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I learn a lot of interesting details everyday on the Telegram app or website. Weapons from the United States are being delivered to Ukraine using the Air Force C-17. The C-17 Globemaster III aircraft were loaded with ammunition for 155 mm howitzers from the US Air Force Travis Air Force base located on the southern edge of the Sacramento Valley. The Ukrainian Ministry of Defense says thank you to its US counterpart.
The C-17 is an amazing aircraft. It is designed to airdrop 102 paratroopers with their accompanying equipment, but it made headlines around the world for its quick decision to pack in 823 men, women, and children fleeing the Taliban. The maximum payload capacity of the C-17 is 170,900 pounds.
BA.2 now accounts for nearly all cases. It is about 50% to 60% more transmissible than omicron, but it does not appear to be more severe. Hospitalizations and deaths are what we should be looking at, but we still need to be cautious because cases are growing. There were 700,097 in the last 24 hours. The number is probably low because of more in-home testing without reported results.
The WHO dashboard shows what is going on country by country. Globally, as of April 22, 2022, there have been just over a half billion confirmed cases of COVID-19. The death toll now exceeds 6.2 million. U.S. deaths have finally slowed down to less than 1,000 per day and are now at 982.3 thousand. Global vaccinations are at 11.3 billion doses administered.
Let me introduce my son, Aaron J. Patrick. Aaron lives in Boston but stays on top of what is going on in the space industry. Beginning today, he will be authoring the Space section of the weekly News section on johnpatrick.com.
– John
The first all-private crew to the International Space Station (ISS) returned to Earth Monday after spending 17 days on board. No space tourists, they conducted dozens of science and technology experiments during their stay. Two days later, four NASA astronauts launched on a six month mission to ISS and docked with the orbiting laboratory the same day. They will spend the next six months on board performing experiments, space station maintenance, and public outreach. On Friday SpaceX launched another batch of Starlink satellites into orbit. Starlink is a satellite-based Internet service designed, built, and operated by Spacex that will ultimately be capable of providing connectivity anywhere on Earth with thousands of satellites orbiting the planet. SpaceX is on target to exceed 50 launches this year, or about one a week.
In other space news, the James Webb Space Telescope has completed the process of calibrating all four of its main science instruments. This is a major milestone, which allows the instruments to begin the commissioning phase before becoming ready for science operations in the next few months. The operating temperature of the telescope is approximately -380 degrees fahrenheit.
– Aaron J. Patrick
Some progress on Reflection Attitude this week. Another new story for the Health chapter. Continued editing.
This was a really terrible April. Today felt like 2008. Is there no bottom? The ten-year is steady at 2.9%. Tech continues to bleed and now hemorrhaging. The six GAMMAT stocks were all down and total $8.9 trillion but 23% of S&P 500. The other techs are way way down. I remain bullish on tech, large and small but it is going to be a long wait.
Every week I see signs of cryptocurrency becoming more mainstream. This week Fidelity announced it would let retirement accounts they manage for corporate clients to allow employees to put part of their retirement savings in cryptocurrency. They set a limit of 20% but I believe the employers will reduce that to 5 or 10%. Another significant development is Goldman Sachs made its first Bitcoin-backed loan. The global investment bank allowed a borrower to use the cryptocurrency as collateral for a cash loan. High volatility continued, but I believe it will eventually stabilize.
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