San Francisco: Imbeciles Paying $1900 Per Month to Live in House with Dozens of Roommates
March 11th, 2017Man, if you thought the Podshare story from January was nuts, be sitting down for this one.
That Podshare place looks like a 5-Star resort compared to this.
Via: Reuters:
Zander Dejah, 25, pays $1,900 a month rent to live in a downtown San Francisco house with at least 40 other people, many of whom sleep in bunk beds.
Dejah is a resident of The Negev, a communal living space that styles itself as a home for millennial tech workers to brainstorm ideas, write code and create apps, even if they have to share toilets and bathrooms with dozens of others. (Related photo essay: here)
Houses like The Negev, located in a neighborhood known as “SoMa” or South of Market, have cropped up around San Francisco as an influx of young professionals, many of whom are tech workers, have faced the city’s notoriously high rents and apartment shortages. It has three floors and roughly 50 rooms, filled with bunk beds, beer bottles and laptops, according to residents.
Dejah, born and raised in New York, graduated last year with a degree in computer science and math from McGill University. Unemployed, he moved to California six months ago and found his room at The Negev on Craigslist.
“I thought New York was expensive,” said Dejah, who quickly landed a job as a virtual reality engineer at consulting firm moBack. “It’s basically an extension of college. We sort of live in a frat house.”
FBI Used Best Buy’s Geek Squad To Increase Secret Public Surveillance
March 11th, 2017Via: OC Weekly:
Recently unsealed records reveal a much more extensive secret relationship than previously known between the FBI and Best Buy’s Geek Squad, including evidence the agency trained company technicians on law-enforcement operational tactics, shared lists of targeted citizens and, to covertly increase surveillance of the public, encouraged searches of computers even when unrelated to a customer’s request for repairs.
California: State DMV Backs Allowing Self-Driving Cars with No Human on Board
March 11th, 2017Via: San Francisco Chronicle:
Self-driving cars with no human behind the wheel — or, for that matter, any steering wheel at all — may soon appear on California’s public roads, under regulations state officials proposed Friday.
The rules represent a delicate balance, trying to ensure the safety of a new technology many people don’t trust while avoiding tough restrictions that could send car companies fleeing to other states.
Until now, California has required all 27 companies testing autonomous cars in the state to have someone in the driver’s seat, ready to take over, when testing on public roads. And those vehicles needed to have steering wheels and brake pedals, even if some self-driving car engineers didn’t consider them necessary.
Both of those requirements would disappear under the new regulations proposed by the California Department of Motor Vehicles.
Instead, automakers would need to certify to the state that their own testing — either on closed tracks or through computer modeling — shows the cars are ready to operate on public roads with no one behind the wheel. Tests with no driver would require an operator monitoring the car, ready to steer via remote control if necessary.
And if automakers want to deploy cars without such standard controls as a steering wheel and pedals, they would first need the approval of federal highway safety officials.
Musk on South Australia Grid Crisis: Tesla Will Install 100 MWh of Powerpacks Within 100 Days of Contract Signature or It’s Free
March 10th, 2017“That serious enough for you?”
Via: Reuters:
Tesla Inc boss Elon Musk on Friday offered to save Australia’s most renewable-energy dependent state from blackouts by installing $25 million worth of battery storage within 100 days, and offering it for free if he missed the target.
The offer follows a string of power outages in the state of South Australia, including a blackout that left industry crippled for up to two weeks and stoked fears of more outages across the national electricity market due to tight supplies.
Musk made the offer on social media, and the government said it could consider backing such a battery roll out by Tesla.
“The government stands ready through ARENA and the CEFC to work with companies with serious proposals to support the deployment of more storage,” Environment and Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg said in an email to Reuters.
ARENA is the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and the CEFC is the Clean Energy Finance Corp.
Musk made the offer in response to a comment on social media by Mike Cannon-Brookes, the co-founder of Australian software maker Atlassian Corp, who said he would be willing to line up funding and political support if Tesla could supply batteries that would solve South Australia’s problems.
100-DAY GUARANTEE
Musk responded by tweeting: “Tesla will get the system installed and working 100 days from contract signature or it is free. That serious enough for you?”
He quoted a price of $250 per kilowatt hour for 100 megawatt hour systems, which would imply a price of $25 million for the battery packs.
“You’re on mate. Give me 7 days to try and sort out politics & funding,” tweeted Cannon-Brookes.
‘Crime-Fighting Robots Aid Police’
March 10th, 2017Via: Star Telegram:
Maybe someday it will menacingly order citizens to drop their weapons — or else, a la Robocop.
But for now, the Knightscope crime-fighting robots, demonstrated for the University of Texas at Arlington Police Department and the media on Thursday, are limited to less aggressive tasks like scanning license plates for unauthorized vehicles or alerting authorities to people in restricted areas.
Or, for mall bots, telling shoppers how to get to Macy’s. And they’re always videotaping and collecting data, including markers that help identify nearby wireless devices. Those latter skills helped solve a robbery recently.
But Knightscope co-founder and former UTA student Stacy Stephens has much higher expectations for the technology.
“Long-term, our ultimate goal is to be able to predict and prevent crime,” he said, by analyzing past data with real-time, on-site information collected by the robots. “Then maybe we have the ability to put the robots into a patrol state where they are hitting those hotspots.”
Aquion Energy Files for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy
March 9th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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Bummer. That’s the battery I wanted, albeit for less than half the price of what they were asking. *chortle* Maybe the chemistry will survive with whichever entity picks over the carcass…
I doubt it’s a coincidence that this happened just as the Tesla Powerwall 2 is beginning to ship.
Back in October, I wrote the following about the Tesla Powerwall 2:
As far as I can tell, this authoritatively blows away all other residential energy storage options…
This is a bit disturbing because this upsets the entire storage industry. There is no competition to this. For companies with existing energy storage offerings, there are two options:
1) Drastically drop prices
2) Die
The cost of a delivered kWh from the Aquion system is more than double the cost of a delivered kWh from the Powerwall 2. Despite the superior safety and environmental characteristics of the Aquion, the high price, and possibly the larger footprint, doomed it.
This is why I keep telling people to wait, if possible, on these next gen systems. If it’s not possible, and you need storage now, go with the cheapest AGM bank that fits your needs and wait for this industry turmoil settle out somewhat.
The Tesla Gigafactory isn’t even fully operational yet! There are an unknown number of Chinese battery Gigafactory clones spinning up. There’s the former Tesla employees’ battery Gigafactory clone coming to Sweden. Mercedes is massively expanding their lithium ion production facilities as they’re preparing several electric drive models for market and a push into domestic energy storage.
On and on. This is about .1% of the battery news floating around.
You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.
More consolidation is inevitable.
And if I had to pick the next one to face difficulties:
I wonder about Enphase.
Enphase’s storage prices are high and they refuse to acknowledge that people legitimately demand some form of backup capability from a multi thousand dollar investment in Enphase batteries. I’ve tried to get through to Enphase, “My customers are demanding backup capabilities, even if they’re limited.” Enphase responds: Buy a generator. Actually, a generator is the correct response if you really do the math on this issue for an average house (which Enphase has done), but the average customer won’t care with just about every other option touting backup.
Via: Energy Storage News:
US battery and energy storage system manufacturer Aquion Energy has declared bankruptcy, offloading 80% of its employees and reverting to its core R&D team, according to a company release.
The maker of saltwater Aqueous Hybrid Ion batteries and energy storage systems stated it “has filed a voluntary petition under Chapter 11 of the United States Bankruptcy Code in the United States Bankruptcy Court of the District of Delaware”.
Several of the personnel whose employment was terminated have entered into consulting agreements with Aquion to help in the sale of its assets. All factory operations have been paused as well as the marketing and selling of products to allow time for assets to be sold.
Several potential strategic buyers have shown interest in multi-award winning Aquion and are said to be conducting due diligence under non-disclosure agreements.
Scott Pearson, Aquion’s outgoing chief executive, said: “Creating a new electrochemistry and an associated battery platform at commercial scale is extremely complex, time-consuming, and very capital intensive. Despite our best efforts to fund the company and continue to fuel our growth, the company has been unable to raise the growth capital needed to continue operating as a going concern.”
Hawaii: Another Large Tesla Powerpack Build
March 9th, 2017Disclosure: I sell solar power systems in New Zealand.
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One of my off grid solar power customers just had her system installed yesterday. She and her husband built their small home 16 years ago and dreamed of someday having a solar power system. (It would cost about $100,000 to bring grid power to the remote location.) Her husband died a few years back, so it was an emotional moment for her when we brought her system online.
She had been getting electricity with a generator all of these years. Needless to say, she’d had enough of the generator.
I was yammering with the electrician in technical lingo for an hour and she peaked in, looking a bit concerned. She’d been hearing a steady stream of volts, amps, watts, hertz, MPPTs, kilowatt hours, milliseconds, depth of discharge, blah blah…
“Do I need to know all of that stuff you guys are talking about?”
The electrician smiled and said, “Here’s all you need to know, Betty” and then he flipped a light switch and the lights came on in the room.
She smiled and brought her hands up to her face, almost in shock, “And there’s no generator noise!”
She was dropping hints from the start that she really didn’t want to deal with the generator anymore. When I designed the system, I suggested doubling the size of the AGM bank that we normally supply, as this would really minimize generator on time. For her use, which I calculated very carefully, she can run without sun for three days without having to worry about the generator. In real conditions, my guess is that it would take four or five days of heavy rain, with no daytime clearing, before the generator would be needed.
I asked the guy who installed the system (and believe me, this dude is the Delta Force of off grid installers in NZ) if he thought she’d need the genny. He said that I did the calculations right and that he doubts that the genny will ever be necessary, assuming the daily energy consumption I observed. We hooked up her generator to the charge controller and tested it out. It worked great and it’s there if she needs it.
I tell the story because the same idea applies, whether you’re dealing with a granny in the remote hills of New Zealand, or a power grid in Hawaii, or anywhere else. Do you want to minimize the use of gas or diesel generators or peaker plants when using power from intermittent sources like solar and wind?
Add batteries.
Via: Electrek:
Tesla recently brought online its massive Powerpack 2 project with Kaua?i Island Utility Cooperative in Hawaii and held an event today to inaugurate the facility.
We are talking about a 52 MWh Tesla Powerpack installation (272 units) with a 13 MW solar farm (~55,000 solar panels) built by SolarCity. The system will help the Island of Kauai get more out of its solar power and retire more diesel generators.
Tesla CTO JB Straubel was present for the inauguration today with KIUC President and CEO, David Bissell, Governor of Hawaii, David Ige, and the Mayor of Kauai, Bernard Carvalho.
KIUC serves just over 30,000 customers on the remote island and it already has significant solar power capacity, but they have to run diesel generators when the sun is not shining.
They can run 100% on renewables for short periods of times under the best conditions in mid-day if demand is low, but the new Tesla Powerpacks will enable them to achieve 100% renewables more frequently.
U.S. Crude Oil Slumps Below $50 After Stocks Build
March 9th, 2017Via: Reuters:
Oil prices fell more than 2 percent on Thursday, extending the biggest falls this year as record U.S. crude inventories kept sentiment weak, pointing to a global glut despite supply cuts.
Crude oil stocks in the United States, the world’s top oil consumer, surged last week to 528.4 million barrels, an all-time high and up 8.2 million barrels in a week, well above forecasts of a 2 million barrel build. [EIA/S]
The surge in U.S. inventories came despite an agreement by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and other exporters to cut output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) in the first half of 2017.
“U.S. oil stockpiles have gained around 50 million barrels since the start of the year, raising some doubts over the effectiveness of OPEC cuts,” said Hamza Khan, head of commodities strategy at ING Bank in Amsterdam.
Meet Flippy, a Burger-Grilling Robot
March 9th, 2017Via: Tech Crunch:
Flipping burgers is a hot and greasy job. Slips, trips, burns and cuts are common hazards associated with the work. But global demand for burgers is tremendous. Top burger chains racked up more than $75.5 billion in annual sales in 2016. To help keep human cooks out of harm’s way while fulfilling our collective appetite for burgers, Pasadena-based Miso Robotics is rolling out a new “robotic kitchen assistant” called Flippy.
Miso Robotics CEO and co-founder David Zito said, “We focus on using AI and automation to solve the high pain points in restaurants and food prep. That’s the dull, dirty and dangerous work around the grill, the fryer, and other prep work like chopping onions. The idea is to help restaurants improve food quality and safety without requiring a major kitchen redesign.”
Brain Activity 10 Minutes After Death?
March 8th, 2017Via: ScienceAlert:
Doctors in a Canadian intensive care unit have stumbled on a very strange case – when life support was turned off for four terminal patients, one of them showed persistent brain activity even after they were declared clinically dead.
For more than 10 minutes after doctors confirmed death through a range of observations, including the absence of a pulse and unreactive pupils, the patient appeared to experience the same kind of brain waves (delta wave bursts) we get during deep sleep.
