Thoughts on US Defense

Last summer I had the pleasure of reading "No Higher Honor", a book about the USS Samuel B Roberts, a Perry-class guided missile frigate in the US Navy that survived a mine explosion while patrolling the Persian Gulf in 1988.  The crew performed a miracle rescue, using expert damage control procedures that saved the ship after suffering a total flooding in its main engine room and a severed keel.


One of the aspects of the Roberts story was the background given on the Perry-class frigates.  These were very small ships, built with a well-rounded capability and fast speeds, using gas turbines.  The cost per ship was miniscule by today's standards.  Nonetheless, when the contract was awarded to Bath Iron Works to build this class, it saved the shipyard from near bankruptcy in the early 1970s.


I believe the Navy needs to adopt a very similar shipbuilding strategy going forward.  Rather than spend billions on a few high-tech stealth ships, we should be building fast and versatile fighting frigates that can deliver missiles on target on the cheap. 


A much greater amount of our defense budget should be devoted to building a robust missile inventory, deployed on small maneuverable ships, or forward-deployed on bases around the world, or on planes that can fly fast and far on the cheap.  Missiles will define the defense environment of the future, not huge, expensive ship classes or bombers.  Quantity has its own quality.

Legacy Systems vs De-centralizing Forces

A list of legacy systems that are in the process of disruption by de-centralizing forces:

The Electric Grid vs Solar and wind--distributed energy

Oil companies vs Battery storage

Banks, including central banks vs Bitcoin--blockchain technology

Manufacturing companies vs 3D printing

Newspapers, news media vs Social media

Wall Street vs Crowdfunding- via blockchains

Drug companies vs Biotechnology, personalized medicine

Hotel Industry vs AirBnB

Auto companies, taxis, rentals vs Uber

Music companies vs Streaming music

Telecom companies vs Mesh networking via WiFi and IOT

Software companies vs Cloud computing

TV Networks vs YouTube

Movie studios, cinemas vs Netflix

Windows vs Linux

The NSA vs Cryptography-- Cypherpunks

Publishing companies vs blogs

Processed food companies vs CSAs, farmers markets

State universities vs Coursera, Lynda, Kahn

Libraries vs Wikipedia

Anti-Ageing Research

From TEDTalks, I watched a recent video of Dr. David Sinclair, co-Director of Glenn Laboratory for Ageing Research. After several years of research, Dr. Sinclair has isolated our body's ageing processes to the regulation of longevity genes in our cells. Chemicals known as sirtuins help to regulate these genes, which otherwise become chaotic over time, reducing our body's effectiveness to repair itself and maintain energy levels. Dr. Sinclair's work has led to a lot of skepticism, but several popular medicines based on his work are for sale on Amazon and elsewhere.

MapMyFitness US Survey

From the Wall Street Journal, the fitness app MapMyFitness recently released a study that measured the number of minutes its 22 million users exercise each week. According to the study, the average user logged 73.2 minutes of exercise per week. The state with the highest minutes per week is California. The findings were a bit disappointing, since the US average was less than 50% of the recommended weekly total of exercise minutes (150 per week) by the Center of Disease Control and Prevention. It equates to just over three 20-minute workouts per week.

Tesla Battery Performance

From Bloomberg, I read that the new Powerwall and PowerPack battery offerings announced last week by Tesla Motors may not be ideal for solar systems installed on your house. The 10 Kwh version of the PowerWall battery can handle only up to 50 charging cycles per year, and are not expected to be sold by solar installing companies this year, including Tesla's sister company, SolarCity. Additionally, the 7 Kwh version of the PowerWall battery only delivers a continous charge of 2 kwh, which is only enough to power a small window unit AC, or a vacuum cleaner. No more. Apparently, the battery capacities do not match expectations. It may require a lot of fine-tuning by Tesla, and significant scale improvements via its Gigafactory, to sell a product that truly acts as a viable storage unit for a residential solar system.

Clinical Trials

From Bloomberg, I learned today that several databases are being shared across multiple pharmaceutical and medical research companies. The largest databases include ClinicalTrials.gov, which houses thousands of drug studies from companies worldwide. It is maintained by the US National Institutes of Health. Another is Oncomine.org, a database of oncology research. It houses data that is being shared among companies which are engaged in cancer research.

Come Tri With Me

I've been working on a website recently that is exclusively devoted to my fitness workouts. Since I am currently training for a triathlon, the Augusta Half Ironman, I've launched today a new blog called Come Tri With Me. It's a WordPress site that I will be building out over the next few months. Really excited about it.