Gravitricity: Gravity Energy Project to Generate Electricity by Plunging Heavy Weights Down Disused Mine Shafts
September 8th, 2020This seems like an interesting idea. It’s a bit like pumped hydro, but without the requirement of elevated water storage.
Via: Newsweek:
An energy project that will generate electrical power using gravity, by raising and lowering heavy weights down mine shafts, could spark into action next year.
U.K.-based Gravitricity said in a press release that its plan to store and release clean energy by hoisting and plunging weights down shafts close to 5,000 feet deep is now closer to becoming a reality, as construction of a prototype started in August.
In theory, upon completion the system will suspend weight of up to 12,000 tonnes using cables and a winch in a shaft. Raising the weight charges the system, while dropping it discharges electricity to a power grid, effectively acting as a generator.
Nikola and GM to Make 900-Horsepower Electric Truck
September 8th, 2020Via: Yahoo Finance:
Nikola (NKLA) and GM (GM) are teaming up to take on Tesla’s cybertruck.
The electric truck startup announced Tuesday it has selected GM to be its manufacturing parter for its electric pickup truck dubbed the Badger. The Badger will use GM’s widely acclaimed Ultium battery technology. Additionally, Nikola will hand over $2 billion in stock to GM — giving the automaker an 11% stake in the company.
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On paper, the truck stands to be a beast. It’s expected to have 906 horsepower and have a 600-mile range using both battery and hydrogen fuel cells. Nikola has said pricing will start at $60,000 for the electric vehicle version and $90,000 for the one that also includes the hydrogen cell.
The Badger is expected to be unveiled in early December. Production has been set for 2022.
The Air Force Just Tested “Robot Dogs” For Use In Base Security
September 8th, 2020Bonus: Another one for your Starlink Is Mainly for Rural Internet Access *wink* file folder.
Via: The Warzone:
They look like they were cast straight from an episode of Black Mirror, and eventually, their mission could be similar in some ways, but for now, robot dogs are stretching their legs in the big test exercise environment for the United States Air Force.
Last week, the U.S. Air Force hosted the second demonstration of its new Advanced Battle Management System (ABMS), a digital battle network system designed to collect, process, and share data among U.S. and allied forces in real-time. The ABMS has already undergone several tests, including a live-fire exercise earlier this year conducted with data and communications provided, in part, by SpaceX Starlink satellites.
Related: See Spot Scan: Ford Deploys Robot Dog to Map its Facilities
Dozens More Mystery Drone Incursions Over U.S. Nuclear Power Plants Revealed
September 8th, 2020Via: Forbes:
I recently described how a swarm of drones flew in a restricted area at Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant on two successive nights last September. A new cache of documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act (FoIA) reveals how 24 nuclear sites suffered at least 57 drone incursions from 2015 to 2019 – and Palo Verde itself was overflown again in December, despite new security measures.
The documents were obtained from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission by Douglas D. Johnson on behalf of the Scientific Coalition for UAP Studies (SCU). The SCU’s main interest is in anomalous aerospace phenomena, more commonly known as UFOs, but Johnson uncovered a series of incidents involving something less exotic but potentially more threatening: commercial drones.
Disney Filmed ‘Mulan’ in Xinjiang, Where China Operates Concentration Camps
September 8th, 2020Via: Hollywood Reporter:
Disney’s big-budget remake of Mulan, already the subject of a pro-democracy boycott, has come under additional fire for filming scenes in China’s Xinjiang Province, where Beijing is accused of perpetrating human rights abuses against Uighur Muslims on a massive scale.
Not only did Disney shoot in the region, but the studio appears to have offered its gratitude to Chinese government agencies involved in alleged abuses.
U.S. Government Asks Mitre Corp to Build Creepy Surveillance Technologies
September 7th, 2020Via: Forbes:
Among the government’s wilder Mitre orders: a prototype tool that can hack into smartwatches, fitness trackers and home thermometers for the purposes of homeland security; software to collect human fingerprints from social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Twitter for the FBI; support in building what the FBI calls the biggest database of human anatomy and criminal history in the world; and a study to determine whether someone’s body odor can show they’re lying.
Surveillance Video Shows Bags of USPS Mail Being Dumped in Glendale Spa Parking Lot
September 7th, 2020Via: KTLA:
Piles of mail were found in two separate locations in Glendale Thursday morning, including one incident where a rented truck was captured on surveillance video dumping bags of unopened letters and packages in the parking lot of a business.
The first incident was reported at 7:30 a.m., in the 1000 block of Allen Avenue, according to Glendale Police Department Sgt. Christian Hauptmann.
Roughly two hours later, police received another call regarding dumped mail, this time behind a business in the 1600 block of Glenoaks Boulevard, according to Hauptmann.
It was the second reported incident — outside 7Q Spa Laser & Aesthetics — where surveillance video captured the moment a rented truck dumped bags of unopened mail and took off.
A Majority of Young Adults in the U.S. Live with Parents for First Time Since Great Depression
September 6th, 2020Via: Pew Research:
The coronavirus outbreak has pushed millions of Americans, especially young adults, to move in with family members. The share of 18- to 29-year-olds living with their parents has become a majority since U.S. coronavirus cases began spreading early this year, surpassing the previous peak during the Great Depression era.
In July, 52% of young adults resided with one or both of their parents, up from 47% in February, according to a new Pew Research Center analysis of monthly Census Bureau data. The number living with parents grew to 26.6 million, an increase of 2.6 million from February. The number and share of young adults living with their parents grew across the board for all major racial and ethnic groups, men and women, and metropolitan and rural residents, as well as in all four main census regions. Growth was sharpest for the youngest adults (ages 18 to 24) and for White young adults.
Consumer Reports: Tesla’s Self Driving Features Are a Mess
September 6th, 2020Via: Consumer Reports:
Most features within Tesla’s Full Self-Driving Capability suite worked inconsistently, including the Autopark self-parking system that has been around for several years. Sometimes it would recognize a parking space as suitable, and we’d park in it. But when we drove by the same space again later, it was as if the parking spot didn’t exist. It also often didn’t park straight between the parking lines.
Smart Summon, which allows the car to drive remotely to a location within a private parking lot, would sometimes drive on the wrong side of parking lot driving lanes, and it didn’t always stop at stop signs in the lot.
Navigate on Autopilot, when activated, allows a Tesla traveling on the highway to autonomously take on- and off-ramps and make lane changes as long as a destination has been programmed into the navigation system. We found the performance to be inconsistent, with the system sometimes ignoring exit ramps on the set route, driving in the carpool lane, and staying in the passing lane for long periods of time. The feature also would completely disengage at times for no apparent reason.
Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control is designed to come to a complete stop at all stoplights, even when they are green, unless the driver overrides the system. We found several problems with this system, including the basic idea that it goes against normal driving practice for a car to start slowing to a stop for a green light. At times, it also drove through stop signs, slammed on the brakes for yield signs even when the merge was clear, and stopped at every exit while going around a traffic circle.
Related: Automakers Are Rethinking the Timetable for Fully Autonomous Cars
Vitamin D Nearly Abolishes ICU Risk in COVID-19
September 6th, 2020Via: Chris Masterjohn, PhD:
The results are absolutely stunning. 50% of the control group (13 people) required admission to the ICU. Only 2% of those in the vitamin D group (one person) required admission to the ICU.
Expressed as relative risk, vitamin D reduced the risk of ICU admission 25-fold. Put another way, it eliminated 96% of the risk of ICU admission. Expressed as an odds ratio, which is a less intuitive concept but is often used in statistics because it gives an estimate of the effect of the treatment that would be constant across scenarios with different levels of risk, vitamin D reduced the odds of ICU admission by 98%. Either way, vitamin D practically abolished the need for ICU admission.
This was statistically significant at p<0.001, and the 95% confidence interval was 0.002-0.17. This means that the probability of observing differences this large or greater if there is no true effect of vitamin D is less than one in a thousand, and that the probability is 95% that the true effect lies somewhere between an 83% and a 99.8% reduction in the odds of ICU admission. No matter how you slice it, the effect of vitamin D is extremely compelling.
