The Suicide of Venezuela
April 28th, 2016While this is about Venezuela, I couldn’t help hearing “America” in my mind as I read.
Via: Joel D. Hirst’s Blog:
No, national suicide is a much longer process – not product of any one moment. But instead one bad idea, upon another, upon another and another and another and another and the wheels that move the country began to grind slower and slower; rust covering their once shiny facades. Revolution – cold and angry. Hate, as a political strategy. Law, used to divide and conquer. Regulation used to punish. Elections used to cement dictatorship. Corruption bleeding out the lifeblood in drips, filling the buckets of a successive line of bureaucrats before they are destroyed, only to be replaced time and again. This is what is remarkable for me about Venezuela. In my defense – weak though it may be – I tried to fight the suicide the whole time; in one way or another. I suppose I still do, my writing as a last line of resistance. But like Dagny Taggert I found there was nothing to push against – it was all a gooey mess of resentment and excuses. “You shouldn’t do that.” I have said. And again, “That law will not work,” and “this election will bring no freedom,” while also, “what you plan will not bring prosperity – and the only equality you will find will be in the bread line.” And I was not alone; an army of people smarter than me pointed out publically in journals and discussion forums and on the televisions screens and community meetings and in political campaigns that the result would only be collective national suicide. Nobody was listening.
SpaceX Undercut ULA Rocket Launch Pricing by 40 Percent
April 28th, 2016In other words, the Air Force can show they’re saving money *wink*, while funneling billions of dollars for black world R&D to the usual suspects via some other mechanism.
Via: Reuters:
The U.S. Air Force will save 40 percent by buying a GPS satellite launch from Elon Musk’s SpaceX compared with what United Launch Alliance has been charging, the head of the Space and Missile Systems Center said on Thursday.
The Air Force on Wednesday awarded SpaceX an $83 million contract to launch the satellite, breaking the monopoly that ULA partners Lockheed Martin Corp and Boeing Co had held on military space launches for more than a decade.
The disclosure of the cost gap between SpaceX and ULA highlights the challenge the latter will face in competing for future launch business.
“We believe … the awarded price for this mission is about 40 percent cheaper than (the) government estimate for previous missions,” Lieutenant General Samuel Greaves, head of the Air Force’s Space and Missile Systems Center, told reporters.
ULA is responding to competition from SpaceX and other startups by slashing costs and overhauling its lineup of rockets. The venture is upgrading its workhorse Atlas 5 rocket, cutting launch prices to less than $100 million per flight, and dropping its costly Delta 4 rocket line, ULA executives have said.
The Colorado-based firm plans to eliminate 875 jobs, or about one-quarter of its workforce, by end-2017, so it can better compete against SpaceX and other rivals, including the Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin, ULA Chief Executive Tory Bruno told Reuters recently.
SpaceX and ULA are the only two companies certified to fly high-value national security and military payloads. Greaves said the Air Force received a second bid for the GPS 3 launch contract awarded to SpaceX, but would not elaborate.
Not a Typo: Chinese Company Pays NZ$526 for 146 Million Litres of Water a Year… In a Drought Zone
April 27th, 2016I like to think of NZ as a sort of remote, limited bandwidth version of a Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong franchise:
Via: Radio NZ:
A veritable drop in the ocean.
No, we’re talking about fresh water.
Forget it, Nick. This is Chinatown.
Pardon?
Nothing.
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp. Recalls Millions of Pounds of Poultry Products; “Class I Recall, Health Risk: High”
April 27th, 2016At the bottom of the article, it defines a Class 1 recall as follows:
This is a health hazard situation where there is a reasonable probability that the use of the product will cause serious, adverse health consequences or death.
Via: USDA:
Pilgrim’s Pride Corp., a Waco, Texas establishment, is recalling approximately 4,568,080 pounds of fully cooked chicken products that may be contaminated with extraneous materials, including plastic, wood, rubber, and metal, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced today.
The scope of this recall expansion now includes a variety of chicken products associated with extraneous material contamination. The chicken products were produced on various dates between Aug. 21, 2014, to March 1, 2016.
Serial Child Molester Hastert Sentenced to 15 Months in Prison
April 27th, 2016Via: Politico:
The judge calls the former House speaker a “serial child molester” as Hastert apologizes for “mistreating” boys he supervised as a wrestling coach.
SpaceX Plans to Send Dragon Spacecraft to Mars in 2018
April 27th, 2016Via: Ars Technica:
SpaceX announced Wednesday that it intends to begin sending uncrewed Dragon spacecraft to Mars as early as 2018. This is the first step in the company’s plan to one day land humans on Mars, which is the goal founder Elon Musk set for SpaceX when he created the company in 2002.
German Nuclear Plant Infected with Computer Viruses, Operator Says
April 27th, 2016Via: Reuters:
A nuclear power plant in Germany has been found to be infected with computer viruses, but they appear not to have posed a threat to the facility’s operations because it is isolated from the Internet, the station’s operator said on Tuesday.
The Gundremmingen plant, located about 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Munich, is run by the German utility RWE (RWEG.DE).
The viruses, which include “W32.Ramnit” and “Conficker”, were discovered at Gundremmingen’s B unit in a computer system retrofitted in 2008 with data visualization software associated with equipment for moving nuclear fuel rods, RWE said.
Malware was also found on 18 removable data drives, mainly USB sticks, in office computers maintained separately from the plant’s operating systems. RWE said it had increased cyber-security measures as a result.
W32.Ramnit is designed to steal files from infected computers and targets Microsoft Windows software, according to the security firm Symantec. First discovered in 2010, it is distributed through data sticks, among other methods, and is intended to give an attacker remote control over a system when it is connected to the Internet.
Conficker has infected millions of Windows computers worldwide since it first came to light in 2008. It is able to spread through networks and by copying itself onto removable data drives, Symantec said.
RWE has informed Germany’s Federal Office for Information Security (BSI), which is working with IT specialists at the group to look into the incident.
The BSI was not immediately available for comment.
Mikko Hypponen, chief research officer for Finland-based F-Secure, said that infections of critical infrastructure were surprisingly common, but that they were generally not dangerous unless the plant had been targeted specifically.
The Driverless Truck Is Coming, and It’s Going to Automate Millions of Jobs
April 26th, 2016Via: Tech Crunch:
A convoy of self-driving trucks recently drove across Europe and arrived at the Port of Rotterdam. No technology will automate away more jobs — or drive more economic efficiency — than the driverless truck.
Shipping a full truckload from L.A. to New York costs around $4,500 today, with labor representing 75 percent of that cost. But those labor savings aren’t the only gains to be had from the adoption of driverless trucks.
Where drivers are restricted by law from driving more than 11 hours per day without taking an 8-hour break, a driverless truck can drive nearly 24 hours per day. That means the technology would effectively double the output of the U.S. transportation network at 25 percent of the cost.
Robot Longshoremen
April 26th, 2016Via: Bloomberg:
On one end of a dock at America’s busiest port, tractor-trailers haul containers through dense, stop-and-go traffic. Sometimes they collide. Sometimes the drivers must wait, diesel engines idling, as piles are unstacked to find the specific container they need.
A few hundred yards away, advanced algorithms select the most efficient pathway for autonomous carriers to move containers across the wharf. The four-story-high orange machines cradle their cargo, passing quietly within inches of each other, at speeds as fast as 18 miles an hour, but never touching. Self-driving cranes on tracks stack the containers and then deliver them to waiting trucks and trains with minimal human intervention.
TraPac LLC’s Los Angeles marine-cargo facility demonstrates how autonomous technology could revolutionize freight transport as much as or more than personal travel. TraPac’s equipment doubles the speed of loading and unloading ships, saving money and boosting profits. Their impact is rivaling that of containerization, which eliminated most manual sorting and warehousing on docks after World War II.
“Self-driving won’t just rebuild the current freight system, it will create a whole new way of thinking about it,’’ said Larry Burns, a former research and development chief at General Motors Co. and now a consultant at Alphabet Inc.’s Google unit.
“It will happen sooner with goods movements than with personal transportation, because the economics are crystal clear.’’
Tesla Will Install More Energy Storage with Solarcity in 2016 Than U.S. Installed in 2015
April 26th, 2016Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
—
Via: electrek:
It looks like Tesla is about to change the battery game – this time by installing more energy storage capacity in 2016 with SolarCity alone than all of the USA installed in 2015. In a recent filing with the SEC, it was found that Tesla foresees an almost 10X increase in sales to SolarCity for behind the meter storage.
We recognized approximately $4.9 million in revenue from SolarCity during fiscal year 2015 for sales of energy storage products governed by this master supply agreement, and anticipate recognizing approximately $44.0 million in such revenues during fiscal year 2016.
