Security

Veered Tesla on Interstate Kills Truck Driver

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A truck driver on the Yankee Expressway has been killed by Tesla, according to police.

Initial reports indicate that software is unpredictably launching Teslas like missiles across lanes into other vehicles traveling in the same direction.

Recently I reported Tesla’s latest software version — 11.3.4 — seems dangerously unfit for general use.

It is very clear from video evidence that Tesla software now abruptly and without warning sends their cars rapidly off course, despite a straight road and straight navigation path.

A driver has less than a second to grab and turn the wheel to prevent collision with a truck, as explained in that blog post.

This new fatality case has very similar symptoms, but instead of cutting in front of opposing traffic it’s swerving like a drunk into vehicles on same path. And I have to say I just personally experienced this; a Tesla abruptly jumped left across two lanes, nearly crashing into the car I was riding in.

My human driver slammed on the brakes, to prevent a Tesla suddenly accelerating in the same direction as us from hitting our right side.

I mention it here mostly because the Tesla driver cutting left into us had a face of absolute terror. Her hands were in the air, her head twisted back and she stared open mouth at us with eyes wide like she was being abducted.

Back to this new case, police are asking for help understanding how and why Tesla killed the truck driver.

According to the accident summary, Vallier was traveling east on I-84 in the right lane of three, not far from Exit 30.

Meanwhile, a 2023 Model 3 Tesla being driven by a 47-year-old Fairfield woman was traveling east on I-84 in the left lane of three lanes, police said.

[…]

“For an unknown reason,” according to police, the Tesla veered across the center lane and into the right lane, where it collided with the Ford pickup.

As a result of the collision, Vallier lost control of the Ford F250 and crossed the center lane into the left lane and, then, onto the grassy median, where it began to roll over, police said.

Unknown reason? That indicates the police know it wasn’t the usual causes of lateral collision (e.g. blown tire), and they’re investigating things like quality of software engineering. How many police departments are poised for code review?

From my own analysis of emergent flaws in the latest Tesla software release, to personally witnessing resulting erratic behavior… the probability seems very high that software quality of this company is getting significantly worse over time, after their hardware was made less capable (e.g. radar removed).

That being said, Tesla is becoming a clear and present danger to public safety, as I have warned here since 2016.

History, Security

Matria: A Film About the Mexican Charros Trained to Fight Nazis

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Given recent stories in the news about certain Nazi-sounding people threatening to “invade” Mexico again, here’s a little food for thought.

A 2014 film called “Matria” gives important context to Mexico preparing for invasion and helping America defeat fascism in WWII, a relationship almost never discussed.

The Nazi war machine after WWI still was very tightly bound to military tradition like horsemanship (not to mention a post-Versailles regulation). So of course it makes perfect sense the movie centers on Mexican cowboys (the original cowboys) who were trained to protect their country against invasion by horse-riding Germans.

The threat and rise of fascism in Mexico is perhaps best explained in the work of a German languages professor in Guanajuato, a fascist provocateur named Hellmuth Oskar Schleiter. He had served in German intelligence during World War I and became a fervent adherent to Nazi party objectives for Mexico, masking them in “Make Mexico Great Again” campaigns (Unión Nacional Sinarquista).

Juan Alberto Cedillo describes in his 2007 book “Los nazis en México” how a network of German spies grew and linked across high-ranking Mexican officials, hoping to seize resources like oil reserves.

Nazi military intelligence campaigns really took hold with German companies doing business in Mexico, as evidenced by Swastika flags draped over their doors. The overt fascist signaling was then followed by violent attacks targeting Jews, Chinese, communists, and trade unions. A dangerous increase in threats to law and order from organized actions of fascist “Shirts” (first Green, then Gold, modeled on Hitler’s Brown Shirts) killed several people in 1935-1936. For example as fascists tried to open fire into crowds, ten of them were shot dead by police.

The Mexican government, driven by rising public outcry, tried banning violent fascist agitators from political groups (five years ahead of America). Their ban in fact resulted in the German-backed puppets moving headquarters from Mexico across the border to Mission, Texas.

Operating with protection from Texas the fascist anti-government “Gold Shirts” openly campaigned to violently undermine democracy until their leader died in 1940.

GEN. RODRIGUEZ, MEXICAN FASCIST; Leader of Gold Shirts, Exiled as Enemy by Cardenas in 1936, Dies in Juarez GOT HIS TITLE FROM VILLA Continued Activities Along the Border–Had 800,000 Ready to March on Capital

This might be a good point to remember how white foreigners like Davy Crockett a century earlier had immigrated to abolitionist Mexico and fought a violent campaign to create a pro-slavery state. The Nazi Germans in 1936 perhaps could be framed as walking down this well-known path of the 1836 Texas’ origin story. After Texas was birthed to deny freedom to non-whites it then was annexed by a foreign power (United States) under strict provision for the preservation of slavery. You perhaps could see why Mexico in 1937 eyed Texas and the United States as sources of fascism and racism. By 1939 German spies operating in America had managed to run a huge Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden under nativist and xenophobic “America First” banners.

I mean the 1940 reports of 800,000 fascists organizing in the former Mexican territory of Texas to invade capitol cities and replace elected governments with a racist dictatorship sounds strangely… familiar today. Not to mention the Sinarquista regressive nonsense falsely promising nativists a “return to old Mexico”.

Then, in May 1942 everything changed for Mexico when a Nazi submarine hiding in the Gulf sank two Mexican oil tankers seven days apart — Potrero del Llano and Faja de Oro. This switched defense concepts of Mexico from domestic to international. President Manuel Ávila Camacho responded with a call-to-action and declaration of war on Germany, Italy and Japan.

A popular veteran of the Mexican Revolution and President of the National Association of Charros — Antolín Jiménez Gamas — proposed that Mexican cowboys be organized to defend against the primarily horse-based Nazi military. A Legion of Mexican Guerrillas was formed and within a year Jiménez had 150,000 charros in 250 stations trained and ready to fight Nazis.

Of course Mexico also modernized its military. President Camacho created the Mexican Expeditionary Air Force (FAEM). Texas, given its slavery-based secession and habit of being on the wrong side of history in its attacks on Mexico, had been a constant problem for the freedom-loving Mexicans. Suddenly in 1942 America and Mexico joined on the same side for freedom and against the Axis powers.

The alliance was based on Mexico providing raw materials and labor to America for production of mechanized combat, such as planes and tanks, and in return Mexican pilots would be trained in Texas for combat. Negotiations with America to provide raw war materials slammed the door shut on Nazi aspirations to take them by force.

The FAEM became known as the Aztec Eagles. Their Escuadrón 201 was sent into duty for the Luzon, Philippines campaign and flew nearly 100 combat missions, side-by-side with Americans.

History, Poetry, Security

Was Elgar’s Enigma Hiding Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater

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A convincing case has been made in a very nice 2019 write-up that the famous 1899 Enigma was supposed to make people think of Pergolesi.

…Edward Elgar composed what has become one of the most famous pieces of classical music in the world, the Enigma Variations. Its fame is due in large part to its beauty — its Nimrod theme must be one of the most moving passages of music ever written — but it has also captured people’s imagination for more than 100 years because, in its composition, Elgar set a puzzle that has never been solved.

Until now. Cue dramatic music.

…the Stabat mater being a more likely solution to Elgar’s enigma than the solutions previously suggested: when taken together, the evidence seems almost overwhelming. But stronger even than the appeal to logic is the appeal to the ears: when played alongside each other, the two themes fit astonishingly well. And that, taking Elgar at his word, should be the ultimate test.

Oh, and… spoiler alert!

Sorry, I’m obviously not very good at these riddle posts.

To be fair, I don’t know a single person who could hum anything by Elgar when you say the word Enigma to them, let alone the tunes of an early 1700s composer.

RIP Cafe Pergolesi.

So, maybe, perhaps I haven’t given anything away at all. What song comes to mind for you when you think about the Enigma? Please don’t say Wagner.

Security

SpaceX “N1 Explosion” Today Shows Elon Musk On Track to Kill More People Even Faster Than Tesla

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The real news about Tesla is their engineering quality has gotten worse over time, with their fatalities going up significantly.

Source: Tesladeaths.com

Newer versions of Elon Musk’s engineering culture designs are far, far worse than earlier ones. This is extremely important to recognize.

There is no reason to believe Tesla knows how to get better, how to learn from mistakes, because a decade of data shows their delivery culture is mostly fraud tightly controlled by a documented serial liar.

SpaceX is shaping up to be even worse.

Today’s launch explosion is a very good reminder of how the Soviet N1 program looked like a failure to rational observers, no matter what the top-down centrally-controlled party boss called success.

As you can see from the picture above, the N1 had a lot of engines. Whereas the Saturn V was powered by only five enormous engines, the N1 had thirty little ones. 24 of them formed a ring around the outside of Block A, the name for the first stage, with six placed in the center to provide roll control. The thinking was that if one of these small little engines was good, then strapping them all together would be great. This idea went horribly wrong though.

Uh-huh. History, folks. It’s important. Really important.

Of course people will say everything is different. Physics isn’t what it was in the 1970s. But that attitude is mostly nonsense. Like saying political science isn’t what it was in the 1970s. Elon Musk thinking like a dictator is actually worse with modern computers than if he still put pen to paper.

SpaceX is therefore arguably on a worse trajectory than even the Soviet N1 catastrophes. SpaceX has to prove there are differences enough from the N1 program to prevent disasters, instead of simply repeating old mistakes and labeling everything “success” in a participation medal.

Like, who thought SpaceX doesn’t need parachutes or launch escape capabilites? Survival is the objective, not just taking as much money as possible from people before burning them to death (Holocaust reference, yeah).

Of course people will say huge failure doesn’t matter to some nation-state or billionaire. That is just flat wrong. Failures matter the most here.

US space industry funding drops 53% in Q1, hitting 8-year low

Money talks. Funding shortages reflect pain, like the black hole of Cold War spending that Gorbachev famously recognized and acted upon to stop losses.

Elon Musk often whines about how much he worries about losing money. And SpaceX delays launches, so they clearly act like they care until they pretend like they don’t.

Or more to the point…

SpaceX’s Next-Gen Starlink Satellites Have Started Falling From Space. The first batch of Elon Musk’s upgraded Starlink internet satellites experienced issues shortly after launching last month.

SpaceX reads to me like a restart of the South African space program under apartheid. You know, a racist mission to explode rockets on Earth to kill people here instead of Mars. But seriously, where do you think Elon Musk came up with his rather specific ideas for Starlink?

…between 1963-1993, South Africa’s apartheid ancien regime started various missile projects. A secret military space launcher programme aimed at orbiting reconnaissance satellites…

Anyway, I’m old enough to have worked at NASA and seen things done very differently to a Soviet-like cult of personality under Elon Musk. It’s sad to see anyone put any trust into anything his heavily censored star-struck minions are flailing and failing around with.

The infamous prince of apartheid emerald-mining already has a shameful legacy — the many graveyards of innocent people killed by his apparent flagrant disregard for human life.

NASA moon shot glass