Category: Uncategorized

Tangent: Still No New Q2 Losses Disclosure Date, For Hapless Riot Platforms?!

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We will know in a few days whether Starboard Value has exited this position.

In truth, it was one of the smaller positions that the hedge fund had taken, as an activist.

But if the activist Jeff Smith still holds shares of Riot, he cannot be remotely happy that on essentially no notice the company tanked its Q2 results call.

And that it hasn’t scheduled a new date. Trust that if they are still a holder over 3%, they are pressing Mr. Jason Les — for a new date (soon he will be out of compliance with SEC disclosure rules anyway).

No sensible hedgie wants to hold — without end — while staring glumly, into a black box.

Out.

नमस्ते

It Is Probable That A Long Ago Slow-Motion Collision Created “The Heart” We Now See On Pluto — And That Liquid Nitrogen Flowed There Quite Recently, As A Consequence…

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I understand the argument — really, I do — but for my money, Pluto should not have demoted from planet status. Look at all this mystery and wonder, just now being revealed. We had no idea that all this slushy geology was underway, well beyond our Earth bound telescopes’ power of resolution.

No, it took both the power of New Horizon’s grand piano-sized close fly-by, shutters whirring, and the JWST space ‘scope coming online, to fully appreciate all the diversity that is buried just under the surface of this waifish, icy world. The latest is that liquid nitogen flows like long slushy rivers, near the northern edges of the heart feature. Wow. Here’s that, from NASA:

…A new analysis of imagery collected during NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft’s 2015 encounter with Pluto provides evidence that liquid nitrogen is rising to Pluto’s surface through cracks in the northern edge of the Sputnik Planitia, part of the massive heart-shaped glacier on the dwarf planet’s surface. This is the first evidence of recently flowing liquid on Pluto….

“Pluto never stops surprising us,” said Alan Stern, principal investigator of New Horizons and lead study author from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado. “In addition to suggesting that liquids have recently expressed themselves on Pluto’s surface, this result also suggests a new kind of time-variable feature on Pluto.”

The Sputnik Planitia is a vast, frozen nitrogen glacier on Pluto, larger than the U.S. states of Texas and Oklahoma combined. In 2015, New Horizons’ images of the northernmost portions of this region revealed city-sized geologic convection cells on Sputnik Planitia separated by both thin dark linear and more diffuse dark features, suggesting historical liquid flows.

Now the new research, published July 31 in the Planetary Science Journal, indicates that these dark linear and diffuse features may be occasionally and temporarily wetted, perhaps from time to time, by a liquid, most likely liquid nitrogen. The journal paper’s authors include both planetary science experts in Pluto and experts in terrestrial glaciology.

Surface patterns on northern Sputnik Planitia have been darkened in ways that resemble glacial features on Earth that have been wetted by rain or by the subsurface emergence of liquids to the surface. Pluto’s atmospheric and thermal conditions make liquid nitrogen rain physically impossible, suggesting that liquid nitrogen is flowing up from underneath the glacier….

Now you know — on a warm gray morning here… smile — off, to sunny, hot Northern Cali in a week.

नमस्ते

Voyager 2 Goes Into A Deeper “Power-Saving” Mode — May Last A Year Or Two Longer, Yet… Over 15 Billion Miles Out In Interstellar Space.

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We mentioned this effort last, in April of this year. The whole idea is to minimize the power consumption footprint of the remaining science packages on each of the two Voyagers, now .

In that way, it is hoped that each of the twin crafts, now well over 50 years old — will operate for another year or two — before falling silent forever. Here’s the latest, from NASA | JPL | Goddard:

…Engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have successfully freed up power on Voyager 2, extending how long the spacecraft can continue to do science.

Nicknamed the “Big Bang,” the effort involved simultaneously turning off certain powered devices and substituting them with lower-power alternatives while ensuring the spacecraft remains warm enough to operate.

The Voyagers get their power from radioisotope thermoelectric generators, devices that convert heat from decaying plutonium into electricity. Due to the plutonium supply continually depleting, both probes lose about 4 watts of power each year. After almost a half-century since launch, the spacecraft power margins have grown razor thin, requiring the team to conserve energy by shutting off non-essential devices and systems.

Since 2024, the dwindling power supply has forced the mission to turn off two science instruments on each of the Voyager spacecraft (each spacecraft has 10 instruments; others had been turned off previously because they were only used for the mission’s planetary encounters). Without the Big Bang activity, the mission would have had to turn off another instrument on Voyager 2 before the end of 2026. The savings should provide power to keep its three instruments operating for at least an extra year.

The mission team plans to perform the same swap on Voyager 1, which is farther from Earth than Voyager 2, and to complete the effort in the coming months….

Now you know. Onward, grinning — resolutely.

नमस्ते

Moderna Is Rising This Morning — Has Dosed First Clinical Trial Patient, In Newest Bundibugyo/Ebola Vaccine Effort… In Canada (n=80)

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We have long been a fan of this well-run, mRNA-science focused biotech.

And as of this morning, it has a vaccine candidate in Phase 1/2 clincial trials, in Canada — for Bundibugyo. So the stock is rising — about 3%, on the morning. Sweet. Here’s the latest:

…Moderna has begun a Phase 1 clinical trial of an Ebola vaccine set to target the Bundibugyo strain, which is currently circulating in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), the pharmaceutical company announced Tuesday.

The first participants were vaccinated in Canada with the candidate, mRNA-1469. The vaccine will be using the same mRNA platform that Moderna used to develop its vaccine during the COVID-19 pandemic….

Now you know. Onward, grinning — despite a smallish infestation — of chuckleheads — this morning.

नमस्ते

That Crazy Riot Platforms Company Just Called Off Its Q2 ’26 GAAP Loss Results Call — Due Tomorrow @ 8:30 AM. WTAH?!

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There is no chance this is good news.

Something material — and very likely, adverse… has turned up.

And Riot management needs more time to figure out how… to spin it.

No large cap public company. . . ever. . . does this.

Unless the CEO was killed in a plane crash, this afternoon — the show must go on. That is why companies have CFOs and CIOs.

That’s the only way to read this.

Buckle up — for this to fall like a rock in the morning, on the NASDAQ.

No sensible company cancels their quarterly results (loss) call on the night before a webcast and says “we will tell you later — when we’re gonna tell you what it is all about.”

I N S A N E.

Just an honest question here: has Jason Les… been fired?

Did the only AI commit/contract scale back, or walk away — from its commitment?

Look for Riot to fall 20% or more — tomorrow morning.

नमस्ते

A Fun Time Lapse Video — From NASA — [For Some Distant Day, Around 2050]: On Building A Human Habitat On Mars…

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Many here know that I am firmly of the opinion that NASA / JPL has progressed its capabilities with largely autonomous lander packages… that we as a planet have scant need to put humans on Barsoom — except for the dubious “wow!” factor of it all. The radiation risks in transit, and on return, are… overwhelming — in a word.

And our next gen [nearly 100% robotic] ‘choppers and rovers can do it all at about one-fiftieth of the cost (financial and human).

All that said, there will come a day — when we solve the radiation shielding problem — when we might find a human Mars excursion to be a sensible (perhaps even exhilarating) risk to take — like around the year 2050. The below is in anticipation of that far off day. We may even “three-dee print our hab” — up there. Cool! See below:

…Construction is complete on a 3D-printed, 1,700-square-foot habitat that will simulate the challenges of a mission to Mars at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas. The habitat will be home to four intrepid crew members for a one-year Crew Health and Performance Analog, or CHAPEA, mission….

नमस्ते

Forbes: DRC Has Reported Fewer Than HALF Of Its Current Bundibugyo Ebola Cases. Yikes.

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Yes, that means we only have the vaguest of ideas — of how bad this outbreak really is — or will become.

What we know for certain is that it is already the second deadliest on record, in Africa.

Here’s Forbes, with the deeply disconcerting news, just now:

…On January 25, 2026 a fifty-year-old woman on the outskirts of Mongbwalu, a gold-mining town in Ituri province in eastern Congo, died after vomiting blood. Her mother died six days later. Her husband fell ill and recovered. None of it was recorded as Ebola. Congo would not declare an outbreak for another four months.

The declaration came on May 15. Since then the Democratic Republic of the Congo has recorded 3,802 confirmed cases and 1,707 deaths. Twenty more across the border in Uganda bring the total to 3,822, which makes this the second-largest Ebola epidemic on record.

The virus is Bundibugyo, named for the Ugandan district where it first appeared in 2007. Bundibugyo is one of the rarer Ebola species with no licensed vaccine and no approved treatment….

In mid-July the head of WHO’s emergencies program, Chikwe Ihekweazu, told reporters that “80% of new cases are outside our contact lists and so are coming to us from unknown chains of transmission.” The figure is a clue to the outbreak’s true size. It is also a slippery one….

Onward, resolutely — just the same.

Please join me, and donate if you are able:

Doctors Without Borders USA

P.O. Box 5030
Hagerstown, MD 21741-5030

There is still so much (personally) to look forward to, with joy — in these coming weeks… smile.

नमस्ते

“Same Old; Same Old…” Now 25 States Have Sued Tangerine 2.0, Alleging His “New” Tariffs Are A Mere Pre-Text For The Old Ones (Invalidated). Smile.

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Y A W N. These states clearly have the better of the argument.

We will mention it from time to time — as Trump loses at each level — but we won’t spend an undue amount of attention on a guy who cannot get the actual law through his thick skull. [Or through Eastman’s and Navarro’s.] Here’s a bit, this morning:

. . .Trump, who argues that high tariffs will revive American manufacturing, last year overturned decades of U.S. policy that favored lower tariffs and ever-freer trade. Invoking the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act, or IEEPA, he imposed double-digit tariffs on imports from almost every country, saying America’s longstanding trade deficit amounted to a national emergency.

But the Supreme Court ruled that IEEPA did not authorize tariffs. The decision forced the administration to send refunds to importers who’d paid the tariffs. Eager to make up the lost revenue, Trump turned to temporary 10% worldwide tariffs. But they expired at midnight July 24….

During Trump ’s first term, he cited Section 301 to impose tariffs on Chinese imports, which survived legal challenges….

“Presidents have used it for decades, and Congress built it with real guardrails: investigation, consultation, a public record,” Appleton said. “The government’s defense won’t be ‘I had no power to do this.’ It will be, ‘I stayed inside the lines Congress drew.’ That is a real fight, not a formality, and it is the one that will decide this case….”

Now you know — what a clown show. Onward, resolutely, just the same.

नमस्ते

The California Supreme Court Finds “No Duty To Innovate” — As Against Any Supposed-Gilead AIDS / R&D Slow-Walk…

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As ever, we will open with the opinion (119 pages of a PDF) itself. It is a sensible one. While there may in the future be certain edge cases — where a wider duty might be found, this is not that case, in my estimation.

AIDS was (back then) a highly lethal diagnosis — and Gilead’s TDF was providing many years of progression free survival in the early 2000s. True, the side effects were often daunting — but it all meant a very good shot at a longer life. AIDS activists — not wrongly — sought to force Gilead to market a more gentle (on the patient) formulation, as soon as a glimmer of it became known in the research literature. Gilead did not immediately do so. Thus, this suit followed.

The court has held that the duty of care does not extend to a duty to immediately (without regard to economics) “innovate” — for new drugs. It was enough that the drug was effective at prolonging life, and that governments were willing to reimburse patients for taking it, held the courts — top to bottom.

That principle has been re-affirmed today. Here’s the latest on it all, from the SF Chronicle’s reporting:

…Rejecting claims by 24,000 AIDS patients, the California Supreme Court ruled Monday that pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences acted legally by marketing a drug for years that was effective but had potentially harmful side effects, while withholding another product that was equally effective but less harmful.

“A manufacturer cannot be held liable for injuries caused by a nondefective product,” Justice Joshua Groban said in a 6-1 decision overturning a lower-court ruling that had allowed the patients to sue the Foster City-based company.

The drug, tenofovir disoproxil fumarate, or TDF, was one of the first effective medications against HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. Gilead began developing it in 1991 and obtained U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval to market it in 2001….

Requiring a company to determine whether a less-harmful product is available and, if so, halt its sales of an equally effective, government-approved medication “would place extraordinary burdens on drug manufacturers,” said Groban….

[From the opinion itself, then:] Even if we were to assume arguendo that manufacturers may owe a general duty of reasonable care apart from their duty to market products free from defects, we held in Rowland v. Christian (1968) 69 Cal.2d 108 (Rowland) that foreseeability and policy considerations may justify an exception to section 1714’s default duty in appropriate circumstances. Such circumstances exist here.

Where, as here, the allegedly safer drug has not yet undergone large-scale clinical testing in humans or received approval from the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA), any harm resulting from a drug manufacturer’s delay in commercializing that drug would arise, if at all, only through a chain of uncertain scientific outcomes and discretionary decisions by actors beyond the manufacturer’s control….

Now you know — out into the warm sunshine for a bike trek — and, in about ten days, another Northern California half-iron trip! Then… on to France! Smile….

नमस्ते