 1993, the two nations, each needing an international ally to forge ahead, signed an agreement to combine their programs and collaborate on a joint mission that would have seemed wildly implausible a few years earlier. US Vice President Al Gore and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin inked the pact, marking the formal conception of the cosmic laboratory we know today as the ISS.

Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin (R) and U.S. Vice President Al Gore appear at a press conference, 16 December 1993. The U.S. and Russia signed a series of space and investment agreements, including one making Russia a partner in the international space station project. Vice President also criticized nationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, saying
US Vice President Al Gore (left) and Russian Prime Minister Viktor Chernomyrdin in 1993
VITALY ARMAND via Getty Images

The following years included a design overhaul to fold Russian technology into America’s existing Freedom plans, a milestone 1995 docking of NASA’s Atlantis to Russia’s Mir station (epitomizing the fruit of the once-far-fetched collaboration), the addition of funding and cooperation from Europe, Canada and Japan in 1996 and Russia’s launch of Zarya a month before the ISS assembly began. That all led to the day 25 years ago when the two nations’ space tech linked together, sounding the death knell for the Cold War-era space race.

The first crewed mission began on November 2, 2000, when NASA astronaut Bill Shepherd and cosmonauts Yuri Gidzenko and Sergei Krikalev stepped onboard. The inaugural crew spent four months in space, laying the groundwork for subsequent crews. (The record for the most time living and working in space was set by Peggy Whitson, who celebrated 665 days aboard the ISS in 2017.)

ISS inaugural crew of Yuri P. Gidzenko (left) William M. Shepherd (center), and Sergei K. Krikalev.
NASA

The US Lab Module linked to the station in February 2001, expanding the station’s onboard living space by 41 percent. Four years later, Congress named the US portion a national laboratory. Far more than a symbolic gesture (although it was also that), the designation opened the door to funding and research from a much more comprehensive array of institutions, including universities, other government agencies and private businesses. In 2008, laboratories from Europe and Japan joined the ISS.

The ISS’s construction and expansion from 1998 to 2010 amassed around 900,000 pounds of modules. The station contains about $100 billion worth of gear spinning around the globe.

Research and breakthroughs

Photo taken aboard the ISS during its initial assembly. A module sits upright at center with the Earth behind it.
NASA

During the ISS’s more than 100,000 orbits of the Earth, it has ushered breakthroughs in areas ranging from disease research to bodily changes from microgravity.

Studying how proteins, cells and biological processes behave in microgravity has boosted research in Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart disease and asthma. Many of these studies wouldn’t have been possible on Earth. Meanwhile, protein crystal growth experiments have sparked advances in developing treatments for conditions including cancer, gum disease and Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.

ISS researchers made surprising discoveries about “cool flames,” which can burn at extremely low temperatures. Nearly impossible to study outside of microgravity, the astronauts’ research has challenged our previous understanding of combustion. It may open new frontiers with internal combustion engines (ICE), allowing them to run cleaner and more efficiently.

Studies aboard the space station have contributed significantly to our knowledge of human muscle atrophy and bone loss. (ISS astronauts typically work out at least two hours daily to prevent these conditions.) Studying how prolonged time in microgravity affects muscle deterioration and recovery also applies to Earthbound patients stuck in bed for extended periods. In addition, the research can help us learn more about conditions like osteoporosis, leading to improved preventative measures and treatments. It has also helped scientists better understand broader biological changes in microgravity, which could pay dividends if or when humans colonize Mars.

Water purification systems designed to sustain astronauts over long periods have also borne fruit on Earth. ISS astronauts recycle 98 percent of their pee and sweat using highly efficient and compact systems. This has led to the technology’s use in agriculture, disaster relief and aid provision for less developed areas.

ISS astronauts studied the Bose-Einstein Condensate (BEC), a “fifth state of matter” that deviates significantly from known states like solids, liquids, gases and plasmas. In 2018, the ISS’s Cold Atom Lab produced BEC in orbit for the first time. Space’s colder temperatures and lack of gravity allow for longer observation times, helping researchers learn more about the behaviors of atoms and BECs. Not only is this crucial to quantum physics studies, it could aid in developing more advanced quantum technologies down the road.

For more detail on the ISS’s breakthroughs, NASA has a dedicated writeup from 2020.

Decommissioning

Expanded cross-section of the ISS, showing its various parts and labels.
NASA

The ISS is currently scheduled for decommissioning in January 2031. (Russia currently plans to leave in 2028.) Its late 90s infrastructure is aging quickly, and the space station would grow increasingly and prohibitively expensive to maintain over the long haul. Government and commercial orbital labs will likely pick up the slack in the following years.

When its time comes, the ISS will undergo a controlled deorbit. As for what that might involve, Kirk Shireman, deputy manager of NASA’s space station program, broached the subject with Space.com in 2011. “We’ve done a lot of studies,” he said. “We have found an orbit and a change in velocity that we believe is achievable, and it creates a debris footprint that’s all in water in an unpopulated area.”

As Engadget’s Andrew Tarantola wrote about the ISS’s pending demise:

Beginning about a year before the planned decommissioning date, NASA will allow the ISS to begin degrading from its normal 240-mile high orbit and send up an uncrewed space vehicle (USV) to dock with the station and help propel it back Earthward. The ultimate crew from the ISS will evacuate just before the station hits an altitude of 115 miles, at which point the attached USV will fire its rockets in a series of deorbital burns to set the station into a capture trajectory over the Pacific Ocean.

NASA plans to guide any remaining bits into a remote area of the South Pacific Ocean. “We’ve been working on plans and update the plans periodically,” Shireman said. “We don’t want to ever be in a position where we couldn’t safely deorbit the station. It’s been a part of the program from the very beginning.”

NASA 25th-anniversary event

NASA held a live-streamed event on Wednesday to mark the quarter-century anniversary of the Zarya and Unity modules linking up. All seven STS-88 Space Shuttle Mission crew members joined NASA Associate Administrator Bob Cabana (mission commander) and ISS Program Manager Joel Montalbano to discuss the milestone.

You can watch it here:

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/looking-back-at-25-years-of-the-iss-173155049.html?src=rss Взято отсюда

Latest Spotify layoffs: 1,500 employees in run-up to holidays, in ‘strategic reorientation’

2023-12-05 17:46:02

A third round of Spotify layoffs this year will see some 1,500 employees lose their jobs in the run-up to the holidays. This follows the loss of 600 jobs at the start of the year, and several hundred more in the summer.

Spotify CEO Daniel Ek described the move as a ‘strategic reorientation,’ but the company’s fundamental problem remains unchanged …

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Sunday surprise: Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines to merge

2023-12-03 21:59:06

Alaska Airlines and Hawaiian Airlines said on Sunday that they would combine, the latest U.S. airlines seeking to grow and compete via merger.

Under the agreement, Alaska Airlines would acquire Hawaiian for $18 per share, or roughly $1.9 billion. That includes $900 million in debt.

In a joint announcement, the airlines said that the merger would allow both carriers to compete effectively across the U.S. and globally while expanding destinations and entrenching the combined carrier on the West Coast.

Both airlines’ brands would continue to exist “on a single operating platform,” the carriers said, with a single loyalty program. It was not immediately clear what parts of the airlines brands and operations would be kept separate and which would be combined, or how the differentiated brands could function as an integrated operational entity. In a presentation to investors, the airlines predicted run-rate synergies of approximately $235 million.

The combined entity would be based in Alaska Airlines’ headquarters of Seattle, with Honolulu as a key hub.

This combination is an exciting next step in our collective journey to provide a better travel experience for our guests and expand options for West Coast and Hawai‘i travelers,” Alaska Airlines CEO Ben Minicucci said in a statement.

Minicucci would lead the combined entity, the airlines said.

The carrier would be the fifth-largest in the U.S. in terms of fleet size, with 365 aircraft.

Should the pending merger of JetBlue and Spirit be approved in federal antitrust court, the combined Alaska-JetBlue would drop to the sixth largest; Spirit will have 204 aircraft at the end of 2023, while JetBlue had 296 as of the end of the third quarter, according to both respective airlines.

Hawaiian Airlines has struggled since the COVID-19 pandemic, and is on track to record a loss for 2023. The reopening of much of Asia, particularly Japan, has been a boon, with roughly 25% of Hawaiian’s revenue coming from transpacific passengers, according to some estimates. The airline also faces stiff competition from Southwest on inter-island routes and routes from the West Coast.

Hawaiian Airlines And Oneworld would bring an expanded network for Alaska Airlines

Following the transactions, the combined airline would be part of the Oneworld airline alliance, which Alaska joined in early 2021.

According to the carriers, the combined airline would initially service 138 destinations across its network, including 29 international markets. More than 1,200 destinations would be accessible through Oneworld partners.

The combined airline would have 31,200 employees and an estimated 54.7 million annual passengers.

The two airlines said that they would remain fully committed to Hawaii, with a strong operational presence and a leading position in the $8 billion leisure market.

The combined carriers would have more than 50% of the Hawaiian air market share, and would “retain and grow union represented jobs” in the state. Alaska currently allocates more than 10% of its capacity to Hawaii. The carriers would retain pilot, flight attendant and maintenance bases in Honolulu.

This is a breaking news story and will be updated.

Взято отсюда

Le Hall Des Départs

2023-12-02 22:51:40

Dans le hall des départs

Ceux qui restent sont toujours tristes

C'est comme de rester là

À regarder partir

Le protagoniste

 

C'est le hall des aurevoirs

Je sais qu'il faut qu'tu t'en ailles

Mais attends encore

Qu'on se regarde en détail

 

Dans le hall des arrivées

Quelque chose de sacré

On attend, le cœur battant

Les grands pas se rapprochant

 

C'est le hall des retrouvailles

Là où le temps s'arrête

Où le désir s'emballe

Je n'sais jamais trop où me mettre

 

Bientôt, on se rapproche

De l'arrivée ou du départ

Bientôt, on sera loin

Pour ça, on est toujours en retard

Bientôt, on sera proche ou loin

Mais ce n'est que provisoire

Bientôt, on se rapproche

De l'arrivée ou du départ

Bientôt, on sera loin

Pour ça, on est toujours en retard

Bientôt, on sera loin

Oui, loin

Mais ce n'est que provisoire

 

Dans le hall des départs

J'affiche toujours un sourire triste

J'ai déjà hâte de te revoir

Mon très cher protagoniste

 

C'est le hall des mouchoirs

On pense toujours un peu au pire

Plus que de simples "au revoir"

Ce sont des "je t'aime", quoi qu'il arrive

 

Dans ces halls trop grands

Moi, je ne vois que toi

Et j'espère, en partant

Qu'en fait, tu décides de rester là

 

Je serai à l'heure pour ton vol

Pancarte à la main, qu'on rigole

Pour ne rater aucun

De nos galants hollywoodiens

 

==========================

 

 

В зале вылета
Те, кто остаются, всегда грустны
Это как стоять и смотреть, как уходит главный герой

Это прощальный зал
Я знаю, тебе пора идти
Но подожди ещё
Давай запомним детали друг друга

В зале прилета
Что-то священное
Мы ждем, наши сердца бьются
Шаги становятся ближе

Это зал воссоединения
Где время останавливается
Где желание зашкаливает
Я никогда не знаю, куда себя деть

Скоро мы станем ближе
Вылет или прилёт
Скоро мы будем далеко
Мы всегда опаздываем
Скоро мы будем ближе или дальше
Но это только временно
Скоро мы станем ближе
Вылет или прилёт
Скоро мы будем далеко
Для этого мы всегда опаздываем
Скоро мы будем далеко
Да, далеко
Но это только временно

В зале вылета
У меня всегда грустная улыбка
Я не могу дождаться, чтобы увидеть тебя снова
Мой самый дорогой главный герой

Это зал с платками у глаз
Мы всегда думаем о худшем
Где простое «прощай»
Доносится как «я люблю тебя»

В этих огромных залах
Я вижу только тебя
И я надеюсь, что когда будешь уходить
Ты решишь остаться

Я успею встретить твой рейс
С табличкой в руках, чтобы посмеяться
Чтобы не пропустить ни одного
Из наших голливудских жестов