Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Google Cars Self-Drive to Walmart Supermarket in Trial
July 25th, 2018Via: BBC: Google’s sister-company Waymo has announced a trial in which its self-driving cars will ferry shoppers to and from a nearby Walmart store to pick up their groceries. For now, the pilot is being restricted to 400-plus members of its early rider programme in Phoenix, Arizona.
Why Some PhDs Are Quitting Academia for Unconventional Jobs
July 24th, 2018“Why did they accept so many of us into this program when there are no jobs?” The answer is simple: Universities profit handsomely from graduate student slave labor. It’s a similar model that of prison industries, where convicts are paid pennies per hour to manufacture a wide variety of products. Instead of goat cheese, or […]
Now Is The Time to Be a Cockroach
July 20th, 2018I definitely wouldn’t count on banks and cash, as she suggests, but this is an OK article to share with your “normal” family and friends who might perceive the current economic situation as A-OK. Once people understand that things are not A-OK, that would be a good time to explain what a bail-in is. Via: […]
New Way to Recycle Lithium-Ion Batteries
July 20th, 2018Cobalt has been a very well known choke-point in lithium based energy storage systems for many years. Tesla, for example, has been reducing its dependence on cobalt and will go cobalt free for its next generation of cells. Although, what that means, in terms of an ETA, isn’t clear. The point is that the largest […]
The United States of Arms
July 19th, 2018Via: Will Geary: The United States of Arms from Will Geary on Vimeo. U.S. weapons exports from 1950 to 2017. Data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute's Arms Transfers Database. Units are expressed in trend indicator values (TIV). Each dot on the map = one TIV. Visualization by Will Geary.
The Twitch Streamers Who Spend Years Broadcasting to No One
July 16th, 2018Via: The Verge: When John Hopstead first descended into the virtual world of Dark Souls in 2013, his mission was to save a decaying world. Famed for its brutal and exacting gameplay, Dark Souls is a popular game to live stream: if you’re going to die hundreds of times, you might as well perish with […]
Trump: “I Think the European Union Is a Foe”
July 15th, 2018Via: CBS: Coming off a contentious NATO summit and a trip to the U.K. in which he seemed to undercut the government of America’s closest ally, President Trump took aim at another Western institution just days before his high-stakes meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In an interview with “CBS Evening News” anchor Jeff Glor […]
Walmart Patents Surveillance Tool That Can Eavesdrop on Workers and Customers
July 12th, 2018Via: Engadget: The audio surveillance system Walmart designed is composed of several sensors that can collect all kinds of audio data, including beeps and the rustling of paper bags. Any data it gathers can be used to assess an employee’s performance — for instance, the sounds items make when they’re placed inside a bag can […]
AI Startups and the ‘Wizard of Oz Technique’
July 11th, 2018Via: Guardian: It’s hard to build a service powered by artificial intelligence. So hard, in fact, that some startups have worked out it’s cheaper and easier to get humans to behave like robots than it is to get machines to behave like humans. “Using a human to do the job lets you skip over a […]
Tesla Will Build Gigafactory in Shanghai to Serve Chinese Market
July 10th, 2018Via: Electrek: Tesla has now confirmed the reports that came out of China this morning about a deal to allow the start of Gigafactory 3 construction in Shanghai. The automaker confirmed the deal and said that it plans to start construction “in the near future” for the first cars to roll off the line in […]
