Archive for the 'Economy' Category
Robots Poised to Take Over Wide Range of Military Jobs
February 21st, 2017Via: San Diego Union Tribune: The wave of automation that swept away tens of thousands of American manufacturing and office jobs during the past two decades is now washing over the armed forces, putting both rear-echelon and front-line positions in jeopardy. “Just as in the civilian economy, automation will likely have a big impact on […]
Flashback 2013: Jeff Bezos Is Doing Huge Business with the CIA, While Keeping His Washington Post Readers in the Dark
February 17th, 2017Not only do I buy a lot of homeschooling books for my children from Amazon, but Cryptogon depends on affiliate commissions from Amazon. Several retailers in New Zealand simply buy stuff at retail from Amazon and then send it over to NZ. (That should give you an idea of how broken retailing is in NZ […]
U.S. Solar Capacity Nearly Doubles in One Year, Blows Away Previous Records
February 15th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand. — Via: Green Tech Media: In its biggest year to date, the United States solar market nearly doubled its annual record, topping out at 14,626 megawatts of solar PV installed in 2016. This represents a 95 percent increase over the previous record of 7,493 megawatts installed […]
Daimler to Convert Engine Production to Electric at Its Largest Factory
February 14th, 2017The simplicity of EV powertrains, compared to internal combustion, means that, “The plant will require significantly fewer employees.” Via: Electrek: Daimler has ambitious plans for electric vehicle production. It is among the few major automakers that not only have accepted the transition to fully electric propulsion in the auto industry, but who have also committed […]
For the First Time, Wind on the Plains Supplied More Than Half Region’s Power
February 14th, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Wind turbines across the Great Plains states produced, for the first time, more than half the region’s electricity Sunday. The power grid that supplies a corridor stretching from Montana to the Texas Panhandle was getting 52.1 percent of its power from wind at 4:30 a.m. on Sunday, Little Rock, Arkansas-based Southwest Power Pool […]
DroneSeed
February 13th, 2017Forestry jobs? *poof* Via: Vimeo: DroneSeed: First Video of a Drone Planting a Tree from DroneSeed on Vimeo.
TOSHIBA: ‘GOING CONCERN’ WARNING
February 13th, 2017Via: Bloomberg: Toshiba Corp. shares fell as much as 3.1 percent after the Nikkei newspaper said the company will warn that it may not be able to continue as a going concern when it reports earnings later on Tuesday. Toshiba is getting ready to announce a writedown of as much as 700 billion yen ($6.1 […]
The AI Threat Isn’t Skynet, It’s the End of the Middle Class
February 11th, 2017Via: Wired: At a time when the Trump administration is promising to make America great again by restoring old-school manufacturing jobs, AI researchers aren’t taking him too seriously. They know that these jobs are never coming back, thanks in no small part to their own research, which will eliminate so many other kinds of jobs […]
Leaked DHS Report: Trump Border Wall to Cost $21.6 Billion, Take 3.5 Years to Build
February 10th, 2017Via: Reuters: President Donald Trump’s “wall” along the U.S.-Mexico border would be a series of fences and walls that would cost as much as $21.6 billion, and take more than three years to construct, based on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security internal report seen by Reuters on Thursday. The report’s estimated price-tag is much […]
As Goldman Embraces Automation, Even the Masters of the Universe Are Threatened
February 9th, 2017Via: MIT Technology Review: At its height back in 2000, the U.S. cash equities trading desk at Goldman Sachs’s New York headquarters employed 600 traders, buying and selling stock on the orders of the investment bank’s large clients. Today there are just two equity traders left. Automated trading programs have taken over the rest of […]
