Sears Files for Bankruptcy
October 15th, 2018Via: CBS:
Sears has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, buckling under its massive debt load and staggering losses. Sears once dominated the American retail landscape. But the big question is whether its shrunken version can be viable or will be forced to go out of business, ending the final chapter for an iconic name that originated more than a century ago.
Sears says it will “close 142 unprofitable stores near the end of the year. Liquidation sales at these stores are expected to begin shortly. This is in addition to the previously announced closure of 46 unprofitable stores that is expected to be completed by November 2018.”
Sperm Counts Continue to Fall
October 14th, 2018Via: The Atlantic:
Men’s sperm have been decreasing in number and getting worse at swimming for some time now—and, at least in the United States and Europe, new research says it’s getting worse. A pair of new studies unveiled this week at the Scientific Congress of the American Society for Reproductive Medicine (ASRM) in Denver suggest that American and European men’s sperm count and sperm motility—that is, the “swimming” ability of sperm cells—have declined in the past decade, which follows a similar, broader trend observed by many scientists over the past few decades.
How An Amateur Rap Crew Stole Surveillance Tech That Tracks Almost Every American
October 12th, 2018Via: Forbes:
Today TransUnion says TLO is capable of “processing trillions of records at sub-second speeds.” It can quickly uncover relevant data like individuals’ family members and social media profiles. One of the most important features for law enforcement combines photos from surveillance cameras with a huge trove of license plate numbers to nearly instantly track suspect vehicles. Among its biggest government clients are the Department of Justice, the Secret Service and the U.S. Navy. A license for a single user costs less than $1,500 a month.
Tesla Increases the Price of the Powerwall as Demand Greatly Outpaces Production
October 12th, 2018Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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I wrote a comment on Tesla and the Powerwall a few days ago:
I can’t personally speak to the quality of Tesla’s vehicles, but I’ve had a Powerwall 2 at home since the end of June and, as a working professional in the solar + storage industry, I can assure you that the Powerwall 2 lives up to the hype. From the physical build quality to the performance to the app integration, everything else looks stupid. My criticisms of the product (there are a few) are noise level relative to what it’s doing for us.
The media doesn’t focus much on storage, but Tesla could do vastly more business in that area if they had the cells to spare.
Via: Electrek:
When we talk about Tesla being production constrained, we most often talk about the company’s vehicles. But the Powerwall, Tesla’s home battery pack, might be its most production constrained product.
Now, the company has significantly increased Powerwall’s price just as it is expected to ramp up production.
Powerwall availability has been limited in many markets and many reservation holders have complained about the lack of communication about a timeline to get the energy storage device.
One of the greatest features of the Powerwall has been its price, which is significantly lower per kWh than the competition.
But now the automaker is increasing the price of the device by a significant amount.
Tesla updated the Powerwall page on its website today with a $1,200 price increase between the actual battery pack and the supporting hardware:
Powerwall went from $5,900 to $6,700
Supporting hardware went from $700 to $1,100
The price increase follows another smaller price increase earlier this year.
Richard Dolan on the Digital Strip Search – New Zealand
October 12th, 2018Via: Richard Dolan:
Boston Dynamics: Parkour Atlas
October 11th, 2018Via: Boston Dynamics:
Atlas does parkour. The control software uses the whole body including legs, arms and torso, to marshal the energy and strength for jumping over the log and leaping up the steps without breaking its pace. (Step height 40 cm.) Atlas uses computer vision to locate itself with respect to visible markers on the approach to hit the terrain accurately.
Wikileaks: Amazon Atlas
October 11th, 2018Via: WikiLeaks:
Today, 11 October 2018, WikiLeaks publishes a “Highly Confidential” internal document from the cloud computing provider Amazon. The document from late 2015 lists the addresses and some operational details of over one hundred data centers spread across fifteen cities in nine countries. To accompany this document, WikiLeaks also created a map showing where Amazon’s data centers are located.
U.S. Army 1983: “Be Intellectually Prepared to React to Possible Encounters with Intelligent, Non-Corporal Energy Forms When Time-Space Boundaries Are Exceeded”
October 10th, 2018This is a U.S. Army Intelligence document on Hemi-Sync and Itzhak Bentov’s Stalking the Wild Pendulum.
The source document is “Analysis and Assessment of Gateway Process,” CIA-RDP96-00788R001700210016-5.pdf, which you can find on CIA’s Electronic Reading room.
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/document/cia-rdp96-00788r001700210016-5
19 More ‘Fast Radio Bursts’ Found
October 10th, 2018Via: Space:
A huge haul of newfound fast radio bursts (FRBs) may help astronomers finally start to get a handle on these mysterious and powerful blasts from deep space.
A new study reports the detection of 19 previously undiscovered FRBs, including the closest one to Earth and the brightest one ever seen. The results boost the total tally significantly; just three dozen or so FRBs had been known previously, with the first detection coming in 2007.
FRBs are brief (millisecond-long) but intense emissions of radio light, which can pack as much energy as our own sun produces over the course of nearly a century. Their source is the topic of much discussion and debate. For example, some researchers have suggested that FRBs could be generated by advanced alien civilizations, though most astronomers favor natural explanations, such as fast-spinning neutron stars.
Air Force Awards Launch Vehicle Development Contracts to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman, ULA
October 10th, 2018Via: SpaceNews:
The U.S. Air Force announced on Wednesday it is awarding three contracts collectively worth about $2 billion to Blue Origin, Northrop Grumman Innovation Systems and United Launch Alliance to develop launch system prototypes.
The funding is for the development of competing launch system prototypes geared toward launching national security payloads. Each company will receive an initial award of $181 million, $109 million of which are identified in the announcement as fiscal year 2018 funds.
…
Asked why SpaceX did not make the cut, Will Roper, assistant secretary of the Air Force for acquisitions, said the company is an “important member of our launch team” and can choose to bid again in phase 2.
“Not getting LSA funds does not prevent them from competing,” Roper told reporters at a Pentagon news conference.
He did not confirm whether SpaceX in fact submitted a bid for this OTA. “We only talk about the awardees,” he said. “We think all three awardees are going to be highly competitive to getting us to launch capability that meets national security space requirements ahead of the congressionally mandated 2022 date to get off the Russian RD-180 engine.”
