Cloud Kitchens: Facilities That Prepare Food Only for Delivery
December 6th, 2019Via: Food Corridor:
Introducing cloud kitchens, commercial facilities purpose-built to produce food specifically for delivery. These commissary kitchens are sometimes also known as ghost kitchens, shared kitchens, or virtual kitchens with the delivery-only food brands operating within them called virtual restaurants.
Maybe you’re thinking: “this is nothing new” and in a way, you are right. Chinese restaurants have been making the most of delivery for decades. And the pizza industry has practically built its business around optimizing for delivery. But moving to a delivery-only model has been made possible recently by advances in technology and changes in consumer habits. It offers certain advantages over offering delivery from a traditional brick-and-mortar restaurant.
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Cloud kitchens are centralized licensed commercial food production facilities where anywhere from one or two to dozens of restaurants rent space to prepare delivery-optimized menu items. One restaurant may run multiple brands, or virtual restaurants, all operating under one roof, or the kitchen may be run like an incubator, shared by different purveyors. Picture a large warehouse with numerous stations (mini-restaurants) of stainless steel prep tables, hood vents, stoves, ovens, and sinks, each with its own orders coming in direct from customers.
Uranium-Contaminated Site Collapses Into Detroit River
December 6th, 2019Via: Detroit Free Press:
A Detroit property contaminated with uranium and other dangerous chemicals partially collapsed into the Detroit River on Nov. 26, the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy has confirmed.
Located next to Historic Fort Wayne and leased by Detroit Bulk Storage, the site known as the Detroit Dock allegedly collapsed under the weight of large aggregate piles that were stored at the site during Thanksgiving weekend.
The property has been listed by the U.S. Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency as a contaminated site due to its use of uranium and other dangerous chemicals during manufacturing dating to the 1940s, according to the Windsor Star, which first reported the incident.
GM and LG in Joint Venture to Build Massive Electric Vehicle Battery Factory in Ohio
December 5th, 2019Via: CNBC:
General Motors and LG Chem will invest up to $2.3 billion by 2023 to form a joint venture for production of battery cells for electric vehicles in Ohio.
The companies plan to build a battery cell factory in the Lordstown-area of northeast Ohio. Construction of the plant, which is expected to be among the largest in the world, is expected to begin in mid-2020.
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The plant’s annual capacity is expected to be more than 30 gigawatt hours “with flexibility for expansion,” according to GM.
China Gene-Edited Baby Experiment ‘May Have Created Unintended Mutations’
December 5th, 2019Via: Guardian:
The gene editing performed on Chinese twins to immunise them against HIV may have failed and created unintended mutations, scientists have said after the original research was made public for the first time.
Excerpts from the manuscript were released by the MIT Technology Review to show how Chinese biophysicist He Jiankui ignored ethical and scientific norms in creating the twins Lula and Nana, whose birth in late 2018 sent shockwaves through the scientific world.
He made expansive claims of a medical breakthrough that could “control the HIV epidemic”, but it was not clear whether it had even been successful in its intended purpose – immunising the babies against the virus – because the team did not in fact reproduce the gene mutation that confers this resistance.
A small percentage of people are born with immunity because of a mutation in a gene called CCR5 and it was this gene that He had claimed to have targeted using a powerful editing tool known as Crispr which has revolutionised the field since 2012.
Fyodor Urnov, a genome-editing scientist at the University of California, Berkeley told the MIT Technology Review: “The claim they have reproduced the prevalent CCR5 variant is a blatant misrepresentation of the actual data and can only be described by one term: a deliberate falsehood.
The H&K MP5 Comes Back to the USA as the SP5
December 5th, 2019$2800. That’s pretty nuts. I remember HK94s for $650-$750 around 1985. Plug $750 in 1985 into the inflation calculator and that’s $1793 in 2019.
HK is definitely milking it.
A U.S. Marine Flew Guns to Haiti so He Could Teach the Army How to Shoot, and Then ‘Become President’
December 5th, 2019This is a weird one.
Via: National Post:
Jacques Yves Sebastien Duroseau had a plan.
The U.S. Marine would fly to Haiti with trunks full of weapons, armour and ammunition, train Haiti’s newest soldiers how to shoot, and as a result make the country more stable. In the end, court documents allege, the plan was that he himself would rule the island nation.
Now, federal prosecutors in Raleigh, North Carolina have charged him with gun smuggling, the Miami Herald reports, after he arrived at Toussaint Louverture International Airport in Port-au-Prince with his own personal arsenal on Nov. 12. His luggage included suitcases and plastic boxes containing weaponry, and court filings indicate he was in active service when detained.
Using Tesla Cybertruck to Power Off-Grid Tiny House
December 5th, 2019I love it, although a lot of that math is meaningless because we don’t have any solid Cybertruck battery or inverter specs.
Anyway, shine on you crazy diamond.
Via: Electric Bike:
This article is about how I plan to power my off-grid Tiny House using nothing but the CyberTruck (hopefully with the solar panel option) and how you can do the same. It also has a section about how to power your entire house off the Cybertruck in emergencies or scheduled blackouts which seem to be getting more and more common in California.
Carmakers Shed 80,000 Jobs as Electric Shift Upends Industry
December 4th, 2019Via: Bloomberg:
It’s turning out to be one of the worst years ever for auto workers across the globe amid shrinking demand and a tectonic shift in vehicle technology, with Daimler AG and Audi announcing almost 20,000 job cuts in just the past week.
All told, carmakers are eliminating more than 80,000 jobs during the coming years, according to data compiled by Bloomberg News. Although the cuts are concentrated in Germany, the U.S. and the U.K., faster-growing economies haven’t been immune and are seeing automakers scale back operations there.
Merck’s Insurers Treat Ransomware Takedown as Act of War
December 4th, 2019Schadenfreude?
Maybe a little.
Ok, a lot.
Via: Bloomberg:
Merck did what any of us would do when facing a disaster: It turned to its insurers. After all, through its property policies, the company was covered—after a $150 million deductible—to the tune of $1.75 billion for catastrophic risks including the destruction of computer data, coding, and software. So it was stunned when most of its 30 insurers and reinsurers denied coverage under those policies. Why? Because Merck’s property policies specifically excluded another class of risk: an act of war.
Merck went to court, suing its insurers, including such industry titans as Allianz SE and American International Group Inc., for breach of contract, ultimately claiming $1.3 billion in losses.
In a world where a hacker can cause more damage than a gunship, the dispute playing out in a New Jersey courtroom will have far-reaching consequences for victims of cyberattacks and the insurance companies that will or will not protect them. Until recently, the big worry associated with cyberattacks was data loss. The NotPetya strike shows how a few hundred lines of malicious code can bring a company to its knees.
U.S. Navy Buying 9 New Nuclear Submarines for $22 Billion, Largest Warship Building Deal Ever
December 4th, 2019So it goes…
Via: Popular Mechanics:
The U.S. Navy has just signed the largest warship building deal ever. The service will pay more than 20 billion dollars for nine new Virginia-class attack submarines. The submarines will replace Cold War-era Los Angeles-class boats in America’s submarine fleet, adding new technology and greater firepower. Many of the new submarines will include a long-awaited capability to launch swarms of cruise missiles.
The deal, announced on December 2, awards $22 billion to a shipbuilding team consisting of General Dynamics Electric Boat and Huntington Ingalls Industries. The submarines, The Diplomat reports, will begin construction this year, with deliveries taking place from 2025 to 2029. One of the submarines will be of the Virginia classes’ Block IV configuration, with the remaining eight of the new Block V configuration.
